The Four Profound Weaves, by R. B. Lemburg

I struggled with this one a lot--I had read "Grandmother Nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds" a few years ago so I was a little familiar with the context, but the author says you don't need that and I believe that is correct. It helped a bit to let go of the idea that this was primarily a story with a plot, and lean into the exploration of identity. And you know what, a little bit of plot and adventure does sneak in.

The characters are fully realized, imperfect people, which seems to distress some reviewers. Benesret, the great weaver, sits right on the line between good and evil. The best thing in the book for me was the profound struggle of the Nameless Man to claim his identity, particularly since he had transitioned to a man's body late in life but did not grow up as a man and therefore was profoundly uncertain about how he fit. Us cis-gendered folks do not realize how much context we get from being raised with our genders.

The prose is heavily styled and poetic, and takes some getting used to. I can appreciate the exploration but since the book was not meant for me I can't get my arms around it.

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The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo

The "protagonist" in this story is Chih, a monk from an order devoted to recording history. The order requires that its clerics take nonbinary pronouns, making it a relatively painless way to include that perspective in the story. But Chih is a listener--the true focus of the story is Rabbit, servant to the empress In-yo, a northern princess from a defeated people. The tale unfolds as a series of stories from Rabbit.

The storytelling style gives the book a very relaxed and easy feel. It's not about action or suspense, since all events happened long ago in the telling. That gives the reveal a bit of a lift. It's a short book, just a night or two of reading, but a good way to pass a little time. Rounding up to 4 stars.

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Tower of Mud and Straw, by Yaroslav Barsukov

There are some things to like about this book. Lord Shea Ashcroft is a complex character, a fully realized person with significant weaknesses trying to make his way through a very complex set of circumstances. And his superhuman race, the Drakiri, are worthy of unpacking in future work. They are a powerful race who do not understand themselves very well, which is really cool for storytelling. The giant tower is cool.  The adversary country on the border has possibilities.  But overall it's a bit of a weak 3 stars for me. Maybe if he would have given it more space it would work better, but only with some care.

I got lost trying to follow the action in several places. I was most of the way through the book before I figured out that the protagonist's full name was Shea Ashcroft. It seemed like characters who used one or the other name were talking to different people. And we had two characters named Lena who were involved with Drakiri technology, which is kind of a no-no. If you do it, you have to do something with it. I think the ending was a bit limp as well. But I can recommend it for the world-building--there's a lot one could do here. I hope he comes back and gives this universe another try, it would be worth it.

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Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi

This story blends fantasy and science fiction in a really interesting way to capture the essence of our time. You have the protagonists, Ella and Kev, with mystical, nearly omnipotent powers to see and affect the future. And they are under incredible pressure from living in Compton and being in prison. The transitions can throw you a bit, but they work well to ease you into the science aspect--that this is taking place in a future-but-already-possible world. The construction of the intense surveillance of Black neighborhoods and prisons, and the intentional gaps in that surveillance, are worked into the action and brought home really well. The author's intimacy with the characters shows throughout the book. I'm glad I came across this and read it, and can highly recommend it.

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Come Tumbling Down, by Seanan McGuire

This installment of the Wayward Children series is back in the Moors, but mostly about the characters going there and secondly about the general setting--the major characters (the Master and Dr. Bleak) are pretty much missing. But there's lots of action around Jack and Jill switching bodies, and Jack trying to set that right. Definitely an engaging read.

But like some others, I'm missing the aspects of searching for a Door that some of the other books have. These characters are longing for their doors, but it's an all-star show and they've all been through and been heroes in those worlds, saving them.

The setting is both endlessly generative (alternate worlds that seem to have some relationship, and structure for how they are classified) and maybe a bit limiting. The worlds may seem very structured or highly arbitrary, but they are all simplified versions of the reality we live in, which is not expressly privileged in the books but sort of comes out that way by reflection in the alternates. So we could call where we are Reality in this series.

The well-spoken bickering is really pronounced in this one. There's a lot of one-uppy "you don't understand because you don't know arbitrary rule x from my special universe". There are often larger points at play, but platitudes seem pretty close to hand in these instances. I don't know, it's just perhaps a little tiring. Maybe time to bring this series to its exciting conclusion?

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Juice Like Wounds, by Seanan McGuire

I read Juice Like Wounds as a setup for Come Tumbling Down. It's set in the Goblin Market universe, as a side quest with Moon, Lundy and Mockery. It's more lyrical and "writer-y" than the novellas. It's pretty much all explication--McGuire gives us a spoiler up front (one of the characters dies), and goes forward from there to explain the girls' characters and relationships from her omniscient perch. The action of the story is over before you know it, so I didn't get as wounded as some folks that read it. Probably optional to read in the series, but it's so quick that there's no reason not to read it. Available for free at TOR.com. 

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The Fated Sky, by Mary Robinette Kowal

I'm a fan of hard SF where the writers do research in order to tell the story properly. So this really hit the mark for me, there's a lot of great history. Including the social history, where she works in elements of the civil rights movement and how much of an object of suspicion it was for the country. It's a really interesting juxtaposition, how we could achieve so much technically with those old concepts of who belonged in power. Being under tremendous pressure helps, some. Kowal alludes to, but could perhaps be more clear about, how the United States of 1960 would get there through exploitation. She has sympathy for protesters, but their motives (the handling of Meteor refugee resettlement adding to existing inequities) only get a partial exploration. I'm hoping this gets sharpened in the third book.

There's a lot to like. The action really keeps the book moving, and the evolving relationship between Stetson Parker and Elma York holds one's interest. I had a hard time putting it down. What really clanked for me was the ending, so I have to put it in a spoiler.

Throughout the book Kowal builds racial tension as the FBI tries to connect Black astronauts to the terrorist incident that leads off the book, and Mission Control feeds the suspicion through their assignment of Black and Female astronauts to menial duties. Then a major terrorist incident (that the FBI seems to have missed) disrupts the mission and Earth. The astronauts overcome the obstacles, land on Mars and...everything is fine. The terrorists lose sympathy at home, a Black astronaut is the first man on Mars, and colonization proceeds apace. Quite a lot is missing here. The turnaround basically happens offstage, before the epilogue.

This has potential as a steampunk setting, just about 70 years later than classic steampunk. We are going to Mars with punch card computers. And we really could have done it--except for the colonization, we probably can't pull that off even now because we haven't figured out what to do about Moon and Mars dust--it's incredibly sharp and gets everywhere, the moon suits were leaking like sieves by the end of a mission of just a few days. I don't think that's the focus of the third book, but I'll look forward to reading it all the same. 

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