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The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss. After the initial surprise that the characters would intrude directly onto the narrative, the story settled into something fairly interesting. As a mash up of characters and descendants from 19th century literature it was surprisingly effective, but the finish is not very satisfying. And worse, the finish came at about three-quarters of the way through, with the final quarter dragging out plans for a future book. So a 3/5 if you only read the first three quarters, a 2/5 for the lot.
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley. A "Legion" of worlds made of regenerating flesh, served by the women that live in them. I found this is hard to rate. The multiple first-person narrative was at times quite irritating, and the story took a long time to settle in and get me involved. But I really liked that the setting was so different. A violent and messy story for the most part, quite gory in places, you spend a lot of the early part as confused as one of the protagonists. There is a huge scale to this story and the setting, and I'm not sure this came over as well as it could have, but I found it an intriguing collection of ideas. And not a male to be seen; not missing, just not part of this universe. That aspect lent a different perspective to some of the themes being explored. Somewhere around 3.5/5 I think.
Half a King by Joe Abercrombie. Heroic fantasy in a Viking-like setting. Well written but standard fantasy fare. Through the start you could see what was going to happen next. Through the middle there were a few more possibilities but no surprises. The finale contained a twist that was not obvious but was not overly surprising either. The array of characters are also pretty much standard fare (right down to the ones wearing the metaphorical red shirts). On the plus side it finishes up well enough that there is no compulsion to continue the series, which is good because I don't think I will. 3/5.
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