BooksOfTheMoon

The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence 1918-1923

By Charles Townshend

Rating: 3 stars

I know that I’m really not very good at reading non-fiction, but GoodReads tells me I started this book in May 2023, so it’s taken me ten months to finish it! As often happens with non-fiction, I’ll read a little bit and then put it down for months at a time before resuming it and wondering why I’ve got no idea what’s going on. I’m guilty of doing that here, but then I made a concerted effort from the start of 2024 to finish it, as a result of which it only took another two and a bit months to finish.

I don’t know much about Irish history. Being schooled in Northern Ireland, we got English kings and queens, but nothing at all about Ireland. I’ve tried to rectify that a bit through my own reading and listening, and this was part of that self-education. But maybe it was the wrong place to start trying to learn about the Irish independence movement. I know so little about this period in history that a detailed account, running at times almost day by day was not a good idea, since I didn’t really have any knowledge of the overall shape of events.

Also, I think I learn history best though narrative events. Stories of people and how they were involved with historical events. The names and dates style of history leaves me entirely cold, and that’s what this book was. A big list of names (both people and places) and dates. It talked a lot about what the people did (and when) but without really any explanation of why. Some delving into their interior lives might have made a difference.

The book definitely did help cover fill in some of my blank knowledge, however. From the creation of the first Dáil in 1919, to the guerrilla war with Britain to the amazingly quick descent into civil war following the Truce and little glimpses of where things could have gone differently.

For a book called The Republic I was slightly surprised that it didn’t actually cover the final transition from Dominion status to full republic. The book really only covered the wars from 1919 – 1923, ending with the end of the civil war. I had to turn to Wikipedia to discover that there was a further constitution in 1937 that created the position of president and abolished the post of Governor-General, and not until 1948 did it declare itself a republic.

I can see that this would be a valuable book for someone already versed in the outlines of the war of independence and who wanted details. But both due to my lack of that knowledge, and the way I prefer to learn about history, it wasn’t as useful for me as I’d hoped.

Book details

ISBN: 9780141030043

Boy of Chaotic Making (Whimbrel House, #3)

By Charlie N. Holmberg

Rating: 3 stars

This time round, Merritt is very confused when he gets a letter from Queen Victoria personally, expressing interest in his dog. The dog, of course, isn’t just a dog, but contains the soul of his many times over great uncle Owein. Victoria is not only queen, but one of the most powerful wizards in the world, as a result of a British breeding programme to try to preserve magic, and she’s interested in getting Owein moved to a human body and married to a young cousin of hers. They go over to find out more, and, after a vision sends her packing, Hulda isn’t far behind them, leaving the mess that arose from the last book to deal with later.

I enjoy Holmberg’s books, but I sort of wish she’d stay in America. Her books set in Britain just don’t convince for anyone British. I tend to avoid London but even I’m painfully aware of how sketchy her geography is. And on top of that, for a book set in 1847, “that whole mess with Ireland” is a hell of a thing to say. She might not mean it that way at all, but my first thought was that that was quite a way to dismiss the Great Famine.

But if we switch focus from history and geography to plot and characters, things do improve. This book focuses more on Merritt than Hulda and we get much more attention paid to Owein, who’s not really had that focus until now. It examines what it’s been like to effectively die multiple times, and the darkness of being left alone as just a house, left empty for decades at a time. And although he’s now mobile and can, in a sense, communicate, although haltingly with a letter-board with everyone other than Merritt, he is desperate for a new body, the ethics of which forms much of the tension in the book.

The other half of the tension comes from the arranged marriage and contract with Owein’s intended wife, a thirteen year old girl named Cora. Arranged marriage is very much one of my least favourite tropes, and the use of it here, especially in contrast to Hulda and Merritt’s love match is a bit icky, although I suspect it’s supposed to be. It’s just another way to contrast the ways that American and British society is different.

I was a little annoyed by Hulda here, as she, somewhat uncharacteristically, I think, jumps to the worst possible conclusion on two separate occasions – once in regard to another character, after learning about his family and without knowing anything about the man himself; and once in regard to Merritt. The level-headed, sensible woman of the past two books has somewhat fled. But she’s mostly just a supporting character here, and I imagine (hope) she’ll be back on form by the next book.

And yes, I’ve moaned a bunch here, but I did definitely enjoy the book and will definitely read the next one.

Book details

ISBN: 9781662508721

Hard-Boiled Witch: Hocus Pocus, You’re Dead

By K.A. Laity

Rating: 3 stars

Fun enough little short story, but it felt a little generic to me. I didn’t get much feel for our protagonist nor much about the different kinds of magic used here. There’s obviously pre-existing relationships between the characters, but they fell a bit flat for me too. Dropping us in media res is all very well, but I’d like a bit more fleshing out. A diverting read for half an hour though.

Book details

Rivers of London: Here Be Dragons

By Ben Aaronovitch

Rating: 3 stars

This was fun but pretty inessential. I’m a bit disappointed that Aaronovitch himself has stepped back from the graphic novels, and now even his friend and collaborator Andrew Cartmel has moved to “script editor” rather than writer. This was a fun enough story about dragons (sorry, wyverns) running around London, with added rock stars and roadies. I enjoyed it, but it felt slight. Peter had his internal monologue, but it didn’t sparkle the way that it has done in the past (although I did enjoy his er, edited retelling to himself of the creatures he’s faced in the past).

I might not preorder the next one, but wait and see what people say once it’s out.

Book details

ISBN: 9781787740921

Marvel 1602

By Neil Gaiman

Rating: 3 stars

This was an interesting experiment: transplanting several of Marvel’s most well-known characters back to the 16th century, but it’s one that left me mostly cold. It’s taken me quite a while to read, because I’d keep putting it down and not want to pick it back up again. Towards the end the pace picked up and I started to enjoy it more, but the first half or more felt slow and ponderous. Lots of portents of doom but it didn’t feel like the plot was going anywhere.

It was a nice touch to make James VI & I one of the villains of the piece, since he’s noted in the historical record as believing in the supernatural and writing on the matter, as well as personally supervising the torture of people he believed to be witches. And how could a 16th century mind interpret mutants and superheroes, but as witches.

The art is very pretty, and the artist did a good job of rendering traditional superhero costumes into something that looked appropriate for 16th century Europe, while simultaneously staying true to the characters we know and love in the present, mostly by use of colour and texture.

It’s something that may be served by a reread, but I don’t know if it’ll ever get it. I’m a casual comic reader at best, being more familiar with the MCU than the source material, but this didn’t really grab my attention, so I doubt I’ll revisit it any time soon.

Book details

ISBN: 9780785123118

The World We Make

By N.K. Jemisin

Rating: 3 stars

Jemesin says in her afterword that this was a difficult book and that she made the decision to cut the story from a trilogy to a duology. Unfortunately, I think that that shows a bit – Jemesin is good, but the book still feels a bit rushed, particularly towards the end. We were building up to a big climactic battle (which I assume would have been awesome but inclusive, leading to the real conclusion, a book later) but it’s cut short to a bit of talking and a rather anti-climactic conclusion.

It was nice to get into Padmini’s (aka Queens) head a bit more, even if the subplot that started with her seemed to just fizzle out. Another possible victim of having to cut the series short. At least Manny still got a decent plot, as we find out more about who he was before New York claimed him. This could have been a whole book in its own right, with the tension between him and his family, and the choices he makes. The relationship between him and Neek (the primary avatar, who spent most of the first book in a coma) is tense, although it’s pretty much resolved in the coda (again, something that could have been much longer).

This is still an enjoyable story and a good follow-up to The City We Became. Even though Jemisin says it was difficult, that doesn’t really show in the writing, other than the truncation of the story. Definitely worth the read, if you enjoyed the first one.

Book details

ISBN: 9780356512723
Publisher: Orbit

The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

By Gregory Benford

Rating: 3 stars

This is officially the book that’s taken me the longest to read, at over two years! Partly that’s because of the sheer intimidating size of the collection, containing over 150 stories, but, to be fair, I would also put it down and not pick it up again for long stretches of time.

I’m not sure how you go about reviewing such a big book. I do wish it had been arranged chronologically, rather than alphabetically by author. That way, it would be easier to trace thematic changes over time, but as it is, you just get samples of individual authors’ works. One thing that does stick in the mind though, is how many dystopian/downbeat stories that there are. Mind you, stories that you like less may be more likely to stick in the mind, and I don’t like that sort of story, which is another reason for how long it’s taken me to get through it.

There’s a lot of big names in the book. It seems that just about everyone has written for Tor.com, who have become one of the biggest publisher of short fiction around at the moment. If you dip in and out, you’re bound to find something that you like, but if you read it all the way through, good luck in having anything stick out.

Book details

ISBN: 9781466851306
Publisher: Tor.com
Year of publication: 2013

The First Bright Thing

By J.R. Dawson

Rating: 3 stars

For me, this is a book about dread. After the Great War, the Ringmaster and her circus of marvels spend most of the book fleeing from the black tents of the Circus King and in fear of the war to come. The circus is a haven for those with the Spark – magical powers that started appearing during the War. Like the X-Men, those with the Spark are feared and hated, shunned by the majority. The Ringmaster gathers Sparks and her circus travels the US, helping those who need it. But the fear of the Circus King is always in the back of her mind. Her own Spark is the ability to travel through space and time. And now powers have grown such that she travels forward far enough to see that the War that’s just been fought isn’t the “war to end all wars”, but that they’re in the eye of the hurricane and there’s worse to come.

That’s a new time travel idea that I’ve not seen before. That someone in that interwar period knows that there’s a new war coming, and that despite their best efforts, they can’t prevent it. And won’t be able to save the family they’ve put together. That those people will taken by the upcoming war and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. And if that’s not enough, the bogeyman you’ve been running from for years has found you and is taunting you. So yes, dread. It was a difficult book to read. I dislike chase stories anyway, where our heroes are being pursued for the length of the story. I find them stressful to read, and this was no different.

Although most of the book is told from the point of view of The Ringmaster (who just goes by that name, like she’s a Time Lord), there are some flashbacks to someone whose Spark is mind control, allowing them to compel other people to do as they say. It becomes clear how Edward is related to the Ringmaster fairly early on, and I hated those chapters. Edward is a terrible person, no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise. He sometimes tries to not use his powers, but always ends up giving in, to get what he wants. And what he wants is Ruth. He compels her to run away with him, and does horrible things to her mother who tries to stop him, and later he marries her. It’s never made explicit, but the implication of rape in that situation is inevitable and I shuddered through every one of those chapters.

The other thread in the book is the dread that underlies the future and the upcoming war and the fact that they can’t stop it. In this sense, all they’ve got is to live in the present and make the post of the time they’ve got. This is something that the Ringmaster and her family (especially her wife Odette and best friend Mauve) have to learn to do.

In the end, I’m left with a difficult rating. I would say that I appreciated this book more than I enjoyed it. How much of that is down to the book, and how much is just down to the fact that I’ve been reading very lightweight stuff over the last while is unclear. I loved the found family, but found the chase followed by cat and mouse, and the mind control stuff difficult and uncomfortable. It’s good, but I probably wouldn’t read it again.

Book details

ISBN: 9781035018192

Wynonna Earp: All In

By Beau Smith

Rating: 3 stars

This volume collects the entire Wynonna Earp comics from the start of the TV show. Wynonna is now modelled after Melanie Scrofano and we have TV favourites Doc Holliday and Agent Dolls in the cast, as well as some of the characters from the previous comics (Smitty and Valdez). This series also introduces Waverly (who was always my favourite character) to the mix.

Still very different to the TV show, this has more of the gung-ho, badge-waving, gun-toting feel of the original comics. There’s different origin stories for both Earp sisters and no mention of Dolls being anything out of the ordinary (in fact, Dolls doesn’t get an awful lot to do in this series, with Smitty and Valdez, between them, taking his mentor-figure role).

It was a fun run of comics though, even if some of the storylines didn’t actually seem to go anywhere (the Immortalis Consortium one, for example). It was just nice to catch up with the characters that I enjoyed hanging out with for four years (and I couldn’t help but read Doc’s dialogue in his very distinctive TV show accent).

Book details

ISBN: 9781684058686

Full Share (Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, #3)

By Nathan Lowell

Rating: 3 stars

The third book in the Solar Clipper series starts promisingly, with what might be considered some plot – there’s an incident that leaves the Lois McKendrick damaged and the crew have to race to save her, and themselves. But this fizzles out quite early on and we’re back to the usual Ishmael shenanigans. This time he finds himself with a temporary promotion to systems engineer and with the officers of the Lois pushing him towards the officer academy.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Ishmael is a Mary Sue character. His abilities seem to know no bounds, from being a coffee expert, to magically deeply understanding women, to, as we see here, being an expert programmer and systems engineer. It’s enough to make me roll my eyes extra hard.

Despite that, I’ve come to like the characters as we’ve gone on, even if there’s not much in the way of actual plot. It’s been fun spending time with the characters and I don’t regret the time taken to read these books. Despite there being many more books in the series, this one seems to draw the Lois McKendrick trilogy to a close, and there’s enough closure that it seems like a good place to say goodbye to the series.

Book details

Year of publication: 2008

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