Furious Heaven, by Kate Elliot

I persevered all the way to the end of this very, very long book. Not just physically long, it felt long. There's a lot of landmarks and players, but the plot in the end is pretty ordinary galactic fantasy. It is modernized with sapphic romance, but we've had that around long enough for it not to be an automatic qualifier. Space in this series is a very pure metaphor for the ocean--the battles give the book a lift but not really enough. Elliot has fallen in love with Sun, I think--the book tends toward hagiography for Sun, especially toward the end. Lots of hyperbolic descriptions of royal responsibility and honor. If you're pushing the boundaries in speculative fiction now, you're pushing back on the very colonial ideas of empire and royalty that Elliot uncritically embraces. Having the conquerors have an Asian, as opposed to European/Celtic origins, does not let this off the hook. The length just isn't justified--it's mostly a chronicle of Sun's conquests, with some clever interludes from her companions. I kept on, looking for a story, and I'm not sure that really ever happened--just a collection of incidents with Sun at the center.

My Goodreads Review

System Collapse, by Martha Wells

I read all of these as soon as I can get to them, but I have to say that the formula is wearing a bit. Wells is trying to add some dimensions to Murderbot by having him be more vulnerable, and that works to a certain extent. He's made it from one- to two-dimensional. The action in the series is great, always compelling. What's leaving me itchy is that her commitment to telling the story entirely from Murderbot's perspective leaves the humans in the shallows. Murderbot's relationship to them is as a protector, by programming. He can indulge their illogical behavior as being silly, and commit to protecting them from and in spite of themselves, but it's pretty much impossible to tell one human from another outside of their skill sets.

Wells is a very good author and I expect that the series will acquire depth if she commits to it. It will be hard to put down since it's been so successful.

My Goodreads Review

Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I've read several other works by Adrian Tchaikovsky and have gone back to read this one. Gotta say I enjoyed it tremendously.

The world building is done pretty quickly but really works if you are willing to buy in--the big leap is a nanovirus that will drive evolution and brain development in a species. I especially enjoyed the nod to David Brin's Uplift series--and the fact that the book took the concept in a new direction.

The plot summary you can get from other reviews. Some things that stood out for me:

1. Tchaikovsky does a nice job of taking the spiders' perspective without getting so awkwardly alien as to be difficult to read. One of the things he does that is very telling is to have continuity in the spiders' names over generations and even millenia. They're all Portia, Bianca, or Viola (females) or Fabian (male). It gives you the real sense that spiders have a different idea of identity than humans, and it informs their motivations. But in other ways they form a hierarchical society and fight just like humans do.

2. Some people felt like the middle section got long-winded. I think they missed some things. The spiders fended off two existential threats to their civilization, both of which changed them thoroughly. The humans visited a second terraformed planet and fought to keep their creaky, hastily built ark ship alive. We got an extended view of the contrast between the spiders' generational changes and the central core of human characters, which did not change because they spent extended periods in cold sleep.

In all my reviews of Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, I highlight the bit in his bio about being trained in stage fighting. You can see this in the construction of his plots, never more clearly than in this book. We have early indicators that there will be conflict. The initial clash with the remnant of Dr. Arvada Kern. The enemies separate and regroup, each following their own dramatic path. They come together for the final conflict, including various reversals of fortune. It makes for very exciting reading. Not all of his books work like this--he has several novellas that tell stories in different ways--but his large scale series do seem to follow this pattern.

My Goodreads Review

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

I am sad to give this a two-star review. I gave it all the chances I could, reading it to the bitter end. But I can't do any better. If you have read St. Augustine of Hippo's meditation on time you get the flavor of the protagonist describing his experience of time. There's also a suggestion of technical detail, which was potentially pretty intriguing, suggesting that the techology *might* be simply a way to get into a mental state.

But it goes on and on. The time meditation gets repetitive, which is possibly intentional but still irritating. And the father-son story is just sad, mostly, without a lot of redeeming value. Leo Tolstoy said that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way--I think we may have found the disproof right here. I feel like I have met this family several times. There's just not enough in the relationship story to carry the heaviness of the chronodiagetic exposition.

I think this book would have worked better as a novella. Mostly it just needed more of a reason to exist.

My Goodreads Review

The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson

I liked this book quite a lot, though it has its flaws. The setup is good for storytelling--there's a technology that allows access to the multiverse, but only a limited number of them, so you don't go completely off the rails with possibilities. I am seeing from some DNF reviews that they thought plot elements were missing--like the protagonist and Dell's very complicated romance, which was perfectly clear to me.

I had a better time with the book once I accepted the fact that the science and the action, while present, take a back seat to the main character's introspection. Most of the writing is about Caralee's dialogue with herself. She tells us, in great detail, both the backstory and current motivations for everything she is doing. There were more than enough plot reveals to keep that introspection relevant and interesting. Johnson uses, but doesn't overuse, the multiverse as a way to introduce surprises.

Race and class are central to understanding Caralee. The contrasts between those inside Wiley City and outside in Ashtown are made very clear and iterated over and over. It ends up feeling a bit one-dimensional as an exploration of race and class difference. But I will say that Caralee doesn't ever give in to holding herself up as some kind of example because of her circumstance. She is very clear about all the compromises she is making to survive.

Overall a bit of a grind but worthwhile.

My Goodreads Review

The Saint of Bright Doors, by Vajra Chandrasekera

I did not know when reading this story that it was a retelling of the origin story of the Buddha. It would have made a difference in how much I appreciated it. I have read and been around enough Buddhism to have consumed some versions of his origin story, and the fact that he named his child Fetter IRL was never mentioned.

Another reviewer said they admired the story more than liked it. I can second this. I found it amazingly imaginative just as a story, but it went on and on without really gripping me and took me a long time to finish. The idea of a prison so large that it becomes more like a country is one that will stick with me. Fetter the protagonist did kind of grow on me, but not so much that I truly cared about his fate. So much went on in this story that just got by me. I appreciate his perspective and hope Chandrasekera keeps writing.

My Goodreads Review

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, by Wole Talabi

A lot of folks seemed to have expected something a bit different than they got from this novel. I did not read the blurb so was fortunately not misled. This is a fun and interesting fantasy novel based in Nigerian culture. When Talabi writes about Nigerian culture, he blends past and present in a way that's really interesting to me as a white reader. Nigeria is a country of extreme income inequality, but his depictions of wealth in Lagos remind us that destitution is not the only story in Africa. The book is both playful and deep, laying a goofy corporate power structure over pre-colonial tribal religion to create the backdrop for the story.

Shigidi is a constructed being, a minor nightmare god created from clay by Olorun, a powerful Orisha that used to run the spiritual corporation they are both connected to (it has a totally forgettable generic name). He works for prayers of believers--Talabi hints at an economy of prayer money. He is just scraping by when he meets Nneoma, a succubus and more elemental being that lives outside the spiritual economy the spiritual corporations have created. Their growing love is the central driver in the story, as Shigidi is remade into a god as potent as any other with Nneoma's infusions of power. The brass head is a macguffin, a physical object that focuses the efforts of the protagonists.

Talabi's writing has really developed. The narrative has many threads, mainly distinguished by the date and time at the head of each chapter. Pay attention to these. I found the shifts entertaining, they made me work a bit to keep up with the plot but injected backstory at the right time. Good stuff! Not perfect, there may have been too many of those threads and it got confusing sometimes, but overall worth it and a really good read.

My Yelp Review