sophia_sol | Entries tagged with author: nk jemisin

A collection of short fiction by NK Jemisin. I don't have a lot to say about this collection, tbh! Jemisin's a good writer, and she has a bunch of very good stories in her. Like in almost any short story collection*, I don't love every story in the collection, but when you're reading a collection by a writer who works for you, the baseline level of worth-reading in the collection is still not bad. And some of the stories are excellent!

A few of the stories in the collection I've read before, but most of them are new to me, and the ones I already knew were worth rereading.

My biggest problem with this collection, tbh, is the ongoing war between my descriptivist values and prescriptivist instincts for language, as applies to the title of the book. "Until" as a word is actually a derivative of "till" so if you want a short form of "until," "till" is right there! You don't need to go for "'til"! That's a form of over-correction! But given the prevalence of "'til," including (obviously!) in professionally-edited writing, I think I am losing this one, and I need to learn how to accept it. Sigh. The eternal struggle.

*every story collection except Zen Cho's Spirits Abroad, where I love every single story!

I discovered very recently that there is a novella sequel to the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy! It's from the pov of an extremely young godling and it's very charming, I was charmed. It's fairly lightweight compared to the main trilogy, but it's a fun way to wrap things up and to point to the ways in which that universe is going to be dramatically different after the shake-ups that took place over the last three books. And I liked the pov character Shill a lot!

Hey look, it only took me a year to get to the third book in this trilogy, after the five years it took between the first and the second; amazing, go me!

Unfortunately I think this is my least favourite book in the trilogy though. I think my feelings about the viewpoint character matter a lot in my enjoyment of these books! And Sieh is just not my character type at all. I was bored and impatient through much of the book, and I just didn't really ever get emotionally attached to him. Which is too bad, because there WAS interesting stuff happening! It's just...I would have preferred to see it from the point of view of almost any other character.

Sieh also seems to me like a choice that doesn't fit the pattern of the books. The other two are both narrated by mortal women who love a god, and this one is narrated by a god who loves some mortals. And the book's marketing description even makes you think it's going to fit the pattern of the other two books by focusing on the mortal woman Shahar, but she turns out to be just one of several important secondary characters. And instead I'm stuck with Sieh. (Sorry, Sieh!)

I am glad I read it, and I'm glad to know where the story went, but the second book is still unquestionably my favourite, and I think I'm unlikely to ever feel called to reread this one.

Hoorah, I have now read all of the finalists for the Hugo Best Novel this year! Let's go through my ranking of them.

For the books I finished and wrote a proper review, I've linked the review from the title of the book.

1. Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

Fascinating and lovely and odd and touching, and hugely immersive for such a (relatively) short novel.

2. Black Sun, by Rebecca Roanhorse

Interesting and enjoyable, loved the worldbuilding and the author's style, but frustrated by the cliffhanger ending.

3. Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

I struggled to be invested for the first half but once I was there I was THERE. Very weird in a very compelling way.

4. Network Effect, by Martha Wells

I adore Murderbot and everyone Murderbot cares about, but I had trouble following what was going on for a lot of this book. Possibly I was hampered by having a bad day when I was reading it. Possibly I should try rereading it before casting my final votes, because I may not be doing it justice here. We'll see if I get round to that...

5. The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal

I mostly enjoy the series, but this book didn't work for me as well as previous entries in the series did. Too stressful for my tastes, and the ending didn't work for me.

6. The City We Became, by N.K. Jemisin

I've really enjoyed the other novels by Jemisin I've read, but this was a DNF for me. It felt overly invested in New York City being special, and also just overly invested in New York City, a city that I don't have any reason to care about at all, having no personal connection to it. I think there were other things that weren't working for me as well, but I no longer remember what they were! And I didn't write down my thoughts at the time of reading it. But the book just didn't work for me.

Well it only took me uh 5 years since I read the first book in this trilogy to finally get around to the second. I'm GREAT at going through my to-read list in a sensible and well-planned order!

Anyway this book is even better than the first one I think! I liked that it took place largely among more "ordinary" people instead of all the action being set in the palace-city of the ruling class among the Arameri and the gods. I mean the gods are also definitely present in this book, but the feel is different.

The main character is a blind woman named Oree from a refugee group in the land of the Arameri. I really liked Oree, and loved the dynamics of her relationship with Madding, and the even more complicated and evolving one with Shiny. It was also fascinating to see the fallout from the events of the last book from the perspectives of people who weren't intimately involved and don't know the details of what happened.

I don't know that I have a lot to say about this book, but I found it a highly compelling read and was riveted throughout.

Here's hoping it takes me less than 5 years to actually read the next one!

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

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Omphalos, by Ted Chiang

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The Archronology of Love, by Caroline M. Yoachim

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Away With the Wolves, by Sarah Gailey

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

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For He Can Creep, by Siobhan Carroll

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I picked this book back up because I want to read the sequels but I felt that would go better if I reminded myself what happened in the first one.

So this was my second time reading this book, and both times I found myself stopping halfway through the book for a very long break (like, multi-month), long enough to mostly forget what happened in the first half, before finally finishing the book. Usually I only do this kind of thing if I'm finding a book unusually stressful (eg The Tenant of Wildfell Hall or The Reverse of the Medal), but I don't find The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to be that stressful, so there's clearly something else going on...? I said the first time I read this book that I loved it, and I think that's true, but it seems that there's something about it that doesn't work for me, even if I'm not sure how to articulate what.

I'll be interested to find out what I think about the sequels.

Superficially speaking, this book's beginning premise is rather similar to that of The Goblin Emperor - mixed-race heir of an extremely powerful emperor, drawn suddenly into the complicated politics of the capital city without any sort of preparation. It's also similar in that it is SUPER DUPER UP MY ALLEY. Other than that they're pretty much as different as books can be? Which makes it really interesting to me that they are both SO VERY MUCH up my alley. I guess they appeal different parts of my id.

It's kind of hard for me to talk about this book because I took a two-month break from reading it halfway through. Not intentionally! I faithfully brought it in to work with me every day, to read during lunch. And every day during lunch I found myself choosing to find something to read online on my phone instead. IDEK, my brain is the worst sometimes. I was super enjoying the book and WANTED to keep reading it but there was some sort of block keeping me from continuing.

But I got over it! ....after enough time that I no longer remember much about the first half of the book, whoops.

But that's okay; I remember loving the first half, and I loved the second half too.

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