Hello everyone,
It’s been a couple of months since I did just a standard blog post like this rather than posting a short story of mine. How are you? Have you had a good summer? Did you go on any nice holidays? See any exciting things? Did you do Barbenheimer? Did you finally break up with that sleaze bag you’ve been seeing?
All right, now that the catch up’s over with, I’ll introduce you to the whole idea behind this blog post. On my writing instagram (which you should definitely check out and follow if you haven’t all ready) I’ve been posting weekly book reviews every Wednesday. I’ve read some really good books, and some proper stinkers.
I thought that, since I’m a corporate shill who knows what a KPI is and runs their life on financial quarters, it might be fun to do a little quarterly run down of some of my favourite books of the quarter. I might go into a bit more detail about some of the things I like about the books, offer some insights that I hadn’t considered before, and I may even talk about a book I haven’t reviewed yet or don’t intend to review (we have to keep some things for ourselves don’t we darling?)
Sounds fun, right?
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into my five favourite books that I’ve read this quarter:
Eyes of the Void - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The second installment of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture trilogy, this build skillfully avoids the middle book syndrome. If you don’t know of this concept it’s the idea that in a series of media, while the first installment will be beloved because of all the worldbuilding and characters it introduces and the final one will be seen as the epic conclusion everything had been building toward, the middle installments can often come across as slow and just a vessel to get all the characters to their necessary places so the real action can begin again. This can leave you feeling that the book has dragged and that you were just reading it to be able to get to the next book.
A romping Space Opera like its predecessor, Eyes of the Void includes all the genre staples that we’ve grown to love while keeping the whole thing fresh and exciting throughout. Instead of banding together in the face of imminent annihilation from the moon-sized architects that returned in the first book, humanity is more at each other’s throats than ever before. With each faction trying its best to get a leg up in the arms race for survival from the Architects, we are taken on a heart-pounding adventure through university planets where legal disputes are settled with knife duels and alien stations where you can see into the very fabric of the universe.
An excellent read and one of my favourite books this quarter.
In Memoriam - Alice Winn
A historical fiction novel about gay soldiers in the First World War. If you know anything about me you can probably guess why I loved this novel so much. From their idyllic days in Public School where their biggest worry was hiding their feelings for each other to the terror of No-Man’s-Land where everything comes second to staying alive, we follow Alice’s protagonists Gaunt and Ellwood as they struggle to come to terms with their mutual attractions amidst one of the greatest horrors in modern history.
An absolute belter of a debut novel that I predict will become as beloved among the annals of Achillean historical fiction as Song of Achilles is. Alice does not hold back once, offering horrifying descriptions of humanity’s first introduction to industrial warfare.
Capable of drawing laughter and sorrow in quick succession, In Memoriam is an excellent introduction to the historical fiction genre and one of my favourite reads this quarter.
Deadendia: The Broken Halo - Hamish Steele
Have I gushed about Deadendia enough? No, I haven’t and you’re rude for asking. I fucking love these books. They’re delightfully queer, supremely inventive and loads of fun.
Every page feels like a treat and this is doubly true for Hamish’s second addition to the series The Broken Halo. It builds upon everything that Hamish set the foundations for in his first book while still remaining fresh and exciting. Much like Eyes of the Void this graphic novel skillfully avoids the dreaded middle book syndrome. I think I find this more impressive than a well-written beginning or final book in a series which may be why middle books take up so much space in this list.
By bringing in new conflicts, intriguing new characters and concepts and expanding on all the brilliance in the first book Hamish successfully builds a story that feels complete in its own right yet left me chomping at the bit for more!
Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze - Peter Harmson
The war in Asia is a woefully underrepresented aspect of the Second World War that isn’t paid much attention in the western world at least. This is particularly true for the war between the Chinese and Japanese which kicked off five years before the attacks on Pearl Harbour and the European colonies in Asia.
This is a crying shame because I find this period of history particularly interesting. Perhaps it is because it is so overlooked that I find it so but I feel there is a lot to learn from it.
This is why I was so interested to find Peter Harmson’s book covering the opening battle that started the second Sino-Japanese war, plunging the continent into a decade of bloody conflict.
Peter’s outline of the battle is the type of thing that I find particularly enjoyable in a history book. He does not look only at the key players, the generals and political leaders, he also takes you down to the ground level, offering accounts of Chinese residents, Japanese soldiers, and those who lived in the international settlement. This is particularly valuable and insightful and provides us with a greater understanding of this battle.
Hell Followed With Us - Andrew Joseph White
This was the last book that I completed this quarter, ushering in the halloween season with a fittingly horrific story. With gore and body horror galore, this book isn’t the type of story that I usually gravitate towards. Nor am I typically interested in post-apocalyptic novels.
However, this book enamoured me!
It captured my interest from the minute I started the first page, I think I must have been reading about a hundred pages a day it feels like I blasted through it.
This is largely due to Andrew’s evident skill as a writer. He crafts characters, scenes and settings that immediately intrigued me and captured my imagination, drawing me into the world he created and making me hesitant to leave it. That’s no mean feat considering how awful the world is following a religious cult bringing upon the rapture and destroying most of the world. Andrew shows that even when the world is as bleak as this, there is still room for queer love flourish and burst forth.
Final Words
So that’s it, a cheeky little rundown of some of my favourite books that I’ve read this quarter. I hope i’ve tempted you to buy one or two of them. Or maybe you’ve all ready read them? If you have, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
What were some of your favs?
See you next time!