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50books_pocReviews #6-#9, cut to save your fl.
Light on the Sound, Somtow Sucharitkul
I enjoyed this book much more than the first book of his that I read (Starship and Haiku, which I reviewed earlier). This is the first of a series of novels he wrote about a galactic empire called the Inquest, and its fall from power. The Inquestors play an incomprehensible game of politics, bringing wars to "stagnant" worlds to avoid the "sin" of false utopias. Most of this book focuses on the huge power gap between the common folk and the Inquestors and their servants.
As far as I can tell, this book is a collection of previously-published short stories, strung together with a separate narrative about a young woman whose life is changed forever when she meets one of the Inquestors and becomes a member of his court. The stories are engaging in and of themselves, but I liked the main character enough that I wished I'd had a chance to see more of her. I hope she's still a major character in the next novel!
Darker Angels, Somtow Sucharitkul (writing as S.P. Somtow)
The book jacket calls it "...a powerful and gripping saga of voodoo, zombies, and the Civil War..." which made me expect something closer to an alternate history, with the undead fighting in the Civil War. Unfortunately, there was no army of zombies, darn it. Most of it is stories, or stories-within-stories, told by and about various characters as we meet them, many of them about the conditions of slavery and life in and around the American Civil War.
I was uncomfortable with an awful lot of this novel -- honestly, I wouldn't have finished it if I weren't reading it for this challenge. Many of the POV characters are bigots of various stripes, which may be appropriate for the time period but makes for a difficult read. The characters are also largely shown as broad stereotypes, and while the stories they tell are interesting, I wish there had been more of a sense of the people involved.
My Soul to Keep, Tananarive Due
This book has been reviewed here before, so I won't recap. But I really, really liked it! It started a bit slow, for me, but I gradually found myself fascinated by Dawit's memories, and the way his actions intersected with Jessica's life and morals. I loved the epilogue, and I need to hunt down a copy of the sequel.
Teach Yourself Visually: Sock Knitting, Laura Chau
I picked up this book because I love Laura Chau's sweater designs. The actual 'how to knit socks' part is pretty basic, and the sort of instructions you could get pretty much anywhere on the net -- and heaven forbid you actually need the pictures, because most of them are about an inch square, which is far too small to see the details of making stitches! But the sock designs in the book are stellar, and I'm dying to try them out!
Light on the Sound, Somtow Sucharitkul
I enjoyed this book much more than the first book of his that I read (Starship and Haiku, which I reviewed earlier). This is the first of a series of novels he wrote about a galactic empire called the Inquest, and its fall from power. The Inquestors play an incomprehensible game of politics, bringing wars to "stagnant" worlds to avoid the "sin" of false utopias. Most of this book focuses on the huge power gap between the common folk and the Inquestors and their servants.
As far as I can tell, this book is a collection of previously-published short stories, strung together with a separate narrative about a young woman whose life is changed forever when she meets one of the Inquestors and becomes a member of his court. The stories are engaging in and of themselves, but I liked the main character enough that I wished I'd had a chance to see more of her. I hope she's still a major character in the next novel!
Darker Angels, Somtow Sucharitkul (writing as S.P. Somtow)
The book jacket calls it "...a powerful and gripping saga of voodoo, zombies, and the Civil War..." which made me expect something closer to an alternate history, with the undead fighting in the Civil War. Unfortunately, there was no army of zombies, darn it. Most of it is stories, or stories-within-stories, told by and about various characters as we meet them, many of them about the conditions of slavery and life in and around the American Civil War.
I was uncomfortable with an awful lot of this novel -- honestly, I wouldn't have finished it if I weren't reading it for this challenge. Many of the POV characters are bigots of various stripes, which may be appropriate for the time period but makes for a difficult read. The characters are also largely shown as broad stereotypes, and while the stories they tell are interesting, I wish there had been more of a sense of the people involved.
My Soul to Keep, Tananarive Due
This book has been reviewed here before, so I won't recap. But I really, really liked it! It started a bit slow, for me, but I gradually found myself fascinated by Dawit's memories, and the way his actions intersected with Jessica's life and morals. I loved the epilogue, and I need to hunt down a copy of the sequel.
Teach Yourself Visually: Sock Knitting, Laura Chau
I picked up this book because I love Laura Chau's sweater designs. The actual 'how to knit socks' part is pretty basic, and the sort of instructions you could get pretty much anywhere on the net -- and heaven forbid you actually need the pictures, because most of them are about an inch square, which is far too small to see the details of making stitches! But the sock designs in the book are stellar, and I'm dying to try them out!
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