![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Book Reviews: The Hollow Places, Kingfisher; Animal Land, Corbet & Corbet; Knights of Sidonia, Nihei
Title: The Hollow Places
Author: T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 373,725
Text Number: 1375
Read Because: fan of the previous book in the "series," ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: While working at her uncle's bizarre local museum, a woman finds something even stranger: a hole in the wall which opens to a bunker which opens to a river dotted by doors and surrounded by willows. This has the DNA of and the lessons learned from The Twisted Ones, to which it's an indirect sequel: an irreverent, relatable protagonist stumbles into a horror plot, but where the previous book has a delightfully terrifying concept which is derailed by an action-heavy plot, this is a slower burn and a longer one. Its hook is fine, but the real pleasure is the sustained, multifaceted exploration of the world and its implications—a little like a thriller, a little like a mystery, surprisingly speculative, but wisely offering hypotheses rather than concrete answers; it's less scary than The Twisted Ones, but has that good weird fiction vibe. The ending sequence still gets a little silly, and there's irreverent-relatable-protagonist moments that don't land well (the references to fandom shipping wars already feel dated)—so, not a perfect book. But I wanted highly engaging horror & I sure did read some highly engaging horror.
Title: Animal Land: Where there are no People
Author: Sybil Corbet
Illustrator: Katherine Corbet
Published: J.M. Dent & Co., 1897
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 373,825
Text Number: 1377
Read Because: saw it come up on Tumblr, read via George A. Smathers Libraries (University of Florida)
Review: Animals conceived by a little girl as illustrated by her mother, and if the premise of wiggly monsters with weird names and abrupt nonsense captions seems like it might be delightful then, good news!, this is. It's whimsical in the sense of pure and sincere childhood nonsense; the art is delightfully bizarre and the captions are even better; there's an extensive but equally nonsense/sincere introduction by Andrew Lang.
And eminently relatable: "The Burkan: A nasty biting Thing. Theres none more about it"
Title: Knights of Sidonia vols 1-8
Author: Tsutomu Nihei
Published: Vertical, 2013-2014 (2009-2012)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 1500 (192+192+184+184+184+184+176+200)
Total Page Count: 375,325
Text Number: 1378-85
Read Because: fan of the anime, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: In the distant future, a savant mech pilot is pulled from obscurity to save a generation ship in its war against a massive, consuming alien force. DNF at volume 8 of 15, which I did not expect. I love the anime! But it's a pretty faithful adaptation with the added benefit of significantly more legible action sequences (Nihei is good at sense of scale and abysmal at action), and the slapstick and fanservice feel more obnoxious in the manga. I'm not sure if this is because they're given more space or just that I'm overlooking them in my memories of the anime; but, however thematically appropriate they are for the specific wish-fulfilment/butt-monkey role of the protagonist, it doesn't suit the tone and doesn't make them less annoying. So I'll stick with my fond memories of the anime, but I can't be bothered to finish the manga despite that I was hoping to gain insight from details which were changed/omitted in adaptation.
Author: T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon)
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2020
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 360
Total Page Count: 373,725
Text Number: 1375
Read Because: fan of the previous book in the "series," ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: While working at her uncle's bizarre local museum, a woman finds something even stranger: a hole in the wall which opens to a bunker which opens to a river dotted by doors and surrounded by willows. This has the DNA of and the lessons learned from The Twisted Ones, to which it's an indirect sequel: an irreverent, relatable protagonist stumbles into a horror plot, but where the previous book has a delightfully terrifying concept which is derailed by an action-heavy plot, this is a slower burn and a longer one. Its hook is fine, but the real pleasure is the sustained, multifaceted exploration of the world and its implications—a little like a thriller, a little like a mystery, surprisingly speculative, but wisely offering hypotheses rather than concrete answers; it's less scary than The Twisted Ones, but has that good weird fiction vibe. The ending sequence still gets a little silly, and there's irreverent-relatable-protagonist moments that don't land well (the references to fandom shipping wars already feel dated)—so, not a perfect book. But I wanted highly engaging horror & I sure did read some highly engaging horror.
Title: Animal Land: Where there are no People
Author: Sybil Corbet
Illustrator: Katherine Corbet
Published: J.M. Dent & Co., 1897
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 373,825
Text Number: 1377
Read Because: saw it come up on Tumblr, read via George A. Smathers Libraries (University of Florida)
Review: Animals conceived by a little girl as illustrated by her mother, and if the premise of wiggly monsters with weird names and abrupt nonsense captions seems like it might be delightful then, good news!, this is. It's whimsical in the sense of pure and sincere childhood nonsense; the art is delightfully bizarre and the captions are even better; there's an extensive but equally nonsense/sincere introduction by Andrew Lang.
And eminently relatable: "The Burkan: A nasty biting Thing. Theres none more about it"
Title: Knights of Sidonia vols 1-8
Author: Tsutomu Nihei
Published: Vertical, 2013-2014 (2009-2012)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 1500 (192+192+184+184+184+184+176+200)
Total Page Count: 375,325
Text Number: 1378-85
Read Because: fan of the anime, paperbacks borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: In the distant future, a savant mech pilot is pulled from obscurity to save a generation ship in its war against a massive, consuming alien force. DNF at volume 8 of 15, which I did not expect. I love the anime! But it's a pretty faithful adaptation with the added benefit of significantly more legible action sequences (Nihei is good at sense of scale and abysmal at action), and the slapstick and fanservice feel more obnoxious in the manga. I'm not sure if this is because they're given more space or just that I'm overlooking them in my memories of the anime; but, however thematically appropriate they are for the specific wish-fulfilment/butt-monkey role of the protagonist, it doesn't suit the tone and doesn't make them less annoying. So I'll stick with my fond memories of the anime, but I can't be bothered to finish the manga despite that I was hoping to gain insight from details which were changed/omitted in adaptation.