mariebrunelm's Reviews (478)

A scattering of humans in a city-like spaceship confront life, death and everything in between.
I can't find a way to write a blurb for this novel because it’s a slice of life, as simple and as complicated as that. We follow a handful of characters, each one a thread in the vibrant tapestry of the Fleet. Their journeys have ups and downs, but not the traditional three-act structure or hero’s journey. Instead, we get a glimpse into their lives as they grow a little older, maybe a little wiser, a little more themselves. It’s a fabulous novel, like most of what Becky Chambers writes. I say most because I can’t say for certain, not having read everything, but to be honest I'm sure all of it is as heartwarming and comf
orting and deep and light. This is the book to read when you forget that humanity can do better.

Le Bazaar K., c’est d’abord l’histoire d’un homme tout à fait médiocre puni par son père. Il est envoyé aux confins de la galaxie, armé d’un stock inépuisable de stylos quatre-couleurs, pour y écrire de la poésie spatiale. Il est censé revenir sur Terre ensuite, mais il découvre sur son chemin l’existence du Bazaar K. Et effectue par là la plus surprenante découverte de l’humanité.

Cette nouvelle incisive et humoristique est portée par le franc-parler de son narrateur-personnage assez potache. Si je ne suis pas particulièrement friande de ce type de protagoniste, je salue la variété qu’il introduit dans la collection Chronopages des Editions 1115.

Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer is a whimsical, creative and dark fantasy all at the same time. Dark in that it deals with really dark themes (see CW). Whimsical and creative in that the setting is surprising and magic takes many different forms.

We follow Lazlo Strange, an orphan raised in a library and destined to spend his life between books, attending to the needs of scholars without ever being recognised as one. Lazlo is slowly but surely gathering every morsel of information he can find about the city of Weep, whose true name escaped his tongue and his memory the first time he came across it. The secret behind this type of magic haunts him and he is desperate to learn more about it, when a unique opportunity arises and a delegation from Weep arrives in town.

Sarai is a godspawn, born from unspeakable pain and destined to live her life hidden from the rest of the world with her brothers and sisters, so close to the fabled city of Weep but so far away. Trapped in her citadel, she can only visit Weep through the moths that carry her power and make her infiltrate people’s dreams, invisible, unknown. Until the day a boy sees her.

I can see this book being so loved by its readers, and potentially breaking their heart. It’s filled with longing and rage, with love and betrayal, with shame and secrets. Unfortunately we got off on the wrong foot, since it ticked a few boxes that make me roll my eyes. That’s not against the author of the book, it’s a very personal taste. Then, I felt a little bit like when reading an Erin Morgenstern book, in that it was very imaginative and visual and since I have no visual imagination I had trouble getting a grasp on the universe. I could never feel the atmosphere of this book, and so I was having trouble with reading. I actually switched to the French translation halfway through (thank you libraries !) and that helped me finish it. I could have just abandoned, but it wasn’t a bad book so I felt frustrated at the thought of not getting through a novel that had been on my wishlist for so long.

I’d recommend this book if you enjoy The Night Circus and The Starless Sea (which I do want to reread) and if you’re ready to have your heart crushed, in part with the romance. Even though I didn’t feel like that, I could see the potential.

Roz, en 2111, est ingénieur sur un vaisseau parti explorer l’univers à la recherche de planètes à terraformer. L’équipage est constitué essentiellement d’humains, mais aussi d’un bot, et est chapeauté par une IA, Alexandre. Asha, en 2131, est une bot particulièrement intéressée par l’individualité des bots et leur expérience, notamment le rapport à leur corps. Ces deux personnages naviguent dans un monde loin d’être utopique, mais dans lequel ils s’efforcent de considérer l’autre avec le respect qu’iel mérite. Dans les vingt ans qui les ont séparés, la société a continué de se scléroser, sans que la présence des bots y soit pour grand chose. Les humains n’ont besoin de personne pour perpétuer des systèmes d’oppression. Roz et Asha, chacun.e dans son époque, invite à réfléchir à ce que c’est que d’être vivant et d’avoir un corps.

Le roman de Saul Pandelakis m’intriguait tout autant qu’il m’intimidait. Avec ses 600 pages de SF bien tassées et sa portée philosophique, je craignais de m’attaquer à un texte trop exigeant pour moi. C’est en fait tout le contraire qui s’est révélé, car l’auteur revient toujours à l’expérience du corps qui est parfaitement universelle, quel que soit ce corps. Ce roman en est à la fois une célébration et une expérience de sa diversité. Ce sont de multiples corps qui sont mis en scène à travers les pages : des corps humains, bots, valides, handicapés, gros, noirs, cis, trans, etc. On suit principalement les points de vue de Roz et d’Asha, mais ceux-ci sont entrecoupés d’interludes où l’on suit des personnages annexes dont le parcours est d’une importance qui se laisse deviner parfois immédiatement, parfois plus tard, mais qui crée toujours ce sentiment si plaisant de “ah, ça vient de là / ceci est lié à cela de telle manière”.

La Séquence Aardtman incarne ce que j’aime le plus dans la SF : celle qui interroge l’expérience humaine. Oui, il est question de technologie et en particulier de lignes de code, mais il s’agit surtout d’explorer comment la technologie influe sur notre expérience du monde et nos relations interpersonnelles.

Rep : personnages principaux trans, PS asexuel, PS en fauteuil.

 

Stella is helping a childhood friend empty his deceased brother’s home when she asks a fairly innocent question. Does he remember the TV programme they took part in as kids? Marco does. Except Stella has just made this memory up.

In this short story that had been on my e-reader probably since 2020 and was long due a read, Sarah Pinsker does a great job at setting up an unsettling atmosphere. I won’t go into the details of the plot because it’s so short, but if you enjoy not knowing exactly where you stand, and being puzzled, this is a great one. There is quite a lot of imagery that could be discussed and the ending is very open to interpretation, which I personally enjoy !

 

1897, Paris. It’s been three years since Violante arrived here. What her life was before that, she has no memories. To survive, she became a sex worker and climbed the steps of the strange social ladder at work in her brothel. She became Duchesse, a renowned woman sought by the powerful. Life is hard enough as it is, but with a new drug appearing in town and mysterious disappearances, Violante’s quest for her memories starts to bear strange ramifications with the turmoils of this steampunk Paris.

Don’t expect anything soft and cosy with Floriane Soulas. Her worlds are harsh and cruel, and the characters do whatever they have to do to survive, including questionable choices and morally grey decisions. The prose doesn’t hide any of the horrors happening to the characters whether on a social or physical level. It makes for a gripping story that is quite hard to let go of, even though it’s not one I’ll consider as a comfort read.

Given the main character’s job, sexual violence is rampant in this book. However, I appreciated that it was in the background, not extensively discussed, and never fantasised. It was part of a bigger discussion on violence towards bodies, that the author explores extensively in her latest novel, Tonnerre après les ruines. I find it fascinating to read different books by one author and see the themes and language evolve through a body of work. Having read Soulas’s first and latest novels, I can safely recommend her novels with the warning that they are physically violent. Yet, violence is never gratuitous, and I appreciate that, especially in Tonnerre, Soulas claims violence as a tool for women too, however awful a tool it is. Novels are supposed to make us have a good time, yes, but they are also supposed to make us think.

 

Voilà un recueil dont j’aurais aimé faire partie. J’avais littéralement le projet d’envoyer une nouvelle car le thème “littérature et cuisine” parlait à mon cœur, et puis l’inspiration n’a pas frappé. Elle était visiblement occupée à visiter les auteurices de ce recueil grâce à qui j’ai passé un excellent moment. Il y a un peu de tous les genres ici : du contemporain, de la fantasy, de l’anticipation et du fantastique, et surtout beaucoup de cœur. Du fait de la ligne éditoriale d’Yby, chaque nouvelle baigne dans l’inclusivité, et chacune est illustrée par un.e artiste différent.e. Cela fait de ce livre un bel objet dehors comme dedans. Je ne connaissais que deux plumes de la liste, mais je suis ravie d’avoir fait connaissance avec d’autres noms que je surveillerai à l’avenir.

AC : chaque nouvelle est introduite par ses avertissements de contenu.

The subtitle of this essay says it all: “Design and Pattern in Narrative”. Jane Alison explores how authors have taken inspiration, consciously or not, from natural patterns to structure their stories. More precisely, Alison looks at patterns different from the classic wave or three-act structure that implies a swelling wave, a climax and the… aftermath, which is a rather phallocentric way of building a narrative structure and, what’s more important, certainly not the only one. The author looks at wavelets rather than one wave, at spiral patterns, cellular, or meandering. She takes extensive examples from novels or short stories from a range of different authors. I was particularly excited when she illustrated the pattern of the fractal with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, a book I thoroughly enjoyed and plan to re-read.

I’d say this book is written more from the perspective of a reader than a writer, or rather it’s not written as a textbook on story structure. It opens perspectives and suggests ways of doing without giving you tools like other books about writing do. I underlined a few passages that I’m looking forward to thinking about and I’d recommend this book as a good starting point, for instance in a writing group.

Ebook sent by the author for review.

The sequel to Say I Boo was just as enjoyable as the first volume ! In this new one, we are reunited with Abby Spector, ghost hunter extraordinaire who is called by her cousin. Sam is in need of Abby’s help at the inn where they work, which may be haunted by a less benevolent ghost than usual. Spooky messages have been left on walls or windows indicating a nefarious plot, and with an important Valentine’s Day dinner event coming up, the inn really doesn’t need the bad press.

I really enjoy the balance Morgan Spellman achieves with this series. You’ve got the right amount of cosy, the right amount of mystery, sprinkled with a hint of romance and deep human feelings. Abby is still battling with grief, and I love that the author doesn’t come up with a magical cure so that by the end of even volume one all’s perfectly fine and Abby can ride away into the sunset with her new girlfriend. No, it doesn’t happen like that. For all the lighthearted vibes, this book doesn’t belittle the struggles of its characters.

CW: grief, death, fire.

Ce petit abécédaire sur le thème de la douceur promettait d'être assez charmant. Il invite à réfléchir sur la place de la douceur dans tout un tas de notions, mais ne définit jamais vraiment ce qu'il entend par “douceur”, ce qui, en bonne doctorante que je suis, me turlupine : comment parler de ce qui n'est pas défini? Je me suis aussi longuement interrogée sur la nécessité de consacrer trois notices à la pornographie, et sur la raison pour laquelle l’auteur ne se référait qu'à d’autres auteurs masculins, et jamais des autrices.

Heureusement, j'ai trouvé certaines notices très bienvenues, comme celle qui regrette que la volonté de réalisme de la littérature et du cinéma s’attache exclusivement à ce qu'il y a de plus triste et gris dans la réalité. Je reste néanmoins un peu déconcertée et pas franchement convaincue par ce petit essai.