octavia_cade's reviews
2385 reviews

Technical Slip: Collected Stories by John Wyndham

mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.0

John Wyndham is one of my very favourite science fiction authors, and I have several of his short story collections. I don't enjoy his short work as much as his novels, but he has a handful of really outstanding stories - only one of them, "The Wheel," is collected here. Even then, I think my liking for "The Wheel" is because it is a clear dry run for The Chrysalids, which is one of my top three sci-fi novels of all time. 

Included in this collection is one story of his I hadn't read before: "The Curse of the Burdens," which is less a speculative short than a straight mystery novella, very much in the mould of Agatha Christie. It was alright, but why it was shoehorned in with the speculative stories here I cannot imagine. 

 

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

3.5

I read and reviewed the six comics collected here separately, so this is basically for my own records. The collected rating is the average of the individual ratings. Issues #2 and #3 got four stars from me, while the rest got three.

There's a lot that I like here. I like the central family and the lying cat and the overall weirdness. On the other hand, it felt as if there was a bit of filler and repetition going on here. Still, I'm invested enough to want to keep reading... 

Saga #6 by Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

Whenever one of the parents holds Hazel up - to say goodbye to a planet, or to say hello to her grandparents - all I can think is "There's something very bulbous about that baby." She's like ninety percent head.

Intentional or not? I guess we'll find out. 

Saga #5 by Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

It's not that I don't appreciate random acts of violence in comics (although it's a bit of a hard sell, honestly) but five issues in and I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be chase-and-fight-and-chase again, punctuated by something confronting to do with sex to make the whole thing feel edgier, at least for a good long while. And I'm willing to be entertained by that, but I wonder how quickly it's going to come to seem repetitive. 

Saga #4 by Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

I mean, I still liked it, but it feels like an issue of filler. I have no interest in jealous squabbles over ex-girlfriends or brothel visits, and neither of them seemed to advance the plot any.

The lying cat is still the best character. 

Saga #3 by Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan, Eric Stephenson

adventurous fast-paced

4.0

I love the lying cat. My sister has two that look exactly like it: same hideous breed, but much smaller. They are profoundly stupid. (One of them had an enormous vet bill after it stole duck prosciutto wrapped in muslin off the bench, unwrapped the duck, and ate the muslin. Yeah.)

Every time I see the lying cat, I cackle. 

Sis, are your cats worth it? Yes? LYING. For what you spent untangling that cat's guts, you could have gone to Fiji. 

Saga #2 by Fiona Staples, Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

Oh, this is more like it! Much more interesting than the first issue - the Stalk is weird and creepy, and I love the seahorse agent. Actually, the whole thing is appealingly weird. It helps that most of the setting for this one is a sort of horrifying enchanted forest, which will always be a favourite setting for me. The art really sells that part of it, too, so Fiona Staples is doing a fantastic job there. 

Saga #1 by Brian K. Vaughan

adventurous fast-paced

3.0

I have to admit, I've heard of Saga quite a bit, but never in detail. It takes up a chunk of space on the library's graphic novel shelves, so I thought I'd give it a go. I liked it - and I like that the first issue is a double-sized chunk; it makes it easier to get into.

I'm interested in the central pair and their kid, but rather less enamoured with the rest of it. Especially those robot things with the tv heads that showed up in a very unsatisfactory sex scene! They leave me confused and bored. I get that a lot of this is set-up, but I can tell you right now that - Romeo and Juliet or not - there's nothing compelling about that universal war. As I said: I do like the family, though. 

Mom and Me and Mom by Maya Angelou

emotional reflective fast-paced

4.0

I read Angelou's Caged Bird some time back and thought it was outstanding, so when I discovered this in my local library - another memoir, though much different in focus - I knew I wanted to read it. It's very strongly focused on Angelou's relationship with her mother Vivian Baxter; how Angelou returned to her care after spending most of her childhood being looked after by her grandmother, and how their relationship changed over the decades. As Angelou points out, at the end of the book, Baxter was a "terrible" mother of small children, but an excellent mother of young adults. 

And honestly... some ages are just easier than others. I say that never having been a parent, but the reason I've never been a parent is that I really don't think I could tolerate toddlers all that well. Being trapped with them for years at a time sounds like absolute hell - even if those years are necessary and soon over. Older kids are much more tolerable. So I did feel a lot of sympathy for Baxter there, but then she is an immensely sympathetic person. Charismatic, kind, generous... she clearly loves her daughter very much indeed, and proves to be a tremendous support to her. It makes for a very warm and positive read. 

Parenthesis by Élodie Durand

inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

There's something quite terrifying about the central challenge here, which is Durand's tumour-induced epilepsy. There she is, going about her life and everything's normal, or it seems that way... except her brain periodically cuts out, and when she zaps back to full consciousness she doesn't even remember the lapse. The people around her certainly do, though - and it must be shockingly destabilising, being constantly told, by people you trust, that there's a problem with your mind and, by that problem's very nature, you can't even notice it, or not really.

It's like the beginning of a horror story, really it is.

In this case, it's a horror story with an (eventual) happy ending, as medical advances and an exceptionally supportive family lead to full recovery, but even so. I defy anyone to read this and not wonder, for a split second, if that time earlier in the day when they zoned out over some small boring thing wasn't indicative of a bigger problem. Hypochondria, certainly! Doesn't make the prospect of something like this any less dreadful, though.