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It's been an embarrasingly long time since I did one of these posts, hasn't it. Life's been busy - work, vacation, house hunting...
What I've recently finished reading
Peter Laird: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics: The Works volume 1.
It was nice reading the original comics. That said, I fear they fall into the category of "might have been groundbreaking for their time, but...". Oh well.
Cynthia Leitich Smith: Tantalize
Martin Davidsen: Løftet
Jim Pascoe: Cottons:The Secret of the Wind
Mikkel Birkegaard: Fra drømmenes bibliotek
I started out being incredibly annoyed with this book, because the description on the back and every reference and review of it made it sound as if this was a straightforward historical novel, and as such, it sucks. Lots of extremely inaccurate stuff. It's not until you're quite some way in that you realize, because apparently the marketing for this book must have sucked, that what you're reading is a perfectly serviceable alternate history novel with a dash of adventure and intrigue. Seriously, the author needs better marketing to reach his intended audience.
Jan Guillou: Coq Rouge
Dufaux: Feen Sanctus
Nnedi Okorafor: The Night Masquerade
Steven Brust: Brokedown Palace
Anne Christine Eriksen: Daniel
Krinoline & kedsomhed: danske steampunknoveller
A theme anthology of Danish steampunk. Most of them didn't really have that much of a Danish feel, though a couple play with the history of Danish colonialism and Greenland. Most of the stories are perfectly fine, but nothing I couldn't have found in a similar theme anthology from the US. My favourite stories were Fordærvets sommer by Majbrit Høyrup, set in what appears to be an enforced low-tech country, and Gudrun Østergaard's Krinoline og kedsomhed, where a woman marries into a horribly boring upper class life - until she ends up in a sanatorium and discovers an underworld of women embracing the queer and artistic life out of sight of society in general.
David & Stephan Garmark: Love City
Sussi Bech: Nofret: samlede historier II
I very much enjoy Nofret more or less purposefully making her way around the ancient world. I could have lived without the amnesia subplot, but it's a bit late to complain about a comic book from the 80s.
Kevin Smith: Hit-Girl i Hollywood del 3.
Chapuzet & Corbeyran: Cognac vol. 3.
Niklas Natt och Dag: 1793
Francois Bourgeon: Kirsebærrenes blod vol. 1.
Gry Kappel Jensen: Roser og violer
The first in a series of the magical academy/Harry Potter clone, but quite well written so far. We follow four girls who are each invited to take the entrance exam for an exclusive private boarding school near Sorø, which - surprise surprise - teaches magic. I like that the main characters are teenagers approaching adulthood instead of tiny kids, I like the magic system having a strong basis in the Norse culture, and I'll be looking forward to the next book.
Sidsel Sander Mittel: Rent blod
First novel in a Danish fantasy series where every nationality has differently coloured skin - not ordinary, but green, blue, etc. It's so far quite good - the main characters are the elite youth of a country with a democratic value system, except it's been taken over by conservative nobles and they are travelling to join the resistance - only to have to rely on one of the natives of the continent their ancestors conquered and who are now kept by slaves by the new nation. Basically, nobody and nothing's quite as clean cut and good and evil as the teenage heroes would like to think.
Sandy Mitchell: Ciaphas Cain: Saviour of the Imperium
Al Ewing: Loke - Agent of Asgard: Trust Me
Brandon Montclare: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Save Our School
Kevin Smith: Hit-Girl i Hollywood del 4.
Kieron Gillen: The Wicked + the Divine: Old is the New New
Martha Wells: The Cloud Roads
It has sort-of-draconic shapeshifters, yes, okay, I like it. I'm annoyed the Danish libraries doesn't have the second and will really need to wait until post-move before asking for an ILL from abroad, I think. I mean, we're shutting down ILLs from abroad anyway now, so the public libraries wouldn't be able to get it for me right now anyway, but still...
Victor Gischler: Angel & Faith: United
Kathrine Tschemerinsky: Turen går til bøgernes verden
Gengoroh Tagame: My Brother's Husband vol. 1.
H.C. Andersen: I Spanien
Read in preparation of my trip to Seville (which was very, very hot.). Andersen's descriptions of bull fights were rather chilling. It never occurred to me how very many horses died (die?) in those as well as the bulls. Gory stuff.
Warren Ellis: The Wild Storm vol. 2.
Susanne Clod Pedersen: Blodringen
I still want this book series as a tv series. It was delightful following the Viking warriors all the way to Miklagard, getting involved in court intrigues and horse racing and general fighting. Mostly fighting.
C.J. Cherryh: Chanur's Venture
C.J. Cherryh: The Kif Strike Back
I think it was just as well I got the omnibus, since these two and the next are really just one novel split in three, and abruptly so. The lionlike space merchant Pyanfar Chanur and her crew re-encounters the weird alien known as a human, Tully, and gets thrown headfirst into a mess of intrigue and more or less comprehensible space fights and flights, because everybody and especially the unpleasasnt Kif are way too interested in the humans. Excellent plane reading, will take the second omnibus with me on my next flight.
Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen: Bastarden
Ian C. Esslemont: Dancer's Lament
Martha Wells: Rogue Protocol
Oyinkan Braithwaite: My Sister, the Serial Killer
This wasn't quite as fun as advertized. I mean, the story of Korede and her serial killing baby sister, who Korede always cleans up after, until said sister sets her sights on the doctor Korede's interested in - it's fun, but perhaps I've just read too much villain protagonist stuff to find that quite that innovative. The Nigeria setting, on the other hand, is vivid, though the novel is really too short to do that much with it.
Mike Mignola: Abe Sapien: A Darkness So Great
Ben Aaronovitch: The October Man
On one hand, it was very nice to see a bit of the Rivers of London universe outside of England. On the other hand, a lot of this felt very - listen, it's nice that Germany has river gods as well (which are mad at humanity because the Nazis murdered a number of river gods), and magically inspired murders etc., but - it felt a bit too repetitive of the Peter Grant starring novels, you know?
Daniel Kehlmann: Tyll
Lois McMaster Bujold: Penric and the Shaman
The first novel in this series felt a bit too generic, but this is nice. It's a surprisingly cozy story featuring the main character, Penric, and the demon inside him getting recruited to aid a lawman hunt down a suspected murderer.
Martin Jensen: Magtspor
Al Ewing: Loki - Agent of Asgard: I cannot tell a lie
Jeff Lemire: Black Hammer: The Event
What I've recently watched
37. The Magicians season 2.
38. Annihilation
39. Christian IV - Den sidste rejse
40. The Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
A very gorgeous, albeit short documentary, with several brief animated sequences illustrating bits from her novels.
41. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
42. Sorry To Bother You
43. Far from the Madding Crowd
I feel this could have had a nice OT3 if Michael Sheen's character hadn't gotten dragged off to jail at the end. Maybe after the credits?
44. Bohemian Rhapsody
45. The Incredibles 2.
46. Der Himmel ûber Berlin
Aka the novel where Peter Falk is a former angel, and I mostly got hold of it to rewatch because I want to also rewatch the sequel and then write a fanfic with Aziraphale visiting Damiel's pizza place.
47. Arctic
Not to be confused with the other Mads Mikkelsen-starring movie, Polar. Very pretty if you like snow and cold and lone human fighting the elements.
What I'm reading now
Nilanjana Roy's "The Hundred Names of Darkness".
Total number of books and comics read this year: 184
What I've recently finished reading
Peter Laird: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics: The Works volume 1.
It was nice reading the original comics. That said, I fear they fall into the category of "might have been groundbreaking for their time, but...". Oh well.
Cynthia Leitich Smith: Tantalize
Martin Davidsen: Løftet
Jim Pascoe: Cottons:The Secret of the Wind
Mikkel Birkegaard: Fra drømmenes bibliotek
I started out being incredibly annoyed with this book, because the description on the back and every reference and review of it made it sound as if this was a straightforward historical novel, and as such, it sucks. Lots of extremely inaccurate stuff. It's not until you're quite some way in that you realize, because apparently the marketing for this book must have sucked, that what you're reading is a perfectly serviceable alternate history novel with a dash of adventure and intrigue. Seriously, the author needs better marketing to reach his intended audience.
Jan Guillou: Coq Rouge
Dufaux: Feen Sanctus
Nnedi Okorafor: The Night Masquerade
Steven Brust: Brokedown Palace
Anne Christine Eriksen: Daniel
Krinoline & kedsomhed: danske steampunknoveller
A theme anthology of Danish steampunk. Most of them didn't really have that much of a Danish feel, though a couple play with the history of Danish colonialism and Greenland. Most of the stories are perfectly fine, but nothing I couldn't have found in a similar theme anthology from the US. My favourite stories were Fordærvets sommer by Majbrit Høyrup, set in what appears to be an enforced low-tech country, and Gudrun Østergaard's Krinoline og kedsomhed, where a woman marries into a horribly boring upper class life - until she ends up in a sanatorium and discovers an underworld of women embracing the queer and artistic life out of sight of society in general.
David & Stephan Garmark: Love City
Sussi Bech: Nofret: samlede historier II
I very much enjoy Nofret more or less purposefully making her way around the ancient world. I could have lived without the amnesia subplot, but it's a bit late to complain about a comic book from the 80s.
Kevin Smith: Hit-Girl i Hollywood del 3.
Chapuzet & Corbeyran: Cognac vol. 3.
Niklas Natt och Dag: 1793
Francois Bourgeon: Kirsebærrenes blod vol. 1.
Gry Kappel Jensen: Roser og violer
The first in a series of the magical academy/Harry Potter clone, but quite well written so far. We follow four girls who are each invited to take the entrance exam for an exclusive private boarding school near Sorø, which - surprise surprise - teaches magic. I like that the main characters are teenagers approaching adulthood instead of tiny kids, I like the magic system having a strong basis in the Norse culture, and I'll be looking forward to the next book.
Sidsel Sander Mittel: Rent blod
First novel in a Danish fantasy series where every nationality has differently coloured skin - not ordinary, but green, blue, etc. It's so far quite good - the main characters are the elite youth of a country with a democratic value system, except it's been taken over by conservative nobles and they are travelling to join the resistance - only to have to rely on one of the natives of the continent their ancestors conquered and who are now kept by slaves by the new nation. Basically, nobody and nothing's quite as clean cut and good and evil as the teenage heroes would like to think.
Sandy Mitchell: Ciaphas Cain: Saviour of the Imperium
Al Ewing: Loke - Agent of Asgard: Trust Me
Brandon Montclare: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Save Our School
Kevin Smith: Hit-Girl i Hollywood del 4.
Kieron Gillen: The Wicked + the Divine: Old is the New New
Martha Wells: The Cloud Roads
It has sort-of-draconic shapeshifters, yes, okay, I like it. I'm annoyed the Danish libraries doesn't have the second and will really need to wait until post-move before asking for an ILL from abroad, I think. I mean, we're shutting down ILLs from abroad anyway now, so the public libraries wouldn't be able to get it for me right now anyway, but still...
Victor Gischler: Angel & Faith: United
Kathrine Tschemerinsky: Turen går til bøgernes verden
Gengoroh Tagame: My Brother's Husband vol. 1.
H.C. Andersen: I Spanien
Read in preparation of my trip to Seville (which was very, very hot.). Andersen's descriptions of bull fights were rather chilling. It never occurred to me how very many horses died (die?) in those as well as the bulls. Gory stuff.
Warren Ellis: The Wild Storm vol. 2.
Susanne Clod Pedersen: Blodringen
I still want this book series as a tv series. It was delightful following the Viking warriors all the way to Miklagard, getting involved in court intrigues and horse racing and general fighting. Mostly fighting.
C.J. Cherryh: Chanur's Venture
C.J. Cherryh: The Kif Strike Back
I think it was just as well I got the omnibus, since these two and the next are really just one novel split in three, and abruptly so. The lionlike space merchant Pyanfar Chanur and her crew re-encounters the weird alien known as a human, Tully, and gets thrown headfirst into a mess of intrigue and more or less comprehensible space fights and flights, because everybody and especially the unpleasasnt Kif are way too interested in the humans. Excellent plane reading, will take the second omnibus with me on my next flight.
Anne-Marie Vedsø Olesen: Bastarden
Ian C. Esslemont: Dancer's Lament
Martha Wells: Rogue Protocol
Oyinkan Braithwaite: My Sister, the Serial Killer
This wasn't quite as fun as advertized. I mean, the story of Korede and her serial killing baby sister, who Korede always cleans up after, until said sister sets her sights on the doctor Korede's interested in - it's fun, but perhaps I've just read too much villain protagonist stuff to find that quite that innovative. The Nigeria setting, on the other hand, is vivid, though the novel is really too short to do that much with it.
Mike Mignola: Abe Sapien: A Darkness So Great
Ben Aaronovitch: The October Man
On one hand, it was very nice to see a bit of the Rivers of London universe outside of England. On the other hand, a lot of this felt very - listen, it's nice that Germany has river gods as well (which are mad at humanity because the Nazis murdered a number of river gods), and magically inspired murders etc., but - it felt a bit too repetitive of the Peter Grant starring novels, you know?
Daniel Kehlmann: Tyll
Lois McMaster Bujold: Penric and the Shaman
The first novel in this series felt a bit too generic, but this is nice. It's a surprisingly cozy story featuring the main character, Penric, and the demon inside him getting recruited to aid a lawman hunt down a suspected murderer.
Martin Jensen: Magtspor
Al Ewing: Loki - Agent of Asgard: I cannot tell a lie
Jeff Lemire: Black Hammer: The Event
What I've recently watched
37. The Magicians season 2.
38. Annihilation
39. Christian IV - Den sidste rejse
40. The Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
A very gorgeous, albeit short documentary, with several brief animated sequences illustrating bits from her novels.
41. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
42. Sorry To Bother You
43. Far from the Madding Crowd
I feel this could have had a nice OT3 if Michael Sheen's character hadn't gotten dragged off to jail at the end. Maybe after the credits?
44. Bohemian Rhapsody
45. The Incredibles 2.
46. Der Himmel ûber Berlin
Aka the novel where Peter Falk is a former angel, and I mostly got hold of it to rewatch because I want to also rewatch the sequel and then write a fanfic with Aziraphale visiting Damiel's pizza place.
47. Arctic
Not to be confused with the other Mads Mikkelsen-starring movie, Polar. Very pretty if you like snow and cold and lone human fighting the elements.
What I'm reading now
Nilanjana Roy's "The Hundred Names of Darkness".
Total number of books and comics read this year: 184