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I wish I had the focus and attention this weird and wonderful book deserved. It’s the kind of thing that, once upon a time, I would have devoured in one sitting instead of in measured increments.
Anyway, elegy for unbusy self can leave now, book review of everything I want from my bonkers space opera remains.
Anyway, elegy for unbusy self can leave now, book review of everything I want from my bonkers space opera remains.
Lord is also just one of those authors where I don’t check the description before reading the book because I just always adore her work.
I love her idea of how fantasy and reality combine and the text is so clear while still making the reader feel at sea with the characters.
I love her idea of how fantasy and reality combine and the text is so clear while still making the reader feel at sea with the characters.
Okay, so everyone else pretending to be Tolkienesque had better queue up behind Kay because he sets the bar HIGH, my friends.
Not that I would expect less from someone who worked on turning the Silmarillion into something publishable, but still.
The thing is, Kay does with the Celtic mythology of what is now the UK more or less what Tolkien does with Anglo/Germanic mythology. They are both, in their own way, turning their own mythologies into a greater narrative past. They're also both invested in telling the story of the last stand of the light against the dark (I suddenly want to reread Susan Cooper. Weird.) and what that looks like and what sacrifices do (and do not) get made and it's also REALLY interesting to see how the difference in source material changes the fulcrum on which the world turns. There's a conversation to be had about the difference between mercy and sacrifice and I have to think harder about it.
But they're also very different books with a very different fellowship at the heart and that, as they say, makes all the difference.
Not that I would expect less from someone who worked on turning the Silmarillion into something publishable, but still.
The thing is, Kay does with the Celtic mythology of what is now the UK more or less what Tolkien does with Anglo/Germanic mythology. They are both, in their own way, turning their own mythologies into a greater narrative past. They're also both invested in telling the story of the last stand of the light against the dark (I suddenly want to reread Susan Cooper. Weird.) and what that looks like and what sacrifices do (and do not) get made and it's also REALLY interesting to see how the difference in source material changes the fulcrum on which the world turns. There's a conversation to be had about the difference between mercy and sacrifice and I have to think harder about it.
But they're also very different books with a very different fellowship at the heart and that, as they say, makes all the difference.
This book was everything it was advertised to be and more - brilliant characters, well-developed world, thoughtful approach to conflict and...happy. Not cheerful, but overall joyful.
I've seen this book reviewed as an antidote to "grimdark" fiction where everything is evil and horrible and people are the worst, and it is. But it's not sunshine or rainbows or a world where everything is perfect. But it is a world where it is possible to be fundamentally a good person and act that way and not end up with your head on a pike. And there's something wonderful about writing serious, complex fantasy politics while insisting that your main character hold on to a certain "goodness".
Also, I got completely lost in this book in the "swept away by narrative" sense and that so rarely happens anymore.
Interesting that the only two books this year to have gotten 5 stars from me have had this ideological bent that if you work hard and try hard and do good when you can, you and the world will be better for it.
I've seen this book reviewed as an antidote to "grimdark" fiction where everything is evil and horrible and people are the worst, and it is. But it's not sunshine or rainbows or a world where everything is perfect. But it is a world where it is possible to be fundamentally a good person and act that way and not end up with your head on a pike. And there's something wonderful about writing serious, complex fantasy politics while insisting that your main character hold on to a certain "goodness".
Also, I got completely lost in this book in the "swept away by narrative" sense and that so rarely happens anymore.
Interesting that the only two books this year to have gotten 5 stars from me have had this ideological bent that if you work hard and try hard and do good when you can, you and the world will be better for it.
This was hovering between a 3 and a 4, but baby wearing academic gives it a boost.
What can I say, I am occasionally a shallow and aggravating human.
It's a story about philosophy masquerading as one about people. Or possibly the reverse.
What can I say, I am occasionally a shallow and aggravating human.
It's a story about philosophy masquerading as one about people. Or possibly the reverse.
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This. This right here is my kind of space opera. The science is baked in to the story in really interesting ways, and of course there is space involved, but it's not ABOUT those things. Its about mysteries and empire and love and who we are and what it means to be that and this book was just so good at doing all those things.
This was like super insider baseball for the kinds of people for whom insider baseball is not really the metaphor they gravitate towards and also I thought it was ridiculously cute and I deeply appreciated every single reference.
This series is less WTF with this book, although still kind of. The shape of what Butler is doing is becoming less fuzzy and the familiarity of the Oankali from the last book mean its less what are these aliens even and more...what are these humans even, I suppose.
But she's still so good and her handle on what it means to be human is terrifying in its mastery.
But she's still so good and her handle on what it means to be human is terrifying in its mastery.
Queer historical romance is an excellent genre and it’s also REALLY interesting to see the way that authors engage with, set aside, and confront contemporary issues through the haze of historical distance and the promise of the romance novel’s happy ending.
That because the early 19ty century is, in its own way, as unreal as Narnia, its fictional version operates under rules that are very different than the actual 19th century. Which, combined with the drive to end happily, pushes the narrative towards a kind of creative problem solving that would be too simple in “literature” precisely because it forestalls conflict rather than revels in it. Of course our dyslexic hero makes it work!
And that’s the charm and also the power the genre has to imagine a non-conflictual resolution to obstacles that, by their nature, literature that runs on deep conflict can’t offer.
That because the early 19ty century is, in its own way, as unreal as Narnia, its fictional version operates under rules that are very different than the actual 19th century. Which, combined with the drive to end happily, pushes the narrative towards a kind of creative problem solving that would be too simple in “literature” precisely because it forestalls conflict rather than revels in it. Of course our dyslexic hero makes it work!
And that’s the charm and also the power the genre has to imagine a non-conflictual resolution to obstacles that, by their nature, literature that runs on deep conflict can’t offer.