Valerie
I haven't read Tanith Lee in so long, and I don't think I ever read the Flat Earth series. This is a really interesting take on building mythology. The gently interweaving stories feel more along the lines of an Edda or some other cultural foundation. The writing is elegant (although some of the sex scenes use ... interesting figurative language). I enjoy how Lee plays with gender roles personal identity through the various stories. The ending too is satisfying, tying together all that came before while setting the stage for the next collection.
NK Jemisin is a master at writing complex characters in immersive settings. I liked this novel even more than The Killing Moon. In particular, the relationship between Hanani and Wanahomen was gripping and believable in each manifestation and transition. Having seen some writing lately that treats relationships as barely developed plot devices and deaths as trivial shock value, this novel was incredibly visceral and refreshing. It has so much to say about gender, consent, and what makes good people do terrible things. Really, there's only one unsympathetic character in the whole book, and his actions are awful enough that I don't want to explore deeper and find sympathy like Jemisin often gets readers to do.
All that and a pseudo-ancient Egyptian setting as a cultural melting pot with a Jungian dreamwork inspired magic system. It's all just fantastic. I'd make sure to read The Killing Moon first, but definitely keep going after that.
Jemisin is a modern master of world-building, and this plane is no exception. You can sense the research she devoted to ancient cultures woven in with yet another unique magic system that bears no resemblance to any I've ever read before. She also masters incredibly complicated relationships. Ehiru and Nijiri are mentor/student, father/son, path brothers, mutual caretakers...There is romantic love and spiritual love and doubt and longing. No relationship she writes is clearly labeled; they are all as messy and complicated as real life. This along with her skill at inventing new cultures are what sets her writing apart.
I've been in a very Sandman mood lately, and this collection did a decent job of satisfying that feeling. My favorite story in the collection was “Chain Home, Low,” which barely features the Endless except in tone, but in that style is more powerful than ones where Death just sort of drops in as she does. Maybe it's because I'm so used to the comic format, but it is harder to accept the Endless milling about among mortals in prose than it is to literally see them in the background. A lot of the pieces are pretty forgettable, but a Sandman aficionado will definitely find something to entertain (lots of Wanda!).
This book took time to read in the best way. It is heart-breaking, brutal, fascinating, and real. Rivers Solomon explores themes of race, gender, religion, and power through the magnified lens of a generation ship. Their main character, Aster, is a brilliant doctor who struggles with understanding others and forming relationships, but the relationships she does make are powerful enough to carry her through her dangerous quest through her mother's notes.
The blurb on the back compares the ship to the antebellum south, but that seems a shortcut to saying black people in this book are slaves. The system is more complicated and a whole different variety of horrific because this is an organized future and thus also heavily influenced by the present. This isn't a dissection of the past but an exploration of where the present could lead us if we forget to treat our fellow people like people. It's hard to read, but I'm glad I did.
This book stressed me out in the best way. The Expanse is one of my favorite sci-fi series, and each volume keeps ....well, expanding. There is a decades-long time gap between this and Babylon's Ashes, and it's strange to see how the characters have aged and changes. The universe has grown so vast and complex and echoes of previous books are paying off and rippling through our beloved crew. This book has a particularly strong focus on Bobbie, which is a great tact, in my opinion as the world needs more giant lady space marines smashing the establishment. My only complaint is that it needs more Avasarala, but really, what doesn't?
Back during the election, I think I remember Octavia Butler and this book specifically being referenced as eerily prescient. I don't think I clued in to how specifically prescient it was in that the nation would elect a reactionary demagogue working from a elitist form of Christian values who literally uses “make America great again” as his tag line. Guys, we weren't even recovering from an Apocalypse when it happened...
But unsettlingly accurate future visions aside, this is an unsurprisingly amazing book. It is vast, encompassing both Olamina's story after founding Acorn and her daughter's story and opinions as a frame. It speaks a lot towards the imperfections that come with being human, the betrayals which can so quickly escalate to horrific, as the traitors and bystanders repeatedly justify their actions and move along. It forces us to look at even what the protagonist justifies, and then what excuses we ourselves make, what moral compromises would we rather just not think about.
Butler pulls no punches, and I often struggled to get through because I couldn't handle that much vicarious suffering. Her prose makes Sharers of us all. She was a master, fully deserving of her acclaim and reputation, and this duology in particular are necessary reading in America's current climate.
I can't remember if I read this or not as a child, though with how much I loved the films, it's probably a safe bet. Reading it as an adult, I found myself looking for metaphors and reading it as a kind of exploration of childhood grief and depression. Bastian loses his mother literally and his father figuratively, and seeks shelter in Fantástica where he vicariously defeats the Swamps of Sadness, the Oracles, and the Nothing at great cost. Then he loses himself in his own escape, drives away those who love him, and forgets even his own sense of self. That preservation of self and memory is such a strong, resonant theme challenged again and again by various monsters and ephemera. It's really a beautiful book, and while the first film does justice to the first half, the second is well worth exploring, especially as an adult.
This is a pretty nerdy book. I could have gotten any number of free Project Gutenberg editions of Frankenstein, but I had a dilemma over whether to read the 1818 or the 1831 edition. Annotated versions solve the problem! Included with the 1818 text are several articles on cultural impact, annotations that help you experience both the texts and the changes Shelley made in between, as well as tons of notes fearlessly attempting to explain away plot holes.
I'd never actually read Frankenstein before this, and this might not be the best way to experience it as a first read, but I still enjoyed the process. It seems silly to review the actual story because what could I add to the other two centuries of criticism? That said, one of the forewards writes of Frankenstein as a modern myth in line with Dracula and Sherlock Holmes. When you say “Frankenstein,” people know what you mean even if you've never touched the book. So it's surprising how different the story is from the myth that has been passed down the last few centuries. It's a story I'm glad I finally read, and an edition that does justice to author and the story.
Bonus: Klinger is clearly a big fan of Young Frankenstein and one of the appendices is an interview with Mel Brooks.
I got this book for Christmas, and while it isn't the sort of thing I'd normally pick up for myself, I ended up really enjoying it. Every time someone asked me what it was about, I had a different description because it's just about so much. The title is a bit sensational for the actual themes of aging, death, trauma, and love. Each character is a work of art in their depth and complexity. The historical aspects seem meticulously well-researched, and it while it is not necessarily a work of historical fiction, it has lots of vivid descriptions of racial and feminist issues in the 40s-60s, including Japanese internment and relocation, a topic that desperately needs more coverage as the last first-hand sources are all in their 80s and above.
If I had to narrow it down to one idea, it would be that there are many ways to love at many points in our lives, and aging is as much about loving as any other point in our lives. Familial love, passionate love, comforting love, friendship love, even loving our pets are all explored with both tenderness and pragmatism.
This is a crying novel, and I think I'd like to read it again when I'm older. I may just be too young to connect on the levels Allende is working, but I'm old enough to appreciate the beauty of this story.
I was not in love with book 2 of this series, but book 3 won me back. Helps that I read it in a log house in the Smoky Mountains too, but also it has more interesting and less incestuous storylines. It's maybe the most violent, brutal, and fae episode yet. It features the return of Bronwyn in an important if not lead role, an exploration of what it's like to be Mandalay, and a really vicious female villain with a morally complex British manservant. Every character, really is incredibly complicated and fascinating. Don't read this without having read the other two, but do read this series if the words Appalachian fairies sound interesting.
I was really not into the description of this book, but I'm very glad I read it any way. It looked to gritty for my taste, and indeed it is pretty bleak, but the world-building and magic system were interesting enough to keep me intrigued. The characters, with the exception of Gabriel and Max, are maybe a bit pat and we don't get into a lot of the reasoning behind their out of control proficiency in their skills, but it doesn't matter quite as much given the literal magic in the air.
I'm not sure if I loved it quite enough to bump other books off my to-read list in order to finish the series, but it was a pretty exciting romp through alternate Los Angeles. If you like your fantasy heavy on the the thriller, I'd give this series a shot.
I don't think this is the strongest book in the series, but I am still enjoying the overall flow. I go back and forth on Eddings' treatment of female characters. Sometimes they are well-rounded and complex, and sometimes male characters threaten to spank their figureheads if they get out of line. It was probably meant as a joke, but I'm a bi sensitive to such “jokes' in the current climate.
It is nice to get to know Ce'Nedra better and watch her step out of her initial caricature, though I do wish she was a bit less “anything for Garson” inclined. Likewise, the witch of the fens is so consumed by maternal instinct that she's willing to sacrifice the natural order of the world. And Barak's wife (who has every justifiable reason to hate him) is suddenly softening now that she has had a son. There are just a few parts that leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I'll definitely finish the series, and hopefully resolve some of my conflicts with the characters.
In general, I'm not a fan of time travel stories. I've been really waiting for the exception to that rule, and I've finally found it. The Doomsday Book was absolutely riveting. The time travel itself isn't the main draw, I found, but rather the dual apocalypses. I do love a good plague (though I think reading this with a slight cold was maybe not the best idea), and the parallel narratives kept the story engaging and the pacing moving despite the novel's length.
While a few characters were a little stock, the main two of Kivrin and Dunworthy as well as pretty much all the Middle Ages characters were interesting and made sensible if often wrong choices. Honestly, once I got over the initial silliness of sending a 19 year girl back to the Middle Ages by herself when no one had actually done it before, the rest of it flowed along well. Bonus: I got to dust of my own Middle English which I haven't gotten to use since undergrad.
I've never read Willis' work before, but I'm definitely game to keep going through her bibliography.
Ann Leckie is definitely one of my favorite modern authors. She writes with such a great sense of humor and has such incredible world-building skills. While I didn't like Provenance quite as much as the Ancillary series (it doesn't make quite the same social commentary), I did find it a very enjoyable adventure. I love the idea of “vestiges” and a culture that is built around collecting artifacts whose value changes with each moment. Maybe it's because I own a ton of relatively worthless things that i value so highly...
While this book doesn't deal with gender issues as directly as the Imperial Radch books do, Leckie does make a point of including gender neutral pronouns for certain characters, and being non-binary is a subject treated as ordinarily as being cis-gender. She even has characters who determine gender with their assumption of adulthood, a pretty great concept. On her book tour, Leckie spoke at length about stealing from archaeology, and I'd really be interested to read her annotations on which cultures she pulled from to write this and her other books.
Set in the same world as the Radch trilogy, but not in the Radch, this book is also full of Easter eggs for readers of the previous trilogy while not necessitating reading in order. When Radch characters show up, I had a whole different view of them than I did in the first series, which is a pretty cool trick to pull off.
Provenance is engaging, twisty, emotional, and altogether a great read. Highly recommended to people who like their space opera with biomechanical spiders and a diverse, non-binary cast.
i had trouble connecting with this story from the start, and I think it's honestly just a case of too many references. The concept of women taking back early science fiction literature is a very appealing idea, and I think if Goss had chosen one of her characters, or even just Mary and Diana, I would have enjoyed it more. However, the epic cast from four monster novels plus Sherlock and Watson plus a bunch of Dracula references which only seem to be there to lead the readers in the sequel, left it feeling contrived. Additionally, none of the characters really feel like real people, all a little too perfect even in their flaws. It's especially hard to believe when it comes to Diana Hyde, who only seems to listen to her id when it comes to eating and precocious banter. i like references, but in the end this book was just fine. It never really pulled me in any emotional direction.
NK Jemisin is just one of the best writers of my time. Her world-building is stunning, her characters are intricate and real, and her ideas are some of the most original I've ever read. The Stone Sky puts an end to The Broken Earth trilogy, which if you've started, you have to finish, and if you haven't started, you shouldn't read this book yet. Go start the series.
What really strikes me about Jemisin's writing and this trilogy in particular is how she can create this amazing mythos and world so far from our own, and then use it to viciously critique our own world without anything ever seeming heavy-handed or preachy. Jemisin has words to say about how people of color are treated, and those themes are impossible not to see. It is also impossible not to get swept up in geoarcanity and the story of.a mother and daughter, separated by their similarities.
I love this series. I love Jemisin's work. Everybody read it all.
World-building is a term that gets tossed around a lot. I think Patrick Rothufuss, N.K. Jemisin, and lots of others are magnificent world-builders. That said, I know of relatively few authors who are both excellent world-builders and planet-builders, which is wha makes Helliconia Spring (and I assume the following two books) such an impressive achievement. The amount of research Aldiss put into the science of his world must have been intense. And yet, the book does not end up as dry science fiction, but a vivid, fantastical tone grounded in hard science. Not an easy marriage.
I was also impressed by how un-dated the book feels. The characters are all interesting and could have been written about at any point. The idea of women founding a scientific academy and working through the scientific method while being repressed by a pre-enlightenment society is an interesting twist on what usually happens to women in traditional SFF. Vry stands out as unique in her independence and thought process, even among her cohorts.
It's an acclaimed series that I'm glad I finally had motivation to read, and I'd highly recommend it to people who like sweeping but still sciency sagas.
