Chapter 1 introduces us to a town in Florida and a failed lynching. The tree burns, the hangman‘s nooses swing empty in the blaze… Witches survive, kill a bunch of people and take over the town.
Chapter 2 introduces them some more, there is violence, nudity, pointless swearing and obnoxious male characters. It didn‘t do anything for me, I disliked all of the characters. The art was meh. Not continuing.
Mercy #13. Straight forward, fairly simple plot, nice lack of annoying drama. Took me three days to get past the first 10%, but then I was hooked and could not put it down anymore. So although it was plain and simple and without big surprises, I give it 5 stars for sheer entertainment value.
Mercy and Adam are center stage, with a fair amount of Zee, Tad, Jesse, Warren, a bit of Sherwood, Tilly and various vampires. And the Walking Stick! Not telling you who the bad guys are…
There is a merciful lack of Christy and no marital drama. Which I had expected after the last book, but wasn‘t sad to miss. It‘s nice to see people with a functioning relationship, including the pack—mostly…
I wonder how many more books it will take Briggs to wrap up the overarching narrative with Bonarata. That guy really needs to be permanently dead.
Book #4 of the series, first book of the next trilogy, continuing three years after the last books. Shuttles have started to go up to the station, the Atevi have reached space. Relations with Mospheira have improved. Tabini unexpectedly sends up Bren with with his Atevi household and a Mospheiran delegation. They are not exactly welcome on the station, despite agreements to the contrary. Relations with the crew of the Phoenix prove more difficult than expected and go downhill quickly.
I have to confess that I could not fully relate to the action of the ship‘s captains and their motivations. Was this simply a powerplay? Why stall and antagonize the people that they asked for help and in fact need so badly?
Bren‘s family is still a pain in the neck, especially his mother. And Ilisidi is hilarious, as always.
I am finally, finally hooked. This book so far was the fastest moving, with the most action. I enjoyed this a great deal and will definitely continue. Great start for the next subplot and trilogy.
This special Artist Proof edition collects the monumental ALL OUT WAR story arc all in one volume as seen through artist CHARLIE ADLARD’s raw pencils. Read the story in a whole new way, never before collected together in one single volume. Collects THE WALKING DEAD #115-126.
Part 1 — Rick versus Negan with a little help from everyone else. Things do not go well.
Part 2 — The quiet before the storm. Our bunch of heroes draw back and consolidate in the Hilltop and prepare… They don‘t have to wait long for Negan to show up. Kaboom, boss fight!
In my review of the first part of All Out War I wrote that maybe the artwork was getting sloppier. Flipping through the pages of this artist‘s version, purely done as pencil sketches, I have to say that the sketches are very good and I might actually like this better than the inked version.
I wonder what comes next? Well, I have a vague idea from peeking at some episodes of the later TWD seasons. We‘ll see.
We meet demons/shapeshifters in the form of tigers. And they want to eat Chih and their travel companions. Chih has to tell a story to hopefully save them, but doesn‘t get it quite right. It felt a bit like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights meets Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa. In my head I pictured an animated movie, perhaps inspired by the pretty book cover.
I am finally hooked and already requested The Singing Hills #3, Into the Riverlands, on Netgalley. Fingers crossed.
PS: These novellas are standalone, you do not need to read them in order.
On Monday I posted about attempting to read Foreigner again. Guess what, I am done. I pretty much listened to the second half of the book today, while doing housework and enjoying the sunny weather on my balcony.
Book #3 in the massive Foreigner series. From the book blurb:
“The first book in C.J.Cherryh’s eponymous series, Foreigner, begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.
The long-running Foreigner series can also be enjoyed by more casual genre readers in sub-trilogy installments. Inheritor is the 3rd Foreigner novel. It is also the 3rd book in the first subtrilogy.“
I abandoned the audiobook around halfway in 2019, as I was bored. Go figure. The first book, Foreigner, was also a mixed bag. I really liked the first two sections of that novel. First the arrival in the planetary system, then a fast forward of a few generations to the planetary settlers and first contact with the indigenous population of their chosen planet, the Atevi. I enjoyed the setting in space and the glimpse at societal differences of the humans onboard the ship and those on the planet.
Down below I had fun reading from the POV of an Atevi. His human counterpart was an interesting character as well. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the main storyline, my enjoyment took a nosedive. I was not fond of Bren, who I called a whiney little shite in my review back in 2017. I gave the book 2 stars, but was fascinated enough to continue. I actually loved Invader (Foreigner #2) so much that I gave it 5 stars.
Long story short, I abandoned this one halfway, but I delved into a few really long books in the meantime (endurance training) and I really want to like this series, so I decided to give it another try.
The Phoenix, the ship that left the first settlers behind in Foreigner, is back at the end of book #2 and wants help. The Atevi are still progressing towards space in a slow pace, strung along by those settlers and Bren as the go-between. Bren’s connection to Mospheira is more or less non-existent at this point and what relationships he has left with his home are strained.
As in the previous books, there is a lot of intrigue, politics and complicated relationships. This time around I had a fun, though. Ok, some parts flowed by me on audio — as Bren pointed out several times: One needs a flowchart to keep track of it all. I really did have to look up some of the characters several times. A lot of them sound very similar and the names are not easy. But I think I finally might be hooked. I really want to know how it all plays out now.
PS: I listened at 1.5x normal speed and I am pretty sure that quite a few details swooshed past me, but I don‘t care. I might re-read this in print at some point, to catch all those nuances. Theoretically it means I listened to 9+ hours of audio today. My ears feel a little tender.
As I enjoyed Ship of Magic quite a bit, I decided to continue the series with The Mad Ship (Liveship Traders, #2) by Robin Hobb. I am about a quarter into this 915 pages long chunkster. It seamlessly continues with the storyline of the first book, I am happy so far.
We are still following Althea on her quest to regain her liveship, making unusual choices.
‘How do you move so easily in both worlds? Where do you really belong?’ ‘Why must it be one or the other?’ she countered. ‘You are both a capable seaman and the son of a Bingtown Trader. Why should not I have both sets of skills?’
As opposed to her niece Malta, who is her annoying and horrific counterpart of the females of the Vestrit family…
‘Please don’t fill her head with nonsense like that,’ Ronica said irritably. ‘The last thing we need is her going about the house feeling martyred simply because she is a female.’
Wintrow is still struggling with where his life has led him…
Accept your life, and you might survive it. If you hold back from it, insisting this is not your life, not where you are meant to be, life will pass you by.
It‘s all about choices. I am looking forward to where they will all end up in the course of this book!
I abandoned the audiobook around halfway in 2019, as I was bored. Very bored.
The first book, Foreigner, was also a mixed bag. I really liked the first two sections of that novel. First the arrival in the planetary system, then a fast forward of a few generations to the planetary settlers and first contact with the indigenous population of their chosen planet, the Atevi. I enjoyed the setting in space and the glimpse at societal differences. Down below I had fun reading from the POV of an Atevi. His human counterpart was an interesting character as well. Unfortunately, with the beginning of the main storyline, my enjoyment took a nosedive. I was not fond of Bren, who I called a whiney little shite in my review back in 2017. I gave the book 2 stars, but was fascinated enough to continue. I actually loved Invader (Foreigner #2) so much that I gave it 5 stars.
Long story short, I abandoned this one halfway, but I delved into a few really long books in the meantime (practicing my endurance!) and I really want to like this series, so I decided to give it another try.
Here is the review for first book (I just plagiarized myself above), as I never posted it here. I am taking it with a grain of salt, as my reading habits have yet again changed in the last five years. The review would probably look different, if I read this now.
Review from 2017, spoilers for the general storyline.
I really liked the first two sections of this novel. First the arrival in the planetary system, then a jump of several settler generation to the first contact with the indigenous population of their chosen planet, the Atevi. I enjoyed the setting in space and the glimpse at societal differences between the humans on planet and onboard the ship. Down below I had fun reading from the POV of an Atevi. His human counterpart was an interesting character as well.
Unfortunately, with the beginning of the main storyline, my enjoyment took a nosedive. Another jump to several hundred years later. Humans and Atevi have been at war and resolved it by exiling the humans on an island.
Bren, our main character, lives among the Atevi as the sole human, a diplomat and interpreter of the sometimes incomprehensible language and cultural concepts of the Atevi. The Atevi don’t know the concepts of friendship or trust. They also don’t comprehend the idea of borders and separate nations. Instead there is loyalty, betrayal, complicated relationships with other factions, sanctioned assassinations and people with delicate sensibilities.
The culture of the Atevi reminded me of feudal Japan and made me want to re-read Shōgun by James Clavell.
Could have been fantastic, but isn’t explored as much as I would have liked. Instead we are shown this world through the limited view of Bren, who is a whiny little shite that obsesses endlessly about inconsequential things like getting his mail and being perpetually worried, but never does anything. By the halfway point of the book I was annoyed, bored and skimming.
On top of Bren being an annoying character, the writing was repetitive and progressed glacially slow. I like my stories plot-driven, endless navel-gazing over the same points and ideas for pages after pages holds little interest for me. Also much of the story happened in the off. Bren spent most of his time sitting around, agonizing over one thing or another. There was very little doing. Except for the last 50 pages or so, when we got a little action.
The other characters were even shallower than Bren. Not much character development. Little humour.
The last 20 pages were not bad, I just wish the rest of the book had been that lively. Mostly it dragged, I was bored. I did not connect to any of the characters, the story was pretty bloodless.
Nonetheless I am actually interested to find out what happens next. Maybe I will get the next book at some point. Considering that there are about a million sequels after this book, I think it is safe to say that this first book is set-up. One can hope, that there will be more plot development in the next installments…?
And last, but not least, here is what I did yesterday, whilst restarting the audiobook of Inheritor!
It‘s one of the Botanical sets by Lego, called Succulents. It‘s now sitting on my window sill in the living room, next to another flower set… A friend of mine watered my plants in June, while I was away on holiday — she actually watered that one accidentally… 😝
The goal is to spell the current month with the first letter of book titles, excluding articles such as ‘the’ and ‘a’ as needed. That’s all there is to it! Some months there are theme challenges, such as “books with an orange cover” or books of a particular genre, but for the most part, any book you want to use is fair game!
„Eight years ago the December Plague swept through the human population of earth. The Infected were driven mad by the disease, becoming violent and cannibalistic, killing even those closest to them without hesitation. Six years ago, the tiny surviving community of Immune humans found a cure, and the Infected began to wake up and realize what they’d done. And what had been done to them. Over time, society began to rebuild itself. Now it is ready to judge those responsible for the Plague.“
I don‘t recall why or how I got a copy of this book. It‘s been on my shelf for a while. It sounds familiar as well, as if there maybe was a movie along those lines? The blurb sounds a bit like a courtroom thriller, which is not really my cup of tea. Not sure I still want to read this.
„The cybernetic organism known as 812-3 is in prison, convicted of murdering a human worker but he claims that he did not do it. With the evidence stacked against him, his lawyer, Aiya Ritsehrer, must determine grounds for an appeal and uncover the true facts of the case. But with artificial life-forms having only recently been awarded legal rights on Earth, the military complex on Europa is resistant to the implementation of these same rights on the Jovian moon.“
This is a fairly recent addition to me shelves. It‘s a novella, if I remember correctly. And I obviously didn‘t listen to myself about not liking courtroom thrillers. I do like to read about AIs though.
„For the world’s most valuable, dangerous, or secretive cargo, you don’t call just any trucking service…you call THE GHOST FLEET. When one of the world’s most elite combat-trained truckers takes a forbidden peek at his payload, he uncovers a conspiracy that will change his life, and the world, forever!“
This is a comic. I think it was in a Humble bundle of various things. Doesn‘t sound bad actually, maybe I should have a look when I finished my current TWD volume.
„She will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice. On the day of her foretold death, however, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Csorwe leaves her home, her destiny, and her god to become the wizard’s loyal sword-hand — stealing, spying, and killing to help him reclaim his seat of power in the homeland from which he was exiled.“
Epic fantasy, a genre I have been delving into again more this year. I usually pick the sword fighters when I play RPGs, so I should like Csorwe.
„Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn’t come at a worse time – threatening Emma’s promotion and Jo’s new movie.“
Now this sounds like a fun romance romp. How could I have forgotten that I own this? If I wasn‘t reading three other books already, I would have started this already…
„The Doomsday siren calls on civilization’s last day. Natural disaster. Nuclear war. Pandemics. These are the ways the world ends. The Walking Dead meets The Incredible Journey in 14 incredible tales of nobility, self-sacrifice, and unconditional love as told by today’s most talented independent authors. Humans will learn an old lesson anew—that animals, the heroes in these tales, might just make the difference in their quest to survive one more day.“
Another short story collection. I do like reading about the apocalypse. So many books, so little time.
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 