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netgirl_y2kBehind the Throne - KB Wagers
Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Humans - Matt Haig
Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel
Mongrels - Stephen Graham Jones
I really wanted to like Behind the Throne. It's about a gunrunner who is dragged back home to become empress of her Indian inspired matriarchal space empire; I should have liked it, but it's just... not very good. Firstly, it's meant to be set in a space faring society, except this has little to no relevance on the plot, and on the rare occasions that they actually mention spaceships or aliens it actually throws you out of the story because you have to stop and go 'oh yeah, they're in space, I'd forgotten'. There's literally nothing to distinguish it from a generic, earthbound fantasy story; they're fighting saxons, for fuck's sake. At least there's palace intrigue, I told myself; bland, predictable, telegraphed from a mile away palace intrigue. The heroine is a hyper-competent, green-haired, natural leader, who everyone instinctively follows; so far so generic YA heroine, and the fact that she's thirty-eight does nothing to change this. Did I mention that her full name is Hailimi Mercedes Jaya Bristol (My Immortal flashbacks, anyone?), and yet she's thirty-eight, and this book appears to have been marketed towards people who aren't thirteen?
Yeah, I didn't like it.
Luckily Children of Time was an excellent pallet cleanser. So, thousands of years in the future a decadent humanity decides to seed a planet with some monkeys infected with a virus that will accelerate their evolution and intelligence enabling humans to have monkey butlers when they finally colonise the planet. Except. Except all the monkeys die on impact, the humans never arrive, and the virus infects the local spiders. The book follows the developing spider society as they discover God, atheism, and gender equality (the male spiders would like the females to stop killing them after sex, please and thank you). Intercut with this are the last refugees from a dead Earth, navigating a hostile universe, and slowly realising it's the planet of the spiders or extinction.
I was Team Spider, but you should make up your own mind.
The Humans is about an alien who takes over the body of a mathematician without knowing anything about life on Earth and has to navigate his baffling life in Cambridge. It was also written following the author's struggle with depression, and is an ode to how life can seem awful and baffling and pointless, but there are always dogs, and peanut butter sandwiches, and Beach Boys songs, and maybe the little things can be enough until you get a handle on the big things.
I can see how some people might find it twee, but I thought it was lovely, not least because one of my coping methods for brain weasel attacks genuinely is: but, dogs!
Sleeping Giants is about parts of a mysterious, impossible giant robot being found buried under the earth and the quest to assemble it, and is told pretty much exclusively through interviews with a shadowy man-in-black figure. Two things, 1) this was a super quick, super fun, super well-written read, and 2) it's the first instalment of a series, and I can easily see how the aliens planted a giant robot on prehistoric Earth storyline could easily go off the rails, so I'm reserving judgement.
I will for sure read book two though.
Mongrels was a time jumping, steam of consciousness tale about a boy coming of age in a family of werewolves. Now, I know I'm not interested in stories about young men coming of age, and I hardly ever like werewolf stories as much as I think I'm going to, so it's no surprise I didn't love this, but I can see how it would work hella well if this was more in your wheelhouse.
(Graphic novels were Wonder Woman: Love and Murder which is exactly as bad as you'd expect Diana written by Jodi Picoult to be, and Captain Marvel: Higher, Further, Faster, More, Stay Fly & Alis Voltat Propriis which started fun and charming, and then went off the rails giving me a taste of what it feels like when a story you've been merrily following gets highjacked by an event you haven't the foggiest about.)
Children of Time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Humans - Matt Haig
Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel
Mongrels - Stephen Graham Jones
I really wanted to like Behind the Throne. It's about a gunrunner who is dragged back home to become empress of her Indian inspired matriarchal space empire; I should have liked it, but it's just... not very good. Firstly, it's meant to be set in a space faring society, except this has little to no relevance on the plot, and on the rare occasions that they actually mention spaceships or aliens it actually throws you out of the story because you have to stop and go 'oh yeah, they're in space, I'd forgotten'. There's literally nothing to distinguish it from a generic, earthbound fantasy story; they're fighting saxons, for fuck's sake. At least there's palace intrigue, I told myself; bland, predictable, telegraphed from a mile away palace intrigue. The heroine is a hyper-competent, green-haired, natural leader, who everyone instinctively follows; so far so generic YA heroine, and the fact that she's thirty-eight does nothing to change this. Did I mention that her full name is Hailimi Mercedes Jaya Bristol (My Immortal flashbacks, anyone?), and yet she's thirty-eight, and this book appears to have been marketed towards people who aren't thirteen?
Yeah, I didn't like it.
Luckily Children of Time was an excellent pallet cleanser. So, thousands of years in the future a decadent humanity decides to seed a planet with some monkeys infected with a virus that will accelerate their evolution and intelligence enabling humans to have monkey butlers when they finally colonise the planet. Except. Except all the monkeys die on impact, the humans never arrive, and the virus infects the local spiders. The book follows the developing spider society as they discover God, atheism, and gender equality (the male spiders would like the females to stop killing them after sex, please and thank you). Intercut with this are the last refugees from a dead Earth, navigating a hostile universe, and slowly realising it's the planet of the spiders or extinction.
I was Team Spider, but you should make up your own mind.
The Humans is about an alien who takes over the body of a mathematician without knowing anything about life on Earth and has to navigate his baffling life in Cambridge. It was also written following the author's struggle with depression, and is an ode to how life can seem awful and baffling and pointless, but there are always dogs, and peanut butter sandwiches, and Beach Boys songs, and maybe the little things can be enough until you get a handle on the big things.
I can see how some people might find it twee, but I thought it was lovely, not least because one of my coping methods for brain weasel attacks genuinely is: but, dogs!
Sleeping Giants is about parts of a mysterious, impossible giant robot being found buried under the earth and the quest to assemble it, and is told pretty much exclusively through interviews with a shadowy man-in-black figure. Two things, 1) this was a super quick, super fun, super well-written read, and 2) it's the first instalment of a series, and I can easily see how the aliens planted a giant robot on prehistoric Earth storyline could easily go off the rails, so I'm reserving judgement.
I will for sure read book two though.
Mongrels was a time jumping, steam of consciousness tale about a boy coming of age in a family of werewolves. Now, I know I'm not interested in stories about young men coming of age, and I hardly ever like werewolf stories as much as I think I'm going to, so it's no surprise I didn't love this, but I can see how it would work hella well if this was more in your wheelhouse.
(Graphic novels were Wonder Woman: Love and Murder which is exactly as bad as you'd expect Diana written by Jodi Picoult to be, and Captain Marvel: Higher, Further, Faster, More, Stay Fly & Alis Voltat Propriis which started fun and charming, and then went off the rails giving me a taste of what it feels like when a story you've been merrily following gets highjacked by an event you haven't the foggiest about.)