I really liked almost every concept in this book: downtrodden slave caste with a secret rebellion, a child raised by the colonizers struggles to find her place; warrior/princess romance with respect paid to power imbalance, hidden magic users wielding secret powers… but the characterization was flat, the villains were paper cutouts, the characters made weird and stupid unforced errors, the plot dragged and rushed by turns, and at the end I feel like nothing got resolved and more messes were made. I get that it’s the first in a series, but with this kind of pacing and development, I’m not in a hurry to see where it goes.
Tag: genre-fantasy
The Black Tides of Heaven, by Neon Yang
First in a series: magic, prophecy, family guilt trips. I really liked the concept of a race whose gender is literally undecided until around when puberty hits, at which point they can choose to be male or female (or perhaps neither?), and their body will adapt to their decision. A pair of powerful twins need to figure out a path forward through political unrest, their manipulative and cruel mother, and their bond with one another. I like show-don’t-tell worldbuilding but this one was a little too vague sometimes.
Spirits Abroad, by Zen Cho
This is a collection of short stories full of Zen Cho’s sardonic characters, who encounter creatures out of Malay myth and still manage to be dry and ordinary about it all. I love all the stories, but especially the ones about the dragon who fell for the girl who is more focused on getting her university degree; the lion dance troupe whose side gig is to exorcise ghosts; and the high school pontianak (female vampire) who just wants to go to school without worrying about her interfering aunts. Absolutely delightful collection.
The Library of the Dead, by T.L. Huchu
I love books that don’t try to explain too much. Edinburgh native Ropa dropped out of school to eke out a living as a “ghostalker,” someone who brings messages back and forth between the dead and the living. Her cynical practicality keeps her from taking on charity cases; however, a desperate mother ghost eventually nags her into searching for her lost son. Ropa goes straight down a rabbit hole involving an occult organization, a hidden library, and more secrets than anyone should have to handle. I love that she just puts her head down and deals with things without ever expecting rescue. First in a series.
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, by Zen Cho
This has probably one of the best beginnings of any book I’ve read recently: a bandit comes reluctantly to the defense of a mouthy waitress at a coffeeshop; a totally avoidable brawl ensues. The book then proceeds to unfold in layers: the barmaid turns out to be a nun; the bandit has his own secrets; the bandits’ mission is not quite what it seems. The characters are hilariously sarcastic to one another but also thoughtful and tender; the wuxia/fantasy element is fantastic as well. I really enjoyed this book. I also loved how the Malaysian turns of phrase weren’t presented as an exotic English accent, but simply the language of the characters; all too often dialect is used as a way to set characters apart from the main, but here it is acknowledged as normal.
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre, by Max Brooks
It’s as if Brooks wanted to recreate the magic of “World War Z” but on a much smaller scale, with a much smaller pool of interviewees. Basically Mount Rainier erupts, stranding a group of unlikely yuppie caricatures (and one even more unlikely Eastern European siege survivor) in a remote wooded location. The eruption also unbalances the local ecosystem, which brings a group of violent sasquatch types into conflict with the bumbling humans. The majority of this book is directly quoted from the diary of one of the stranded individuals, which makes the book weak mostly because she is incredibly weak, and also eye-rollingly naive. That said, Brooks is a more than competent writer and the prose was easy enough that I still had a pretty good time.
Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A Mexican fairy tale in which Casiopea plays a wary, cynical Cinderella. Doomed to serve her casually cruel rich relations, Casiopea accidentally frees the Mayan God of Death, and he enlists (demands, really) her help in defeating the brother who wronged him. Their journey through Mexico and deep into the land of the underworld, as seen through Casiopea’s suspicious naivete, is delightful; the character of the God of Death gets surprising depth as well.
Son of a Trickster, by Eden Robinson
I got this from the Dominion City book club last summer and finally read it! This book was a pleasure to read, with snappy conversations and low-key show-don’t-tell narration. Jared is a teen Native just trying to make his way through life despite his rough home situation. He’s a good kid with an appealing mixture of toughness, thoughtfulness, and black humor, which sustains the reader through the continual drumbeat of intergenerational trauma that we see all around him. The introduction of the Indigenous mythical elements is a slow burn; it’s not until near the end that Jared figures out that the voices and visions he experiences are not just drug-induced hallucinations. The pacing feels more like a Part 1 than a standalone novel, but the writing is good enough that I’m definitely looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.
The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow
I started out loving this book, then found myself getting bored and just tolerating it; fortunately it picked up towards the end. Harrow painted herself into a corner by making her characters obvious archetypes; as such they could never really grow as characters, just asymptotically approach their fated roles. Although the language was lovely and poetic, the book couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be a fairy tale (in which every encounter was fated) or a story in which the characters could pretend to have agency, instead of just making their peace with their foreordained roles.
Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
A book that manages to maintain both a very broad and a very tight focus. In the grand scheme it’s about migration and refugees, how people try to make a life when they’ve lost everything in the world that they know. The sole aspect of magical realism is the existence of doors, which mysteriously connect one part of the world to another. Someone can step through a doorway in the Philippines and exit in a closet in Germany; or, as our protagonists do, leave a war-torn, crumbling Middle Eastern city and emerge on the Mediterranean seaside. The couple at the tight focus, Saeed and Nadia, do indeed manage this escape, but not without pain and loss; the book doesn’t give them an easy journey, realistically anticipating the kind of treatment that awaits unwanted refugee arrivals. Saeed and Nadia go through a lot; running away together is hard, staying together is harder, and staying true to yourself under such pressure is hardest of all. The way Hamid writes reminds me of Salman Rushdie; he favors long, flowing, beautiful run-on paragraphs that end, abruptly, on hard and piercing truths.