Review: The Sword of the Lictor

The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to review the entire Book of the New Sun series here, rather than split the reviews up between the volumes.

Other people have said that The Book of the New Sun is like nothing they’ve ever read. That’s nearly true, for me, but Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota (for which she cites Gene Wolfe as an inspiration) is remarkably similar in quite a few ways. Both four-volume series feature suspiciously unreliable narrators who know much more about their world than they’re telling us (and can’t seem to report the facts quite accurately anyhow). Both are masterworks about a wondrous future where humanity is striving for the stars. And both deal with the potential of having religion revealed and a vessel of a god working godly powers upon the Earth. Or Urth. I found myself trying to talk about BotNS and slipping into theories about Mycroft’s past in Terra Ignota. I’m struggling to articulate the philosophical similarities, but there are discussions to be had about the nature of god and identity and goodness in both, and I would love to have read/re-read these as a paired set for a course or book club. For now, I will review BotNS on its own terms (as much as I can).

Severian lies. That’s the first thing I ever heard about this book. I’d heard it was great, I even knew Palmer had named it as one of her influences, but the first specific fact about the content of the book was that Severian lies. Apparently, there is some debate about this fact. I am inclined to think that those who believe Severian does not lie are extremely literal-minded sociopaths. Somewhat like Severian himself! Severian tells us perhaps in the first few pages that his memory is perfect. He can recall any memory and relive it like it is happening just now in front of him, and says in fact that is what he is doing, as he is writing this chronicle to his reader (or Reader, as Mycroft would say). We’ll see about that.

He is a student of the Guild of the Seekers for Penitence and Truth when the book begins. A torturer, in other words. Shadow of the Torturer, the first book, is structured like the beginnings of a bildungsroman. Severian grows up, becomes a journeyman, meets a lady. He leaves the guild to take on a new role, meets another lady and then another lady, and gets into a swordfight but with plants instead of swords. He thinks a great deal about his ladies and whether he loves them. In many ways, the first book sets you up to expect a fairly traditional fantasy story with some occasional weird window dressing, then ends just when your epic fantasy novel would start to pick up.

If the first book cuts off its story arc midway, the second, Claw of the Conciliator has no real arc at all. Severian wanders into and out of various situations with no real direction or sense of how his own story is building - even as he narrates it to us. He is still generally making his way to his new post, with many detours and no sense of urgency. He gets there by the third book, Sword of the Lictor, which also has him wandering - but with much more self-direction, and it feels like the book is telling one singular story of a journey rather than some stuff a guy did on a road trip. He is still uncertain about some fundamental facts of the world (and the reader is even more so). The second and third books are both chock full of atmosphere and worldbuilding and fascinating vignettes and characters, but the second feels directionless in the whole, and even after reading book three I was not sure I’d like the overall series unless the fourth book brought the whole thing together for me, and it would have to do a whole lot of work to make that happen.

Citadel of the Autarch, book four, did an impressive amount of work without making it look like work at all. Severian, and more importantly, the reader, finally has enough information about the world to make some informed decisions and/or guesses. I would say that the shape of the series becomes clear in retrospect, but it would be more accurate to say that some of the many shapes the series could possibly be are visible but still distant beyond a hazy fog. Part of what many people love about the Book of the New Sun is that it’s a puzzle. People like who like to solve puzzles seem to obsess over the book, but this one is one that isn’t meant to be solved. It’s supposed to be turned over, prodded, combed through, dis- and re-assembled. Lots of the pieces fit into many slots. There are pieces leftover that still fit in the puzzle somehow, just not in it, y’know.

The best parts of the books are just how strange this world is. Set maybe a million years in the future, told in the style of an epic fantasy, following a totally-truthful liar who knows nothing about the world beyond his towers and who witnesses some of the strangest bits of his Urth’s locales and peoples.

I don’t think anyone volume of the series could satisfy a reader, and I’m not sure even one reading of the whole series has satisfied me. There’s a “coda” in the form of another novel, Book of the New Earth, and I think it would take several (re-)readings of all five books to even approach satisfaction. It has definitely engaged me, though, and it was worth it to read all four, despite my doubts.

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Review: The Will to Battle

The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I simply can’t say enough good things about the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. My past reviews are gushingly full of a love that I struggle to articulate, I moderate a subreddit about the books, and I lend the first book out like a religious person lends a Bible: with the passionate fervor fueled by both a burning need to talk about the book and the belief that other people will truly be bettered by reading it. So I was surprised, but not too surprised, when I received an email through NetGalley offering me the chance to read the third book, The Will to Battle. They reached out to me – something I’ve never experienced before! The past few weeks have fulfilled all of my big ol’ nerd heart’s desires. I jumped straight from Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series (which Palmer cites as a huge influence on her work) to The Will to Battle, and in the midst of reading it I attended Chessiecon in Baltimore, where Ada Palmer was guest of honor. I sat in on readings and discussions led by Palmer and got a set of books signed – including a hard copy of The Will to Battle, a full month early! So, full disclosure, I loved this series going into book three.

And it didn't disappoint! Where book two, Seven Surrenders, felt very much like a sequel necessary to complete the story of book one, TWTB is a new chapter; while it follows the same story and characters, it strides confidently into new settings and conflicts. The series continues to succeed where it has done well before, with Mycroft’s tricky narration supplying more intriguing - and alarming - deception as we finally see his growing instability unedited. Palmer methodically lays out the new starting grounds for who are all facing the fallout from public reveals of two separate nests of collusion while they struggle to ready their unprepared world for war and theological unrest.

Some of my favorite moments are first steps into new settings. The world is bigger and more wondrous as it provides glimpses of technology and history unseen in previous installments - and more legal minutiae than any book has a right to make so compelling! A simple walk through a Utopian neighborhood was so delightful that I re-read it half a dozen times before moving on. Several chapter-long courtroom dramas are as engrossing and dramatic as attempted murder, and I’m sure many die-hard fans (myself included) will be poring over those chapters for much longer looking for clues about the world.

The character work is strong, too. I’m impressed by how thoroughly and efficiently Palmer handles the large cast, although there are a few characters who are noticeably absent from all or most of this chapter (I suspect that’s a deliberate choice intended to make us think about what those characters are doing until we do meet them). There are beautiful moments of utter catharsis - a passage where a character chooses to finally live their dream had me weeping with the joyful possibility that there is always a way forward into the life you want. Even J.E.D.D. Mason, who is arguably the central character in this drama but is not high on my list of favorite characters in the series, now has goals (and some fascinating scenes with religious figures - a rare instance in a world with a religion taboo) that make him more exciting.

My only complaint would be that, after three books, it feels like we may be just at the beginning of the physical action, but at no point did I feel the story was slow, and I may just be trying to get more books out of the series. The book is called The Will to Battle, after all, and an interjection by Thomas Hobbes (yes, THE Thomas Hobbes) points out that the Will to Battle is not yet Battle itself, but it just as important. And for all the build-up surrounding Achilles’s importance to prepare for this battle, he felt underused. Hopefully we’ll see more of him in book four.

And, as always, we are left with so many questions - the kind I can't ask here, as they'd be full of spoilers - but check out the subreddit!!


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Review: The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am obsessed with The Fifth Season. It was all I could talk about for weeks after reading it and its sequel, The Obelisk Gate. It’s wholly original while still echoing the best of the genre - it has the scope and feel of Game of Thrones paired with completely reinvented genre trappings. The plot is the kind you can’t put down, the characters are achingly real, and the story is so neatly, tightly structured that it feels like a beautiful machine. Plus, it’s rare that an audiobook is so excellent that it elevates the source material when the source material is so good in itself. I was especially impressed because I was slightly underwhelmed by Jemisin’s Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I’m so thankful I gave her another try!

But Jemisin’s work is powerful above and beyond her technical skill and a good story. This is a powerful narrative about racism and institutionalized slavery. The echoes of America’s history are clearly visible, here, but she did not simply lift the same dynamics and social structures from that history and place them in a new world. Instead, this is a story that feels very much like it organically grew out of its theme, which is the tension between the perception and the reality of black Americans’ role in American society. She took that tension, specifically, and used it as a seed of a new story planted in the soil of a fictional world and this is the story that grew. Just as the Confederate South insisted that black slaves were less than human and fully disposable yet went to war so they could keep those slaves because their way of life could not survive without them, the orogens are despised and reviled but literally necessary to keep the Stillness from falling apart. Even the oxymoronic name Stillness echoes back to early America - the United States were no such thing (and still are not today). And just as black Americans still could hold so much more power in the country if institutional blocks on their power were removed, the orogens must be carefully monitored by an institution that breaks the most powerful of them and forces them to be part of the system. The orogens who survive must keep deciding that the Stillness is worth saving so the institution has to teach them to believe that they are inhuman and worthless. The parallels are deeply woven into the story and fairly visible from my vantage point now, having finished the first two books, but I also didn’t feel at any point that Jemisin was preaching or writing some kind of morality play. I think that’s partly due to the complexity of the role of the orogens in their society and how the impact of the institutional oppression on the individual characters is unpacked steadily throughout the story, not all at once. Of course, the rest of the work is done by Jemisin’s masterful writing.

The icing on the cake, for me, is the recurring theme of Father Earth. In a world where the very ground threatens the survival of the species, the earth cannot be seen as something nurturing, and I think Jemisin is doing something deeply clever by re-gendering the Earth. I audibly gasped when the narrator pointed out ‘there is something absent from the story - notice that people do not look up at the sky.’ (A paraphrase, not a quote! The actual line is about a thousand times better.)

I keep saying that “oh but the BEST thing about this book is…’ because as each piece of the book pops back into my mind I’m continually surprised and pleased by how well they work. The magic system (which I suspect might actually end up being science) is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s power over kinetic energy, heat, the movement of molecules and earth. The smallest and the biggest power. I think it’s appropriate for an allegory for black Americans, too - it’s a power that is largely unseeable despite its massive force. It’s also linked intimately with re-shaping the very world.

Overall, this is one of the best pieces of fiction I have read in a long time and I am oh so eager to get my hands on the third volume. Read this! It earned both its Hugos!


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Review: And Chaos Died

And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is classic Joanna Russ. I've mentioned her complex, often overwhelmingly dense prose before, and "And Chaos Died" is the epitome of that style. The opening of the story finds a ship crash-landed on a planet where everyone has the powers of telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy. The rest of the book is an attempt to convey the experience of telepathy and telekinesis as a normal human would comprehend it. It's an insane goal. And somehow she succeeds. The book is crazy hard to follow, one of the most challenging things I've ever read, but I enjoyed it, I think.

I usually try to do a brief summary of a book when I review it. The plot is... fairly unimportant here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Jai and his ship crash land on a planet populated with telepathic, telekinetic people. He slowly develops these powers as well - it seems like those abilities are inherent in humans and just being around people with them will teach you how to use them. When he's rescued one woman comes with him as a representative of the world. When they get back to Earth, she disappears and Jai travels around using his powers, trying to stay out of the hands of people who would make him into a lab rat. He makes a friend, a young boy, and they go on terrifying adventures through the strange world that Earth has become. The finale is especially bizarre. Several other telepathic people from the other planet come to Earth and offer to meet with some major leaders. There's some kind of wiping of the global human consciousness. And then it ends!

The biggest 'pro' of the book is how well it does the overwhelming, disorienting nature of telepathy (or at least, what I assume telepathy would feel like, and what Russ thinks telepathy would feel like). It would involve states of consciousness completely foreign to our experience and combined with telekinesis, it would change our entire way of interacting with the world and the way we constitute self. As I said before, Russ did this well, which makes the book good and almost unreadable. It's slow. There are huge swathes of story in which nothing concrete happens or where none of the things that happen have any basis in normal human experience. It's great! And very challenging!

There are two very interesting things in this book aside from the feeling-of-telepathy aspect: the portrayal of Earth, and Jai Vedh's sexuality.

Earth in this story is in a state of extreme overpopulation and climatic disaster. Coastal areas have flooded, plains areas are desert wastelands. There's not enough space for humans to live and when they're gathered so close together there is often hedonism and destruction. There's a chapter-long description of a riot and another chapter that follows a couple living out hyperbolic examples of 20th-century gender roles. To see Russ's vision of the future is to see a very modern vision of apocalypse: gender roles are exaggeratedly performed not because they're how people want to live them but because it's traditional, global warming is destroying the world, and the American government (or at least the puppet organization that controls it) has a secret agency that hunts people.

Jai is gay. He says this in the first few pages. It was a little uncomfortable because it was immediately connected to his interest in fashion. It got very, very uncomfortable when Russ paired him off with a woman not just romantically but sexually (over and over again). I appreciate that Russ included a queer person as her main character, and I understand that the whole story focuses on the propagation of telepathic humans throughout the galaxy, and that he would be influenced by the thoughts and desires of those around him. But to then treat him as if he were straight throughout the entire rest of the story (because he definitely keeps having straight sex until almost the very end) is a little problematic.

Overall, parts of the story feel very much of their time, other parts feel incredibly modern, but the entire effect is strikingly original. This is a story that will drag you along and stick to you after you've read it.

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Review: Fledgling

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I love Octavia Butler. Her Xenogensis (also known as Lilith's Brood) series is my favorite series of all time. But I have to say that "Fledgling," her last book, is also her worst.

Every Butler story I've read has closely followed the same themes: a small group of people have the power to make other people love/want/need them, and those special people surround themselves with the people that need them, typically creating a commune/family. The normal people resist and often try to refuse, but are ultimately forced into the situation and eventually come to accept and sometimes appreciate the life they have now. The story centers around the mixed emotions of the oppressed, and often deals with the guilt that the oppressors feel. Xenogenesis does this brilliantly and, in my opinion, deals the best with the internal conflicts in both directions and deeply interrogates questions about power imbalance in relationships. "Fledgling" fails to do any of those things.

The opening is powerful. The story is told in first person, and we get the narrative of a person waking up with complete amnesia, blind and in pain and exhausted. As they gradually regain their sight, mobility, and semantic memory - remembering what a deer is, but not whether they'd ever seen a deer before - the reader realizes that this character is a vampire. A bit later, we discover she looks like a young girl. The opening sequence is unsettling, squeamish, and intriguing. The vampire, Shaurya (though she doesn't remember her name at this point), hitchhikes with a man and bites him. This sparks the typical Butler paradigm: he is now tied to her, and she to him. They proceed to have extremely creepy sex because she looks like a 10-year-old and neither of them know how old she actually is (the answer is much, much older than him, but that doesn't make it less uncomfortable in the moment).

Most of the story centers on Shaurya trying to rediscover who she was. She finds part of her family, only to lose them shortly after. She seeks refuge with other vampires and suspects that she's being targeted because she's different - she's genetically engineered to resist the sun and stay awake during daylight, she's part human, and she's black. Her human companions suspect all three of these are why she's being targeted and, spoiler alert, they're right. I don't have any qualms about spoiling this because there is never a moment where Shaurya or any of her human companions are wrong about anything in the whole story, which was frustrating. There weren't any unexpected or unforetold moments in the entire thing.

The main issue, though, was how emotionally unaffected it was. Shaurya is concerned for her human companions but only in the most abstract sense. She wants to make sure she can give them a house, feed them, etc. but doesn't ever think about whether this life is good for them. Her companions express varying mild levels of discomfort with the situation, but most move past it quickly, and Shaurya's concern is always about whether they will ever accept it, rather than how she can make it better for them or whether she should do this at all. The novel is rife with opportunities to reflect on whether these human companions are truly necessary, or whether the typical vampire lifestyle (forcing 7 to 12 humans to live with and adore you forever) is the only way for them to live. But it never touches those questions, instead painting Shaurya and those she associates with as 'better than' others because they don't treat their humans like garbage.

Even aside from questions about the morality of the human/vampire relationship, Butler fails to take advantage of the first-person narration. Shaurya has no memory, no history, and never regains anything more than semantic knowledge about her life. Her reactions to deaths of people she knows fall short of emotional, and dissipate quickly, even when they should continue to affect her.

If you are going to read this, I recommend the audiobook. The narrator does an astounding job with a large cast of characters with different accents. I very much prefer female narrators anyway, since their 'male' voices are more realistic than any male narrator's 'female' voices, and the narrator here does a particularly excellent job with the men.

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Review: At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories

At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories by Kij Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There were two things about this collection that I didn't realize when I picked it up: 1) Kij Johnson is well-known and has a long career both writing and editing (at one of my favorite publishers, Tor!) speculative fiction and 2) the anthology was loosely themed, with most stories featuring some animal or another as a major character.

The first was great discovery. I bought this because I'd read Johnson's story "Spar" in Clarkesworld a few years back and when I discovered Small Beer Press had published an anthology, I was sold. And it was an excellent buy! Thanks to one of my local indie stores (Kramerbooks ) for carrying it because otherwise I wouldn't have known!

The collection reminds me a lot of Lisa Tuttle. Very solid SF work with interesting ideas, with one or two stories that blew me away. I think Johnson's SF premises are more modern and well-rounded - complex alternate worlds, a tight focus on characters, and a literary prose style. I'm writing this review almost a year later and I still think about "Ponies" anytime I think about character-driven SF with a world I'd give an arm to explore. "Spar" remains one of my favorites (though it's not for the faint of heart - and having just reviewed "The Stars Are Legion" I'm realizing I have a bit of a thing for weird body horror fiction).

Anyway, Small Beer Press publishes some great books and this is one of them. This collection is very smart (which makes sense - Johnson has my alternate-reality dream job of teaching sci-fi at the college level) and engaging.

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Review: Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1: The Shrike

Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1: The Shrike by Kelly Sue DeConnick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh man. Pretty Deadly and Monstress were easily my top comic reads this year. I was expecting that from Monstress but I hadn't heard about Pretty Deadly so it took me by surprise. I'm not a huge fan of Westerns - or, I thought I wasn't, but Pretty Deadly and Westworld may have convinced me otherwise this year - and the setting turned me off for a while. Oh, how glad I am that I read it anyway.

It's been too long for me to remember the details of the story so my review will be broad-strokes and brief. The plot manages feel mythological without sacrificing investment in the characters and their stories. It reminds me of Sandman, where Dream and his siblings are universal forces of nature that should be so generic they're meaningless, but are instead uniquely alive. The art - the art! Emma Rios is fantastic. Her color palettes are full of greens and pinks and oranges, colors that shouldn't look pretty but do. It matches well with the story, a dark story with bits of hope and love and fun.

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Review: Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening

Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening by Marjorie M. Liu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley copy of this book (as separate issues) from NetGalley.

Monstress is my favorite currently-running comic. Hands down. The artwork is gorgeously lush and elegantly stylized. The story features kickass action sequences *and* quiet character moments. The pacing is perfect - you get exactly enough information early on to pique your interest and it keeps giving you bits and pieces of backstory at just the right pace to keep you eagerly waiting for more.

I can't wait for this series to be over. Is that weird? It's probably weird - usually you want your favorite series to last forever. But I want to skip to the end because this series has the deep, intricate mythology of a 500-page fantasy novel and I suspect it will best be served as one indulgently delicious dish. And once it's over, I'm pretty sure this will go down as one of the classics of comic canon.

The story has a steampunk vibe and follows a young girl, Maika, who harbors the spirit of a violent being. She, like many in her world, is half human and half *something else.* Her people are being "studied" (read: experimented on) by a group of magical human women, women who control human politics. We see Maika grapple with the monster inside her while she becomes more involved in the war between her people and the human scientist-witches. The book balances her personal journey - vengeance against those who killed her mother and learning to control herself - with the larger story that mixes science, magic, and gods. Think Bioshock meets anime tropes. There are also talking cats.

I can't do this its proper justice. Please, please go read Monstress. It's fantastic.

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Review: A Door Into Ocean

A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is adapted from a post I made in a discussion thread about the book.

I had my doubts after the first section of the story; it was a slow start, and I just didn't like the way the Valan society was structured. But about halfway through the book, I realized I was completely sucked into the story and found myself constantly thinking about it as I went about my day.

I want to gush about the beautiful world-building on Shora. The ecology is believable and complex, and everything about the physical and social construction of the rafts is my #aesthetic. I want to live there, or at least read more books set there. It's also amazing for a book written 30 years ago; I feel like we're already worlds closer to the kind of technology she describes the Sharers as having. Given today's climate and environmental concerns, the book seems markedly prescient.

One of the things I loved about the story (and it's something I've noticed I'm fond of in SF in general) is how well Sloanczewski created a culture that's so fundamentally different, not only in behavior but in thought, and committed to it. It reminds me of Leckie's Radch trilogy in that the perspective of the character is preserved even perhaps at the expense of making things easy for the reader. Merwen (like Breq) sometimes thinks things that the reader doesn't understand, or maybe misunderstands, unless they are fully buying into this world and this perspective and trying to understand Merwen as a Sharer would. (Also like when reading Ancillary Mercy, I feel like I 'got' the perspective about halfway into the story and went from feeling meh/pretty good to loving it.)

I'm not sure exactly how we're supposed to understand the ending. There was a moment when Realgar was trying to convince Talion not to attack Shora, and Realgar walked away from that conversation thinking that he hadn't changed Talion's mind at all and that Talion was definitely going to kill everyone as soon as Realgar left anyway. But I also felt that Spinel's last few scenes (and I guess all of the Sharers' scenes at the end) felt optimistic, like they had won their victory. Did I miss something? I couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it at like 2 a.m. so it's very possible my sleepy brain skipped something important. Are we supposed to feel like the Sharers won at the end, or that their efforts weren't enough to beat the Valans' fear of death?

I think the villains (Nisi exlucded) of the story are all drawn with a surprising lack of empathy, given how thoroughly and complexly the Sharers are drawn; they remind me a bit of villains in an Ayn Rand story, where the people are primarily stand-ins for ideas or types of people (and bad ideas/people, at that). NISI THOUGH. Great character arc. I like that she deceives even the reader, in some ways; we think that because she's a viewpoint character introduced early on she'll be the most important bridge between the Sharers and the Valans, but she ends up as the biggest obstacle to peace.

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Review of ODY-CY, Vol. 2 for Bounding Into Comics

Check out my review of ODY-C, Volume 2: Sons of the Wolf by Matt Fraction and Christian Ward for Bounding Into Comics! I loved the book and highly recommend it!

Review: Too Like the Lightning

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley of this book via NetGalley.

How many books do you get in your life that make you sit in a stunned daze then cry softly because they are such a beautiful, moving piece of art that's now over, and to which you will constantly compare every book you read until you come across another book that moves you so strongly?

Well, add one more to my pile.

This is a book I've been waiting for since the cover reveal months ago. I put its release date in my calendar, I was so intrigued by the gorgeous cover art and the wonderfully strange synopsis. I was lucky enough to get an ARC from NetGalley but I'm probably going to go out and buy it anyway, because this is something I want to own and lend and proselytize, I need to spread the word of this Good Book.

So what makes this so good? So many things. The worldbuilding is phenomenal. This is Earth 400 years from now, recognizable but foreign in the same way that Earth 400 years ago is to us. Our history - both the history we are familiar with now and the history we're writing for people 400 years from now - is woven into the fabric of the world. Some threads are predictable, and some aren't. We finally get flying cars and it changes the world in a surprising, sensible, fundamental way: no two locations on Earth are more than a few hours from each other. It's a change that seems obvious - yes, that's exactly how that would happen! - now that it's pointed out (a feeling I got about so many things in this story). The effects of these changes are much more subtle, and it was a joy discovering the fascinating ripple effects that turn up in unexpected places (the flying cars change the shape of the family unit and government) and interact so cleverly with each other.

The voice of the story, Mycroft Canner, is like a song stuck in my head. He is a criminal, but also a genius and a charmer, and his frequent eloquent, rambling asides are as confusing as they are illuminating. He is the culmination of the unreliable narrator. He is writing or maybe telling this story for posterity and he tries to explain to the reader the way things are in his time, but he is a poor example of a creature of his time. He introduces us to a fantastically large, diverse cast of power players in the economic, political, and artistic spheres.

The plot. Oh man, the plot. I don't want to get into what happens (I know I'll regret this in December when I'm prepping to read book two) because, well, a lot happens. Let me just say that every action of this story has impact, every moment has meaning, and while it starts out fairly slow (thank god, because the layers of culture and character and world needed to understand the plot can nearly drown you), it picks up quickly. It's as if I was in a giant house and just when I had explored the main building, new doors opened up. But not even like that - more like new rooms slammed from the sky, fully formed and fully compatible with what I knew but completely new and different.

Even with all of those great elements, I think what made me love this book was that it wasn't perfect. About a third of the way through I almost gave up. The world is chaotic - just familiar enough to lure you into assumptions but different enough to overturn them all, leaving you knowing less than you knew before. The international power dynamics of the world didn't add up. Gender was supposed to be fairly unmarked but so many characters supposedly luxuriated in extravagant gender performance. Many small things (for example, a tree that grows dozens of kinds of fruit in a home kitchen) feel too wonderful to ever exist, and I felt somehow wronged by their inclusion, even though I loved them. But this is an optimistic world, so those marvels can be marvelous. I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. I underestimated how deep the planning of the story runs, and everything paid off in the end.

This is magical, powerful, strange, and smart. Read it if you like well-written, well-plotted, engrossing SF.

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Review: Lagoon

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to "Lagoon" in audiobook format and not only was it a greatly entertaining experience, I suspect it might also be the best way for Western, white audiences to experience this book. Because, and this shouldn't have been a surprise to me since the book is set in Nigeria, all of the actors are either Nigerian or are very comfortable using Nigerian accents. It's something I wouldn't have thought much about if I were reading it visually, but fundamentally shaped the story for me when listening.

Adaora, Anthony, and Agu all happen to be on a beach in Lagos, Nigeria when a massive sonic boom occurs, followed by a wave that pulls them all into the ocean. Aliens have landed in the water, and they are particularly interested in these three. Adoara is worried that it may be because she is what her husband accuses her of being: a marine witch. She got into a fight with her husband and accidentally held him to the floor, seemingly by magic. Similarly, Agu almost killed a man with one punch. And Anthony knows that his songs draw on the power of the Earth.

The aliens can take on whatever form they like. They're mostly impervious to harm. And they come in peace, but Nigeria doesn't quite believe that. And this story is as much about Nigeria as it is about the aliens; Okorafor shows us Nigeria are by showing us their varied reactions to First Contact. A Christian priest decries Adaora and the alien she shelters; an LGBT group parades in the street next to the priest's followers; a group of young men scheme to kidnap the alien; a prostitute desperately resents the aliens and violently acts out. Even the city (and its gods) gets in on the action. The main highway is the home of the Bone Eater and feeds off the accidents and chaos caused by the aliens. Under Nigeria, the spider sits and spins the story of her people. Okorafor's incorporation of mythology, of every class from prostitutes to President, of native-born Nigerians to Black Americans, is chaotic, yes, but exciting and surprising in its activity.

Parts of the story didn't click for me, at the time, because the sheer number of voices was chaotic and I wasn't sure which characters I should invest in, which people I could expect to be important. But in retrospect I consider that a strength, because every voice is important, and that chaos is the human response to change. I do think it weakened the sense of plot, and it didn't give the story the opportunity to explore the aliens as a species, or the transforming things they said to Anthony, or the long-term impact on the lives of Adaora, Agu, and Anthony. I know that none of those things are the point, but they're still questions I wanted to see addressed (or would like to read about in the future!).

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Review: Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick

Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

"Sex Criminals" was a disappointment from beginning to end. Matt Fraction and Christian Ward created ODY-C, which I enjoyed quite a bit, and they've received rave reviews for Sex Criminals, so I'll admit my expectations were high, but the bar would've had to be pretty low for me to love this. On the upside, it was pretty funny, and I like its frankness and its attempt to speak to the awkwardness and shame attached to sex (especially for adolescents).

Right away I could tell the art wasn't for me. The character designs are boring and lack style, and it was hard for me to tell characters apart. The effects they use for "The Quiet" or "Cumworld," as they call it, are tacky and superficial. In general, the art is meh at best and feels cheap at worst.

Also confusing is the general story format and layout. There are at least three, maybe four storylines spread throughout time, and it's hard to tell which one is happening at any given time. When the main female character described her late teen years, it took me a while to understand it wasn't happening in the present, because she looked the same and there was no difference in the artwork to indicate it. This happens repeatedly throughout the novel, and didn't ever really get better.

Another device that didn't work for me, related to the above, is the breaking-the-fourth-wall element. The main character speaks to the reader directly. She narrates her life, with several panels devoted to her speaking 'face-to-face' with the reader (and shows up, as an adult, in scenes from her childhood). But this only happens occasionally, and wanes as the story continues, until I'm not sure why they included it at all because it only made the beginning more confusing. And again, if they had clearly demarcated with the art what was happening and when, this wouldn't have been an obstacle. I wish they had done something with the art to separate either the narrative voice from the story or the different eras from each other. Even using a larger panel at each transition to clearly establish setting. Or anything to give the reader a sense of time, location, and weight.

The story premise is ridiculous, and I wish they had taken that absurdity and run with it, because there are hints of the silly hilarity that could have ensued. The real Cumworld (a sex shop they frequent) always has laugh-out-loud worthy videos and products. (My favorite porn section: "Obamacore - socialist/medical themed.") There are innumerable puns. Some of the characters are off-the-wall, but in the fairly grounded and serious setting, all these wild elements feel tonally out of place. I get that the story is, at its core, about the relationship between these two people, but it's also a story about people who can stop time when they have sex! And there's a sex-world police force! You can keep the serious, grounded characters and still have a zany, strange world, but I think the overall effect here is that there are some really weird, strange things that are played down or played straight when they should've been played up. It's a crazy world, but no one in the story treats it that way.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the cheeky humor throughout, and I do appreciate the attempt at an allegory for teenage sexual awakening. But the latter feels pretty obvious and unsubtle, so while I like the idea behind it, it didn't stick the landing with me.

Either way, it's not that bad. I was entertained. I just don't think it was very good, and I certainly don't have any desire to read any further.

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Review: Patchwerk

Patchwerk by David Tallerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Patchwerk" is the third selection I've read of Tor.com's novella publishing series. It's nice that I can read these in a brief afternoon. I finished this one while at the library on the day it was due.

It's hard to talk about Patchwerk without spoiling the conceit of the novel. I had a similar difficulty with The Last Witness, the last Tor.com novella I read, but these stories couldn't be more different. Patchwerk doesn't try too hard to hide its premise, so I don't feel bad about spoiling it. Dran Florian, an inventor in a near-future world, has invented a machine that can pull matter from parallel universes. Dran realizes the extent of that power when he's confronted by his estranged wife and a sociopathic bureaucrat-inventor. As Dran repeatedly nears death, his machine pulls he and his wife (and unfortunately his enemies) into parallel universes.

The constant pushing forward and stepping sideways is the centerpiece of the story, and rightly so. If it hadn't worked, if it had been clunky, if it weren't compelling, this whole story would have failed. (And it easily could have been any of those things.) But it worked, and it was a delight to jump through many different genres and tropes along with the characters. There's a typical spy story, a steampunk airship, a bug-Earth, and a fantastical Egyptian barge. It's fun, it's a little campy, and it's full of vivid imagery that has stuck with me for weeks.

The character relationships and the plot itself are simplified somewhat, since the characters don't necessarily retain their identity as they switch worlds, but this simplicity allows Tallerman to tie up the end of the novel neatly while giving the idea driving the story some space to get complicated.

Overall, I didn't love it, but I certainly enjoyed it. I'd like to see it expanded and made into a movie because it would be a beautiful spectacle.

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Plutona #1, by Jeff Lemire and Emi Lenox

Plutona #1, by Jeff Lemire and Emi Lenox

Publisher: Image Comics
Art: Emi Lenox
Story: Jefff Lemire and Emi Lenox
Colors: Jordie Bellaire
Rating: 2/5

I think that Plutona is directed to a much younger age group than the one that I belong to, and most of my criticisms can be reduced to that. It's a simple story, with young characters who are broadly and sparsely sketched in this first issue. It's also a sweet story, though, with a cute premise and a diverse cast that will probably appeal much more to kids.

In Plutona, five kids - snarky and self-centered Mie and her younger brother Mike, quiet superhero-watching Teddy, unhappy, cigarette smoking Ray, and Mie's downtrodden friend Diane - find the body of a superhero named Plutona in the woods. That's essentially all that happens in the first issue, after the introduction of our cast.

The dialogue can get pretty cloying and too on the nose, in the way that writing for kids gets sometimes. Hopefully the characters will be more than just the fairly wooden stereotypes from the first issue.

The art is beautiful, with pastel watercolors on the cover and a kind of saturated-pastel color palette inside. I particularly liked the switch to Plutona's POV, which featured an emphasis on traditional comic elements and stylization.

This isn't for me, but I'd definitely recommend it to a younger child (partly just to see whether they actually like or not - I'm worried that it might be a little too twee, too written-down).

Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" over a month ago, but it feels right to be reviewing it now, just after finishing "The Winged Histories" by Sofia Samatar. Both are lush, tightly constructed fantasy empires that happen to be light on the fantasy elements for most of the story. Both feature women who love women (and, in various places, are or aren't treated badly for it). Both have similar things to say about colonization, imperialism, and rebellion.

Where the two books differ, though, is in style. "The Winged Histories" was poetic, elegant, wandering, organic. "Baru Cormorant" is sharp, a perfect machine where each action triggers a precise reaction and gains momentum until every piece has fallen into place in a completely logical but surprisingly powerful ending. It's a masterwork of plot and story creation.

The titular Baru is a woman from an island nation where families are comprised of a mother, two fathers, and children (or Baru's is, at least; there may be variation we don't see). When the colonizing Empire of Masks, or Masquerade, comes, they conquer not by force but by trade. The Masquerade is ostensibly a meritocracy, totally unconcerned with inherited power; all of the public servants wear masks (at least in their official capacity) to emphasize that it's not about the person, it's about their skills. They are also obsessed with chemistry and genetics, but (predictably) focused on the more destructive aspects of these sciences, like bombs and selective breeding.

That's not to say there isn't fighting the empire, though; one of Baru's fathers leaves to fight them and never returns. Baru is smart - a savant, as the Masquerade calls her - but it's not until she's older that she realizes that he might not have died. Instead, he might've suffered the painful punishments the Masquerade deals to those who commit "unhygenic" sexual behavior. By the time Baru figures it out, she's also learned something about herself: she loves women.

She is also fiercely committed to bringing down the Masquerade and she knows it cannot be torn down from outside. She uses her savant skills to get a posting in the imperial goverment: she is the chief accountant for another colony of the empire, and in this particular economically-fragile colony, that makes her in charge.

The rest of the novel grows from this firmly established foundation. Her appointment as accountant is the first domino in a series of events that lead to Baru winning the love of the people (and saving the imperial government in the region) by destroying the value of imperial currency. She leverages that power with the nobility to foment and lead a rebellion. Baru is reticient, determined, and sharp. Her focus is the center around which this entire novel (and probably this entire world, eventually) is wound. It's hard to put so much work on the shoulders of one character and have them carry it without turning into an overpowered robot, but Dickinson has built Baru strong and fanatical, and she'll do it - and she'll stay interesting, flawed, and human the whole time.

She also forms a deep but unconsummated relationship with a noblewoman, a relationship that can't ever be real because Baru must not let the Masquerade have any ammunition to use against her. The relationship is understated but Dickinson conveys the trust and loyalty and strength between them beautifully through small, intimate moments and oblique gestures. Baru is a stoic character by nature, and hiding even the small outward signs of love buries the romance deep for even the reader privy to some of her thoughts. I think Dickinson excellently makes it so that the small hints of romance that Baru does reveal are indicative of a powerful love. Their storyline has some of the most tender and fierce moments I've seen in a fictional lesbian romance, and while I have some qualms about how it worked out, I was wholeheartedly invested in the journey.

As carefully and measuredly as each event unfolds, I do feel that if you think too hard about some of the causal connections, something is lacking. Baru's achievements and her brilliant theories seem overexalted both by the characters in the book and metatextually (the book is getting a lot of praise, and the tone of the text leads the reader to fully believe in Baru's superpowers). In retrospect, I'm highly suspicious of any secret group of elite throne-manipulating powers that decides to let someone join them just for knowing intermediate economics.

The other curious lack here is the fantasy elements. There aren't any. Some are referenced toward the end of the story and will undoubtedly turn up in the next book, if the ending is any indication. The few fantastical elements in the book lean more toward science fiction than magic, which is something that felt fresh and interesting - an old-fantasy world with almost-industrial science and some strange powers of psychological conditioning.

As ambivalent as I am about some aspects of the story, the world-building and the character of Baru Cormorant were so thoroughly and enchantingly established that I can't wait for the sequel.

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At the End of Babel, by Michael Livingston

"At the End of Babel," by Michael Livingston. Art by Greg Ruth. From Tor.com, edited by Claire Eddy.

Published: July 1, 2015

Word count: ~7600

Rating: 4/5 stars

As a linguist and avid reader, I live for words. Stories about words are the best kind of stories, in my opinion, and anything referencing the Tower of Babel immediately jumps to the top of my 'to-read' list.

In Livingston's "At the End of Babel," words are powerful - but most of them are forbidden. All languages have been outlawed except one (which I assume, but I don't think is specified, is English). Tabitha Hoarse Raven is the last remaining member of her clan, and the last speaker of Keresan. She watched her father and the rest of her community get gunned down for speaking Keresan and dancing the moondance when she was a child. Now, she is going back to her ruined village to dance the moondance and call the gods in Keresan.

The story is anchored on Tabitha, and although we know a lot about her life, I feel she's lacking in personality. Still, she has a persistent, focused determination to complete her mission, and the story feels much the same. It is focused, constantly moving forward, and while it leaves little time for niceties (like elaborate character touches), it grabs your interest and marches you through this tightly-written story. Her determination is Livingston's determination is the reader's determination. We are all in this together, and we want her to succeed.

Until it happens, it's left a mystery what this 'success' entails - and when it does, it provides the most fantastical element of the story. In the beginning, I almost didn't recognize the story as SF/F, because the premise of a country (especially a dry region of the southern US, where I imagined this taking place) outlawing any minority languages under the pretense of 'unity' is hardly far-fetched. Livingston starts the story off, even, with a quotation from a proposed amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 that states:

No person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English.

This isn't a dystopia; it's modern-day America.

Livingston, though, shows us the visceral strength of language, the surprising and powerful things minority languages can do, in his closing act. Tabitha sings to the gods and they rain lightning down on her enemies in a storm that doesn't dissipate but travels on. And like that storm, Tabitha and the other native people she accumulates along the way show that people and cultures don't simply disappear, either, but persist.

Limbo #1, by Dan Watters, Caspar Wijngaard, and Jim Campbell

Limbo #1

Publisher: Image Comics
Art and colors: Caspar Wijngaard
Story: Dan Watters
Letters: Jim Campbell
Rating: 4/5

Another first-issue review! I have a lot of great things to say about Limbo. The comic takes place in what I imagine is a southern US town - lots of Spanish names and signs, but I also got a New Orleans feel from the city. Clay, our main character, is a detective straight of a noir film. He's got his own mystery to solve, though, because nine months ago, he woke up with no memories. A lounge singer named Brigitte asks for his help dealing with a crime lord (The Thumb) who she witnessed some freaky shit involving a sacrificial goat and a staticky TV set.

I'll say right off the bat that the one reason this isn't a 5-star comic for me is that it's just not my thing. Everything about it is quality and I liked it quite a lot, but it didn't hit that right combination of buttons for me to love it. The art is awesome, it's just not my favorite style, etc. I suspect that will change as the story grows in scope (and grows on me), but I've never been a huge fan of noir - it's just not my cup of tea.

That said, the art in this is awesome. The city is full of neon lights and Wijngaard conveys that by using cool neon blues, pinks, purples, and greens against sharp black backgrounds. It's a neat effect and gives the story great visual and stylistic coherence.

I'm also impressed with how well-paced this is. In just one issue, Clay takes on and (perhaps) completes a case, so we have a sense of continuity and closure, but that case also introduces us to the major players in the city. Best of all, it's clearly tied into some crazy otherworldly magic that's affecting the city as a whole, so we get a glimpse of the overall plot.

I'll definitely be picking up future issues of this, so stay tuned for more reviews!

From Under Mountains #1, by Sloane Leong, Claire Gibson, Marian Churchland, and Ariana Maher

From Under Mountains #1

Publisher: Image Comics
Art and colors: Sloane Leong
Story: Claire Gibson and Marian Churchland
Letters: Ariana Maher
Rating: 3/5 stars, with potential

So this is a new thing I'm trying: quick reviews of single-issue comics. I've picked up a bunch of first issues lately and I'm slogging through them, and I think doing a 100-200 word review for each one will 1) keep me motivated and 2) help me keep track of how I felt about all of these once I'm done, and see which ones I want to keep an eye on or add to my pull list.

I picked up From Under Mountains #1 because I like Image comics, the art looked vibrant, and I liked the setting. Once I opened it, I noticed the all-female creative team, which I like, a lot. It's hard to find a comic with even one woman involved so this is a grand slam.

Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot here to keep me interested. The art was bright and bold and I love the use of colors and layout in the first third of the book, but after the first spirit-summoning sequence, all of the backgrounds were flat and monochrome, which left me visually bored. The body and face proportions seemed off in some of the panels, too - little details not quite in the right place.

There is some potential in the story and characters, but there's an awful lot of info-dump-y dialogue paired with those flat-background panels. Looking at it now, the art and story are at their best when they rely mostly on visual action and less on dialogue. It's hard to tell what the main plot is going to be, but there's a pair of noble siblings (the brother gets to have adventures while his sister stays at home),  some women summoning lethal spirits, a drunk would-be assassin, and a scruffy hero. Some of the scene changes (and plot-line introductions) feel a little disjointed, and I had a hard time keeping track of what was happening and who was who. It feels like there's a rich mythology behind this, but that it didn't quite get conveyed in the telling.

Still, I'm intrigued enough that I might pick up the second issue to see if it improves. When the art is good, it's lovely and uses some great bright jewel tones (which are my favorite), and I suspect in the future the dialogue will flow a little better.

Review: The Winged Histories

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received an e-galley copy of this book from Edelweiss and Small Beer Press.

I went into "The Winged Histories" without reading its companion novel, "A Stranger in Olondria." Sofia Samatar's first book came out three-ish years ago, and I'd heard of it in passing but never picked it up. I love Small Beer Press, though, so between that and the positive buzz I jumped at the chance to review this.

Now, "The Winged Histories" is explicitly not a sequel, but for a large chunk of this book I felt like I was missing something. Much of this review is going to detail what my expectations were based on the back-of-book blurb and my experience at points in the book, and how they didn't quite match up to what the book actually was. As the blurb states, it is the stories of four women - a soldier, a poet, a priestess, and a socialite - and their involvement in a war.

The soldier, Tav, gets the first story, and we're thrown into her life as a warrior right away. This was my first stumbling block: it's difficult to tell what the timeline is in this first story, at least in the beginning. Tav is disoriented and remembering events, and she alternates between short, sequential anecdotes and summary recollections with few cues for the reader. Part of my confusion might have been due to my disjointed reading, and I strongly feel a re-read would solve all of my problems (but not starting the book with this particular sequence might have prevented them, too). Once things settled down and became linear, I had an easier time with it.

The second revelation that helped me cope with the story came from another reviewer as I was skimming reviews, about halfway through. They suggested reading this as if it were four short stories, not one narrative, and that immediately made the story 100% better for me. I thought the book was going to be a slow burn that would encompass Tav's emotional trauma and recovery, paralleling the nation of Kestenya's trauma and recovery during and after the war, mostly focusing on Tav but with the other three women woven into her narrative. And even halfway through, toward the end of the priestess's chapter, I was still expecting the rest of Tav's story. That's not exactly what I got, but from this point on, I was able to adjust my expectations and thoroughly enjoy the book with no qualifications.

So, aside from the confusion, I loved this book. All the characters were beautifully written, compelling, tragic, human. The story is, generally, about a war for Kestenya's independence, led by Tav and her cousin, Dasya. The drama of the story is based largely in the elaborate culture that Samatar has created. Inheritance goes to nephews before sons and nieces before daughters. Dasya is the son of the Telkan, and heir to the throne because he has no male cousins - only Tav and her sister, Siski. Legends of Drevedi - winged vampires who supposedly share a lineage with humans - are the fantastical element lurking in the background, waiting to step forward. The Drevedi are maligned, supposedly extinct, but intertwined with the traditional religion - which has now been outlawed in favor of the Cult of the Stone. The Stone in question is covered in fragments of writings in many different languages, and supposedly fell from the sky to the middle of a desert. All in all, the worldbuilding here is fantastic, rich, and decadently layered - and remarkably fresh and original.

The characters Samatar chose to follow - Tav, Siski, Tav's lover, and the isolated daughter of the high priest of the Cult of the Stone - are all of varying importance in the war for Kestenya's independence and its fallout, ranging from Tav, who leads the charge, to her lover, who comforts her and who doesn't shy away from reminding her of the cost of such a war to the women like her who are left behind. Tav's story, appropriately, is more narrative, but troubled by the trauma of war. Her lover's story is absolute poetry. Siski, the socialite, tells a story of romance and loss of innocence. And the priestess reveals the secrets of the Priest of the Stone, who claims to know secrets of the gods but knows nothing about people. Together they form a portrait of a country that strives for unity and independence but is itself a messy, heterogeneous collection of peoples and beliefs. This is a story about history, and how what 'history' is depends on the perspectives that construct it.

This book also shines in its prose. This is the most elegantly, painfully written fantasy book I've read in years. Samatar's language is subtle but impactful and haunting. She writes poetry, outside of her novels, and it's clear and apparent on every page. She knows the power of a word in the right place and when to hold back, to wait or omit entirely. The result is a treasure where every page is steeped in beauty and emotion.

Overall, this was definitely a challenge, but one that was absolutely worth the effort and perhaps worth more because of it. The characters, the prose, the world-buidling are rich and beautiful and I am itching to pick up "A Stranger in Olondria" as soon as I possibly can. Read this book, even if you're not a fantasy fan, because this is a beautiful book first and a fantasy book second.

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