octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I often think of travel books as something written by a person who is visiting another country than their own, but that's not the case here. Danticat, who never got to experience the Jacmel carnival as a child (her uncle would take his family away on religious retreat every year to avoid it) goes home to see exactly what she was missing out on all for all those years. Quite a lot, as it turns out!

There's a lot of background detail here concerning the different types of floats, and the selection of the carnival queens, and all the other organisational details that are missed if you just turn up on the day. It's genuinely interesting stuff, though it does feel as if this organisational and historical context takes up 95% of the book. I would have liked for there to have been a longer account of Danticat's actual experiences during the carnival, because I've never been to one either! More time there, even if only by proxy, would have rounded this out a little more, I think. 

I have been meaning to read this book for decades, having read and enjoyed other Steinbeck novels. I have to say, even though of his works my undying love is given to Cannery Row above all the rest, I still really enjoyed this. It's so tragic, and so awful, and there's really no other way that it could have ended. What I appreciate most of all about Steinbeck is how much he prioritises compassion in his work, and how interested he is in building friendships and relationships between his characters. And the thing is, that terrible, merciful ending... it can only occur, and only occur believably, because the friendship between George and Lennie has been so well-defined, and its emotional resonance made the rock on which the rest of the story is built. 

This collection of short stories is notable for the extremely broad range of settings - it has authors from all over the world, who are writing stories in places local to them, and that's fantastic. It may be one of the most diverse anthologies I've read in ages, and there are some very compelling stories here. They tend very strongly towards the positive and, as with most solarpunk-type fiction, prioritise community-led projects and small-scale solutions to climate change. I liked most of the stories here very much indeed, but I think my three favourites are "The Price of Principles" by Lauri Kubuitsile, "Under Pressure" by (the collective) Commando Jungendstil and Tales from the EV Studio, and "I Take Credit for Saving the World" by PSC Willis. I note that this is Willis' first published piece, and I look forward to reading more from them in the future! 

I read and reviewed each of the five comics collected here separately, so this is basically just for my own records. Within those records, it's something of an anomaly. I usually average out the individual ratings for the whole, which would set this at just above four stars, but the last issue of The Rat was so affecting that I feel as if the collection deserves its five stars. It really sticks the landing, is what I'm saying, and the story, combined with the spectacular artwork, means I absolutely cannot wait for the next volume of this series to be published. 

I usually rabbit on in these reviews about the artwork, and it continues to be amazing - the transformation of Obsession from dragon into a maelstrom of thorns is particularly effective. However, for once the story affected me more than the art. It's quite a quiet story, too - Sissy and Clara, caught in Obsession's grasp and talking to each other about the value and difficulty of forgiveness. I've read this comic several times over the past few months (and finally getting round to logging it here) and each time the end makes me tear up, or nearly. Just beautifully done, and a wonderful conclusion to Clara's story. 

The Reaper of Obsession doesn't creep me out nearly as much as the Reaper of Thirst did, but the journey to get there is interesting. From earlier issues it's plain that Sissy is looking for lost Reapers, and there's an ambiguous undercurrent here about just how far Ginny is willing to go, and the bargains she'll make, to find them. It makes me question just how Clara got into Obsession's clutches in the first place, to be honest, but that's one of the main points of interest for me in this series, I think - the multiple motivations, and the way that every element of the story is a proxy for everything else. It's very well-constructed that way. 

The Reaper of Thirst is a creepy bitch, and the visualisation of her is terrifying. The artwork here, though, is spectacular. So much of this issue is silent, in that there are pages and pages without words or speech bubbles, and it's so effective. Effective in a surrealist sort of way, as Clara coming to Thirst in search of her uncle - and what that says about Frank's life, and his guilt and isolation from her is dreadfully sad - and then coming under the control of another reaper is a nightmare dream sequence. I'm not the biggest comic reader in the world, though clearly I do read some, but there's no one whose comic artwork appeals to me more than Emma Ríos, I think. All credit to her! 

I don't like this one quite as much as the first comic in The Rat, partly because the opening in the garden is a little lengthy for my tastes, without adding much new content, and partly because I'm so upset at what happened to Clara. That is, of course, effective storytelling on DeConnick's part, and the exploitation of minority talent in order to prop up a mediocre but otherwise privileged person is certainly believable in this setting, but still. Poor Clara. I almost wish it weren't so typical.

The art seems to have changed a little, too, with more emphasis on restricted colour palettes set together over several sets of pages. It's pretty, but the cover is certainly the best of it. 

This begins a new mini-series in the wider Pretty Deadly world, and the focus seems to have shifted to old-time Hollywood. Clara has died there, having apparently thrown herself from the top of the Hollywood sign, and her uncle is desperate to know what happened to her. Something must have driven her to this, he reasons, and that's reason enough for Ginny, the reaper of vengeance, to arrive.

Again, as much as I enjoy the story - and I do - it's the artwork that's most spectacular here. Emma Ríos is using a new style, and it's very... tentacular, perhaps? That's not quite the word. It's sort of tentacles mixed with tree branches, the sort of branches that scrape outside your window in the middle of the night. I'm starting to think that the artwork varies alongside the reapers, for while Ginny turns up, the other reapers mentioned here - hunger, thirst, and obsession - all seem to have their own styles. Whatever that style is, it's very attractive to look at. 

I have to admit, when I think of solarpunk I tend to think of warmer climates - there's a companion volume to this, on solarpunk summers, that I also own and will be reading soon. The winter volume, by comparison, seemed appealingly unlikely, so I plumped to read that one first. And you know, it's not a silly idea. Climate change doesn't mean warming everywhere, and anyway, some of these stories are more concerned with preserving winter and the related cold-adapted ecologies. 

I don't think there's a single dud story here. I liked all of them, and all of them took different and interesting approaches to the topic. Most, if not all, of the stories relate to North America, and it would have been nice to have a little more geographic variety, but that diversity of approach made up for a lot. Of the 17 stories collected here, I think my favourites were "Wings of Glass" by Wendy Nikel, "Rules for a Civilization" by Jerri Jerreat, and "On the Contrary, Yes" by Catherine F. King. I'd be happy to read everything here again, however, so I'm glad I have my own copy.