the Little Red Reviewer

This week’s reading progress

Posted on: April 15, 2019

I’ve been dabbling in a lot of books this week. Making slow progress, but not quite going all in on anything.

 

I finished reading Exit Strategy by Martha Wells,  and I want to give this another read through before I write a review. I feel like I rushed through the first half of it.  Although knowing me, my entire review will be some version of “This is why we shouldn’t build humanoid robots. We’ll keep assuming that since they look sort of human that they want human things, and when it turns out that they don’t want human things, our feewings will get hurwt. But like, we couldn’t have respected their answer when they said ‘don’t want human things, thanks’?”

 

And I’ve been bouncing in and out and around these three titles. If I’m “all in” on anything, it’s definitely the supernatural thriller by Aliette de Bodard.  The end is super intense, I’ve probably got 70 or so pages to go!

Servant of the Underworld by Aliette De Bodard is a supernatural thriller/murder mystery that takes place in the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. The investigator of the maybe-murder is the Priest for the Dead, and the accused murderer is the priest’s brother. There’s all sorts of dirty politics and infidelity and secret children and judgy parents and oh, the Aztec gods are real. You can talk to them, and they’ll tell you what they require as sacrifice and/or worship. and then they might kill you. I like stories where the gods are real. intense stuff!  You like de Bodard’s Xuya stories right?  you’ll like this!

 

the weirdly titled The History of Soul 2065 is a mosaic novel by Barbara Krasnoff, available later this spring.  As soon as I saw that “Sabbath Wine” was in the table of contents, I knew I had to read it, cry for an hour, and then keep reading.  These interlinked stories follow two families across generations and continents.  I’m not far into the book yet, but I can already see how their family trees intertwine.  I like mosaic novels.  I may do a dramatic reading of “Sabbath Wine” while I’m seeing my family for Passover this coming weekend. If you hearing sobbing coming from Maryland, that’s my fault.

 

If any of these get DNFd it’s mostly likely going to be Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovksy. I LOVE the concept of this post apocalyptic novel – the end came, so everyone hid in the subway stations of Moscow, and somehow survived on pigs and mushrooms.  many of the subway tunnels are haunted, different political groups have taken over different stations, gun cartridges are money, people will do anything to survive.  The concept is compelling, the execution is . . . pretty boring actually. I don’t know if it is an artifact of the translation, or if this is the style of the writer, but I am skimming the text a lot because it is so repetitive.

 

What are you reading this week?

5 Responses to "This week’s reading progress"

I love how fair you are in your reviews. A shame about Metro 2033 because it sounded so interesting from your brief description. The concept almost sounds video-game-world-like, but that might be where some of the shallowness comes in. LOL at the part where everyone somehow survived on pigs and mushrooms.

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The only book I recognize in your post is Murderbot-one of my favorite series! I’m going to have to check the others out, as each of them sounds fascinating. Great reviews and good luck in finishing all the books!

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I’ve been bouncing around alot in my reading myself for various reasons. I really loved the Murderbot books! The first couple were the best imo, but I did enjoy them all. 🙂

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Phew! Glad to hear I’m not the only one not to be super enthused by Metro 2033. I read it the year before last and found it both boring AND depressing. And like you say, such a great concept … doh!
The Aliette De Bodard sounds awesome though … 🙂

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yeah, i think i’m about done with Metro, i’m sick of skimming for the good parts. 😦
the de Bodard was fantastic, we just bought the sequel!

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some of the books reviewed here were free ARCs supplied by publishers/authors/other groups. Some of the books here I got from the library. the rest I *gasp!* actually paid for. I'll do my best to let you know what's what.
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