![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Reading roundup
Jun. 12th, 2022 07:05 pmRecord of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers: I wasn't terribly keen on the first two books in Chambers' Wayfarers series, but I rather enjoyed this; it's a gentle read, following the day-to-day lives of a handful of members of the Exodus Fleet, a group of generation ships which carried the last human refugees from a dying Earth into the galaxy, where they travelled for centuries before settling in orbit in a star system given to them by a galactic civilisation which views humanity much as contemporary Western societies view refugees from the global South.
I do wish Chambers didn't keep referring to "veggies", though, but I realise that's an entirely irrational linguistic prejudice of mine.
The Past is Red - Catherynne M Valente: I read this because it's nominated for the Best Novella Hugo. It had a nagging sense of familiarity which was explained when I got to the end and saw that the first part was published as a standalone short story some years ago, as I'd obviously read that. It's a darkly comic post-apocalyptic story set among the inhabitants of a giant floating city made of garbage on a flooded earth. I found the contrast between the comic tone and the grim subject-matter pretty jarring, and am not sure that expanding it from a short story to a novella really added much.
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 3 - Ryan North: This was a relaunch of the series, with a slightly different style for the character which I found incredibly jarring, though other than that it was a fun time-travel romp.
Radical Sewing - Kate Weiss: less about the radical possibilities of making your own clothes and more about how to do it, which I mostly knew.
A Master of Djinn - P. Djèli Clark: steampunk fantasy detective novel, with a fabulous heroine who walks around in Western-style three-piece suits and bowler hats and a sidekick who is equally kickass despite wearing hijab. Slightly clunky in places, but terrific fun.
Across the Green Grass Fields - Seanan McGuire: the sixth of the Wayward Children series tells the story of horse-mad Regan, who has spent her life trying desperately to fit in, until she walks through a door into a world populated by hoofed animals - centaurs, unicorns, kelpies and many more. Rather charming, though also quite slight.
Welcome to St Hell - Lewis Hancox: fantastic graphic novel memoir about a trans boy growing up in north-west England.
A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik: I loved this novel, the first of a trilogy set in a magical high school where there are no teachers and the students are under constant attack from magical monsters which mean that normally only one in four actually survive to graduation. It's kind of the anti-Harry Potter (though it also reminded me quite a lot of Buffy's "high school is hell"). The narrator is a cynical outcast in school society, which imbues her narrative with a lot of dark humour; there's also a strong through-line interrogating privilege and class as well as a compelling plot.
Elder Race - Adrian Tchaikovsky: this novella alternates the points of view of two characters, one of whom is experiencing the story as an epic fantasy and the other who knows they are actually in a lost colony SF story. I found it rather reminiscent of some of Ursula Le Guin's early Hainish novels.
Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao: a futuristic mecha SF novel based on Chinese history, this was everything I'd hoped that She Who Became the Sun would be and wasn't. Its heroine powers her way from peasant girl to empress fuelled entirely by a towering rage, initially at the man who killed her sister and then at the whole system which allowed this to happen; it's not necessarily a particularly subtle or nuanced story, but I thought it was terrific fun, and there is also a lovely OT3 (and I am an absolute sucker for an OT3).
I do wish Chambers didn't keep referring to "veggies", though, but I realise that's an entirely irrational linguistic prejudice of mine.
The Past is Red - Catherynne M Valente: I read this because it's nominated for the Best Novella Hugo. It had a nagging sense of familiarity which was explained when I got to the end and saw that the first part was published as a standalone short story some years ago, as I'd obviously read that. It's a darkly comic post-apocalyptic story set among the inhabitants of a giant floating city made of garbage on a flooded earth. I found the contrast between the comic tone and the grim subject-matter pretty jarring, and am not sure that expanding it from a short story to a novella really added much.
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl vol 3 - Ryan North: This was a relaunch of the series, with a slightly different style for the character which I found incredibly jarring, though other than that it was a fun time-travel romp.
Radical Sewing - Kate Weiss: less about the radical possibilities of making your own clothes and more about how to do it, which I mostly knew.
A Master of Djinn - P. Djèli Clark: steampunk fantasy detective novel, with a fabulous heroine who walks around in Western-style three-piece suits and bowler hats and a sidekick who is equally kickass despite wearing hijab. Slightly clunky in places, but terrific fun.
Across the Green Grass Fields - Seanan McGuire: the sixth of the Wayward Children series tells the story of horse-mad Regan, who has spent her life trying desperately to fit in, until she walks through a door into a world populated by hoofed animals - centaurs, unicorns, kelpies and many more. Rather charming, though also quite slight.
Welcome to St Hell - Lewis Hancox: fantastic graphic novel memoir about a trans boy growing up in north-west England.
A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik: I loved this novel, the first of a trilogy set in a magical high school where there are no teachers and the students are under constant attack from magical monsters which mean that normally only one in four actually survive to graduation. It's kind of the anti-Harry Potter (though it also reminded me quite a lot of Buffy's "high school is hell"). The narrator is a cynical outcast in school society, which imbues her narrative with a lot of dark humour; there's also a strong through-line interrogating privilege and class as well as a compelling plot.
Elder Race - Adrian Tchaikovsky: this novella alternates the points of view of two characters, one of whom is experiencing the story as an epic fantasy and the other who knows they are actually in a lost colony SF story. I found it rather reminiscent of some of Ursula Le Guin's early Hainish novels.
Iron Widow - Xiran Jay Zhao: a futuristic mecha SF novel based on Chinese history, this was everything I'd hoped that She Who Became the Sun would be and wasn't. Its heroine powers her way from peasant girl to empress fuelled entirely by a towering rage, initially at the man who killed her sister and then at the whole system which allowed this to happen; it's not necessarily a particularly subtle or nuanced story, but I thought it was terrific fun, and there is also a lovely OT3 (and I am an absolute sucker for an OT3).
