Book Reviews: Hellspark, Kagan; To Shape..., Blackgoose; Confessions of a Mask, Mishima
Title: Hellspark
Author: Janet Kagan
Published: Baen Books, 2019 (1988)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 475,415
Text Number: 1678
Read Because: grabbed from this list of five-star books, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In a multicultural interstellar tableau, a translator is tasked with investigating the potential sapience of a newly-discovered alien race. The speculative cultures and the role of translation, language, and taboo are all too cleanly delineated, all very legible and solvable - this is my perennial critique of SF worldbuilding, and it's both better and worse here: it undermines its own fascination with the nuances of language and culture, but the resulting tone is engaging and lighthearted: a nerdy power fantasy; a slew of puzzles neatly solved. Vibrant and fun, but memorable more for the fact that nonverbal communication is a great avenue for speculative exploration than for the text itself.
Title: To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit Book 1)
Author: Moniquill Blackgoose
Published: Del Rey, 2023
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 530
Total Page Count: 482,540
Text Number: 1706
Read Because: reviewed by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Bond animal meets magical school: an Indigenous girl is chosen by a rare hatchling, and attends the colonizer's school in order to learn the art of dragon stewardship which her people have lost. Somehow this manages to need more magic school and more bond animal: these are ridiculously engaging tropes that here are just ... fine. Some of that works as a critique of education as a form of institutional power, deromanticizing the magical school. But a lot of it just feels like a missed opportunity. The wider world is more fun: a fantasy of resisting colonization which frequently challenges its own escapism, enlivened by clever-if-infodumpy parallel-world worldbuilding. I liked this. It's energetic and readable and very well-intended. I'll probably try at least the next book in the series. But I'm not as crazy about it as I want to be; it lacks a certain spark.
Title: Confessions of a Mask
Author: Yukio Mishima
Translator: Meredith Weatherby
Published: New Directions, 1958 (1949)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 260
Total Page Count: 484,070
Text Number: 1712
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from Open Library
Review: An autobiographical novel: the story of a queer man coming of age in wartime Japan. I'm head over heels for the first half of this, which is sexual awakening explored as queer desire meets violence fetish - vividly realized, inseparably entwined, and #relatable amirite. The second half is ... fine, a young adult trying to fit into normal society by making failed attempts at hetero attraction. It follows naturally from the first half, but necessarily lacks some of that tension, the dark, compelling logic and almost claustrophobic interiority, which make the first half so remarkable.
Anyway, time to go read more Mishima. This may not be a perfect book, but thematically it's highly relevant to my interests, as I suspect his other work is as well.
Author: Janet Kagan
Published: Baen Books, 2019 (1988)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 475,415
Text Number: 1678
Read Because: grabbed from this list of five-star books, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In a multicultural interstellar tableau, a translator is tasked with investigating the potential sapience of a newly-discovered alien race. The speculative cultures and the role of translation, language, and taboo are all too cleanly delineated, all very legible and solvable - this is my perennial critique of SF worldbuilding, and it's both better and worse here: it undermines its own fascination with the nuances of language and culture, but the resulting tone is engaging and lighthearted: a nerdy power fantasy; a slew of puzzles neatly solved. Vibrant and fun, but memorable more for the fact that nonverbal communication is a great avenue for speculative exploration than for the text itself.
Title: To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit Book 1)
Author: Moniquill Blackgoose
Published: Del Rey, 2023
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 530
Total Page Count: 482,540
Text Number: 1706
Read Because: reviewed by
mrissa, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: Bond animal meets magical school: an Indigenous girl is chosen by a rare hatchling, and attends the colonizer's school in order to learn the art of dragon stewardship which her people have lost. Somehow this manages to need more magic school and more bond animal: these are ridiculously engaging tropes that here are just ... fine. Some of that works as a critique of education as a form of institutional power, deromanticizing the magical school. But a lot of it just feels like a missed opportunity. The wider world is more fun: a fantasy of resisting colonization which frequently challenges its own escapism, enlivened by clever-if-infodumpy parallel-world worldbuilding. I liked this. It's energetic and readable and very well-intended. I'll probably try at least the next book in the series. But I'm not as crazy about it as I want to be; it lacks a certain spark.
Title: Confessions of a Mask
Author: Yukio Mishima
Translator: Meredith Weatherby
Published: New Directions, 1958 (1949)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 260
Total Page Count: 484,070
Text Number: 1712
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from Open Library
Review: An autobiographical novel: the story of a queer man coming of age in wartime Japan. I'm head over heels for the first half of this, which is sexual awakening explored as queer desire meets violence fetish - vividly realized, inseparably entwined, and #relatable amirite. The second half is ... fine, a young adult trying to fit into normal society by making failed attempts at hetero attraction. It follows naturally from the first half, but necessarily lacks some of that tension, the dark, compelling logic and almost claustrophobic interiority, which make the first half so remarkable.
Anyway, time to go read more Mishima. This may not be a perfect book, but thematically it's highly relevant to my interests, as I suspect his other work is as well.