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.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
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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