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.

My Goodreads Review

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...

My Goodreads Review

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?

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review

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.

My Goodreads Review