The Bombadilius Blog

I finished Legends and Lattes by @travis_baldree This book has been the darling of Fantasy Fans since it’s release last year with many praising its “cosy fantasy” story as a nice tonic to the constant slew of Epic/Grimdark Fantasy. Being in the need for some cosiness I dove right in. The story that Baldree has written here brings me to doubt this was his debut, as Legends and Lattes has the confidence of an author who has been writing for decades. The characters are front and centre in this story, a requirement for the cosiness factor, and if they were lacking in proper development this would absolutely kill the book. Baldree manages to engage the reader in the first few chapters and you’re quickly fully engaged in wanting to find out how the orc Viv is able to make a success of opening her coffee shop and leave her warlike past behind her. Baldree follows in the footsteps of Fantasy authors like Terry Pratchett who wrote the characters as the focus of the story and let the world develop around them as opposed to vice versa. Sometimes it’s nice to read epic Fantasy where a gigantic dragon descends on a team of warriors who have fairly thin characterisation but you don’t care because the set piece is just too cool. But where Fantasy really shines is in stories that focus on the individual warriors and what they experience in the lead-up to and aftermath of that fight with the dragon. And when the big dragon is a particularly fussy clientele I’m reminded of the idea that, just because Fantasy deals with Orcs, magic and giant talking mice that bake pastries, doesn’t mean that there also isn’t room for coffee and good vibes too. Read this book if you want a Fantasy themed cwtch as they would say in Wales. Thank you to @megolass for getting the lovely @thebrokennbinding edition for Valentine’s Day. See in this picture my attempt at making Thimblets which appear in the book with a recipe! #bookstagram #bookstagramuk #books #fantasybooks #fantasy #legendsandlattes #travisbaldree https://www.instagram.com/p/CplMO1TMmdX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Advantages of having a fiancée that owns a bookshop? Rum off one of your favourite authors! Thank you so much @baaronovitch, it’s delicious! #bookstagram #books #benaaronovitch #riversoflondon #petergrant https://www.instagram.com/p/Co5M_GGMJz4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I’m halfway through the Captain Britain Omnibus. With over 1200 pages this is beefy comic so I though it best to break this one up a bit. Starting in 1976, Captain Britain follows young Brian Braddock who, after being left at death’s door by the villainous Reaver, is granted the choice to become the greatest hero that Britain has ever seen, Captain Britain! Rooted in the mythology of Britannia, Captain Britain isn’t simply a Captain America analogue. He’s offered his power by Merlyn himself and fights alongside supernatural elements. He’s a more uncertain, untested hero at this point in his career and more inclined to make mistakes. However he’s humbler and less bombastic than his American counterparts, which, in its way, says something of perceptions of British culture at the time. These early stories were released weekly and therefore follow a similar pattern; Brian Braddock on an adventure, Bad Guy shows up/Bad thing happens, Captain Britain leaps into action, Fails, Gets back Up, And finally beats the bad guy. These were fairly typical of weekly releases and by no means are they bad. They’re just not the most creative with what the comic book format can do. However they lay a lot of ground work for who the character would become and the people Captain Britain would work with. Originally written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Herb Trimpe, Captain Britain goes through many changes of Writer/Artist team, and like other characters some creative teams get him and others don’t. For example, the later issues in this period written by Jim Lawrence weren’t the best. Lawrence’s other work at the time was the James Bond comic adaptations and I realised that Captain Britain was acting in a cocky manner akin to Bond which simply didn’t fit the character well. Abrupt or weird changes in character are fairly regular with legacy characters in comics though and this a risk one can end up making when following a character across their career or reading them in Omnibuses. Captain Britain is a fun character and I’m looking forward to reading into the weirdness of the 80s! #bookstagram #comics #captainbritain #marvelcomics @marvel_uk https://www.instagram.com/p/Co2ocgHsPqg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

It’s so beautiful! Can’t wait to dive into this @thebrokennbinding edition of Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree. Happy Valentine’s Day and thank you to @megolass__ for getting me this lovely book! #bookstagram #fantasy #travisbaldree #legendsandlattes #torbooks #thebrokenbinding @torbooks https://www.instagram.com/p/CoqWKQEoZRC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I finished Amongst Our Weapons by @baaronovitch and it immediately started floating round the house! I loved this story. This is the 12th book in the Rivers of London (or Peter Grant) series and returning to it is like a warm blanket! As an individual novel this book is a solid story. It’s a decent murder mystery that develops from a simple locked room drama into a full blown conspiracy involving a religious cult from the 80s, the Spanish Inquisition and the North! The work that Aaronovitch is doing in developing the series, however, is incredible. The characters have evolved in numerous ways from the first book, which is precisely what you want from a long-running series, but Aaronovitch strikes the right balance with all of them. In a series that deals with a varying menagerie of different magical elements the real quality is the humanity that everyone has, magical or non-magical. The temptation with a lot of “urban-fantasy” (as this series has often been pigeonholed into) is to heighten the magical side to contrast with the mundanity of the humans but Aaronovitch is able to make the magical mundane in a way that complements the police procedural side of the stories. You could genuinely believe there is an branch of the Met police that has to deal with “weird bollocks” and that Aaronovitch is simply writing fan-fiction about it. With an easy prose style, humour and an abundance of mysteries to solve, I’d recommend this book and series to anyone who always thought that Practhett’s Watch series would do well in a modern day setting! @gollancz #bookstagram #books #riversoflondon #petergrant #amongstourweapons https://www.instagram.com/p/Cofp-JVsPBA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I finished The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. This is Vonnegut’s second published book and it didn’t take him very long in his career to find his voice. The short paragraphs, snappy sentences, black humour and satirical wit are all on show here, it’s astounding that he was able to develop his unique style so early in his career. In this book, billionaire Winston Niles Rumfoord flies his personal spaceship through a chrono-synclastic infundibulum which scatters him across space from the Sun to Betelgeuse. Whenever he crosses with a planet’s orbit he appears there for however long the planet resides in his path, but the upshot is that he exists across all of time and, essentially, can tell the future. The main topic dealt with in this book is the question of free will. Rumfoord can perceive the future and, in his own way, is reporting on events that he can see will happen. By doing so he sets people on the path that will end with them encountering those events. Regardless of whether the people accept fate or rail against it they will always end up encountering said events. This is only complicated when Rumfoord decides to lie, knowing that, no matter what the person decides, they will always end up in the same place eventually. The concept of lack of free will is not presented by Vonnegut as depressing or terrifying but simply a statement of fact. Vonnegut concludes by making the case that, whilst humanity may be destined to remain on a train track towards inevitability, the best anyone can do is to try to make the best of it and “love whoever is around to be loved”. This is a typical ethos in Vonnegut’s work and one that makes him one of my favourite writers. The idea that, despite the complexities and horrendous things that happen in an, often, cold and uncaring universe, the one true thing that matters is people being kind to one another. That’s an ethos I’m sure we can all get behind! Read this if you like stories low on stakes but high in sci-fi concept with a satirical twist. #bookstagram #books #scifi #kurtvonnegut #vonnegut #thesirensoftitan https://www.instagram.com/p/CoDm9MJsDBq/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I read Deep Country by Neil Ansell. I picked up this book on a whim last time I visited Hay-On-Wye and thought I’d give it a go. Encouraged by one of the reviews on the cover that called Ansell a “latter day Thoreau” I was expecting a short book with some philosophical treatises on the nature of humanity when reflecting in an environment stripped of the comforts of modernity. Of that assumption I got……a short book. Whichever reviewer likened Ansell to Henry David Thoreau was doing them both a disservice as, beyond the concept of Ansell retreating to a remote cabin, there are no similarities. Less a political statement, the author goes off to live a life of solitude in the Cambrian mountains on a whim and soon discovers the joy of living a quieter existence. Given time away from distractions, Ansell is able to dedicate his free time to familiarising himself with the wildlife, particularly the birds! Oh boy does he talk about birds a lot! The book starts off with some lyrical chapters about nature and humanity but starts to drip feed in paragraphs about the feathery visitors that he received in his time in the cabin. This soon becomes a torrent of bird related facts that I was left wondering when he was going to move onto literally any other animal. After a short section that started off with him hiking over the moorland which quickly switched to him talking solely about a ptarmigan he’d disturbed, I had to check who else had read this book and I soon noticed that it had received rave reviews from RSPB associated groups and bird spotters. Not so much a latter day Thoreau, Ansell is more a latter day Emily Williamson (who was one of the founders of the RSPB, I literally looked her up for the sake of this review)! Whilst his writing is lyrical and transported me to a beautiful place, I couldn’t help but feel, by the end of the book, I was reading the chapters of Moby Dick that focused on the whaling industry when I’d been told that there was a really good story about the folly of man and a bloke called Ishmael! Read this is you like birds! #bookstagram #books #naturewriting https://www.instagram.com/p/CnuVeO3shr6/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Ending 2022 on a high note I finished Dan Simmon’s The Terror. Taking inspiration from a real-life failed expedition, Simmons weaves an intricate tale of human experience in an extreme environment. The two ships HMS’ Erebus and Terror set off in 1845 to discover the North-West Passage (a safe route through the Arctic) and become frozen in for 3 years. Dwindling supplies, freezing temperatures, illness and lowering morale all bring the crews to the limits of survival adding to which a malevolent force is picking them all off, one-by-one. The Terror brilliantly blends real events, speculated events and outright horror to form a compelling novel of human desperation. Much in the way that Moby Dick spends a large portion of the book world-building, The Terror has brief moments of action sandwiched by many chapters of incremental change. This never became a chore to read, however, and only heightened the sheer horror of the terrible events when the crews do encounter them. Because of the pace of this weighty tome, I spent the better part of December reading it. But I managed to cram the last 300-odd pages into one day yesterday just so I could start the year with a new book! I thoroughly enjoyed this one and will be recommending it to everyone! Happy New Year folx! #bookstagram #books #theterror #dansimmons #dansimmonsterror https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm4bbHysbGi/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I finished Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir! I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, as the previous two in this series had been my favourites of last year. After a few delays and a lengthy read was it worth the wait? I can honestly say it’s rare that I read a book that I have no idea what’s going on and enjoy it as much as I have Nona. The world is ending, the invading forces are fighting and hordes of the dead march on the planet but that doesn’t matter to Nona! She just wants to plan her party and hang out with her cool friends! This is definitely a continuation of the series and not Muir branching out into a YA fan fiction of her own work! Harrow proved that Muir could hoodwink the readers. Nona shows that she can do it again in such a new way that I often had to suspend any kind of attempts at guessing where the story was going and just let it take me where it wanted! This worked well to put me in the shoes of Nona who is, without too many spoilers, brand new to a lot of things in the world and, like me as the reader, is just here for the vibes. This is part of why I like Muir as a writer. She feels confident enough in herself and her audience to say “Look, this is weird, but you’ve put enough faith in me for two other books so just bear with me” and still write that meta element compellingly into a story whilst crafting a damned good tale with characters you still give a damn about! Anyone who reads Sci-Fi and Fantasy series’ should be aware of series burn-out. Part of that is that writers have these big overarching plot lines to deal with in multi-book stories that the individual books can often feel like stepping stones just to get to that last book. Terry Pratchett got away from this by writing multiple stories in the same world on a rotating cycle. Muir has got away from this by focusing on the ongoing story in her series but reinventing the wheel whilst she still drives it along. It can be very jarring but it’s ridiculously fun! Shoutout to @queerlituk for supplying me this book! They’re a great shop in Manchester and they do postal orders too! #bookstagram #tamsynmuir #lockedtomb #nonatheninth https://www.instagram.com/p/Cmg-jJrM4ML/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

It was my birthday the other week so naturally I got gifted some books! Here’s just a few! Looking forward to diving into all of these. #bookstagram #books #tomcox #rfkuang #amyjeffs @historia_prints @21stcenturyyokel https://www.instagram.com/p/CmE4Ts8MoE-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Some rainy/misty pictures. Even in rainy weather, I still love this part of the country! #lakedistrict #lakedistrictnationalpark #holiday (at The Lake District) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClDmJYiMPEa/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Hardknott Pass and Roman Fort. #lakedistrict #lakedistrictnationalpark #hardknottpass #hardknottromanfort (at Hardknott Pass) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClDkR9GMQsS/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Just @megolass__ in The Lake District! #lakedistrict #lakedistrictnationalpark #holiday (at Lake District) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClCqlySIc3O/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Caves and Quarries of The Lake District. #thelakedistrict #lakedistrict #lakedistrictnationalpark #cathedralcave #rydalcaves (at Lake District) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClCp2VhIP85/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

In October I went to the Lake District with @megolass__ Because I am bad at updating my socials I will now post some pictures a month later! #lakedistrict #lakedistrictnationalpark #wastwater #buttermere #holiday (at The Lake District) https://www.instagram.com/p/ClCpD3qorDy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=