aelfgyfu_mead (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aelfgyfu_mead) wrote2016-05-30 07:39 pm
aelfgyfu_mead) wrote2016-05-30 07:39 pm
Entry tags:
Books I read between September and, uh, sometime after January and before now
My fiction reading seems to have shot up since my fanfic reading has plummeted—funny thing.* The time I spent writing about what I read did not increase, so now I have a backlog. I'm ordering this entry with the ones I recommend most highly at the top—partly because it has now been so long that I can’t remember the order in which I read them.
Spoilers may be present in comments—so be careful in perusing the comments. If you’ve read the books I have, talk to me about them! Argue! Agree! Whatever you like.
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie completes the Imperial Radch series with a bang. The first book in the series is Ancillary Justice (about which I wrote here).
the second is Ancillary Sword (about which I wrote here)
I cannot recommend the trilogy highly enough. I also can’t say much about the third book because that would spoil the other two. Just take my word for it and READ THEM.
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin is everything positive you’ve heard about it. It’s heart-wrenching, so brace yourselves. The world building is excellent, and the major characters are compelling. The book literally starts with the end of the world, at least as its inhabitants know it; many survive, but many do not, and the whole Continent is riven.
Orogenes, also known abusively as “rogga,” have powers over kinetic and thermal energy: they can affect people around them, and they can affect the earth beneath their feat. Each is supposed to be identified, given a Guardian, trained, and strictly regulated. The whole system exists for the security (mental as well as physical) of the majority non-orogenes.
Jemisin develops an amazing world here with some very memorable and moving characters. I can’t wait for the next in the series.
Seriously, if you haven’t read this, read it now. If you have, talk to me in comments!
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed: This is the first book in another series, and I’m so glad, because I want to see more of these characters! Again, the world is not earth. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is the last of the ghoul hunters in Dhamsawaat, and he is tired and getting old. Yet he has an assistant or apprentice, Raseed bas Raseed, who needs training (particularly in being a bit less rigid!). Zamia Badawi is a young woman who has been made Protector of her Band over the objection of some of its members. Two old friends of Adoulla come into the picture more later. I love these people, flaws and all.
This is a world of magic, but magic has costs as well as dangers. It’s a rollicking adventure story while reflecting on politics, mortality, and morality. I’d have thought the author older and more experienced if not for his photo, bio, and Twitter feed. He has written short fiction as well, but this is his first novel. I wouldn’t have guessed.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Why do I keep reading post-apocalyptic novels? I don't like apocalypses and after! I tell myself that, and yet. . . . This book does some weaving back and forth so that we see the characters before the apocalypse. The one flaw I found in this award-winning, highly praised book is that one of the point-of-view characters in fact largely disappears from the aftermath. I wanted to see more of him and kept thinking that I would, and then I didn't. In the end, I wasn't sure why he was in the novel, except to give us a glimpse at one or two particular things that we wouldn't see from the other characters.
Aside from that, I rate the book highly. The main character, Kirsten, belongs to The Traveling Symphony, a troupe of performers who traipse around what used to be Michigan doing Shakespeare, among other things. She doesn't have very strong memories of life before the pandemic, but she has a place and loved ones after it, and she's determined to keep those. The novel is beautifully written and well-imagined. It delves into storytelling at multiple levels: "Station Eleven" is a comic book written before the disaster.
The Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found by Jarod Roselló is a beautiful little comic book/graphic novel that enchanted me so much I read it twice. I caught more details the second time; I tend to look more at words the first time and miss things in the visuals. The Well-Dressed Bear gets calls for Jonathan. He doesn't know why. He just wants to read his book. What sounds like the plot of a children's story is really a very adult meditation on identity and belonging (and not belonging).
The publisher had a special at the time and packaged Roselló's Those Bears #1 with it; they're now offering "a handmade mini-chap" by the author (and you can order here, if you're interested; it's a small publisher, so I want to give them a plug). Or you can read Those Bears online here. It might be momentarily confusing, because the male bear looks just like the protagonist of The Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found but seems to be a different character. The bears are bears in a largely human world where bears face a lot of hate and discrimination. It's surprisingly charming even while being necessarily disturbing. Warning: Those Bears is incomplete, with no indication of when it will resume.
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden: This novel is brutal. I have a low tolerance for violence, and I should have known better than to read it, but . . . but if I recall correctly, I put it in my Amazon wishlist with the note "just saving so I don't forget this" because I wasn't at all sure I wanted to buy it. And my brother found it on the list and gave it to me. This wasn't the first clue that people in my family don't always read the notes next to items in wish lists. I have since set up a private wishlist to avoid such problems.
Anyway, I read the book, and it is worth reading; I couldn't stop even when I couldn't stomach what was happening. There are three main characters who alternate point of view: Bird, a prominent Wendat warrior (a group of tribes known to Europeans and European-Americans as the Wyandot or Wyandotte); Snow Falls, an Iroquois girl taken by Bird when he kills her family at the very start of the book; and Christophe, a French Jesuit missionary called the Crow by the Wendat. Warfare and other forms of violence occur frequently, but beauty and love also feature prominently. I felt closer and closer to the characters the more I read, even when I completely disagreed with what they did.
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
As I wrote here, I read the previous book in the series, Halting State, under the misapprehension that it would not all be in second person. This book too is in second person. I have been told (not personally, but online) by both writers and academics that it is small-minded to reject a mode of narration, and that someone who says she won’t read fiction written in second-person is not worth hearing.
I’ve read two books now in second person (and a few fanfics), so I guess I’m not really a person who totally rejects the mode of narration. I still find it grating, however, and wish people would not do it. I also prefer books written in past tense.
Rule 34 is mind-blowing. I realized by the time I read it that I could no longer disentangle Halting State in my head: I remember reading it, I remember things about the main characters, and I remember a few things about the plot they uncover. I can’t remember how it worked; I can’t remember exactly who was doing what nefarious things and why. For Rule 34, I remember what happened! More or less, but hey! It’s also complicated, but it makes more sense to me, and in fact, I found the ultimate answer fairly simple—and really, really chilling. Do not read Stross books as bedtime stories unless you want not to sleep. Egad.
The main character, Liz, is a very likable policewoman in a very difficult job: after the events of Halting State, she was put in charge of a division that handles what we might call Rule 34. (If by chance you don’t know it, here’s the original xkcd strip; also, Google and see how amazingly well it caught on.) Truly terrible things happen. The novel also features a really intriguing take on policing and computing in a future that seems very close.
I recommend only to those with strong stomachs who do not start imagining that terrible things that happen in books will now happen to you. Fortunately, I think virtually all of you are better at this than I am.
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: I bought this book knowing that some people loved it and some people hated it and a few said, "What did I just read?" I enjoyed it and said, "What did I just read?"
It was billed as having something to do with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which won over my little medievalist heart. And it has something to do with SGGK. It also has some things to do with Beowulf. The two main characters are named Axl and Beatrice, and the latter bothered me over and over: they're supposed to be Britons in early Anglo-Saxon Britain. I might possibly go for "Axl," but "Beatrice" yanks me out of early medieval Britain entirely. There's a lot of allusion, pastiche, and anachronism, which are all very medieval things to do. The novel feels very modern or postmodern in its opacity to me, however. We know there's something wrong, but we're not very sure what. Memory is very elusive. I found the book very interesting but also somewhat frustrating.
In Camelot's Shadow by Sarah Zettel: I loved Zettel's Fool's War. I also recommend Kingdom of Cages and her Isavalta series.
I barely made it through In Camelot's Shadow and do not plan to read the sequels. Maybe it's because it's Arthurian, and I'm extra sensitive when things are Arthurian (The Buried Giant, above, was sort of Arthurian but clearly trying to break the mold). I never finished The Mists of Avalon, either. Zettel draws on medieval material not unlike Ishiguro, but the results here felt very different to me. I'm finding it very hard to put my finger on what I didn't like. There's a romance, and I didn't feel it. I felt I could like each character individually, but as they began falling in love, they began to annoy me. I got very annoyed at some of the other characters, too—particularly the antagonists. And a major borrowing from the medieval Arthurian canon felt badly misappropriated at the end, and that was the last straw for me.
That doesn’t get me up to the present, but I found I’d started this entry in January and then stopped. I’ve written up the books that were threatening to topple off my desk at home, and I hope to do another entry soon. That will include (Notes to self!):
A Dresden Files book or two
A Captain America comic or two
Doc by Mary Doria Russell
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
Bloodchild—short stories by Octavia Butler
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
and possibly a couple of other things I didn’t even get into one pile and so can’t remember at the moment.
As always, discussion is welcome!
*The reasons for my sharp drop-off in fanfic reading are complex and not entirely clear even to me. I became very disillusioned with Sherlock and read almost nothing in that fandom anymore. I was not quite as disillusioned with White Collar, but I wasn't happy with the ending, and I soured on it somewhat. I'm not sure why I'm reading almost no MCU these days. There's not much new gen Stargate to read.
Spoilers may be present in comments—so be careful in perusing the comments. If you’ve read the books I have, talk to me about them! Argue! Agree! Whatever you like.
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie completes the Imperial Radch series with a bang. The first book in the series is Ancillary Justice (about which I wrote here).
the second is Ancillary Sword (about which I wrote here)
I cannot recommend the trilogy highly enough. I also can’t say much about the third book because that would spoil the other two. Just take my word for it and READ THEM.
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin is everything positive you’ve heard about it. It’s heart-wrenching, so brace yourselves. The world building is excellent, and the major characters are compelling. The book literally starts with the end of the world, at least as its inhabitants know it; many survive, but many do not, and the whole Continent is riven.
Orogenes, also known abusively as “rogga,” have powers over kinetic and thermal energy: they can affect people around them, and they can affect the earth beneath their feat. Each is supposed to be identified, given a Guardian, trained, and strictly regulated. The whole system exists for the security (mental as well as physical) of the majority non-orogenes.
Jemisin develops an amazing world here with some very memorable and moving characters. I can’t wait for the next in the series.
Seriously, if you haven’t read this, read it now. If you have, talk to me in comments!
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed: This is the first book in another series, and I’m so glad, because I want to see more of these characters! Again, the world is not earth. Doctor Adoulla Makhslood is the last of the ghoul hunters in Dhamsawaat, and he is tired and getting old. Yet he has an assistant or apprentice, Raseed bas Raseed, who needs training (particularly in being a bit less rigid!). Zamia Badawi is a young woman who has been made Protector of her Band over the objection of some of its members. Two old friends of Adoulla come into the picture more later. I love these people, flaws and all.
This is a world of magic, but magic has costs as well as dangers. It’s a rollicking adventure story while reflecting on politics, mortality, and morality. I’d have thought the author older and more experienced if not for his photo, bio, and Twitter feed. He has written short fiction as well, but this is his first novel. I wouldn’t have guessed.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel: Why do I keep reading post-apocalyptic novels? I don't like apocalypses and after! I tell myself that, and yet. . . . This book does some weaving back and forth so that we see the characters before the apocalypse. The one flaw I found in this award-winning, highly praised book is that one of the point-of-view characters in fact largely disappears from the aftermath. I wanted to see more of him and kept thinking that I would, and then I didn't. In the end, I wasn't sure why he was in the novel, except to give us a glimpse at one or two particular things that we wouldn't see from the other characters.
Aside from that, I rate the book highly. The main character, Kirsten, belongs to The Traveling Symphony, a troupe of performers who traipse around what used to be Michigan doing Shakespeare, among other things. She doesn't have very strong memories of life before the pandemic, but she has a place and loved ones after it, and she's determined to keep those. The novel is beautifully written and well-imagined. It delves into storytelling at multiple levels: "Station Eleven" is a comic book written before the disaster.
The Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found by Jarod Roselló is a beautiful little comic book/graphic novel that enchanted me so much I read it twice. I caught more details the second time; I tend to look more at words the first time and miss things in the visuals. The Well-Dressed Bear gets calls for Jonathan. He doesn't know why. He just wants to read his book. What sounds like the plot of a children's story is really a very adult meditation on identity and belonging (and not belonging).
The publisher had a special at the time and packaged Roselló's Those Bears #1 with it; they're now offering "a handmade mini-chap" by the author (and you can order here, if you're interested; it's a small publisher, so I want to give them a plug). Or you can read Those Bears online here. It might be momentarily confusing, because the male bear looks just like the protagonist of The Well-Dressed Bear Will (Never) Be Found but seems to be a different character. The bears are bears in a largely human world where bears face a lot of hate and discrimination. It's surprisingly charming even while being necessarily disturbing. Warning: Those Bears is incomplete, with no indication of when it will resume.
The Orenda by Joseph Boyden: This novel is brutal. I have a low tolerance for violence, and I should have known better than to read it, but . . . but if I recall correctly, I put it in my Amazon wishlist with the note "just saving so I don't forget this" because I wasn't at all sure I wanted to buy it. And my brother found it on the list and gave it to me. This wasn't the first clue that people in my family don't always read the notes next to items in wish lists. I have since set up a private wishlist to avoid such problems.
Anyway, I read the book, and it is worth reading; I couldn't stop even when I couldn't stomach what was happening. There are three main characters who alternate point of view: Bird, a prominent Wendat warrior (a group of tribes known to Europeans and European-Americans as the Wyandot or Wyandotte); Snow Falls, an Iroquois girl taken by Bird when he kills her family at the very start of the book; and Christophe, a French Jesuit missionary called the Crow by the Wendat. Warfare and other forms of violence occur frequently, but beauty and love also feature prominently. I felt closer and closer to the characters the more I read, even when I completely disagreed with what they did.
Rule 34 by Charles Stross
As I wrote here, I read the previous book in the series, Halting State, under the misapprehension that it would not all be in second person. This book too is in second person. I have been told (not personally, but online) by both writers and academics that it is small-minded to reject a mode of narration, and that someone who says she won’t read fiction written in second-person is not worth hearing.
I’ve read two books now in second person (and a few fanfics), so I guess I’m not really a person who totally rejects the mode of narration. I still find it grating, however, and wish people would not do it. I also prefer books written in past tense.
Rule 34 is mind-blowing. I realized by the time I read it that I could no longer disentangle Halting State in my head: I remember reading it, I remember things about the main characters, and I remember a few things about the plot they uncover. I can’t remember how it worked; I can’t remember exactly who was doing what nefarious things and why. For Rule 34, I remember what happened! More or less, but hey! It’s also complicated, but it makes more sense to me, and in fact, I found the ultimate answer fairly simple—and really, really chilling. Do not read Stross books as bedtime stories unless you want not to sleep. Egad.
The main character, Liz, is a very likable policewoman in a very difficult job: after the events of Halting State, she was put in charge of a division that handles what we might call Rule 34. (If by chance you don’t know it, here’s the original xkcd strip; also, Google and see how amazingly well it caught on.) Truly terrible things happen. The novel also features a really intriguing take on policing and computing in a future that seems very close.
I recommend only to those with strong stomachs who do not start imagining that terrible things that happen in books will now happen to you. Fortunately, I think virtually all of you are better at this than I am.
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: I bought this book knowing that some people loved it and some people hated it and a few said, "What did I just read?" I enjoyed it and said, "What did I just read?"
It was billed as having something to do with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which won over my little medievalist heart. And it has something to do with SGGK. It also has some things to do with Beowulf. The two main characters are named Axl and Beatrice, and the latter bothered me over and over: they're supposed to be Britons in early Anglo-Saxon Britain. I might possibly go for "Axl," but "Beatrice" yanks me out of early medieval Britain entirely. There's a lot of allusion, pastiche, and anachronism, which are all very medieval things to do. The novel feels very modern or postmodern in its opacity to me, however. We know there's something wrong, but we're not very sure what. Memory is very elusive. I found the book very interesting but also somewhat frustrating.
In Camelot's Shadow by Sarah Zettel: I loved Zettel's Fool's War. I also recommend Kingdom of Cages and her Isavalta series.
I barely made it through In Camelot's Shadow and do not plan to read the sequels. Maybe it's because it's Arthurian, and I'm extra sensitive when things are Arthurian (The Buried Giant, above, was sort of Arthurian but clearly trying to break the mold). I never finished The Mists of Avalon, either. Zettel draws on medieval material not unlike Ishiguro, but the results here felt very different to me. I'm finding it very hard to put my finger on what I didn't like. There's a romance, and I didn't feel it. I felt I could like each character individually, but as they began falling in love, they began to annoy me. I got very annoyed at some of the other characters, too—particularly the antagonists. And a major borrowing from the medieval Arthurian canon felt badly misappropriated at the end, and that was the last straw for me.
That doesn’t get me up to the present, but I found I’d started this entry in January and then stopped. I’ve written up the books that were threatening to topple off my desk at home, and I hope to do another entry soon. That will include (Notes to self!):
A Dresden Files book or two
A Captain America comic or two
Doc by Mary Doria Russell
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
Bloodchild—short stories by Octavia Butler
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
and possibly a couple of other things I didn’t even get into one pile and so can’t remember at the moment.
As always, discussion is welcome!
*The reasons for my sharp drop-off in fanfic reading are complex and not entirely clear even to me. I became very disillusioned with Sherlock and read almost nothing in that fandom anymore. I was not quite as disillusioned with White Collar, but I wasn't happy with the ending, and I soured on it somewhat. I'm not sure why I'm reading almost no MCU these days. There's not much new gen Stargate to read.