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Title: Octavia E. Butler
Author: Gerry Canavan
Published: University of Illinois Press, 2016
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 234,000
Text Number: 746
Read Because: fan of Butler, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A biography, seen through the Huntington Library collection as well as Butler's body of work, including readings of Butler's fiction which explore her reoccurring themes and tie them to her lived experiences as a black woman and an author. Canavan makes compelling arguments for a number of dichotomies: Butler's desire to write likable bestsellers, and the troubled, challenging pessimism that inspired her speculative fiction; the way her punishing perfectionism refined the themes of her work while unfairly limiting what reached the public eye; the things she was unable to achieve even as she revolutionized speculative fiction. His approach is, in a word, compassionate. I knew the broad strokes of Butler's story before picking this up, but Canavan reflects and elaborates and coalesces, integrating personal notebooks with published stories, and if the balance tips too far towards readings of Butler's fiction then I still found it engaging—and profoundly sympathetic. I love Butler; I didn't know how much, or that I could love a biography, too.
May! I read this in May! The books I love are the hardest to review.
( A pair of quotes )
( Some longer thoughts about Butler's writing (particularly Parables) as prompted by this biography )
( Independent thoughts on Butler, shelved here for safekeeping. )
Title: The Bards of Bone Plain
Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Published: Ace Books, 2010
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 234,330
Text Number: 747
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In Beldan's history is the story of a bard cursed to an endless life without music—but events in the modern day intimate a truth behind the legend. This takes its central premise of bardic tradition, myth, and music and language as magic, and runs with it as far as it can. The surprising industrialization of the modern setting is a fun counterpoint to the historical underpinnings; the tone is playful and charming, set against an arcane heart—McKillip has a particular knack for transporting, resonant descriptions of magic. But this didn't quite grab me in the way that some of her other work has, perhaps because of the predictable plot revelation, moreso because the tone of the interpersonal dynamics doesn't mesh smoothly with the gravitas of the magic, nor did it make me invested in the characters. This is satisfying but not especially fulfilling.
Title: Jovah's Angel (Samaria Book 2)
Author: Sharon Shinn
Published: Ace, 1998 (1997)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 365
Total Page Count: 234,695
Text Number: 748
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 150 years after the first book, rain and flood endangers Samaria; Jovah is growing slower and less likely to respond to the angels's prayers. The first book in this series is about advanced technology which is indistinguishable from magic only insofar as it's visible to the reader; it's background in the worldbuilding, not part of the plot. This foregrounds it significantly. Not always with grace—too many things are obvious to the reader but not the characters, so the reader isn't engaged with their discoveries and may instead find them obvious. But the characters's responses to them, and the dialog between science, magic, and faith, are compelling and accessible. Characters are likable, but have predictable arcs and Shinn doesn't handle disability well (I don't have much patience for suicidal disabled characters or cure narratives). The plot is smaller, and appears to have a larger place within the series, intimating ongoing and unresolved events; this work is tainted by such numerous references to the first book that those events feel like the only significant part of Samaria's long history. I wanted this sequel to develop the science fictional aspect; it does so generously, and so on that note I'm satisfied. But this isn't especially good by any other metric.
Author: Gerry Canavan
Published: University of Illinois Press, 2016
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 250
Total Page Count: 234,000
Text Number: 746
Read Because: fan of Butler, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A biography, seen through the Huntington Library collection as well as Butler's body of work, including readings of Butler's fiction which explore her reoccurring themes and tie them to her lived experiences as a black woman and an author. Canavan makes compelling arguments for a number of dichotomies: Butler's desire to write likable bestsellers, and the troubled, challenging pessimism that inspired her speculative fiction; the way her punishing perfectionism refined the themes of her work while unfairly limiting what reached the public eye; the things she was unable to achieve even as she revolutionized speculative fiction. His approach is, in a word, compassionate. I knew the broad strokes of Butler's story before picking this up, but Canavan reflects and elaborates and coalesces, integrating personal notebooks with published stories, and if the balance tips too far towards readings of Butler's fiction then I still found it engaging—and profoundly sympathetic. I love Butler; I didn't know how much, or that I could love a biography, too.
May! I read this in May! The books I love are the hardest to review.
( A pair of quotes )
( Some longer thoughts about Butler's writing (particularly Parables) as prompted by this biography )
( Independent thoughts on Butler, shelved here for safekeeping. )
Title: The Bards of Bone Plain
Author: Patricia A. McKillip
Published: Ace Books, 2010
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 234,330
Text Number: 747
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In Beldan's history is the story of a bard cursed to an endless life without music—but events in the modern day intimate a truth behind the legend. This takes its central premise of bardic tradition, myth, and music and language as magic, and runs with it as far as it can. The surprising industrialization of the modern setting is a fun counterpoint to the historical underpinnings; the tone is playful and charming, set against an arcane heart—McKillip has a particular knack for transporting, resonant descriptions of magic. But this didn't quite grab me in the way that some of her other work has, perhaps because of the predictable plot revelation, moreso because the tone of the interpersonal dynamics doesn't mesh smoothly with the gravitas of the magic, nor did it make me invested in the characters. This is satisfying but not especially fulfilling.
Title: Jovah's Angel (Samaria Book 2)
Author: Sharon Shinn
Published: Ace, 1998 (1997)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 365
Total Page Count: 234,695
Text Number: 748
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 150 years after the first book, rain and flood endangers Samaria; Jovah is growing slower and less likely to respond to the angels's prayers. The first book in this series is about advanced technology which is indistinguishable from magic only insofar as it's visible to the reader; it's background in the worldbuilding, not part of the plot. This foregrounds it significantly. Not always with grace—too many things are obvious to the reader but not the characters, so the reader isn't engaged with their discoveries and may instead find them obvious. But the characters's responses to them, and the dialog between science, magic, and faith, are compelling and accessible. Characters are likable, but have predictable arcs and Shinn doesn't handle disability well (I don't have much patience for suicidal disabled characters or cure narratives). The plot is smaller, and appears to have a larger place within the series, intimating ongoing and unresolved events; this work is tainted by such numerous references to the first book that those events feel like the only significant part of Samaria's long history. I wanted this sequel to develop the science fictional aspect; it does so generously, and so on that note I'm satisfied. But this isn't especially good by any other metric.
