Reviews and Comments

Big Red Bird With Fuzzy Pink Feet

BigRedBirdWithFuzzyPinkFeet@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 1 year, 10 months ago

An afficionado of Terry Pratchett, sci-fi and history books.

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finished reading The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang (The Poppy War, #1)

R. F. Kuang: The Poppy War (Hardcover, 2018, Harper Voyager) 4 stars

A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired …

Very good fantasy reading, although quite brutal and unsettling in the latter half. But hey, it's supposed to be "dark fantasy", so that's par for the course.

I very much recommend this book, and can't wait to dive into the second book.

S. Z. Attwell: Aestus: Book 2: The Colony No rating

An underground city. A deadly project. And an Intelligence agent who can help Jossey take …

A decent continuation of the first book, with an ending that was part expected, part unexpected. :Nice!

The only thing I disliked is a rather stilted handling of anything related to romantic love and affection between the characters. It felt like a thirteen year old was writing those parts.

Michael Axworthy: Dějiny Íránu (Hardcover, Czech language, 2021) No rating

Iran often appears in the media as a hostile and difficult country. But beneath the …

A rather decent, very detailed summary of Persia's long history, from ancient history until pretty much the book's release date.

It has a structure which I prefer in historiography books - not a dry list of dates and events, but rather a coherent, almost story-like prose, explaining events in discrete thematic chapters.

The final parts, dealing with recent history, seemed a bit too naive and hopeful to me, in light of recent terrors unleashed by the Iran government on its populace, and unrest stemming from that - but understandably so - the author clearly cares for the Persian region of the world very much.