hwesta's reviews
418 reviews

Fun setting (garbage collection with magical hazards) and a nice tale about helping people, finding out who was responsible and holding them accountable. 

Weird, floaty tale, about a Chinese American kid discovering himself. I think I started but didn't finish this previously; liked it better this time 

I loved this book.

Amina al-Sirafi is a lot of fun as a character. She's a mother and a Muslim and a pirate and none of those feel papered on, since they all are tangled up in her backstory and motivations. She wants to protect her beloved daughter Marjana, but she also wants to live a life of adventure and piracy, and the tension between those drives a lot of her actions (also the fallout from bad decisions in her past). I liked how strong her narrative voice was.

The rest of her crew are similarly delightful. Prickly Dalila who won't admit she considers Amina a friend, and cares deeply about other Christians. Tinbu who cares for the Amina's boat as much as Amina does but isn't great with people. Fellow parent Majed who doesn't want to get involved but can't leave his friends to get lost. Each has an arc and gets a chance to save the day in their own way.

The book stands on its own, but I'm looking forward to the sequels!

Weird and interesting but not really my jam. Very focused on humans not getting destroyed by aliens, and included genetically modified humans as possible aliens. The strict rules to prevent interstellar settlers from ever challenging humans seemed likely to backfire and cause resentment and anger, especially with the two kids surviving the genocide at the end. 

Thought provoking either way

That was a weird story. Interesting but definitely weird. I enjoyed the two timelines and the ideas they were exploring but found the ending unsatisfying 

Lighthearted, adorable, and surprisingly readable in Japanese. 

Always hard to review an anthology.

I somehow didn't expect Leckie's short fiction to be as profoundly weird as many of these stories were, and I'm not sure why.

I liked the titular Lake of Souls, even though it felt incomplete. Maybe it was saying something about telling a story from an inhuman pov, where the human is a side character and not needed for narrative resolution? 

I was disappointed by the Radch stories; most of them felt like they could have been standalone. I think I like IR for the characters, and having no characters in common hurt my enjoyment. 

All the Raven Tower stories were absolute bangers. I love that world and the stories were all lots of fun. Lots to clever tales of trickery and wordplay and tricksy ways to get what you want or hoist someone else on their petard.

I liked this book fine, but missed Peter Grant's voice (and narrator). 

Inspiring, made me want to set up the sort of community described in the story

Not for me. A friend liked it so I stuck it out, but I was continually frustrated by both the writing and the characters.

The writing felt like it was constantly spelling out for me things I had already picked up on. Maybe some of this was the audiobook narrator? 

Kira was frustrating. She didn't feel like she was 60 years old with 30 years experience in her role. (leader of the order! Which she hates. How did she get it then?). Given her desperation to overthrow the king, she hasn't put any thought to what it should be replaced with, or who she could work with to do this, or building any sort of network of allies. She has enough money to fund an underground railway, but doesn't get paid much and is not involved with the organization. 

The

Killian

reveal at the end is almost enough to make me want to read more, since he seems to have a plan and a team and generally be better suited to the task.