Lia

The Midnight Mayor (actually, its whole series) is the best type of urban fantasy: it feels like a magical but somehow still completely plausible version of the real world, lit by neon and full of spells powered by the beating heart of a city. Together with the blue electric angels who share his body, reincarnated sorcerer Matthew Swift gets roped into saving the ancient city of London as its magical protections come under attack.

In a shattered, reef-esque landscape wracked by storms and inhabited by crustaceans, a young apprentice surgeon who became a solder and then found himself forced into slavery must decide whether to give up or get back on his feet. A young woman practiced in ignoring her past takes on a quest to save her family and learns about a looming apocalypse. There are larger-than-life swords, magical powers that allow a mysterious assassin to fly, spirit-like personifications of emotions and concepts, and a mysterious world that is fully-realized and revealed to the reader only slowly. Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.

When I first read Very Far Away From Anywhere Else as an awkward 12-year-old, I sobbed. I sobbed again when I found it again as an adult. Unlike much of Le Guin's work, this is set in our world. It follows a young high school senior as he struggles with that fundamental human challenge: learning how to break down his walls and connect with others. Le Guin's writing here is both wise and timeless.

Snodgrass' Imperials saga is a star-crossed love story that begins at a space academy for the upper-crust where Tracy, a smart but unfortunately lower-class officer-in-training meets Mercedes, princess and heir to the throne of an empire that spans multiple star systems. In this third entry, Tracy has pleaded guilty to a crime he didn't commit (for a very good reason!). He's now making a new life as captain of a small ship crewed by humans and aliens alike. It's about people -- and peoples -- overcoming their differences with the looming threat of annihilation on the horizon. Tracy and Mercedes have a love story for the ages.

Anyone who intends to work as a journalist should read this book. "Every newsroom you inhabit is going to have its unexamined premises, its craven middle-managers. You will have to find the way to preserve your essential self there. Once you bend your individual talent to suit a party line, any party line, whether a political movement's or a management consultant's, your value as a journalist is gone. You have stopped being a fair broker of information and settled for being a suck-up." (p. 142). This book has been a guiding light through the past fifteen years of my life (my failures, of course, are my own.)

This is a charming fantasy about a young man who discovers his magic is leadership and the art of war. The reader follows him as he fights battles and matures enough to become a leader of men (and women). Kellen's earnest nature, his awkward fumbling, and his willingness to set aside his ego and learn made him one of my heroes as a young person. It's a story I enjoy visiting again and again. This is book two so new readers should start with The Outstretched Shadow, which is also great.

Between castigating fellow authors for unserious writing and accusing Americans of being afraid of dragons, Le Guin does not pull any punches. One of my favorite bits is in an essay about "Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction" in which she writes: "True myth may serve for thousands of years as an inexhaustible source of intellectual speculation, religious joy, ethical inquiry, and artistic renewal. The real mystery is not destroyed by reason. The fake one is. You look and it vanishes. You look at the Blond Hero--really look--and he turns into a gerbil. But you look at Apollo, and he looks back at you." The writing is beautiful, entertaining, and very much still relevant to our modern entertainment landscape.

A beautiful, lyrical picture of the geology of part of the western United States. It transforms the rhythm and scenery of a road trip into a profound search for how the physical world around us came to be in the first place. I come back to it again and again.

What happens to heroes when they break? What happens to men and women who fail? The greatest soldier in the world struggles with PTSD, finding he can no longer fight. A battle comes to find him anyway. A spy who can disguise herself as anyone struggles to recognize herself in the mirror. A man without powers in a world full of superheroes stands trial for humanity's sins. A selfish woman, who betrayed her people, tries to find a path to freedom and redemption. This is a wonderful, grown-up fantasy story, about people who fall and decide to pick themselves up. As Kaladin says, "If we lose the tower, we lose the war. I'm not in any shape to fight. I'm going to do it anyway." It's one of my all time favorites.

The Waste Land uses fragments of imagery to embrace the tragedy of our fractured lives and assert that we can find something more -- by reaching out and 'connect[ing] nothing with nothing.' I revisit it once a year at least.