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juushikaTitle: In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children Book 4)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: Tor, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 302,040
Text Number: 1006
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A young girl escapes a repressive childhood into the Goblin Market, a fairyland with strict rules about fair value. More than any book in the series so far, this feels like Valente's fairyland series—a direct, stylized narrative voice; a vibrant and tricky fairyland setting. I love the narrative's willingness to offscreen action; it's probably the strongest written of the series, and compares particularly well to the underwhelming Beneath the Sugar Sky. But the Market feels too small, a location, not an entire world, constructed around too concrete a conceit.
As a disabled person, I think a lot about the value of social contributions—and the Market's model of fair value does and doesn't work for me. I dislike that McGuire sidesteps the issue of disability ("Health is a thing that can be bought, as can everything worth bartering") but appreciate the emphasis on equity vs equality. The intent is progressive, but the Market's fallibility is the story's lynchpin—it's a well-intended model, honestly a better model, but still a flawed one. Every Heart a Doorway was criticized for introducing a concept and failing to follow-through in the worldbuilding, more theoretically good than practically satisfying (with which I only somewhat agree—I was satisfied by concept alone), and In an Absent Dream feels like an answer to that. It's not perfectly rendered—there's niggling loopholes (why do characters worry about being cheated in their deals if the Market enforces fair value?) and a reliance on didactic, talky scenes—but it gives the character arcs and the bitter ending an deep, thoughtful, critical logic. As usual with most books that I argue with, the argument is evidence of engagement. I don't know if I liked this as much as some other books in the series, but I imagine it will stick with me more.
Title: The Light Between Worlds
Author: Laura E. Weymouth
Narrator: Fiona Hardingham and Moira Quirk
Published: HarperAudio, 2018
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 302,565
Text Number: 1008
Read Because: reviewed bymrissa, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Years ago, Evelyn and her siblings escaped from the Blitz into the magical Woodlands. Now, they struggle to adjust to their lives back home. I argued with this book, on issues large and small: Is the emotional register exaggerated? Is the depiction of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide responsible or romanticized?* But ultimately this was too perfect a metaphor for me to be critical. Portal fantasy and portal fantasy meta and the concept of post-portal fantasy fascinate me. The trope is profoundly escapist, but burdened by a long history of problematic associations (namely imperialism, here baldly criticized in the form of imperialist antagonists) and the problem of Susan—and of Edmund, and of Lucy: the escapism we imagine is flawed, but to return home—or, rather, "home"—and, for the reader, to always be "home"—is worse. It maps easily onto musing about being an outsider; further, onto mental illness and troubled young women. Conflating portals/escapism/suicide may have its issues, but I also found it hugely validating—these are concepts that I want to see romanticized and raised to a heightened, heartbreaking, poetry-littered, aggressively numinous register.
Also, there's a magical, talking red deer stag.
I've loved a lot of portal fantasy, and this isn't the best imagined of them; and I've thought a lot about post-portal fantasy meta, of which there are other discussions of various comparable quality. But the combination of elements and intents in this really got to me.
* I also worried that (hetero) romances were presented as a cure-all, but this is resolved within the text: they're emphatically not.
Title: The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
Author: E.B. Hudspeth
Published: Quirk Books, 2013
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 303,455
Text Number: 1014
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The biography and portfolio of Dr. Spencer Black, whose medical practice and taxidermy both dealt with humanity's mythological ancestors. The biographical elements have a distant, dry voice and content that echoes Poe and Lovecraft (but less overtly problematic than the latter; much appreciated, given the subject of disability/deformity). It's the least interesting half, but bulks out the book and grounds the second half. These anatomical illustrations of human hybrids and mythical beasts are engaging in concept and adequate in execution. I wish the art were sharper, the faces better proportioned; and perhaps it's just that I don't have a strong grasp of anatomy, but I didn't get much from the most interesting parts, the weirdest parts, areas of hybridization or duplication—they get detailed plates but are inadequately addressed in text, and rarely awed me. I love speculative evolution, and appreciate the unique horror/historical approach, but it's still the least interesting take I've seen of the trope.
(Also of note: this is exceedingly over-formatted. Very fancy! but read poorly on my tablet's resolution.)
Author: Seanan McGuire
Published: Tor, 2019
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 205
Total Page Count: 302,040
Text Number: 1006
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A young girl escapes a repressive childhood into the Goblin Market, a fairyland with strict rules about fair value. More than any book in the series so far, this feels like Valente's fairyland series—a direct, stylized narrative voice; a vibrant and tricky fairyland setting. I love the narrative's willingness to offscreen action; it's probably the strongest written of the series, and compares particularly well to the underwhelming Beneath the Sugar Sky. But the Market feels too small, a location, not an entire world, constructed around too concrete a conceit.
As a disabled person, I think a lot about the value of social contributions—and the Market's model of fair value does and doesn't work for me. I dislike that McGuire sidesteps the issue of disability ("Health is a thing that can be bought, as can everything worth bartering") but appreciate the emphasis on equity vs equality. The intent is progressive, but the Market's fallibility is the story's lynchpin—it's a well-intended model, honestly a better model, but still a flawed one. Every Heart a Doorway was criticized for introducing a concept and failing to follow-through in the worldbuilding, more theoretically good than practically satisfying (with which I only somewhat agree—I was satisfied by concept alone), and In an Absent Dream feels like an answer to that. It's not perfectly rendered—there's niggling loopholes (why do characters worry about being cheated in their deals if the Market enforces fair value?) and a reliance on didactic, talky scenes—but it gives the character arcs and the bitter ending an deep, thoughtful, critical logic. As usual with most books that I argue with, the argument is evidence of engagement. I don't know if I liked this as much as some other books in the series, but I imagine it will stick with me more.
Title: The Light Between Worlds
Author: Laura E. Weymouth
Narrator: Fiona Hardingham and Moira Quirk
Published: HarperAudio, 2018
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 375
Total Page Count: 302,565
Text Number: 1008
Read Because: reviewed by
mrissa, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Years ago, Evelyn and her siblings escaped from the Blitz into the magical Woodlands. Now, they struggle to adjust to their lives back home. I argued with this book, on issues large and small: Is the emotional register exaggerated? Is the depiction of mental illness, self-harm, and suicide responsible or romanticized?* But ultimately this was too perfect a metaphor for me to be critical. Portal fantasy and portal fantasy meta and the concept of post-portal fantasy fascinate me. The trope is profoundly escapist, but burdened by a long history of problematic associations (namely imperialism, here baldly criticized in the form of imperialist antagonists) and the problem of Susan—and of Edmund, and of Lucy: the escapism we imagine is flawed, but to return home—or, rather, "home"—and, for the reader, to always be "home"—is worse. It maps easily onto musing about being an outsider; further, onto mental illness and troubled young women. Conflating portals/escapism/suicide may have its issues, but I also found it hugely validating—these are concepts that I want to see romanticized and raised to a heightened, heartbreaking, poetry-littered, aggressively numinous register.
Also, there's a magical, talking red deer stag.
I've loved a lot of portal fantasy, and this isn't the best imagined of them; and I've thought a lot about post-portal fantasy meta, of which there are other discussions of various comparable quality. But the combination of elements and intents in this really got to me.
* I also worried that (hetero) romances were presented as a cure-all, but this is resolved within the text: they're emphatically not.
Title: The Resurrectionist: The Lost Work of Dr. Spencer Black
Author: E.B. Hudspeth
Published: Quirk Books, 2013
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 210
Total Page Count: 303,455
Text Number: 1014
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The biography and portfolio of Dr. Spencer Black, whose medical practice and taxidermy both dealt with humanity's mythological ancestors. The biographical elements have a distant, dry voice and content that echoes Poe and Lovecraft (but less overtly problematic than the latter; much appreciated, given the subject of disability/deformity). It's the least interesting half, but bulks out the book and grounds the second half. These anatomical illustrations of human hybrids and mythical beasts are engaging in concept and adequate in execution. I wish the art were sharper, the faces better proportioned; and perhaps it's just that I don't have a strong grasp of anatomy, but I didn't get much from the most interesting parts, the weirdest parts, areas of hybridization or duplication—they get detailed plates but are inadequately addressed in text, and rarely awed me. I love speculative evolution, and appreciate the unique horror/historical approach, but it's still the least interesting take I've seen of the trope.
(Also of note: this is exceedingly over-formatted. Very fancy! but read poorly on my tablet's resolution.)
