Emergency Skin, by N. K. Jemisin

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I agree with the people that thought this book was a bit obvious for Jemisin. It also obviously triggered some white fragility among some reviewers. But behind the overt moral lesson were some very interesting speculative elements. The central one is in the title itself--the value of having your own skin. Skin is pretty amazing stuff--it's the largest organ in the body, produces all kinds of valuable hormones, and conveys vital information. Its surface area is our largest interface with the world. What incredible control you would have over people if you took away their skin and replaced it with an artificial container! This doesn't become clear until the end of the story, and understanding it is a big part of figuring out the reveal. Of course it is spoken directly by one of the characters, but still...processing the implications of that makes the story that much better. Excellent story.



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Blood Is Another Word for Hunger, by Rivers Solomon

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a decent story, but only just a little interesting, and that interest is around how Harrow mixes and stirs hard and soft traits in men and women, and husbands and wives (any combination seems to be possible, though all the characters are cis-gendered). Rebellion against a society continually at war is very thoroughly done, but also very timely, so am not sorry I read it. It's a Hugo nominee for 2019, and will contend.



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Do Not Look Back, My Lion, by Alix E. Harrow

Do Not Look Back, My Lion by Alix E. Harrow

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a decent story, but only just a little interesting, and that interest is around how Harrow mixes and stirs hard and soft traits in men and women, and husbands and wives (any combination seems to be possible, though all the characters are cis-gendered). Rebellion against a society continually at war is very thoroughly done, but also very timely, so am not sorry I read it. It's a Hugo nominee for 2019, and will contend.



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A Strange Uncertain Light, by G. V. Anderson

No link to this one, it's in F&SF and nominated for a Nebula for 2019.  This is kind of a throwback story--set in late Victorian England, post Great War.  We have two protagonists, one in the novelette's present, one in its past.  They are "chime children", born as the hour bells ring, and it is said they are special in various ways.  They both see specters.  The setting is classic British--a shabby mansion set among bogs and heather, two people with dark secrets married on a whim.  Ghosts.  It's well done but been done, many times.  A contender, not a winner.

For He Can Creep, by Siobhan Carroll

For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


For He Can Creep hits a soft spot for me as for many others, since it is a cat story. I am not sure cats are so fearless and proud as they are often portrayed--they are prey as well as predators, and wary that way. Ours are very comfortable souls, they might stalk bugs but their killer nature is mostly under control. But on to the story. Joffrey is indeed a proud cat soul, taking on demons on behalf of the sad denizens of an 18th century madhouse. He and his companions (Nighthunter Moppet is the true killing machine) take on Satan in a contest for the soul of Joffrey's owner.

It's a good story, fun to read, but very typical of a cat story. We cat lovers celebrate their nature and can be a bit blind to it. Definitely read it for the cats.



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His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light, by Mimi Mondal

His Footsteps, Through Darkness and Light by Mimi Mondal

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a story that features a jinni (genie), but the jinni is not really the focus. Our protagonist is a trapeze artist from a primitive part of the country, succeeding in the circus by what he sees as the chance of his agility. He ends up as the leader of the trapeze troupe (throughout, it is clear that the man is truly humble about his abilities--the author somehow relates them without the character taking any special note of them), and entrusted with the jinni, who puts on a cheezy jinni drama that turns out be the most popular part of the show.

They run into trouble when they take in a fleeing Devadasi, a girl born as a gift to the local god. And gods are very present here, so that trouble is very direct.

It's a nice little story, the protagonist's humility and simplicity is very well done. A worthy Nebula 2019 nominee.



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The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye, by Sarah Pinsker

Sarah Pinsker writes an amazing range of stories, and all are enjoyable.  The thread linking them all is strong characters--you get the sense of the people in a story right away, and keep it.  So it is with The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye, the first one of hers that I have read in the horror space.  Zanna the author and Sal the assistant have a great relationship, in pretty colorful circumstances.  Zanna writes a series of detective novels where the investigator is in town just long enough to solve the murder mystery--much the way Zanna and Sal live.  And in the story we find out why.

Read this for masterful writing, this is how you do it.  4 stars

The Archronology of Love by Caroline M. Yoachim

"This is a love story, the last in a series of moments when we meet"...a great opening and closing line for The Archronology of Love.  And it's a somewhat classic love story in that it is cis-gendered straight and romantic.  The speculative driver in the story is the Chronology, a creation of some sort that records and freezes each segment of time, and can be visited from the future but is destroyed to some extent in the process.  The metaphor to archaeology is thoroughly drawn--layers of earth are our version of the Chronology, and archaeologists destroy them in order to study and understand them, knowing that future archaeologists will rue their work. 

So it's a nice story, but the ending feels old fashioned (I won't give it away).  The overall effect is that it could have been written 40 years ago.  A good nominee for the Nebula but probably not a winner.

Give the Family My Love, by A. T. Greenblatt

Give the Family My Love is a familiar and fun subtype--the Library story.  The idea of a galactic collection of knowledge has sparked an incredibly complex and interesting literature.  There are many lists but I personally like how they feature in David Brin's Uplift series.

This version tracks our current environmental concerns.  The library is on an incredibly hostile world, with corrosive atmosphere.  Turns out it's the librarians' home world, post environmental apocalypse, and future earth is coming to be in the same boat.  Told as a series of communications to a frenemy mission controller, it's a fun read.  Strong 3 stars.

The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power, by Karen Osborne

In The Dead, In Their Uncontrollable Power a starship is bound for Paradise, but it is no paradise itself.  Heavily socially stratified, and the captaincy is maintained by a process of abstracting all bad memories from previous captains and giving them to a child of sin, and the good memories to the new captain.  The story is told from the perspective of the sin holder.  A good entry for the Nebula for 2019.

And Now His Lordship Is Laughing, by Shiv Ramdas

And Now His Lordship Is Laughing by Shiv Ramdas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This story is from the time of the Bengal Famine of 1943, when Britain ran a scorched-earth "denial of rice" and other essentials campaign against the occupying Japanese. Over a million people died. The story focuses on a maker of jute dolls--special dolls that can act on their own. Horror ensues. It's a good story, worthy of nomination. Basically a revenge tale.



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Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island, by Nibedita Sen

In Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island, a Nebula nominee for short story in 2019, we get a word picture of the titular place told in the titular format.  This short, disconnected entry format is one we see more often now and I think it works well for a short story, where one is trying to convey an idea in a very few words.  This one is OK, I guess, they always go by so fast for me it's hard to know what to make of them.  But worth the brief stop.

A Catalog of Storms, by Fran Wilde

A Catalog of Storms is nominated for a Nebula this year.  Fran Wilde uses her Bone Universe literary understanding of wind and its emotional content for this story--really it's that understanding boiled down to its essence.  You control storms by naming them, just as you would emotions.  Sacrifice and hope are also here.  A fun little item to read.

How the Trick Is Done, by A. C. Wise

How the Trick Is Done is a nominee for a Nebula short story this year.  It is a fine little relationship story told as speculative fiction, sort of magical realism.  The Magician is a compelling figure, and 3 different people fall for him--his first assistant, his stage manager, and a girlfriend who is a Resurrectionist.  She stops him from dying when he is shot as part of his act.  The dynamics of these folks are the heart of the story.  Worth reading, but it seems very familiar.

Song For a New Day, by Sarah Pinsker

A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's pretty amazing that Sarah Pinsker wrote this before it became a documentary. OTOH, as predictions go it is not so difficult--mass shootings were our big concern when she wrote this, and it was widely acknowledged that a pandemic of some kind was going to happen in the near future. But the timing of my reading it is insanely on target, which made it sad to read even though the book itself is not a sad one. It's actually a very hopeful book, showing us how we might resist a relatively benevolent public-private partner dictatorship (I wonder if she deliberately substituted Wal-Mart for Amazon to make her universe slightly less parallel to ours?).

I tried to distance myself a bit from current events and appreciate it as well-written novel. Mostly unsuccessfully, but I still marvel at how deep and mature this book is. The characters are so real--Luce Cannon maybe moreso than Rosemary, but still both are great. Even the minor characters are real characters. Her generous view of human nature really comes through.

This book should go down as a marker of its time--if you want to understand how things are at the start of the second decade of the 21st century, read this. I hope this is the first of many Sarah Pinsker novels, we could see the field revive.



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