A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan Just when I think I’m tired of fantasy, something like this comes along and blows me away with its fresh new look. How can you make a book about dragons feel different? How can you make another too-literate young lady of breeding in a Victorianesque England-ish country seem …
Category: Book Review
Aug 20
Book Review: The Silvered
The Silvered by Tanya Huff This has all the typical paranormal romance/urban fantasy tropes set in a Victorian technology, high-fantasy world. It has sexy werewolves and mages, hot air balloons and cannons and muskets. At times it felt like a regency romance, with the status-mad mother of the female heroine and the description of the …
Aug 06
Book Review: The Night Circus
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern This was exactly the book I needed at exactly the right time. I’d been in a reading funk, not wanting to read anything new and too tired of dry stuff. I needed something fun and beautiful, and this delivered. This is a very sensual book, full of details and extravagant …
Aug 04
Book Review: The Sixth Extinction
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert This is an informative but exceedingly depressing book that will make any animal-lover want to cry. Part of the book is about the history of the discovery of extinction, including the fossil craze of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The story of Victorian era scientists all …
Jul 30
Book Review: The Flamethrowers
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner This book feels very literary to me in that it’s full of a lot of different things, but if you asked me what it was about, I’d have a hard time answering. About a girl who dated a rich man? About poseur artists? About speed? About motorcycles? The main character …