![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Yes, we have finally reached the stage of reviewing the novels. The five nominations are:
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
I tried to read all of them, with varying levels of success which I will describe below in more detail.
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
Military SF isn’t my first choice for a good read, I will admit up front, and Orbit only sent a section of the book for consideration. I was impressed with Ancillary Sword, but probably not sufficiently to buy the whole thing (and anyway I’ve run out of book money for the month) so my comments are only on the section from the packet.
The novel concerns the ongoing adventures of Breq, a former Ancillary who is now a human but who is also connected to her ship. Breq is captain (I think only the captains are completely connected in the way Breq is) of a Mercy vessel which was formerly captained by someone with whom she had some kind of adversarial relationship – I gathered this because Breq really didn’t like the previous captain’s taste in décor. From what I could tell, the interstellar gate network is under threat and Breq is on a mission both to protect a remote but economically crucial planet. That’s as far as the section in the packet goes so if there’s more to it, and there probably is, I can’t tell you about it.
Having said that, the world building was outstanding; it totally blew me away. I was given enough even in the section we were sent to have a good idea of the world Breq lived in and how it worked, and get a picture of her past, most of which must have happened in the previous book.
I adored the detail in the way the ship was organised – the endless work involved in keeping it clean and the fact that when Breq arrived somewhere the first thing she noticed was that the place was dirty. I enjoyed and had no problem following that Breq was in constant contact with the Ship and everyone who was in it – including the spy-person.
I also loved the little touches like the fact that everyone constantly drank tea out of good china, some of which was antique and the fact that her lieutenant was itching to use the very best china but had no opportunity to do so.
I can see me coming back to this and finishing it once my current TBR pile has been cut down a bit.
I’ve read similar ideas, but this was very clever and very well done. 9/10. Not on any slate.
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
Tor sent the whole novel for consideration, which is very good of them.
The basis of this book is that Garrison Reeves has stolen a ship from his employer, struck out for points somewhere away from where he started from and has taken his son along. He doesn’t like his wife and believes that his former employer is about to have some sort of serious problem with the mining installation on his planet.
The book is huge and I read only 162 pages of 1577 (page numbers not real – they’re from my iPad). Every chapter is named after a character and the chapter concerns that character, so you’re jumping from head to head to head. Sometimes the reader goes back to a person again, and sometimes not.
Obviously I didn’t read enough in to see if the threads of the story came together, but I didn’t want to. The technique gave me the impression that I was attending a fair, and was going on each ride in turn – I did wonder if I got through enough of the book I’d eventually win a goldfish and a cheap teddy. The other problem was that none of the characters grabbed me enough to want to stay with them and even if any of them had, I wouldn’t be staying anyway.
I’m sorry, I gave it 162 pages and it hadn’t got going so I gave up. MilSF, dull people, pedestrian presentation. There might have been depth, but I never got that far. 4/10. Appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates.
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Maia is a part-goblin part-elf, he’s the youngest son of the Emperor, his mother is dead, and he lives with an uncle he detests a long way from anywhere. He’s received a reasonable education, but not one which would prepare him to undertake royal duties because as the fourth son he’s never going to have to.
Without warning, all of his family – his father and all of his brothers – are killed in an airship accident and, prepared or not, he’s the Emperor and referring to himself in the third person. He never mentions how incredibly wearing that must be.
I’m a total sucker for really well done high fantasy, and this book gave that to me in spades. I loved it; Goblin Emperor jumped immediately to my list of ‘comfort reads’ from a standing start.
The world building is outstandingly good. The world is a mixture of weird medieval and steam punk, which Addison describes without ever missing a step. I was convinced by Maia’s difficulties with court intrigue and his troubles with deciding who he could trust and who he couldn’t. He made mistakes, but then who wouldn’t in that situation?
It would have been very easy for Addison to go down the line of grimdark, with Maia revenging himself on those he felt had wronged him, not least the awful uncle, because he now has ultimate power. He doesn’t. One reviewer I read said that Maia’s superpower was decency, and I think that person was on to something. Maia is not a perfect person, but he has a basic goodness which served him well and also created some interesting issues for those who served him. His choice to attend the funeral of those who had piloted the airship in which his family had been killed for example was the right thing to do, and to pursue it when his advisors demurred was also the right thing to do.
Nor was it an easy decision for him to make. He is clearly very tempted by the idea of revenge, but decides against it not just because he is a good person, but for reasons that make logical sense.
There are some lovely moments – one which stayed with me was Maia playing with a model of a bridge which would extend and unextend across a river, and the description of the model down to the animals and people in the model buildings. It was just lovely, I could see it in my mind.
Great book, great ideas, wonderfully fresh and original. 9.5/10. Not on any slates. (I took the 0.5 off because for some reason they’d put the guide to the titles and honorifics at the end of the book rather than at the beginning.)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
This is another one where the publisher has sent part of the book for consideration. No problem, I’ll consider what’s been sent.
This is book 15 of a series. Harry Dresden is a wizard in Chicago; he’s also the Winter Knight for Queen Mab, which creates massive problems for him down the line. As if that wasn’t enough to cope with, he has some kind of creature living inside his head which gives him migraines.
At the start of the book he’s on an island where some kind of demon-thingys are imprisoned. They’ve sent the original inhabitants mad, and they’ve left the island. There is some running about and then Queen Mab arrives with a proposition you can’t ignore – she has the cure for the creature in his head, and will give it to him if he does as she asks. Faced with this, he agrees.
I wasn’t sure if I was meant to like Harry Dresden or not. He’s hard boiled, like a PI from a noir thriller of the 1930s, and I think he’s meant to be wise-cracking. The cracks were sometimes mildly amusing, but not very wise.
I liked the world building, the Cthulhoid creatures were suitably sticky and oleaginous, with tentacles that reached and curled. I’m always at home to cephalopods from beyond the stars, so full marks there. There were also faceless minions of the opposition disguised as hotel employees. Always good, the faceless minions.
I was puzzled, though, at one of Dresden’s sartorial choices. The Big Bad hires evening dress for him and an accomplice to attend this posh evening do. The evening dress includes a cummerbund and a pre-tied bow tie. Now, I wasn’t sure whether this was intended to indicate Dresden’s class (or lack of it) or the Big Bad’s class (or lack of it) or was just a weird choice by the writer. We are never told the colour of the cummerbund, but I hope it was black. Anyway, no real gentleman wears a cummerbund or a pre-tied bow tie. This is not proper evening dress, and Dresden does not mention that so I assume he does not know.
Having said that, the writing is workmanlike and the pacing good – the story moves along at a good clip. I wouldn’t buy it, but it’s good of its type. I did feel a bit wrong footed by the fact that it was book #15 of a series, but there was enough backstory for this to not matter too much.
Interesting, good world building, fun in its way. 7/10. Appears on the slates of both Sad and Rabid Puppies.
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
Again, we were sent the full text of this nomination. Excellent on the part of Tor.
The Three Body Problem was first published in China in 2008, but was translated and published in the West in 2014.
The book starts in the Cultural Revolution, a frightening time, and in a series of suitably horrifying set of scenes student Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death. She subsequently becomes a scientist in some sort of electronic viewing station.
The action moves to a current time, and after a spate of apparent suicides among elite scientists, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of international scientists. He starts to see numbers ticking down in front of his face, and these appear even on photographs he takes – no matter which camera he uses. He turns off the machine he’s studying and the countdown stops.
He continues to investigate and is inducted into an online game in which he explores alien lands.
And that was as far as I got, as I struggled to maintain interest. I never got close to the denouement, so I’m not sure what the big bad was or who won.
I found the book hard to follow; this is probably a failing of mine. I think it assumed a knowledge of China and Chinese culture which I just don’t have.
I may return to this book when I’ve read down my TBR pile a bit further, but it didn’t grab me. The first few chapters did, the ones set in the Cultural Revolution, but I lost it a bit after that.
Interesting ideas, quite well done, but rather lost me. 7/10. Not on any slates.
Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
I tried to read all of them, with varying levels of success which I will describe below in more detail.
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK)
Military SF isn’t my first choice for a good read, I will admit up front, and Orbit only sent a section of the book for consideration. I was impressed with Ancillary Sword, but probably not sufficiently to buy the whole thing (and anyway I’ve run out of book money for the month) so my comments are only on the section from the packet.
The novel concerns the ongoing adventures of Breq, a former Ancillary who is now a human but who is also connected to her ship. Breq is captain (I think only the captains are completely connected in the way Breq is) of a Mercy vessel which was formerly captained by someone with whom she had some kind of adversarial relationship – I gathered this because Breq really didn’t like the previous captain’s taste in décor. From what I could tell, the interstellar gate network is under threat and Breq is on a mission both to protect a remote but economically crucial planet. That’s as far as the section in the packet goes so if there’s more to it, and there probably is, I can’t tell you about it.
Having said that, the world building was outstanding; it totally blew me away. I was given enough even in the section we were sent to have a good idea of the world Breq lived in and how it worked, and get a picture of her past, most of which must have happened in the previous book.
I adored the detail in the way the ship was organised – the endless work involved in keeping it clean and the fact that when Breq arrived somewhere the first thing she noticed was that the place was dirty. I enjoyed and had no problem following that Breq was in constant contact with the Ship and everyone who was in it – including the spy-person.
I also loved the little touches like the fact that everyone constantly drank tea out of good china, some of which was antique and the fact that her lieutenant was itching to use the very best china but had no opportunity to do so.
I can see me coming back to this and finishing it once my current TBR pile has been cut down a bit.
I’ve read similar ideas, but this was very clever and very well done. 9/10. Not on any slate.
The Dark Between the Stars, Kevin J. Anderson (Tor Books)
Tor sent the whole novel for consideration, which is very good of them.
The basis of this book is that Garrison Reeves has stolen a ship from his employer, struck out for points somewhere away from where he started from and has taken his son along. He doesn’t like his wife and believes that his former employer is about to have some sort of serious problem with the mining installation on his planet.
The book is huge and I read only 162 pages of 1577 (page numbers not real – they’re from my iPad). Every chapter is named after a character and the chapter concerns that character, so you’re jumping from head to head to head. Sometimes the reader goes back to a person again, and sometimes not.
Obviously I didn’t read enough in to see if the threads of the story came together, but I didn’t want to. The technique gave me the impression that I was attending a fair, and was going on each ride in turn – I did wonder if I got through enough of the book I’d eventually win a goldfish and a cheap teddy. The other problem was that none of the characters grabbed me enough to want to stay with them and even if any of them had, I wouldn’t be staying anyway.
I’m sorry, I gave it 162 pages and it hadn’t got going so I gave up. MilSF, dull people, pedestrian presentation. There might have been depth, but I never got that far. 4/10. Appears on both the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates.
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) (Tor Books)
Maia is a part-goblin part-elf, he’s the youngest son of the Emperor, his mother is dead, and he lives with an uncle he detests a long way from anywhere. He’s received a reasonable education, but not one which would prepare him to undertake royal duties because as the fourth son he’s never going to have to.
Without warning, all of his family – his father and all of his brothers – are killed in an airship accident and, prepared or not, he’s the Emperor and referring to himself in the third person. He never mentions how incredibly wearing that must be.
I’m a total sucker for really well done high fantasy, and this book gave that to me in spades. I loved it; Goblin Emperor jumped immediately to my list of ‘comfort reads’ from a standing start.
The world building is outstandingly good. The world is a mixture of weird medieval and steam punk, which Addison describes without ever missing a step. I was convinced by Maia’s difficulties with court intrigue and his troubles with deciding who he could trust and who he couldn’t. He made mistakes, but then who wouldn’t in that situation?
It would have been very easy for Addison to go down the line of grimdark, with Maia revenging himself on those he felt had wronged him, not least the awful uncle, because he now has ultimate power. He doesn’t. One reviewer I read said that Maia’s superpower was decency, and I think that person was on to something. Maia is not a perfect person, but he has a basic goodness which served him well and also created some interesting issues for those who served him. His choice to attend the funeral of those who had piloted the airship in which his family had been killed for example was the right thing to do, and to pursue it when his advisors demurred was also the right thing to do.
Nor was it an easy decision for him to make. He is clearly very tempted by the idea of revenge, but decides against it not just because he is a good person, but for reasons that make logical sense.
There are some lovely moments – one which stayed with me was Maia playing with a model of a bridge which would extend and unextend across a river, and the description of the model down to the animals and people in the model buildings. It was just lovely, I could see it in my mind.
Great book, great ideas, wonderfully fresh and original. 9.5/10. Not on any slates. (I took the 0.5 off because for some reason they’d put the guide to the titles and honorifics at the end of the book rather than at the beginning.)
Skin Game, Jim Butcher (Orbit UK/Roc Books)
This is another one where the publisher has sent part of the book for consideration. No problem, I’ll consider what’s been sent.
This is book 15 of a series. Harry Dresden is a wizard in Chicago; he’s also the Winter Knight for Queen Mab, which creates massive problems for him down the line. As if that wasn’t enough to cope with, he has some kind of creature living inside his head which gives him migraines.
At the start of the book he’s on an island where some kind of demon-thingys are imprisoned. They’ve sent the original inhabitants mad, and they’ve left the island. There is some running about and then Queen Mab arrives with a proposition you can’t ignore – she has the cure for the creature in his head, and will give it to him if he does as she asks. Faced with this, he agrees.
I wasn’t sure if I was meant to like Harry Dresden or not. He’s hard boiled, like a PI from a noir thriller of the 1930s, and I think he’s meant to be wise-cracking. The cracks were sometimes mildly amusing, but not very wise.
I liked the world building, the Cthulhoid creatures were suitably sticky and oleaginous, with tentacles that reached and curled. I’m always at home to cephalopods from beyond the stars, so full marks there. There were also faceless minions of the opposition disguised as hotel employees. Always good, the faceless minions.
I was puzzled, though, at one of Dresden’s sartorial choices. The Big Bad hires evening dress for him and an accomplice to attend this posh evening do. The evening dress includes a cummerbund and a pre-tied bow tie. Now, I wasn’t sure whether this was intended to indicate Dresden’s class (or lack of it) or the Big Bad’s class (or lack of it) or was just a weird choice by the writer. We are never told the colour of the cummerbund, but I hope it was black. Anyway, no real gentleman wears a cummerbund or a pre-tied bow tie. This is not proper evening dress, and Dresden does not mention that so I assume he does not know.
Having said that, the writing is workmanlike and the pacing good – the story moves along at a good clip. I wouldn’t buy it, but it’s good of its type. I did feel a bit wrong footed by the fact that it was book #15 of a series, but there was enough backstory for this to not matter too much.
Interesting, good world building, fun in its way. 7/10. Appears on the slates of both Sad and Rabid Puppies.
The Three Body Problem, Cixin Liu, Ken Liu translator (Tor Books)
Again, we were sent the full text of this nomination. Excellent on the part of Tor.
The Three Body Problem was first published in China in 2008, but was translated and published in the West in 2014.
The book starts in the Cultural Revolution, a frightening time, and in a series of suitably horrifying set of scenes student Ye Wenjie witnesses Red Guards beat her father to death. She subsequently becomes a scientist in some sort of electronic viewing station.
The action moves to a current time, and after a spate of apparent suicides among elite scientists, Beijing police ask nanotech engineer Wang Miao to infiltrate a secretive cabal of international scientists. He starts to see numbers ticking down in front of his face, and these appear even on photographs he takes – no matter which camera he uses. He turns off the machine he’s studying and the countdown stops.
He continues to investigate and is inducted into an online game in which he explores alien lands.
And that was as far as I got, as I struggled to maintain interest. I never got close to the denouement, so I’m not sure what the big bad was or who won.
I found the book hard to follow; this is probably a failing of mine. I think it assumed a knowledge of China and Chinese culture which I just don’t have.
I may return to this book when I’ve read down my TBR pile a bit further, but it didn’t grab me. The first few chapters did, the ones set in the Cultural Revolution, but I lost it a bit after that.
Interesting ideas, quite well done, but rather lost me. 7/10. Not on any slates.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
All the to-do about the GoT finale makes me chuckle. It ain't original, folks, to kill off your cast!
no subject
I do keep wondering when people are going to come over and tell me how wrong I am and these stories were stellar. Hasn't happened yet, though.
I'm looking forward to Naomi Novik's new story, I'm saving it for when I've dug my way through the Hugo packet. It's like saving the last bit of chocolate sauce for when you've chewed through the boring sponge.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject