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Catship

catship@books.theunseen.city

Joined 3 years, 1 month ago

We're a plural system who loves queer & anarchist scifi.

But recently we just read a few randomly picked up mystery books in a row, in German, and we tend to review books in the language we read them in. That or similar may happen again, be warned.

No reading goals, just feelings.

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Catship's books

Currently Reading (View all 6)

finished reading The Wager by David Grann

David Grann, Dion Graham: The Wager (AudiobookFormat, 2023, Random House Audio) 4 stars

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on …

It's not as good as the book about the Erebus & Terror that I just read. I say that because it tries to tell a dramatic story rather than give me an idea of how likely which facts are to be true. But I came to appreciate it for not omitting colonialist racist bullshit, and for writing about it critically.

So my main points of frustration are actually the historical facts (of whichever level of facticity, shrug, ok we can call it the story, I don't care). I find the Erebus/Terror expeditions relatable because, while also being colonialist bullshit, they are about exploring areas unknown to the people doing the expeditions, about drawing maps and uuuuh collecting (cough eating cough) new-to-them species. I get why someone would want to do that. But this? This was some war bullshit, people were literally forced to go, and gosh "capturing the treasures from …

avatar for catship Catship boosted
Brenda Peynado: Time's Agent (2024, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Pocket World–a geographically small, hidden offshoot of our own reality, sped up or slowed down …

Time's Agent

4 stars

This book was a potential book for the #SFFBookClub poll for a while, but I ended up reading anyway because it looked intriguing.

As a reader, it seems like a novella is a hard length to hit; it's hard to have the space for both pacing and sufficient worldbuilding, and it's also hard to have enough runway for the resolution to resonate and feel satisfying. The short of it is that I feel like this novella nailed it for me.

The worldbuilding here is brutal. The book kicks off with idyllic introduction of Raquel working for the Global Institute for the Scientific and Humanistic Study of Pocket Worlds. Pocket worlds are small offshoots of reality, much smaller than our own universe--maybe the size of a meadow or a room or a bag even--and they can run at different time rates to our own universe.

After the protagonist Raquel falls into …

reviewed Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins

Rachel Hawkins: Reckless Girls (Hardcover, 2022, St. Martin's Press) No rating

Yeah no

No rating

Not my kind of book. I can appreciate a revenge story, and I like locked room situations, deserted islands and places that feel creepily off. But this didn't convince me at all. There was no building suspense for me, just single tense moments. The character motivations felt kind of random, it just didn't come together for me. And the whole story felt very long winded, the entire second half made me think "this takes too long". I finished it because the story still had all those elements that I like, and I was curious how it'd go. But yeah, no, this was not for me.

I did however have frustrated fun researching some of the things around this book.

I think the island is fictional (there is a Meroe Island, but it's somewhere else), and I didn't find a clear equivalent for it either. I think it might be partly …

Rachel Hawkins: Reckless Girls (Hardcover, 2022, St. Martin's Press) No rating

This is very frustrating to read after a non-fiction book about a ship! With the non-fiction one about the Erebus, I kept looking up all the little islands that were mentioned, and I found all of them. But this island is fictional! There is a Meroe Island, but it's at a very different place in the world. So I keep looking for islands of different names in the right place that might be this one! But yeah it might just not exist.

Ich hab echt nicht damit gerechnet, das zu mögen, nachdem es erst mal mit Fatshaming anfing. Aber mir ist diese Geschichte dann doch sehr ans Herz gewachsen. Es ist einfach eine gute Kombi aus vielem was ich mag... Pferde-Intrigen, Betrug als Beruf, Leute die mies in Beziehungen sind aber trotzdem connecten, absurder Scheiß, ein bisschen Kitsch und Landidylle und Schadenfreude.

Einen Spinoff täte ich mir wünschen, in dem das Konzept von "mit jeder Kopfverletzung ändert sich ob du mit dem Pony reden kannst" ein bisschen düsterer ausgebaut wird. Ich mein, sie macht da schon relativ zweifelhafte Sachen dafür! Und in diesem Buch ist es lustig, aber ich fände es auch als tragisches Schicksal ziemlich cool.

finished reading Erebus by Michael Palin

Michael Palin: Erebus (Hardcover, 2018, Hutchinson) No rating

"Michael Palin brings the fascinating story of the Erebus and its occupants to life, from …

I could start right over from the beginning tbh. Mostly because I read it very distractedly, but still! I feel like I now know the basics, but I mix up all the names and places and stuff.

I like this because it's less dramatic retelling and more "aww someone read all those logs and diaries just to tell me about them and quote me all the best parts??" That includes uh, that dude who constantly writes about which birds he shot and how they tasted.

The song from the epilogue, Stan Rogers' Northwest Passage, I enjoyed most in this Unleash The Archers version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRD3vrSLPaw (I even thought the video was fun, and I'm really not a video person.)