A curated Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Media
- Movie directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
- Starring Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Angela Bassett and Robin Wright
- Released on March 8, 2024
- Runtime: 110 minutes
I had heard some rumors about this movie maybe being not so good, but avoided reading any reviews before going into it. I’m glad I did because I actually really enjoyed Damsel.
Damsel isn’t a masterpiece. But I would argue it’s not trying to be. This movie was clearly meant to be a subversion of a classic fairy tale. Girl gets sacrificed to a dragon, but lo and behold, she’s strong enough to save herself. Much like the fairy tales this movie takes its queues from, Damsel really isn’t that deep. I heard people complaining that Elodie’s father and stepmother don’t even get named. To me, however, this to me is another indication that this is really just supposed to be a classic story about a princess from a far away land.
I really enjoyed the themes of this movie. It’s very much about standing on the shoulders of women who came before you; how sometimes you can’t save yourself, but the work you did to help yourself can still help others. The movie is is both about literal and metaphorical sisterhood. It’s also about not being afraid to burn shit down. Once again, are the themes super well developed? No. But they’re developed enough to be defensible.
The ending of the movie is pretty predictable, but the way they get there is quite twisty and turny. I do have to admit that it gets frustrating at times, because you know how it’s going to end. However, at the end I did feel like the steps the movie takes to get to its ending serve a purpose. If Elodie just did the logical things that you as a viewer keep shouting at her to do she a) wouldn’t have defeated the dragon (which was kinda what the movie is about) and b) she could have died anyway.
I have mixed feelings about Millie Bobbie Brown’s acting in this movie. On the one hand, she manages to carry this movie really well. On the other hand her line delivery seems super stilted at times. I don’t know if I can really blame her for that. Most of the time she’s just kind of talking to herself. It has something viedeo game-y to it.
Overall I saw enough positives to recommend this movie. Just don’t expect the most elaborate story or developed characters.
Already before the release of Damsel, I had heard some very positive reviews that made me excited to watch this movie. In all fairness, I probably would have been thrilled anyway, because it is a fantasy movie with a dragon (!!!) and Millie Bobby Brown. However, shortly after its release, some lukewarm reviews dampened my initial drive to go and watch it. It took me a week or two to come to the conclusion I should just form my own opinion (and thereafter write a review for others to take to heart or ignore :p ).
Going in, I had a vague idea about what to expect: a dragon and a subversion of the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. I think the movie does a decent job at keeping you somewhat in the dark in the first act of the story. You know something is going to happen when the protagonist (Millie Bobby Brown) and her family move to their soon te be in-laws. The athmosphere is off, everything too good to be true. And where is that dragon from the beginning hiding? It’s an intruiging mystery. I thinks this set-up not only works when you have a good grasp of the traditional role of dragons in faerie tales and the usual story structures, but also when you go in blind.
The first plot twist, however, did not really surprise me. Frankly, I was a little impatient with the protagonist for her low ‘sense motive’ rolls (excuse my Pathfinder jargon). I couldn’t really stay mad, though, because of reasons I will soon elaborate on. First, I want to mention another thing I thought was interesting on a meta level. After the aforementioned plot twist, the tone of the movie suddenly changes into something very similar of a classical horror movie. I quite liked that, though it didn’t make the rest of the story less unpredictable in the end.
The absolute best part of this movie, for me at least, is undoubtedly the dragon. A whole star of this review is dedicated to her; I was squealing in delight every time she showed up. Menacing, beautiful and at times unneccesary brutal. She really felt like a terrifying predator. And because – unlike the protagonist – I had rolled very high on my perception and sense motive checks, I was absolutely rooting for her from the beginning. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised to see that her story took the turn I hoped it would take. All in all, Damsel’s dragon was a perfect example of why I like dragons in the first place.
As for Millie Bobby Brown’s acting, I must confess I was less impressed. I find it hard to pinpoint the specific reason why, but during the whole movie I just felt her performance was less convincing than what I’ve seen from her in Stranger Things and the Enola Holmes movies.
Ultimately, I didn’t think the plot and the themes of Damsel were as strong as they could have been. Though there’s enough of an ancient Greek deity in me to greatly appreciate the downfall of people due to their hubris, most of Damsel’s characters didn’t get enough spotlight to make me feel many emotions about their fate. Similarly, the feminist message of the story felt a little underwhelming to me.
Still, Damsel does more than enough good things to make it worth your while. The dragon, for example. So go watch it!
Tagged:
See also:
- Novel written by Cassandra Clare
- Published 27 March 2007
- Part one of the Mortal Instruments series
I picked this book up at the thrift store, years after having seen the show Shadowhunters on Netflix. I enjoyed the show. I remember it being a pretty inoffensive, typical YA urban fantasy. I’ll be honest, not much about the show really stuck with me, apart from perhaps what the characters vaguely looked like. I also remember discourse about how these books (or at least the character of Jace) apparently started out as Harry Potter fanfiction. It’s quite an interesting rabbit hole to go down, especially if we add the plagiarism accusations that have been leveled at Cassandra Clare in the past. I really enjoy exploring the context of a book and it’s author, and I think this context is probably the most interesting thing about City of Bones.
City of Bones felt incredibly empty to me. While I remembered the characters most from the TV-show, they are incredibly flat in the novel. Jace is just a vessel for the kind of quips that were funny when Buffy the Vampire Slayer did it, but are so awfully overused on the screen today that I can’t help but roll my eyes. Clary is uninteresting. Everyone else is just sort of there. I actually forgot about Simon, who had absolutely no place in this story. I don’t understand why he’s there all the time, when he does absolutely nothing to further the plot. I hated Simon. I hated him.
The story is also not particularly interesting. There is one twist near the end of the book that I find incredibly funny, but most of the story fails to keep me hooked. I could have thrown this book in a river at any point, and I wouldn’t have been remotely upset about not finding out how it ends.
There are five more books in this series, though it could probably have been cut down to three if Jace didn’t have to say something sassy every second sentence. Overall, I don’t know if there’s anyone I would recommend this book to. I guess it was an incredibly easy read, so at least it has that going for it.
Tagged:
See also:
- Book written by Travis Baldree
- Published 7 November 2023
- Prequel to Legends & Lattes
Listened to the audiobook with Travis Baldree himself – Like Legends & Lattes, well read.
Eh, shit.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have listened to Bookshops & Bonedust so quickly after I finished Legends & Lattes. Perhaps I should have known when I shut off the short story of Viv and her adventuring party actually in action that was an appendix to Legends & Lattes, and which was… eh.
In Bookshops & Bonedust, Baldree tries to repeat the trick he played with Legends & Lattes: we take our barbarian orc, place her in a contrasting setting, have her build up a small enterprise… we even have a ratfolk supporting character, and detailed descriptions of baked goods. What could go wrong?
Well. What goes wrong is that it just doesn’t work half as well the second time as it does the first. And what goes wrong is that if you add a lot of actual stakes to your book with a ‘high fantasy, low stakes’-tagline, it loses balance and stops working. What goes wrong is that we know Viv has a life of adventuring still ahead of her, and her in-and-out of her role as big brawny sword-swinging maniac just isn’t as convincing.
In fact, I feel Bookshops & Bonedust partly undermines Legends & Lattes in that Viv never refers back to her time at the bookshop in that, never acknowledges the inspiration she got from helping a small business on the verge of bankruptcy to relevance before. In fact, it undermines the very idea in Legends & Lattes that Viv is even trying something completely new, and her trepidations at the thought of gaining customers. And why would she be doing it without the people she met in Bookshops & Bonedust?
The bookshop-story itself is fun and scratches the right itches, though it is admittedly rather similar in set-up to Legends & Lattes. It still works though, and you really end up rooting for Fern, the bookseller.
But the throughline of the necromancer is annoyingly predictable and even somewhat dull. This is not the type of book where any of the characters you care about are in any danger, and you know it. It is not what I read this book for and it is not what this book is good at. It makes you rather feel like it could have been left out entirely. I wonder if I’ve ever read a book before where the climax was perhaps the least interesting bit.
Bookshops & Bonedust tries to expand beyond what Legends & Lattes offered, but I think in doing so, it loses a lot of what made Legends & Lattes worth recommending.
If you liked Legends & Lattes and you want more cozy fantasy, sure, give it a shot. Perhaps I’m overthinking it. Perhaps I’m being unnecessarily cynical. I don’t know. But Bookshops just feels like a cheap knock-off of Legends & Lattes, and I’m pretty disappointed. It is still fine, but nothing more than that.
Tagged:
See also:
- Novel written by Jonathan Auxier
- Published 25 July 2018
It’s been a long while since the last time a book brought me to tears. Sweep let me cry two times in short succession. Not even dignified tears, mind you. I was bawling. Of course, this means I loved it and I think everyone should read this book when they have the chance.
Sweep has very Dickensian vibes. I don’t have a particular fondness for stories set in Victorian London, neither for stories that highlight the really terrible life conditions of poor children in that time period. However, I certainly have a weak spot for stories that know how to take historical elements and reimagine them with the littlest bit of “fantasy magic”. Stories that make me feel raw emotions, but without crushing my sense of wonder and hope.
The author handles his subject matters with care. This became clear to me when the appearance of a golem was quickly followed up by a dive into Jewish folklore and history. The same sensitivity is also applied to the history of chimney sweeps and the inner world of the characters within the story. Sweep is officially written for a middle grade audience, but don’t be fooled by this label. This book has a (emotional) depth that many stories aimed at older audiences can only dream of.
As a writer, I’m in awe with how Jonathan Auxier crafted this story. It’s hard to elaborate while keeping away from spoilers, though. Let’s just say that, from a very early moment, both the reader and the protagonist learn how the story has to end. And yet, when the expected climax arrives, you’re still not ready for it. That’s truly a marvellous feat.
I’ll confess I’m having a hard time with finding the right words to convince you, the reader, to go read Sweep. I’m a little afraid to spoil the magic with technical analyses**.** However, I hope my contemplations above are enough to inspire you. If not, I’ll leave you with some questions that the themes of Sweep touch upon. Some food for thought, so to say… How long do kind acts echo in the lives of other people? Is love worth the pain of grief? And what is the meaning of courage and sacrifice?
- Book written by Travis Baldree
- Published 22 February 2022
- Part one of the Legends & Lattes-series
Listened to the audiobook with Travis Baldree himself – well read, especially for an author (rather than a professional narrator)
I listed Legends & Lattes as my surprise of the year for 2023 – not because it was the very best book I read, but because I was expecting to hate it and I totally didn’t.
So usually, I get a bit annoyed with the trend of taking a basically modern story, and just smearing a fantasy sauce over it to make it ‘unique’ or to appeal to a certain audience. That goes even more when the fantasy sauce is the bland Dungeons & Dragons-omni fantasy that makes you roll your eyes every time a gnome is introduced with goggles in their pink hair. Well, that’s basically Legends & Lattes. It’s about an orc barbarian who retires from adventuring to start a coffee shop. That’s the type of premise that I usually steer clear of because I just know it’ll rub me the wrong way.
So why did I pick it up anyway?
I have an opinion on the novel that wins the Hugo every year, but I hardly ever actually read all the nominees. So when WorldCon is coming up, I always get this itch to read a least a couple of the shortlisted books so my opinion feels slightly less baseless. So, I saw Legends & Lattes on the shortlist, and I saw it was only eight hours long, and I figured, sure, I’ll give it a shot. Out of my comfort zone. You know the drill.
And to my surprise, I really liked it! Legends & Lattes is unapologetic, fun, light, and short enough never to lose momentum. Yes, it is very much a ‘modern’ story in a fantasy setting, down to a miraculous coffee machine that looks and functions exactly like one would at your local coffee shop and a store where you can apparently get stuff like ginger and cardamom with no trouble.
But… Legends & Lattes never tries to be a fantasy story. It actively rejects a lot of the axioms of the genre and Baldree plays with the tropes. It is cozy and cuddly and simple and short, unambitious and therefore comfortable. In short, it is just right.
Really, I guess my greatest gripe with the book is that it displays some very obvious coffee fetishism that is totally lost on someone that doesn’t actually drink coffee – no, mr Baldree, if you’re not an avid coffee addict, it smells and tastes terrible! When you have your first time coffee drinker characters lost in just-short-of orgasmic bliss at the first sip, your own addiction is very much on display…
Ah well, it is all made right by the cutest mouse baker ever put to paper and the sheer lack of pretention. I think it is a real pity it didn’t actually take home the Hugo – I liked it a lot better than Nettle & Bone.
Although Legends & Lattes is not explicitely a Christmas book, I feel it was made to be read around that time. For me it scratched exactly the same itch as a Christmas movie: cozy, heartwarming and not too complicated. I really liked the concept of a ‘real world’ cafe transported to a fantasy setting.
The book isn’t really trying to do anything more than that, so I probably shouldn’t try holding it to any higher standards. However, I still could not help wishing for just a little bit more. While the characters were by no means badly written, I lacked a feeling of true connection with them. This kept me from being as fully enthusiastic about the book as I might otherwise have been.
Still, I enjoyed it, so would recommend it for anyone in need of a comfort-read.
I like the idea of “cosy fantasy”, I really do. And I didn’t dislike Legends & Lattes. I was just expecting a little bit… more? Especially because of how obsessed everyone else seemed to be with this book. Heck, even Peter really enjoyed it.
I want to explain my criticisms of this book, but I think most of them could easily be countered with “that’s the point”. Nothing much happens. The stakes are kind of low. But of course, it’s supposed to be low stakes, it’s cosy fantasy after all.
Perhaps what is missing for me is some contrast. I do enjoy this kind of story but usually, I’d find it in the form of fanfiction of characters I already know and love. When we see “cosy” fanfiction, these stories are usually in stark contrast to their original work. Most fiction focuses on the drama, the action, the “un-cosy”. Then in fanfiction, we get to see the characters kick back and relax. In Legend & Lattes, we don’t know much about the hardships the characters (may) have experienced in the past. Baldree does give us some insight into Viv’s past, but it’s not quite enough to make me glad for her that she’s finally got the time to relax and enjoy the cottagecore dream of opening a cute coffee shop.
I did love most of the characters. Cal, Tandri and Thimble were absolute highlights for me. Though I didn’t hugely care for Viv, personally.
I also have to agree with Peter in that coffee really isn’t that good when you first try it. The fact that everyone in Legends & Lattes loves it at first sip is probably the most fantastical element in the book. However, I would argue that the smell of coffee is amazing, and would explain people being drawn to the shop.
I think I would have preferred to see this story unfold in the form of a cosy video game, where you get to run the coffee shop yourself. As a novel, it fell a little flat for me.
Tagged:
See also:
- Novel written by Robin Hobb
- Published 4 May 2017
- Part three of the Fitz and the Fool trilogy
After more than five years, I finally got around to reading the final novel of the Farseer series. I suppose that’s not a very long time considering the series took Robin Hobb over 20 years to complete.
Assassin’s Fate took me a long time to get through. Bee’s experience being the captive of Dwalia was such a drag that I felt little motivation to keep listening to my audiobook at times. Hobb keeps teasing you with the idea of Bee escaping, but she just gets recaptured again and again. The wikipedia plot summary actually skips the whole first half of the book because so little happens. There’s so little of interest to mention about it that they just start their summary when Bee and her captors reach Clerres.
Bee as a character was interesting, and she felt very real. I won’t say I Iiked her, though. Even by the end, I hadn’t really grown attached to her like I’d grown to like some of the other characters. She’s a little whiny, which makes sense because a) her life sucks and b) she is Fitz’s daughter, so it’s probably a genetic thing. Still, it means that her point of view is always very negative. When we switch to Fitz’s pov, it’s also very negative. Overall, the whole story is just a huge downer.
I would have liked to spend more time with the characters that were introduced in this series, like Lant and Spark. Lant especially had very interesting character growth, but much too little “screentime”. Instead, Hobb parades around all of the characters from the rest of her Realm of the Elderlings books. None of the characters were as fun as they were in their own books, and they add very little to this series. I was actually annoyed to find some of my favourite characters from the Liveship Traders series (Malta, Althea and Brashen, specifically) being used as window dressing here. I think the book would have been much improved if we could have spent that time exploring the new characters that were introduced in Fool’s Assassin.
Another thing that upset me in this series, is that the relationship between Fitz and the Fool isn’t anything like what it used to be. It makes sense that they would be estranged at the start of their reunion but even by the end, they don’t seem very close at all. Narratively, their bond is restored at the end. However, we are told this more than we see it actually happen.
I almost forgot to mention Motley, mostly because I forgot she existed. I think this character is the poster girl for what was wrong with this book series. She is introduced in book one, and gets a fair amount of time spent on her. At the start, you assume she will eventually play a significant part in the story. However, she never really does. She’s essentially just a filler character. And let me tell you: this book does not need extra filler. Why was this character here?
Hobb is a very famous author, and I think her editors may have been a little bit too hesitant to edit this series in the way that it needed. This book did not need to be 850 pages long.
I checked out some of the Goodreads reviews for Assassin’s Fate, and was a little suprised to see its high rating. Many people mentioned crying through the last pages, I certainly didn’t. I found the ending to be rather disappointing for the roughly 3000 pages that lead up to it. I was hoping for the conclusion to make the journey (which was long and arduous – for me more than it was for the characters, to be honest) worth it, but I can’t say that it did.
All that being said, I am glad to see this series come to an official end. I won’t need to name names, but there are several fanasty series that have been left incomplete, possibly because the authors were too intimidated by the idea of having to write a perfect ending to an incredibly well received series. Assassin’s Fate is by no means a perfect ending to the story of Fitz and the Fool but it is an ending, and for that I am grateful.
Tagged:
See also:
- Book written by Joe Abercrombie
- Published October 2012
- Standalone; Spin off of the First Law Trilogy
When Shy and her surrogate-father Lamb return home from a trip to the village to sell the crops, they find the farm burned, Shy’s brother and sister gone and their caretaker hanged. A determination and a flicker of wrath stir in the otherwise placid lamb, and they set out to chase the perpetrators. Elsewhere in the Near Country, Temple, chief lawyer and secretary to the washed-up mercenary captain-general Niccomo Cosca, has seen enough of the company’s ‘heroics’.
Ok, this might be a HEMA-fencer’s weird pet peeve, but how is this man getting his second hand inside the three-bar hilt on that saber? There is no way that is comfortable (if possible to begin with).
Listened to the audiobook with Steven Pacey – who was a delight to listen to, as ever. I all seriousness, his narration is a good reason to start reading in the First Law-world.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love Joe Abercrombie’s prose. Red Country delivers in that respect, with Abercrombie’s signature style of equal parts dark humour and dark violence, often juxtaposed to deepen the contrast. In addition, the return of several characters brimming with, well, character, means the pages come alive almost straight away.
Expect a bitter and gruelling tale, where no-one feels like they can ever do anything right and fate is as uncaring as the clay from which the miners in this story attempt to wash a single grain of gold. I feel like compared to Abercrombie’s previous works, Red Country even approaches the level of caricature, though in this case, I think it works well.
I won’t say that you couldn’t read Red Country without having read the original First Law-trilogy or the stand alone follow-ups – the story very much stands alone like the stories of Best Served Cold and The Heroes do. But knowing about some of the exploits of Niccomo Cosca, Caul Shivers and the Bloody Nine before picking up Red Country will add a nice layer of depth.
Having said that, I found that I enjoyed Red Country just a little less than the other stand alones – it’s still really good, but the other two have something really special that gripped me, be it the fall from grace of Monzcarro Murcatto in Best Served Cold, or the intriguing multi-point-of-view telling of a single event in The Heroes.
Red Country does something special too, in that it introduces somewhat of a ‘western’ theme in the First Law-world. That is an interesting mixture of tropes that I haven’t encountered before, but after five books in the First Law-world, I think I had it pegged as a mostly generic medieval/early Renaissance Europe-type-world. The gold rush and pseudo-native Americans, while well executed, didn’t quite land with me the way I would have hoped. It makes me wonder whether I would have enjoyed Red Country even more if it were not a First Law-novel.
Overall though, those are reflections on the relative quality of Red Country as compared to the superb The Heroes and the amazing Best Served Cold, and not reasons not to pick up Red Country at all. However, standalone as Red Country may be, I would probably recommend reading the other works in the First Law-world first.
Tagged:
See also:
- TV show developed by Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg and Eric Kripke for Amazon Prime
- Released 29 September 2023
- Starring Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, Lizze Broadway, and others
- 1 Season of 8 Episodes, renewed for a second season
- Spin-off of The Boys
Set in the world of The Boys, Gen V follows the exploits of a group of students at Godolkin University, an institute exclusively dedicated to educating the US’ young superheroes (’supes’). Against the backdrop of increasingly violent politics and the innumerable crimes of superhero corporation Vought, young adult drama soon turns serious when it appears something shady is going on at GodU.
This review relates to the first season only
I was surprised I liked The Boys, so when I was in the Prime app and saw a spin-off had appeared, I figured I would give that a go too. Unfortunately, it didn’t really live up to my expectations.
A lot of Gen V is decent – it looks good, the acting isn’t bad, and I think a lot of the character writing is well done – I especially like Emma/Little Cricket’s character and arc. I guess the plot is on the ‘eh’ side of acceptable, with a predictable magic school-through line and the by now almost inevitable crosses and double crosses towards the end of the season. The setting – a world with a cynical take on superheroes and modern politics – is still strong.
However, where I felt The Boys got the message mostly right, Gen V misses the mark just a bit too often. The Boys, told from the perspective of ‘normal’ humans, shows us that supes in a position of privilege almost inevitably abuse their power. And while Gen V would have been the perfect opportunity to show us how good kids get corrupted by an inequitable system, we instead see that the real problem is revenge-bent, evil, manipulative individuals with megalomaniac plans.
Similarly, being told from the perspective of supes, Gen V mostly ignores non-supe characters, falling into exactly the trap that The Boys criticises, i.e. that normal people don’t matter to supes; here, they’re not made to matter to the viewer. It all fits the ‘standard’ progression of a superhero story, but doesn’t rhyme well with the societal criticism the series seems to want to deliver.
In short, Gen V was definitely watchable but also at times annoying or frustrating, and never particularly rewarding. If you’re planning on watching, I would recommend putting it on in the background while cooking or ironing or something suchlike – definitely not sit-down-to-watch television.
Tagged:
See also:
- Novel written by Tamsyn Muir
- Published August 4th, 2020
- Part two of the Locked Tomb series
Last year, I listened to the audiobook of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. In my review, I stated that I wasn’t sure if the audiobook (though wonderfully narrated by Moira Quirk) had been the right choice for me, as Gideon the Ninth frequently left me extremely confused. I decided to buy the physical book of Harrow the Ninth for this very reason, and I’m glad I did. Being able to go back a couple of sentences whenever I didn’t understand what was going on was really helpful, because…
This book was still confusing, and not just because I couldn’t keep up with the audiobook (so I’m sure I would have struggled similarly with Gideon, had I read a physical copy of that). It’s the type of story where something has changed before the book starts (in this case, Harrow forgetting Gideon) and the reader is left to put together the puzzle as they read. I’m not great at puzzles, so this type of story structure usually doesn’t really work for me. And truly: it shouldn’t have worked. But there’s something about Muir’s writing that makes me happy to sit through pages and pages of confusion and enjoy it too.
Thankfully, there are fewer characters in Harrow the Ninth than in Gideon the Ninth. Unfortunately, I had just as difficult a time trying to keep them apart. This was partly because they all have like 3 names and if you put a gun to my head I wouldn’t be able to tell you who the saint of Duty was, or why the emperor gets referred to in 5 different ways. I had this problem in Gideon and it’s still kind of annoying and unnecessary, especially considering the relatively small cast of characters. It’s almost as if Muir is intentionally trying to confuse the reader. What doesn’t help is that Muir’s style is very snappy and quirky, sometimes at the expense of characterisation. Every character talks quite similarly, which makes them blur together.
Harrow the Ninth is written in part in second person, which – again – shouldn’t work but somehow it does. Like in Gideon, I really enjoyed the way this book was written. It’s extremely funny. Muir even sprinkles some memes throughout the book, which worked for me, but which I can imagine enraging other readers. I can imagine some people reacting very poorly to it.
Even after finishing it, I’m still not 100% sure I understood everything that happened in the story. Like, I just didn’t fully get it. But that’s okay! Despite there being a lot of aspects of this book that didn’t work for me, the overall charm of Muir’s setting and characters is so strong that Harrow the Ninth gets a solid four stars from me. I think these books would be particularly fun to reread after finishing the series, because I’m sure there’s so much that I missed on my first readthrough.
I even immediately went back to the store to find book three. Unfortunately, they only had an expensive hardcover, so back to the audiobooks I go!
Tagged:
See also:
- Book written by T. Kingfisher (pseudonym for Ursula Vernon)
- Published 26 April 2022
- Standalone
Listened to the audiobook with Amara Jasper. I think she does a really good job.
I haven’t read all Hugo award winners, and I know the Hugo is no guarantee for a book I’ll like. I would often prefer one of the other nominees over the eventual winner. But of the ones I did read, it feels like I’d have to go back to Larry Niven’s Ringworld in 1971 to get to a winner that surprised me this much. Not just because there are better books on the shortlist, but mostly because I just don’t get the appeal.
If I’d be a braver man, I might argue that Nettle & Bone feels like poor Naomi Novik-clone without any of the feeling, but I’m afraid I’ll offend someone who actually likes this book.
Yes, Nettle & Bone has some of the ‘in a kingdom far away there lived a princess’-fairy-tale-esque energy, but I keep feeling like if that is what you are looking for, you should go read Spinning Silver or Uprooted (wait, we haven’t reviewed that?) instead.
Yes, Nettle & Bone has some of that low-conflict cosy fantasy energy, but if that is what you are looking for, I would emphatically recommend the also-nominated-for-the-same-Hugo Legends & Lattes over Nettle & Bone (and if you don’t mind sci-fi, The Long Way Round to a Small Angry Planet does it a lot better).
So what is the problem?
Nettle & Bone has a main character that is potentially interesting, a third daughter of the king of a small kingdom caught between two larger empires, who is sent to a convent, both for safe keeping and to make sure she doesn’t play a role in politics. That seems like a pretty good premise, but unfortunately, the main character never realises that potential. She is kind of mellow. Her main trait appears to be perseverance (I think?), but that just doesn’t play a role in the story (which is also because… well, there is never a challenge).
There is a cast of quirky side characters that are occasionally cute or funny. But they seem just a little too quirky. They’re often in the the eyeroll territory, occasionally bordering on cringey. It doesn’t help that there is a complete absence of conflict in this book. It’s not that I don’t buy their relationships, but the relationships are just immediately cosy. This also means that there is very little development, either of characters or of relationships. The result is a lot of bloodless, frictionless ‘and then this happened and then this happened’-style storytelling.
This seemingly forced simplicity also results in an almost compulsive absence of worldbuilding. That’s maybe a rough bit of criticism, and I get it probably says more about my expectations and tastes than it does about Nettle & Bone. But combined with the underdeveloped main character and the cute-but-flat side characters, the lack of worldbuilding meant that I felt Nettle & Bone was just a bit boring.
Aggressively inoffensive, Nettle & Bone just never managed to excite me. Everything in this book is simple and mellow. There are occasionally good scenes, but overall, I’d much rather read something with actual tension.
Tagged:
See also:
Time to get to know the Escape Velocity Collection’s curators! How? By asking them the questions that really matter! Let’s see what our curators have to say…
Today’s question is:
Which fantasy/sci-fi character would you like to go on a date with?
Damn. I came up with this question myself and I have no idea.
I tend not to fall in love with characters I read/watch/play, maybe I enjoy media from a bit more distance than most of the other curators on this site… I could name some characters from television played by good-looking actresses, but that would feel like cheating. Besides, a date implies a relationship, so I ought to look deeper anyway.
I’ve recently re-read the Saga of Pliocene Exile and I find that I like the female characters that Julian May writes – I wouldn’t mind going for tea and carrot cake with Elizabeth or Mercy (though given their backgrounds, neither is relationship material). I’ve alway thought Imoen’s voice from Baldur’s Gate sounded really cute, so if that’s a thing to go by we could go for a nice hike sometime. I remember I really liked Dr. Rose Franklin from the Themis Files – she seems really smart and caring. Maybe we could go visit a museum together. She’s probably my top-1 candidate for a second date!
Peter
Lotte
Oh man this is both such a difficult but also easy question. There’s a lot of Bioware video game characters I would happily marry on the spot. I love video games that allow you to romance characters, because the romances are often the funniest part of a game, and the good people of Bioware know what I like. Still, if we’re just talking about one date…
I’d probably have to say Kassandra from Assassins’ Creed Odyssey. Look, she’s hot. There’s just no way around it. During this game, I was constantly distracted because of Kassandra’s voice acting. I want her to crush me like a grape. Or feed me grapes. Or we could just go on a date.
Oh, my… I’ll admit that I share Lotte’s sentiment when it comes to Bioware’s romances & characters. Dragon Age 2’s Merrill stole my heart the moment she babbled her way through our first conversation. Along the same lines, I’ll never forget my romantic journey with Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Josephine Montilyet; the despair when she told me she had to marry another, and the poorly thought-out duel I fought to win her hand back.
A date, however… Bioware characters aside, I would like to see how a date with The 100’s Lexa would turn out. Intelligent, beautiful and fierce as she is, yet with a hidden softer side. However the date would turn out, I suspect it wouldn’t get boring. Kettricken from Robin Hobb’s The Realm of the Elderlings is also a serious candidate. I would love getting to know her better.
Jop
Robin
I had just started going through a list of possible options when I realised the answer was obvious: of course I would want to go on a date with Lee Scoresby (from His Dark Materials). He’s charming and funny, adventurous, and also just generally a really good guy. What’s not to like? Plus, I figure the date would include a trip in his air balloon, so count me in!
I think I’d fall for Tauriel from The Hobbit movies. She follows her heart and believes in a better world, despite what others try to teach her. Furthermore, she is capable and persistent, traits I can always appreciate in a potential love interest. Also, Evangeline Lilly is not unpleasant to look at…
Jasmijn
That’s it: another soul-searching question answered!
Still curious? Visit each curator’s page to see what they’ve recently been up to!
Check out our reviews of the media discussed in this post here:
- Movie written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
- Voiced by Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Shōhei Hino, Ko Shibasaki and Takuya Kimura
- Released on July 14, 2023
- Runtime: 124 minutes
Despite doing pretty much zero marketing for this film, everyone who knows and loves Studio Ghibli movies knew that The Boy and the Heron was coming out at the end of last year. It was supposedly Hayao Miyazaki’s last ever movie for the studio (though if I’m to believe Wikipedia, he’s already planning his next movie), and his first one since 2013, so I was very excited. Small confession: I’ve not actually seen all of the “big” Studio Ghibli movies. But the ones I have seen I did love.
I think a big part of the appeal of Ghibli movies is the vibe. It’s always very idyllic; very cottagecore. I found myself suddenly very excited for spring to come again. I also wistfully reflected on how my fear of tics will probably forever keep me from walking into tall grass without panicking. There’s nothing like a Ghibli movie to make you really appreciate the beauty of the world around you.
I went to see the movie on January 1st, with my dad. Did we both almost fall asleep during the first half of the movie? Yes, we did. Though I wouldn’t say that’s a fault of the movie, but of the fact that we were both tired after New Year’s Eve. We fared much better in the second half, after having had some caffeine.
Story-wise, the movie starts quite slow, but a LOT happens in the second half of the movie. Would I be able to explain the plot? Nope. Did I enjoy it? Yes I did. I think it’s pretty normal to not fully understand the plot of a Ghibli movie. It’s a lot like literature in that sense. I know there are lots of themes being explored, but I’m not the type of viewer who digs deep enough to understand them all. One thing I will say is that I’m not sure why the story is called “The Boy and the Heron” when the Heron really doesn’t seem to be all that relevant to the plot.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It was touching, funny and beautiful visually. It has all the absurdist fantasy elements that I love in a Ghibli movie.
Tagged:
See also:
© 2023 – Escape Velocity – A Curated Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Media