Wednesday books is not used to this weather

[starlady]

What I'm Reading
A.S. King, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future - Still, yes. I'm increasingly annoyed that the horrible future Glory sees is just an update of The Handmaid's Tale for the 2010s, and increasingly irritated at people who write first person narratives that are horribly undescriptive of everything in the book including the characters. John Green, who blurbed this book, is clearly a pernicious idiot.

Natsume Soseki, Kokoro - "Everyone loves Kokoro," my advisor told me. "Except maybe you." My expectations are low.

What I've Read
C.S. Pacat, Captive Prince and Prince's Gambit - These books are so good, and Pacat subverts so many tropes, I love them so much, you should read them, the end.

Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings - Someone on tumblr remarked that these books are similar to Pacat's, and I devoured three of them on my plane back from Japan, and that tumblr person was right. I'm not sure I'll be able to take it if there's never a fifth one. If you haven't read them, you should read them, but start with the first one, The Thief, and don't read the backs of any of them. They are amazing.

Fran Wilde, Updraft - All the reviews say the worldbuilding is interesting but the plot and characters are predictable and paper-thin, respectively. All the reviews are right. I don't plan to read any of Wilde's future books; I for one didn't find the worldbuilding interesting so much as frustrating. They live in bone towers! Cool! BONE TOWERS OF WHAT?? NO ONE KNOWS OR CARES. ARGH.

Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Kiss - Yes, this is the third book in a trilogy, no, I haven't read the first two. I liked Rutkoski's Cabinet of Wonders books quite a lot, and while this story seems more ambitious I'm not sure I was sold on it. On the other hand I stayed up til 2am and read it in four hours, so.

What I'll Read Next
Hopefully something I actually enjoy.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

I didn't love Kokoro, FWIW, though I respect the writing (at least as it comes across in translation).

Good to know about the Wilde--I'd been curious but haven't gotten there yet, and I do want some character fiber alongside good worldbuilding.

[starlady]

I may have a copy of it lying around in Japanese, but one of the reasons I finally decided to read it in translation was that I had a copy of the new McKinney version lying around; I really liked her version of The Pillow Book.

Updraft was more readable than some of the other books I've forced myself through for the Sirens list so far this year. I appear to be picking the stinkers.

[okrablossom]

I enjoyed the Wilde book but I had to forceably suspend disbelief on most of the worldbuilding bits, so I'm thankful to hear others had issues with that too. I appreciate knowing I'm not the only one iffy. Thanks.

[starlady]

The first half of the Strange Horizons review nailed it in my opinion, particularly calling out the worldbuilding as the kind of "worldbuilding lite" advocated by writing manuals (apparently?). We are not alone!

[okrablossom]

> We are not alone!

:)

[okrablossom]

Oh, wait, I read that first review.

>> how do the bone towers sustain themselves in an agricultural sense? What about water-
>> capturing systems? Are there significant ethnic or linguistic differences between the
>> towers? How come nobody ever flies down to find the earth?

Yes. Especially that last question. These are exactly what bugged me.

Thank you so much for pointing me to this.

[lnhammer]

I was DNF on Kokoro, though I could see why it has classic status. Botchan was much more my thing.

[starlady]

I just don't like modern Japanese literature in general. This is part of a group reading, on the theory that misery loves company, and I at least intend to force myself through it so that I can say I've Soseki when people try to cred-check me in future.

[lnhammer]

Heh. I'm especially bad on the early modernists. To my surprise, however, I liked both Mishima novels I tried -- The Sound of Waves especially.

[melannen]

I may read the next Updraft book because I am a sucker for flying and also, it looked at the very end like they were laying hints that the next book will actually start explaining the bone towers and stuff. But yeah, plot was super-ya-formulaic and characterization was not great. (I read it after the nebula noms and I was like '...why this, it's interesting, but it is not standout, also why does nobody have enough siblings' and then I saw it came out of Viable Paradise and was like, oh, that explains why all the sfwa writers have read it.)

On the other hand I might just finally acquire myself all three books of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Greensky instead.

[starlady]

Yeah, I kept comparing it to Court of Fives in my head and thinking that Court of Fives is in all ways a much better book.

I like flying but I never clearly understood how they were doing it from the descriptions, ngl.

[lizbee]

There is a fifth Attolia book coming out! But it's been seriously delayed because Turner has had health problems, now thankfully resolved.

[starlady]

I can die happy, omg. I tried to poke around on the internet a bit, but her web presence appears to be minimal, so this is VERY GOOD NEWS.

[lizbee]

Her Tumblr is very active! Although she mostly just posts landscapes, and then sits back and smirks while readers try to figure out if they foreshadow a twist. I assume.

[snickfic]

There are bone towers and they don't even talk about where the bones are from? What even is the point??

[starlady]

I don't know. I just don't know. The main character (I've forgotten her name) has more important things on her mind.