Category: Uncategorized

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Okay, so: Persephone retelling, sort of, set in fifteenth century West Africa (that part not just “sort of”). Warriors and blacksmiths and court politics and horrifying mothers-in-law and yeah, even an elephant or two: definitely stuff that gives us a very different angle on a very familiar shape of story. Òdòdó’s abduction is her own, her reactions to royal life and its darkness all hers, though her complicated feelings for her mother and husband have a very familiar tinge.

Òdòdó knows some of her own strength to begin with–hard not to, when you’re a blacksmith. But there is so much strength in her yet to find–and so much that isn’t there at the beginning, so much she has to build. She is not the same person at the beginning of the book as at the ending, which is what we all want to see–especially when she carries the change out into the world.

As for that ending…that was the part I found the least satisfying. Another 3-4 chapters of development and denouement and I might have bought it more; as it was, it felt abrupt and unconvincing when the rest of the book felt very clear and real. Ah well; nothing is perfect, and this is being thoroughly itself while being imperfect.

Madeline Ashby, Glass Houses. Discussed elsewhere.

Sanora Babb, Whose Names Are Unknown. This is the Dust Bowl novel that wasn’t published at the time because Steinbeck took her research and The Grapes of Wrath made it to press first, startling both Babb and her publisher. Tastes vary, and it’s trying to do something very different from the Steinbeck, but for my money it’s such a better book. Babb is writing from life experience, trying to write naturalistic character rather than symbolic theories in vaguely human form, and her eye for human detail is excellent. I wept at more than one spot–and not just over death, but over life circumstances, which is a greater achievement than melodrama. Highly recommended if you care at all about the Dust Bowl or the Great Depression–and frankly, these days, we all should.

Terry J. Benton-Walker, Blood Justice. Sequel to Blood Debt, a fun, fast-paced YA fantasy novel with racial justice considerations and New Orleans worldbuilding that is not stereotypes of Mardi Gras. A fun read, interested to see where the next one goes.

Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, Diplomatic Immunity, Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Cryoburn, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Falling Free, and Ethan of Athos. Rereads. This is the first time I’ve read the late series books in their chronological rather than publication order, and the first time I’ve reread Falling Free in this millennium. It’s also the first time I’ve reread Cryoburn since my father died of an aneurism. So–well. If you know, you know. In any case, my favorites come earlier in the series, but it’s a fun project I’m glad I’m doing.

Sylvie Cathrall, A Letter to the Luminous Deep. Epistolary and abyssopelagic, this is not quite like anything else. It’s also the first in its series, leaving me interested about where it’s going rather than fully satisfied with where it’s been.

Z. Z. Claybourne, The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan. Fast contemporary adventure fantasy that’s doing all the things at once, with a jaunty hat on. Once you know that the protagonists are Ramses Jetstream and Milo Jetstream, you’ve got the vibe. Probably still fun even if you don’t have a fever, but reading it with a fever was like, yeah, I’m just gonna…go with whatever ten things are happening on this page, and we’ll see what’s on the next page, cool, cool.

Paul M. Cobb, The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Absolutely lovely and I would like more things that were both trying at this and succeeding. It really does do a thorough flip of POV, giving what events look important to the Islamic perspective of this era, what the records we have focus on and what they definitely do not focus on, and the Christian Crusader kings’ internal politics have about the same percentage of the text as Islamic rulers’ do in most of the texts I’ve read before. Great perspective shift, much needed, it doesn’t even start and end in the same places, of course it wouldn’t, yeah, wow, very cool.

E.M. Forster, Howards End. Kindle. This is the last of the Forsters for me to read as an adult–it’s technically a reread, because I read it when I was 14? I retained nothing of it from then, though I vividly remember some other things I read at 14. I’m glad I saved this for last, because this is one of the times when “one of the most famous ones he did” and “one of the best ones he did” absolutely are the same. I think Forster sometimes gets grouped with other people of a similar vintage who are also writing about class and society, but he’s doing so much more with at least people who are trying, people who actually want things to be better, for others and not just for themselves and possibly their immediate family, that it stands out so thoroughly.

Margaret Frazer, The Boy’s Tale. Kindle. Very much more into the “these really are tangled with historical politics” than some of the other volumes, but still in the basically gentle medieval murder mystery genre–and still with the structure where no one is dead at the halfway mark and the book is over the minute Dame Frevisse finds out whodunnit. Huh.

Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution. I have run into so many people complaining that nothing happens in mainstream novels and read so many mainstream novels in which a great many things happen (often even adding up to a plot!) that I had started to forget why people were saying it. This is why. This is a mid-century novel of observation, quite witty in spots, in which nothing happens, quite aggressively. Several times something thinks about happening, and then there’s another trenchant personal observation of a higher educational figure (that’s the institution in question) and nothing does happen after all. I did not regret the time spent reading these trenchant and witty sketches, especially since some of the characters turn out to be worthwhile, generally decent people, but I don’t think I’ll want it again.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness. Reread, for the first time this millennium. What I said to my online book club is that I don’t feel like this was intended to hold up so much as it was to break ground, and that’s a different kind of construction. Lots of politics here that didn’t work as well for me as some of what she did later with scenes of politics, and the climactic bit about fleeing across the glacier is shorter than anybody remembered it. Still not sorry I read it (again), but also of course it’s not a perfect shining work of eternity, it wasn’t supposed to be, it’s a thought experiment from a very specific time.

Ian MacLeod, Song of Time. Kindle. The prose in this near-future science fiction thing is very readable, and so I was happy to keep seeing where he was going through all the catastrophes, personal and global: what’s going on with this old-young musician’s life that we are having retold to us? The answer at the end is boringly cliched in a number of demographic directions (gender! race! oh dear) in ways that I think were probably unawareness rather than malice, but still it was enough for me not to recommend the experience at large. “And then her Black husband turned out to be abusive of both her and substances, and things unfold from that late twist”: oh, did they, huh, yeah, no thanks.

Ekaterina Sedia, Moscow But Dreaming. Reread. These vivid fantastical stories, largely set in Russia but some not, held up and were still enjoyable to read a decade later, which is always a relief.

Katie Siegel, Charlotte Illes Is Not a Detective. A light, fun murder mystery about a Former Kid Detective dipping her toe reluctantly into the waters of adult crime-solving. Solid relationships with her friends and family, generally a good time and definitely what I wanted to read while sick in bed.

D.E. Stevenson, Winter and Rough Weather. Kindle. A disappointing end to its trilogy, it continued the second book’s tendency to make things the most socially cliched option possible. Stevenson can write sentences, she sometimes can write things that don’t go on rails, ideally the next thing I try of hers will be more in that line.

Elizabeth von Arnim, The Pastor’s Wife. Kindle. I am not opposed to people working things out in their fiction, truly I am not. I’ve read more than one lovely book that made me think, “right, you’ll feel better having said that then.” This, however, was a grim and horrific slog through the second half. Various ideas suggest themselves for the theme of the book, which could be “iron supplements and birth control for all!” or it could be “what these people need is something like zeroth wave feminism” or perhaps “seriously she’s HOW naive after six children, WHAT” but mostly you just…don’t want to be there with her, I don’t think. Let her work through it herself, you don’t have to stay for the horrifying conclusion.

Izzy Wasserstein, These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart. Some of the most interesting cyberpunk-ish stuff I’ve read in recent years, at novella length and with trans themes.

P. G. Wodehouse, The Clicking of Cuthbert. Kindle. I have all sorts of things on my Kindle for random perusal, which mostly happens when I’m sick or traveling (or, as in this interval, both), and I don’t keep track of what they are and why I have them. So that leads to me opening this collection and finding that it was Wodehouse golf stories. They ranged from mildly ridiculous to notably ludicrous, but there were funny bits, and the racism-nationalism wasn’t on the bad end of his fare (I discarded another that was, alas), so: okay, golf jokes! Golf jokes from the old days when the clubs had funnier names! Sure, why not.

Don J. Wyatt, Slavery in East Asia. Kindle. A brief monograph about the range and legal roots of slavery across East Asia in what we consider the medieval period. Not an in-depth or vivid work but extremely useful for the facts of the matter and who was doing what to whom where.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

Madeline Ashby should go in with Cory Doctorow and Jon Evans to get T-shirts reading, “You Don’t Have to Be Canadian To Tell the Truth About Shitty Startups (But It Helps).”

Should you get on a private plane with the rest of your startup senior staff all at once: seriously no, don’t do that, there are solid reasons that they should not want you to do that, so if they’re asking you to do that, red flags. Kristen does that. And Kristen wakes up on a tropical island in the wreckage of a plane crash with, uh, most of her co-workers. Stellar start to celebrating your company’s sale, there. The island is home to a single mysterious house that’s automated…for some members of the group and not others…and injuries and deaths keep racking up. Kristen has to figure out what’s going on–and what’s been going on–if she wants to have any chance of getting out of there alive. And her past has more to do with it than she really wants it to.

This is a short, tense near-future thriller. Ashby has nailed startup culture, as it deserves–but there are also fine details of language that point so clearly to the startup being Toronto-based rather than Silicon Valley or Research Triangle, and it’s beautiful to see those bits making the thing specific and real. Is it a nice book, no, it is very much not a nice book, but it was a gripping read, and you’re not always looking for a nice book.

Nathalie Bardet, Alexandra Houssaye, Stephane Jouve, and Peggy Vincent, Ocean Life in the Time of Dinosaurs. Lavishly illustrated, divided by era so that it will be useful for reference if you want it by time period, lots of interesting ocean creatures, basically exactly the sort of natural history book I liked as a little kid but for grown-ups and yes, I still do like that sort of book.

Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance, Memory, and Komarr. Rereads. Now it can be told: I’m rereading this series to do a conversation with Lois focused on Mirror Dance as a middle book at Fourth Street Fantasy next month. These three really are the meat of the middle of this series, and while Miles still gets to make mistakes, he also gets to do some genuine growing up. I’m also pleased that we’re in the portion of the series where we’re seeing changes in Barrayaran culture rather than being told that Barrayar is a culture in flux. Some of that is spending more time on Barrayar, but some of it is the long-series aspect of “setting expectations in order to overturn them.”

Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?. This is a valuable thing to do, albeit more valuable for people paying less attention than I am, but I think I was expecting the title to be more rhetorical, and instead it could be rephrased as Some Jerks Who Are Afraid of Gender. Which was more of an “ugh, these people, in specific and at length, I already knew” than I was entirely anticipating, though some of the details were new.

Vajra Chandrasekera, The Saint of Bright Doors. I really like it when there’s no immediate “oh this is just another one of xyz” comp title in-genre for new fantasy novels, and this is one where there isn’t. The protagonist is substantially reactive, which means that the plot drifts weirdly and has its own shape, Aristotle be damned. I’m not that attached to his unities myself anyway, and the setting is the most interesting part here–inspired by various aspects of Sri Lankan history and dystopian thought rather than some of the more common sources for fantasy setting, wrestling with the divine and the chosen from a completely different angle.

H.A. Clarke, The Feast Makers. Third in its trilogy, “the triumphant conclusion of.” Sideways Pike and her friends are dealing with consequences upon consequences, and I would definitely not recommend starting here, you’ll be confused and besides the other two are in print. But I’m generally pretty happy with where it went, where they went.

Margaret Frazer, The Outlaw’s Tale and The Bishop’s Tale. Kindle. Two medieval mysteries with a detective nun protagonist. They’re structured as mysteries more than as novels, so I wanted more denouement than Frazer was interested in giving me, but they were still fun short reads, I’m still happy enough to go along with the rest of the series, the reign of Henry VI is not particularly one of “my” periods but it’s still an interesting set of thoughts about how someone would figure things out then and what they would consider important.

Marie Howe, New and Selected Poems. Worst-case scenario for a “new and selected” happened here: I did not like the direction of the new, only the “selected” (which I already knew). Howe’s poetic style is extremely forthright, which usually I am okay with, but for whatever reason she is going in a direction of forthright that doesn’t particularly do anything wonderful for me. Well, there’s the rest of what they selected from still there if I want to go back.

Jose Pablo Iriarte, Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed. A fun middle-grade fantasy about a young boy finding his own way in the shadow of his talented relatives–including his egotistical musician grandfather, who is hanging around being far more present after death than he ever was in life.

Gish Jen, Tiger Writing. Thoughts about culture, individualism and collective identity, and how it affects writing, interesting lectures turned into essays. Short and personal, to the point.

Elin Anna Labba, The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi. Also short and personal, featuring family photos and letters about the threads of the displacement in Labba’s own family, with searing and complicated stories making the human cost of these political decisions very clear.

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night. Reread. This is a bit like reading James Clerk Maxwell on electromagnetics. There are some insights that are brilliant and original, there are some things that are wrong but you can see how she wasn’t to the point where she had the data to see it yet, and there were some bits of speculation, wondering if anyone would be able to do things that are now more or less taken for granted, and seeing someone that sharp come at it that soon is fascinating.

Darcie Little Badger, Sheine Lende. A prequel to the stronger Elatsoe, its structure is a bit loose for my taste, and the mammoths of the cover underrepresented, but it held onto me throughout all the same. Ghost dogs for the win.

Noel Streatfeild, Mothering Sunday. Kindle. Finally another adult Streatfeild that I actually enjoyed. A family (except its missing black sheep) descends upon their aging mother for a Mothering Sunday surprise, and she has to scramble to hide her secrets from their good intentions. People are allowed to be more complex here, as they are in the other good Streatfeilds–I wish there was some pattern I could figure out to which ones were like that, but it doesn’t seem to be when she published them or even, from the elements that appear in the books, that some of them were published far off from when they were written. Life stuff that’s opaque from here or mood, maybe, or editor, I don’t know.

Nghi Vo, The Brides of High Hill. The latest novella in its series, stands alone reasonably well but is not as strong as some of the others at doing really striking worldbuilding or characterization things without the rest of the series (that is–you could read it first but I think it’s much better if you don’t), asks very open questions about who the monsters are and how we know them when we find them.

Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup. A fantasy murder mystery that succeeds for me in both genres. The subgenre of both is darker and nastier than most of the fantasy murder mysteries I’ve read before, I think to its success–this is not a story that would benefit from a twee tone. Its protagonist’s disabilities are handled smoothly, and the bodily variation, both natural and induced, in this setting is very much part of its appeal to me. I hope Bennett has the chance to write more of these.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior’s Apprentice, The Vor Game, Borders of Infinity, Cetaganda, and Brothers in Arms. Rereads. For a project, and it’s interesting to take them from this distance, to see where the characters who have had a chance for full subplots and lives are brief hints in their first appearances. There’s a noticeable gear-shift in the middle of Brothers in Arms, a shift in what we’re doing here and why, toward more intensity, all to the good.

Kayleb Rae Candrilli, Water I Won’t Touch. Poems about healing from top surgery, poems about coming from a hardscrabble region and an abusive family, poems that reach for cool water in a polluted land. These were beautiful and harrowing, and I’m glad that my local librarians had them on a Poetry Month display for me to randomly pick up and experience.

Nino Cipri, Homesick. A collection of short stories, dark and witty and skillful. Cipri always has a different angle than anyone else has taken, and I’m glad these are all in one place to enjoy, even the ones I had already encountered elsewhere.

Aliette de Bodard, Navigational Entanglements. Discussed elsewhere.

Reginald Hill, Asking for the Moon. Reread. I was contemplating how the mystery worked at short lengths, and my recollection was that in this collection the answer was: not too well. Upon reread I felt the same, and I doubt I will want to return to it–the short form didn’t play to Hill’s strengths in reference and characterization, and these felt more like gimmicks than gems. I don’t really need to keep this one around, I have the novels in the series when I feel like returning to these characters.

Guy Gavriel Kay, Lord of Emperors. Reread. Not enough mosaics in this one per unit book about mosaicist, but still satisfying for what it is. Don’t read it first, read the other one first, it’s basically a two-volume novel. Once somebody mentioned all the women in Kay’s books wanting to sleep with his protagonists I can’t unsee it, but mostly to the point of it entertaining me rather than truly annoying me at this point.

B. Robert Kreiser, Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris. Do you want Jansenists? Because this is how you get Jansenists. Or rather: this is a lot of details about Jansenists. Interesting about that but not so outstandingly written that I’d recommend seeking it out if you’re not particularly interested either in early eighteenth century Paris or in Christian sectarian in-fighting as specific topics.

Jo Miles, Dissonant State. The second in its series of interplanetary fiction with multiple species trying to do labor organizing in the face of interstellar corporate skullduggery. Each volume focuses on a different main character but there’s continuity of cast from volume to volume. There’s no reason not to read the first one, it’s in print and you’ll get better context for this one, but this is an entirely cromulent middle book in a series I’m having such fun with. Gosh I love middle books. Gosh I’m looking forward to seeing how Miles wraps this up. They are really good at letting their characters make characteristic mistakes.

Michael Ondaatje, A Year of Last Things. Poetry, some of which touches on the end of a friend’s life. I didn’t end up aligning well with much of it, but I’m not sorry I read it.

Eleanor Parker, Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year. This is a nice little book. I think sometimes historians are aware that they’ve written a nice little book and sometimes not, and this is definitely in the “aware” camp: Parker has brought together references from lots of poetry of this era to think and talk about the seasons and festivals of the early English year. Fun, light, short.

Julia Phillips, Bear. Discussed elsewhere.

Duane W. Roller, Empire of the Black Sea: The Rise and Fall of the Mithridatic World. This is the kind of history I like least, the kind that is entirely focused on who was king and what battles they fought. Did I still read it? yes. Did I start tearing my hair and wishing for information about what kind of roofing they used on their houses, how the king’s advisors were selected, what instruments they played and who constructed them, whether they were professional specialists or amateurs who mostly made other things, etc……also yes. Still, if you want information about the Pontic kingdom of this era, here it is.

Sofia Samatar, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain. Class and academia and spaceship and limitation. Claustrophobic and fascinating.

Sheng Keyi, Death Fugue. This is the kind of dystopia you get written when the author has a lot to say very directly about specific things in the real world rather than general thoughts and philosophies. The aftermath of Tiananmen Square and the impact of that movement on a whole generation is clear and fascinating here–there are aspects that are classically dystopian and aspects that are very, very individual.

Jesse Q. Sutanto, The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties. From the afternotes this looks like it will be the last of its trilogy, and I think that’s just as well. Meddy has reached her honeymoon, her happily ever after visiting family in Jakarta with her new husband in tow. The criminal shenanigans that ensue are by this point more forced than successfully farcical, and if I thought it was going to keep on like this forever, I probably wouldn’t have read this one; as it stands, it’s a farewell tour with the four aunties, and I was willing to come along for the ride.

Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers. Kindle. I’m told this is the most famous one in this series, but I don’t prefer it; it focuses on people getting their comeuppance who don’t interest me as much, and basically every time Trollope tells me what I’m probably thinking, I’m not. There are still some funny bits, but if you were to ask me for a Trollope rec, this would not be it. Onward.

Kiersten White, Mister Magic. I was honestly not sure what I was getting when I picked this up at random: child stars all grown up? a children’s show that seemed to have disappeared? how many kids were on this show, anyway? Was this dark fantasy, psychological horror, what was the deal? But the writing was assured and personal enough that I kept reading. It’s not my wheelhouse–very much to the darker end–but the character relationships kept me going through the twists of trust, betrayal, magic, and warped community.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is not a fairy tale.

It’s clearly got “Snow White and Rose Red” very much in its DNA–there are two sisters and the love of a bear–but this is not a magic story, it is not transformative, it is not just rooted in reality but stays firmly put there. Elena and Sam have been barely scraping by, their mother getting sicker by the week. Their existence was always precarious, and the pandemic knocked a large dent in their hospitality industry jobs–and made them worry about bringing home an exposure to their mother’s fragile lungs.

When they find a bear on their front doorstep, it’s Sam’s first flicker of awareness that the sisters’ reactions to the world are not always attuned. She finds the giant beast’s presence terrifying. But Elena seems exhilarated, even seeking out the bear in the odd intervals that her overwhelmed schedule allows. As their mother’s condition deteriorates, Sam expected the two sisters to be relying on each other, but instead their differing reaction to the megafauna is only the beginning of the wedge between them.

If you’re frustrated and appalled by people treating actual bears like teddy bears, this book will not disappoint you. Terrible decisions related to bears, finances, interpersonal relationships, whatever, are recognized as such by the narrative and not rewarded. As such it’s not always a cheerful book–but the unfolding of the tragedy is vivid, sharply observed, and incredibly realistic about aspects of contemporary life that are often genteelly ignored.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a friend.

How much can one novella hold? Aliette has attempted to find out. Navigational Entanglements has space battles with tentacled space aliens! It has political intrigue among several clans of humans with shifting alliances! It has personal growth! And both leading into and following from that personal growth it has a love story! This is a novella, pals. It’s a novella that is not set in default-generi-white-American-space, so there’s cultural stuff to cue in as well. And it never feels rushed or crowded!

Việt Nhi would rather not be sent on this mission, and she has no problem saying so. She’s introverted and blunt, a good problem-solver, not a politician–and this mission is substantially politics. But when one of the members of the mission dies, Nhi has to discover ways to apply her problem-solving ability to the highly political situation–before the invisible tentacles of the alien Tangler cause more casualties. All while dealing with fragile new feelings for her teammate Hạc Cúc–who’s in just as much danger as Nhi if things go badly. The plot is fully character-driven and never stops until the triumphant end. What a rush of a novella.