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What I read -- April 2015



“Deryni Rising” by Katherine Kurtz. Kari Sperring wrote an article http://www.strangehorizons.com/2015/20150330/sperring-c.shtml about her, and I realized I have about ten of these, none of which I remember actually reading, so I pulled them out. They were given to me by a friend who moved to England and couldn’t take all her books with her. I got a strong sense of déjà vu, but it’s not in my notes, so maybe I’ve just read (as Sperring said) so many of her descendents that it all feels familiar. But I really think I must have read this book about 17 years ago.

It took a chapter or two to get used to all the adjectives.

The women annoyed me. A lot. The two female characters who appear in more than one scene are so awful, and all the men are so awesome, that I was really mad that a woman wrote this book. Considering how many more of these I own. I could go on and on about how much I hated Charissa and Jehana, but I won’t. Neither seemed allowed to act in a rational manner.

“Acceptance” by Jeff Vandermeer. Not just to be complete, I really wanted to see how things would turn out. 

I got to the end and kind of wondered if I’d missed something, so I read some of the reviews, and it turns out I didn’t. Some storylines are tied up, but there’s one large ambiguity which I’m okay with not being tied up, I always worry that I’ve missed something important. And since no one in my house has read these books, it’s not like I can talk to them about it. Thank god for the internet.

“Taltos” by Steven Brust. This is book 4, and book 3 was a little painful to read, so I gave myself some time off. I love that these are presented not in chronological order, and I love the narrative voice. It does things that make action sequences quite delightful.

“Phoenix” by Steven Brust. Combined with the previous in “The Book of Taltos”, cleverly enough, so here we are. It was a great, fun read. Ed picked it up when I was done.
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