in lieu of proper reviews
Jul. 19th, 2024 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnDoc put a new splint on so let's experiment with posting (and maybe even commenting?) a bit. Will still not be posting/commenting as usual for at least the next month, but Hugo deadline is tomorrow, so... here are my novel/novella picks in order.
Novel:
-Some Desperate Glory (but you all knew that)
-Saint of Bright Doors (I had issues with it but it was doing interesting things, which I value for Hugo voting)
-Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
-Translation State
-Witch King (did not manage to finish)
-Starter Villain (did not manage to start, but I'm sure it's fine)
Novella:
-Mammoths at the Gates (which I loved, and which moved me the most, after not particularly gelling with the other Singing Hills novellas after the first)
-Seeds of Mercury (I'm inclined to rate the Chinese nominees higher, and I thought this one was interesting)
-Rose/House (intriguing)
-Mimicking of Known Successes (*)
-Thornhedge (enjoyed)
-Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet (I kind of feel like I could have summed this up in 3 sentences and saved myself the trouble of reading it)
(*) I thought it was fine in general, but I discovered while reading it that while I really like having spectrum-coded characters as the POV character, I intensely dislike having that character as the love interest (or at least did in this case) because I can see how annoying one can be and I do not like feeling seen like that! :)
Novel:
-Some Desperate Glory (but you all knew that)
-Saint of Bright Doors (I had issues with it but it was doing interesting things, which I value for Hugo voting)
-Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi
-Translation State
-Witch King (did not manage to finish)
-Starter Villain (did not manage to start, but I'm sure it's fine)
Novella:
-Mammoths at the Gates (which I loved, and which moved me the most, after not particularly gelling with the other Singing Hills novellas after the first)
-Seeds of Mercury (I'm inclined to rate the Chinese nominees higher, and I thought this one was interesting)
-Rose/House (intriguing)
-Mimicking of Known Successes (*)
-Thornhedge (enjoyed)
-Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet (I kind of feel like I could have summed this up in 3 sentences and saved myself the trouble of reading it)
(*) I thought it was fine in general, but I discovered while reading it that while I really like having spectrum-coded characters as the POV character, I intensely dislike having that character as the love interest (or at least did in this case) because I can see how annoying one can be and I do not like feeling seen like that! :)
no subject
Date: 2024-07-19 07:52 pm (UTC)I did not make any progress on the novels, so was basically just voting for SDG, but, like, I'm fine with that. I do want to give Saint of Bright Doors a shot before the results, though. We'll see how it goes. (I made it 5% into Starter Villain, and those 5% were indeed fine :P
Mammoths was great! I love the other Singing Hills books, and was a little worried about a more personal/Chih-focused story living up to what I love about Empress of Salt and Fortune and Into the Riverlands, which tends to be the stories inside stories and the other people Chih meets, but I needn't have worried -- I loved this one too, and found it very moving, and it's at the top of my list as well.
I also liked 'Mimicking' (more than you, it sounds like), but those are the only ones I've read in full. I started Thornhedge, and I expect I will read it eventually and like it, because I pretty much always enjoy T.Kingfisher, but it just wasn't grabbing me that much.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-20 04:31 am (UTC)I did not make any progress on the novels, so was basically just voting for SDG, but, like, I'm fine with that.
me too! :)
I do want to give Saint of Bright Doors a shot before the results, though. We'll see how it goes.
well... it is very slow going, in my opinion...
(I made it 5% into Starter Villain, and those 5% were indeed fine :P
lol!