Lady H's review sums up my thoughts well: Good book, but I liked the idea more than the execution.
Roger & Dodger were an iconic duo, instantly likableLady H's review sums up my thoughts well: Good book, but I liked the idea more than the execution.
Roger & Dodger were an iconic duo, instantly likable and easy to root for, but a lot of the book was spent on mundane details of their personal lives and it just dragged. (view spoiler)[Kinda wild that Roger has Power Word: Everything and yet spends most of the book leading the most ordinary life possible. As Leigh said, he should have been a king. Obviously his upbringing was tailored to ensure he wouldn't capitalize on his power, but it was still frustrating from a reader perspective. (hide spoiler)]
Me: It's mid-November, gotta buckle down and put the rest of my TBR on hold to finish the 2020 Popsugar challenge by year's end Also me: Oh hey, since Me: It's mid-November, gotta buckle down and put the rest of my TBR on hold to finish the 2020 Popsugar challenge by year's end Also me: Oh hey, since I'm playing Minecraft with friends, let's buy and read a Minecraft novel
The good: The plotting in this is incredible. Blackheath is full of secrets and hidden agendas and plotstime loop body-hopping murder mystery, yes plz
The good: The plotting in this is incredible. Blackheath is full of secrets and hidden agendas and plots and counter-plots. The reveals were wild and the time loop was stunningly executed. I loved how the main character's experiences in eight hosts all dovetailed to form the full picture of the day. I just finished the book and want to read it again immediately now that I have context for everything.
The bad: The main character, mostly. He alternates between bland and annoyingly judgy, and his internal narrative is so flowery/overwrought. Here he is at the start, preparing to walk out of the woods:
I search the forest again. Every direction looks the same, trees without end beneath a sky filled with spite. How lost do you have to be to let the devil lead you home? This lost, I decide. Precisely this lost. Easing myself off the tree, I lay the compass flat in my palm. It yearns for north, so I point myself east, against the wind and the cold, against the world itself. Hope has deserted me. I'm a man in purgatory, blind to the sins that chased me here.
zzz less talking more walking dude
(now imagine this style of narration for 400 more pages)
I also really didn't care about the main character's past, or his relationship with Anna, or the whole metagame aspect of things. I just wanted to know what was up with the Hardcastle family.
But I loved the main plot enough to barrel through the book despite its flaws. Recommended for fans of time loops, family intrigue, and intricate plotting....more
There’s a tremendous moment of dissonance, like leaving your body, when you discover that one of the core defining moments of your life is mostly a
There’s a tremendous moment of dissonance, like leaving your body, when you discover that one of the core defining moments of your life is mostly a lie.
“Dietz! Let’s roll.� Andria’s voice, over a two-way channel. At least she wasn’t calling me slow in front of the whole platoon.
I huffed after her and the rest of the company, off to make a show of protecting the interests of a CEO who had no qualms about murdering people like me with impunity.
This was a mindfuck (based on this + The Stars are Legion, I'm beginning to think that's just Kameron Hurley's brand). It's weird and brutal and uncompromising and ultimately hopeful and I kinda loved it?
Also, despite being published in 2019, it's a very 2020 book. A pandemic with flu-like symptoms! The military being called in to make protesters disappear! Hurley was very prescient imo ...more
Basically an all-you-can-eat buffet of absurd time loop shenanigans. And who doesn't like absurd time loop shenanigans?
"Mother," he interrupted her
Basically an all-you-can-eat buffet of absurd time loop shenanigans. And who doesn't like absurd time loop shenanigans?
"Mother," he interrupted her, "I just woke up via Kiri jumping on me..." "She did it again?" his mother asked, amusement obvious in her voice.
Zorian, an ordinary mage academy student, finds himself trapped inside a one-month time loop that culminates in a large-scale invasion of the city. Can he use his foreknowledge, combined with multiple resets to hone his magical skills and learn the invaders' strategies, to stop the invasion? And can he find a way to stop the time loop?
It takes a while for the story to hit its stride. The first month, before we know there's a loop, is dead boring. And even after that, Zorian is a little slow to take advantage of his situation. Dude is still going to class because he has no idea what else to do with himself.
But things ramp up in very satisfying fashion. Airship heists! Imperial treasury heists! Ambushing a millennia-old lich to steal his crown! Turns out you can do a lot of ridiculous things with patience and a time loop on your side. And Zorian's growth, both personal and magical, is also very satisfying; I liked his development from resident shut-in/grump to mastermind and hero.
It's a very plot-focused story. The prose never moves beyond adequate. The cast is big and sprawling and a tad flat, with a few notable exceptions. (Shout-outs to Xvim, who is hilarious; Novelty, who is adorable; and of course my boy Quatach-Ichl.) Nevertheless, if you want cunning and audacious plotting then this is your book....more
Now we were cross-braided, futures and pasts eating their own tails. A box of snakes.
yes I bought this just because I saw "time travel" in the blu
Now we were cross-braided, futures and pasts eating their own tails. A box of snakes.
yes I bought this just because I saw "time travel" in the blurb and have zero impulse control. I make good life decisions.
if you want to read about a 71-year-old schoolteacher and her co-conspirators traveling back in time to save the world from a climate change disaster, this is the book for you
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