Proof By Induction, by Jose Pablo Iriarte

So reality is catching up to this story in a hurry. Digital avatars of your loved ones that you can interact with after they die? Check. In this story the speculation is that people don't use these for long, but as they say here some would. Basically the Coda for this mathematician (father of the protagonist) is a large language model that focuses on math, mostly because Dad couldn't be bothered with feelings or human relations when he was alive. Really all the model does in the story is throw out a few hints--maybe GPT-3 trained with his data could do that now? Though it does seem like they work some proofs together, and that's probably more than a model can do (though not a math program perhaps). Spooky real.

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Mr. Death, by Alix Harrow

A very sweet little story about an apprentice Reaper, someone who guides the dead to the afterlife. Many thought it should have won the Hugo and Nebula awards over Sarah Pinsker's "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather", but I'm respecting the judges' choice here--the ending is a bit on the sweet side and shades toward judgments on who should and shouldn't die that have problematic potential. I really liked it though.

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Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather, by Sarah Pinsker

Gotta say I absolutely love Sarah Pinsker, and this is one darned clever story. Telling it as a Reddit thread is great, though that kind of thing is becoming more common now. She very accurately simulates people geeking out about their very specific knowledge space, which is a lot of fun, and also she's good at name dropping. Really glad I read this one, and that it has its own space here on Goodreads.

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A Blessing of Unicorns, by Elizabeth Bear

I've read both of the Sub-Inspector Fallon stories now and enjoy the near-future post-apocalypse-but-we-survived setting of the story. In many ways it seems this version of the future is making the same mistakes as the present version, but that in some ways speaks to the critiques that the series can't really sufficiently let go of the present. It would almost work better as a near-future pre-apocalypse setting where we've managed to put off the (maybe) inevitable a bit longer.

It's interesting to be conscious of how we've changed when looking at representation in literature. Elizabeth Bear is not Indian, and in some ways the protagonist is not that convincing an Indian character. You're very conscious that it's a Western white woman telling a story set in India. Contrast that with, say, S. P. Divya's writing, which has a very Indian flavor and brings a different set of concerns.

It's good work and I'm glad to have read it.

A Blessing of Unicorns

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Skinder's Veil, by Kelly Link

Skinder's Veil is part of the collection "When Things Get Dark", a volume in honor of Shirley Jackson.  It's the last story in the book, so it's the last impression you have of the volume.  I'm left a bit confused.  Content is benign, no warnings of any sort really.  Even though it's a classic horror setup.  Our protagonist is an ordinary sociology ABD making somewhat slow progress on his dissertation.  He gets a housesitting gig in an isolated location with strange rules--let anyone in who asks, except the owner, Skinder.  You figure mayhem is going to ensue.  Instead we get a series of encounters with humans telling stories, and non-humans getting treated like houseguests.  Intriguing because you keep waiting for the other shoe (or the axe) to drop and it never really does.  Instead it's kind of an allegory.  I guess I liked it?  

In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns, by Elizabeth Bear

Picked this up because I want to read A Blessing of Unicorns, the second in this story series. And I have to say that it is entertaining and interesting to read, like all Elizabeth Bear's work. I agree with other reviewers that there's a lot going on here, and in creating the mystery it gets a bit overwhelming. But a whole lot of good speculative elements. The sentient cats were cute, though I don't know how much demand there would be for an intelligent, socially demanding cat (accurately called a parrot-cat--parrots are really demanding). I enjoyed it and almost can give it a 4, but it's just a little all over the place. Looking forward to the next one.

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Colors of the Immortal Palette, by Caroline Yoachim

Colors of the Immortal Palette is a story that you can tell was written by a veteran writer.  As literature it's excellent, and pretty fine as a story as well.  The protagonist is a model for famous painters, but she'd like to break into painting and be taken seriously as an artist.  The story indicates that a lot of models would like that.  But the art world does not take women seriously, even less so models who pose nude.  An extra dollop of intersectional prejudice is layered on as our protagonist has Japanese ancestry and is named Mariko.  Exotic but not serious, in Paris or Chicago.

The speculative element here is a "vampire" story.  Here vampires don't want to be called vampires, and they do not bite or drink blood--they take a slice of life from their victims/proteges by more direct and spiritual means.  This world is interesting in that immortals are "out"--they do not hide their nature, and at least from the perspective of the story it isn't disruptive.  Mariko asks her immortal painter to "turn" her, which he does, giving her time to perfect her art but also to weary of life as he has.  Very beautiful.

O2 Arena, by Donald Ekpeki Oghenechovwe

O2 Arena won the Nebula this year.  Possibly as encouragement because the story itself reads like a new author, one that will find his way but is early in his career.  Which Oghenechovwe is.  The setting is familiar--people fighting for their right to breathe--but brings Nigerian cultural perspective to it.  The story is often kind of on the nose with social justice, but then we keep that African perspective in mind--these things need saying.  What is unique and compelling here is how this is tied in with climate failure, and the overriding consciousness of the characters--they know that a world where you need supplemental oxygen to survive is one that doesn't have long anyway.  The law school backdrop of the story is cramming a 3 year course of study into 8 months because they simply don't have time.  I look forward to reading more from this author.

Bots of the Lost Ark, by Suzanne Palmer

The second in this series and both won Hugos. The story is absolutely fun to read. The spaceship carrying what might be the last of humanity has suffered heavy damage from aliens trying to wipe them out, and now faces internal issues as well--bots that have been directed to take on the tasks and personas of their human crew in stasis. They get a little too into their roles. Palmer gives the characters personality and a good problem space to work in. Go read it.

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Small Monsters, by E. Lily Yu

Small Monsters is really on-the-nose, but also beautifully written so it can push you to read it when you might not otherwise. As others have said it is quite graphic, but does not dwell on the grossness. Rather it dwells on the injustice, which is the thing to do. Monster world can feel a bit removed from human world, but it shouldn't--this is the way some experience it. Deserves its nomination for the Locus and to be read.

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The Red Mother, by Elizabeth Bear

The Red Mother is a very fun character study.  Our protagonist, Auga Augasson, is a rogue--a sorcerer, a Viking (used as a verb here) and generally a guy out for a good time.  He's on a mission for kin duty--to find his brother and tell him he's been cleared of a manslaughter charge.  He ends up having to contest with a dragon to bring his brother back from death (caused by that dragon) and save a village.  Which might not really be worth saving.  

Auga and the dragon have some good if a little predictable dialog, though the situation was pretty original to me.  This is a fine piece of writing that, given what else was nominated, perhaps should have been more of a contender.

Unseelie Brothers, Ltd., by Fran Wilde

A lot of folks found Unseelie Brothers Ltd. a bit predictable, and they are right. The tale unfolds from the title and the initial setting. I did find the fashion descriptions fun, and it was gripping to read even if you knew what was coming. Maybe a twist in that it has a happier ending than many stories of the Fae. I liked it and am glad I got to read it. It got nominated for a lot of awards--solid execution counts for a lot.

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Mulberry and Owl, by Aliette de Bodard

I read Mulberry and Owl because it's nominated for a Locus award in 2022.  This story is set in the Xuya universe, with mindships as characters. The title is a reference to the location of the story and one of the characters, a ship named The Owl with the Moon’s Tongue.  It's an enforcement ship, holding up a horrible dictatorship.  The protagonist has rebelled against that dictatorship along with her friend Kim Lan, but Kim is now giving in and seeking amnesty.  The protagonist is buying that amnesty by increasing the capabilities of that enforcement ship.  This tortures her in ways one would expect, and is well told.

Sort of reminds me of trying to rebel in modern China.  But as we have seen, Chinese citizens succeed in this sometimes.  Ok for fans of De Bodard.

L’Esprit De L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente

It’s hard for me to rate overt retellings of classics really high, but the tradition is a venerable one and L'Esprit De L'Escalier is very good. Since it references Virgil’s telling you might want to read that or a summary first. The setting is very clever, making the minor tweak that Orpheus never looks back at Eurydice and actually gets her out of Hades, sort of. She’s not in good shape. The modernizing of the Pantheon (the Greek gods) is fun too. What a year for Valente.

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That Story Isn’t the Story, by John Wiswell

Short stories by default have to be more direct about their topic, and That Story Isn't the Story is. It’s a kind of magical realism story where the protagonist is trying to get out of an abusive living arrangement and does so with the help of a friend. The author does a good job of showing how difficult that can be—the friend is indeed a good one but the living arrangements are late stage capitalism precarious. What I liked here was the way the title of this story is used.  The characters use it to keep focus on the lesson being conveyed and not go down pity rabbit holes. Read it for that. The rest is ok and potentially moving to someone in that situation.

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The Giants of the Violet Sea, by Eugenia Triantafyllou

Not sure what to make of The Giants of the Violet Sea. The setting is a colony on an inhospitable world where most life is toxic to the colonists. One of these toxic life forms is highly revered--the Venedolphin. More like a whale, and the colonists understand it to have a complex social structure. But they are being poached. The protagonist is a girl child of a Venedolphin tamer and a healer. The society has structured gender roles so she could not be a tamer, but didn't want to be a healer like her mother so she left for a time. She comes back to solve the mystery of her brother's death.

The story is mostly confusing and kind of hard to follow. There's a lot of side issues, like a more-favored sister colony that seems to have ruined its environment, that are introduced but don't really go anywhere. In the end it all resolves but it's in a kind of awkward space where the author needed a lot more space to develop it all, or a lot less plot. It's also a bit awkward to read for a major award nominated story.

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The Necessity of Stars, by E. Catherine Tobler

This is a neat little novella blending themes of climate change, social disorder and mental health breakdown. Protagonist Breone Hemmerli is a diplomat, a very capable one who is suffering from dementia. She is called on to engage in diplomacy with what might be aliens (or might be created beings).

The story references the themes but it's mostly Breone's reflections on her memory and what is happening to it. One of the other reviewers said that it is more fun to discuss than to read, and I have to concur. Many of her reflections become repetitive, and not in that poetic way where you know it is on purpose. But there are some great lines in it.

Something that I think others have missed--Breone is aware of her breakdown and a lot of the imagery she uses about herself is that of an elderly person. But at the beginning of the book she states her age as sixty-three--not old enough to be retired, for many of us, and for a diplomat that's a prime age for using one's experience. Breone seems aware of this and has the idea that she should be capable, IS capable. Breone is suffering from early-onset dementia, a particularly debilitating condition, though often not as drawn out as dementia that occurs later.

Interesting as a literary piece. Not compelling as a read. But I'm glad I read it.

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Flowers for the Sea, by Zin Rocklyn

Maybe better than a 2 but not a 3. The book jacket description--Rosemary's Baby by way of Octavia Butler--is pretty accurate. Kind of dead on really. There's a lot of really luscious description of body horror, quite organic and messy. Pregnant Iraxi is definitely a force on this doomed ark (climate change refugees, probably?) in all sorts of ways. As literature it works pretty well. But it feels like it is just getting started, and yet had nowhere to go. So in the end just OK for me. Some uniqueness as a Black horror writer, it comes through in the writing, not quite enough for me to really like it.

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Elder Race, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I haven't read much Adrian Tchaikovsky (just this year, Shards of Earth), though I know he's written a lot. I get the feeling from the reviews that his recent work is more character driven than in the past, when he was more into plot twists. I would say that is the case with this book. The characters of Lynesse Fourth Daughter and Nyr Allem Tillich (Nygoroth Elder to Lynesse) are the heart of the story, and they make it a great read. Lynesse is from a culture of woman warriors on a colony founded from Earth but abandoned in a technological retreat. Nyr is there to study that culture as Earth has recovered. But during his time there Earth has retreated again. His struggles with his mission vs. his conviction that it is meaningless can seem forced, but that is explained by his bigger struggle with depression. No surprising twists or turns, but a very heartening tale of people being their best selves. Great action and adventure, pretty horrifying at times but overall fun.

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Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire

This series has a really good formula and Seanan McGuire puts out solid work. She understands and is writing for girls just crossing that line from girl to woman. This time bringing some diverse understanding in by making the main character intersex. Folks like this are near and dear to me so I have stuck with this series as a way of understanding them.

The setup and characterization are fine here, if slightly threadbare at this point. It's a concept that's been worked pretty hard now, and I find myself paying attention to the fact that "our world", the one these children come from and go back to, is central, and all others are relatively simple expressions of one kind of fantasy space or another. In this one it's fantasy equines. Why privilege our world, without doing that explicitly?

Have to say this one disappoints due to the ending. It's just kind of lame. Ending books is hard, and it just seems like McGuire was on deadline to get this out and start on the next one. 2.5 rounded up for a sensitive story.

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Comfort Me With Apples, by Catherynne Valente

This is a jaw-dropper of a book. I have tended to think of Valente as a kind of lightweight, but not any more. The style of the book is horror, but there's a whole lot more going on here than jumpscares. It is deeply allegorical, and the reveal of the allegory is gradual. I should have read it more than once. I didn't pick up on a lot of the references until I read other reviews with spoilers in them.

Between this and "The Past Is Red" it looks like Valente is ready to move into a powerful writing phase. It's always been fun to read her stuff--lots of action and adventure, and she's not afraid to be feminine in her writing. This was better than fun.

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Defekt, by Nino Cipri

The world really needed an anti-capitalist Ikea parody, and we knew it, and Nino Cipri really delivers. I thought the first book was a good try, and worthy of encouragement. This one is pretty darn solid, though I'm a little confused by it. I'll come back to that.

Here we revisit Derek, the LitenVarld employee who has totally drunk the Kool-Ade and has no life outside the store. This book explains why he is living in a shipping container in the LitenVarld parking lot. He meets many versions of himself (herself/themselves) working for LitenVarld as Special Employees, charged with wrangling/eliminating defecta--experimental furniture that has gained consciousness and mobility.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it builds on the first one without really depending on it. I would recommend reading Finna first, in part because if you read Defekt then Finna will suffer a bit by comparison, and it doesn't deserve to. But they don't depend on each other, which is weird. Finna definitely ends with several plot points untidied--it absolutely reads like a first book in a series. But in Defekt's acknowledgements Cipri says he never intended to write a sequel. Really? Maybe he meant it--he still hasn't written the sequel to Finna because Defekt is not that. It's set in the same LitenVerse and builds on the foundation of Finna, but those dangling plots are not continued. Derek has moved on. So now I don't know what he does with that first one.

These are tremendously fun and trenchant books to read, am looking forward to more as long as Cipri has ideas to explore there.

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Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

Andy Weir sure has the extended science experiment genre covered. I haven't read Artemis yet, but Project Hail Mary definitely works the same vein of hard SF gold as The Martian. This time with rather more spectacular experiments, involving space life that stores a gazillion New-York-City-power years (enough energy to power NYC for a year).

Some of the reviewers knock this book down a little for the extended "nerdgazm" (borrowed that, love it) episodes with Rocky the mineral-like alien, but this is a book for enthusiasts and it really brings that content. We also have a real try at a more complex character--Ryland Grace is not a perfect man, he's revealed to be emotionally immature and not really up to what's expected of him, but he also has a lot of real feelings for his teammates. Plenty of material for screenwriters to work with.

It's really not lacking much--not quite as deep as Ted Chiang or Kim Stanley Robinson, authors who have had many years refining their voices. But Andy Weir definitely has a sense for science adventure. Maybe he'll collaborate with Randall Monroe on a book sometime...

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And What Can We Offer You Tonight? by Premee Mohammed

Closer to a 2.5 but not enough for a 3. Premee Mohammed models this book after Aliette De Bodard's work, but it's not quite that powerful and I'm not a superfan of De Bodard so this one doesn't cut it for me. It's executed OK but just doesn't have the drive. Can someone write some fantasy that isn't centered around Houses? Sometime?

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The Past Is Red, by Cathrynne M. Valente

This has to be one of my favorites from Cat Valente. She is reaching for some new literary ground here, and while the voice of the protagonist (the most hated in Garbagetown, essentially for telling the truth, and some know it) gets a bit grating in places it's a really powerfully told apocalyptic story. What is left of humanity is mostly living on a floating land mass made from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch collected and sorted. Everything else is under water. Not geologically accurate (there was a fair amount of dry land on Earth even when there was no ice) but it drives the story really well. Valente captures the insanity of living in that place really well, and in the afterword (important to read) says she is trying to offer a positive message as well. Life will go on even in the absolute worst case scenarios, unless it doesn't, and it is possible to enjoy it. Well worth the read.

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Remote Control, by Nnedi Okorafor

My feelings toward this book are very complex. Nnedi Okorafor gets better at writing all the time, and the prose in this book is very smooth and evocative. Some of the earlier work was kind of blocky in places, and you still get that feeling here but now it's more like a style. As for the story itself, it is set in the near future and there is technical speculation but the core of the story is fantasy, so it is hard to classify. Sankofa is, in my mind, a tragic character, cursed with incredible power that with its first use costs her everyone she ever loved, and that even by the end she can still only partially control. Even harder is that all this happens to her as a child. She wanders Ghana as a spirit would, being placated and loathed, and occasionally appreciated.

The book kind of stops rather than ends. Feels more like a starting point for a novel than a complete story. I hope Okorafor comes back to Sankofa at some point, I think she has more to say here.

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A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow

A lot of stories are retellings without disclosure. This one discloses, and makes the story part of the driver. It's hard for me to give a derivative story more than 3 stars, and I'm not tempted here. It's a nice story--really, it is--and protagonist Zinnia is satisfyingly complex. She is dark and fatalistic but not depressed. She seems to be wringing what life she can out of a flawed body, just lamenting that it's not enough. Harrow also gives us a good indication of how much emotional energy very ill/terminal children can spend taking care of their parents and others ostensibly taking care of them. Again without dwelling on it.

The erstwhile Sleeping Beauty (Princess Primrose) is well done also, imbued with a steel backbone. Harrow generalizes--this applies to princesses everywhere that are trapped by their circumstances.

So it's a good book. Glad I read it. Full disclosure, I am not a teen girl so I did not connect with it, and that may be why it left me in the end unmoved. It will move others.

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The Unbroken, by C. L. Clark

This book takes a heckuva long time to get to the reward. The first half is kind of slow, but having finished it I realize that the time was taken to really unpack the protagonist (Touraine). Touraine is really well drawn as a character--a downtrodden Sand (conscript soldier), respected leader, incredible fighter, assault victim, etc. There's just a lot going on and she makes mistakes that are not undone (plenty of fantasy novels have protagonists bemoaning their choices and blaming themselves, but they are offered clear choices that redeem all. Not happening here). Luca is a good foil as a would-be queen who tries to use Touraine to quell the colony's anger but ends up with a relationship (they would go Sapphic, but they just can't bring themselves to do it).

The book is a really good exploration of the pain of colonialism, but the long march to get to the point kind of takes away from it. I guess I'm craving a geopolitical SF story that doesn't invoke royalty to introduce hierarchy. I may be asking too much. I'm glad I stuck it out.

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Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler

This is not a perfect book, but wow has it aged well. Octavia Butler said "I write not to predict, but to warn!" but the predictions seem right on track. The 1200-year drought in the Southwest had not started when she wrote this, but here we have a climate novel that captures that situation.

Lauren Olamina as a narrator is plain-spoken. She is coping with civilization's dissolution in what seems to be the most rational way--with a plan for the future. She carefully builds her team for surviving the collapse, and collects her ideas of a spiritual foundation for getting through and rebuilding. I had not read this until now, and am reading it with a background of having read adrienne marie brown's book Emergent Strategies, highly influenced by Butler. You can't pick this up today and read it as a work of fiction--it is a deeper part of the literary canon of our time, a description of the process of capitalism's collapse along with American civilization. Things might be going better elsewhere, like Canada, where so many of the refugees in the book are trying to go.

Butler's warnings in the book have gone unheeded by those who could most make a difference. Some will take inspiration and try to apply them to the world that is to come.

My Goodreads Review

A Psalm For the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers

I liked this more than a 3 but not enough to make it a 4. Another reviewer has called this "comfort SF" and I wish I'd thought of it. The book is a very cozy story of self-discovery, and lays out the author's philosophical roots as an existentialist. At least the robot is an existentialist. I am very happy that main character Dex is provided the space and resources to go find himself--in fact that very provision is a grounding for the book. Many of us would love to live in that world, which sounds a lot like what Martin Luther King's (or maybe Josiah Royce's) idea of the Beloved Community would look like. We do not live in that world, nor will we. Chambers alludes to hard sacrifices made by previous generations to release the sentient robots from their servitude, clean up their planet, and clean up their relationships with each other. That work is ours to do, and knowing that we work to create that future will have to be enough to comfort us.

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Fireheart Tiger, by Aliette De Bodard

 Well...it's a novella, and I read it. Very standard plot for De Bodard and not as much heart as usual. She could have chosen to play this as a romance that just happens to be between women, but she throws in the mother's potential disappointment in sapphic romance without making it serious, and at that point it's a below-average entry in LGBTQ+ literature. Oh well.

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Fugitive Telemetry, by Martha Wells

We knew from the start that this series was a formula. It's a decent formula that Wells can use to create readable books, but it's a formula, and I really can't give more than 3 stars to it. Formula being said, Murderbot is developing a bit as a character--becoming more assertive and confident, mostly through expletives. It's a nice lightweight read if you're in the mood for that, and I actually was when I read it. So--murder committed, murder investigated by Murderbot, murder solved. There is a window of development that could go somewhere. Murderbot is always worried about the media accounts of SecUnits, which have them going rogue and killing people. Murderbot's support network is very assured that this cannot happen, but then again Murderbot did in fact hack its own governor module and free itself, so it realizes that going rogue is actually possible. That comes forward in this book but is not dealt with. If it becomes a theme around which to build the story then there are some interesting possibilities. Formula books winning awards (Fugitive Telemetry was nominated for the majors and won the Locus) does not speak well for the state of the field.

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Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishigura

Kazuo Ishiguro is a literary master, and as many have pointed out this must have cut him some slack. Klara is indeed artificial and made to be a friend. Her thought patterns are circumscribed by her limited experience and come out as a dry, detached voice. This is not new territory--many authors have taken on the perspective of an AI with limited resources. To bring it off you have to have something extraordinary going on that contrasts with the dry telling. This book just doesn't have it. So we have a character study of Klara's owner (the Mother) and kid Jodie who the Friend is for, and her neighbor Rick. There is space in the plot for a lot of tension and reflection on societal trends, but Klara is just not connected enough to society to bring off that commentary. A lot of people like it, but for me it was not engaging, nor was it as interesting a piece of literature as The Buried Giant. His work outside of speculative fiction is in a whole other league, and that will be what he is remembered for. I reluctantly round up 2.5 stars.

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She Who Became the Sun, by Shelley Parker-Chan

This is speculative fiction but the speculative elements (the Mandate of Heaven as a physical manifestation, people who can see ghosts) play more of a supporting role. It's intended to be a character-driven story of a girl embracing her will to live, and later to have power. She feels and embraces desire in a culture that tells girls particularly that they should not feel or act on desire.

But in truth, stories of singular people clawing their way to power get wearing, and setting them somewhere other than Europe doesn't help that much. Particularly not setting them in China, which is not common compared to Anglo fantasy settings but really it's been done, a lot.

The action moves along and the characters develop, but I kept looking for something more. The book became something of a grind, particularly since the author took pains to let us know how the most suspenseful parts would turn out. It was all fated.

Ouyang, the eunuch general, is the most colorful of the characters but mainly by way of hyperbolically intense feelings. Overall it's an OK book, but I can't help wanting at least some of my life back.

My Goodreads Review

Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Well--I just finished Cat Rambo's You Sexy Thing, and had commented on how many times the "tightly bonded crew of an old but trusty ship" thing has been done, and it's done again here. But I'm really glad I read it, as that crew is compelling. Actually it's mostly the protagonist, Idris Telemmier, that is compelling. He's been altered beyond understanding by a process that allows one to navigate deep space and potentially interact with the book's nemesis, the Architects. It has cost him his ability to sleep, and to age as well. He is simultaneously frail as a kitten and far stronger than anyone around him. The other characters, though they get their space, are really a supporting cast. The universe of the Architects is a desperate one--they are constructs of godlike power, nearly invincible, and bent on the destruction of humanity, and they're doing well at it. Idris is one of a handful of people with the capability to do anything more than slow them down a little, and the enormity of that weight is very aptly conveyed. The book starts off a bit slowly but really comes along as the stakes of the situation become clear. I think it could be a pretty good movie adaptation, as centered as it is on a lead character.

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You Sexy Thing, by Cat Rambo

This is a good bit of space opera. I have to say that the first thing that struck me was that it isn't super original--the tightly bonded crew of a small spaceship thing is done, and done, and done. Making some of the characters aliens isn't quite working here as the aliens have recognizably human personalities. So I end up stacking it up against a series like The Expanse (which I'm also reading) and the character development just isn't the same. Good, not great. I do look forward to the day when characters with same-sex relationships aren't automatically boxed as LGBTQ+ explorations. Mostly these are people having relationships, and they happen to be with the same sex or with aliens, but I do think Rambo brings some depth here. Captain Niko's relationships get beyond sexuality into attachment in a way that you don't usually find with SF.

The Holy Hive Mind universe that the crew inhabits is a deadly serious place. Niko's nemesis, the pirate Tubal Last, is a deeply disturbed, capable and fanatical enemy. Their personal battle exacts massive costs on both sides. This is set in a book that just isn't that heavy--they enlist the title character (a biologically constructed self-aware ship) by teaching it to cook. I think I'm agreeing with reviewers that say this book isn't sure what it wants to be.

The book does not say it is the start of a series but there's a lot of world-building here so it seems safe to say that it is. Maybe the world will decide what it is, and allow Cat Rambo to write it.

My Goodreads Review

We Are Satellites, by Sarah Pinsker

I am a huge fan of Sarah Pinsker's work. Her novella "And Then There Were (N-one)" is one of the most clever and entertaining things I've read, and I took a lot away from it. "Song For a New Day" is terrifyingly prescient.

The scale of this book is about the same, and I liked it a lot, but I have to say it just doesn't quite measure up to my favorites. We have a very interesting speculation that ties a technical advance to a social change--a company invents a device that stimulates the brain in a specific way, allowing people to multitask and be more productive. And they advertise that they have it with a blue LED on their temple. Pretty soon if you don't have one you're left behind.

The real driver of the story is the family--two moms, a son and a daughter (the daughter is neurodivergent--seizures--and cannot get a Pilot). They all get a lot of attention and build the story together, so that by the time the book is over you know these people. The moments of tension and tenderness are perfectly balanced, so that even with their significant flaws you can't help but love them. The book is worth reading for that.

The plot feels like we've been there before--brain controlling devices aren't super new. In fact they're going commercial next year. There is some plot tension around whether or not the parent company (Balkenhol) is aware that someone's Pilot has been disconnected. Umm...there's an app to control your Pilot, and the home screen gives a big old error message if you disconnect it. You really think Balkenhol doesn't know? More plot tension around whether they have exact records of the brain activity they are enhancing/controlling. Of Course They Do. And users willingly traded that information for the advantages. That could have been a believable plot driver.

When I said it felt like we've been there before, it's because we really have--with cell phones. They went from curiosity to advantage to necessity in 10-15 years. If you don't have a smart phone now you are at a disadvantage, and it's considered rude not to carry one so that people can find and communicate with you at all times. Some refuse, and I wonder if someone who will not carry a phone is employable beyond a menial job? And they're pretty good at tracking us. So the plot in this story is dressed-up nonfiction. Pinsker could have written a history of the smart phone.

I struggled with whether to round this up to a four. I think not. It's beautifully executed but the world has passed it by.

My Goodreads Review

Persepolis Rising, by James S. A. Corey

I'm coming back to this series after a long hiatus, and this one's been out for seven years. Spoiler - the Laconian empire falls! Not yet though, in this novel it's just getting wound up. I would have to say, maybe with the hindsight of knowing how the series continues, that Corey kind of telegraphs that ending. Here you see the hubris of Duarte rising, right through to the end where his powers increase even as the empire has fallen somewhat short of its goals.

I am reading more for the fun of the story and the characters at this point. And they have had so much run time together that they are family, like Proust novels or something. Holden has evolved in these books, because he had to--from a "man with no inner life" to a man still driven by honor but with everyone around him pretty much convinced that it's quirky. I saw a blurb for the next book refer to Holden as "Mephistophelian", which is a long trip from where he started.

The social setting of the book might be more like the Roman Empire than current times, but really the series is Space Opera all the way, and does not try for deep philosophy. It just keeps you reading. Am going to do my best to catch the series all the way up.

My Goodreads Review

Plague Birds, by Jason Sanford

This is a very classic YA novel. The dialog and the very light touch with the sex scenes take me back to when I was 14. At that time I tended to avoid them, I wanted the more ambiguous material, and really I still feel the same way. It's well plotted, Sanford doesn't give his direction away much, so very good on suspense. But the characters are in the end pretty simple people, with very definite roles to play, so they kind of run on rails--a very YA thing. And while the plot is good and complex, it doesn't seem to bear much relationship to today. CRISPR gene editing is indeed a thing, and might be the next advance leading to social breakdown, but it really doesn't look like we'll need that. Since overly gene-edited creatures and humans are the driver of the plot, and supposedly at least 10,000 years have gone by since the major collapse occurred, I just couldn't connect with these folks much. I wish them luck, I guess.

My Goodreads Review

Noor, by Nnedi Okorafor

I've read the Binti series by Okorafor, and I'd say in this one that she is getting better as a writer (particularly in speculation) but the plot may not live up to her skills. AO is a woman with severe disabilities and has chosen heavy assistive body modifications to be able to live a normal life. This puts her into an oppressed category, and drives the story. Her Nigeria is a dystopian place pretty directly extrapolated from today--corporate exploitation and disinformation are her major obstacles. Ultimate Corporation is pretty much Nigerian Amazon.

I'm beginning to see the rationale for how Okorafor names her advanced technologies--an "anti-ajej" is a device for excluding sand from your immediate vicinity in a sandstorm. In traditional SF spaces you'd call it a force field, but that brings to mind a lot of colonial-military SF imagery that she avoids with her terminology.

An interesting take with this book and Who Fears Death (the first of hers I read) is that they both feature protagonists that are deeply unwanted babies. In Who Fears Death it is directly stated that the mother would never consider abortion, but not in Noor. Instead the parents pray for her death in the womb and later publicly denounce her augmentation and her association with Fulani herdsman DNA. It's an argument against abortion but sort of for it at the same time.

The ending is disappointing, either through not enough explanation or understanding. I'd call this one a case of growing pains.

Hummingbird Salamander, by Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer as an author takes some getting used to. His books are very dark, with a lot of inevitable degradation and characters struggling through deeply depressing and weird settings. I came to appreciate the Southern Reach trilogy and had some hopes for this one. And they were somewhat fulfilled.

Jane Smith, the oversize security consultant, is an unreliable narrator and unlikeable protagonist. Reading those books can be a brutal experience, though they also give space to be really great. Can't say this quite makes it. But I found her to be a very interesting person, a basically brutal woman (with reasons for her brutality) moving through a brutal world. She sometimes tries to care for others (like her assistant or her daughter) but doesn't really have her heart in it. Why she fixates on Silvina the climate terrorist (and savior maybe?) is not too clear--it doesn't relate to her work or life, though her relation of the news shows she is concerned. Maybe that was supposed to be enough.

The world of this book is pretty much ours, and very foreseeably dystopian. I think this might have been a mistake, making this basically an extrapolation of our world and simplifying some of the deep Weirdness of the shroom books and Southern Reach. It is more accessible, but the motivations still don't quite make enough sense to drive all this. And yet, given what is happening, her actions make a lot of sense.

Hard to say I enjoyed this book, but it really did engage me. With a little more "why" for Jane personally it would have worked for me.

My Goodreads Review

The Echo Wife, by Sarah Gailey

This is in many ways a difficult book to read, at least until you figure out where the protagonist is coming from. Dr. Evelyn Caldwell starts out as a wronged wife who is taking it particularly hard. Full of bitterness at her ex. She reveals more of herself as she goes along--a driven, brilliant scientist with a very complex inner life driven by an abusive upbringing. She is very bound up in living an ethical life, but it is all in relation to her own standards. This allows her to perform acts that, to an ordinary human reader, would be monstrous. One reviewer compared her to the Nazi scientists experimenting on concentration camp inmates in WWII, and I think that's accurate. She is in many ways sociopathic.

As you realize this, it might occur to you that her opinion of her ex-husband is distorted by this pain and distance from humanity. But events continue to evolve, as the process of preparing clones is detailed and it is clear that Nathan, the ex-husband, participates in the same monstrous "conditioning" processes that Evelyn does.

Then we meet a rule-bending clone, Martine, the "echo wife" of the title. Nathan has prepared her in secret to be a better version of Evelyn--"better" as in more responsive and subject to her husband's needs. Evelyn does not regard clones as human (nor does the law), but comes to view Martine that way.

The science in the book is hard to connect to the possibilities of cloning as it is today, but the book is aimed at a broader audience and hard SF people pay too much attention to this. They advise skimming past the overwrought feelings. Don't do it. The feeling expositions develop Evelyn, and all the other characters through her eyes. The science is there to make these characters possible, and it does that well. I'm more of a hard SF person which is why I'm giving this four stars.

The afterword explains all, very well. The book is not strictly autobiographical but these issues are front and center for Gailey, and the acknowledgments capture this effectively.

So far I would have given this the Locus, and am surprised it didn't get any other major nominations. It is tagged LGBTQ+, but only because of the author--issues of living as a sexual minority are not explored. Personally I'd tag it horror--the ending, where she is more enabled in her research, is classically horrifying. Read this and you'll have something to chew on and worry over for awhile.

My Goodreads Review

Light From Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki

This book leans in hard on the story of the protagonist. Katrina Nguyen has led a life of misery as an abused transsexual girl, and that feeds her art. She is a self-taught prodigy, and Shizuka Satomi, the other main character, recognizes it in her role as a recruiter for Hell. Shizuka is in many ways a perfect foil for Katrina, and their stories meld in a way that made me reluctant to put the book down when it was time for bed. Some of the reviewers don't think the characters grew in the book--I absolutely disagree, both Shizuka and Katrina evolved considerably and it's a core element of the story.

I think a lot of people kind of glossed the rarified world of top-level violinists and violin makers, perhaps because Ryka Aoki didn't want to double the volume of the book to go into the depth of, say, junior tennis in Infinite Jest. The over-the-top drive in that space makes soul-trading and sex work for music very believable.

There are parts that don't work as well. The space aliens and demons from Hell are not integrated in any plausible way. They come together mildly at the end in a way that is kind of disappointing. But ending books is both difficult and in some ways optional, especially once one has read a lot of fiction. The story in between is the point. I can only give this 3 stars but I still think it's a deserving contender for the awards it is nominated for.

My Goodreads Review

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers

For what Chambers says is the last installment in this series, she gives us My Dinner With Andre, with aliens. The plot does not relate to the characters at all--a disastrous satellite accident strands a set of aliens at a space truck stop/motel with nothing to do but interact with each other. The intent is in no way disguised so this is fine.

The aliens are all humanoid and represent various ways of being human. A human is offstage (the Aeulon Pei's boyfriend) and is the only mentioned human, but the aliens represent various social types here on Earth--privileged (the Aeulons), xenophilic (the Laru), xenophobic (the Quelin), and oppressed (the Akarak). They come from different circumstances but basically share a value of caring for others that drives the interactions in the book, as it does for the others in this series.

So really Chambers is only trying to do one thing in this book and that's show how very different people can get along with each other. And she does it very well. It is a heartwarming read from end to end in a coldhearted time in world history. My quibble with it would be that despite the differences the aliens are really very close together in personality. Real people differ more fundamentally than these "aliens" and it's more challenging to see each other's humanity. And the moral blind spots of the more privileged ones are brought up, but not really worked. Still it accomplishes what Chambers wants, which is to allow us to hope and breathe for a bit. Would give it a 3.6 and round it up.

My Goodreads Review

Machinehood, by S. B. Divya

I enjoyed this novel, and am glad to see S. B. Divya putting out a full-length work. Her writing is very different from most SF writers' prose and it's refreshing.

The social speculation is interesting here--we have an arms race between people and machines with people using ever-more dangerous enhancements to continue to compete with weak AIs (WAIs). From the omniscient author's perspective this situation is very contrived, with "funders" playing WAIs and humans against each other, but the protagonists of the story are very attached to it. On the surface the plot is a little simplistic and a very straightfoward extrapolation from current events. But I like her characters--they are not super-introspective deep thinkers and have kind of ordinary wants and desires for their lives, something I think SF readers forget about most of the people they encounter in the world. And there's more to this plot than meets the eye--the movement for machine emancipation is the central motivation for the action, and yet there is no WAI character or description of a situation from a WAI perspective. It's a pointer to the WAI emancipation being a sideshow--and the characters are aware of this possibility. This is not really resolved at the end of the book so it's hard to say if I'm actually seeing something that the author intended. Don't know...

I do know that the action carries the book along nicely and I read it with interest all the way through. Worthy of its nomination for a Nebula.

My Goodreads Review

A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine

This series is absolutely unique in the SF space today. The dedication from the first book, which so many repeat and I will again-- "To all those who fall in love with a culture that is slowly devouring their own"--is a completely accurate description of the perspective. This second volume builds off the scaffolding of the first to tell a more intimate story about protagonists Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmaire. It is set against the large and exciting space opera of an existential threat to both Teixcalaan and Lsel Station. In the reviews I see some DNFs at around the 60-70 percent mark. You gave up at the wrong time. The book sort of revels in Teixcalaan during the first two thirds while the action is constructed, but then it becomes something you can't put down.

And who wouldn't love Teixcalaan? A society where all regulations and court proceedings have to be conducted in verse, where poetry is so woven into the culture that everyone writes it and the best are rock stars? Beauty and brutal destruction are inseparable. The cultures of Lsel Station and Teixcalaan are recognizable (marry British global ambition to Asian aesthetic sensibilities) but very different from America so that the lessons are easier to handle. Three Seagrass repeatedly illustrates microaggressions while growing to love Mahit, and Mahit is scarred by them but not able to help loving her back. Ambition so large it has its own gravity is compelling, and Martine very ably conveys that it's not an individual thing--everyone in Teixcalaan behaves as they do because they are part of it. I can only give it four stars because it took a bit of grinding to read the first part, but overall it really is better than the first book and is incredibly worthwhile. I desperately want to know more about Teixcalaan in all its flawed glory.

My Goodreads Review

The Relentless Moon, by Mary Robinette Kowal

I've enjoyed this series so far--fairly light reading but has good takes on serious topics, including climate change, women's rights and racism. The series is coming together as a world, centered on the United States, that has to grow up faster than they would want.

This entry in the series is pretty typical. We get the perspective of Nicole Wargin, astronaut and society woman married to an aspiring presidential candidate. She has a lot of difficult territory to navigate, including severe anorexia. The action is solid, though the villains are still mostly faceless.

For me it's a 3.5 rounded up. I have some misgivings. Mostly I think it's OK to gloss the science a bit in order to develop characters, but in this case the science on the challenges of living in space, particularly on the Moon, is pretty readily available. There's basically no way the early astronauts from 1968 on could have stayed on the moon any longer than they did. The dust got into their suits and equipment. The suits were leaking like sieves when they left. We aren't particularly close to figuring out how to have self-sustaining space colonies, and all that gets glossed in order to drive the plot on how to escape earth. With the technology demonstrated in this series so far, they couldn't save anyone.

For a fun and entertaining read that keeps up with current sensibilities this works just fine.

My Goodreads Review

Wait for Night, by Stephen Graham Jones

Horror stories are not my thing but I do like to read the Locus nominees. And I have to say I liked the action in this one. If Jones goes more toward action SF I'm thinking I would pick up some of his work, the writing is great.

My Goodreads Review

Dresses Like White Elephants, by Meg Elison

This is an excellent story on many levels--am surprised it didn't contend for winning the Locus.  The setting is unique--a market where used wedding dresses are sold by the owners.  A drag queen comes there to find a unique look for the Hymen Cup, a wedding drag competition.  The price to be paid for a dress is the absorption of the pain that went toward the decision to put it up for sale.  The characters in the story are powerful.  I can highly recommend reading Dresses Like White Elephants. 

The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods, by Maria Dahvana Headley

This is mainstream feminist writing--men are disappointing. Many of us guys actually know that. I second the reviewer below that recommended it for teenage girls--it is a good antidote to overly romantic thinking, but I think many would outgrow this quickly. It is written with skill, and I think we will see more of this author.

My Goodreads Review

The Sycamore and the Sibil, by Alix E. Harrow

The Sycamore and the Sibil is an exploration in feminism and what it's like to be pursued by a powerful and unpleasant man, which is familiar territory by now but the take on the magic in the story is really interesting.  I've read several stories from a tree perspective, but it's always worth thinking about how life would be that slow, and the price that would be paid to achieve that slowness.  Enjoyed it.

50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know, by Ken Liu

It seems like the other reviewers did not connect to this story but I really did. I think it may not be clear how much you have to know about AI development in order to write this story the way he did. The segment about including weird "spice" that looks like garbage in a training dataset is, well, Uncanny. And for me many of those 50 things an AI needs to know approach profundity. I compare it with work from Ted Chiang, and in my mind that is a high compliment.

My Goodreads Review

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat, by Usman T. Malik

I am not alone in not knowing what a hikayat was, but the Google tells me it's a story.  There might be more to it than that, but this is a fun story to read.  It's a nested story and is self-consciously a story, in that the setting is a storyteller entertaining tourists in Lahore.  But there's much more to it than that.  The way it weaves in and out is pretty cool, but some things come out of nowhere--the extremely gory sequences (content alert) are unexpected and almost like a jump scare.  It's also an interesting take on how feminism works for a Pakistani author describing a male-dominated culture.  In some places not very feminist at all.  Overall I liked it though.

A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential, by JY Neon Yang

This story is a kind of classic short space opera, with a serious twist in characters.  Stick steals the show as a made being who identifies as a thing--"it" is its pronoun.  Which the others on the team won't use because it just bothers them too much to apply it to a human, or humanoid.  The plot is a solid frame to hang this exploration of identity on--a battle against others dehumanized, and the nearly victorious soldiers realizing their exploitation.  Good stuff, Stick is a fine piece of work.

 A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential

Color, Heat and the Wreck of the Argo, by Catherynne M. Valente

I've read a fair amount of Catherynne M. Valente over the years, and a lot of it is kind of goofy.  Not really in a bad way.  But in this story she's digging deep.  The protagonist is a kind of hard-luck woman with an interest in videography, and knowledge about Betamax recorders.  She finds one at a yard sale, gets it working, and starts seeing visions of other parts of the subjects' lives.

It's a fully mature story in that the relationships described are powerful and central to the story.  The protagonist is mourning her ex's departure, and they have to come back together to hand over the remains of the dog they had together.  You really feel for everyone involved, and the Betamax technology is certainly obscure enough to carry fantasy.  Color, Heat and the Wreck of the Argo is definitely worth reading.

The Pill, by Meg Elison

The Pill was in Meg Elison's Big Girl collection and later anthologized.  It's a real hard hitter, working through our desperation to be thin, to the point of endangering our lives.  For Elison, it's a pill that causes you to crap out your excess fat in the space of a few days, killing about 10 percent of those who try it.  The protagonist holds out against it and it throws a clear light on fat shaming.  It is no secret that we will do dangerous things to be thin--the story reminds me of a subplot in one of Cory Doctorow's early novels, I think it was Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom.  Or Makers.  In any case, the collection and this story showcase Meg Elison's ability and activism.  Definitely worth reading for its clarity of purpose.

Fairy Tales for Robots, by Sofia Samatar

This story consists of 13 or so individual tales woven together as a set of subversive stories for a robot to remember her creator by.  Some of them are retellings of classic fairy tales, some are original, all kind of bump along as well told stories with complicated morals--not much like the original fairy tales at all, as the narrator points out.  It hangs together as a plot but really the point is those individual tales with their unique path and uncertain resolutions.  Entertaining to read and appreciate.

If You Take My Meaning, by Charlie Jane Anders

I read this story and only after I was finished did I realize that it was in fact a sequel to The City In the Middle of the Night. That helped some. Sophie has gone further down her road of transformation, taking on a sensory organ from the night-dwelling Gelet. Her revolutionary friend Alyssa is considering the same path. Alyssa is a hard soul and we get to see more of her here. The focus is more completely on the Gelet, and as it goes on we see more of their relationship with humanity. There are also indications that the series is open for continuation, so you'll want to read this if you want to be ready for more about the Gelet.

My Goodreads Review

A Whisper of Blue by Ken Liu

This is a fun story in The Book of Dragons.  Dragons are a regular part of the fauna of the world, and humanity becomes dependent upon them for energy.  It seems this is as much for fascination with dragons as for practicality, since the dragons have to be both fed and coaxed to produce that energy.  In fact the cost of that energy is very high.  The story is fully fleshed out around this, with characters that hate what has happened and others that are enchanted.  It feels both practical and magical throughout, with very interesting reveals along the way.  One of my favorites this year.

The Inaccessibility of Heaven, by Aliette de Bodard

This novelette is kind of in the same universe as de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen series, but it's not part of the sequence and is meant to stand alone. It has a lot in common with that series--fallen angels and all--but with different characters. Our protagonist is a mortal dedicated to helping those fallen angels, and is enmeshed in their politics but trying to be authentic in it.

This is a somewhat less breathless tale than those in Dominion of the Fallen, though not a lot. It comes from a somewhat different place than the main series, and I'd say I liked it better. We actually got a little taste of motivation--of how the angels fell. I'd like to know more about that in the main series.

My Goodreads Review

The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard

I'm at 2.5 stars on this one. Like the first entry in Dominion of the Fallen, the dialog in this book is heavy with melodrama. Every single line is breathless. This has its place, but if it never lets up it gets hard to enjoy the plot or understand the characters. Everyone is overwrought and overwhelmed, all the time, except Asmodeus who is equally melodramatic in being above it all (though he has character building moments at the end). I think this gets better in the later stories.

In some ways this style conveys the inhuman nature of the Fallen, so it has that going for it. But we get no contrast with humans--they are all in with the melodrama as well. Including dramatically stating all their intentions, and responses. "You'll find I'm no easy prey"--anyone or thing that has to say this is, in fact, easy prey.

This reading experience obviously appeals more to some than others. Not so much for me.

My Goodreads Review

My Country Is a Ghost, by Eugenia Triantafyllou

The setup for My Country Is a Ghost is interesting, but kind of a stretch. People's ancestors routinely stick around as ghosts and can accompany a person and even talk to them. But the US (maybe, the country isn't specifically mentioned but it sounds like the US) doesn't allow immigrants to bring their ghosts with them. Without the ghosts, our protagonist feels in constant danger of losing her heritage. It's an interesting try at making that heritage loss tangible.

My Goodreads Review

The Eight-Thousanders, by Jason Sanford

The Eight-Thousanders is a specific exposition on the Founders Syndrome--the egos of men (and a few women) who found tech startups run mostly on brazenness.  The setting here is an ascent of Everest.  The author well captures both the banal parade to the top and the extreme danger of the climb.  Our protagonist is following his boss, Ronnie, on the expedition.  Ronnie is doing the ascent without assistive oxygen.  They get caught in a whiteout (Ronnie's fault).  The speculative element comes from a being something like a vampire that comes to the mountain to feed on doomed climbers.  She has taken one from another group and then accompanies the protagonist and Ronnie as their situation worsens.

It's a decent allegory and will tell the story of our times.

Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math, by Aimee Picchi

The story makes its point and I thought the word problems were kind of interesting. The first couple, anyway. No good deed goes unpunished, particularly for those whose survival interest is in doing good deeds. Makes one sigh.

My Goodreads Review

Interlibrary Loan, by Gene Wolfe

 Gene Wolfe was an amazing literary talent. I will never forget the Book of the New Sun. But I think these later works began to get lost, and Interlibrary Loan is definitely incomplete. We revisit the smaller but rougher "A Borrowed Man" world where authors are cloned as library resources and are not treated as human. One mildly refreshing thing about this work is that it is one where the library is not painted in gushing terms. It starts out as a somewhat meandering mystery, mostly there to showcase Ern A. Smithe's thoughts on his life and not-really-human status. Then it takes a turn for the weird as alternate universes kind of sneak into the story. Then the book ends.

I think it was worth publishing, but not really worth consideration for awards. But I will miss Gene Wolfe for sure.

My Goodreads Review