So, I am more than familiar with LMB’s two main series – The Vorkosigan Saga (Which is mostly a space opera), and her books set in the world of the Five Gods. (Which are a sort of semi-medieval fantasy.) What I’ve been slow to pick up though is her Sharing Knife series. Mostly because they are almost impossible to find in print! I’ve never stumbled on these books in a bookshop and had to go searching really hard across libraries to find a hard […]
Louder Than Life? No Kidding!
One of the unexpected joys I’ve discovered since I’ve started listening to audiobooks is the self-narrated biography or memoir. There is just something about hearing the voice of the subject that really enhances the experience. This is especially so for biographies written by entertainers and performers, who naturally make excellent narrators. So far, I have enjoyed biographies read and written by Alexei Sayle, Eddie Izzard, Magda Szubanski and David Attenborough. But there is only one so far that I would say HAS to be […]
All About the Birds. And the Bees. And the Arthropods. And Anyone Else Desperate Enough to Pen a Letter.
I’m about to undertake a big move shortly, which means I’m currently going through most of what I own, trying to work out what needs to go in storage what can be palmed off to other people, and what I need to sell. For most of my books, they’ll end up with either my sister or a younger family member. Which comes to my re-read of Dr Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation: can I successfully pass this off to a twelve-year-old without upsetting her […]
New Vorkosigan Novella
I don’t think Lois McMaster Bujold has released a full-length novel since 2016’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which I sort of read as a capstone to the Vorkosigan series. Since then, she seems to have been spending her time experimenting with self-publishing novellas. While I’ve found those to be mostly very good, they’ve all been set in the World of the Five Gods. So I’m really pleasantly surprised to see that she’s decided to duck back into the Vorkosigan universe after all! The […]
Scheming, Snark and a Society on the Precipice
IT’S HUGO TIME! Which means it’s time for me to tackle the best novel nominees! The Collapsing Empire is the first instalment in ‘The Interdependency’ series, which is John Scalzi’s take on a space opera. If you’re already a fan of Scalzi’s work, rest assured you’ll probably enjoy this one. All the tonal hallmarks of his previous writing – breezy, minimalist and snarky – are intact. So is his inclination to weave politics into otherwise lighthearted writing. What’s interesting about this series is that it […]
Complicated Speculative Fiction. And Complicated Book Feelings
I finished this trilogy a while ago, but I’ve found myself dragging my feet when it came to writing up the reviews I had some mixed feelings about this series and it was giving me a serious case of writer’s block. I liked these books. Overall, I liked the series. But I’ve had some trouble writing about the flaws without being too negative. I eventually decided that rather than do a separate review for each book, I’d just review the series as a whole. This has […]