A Fan's Playground

As with Gideon the Ninth, it took a long time of reading before I got invested in Harrow the Ninth. But it was even longer for HtN -- I was well over halfway through before I really started caring. The thing is, I find Tamsyn Muir to be a charismatic writer with interesting ideas, but that can only take a person so far!

A lot of the book is about Harrow just sort of....drifting along and reacting to things as they happen, without any particular wants or goals or anything. And there are some very good plot-relevant reasons why this is the case, but I think it gets in the way of helping the reader find reasons to care to keep reading, when the viewpoint character you're reading about doesn't seem to care about much of anything or anyone. There's no narrative or emotional drive, no "can't want to see what happens next!"

Anyway eventually things started feeling more interesting and relevant to me, and I started caring a bunch, and I think when I compare the parts of GtN I was invested in vs the parts of HtN I was invested in, HtN works for me SO much more. It's less directly a horror novel (though there's still uhhhh plenty of gore), and there were fewer major player characters for me to keep track of so it was less confusing. And also it's a book about ( hmmm I guess this is spoilers now )

Some misc final thoughts: Muir has successfully taught me a new word, I've never come across "tergiversation" before; this book reads in places like its author is someone for whom the Sabriel-Lirael-Abhorsen books were formative; yep the memes were indeed rather jarring, at least the ones I was able to notice/recognise.

I used to love this book when I was a teen but I haven't read it for a VERY long time because I had the growing suspicion that if I were to read it again I would discover that some of Orson Scott Card's execrable prejudices had made it into the narrative. The other day I pulled it off my bookshelf with the thought that maybe it was finally time to get rid of my copy, but I glanced at the first page and all of a sudden I felt the need to reread it again first, something I thought I'd never do.

And having now done so...I was absolutely right about the execrable prejudices, and I'm mad about how much I still care about this terrible book. Look: the premise underlying the whole book is that the worst possible thing for human history would be Christopher Columbus NOT voyaging to the Americas. You can't escape the fact that the very premise of the book is insultingly, enormously racist - and then it piles on more racism and sexism and so forth on top of that, in the reading of it.

Pastwatch is a group of researchers in a post-environmental-catastrophe future, who develop technology to be able to look into the past. And as they do so, they begin to realise that maybe it would be possible to change the past in order to bring about a better future with less suffering and unhappiness. The story of the researchers is alternated with sections of historical fiction about Christopher Columbus, the figure the researchers eventually settle on to be the centre of their plans.

When I was a teen, I didn't notice most of the terrible things this book does and loved it for the things it does do well. And there ARE some very good things about it!

I loved all the characters in the Pastwatch sections and how dedicated they are to understanding other kinds of people, to promoting the importance even of the overlooked and oppressed, to listening to anyone and engaging from a basis of equality. I loved Tagiri especially, her compassion and her oddness, and how it's her oddness specifically that allows her to do the things she does instead of conformity being valued. And as a white person I had the privilege to be able to have it be nice to think of Columbus as a fundamentally good person who merely got some things wrong. It's comforting to think of a world where people are willing to redeem themselves even if they do evil things, that they can learn better and do better, that we can all make a better future together. And the writing is engaging and readable, and the very idea of Pastwatch is just endlessly interesting to think about.

BUT. There's such a big but there.

It is so racist! In that way where it is clear that the author thinks he's doing amazing at being an ally by including such racial diversity amongst his characters.

The very idea of writing a book where noted colonialist, slaver, and murderer Christopher Columbus is one of the GREATEST PEOPLE TO EVER EXIST IN HUMAN HISTORY is just breathtaking to start with.

(Why yes, the book DOES explicitly say that there's nobody else who can compare to Columbus' greatness other than the Noah figure!) (And yes, the Noah myth IS prioritised over the other flood myths of the region when discussing the historical reality behind the myth!) (And no, the idea that plenty of overlooked people could have been just as great if they hadn't been prevented due to circumstances beyond their control is never thought of!) (And obviously the idea that "great" could possibly mean anything other than "influential" is never considered!) (and yes I have reached semantic satiation on the word great and it doesn't sound like a word anymore! :P)

( cut both for spoilers and for discussions of racism, sexism, ableism, and christianity-centrism )

A lovely collection of short stories being sold with all proceeds going to support UCLH Charity's COVID-19 appeal. A thoroughly enjoyable book, with an intention that the stories within are at least somewhat optimistic. Also they're all various flavours of sff. Also a high percentage of queerness. All of which is WHAT I WANT out of a story so YAY.

The stories I loved the most (I HAD FEELINGS) were, in order of appearance:

• Storm Story by Llinos Cathryn Thomas, about people working together to survive on a generation ship crossing an endless ocean in search of land


• Bethany, Bethany by Lizbeth Myles, about changelings and sisterhood


• Seaview on Mars by Katie Rathfelder, about having survived the early hard years of a colony establishing itself on a new world, and how to live in it now that you're old and the colony's thriving


• A Hundred and Seventy Storms by Aliette de Bodard, about a spaceship who's a person and her human cousin, doing their best to support each other in difficult circumstances


• This is New Gehesran Calling by Rebecca Fraimow, about a diaspora being connected to their community and their identity in various ways via underground radio

My second-favourite stories (still all very good!) were:

• Upside the Head by Marissa Lingen, about a concussion researcher with an experimental treatment to help people with post-concussion syndrome recover, and the hockey players who grow in new directions as a result. I felt invested in the concussion researcher and her work, but I felt a bit distant from the experimental subjects.


• Four by Freya Marske, about seeing the good in the world and in other people and continuing on, even when there are still bad things that happen, and also about the four horsepeople of the apocalypse. I struggled with remembering names because three different significant characters had names with very similar vibes to me, so I kept getting Felicity and Patricia and Olivia mixed up with each other, which made it challenging to follow. And I was sad that uh Olivia's (I think??? it was Olivia?) story didn't have a happy resolution within the narrative, but the overall feel of the story was still really lovely and great.


• St Anselm-by-the-Riverside by Iona Datt Sharma, about an alternate-universe Earth dealing with a Chilling instead of global warming, and a completely different pandemic. A little too close to home for me to be fully into it right now, and I had a brief moment near the beginning where I thought the fantasy plot stuff was going in a COMPLETELY different direction than it actually was and now I secretly want that story instead, but as a story it's still very good despite the things I was bringing to it.

I found The Girls Who Read Austen and Love, Your Flatmate to be just kind of boring to me, I didn't love the (unintentional?) thematic implications of Low Energy Economy that the abject suffering of workers under capitalism is worth it because the work they do allows other people to thrive, and I don't feel like I quite followed enough of the beginning of Of A Female Stranger for the payoff to be successful for me.

So yes, not every story worked for me, because that's just the nature of short story collections, but a very respectable percentage of them did! Sometimes I finish a collection having only felt strongly about a couple stories in it, but this one didn't have that problem. A good collection, very worth reading, and your money goes to a good cause!

Time for the Hugo nominated novelettes! As a whole, I ended up liking the options in this category much more than what was in the short stories this year.

Here's my thoughts on each of the 6 novelettes. I'm listing them in the order for which I will vote for them, top to bottom choices.

Emergency Skin, by N.K. Jemisin

( Read more... )

Omphalos, by Ted Chiang

( Read more... )

The Archronology of Love, by Caroline M. Yoachim

( Read more... )

Away With the Wolves, by Sarah Gailey

( Read more... )

The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye, by Sarah Pinsker

( Read more... )

For He Can Creep, by Siobhan Carroll

( Read more... )

So you'd think when you're having a bad day that it's the right time to read a book you've been looking forward to, right?

Unfortunately when you're me, having a bad day apparently means not having the spoons to like, follow plot and stuff. And concentrating hard enough to parse long terms in camelcase is also not on the docket, which is particularly unfortunate when I'm trying to read about Murderbot given its tendency to call things names like TargetContact and targetControlSystem.

Also the names Arada and Amena are too similar and it's just unfair to make a reader keep track of that.

(I should have done the equivalent of rewatching episode 172 of Sanctuary Moon last night instead of trying something new. Murderbot is very relatable.)

Anyway Murderbot's idea of how to have emotional conversations is much more my speed to read about than the last book I read. "I don't want to not see you again" YESSSSSS I have a lot of feelings about how Murderbot's relationships with both Mensah and ART are important to it even if it doesn't like the word "relationship"! Also I love Amena and the way you can SEE Amena recognising Murderbot having all the feelings it doesn't want to talk about. (And also Amena having feelings about Murderbot.)

I care a lot about Murderbot and everyone Murderbot cares about!

The plot...I have literally no clue, I'm all at sea as to who was responsible for what and what actually happened. Pretty sure this is a me problem though. Maybe at some point I'll reread this book and it'll all make sense because I'll have the brainpower to actually pay attention.

Sorry y'all about this disaster of a book review but here we are!

SFF written by a white man in the 1960s, so it is, unsurprisingly, rather sexist and colonialist. It's a very readable book but I don't actually like it.

The general premise: GOTTA SPREAD DEMOCRACY TO THE UNIVERSE but the Interplanetary Relations Bureau cannot force it onto other people (actual IRB motto: "Democracy imposed from without is the severest form of tyranny"!), so agents are embedded in planets to kind of work from underneath to make a world become a planet-wide democracy without it realizing it's being influenced. (Which obviously isn't forcing!!)

This one planet is proving difficult to manipulate, until one man comes along who understands the locals' interest in BEAUTY and uses that to help turn them against the king. Success! Democracy! Okay.

I think the book is trying to make a point about the importance of the arts? Which, I'm charmed by a Serious Science Fiction book of the era trying to make that point. But even though the main character purports to be interested in art for art's sake rather than for how he can use an understanding of art to manipulate people into democracy, he's certainly perfectly happy to use it that way, and the book as a whole is definitely a little too much about How To Make Backwards People Into Civilized Democracies. Hello colonialism. Gross.

Also there is exactly one female character and she's the love interest, and there's way too much narrative focus on how she's less attractive when she's in one of her various disguises.

ALSO as if the above weren't enough, there's an uncomfortable disability narrative. The despotic king likes to cut off one hand of anyone who displeases him. And these people all then go to "one-handed villages" even though they're not forced to go there. As if people with disabilities cannot (or do not deserve to) function in normal society and need to go live in their own private enclaves cut off from the rest of the world. And yes, one-handed people become instrumental in bringing about the revolution, but the idea of the villages is, uh. Bad. And also the one-handed trumpet players are only so important because of what they mean to the king, and not for their own sake, so there's that too. Disabled people as props in other people's stories!

Also, I just googled the sequel and it involves subhuman slaves SO THAT'S COOL. *shudders*

I love Becky Chambers' writing, a lot. Every book of hers I've read so far has been eminently worth reading, and I love the way she approaches her books. She gives me this feeling that she sees truly how difficult and complex people are, but knows that people are nonetheless wonderful and worthwhile. As is the rest of the universe. It's just, like, goodhearted and hopeful without feeling like it's ignoring reality to feel that way.

This book is no exception.

It's about four astronauts on a mission out into space to visit four different far-away worlds to learn things, with the intention to come back to Earth 80 years later. It's a record written by one of those four astronauts, of their experiences, to act as the necessary prologue for a question they have to ask the Earth they left behind decades ago.

And it's like....a love letter to science, and to the wonders of the universe, and to the way people are so vastly capable of community and support on both macro and micro levels. It's so lovely and I love it a lot and I had a lot of feelings and I cried. GOOD JOB BOOK.

(Also it's casually queer and polyamorous with no big deal made of any of it and it's great. Their genders and sexualities and relationships just are what they are.)

Sometimes I forget that I haven't actually read all of the Vorkosigan Saga. I've been immersed in the fandom so long, have read so much fic, that I have managed to infer a lot of what happens in the books without actually reading them all.

But I do genuinely like the canon for this series! So I finally made a bit more progress on my read-through. Komarr has been read!

This is the one that introduces Ekaterin, and I'm so pleased to finally meet her properly. I don't know. What is there to say? Another good instalment in a good series. I liked Ekaterin and Miles a lot.

Ahh, the quartet-long arc of Murderbot's complicated feelings about its relationships with other beings and about what it wants to do with itself is so good!

I've been hearing about the Murderbot novellas for a while, but kept on going back and forth on whether to pick them up based on different things I was hearing about them. But finally I decided to give them a try and I'm SO GLAD I DID! And also, actually, super glad I waited till now because it meant I could read all four of them together in one go. I feel like the series arc really benefits from treating it as a four-volume novel rather than as four separate books. Each book has its own story but they build together beautifully. And I think if I'd read the first one on its own I would have been a bit disappointed by it despite all the things that book does well, but because the end of the first book is not even close to the end of Murderbot's arc, I am instead delighted.

( spoilers of varying degrees for all four books )

It's the next adventure of David Starr, now known as LUCKY STARR! This time he's thwarting PIRATES. Really competent and unusually well organised ones! You can tell how capable they are because the ever-clever Lucky is actually occasionally surprised by them.

The plot in this book is just as silly as the last one, and Lucky's reluctance to tell literally anyone else what's going on nearly bites him in the butt multiple times, but of course Lucky is too MACHO for any real teamwork. (I'm too community-minded for a book like this, I guess, but the rampant individualism on display here just seems like a laughably bad idea.)

But of course it all works out in the end because Lucky is just that good! And in the meantime the reader is treated to extended sequences of having space science explained in detail.

I continue to be entertained but unmoved by these books. On to the next!