Mel is a free AI, living in infospace and watching the Humanists fight a war against the augmented humans, on the off-chance that there might be something good to scavenge from the spoils of war. On one of those occasions Mal is trapped in a heavily augmented mercenary and inherits the job of protecting a girl. The girl is not what she seems at first, but looking out for her might get Mel to the next communications tower with access back into infospace, so Mel is coming along. In the process they pick up some other interesting characters.
Supposed to combine a dark comedy with a technological thriller and the ever-present AI topic, this fell a little flat for me.
Mel sounds much like Mickey7 (my review), but less entertaining or amusing. Its attempts to understand humans and to blend in are less than successful and not as amusing as they were probably intended to be. Shallow learning curve. Picture a very bland and less humorous version of Murderbot.
The other characters were pretty negativ throughout and not exactly lovable. Maybe if they had been more fully developed, I would have liked them better. As they were, I found it hard to care for any of them, including Mal. The two female characters were interchangeable. Pullman was the only one that grew on me a little. For a found family they were all way too bitchy with each other.
There wasn’t a lot of suspense either. Mal got into several dicey situations, but I never really felt any concern or dread for him. It was always easily resolved and Mal learned nothing from it. The plot felt aimless, despite there being a goal to it all. The final conflict was over so quickly, it barely registered. Event the revenge was meh.
Lace is back in fashion this season at court! Argh! 😜 Here are my slightly spoilerish comments…
Finally, this is the book where the kids come down from the space station to celebrate Cajeiri‘s ninth birthday with him. You know that this can only result in some extreme chaos, as the Assassin‘s Guild still hasn‘t sorted out their internal power struggle. And then there is the unrest with Cajeiri’s mother Damiri and her father.
Bottomline, Bren and Ilisidi get the job to entertain and protect the kids, away from court, to keep them out of the line of fire. You can imagine how that works out. Things happen that make other things happen. Nice ramp up, gearing up to what promises to be a major conflict in the next book.
Hopefully the ongoing story about the Shadow Guild will come to an exciting and final conclusion in Peacemaker and we will move on to a fresher storyline. It feels as if we have been exploring the whole Shadow Guild situation for the 4th or 5th time now. I am glad to see the climax in the next book and then we are hopefully done with the Shadow Guild and with battles in and around countryside estates.
The power ranger armour was unexpected!
I liked the glimpse into Banichi‘s past
Enjoyable, but I am ready for something else. 🐎🐎🐎¾
I listened to the audio, which is my usual for this series. Audie Award Finalist, Science Fiction, 2014.
Link to the cover art — Bren is way too tall. That is some extreme foreshortening, considering how close he is to the others. It does serve to show how small the kids are. Especially as Cajeiri is now Bren’s size.
I realized yesterday that I never cross-posted my 2016 reviews of the Hunger Games. Here we go! If you haven‘t read the trilogy and want to stay spoiler-free, stop right here. I removed one massive spoiler, but otherwise this probably gives too much away.
30% into the book I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Well written, good world building, the prose flows along nicely. Well-paced suspense. Love the idea of the mockinjays. All the charactes come to life swiftly and are believable. I see it all vividly in my mind’s eye. I am looking up the character’s faces from the movies (that I never watched) to kick-start my internal visualisations.
At 50% I have to force myself to stop. This is unputdownable, great stuff! Katniss has the odd moment of stupid. But the action is great, excellent plot and suspense. Katniss Everdeen, where have you been all my life? I just read half of the book in one sitting!
I made an effort to pace myself with the second half of the book, even putting it down before the last chapter for a good night’s sleep, telling myself I would not like the ending. I did, however, and now I would like to dive right into the next book. Great story and pacing, fabulous plot, I loved this. Bonus points for a YA book, that doesn’t read as if the author thinks that teens are stupid.
I would definitely recommend this to my friends, intended target group or not.
Slightly spoilerish… The first 30% felt like set-up. I was not a fan of the love triangle, but that’s one of my most disliked tropes. I did like the glimpses we got of Katniss’ earlier life, her father, how she became friends with Gale…
The real action started about 60% into the book, so a somewhat longer breath is needed for those that want to read about the arena.
Some interesting new characters. The set-up of the arena was nicely done.
But overall the plot was weaker than the first book and the suspense did not kill me. The fighting was a lot more exciting in the first book and the Game more intense.
I did not like the ending much and thought that the “explanation part” of it was just lazy story telling. Katniss wasn’t the brightest in most of this either. I would have liked to see her character develop and mature more than it did.
However, it was well written, I was entertained, it was ok. I am hoping for a more engaging plot in the final book of the trilogy.
The highly anticipated conclusion to the trilogy. Katniss swapped the totalitarian state of the Capitol with a communist version, that curtails her life even more. Her situation hasn’t really improved. The setting certainly had potential. Slight Matrix vibe, claustrophobic surroundings. An isolated main character, that didn’t know who she could trust.
100 pages into the book I hadn’t connected much with the story. Revolution and war, but only told, rarely experienced by the reader. It was mostly a moping Katniss, not wanting to play along. She never sounded like a teenager in any of the books, but she sure behaved like one here.
Halfway into the book it all felt pretty meh to me. One interesting fighting scene. Other than that there was Katniss thinking about herself, betrayal and trust. Not a bad thing as such, if it hadn’t feel so self-serving and childish. I just wanted to shout at her to grow up, get over it and on with the program. I don’t think it was intentional, I am assuming that Katniss is supposed to be a likeable character, whom the reader identifies with. However, with each book I liked Katniss less and I stopped caring about her plight at around this point.
Also, I really don’t like it when important parts of the plot happen off page and are told by someone else, which happens repeatedly over the course of this book. Lazy story telling in my view. Like this it was just a boring recount of something happening to someone else.
The love triangle from the previous books fizzled out completely. If romance was supposed to be there, I didn’t feel it, not even at the end. It was more convenience than anything else. The emotional depth of this novel was paper thin. Even Peeta’s struggle left me pretty cold.
About 60% into the book I found the plot increasingly silly and just wanted it to end. It took me another two days and 50 pages to admit that I had lost interest. I almost DNFd and skimmed through most of the final battle, almost missing the death of two pivotal characters.
I didn’t like Katniss, her motives or the plot. The sudden twist at the end added disbelief instead of an enlightening moment. Not credible. Have I missed the subtext or was Collings just bad at getting across what made Katniss tick? She definitely did not sell it to me.
Surprisingly, I liked the last chapter and epilogue. It reconciled me a little with the story. Despite all my misgivings, Collins writes well enough. But overall I have too many issues with characterisations, plot and lack of emotional depth to give this more than two stars. I wish Collins could have managed to keep up the fun and suspense of the first book. Disappointing.
P.S.: I just read someone else’s review, pointing out that Katniss served no purpose in the plot of this book. I didn’t even think about that too much, but it’s true. She mostly lies around in hospital beds, waits to recover and is almost never anywhere near the real action. And when she takes part in the guerilla warfare at the end, with a very specific goal in mind, she fails to reach that goal and her participation in the fighting is without purpose.
Top Ten Tuesday moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.
Topic forMay 7: May Flowers — Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners)
Wow, tough topic. I strongly doubt that I can find 10 books on my shelves that somehow include flowers…. Let‘s see… hey-hey, I found one!
This book has been on my shelves since 2016. I went through a phase where I read quite a lot Regency Romance. I am tempted to delete this ebook from my unread TBR pile….
From USA Today bestselling, RITA-nominated author Anthea Lawson comes this full-length Victorian romantic adventure full of wit, adventure, and plenty of passion!*
Miss Lily Strathmore has made a desperate bargain. One last adventure abroad with her botanist uncle and his family, and then she will do as her parents bid and wed the proper (and boring) viscount her mother has selected as Lily’s ideal husband.
James Huntington is on a mission. Retrieve his grandfather’s lost journals from the wilds of Tunisia, and win the estate and fortune he so desperately needs. This quest will be the making of him–or his ruin.
Thrown together on a botanical expedition, James and Lily’s attraction is immediate, and impossible. Despite every reason to keep their distance, the two find themselves inexorably drawn together as they race to reach a hidden valley before their enemies can bring all their dreams crashing down.
It does sound like fun though, right? Keeping for now…
Honey of roses, from the Latin mel rosae, a mixture formerly used in gargles and lotions…. Has been on my shelf since 2018. I got this when I saw trailers for the TV adaptation with Benedict Cumberbatch—I was still heavily into my BBC Sherlock infatuation at the time, I think. Haven‘t watched the adaptation nor read the book. Not sure what I was thinking when I got this ebook, the story contains so many topics I don‘t like to read about.
Moving from Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, from the savageries of a childhood with a cruel father and an alcoholic mother to an adulthood fraught with addiction, Patrick Melrose is on a mission to escape himself.
But the drugs don’t make him forget his past, and the glittering parties offer him no redemption . . .
Undecided.
So much for flowery things on my shelf of owned and unread books. Now to my want-to-read shelf…. This one here is on my library-want-to-read list, because the audiobook is narrated by Tom Hanks:
That‘s a yellow flower on the right side (as viewed) of that cover, right?
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.
Literary fiction and probably really not down my alley. Maybe I should just delete every single book I so far nominated for this list… 😏
And another cover with a flower…. Well, the ripe fruits after the flowering stage anyway. I am not even sure what this is called in English. A dandelion clock? I like the German name for it much better.
On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay. She heads out to check what she expects to be a false alarm–and stumbles upon the first alien visitors to Earth. These aliens have crossed the galaxy to save humanity, convinced that the people of Earth must leave their ecologically-ravaged planet behind and join them among the stars. And if humanity doesn’t agree, they may need to be saved by force.
More my cup of tea, not deleting this one from my list. And another cover with a flower… Looks like a poppy:
January 1918. Laura Iven was a revered field nurse until she was wounded and discharged from the medical corps, leaving behind a brother still fighting in Flanders. Now home in Halifax, Canada, she receives word of Freddie’s death in combat, along with his personal effects—but something doesn’t make sense. Determined to uncover the truth, Laura returns to Belgium as a volunteer at a private hospital. Soon after arriving, she hears whispers about haunted trenches, and a strange hotelier whose wine gives soldiers the gift of oblivion. Could Freddie have escaped the battlefield, only to fall prey to something—or someone—else?
A poppy definitely fits the theme of WWI. This one is also a keeper. And another one by this author with a flower on the cover:
In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, an elderly servant tells stories of sorcery, folklore and the Winter King to the children of the family, tales of old magic frowned upon by the church.But for the young, wild Vasya these are far more than just stories. She alone can see the house spirits that guard her home, and sense the growing forces of dark magic in the woods…
A touch of fairytale… I like the sound of it.
Ok, that‘s only six books, but it‘s all I‘ve got… 🤷
Rick is preparing Alexandria to fight the Whisperers. Practice makes perfect… starting this volume by shooting a lot of walkers. Yikes.
The story progresses nicely. Some of the early artwork did not really convince me though in this issue. Faces were a little messy and overly simplified at times.
Negan is such a nasty piece of work! And then something happens and you think, wow, he is human after all… and then we get that ending. Holy cow. I wonder how that is going to play out in the next volume…
Cute YA m/m romance between two merfolk. One of them, Kappa, the Beacon, is destined to fulfill various prophecies, the other‘s fate is to kill him and lift a curse on his people by doing so.
I assume that Siren (the one destined to kill Kappa) will not go through with it. They fall in love, lots of adventures follow, etc. Not continuing for now, it‘s too YA for my taste. Cute though, with nice artwork.
The first volume, with Episodes 1-19, is currently available on Netgalley.
Oh, and just incase you hadn‘t noticed… May the Fourth be with You!
If that doesn‘t make you smile, I don‘t know what will!
Nora Kelly is an archaeologist. She is sent on an expedition to find and excavate a lost camp of the infamous Donner Party. At the same time in other parts of the world, graves are dug up and corpses are destroyed and partly stolen. And it might somehow be related to Nora‘s trip into the Sierra Nevada mountains and what she might find. Enter freshly minted and insecure FBI agent Corrie Swanson, trying to make connections and to solve her first major case.
I liked Nora and Corrie and can see them becoming a dynamic duo in the books that follow this one. The rugged setting in the mountains appealed to me and the archeological theme drew me right in. I remember the books by Preston & Child to be faster paced, but it‘s been 20 years since I read the last one, so it‘s probably me.
I was entertained. Not massively so, but enough to maybe pick up other books by the authors. I might have another stab at the original Pendergast series.
Cassie, a struggling artist, is evicted from her home when she is unable to pay rent. She finds an ad for a ridiculously cheap apartment in a beautiful Chicago neighborhood. Her new roommate is decidedly odd and seems to have stepped out of a Regency romance, but the place is too nice to say no. And Frederick sleeps all day and is out all night, so besides leaving each other notes on the kitchen table, they don’t see each other much and it‘s not an issue. Until she is home at an unexpected time and finds blood bags in the fridge. Turns out that Frederick is a vampire and that he has an unusual offer for her.
It was ok. Pretty shallow and simplistic—the perfect beach read. The romance (or rather the falling-in-lust) was nice enough. The inevitable twist towards the end wasn‘t too silly. Maybe a little too easily resolved.
Not a lot of character development. Frederick was amusing. And so was the note-leaving. It added an amusing layer to the story telling.
As a whole this was too much of a fluff piece for me though. I‘m not a fan of unnecessary drama in romance, but a bit more conflict in the story and more tension would have been good. It was all just a bit too inconsequential. I doubt I will pick up something else by the author.
And I am back from my holiday. Gran Canaria was very nice. Great beach, great ravines and mountains, spectacular views. I didn‘t get much reading done over the nine days on Gran Canaria, so this is my lowest amount of reading this year so far. Finished The God-King Chronicles, which was an excellent trilogy.
Pages and minutes in April 2024 1,558 pages, 35.18 hours
Moving pictures: – Shōgun, new TV version on Disney+, 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵 — now I just need to find the time to re-read the book! – Spiderman: No Way Home, extended version, 🕷️🕷️🕷️
planned for May 2024: – Red Rabbit, libby requested – Protector (Foreigner #14), audio – Ship of Destiny (Liveship Traders #3), ebook, this might be June. – Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard, paper, owned – Mal Goes to War, ebook, owned – The Brides of High Hill (The Singing Hills Cycle #5), Netgalley, pub date May 7 – Ghostdrift (Finder Chronicles #4), Netgalley, pub date May 28. I haven‘t read #3 yet, but I‘ll just skip it for now. I don‘t think it will be a big problem.
In fairytales the number seven is often considered magical. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the seven-league boots and others. A seventh bride therefore foreshadows something significant. Rhea is definitely significant. And her hedgehog as well…
Rhea is a simple miller‘s daughter, but she‘s plucky and not easily frightened.
“Her name was Rhea. Her father said that she had been named after a great and powerful goddess of the old days, the queen of all the gods, but in that country at that time, there weren’t many books about gods. There was no reason that a goddess had to look human, of course—plenty of them had never been human, which was part of the reason that the saints were safer—but if an immortal had to pick a shape, a giant long-necked chicken seemed like an odd choice. Rhea the girl felt that, had she been Rhea the goddess, she would have done a better job there.“
And when she has to marry a Lord, it is immediately clear that something is off. Once she reaches the magical manor in the woods, things take on a sinister turn…
Did I mention the hedgehog? I did… The hedgehog is fabulous. I want one.
“She was still going somewhere terrible, but she had a hedgehog, dammit.“
Loved the clock wife, loved all the unique female characters in this. Great stuff.
I will have to re-read this novella in one go at some point, because my reading experience during my holiday was way to scattered and I didn‘t give this the attention it deserved. Four hedgehogs for now… 🦔🦔🦔🦔
P.S.: I have a pretty impressive T. Kingfisher backlist on my library wishlist and Audible as well, I think. I will get there. It‘s a lot of fun!
PSS: this is listed as YA, but didn‘t feel like that for me. Definitely has the feel of a traditional fairytale, with a touch of horror. Here is what StoryGraph had to say:
The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher is a perfect fit for readers who crave a dark, suspenseful, and empowering tale of self-discovery, as it weaves together themes of feminist resistance, fairy tale magic, and the struggle for autonomy, making it a must-read for fans of atmospheric and thought-provoking young adult fantasy.
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 