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Title: The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While (Fairyland Novella)
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Published: New York: Tor, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 204,305
Text Number: 604
Read Because: continuing the series, free on Tor.com
Review: Long before the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, Mallow lives a quiet life on the edge of a fairy village—until a grand event in the capital draws her into the wider world and its dread Politicks. Valente's voice is particularly lovely in short form, where her distinctive imagery and rich language can run rampant. Fairyland is the perfect setting for that style, and tolerant of prequels with their cameos and backstories; the bittersweet tone keeps the whimsy in check. Mallow, reserved and appropriately genre-aware, is fantastic, especially in view of her eventual fate. I love the first Fairyland book so much that I've avoided the rest of the series, afraid it wouldn't live up to my expectations. This feels different, more grown-up and sketched out, but it's satisfying in its own right.
Title: Central Station
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Published: San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 275
Total Page Count: 204,580
Text Number: 605
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A piecemeal narrative about the various individuals and cultures that reside around Central Station, a spaceport in Tel Aviv. The chapters were originally written as independently published short stories, and that origin shows: interconnecting characters and threads run through the novel, but each chapter its own experiment. Although the Middle Eastern setting is vivid and alive, the worldbuilding is never convincing—but I'm not sure it's intended to be. This is Science Fiction by the way of New Weird or Magical Realism: creative, even whimsical, big ideas in experimental arrangement, fueled by culture and desire more than logic. The characters are unremarkable in comparison, and their small dramas underwhelm. This an idea novel, an experiment of form and concept; perhaps not successful as a finished work, but certainly engaging.
( A great quote about whales )
Title: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Author: Elizabeth George Speare
Published: New York: Dell Publishing, 1986 (1958)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 204,830
Text Number: 606
Read Because: this Tumblr quote, paperback from my personal collection
Review: Kit leaves Barbados for a bleak Connecticut colony to discover a challenging life entirely unlike the one she lived before. The title and cover of my edition made me remember more witches, but sadly there are none; everything else lives up to my memory. The plot relies on a couple boring tropes, the ending is far too neat, and the romantic relationships are excessively broadcasted—approximately the flaws one would expect—but otherwise this is lovely, both as a book from my childhood and a book from 1958. It's a coming of age within an American colonial setting, engaging historical detail and the shadow of the witch trials to frame a narrative about outsiders and girls who don't conform, about learning to respect society while maintaining personal independence. Speare's descriptions of the colonial landscape are fantastic, characters are distinct and nuanced, and I appreciate the themes. This isn't perfect, but it's held up remarkably well and I enjoyed revisiting it.
( That quote )
I remain something like 4 book reviews behind; please send help. I feel like my reading has slowed to a crawl this month because I've been playing a lot of video games, but apparently it is still fast enough that I am forever behind on writing things up.
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Published: New York: Tor, 2011
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 204,305
Text Number: 604
Read Because: continuing the series, free on Tor.com
Review: Long before the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, Mallow lives a quiet life on the edge of a fairy village—until a grand event in the capital draws her into the wider world and its dread Politicks. Valente's voice is particularly lovely in short form, where her distinctive imagery and rich language can run rampant. Fairyland is the perfect setting for that style, and tolerant of prequels with their cameos and backstories; the bittersweet tone keeps the whimsy in check. Mallow, reserved and appropriately genre-aware, is fantastic, especially in view of her eventual fate. I love the first Fairyland book so much that I've avoided the rest of the series, afraid it wouldn't live up to my expectations. This feels different, more grown-up and sketched out, but it's satisfying in its own right.
Title: Central Station
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Published: San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 275
Total Page Count: 204,580
Text Number: 605
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A piecemeal narrative about the various individuals and cultures that reside around Central Station, a spaceport in Tel Aviv. The chapters were originally written as independently published short stories, and that origin shows: interconnecting characters and threads run through the novel, but each chapter its own experiment. Although the Middle Eastern setting is vivid and alive, the worldbuilding is never convincing—but I'm not sure it's intended to be. This is Science Fiction by the way of New Weird or Magical Realism: creative, even whimsical, big ideas in experimental arrangement, fueled by culture and desire more than logic. The characters are unremarkable in comparison, and their small dramas underwhelm. This an idea novel, an experiment of form and concept; perhaps not successful as a finished work, but certainly engaging.
( A great quote about whales )
Title: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Author: Elizabeth George Speare
Published: New York: Dell Publishing, 1986 (1958)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 204,830
Text Number: 606
Read Because: this Tumblr quote, paperback from my personal collection
Review: Kit leaves Barbados for a bleak Connecticut colony to discover a challenging life entirely unlike the one she lived before. The title and cover of my edition made me remember more witches, but sadly there are none; everything else lives up to my memory. The plot relies on a couple boring tropes, the ending is far too neat, and the romantic relationships are excessively broadcasted—approximately the flaws one would expect—but otherwise this is lovely, both as a book from my childhood and a book from 1958. It's a coming of age within an American colonial setting, engaging historical detail and the shadow of the witch trials to frame a narrative about outsiders and girls who don't conform, about learning to respect society while maintaining personal independence. Speare's descriptions of the colonial landscape are fantastic, characters are distinct and nuanced, and I appreciate the themes. This isn't perfect, but it's held up remarkably well and I enjoyed revisiting it.
( That quote )
I remain something like 4 book reviews behind; please send help. I feel like my reading has slowed to a crawl this month because I've been playing a lot of video games, but apparently it is still fast enough that I am forever behind on writing things up.
