Books read – Page 5 – markwebb.name

North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier is the third book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. You can read my review of the first book, Winter Be My Shield, here and the second, Black Sun Light My Way, here. There are some spoilers for the first two books in this review, so if you haven’t started on the trilogy yet, you might want to wait until you’ve read the first two books before reading this review.

The Blood Mage Kell, who loomed so large in the first two books, is gone and the three mages (Isidro, Sierra and Rasten) have to come to terms with what their lives are without him in them. I mentioned in the review of the second book that I was surprised by the ending but didn’t mention what that ending was for fear of spoilers. The death of Kell was that ending – I had assumed that at least one thread of the story would have focused on Kell right until the end of the trilogy. However, in retrospect, killing Kell in the second book made sense. It was clear that Sierra and Rasten wouldn’t really be able move on without confronting Kell, and their stories (in particular Rasten’s) faced limitations without moving through that issue.

The story isn’t all good cheer though – Spurrier still puts the characters through the ringer. Hands are chopped off, a lot of blood is spilled and most of the characters are given an emotional workout. However, there isn’t as much graphic torture or degradation in this book. Indeed, while the atmosphere of the third book is just as hard and unforgiving as the first two, I found that the story more oriented towards recovery.

As with the previous books, there was some interesting exploration of how people from different cultural backgrounds interact and form families. The politics of the world were also well realised and expanded in this third book.

I normally don’t comment on endings as I don’t like to spoil the books I review too much (and indeed, please feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re yet to read the book). The whole trilogy came together well and I didn’t have any issues with the ending as such. However, I was expecting more major characters to be killed, and killed in a heart wrenching way. As it was, the ending seemed a little, well, nice considering the tone of the rest of the books. Still, given how much hell the characters went through, I should begrudge them a little happiness, should I?

Overall this is an excellent end to a trilogy. If you’re interested, definitely go back and start with Winter Be My Shield though. North Star Guide Me Home isn’t really a stand alone book, and you won’t get anywhere as near as much impact without having seen the characters through their earlier trials.

As in the last review, I should also mention that back in 2013, Sean Wright, leader of the intrepid Galactic Chat crew, interviewed Jo Spurrier for the podcast. That podcast can be found here.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Black Sun Light My Way by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Black Sun Light My Way by Jo Spurrier is the second book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. You can read my review of the first book, Winter Be My Shield, here.

The political and social system that was introduced in the first novel is solidly developed in this second novel. We learn a lot more about other societies, and the gradual expansion of the readers world view is handled well, with information provided at a good pace. There are nice touches which show the depth of the world building – for instance, the marital structures of a society mired in a harsh environment that incorporate multiple parters of both genders into a family unit. These elements provide some real depth to the story.

The series continues the portrayal of a hard and dangerous world, where characters aren’t trying to be too nice. Issues of torture and rape are canvassed, and Spurrier doesn’t shy away from exploring the real consequences of these actions. To that end, the character of Rasten (the main bad guy’s apprentice) is used as a vehicle. Over the course of the novel, the readers perception of Rasten transforms from a pure villain to a more complex, tragic figure who has been scarred, both physically and emotionally, by long term abuse. While his actions remain unsympathetic, he becomes more understandable.

In the first novel, I found one of the main characters (Isidro) was a little bit too understanding of other people’s points of view. A lot of interpersonal drama was resolved by him seeing things from the other point of view and then disarming the situation. While this was very sensible of him, it did sometimes feel a little too “easy” as a way of moving the plot forward. In this second novel, the character is portrayed with more issues, including bouts of severe depression. This lent a better balance to the character, and given that he features strongly it helped the balance of the book overall.

The book ended with at what seemed to be, at first blush, a surprising point. Spurrier sets up a particular “quest”, which is actually resolved by the end of this book. While reading, I kept waiting for another complication to be introduced that would delay the completion of the quest and was surprised when that complication never emerged. However in retrospect I can see that it was a necessary step to allow the characters to grow. Without it, the third book would have run the risk of being repetitive. So, when I sat back and considered the book, the confusion I felt on first reading was well and truly resolved.

Overall this is an excellent second book to a trilogy. Well worth the read, however I wouldn’t consider it a stand alone book. If you’re interested, definitely go back and start with Winter Be My Shield.

I should also mention that back in 2013, Sean Wright, leader of the intrepid Galactic Chat crew, interviewed Jo Spurrier for the podcast. That podcast can be found here.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Monthly roundup – November and December 2014

Once again I’ve been somewhat lax, both with my summaries and with this website in general. In my (somewhat poor) defence, I have been flat out at work in the lead up to the end of the year. I love the organisation I’m working for at the moment, and my new role gives me the chance to work with some fantastic people. But it is busy. Very, very busy.

On a related note, I understand a couple of those fantastic people from work have decided to find out a bit more about my life outside of the office by tracking me down online. Hi Sally and Robyn in particular!

So, a summary of both November and December reading and watching. Many of the books mentioned below are due a full review as a part of my commitment to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Challenge, so not much detail will be provided here. I’ve got 6 reviews to write over the next couple of days.

Regular readers will know that I read the first book in Jo Spurrier’s Children of the Black Sun series earlier in the year (Winter Be My Shield). The plot was compelling enough that I continued on to read the second and third books in the trilogy over the last couple of months – Black Sun Light My Way and North Star Guide Me Home. Both will add to my AWW challenge total, so nothing further to add here.

As many of you would know, I’ve also been reading Musketeer Space – Tansy Rayner Robert’s gender swapped retelling of The Three Musketeers, set in a space opera universe. I’ve continued on with my reading, and I’m almost up to date. Even though the story isn’t finished yet, I’ve decided to do a review of the first half for AWW, mostly as a signal boost for the book, which I’m enjoying very much.

I’ve also finished Kaleidoscope – the anthology released by Twelfth Planet Press. Given the Australian publisher and stories by some Australian women in the book, I’ve also decided to review Kaleidoscope for AWW.

Rounding out my AWW reading for the year are two further books from Twelfth Planet press – Secret Lives by Rosaleen Love and The Female Factory by Angela Slatter and Lisa Hannett. Like the above, they’ll both be reviewed on this site soon.

I’ve found the AWW challenge interesting in 2014. It is the third year I’ve undertaken the challenge, and in previous years I’ve breezed in, finishing much earlier in the year. In 2014 I was reading right up until late December in order to consume my 10 books by Australian women writers. I’m going to reflect on this a little more in my end of challenge post, just as soon as I’ve written up the remaining reviews!

Having enjoyed Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie earlier in the year, I’ve gone on to read the sequel Ancillary Sword. These are very good space opera, with some continuing fantastic reflections on the nature and impact of colonisation. I particularly like the representation of the main character (Breq), who used to be the AI controlling a whole space ship, and able to split her focus between multiple “ancillaries” (dead bodies animated and controlled by the AI) – now reduced to a single ancillary. The way she sees the world is coloured by this experience – I found the voice of the novel to have a freshness that I quite enjoyed. I’ll definitely be reading the third book in the trilogy when it comes out.

The Wild Card series, which I began re-reading as an exercise in nostalgia more than anything else, released a new book, Lowball, over the last couple of months. I enjoyed it more than some of the recent Wild Card books – it was a continuation of the Fort Freak storyline, and has that mosaic novel kind of feel. If you like the Wild Card universe, its well worth checking out. If you don’t (or have never dipped your toes into the Wild Card waters), this isn’t the place to start.

Having now read all the Wild Card books that have come out as eBooks, I came across another wildcard book – this time a graphic novel called The Hard Call. I enjoyed it – the story focused on one of my favourite characters (Croyd Crenson) and the art gave life to the strangeness of the Wild Card universe in a way that was very different from just reading prose. Having said that, I do prefer the novels – they have more depth.

I also read the next in the Long Earth series, The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I like the conceit of this series, the existence of multiple Earths that humanity can “step” into. The evolution of the world of the books has been quite satisfying, as humanity spreads out across the multiverse. Good writing, excellent dialogue, but I found myself without much more to say than in previous reviews.

Rounding out my reading was Keith Stevenson’s first novel, Horizon. I try to review and promote Australian works more broadly, so I think I’ll be writing a full review on this one too (the unwritten reviews are starting to form a log-jam!). Very enjoyable though – especially if you like science fiction on the more realistic end of the spectrum. Get out and buy a copy, don’t wait for my review!

In terms of genre television, I’ve started on two main series. The Flash has recently started playing on Foxtel. I enjoy Arrow, from which The Flash is spun off, so I thought I’d give it a go. OK so far, but need a few more episodes to form a full opinion.

I’m somewhat late to the True Blood party, but with the final season now out and Foxtel having all 7 seasons available through their on demand offering, I decided to wade in. I’ve watched seasons 1 and 2, and have just started on season 3. I like the way the world is coming together – the politics of the supernatural world are starting to come into focus. Interesting structure of episodes, with almost every episode finishing with a very deliberate cliffhanger that get resolved in the first few minutes of the next episode. I can see it would have been very successful at building a loyal base. I also like that it is set in small town southern USA – a very different starting point than most shows. Season 2 was a lot better than season 1, and I think I’m in for the long haul.

This is turning into a long post, so I’ll leave it there. Stay tuned for more AWW reviews over the next few days.

Monthly Roundup – October 2014

Another month flashes past. October 2014 went by very quickly, people. On the writing front, I’ve been typing up the first 20,000 words of a space opera I started writing longhand earlier in the year. I’ve also been thinking through the editing process for Unaligned, the manuscript I typed “the end” for not that long ago.

I’m struggling with the editing process. Not so much the theory of it. I can think of a lot of things I need to do, and there is a lot of useful advice out there on self editing. The manuscript needs a lot of polishing before I can get other people involved in reading it. I recognise that.

However (and this is a big however), I’m struggling to fit editing into my life. With the first draft writing by hand, I could find 1/2 hour here or there and get a little bit more writing down. My at-least-1-page-per-day system worked well. With a busy job and two young kids, small snippets of time are all that seem possible. But that approach is not working for me when it comes to editing. I find I need more time, the capacity to really submerge myself into the work for an extended period, before I seem to be able to edit properly. Trying to do a little bit each night is not working. In fact, on some occasions it is actually counter-productive.

That’s why I started writing another manuscript (the space opera – working title Untethered). It was easier to fit in.

So, my current strategy is to find a couple of interruption free days to kick start the process. Perhaps once I’ve delved into the manuscript in a focused way, subsequent editing bit by bit will become more feasible. Negotiations have begun with my wife to free up a weekend so I can work sans-kids (of course I’ll need to return that particular favour!). Negotiations have begun with my parents so I can grab their caravan down in Wollongong for the isolation. I’d like to find some time pre-Christmas. Wish me luck.

On the culture consumed side, I read and reviewed The Godless by Ben Peek. Excellent book, but you’ll have to read my review to find out why.

As flagged last month, I started the YA collection Kaleidoscope, but haven’t yet finished. OK so far, like the diversity theme but have my normal struggles engaging with YA work. It’s not them, it’s me.

Read another one of the recently re-released Wild Cards series, Aces Abroad. Love the flash back aspect of reading an 80s/90s series. There is one story set in Australia, and the airlines referenced were Ansett and TAA. Love it! As previously commented, some gender issues that jump out now that I didn’t notice on first reading, but not as bad as it could be. All up, I’m enjoying the re-read.

Also started The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. Only a little way in though, more to report next month.

On the TV front, I’m not liking The 100. In fact, I think I’m about to give up. It has been vaguely interesting, but they’ve just introduced a new character on the space station with a new strand of political intrigue and I realised I didn’t really care enough about what happens to the characters. I’ve got too much of a backlog of TV, I think I can afford to give this one away.

Heard an Australian podcast recently talking about the new TV series The Flash (a spin off of Arrow), but I have not been able to find it here in Australia. They must have been obtaining episodes by other means. I saw a “coming soon” ad on Foxtel though, so I would imagine it is not too far away.

The rest of my superhero fix is coming from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Arrow and Gotham. AoS has been good, I’m liking the darker, short of resources world of the second season. Arrow remains just a little over the top melodramatic, but I really like the flashback approach to showing backstory. Jury is still out on Gotham, but so far so good.

In terms of TV series finished this month, I watched the last episode of season 4 of Teen Wolf (a much shorter season this time around) and The Strain. Enjoyed both shows, with a slight preference for Teen Wolf.

So, who else is overdosing on superhero TV? Read any good books I should be considering? Any other interesting culture consumed?

The Godless by Ben Peek – review

The Godless by Ben Peek is the first in the “Children” trilogy. Peek made big news last year with the sale of this trilogy to Tor UK, a major sale for an Australian author.

I’ve enjoyed Peek’s shorter work in the past. Long time readers of the blog might recall my review of Above/Below – a small press publication by Peek and Stephanie Campisi. Given the high profile sale, my interest in Australian speculative fiction generally and my enjoyment of Peek’s previous work, I’ve kept an eye out for the publication of this book.

I won’t give much of a plot synopsis – there are plenty of other reviews of this book, most of which have a more comprehensive description of the plot. Broadly, this secondary world fantasy is based on the premise that the Gods all killed each other in a divine war thousands of years before. As they slowly pass away, their power is leeching out into the world, and some humans find themselves the unwitting recipient of some fragment of one of the former Gods’ powers. These powers have a wide variety of effects, but most of the people who survive the onset of their powers become essentially immortal.

Most of the story is set around the city of Mireea, built on a mountain range that has formed over the body of one of the dead Gods. Mireea is under threat of siege from an army formed on religious grounds.

There are three main viewpoints for the story, Zaifyr – one of the oldest of the “Gods’ Children”, an immortal thousands of years old, Ayae – one of the newest of the Gods’ Children just coming into her power and Bueralan – a mercenary in charge of a small band of saboteurs hired to operate in defence of the city.

I must admit that this has been one of my most enjoyable, refreshing reads for 2014.

I loved the premise, and in general the concepts behind the writing. It could just be me bringing my own biases into the reading, but I took a lot of parallels between Peek’s post-Gods world and our own slow move out of the shadow of historical religions. The exploration of what it means for society to stand on its own, without reference to supernatural entities. The taking on of power that has been historically seen as the province of the divine. The need to take responsibility to chart our own path forward. The power of even remnants of religion to inspire terrible deeds in the name of holy mandate. I found Peek’s interrogation of these concepts to be quite powerful and thought provoking. If nothing else, the concepts behind this story would have been enough to hook me in.

But this is no worthy but dry tome, meant to educate rather than entertain. I found the work utterly engaging, and it was only in reflecting on it later than some of these themes came through (and as I say, I could be ascribing my own biases to the work). The use of language in this work is delightful, the pacing superb. I found the characters to be vividly drawn and compelling in their motivations. In short it was an excellent read.

I particularly wanted to highlight Peek’s treatment of time. The work seamlessly switches between the past and the present, echoing his description of the nature of the Gods and subtly preparing the reader for some of the reveals later in the work. While the techniques and style are different, I was left with the same feeling I’d had when I first read Catch 22 – the dips into non-linear story telling was enjoyable on many levels. And to do it with such deceptively simple language and style, the ease with which the reader can follow the changes belying the sophistication of the writing needed to achieve that effect. Just brilliant.

I also loved Peek’s treatment of diversity. The novel is by no means a soap box, but built into the fabric of this world was an embrace of diversity that was refreshing. No “default white” characters here – Peek points out the physical characteristics of all characters as they enter the story. Women and men clearly have an equal presence in society. None of this is done in a preachy way, it is presented as mundane fact, woven into the background of the story.

I found the plot to be mature and engaging, with enough turns to maintain my interest. I cared about the characters. I wanted to know what happened next. I read the book over only a few days (unheard of for me these days!) and I’m already hanging out for the next book in the series.

A fantastic accomplishment well worth the initial publicity, with additional dollops of pleasingness based around the fact it has come from an Australian author. Highly recommended.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Monthly Round Up – August and September 2014

Two months for the price of one – I got to mid September and realised that I hadn’t written an August round up, and by the time I had written it up it was almost time for the September version.

So, last time we were chatting about culture consumed I had, on a whim, started to read the Star Wars Fate of the Jedi series. Well, that was several books ago and I’m still making my way through them. I won’t even attempt to claim that I’m learning something about the cutting edge of the genre or anything, but there are lightsabers. Lots and lots of lightsabers. At a time where I don’t have a lot of spare brain power, this series has been just the right level of escapist-just-before-bed reading that I’ve been able to handle.

Two SF TV series I’ve been watching finished up over the period – Falling Skies and Defiance. I’ve always been a bit of the fence about Falling Skies. The first couple of seasons seemed as much like a cheap copy of The Walking Dead as anything, with aliens substituted for zombies. But the series has been growing on me, and I’m still watching four seasons in, so that has to tell you something. The latest season provided some interesting character arcs, and although there was still the “reseting to zero” aspect to it (they really struggle to build and maintain anything at all in that show), the final episode did provide some intriguing lead in to the next season (assuming there is going to be a next season of course – I can’t be bothered looking up Wikipedia to find out).

Defiance is a great little show, isn’t it? Especially seeing as it was originally set up to sell a game, as far as I can tell. The show is set quite a few years after Earth has been cataclysmically (but only partially) terraformed by the arrival of a series of alien races, and is centred on the town of Defiance, a kind of a “wild west” independent frontier town that has sprung up over the ruins of St Louis. This season has an excellent major story arc centring on a world altering diabolical plot and how that impacts with Irisa – one of the main characters. I really enjoyed the series, and thought the expansion of the world building was done quite well. I don’t know whether the series will go on (the Internet is ambiguous about its chances for a third season) but if it doesn’t get renewed, it went out on a good note.

To keep my quotient of genre TV, I’ve started on a few new series. The 100 is a post-apocalypse dystopia and has a Lord of the Flies vibe, as a group of delinquent children get sent down to the surface of Earth from their space station home to test out whether the nuclear radiation has dissipated enough to support life. I’ve only watched a couple of episodes as yet – not hooked but I’ll give it a few more episodes before I decide. My steadfast march into middle age has made me a bit less patient with teen angst, and I haven’t decided yet on whether there is enough genre elements to offset my general grumpiness.

This is going to sound a bit hypocritical given the last statement, but I really like Teen Wolf. Didn’t think I would when I started watching the series on a whim a few years back. But I must admit it has filled a Buffy the Vampire Slayer based hole in my heart. The last season was great, and so far this season seems a little less cohesive, but I’m invested enough in the characters that I don’t really care.

The Originals is a vampire show. I haven’t really watched many of the vampire shows on TV (True Blood, The Vampire Diaries etc) so I’m not sure what started me on this one. Actually I do know, I was travelling for work and the pilot episode was the only thing on TV when I got back to my hotel room. Don’t mind it so far, will let you know more.

Did I mention I’ve given up on The Walking Dead midway through season 4? I can’t tell you why – I like the show, but the second half of the fourth season has been sitting on my Foxtel hard drive for months now, and I’ve deleted to free up the space. I’ll probably get them on DVD some time in the future, but for now I just couldn’t go on. Don’t judge me.

And then there is the new Doctor Who. We’re only a few episodes in, but so far I’m impressed. Capaldi is great, and injects quite an alien persona. Love the Scottish accent, love the lack of a romantic relationship with the companion, stories have been good so far. It is early days, but I’ll remain a fan for the time being.

Saw Guardians of the Galaxy when it came out. Excellent, best Marvel film for a while. Don’t know much about the comic series, but it was a fantastic ensemble cast and great storyline. If you like the Marvel series of superhero films, you’ll like GotG. If you don’t, it’s different enough that it might be worth giving a go.

I’ve been watching the SBS (short) series The Real History of Science Fiction which has been interesting. So far I’ve seen the episodes on time travel, alien invasion and space exploration. It is mostly focused on TV and movies, with the occasional book reference thrown in. Extra points for including an interesting discussion with Ursula Le Guin on Left Hand of Darkness and the use of a gender-less species. I think it is still on SBS’s online catch up TV thingie if you’re in Australia and interested in watching (note if you’re living in the future and back reading this post, the link above probably doesn’t work anymore).

Next month I’ll be moving off my Star Wars kick and getting back to some other reading. The two books on my agenda next are Land of the Golden Clouds by Archie Weller, an indigenous Australian author whose work I encountered in Walking the Clouds (An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction) edited by Grace L. Dillon. I’ve been picking through Walking the Clouds a bit piecemeal – reading some of the essays introducing stories and some of the stories. It is not, as I initially thought, an anthology of short stories. Mostly Dillon has selected extracts from longer works that illustrate the points being made in the introductory essays. The focus seems to be more North American, but there are a good scattering of selections from indigenous populations around the world. I haven’t approached it in a comprehensive enough way to write a review, but Weller’s work did catch my eye from an Australian perspective. It took a bit of work to track down a copy of Land of the Golden Clouds, and I’m looking forward to the read.

The other book I’ll be reading is one that I backed in a recent Kickstarter/Indiegogo/Pozible (one of them) campaign, Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is an anthology of young adult speculative fiction where the focus has been on lead characters from a diverse range of backgrounds. It has been getting some good buzz lately and the non-backer version is due out soon (I think you can get the eBook now from the publisher, Twelfth Planet Press).

I’m also continuing with my online reading of Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts. Roberts has been producing the work serially, and at the time of writing I am at chapter 19. Very enjoyable retelling of The Three Musketeers, with gender changes in many of the main characters. Roberts is running a Patreon campaign to gather support for the story, well worth checking out.

In podcast world, I’ve finished my binge listening to all the back-espisodes of Tea and Jeopardy, and I am loving the podcast more and more as time goes by. The host, Emma Newman, has been running a Patreon campaign. Apparently if you support the podcast, you get to read the story of how she came to have her butler Latimer in her employ. When it was first mentioned I though “meh, who cares” but as time goes on I’m finding myself more and more intrigued. I’m getting close to the “I must know” state of being than I ever thought I would. Great interview/radio play format – well worth checking out, especially if you’re interested in the Angry Robot stable of authors.

I’m now also listening to a new Australian writing podcast So You Want to be a Writer, hosted by Valerie Khoo and Alison Tate. It’s takes the form of writing news and interviews with authors. Not a SF podcast, but does keep my in touch with a broader range of writing news than I might otherwise hear. Main problem is that I don’t think I will ever be able to catch up on the back catalogue, so I might just have to skip forward to the more recent episodes.

That’s all my culture, and when it’s written out like that it seems like a lot more than it really is. Enough from me – what have you been up to?

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier – review

This review forms part of my contribution to the Australian Women Writers 2014 Reading Challenge. All my 2014 AWWC reviews can be found here.

Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier is the first book in the Children of the Black Sun trilogy. This was Spurrier’s debut novel and she has subsequently gone on to finish the trilogy.

This book has sat on my to be read shelf for a long time. I received it at an Aurealis Award ceremony a couple of years back, and it has sat staring accusingly at me from my bookshelf for all that time. And it is too bad that I waited so long to get into the book, because I really enjoyed it.

Spurrier has constructed a cohesive political and social system that sits on top of an interesting and imaginative form of magic. It took me a little bit of time to place the different countries and their relation to each other, but it clicked into place about a third of the way through the book. Something about the politics seemed fresh, I enjoyed the discovery process as we learnt more about the world.

The setting is well realised, the kind of biting cold that it is hard to imagine in Australia (or at least the parts of Australia that I’ve lived in).

It is not for the faint of heart though – the story is definitely on the grimdark end of the fantasy spectrum. There are some very cranky people that express their crankiness in some very direct ways. However the violence and grit never seem gratuitous, rather they add texture to the world.

The main characters were an interesting lot, and Spurrier explores interesting questions of diversity in her treatment of the recently physically disabled main character and the treatment of magic users in one of the societies in the world.

It is a good start to a series and I will be reading the rest.

I also reviewed this book on Goodreads. View all my reviews.

This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.

Monthly Round Up – July 2014

Not a lot read through the month of July. I’m afraid family, work and writing are combining to chew up a lot of my free time. I recently discovered that some fine folk had ported the old D&D games Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II onto the iPad, and they have sucked away what little time I have left.

I did however finish Auxiliary Justice by Anne Leckie. I enjoyed the book – good solid space opera with an engaging protagonist and interesting concepts around ship consciousness when spread across multiple “individuals” and a society where gender is irrelevant to the point where the protagonist thinks of everyone as “she”. A lot has been written about Auxiliary Justice and I’ve decided that I can add precisely zero to the debate, so I’ll leave it there. Worth a read if you’re into space opera.

I also finished Winter Be My Shield by Jo Spurrier, however I’m writing up a review for the Australian Women Writers Challenge so I won’t give away any thoughts here.

As reported earlier, I’m also reading the serial novel Musketeer Space by Tansy Rayner Roberts. A lot of fun so far, and I’ve also been enjoying the ecosystem she has been creating around the novel. As at the time of writing I’ve finished chapter 9 and am a couple of chapters behind.

My six year old daughter and I watched Star Wars for the first time (episode four) and that has given me a bit of Star Wars nostalgia. I’ve dipped into and out of into the Star Wars novels since they first started coming out, and in honour of my daughter’s first step into the universe I’ve decided to dip into a sequence of Star Wars novels I have yet read – the Fate of the Jedi. The series kicks off with a novel called Outcast by Aaron Allston. Previous forays into the Star Wars novel universe have met with mixed results, it’ll be interesting to see how this goes.

By the way, my daughter’s verdict on Star Wars? “It’s good. I particularly like Princess Leia’s hair.”

On the podcast side of things, I’ve been rapidly running through the back catalog of Tea and Jeopardy by Emma Newman. An interesting SF interview show out of the UK, that adds a little radio play style bit before and after the main interview, in which the interviewee is put into (and often escapes) a spot of mild peril. I’m really enjoying it, and there is a certain sense of continuity that is keeping me listening to the episodes in order. I’m almost caught up!

I thought I’d mention TV here as well, if there is anything of interest. Main genre TV watching for me at the moment is Continuum (the Canadian SF series about a time travelling cop from the future and the group of terrorists she’s chased back to our time). This season has been good – I’ve particularly liked the greying of the lines between “good guy” and “bad guy”.

I’ve also been watching the first few episodes of season 2 of Defiance, which has been suitably interesting. More on that in future months.

The Tomorrow People is heading towards the season (and series) finale. I think the show had some potential, but I can understand why it got axed – it wasn’t quite hitting that potential.

Looking forward to the launch of BBC First on Foxtel where they are giving us all 10 episodes of Musketeers, which looks very good from the previews.

I’ve recorded the first couple of episodes of The Strain as well, but I’m as yet undecided as to whether I’ll be watching.

That’s all for this month. What have you been reading/listening to/watching? Any suggestions?

Watermarks by Jason Nahrung (Cosmos magazine)

I don’t normally mention individual stories that I come across, but one of my favourite authors, Jason Nahrung, has a story in the latest edition of the Cosmos magazine (June/July 2014). The story is called Watermarks.

Cosmos is an Australian popular science magazine, where local speculative fiction luminary Cat Sparks edits the fiction. She usually chooses stories that are related to science in some way, and has a very discerning eye (so discerning that I wouldn’t even dare submit any of my work!). But that eye for quality means that you can always be guaranteed a good read with whatever short story she chooses.

And so it is the case with Watermarks, which represents a vignette of life in a future, drowned Brisbane. It is a story of unrequited love, of the slow erosion of society when faced with unparalleled but sedate disaster and of the importance of sunblock. I enjoyed it very much, and recommend picking up a copy of Cosmos at your local newsagent and giving it a read.

Monthly round up – June 2014

I took two novella length works for my plane reading when going down to the Continuum convention in Melbourne. Horn and Bleed by Peter M. Ball were published by Twelfth Planet Press a few years back. Both have the same main protagonist, who is a burnt out ex-cop with a strong connection into the world of the fae. I enjoyed both works, I liked the hard boiled main character, the story lines were entertaining and moved along at a good pace. I think both could have stood to be a little longer, but that is probably because I was enjoying them and didn’t want them to end quite so quickly!

I also read the latest Jim Butcher novel, Skin Game. What can I say, I like the series. Not much really to add to previous reviews – this one was a heist novel, moved along at a good pace and I liked the unexpected plot development towards the end involving a particular kind of sword. I think the novels are starting to overly rely on the intervention of the Christian God, with a little too much “let me explain away this giant coincidence that resolves the novel in a very convenient way by invoking one religion’s God and his/her ineffable plan” for my liking. But hey, when you back your characters into the kinds of corners that Butcher tends to, you probably need an all powerful deity save the day.

Apart from that I’m still working on Ancillary Justice and Winter Be My Shield. I’m enjoying both books but not getting a lot of time to read.

On the TV front, I started watching the new series of Defiance which is being fast tracked from the US on Foxtel. I enjoy the show – feels like a well used universe and I like the interactions between the alien races (feels a bit like Farscape from that perspective). Will be interested to see where they take the season this year.

I’ve also been watching the new season of Archer – Archer: Vice. Ah, Archer. So problematic. So funny.

Continuum is a good Canadian sci-fi series, well worth checking out. I’ve also been watching the remake of The Tomorrow People, but mainly in solidarity from vague but fond memories of the series from my youth. I don’t necessarily recommend it.

That’s all for this month. Stay tuned.