Elizabeth

Lovely and Lyrical

Revisado: 09-20-24

Ferreira writes beautifully, even when she is writing about terrible things. The poetry is extremely lyrical and Dixon's narration emphasizes it perfectly. Even the stories sound like poetry, particularly when Ferreira is describing terrible events. This is a nice addition to their collaborative work, and I look forward to what's next!

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Why the same protagonist over and over?

Revisado: 04-30-24

I like the idea of Kingfisher’s protagonists as dowdy women who are older than your average romantic heroine. But Hanna seems to have almost exactly the same sad backstory as Grace, of Paladin’s Grace. (A bit less violent.)

This story of bumbling insecurity between the main characters falling in love seems even more implausible than that was. And the awkward discovery of a sexual connection almost seemed to be identical, at least in the characters’ internal monologues.

I also found Hanna’s response to the reveal of The Deep Dark Secret to have come out of left field. The love of your life did something very bad 450 years ago and has been punished constantly since then, so even though he’s been nothing but great to you, you should obviously reject him as unforgivable? Even though you have up to now been portrayed as kind, practical, and helpful? I was expecting something more like “yikes, that’s awful, what a terrible thing to have lived with all this time, well not lived with exactly but to be trapped by? I mean, you were wrong, so so wrong, but probably not 450 years trapped in a sword wrong.”

The magic of the world remains interesting, and I liked revisiting the supporting characters. I do want to know what happened to the other ancient mercenaries and what happens next to these characters. But I sincerely hope that Kingfisher will create some characters with moderate self-confidence, whose youthful sexual experiences weren’t either terrible or pathetic, and who don’t instantly blame themselves for anything that goes badly.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

I wanted to like this book more than I did

Revisado: 05-18-23

The premise of the book was intriguing -- military vet and EMT gets hired to be a butler for an old man who may or may not be a wizard. There are cursed objects, annoyed pixies, efficient fairies, and money-grubbing relatives. And I liked the narrator's voice.

But...nothing really happens. The butler character ogles all of the female characters his age, but there is no romance or notable sexual tension. He gets cable internet installed in an old house, reads cooking education books and watches youtube videos to learn to be a better cook, ALL of which are relayed in detail. (I mean FFS, no one actually cares how the minor character installs the router bracket in the garage. And WHY make a huge production about NO DRILLING but then not care when things are screwed to the wall?)

There's another character whose sole point seems to be to explain to the reader what kind of mental stimulation is needed to fight dementia in old age (and to run titillatingly in her boobular sports bra). She might also lecture the butler on why the wizard should start doing T'ai Chi and other exercise to stay healthy into old age, though that could have been one of the multiple doctor characters who also lecture the reader on how to stay healthy in old age, again at a level of detail I really wasn't expecting in a fantasy novel.

There's a strange tangent about turning the wizard's mansion into a Downton Abbey themed B&B, which was sort of abandoned, though perhaps it will come back in the next book in the series?

If the sequel comes up through my library or on a future $5 or less sale, there's a chance I will read it, but that chance is probably around 40%.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Great New Narrator!

Revisado: 07-06-21

I like the narrator for this book so much more than the narrator for the previous books in the series!

This is a good addition to the series -- it's fun getting to know Maud.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Fun & Sexy

Revisado: 05-23-21 El oyente recibió este título gratis

I really enjoyed this! It was a fun, sexy story, with an interesting twist, and I thought the narrator was a great match for the material.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

I got sucked into the series

Revisado: 10-29-20

While I do like sci-fi and space operas, this series is a lot more heavily military than is my usual read. I picked up the first book as part of an Audible $5 sale, and I'm now on book 8.

Strengths:
* I want to know what happens. The plots suck me in and leave me wanting to know what will happen next.
* Narration. This series has a huge number of characters, and Allyson Johnson does a great job of distinguishing them with different voices. Later in the series, a significant character has an injury to his mouth, and she manages to both make that clear, and yet still make him sound like the same character.
* Characterization. These are war books, but who "good guys" and "bad guys" are within the enemies, allies, and original colleagues is not cut and dried. Even many of the the minor characters feel fleshed out and realistic.

Both a Strength and a Weakness
* Diversity. Women are by and large treated as equals to men in the series, and where they aren't, it has a plot point, and is usually negative. But gender is still binary and unchanging, except for among some animal life starting around book 7 or 8. There are characters with identifiably Latinx, Asian, and Eastern European names, and some are identified as coming from planets that seem culturally homogeneous. Some characters are described as Black, although usually obliquely by description instead of directly. (But that seems oddly anachronistic for a book set 600-1000 years into the future. It seems like there would be more cultural changes, even if ethnic identities remained identifiable, as they have in the real world. Still, I think modern Germans, Mexicans, and Koreans, for example, are quite culturally different from our ancestors in the 1300s.)

Weaknesses:
* The politics. Some sections of these books feel like you have slipped into 1980s cold war era anti-Soviet propaganda. It gets really heavy-handed sometimes and distracts from the story. And the political factions still get called liberals, conservatives, and progressives, with heavy-handed explanations about how stupid the faction the author dislikes are. And some of these tangents are quite lengthy.
* The "old Earth history." It's 600 years or so in the future. Maybe 1000. It's a little hard to tell sometimes. But English is still spoken throughout the galaxy, the lessons of WWI and WWII are still critical parts of what people learn in military training, and the slang has to be explained but somehow still gets used. Nothing influential apparently happened between the 21st Century and when the story begins.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Unexpected and Disappointing

Revisado: 12-17-18

I really enjoyed the first volume of this series. The second volume, which introduces the time-travel-by-trance idea, was a little odd but I could sort of go with it. The domestic abuse scenes fit the story and the reactions seemed appropriate.

This book felt much more bizarre and disjointed.

SPOILER ALERT AND GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING

First, the rape scene completely threw me. I thought it came up out of nowhere. I found the idea that the then-narrator had a surprise orgasm at the beginning of her rape, followed by two more during her rape, jarring, horrifying, and completely out of place for the character. I would have found a guilty and confused pang of pleasure in character, but for a brave, angry character like Katie, the idea that she could magically be touched by Mr Super Attractive and immediately orgasm even though she is out in the woods and being pressured to have sex against her will? No. I understand that the plot needs him to distract her at this time, and I find the idea of him pressuring her for a sexual relationship, even becoming violent, plausible. But I only find the idea of her getting distracted plausible, not the idea that she would be so aroused by this unexpected and unwanted turn of events that she would suddenly welcome rape.

SECOND SPOILER ALERT

The whole of the rest of the series was, basically, a dream? The moment the narrator put on her magical crown, history dissolved and everything was fixed? No struggle, no intent, no planning, just reach the end of your hope and put on a magical hat and everything will be solved but the heroine will be sad? This felt like lazy writing. If the crown were that magical and instant, it would have changed history when the priest tried it on in his chambers, or when Row Finn finished making it in the first place.

AND THEN, after the magically repaired history moment, instead of having a cult of personality around the Tear family, followed by conflict between the Tears and organized religion,it turns out that the way you make a utopia is to choose a female monarch who will obviously design her own democracy that will be free from conflict and violence.

Last complaint: The narrator. Every older female character had exactly the same voice pattern. It didn't matter if they were a good character or an evil one, helpful or sinister, they all have the same high pitched monotone. Since narrative point of view changes so often, and there is time travel, it would really be helpful to have more audible differences between characters.

Overall, I was disappointed.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña