Equal Rites

 

Author:  Terry Pratchett

Begun: March 4th 2025

Finished: March 8th 2025

Type: ebook on Libby 

Rating: 7/10

A dying wizard travels to Bad Ass where the wife of an 8th son is about to give birth the eighth time after previously birthing seven boys (in separate pregnancies, not all at the same time).  Granny Weatherwax brings the child downstairs and the wizard, completely ignoring her protestations, hands his staff to the newborn, who grasps it.

That child, however, is not the eighth son of an eighth son.  It's a girl.  

Thus begins the story of Eskarina, the first female wizard.  

Shenanigans ensue. 

It's pretty good.  

Yep. That's all I have to say.  It's pretty good.  

Medicus

 

Author:  Ruth Downie

Begun: March 9th 2025

Finished: March11th 2025

Type: Audiobook 

Narrator: Simon Vance

Rating: 7/10

An impoverished, divorced army doctor turns up at his post in Deva, Britannia (Chester, England). He rescues an abused and injured slave, investigates the death of two prostitutes, battles with the local bean counter, Priscus, is attacked by his superior, used by his "friend",  is nearly burned to death,  and is trying to earn enough money to send home to his family, all while pulling 36 hour shifts at the hospital.  

It's set in Roman Britain, which has my attention, but honestly it's just one irritating situation after another.  The whole book had me on edge and anxious, and not in a good way.  I really want to like this book very much...but despite the somewhat satisfying conclusion the whole thing was mostly just irritating.  There were so many characters I just wanted to punch in the face.  

There are, apparently, sequels.  I probably will not be reading them.  

Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, and Network Effect

 

Author:  Martha Wells

Begun: End of Feb 2025

Finished: March 4th 2025

Type: Audiobook 

Narrator: Kevin R. Free

Rating: 10/10

"There is a lot about what is going on here that I don't understand.  But I am participating anyway."

- Three

Rogue Protocol

In an attempt to help get more evidence of Graycris' crimes, SecUnit goes to Milu.  There it encounters another bot, Miki, and its owner Don Abene (a very Dr. Mensah-ish character), as well as various other people.  Naturally, shenanigans ensue and MurderBot continues its learning curve. 

"'Consultant Rin sent you?'  Fortunately I hadn't just been standing there like a moron and didn't drop the perfectly good opening she was trying to hand me.  'I'm Consultant Rin's contracted SecUnit.  Consultant Run is on the station, and sent me to the facility on her shuttle.'"

And that, right there, ladies and gentleman, is evidence that although SecUnit is completely genderless, it is female leaning.  Even MurderBot itself, when impersonating a human or augmented human, refers to itself as "her".  ".....on HER shuttle."

I am so mad, SO MAD that a male was picked to play it.  What, because it is protective and has a big gun and is handy in a fight so it must be male leaning?  Have those idiots at Apple never met a mother? Mama Bears are well named for their intense protective instinct, and they sure aren't male.  So intensely frustrating.  

Exit Strategy

MurderBot learns that Graycris has kidnapped Dr. Mensah.  You can imagine MurderBot's reaction.  

"Mensah said I could learn to do anything I wanted.  I learned to leave."

"Sending SecUnits after me was one thing.  But they sent SecUnits after my client.  No-one gets to walk away from that."

"I wish I knew what winning was"

Network Effect

MurderBot is on a research expedition with Amena, Dr. Mensah's daughter, as well as various other members of Preservation, some we know and some we don't.  Things go awry when the ART ship...minus ART....turns up and kidnaps them all.  Really creepy things happen.  Hilarious things are said.  I'd like it known for the record that I love Three and want to know more about it and its story.  It seems really lovely.  

"'What are you?'  I said, "I'm a Shut Up or Get Your Head Smashed."

"Just clients.  And if anyone or anything tried to hurt them, I would rip its intestines out."

"Unidentified One sounded even more amused.  'You had better have the weapon we were told of, or I'll take your ribs out one by one and break them in front of your little face.'  I saved that for future reference.  Unidentified One seemed to have gone to some trouble with the wording of that threat, it would be a shame if they never experienced it firsthand."

On the hostiles saying they had destroyed ART: "'We deleted it, of course.'  I felt my face change.  The muscles were all stiff, and not from the hit I'd taken.  I'm still not great at controlling my expressions, and I had no idea what I looked like.  Behind her hands, Amena whispered, 'Oh shit.'"

"Target Two said, 'How boring.  Angry, then afraid, then dead.  Boring boring boring.' ........ Target Two's face went surprised, then furious.  It was kind of funny.  This was a point where if I was a human (ick) I might have laughed.  I decided to go with my first inclination and kill the shit out of some ass-faced hostiles instead.  I told the Targets, 'Angry, then afraid, then dead.  Is that the right order?'  Casualty One whispered, 'Oh deity, that's a...'"   (A SecUnit.  Why yes, it is.)  "I tore the energy weapon out of Target Two's hand along with a few fingers, stabbed the weapon into its chest (it didn't have a sharp end but I made do) and ripped a large hole.  Then I used the weapon, and the large hole, to lift Target Two up and slam it into the upper bulkhead.  Three times.  Fluid and pieces went everywhere.  That was satisfying.  I think I'll do it again."  Do not.  DO NOT threaten or kill SecUnit's clients or friends.  Things get messy really fast when you do that.  

"'I didn't know bot pilots could kill people.'  'They're almost as dangerous as humans.'"

Amena, talking to SecUnit who had just told her to get some sleep, "Okay, third Mom."  And there we have more evidence of female-leaning characteristics.  Amena didn't refer to MurderBot as Second Dad.  

Describing a SecUnit's standard neutral expression:  "(Normal = neutral expression concealing existential despair and brain-crushing boredom.)"

https://www.redbubble.com/i/sticker/Murderbot-Diaries-The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Sanctuary-Moon-Fan-Art-Mucha-by-jutulen/121149656.EJUG5

The more I read them the more I love them.  

https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/34296696-murderbot-diaries-perihelion-art-crew-patch-fan-ar

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fpack-bonding-in-action-v0-y37d837k5j691.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dcf6e496a6b984fdc0f84b8c321bd8663e6f00a83

https://medibang.com/picture/wz2007060756097980004455425/

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

 

Author:  Sangu Mandanna

Begun: March 4th 2025

Finished: March 5th 2025

Type: Audiobook on Libby

Narrator: Samara MacLaren

Rating: 6/10

Meh. It's fine.  More than a little tropy.  It's so easy to see, from the beginning, exactly the trajectory of the story.  Nothing deviates from that easy-to-predict storyline.  It's mostly inoffensive.  Has the "right" amount of diversity to tick all the boxes.  Siiiiiigh.  It's like someone wrote out a formula for what a "successful" book needs and wrote according to that.  

Things that might offend some people:  The sex.  I skipped that bit.  The novel is clearly written for preteens/teens, and that's why it's more than a little horrifying to have explicit sex plonked in there.  WTH??  

Furthermore, remember when I talked about the incredible amounts of F-bombs in The Wolf Den and how I wasn't bothered because it totally fit with the setting of the story?  There are a bunch of F-bombs in this book and they do *not* fit in with the story.  Each one is completely jarring and unnecessary.  It's almost as if the author had a quota she needed to fill and sort of sprinkled them around randomly. 

I'd started reading the book but just couldn't handle it and returned it after a couple of chapters.  When the audiobook turned up on Libby and I was offered a copy for 7 days (rather than the usual 21), I thought I'd give it another go.  I coped by speeding it up to 1.5x.  

Ehhhh.  It's fine.  But I'm glad I only spent 2 days and zero money on it. 

Shogun

 

Author:  James Clavell

Begun: Feb 17th 2025

Finished: Feb 27th 2025

Type: Audiobook on Libby

Narrator: Ralph Lister

Rating: 8/10

Holy cow what a masterpiece.  

Set in feudal Japan around the late 1500s and loosely based on historical events, Shōgun tells the story of John Blackthorne, who is shipwrecked in Japan.  What follows is an epic story of how he survives a land so alien to him.  At the same time Toranaga (loosely based on Tokugawa Ieyasu) is in the midst of his political machinations and things get twisty.  The insight into feudal Japanese thoughts and customs is unflinching, and more often than not, infuriating.  

The book is extremely hefty.  The audiobook is the longest I have ever listened to:  60 hours.  It's so long that it's divided into parts one and two at 30 hours each.  Despite that it moves, for the most part, at a really good clip and rarely drags.  Rarely.  It does drag sometimes.  There were a couple of times in the middle of the story when I started to get bored - but then it picked up the pace again.  The last hour of listening was a chore.  It was boring and depressing. 

The story does not go the way you think it will. While I normally like that, there were authorial choices made that I didn't agree with, and which, in fact, somewhat ruined the story for me.  Once The Big Thing happened it lost me.  I was no longer invested and honestly didn't care much after that.  

Clavell kept twisting and twisting facts:  

"This is how it is".  

"Oh, that's how you thought it was?  No no, they were lying, THIS is how it really was."  

"Oh, you think that's how it really was?  Joke's on you, THIS is how it really really was." 

and on and on.  

Toranaga was meant to be this extremely wise and clever person, but at the end was just making snap decisions that made no damn sense at all, and was constantly changing his mind and immediately regretting it.  

Add that to just before The Big Thing where it got so self-aware it was irritating.  Clavell was clearly trying to write something extremely cinematic....but tried too hard and in the end it didn't really matter.  It made me laugh and took me out of the story, and from that point I wasn't convinced anymore.  

Overall, a fantastic story...but not perfect.  I was considering spending actual money to purchase the audiobook....but after it lost me I dropped that idea. 

Ralph Lister was pretty good.  He took some getting used to as he had a lot of his Japanese characters shout.  So. Much. Shouting. Oh my gosh.  He also had the habit of almost whispering the end of his sentences.  He'd start off at a shout then peter out at the end until you could barely hear him.  So odd.  OTOH, his voice acting was good enough that I could recognize the characters based on the voices.  He did female voices very well.  

All You Zombies

 

Author:  Robert A Heinlein

Begun: Feb 19th 2025

Finished: Feb 19th 2025

Type: ebook

Rating: 6.5/10

Whenever I read stories by men written in the 50s I am reminded of how appalling it was for women then.  How dismissed they were.  How unimportant and powerless they were.  How they were blamed for things that weren't their fault - male writers using them as scapegoats.  It's so depressing.  And it appears to be more prevalent in SF, which is even more depressing.  Male writers using their imagination to lift themselves up and put women down, rather than to right wrongs.  The only conclusion I can come to is they liked the wrongs and wanted more of it. 

Setting that really disheartening stuff aside this is a book of five short stories that have interesting premises.  If you can stomach the sexist fly in the ointment they are quite fun.

I, however, will be striving to avoid early SF if I can at all help it.  Ugh. Ew. Gross. 

The Wolf Den

 

Author:  Elodie Harper

Begun: Feb 15th 2025

Finished: Feb 17th 2025

Type: ebook

Rating: 9.5/10

Holy cow. 
Some books are just.....they're a cut above.  
This book ripped the beating heart out of my chest and squeezed it. 

Starkly brutal depiction of life as a brothel slave in Pompeii.  It helps you understand exactly what it's like - the fear, pain, heartache, disgust, the panic at being so trapped and powerless.  Absolutely appalling. 

When I would drag myself out of the book and look around, coming back to awareness of who I am, where I live, my life, and how different it is from Amara's, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude.  How thankful I am to live at this point in history, in this country, to have a home of my own, clean water, enough food, to be free. 

A warning for those sensitive to it: this book has more f-bombs than any other I have read, I think.  But even though it's an astounding amount, it totally fits the setting and doesn't feel egregious.

Given the book's setting it won't surprise you to learn that there is slavery, rape, violence, murder, and cruelty both intensely personal and unthinkingly impersonal.  

Highly HIGHLY recommend.  I haven't lost myself like that in a book for many many years.  Utterly astonishing.