Hey, it’s your girl Kara, reading the sequel to a book four years after I read the first book, and the real tragedy is that this is not unusual for me! So when you hear me say that I struggled to get into Shadowhouse Fall, it’s not because of the book itself. Rather, I literally forgot everything about the plot of the first book and had to lean on my review and some plot summaries to help me out! Indeed, despite such deficits on my part, the fact that I still enjoyed this book as much as I did is a testament to Daniel José Older’s storytelling.

Sierra Santiago is now the leader of the shadowshapers in New York. She learns this actually makes her the head of Shadowhouse, and that there are other supernatural houses vying for spiritual power. Her main antagonist is the House of Light, led by the Sorrows. They want control over the Deck of Worlds, a literal deck of custom-painted cards that shift to reflect the state of this power struggle and also lends power boosts to the various representatives of the different houses. But the generational gap in Sierra’s understanding of shadowshaper lore makes it difficult for her to mount an effective defence (or offence). She is torn between protecting her people and embracing her destiny. The other forces at play might not give Sierra much of a choice, however.

What struck me immediately about Shadowhouse Fall is the way Older employs vernacular in a seemingly effortless way. This is a dialogue-heavy book, and most of the characters are teens, and they sound like teens (particularly, Black and Latinx teens in NYC). I don’t just mean in terms of vocabulary either—Older has the cadence, the style, down as well. For an older (and whiter) reader like myself, that might make reading the dialogue more challenging, but it’s also rewarding in how it makes the characters come alive and feel far more real than if everyone were speaking a dialect with which I’m more familiar.

In the same way, Older pulls no punches in portraying the brutal racism suffusing these teens’ experiences. There’s police brutality, from random stops to unlawful arrests. But there’s also the everyday humiliation of metal detectors at the entrance to their schools and harassment from security guards. Again, as a white reader this is valuable for me because it reminds me that the racism I engage with largely as a theoretical construct is something that teens like these characters face as part of their everyday lives. When adults like myself dismiss racialized teens because of their youth, we erase their very real experiences.

When I review YA novels, I often say something like, “I didn’t like this but can see how a younger reader would.” I say this because I like to acknowledge that I am often not the target demographic for these books, and I try to reflect that in my review and my rating. Shadowhouse Fall (and its predecessor) is a YA novel I did enjoy, and it’s also one I really hope young adults will enjoy too. Older’s writing style is electric, engaging, and most importantly, never condescending.

As for the plot: well, again, it took me a while to get back into this world given my four-year absence. But I made it! I love how Older drives this narrative through a combination of Sierra’s curiosity and the mounting threats to her and her shadowshapers. The resolution, wherein Sierra attempts a courageous gambit to outwit the Sorrows, is something else—it’s hopeful and inspiring and reminds readers that even when destiny comes calling, you can look destiny in the eye and tell it you’re creating your own path. The ending left me feeling fulfilled, like I was on this journey with Sierra and her allies and now I can watch them grow beyond whatever limitations or strictures Sierra’s forbears thought they could place on this magic or this way of life.

Because that’s ultimately what this book is about: the tension between tradition and innovation. Shadowshaping is hereditary and wrapped up in traditions and beliefs from previous generations. Some of these result in strong, positive connections like how Sierra is growing closer to her mom. Others are more harmful because they seek to circumscribe the choices the shadowshapers can make. As with any culture, the youth will always make their own mark on our practices, and Older makes that very clear here: Sierra is a shadowshaper, but she’s also a teenager navigating herself into adulthood, and that is going to shape the shadowshaping itself.

What an exhilarating ride.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

My review of Ninefox Gambit was, in many respects, a response to critiques I had read about it in addition to a review of the book itself. I promise this look at Raven Stratagem will be more focused—having dispensed with defending Yoon Ha Lee’s calendrical worldbuilding, I can dive right into this actual book and its characters.

I’m going to discuss spoilers for this book (and the last one)!

At the end of Ninefox Gambit, Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao barely escaped with their lives. Indeed, Jedao didn’t really survive—but no one knows that. So when Cheris shows up in the Kel swarm sent to deal with invaders, everyone naturally assumes she is still possessed by the spirit of Jedao. The Kel formation instinct forces the swarm to defer to General Jedao, and soon enough it’s off fighting the Hafn. Back in the hexarchate proper, the hexarchs—in particular, Hexarch Shuos Mikodez—ponder what to do about a rogue Kel/Shuos operative in charge of battleships.

The most obvious departure in this book from the first one is the perspective shift. Whereas Ninefox Gambit follows Kel Cheris’ limited third-person perspective almost exclusively, Raven Stratagem removes us from Cheris. She is still an important character, but instead we follow Khiruev, Brezan, and Mikodez. This allows Lee to manipulate the reader by making Cheris/Jedao’s identity ambiguous (I read Ninefox Gambit barely 4 months ago and yet I had already forgotten the ending, so the revelation that Jedao really was dead this whole time was like a memory jog). More importantly, it grounds us in a very different perspective of the hexarchate and its factions.

Khiruev provides far more insight into the nature of Kel-dom than Cheris, as a crashhawk, ever could. The way that she is forced to obey “General Jedao” because of formation instinct, even though this runs counter to what the Kel would actually want her to do, illustrates the convoluted and very twisted mechanics at work here. With Khiruev, Lee plumbs the depths of what it means to compel loyalty in one’s soldiers, and why that might not be a great idea.

Brezan, in contrast, is an example of what happens when that compelled loyalty malfunctions. Another crashhawk, able to disobey formation instinct even though he wants to serve the Kel, Brezan puts himself in the hands of Kel Command and demands to be made into a tool. Even so, he can’t help but be disobey at the critical juncture—that pesky independent thought ruining your perfect obedience!

Mikodez is a delicious character. He is ruthlessly pragmatic, as we see time and again from his dealings with his subordinates and his brother. Yet he is not a mean person. The way he attempts to negotiate with Jedao, and his ultimate support for Cheris’ calendrical spike, demonstrates how his pragmatism ultimately comes from a desire for stability that the hexarchate, despite its longevity, can never achieve. Mikodez recognizes what the other hexarchs can’t (or don’t want to) admit: uprisings and heresies will always be a part of the hexarchate as it is currently configured, because humans can only bear so much torture and ritual before enough of them band together.

This book is just as interesting as Ninefox Gambit but in perhaps entirely different ways. Raven Stratagem, despite the similar name, is more about relationships than it is about strategies and tactics. Cheris isn’t really trying to win an armed conflict here. Rather, this book asks us to consider how our relationships with people affect the decisions we make and in what we place our trust. Cheris’ ability to accomplish the calendrical spike depends on people like Khiruev, Brezan, and even Mikodez falling into line.

This is a book about swinging big. Cheris is attempting to start a revolution in the most efficient way possible, by basically declaring open war on the hexarchate’s entire belief system. This is a huge deal, and no doubt the repercussions will be felt in the third book. But what really interests me is how characters like Brezan or Mikodez react once they understand what Cheris is up to. Whether it’s to recoil in disgust (at least initially) or scratch one’s chin and ponder the implications, these characters all understand that Cheris is not an idealist and that she is deadly serious about what she intends to do.

I don’t think this book will change anyone’s opinion about the Machineries of Empire series. If you thought Ninefox Gambit was too weird and abstruse, then Raven Stratagem will not be any different. I get that. Still, these books keep poking my brain in interesting ways, and I appreciate that. Why the downgrade from 5 stars to 3 over the course of this sequel? Honestly, it’s just because I didn’t feel like Raven Stratagem goes far enough in opening up the vista of this universe for us. This is a good book but only an ok sequel.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

I don’t remember when and how I was taught about climate change in school! I wish I did, because it would be interesting to compare my experience with the various experiences cited in Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America! Katie Worth is very thorough in how she seeks to understand such a broad topic, for the States is vast and populous and full of fragmented education systems.

I received a free eARC from NetGalley and Columbia Global Reports in exchange for a review.

Worth looks at multiple factors that affect what is taught in a classroom: teachers’ biases, federal and state standards, curriculum, and textbooks. In each chapter, she examines how these factors can intersect and how they relate to our wider society. She includes both quantitative data, such as the percentage of states that have implemented certain standards versus the percentage of population in those states, and qualitative data, such as interviews with various stakeholders. The resulting picture is comprehensive and suggests there are many areas that need to be improved if the United States is going to improve its climate change education.

I said “our wider society” above because even though this book is mostly focused on America, it does mention Canada a couple of times. Worth talks about the Fraser Institute, a conservative organization here in Canada. She doesn’t dive too much into Canadian education systems, and I can say from experience that ours (at least here in Ontario) is nowhere near as dire as what Worth describes in the US. However, the mention of the Fraser Institute is important. Also, Canadian school boards buy American textbooks, and our market is not big enough to allow us to demand our own special edition. Therefore, the textbooks in the States (and the standards in Texas that influence the content that ends up therein) do affect my country’s education as well.

In the same way, the education of Americans affects all of us. We can roll our eyes and snicker and say, “Oh, those backwards Americans!” but at the end of the day, the US remains a very powerful country. That’s why I picked up this book in the first place—not because I’m particularly invested in American education, but because I wanted to see what types of ignorance we are up against that could spill over to an international level.

Worth’s book might make a reader feel somewhat hopeless. How can we compete against the deep pockets of oil and energy companies? How do we tackle the conservative voices that seem to dominate school boards and committees? I think these are the wrong questions. Rather, I think all of the evidence Worth assembles points to a larger conclusion: climate change is a capitalism problem, and the solutions for climate change require an anti-capitalist stance.

I should be clear that Worth herself isn’t arguing this. In true journalistic form, while her bias in favour of climate change education is evident and understandable, Worth dances around the idea that science education should be political. She elects instead to include the voices of various educators who would agree or disagree with that stance. I appreciate her attention to detail and nuance and the fact that she includes the perspectives of climate change skeptics without mockery. This is valuable for me, pierces my bubble wherein I think every reasonable person must think like me. In particular, it was painful but necessary to hear young kids (grade 6) wrestle with their doubts about the reality of climate change as a result of how they were being educated.

Miseducation is a detailed investigative work that provides a clear picture of the state of climate change education in America. This picture is grim, but I don’t think it means we should give up. Rather, I hope that if you read this book you will understand what we are up against and how important it is to organize, at a grassroots level, to work against the groups that prefer profit over our planet.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Kazuo Ishiguro and I go way back to 2009, a year after I started writing these reviews, when I read Never Let Me Go. While I adored that book and his best known The Remains of the Day, each of his subsequent works didn’t do much for me. So when Klara and the Sun kept shining down upon me from various bookshelves and corners of the internet, I was hesitant. Why keep reading an author who seems to be perpetually earning two-star ratings from you? Well, I took a chance, and in this case my risk was rewarded.

The eponymous Klara is an Artificial Friend, a kind of girlish android designed to be a companion to young people. Her kind is solar powered, so she yearns to see and feel the Sun and, during her time at the store where she is featured, Klara develops a kind of mythical reverence for the Sun. Bought for a 12-year-old girl named Josie, Klara has to adapt to leaving her store and being among quixotic humans and their unusual habits. Klara’s unusual perspicacity and observant nature, for an AF, means many of the people around her confide in her. Meanwhile, she develops her own almost superstitious idea for how she can aid her chronically ill companion.

I have said this in previous reviews of Ishiguro and will say it again: he is a master narrator. Klara narrates this book from her first-person perspective, and as such, the reader is limited by her limited understanding of the world and human society. At one point, she calmly describes something as “the colour of feces,” which made me laugh out loud because that is not really how most of us would describe something—or at least, we would use a more colloquial term. Similarly, she doesn’t understand the nature of the Sun and develops beliefs about its location, personality, temperament, and powers that are similar to what a child might conjecture about it. In many ways, Klara is a child, albeit one whom no one seems particularly careful to raise in a certain way.

It seems to me that so many of Ishiguro’s novels are ultimately about service. Klara and the main characters of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go share in common, regardless of their natures, a function of being in service to other people. Those other people have larger stories happening on the periphery of this story, stories into which we only receive glimpses through the limited narrative window that Ishiguro provides, because he is more interested in the people we often ignore and their stories. So what could have been a story about a genetically-augmented child, her unaugmented best friend, and issues of equity and disability in this future society is instead about how a companionable android experiences this society, makes inferences, and does her best to take care of her charge. The result is sweet, sometimes heartbreaking, and paradoxically very human.

This is a compelling and thought-provoking book. I suspect many will be frustrated by the vagueness of its worldbuilding. There is a timelessness to its setting, no grounding in state or year or politics. We just know that it isn’t now, though some of the issues will feel familiar. Likewise, Klara’s limited understanding of what people discuss means that while we can infer a lot more from the conversations she overhears than she can, we too are limited by how little we know about this world. So if you start reading this book and think, “Ugh, there’s too much happening here that Ishiguro never discusses,” then I wouldn’t blame you.

I think the brilliance of this book, and the reason I enjoyed it so much, is that unlike many novels where that paucity of worldbuilding is a weakness, I view it here as a strength. It forces the focus on Klara herself, and instead of spending time questioning the type of society that would create Artificial Friends, we must consider instead of the relationships between this android and her adoptive family. Josie, the Mother, Ricky—all of these people regard Klara in slightly different ways, sometimes in ways that reify her personhood and other times in ways that remind us she is a machine. This is a book of the interior mind, and it asks us to consider Klara’s mind more so than the external world that is responsible for shaping it.

The revelations towards the end of the book are interesting if not entirely unpredictable. Once we understand the true nature of Josie’s “portrait” and Klara’s involvement, it triggers are re-evaluation of what has happened previously. We also see Klara expressing far more agency than previously in the book, which I really enjoyed. If I have criticism of this book, it’s simply that the ending is very non-committal. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it sad, though I could understand why some would see it that way. But it leaves me wondering what Ishiguro wants us to take away from the story—not in a “oh, that was thought provoking” way but rather in a “I wish you had spelled it out a little more for me” kind of way. I attribute this mostly to the fact that Klara and Josie’s relationship lacks a deep emotional dimension that we have come to expect from these kinds of stories of human–android connection. When the time comes for them to separate, this separation happens in a routine and unremarkable way, and the lack of pathos there left me wanting more.

Still, Klara and the Sun has rather salvaged Ishiguro for me, and maybe I will keep reading his work. Or maybe I will go back and re-evaluate his older work that I enjoyed and find it wanting—who knows! If, like me, you’ve been left not enjoying Ishiguro’s most recent novels, give this one a try. Regardless, he remains someone whose writing and storytelling never fails to get you thinking about the characters he puts on the page.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

As with many books, if you have good copy you can often hook me early. Far from the Light of Heaven promises a kind of locked room murder mystery aboard a sleeper ship far from Earth. Tade Thompson delivers on this premise in most senses of the word, and overall I enjoyed the book. Yet there are enough rough parts to the novel to make me hesitate to shout its praises or pick up a sequel should one be forthcoming.

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Orbit in exchange for this review.

Michelle “Shel” Campion is the captain of the starship Ragtime, which will be taking 1000 sleeping passengers to another star system. She doesn’t have to do anything, though, because the ship has an advanced AI that actually runs the whole flight. She’s just there as backup. Until she wakes up at their destination and finds the ship’s AI offline and a sizable fraction of her passengers murdered. Shel has to team up with an investigator from Bloodroot, the colony that was her destination, and also deal with curious interlopers from the nearby Lagos Station. But there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and their unknown adversary will stop from nothing to keep them from solving this mystery and saving the colonists.

Probably the best part of this story is the way that Thompson writes each chapter, each scene, with a sense of urgency and drama. Even in dialogue-heavy exchanges, such as those that establish Finn’s disgraced status on Bloodroot, or Shel and Finn’s initial encounter, the tension is often electric. This is a story that feels noir despite being set in a future where humanity travels the stars, and I recognize that is quite a feat.

This tension occludes the actual mystery, however, with dramatic twists sometimes derailing the investigation. Though Thompson avoids too much exposition, often deferring explanation about an event until later in the novel when it makes sense, the result is a plot that becomes increasingly convoluted as it unfolds. Without going into spoilers, let’s just say that a significant portion of the antagonist’s motivation occurs for reasons that are largely unrelated to what’s happening here and now. While I don’t think that makes the plot bad per se, I just want potential readers to understand that this book lacks the tidy and cozy context of most locked room mysteries.

Similarly, I wish Thompson had done more worldbuilding in the sense that we have precious little understanding of the governmental structures of this society, either on Earth, within the solar system, or in other star systems. Resolving such ambiguity isn’t strictly necessary for the story—and, again, I appreciate Thompson’s forbearance of exposition—but I felt like I was left with a very incomplete picture of this future. Though nominally Afrofuturist, at least in the corner we get to see, with Lagos Station and Bloodroot both sporting predominantly Nigerian people and their descendants, the book could have given us a much richer understanding of these elements.

Finally, the Lambers. Initially presented as very alien beings who exist at least partially outside of our spacetime (including a kind of hybrid who is one of the main characters), we learn a different origin story for the Lambers later in the book. Again, I don’t mind this revelation—though it doesn’t feel particularly earned in the sense that at no time was I guided to ask what the Lambers were. It didn’t feel like that was a mystery, and then I was told what they are and I was just like … ok, cool, I guess?

With all of this criticism you would be forgiven for thinking I disliked Far from the Light of Heaven. It’s more accurate to say I’m being hard on it because I feel like it had a lot of potential to be so much more than it is. This book is a competent story, with some solid character development, excellent action sequences, and plenty of drama and tension. If you like mystery thrillers more than I, then you will enjoy this novel. In my case, I was hoping for something that I didn’t ultimately find here.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Dava Sobel is perhaps my favourite non-fiction author. She has this ability to discuss the history of science in an enlightening and inspiring way. Her books make these historical figures come alive. While Galileo is far better known than the subjects of her more recent The Glass Universe, Sobel takes a new approach to biography of him by including letters from his daughter, Maria Celeste. Though I’m not sure the amount of letters and focus on her is enough to earn the book its title, I’m willing to stipulate the conceit because the book is otherwise luscious.

Sobel begins with the usual tour of Galileo’s youth before digging into his decades of productive discovery, invention, experimentation, and writing. The emphasis here is less on the scientific nature of Galileo’s work and more on the political and social context in which Galileo performed it. Hence, while Sobel will mention the science that Galileo advances, she doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about how that science works. This is far more of a history book than a science book (and I’m ok with that).

What I most enjoyed about Sobel’s approach is the way she grounds Galileo’s life in the history of the Italian states and the Catholic Church (which is reeling from the ramifications of the Reformation). We’ve rather mythologized Galileo, down to his defiant yet apocryphal, “And yet it moves!” that he was supposed to have uttered at his sentencing. Sobel tackles Galileo the myth, deconstructs it, and shows us Galileo the man. Through Maria Celeste’s letters, we see Galileo the father and convent benefactor. From the writings of cardinals and other correspondents, we see Galileo the gentleman philosopher. From the transcripts of his trials, we see Galileo the penitent Catholic. Galileo did not consider himself a heretic, and he didn’t even particularly see himself as a rebel—he did his best to adhere to the guidelines set down by the Church. His sin, if you will, was simply that he wanted to share his science with the rest of the world.

The account of Galileo’s decades-long tussle with the Church feels particularly relevant in today’s era of cancel culture. Some of us take for granted how unfettered our speech is (at least in my corner of the world). I can, if I choose, write whatever I want on this website I have built myself, and I could even pay someone to print and bind my words in hard copy if I wanted to do that. Galileo, in contrast, needed permission from his local archbishop before he could publish anything, lest he spread heresy (and if you’ve read Areopagitica then you know the Catholic countries were not alone in this restriction). That is truly cancel culture, folx. Galileo’s work was literally cancelled by the authorities of the time, as opposed to today, where you can truly heinous things and face little in the way of consequences, let alone cancellation.

The historical context of Galileo’s struggle also helps 21st century readers understand why his work was such a big deal. It’s not precisely that what he wrote in his Dialogues was heretical. It was more about certain people in the Church, including the once-friendly Pope Urban, being concerned with maintaining the power base of the Church in the face of an increasing number of restless Protestant states. Galileo was writing in a time of great religious and also political upheaval, particularly the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia and the resulting modern definition of a sovereign state. So unlike the simplistic version we might have heard in school—that the Church feared Galileo had “proved” the Bible was wrong—the truth is more along the lines that Galileo’s writing was too independent. He published in lay Italian rather than Latin, which meant more common people could read it, and the Dialogues themselves—regardless of their content—encouraged a kind of philosophical critical thinking that threatened the Church’s grip on people’s minds. This was Galileo’s threat: he might make people think, not just about whether the Earth orbits the Sun or vice versa, but about the political structures in which they were embedded.

Lest you think Sobel focuses too much on the big picture, however, never fear: she also focuses on the minutiae of Florentine (or Roman) life. This is where Maria Celeste’s letters come in. Some might scoff at including these details—why do we need to know about the purchase of some cloth for the convent, how much it cost, what Maria Celeste baked for her father with some fruits he sent her … does that really matter in the story of one of history’s Great Men? Yes, Sobel argues—and I agree—because we need to dismantle this idea of Great Men. Behind Great Men are not just Great Women but entire communities of people of all genders. Galileo had a large extended family, some of whom lived with him at various points in his chronically ill life. He had a housekeeper, a valet, apprentices. He had daughters, one of whom wrote frequently to him. These details matter because they remind us that history happens not because of a single great person forging ahead alone but rather because individuals and groups of individuals have the support and privilege required to make, in this case, scientific discoveries.

Moreover, these details help us understand what life was like in Galileo’s day. Nowadays travel between Rome and Florence is a routine matter of hours. In Galileo’s time, it would take weeks and might involve being quarantined because of plague in one or both cities! Indeed, the spectre of the bubonic plague is an important one in this book, and Sobel reminds us of how many lives were cut short. She could not have anticipated that, a decade after publication, I would be reading this during a pandemic in which “quarantine” became a household word. Yeah, that brought up some feels….

This is yet another marvelous work of history from a master of it. I learned a lot about Galileo, but more importantly, I learned far more about Galileo’s time and the people in it, which helped me understand his contributions to science in a way that merely learning the science itself cannot. That’s the power of these history of science books, and Sobel’s decision to include English translations of letters that had heretofore remained generally untranslated and obscure gives us a unique window into Galileo’s daily life and needs. I, for one, appreciate how this humanizes someone we might otherwise be tempted to turn into a giant.

Scientific progress, not to mention social progress, is far from linear. Galileo was censored in his time and remained so for centuries. Along the way, we saw some people make great strides forward in science, other people try to undo that progress. We’re seeing that even now, in our own time. I hope this book offers us lessons of our past that we can apply to our present as we work to build a better, fairer, more open future of discovery.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Every so often I run into an author who is good but who doesn’t click for me personally. Sometimes I enjoy specific works of theirs but don’t enjoy others. Sometimes I like their style in general, but their books start feeling very similar and less exciting. In the case of Ann Leckie, it seems like I’m just not all that interested in the stories she has to tell. I appreciated the skill evident in Ancillary Justice and its sequels. But Provenance, a standalone set in the same universe, has reminded me of why my enjoyment of Leckie’s work declined with each book.

Ingray Aughskold is not good at politics and the machinations they require of a Hwae political scion. Offworld and alone, she hopes to spring a felon from prison in a complicated gambit to prove herself to her mother. This backfires spectacularly, and the resulting events nearly cause an interspecies incident. There’s also a murder mystery happening, and later, a hostage crisis!

What some might see as delightful chaos to this plot I unfortunately interpreted as lack of focus. Do you want to be a murder mystery, a political thriller, an archaeological thriller, or what? I’m not saying books need to be simple and single-minded; I am all for layers. Alas, Provenance never tires of pivoting just as I’m settling into a mode. While Ingray is a perfectly likable protagonist, all the more so for her incompetence at politicking, she never solidified in my mind as the leader or hero I wanted her to be.

The unfocused plot makes it difficult for me to know what to say, honestly. I found the cultural idiosyncrasies less endearing than annoyingly obfuscated. The Geck and their tautological repetitions would be fascinating, in a xeno-anthropological sense, if Leckie had built toward anything more meaningful. But this was a common refrain throughout the novel: a breadth that betokened extensive worldbuilding nevertheless resulted in a frustrating lack of depth. I’ve always appreciated the scope that Leckie breathed into the Radch, but I want to go deeper into these characters and their cultures.

Points for a cute romance, and I liked the ending. I liked Ingray’s choices there. She truly establishes her own agency and comes into herself, and that was a great way to wrap up the book. Moreover, the whole last act was the best part, for me at least, because it was a masterclass of tension and action. If that had been the whole book, I probably would have loved it.

Unfortunately, Provenance offers little to me in terms of a unified, coherent novel. Leckie once again demonstrates that she is a great storyteller. I think she deserves the praise she has received. But she just isn’t telling the stories I want to read, at least not right now.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

It’s always satisfying when a trilogy comes to a full-stop close, loose ends wrapped up and most questions answered. In Son of a Trickster, Eden Robinson introduced us to Jared Martin, a Haisla/Heiltsuk boy on the cusp of manhood and also learning about his magical heritage. Robinson could have stopped there—nearly did, by her account, not being much of a series writer—yet she didn’t. Trickster Drift followed Jared’s move to Vancouver, his attempts to stay sober, and his encounters with more threats both magical and mundane. This book had a more open ending, so I was very excited when I learned Return of the Trickster had come out. Robinson delivers the closure we want and need—but of course, it doesn’t come easily. 

Trigger warnings in this book for alcoholism, blood, body horror, torture, death, murder, violence, sexual assault … a lot of stuff. This is a heavy book, seriously. 

Spoilers for the first two books but not for this one. 

Jared wakes up in a hospital in Kitimat, where he used to live with his mom, Maggie. His dad Philip takes care of him. Jared now knows that Philip isn’t his biological father—that honour belongs to Wee’git, a Trickster, currently deceased but still all-too-capable of causing mischief and annoying the living, Jared included. Jared’s misadventures in Trickster Drift have burnt out his power temporarily. On the bright side, his Aunt Georgina is stranded in an inhospitable universe. On the less bright side, Jared still has many enemies gunning for him, including Georgina’s minions, the coy wolves. He returns to Vancouver and his aunt Mave’s place, but it’s not safe for him or any of his loved ones. And so Jared must navigate increasingly violent threats with the assistance of all sorts of magical players, from his own mother to Chuck (a Wild Man of the Woods) and Neeka (an otter woman in human form). 

While I wouldn’t say Return of the Trickster moves at a breakneck pace, it definitely builds towards the climax with an inexorable confidence. Notably different in this book, in contrast to the others, is the use of interstitial chapters told from the second-person perspective of other characters (Jared’s chapters are third person limited), including Maggie, Wee’git, and Anita. These chapters provide information that Jared would never have access to, allowing for a deeper mythos than the first two books could have (I particularly liked Anita’s brusque and honest chapter). Meanwhile, Jared’s chapters never stand still: new developments constantly throw a wrench into existing plans, so Jared and his allies must regroup. 

It doesn’t help that these allegiances aren’t always built on solid trust (I’m thinking here of the uneasy relationship between Jared and Neeka). Jared has inherited the reputation of his father, who was … well, he was a Trickster. Something that Jared insists upon, but others have a hard time believing at first, is that he isn’t Wee’git—not literally, and certainly not figuratively. In some ways, as many characters point out, this makes him a bad Trickster. He is too earnest, too straightforward to truly inhabit the Trickster mantle the way someone like Wee’git could. At the same time, this proves Jared’s greatest strength: everyone is expecting him to zag when, nope, he really is going to zig and do what he told you he would do. 

As I mentioned earlier in the trigger warnings, there is a metric shit tonne of violence in this book. This is not a departure from the previous books, which after all included Maggie stapling David’s feet to the floor with a nail gun. Nevertheless, if you are upset by on-page violence, this is going to mess with you. The death toll is high, the casualty count even higher, and Robinson doesn’t sugarcoat it. I admire this decision even if it’s not exactly my cup of tea. The brutality feels quite natural within this world that Robinson has created. I hesitate to call it “necessary” because I don’t believe grimdark is necessary for telling an authentic, real story—Game of Thrones is a wonderful example of something that seems to delight in gratuitous violence. Rather, what Robinson has constructed here is a universe (or multiverse, I suppose) that is full. It has its grim, dark moments of violence and fear. It has its hilarious moments, like chicken Georgina and Bob the tentacle monster. This ability to balance her darkness with a staunch kind of humour is one of Robinson’s best qualities as a writer, in my opinion. 

You’re going to see a lot of people who praise these stories as a great example of Indigenous literature and put Robinson on a lot of lists featuring Indigenous authors. Cool—she definitely deserves the recognition! However, I want to stress that Robinson is a great writer full stop. Her stories should be taught in courses not just because they are Indigenous literature but because they are damn fine storytelling. The fact that Robinson has chosen to share from elements of her culture is a gift to us, and it is our duty not to colonize that gift by siloing it away under the flattening label “Indigenous.” This is a story of a Haisla/Heiltsuk man/Trickster who nevertheless is undergoing very recognizable struggles with mortal problems like alcoholism, family issues, and finding his purpose. 

I loved the ending. I loved the epilogue. I’m not sure I loved this book as much as the first two, hence why I’m not giving it 5 stars right away (maybe, if I revisit the first two and then this one, I will change my mind one day). Regardless, if you have read the first two books of this trilogy, Return of the Trickster will not let you down. If you haven’t … well, get on it. 

And I will forever be mad at Michelle Latimer for allowing her ego to result in the cancellation of Trickster, the CBC series, before it could translate this incredible story to screen.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

This is a book I have been waiting for. I don’t just mean in the sense that I pre-ordered it (though I did); I mean that I am very much interested in books about trans liberation as opposed to personal memoirs. I know Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue is far from the first book on this subject. However, it is current and cogent. In her prologue, Faye makes the case clearly:

(Emphasis original.) 

Faye goes on, in the introduction, to explain why The Transgender Issue is not a memoir:

Such a good point. I do enjoy a good memoir and will certainly seek out more memoirs by trans people, especially trans people who experience marginalizations I don’t share. At the end of the day, however, if all you’re doing is reading personal stories in an attempt to build empathy, you are stopping short of the true goal—liberation. I want books that build political cases for reorganizing our society.

This is the thesis of The Transgender Issue, and Faye challenges both trans and cis people to understand: liberating trans people involves reimagining society itself. Addressing transphobia and other systemic barriers means addressing racism and white supremacy, poverty, ableism, and ageism. It means building a society that is more compassionate, more dignified, more willing to listen to those on the margins. Faye points out that trans people like ourselves, who are white and well-educated, can fall prey to a liberal view of trans inclusivity—one that focuses on acceptance on an individualized basis, the proper use of one’s name and pronouns, etc. This individualized approach to reducing transphobia is inherently limited.

Faye focuses on three main areas: autonomy as it applies to trans healthcare, issues of class and race that exacerbate the struggles of trans people, and the relationship between trans people and other queer and feminist movements. In each chapter, Faye integrates both historical and contemporary sources, taking on issues such as the transphobic nature of UK journalism and media and the history of trans inclusion/exclusion within queer and feminist spaces.

With regards to trans healthcare, my heart goes out to trans people in the UK. I got so angry reading about how difficult it is to access hormone therapy through public healthcare—the waiting lists are years in length and replete in traumatizing red tape. For trans kids, acquiring puberty blockers is even more fraught. Thankfully, one part of this book is already out of date—the Court of Appeal reversed a judgment that resulted in the NHS no longer allowing those under 18 to give informed consent to puberty blockers. On a wider note, Faye asserts correctly that trans healthcare is far more than access to hormones and surgeries. There are reproductive right considerations (both because, in many countries, trans people have historically been forcibly sterilized, and hormone therapy in general tends to result in infertility). There are mental healthcare considerations. Trans healthcare must be holistic, yet the interminable gatekeeping, the casting of doubt and shame, the refusal in some cases even to acknowledge our existence—it all adds up to a severely harmful and damaging system.

Intersections of class and race, as I have already outlined, mean that trans people who experience additional marginalizations often find themselves without proper access to supportive social services. Faye touches on issues with the carceral system, with victim support services, and with housing services. Often trans people must choose between being themselves or accessing a service they need or otherwise live in constant fear of violence and discrimination. It’s not good times.

Finally, Faye turns to a broader consideration of trans people as a political category and how that intersects with queer politics and feminist politics. Rather than retread and refute the various arguments that transphobic and trans-exclusionary people make, Faye asks us to get down to the basics of the goals of feminism and queer liberation. In particular, I was very grateful that Faye acknowledges how white supremacy and colonialism are involved:

This echoes what I learned from Ruby Hamad’s White Tears/Brown Scars about how white women prop up white supremacy (and, by extension, patriarchy). Faye goes on to point out that enforcing a gender binary is just another way that colonialism can exert control over people. First, it’s so important that this is being mentioned in a book by a white author—we need more trans people of colour writing, of course, and those of us who are white need to acknowledge how white supremacy underlies our own oppression even while we simultaneously benefit from it. Second, this is why your feminism must be trans-inclusive or it is bullshit. If feminism is a project to liberate all women, then it cannot use a definition of womanhood created by primarily white, middle-class and upper-class women.

The Transgender Issue is very UK-focused (intentionally so). The specific stats and situations might not be the same outside the UK, but the overall ideas Faye discusses are sadly familiar to me. The struggle for trans liberation might look different in different parts of the world, but the theme is the same: we need to go beyond the basics of gender 101, using the correct pronouns, etc. and actively challenge the gender binary and the assumptions we all make about gender on a daily basis.

I would love for any cis person who needs more details on these issues to read this book. It can be a lot at points (at least it was for me) in terms of emotions. But it is so, so vital that cis people take the time to educate themselves on the systemic barriers trans people experience every day. I pray for the day that my transness is both unremarkable and also not an afterthought, the day when I can call customer service and not get called “sir” five seconds into the call, the day when we are all free to be who we are without assumptions or judgment.
But until that happens, at least I can read thoughtful and essential books like The Transgender Issue, and I hope you do to. Understand that supporting trans people is more than shouting “trans women are women” (though I do appreciate that). It’s about confronting the very real discrimination that exists throughout our society, and using any power you have to tear it down in the name of a better future.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.

Writing a memoir of any kind is hard. When you set yourself the challenge of using your experience as one of the few humans who have “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” to teach us about ecological awareness, the bar rises further. Back to Earth has a certain kind of charm to its optimistic idea that orbiting the planet helps you feel like we’re all in this together. Maybe I’m just getting pessimistic at the ripe old age of 32, but this book didn’t quite work for me. Then again, it’s entirely possible I’m just not Nicole Stott’s target audience.

Thanks to NetGalley and Perseus Books for the eARC in exchange for a review.

I don’t mind Stott’s premise—it’s neat! I agree that seeing our planet from space should make us feel more connected. We should think more about ecosystems, about the water cycle, about the importance of bug species. So for Stott to spend some time devoted to these issues, while also talking about what life is like in space, is a good things. I think there is an audience for this book who will love it, so don’t read this review as a critique of the book’s very existence.

With that being said, there was something that rankled me as I read this book. It took me a while to realize what it is: Stott has a very white, very American, very individualist idea of progressiveness. She happily acknowledges injustices in the world like millions of people who don’t have access to clean drinking water. But she spends a lot of time praising the activities of people like Scott Harrison, who founded charity: water, rather than engaging with the underlying reasons why people don’t have clean drinking water (for example, here in Canada it’s because of ongoing colonialism and a federal government that is entirely performative in its reconciliation with Indigenous peoples). Similarly, Stott explores the mechanisms behind climate change and goes so far as to acknowledge that companies and countries both need to cut emissions—we are all in this together, she exhorts—yet she always returns to what we as individuals should be doing.

(The whiteness continues with a bizarre editorial decision to name one of the chapters “Respect the Thin Blue Line.” It’s referring to the Earth’s atmosphere, but the resonance with the slogan for the pro-police, anti-Black Blue Lives Matter movement did not escape me. Read the room, editors.)

I get it. The book is meant to inspire readers (who are probably far younger than myself) to take action. And the best way to do that is to talk about what concrete actions you can take as an individual. However, this can flatten the complexity of these problems and perpetuate a narrative of individualism that is counter-productive to real change.

In recent months, multiple billionaires have gone to space (or not quite, depending on the definition of “space” that you use). It hasn’t inspired any miraculous transformations of conscience on the part of these people. They still have their billions, and our system is still capitalist and corrupt. Going to space does not automatically change people for the better or create feelings of unity and solidarity.

Back to Earth attempts valiantly to draw parallels between issues of environmental justice. Yet it’s clumsy and misses the mark because its focus is too myopic. Stott wants us to care about the planet, and by extension, all the people and creatures on it. This format is fine on the surface, and I believe it is possible to read this book in a surface-level way. There is a lot of good information you could learn from this; I enjoyed reading about the successful attempts to ban chlorofluorocarbons. Alas, I am also somewhat tired of books that come close to getting to the root of these problems yet ultimately don’t engage with them. I’m sure Stott has her reasons. Maybe she feels like it isn’t her place, like her role as an ex-astronaut is to inspire rather than share an opinion she might view as uninformed. Maybe she just wanted to write something conscious yet also light. I can get behind that. But it isn’t what I wanted to read.

Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.