perlmonger::metalog

"How do bears keep cool?"
Neema perked up. "They employ a variety of strategies," she began, but he was already lumbering off on all fours. "I was being rhetorical," he called over his shoulder...
So Neema created a new list – Six Ways Bears Keep Cool – and told it to the walls, because she had to tell someone. [loc. 3438]

The first time I started reading this novel, I stopped halfway through the first chapter. Yana, a young woman of noble blood, her family fallen from grace due to treachery and deception, is summoned by the Emperor. Gosh, I thought: another Chosen One. I thought I could predict at least some of her story, and it didn't interest me.

Reader, I was wrong -- and happily so.( Read more... )

I’d like to point out that a) none of this was my fault and b) ultimately the impact on overall North Sea oil production was pretty minimal. I’m a dad now, so I don’t go looking for trouble the way I used to. [loc. 54]

Latest in the Rivers of London series, purchased on whim when I couldn't decide what to read. I've enjoyed the series as a whole, but I'm finding recent works less engaging. This short novel (300 pages in print) feels like two novellas braided together, and could have done with a third.

“Nobody knows the exact day when they started calling us night witches,” said pilot Serafima Amosova. “We were fighting in the Caucasus near the city of Mozdok... We were bombing the German positions almost every night, and none of us was ever shot down, so the Germans began saying these are night witches, because it seemed impossible to kill us or shoot us down.” [loc. 2889]

I love Wein's novels, which are mostly about young women during WW2, so thought I'd try her non-fiction. A Thousand Sisters is an account of female Soviet pilots in the Second World War -- the infamous 'Night Witches' -- who flew fighter planes and were united by the desire to 'liberate their land'. Many of them were teenagers: some were mothers. A third of female pilots did not survive.

...on the way over Aunt S said, “The people we’re about to meet may tell you shocking things about me.”
“Shocking things like how you’ve aided your niece-nephew in perverting the social order and defying nature itself?” I asked.
“Oh, is that what you’re doing?” Aunt S said. “The social order seems intact to me. And if it’s your goal to defy nature, you might have to put in a bit more work.” [p. 172]

A young person -- 'I'd rather be Victor than Victorine' -- is evicted from the family home, and moves to Paris with their Aunt Sophie. In a run-down boarding house they encounter art student Julien, who is also Julie and who doesn't want to be trapped into being 'one or the other when I've always been both'. 

The sky was blue, and three ravens sat on the wall above me, each looking deeply judgmental.
“Poor showing,” Terror said.
“Is this really the one we’re putting our faith in?” Dawn asked.
“I ate the mother mouse,” Ratcatcher said. “Haven’t had time to tell you yet.” [loc. 2302]

Second in the 'Emperor's Assassin' series, which I discovered while reading this volume is a trilogy with the finale due in autumn 2025 (aargh). Airón and Tallu are married, and Airón is beginning to understand Tallu's plan -- and the fate awaiting the last Emperor.( Read more... )