Author: 5t4n5
The Lollipop Shoes — Joanne Harris
Book two of the Chocolat series. I really enjoyed Chocolat. so this is another one of those sequels in the unenviable position of having a lot to live up to. Did it? Well, it didn’t do too bad a job.
I would say my only real criticism of it was that it went on for far too long. Chocolat was a mere 359 pages whereas The Lollipop Shoes is 594 pages, and while reading it one gets the feeling that it could have been trimmed down a fair bit and the story would have benefited.
As i say, that’s my only real criticism.
I certainly enjoyed knowing that there are two further books in this tetralogy, as one can’t be certain how this is going to end. Is Vianne going to be left high and dry with the further two books dedicated to her fighting back, or is Vianne going to triumph here and now and we’ll move on to some other tale in the next book? We’re also not even sure who is going to be Vianne at the end of this book as it’s mostly about identity theft and Vianne becoming the target of an identity thieving witch: can chocolate witchery save the day again?
At the end, the only real judgement one can pass on this book is: am i going to read Peaches for Monsieur le Curé? Not straight away. As i said, this went on for a bit too long and i have a few other books i’ve been looking forward to reading, but Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is queued up on my Kindle ready to be read at some time in the not too distant future.
Joanne’s Page
#joanneharris
Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.
This week in politics we were given a very good example of Dunning-Kruger effect.
On top of the Dunning-Kruger we also get to see extreme Narcissistic Personality Disorder in action, with Trump deciding that this test would be almost impossible for anyone else to pass.
If the president of the usa is — by his own admission — finding a cognitive impairment test, “very difficult”, and finds it hard to believe that most other people wouldn’t be able to pass it then please, please, someone, anyone, remove this clown from office.
That some people are still believing that he’s a great president and will vote for him again just shows that democracy is a load of bollox: when you give idiots the vote they’ll vote for idiots.
And so, in this age of fake news, we have the president of the usa performing his own fake news for our entertainment dollar.
Please watch his face and right hand as he recites his pre-arranged “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”
Now consider how everything was arranged for this interview:
I shall say no more.
#5t4n5 #donaldtrump #personwomanmancameratv #politics #fakenews #thoughts
The Book of Swords — Anthology
The Best Man Wins — K. J. Parker
Her Father’s Sword — Robin Hobb
The Hidden Girl — Ken Liu
The Sword of Destiny — Matthew Hughes
“I am a Handsome Man,” said Apollo Crow — Kate Elliott
The Triumph of Virtue — Walter Jon Williams
The Mocking Tower — Daniel Abraham
Hrunting — C. J. Cherryh
A Long, Cold Trail — Garth Nix
When I was a Highway Man — Ellen Kushner
The Smoke of Gold is Glory — Scott Lynch
The Colgrid Conundrum — Rich Larson
The King’s Evil — Elizabeth Bear
Waterfalling — Lavie Tidhar
The Sword Tyraste — Cecelia Holland
The Sons of the Dragon — George R. R. Martin
#fantasy #kjparker #robinhobb #kenliu #matthewhughes #kateelliott #walterjonwilliams #danielabraham #cjcherryh #garthnix #ellenkushner #scottlynch #richlarson #elizabethbear #lavietidhar #ceceliaholland #georgerrmartin
The Phobos Experience — Mary Robinette Kowal
The Fated Sky — Mary Robinette Kowal
Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate — Robin Sloan
I really enjoyed Annabel Scheme and also everything else that Robin has written, so i went into this with very high expectations: sadly, i don’t think it reached them.
While it’s not a bad book and is quite an ok read, it just all felt a bit rushed.
Yes, i know, it was written as a serial article for a newspaper and maybe Robin was hobbled with some level of word count, or maybe Robin was in a rush to get on with other things: i’ve no idea. What i do have an idea about is that this book just isn’t as good as the original Annabel Scheme book.
But, hey ho, it’s enough to keep us Robin Sloan fans happy for a while and you can at least read it for free in it’s original form at the newspaper’s website.
In the meantime, we keep our fingers crossed for a full length novel coming from Robin soon.
Robin’s Page
#scifi #robinsloan
Good Neighbours — DeAnna Knippling
I really enjoyed this. A nice captivating little short to fill an hour or so.
In East Smithville the fog is always coming and with it, the Fairies who whisk people away, not to be seen again for years. This is the story of one such person returning — for a while at least.
I admit to being thoroughly disappointed that it ended, i really wanted it to keep going: away with the Fairies.
Well worth a read of your time and it would be really good if DeAnna came back to East Smithville some time and wrote a few more short stories about people returning.
DeAnna’s Page
#fantasy #fairytale #deannaknippling
England: The Autobiography — John Lewis-Stempel
I really enjoyed Meadowland, so i’m hoping this will be right up there with it.
John’s Page
#johnlewisstempel
A Perfect Moment — DeAnna Knippling
I revceived this as an ARC from DeAnna to read, comment and review.
As a short story, anthology stocking-filler it does what it’s supposed to. I was quite happy to read it and wasn’t put off at all but, it doesn’t do much more than that.
As with a lot of these shorts for anthologies, there’s usually a really good idea at their core but the word count to play it out just isn’t available, and i do feel that this is one of those. There’s a greedy reader part of me that wants this spun out novel length into a temporal food-fight similar to Recursion by Blake Crouch.