Books 2014: don't give me the world today and tomorrow take it away

[hawkwing_lb]

I'm halfway to completely burned out, and my trip to a counseling appointment yesterday afternoon left me feeling sick vulnerable and judged and misunderstood. (Which lead to live-tweeting a terrible book to distract myself, which led to hilarious giggling and insomnia and vague feelings of guilt that someone let that book out into the world... but that's another story.)

So, books! I've probably lost track of one or two at this point.

Books 2014: 10-12


10. Greg Rucka, Whiteout. Oni Press, 2007. Illustrated by Steve Lieber.

Very different to the film of the same name. Rather better.


11. Martha Wells, Emilie and the Sky World. Strange Chemistry, 2014.

Reviewed for Tor.com. Fun book! Go read it!


12. Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor. Tor, 2014.

Review copy from Tor. I am to review it for Tor.com. This is an amazing book. I mean seriously bloody wonderful: excellent politics, nice quiet interpersonal stuff, such a wonderful compelling protagonist. GO PREORDER IT NOW.

Katherine Addison is the new pen-name for Sarah Monette. For those of us familiar with Monette's other writing, I feel I should add that The Goblin Emperor's protagonist is much more likeable than many of the characters in The Doctrine of Labyrinths, and while the world-building is just as marvellously baroque the overall tone is much less noirish, much more optimistic.

ALSO IT IS BRILLIANT GO PREORDER IT SERIOUSLY CAPSLOCK EXCLAMATIONS OF JOY.

Comments

[sovay]

ALSO IT IS BRILLIANT GO PREORDER IT SERIOUSLY CAPSLOCK EXCLAMATIONS OF JOY.

HUZZAH.

I love Monette's short fiction, especially the Kyle Murchison Booth stories; I bounced very hard off Doctrine of Labyrinths, admire the worldbuilding as I might. I was very intrigued by the first two chapters of The Goblin Emperor and I shall take your recommendation as reason to buy on sight.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I loved it. It's like... a book you pick up and read when you're tired and sad and all unexpected it is like being wrapped up in a comforting warm fuzzy blanket of glorious worldbuilding and shiny prose and the main character being determinedly decent.

While still asking you to think.

...I'm really not expressing myself well here. There is a great confusion of metaphors around me right now. *g*

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite things about it (I say, having not finished the whole book yet, because Things To Do) is that the protagonist is someone whose primary reaction to abuse is to be determined not to abuse others. Not in some perfect hero scarless way, but in that he actually has some damn empathy, even more than a big picture Sense Of Right And Wrong.

Anyway. It pleases me greatly.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yes! It is so lovely.

[sovay]

It's like... a book you pick up and read when you're tired and sad and all unexpected it is like being wrapped up in a comforting warm fuzzy blanket of glorious worldbuilding and shiny prose and the main character being determinedly decent.

That plus the requirement not to leave your brain at the door: want. It doesn't come out for weeks yet, does it?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Weeks, alas. The very first day of April.

[sovay]

The very first day of April.

Auuuuuuuuuugh.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Sorry?

(I wouldn't have blogged about it this early except I must tell everyone how wonderful it is because if everyone knows then maybe there will be more later. Fundamentally selfish drives, I have them.)

[sovay]

(I wouldn't have blogged about it this early except I must tell everyone how wonderful it is because if everyone knows then maybe there will be more later. Fundamentally selfish drives, I have them.)

Hee. It's all right. I am mentally reframing it as something to look forward to.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I just want to say I TOTALLY SUPPORT YOUR USE OF CAPSLOCK IN THIS INSTANCE. I got to see this early, and I loved it with the love.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Is it not MAGNIFICENT? All the love. All the love for this book.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I was asked to blurb it, and ended up writing far too much to be useful. Inter alia:

The Goblin Emperor is loosely a Bildungsroman, a book that teaches its protagonist how to live; but in the process it’s a love-gift to half a dozen genres, and it’s warm and wise about each in turn. It’s about youth and friendship, about betrayal and survival, about power and responsibility and strength. Particularly, it’s about power undeserved and how to deserve it after all. Page by page it’s a sheer pleasure to read, but like all good books it’s more than the sum of its pages. There’s truth here, a revealing affection, a deep humanity - no half-elven goblin was ever so human as this - and a story that builds layer on layer to create a structure as intricate as the court it describes. I really want to call it a Buildingsroman to celebrate the pervasive sense of architecture, internal and external to the characters and the story and the world it describes.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

You are very learned, and very wise, and say many true beautiful things. I am still at the inarticulate capslock stage of YES BOOK JOY. *g*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I may have had to think about it for a long time before I could fish myself out of the incoherent squeeing stage, and try to be useful.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

So book. Much lovely. So wonder. Wow.