The Stone Road by G. R. Matthews

After my first experience with TBRindr and G. R. Matthews, I was quite looking forward to revisiting both. I was also curious to see how The Stone Road would compare, seeing as the last book from G. R. Matthews was very firmly in the science-fiction genre, whereas this looked to be closer to the Wuxia genre. Something so different in tone, I wanted to see how he pulled it off.

War has raged between the city states of Wubei and Yaart for thirty years, and a delegation from Wubei has been summoned to try and broker peace. For two men, the treaty will be an important turning point in their lives. From Wubei is Zhou, a junior diplomat who is desperate to forge peace by any means, both for personal advancement and to ensure that his infant son can grow up never needing to fight and die for his homeland. From Yaart is Huang, a soldier who has just been recruited into the Jiin-Wei, an elite group of soldiers, magicians and spies, and has been given his own orders about how to influence the negotiations.
I really liked The Stone Road, more than I was expecting. Wuxia is a genre that has long fascinated me, but I've never really known where to start with it. While this is probably not a proper example of the genre, it's close enough given the circumstances. So let's start with the good points of The Stone Road. First, there are the two main characters, Zhou and Huang. On the one hand you have Zhou, who is largely well-intentioned, but stubborn and opinionated enough that he seems to make enemies wherever he goes, while Huang is a lot more realistic about his place amongst his superiors, but is beginning to experience doubt and guilt about what he must do to protect his home and family. On balance, I do prefer Huang as he seems more prepared for everything that transpires, but there are a lot of parallels between the two men that I would be fascinated to see develop in later books.
Second, there was the plot itself. While I won't go into spoilers, I will say that The Stone Road covered a lot more than I was expecting when I first started it. The diplomacy part covers only a fraction of the novel, and the rest is several months' worth of fallout from its conclusion. With such a big scope, there is the risk that the narrative could get a bit winding and self-indulgent, but Matthews manages to keep it tight and punchy throughout.
There were a couple things that bugged me a little, but they're not huge issues in and of themselves. The first is that unfortunately in my copy there were a couple of editing flubs, the most egregious being a word missing from the end of a sentence, that kind of highlighted that it was a debut independent novel; much as I am a firm believer that indie novels are something to keep an eye on, it's the sort of mistake that would be ironed out by a professional editor. Not enough to make me want to stop reading, but it does disrupt the immersion somewhat.
The second thing that bugged me was the magic system described in The Stone Road. Magic is introduced pretty early on via the Fang-shi, a group of what are essentially court magicians, who seem to be able to channel innate magical capabilities via talismans and symbols. So far, so good. A bit vague, but it had enough structure to please me. Then about halfway into the novel, people called Wu are introduced, who have some kind of strong link to their animal counterpart in the spirit world and can call upon this spirit to enhance their abilities and cast other magic. With that, I am now confused about how the two are meant to co-exist. Are they tapping into the same power source, or are they totally separate? If they are tapping into the same power source, why bother with Fang-shi when the Wu seem to be so much more useful? I suppose that there will be more explanation into this as the books continue, but it does sort of bother me, having two apparently incompatible systems of magic in the same place and time.

Definitely a series that I would like to keep an eye on. The characters are well-written, with some pleasing parallels that I imagine will be expanded on in later editions. The plot is full of intrigue and a lot more scope than I was expecting. The only thing that bothers me at the moment is the two different, equally vague magic systems that don't get as much time devoted to them as I would like. Still worth a moment of your time, especially if you're fed up with Medieval Europe as a fantasy backdrop. 4.5/5

Next review: Final Fantasy Type-0 by Hiroki Chiba, Tetsuya Nomura & Takatoshi Shiozawa

Signing off,
Nisa.

Pirates! by Celia Rees

I have had Pirates! on my bookshelf for a long while, having originally read it when I was back in high school. I remember enjoying it at the time, and as I was feeling nostalgic I thought that I'd give it another read and see how it holds up against my older brain.

Pirates! follows Nancy Kington, the daughter of a sugar merchant, who is forced to move to her father's plantation after a storm that simultaneously ruined her father's health and fortunes. Dismayed by the treatment of the slaves that have funded her comfortable lifestyle until now and by how quickly her brothers are willing to marry her off to maintain their fortunes, she decides to run away and try to reunite with her sweetheart, William. Accompanied by one of her late father's favourite slaves, Minerva, she joins a pirate crew to try and outrun those pursuing her, and to pursue her own fortune in kind.
Re-reading Pirates!, I can definitely see why I enjoyed it as a teenager. The main cast of characters are sympathetic and interesting, and there is a lot of swashbuckling adventure to be had. Nancy is a bit of a worrier and a bit prone to melancholy, but a decent enough sort to be stuck with as a first-person narrator. If I'm honest, I always stayed because of Minerva, the fearless slave-turned-Pirate Queen, who rocks a set of breeches like a pro. I'm pretty sure she may have set off my personal love of cross-dressing women just in time to be introduced to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and I will be forever grateful. There are a few other colourful characters to be found in the crew. There's Broom, the roguishly charming, if a tad bit dense, pirate captain. There's Graham, the morose doctor whose sensibilities are more suited for the damp of the British countryside than they are for a pirate ship roaming the Caribbean. And of course, there is the relentless antagonist, Bartholome the Brazilian, a mysterious figure who seems to have an almost satanic attunement with the sea and its treasures.
The main issue that I have found when re-reading this book as an adult is that it now seems to lack bite, and the romance seems a bit tacked on. While I found that the plot seems to hold up overall, I've since read and seen pirate stories that are more ruthless, more bloodthirsty and just overall more exciting. Reading Pirates! as an adult, I could see just how much the setting had been watered down for its audience. I don't necessarily think that that's a bad thing, considering the audience that the book is aimed at, but it was something that I hadn't taken into consideration with this re-reading. I would definitely still recommend the book, but perhaps not to those whose tastes are more hardcore.

Thoroughly enjoyable and definitely worth a recommendation to any young teens that you may know. It may come across as a bit tame and safe if your tastes run to the more violent or bloodier end of the spectrum, but is still a fun enough romp if you have the time. 4/5

Next review: The Stone Road by G. R. Matthews

Signing off,
Nisa.

Silent City by G. R. Matthews

My thirst for new books is never-ending and probably ill-advised at this point, but it has prompted me to join a group called TBRindr, which matches reviewers with indie authors who are in need of reviews. And I was soon to get my first request, from an author by the name of G. R. Matthews. He has sent me two books to look at, the first of which is Silent City. 

Silent City follows Corin Hayes, a down-and-out ex-soldier whose only remaining comfort is to be found at the bottom of a bottle. Following the murder of his daughter and a subsequent industrial accident that he was responsible for, he has been living paycheck to paycheck. One day his regular drinking spot is intruded on by Devra, a representative of the corporation running the underwater city that he lives in with a tempting offer: a regular job that makes use of the valuable skills that he came out of the military with. But on his first job with them, he soon finds things going horribly wrong. 

Sometimes you hear horror stories about books that have been independently published, particularly with regards to lack of quality. So I'm quite glad that my first review for TBRindr has been such a solid entry. I'm going to start with something that I don't usually focus on first: the worldbuilding. For me, Silent City hits pretty much the perfect note when it comes to developing his world and balancing it against the characters and plot. My main complaint with a lot of books that have very strong worldbuilding is that the characters and plot can seem underdeveloped or boring in comparison, which is rarely what you want to read. With Silent City, there weren't the sort of long and complex information dumps that make me want to throw a book across the room. Additionally, it was a setting that I haven't seen explored much, which makes me intrigued to see more of it. A severely diminished humanity that must hide in pressurised domes beneath the sea, with no hope of returning to a surface that has been poisoned beyond human intervention? I am so there, thalassophobia be damned. 

That leaves the plot and characters. The plot is going to be rather difficult to discuss without quickly getting into spoiler territory. I will say that, on the whole, I enjoyed it and found it quite tense in places. I would have liked a few answers at the end, but as this is the first in a series I think I can forgive a bit of mystery being set up. 

Which leaves characters yet to tackle. Silent City is a first-person narrative, and it definitely falls prey to one of the primary problems with this particular point of view: beyond the main character, Corin, the characters aren't really fleshed out all that much, and what we do get is coloured by Corin's personal biases. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice to get a better idea of who some of the other characters in this interesting world are before they get their lungs crushed by massive water pressure. As for Corin himself, he is the sort of character that wouldn't look out of place if he were transplanted into 1930s America or other setting suited to the Noir genre. He's hard-drinking, dour and down on his luck, but stubborn and tough enough to fight his way through the sticky situation that he manages to find himself in. Not the most original of characters perhaps, but he's well-written and has a potential soft centre that could be entertaining to uncover. 

Silent City is a thoroughly enjoyable book, and is definitely worth a look. The characterisation is a bit thin at the moment, and the plot seems to largely be set-up for later in the series, but for a first book in a series I'm willing to forgive a bit of mystery. Any flaws that the book may have are balanced out by some truly stellar worldbuilding, which combines all the griminess of cyberpunk with the majesty and terror of the sea. I'd be more than happy to continue the series. 4/5 

Next review: Pirates! by Celia Rees 

Signing off, 

Nisa. 

The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich

The Orange Eats Creeps was a book that I've been intrigued with for a while, if only because of the unusual title and blurb. I was definitely getting a Chuck Palahniuk vibe from it, so I was kind of looking forward to it, but otherwise I wasn't really sure what I was getting into.

A girl with drug-induced ESP, one of a group of self-described slutty teenage vampire hobo junkies, describes her life hitching rides across the Pacific Northwest. While her companions seem content to slum around gas stations and convenience stores, she intends to use her ESP to try find her runaway foster-sister and establish whether she has been murdered or not.
I still have very little idea of what happens in The Orange Eats Creeps despite having just finished it. Of all the books that I could have read as an audiobook, this one seems the least suited for it. The problem is that the book has a very strong voice, but a significantly weaker grasp on plot and continuity. So there's a distinctly teenage-style voice narrating a series of very similar scenes at convenience stores, punk concerts and scuzzy shared digs, which makes it all start to blur into an indistinguishable morass of sex, drugs and teenage apathy. I'm all for a strong voice in writing, but it needs to be grounded in something like character or plot, otherwise it's the literary equivalent of shouting into the void. Maybe that's appropriate for this book, but it doesn't lead to a particularly fun time.

A strong voice, but it doesn't have the same strength when it comes to plot or characters, or anything else that you are likely to care about. Admittedly, this was possibly the worst choice of novel for an audiobook, but it made for some serious spacing out moments. 1.5/5

Next review: Silent City by G. R. Matthews

Signing off,
Nisa.

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

After the ludicrous time that I had reading Demons of the Ocean, I fancied going back to something a bit more familiar. Discworld it was then. About as ridiculous, but actually on purpose, so it almost doesn't count.

Men at Arms returns to Ankh-Morpork's City Watch at a rather strange period in their history. In the lead-up to his wedding/retirement, Sam Vimes has to deal not only with three new recruits (Cuddy the dwarf, Detritus the troll and Angua the w-(oman?)) that the Watch has been forced to take on to improve their ethnic diversity, but with a series of strange events that the Assassins' Guild have been very keen for him to ignore. As tensions rise between guilds and between species, the Watch have to find out what they intend to be when times are tough.
I loved Guards! Guards!, so I was really looking forward to Men at Arms and I was not disappointed in the slightest. Perhaps the thing that surprised me most was the unexpected moments of seriousness that are sprinkled throughout. Rather than feeling out of place though, they give the members of the Watch a lot of depth and nuance that was mostly missing from their previous instalment; the only aversion to this is Corporal Nobbs, who does get development only for it to make him more absurd. In particular I liked the development that Carrot received, who has mostly gotten past his naive veneration of the law and is now sly enough to follow those laws closely enough that it puts a spanner into everyone else's plans. At the very least, it was entertaining to watch. There was a bit of development for Vimes that I liked more, but it does have to be seen first-hand really.

A vast improvement on Guards! Guards! and that's saying a lot coming from me. I have a feeling that the City Watch books could become my joint favourites with the Witches. 5/5

Next review: The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich

Signing off,
Nisa.

Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper

Before we start, I should admit the main reason I was looking forward to reading the first in the Vampirates series. I saw the combination of vampire and pirates, and proceeded to giggle like a particularly excitable schoolchild. That combination had the potential to be metal album cover levels of dorky cool, so I was quite looking forward to it. And then my husband, who had previously read pretty much the whole series, described it as "an earlier version of Twilight, but moreish". And I was instantly very conflicted.

Demons of the Ocean follows twins Grace and Connor Tempest, the oddly-talented children of an enigmatic lighthouse keeper. After their father's death leaving them homeless and penniless, the twins decide to steal their father's repossessed boat and take their chances out to sea. They are soon caught and separated in a storm, rescued by two separate ships. While Connor finds himself on the ship of an infamous pirate by the name of Molucco Wrathe, Grace wakes up on a ship where none but the captain walk upon the deck during daylight hours. Traumatised by their separation, the twins aim to reunite.
This is such a dumb book. I can see why my husband compares it to Twilight, as it does feel very much like fanfiction. The main issue that I have with the Vampirates series so far is that it seems very confused about what time period that it wants to be. So it's supposed to be set in the 26th century, but there doesn't seem to be any kind of attempt to capitalise on the kind of advanced technology that should be available. Instead, there seems to be a weird mix of mundane current-day technology like diver's watches and an overwhelming amount of things that would fit better in the golden age of pirates, like swords, galleons and ridiculous amounts of booty. All I wanted was for the book to settle on a time period and stick to it. If everything had been set in piracy's golden era, that would have been so much easier and wouldn't have had to change a great deal.
Despite the weird time setting inconsistencies, it was surprisingly entertaining. It's still incredibly dumb, but a fun kind of dumb, like a B-movie. It's full to the brim with stupid concepts that just about made me cry with laughter. Pirate academy, anyone?

Not the smartest of books and could have benefited from just transposing everything into the golden era of piracy to simplify all of the weird time bullshit that it has going on. Despite that, it's entertaining enough and will probably distract kids nicely. 3/5

Next review: Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Signing off,
Nisa.

K-ON! Volume 2 by kakifly

While not as draining as Blood Meridian, I did feel in need of something lighter and fluffier after finishing True Grit, and so I went to the same source as I did for the former novel. K-ON! is pretty much the apex of cute, funny shenanigans with a minimum of plot, so it seemed like the perfect thing to dip into to rest my brain a bit.

With a new volume comes a new character. Azusa Nakano is an aspiring guitar player who decides to join the Pop Music Club after hearing a recording of the club's first concert. She is particularly keen to meet the lead guitarist of the group, as she was really inspired to meet a musician of such skill. How will she react when she sees how the group truly is?
So the obvious thing to mention is that if you didn't like the first volume of K-ON! then there is little chance of you enjoying the second, because it's very much more of the same thing. There's jokes about how the club seems to be more an excuse to drink tea and eat cake. There's jokes about the teacher being less mature and weirder than she wants to be. And then there's Yui's weird propensity for either excelling or failing spectacularly depending on what it is that she's concentrating on at that point in time. It feels very comfortable, if that's what you're looking for.
The main difference for this volume is the addition of Azusa, a first-year to the main group's second-years, and she feels like a definite breath of fresh air. She's kind of a nice foil to both Yui and Mio. With Yui there is a brewing rivalry of sorts, as while Yui is spacey and doesn't know the specific terms for musical techniques, she does have an uncanny ability to pick them up enviously quick. And with Mio, there seems to be more of a traditional senpai-kohai relationship, except that they're both so adorably dorky and awkward that it's an incredibly bumbling example of the relationship. Azusa's presence does also mean that there are a few more scenes that focus on them practising and performing, which is nice.

All in all, if you weren't keen on the first volume, this second one provides more of the same. A new character and some additional focus on the musical side of things is nice, but you definitely know what you're getting when you read K-ON! 4/5

Next review: Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper

Signing off,
Nisa.