Book 9: The Starseekers by Nicole Glover

Well, sometimes you read a book for book club and every single person shows up and says that didn't work for me!!! and it's a good time. This book is kind of like Hidden Figures but it's also a murder mystery and magic and also Indiana Jones and also allegedly a romance? And if you think that sounds like too many genres it sure is; there are seven different plots and not a lick of narrative urgency in any of them, unfortunately. The best I can say for it is that it was nice to read a contemporary piece of speculative fiction that wasn't a dystopia but also boy I wanted this to be better. 

Grade: C

Reread: The Summer War by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

A reread for my book club! Honestly I loved it even more on reread. I thought the agony of the neverending nature of the conflict came through even more this time around, and boy I just really want the resolution to work for everyone!! Just a beautifully constructed story. 

Grade: A

Book 41: The Gentleman and his Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide

I confess that this was almost a DNF for me, but I decided that I wanted to know how it would resolve badly enough to stick with it. Do I regret that? A bit, but only because I am trying to become more ruthless in not spending my time with media I don't truly care about, because it turns out there is plenty out there that I genuinely love and why give my life over to things that don't work that well for me. It's a regency m/m romantasy and neither the romance nor the magic nor the setting really worked for me. Oh well!

Grade: C  

Book 40: The Summer War by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

A delightful little novella, about a girl with magic who accidentally uses it in the most cruel way imaginable against her beloved older brother because of her hurt, and has to go on an adventure to the fairyworld to save him, and does so in a remarkable if roundabout way. Bite-sized but has stuck with me and I want to revisit it already. 

Grade: A  

Book 39: Katabasis by RF Kuang

A book club book! We've got dark oxbridge academia, we've got Dante, we've got two protagonists with Secrets and a Past, we've got a story that is kind of surprise set in the 1980s, we've got chalk logic arguments as a magical system - we've got so much! And yet, for me, this is something less than the sum of its parts. It's not bad, and the book certainly does the thing, and there are elements of the metaphor that really work for me (did you know that surviving grad school is like walking backwards out of hell, etc.). But it didn't really coalesce for me, and I confess that there's a certain level of fatigue for me in reading about a woman who's determined to not be like those other women who only complain about how hard it is to be a successful woman within patriarchy and then realizes that she's not actually immune to all the same bullshit. It's not bad, but I also couldn't stop myself from arguing with both the characters and the story as a whole.

Grade: B 

Book 38: Golden Age

Note: I know the author socially. 

A delightful book of short stories, drabbles and visual art in the Temeraire universe! Something like methadone for me as I attempt to recover post-series. I don't have many deep thoughts about any of this other than what a nice time! 

Grade: A 

Book 37: League of Dragons by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

I have finished the series ;____; this is both great and terrible. As is almost always true of this author, I got to a point in the final part of something she's written and thought how on earth is she going to pull it all together in a satisfying way? And as always, boy did she pull it off. The resolution to the war is incredible, the future that we see glimpses of feels both right and earned, and there's no sense of the rules of the world having to be broken in order to give us this. Laurence and Temeraire remain among my favorite characters I've gotten to spend a whole series with, and finally reading this whole thing this fall was one of the nicest things I did all year.

Grade: A 

Book 36: Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

So Victory of Eagles gave me the joy of Temeraire thinking that Laurence is dead; this book gave me Temeraire in denial and a Laurence with deep, deep amnesia. I stayed up way too late reading because I simply could not pause until Laurence remembered his dragon again!! Honestly, I need to reread the whole thing because I simply could not appreciate everything as well as I might have because I needed to burn through it so fast. 

Beyond that beloved, expertly deployed trope, the story of this book is so good, with betrayal and set ups and plotting and doublecrossing and just so much fun military stuff. I haven't really gotten into how good the melding of actual historically based warfare and aerial dragon strength is combined, but it's so impressive. One of my absolute favorites of the series. 

Grade: A 

Book 35: Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

A quietly devastating entry in the series! I simply was not prepared to be fully losing a whole ship and a character who had been so important since the beginning, and it made me extremely stressed out about what might happen in the final two novels of the series. I loved the culture and the world that we see in South America, and the completely different social structure between humans and dragons they find there, and the way Temeraire continues to incorporate it all into his goals and aims for dragon rights. We also get the Granby reveal, which is truly one of my favorite things in the entire series, because the men are so overwhelmed by it and the dragons are just completely nonplussed. A delight!

Grade: A

Book 32: Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

Another travelogue part of this series! This one takes place in Australia, and there's a lot of good stuff in it but it's also a bit harder for me just because Laurence is still taking all of this so hard and also I want the other asshole British dudes to suffer more!!!! But the stuff that works fucking works, and I had a great time reading it!

Grade: A

Book 31: Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

Everything that made the prior book in this series hard makes this book absolutely delicious for me. Laurence and Temeraire accepting the punishment for their absolutely morally righteous decision and then suffering even more because Temeraire thinks Laurence is dead and loses his fucking mind is incredible. The reunion!!! The emotions!! The continued consequences and depression that is only alleviated by the fact that they have each other, the triumph at the end at a moment when all looks lost, just an absolute delight from start to finish. Among my favorites of the whole series. 

Grade: A

Book 30: Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially

I am fairly certain that I read about half of this book when it first came out, put it aside with the intention of returning to it, and then never did. And honestly, I understand why; it deals with a lot of very heavy stuff! Primarily but not entirely connected to the kidnapping and enslavement of West African people by European and colonial powers, with a whole bunch of dragon plague and death to boot. There's a seriousness and a reality to the narrative, and I both admire it and clearly didn't want to deal with it however many years ago I first tried it. 

It's an important book within the larger story of the series, though, and without it I think the series would have been taking the easy way out. The ending also demonstrates the great moral fortitude of both Temeraire and Laurence, especially the way that Laurence allows himself to be guided by his dragon, even when it goes against everything his own society has instilled in him. Very good but on the whole probably the book from this series I'm the least likely to reread outside of a full series reread. 

Grade: B  

Reread: Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

This is the last of this series that I'm certain I've read before, primarily because it involves a character and a location that made me very very happy. This is also the book that I think solidifies the reality that it's a series that will give a resolution to the end of each book, but not necessarily a happy one--it's very stressful and while our main guys are all okay by the end and theoretically on the way home to something familiar and nice, the process of getting there is hard and also it's less and less clear that those who should be on Laurence and Temeraire's side actually are! Very complicated, but still a very fun reread.

Grade: A 

Reread: Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

This is when the series turns into a proper travel adventure! The second book in the Temeraire series is when things become more complicated in lots of different ways, and also when it becomes clear that this isn't an alternate history series that's just going to brush past the way that colonialism and chattel slavery shaped the economics and political structures of the world. That makes it less simple fun than the first book, but the expansion of the world and the introduction of the Chinese court in particular is so incredibly compelling. Also, Temeraire makes a lot of good points!

Grade: A

Reread: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

This book is just a fucking banger start to finish. It's an incredible concept--what if Napoleonic naval warfare but the ships are giant dragons--executed flawlessly, with a central duo of Laurence and Temeraire that is as good as any book relationship ever written. Their bond is immediate and so incredibly important, and Laurence is such a good man and so exactly of his world, which just expands beyond him at such a rapid rate you would understand how someone might handle it much less well than he does. Which isn't to say he's without flaws; his mistakes are often devastating, but they are never unearned or unexplored, and the conflict within this first novel of the series is exceptional. I decided I wanted to finally read this entire series this fall, and while I could have skipped this one since it's the one of these series I've read many times, I didn't want to deprive myself of the pleasure of reading it once more. 

Grade: A

Book 25: The Stolen Heir by Holly Black

Sometimes I can't tell if a book doesn't totally work for me or if I've just read it badly. I really liked the world of The Folk of the Air series, even if that trilogy didn't quite land the way I wanted it to, so I was hoping that this would recapture my favorite aspects of that series. And while there are things I enjoyed it, I think it was just a bit more YA-focused than I was hoping for? The central character's main conflict never quite hit for me, and I spent most of my read basically waiting for the story to get to the big reveal at the end of it. I'm hoping that the sequel will build from that and end up creating a more satisfying story as a whole for me.

Grade: C

Book 24: Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

A story in a genre that already feels like a classic, even though it's really only been a thing for about twenty years at this point. We have two more or less enemies at a magical university, who end up thrown together via an illegal bond, and then they have to go on an adventure together to solve this problem and learn some important things about each other and correct misconceptions!! Is there attraction? You bet? Is there the most obvious set up of conflict and misunderstanding to lead into the sequel? Oh yes! Am I mad about any of this? Absolutely not. I personally like a bit more sexual tension and payoff in stories like this, but the fantasy worldbuilding is solid enough that the balance didn't make me mad, and I liked both of the leads quite a bit. Looking forward to the next one!

Grade: B

Reread: Children of Earth and Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay

This is, to the best of my recollection, the first book that I've reread that I read for the first time after I had started this blog. So here are my thoughts about it from 2016. 

I don't disagree with any of my thoughts or conclusions, although it took me longer this time around to vibe with the ensemble cast nature of the story. I have also actually been to some of the places that inspired this book now, namely Venice and Ravenna and Dubrovnik, as well as Greece, and that along with other books I've read about the region have deepened my appreciation of many of the themes of the book. I still cried, again mostly from relief, but also from recognition and the feeling of being home in this book. I don't think it will ever be my favorite GGK novel, but it's in conversation with so many of them that it exists within those books now, too. It enriches all that came before, and I expect it will do the same for those that come after. 

Grade: A

Reread: The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

Sometimes there's a book that does something intentionally and you know why it did it conceptually and you're still like yes but please give this to me???? And that is how I feel about this book and the lack of a map at the front. 

Every other book that GGK has written has a map at the start. It grounds you in this shared universe that he's created, which is essentially a fictional Europe and Middle East and North Africa that he can play with freely. And this book is about the version of Britain and the Vikings in 9th century or so, and I understand why the lack of a map reflects the mists and unknown glens and so on and so forth, but I would like to have my narrative bearing!!! 

Anyway. I love this book very much; many of Kay's books are about fathers and sons, and legacy, and above all else how chance encounters and timing changes the course of history, but this one has some of the most affecting scenes and develops those themes in ways that continue to stay with me. It's a book I reread hoping that I've misremembered some things about, so I don't have to experience that pain again, but by the end I'm so happy with where the story goes that I've accepted going through that pain. And there's a lot of hope in that. 

Grade: A 

Reread: Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay

I got stalled in this reread about 75% of the way through - I got to the point when it all begins to fall apart in the way that it simply has to fall apart, and weirdly I found it tough to experience this time around!! But I finally did, and it was as devastating and ultimately satisfying as it ever is. 

This book was the reason I specifically traveled to Ravenna to see some mosaics in person, which was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It gave me some of the language to explain why art and storytelling matter so much, even when (especially when) the world around us feels like it's imploding. And I find it comforting to know that humans have always just been trying to live our ordinary lives while greater machinations happen around us, and that there's still joy to be found in moments even during so much cruelty and terror. 

Grade: A