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juushikaTitle: The Poppy War (The Poppy War Book #1)
Author: R.F. Kuang
Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller
Published: HarperAudio, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 535
Total Page Count: 273,455
Text Number: 886
Read Because: A war orphan applies to an elite military academy, entering a world of politics, brutality, and shamanism. The issues that this tackles—of atrocity and culpability; intent, justification, and scale—are challenging, and the protagonist's uncomfortable position within that conflict is a strong narrative decision. But this never really got to me, not like it needed to. The protagonist is a problem—her behavior is wildly unacceptable, and the lack of repercussions for it make the military setting unconvincing; there's a disconnect between her actions and inner monologue which feels like clumsy writing. But the real problem may be the balance of tropes to content. This is YA-adjacent, given the age of the cast and also the character types and narrative beats; it has the readability of that genre, but that doesn't compliment the dark content and themes. For reader, as for protagonist, it's easier to comprehend and focus on the pettier interpersonal issues (with unremarkable supporting characters) than it is the scale of later events; the escalation fails to hit home. Profoundly well-intended, but failed to work for me; I doubt I'll read the sequel.
Title: Courtship Rite
Author: Donald Kingsbury
Published: SFBC, 2006 (1982)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 410
Total Page Count: 273,865
Text Number: 887
Read Because: mentioned here, used hardback purchased from the Book Bin
Review: A five-partner family in search of their sixth and final spouse is instructed to abandon a woman they love in order to pursue an alliance with a religious heretic. The plot veers into political machinations which, given the level of detail and bevy of headhopping, I didn't really bother to follow. It's a significantly more successful vehicle for worldbuilding—cannibalism and polyamory, alternate human evolution, advanced technology as indistinguishable from magic, and a thematic focus on violence and the way that scale and social function inform our understanding of it. But the real focus is interpersonal, and while the dialog is frequently stylized (to the point of stunted) and the sexual politics dated (despite some fantastic female characters), the complexity of the dynamics—individual to individual; within the group—are phenomenal in their diversity and credibility. A strange book—and it took me ages to get through—but I really appreciate those bits it gets right.
Title: Black Helicopters
Author: Caitlín R. Kiernan
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 274,075
Text Number: 888
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like this better than Agents of Dreamland, Kiernan's other recent novella, but I'd be hard pressed to assess it more precisely than that. I suspect my appreciation and opinion would be different had I read this at any other time. It's a strange text, quick but not easy, with Kiernan's signature Weirdness set within a SFnal ambition which is unusual to her work (and which I honestly don't prefer). The chapters slide between PoVs and styles, the timeline folds in on itself. Sometimes it's successful, like the slipstream/dreamstate "Late Saturday Night Motel Signal" chapters, with their bizarre intuitive logic. Sometimes it's incohesive, sometimes it's redundant—what is solidly established can be hammered into the ground. I suspect I'd appreciate the more subtle parts had I been a better reader, and I expect it improves on reread; also that my appreciation and opinion would be different had I read this at a different time—it was too much for me right now. It leaves me ambivalent, but I'm glad I read it.
Author: R.F. Kuang
Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller
Published: HarperAudio, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 535
Total Page Count: 273,455
Text Number: 886
Read Because: A war orphan applies to an elite military academy, entering a world of politics, brutality, and shamanism. The issues that this tackles—of atrocity and culpability; intent, justification, and scale—are challenging, and the protagonist's uncomfortable position within that conflict is a strong narrative decision. But this never really got to me, not like it needed to. The protagonist is a problem—her behavior is wildly unacceptable, and the lack of repercussions for it make the military setting unconvincing; there's a disconnect between her actions and inner monologue which feels like clumsy writing. But the real problem may be the balance of tropes to content. This is YA-adjacent, given the age of the cast and also the character types and narrative beats; it has the readability of that genre, but that doesn't compliment the dark content and themes. For reader, as for protagonist, it's easier to comprehend and focus on the pettier interpersonal issues (with unremarkable supporting characters) than it is the scale of later events; the escalation fails to hit home. Profoundly well-intended, but failed to work for me; I doubt I'll read the sequel.
Title: Courtship Rite
Author: Donald Kingsbury
Published: SFBC, 2006 (1982)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 410
Total Page Count: 273,865
Text Number: 887
Read Because: mentioned here, used hardback purchased from the Book Bin
Review: A five-partner family in search of their sixth and final spouse is instructed to abandon a woman they love in order to pursue an alliance with a religious heretic. The plot veers into political machinations which, given the level of detail and bevy of headhopping, I didn't really bother to follow. It's a significantly more successful vehicle for worldbuilding—cannibalism and polyamory, alternate human evolution, advanced technology as indistinguishable from magic, and a thematic focus on violence and the way that scale and social function inform our understanding of it. But the real focus is interpersonal, and while the dialog is frequently stylized (to the point of stunted) and the sexual politics dated (despite some fantastic female characters), the complexity of the dynamics—individual to individual; within the group—are phenomenal in their diversity and credibility. A strange book—and it took me ages to get through—but I really appreciate those bits it gets right.
Title: Black Helicopters
Author: Caitlín R. Kiernan
Published: Tor, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 274,075
Text Number: 888
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I like this better than Agents of Dreamland, Kiernan's other recent novella, but I'd be hard pressed to assess it more precisely than that. I suspect my appreciation and opinion would be different had I read this at any other time. It's a strange text, quick but not easy, with Kiernan's signature Weirdness set within a SFnal ambition which is unusual to her work (and which I honestly don't prefer). The chapters slide between PoVs and styles, the timeline folds in on itself. Sometimes it's successful, like the slipstream/dreamstate "Late Saturday Night Motel Signal" chapters, with their bizarre intuitive logic. Sometimes it's incohesive, sometimes it's redundant—what is solidly established can be hammered into the ground. I suspect I'd appreciate the more subtle parts had I been a better reader, and I expect it improves on reread; also that my appreciation and opinion would be different had I read this at a different time—it was too much for me right now. It leaves me ambivalent, but I'm glad I read it.
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Date: 2018-10-20 01:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-29 04:05 am (UTC)