juushika

Title: Talking to Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles #4)
Author: Patricia C. Wrede
Narrator: Bruce Coville et al.
Published: Listening Library, 2002 (1985)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 255
Total Page Count: 537,795
Text Number: 1969
Read Because: continuing the series, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Daystar is sent into the Enchanted Forest in possession of a sword and his mother's assurance that he'll figure out what to do with it when the time comes. This is fun! It feels substantial, and Daystar's PoV is the biggest factor in that: an educated outsider to the Enchanted Forest, he can be both reader stand-in and guide, and frames the whimsy and danger with humorous genre-awareness; and the mystery of what he doesn't know keeps this from being a straight travelogue or questing narrative. I still prefer Dealing with Dragons, but that's my particular wish-fulfillment fantasy. I regret that I didn't read this series in publication order, because the interstitial books almost serve a purpose, then; I get the nods and there sure is a sweeping, summarized backstory for them to fill out. Instead, at least, I get to go out on a high note.

Title: The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage
Author: Anthony Brandt
Narrator: Simon Vance
Published: Random House Audio, 2010
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 450
Total Page Count: 537,540
Text Number: 1968
Read Because: this cold boys reading list, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: My first delve into the Franklin expedition, so maybe my opinion will alter as I learn more, but this was a fantastic introduction. As much about the background to the expedition (why Franklin, why these other players, why the Northwest Passage) as the expedition itself, and in fact largely unconcerned with positing clever explanations for its failure (explanations are all but implied by the catalog of near-failures on record from prior expeditions), this is fairly exhaustive without being stodgy, and its efforts to characterize both the people involved and the fatal British preoccupation with the Northwest Passage achieves a satisfying nuance, a thorough why that still allows for "but why, tho."

Simon Vance is a prolific audiobook narrator, granted; when he began "after the Napoleonic War, the British had a lot of navy personnel out of work" all I could think was, were there dragons, Simon, did they have dragons? (It would have helped a lot with the search for the Passage!)

Title: To the South Polar Regions: Expedition of 1898–1900
Author: Louis Bernacchi
Published: Hurst and Blackett, 1901
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 537,050
Text Number: 1966
Read Because: these boys are just so cold, borrowed from Open Library
Review: Bernacchi is one of the better writers in my travelog readings: funny, with a dark bent, managing evocative and informative depiction both of the sweeping grandeur of Antarctica and the gripes of close-quarters and rough living. But readers picking this up because Bernacchi "was critical of aspects of Borchgrevink's leadership" (as per Wikipedia) may be disappointed by his understated criticism. Bernacchi is subdued, bordering on passive aggressive: he's frank about the conditions at Camp Adare, but Borchgrevink is notable largely for his absence, rarely mentioned, a quiet dismissal noticeable particularly when Bernacchi contradicts Borchgrevink's version of events. The Southern Cross expedition is largely forgotten, for reasons both unfair and actually quite fair. The sequence of events is a lot of nerd talk (admirable, but not especially engaging) and frustrated, failed excursions; this is a skippable, slipshod cold mess of an expedition, not especially distinctive or memorably tragic, vaguely embarrassing, despite Bernacchi's honesty. Predictably, I still enjoyed it, especially when the accounts are contrasted.

Title: Real Hero Shit
Author: Kendra Wells
Published: Iron Circus Comics, 2022
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 120
Total Page Count: 535,150
Text Number: 1961
Read Because: personal enjoyment, paperback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: A prince inserts himself into a wandering party about to hit the road. Not-DnD narratives feel best primed to grab me when they deviate from expected worldbuilding or do the weirdest possible things with the available magical conventions. There's not none of this here; particularly, secular vs faith-based magic is engaging worldbuilding. But this is pretty straightfoward. Action/adventure, queer and a little sexy, I like the rogue, quite readable—but, forgettable.

Title: The Girl with the Silver Eyes
Author: Willo Davis Roberts
Published: Alladin, 2017 (1980)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 534,705
Text Number: 1958
Read Because: mentioned on rachelmanija's 100 books list, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Nine-year-old Katie has strange silver eyes and the stranger ability to move objects around with her mind. Seeing this title on a formative book list hit me with nostalgia, but upon (re?)reading ... I have zero memory of it! Go figure that; and I liked it without the benefit of nostalgia. Our strange, misunderstood, bright, awful protagonist is easy to identify with but, though the power of telekinesis and a burgeoning social group, also incredible wish-fulfillment, and her skeptical, limited PoV makes for an engaging little mystery plot which is more believable and authentically young than it is strained, with a satisfyingly nuanced ending.

Title: The Case Against Satan
Author: Ray Russell
Published: Penguin, 2015 (1962)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 170
Total Page Count: 534,170
Text Number: 1956
Read Because: saw this pop up in a Yuletide letter, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Immediately after being relocated to a new parish, a priest is confronted with an apparent possession. This is a brief, dense, directed book, contained and complete. As the priest wrestles with his belief in the existence of Satan, as a congregation looks suspiciously at the strange goings-on at the rectory, the possession and exorcism are seen from all angles, belief and doubt, spiritual and psychosomatic, clear or complicated. I didn't find this scary, but it's an engaging, lively metaphysical puzzlebox.

Title: Scott's Last Expedition, Volume I
Author: Robert Falcon Scott
Published: 1913
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 533,730
Text Number: 1954
Read Because: y'all we are so far down this rabbit hole I can't see sunlight, ebook via Project Gutenberg but also OpenLibrary has scans! of multiple publications! with all sorts of appendixes and Volume II if you happen to need that for Reasons
Review: Scott's diary as a follow-up to Cherry-Garrard's Worst Journey in the World (which is how I read it) is damned to be unsatisfying, because there are no answers here to lingering questions: Scott does not write of his position, particularly excluding the specificities of (and the crucial logic behind) the orders he gave. (Why five men, Scott. Why??) But what remains is not entirely private: the diary is a potential public document, either directly or in adaptation to travelogue, and as such this is both personal and edited: evocative impressions of daily life and the landscape, a sincere investment in the scientific aims of the expedition, and a fine tension between anxiety, determination, and hope that gives each setback a tragic cast. The polar run and particularly the return journey feel markedly different, aware and despairing of the potential future audience and yet painfully raw.

Title: Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins Series I & II Collection
Author: Matthew Mercer Jody Houser, Matthew Colville Illustrator: Olivia Samson, Chris Northrop
Published: Dark Horse Books, 2020 (2019-20)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 532,670
Text Number: 1950-1
Read Because: fan of Critical Role, hardback borrowed from the Timberland Regional Library
Review: Rolling this far back means everyone is less likeable, less capable, less interconnected, which... There are stories to be told, but they lack almost everything I might like about/want from Vox Machina. The exceptions are usually preexisting-to-present-narrative connections (Vex & Vax, Pike & Grog, and honestly I just like seeing Percy because he has such a chunky backstory); but everyone meeting doesn't do a ton for me. And I love C1! I'll pick up the next volume eventually; art is fine, the bind-up itself is gorgeous.

Title: The Worst Journey in the World
Author: Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Published: 1922
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 820
Total Page Count: 532,130
Text Number: 1947-8
Read Because: this fill in threesentenceficathon 2025, ebook via Project Gutenberg
Review:
A (rather complete) telling of the tragic 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition, compiled from the author's memories and journals as well as the journals of other men present. Rather complete, I say, because this begins with departure; the packing and sea voyage sections could probably be skimmed, but I've been itching to read about the close quarters & logistics of historical sailing so I appreciated them. The slow cascade from petty errors to great tragedy is more profound, more linear, in retrospect and/or knowing the hero worship/criticisms of Scott to which Cherry-Garrard is responding. But as that narrative builds:

Cherry-Garrard is unexpectedly adroit, moving through tone and time, the long slow trudge of sledging and setting up depots to living among fellow explorers to the overwinter journey to obtain emperor penguin eggs which, frankly, is the titular worst. He's funny, morbidly so, both intentionally and in the horror of hindsight; I took multiple pauses to independently research topics like historical British artic exploration gear (particularly clothing and sleeping bags), and, sincerely, this expedition was a hell of their own devising. The following summer's attempt at the pole reiterates some of the slow build of pacing and is a quiet, well-considered horror, a detailed account that avoids pure hero worship but also bitterness, that becomes something like a study of the stiff upper lip: persisting through suffering is not an accomplishment but a good way to elicit more of the same.

This isn't five stars in the sense of perfect; Cherry-Garrard, for all his care, still gives Scott too much credit and is absolutely a product of the echo chamber of his time; and, yes, the text occasionally drags. But in the sense of laughed, cried, would not stop talking about this with anybody in hearing range for a month--I'm obsessed. Exceeds expectation, surprisingly quotable, full of crunchy details but also honest in its character sketches and psychological focus, and, I agree: the worst journey in the world, remarkably evoked.

CW for animal abuse because, while the humans could by and large consent to suffer, the same was not true of the ill-husbanded dogs and horses of the expedition. Absolutely bonkers decision-making and self-justifications where the animals were concerned.

Title: Voice Of The Blood (Voice of Blood Book 1)
Author: Jemiah Jefferson
Published: Leisure Books, 2001
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 521,100
Text Number: 1896
Read Because: personal enjoyment, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: How I became a vampire by falling in love with four disparately sexy guys and having a lot of crazy sex: the novel. I've been an avid reader of idfic since, oh, forever, and never landed such a motherlode in trad publishing. Is it too much of a good thing? Absolutely. This is fanfic rules applied to OCs, ridiculous and masturbatory; it feels like it could have posted on LJ in serial installments. And it's great. The total commitment is eminently satisfying: love, bound up in weird psychic vampire mind control powers, examined in depth from radically different angles via multiple overlapping relationships. File this between Lost Souls and paranormal romance: not as gritty or amoral as Brite, but sharing Brite's aesthetics, plenty thorny as questions of vampire morality/mortality ought to be, and glossed by an indulgence of sex. I plowed through this and will probably try the sequels.

( Wounds (Voice of Blood Book 2) )

( Fiend (Voice of Blood Book 3) )

( A Drop of Scarlet (Voice of the Blood Book 4) )