One of my favourites so far, sad but with some unexpected humour. Lawrence and Temeraire have returned to England in disgrace. They are both considered traitors and the only reason Lawrence is alive is to ensure the good behaviour of Temeraire so he can be used to breed more eggs. They have been separated and …
Tag Archives: Historical
Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
Started off slow but gradually got more interesting. Lawrence and Temeraire have finally returned to England. However once there they quickly find out that all the dragons are afflicted by some sort of flu and are not recovering from it. The situation is so dire that they are dispatched to South Africa to try to …
Kindred by Octavia Butler
This book is labelled as science fiction but it’s not really. Yes there is time travel but it is only there for plot device, it is not explained and isn’t explored really at all, just taken as a fact from the characters. What this book is really is an exploration of slavery in America in …
The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
In some ways I like this even more than the Vampire Lestat. It is a direct sequel to that book as it ended on a cliffhanger. For the first time we have multiple POV’s which is great, though it is still Lestat ‘writing’ the book. We have Daniel, the boy from Interview with the Vampire. …
The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
This is the story of Lestat, Louis’ maker from Interview with the Vampire, and much like that, it is basically a fictional autobiography of his life up to the events of that novel, with the end covering that time and up to the present day. However the scope of this novel is much more grand. …
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Great book. This is the story of Louis, and mostly concerns his life in New Orleans with Lestat, the vampire that made him, and their ‘daughter’ Claudia. The second part of the narrative is set in Europe. If ever a book could be described as gothic, this is it. Set primarily in the eighteenth and …
Dracula by Bram Stoker
I really didn’t enjoy this at all. It felt long (though it is relatively short) and it was boring. Dracula himself is barely in it, except for a bit at the start. The whole book is in the form of diary entries and newspaper articles which is one of the better parts of it. One …
The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden
This was a brilliant book, it combined what I liked best from the first two books. I won’t go into too much detail about plot, it being the third and final volume but lets just say it starts with a bang and shock, mellows out a bit and regroups, brings us to an end and …
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The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
For some reason I’m finding this one very hard to review. I did enjoy it, though maybe not quite as much as the first one. It has the same magical feel to it but it is a very different beast. Honestly in the first book not a lot happened, it was very low key, almost …
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
This is a very atmospheric book. Set during the fourteenth century ( I think) in Russia it is based on Russian fairytales and this is obvious from the start. Our main POV is Vasya, the second daughter of a very rural lord and her struggles with the old supernatural world and also the fate of …
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