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juushikaTitle: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Published: Angry Robot, 2010
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 323,585
Text Number: 1136
Read Because: bond animal trope, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In a version of our world where murders are marked by their bond animals, one animalled woman takes on an ill-advised missing person case. I care a lot about the bond animal trope and dislike urban fantasy, and this didn't defy those predispositions. Bond animals are typically a wish-fulfillment trope, so this subversion is exciting—but that worldbuilding sits in the background, occasionally alluded to, frustrating unexplored: how do responsibility and guilt effect becoming animalled? is it punitive or reformative; can it be a source of comfort? The encyclopedia exposita is interesting but disjointed; in the body of the text the experience of the animalled is practical, physical. It gives the animals a narrative weight that compliments the trope inversion, but the lack of introspection or emotional bond makes it feel impersonal—and the prickly protagonist have benefited from some humanizing elements.
And all this is buried under the setting—vibrant, diverse, crapsack Johannesburg with some fantasy and near-future additions—and an urban fantasy detective plot laden with the tropes that make me dislike the genre: protagonist doesn't have adequate reasons to become involved; all early plot elements are important and meet in a busy, overly-scripted climax; red herrings and filler action in the middle third explore the gritty, grimdark urban setting. It's readable, but not my style. Angry Robot loves to publish weird books, and they allow that weirdness to run rampant when tighter, more conventional editing would improve the book. (I'm thinking of Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng and vN by Madeline Ashby in particular, but notice it in most of their publications.) And weird is good! it's refreshing, provoking, and I wanted to like this. But it would benefit from a glossary, a rewrite, and (honestly, because of genre) a different reader.
Title: Serpent's Reach
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: Daw Books, 2005 (1980)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 323,885
Text Number: 1137
Read Because: reading the series, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Quarantined from the Union, a group of humans and generations of engineered decedents live alongside alien hive-minds. This is a mirror to Forty Thousand in Gehenna, both narratives about human society evolving alongside an alien culture, but where Gehenna takes a long and distant view of social change, Serpent's Reach is an intimate view of sudden, cumulative change. As an early deep-dive into azi conditioning and personhood, it's also a predecessor to themes in Cyteen. But So much of what's interesting happens just offstage, and while the evidence of it is everywhere—in the protagonist's unsettling comfort in the physical communication of the aliens; in the azi character's complex and evolving PoV—it's overwhelmed by the action and its punishing fallout. Cherryh strikes this balance better elsewhere, like in the Morgaine and Chanur novels; perhaps in a series there's more room for combat and resulting exhaustion to transfer into characterization and relationship progression; here, it detracts rather than enriching. I read this out of Alliance-Union publication order because it was harder to obtain, but I'm glad I didn't skip it entirely. The aliens are great—I would read a thousand iterations of Cherryh's humans-in-weird-intimacies-with-aliens, they are a universal pleasure—and it speaks to reoccurring and interesting themes in her work. It also reads easier than most Cherryh, a little less dense, less terse. But it's not as strong as what she achieves elsewhere.
Title: Stellaluna
Author: Janell Cannon
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018 (1993)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 323,935
Text Number: 1138
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: 1993 was after my time for children's literature, but I recognize the cover and art enough to have an impression of this book's success. And I can see why it succeeded—there's perpetually room for narratives about the fact that we're all outsiders, but can find connections regardless, and will find other places where we fit in, and the densely illustrated browns of the adorable and clumsy protagonist against the rich dark blues of the background is striking (although I dislike the clumsy white-edged transitions between them). But it very much feels like Lionni's Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, but with less magic and a simplified theme—and while I genuinely think that's a better book, it's mostly the bias of nostalgia: this isn't my story of being an outsider, of finding a home. (And that's okay! It can be someone else's.)
Title: Millions of Cats
Author: Wanda Gág
Published: Picture Puffin Books, 2006 (1928)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 323,965
Text Number: 1139
Read Because: this passed my dash on Tumblr on account of the "oldest picture book" detail and I dismissed it out of hand because I hate fictional representations of cats—and then I saw it at on shelves in the classic picture book section of my library the next day, so I took it as fatel hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Stories about domestic animals age rapidly and poorly as twee remnants of evolving ethical standards, but the "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats" is so delightful and ridiculous; it marries well to inoffensive and universal cat themes cat themes: all cats are beautiful, all are conceited; every scraggly kitten deserves love; wanting more cats, all cats, is a perpetual desire but unfortunately untenable. This gets weirdly dark in its climax, which the ridiculous tone can't quite balance. The art style is unremarkable save for some nice detailing, particularly in the millions and billions and trillions of cats. It's always a pleasure to read a book which isn't interesting just as a cultural artifact—this is the oldest American picture book still in print—but also enjoyable in its own right.
(Ratings are a fiction: this is a 3-star book, but it's so rare that I find a book about cats I don't hate.)
(Looking up author demographics, now that I keep more exhaustive records, can feel like everything wrong with the #ownvoices reader movement re: expecting public figures to disclose vulnerable personal details for public consumption, but it also means discovering that an early picture book author was polyamorous, among other things.)
Author: Lauren Beukes
Published: Angry Robot, 2010
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 323,585
Text Number: 1136
Read Because: bond animal trope, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In a version of our world where murders are marked by their bond animals, one animalled woman takes on an ill-advised missing person case. I care a lot about the bond animal trope and dislike urban fantasy, and this didn't defy those predispositions. Bond animals are typically a wish-fulfillment trope, so this subversion is exciting—but that worldbuilding sits in the background, occasionally alluded to, frustrating unexplored: how do responsibility and guilt effect becoming animalled? is it punitive or reformative; can it be a source of comfort? The encyclopedia exposita is interesting but disjointed; in the body of the text the experience of the animalled is practical, physical. It gives the animals a narrative weight that compliments the trope inversion, but the lack of introspection or emotional bond makes it feel impersonal—and the prickly protagonist have benefited from some humanizing elements.
And all this is buried under the setting—vibrant, diverse, crapsack Johannesburg with some fantasy and near-future additions—and an urban fantasy detective plot laden with the tropes that make me dislike the genre: protagonist doesn't have adequate reasons to become involved; all early plot elements are important and meet in a busy, overly-scripted climax; red herrings and filler action in the middle third explore the gritty, grimdark urban setting. It's readable, but not my style. Angry Robot loves to publish weird books, and they allow that weirdness to run rampant when tighter, more conventional editing would improve the book. (I'm thinking of Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng and vN by Madeline Ashby in particular, but notice it in most of their publications.) And weird is good! it's refreshing, provoking, and I wanted to like this. But it would benefit from a glossary, a rewrite, and (honestly, because of genre) a different reader.
Title: Serpent's Reach
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: Daw Books, 2005 (1980)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 323,885
Text Number: 1137
Read Because: reading the series, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Quarantined from the Union, a group of humans and generations of engineered decedents live alongside alien hive-minds. This is a mirror to Forty Thousand in Gehenna, both narratives about human society evolving alongside an alien culture, but where Gehenna takes a long and distant view of social change, Serpent's Reach is an intimate view of sudden, cumulative change. As an early deep-dive into azi conditioning and personhood, it's also a predecessor to themes in Cyteen. But So much of what's interesting happens just offstage, and while the evidence of it is everywhere—in the protagonist's unsettling comfort in the physical communication of the aliens; in the azi character's complex and evolving PoV—it's overwhelmed by the action and its punishing fallout. Cherryh strikes this balance better elsewhere, like in the Morgaine and Chanur novels; perhaps in a series there's more room for combat and resulting exhaustion to transfer into characterization and relationship progression; here, it detracts rather than enriching. I read this out of Alliance-Union publication order because it was harder to obtain, but I'm glad I didn't skip it entirely. The aliens are great—I would read a thousand iterations of Cherryh's humans-in-weird-intimacies-with-aliens, they are a universal pleasure—and it speaks to reoccurring and interesting themes in her work. It also reads easier than most Cherryh, a little less dense, less terse. But it's not as strong as what she achieves elsewhere.
Title: Stellaluna
Author: Janell Cannon
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018 (1993)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 323,935
Text Number: 1138
Read Because: personal enjoyment, hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: 1993 was after my time for children's literature, but I recognize the cover and art enough to have an impression of this book's success. And I can see why it succeeded—there's perpetually room for narratives about the fact that we're all outsiders, but can find connections regardless, and will find other places where we fit in, and the densely illustrated browns of the adorable and clumsy protagonist against the rich dark blues of the background is striking (although I dislike the clumsy white-edged transitions between them). But it very much feels like Lionni's Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, but with less magic and a simplified theme—and while I genuinely think that's a better book, it's mostly the bias of nostalgia: this isn't my story of being an outsider, of finding a home. (And that's okay! It can be someone else's.)
Title: Millions of Cats
Author: Wanda Gág
Published: Picture Puffin Books, 2006 (1928)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 323,965
Text Number: 1139
Read Because: this passed my dash on Tumblr on account of the "oldest picture book" detail and I dismissed it out of hand because I hate fictional representations of cats—and then I saw it at on shelves in the classic picture book section of my library the next day, so I took it as fatel hardback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: Stories about domestic animals age rapidly and poorly as twee remnants of evolving ethical standards, but the "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats" is so delightful and ridiculous; it marries well to inoffensive and universal cat themes cat themes: all cats are beautiful, all are conceited; every scraggly kitten deserves love; wanting more cats, all cats, is a perpetual desire but unfortunately untenable. This gets weirdly dark in its climax, which the ridiculous tone can't quite balance. The art style is unremarkable save for some nice detailing, particularly in the millions and billions and trillions of cats. It's always a pleasure to read a book which isn't interesting just as a cultural artifact—this is the oldest American picture book still in print—but also enjoyable in its own right.
(Ratings are a fiction: this is a 3-star book, but it's so rare that I find a book about cats I don't hate.)
(Looking up author demographics, now that I keep more exhaustive records, can feel like everything wrong with the #ownvoices reader movement re: expecting public figures to disclose vulnerable personal details for public consumption, but it also means discovering that an early picture book author was polyamorous, among other things.)
no subject
Date: 2019-08-14 03:02 pm (UTC)