Lowell > Recent Status Updates

we stalled out on reading for a few months, but did finally finish it together. Winter vacation is great!

despite what he might say about it... this is absolutely still a cozy fantasy!

Well shit, it’s cozy southwest slightly horror that’s so damn familiar it just works.

This one brought giggles of delight and a few outright laughs. And I didn’t figure it out before the de-noo-mah, which is even better.

One star, absolutely grotesque. (Inside joke, actually 4.5 and rounding up).

This was sweet and amusing, if entirely predictable. Cozy enough, though the main character is a walking anxiety ball.

Well this was an absolute hoot.

I quite like the white rat; reminds me of another rather interesting deity(bujold’s bastard) while being entirely different.

The book was slow and flavorful for three quarters of its length. Easy to drift in and out of… and then the real plot came roaring in on wings of air and salt and flame.

Highly looking forward to the next volume!

I enjoyed this, but maybe not as much as the last two? There was a lot more happening, which is great, but I found the chapters too short to really dig in to any one character.

Perhaps it’s just a general frame of mind I am in right now, though.

Look, these aren’t high art. They aren’t masterful worldbuilding. They are cozy, competent fantasy that is a nice light read.

The books accomplish what they set out to do. And I enjoy them for what they are.

Thus far, this is a far less narratively complex book than Holes, which I find somewhat disappointing for a book marketed as an “adult debut.”

Nevertheless there are hints of mystery and threads of wonder that might pull it all together in the back half.

We shall see.

Well this was an absolute hoot of a book. Maybe two hoots, even!

the current ear-read, i'm finally getting around to it. trying to remember what had happened in the first two, but remembering how DENSE the cultural references are in this series.

Hugo read 4 of 6 done.

Honestly? I am unimpressed. This is, at best competent.

Well, here’s to yet another radical tonal shift in my reading.

Hugo nominated book 3, and away we go…

And now the game is truly afoot…

Well, this is spectacular.

The world building is Organic techno magic (bio punk?) meets Pacific Rim (the movie), and the story is a murder mystery.

I can see clearly why this one was nominated for the Hugo.

I am honestly sad that this Is only a duology. It drills a sarcastic be-footnoted gap that I always want filled.

“Great Repavement theory”

The cast of characters are introduced, and they include a white supremacist pair so inept that even the proud boys won’t take them, a somewhat crazy yet wealthy white boy whose got real beef with corruption, and a Latina woman who puts up with way too much bullshit.

Classic Hiaasen.

next up in the evening reading with my now ELEVEN year old child (where does the time go? good grief).

DNF at 50%.

The writing is extremely varied, and sometimes it works and other times it really doesn't. The transitions from scene to scene to mindscape to anxious hellscape to scene to sex to violence are all kind of blurred together in a psychedelic haze of prose that never lets up, never lets you get your bearings.

The book could be dangerous in all the right ways... if it were comprehensible.

DNF'd. If you know why, you know why. It goddamn hurts, because the original novel means a lot to me, but I can't read it any more.

DNF at 40%. the kiddo repeatedly just did not want to read this one, so we stopped and read other things.

Just a couple chapters in and this is the exact kind of cozy I wanted right now

Chapters in this book are far longer than in Dragonsong; consequently, we’re reading about half a chapter at a time.

The absolute petty bullying in this one is really frustrating because it is just. So. Petty.

Okay. Yeah. I am hooked.

Peg number approximate because I am too lazy to grab the book and check.

Kiddo’s (usually bed time) read-aloud. These books are old friend of mine that I haven’t read in a long time. What a joy, to get to read them to one of my kids!

So… we finished this one tonight. The kiddo was so utterly enthralled by it that we needed to have THREE hour-long reading sessions today and devoured the back half of the book (and the first chapter of the next one!.

My voice is so shof, but 100% worth it.

Ok, that was ridiculously fun. Silly stupid shit like this should not be allowed to be this amusing, but damn.

Well this seems to have the exact level of mindless snark I was hoping for this morning.