CBR18 Book 10: "The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook" by Matt Dinniman

Page count: 534 pages

Audio book length: 16 hrs 54 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Carl, Donut and Mongo have made it to the fourth level of the dungeon. This time, there are trains. So many trains. The game appears to have constructed a labyrinthine tangle of all of the world's underground railway systems, and there are new and strange rules to get used to. There are bounties awarded to anyone who kills any of the players in the top ten, which now include both Carl and Donut. 

There are all manner of strange monsters on the various trains and platforms, and while the stairways are apparently on clearly announced stations, most of the crawlers are on trains going to much higher stations, and no one seems to know how to get to the end stations and back to the start of the loop. Carl gets an unexpected advantage from a seemingly useless reward box, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, where countless previous crawlers have noted down their tips and tricks and useful modifications about the dungeons. He just can't let anyone know where he's suddenly getting all of his new and clever ideas.

Just as determined that he won't allow the system to break him as before, Carl manages to get more of the crawlers to cooperate and work together on this level. Of course, it also means pulling off some truly insane plans in an attempt to help as many crawlers as possible make it out alive and down to the next level. 

This book was long and dragged in places, but I still very much enjoyed it because by now I adore Carl, Donut, Mongo and poor Katia, who is really put through the wringer in this one. Let's just say her character ended up developing in all sorts of ways I was not expecting. I think she should put her foot down and refuse to wear a Mohawk, no matter what Donut suggests. 

I keep being amazed at the narration, and while I am still happy I have all the audios, I will probably be able to re-read the books on paper, since I now have the voices from the audio so completely internalised. With some books, that might be a problem. Here, it is not. 

Judging a book by its cover: I love the new cover design, and will quite possibly buy the whole series in hardback if it keeps being as good as it is now, partially because I like the design so much. However, it was also fun to see a depiction of the Mantaur that Carl and the others had to fight on the old cover, as well. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 42: "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis

Page count: 512 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: Award Winner (Won the Hugo and Locus awards in 1998, plus a bunch of others)

Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: Scene on a boat or body of water (there's a lot of rowing on the river)

CBR16 Bingo: Tech (time travel requires pretty specific technology)

This is the second book in the Oxford Time Travel series, but you really don't need to have read the first one, Doomsday Book, to understand and enjoy this one.

In the universe these books are set in, time travel was discovered, but once it was further discovered that no items could be taken back to the future, so it couldn't be used to gain riches or plunder the past of treasures, the technology became used solely by historians, and there are strict rules that must be followed when doing it for academic pursuits.

Ned Henry is an Oxford historian in the 2050s who feels like he's going mad. Lady Schrapnell, a frightfully wealthy and extremely demanding woman is funding the recreation of Coventry Cathedral (in Oxford, for reasons not really explored in the book) and is demanding that absolutely everything is exactly like it was before the Cathedral was destroyed in an air raid during World War II. Ned has been sent on countless missions back to the past to locate something known as the bishop's bird stump (I had to google this, it turns out it's an incredibly ugly vase shaped like a tree stump with decorative birds on it), because that was one of the items apparently present in the church at the time. Because he has been unable to locate it, Ned has had to go back to the past and visit any number of church bazaars and jumble sales in the hopes of finding the blasted relic. If people are sent back too often, they start getting delerious and behave very oddly, so Ned is ordered by his boss to get some rest.

He can't get the required rest in the present, however, because if tyrannical Lady Whatsherface discovers his whereabouts, she'll just demand that he keeps looking for the bird stump. So Ned's boss sends him back to the Victorian age, to hide out for a few weeks and get the much-needed break he requires. In the Victorian age, he encounters a fellow Oxford historian, Verity Kindle, who is trying to undo an unfortunate mistake, and if they don't manage to set things right, it could have consquences for the entire future timeline. While working together to fix Verity's mistake, she and Ned also have to try to make sure that Lady Schrapnell's ancestor, a truly dimwitted girl, doesn't fall in love and marry the wrong person, a task that proves more complicated than one might first have imagined.

I read Doomsday Book back in 2016 and don't remember it very fondly. It was far too long, the plot meandered a lot and because most of the story takes place during the Black Plague, it was also pretty depressing. This book is much lighter in tone, and a lot of the plot plays out like a farce, with humorous mix-ups, misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and a fairly large cast of rather ridiculous characters. The book is also full of literary allusions and clever references to all sorts of academic things, at least 50% of which went entirely over my head. I'm not sure I'm clever enough to appreciate this book on as many levels as the author intended.

Ned and Verity are both extremely likable characters, and my main complaint about the book is that there is so much faffing about and preventing romances between other characters, so there isn't enough time for them to spend together on page, developing their own romance. Nevertheless, this was a fun read, and I'm very much looking forward to my book club's discussion of it in August (we were supposed to have the meeting in June, but too many people were sick or busy, so we just postponed everything over the summer, which also gives more people the chance to read the book). Considering some of the books we've had in the previous months have been rather disappointing, this one felt like a breath of fresh (albeit confusing) air. 

Judging a book by its cover: This book has been out for decades, and as such, there are a lot of different covers for it, most of which I dislike. The cover for my e-book copy isn't great either, but at least I like the warm colours on it. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 38: "Just One Damned Thing After Another" by Jodi Taylor

Page count: 332 pages

Rating: 3 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Time (the whole book is about time travel to different points in Earth's history)

Dr. Madeleine "Max" Maxwell is recruited by the seemingly rather mundane St. Mary's Institute of History, only to discover that they are actually a secret organisation that time travels to various points in history, for research purposes. Obviously, you can't just throw anyone into a time machine and have at it, so there's a lot of training. Then there's the fact that time travel is rather dangerous, and she starts to see why there aren't all that many historians actually working long-term for St. Mary's. Most don't have what it takes, and either quit or get killed in action. 

Nevertheless, Max manages not only to pass training but after a series of misadventures, to be one of the few historians left on active duty. After some missions back in time where something always seems to go mysteriously wrong, Max is let in on a secret. St. Mary's is not the only group of time travelers out there, and their rival group is not just interested in observing and documenting different parts of history. Some of the higher-ups in St. Mary's are in fact from the future and have come back in time specifically to found the organisation, to fight the rogue time travelers who want to exploit history for profit and who have no qualms about killing any member of St. Mary's they come across. 

Max's adventures take her to 11th Century England, World War I France, and even all the way back to the Cretaceous Period to observe and document dinosaurs (!), but there may be traitors among the crew at St. Mary's and coming back from her missions alive and unharmed is not guaranteed. She learns almost too late that some that she had considered friends are far from it, and if she's not clever and resourceful, she may end up as dinosaur snack food.

This is the first in a long series of books and novellas, collectively known as The Chronicles of St. Mary's. Jodi Tayor started these books back in 2013, and book 13 was published earlier this year. There are also more novellas than I bothered counting on Goodreads. My friend Ida really likes them and has read the whole series, if I'm not mistaken. Based on the first book, I'm not entirely sure if I can be bothered continuing with the series. The book starts slowly and there is a lot of exposition. I get that the author felt the need to explain the hows and whys of St. Mary's and the time travel, but it got a bit dull. The first third or so of the book felt like rather a slog, then the plot got a lot more interesting, only to get a bit long-winded and meandering towards the end of the story again.

Part of the challenge here is that we keep being introduced to a fairly large gallery of characters, only for some of them to get killed off or disappear early in the story. Some characters are referred to with more than one name, making it a bit confusing who's actually in any given scene. Max is not always an easy character to root for, something I wouldn't necessarily have minded if the plot was holding my attention. There's a romance subplot that could absolutely have been better developed, and just felt a bit tacked on, with no good build-up for how or why these characters liked each other or were attracted to one another, not to mention some rather erratic behaviour from both characters that didn't exactly fill me with confidence for their continued happiness in future books. 

A quick glance through my digital book collection shows me that I own the second book in audio and the fourth book as an e-book, both acquired in sales, so I may give the series another chance at a future point in time. After all, I'm now a huge fan of several series that took two or three books to really catch my interest. 

Judging a book by its cover: It seems as if this book has had a variety of covers, some of them rather odd. One of the covers seems to be a muddle of pastel clouds, a teacup, and some generically "Britain" images in the background. Then there's one with a big swirly clock face on the bottom half, while there's a scene from some classical time period, with a topless dude wearing half a toga running past some temple-like buildings. I much prefer the edition I have, with sections in shades of red and black and dinosaur silhouettes. Dinosaurs rule. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 57: "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis

Page count: 608 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Kivrin Engle is a young history student at Oxford University, whose dream it is to time travel back in time to the Middle Ages. You see, in the 2050s, historians have the option to travel back in time as a research tool, to truly discover what the past was like. Most historians travel back to the early to mid 20th Century, and there are certain periods that are deemed far too dangerous. The Middle Ages has generally been deemed one of them, due to the devastating effects of the Black Plague.

But Kivrin is to be sent back to the Oxford region around 1320, deemed to be safe enough, as the plague didn't arrive there until 1348. She's learned spinning and weaving, Latin, and Middle English. She's had a translator gadget installed and a slew of inoculations to protect herself. The history department have constructed an elaborate back story for her, to explain why a young woman would be travelling alone in a period when women were never left unattended. Despite the constant worry of her tutor, Mr. Dunworthy, she is determined to go on this brief two week adventure, to observe Christmas celebrations in the past.

Despite Mr. Dunworthy's fussing and protestations, Kivrin is sent back in time as planned, only to discover that book learning and reality are very different things. Instead of arriving close by a road, she is transported into a wood, and although the time travelling "net" that transported her, isn't supposed to let diseases through, she's clearly caught something nasty that's making her dizzy and disorientated. She is rescued by a kindly priest and taken into the household of the local gentry, and once she recovers from her illness, is desperate to figure how to get back to her pick-up point, so she isn't stuck in the past forever. As she's travelled back to the right time of year, it takes her a while to realise that she's not in 1320 after all, but that something has gone badly wrong, and she is in fact, going to witness first-hand the ravages of the Black Plague in England in 1348.

Mr. Dunworthy worries terribly for Kivrin, and once the technician who set her coordinates in the past collapses with a high fever after gasping that "Something is wrong!", he is even more frantic. Dunworthy and his doctor friend Mary Ahrens (who gave Kivrin all her inoculations) are all too soon stuck in a medical quarantine, after the mysterious virus which knocked out the lab technician seems to be spreading with worrying speed and more and more people succumb. Having to work out the logistics of how to house, feed and accommodate people stuck in Oxford during the quarantine and figuring out where the virus originated from becomes more of a priority, but Dunworthy still doesn't stop trying to figure out what has happened to Kivrin. He's determined to get her fetched home safely, no matter what time period she ended up.

I don't read a whole lot of science fiction, but when it's the topic of choice for the Cannonball Read book club, I couldn't very well refuse to join in. As a historian myself, with a particular interest in the Middle Ages, a book in which historians actually have time travel at their disposal seemed like it really was designed to appeal to me, so I purchased the book and set to reading. It's a big book, which starts off slow with a lot of minute details about the preparations to get Kivrin sent off, and then pretty much alternating chapters following Kivrin in the past and Dunworthy in the future. I can see how the book is meant to show us that even with so many centuries of distance, people in general haven't changed all that much and a crisis situation involving a disease epidemic brings out the worst of the crazy and fear in some, while others knuckle down and deal with the realities with patience and compassion.

Even though it was slow in places, and nothing much of anything happened (for a while at least, before all the dying started), I really liked the meticulous descriptions of the Middle Ages and Kivrin's observations there. It was, as they say, relevant to my interests. The bits where Dunworthy is stressing around Oxford, trying to locate the director of the history department or other people by phone or having to deal with the logistics of housing and feeding a bunch of people stranded in the city during the quarantine was less exciting.

Quite purposefully, Willis has a lot of parallels in the narrative, intending to show us, that despite the great differences, there are also similarities between the past and the future. In both time periods, there is a plot moppet who varies between being quite engaging and dreadfully annoying. In 2058, that child is Mary Dunworthy's great-nephew Colin and in 1348, it's Agnes, the youngest daughter of the family Kivrin is staying with. There are people reacting with fear, suspicion and panic in the face of disease and there are people who will work themselves ragged to care for people, without any sort of praise or personal reward. Even in the face of terrible tragedy, like a disease epidemic, most people will be concerned with their own petty goings-on, oblivious to the bigger picture.

I do not think this book needed to be 600 pages long. Far too much of this book involved people not locating others by phone (when predicting the future, Ms. Willis did not anticipate mobile phones or the internet), waiting around for phone calls, being deeply concerned about the availability of toilet paper and eggs, Kivrin frantically trying to get back to the drop point and just too many minute descriptions of mundane events that didn't really further the plot.

I had originally rated this book 4 stars, but in the weeks since I finished it (yes, I'm once again WAY too far behind on my reviews), what I remember most are the boring bits that frustrated me, rather than the good bits that entertained me, and as a result, the book is being downgraded a bit. I'm sure it was a huge literary achievement in 1992 and it's won pretty much all the literary science fiction awards out there, but in 2016, it has dated quite a bit. If I haven't already gotten this across, it is rather dark and depressing book, and towards the latter half, the death toll is unrelenting and dispiriting, both in the Middle Ages and in the future Kivrin came from. The book has a happy ending, of sorts, but I have to wonder about the years of therapy Kivrin is likely to need after her ordeal.

Judging a book by its cover: Since this book came out in 1992, it's had a large array of covers. My edition is the 2012 edition from SF Masterworks, where they tend to have fairly simple and elegant covers. The simple sandy-beige background seems to imply a portal of sorts, with clock faces towards the upper right corner. The hooded person wearing a plague mask is clearly meant to invoke the time period Kivrin travels to, even though no one in the book ever wears such an outfit. The only thing that puzzles me is the stylistic inky cloud behind the person, which seems to be smoky versions of various tools and surgical instruments, really not relevant to the story at all.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR7 Book 46: "Heaven's Queen" by Rachel Bach

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the third and final book in the Paradox series. It really won't make a whole lot of sense or be particularly satisfying if you haven't read the first two books in the trilogy. Start at the beginning with Fortune's Pawn. It's a really fun, action-packed series with great world building., so if you like space adventure, you are unlikely to regret it. It also goes without saying that there may be spoilers for the previous books in the series in this review. Proceed at your own risk if you're not caught up.

All Deviana "Devi" Morris wanted was to be a Devestator, one of the elite guards of the Paradoxian God King who she reveres and worships. Since signing on with Captain Caldwell on Fortune's Fool, she's nearly died countless times, she's had her memory wiped and restored, she's fallen in love and fought the man she fell for nearly to the death to retain her freedom and independence. She's infected with a mysterious and highly dangerous virus, hunted down by two powerful alien species. Several human organisations want to capture her, take her into custody and basically weaponize her. In addition, after a slightly botched jump out of hyperspace, Devi and her companion has been missing for eight months and most of the people close to her thought she died.

The possible future of the human race is hanging in the balance, and Devi needs to figure out a solution to eliminate the phantoms, free Maat and the daughters, preferably without being killed herself in the process. Yet Devi's never been afraid to go out fighting and if she has to die, which it's looking more and more likely she might, she's going to make sure it has a lasting impact.

While Honour's Knight was so action-packed it nearly exhausted me while reading it, Heaven's Queen has a slower opening third, with Devi and Rupert on the run, trying to keep Devi safe from all the various factions who want to get their hands on her. While there is some nice further character development in this section, it did nonetheless drag a bit, and because Bach has done such a great job fleshing out and establishing the supporting cast of the Paradox series, spending time with only Devi and Rupert got a bit boring after a while.

I needn't have worried, however, because the last two thirds of book pick up nicely again, while the story hurtles towards its action-packed and inevitable conclusion. We get more quality time with the crew on the Fortune's Fool, meet a few new characters and re-visit some previously established individuals. Some are interested in aiding Devi, others would rather just capture her and use her to further their own ends.

Over the course of the trilogy, Devi has gone from a fairly self-centred and purely career-oriented warrior, only concerned with advancement as fast possible. Through the dangers and adventures she's survived, she's had her horizons comprehensively widened, forced to re-evaluate her opinions and pre-conceptions time and time again. Some of the characteristics that could make her rather exasperating in the first book, have been polished and refined through her hardships and challenges  and now help her in choosing her final course of action, crazy and reckless as it may seem to others. Devi has so much agency in this book, and I cheered her along every step of the way, even as I worried what was going to happen to her in the end.

I really liked that for all that Rupert is a nearly indestructible fighter himself, he's realised that what Devi needs from him is just for him to watch her back, not to control or restrict her actions. I saw some complaints on Goodreads that he's been reduced to a boring wimp meekly trailing in Devi's wake in this book, I strongly disagree. Devi has proven time and time again that she's more than capable of taking care of herself, even though she may seem dangerously impulsive on occasion. Her risks pay off and it's one of the reasons she's become such a skilled warrior. The last thing she needs is a man who tries to make her decisions for her. While he's clearly not always very happy about the choices she makes, Rupert has learned the hard way that Devi needs to choose her own path, and if he wants to be with her, he needs to respect her choices - which he does.

Having discovered that Rachel Bach is actually a pseudonym for Rachel Aaron, who also writes historical fantasy novels, I can't wait to check out more of her writing. If her fantasy is half as fun as her science fiction adventures, I will be very happy indeed.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 42: "Honor's Knight" by Rachel Bach

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This is the second book in the Paradox series, which begins with Fortune's Pawn. While I'm sure you could start with this one, there is really rather a lot of set-up and introduction of characters in the first one that makes this one easier to enjoy, so you really should start at the beginning. It's also impossible for me to review this book without spoiling some of the stuff from the first book, so go away until you're caught up.

Deviana Morris is deeply confused. She knows there was a battle onboard Fortune's Fool, the ship she works on, as she can see the signs of damage all around her. Her fellow security guard, Cotter, died in the attack where something caused Devi to lose her a whole load of her memories. She can find no record of the attack in any of the security recordings on board or in the feed or backup feed from her power armour. Now the sole security onboard, she's determined to do her job to the best of her abilities, but strange things keep happening that distract her. When she gets angry, she sees black smudges on her hands. She can't seem to remember the name of the ship's cook, and every time she looks directly at him, she's hit with revulsion so strong she nearly throws up. She has a very strange dream where Ren, Captain Caldswell's creepy and mysterious little girl takes her to a warehouse where she sees herself, pleading with the cook, declaring her love, only to be shot in the head. She sees strange glowing bugs that no one else appears able to see.

As the danger keeps mounting, Devi's memory are returned to her, and with them, the staggering betrayal that led to them being wiped. When she finally remembers Rupert again, she also remember that he invaded her mind and took her memories, without even asking her, and that's not something that's easy, if at all possible, for a girl to forgive. She discovers more about the Eyes and who Ren actually is. The truth about the lengths the Eyes will go to to defeat the phantoms is terrifying and Devi is not at all sure she wants to help them, no matter how important their quest to save the universe is. She discovers what the black stuff infecting her is and needs to ascertain exactly who she can trust and whether she's ready to sacrifice herself and everything she's ever dreamed of to help save the universe.

Fortune's Pawn was the Vaginal Fantasy book club pick for March, and since I'd already read that, I decided to read the sequel instead. The first book really does all the heavy lifting with regards to world-building and introducing you to the characters, establishing relationships and getting you interested. By the end of the book, if you're anything like me, you think Devi is great and while you're devastated that a lot of her memories are being taken from her, to save her life, you are also convinced she'll restore them and go on kicking the asses of all the people who did her wrong. Of course she does, but it does take a while. Because it had been nearly a year since I read the first book, I shared Devi's confusion of what had happened towards the climax of the first book (I was on vacation, and did not have the first book available on my Reader to allow myself to quickly refresh my memory, either). In some ways, I think that added to my enjoyment.

From pretty much the time when Devi's memories (and then some) are restored to her, the book doesn't slow down. Because most of what you need to enjoy this world has been set up in the first book, Bach can pretty much amp up the action massively and keeps throwing Devi into increasingly more dangerous and action-packed situations. The black stuff on Devi's hands is a virus, which is deadly to the phantoms, but quite likely also to Devi herself. Both the Eyes and those have gone rogue from the Eyes want to use Devi as a weapon, and she's not intending to be used. She's none too happy about Caldwell trying to have her killed and her former feelings of love towards Rupert are now naturally tainted with betrayal, distrust and anger, while she's still fighting her attraction to him. Not that it stops her from fighting him like a demon when he's tasked with trying to capture her.

Devi's such a wonderful heroine, who is forced to constantly reevaluate everything she thought she knew over the course of this book. The action pretty much took my breath away several times. Over the course of the story, it becomes clear just how much is at stake and what sort of threats the universe is facing. There are no good solutions and while the Eyes are clearly willing to kill, manipulate and exploit to reach their ends, it's difficult not to sympathise, considering what they are trying to stop. Devi, being stubbornly independent and refusing to go down without a fight, keeps trying to find a better way through things, though, and it's going to be very interesting indeed to see how she's going to manage to save the universe (because I have no doubt she will) without compromising her moral principles.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 24 : "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Arthur Leander, ageing movie-star, dies of a heart attack on stage at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. On stage is eight-year-old Kristen Raymonde, witnessing the death of a man who had been nothing but kind to her. Jeevan Chaudhary, former paparazzo photographer and entertainment journalist, now an EMT in training, jumps up on stage and tries to save Arthur's life with CPR. Later that evening, travelling home in the snow, he receives a phone call from a friend, working in the ER. There is a flu spreading, terrifyingly quickly, most likely turning into an epidemic. Warned by his doctor friend, Jeevan buys up all the supplies he can, barricading himself with his wheelchair-bound brother to wait out the disease.

The flu turns into a pandemic, killing indiscriminately, all over the world. Fifteen years later, Kristen Raymonde is the lead actress in the Travelling Symphony, a small acting and orchestra troupe travelling through the scattered settlements in the Great Lakes region of North America. The group performs Shakespeare plays and classical music for the survivors they come across. Written on the head Caravan, and tattooed on Kristen's arm are the words "Because survival is insufficient". Among Kristen's most precious possessions are two issues of a comic book, Station Eleven, which Arthur Leander gave her shortly before he died. She's also become somewhat obsessed with his life, collecting every article, gossip column and newspaper story in a scrap book, whenever she comes across a new one in old papers and magazines. Wherever they travel, she looks for more issues of the comic, and asks new people if they've ever heard of it.

When they come to the little settlement of St. Deborah on the Water, where they two years previous left Kristen's pregnant best friend and her husband, they discover that the place has changed drastically and that their friends, along with many others, are no longer there. The graveyard is full of grave markers for those who dared to leave, and the town is controlled by a Prophet, quoting the Bible and claiming he has the answers about why the flu struck in the first place.

After the first section, which focuses on the night when Arthur died and the flu broke out, the book alternates between "Year Fifteen", where we follow Kristen, her friends in the Travelling Symphony and their encounters with the Prophet, and the past, showing us episodes of Arthur Leander's life, how he met his first wife Miranda, whose artistic life's work was writing and illustrating Station Eleven, his second wife, Elizabeth, who bore him a son, his long friendship with his lawyer, Clark Thompson. Arthur Leander is the focal point, most of the prominent characters we meet in the story are in some way or other connected to him.

Station Eleven is a science fiction novel of sorts, as well as a dystopian novel set in a post-apocalyptic near future. In many ways, the small community of people travelling together, occasionally coming across scattered settlements, reminded me of The Walking Dead. My friend, when I talked to her about it, said that it sounded a bit like the story in the game The Last of Us and a bit like The Road by Cormac McCarthy. With regards to The Walking Dead, I've never read the comics, but I watched nearly three and a half seasons before it just got too bleak and depressing for me. Reading the blurb for The Road and watching the trailer for the film convinced me that there was no way in hell I was ever going to subject myself to reading and/or watching that. I didn't really think that I wanted to read Station Eleven either, worried about the post-apocalyptic thing, but with after several Cannonballers whose opinions I trust reading and loving it, I added it to my TBR list. Then it was announced as the first book in the CBR book club and I no longer had any choice but to read it. Once I decided to read it for myself, I stopped reading reviews, not wanting to be spoiled.

Even having read some very positive reviews, I didn't really know what to expect from the book. It's been a week since I finished it, and I am still having trouble putting into words how it affected me and what I liked so much about it. It took me about three days just to decide what rating to give the book, as there are things I wasn't super thrilled with, either. Yet it's been in my thoughts every day since I finished it, not just because I had this review hanging over me. At first, I was pretty sure that while it was a well-written and very intriguing book, I was unlikely to ever want to re-read it. Now I'm pretty sure that nothing could be further from the truth. I think I'm going to have to re-read it, having taken the full journey with the characters, just to discover new and wonderful things in the story.

There isn't really a protagonist in this book, but the sections I liked the most, were the ones that focused on either Kristen, or Arthur's first wife, Miranda. As is so often the case, with fictional works within fiction, I desperately wanted to read Station Eleven, not to mention see the artwork, that is so lovingly described several places in the book. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone, considering it's also the title of the novel, that the comic book comes to act as a sort of metaphor for the world in which the surviving characters live. I also really liked reading how the people at the airport survived and formed their own little settlement. The bits I liked the least were all the ones concerning the Prophet. He creeped me out a lot (as I'm sure he was supposed to) and while it was eventually revealed who he was, I didn't really care.

I loved that while this book is about a tiny percentage of humanity surviving a pandemic, the focus isn't on the chaotic years directly following the catastrophic event. After fifteen years, there are new settlements. The survivors make new connections, form new bonds and there is always room for art, beauty, human kindness and compassion. While there is still the occasional violent event, this isn't a bleak, depressing book. The book ends on a note of hope and optimism, for which I was very grateful. I suspect that this is going to end up being one of my favourite books of the year, unless I am tremendously lucky with the rest of my reading choices.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 3: "Saga, volume 4" by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

So I've already raved at you here AND here about why you should be reading this comic. If you haven't read it yet (what is wrong with you, do you not like awesome things?), this trade is not the place to start. It collects issues 19-24 of an ongoing story. I'm going to try really hard to review it without spoiling anything major, but tread with caution if you're not caught up.

Marko and Alanna and their hunted little family are laying low on a fairy anonymous planet. Alanna is trying to support them as best she can by acting in a cheesy soap opera, while Marko is a stay at home dad, aided by his mother and Izabel. Alanna's job situation sucks, and Marko struggles with nurturing the demanding and energetic toddler that Hazel has become. Elsewhere in the Universe, Prince Robot IV is completely unaware that he has become a father and that dangerous dissidents are threatening his little family. The Will is comatose in hospital, while his sister, the Brand, is trying to figure out what actually to him. She tracks down Gwen, Sophie and Lying Cat, who are working hard to find a way to heal him.

I don't want to go into more detail, because part of the joy of Saga is discovering the twists and turns on the beautifully constructed plot yourself. Brian K. Vaughan's writing continues to be superb, interweaving the various story strands and characters effortlessly, constantly throwing new challenges in our protagonists' way, even when they seem to be living in a quiet part of the universe, able to relax. Fiona Staples' art is still breath-takingly good.

Because I get extremely emotionally attached to characters in stories I love, and oh do I love this comic, these issues were more difficult than some of the previous to read, as the characters go through a lot of emotional turmoil. When my beloved characters suffer, I suffer. I was also sad to see that the the Will, Gwen, Sophie and Lying Cat were only in one single issue in this trade, because over the course of the series, I've become just as attached to them as to Alanna, Marko and their family. The developments in the Robot Kingdom takes the coming story in an interesting direction and I can't wait (which unfortunately I will have to do, for months and months and months) to read what happens next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 12: "Scarlet" by Marissa Meyer

Page count: 452 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the Lunar Chronicles, and won't really work so well if you haven't read the first one. Start with Cinder, then come back and read this review when you've caught up. Really, you don't want to be reading this review - it's going to contain spoilers about the first book. Continue reading if you don't mind, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Scarlet Benoit needs to find her grandmother, who disappeared without a trace a few weeks ago. Her ID chip was left behind, and Scarlet is convinced she's been kidnapped. The local police, however, don't suspect foul play and have rejected the case. Scarlet's determined to locate her grandmother on her own, but has few leads or clues. How is the mysterious prize fighter, calling himself Wolf, connected? He arrived in the area around the same time Scarlet's grandmother disappeared, and seems very interested in Scarlet.

How is Scarlet's grandmother connected with dangerous Lunar fugitive and cyborg Linh Cinder? The heroine of Meyer's previous book has escaped from prison along with self-styled Captain Carswell Thorne thanks to the advanced cyborg enhancements Doctor Erland gave her at the end of the last book. On the run in Thorne's stolen spacecraft, the two manage to constantly stay one step ahead of the Lunar and Earthen authorities, and discover that a former officer named Michelle Benoit may have further clues about Cinder's past.

Newly appointed Emperor Kai is still reeling from the discovery that the charming mechanic he impulsively invited to the ball is not only a cyborg, but actually a dangerous Lunar. Was his attraction to her nothing but trickery brought on by her Lunar powers? He is desperately trying to fend off the powerful and terrifying Lunar Queen, Levana, who demands that the girl be caught within three days, or there will be disastrous consequences for Earth.

In Cinder, Meyer introduced us to the Cyborg mechanic who bore a clear resemblance to the Cinderella of Grimms' fairy tales. While I liked the book, a lot of it was establishing the world and world building, and I found it a bit slow in places. In the sequel, the fantastic sci-fi world is already in place, and quite a few of the main conflicts and players have been set in motion. Or so I thought. Because Meyer proceeds to introduce more characters, with complicated back stories and motivations. There's a lot more action in this book, it moves ahead at a faster pace all the way through.

The spirited Scarlet argues with townspeople and wears a red hoodie. She's a talented pilot and loves her grandmother, who more or less raised her, fiercely. She's willing to risk pretty much anything to find her, even allying herself with the rather shady Wolf, whose motivations are a lot more murky than she likes. She's sometimes frustratingly stubborn, refusing to believe that there could be something in her grandmother's past that led her to being abducted, even when further investigations keep revealing that her Michelle Benoit hadn't always been an eccentric farmer.

Also introduced in the book is adventurer, wanted thief and confidence trickster Carswell Thorne. When Cinder is escaping from prison, she accidentally drops into his cell, and upon discovering that he has a spaceship, she reluctantly agrees to take him with her. He uses his charm like a weapon, yet she is entirely immune. In reality a cadet in the American forces, he became wanted when he stole an advanced military aircraft to go adventuring. While he calls himself a captain, he's not actually a very good pilot, and it seems that he and Cinder evade the authorities through luck more than skill.

Levana keeps being scary and villainous, and more of her plans to wage war on Earth is revealed in this book. Kai and the rulers of the other Earthen nations do their best to defy her, but without much success. While Kai has to send out forces to try to capture Cinder, he's secretly happy as long as she stays missing, even though he knows her continued freedom could have dire consequences for the people of Earth. It's a dreadful situation for a young, inexperienced ruler to be in, and when Levana's plots against Earth start coming out into the open, he does the only thing he can to try to avoid more death and bloodshed.

As in the first book, there is a romantic subplot in the book, although it's by no means the most prominent. Scarlet seems to go from distrusting and worrying about Wolf to being attracted to him very quickly, but I suppose added danger can throw people together, and he does help her look for her grandmother, even against his better judgement. I suspect Captain Thorne may become a romantic interest for the heroine in the third book, which is coming out in a day or two. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where the story goes next.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.