Viking Booty #2

Viking Booty Hangout #1

Bokrecension: Thomas Day & Olivier Ledroit - Wika och Oberons raseri

Artwork: 5 stars

Story: 3 stars

Overall: 4 stars

This french comic book was quite an experience. It's medieval folk tales and Shakespearian plays reshaped into a modern steampunk epic, mixed with some Norse mythology and drawn with anime-like excessiveness. The artwork is absolutely gorgeous (Seriously, look it up!) but the story delivers some disappointingly cliché elements. It tells the story of young Wika who, as a child, survives the slaughter of her parents Grimm and Titania. As a young adult Wika starts discovering her fairy powers and begins a journey of revenge, which will lead her to the evil prince Oberon. The experienced fantasy reader might not be attracted to the classical tropes used here (lost princess raised as a poor orphan, etc.) but who knows what twists and turns are left to discover in the series, it is just getting started, after all. And I would whole heartedly recommend it based on the artwork alone (Have you googled the artwork yet? Then do so! What are you waiting for?!).

Bokrecension: Naomi Novik - Uprooted

In Uprooted Novik paints a rich fairy tale landscape, breaking the tradition of some tropes and embracing others. In it we meet the girls Agnieszka and Kasia, best friends born in the village of Dvernik in a country named Polnya, a fantastical and slightly twisted depiction of historical Poland. Every ten years Dvernik has to sacrifice a young maiden to a dragon in return for his protection from a dark, corrupted wood. In some parts a very recognizable premise which this book shapes to its own purposes and creates a dragon which is not a dragon, but a man. An ageless wizard. Everyone expect him to choose the beautiful Kasia as his servant, but instead chooses awkward, earthly would-be-witch Agnieszka. Little does she knows the role she will play in stopping the crawling borders of the wood, and the intricate traps within traps the wood will set for her as revenge.

Uprooted reminded me slightly of Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation with the dreamlike/nightmarish description the wood. But while Annihilation is a book of the new weird sub-genre, depicting the search for a scientific explanation for the change that has happened to Area X, Uprooted is more a tale of the old weird, fondly taking inspiration from European folk lore and firmly rooting its horror in the realm of magic and fantasy.

This was a greatly enjoyable book; engaging, quick and easy to read. It’s a fairy tale portraying real characters with real motivations. No one in this novel is truly evil, but very human with human flaws and making human mistakes. They each have their own agendas, but the things that drive them are things you can understand and sometimes sympathise with. Maybe even cry when you learn of the tragedies that lies behind it all.

And yet I do not give this book a full five stars because, while entertaining, it failed to really “wow” me. The world didn’t stay with me the times I put the book down, however much I enjoyed it while reading. I didn’t go through my day pondering it’s riddles. This may, of course, not have been the book’s intention to begin with, but I did expect it’s setting to awe me more than it ended up doing.

Betyg:

Bokrecension: Linnea Sinclair - An Accidental Goddess

Review after re-reading 2015:

In this book we meet Captain Gillaine Davré – a military adviser for the Khalaran Confederation who has a liking for pub-crawling. We also meet the Kiasidira; a great sorceress from a legendary people called the Raheirans.  As it happens, these two are one and the same, though not necessarily friends. Gillaine wants to be “just Gillie”, but possesses powers that she never asked for. Powers that make her feel isolated even among her own people.

When an accident flings her, and her sentient crystalship Simon, three hundred years into the future she sees a chance to have people look at her and just see her. Not a captain, not a sorceress, just a person. She sees a chance to develop normal relationships with people, most especially with one Admiral Mack Rynan. But things are not quite so easy, because three hundred years ago she saved the Khalaran people, and in the centuries since they have made her into a deity, the titular accidental Goddess. When an old enemy re-emerges Gillie has to decide if she’s willing to destroy in order to save; destroy an integral part of her adoptive people’s culture in order to face their adversary as her true, sorceress self.

An Accidental Goddess is a science fiction romance, with some elements that are arguably fantasy, and it’s a balanced blend of all those things. It’s a good science fiction story, atmospherically reminding me of Babylon 5, with culture clashes and space battles in and around the space station Cirrus One. It’s also a good romance novel, where Gillie and Mack are believable characters, their relationship moves forward with realistic bumps along the way. There are sex scenes in here, but they are well integrated, tasteful and not the main focus of the story (a mistake made by many authors who try to write science fiction romance, but end up writing science fiction erotica instead).  

It’s debatable if a religion such the Khalarans belief in their Lady Kiasidira would have developed in span of just three hundred years, but I know too little of actual religion history to speak with any authority.

I love this book. It’s not perfect, but it ticked off so many of my favourite feel-good elements that I can do nothing but adore it. If you are a romance reader, I say give it a try. If you are a science fiction reader, I’d also say give this a try. It’s fun and easy, but also thought-provoking and action filled.

Original review from 2014:

When I started reading this I expected it to be a good romance, and it was, but this was also a surprisingly good science fiction novel. I got some Babylon 5-vibes from the atmosphere and setting (and I love me some B5!), and I also really liked the theme about how people's perception and memory of your actions will change with time after your death (or disappearance and subsequent time-travelling, as the case might be). For our main character, Gillaine Davré, that has resulted in an unexpected Goddesshood. I'm not entirely convinced a religion, such as it is in the book, would have developed in a timespan of merely three hundred years, but it is an interesting idea nonetheless. Furthermore, I would have liked it if the author explored the cultural ramifications of Gillaine's reappearance more than she did, but I still feel the futuristic elements are sufficiently thought-provoking to appeal not only to romance genre fans, but also to a majority of science fiction fans. There were some sex scenes in the book, as is to be expected of a romance, but they were well integrated in the story and none were overly graphic or alienating to non-romance readers. Overall this is a very enjoyable book with likeable characters, exciting action scenes and some sweet moments in-between.

Betyg:

Bloggen återupplivas

Ja, som titeln antyder så kommer bloggen bli aktiv igen. Planen är att fortsätta ungefär som jag började, men med vissa nya grejer. Bland annat så har jag börjat recensera böcker på Goodreads, och istället för att översätta dem därifrån till svenska, så lär jag nog lägga upp samma text både här och där. Det blir enklast så och jag är lat. Bloggen blir alltså i praktiken tvåspråkig. Jag tänker inte följa något schema vad gäller blogginlägg, utan skriver när jag känner för det och har tiden över. Det blir lite mer spontant och roligt på det viset.

Inom det närmaste så kommer jag lägga upp några äldre bokrecensioner från Goodreads, samt troligtvis berätta om ett och annat biobesök.

Stay tuned!

TARDIS repareras

Under den mest olägliga av olägliga tider så bestämde sig min laptop för att sjunga på sista versen och den lilla antydan till planering jag lyckas åstadkomma åkte ju självklart ut genom fönstret. Nu har jag en ny datormaskin i knäet, men inte hunnit skriva något för denna måndag. Dessutom har jag en gaziljon inlämningsuppgifter i skolan, så bloggande - hur roligt det än är - får dock en underordnad plats i priolistan. Jag kommer skriva inlägg de närmaste två månaderna, men kommer troligtvis inte ha tid att göra det varje vecka. Ni får helt enkelt ha lite överseende med det, och ivrigt vänta på tider då jag faktiskt har möjlighet att utveckla den här sidan så som jag vill.

In other news, jag var och såg Hunger Games: Catching Fire på bio. Den var bra. 'Nuff said. :P

Och om ni har tråkigt under dödtiderna för den här bloggen, så kan ni ju lägga några timmar på att lyssna på Noah "Spoony" Antwilers Counter Monkey-avsnitt på YouTube där han nördar D&D för fullt.

Enjoy!