Review, more books
Jan. 6th, 2015 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackHounded, Iron Druid Chronicles #1, Kevin Hearne
An urban fantasy, on a premise that, like American Gods, or several others, most pantheons are true, but primarily about celtic mythology. It was pleasingly funny, and the magic system was better world-built than many, it felt open-ended but also consistent. But I've no idea if the Irish references manage to be non-awful or not.
Liquor, Poppy Z Brite
I'd heard the name Poppy Z Brite, but no idea what they wrote until someone linked to this. It's a really lovely storey about two young men, line cooks in New Orleans restaurants, who open their own restaurant with a theme hinted at by the title. It describes a lot about what it's like in New Orleans, what it's like in a kitchen, being a chef, starting a business. I don't know much about chef-ing and business-ing, but it sounded consistent with what else I've heard, and apparently the author was married to someone who was a New Orleans chef.
My biggest problem was it felt like there wasn't much plot: problems came up, and the protagonists solved them, and worried they wouldn't be able to, but it never really felt there were any big decisions being made. But definitely to-read.
Ex-heroes
Superheroes vs zombies! That's all you need to know, really. The superheroes are quite well characterised in terms of powers and personality. If you like the premise, you'll probably like it. It alternates a present, with a beleaguered population hiding in a surviving enclave, with flashbacks, one for each superhero, to before or during the zombie apocalypse.
But it does suffer from a few problems. The female superheroes are not automatically sexy, but the first thing it tells you about them is whether they're sexy or not :( It suffers from the superman problem, less than it might, but some: don't just cut away to other hero battles, if your superman-equivalent has escaped whatever opponent wasn't trivial for him, why doesn't he just immediately fry all the other enemies?
Ancillary Sword
What everyone else said! It addressed the things I wanted to know most about, aliens and dyson spheres and ancillaries. And was really enjoyable, but didn't add that much more to what I'd expected. But still definitely v good and will read whatever Ann Leckie writes next (hopefully the third of these!)
Absolute Sandman vol #5
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
An urban fantasy, on a premise that, like American Gods, or several others, most pantheons are true, but primarily about celtic mythology. It was pleasingly funny, and the magic system was better world-built than many, it felt open-ended but also consistent. But I've no idea if the Irish references manage to be non-awful or not.
Liquor, Poppy Z Brite
I'd heard the name Poppy Z Brite, but no idea what they wrote until someone linked to this. It's a really lovely storey about two young men, line cooks in New Orleans restaurants, who open their own restaurant with a theme hinted at by the title. It describes a lot about what it's like in New Orleans, what it's like in a kitchen, being a chef, starting a business. I don't know much about chef-ing and business-ing, but it sounded consistent with what else I've heard, and apparently the author was married to someone who was a New Orleans chef.
My biggest problem was it felt like there wasn't much plot: problems came up, and the protagonists solved them, and worried they wouldn't be able to, but it never really felt there were any big decisions being made. But definitely to-read.
Ex-heroes
Superheroes vs zombies! That's all you need to know, really. The superheroes are quite well characterised in terms of powers and personality. If you like the premise, you'll probably like it. It alternates a present, with a beleaguered population hiding in a surviving enclave, with flashbacks, one for each superhero, to before or during the zombie apocalypse.
But it does suffer from a few problems. The female superheroes are not automatically sexy, but the first thing it tells you about them is whether they're sexy or not :( It suffers from the superman problem, less than it might, but some: don't just cut away to other hero battles, if your superman-equivalent has escaped whatever opponent wasn't trivial for him, why doesn't he just immediately fry all the other enemies?
Ancillary Sword
What everyone else said! It addressed the things I wanted to know most about, aliens and dyson spheres and ancillaries. And was really enjoyable, but didn't add that much more to what I'd expected. But still definitely v good and will read whatever Ann Leckie writes next (hopefully the third of these!)
Absolute Sandman vol #5
Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
no subject
Date: 2015-01-07 05:05 pm (UTC)(Although some of _Exquisite Corpse_ happens in London and, well, given what PZB knew about London it is just as well the rest happens in New Orleans).
They also wrote a Crow spinoff book which is actually quite good, which has to be something of an achievement.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-08 12:40 pm (UTC)The male protagonists in Liquor are dating, but never get more graphic than "they had sex", and are shy about kissing in public -- it was half way through before they were officially confirmed to be dating as well as extremely close.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-08 12:47 pm (UTC)