Stakes that are neither too high nor too low. Facing discrimination and prejudice as a refugee who belongs to an ethnic minority in their new city. Dealing with the complicated history of one’s culture, one’s past. Pushing back against for-profit healthcare. These are all powerful elements in The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia. Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC!

Although novella-length, this book brims with plot. Firuz, a Sassanian refugee, joins a free healing clinic run by Kofi. There, they study under Kofi while also secretly practising the blood magic they learned from their homeland. Once, the Sassanians ruled a vast empire. Now, their homeland conquered, they are the targets of genocide. As more Sassanians arrive in Qilwa, anti-refugee sentiments rise, and plagues and disease do not help matters. The title of the book refers to the most obvious symptom of a mystery disease that Firuz spends much of their time diagnosing—when they aren’t helping Kofi with the political battle to keep the clinic open, or teaching their adopted charge how to control her blood magic, or feeling like a bad sibling for not helping their brother with a gender realignment spell … yeah, Firuz’s life is complicated, hectic even.

It’s through such an embattled narrative that Jamnia explores questions of identity and motive. Firuz hides their blood magic use, because in Qilwa, blood magic is the stuff of nightmare legend. They know they would be ostracized. Yet, despite the considerable abuse they endured at the hands of their Elders while being trained, Firuz is also proud of their abilities and their ability to heal with blood magic. As the novella progresses, we see Firuz wrestle with larger questions of identity, such as what it means to be a member of an ethnic group that is now marginalized but once was the conquering power across this continent.

Throughout this story, Jamnia finesses the scale of the narrative with impressive skill. It’s always tempting to see the novella as merely a “short novel,” but that would be like saying a 22-minute television show is simply half a 43-minute television show. The novella demands more character development than seen in a short story, yet the shorter length means different pacing from its longer cousin. Jamnia has Firuz encountering the Governor of Qilwa and pleading for assistance on a municipal level, yet they also have Firuz essentially down in the trenches, fighting against the bruising disease on the level of individuals. This is a story where the smallest action matters, yet large actions also have correspondingly large consequences. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it cozy fantasy, but there are certainly some moments of more intimate joy and sorrow here, especially as Firuz navigates their relationships with their chosen and found family members.

Jamnia has created a queernormative world here, one in which diverse sexualities and genders are respected as a matter of course. As I have said in other reviews, this should essentially become the norm within fantasy (and any genre, I would hope), for the idea that a fantasy world must somehow be “historically accurate” is … contradictory at best. Yet a queernormative world doesn’t mean that queer people are free from struggle, as Firuz’s relationship with their brother, Parviz, illustrates. For all Firuz’s magical talents, they don’t quite have the skill or knowledge to realign Parviz’s body (i.e., magical gender-affirming transformation, omg) to match his gender. As a result, Firuz blames themself for Parviz’s ongoing struggle with dysphoria. Qilwa might have allowed refugees to settle on the outskirts of its city, and it might be accepting of gender diversity, but this society still had broken and jagged edges and prejudice against certain types of medical treatments or the magic used to provide them. That’s why Firuz must teach Afsoneh blood magic in secret, even as she chafes under such restrictions and Firuz wrestles with whether or not they do Afsoneh more harm than good by trying to be a teacher without any formal training as such. In this way, Firuz’s relationships intersect with and inform the political dimensions of the novella, which in turn lead to Firuz’s involvement with the main conflict.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the construction of The Bruising of Qilwa is the way that the antagonist is revealed only at the climax of the novella. Honestly, this is the part I found least interesting. This character’s motives, while clearly explained by Jamnia, are not all that compelling—perhaps because I spent so much time with Firuz that this antagonist feels less developed as a result. While the physical and magical conflict that ensues is a fun and tense moment of action, I would have liked to see more pages spent drawing out the antagonist’s plot in a way that builds more suspense. That being said, I really enjoyed how Jamnia depicts Firuz’s sense of betrayal and the way that this overall influences their outlook going forward.

So The Bruising of Qilwa is a good time. It’s a novella of deep, layered relationships between characters who all have well-defined personalities despite the deceptive brevity of this book. The main character in particular is so flawed and fallible yet still someone I want to cheer for. While I can acknowledge the Persian influences Jamnia weaves in here, I can’t comment too much on those given my ignorance, except to say I’m here for it. I’ve kind of slid sideways into Persian-inspired fantasy stories with the likes of Girl, Serpent, Thorn. But I love seeing the genre move away from thinly veiled analogues of Eurocentric feudalism or appropriation-driven attempts at mirroring other cultures at the hands of white writers. Mostly, though, I loves me some urban fantasy set in a secondary world, where characters are free to be themselves even as the world around them feels like it’s coming apart at the seams.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Talk about lengthy subtitles! This book has a retro styling to it, but scratch the surface and you’ll find it quite modern in its outlook. Sam Kean takes us on a journey through the periodic table: its history, the properties of its elements, and how those elements have fascinated/charmed/influenced our lives from ancient times to the modern era. The Disappearing Spoon is a blend of physics and history, science and sociology.

Although loosely chronological, Kean’s organization is more thematic than anything else. The first chapters explore the origins of our knowledge of elements and the creation of early periodic tables (or equivalent structures). The last chapters discuss the future of elemental chemistry and particle physics, meditating on such lofty questions as the maximum number of elements out there. (Interestingly, the book’s explanation for why it’s unlikely there are more than 137 elements is incorrect, perhaps somewhat oversimplified or outdated.) In between, however, Kean groups elements together based on the types of stories he has dug up about them. Some stories are highly scientific, others are industrial, and others still are tragically personal.

This book was highly successful in terms of teaching me new and interesting things! I will likely forget most of the anecdotes Kean shares here, but some will stick with me. For example, I was fascinated by the story of molybdenum’s role in the First World War, how Germany secretly exploited the only industrial source, which was located within the United States, and the similar story of tungsten in the Second World War and Portugal’s shrewd but morally dubious cornering of the market.

Indeed, if The Disappearing Spoon is anything, it’s an advertisement for the importance of materials science. So much of our technological innovation—which in turn leads to vast social improvements—comes from tinkering with chemical elements and compounds, either to make manufacturing them more efficient or to combine them in new, hitherto unanticipated ways. Elements like gadolinium, chromium, niobium might sound exotic to us laypeople, yet they have become essential to modern computing. Our entire way of life is underpinned by elements and compounds we either haven’t heard of or don’t think much about. It’s cool and breathtaking at the same time, and I think Kean does a good job, through this selection of anecdotes, of illustrating the scope of human ingenuity (and occasionally, cruelty or shortsightedness) when it comes to chemistry and physics.

The book dives pretty deep into the particle physics behind chemical elements too, which I wasn’t expecting from its description. It probably taught me more about electron shells and orbitals than I learned in my high school chemistry classes! I appreciate how Kean wants us to understand the deep links between phenomena like radioactivity and the decay of subatomic particles. Many of the stories Kean shares demonstrate how earlier investigators of the elements would observe a trait but not have a deep explanation for it, and quantum mechanics has helped us understand the why behind everything from an element’s reactivity to how common it is on Earth or in our universe.

The chemical elements are truly the building blocks of … well, everything. The Disappearing Spoon shows this and furnishes us with a lot of science while remaining quite accessible. I’ve got another element-focused book lined up to read soon as a companion to this one (I’ll update this review with a link when I’ve reviewed it) to continue my journey.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

After reading Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife last year, I jumped on Just Like Home as soon as it came out—and thanks, by the way, to my library for having a copy available right away! For those who don’t know me, I want to be upfront: I don’t generally read horror. It takes a special kind of speculative-fiction author to get me to do that, and Gailey happens to be such an author.

Vera Crowder is returning to her childhood home to care for her dying mother. The wrinkle? Vera’s father was a serial killer; he killed people in that very house, and this one fact has shaped Vera’s entire life and torpedoed her relationship with her mother. Or at least, that’s how the story starts. As Gailey weaves flashbacks into present-day tensions, we start to learn that there is more happening in the Crowder house than meets the eye. Vera feels a connection reawaken, and as she begins to prepare the house for her mother’s death … maybe it is preparing her.

Can we just talk for a moment about the luxurious quality of Gailey’s writing? They are a master of analogy, metaphor, and simile. The majority of this book is narration and description, something that sometimes doesn’t work for me. But Gailey is so adept at deploying figurative language without verging into purple prose, and the result is … just sumptuous. I read this in a day—and that isn’t only because, as a new release, it has holds on it and so I have to return it within a week instead of two weeks, oops, should have realized…. Anyway, I read this in a day because it was so easy to keep reading. I love how each flashback chapter begins with Vera’s age and ends with such explicit and ominous foreshadowing. Meanwhile, the chapters set in the present day have their own kind of foreboding created by the mood of Gailey’s writing as they unspool the mystery of Vera herself.

You see, I won’t spoil the plot, but Vera is not an innocent person, shall we say? There really are no innocents at all in this book, from Vera to her mother and father to James Duvall—everyone has an angle, has a secret or a weakness or an urge that beats deep inside of them. Vera is not an easy character to love, for Gailey presents her to us in a very detached way. That is the point, I think—this is less about cheering on a protagonist and more of a study in what a serial killer’s daughter might become, with a dash of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. Vera essentially walked away from her entire life: her hometown, her parents, her childhood—and when it comes roaring back, when it pulls her back home, it threatens to swallow her identity whole.

There are echoes in here of commentary on the place of spectacle in our society. The way that Vera’s mother allowed the Crowder House to become a tourist trap, leveraged it to survive under capitalism, and how this allowed James and his father into the Crowders’ lives. This is a theme that isn’t fully explored, much like I wish Gailey had spent more time on Vera and Daphne’s relationship as well.

Just Like Home is what I would call an experience. The reading of it is about as joyous an experience as a dark, bloody horror novel can be. Afterwards, the memory of it starts to fall apart a bit in your mind, as you realize there are pieces that maybe don’t fit quite right. But this novel just confirms my impression that Gailey is a speculative talent to watch, simply because they don’t do things by half measures, and they are bringing deeply imaginative stories into this world.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Moment of shame as I admit I have never read anything by C.J. Cherryh! I picked up a whole stack of her paperbacks from the used bookstore; I decided to start with The Paladin because the internet told me that it was a good standalone work. No lies! Now, it took me over a week to read this little story because I was distracted and, perhaps, not in the mood for exactly this type of tale. Nevertheless, while I didn’t love this book, it showcased Cherryh’s writing skills in a way that left me wanting to read more of her work.

Shoka, once Lord Saukendar and swordmaster to the Emperor, lives in self-imposed exile on a mountain on the outskirts of Chiyaden while the young Emperor continues to be overshadowed by a tyrannical regent. His peace is disturbed by Taizu, a peasant girl on the cusp of womanhood. She has crossed the empire in search of the fabled Saukendar and is determined to have him teach her the art of the sword, despite her unfortunate gender and Shoka’s own desire for solitude. Taizu’s goal is no less than the killing of Gitu, the Emperor, and Ghita, the Regent. As you might imagine, she gradually wins over Shoka, but things don’t quite turn out the way either would expect.

I loved the start of this book. It feels a bit like an ancient legend, you know? Determined, plucky youth convinces the grouchy old master to take her on so that she can train for her revenge. All the ingredients are here. Cherryh’s style, at least in this novel, is incredibly lush and descriptive—the dialogue is sparse, but she spends a lot of time on setting, as well as on what’s going through Shoka’s head. The narrator is quick to highlight that Shoka is past his prime, both in age and in political will. Similarly, Taizu’s revenge plot is absolutely bananapants—something Shoka never fails to point out to her—and the way Cherryh handles this later in the story is pretty good.

I could have done without all the lust on Shoka’s part. I have come to expect that from fantasy novels written by men, and perhaps from Tanya Huff, so this was a bit of a surprise. It’s not quite lechery, I suppose, on Shoka’s part, but it just weirds me out, the way it goes beyond addressing the elephant in the room and turns into a kind of fixation for him.

Nevertheless, the first half of the book is quite the training montage. The second half turns into what I can only describe as military fantasy, and that’s where the novel starts to lose me. I had trouble following some of what was going on—there were a lot of names of people and places, a lot of discussion of tactics and difficult situations, and not a lot of moments for our protagonists to pause and work things out. When we finally get to meet the Emperor and his evil Regent, it feels hollow because we don’t really know either of these people. They were just names to us, and then their encounter with Shoka and Taizu is all too brief.

At the same time, as I said earlier, I really respect Cherryh’s storytelling chops. Even as I felt my interest flagging, I could see the wonderful story structure and thematic elements at play. The way that Shoka must shift back into his old persona of Saukendar, how his legend precedes him as he and Taizu travel towards the capital, his awareness that this is a double-edged sword that might get others killed … it’s very good. It’s a slick commentary on the issues with placing our faith in legends who turn out just to be men—with all the fallibility and foibles of age!

I doubt The Paladin will sit with me for a long time. We’ll see how I feel about the other Cherryh novels I pick up in the months to come! But it’s an example of how a novel can still be a solid work of story even when it doesn’t personally grab me the way I want.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

A new Alastair Reynolds novel is always a cause for celebration, even if my enjoyment of them is inconsistent. In Eversion, though space is a part of the setting, time is far more important. Reynolds takes your classic science-fiction trope of a time loop story, and he spins it just enough to keep things fresh. Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the eARC!

Silas Coade is the assistant surgeon (well, only surgeon) aboard the Demeter, a sailing ship bound for the coast of Norway. Sorry, a steamship bound for the coast of South America. Sorry, a zeppelin bound for—OK, that’s about all I’m going to reveal. It’s a time loop, but it isn’t a time loop. Silas lives through similar-yet-subtly-different events over and over as part of an expedition to explore a curious and alien Edifice. Each time, he dies in some spectacular fashion, and another member of the expedition consistently drops her mask long enough to reveal that she knows something about what Silas is experiencing.

The key to the success of Eversion is in Reynolds’ delight in how he describes each setting. The first several chapters of the book only ever hint at the science-fictional premise behind the events; taken separately, they are simply adventure stories about a ship on a mission for exploration and profit. Reynolds harnesses the tropes and storytelling devices in the tradition of authors like Jules Verne, creating an immersive, entertaining atmosphere with each setting Silas finds himself in. I love each of them.

Alas, Reynolds finally drops the mask and allows Silas (and by extension, the reader) to see “reality,” I as let down. I thought the twist regarding Silas’s nature to be somewhat boring. It wasn’t predictable per se, at least not for me, but I was hoping for something … deeper, I guess? The same holds true for the nature of the Edifice and its antagonistic qualities. The second half of the novel is weaker, for there is much less danger for our protagonists. It becomes a kind of journey of exposition and self-discovery—and that has merit, I would agree, but it doesn’t hold interest as much as the tension of the first half did for me.

That being said, I liked the ending and the resolution. As always, Reynolds might not consistently wow me with his stories, but he does make me think. His approach to science fiction is always interesting, thoughtful, and worth a read.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Famously, I was told the internet is for porn. That can’t be true, of course, because as far as I am concerned, the internet is for writing book reviews! Anyway, The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession is yet another entry in a long line of books that looks at how people have lined up against one another to support or oppose the creation, distribution, and consumption of pornography. Some people on both sides call themselves feminists. Kelsy Burke looks at who the people are on these sides, and how we got here. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bloomsbury USA for the eARC!

I’ve read several books that touch on similar themes. Way back in 2018, I read the much older Female Chauvinist Pigs, which Burke cites here. More recently, I’ve read The Pornification of America and Why We Lost the Sex Wars, both through NetGalley as well. Why do I keep coming back to this topic? I think it has to do with a fascination with the limits of feminism. I identify as a feminist, but I also recognize that my views on feminism have been shaped by my privilege as a white, able-bodied person with a good education and job. A lot of my learning in recent years has focused on unlearning my white feminism in an attempt to look at things more intersectionally. Porn, and its influence on our culture, is at the centre of a lot of debates about what it means to be feminist. As usual, historically, it has been middle-class cis white women leading the charge, while sex workers are disproportionately poorer women and non-binary people of colour.

Burke’s book intrigued me because, while didn’t go so far as to promise objectivity, it did say it would strive to include multiple perspectives on “the pornography wars” and to critique those perspectives. This was something I felt was sorely lacking in Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs, which despite professing feminist views and a neutrality towards porn, interviewed mostly people one would describe as anti-porn. In contrast, The Pornography Wars has data and stories gathered from across a vast spectrum, ranging from interviewees who are staunchly anti-porn on moral grounds to people who are staunchly pro-porn to people who are just confused, unsure, or who don’t like porn for their own reasons but aren’t opposed to its existence socially.

Although I’m not going to get into it here, you can imagine, I hope, that my own relationship to porn, as a 32-year-old asexual transgender woman, is complicated. Indeed, Burke elucidates how most people’s relationship with porn is a complicated one, which is why this subject needs to be studied and discussed. Though I would largely describe myself as “pro-porn, sex-positive, pro-sex-worker,” I must admit that Burke’s work has me feeling more negative towards the porn industry than ever before.

Now, I knew already about how problematic PornHub/MindGeek are. But as Burke peeled off the layers of corruption and dysfunction within the industry, I started to realize that the idea of “ethical porn” is problematic, to say the least. It’s great that one can pay for one’s porn, but that only solves a single problem and doesn’t address the underlying abuse of sex workers within the porn industry. A consumer must embark on more extensive research—has that talent ever been accused of sexual assault of a fellow talent?—to feel confident in the ethics of one’s pornography. Suddenly the idea of consuming porn ethically feels closer to the idea of consuming meat ethically—and while I haven’t gone vegetarian, I am all for dramatically reforming the meat industry.

At the same time, Burke is careful not to repeat, and indeed she calls out, when critics of the porn industry cherry-pick the most sensational stories of abuse. As the subtitle of this book implies, part of her examination of the history of the pornography wars involves the battle to have pornography declared “obscene.” Burke is very careful to delineate between opponents of pornography who hold it as immoral versus those who see it as unhealthy (although there is often overlap).

Her exploration of whether or not there is science to support the idea of porn addiction reminds us that science is a tool prone to being biased or misused. Plenty of evangelicals are seizing on science, albeit often junk science, to back up gender-essentialist ideas of brain function and sexuality. Though out of the scope of Burke’s thesis, these findings hint at the underlying problem in American society—a general dismantling of scientific literacy to the point where what counts as science and fact is now up for debate.

As Burke points out, the pornography wars have become increasingly polarized and moralized. She wants to demonstrate that there is common ground between those who would describe themselves as anti-porn or pro-porn (or at least, porn-neutral). This might seem like an impossible task, but I think through the patient exploration of her topic from different angles, she succeeds. At the very least, The Pornography Wars shows that the history of smut, obscenity, and pornography in America is not as simple as many of the people on either side of this battlefield might claim. I really enjoyed learning about that history, and I think Burke did a great job of presenting different perspectives in a way that truly challenged my own existing views on pornography, both as a concept and as an industry.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Virtual reality in all its various imaginings always holds attraction for us. The idea that we can enter the world of dreams is as old as dreaming itself—many Indigenous cultures privilege the dreamworld and use it as a source of stories and even wayfinding. The Extractionist joins a very long line of science-fiction novels, then, that contemplate what happens if you get stuck in a dreamworld or virtual reality. Kimberly Unger imagines a world where this is common enough that it is someone’s job to go in and get you out. Throw in your standard double-crosses, action sequences, and murder attempts from any sci-fi thriller, and you’ve got this book!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for the eARC!

Eliza McKay’s true passion is engineering nanomachines. Alas, the United States government revoked her licences to do so. Blacklisted, she resorts to other jobs—like extracting people whose personas have become stuck in the Swim, a collective cyberspace that people can visit for business or pleasure. Eliza’s latest job involves extracting a government spook, and as these things tend to go in a novel like this, everything goes sideways fast. The next few days entail tiny moments of respite in between intense scenes of terror and mortal peril. Along the way, Eliza has to decide whom to trust, who deserves her help, and how far she will go to finish the job.

Probably the inevitable comparison reviewers will make here is to William Gibson, who coined the term cyberspace (which is not actually used in this book, but that’s what the Swim is). Gibson’s vision of a virtual reality achieved by directly networking one’s brain has indelibly shaped this entire subgenre. Generally, comparisons to him will not be favourable, so this is one of those rare cases where I’ll come down with the utmost compliment that I think Unger actually takes up Gibson’s legacy in a very appropriate and interesting way. She builds on Gibson’s influence on cyberpunk while taking into account things like quantum computing and the proliferation of VR/AR in today’s world.

McKay is also quite a likable protagonist, all things considered—yes, she has trauma and a healthy heaping of avoidance issues, but she is also very self-aware and emotionally intelligent. This is a nice departure from the hard-boiled hacker stereotype. At one point she remarks on how she’s going to need sleep soon; not only did this feel refreshingly realistic in a thriller, but it’s nice to see our protagonist considering her limitations. Similarly, she has a good support network: a friendly AI to help her out, actual friends she knows in person, some dysfunctional family dynamics (don’t we all?). All in all, Unger has put a lot of work not only into the world but her main character and supporting cast.

While the “good guys” are a force to be reckoned with, the antagonists in this story felt a little weak to me. On one hand, I like how the eventual “big bad” proves to be a sympathetic one. On the other hand, the red herring antagonist falls flat because he just doesn’t ever come off as much of a threat—and we only meet him once, then never really hear from him again. This misdirection, if that is what it is intended to be, misfires. The climactic battle in both the Swim and the real world is intense courtesy of Unger’s descriptions, but the build up to it feels lacking.

Indeed, the pacing at the start felt very slow (despite some explosive beginnings)—it really wasn’t until I was about a quarter of the way into the novel before I sat up and said, “Oh, there’s something here.” Even though a lot happens, I admit, the book dragged on for me. Fortunately, I was interested in enough in the story, in finding out who was behind all of this and why, and I liked Eliza enough, as I said above, to keep reading.

Equal parts exciting, then, and enervating, The Extractionist is a pretty strong contender for a new generation of cyberpunk that hews to the traditions of the subgenre while also carving out new ones given our modern society’s flirtation with a metaverse. Unger has a keen talent for description and characterization, even if her plotting and pacing left something to be desired (in my opinion). I had forgotten that I had previously read (but didn’t much like) Nucleation. So I’m glad I got to read another book of hers, one that I have enjoyed much more. Sometimes an author just takes a while to write the book that’s for you.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Claire Hansen returns in this sequel to Summon the Keeper. It’s rare that I manage to read the next book in a series in such close succession, but here we go! The Second Summoning embraces and builds upon certain elements of absurdity present in the first book. I admire how Tanya Huff can write urban fantasy that is simultaneously tense and intriguing yet also funny and lighthearted. However, the plot of this book didn’t entertain me as much as the first; I think this Huff series might just not be for me.

Spoilers for the first book ahead but not for this one.

Picking up shortly after the conclusion of the first book, The Second Summoning sees Claire and Dean have a fight over Dean’s continued association with her. Despite being in lurrrve, Claire is worried that Dean will get hurt (you know, standard superhero stuff). When they do finally consummate their love, it’s apparently sooooo good, so magically significant, that it leaves enough raw energy lying around to help jumpstart some shenanigans of Claire’s sister into a real, living embodiment of an angel. And where there’s an angel, there’s bound to be a demon….

I’m starting to realize that maybe being disinterested in sex is one of the reasons I am less enthusiastic about Huff’s writing in this series. Her Gale Women trilogy certainly mentions sex (and in semi-incestuous ways even), but I don’t know—something about this series just feels so horny, and it doesn’t work for poor, ace Kara! The constant innuendo about Claire and Dean’s relationship, followed by all the references to Samuel having genitals (oh my!) … I’m trying to register how much I didn’t enjoy this writing while not condemning it, because my goal is not to be prudish but instead communicate what didn’t work for me.

My favourite parts of the story probably involve the dynamic between Claire and her younger sister, Diana, who is an even more powerful Keeper but, of course, less mature. Diana acts not just as Claire’s foil but at times can even be an antagonist or anti-hero. Her fluid role in the story helps to keep things interesting. Ultimately, she and Claire are always on the same side—but as with her other series, this one demonstrates how Huff has a great handle on family dynamics and the ways in which family members will often be at odds over smaller issues even as they agree to work together on larger ones.

Like I said at the start of my review, the actual plot did very little for me. It is a lot of running around in Toronto, a lot of sex jokes, a lot of “isn’t being human weird but also kind of fun?” Though the stakes are arguably higher in this book, they don’t feel all that higher.

I guess my overall opinion of The Second Summoning is that it was fine as a distraction, a decent novel, but nothing I got excited about. I will read the last book in the trilogy because I have already bought it; I’m curious to see what Huff brings and whether it will alter my “meh” reaction.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

I am such a junkie for popular science books, especially popular physics books. The Disordered Cosmos appealed for a few reasons: I want to read more popular science books by people of colour; from the description, it sounded like it also would address discrimination within the fields of science; and I enjoy Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s tweets.

The first few chapters are heavy on physics. It is tempting to be lazy and call it your “standard” rendition of particle physics. Yet Prescod-Weinstein carefully layers in connections, even in these early chapters, to the themes she will make more prominent in the later chapters. She discusses her own attraction to physics at a young age, and she relates how the knowledge she shares here is as socially constructed as other concepts, like racism and race. For instance, she criticizes the very term dark matter, arguing instead for the name non-luminous matter, because “dark” matter is not only a misnomer (it isn’t actually dark), but it also reinforces the idea that “light” (i.e., white) is the default and “dark” (i.e., black) is something strange.

Prescod-Weinstein also works to undermine the Great Man presentation of history. A lot of science books fall into the trap of treating scientific discoveries as a linear story of great men (and, sometimes, a couple of women) having eureka moments and building on what came before. While Prescod-Weinstein certainly names names, she is more interested in establishing an over-arching understanding of what we knew, collectively, at the time of a discovery, making connections between things like Minkowski’s block time and Einstein’s relativity. She is not the only person to strive to do this in her presentation of the history of physics, of course, but it’s great to see how she chooses to focus on certain aspects of the story. As a specialist in both cosmology and dark matter, of course, she especially illuminates us on what we know (and don’t know) about the earliest days of the universe, along with what we know (and don’t know) about what makes up the bulk of our universe.

These first few chapters are edifying (and essential—I’ll come back to that); however, it’s really the later chapters of The Disordered Cosmos that truly make it shine. The book shifts in part-memoir, part-polemic as Prescod-Weinstein gets very personal and very political, and I love it. She tackles racism, misogynoir, sexual assault, and more. She calls out astronomers and other scientists for their complicity in ongoing colonialism in Hawaiʻi.

In doing all of this, Prescod-Weinstein pulls back the curtain on “science” itself. Those of us who are not scientists or not directly involved in the business of science often forget that this knowledge is ultimately produced, held, and transmitted by humans. So science can be biased because humans are, ourselves, biased. When we read a science book, whether a popular science book or a formal textbook, we’re reading the story of science as filtered through one or a small number of humans’ perspectives. Add in the fact that, historically, most of those humans have been straight, cis, white men, and you start to see why the picture of our universe that we have used science to assemble in these past centuries might be rather incomplete.

It is tempting to lament, then, about the loss to science that has occurred because we have failed to cultivate more women, more scientists of colour, more trans scientists. Yet Prescod-Weinstein cautions us against this line of thinking, and this is where The Disordered Cosmos truly feels breathtaking in its radical stance. You see, it is one thing for marginalized scientists to point out the lack of representation in the academic systems that drive scientific inquiry. But the solution can’t just be “fix the leaky pipeline, and let the science continue.” Science itself is the problem. That might feel hard to accept for those of us who have grown up viewing science as neutral, like I was just discussing.

This is why the first chapters, the ones that cover scientific knowledge, are essential to this book, why The Disordered Cosmos is not simply a memoir of Prescod-Weinstein’s journey through academic and particle physics as a Jewish, queer, agender Black woman. In those first chapters, she models for us how she thinks our story of science could be told. We have to find the human connection within physics and with the greater universe. I know that sounds backwards given the great lengths physicists have gone to over the decades to paint physics as the ultimate, untouchable, most objective of all the disciplines. But that’s how you get atomic bombs and telescopes on sacred mountains. That’s how you justify medical experiments on Black people. When science becomes only about seeking knowledge, at any cost, it becomes the problem. Prescod-Weinstein’s solution isn’t just to improve representation in science; it is to have us question, dismantle, and rebuild the very structure of our scientific disciplines.

I’m in.

Anyway, this is one of the best non-fiction books I have read this year. Combined with Bitch, I’ve now read two kick-ass books about science (and issues with science) by two amazing women scientists. If you’re looking to shift your worldview and get more radical, both of these books are for you.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Welcome to part two of my two-part review of this duology from Marie Lu. I’m glad I went with my gut and read both books in close succession. Had I waited, I’m not sure I would have enjoyed Steelstriker as much as I did—and as you read this review, you will see that I still liked it less than Skyhunter. My chief critique from that review is repeated here: this series is fine, and that’s about it. There is precious little happening here in terms of storytelling risks or fantastic characterization. So while the writing is competent and even entertaining, it still leaves me fairly cold.

Spoilers for Skyhunter but not this book.

This book picks up about six months after the fall of Mara. Talin has been transformed into a skyhunter, much like Red, except she has actually been bonded telepathically with Premier Constantine. He can hear her thoughts, feel her emotions—so Talin does her best not to reach out through her bond with Red to see where he and the last few Maran striker rebels are hiding. Meanwhile, Talin must protect Constantine on pain of her mother’s life being forfeit. But she chafes under this yoke and does her best to undermine him at every turn. The only question is: will it be enough?

It’s a good premise. The threats are real. I like how Lu explores the unsettled nature of conquered nations, how rebellion is always a real threat and the Federation is not quite as seamless and assimilated as it might appear. Similarly, the way Talin meets the rebels—and who they are—makes a lot of sense to me. All in all, the plot is solid and works.

In fact, before I get into my critique, let me give a big round of applause for the ending. I really like most of Lu’s choices, from Talin’s ultimate fate to the way they handle Constantine. I was a little critical of how the first book ended on close to a cliffhanger, but this is a notable example of a duology that truly lives up to that title—again, I made the right decision to borrow them both from the library and read them close together.

I also like how Lu portrays Talin’s struggle with being forced into being a collaborator. I think the book walks a fine line, trying to keep Talin likable as a protagonist while still showing the horror of her being coerced into doing Constantine’s bloody bidding.

So why the lower rating? A couple of issues.

The book alternates between Talin and Red’s perspectives this time. That in and of itself is not bad. But it feels like there is a lot of back-and-forth. The romance between the two of them gets hot and heavy, especially towards the end as the plot ramps up and they have to fight for their lives. But the nature of the plot also means we never actually get to see them talk about anything outside of the immediate threat/rebellion. They don’t spend time together just getting to know one another, bonding, joking, etc. This was present in Skyhunter and was one of the more pleasant elements of the book. This book, being bleaker in its circumstances, lacks that. Lu tries to make up for it with some good bonding between Red and Adena and Jeran, but it isn’t the same.

The rebellion leaders who find Talin are also somewhat two-dimensional. I say two rather than one because there is some depth and nuance happening. But it reminds me a lot of The Hunger Games, which I guess would be a good thing for some readers. These characters feel very cookiecutter, with not a lot going on beyond their purpose for the plot.

Finally, the whole subplot involving what is supposed to be nuclear reactors/weapons is … confused. At one point, it seems like a reactor is detonated in the capital, and everyone outside of the immediate blast radius is fine even after, chapters earlier, it was established that yes, radiation damage is a thing. It’s clever and all for Lu to have her bad guy dig up atomic technology from the Early Ones, and for the most part, I like how she goes about describing it; it reminds me of the difficulty we are having figuring out how to warn far-future generations of the dangers of our nuclear waste disposal sites. But when your character is close enough to see the Cherenkov radiation before blowing up the reactor … is that survivable? I don’t think so.

I guess what I’m saying is that Steelstriker lacks a certain level of complexity that I was hoping for given the world and plot Lu has constructed here. Again, I don’t want to be too harsh on it, because as a novel it works, and it actually delivers the one-two punch that a good duology should. For me, personally, however, I wish it could have done a lot more.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.