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Jim Butcher - Blood Rites

Number 5 in the Dresden Files series. 

Sometimes the heroes in this series are a bit morally grey. It makes up for this by making the villains dramatically evil. Although Harry is written as a noir PI, with all the biases that involves, by this point in the series he has learned to over-rule his instincts more often than not. In Discworld terms, he has learned to have Second Thoughts.

In this book, Harry Dresden is simultaneously fighting the Black Court (normal Dracula type vampires), the White Court (sexy mind-control vampires), and whoever is using magic to kill actresses working on a particular adult film.

It's a fun book in an 'action film' sort of way. Monsters are killed, crises are narrowly averted, and Harry accidentally acquires a dog. There are also some revelations which change the way Harry sees some of his allies, and I'm looking forward to finding out how they change the character dynamics in later books.

#review #spoilers #jim butcher #dresden files #blood rites

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1300 Days of Duolingo

Last Duolingo post here

Platform Thoughts

Duolingo really doesn't want me to learn Japanese. The keyboard entry is still broken for some exercises, and there have been several days when I'd made enough mistakes that I'd run out of hearts but the 'practice to earn more hearts' button just reloaded the main page instead of leading to any practice exercises. I don't think I'm going to jump platform now, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for somewhere to learn, either.

Language Progress

French

I'm still working through section 4, which has 46 units. I was on legendary in unit 19, and learning new stuff in unit 20. I'm now on legendary in unit 36, and learning new stuff in unit 37. That feels like remarkably fast progress given my past performance. Maybe they've renumbered the units or shortened them or something?

Japanese

I'm still working through section 2, which has 18 units. I was on legendary on unit 6, and learning new stuff in unit 7. I'm now on legendary in section 10 and learning new stuff in section 11. That's a little faster than previously but much less dramatic than French, although there were a few days when I would have done more Japanese but couldn't because of platform issues.

Welsh

I'm still working through section 2, which has 40 units. I was on legendary on unit 6, and learning new stuff in unit 7. I'm now on unit 16 for both legendary and new material. As with French this is much faster progress than previously, leading me to suspect they've been messing about with the course structure again. Welsh has about twice as many units as Japanese in section 2, so it may be that they've split most units in half. I don't really have much of an opinion on longer vs shorter units, but it makes tracking my progress quite tricky when they keep changing!

#duolingo #french #japanese #welsh

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Victoria Schwab - Bridge of Souls

Book 3 in the Cassidy Blake series

I picked this book up without realising that it was part of a series, and got about halfway through thinking that the characters just had an unusually complex backstory.

I quite enjoy V. E. Schwab when she's writing for adults. Bridge of Souls is credited to Victoria Schwab to distinguish it as being intended for children, and it comes with a simpler plot and more prosaic writing style. It wasn't bad enough for me not to finish the book, but it also wasn't interesting enough for me to want to read any others in this series.

Could still be an OK book for children, but not recommended for adults.

#review #spoilers #victoria schwab #bridge of souls #cassidy blake

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Seanan McGuire - Where the Drowned Girls Go

Book 7 in the Wayward Children series

The Wayward Children series is not a uniformly happy one - the stories are linked only by belonging to children who have strayed into other worlds, and some of those worlds are crueller or more blood-thirsty than others. Where the Drowned Girls Go has one of the happier endings, although one of the side characters still needs rescuing.

Cora has been unhappy and unable to sleep since her visit to the Moors left her with the voices of the Drowned Gods in her head, and she fears being claimed by them or bringing them into the waters of the world she calls home. In an attempt to leave the Drowned Gods behind she requests a transfer from Eleanor West's school to the far more sinister Whitethorn Institute, where children are encouraged to deny the worlds they visited rather than remember them.

As with all the Wayward Children books this is short (the audiobook is 5 hours) but very well crafted. This one is set in our world, but although there is less magic, there is just as much of a need for heroes (and there is more magic than is apparent at first).

Recommended, but contains spoilers for earlier books in the series, as well as fatphobic bullying and references to suicide.

#review #spoilers #seanan mcguire #wayward children #where the drowned girls go

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Helen Cresswell - The Outlanders

This is a fairy tale of the sort where magic is rare but real, and good deeds are rewarded. It's a children's book published in 1970, but it's aged pretty well and I didn't notice anything that made me wince.

The Rhymer family take care of a fairy boy (who appears human but with unusual pale colouring and tendency to shine), but their town's superstitious nature means he is at risk. The fairy child departs, leaving behind a gift that points the way to the Rhymers' hearts' desires - but only if they have the courage to travel to the terrifying Outlands.

The main characters are all good people, but with flaws and foibles that make them a little bit humorous and thoroughly human. The fear and greed of the townspeople is also plausible, and provides a layer of depth to what could have been a very simple story.

The Outlanders is no longer in print but it is part of my childhood that I am happy to hold on to.

#review #spoilers #helen cresswell #the outlanders

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Seanan McGuire - The Unkindest Tide

Book 13 in the October Daye series

The Selkie doom has arrived. It's less bloody than I expected, in that no-one has to die, but it means that skins can no longer be passed down so parents either have to give up their skins immediately or watch their children grow old and die while they still live. There is also a coup at the Undersea kingdom, and a murder to investigate.

I enjoyed this book. I liked that there were several different sub-plots instead of just one over-arching goal, and I'm glad that the Luidaeg wasn't actually planning mass-murder. I was also pleased with Toby's instance on getting the best outcomes for the most people possible. I'm not too worried about her being killed by the Luidaeg at some point in the future - Toby has got better from being dead before, and I'm sure she'll manage it again.

The bonus novella Hope is Swift is from Raj's point of view, and it's well enough written, but he's not a character I particularly care about. I did like that there is at least one person in Fairie who is willing to go to therapy, and I hope this sets a new trend.

#review #spoilers #seanan mcguire #october daye #the unkindest tide

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Intisar Khanani - A Darkness at the Door

Book 3 in the Dauntless Path series

This book finishes the arc started in book 2, The Theft of Sunlight.

Rae has been betrayed and captured by slavers, and needs to escape, free the children she has been enslaved alongside, and then get back to defeating the slavery ring as a whole - which won't be easy, as it's supported by some very powerful people and organisations.

I liked that the book has a disabled protagonist (Rae has a club foot), and that the depiction felt realistic in terms of when it slowed her down or ached or needed massaging, and while it was clearly an inconvenience it wasn't treated as a tragedy. I also liked that she was a non-magical person in a magical setting, so it's her wits and actions that make her special rather than her being any sort of 'chosen one'.

I disliked the way that the slaves were all enslaved as children and almost all kidnapped by strangers. I felt that it was based on stereotypes on stranger danger, although the author's note at the end of the previous book suggests that it was inspired by modern slavery. Wikipedia states that only a quarter of slaves today are children, and while I can't currently find an explanation of the different ways people are enslaved, I believe that they are more likely to be sold by their families or those they already have a relationship with, than be grabbed off the streets by people they've never met.

Apart from my quibbles about plausibility of the slave ring, I enjoyed this book. Some nice excitement and adventure, and a sweet, if slightly conservative, romance.

#review #spoilers #Intisar Khanani #A Darkness at the Door #Dauntless Path

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T Kingfisher - Paladin's Faith

Book 4 of the 'Saint of Steel' series. Also contains some references to the Clocktaur Wars books

Professional spy Marguerite is tired of her old organisation trying to kill her. Occasionally she can persuade some people to leave her alone, but organisational infighting means that's not enough to stop the attempts. Her solution to this is to destroy an entire shipping industry via the production of much cheaper salt. In order to do this, she'll need to borrow a couple of paladins, and find where an inventor is hiding...

Marguerite is a fat, beautiful and confident woman with a refreshingly practical attitude to life. She provides a nice contrast to Shane, who has twice the usual paladin self-loathing, having first been rejected by the Dreaming God (whose paladins kill demons) and then experienced the death of the Saint of Steel.

There are lots of good characters in this book. I have a suspicion that Wren and Davith will appear again in later books (possibly in the same book?) and I want to know more about the demon Wisdom.

Another fun book from T. Kingfisher. It's quite long - over 900 pages in my ebook version - so don't try to read it in a single sitting. There's no cliffhanger ending, although some of the epilogue is a little ominous. You probably could start here if you don't mind spoilers for earlier work. If you do mind spoilers, then read the Clocktaur Wars books as well as the earlier books in the Saint of Steel series.

#t kingfisher #saint of steel #review #spoilers #paladin's faith

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Robin McKinley - Sunshine

Sunshine is one of my favourite books. I was a little worried as it had been a while since I last read it, but I am happy to report that it is still good.

Sunshine is a baker at a local cafe, and mostly has familiar concerns (family, stress, lack of sleep) until she is kidnapped by vampires. She manages to escape, but her life only gets more stressful as she reckons with the magic she's been ignoring and the alliance she makes in order to escape.

It's set in a world much like ours, but with magic and monsters. They have the internet and computers (the internet is dial-up and mobile phones don't exist, which is less a narrative choice and more a reflection of the book having been published in 2003) but they also have protective wards and magical tattoos, and many people are weres or have demon ancestry. A devastating magical war happened a few years ago which caused the destruction of most other cities but locally has mostly resulted in abandoned buildings, magical black-spots and significant currency devaluation.

I love Sunshine's sense of humour, her stubbornness and competency, and the way her friends and family manage to support her despite her best efforts to keep things secret.

The glimpses of other people's lives makes me want more books in this universe to tell some of the other stories - there is no shortage of people with secrets and backstories, and the ending is a local victory which leaves larger battles still to be won.

#review #spoilers #robin mckinley #sunshine

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Seanan McGuire - Night and Silence

Book 12 in the October Daye series

This book starts with the news that Toby's daughter has been kidnapped again. Tybalt is still suffering the side-effects of his time as a hostage, so Toby is off to find and rescue her without his help.

We're quite a few books into the series now, and although it makes perfect sense for Tybalt to be traumatised and unable to function, there is a part of my brain going 'ah yes, we're in late series super-hero, now the group is overpowered so we've got to start making reasons to split up the team'.

One of the mysteries in the book is which of Toby's many enemies is responsible for the kidnapping, and I found myself just not caring. Whoever it was wasn't going to make a difference to the basic 'find the girl and try not to die' plot.

We are introduced to Toby's grandmother, who is a human and also immortal. I did not expect to meet her! She thinks that Amandine is wonderful and that Toby is a terrible mother who deliberately abandoned her child. Which is a fascinating viewpoint, and I would love more information on how she got there. Is it just bad judgement? The passive effect of fairie on humans brains? Has she been influenced directly either by magic or mundane means? Maybe we'll find out in later books.

And finally there is [spoiler warning] the selkie-ification of Toby's daughter, and some more ominous stuff about the upcoming selkie deadline. It sounds like something bad (probably death, but maybe it's exile or something) is going to happen to all the selkies without skins. So on the plus side Toby's daughter is still alive, but on the minus side there's a fair chance she's going to be intensely traumatised in a few year's time.

#review #spoilers #seanan mcguire #october daye #night and silence

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V. E. Schwab - Our Dark Duet

The 2nd book in the Monsters of Verity duology

This book does not have a happy ending. Or rather, it has a mostly happy ending, but there is a main character death I should have seen coming, but I was in denial until it actually happened.

In the previous book we were introduced to three types of monsters. This book adds two more, one of which feeds on conflict and causes people to murder each other, which is a big problem in a city where you need to be armed and able to fight in order to survive the other monsters.

It's a dark book, but a thoughtful one. While there are a few clear villains, there is also an empathy for people's desperation and struggle to survive in terrible circumstances, even when it causes them to kill others or leave them to be killed. There are also people willing to risk or sacrifice themselves to save others or defeat monsters and good does triumph over evil - just not without cost.

#review #spoilers #v. e. schwab #our dark duet #monsters of verity

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Maggie Stiefvater - Call Down the Hawk

Book 1 in the Dreamer trilogy, which is a sequel trilogy to the Raven Boys series.

This book is set in the same universe as the Raven Boys series, and with some overlap in characters, but where that series is hopeful with dark patches, this book is dark with hopeful patches.

It's an interesting book with a universe full of magic and some nice interactions between the Lynch brothers and their friends, but it's also full of murder and other forms of death, some more accidental than others. There's an international organisation going round killing dreamers in order (so they claim) to avert the apocalypse. There are people who can see the future, but who have irregular intervals where the energy they give off kills anyone nearby (with training it can be modified so they slowly kill themselves instead). And there are dreamers who may bring back more or less lethal things from their dreams, and one of whom may bring back something that causes the end of the world.

There are some interesting themes in this book around who to trust and when to lie or disobey, but it's generally clearer about when the wrong path has been taken than what the right one is.

#review #spoilers #maggie stiefvater #call down the hawk #dreamer trilogy

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Seanan McGuire - The Brightest Fell

Book 11 in the October Daye series

In this book, Toby's mother shows up and demands that Toby find August, Toby's missing sister, taking Tybalt and Jasmine hostage to ensure her compliance. August went missing when searching for Oberon, and now Toby must search for her.

I really didn't like Toby's mother, who is controlling and unpleasant. Her sister, I'm less sure about - she's pretty bigoted about changelings but in a sheltered sort of way that makes me think that some time hanging round with Toby's lot could change her for the better.

The police officer who was stranded earlier in the series gets retrieved! He is alive but traumatised (alive but traumatised seems to be a theme for this book). I'm a little surprised that there have been no consequences for his disappearance up to this point (did no-one ask who he was investigating when he vanished?) but we shall see whether the the lack of consequences will continue.

This book includes the bonus novella Of Things Unknown, which is told from the perspective of April the cyber-dryad. April has been much more lost than I realised, so although it ends happily, there are a lot of feelings to deal with before that point.

#seanan mcguire #october daye #review #spoilers #the brightest fell #of things unknown

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Garth Nix - Goldenhand

Book 5 of the Old Kingdom series

I thought this was book 4 in the Old Kingdom series, but apparently it's book 5. However, book 4 (Clariel) is a prequel, so I don't think it matters that I skipped it. The start of Goldenhand runs parallel to the Abhorsen story in Across the Wall, but neither of them need you to have read the other or contain significant spoilers.

I enjoyed this book. It felt better rounded than the earlier Old Kingdom books, with side plots and room to breathe rather than everything escalating towards a series of big battles. There was a gap of more than a decade between Abhorsen and Goldenhand, and I think that Nix matured as a writer during this time.

I liked that as well as the book having two women as the main viewpoint characters, it also has plenty of women in the background guarding gates and captaining boats, and generally just existing on an equal footing with the men. I also enjoyed the humour in the romance part of Lirael's story with the contrast between Nick wishing he was more impressive, and Lirael having no confidence issues but wishing she knew how to flirt.

#review #spoilers #garth nix #the old kingdom #goldenhand

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Premee Mohamed - The Butcher of the Forest

A dark and beautiful book. The genre is hard to classify - I don't think I'd call it horror but it certainly contains horrific creatures and events. Some of the book works by medieval rules - the local ruler is literally called the Tyrant, and you obey authority or you end up dead, and some of it works by dark fairy tale rules, where you can do everything right but one thing, and that one thing may still be enough to doom you.

It's a world full of grim consequences, and little forgiveness for making mistakes, yet overall the book is suspenseful but not depressing. Even when things went wrong, the protagonist's practicality and resourcefulness let me hope that the situation could still be salvaged. The ending is not completely happy, but it's not tragic either. It doesn't end on a cliffhanger, but it feels like there are more stories to be told in this world, and that some of the sadder elements of this story could be revisited or resolved.

The writing is well crafted, and I feel like this is a book that would work well when read aloud. However, it is not kind to a careless reader, and there were several times I had to re-read sentences as I had missed important details from reading too fast.

Recommended, assuming you can handle period appropriate violence, moderate quantities of horror, and children in danger.

#review #spoilers #ebook provided in exchange for a review #premee mohamed #the butcher of the forest

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T J Klune - The House in the Cerulean Sea

This felt like a children's book of the sort written in the first half of the 20th century, but with rather queerer romances. It's light and readable, with an interesting mix of magical creatures but with a cartoonish feel that made me struggle to suspend my disbelief.

The two main settings are a dystopian government organisation with grim offices in a city where it rains all the time, and an idyllic island where it is mostly sunny and children and adults have outdoor adventures when not at school. (The British Empire overtones of wearing khaki explorer's outfits and pretending you're on an island with cannibals are never addressed.)

Many of the characters have had tragic backstories, but the difficulties encountered in the book are overcome pretty easily, and those with power all back down when stood up to, instead of using that power to retaliate and ruin people's lives. Some threats are made, but these seem to be forgotten about when the time comes to act on them.

There's also the question of 'if magic is so powerful, why are the magical people not in charge?', but this is a common flaw in magical settings, so is a fairly minor quibble.

#t j klune #the house in the cerulean sea #review #spoilers

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V. E. Schwab - This Savage Song

The first Monsters of Verity novel

I enjoyed this book. Although the setting is quite dark, the plot remains upbeat, even as the main characters have to deal with murder and betrayal and fleeing for their lives. I was also fascinated by the slow world-building revelations about different types of monsters and their abilities and limitations.

In this universe, monsters are created by violent crimes, have a level of sentience depending on the type of monster, and need to kill to survive. It has two viewpoint characters - a human who wants to be cold and powerful and capable of ruling a city, like her father, and a monster who wants to help protect and save people like his father. They become friends, first drawn together because neither fit in with their peers at school, and then because they are trying to escape and survive.

While the ending contains some ominous elements to encourage you to read the next book in the series, it does wrap up the main plot and no-one is in immediate danger at the end of the book, so it's safe enough to read if you don't like cliffhangers.

#v. e. schwab #review #spoilers #this savage song #monsters of verity