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What Have I Been Reading? (2020 batch #4)
Aug. 12th, 2020 04:09 pmThe House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones – A more proper sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle which, among other things, makes it very clear that it’s in the same world. That said, it builds up a lot of mysteries (perhaps even too many) and resolves them very abruptly in a pat, but still convoluted way. The Lubbock dies a Disney death almost as an afterthought; the other villains are dispatched matter-of-factly in an offhanded manner. Basically, I thought this was cute, but it had pacing problems.
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanen McGuire - The third book of the “Wayward Children” series, and again fairly dependent on you having read the first book (though you could skip the second). While this is ostensibly about an adventure through several magical worlds to revive a dead girl and solve a time paradox, it’s really about being a fat girl is today’s America and finding ways to come to terms with that. Like most of McGuire’s work, it’s well done and only mildly horrifying.
Sourdough or Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan - Lois, a programmer for a tech startup, is gifted a mysterious sourdough starter and is carried off into the wide world of farmer’s markets and hipster cuisine. (Jethrien is very glad that we don’t have a bigger backyard, because, inspired by this book, I might be trying to build a brick oven back there if we did.) It goes a bit in the direction of Little Shop of Horrors, at least in terms of theme (nobody gets eaten!) but it’s generally a pleasant, fast read with some funny bits and a light touch.
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - More than a thousand years in the future, humanity lives in a series of space colonies called The Interdependency, and depend on a space phenomenon called the Flow to achieve FTL travel. That system is about to get badly shaken up. As is standard, every Scalzi protagonist has the same sense of dry humor. This is a book about people who, like me, wish they were living in precedented times. (The afterword, written in October of 2016, feels naively hopeful in hindsight.) Expect my review of the sequel in a few months.
Beneath the Sugar Sky by Seanen McGuire - The third book of the “Wayward Children” series, and again fairly dependent on you having read the first book (though you could skip the second). While this is ostensibly about an adventure through several magical worlds to revive a dead girl and solve a time paradox, it’s really about being a fat girl is today’s America and finding ways to come to terms with that. Like most of McGuire’s work, it’s well done and only mildly horrifying.
Sourdough or Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan - Lois, a programmer for a tech startup, is gifted a mysterious sourdough starter and is carried off into the wide world of farmer’s markets and hipster cuisine. (Jethrien is very glad that we don’t have a bigger backyard, because, inspired by this book, I might be trying to build a brick oven back there if we did.) It goes a bit in the direction of Little Shop of Horrors, at least in terms of theme (nobody gets eaten!) but it’s generally a pleasant, fast read with some funny bits and a light touch.
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - More than a thousand years in the future, humanity lives in a series of space colonies called The Interdependency, and depend on a space phenomenon called the Flow to achieve FTL travel. That system is about to get badly shaken up. As is standard, every Scalzi protagonist has the same sense of dry humor. This is a book about people who, like me, wish they were living in precedented times. (The afterword, written in October of 2016, feels naively hopeful in hindsight.) Expect my review of the sequel in a few months.
