Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Things are not always what they seem (Double Bingo)

The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

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4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Landscape

Costis is one of the Attolian guards, fiercely loyal to his beloved (if fearsome) queen and skeptical and disdainful of his so-called king, the former Thief of Eddis, who through trickery and guile ended up married to their queen. Nevertheless, when he foolishly loses his temper and ends up striking the king in the face, he’s mortified and expects to be sent home in disgrace if he’s lucky, executed if he’s unlucky. Yet the strange, new young king surprises everyone, by demanding that Costis become one of his retainers, somehow the most humiliating fate of all to the soldier.

No longer a soldier, clearly the odd one out among the king’s other noble retainers, Costis is miserable. Many of his duties just involve tagging along after the king, practicing incredibly basic weapons drills with him and generally just wondering how his life took such an unfortunate turn. It’s obvious to everyone with eyes in their head that the king’s retainers despise him just as much as the soldiers and while they perform their duties, they keep showing their disrespect by bringing him inappropriate outfits, bringing him food that he’s unable to eat unaided and generally making snide remarks to the king’s face, and outright semi-treasonous remarks when they think no one is listening.

Yet the queen doesn’t seem like she’s suffering some politically advantageous marriage of convenience, and the Eddisian ambassador talks to and about the king not as if he’s the petulant, lazy, and vain young man he seems to be. Costis has begun to understand that not everything is as it appears with the former Eddisian king of Attolia and that his strange behaviour is calculated to a degree. He doesn’t realise just how much until there is an assassination attempt on the one-handed king, who despite showing only rudimentary weapons skills in the public practice sessions, takes out three assassins unassisted while left alone in the palace gardens. In the second half of the book, Costis (and most other people who had been seriously underestimating the king) comes to discover just what a clever and patient strategist Eugenides actually is.

I read the first three books in what is now known as The Queen’s Thief series back in 2012. My reviews for The Thief and The Queen of Attolia are from back then. So while this is the second time I read The King of Attolia, I don’t seem to have reviewed it the last time around. I was unable to find out who narrated the audios I listened to back in 2012, but I can say that I much preferred Steve West’s narration.

Full review on my blog.

Bingo #1: Free (Hør Her’a!), Landscape (this), Fauna (Rule of Wolves), Travel (People We Meet on Vacation), Machinery (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

Bingo #2: Home (Mystic Bayou series), Libations (Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake), They She He (One Last Stop), People (Any Way the Wind Blows), Landscape (this)

In case you were wondering, Christopher Marlowe is a little shit, according to this author.

Shadow of Night (All Souls, #2) by Deborah Harkness

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It has been a bit since I read this, so this review will be a bit lacking in details as I struggle to remember why I rated this three stars. I remember the middle particularly being a bit of a slog. Also, not much happened plot-wise for a 600ish page book. The author clearly just got really excited about putting her characters in a 16th century setting with a bunch of famous people from that era (and lots of non-famous people as well, to be fair).

There is actually quite a bit of character growth on the part of both Diana and Matthew, our main characters. They have ostensibly traveled back in time to find Diana a teacher in witchcraft, and also to find Ashmole-782 before it goes missing. Both of these goals are eventually accomplished, but there is a LOT of dithering across Europe in the meantime. Matthew confronts his feelings over the death of his father, who is still alive in this time, and Diana learns some things about herself as well, but honestly the specifics elude me. They spend a lot of time socializing and gathering strays to take care of. A lot of the historical detail was interesting, there was just so much here, it felt overly indulgent, and the book was harder to get through a a result.

I did end up liking it, though, and the ending was better than the beginning.

I still hate the time travel in this series though. Its rules make NO SENSE. I don’t even want to try and parse it because I’ll just get mad after writing 1,000 more words.

Is this the final Grishaverse book? I hope not

Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

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4.5 stars

CBR13 Bingo: Fauna (dragon, wolf, falcon and fox on the cover)

In this second part of the King of Scars duology, the stakes are ridiculously high, pretty much as soon as we start off. The book starts pretty much immediately after the end of King of Scars, and if you’re not caught up with all the books in the Grishaverse so far, this review will probably spoil things for you. Continue at your own risk.

Nikolai Lantsov has made some peace with the monster inside him, but one of his worst enemies just came back from the dead, the Shu empress wants him dead and is willing to sacrifice her own sister to ensure this goal, the Fjerdans are ready to declare war on him, and the woman he loves seems more out of reach than ever.

Zoya is mightily sick of war, and casualties, and losing loved ones to pointless conflicts. She will nevertheless fight until her last dying breath to defend Ravka, the Grisha, and her king. A king who will have to make a successful and strategic marriage alliance to help strengthen Ravka in the conflicts they are facing, both internal and external. She’s also tormented by the return of someone she believed was dead and gone, and it’s not helping her keep calm and rational, as appropriate for a general facing war on multiple fronts.

Nina is still wearing another woman’s face and working with the daughter of her enemy to spy on the Fjerdans. She’s trying to persuade the Fjerdan people that the Grisha are not the dangerous threats that the Witch-hunters paint them to be, and find out as many state secrets as possible to aid her king and general in the rapidly-approaching war. She’s not at all happy when it seems like the best way to discover more of Fjerda’s invasion plans involves her loyal friend Hanne Brum’s prolonged flirtation with and possible betrothal to the spoiled and unstable Fjerdan crown prince.

I’m trying not to reveal too much of the plot here, and these books really have a lot going on. I love Nikolai, Zoya, Nina, and the rest of the numerous cast of these books so much and should probably go back and give the Shadow and Bone trilogy another chance. Now that I know where the story ends up going, I may have more patience for the setup and Bardugo learning her writing craft, which she is now excellent at. There is so much happening in this duology, and if it ever makes it to the screen (who knows how much money Netflix is willing to fork out for YA fantasy?) it’s going to make for spectacular entertainment.

Full review on my blog.

“Of all the myriad races of thinking creatures in the world, the two that most delight in telling stories are the flesh-and-blood humans and the long-lived, fiery jinn.”

The Hidden Palace (The Golem & The Jinni, #2) by Helene Wecker

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I’m having a hard time reviewing this one, mostly because I had a hard time deciding what I thought about it. But I’m on the verge of getting hopelessly behind in reviews again, so it’s time to buckle down and figure it out.

I was thinking about the book this morning and I think I’ve finally formed some solid opinions, so here we go.

This is a book about change in all its forms: death (and grief), destruction, creation, evolution, the way a person changes when they let other people into their lives, progress, sickness, learning, growing up, breaking up, getting old. You get the idea. And I think the main thing that was unsettling me about this book is that I didn’t want things to change for these characters, in fact at points during this reading experience, I actively resented it. This is what we call irony! This book dragged me kicking and screaming through its pages. I wanted Chava and Ahmad to keep their happily ever after ending, and I wanted that first book to remain its own perfectly contained thing, the characters frozen in time, but that is not what the author wanted, and this case I think the author was right. I rail against unnecessary sequels all the time, but this was a good one.

I’m not going to say too much about the plot, other than it takes place over a longer period of time than the first book, taking us from the early 1900s through the early years of the first world war. It remains a lovely portrait of immigrant life in turn of the century NYC. She also introduces two new characters who act as foils and funhouse mirror images for Chava and Ahmad that I think ultimately really ties the whole thing together. The book leaves us in a good place, one where you can imagine your own ending, and I do hope she leaves it that way this time. (I will of course pick up any more books she chooses to write, even if they are sequels.)

A book I loved years ago is still great on re-read.

The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1) by Helene Wecker

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This was just as good the second time. Not going to do a whole huge review because I’m tired, and I’d rather be reading the sequel instead of writing things.

I still think this is an absolutely lovely portrayal of the immigrant experience, both in the way it portrays actual historical immigrant communities (particularly Little Syria and the Jewish communities in NYC) and in the way that Wecker uses the outsized fantastical experiences of the golem and the jinni (Chava and Ahmad, as they become in their new world) to represent that experience more metaphorically. They are the ultimate strangers in a strange land. It’s also just a fun story to tell and to read! The story of two magical creatures immigrating to America, neither by choice, and how they found each other.

The little details really set this apart, and I found myself once again being sucked entirely into the world Wecker has created. She has such a good storytelling instinct, and her writing brings such a human experience to the story. Her villain is also compelling because he remains human in his monstrosity. I also loved the way she do deftly portrays the multicultural aspect of NYC, how so many different people can live in the same place and still seem to live worlds apart.

I started the sequel this morning, and so far so good, and I’m hoping it can live up to this little masterpiece. (I’m still angry the new book doesn’t have the dyed pages and thick binding the first book did. The new one feels more cheaply made. This first book remains one of the prettiest books I’ve ever owned.)

What unspeakable truth is being covered up by stories of ghosts?

The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley

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CBRBingo: Fauna – moths and Katsu, who somehow survived.

In her sequel to The Watchmaker of Filligree Street Natash Pulley takes the story to Japan.  Thaniel has been sent by the Foreign Office to investigate stories of ghosts at the British legation.  His boss Fanshaw thinks that someone at the legation might be abusing their power over the local staff and an outsider who speaks the language and knows something of the culture might be able to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.  And without an overseas posting, Thaniel will never overcome the class barriers that are holding his career back.

Mori is returning to Japan for reasons of his own, that are somehow linked to the Russian fleet that is threatening invasion.  Thaniel’s insecurity about the nature of their relationship is magnified when he is confronted with the reality of Mori’s ancestral estate and aristocratic connections, even before he meets Mori’s wife, Takiko Pepperharrow.  As the gulf between them widens, and the ghostly happenings intensify, Mori mysteriously disappears.

To say much more about the plot would be to say too much.  It’s as intricate and complicated as one of Mori’s watches.  But this story is all about the characters and the impact of events, political and paranormal, on their lives,  their outer circumstances, and their innermost desires.

Even more than in The Watchmaker, Pulley poses so many questions about Mori, his motivations, his character and the damage his abilities wreak on his life and the people who love him.  And yet again, she delivers on the answers with a resolution that fits the internal workings of Mori’s ability to remember the future while also feeling emotionally true.

This is a book I will be rereading, to wring even more from.  And sign me up for any more sequels.

 

 



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