The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Fourth Wing Rebecca Yarros, 2023 Premise: Violet's mom is making her go to dragon rider school even though she doesn't want to and it's dangerous. But her sworn enemy is hot. Somehow these characters are not teenagers.  I tried, y'all. I tried to go in with an open mind. The writing isn't terrible, in that the pacing mostly trips along briskly, some of the description is fine, and the exciting bits are sometimes kind of exciting.  But MY GOD. The vapid characters, the complete lack of interesting or believable world-building, and the extremely predictable plot "twists" had me struggling to make it to the end.  You're telling me the hot rebel guy is actually nice, and also on the morally right side? I'm so shocked.  And then the narration awkwardly has to remind us that our heroine is 20, so we can stick in an explicit sex scene.  Y'all. I am not against sex scenes. And these were.... fine? Not terrible. But they didn't progress the plot or ...

The Dragon and the George Gordon R. Dickson, 1976 Premise: A man jumps mentally into a medieval fantasy world in search of his fiancee. I picked up a copy of this off a dollar rack ages ago because I knew it was the (partial) inspiration for the animated movie The Flight of Dragons, a staple of my childhood. This background knowledge meant that I finished the book despite an extremely lackluster opening section. The beginning reminded me, negatively, of Connie Willis' Oxford time travelers books, in that the characters are unlikeable, insufferable academics. Jim and his fiancee Angie are poor, depressed adjuncts scrabbling for enough work and money to buy a home. Jim feels quite hard done by, by his boss, his landlord, and the world in general. He idly wishes that he lived in a time when you could use physical force against those who wronged you, thinking this would somehow be simpler. As a historian, he should really know better. He also has a weird obsession with Angie's abi...

Blindness José Saramago, 1995 Premise: What happens to a small group of people during an unexplained epidemic of blindness. Content warnings, y'all. LOTS of them.  This is part of the "read the books already on the shelf" project, although I didn't pick this book. It was a gift, where "gift" means that if I remember right, an out-of-town visitor finished the book while visiting and didn't feel like bringing it home with them. (Not naming names here, just saying that I didn't choose this book.) I can see why it's an award-winning book, the style is interesting at first, and it feels like it's trying to say something about humanity.  Unfortunately, what it seems to be saying is that people generally suck, but women can somehow both bear horrific treatment and efficiently hold society together, but without actually getting any respect or sympathy.   It started out promising, but by the end, the style was oppressive and annoying to read, the fact...

Blackout/All Clear Connie Willis, 2010 Hugo Winner - 2011 Premise: Takes place in the same world as Doomsday Book (my rating: 3), and To Say Nothing of the Dog (my rating: 1).  Oh joy. Another one of these books.  Reading this award-winning duology has finally crystalized for me why I find this series so frustrating. I find the very premise so idiotic that I can't stand the characters. Oh no, these historians are trapped in the Blitz and maybe messed up the timeline! Why were you there, you dummies? I was willing to sort of accept Doomsday Book, assuming that a time traveler could gain some actually meaningful information about that time period that they couldn't gain any other way. But these morons seem just like any pompous grad students studying something "fun" for the heck of it. Observing people suffering and dying like they're on safari, and then freaking out when things go sideways. Why, why, why is this a good use of time travel? If there's even a c...

Protecting the Lady Amanda Radley, 2021 Premise: Eve quit being a bodyguard, but she's drawn back home for one more job that demands her talents. Falling in love with her client has never been a problem before... (It's time for a short reaction to a short book!)  After enjoying her holiday-themed Humbug , I decided to try another light romance by this author. Unfortunately, this time I was disappointed.  I don't have any inherent problem with a bodyguard/client romance, or a romance between an aristocrat and an anti-monarchist, but neither of these dynamics were compelling or convincing to me in this book. Eve's hatred of the monarchy was presented as this deep-seated part of her life, as was the past trauma that had led her to initially quit working in security, but all of this was waved away very quickly once the plot demanded it. Katherine's discomfort with her own background and exceptional ability to turn her family ties to good causes was more convenient than ...

The Yiddish Policemen's Union Michael Chabon, 2007 Hugo Winner - 2008 Premise: In the final days of Sitka before Reversion, a murder is committed, buried, and investigated.  So I went into this book trying to give it a fair shake, even though the only thing I remember about reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (by the same author) was that I thought it was overrated. Now the main thing I'm going to remember about this book is that it's tedious. It's an alternate-history murder mystery that wants to be in a hardboiled style, but the writing only occasionally comes within a glimpse of the cleverness of the greats in that genre. Mostly it's just too precious. One perceptive Goodreads review put it very well: "If he can come up with three ornamental ways to portray one thing, he includes all three of them in the book." And that person said they enjoyed the book.  To be fair, I can currently only read books in short bursts, and this book was no...

Rainbows End Vernor Vinge, 2006 Hugo Winner - 2007 Premise: In the near future, advanced technology means new healthcare, new communications, new dangers, and old human problems. I was intrigued by the beginning of this book, a bit ambivalent but still curious in the overstuffed meandering middle, and thoroughly disappointed in the sloppy end. It's probably one of those that I would have abandoned if it wasn't part of my "read all the Hugo winners" project.  I had three main problems by the end. One was mostly a function of when I read the book, but the other two were a fundamental failure to engage with the moral questions it posed and a refusal to reckon with its unlikeable main character. The first problem I had with the book isn't so much a problem with the book as it is a problem with most near-future sci-fi. It was published in 2006. It's set in 2025. The advanced technology it proposes was plausible future tech in 2006, but isn't that related to the...

Crossposted from MainliningChristmas.com The Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories Multiple authors, originally printed 1944-1962, editor Craig Yoe, collection released 2018 I stumbled across this ahead of the season this year, and I'm glad I did. Now I can warn you. It's not bad for what it is, but it is not for "children of all ages."  This book is for: Comic strip historians Adults with a specific interest in vintage/historical comic books Adults with a specific interest in vintage illustration/illustrators Grandparents (really, great-grandparents) looking for a gift that their grandchild will neither like nor understand.  It's a fairly wide-ranging collection, but none of it is great. A few of the stories are not bad: one about some polar bears who want to help Santa but keep messing up is fine. One about Santa visiting an animal Christmas party where there is a Santa costume contest is pretty cute. Another stars a gnome and the Easter Bunny and they ...

Hominids Robert J Sawyer, 2002 Hugo Winner - 2003 Premise: In two universes, an experiment, and then a neanderthal falls through an unexpected rift into a world of homo sapiens. (Content warning: rape) There's a lot to be intrigued by in the premise of this book. The different structure of neanderthal society is interesting at first, and it's well presented, slowly cluing in the reader without infodumps. At least, it is at first. But then it devolves into a series of clunky, boring conversations about systems of morality, in which the humans are left feeling self-conscious about how terrible their world is. Even though the story set on the other world (much more interesting) starts to hint at the ugliness of their system by the end, the imbalance is striking. By the time it got to fully explaining the neanderthal world, which seems awkwardly similar to modern China (secular, communist, heavy surveillance state, repressive reproductive control) but adding (possibly...

A Cup of Holiday Fear Ellie Alexander, 2019 New Release! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise:  Jules runs a bakery in charming artistic tourist town Ashland, Oregon, where she is kept busy preparing for the Christmas rush and snooping around after an out-of-towner ends up dead. I have two fairly substantial issues with this book, and in the end, I can't give it a pass. Read the full review on Mainlining Christmas! The more I think about it, the less I like it, and the writing just isn't nearly good enough to justify the moral quandary. I would like to visit the real Dickens event, though. 1 Star - Didn't Like It

To Say Nothing of the Dog Connie Willis, 1998 Hugo Winner - 1999 Premise: Takes place in the same world as Doomsday Book . Time-traveling researchers are struggling to determine the historical state of a cathedral that is being reconstructed when an accidental animal rescue might risk the stability of history. I was hopeful about this book. I liked, but didn’t love, Doomsday Book , and I had heard that this one was more fun. And it is lighter. In fact, it’s nearly insubstantial. I understand that part of the point of the plot is that the time paradoxes make it so that the characters, in the end, have no real effect on what happens. This could still be a compelling story if the characters were worth it, but they aren’t. The main character is boring and bland: the worst example of a stereotypically British person with no character traits other than “affable.” The love interest suffers from some unpleasantly gendered tropes, and her main character trait is that she’s obsessed ...

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer Neal Stephenson, 1995 Hugo winner - 1996 Premise: In a world where people are bound together only by their philosophies and their nanotech, men try to control the future and girls raise themselves with the help of a special book. This isn't the worst Hugo-winning book I've read. That honor still belongs to Stand on Zanzibar. But this is one that I would not have finished reading if it weren't for this project. The beginning is very promising. Nanotech designer Hackworth is in an interesting position, faced with the puzzle of how to teach children raised in a wealthy coddled society to be innovators and leaders. His solution is The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, a "book" which operates as a highly advanced interactive teacher, using classical fairy tale tropes to encourage learning and independence. One copy of this book, smuggled into existence by Hackworth, intended for his own daugh...

Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, Book 1) Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, 2015 Read Harder 2018 Challenge: The first book in a new-to-you YA or middle-grade series Premise: When a remote mining colony is attacked, teenagers Kady and Ezra are among those picked up by a rescue ship. Before they can reach a civilized part of the galaxy, though, they'll have to not only outrun their pursuers but also deal with whatever is causing problems with the warship's AI. I really wanted to like this book. It's so pretty! The gimmick is that the book is a dossier put together after the fact, chronicling an "incident." Said incident involves an attack on a remote mining facility by a rival corporation. The documents follow the specific experiences of Kady and Ezra from their initial interviews after the attack to psychological assessments to their communications with each other and with others onboard their respective ships, and the story is expanded with other perspe...

Holidays on Ice David Sedaris, 2008 I haven't been subjected to this unpleasant an attempt at "humor" in some time. I thought I knew what I was getting into with this, and I expected it to be mixed. Erin spoke in the past about how much he disliked most of the Sedaris segments on This American Life . Read the whole review on Mainlining Christmas

Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas Terry Spear, 2017 New Release! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. I sort of hate that I'm spending any more time and energy on this godforsaken turd of a book. The heroine starts out on a camping trip, where she's bitten by what honestly sounds like a fluffy puppy. After some terrible description and confusion on my part, I guess that must have been a wolf because now she's a werewolf. She sees a mysterious wolf across a river. And that's the set-up. Two years later, she has abandoned her friends and family to live alone and write paranormal romance. The author spends endless pages introducing the male lead by recapping what sounds like at least a dozen earlier books, none of which have any bearing on the events of THIS book. The male lead is a PI who's been hired to find her because her adoptive parents died and left her money. It's mentioned a few times that the heroine is a...

A Big Sky Christmas William W. Johnstone* and J.A. Johnstone, 2013 (Note: Many of the Christmas books I am reading this year have one notable thing in common -- they were all cheap or free on Kindle some time in the last few years. No other qualifications.) *As I discovered at the end of the book, this was one of many books written from notes/unfinished manuscripts by another after this author’s death. Premise: Famous frontiersman Jamie McCallister hadn’t intended to get involved, but someone had to get the pilgrims to Montana by Christmas. I told Erin I read a Western. I said it was boring. He said, “Yup, then it’s a western.” This book wasn’t terribly written, I guess, but I found it quite dull. All the characters are either good or evil. All the evil characters end up dead, mostly after surprisingly short, not-very-tense action scenes. All the obvious plot hooks are followed up with almost no surprises. It must be odd, to write a Western today. If someone’s just writi...

Gwendolyn’s Sword E. A. Haltom, 2015 New Release! I received a copy of this book from NetGalley for the purpose of review. Premise: Lady Gwendolyn has been doing a fine job managing her husband’s estate while he is overseas with King Richard. But with mercenaries sympathetic to Prince John passing through and machinations from her sister-in-law, Gwendolyn will use a superstition, her own stubbornness and her unorthodox training to protect her people. Spoilers ABOUND below, FYI. I was going to cut this book some slack because I assumed it was YA, but I’m not seeing that on any of the promotional pages. I might have enjoyed this at age 12. Now, not so much. It’s not that it’s terrible. It’s that it’s terribly cliche. Gwendolyn doesn’t just know how to use a sword. She’s also great at it, despite the first chapter being the first time she fights in earnest against someone with deadly intent. She’s also secretly the heir of King Arthur. I almost put the book down for good ...

Orphans of Chaos John C. Wright, 2005 Premise: Amelia and her friends go to an unusual school. The hardly ever leave and it seem like they’ve been there an awfully long time. Will they ever discover what their true backgrounds are? Do I care? Warning up front: there will be spoilers of a sort for this book. I wish I'd known more going in, or known enough not to go in. Don’t read it. Just. Don’t. I came close to not even finishing this book. I just... it’s terrible. It’s boring and unpleasant and I hated it. But here, let me explain a couple of the specific subjects I took issue with. 1) Women. I believe and have experience that corroborates the fact that men can write perfectly believable and sympathetic female characters, but I did not find that to be the case here. The main character, Amelia, starts out as a fairly stereotypical tomboy. She has little use for the only other girl of her age, who is more stereotypically female (her name is even Vanity). She has a fe...

The Knights of Christmas Suzanne Barclay, Margaret Moore, Deborah Simmons, 1997 Crossposted to Mainlining Christmas Yup, it’s officially a theme. MORE SHORT STORIES. These ones are a little more like novellas, though. This is a Harlequin Historical compilation, three short works set at Christmas. I thought it might be a somewhat entertaining read: a bit of fluffy medieval holiday romance. Well, I was right, sort of, in that it was fluffy (in a shallow way) and medieval (in its uneasy gender roles). The first story, Kara’s Gift , was the one I actually liked. It has in common with its sibling stories awkward and somewhat off-putting description in the sex scenes, but the characters are at least likable, the story super-cliche but amusing. Duncan is a landless knight, back from the crusades with enough treasure to wed his childhood sweetheart, but instead he’s swept up in a Scottish clan-war and a wild-hearted pagan lass. It’s actually kind of sweet by the end, and the romanc...

The Godborn (Forgotten Realms: The Sundering, Book Two) Paul S Kemp, 2013 New Release! I received an electronic copy of this book via Netgalley for review. Premise: Dungeons and Dragons is coming out with a new edition next year. This series of books (each focused on a different set of characters) take place during the in-world adjustments necessary so that the abilities of the characters in the novels will match the adjustments to the rules of the game. Insert eyeroll here. Okay, remember how I said that the first one of these books wasn’t a good jumping on point? This one is worse. Now, my reaction is probably partially due to the fact that rather than starting with a bit of poorly-remembered background on the characters, I had nothing going into this one. However, these books were not only offered to Netgalley reviewers, they were specially   promoted to them , so it’s Wizards of the Coast’s own PR department’s fault if new readers are reviewing these. This book...