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competencefantasy's Reviews (912)
Turns out I like Neil Clarke's editing style just as much in anthologies as in Clarkesworld. I was one of the kickstarter backers for this book, and I am so delighted with the result.
The theme works smoothly, and the stories feel both coherent and full of variety. Some of my personal highlights were
Married by Helena Bell
Tender by Rachel Swirsky (content warning for self harm on this one)
Small Medicine by Genevieve Valentine
Tongtong’s Summer by Xia Jia
The theme works smoothly, and the stories feel both coherent and full of variety. Some of my personal highlights were
Married by Helena Bell
Tender by Rachel Swirsky (content warning for self harm on this one)
Small Medicine by Genevieve Valentine
Tongtong’s Summer by Xia Jia
The thing about resting your parady on referential humor is you need self awareness to pull it off. It also helps if you don't use the oldest misogynist jokes in the book. If you *must* make misognist jokes at least get some new ones. There are a couple of chuckles to be had here I suppose, but as a whole it feels rather tired. It pokes basic fun at genre tropes and fails to subvert anything.
About halfway through this book, there is a sharp change of pacing. That makes reviewing it difficult because I have very different opinions of the two halves of the book.
The first half of the book dragged, weighted down by a standard young adult romance setup. Here was a young hacker, misunderstood by his family and a threat to the government. Here was the rich woman, loved but untouchable. Here was the girl next door, whom I wish was the protagonist instead. So far so standard...
Then, about halfway through the book, the pace picked up immensely. The romance elements didn't get any better, I'm afraid, but suddenly I didn't care. I was turning the pages quickly, trying to get to the next bit of world building, theology, or genre melding. I do love a book that gets carried away combining fantasy and theology, and this one was made all the sweeter by the theology being a variety I am less familiar with. One character, introduced midway through the book and a member of the clergy, was easily my favorite. The action elements were also much more prominent in the second half, and the story took on a real page-turner quality.
I feel as though my engagement curve with this novel happened a bit out of order. Usually, I am drawn into a fantasy world by the way the world is built. I become interested in this or that element of the government structure, magic system, or cultural detail. Then, when the exposition is in place, I stick around because I've meanwhile become engaged with the characters or plot. Here, most of the worldbuilding is towards the end, and the characters are not quite original enough to hold up the story while we wait for it to arrive.
That said, I was left with a very positive impression of the book. I hope folks will give it a try and not be discouraged too quickly.
The first half of the book dragged, weighted down by a standard young adult romance setup. Here was a young hacker, misunderstood by his family and a threat to the government. Here was the rich woman, loved but untouchable. Here was the girl next door, whom I wish was the protagonist instead. So far so standard...
Then, about halfway through the book, the pace picked up immensely. The romance elements didn't get any better, I'm afraid, but suddenly I didn't care. I was turning the pages quickly, trying to get to the next bit of world building, theology, or genre melding. I do love a book that gets carried away combining fantasy and theology, and this one was made all the sweeter by the theology being a variety I am less familiar with. One character, introduced midway through the book and a member of the clergy, was easily my favorite. The action elements were also much more prominent in the second half, and the story took on a real page-turner quality.
I feel as though my engagement curve with this novel happened a bit out of order. Usually, I am drawn into a fantasy world by the way the world is built. I become interested in this or that element of the government structure, magic system, or cultural detail. Then, when the exposition is in place, I stick around because I've meanwhile become engaged with the characters or plot. Here, most of the worldbuilding is towards the end, and the characters are not quite original enough to hold up the story while we wait for it to arrive.
That said, I was left with a very positive impression of the book. I hope folks will give it a try and not be discouraged too quickly.
Sarum is impressive in scope but feels like a summary.
This is a historical fiction rendition of the story of a single place, starting from a Kathleen O'Neal Gear-esque prehistoric era up to 1985. The problem is it isn't carried off all that well. To really do the concept justice, each of the chapters needed to be a good short story in its own right. Unfortunately, they weren't.
Many of the chapters feel as though the author was assigned a historical fiction short story for a class and spent most of the time ensuring he got the requisite events in. Sometimes there are entire pages that feel lifted wholesale from a high school history textbook. So much time is spent catching the reader up on the massive amount of historical context, that little is left for nuanced stories or characterization. Though there are many characters, few are memorable. Everyone has one, or at best two, primary motivations at a time,and usually they are the first easy answer for a character in their demographic and setting. The mason wants to build. The reformer wants to reform. The priest would like to please his god. Oh, and almost everyone wants to make a good marriage. That's a freebie. Given the massive scope of the work, I would expect any author to be bogged down. Nevertheless, I'm a little disappointed that characterization is this simplified.
The prose is not precisely bad, but it's far from nuanced. Symptomatic of this is the sheer number of times "it was (character name here)'s fault" came up as a quote. It's clear the author has an impressive grasp of name and date history, but as a writer they feel a lot more immature. There's not a lot of thematic originality beyond that supplied by the setting and the historic events. The writing also contains a personal annoyance of mine, characters having deep conversations about their life views at what feels like the drop of a hat.
Although I think the book is technically unsound, I don't quite dislike it. It's a pleasant, almost soothing, read much of the time. Furthermore, the love the author has for the setting, particularly the cathedral, comes through clearly. The chapters involving Stonehenge and the building of the cathedral stood out as stronger than most of the others. Even when the writing was weak, it was still better than decent by high school history textbook standards, and I've been known to read those for fun. If the author ever puts together a nonfiction study of Salisbury Cathedral, I would probably enjoy reading it because he describes locations better than people.
This is a historical fiction rendition of the story of a single place, starting from a Kathleen O'Neal Gear-esque prehistoric era up to 1985. The problem is it isn't carried off all that well. To really do the concept justice, each of the chapters needed to be a good short story in its own right. Unfortunately, they weren't.
Many of the chapters feel as though the author was assigned a historical fiction short story for a class and spent most of the time ensuring he got the requisite events in. Sometimes there are entire pages that feel lifted wholesale from a high school history textbook. So much time is spent catching the reader up on the massive amount of historical context, that little is left for nuanced stories or characterization. Though there are many characters, few are memorable. Everyone has one, or at best two, primary motivations at a time,and usually they are the first easy answer for a character in their demographic and setting. The mason wants to build. The reformer wants to reform. The priest would like to please his god. Oh, and almost everyone wants to make a good marriage. That's a freebie. Given the massive scope of the work, I would expect any author to be bogged down. Nevertheless, I'm a little disappointed that characterization is this simplified.
The prose is not precisely bad, but it's far from nuanced. Symptomatic of this is the sheer number of times "it was (character name here)'s fault" came up as a quote. It's clear the author has an impressive grasp of name and date history, but as a writer they feel a lot more immature. There's not a lot of thematic originality beyond that supplied by the setting and the historic events. The writing also contains a personal annoyance of mine, characters having deep conversations about their life views at what feels like the drop of a hat.
Although I think the book is technically unsound, I don't quite dislike it. It's a pleasant, almost soothing, read much of the time. Furthermore, the love the author has for the setting, particularly the cathedral, comes through clearly. The chapters involving Stonehenge and the building of the cathedral stood out as stronger than most of the others. Even when the writing was weak, it was still better than decent by high school history textbook standards, and I've been known to read those for fun. If the author ever puts together a nonfiction study of Salisbury Cathedral, I would probably enjoy reading it because he describes locations better than people.
I read this one in early high school and bounced off it at the time. I didn't get the dry humor, the political metaphors went over my head, and I had Morgan le Fey and Morgause mixed up. This time through, with some sense of how to go at it properly, I enjoyed it much more. This is a clever and smart book, one that walks a careful line between taking itself too seriously and not taking itself seriously at all. From a pleasant humorous start, to the emotional end, it was a joy to read.
Lovecraft is an interesting beast. Due to adaptations and the complicated relationship Lovecraft's works have to the public domain, many of his more popular creations have existence independent of their original context. They are something of a cultural meme. The terms Lovecraftian, Cthulhu, and Shoggoth often have meaning even to those who have never read a word of Lovecraft's prose
Unfortunately, while Lovecraft deserves some credit for the genesis of these tropes, much of his actual work is just not very good. This collection makes that obvious by leading off with "The Horror at Red Hook," a story where Lovecraft's much-noted racism is not just prominent but overwhelming. From there, the quality varies, but the premise is usually the same. A white man discovers some evidence that non-Abrahamic extremely powerful supernatural beings (Cthulhu, Shoggoth, Dagon etc) may exist. He then fails to cope.
The difficulty I have with Lovecraft is that his two main methods to convince me that I ought to be horrified do not succeed. His protagonists panic when faced with something different than and also more important than western civilization. The existential crisis of realizing they do not matter in the scheme of things combined with a deep seated dread from looking at mythos things too strange to understand produces their breakdowns. The first one, the dread of unimportance, holds some merit with me, and Lovecraft should be commended for introducing it. However, at this point, the myriad adaptations and reinterpretations of Lovecraft's ideas do a better job than the original of handling it, with less belabored prose.
However, it is the second, the panic of beholding something alien and different, that I find truly exasperating. Here, conceptually, I see a lot of Lovecraft's xenophobia. His narrators often panic and declare a thing to be horrifying and wrong, when information they are able to provide places it merely as foreign or difficult to explain. In fact, its often just as I become interested in the mythos that the protagonists become completely insane. I, like many of those engaged with the modern Lovecraft meme, feel the urge to study the mythos, to understand the lore or merely enjoy its strangeness. However Lovecraft's own protagonists, some of whom are anthropologists or scientists, do not.
In conclusion, looking back on Lovecraft's stories from the perspective of the Lovecraft meme, I find them unengaging. Lovecraft's best creations were his myths, and culture has loved them better than he did.
Unfortunately, while Lovecraft deserves some credit for the genesis of these tropes, much of his actual work is just not very good. This collection makes that obvious by leading off with "The Horror at Red Hook," a story where Lovecraft's much-noted racism is not just prominent but overwhelming. From there, the quality varies, but the premise is usually the same. A white man discovers some evidence that non-Abrahamic extremely powerful supernatural beings (Cthulhu, Shoggoth, Dagon etc) may exist. He then fails to cope.
The difficulty I have with Lovecraft is that his two main methods to convince me that I ought to be horrified do not succeed. His protagonists panic when faced with something different than and also more important than western civilization. The existential crisis of realizing they do not matter in the scheme of things combined with a deep seated dread from looking at mythos things too strange to understand produces their breakdowns. The first one, the dread of unimportance, holds some merit with me, and Lovecraft should be commended for introducing it. However, at this point, the myriad adaptations and reinterpretations of Lovecraft's ideas do a better job than the original of handling it, with less belabored prose.
However, it is the second, the panic of beholding something alien and different, that I find truly exasperating. Here, conceptually, I see a lot of Lovecraft's xenophobia. His narrators often panic and declare a thing to be horrifying and wrong, when information they are able to provide places it merely as foreign or difficult to explain. In fact, its often just as I become interested in the mythos that the protagonists become completely insane. I, like many of those engaged with the modern Lovecraft meme, feel the urge to study the mythos, to understand the lore or merely enjoy its strangeness. However Lovecraft's own protagonists, some of whom are anthropologists or scientists, do not.
In conclusion, looking back on Lovecraft's stories from the perspective of the Lovecraft meme, I find them unengaging. Lovecraft's best creations were his myths, and culture has loved them better than he did.