lightreads

At the Back of the North Wind

1/5. 1870’s children’s christian fiction about the son of a coachman who makes friends with the north wind.

It would be reasonable to ask why I read 1870’s children’s christian fiction. The answer is that I read this as a child, but remembered nothing about it other than the title and the sound of the narrator’s voice saying it. I recently found the digitized version of that old cassette audiobook (thank you, National Library Service – in general, I mean, not for this in particular) and I got curious.

Woof, I am allergic to this book. Its preaching, its sanctimony, its moralism. On the one hand, it could be worse. The author was a christian-socialist who was definitely not wrong that, say, drinking and smacking your wife around is bad. His opinions were apparently very unpopular at the time. But it doesn’t ultimately matter what stripe of preaching this is when you are allergic to the whole project. Philosophically, I mean. The thematic statement of this book is, as one character says, “kindness is but justice,” and bleh, fuck right off with that. It’s a view of the world and who gets what and who deserves what that I violently disagree with.

Also, not for nothing, I said “are you fucking joking” out loud when I realized where this book was going. I’m pretty sure I don’t remember this book well because I didn’t understand or like it as a child. I do remember his Princess and the Goblin, which I think I reread quite a bit, but I think I’m good now. The offensive ending, by the way, is literally ( spoilers I guess? ).

I think I would be less annoyed by this if it didn’t have these flickers of good fantasy in it. Something wild and creative and extremely weird. But whenever he started down that road he would pull abruptly back and suddenly re-christian everything.

Content notes: *gestures upward*

This Brutal moon

3/5. Third book in this scifi trilogy, really do not start here.

Damn, it didn’t land it. It didn’t terribly fumble it either, but.

Let’s back up. I really liked the first book in this trilogy, which you should absolutely go into unspoiled because the ride is worth it. But she had to do different modes with the next books for plot and structure and not repeating herself reasons. Unfortunately, I was glad to see these people again, but I think this whole series lost momentum and vitality. And the deeper this series got into the story of a remnant population barely clinging on after a genocide several decades ago, well. She says they aren’t supposed to be space Jews, but, like, girl. These books are doing that thing where they valorize an oppressed population and an oppressed culture in a way that is both satisfying and also uncomfortable, if you get me. Satisfying in the way a reductive viewpoint is satisfying. Uncomfortable in the way a reductive viewpoint is uncomfortable.

Also, I am not at all qualified to opine on this, but I’ve caught the edges of conversations from people who think she has valorized her space Jews right over the border into weird antisemitic trope land, which did jump out at me when ( spoilers for the end of the first book ). Anyway, do with that what you will.

Look, I’m complaining about this a lot, but I genuinely think the first book is doing cool stuff, and I genuinely think the whole series is thinking about identity and refugees and cultural violence and retribution and repair. All chewy, important stuff. Also, the way women and nonbinary people are allowed to be intense and obsessed with each other and over-the-top in the first book is the good shit. I’m glad I read it, even though the last book had serious POV bloat (way too many) and didn’t land with the force I wanted it to.

Content notes: Torture, violence, discussions of genocide, child loss.

Salvage Crew and Pilgrim Machines

4/5. A pair of related scifi novels largely narrated by sentient ships in a plausible corporatist space future. The first book is a sort of survival horror first contact situation, and the second is philosophical space exploration and consideration of mortality on the personal and galactic scale.

I like these. They manage that trick of feeling old-fashioned in the best way. Particularly the big ideas exploration book – it’s giving Niven or Vinge or Baxter or similar, except, you know, not variously phobic and -ist. Actually, several of the characters are Buddhist, which offers a really interesting lens on some more classic science fictional topics.

I’m a little suspicious about why these books didn’t take off, TBH. He got buzz early on, then seemed to fall off the map. I’m pretty plugged into new and interesting SFF, and I’ve only heard about him from one person. I have a suspicion this is because he openly talks about how he uses AI. E.g., in the first book here, he had AI generate hundreds of short poems on various themes, and he picked several for his AI ship to “write.” He is transparent about how he prompted and why he did it that way. I suspect this got some sort of AI stink on him, professionally, which is a real shame.

I will also add, they got Nathan Fillion to read the first audiobook. Normally I do not like these celebrity narrators, but actually, it’s kind of brilliant? He has this bro-y cynical depressive emotionalism that hit just right for the ship narrator of that book.

Content notes: Corporate hellscape stuff, body horror.

Saint Death's Herald

3/5. Sequel, do not start here. Further wholesomely necromantic (it’s a vibe) adventures. Rough road trip when you have to chase down your great grandfather’s psychopathic ghost.

This book continues in the footsteps of the first by being cheerfully morbid, with great character work and complicated relationships. Weird thing though: I thought the first book was messy and oddly paced and overlong. This sequel is about 9 hours of audio shorter (so about 90,000 words, give or take) and so straightforward, I was baffled. Then the author said in the afterword that her editor made her cut 90,000 words, and ah. I see. I think I actually would like a little more mess in this book, believe it or not. Maybe the third book can get it just right.

Anyway, my point is: read if you would like a sort of T. Kingfisher plus Tamsyn Muir vibe plus normalized polyamory and queerness. And a reanimated tiger rug as the noble steed. And an undead wolf who is a very good boy.

Content notes: Death, violence, possession, mind control.

Katabasis

3/5. The elevator pitch on this is two grad students go to hell to retrieve their dead advisor in order to get recommendation letters. As you might expect, there’s a bit more to it than that.

Congratulate me, I finally finished an RF Kuang book. This was my third attempt in five years.

Parts of this are great. Some really sharp and accurate observations of what you do inside your mind as a woman trying to succeed under the authority of an asshole man. My circumstances were different, but boy did she nail the compromises, the things you tell yourself, the ways you try to out-competent misogyny (it doesn’t work that way). This book is also constructed on paradoxes as a magic system, and it goes hard on the double-think you have to engage in to survive that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really like anything else: the characters, the whole hell set of nested metaphors, the romance (god help me, I really cannot with that). I’m being a bit unfair here because I think I’m irritated at this book in part because of how some people talk about it. For real though, some people think this book is like some super deep intellectual masterpiece. And my dudes. I am concerned for you. This is the wikipedia version of formal logic. I know extremely little about this field and I can still tell that. It is not deep. This is not an insult, it’s just, you gotta be able to recognize a spade when it’s in front of you.

This was not really for me, but maybe one of her other fantasies will be, someday.

Content notes: Misogyny, a lot of suicidal ideation, ableism, sexual coercion, murder, gore.

The Immortality Thief

3/5. Scifi about a refugee linguist who is forced into a dangerous mission to retrieve ancient data off a starship mere weeks from destruction from a dying star.

This is a space survival story with horror undertones, and a strong commitment to enemies-to-friends as our narrator travels the ship in the company of two people who are intimately connected to the massacre of his family and community. I’m into that as a project, and did enjoy it, though I think the book does not entirely do the legwork on how this relationship develops. That’s a hard thing to pull off, to be clear.

The other thing to know about this book is that it is first person narrated by someone with absolutely galloping ADHD and close to zero impulse control. He is a lot. And the book flows with his thinking – somewhat erratically, with lots of interruptions and a million tiny chapters. I think part of that is by design, and part of it is first book messiness. And also being about 20,000 words too long. But my point is, whether you enjoy this book or not will probably turn on whether you can vibe with the narrator. I sometimes could and often couldn’t, so here I am.

Content notes: Recollection of massacre, violence, body horror.

The Hexologists and A tangle in Time

3.5/5. A pair of fantasy mysteries set in an industrializing city and featuring a married couple detective duo.

These are fun, a little briskly funny, and correctly not pretending to have any real there there. The mysteries are twisty, the world building is interesting, the jokes are decent, and the protagonists have an entertaining dynamic (she does the magic and most of the mystery solving, he does the cooking and carries her bag and occasionally punches someone).

I did get annoyed with the metronomically predictable action scenes, which arrive every few chapters whether they are needed or not. It has that vibe where the author doesn’t trust the reader to stay interested without some running about and shouting and getting into plot-irrelevant peril. I think he would be better served by putting just the tiniest scrap of there in here, problem solved.

Also, I think the villain in the second book is ( spoiler I guess ) but YMMV on that.

Lady Hotspur

3/5. What if Henry IV (loosely) but make it epic fantasy and make most of the major players women, and make most of those women queer.

Yes, there is a prequel book that I did not read, because I do what I want. This would probably be richer if you read in publication order, but it’s one of those situations where the prior book is set several generations before, so, you know.

Anyway, yes, the premise sounds great, and large portions of this book are wonderful. This manages to feel Shakespearean, and I don’t mean that it feels tragic (though it has that mode). It’s bawdy and political and deeply concerned with how history turns upon character, and how people stand or fall on their flaws. It also has a tremendous sense of the numinous and, getting somewhat less Shakespearean here but also not in another realm or anything, a wonderful touch with multiple shades of queerness and how that functions or doesn’t in monarchist systems.

However, while I’ve read books that were too long, I can’t remember the last time I read one that was at least a hundred thousand words too long. Phew. That is truly impressive bloat. I would be rating this higher if it were like 40% shorter (which would still make it a damn long book, to be clear). I lost patience with this multiple times. I always came back and found something to enjoy again, but man.

Read if you really like queer lady knights, women running the world, that Shakespeare feeling, and a book that feels as if it is tremendously slow even as many things are happening.

Content notes: Murder, war, references to child abuse, miscarriage, cancer.

Betrothed to the Emperor and Emperor's Wrath

2/5. M/M fantasy romance about the royal twins raised to kill the emperor of the encroaching empire, except when they are presented, the emperor chooses the brother to marry, not the sister as planned. And then stuff happens.

I got sucked in based on the trope set, even though I knew damn well this was not going to satisfy. And I was right. There’s something extra frustrating about someone doing tropes you’re into, but with such limited skill that nothing really lands. Here, for example – the books are trying to do fake/pretend relationship but whoops it’s also real, but they’re so incoherent about it and so impatient to get to the porn that I couldn’t keep track from one scene to the next whether we were treating it as real or not. These books also do that thing where our first person narrator totally misses that the guy is into him, but it’s done so clumsily here that it just makes him look incredibly, pathologically stupid.

/cranky

Rakesfall

3/5. Chandrasekera’s first book made a splash, but this one really didn’t. I didn’t know why until I read it, and now I’m pretty sure it’s because no one wants to talk about it and demonstrate that they have no freaking clue what it’s about.

I’m . . . sort of . . . kidding. This is a strange passage of a book. It is ostensibly about two people who are instantiated across many lives over huge spans of time, and how they relate to each other, and how they don’t. It’s also about colonialism and modes of resistance and a sort of cosmic war. Probably?

Mostly, it’s a beautifully written piece with extremely clever intertextual stylings that is disorienting (on purpose, but I suspect he thought he was being much clearer than I think he is) and that does the reader only a few very basic favors in trying to figure out what is what. Or who is who, from chapter to chapter. Read if you like that sort of experience of disorienting fragments stitched together into something that, for me, did not resolve much at all.

Content notes: Many kinds of interpersonal and terroristic violence.