Reading Wrap Up 5/4/20

For the last two weeks I’ve been in quite a reading slump. I couldn’t find the motivation to read the books I’d started and didn’t want to start anything new. I’ve now solved that problem by re-reading my favourite books and continuing only the series that I love.

Books that I’ve Finished

Exit Strategy (Murderbot #4) by Matha Wells

So the first book I re-read was Exit Strategy (Muderbot #4) by Matha Wells. The fifth book is coming out in May and I’ve been re-reading one book in the series per month because I can’t wait that long. 

This is my second re-read of Exit Strategy, I gave it five stars and I highly recommend the whole series. I don’t think I’ve ever related to a character as much as I do Murderbot. It doesn’t want to look at people directly and uses cameras to see the whole room instead of using its eyes. It loves to watch serials instead of interacting with humans, who keep wanting to talk about its feelings. Its also a bit of an arsehole. 

I read this book as an audiobook on Scribd. The narrator is so good.

All Systems Red (Murderbot #1) by Martha Wells

Then I had to go back and read the first book in the series All Systems Red because I couldn’t help myself. 

This is one of the few books that after the first time I read it I immediately re-read it, and then again a few months later. I even bought the hardcover version and that’s how I read it this time. The benefit of listening to the audiobook first is that I can hear Murderbot’s voice so clearly.

The first book starts with Murderbot wanting to watch serials, mostly The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, which is it’s favourite, instead of having to deal with the stupid humans in it’s care.

“I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realised I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.”

This is one of my favourite opening lines from any book.

Murderbot feels like an autistic character to me but that might just be because I’m autistic and other people might get something different from it. I don’t know what the author’s intentions were but I’d love to get her perspective on that.

There’s also a few queer characters in the background but it’s easy to miss because the humans aren’t that important, apart from Dr. Mensah. 

Group marriage is also common as some of the characters have many partners they are raising children with.

Murderbot itself is asexual, as it has no sexual desires and could be considered non-binary or agender, but it’s also a construct and not human so it’s hard to tell how much these labels apply.

Five stars. Can’t recommend this book or series enough and I need the fifth book, especially now.

The Last Sun (Tarot Sequence #1) by K D Edwards

The same night I re-read All Systems Red I picked another favourite off my shelves, The Last Sun. 

This is the third time I’ve read this book but the first time I’ve read it in paperback as I read it as an audiobook the other two times. 

The narrator is so good and like with Murderbot I can hear the characters so clearly as I read the physical book.

It’s really gay urban fantasy and the characters are so much fun. The second book came out at the end of last year and I loved that one as well. 

The main character is Rune who is an Atlantean, a race of magic people who were secret but like fifty years ago they were outed to the world. 

The rulers are Arcana who live in courts. Rune lost his court when he was 15 and his whole family were murdered along with everyone else in the court. 

So now he’s inherited the Arcana powers from his father, but while he’s technically the head of the Sun throne he’s got no money or any of the other resources that other thrones have. So he’s a mercenary for hire with the powers of an arcana.

The best part of the book though is his relationship with the other characters. First there’s Brand who is his companion and who was bonded to Rune as a baby to be his protector. He takes his job really seriously and he’s constantly calling Rune on his crap.

Then there’s Addam who’s constantly flirting with Rune and trying to find a place for himself in Rune’s life. There’s sort of a love triangle going on between Rune, Brand and Addam but I don’t hate it because there’s very little jealousy going on. 

They even have a conversation about how it’s not a competition for Rune’s affection, while all three of them are naked in the shower. There’s no sex in the scene but Brand ends up showing Addam how to massage Rune’s bad shoulder. It makes me laugh every time.

I’m hoping that they’ll all end up together because group marriage is a legitimate thing in their culture. I also like that they find pure heterosexuality and pure homosexuality weird. Rune says that most people are in the middle of the spectrum bisexual/pansexual.

There is some prejudice though because Rune mentions an old boyfriend of his, who married a woman because he was expected to produce an heir.

There is rape in this book because Rune was raped when his court fell and his family were murdered. At one point in the book Rune faces an enemy who uses his memories to make him relive some of the rape. And there are other mentions of it through the book but it doesn’t feel really graphic. I’ve read a lot worse.

In some cases I’ve put the book down because it pissed me off so much (The wolf in the Whale) but this didn’t feel so bad to me. You could probably even skip that part of the scene and you wouldn’t be missing much.

I can’t wait for the third book but there’s no release date yet.

Five stars.

Currently Reading

Age of Legend (Legends of the First Empire #4) by Michael J Sullivan

I’m currently reading Age of Legend as an audiobook on Scribd. The first book, Age of Myth I read in January, and I’ve read one book from the series every month since then.

I’m getting through this book slowly but that’s more because I used to listen to audiobooks when I walked the dogs but now I’ve only got one left so my commute is really short. 

I’m probably going to read the ebook as well because it’s also on Scribd and that should get me through it a bit faster.

I like this series so it wasn’t hard to pick up the next book because I was confident I’d enjoy it. And I am.

My favourite is still the first book where Suri was the Suriest and the dynamic between Wraith and Malcolm was the best. I love Wraith trying to downplay killing a god (what they call gods are really just elves) and Malcolm making him a bigger and bigger legend with everyone they meet.

In the first book there was a female character who had lived with another woman but it’s quite easy to miss in the first book and I can’t remember it being mentioned in the second book or any of the others.

So this series is LGBTQ friendly but don’t expect any significant representation. If there are any other queer characters I’ve not noticed.

The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentlemen Bastards #1) by Scott Lynch

This is the only book I’ve read where I actually like the prologue. Usually I dread the prologue and just skim through it, but this book gets me right from the start.

This is the second time I’ve read it and so far it’s just as good as I remember. I only started reading last night so I haven’t gotten very far but I love Locke as a child and the flashbacks to all the mayhem he caused by being too smart and not thinking about the consequences.

Fool’s Errand (The Tawny Man #1) by Robin Hobb

This is one of my favourite series but I haven’t read it in a long time. It’s been so long that if you asked me what the book is about I couldn’t tell you, but as I’m reading I get that great familiar feeling without knowing exactly what is going to happen.

This is also what happened last year when I re-read the Farseer trilogy, which comes before this one in the Realm of the Elderlings series.

The Fool is one of my favourite characters ever and I love that we get so much of him here. He could be considered a non-binary character and that’s how I read him. 

He doesn’t care how you refer to him. In Assassin’s Quest Starling is convinced he’s a woman who is in love with Fitz, and refers to him with she/her pronouns and he doesn’t care. 

Fitz cares though because he’s always referred to the Fool as male, but the Fool is as evasive as he always is about everything. Things that don’t matter just don’t matter to him.

I like the main character Fitz but not as much as I remember liking him. I’m a lot less tolerant of his obsession with Molly and wanting to be with her, especially now that she’s moved on with her life. It doesn’t help that I never liked Molly and I really didn’t like her and Fitz together.

Now that she’s out of his life I just want him to stop moping about her.

The only character that makes Fitz’s angst bearable is Nighteyes, who calls him on his crap all the time. Nighteyes is a wolf that has been bonded to Fitz by wit magic since he was a pup.

Other wit users consider their relationship too close and inappropriate. So they live alone, instead of in a community with other wit users where they’d be safer.

The only problem is that I can’t remember if Nighteyes dies or not in this book, and I can’t deal with that happening right now. So it’s been over a week since I picked this book up and I’m not sure when I’ll get back to it.

The Malice (The Vagrant #2) by Peter Newman

I read The Vagrant recently and really enjoyed it so I was looking forward to reading the sequel, but I couldn’t get into it. It was probably bad timing because it was really hard to concentrate on the story with everything going on.

It follows the daughter of the vagrant as she takes the magic sword he buried and goes to help save the world.

The problem I had was once she left the farm the Vagrant and Harm lived on I stopped caring. I would have much preferred to stay on the farm because I love those two characters and the goat.

I’ll probably give this book another chance and try to read it again but that will be months from now. So DNF for now.