Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Like a lot of other folks, when I started this book I kind of struggled with it. The formal setup, combined with over-the-top frenemy rhetoric (which never lets up but makes more sense later) and some unfortunate teen-speak made me sad. But it takes a lot to make me DNF once I start, so I persisted. And for me, I think it picked up before the 300 page mark. The author is very good at action scenes, and leads up to them in promising ways, so I began to get motivated. By the end I had trouble breaking off to go to bed, so all that is good. We get a great development of the relationship between Gideon and Harrow, and the ending is an excellent twist. You sort of see it coming, but *how* it's done is great.

There is some button pushing that is probably more natural than it sounded to me. Gideon presents as female, and describes both viewing hotness and being hot, so there is a lesbian element. But she has bulging muscles and a masculine approach to fighting, so sort of gender dysphoric too.  There is a brief mention that she is a person of color (a "ginger").

It pretty much reads as a YA novel--most of the characters are teens, and the action centers on them. It is highly structured (9 houses, the naming conventions) in the way YA fiction often is. I ran from that stuff as an actual teen, but am able to see the value in the plot more now. I am definitely glad I persisted and read the whole thing. Came away very entertained. Three stars is because I am a hard grader.



View all my reviews

The City In the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I'm going along with many others here saying that this is in many respects a well-written book, but not a great one. Might be a dearth of candidates for the Hugo, or maybe they need to continue to look farther afield. People trying to survive on an alien, tidally locked planet are not a new thing, but there's a lot of room for experimenting there and Anders does some things really well.

There are some things about it I liked that other reviewers may have missed. The Gelet (natives) are a decently strong presence in the book, and toward the end of the book are revealed to have a lot more going on than meets the eye. They are performing great feats of semi-natural geoengineering to keep the planet habitable. And they have incredible communication talents. These speculations should be enough to keep most of us SF fans happy.

The central characters, Sophie and Bianca, are there to demonstrate the complex pitfalls of blind, stupid love. Interestingly, not really romantic love, something more of a Platonic crush. Sophie makes bad choice after bad choice to keep her hope of a relationship with Bianca alive, and Bianca uses her mercilessly. These kinds of relationships are frustrating to read, and can color one's whole opinion of the book even when they are successfully depicted.

The surrounding plot, though, just kind of bumps along, and while there are some exciting moments it's not enough to forgive the frustrating, one-sided relationship. I am glad I made it through, and overall I would say I enjoyed it, but it's not great.



View all my reviews

Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Sylvia Garcia-Moreno

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36510722-gods-of-jade-and-shadow" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Gods of Jade and Shadow" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543268579l/36510722._SX98_.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36510722-gods-of-jade-and-shadow">Gods of Jade and Shadow</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4088550.Silvia_Moreno_Garcia">Silvia Moreno-Garcia</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3404295082">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
This book has its good moments, but overall I just couldn't get into it. The story is entirely familiar--Hero's Journey meets Love Story. I have now spoiled the plot. Our protagonists, the god Hun-Kame and Cassiopeia Tun, end up as stereotypes--something the author kind of lets us in on, telling us that gods cannot have the complex inner lives that people can. <br /><br />What should have been a strong point was the setting--Mexico in the 1920's was in a fascinating phase of post-colonial cultural imitation of Europe. They had their own interpretations of all the American and European trends and fashions of the time. We were promised a look at these, but a look was all we got--a bit of fashion commentary, some broad cultural brush strokes. There was so much potential here that didn't get realized. Instead, the narrative focuses on the growing humanity of Hun-Kame and the solidifying of Cassiopeia's personality. Very nice, but done a million times--it needed that fresh period staging.<br /><br />What was a strong point was the relationship between Cassiopeia and Martin, her cousin, heir to the well-off Leyva household. He was the villain, but Moreno-Garcia skillfully portrays him as a clueless, privileged oaf who cannot understand why his "overtures" (occasional politeness when ordering her about, rather than belligerence) are not better received. Very timely. Not enough to really save it for me.
<br/><br/>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/70127359-david">View all my reviews</a>

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seanan McGuire is a very prolific author, and sometimes that shows in her books--all well written, some come off formulaic. The beginning of Middlegame seems like it's going to go that way. Then it takes an incredible left turn and you get a set of characters that have more depth and complexity than it seems like real humans can have, even. I spread my reading out over several nights, and this book kept me up past bedtime several times.

The trope of soul mates finding each other through remote presence is worked really well here. Roger and Dodger are the embodiment of Math and Language, and they complete each other. The book weaves the plot and their growth together seamlessly, one couldn't happen without the other. And then halfway through the book we get Erin, another embodiment with equal depth. Really amazing work.

The plot underneath is sort of ordinary, and that's fine. Alchemy is real (and sort of like magic), and several famous figures (Twain, Baum, etc.) have been working on it. The (self-proclaimed, and there's a lot of this) best alchemist in history was a woman ahead of her time, and wrote a fantasy primer on it disguised as children's literature. Her constructed protege (just like Frankenstein's monster, so I guess he was an alchemist too), James Reed, aims to complete her work. And this is why I can't give it a full 5 stars--the villains (Reed and his construct assistant Leigh Barrow) are both cardboard characters--over the top embodiments of evil. Comic book speech bubbles couldn't save them. So they are foils for the real stars. Also the ending involves what I think of as literary cheating, but endings are hard, particularly so for such a sweeping work.

Hands down the best thing I have read from McGuire, and it shows what she can really do. I hope she'll go for this level of quality over quantity all the time.


View all my reviews

The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Oof. This book is a tough read. Page after page of blood and gore spattering the protagonist and the pages. Slowly dawning realization of the uselessness of the awfulness--very slowly. Beginning with an over-the-top awful boot camp through the fatigue and drudgery of the end game, this one just beats the reader up.

All the hammering becomes something of a disguise for the story. Because a story does emerge. The technology core of the story is pretty much like a very early version of Star Trek's transporter, much less safe to use and prone to errors like materializing inside of something or all stirred up. (view spoiler)[Also, as it turns out, a time travel device (hide spoiler)]. As it emerges, you realize it's a story that's been told many times, but the reveal is very artfully hidden and done well. In the end I'm not sorry I read it, but also not sure it was worth it. Goodness. Oof.



View all my reviews

In An Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Seanan McGuire is a prolific author, and sometimes that shows with the Wayward Children books. They are very well done but just a tad structured and formulaic, this one more than the others perhaps. Could be because the theme of the Goblin Market is all about rules for living together in a very structured way, but then again this series has a lot of that theme. The protagonist, Lundy, is for me not really a sympathetic character--she has formed her defenses well and found a way to live in our world, but this new one opens new possibilities for her. The themes are the usual ones from YA--friendship and growth--but it starts to get interesting just at the end, where the source of the Market's structure becomes more clear. But then we get the sad ending. I'm thinking Lundy will appear in future installations of this series, either devoted to her or as a strong side character. There's room for more development of the Goblin Market.



View all my reviews

To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book is a departure from the Wayfarers series, so bringing a fresh eye to it helps. But I second what one reviewer said below--it's like reading non-fiction about a fantasy place. I think that's what the author was going for, and she succeeded.

There's a lot of exposition in this book, including an exposition on why there's so much exposition. In a way it never ends. The glory of science, including its not-so-glamorous parts, is what is supposed to carry the book along.

I liked it OK, though as hard SF it stayed somewhat superficial. There was drama but it didn't feel artificial. The crew got along super-well, diverse in various ways that seemed to intentionally complement each other.

But it seemed like much of the point of the mission was to be an inspiration to a planet trying to recover from the worst of climate change. That was definitely on the mind of the narrator. And yet there was very little of that inspiration or action in the story. And the ending, while it has a certain likelihood, seemed kind of random.

Decent book, Hugo nomination for best novella, can't see it winning.



View all my reviews