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juushikaTitle: Binti: The Night Masquerade (Binti Book 3)
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 251,775
Text Number: 810
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Binti finds herself the link between numerous conflicting peoples. This is reminiscent of the Who Fears Death books, particularly in the social dynamics, the protagonist's relationship with magic and death, and the rambling plot; it's id-level writing, and combines well with the vibrant worldbuilding and scale of the plot, but feels redundant within the author's body of work and doesn't make for an especially cogent, satisfying finale. The stiff dialog and overlarge emotional reactions don't help. I like this at remove, most especially for its intentional, complex intersectionality; Binti remains a great character. But I see more flaws here than in the other two books—flaws I see in Okorafor's other novels.
Title: Wonders of the Invisible World
Author: Christopher Barzak
Published: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 252,125
Text Number: 811
Read Because: reviewed by Cheyenne Prescott, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Being reunited with his childhood friend makes a teenage boy suspect that something strange and supernatural explains his memory loss. This is a magical realist coming of age that morphs into a family saga, and it's significantly more successful in the former than the latter. The premise is great, and the melding of coming of age, sexual awakening, and dreamlike fantastic elements creates a fluid, flexible metaphor. But the entirety of the emotional investment lies in the protagonist and his immediate relationships; the glimpses into his family's past inherit none of that, and the revelations they contain are predictable, so the end of the book drags. This is exacerbated by Barzak's voice—I honestly thought this was a debut; it's not awful but it feels unpolished and immature in ways that particularly impact descriptions of emotion. My final impressions aren't strong enough to recommend this, despite its many good intentions.
Title: The Lives of Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
Editor: Marco Palmieri
Published: Pocket Books, 2000 (1999)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 252,500
Text Number: 812
Read Because: recommended bysixbeforelunch, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Nine short stories about each of the Dax symbiont's lives. Many of these stories end with a cover-up in order to render them canon-complaint; an understandable impulse, but tiresome. The plots are standalone minisodes, most of them are scaled well to short fiction and decently written, but they're not often about the Trill directly or, when they are, focus on the insularity of Trill society. It teases a lot of fascinating, nuanced issues: Trill who don't want to be joined; the ways that host and symbiont inform each other's identity; the role that joining plays in Trill social hierarchy, the limitations of the reassociation taboo, and the way that joining affects a host's prior relationships. But it lacks a concentrated, interior focus, and the potential for interiority is exactly what I want a novel tie-in to capitalize on. More navel-gazing, please; I can find cogent speculative plots elsewhere. I don't regret reading this; it's better than nothing—but still not enough.
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 251,775
Text Number: 810
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Binti finds herself the link between numerous conflicting peoples. This is reminiscent of the Who Fears Death books, particularly in the social dynamics, the protagonist's relationship with magic and death, and the rambling plot; it's id-level writing, and combines well with the vibrant worldbuilding and scale of the plot, but feels redundant within the author's body of work and doesn't make for an especially cogent, satisfying finale. The stiff dialog and overlarge emotional reactions don't help. I like this at remove, most especially for its intentional, complex intersectionality; Binti remains a great character. But I see more flaws here than in the other two books—flaws I see in Okorafor's other novels.
Title: Wonders of the Invisible World
Author: Christopher Barzak
Published: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2015
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 252,125
Text Number: 811
Read Because: reviewed by Cheyenne Prescott, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Being reunited with his childhood friend makes a teenage boy suspect that something strange and supernatural explains his memory loss. This is a magical realist coming of age that morphs into a family saga, and it's significantly more successful in the former than the latter. The premise is great, and the melding of coming of age, sexual awakening, and dreamlike fantastic elements creates a fluid, flexible metaphor. But the entirety of the emotional investment lies in the protagonist and his immediate relationships; the glimpses into his family's past inherit none of that, and the revelations they contain are predictable, so the end of the book drags. This is exacerbated by Barzak's voice—I honestly thought this was a debut; it's not awful but it feels unpolished and immature in ways that particularly impact descriptions of emotion. My final impressions aren't strong enough to recommend this, despite its many good intentions.
Title: The Lives of Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
Editor: Marco Palmieri
Published: Pocket Books, 2000 (1999)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 252,500
Text Number: 812
Read Because: recommended by
sixbeforelunch, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Nine short stories about each of the Dax symbiont's lives. Many of these stories end with a cover-up in order to render them canon-complaint; an understandable impulse, but tiresome. The plots are standalone minisodes, most of them are scaled well to short fiction and decently written, but they're not often about the Trill directly or, when they are, focus on the insularity of Trill society. It teases a lot of fascinating, nuanced issues: Trill who don't want to be joined; the ways that host and symbiont inform each other's identity; the role that joining plays in Trill social hierarchy, the limitations of the reassociation taboo, and the way that joining affects a host's prior relationships. But it lacks a concentrated, interior focus, and the potential for interiority is exactly what I want a novel tie-in to capitalize on. More navel-gazing, please; I can find cogent speculative plots elsewhere. I don't regret reading this; it's better than nothing—but still not enough.
