Critiques et Commentaires

imbrangled

Hi lovely folk,

I am surprised and delighted to say that my novel The Beautiful Decay is up for various awards at the Queer Indie Awards!

If you enjoyed it, it would mean a lot if you'd vote for it. 💙

Discoverability is incredibly difficult as a self-published author and awards can be a big help.

Voting closes 26th Jan!

qiawards.wordpress.com/voting-22/

mastodon.art/@vicorva/111804647914757757

A series of bleak, gritty glimpses of what's in store for us over the next few decades.

The tone is lightened a bit here and there with injections of optimism, but I think it works against itself a little when the optimism feels unwarranted.

The way that the characters from the different stories are linked reminds me a bit of Cloud Atlas (although I only saw the movie (sorry)).

#SFFBookClub

I saw this series favorably compared to Dune, so

Wow, the second story is bleak. Do not recommend for people with children in their lives.

#SFFBookClub

I was pleasantly surprised.

My takeaway from Legends & Lattes was that it was a cozy fantasy adaptation of a modern concept àla Pratchett, but I didn't get a particular feeling of depth.

With Bookshops & Bonedust, it's the converse - I felt like it was mainly a story about Viv and her forced journey of self-discovery, while all the rest of it was just set dressing.

The #SFFBookClub January pick is How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu.  Thank you to all who voted and/or suggested books.

weirder.earth/@eldang/111665173533494437

I enjoyed the setting, and some of the substories were compelling, but as a whole it was too rambling and incohesive for me.

I feel like it would have worked better as a series of stories about different people from the same village or whatever instead of repeatedly being like "despite being in the middle of this incredibly urgent life crisis, the main character decides to spend six months teaching an older woman to fold laundry" or "despite having a very bad outcome two chapters ago, the main character decides to engage in exactly the same dangerous behavior with no additional precautions"

#SFFBookClub

Let's see if I finish this one in time for #SFFBookClub

The #SFFBookClub selection for December 2023

Very much in the same vein as the first one, but it doesn't quite have the same punch now that the setting has already been introduced and explored