el dang started reading A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather
#SFFBookClub September. 2 chapters in and I am intrigued.
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I'm currently the coordinator of the #SFFBookClub so a lot of what I'm reading is suggestions from there.
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You want it darker?
4 stars
I loved how this picked up from where book 1 left off and immediately ripped any optimism to shreds. It was a gripping read with the painful twist that it keeps me cheering for Laure even when Laure is being terrible. I found the primary antagonist a little flat, though - "the whole Paris Ballet and all its insiders" just made such a good villain in book 1 than I don't think "a bitter individual" can compare.
el dang replied to reading crustacean's status
@unsuspicious@wyrms.de I didn't like this one quite as much as I did its predecessor, but your review and comments have me very interested in getting hold of the audiobook version.
el dang wants to read Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (duplicate)
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella …
books.theunseen.city/user/picklish/review/177841 has me thinking this'll be a good comfort read some dark (literally or emotionally) day.
el dang wants to read Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead
"Ambitious and immersive...an elegantly told meditation on how we can’t leave ourselves behind." -Esquire Magazine …
“Generation ship novel in verse” - this is either going to be incredible or go down in flames, and I want to find out. #SFFBookClub
el dang wants to read Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed
The Empires of Varkal and Med’ariz have always been at war.
Alefret, the founder of …
The review in www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g60078949/best-sci-fi-books-2024/ makes this sound amazing.
el dang reviewed The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty
Epic series finale, a few clunky parts
4 stars
Content warning some major spoilers
It took me a long time to pick this book up because even though Kingdom of Copper left me wanting more, the sheer size of this tome was intimidating. And the end of Kingdom of Copper was so bleak that I knew there would be some rough things ahead.
In the end, the hardest reading by far were the chapters from Dara's perspective. On the one hand because of a sense that he really was trapped, over and over again, until finally figuring out how to break out. On the other, because they are ultimately the self-justifications of a war criminal. That probably makes them even harder reading today than they were when the book came out, but it also makes them particularly important to face up to today. And I think one of the really powerful things Chakraborty does with this series is to face up to various different ways people use their convictions to justify atrocious things to themselves.
I loved the Ali-Nahri interplay, watching Muntadhir grow into a more three-dimensional person, and getting some portrayal of Rustam. I also appreciated how even though he doesn't appear in the book, the character of Ghassan gets fleshed out more by peoples' recollections of and reactions to him. The book left me simultaneously more disgusted with him and more empathetic towards him, which is quite a feat.
At the same time it did have some parts I found distractingly clunky. Just like the middle of City of Brass, the climactic battle feels too Marvel movie for my taste - it could have done with being a little less turned up to 11, less breathless, and less impossible feeling. Every time the peri have appeared in this series they've felt like a too-convenient deus ex machina, and I think the author found herself having to do that because she painted herself into corners with the impossibility of odds against Nahri. By the end, Manizheh had turned from a sympathetic villain into rather too much of a cartoon. And Dara's resolution was a bit too neat, though I did appreciate how the bonus material at the end complicates that some.
But this was still a satisfying end to a series I have loved.
@picklish@books.theunseen.city I loved this book as I read it, and it's been continuing to grow on me since. It's also definitely the book I've recommended to the most other people this year.
el dang reviewed Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions …
Beautiful and strange, almost afraid to be quite strange enough
4 stars
This is one of a few books we've read for #SFFBookClub that consists of a series of ostensibly separate stories which collectively build one world. I loved the quietly unsettling mood of a lot of the stories, and actually enjoyed how much the author keeps the reader guessing until about half way through the book. But the two stories--one about halfway through, one near the end--which do the most explicit explaining ended up doing too much of that for my taste. I think a certain amount of tying things together was needed, but making things too neat was a bit of a loss, and the big picture story doesn't work as well for me as all the facets in the individual chapters.
el dang reviewed Yin Mountain by Peter Levitt
Freshly translated poems reveal the complexity, self-realization, and spiritual freedom of three classical Daoist women …
A lovely collection
5 stars
Interesting selections, beautifully rendered in English, with a lot of helpful contextual material and annotations. Every now and then the annotations get a bit much, but more often they genuinely added to my enjoyment of the poetry.
el dang reviewed Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba
In this an enthralling Filipino-inspired epic fantasy, a nun concealing a goddess-given gift is unwillingly …
A great page turner with a few gut punches
4 stars
I had a lot of fun tearing through this book. At first I felt like it was a bit too directly "colonised Philippines but with magic" to be interesting fantasy, but in the end Buba used the magical elements to really bring out the clash of two religions and cultures in a powerful, interesting way.
el dang commented on A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather
#SFFBookClub September, which I'll pick up after finishing outside.ofa.dog/book/178751/s/i-am-the-dark-that-answers-when-you-call because it took me longer to get hold of a copy of this one.
el dang reviewed Rimonim by Aurora Levins Morales
Rimonim is a richly woven tapestry of poetry meant for use. From a time of …
This is the book I've been looking for
5 stars
In a year in which it's been extremely difficult to value or engage with my own culture, this book has been one of the few things I've felt able to connect to. It's one person's approach to drawing out all that is beautiful, nurturing, and life-affirming in Judaism, and explicitly rejecting all the ways our tradition gets used to defend evil. I needed it so very much, and ended up sending copies to a couple of dear friends.
el dang started reading I Am the Dark That Answers When You Call by Jamison Shea
been looking forward to this one...
Content warning spoilers
@Tak@reading.taks.garden I just finished this yesterday and was thinking about similar things. It doesn't have the obvious set up for a sequel that I'm used to in first books of series, but there is the clear hint of "Codicía won't leave Aynila alone", and as you say by far the more interesting part is how damaged every surviving character is.