Should I finish these?

[cahn]

Inspired partially by sophia_sol (but I might have done this anyway), I'm incorporating a very liberal attitude towards not finishing my Hugo reading.

The Kaiju Preservation Society (Scalzi) - DNF. I'm not actually asking about this one as I've decided I'm not going to finish this. It's not bad, it's light and frothy and fun, but I think I am willing to deal with light and frothy and fun when it's tropes I'm interested in (galactic empires in The Last Emperox) and not when it's not (kaiju).

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau (Moreno-Garcia) - Is there a payoff here for someone who hasn't read Island of Doctor Moreau? I didn't dislike it and am willing to read more if there is a payoff, but I'm worried that it will only be a payoff if you know something about the original. Also, independently of this book, should I read Island? (That is to say, I wouldn't read it just to read Daughter, but if I read it I might read Daughter afterwards.)

A Mirror Mended (Harrow) - is this worth finishing? I read and liked the first of these but I guess I'm not super convinced there's enough more to say in this multiverse... is there? I got far enough in this one to be aware of what the gimmick is likely to be, but I also think I am near saturation on reversed fairy tales. Tanith Lee probably did it better anyway

Comments

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Thanks for linking your posts! I am encouraged: I got a lot of what you got, so perhaps I am not just too dumb for the book. It does help that Richard III is one of my father's favorite plays, which I think I had watched three versions of on-screen by the time I was fifteen. I still remember him picking up a telemarketing call and drawling, in his best Laurence Olivier, "I am not in the giving vein today." I have no idea what the poor marketer thought, but I suspect they didn't get it.

To answer a question you asked back then: I think that Colin kills Albany because he wishes to prevent what happened at the end of the Tudor era--- an alliance between Scotland and England turning into a personal union which ended the era of the border reivers. Since the Christians in this AU are one of the raiding groups taking advantage of the ungovernable border zone, Colin naturally doesn't want this to happen.)

Anyway, thanks for the links and for the book rec!