Sequel to Six of Crows. Picks up very smoothly where the previous one left off, except now you know the characters… or so you think. Bardugo uncovers new depths in each of the characters, allowing them growth and development in believable and well-founded ways, while still rolling the plot along at a crazy pace. I loved the action and the pacing, the chemistry between the cast members was excellent, and the banter was delightful.
Category: quick reaction
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
A really beautiful and meditative piece. The author, bedridden by a mysterious disease that has taken all of her strength and energy, finds companionship in a wild snail brought by a friend. The tiny snail’s determination and curiosity become a source of fascination for the author, who mixes facts and observations on the snail with her own reflections on illness and isolation.
Under the Pendulum Sun, by Jeannette Ng
In which a missionary’s sister, desperate for news of him, follows him into the land of faerie where he’s been having trouble making converts. Queen Mab, changelings, malicious spirits, enormous land whales, creepy changing landscapes, and tons of epistolary research feature in this story of finding one’s way through lies, temptation, and illusion. Very atmospheric, very gothic, very much a wallow in guilt and manipulation; it was well done, but a little much for me. I liked the fairyland and the well-thought-out physics of its pendulum sun, but I didn’t much like the characters and couldn’t really get into their problems.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers
Another cute robot story. It’s set generations after robots became self-aware and humans let them walk into the wilderness rather than continue to enslave them, and also after the small number of remaining humans have decided to minimize their footprint on the earth rather than continue to destroy it. In that time, a tea monk named Dex (they/them) finds themself unsatisfied with life, goes literally off the beaten path, and meets a robot named Mosscap who has decided its mission is to figure out what humans want. Since this is also what Dex is trying to figure out, the two go off on an odd-couple journey through the wilderness, having philosophical discussions along the way. Quiet, thoughtful, and adorable.
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells
Murderbot Diaries #2 is almost as good as its prequel, which is to say that it’s still extremely good. In this story, the security cyborg that calls itself Murderbot is investigating some strange events in its past, and reluctantly accepts the help of a bored research transport ship in doing so. Murderbot being Murderbot, it also finds itself once again reluctantly protecting naive humans who get themselves into dangerous situations. Love Murderbot’s exasperated and sarcastic internal monologue, and how Wells gently eases in the character development and moments of growth. Beautifully done. And there are space station battles too, which are always fun.
Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki
This book is so many things: a love story to the food and immigrant culture of LA, an adoring paean to videogame and classical music, a coming-of-age rescue of a trans girl escaping abuse, a Faustian bargain involving cursed violins, and also aliens who have disguised their stargate inside a donut shop. Quite often the prose is beautiful, lyrical, evocative… and yet the writing is super choppy, the first person perspective comes across as awkward, and the POV switches so rapidly between characters that it’s honestly really annoying. I liked this book anyway, but I liked it despite the writing style.
Sinopticon 2021: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction, edited by Xueting Christine Ni
A good anthology, no duds, smooth and lyrical translation. The editor did a great job writing afterwords that gave insight into each author’s life and tied it to the story; for instance, Ma Boyong’s amazing “The Great Migration,” about how hordes of Martian immigrants crowd onto the space shuttles to visit Earth every time the planets approached one another, was inspired by his experience with the annual travel crush during Chinese New Year. Other stories look back at traumatic events in Chinese history, like Zhao HaiHong’s “Rendezvous: 1937,” which had time travelers reacting to the Nanjing Holocaust; or reference folklore like Regina Kanyu Wang’s “The Tide of Moon City,” which jumps off the legend of the cowherd and the weaver girl to explore political and personal tensions between binary planets in a shared star system. I think my favorite was “The Last Save” by Gu Shi, which allowed people to go back to previous save points and reload events and try again after they’ve messed things up, and then pivoted to inspect the impact such actions would have on their loved ones.
Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo
Oh man this was such an awesome read, way better than Shadow and Bone (though I’m glad I read that one first, if only so that I knew some of the Grishaverse terminology). In this heist novel, the action comes first, and characters are built alongside the action, which moves everything along much more smoothly. The conflicted rogue is also one of my favorite character archetypes, and there are TONS of them in this one. Each character in the squad has backstory that is explored gradually throughout the book, which builds on their awesome dynamics. The tension is kept at great levels; the heist is complicated and full of twists, but not so much that the book lost momentum explaining it. And even though the ending is cliffhanger-y, I can’t be disappointed; it was such a fun ride to get there. (Six weeks for the next one to come off the hold list? Noooooo)
No Gods, No Monsters, by Cadwell Turnbull
I really wanted to like this but it was so difficult; of the unnecessarily bloated cast, the POV characters that know things don’t let any information out, and the POV characters that don’t know anything… keep not knowing anything. The action starts with what seems like a fairly standard case of police brutality, but then it turns out that the young man who was shot was actually a werewolf… except then all the video footage and the official record is doctored to remove evidence of anything supernatural… and then more people begin revealing themselves as monsters, or are outed against their will, igniting pro- and anti- monster sentiment worldwide… but then the monsters themselves seem to be pawns in a complicated battle between even more higher powers, one or more of whom are running some kind of cult? The writing itself is great but the plot is really complicated and poorly communicated; I don’t think I’ll be pursuing the sequel.
Secret Daughter, by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
A poor woman in 1980s India is forced to give up her daughter (because they need sons, obv); a pair of California doctors struggling with infertility adopts that baby girl from the husband’s native Mumbai. The story follows both families as the girl grows; the Indian family struggles to make a living in Mumbai; the California couple deals with internal stress caused by culture clash and teen rebellion. The Indian culture and food, from the point of view of the expat doctor dad and the teenage American girl, were lovingly portrayed; the white mom’s horror of spicy food was a little stereotypical, but whatever. Easy writing with moments of genuine feeling, especially around parenthood, but mostly the story felt very staged and superficial throughout, the characters more paper cutouts than real people.