Magic Steps, Street Magic, Cold Fire, Shatterglass (The Circle Opens) by Tamora Pierce
I was caught by the urge to read this series after reading a Mary Sue article about Tamora Pierce. The first series about these characters (The Circle) had such a massive influence on me growing up, but I never read the sequels. I devoured these over two days and had as much passion for them now as I did for the first ones growing up.
The Calling (Dragon Age) by David Gaider
The Masked Empire - Patrick Weekes
I fell in love hard with Dragon Age Inquisition over Christmas, which has eaten most of my reading time this month. I decided to pick up these tie in novels as a little background for when my gaming headaches set in, and although I don't feel quite the same passion for them that I do the game series, they're fantastic little background stories that tie in so well with such a huge world. I'd love to pick up the graphic novel collection at some point.
Crewel by Gennifer Albin
I wanted to love this book, so, so much after reading some tie in shorts in the Fierce Reads Anthology. A young girl comes to age under tragic circumstances, and finds herself catapulted into a treacherous but glamorous world, where she finally holds some power. However, after some girl-on-girl hate, a disturbing shallow portrayal of a woman of colour, disappointing culmination to a rare YA lesbian relationship and a rather pointless and emotionally uninvolved love triangle... I just couldn't. Younger readers, particularly fans of the Hunger Games or Divergent will love this, but I don't think I'm wrong in calling for more depth.
Anthologies:
The Fierce Reads Anthology Volume 2 featuring Aguirre, Albin & Fama
Part of my New Year Reading Resolutions was to read some more awesome lady writers, and this was a free and easy way to do it! I picked up Crewel based on the selection of stories in this anthology. None really stand way out over the others, but it's worth picking up.
Some of The Best of Tor.com 2014 by Various Authors
I cannot overemphasise how awesome it is that Tor puts out this anthology every year. Genuinely, I would pay for these collections, despite the individual stories being available for free because it's such an effective format for me to receive my daily dose of story. I've been introduced to more awesome writers, series and other anthologies because of them, AND it's totally free.
Super special mentions for this anthology are:
The End of The End of Everything by Dale Bailey
Midway Relics by Seanan McGuire
The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
The Devil In America by Kai Ashante Wilson
Short Stories:
No short stories this month, outside of the anthologies. Some intriguing ones have popped up on my feed but I'm saving them for my holiday at the end of the month. Audiobooks keep me sane on planes.
Comics:
No comics this month, although I'm desperate to pick up the current Miss Marvel run.
Unfinished:
Black God's War by Moses Siregar III
I'm not a quitter, usually, but with such little time to myself for reading I'm having to be far more brutal about what I lend my time to, and this fell on the cutting room floor. In theory, this tickles my Guy Gavriel Kay sense in a big way: epic battles, opposing POVs, capricious gods and magics. In execution however, it falls pretty short. Relationships are thrown together, with no real foundation in the characters' reactions to each other, which might stem largely from the rather 2D characters. There's a sense of "ticking the boxes" to the characters that betrays an otherwise lively and rich worldbuilding exercise. Fans of Trudi Canavan will probably enjoy this series. Without that investment, and the necessarily slow nature of the plot (a cliffbound siege), I left it behind.
I would thoroughly recommend listening to Moses discuss writing process on Hide n' Create, where I was first introduced to him. I have a lot of respect for him, just not for this particular book.
No comments:
Post a Comment