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juushikaTitle: Heavy Time (The Company Wars Book 4)
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: 1991
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 385,800
Text Number: 1450
Read Because: reading the author
Review: Independent workers in Company space salvage a lost ship with a single survivor—and the Company desperately does not want his story told. This is one of Cherryh's least speculative titles. It's about asteroid mining and zero-g work, sure, seen from the PoV of boots-on-the-deck laborers; but it's really about company towns, which fits neatly into a speculative setting in a way which is as prescient now as when this was first published. I find I do miss a more distinctive speculative element (and/or a more gratifying interpersonal focus—the characters grew on me, but this doesn't ping my id in the way Cherryh usually does). So this is one of my least favorite Cherryh, but I always like her work and this is no exception. It's solid and productive—just not exceptional.
Title: Thorn (Dauntless Path Book 1)
Author: Intisar Khanani
Published: HarperTeen, 2020 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 460
Total Page Count: 386,355
Text Number: 1452
Read Because: realized I had defaulted to a slew of white authors again, so searched the PoC tag in my TBR until something clicked; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An unloved, abused princess is married off to a distant prince, but her precarious position is usurped via a magic spell. A retelling of The Goose Girl, this has a slow start but picks up after the goosening. It reminds me of Robin McKinley's style of fairytale retelling, with an emphasis on domesticity and work/life/family—cozy, a little idealized, but not toothless. The curse in particular is remarkably well-handled: it's functionally an open secret, so rather than being about the frustration of mis-/missed communication, it's about why people struggle to communicate, and about how the protagonist perceives herself and wishes (not) to be perceived. I haven't thought a ton about Thorn since finishing it, so it hasn't stuck with me like my favorite retellings. But it revived my love of this genre, and it's engaging and satisfying enough that it convinced me to stick with a first person, present tense YA novel with a romance plot—that says something.
Title: 天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers)
Author: Priest
Translator: sparkling waters translations, wenbuxing, Chichi
Published: JJWXC, 2010
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 1000
Total Page Count: 387,355
Text Number: 1453
Read Because: watched Word of Honor, as below
Review: Soulmates, one a newly-retired and -disabled spy, one a deadly outcast, meet on the fringes of a battle for knowledge that consumes the local martial arts sphere—and adopt a child orphaned by the fighting, as one does in danmei. I read this after watching Word of Honor, and it couldn't've been more different from my watch-then-read experience with The Untamed/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. The adaptation is much changed, which makes for a weak primer for the novel but a better show—because the plot here isn't great. It's disconnected and talky; the conclusion has a lot of payoff, it can be rewritten into a better integrated, less sequential narrative with a stronger supporting cast. But this isn't that story; this story is forgettable.
What's left is the central characters and relationship. It isn't much like the show, either, but here I dig how source and adaptation reflect on each other. ZZS is borderline inscrutable in the adaptation, and so much more knowable and gleefully unlikable here. The relationship is distinctive, frustrating, oblique, unconventional, and coy; it's a persistence-hunter model of seduction where even the mostly prickly can be won by ... snuggles and pain management, a hilarious and high-key relatable take on hurt/comfort.
So this is a hot mess, not least because of the rotating list of fan translators and quality of the translation. It's not great—but I liked it fine.
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Published: 1991
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 330
Total Page Count: 385,800
Text Number: 1450
Read Because: reading the author
Review: Independent workers in Company space salvage a lost ship with a single survivor—and the Company desperately does not want his story told. This is one of Cherryh's least speculative titles. It's about asteroid mining and zero-g work, sure, seen from the PoV of boots-on-the-deck laborers; but it's really about company towns, which fits neatly into a speculative setting in a way which is as prescient now as when this was first published. I find I do miss a more distinctive speculative element (and/or a more gratifying interpersonal focus—the characters grew on me, but this doesn't ping my id in the way Cherryh usually does). So this is one of my least favorite Cherryh, but I always like her work and this is no exception. It's solid and productive—just not exceptional.
Title: Thorn (Dauntless Path Book 1)
Author: Intisar Khanani
Published: HarperTeen, 2020 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 460
Total Page Count: 386,355
Text Number: 1452
Read Because: realized I had defaulted to a slew of white authors again, so searched the PoC tag in my TBR until something clicked; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: An unloved, abused princess is married off to a distant prince, but her precarious position is usurped via a magic spell. A retelling of The Goose Girl, this has a slow start but picks up after the goosening. It reminds me of Robin McKinley's style of fairytale retelling, with an emphasis on domesticity and work/life/family—cozy, a little idealized, but not toothless. The curse in particular is remarkably well-handled: it's functionally an open secret, so rather than being about the frustration of mis-/missed communication, it's about why people struggle to communicate, and about how the protagonist perceives herself and wishes (not) to be perceived. I haven't thought a ton about Thorn since finishing it, so it hasn't stuck with me like my favorite retellings. But it revived my love of this genre, and it's engaging and satisfying enough that it convinced me to stick with a first person, present tense YA novel with a romance plot—that says something.
Title: 天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers)
Author: Priest
Translator: sparkling waters translations, wenbuxing, Chichi
Published: JJWXC, 2010
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 1000
Total Page Count: 387,355
Text Number: 1453
Read Because: watched Word of Honor, as below
Review: Soulmates, one a newly-retired and -disabled spy, one a deadly outcast, meet on the fringes of a battle for knowledge that consumes the local martial arts sphere—and adopt a child orphaned by the fighting, as one does in danmei. I read this after watching Word of Honor, and it couldn't've been more different from my watch-then-read experience with The Untamed/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. The adaptation is much changed, which makes for a weak primer for the novel but a better show—because the plot here isn't great. It's disconnected and talky; the conclusion has a lot of payoff, it can be rewritten into a better integrated, less sequential narrative with a stronger supporting cast. But this isn't that story; this story is forgettable.
What's left is the central characters and relationship. It isn't much like the show, either, but here I dig how source and adaptation reflect on each other. ZZS is borderline inscrutable in the adaptation, and so much more knowable and gleefully unlikable here. The relationship is distinctive, frustrating, oblique, unconventional, and coy; it's a persistence-hunter model of seduction where even the mostly prickly can be won by ... snuggles and pain management, a hilarious and high-key relatable take on hurt/comfort.
So this is a hot mess, not least because of the rotating list of fan translators and quality of the translation. It's not great—but I liked it fine.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-30 10:34 pm (UTC)