Month: January 2018

Recent Reads: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

Posted on by Pam



The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed this! I liked the people (aliens and humans alike), and thought it was a very good story!

We are following the adventures of the Wayfarer, a ship that makes tunnels through space that others can use afterwards. Ashby, the captain, Rosemary, the new clerk, running away from something, Sissex, the pilot, Ohan, the Navigator (capitals are intentional there), Kizzy and Jenks are techs, with Kizzy more the engineer, Jenks with the AI, Corbin is the algaeist (the ships are fueled by algae), and as the book says “a complete asshole”, and last but not least, Lovelace (Lovey), the AI.

In some ways, it felt like reading about Firefly, and you could label some of the characters like that, but really, it’s about what they do and what they go through, and how you are cheering them on.

Recent Reads: Day Shift

Posted on by Pam

Day Shift by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I do enjoy Charlaine Harris’ books! This was a good, quick read, because I didn’t want to put it down!

Barry Bellhop (from the Sookie books) makes a showing here, and we see Quinn (also from the Sookie books, a weretiger). I like the way Charlaine Harris has different streams of story going on at the same time, with some resolved quickly, and others you know you might not see the resolution in this book, or the next, but she will get there, and it’ll be worth the journey!

Happily, I have the next book, so I’m going to be starting that today!

Recent Reads: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

Posted on by Pam

The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Told from the point of view of three black women who are each in a different point in history, along with a goddess who inhabits each of them at various times, but not in chronological order.

We are taken to a plantation in 1804, where Mer is a slave who has is looked to for healing and midwifery, to Jeanne who is described as ‘ginger-coloured woman’, a dancer on stage and mistress to a poet, Charles Baudelaire in France in 1880s, and the third is Meritet, a half Greek, half Nubian slave who works in a tavern as a prostitute in 345 CE. The goddess who inhabits them is Ezilli, and she is searching for understanding of what she is, and what is happening.

I’ve seen a description of this book as fantasy folk-lore, and I think that’s a very good description! The author has been described as unashamedly sensual, and this is evident in Salt Roads, with sex scenes between Mer and her female lover and Jeanne and Charles, and saying any more would spoil the story!

I thought this was really interesting, and as I feel like I say with a lot of Sword and Laser books, not one I would probably have picked up on my own, but I enjoyed it.

So why Certainly Geeky?

Posted on by Pam

First, the backstory: I got married in December, and my new surname is Sartain.

We both love Lego, and this was a present at our wedding!  We restrained ourselves from building it right then and there!

I’ve been searching for a blog name that I could have on Facebook and Instagram, so I could say ‘yay, look at what I’ve written’, without spamming my friends and family, who might not be interested!

This blog used to be called ‘A few of my favourite things’, and other than being taken everywhere by everyone (and a great many variations!), I wanted something short and snappy, that was memorable, and some of my favourite blogs are Epbot, Random Nerdery, Boho Berry, Rock n Roll Bride or are people’s names, such as Caroline Hirons, and I’ve found all of them relatively easy to remember!

I was sitting at my laptop this morning, pootling about for names, and was thinking of Geek Out, because yes, I really do that, and I have lots of enthusiasm, I’m always smiling or giggling, and I love a lot of geeky things. But, that was taken, along with lots of other variations (can you see a pattern?).

I started looking at a dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and it went into the meaning behind some words, which made me wonder about the meaning behind Sartain, which, according to Ancestry.com is “English: nickname from Old French certeyn ‘self-assured’, ‘determined’. (The phonetic change of -er- to -ar- was a normal process in Middle English).” I was reading that, and playing with the name in my head, and came to Certain, and merged it with Geeky, and Certainly Geeky was born!

I want to use this blog to write more and to record the fun things that I’ve done and will do!

Recent Reads: Helliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss

Posted on by Pam

Helliconia Spring by Brian W. Aldiss

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a very different sci-fi book than I’m used to!

Other reviews mentioned that the planet Helliconia was the protagonist of the book, and that didn’t make sense to me, until I had read the book for a while.

The book is looking down on the planet of Helliconia, and showing us the changes that happen to the planet over the years, and so we see different people in power, different races, and we’re reminded all the time that every action has an impact on the future, and sometimes it takes us on a brief venture into that future, and tells us what happens, but then it might go back to the ‘present’, or we might have moved a couple of generations.

Recent Reads: Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

Posted on by Pam

Midnight Crossroad by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse books, and this made me want to read more Charlaine Harris books.

I read this book at about the same time in 2015 (odd, that!), and I enjoyed it then, but thought that was because it was because I enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse books, but actually, they’re not really alike at all.

These books have a cast of characters. Whilst we do concentrate a little more on Manfred’s point of view, it shifts around, whereas in Sookie books, we stayed with Sookie!

Midnight is a strange hamlet, where no one asks about your past, or your reasons for moving to this odd little place. Some of the characters you would recognise from other books, like Manfred andBobo, but otherwise, this is a new cast, but still in the world of Sookie Stackhouse, and Lily Bard (Harris’ other set of fantasy books).