Paul
HIGHLY RECOMMEND for anyone who identifies as Canadian and thinks that history has value... So ideally, all Canadians. It's also just such a fascinating examination of how families with indigenous ancestors have to struggle for years against generations of government disregard and malevolence just to find out about their families' past.
Basically, this book is about the author, a prominent writer and former national journalist, trying to trace her indigenous roots to find out where her family came from and where her ancestors are now. She travels from James Bay to a Toronto Highway overpass to find them. Along the way, she learns the extent to which the Hudson's Bay Company (now known as HBC or The Bay) relied on slavery and thugs to keep a stranglehold on the Canadian North, the extent of the lies told to make treaties in Northern Ontario, the systematic incarcerations of indigenous children and women, and the extent to which this land is covered in unmarked graves of indigenous people that the Canadian government tried to erase from history.
She is also candid about the resistance Canadian media has to telling these stories and the skepticism, stonewalling and backlash she faces when trying to investigate and share them as a reporter, which was quite illuminating, but not so surprising in the 2024 media-scape.
It's a life changing read. It redefines what it means to be a Canadian. It cannot be overstated how important it is to read this story.
I have complicated feelings about this one. Half of me loved it and half of me was very frustrated with it. I'm giving it a four because I thoroughly enjoyed most of my time reading it, and I think that over time, parts of this book will keep coming back to me.
It has a haunting quality, and the world feels like it could be an alternate version of our own in some ways while at the same time being unlike any world I'd read before, which added to the eeriness and wonder to me. I also thought the approach to the protagonist, Fetter, was very unique and interesting. He was given a clear purpose from childhood, rebelled against it, and was then left in a bit of an existential crisis. He could live freely, but didn't know what to do with himself, and was left feeling content, but also adrift, never knowing if what he was doing was what he should be doing, which felt much more relatable than so many purpose-driven main characters.
Every character within it actually had incredible depth to them, such that I felt like he could have written an entirely different novel for each side character. There was this clear feeling that something big and important was happening for many of the characters, and those things had little if anything to do with Fetter or his story, which was quite a cool way of writing about a world, and again is very relatable. After all, in real life, most people you interact with have their own crazy stuff going on which has nothing to do with you.
Many people in the SFF world are raving about it, and for good reason. It's a very unique fantasy, beautifully written, and I'm very excited to read more from this author. This book was so obviously bursting with amazing stories and ideas, that if anything, I think he could have benefitted from reeling things in a bit.
That's the heart of what frustrated me about this book. There was so much to the world and the characters that I was left feeling like I only understood a quarter of what was going on. That seemed intentional in a way, but I found that it wasn't conducive to wanting to know what would happen to Fetter next. I had only a flimsy grasp on what was going on around Fetter, and it seemed like the story's direction kept changing and meandering without really going anywhere. Also it's kind of mean to have a super cool side story invented, and then just leave it hanging, but that happened a few times.
So if you're a fan of untraditional narratives, this might be a perfect book, but I found it equal parts fun and frustrating. I also found the end very frustrating. I get the stylistic choice for the most part, but I was really hoping for a more satisfying conclusion, I guess.
I think I made a mistake by reading the Illead just before reading this, because I went into the story with a bunch of preconceived notions about the characters, and caught myself thinking, "This doesn't match Patroclus or Achilles as I know them," which I later realized was not a fair thought, because by the end, this story was very faithful to the source material, and it actually took until after I finished the book to respect that. So don't feel like you need to know the original first!!
On the whole, I thought it was a very entertaining and heartfelt book, and also a really cool modern way of learning about the ancient Greek stories. I learned afterwards that while the focus is on retelling The Illead from the perspective of Achilles' companion, Patroclus, it also draws from other ancient poems about Achilles and his family. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the old stories but maybe not willing to be a Classics major and just wants a good story. It's very well written, and balances modern ideas and expectations against being true to the texts pretty masterfully.
To be honest, I struggled a bit at the beginning, because I wasn't very interested in kid-Patroclus. He struck me as mopey and uninteresting, and as I said, I expected him to be less wimpy, since in the Illead, he was probably one of the top ten most lethal warriors in the story. I also thought that the setup of a monogamous homosexual relationship was a bit too modern for ancient Greek culture, which favoured bisexuality and promiscuity.
All of my criticisms were actually addressed quite well later on, so I'm glad that I kept going, even though I wasn't enthusiastic at first.
The latter half of the book, I thoroughly enjoyed. Patroclus really comes into his own, and the invented backstory about what causes the strife between Achilles and the war's general Agamemnon was a brilliant twist on the original story. Ultimately, it actually felt like a great modernization of the ancient tale... Dare I say an improvement? It certainly makes Achilles a more sympathetic character, and does a lot of great storytelling about the inspirations behind the actions that take place in the poem. Some of it does feel a little too modern to me now and again, but stories need to evolve with the times so I didn't mind it.
And I loved the book's take on Odysseus. He's such a fun character, and Miller nails his spirit. So yeah, don't read the Classics first. If you really love this story, read the Classics after (Emily Wilson's versions).
This was a hands-down spectacular read. It had a unique protagonist, a very propelling plot, a clever and cool world, and it was just non-stop engaging. This is definitely going to be a top read of 2024 for me.
Besides it being an exciting Space Opera-style adventure, it also did what all great sci-fi does and really forced us to reflect on ourselves and our society. To what extent are you who you choose to be, and to what extent are you the product of the world that made you? That's probably the central question explored in this, but it's also much more than that.
I heard in the Sword and Laser book club that many people found the main character hard to put up with, mostly because she is a very difficult character to like. Personally though, I love investigating villains and "bad people" because so often there's more to them than just their bad ideas or detestable attitude, and this story really explores that very idea in a powerful way.
I would actually recommend this book to anyone who's not immediately turned off by the idea of futuristic stories, including young people. It's exciting, provocative, gripping, and just an amazing story. But it also sneeks in examinations of governmental systems of military populism and the way propoganda can infect communities, from people willing to go all in, to conscientious objectors, and the surprising commonalities beneath them all. I think it speaks volumes that the author was a Greek scholar who largely modelled the society on Sparta. Somehow though, it seems to relate incredibly well to the state of governments today as well.
Objectively, this was a very good book, and I enjoyed listening to it the whole way through. The trouble for me is that it follows a few trends in YA SFF that I'm not super fond of: minimal conflict and discomfort, and a young protagonist with a super-mature emotional intelligence. I'd highly recommend this to young people looking for a fun and interesting fantasy that looks at history through an indigenous lens, because it executes that perfectly, but as someone who likes a bit of grit, and a bit more turmoil in the protagonist's personality, I was let down a bit.
But first, the good stuff: this story does an excellent job of putting a critical eye on the Settler narrative of how Europeans came to North America. It plays out the nuance of how assumptions of supremacy among the Europeans resulted in demeaning interactions at best, and genocidal interactions at the worst. Also, by framing it from the perspective of a young woman from a relatively isolated group, it has excellent commentaries on how indigenous people did not really agree that European culture was superior, and that in a lot of cases, their social structure was more healthy. At the same time, it is honest about differences in technology and bureaucracy, and how there are things the cultures could learn from each other if only they cooperated.
On the whole, I thought the lens through which this story examines Indigenous-European relations in a historical context is brilliant.
I also think the "magic system" is pretty brilliant and unique, and the number of stories within stories bely a depth in the world that hints that as far as magic and backstory, this first book is only scratching the surface of what the world has to offer.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'm willing to find out what's to come. The story felt a little too safe for my taste, and there was no sense of urgency at any point really. It has a classic boarding school structure (think Harry Potter) where it starts in the summer and ends when the school year is over, but there is no overriding story arc (think threat of Voldemort) to keep me engaged. Instead, it's 500 pages of "This happens, then this happens, then this happens." In fact, the chapters are even written in that way: They are parts of a sentence, that come together so that if you read each chapter title, you basically get a non-spoilery summary of the book, which is neat, but literally reads as "this happens then that happens...."
While that isn't a flaw in itself, and in fact might be preferable to people who don't like anxiety-inducing narratives, it makes it easy for me to forget about. I would honestly forget about the book entirely if I didn't pick it up for a few days.
I also feel like the main character falls into a trope that I've noticed in YA lately. SFF (mostly Sci-fi) used to have a problem with protagonists always being the "competent, intelligent man," and now that narrative seems to have been replaced by the "bold, emotionally intelligent woman", which is obviously an improvement, and makes for much better role models in fiction. But IMO it also sets unrealistic standards for how girls should act in situations where they are confronting big problems, and puts the onus of correcting others' flaws and, more broadly, the world's problems on them. It also is just unrealistic to expect teenage girls in stressful situations to always remain calm, be aware of others' feelings, and make mindful and well-thought out responses to all situations. The protagonist seems to always say just the right thing, and while it's nice that conflict isn't created simply from people saying the wrong thing, it's also just unrealistic that a 14 year old in a novel and hostile environment will always be in control enough to say the perfect thing.
An example of a more realistic version of this character was from Premee Mohamed in The Annual Migration of Clouds. She was also bold and emotionally intelligent, but often felt overwhelmed and unwilling to be a hero, unsure of what to say or do next, and that flet much more real.
My new favourite SFF anthology. There is not a single story in here that I didn't love, and the author line-up was superb. I also feel like this is THE story collection of our time. It deals with tough subjects like inequality, AI, surveillance and tech run amok, but in ways that are often fun, cheeky or surrounded by interesting characters. And what I love about Strahan's collections is that he gets these stories from top-quality writers. I would say some of the most underappreciated writers working today have stories in here. Writers like Premee Mohamed, Ian McDonald, and Ken MacLeod are just beautiful and powerful with their prose. If they didn't write SF, NYTimes would be gushing over them. And the ideas they come up with... Cory Doctorow's story about incorporating homelessness needs to happen now! And after Lavanya Lakshminarayan's story, I just can't look at Netflix in the same way.
I don't know that I can pick a favourite, but the first story - about what happens when the National Weather Service gets taken over by private interests - comes to the front of my mind with every new natural disaster. As I write this, there are fires in LA and misinformation and delayed notifications are causing chaos among residents, and Elizabeth Bear - for better or for worse - totally anticipated this problem, as well as what's to come. It also had great characters and pacing, so I might give her the top spot.
Company Man by Shiv Ramdas made me laugh out loud, and made me think of a certain Luigi who's not a plumber. The Excommunicates by Tim MacLeod wins for vibes (runner up, McDonald's Sigh No More). But honestly, there's value in every single story... And the interview in the middle. Chris Gilliard's take on surveillance was very eye-opening.
It's a shame so few people seem to know about this book. If you know me, feel free to borrow it from me!
For me, this book felt like an experience more than it felt like reading a book. I don't think it will be for everybody, but if you like to get lost in a world - or just lost in thought - this is a winner.
I spent the first 100 pages wondering when the story would start. It seemed like stuff was just happening, one thing after another, as if there was no real story or plot. However, the writing and imagination was so compelling that I never considered giving up on it for even a moment. Eventually, I realized the lack of a traditional plot arc was intentional. Rather, tiny pieces of story line up one after the other, creating a beautiful tale set in a world that seems like our own, only not quite.
I read a fair bit of climate fiction, and I think some might characterize this book in that way, but I don't think that's correct. Most of it does take place in the near-future, and since climate change is a thing that's happening, it will be present in any near-future story, but what this is really about is community. How do we create a community, and what does that mean? Also, how do we interact with other communities and cultures when the world and human nature inevitably lead us to all mix together in unpredictable ways?
As the title suggests, I would consider this to be a very uplifting book. It doesn't avoid the myriad issues happening in the world at all; corruption, climate emergencies, identity issues and more all show up in the book just as they do in life. But it focuses on how changes can happen, communities can come together, people can survive tragedy and come out stronger, people can make good choices. It promotes the value of the long view, and asks "What if we really asked ourselves what the next thousand years will be like?"
It's not preachy though. The central community is an invented "religious group"/modern hippy cult that doesn't really resemble any modern community, so by viewing how this group moves through the world, the book examines community, relationships and culture through an entirely unique lens, rather than trying to imitate a specific culture's view. I found that approach pretty ingenious.
There's 120ish small chapters, and each little chapter was like candy for the brain. The chapter that describes the Music is probably going to be one of my all-time favourite pieces of literature.
It's in a linear order, following two main characters and a couple side characters, so it's a pretty standard story in that sense, but - like real life - you never quite know where it's going or what the characters are going to do next. In that way, it may not appeal to people who like classic story arcs, but for lovers of setting, character and prose, it's fantastic.
There's the tiniest sprinkle of the fantastic in there as well, but it is so sparing and well integrated, that the "fantasy" can basically be written off as a detailed description of dreams or superstition, much like the idea that god(s) are watching people.
And yes, I'd totally join Hopeland... Maybe. Or maybe I just want to be named after a star.
Pretty damn awesome. It's got serious Pacific Rim vibes, but much more culturally sophisticated, using Chinese mythological elements, and the main character - despite being based (very) loosely on a Chinese Empress - is unpredictable and fierce. The action is constant, and the end was VERY cool.
Put simply, it checked all my boxes for what makes a badass story. I think my only holdback from a 5 star review was that aside from being super-cool, I didn't get much out from it. The relationships in the story were pretty unique, and the cast was good, but character-wise, it felt more like watching a movie than getting to know them. And while it was very emotive, I noticed more than felt the emotions... Except the emotion of "oh damn, that was badass."
I'd say with about half the trilogies or series starters I read, I leave it at that whether I like it or not, but in this case, I am DEFINITELY reading the sequel. Sometimes you need a fast-paced action story with crazy twists, and this delivered that in spades.
A really strong, sound, and compassionate appeal to indigenize science and society. I found her arguments compelling, and I think almost ten years after this book came out, it has made a real impact in the academic community. Our health library has an Indigenous Health section, and studies integrating indigenous practice with the scientific method are being reported in top scientific journals. I agree that reframing our Western methods through a holistic, indigenous lens, with a focus on sustainability, and an openness towards appreciating the personhood of nonhuman beings is integral to fixing some of the mistakes we have been making.
Unfortunately, the economic goals of changing to a system of reciprocity is going nowhere, and I'm afraid her approach to those subjects was a little too bleeding -heart to have the same kind of impact.
I think that's why even though parts of this book inspiring, and I feel like I will approach the outside world with a new level of appreciation, I can't give this book too high of a review. I found the way she described nature and her own feelings as over-the-top, like she was trying to sell the appeal of being high on life, and while I think she held back on being too preachy, it still felt like overly dramatic. Did she really become paralyzed with existential angst while trying to buy a pen because she didn't know what to thank for it? I get the sentiment, but I feel like she oversold the point a bit.
I guess in the last few years, it's hard not to let cynicism trump optimism and appreciation.
D.O.D.O is one of my all-time favourite books, and one of the funniest and most charming books I read. I remember being sad when it ended (despite it being 800 pages) because there was SO much more room for this story to grow, and when I found out Galland was writing a sequel, I thought there was no way it could go wrong.
But long story short, the story went stale. The humour had almost completely disappeared, the formatting that was so unique in the first book had fallen into a boring pattern, the exciting technology was almost forgotten about, so that it became a standard time-travel story, and what bugged me most (though others might find this a perk) is that it got comfortable telling tales surrounding Shakespeare and DaVinci.
The last book was packed with super-interesting but under-represented historical stories, while not directly involving any critical historical figures. So for it to lean so hard into Shakespeare, it felt like the story had lost its way. When it hinted that DaVinci might make an appearance, I realized that this was not the story I was hoping to read, and put the book down.
While the last book was a smorgasbord of quirky history, crazy tech, snarky witches and hilarious situations, this book felt more like a lesson in classical Renaissance history. I was so disappointed, I still look at this book on my shelf and feel betrayed.
But if you want a time travel story where people hang with Shakespeare and romp around Renaissance Europe, go for it.
I put this aside after listening to 27% of it. It's not bad, by any means, but it's a classic swords and sorcery epic with warriors and lots of magic, and that's just not my thing. None of the characters are unique or interesting to me: a bookish young woman who won't take no for an answer, a royal who disagrees with the way things are done, a warrior who came up from nothing with an unstoppable will... They all felt very generic to me, as did the whole setup.
I also found the writing style to just be very focused on action; description is saved for magic and the world, and less so the people or dynamics within it. I wouldn't say Sanderson is a bad writer, by any means, but I also wouldn't call him a good writer. He's prolific though, and he knows how to please his audience.
I did enjoy some aspects of the adventure and magic stuff, but that's not enough for me to commit to 5000+ pages / 200+ hours of my attention.
A stunning piece of literature.
Despite being a well-read lover of science fiction, I never got around to reading Bradbury before. I think because this was commonly known as a high school book, often compared to Orwell, and because I understood and read dystopian books inspired by F451, I figured I'd sufficiently absorbed the story through cultural osmosis, and didn't actually need to read the book.
I now realize that I have done myself a grave disservice for not reading this earlier. While I did indeed know what the jist of it would be, this book really proves that how a story is told can be just as important as the story itself. Bradbury elicits such powerful feelings around the steady changing of the protagonist's mind, that as a reader I felt like I could fully empathize with the whirlwind of emotions he was experiencing. And that ultimately makes all the difference.
One can always just say “yes, books are important, no we shouldn't let government or corporate interests tell us how to think or feel, and yes art and culture has value,” but these values that so many of us hold (Hello Goodreads audience) can sometimes be hard to articulate, because after all wouldn't it be easier to not worry about what's going on in our world, to not have to understand different perspectives. If we had nothing to disagree about, wouldn't that be lovely in a way?
Bradbury really confronts that dissonance, and not with reason so much as with emotion, and that's really what stunned me. Yes, culture is messy, learning is almost always unfairly distributed, and understanding others and disagreeing can all be hard, but what are we without this. Can one feel fulfilled? Or will we lose the very ability to articulate whether or not we're happy or why we feel what we feel?
I fear this book will never lose its relevance, but at least that means there's always a good excuse to read some truly top notch writing.
PS. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tim Robbins, and he was absolutely spectacular! It was 5.5hrs and finished it in 4 days, so there's another plus: it's short, and good in paper or audio.
When a 160 page book feels too wordy, you know there's some issues.
A mystery with no real twists or false turns, a very unoriginal spin on Holmes and Watson, and a somewhat half-hearted plot (though I liked the concept) and the characters were pretty flat and predictable.
I liked the setting though! A great take on outer-planet living, and I thought the logic behind the technology being Victorian-esque was very well executed. That vision of Jupiter was just great!
But the narration style was horrible! I get why it was written that way, but it was just so unpleasant for me. Adverbs are to be used sparingly!! I wouldn't have finished it, but it was only a 4 hour audiobook so I suffered through.
When a book appears to encourage pedophilia, and suggests that statutory rape shouldn't be a law, it's hard for me to shrug that off and focus on the good. But ignoring painfully ignorant claptrap appears to be the only way to enjoy this book.It's considered a classic, and Heinlein is considered part of the “sci-fi canon” but if there was ever a solid argument for why sci-fi fans do NOT need to read “the canon”, this shallow sexist pseudo-libertarian diatribe is a prime example.Now, one concession: This is clearly a foundational work by an influential author. Unlike many authors of his time, he tries to focus on the Everyman rather than some brilliant scientist or intrepid explorer (though the most important characters are two stereotypical “competent man” figures), and many of the military aspects of the book have been referenced and repurposed over the ages. In fact, there was quite a bit of overlap between the revolutionaries of this story and the revolutionaries of the Expanse series ([b:James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set 53152963 James S.A. Corey Expanse Series 8 Books Collection Set (Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes, Persepolis Rising, Tiamats Wrath) James S.A. Corey https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586740617l/53152963.SX50.jpg 79948004]).That said, if military sci-fi or stories of revolutions in space sounds interesting, you don't need to read through the pages upon pages of poorly written nonsense arguments about taxation or atrocious sexism within this book. You can just read [a:James S.A. Corey 4192148 James S.A. Corey https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573162332p2/4192148.jpg] or [a:John Scalzi 4763 John Scalzi https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1562613145p2/4763.jpg]. Scalzi cites Heinlein as one of his biggest inspirations, but unlike Heinlein, Scalzi's stories are simple to follow, more entertaining, better written, and not at all problematic.This book has tons of positive reviews though, so rather than just deride this book as crap, let me highlight why I consider this an irredeemably bad book: 1. It's poorly written and poorly constructed: Beyond the invented “creole” this book is written in - which sounds more like what a perverted toddler would talk like than any real form of slang or creole - it's structured very poorly. The dialogues run forever, in what tries to be an ode to Platonic argument, but just reads as rambling. The conversations are unrealistic, make senseless leaps of logic, go on weird and pointless tangents, and lead to unchallenged conclusions that no rational person would stand for. There's also the plot structure: the author invents a sense of tension by having an all-intelligent computer occasionally state what the odds of a successful revolution are, which basically works to tell the reader explicitly how the story is progressing, rather than actually writing about conflicts and resolutions. Without these updates, most of the book is basically a list of things the revolutionaries are doing, with no sense of opposition or tension. The updates therefore serve the purpose of telling the reader “The revolution hasn't happened yet, and for reasons I can't or won't explain, more needs to be done or else they'll fail.” That is weak, lazy writing. Even without the dumb politics or problematic stuff, this is just a bad story, poorly told. 2. The politics: If one is patient enough to sift through the garbage dialogue, you will discover Heinlein's theory of the “Rational Anarchist”, epitomized through Prof, an exiled professor. In taking about ten painstaking pages to describe it, one might be fooled into thinking it's a complex social theory, but it's not, it's just poorly written. The idea is simple: Do only what you personally think is right for you, and spend no time considering the success or wellbeing of others. If something happens due to your choices, you are solely responsible for that and its consequences. In practice, Prof is very clear this means: do not pay taxes, or for anything you don't want or need, steal from the public if you think you can get away with it, and help no one unless doing so helps or pleases you. Only a privileged white man could come up with something so naive and selfish, because only a privileged white man could get away with living this way. But wait, what about hospitals and schools? Heinlein: they're just scams. What about insurance or social security? Heinlein: Families intertwined by incest and polyamory solve that problem (Why? How? Not explained.) If everyone steals shared resources, won't that be an issue? Heinlein: just extort, blackmail or blow up a neighbouring culture. How is rational anarchy different from libertarianism? Me: it's somehow even more self-serving, more shallow and less sustainable. 3. The problematic stuff: I don't mind political incorrectness but describing a 14-year-old girl as a “sweet little tart” who's “probably a prostitute” and who “should be married, if she isn't already” is just perverted. It's not challenging cultural norms or whatever he thinks it is, he's just encouraging a culture of systemic statutory rape. This is actually one of the only parts of a book where someone disagrees with a main character: an outsider asks if paying a child for sex should be considered statutory rape, and the main character, Mannie, laughs and says, “There's no such thing as rape here.” Everyone then agrees that child trafficking is a great step forward for women's rights, as long as the child has the right to say no. Mannie goes on to explain the economic value of women on the moon, because women are basically a form of currency, and people wouldn't just take what they want because that would be stealing... Except stealing is actively encouraged (see point 2), but that glaring error in logic is not addressed. It's also worth noting that rape is the subject of multiple jokes in this book. Ironically, in this culture where women are forced into marriages with multiple men from childhood, and expected to have sex with their husbands' fathers as a marriage ritual, we are told that women are much happier on the moon than on Earth. There are multiple women characters in the book who are positioned as smart or respected, but only one character appears to have any capacity for political thought, and her ideas are laughed at as pitifully idealistic, too emotional or just a little stupid. Being a good woman though, she gracefully accepts her inferiority, becomes a puppet for the smarter men around her, and spends the second half of the book being a worried but supportive and sexually eager wife to Mannie, who's family assigned her to him. Somehow, the author honestly seems to believe that in his made-up society, women's liberation has reached its peak potential. I suspect he had never actually listened to a woman in his life. The book also positions itself as post-racist in much the same way: Sure, there's still racial slurs and only white people seem capable of having valuable thoughts, but the minorities are all happy on the moon because they know racism doesn't exist. Logic that only makes sense to ignorant white men.As a major lover of science fiction, and its history, I don't regret reading this. I think it's important to understand the flawed history this genre was born from. But there's far better writers and far better books, so now I can definitively say: Heinlein is not worth reading.Want to read classic sci-fi? [a:Ray Bradbury 1630 Ray Bradbury https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1445955959p2/1630.jpg] has aged well, [a:Arthur C Clarke 46055572 Arthur C Clarke https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] isn't the best character-writer, but it's great concept work, and I still really like [a:Isaac Asimov 16667 Isaac Asimov https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1341965730p2/16667.jpg]'s stories, even though he had a history of sexism. Unlike Heinlein, he kept that out of his books.
A Shipwreck Comedy(?) of Errors
Somewhat to my own surprise, I've come to learn that I'm a fan of the nonfiction sub-genre of shipwreck tales, and so when I heard about this one, I couldn't wait. On the whole, I'd say it delivered. It was well-researched and compelling. It didn't excuse the way sailors mistreated indigenous peoples or gloss over the role of minority sailors (a common pitfall of these books), it took an honest accounting of the many different voices involved, and at the end, it does a great job of evaluating the value of the mission (or lack thereof) within history.
The story of the Wager's bad fortune can largely be summed up as critical mismanagement at all levels: a pointless military expedition executed with questionable guidance and poorly supplied ships, with all levels of leadership being shuffled about on the fly. To nobody's surprise, things go awry.
At the level of the ship itself, and most naval endeavours at the time, I feel like most of the problems could have been solved if someone's mother sailed with them to remind them to eat their vegetables and quit squabbling over nonsense. Just imagine if you decided to man a ship with a combination of homeless people, ex-cons, and over-privileged teenagers, with a handful of men who've spent their whole lives at sea in charge. Predictably, they try to subsist on a diet of jerky and rum and then can't figure out why they're all incredibly ill. Substitute jerky and rum with nuggets and rye, and it's my first year of living on my own, so I can attest that it's not very sustainable
What if we missed our first contact with aliens? Would it change what it means to be human, or will we just keep going about our little human lives? And what does it mean to be human anyway?
Roadside Picnic imagines a world that has apparently been visited by aliens, but the only evidence of this is the odd spaces and artifacts they left behind.
The story is primarily told through Redrick, a “stalker” who goes into the zones and brings back odd artifacts for money. It's a dangerous job, but he's more concerned about doing right by his family and friends than he is about getting crushed by a gravity anomaly or other strange occupational hazard. He's a gruff, stoical man, with some character traits (casual violence, objectifying women) that have aged poorly, like so many protagonists from the mid 20th century. But he's clearly more compassionate than he lets on, and it's obvious that he's what this society would consider a good man.
Told through him, the narration swaps between his moment-to-moment point of view and more narrative reflections, such that we understand his state of being well enough, but never quite know what's going to happen next. It can feel jarring from time to time, but it works well with the strange and mysterious setting of “the zone.”
For one chapter in the middle of the book, the perspective changes to a morally questionable businessman as he makes his way through his day. I found this portion to be the most enjoyable because it widens our view of the world enough to get a clear grip of what's going on, and briefly, it really leans into the philosophies underlying the whole scenario. There's a classic Socratic discourse between people of varying drunkenness at one point, and those 10ish pages really tied the whole story together for me.
Roadside Picnic is both uniquely of its time, and timeless. Being written in Soviet Russia, but taking place in North America, the story draws an interesting sketch of what Russians thought life was like on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and the Afterword describes the trials of the soviet publishing industry in fascinatingly mundane detail. But the story isn't special because of its cultural connection. It's special because it took a standard sci-fi trope and made it into a poignant statement about the human condition.
I could not put this down! It was so fun, so infuriating, so addictive, and just such a fulfilling read. R F Kuang has a gift for writing infuriating characters, and when in that particular aspect, this is her masterpiece.
Also, this was very out-of-left field for her, and incredibly different, but I absolutely loved it. I can't wait to see what she does next.
When the galaxy's biggest hospital is caught in a whirlwind attack from sources unknown, and creatures of unimaginable variety are in crisis, the workload can get pretty exhausting for a rescue specialist. And to make matters worse, Dr. Jens can't even drink coffee (it offends the senses of most non-humans).This is a complex space-opera with a built-in series of whodunits, a massive cast of characters ranging from a sentient tree to a virus-infected ancient computer intelligence, and technology that can affect consciousness and gravity. It's not what I would call easy reading (even the author admits that the plot gets “labyrinthine” in scope), but it is a lot of fun.Jens - our protagonist - is a fun character to follow. She's a down-to-earth straight-shooter who tries to keep things uncomplicated in a very complicated world. She's devoted to her job, has a lot of baggage from past relationships, and despite being at the cusp of medical innovation a thousand years in the future, she suffers from incurable chronic pain, and is aided by an exoskeleton. She also makes a great first-person narrator. I found it reassuring that as the plot twists start to add up, she felt just as overwhelmed and in need of a nap as I did!There are also a host of artificial intelligences (aka non-biological intelligences) who play a prominent role in the story, and the way the book approaches a world full of AIs is extremely well thought out. I also really enjoyed the introduction of people from “ancient” times who were discovered cryogenically frozen in a long-lost generation ship from centuries ago when people thought the Earth was doomed. The cultural clash between humans separated by centuries of technological and social development was very clever and often funny.Like the book's predecessor, [b:Ancestral Night 26159745 Ancestral Night (White Space, #1) Elizabeth Bear https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549453849l/26159745.SY75.jpg 41186071], the world feels like a utopic future, but it also challenges whether utopia is something that can be achieved, and asks what we are willing to sacrifice to make a fairer and happier world. But apart from that, one crossover side-character (the super-awesome giant mantis Cheeirilaq) and a few Easter eggs that allude to the previous book, this is completely a stand-alone story.I'd recommend it highly to anyone itching for an engaging modern deep space story, alongside the [b:A Memory Called Empire 37794149 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1) Arkady Martine https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1526486698l/37794149.SY75.jpg 59457173] series.
A Dark-Cute Fairytale
Dark themes do not necessarily lead to a dark book. Nettle and Bone approached mature themes, and occasionally evoked dark scenery, but its tone and characters were endearing and charming. For example, there's a resurrected skeleton, but it's a dog skeleton, and he's really friendly. Marra is keen and perceptive, but due to her youth and sheltered upbringing, she can be naive at times. Through her eyes, we learn of a world of kingdoms and magic: Hidden fairy markets, strange spells, witches, fairy god mothers, and a noble knight with a dark past. In spite of all the tropes however, each character is more than they seem. They all have interesting personalities and quirks, and the way they interacted felt human and natural.
Kingfisher's magic with this story is in how she creates something that feels familiar and fresh at the same time. It reads somewhat like an old-fashioned fairy tale - but one that fits with more modern ideas of morality. Women, including older single women, have value and are not just evil witches, and the handsome prince is not the good guy, but the villain. Probably the most subversive element is actually that Marra's mission is essentially to save her sister from a toxic and abusive relationship, and that everyone agrees this is a mission worth fighting for. In the age of he-said-she-said, the idea that a woman being mistreated by her husband is ample grounds for a great quest is a quietly radical idea. This is the kind of story I'd read to my daughters... But not until they're a little older.
As a fan of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, I found it hard to swallow how it basically undid and criticized every aspect of what Moore brought to the character. While Moore's version was groundbreaking, this was predictable. Moore's had deep female characters and rejected the typical macho hero, while this book is all about macho characters and pointless action, and very light on deep characters, even lighter on female characters (even Abigail was turned macho, welding a gun, short hair, motorcycle, it's like the writer was forced against his will to include a woman at all). It even rejected the narrative about the value of the natural world, which just made no sense.
The art was ok, but definitely failed to take advantage of gorgeous natural details in the way the 80s version of the comic did, instead going for a more classic hard-line look to fit the actiony style I guess.
This beautiful Tibetan family story explores how people can feel tied to a sense of place years or generations after having to leave it. Ranging from a small nomadic community high in the mountains, to their forced relocation to Nepal and finally to a small apartment in Toronto, the book follows the daughters of a highly respected local healer and mystic as they are forcefully displaced as part of China's cultural revolution. Not only are they forced to leave their home, but their community's cultural practices are outlawed, and buildings and artifacts are being systematically destroyed. In spite of the trauma and poverty that arises from the displacement, the sense of community, family and tradition remains steadfast among those in the refugee camp, and beyond.
There's a natural authenticity to these stories that can be rare to find when reading stories like this. All the characters are multidimensional, complicated people, and whether they do good or bad or questionable things, it's always understandable why they do what they do. Even the most hatable characters can become sympathetic in their own way. And by focusing the narrative around a treasured statue, the multiple characters and timelines didn't get overwhelming or confusing.
This book works on many levels: the writing is great and has many quotable moments, the characters and their stories are strong and touching, the cultural references were enlightening, and the perspectives and social commentary about how the West seems to view Tibetan culture really forced me to think differently. I recommend this book highly.