The main flaw in my cunning plan to catch up with my reviews is that I seem to keep reading books. I previously did 4 reviews of beautiful books and 4 sci-fi books. With this about 4 books with tough people, that only leave 4 to go! Unless … I read more
- Jhereg by Steven Brust
- Junkyard Cats by Faith Hunter
- Tenebre: Labirintul by Daniel Timariu
- The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain
Jhereg by Steven Brust
I feel like I should preface this by saying I’m deeply unimpressed with competent tough guys, and not really into the whole noir-like narration deal, so I dunno how I ended up reading so many books that would fit this description.
I started the audiobook of Jhereg 4 times before I finally committed to listening to the whole thing. This gets a strong fine from me, not great, not terrible.
I liked the world-building, especially the little detail about how things came to be. The world seems pretty fleshed out, with all the different houses having particular characteristics. There are two kinds of magic being routinely used, with mentions of other forbidden ones. There are magical creatures like dragons or jhereg. Even if in practice Draegaer seems like a fancy word for elf. The magic just seems mundane. With everyone teleporting all over the place and the temporary nature of assassinations, it feels pretty ordinary. Which might be great if that’s what you’re looking for, I wasn’t that into it.
I liked the supporting cast, especially the Jhereg, and Vlad’s wife Cawtie. Love me some supportive marriages, though I do wonder why she had to be retired. There was some mystery which was interesting, but I dunno if it was because of my lack of investment, it didn’t strike me like the sort where the reader can figure out a lot ahead of time. I really liked that it was a short book, because I just cba to care about anything.
Recommended to people who are into mafia-assassins; those looking for a secondary world-story with an urban-fantasy feel
Bingo: magic pet if familiar=pet (H), necromancy, bookclub, epigraphs, politics
Junkyard Cats by Faith Hunter
I got this as a free audible original, because it had cats on the cover, and I didn’t really look into it beyond that. Another fine, maybe leaning more towards meh.
This tries to pack a lot of worldbuilding into a short book. Which would be fine, except it’s so info-dumpy. There’s so much of the first-person narrator giving us backstory. And so much info about what kind of weapons she’s using and when they were invented and what they do. Maybe readers more familiar with military sci-fi are into that. I was just wishing she’d get on with the story. In shorter fiction in particular, I love it when a little world-building goes a long way. This was the opposite, a lot of info, going nowhere.
I was disappointed on the cat front. I got the feeling they filled a role somewhere between set dressing and weapon, and they didn’t fit a big enough role given their position in the title and cover. Nanites and bugs were a lot more plot-relevant.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the MC either, retired biker chick, very gritty. I’ve seen other reviews complain about her thirsting over mystery-man character, but I liked how that softened her up, highlighting the loneliness of her life in hiding.
Despite my whining, there was nothing really bad enough to make me dnf, but that’s largely because it was only a 5-hour audiobook.
Bingo: Magic pet, maybe H, not sure, climate,
Tenebre: Labirintul by Daniel Timariu
This one I actually liked. It’s a modern-day urban fantasy series, only available in Romanian, but I like to talk about non-english books, just as a little reminder that they exist. It’s also full-on detective noir, but in this case I liked it. Maybe because of the familiarity, maybe the particular flavor of self-deprecating humor just worked for me.
The main draw for me is that this series is set in my city. Although I’d read books set in cities I was familiar with, it’s something else knowing every street mentioned, and where those bushes are in that park that MC got dragged into and almost killed.
This is book 3 that I’ve read in the series. I liked how each book both builds on, and deconstructs things from the previous book. Things are hardly ever what they seem in Timisoara’s shady underworld, and new information throwing light on past events always turns up.
What I really like about this series is the underworld. I think its most similar to the characters in Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice. They might be satires, goblins, demons and ghouls, but mostly they’re just people trying to live their lives and protect their own. And Alex is just a detective trying to help out, getting in way over his head, and often seduced by demons, as you do. The different magical creatures also do a great job reflecting the regional melting-pot nature of the area, as the characters are named based on who lived here when that species arrived. So the oldest, the strigoi, have Dacian names, the werewolves have Hungarian names, the witches have Romanian names and so on.
Bingo: necromancy, made me laugh,
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday by Saad Z. Hossain
I read this as my 3rd cyberpunk book for last year’s bingo, when I was just about to say “never again” to cyberpunk, but I really liked this one. It was fun and funny, and despite the main characters being pretty much selfish assholes, it was pretty cheerful. The post-climate-catastrophy situation is resolved in the city of Kathmandu Incorporated, where the people are content, generally living happy healthy lives. Until a self-important fun-loving djinn-king arrives and tries to shake things up.
I liked how Melek Ahmar, the Lord of Mars, the Red King, the Lord of Tuesday, Most August Rajah of Djinn, kept going on and on about how powerful his in an enjoyable way. It was funny, the way all his power was mostly irrelevant in this modern world. The Gurkha is tough as nails, but he doesn’t have that “oh look at me I’m so badass” thing that irks me, just the hint of madness in his eyes that lets you know you’re not safe.
A short read with a fun story, cleverly written, with interesting worldbuilding and a pretty intense ending.
Bingo: climate, made me laugh