#edwin courcey fanart | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carriagelamp · 9 months

Text

I had an impulsive July! Some of these books are continuations that I more or less expected to read, but I sure did just grab some random books this month. Most of which pleasantly surprised me! A couple of which just simply surprised me...

A Marvellous Light

A Marvellous Light was probably my favourite book this month and it was one of my random impulses! I saw some fanart that intrigued me so I grabbed it from the library on a whim -- by now I have bought my own copy because it was just that well done. I am always a sucker for a well executed period adventure, especially when it can work in magical elements (I’m looking at you Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue) and this did everything I could possibly want from this sort of novel. It’s set in the Edwardian period and was such a perfect blend between action, tension and mystery, comedy, and romance; I was completely invested in both of the main characters the whole way through. Oh, and it felt like it fit in the time period, that the dialogue, narration, manners, stage dressing were all appropriate. There's nothing worse than a historical novel where the writing feels painfully modern.

The story starts out with baronet Robin Blythe who is having a no-good very bad day at work. He holds a civil servant position in the government and was just demoted to a shoddy little nothing position that he’s never even heard of by someone with a grudge against his parents. He quickly realizes how in over his head he is though when he finds out that the “special” part of “Special Liaison” actually means “magic”. Something that definitely doesn’t exist, except apparently it does, and now he has to navigate this strange new world with a very exasperated magical coworker, Edwin Courcey. His day only gets worse from there...

A Rover’s Story

A charming little novel told from the point of view of a fictionalized Mars rover. I admit I’m not a very science minded person, but from my inexpert opinion it seems quite well researched, with their Rover being heavily modelled after the previous rovers that were sent to Mars. I appreciated the author's note at the back that discussed some of the research that went into the novel, what was and wasn't accurate, and what was changed for the sake of narration.

It is a very neat journey that starts with Resilience still in pieces in a lab, as it gets to know the scientists around itself and what its eventual mission will be, and how its life goes from there. Though it can't communicate with the humans, it is able to communicate with all sorts of other electronics in the lab! The story is counterbalanced by the daughter of one of the scientists who writes to the rover as a sort of journal to deal with her mother so rarely being home. It was a quick read but very sweet.

American Girl: Meet Addy // Addy Learns A Lesson // Danger at the Zoo

I have continued to read the American Girl books after being pleasantly surprised by the Kit book I read last month (Kit Saves The Day). Their strongest point is definitely what strong historical fiction stories they are! At least from the ones I’ve read so far, the time period is never just a backdrop, the authors do take the time to ensure that the novel’s plot and problems are directly tied into what makes that point in time unique, and even as an adult I found myself learning interesting tidbits of information. The little “looking back” nonfiction section at the end of the books is especially neat!

I really enjoyed both of the Addy books I read. These stories take place in 1864 during the Civil War. Addy’s family are slaves on a southern plantation, and the first book is about Addy’s escape from captivity with her mother, while the second book looks at the continued hardships and inequality that even free black people in the North suffered. They did a good job balancing the intended age bracket with the seriousness of the subject matter, and it didn’t feel like it shied away from making its point.

The Kit Mystery book, Danger at the Zoo I was less impressed with, which disappointed me because I really enjoyed Kit Saves The Day. It wasn’t bad, per se, just rather middling. A fine read, but not dazzling. Maybe I had overinflated my expectations; given that it was a bigger book, I had hoped that it would up its game a bit, but it felt rather the opposite. It was a fine story, it dealt with historical details well, but it did a poor job creating the sort of tension I would want from a proper “mystery” novel. It often felt like we were treading water, where a quicker pace would have helped.

Doctor Who: Deep Time // Silhouette // Mission to Venus

My Doctor Who kick is still going strong. Relentless. Silhouette and Deep Time were both fine, basic examples of a decently written Doctor Who novel. Deep Time was rather forgettable... the side characters never really succeeded in interesting me, and it often felt like it suffered from pacing issues. It was about the Doctor and Clara on a doomed space mission that gets stranded in deep space, but I enjoyed listening to it in the background while I was doing other stuff.

Silhouette was actually pretty great, probably because I’m a total sucker for the Paternoster Gang. It was a fun mystery set in a ~mysterious carnival~ during a frost fair on the Thames. It had the characters splitting up and exploring different avenues to solve a set of murders. Lots of good Vastra and Jenny stuff, and Strax was absolutely hilarious, he stole the show every time he was featured. Love him. The whole thing was a pretty solid plot, pretty funny, and I thought both The Doctor and Clara got pretty decent characterization throughout. Would recommend this one if you want a solid Doctor Who read.

The last one, Mission to Venus, was hands down the funniest though, albeit unintentionally. Did you know there were really trashy Doctor Who Choose Your Own Adventure books written in the 80s? I didn’t, but I do now and obviously I had to get my hands on one. It is Exceptionally Bad but in the funniest possible way. I had a blast reading through this and I really don’t know what to say about it besides look at the cover. Look at it. Amazing. The Doctor, Peri (and You!) wind up on a spaceship that is trying to transfer dangerous by highly nutritional plants to a stricken colony, but is very soon imperiled.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation v4

I creep every closer to finishing the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation series! Not much I can say about it that I haven’t said about the others that wouldn’t enter outright spoiler territory, so I’ll just say that this was another great volume. Some of them have felt overly bogged down by some of their flashbacks (like the entire back half of volume 2 and the endless Yi City arc. I'm not saying it wasn't interesting but my god this was a Victor Hugo level diversion) but this one went at a great pace and it’s nice to feel like we’re actually making progress in the main plot even if, romantically speaking, WWX and LWJ continue to be two of the dumbest human beings alive. Bless this slow burn, I’m gonna kill them both. Also enjoyed the side characters we got in this book — I loved how great the Juniors were, loved my dear, cranky, miserable Jiang Cheng, loved Wen Ning Doing His Best. Great book. I’m dragging my feet about reading the fifth book because I don’t want this to end.

Love Beyond Body Space & Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology

A really neat anthology of short stories written by Canadian Indigenous authors that are all focused on queer sci-fi stories. It’s way too easy to box Indigenous stories into the singular genres of “historical” or “contemporary” so it was great having an entire book devoted to various Indigenous perspectives on science fiction. Like any anthology there were some weak stories and some phenomenally good stories. I picked this one up specifically because Cherie Dimaline (author of The Marrow Thieves) wrote for it, and she did not disappoint, but all the stories were so different and so interesting that I can’t recommend it enough.

Short story collections like this are especially good for people without a lot of time or who are trying to revitalize their reading attention span imo because it gives you fully formed, bite-sized stories that put a lot of care and detail into their telling.

Nimona

Obviously I had to finally read Nimona. It’s been on my TBR for ages, and, like absolutely everyone else I think, I figured I had better read it now that the movie is out. I enjoyed both the comic and the film very much! It was interesting to see two slightly different takes on the same narrative, and I think both expressed the point they were trying to make very well. I honestly couldn't say which version I enjoyed more. I doubt I have anything to say that someone else hasn’t said much, much better, so I'll leave it with that.

Torchwood: Skypoint

One of the better Torchwood books I’ve read so far, I think! It had some pretty solid characterization tbh. The story wasn’t anything mind blowing, but a survival adventure in a high tech apartment was a fun setting, and I am literally never going to say not to a fake marriage plot line 👀 so a story about Owen and Tosh going undercover as a newly-wed couple in a sinister apartment building that might be eating its residents was just plain old fun. It also delivered me some truly delicious Tosh/Owen angst. Mwah. It was all around a pretty darn good Owen book, which he deserved after being slandered so badly in Something in the Water. Though I was a little disappointed by how Tosh was handled — I kept expecting her to have a bigger role than she really got by the end.

Yuri Bear Storm v1

…I have no words. I bought this one on a whim because the description on the back made me laugh:

Every night, 16-year-old Kureha has a strange dream involving lilies, storms, and... her classmate Ginko as a bear?! At school, Kureha's unassuming personality and looks render her practically invisible. Sometimes, it feels like no one notices her at all... until cute and energetic Ginko asks Kureha to talk privately one day during lunch. Maybe she really is a bear... or maybe she's just got a crush on Kureha!

but frankly there were too few bears. I thought I was getting a bear-themed magical girl book with lesbians. I have no idea what I actually got. You can tell there’s some sort of metaphor at work here — and I’ve got an Honours Degree in English Literature, dragging bullshit metaphors out of the text kicking and screaming is like my whole thing — but I’ll be damned if I could actually tell you what it is. It’s either wildly inconsistent and deranged, or genius. Or maybe there's no metaphor at all and the authors just really wanted to draw bear ears and panty-shots *shrug* I cannot emphasize enough how little sense this book made. Every time I thought I maybe had a handle on things it got progressively more inscrutable, it was actually rather impressive.

May get the second book, we’ll see how weak my resolve is not to waste my money.

28 notes · View notes