sophia_sol | Entries tagged with author: p djeli clark

Whew, coming in just under the wire, here's my voting plans for the Hugo best novel! Obviously She Who Became The Sun is required to win, but in any other year both my #2 and #3 choices would be strong contenders for first place in my mind, and it's just too bad they can't all three get awards! Links to my full reviews in the titles of the books.

1. She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan

I cannot vote anything but this for first place because it's perfect in every way.

2. A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine

It may not reach the same degree of delighting-me-on-every-level that A Memory Called Empire did, but it's still a fascinating and compelling book and very well done.

3. Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki

A book that's doing its own thing, haven't really seen anything else like it, and I am HERE for it.

4. A Master of Djinn, by P Djélí Clark

Not as strong as his novella in the same world (The Haunting of Tram Car 015), especially in terms of development of character for the protagonist, so I was disappointed -- but it was still good, and I do love the worldbuilding.

5. The Galaxy and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers

Usually I love Chambers' approach of writing plotless novels about disparate characters interacting and being generally hopeful, but this one focuses on themes of children and parenthood and reproductive choices, and those are just not themes that inherently speak to me, so instead of finding it cozily enjoyable I was just bored.

6. Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

Andy Weir doesn't understand how humans work, doesn't understand how the soft sciences work, doesn't understand how communication works, is a little too into leaders being autocratic, and mostly just cares about expositing at length about science things he thinks are cool. I'm glad he has found his niche, and I am charmed by how much he loves science, but I did not like this book.

This book is set in the same world as some of Clark's past works - a novella and a short story. I absolutely adored the novella (The Haunting of Tram Car 013), and the short story left me cold (A Dead Djinn in Cairo). A Master of Djinn is the further adventures of the hero of the short story, so I was a bit apprehensive going in that it might be more similar to that short story than to the novella. Unfortunately I was right!

That's not to say that there's nothing to like about the book. I enjoyed seeing more of the world Clark has created, and a dapper lesbian main character IS an inherent pleasure.

But unlike Tram Car, the stories focused on Fatma seem to be of the major, potentially-world ending variety with lots of excitement and murder and intrigue and heroics. Which is all well and good but not inherently as interesting to me personally, and I just don't feel like the character of Fatma is herself well enough fleshed out for me to enjoy the book just for the pleasure of hanging out with her.

Also......the book lauds Fatma as being amazing and wonderful and capable and admired, but she was SOOOOO slow to figure out ( uhhh spoilers for some of the mystery I guess )

If the book were deliberately portraying her as someone who is very good at some things but not at other things, that would be totally fine and good, but instead it seems to me that the reader is expected to take it at face value how great she is at her job without any complications to that understanding, despite what we see her fail at. Which is really irritating.

So. Overall, I didn't love this book, which I am sad about. Hopefully whatever Clark writes next will be a return to the things I do love about his writing!

My ranking of the novellas for the Hugo Awards this year! For the books where I wrote a full review, that review is linked from the title.

1. The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo

I adored this book, it's so great!

2. Finna, by Nino Cipri

Thoroughly enjoyable light read.

3. Ring Shout, by P Djeli Clark

An excellent book I really admire, but didn't actually particularly enjoy the reading of.

4. Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi

This was a DNF, unfortunately. I found it confusing and hard to follow, and eventually I was just like, "I am not getting anything from trying and failing to make my brain focus on this" so I gave it up a little over halfway through. But it's clearly doing some interesting and important things, despite the way it's written not working for my brain, so I'm still ranking it above the novellas I actively disliked!

5. No Award

6. Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey

Decent premise but I found it deeply frustrating in the way it totally failed to consider anything it was doing.

7. Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire's writing continues to irritate me. I'm going to do me and everyone who reads my reviews a favour and I am not going to continue to read McGuire even if she shows up on future hugos.

This is a very good book which I'm glad exists in the world, and which I'm glad I read, but which I also.....don't really love. Look, it's just not really my kind of thing, a story about a prophesied champion with a magic sword fighting against beings of pure evil.

Did the author do really great things with that basic premise? Absolutely! Interesting themes well integrated into the narrative, good character building and place-setting, and a narrative drive. And not the kind of setting or characters who often get to be sword-wielding champions of prophecy in fantasy books! (It's about a black woman and her various compatriots fighting against eldritch abominations in the Ku Klux Klan a century ago.) This book is truly excellent at being the book it is, and I applaud it and recommend it.

But....*shrugs* I liked his previous books a lot more. I will definitely continue to be looking out for Clark's next book though, because his writing is always worth the read!

This novella is a complete delight! Taking place in early 20th century Cairo, in a version of the world with supernatural creatures and mechanical automatons and an altered political reality, the setting feels to me almost like the main character of the book. Throughout the events of the actual plot (the titular haunting), is woven in the city's focus on an upcoming decision on whether women will get the vote, and the climax of both parts happen simultaneously.

Hamed, the viewpoint character, is a government worker in a ministry focused on the supernatural. This too is grounded: the sort of job where he has to worry about departmental budgets and paperwork, not glamorous exciting missions. Together Hamed and his junior partner Onsi must investigate whatever is haunting one of the city's tram cars and attacking passengers, and hopefully exorcise it.

In the process they meet all sorts of interesting Cairene city folk, including: a genderfluid djinn, a woman who works in a restaurant who enjoys discussing supernatural philosophy, an emancipated automaton, a subculture of women dealing with the supernatural in an entirely different way than Hamed's ministry does, and a whole lot of people agitating for suffrage.

Hamed is a very practical-minded man who wants to be modern in his thoughts but is only mostly there. He's an interesting choice of viewpoint on this vibrant and diverse city but I think it works. And I really liked the comparisons between him and Onsi (eager, wants to do things right, easily distracted by his enthusiasms), and between him and all the various women we meet.

( spoilers for the end )

I loved this novella! Set in an alternate-history USA where the civil war ended with the country divided, and also steampunk, and also gods, the book is really good at bringing its setting to life. This New Orleans feels really real even though it's not quite like any version of that city that ever existed in our world. The narrative voice is also very strong and adds to the way the book draws you in.

And the characters! All of them so interesting! The book is satisfying in itself but it also leaves me wanting to know more about many of the people within it.