T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
Finishing off the year by rereading another favorite fantasy book! I can’t quite call it comforting, since there's a serial killer, reanimated horses, and corrupt politicians, but it is a sort of heartening read for These Troubled Times, as a teen girl with magical baking skills must save her city (with the help of a little pickpocket and her gingerbread cookie companion). I like the message of this book a lot, very timely indeed.
Victoria Goddard's The Return of Fitzroy Angursell
I periodically search on Amazon to see if there's a new Goddard book out, and it was a nice end of the year surprise this time to find one! This one is a sequel to Hands of the Emperor, and finds the Emperor off on his planned quest, to maybe find new friends....and old ones? I have one friend who also reads these and I admit to messaging her, first because the description of the book (and the title) confirms something that’s been hinted at, but also just to say “AAAHHH” several times, because I was EXCITED ABOUT STUFF. If you, like me, have been looking for gentler fantasy books to read, you gotta read Goddard. I love this world. I want to bathe in it like the Emperor does in his Imperial bathroom. A.
Martha Wells' Network Effect
The fifth Murderbot adventure is a full length novel, and it is action packed, full of mysterious alien technology and old friends and new friends and creepy hostiles! Not to mention loyalty and rescue efforts and bonding over tv shows. There is a lot going on here but it’s all totally compelling and I can’t wait to see where this series will go next.
Martha Wells' Exit Strategy
So it turns out Murderbot (reluctantly) cares about some humans, and is off on a rescue mission! I have to say, reading all four of these together works better than reading them like six months apart, because they really are one larger story and it’s better when all the details are immediate (like it is way easier to care about characters from book one/remember their significance when you didn’t read it over a year ago). That is to say that I love Murderbot and am greatly enjoying this reread.
Martha Wells' Rogue Protocol
In the third Murderbot book, our protagonist sends themself on a reconnaissance mission, but of course ends up helping a new crew of humans and their perky robot. I love how world-weary Murderbot is about saving stupid humans (but also secretly loves them). And I want to hug Miki! Robot pals!!
Martha Wells' Artificial Condition
In the second Murderbot novella, our protagonist takes on a new job, investigates their own past, and . . . makes a friend. HEART EYES. Murderbot has a whole gruff with a soft ol heart vibe that I love, and ART is one of my favorite kinds of characters, and their interplay and teamwork gets me every time!
Martha Wells' All Systems Red
Decided it was high time to reread some Murderbot! It’s hard not to love a bionic (maybe not bionic, but part human and part not human) security unit who is very sarcastic and just wants to watch some tv shows, dammit, except all these humans need rescuing all the time. This first novella is a great introduction to the character, full of action and badassery and humor.
Arkady Martine's A Desolation Called Peace
The second (and final?) book in Martine's super fun sci fi series is just as satisfying as the first! There are several more POV characters this time around—including a space admiral and the imperial heir—which helps keep things moving and expands the scope of the world a little bit. There is still a lot of politics, but even more tension this time around, due to a new threat. I still love all the characters and their interesting relationships; there’s a great new friendship to root for too. Just a really engaging read, all around. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 2nd.
Arkady Martine's A Memory of Empire
Had to reread this so all the details would be fresh for the sequel! Plus I was excited just to reread it, because it is an awesome and satisfying story! There is a cat on me so I’ll just link to my previous review.
Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life
Well, I think I owe my book club an apology! I picked an Anne Tyler novel for us mostly at random—this one is set in NC, and though I read it years ago, I didn’t remember anything about it. But it’s an early Tyler novel, and it’s a little bit bleak (not to mention kind of racist and fatphobic). I actually see why I liked this reading it as a teen, because it’s about a shy and awkward teenager who becomes obsessed with a local musician and does something dumb (super relatable). Her character arc is really interesting, though, and it ends up feeling satisfying. I guess we’ll see if book club agrees! B+.
Patricia McKillip's Solstice Wood
So the reason I stuck it out with that last book is that I wanted to read /this/ one, which is a sort of sequel, though set a couple hundred years later (in current times). This one has more fairies and part-fairies, plus a local crafting guild that uses knitting and sewing to keep the fairies away! Great characters, and a few different POVs keep things moving along. I was kind of eh on how things wrapped up, but liked this one a lot more. A-/B+.
Patricia McKillip’s Winter Rose
I’ve really been enjoying reading McKillip’s books, but this one did not do it for me. It’s both really slow and also suffused with a sense of dread, so just really unpleasant to read. It’s one of those fairy tales that’s more on the horrific side of fairy, except nothing really happens in this book! A dude comes to town and stories of curses rise up, and the woods are weird, and the protagonist is lovelorn and her sister is lovelorn, and winter is full of bad things, and it all just goes in circles. Ugh. B-.
Elizabeth Knox's Mortal Fire
I really liked Knox's Absolute Book and wanted to try one of her other books, and this one was just an interesting! It’s set in a world very similar to our own, and the protagonist is a math genius teen in 1959, daughter of a famously heroic Indigenous mother. Oh yeah, and she can see things no one else does. She’s being sent away with her older stepbrother and his girlfriend, who are off on an academic research trip, but wants to stay behind to keep visiting her best friend, who is in an iron lung (polio). But when they arrive, things start to seem a little odd, and she's determined to solve it all. There's lots of magic and a little romance (which didn’t really work for me but whatever), and just when I thought things were going to be a big bummer, they got awesome. I will definitely be reading more by Knox. A-.
CM Waggoner's The Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry
I’m not sure I liked this /quite/ as much as Waggoner's previous book, but it was still very enjoyable. This one is set in the same world, and involves a down-and-out fire witch getting recruited to a band of ladies to protect a young woman before her marriage. I liked all of that a lot, but the second half feels more like it’s spinning its wheels (though that does give the characters time to develop romances and begrudging friendships, all very fun). Bonus points for an absolutely unsettling mouse. A-/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 12th.
Connie Willis' Take a Look at the Five and Dime
I did not /intend/ to read a Christmas story, but I’m not too mad about it. This novella centers on Ori, a college student who spends holidays with an assortment of former and almost-relatives, including a sort of grandmother who loves to regale everyone with stories of the Christmas she worked at Woolworth's. But now a relative's new boyfriend, a med student, is convinced that the stories about Woolworth's are indicative of a repressed traumatic memory, and wants to study grandma. This was a cute and light read, even if the romance needed a bit more development. Grandma was awesome. A-.
Diana Wynne Jones' The Time of the Ghost
I read an essay recently that made me want to reread this (for some reason my iPad isn’t letting me add links, so here https://www.tor.com/2020/12/07/making-the-metaphor-literal-fantastic-reality-in-the-time-of-the-ghost-by-diana-wynne-jones/). It was a lot darker and weirder than I remembered, but also had some great sister moments and an awesome dog. Definitely engrossing stuff, though not one of my particular faves by the author.
Well, 2020 has been a real mess, and I almost entirely stopped reading literary fiction and swerved even more into genre fiction for purposes of escapism. But who even cares, I am not trying to impress anyone with my reading selections, just read things that make me happy. So here are the ten books I enjoyed most this year!
Quan Barry's We Ride Upon Sticks
Victoria Goddard's Love-in-a-Mist
N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became
Micaiah Johnson's The Space Between Worlds
T. Kingfisher's A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
Lydia Millet's A Children's Bible
Sarah Caudwell's The Sirens Sang of Murder
The third Hilary Tamar book goes a little heavy on the British tax laws, so is slightly duller than the others, though I still enjoyed the narrative voice (and all of the telexes from the silliest member of the lawyer group). B+.
Sarah Caudwell's The Sibyl in Her Grave
I accidentally read the fourth book third, but I don’t think it made a huge difference. There is not a lot of plot continuity from book to book, and the characters remain the same. The story here involves a small town, a fortune teller, insider trading, and more lawyers having long lunches. Another very enjoyable read, for sure. A/A-.
Sarah Caudwell's The Shortest Way to Hades
The second book in the Hilary Tamar series finds our Scholar (Hilary always capitalizes it bc of pretentiousness, this is not me being sarcastic) caught up with their lawyer pals in the doings of a family with a very complicated will and a potentially very rich heiress. I just think these books are really funny, even when the lawyers are having lengthy discussions of the law. A-.
Sarah Caudwell's Thus was Adonis Murdered
Always delighted to discover a new-to-me British mystery author! This series focuses on one Hilary Tamar (gender unspecified), a legal scholar at Oxford who I guess solves mysteries occasionally. In this first one, a young lawyer friend on vacation in Venice is arrested for murder! Can Hilary prove her innocence? The mystery here is fine, what really shines are the (hilarious, dry) narrative voice and the characters. Also, for a book written in 1981, everyone is surprisingly gay and/or libidinous. SIDE NOTE, the author's mother was apparently the model for Sally Bowles in Cabaret, except she was mad about that bc she was in actuality super political, whereas Sally is not. Anyway, an enjoyable read, I look forward to more of these! A-.
Olivia Dade's Spoiler Alert
This was a super cute romance that I straight up read in one sitting, involving the lead actor of a famous tv show who asks out a cute fat fangirl after jerks are mean to her on twitter. BUT ALSO he is secretly her best friend in fandom, because he writes fic about his own character due to frustration with poor scripts, and if anyone finds out his career will be in trouble! All of this requires the usual suspension of disbelief, but I genuinely loved both these characters and their relationship. (My summary may sound teeny boppery, but both characters are in their late thirties; our heroine is a super smart geologist!) It’s also a very funny book. I’m here for all these nerdy romance novels, for sure. A/A-.
Jenn Lyons' A Memory of Souls
This is the kind of series where so much happens that immediately after finishing, I'm like, wait, /what/ happened?? So I wont even try to summarize, I'll just say that I loved reading this, am here for the central romance(s), enjoy all the family squabbling and magic escapades, and am mad I have to wait months to find out what happens next! A-.
