{"id":734,"date":"2015-08-30T20:46:56","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T17:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suchwanderings.wordpress.com\/?p=734"},"modified":"2015-08-30T20:46:56","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T17:46:56","slug":"sunday-recs-court-of-fives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/2015\/08\/30\/sunday-recs-court-of-fives\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday recs: Court of Fives and other stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firstly: get yourself a copy of Kate Elliott’s newest book, Court of Fives<\/a>. I finally got myself one and glommed the book in a few breathless sessions. I would’ve read it in a single day (I got halfway through in a few hours on my first reading session) but I was helping people move on Fri & Sat, so no book marathon for me. Anyway! It’s definitely the kind of book you want to enjoy in long, deliciously breathless sessions. Here’s how Kate describes the book: <\/p>\n

I call this “Little Women meet American Ninja Warrior in a setting inspired by Greco-Roman Egypt” while the publisher has pitched it as “Little Women meets Game of Thrones meets The Hunger Games.” (source<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I could go on and on about how much I loved this book. \ud83d\ude00 I’m a huge fan of Kate Elliott’s work and look forward to her new releases. I was a bit apprehensive about the YA part, because in general I’m not a big YA fan – but Court of Fives<\/em> was just a damn good book, and the YA was mostly in the protagonist’s age and some of the conventions in the book. OK, so I guess the YA thing also meant that the awesome worldbuilding couldn’t be described in as much detail as Elliott usually likes to do (and which I like). But it was also cool to see how much can be revealed through rather little overt description. <\/p>\n

Things I loved: the worldbuilding (Ptolemaic Egypt creates great fodder for inspiration!); the sibling relationships (sisters being sisterly, yessss); the Fives game itself (great descriptions of action too); how the protagonist Jes kept on being sensible and making rational decisions despite being a teenager amid difficult circumstances. <\/p>\n

I wish the next book was out already! \ud83d\ude00 I loved the ending for CoF, but damn, it was a tantalising one.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In case you can’t get out and buy CoF right this minute, here are two delightful things to read in the meantime:<\/p>\n

Et je ne pleurais jamais les larmes cicatrisantes magiques; c\u2019est seulement un mensonge joli: Aarne-Thompson Index No. 310<\/a> by Elizabeth R. McClellan (in Niteblade<\/em>) – a great Rapunzel poem with a twist. I do love a good narrative poem.<\/p>\n

Stone Hunger<\/a> by N.K. Jemisin (in Clarkesworld<\/em>) – an excellent secondary-world story with creepy and compelling worldbuilding (as is usual for Jemisin – she has such good worldbuilding in all her novels too). After reading this and finding out that it was a sketch of sorts for the world of Jemisin’s newest novel The Fifth Season<\/a>, I got even more excited about reading said new novel. I asked my local library network to order the book and apparently three copies are making their way to three libraries. Yay!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

So many exciting novels coming out or just appeared! I’m especially excited about Aliette de Bodard’s The House of Shattered Wings<\/a>, Fran Wilde’s Updraft<\/a>, and Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown<\/a>. I wish I had more money so I could buy all the books, but I will ask my local library network to order them if nothing else – as in the case of The Fifth Season<\/em>, it’s so great that they’re very much open to ordering new books based on customer recommendations. I heart libraries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firstly: get yourself a copy of Kate Elliott’s newest book, Court of Fives. I finally got myself one and glommed the book in a few breathless sessions. I would’ve read it in a single day (I got halfway through in a few hours on my first reading session) but I was helping people move on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,35,30,6,19],"tags":[173,174,175,176,61,118,55,31,54,177],"class_list":["post-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-discussion","category-linkage","category-poetry","category-short-stories","tag-aliette-de-bodard","tag-court-of-fives","tag-elizabeth-mcclellan","tag-fran-wilde","tag-kate-elliott","tag-n-k-jemisin","tag-niteblade","tag-recs","tag-worldbuilding","tag-zen-cho"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/snuu.kapsi.fi\/saranorja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}