2013 Worlds Without End Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge discussion

Thought I'd make a new thread for our reviews.
Here's my first one. Karavans by Jennifer Roberson: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I finished Among Others today and threw up a review here. I've been keeping my goodreads reviews "above the fold," though, so it's only about eighty words. I figure I'll try to polish something a little longer for the challenge.

Here is my first challenge review, for Elfland by Freda Warrington. This was one of those "I really liked it, but it's hard to explain why" books--but I'm glad I at least liked the first one!

Finished Fudoki, which I thought was very good. Review is here.

Also read Grimspace and wished I hadn't. That review is here.

A couple I have read. One is self-pubbed witch doesn't count according to WWE, but I counted anyway.

Falling Kingdoms (YA read)

The Curse of Chalion

The Thief's Gamble

The Emperor's Edge (self-pubbed)

Between Two Thorns

So I should have no trouble hitting 12 authors.

In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker

Finished January 17

Two stars

I was so excited about this book when I first started. The world building is phenomenal. In the future, a company (really, The Company) has discovered both time travel and immortality. The immortality is limited, though, and can only be bestowed on children. The Company uses its time travel abilities to go back in time and create immortal children who are then indoctrinated into its ways and made its agents. Super interesting, right? There are so many places this could go. I even recommended this book to a few people after just a few chapters--I should've waited.

Out of NOWHERE (and I mean, actually, nowhere), we go from a science fiction book to a YA romance one. Our protagonist switches, in one sentence, from loathing and being frightened of mortals to falling in love with a stranger. All pretenses of science fiction are gone. The philosophical and moral questions being grappled with take a back seat to the poorly written romance.

Even our genius protagonist (The Company turns the children into geniuses and provide them with all the knowledge of all the ages) turns into a ditz in the face of love. It starts snowing, and she says, "Where did all the feathers come from?" Yes, that's our genius.

The book picked up again at the very end. I almost gave this three stars but just couldn't do it given how ridiculous the BULK of the book was. It's such a shame. This had so much promise.

Review located here.

My review of Among Others

Not really Hugo winner material, if you ask me :(

Here is my review of Bitter Greens, which I liked very much. Unfortunately, so far it is only published in Australia, although it'll be released in the UK in a couple of weeks.

And here is my review of The Bird of the River, which I liked okay, but would've liked better if I was into YA.

I put up my review of A Natural History of Dragons, which I found quite enjoyable.

Yeah I need to actually write reviews for this challenge, although I reserve the right to have at least one be nothing but funny gifs.

I need to get around to writing the challenge reviews, too; instead of the above the fold five sentence ones I've been doing.

I think the reviews can be as long as you want. Generally, mine tend to be shorter like yours, thistlepong. The most recent one just ended up being longer is all.

I have review-writing phobia. Just can't do it. I'll always feel either inappropriately enthusiastic or embarrassingly uninformed or oh dear what am I doing am I spoiling this or am I trying to say something about a book without saying anything about it at all? PANIC.

Finished The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, and really liked it.
Review here

Karina wrote: "I have review-writing phobia. Just can't do it. I'll always feel either inappropriately enthusiastic or embarrassingly uninformed or oh dear what am I doing am I spoiling this or am I trying to say..."

But Karina, I love your reviews. I've added so many books to my TBR because of them.

Finished book #2!


Tinker by Wen Spencer

Four stars

This steampunk fantasy book contained BREATHTAKING world building. I'm trying to think of a book that has done it better in the last 30 years. The City & The City maybe? But that was in such a completely different genre. I don't want to give anything away, but let me just say you can't go wrong with Pittsburgh stuck in another dimension and elves and tengu. Yes, tengu! I was thrilled with that.

The book was crazily fast-paced. I read it in a single sitting (unfortunately for me, I started it at 10:30pm) and was enthralled the whole way. Some reviewers have complained that it got a little difficult to follow because of the new words used (and old words used in new ways), but I liked that. It showed Spencer was really particular when it came to building her world--she made it real.

This is not high fantasy, and it's certainly not extremely literary, but it's FUN. It's the most fun I've had with a fantasy book in a long time.

Why four and not five stars? I loved that Tinker is a smart, resourceful, courageous character. But she at once is selfish and has low self-confidence. I wouldn't go so far as to call her a Mary Sue, but I do see why others have. The second thing: sex was a theme throughout the whole book, and the sex scenes were kind of weird and unnecessary. I'm not the kind of person who won't read a book because it contains sex, but I don't like authors using sex as a device or as a marketing tool. Maybe Spencer felt the only way young males would read a book about a smart, coming of age female was to over-sexualize her? I don't know, but I could've done without it.

Review located here.

This one's not in the database, so I had to request it.

I finished Elliot's Spirit Gate. Decent, but I had some problems with the world-building, which is good in some places, while in others it seems things were skipped over the sake of plot.

I've gotten behind in posting links to reviews--here is my review of A Natural History of Dragons, which I thought was mostly good but with some structural issues. And here is my review of Lion of Senet, which I didn't think was much good at all.