5. Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
With more of a fable or folktale feel than what I think of as fantasy, Salt Fish Girl is the story of Miranda, a young girl living in a hazily defined corporate enclave future. She emits the scent of durian fruit for no obvious reason. Her coming of age story is intertwined with an origin tale of a mermaid who made humans to keep her company and a pair of lesbian lovers in China. Despite being lyrically written, I never really warmed to this tale -- too much of what is important happens by accident, and its several heroines are too quick to follow a stronger will rather than their own.
6. Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman
A gripping Romeo and Juliet YA love story set in an alternate England in which Crosses (black) rule and Naughts (white) are freed slaves still struggling under heavily societal bias. Callum and Sephy are childhood playmates who try to remain best friends and become lovers in the face of school and family pressure to part. Particularly strong on its portrayal of a privileged person coming to realize it and the small, ubiquitous indignities accorded second class citizens. I actually sobbed allows at one point as the book takes a dark and more adult turn. I also loved the other two books in the trilogy but haven't had a chance to review them yet -- next post.
7. Charisma by Steven Barnes
Brilliant and disturbing, Charisma posits an experiment in which at-risk kids are taught the mental patterns of success at an early age. There's only one problem -- the seemingly perfect model the patters are taken from has a dark secret, and it is starting to show up in the dreams of the children... I had a couple of suspension of disbelief issues with the premise -- no informed consent? Just one model? -- but if you can get passed that and some odd gender role dogmatism, this is a compelling thriller from first to last. The kids steal the show, but even the killers are surprisingly human. This really ought to be a movie.
8. Racing the Dark by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Lana becomes a woman and a diver in the same ceremony when she brings up jewels from the mandagah fish, a trading staple of her island's economy. But she conceals the second, red, stone which would mark her for a special destiny. It finds her anyway, though. When an influx of salt water destroys the diving trade, her family emigrates and falls on hard times, until her apprenticeship to a cryptic and frightening healer and fortuneteller is all that can repair their fortunes. To save her mother from death Lana must grapple with the spirits of wind and water, while fire keeps its own secrets... An interesting take on elemental magic, I found this book eminently readable but it never truly sucked me in.
9. How Like a God by Brenda Clough
A different take on the premise of LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven, Clough wrestles with the plight of an ordinary man granted extraordinary mental control over others. His ordinary life falls, predictably, apart, and he hits bottom before seeking help. I agree with the review I saw (I forget where) which said Clough pulled her pinches on the hitting bottom. The segments in which he seeks and finds help to make sense of his predicament are engaging, second only to the descriptions of his inner landscape, but in the end the resolution does not convince me.
10. The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
The problem I had with this book is that obsessed conspiracy theorists who won't shut up don't really get any more appealing when they're right. The frame story main character is interesting, but we hardly see him, and most of the rest of the action is narrated at too many removes for either immediacy or empathy. Also the ethics of the ultimate goal seems questionable at best, and I would have liked someone to at least raise the question.
11. The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan by William Sanders
The talking dead grandfather who appears as Jerry Springer is about the most normal character in this book. Everyone else important is sympathetic and quirky, if sometimes verging on too much so -- The Last Church of the Naked City being a case in point. Fans of Tom Robbins will probably enjoy this one. You may have trouble swallowing the wisdom of a marriage based on a week in bed -- I did -- but the science fictional plot, such as it is, never gives enough explanation to cause disbelief. The implications of the ending are strange -- if only the children maimed and killed by humanity's carelessness with radiation can save the world, does that mean dumping is good?