What have you read lately?

[ergative]

Classic sci-fi
I've been listening to Librivox recordings while I do art or wash dishes or whatever. Since everything is public domain, it's all pretty old. I'm astonished by how lousy a lot of the classic sci-fi is, in terms of character, plot, pacing, and even the science.

The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber: Not too terrible, with a fun conceit, but the primary plot never actually went anywhere, and the big conclusion ended up being some stupid pseudo-philosophical speechifying. There were some great scenes, though: at one point a Greek Amazon woman is describing a battle in metrical verse, but using modern English vocabulary, and hearing that narrated aloud really brought out the meter.

Space Prison, by Tom Godwin: This is very classic planetary romance: Evil aliens take over a colony ship and maroon 4000 colonists on a planet that has killer unicorns on it. That's all very fun. The death rate is enormous (we're down to about 300 left alive), and Godwin is not at all shy about killing viewpoint characters, which I appreciate. But there's a villain colonist who is clearly a bad guy because he's trying to hoard food, and yet his arguments make a lot of sense. They're full of things like, 'I have experience in project management and operations, so maybe I should be the one to organize work teams, rather than you military leaders.' or 'Why are you military leaders in charge? I don't remember any agreement about how we should organize ourselves.' And, like, sure, I get that it's an emergency and there isn't time for Roberts Rules of Order, but they've been on that planet for over a year now, and they've still not found time to talk about it? Strawman has a point here.

Modern SFF
Jade City and Jade War by Fonda Lee: This is great fun! It's eastern-flavored magical The Godfather, with clan wars and magical superpowers, and the second book starts looking into how those clans spread into other countries, and how foreign relations and foreign trade can be conducted by a country that is jointly ruled by a legitimate government and a set of overpowerful clans. It's fabulous worldbuilding, and the characters are complex and make genuine decisions about genuine dilemmas. In Jade War one of the clan leaders makes such an appalling decision so lightly that it completely switched how I'm reading the books: Instead of rooting for his clan and hoping things work out for him, now I'm considering them all scum, and while I might care for individual characters, I would be perfectly happy if the series ends with the downfall of the entire clan system.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E Harrow: There were some beautiful bits to this, especially the way two seemingly distinct plotlines dovetailed, but the narrator was far, far too passive for my taste. And when she learns that she has the power to do a thing that her companion, who has done so much for her, desperately wants above all else in the world, she doesn't even consider doing it until the very, very end of the book. In fact, the book is full of people having the power to do a thing they desperately want and then not doing it for reasons that are never entirely clear. I enjoyed it, but it was very frustrating.

Adulthood Rites, by Octavia Butler: Not as good as Dawn. It sacrificed plot for ideas, but the ideas were a continuation from Dawn, and so they were not in themselves new and fresh enough to make up for the absence of a plot.

The Praxis, by Walter Jon Williams: Perfectly fine space opera, but nothing new or fresh.

Serial Box
Are you guys aware of serial box? The idea is serialized fiction, like tv shows, but you can get stories as either text or audiobook. The sci-fi stuff is written by really top-tier authors. We're talking Max Gladstone, Yoon-Ha Lee, and Malka Older.

The Witch Who Came In From The Cold: This is about warring magical factions that intersect with Cold War spy stuff. So you have grudging respect growing between an American spy and a Soviet spy who both work for one magical faction against the other. The cross-cutting loyalties are done very well.

Ninth Step Station: This is a political police procedural that takes place in near-future Tokyo, which has become partly occupied by the Chinese after an earthquake destroyed much of their infrastructure. Americans are there as peace-keepers (which I find depressingly quaint), and we have individual mysteries in which an American peacekeeper and a Japanese detective team up to solve crimes. It was a little too episodic for my taste; I would have preferred for the individual crimes to come together into a juicier political story than they did,, but it was still very well done.

The Vela: This was really superb. It's a science fiction story that is simultaneously a bitterly angry take on climate change and the refugee crisis, and also an awesome adventure romp. Humans have colonised a solar system and mined the sun for hydrogen, which means the sun is going out, and the planets are freezing to death. The outer planets are dying first, creating a flood of refugees to the inner planets, but eventually the sun will go out (in 100 years or so) and every planet will become uninhabitable (Get it? Get it?). Our viewpoint characters are a mercenary who was herself a refugee as a child, and a super-privileged child of the president of one of the inner planets, who deeply cares about the refugee crisis. They are sent off to track down a refugee ship that has gone missing, and the adventure romp has to do with finding the ship and discovering why it, of all refugee ships, was so important that the president of an inner planet wanted it tracked down when it disappeared.

[ab_grp]

Thank you for all of these reviews, Ergative! The Vela sounds particularly interesting and has also gotten good reviews elsewhere, apparently.  I looked briefly into Serial Box (hadn't heard of it) and will mention to spouse to see if that sounds like something he'd be interested in trying. 

We finished Clue and thought it was very entertaining overall.  Again, I can't quite tell if I enjoyed it so much because I could hear the movie in my head, but I think it's a solid and humorous mystery on its own.  Despite having watched the movie so many times, there were a couple new things I picked up on (one particular line completely sailed over my head in the movie but became a real duh moment during our reading of the book).  There are some narrative gaps that had or had not occurred to me while watching the movie that stood out to me more in the book, but it's still a favorite.

Now we're reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows), which I can never remember the name of and always think there's a sweet potato in there somewhere.  I've been wanting to read it for years.  I guess it's an epistolary novel, in that it seems to consist so far of letters back and forth between various folks.  That put me off at first, especially for reading out loud, although I realized it makes it much less burdensome to try to parse out different voices.  The questions of how the Society arose and what it is are intriguing, and the characters and situations are at times quirky, sad, mysterious, etc.  Pretty good so far. 

[Parasaurolophus]

January's (small) haul:

Joe Simpson - Touching the Void: I've seen the film and was familiar with the story, but when I saw this in a book box I thought it'd be worth picking up. And it was! The quality of the writing isn't fantastic, but it's an absolutely astonishing tale, and well worth hearing from the person who lived through it. Totally spellbinding for that reason.

Russell Hoban - Kleinzeit: I love Riddley Walker, so when I saw this in a used book store, I thought: "why not?" Experimental Literature, is why not. I don't have the patience for this kind of claptrap, which thinks it's deep just because it's obscure and disjointed. I'm not a fan of High Literature, and I have zero tolerance for this kind of pretentious twaddle.

Mur Lafferty - Six Wakes: This was a fun, engaging read. Great premise, good execution. The quality of the writing let me down at times (weirdly, it sounded a little ESL-ish in a few places, but English is definitely the author's first language), but I was totally into the world Lafferty built, and I'd like to revisit the characters further into their journey, or maybe when they start to colonize their target planet. I'd definitely read more, if there were any.

N.K. Jemisin - The Stone Sky: What can I say? It was heartbreaking and thoroughly engaging. I've often been disappointed by Hugo winner, but not this one (nor its two predecessors): it was well deserved. Jemisin does a fantastic job of telling this story, and of keeping me wanting more. The more I see of this world and its origins, the more I want to see (and the clearer the Wheel of Time influence becomes--weird that I haven't seen anyone else mention it!). Spellbinding, and so well done. I'm sorry that the trilogy is over. And, honestly, I'm a little apprehensive about reading her other work, just because I can't imagine it'll top this trilogy. Then again, I suppose they're not likely to disappoint, either.

[ergative]

Regarding N. K. Jemisin's other work:

Her short story collection, How Long Til Black Future Month, is excellent. She also has a duology, containing The Killing Moon and The Shadowed Sun, which are easily as good as the Broken Earth Trilogy.

Her other trilogy, beginning with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, is not as good---or, at least, when I think about it I remember being a little disappointed and impatient with the first book. I think the other two are better, but overall I have a less enthusiastic feeling about them.

[ab_grp]

Thanks for the question and answer about other Jemisin work worth reading.  I ordered the short stories and first book of the duology.

[ab_grp]

We finished the Guernsey literary society book last night. We both just absolutely loved it and would rank it a favorite.  It was so nice to read a book with so much joy (and sadness).  The characters were well rendered, dialogue was fresh and clever, story was adorable.  It was hard to put down to attend to real-life obligations, and we didn't want it to end. 

Now we are giving Anathem another try.  Probably not a great idea to start late last night, as I am already lost (again), but hopefully we will make better headway this evening.

[Parasaurolophus]

Thanks for the question and answer about other Jemisin work worth reading.  I ordered the short stories and first book of the duology.

Chime!

[hmaria1609]

The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman
The latest and #6 in "The Invisible Library" series.  At the end of the novel, there's an announcement about the next installment, The Dark Archive, releasing later this year.

Of interest, the Dreamblood duet is available as an omnibus edition.

[ergative]

Of interest, the Dreamblood duet is available as an omnibus edition.

That's great to hear! I read them from the library, but I would like to own them.

[paultuttle]

I'm currently plowing back through my collection of Louis L'Amour novels and short-story collections and (re)learning some things.

For example, I truly didn't know that (1) every exciting female was redheaded and (2) most fights are about cattle, the land required for those cattle, or both.

[nebo113]

I'm currently plowing back through my collection of Louis L'Amour novels and short-story collections and (re)learning some things.

For example, I truly didn't know that (1) every exciting female was redheaded and (2) most fights are about cattle, the land required for those cattle, or both.

Haunted Mesa is one of my favorites by him.  It's a sci fi take on the Ancient Ones (Anasazi).

[apl68]

I'm currently plowing back through my collection of Louis L'Amour novels and short-story collections and (re)learning some things.

For example, I truly didn't know that (1) every exciting female was redheaded and (2) most fights are about cattle, the land required for those cattle, or both.

Haunted Mesa is one of my favorites by him.  It's a sci fi take on the Ancient Ones (Anasazi).

Haunted Mesa is one of the few Louis L'Amour stories I've ever read.  It's an interesting variant on the "lost world" theme. 

[mamselle]

Is that about Acoma?

I did a comps on that and two other colonial churches....

M.

[apl68]

Is that about Acoma?

I did a comps on that and two other colonial churches....

M.

No...but "Haunted Mesa" might be a good title for a work set there!

I bet you loved Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop.

[nebo113]

Is that about Acoma?

I did a comps on that and two other colonial churches....

M.

Not specifically.  More about the (former) Anasazi, now known as Ancestral Puebloans.