@worshipthesquid@weirder.earth on mastodon. Use yr favourite pronouns, or mix it up.
Trying to get back into reading light & easy books to relax instead of scrollin’! I like mysteries, fantasy & sci fi (of the shorter & sillier variety), and the odd non-fiction book, mostly on foraging or history. I tend to pick up my books from free piles or the library so mostly older titles.
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It is the year 454AD. The Roman Empire has withdrawn from Britain, throwing it into …
Read for work :) A good book! Compelling characters, interesting engagement with the time period, and an approach to women's contributions to the past that I really appreciate.
Nobody told me Moby Dick was funny?? I always expect classics to be kind of hard to engage with emotionally or in prose style, and to be fair I bounced off this a couple times as a teenager because I kept forgetting what people's names were by focusing on every little detail. This is a funny book. One of my favourite flavours of funny, which is an earnest but humorous narrative voice. AND it's an earnest but humorous narrative voice that looooves trying to taxonomise whales while emphasizing the futility and yet importance of this attempt.
This audiobook narrator (Stewart Mills) is bringing out the humour in the lines really well without overdoing it. I'm having fun :)
Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative …
wow these are good stories.
Uncover the secrets that teem beneath the surface of your happy home...
Suburban Consumption of …
Content warning spoilers? horror - dysfunctional families
It's so nice to receive this just in time for Halloween season! I'm not much of a LARPer, but I love roleplaying games and delicious horror and people trying to create weird and powerful narrative experiences (really sounds like ad copy when I put it like that, but I don't know how else to put it). And I do love horror about food and houses. This is a very fun collection of earnest LARPs mostly about food!
There are a couple of genuinely scary games in here, and a few more genuinely uncomfortable games, which is a good hit rate. I don't read a lot of LARPs so maybe I'm generalizing here but I think there's an earnestness in these, and a willingness to do things that might look silly, that probably a hardened LARPer is particularly suited for, and I aspire to it. It also makes these really fun to read and imagine. In one, a family's controlling father is optionally played by a mannequin at the dinner table. There's a set of ~~scary~~ bedtime stories & poems in the middle, which are scary in a like, unselfconscious cheesy campfire story way.
Beyond that, some of these LARPs take the opportunity to effectively evoke a very specific feeling and setting. The very first game is a solo game where you play a housewife hiding her alien features: putting on makeup, making dinner for two, hearing from her husband that he'll be late, eating one portion alone at a candlelit dinner table. I haven't played it (yet?) but the scene-setting seems completely effective. Not all the games are this successful, I think, but enough of them are, and I found all of them interesting - and there's quite a few of them. I also really liked the integration with some online resources, like soundtracks and a 1999 new year broadcast! And I have to mention the lovely art - every LARP has a gorgeous full-page horror illustration attached to it.
My wishes for this collection would be: - some more interesting rules? there were one or two places where you could feel the design very satisfyingly and the mechanics came together wonderfully with the scene, but I would have loved to see a deeper delve into mechanics, I guess bc that's what I'm really fascinated with. Maybe what I really want is a behind-the-scenes discussion about writers' design choices. I should see if they've done that! - a little more copyediting, there's a few distracting spelling & formatting errors and the wording of rules in some places is unclear - not to unplayability, but it takes you out of it a bit. - more recipes!
The one thing you never talk about while you’re in the Scholomance is what you’ll …
Aw, I just really like this series. Thoroughly recommend it. I keep expecting it to be less polished, because a lot of Temeraire feels less polished and more, like, thematically aimless to me, but it‘s very well-thought-out I think. I enjoy how the protagonist‘s perspective on the world changes, and we get to see some of this world‘s politics and the inequities thereof. There‘s also a very effective horror scene in this book. Mostly it‘s really nice to read a well-executed series that leads the reader inexorably toward the necessity of working with others to change the systems of global & institutional inequality, in ways that will be frustrating and incomplete but are worth doing - what this rekindled in me is a sense of powerful urgency & drive to join others in this work, which seems like a sign of a successful series to me. Themes of personal development …
Aw, I just really like this series. Thoroughly recommend it. I keep expecting it to be less polished, because a lot of Temeraire feels less polished and more, like, thematically aimless to me, but it‘s very well-thought-out I think. I enjoy how the protagonist‘s perspective on the world changes, and we get to see some of this world‘s politics and the inequities thereof. There‘s also a very effective horror scene in this book. Mostly it‘s really nice to read a well-executed series that leads the reader inexorably toward the necessity of working with others to change the systems of global & institutional inequality, in ways that will be frustrating and incomplete but are worth doing - what this rekindled in me is a sense of powerful urgency & drive to join others in this work, which seems like a sign of a successful series to me. Themes of personal development & collaboration in order to effect radical change are of course present in Temeraire, but that feels like a lead-up to this in a few ways.
Anyway. Recommended! Time for me to see if I like Spinning Silver!
The heart-rending autobiographical manga that's taken the internet by storm! My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness …
I saw @lapis@bookwyrm.social recommended this series, and it turns out my host has this volume & was happy for me to read it! Read it in one go without meaning to. Really interesting and it‘s nice to see this voice in a longer form comic, talking thoughtfully and sensitively about her experience of having very bad social skills, isolation, purpose and seeking unconditional love. I think (even though I would probably never run into it) this would have been really good for me to read as a teenager, and it‘s still good to read now.
In The Grief of Stones, Katherine Addison returns to the world of The Goblin …
I like this series a lot. This was a strong entry I think! I can’t try and be objective because it really hits a lot of things I enjoy and others may not. I read it in two big gulps, not wanting to put it down at any point; two chapters in onward I was grinning and feeling very delighted as I read. Light spoilers (nothing plot relevant) time:
I like this series a lot. This was a strong entry I think! I can’t try and be objective because it really hits a lot of things I enjoy and others may not. I read it in two big gulps, not wanting to put it down at any point; two chapters in onward I was grinning and feeling very delighted as I read. Light spoilers (nothing plot relevant) time:
That was not very coherent! I am very sleepy. Book good. Excited to read the next.
Ten years ago, Peter Pan left Neverland to grow up, leaving behind his adolescent dreams …
A friend who’s very into Peter Pan recommended this, and I am really enjoying it so far. I expected it to be fun but not that good, because that’s what my experience with a lot of self-published fantasy has been, and I was wrong! It’s pretty great. I’m listening to the audiobook as usual and, although it’s slightly less polished than many audiobooks, the sound quality is good, it’s clear and engagingly read, and the voice the narrator does for Hook especially is imo fantastic.
I enjoyed this! I was not expecting a lot of it! It’s very surprising that it came out last year bc I’m just trawling my library audiobook collection :3 I think it successfully told a beautiful and broad-ranging story about love, romantic, familial, complicated. The audiobook is also good, with two readers tackling chapters from different perspectives.
I probably will look out for more by this author - it didn’t blow me away and fill me with awe, but it was definitely more engaging and I think more skilful than most light historical fiction/light fantasy I read.
Alright, spoilers ahead.
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I think the parts in the seraglio sometimes dragged on a bit. Also, it’s been two months & I am not equipped to do this atm, but there is probably much to say about race in this book, especially in relation to it as historical …
I enjoyed this! I was not expecting a lot of it! It’s very surprising that it came out last year bc I’m just trawling my library audiobook collection :3 I think it successfully told a beautiful and broad-ranging story about love, romantic, familial, complicated. The audiobook is also good, with two readers tackling chapters from different perspectives.
I probably will look out for more by this author - it didn’t blow me away and fill me with awe, but it was definitely more engaging and I think more skilful than most light historical fiction/light fantasy I read.
Alright, spoilers ahead.
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I think the parts in the seraglio sometimes dragged on a bit. Also, it’s been two months & I am not equipped to do this atm, but there is probably much to say about race in this book, especially in relation to it as historical fiction drawing from historical tropes. I didn’t think of it while reading somehow but of course the European held in the seraglio, and the ending in a marriage (or three couples), and probably other things I’m not noticing, are totally in dialogue with period literature & drama (alas I don’t read enough to tell what or when, only to recognise these elements!). It didn’t make that literariness an inescapable part of the story, though (except for a self-indulgent but I think successful quote near the end), which, even though I do like that now and then, I appreciated. The whole thing had an interesting approach to slightly fantastical historical fiction that I’ll probably think more about. And to romance!
In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful …
I am enjoying this book so much. I guess I was ready to think about a lot of its themes, because it feels like scratching an itch even when it’s uncomfortable. Trying to tease out what this book thinks about individualism and community & power, & what I think.
The audiobook I’m listening to is great. I’m taking a break just now because wow, it’s getting heavier! But this definitely makes me want to read more of Octavia Butler’s work and see what the themes are, and if the other books have more things for me to think about. (Also it’s fun reading a science fiction book that starts in 2024.)
It is the year 1327. Franciscans in an Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, but …
the audiobook for this is very soothing. Short chapters just the right length to fall asleep to… monks with different voices played by the same guy… long lists of different fabulous gargoyles or heresies or whatever… sections of untranslated latin, which I mayyybe might be able to puzzle out in text but spoken are white noise… arguments about biblical interpretation, basically ditto… for all I know the book is a very good mystery but it is also very good at lulling me comfortably to sleep, 5 stars, will borrow again
Return to the Scholomance - and face an even deadlier graduation - in the stunning …
ahh I liked this a lot. very excited for the next book!!
Content warning proper spoilers - also this is less edited than normal sorry
You know, my day’s been rough, and I don’t want to take the effort to soften this, so take it with a pinch of salt. I like efficiency fantasies a lot, so I had hopes for this. Alas!
Maybe people in offices really do talk like this? I feel like they don’t though. Maybe it’s just that this is absolutely how I talked on the internet as a teenager, but the cod-formal/professional-but-trying-to-sound-sinister register that the protagonist and Leviathan take in dialogue lifts me right out of the story, it’s very unconvincing. Every time Leviathan and Anna have a conversation it feels like watching two badly made chatbots interact. I get that it’s an evil corporate efficiency power fantasy, it’s just, eh. If we saw her deciding to develop it/reflecting on it, or other people reacting to it ever in ways other than ‘unearned fear/respect’, it would feel more intentionally silly and I’d find it less jarring. Some of the lines that are supposed to be cool section-enders straight up do not land, like - “Anna, just because you’ve built unknowingly on top of a graveyard doesn’t mean those bodies aren’t in the ground.”? This is if anything More clunky in context. And everybody working for Leviathan ends up speaking a bit like this! Even in casual conversation - Vesper says “It seems like folly to abandon it now”, in a conversation that otherwise is on of my favourites in the book & has a refreshingly appropriate register for its intensity. At least when Supercollider speaks grandiosely it’s intentionally overblown, like, explaining the concept of chess in a self-absorbed speech. When they do it… I can’t tell! I think the author thinks it’s cool!
I like how the good working environment quickly makes Anna willing to do stuff she feels or felt morally uncomfortable with, and her intense feelings about her boss combine to make the whole thing subtly dreadful. The parallels between her work now and the things she criticises heroes for, and between her and Quantum, or between her weird bad boss relationship & Quantum’s (or Accelerator’s), are interesting and do make me like this book a lot more. And you know, showing the relationship between her and Leviathan as fucked up but still not pulling away from it or plainly condemning it is a balance I do kind of wish more ‘this dangerous powerful man will kill anyone who touches me’ fantasies struck. Her relationship with her best friend feels well-observed - I believed that messy friendship, & the things she focused on when thinking about it.
That said, the fantasy Anna becomes - of someone who always knows the right quip to make the person you’re talking to uncomfortable and ‘win’ the conversation - is not one that has appealed to me since I was a late teenager, so I’m probably harsher on it than I would be otherwise. This is another book that pings the ratfic radar for me, though not as strongly as some previous. There’s a lot of numerically quantifying harm (based on real academic work), offsetting damage through donations to Greenpeace, the kind of nerd fantasies of being amazing at quips and always in control, and also creative and disgusting use of superpowers. I could just be wrong about that.
Anyway. It’s an easy read despite all that! It left me feeling frustrated but it did make me laugh a few times. If you want a competence fantasy about doing efficient, loyal spreadsheet work in a villainous organisation using your rare ability to know more than others (and your cool cybernetics) for your hot boss, causing him to reconsider his personal philosophy and you to grow as a person, read And I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You by astolat.
Magic and mayhem collide with the British elite in this whimsical and sparkling debut.
At …
I posted mid-book & it’s late, so I will say: ending did not disappoint! Enjoyed this a lot, will definitely seek out other books by this author.
The main thing I want to say is that I listened to the audiobook, by Recorded Books, and it was Great. Really polished and that voice actor seems to really know their stuff.
I am a sucker for light comedy of manners/Wodehousey kind of banter, so the diversions into this were welcome for me. If you aren’t a fan of polite and not very substantial regency back-and-forth then I can see those bits dragging a bit.
Spoilers below: . . . . . . . The romance conclusion was very sweet. I do love Prunella throughout this book and how she’s neither ‘not like the other girls’-d or made normal - she stays ambitious and confident and expresses emotions Prunella-ly.
The sacrifice of …
I posted mid-book & it’s late, so I will say: ending did not disappoint! Enjoyed this a lot, will definitely seek out other books by this author.
The main thing I want to say is that I listened to the audiobook, by Recorded Books, and it was Great. Really polished and that voice actor seems to really know their stuff.
I am a sucker for light comedy of manners/Wodehousey kind of banter, so the diversions into this were welcome for me. If you aren’t a fan of polite and not very substantial regency back-and-forth then I can see those bits dragging a bit.
Spoilers below: . . . . . . . The romance conclusion was very sweet. I do love Prunella throughout this book and how she’s neither ‘not like the other girls’-d or made normal - she stays ambitious and confident and expresses emotions Prunella-ly.
The sacrifice of her familiar was shocking! I am interested by the spending of fairy life for human life, not callously but definitely with a ‘it was worth it’ kind of attitude, and I guess the assumption that her familiars still… have a non-messed-up relationship with her? I would like to see this engaged with more but I reckon it probably won’t be, which is alright.
Magic and mayhem collide with the British elite in this whimsical and sparkling debut.
At …
I'm accidentally reading a lot of historical fantasy set in 1700-1850s britain recently! which means that I'm reading a lot of different approaches to race, which is pretty interesting, and also definitely highlighting to me that I really need a bit more of a theory background in race.
Also this book is lovely. Barring it really dissolving in the last bit, I enjoy it enough that I will likely seek out the author's other stuff. And looking her up, she's been involved in the Nine Worlds convention that I've enjoyed a few times :3
