![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: A Deadly Education
Author: Naomi Novik
Published: Del Rey, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 353,530
Text Number: 1277
Read Because: fan of the author/reviewed by Rosamund, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A wizard with an unwanted aptitude for destructive magic in her second year at a deadly magical school finds things ever more complicated by the hero who keeps saving her—and everyone else. All these elements are strong: the proto-antagonist PoV is edgy without being tiresome, funny but balanced by realistic character flaws; the "hero as a supporting character, and also he's dumb" trope is great fun in the context of magical schools and the looming shadow of Harry Potter, and reminds me of Brennan's In Other Lands; the school is surprisingly fascinating—dangerous but often in realistically tedious ways, with a unique magic system, and delivered through a whole host of infodumping which is somehow satisfying rather than immersion-breaking, a trick Novik also pulls off in the Temeraire books and which I adore. The actual action of the plot is less interesting than immersion in the world, and the attempt to build character development and a satisfying ending in a book about how the world has innate problems that society makes worse can't but feel a little too easy, a little hollow. But these are nitpicks; I enjoyed the hell out of this & look forward to more.
Title: Girls' Last Tour
Author: Tsukumizu
Published: Yen Press, 2017-2019 (2014-2018)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 960 (160+160+160+160+160+160)
Total Page Count: 354,860
Text Number: 1279-1284
Read Because: mentioned in comparison to the manga Blame!, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review of the series entire. Two girls traverse the empty, decaying superstructure that was once home to humanity. I wanted to like this, and the post-apocalyptic take on the iyashikei genre has the right elements: lonely, intimate, soft, sparse; a comforting and gentle sadness. But I never grew to like Yuuri, which is a pretty substantial hang-up in a cast of two, and the pacing of the chapters—consider a philosophical issue, encounter a thematically-relevant landmark, obtain an limited and bittersweet understanding the issue, repeat—doesn't allow for organic depth. The later, longer arcs are more successful, but I never found myself invested in the world or lost in the atmosphere.
Title: The Black God's Drums
Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 354,970
Text Number: 1285
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I'm glad I read this is audio, because it's all about lively voice and a living, vibrant setting—alt-history/steampunk/magical New Orleans reminiscent of the best intentions of Shawl's Everfair. (That said, the first person narration makes for particularly obvious infodumps.) But what plot slips in through the worldbuilding is slim. The protagonist's ride-along god got me to pick this up, and it gets a lot of page time, but it lacks those elements (tension, pseudo-internal conflict, an intimate relationship with inconceivable power, resulting character/relationship arcs) which draw me to the concept; as promising as it is, it just ends up feeling like a superpower. All the complexity is in the world; the rest is more action than depth.
Author: Naomi Novik
Published: Del Rey, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 353,530
Text Number: 1277
Read Because: fan of the author/reviewed by Rosamund, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A wizard with an unwanted aptitude for destructive magic in her second year at a deadly magical school finds things ever more complicated by the hero who keeps saving her—and everyone else. All these elements are strong: the proto-antagonist PoV is edgy without being tiresome, funny but balanced by realistic character flaws; the "hero as a supporting character, and also he's dumb" trope is great fun in the context of magical schools and the looming shadow of Harry Potter, and reminds me of Brennan's In Other Lands; the school is surprisingly fascinating—dangerous but often in realistically tedious ways, with a unique magic system, and delivered through a whole host of infodumping which is somehow satisfying rather than immersion-breaking, a trick Novik also pulls off in the Temeraire books and which I adore. The actual action of the plot is less interesting than immersion in the world, and the attempt to build character development and a satisfying ending in a book about how the world has innate problems that society makes worse can't but feel a little too easy, a little hollow. But these are nitpicks; I enjoyed the hell out of this & look forward to more.
Title: Girls' Last Tour
Author: Tsukumizu
Published: Yen Press, 2017-2019 (2014-2018)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 960 (160+160+160+160+160+160)
Total Page Count: 354,860
Text Number: 1279-1284
Read Because: mentioned in comparison to the manga Blame!, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Review of the series entire. Two girls traverse the empty, decaying superstructure that was once home to humanity. I wanted to like this, and the post-apocalyptic take on the iyashikei genre has the right elements: lonely, intimate, soft, sparse; a comforting and gentle sadness. But I never grew to like Yuuri, which is a pretty substantial hang-up in a cast of two, and the pacing of the chapters—consider a philosophical issue, encounter a thematically-relevant landmark, obtain an limited and bittersweet understanding the issue, repeat—doesn't allow for organic depth. The later, longer arcs are more successful, but I never found myself invested in the world or lost in the atmosphere.
Title: The Black God's Drums
Author: P. Djèlí Clark
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 110
Total Page Count: 354,970
Text Number: 1285
Read Because: personal enjoyment, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I'm glad I read this is audio, because it's all about lively voice and a living, vibrant setting—alt-history/steampunk/magical New Orleans reminiscent of the best intentions of Shawl's Everfair. (That said, the first person narration makes for particularly obvious infodumps.) But what plot slips in through the worldbuilding is slim. The protagonist's ride-along god got me to pick this up, and it gets a lot of page time, but it lacks those elements (tension, pseudo-internal conflict, an intimate relationship with inconceivable power, resulting character/relationship arcs) which draw me to the concept; as promising as it is, it just ends up feeling like a superpower. All the complexity is in the world; the rest is more action than depth.
