**spoiler alert** Kill all men! Unless they're decent people. And sometimes even then, if they get in your way.
Everyone's family fucks them up somehow**spoiler alert** Kill all men! Unless they're decent people. And sometimes even then, if they get in your way.
Everyone's family fucks them up somehow. Some more than others.
Fairy tales, herbal medicine, wolf-people, murder, strangulation, fire. Children at risk. Souls being put in different people's bodies. Women supporting each other in a man's world even when they really, really don't like each other.
I was surprised at how much the ending got to me, since some amount of the book along the way felt over-planned.
I read this for the SFFBC online discussion group, and that always makes me write briefer reviews. I'm sure I'll be frustrated to see less than one hundred words here after some time has passed! :D...more
Fun and funny, and light all the way through, including the thoughtful parts. Aside from one scene, this didn't make me want to become a hermit, whichFun and funny, and light all the way through, including the thoughtful parts. Aside from one scene, this didn't make me want to become a hermit, which is more than I can say for similar light-SF authors Cline and Weir....more
I had a good time with Ready Player One's video game-centered quest tale, despite its incessant barrage of 80s referencesor: The Weightlessness of War
I had a good time with Ready Player One's video game-centered quest tale, despite its incessant barrage of 80s references, and sometimes cringe-y or questionable depictions of people who aren't young straight white guys. It makes me wonder what happened between it and Armada, for both to be near-exactly the same thing, and for Armada to be so much worse. It's only been a few months since I finished RP1, so it isn't like my reading tastes would have changed all that substantially.
An alien war fleet with tech far in advance of our own approaches the Earth. Protagonist Zach Lightman, who lost his father when he was a baby, is a high-ranked player of an online video game called, incredibly enough, "Armada," whose basic setup is a few-vs.-many space battle game.
Turns out--and I hope you're sitting down--that the battles Zach and his friends have been playing out in the Armada game are actually real-life battles where they are controlling unmanned drones against the alien menace. Just like The Last Starfighter or Ender's Game, as Zach makes sure to remind us! (view spoiler)[A recent game scenario where the players attempted to destroy the aliens' home base on Europa failed, and caused a corresponding failure in the real-life war mission. (hide spoiler)] As the sixth-ranked player of Armada, Zach is recruited into the EDA, Earth Defense Alliance, along with an auditorium of other recruits from the game, to take on an official role as a defender of Earth.
The pacing of this book is very strange. At least half of it is spent setting up the story's very simple framework. Zach meets a girl at the EDA enlistment ceremony, and after a bit of unfunny banter, they're necking. He flies to the moon with some one-note, stereotypical squad mates, and after a few hours of not much happening, the moon base is attacked by the Europans. (view spoiler)[Most of Zach's squad mates are dead after having been in the story for maybe a movie's worth of time (hide spoiler)]. Then it's back to Earth for a hasty conclusion and an ending that (it hopes) leaves things open for a sequel.
Despite the solar system-encompassing scale of the alien war, I never got a sense of stakes from anything that happened. Millions on millions of people die, but since the "real" battling that Zach engages in is a mix of controlling a RC car and playing a video game, I never got the feeling that he was in any real danger at any step along the way, or that the leveling of several major cities on Earth made any difference to the story. He's preserved from experiencing even the slightest physical discomfort by the ESA shuttle having anti-inertia drives, and the moon having artificial gravity, and his dogfighting all being done from the comfort of a gaming chair.
Aside from that, much like in RP1, things are often set up so that something is in place that makes Zach succeed. [Spoiler character] tells Zach the secret of the Europans' invasion strategy that no one else believes, but that is the objective truth. "Hacking" by Zach's girlfriend Lex can do anything the plot requires it to, whenever it is needed. There's a (view spoiler)[fiberoptic network (hide spoiler)] in place that sidesteps the Europans' communication-disabling superweapon, and that must have existed for years--or even decades (as the 372 Pages guys say, massive infrastructure doesn't just pop up overnight!)--before the reader is told about it very late in the story.
At least this time the junk media of the 80s isn't the keystone for every single thing in the story like it was in RP1. Don't worry, though! You'll still get plenty of 80s references, as Zach slavishly takes on the interests of his late father (much like Wade did with the OASIS founder's journals in RP1), such as playing his dad's mix tape of 80s rock, "Raid the Arcade," as background music as he fights the Europan Glaive ships.
Do you recognize "May the Force be with you"? Have you ever heard a song by Queen? Good! There's no by-the-numbers, soulless scene in Armada that can't also be emotionally diffused, or made annoying as hell, with a reference that anyone in the United States would have been familiar with for decades, and that is always treated as either witty or an attempt at seriousness, or even reverence. Mass media performs the function of religion as Zach and Lex recite the "Fear is the mind-killer" mantra from Dune before going into battle.
The last 90 minutes or so of the audiobook is a rushed mess featuring the (view spoiler)[death of Zach's dad, who'd only been around for less than a day anyhow (hide spoiler)] (well at least Cline didn't break out another stupid Star Wars reference for that part, small favors), another RC battle or two, the revelation of the aliens' purpose, and Zach being the hero of the day in the most cliched and unconvincing way imaginable.
Pacing is bad, plotting is bad, characterization is bad, description is bad, dialogue is terrible. Everything we see here has been done better in Cline's previous book. Well, at least I finished it, thanks in part to having the "372 Pages We'll Never Get Back" podcast hosts as fellow-sufferers on this tedious, weirdly-but-thankfully curtailed journey. Wil Wheaton tried his best as Armada's narrator, and he's the reason this got as many as two stars. If you feel you must try something from the "Clineverse," I'd advise you to read RP1 instead....more
It's the 2040s. First-person narrator Wade Watt lives in a corporatized dystopia full of poverty and violence. Or rather, his meat body does. PracticaIt's the 2040s. First-person narrator Wade Watt lives in a corporatized dystopia full of poverty and violence. Or rather, his meat body does. Practically all of his waking hours--and the waking hours of hundreds of millions of people on earth--are spent online in an all-encompassing computer simulation called the OASIS. Through "haptic rigs," players can viscerally interact with their digital environments, which offer everything from PvP battles to IRL pizza delivery.
Why's everyone so obsessed with this sim? Well, five years ago, billionaire software developer and OASIS founder James Halliday died without issue, leaving behind a video inviting OASIS users to seek out "the Easter egg." The person who finds three keys in the simulation, and solves the final puzzle, will inherit Halliday's wealth, including OASIS itself.
I decided to read this book mostly because I recently joined the Patreon for the "372 Pages We'll Never Get Back" podcast, and this was their inaugural selection. Looking back on these episodes from 2016, it's funny that the thumbnail image for the podcast, its opening music, and even its title, are oblique references to Ready Player One. Conor and Mike expected to give it the RiffTrax treatment and get on with their lives... and 26 books later, they're still at it, supported and encouraged by over 1000 patrons. :)
The most obvious thing you won't be able to escape for more than a paragraph or two at any point in this story, are the constant barrage of references to '80s pop culture. Halliday was obsessed with the corporatized slurry that was the mass media of the '80s*, to the point of writing a journal or autobiography listing all the TV shows, video games, and so forth that he remembered loving when he was young. This document, "Anorak's Almanac," is what Wade and the other "gunters" (short for "egg hunters," somehow?) use as a kind of guidebook for what media properties might be pertinent to their quest.
* it wasn't any worse than the corporatized slurry of today, but come on. even the rosiest of nostalgic glasses can't transform Doritos into two-star Michelin cuisine.
Obtaining every one of the three keys, unsurprisingly, involves '80s mass media in some way. Which area in OASIS each key "puzzle" is located, is more of a puzzle than the puzzles themselves. Not a single one of Halliday's challenges involves anything beyond (view spoiler)[rote memorization of a movie, or mastery of a video game. (hide spoiler)]
And Wade always has the right tools for whatever situation he is put into. (view spoiler)[He gets every single key, and opens every single gate, on the first try. (hide spoiler)] Toward the end of the book, Wade is (view spoiler)[thrown into a sort of debtor's prison (hide spoiler)] by the evil corporation IOI*, and my immediate thought was, "He's planned his way out of this beforehand." And he had. Whatever difficulties he gets into that can't be dealt with by preparing ahead of time, along comes a deus ex machina to save him.
* oh, good grief. I listened to this in audiobook so it wasn't until I typed it into this review that I noticed that IOI kind of looks like a TIE fighter X(
The central cast, including the deceased Halliday, nearly without exception (I'm not sure about Shoto), are orphaned or come from shitty enough backgrounds that they may as well be, and are living in a world that OASIS is a glossy, dopamine-infused escape from. The various places in the OASIS are depicted vividly, although a lot of the things that happen in it would make sense in the real world, but wouldn't in a game world, at least not one that had halfway-competent programmers (i.e. fully destructible environments). On the other hand, aside from the Stacks at the very beginning of the book, the real world is a mere sketch, its depiction riddled with holes. Mass poverty, and universal Amazon-level logistics, and corporate debtors' prisons, and worldwide lag-free high-speed internet connections, all exist side-by-side.
Like a lot of light entertainment, RP1's theme or lesson is stated outright at the end of the book. And I'm not sure if I believe it, at least in part because of the things I mentioned in the previous paragraph. (view spoiler)["Reality is real" (hide spoiler)], aside from making my partner and I laugh out loud in the car, isn't exactly a thunderous revelation. A = A. Wow! There's this sort of idea that the real world can be saved by someone who (view spoiler)[both has an obscene level of wealth and is unselfishly willing to share it with millions of others (hide spoiler)]. You'll excuse me if I'm skeptical of that. As Conor and Mike pointed out, when Wade (view spoiler)[is in the IOI prison, he disdains the company of his fellow prisoners, and doesn't give them a second thought after he escapes himself. And his big plans for the Easter egg fortune are to take himself and his gunter friends out into space, which inevitably reminds me of Elon Musk's dabbling in migration to Mars (hide spoiler)]. Neither of those things indicates that Wade has compassion for anyone but "me and mine."
When my partner and I discussed the book after we'd finished listening to it, we thought that the theme (view spoiler)["working together is better than going it alone, and sharing is better than keeping it all to yourself" (hide spoiler)] came across more strongly than the explicitly stated one. So there's another way to look at it, that isn't contradicted by the text.
Setting the gripes aside, which is surprisingly easy to do, this was fun to listen to. RP1 is a very trope-y story, a straightforward MacGuffin quest, with: an implacable enemy with infinite resources, huge explosions (both in OASIS and the real world), a boss battle against a big bad, a smooch at the end (c'mon, this is no spoiler if you've seen a single action movie!), a rainbow coalition of supporting characters (the 11th-hour (view spoiler)[Black lesbian (hide spoiler)] reveal was certainly something), and a walkthrough of the early portions of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Wil Wheaton's performance of the book had just the right level of youthful-sounding energy for a car listen, though it might be too shout-y for quieter environments.
So, hmm. Fun, but cringey. The last third of the book was better than the rest of it. Equivocal messaging. It isn't as bad as "372 Pages" makes it out to be, in my opinion, but that's kind of their thing. I had a good time with both the book and the podcast, and they made a few weeks of southern California traffic congestion a little more tolerable. A kind of OASIS, you might say....more
Yet another book I read for an upcoming discussion and that will, therefore, get a short and undetailed review. The first half was quite cool: disorieYet another book I read for an upcoming discussion and that will, therefore, get a short and undetailed review. The first half was quite cool: disorienting and a little weird, with a nicely-depicted corporate dystopia with a side dish of "Mad Max." It often lost my attention in its second half, since I felt like I'd gotten as much out of it as I was going to, and still it kept going. I was affected by its depiction of grief, and the latter parts of the book gave me a new insight about code switching, so it wasn't entirely a slog....more
I'm going to be participating in a discussion about this book in a few days, and don't want to overthink things ahead of time, so a short not-much-of-I'm going to be participating in a discussion about this book in a few days, and don't want to overthink things ahead of time, so a short not-much-of-a-review will have to suffice.
What I liked best about this book was how it evoked a future Earth--and solar system--full of age, conflicts, and mysteries both unnknowable, and potentially knowable. The approach to the characters was similar. The plot was fairly simple, but I liked how it ended with a feeling (view spoiler)[of myth or fairy tale, as most of the robots left Earth for elsewhere, following a robot messiah (hide spoiler)].
I was pleased to see that Tidhar was inspired by Cordwainer Smith's short stories. The glossary at the end showed some of the imagination that went into his future history, and was enjoyable to read all by itself. . . although, as often happens with SFF glossaries, my energy started flagging about halfway through the alphabet....more
Although this is the first story of the Patternmaster in its internal chronology, and also the first I read, it was the third that was written. It wasAlthough this is the first story of the Patternmaster in its internal chronology, and also the first I read, it was the third that was written. It was easy to follow even without knowing what it was building up towards.
I've had bristly relationships with books before, and this one was worse than most. Charismatic strongmen can be utter garbage tier bags full of dicks toward those under their thumbs. Yep, got it. "But wait! Are you sure you don't want to hear about another incident where Doro exerts his will via incest, forced breeding, or murder?"
This book could be seen as the arc of a horrible relationship(view spoiler)[, going from venomous spite to a kind of reconciliation. After 200 years of Doro being awful to Anyanwu and everybody else, they made up over the course of a couple of pages. That felt more than a bit abrupt. (hide spoiler)]
The concept of an enclave of people with supernatural powers was a cool one, and I can appreciate the idea of its not being a cozy place where everybody is happy and gets along in an "it's us against the world" way. Didn't enjoy it, though. Despite that, I'm interested in seeing what the future brings for this world, though I'm in no great hurry to find out....more
As often happens with books I read for a discussion group, I'm kind of "thinked out" on Sorrowland and lack the energy to write a substantial review. As often happens with books I read for a discussion group, I'm kind of "thinked out" on Sorrowland and lack the energy to write a substantial review. It's both ambitious, and full of great small-scale moments. The writing is excellent, with quite a few striking, "highlightable" lines. I am interested in reading more of Solomon's work, though the subject matter in this one was harsh enough that I'm going to wait a while to do so....more
A cozy story about Viv, an orc who decides to quit adventuring and settle down in the city to start a neighborhood business. The title should tell youA cozy story about Viv, an orc who decides to quit adventuring and settle down in the city to start a neighborhood business. The title should tell you what kind. :)
Don't think too hard about the worldbuilding--it's basically World of Warcraft, with a smidgen of the rat characters from Everquest. Here the various fantasy races all get along just fine, and while there's a hint that there's some prejudice against Tandri, Viv's employee and eventually business partner, for the most part any real conflict is on an interpersonal level. Anything that carries a whiff of the industrialized present can be chalked up to gnomish ingenuity.
This story provides the reader with a nice warm coffee shop to spend some time with a found family of pleasant, lightly-sketched characters. Some mild peril and a sweet romance add a touch of spice, no more challenging than cinnamon, on top of the frothy mix. This story's neatly put together, but there wasn't enough over and above to keep my full attention while I listened to it in audio....more
Transported me to another world, made me laugh, and made me cry for reasons I'm hard put to explain.
Oh well. If I put up a non-review I'll avoid spoilTransported me to another world, made me laugh, and made me cry for reasons I'm hard put to explain.
Oh well. If I put up a non-review I'll avoid spoilers and will be inclined to reread it once a few years have gone by and all that's left is a mist of impressions....more
This is a fascinating, dense SF novel where an abandoned, and then un-abandoned colony evolves very quickly over the course of 200 years into its own This is a fascinating, dense SF novel where an abandoned, and then un-abandoned colony evolves very quickly over the course of 200 years into its own culture, with the help of three species of lizards native to the planet: the calibans.
The colony, both due to accident and Union's policy toward colonization at the time, has a genetic composition near-entirely comprised of the descendants of azi, non-freeborn humans who are psychologically trained from birth to be laborers. Very early on, as it becomes apparent that Union will not be returning to support the colony with high technology (i.e. birthing machines), the society transforms into a neolithic one that has no "tapes" to continue the azi brainwashing, and no ability to forge iron. Is it due to their azi heritage that the tower people can more easily communicate with the caliban? Is it why their interpersonal relationships are near universally kind of effed up and prone to sudden, cruel treachery?
Later on as (view spoiler)[the Alliance (hide spoiler)] brings space travelers back to the colony, the anthropological truism "not affecting a society you're studying, or for them to not affect you is impossible" comes into play. A couple of anthropologist/xenologist characters lose their sense of distance in the most egregious ways possible, taking on the Styx and Cloud societies' clothes and mannerisms, having sex with them, etc.
Cherryh wastes very little time explaining anything to the reader. This could easily have been a multiple-book series explaining all the changes and being a generational saga on top of that, but I appreciated the spare approach here, that left just enough filled in and left blank to give an impressionistic view of this planet's society's changes over generations. That spare style also creates emotional distance from the reader. It's a mark in its favor that a book like this kept me interested throughout, despite a complete lack of sentiment. The aforementioned cruel events aren't drawn out for pathos, pity, or gross-outs, which one can be grateful for when some of them are (view spoiler)[gang rapes (hide spoiler)].
I enjoyed both this and Downbelow Station and am actively interested in reading more books in this universe. Three and a half stars, rounded up....more
Linus Baker is a bureaucrat, a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). He's called on to inspect an orphanage on a remote Linus Baker is a bureaucrat, a case worker for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY). He's called on to inspect an orphanage on a remote island which has not had direct contact from a case worker for some time. Little does he know his quiet, by-the-book life will be turned upside down by this group of magical children, and Arthur Parnassus, their handsome, mysterious caretaker.
This story has a really cinematic feeling to it. The unnamed city that Linus lives in is dark and rainy, and the island where Arthur and the children live is bright and sunny. The contrast made me feel like Linus had come to a different world when he arrived on the island, much like Alice or Dorothy in their stories.
The island is a refuge for the children, from a world that would much prefer to keep them out of sight and out of mind, out of fear. Tucking them away out of sight is essentially what DICOMY exists to do. The village across from the island is a microcosm of this larger world. Arthur and his wards have never visited the village, and there are hints that things will not go well for them if they do. "If you see something, say something" signs are posted everywhere.
In any case, this story isn't all sweetness and light. A couple of the children have particularly difficult backgrounds: for example, Sal, a lycanthrope who has lived in more than ten orphanages over the course of his life; and Lucy, a child of Satan who suffers from nightmares.
A good portion of the book shows Linus as he gets to know the motley group of children, goes on adventures with them, observes them in the classroom, and occasionally gets threatened in imaginative ways by Lucy and by Talia, the gnome. He builds a relationship with Arthur, as well, one that goes beyond the merely professional as the story goes along (related much more subtly than I make it seem, here).
As one might expect, Linus changes as a result of his time on the island, enough to make his previous home, and even his job, alien to him.
Overall, I enjoyed Cerulean Sea a lot. It's quick reading, and made me both chuckle and sniffle a few times. The only thing that I didn't care for is its frequent moralizing, by pretty much all of the characters, including the children. The "lessons" were so banal as to be meaningless. Other themes about the marginalized were presented as part of the story, without explicit commentary, which made me grateful that it let me do my own thinking at times.
A nice "found family" story with fun characters....more
The Best of All Possible Worlds starts off grimly, with Dllenach of Sadiri receiving word of the genocide of his planet while he is off-world at a medThe Best of All Possible Worlds starts off grimly, with Dllenach of Sadiri receiving word of the genocide of his planet while he is off-world at a meditation retreat.
It may start grimly, but it sure doesn't stay that way! Things get really loopy from here on.
After the initial chapter, the majority of the story is told from the first-person point of view of Grace Delarua, a civil servant whose usual job is to help various settlements on Cygnus Beta with agriculture. She is called upon as a cultural aide to a group of diasporic Sadiri, including Dllenach, who intend to settle on Cygnus Beta. Their mission is to travel the world to seek out suitable brides, because women were the majority of the victims in the attack on Sadira. (The Sadiri need women!)
The novel is largely told in short episodes of a chapter or so apiece, as Grace, Dllenach, and an accompanying small group of Cygneans and Sadiri visit various places on Cygnus Beta, sometimes just observing the local customs and events, and sometimes getting into peril. Few to none of these episodes have any kind of resolution. It's never too long before we're off in the auto-piloted car to another part of the world.
I found this book hard to take, at first. Grace is enthusiastic, and kind of shout-y, just the kind of person that I'd have a hard time adjusting to in real life. She's a sweetheart, but also overwhelming. The seemingly haphazard, unfinished storytelling was disorienting and a little annoying. There's elephants, and telepathy, and a near-drowning, and a murder, etc., etc... Also, the huge emphasis on selective breeding at the beginning of the book was off-putting. It took a couple of tries before I really appreciated this book's vibe.
I ended up liking the sketches of the various settlements, once I got used to nothing being tied up neatly. I never had time to get bored with any particular place, that's for sure (it's a theme park of a book, just don't expect to return to your favorite ride), and the societies were presented both minimally and convincingly. And there's a lot of warmth and heart to it. I liked some of Grace's friends a lot, like Frieda. Grace and Dllenach are endearing characters, and they balance each other out well: one emotionally out-there, the other reserved. Their relationship builds slowly during their various adventures, and they communicate earnestly and honestly with each other--each in their own way--as they move from co-workers to another kind of partnership.
This is a charming book, and it was enjoyable to read it a chapter or so at a time in audio. Robin Miles' narration, especially her portrayal of Grace, adds a star....more
At this point, I can only imagine that most or all of my friends would have some familiarity with Geralt of Rivia through the books themselves, or oneAt this point, I can only imagine that most or all of my friends would have some familiarity with Geralt of Rivia through the books themselves, or one of the hugely popular franchises based on them, whether the games or the TV series. Or at least how the character is typically portrayed visually.
Geralt is an itinerant "witcher"--a mix of sorcerer and sword fighter--who at times stumbles into others' stories, and at others plays a more active role. You can bet he's a dab hand with the ladies wherever he goes! This sequence of short stories are mostly--or perhaps all--based on familiar tales, from Beauty and the Beast, to Snow White, to the genie of the lamp and its three wishes. There were one or two stories that didn't map very closely to any tale I knew about, which made me curious about what I might have missed.
The book as a whole had a feeling of the author getting a good handle on his main character. There are inconsistencies here and there between the earlier and later stories. One striking example is in Geralt's attitude toward killing humans and other sentients. Mid-to-late book he piously lectures people about how he isn't a killer for hire, and won't kill sentients. But in the first few pages of the book, he murdered three men for what felt like a minor annoyance.
One thing that--unfortunately--is fairly consistent is the narrative attitude toward women. It's pretty evident that their value lies primarily in how hot they are, how fertile they are, and, once that's determined, how likely it is that Geralt will want and/or be able to sex them up.
Don't get me wrong, though. I enjoyed a lot of it! The dialogue was consistently fun to read, full of psychological tension, cross-purposes, and occasional humor. (I couldn't help but be amused when grown-ass adults tussled on the ground like brawling eight-year-olds.) Geralt's BFF Dandilion (not "Dandelion," by the way?) could be infuriating at times, but it's also evident even from the little he shows up in this book that he and Geralt have a bond that will last until one of them dies. (view spoiler)[It would be so easy to ship them if this whole thing weren't so determinedly heterosexual. (hide spoiler)]
Most of all, especially in its latter half, there's a pervasive feeling that we're living in a twilight world, one that is coming close to its end. The Witchers are on their way out, as are the elves. That somber or melancholy atmosphere was one of the stronger aspects of the book.
I'm not great with short fiction most of the time, and it's a mark in this volume's favor that I didn't get the impression that I was reading the same thing over and over, despite the ongoing fairy tale motif. Miraculously, I didn't forget what had happened in one story by the time I'd moved on to the next! I can only imagine the next book will be better and more consistent than this one, though I'd prefer to read a full-length novel than another set of short stories....more
Dawnhounds has great LGBT representation, a cool setting, appealing characters.
Unfortunately, from very early on, a sense of confusion set in, like IDawnhounds has great LGBT representation, a cool setting, appealing characters.
Unfortunately, from very early on, a sense of confusion set in, like I'd skipped reading sections of the book, or forgotten something important. This feeling was overwhelming in the last third of the book, so I'm pretty confident it isn't just impending memory problems. The climax seemed to come out of nowhere: huge explosions with not enough build-up. Straightforward prose works against its weirdness.
I risk writing a critique rather than a review if I go into too much more detail, and I've also kind of thought myself out about it putting a post together for my reading group. Actually, here, I'll cheat and just copy what I posted to the group here behind a spoiler tag. :D It was intended for people who'd already read the book, so there's some missing context (irony!) and possible minor spoilers.
What we see of it is interesting! The city, the sea, the place where Sibbi's ex-husband rules.
2. What worked or didn't for you?
What worked: I liked the cast of characters. Yat, Sen, Sibbi and Ajat, Fea, Wajet. Even some of the ones who were just sketched in to give a better impression of a crew, like Iacci, the violinist who has a preoccupation with mice.
What didn't work: The last third or so of this book was a huge bummer. I could see what was happening, but not why anything was happening. There was a lot of "connective tissue" missing that would make that part of the story resonant and exciting.
3. How do you feel about the use of magic and tech?
The plant magic was quite cool. I like the idea of a house that cleans up the little bits of detritus from humans and uses it to sustain itself. The drawbridge at the end was an interesting idea, too. I wouldn't mind living in a city made of plants, that largely replaces one made of steel and brick.
The tech, not so much. A lot of it was unclear. Like, those last two pages. We're SF all of a sudden?
4. Do you think this deserved an award/was it Hugo-worthy for you?
In a pool that only contained self-pub books, I might consider it. Otherwise, no. This does not feel like a polished book. I read it in paper, but it felt like it ought to be in e-book. Especially since the formatting was pretty bad in paper. Missing page numbers, no justification on the right-hand side. (hide spoiler)]
Lots of promise with a disappointing execution. Two and a half stars, rounded down....more
I loved the sense of neighborhood in this YA novel, set in Brooklyn and its New York surroundings. Old brownstones nudge uncomfortably against the encI loved the sense of neighborhood in this YA novel, set in Brooklyn and its New York surroundings. Old brownstones nudge uncomfortably against the encroaching coffee houses and condos of gentrification, and BIPoC and whites nudge uncomfortably against each other, too. Street murals hold ancestral magic. That part of it is all great!
Unfortunately, the characters weren't anywhere near as vibrant as their surroundings, and at times I couldn't tell anyone apart aside from what generation they were in. Shadowshaping's capabilities here seemed too dependent on what the plot needed. Main character Sierra jumped from novice to master in no time flat.
Sierra's romance was unconvincing and unnecessary. She and Robbie could have easily worked together as new-fledged shadowshapers without it. Family conflicts are also dealt with too simply. I don't see deep-seated issues being resolved forever by shouting at mom or auntie for a few sentences and flouncing off.
On the whole, I wish that the people in this story, and the relationships between them, came across as strongly as their backdrop did....more
There's so much in this book that I typically don't respond well to, that I'm confused that I enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a pleasant surprise,There's so much in this book that I typically don't respond well to, that I'm confused that I enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a pleasant surprise, for sure!
One thing I expect from a fantasy trilogy is the exploration of a vividly realized world with a rich sense of place and history. There isn't much of that in Black Sun. Scenes on a small scale were really well done, various scenes in Tova and descriptions of delicious food being standouts, but the world as a whole is underdeveloped.
On top of that, I didn't get a sense of being rooted in a society very different from my own. There's a lot of what feels like 21st-century thinking here. Some of it's to the good, like nobody being misgendered or put into a sexual situation against their consent. Some of it's to the not-so-good, particularly in the use of very contemporary words or ideas like ego, adrenaline, "progressive" vs "conservative," etc.
But despite all this, I was drawn into Black Sun from the beginning and--a miracle of sorts in what's been an incredibly difficult reading year--I never once felt reluctant to pick it back up. There's something about Roanhorse's writing style that drew me in and kept me glued to the pages until the very end. I can't account for this at all, especially since I keep thinking of stuff that didn't quite work, like action scenes being too short and not having much visceral/emotional impact, everybody acting like an adolescent (whether in their intrigues or their romantic interactions), the ending being kind of off-putting by setting up catharsis and then yanking it away. It goes on and on!
Going back to the characters for a bit, though, I think they're part of what made this book so compelling. They aren't given the deeply emotional treatment that I prefer, for sure, but their essential isolation drew out my sympathy despite that. Even when they do things like mass murder (!). Serapio, trained from a very young age as the vessel of a god; Naranpa, the woman who started out as a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and who finds herself in a position of worldly power she is by no means qualified to fill; Xiala, an outcast from her own society, and from the societies that she moves among. They're all victims of circumstance, to some extent, but they all have a fervent desire to live, to find connection in a world that is, to say the least, not inclined to coddle them or ensure they succeed.
Also, anything having to do with the crows was great. Yay, corvids!
I'm really interested in seeing where this series goes next. The blurb for the second book is available now, but I'm sure there are more surprises in store!...more
I'll be discussing this book with a group in a matter of weeks, so it'll get a short review for now. It surprised me with just how far it was willing I'll be discussing this book with a group in a matter of weeks, so it'll get a short review for now. It surprised me with just how far it was willing to go to not be a typical "protagonists versus the empire" story, and how it committed unrelentingly--and sometimes heartbreakingly--to its themes, and to its arc for protagonists Mamoru and Misaki, all the way up through the end. Small, quiet scenes and battles are both excellently done.
There are a small handful of issues, mostly on what I suppose to be a technical level. It takes a heck of a long time to get going: 250-400 pages of a 600-ish-page book, depending on what you're looking for. A fair number of pages are devoted to stuff that's either tedious (that history lecture in Ch. 2 is unforgivable) or extraneous (anything setting up future novels). There's no reason to rename time units, or for there to be full, untranslated Japanese sentences, and their use jarred me out of the story every time. Some of the messaging and plotting is too overt and obvious.
Definitely worth a look if you have the patience. Three and a half stars, rounded down....more
Second reading in audiobook: my general impressions of this book haven't changed much, or at all. It's wobbly in places. We're called on to try to sorSecond reading in audiobook: my general impressions of this book haven't changed much, or at all. It's wobbly in places. We're called on to try to sort out a mystery without having enough connection with the many supporting characters to care very much about how they're affected by it. (Some--not all--of them caused pangs of sympathy in hindsight.) The endgame of Gideon and Harrow's interpersonal arc felt rushed and I think we could have spent a bit more time on the intermediate stages of that rather than the videogame-like challenges. I'm getting finicky about something I liked a lot!
I caught a few details along the way that I'd glossed over on my first reading, and I think I'm in decent shape to listen to Harrow the Ninth and not feel dragged down and confused, as long as I get to it fairly soon. It's tempting to nudge this first volume down to three stars because of its sloggy patches, but I won't because of its prickly, vulnerable and (eventually) lovable leads.
First review after reading the ebook is below.
***
After reading a few friends' reviews, I didn't have high hopes for this book. The star ratings literally went the whole gamut from one to five, which can often lead to a decent read with a lot of caveats. Still, I was curious about why it was so divisive, so I gave it a try when it was on sale in ebook. As you can see, I ended up liking it a lot!
I wouldn't call this hard SF, and at the beginning I thought there wasn't much reason to call it SF at all. These folks could have been on one planet, with the various necromancer Houses being in different cities, and the story would be about the same, as far as I could tell. When weird science was brought to light in the middle of the book, it felt much more like SF, albeit not of the "hard science and/or space opera" variety. It's more like science fantasy, which is fine, by the way! The scope of almost everything that happens is limited to Canaan House on the First's world--it's small-scale, even intimate, and that ended up being much of its appeal for me.
Ignoring the rather dreary question of how to categorize this book, what's it like?
It's fun! Gideon is a great character to hang out in the head of. She's ignorant about the workings of necromancy, and largely uncaring, so the reader doesn't get long treatises about each House's magic that aren't interrupted by Gideon impatiently telling the long-winded explainer to shut up and get to the point, already. The language is an odd, distinctive mix of highfalutin diction/vocabulary and brassy cussing. Maybe Gideon's extremely contemporary meme-speak will age about as well as a dead fish on a summer sidewalk, but she made me chuckle a lot more than the quotes in friends' reviews would have led me to believe.
The characters aside from Gideon and her necromancer Harrowhark were hard to tell apart at first, but as things went along, the necromancers and cavaliers from the other seven Houses distinguished themselves in an organic way. This was true of the relationships between them, as well. And also true of the necromantic magic unique to each house. Things are sketched in to the degree they're needed to move the story forward, and sometimes they're explained more fully later, and sometimes not. I liked that.
One thing I hadn't expected was how much Gideon's story affected me emotionally. Coming into this, I thought she'd be a boring badass with a big attitude, nothing to feel any sympathy for, or connection with. But Gideon's actually very vulnerable, and longs for the things that most people long for: companionship, love, something like a family. My heart went out to this lonely kid, and I was saddened when the bodies started piling up during the "And Then There Were None" part of the book, and the bonds that Gideon had made with her peers were broken in a very final way.
There are a few shortcomings, sure, especially in its latter fourth or so. After a locked-room mystery with some cool necromancy and character revelations, there's a long speech by the "last boss" explaining all their plans, and a big battle (ho-hum), and an ending that somewhat undid its own lead-up, not to spoil too much. While it was fitting, and there were definitely signposts for it as the story went along, there was something unsatisfactory about it. Maybe the deliberate open ends that might not be dealt with until the last book? The relationship between Harrow and Gideon is freighted with a lot of baggage and pain, and I wasn't convinced when (view spoiler)[one conversation immediately changed them from enemies to loyal companions (hide spoiler)]. Much of the middle and end of the book--the key search and the accompanying puzzle--came across like a video game, and well, if I wanna play a video game, I'll play a video game.
But still, I had a great time and the pages flew by (by my anemic standards). I got a little tear in my eye once or twice, which was a pleasant surprise, considering "magic battles with skeletons" was all I really knew about it. (Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of that, too.) And I'm very curious about where the story is going next. The board's been cleared, and it'll be a whole new game. Maybe even an entirely different one....more
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