The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson My rating: 2 of 5 stars I adored The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Masquerade #1) and loved the *start* of book #2 in this series, but despite some excellent writing and characterisation at the start, the novel disintegrated for me at around the 30% mark. Structural problems were my …
Continue reading THE MONSTER BARU CORMORANT by Seth Dickinson
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks My rating: 2 of 5 stars From 5 stars, to 2 stars: a great concept, enjoyably written, that nonetheless lacked payoff (either emotional or plot-based). The ending hinged on a very unbelievable revelation that I couldn't buy into and which didn't wrap up all of the interesting elements that …
Ehhhhhh. It's Banks, so I was never *not* entertained, but overall the book fell short for me.
Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb My rating: 2 of 5 stars Some good dialogue between the characters, but seriously poor overall. The narrative was feebly constructed, and events seemed to occur mostly as a vehicle for fitting in as many series cameos as possible even though it made little sense for those people to be …
Everytime I think about deconstructing why I dislike Name of the Wind so much, I end up just coming back to re-read this post. It says everything better than I could do, anyway.
The Ballad of Dirk Oxenhammer: An Origin Story in Three Parts
Dirk Oxenhammer, veteran literary editor, sat back in his zebra-skin armchair and surveyed the pile of manila envelopes on his desk, each one adorned with a large red REJECTED! stamp. The exclamation mark wasn’t strictly necessary, but Dirk though it made the job a bit more fun. Sometimes he liked to imagine a loud buzzer went off every time he sentenced a manuscript to the trash pile. He’d have to see about getting one installed.
But for now, it was bourbon time.
Dirk opened the bottom drawer of his desk and selected a 92′ New Jersey Amber. He poured it into one of those round glasses with the flat bottoms that he’d seen on Mad Men and lit a cigar, letting the smoke curl around the glass in a way that seemed particularly gritty and hard-boiled. It was at…
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sunyi dean 