Book Reviews: Yellow Jessamine, Starling; The Only Good Indians, Jones; Delan the Mislaid, Marks

Title: Yellow Jessamine
Author Caitlin Starling
Published: Neon Hemlock Press, 2020
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 380,430
Text Number: 1431
Read Because: reading more of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I struggle with this brand of unreliable narrator—questionable, but not as dark as they think; prickly, but more loved than they think—it's a borderline-frustrating level of cluelessness. The worldbuilding, of the dying port city and the spreading, eerie disease, is a slow but promising burn; but the ending feels unearned and undermines that slow pacing. I appreciate the effort, but this doesn't work for me.


Title: The Only Good Indians
Author Stephen Graham Jones
Published: Gallery / Saga Press, 2020
Rating: N/A
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 381,030
Text Number: 1433
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: DNF at 60%. I've had mixed to positive experiences with Jones's other work, and really didn't expect to bounce off of this. There are absolutely effective ways to play animal harm in fiction against the way fiction/society glorifies or dismisses human harm, particularly against people of color; I expect that's at the heart of this text and that it does it well. But I wasn't up to the challenge or the tone. Perhaps I'll try again in a future November.


Title: Delan the Mislaid (Children of the Triad Book 1)
Author: Laurie J. Marks
Published: DAW, 1989
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 255
Total Page Count: 381,325
Text Number: 1435
Read Because: recommended by Rachel/fan of the author, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: This reminds me so much of the premise & worldbuilding of Wells's Raksura series: outcast discovers they belong to a controversial but also enlightened, powerful, and desirable winged race that provides a longed-for home. But the execution is distinctly Laurie J. Marks: trauma and trauma recovery; what it means to find/build a home when one's sense of self is fractured; the role of trust in relationships, including one's relationship with oneself. And gender! A lot of gender. I liked this a lot. It lacks the refinement of the Elemental Logic series, feels more high fantasy and more rough-and-ready; but that same roughness gives it a pulpy genre vibe, and it's fascinating to see early Marks, different style but same focus, producing dynamics I consistently find compelling.

If I can ever get my hands on the sequels, I'd be happy to reread this and then the rest of the series.

Book Reviews: Truth of the Divine, Ellis; Rimrunners, Cherryh; Route of Ice and Salt, Zárate

Title: Truth of the Divine (Noumena Book 2)
Author: Lindsay Ellis
Published: St. Martin's Press, 2021
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 530
Total Page Count: 382,545
Text Number: 1439
Read Because: fan of the author/reading the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: This is a not-insignificant change from the first book. The plot is a direct continuation, it preserves the voice, but the tone is altered: darker, almost unrelenting, with fewer feel-good tropey/fanficy interpersonal moments to balance things out. And I don't mind. It's not as easy of a read, but all the changes are to my taste and the resulting work reminds me a little of Octavia Butler, which isn't a comparison I make lightly: speculative, thorny, psychological, intimate. I enjoyed the hell out of it and I think Axiom's End and Truth of the Divine reflect nicely on each other; I'll probably like the previous book more with this context, and there's delicious tension in having one's desires first indulged and then denied.

(It's such a minute thing in the mess around Ellis to be like "but what about my Content???," but I hope we somehow get a book 3. I desire that long-denied payoff; I want to see how much weirder things can get.)


Title: Rimrunners (The Company War Book 3)
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: Warner Books, 1989
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 325
Total Page Count: 383,205
Text Number: 1441
Read Because: reading the author/series, borrowed from Open Library
Review: The beginning—down on her luck ex-military woman negotiates unhappy sexual politics with awful men—doesn't feel much like Cherryh, or at least what I want from Cherryh. But it works in retrospect, a subtle introduction to the character and the escalating scale: from a woman alone, to the unit she forms within her new crew, to the minute scale they play in the larger conflicts in the Alliance Union universe. The gender politics in particular develop in compelling, gratifying ways. Like everyone, I'm a sucker for a found family; but I love how Cherryh picks up these id-y, would-be feel-good tropes (like her extensive work with hurt/comfort) and makes them especially prickly, nasty, and unresolved while still leaning into the payoff. This was slow to grow on me, but grow it did; I imagine it's especially successful on reread.


Title: The Route of Ice and Salt
Author: José Luis Zárate
Translator: David Bowles
Published: Innsmouth Free Press, 1998 (2021)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 190
Total Page Count: 383,395
Text Number: 1442
Read Because: I must've heard of this through either chthonic_cassandra or starshipfox, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Queer transformative work with a strong setting and a dense tangle of violence, desire, and repression; this is incredibly distinctive, but not always in ways that work for me. I mapped in my head a different route (no puns intended) for Dracula as a transformative, not symbolic, influence on the protagonist's sexuality; so that, and the action of the climax, didn't quite land for me. But I dig this as an immersive, intense experience, and appreciate the context of its cult status and eventual translation.