Reading: The Black Tides of Heaven

[white_hart]

I bought J.Y. Yang's novella The Black Tides of Heaven after reading a glowing review on Tor.com. There's a lot to like in it: an Asian-influenced fantasy world rather than the more traditional Eurocentric version; an intiguing system of magic dependent on manipulation of the elements to create effects similar to moden technology, in conflict with the non-magic users who want to develop that technology; and best of all, an interesting take on gender where children are referred to as "they" until such time as they declare a gender (supported by the magic system, which allows indefinite suppression of puberty followed by the rapid development of the appropriate gendered characteristics). However, I thought the plotting was weak, partly as a result of the episodic structure (the novella is divided into four parts set across a period of about 30 years) and the writing was clunky and infodumpy and full of rather stilted "As we both know, Bob, in our society this happens..." conversations, and even though it's only a novella I felt that it dragged so much I almost abandoned it rather than plodding on to the end. I notice that it was nominated for the Hugos, so clearly lots of other people felt differently, but this really didn't do much for me.