The time has passed where I could have enjoyed this series. It was fine as far as I got, if a bit weirdly capitalistic (your wish fulfillmentDNF @ 20%
The time has passed where I could have enjoyed this series. It was fine as far as I got, if a bit weirdly capitalistic (your wish fulfillment is that only millionaires can go through the portal??). But overall, the narrative voice was just not there for me, I thought the main character was mostly an idiot, and nothing is keeping me engaged emotionally. Even if I finished this first book, I wouldn't continue on in the series, so at this point might as well just stop before wasting any more time. This author probably isn't for me....more
As I've written about The Hobbit before, and because other people definitely have as well, and much better than I have, this review will be mostly aboAs I've written about The Hobbit before, and because other people definitely have as well, and much better than I have, this review will be mostly about the new audiobook productions of Tolkien's works, which are narrated by Andy Serkis, of Gollum fame. So far I have only listened to this lovely production of The Hobbit, but I have the full trilogy and The Silmarillion also ready to go for whenever I am feeling like a re-read. And chances are, now that I know how fun it is to listen to Tolkien's stories by audiobook*, that will come sooner that it would have before. So thanks, CBR BINGO!
*I've never done it before in all twenty-five plus years of being a Lord of the Rings fan, who used to read the trilogy yearly for a good stretch there. This now seems like a very obvious mistake on my part.
To sum up, THEY ARE AMAZING.
Basically—for The Hobbit at least, which was a story invented for Tolkien to read to his young children at bedtime**—this story was made to be read aloud to you. And you should definitely let that coziness influence your decisions, here.
**Famously, The Hobbit was published largely because Stanley Unwin let his ten year old son, Rayner, read the book and give it a review.
Andy Serkis, who is at heart a character actor, is the perfect choice for reading this series aloud, and he should absolutely do more audiobooks if offered the chance. There are lots of really good audiobook narrators out there, but very few who are able to inhabit characters like Serkis can. He also has a very real feel for the rhythm of the story, and often enhances the text by slowing down, speeding up, or emphasizing in all the right parts. And of course, he IS Gollum, so Chapter Five, "Riddles in the Dark" has this really fun metatextual quality to it that is sort of indescribable.
It's very fun to see Serkis sort of create his own Middle Earth in the way that he borrows speech patterns from some obvious places (his Thorin sounds eerily like Richard Armitage) and then creates his own in other places (his Gandalf does not really sound like Ian McKellen's, but is no less fun). He can, it goes without saying, do all the accents. And oh man, he goes for it with the singing. And there are a LOT of songs in here, way more than you remember.
These audiobooks are a full on experience, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I finally started listening to them. I'm going to have a hard time in the future picking up physical copies when I know this is available to listen to instead.
Update 8/14/24: I have made honey cake. Thanks, Beorn! (I said in a status update that every time I read this I want to make Beorn’s honey cakes and I never do.) Guess what it was fucking delicious.
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CBR BINGO: Rings (this BINGO card was basically taunting me to start another re-read)...more
This series is a nerdy good time. And this book in particular really leaned into the scholarly nature of Lady Trent's calling. The last book, a lot ofThis series is a nerdy good time. And this book in particular really leaned into the scholarly nature of Lady Trent's calling. The last book, a lot of page-time was taken up by Lady Trent and her companions navigating local and global politics while trying to learn about dragons, and while that is a factor here, too, Voyage of the Basilisk feels more balanced, with a focus more clearly on her science and what she got up to while doing it, and also on her personal relationships with her son and with her colleagues and those she meets along the way, unrelated to politics.
I said in my review of the last book that one of the things I appreciated about this series was that each book takes place in a very distinct location and so it's easier to keep the events straight in your head. That's both true and not true of this book. The distinct location here is on a ship traveling the oceans of the world, but ships move, and so we also get to visit various places across Lady's Trent's world as she embarks up on a two year voyage to study sea serpents and other more tropical dragons (dragon turtles!!!).
This is my favorite of these books so far. I loved the ocean atmosphere, I loved seeing multiple locations and cultures. I liked the way that the consequences of Lady Trent's actions carried through here from both the first book and the discovery of what the preservation of dragon bone has done to dragon populations in certain areas, and her banishment from certain regions of the world affecting her studies. She's also learning as she goes from her mistakes, and her growth as a scholar goes hand in hand with her growth as a mother and friend. I just liked everything about it.
I'm not sure how other people feel about the scientific discussions of made-up beings in this series, but I love it and want more of it, and I'm glad there was much more of it here than in the previous two books. I'm also VERY much here for the developing romance between Lady Trent and a certain cliff-diver.
Side note: I had no idea until last week that Marie Brennan is also M.A. Carrick, and now I need to check out The Mask of Mirrors ASAP. ...more
This could have been so much better written, but I had a great time anyway. It's truly a conundrum and an enigma. I'm genuinely surprised how much I eThis could have been so much better written, but I had a great time anyway. It's truly a conundrum and an enigma. I'm genuinely surprised how much I enjoyed this. More thoughts in my Reading Vlog. You can see the progression in real time as I grapple with how I can be so annoyed and compelled at the same time.
I don't read a lot of middle grade anymore, but when I do, this is exactly what I want. What a magical good time.30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 17/30
I don't read a lot of middle grade anymore, but when I do, this is exactly what I want. What a magical good time. The combo of whimsical worldbuilding, magical trials, friendship and found family, secrets, and darker elements that many people would say don't belong in children's books makes for something rather intoxicating (I've never yet read a favorite children's book without those darker elements btw). I've seen a lot of people talking about the book series that shall not be named in relation to this book, and I don't think they're wrong. If I would have read this book closer to the actual age range its meant for, I would have lost my mind over it. As it is, I just had a really good time and I can't believe I haven't picked up book two yet (just ordered it from Pango while writing this, so hopefully will get to it soon).
Morrigan Crow is a cursed child. In her world, this means she was a baby born on the holiday of Eventide. All children born on this night are cursed, and die before or on their twelfth birthdays. Before they die, they bring bad luck everywhere they go. They are blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong in a community. On top of this fun blessing bestowed upon her, Morrigan is also cursed with a terrible, unloving family (her grandma seems all right). But Eventide comes a year early, and Morrigan flees into another world (a kind of pocket universe, I think?) with a man called Jupiter North who takes her under his wing and wants her to try to enter the Wundrous Society, a society of magic wielders who all have a special "knack." The society is very exclusive, so the trials are intense. Also faffing around the edges of the story is the specter of a man called the Wondersmith, Ezra Squall, who was banished hundreds of years before for committing a massacre.
Everything about this book worked for me: the worldbuilding, the characters and their arcs, the plot, the style of the writing. Morrigan is a classic middle grade protagonist, smart and resourceful and pulling at your heart strings. Jupiter makes for an interesting and frustrating mentor. And the details of this world were so wacky at times, it was a constant surprise. Jessica Townsend basically channeled her childhood imagination for this book (my favorite bits being the enormous talking cat who is head of housekeeping at Jupiter's hotel where they all live, and the chandelier at the hotel that grows and changes into things like pirate ships at its own whims).
Would honestly recommend this one for both younger readers and adult ones looking to have some fun.
Wow, what happened? I should probably say up front that I genuinely do not know how much of my negative experience reading this book was me, and how mWow, what happened? I should probably say up front that I genuinely do not know how much of my negative experience reading this book was me, and how much was the book. I really liked the first book in this duology, but within about five pages of this one, I had completely turned on it. I really, really did not care what was happening, and trying to read it after that feeling appeared felt like I was torturing myself. FYI I did end up speed reading the middle of this, and then normally reading the last fifty pages or so, so it's very possible that I missed something. But I just couldn't do it, man. (The ending of the book convinced me I was right in my approach because wow did I hate that ending.)
So anyway, spoilers for the first book below; definitely don't read this book without reading the first. It would be a pointless and confusing endeavor. (It felt like that anyway for me, ouch.)
So this book picks up exactly where the last one left off, with one of the MCs (forgot name) having made a deal with an overly powered demon thing and the other (also name forgotten) having kept hers in check. Their romance is immediately supposed to feel tragic here since he made his bad decision and she made her good one, but I was just annoyed. Also, I was annoyed at the author for destroying the abbey or the school or whatever it was at the end of last book. It just went over the edge of suspenseful into This Is Too Much for me. And I could tell the book wasn't going to explore any of the things I wanted it to, in favor of the things that I liked least in the first book. And I was right.
Spoilers for this book below.
(view spoiler)[And then the characters somehow manage to repel a colonizer invasion in the short span of like a hundred pages, the dude MC dies, and the lady MC gets pregnant and there is an epilogue where the kid (who is supposed to be cute I guess) and the lady get all sentimental about the dead dad and how he saved all of China whatever this country is called. (hide spoiler)]
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I'm really kind of flabbergasted at my reaction here. I don't know how to explain it. I think if you liked the first book and where it went at the end you will like this one, too, but I don't even know at this point. Don't trust me. I've DNFed like ten or eleven books so far this year and it's only February 1st.
Last year I got into a really bad habit of not only buying pretty much every first book in a series that looked good to me, but oftentimes buying the Last year I got into a really bad habit of not only buying pretty much every first book in a series that looked good to me, but oftentimes buying the sequel as well. That is what I did for this series. I was so convinced I would love it, I overcommitted. When I finally got around to reading the first book, Daughter of the Moon Goddess, in January, I had a tough time getting through it. Something about the pacing and the writing style did not hold my attention very well. This immediately made me nervous to read the sequel. These books were published very close together. There wasn't enough time for her to grow much as a writer. So, even though I already owned a hardcover of this one, when I saw that the audio was on SCRIBD I decided to do it that way instead to see if it helped my attention span. And it did! I was much more easily able to get through this one, and in fact, I listened to it in about three days.
Natalie Naudus, the narrator, is good at her job.
Anyway, this is still a three and a half star book. The pacing issues were still there, even if I wasn't experiencing problems with them because I was doing the audiobook. I also didn't really feel much for any of the characters! The book expected me to be very invested in the love triangle, but I honestly could not care less. I thought one of the dudes was a drip, and the other was a dickhead. What caught my interest in this story the most was the various quests and explorations into Chinese mythology. I liked the bad guys a lot, they were sometimes the most interesting part. Also, she killed an obvious character to get that outrage going and it made me mad.
I will read future books by this author because there were a lot of things in here I found interesting and enjoyable, and hopefully the other stuff will get better with time.
(I sold both books, book two completely unread, on PangoBooks. Thank Jesus for PangoBooks, I would really be in the hole without it.)
This one surprised me! There has really been a lot of authors the past several years who have rescued YA fantasy 30 Books in 30 Days, Vol. 3 Book 13/30
This one surprised me! There has really been a lot of authors the past several years who have rescued YA fantasy for me, and Amélie Wen Zhao is now one of them. This book was very well-written, had intense and interesting worldbuilding, a strong main arc and a strong conflict to guide it, and the characters often made decisions that while sometimes frustrating on a personal level for me, always made the story more interesting. There are some true morally grey actions in here, which is not something you often see in YA from your main characters. I am *very* interested to see how things turn out.
This book takes place in a world where magic is real, and different cultures have different ways of accessing it (we only get two examples in the book, but presumably there are more). The country our main characters, Lan and Zen, hail from has been conquered within the last two decades by invaders from a long way away, who are determined to wipe out the existing culture and magical practitioners of the country they are now colonizing. This is a story you should be familiar with if you know anything about the processes of colonization and oppression.
Our main characters are Lan, an orphan whose mother was killed at the beginning of the invasion, but not before burning a strange mark that only Lan can see into Lan's skin. Lan has since survived on the margins of society, hoping to go unnoticed by her conquerors while also trying to find out what the mark her mother left on her means. Zen is a bit more of a mysterious figure who comes into Lan's life as it's falling apart.
Probably the only thing that didn't work for me in this book is the romance. Not every book needs romance! Or if you're going to have it, let it happen more organically. This isn't the worst example of it I've seen, but I felt their feelings developed for each other way too fast, and would have appreciated more time and more books for them to feel more natural. The romance was easy to ignore though because there was so much else going on and the arc of their relationship doesn't really follow the typical path YA fantasy romances usually do.
The realm is in peril, and the knights of the round table have been called back to duty once again, waking up from under the earth to fight . . . climThe realm is in peril, and the knights of the round table have been called back to duty once again, waking up from under the earth to fight . . . climate change. Among other things.
This was a little too long, a little repetitive (scenes back to back accomplishing the same things), and the author doesn't really wield a subtle pen (which is fine! especially since this is in part a satire, but some of the moments in this could have benefitted, I think, while others were perfect). But this author has quite the imagination and sense of humor, so I will definitely be picking up future books from him. I ended up doing the audiobook from my library after I biffed it with my e-ARC (this book was published in May) and I really liked the narrator. Ended up finishing it in a couple of days.
On a side note, this book has a very creative and amusing cure for knocking the racism out of racists, and while implausible, it made me laugh. Perhaps we, too, should consider squirrelification.
For those of you like me who need a hopeful ending, this book delivers, if that was something you were worried about (I was.)...more
I will have a lot more thoughts on this in the reading vlog on my channel that should be posting within the next week or so (depending on when I finisI will have a lot more thoughts on this in the reading vlog on my channel that should be posting within the next week or so (depending on when I finish Fourth Wing tbh) but in general I liked it. But it's a book that refuses to indulge in tropes and play to the crowd, so to speak, and instead sticks to its own purposes, which is upsetting and infuriating, as all stories accurately depicting how indigenous peoples are treated by colonizers should be. The MC is also more of a cypher for the plot and doesn't really have a lot of character growth (she's already done most of her growing before we get to her). People around her are the ones that grow and change. It also wasn't as compelling as I wanted it to be, maybe for the above listed reasons. I will be reading the rest of the series though. More thoughts in my reading vlog! (Channel is linked in my bio.)
Four stars for the fantasy plot and the characters and the humor, two stars for the romance. So let's call it 3.5 stars.Four stars for the fantasy plot and the characters and the humor, two stars for the romance. So let's call it 3.5 stars....more
I didn't have the experience of reading this first as a kid, so my reactions are entirely coming from adult Ashley on this one. I mentioned this in a I didn't have the experience of reading this first as a kid, so my reactions are entirely coming from adult Ashley on this one. I mentioned this in a status update, but having initially read that first book back in 1994, it felt incredibly strange to finally be picking up the thread of the story again after 28 years.
First, my main complaint on this one, and the reason it's getting 3.5 stars (rounded up): I wasn't a huge fan of the writing itself, which felt like it was trying too hard. It didn't feel natural, it felt like Coville was struggling to inhabit this world (which would make sense, as it took him five years to write this fairly short book). A lot of it felt overly formal.
But the story itself, I actually really liked, and I like where it seems to be going. We pick up directly after the events of the first book, with Cara being sent on a mission to retrieve her grandmother from Earth, to finally let the Wanderer return and rest. This means a quest! And traveling and adventure. We meet another dragon, another magician, and learn some more family secrets and lore of this world. I was genuinely surprised by not one but two plot twists in this book, one of which was reminiscent of how I felt as a kid learning that (view spoiler)[the Hunter was actually Cara's father, and that she was descended from Beloved (hide spoiler)].
The title of the book comes from a song Cara's grandmother, Ivy, used to sing. I actually really liked the lyrics, but still got a bit tired of them when they were repeated so much. I wish he had been a bit more circumspect and subtle about that.
I'm still mostly holding off judgment on Beloved, who we get more of here. She seems a bit over the top for me, and didn't quite work as a villain. I do like the cultish atmosphere she's created, though, with her descendants. It's super creepy. I just wish she read as a bit more human in her motivations.
Hopefully on to books three and four in the fall! I'm holding off so I can read them both back to back. (Book four is out of print and looks like it's going to cost me more than I think it should, oh well!)
I need to write this review now or I will never come back to it (see below). But I will keep it short! I liked this book a lot, but not as much as I wI need to write this review now or I will never come back to it (see below). But I will keep it short! I liked this book a lot, but not as much as I wanted to. The story was great, the world was imaginative , and I liked the characters (though the way the worldbuilding was introduced could have been much clearer; I was well into the book before I felt like I understood where the characters were and what their world looked like). I especially liked the way the book was structured around the various challenges set for our main character, Xingyin (the titular daughter), and watching her overcome them.
My main issue with this book was the pacing. It just felt strange to me, and though I can't really explain what that means (other than that the book focused on parts of the story I wasn't expecting it to, and then skipped over other parts I wanted to see), the end result was that I could not for the life of me read this book for long stretches of time. Max fifty pages and then I would have to take a break and read or do something else.
I am excited for book two, which I am getting to in February. I will make sure to give myself enough time to work with the funky pacing for that one in a way I didn't for this one.
[3.5 stars, rounded up]
NB: Even though the version I bought and read was not Harper Collins US—and I don't think the UK side of the company is striking (could be wrong, though, and please let me know if I am)—I have made a donation to the Harper Collins Union Solidarity Fund in order to support their cause on behalf of me reading this book. Grammar? Whatever. You understood me. I will donate to the fund for every Harper Collins (and imprint) book I read until they reach a fair contract with the Union. HERE are some helpful links if you want to know more....more
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