I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.
Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant
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A doomed romance in early 20th century Japan. Interminably slow, with frequent tangential digressions into philosophy and description. Nearly gave up but something finally happened 100 pages in. The climax verges on the tragi-comic, but it's mostly just brooding & hopeless. I was intrigued by the nobleman who is so elegant that problems solve themselves, hence effortlessly maintaining said elegance.
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide …
A lonely witch finds family & love when she is sought out to tutor three young witchy girls. A cosy romantic fantasy. Some enlivening characters and fun use of magic. Very 'House by the Cerulean Sea'.
Two sisters deal with the aging of their estranged parents, the mother psychopathically unhinged and the father cowed & abused. Morbidly fascinating but scattered and purposeless.
Emma watched her mother’s kayak disappear among icebergs in the Arctic Sea. Six years later, …
A tangled weave of lives lived for love, community, place & simple pleasures. Beautifully written. I didn't quite grasp the ending, worth a revisit.
"17 years ago: A girl in South Dakota falls through the earth, then wakes up …
An alien artifact triggers a race to harness its immense power. Told mostly via interview transcripts, which kinda works (I liked how the interviewer gradually becomes more of a protagonist, and more invested in the interviewees) but doesn't do justice to the action sequences. Smoking Man X-Files vibes.
Messiness adds benefits to our lives, so why do we resist the concept so? Harford …
The importance of randomness & spontaneity in creativity & problem-solving. Plans, order & rationality are often counter-productive! So don't beat yourself up about meeting simplistic measures of performance. The tech discussion is a bit dated, but the principles are extremely relevant to AI. Ginormous gender blind-spot.
An exploration of life & death, love & fate, encompassing everything from his family history to HG Wells and the development of the atomic bomb. Damn he can write! The description of his near-death experience is mesmerising. Didn't fully come together for me, but suspect it will benefit from a revisit.
Fairly derivative YA fantasy: teenage girl crosses into a parallel world, where she becomes a fish-out-of-water at a school for talented students, and discovers she's the only one who can prevent the obliteration of humanity. Some ingrained patriarchy - why do female heroes always have to be hot? Totally needless. Nice enough but nothing special.
An attempt to enforce empathic behaviour creates stark divisions at all levels of society. Very effectively conveys the ambiguous ethics and the entrenched positions taken by opposing sides. Strong parallels with toxic masculinity and vaccination.
Travel back in time for a little insight into the worldview & values of the ancient Greeks. Fickle meddlesome gods, male honour, rampant war and liberal violence, slavery & female subjugation. Easy flowing translation, though I sometimes lost the rhythm.
More fun times with the crime-solving (& committing!) pensioners. The stakes are higher but doesn't feel so fresh. A bigger role for the inscrutable Bogdan is welcome. Laughs off some pretty substantial abuse of the justice system.
The continuing story of Arthur, the second in a trilogy which began with THE WINTER …
The Saxons threaten to overrun Briton; a search for a legendary artifact to bring back the Old Gods; a little blissful romance; Lancelot is a backstabbing, cowardly bastard; oaths, what are they good for? A touch more magic than in the first book, but just as hard, dirty & cynical.
When the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves …
A irrepressible cousin comes to stay and causes a great upheaval, but between cunning plans and good luck it all works out neatly. More wit than romance, but it does that well.
This is a book about the oppression of women by men.Men in a society have …
Becoming a familiar refrain in African literature: girl fights for education & freedom against patriarchy & colonialism. This one, set in pre-independence Zimbabwe, might be the original (?) and the best, with carefully crafted & evolving characters. Ends very suddenly, though.
this book is about the inner workings of a black woman born in 1947. her …
The god-like mutant Doro finally breeds his race of super-powered telepaths. Can they hold it together, and can he tolerate them? Not much narrative tension or interesting characters, and not a lot happens.