Austin Tooley

The shenanigans of a charismatic Count, ordered to live the rest of his life in a luxury hotel in the USSR.

Charming, transportive, and full of heart, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles follows the life of a leisurely Russian count who, after the Russian Revolution and following civil war, is sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Said “house” being the luxurious Hotel Metropol in Moscow.

The story of Count Rostov’s enduring stay in the Metropol spans decades. Witnessing the early days of the metamorphosed Russia and through the tumultuous, era-defining years that follow. Watching the world change as the protagonist makes a life for himself in the confines of the hotel feels similar to people-watching in an actual lobby. The guests who enter in 1922 are so different those who arrive in the middle of the century. As the values of the USSR spread, as wars unfold, as modern conveniences emerge, witnessing these shifts through Rostov’s eyes allows for interesting color and introspection. The count himself becomes something of an antique, and oddity of a bygone era, especially in the post-aristocratic Russia.

Counter to my expectations, Count Rostov–a man who has never worked a day in his life–is incredibly charismatic, introspective, and empathetic. Naturally, such a man finds friends in all corners of the Hotel Metropol. The attachment I developed for Rostov and his friends surprised me. I laughed, felt genuine joy and even heartache. Towles has talent for writing lovely characters.

If I had to quibble, it would be that the ending didn’t quite stick the landing for me. It felt a little too twee. The book is philosophical, humorous, and has plenty heart. It feels special. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I’ll just say I the conclusion felt ill-fitting. Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, but I found the ending less satisfying than the rest of the book.

To make sure we don’t end things on a minor chord, I will say that A Gentleman in Moscow inspired a great deal of curiosity in me for Russian art and history. I’ve started reading Anna Karenina and listening to Tchaikovsky. I’m on the search for more novels and non-fiction on turn of the century Russia. Count Rostov has a great love of literature music, and food. It’s hard for his loves to not rub off on the reader. I’ve even been prepping to make a very special French recipe mentioned in the book.

If American Gods is a cross-country roadtrip of a book, Anansi Boys is a commute.

My least favorite Neil Gaiman book? If not least favorite, it’s right next to Stardust. Gaiman often writes variants fish out of water stories of a normal person becoming entangled in the surreal. This book was me realizing it’s his go-to story structure. I love American Gods, Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Neverwhere, but Anansi Boys fell short for me.

Maybe my disappointment comes from my previous experience with the setting of Anansi Boys? Although it’s a very different tone, the book is semi-marketed as a sequel to American Gods. Anansi feels more akin to Good Omens, but without the cleverness. It tried a little too much for dry humor, a little too hard at the end to bring in the surreal. The book lacked the dark charm and mystery of its predecessor. I imagine Neil Gaiman luxuriating in writing American Gods. Making his publisher sweat with the pace he wrote; moseying from one paragraph to the next. A process that took a couple years and maybe a few roadtrips. Anansi Boys felt like he wrote it on summer holiday. It’s not that it was bad read, I just expect so much from a Gaiman book. It was a letdown after the highs of his other stories.

The first draft of the end of the world.

I’ve read Stuart Turton’s other two books and loved them; a Groundhog’s Day murder mystery and a haunted martime thriller. Both books were so unique in their premise. His latest book is no exception to that, but interesting circumstances fail to make up for uneven execution. As someone who enjoyed his previous novels, I think this book felt like a draft. It needed a couple more rounds kneading and proofing.

At times it seemed like Stuart was writing what would happen in a movie, rather a book. Leaps in narration left me confused as to where something was occurring, who was doing what. I can imagine seeing exactly what he wrote in the format of a movie making more sense. The book would flip between first and third person in a confusing manner. Narration was mostly from the point of view of an omnipotent being, but would sometimes for a paragraph be the perspective of a different character. These flips in narration were so sparing that they seemed like they were left in on accident. Like at a previous time Turton changed his mind from multiple first person POV’s to a single omnipotent one. The protagonist’s frequent “aha!” moments often felt unearned. Some characters were overly flat, others seemed to just pop in out of nowhere or vanish. There was an instance where “he” was written when it clearly should have been “her”. The further I read, the more baffling I found chunks of the plot. By the end, I didn’t really care for the overly complex details of the mystery.

While there is a lot to deride, I did love the mysterious setting. The mother-daughter relationship was nice. Figuring out what happened to the world, this island, the elders, was interesting. Turton is great at unique ideas. A great story could be told on that island, with those characters, and that narrator, but the execution just wasn’t what I was expecting.

Empathy for the Buggers.

I’ve dabbled in Adrian Tchaikovsky’s one-off novels, but never gotten into his grand space bound epics. After reading Service Model, I figured what the heck, I’m a big nerd, this guy writes some interesting stuff, I’ll try out this grand Children of Time series of his that keeps popping up. Hoo boy, this book was not at all what I expected. I’ve read some Tchaikovksy and enjoyed it. The novels were always fun little stories that had great moments, but were never something that I really loved. Children of Time was outstanding.

The book alternates between what feels like a nature documentary narrated by David Attenborough and the life of a historian, on of the last members of humanity, as the species slowly travel across galaxy. The remains of civilization are on a single ship, searching for a new home, in an out of stasis and situations arise. Gaps between our historian protagonists sleep can span hundreds of years. At first he is older than his peers. Over time, his peers are woken up more frequently and stay out longer. In the span of two weeks of waking, he sees friends younger than him become elderly. What felt like closing and opening his eyes, were literal generations. Every time he surfaces like a submarine to find his world changed.

The nature documentary chapters were unexpected. They follow lives and exploits of jumping spiders. Spiders that through a series accidents, are larger, smarter, and inherit an anciently terraformed world. Following the arachnids throughout similarly large stretches of time, I found myself cheering them on. They befall and surpass a variety of existential threats throughout the millennia. Throughout the book, there is a sense that conflict will eventually arise between these two species over the one habitable planet. As a reader, I feared the conflict. I had empathy for both sides. Two-legged and eight.

While this is the first book of a series, I am perfectly happy to stop right here and not read the sequels. I have this fiction anxiety where I fret the author will “ruin” my beloved world, characters, story. I convince myself that I’m happy not knowing everything, not knowing what might happen. I think Children of Time is a perfect read all on its own. Maybe I will get over it for this series and continue on. I guess time will tell.

A robot butler’s sad, comedic search for purpose.

I went in to Service Model blind, knowing nothing of the book and having only read one other book by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Elder Race, I recommend it). The novel follows a robotic personal valet, a real gentleman’s Gentlerobot, as it discovers the world.

Service Model reminded me of Douglas Adams at times. There’s a hilarious absurdity to most events and dialog, while also being sandwiched by tragedy and introspection. The book straddles the line of a somber setting and still makes me chuckle.

The friendliest necromancer in all of space.

Each of the novels in Tasmyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series has maintained the same structure. The story follows the point of view of a baffled protagonist, who like the audience, is not quite sure what is happening. They’re just as lost as the reader when big proper nouns are thrown around. Then, after reading three quarters of the book, grabbing on to every bit of narrative lore like its wreckage from a ship, trying to stay afloat, it all (mostly) comes together. Both the reader and the protagonist have enough puzzle pieces to finally understand what occurred in the previous 300 pages, and take action towards a thrilling resolution.

With each book having a different protagonist, you would think this path old. Muir does such a wonderful job at writing a uniquely perplexed protagonist in Gideon, Harrow, and Nona. It seems like an incredibly difficult trick to have three whole books, each with a different main character, each not really having a clue about the goings on, and then for understanding to flow right along with the reader in a natural way. It’s fun to theorize and guess. The mysterious nature of the books draw you in. You get to the end of the book, and you contemplate re-reading the entire thing with your current knowledge to see what you’re uninitiated eyes missed. Heck, you contemplate reading the book before it for the same reason.

Nona the Ninth was good. I loved Nona. I loved the family she is surrounded by. I loved her friends. It was a friendlier, childlike point of view in a very anxious setting. So far I’ve enjoyed the second and third books much more than the first. I look forward to the final book in the series. If you made it to Harrow the Ninth, why not keep going?

Well… Tasmyn Muir delivered. For the prior book in the series, Gideon the Ninth, I ragged on the lack of a promised “weird” story. The frequently mentioned, quick description of “lesbian necromancers in space” seemed to not quite check all the boxes. Well I’m happy to report that Harrow the Ninth is weird. And oh my, is it weird in such a good way. There’s also lesbian necromancers and they’re actually in space!

I liked the first book just fine. I had a few complaints, but it was a good read. The sequel was a ride. Unreliable narration, a chronologically shuffled story, weird reality bending plot devices, disgusting body horror magic. All that and we get to follow a great character as the protagonist.

If you do read Gideon the Ninth, quickly follow it up with Harrow. You’ll be just as confused as you were for most of the first book, but how the theories in your head will build, shatter, and build again. It was a great read.

Diablo IV necromancers in space.

There’s this constant cicada-esque buzz around this book. It’s weird. It’s lesbian necromancers in space. It’s if Diablo IV’s necromancers (you know, blood, bones, and gross stuff) were the ruling class of a galactic empire. I did not expect this mashup of dark fantasy and sci-fi to be goofy. I also did not expect half the book to be a murder mystery. Despite the hype and wayward marketing, I enjoyed the book.

On first opening the book you are greeted by pages of dramatis personae. Pages of inscrutable names and titles like Harrowhark Nonagesimus, heir to the House of the Ninth, Reverend Daughter of Drearburh. Thoroughly disheartened and preparing for some real serious fantasy (and even more mysterious proper nouns), I was fairly shocked to meet Gideon, the titular protagonist. Expecting self-serious high fantasy, Gideon’s goofy attitude and modern humor was not what I expected from the book. Sure we get a big fat gothic fantasy burger, but it is embedded with that contrasting, but strangely delicious peanut butter flavor that Gideon provides (yes, burgers with peanut butter are incredible). Gideon is a plucky, foul mouthed, irreverent member of a cult inhabiting a small cold planet. The first sentence of the book tells you that in her planned escape, the three things she packed were her sword, shoes, and her dirty magazines. I was initially off put by Gideon’s goofiness. It felt out of place. I didn’t find her quips funny, but they didn’t exactly bother me either. Over the course of the book I grew to appreciate her and her silly, Michael Scott quoting self.

The book starts slow, with Gideon’s attempted escape from the Ninth House (that cult I mentioned), introducing Harrow, the heir of said cult. From birth, Harrow has tormented Gideon and she does a wonderful job at helping the reader to dislike her as well. Once the book is on its way, we follow Gideon and Harrow as they hang around an ancient haunted castle with all the other necromancer twenty-somethings in the solar system.

I liked several of the characters, but boy, even by the end of the book I was confused on who was who. Yes, each character has a fantastical name like Silas Octakiseron, but they also have titles, nicknames, and and house names. When you think you have one character’s name down, they are then be referred to by any of their other names. I guess those dramatis personae pages are there for a reason, though I don’t think a book should make a reader frequently refer to them. There’s this persistent mist of confusion throughout the book. Some of that confusion is intended, as we’re reading Gideon’s perspective, who has no clue what is happening around her. Apart from Gideon’s perspective and the naming issues, more confusion came from a semi-frequent feeling that I had accidentally skipped a page. It occurred maybe three times, but those three times felt noticeable enough that I went back and re-read bits to make sure I really hadn’t skipped anything.

Despite the confusion, I enjoyed Tamsyn Muir’s world. A galactic empire run by necromancers rules. The fact that there is a necromancer upper class and one faction of that class dresses like goth skeletons is hilarious, and the book knows it. Gideon talks about how dumb it is frequently and I love it. Muir is incredibly creative. I enjoyed the evolving, volitle relationship between Gideon and Harrow. I loved following Gideon around that strange, dilapidated castle meeting the other guests. Discovering hidden rooms and strange facilities. I loved so many of the weird little lines Muir gave to Gideon:

The violet of her eyes was dried-up flowers; her mouth was the color and softness of rocks.

Things were happening too much.

She kept looking at Gideon with the screw-ed up eyes of someone who had been handed an egg for safekeeping and was surrounded by egg-hunting snakes.

He gave the impression of being the guy fun sought out for death.

The man who’d put the sword to her neck was uncomfortably buff. He had upsetting biceps. He didn’t look healthy; he looked like a collection of lemons in a sack.

Lesbian necromancers in space. That’s all technically true, but not what I took away from the book. A character or two might be lesbian, but I wouldn’t say it’s a core part of the story. It fills in the picture, rounds out Gideon. In space? I mean, they talk about other planets a bit, They do travel through space for a couple pages, but most of the book takes place in one location. That tagline is eye catching marketing, but the book is more than the tagline while also not quite having much to do with it at all.

I enjoyed my time with the Gideon and Harrow. Despite some confusion. Despite some Calvin Ball with the murder mystery. Despite the initial off-putting goofiness. Even despite parts reminding me of playing a video game (collecting the things, going to locations, hitting the three glowing weak spots). Oof, writing all that makes it seem like I didn’t like the book. If you want read about some space wizards doing some disgusting bone, blood, and flesh magic while goofing around and solving mysteries, read this book. Heck, if you just like having a good time, read this book.

Serial killer victims support group.

This has been my favorite book I’ve read so far in 2024. Normally I’d save such a declarative statement for the end. I had to put it out there early. Just go read it. Alright, let’s move on.

My Murder follows Lou, the victim of a serial killer, brought back to life. Well, cloned with most of the memories of her previous self, the “other her” from before the murder. The book starts about 6 months after being brought back. “Brought back” being an uncommon, weird thing in this world. Uncommon and frowned upon so much that it has only been done a few times with horrible rich people. Yet her and several other victims of a serial killer were brought back and now meet once a week in a support group. Each of the women in the group are still mostly what they remember themselves to be. But how could they not be different after a violent death and a very public second chance at life?

I love the writing of Lou. Author Katie Williams wrote her so well. Light sarcasm, the good kinds of puns, and depth all around. Reading Lou’s thoughts as she works through current and previous her’s relationships feels relatable. Lou is a new parent. Lou is a spouse. Lou has a job. Lou is trying to socialize as an adult. Lou is a murder victim. Okay, I don’t relate to that one. It all felt genuine as she reexamines herself and her place after returning from the dead.

I think what I appreciate most about the author’s writing, is that she takes her time on Lou’s relationships. She gives them a tangible nature. Lou feels like someone who is actually a new mother. There’s a spector of postpartum depression she (her “other her”) experienced. She mentions the intense fears, the odd little habits, that bright sunrise of new, incredibly focused love. She feels like someone who has been in relationships, experience in the ebb and flow of a long term commitment. She feels like an emotionally intelligent 30 something adult.

There’s this funny trick that with this book. It is going to be one of my favorite sci-fi books of the year (favorite books in general too), but it is in no way marketed as, or hinted at being a part of the genre. Cloning, VR, autonomous vehicles, and many other bits of set dressing are present, but none of that takes priority. No technical gibberish or futurish proper nouns are thrown around. Yes some of those things enable the story, but Lou and her new life are front and center.

This was a great book. When I picked it up, pages would fly by. I’d recommend it to just about anyone. For me, it feels like it had a little more weight because I am a recent parent, I love sci-fi, and have recently read a few murdery books. But in no way do any of those have to apply to you.

A fairytale of a playboy wizard, a woman with the trauma of being the eldest sibling, and a fire demon that will curse your bacon.

The first Studio Ghibli film I watched was when I was around age 20. I have no nostalgia for Hayo Miyazaki’s work, but I have loved each of his films that I’ve experienced. Even though I never watched Totoro or Kiki as a kid, his movies still evoke some strange sort of nostaliga. His movies definitely have a range, from the bittersweet tears of The Wind Rises to the gentle Kiki’s Delivery Service, but they all have a surrealness to them. That surreal aura bleeds into in a general cozy feeling, and you know I’m all about that cozy feeling.

After a wet, cold day, we decided it was prime Ghibli weather and we’d spend some time with Howl’s Moving Castle. It had been a decade or so since I last watched it, and man that is just a lovely movie. On watching, I noticed a little blurb that the movie was based on a book with the same name. About an hour after the movie ended, I started reading the book from 1986 by Diana Wynne Jones.

There are many similarities, but far more differences in the book from the movie. The Howl and Sophie from the movie are more gentle, more regal than their page-based counterparts. I love both versions. The Howl and Sophie of the book are less fairytale-esque characters, more flawed (and more charming for those flaws). The movie is a remix of the the book’s story, and while I was surprised by a few bits, most of the new beats were predictable. I had a few issues with clarity of action and characters, but overall it was nice 300-something page children’s book. It was pleasant. It had that coziness that Miyazaki brings to his movies. I appreciated the additional depth to Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer over the move. They stand as two distinct things in my mind. I’ll end up reading this with the kids at bedtime, and enjoy visiting them again.