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el dang Locked account

eldang@outside.ofa.dog

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

Also @eldang@weirder.earth

I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.

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el dang's books

Currently Reading (View all 5)

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The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

Content warning Ending spoilers

The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

The biggest thing I'm noticing on re-reading this is how the early parts of Fetter's left felt in my memory like they took up a lot more of the book than they actually do. I think this is skillful writing by Chandrasekera - he packs a lot of worldbuilding into the first few chapters without it ever feeling like Worldbuilding, it's just richly drawn background to this one guy's story.

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The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

Weird, inventive, and pointed commentary at the same time

5 stars

I tore through this book, and might just re-read it immediately, which is something I never do.

It starts out as a fantasy story that feels exceptionally weird because Chandrasekera's willing to do his world building / exposition very slowly. I kept going through a lot of confusion because the writing itself is just so beautiful. And then gradually as the exposition falls into place it becomes clearer that the book is at least partly a critique of religious fanaticisms and chauvinisms... but each time I felt I really had a handle on the book something in its world would shift - either the protagonist learning a new piece of his own story or a significant detail the the author waited until a dramatic moment to show the reader. Even the ending feels like another instance of that, and it is a relatively unclear ending, though it fits the whole …

Moon of the Crusted Snow (Paperback, en-Latn-CA language, 2018, ECW Press) 4 stars

A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small …

The power of a tight focus within a bigger story

5 stars

Content warning plot, setting, and ending spoilers

Power to Yield and Other Stories (2023, Broken Eye Books) 5 stars

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion …

Outstanding collection, full of imagination and perspectives I'm not used to

5 stars

Wow. For one thing, it's very rare that I am consistently impressed with every story in a collection, even single-author ones. And it's a wonderfully varied collection too, in subject matter, mood, and form: everything from a two-page story that's actually satisfying to the title one which could have been published as a novella on its own. There are common themes about outsider perspectives and unexpected viewpoints, but a huge range of what those things actually mean. Many of the stories are clearly informed by the author being an intersex Jewish immigrant, but again that shows up in very different ways from one story to the next - this is not an author who just has one thing to say.

Content note: some of the stories have disturbing imagery and themes around abuse, body horror, and/or being trapped. There's a list of specific content notes at the back of the …