Goran Lowie
Way more captivating than it has any right to be. I really hated the book until about 35% through, after which it started to feel like some weird mix of The Hunger Games & Ender's Game. When I started reading, I thought it was incredibly derivative, blatantly so, even. After finishing it... I still think so, but it's still just a really, really fun read.
What a magnificent read! It's been a very long time since a book made me want to drop everything else and just read it. I still had some self-restraint and ended up intentionally stopping at points just to savor it a little longer- only to now be faced with such a big book hangover.
This is character-driven fantasy at its best. It's a great depiction of two people who feel utterly alone and alienated from their surroundings. Yes, it's about immigration, but they felt more like Herzogian Kaspar Hausers; people who don't fit it and know they never will, trying to come to terms with this. Such a charming and gentle story.
Like many collections of short stories, this is a bit of a mixed bag. I adored Clarke's very long Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and I loved her shorter Piranesi just as much but maybe for different reasons, so I was very curious to see how she would be in the very short form.
There's some great moments here, and I really liked some of the stories (particularly many of the footnotes, but overall this didn't entice me as much as JS&MN and Piranesi did.
DNF at 74 pages. Just a bit too long-winded for me, and it appears to want to talk about everything besides things happening on the damn actual ship!
Having read one book by Laxness before, The Fish Can Sing, which I loved, this felt kind of like more of the same, but different. I mean that in a positive way. I've never been to Iceland, nor am I overly familiar with Iceland, but Laxness' works feel exactly like an Icelandic book would, to me. They feel somewhat dreamlike, but not really, I wouldn't even be able to really put a genre on this. That's also how Susan Sontag introduced it, which I thought was pretty interesting:
“The long prose fiction called the novel, for want of a better name, has yet to shake off the mandate of its own normality as promulgated int he nineteenth century: to tell a story peopled by characters whose opinions and destinies are those of ordinary, so-called real life. Narratives that deviate from this artificial norm and tell other kinds of stories, or appear not to tell much of a story at all, draw on traditions that are more venerable than those of the nineteenth century, but still, to this day, seem innovative or ultra-literary or bizarre. I am thinking of novels that proceed largely through dialogue; novels that are relentlessly jocular (and therefore seem exaggerated) or didactic; novels whose characters spend most of their time musing to themselves or debating with a captive interlocutor about spiritual and intellectual issues; novels that tell of the initiation of an ingenuous young person into mystifying wisdom or revelatory abjection; novels with characters who have supernatural options, like shape-shifting and resurrection; novels that evoke imaginary geography. It seems odd to describe Gulliver's Travels or Candide or Tristram Shandy or Jacques the Fatalist and His Master or Alice in Wonderland or Gershenzon and Ivanov's Correspondence from Two Corners or Kafka's The Castle or Hesse's Steppenwolf or Woolf's The Waves or Olaf Stapledon's Odd John or Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke or Calvino's Invisible Cities or, for that matter, prono narratives simply as novels. To make the point that these occupy the outlying precincts of the novel's main tradition, special labels are invoked.
Science fiction.
Tale, fable, allegory.
Philosophical novel.
Dream novel.
Visionary novel.
Literature of fantasy.
Wisdom lit.
Spoof.
Sexual turn-on.
Convention dictates that we slot many of the last centuries' perdurable literary achievements into one or another of these categories.
The only novel I know that fits into all of them is Halldor Laxness's wildly original, morose, uproarious Under the Glacier.”
That's an intriguing introduction, and it definitely sold me on the book. Laxness is the one Icelandic author everyone should read.
In Voices, Le Guin somehow writes one of the best and most beautiful books of her entire career. Hidden away, as one of the last books of her career and stowed away in the “Young Adult” section, never before have her messages been so clear, so powerful, and so developed. An astounding work for all ages.
An amazing read. Just like in most of Sanderson's books, the magic system is beautifully complex and unique. It has a fast moving plot and the fact that Brandon managed to put all of this onto not even 200 pages is amazing.
After having written some of the best fantasy & science fiction books of her generation in the span of a decade, with classics like Earthsea/The Left Hand of Darkness/The Dispossessed & most of her other Earthsea/Hainish Cycle books being written in this period, Le Guin suddenly released this small little realistic Young Adult book in 1976.
It's an interesting book because of this. Very, very few of her books are so decidedly not fantasy or science fiction. And yet it's still a visible aspect of her writing and the book itself– look at the imaginative world the main character created as a kid, Thorn, and some of the almost fantastical elements of the story (the fog, for example).
Le Guin manages to write a wonderfully sweet YA book. Having just read the first two books of her other (more recent) YA series, Annals of the Western Shore, it would only make sense to compare those. This is very different in terms of story, I suppose: the Western Shore books are pure fantasy and are much more complicated works. This book is short and to-the-point. The most impressive thing, to me, is how relatable and realistic it all still feels, over 40 years later.
Must-read for: Le Guin fans (if you'd like to see a non-speculative fiction book from her!), teenagers (this book was made for you.), fans of shorter works (in which case you should really most of Le Guin's work, really)
In the afterword, the author of BEAUTIFUL MALADY describes how Live-Action Roleplaying (LARPing) allows them to immerse themselves in a character without having to stick to their real-word persona. Yet, without talking about yourself, you are able to convey much of what you really want to say. This is immediately obvious in this book of poetry: Ennis Rook Bashe creates refreshing poems exploring disability and queerness. We are all familiar with those lazy tropes often found in literature centered on the disabled—suddenly they're cured by modern medicine or even worse, magic/perseverance, it's been in their head (and their fault) all along, and if it's not showing the happy ending where someone's disabilities suddenly go away, you may find a cautionary tale—pity these people, this is a lesson about acceptance/diversity/... okay there we go we've got our token disability character.
BEAUTIFUL MALADY examines these tropes and attacks them. In metaphors, in fairy tales, in odes and in unflinching criticism. Lyrical language abounds and creates images that resonate in their ability to capture pain, rage, triumph and resilience.
There's a distinct voice noticeable throughout these largely unconnected poems. You get a feel of what Bashe wants to tell you, without them screaming it in your face. Sometimes you start reading about a cat hunting sunbeam, unsuspecting, until you are hit with what you really should have seen coming. Trauma turns into lessons learned turns into warning turns into determinations.
Let's say maladies are flattering. Let's banish illness as a failure of spirit and rejoice in the unspeakable stories being told. BEAUTIFUL MALADY will hold your hand and lead you along.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This was just as fun as the first one, and just as filled with stupid romance with lines that feel like the writers didn't even bother to say out loud. The politics are interesting and some of the jokes are funny, but overall it still feels like it's using its full potential.
It was way better than I expected– way better than it has any right to be! And yet, it doesn't come anywhere close to the show, lacking the gut-wrenching emotional moments, intricate relationships and most of all the character development. But I suppose that's to be expected after only one issue. I enjoyed it, but it just felt... lacking.
NOMINATED FOR THE 2024 URSULA K. LE GUIN PRIZE FOR FICTION
Certainly not the most Le Guin-esque book I've read on these shortlists. It's a strangely hopeful book, celebrating our planet and the people who live on it. The thing I loved about it most is the prose– some stunning sentences can be found on nearly every page. Can't say I was too impressed by the overal message, it reeks of oversentimentalism– this entire book is basically just the “overview effect” turned into a long-form story.
While occasionally repetitive towards the end, this is a fascinating look at how Minesweeper originated and the legacy it had on the world and on gaming in general.
A very fun read and feels like some proper Beagle, even if it's probably at his most generic. But hey– you have a poor boy plucked out of his existence to be in the service of a king on a mission related to missions. It's fantasy christmas and it almost feels like I'm discovering McKillip again. It's a great comfort read, is what I'm saying, and I was very fond of the characters.
“The photographs raise the question of whether a former monument can ever function as a pure sculpture, an autonomous work of art, detached from its original meaning.”
Absolutely had to get this after watching the late Jóhann Jóhannsson's debut feature LAST AND FIRST MEN and finding out it was partly inspired by these photographs by a Belgian artist. Was lucky enough to loan it via my college's library, because apparantly you can't buy it anywhere anymore. The photographs are available here, however: http://www.jankempenaers.info/works/1/
The photos are impressive, although I was a bit disappointed at the lack of information or explanation regarding the monuments. I've now discovered the much more Spomenik Database, a website inspired by this book with much comprehensive information on these spomeniks. Very intriguing. Link: https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/