Critiques et Commentaires

Seen at wowlit.org/blog/2022/06/01/a-dozen-books-on-african-mythology-the-significance-of-black-mermaids-and-sirens/

I forgot how much I liked this book. Gaiman claims it is inspired by the Jungle Book, but to me it felt more like Kidnapped, but improved.

The most remarkable thing (other than me sitting down and reading a book on paper for once), was the complete lack of cynicism. That is not a sure thing with Gaiman.

The plot is very much a whodunnit (or whodunwhat), and keeps the reader guessing to the end.

The viewpoint of the protagonist, namely "serial killer's girlfriend" is unusual for a police procedural.

I wasn't completely convinced by the characters. At one point I found my self agreeing with the protagonist's mother that she should just get over her trauma. That's not fair of either of us, but I think the failure of empathy is not all mine.

The setting is modern Dublin, which feels a bit like any modern north-western european city: trendy cafes, expensive to live in.

Are you OK Ireland? Why are all of your [*] crime novels about real estate?

[*] three that I read.

People who have read the (one year earlier) Windup Girl will find aspects of the setting familiar, but it is not identical. This book does not talk about calorie scarcity which really drives Windup Girl but focuses on resurgence of sail transport. A triumphant and uncaring capitalism probably prevents the book from being solarpunk.

As for plot, young boy from underclass rescues princess, has adventures on land and at sea. It is immersive and makes the point well enough about human driven climate change, but it didn't touch me as deeply as some other stories in e.g. Pump six. Not sure why, could just be the others were my first exposure to the author's world building.

I guess this is targeted at young adults? No explicit sex, some light (hopeless?) romance. Reference to impoverished women forced to sex work as a means of survival.

There are some laughs, and some gross bits (sometimes at the same time), and even a little romance. The pseudo-Irish is just my interpretation of the conquered ethnic minority more clever than and talented than their conquerors.

Previous T. Kingfisher got the thumbs up.

Looks more substantial than my usual diet of escapism. We'll see how I do. There is is at least some discussion of cave diving, which is an interest of mine (although I'm not crazy or good enough to actually do it).

I enjoyed this more than the first book in the series. The political / cultural intrigue seems to have a bit more depth, perhaps because the main character is maturing a bit. The setting is essentially Colonial era (19th century?) Europe + Africa. (with dragons). I'm not sure why all the countries and institutions are renamed, it doesn't seem necessary.

I'm not sure if I really love the novella form, but maybe I just need to get used to it. It does feel like this book is better at asking questions than answering them. It's true that it moves right along, but on the other hand it does finish a bit abruptly.

Much of the plot is a fairly standard high school musician / coming of age story. The bits of northeastern north american indigenous ghost story / myth made it interesting to me, since I live in the territory of the Wabanaki confederacy referenced in the title.

Seems murderbot adjacent so far.

First a disclaimer: at this point I think a Becky Chambers book would have to be pretty terrible to get a bad review from me.

This is very clearly a novella, and continues Chamber's trend away from plot driven fiction as seen in the later Wayfarer books. So, not much happens, but deep themes are explored.

The solarpunk aspect has been remarked elsewhere, but I didn't expect was how much it seemed like a reflection on the (privileged) human condition. As a fellow privileged human, I recognized some of Sibling Dex's disquiet.

It's a solid enough adventure story, and queer positive (which maybe I've become a little blasé about, but could make it very affirming for the right young adult). On the other hand the world of Expanse + Spells didn't really grab me. Maybe that's just me, but I want to be lied to a little bit, and have your magic pretend to be weird science.