When E mentioned that she was reading this book, she called it a “big standard American YA fantasy with racism in North Carolina layered in,” which is a perfect summary. It’s got Cassandra Clare levels of ridiculously attractive teenagers, complex secret magical societies going back centuries, evil monsters to fight, etc, etc. The special sauce in this one is definitely the viewpoint of the Black narrator, who has to navigate racism in the real world alongside the magical one, and whose link to the magical world is intertwined with the race trauma of the country’s history. Narrator Bree, at sixteen, gets admitted into an early college program at UNC Chapel Hill, but finds herself embroiled in an ongoing magical conflict while still having to deal with issues on the home front. Deonn does an amazing job capturing the feeling of being a member of a visible minority going into a snooty, exclusively white environment, where you are almost certainly not welcome, but holding your head up anyway. And I absolutely loved how the plot defiantly made a space for Black people inside the extremely white background of Arthurian legend. Even the developing love triangle doesn’t look like it’ll be too annoying (and the love triangle is a standard building block of the Arthur myth, after all). Very promising start; the sequel is supposed to come out in a couple of months and I will definitely be getting in line.
Category: quick reaction
The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier
This book, about a planeload of passengers caught up in an anomalous event, took forever to get started. I swear the entire first half of the book was taken up in introducing a large variety of characters, each so different that it felt almost as if they were starring in a different style of book: the noir contract killer, the entertainment mag pop star, the family of a hair-trigger veteran, the depressed author, the couple growing apart, etc, etc; none of these had anything to do with the others except that they had all been on the same plane, and eventually FBI or Interpol or someone shows up to collect them. The second half segues into what happens with that plane, and how the event changes each of the lives of the passengers. It felt less like a novel than a philosophical thought experiment; even though Le Tellier did a good job bringing life to each of the characters, there were so very many of them that you really didn’t grow to care about any of them in particular.
Network Effect, by Martha Wells
After four Murderbot novellas, I was surprised to find that this was a full-length novel (ebooks are so deceptive!). Happily, the awesomeness carried well throughout the longer length; it felt like a movie after watching episodes of a TV show. I love how the characters care so much for one another without having to rely on hormones or attraction to make it work; Murderbot is a spiky ball of reactions that feels emotions so deeply that it literally cannot deal, and it’s really touching to watch its friends (both human and bot) try to soothe a creature that hates to be hugged and doesn’t want to admit any weakness. I loved the plot, which created drama and tension without feeling forced; I loved the characters, both puzzled human and exasperated bot, and I loved the action, which gets intense at times but remains friendly and readable due to Murderbot’s awesome narrative voice. Great worldbuilding too, using the previous novellas as a foundation for establishing corporate greed and cruelty. Such good stuff; I can’t believe I finished an entire novel’s worth of Murderbot and am still left wanting more.
Beautiful Country, by Qian Julie Wang
“Beautiful Country” is the literal translation of the Chinese characters for “America.” When Wang was a little girl, her parents flew to the US to escape persecution in China (they were college professors who criticized the government). The family became undocumented immigrants in Brooklyn after their temporary visas expired, working in sweatshops and sifting through garbage for food and supplies. Her father enrolled her in a public school but her teachers and peers spoke English and Cantonese, not Mandarin, and she ended up in a special-needs classroom where she taught herself to read through picture books. Eventually she managed to get back into a normal classroom, but had to purposefully dumb down her writing when teachers accused her of plagiarism; she also had to hide their illegal status and learned to swallow insults as she tried to fit in with her American classmates. Her family was eventually able to emigrate to Canada and then legally return to the US, where she graduated from Swarthmore and Yale; it’s easy to point to hers as a success story, but her account highlights all the gaps through which children can fall, and all the ways in which talented professionals are wasted (between sweatshop jobs, her mother taught herself English and got a degree in computer science, yet was frustratingly unable to use it due to her illegal status). Wang does not provide answers, only wishing to shine a light on her traumatic upbringing.
Whiskeyjack, by Victoria Goddard
Third in the Greenwing and Dart series. This one finally finishes clearing things up for poor bespelled Jemis Greenwing, and sets Dart up for hopefully some resolution of his own in following books. Usually I get a little annoyed with authors when they bring in entire invented fields of literature for their scholars to criticize, but somehow Goddard makes it work; Jemis is such an enthusiastic scholar, and his investigation of clues and hidden puzzles so enthralling, that you really appreciate being along for the ride. The adventure surrounding the investigation doesn’t hurt either: will Jemis be arrested (again) for a crime he didn’t commit (again)? Will he finally be rid of the curses piling up on him? Will he finally clear his name with the gossiping villagers? Great combination of fantasy nerdiness and occasional derring-do; right up my alley.
Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire
Seventh(?) in the Wayward Children series, this one is less about any one particular child’s journey than about the doorway universe as a whole, which weakens the (usually stellar) character work even as it lays the groundwork for further stories. The insertion of a couple of the characters into the “evil” school counterpart is a bit contrived, but you could tell McGuire wanted to explore the concept of the other school and what made it tick; I’m sure we’ll come back and explore it in following books.
This Place: 150 Years Retold
This is a collaborative graphic novel anthology, each story highlighting a person or a historical moment in the Indigenous people’s fight to survive in Canada. As the foreword says, each Indigenous story is a post-apocalyptic survival tale, which makes every Indigenous person a hero. Each contribution is prefaced with a timeline of events, unavoidable evidence of the government’s ongoing determination to stamp out Native cultures and Native people, and the stories shine a light on atrocities that the government would prefer to paper over, as well as on heroes that should be more widely celebrated. The book actually reminded me most of Four Hundred Souls, Ibram Kendi and Keisha Blain’s collaborative history of African America; like that book, it draws an unmistakable line from the government’s first racist actions to those of today, and also leaves you awed by the strength of all those who fought and survived.
Grass, by Sheri S. Tepper
This book was published in 1989, and I think if I had read it then (or in the mid 90s, more likely), I would have been really impressed by it. The worldbuilding is next level: the planet Grass is filled with waving long grasses undulating like seas, but the residents are viscerally horrified at the idea of building roads through it, so travel is done by air car. The aristocracy gather to ride regular day-long hunts accompanied by slavering not-hounds, mounted on terrifying barbed not-horses with which they have a weird mental dependency, chasing incorporeal not-foxes that they physically rejoice in killing, but don’t bring home to eat. Despite its utter weirdness Grass seems to be the only planet not falling victim to a plague attacking humanity on every other planet, so the ruling religious organization sends a family of horse-loving ambassadors to the planet to try to make inroads with the insular aristocracy. Oh there’s also a bunch of reject priests who seem unable to convert anyone on the planet, but spend their time either climbing towers of grass for fun, or excavating evidence of a doomed alien civilization that (like humanity) apparently failed to understand Grass enough to colonize it successfully. Despite the extremely futuristic setting, the social dynamics are very gendered: both on Grass and off planet, the men have all the authority, and the women have insight but little social power. There is nothing subtle about the messaging, either; there’s a LOT of heavy-handed philosophical discussion about the place of religion and humanity’s place in the ecosystem, and the characters are sketched so obviously that it’s very clear who you are and aren’t supposed to sympathize with. There are also some truly icky bits involving nubile young women (why is it always the young women) whose minds are wiped and end up little more than mental children in problematically mature bodies. I thought the beginning was promising, especially the creepy alien atmosphere of Grass, but then everything got muddled because Tepper had so very much to say and couldn’t resist going on about it at length, or erecting more strawman villains to take down. Mixed bag overall.
Exit Strategy, by Martha Wells
Murderbot book 4 depends a little more heavily on the previous books to make sense; it does not stand alone as well as the previous ones. But it’s still really good; as Murderbot continues trying to protect its humans, it also finds it harder and harder to avoid questioning its own motives. I love that Murderbot would risk its life for a human without hesitation (scolding the human for being an idiot the entire time), but is so uncomfortable dealing with gratitude or friendship that it would rather run away than accept an overture. I loved seeing the characters from the first book come back to interact with Murderbot; their familiarity and patience with its quirks mean that it is even harder for it to turn away, even though it tries its very best.
The Outside, by Ada Hoffman
Buckle up, because this is a weird one. In a far future version of our universe, humans have built giant soul-eating AIs and now worship them as gods. Through their cybernetic post-human “angels,” the gods enforce their dictates on the people and root out any heresy, which is belief in a reality that doesn’t match the existing one. This is important because too much exposure to the “Outside” can spread like a virus, destabilizing actual reality and bringing hyperdimensional Lovecraftian horrors from Outside. In this world, autistic lesbian heroine Yasira just wants to make useful scientific inventions and hang out with her amazing girlfriend, but is unwillingly drawn into a battle between her former mentor and the AI gods for control of reality. I loved the prominent role that neurodiversity played in this book, and the recurring point that society is built on lies that we all agree on together.