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Phil in SF

kingrat@sfba.club

Joined 1 year, 4 months ago

aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. Also, I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.

2024 In The Books

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Phil in SF's books

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64% complete! Phil in SF has read 18 of 28 books.

Paulette Jiles: Chenneville (AudiobookFormat, 2023, HarperAudio) 5 stars

Consumed with grief, driven by vengeance, a man undertakes an unrelenting odyssey across the lawless …

Excellent Western

5 stars

John Chenneville wakes up in a Union Army field hospital after being unconscious for months due to a serious head wound. He returns home only to find out his sister has been murdered while he was a soldier. The murderer appears to be a local deputy, so the sheriff doesn't seem inclined to do anything about it. John swears revenge, and thus begins a multi-state chase via foot, horseback, and boat. Along the way John meets a young female telegrapher but he is resolute on revenge instead of love.

The story is made by lots and lots of details about life on the post Civil War road that illustrate both his personality and what life was (presumably) like for an unattached veteran at the time. Additionally, the narration by Grover Gardner has just the right amount of gravelly old gentleman in it for the story.

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reviewed Neon Gods by Katee Robert (Dark Olympus, #1)

Katee Robert: Neon Gods (Paperback, 2021, Sourcebooks Casablanca) 2 stars

He was supposed to be a myth. But from the moment I crossed the River …

Not much of a retelling.

2 stars

So this was overall enjoyable, but if you're thinking of reading it due to being touted as a "retelling" of Greek myths with some spice sprinkled through, just skip it. The names and the places are the only part that really have to do with Greek mythology. This could have easily just been skinned over with a different world and felt the same. Even the power struggles are pretty minute. Definitely over-hyped, but I've read worse. I'll be continuing with some of the books just to see how they measure up.

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Cherie Dimaline: The marrow thieves (2017, Dancing Cat Books, an imprint of Cormorant Books Inc.) 4 stars

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, …

The Marrow Thieves

3 stars

This book is off the #SFFBookClub backlog, and I saw it mentioned on Imperfect Speculation (a blog about disability in speculative fiction).

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic near future world where most people have lost the ability to dream, and the only "cure" is through the exploitation of bone marrow from indigenous people who still can. The book follows Frenchie, a Métis boy who has lost everybody he cares about and travels with a found family trying to find safety and community. The metaphor here resonates directly with the horrors of Canada past, as armed "recruiters" capture anybody who looks indigenous to send them off to "schools" to extract their bone marrow.

I know this is a YA novel, but I wish some of the characters and the protagonist Frenchie had more depth. Maybe this would land better for somebody else, but I also don't have any room …

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reviewed Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow, #2)

Xiran Jay Zhao: Heavenly Tyrant (Hardcover, 2024, Tundra Books) 4 stars

After suffering devastating loss and making drastic decisions, Zetian finds herself at the seat of …

Heavenly Tyrant

4 stars

Overall feelings: the ideas were fun, the middle felt like it dragged on, and the politics often felt heavy handed

The part of this book that I enjoyed the most and felt like was the strongest was all of the interpersonal dynamics. The first book ends with waking up the legendary emperor Qin Zheng, who in this book takes control immediately. The triangle dynamics of Zetian, Shimin, and Yizhi from the first book are broken up, with Shimin hostaged, Yizhi becoming Qin Zheng's advisor, and Zetian becoming Qing Zheng's wife. There's a lot of good tension between the fact that Qin Zheng is an authoritarian tyrant that rules with violence, but also establishes some policies that try to address inequalities from the previous regime. Zetian loathes his controlling nature, but also finds that he listens and can be extremely reasonable when given policy advice. And, all in the background, the …

Mark Mills: Preparations (EBook, 2010, Tor.com) 2 stars

Ronald T. Turner is prepared for anything. And the zombies are prepared for him.

Zombies get him anyway

2 stars

Content warning Spoils a punch-line that's not good enough to really worry about spoiling but nevertheless here we are

reviewed The Treatment by Mo Hayder (Jack Caffery, #2)

Mo Hayder: The Treatment (EBook, 2012, Grove Press) 4 stars

In a quiet residential area in London, a couple is discovered bound and imprisoned in …

Excellent, but very very intense

4 stars

Jack Caffery, brilliant detective whose past includes his brother disappearing and likely killed by a pedophile next door, is put on a case where a child is missing and increasingly likely to be dead after a pedophile ties a family up and does unspeakable things to the family. In fact, there may even be overlap between the current case and the long ago case of his brother.

The story is intense and fucked up. The families of the child victims are somewhat unlikable, and Hayder writes too many characters to make the reader think they may also be pedophiles. So while it's a well-written police procedural, I am not going to keep reading the series. Child abuse is just too infused into every aspect of the story and I'd rather read something not so depraved.

Adrian Tchaikovsky: Elder Race (EBook, 2021, Tordotcom) 4 stars

In Adrian Tchaikovsky's Elder Race, a junior anthropologist on a distant planet must help the …

Lonely wizard in the tower impresses non-magical local woman

4 stars

Here's the premise: Humans explore space, establishing settlements across the galaxy. Something happens, and all the settlements are on their own for hundreds of years. Many devolve to pre-industrial states without connection to other settlements. A revived Earth sends out research missions to all the settlements with a Prime Directive like instruction to observe but not interfere. But then something happens again and all the research missions lose contact with Earth, stranding researchers, who have access to life-extending health technology as well as other machines not available to local settlements.

Nyr is the stranded anthropologist. Lynesse, aka Lyn, is local settlement royalty, but is the 4th, and least important daughter. A corruption starts defeating outlying kingdoms. Royalty doesn't care much because they are outlying. Lynesse sees a bigger danger, and sets off to find the wizard of legend (Nyr) to convince him to help. Isolated and lonely, he agrees.

The …