Jul 2, 2023The DawnhoundsGood fun! Pirates and mushrooms and sci-fi murder-mystery-leads-to-worldending-political-mystery, and they kiss in the end. Didn't really like the bit where I have to wait a while for the next book to come around, but if you do not find those things anathema to your reading experience, I think you would find this enjoyable.
Jul 18, 2023Bangkok Wakes To RainI didn't really know what to expect going into this, and I was quite pleasantly surprised. A clean and compelling novel of a somewhat experimental structure falls in and out of history, giving us brief moments in interconnected lives spanning some centuries into the future. Definitely reminiscent and perhaps directly inspired by the structure of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (and his earlier Ghostwritten) - except Mitchell's project in structuring those stories was to study interrelationships throughout characters reincarnating in different times, identities, and genres. Sudbanthad's project, examined from the same light, must be to study the reincarnation of the city of Bangkok itself, and how it relates to different characters (or maybe the reincarnation of a haunted structural beam? Part of the issue with audiobooks is that subtle clues breeze by and are difficult to reconstruct). The strength here is the slices of life, the compassionate and interesting stories that get me invested in particular characters...just for them to be swept away in time, and me be reintroduced to them as not the main character, but the aged swim teacher of the aunt of the protagonist.
Dec 17, 2023System CollapseMurderbot continues to be a delight, maybe a bit more on the Real side with this one but still at the core the classic Murderbot running around, saving lives, struggling with Emotions, getting shot a few times. While quite enjoyable, I can't help but feel that the concept has about run it's course - and I hope Wells is onto something new soon. Can't really blame her for capitalizing on this to the extent that she has though.
Dec 15, 2024AuthorityThe second book in the Southern Reach series is I assume considered in general a bit lesser, and I more-or-less agree with that. Annihilation was a powerful story of change and identity, and with powerful imagery and crazy worldbuilding. Authority I think was ultimately a bit more ambitious than that - VanderMeer tried to maintain a sense of deep, hidden meaning while hampering himself with an environment meant to be 2-dimensional at first glance, tropes of blank-faced men in suits doing secretive things. To a certain extent he succeeded, with some more subtle flourishes, but the intentional subversion of tropes I think ultimately weighed down the story a bit too much and in the end you get a novel that is a bit of a pulp and a bit of something else and not fully, breathlessly one or the other.
Dec 23, 2024AcceptanceA solid ending(?) to the Southern Reach trilogy, still less impressive and overwhelming than the first, but a good novel on its own and enough to make you think that it was probably, in the end, worth writing more books.