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juushikaTitle: Conversations with Octavia Butler
Editor: Conseula Francis
Published: University Press of Mississippi, 2009
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 230
Total Page Count: 322,405
Text Number: 1134
Read Because: mentioned on a Tor.com list of 17 Essay Collections and Biographies, borrowed from OpenLibrary (it's since disappeared from their shelves, I don't know why or if it's related to copyright issues re: the National Emergency Library)
Review: There's a lot of repetition here, in the questions Butler received but also in her rote answers; it speaks to the lack of depth in the average interview (and those which are more distinctive are rarely better for it, like the NPR interview with unlikable, ill-prepared Juan Williams or the issue-drive and jargon-loaded MELUS interview) but moreso to the ways Butler was pigeonholed by her distinctive role as the first black female sci-fi author. Butler's penchant for "grazing," gathering environmental/scientific and political topics from non-fiction and the news, doesn't translate well to interviews, which render the topics into reactionary soundbites. It's in fiction that they blossom, and tracing that evolution—disparate concepts, combined into utterly unique speculative premises, fully realized by the consequences of plot—adds depth to her work. So in every way that these collected interviews seem to fail, to be repetitive or shallow, they also provide insight into Butler and her craft. It's not hugely robust or, frankly, as interesting as a biography, but it's a welcome addition to my larger engagement with the author.
(I made about seven trillion annotations which magically disappeared when I was adding files to my ereader so! that was fun! Many were authors and texts that Butler mentions in interviews. One reveals that her dissatisfaction with unrealistic human/alien reproduction in Survivor was an element of her dissatisfaction with that book and prompted Oankali worldbuilding in the Lilith's Brood series, which is a theory I floated after reading Survivor. It was gratifying to stumble on, but I half believe I imagined the whole thing because despite exhaustive skimming and searching I can't find the quote.)
Title: Catfishing on CatNet
Author: Naomi Kritzer
Published: Tor Teen, 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 322,705
Text Number: 1135
Read Because: reviewed bymrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A teenage girl flees her abusive father with the help of her online friends and the AI that runs their chatroom. This is remarkably fluffy given the subject matter and culminating action, and that's thanks to the power of friendship—friendship fostered by an AI who trades in cat pictures and builds custom groups of likeminded users, in this case marginalized geeky teens. It's cute and queer and moves at a fair clip; it's not a particularly robust exploration of near-future information security or artificial intelligence or identity politics, but I appreciate the attempt. Fluffy YA capers aren't my usual jam, but this came to me just when I needed some reassuring escapism and it was a pleasant surprise.
(But it's the premise I'm stuck on. The dream user-matching algorithm is a AI with the processing power to get to know us all individually and the benevolence to handpick our new best friends from across the nation. Forget Hogwarts houses as the self-insert daydream fodder of choice: I want a Clowder.)
Title: All the Fabulous Beasts
Author: Priya Sharma
Published: Undertow Publications, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 322,995
Text Number: 1136
Read Because: mentioned here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The fabulist element—of snake-women and cuckoo children, of seaward compulsions and the effigies of dead husbands—is too often tied up in a plot reveal, and thus is more a gotcha than a complex, fully-realized experience. This emphasis on plot gives too little room to theme, and so the monstrousness of non-normative bodies/identities is insufficiently subverted. There's so much potential: in the rhythmic, stylized language; in stories like "Rag and Bone," which has a engaging interplay of historical setting and horror elements with a more successful mystery plot; but moreover in the beautiful monster, the fabulous beast. I want to love these, often admire their concepts, but it's frustrating that the concepts are often treated not as jumping-off points but too as endings.
Editor: Conseula Francis
Published: University Press of Mississippi, 2009
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 230
Total Page Count: 322,405
Text Number: 1134
Read Because: mentioned on a Tor.com list of 17 Essay Collections and Biographies, borrowed from OpenLibrary (it's since disappeared from their shelves, I don't know why or if it's related to copyright issues re: the National Emergency Library)
Review: There's a lot of repetition here, in the questions Butler received but also in her rote answers; it speaks to the lack of depth in the average interview (and those which are more distinctive are rarely better for it, like the NPR interview with unlikable, ill-prepared Juan Williams or the issue-drive and jargon-loaded MELUS interview) but moreso to the ways Butler was pigeonholed by her distinctive role as the first black female sci-fi author. Butler's penchant for "grazing," gathering environmental/scientific and political topics from non-fiction and the news, doesn't translate well to interviews, which render the topics into reactionary soundbites. It's in fiction that they blossom, and tracing that evolution—disparate concepts, combined into utterly unique speculative premises, fully realized by the consequences of plot—adds depth to her work. So in every way that these collected interviews seem to fail, to be repetitive or shallow, they also provide insight into Butler and her craft. It's not hugely robust or, frankly, as interesting as a biography, but it's a welcome addition to my larger engagement with the author.
(I made about seven trillion annotations which magically disappeared when I was adding files to my ereader so! that was fun! Many were authors and texts that Butler mentions in interviews. One reveals that her dissatisfaction with unrealistic human/alien reproduction in Survivor was an element of her dissatisfaction with that book and prompted Oankali worldbuilding in the Lilith's Brood series, which is a theory I floated after reading Survivor. It was gratifying to stumble on, but I half believe I imagined the whole thing because despite exhaustive skimming and searching I can't find the quote.)
Title: Catfishing on CatNet
Author: Naomi Kritzer
Published: Tor Teen, 2019
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 322,705
Text Number: 1135
Read Because: reviewed by
mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: A teenage girl flees her abusive father with the help of her online friends and the AI that runs their chatroom. This is remarkably fluffy given the subject matter and culminating action, and that's thanks to the power of friendship—friendship fostered by an AI who trades in cat pictures and builds custom groups of likeminded users, in this case marginalized geeky teens. It's cute and queer and moves at a fair clip; it's not a particularly robust exploration of near-future information security or artificial intelligence or identity politics, but I appreciate the attempt. Fluffy YA capers aren't my usual jam, but this came to me just when I needed some reassuring escapism and it was a pleasant surprise.
(But it's the premise I'm stuck on. The dream user-matching algorithm is a AI with the processing power to get to know us all individually and the benevolence to handpick our new best friends from across the nation. Forget Hogwarts houses as the self-insert daydream fodder of choice: I want a Clowder.)
Title: All the Fabulous Beasts
Author: Priya Sharma
Published: Undertow Publications, 2018
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 290
Total Page Count: 322,995
Text Number: 1136
Read Because: mentioned here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The fabulist element—of snake-women and cuckoo children, of seaward compulsions and the effigies of dead husbands—is too often tied up in a plot reveal, and thus is more a gotcha than a complex, fully-realized experience. This emphasis on plot gives too little room to theme, and so the monstrousness of non-normative bodies/identities is insufficiently subverted. There's so much potential: in the rhythmic, stylized language; in stories like "Rag and Bone," which has a engaging interplay of historical setting and horror elements with a more successful mystery plot; but moreover in the beautiful monster, the fabulous beast. I want to love these, often admire their concepts, but it's frustrating that the concepts are often treated not as jumping-off points but too as endings.
