Book Bingo: January 2021

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Getting a good start on the book bingo.

Sci-Fi/Fantasy: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. This was recommended by vulgarweed about a hundred years ago and my copy just came in at the library this month. A great book about a necromancer and a cavalier in a fantasy world full of skeletons and magic and secrets. Sets of necromancers and cavaliers are draw to a place from nine Houses and then a kind of surreal And then there were none ensues. But Gideon is the best part. Lots of snark, lots of badassery. I like her so much I did some fanart of her. I am listening to the audiobook version now. Moira Quirk is a bit more adenoidal than I'd like my Gideon but she pronounces all the names, which is more than I could do.






Author You've Not Read Before: Alice isn't Dead by Joseph Fink. I listened to part 1 of the podcast Alice isn't Dead on recommendation of garonne and enjoyed it very much. It is from the Welcome to Night Vale folks. So I tried the book. I didn't like it that much. I think a lot is lost by taking it from 1st person (as in the podcast) to 3rd person (the book). That said, I did like that a lesbian couple is at the center of the story but being lesbians isn't the plot. That was very refreshing. Also the thing I liked a lot about the podcast is that it is quintessentially American but not in a way (as is usually the case) that makes me want to puke. The main character is a truck driver and so a lot is about driving in the US and most Americans drive a lot and I have driven and traveled a lot in the US for work when I worked so those parts of it were very, very familiar. The whole highway culture. On the podcast, the main character's voice is American but not in a way that makes me cringe. Also, there's a whole theme of living with anxiety, which I really liked.

Here's a quote I liked:

"This constant road trip has done something to me. It's changed time. Used to be an hour-and-a-half drive felt like a while, the kind of drive you'd need to gear up for, the kind that would make you dull and listless with the length of it. Now four or five hours move by with a real pep to them. I've learned that all it takes is sitting and existing. Do that long enough, and anything will be over."

Female identifying Author: The Port of London Murders by Josephine Bell (1938). This is the Shedunnit Book Club book of the month. I liked it because you get a sense of working class lives and life on the Thames. Smuggling. Boats. It reads sort of like Law & Order: River Police. I could almost here the clunk-clunk noise between scene changes.

I did have some Did-Not-Finishes: Murder is Bad Manners by Robin Stevens and The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton.

Comments

[kingstoken]

Looks like a good start. Gideon the Ninth seems to have a lot of buzz around it, I'm glad to hear it is worth the hype

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thanks. Yes, Gideon has a lot of world building but I liked the character a lot. I could easily see it as a graphic novel too.

[lunabee34]

Your Gideon fanart is stellar.

*loves*

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you very much!

[smallhobbit]

I'm glad to hear you enjoyed 'The Port of London Murders'. I'm part way through and like you enjoying the sense of place.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I did think about your Stanley Hopkins about a million times while reading it.

[autumnia]

Just downloaded The Port of London Murders and adding to my reading list, thanks to your rec. Sounds intriguing!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Oh, wonderful! I hope you like it. It has a very strong sense of place. And usually Golden Age mysteries are country houses and posh people, so it was refreshing to have a mystery with working class folk. And it's before the NHS was formed so a sense of how doctors worked before that. And the boats and docks and the people who lived around them. And a bit of understanding about the woes of working retail. Bell was a doctor herself.

[ancientreader]

I've been resisting Gideon because Everyone Is Reading It, which just goes to show you how pigheaded I am. I like your fanart, though!

I haven't heard of either of your DNFs: do tell?

And ohhh, I'm listening to the audiobook of Cat Sebastian's "Two Rogues Make a Right," which I have a feeling isn't as well written as it is acted, but anyway I'm having a grand and sniffly time. If you happen to get around to it, let me know what you think!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I like Gideon the character. She's broken and badass and has a lot of snark. And the book has black edges. But, you know, it's fantasy so A LOT of world building and some of it is complicated. I won't read the other two in the series, but I am glad I read this one. I don't think I'm going to finish the audiobook. Too much adenoids.

As far as DNF, Stuart Turton wrote The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which I really enjoyed the first 3/4th of (then it went off the rails at the end). But this was too convoluted and I checked the summary and it didn't sound like I should stick it out. I was really, really bummed that I hated Murder is Bad Manners because Minor liked the whole series. It's Wells and Wong, school girls who solve mysteries. I was hoping to have something to talk to him about that I genuinely liked. But the Wells character (the white girl) is kind of a bitch (I hate to say that about a child but) and the Wong (Watson) character finds the body of her gym teacher (and gets blood on her skirt, so evidence) and the body disappears and nobody believes her for 150 pages and that was kind of triggering, I mean, POC girl witnesses violence and isn't believed by adults. It's a boarding school setting. And it and theh author was featured in the Sheddunit podcast, which is where I found out about it.

Oh, Will and Martin! I like them! What a fucked up family the Sedgewicks are, no? I haven't listened to the audiobook version, and I don't know the voice of Joel Leslie, but I'll check it out if I can. I like Gary Furlong's voice. He did some of the others (the non-Sedgewick stories). I liked A Gentleman Never Keeps Score, too. But the first in the series is all kinds of wrong. The captain and the vicar? Yeah, that one is no good. But I see she's coming out with something new in June. Good. I can't wait for KJ Charles' last installment of Kim and Will, Subtle Blood. I am also going to use KJ Charles recommendations for other authors when it comes time to fill the 'Romance' square. I didn't realize she once worked at Mills & Boon or one of them.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Ha, ha! I just looked the narrator up (Joel Leslie) and it seems he's got quite the ouvre of M/M romance. The first one my library had was Cocky followed by Ballsy! You can get The Cocky Valet and the Cocky Cellist! And a whole series which must be about tattooing because it's got a lot of Dye puns (e.g., A Dye Hard Holiday) I listened to samples. He's good! He gets my thumbs up for doing different voices!

[garonne]

Very interesting to hear what you thought of the Alice isn't Dead novel. I plan to give it a go after I'm finished listening to the podcast series (which I'm very much enjoying), but not before because I'm scared of potential spoilers!

One of the things I like about the podcast is having the narration right in my ear makes everything a lot creepier, I guess like I myself am in the narrator's shoes, facing the same threats, and I'm not sure that would transfer all that well to a novel.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I'm not sure that would transfer all that well to a novel.

In my opinion, it doesn't transfer at all well. I actually wouldn't recommend the novel to anyone. The podcast is much more impactful for the reason you mention.

I am fussy about my American voices so I only listened to part 1 of the podcast. I liked Keisha's voice in part one of the podcast but I did not like the second female-sounding voice introduced in the third of the inter-part mini episodes, so I did not go on to Part 2 or 3 of the podcast. And I hate Joseph Fink's voice so I tried 2 minutes of the 'Start with This' podcast but I couldn't stand listening to him talking about how much he likes driving so I cut it off.