Yeah, I found that stuff a while ago. But thanks for the pointer!
The Reversal by Michael Connelly
This is the third book in the Lincoln Lawyer series. Mickey Haller gets hired by the LADA’s office to handle the retrial of a 24 year old murder case. Along with his ex-wife prosecutor and Det. Harry Bosch, Haller digs into the case and works to put the killer back in jail. This one surprised me a bit as the ending isn’t what I expected after having read the first two books in the series. Nice to know Connelly can end things a little differently.
Not a great book but an easy read and I find the legal discussions in the books to be interesting.
Thanks @Matt_W for reminding me to post this here instead of the 2020 thread /facepalm
I finally made it through Gardens of the Moon.
Fuck me but this book is dense. You really gotta pay attention to the text and the subtext and remember a gazillion characters and gods and races and elder races and undead races and my goodness the proper nouns you’re expected to keep straight.
Ahem.
The author also bounces between POVs rather quickly, which is fine, except that reading it in Libby it didn’t display so much as a line break between POV shifts – they look like any other paragraph break. This did not make things any easier!
Also not making things easier: I came back to 2/3 of the way through the novel (which is a tome, to be sure) and decided to just power through from there and hope things came back to me as I went. Which…they sort of did? Ended up going back to read a summary some nerd put together after I finished, which helped a bit (I had totally spaced on the Tattersail and Hairlock storylines).
The book finishes strong, though. The whole climax in Darujhistan is really well done, awesome characters do awesome things, questions are answered, comeuppances are delivered, two different skybeams get invoked and resolved, it’s all pretty great.
Overall, I mean, the novel is intricate and compelling and well-written if a bit prone to twisting itself into knots. Obviously I’m going to keep on keeping on. I hear the narrative gets a little less uh challenging after the first book.
I love that it’s a very high-magic world. Mages are common and do completely ridiculous shit. Gods and Ascended walk the world. Undead warriors lament the ruins of their ancient empires. Dragons swoop down from flying Elder cities to counter surprise demon assaults. I feel like I’ve been spending time in mostly low-magic worlds lately, and not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the variety is refreshing.
Enjoy your climb up Malazan mountain :) I will observe that 10 years separated the writing of GotM and Deadhouse Gates, and there’s a significant tonal shift in that and subsequent books. One gets the sense that Rake would never have been a thing in later books because he’s so obviously the product of a teenage TTRPG boy’s fervid imagination: “He’s a vampire! But also a dragon! And he lives in a flying castle! And has a sword that drinks souls!” And the role of the squad, Brigeburners or Bonehunters or whatever they’re called, gets shifted considerably in the later stories.
I think Malazan is wordy well beyond the point of pretentiousness. But it has some really great characters and setpieces, and some really gut wrenching sequences later. It’s also occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, especially when Tehol and Bugg enter the scene (in book 5ish I think.) I confess I never finished the series. Every book is a slog uphill for 2/3 before you get the careening payoff in the last 1/3, and I lost steam trying to summit book 9 and never returned.
In other reading, I read Rivers of London based on recommendations here. I liked it well enough. It has tonal similarities to some of Gaiman’s stuff like American Gods or Anansi Boys. I’m not sure I liked it enough to read more of the series though.
Not a 2022 book but…
Folks in the Three Body Problem thread recommended Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time and to them I say “thank you!” I haven’t been engaged like this by a work of fiction in a long while and I can’t put it down.
Garden of the Moon is actually a short story compared to some of the later books. But for me it seems easier to get into each book now. I have read 4 and the author grows on you, although trying to remember everything is challenging.
Looking back in my library I picked up Welcome to Night Vale again, it’s still pretty delightful. It’s like a less-bro John Dies at the End, very Emo Phillips with the construction of scenes and sentences.
This is a great description. I loved the first WtNV book. The description of the biography section of the library still kills me.
Children of Time is one of the best SF books I’ve ever read. Nothing in recent memory has conjured that feeling of awe and respect and wonder for space, the human race, and life as a whole like that book does. Keep loving it!
I recently read The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes and it is awesome. Far future space opera with a group of exiled soldiers policing the edge of the universe, sort of a Night’s Watch with space ships. But suddenly it looks like the edge of the universe isn’t staying put, and maybe their superiors aren’t being fully honest with them…
I read the last 40 pages in a fever of focus, hoping my family wouldn’t wake up and interrupt me. Incredible stakes, great action, and above all, awesome characters. Our two leads have very different attitudes and histories, and every bit of it shows through their thoughts and actions. The author renders them wonderfully, too; I related to them as I read, despite their difference from me.
It’s great sci-fi, too. We’re thrown into the action, which never slows down to explain things that can be revealed through action. It doesn’t matter that we don’t understand every bit of future-tech—the characters do, and that pulls us forward convincingly and with great pace. One of the leads of The Last Watch develops in a convincing and subtle way—her turn by the end was exciting and promising.
I’m now nearly at the end of its sequel, The Exiled Fleet, and it’s similarly strong.
One final thing I really like: it’s about these people who really care about each other, but their love and respect is as much about duty and responsibility as it is about fondness and regard. It’s a really interesting way of imagining the experiences of a military milieau that’s not just ooh-rah and chest pounding. It’s also convincingly understated about its same-sex relationships and women in command; of course those are normal things, why wouldn’t they be?
Good stuff. Not hard SF, but good writing and characters and action and storytelling. You know: a good book!
I also recently read Moonfall by Jack McDevitt. No relation to the recent (terrible-looking) film.
Hard SF with orbital mechanics and launch windows and passenger and weight limitations and fuel line issues and more, focused on the trials of a world trying to deal with an immanent comet strike on the moon. I knew nothing about the big-picture story before reading, and could. Not. Stop. Reading.
I recommend that if what I’ve written above sounds good, you just pick it up. Don’t read the synopsis. Just go.
It jumps between lots of different characters, none of which are very deeply drawn, but it works. The book is more about this big ass situation and how different teams and individuals deal with it, not about great character work.
Highly, highly recommended. My first McDevitt, and I’m looking forward to more.
Damnit. You’ve basically described the book version of bacon for me. I am compelled.
Yesssss
McDevitt is almost always a good read. A number of his novels are all part of the same story and are well worth picking up.
Awesome - welcome to the Malazan book of the fallen world! I was completely lost the first time I read the book, but really, really enjoyed what I understood.
The second book contains some of the most harrowing and emotionel-inspiring segments that I have ever read - I really, really recommend reading it. The books get easier, the more you read - the universe makes more and more sense, the more you read, and they are really worth it - ESPECIALLY now that you are through the first book, which I find to be a rather off-putting intro to the series, since it is so incredibly dense.
Anyways - awesome to hear you enjoyed it! They only get better!
It is true that with each book they do seem easier to read.
I read The Last Watch recently and liked it a lot. Good to hear there is a second book that continues the story.Thanks for letting me know.
Picked it up from the library, really liking it so far. Good writing, not flowery but also not thriller-esque over-describing and clunky. Balancing hard science without degrading into earning geek points is a fine line and it seems to be walking it well.
Children of Time has been on my to-read list for a while and this post prompted me to actually get off my rear and go get it from the library. Man, you are not kidding, this is a great novel. I’m about 1/3 of the way through and completely hooked. Might finish it this weekend, to the detriment of my gaming time. :)
I just finished it, it retains everything that makes the first 1/3 great in the latter 2/3.