books and books review

The Goblin Emperor — Katherine Addison

Published on April 14, 20151 Comment

Cover of The Goblin Emperor

The Goblin Emperor
Katherine Addison
502 pages
published in 2014

One of the dirty little secrets of book reviewing is that the circumstances under which you read any given book can massively influence how you feel about it. Since I read the first half of The Goblin Emperor on a sunny Thursday afternoon while drinking a nice IPA sitting at an Amsterdam terrace and the other half sitting in my garden on the Friday afternoon following, drinking an even nicer IPA, it’s no wonder I feel quite mellow about it. But in this case I would’ve enjoyed it even had I read it during one of the grey, dull, wet afternoons that you normally get in Amsterdam in early April. This is a great novel and well deserves its Hugo nomination. It’s also the sort of novel you can’t help but read fast, a true page turner.

The Goblin Emperor at heart is a very traditional power fantasy, about the boy of humble origins who becomes emperor by happenstance and now has to very quickly learn how to survive in a world of political intrigue he’s completely unprepared for, filled with people who either want to manipulate him or replace him with a better figurehead. It’s one of those fantasy scenarios other writers can write multiple trilogies about to get to that point, but Katherine Addison has her goblin hero confirmed as the emperor within five pages, the rest of the novel being about him getting to grips with his new job, woefully inadequate though he feels.

Books read March

Published on April 12, 2015Leave a comment

Really? I’ve only read four novels this month? Apparantly so. Granted, most of the month was spent reading through this list of short fiction, but even so, this is disappointing.

Juniper Time — Kate Wilhelm
Read for Joachim Boaz’s Kate Wilhelm review series. This is one of the novels the cyberpunks were rebelling against.

Reaper Man — Terry Pratchett
I read this in the wake of the news of Terry Pratchett’s death, his most fitting novel as it revolves around mortality and DEATH.

The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes
Serial killer horror is not my thing as it so often puts its sympathies with the killer more than with their victims; cf. The Silence of the Lambs. Beukes however keeps her sympathies firmly where they belong, showing the waste and destruction the killer engages in without glamourising it.

King’s Dragon — Kate Elliott
It’s unfair. Here I was expecting at best a compentently written epic fantasy story, but instead Elliott made me think, by never choosing the lazy option, by actually creating a medievaloid fantasy world that is more than just modern people in medieval drag. It also has one of the most harrowing depictions of the psychology of domestic abuse I’ve read in any novel.

Wolfhound Century — Peter Higgins

Published on March 21, 2015Leave a comment

Cover of Wolfhound Century

Wolfhound Century
Peter Higgins
303 pages
published in 2013

Despite buying more books than’s probably good for me, I still keep a library membership and thanks to that I still end up finding science fiction or fantasy writers and books I wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Case in point: Peter Higgins Wolfhound Century, which I saw lying on the pile of new fiction books near the entrance and whose cover drew my attention. Reading the back cover blurb and the first few pages was enough to take a punt on it. They confirmed what the cover artwork seemed to suggest, that this was a fantasy novel inspired by Soviet Russia, not a setting you see much in fantasy.

The protagonist, investigator Vissation Lom, is the classic honest cop in a totalitarian system and his honesty has of course made him enemies. Nevertheless he’s one of the best investigators in Vlast, which is why he has been summoned to the capital Mirgorod by the head of the secret police. He is to stop and catch Josef Kantor, a terrorist protected by powerful forces from within the Vlast security apparatus itself. Without ties to any of the political factions in the capital or the security services, Lom is hoped to have a better chance at getting Kantor.

Reaper Man — Terry Pratchett

Published on March 19, 2015Leave a comment

Cover of Reaper Man

Reaper Man
Terry Pratchett
287 pages
published in 1991

Even before rereading the day after pTerry’s death, Reaper Man was mired in grieving for me. Because I reread it in 2012, the year after Sandra’s death, when I had fallen back on Pratchett’s Discworld series as comfort reading, something to lose yourself in and forget for a while. And then I hit Reaper Man, in which DEATH has been retired by the Auditors for having become too human, has to find a new living as BILL DOOR and a fragile, predoomed romance starts between him and Miss Flitworth, the never married widow he ends up working as a farmhand for. It’s a novel about death and life and humanity and the essence of it is captured by what DEATH argues at the climax of it:

LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?

Books read February

Published on March 7, 2015Leave a comment

A slightly disappointing total of seven books read this month, down from eleven last month. Partially this is because I started a short SF marathon over at my booklog, which I hope to finish on Sunday. At least it’s up from last year, when I only finished two books.

A History of Future Cities — Daniel Brook
Looks at the development and history of four “artificial” cities and the role they played in the development of their respective countries: Saint Petersburg, Mumbai, Shanghai and Dubai.

The Myth of the Strong Leader — Archie Brown
A synthetic history book that takes aim at the desire for strong leaders, both in democracies and autocratic systems.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet — Becky Chambers
Self published, old school adventure science fiction about a crew of wormhole punchers who get involved in something way above their pay grade…

Annihilation — Jeff VanderMeer
Brilliant first entry in a science fiction trilogy all published last year. It reminded me of Roadside Picnic though VanderMeer said to me he hadn’t read that before writing this.

The March North — Graydon Saunders
Graydon is an old acquaintance from rec.arts.sf.* known for his smart but sometimes slightly gnomic posts, this is his first published fantasy, somewhat less gnomic but still smart.

My Real Children — Jo Walton
An alternate history domestic novel that almost made it on my Hugo ballot.

Sarah Canary — Karen Joy Fowler
I asked Twitter to choose me a book to read and this is what it came up with, Karen Joy Fowler’s debut novel, science fiction in name only about a mysterious woman stumbling into a Chinese railway workers camp one day in 1873. If you put your SF hat on, it’s a First Contact novel, but it’s easy to read it as “just” a story about the mythology of the west, feminism and racism too.