Book #53 of 2016 + two others (Bitter Seeds, The Cat Kin, Duncton Wood)

[thistlechaser]

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



How in the world did this book get on my Kindle? I can only guess it was one of those monthly free books that publishers or Amazon give away.

It's 1939. The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly normal man gets caught in between.

I do not want to read about Nazis. I especially don't want to read about Nazi characters who buy children and drill into their skulls (complete with description of the smell of burning bone and the children screaming). I have no interest in the supernatural or in demons. Seriously, why was this book on my Kindle?

I got about 8% in, which is really more chance than I should have given it, before giving up on it.

The Cat Kin by Nick Green
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



I couldn't decide if this was a bad book or just a really strange book. In it all humans have a spark of cat soul within their own souls. For most people it's just a tiny spark, but some people have more. By complete random (unbelievable) chance, a woman with a cat soul finds a bunch of kids with lots of cat in their souls and trains them to become cats.

I could kind of go along with the story that far, but then it got into things like "catras" (instead of chakras) and cat-ing other new age stuff. Plus the "cat kin" (kids) did completely unreasonable things (even for cat-kid things). I reached the 50% of the book, thus counting it for the year, before giving up on it.

Duncton Wood by William Horwood
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)



There was almost nothing bad about this one, but it didn't hook me either. It was like Watership Down with moles instead of rabbits. It kept using 'mole' in annoying ways though (like "Has anymole seen him?"), and that was the final straw to me giving up on the book.

I had really wanted to like this one, as I had heard it got really dark (murder, rape, etc... by moles!) but I have way too many books to read to stick with one that's not working for me.

Comments

[loup_noir]

I LOVED the Tregellis series you hated. It punched all of my buttons. However, as we all know, your mileage may vary.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it worked for you (and others!). My tastes seem to be getting more and more narrow, so it's easier for books to fall outside that. I did wonder if it would hook me if I kept reading, but my To Read pile is about 170 books big, so I'm quicker to give up on things now.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

"Catras" made me giggle, but I love terrible puns, so. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, at first it amused me, but the author was using them like a serious thing, not to be funny, and eventually it got to be a bit too much for me.

The whole thing was just too odd. Like, by focusing on certain Catras, they could make invisible cat whiskers come out of their face, or change their spines, or make "energy claws" come out of their fingers.

I do wonder if they ever became real, furry cats, but I've deleted the book now, so oh well.

[resonant.livejournal.com]

I'm not a Tregellis fan either, although everyone keeps trying to get me to give it another try.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Seems to be hit or miss with folks, based on the comments so far.