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juushikaTitle: A Door Into Ocean
Author: Joan Slonczewski
Published: Tom Doherty Associates, 2011 (1986)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 405
Total Page Count: 316,750
Text Number: 1095
Read Because: on James Davis Nicoll's 100 SF/F Books You Should Consider Reading in the New Year, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The moon-world of Shora and its ocean dwelling, all female population are threatened by the neighboring planet and the oversight of a galactic governing power. This take on a female-only pacifist pseudo-utopia interrogates tropes and preceding works in interesting ways, but still manages to feel dated. (I'd particularly love to see this trope account for intersex and trans individuals—and the emphasis on biology here would have been a great place for it.) The book feels long, perhaps longer than it is. The first half is worldbuilding, and it's slow, conceptual, and satisfying. The second half is the conflict with outside society, and the incursion of capitalism, sexism, murder &c. is less cerebral, more complex, and more frustrating—frustrating often for the wrong reasons: plot, characters, and win conditions are manipulated artlessly so that pacifism wins on a technicality.
(The worst example of this may be linguistics. That the language fails to differentiate between subject/object among persons is central to the book's themes—but the miscommunication is never believable, both because the society interacts with (and thus has language for) non-person entities, and because two fluent translators exist. The question of their fluency is also part of the book's themes—but that they pop up to affect predictable plot twists rather than to bridge cultural/linguistic divides is infuriating. The reader meanwhile has to be able to grasp both sides of the conflict, and so feels smarter than any character but even less able to contribute than the ineffectual translators.)
As implied, all of this serves a thematic function, and the book is perversely stronger for the stubborn limitations of its characters and for its conditional victory. But it's clumsy, and more adroit writing might allow that nuance to shine. This is the sort of feminist SF classic that I expected to file under "more interesting than good" and it meets expectations, but my bickering indicates engagement, not disdain.
Title: Automatic Eve
Author: Rokuro Inui
Translator: Matt Treyvaud
Published: VIZMedia, 2019 (2014)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 317,070
Text Number: 1096
Read Because: reviewed bymrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Somewhere between short stories and a mosaic novel, this is steampunk set in Edo-period Japan. The first few stories engage distinct cultural elements and develop disparate styles as a result: a star-crossed romance with a courtesan, a sumo wrestler caught up in organized crime, shogunate spies, imperial intrigue. These final two win out, reoccurring in the later chapters which pull together the overarching plot; unfortunately, the style and protagonist are both lackluster.
Meanwhile automata run through the work, always as supporting characters but thematically central in the question of personhood: is a machine that acts human and appears human essentially human? I wish these questions were less blatantly posed and more thoughtfully answered, ideally by elevating the automata to central roles. This is inventive, tropey, distinctive—but slight.
Title: Friday Black
Author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Published: Mariner Books, 2018
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 317,270
Text Number: 1097
Read Because: mentioned here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I first saw this collection described as "like Black Mirror," and I concur: short, punchy stories with exaggerated subjects and tone—it's vicious satire with a sociological focus, offering raw and complex reads of racial and social anxiety (which are more rewarding than Black Mirror's technological fear-mongering). When the stories work, they're remarkable, particularly the potent anger of "The Finklestein 5," the commercialization of racial violence in "Zimmer Land," and the more substantially SFnal "Through the Flash" which mirrors Jemisin's "Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows" and is my easy favorite. But the parodical tone swallows some stories, and the lack of it drives the more understated or realistic pieces into the background.
Author: Joan Slonczewski
Published: Tom Doherty Associates, 2011 (1986)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 405
Total Page Count: 316,750
Text Number: 1095
Read Because: on James Davis Nicoll's 100 SF/F Books You Should Consider Reading in the New Year, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The moon-world of Shora and its ocean dwelling, all female population are threatened by the neighboring planet and the oversight of a galactic governing power. This take on a female-only pacifist pseudo-utopia interrogates tropes and preceding works in interesting ways, but still manages to feel dated. (I'd particularly love to see this trope account for intersex and trans individuals—and the emphasis on biology here would have been a great place for it.) The book feels long, perhaps longer than it is. The first half is worldbuilding, and it's slow, conceptual, and satisfying. The second half is the conflict with outside society, and the incursion of capitalism, sexism, murder &c. is less cerebral, more complex, and more frustrating—frustrating often for the wrong reasons: plot, characters, and win conditions are manipulated artlessly so that pacifism wins on a technicality.
(The worst example of this may be linguistics. That the language fails to differentiate between subject/object among persons is central to the book's themes—but the miscommunication is never believable, both because the society interacts with (and thus has language for) non-person entities, and because two fluent translators exist. The question of their fluency is also part of the book's themes—but that they pop up to affect predictable plot twists rather than to bridge cultural/linguistic divides is infuriating. The reader meanwhile has to be able to grasp both sides of the conflict, and so feels smarter than any character but even less able to contribute than the ineffectual translators.)
As implied, all of this serves a thematic function, and the book is perversely stronger for the stubborn limitations of its characters and for its conditional victory. But it's clumsy, and more adroit writing might allow that nuance to shine. This is the sort of feminist SF classic that I expected to file under "more interesting than good" and it meets expectations, but my bickering indicates engagement, not disdain.
Title: Automatic Eve
Author: Rokuro Inui
Translator: Matt Treyvaud
Published: VIZMedia, 2019 (2014)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 317,070
Text Number: 1096
Read Because: reviewed by
mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Somewhere between short stories and a mosaic novel, this is steampunk set in Edo-period Japan. The first few stories engage distinct cultural elements and develop disparate styles as a result: a star-crossed romance with a courtesan, a sumo wrestler caught up in organized crime, shogunate spies, imperial intrigue. These final two win out, reoccurring in the later chapters which pull together the overarching plot; unfortunately, the style and protagonist are both lackluster.
Meanwhile automata run through the work, always as supporting characters but thematically central in the question of personhood: is a machine that acts human and appears human essentially human? I wish these questions were less blatantly posed and more thoughtfully answered, ideally by elevating the automata to central roles. This is inventive, tropey, distinctive—but slight.
Title: Friday Black
Author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Published: Mariner Books, 2018
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 200
Total Page Count: 317,270
Text Number: 1097
Read Because: mentioned here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: I first saw this collection described as "like Black Mirror," and I concur: short, punchy stories with exaggerated subjects and tone—it's vicious satire with a sociological focus, offering raw and complex reads of racial and social anxiety (which are more rewarding than Black Mirror's technological fear-mongering). When the stories work, they're remarkable, particularly the potent anger of "The Finklestein 5," the commercialization of racial violence in "Zimmer Land," and the more substantially SFnal "Through the Flash" which mirrors Jemisin's "Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows" and is my easy favorite. But the parodical tone swallows some stories, and the lack of it drives the more understated or realistic pieces into the background.
