lightreads

I Who Have Never Known Men

4/5. A short feminist science fiction(?) novel originally written in french in the 90’s, when it acquired a cult following, whereupon it was translated into english a few years ago and acquired a new and different cult following. This is the first person account of a young girl who grew up in a cage with 39 women, all older than her, all of whom remember their former lives, unlike her. They know nothing but each other and the silent guards, until one day everything changes, and they escape to a strange, answerless landscape.

This is good. It manages that trick of being an incredibly bleak story, but told with a lot of tenderness and humanity, so it feels richer and more rewarding than ‘bleak’ implies. This is simply written, yet rewards complex thought. I think the author’s jewishness is important for reading it well, particularly in appreciating why there is never any actual ‘why’ for the atrocities committed here. I also strongly suspect the author had been reading Tiptree, and maybe Le Guin’s “Sur” (very different, and yet related), and maybe Marge Piercy? This feels very much in conversation with a lot of speculative feminist texts of the 80’s in particular, is what I’m saying.

I am less compelled by the reading suggested by the afterword in my english text, which glosses this book as about what a woman might be, should she exist in a world entirely without men. I mean, the title’s right up there, so sure, carry on. I just don’t find that a very rewarding train of thought in this iteration, and think this book is doing a lot of other things that I’d rather pay attention to.

Content notes: Captivity, depictions of mass death aftermath, euthanasia of a sort.

A Ruse of Shadows

4/5. Book 8. Do not start here either.

Sherry Thomas is just really good at this. Even when she’s pulling the same tricks again – having our protagonists enact the whole plot of the book without ever explaining to the reader until the very end, false crime accusations again – I’m mostly happy to go for the ride. Here, that narrative secrecy works to enhance the way this book is also about the central romantic relationship, and how they decide what it’s going to be, and what it’s not, like adults and complicated people do.

Five Broken Blades

3/5. A group of six people come together to murder the unkillable god king, but they’re all liars, it gets complicated.

This is mis-marketed as gritty-ish twisty fantasy when it’s actually most interested in its romances (there are six characters, they enter the arc two-by-two). So just know that going in. Also, I feel I should warn for the thing where this has six points-of-view and they are all written in first person present, which is . . . a choice.

Anyway, this has some amount of intrigue and charm going for it, but I tired of the steep dips in writing quality whenever it came to the romances (and the writing is never good to start with). And also the thing where we get first person POVs of people and everyone is hiding something from the reader, which is hard to pull off and Corland does not have those chops. This is a particular peeve of mine.

I read it, it reads fast and easy, I enjoyed parts of it, but now I have no interest in the sequel, even though it promises to blow the worldbuilding wide open.

Content notes: A lot of violence and murder, references to gory execution methods, child trafficking and child abuse.

Cocaine Blues and 20 more

4/5. Long-running series of historical detective novels about a wealthy woman in 1928/1929 Australia who solves crime, builds an unconventional family, and bangs half the men she meets.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been, here you go.

These are hard to talk about because I read 21 of them (not 22, though there is a 22nd book) and I had a pretty good time for most of them. But the most recent books were such a noticeable decline in quality that it’s left a bad taste in my mouth and now I just keep thinking about what I didn’t like. Let’s see what I can do about that.

Things to like: Phryne’s cheerful and unapologetic sexuality. The ways she is allowed to behave as male detectives do – horny, constantly drinking, etc. Casual poly relationships that suit everyone just fine and work beautifully. Mostly short mysteries with a range of solutions. Strong writing on a craft level, particularly in the middle books. An affection for the detective novels that Phryne herself reads, and a playfulness with their forms (Christie, Sayers, etc.). But with more frankness about the specific sorts of crimes that women and children are vulnerable to – incest and rape, forced relationships, botched abortion, forced childbearing, etc.

What I don’t like: Also Phryne, who is a lot of a lot. The repeated and unmistakable asephobia that emanates from the books themselves, not just Phryne who is the one to voice a lot of it (she’s one of those highly sexual people who thinks there’s something wrong/unnatural about people who aren’t, and the books let her attach these views to villains several times). The way the author just gave completely up on series continuity once the TV show started, to the point of suddenly adding a sexual overtone to a relationship that was previously platonic (and almost familial) in the books because the TV show went a totally different direction with it. It’s extremely disconcerting. The sharp decline in writing quality in the last few books. The extremely weird Sherlock slashfic interlude where Phryne bangs not!John Watson a bunch to make not!Sherlock jealous (ah and it turns out he’s not asexual after all, what a relief for everyone). The later books get real weird, guys.

Content notes: All sorts of crime, including against children. Rape, incest, sexual exploitation, violence, murder, generally as aftermath and not on-page.

3/5. Hard scifi about a couple of functionally immortal galactic citizens travelling to the core to find an unknown civilization sprung from the DNA panspermia; meanwhile members of that civilization work out the newtonian and relativistic principles that describe their extremely weird and risky existence.

Very much of its time (nearly twenty years ago) and just okay. A big idea book where I thought the big idea was only vaguely interesting, but there isn’t really much else to go on here, unless you like over a hundred pages of people talking about physics math. Which is not snide, considering I enjoyed that strand of the book more than the strand about the functionally immortal people, who do things like load up new modules to become experts in various fields in a few seconds, which really enhances their presentation as cardboard cutout post humans. Post humans who have left the constraints of embodiment behind, by the way, and who are nonetheless still deeply invested in the gender binary. Sure, okay.

Read Tchaikovsky’s Children books instead. Some superficial similarities, much more alive.

The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber

4/5. Book aimed mostly at middle-class and wealthy American parents on the general topic of instilling smarts and values about money in children.

Good, but I suspect you could get all of this content in a few explainers. His overarching point is to talk about money early and often, which, yes, sure. And relatedly that children of middle-class and wealthy parents are more likely than children of poor parents to not hear these conversations. He then gets into various related topics – consumerism, instilling generosity, etc. and generally ticks through a list of various approaches parents have taken to actively address it. Interesting, and a good project, but as I said, if you don’t have time for a short book, I have no doubt you can get advice in shorter form.

All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry

Vivid and atmospheric YA about two deeply co-dependent teenaged girls who party hard and eventually encounter the supernatural by way of a boy musician. Good at what it’s doing, but I’m over YA in general, and also not in the mood for girls fighting over a dumb boy, and also this is doing that thing of ‘is it real or are they just stoned?’ which, meh. Should have read this ten years ago back when I first got it from Audible, oops.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Definitely a case of what is wrong with me? Contemporary british fantasy about five witches years after the war with the warlocks, and a prophecy and stuff. This is doing stuff about witchcraft as a feminine art in a way that is trans inclusive, if you’ll believe that. And it’s also doing stuff about intersectionality re race. And yet, my brain just constantly slid right off it, and after putting it down and forgetting about it multiple times, I have to admit defeat at 50%. I genuinely do not know why.

When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker

Fantasy romance with a stabby heroine who speaks only in quips, when she isn’t killing people. This was the it book in fanro circles for like .5 seconds earlier this year. I read 40% of this while sick, but once well, could not take just how bad this writing is. It’s very lots bad.

The Future by Naomi Alderman

Another case of it’s probably me. This is a sapphic near future scifi about billionaire apocalypse survival fantasies and what’s fucked up about the internet and what’s not, and other stuff. I tried to read this twice, and it is interesting and clearly going somewhere, and I just cannot make myself focus on it.

On Vicious Worlds

4/5. Impossible to talk about as it’s the sequel to an extremely twisty scifi. More intense identity drama, more danger for a remnant population attempting to escape the grasping reach of an authoritarian government, more opera in the space opera.

I continue to really like this, and to think it’s not going to be for all tastes. It’s going to be too dramatic for some. But I remain impressed that these books have managed to pack this much subversive queer longing into a queer-norm universe. How did she do that? It would be spoilers to say, but yeah, she sure did.

Content notes: Violence, discussion of past genocide, off-page torture.

Alien Clay

4/5. A dissident professor is shipped off authoritarian earth to a prison labor camp on a planet where evolution took a very different tack.

Classic Tchaikovsky – a story told by a dude who is both sympathetic and insufferable, very political, fucking weird. This one is about revolutions and why they fail and how to fix that. The “fix,” in this case, being one of those moves he likes where he “solves” a problem seemingly inherent to humanity in a way that is effective and yet deeply alien and unsettling. On purpose, to be clear. It messes with a readers priors and loyalties in ways I’ve come to appreciate.

I liked this one. It’s tighter than some of his other recent books, and gets the job done well in the space it takes.

Content notes: Prison planet, recollections of authoritarian regime and its enforcers.

Cage of Souls

3/5. Pairing these up because of an artificial similarity and to get myself to finally write this one up, which I read months ago. Here’s the artificial similarity part – a dissident academic is shipped off to the prison from which no one ever returns on end days earth.

Aside from that start, these books have very little in common. This one is much longer, more confused and confusing, and concerned with some stylistic pretentions reminiscent of an eighteenth -century novel. There is some interesting stuff here about the end of civilization and how knowledge is passed or not, but this is definitely not his most successful outing, I’ll say that.

Content notes: Misogyny, carceral violence, body horror, other stuff I’m not remembering because it’s been a long time.

The Sky on Fire

3/5. Fantasy set in a world where dragons pair with riders, but the riders aren’t the ones in charge. A ragtag group of dragons and riders and thieves and dissidents get together to do a big heist on the evil head dragon for reasons, then stuff happens.

This is okay, but did not excite me. That is sad because it features the development of a polyamorous triad, which is my jam, but not this unsatisfying iteration. See also other things I like: heists, dragons, a queer-norm and kink-norm world, and yet, eh. It’s fine. I DNF’d her other fantasy series, so maybe I should just cut my losses here.

I would be curious to know if anyone else who read this found the back third kind of disorienting? Did I miss a step, or was the book casually connecting threads that just did not meet?

Content notes: Violence, graphic description of falling and fear of heights.