fantasy

The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison

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Started: 7/10/21
Finished: 7/22/21

Katherine Addison’s first book*, The Goblin Emperor, is one of my new favorites. I loved it. Picking this one up was a no-brainer, and now that I have put it down, I want more. It’s a strange book – it’s Holmes and Watson, but with different names. It’s familiar mysteries, but with unfamiliar resolutions. There are familiar characters, but with supernatural twists. I wasn’t sure if I really liked it, although I enjoyed it, but I love the main friendship and I want to read more of it. So yeah, I really liked it.

*Not really her first book. Katherine Addison is a pen name for Sarah Monette, who has written other stuff. I just learned that. I have not read Sarah Monette. I will.

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

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Started: 6/21/21
Finished: 7/3/21

This series comes up whenever anyone is talking about supernatural detectives, and people seem to like it, so I figured I’d give it a try. I liked it, and I’ll probably give it another book or two, but the main character doesn’t have much of an internal life. He gets thrown into this supernatural world, out of nowhere, and he doesn’t seem to have much reaction to it. So maybe that will improve…? Also, he (or the series) has some sexist tendencies, so if that doesn’t get better, I’m out. The mystery and story were interesting, though.

Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi

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Started: 6/1/21
Gave up: 6/2/21

I like my fiction weird, and I’m happy to be dropped into an unexplained or unexplainable situation right off the bat, but this was incomprehensible to me. Two seemingly normal people dropped into a situation that immediately got super-weird, and they’re barely questioning it. Certainly not panicking like anyone else would. Am I supposed to be reading into it? Probably. Did I have the patience? I did not.

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

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Started: 4/17/21
Finished: 4/26/21

I liked, but didn’t love, her first novel, but I had heard really good things about this one. Of course, then it took me a while to get into this, but once I did, I was completely hooked. Cried twice. Good stuff, and better than her first book.

Battleground by Jim Butcher

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Started: 4/3/21
Finished: 4/9/21

Book 17 in The Dresden Files, which I have been re-reading via audiobook for the last year or so. I probably should have been listing the last several as new books for me, but I’ve been lazy about it. Anyway, I’m enjoying these books more than ever, particularly the later ones, at least partly because he really dialed back the low-key sexist descriptions of women THANK GOD.

Also, something in this latest book made me cry, and there was a bonus short story at the end that made me SOB. Jim Butcher has made me yell in annoyance, shout at unexpected events, laugh many times, but he’s never made me cry before.

A Sudden Wild Magic by Diana Wynne Jones

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Started: 2/27/21
Gave up: 3/3/21

People LOVE Diana Wynne Jones, but it appears I am not people. I tried one a while back – it was okay. I tried this one about British witches saving the world in the early 1990s – what’s not to like? But I feel very meh about it, so I gave up. She wrote Howl’s Moving Castle, and it’s supposed to be amazing, so I will try that sometime, but if I don’t like that one, I think I might have to be done with her.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

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Started: 2/8/21
Finished: 2/12/21

T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon when she’s writing kids’ books) is one of the guests of honor at this convention I’m (virtually) attending this weekend, so I figured I’d read her next to most recent book before then. I’ve read three before this and loved them, and I love this. I love it when I find a new favorite.

When We Were Magic by Sarah Gailey

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Started: 1/30/21
Finished: 2/3/21

I love Sarah Gailey and everything they’ve written. This is their first YA book – it’s about friends with magic, and it starts dark. The main character is pretty insecure ways that feel real even though they’re not how any of my insecurities work. I’m not totally crazy about how the magic works. I mean, it’s not explained and I don’t think it has to be, but the friends seem to be so convinced that this one thing will work, and I don’t know why they would think that. Except it’s likely they are trying to convince themselves it’ll work. Anyway, I liked it, I enjoyed it, and a lot of things about it were really good. I’m just not sure it’s really good.

Sword and Pen by Rachel Caine

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Started: 1/3/21
Finished: 1/11/21

Last in the Great Library series. It ends well, but there’s a magical element that feels…not shoehorned in exactly, but maybe not as well-developed as everything else. These books have a lot going on, and I think the series could have ended without it. BUT I liked them very much, and I’m planning to read some of the author’s other stuff.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

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Started: 12/27/20
Finished: 1/2/21

NOT what I expected. I mean, the book cover says straight out it’s a Victorian/Regency novel but with dragons, and it would be ridiculous to expect dragons to behave exactly like humans even with that premise, but a couple of things still took me by surprise. Good surprise, if these two genres are your thing (and they are mine).

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

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Started: 11/14/20
Finished: 11/17/20

This is the first book in the Great Library series, and it came highly recommended.  I’ve been burned (heh) by that before, so I didn’t have particularly high hopes, especially when I realized that our main characters were all teenagers (sigh), but what a wonderful surprise this one turned out to be!  It starts out with one premise, immediately makes you rethink it, and then gradually gives you a whole different perspective, and I loved it.

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves: Stories by Karen Russell

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Started: 11/14/20
Gave up: 11/14/20

I read the first short story in this collection and started the second, and no, thank you.  These are not for me.  A little too graphic, a little to uncomfortable, a little too “I’m not sure what happened here”, and I decided to move on.