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thistlechaserBefore I get to the reviews: I finally, after more than 20 years, stopped paying for webhosting and a domain name. Long ago, owning a website was a lot more common and more necessary. Nowadays there's really little need.
Unfortunately that means a number of images in old posts will be broken now. Not much I can do about that, but how often do people go back and look at my really old posts? I doubt too often.
Also, tomorrow (if all goes well) I'm closing on my first home. Sometime after that I'll be moving, so there might be a break in my already infrequent posting.
The Dragon and the Stars by assorted authors. An anthology of Chinese culture-inspired science fiction. I wish there were a way to find all the anthologies on my Kindle so I can try them, delete them, and be done with them.
Like most of the others I've read, this one was mostly a bust. It had one outstanding story (the first one, of course), then two that were pretty good. The rest I either DNFed or wished I had.
I checked Amazon's reviews to refresh my memory of the good one, and this other reviewer hit it on the nose:
The anthology began with exactly what I expected and hoped for; the first story ("The Character of the Hound") is one of my favorites. The second was... not as good, but okay. I loathed the third ("Goin' Down to Anglotown") and the fourth ("The Polar Bear Carries the Mail") to the point that I very nearly set the book aside.
The Character of the Hound (by Tony Pi) was so good, I had a reaction to it I never had before: I felt honored to have been able to read it. Set mostly in the real world, it had such wonderful elements of mythology and spiritualism.
Maybe this one was finally the last anthology on my Kindle, but I guess we'll see.
DNF
63: Threader by Rebekah Turner. Sometimes when I have a run of DNF books, I think it must be me. Maybe I'm too bored and unfocused to read. Maybe work is distracting me. Maybe it's some other issue I don't realize. So, even though this book annoyed the living hell out of me, I stuck with it for days thinking it might just be me.
Set in the most generic dystopian world ever, the most generic female-character-in-a-dystopian-world was, of course, living in the poorest section. She, of course, had a super special magic talent. She, of course, was picked to go off to some super special rare magic school.
She, of course, got magically bound to the hottest, edgiest, most powerful man in the school. He, of course, spent all his time thinking about her, wanting her, lusting after her. They, of course, couldn't be together.
This was the most annoyingly generic book I have read in a long time. Nothing original in it. I got to about the halfway point of the book and had predicted every single beat of the story at each step. Nothing new, nothing surprising.
Maybe it isn't me after all...
64: Beast by Donna Jo Napoli.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
isiscolo read this a couple years back, and my thoughts were the same as hers. In this retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a Persian prince gets cursed because he "incorrectly" sacrificed an animal. That he did it "incorrectly" was really confusing, because he talked through his logic of doing it, and the logic seemed perfectly sound.
I didn't even get to the part where he was turned into a "beast" (a lion), because it was just so annoying to read. Every other paragraph, the author would translate some word into Persian or Arabic. It added nothing at all to the story. The first sentence of her author bio is: Donna Jo Napoli is both a linguist and a writer of children's and YA fiction. Linguist is listed even before writer, and that showed.
67: Any House in a Storm (Hidden Sanctuary Book 1) by Jenny Schwartz. Oddly, just by random chance, I read another retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' right after Beast (I never would have guessed I had two books that did that, I really don't usually like retellings).
This one was better than Beast, but not good enough to finish. If it had been an original instead of a retelling, I might have stuck with it.
In it a goblin was caught in a storm and had to take refuge in a magical house. The master of the house was another goblin... but guess what! Neither was really a goblin, they were both beautiful humans! Ho hum zzz.
In addition, this story was set in the author's book series. She claimed you could read it as a stand-alone, but that really didn't work at all.
65: Malevil: The Powerful, Provocative Story of a brave, New World born in the Wake of a Nuclear Holocaust by Robert Merle. First off, what's with the capitalization in that title?
I barely got a few pages into this one. It was about as good as you would expect from someone who used "Powerful, Provocative Story" in the title of their book.
66: Cathadeus: Book One of the Walking Gates by Jeff J. Peters. It's pretty telling that I only read 2% of this book and my biggest reason for quitting was there were too many POV characters. Based on reviews, I made the right decision. "Brax, our protagonist, is a chosen one without even trying. Everything is handed to him with little effort on his end."
Unfortunately that means a number of images in old posts will be broken now. Not much I can do about that, but how often do people go back and look at my really old posts? I doubt too often.
Also, tomorrow (if all goes well) I'm closing on my first home. Sometime after that I'll be moving, so there might be a break in my already infrequent posting.
The Dragon and the Stars by assorted authors. An anthology of Chinese culture-inspired science fiction. I wish there were a way to find all the anthologies on my Kindle so I can try them, delete them, and be done with them.
Like most of the others I've read, this one was mostly a bust. It had one outstanding story (the first one, of course), then two that were pretty good. The rest I either DNFed or wished I had.
I checked Amazon's reviews to refresh my memory of the good one, and this other reviewer hit it on the nose:
The anthology began with exactly what I expected and hoped for; the first story ("The Character of the Hound") is one of my favorites. The second was... not as good, but okay. I loathed the third ("Goin' Down to Anglotown") and the fourth ("The Polar Bear Carries the Mail") to the point that I very nearly set the book aside.
The Character of the Hound (by Tony Pi) was so good, I had a reaction to it I never had before: I felt honored to have been able to read it. Set mostly in the real world, it had such wonderful elements of mythology and spiritualism.
Maybe this one was finally the last anthology on my Kindle, but I guess we'll see.
DNF
63: Threader by Rebekah Turner. Sometimes when I have a run of DNF books, I think it must be me. Maybe I'm too bored and unfocused to read. Maybe work is distracting me. Maybe it's some other issue I don't realize. So, even though this book annoyed the living hell out of me, I stuck with it for days thinking it might just be me.
Set in the most generic dystopian world ever, the most generic female-character-in-a-dystopian-world was, of course, living in the poorest section. She, of course, had a super special magic talent. She, of course, was picked to go off to some super special rare magic school.
She, of course, got magically bound to the hottest, edgiest, most powerful man in the school. He, of course, spent all his time thinking about her, wanting her, lusting after her. They, of course, couldn't be together.
This was the most annoyingly generic book I have read in a long time. Nothing original in it. I got to about the halfway point of the book and had predicted every single beat of the story at each step. Nothing new, nothing surprising.
Maybe it isn't me after all...
64: Beast by Donna Jo Napoli.
isiscolo read this a couple years back, and my thoughts were the same as hers. In this retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a Persian prince gets cursed because he "incorrectly" sacrificed an animal. That he did it "incorrectly" was really confusing, because he talked through his logic of doing it, and the logic seemed perfectly sound. I didn't even get to the part where he was turned into a "beast" (a lion), because it was just so annoying to read. Every other paragraph, the author would translate some word into Persian or Arabic. It added nothing at all to the story. The first sentence of her author bio is: Donna Jo Napoli is both a linguist and a writer of children's and YA fiction. Linguist is listed even before writer, and that showed.
67: Any House in a Storm (Hidden Sanctuary Book 1) by Jenny Schwartz. Oddly, just by random chance, I read another retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' right after Beast (I never would have guessed I had two books that did that, I really don't usually like retellings).
This one was better than Beast, but not good enough to finish. If it had been an original instead of a retelling, I might have stuck with it.
In it a goblin was caught in a storm and had to take refuge in a magical house. The master of the house was another goblin... but guess what! Neither was really a goblin, they were both beautiful humans! Ho hum zzz.
In addition, this story was set in the author's book series. She claimed you could read it as a stand-alone, but that really didn't work at all.
65: Malevil: The Powerful, Provocative Story of a brave, New World born in the Wake of a Nuclear Holocaust by Robert Merle. First off, what's with the capitalization in that title?
I barely got a few pages into this one. It was about as good as you would expect from someone who used "Powerful, Provocative Story" in the title of their book.
66: Cathadeus: Book One of the Walking Gates by Jeff J. Peters. It's pretty telling that I only read 2% of this book and my biggest reason for quitting was there were too many POV characters. Based on reviews, I made the right decision. "Brax, our protagonist, is a chosen one without even trying. Everything is handed to him with little effort on his end."
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no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 11:04 pm (UTC)Congratulations on the new house! Hope the move goes smoothly.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-13 11:20 pm (UTC)And I agree. Sometimes the covers are so pretty, but the story doesn't live up to them. Beast's is so beautiful, Any House in a Storm is lovely in a romance novel sort of way, and Cathadeus's is just plain cool.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-14 04:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-22 01:54 am (UTC)Congratulations on a new house! You're still in the new state, right? Curious as to how you like it compared to here.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-22 04:09 am (UTC)Thanks! I'm in New Mexico now, have been here for about two years.
NM is like a third world country next to CA. It takes 6-18 MONTHS to get a new doctor when you arrive in the area or switch insurances. Most doctors move elsewhere where they can get a ton more money for the same work.
It's a very beautiful place. Even after two years, I'm still amazed at the mountains (so huge and so close! I can get to where the roads end in about 10 minutes of driving). Poverty is a much much bigger issue here (though thankfully I'm still making CA money, since I remote), so that impacts the beauty some.
It took me maybe a half-year to get used to how poor and run down everything is here compared to bright and shining CA, but now I mostly like it. Crime is a really big problem here, and even in the best parts of the city/state I worried daily that my car would be broken into, but I'm moving to a gated community with a garage attached to my building.
If money were no object, I'd be back in California before you could blink. But since at least my part of the state was just too expensive, NM is good enough.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-23 03:00 am (UTC)Being as I live in Beautiful Nowhere in California, the idea that you could even get a doctor and keep them for any amount of time is laughable. Thus far, I've been very healthy, but the WBH had two years of health issues, so that's how I know about the doctor dance.
I'd love to see photos of your area. All I know about NM can be confined to what was on "Breaking Bad." Albuquerque and White Sands are on my "would like to see" list.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-23 03:29 pm (UTC)I rewatched Breaking Bad after moving here, and it was a really good way to see Albuquerque! I recognized so many places in it. Which reminds me, I currently live about five minutes from "his" house, I should go see it before I move to the other end of the city. It has a large fence around it though, so not sure how much I'd be able to see.
Sadly I gave up on trying to take photos of the beautiful mountains. My phone camera is just not up to the job, I can never ever ever get a shot that does them justice.
One of the cool things about the city is we have murals everywhere (and graffiti artists seem to respect them and not tag over them). Even places like apartment complexes have them: https://i.redd.it/n5abhyy7db1a1.jpg (not my photo).
I haven't been to White Sands yet. I'd like to go there and to see the Very Large Array, but both are about four hours drive one way. There's a ton of national parks and hiking in the mountains and such here, but I hate to say I'm not a hiking type so mostly I just admire the mountains from afar.