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Book #1000! This is an entirely-arbitrary number resulting from "number of books reviews that I managed to write up, for new-to-me or unreviewed books and/or series, posted since I started posting reviews online in college." It doesn't reflect what I've actually read in that time. It's still a neat round number!
When I was a (pre?-)teen I used to write book reviews on index cards, and then stopped all through high school, until I was 20. My old reviews are atrocious & some of them haunt me. Mostly I've made them shorter (despite that the #1000 batch has some longer reviews in it), but I also like to think they're ... yanno, better. I'm glad I write them.
And I appreciate that Cherryh is book 1000, because I love her work a lot and it's pretty indicative of my reading preferences.
Title: Cloud's Rider (Finisterre Book 2)
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: Aspect, 1996
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 300,545
Text Number: 1000
Read Because: fan of the author, hardback from my personal library (purchased used, unsure from where)
Review: The threat of another rogue sends Danny and the Goss kids up the mountain to Evergreen, on the edges of known land. Where the first book was interesting worldbuilding and engaging tropes cascading into a too-neat ending, this is almost the reverse: tedious, mundane social tensions building to a worldbuilding-heavy climax that still relies somewhat on the coincidence that burdened the first book, but which pays off character arcs and the unsettling, unknown setting. I read this for the bond animal trope, and I love Cherryh's id-heavy take on it even more here than in the first book, if only for the presence (and diversity) of new bonds.
But I find myself hung up on the issue of Brionne. ( Spoilers. )
( Two quotes, really great quotes about psychic communication and psychic bonds and bond animals. )
Title: The Raven Tower
Author: Ann Leckie
Published: Orbit, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 425
Total Page Count: 300,970
Text Number: 1001
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Raven Tower
The Lease's Heir returns home to find his sacrificial duties usurped by his uncle—a summary which does this book no favors, because its true narrative is in its PoV, an alternating first- and second-person that obscures speaker and protagonist and antagonist. Unfortunately, its secrets are over-explained by the 70% mark, as characters recap the situation to one another ad infinitum—which belies a final development that retroactively makes the rest of the book more successful.
It's difficult to describe without spoilers! (I went in with zero foreknowledge, and am glad of it.)
I always want my fantasy gods to be stranger, larger, less human than they are on the page—and the rules that govern godhood here have strong internal logic but do make the gods feel limited. This is at odds with the awe and fear experienced by the human characters, and I envy them that and wish some were translated to the reader. This could have been a more ambitious experiment—stranger, bigger, less comprehensible; or just dense enough that the recaps didn't grow repetitive. But within the scope it has, as an experiment in narrative voice (how literal and deceptive PoV is; how the reader adapts their expectations to the speaker's) this is clever and sticks the landing. I wanted it to blow me away, but I'll settle for finding it solidly enjoyable.
Title: Alone (Tout Suel)
Author: Christophe Chabouté
Translator: Ivanka Hahnenberger
Published: Gallery 13, 2017 (2008)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 301,355
Text Number: 1002
Read Because: reading books in translation, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A man lives isolated on a lighthouse at sea. This is about imagination and language and loneliness, and these themes are fine but never developed with particular depth. The dense black and white art and sparse dialog is an aesthetic that doesn't work for me. Its starkness reads a like a Photoshop filter even when it's technically good art, and there's no contrast—no beauty to evoke the themes of imagination; too much repetition within the panels for such a sparse narrative.
(Four of the five speaking cast members are male, and the sole woman is seen explicitly and almost exclusively through the male gaze. Here's what an isolated man misses out on: companionship, diversity, and also boobs. No thanks.)
When I was a (pre?-)teen I used to write book reviews on index cards, and then stopped all through high school, until I was 20. My old reviews are atrocious & some of them haunt me. Mostly I've made them shorter (despite that the #1000 batch has some longer reviews in it), but I also like to think they're ... yanno, better. I'm glad I write them.
And I appreciate that Cherryh is book 1000, because I love her work a lot and it's pretty indicative of my reading preferences.
Title: Cloud's Rider (Finisterre Book 2)
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: Aspect, 1996
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 300,545
Text Number: 1000
Read Because: fan of the author, hardback from my personal library (purchased used, unsure from where)
Review: The threat of another rogue sends Danny and the Goss kids up the mountain to Evergreen, on the edges of known land. Where the first book was interesting worldbuilding and engaging tropes cascading into a too-neat ending, this is almost the reverse: tedious, mundane social tensions building to a worldbuilding-heavy climax that still relies somewhat on the coincidence that burdened the first book, but which pays off character arcs and the unsettling, unknown setting. I read this for the bond animal trope, and I love Cherryh's id-heavy take on it even more here than in the first book, if only for the presence (and diversity) of new bonds.
But I find myself hung up on the issue of Brionne. ( Spoilers. )
( Two quotes, really great quotes about psychic communication and psychic bonds and bond animals. )
Title: The Raven Tower
Author: Ann Leckie
Published: Orbit, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 425
Total Page Count: 300,970
Text Number: 1001
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Raven Tower
The Lease's Heir returns home to find his sacrificial duties usurped by his uncle—a summary which does this book no favors, because its true narrative is in its PoV, an alternating first- and second-person that obscures speaker and protagonist and antagonist. Unfortunately, its secrets are over-explained by the 70% mark, as characters recap the situation to one another ad infinitum—which belies a final development that retroactively makes the rest of the book more successful.
It's difficult to describe without spoilers! (I went in with zero foreknowledge, and am glad of it.)
I always want my fantasy gods to be stranger, larger, less human than they are on the page—and the rules that govern godhood here have strong internal logic but do make the gods feel limited. This is at odds with the awe and fear experienced by the human characters, and I envy them that and wish some were translated to the reader. This could have been a more ambitious experiment—stranger, bigger, less comprehensible; or just dense enough that the recaps didn't grow repetitive. But within the scope it has, as an experiment in narrative voice (how literal and deceptive PoV is; how the reader adapts their expectations to the speaker's) this is clever and sticks the landing. I wanted it to blow me away, but I'll settle for finding it solidly enjoyable.
Title: Alone (Tout Suel)
Author: Christophe Chabouté
Translator: Ivanka Hahnenberger
Published: Gallery 13, 2017 (2008)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 385
Total Page Count: 301,355
Text Number: 1002
Read Because: reading books in translation, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A man lives isolated on a lighthouse at sea. This is about imagination and language and loneliness, and these themes are fine but never developed with particular depth. The dense black and white art and sparse dialog is an aesthetic that doesn't work for me. Its starkness reads a like a Photoshop filter even when it's technically good art, and there's no contrast—no beauty to evoke the themes of imagination; too much repetition within the panels for such a sparse narrative.
(Four of the five speaking cast members are male, and the sole woman is seen explicitly and almost exclusively through the male gaze. Here's what an isolated man misses out on: companionship, diversity, and also boobs. No thanks.)
