Friday 1 April 2016

March round up

This weekend just gone was Eastercon! I had thought I wasn't going to be able to go this year, unable to get the time off work, but what with being unexpectedly ejected from that, I suddenly find myself with a lot of spare time. So I guess there's a silver lining after all.

A tiny, tiny silver lining.

Still, Eastercon is always fun. This year's was in Manchester, at the Hilton in Deansgate. Odd building. Goes up twenty something floors and then decides it wasn't wide enough, so it sticks out a bit and goes up another twenty floors. Kind of like old medieval houses where they paid rent on the land, and acquired more space with every storey until you could shake hands with your neighbour across the street on the top floor (see: Shambles, in York).

Anyway, con! As I say, good fun. Lots of interesting panels, talks, and workshops. I can now write (draw?) circular Gallifreyan, and know more about privacy in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; historical accuracy in fantasy and romance; and the history of Daredevil as a character than I ever expected to. Aliette de Bodard was a fabulous guest of honour. The impromptu disco thrown together when there wasn't one on the schedule was really good fun, even if it was cut woefully short by the hotel's time limit.

Due to leaving early on Monday to catch a flight to Chicago, I had to be restrained in my book buying, despite some beautiful tables of secondhand stuff in the dealers' rooms. So I only bought... uh. I counted, but I don't remember right now. It was... one big canvas tote bag full. And the four I brought on the plane. A mere 20 something? Eheh.

So what have I been reading, in my sudden bounteous free time?


A Gathering of Shadows by V. E. Schwab

Hnnng next book now please. This series is glorious so far. So snappy, so sharp, so tightly written and diverse in characters and exciting and dangerous and beautifully magic. I love it.


Most of the Nikki Heat series by "Richard Castle" (books 2-5 at this point)

Fun to see how these parallel events in the TV show. They read like fanfic; they get the voices from the TV show right and are sneakily stuffed with in jokes as well as the standard entertaining crime novel plots. Kind of has the Lee Child effect; like book Pringles. You start with one, and somehow you just keep going until you don't have any left on hand.


Sex Criminals volume 1 by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky

I think this one got hyped up to me ("Oh my god you have to read it, it's amazing!") a little too much. It was fun, sure, quirky and risque, but it wasn't the greatest thing ever to happen to graphic novels. Fine, but just not perfectly for me.


Vixen by Rosie Garland

Engagingly written, presents the history and the characters in an entertaining way. However, I have major issues with the ending. Very brief, spoilery argh on Goodreads here.


Master of the Five Magics by Lyndon Hardy

Ha, this was a lot of fun. Classic fantasy with a plot that is a thin excuse for outlining five (surprise) different magic systems and how they all connect and work within the same world. This is worldbuilding-as-plot at its height, and I love it. It delighted me and my analytical side all the way through, and I'm giddy with glee to discover there are two sequels. I can only hope they are as keen to lecture me on how magic really works as this one.


Snow White, Blood Red edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Always hard to rate short story collections, but this set of grown up gruesome fairy tales was fun and inventive. Some better than others, of course, but if you like stories inspired by all those well known characters and tropes (and you don't mind occasionally veering into the erotic) then this is worth looking into. And part of a series, so you won't run short of wicked variations for quite a while.