"The gods?" Eudokia gave a mocking little laugh. "Listen close, child, I will tell you of the gods, of the single commandment they have written clear across all creation. Are you ready? The strong devour the weak. It is the way of all living things, of every creature that flies, walks, crawls, slithers or swims. The weed strangles the flower, the ant eats the cricket, the wolf the stag. And we? We humans? We eat everything."
M is an ageless drifter with a sharp tongue, few scruples, and the ability to …
Skipping Through Time With An Immortal Drifter in NYC
5 stars
I will preface this review that I am a huge fan of Daniel Polansky, so it will be biased in his favor.
M is an ageless, misanthropic wizard, living in NYC for about a year, and just trying to keep his head down--unfortunately the universe has other plans for him.
Do you like surreal stories? You'll probably love A City Dreaming, which dances on the line between abstract art and compelling storytelling. The stories themselves--the shape of things, the characters generally, are pretty well grounded in reality. The world building, and specifically, the magic of the world, is where things get trippy. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes abhorrent, always strange, the magic in A City Dreaming will challenge readers and reward the ones willing to wrap their minds around it. And the way New York City is portrayed is a mirror of that strange, surrealist world running parrellel to reality.
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I will preface this review that I am a huge fan of Daniel Polansky, so it will be biased in his favor.
M is an ageless, misanthropic wizard, living in NYC for about a year, and just trying to keep his head down--unfortunately the universe has other plans for him.
Do you like surreal stories? You'll probably love A City Dreaming, which dances on the line between abstract art and compelling storytelling. The stories themselves--the shape of things, the characters generally, are pretty well grounded in reality. The world building, and specifically, the magic of the world, is where things get trippy. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes abhorrent, always strange, the magic in A City Dreaming will challenge readers and reward the ones willing to wrap their minds around it. And the way New York City is portrayed is a mirror of that strange, surrealist world running parrellel to reality.
M as a character is somewhat hateable, somewhat relatable, and very very funny. The people he surrounds himself with (willingly and unwillingly) are often people you might know or have heard of in reality, taken to their extremes.
Each chapter is a month in M's life, and each story is largely disconnected from the ones before (though the connections M has with other characters are the enduring lines that stretch between chapters, a setup I highly enjoyed.)
A woman who runs a cat rescue in 1920s Montreal turns to a grouchy but …
Cozy Fantasy + Cats
5 stars
Agnes Aubert's life running a cat shelter is turned on its head after a magical duel in the street wrecks several buildings, including her own.
This was very good Cozy Fantasy fare. I quite enjoyed it! I've always enjoyed Heather Fawcett's prose, and was able to sink into the story easily. The characters were memorable and enjoyable as well. I also sometimes enjoy a book where there's some fantastical world building but the point of view character is just a normal person.
Agnes Aubert's life running a cat shelter is turned on its head after a magical duel in the street wrecks several buildings, including her own.
This was very good Cozy Fantasy fare. I quite enjoyed it! I've always enjoyed Heather Fawcett's prose, and was able to sink into the story easily. The characters were memorable and enjoyable as well. I also sometimes enjoy a book where there's some fantastical world building but the point of view character is just a normal person.
The secret war that defines the Library has chosen its champions and set them on …
United in their togetherness, they had become something other than human, substituting a mob's instincts for those of a person. And here again, the simple mathematics of us and them had given a crowd license to chew pasties and joke among themselves while they watched the living become the dead.
A boy has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires …
Another Excellent Mark Lawrence Story
5 stars
This is a book about books and knowledge and libraries - those kinds of meta stories can be really hard to pull off I've found, but he did a solid job.
It's also got time travel shenanigans which I love. He pulls that off well too I think.
Lots of good twists even in this book.
I cannot wait to read the rest!
This is a book about books and knowledge and libraries - those kinds of meta stories can be really hard to pull off I've found, but he did a solid job.
It's also got time travel shenanigans which I love. He pulls that off well too I think.
A boy has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires …
It's in the nature of humans to want to belong to a group, to want to be accepted, appreciated, and needed. What is most frightening about their kind are the sacrifices they are prepared to make in order to become part of such a tribe, clique, sect, sewing circle, cult, or book club. Reason and morality are often at the top of the list of what must be surrendered as part of the club fees. Truth becomes a collective property, an adaptable shield used to shelter the in-group from those outside.
