Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

I don't think I normally post about things I watch on telly. Which, these days, means really Netflix and Amazon Prime. Mostly because I don't watch much telly in any format. I watch a few minutes of news in the morning until I get depressed of the news and switch it off.

Couple of things I have been watching of late, though:
- Death, Love & Robots: some are very grim but they're short, very well made and make their point in very few brushstrokes. I really like the series.
- Picard: I never saw TNG back there then. I've been catching up on that in bits of late -now barely on Season 2. So a lot of the references and subtext in S1 were a bit lost on me but I enjoyed it nonetheless. And did enjoy S2 in spite of a few inevitable tropes and the ending. Enjoyed it much more than what I've seen so far of TNG.
- Sandman: Saw episode 1, will probably continue. Didn't grab me as hard as I thought it would but I liked it enough that I'll probably persevere with it. I never read the comic or watched previous movie so there is that, I have no preconceptions.
- Rings of Power: I'm not going to bother with this. I love Tolkien but this is ... well, it's not Tolkien, for starters. It didn't stir anything in me other than a 'what? no, really? No.'

Of course my viewing is heavily tilted towards science-fiction and a bit of fantasy. And I prefer science-fiction to fantasy. You won't see me watching period dramas very often (period meaning those late 19th Century things). Not a lot of horror or crime either, real life seems to be a little bit too full of both.

The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm yet to come across a book by N K Jemisin I didn't enjoy. The promise of the first instalment might not have been 100% fulfilled but it is a very good read nonetheless. I'd like to see her do a bit more SF as well as F but thus far what I've read of her work, including this book, has been excellent.



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How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was, at least to my liking, excellent. A short but powerful visit into some of Jemisin's worlds. I loved it.



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What am I reading at the moment while I try and recover from surgery and avoid climbing steps, lifting weights, riding horses...?

- 'Piranesi' by Susanna Clarke. This feels very abstract at first, reminded me of some stories by Jorge Luis Borges -that Library of Babel of his- but it does move away from that into what so far (but I'm only 70% into the book so there could be surprises) looks like a kind of Many Worlds story with a twist. Loving it but paused my reading this as it is the Bibliogoth set reading for this month and didn't want to finish it too early and have forgotten all about the book by the time the meeting came. So atm I'm reading:

- 'Leviathan Falls' by J S A Corey, the last instalment of The Expanse. The special effects are so much better in the book than in the series :D -more importantly, the characters are believable, human and in the context of its universe the incredible conflicts they are faced with turn out.... credible.

The Bear and The Nightingale by Katherine Arden

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Loved this story. Don't know much (or anything at all, really) about the folk lore and myths of Russia but this sparked a curiosity. There was an interesting thread about this in Bibliogoth when we were discussing the book (yesterday, as I write this). The consensus was that the characters were a little bit stereotypical, the plot did derive to an extent from old Russian folklore stories. None of this mattered to me, I really liked this book.



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Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A short but sweet read. I read that in two sittings. Not perhaps the sort of fantasy that I would be engrossed in, it did make me live in the fantasy Viet-Nam world it is set for the little while it lasted and left me wanting to hear more, which is a good thing. Would I read it again? For sure. It wouldn't take long, in any case.



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The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I liked this one even more than the first one. Now I'm half-way through the third instalment. Bit grim at times but a very good story and the characters are credible -if a lot of what they do break a lot of laws of physics! and the geological setting is a bit improbable. But it is a very good story, very well told.



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Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I loved this. I don't think it was flawless, but I loved the story, its world and characters. The device of making the protagonists live in a time loop (or 'time slip' in the book) where they have to live (but not relive) the same day over and over is not new (yeah, Groundhog Day, etc) but I felt it was effective, even though there might be a few loose ends and maybe one continuity flaw -and the use of language (American & British English in the 1940's sometimes feels wrong and a few terms used are anachronisms, wouldn't have been in use at the time) grates a bit at times. But such a lovely story.

Loved the use of the old, black and white photographs. The author explains that the photos were actually at the origin of the story.

The only thing I'm finding ever so slightly annoying about this kind of story: Modern fantasy comes in threes. At the end of the book you're left on a 'fermata', a suspension point if not a cliffhanger, thenthey pimp the next instalment of the story and the film I didn't know had been made of the book. You know there's going to be a second book (they tell you and give you half of the first chapter) but from all the precedents, you also know there's going to be a third one... it's very worth a read, though; a lot of fun.

This book was the set reading for the Bibliogoth meeting for January 2017.



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The Tropic of Serpents by Marie Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In spite of initial reservations, I loved the whole series -and the second one I liked better than the first. The characters are .. better shaped, more credible as people. The dragons themselves are quite believable on the whole as an object of interest to a scientist. Some things still jar a bit -one, for me, was that for some reason I found the use of German, French and Italian names (and perhaps stereotypical national characters). On the whole, though, it was an enjoyable book, an enjoyable series.



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