This was purely delightful. A disgraced paladin, a resigned forger, a cheerful assassin, and a naive scholar are thrown together in a last-ditch effort to try to stop giant clockwork soldiers from destroying their town: a classic oddball group on a suicidal quest. There’s also demon possession, a spreading plague, ancient magical wonders, and a journey into enemy territory; it’s all urgent enough but it’s the interaction between the characters, and their internal monologues, that make the story amazing. The members of the party banter and trade snarky jabs at one another (and sometimes actual jabs with knives; they have issues), but since they take turns being POV characters, we also know that they’re just as hard on themselves, even though they don’t show it outwardly. The writing is simply addictive. Book 1 of a duology, but at least it doesn’t end on a cliffhanger.
Author: librarykat
How to be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question, by Michael Schur
Michael Schur is the creator of The Good Place, and in this book he entertainingly summarizes all of the philosophy that he picked up along the way. To sum up: there is no way to be perfect. But there is still good in trying. Schur marches cheerfully through classic philosophical dilemmas, first presenting different philosophers’ takes on them, then pointing out issues with each answer. There are several satisfying callbacks to The Good Place; several cast members also take turns reading some of the quotations from the book, which was lovely to hear. The constant variations on the same theme did get tiresome after a while, but Schur’s narration is smooth and enjoyable, so it wasn’t hard to keep going. Certainly I suspect it was much easier to read this than to try to read the philosophers’ original writings. (Something I found personally amusing: he refers to the “trolley problem” and also brings up the “shopping cart problem“, but here in Australia, shopping carts are referred to as trolleys! So the two problems have the same name.)
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, by Kate Beaton
I picked up Ducks because it was nominated by Mattea Roach for the nationwide Canada Reads competition; I knew little else about it, and was surprised to find that a) it was an autobiographical comic, b) written by a Cape Breton native, who c) went to work in the Alberta oil sands, and d) began publishing the excellent webcomic Hark! A Vagrant during that time. To pay off her student loans, Beaton joined the masses from Atlantic Canada heading towards Alberta. The experience was extremely toxic, both for the environment (the title refers to a flock of ducks which died after landing in a tailings pond, causing much PR flailing) and for Beaton personally, who pitilessly details the harassment and misogynism that she faced as one of the very few women in the isolated environment, as well as the huge mental toll that it took on her. Although my own experience in male-dominated workplaces was nowhere near as bad, I still recognized many aspects of the casual workplace misogyny, as well as her unhappy, resigned tolerance of it which mirrored my own; I loved so much the clear-eyed way in which she presented it, even as it hurt to read. I also loved visiting both Cape Breton and Newfoundland as a tourist, and am embarrassed to say that I had no idea of the economic situation that drove so many of the locals to look for work elsewhere. The comics are simple, but poignant and very human; in one exchange, Beaton says to her truck driver from Newfoundland, “were you a fisherman, before?” He responds simply, “I’m still a fisherman. I’m just here.” And then the comic zooms out to show the pickup driving through the snowy mine, against a background of heavy equipment, a steep cliff face, and a black, empty sky.
Sink: A Memoir, by Joseph Earl Thomas
This memoir is beautifully written, even though it’s hard to read. It starts out tough and doesn’t get any easier, which pretty much encapsulates young Joey’s life growing up in poverty and violence. The characters in his family behave in ways both cringingly awful and yet recognizably human; the details that Thomas chooses to share illustrate both their helpless despair and the love that sometimes finds its way to the surface. The storytelling is brilliant, mixing reality with the fictional worlds that Joey picks up from geek culture and video games. One of my favorite passages (out of many fiercely beautiful passages) dealt with his helpless protectiveness of the minor Pokemon Zubat, whilst playing the game: “so many Zubats, everywhere, with nowhere to go, no one to protect them. Their entire lives consist of knocking into Pokemon trainers and being slapped around by stronger Pokemon who already have homes and social resources, warm Poké Balls to sleep in.” Though the metaphor is obvious, it is no less poignant and heartbreaking.
One Hundred Days, by Alice Pung
This was a tough book to read. Melbourne teen Karuna lives under the iron control of her mother, a first-generation Filipino-Australian who was abandoned by her Caucasian husband. You know that Karuna gets pregnant despite her mother’s best efforts and has a baby, because the book is narrated by Karuna and addressed to that baby (great framing device, by the way); however, you don’t know how events progress to that point, so you must read on to find out. As Karuna’s pregnancy progresses, her mother responds by exerting more and more control, until she is literally locking Karuna in their flat while she is away. On the one hand this is a touching tale of an immigrant mother’s struggle to do her best by her second-generation daughter, and her daughter’s fight to make her mother recognize her own agency; on the other hand this is also a story of toxic emotional abuse and generational pain, with the background of the sexism and racism directed at darker-skinned people in Australian society. The characters do make peace with one another eventually, but it is a hard and painful fight to get there.
More than a Little Warped, by Annette Marie and Rob Jacobsen
Novella, #3.5 in the Warped sub-series of Annette Marie’s Guild Codex. This one covers what was going on in the magical police division during the climactic battle at the end of the Spellbound and Demonized sub-series. It’s a credit to Marie and Jacobsen that they keep things tense and interesting; from the other books, you know where Agents Kit and Lienna end up, but you don’t know how they get there. A lot of the plot of this novella depends on the reader knowing what’s going on from the Spellbound series, so definitely don’t read this if you’ve only read Warped sub-series alone. I really liked Kit’s interaction with Captain Blythe and Lienna here; you don’t often get to see Blythe in action and it was as just cool as one would have hoped. Lots of good zingers from Kit as usual, and most of the plot threads get wrapped up neatly, though of course there’s still unresolved stuff at the end.
The Dawnhounds, by Sascha Stronach
One of those books so wondrously weird that you really don’t know how you got there or what is even going on, but which is written with such intensity and lush detail that you can’t stop reading it. The action opens on a boat, manned by a skeleton crew and carrying a cargo crawling with infectious poisons, with references to wars long past (but with conflicts still simmering) and mysterious weapons. Then we alternate between the viewpoints of Jyn (former street rat, current disgraced constable, disgraced because of her attraction to women) and Sen (former soldier, current sergeant, world-weary but still trying to do the decent thing) as they patrol their city, in which people live in breathing cellulose houses which consume their inhabitants’ waste matter for food. There’s a mysterious religion in which priests dress up as their sacred crane (delightfully, Jyn and Sen call them “bin chickens” under their breaths; clearly the Aussie nickname extends to Stronach’s native New Zealand as well) and seem intent on gaining power. About halfway through the book we learn that there’s a very magical element going on as well, very much tied to the outsider status that is thrust upon characters who don’t fit into the mainstream. There’s a lot going on in the background that Stronach doesn’t bother to explain: what, besides a lust for power, is driving the bin chicken religion? Why do they want to infect everyone with spores? What are they trying to accomplish? How are they related to the god-like deities who grant powers to a chosen wounded few? The reader has no idea, but the writing in the book rockets along so beautifully, the emotions of the outcast characters so strong and the descriptive prose lush and vivid, that you barely have time to wonder what happened before it’s all over and you’re left blinking, wondering what the heck you just read. Stronach is a Maori author so maybe I need to read up on Maori mythology to get a handle on things. First in a series, apparently, though honestly I don’t know how much I’ll retain by the time I pick up the next.
Delivering Evil for Experts, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
This book overlaps Damned Souls and a Sangria by a good amount, which eases the tension level somewhat. As a reader my experience was mostly “ah ok, that’s what Robin was doing when she was offscreen,” which made the book less tense in general even though the danger level remained high. Loved that we got to see growth not just in Robin and Zylas, but in the secondary characters as well. As a series finale, excellent resolution for both the characters and the plot, with an adorable extra chapter at the end.
book collage, February 2023
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher
Druid Vices and a Vodka, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg
Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
Why We Swim, by Bonnie Tsui
Becoming, by Michelle Obama
Notes from the Burning Age, by Claire North
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories, by Jamil Jan Kochai
Lost Talismans and a Tequila, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart and Teddy Hamilton
Angelica, by Sharon Shinn
Rogue Ghosts & Other Miscreants, by Annette Marie and Rob Jacobsen, read by Iggy Toma
Bloodmarked, by Tracy Deonn
Damned Souls and a Sangria, by Annette Marie, read by Cris Dukehart
The Shuddering City, by Sharon Shinn
The Shuddering City, by Sharon Shinn
This standalone book is full of characters keeping secrets from each other, so as a reader you start off a bit in the dark as well. It’s one of those sci-fi books where the science is so far in the past that it might as well come off as fantasy. The city in question is Corcannon, which is experiencing earthquakes of increasing frequency and intensity; as the seemingly unrelated characters pursue their separate goals, you slowly get the feeling that some kind of creepy “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” vibe is going on in the background. I found the ending a bit deus ex machina, but Shinn makes it work, and her character work is stellar as usual.