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juushikaTitle: Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota Book 1)
Author: Ada Palmer
Published: Tor, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 237,905
Text Number: 758
Read Because: multiple recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In the near future, a child with extraordinary powers threatens the complex, multifaceted global society. This is a bit about society building and the myth of the utopia; a bit about abundantly, even excessively, complex politicking; a lot about an obtrusively present and unreliable narrator. It's also only half a narrative, and this first half is mostly set-up. It's a consistently interesting experiment, and succeeds best through its complexity, particularly the pointedly imperfect handling of gender (both in society and in the narrative voice). But is it enjoyable? rarely: it's dense, affected, never quite convincing, and then has no ending without another 400 pages. I think I'll continue, but it's a hard book to recommend.
Title: Rocannon's World (Hainish Cycle Book 1)
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2007 (1966)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 145
Total Page Count: 238,050
Text Number: 759
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An interplanetary researcher is stranded on his planet of study during a galactic war. In concept, this is more explicitly speculative and diversely alien than I expected based on my experience with the other early Hainish novels. Unfortunately, it's mainly engaging in premise; the plot is less successful. It begins well with a view from the surface: a sort of "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" which contextualizes the scope and nature of this series's premise and plays to Le Guin's strengths—the personal ramification of profound speculative worldbuilding. But the researcher PoV is less interesting, and his journey is the sort of rambling travelogue that Le Guin frequently falls back on in these books, which functions to show off the world but makes for a disjointed narrative with minimal personal investment. This is my least favorite of the early Hainish novels, but I'm not sorry to've read it.
Title: Borne
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Published: HarperCollins, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 238,380
Text Number: 760
Read Because: reading more from the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A scavenger in a technological dystopia discovers and raises an infant engineered alien life form. VanderMeer's voice is a strange fit for this premise—he's distant, descriptive, fragmented, oblique; it strongly evokes Borne's alien consciousness (in particular, the way he uses language) and the question of personhood, but does a poor job of developing emotional bonds, especially within the human cast. So raising Borne against a distant but nightmarish setting is the book's high point; the larger developments of the second half are less successful, moreso because I tend not to care about VanderMeer's conspiracy narratives. I have quibbles, but still like this; it's more accessible than Annihilation, less tiresome than the sequels, and shows off VanderMeer's strengths.
Author: Ada Palmer
Published: Tor, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 440
Total Page Count: 237,905
Text Number: 758
Read Because: multiple recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In the near future, a child with extraordinary powers threatens the complex, multifaceted global society. This is a bit about society building and the myth of the utopia; a bit about abundantly, even excessively, complex politicking; a lot about an obtrusively present and unreliable narrator. It's also only half a narrative, and this first half is mostly set-up. It's a consistently interesting experiment, and succeeds best through its complexity, particularly the pointedly imperfect handling of gender (both in society and in the narrative voice). But is it enjoyable? rarely: it's dense, affected, never quite convincing, and then has no ending without another 400 pages. I think I'll continue, but it's a hard book to recommend.
Title: Rocannon's World (Hainish Cycle Book 1)
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki
Published: Blackstone Audio, 2007 (1966)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 145
Total Page Count: 238,050
Text Number: 759
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An interplanetary researcher is stranded on his planet of study during a galactic war. In concept, this is more explicitly speculative and diversely alien than I expected based on my experience with the other early Hainish novels. Unfortunately, it's mainly engaging in premise; the plot is less successful. It begins well with a view from the surface: a sort of "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" which contextualizes the scope and nature of this series's premise and plays to Le Guin's strengths—the personal ramification of profound speculative worldbuilding. But the researcher PoV is less interesting, and his journey is the sort of rambling travelogue that Le Guin frequently falls back on in these books, which functions to show off the world but makes for a disjointed narrative with minimal personal investment. This is my least favorite of the early Hainish novels, but I'm not sorry to've read it.
Title: Borne
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Published: HarperCollins, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 238,380
Text Number: 760
Read Because: reading more from the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A scavenger in a technological dystopia discovers and raises an infant engineered alien life form. VanderMeer's voice is a strange fit for this premise—he's distant, descriptive, fragmented, oblique; it strongly evokes Borne's alien consciousness (in particular, the way he uses language) and the question of personhood, but does a poor job of developing emotional bonds, especially within the human cast. So raising Borne against a distant but nightmarish setting is the book's high point; the larger developments of the second half are less successful, moreso because I tend not to care about VanderMeer's conspiracy narratives. I have quibbles, but still like this; it's more accessible than Annihilation, less tiresome than the sequels, and shows off VanderMeer's strengths.
