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juushikaTitle: The Luminous Dead
Author: Caitlin Starling
Published: Harper Voyager
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 334,330
Text Number: 1213
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A first-time caver lies her way into a risky job which is even stranger and more deadly than she expects. This hovers on the edge of speculative fiction in a similar way to crossover literary fiction, but it's closer to a psychological thriller: a woman against the cave and her own death drive; two women entwined by imbalanced power, strained intimacy, and need. It's contrived but engrossing, and I admire its close focus and deep dive, and that it avoids the easy horror of claustrophobia in favor of something weirder and more ambiguous. There are liminal places in the narrative where the death drives tangles with the speculative elements which continue to stick with me. But in the way of most thrillers, the reveals and climax are less successful than the sheer momentum, and the ending is when this feels most like a debut: too many coincidences and accidents, and the speculative element comes into focus and pushes the psychological drama out of frame. And, again like most thrillers, my investment fades when the tension resolves, so this hasn't stuck with me as much as I'd expect it to given the central relationship. But despite my caveats, I enjoyed the ride and I'll keep an eye on the author in the future.
Title: Faeries
Author: Brain Froud and Alan Lee
Published: Harry N. Abrams, 2000
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 335,180
Text Number: 1219
Read Because: I had a craving after watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, hardback from my personal library
Review: A combination of mythology, folklore, bestiary, and straight-up art—doing none of these things exceptionally well except the last, which is all that really matters. The mixture of generalizations and scattershot primary sources reminds me of the pagan books written in this era and shortly after; it's evocative without having a substantial overarching argument or being particularly educational. But it's beautifully illustrated. Alan Lee's work is elegant, sometimes so idealized that it feels sterile, and it's more common in the historical/mythological first half. Brian Froud's work is caricatured and lively, more evocative but also more repetitive, and it makes the disjointed bestiary a particular delight. But it's the combined styles that makes this succeed, that makes the art so plentiful and diverse, running the gamut from beautiful and cold to dirty, tricky, and strange—and cumulatively unknowable. This is such a classic and, in the way of childhood favorites, I can absolutely nitpick elements that pale compared to my memory. But it's an eternal delight, and I still have so many favorite pages.
Title: A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan Book 1)
Author: Arkady Martine
Narrator: Amy Landon
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 460
Total Page Count: 335,885
Text Number: 1221
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, audiobook borrowed by the Multnomah County Library
Review: An ambassador from visits the heart of the system's massive imperialist power under multitudinous strange circumstances. This reminds me of Leckie's Imperial Radch series tonally, Lee's Machineries of Empire series technologically, and Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant thematically—these speculative narratives of the space/political opera variety that deal in gender and social diversity, microexpressions and themes of loyalty, identity as a social and cultural construct, and the power, beauty, and danger of imperialism are all distinctly their own thing while sharing familial DNA—and I tend to like them. (They're also not new—Cherryh's Alliance-Union series are of a similar mold—but I feel like the trend is.)
This is less grim than many of its antecedents, despite the high stakes. Instead, it's nice—perhaps too nice, with a talky tone that borders on obnoxious and overexplains plot points, but the way characters bond and problem-solve is satisfying. The balance of speculative elements (particularly imago technology) to plot is satisfying too; so is the competent plot structure, stronger than the average debut and with good momentum. The only significant flaw is one common to space operas of this type: the cultures are monolithic and it undermines the worldbuilding, sense of scale, and even the study of imperialism. But while I can nitpick, truth is I thought this was great. It's right up my alley and solidly done.
(I read this in July but luckily filling up my current Moleskine has prompted me to catch up on those buried reviews.)
Author: Caitlin Starling
Published: Harper Voyager
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 334,330
Text Number: 1213
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A first-time caver lies her way into a risky job which is even stranger and more deadly than she expects. This hovers on the edge of speculative fiction in a similar way to crossover literary fiction, but it's closer to a psychological thriller: a woman against the cave and her own death drive; two women entwined by imbalanced power, strained intimacy, and need. It's contrived but engrossing, and I admire its close focus and deep dive, and that it avoids the easy horror of claustrophobia in favor of something weirder and more ambiguous. There are liminal places in the narrative where the death drives tangles with the speculative elements which continue to stick with me. But in the way of most thrillers, the reveals and climax are less successful than the sheer momentum, and the ending is when this feels most like a debut: too many coincidences and accidents, and the speculative element comes into focus and pushes the psychological drama out of frame. And, again like most thrillers, my investment fades when the tension resolves, so this hasn't stuck with me as much as I'd expect it to given the central relationship. But despite my caveats, I enjoyed the ride and I'll keep an eye on the author in the future.
Title: Faeries
Author: Brain Froud and Alan Lee
Published: Harry N. Abrams, 2000
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 335,180
Text Number: 1219
Read Because: I had a craving after watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, hardback from my personal library
Review: A combination of mythology, folklore, bestiary, and straight-up art—doing none of these things exceptionally well except the last, which is all that really matters. The mixture of generalizations and scattershot primary sources reminds me of the pagan books written in this era and shortly after; it's evocative without having a substantial overarching argument or being particularly educational. But it's beautifully illustrated. Alan Lee's work is elegant, sometimes so idealized that it feels sterile, and it's more common in the historical/mythological first half. Brian Froud's work is caricatured and lively, more evocative but also more repetitive, and it makes the disjointed bestiary a particular delight. But it's the combined styles that makes this succeed, that makes the art so plentiful and diverse, running the gamut from beautiful and cold to dirty, tricky, and strange—and cumulatively unknowable. This is such a classic and, in the way of childhood favorites, I can absolutely nitpick elements that pale compared to my memory. But it's an eternal delight, and I still have so many favorite pages.
Title: A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan Book 1)
Author: Arkady Martine
Narrator: Amy Landon
Published: Macmillan Audio, 2019
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 460
Total Page Count: 335,885
Text Number: 1221
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, audiobook borrowed by the Multnomah County Library
Review: An ambassador from visits the heart of the system's massive imperialist power under multitudinous strange circumstances. This reminds me of Leckie's Imperial Radch series tonally, Lee's Machineries of Empire series technologically, and Dickinson's The Traitor Baru Cormorant thematically—these speculative narratives of the space/political opera variety that deal in gender and social diversity, microexpressions and themes of loyalty, identity as a social and cultural construct, and the power, beauty, and danger of imperialism are all distinctly their own thing while sharing familial DNA—and I tend to like them. (They're also not new—Cherryh's Alliance-Union series are of a similar mold—but I feel like the trend is.)
This is less grim than many of its antecedents, despite the high stakes. Instead, it's nice—perhaps too nice, with a talky tone that borders on obnoxious and overexplains plot points, but the way characters bond and problem-solve is satisfying. The balance of speculative elements (particularly imago technology) to plot is satisfying too; so is the competent plot structure, stronger than the average debut and with good momentum. The only significant flaw is one common to space operas of this type: the cultures are monolithic and it undermines the worldbuilding, sense of scale, and even the study of imperialism. But while I can nitpick, truth is I thought this was great. It's right up my alley and solidly done.
(I read this in July but luckily filling up my current Moleskine has prompted me to catch up on those buried reviews.)
no subject
Date: 2019-11-11 09:10 am (UTC)