Bookpost: Locked Tomb, Dragon Waiting, others

[roadrunnertwice]

Tamsyn Muir — Gideon the Ninth

Jan. 10

This book is amazing.

Like with most fiction lately, it took me a little while to get properly into it, but at a certain point it grabbed onto me for real and I blazed through the rest. (Had the same experience on my late-2022 re-read.)

The reviews I've seen for this were pretty polarized, and the primary split seems to be on whether you can stomach 1. highly stylized and anti-naturalistic dialogue that 2. operates on levels other than or in addition to what seem to be the literal circumstances of the setting and 3. is also used in the service of comedy. At least, that's how someone who loved the book would describe the split; if you hated it, you'd probably describe the bone of contention as obnoxiously self-conscious post-Homestuck memelord bullshit. But I, as I may have mentioned earlier, did in fact love it, and I found its use of language playful and a delight. The dialogue snaps, and it serves its story superbly.

In addition to really liking the character dynamics, I also want to give a big shout-out to the setting -- a grieviously damaged undead solar system sloshing with mystery, chaos, and menace.

Anyway, IMO this is a must-read fantasy adventure.

Tamsyn Muir — Harrow the Ninth

Jan. 11

I dropped into this right after finishing Gideon and smashed through it in like two days. It is also good -- actually, if anything, it's much better.

On the worldbuilding and overarching plot front, it answers a ton of baffling questions that dangled off the end of the first book, while simultaneously raising like three other much more troubling questions for each one it ties off.

On the character dynamics and relationships front, I think this book used a formally adventurous and confrontational structure to say legitimately fresh and interesting things about grief, memory, and the ways we engage with fiction.

Also, I quite liked all those unbelievable assholes aboard the imperial flagship.

I'm greatly looking forward to the last two books in this series.

Hiromu Arakawa — Silver Spoon 13 & 14 (comics)

June 17

I can’t remember what I would have said about these two volumes in particular, but it’s a great series and I need to finally go get the last of it from the library.

John M. Ford — The Dragon Waiting

Aug. 17

What the fuck!!!

This book was a really remarkable achievement on a whole lot of levels at once, including levels I’m simply not well-read enough or clever enough to say anything useful about. Ford was truly on another tier, and I can see why this was considered a lost classic. (It’s not lost anymore, btw! It got a reprint like two years back! Though, the ’80s paperback cover I own is vastly superior to the new hardback one.)

This is an engaging and surprising fantasy novel that does really strange things with history and then doesn’t really say anything out loud for the first 3/4 of the story about the stuff it fucked with. It’s sort of mostly about vampires? Vampirism ends up being the hinge of the plot. It’s also sort of mostly about imperialism. And it’s also about magic, but the threads that are about magic are also about futility. Also it’s all about Richard III.

It’s all over the place, and it’s really good.

Katie Mack — The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)

Sept. 8

I was in A Mood and some acknowledgement of cosmic doom was exactly the business. Anyway Mack is a good popular science writer, you’ve seen her tweets and stuff, throw this on your library catalog stack of pop nonfiction for when you’re in A Mood.