Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
Continuing in the proud tradition of rad sci-fi that is incomprehensibly foreign to my waegukin-ass head, Ninefox Gambit fills both my love of sweet star empires and my need to be reminded of the massive cultural disparity in Asian power dynamics.
Let me sum this book up as best I can: This book is a Warhammer 40k fanfiction where the Cult of the Emperor has been replaced with the Chinese Zodiac.
It's phenomenal and crazy. Caste systems to the extreme. Strict adherence to calendrical observances generate unexplained supernatural phenomena that can be channeled via military formations? Space stations that act like beacons projecting Belief into the universe? Immortal souls implanted into people as hosts, in order to fight heretics? Weapons with names and effects that would make Mieville give them a high five.
This book is a genuinely ripping space opera and I was chuffed to read the ding dang thing from start to finish. I was also entirely out of my element pretty much the whole damn time, but unlike the Three Body Problem I was able to tread water enough to appreciate it. It requires a certain willing mindset, and shit goes out the window for the final fifth of the story in a MAJOR way but what space opera with intents to be a series doesn't?
The Sarantine Mosaic - Guy Gavriel Kay
Do you recognize this guys name yet? I goofed. That fuckin light space opera was me forcing myself to rip loose of this masterful man, so clearly the best course of action was to immediately follow it up with his two-book epic interpretation of 600 CE Byzantium, complete with chariot races and the slow descent of Rome-analogue into the sea.
Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors is a duology set in the same universe as the other two Kay books on here, albeit - since it's once again history turned slightly into the fantastic - hundreds of years in the past. This time we're in the Byzantine empire, what becomes Constantinople which becomes Istanbul. The capital of the western world for a thousand real years, the center of three empires, and just Roman as all hell. Sandals. Artisans. Decadence. Intrigue. Chariot racing.
Everything I have previously said about Kay remains true here. And indeed, is only reinforced now that I have enough of an education in his universe to see the connecting threads.
These books are heavy, weighty, appropriately so for the representation of the rise and fall of massive empires and the lives of those who live within them.
My previous weak comparisons to Game of Thrones continue. In style only, really. Shifting rapidly between interconnected characters views and storylines. Court(s) intrigue. People at all levels of power. The existence of power as an element.
Imagine game of thrones if you replaced the dragons with a heartbreaking examination of the injustices and simultaneous exultations of the human condition.
These books convey solemnity in the same way as stepping into a large, empty building. It carries weight.
It has no dragons, just (mostly) humans hopelessly tangled in each other, and yet I am here trying to get across that I read it as if it contained nothing but dragons. I devoured these books. I fucked my sleep schedule up for these books.
These books, this author, elicits in me very nearly the same feeling as first reading Dune did. I guess Dune is my metric for awe at the scope of a writer, which is why I keep going back to it.
These two books had more blatant fantastical elements than the others, which was a nice and appropriate change.
Like the others, it schooled the fuck out of my knowledge of the appropriate historical era.
More than the others, it demanded sacrifice.
But that is appropriate, for a city so grand.
Monday, May 15, 2017
Saturday, May 6, 2017
Harder to do these in chunks now
The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay
I loved this guys other book so ding dang much I went and tried to find the beginning, the first one in this shared symbiotic world of 16th-ish century betterEurope. If Earth and Sky was Adriatic merchant city-states and intimate humanities, this book was Moorish Spain and the impact of the Reconquista.
God damn this author doesn't half-ass anything. I should have realized doing two of these back to back would drain me significantly.
It was noticeable, the age difference of this version of Kay than the 16-years-older author I read beforehand. Subtle but there. It seems unbelievably pretentious for me to say 'less mature' but I am unable to find a better turn of phrase.
Everything I said about this guy (Guy) remains true. This is a masterful work of adapted historical fantasy. The characters are human, real, complex. Appropriate. Radical. Gripping?
Tragic. Shakespearean, at times, in its asking of emotional investment and mercilessly wielding the knife for dramatic gain.
More than anything I was reminded of Romance of the Three Kingdoms - mix history with fable with fantasy elements. Turn the drudgery into storytelling. Make people larger than life. Tell a truly tremendous story.
The world is equally fascinating in 10th century Andalusia as it was in the Adriatic coast. Educational! Heartbreaking, and unpleasant, as it always is when you dive into the real horrors people tend to get up to when you mix religion and warfare and culture and power.
Satisfying! A surprisingly excellent rivalry, a well done love triangle? A massive stable of full, growing, vibrant characters. I would kill to see this made into a show. It may be impossible, which is one of the truest signs of a uniquely good book.
I loved this guys other book so ding dang much I went and tried to find the beginning, the first one in this shared symbiotic world of 16th-ish century betterEurope. If Earth and Sky was Adriatic merchant city-states and intimate humanities, this book was Moorish Spain and the impact of the Reconquista.
God damn this author doesn't half-ass anything. I should have realized doing two of these back to back would drain me significantly.
It was noticeable, the age difference of this version of Kay than the 16-years-older author I read beforehand. Subtle but there. It seems unbelievably pretentious for me to say 'less mature' but I am unable to find a better turn of phrase.
Everything I said about this guy (Guy) remains true. This is a masterful work of adapted historical fantasy. The characters are human, real, complex. Appropriate. Radical. Gripping?
Tragic. Shakespearean, at times, in its asking of emotional investment and mercilessly wielding the knife for dramatic gain.
More than anything I was reminded of Romance of the Three Kingdoms - mix history with fable with fantasy elements. Turn the drudgery into storytelling. Make people larger than life. Tell a truly tremendous story.
The world is equally fascinating in 10th century Andalusia as it was in the Adriatic coast. Educational! Heartbreaking, and unpleasant, as it always is when you dive into the real horrors people tend to get up to when you mix religion and warfare and culture and power.
Satisfying! A surprisingly excellent rivalry, a well done love triangle? A massive stable of full, growing, vibrant characters. I would kill to see this made into a show. It may be impossible, which is one of the truest signs of a uniquely good book.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Crate Digging
Children of Earth and Sky - Guy Gavriel Kay
I didn't know a damn thing about Game of Thrones until the show popped up. I watched the first season and read the first book concurrently, then drank up all the Hennessy that Martin had on his shelf before season 2 came out. So I've read all that meandering shit.
Hear me now, dear reader, when I say that if you're one of those miserable bastards who reads GoT for the court intrigue and adventuring and cultural politic nation building aspects (and not, for example, the rational and proper things like motherfucking dragons and a city definitely destroyed by dark magic, dog, come on) then this book I have here is for you.
Also, good news: if you liked the magic parts, this book also has some of that.
Children of Earth and Sky is vast and complex. The world is rich and dense and realistic, due mostly to it being based off of history. It is essentially traced over 16th century Adriatic Europe, and I almost feel bad telling you that right off the bat because I didn't have it click until the very end of the book.
I brought up Game of Thrones because it has a massive cast of characters and switches between their perspectives, frequently immediately and within the same scene, and has a lot of Rough Realism or Whatever. It is a fantasy book through and through, though. Trough. Tough. God, the English language is a mess.
This book has great depth and will carry you with it. The fantasy equivalents of Prague, of Venice, of Constantinople/Istanbul are real, because they were real, and because the author has great skill and vast knowledge of history and of how to write like a motherfucker.
Turns out this guy is the guy Tolkien's son picked to be his assistant/editor when he compiled a bunch of his dad's unpublished lore. When he was twenty. You might be familiar with the Silmarillion.
This book is devastatingly human. It weaves plots with ruthless shakespearean deftness. It handles women characters in a variety of roles well, which is remarkable.
This is another book I had to eat in parts, over weeks, because of the sheer scope of it. It had the disconcerting tendency to run off with details of the characters lives far into the future, then return to the present for the rest of the characters. It's exhausting to live alongside so many varied and detailed people at once.
It is hard to imagine being able to hold this much in one head at any given time. Both a zoomed in, all-seeing insight into exciting specific lives and an objective, empathetic understanding of the human condition and how short and sweet it can be. And how shitty, and easy to end.
And how SLAVIC everything can be, that side of the Mediterranean.
Do not be like me, dear reader - a poor uneducated fool who confuses the Baltic and Balkan regions. If you hear 'Croatia' and think "haha, potatoes! vodka! latvia!" then you are like me and a big stupid idiot. That's up in the Baltic region, dumbo! Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro? Those are Balkan!
They are firmly in tomato europe territory and their history is fucking fascinating as evidenced by the fact that this book that mines them for fantasy worldbuilding is one of the best damn things I've read in a while.
Hey remember how I'm obsessed with magic systems revolving around the nonconcatenative morphology of the triconsonantal root of semitic languages?
MOVE OVER ITS PROTO BALTO SLAVIC TIME
I didn't know a damn thing about Game of Thrones until the show popped up. I watched the first season and read the first book concurrently, then drank up all the Hennessy that Martin had on his shelf before season 2 came out. So I've read all that meandering shit.
Hear me now, dear reader, when I say that if you're one of those miserable bastards who reads GoT for the court intrigue and adventuring and cultural politic nation building aspects (and not, for example, the rational and proper things like motherfucking dragons and a city definitely destroyed by dark magic, dog, come on) then this book I have here is for you.
Also, good news: if you liked the magic parts, this book also has some of that.
Children of Earth and Sky is vast and complex. The world is rich and dense and realistic, due mostly to it being based off of history. It is essentially traced over 16th century Adriatic Europe, and I almost feel bad telling you that right off the bat because I didn't have it click until the very end of the book.
I brought up Game of Thrones because it has a massive cast of characters and switches between their perspectives, frequently immediately and within the same scene, and has a lot of Rough Realism or Whatever. It is a fantasy book through and through, though. Trough. Tough. God, the English language is a mess.
This book has great depth and will carry you with it. The fantasy equivalents of Prague, of Venice, of Constantinople/Istanbul are real, because they were real, and because the author has great skill and vast knowledge of history and of how to write like a motherfucker.
Turns out this guy is the guy Tolkien's son picked to be his assistant/editor when he compiled a bunch of his dad's unpublished lore. When he was twenty. You might be familiar with the Silmarillion.
This book is devastatingly human. It weaves plots with ruthless shakespearean deftness. It handles women characters in a variety of roles well, which is remarkable.
This is another book I had to eat in parts, over weeks, because of the sheer scope of it. It had the disconcerting tendency to run off with details of the characters lives far into the future, then return to the present for the rest of the characters. It's exhausting to live alongside so many varied and detailed people at once.
It is hard to imagine being able to hold this much in one head at any given time. Both a zoomed in, all-seeing insight into exciting specific lives and an objective, empathetic understanding of the human condition and how short and sweet it can be. And how shitty, and easy to end.
And how SLAVIC everything can be, that side of the Mediterranean.
Do not be like me, dear reader - a poor uneducated fool who confuses the Baltic and Balkan regions. If you hear 'Croatia' and think "haha, potatoes! vodka! latvia!" then you are like me and a big stupid idiot. That's up in the Baltic region, dumbo! Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro? Those are Balkan!
They are firmly in tomato europe territory and their history is fucking fascinating as evidenced by the fact that this book that mines them for fantasy worldbuilding is one of the best damn things I've read in a while.
Hey remember how I'm obsessed with magic systems revolving around the nonconcatenative morphology of the triconsonantal root of semitic languages?
MOVE OVER ITS PROTO BALTO SLAVIC TIME
Thursday, March 30, 2017
You're doing terrific
Od Magic - Patricia A. McKillip
I got maybe two chapters into this book before being overcome with a peculiar and familiar emotion that I felt more frequently as a child immediately before something wondrous was going to happen. A physical, tingly tug at my breastbone keel as my tiny kid body wondered what was in the christmas presents, or how awesome this new videogame was about to be. I kept getting brought out of reading this book by how excited I was to have found it, to be reading it.
This book is about magic, and concerns a variety of people in a fantasy world. Princesses, wizard teachers, schools of magic, roving entertainers, captains of the guard. Young individuals drawn by destiny and fate, in motion due to the past or the future. If this sounds vague and bland, consider the previous paragraphs emotion and wonder then what artistry a book must have to do so much with such tropes. Some books have deep, defined characters, some have relatively flat characters. This book's characters were like lit windows into mansions at night - a conveyance of vastness through economically smaller descriptions. This book made me want to write a book about magic. This book made me reconsider my hierarchy of magic systems.
Patricia McKillip somehow eluded my childhood but I am honored to add her to it now, joining her cohorts of Wynne Jones and Le Guin in the Hall of Unassuming Little Grandmothers who Know Magic. Pratchett is there too, because he learned to ask.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories - Susanna Clarke
Similarly to The Chimes, this collection of short stories set in the authors Jonathan Strange universe gives the distinct impression of being written by someone who is not only an author but also exceedingly knowledgeable about some other area as well - in this case replacing classical music with Romanticism. The original book, another disgustingly accomplished first novel, is absolutely fabulous if chewy as fuck due to its faithful reproduction of the writing styles of the era. Read it, that you may enjoy these additional peeks into the world. Clarke handles the 'fae' part of magic as a trope real fuckin' well but honestly you'd probably like this just as much if you spurned most fantasy and only loved Jane Austen. The seelie folk are terrifying, capricious, very alien and mercurial. Having scenarios be described in prim Regency era prose is jarring, but makes for good reading. Every time I read collections of short stories I desire to read more short stories. It is a good cycle.
The House of the Stag - Kage Baker
This book was an unexpected ridiculous adventure. Told like a fuckin....Robert E. Howard novel, like a folk tale bildungsroman of these crazy overpowered characters just being awesome. Sad, sometimes. Hardship, slavery, castigation. But also rad as hell with lots of demons and swords and fucking. Willing acceptance is required but once you go with it it's quite enjoyable - it reads like a folk tale, like an old fable. Like the Kalevala. Like a play? Shit just happens. It reads like Hercules. The world is very nicely wide, very interesting. This book is technically a prequel, but written after, the next book I'm reading, and I'm glad I read this one first. I hope these huge mythic characters show up in it. It reads like a dungeons and dragons characters backstory? It reads like there should be elves, but there aren't any elves. The demons are the best part by far by FAR. Buckwild and a little jarringly abrupt at some parts as we transition from life chapter to life chapter, but all around a good read. This is what that asshole drow idiot character all the DnD books are about SHOULD have been. Drizzztitt or whatever. Some fucker with two named swords and a brooding backstory. Dark elf jerkoff. The guy in this book is way better. That is the perfect comparison.
The Anvil of the World - Kage Baker
I am very glad I read the prequel, written a few years afterwards, first. This book gave me very strong early Terry Pratchett vibes - the parts where he hadn't really settled in to finding that groove. It read like a book from the 80s. Almost tongue in cheek fantasy at times. Sort of winking at the audience but also taking itself seriously? I'm glad I was familiar with many of the characters backstories which didn't exist yet. Confusing. VERY Ankh-Morporkian, the more I think about it. Similar to the last-first book in its abrupt scene changes and having shit just happen, but also similar in its vast and unexplained mythos. Demons and their ilk once again steal the show. I guess this is a book about growing up and destinies? It is hard to say what this book is about, much less what it was TRYING to be about. Apparently there's a third one, which now I must read.
I got maybe two chapters into this book before being overcome with a peculiar and familiar emotion that I felt more frequently as a child immediately before something wondrous was going to happen. A physical, tingly tug at my breastbone keel as my tiny kid body wondered what was in the christmas presents, or how awesome this new videogame was about to be. I kept getting brought out of reading this book by how excited I was to have found it, to be reading it.
This book is about magic, and concerns a variety of people in a fantasy world. Princesses, wizard teachers, schools of magic, roving entertainers, captains of the guard. Young individuals drawn by destiny and fate, in motion due to the past or the future. If this sounds vague and bland, consider the previous paragraphs emotion and wonder then what artistry a book must have to do so much with such tropes. Some books have deep, defined characters, some have relatively flat characters. This book's characters were like lit windows into mansions at night - a conveyance of vastness through economically smaller descriptions. This book made me want to write a book about magic. This book made me reconsider my hierarchy of magic systems.
Patricia McKillip somehow eluded my childhood but I am honored to add her to it now, joining her cohorts of Wynne Jones and Le Guin in the Hall of Unassuming Little Grandmothers who Know Magic. Pratchett is there too, because he learned to ask.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories - Susanna Clarke
Similarly to The Chimes, this collection of short stories set in the authors Jonathan Strange universe gives the distinct impression of being written by someone who is not only an author but also exceedingly knowledgeable about some other area as well - in this case replacing classical music with Romanticism. The original book, another disgustingly accomplished first novel, is absolutely fabulous if chewy as fuck due to its faithful reproduction of the writing styles of the era. Read it, that you may enjoy these additional peeks into the world. Clarke handles the 'fae' part of magic as a trope real fuckin' well but honestly you'd probably like this just as much if you spurned most fantasy and only loved Jane Austen. The seelie folk are terrifying, capricious, very alien and mercurial. Having scenarios be described in prim Regency era prose is jarring, but makes for good reading. Every time I read collections of short stories I desire to read more short stories. It is a good cycle.
The House of the Stag - Kage Baker
This book was an unexpected ridiculous adventure. Told like a fuckin....Robert E. Howard novel, like a folk tale bildungsroman of these crazy overpowered characters just being awesome. Sad, sometimes. Hardship, slavery, castigation. But also rad as hell with lots of demons and swords and fucking. Willing acceptance is required but once you go with it it's quite enjoyable - it reads like a folk tale, like an old fable. Like the Kalevala. Like a play? Shit just happens. It reads like Hercules. The world is very nicely wide, very interesting. This book is technically a prequel, but written after, the next book I'm reading, and I'm glad I read this one first. I hope these huge mythic characters show up in it. It reads like a dungeons and dragons characters backstory? It reads like there should be elves, but there aren't any elves. The demons are the best part by far by FAR. Buckwild and a little jarringly abrupt at some parts as we transition from life chapter to life chapter, but all around a good read. This is what that asshole drow idiot character all the DnD books are about SHOULD have been. Drizzztitt or whatever. Some fucker with two named swords and a brooding backstory. Dark elf jerkoff. The guy in this book is way better. That is the perfect comparison.
The Anvil of the World - Kage Baker
I am very glad I read the prequel, written a few years afterwards, first. This book gave me very strong early Terry Pratchett vibes - the parts where he hadn't really settled in to finding that groove. It read like a book from the 80s. Almost tongue in cheek fantasy at times. Sort of winking at the audience but also taking itself seriously? I'm glad I was familiar with many of the characters backstories which didn't exist yet. Confusing. VERY Ankh-Morporkian, the more I think about it. Similar to the last-first book in its abrupt scene changes and having shit just happen, but also similar in its vast and unexplained mythos. Demons and their ilk once again steal the show. I guess this is a book about growing up and destinies? It is hard to say what this book is about, much less what it was TRYING to be about. Apparently there's a third one, which now I must read.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Keep at it.
The Etched City - K.J. Bishop
This book is mad, and maddening. This book is dark and meandering and meaningless. This book makes Perdido Street Station seem coherent and simple. This book is about....cities, and people. Good and evil. Transformation. Rumination. Death and killing. Life and rebirth. It is important that you understand my lack of hyperbole when I say I looked up, on average, one word every three pages for the majority of this book. Dense. Verbose. Dialectical. Baroque, massive, incredibly ostentatiously well educated. This book made me feel inadequate for several reasons. It conveyed the concept of weight and gravity and immense meaning out of my reach. I refuse to believe this was someone's first novel. This was written by a malevolent Oscar Wilde fan-cum-member of the Unseelie Court.
Talk about dreams. This book was an opium haze clouded Mieville-esque, classically trained Naked Lunch ass steampunk fuckin' Heart of Darkness ass fuckin Park Chan-wook Shakespeare tragedy hallucination. This book fucked me up and will fuck you up. Fuck this book. I've looked forward to doing this post-book writeup since the second half of this thing just so I could spit it out and thus loosen the hold this book has on me. Vague and violent. Calmly unpleasant. Disgustingly ornate. Unconcerned with whether you'll read it or not. Unconcerned with arriving at any goal. Ugh.
Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
This book reminded me of the Three Body Problem in that it was unknowingly foreign for my أجنبي-ass brain at parts. I did a lot of looking up research for this book as well. Books that involve Islamic mythology and/or are set in predominantly Muslim countries are inherently religious, more so than I think other ethno-religo-culturo whatevers. It's more deeply ingrained in....every part of life. So this book, set in speculative near-future (what I have to assume is) Dubai, was simultaneously a somewhat simplistic (almost Artemis Fowlian?) YA about a hacker fucking his life up with jinn but also a complex and mystifying insight into how goddamn far removed my own personal experiences are compared to life the Middle East in every goddamn way. This book concerns growing up, a Mr-Robot level okay depiction of Computer Skills, djinn being real as hell, the comparative insanities of the complicated socio-economic strata of the Arabian peninsula, the inextricable nature of Islam from all aspects of life. I am unsure how to describe YA fiction without sounding patronizing to teens. The actual plot of it was fine. Unsurprising but done well, depicted well in a living world. It is hard to say something is written for a younger audience, I don't know. It isn't like people don't fuck and/or die in this book. They also pray? Where do we draw the Teen Line.
Redemption in Indigo - Karen Lord
This book is an expansion on an old Senegalese folk story, written by someone disgustingly clever and well traveled and with a PhD in sociology of religion. It follows the enjoyable folktale-telling prosody of stuff like Rudyard Kipling - kindly grandparents filling the kids brains up with stories, deftly skipping over any questioning of the impossibilities contained therein and thus avoiding unpleasant mundanities. Plus it uses the nice storyteller-esque thing of having chapter titles be descriptive sentences of the upcoming events. The story concerns humans and immortals and trickster spirits and the principles of chaos and choice and change. It's quite short but well told, and unfolds beautifully. Folk stories are nice because you don't have to bother with explaining anything. If the storyteller says djombi are real, and the spider plays tricks on mankind, it is so! Bringing old stories forward is important, and in reading you can see that this book understands this and does it right.
This book is mad, and maddening. This book is dark and meandering and meaningless. This book makes Perdido Street Station seem coherent and simple. This book is about....cities, and people. Good and evil. Transformation. Rumination. Death and killing. Life and rebirth. It is important that you understand my lack of hyperbole when I say I looked up, on average, one word every three pages for the majority of this book. Dense. Verbose. Dialectical. Baroque, massive, incredibly ostentatiously well educated. This book made me feel inadequate for several reasons. It conveyed the concept of weight and gravity and immense meaning out of my reach. I refuse to believe this was someone's first novel. This was written by a malevolent Oscar Wilde fan-cum-member of the Unseelie Court.
Talk about dreams. This book was an opium haze clouded Mieville-esque, classically trained Naked Lunch ass steampunk fuckin' Heart of Darkness ass fuckin Park Chan-wook Shakespeare tragedy hallucination. This book fucked me up and will fuck you up. Fuck this book. I've looked forward to doing this post-book writeup since the second half of this thing just so I could spit it out and thus loosen the hold this book has on me. Vague and violent. Calmly unpleasant. Disgustingly ornate. Unconcerned with whether you'll read it or not. Unconcerned with arriving at any goal. Ugh.
Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
This book reminded me of the Three Body Problem in that it was unknowingly foreign for my أجنبي-ass brain at parts. I did a lot of looking up research for this book as well. Books that involve Islamic mythology and/or are set in predominantly Muslim countries are inherently religious, more so than I think other ethno-religo-culturo whatevers. It's more deeply ingrained in....every part of life. So this book, set in speculative near-future (what I have to assume is) Dubai, was simultaneously a somewhat simplistic (almost Artemis Fowlian?) YA about a hacker fucking his life up with jinn but also a complex and mystifying insight into how goddamn far removed my own personal experiences are compared to life the Middle East in every goddamn way. This book concerns growing up, a Mr-Robot level okay depiction of Computer Skills, djinn being real as hell, the comparative insanities of the complicated socio-economic strata of the Arabian peninsula, the inextricable nature of Islam from all aspects of life. I am unsure how to describe YA fiction without sounding patronizing to teens. The actual plot of it was fine. Unsurprising but done well, depicted well in a living world. It is hard to say something is written for a younger audience, I don't know. It isn't like people don't fuck and/or die in this book. They also pray? Where do we draw the Teen Line.
Redemption in Indigo - Karen Lord
This book is an expansion on an old Senegalese folk story, written by someone disgustingly clever and well traveled and with a PhD in sociology of religion. It follows the enjoyable folktale-telling prosody of stuff like Rudyard Kipling - kindly grandparents filling the kids brains up with stories, deftly skipping over any questioning of the impossibilities contained therein and thus avoiding unpleasant mundanities. Plus it uses the nice storyteller-esque thing of having chapter titles be descriptive sentences of the upcoming events. The story concerns humans and immortals and trickster spirits and the principles of chaos and choice and change. It's quite short but well told, and unfolds beautifully. Folk stories are nice because you don't have to bother with explaining anything. If the storyteller says djombi are real, and the spider plays tricks on mankind, it is so! Bringing old stories forward is important, and in reading you can see that this book understands this and does it right.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
I Enjoyed That
The nice thing about having a Kindle is that it constantly reminds you of your collection. Here! Here are the books you've read! Here are the words you've looked up! Here's how long it'll take to get to the next chapter!
It's an astounding machine, and possibly the best gift I've ever gotten. I haven't really thought about ranking gifts received so far, but it's up there. Both of the ones I've gotten are up there.
Here's what I've been up to in 2017.
Kraken - China Mieville
While I was reading Embassytown, I got given a hard copy of this book. Paperbacks are jarring now. Double pages are nice, but the inability to cart them about or longpress a word to get immediate gratification definitions are too big of a downside to ever go back.
Mieville, as I always feel obligated to mention, is always a hit or miss. Kraken, then, was a surprising medium - an interesting story about an unwittingly special guy getting sucked into an otherworldly power struggle with lots of the ol' Meiville special sauce. Say it with me now - Cities as Organisms, The Vast Magical Underworld, Sadist Enemies As Art, Language and the Written Word as Power, Weird Shit. Points against it were it being set in the modern world, which I think limits his strengths as an insane worldbuilder, and the unnecessaryness/flatness of some of his characters. I read it a little bit at a time each night, which I don't normally do. Small bites.
The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemisin
The sequel to my 2016 best dang book, The Fifth Season, which picks up from the first book's ending at a satisfyingly-well-led-up-to reveal. Boy, that's a real shit sentence I just put together huh.
The Obelisk Gate expands on the existing universe way more dramatically than the first book - it's almost jarring how openly some tantalizingly mystifying lore stuff is discussed compared to Fifth Season. Some new characters show up, some old characters are revised and I'm very into it. First book was more polar in who was 'good' and who was 'bad', despite the myriad character flaws. This one is way more grey and I'm not sure who's side I'm on. I feel like constantly comparing it to the first book robs it of its own weight, but I'm also having a hard time finding any other point of reference. It's a sequel. If you liked the Fifth Season, and of course you did it's butternut squash, you're gonna shit your pants at the second half of this book.
So I finished it and went digging, and found out the third and final book is coming out at the end of this year, which is simultaneously batshit that someone can chug out a book a year of this quality and also excruciatingly a million years away.
Luckily she wrote other, earlier stuff! A fantasy series!
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
The idea that this is somebody's debut novel is gross because it's so good. The aforementioned Broken Earth series, while utilizing (quite literally) magic, isn't categorized as 'fantasy' in my brain. The fantastical elements are handled too clinically, scientifically. I'd almost call it science fiction. Some beautiful mesh of the two. This book, the first in her Inheritance trilogy, is mother fucking fantasy. Crazy ass ruling caste floating kingdoms powered by chained gods. An entire universe built on cosmogonic myth. A girl thrown into the middle of it all. Once again, my lack of Court Intrigue experience led to me being absolutely delighted. The world is exquisite and detailed. The characters are fascinating. The sex with gods is abundant and unexpected. The gods themselves are choice. It is a very, very well done mythology. Almost tolkeinesque in its "this was definitely created as a mythos first and then a story just sort of spooled out of it".
If the Broken Earth left you wanting more magic and godfucking and rebirth, you're in luck.
The Broken Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
Okay so first of all, there's three of these books. Loosely connected in the sense that it involves some threading characters, mostly a-thefuckinggodsthemselves, in the same universe. Maybe a decade later. BOY is it going to be hard to talk about this one without spoiling the first one in a major way.
This one is not a sequel, it's just the next one in the story. If that is a thing. The world has changed, significantly, and this book does a wonderful job of shifting the tone and focus to accommodate it. It is a smaller story, a much more introspective and insular personal story, as befits the...necessary...changing. Jemisin writes achingly human characters, including the gods. She refuses to avoid the universal threads of sadness that are a natural part of life. It is impossible to talk about this book further without spoiling it. It isn't necessary to enjoy the first one! You can read the first one in its own right. It ties up nicely. But obviously read this one too.
The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisin
This book. Thiiiiis motherfuckin book. This book cuts deep, in that it absolutely makes some deep references to the first two and also wrecks you emotionally. This book is about gods and what that means and humans and what that means and how ones nature shapes who one is. And vice versa, I suppose. If the first two books are building up the world this one is taking it and running with it into oblivion. This book is about a trickster god growing up in every sense of the word, and the humans he drags along. This book is long. Several times I was confident I was at the end and then shit went all Gurren Lagann and I got ten more chapters. This book is good. An Amber Spyglass sort of trilogy tie-up. Which should tell you just about everything you need to know to make a decision on whether or not to read this series.
I took a break after that. Obviously. Then I went and harvested a new crop that I'm quite excited for.
I'm currently maybe...3/4ths done with
The Chimes - Anna Smaill
This book is a post-post-apocalyptic dreamy mystery written by someone with far too much technical knowledge on music. The story plays with unreliable narrators since lost memories are sort of a central theme, as is the music that steals them and creates them. It's dense, with a lot of clever musical wordplay that is absolutely mystifying unless you do some research into modern European classical music. It has an unapologetic musical jargon. This is another book I have to read in spurts, because it is slow and intentionally obfuscated. It reminds me of Amnesia Moon (Jonathan Lethem), mostly because that book also was dreamy and dreary and foggy.
The book is interesting enough to keep me reading but I sure hope there's a good payoff at the end because otherwise the 'being set in a post-post-apocalyptic semi-dystopian London" thing is a hard strike against it. It would've been nicer, I suspect, to just be its own world.
But I cannot think of a situation in which that wouldn't be the case. I just hate using Future Earth as an alien setting. Why not just make an alien setting? Then you're free. And this is my own personal opinion, unrelated to the review.
It's an astounding machine, and possibly the best gift I've ever gotten. I haven't really thought about ranking gifts received so far, but it's up there. Both of the ones I've gotten are up there.
Here's what I've been up to in 2017.
Kraken - China Mieville
While I was reading Embassytown, I got given a hard copy of this book. Paperbacks are jarring now. Double pages are nice, but the inability to cart them about or longpress a word to get immediate gratification definitions are too big of a downside to ever go back.
Mieville, as I always feel obligated to mention, is always a hit or miss. Kraken, then, was a surprising medium - an interesting story about an unwittingly special guy getting sucked into an otherworldly power struggle with lots of the ol' Meiville special sauce. Say it with me now - Cities as Organisms, The Vast Magical Underworld, Sadist Enemies As Art, Language and the Written Word as Power, Weird Shit. Points against it were it being set in the modern world, which I think limits his strengths as an insane worldbuilder, and the unnecessaryness/flatness of some of his characters. I read it a little bit at a time each night, which I don't normally do. Small bites.
The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemisin
The sequel to my 2016 best dang book, The Fifth Season, which picks up from the first book's ending at a satisfyingly-well-led-up-to reveal. Boy, that's a real shit sentence I just put together huh.
The Obelisk Gate expands on the existing universe way more dramatically than the first book - it's almost jarring how openly some tantalizingly mystifying lore stuff is discussed compared to Fifth Season. Some new characters show up, some old characters are revised and I'm very into it. First book was more polar in who was 'good' and who was 'bad', despite the myriad character flaws. This one is way more grey and I'm not sure who's side I'm on. I feel like constantly comparing it to the first book robs it of its own weight, but I'm also having a hard time finding any other point of reference. It's a sequel. If you liked the Fifth Season, and of course you did it's butternut squash, you're gonna shit your pants at the second half of this book.
So I finished it and went digging, and found out the third and final book is coming out at the end of this year, which is simultaneously batshit that someone can chug out a book a year of this quality and also excruciatingly a million years away.
Luckily she wrote other, earlier stuff! A fantasy series!
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
The idea that this is somebody's debut novel is gross because it's so good. The aforementioned Broken Earth series, while utilizing (quite literally) magic, isn't categorized as 'fantasy' in my brain. The fantastical elements are handled too clinically, scientifically. I'd almost call it science fiction. Some beautiful mesh of the two. This book, the first in her Inheritance trilogy, is mother fucking fantasy. Crazy ass ruling caste floating kingdoms powered by chained gods. An entire universe built on cosmogonic myth. A girl thrown into the middle of it all. Once again, my lack of Court Intrigue experience led to me being absolutely delighted. The world is exquisite and detailed. The characters are fascinating. The sex with gods is abundant and unexpected. The gods themselves are choice. It is a very, very well done mythology. Almost tolkeinesque in its "this was definitely created as a mythos first and then a story just sort of spooled out of it".
If the Broken Earth left you wanting more magic and godfucking and rebirth, you're in luck.
The Broken Kingdoms - N.K. Jemisin
Okay so first of all, there's three of these books. Loosely connected in the sense that it involves some threading characters, mostly a-thefuckinggodsthemselves, in the same universe. Maybe a decade later. BOY is it going to be hard to talk about this one without spoiling the first one in a major way.
This one is not a sequel, it's just the next one in the story. If that is a thing. The world has changed, significantly, and this book does a wonderful job of shifting the tone and focus to accommodate it. It is a smaller story, a much more introspective and insular personal story, as befits the...necessary...changing. Jemisin writes achingly human characters, including the gods. She refuses to avoid the universal threads of sadness that are a natural part of life. It is impossible to talk about this book further without spoiling it. It isn't necessary to enjoy the first one! You can read the first one in its own right. It ties up nicely. But obviously read this one too.
The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemisin
This book. Thiiiiis motherfuckin book. This book cuts deep, in that it absolutely makes some deep references to the first two and also wrecks you emotionally. This book is about gods and what that means and humans and what that means and how ones nature shapes who one is. And vice versa, I suppose. If the first two books are building up the world this one is taking it and running with it into oblivion. This book is about a trickster god growing up in every sense of the word, and the humans he drags along. This book is long. Several times I was confident I was at the end and then shit went all Gurren Lagann and I got ten more chapters. This book is good. An Amber Spyglass sort of trilogy tie-up. Which should tell you just about everything you need to know to make a decision on whether or not to read this series.
I took a break after that. Obviously. Then I went and harvested a new crop that I'm quite excited for.
I'm currently maybe...3/4ths done with
The Chimes - Anna Smaill
This book is a post-post-apocalyptic dreamy mystery written by someone with far too much technical knowledge on music. The story plays with unreliable narrators since lost memories are sort of a central theme, as is the music that steals them and creates them. It's dense, with a lot of clever musical wordplay that is absolutely mystifying unless you do some research into modern European classical music. It has an unapologetic musical jargon. This is another book I have to read in spurts, because it is slow and intentionally obfuscated. It reminds me of Amnesia Moon (Jonathan Lethem), mostly because that book also was dreamy and dreary and foggy.
The book is interesting enough to keep me reading but I sure hope there's a good payoff at the end because otherwise the 'being set in a post-post-apocalyptic semi-dystopian London" thing is a hard strike against it. It would've been nicer, I suspect, to just be its own world.
But I cannot think of a situation in which that wouldn't be the case. I just hate using Future Earth as an alien setting. Why not just make an alien setting? Then you're free. And this is my own personal opinion, unrelated to the review.
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