the wednesday reading that was thursday

[landofnowhere]

Empress of Forever, Max Gladstone.  I did actually finish this one, because it was going to be due back to the library.  It's pretty good, but not quite my thing.  I feel like it's about theme more than it is about plot, though there were a couple interesting reveals.  It feels like kind of the moral opposite of Cixin Liu's The Dark Forest, in that the latter has a strong theme of how war, betrayal, and the collapse of society is inevitable, and this book is about how friendships and alliances can be built if you trust people even when it's not necessarily justified. and how sacrificing your goals to look out for your friend might not just be a good idea, but the one choice that saves the world.   I don't really find either of these extremes convincing, but maybe I'm just being grouchy on this one.. Also I suspect that we're getting the whole story filtered through our protagonist's reality-distortion field and would be interested to see it told from another perspective.

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl.  Enjoyable enough despite the fact that I picked it because the tropes annoyed me  -- it didn't really have to be a homeschooler-goes-to-school book:  it could have worked either as a "kid moves to new school" story or as a "homeschooler goes out into the world without going to school" book.  Points for doing a pretty good job with math detail (the author was an engineer) and for the protagonist having an online social life on a math website (even if a small part of the plot).    However has a general shortage of growth mindset: the protagonist literally gained mental calculation skills after being struck by lightning.  It's implied that she has learned math since, but she never encounters a problem that she can't solve (at one point her teacher gives her an actual Putnam problem to solve, which throws her off at first, but after some encouragement she does it in 15 minutes). I feel like she should find a better math website.

Les Disparus de Clairdelune: sequel to Les Fiancés de L'Hiver, just started, interested to see where this goes.

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I tore through the first three hundred pages or so of "Empress of Forever," really liking it, and then started to be put off, and finally finished it exactly as you say, because it was due. And because I'd invested all that time in it. I'm glad to have read it, as so many people raved about it. I've started "This is how you lose the time war," co-authored by MG, and currently think it's OK, rather than wonderful.

[landofnowhere]

/This Is How You Lose the Time War/ is on my to-read list for some point in the future -- am hoping I'll like it better.

[lauradi7dw]

I don't know what to think of it. I enjoyed some of it, and I read it carefully, rather than slipping into skim mode, because it required attention. Many people have lapped it up with delight. I'm not one of those, but it did make me want to write letters, so that's something.