In a future version of Toronto, where white flight and government neglect have reduced the inner core of the city to lawless violence, a young woman with oracular sight chafes under the eye of her herbalist grandmother. This book, a matrilineal retelling of “Ti-Jean and his Brothers,” mashes together many things: figures from Caribbean folktale, sci-fi dystopia and social commentary, strong female characters, and coming of age/redemption through embracing family culture. I followed the action well enough, but the use of Creole between the characters made me feel like it would have been better as an audiobook; I think I would have gotten the flow of the conversation much more easily.
Tag: genre-scifi
Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Space opera is the best opera! Years after the war with the Architects (vast, incomprehensible creatures who sculpt entire spaceships and planets into art-nouveau loops and whirls, without a care to whether or not other life-forms are affected), veterans of the fight have faded into obscurity (some more successfully than others). Idris, one such veteran, stumbles upon a damaged ship with new signs of Architect damage, a discovery that sets off an explosion of interplanetary drama, as well as personal drama for his misfit salvage crew. Definitely more on the fantasy side of sci-fi (interstellar travel is through a haunted hyperspace), and the alien biologies and politics are delightfully inventive. Really fun ride. First in a series.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers
Sequel to A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, but only insofar as one of the characters is reused, and the other characters are briefly referenced. A cascading failure of orbiting satellites leaves a motley group of characters stranded at a remote waypoint, in the care of a solicitous host and her moody teen. This is purely a character study; there are no bad guys, and no conflict save the fact that they are all on their own schedules and have their own reasons to get off-planet as quickly as possible. Gradually, their backgrounds and conflicts are revealed; equally gradually, a companionable friendship grows between them. Chambers dresses old conflicts up as alien cultures, and then finds a way for her characters to come together anyway. It’s like a warm sci-fi hug.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
A book of found family, in which the family is a hardworking multispecies crew of a starship. The sheer inventiveness of the alien characteristics and biology was amazing; however, Chambers I think falls into the trap of loving her characters too much to let anything bad happen to them, which blunts the edge of some of the more exciting bits. Still, great characters and universe and I would love to follow the series further.
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, by Martha Wells
Available online here. Really long title given that it’s a short story, but it’s a Murderbot story so I’ll take it. This one is from the point of view of Mensah, Murderbot’s favorite human, and I love her narrative voice; in her own way she’s very like Murderbot, aware of her own weaknesses but unwilling to face them. I loved seeing Murderbot through her eyes as well, the physical description colored by her feelings. Not too much action but great emotional punch.
Zero Sum Game, by S.L. Huang
Cas Russell will do any job for pay, because it’s better than being alone in her own head. Her superpower is not casual violence (though there’s plenty of that) but sheer mathematical ability; she calculates vectors of people and bullets, and plots her way through fights, until she’s the only one left standing. (Huang has a math background, so the math is actually readable and not just gibberish.) A standard rescue starts to go wrong when Cas is suddenly being pursued by an enemy too big to handle; on top of that, her thoughts and emotions no longer seem like they are her own. Cas is a prickly, untrusting person who is nevertheless fiercely loyal to a certain few, and it’s a joy to watch her gradually opening up her circle. Between dodging bullets, of course. I thought that there was a bit too much new plot being introduced near the end, but then I found out it was the first of a series. What a delight! Bring on more Cas, I am looking forward to seeing where she’s going.
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
SF, but the kind of soft-around-the-edges SF that creates a world for you without really needing to get into the details of how it works. The viewpoint character Klara is a solar-powered AF, an artificial intelligence designed to be a dedicated friend to some child wealthy and lonely enough to need one; that lonely child is Josie, whose parents have made choices that now define their lives and hers. Klara’s combination of innocence and fiercely detailed observational skills allow her to make piercing insights about the human characters, while also remaining childishly naïve about the humans’ motives. I particularly loved Ishiguro’s rendering of her understanding of the world, which brought items to the foreground of her attention depending on their urgency, and categorized actions into shifting area boxes; when she is disturbed, the boxes and priorities devolve into a colorful, shifting mess of meaningless geometries. Very well done.
Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Really short and focused compared to previous Tchaikovsky reads. It starts out feeling like a fantasy novel, with a princess running away to seek the help of an legendary wizard… but then you find out that the wizard is actually a hapless anthropologist, stranded when he came to study a far-flung space colony, and his fabled magics are really just Clarke’s third law in action. The characters were thoughtfully created and beautifully executed, and their internal, interpersonal, and external conflicts were all brilliantly woven together, with the narrative giving each time to develop and grow. Really solid piece.
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, by Kim Fu
The first short story of this collection just crushed me. “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” is about a person who recently lost their mother and just wants to see them again in a simulation. Unfortunately, company policy is to not show clients dead people, lest they get addicted to the experience and confuse reality with fantasy. It’s all in dialogue and the tone is handled brilliantly. The rest of the stories were perfectly good, with themes of normalcy shading to insidious creepiness with societal commentary on the side, but in my opinion none of them matched the first one for sheer punch. Still, a really impressive collection overall; will definitely be keeping an eye out for other works by Fu.
The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi
This is not a subtle book. All of the heroes (and they are pretty interchangeable) are smart, snarky, and capable; the villain is unapologetically amoral and can be seen coming a mile away. Narrator Jamie, laid off from a food delivery gig during the Covid-19 pandemic, is offered the chance to work with an “animal rights organization” and snaps it up. Turns out the animals being protected are kaiju, in a parallel dimension accessible with the onset of nuclear power. Scalzi knows what he’s doing; the writing is smooth, the story moves well, and the dialogue is snappy. The monstrous kaiju and the other inhabitants of their crazy jungle biome are also lushly and enjoyably described. Nothing deep here, but solid entertainment.