Ka: Dar Oakley In the Ruins of Ymr, by John Crowley

Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr by John Crowley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There's a lot of strong elements in this book that got me to finish it. Dar Oakley is a great character, a Crow who ends up with a fair amount of People rubbing off on him--he is aware of it and concerned the whole time. Crowley told the tale from the perspective of someone listening to Dar Oakley tell his story, so it's a Crow perspective filtered through a human, and he gets that right. The prose is lovely, it may be just a bit old fashioned now but it's wonderful to read. The story of Dar Oakley's long, long life is wonderful and mysterious.
(view spoiler)[There are hints that the storyteller is living in apocalyptic times--the world seems to be in active but not violent collapse. Environmental. Timely, almost too much so now. (hide spoiler)]

But oh, the pace. There's a whole lot of words here for what is actually accomplished, and even though they are good words they are too many. This book could be about a third shorter and be better. The action does not really build to a conclusion, so the interest in the book is in how it rolls out, and I began to tire about halfway through. The payoff was just not adequate for so much reading. Overall I'm glad I read it, but I am left wanting at least some of my life back.



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Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor

Home by Nnedi Okorafor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Okorafor's Binti series is equal parts fascinating and frustrating for me. Her approach to technology is completely fresh, and I came away understanding it better in this story. What at first seems fantastical is given scientific explanation later. There are stronger hints that the time is post-apocalyptic, or at least that people came to some very different understanding of how they wanted to relate to technology--possibly it was a way to survive? A telling quote: "That was back before people had mobile phones!". So there's a connection between today's phone and the story's "astrolabe". The setting of technology in African culture is fascinating and brings something very different to SF.

But as a story it's really choppy and abbreviated. Binti decides to go home to do her pilgrimage "because it's time" without preamble. It's not like an abbreviated story, more like we're jumping from part to part without a lot of it being told. The writing is kind of YA and not in a real wonderful way. What's frustrating is I do not recall this being so much of an issue in Who Fears Death. That book had its own problems but it was clearly a work for adults and explored large themes. The Binti series wants to go there, but there's just not enough book.



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Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The sixth book in the sequence, The Ruin of Angels, was up for a Locus fantasy award but I like to read books in the order written, so just picked this one up. It was one of my favorite reads this year, and has held up well. As a first novel, it's pretty amazing, in fact.

The world Gladstone builds works with familiar fantasy themes (schools of magic, magic as Law), but approaches them very differently from most of the work I've read recently. It's a world where humans wrested control of Craft (magic) from the Gods (who have limitations, like highly enhanced humans) and left it in a very complicated place. If you like world building this is really great stuff, as the explanation is a strong presence in the story without totally taking over the plot. And Max Gladstone knows how to end a book--the ending was exciting, powerful and unexpected in several ways.

Some reviewers have made much of Tara being a black heroine. Yes, the cover illustration is a black woman, and Gladstone describes her as having dark skin in the book. But there is no indication that this matters or is a factor in any way. It's a default universe, that is to say, White. Not throwing shade, just saying it as it is. Contrast this with N. K. Jemisin's work, where characters are not identified racially but the racial metaphor is very clear.

All that said, I really enjoyed the book and just might read more.



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