Welcome to another weekly round-up. Yet again I find myself finishing another week without posting a review. What a shambles. BUT, I have next week off, so let’s see if I can get some reading/reviewing done. Now, on to what I read this past week:
- AUDIO: After finishing off Dogs of War I thought I would sneak in a novella before moving onto my next novel. I decided on Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney as the synopsis sounds cool (and different from my usual fare), and someone I know just recently read and enjoyed it. I raced through it quite quickly, coming up with excuses to go on a walk or do some chores. I enjoy the representation, the MC is bi (I think), one side character is trans and other side characters are lesbians. The three world set-up is fun, including that there is a twilight and full night version of the ‘real world’. The setting and dialogue are at times bizarre and jarringly modern, but I enjoyed the mix. Cooney narrates the book herself, and does a great job; I really enjoyed her delivery.
- AUDIO: There was an Audible sale this week. To distract myself from work, I scrolled through all 27 pages of sale items. I came across Rise of the Shadow Rogue by Mike Truk. Now, I’m a sucker for ‘thief in medieval city’ stories, and I’ve been hankering to read one for a long time. So, I grabbed it. Perhaps I should have done more than a cursory inspection of the book, but who can know for sure. In any event, guess who’s now reading their first Harem Novel? The opening is full of D&D rogue tropes, and I love it. The prose is OK, but I can’t go any higher than that. It’s also 17hrs, which is substantially longer than my preference in audiobooks; however, the good news is that the narration is so slow that I can get to 1.5x easily, and may go quicker if it starts to drag. For bingo purposes, it fits ‘New To Me’ (hard mode) and seems to fit ‘Revenge-Seeking’ (hard mode). I consider this an absolute win.
- EBOOK: I have had an ARC of Seven Deaths of an Empire by G.R. Matthews for some time. And now that the release date is looming, I find I have to actually read it. I’ve read 15% of it now, and luckily for me it’s going down a treat. The world seems sufficiently grey and gloomy for my preference , although the world-building thus far is a bit hazy (and a lot more Roman-inspired than I expected). I hope we get to find out more about the world beyond the Empire and the tribes of the north.
- SHORT STORY: Today I finished off “The Drowned God’s Heresy”, a short story by Lavie Tidhar. It’s a bit strange; it has dead gods, disappeared nations, fish people, bureaucracy and war turtles.
- REVIEW: Here’s a review done by a friend of mine that does a wonderful job (much better than I could do) of capturing some of what I enjoyed so much about Piranesi.
That’s it for me. Time for relax on holiday!
Cheers,
Shannon
Two Pints and a Paperback 