ergative's reviews
1041 reviews

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. It style of narrative was very congenial to me, with more of a focus on the cultural innovations (lots about the language situation and the writing systems, and even a section on mathematics!) than the tedious back and forths of battles and rulers. Indeed,, not to  at one point Kriwaczek says, 'The details of the unending conflict between [Assyria and Babylon], not to mention the constant warfare with the surrounding powers, great and small, recorded later in interminable epics and annals ful of boasts and dubious claims of victory, quickly become hard to follow and wearisome to relate. It is a relief when one of those powers leaves the stage . . . thus simplifying the picture. Enough to say that Assyria grew in territory . . .'

I also really enjoyed Kriwaczek's freewheeling associations and speculations. He's never shy about linking some particular phenomenon to a modern-day equivalent, whether it be the impossibility of preventing migrations of people (with some pointed remarks about US attempts at keeping out immigrants), or an association between diverse societies and a more authoritarian government style (with some pointed comparison between capital punishment and limited social safety measures in the US, a nation of immgirants, compared with more progressive European governments in nations that until recently have been much more culturally homogenious). To be sure, some of these speculations seem a bit cherry-picked; and others are just buck-wild and silly. His remarks about why the rise of bronze weaponry coincides with an age of heroes due to new fighting styles seems fun but probably unfounded; while his remarks about why a religious shift from immanent gods as part of nature to transcendent gods outside of nature coincides with an increase of societal misogyny is . . . kooky. (The logic goes that women's menstrual cycles and reproductive capacity tie them to nature in a way that men are not, so men can be seen as an image of a transcendent god, while women remain linked with animals. I myself think that piss and shit are pretty dang natural and link men to animals pretty hard, so probably the rise of misogyny is not the result of some shift in woo woo mysticism, but, hey, whatever floats your boat, Paul).

But despite my disagreement with certain perspectives, I really enjoyed reading them! Kriwaczek published this book the year before he died, so it's not surprising that he was unbothered about proposing unorthodox ideas. He already had established his name; why not have some fun? It was like having a  drunken conversation with a slightly-high college friend who had just had their mind opened by some particularly lively Intro-to-Western-Civ class discussion. It was fun! 

This was just beautiful. I confess that the ARC ebook I received from Netgalley had very poor rendering of the illustrations, so probably this book is best appreciated in hard copy, but even with just the text I was enchanted. In a very short space, Hardinge has constructed a world in which an ever-hungry Forest has overpowered humanity's attempts to keep it back, until all that remains is the wreck of a Wall that was built, and which failed. Possibly the failure reflected internal human divisions, or perhaps its failure was inevitable, but as it is now, all that is left is pockets of humanity, some of whom believe that they are all that remains, and treat travellers as hungry ghosts. Into this world, our heroine, Feather, sets off, in pursuit of a thief who has taken something valuable from her own pocket of survivors, and in the process discovers what remains of the people in this world, and helps construct a way forward. 

 It sure took its time to build the City As Character, which I usually appreciate, but the fact remains that all that City-As-Character building made the plot very slow (I knew several hundred pages before Rathe figured it out that the hedge astrologers were behind it all), and the City-As-Character wasn't really interesting enough to justify it all. 

What an... odd book. I've heard that Jack Vance is a fine writer, but I didn't see much sign of it here. The whimsical inventiveness of the various cultures and traditions were cute, but also had a very strong overtone of exoticisation and othering of people. These cultuers are being presented as curiosities, not as people, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. (I did rather enjoy the bit at the academic conference, though.) 

The pacing was a complete mess: Jaro's whole childhood is built around his desire to go to space and uncover the mystery of his past, so it's awfully deflating when his missing father just . . . turns up and tells him what happened. The mystery plot then turns into a revenge plot--but even the revenge plot is pretty anemic. All of the plot is pretty anemic. Things just kind of happen, one after another, with very little structure or direction.

Overall, I'm not impressed, and feel no need to read more by this author.

This had a lively, entertaining narrative style, and I enjoyed the depth of detail in the setting. The plot was quite sprawling, though; I'm much better at keeping track of the minutiae of worldbuilding and magic systems than I am at the slow uncovery of twisty turny conspiracies. Props to Davis for giving everyone distinct names, though. Everything I know of classical Roman history suggests that there were, like, three names that everyone shared.

 Gosh, Parker-Chan is SO GOOD at what they do! The character arcs, the plotting, the intrigue! The WILDLY UNHEALTHY sexual relations. I'm astonished that Baoxiang managed to come out of it without a miserable horrible death. And I'm even more surprised that Ouyang's arc could have been made any more tragic than it already was, but Parker-Chan managed to find a way! Well done, well done indeed! 

Solid installment, not much different from the others. I like how the events of previous adventures form the foundation for this one.

 This is an undemanding book about how Cats Are Good, with a rather charming premise: people who are struggling in their lives (in minor ways: irritating co-workers, uncongenial jobs, difficulties connecting with their children) somehow find their way to a psychiatric clinic in a building that isn't always there, where an odd doctor gives them a cat as a prescription. It's cute. It's pretty obvious. There's a little bit of a mystery about the nature of the clinic that is resolved in a sweet but not terribly surprising way. This would be a good book for someone who is grieving the loss of a beloved cat, perhaps; but there's not much else to it. 

I've seen the rallying cry go around writers' circles: don't be afraid to do something that's been done before! Because it's never been done before by you. You make it special! Give us your take on [tired old trope], because in your voice it will be fresh and new!

And, like, that's good advice for a shy writer. But H. G. Parry is not a shy writer. H. G. Parry has written quite a few books already. And so surely H. G. Parry has the experience to see that, in fact, outsider goes to magic school and finds a home and friends but learns that there are dark secrets and hidden evils etc etc is a very, very tired trope. That it needs to be approached with an extremely fresh take. And this take is not fresh enough. It's got fairies and bargains and the whole magic school thing, but it really didn't feel like anything I hadn't seen before. I did rather enjoy the time-jump in the middle to nine years later, since the alternative is to do alternating timelines, and I never particularly liked those. But, in sum, meh. The book took no chances, gave no particular twists I hadn't already figured out, and the internal struggle of our narrator feeling guilty about leaving her family behind was forced and felt inconsistent.

If you want to read something by H. G. Parry that was fresh and new, I highly recommend The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep. 

This was not trying to be anything it wasn't. It was fluff. It was a romp. It had the Scalzi touch on the dialogue that makes every character sound identical (a witty quipper), the recurrring jokes that recur just a smidge too often  ('I lift things'), and was exactly what it set out to be. It was essence of Scalzi. It was exactly what I wanted.