User Profile

infryq

infryq@books.theunseen.city

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

Bring me all the speculative fiction. Whose stories have I been missing out on?

Rating system calibration:

1 star - not worth reading 2 stars - worth reading, but has major problems 3 stars - satisfying read, may have minor problems. Most books live here. 4 stars - inspiring read, overshadows any issues 5 stars - life-changing read

Reading log for @infryq@social.wub.site, @infryq@pgh.social

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reviewed Dreadful company by Vivian Shaw (A Dr. Greta Helsing novel -- 2)

"Contemporary fantasy in the world of Strange Practice, starring Dr. Greta Helsing, whose family has …

Strong continuation

4 stars

Love a damsel in distress who rescues herself. Love love a love interest and would-be rescue team who roll with it. Plus bonus tribbles.

TW for kidnapping, imprisonment, and pretending everything is fine when a leader’s behavior is completely unhinged.

Okay and look I’m not saying “Crepusculus” is a bad name for one half of a buddy cop/ghost detective/hunter/“remedial psychopomp” duo, in fact it’s a brilliant name, I’m just saying it could been such a better name for someone involved in the dawn as well as the dusk of life.

Vivian Shaw: Strange Practice (2017, Little, Brown Book Group Limited) 4 stars

"Meet Greta Helsing, fast-talking doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive and well …

Nicely grippy

4 stars

A medical-flavored mystery with a down to earth sense of urban fantasy to it. The descriptions are particularly wonderful and manage to escape getting too florid. Fun magic/infernal system, skillfully revealed. Gentle presence of social anxiety lending depth and comfort to the characters. I wish the recording had a better (or perhaps any) pop filter but that’s not the fault of the text. Excited to see more of the series.

Emily Skrutskie: Bonds of Brass (2020, Del Rey) 3 stars

A young pilot risks everything to save his best friend--the man he trusts most and …

Solid until it turned into pureblood rhetoric

2 stars

This was a fun romp, the author clearly proud of their worldbuilding notebook and still learning how to thread it through a narrative, with strong chaos bisexual energy... and then it turned out the whole thing was holding up a blood purity story, and not the kind where anybody knows it's bullshit -- potentially the author included. What a shame.

C. L Polk: Witchmark (2018) 4 stars

In an original world reminiscent of Edwardian England in the shadow of a World War, …

Alternate-post-WWI medical mystery, with bonus fae

4 stars

Miserable class conflict, grisly murder scenes, but beautifully crafted relationships & characters.