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Entry tags:
Fiction
I've been off of Tumblr for a month because I haven't been able to watch SPN, and of course the backlog grows. And I haven't even used it to increase my productivity! I did watch Shadowhunters, though, and fall further in love with Brooklyn 99 and The Good Place, so there's that.
Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows: Makepeace is an illegitimate child in a Puritan village at the outbreak of the English Civil War—barely tolerated, as long as she’s quiet and helpful to her aunt’s children. She’s also subject to nightmares and forced to stay all night in graveyards, as her mother’s way of training her for strength against ghosts. When her mother dies in a riot, she’s sent to her father’s people, and discovers that ghosts are indeed very real, and her father’s family is, in the main, evil. It’s a great story, about the dangers of trusting and of not trusting, and about the contribution one clever girl can make, especially when no one thinks very much of her.
N.J. Jemisin, The Stone Sky: Nessun and Essun, daughter and mother, are racing to control the obelisks, which are remnants not only of the ancient culture before the Shattering but also of a hideous, ancient crime, as we learn in this final volume of the trilogy. Nessun wants to destroy the world so that the pain will stop; Essun wants to bring back the Moon, which will lessen the Seasons and give humanity a chance, of sorts. If it’s true that cruelty is a choice, then don’t we have to side with Essun, to see if the choices can be different without Guardians to torture and control orogenes, without Seasons to encourage non-orogenes to fear and enslave orogenes? It’s a dark book, and I felt it did it best with the idea that there is no real closure, but there might be continuation.
Leigh Bardugo, The Language of Thorns: Fairy tales from the land of the Grisha—many of them with similarities to classics like Hansel & Gretel, The Nutcracker, and The Little Mermaid, but always with a twist in the end. The good generally prosper, though usually not as they’d have initially wished, and the bad are usually punished, but in between there is magic and blood. A nice addition to the ‘verse.
Claudia Gray, Defy the Worlds: Noemi is back on her home planet of Genesis after refusing to cut it off from Earth by destroying Abel, the mech with a soul, and everyone is angry with her. When a plague strikes, she’s sent to surrender to Earth, only to be interrupted by Abel’s creator, who still has plans for him. Abel sets out to rescue Noemi, even though she wants him to focus on saving Genesis; adventure and romance ensue.
Dave Duncan, The Reluctant Swordsman: I bounced very hard off of this story about Wallie Smith, an American engineer who, dying of illness, is resurrected in the body of a swordsman in an Asian-style culture on a world with an endless river. He’s directed by a god to become the hero that the main Goddess needs, but since the Goddess seems totally cool with slavery and all its incidents—people are born with “slave marks” if they are destined to be slaves (because of something they did in past lives, apparently) and that’s that—I didn’t really care what the Goddess wanted. Wallie starts out thinking it’s a fantasy in his dying brain, then spends about five seconds sad that he had sex with Jja, a slave woman who had no choice in the matter, then decides to be nice to her in compensation, and she’s really happy and invested in keeping him happy and ugh. (Don’t get me started on the second woman in Wallie’s party, Cowie, who is even sexier than Wallie’s first slave, apparently mentally limited; is also a slave; and does not resist when a man initiates sex with her, which is sufficient for Wallie to accept that this culture’s definition of consent is just different.)
Alan Dean Foster, Strange Music: Pip and Flinx are back, this time investigating shenanigans on a world that is still mired in local conflicts and thus not yet eligible for Confederacy membership. Despite the government ban on advanced Confederacy technology, another human has smuggled some in and is causing trouble; Flinx investigates—and becomes hunted himself. Foster spends a lot of time describing the exotic flora and fauna he’s imagined; this mostly had nostalgia value for me.
Molly Knox Ostertag, The Witch Boy: Graphic novel from the creator of the amazing Strong Female Protagonist, about a boy from a family in which women are witches and men are shapeshifters. But what happens when a boy wants to learn spells instead? Nice take on gender nonconformity, especially since he doesn’t seem to experience bodily dysphoria—there are many ways to be different.
Frances Hardinge, A Skinful of Shadows: Makepeace is an illegitimate child in a Puritan village at the outbreak of the English Civil War—barely tolerated, as long as she’s quiet and helpful to her aunt’s children. She’s also subject to nightmares and forced to stay all night in graveyards, as her mother’s way of training her for strength against ghosts. When her mother dies in a riot, she’s sent to her father’s people, and discovers that ghosts are indeed very real, and her father’s family is, in the main, evil. It’s a great story, about the dangers of trusting and of not trusting, and about the contribution one clever girl can make, especially when no one thinks very much of her.
N.J. Jemisin, The Stone Sky: Nessun and Essun, daughter and mother, are racing to control the obelisks, which are remnants not only of the ancient culture before the Shattering but also of a hideous, ancient crime, as we learn in this final volume of the trilogy. Nessun wants to destroy the world so that the pain will stop; Essun wants to bring back the Moon, which will lessen the Seasons and give humanity a chance, of sorts. If it’s true that cruelty is a choice, then don’t we have to side with Essun, to see if the choices can be different without Guardians to torture and control orogenes, without Seasons to encourage non-orogenes to fear and enslave orogenes? It’s a dark book, and I felt it did it best with the idea that there is no real closure, but there might be continuation.
Leigh Bardugo, The Language of Thorns: Fairy tales from the land of the Grisha—many of them with similarities to classics like Hansel & Gretel, The Nutcracker, and The Little Mermaid, but always with a twist in the end. The good generally prosper, though usually not as they’d have initially wished, and the bad are usually punished, but in between there is magic and blood. A nice addition to the ‘verse.
Claudia Gray, Defy the Worlds: Noemi is back on her home planet of Genesis after refusing to cut it off from Earth by destroying Abel, the mech with a soul, and everyone is angry with her. When a plague strikes, she’s sent to surrender to Earth, only to be interrupted by Abel’s creator, who still has plans for him. Abel sets out to rescue Noemi, even though she wants him to focus on saving Genesis; adventure and romance ensue.
Dave Duncan, The Reluctant Swordsman: I bounced very hard off of this story about Wallie Smith, an American engineer who, dying of illness, is resurrected in the body of a swordsman in an Asian-style culture on a world with an endless river. He’s directed by a god to become the hero that the main Goddess needs, but since the Goddess seems totally cool with slavery and all its incidents—people are born with “slave marks” if they are destined to be slaves (because of something they did in past lives, apparently) and that’s that—I didn’t really care what the Goddess wanted. Wallie starts out thinking it’s a fantasy in his dying brain, then spends about five seconds sad that he had sex with Jja, a slave woman who had no choice in the matter, then decides to be nice to her in compensation, and she’s really happy and invested in keeping him happy and ugh. (Don’t get me started on the second woman in Wallie’s party, Cowie, who is even sexier than Wallie’s first slave, apparently mentally limited; is also a slave; and does not resist when a man initiates sex with her, which is sufficient for Wallie to accept that this culture’s definition of consent is just different.)
Alan Dean Foster, Strange Music: Pip and Flinx are back, this time investigating shenanigans on a world that is still mired in local conflicts and thus not yet eligible for Confederacy membership. Despite the government ban on advanced Confederacy technology, another human has smuggled some in and is causing trouble; Flinx investigates—and becomes hunted himself. Foster spends a lot of time describing the exotic flora and fauna he’s imagined; this mostly had nostalgia value for me.
Molly Knox Ostertag, The Witch Boy: Graphic novel from the creator of the amazing Strong Female Protagonist, about a boy from a family in which women are witches and men are shapeshifters. But what happens when a boy wants to learn spells instead? Nice take on gender nonconformity, especially since he doesn’t seem to experience bodily dysphoria—there are many ways to be different.