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.