Tag Archives: Hugo 2021

Discovering New York’s Soul in N.K. Jemisin’s ‘The City We Became’

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I hesitate to call 2023 my year of urban fantasy, but looking back over this year’s reviews I’m noticing that at least 4 of the 22 (so far) books I’ve read this year, have some kind of city at their heart.

We’ve spent time in medieval Constantinople (Assassin’s Creed The Golden City), flown down the streets of the fantastical Elendel (Mistborn: Shadows of the Self), and heard the symphony that is New Orleans in The Ballad of Perilous Graves.

But perhaps the most striking — and bizarre (in a good way) — depiction of a city so far, is the vitality of N.K. Jemisin’s New York in The City We Became.

I’ve been anxious to read this book for quite some time. During the 2021 Hugo season, the hype for this title was strong indeed with many wondering if Jemisin could pull off a fourth win after taking home the rocket in 2016, 2017, and 2018 for her Broken Earth trilogy. Ultimately, Martha Well‘s Network Effect won out, and while perhaps not my pick (I probably would have gone with Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse) it seems that every book on the ballot that year was powerhouse. City We Became was no exception.

With all of that hype, I’m not quite sure how I managed to sleep on this one until nearly the end of 2023. However, after reading the precursor to this story, A City Born Great, in How Long ‘Til Black Future Month, when my book club (a 2nd club, not the one which read HLTBFM) proposed it, it seemed like destiny.

So How Was it Already?

In two words: really good.

Despite all the urban fantasy I just cited above, I can honestly say that I’ve never read a book quite like this. Even with plenty of foreknowledge of the premise, and reading A City Born Great beforehand, I was still completely astounded by how Jemisin was able anthropomorphize an entire city.

I’ve only been to New York a handful of times, the memorable visits being right after the trade centers came down, another time when I was pretty young to visit the Jazz Museum in Harlem, and once after college to get brunch at the Blue Note, and take a tour of the ancient Egypt exhibit at the Met.

Oh and I stayed with a friend once on Roosevelt Island and complained when we couldn’t find any decent Mexican food. I think we also visited Carnegie hall and cracked jokes that Donald Trump must be quite an important person since he had a Starbucks on the first floor of Trump tower, completely ignoring the fact his name was on the side of a skyscraper (this was pre presidency so I hadn’t grown to hate him yet).

I just googled all of those places just to see. They’re all in Manhattan.

I guess I have some exploring to do next time I’m in NYC.

But I digress . . .

I bring this up because in my handful of visits to the Big Apple, I’ve only managed to play tourist in one borough. Jemisin takes on five.

I would love to get a New Yorker’s point of view, but in my limited opinion she not only managed the task, but even excelled at giving each borough a unique voice and character. I maybe wish we had heard more from Queens, not because I have any particular attachment to that borough — so far as I know I’ve never been — but because I just enjoyed her character and wanted to see more.

But regardless of the exact mix of ingredients, the resulting treat was not only a fun and engaging story, but one which I felt gave New York a little more depth in my mind. More than just a dot on a map, or a place I’d been a few times but a city which lives and breathes. Since this is literally what it became in her book I’d say job well done.

As much as The City We Became is a love letter to New York, it also reads as a kind of clap-back at some of the more negative (ahem racist) aspects of Speculative Fiction’s history, particularly H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror of Red Hook.

We’ve seen something similar in Jemisin’s short story Walking Awake (also in HLTBFM) where she takes shots at Robert Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite aspects of her writing. An element that not only shines a light on the past but also holds a mirror up to today.

I haven’t read much Lovecraft, and had never heard of this Red Hook story before reading The City We Became, so I’m not sure how much The Enemy draws from Cthulu mythos alone, but I could also see a lot of Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters in the way some of the folks were being controlled. A very cool nuance.

Give This One a Read?

Absolutely! If all the awards nominations were somehow not enough, I guess let my recommendation decide it for you?

This book is a fun read which has the dual purpose of showing Jemisin’s love for NYC while also shining a light on some of the darker places in the genre’s history.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to unpack here so please let me know your thoughts on this one in the comments!

See you next time!

Live From #WorldCon2021 (#DisconIII) it’s Saturday Night!

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At the time you’re reading this, I’m at the Hugo Watch party, in the Shoreham Hotel. I’m excited to finally find out which of the many great works I’ve read will win the award and I’m a little bit anxious. Will the winners be the books I voted for? We’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll do a full report next week (maybe Wednesday instead of my normal book review?)

I still have some giveaways left! If you’re interested in a novel of Ancient Egypt and Dinosaurs, please @ me at @jamesweber16 on twitter!

In the mean time, I just wanted to give a brief update on how the con has been going.

In short, it’s been awesome.

I’ve met so many interesting people and had the chance to interact with many inspiring authors (Fonda Lee and Shannon Shakraborty topping that list but with many others closely behind). A scroll through my twitter feed will more or less give you the play-by-play.

I’ve also attended a lot of great panels, talks and events. Again, I’ll do a full list later next week, but some that have already stood out to me, were the AI in Fiction panel, and Speculative Noir. I streamed several videos about how to be a better book reviewer (hopefully I can improve on that craft as well as my fiction writing). And of course, one of the highlights, the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra.

However the votes tally tonight, I’m very excited to have been a part of this event and in a lot of ways, it’s been the boost I’ve needed to continue on with my writing, and with these fan ish type events. I’m looking forward much more Sci-fi and Fantasy in the future.

Thank you DisconIII/Worldcon2021. It’s been great!

Have thoughts about how con? Let me know what they are in the comments.

Also, here’s a pretty goofy photo of me from the lobby. Enjoy!

Should ‘Legendborn’ win a Lodestar Award?

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We’re back this week with another book review of Hugo 2021 related material. In this case, it’s my review of the book Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. It’s been nominated for the Lodestar Award, which in my mind is essentially the Hugo Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

I’ve already reviewed several Lodestar and Hugo nominees so far, in a variety of categories so if you’re interested in the work I’ve completed so far, go ahead and check it out.

Now, on to the matter at hand: Legendborn.

It’s already earned Deonn a John Steptoe Award for New Talent (given out by the American Library Association), as well as an Ignyte Award for Best YA Novel. It’s been a finalist in a slew of other awards, including the Locus Award, LA Times Book Prize, and the Goodreads Choice Awards (how I found out about it).

Needless to say, Legendborn is already something of a legend itself, and after reading it, I can definitely see why. It’s a pretty great book.

I think the easiest way to go about this review will be to list all of the things I like about the book, and then the (very) few things I didn’t like. Here we go:

So I think the core of this book — the part that shined the brightest for me — is its representation of grief and loss. I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that the main character, Bree, opens the story after her mother has been killed in a hit and run accident. She does NOT handle it well (who would/could?) and it is her refusal to believe the reality she is given, and her quest for answers that drives nearly every aspect of the story.

This felt so real, it was often difficult to read. This fact alone speaks volumes about the quality of Deonn’s prose and the skill with which she crafted this story. Indeed my first thought as I was listening was something along the lines of: “Wow. Everything in this book just leads right into the next thing like a tightly woven fabric”. For the most part, this cohesion held throughout the entirety of book. There were no (or very few) places in which I wondered how we got to a certain part or where the story was going. Everything just flew along.

Effortless. I love it when books are like this!

The next part of the story that stood out to me, was just how difficult the world Bree inhabited was for her (even without grief making it all that much worse). Much of that work was communicated through the use of both micro and macro aggressions Bree experiences in each of the realms of her story (someone even had the nerve to pat her hair!). UNC, the lodge, and Arthur’s round table, each added another layer of resistance, not only for her quest to find answers about her mother’s death, but also just for her livelihood in general. At any given moment Bree is being told by a handful of separate influences that she does not matter, that she does not belong. That she is able to persevere against so much is truly inspiring.

In an interview with NPR: New Hampshire, Deon explains how often times young black girls are a expected to grow up quicker, and be an adult earlier than other groups of children and how she wanted to show this in her story. She explains the stereo type of the Angry Black Woman and how she wanted to irrevocably justify that anger. She talked about the trope of the Strong Black Woman and how she wanted Bree to be this as well (reading Legendborn I think we see that she is although it is more nuanced in approach than many other portrayals).

And finally, she discusses the experience of not knowing your people’s stories except for a few generations back, while we have hundreds, if not thousands of years of stories around myths like King Arthur who historians cannot even be confirm actually existed.

I’ll admit that listening to the interview put a lot of what this book is ‘about’ in perspective for me, and I think that while I may not have known exactly what I was feeling while I read, Deonn absolutely accomplished what she set out for with Legendborn. That it was so ambitious a task only makes it that much more impressive.

Now that I’ve harped about the parts of this book that I thought were so impressive, I’ll list a couple things which I didn’t enjoy as much (and recognize that everything listed hereafter is one hundred percent personal preference).

First thing: The Love Triangle. Deonn plays with many — MANY!! — tropes in Legendborn and for the most part, kicks their butt (whether by subverting them or refreshing them). But with everything else going on in the book, this part seemed completely unnecessary. At one point during the novel, Bree even says something along the lines of “I thought of all the reasons I shouldn’t go see him, yet I felt compelled by some force I could not understand to see him anyway.”

That force is the Hand of the Author Bree. Resist!! Sigh.

Perhaps this type of thing is exactly what other readers look for in a YA Fantasy, but it just didn’t work for me (I also rolled my eyes pretty hard at a reference to Twilight, not because it was Twilight per se, but because the scene quoted was by far one of the goofiest looking scenes of the movie which I hoped we could all just forget. Apparently not hahah).

Finally, while I think the contrast of King Arthur’s legend against Bree’s search for her family’s history brought an interesting dichotomy to light, I’m just not that in to Arthur and the round table.

So . . . Lodestar?

This book has certainly earned one, and I understand the hype surrounding it, however, I don’t think it will be my choice for the Lodestar Award. While Bree’s character was expertly drawn, I hardly remember much about the side-characters which were a real strong point for Cemetery Boys, and while a covertly magical UNC Chapel Hill is a unique and interesting world, it was not as immersive to me as the one built in Raybearer. I think one of those two will be my choices for the Lodestar (sorry Deadly Education) although Legendborn is an excellent book (I won’t really be all that upset if it wins).

That’s all for now. Please let me know your thoughts. Do you agree with my points? Is there something I haven’t considered? Why do you think Legendborn should get the award? Please let me know in the comments. See you next time!

Should ‘Raybearer’ win a Lodestar Award?

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Phew. It feels good to be doing a Hugo related post after so many posts about Narmer and the God Beast. I’m sure there will be more of those to come, but let’s break for a little while and talk about Jordan Ifueko’s incredible debut, Raybearer.

This book is amazing. I hesitate to say a masterpiece because I don’t feel like I’m qualified to make such distinctions (although honestly who cares lol), but it was definitely one of the most exciting books I’ve read in recent memory.

To me, it’s strengths lie in its consistent pacing, unique setting and the sheer power of this book’s main character.

Tarisai is quite literally a sympathy magnet. From page one, it is impossible not to connect with this lonely girl who’s been completely isolated from people her own age and a traditional family. That conflict is built right into the most basic aspect of her identity, her Hollow (unique magical power), which allows her to see other’s memories. This should allow Tarisai to build even closer connections with those around her since she can literally share their experience. Instead, it means that she cannot even be held when she’s sad, for her servants believe that she might accidently steal their memories.

Every conflict in Raybearer seems to stack against Tarisai in this similar manner. At the beginning of the story, her only purpose is to fulfill the last wish of her absent mother (who calls Tarisai ‘Made of Me’ yuck) who wishes that she befriend the crown prince of Aritsar (so he’ll invite her into his council), and then kill him. A purpose for which she must truly love this prince before being able to act out her orders (which of course she doesn’t want to do).

Of course, heroes do hard things, it’s what makes them heroes, but as I was reading the story, I found myself admiring how inventive each new conflict became as the script was flipped again and again on poor Tarisai.

And she truly just keeps doing the damn thing.

I don’t mean to mean to imply that she simply skips through each new challenge (quite the opposite), but the way she is able to continue onward despite everything is truly inspirational. This, perhaps more than anything else is what makes the book such a compelling read.

However, the setting also played a huge roll in my enjoyment of this book. Ifueko creates a rich (sorry just watch this youtuber say how rich the book is real quick) world which seems to draw from many African cultures (though I believe the author mentioned it was mainly Yoruba) yet still presents as unique and immersive.

Some of the more unique aspects of the world for me (which I think could have been explored a little more perhaps) where the magical creatures. We meet sprites, and albagato (a kind of genie type figure), shape shifters and large mythical cats. An entire underworld of spirits which we only just hear a small portion of.

But this is a small gripe, easily overlooked when considering one of my favorite aspects of the world. Its music. Song and rhythm seem to underpin our very understanding of this culture’s history and legacy. Aritsar’s myths and legends (the main one about a story telling Pelican which is weird and fun just on it’s own) are mostly passed on through children’s songs. But one of the key instruments featured in the novel are various drums. Perhaps this is not surprising as drums are important to many African cultures, however, Ifueko took the time to describe their sound — literally write out the noises they made — and the meanings behind each beat.

As a drummer myself, I was simply loving these passages. They felt so true to how the instruments can sound and the passion they can have when played. I’m not sure if Ifueko has any percussion in her background, but she was certainly convincing enough for me (I would also like to note that I listened to this book on audio, and so the voice actor also did an amazing job with these portions and I think really heightened the experience in a way that reading on the page may not have been able to accomplish).

Finally, I think it’s important to note, that this book never seemed to drag. Because of my work schedule picking up, I didn’t have as much time to listen as I have in the past (due to Covid), and so I had to give this book up several times and then wait for it to return. Each time I was as excited as the last to get started again.

This is all the more impressive considering all of the elements packed into this story. Themes such as uniqueness and diversity over homogeny (in culture), colonialism too but it was interesting because it wasn’t like a foreign power coming in that the MC’s need to fight, but instead more like just one group that kept expanding. Perhaps less like the British Empire and more like the expansion of the Mongols.

Anyway, I can feel myself beginning to ramble so I think it’s time to ask that all important question which is the reason we’re here . . .

Lodestar Award?

Yes. It seems I keep having to add this caveat, but as of 10/6/2021, I’m feeling that the Lodestar award should go to Raybearer. This was a hard decision for me, as I’ve already enjoyed two previous Lodestar contenders (Cemetery Boys and A Deadly Education), which were both amazing reads. I really thought Cemetery Boys was going to be my ride or die, but I think the deciding factor ended up coming down Raybearer’s unique setting.

For each of the other reasons I’ve outlined above — great pacing, and an incredibly powerful main character — Raybearer is an excellently written piece of art, but the thing I’m most excited about for the sequel, is simply being able to explore this world a little longer. Cemetery Boys showed us a unique setting as well, and I loved learning more and more about the Brujx. It was fun to think that their world existed just beneath our own. But the sense of immersion you experience into Raybearer’s secondary world shined a bit brighter. I guess I’m just a sucker for Secondary World fantasy . . .

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Should Raybearer win the Lodestar? What were your favorite elements of the story? The world (the answer is the drums! Lol)? Let me know in the comments, I’m excited to see what you all think.

Should ‘Open House on Haunted Hill’ win a Hugo?

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This piece is currently my front runner for the short story category. Granted, I’ve only read one other nominee so far (also take a look at the full list of my reviews of Hugo nominated works), but I’m feeling like I generally enjoyed this piece more.

My initial thoughts are that the piece is fun, with a good twist baked right into the premise. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it’s about a haunted house, and not much of a spoiler to reveal that it’s from the house’s POV that we see the story. What makes this story unique, is that the house is a lonely thing, and just wants to HELP a family recover from the death of a loved one.

I’ve been seeing some comments around that say the kid’s characterization is inconsistent, alternating between too childish in some moments, and too adult in others. I didn’t notice this. Kids are surprisingly mature in the moments you least expect them to be so perhaps Wiswell’s characterization is spot on. Regardless, I felt seen by her stomping around the house pretending to be a dinosaur. According to my parents, this was my true-form at four years old as well. It’s nice to see myself represented in fiction.

My only disappointment in the story, is that even though the story uses a haunted house as its subject, it seems strangely disconnected from the long lineage of haunted house stories it purports to be a part of.

The author references Haunting of Hill House in the piece’s author’s note, and the title seems to allude to a 1959 film named House on Haunted Hill (I believe also a kind of parody), but Wiswell’s story seems to have little to do with either. Aside from some rather standard ‘haunted house’ things like creaking floor boards, rooms that shouldn’t exist, and doors slamming shut when no one is around to do so, there isn’t much of the usual tropes and motives we’re used to.

In that same author’s note, Wiswell says:

“I tend to put Horror-y things back out as humorous stories or heartwarming stories. Off the top of my head I gave them the example that if I wrote a haunted house story, it wouldn’t be like Haunting of Hill House“

https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/

So perhaps, by the author’s own admission, this piece doesn’t purport to be a haunted house story despite the title and the POV.

In which case, Wiswell nails it in the execution. This house is not a repository for unexpiated sin, or the waning relevance of aristocracy, or even a mirror into the horror we find within ourselves. It’s a friend and comforter instead.

The realtor in this story doesn’t really play a large role even though the title seems to connotate the action of a realtor. But just because of the fact that they are there at all, I couldn’t help thinking of Surreal Estate, a TV show in which a group of realtor’s try to prove or disprove hauntings (often solving whatever causes the haunting in the first place) in order to up the sale price of the home. It looks like Wiswell’s story was released just before the show was announced, but it still makes me wonder how our views on haunted houses have changed that we’ve shaped them into these most recent forms which (to my mind) bear a likeness. Perhaps that’s an essay for another day . . .

So . . . Hugo?

Yep! Right now, this is the one to beat. If you haven’t given it a read, I highly recommend.

If you have read it, what are your thoughts? On the the story? On the name? On any of the other properties I mentioned during this review. What really makes a Haunted House in 2021?

See you next time!

Should Harrow the Ninth Win the Hugo?

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THIS book. What a ride. Gonna go ahead and announce now that pretty much this entire review is going to be a SPOILER because I’m not sure how to talk about it without doing so. If you’re looking for a quick (spoilerless) opinion on whether or not you should read it, I would say:

Yes. Read it, but don’t drop anything you’re super excited about to do so. There is a lot to appreciate in Harrow the Ninth, but personally, it was a bit of a slog. If you’re expecting to enjoy it for any of the reasons you liked Gideon the Ninth, you will probably be disappointed. Harrow, it seems, goes decidedly her own way (we should expect nothing less).

All of that said, I feel it was worthy of the accolades it’s received, but it probably won’t be my pick for the Best Novel Hugo Award. To explain why, we’ll have to get spoilery . . .

— Entering Spoilerland —

— Look out! —

Ok. Now that I’m done having fun, what’s the deal with this book and how can I think it a slog, but a good enough slog to win an award?

Essentially, Harrow the Ninth is a (mostly) well written book that expects a lot from its readers, and pushes a lot of boundaries all at once. Personally, I feel as if this should have been right up my alley, as I pretty much go all in for things any time they get weird or unexpected. This book did all of that in droves, but I believe it suffered mainly from expectations set up by the first book, Gideon the Ninth.

Gideon the Ninth was a gem which seemingly we all could admire. My review described it as both fun and provoking. Down to its simplest elements, it was a mystery, and an adventure. Start accounting for some of its complexity, and it was a prompt on the nature of abusive relationships and what kinds of things we’re ‘allowed’ to show in our fiction . . .

Harrow, in many ways, left all of that behind for a rumination on grief, loss, and mental health. It traded in a somewhat (enthusiastically) crass but ultimately consistent narration for shifting types of POV (mostly 2nd person, and 3rd person, but some 1st person too) along a non-linear narrative and alternative reality dream sequences. It shattered any trust we had in ourselves as readers to a) remember past events in the story (aka book 1) and b) understand at any given moment what the hell is actually going on.

Too put it simply, reading Harrow the Ninth felt like being gaslit for 400 pages.

This in fact, makes perfect sense for the novel since we’re reading AS a main character who is trying so hard to repress any feelings of grief or loss, that she literally gives herself a lobotomy (I suppose Ianthe helps) to wipe out all memory of what she fears to lose.

That Muir is able to manage this weird sort of readers-are-so-deep-into-the-character-we’re-essentially-method-acting is, from a technical standpoint, quite incredible. And as a writer, I’m in awe and hope that I will someday be able to pull off something half so complicated.

Being gaslit, however, isn’t exactly pleasant, and I found that I was somewhat eager to distract myself from this book, and often reluctant to pick it back up.

So why do so many consider this book so good?

Obviously, it’s impossible to say for sure, but I would point to the following:

Humor:

Considering how serious everything in the Locked Tomb series seems to be, there is a surprising amount of humor within the series. In Harrow the Ninth, it’s often Ianthe’s frank wit (and unapologetically misplaced morals) or Harrow’s general hatred and reluctance for everything that do most of the heavy lifting. We aren’t given any Gideon lines until the last quarter of the book.

Personally, I was most often chuckling at the seemingly normal (and quite frankly bureaucratic) nature of The Necrolord Prime, aka God, aka John.

And of course, the almost nonsensical naming conventions (reminiscent of Ian M. Banks’ Culture Series), which apparently can and do include Eminem lyrics.

For some complexity is beautiful

Reread everything I wrote a little bit ago about the shifting (and unreliable) POV, non-linear narrative, and alternate realities. From a technical standpoint this is amazing to see unfold.

Women Being Badasses

I feel like this is where the rubber meets the road for most people, and is one of the main draws to the series. Harrow the Ninth, as with Gideon the Ninth, is still a story about women who defy expectations. Who want more than whatever bullshit they’ve been given, and are ready to rain hellfire upon the world until they get it.

I think this quote from a Vox interview with Tamsyn Muir really put it in perspective for me (emphasis my own):

“As anybody else who was born in and around 1985 will know, a lot of the stories we got fed, even in a time where women were out in the battlefield more, was that at the end of the day, being angry and fighting actually wasn’t great. And so what the real takeaway at the end of the day was, the love of your friends and hugs is the greatest thing that a woman can have. So being able to repudiate that and give a middle finger to the “a woman’s place is actually the peacemaker and the heart of the group” has undeniably set the tone of the books.”

https://www.vox.com/culture/22266652/tamsyn-muir-interview-locked-tomb-gideon-the-ninth-harrow-the-ninth-vox-book-club

There still isn’t enough of this in fiction, even in this, the year of our lord (necrolord? John?), 2021. We’re still fighting old ways of thinking, and despite all of the confusion of this story’s structure, these characters (Harrow, Gideon, Ianthe) are powerful.

So . . . Should it get the Hugo?

It is certainly worthy of one, but it won’t be my choice. While I can appreciate everything that his book was able to accomplish, I just can’t shake the fact that while reading it, I had almost no desire to complete it. Harrow the Ninth is in many ways a masterpiece, but it wasn’t the one I was led to believe I’d be reading, and the entire time I read it, I was just waiting for it to be different. By the time it started to become the book I wanted (aka when we finally get Gideon back), it felt like my order got lost at a restaurant. The food was cold, and I was already too upset at the wait to enjoy it anyway . . .

Oof, I hate writing negative reviews. If you think I’m wrong about this one (or even if you think I’m right), let me know in the comments section. Also, some things I learned about while writing this review which I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze into the review, but that Muir squeezed into the book:

Coffee Shop / Barista AU
The Denial of Peter
Draco in leather pants
Evil Vizier

Anywho, see you next time. Thanks for reading!

(Book Review of) The Poppy War: Context is Everything

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Oooh nice cover. I’m assuming this is Qara? I don’t remember Rin picking up a bow.

Oooof. This was not a light read. But I think perhaps it is an important one. I picked it up because it is the first installment in The Poppy War series by R.F. Kuang which has been nominated for the Hugo Award category ‘Best Series’ (also take a look at the other Hugo Finalists I’ve reviewed).

I didn’t really do much other research into it than that. I vaguely remember when it was nominated for the 2018 Nebula Award and the 2019 World Fantasy Award, but for whatever reason I hadn’t really been following the coverage, and so I didn’t know what to expect.

As such, my blind (and perhaps rather ignorant) first impression of the book was that it was set in a truly intricate (if grim) world which was expertly realized and beautifully written, but the meandering plot was at times confusing and frustrating, mostly when large periods of time would pass mid chapter or without some kind of climatic event that would clue the reader that we were coming to a new phase of the book.

The Fantasy Hive writes that The Poppy War is . . .

“A coming of age epic that leads on to a magic school section of mayhem and mysticism, before spiraling into a grimdark no-holds-barred military fantasy that’d make Sun Tzu roll over in his grave to rewrite The Art of War, with Joe Abercrombie writing the foreword. The Poppy War delivers what most trilogies aspire to – in ONE BOOK.”

https://fantasy-hive.co.uk/2018/11/the-poppy-war-by-r-f-kuang-book-review/

To me, it was too much. As soon as I felt like I was beginning to understand Rin’s struggles at Sinegard (the “magic” school) we were off joining the Cike in a kind of ensemble-style cast which seemed like it was about to set up for a heist, only to be thrown into an all out war which is when the book got exceedingly dark and gruesome.

But through all of this, I think what I was failing to understand, was the context needed to really see what this book was trying to do, namely, use a fantasy setting to explore the violence and brutality of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Opium Wars which followed, and reflect on some of the darkest parts of Chinese history.

(I want to say a quick thank you and shoutout to Read By Tiffany who did a deep dive and explained all of this context in her post: Everything You Need to Know Before You Read The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. Truly an amazing post. If you haven’t read it, please do!)

Looking at the book in this light, and with this context, it seems quite remarkable in its achievement. If the book’s motivation was to capture the elements of history I mentioned above, then it really did so in a way that was compelling and interesting.

And so that’s why I feel this book was an important read if not a light one. It got me questioning. At first, those questions were simply: “What is everyone else taking away from this book that I’m not?” But now that I’ve found that answer, it’s become “Well what really happened during that period in history?” or “What is Investiture of the Gods as opposed to Journey to the West?”

With these questions rattling around in my brain, I’m now looking forward to reading the next book in the series, The Dragon Republic.

Although, I must admit, I will probably do some more research before continuing on. I’m assuming it can only help.

Anyway, that’s it for the review. If you read this one, please let me know what you thought in the comments. If you haven’t? Well still let me know your thoughts, I’m always up for chatting book things. See you next time!

Should A Deadly Education win the Lodestar Award?

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Image of Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education cover
An awesome cover . . . not an awesome pic of my closet

This answer ended up being way harder than I expected it would be . . .

I really thought there was no chance this wouldn’t be my front runner for the Lodestar Award. On May 17th, it was even my ‘Can’t wait to read!’ pick for #WyrdAndWonder, and I was more or less bursting at the seams to tear it open and see what it had in store for me. As I discussed in my Hugo Finalist Reaction post, I had enjoyed Uprooted and Spinning Silver, but was excited that Novik was treading different territory here.

And while my initial reactions were extremely positive, I’m glad I looked around on the internet a bit, because there was a lot I had not yet considered.

Initial Reactions:

Pretty positive in the extreme. The main character, El (short for Galadriel), has an engaging voice, and is fun in her extreme antisocial outlook and behavior. There is plenty of snark, but somehow it never made me bristle like most snarky characters I’ve read.

Second, there’s a lot of pop culture references (like the MC’s name for instance) and winks at the reader. One of my favorite winks was a reference to spell writing as ‘creative writing’ and something about how anything she tried to write stream-of-consciousness turned into a super volcano. Any time I’ve tried to ‘pants’ something in my own writing (or even just write ANYTHING) has certainly felt this way.

I’ve seen the book marketed as “a darker Harry Potter”, and it would be willful ignorance to say that Rowling’s work did not influence A Deadly Education, and I think it’s no stretch to say that the Scholomance is an extreme and interesting (certainly terrifying) take on Hogwarts.

(Indeed, the Scholomance was perhaps this book’s most fascinating element for me, and I’d like to do a second post for Friday about how it reminded me of a kind of evil riff on the educational ideal of the Eudaimonia Machine. Hopefully I’ll have enough to warrant its own post.)

In the realm of theme, I felt the novel had clear and prescient messaging in terms of the dichotomy between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’, and I really enjoyed the way this novel actually seemed to have a hopeful outlook on those divisions becoming at the very least, less significant if not disappearing entirely.

In essence, there was much to love in this book and many will find it a complete delight to read. After all, any book that uses the term ‘glom’ to describe how a stepfather attaches to one’s mother is hitting a lot of buttons in the ‘fun’ category.

So What Gives? (Some Other Considerations):

Much like when I was trying to review Gideon the Ninth, I found that this seemingly lovely book also had some controversy swirling around it since it’s publication.

Namely, claims of racist representation (which the author has since apologized for), and also themes of sexual assault which were handled improperly. For both topics, I’m going to provide links as other people have written about them much more eloquently then I every could:

Now, I can’t really say I have much more to offer, except I felt it important to boost these articles as their authors have done some hard work and critical thinking on our behalf. I definitely advise anyone reading this to give them a read and consider their arguments.

It’s been a good reminder for me to slow down and really consider what I’m reading. I hope I can be more aware of stuff like this on my own in the future.

So . . . Should it get the Award?

At this point, I’m going to say that even though there is a lot of things to love about A Deadly Education, the strikes made against it have still managed to lower my opinion of the work in general. I give Novik kudos for attempting to be more diverse with her characters, but I do not think enough work was put in to make that attempt a success.

If the other Lodestar candidates evoke similar positive feelings, but avoid the controversies pointed out by so many online, I will almost certainly raise them above A Deadly Education.

I’m still looking forward to the release of the sequel next month. If Novik can remediate any of the issues this first book had, and keep that same dazzle and fun that it also achieved, perhaps her own education will not have been so deadly after all.

Thanks for reading all this! Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Silver Medal for Empire of Gold

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I’ve been putting off writing this review for a little while because it’s been hard to bring myself to say that The Empire of Gold is probably the weakest part of this trilogy. I thought The City of Brass was totes badass, and The Kingdom of Copper was brilliant!

But The Empire of Gold just didn’t surpass the bar set by its two amazing predecessors.

Perhaps the main draw (for me) of this series is the intricate and thoroughly magical world which Chakraborty has imagined. It feels new and astonishing, and is equal parts mysterious and delightful. That sense of wonder is only slightly dimmed by the fact that this is our third rodeo in Daevabad. After all, magical djinn, shedu, karkadann, and peri, are never going to fully lose their luster when compared to our real lives of (in the pandemic) Zoom calls and homemade lunches . . .

(I’m also getting slightly distracted by the World of Daevabad website which includes a definition of a creature called Ishtas, which I don’t remember from the book but is apparently “A small, scaled creature obsessed with organization and footwear.” Lolz! Ok back to the review . . .)

This complex and immersive experience has been delivered to us on two previous occasions and it is what we expect from a Daevabad book. I can’t say that the novel fails to deliver on this promise, because it doesn’t. The Empire of Gold is stuffed full of new and exciting bits of this world which are completely unexpected, or have been so thoroughly teased that we’re essentially frothing to find out what they actually are (for me this was the Marid and how this world related to that of Ancient Egypt).

Another key strength of the book, is that all of the cast we’ve come to know and love return, and they too are just as fun and delightful as they have been in previous books in the series. We finally get to see the resolutions of their arcs, and for me, everything came to a satisfying conclusion (which I won’t spoil for you here).

But only a silver medal?

Yep! Despite all of the praise I’ve showered on the book so far, I still felt it suffered from two fatal flaws (which are possibly the same flaw so maybe only one). Namely, this book was TOO LONG, and (in my opinion) failed to fully deliver on its promises (and maybe even over-delivered on a few that were less than relevant). There were many points during this book in which I felt we were making little to no progress towards the main goal of the novel.

I credit the length issue (784 pages and almost 29hrs in audio) to powers that were perhaps beyond the author’s control (although I’ve done no actual research to test my hypothesis). It is pretty standard practice in the Fantasy genre to write in trilogies (although there are plenty of series that go for way longer). I definitely had the sense reading this, that the author knew this was her last chance reveal all the many things she’d hinted at over the previous two books, and so I felt that our characters wandered the map tying up loose ends which in many cases I had forgotten about and did not seem to bring us any further down our main plot thread.

The second issue, that of failed promises, I’m not entirely sure how to quantify or explain. Simply, I was just disappointed in the way certain resolutions took place.

Slight spoilers ahead . . .

I had been waiting for connections to Ancient Egypt (Nahri is from Cairo and grew up in the shadow of pyramids, discovering clues on papyrus scrolls with Ali in the library, mentions of Sobek, an Ancient Egyptian crocodile god . . .) to be made clear and was curious how their vast and intricate culture would be pulled into the mythos of Daevabad, but when it was, I almost wished it had stayed separate. Like the pieces didn’t really fit together somehow.

And while I was so curious about the Marid after reading The Kingdom of Copper, I was disappointed with what we ended up getting. In the previous books, the Marid seemed to have a single nefarious and unknowable purpose, but after meeting no less than three marid ‘gods’, it was quite clear that they were not the grand conspiracy they appeared, and we still had issues in Daevabad which we needed to solve. Basically I grew impatient with our side quest in Ta Ntry (the name of which is suspiciously close to Ta Netjer, which in ancient Egyptian would have translated to “God’s Land”, also called Punt. It’s kinda neat that they are sorta in the same spot on the map, but ultimately, I’m unsure exactly what connection is to be made.)

TLDR and Hugo award considerations:

The Empire of Gold is still a great book, filled with magic and wonder; however, I felt it suffered slightly from its overwhelming scope and (in my opinion) a failure to deliver on it’s most interesting promises. It is somewhat sad that the final book was marred with these flaws, but in general, I’m happy with the ending, and feel this is a great series. I was surprised that this individual volume was not a Hugo Best Novel finalist at first, but after reading it, I can see now how it might not have earned enough votes.

The series is still my top contender for best series though, even with a bit of a flubbed landing. I think I’ll do a Best series post later on if I’m able to finish each of the series on that shortlist.

Thanks all for reading this! Please let me know what your thoughts are in the comments!

Should ‘Silver In the Wood’ win Emily Tesh an Astounding Award? (aka best debut) #WyrdAndWonder

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A hard question to answer. Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh is a great novella for many reasons.

The first reason, is its up close-and-personal interpretation of the ‘Green man’ myth. Unfortunately, I’m not very familiar with the folklore surrounding this figure, so I can’t really comment on Tesh’s interpretation.

The impression I have though, using really only this story as a reference point, is that The Green Man is a kind of tree spirit, similar to a Dryad from classical mythology (indeed there is a dryad that follows our main character around and is very protective of him), which protects the forest and keeps out all the bad stuff that wants to come in. However, a few things set our main character apart:

  • he is male and most dryads are female in the book
  • he lives near a big oak tree which might make him something like a Hamadryad but I’m not sure

This sort of mythic existence puts him in a sort of tenuous relationship with the rest of the wood’s inhabitants. At first, humans see him as wild and scary, but ultimately get over it as the story progresses.

Whatever the folklore textbooks have to say, the interpretation written here feels simultaneously personal, and mythic in a way which is really engaging and is probably the first thing I noticed about the book.

I feel this mythic quality is accomplished by the second awesome part about this novella: Tesh’s prose. They’re lovely, and seem to rely on some seemingly impossible phrases (how exactly does time pass “slow and green”) which don’t hang up the reader, but give us our own freedom to imagine their implications. Throughout the entire work, we’re in a place where things don’t quite make sense but are nevertheless mystical and fantastic.

This novella’s final and perhaps most endearing quality is its romance arc. It seems to try and hide itself behind the thickets of legend and worldbuilding, but the reality is that this story does not start until Tobias meets Harry Silver, and can’t end until . . . well I won’t spoil it. Needless to say, it is the thread that pulls us through.

My only gripe, is that I felt like I was left wondering in a few too many places. The story seems to have complex character relationships based on a complex and long history, but I felt like we never got enough of that history to understand why the action we were taking would bring about the end we desired. Even in a scant 100 pages, there was at least two moments in which I wondered why we where seeing something and ultimately felt the scene could have been pruned away.

Astounding Award?

I suppose the answer to this question will ultimately come down to how it stacks up against the competition.

This title is a great read, and there is much to love within this bite-sized package. There is a clever mythology at play here, a genuinely enjoyable romance, and beautiful prose, but I also felt that some key information was missing, while other sections seemed to provide things which weren’t relevant.

Looking back at my review of The Vanished Birds, I seemed to have similar complaints, although I feel it’s longer page count might give it some more leniency than Silver in the Wood. Short works don’t have as much time for extra material. Every word counts.

Micaiah Johnson’s debut is probably still the story I’ve enjoyed most in my Hugo Contender read-through (though I’m not going to look back through all the posts to make sure I didn’t contradict myself). My review of The Space Between Worlds cites strong characters, and a well-developed setting as it’s strong points, and I believe that in these categories, it simply out-performs Silver in the Wood.

No Astounding Award for Tesh this year (in my rankings at least), though I’m sure she’ll contend for other awards in the future. If you’ve made it this far in the post, I’m hoping you’ll still go read Silver in the Wood as it is a great book!

If you have questions comments or gripes, leave em in the comments. Thanks all!