lightreads

Rose/House

2/5. Futuristic gothic novella about an AI house that only unlocks for one person once a year, except now it has a dead body in it and it is required to call the police about it.

A weird dream state of a little book that was doing its thing well – an AI as a haunting, a gothic-typical fixation with architecture and the things it does to human minds, etc. But I am not into that thing really at all. Too nebulous, too inconclusive, way too full of me interrogating the text from the wrong direction because for fuck’s sake, these two police officers did so much unprofessional and flat out nonsensical things that it completely broke the book for me. Yeah yeah, not the point, whatever.

Content notes: Death, body desecration, creeping horror

A Memory Called Empire

4/5. A new ambassador is sent from a tiny, precariously independent space station to the heart of the empire. She has in her head a recording of the memories of her predecessor, and her attempts to figure out what happened to him put her in the center of imperial politics.

You guys were right, this is terrific. It took me a while to put my finger on what's so great about it. The main thing for me is this book's focus on our protagonist's deep conflict: she is fascinated by this imperial culture, loves it, but is also fundamentally horrified by it. And of course it thinks she is a barbarian. And the conflict doesn't just play out in her head. There are a series of questions asked in this book of escalating importance across a cultural gap. How different are these two definitions of "you?" How about "we?"

And the book involves the reader in the conflict. We're supposed to find parts of this empire compelling – the poetry – and parts deeply charming – the names! Love the names. All while maintaining the consciousness that this is an imperial monster that eats other cultures for breakfast. The deftness of this book made me realize how rarely I see stories about culture told so complexly. And the ending is perfect, oof. I was like how do I feel about this? as it was playing out, and my answer was complicated. I feel complicated about this. Which . . . yes.

Also, it's a pretty good political/spy/intrigue story. And there's a lesbian romance. And promise of a much more sprawling plot to come.