I didn’t actually like the experience of reading this book; I don’t generally enjoy psychological slow-burn explorations, especially if the narrators are not immediately likable. That said, the writing flowed patiently and easily, the musings of a perfectly understandable insecure narrator, but gradually interspersed with growing wrongness underneath. You learn that there are no more birds or bugs, since the earth is dying; the air hurts to breathe without filters; toxins fill the soil. This book is very much like Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, in that sacrifice via genetic science is presented as key to preserving the human race, but of course the real human journey is found in the emotional connections.
Tag: genre-scifi
Skyward Inn, by Aliya Whiteley
Really moody and atmospheric. Starts with two veterans, one human and one alien “Qitan.” They are sharing drinks at an inn, telling each other stories from the war; the story unfolds from that center like a flower. The stories change and shift; the addictive brew that the Qitan makes is more than it seems; the peace that their planets have reached is more complicated than it pretends to be. There’s also a side story with the human’s estranged son that seems like a distraction at first, but then grows to take over the direction of the story. The book has a lot to say about what makes a community vs an individual, and the tales that we tell each other to make our actions palatable. It’s smooth reading, but the dreamlike pace lacks urgency; the action gets really hard to follow towards the end.
Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao
Part mecha monster battles, part Chinese alt-history, part propaganda warfare, 100% unbridled feminist rage. Wu Zetian is being groomed by her family to follow in her sister’s footsteps, as a concubine for the mecha-pilot warriors that protect the population from the hordes of “Hundun” monsters beyond the Wall. Zetian, however, is resistant to the idea; not just because she already chafes at her assigned gender roles (foot binding, illiteracy, general submissiveness), but because the fate of concubines is to be the qi battery that the pilots use to power the mecha fighters… and when the battery is drained, the concubine is dead, hence the constant need for replacements. Zetian rampages through this book in a constant primal scream of fury at the unfairness of everything around her. There’s a lot of background politicking, a great nod to information warfare, and a truly unsettling reveal near the end. Unfortunately, the plot is at times confusing, the development uneven, the characterization flat or inconsistent; definitely a book that wants you to rush through without thinking too hard about the details. Mostly though, this book is Zetian taking out her righteous anger on the misogynist cruelty around her, and it’s hard not to enjoy that. Mad kudos for the love triangle aspect, the equal and opposite power balance providing a refreshing change from the norm. Warning: cliffhanger epilogue.
Aurora Rising, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
This book reads so much like a video game that I actually checked to see whether or not it was based on one. The action, characters, and dialogue feel like they would be right at home in a Final Fantasy game (ok, maybe the dialogue is a smidge better). The night before graduation, a space cadet decides to take a joyride, detours to rescue a cryogenically frozen damsel in distress, and misses the all-important, career-defining opportunity to choose his own team members, getting stuck instead with the dregs and interesting outcasts of the academy. Said team members even have character classes which map easily onto stats – “tanks” have max STR, “faces” have max CHA, also “brains” and “gearheads” etc – and each battle party, I mean “squad,” consists of exactly six members, one of each class. See, it’s totally an RPG! The rescued damsel turns out to be the key to unlocking dangerous secrets with galactic consequences – shocker! – and before you know it, the motley crew is off racing across the galaxy in search of answers and safe haven. Oh and did I mention that the “tank” in the squad is an alien that looks exactly like a Tolkien elf; one character even calls him “Legolas” (clearly some aspects of 21st century pop culture have improbably survived into the far future). It’s shallow reading, light and fun, especially enjoyable for those whose main goal in playing science fantasy video games is to get to the next gorgeous cutscene as quickly as possible.
Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette de Bodard
Novella, fantasy with court politics. Thanh was raised in the royal court as a political hostage; she is now back home, but her old flame, Princess Eldris of the neighboring predatory kingdom, is visiting with an eye towards alliance by marriage, or conquest, the same threat under a different name. Thanh eventually also makes friends with a fire spirit, whose history turns out to be tied closely with her own. Beautiful writing and a satisfying ending, but very flat characters.
A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams
A short story collection from a great group of speculative fiction writers. Like Howard Zinn’s book, it concentrates on historically marginalized groups, except here the theme is possible near futures of the US. Some of them are cautiously optimistic. Many, extrapolating from the recent past, are less hopeful. As with any collection, some stories landed better than others. I was particularly haunted by “Read After Burning” by Maria Davana Headley, in which books are banned, so a defiant group of readers tattoo works of literature onto their skin (and turn the skins into leather after death), in order to keep them for posterity.
Radiance, by Catherynne Valente
This is a hard book to encapsulate. It’s about the daughter of a filmmaker who has lived her life on camera; it’s about how we choose what stories to tell in order to control our own histories; it’s about losing yourself in the vastness of space in order to find yourself. It switches styles at a dizzying pace, from screenplay to interview to gushing magazine feature. It’s the Golden Age of film, except on an interplanetary level. It’s crazypants and beautiful. Oh, and humans are able to survive in the harsh conditions of space because they drink the milk from vast, dreaming Venusian whales; this is important later.
The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, by Aliette de Bodard
A novella about a city that disappeared, and the rippling effects on the society and nobility of the warlike Vietnamese space empire from which it escaped. The tight focus on the characters is the strength of the story; the very human conflicts – betrayal, filial duty, thwarted ambition – keep the story moving, while political and military space action adds plenty of tension.
Necessity, by Jo Walton
I closed this book and was just smiling at the end, it made me so happy. With the conclusion of the trilogy Jo Walton goes full sci-fi; with the previous two, the sole fantastical elements were the embodied and empowered Greek gods, but with this one, you get aliens, first-contact scenarios, and time travel. Yet the overall theme remains focused on the pursuit of excellence as a worthy life goal, and that’s reflected in the characters, even as they deal with their own issues and emotions. It makes these books uniquely pleasurable to read, because the characters are rarely out for themselves; they are constantly examining their actions and really trying their best. I liked the concept of Necessity, which in this book took the place of that mysterious force that forces logic on time travel: it is necessary that nothing be affected in a past time, that the future time might take place as it’s meant to be; the characters are well aware of Necessity, and (these are philosophers after all) discuss it at length.
The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley
How refreshing, I thought, a nice straightforward space trooper story… and then it turned out that whenever the troops went into battle they basically got Star Trek transported, broken apart into light and reformed, and every time the narrator broke into light, there was a chance that the reformation would take place in the past, or the future. Because the narrator feels constantly off-balance and uprooted, so does the reader, but for good reason; the journeys back and forth through time eventually uncover the roots of the futuristic war and lead towards a final solution. A really intense read that seems to ramble at first, before diving suddenly towards a conclusion.