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Crucible by Elizabeth McCoy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really love Elizabeth McCoy's work. I've been following and recommending her for a couple years, and Crucible is the strongest of her books since Herb-Witch.

So there's a romance trope where either the heroine is captured by pirates and falls in love with the pirate captain, or is rescued with her virtue intact by a dashing and noble man. This is not that trope. For one thing, the princess is male. For another, he is more-or-less self-rescuing, but does end up in the company of some pretty awesome people and they have adventures. His virtue is sadly not intact, and that bothers him and affects him for the rest of the book. That seemed not-implausible to me.

His....traveling party, I guess, is composed of a girl he rescues, and a priest who rescues them both. Both the priest and the girl have some elements of his language, but neither is fluent, and it is frustrating for everyone (including this reader) that they are stuck at a pidgin level of communication that improves only slowly as they are together. In fact, this is one of the romance impediments. Instead of a "misunderstanding" based on people being dorks and not talking to each other, the characters literally misunderstand each other sometimes, because of language barriers. The thing that keeps this from sliding into the looming threat of Jar-Jar-Binksyness is that the internal thoughts of the speakers is clear and eloquent, so we know that they are thinking "like us", but they just cant communicate it fully.

This book is set on a different continent than the first three, and I think that's useful to make it a stand-alone. You could read this without needing any of the three books that came before it.

I'm going to be thinking on and chewing on this book for a while, I can tell. The prose is workmanlike but not notable, the plot, when reduced to its essentials reads like a roleplaying campaign, but the PEOPLE and the WORLDBUILDING are amazing and thought-provoking, and there are a lot of hints and branches that a curious reader can follow in contemplation.

Point for gender-nerds: If this book is not nominated for next year's Tiptree award, it will be a travesty, because it's the most interesting exploration of gender I've read in ages. It's a little hard to go into why without being spoilery, but suffice it to say that there are characters who change their assigned birth sex, and their assigned gender, and THEIR SOCIETAL GENDER, and all of this is happening in a faintly-renaissance world where gender ROLES are pretty firmly defined.

Read if: You have liked any of McCoy's previous books. You are longing for a book that would be hard to publish because of taboo subjects like menstruation and gender fluidity. You would love there to be a world where people try to take each other as presented.

Skip if: Off-screen rape is a hard stop for you. You can't handle reading broken "English" for an entire book.

Also read: Sherwood Smith's A Stranger to Command, for a lost prince and a magical girl that subvert all expectation.

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The Grace of Kings (The Dandelion Dynasty, #1)

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I heard Ken Liu talk about this book, I was enraptured. He discussed the Chinese epics he grew up with, and how they are thematically different than Western epics. He talked about how he was determined to set this story in a world that was not fantasy-china, or fantasy-europe, but rather something else all together. And he laughed at himself for writing bits about tax-collection. The tax-collection was interesting! The evolution of leadership was interesting! The development of characters was interesting! Even the tragic conclusion was deftly handled. I was a little skeptical it would be possible to move easily from tight little short stories to the dozens of people and plots you need to move a story this size, but Liu handles it gracefully, and without his prose ever getting flabby. Keep your editor, Ken! Don't turn into Weber.

As much as the structure is grounded in a literary tradition different than mine, I brought a lot of my own culture and bias to it. In the prophetic woman embroidering, I saw the Greek Fates. In the growth of strength into monstrous flaws, I saw the outline of Greek tragedy. In the super-heroic character, I read Achilles, and in his wily, silver-tongued trickster companion, I read Odysseus, who even had a wife in waiting. None of that affected how the story played out, except that I appreciated the twists that did not go the way I expected.

The world-building is spectacular. I chortled out loud more than once. Battlekites! Smokebending! Campfire food that is not stew! Philosophy, art, dance, war machines, and trickery. So. Much. Trickery. Trust no one. Especially don't trust beggars, old ladies, or crows. Anyone who might be a god in disguise. You should also be a little skeptical about your future self, your right-hand person, and your lovers. Your horse is probably ok. Probably. But that doesn't mean you can't love them. Love and trust are not at all the same thing, after all. In other world-building news, it takes time to travel places, armies are bad for crops, and money is finite. I appreciated how that changes the dynamic of the story.

In drawbacks, there is about as much death as you would expect in an accurately-drawn depiction of war. Although less dysentery. Still, it seems like the technological base supports an understanding of proper military and civilian water hygiene. That still leaves a lot of death, a non-zero amount of which is suicide. Also, there are some amazing women characters, some of whom talk to each other, and many of whom play pivotal roles, but the men in their lives have to be convinced of their value to the cause, instead of granting it automatically. Accurate to the world as built, but still disheartening sometimes. On the other hand, Liu does some interesting things with women subverting combat tropes, so there's that.

Overall, I think it's going to get talked about a lot, and it should be, so you should go out and buy it.

Read if: You have ever liked epic, world-sweeping novels, you want to know about how the seeds of tragedy are rooted in heroism, you would really appreciate it if there were several types of women (and men). Also, there are battle kites. Just sayin'.

Skip if: Empires are never built clean. There is harm to children. There is harm to animals. None of it is described in gory detail, but you should know. Notably, I do not recall any forcible rape. It is certainly not a backstory for any of the significant female characters. There are some awful circumstances and people do get coerced into sex, but not onscreen.

Disclosure: I got an ARC of this book after I attended Writers With Drinks and Liu talked about the concepts behind the book.

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I love the concept of this book, a novel from a a fanfic writer. I love the fun worldbuilding and sly nods at fandom. The writing was certainly as paragraph-level competent and polished as I expect from an experienced writer.

That said, the overall story was sort of unsurprising and the characterization quite light for an original novel. If you read Ewan and Oliver as Harry and Ron, it helps some, but it's still a bit unsatisfying. The characters I enjoyed most were the originals, like Ewan's parents.

As a first novel, it's fine. The problem exists mainly with me, that I was not expecting a first novel, I was expecting a first published novel by a fanfic author, which in other circumstances has gotten us Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon. Which is a hell of a high bar to meet.

Read if: You can't get enough Harry/Draco, in any format. You like a nice light caper/procedural with magic and multiverse hopping.

Skip if: You are looking for character-exploration depth.

Also read: Midnight Riot, by Ben Aaronovitch, for a great magical police procedural.

Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was madly in love with Cho's The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. This is not that book. I love it in a different way. This is the best kind of assorted chocolate kind of short story collection, where each one is a distinct flavor, and I never felt like I was getting repeats.

I've always been the kid who loved reading fairy tales, and this book is filled with all sorts of stories I hadn't met before (except the hopping ghost/vampire). The best part was that it wasn't abstract retellings of stories, but real, very human interactions with the supernatural that made me laugh and wince sympathetically. For me, the most resonant part was the way women use guilt as a generational control method. I've known far too many circumstances where that's the way it works for it to seem abstract. I also really identified with the student who had been skimming along adequately because she was smart, and then when she hit the point where she had to work and practice and she didn't have the skills for it.

I'm also really excited to hear that Cho has a full length novel coming out this fall. YAY.

Read if: You love human/fairy tales. You will sympathize with characters who get nagged by their moms and aunties. You are part of a diaspora.

Skip if: You want stories that are all one thing.

Also read: The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

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Sometimes it really is true that a picture is worth a thousand words. This book is the perfect example of how you can read something over and over and not understand it the way you can from seeing a clear full-color photo.

I've read fitting tips in pretty much every garment making book and website and pattern out there, but this was, bar none, the one that made me understand it the best. The idea of a horizontal balance line to change where you do your alterations is the kind of simple and elegant idea that is absolutely radical in how you interpret things.

There is a whole section on what pull and crumple lines look like in fitting, and how to alter them. It's true that this is the kind of thing that would be easier to see and adjust if you were fitting someone else, but I still think it's very valid information for someone who fits themselves -- I know I take a lot of cell phone pictures to see how things are fitting across the back or arms.

It's also really nice to see a breadth of body types and "fit problems" that may be what you're facing, without seeming at all judgemental. Some people have lower or higher breasts, some people have bellies or asses or narrow shoulders or ... it's just a thing you can solve with fitting, not a moral issue.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is doing fitting for themselves. It's a great companion to the Fit for Real People book, which was my introduction into how to alter patterns for size and fit. I'd read both of them -- Fit for Real People had a better description of how to do a Full Bust Adjustment, but this book had pictures about how and why it would work. I recommend you buy the paper copy of this book -- I still buy my craft books in paper -- and then go ahead and upgrade to the digital for another couple bucks. It's worthwhile to have both of them.

Read if: You do fitting for yourself. You are interested in understanding why things don't fit.

Skip if: You don't do your own sewing.

Also read: Fit for Real People.

No Life But This by Anna Sheehan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A Long, Long Sleep was stunning. This book is strong, but less laser-focused.

We follow Otto, who has a number of problems, not least a genetic time bomb going off inside him. He is a teenager who is having an actual existential crisis.

We relocate to a distant locale, the moon Europa. There is a lot of colonial politics, but they were not as deeply investigated as I wanted. We did delve into some bioethics, though, and it's hard to do both in a relatively compact book.

I really liked the character of Otto, and Rose also had some interesting moments, but the fissured identity of Xander didn't work as well for me.

Read if: You liked A Long, Long Sleep. You want more about the evils of megacorp colonialism.

Skip if: You are bothered by protracted illness or depiction of seizure disorders.

Also read: Endless Blue, by Wen Spencer.

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Hostage by Rachel Manija Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was just as wowed by this book as I was by Stranger. The kids manage to be competent and brave without being unrealistically hypercompetent or mature. They have crushes, and frenemies, and sulks, but they also have legitimate trauma, hard-won survival skills, and adults who want to help and support them while keeping them accountable for their actions.

in this book, the focus is less a town-under-siege and more a palace intrigue crossed with some hair-raising desert survival and a dash of Force 10 from Navarone. There is a lot of stuff in here about the different uses and abuses of power, and what it takes to be a leader. I also appreciated the nuance on the continuum that includes manipulation and politeness. Manners are indeed a weapon, and this book doesn't ignore that.

The focus of this book was more on action than character development, but it did not feel imbalanced, just fast-paced. I'm looking forward to the next two books!

Read if: You like adventure, teamwork, and training that is not just a montage. I also appreciate the adult relationships that we glimpse through the story

Skip if: You are not ok with oblique descriptions of torture. Not gruesome, but scary.

Also read:
Force 10 from Navarone. It's a classic for a reason.
Stranger!
Bitterblue

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Stranger by Rachel Manija Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was blown away by how much I enjoyed this book, and how much it subverted the paradigms it is a part of. I bought it because the great faith I have in Sherwood Smith to be surprising and insightful in her depiction of teenagers. I kept reading it because it was relentlessly enjoyable -- fast-paced, humane, thrilling, and tender.

It would be easy to write this off as another HungerMazeRunnerDystopiana. It's not. It is about the difficulty of being a part of a community, and heroing that involves educating kids and recycling and research librarianship and amazing interdependence.

When I say a book is humane, I don't mean that it is free of cruelty (this one is not) or is prone to philosophical wanking (not so much); I mean that it is full of characters and situations that I recognize -- no one is an untouchable superhero, the stakes are not galactic, the fate of the world is not in the balance. I like all sorts of books, but I appreciate the unique courage it takes to write one that is not about starting a civil war, but rather a new business.

There are lots of other things that delighted me -- the sense of economics, the multicultural community (and their FOOD), the way characters didn't instantly overcome trauma, or all handle it the same way. The clothes, the worldbuilding, and the characters -- everything said that this was a book that had been thoughtfully constructed, but I didn't think of that until after I'd finished reading it in a day.

There's a love triangle. It's very sweet, and I give it two thumbs up, and yes, you can still let kids read this book. The overall level of sexiness is very low.

Overall, I would heartily recommend this book to anyone, and in fact, I'm nominating it for a Hugo. It is exactly what I want to see more of in the world.

Read if: You'd like to read about the post-post apocalypse, and how humanity has rebuilt. You're interested in the culture that does and does not get perpetuated.

Skip if: You can't handle teenagers dying in combat. It's not super gory, but there is a pitched battle.

Also read: Circus of Brass and Bone, for a community of mutants.
A Stranger to Command, for sheer awesomeness.
Flora's Dare for another satisfying retort to the love triangle.

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City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

THIS! This the book I have wanted so many other books to be, a complicated discussion about the costs of colonialism wrapped up in a heady mix of politicking, magic, dead gods, and fanaticism.

I will note that the first chapter is deadly dull, and things only pick up after that, but it is well worth getting through it, I assure you.

Once you get past the courtroom drama and murder-investigation kickoff, you get a DELIGHTFUL political operative, who also happens to be a small, non-descript woman, and her hulking nordic sidekcick, who is a delight of brutality, knot-tying, and complicated theology. You will also get a dimensionally unstable city, a colonial administration, a colonial governor who wants nothing more than a quiet retirement where she can admire the landscape, and a pervading sense of tension. Oh, and naturally, political machinations, zealots, the foods of exile, a kraken, and some stellar writing. I am nominating this book for a Hugo.

On an absent god: "...if Orvos was ever here, then the greatest thing she ever gave us was the knowledge that we did not /need/ her to do good things. That good can be done at anytime, anywhere, to anyone, by anyone."

On government, as voiced by a morally ambiguous character: "States are not, in my opinion, compose of structures supporting privilege. Rather, they are composed of structule denying it - in other words, deciding who is not invited to the table."

On fighting a kraken-icemole hybrid: "The fat on his limbs is calcified now; he is milky white, crackling, a chandlers golem."

I am panting for the second book while feeling well-satisfied with the ending of this one. If there was no second book, it would be a sufficient ending. But I don't have to settle! The second one, City of Knives, should be out in Fall 2015.

Buy if: You like books about theodicy, fallible gods, or small fierce women. You enjoyed Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books. You are willing to buy extra copies to press on your friends so they will understand how excited you are.

Skip if: You are looking for something stately or mannered or noble. This is far too nitty-gritty a book for that, without being Gritty.

Books that have some of the same things, but didn't quite hit my cravings as well:
The Drowning City, by Amanda Downum
Trickster's Choice, by Tamora Pierce
A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar

If you liked this book, also read:
Max Gladstone's Craft series
Bujold's Chalion series
Robin LaFever's His Fair Assassin series

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A Circus of Brass and Bone by Abra S.W.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One of the most mesmerizing parts of watching a circus is that everything is always in motion, falling or rising, and there is no still place to rest your eyes and untangle how the magic is working. This book is something like that.

There is a vast cast of viewpoint characters, and I think at least one narrator is completely undescribed and unnamed, but I'm not entirely sure about that. It would be easy, with so many moving parts, for it to seem chaotic, but the author manages to exert enough control that the transitions make sense and keep the story going without making me feel entirely confused.

It's tricky to have viewpoint characters reveal secrets about themselves halfway through the book without feeling like you've been lied to, but Ginger and the psychic manage it particularly well, and each narrative voice is distinct enough that it blends together.

One of the things I particularly liked was the slow reveal on the third wave of death that was just kicking off as the book ended. It made you feel like there might be a sequel, or you might have to imagine the sequel yourself. There were also some particularly happy turns of phrase, like, "All killing a Pinkerton gets you is another, angrier Pinkerton." and "Blood coated her arms from her fingertips up past her elbows, as if she wore sanguinary opera gloves."

I did feel like there was some choppiness in the transition between the places the circus stopped, but that is probably an artifact of books that travel in place and time. It's hard to do those without wondering what happened in the last city. I also really did finish the book thinking "and then what"? in the way that I am accustomed to feeling when I am reading a series. Everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket, ala Empire Strikes Back.

Disclaimer: I was given an advance review copy.

Read if: You would love to read about circus freaks, espionage, war elephant golems, intrepid female ship captains, monkeys finding true love, and the authentic smells of large cities.

Skip if: You do not like gory. This book is gory. A guy gets decapitated by a bath faucet and boiled in his tub. A crystal factory full of women and children gets blown up. Monsters.

Also read: The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch. Dead Reckoning, by Mercedes Lackey.

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When a mediocre mystery novel and a historical infodump have a baby, it looks a lot like this.

I really think the most engaging part was the amount of historical research. The characters were uninteresting, the murder plot a little complicated but ultimately bland. But I was literally, genuinely riveted by the problem of whats-his-name's boots. Where does a Victorian gentleman get warm boots? What do warm boots look like in Victorian London? How do gentlemen's clubs work?

As far as the historicity of the characters, it is decidedly in the "costume historical" end of the pool. Lenox is great friends with an widowed lady who apparently lives without the benefit or censure of any other lady, and all of society just accepts this, because she is magic, and she comes over to his house and has intimate teas and sees him before dinner and it's all hunky-dory? Yeah, no. She would worry. He would worry. Even if they were internally fine with it (unlikely), it would be super weird.

But hey, let me tell you about the decor in the house of commons!

Read if: You really like reading historical mysteries for the history.

Skip if: You are looking for an interesting, psychological mystery, ala Conan Doyle.

Also read: Anne Perry, which is more nuanced.

by Ursula Vernon

Toad Words and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's really difficult for me to review short story anthologies, because I am TERRIBLE at stopping and letting one story rest and germinate a review in my head before I start the next one. It's like... did you know that many books have CHAPTER BREAKS, where average mortals STOP READING AND GO TO SLEEP? That is also not my strongest concept.

So instead the stories all end up happening in the same world for me, even when they obviously aren't. Oops. But happily, because this book had a folk-tale theme, at least it worked out ok for me. Maybe I'll do it like a middle school awards assembly?

Creepiest goes to The Wolf and the Woodsman, for a really excellent and bone-chilling depiction of stalking.

Never gets the award for Most Heartbreaking because there's no way out.

Boar and Apples wins for Most Satisfying. It has everything I didn't know I wanted, including a charming pun as a central premise.

Bluebeard's Wife gets Most Wistful, for depictions of just wanting a little respect and privacy.

Loathly was in the running for Most Wistful, but will have to settle for Most Misandrist. In a good way. Magic is terrible, kids.

As for the poetry, I think that poetry is arrows shot at a smaller mark than prose, but I really enjoyed Bait for the way it required reading through and then listening to. Poetry, man. It's wicked hard.

Vernon's writing style is wry, and detached, and observational. It keeps a lot of things from becoming overly sentimental. And once in a while she hits a turn of phrase that makes me wish more people could do what she does.
~He had apparently been a very evil man, but not actually a bad one.~

And sometimes it's so funny and true that you can't help but sort of huff out a laugh.
~(I wish I could do salamanders. I would read Clive Barker novels aloud and seed the streams with efts and hellbenders. I would fly to Mexico and read love poems in another language to restore the axolotl. Alas, it’s frogs and toads and nothing more. We make do.) ~
(Clive Barker WOULD produce salamanders. Then I had to think about what amphibians other writers would produce. Imagine the sad little mudskippers you'd get from reading Clive Cussler instead.)

~(The seamstress had always had a great desire to sew something with puffed sleeves, and the fact that Snow stared at them with great astonishment and mild indignation did nothing to diminish her moment of glory.) ~
AHAHAHAHA PUFFED SLEEVES.

Read if: You, too, grew up on retold fairy tales and Anne of Green Gables. And if you like people who keep their authorial wits about them instead of getting carried away.

Skip if: You are a nice earnest person who will not appreciate realizing that this whole beautiful story was probably born as a late-night pun.

Also read: Seas of Venus, for a MASTERFUL construction of an entire novella leading to a TERRIBLE pun. And, um, The Girls of the Kingfisher Club for another narrator not afraid to let you know she's there.

Oh! And Jane Yolen's Sleeping Ugly. You should certainly read that, too. Yup.

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The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow. You know when you get in a hot tub and you think it might be a little too hot, but you ease yourself in and it's WONDERFUL? That's a bit how this book felt. Or like when you gave up on pronouncing all the characters in any given Lloyd Alexander book correctly and get to just roll along with the story. What I'm saying is that as a Western reader, the immersive world of this book took me a bit to get into, but once I got there I was so very happy.

I like reading about other mythologies. I like reading about headstrong girls. I like enigmatic possible witches and riddles and people thinking about what clothes to wear and the comb they inherited from their mother. But most of all, I love character stories, where you feel with the person and what they want and need and when you lie down to sleep at night and wonder if they're going to be ok. This book has all of that.

Also, the ending feels like a response to The Blue Sword to me. I doubt it's intentional, but it's interesting.

Read if: You'd like to see some amazing cool historical real-world stuff combined with some really nifty mythological world-building.

Skip if: You want a travelogue of What Actually Happened.

Also read: Sarah Zettel's A Sorcerer's Treason for stories about awkward in-laws, lives in other worlds, and the difficulty of transitioning between them.

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by Genevieve Valentine

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know how sometimes I distinguish between a historical romance, where characters act in period-appropriate ways, and a costume romance, where modern characters are dressed in historical costumes and situations? I thought about that a lot while I was reading this book.

Some of the girls are living in a historical story, where they are the product of their society and their times. Some of them are us, with our modern attitudes toward men and what we can do. And one of them is Jo, who is beautifully iconoclastic because she was raised by wolves, or a set of strict governesses, but the effect is the same, to make her hyper-aware of the rules and give not one shiny copper penny for them, except in terms of consequence. She is not ruled by shame, she is ruled by fear, and once she loses that fear, all gell breaks loose. I loved that so much.

I have always thought that any number of siblings over 2 is going to involve factionalism and clicques, as well as familial understanding and love. I liked that we got a chance to see how that played out. I was also really interested in how very much Jo was like her father, but then decided to turn that same tendency into something so much lovelier and more productive.

I am super impressed at Valentine's ability to take a fairy story and retain all the elements, but change them enough to make them her story, not jut a colored-in photocopy. I said, 10 years ago, that it was going to be interesting to watch the writers who were growing up on Datlow and Windling and what happened to their take on mytheopia once everyone calmed down a bit about telling fairy tales and stopped putting quite so many lakes of blood in them (on my reader now, Ursula Vernon's Toad Words and Other Stories, which I suspect will be interesting as a comparative point and also awesome). Valentine's New York is neither UBER GRITTY DARK nor a friendly woodland forest, but a real-feeling place with police raids, payoffs, handsy stevedores and Chinese bartenders.

I suggest people with super controlling parents in real life read this story with caution. Valentine does not pull punches on how very bad it can/could get if your parent is willing to retain control at any cost. I was honestly reading with my heart thudding because it was so plausible that everything would go wrong at several points in the story.

This book keeps lingering with me, like sparkles rubbed off after a night of clubbing will still be around the next Wednesday, just catching your eye a tiny bit.

Read if: You like gin joints, dancing, retold fairy tales, and problematized ever-afters.

Skip if: You don't like reading about people being caged up, you have problems with mental commitment as a control device.

Read also: Princess of the Midnight Ball, for another version of this story that is a little more castle-and-princess-magicy, but still has great dancing descriptions and a clear personality for each princess.
Sold for Endless Rue, which it took me a while to realize was even a retold fairy tale.

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by Anne Leckie

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The star rating on this one is so high because I really thought it had a ton of great stuff going on, especially for a first novel. There are some amazing cultural details, and an interesting post-singularity plot. And the gender stuff...had a lot of potential.

At its base, it is a story of a ronin seeking to avenge the death of hir clan by traveling through the universe, collecting macguffins and plot points. This is all good. There is a haunting backstory filled in by flashbacks. There is a romance, a mysterious power player, and some really confusing/interesting palace politicking.

But there is not a lot of soul. We follow the viewpoint character because that's who we're given to follow, not because we are lying awake wondering what is happening to hir or imagining ourself in that position. There are reasons for that -- hir is deliberately hard for us to identify with for plot and backstory reasons, but it still makes it hard to sustain fascination with the story when I would just as soon go make a sandwich as find out what is happening next.

That said, there are a lot of thorny ethical problems zie has to work through on the way to figuring out hirself, because it's a coming-of-age story, too. But I found myself wishing for a nice straightforward revenge tragedy, no matter how gender-interesting the setting was.

Read if: You want to know what everyone is talking about. You are interested in worldbuilding and plots.

Skip if: You are an exclusively character-based reader. You will be frustrated by partially-fulfilled potential.

Read also: A Confusion of Princes, which has similar Imperial world-building themes, but handled in a more character-centric way.

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by Marie Porter

Spandex Simplified: Sewing for Superheroes by Marie Porter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found some really excellent techniques in this book. Although it is billed as suitable for beinging sewists, I think you would need to have a basic idea of how patterns go together and some construction theory before you could be successful with it. That said, it is breaking my heart that I did not have this book, or Spandex Simplified: Sewing for Skaters when I was struggling to teach myself how to sew skating dresses. Spandex is so different than anything else.

The writing style was casual but clear, the copyediting pretty good, and the pictures were super helpful. I especially liked the shots of what you could do with a certain technique. The picture of the Firebird performance costumes made me swear in admiration.

Things I found especially helpful, at my current level of skill (journeyman):
* Advice on applique. Oh my gosh, this was genius. Simple and workable.
* Advice on wedgie-proofing spandex bottoms.
* Advice on attaching elastic differentially on straight sections and curves.
* An overview of how to add ruching and colorblocking.
* Costume gloves, including cuffs.

Using this book, I can totally understand how I could construct a Captain Marvel costume. Or more pertinently, a Captain Marvel bike jersey.

Read if: You are interested in sewing form-fitting costumes, swimsuits, or performance clothes. There are also other books in this series that are more relevant to that. Read if you are scared of sewing with spandex or don't know how you could use a regular sewing machine to do so.

Skip if: You are looking for a prop-making book. This is not that book.

Also read: Other books in this series.

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Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a most fabulous and thinky procedural about gods as entitities powered by faith, and able to swap that power. It's like if you thought of gods as belief-powered electric companies swapping volts across the grid.

Our hero is a woman having a rough go of her post-collegiate experience, like so many of us do. The setting is a...I hesitate to call it steampunk. It's really pretty unique, but could be jammed in the steampunk contiuum, I suppose. There are vampires and godlings and true believers and junkies and pickpockets and perverts and gargoyles.

The writing is crisp, and not super ornate. I think it would be a temptation to get flowery, but Gladstone has reigned that in well to go with the extremely practical nature of his hero. The story is a whodunit with a side of locked-room mystery, and I was impressed and pleased by how surprising the end was.

I like the characters. Here, a vampire wakes up, much to his surprise, sucking blood from a young woman.
"“What. I mean.” He wiped the blood off his chin with his fingers and regarded it in fascination and disgust. “Seriously, woman. What is wrong with you? Haven’t you ever heard of consent?”

And now let's say this. I loved this book as it is. I liked the character, I loved the world, I was crazy about the theology. And the author is a young white dude. Kudos to you, Max Gladstone, for writing about a woman of color, a woman of authority, predatory men and good men, predatory ambitious women and earnest souls. This story would have worked as well if the protagonist looked like Max Gladstone's author picture, but the meta-story, about a world where women and men can both be fully human, is served beautifully by his choices.

Read if: You like fantasy procedurals or stories about magical lawyering. You enjoyed the theological thinkiness of His Dark Materials.

Skip if: You really can't abide a mystery book, I guess? But you'll be missing out.

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Necropolis: London and Its Dead by Catharine Arnold

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's an interesting problem -- what do you do with the dead bodies of a city, especially when the era favors intact burial rather than cremation or other, er, space-saving methods of disposal?

This is one of those history books that takes an extremely narrow slice of history to give you insight into broader themes. I appreciated how it struck the balance between titillating detail and remembering that these bodies were actual people and deserved respect.

Read if: You would like to understand how cemeteries happen, how cremation ebbs and flows in fashion, and how to deal with plague victims.

Skip if: You are squeamish about death or gore or, well, we can really only call it ichor.

Also read: Mary Roach's Stiff.

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A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

On the surface, this book is a love song to books wrapped in a coming-of-age-travel-story. Jevick is an overeducated misfit when he goes to Paris, er Bain, to carry on the family business, but he is much more interested in the culture than the business. In the process of his cultural education, he comes down with a bad case of ghost. Travails ensue.

It's not that I don't love ornate imagery and fabulous language. It's that by 3/4 of the way through this book, I was longing for something to cut the greasy, heavy, oleaginous feeling of the adjectival piles that litter the story. It feels to me like it could be a much more emotionally engaging story if it weren't paced with two adjectives per noun. I'm sure that's a personal preference issue, because I know a lot of people who enjoyed the ornate filigree of the writing.

I think my favorite part is the end, when he takes all his frustrated passion and turns it around into something that improves the world. But I almost gave up halfway through because the pace was so hard for me.

Read if: You are looking for a Gentleman's Progress And Return Home story, if you love a good unrequitable love story or three, if you want to think about nameless spices that can kill on the wind and be bought in the market.

Skip if: You are an impatient reader, you are going to feel bad about having to use a dictionary to read a book. (For the first time in three or so years, I used my kindle dictionary. "Marmoreal -- made of or relating to marble.")

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Already Pretty: Learning to Love Your Body by Learning to Dress it Well by Sally McGraw

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really appreciated the attitude of this book -- it's all about figuring out what makes you HAPPY, and wearing more of that, and less of the stuff you "should" wear.

First, you identify the things that you are proud of about your body and then she gives you specific advice for how to showcase that body part most effectively. There is also advice about downplaying body parts you feel less proud of.

Then you consider how you want to present yourself, and actually think about it, instead of defaulting into whatever has been easy for you to buy in the past.

Then, you look at your closet and carve away everything that isn't an elephant. That is, you get rid of all the clothes that don't make you feel happy, that don't fit your new vision, that don't actually get airtime on your body.

Finally, you start restocking your closet with items that are going to work with your new vision of yourself.

There are a lot of really practical tips here on what makes your shoulders look narrower or wider, or your arms look shorter or longer. I hadn't known that ideally your shirts should be different lengths for wearing with pants or skirts, but seeing the photographs makes it clear.

The photos are another great selling point, and a reason to buy this book in paper, unless you have the ability to view the ebook in hi def color. They are from a selection of fashion/clothing bloggers, and include a wide cross section of women, including at least one "plus size" person, and a wheelchair user. It is nice to see the message of the book backed up by the people who contributed visuals.

I think that both Coco Chanel and Rebel Wilson would remain unchanged in their dressing style after reading this book, and that is a testament to how well the advice respects individual style.

Read if: You are looking for a friendly, upbeat guide to dressing the body you have, not your aspirational body.

Skip if: You are allergic to the step-by-step, introspective style of self-improvement books.

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Entries tagged with book

Book review: Crucible

Book review: The Grace of Kings

Book review: A Hero At The End Of The World

Book review: Spirits Abroad

Book review: The Complete Photo Guide to Perfect Fitting

Book review; No Life But This

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Book review: Stranger

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Book review: Three Parts Dead

Book review: Necropolis: London and Its Dead

Book review: A Stranger in Olondria

Book review: Already Pretty: Learning to Love Your Body by Learning to Dress It Well