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Catching Up on Reviews
Dec. 30th, 2024 09:37 amYear One by Nora Roberts:
Over the last couple of years, perhaps my favourite audiobook experiences have been the two most recent fantasy trilogies by Nora Roberts. So, since she's so prolific and had been writing for such a long time, I decided to look at her back catalogue and work my way through some of her older series.
I started with The Chronicles of The One and the first instalment: Year One - and I wasn't disappointed. It's about a global pandemic that wipes out over half the world's population (plus many more victims of accidents, illness and violence that are consequences of the pandemic) - with the twist that the virus is potentially magical in nature and definitely linked to the rise of magical powers in many of those who are immune to it.
There's perhaps some overly heavy-handed foreshadowing at the very start, along with some pretty grim descriptions of bodily functions - plus, it's rather a shame that most of the characters introduced in the first few pages don't make it past the initial infection period.
However, once it gets going, we follow several groups of really awesome characters, as they flee the cities and try to find somewhere safe to settle and rebuild. Disparate characters rebuilding a community after some kind of disaster is one of my all-time favourite plots for a book - and this one was great.
When the two main groups finally connected up, I fist-pumped and shouted, "Yes!" out loud in the street, rather startling a poor woman on the other side of the road...
There's just something about Nora Roberts' writing, combined with an excellent audiobook narrator (which her books always seem to have) that creates a really enjoyable experience.
I actually thought this was going to be my second five-star read of the year - but it dipped a bit towards the end, with the focus shifting dramatically away from most of the characters I'd grown to know and love, and no indication as to whether they would come back into it in the next book.
Still, overall, really, really excellent - and I'm probably going to go straight into Book Two!
A Perfect Heritage by Penny Vincenzi:
For me, 2024 has been somewhat The Year of Penny Vincenzi, since I'd never heard of her before July, and I've since read six of her books, all of which were around 700 pages long. I've enjoyed all of them - but A Perfect Heritage is by far my favourite so far.
It also provided the perfect accompaniment to family Christmas, whereby I read the whole thing in five days, in between games, food, walks, chatting and general conviviality.
It reminded me a bit of Vincenzi's Spoils of Time trilogy, since it was about the matriarch of a family, running a commercial business (cosmetics rather than publishing) throughout the latter half of the 21st century, while also following the perspectives of many other people connected to the family and/or company.
Overall, it was very involving, I was invested in what happened throughout, I loved the range of characters and perspectives and it had me alternately shouting at the book and being delighted by the book in turn.
It also had the one thing I find really annoying in Penny Vincenzi books - often, when the perspective shifts, there are several paragraphs where characters are only referred to as 'he' and 'she', so it takes a while to identify which characters it's switched to. This must be a deliberate technique, but I can't see what purpose it serves, other than to be very irritating and confusing.
There was also quite a bit of fatphobia in this story, with characters remarking on other characters' weight, and a focus on those characters being more attractive and/or people responding to them much more positively once they started to lose weight. This was a bit disappointing, especially considering one of the characters in question was a teenage girl.
It did feel a bit rushed towards the end - though that may have just been the way I was reading it! And, as usual, I wasn't wholly satisfied with the ultimate conclusion of every plot thread - but I also think that's not necessarily a bad thing in this kind of book.
So, in general, a highly entertaining read, and I will certainly be on the lookout for more of this author's books.
Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama - Vol 7-9:
Over the course of the second half of the year, I have completed volumes 7-9 of Witch Hat Atelier and am continuing to enjoy the complex, layered story of Coco and her involvement in witch training.
I love all the characters, there's a lot of emotional depth and intrigue, and I'm very interested to see where the story will go next.
My reading of these three volumes was spread out over a much longer period of time than my consumption of the first six volumes, so I didn't feel quite as engaged or connected to the story, but it's still really good.
Lonesome Village:
This is a computer game I discovered in a video of cozy farming/quest games on YouTube and I played through the main storyline during December. In the game, you play a young anthropomorphic coyote, who comes across a village where all the residents have been trapped on different levels of a very tall tower, and you have to solved puzzles to free them in turn. They then take up residence in the village again and provide quests for you to be able to gather resources, make money and progress the story.
I enjoyed it overall, but there were a lot of things about it that were very annoying and/or clunky:
* There was a chiming sound effect that went off with every click
* There was no to-do list of open quests, so if you forgot what a character wanted, you had to go back to where they were and ask them again.
* Characters often had quite lengthy dialogue to set up their quests, which was repeated every time you went back to them, either to check the requirements or to complete the quest
* The helper character in the magic mirror also said the same things over and over again in a way that was very annoying
* The fast travel mechanic wasn't introduced until about halfway through the main storyline - and then it involved so many steps and animations that it was actually quicker to walk across the whole map
* You need money to make tools and refine resources that are required for the later stages of the game - you can get money by completing quests for villagers, but you usually need money to obtain the items they are looking for (there is another way to make money, but it's not obvious and I only found it by accident)
All that said, the graphics are cute, the story is interesting, the puzzles were (mostly, but with a few annoying exceptions) pretty easy, but in a way that was satisfying, and I liked the combination and ratio of different activities (puzzles, quests, farming, foraging, grinding) the game required. It was also particularly useful that the chests were all connected (so any chest on the map gave access to all your collected supplies) and seemingly had infinite space.
At the point where I thought I was about to complete the main storyline, there was suddenly a very dramatic cut scene with a big reveal that had me exclaiming out loud in astonishment - and a whole new chapter started. Some aspects of the ultimate conclusion were a bit tricky (this was one area where you suddenly needed good manual dexterity and the ability to manipulate the controls really well under time pressure) but I was proud of myself when I defeated it! There were more dramatic and emotional revelations to come, which were quite dark for such a cutesy game - but I'm not sure the emotional arc of the protagonist was given enough time and space to really be resolved satisfactorily.
Still, overall, a good story and well executed in a lot of ways - though I'm not sure I'll be going back to it any time soon to continue with the grindy villager quests, now that I've finished the main plot.
Over the last couple of years, perhaps my favourite audiobook experiences have been the two most recent fantasy trilogies by Nora Roberts. So, since she's so prolific and had been writing for such a long time, I decided to look at her back catalogue and work my way through some of her older series.
I started with The Chronicles of The One and the first instalment: Year One - and I wasn't disappointed. It's about a global pandemic that wipes out over half the world's population (plus many more victims of accidents, illness and violence that are consequences of the pandemic) - with the twist that the virus is potentially magical in nature and definitely linked to the rise of magical powers in many of those who are immune to it.
There's perhaps some overly heavy-handed foreshadowing at the very start, along with some pretty grim descriptions of bodily functions - plus, it's rather a shame that most of the characters introduced in the first few pages don't make it past the initial infection period.
However, once it gets going, we follow several groups of really awesome characters, as they flee the cities and try to find somewhere safe to settle and rebuild. Disparate characters rebuilding a community after some kind of disaster is one of my all-time favourite plots for a book - and this one was great.
When the two main groups finally connected up, I fist-pumped and shouted, "Yes!" out loud in the street, rather startling a poor woman on the other side of the road...
There's just something about Nora Roberts' writing, combined with an excellent audiobook narrator (which her books always seem to have) that creates a really enjoyable experience.
I actually thought this was going to be my second five-star read of the year - but it dipped a bit towards the end, with the focus shifting dramatically away from most of the characters I'd grown to know and love, and no indication as to whether they would come back into it in the next book.
Still, overall, really, really excellent - and I'm probably going to go straight into Book Two!
A Perfect Heritage by Penny Vincenzi:
For me, 2024 has been somewhat The Year of Penny Vincenzi, since I'd never heard of her before July, and I've since read six of her books, all of which were around 700 pages long. I've enjoyed all of them - but A Perfect Heritage is by far my favourite so far.
It also provided the perfect accompaniment to family Christmas, whereby I read the whole thing in five days, in between games, food, walks, chatting and general conviviality.
It reminded me a bit of Vincenzi's Spoils of Time trilogy, since it was about the matriarch of a family, running a commercial business (cosmetics rather than publishing) throughout the latter half of the 21st century, while also following the perspectives of many other people connected to the family and/or company.
Overall, it was very involving, I was invested in what happened throughout, I loved the range of characters and perspectives and it had me alternately shouting at the book and being delighted by the book in turn.
It also had the one thing I find really annoying in Penny Vincenzi books - often, when the perspective shifts, there are several paragraphs where characters are only referred to as 'he' and 'she', so it takes a while to identify which characters it's switched to. This must be a deliberate technique, but I can't see what purpose it serves, other than to be very irritating and confusing.
There was also quite a bit of fatphobia in this story, with characters remarking on other characters' weight, and a focus on those characters being more attractive and/or people responding to them much more positively once they started to lose weight. This was a bit disappointing, especially considering one of the characters in question was a teenage girl.
It did feel a bit rushed towards the end - though that may have just been the way I was reading it! And, as usual, I wasn't wholly satisfied with the ultimate conclusion of every plot thread - but I also think that's not necessarily a bad thing in this kind of book.
So, in general, a highly entertaining read, and I will certainly be on the lookout for more of this author's books.
Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirahama - Vol 7-9:
Over the course of the second half of the year, I have completed volumes 7-9 of Witch Hat Atelier and am continuing to enjoy the complex, layered story of Coco and her involvement in witch training.
I love all the characters, there's a lot of emotional depth and intrigue, and I'm very interested to see where the story will go next.
My reading of these three volumes was spread out over a much longer period of time than my consumption of the first six volumes, so I didn't feel quite as engaged or connected to the story, but it's still really good.
Lonesome Village:
This is a computer game I discovered in a video of cozy farming/quest games on YouTube and I played through the main storyline during December. In the game, you play a young anthropomorphic coyote, who comes across a village where all the residents have been trapped on different levels of a very tall tower, and you have to solved puzzles to free them in turn. They then take up residence in the village again and provide quests for you to be able to gather resources, make money and progress the story.
I enjoyed it overall, but there were a lot of things about it that were very annoying and/or clunky:
* There was a chiming sound effect that went off with every click
* There was no to-do list of open quests, so if you forgot what a character wanted, you had to go back to where they were and ask them again.
* Characters often had quite lengthy dialogue to set up their quests, which was repeated every time you went back to them, either to check the requirements or to complete the quest
* The helper character in the magic mirror also said the same things over and over again in a way that was very annoying
* The fast travel mechanic wasn't introduced until about halfway through the main storyline - and then it involved so many steps and animations that it was actually quicker to walk across the whole map
* You need money to make tools and refine resources that are required for the later stages of the game - you can get money by completing quests for villagers, but you usually need money to obtain the items they are looking for (there is another way to make money, but it's not obvious and I only found it by accident)
All that said, the graphics are cute, the story is interesting, the puzzles were (mostly, but with a few annoying exceptions) pretty easy, but in a way that was satisfying, and I liked the combination and ratio of different activities (puzzles, quests, farming, foraging, grinding) the game required. It was also particularly useful that the chests were all connected (so any chest on the map gave access to all your collected supplies) and seemingly had infinite space.
At the point where I thought I was about to complete the main storyline, there was suddenly a very dramatic cut scene with a big reveal that had me exclaiming out loud in astonishment - and a whole new chapter started. Some aspects of the ultimate conclusion were a bit tricky (this was one area where you suddenly needed good manual dexterity and the ability to manipulate the controls really well under time pressure) but I was proud of myself when I defeated it! There were more dramatic and emotional revelations to come, which were quite dark for such a cutesy game - but I'm not sure the emotional arc of the protagonist was given enough time and space to really be resolved satisfactorily.
Still, overall, a good story and well executed in a lot of ways - though I'm not sure I'll be going back to it any time soon to continue with the grindy villager quests, now that I've finished the main plot.
