#emily hamilton

[gollancz]

I forgot to post anything for Pride month during Pride month but that's because we're so dedicated to LGBTQ+ fiction that every month is Pride month over at Gollancz towers (also my baby is teething and has hit sleep regression and I have lost my only recently regained grasp on the passage of time, I blinked and June had gone)

Anyway the latest installment in our Lesbians In Space collection is out now! THE STARS TOO FONDLY is a space adventure with a very sexy hologram. Like STAR TREK: PRODIGY. Except the crew are adults and one of them is a disaster lesbian who accidentally falls in love with the sexy hologram.

[lgbtqreads]

New Releases: June 11, 2024

Middle Grade Camp Prodigy by Caroline Palmer After attending an incredible concert, Tate Seong is inspired to become a professional violist. There’s just one problem: they’re the worst musician at their school. Tate doesn’t even have enough confidence to assert themself with their friends or come out as nonbinary to their family, let alone attempt a solo anytime soon. Things start to look up when…

[yourfavebooklrsfavebooklr]

New Releases of June!

[quillandqueer]

Book Post | The Stars Too Fondly

In her breathtaking debut—part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com—Emily Hamilton tells a tale of galaxy-spanning friendship, improbable love, and found family.

So, here’s the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn’t mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace, but then the stupid dark-matter engine started on its own. Now these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri and unable to turn around while being harangued by a hologram that has the face and snide attitude of the ship’s missing captain, Billie.

Cleo has dreamt of being an astronaut all her life, and Earth is a lost cause at this point, so this should be one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about. But as the ship travels deeper into space, the laws of physics start twisting; old mysteries come crawling back to life; and Cleo’s initially combative relationship with Billie turns into something deeper and more desperate than either woman was prepared for. From: @gollancz

[books-to-add-to-your-tbr]

Title: The Stars Too Fondly

Author: Emily Hamilton

Series or standalone: standalone

Publication year: 2024

Genres: fiction, science fiction, romance, LGBT+

Blurb: So, here's the thing: Cleo and her friends really, truly didn't mean to steal this spaceship. They just wanted to know why, twenty years ago, the entire Providence crew vanished without a trace, but then the stupid dark-matter engine started on its own. Now, these four twenty-somethings are en route to Proxima Centauri and unable to turn around while being harangued by a hologram that has the face and snide attitude of the ship's missing captain, Billie. Cleo has dreamt of being an astronaut all her life, and Earth is a lost cause at this point, so this should be one of those blessings in disguise that people talk about...but as the ship travels deeper into space, the laws of physics start twisting, old mysteries come crawling back to life, and Cleo's initially combative relationship with Billie turns into something deeper and more desperate than either woman was prepared for.

[madlovenovelist]

Most Anticipated New Book Releases June 2024

There was a substantial but not ridiculous new release list for June 2024 to file through. Maybe I’m in a bit of a mood, or there weren’t many titles that I found appealing, because there were only three that I definitely want to get my hands on… the rest sound interesting but given I’m now on a book buying ban, I’m not sure if I’ll pick up. But still I find the premise intriguing. With four…

[claudia1829things]

"DAVID COPPERFIELD" (2000) Review

"DAVID COPPERFIELD" (2000) Review

For the past eight to nine months, I have been increasingly obsessed with Charles Dickens . . . namely television and movie adaptations of his novels and stories. Many may not find this odd, but I do, considering my previous disregard of his writing. Yes, I have seen various Dickens adaptations over the years. But for nearly a year, I have viewed many Dickens adaptations with a vengeance, including the 2000 made-for-television adaptation of his 1850 novel, "DAVID COPPERFIELD".

This adaptation of "David Copperfield" was a joint American-Irish production that had two Britons - John Davis and Greg Smith; along with an American named Robert A. Halmi serving as the film's producers. However, the director, Peter Medak, shot the movie in Ireland. Starring Hugh Dancy in the title role, "DAVID COPPERFIELD" told the story of an English author living in Switzerland, as he recounts his life up to that point from his childhood to early adulthood.

While living in Switzerland, David Copperfield has a chance encounter with his stepfather, the brutal Edward Murdstone, who seemed to be courting a wealthy young Englishwoman. David uses this encounter to write his autobiography, beginning with his birth some six months after his father's death. David recalls his widowed mother and the family's kind housekeeper Clara Peggotty raising him in an ideal setting. Following his and Peggotty's visit to the latter's family in Yarmouth, they return to discover Mrs. Copperfield's marriage to the harsh Mr. Murdstone. They also meet the latter's equally loathsome sister, Jane Murdstone. After a physical encounter with Mr. Murdstone, the latter enrolls David into a boarding school under a ruthless headmaster named Mr. Creakle. This decision sets David's journey in motion in which he makes new friends, forms new enemies and finds love as he matures into adulthood.

Dickens had regarded his 1850 novel as one of his favorite, regarding it as a strong similarity to his own life. Knowing a bit about the author's life, I found this assessment of his a bit hard to swallow. Perhaps this was wishful thinking on Dickens' part? Who knows. But I must admit that his story seemed first-class and the beginning of a more mature approach to his writing. This 2000 television movie seemed to reflect both qualities of Dickens' novel. Although I believe "DAVID COPPERFIELD" seems like a very faithful adaptation of the novel, I believe it is not as close to the latter as some might have believed it should.

I had a few issues with the movie. One, I believe it had made the mistake of closely following the 1935 movie adaptation, produced by David O. Selznick. I thought it had merely paid lip service to the story arc involving David's schoolfriend James Steerforth and Emily Peggotty and her family. In fact, most of the story involving this arc happened off-screen, much to my disappointment. Also, screenwriter John Goldsmith had reduced law clerk Uriah Heep's complex embezzlement scheme to a simple one involving stolen diamonds. Perhaps that is why this particular plotline seemed as if it had come out of the blue to simply serve as the character's downfall. In fact, the movie's last twenty-to-thirty minutes seemed very rushed to me. I also had one or two issues regarding the casting, but I will later touch upon it.

Despite my issues with parts of the movie's screenplay, I cannot deny that I had enjoyed "DAVID COPPERFIELD". I realized this is not the first or last adaptation of Dickens' novel, but it proved to be the first adaptation I have viewed. Like I said . . . I enjoyed it. Between Goldsmith's screenplay and Peter Medak's direction, I believe the movie took care to set up David's story as a flashback, using his encounter with his old foe as a means to kick start the narrative. "DAVID COPPERFIELD" proved to be a solid, yet entertaining story about the protagonist's coming-of-age, through his experiences - good, bad and tragic, and the people he met. I honestly thought I would be bored with this movie at least thirty minutes into the story. But I found myself both intrigued and entertained.

Also, it seemed a miracle that the David Copperfield character had not been overshadowed by the more colorful ones that appeared in this story. One has to credit Hugh Darcy for his skillful, yet emotional portrayal of the movie's protagonist. The actor had received a few negative reviews from critics who thought he had given a weak performance. I . . . have no idea on how to respond to that. I was more than satisfied with his performance.

"DAVID COPPERFIELD" also featured some very competent performances from the rest of the cast. Max Dolbey proved to be effective as the young David. Both Anthony Andrews and Eileen Atkins provided plenty of subtle menace as the cruel Murdstone siblings. Both Emily Hamilton and Julie Cox gave charming performances as David's two potential love interests - Agnes Wickfield and Dora Spinlow. Judy Cornwell and Nigel Davenport gave skillful performances as the Copperfields' housekeeper Clara Peggotty and her solid and dependable brother, Dan Peggotty. Dudley Sutton proved to be both charming and eccentric as Aunt Betsy Trotwood's close friend and tenant. The movie also featured solid performances from the likes of Lesley Manville, Oliver Ford Davies, Edward Hardwicke, Freddie Jones and Simon Delaney.

The two Americans in the cast for "DAVID COPPERFIELD" - Sally Field and Michael Richards - had received a good deal of criticism for their performances. Frankly, I can honestly say that such criticism were unwarranted. At least in my eyes. Granted, it seemed odd hearing that comical voice emitting from Field's mouth, when she first appeared as Aunt Betsey Trotwood. But in the end, I rather enjoyed her performance. I also enjoyed Michael Richards' performance as the genial, yet unreliable law clerk Wilkins Micawber. But I must admit there were a few times when the actor had allowed his Cosmo Kramer character from the television series, "SEINFELD" creep into his performance every now and then. Paul Bettany made a first-rate James Steerforth. It seemed a pity that the movie had given him very little screen time. I also feel the same about Sarah Farooqui and Anna Maguire, who had portrayed both the adult and young Emily Piggotty. We finally come to Frank McCusker's performance as the villain in the story's second half - Uriah Heep. I thought McCusker gave a skillful portrayal of the character. But at the same time, I found his performance rather exaggerated at times . . . bordering on cartoonish.

"DAVID COPPERFIELD" featured some lovely cinematography, thanks to Elemér Ragályi's colorful photography of the Irish locations. Michael Pickwoad's photography and Josie MacAvin's set decorations did a great job in re-creating early Victorian Britain. And I must admit that I really enjoyed Joan Bergin's costume designs. Most of the narrative for "DAVID COPPERFIELD" is supposed to be set in the 1840s, but the images below seemed to hint at a late 1850s or early 1860s setting for this particular film:

Overall, "DAVID COPPERFIELD" proved to be an entertaining adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1850 novel. Granted, I had some issues with the movie's decision to push most of the James Steerforth and Emily Peggotty arc off-screen and the simplification of Uriah Heep's scheme. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the movie, thanks to Peter Medak's direction, John Goldsmith's screenplay and a very skillful cast led by Hugh Dancy in the title role.

[books1700to1900]

This is a screenshot from my Kindle screen. I bought three books this morning, thanks to recommendations online.

- The Royal Rebel: The Life of Suffragette Princess Sophia Duleep Singh by Bali Rai (Not a romance. I just really liked the review)

- Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

- The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton

The final book is a romance involving a hologram. It has put me in mind of one of my favourite K-dramas, My Holo Love. I’ve shared a GIF from My Holo Love just below.

[overflowingshelf]

June 2024 Reading Recap

How is June over? It felt like it went by in the blink of an eye. I also swore I read more books than I did this month, but I guess I did not. This month, I only read 4 books, which is way less than I thought, but it is what it is. As we’re officially past the year’s mid-point, let’s also check in on my overall reading goals.  For 2024, I set a goal of reading 100 books. I had a rough start to…

[thecosmiccircus]

Book Review: 'The Stars Too Fondly' by Emily Hamilton

What is love? That is the question that is at the heart of Emily Hamilton’s new sci-fi novel The Stars Too Fondly. Cleo McQueary has a hard time opening up to people. She has her three best friends, Kaleisha, Abe, and Ros, and that’s it. They’re her family and they’re all she needs. Well them and tech. Cleo loves engineering and technology more than anything. Maybe even more than her friends…

[gollancz]

The Stars Too Fondly, which will be published in hardcover in summer 2024, follows Cleo and her group of post-grad friends who break into an abandoned spaceship, only for it to start up and send them into space. The synopsis reads: "The accidental astronauts must use their considerable intellects and the reluctant assistance of the ship’s previous captain Wilhelmina Lucas – an unsettlingly accurate hologram of the woman who disappeared with her crew 20 years ago – to maybe, if they’re lucky, figure out a way to get back home. "What Cleo is prepared for least of all are the confusing feelings she develops for the captain, which show no sign of going anywhere any time soon."

Can't wait for you guys to meet the lastest entry in our frankly phenomenal Lesbians In Space collection! Also falls under our Sexy Spaceships umbrella too.

[scififr]

The stars too fondly, par Emily Hamilton (Harper Voyager, juin 2024)

Lors de la mise à feu de la fusée, avec un moteur à « énergie noire », qui devait amener pour la première fois des humains vers Proxima du Centaure l’équipage entier s’était volatilisé et le vaisseau était resté là. Vingt ans plus tard, quatre amis nostalgiques de la conquête spatiale, explore le site abandonné et la fusée. Et lorsque Cleo pose la main sur le moteur le vaisseau se réveille et décolle !

Un petit roman sympathique, mi-science fiction, mi-romance, qui recycle le thème de « The Gods themselves » (« Les Dieux eux-mêmes », Denoël PdF 173) d’Isaac Asimov.

[lilibetbombshell]

[wonkyreads]

The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton

2 out of 5 solar systems

Cleo McQueary is lost in life and absolutely obsessed with what happened to the crew of Providence I. Twenty years ago all 203 of them had simply disappeared and no one at NASA seemed to care enough to figure it out. Cleo and her friends, though, hatch a drunken plan to break into the space ship to puzzle it all out for themselves. The plot spirals out of control from there in ways the official synopsis doesn’t touch on so I feel obligated to leave out as well.

The Stars Too Fondly is marketed as a queer space odyssey rom-com and while I can see where they’re coming from, it (along with the mention of a heist) wasn’t anything like what I was expecting. I’d compare it to Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers more than just about anything else and it has too much heart to be distilled down into just ‘rom-com.’ I can see it being an absolute hit with the right audience. That audience just really wasn’t me.

First of all, this is very much science FANTASY more than the hard sci-fi I’d expected. I’m a chronic overthinker so every modern day pop culture reference and impossible piece of science magic sent me spiraling. And there was a metric ton of that. So, if you’re the kind of person who will wonder why TikTok and Thomas the Tank Engine are still relevant in 2061 or if a ‘food extruder’ would be super convenient or a hellish prospect for someone with celiac, then this might be a skip for you. I think I’d have had an easier time with all of it if Providence I hadn’t been launching a mere 17 hypothetical years from now when it seems people from 2061 had made little to no new scientific advances (despite so many kids purportedly having gotten obsessed with Providence and then going into STEM fields). And also if there was a single pop culture reference that wasn’t from 2019 or later. I care far too much about the logic of it all and this is a book that requires the reader to largely just go with the flow. It is intentionally silly and often requires a hefty suspension of disbelief.

Because I am nothing if not nitpicky, a couple smaller things that made it difficult for me, personally, to stay within the narrative: Sometimes conversations lacked dialogue tags and it tripped me up every time. This is about a group of 20-somethings, but it absolutely leans very YA (by which I mean I haven’t read someone sticking out their tongue so often since fanfiction in 2010 but also the cadence of the writing/narration is very bright and young and often immature). I just cannot pinpoint why the formatting chosen for this novel didn’t work for me. It flips from a close third following Cleo, to old Providence I reports and private messages, to a [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] perspective rapidly within each chapter. Usually I love having multiple weird perspectives, but I think there was a lack of separation, especially at the beginning, that got under my skin as a reader.

Probably the biggest issue I had over all was honestly a marketing problem where huge parts of what the plot of this book is about were fully left out of any synopsis I read before or after. I was honestly so excited to read this book (between sapphic space heist, the title, and the cover I was so sold) and I’d have never requested it if I’d known that it contained a plot point (plot gimmick, trope, ??) that I almost always dislike. For the record, it’s a totally fine plot point/trope and doesn’t require a content warning of any kind, I’m only not being explicitly clear about what I’m talking about here because they chose to leave it out of their marketing and I’m writing this review before the book is actually out. I’m trying so hard to avoid spoilers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not holding marketing decisions against Hamilton, it’s just super frustrating in general.

I feel like I’m being so negative when I don’t necessarily mean to be. This debut was not all bad. Not in the slightest. I can recognize that it wasn’t meant for me. It didn’t focus on what I wanted it to and I went in with all the wrong expectations. It’s just that as someone who often reads reviews before I pick a book up, I want to get all the reasons I wasn’t 5-star in love with this out of the way first.

So now for some of the things done right: There’s what I can see being a solid romance here and beautiful found family dynamics. I enjoyed the diversity and the different places each character was coming from and how easy it was to distinguish where their priorities differed. There’s action sequences that fully drew me in. I love the inclusion of multimedia bits, especially the ones that give new information from an unexpected direction (I mean, the one that’s very clearly the abstract for a scientific article? So good!). There are ideas and themes here that I absolutely adore, like how far people will go for those they love and how easily power can corrupt an ideal and just the messy business of still having growing to do into your twenties and thirties and probably forever. I can absolutely see this book being loved. Truly and fully.

I’m just so utterly bitter that it couldn’t work for me.

[I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Huge thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for this eARC.]

[libertyreads]

Book Review #34 of 2024--

The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton. Rating: 4 stars.

Read from May 24th to 28th.

Before I get into the review, a quick thank you to both NetGalley and the publishers over at Avon and Harper Voyager for allowing me access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review. The Stars Too Fondly is a Sci-Fi set in the near future of 2061. Following the tragic loss of the Providence I crew in 2041, the world became STEM obsessed and fearful of ever attempting to navigate the stars again. But when Cleo and her friends decide to break in to view the spaceship in person, things take an unexpected turn. Part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com, this story combines fierce friendships, improbable love, and wonder into a sweeping adventure. The Stars Too Fondly comes out on June 11th and is available for pre-order now.

There was so much to enjoy in this one which makes me so, so glad both that Lala from BooksandLala talked about it in a video AND that the publishers let me read it early. I've been missing Sci-Fi so much lately and the absolute joy and wonder that the friend group experienced was exactly what I needed. The characters were so fun and fresh while still having their flaws. Each had their own distinct personality and their own relationships with each other (not just a friend group where everything's about the main character). I enjoyed seeing this take on intergalactic travel and how boring it can get. How completely wonderful and amazing and yet also emotionally draining being stuck in a tin can flying at near-light speed can be. I found the world they're traveling to to be so extraordinary and I wish we had more time to explore what kind of hardships they could have faced there. I know that's not the point of the novel but it would have been so much fun.

I wish there had been more of an explanation for the Other Place because, without it, the ending felt a little too deus ex machina for me. I also felt like it wasn't enough of a hard Sci-Fi for me. This one is totally a me problem and not a book problem. Since reading The Expanse, I've been really longing for a hard Sci-Fi with good character work and it's been difficult to find something similar to that. But this story had so much else going for it and there were so many other places it went that most people won't care about it being a...softer(?) Sci-Fi.

Overall, this was such a fun (and sometimes tense) read for me. If I had more available free time during the week I probably would have finished this one in a couple of sittings.

[overflowingshelf]

ARC Review: The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton

The Stars Too Fondly Emily Hamilton Publisher: Harper Voyager Publication Date: June 11, 2024 Series or Standalone: Standalone Links: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Goodreads – StoryGraph Rating: MY REVIEW CW: Kidnapping; confinement; death; grief It’s stupid how much I love you. Except it’s not stupid at all, because loving the light in the darkness is the only thing in this universe that…