book reviews, part three of ∞

CLOSE ENOUGH.

I feel like these sorts of posts might not be as exciting for other people as they are for me (lifelong tragedy), so I'll try to think of something else to post here. Naked pictures, maybe. (Not of me.)

Only four books, this time! Same rules:

Bryony And Roses, T. Kingfisher - A horrible knock-off of Robin McKinley’s Rose Daughter, but much less good. The author admits that McKinley’s book inspired her own in the introduction, but that isn’t any kind of an excuse. The only differences between the two treatments were the comparative awkwardness of Kingfisher’s fanfiction-y version, a bunch of hyper-boring gardening details, the worst and unsexiest Beast ever, and legitimacy. I’ve read several of this author’s other fairy tale novellas and found them brilliant and charming in ways that no other author (including McKinley) could touch, so I don’t quite know what happened here. I mean, the story was poisoned by a lack of originality, is what happened here, but I don’t know why. I feel like Kingfisher could have actually achieved something of historical interest if she had written her own, un-influenced version of Beauty & the Beast, and if that ever happens I will definitely give it a chance — but this one should be skipped by everyone. No, seriously: It tapdanced upon the knife-edge of actionable plagiarism, I am not even being a dick about it.

Child Of The River: The First Book of Confluence, Paul J. McAuley - Starring some evil pig people who live in a land of eternal electric night and who settle issues of inheritance by killing their fathers. Nope. (ETA: Fixed the title! Whoops, sorry. Apparently this is the first in a long series of fantasy novels grounded in Hindu mythology, or something. Still don't like it!)

Creatures Of Light And Darkness, Roger Zelazny - Another Riddled-sourced book selection! This one was much better than Astra & Flondrix, but to be honest that’s not much of a compliment. This book, however, is fantastic. It suffers from some unfortunate oldman-isms re: sex and gender, but they’re really not that bad considering the novel’s publication date. Unique employment of mythology and the narrative structures of science fiction, but transcendent of both traditions. I recommend this book very highly, especially if you’d like to see what 75% of the writers of modern scifi epics are trying and failing to achieve. Also, Creatures of Light & Darkness is clearly one of the references Douglas Adams incorporated into The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (along with elements from Norstrilia, about which something will be said later), if you are the sort of person who cares about that sort of thing. I’m going to read more Zelazny soon, starting with Roadmarks or Jack of Shadows (I don’t know if I can handle the talking dog one yet).

Daughter Of Smoke And Bone, Laini Taylor - Just the worst piece of shit ever. Really badly written, characters that the author clearly believes are transgressively unique but who actually resemble a week’s worth of Daily Deviations from 2009, disgustingly barfy adolescent love story, everyone is so beautiful you can’t hardly stand to look at them, etc. The kind of book that gives small-minded realism fetishists reason to sneer at genre fiction. Someone put this novel in a "if you loved Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, you’ll love this book" Tumblr post awhile ago, and that should tell you everything you ever need to know about Tumblr’s Clarke fandom.

This one was pretty mean! The next batch will have some better books in it, I promise.

I'm going to be — "busy" is a strong word — occupied with all manner of shit until after the new year. I probably won't even have access to my exuberance of review notes until next weekend, so I will regale you then(ish) with more of my Important Opinions. Have a lovely New Year, friends and passersby, and try not to get too drunk/ill/weird/belligerent. Well, you know — getting too weird is usually a good idea. But not the other stuff. You could end up in the hospital, or in jail, or elected President of the United States of America.

book reviews, part two of ∞

Haha! I think you'll find that one day is just as good as — and in many ways nearly indistinguishable from — another.

Nothing particularly bad happened to me recently, I should vouchsafe. I was just busy with holiday shit. Although my washing machine did break down mid-cycle last week, whilst chock full of every pair of pajamas I own, and I had to wring out the entire load (it had rinsed) using my only good pair of hands. That was somewhat traumatic, from a feminist perspective.

I'm going to stop setting deadlines for myself here, because all I do is break them, just break them and break them and break them, but in my next post I'll put up a normal-length review of Naomi Novik's Uprooted, which I was surprised to discover had been recently nominated for a Hugo Award (ETA: And it won a Nebula Award). Maybe they have a "Best Dime-Store Romance Novel" category now, who knows? Anyway, same rules as last time, let's go:

Annabel, Kathleen Winter - A novel about an intersex child born to two annoying Canadian people in the 70s. Or 80s? The 60s?? I can’t remember. One of them is far more annoying than the other, and the answer to "which one is more annoying?" might surprise you. (SPOILER: They are both the most annoying.) The prose was mostly very beautiful, in a self-consciously "literary" way (excessive use of poetical metaphor, the blank verse-like exegesis of complex character motivation, etc.), but often it seemed to be trying too hard to get me to like it. The novel had a lovely, closely-woven plot involving Death and Dying and Realizing Your Dreams, and it was relatively interesting considering that there weren’t any fairies in it. I was delighted to read about someone growing into a non-binary gender as part of the ordinary bildungsroman-y processes of becoming an adult — and I identified with the characterization of gender-assignment as a potentially crippling extension of filial loyalty (an actual trans/intersex person might feel differently) — but I thought the story would be more fantastical than it was. If you see what I mean. I have zero interest in the elaborate woodcraft practiced by annoying rural Canadian people. I would read other books by Kathleen Winter.

Astra & Flondrix, Seamus Cullen - I saw this book mentioned at Riddled, and then I bought it. This was a very terrible decision. If you are a crazy religious person who would like to stop your adolescent children from having sex, ever, you should make them read this book many times. Provide them with a barfbucket first. Horrible, gross book. Suggestive of satire written by the tortured souls of the eternal damned in Hell, who have been burning for so long they no longer remember what laughter is. There are fairies in this novel, but I wish there hadn’t been. I would not read anything else written by Seamus Cullen, including a grocery list.

At The Mouth Of The River Of Bees, Kij Johnson - A very, very, very good "weird fiction" anthology. When successful, this story collection is an extension of the tradition of animal-mediated magic that (possibly) predates the origins of human storytelling, but which is often confined in modern fiction to the dated constructions of 18th century European fairytales. (I know, right? I didn't notice it before, either.) I really appreciated the way Johnson’s piercingly imaginative animism accepted the trappings of contemporary life without losing any of its mystery. The title story is one of my most favorite short stories ever, and I have no criticisms of either its structure or thesis. The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change was completely amazing as well — narratively sophisticated and well-written, and also a strenuous exercise of the Disney muscles around the eyes that control tearflow. Really great writing, also. I hope it won some awards. Some of the other stories weren’t as good; Fox Magic was weeaboo original fiction shit, and I couldn’t make myself finish The Horse Raiders, but mostly: The best. I will certainly make an effort to read other things by Kij Johnson.

Aurorarama, Jean-Christophe Valtat - An alternative history of Alaska; clockpunk or something, historypunk, geodesic-domepunk, who cares. Not my thing. No fairies. A very pretty and deceptive cover featuring a zeppelin, the Aurora Borealis, and a polar bear that looks like it might be capable of speech (but it is not). Probably no more Valtat, unless he writes something with talking animals (or elves) in it.

Beauty, Hubert Boulard and Kerascoet - A very famous comic that I mostly found annoying. I don’t like Kerascoet’s art, either. Made a statement in the first ten pages and then spent 125 more underlining it in purple glitter ink. Definitely not the worst thing ever — especially for adolescents struggling to define their self-image — just not for me.

Blindsight, Peter Watts - I saw this book recommended somewhere online (Crooked Timber?) (??), but I can’t remember where now. It was well-written and intelligent and probably very good, but it isn’t the sort of thing I like to read. I tapped out in the middle of the first chapter because I was suffocating to death under the story’s "science." I tried to wait around long enough to hang out with the vampire space captain (any port in a storm), but Watts kept insisting on telling me about how the boring spaceship worked and I had to save myself. I’m sorry. If you like this kind of book, this is the kind of book you will like. I probably wouldn’t read anything else by Watts, but not because he’s untalented.

Bloodchild, Octavia E. Butler - It seems as though a Butler short about male pregnancy and sexy alien bugmonsters would be good, but in fact it was nearly as bad as Astra & Flondrix. I found The Evening and the Morning and the Night too disturbing to finish. Near of Kin was a Bible-inflected slice-of-life story about REDACTED, no comment. Speech Sounds was really great, and if I were a college-level instructor introducing freshmen to theory, I would use it as an example of how to incorporate postmodern elements into traditional narrative without being a dick about it. Crossover: depressing but good. Of the newer stories, Amnesty was pretty clearly a dumb, failed early draft of ideas that would flower and bear fruit in the Xenogenesis Trilogy (eternal fave), and The Book of Martha was as legitimate a short story about the subjective experience of god as I have ever read. Both the essays are absolutely amazing, and should be required reading for anyone who thinks they want to write. Worth buying, especially if you’re a Butler fan. (I am a Butler fan.)

The Bone Knife, Intisar Khanani - Free, but too boring to read. Written in the first person, and suggestive of the AO3. Not the good parts of the AO3.

The Bread We Eat In Dreams, Catherynne M. Valente - Your reviewer’s first Valente! Some of these stories are favorites — especially White Lines on a Green Field, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, The Shoot-Out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World, The Wolves of Brooklyn, and Silently And Very Fast — and the rest of them are merely very good. I would describe Valente, in this collection, as 'similar to Ray Bradbury, but also better in many ways, gay+, and not dead.' Highly recommended, and I have read and will continue to read Valente.

Brightness Falls From The Air, James Tiptree, Jr. - I am grateful for Tiptree’s trailblazing from the bottom of my heart, but I find her fiction boring as fuck. This novel went to extensive lengths to normalize non-heterosexual characters/behaviors, which I really appreciate — also, the protagonist was a heroine straight out of pulp adventure stories, but feministically re-centered into the middle of the narrative. Great! But it turned out that the fairies were actually unfuckable aliens, ugh, and I got so bored with them. So, so bored. It also looked like a couple of the human characters were warming up to engage in virtual incest, and I don’t get down like that. I’ve never managed to actually like any of Tiptree’s books, but I suppose I should keep trying if I want someone to ask me to the Feminist Nerd Prom this year.

I am actually being curtailed by Blogger's refusal to accept more than 200 characters in tags per post, here. I will post another batch tomorrow, on Christmas Eve (no, I will), and then we will commence upon our normal schedule after that.

More next time!

book reviews, part one of ∞

Oh my god, I forgot!

"Friday" is very similar in construction to "Wednesday," ask any expert.

Rather than writing stupid capsule summaries of these books — you can look those up on Wikipedia or Amazon, you goddamn lazy bastard —  I have tried to convey a general idea of what they felt like to me, and to communicate whether I found them worthwhile diversions, without going into elaborate specifics about their plots. I don’t want to spoil a great story for anybody, obviously, but also I frequently disagree with other readers about what constitutes a spoiler. I never really know what to mark. You should consider that all these micro-reviews contain bales and bales of unmarked spoilers — or perhaps no spoilers at all. We’re all mad here. Let’s do it:

Daybreak On A Different Mountain, Colin Greenland - Currently in purgatory. Although very well-written and intelligently plotted (it seems to contain the rudiments of some of the John Uskglass parts of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell) (Greenland is Clarke’s husband, and the two met during one of Greenland’s writing workshops) (Daybreak was published in the 80s), this novel has two of the most obnoxious protagonists ever in history. One of them is an unrepentant pederast, and he’s by far the less-annoying one. The book does a pretty decent job of suggesting that its female and non-straight characters are worthily human, but it also features a bit of instructive, violent misogyny and a creepy association between physical deformity and spiritual impurity — which, to be fair, might get finessed in the novel’s conclusion in a way that could turn out to be inoffensive. (If I ever get there to meet it.) I absolutely loved Greenland’s Plenty Series when I was in high school, though, and I would certainly consider reading the author’s other works. And maybe also finishing this one, when I’m in a better mood.

Elidor, Alan Garner - A childhood favorite! It felt less cohesive and explicable to me as an adult, but that will happen. Also, the confluence and eventual intersection of recognizable reality and the novel’s fantasy realm is handled in a much scarier and more interesting way than similar events that appear in most children’s fantasy novels. I am looking at you, Harry Potter and the. (And also at all the other children’s fantasy novels.) Also, there is a unicorn. That’s very important. I would, and have, read other Garner books.

Lud-In-The-Mist, Hope Mirrlees - This novel is almost certainly the birthplace of John Uskglass proper, whose narrative forefather appears here in the form of a horrible, jolly, rapey Lord of Misrule named Duke Aubrey. One cannot help one’s relatives, of course; 47% of my fuckheaded family voted for Donald Trump. I’m trying not to hold it against him. The novel itself is quite weird, and suffers (as nearly all novels do) from a shortage of fairy action — but it’s still a haunting and beautiful work, and worth tracking down. If you’ve read it and think you know what’s happening in it, please feel free to look me up and explain it to me. ("Something something the transformations of magic as a metaphor for the ecstatic transcendence of death something something something"?) Also: It appears that "Lud" could be the Aulde Tymes word that mutated, eventually, into the modern name "London," a fact which you may or may not find edifying. And: The ebook’s cover borders upon "malicious vandalism." (A common problem for old books put out by philanthropic epublishers.) Many thanks to the Big Bad Bald Bastard for recommending this novel to me; I’m sorry it took me so long to say thank you. I would read more work by Mirrlees, but she’s been dead for ages now and her other two books are regular realist fiction :[

Among Others, Jo Walton - A really wonderful, unique fantasy novel. I read Among Others years ago when it first came out, but I couldn’t remember it very well & so I decided to go through it again. It’s a metafictional text, I guess, but postmodern novels usually go out of their way to be obnoxious about themselves, and this book isn’t like that at all. Narrative works as a symbol and a signifier in Among Others — as does magic — but it’s also just a story. Things that I’d remembered as textual flaws the first time around seemed on this reading to be sophisticated character work (subtle, unconscious misogyny as an expression of discomfort with your designated identity, for example), and the only element I ended up actively disliking was the boring rebellious super-gorgeous boyfriend. But, even he was a manifestation of the self-fulfilling powers of storytelling, in the end. (I think.) Recommended highly, and I would certainly read more of Walton’s novels/stories. (I hope she minimizes further readerly contact with ultra-beautiful dreamboats, however.)

This Census-Taker, China Miéville - I have no real idea what the material events in this novella actually consist of, which I gather is more a feature than a bug when it comes to Miéville, but I had an intense emotional reaction to the story & I read it from cover to cover without stopping. Effortlessly attuned to the humanness of its characters, no tacky world-building, lots of very original detail which rendered his setting explicable while also dislocating it from anything identifiable as reality. Frightening violence which was not instructive at all. I’ve never read anything else by Miéville despite the fact that he’s a heavily-hyped critical favorite; I’ve always been skeptical of the "urban fantasy" aesthetic in general, and also my only other contact with the author was a whiny editorial he published on the Wall Street Journal website (?) complaining that hyperrealistic CGI effects in movies like Avatar will murder the imaginations of the children of the future (???). Nobody’s perfect. My only real problem with This Census-Taker is that it used as an epigram (and praised in a postscript) the writing of an author named Jane Gaskell, whose novel The Serpent I made the terrible decision to subsequently purchase. The Serpent is one of the worst pieces of shit I’ve ever tried to read. It’s a fucking romance novel. It’s not even a good romance novel!!! It praises the feministic virtues of tanning!!!!! At this point I was going to say, "it was so awful that the next time Miéville comes to the US I’m going to go to a book signing and throw a shoe at his face," but I just Googled him to find that WSJ link and he’s pretty scary-looking. So I’ll just frown at him from afar. Anyway: I have purchased Perdido Street Station and I intend to read it next. (Or "next," probably.)

A Darker Shade Of Magic, V.E. Schwab - "How can I combine my mindless love of otome games, Doctor Who, and Game of Thrones in a way that suggests all my writing experience was earned in the creation of erotic Sherlock fanfiction?" thought author V.E. Schwab, who is a moron, one day. And then he or she or etc. wrote A Darker Shade of Magic, an incredibly shitty and boring novel (with a weary magical bishounen hero), which I read 38 pages of before deleting. No more V.E. Schwab novels.

A Knot In The Grain, Robin McKinley - I am a major McKinley fan, to my continuing surprise, but this short-story collection isn’t her strongest. However, its first two stories, "The Healer" and "The Stag-Man," allowed me to spend some time in the company of Luthe the Mage-Master, one of my favorite characters ever (shut up, you don’t know him). Don’t let this be your first McKinley (your first McKinley should be Sunshine, which is fucking amazing) — but it’s okay.

A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, Harry Harrison - This book stars out with the kind of vicious misanthropy I associate with British writers, who can bleed you dry of human sympathy before you even notice you’ve been cut, and so I was surprised to discover that Harrison is American. There are, indeed, reasons for this secretive contrivance of narrative identity, but if I tell you what they are I’ll spoil the novel’s Twist, and then there would be no reason for you to read it. So I won’t do that (don't waste my love and look it up) — I will, say, however, that it’s all disposed of very elegantly, considering the large number of novels that feature similar Twists and are terrible (Newt Gingrich, I'm looking at you). As a matter of fact, it may be that A Transatlantic Tunnel was the first book to perform this particular Twist in public! (It was written in the 60s.) But I don’t know for sure, sorry. I didn’t like this book enough to finish it, but I can see where someone else might think it’s really terrific (NEWT). I would try other Harrison novels.

And Other Stories, Emma Bull & Will Shetterly - A very uneven collection, with stories that are unreadably boring ("all of the stories written by Will Shetterly") and stories that are pretty great ("most of the stories written by Emma Bull"). I don’t know what to tell you. If you’re into slightly less than half a book of short fantasy stories with a crummy cover, this might be your new favorite. I like Emma Bull, but I’m not sure I would go for any Shetterly books in the future.

More on Monday, or on whatever day of the week I happen to remember I have a blog.