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speculativebecky
??? What did I just read? I have almost no idea what happened in this novel, but I did enjoy the reading experience. (Notable exception being the uncomfortable prevalence of absurd euphemisms for the penis. Meaty joystick? WHY??) This book is packed with ideas, but I don’t feel like I was smart enough to put it all together. The story begins in the 1800’s and as it advances to the late 1900’s and finally 2024 it keeps circling back to this nineteenth century explorer character but I couldn't tell you why. There’s a ton of character building of another character, Cassio, stuffed in the middle that somehow didn’t allow me to understand him at all. Then when part three introduces a neat woman as the final protagonist, it keeps being about the previous characters much more than her. This book is solidly speculative, but I want to say it leans more towards the “literary” side of fiction, even though I still couldn’t explain to you what I think makes a book “literary”. I love how much tech was stuffed into this book, and the feeling that it was asking interesting questions, however far just outside my reach, but ultimately I have no idea what went down in this book. In search of someone to talk to about this one? I don’t know, somehow I’m not especially inclined to try to Google my way towards some elusive understanding, preferring to let this book stand alone yet inscrutable. I think I should have read it slower.
Y’all I KNEW Nicky Drayden was gonna be a favorite! Escaping Exodus was SO GOOD. A thrilling story unfolds alongside staggeringly creative world building, in which a sliver of post-Earth humanity makes their home inside an enormous spacefaring creature, terraforming its body to meet their needs for survival and comfort. The novel’s two protagonists are young women whose feelings for each other are complicated by their very different stations within their society’s caste based matriarchy, one the matriarch’s heir, and the other a beastworker from the lower class. Often novels with alternating protagonists fight to keep the reader invested in each storyline and Drayden makes that task look effortless. I was deeply invested in each of their escapades, which are independent and elegantly intertwined as each grapples with learning dark truths about their world, and rises to the challenge of making change.
I’m in love with all the tiny world building details that Drayden infused into this novel, from the vivid descriptions of the body of the beast to the fascinating workings of the matriarchal society and its ten person family units and unfamiliar customs. At times I even craved a massive info dump to flesh out all the details, but Drayden weaves in the world building much more delicately yet effectively. The matriarchal culture rings uncomfortably familiar, replicating a sexist hierarchy in a way no less insidious than modern patriarchy. And with the whole world wrapped inside a literal living creature, Drayden explores a vital conflict over environmental stewardship alongside the coming of age stories of these two dynamic young women. Highly recommended!
I’m in love with all the tiny world building details that Drayden infused into this novel, from the vivid descriptions of the body of the beast to the fascinating workings of the matriarchal society and its ten person family units and unfamiliar customs. At times I even craved a massive info dump to flesh out all the details, but Drayden weaves in the world building much more delicately yet effectively. The matriarchal culture rings uncomfortably familiar, replicating a sexist hierarchy in a way no less insidious than modern patriarchy. And with the whole world wrapped inside a literal living creature, Drayden explores a vital conflict over environmental stewardship alongside the coming of age stories of these two dynamic young women. Highly recommended!
I'm not usually so into fantasy that's drawing from folklore but this book is my new favorite exception.
This short tense novella follows a newly wealthy family in Bangalore and the impacts of their sudden fortune on their family dynamic and relationships. Vivid imagery and an increasingly ominous tone propelled me through this fascinating story, my largest complaint being that it was so short! Shanbhag has all these hooks here on which one could hang so much more story, but I also respect and enjoy its crisp brevity.
I tend to cringe at the concept of a book with a “message”, but while this book is arguably “about” the cost of wealth, it’s much more clever than a simple parable. With few powerful details and undeniable artistry, Shanbhag brings his small cast of characters to life, and ultimately the story shines because of the characters and the impressive friction between them. I’m not always the biggest fan of contemporary fiction, but this is one I see sticking with me and which I’d happily recommend.
I tend to cringe at the concept of a book with a “message”, but while this book is arguably “about” the cost of wealth, it’s much more clever than a simple parable. With few powerful details and undeniable artistry, Shanbhag brings his small cast of characters to life, and ultimately the story shines because of the characters and the impressive friction between them. I’m not always the biggest fan of contemporary fiction, but this is one I see sticking with me and which I’d happily recommend.
Sanaaq somewhat eschews the definition of the word novel, and would more appropriately be described as a collection of forty eight vignettes about an Inuk woman named Sanaaq and her family and community. The back of the book teases “under it all, the growing intrusion of the Qallunaat and the battle for souls between the Catholic and Anglican missionaries”, as if that’s the major narrative arc of this book, but reading it I found the white man a far less prevalent topic than that blurb suggests. I wonder at that choice of framing and the constant need of white audiences to twist other people’s stories until we are at the center.
Nappaaluk’s writing feels suffused with energy. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book with more exclamation points per page, and I loved it. (Although of course I don’t know how the two translations may have altered the tone of the original work.) The stories are dominated by dialogue, and I was struck by the way that so much of the book’s descriptions were said aloud by its characters within the stories.
In so many ways this book feels unlike anything else I’ve read before, and I’m grateful to Nappaaluk for sharing her writing and illuminating something of her way of life. One of my most needling questions in reading this work was who Nappaaluk was writing for, who is her target audience? And I think the answer to that question is likely not a single answer. At times it felt like the book was providing explanations for an outsider, at others it felt like it was recording to preserve memories and wisdom for the insiders to a community. One illuminating takeaway from the foreword was that one of Nappaaluk’s goals was transcribing terms and grammatical structures from her language to assist with its study, but that she grew bored with just writing sentences and thus created these characters and their stories. Truly a unique and remarkable book.
Nappaaluk’s writing feels suffused with energy. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a book with more exclamation points per page, and I loved it. (Although of course I don’t know how the two translations may have altered the tone of the original work.) The stories are dominated by dialogue, and I was struck by the way that so much of the book’s descriptions were said aloud by its characters within the stories.
In so many ways this book feels unlike anything else I’ve read before, and I’m grateful to Nappaaluk for sharing her writing and illuminating something of her way of life. One of my most needling questions in reading this work was who Nappaaluk was writing for, who is her target audience? And I think the answer to that question is likely not a single answer. At times it felt like the book was providing explanations for an outsider, at others it felt like it was recording to preserve memories and wisdom for the insiders to a community. One illuminating takeaway from the foreword was that one of Nappaaluk’s goals was transcribing terms and grammatical structures from her language to assist with its study, but that she grew bored with just writing sentences and thus created these characters and their stories. Truly a unique and remarkable book.
Easily one of my favorite Fantasy novels I’ve read this year, The Rage of Dragons is an epic and action packed character driven story with intricate intriguing worldbuilding. It’s the first of a planned four book series, and the sequel is due to come out this November. I cannot wait!
Tau is a Lesser of the Omehi people, a heavily caste based society that believe themselves to be the Chosen people of their Goddess. With a powerful military helmed by the powers of a select few Gifted magic users, they fight a centuries long war against the godless people whose land they’ve invaded. Fueled by a thirst for revenge, our protagonist Tau sets out on a quest to become the world’s greatest sword fighter, and though the novel follows closely his personal journey, the larger political machinations are well developed in the background and leave a thrilling amount of room upon which to expand in the remainder of the series.
There is so much complexity in the worldbuilding, from the classist society and the rigid structures it enforces, to the secrecy surrounding the magic and the hints that not everything is as it is presented to be, to the very foundation of the people’s self-conception, centuries divorced from their homeland and first commitment to this “righteous” war. Rich expansive worldbuilding is one of my favorite elements of great Fantasy, and Winter nails it on every level, then goes above and beyond with Tau, a dynamic character that grows and changes over the course of this lengthy tome. Heck yes, I’m never gonna stop shouting about this book!
Tau is a Lesser of the Omehi people, a heavily caste based society that believe themselves to be the Chosen people of their Goddess. With a powerful military helmed by the powers of a select few Gifted magic users, they fight a centuries long war against the godless people whose land they’ve invaded. Fueled by a thirst for revenge, our protagonist Tau sets out on a quest to become the world’s greatest sword fighter, and though the novel follows closely his personal journey, the larger political machinations are well developed in the background and leave a thrilling amount of room upon which to expand in the remainder of the series.
There is so much complexity in the worldbuilding, from the classist society and the rigid structures it enforces, to the secrecy surrounding the magic and the hints that not everything is as it is presented to be, to the very foundation of the people’s self-conception, centuries divorced from their homeland and first commitment to this “righteous” war. Rich expansive worldbuilding is one of my favorite elements of great Fantasy, and Winter nails it on every level, then goes above and beyond with Tau, a dynamic character that grows and changes over the course of this lengthy tome. Heck yes, I’m never gonna stop shouting about this book!
This fast paced and suspenseful novel follows the four person crew of a sophisticated AI-controlled battleship as they travel across space exterminating an alien threat. It takes a toll to spend four years farther from home than anyone has ever been, with nothing but each other and their jobs, which are really more to provide pro-war propaganda to viewers back home rather than control any aspect of the AI-driven mission. This novel shined for me in its little worldbuilding details, and its characters and their battles with their own limitations, fighting a war against aliens that they fundamentally don’t understand, while passengers on this ship that they ultimately don’t understand any better.
Providence is driven by big and fascinating ideas, but for me the plot diverged somewhat from those ideas and veered more into frenetic action I enjoyed less as the book went on. That said, I really loved how Barry wrapped the book up and the strong development of the characters carried the novel.
Providence is driven by big and fascinating ideas, but for me the plot diverged somewhat from those ideas and veered more into frenetic action I enjoyed less as the book went on. That said, I really loved how Barry wrapped the book up and the strong development of the characters carried the novel.