u/metallic-retina

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi, the first book in the Jean Le Flambeur series. This is one of those books that just throws you right into the world and uses the slang/jargon/technical terms of the time era without giving any explanations as to what the unfamiliar words mean. I'm making up the unknown words here, but a sentence that wouldn't be out of place in this book could be: "He activated the grelfrab in his pruldin as soon as he suspected he was in the presence of a tsulmik". And it's entirely possible that none of those main words would have been used prior to that sentence. I'm not against throwing you in at the deep end like that, but I think once your in the deep end, just a little more assistance in interpreting the terms would be good. I'm not meaning a full on info dump - "A grelfrab is a..." - but just some more clues would be nice at times. It's because of this lack of assistance that I assume a lot of people give up on the book early on. I admit for several words I had to search it up online to find the meaning, and once I did, it made the book more enjoyable. As for the story itself, over its 330 pages we find that Jean Le Flambeur is a bit of a master thief, being able to steal anything from anywhere. He lives in a world where your consciousness isn't limited to being in your body and can be uploaded to a futuristic internet. He's been rescued from a prison and given a job by the untrusting Mieli, in which he'll find out more about himself and his past. It's a far future sci-fi heist book, that combines a lot of different cool sci-fi ideas that I've read in other books or seen in films and brings them all together in one setting. It feels a bit like a far future Ocean's 11 in some ways, but with less people so maybe more an Ocean's 4 or so, as there's twists in the story, things seemingly going wrong but which haven't really... it is a lot of fun and is very entertaining, if you can get past the difficulty in understanding the world's unfamiliar terminology. I enjoyed it a lot.

System Failure, the last book in Joe Zieja's Epic Failure trilogy. The real threat to the galaxy has become apparent: the Jupiterians are back, and they just might be willing to risk everything to get what they want. Thank goodness Lieutenant, Sergeant, Captain, Admiral, or whatever rank he's found himself occupying now, Rogers is there to lead the fight against them. Rogers? The same guy who only joined the military as that was the surest place to avoid any fighting at all? Yep, that guy. I really enjoyed the last book, as I found its humour hit home frequently and it was a good complimentary balance to the semi-serious, semi-silly plot and events going on. This book, however, seems to keep the rather semi-serious, semi-silly plot and events, but with far less outright humour to go with it. There's a few twists in the story that change who we thought people were, which stops the plot from being too predictable, however it's not quite as slapstick-esque, and while still light-hearted and entertaining, it was less fun. It was still a decent book over its 416 pages, and the trilogy as a whole is worth the time to read, but I wanted to laugh more. The second book got the balance right, this one less so.

Thunderhead, the second book in the Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman. The first book, Scythe, was a surprising hit with me last month, and this entry over its 476 pages kept the pace and story going. World summary - humanity has conquered death and disease, and is looked after by a self-aware AI, Thunderhead, that ensures everyone in the world has what they need to survive and live happily. But with no death, population growth is too large, so people known as Scythes, who are above all laws but their own, choose people to die permanently - glean - so that population growth is managed better. Scythes were meant to be those who disliked what they had to do, but understood why it was necessary and had the integrity and compassion to carry out their gleanings with dignity and respect for those they glean and their loved ones. But Scythes are people, above the law of the Thunderhead, and where there are people who are in charge of their own power, there is corruption. This book continues from the events of Scythe, and it is quite a ride over its 476 pages. Twists, turns, grave circumstances, impossible odds, devastation, sacrifice, it's all in there, and I was hooked from start to finish. When I look at the books I've rated 4.5 or 5/5, I have liked them more than this and Scythe, so there's something that's missing from these to elevate them to those really high rankings, maybe it's an emotional impact that's lacking here, but when I compare to ones I've rated 4/5, this is certainly up there amongst the best of those. Arc of a Scythe has been a very solid series so far, and I'm looking forward to the next entry.

World Engines: Destroyer by Stephen Baxter. This features some of the same characters that appeared in the Manifold series, but is not officially a Manifold series book it would appear, even though it does cover similar themes to those books, mentions the Manifold of universes on multiple occasions and also discusses the Fermi Paradox. This takes place in an alternate timeline to those of the Manifold series. There's a lot of sci-fi ideas going on in the book: mysterious planet on a collision course, alternate timelines, future technology, other-worldy constructions and historic intelligence evidence on other planets... This is as much as is expected from Baxter - lots of big ideas. However, what is quite surprising is that for the most part these have an influence on events and actions, but are otherwise often completely in the background and it is the characters out of time and place that become the focus, making the story far more about the struggles the characters have with adjusting to their new surroundings, cultures, eras, time etc. A good 300-400 pages of the books 577 pages are through before we really start to get into the big sci-fi parts of the story, and while Baxter isn't renowned for being good with characters, I actually really enjoyed it. Particularly the way the main character's world changed as the book went on, as we start with just his consciousness remembering his past, then his world grows to a pod, then to a room, then to a house, then to the local community, then to further reaches of the country, then to the other parts of the world, then to outside the world, then to more and more distant reaches of the solar system. Yes, Reid Malenfant could range from a being decent to angry, unreasonable and entirely unlikable, but I found him to be a better character than he did in most of the Manifold series. There was nothing as brutal and unpleasant as in the Manifold book Origin, with this being more akin to the book Time, and I loved Time. Time may have been better overall, but World Engines: Destroyer was highly enjoyable.

Just One Damned Thing After Another, the first book in Jodi Taylor's Chronicles of St. Mary's series. I have never been so nervous upon reading a book as I was with this one. Nervous because I really needed to enjoy it. When I first got this book on my radar, I noted that it was part of a series, and being quite obsessive, I started buying them all even though I hadn't read the first book. I do this a lot. I've now got myself in the position of having bought all 14 currently released books in the series, and the first three books in the spin-off Time Police series. I'm 17 books invested in Jodi Taylor and I've never read anything by her before (next closest completely unread authors that I have books for are Trudi Canavan and Peter F Hamilton, both with seven books on my shelves). The only authors I have more unread books by are Tchaikovsky, Pratchett and Baxter, but I've read quite a few books from each, so I know I'm at least likely to like their stuff! My approach with Taylor is not a sensible way to start a new author, I know, but here I am. Anyway, this book is about historians, charting and researching historical events, but not in the way that typical historians do (that we know of). What's more accurate - researching through dozens of primary and secondary sources on an event in history, or just travelling in time to go witness the event in person? St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research has chosen the latter. Important moments in history have often been violent and bloody events, so the job of these historians is a lot more dangerous than one would typically expect. The book was fun, with a surprising amount of violence and death, sexual assault and sex over its 394 pages. While comical in tone, it isn't a funny book as such, but it has its moments. But I had complaints too. The romance seemed to come out of nowhere and I really would have preferred it without the sex scenes. I've read comments before that the main character, Max, is a bit of a Mary Sue, and I definitely can see why people think that. Overall though, it was a fun book that does require some thinking due to the time travel aspects, but at the same time possibly leaves open some plot holes due to the time travel aspects. It wasn't amazing, probably a 3.5/5 sort of book, but it was good enough to make me want to continue with the series... thankfully!

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. I'd read so many glowing comments about this book recently that I'd become quite desperate to read it, and I'm very glad I did. This is a book about murder under mysterious circumstances, corruption in the local Empire system and an investigator and her assistant who are trying to put all the pieces together to solve the mystery. It's a bit Sherlock Holmes-esque, but in a fantasy environment and a hell of a lot more foul-mouthed! It's a very clever story, with many character threads and interactions drip feeding pieces of seemingly inconsequential information to the reader, which are all put together to craft the overall picture, and it's very, very entertaining. The relationship between Dinios Kol, the investigator's assistant and the narrator of the book, and Ana Dolabra, the investigator, is one of the book's many highlights, and at times can bring a very welcome wit to the proceedings. The story has many twists and turns, and keeps you on edge over its 406 pages. It really is like a fantasy Sherlock Holmes and that is definitely a compliment! Not my absolute top book of the year so far, but definitely in my top 5.

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Reading through this book, for quite a while it had a very familiar feel to it, as it shares a lot of similarities to Cage of Souls. Prisoners in a prison located in a very hostile environment, trying to survive and find out more about the environment they are in. While the specific environments are different in the books, it felt like Alien Clay is the result of fleshing out other ideas Tchaikovsky may have had for Cage of Souls but which didn't make it into the final product. The books also share a similar narrative structure and style, in that there's no real clear plot line, it's just a lot of world building and a series of stuff happening to the main characters. I was over 200 pages in to the 388 pages of this book, and I didn't really know what the purpose of the story was. As you'd expect, it did pick up in the final 100 pages and I quite liked where it went in the end, but there were points where those first 200 pages or so felt like a bit of a slog. It was a decent enough book, but far from his best work.

The Red Queen by Christina Henry. This is the second book in Henry's rather twisted take on Alice in Wonderland, and it follows Alice and (mad) Hatcher after they've left the City and have discovered the world beyond its walls isn't quite the place they imagined. Horrors and evil, pain and suffering seem to follow them wherever they go. Yet despite all that, this book over its 313 pages isn't nearly as twisted, depraved and gruesome as its predecessor. There's still violence and bloodshed, but less of the other horrors. I found I enjoyed this book probably as much as I enjoyed Alice. It is very easy read, with a writing style that again comes across quite YA, with a complete absence of profanity. I did find it humorous that a book like this that has easy writing style and no profanity, qualities that would appear to make it suitable for the likes of my daughter, but has content that is absolutely not suitable for my daughter. Whereas I've read other books recently that have heavier, profanity laden, prose that would make the book a more unsuitable read for my daughter, but the subject matter and story has been one which could have been ok for her. I think the YA appearance of the prose could be due to it being focused on the 16 year old Alice, and while not written in the first person, it more reflects Alice's character. Or it's just how Christina Henry writes... either way, it's been a very interesting take on the Alice story and both books, while not amazing, have been a worthwhile read.

The Dead Father's Club by Matt Haig. Sounds cheery. The book is about an 11 year old boy, Philip, who is suffering through the trauma and grief of his dad dying in a car accident. The book is told entirely from his perspective as if he is recounting everything that has happened, so there's a lot of meandering sentences like an 11 year old would speak or think, there's a lot of missing punctuation as 11 year old's don't always know about their correct usage. It takes a few chapters to get used to, but I found it worked quite well, and allowed us to see all the troubles Philip was going through from his perspective. This definitely gives rise to moments where we have an unreliable narrator, as quite simply Philip doesn't know any different or better. The book has us questioning a lot over its 284 pages: what is real, and what is imagination; what or who do we believe; is the story a manifestation of trauma, or is there a spiritual side to it? I'd commented previously on Matt Haig books that despite everything that happens in them, the overall outlook is optimistic. That is not the case here! But, what is true here, and is the case with his other books, is that they are such easy reads. Short chapters, fast pacing, engaging stories, makes me always think "just one more chapter", and before I know it, I've read loads of the book. I really enjoyed The Dead Father's Club, but felt it just needed a chapter or two more at the end, rather than being quite so open in the ending.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, book two of the Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy in five parts. Another short book at only 200 pages, following the capers of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and Trillian as they go to dine at the eponymous restaurant at the end of the Universe. More silliness, humorous asides and the loudest music in the universe. The two books of the series so far, are not hitting the highs that I recalled of them from my youth, but they are very entertaining and fun books and still well worth reading. This one contains a line which I recall finding very clever and funny when I first read the book 30 ish years ago, and I've remembered ever since. It is when Arthur et al. have travelled to the Restaurant, but think they've died, and are looking around at the fanciness of their surrounding and Arthur says "It's not so much an afterlife, more a sort of après-vie." A single line, but it's stuck with me for 30 years as the one quote I could have recited at any time in those 30 years. For some reason that line just imprinted on me, so I had a significant feeling of nostalgia at points when reading this book. Ironically, quite a few other parts of the book I had no recollection of at all! Go figure.

September was the most I've ever read in a month in my life.

I've got the first 3 books in the series on my shelf, and will be getting the 4th once the paperback comes out. I know the 5th and final book is on its way, but probably not till the end of 2027 on paperback.

I was planning on starting the series soon-ish, but want to know if the books are linked and are direct sequels to each other, or whether each book is basically a standalone with little knowledge from the previous books needed?

Asking as, I don't want to read the four books, then wait whatever number of months until the 5th is out on paperback to read it, and have forgotten a lot of what had gone on, so not get the most out of the book. If memory of the contents of the previous book is required, then I'll wait until I have all 5 and then read them at that stage.

But if a good memory of each preceding book is not required, then I'll start the series soon.

Without spoilers please, is there a continuous story in the books, or are they more standalone stories in the same world?

Basically, I've got the first two books in the Revenger series sitting on my shelf. They are the usual UK B format paperbacks that are about 19.8cm tall.

On amazon they've got two paperback versions listed with ISBNs:

9780575090699 and 9780316462754

Both of these are indicated as being either 24cm or 23.62 cm tall respectively.

Firstly, are these the only two UK releases of this book? And secondly can anyone who owns any UK release confirm that this is the height dimension?

I know this is a luxury problem, but that height of book won't fit on my bookshelf, and I'll find it very frustrating it not being the same as the rest of the series/books on my shelf.

I know sometimes Amazon can have the wrong book dimensions, so anyone with the physical book that can confirm/deny this, that would be appreciated.

Thanks!

First book completed this month was The Illearth War, book 2 in The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R Donaldson. This was meant to be a July book, but I didn't get it finished while on holidays. I had issues with the first book, but overall I found it to be a decent enough story in an interesting world. Much the same can be said of this instalment. The rape in the first book is a fairly central plot development point in this book, so my thoughts at that time that it was unnecessary were unfortunately wrong out of ignorance of what was to come. Thankfully no more raping in this one, it just treads the line of incest at points instead. Anyway, the plot of The Illearth War largely concerns the growing and imminent arrival of Lord Foul's army, and how the people of the land are going to fight it. Covenant is still an insufferable asshole, but possibly less so than in the first book. Thankfully large portions of the book's 576 pages do not follow him but another character, Hile Troy, instead, who despite his character flaws is far easier to suffer! While the book and story are good, I'm personally not getting as much enjoyment out of reading these as I think others could, as I'm definitely realising that this high fantasy, grimdark sort of genre just isn't my thing. I am going to finish the trilogy though, but I doubt I'll proceed further after that.

Second book was the second book in Joe Zieja's Epic Failure series, Communication Failure. The first book I liked a decent amount, but didn't love. I think this time I was more in tune with what to expect, so I found the humour style hit the mark a bit more consistently than the last one. It was also helped by not having the exact same type of joke repeated quite as often as was the case in the first book. In this book, which pretty much continues the story where the last one left off, the Thelicosans might be invading; breaking the two hundred years (and counting) peace that has existed between the Thelicosans and the Meridans. The clue given to the Meridans was the message they received from the Thelicosan Fleet simply saying "We're invading". What follows is miscommunication, roundhouse kicks, marriage proposals, a self aware droid questioning its existence, subterfuge, spying, kidnapping, corny lines, modern societal references, milk and a lion. Probably other stuff too. There's comments on the book calling this series Pratchett in space, and I'm not quite sure it can really claim that accolade, but on the inside page it further expands the comment where it then likens the book to being more like Spaceballs (The Movie) and in that regard I think it is a closer match. The humour in this book is very slapstick and stupid (in a good way). When the Rogers is figuring out how to respond to the appearance of the Thelicosan fleet, he consults his offensive and defensive coordinators for advice, and in they come with large headsets and laminated sheets that they use to hide their mouths when speaking. Thankfully, despite being Scottish, I've seen enough American Football to get this reference. There's a lot of entertaining situations to get through in its 325 pages, and overall I really quite enjoyed reading this book.

Next up was the 409 page entry to the Arc of a Scythe series by Neal Shusterman, Scythe. I picked the boxset of the 4 books in the series up really quite cheaply quite a while back and my daughter's expressed an interest in this with it being a YA dystopian sci-fi esque book. She loves a good dystopian book (Hunger Games series is her favourite), so I thought I'd read it first to see what it was like. The book is about a society that has cured disease, cured death and is governed by a self-aware AI, Thunderhead, that does the job better than humans ever did. Humanity is effectively immortal, and Thunderhead ensures that the population has everything it needs. People can "die", but they can then be brought to a revival centre where their body/remains can be healed and brought back to life. However, to keep population growth under control when no one dies, Scythes have the power to administer permanent deaths, gleanings, to those they choose, and are above all and every law but their own. The premise for the book was very intriguing and the story presented within the world was equally so. A book about a profession whose job it is to administer death obviously has a lot violence and death in it, but it is not gratuitously or overly graphically described. The book is YA as the two main characters are teenagers, there's no bad language and only mild inneundo. But it is violent. Likely no more so than the likes of The Hunger Games, but it has been quite a few years since I read that one. Anyway, I found I was gripped by the book, kept wanting to read more, and I really enjoyed it.

Fourth book was the last book in the Mistborn Era 1 series by Brandon Sanderson; The Hero of Ages. Weighing in at 724 pages, this book continues the story from where The Well of Ascension left off, with Vin and Elend struggling further against the repercussions of their actions from the first book, as the enormity of the impending doom becomes more clear. Even as I approached the half-way point of this book, there seemed like there was a still a significant amount that needed to be wrapped up prior to the book's conclusion, and given how verbose Sanderson could be at times, I did find myself worrying that it was going to end up being a rather rushed affair. Thankfully, it didn't feel that way. There were many plot twists, moves I didn't predict, seeds that were planted throughout the previous two books came to fruition and it all wound up to a big climatic ending. There were a few fairly typical tropes in story, but despite this and despite the length of the book, I found myself completely engaged from start to finish. As far as the Mistborn Era 1 trilogy goes, I feel like the best book has been saved till last, which is a great way to finish this trilogy. I'm very much looking forward to Era 2 now, which I plan to start in early 2027.

Up next was the last book in Stephen R Donaldson's First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogy, The Power that Preserves. Lord Foul's war against the land reaches its conclusion and Thomas Covenant grows a bit of a spine and tries to actually do something decent. He's still quite insufferable, but I found I was able to tolerate him a bit more this time, partly I'm sure because I've grown use to his whining and rude attitude. In the book's 480 pages, there's a lot of journeying again as Covenant tries to get to the funnily named "Lord Foul's Creche", which isn't where he keeps his kids, but is the lair of the big bad guy of the series. Unfortunately, there isn't quite enough of Lord Foul to really portray his power and his evil, and this is more left to his minions, who we are clearly told would rebel against him if they had the power themselves. When he eventually does make an appearance, it felt all too brief. There's stuff to like - the battle against all odds, the seemingly never ending betrayals, possessions and hardship - but there's also stuff to not like - Thomas Covenant, some of the journeying is quite dull, the all too quick ending - and this all kind of balances out, more in favour of the positive qualities in the end. I liked the book and series, it wasn't great, but it certainly wasn't bad. I'd put it in the 3 or 3.5 out of 5 sort of range. But I'm now sure this sort of fantasy book is not my thing, so hopefully I don't have any more like it on my shelf!

Last book was a nostalgia dip and something to fill the last couple of days of the month, with me picking The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams off my shelf. This is a surprisingly short book, only 180 pages long, and not densely printed either, so it didn't take long to read at all. This book also gets the accolade of being the first book I've ever knowingly re-read, with me first reading it 25-30 years ago. I chose to read it again to see if my very positive memories of it stood the test of time, whether I'm remembering it through rose-tinted memory filters, and to compare it to other comical books I've been reading recently (like the Epic Failure series). It was really good, but just too short. It's fast paced, a lot of bizarre and weird stuff happens, the comical asides like the whale are strange but funny, and it's that weirdness that makes it so much fun. How a short story like this can make the number '42' become something that is known the world over is incredible. I would have preferred the book to be longer and that's my main criticism of it. I enjoyed the humour, but the characters aren't particularly fleshed out due to the lack of pages to do so. Compared to the likes of the Epic Failure series, which also has some bizarre and slapstick moments, Hitchhikers feels very British, while Epic Failure feels very American, both of which probably shouldn't come as a surprise. I'm British, so found the humour resonated with me more in Hitchhikers, but they are both a lot of fun.

Overall, this was a good month for quality of books read.

This month I'm aiming to read The Quantum Thief, System Failure, Thunderhead, World Engines, and Just One Damned Thing After Another, at least.

Just back from a Disney & Universal holiday. 17 nights away and it still wasn't enough to do everything we'd have wanted.

We (2 parents, 2 kids -10 and 12 years old) planned two full days in Epic on our last two full days of the holiday and that ended up being more than enough to do basically everything in the park, and if it wasn't for one of my kids feeling unwell on our first day in the park, we could have done everything on day 1, which surprised me.

First impressions though are that the park is aesthetically outstanding. The theming in all the lands is beautiful and if there is any park from Disney or Universal I could choose to go to just to soak up the visuals, this would be it.

Our first day there, Saturday 8th August, we got there early to rope drop Mine Cart Madness, but we were a long way back it seemed in the Nintendo World queue, then not having been there before we got a little lost on the way to the ride which I'm sure allowed quite a number of people to get in front of us adding precious time on to our wait time...

Anyway, 55 mins in the queue and we were on Mine Cart, and it was not worth it. Why is there such a long queue for this ride all day? The ride was very jerky and short. We liked the imagery of it, with the broken track and jumping tracks etc., but overall weren't that impressed with the ride. We'd probably only have chosen to ride it again if the queue times dropped to 20 mins or less.

I'm very much for waiting in the queues as little as possible and at this point the other two rides in Nintendo world were either too long or delayed, so next we moved to Dark Universe and on to Monsters Unchained with a 10 min queue, if that. This one was fun, very impressive from start to finish. The fact the queue is almost always quite short just makes this ride more attractive!

Next, it was over to Curse of the Werewolf with about a 10-15 min wait. We were really enjoying this rollercoaster and then it was over. Everything about it was great fun, except its length. It was just too short. It deserved a much longer ride as it was a lot of fun while it lasted.

At this point, queue times across the park were getting too long for us to want to wait in, so we started soaking up the ambiance, atmosphere and theming in both Dark Universe and Nintendo World. They both just look so good. We didn't have the power up band for Nintendo world, so can't comment on that but appreciate that that would have added even more to our enjoyment of the world.

Anyway, we went to ride Constellation Carousel next with a near walk-on queue. We're not carousel fans, but we weren't going to leave this unridden. It looks great and it's a carousel, so you get what you would expect to from a carousel. We weren't fussed by it, but a carousel is what it is, and this one looks very nice.

The heat of the day, and the queue times for the rides suggested popping over to Isle of Berk for the Untrainable Dragon show was a good idea. Of all the lands Isle of Berk was probably my least favourite aesthetically as it just didn't have the wow factor that the others had in their visuals. The Untrainable Dragon show was fun, with a great flying dragon, but overall we were a bit 'meh' with the show. It was great for getting in an air-conditioned room and off our feet, it has some entertaining bits and the 'wow' of the flying Toothless, but we didn't love it.

Back out in Celestial Park, which suffers from not enough shade, Stardust Racers had a shorter queue, and 20-25 mins later one daughter and I had been on the yellow track (other daughter and my wife aren't as into the fast and more intense rollercoasters). This rollercoaster was a lot of fun and easily the highlight ride of the park.

A quick lunch (Kimchi Bao buns - very nice - and Pork Soup Dumplings - quite nice), then it was over to the Wizarding World, first to do some wand stuff, some of which give obvious and fun indications that you've successfully done the spell, others less so, then to soak up the visuals of Paris and the Ministry of Magic (WOW!!!) then to La Cirque Arcanus. I wasn't overly impressed with this one. From the main queue which we were at the front of the stand-by line, to being herded into the pre-show and constantly being told to move further forward so they can cram even more people into the already quite tightly packed room, for the stand to watch pre-show, which seemed to take forever to get started... visuals aside, first impressions weren't good. Then into the main show area to sit down, at last. The show starts as a circus type show, then changes to a Fantastic Beasts story. Honestly, I preferred the circus part. I know Newt Scamander is a nervous guy, but his speech in this was quite annoying! We weren't overly enamoured with the show.

The World though - WOW! The Ministry of Magic in particular is just spectacular, and as we found out the next day, the queue for the ride takes you through a lot of greatly detailed and impressive rooms.

At this point, my rollercoaster buddy daughter was starting to feel unwell, so my wife took her back to the hotel, and my other daughter and I stayed for more Epic action. Back to Isle of Berk for Dragon Racer Rally. 40 mins later on a posted 25 min queue and we were on it. Takes a moment to get the hang of the wings and how they make you spin, and then the ride is over. Again too short a ride, but probably a necessity to keep the queue moving fast enough. I'd probably only choose to ride this again if the queue was near walk on.

Then a short hop over to Hiccups Wing Gliders and a 20-25 min queue. We both enjoyed this one a lot. Except for the queue. For this first ride, the queue was all under cover, but we rode it again the next day when the queue was longer (near 50 mins) and large portions of it were in the baking sun. It needs more shade.

Now at this point the queue for Stardust and Fyre Drill were both really short, but my daughter wasn't wanting to ride Stardust and neither of us wanted to get wet on Fyre Drill, so it was back to Nintendo World for Yoshi's with a 10-15 min wait. It is definitely aimed at a much younger audience. It was slow and we were glad the sun was low/down for it. Then a short pop over to Mario Kart and a 25 min wait to get some racing on. I struggled a bit with this trying to figure out what was going on. At times it felt like a load of random stuff was flying across my field of view. My daughter enjoyed it more. I don't know whether I enjoyed it or not due to not being able to tell what was going on a lot. I think this was a me problem not a ride problem.

The only rides left we hadn't done on this first day were Stardust Green, Fyre Drill and Battle at the Ministry. It was 8.10pm, and the first two despite short queues weren't ones we both wanted to do at that time, and BatM had a 100+ min queue. So we went to Pizza Moon for some very nice pizza before heading back to the hotel. With their queue times we COULD have done both Stardust and Fyre Drill and been in the queue for BatM before 9pm when the park was closing, so we COULD have done pretty much everything in the one day, but we chose not to. Picking the right times to ride rides I think goes a long way!

Anyway, next day we went on the remaining rides and some re-rides so that now-feeling-better daughter could get on ones she'd missed.

We got lucky with Battle at the Ministry, it was showing as a 70 min queue at one point and we figured it wasn't going to get any better than that so we went to it. As far as queues go, this one's was visually the most impressive of any in the park, up there with Monsters Unchained, and 55 minutes later we were on the ride, after a false start as our first elevator malfunctioned before it took off somehow. Visually stunning ride, good fun, but very rushed. They try to fit too much story into the ride's duration and each part then becomes too rushed. Afterwards, I was honestly quite underwhelmed by the ride. Fantastic visuals and some of the animatronics looked great, and there's a definite WOW factor in some of the rooms/scenes. But too rushed a story detracted considerably from my enjoyment.

Then it was on to the only ride left that none of us has gone on, Fyre Drill which had a short 15 min queue. Now I don't mind wet rides at all. I loved Popeyes and Ripsaw in Isles of Adventure, but this one was a rubbish ride. Shooting water at targets, some of which get a re-action when shot enough, and then because there's so little reaction or fun involved in shooting the targets, you aim for other people when you can just to get some sort of other reaction. It is rubbish as a shooting ride due to the lack of outcomes to the shots you make, it's rubbish as a team shooting ride as there's no points scoring or keeping to make it a team V team type ride. The most pointless ride in the park.

We did more re-rides, got my more timid daughter on Stardust (yellow track) which certainly pushed if not exceeded her limits, but she coped and was very pleased she did it, even if she didn't enjoy it, got on Stardust Green with my less timid daughter and we loved it too. We didn't think there was really any significant difference between the two tracks, so if doing again we'd both just choose the one with the shortest queue.

So in summary:

Visually stunning park, but not enough rides, nor enough top tier rides.

Stardust is the main highlight, and Monsters Unchained is another top ride. Hiccups comes next and is probably one of the better family style coasters.

The rest were largely either good but too short, or decent but not amazing, or just entirely 'meh'.

I'm certainly looking forward to whatever expansions come to the park, as I do feel it needs more.

The two 55 min queues we waited in (Mine-cart and BatM) were the longest queues we waited in all holiday after doing pretty much every ride at all four Disney parks and all three Universal parks (got on Hagrid's in 35m after a weather delay), so we did very well with our "queue as little as possible" mentality!

We're a family staying onsite soon and are wanting to get some magicbands for me and kids.

On the app when looking at our package booking, it gives an option for "choose magicbands" however when we click in it says they can only be delivered to US address. As we're in the UK it obviously doesn't let us make an order.

However, it does also say that for purchases between 10-6 days prior to the stay, they'll be delivered to the hotel. So once we hit that 10 days before our stay point, will it open up and allow us to pre-order them for hotel delivery, or does it stay closed for ordering as our home address is not in the US?

Just want to be sure either way, as we're planning on ordering from the disney store separately and having the package delivered to the hotel if we can't get them through the app. But I imagine that'll be a bit more expensive, due to the $6 package fee.

Thanks.

I'm going to each park soon (end July), and will have LLMP for all parks except animal kingdom and LLSP for all the SP rides. I'm staying in a Disney resort.

During early entry in each park what rides usually have the shortest queues? I'm hoping to get all the big hitters that everyone rushes to on either the LLMP or LLSP later in the day, so if I am aiming to get through as many other rides as possible during early entry before moving to using the LLMP on rides, what rides typically are more or less walk-on, or short queues for each park?

Edit: Just so there's more detail on my plans to explain why I'm not going to a big popular rides in EE.

I don't want to trade queueing time from a ride to queueing up for getting into the park. I want to turn up say 10 mins before EE time, then go where everyone else isn't going!

I'll have the LLSP rides booked. I'll have rides booked for the LLMP. During the EE I want to hit up as many short to no queue time rides as possible, maybe ride some multiple times if it is a hit, then once the park opens proper, start using the LLMP rides. Our goal is to spend as little of the day queueing as possible.

This was meant to be a May book, but I didn't quite get it finished in time, so my first book of June was Lord Foul's Bane, the first book in the First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is a book about a man suffering from leprosy who finds himself in another world, and becomes the messenger for a dark and evil power to those who would fight against it. There are bits to like and plenty to dislike in this book's 474 pages that has some surface level similarities to another well known fantasy book series. Thomas has a gold ring, which appears to have some control over him and his mood. Upon delivering his message, a Fellowship, sorry, Questers set out on a long journey to Mount Doom, sorry, Mount Thunder to confront an evil being who appears to have control over the land and an army of orcs, sorry ur-viles and cavewights, and try to take its power, the Staff of Law, away. There's a LOT of journeying in this book. First Thomas is taken on a long journey to get to the Council of Lords, then from there another long journey to get to Mount Thunder, via a few other places. Incidents invariably happen along the way, but if you like story development during long journeys (in both distance and page count), then this is for you, possibly. Unfortunately Thomas is such a miserable, insufferable asshole that you cannot root for him. He's also a rapist. In one scene early in the book, he hits a 15 year old girl, then rips her clothes off and rapes her. The only defence is he felt he was going a little mad and didn't think anything in the world he was in, including the girl, was real. But still... Obviously, you are not meant to like him but that does make continually reading his moaning, rudeness and general cowardly, unpleasant attitude, less appealing. It's not a bad story, and it's an interesting world being built, but if I didn't already have the other two books in the trilogy, I'm not sure I'd continue reading about the rude, obnoxious, rapist asshole. And the end of the book... >!and then he fucking woke up?!??!?!!< Again, if there weren't more books in the series that with foresight can suggest that there is a lot more to it than that, then I would be SO pissed.

Second book was The Sword of the Lictor, book three in Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun. After two books, Severian has finally made it to Thrax and is the new Lictor there. Naturally problems arise, partly of his own doing, and he's on the move again, during which time he meets more people, some new, some old and learns more about the way things are on Urth. After the series picking up in book two, I felt this one was a bit more pedestrian. We learn more about various characters and new ones are introduced, but after Severian going from place to place in book two and finding himself in some form of peril each time, him going from place to place and finding himself in peril again, but for the most part less severely, made this entry just feel a bit deflating over its 295 pages. With the characters we meet towards the end of the book, I am intrigued with where the last book will go, and I'm hoping there will be some almighty perspective shifting reveals to come, because at the moment I'm not getting why the series is so highly revered. And because it was advised to me last month that this series really should be read back to back...

...my third book of the month was The Citadel of the Autarch, the fourth Book of the New Sun. Severian becomes involved in the war and we learn a lot more of the Autarch and basically what is going on in Urth. Yeah, there are a lot of revelations in this book's 301 pages, which definitely make it a far more interesting story than it had been for the previous three books, and of all four books, this for me is the best one. However, I didn't think there was that big a perspective shifting reveal that "changed everything", but just surprise revelations that gave a fairly satisfying twist to the story. Comments on these books have always suggested that the story is a big puzzle and as you're seeing it through the eyes of an unreliable narrator, you have to read between the lines. By the end I thought I'd got a reasonable amount of the puzzle, but to try to make sure I saw all the main things you need to see and that I hadn't missed anything, I've read loads of pages that discuss the book, the reveals etc. and yes, there were a few things I missed, one pretty major admittedly, but I did get the other major things according to all the pages I've read. Now, have the twists and revelations, including the fairly major one I missed, made me want to reread the book? No. Even with any recontextualization that takes place with the knowledge that comes at the end, that wouldn't really change some of the things I've been critical of before that hampered my enjoyment of the series. It might give a reason why certain things are as they are, but I'd still not enjoy those factors. It is undoubtedly a very cleverly written book, that takes time to get used to the narrative style, but the story took too long to get interesting. I'm glad I've read it all and with how the last book is, the series as a whole is elevated, but I'm not convinced it'll be one that I'll think about that much in the future. Sorry all Wolfe fans!

Fourth was the third book in the Ender Quartet, Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game had a decent main body coupled with what I thought was a brilliant ending; Speaker For The Dead had a very good main body coupled with an ending that just set up a sequel with no massive impact; but Xenocide has an even better main body and a good ending that also sets up the next book, but with a more satisfying cliff-hanger of sorts. Overall it is now my favourite book from this series, and quite probably my favourite book of the year so far. There are just so many themes and ideas going through this book's 441 pages: emotional turmoil, drama, what it is to be alive and sentient, who has a right to life when it becomes an "us or them" situation, devotion, loyalty, holiness, listening to God... there's just a lot going on, and I mean that in a very, very good way. I've seen people praise Speaker quite frequently, and I can't understand why this volume isn't spoken of at the same time with the same platitudes, as I found the already quite high bar set by Speaker, was bested by Xenocide in all areas. Everything about it was just better, and Speaker was already very good! This series is right up there amongst my favourites now as each book has been very good at worst, so far! I know that OSC may not be to everyone's tastes, but please enjoy the art even if you don't like the artist.

Fifth book was Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss. A relatively short 241 page story about a group of people who set out to find out more about the mysterious place they live, and discover that their life and their world is very, very different to what they had originally thought. This was a clever little book which provided drip feeding of clues to allow you to work out little bits of the mystery here and there. I did think the twist or reveal was going to be a bit different than it actually was and overall it was a bit of an info dump in the delivery of the twist at the end, but nonetheless it still was a quite satisfying end to the story.

Up next was All These Worlds, the third book in the Bobiverse series from Dennis E Taylor. So far I've found the Bobiverse books to be pure, space exploration opera, sci-fi fun. The writing serves its purpose - it won't win literary awards - there's humour, nostalgic references that fit my era, decent storylines in there, and again, it is just entertaining, escapism fun, and I've really enjoyed reading these books. In this entry, over its 280 pages many of the disparate plot threads are resolved, which gives this book a good stopping point for those that don't want to continue with the series, but on the flip side, as there are quite a few plot threads, having one come to a conclusion a reasonable distance from the end of the book, made it a bit anti-climatic as it was superseded by other ending plot threads later on. But when there are so many Bobs to keep track of, and many of them doing their own thing, this was probably unavoidable. If you liked the first book, you'll probably still like this one, and if you didn't like the first book then nothing here will have changed that view. It's more of the same, but bigger and more climatic.

Final book of the month was Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson. I'd read such differing opinions on Sanderson, ranging from his stuff is absolutely incredible, to he's so prolific his quality leaves a lot to be desired. In general I'm not that bothered by prose quality or lack thereof, preferring story quality, ideas, engagement over prose. The more I read through Mistborn, the more it gave me the same sort of impression as Pierce Brown's Red Rising, not only in some plot elements but also just in the manner in which it engages the reader. It's quite fast paced, lots of description of the world and while Red Rising uses tech, Mistborn uses magic with metals, allomancy. The first couple of hundred pages of the book's 643 page length, was like an intro to a computer game where you learn the controls as you go: first it introduced some characters, then slowly explained allomancy, then let the protagonist practice some of those skills, and as she got better at those, they moved on to harder allomantic skills. It was entertaining and hand holding through the explanation of how things work in the world. The story itself just seems to be another downtrodden people fighting back against the elitist rulers with an all powerful God-like figure at the top, so it is a story type that's been done to death, but it was engaging, in an interesting world, and despite everything that happens, it's clear there's more that isn't explained in this volume. It is a bit too hand-holdy though. Towards the end of the book once a big event has reached a conclusion, there's a rather false dialogue between characters explaining exactly why certain things happened, just in case you hadn't been able to work it out yourself. Nonetheless, this was a very positive first impression of Brandon Sanderson and the Mistborn series, and I'm very much looking forward to the next entry.

I just found the Serrano Legacy, an omnibus edition containing the three books in the trilogy, and the Serrano Succession, an omnibus edition of the second duology, in a charity shop.

Is the missing duology, the Serrano Connection, required reading before Succession, or is it a completely standalone duology?

I'm thinking of placing an order for some more SF Masterworks books and these seven are ones I'm choosing between. I'm going to order 6 of them (buy 2, get 1 discounted, so need to order in multiples of 3). Which one would you drop from the order? I know virtually nothing about any of them.

• Emphyrio - Jack Vance
• Eon - Greg Bear
• Double Star - Robert A Heinlein
• Timescape - Gregory Benford
• Jem - Frederik Pohl
• Gateway - Frederik Pohl
• Hiero's Journey - Sterling E Lanier

Family of four: two adults, two kids both 10+, so on adult tickets.

We will have the QS dining plan during our stay and in order to plan best use of it, I have the following questions:

1. As a family, when we use credits do they all come out of the one family pool of credits? So it won't matter whether I use my magicband, my wife's or my daughters', when we get a snack/meal it just reduces the family's stock of credits. Or do I have my allocation, my wife has hers, and both my kids have theirs, so if I scan my magicband at a QS place for a whole family's meals, they all come out my allocation, so at some point later we have to start using another band to scan? So, in summary is it: big family pool of credits, or individual family member allocation of credits?
2. As my kids are 10+ they are on the adult dining plan. When ordering meals, can ALL the meals (at QS points that serve alcohol) come with alcoholic drinks? While we won't let our kids drink them, it'll get us parents more value, and we can just buy soft drinks for our kids separately. Or is there separate allocation within the system where half our QS credits are "under 21 adult" credits and the other half are "over 21 adult credits", and so half won't allow an alcoholic drink to be taken with a QS meal?

Thanks!

39 days to go.

The books I read in May

Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card was first up, the sequel, but very different book, to Ender's Game. Taking place a long time after Ender’s Game, with Ender Wiggin living under a new identity as a Speaker, someone who tells truthful, compassionate accounts of the dead, this book has Ender trying to make as much amends as he can with the Hive Queen, while fulfilling his duty to speak the death of a scientist killed by an alien race on a colony world. I've read many people saying that this is a far better book than Ender's Game and I found it to be a strange one as to me it both was and wasn't at the same time. For the main body of the book's 314 pages, it was very good. It was intriguing, keeping you interested for more answers, making you want to read more; all highly positive and desired features in a book. Whereas with Ender's Game, I found the main body not as intriguing albeit it was still decent to good. Where Ender's Game shone, for me though, was the twist in the end and then the emotional aftermath. This is where Speaker doesn't shine as brightly. While the ending is likely setting up the sequel books, I found it to be too ordinary and predictable. It had a lot of emotional impact, which was good, but nothing that left me wide-eyed shaken. I very much like to be surprised by a book's ending, to have something that I don't see coming, which then has more of an impact. Speaker didn't have this, whereas Ender's did. So while I think on the whole Speaker is probably the better story, Ender's Game had more of an impact on me.

For We Are Many, the second book in the Bobiverse by Dennis E Taylor was up next. Continuing the stories of all the various Bobs, with them helping humanity in their new and old homes, monitoring other life, exploring and discovering details of dangers beyond anything they thought possible. While there are serious storylines behind it all, these are just fun books. The name-dropping nostalgia is right in my era, the tone is largely light-hearted and its interesting seeing where all the different plot-threads are going over the books 301 pages. The only problem is that there are quite a few plot threads on the go at a time, and so many Bobs it can become quite difficult remembering which one is which, with the exception of the few that are the main focus of the book. This is no "wow" factor in the book that elevates it to a higher level, but it is just very solid entertainment, with a sprinkling of emotional moments in there too. I'm really enjoying the series, and hope the next one, which looks like it will have a big epic battle in the making, has a satisfying conclusion!

Third book was back to The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe, with the second entry The Claw of the Concilliator. I wasn't a big fan of the first book, and while this book certainly has many issues, I did enjoy it more. The narrator, Severian, seemingly can't catch a break on his journey from the Citadel, where he was a member of the Guild of Torturers, to Thrax, where he is to be the city's new Lictor, the chief executioner and jailer. Everywhere he goes he seems to find himself in fairly perilous situations, and thankfully he's a more interesting character in dealing with all of this than he was in the first book. He doesn't make much progress in his journey on the whole, but contends with revenge, meeting a rebel leader, the mystery that is the House Absolute, witches, putting on a play and reading stories to a friend. It's quite a range over its 295 pages to be fair! I'm still guessing as to where the story is going to take us over the next two books, however I think there's hints being dropped that indicate things may move more towards sci-fi than the seemingly fantasy world that has thus far been portrayed? But for all the positives and intrigue, there's still negatives. The female characters, particularly Jolenta, are still breasts with people attached to them; when Severian is on a private boat with Jolenta and she falls asleep, he thinks that's the perfect time to then kiss her and undo her top to oogle her breasts more... Not the best role model in that regard. I'm still not loving the series, but as I'm only halfway through it, there's still a lot to happen that can change perceptions on it all, so I'll see what comes, but I did enjoy this one more than the first entry.

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel was my next book, the last instalment in the Themis Files. The first book was about the discovery of alien technology, the second about the aliens visiting Earth and the catastrophic aftermath, and this one is about coming to terms with and humanity's reaction to what has happened and trying to stop us from falling into the same failures that have plagued humanity for generations. As a trilogy, I've found this an entertaining series, which started strong with the mystery side of things in the first book, but wasn't able to keep that same feeling going for its duration. Only Human focuses heavily on some family drama, and has one of the more annoying characters that I've encountered in a while (the Russian agent who carries out most of the interviews), as she's too bubbly and a jarring standout. That's a deliberate choice by Neuvel and one of the interviewees comments on her friendly, bubbly 'act', but I just got frustrated when I heard her voice in my head. That aside, there's a fair amount of political commentary about scapegoating, religion, and some very memorable and prescient comments about humanity actively seeking to be ignorant and disbelieving facts and science. The 432 page book was only published in 2018, so it is quite conceivable that Neuvel could see how things were going in the world, but I certainly did find myself nodding in agreement in many places. Overall, I enjoyed this book and the series. It wasn't amazing, and the first book is definitely the best, then this one, then the second, but the narrative approach taken throughout the books keeps the storytelling different in style from all other books I've read so far.

My last book of the month was Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is a meaty 602 page book, that is an account of events from the perspective of Stefan Advani, a scholar of sorts who's been on a bit of a rollercoaster of a ride of highs and lows, which unfortunately for him, has heavily leaned towards the 'lows'. The book has crazy world building; in fact, it almost felt like the entire book was world building at the expense of an over-arching plot. Other than "the life of Stefan Advani", there isn't a notable plot thread that runs the duration of the book. The story is just a series of scenes and events, most of which have some overlap and link to other scenes and events, but none which combine for that continual narrative. Despite this, there are still plenty of surprising moments, in that a scene or event could be playing out, and then out of left-field something happens which completely changes the tone, world knowledge and your expectations on the story development. All this was good, but other than the book being a series of tales of "things that happened", I felt unfulfilled from the lack of over-arching plot and any sort of resolution at the end, as things are still happening at that point, and probably even worse than before! From a world perspective, it's imaginative, bleak and very vivid, and one of the best from Tchaikovsky that I've read so far, but from an overall enjoyment and fulfilment when I finished point of view, I wasn't quite as impressed unfortunately.

My April reads.

I was fortunate this month to have quite a few days off to myself during which I read quite a bit. That coupled with some shorter page numbers allowed me to get through a lot of books.

I started the month with We Are Legion (We Are Bob) from Dennis E Taylor, who is definitely not the similarly named snooker player. The story focuses on Bob, a rich software entrepreneur who suffers and untimely death, but has a cryogenic insurance policy that results in him being awoken in the future, but not in the manner he originally expected. While an interesting and fun book about societal collapse, space exploration and settlement, and to a lesser extent sentient evolution, there's also elements of nostalgia in there with plenty of references to (late) 20th and 21st century pop culture, as this was the era from which Bob hailed. Sometimes I think it can be a fine line between too much name dropping for the sake of it and just the right amount of nostalgia, but for me, given the light-hearted tone of the book as a whole, I think this book does a good job of finding a decent balance. There's not much of an end to the book, but it provides lines into the next chapter of some stories and new beginnings for others. It was a bit of a task following all the different strands of characters and keeping track of the year of each chapter, as the story is not told chronologically, but it is a very enjoyable read and I'm looking forward to the second entry in the Bobiverse.

After that I read The Shadow of the Torturer, the first book in the Book of the New Sun series from Gene Wolfe. I'll get this out at the start, the world built is interesting, but other than that, the book is at best ok, and this is largely due to the characters and the prose. The story follows the main character, Severian, who is sent away from the Citadel where he has lived most if not all his life, due to breaking the rules of his guild, the Guild of Torturers, and the book follows the first part of his journey away from the Citadel. He is a drab, boring, bit of a wet fish person. I struggled to find much about him interesting, despite his profession as a torturer/executioner as he just came across quite passive and dull. He's also clearly horny as hell, as he meets a woman and falls in love with her within a few days. A bit later, he meets another woman, and falls in love with her within a day. During that same day, he meets another woman, and falls in love with her either later in that day after he fell in love with the second woman, or a day or so after, I can't quite recall. I think someone needs to learn the difference between lust and love. And then there's the prose. To me, it came across very old-fashioned in its style, which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just took a bit to adjust to. However, old-fashioned prose isn't exactly renowned for writing female characters well, and I didn't find this to be an exception. The reader, with little in the way of plot or character development merit, learns about the breasts of each of the main three female characters quite readily in their descriptions... yeah, it was rather cringe-worthy. This could be a very interesting story if it weren't for the characters and their descriptions. I hope it improves over the next three entries!

Next on my reading list was Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. When I started to get into reading, I was not at all interested in this book, as while I hadn't seen the movie, I had got the impression, probably from the movie's poster, that it was a kiddie sci-fi action flick, probably quite cheesy as these things often are. That feeling permeated to my thoughts for this book, so I avoided it. But then after seeing so many high praise recommendations for it, I finally bought it and now have got round to actually reading it, and I cannot stress how far off my pre-conceived thoughts on it were. The book is basically about the military training genius children to be their next leaders in an upcoming war with an alien race. Or, if viewed from another angle, it is about the systematic mental torture of high functioning children for the supposed greater good. For the first 270 of its 326 pages, it was an intriguing and moderately uncomfortable read as Ender is continually pushed to and beyond his limits, but the last 50 pages brought in a twist and the emotional aftermath that really raised the level of the book from being a good story to a powerful one which left a notable impact. My only complaint is the slang name given to the alien race - buggers. I've read reasons, that I may or may not buy, why they were called this, but I still think it tarnishes what is otherwise a very powerful and good book.

I then went to Waking Gods, by Sylvain Neuvel; the second book in the Themis Files. This book is written in the same style as the previous book, with each chapter being a different file, with the file either being a transcript of an interview, live proceedings or a journal entry. We learn a bit, but not much, more about the 'robots', the species that made them and why Themis is on Earth. The story wasn't afraid to take some very unexpected turns and for me that was the book's definite strength, however, to detract from that I did feel the relationship melodrama was the story's weakest elements, it feeling a bit out of place when we encounter it. It was fairly similar in the first book, but I wasn't as bothered about it in that one for some reason. Fortunately, the melodrama is not a major part of the book. I did enjoy this entry in the series, I definitely want to see where and how it concludes in the next book, but maybe because the book's style was no longer new to me, I wasn't quite as impressed with Waking Gods as I was with the first book, Sleeping Giants.

Next I went to a Culture novel, Use of Weapons, by Iain M Banks. This took me a while to figure out what was going on, and the extra length of time over what it should have taken was because I wasn't paying quite enough attention to the chapter names. The book has two storylines going on at the same time over its 411 pages, one with increasing chapter numbers telling the main story of the book, the other with decreasing Roman Numeral chapter numbers, with these giving further snippets of the lives of the main characters to provide more background info on them and with the chapter numbers decreasing, they are going back in time with each chapter. It's a very interesting and, by the end, quite effective narrative style, but one which if you're not paying attention (like I wasn't to start with) can be a bit confusing. Anyway, this is going to get a lot of hate, I'm sure, but another Culture novel and another one where I'm not sure what the fuss is over this series. This book was ok to good, and provided a moderately interesting story of someone recruited into the Culture's Special Circumstances group, a group which doesn't seem to necessarily have to abide by the Culture's normal morals and ways of doing things, but I never felt overly engaged. It's not a bad book, but for me it was just lacking that something to make it spark as I did find myself quite disinterested at times. I pushed through and I'm guessing if you're more engaged by the story, the ending will have that much more of an impact than it did for me. I'm taking a break from the Culture books now, probably until early 2027, and to be honest, if I hadn't bought them all already, I may not have continued at all. As a series, it's just not grabbing me yet. Hopefully the best books are still to come. Current ranking for the first four: SotA (4/5) > CP (3.5/5) > UoW (3/5) > PoG (2.5/5).

Next off my shelf was How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. After being very surprised by the degree of my enjoyment of The Midnight Library, I figured I should probably get more of his books. So five more arrived the other month and this was the lucky one that got picked to be read first. This is a story about Tom, a man who has been alive for centuries, but has done his best to keep this fact a secret in order to survive. Painful memories follow him wherever he goes, as he moves from identity to identity in order to keep himself and those around him safe. This wasn't as emotionally charged over its 325 pages as The Midnight Library, but I still found it a very enjoyable read. I don't know what it is about Matt's writing, but all of his books I've read (this is only the 3rd one, but still) have been very, very easy reads that I can just fly through. I don't feel bogged down by them, or that any part is a slog. The plot is generally well paced and has relatively short chapters that continually make me think, "ok, just one more" whenever I'm thinking of putting it down to stop reading at that time. There's also a fairly cozy, optimistic outlook by the end of the books. The journey there may have sadness and some violence, but by the end it is hopeful. Despite thinking that I'm a spacey, hi-tech, futuristic, big ideas sort of sci-fi person, I'm finding I'm really enjoying this type of book just now, so I'm learning something new about myself as well, which is nice!

Up next was Of Ants and Dinosaurs by Cixin Liu. With large line spacing, quite a big font and only 249 pages, this is more like a novella than a full novel. It is about a history where ants and dinosaurs become parts of a symbiotic relationship that allows each species to develop and evolve in ways that just wouldn't be possible without the other. Unfortunately, as their technology and impression of their place on the Earth progresses, their alliance falters leading to conflict between the two species. This was fun, maybe a bit ridiculous at times, but for a different take on prehistoric history it is well worth a read. I did think there'd be more of a link between the ending of this story and present day thoughts on dinosaurs and their demise, and that could have been a great finisher, but alas it was a bit more sentimental with the ants instead. Nevertheless, while not amazing, it's a solidly decent book.

Penultimate book of the month was Inverted World by Christopher Priest. This is a slow building books, where the world that the main characters live in is a bit of a mystery to the reader, and over the chapters small bits of additional information are given. At the broad level, the book is about a mobile city, and the people who live in it, which must keep moving onwards, indefinitely, or else they could all die. The drip feeding of information had me very intrigued, and as more and more became understood, I found it to be a highly imaginative and crazy world that had been created. As I got closer and closer to the end of the book's 303 pages, I kept wondering how it was going to be concluded, what twist or sciencey concept would be put to use, and then it ended. It wasn't as bad as "and it was all a dream" but bloody hell I felt like it is close to that sort of thing. So much intrigue and interest in the city and the life those in it live had been built up and the conclusion potentially invalidates it all or completely lacks consistency with what came before. It gives rise to more questions that now don't have the answer you thought they did, and which may not make sense any more. It's a frustrating ending.

Last book of the month was Alice by Christina Henry. I only got this book as I needed a third book to get free shipping on a book order, and sorting the site's books (new and used) by price (cheapest first, of course), I found the cheapest one that sparked some intrigue in me, and this was it, due to its very creepy but at the same time nostalgically familiar cover - credit to the artist, it's an awesome cover! This is a very different take on Alice in Wonderland. All the characters you know and are familiar with from the classic tale are here, but they are far more twisted, evil and depraved than you will quite likely imagine. The story starts with Alice in an insane asylum, without a clear memory of events that lead to her being there. She remembers a rabbit and her flesh being cut open, but little else. In the cell next to her is the mad Hatcher, a man very adept with a hatchet, but who also can't remember everything about his past. When circumstances allow them to escape their prison, their past comes back and greats them in their present. I didn't love it, but I did enjoy the book. Sexual assault, rape, murder, torture, mutilations and worse are all part of the book, making this a very bloody version of Alice that I won't be sharing with my kids! Despite its gruesomeness, the writing itself felt quite YA like, maybe due to its complete absence of profanity. Regardless, I did enjoy it enough that felt obliged to order eight more of her books (used, but very good condition, for £21 delivered), covering many other fairy tale and mythical creatures, and some straight up suspense horror apparently. Fingers crossed these are all at least decent too!

Going to put the whole thing in spoiler tags so that nothing shows up on the subs preview of this post.

>!At the end of the book it is established that they are still on Earth and everything weird that those from the city see is due to their perception as a result of the engine in the city. I'm ok with that. !<

>!We get hints that it is purely a perceptional thing from Mann's drawing of Elizabeth, where he draws her thinner and taller than she actually is. !<

>!Way down past it's the opposite, where he sees everything being squashed vertically and extended horizontally, and he feels the force pulling him away as well, which is why he has the grapple and the rope. In the description it talks about him seeing the mountains then as he gets closer they get smaller and eventually he's using them as grips for his hands and feet when trying to crawl back towards optimum.!<

>! So if it was all just his perception, and not what was really happening, what was actually going on? How could he use a mountain as a hand grip in reality? What was the force pulling him further past? While from his perception he was being pulled further past, he was crawling over mountains that were now practically flat to him, would the three women he was with who were not affected have just been looking at this guy who from their perspective was now completely ignoring them, crawling around on the ground like a drunk idiot? !<

>!If it was just all his perception of things, why did the clothes of the women stop fitting them properly? Was he just perceiving them to not fit them and them to rip/discard them, when actually they were still wearing them fine? Or is there some other explanation?!<

>!The time compression/stretching, was that actually happening? When Mann went down past and thought he was only gone a few days, but it was two years for the city, and his wife had had the baby, if it was all just perception, how could that have happened? !<

I wasn't impressed by the sudden ending of the book, and I feel like I must have missed something in the explanation of the effects going on, so any answers people who know more have got would be appreciated!