I think the thing that put me in the right mood for Harrow was the realisation after a chapter or two that
you know the standard recap at the start of the book for people who are starting with volume 2 or maybe it’s been a while since they read volume 1? That is comprehensively wrong and you’ll only realise it if you do remember volume 1.
It’s a mean authorial trick and I love Muir for it.
I liked that. I LOVED book 1, liked 2 (especially the last part of it) and will read 3+4.
But.
But but but.
You guys get my negative review here that I haven’t dared to post anywhere else 
There were only three things which readers wanted: A) To know if Gideon was alive, B) more of the romance, and C) to learn more about Harrow (we didn’t see it from her point of view last time, we know Gideon far better).
And the “twist” opening denies us A and B. That’s fine, that can totally work. The problem is, it also blocks C. Unreliable narrator Harrow doesn’t know who Gideon is, has a past which is different from the only previous book we’ve invested in, and is basically a new person. We can’t even be sure that what we learn about her past is at all true. So apart from the reader wishing things would change to restore to the version of reality we know, there’s no carrying over from the first book. All that investment, gone.
That can STILL work if you can capture your readers’ excitement all over again with the new stuff, but this goes on for way too long. The mystery part should have been 30% of this huge sequel at the most. Towards the end we’re STILL as clueless as Harrow, but with the added tension-killer that we already know she and several others survive to a future point on the ship - we just have to wade through events which could entirely be her delusion for months to get there. Showing us what psychosis feels like is only interesting if there’s a story of wanting to get from A to B and being thwarted by the total uncertainty it brings. When you’ve taken away A and B as well, there’s no reason for the reader to care about the new, definitely false circumstances.
The last fifth or so is excellent but those events should have started on page 90.
In short, this book needed an editor to tell the author ‘No’. Very disappointing after such a relentlessly exciting book 1. …But yes, I will still be reading the others.
I think I’m one of the few people who didn’t find Harrow that confusing. Possibly because I only read them a few months apart, so Gideon was fresh in my mind, so I absolutely knew the recaps were incorrect - though I recall having a different idea why.
Also, by sheer coincidence, the book I read between them was This Body’s Not Big Enough for Both of Us by Edgar Cantero, so two people switching out control of one body was an entirely straightforward idea.
I didn’t know this. Interesting that it’s a new book 3 and the original has been pushed back.
Just finished Danny Trejo’s new book. Fun read, interesting guy. At times the timeline of events could a little muddled, when jumping from past to present, and some a little rushed.
All in all would recommend.
It painted a good picture of what it was like in the gangs in his neighborhood from the 60’s on up. The struggles of basically being raised to survive prison, fighting addiction. To becoming an addiction counselor helping others get clean.
I especially like how he owns up to, and points out his faults and mistakes that were rooted from the environment and way he was raised, especially those regarding toxic masculinity.
I’ve been rereading some Pratchett recently, out of order and just by picking at random from the bookshelf and have realised that my copy of good omens has been dropped in the bath.
Has anyone else got a book that should be replaced but hasn’t been?
I always meant to replace my falling apart copy of Kushiel‘s Dart and I once saw a used hardcover copy at Powell‘s and when I returned the next day to buy it, it was already sold. This incident may have informed some of my impulse buys of games…
One volume of Bujold’s The Sharing Knife has a broken spine. Unfortunately, the hardback edition seems to be out of print, and I really would prefer to have are four volumes the same type.
My Games Workshop edition of the Call of Cthulhu RPG. I tore all the colour plates out to use as posters.
This is a bit of a cheat because I did replace it recently via eBay. Now I have two copies and I’m still happy.
I think I may have been sold either a ripoff or a very rare edition…
Slightly smaller (known good one on the right):
Since it also had a sticky red stain on it, I got a refund from the seller, who didn’t want it back.
ETA: it claims to be “eon” like the real one but doesn’t appear in isfdb…
I have two copies of The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie. One signed by him, and still unread, in the American edition cover, and my original one in the British edition, with the map and axe on the cover.
I went to one of his book signings in Bath after he published Sharp Ends, and wanted to bring his standalone novels to get signed. When I went to get them from my bookshelf, realised I still had my copy of The Heroes borrowed by a friend. So I bought a copy in the shop. But they only had the American version left.
Pratchett must in the air. I’m just finishing A Hat full of Sky. The quote ‘coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving’ is a doozy.
I have a few battered books that should objectively be replaced, but the more well-loved they look the more I love them.
Although I do feel quite bad for spilling a glass of orange juice on Keiron Gillen.
Before I heard of Zen, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers.
When I studied Zen, mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers.
Now I know Zen, and mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.
Somebody* was trying to say that Pratchett would be “Gender Critical” (ie: transphobic) were he alive today.
The general response has been “LOL no,” followed closely by “I’m his daughter and let me assure you, no,” and then “As close friends and co-writers of some of the greatest fiction in the last 100 years, gods you’d have to be an idiot to think that he’d be GC, so definitely no.”
But it has drawn some attention.
*I have no idea who, but I assume somebody who has the brains of a gerbil and has never read any Pratchett at any point.
Hi all, we’ve had a number of flags on this thread in the last few days, and as such I’ve temporarily locked it whilst we review them.
Thanks
Hi all, the thread is now reopened.
Thanks for your patience , you can now continue reading things.
I just read The Echo Wife again for a book club. It’s still brilliant. Lead character isn’t QUITE a Dr Frankenstein, but is far from a good person either. Starts slow, suddenly kicks off in chapter 6, doesn’t let up for the entire book. Love it.
And I got my girlfriend reading Set My Heart To Five, in which the dystopian future’s most adorable robot wrestles with humanity, old movies and Elon Musk accidentally incinerating the moon.
I woke up early this morning so I sneaked a few more pages of Dune in before getting up for work.
What, more than Murderbot?
Almost!
(At one point SMHT5’s semi-organic bot was watching a sad movie and discovered his face was leaking. He estimated the volume of his tears to be 26ml, meaning that there must have been a really powerful cleaning solvent nearby to have triggered such a thing).
I figured we were talking about WALL-E.
