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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review