Fiction
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (narrated by Tom Mison): A lovely gift to Sleepy Hollow fans, free on Audible. Also, a reminder that Irving was a witty and casually racist writer.
Naomi Novik, Blood of Tyrants: Temeraire back in China, but separated from Laurence-who has amnesia! And that’s only the first hundred pages. There are battles, and treachery, and Temeraire’s jealousy over Laurence’s affections. Then a renewed battle with Napoleon, where once again we learn that there is no right side in a conflict where only conquerors contend, and that if we had to pick one, Laurence’s side probably wouldn’t be it. Also, the ending manages to be both a cliffhanger and what I’m certain is a sly reference to Game of Thrones.
Paul Cornell, London Falling: What if some standard London police officers (and one intelligence officer, but let’s call her police too) discovered the hidden world of magic living alongside ordinary humans? What if they started treating that world like any other criminal organization? That’s the excellent premise of this book, which starts with the planned takedown of an untouchable gangster that goes way off track. It took me a while to warm up to the story; the characters are at best reticent and at worst not very likeable, but I got caught up and many of the things I was uncertain about had satisfying narrative reasons. This book also made me think that, at least according to artistic output about it, British policing has an incredibly well-functioning bureaucracy behind it, where procedures generally do have reasons and where working with the team instead of lone wolfing has the best outcomes. I don’t doubt British police have their own problems-the two undercover officers on the team in this book are black, and it’s very clear there are racial issues-but it’s so nice to see a procedural with actual procedure and teamwork.
Nancy Kress, Yesterday’s Kin: Free review copy. Novella about aliens who arrive in New York, announce that they’re related to humans and that a deadly spore cloud is coming to kill everyone in not too many months, and seek humanity’s help in finding a cure/vaccine. Kress as usual combines the personal and political; one of the main characters is a genetics researcher who’s discovered a new haplotype based on mitochondrial DNA, which just happens to be the haplotype to which the aliens are most closely related. Also, she has fraught relations with her daughter (a high-ranking police officer) and one of her sons (a drug addict). The former sees the aliens as a threat and the latter sees them as far better than anything on Earth. As usual with Kress, the characters are generally pretty selfish, but trying to do the right thing navigating scientific breakthroughs from within their own perspectives. If you like her other work then this will probably suit.
Lisa Henry, Bliss: Free review copy. Warning: A lot of non-con. Beulah is a perfect community, safe from the violence and privation of the outside world. Rory is an outsider whose application to join Beulah has, against all odds, been approved; Tate is an outsider who broke in to steal and ends up assaulting Rory on his way out. When Tate is caught, he accepts a sentence of performing restitutionary service to Rory, but he doesn’t know that the sentence comes with a chip that, when implanted, makes him a willing slave, desperate to please Rory. Okay, so this is kink of a sex pollen-ish variety: Rory doesn’t understand that Tate doesn’t have a choice, and thinks that Tate legitimately wants him (even as he recognizes the power imbalance). I couldn’t ultimately get into it because it fell into the kink uncanny valley for me: Rory got over his suspicions about how eager Tate was to please way too quickly. Given how Tate actually begged to be given orders, I wasn’t persuaded by Rory’s willing suspension of disbelief, though I think I could’ve gotten there with a few more tweaks-people are indeed eager to convince themselves of things that make them more comfortable. I also had trouble with Rory “falling in love” with Tate, because again, he had no idea who Tate was according to the rules established by the narrative about the chip. On the good side: once Rory twigs, he immediately understands that what he did was rape and works to fix it, letting Tate's reactions guide him. I do wonder to what extent narratives like this have a structural similarity to classic Hollywood film: we spend most of the storytime indulging in the kink/watching the evil woman get away with being evil, and then at the end moral order is restored; but what do we remember? What part really gave us pleasure, the setup or the resolution? (To be clear, I’m totally okay with it being the setup! Otherwise I wouldn’t have read this.)
Tom Taylor et al., Injustice: Gods Among Us, Year 2 vol. 1: Free review copy. After his decision to take over the world for its own good, Superman teams up with Sinistro, who does not interest me, to consolidate his hold on power, much to the dismay of Flash and Lex Luthor. There’s at least a beginning of a case made for a dictatorship by Superman when it’s compared to the impositions and neglect of the Guardians/the Green Lantern Corps, but it’s pretty much negated by the brutality of Superman’s thugs in Gotham. Of course then to fight the thugs Jim Gordon turns to artificially conferred superpowers because Batman is out of the picture. I’m not sure why these guys are supposed to be any better other than that they’re designated heroes, but ok. There are also boss fights, which I find the least interesting part of a “Superman decides to take over the world” story. Needs more Luthor.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Naomi Novik, Blood of Tyrants: Temeraire back in China, but separated from Laurence-who has amnesia! And that’s only the first hundred pages. There are battles, and treachery, and Temeraire’s jealousy over Laurence’s affections. Then a renewed battle with Napoleon, where once again we learn that there is no right side in a conflict where only conquerors contend, and that if we had to pick one, Laurence’s side probably wouldn’t be it. Also, the ending manages to be both a cliffhanger and what I’m certain is a sly reference to Game of Thrones.
Paul Cornell, London Falling: What if some standard London police officers (and one intelligence officer, but let’s call her police too) discovered the hidden world of magic living alongside ordinary humans? What if they started treating that world like any other criminal organization? That’s the excellent premise of this book, which starts with the planned takedown of an untouchable gangster that goes way off track. It took me a while to warm up to the story; the characters are at best reticent and at worst not very likeable, but I got caught up and many of the things I was uncertain about had satisfying narrative reasons. This book also made me think that, at least according to artistic output about it, British policing has an incredibly well-functioning bureaucracy behind it, where procedures generally do have reasons and where working with the team instead of lone wolfing has the best outcomes. I don’t doubt British police have their own problems-the two undercover officers on the team in this book are black, and it’s very clear there are racial issues-but it’s so nice to see a procedural with actual procedure and teamwork.
Nancy Kress, Yesterday’s Kin: Free review copy. Novella about aliens who arrive in New York, announce that they’re related to humans and that a deadly spore cloud is coming to kill everyone in not too many months, and seek humanity’s help in finding a cure/vaccine. Kress as usual combines the personal and political; one of the main characters is a genetics researcher who’s discovered a new haplotype based on mitochondrial DNA, which just happens to be the haplotype to which the aliens are most closely related. Also, she has fraught relations with her daughter (a high-ranking police officer) and one of her sons (a drug addict). The former sees the aliens as a threat and the latter sees them as far better than anything on Earth. As usual with Kress, the characters are generally pretty selfish, but trying to do the right thing navigating scientific breakthroughs from within their own perspectives. If you like her other work then this will probably suit.
Lisa Henry, Bliss: Free review copy. Warning: A lot of non-con. Beulah is a perfect community, safe from the violence and privation of the outside world. Rory is an outsider whose application to join Beulah has, against all odds, been approved; Tate is an outsider who broke in to steal and ends up assaulting Rory on his way out. When Tate is caught, he accepts a sentence of performing restitutionary service to Rory, but he doesn’t know that the sentence comes with a chip that, when implanted, makes him a willing slave, desperate to please Rory. Okay, so this is kink of a sex pollen-ish variety: Rory doesn’t understand that Tate doesn’t have a choice, and thinks that Tate legitimately wants him (even as he recognizes the power imbalance). I couldn’t ultimately get into it because it fell into the kink uncanny valley for me: Rory got over his suspicions about how eager Tate was to please way too quickly. Given how Tate actually begged to be given orders, I wasn’t persuaded by Rory’s willing suspension of disbelief, though I think I could’ve gotten there with a few more tweaks-people are indeed eager to convince themselves of things that make them more comfortable. I also had trouble with Rory “falling in love” with Tate, because again, he had no idea who Tate was according to the rules established by the narrative about the chip. On the good side: once Rory twigs, he immediately understands that what he did was rape and works to fix it, letting Tate's reactions guide him. I do wonder to what extent narratives like this have a structural similarity to classic Hollywood film: we spend most of the storytime indulging in the kink/watching the evil woman get away with being evil, and then at the end moral order is restored; but what do we remember? What part really gave us pleasure, the setup or the resolution? (To be clear, I’m totally okay with it being the setup! Otherwise I wouldn’t have read this.)
Tom Taylor et al., Injustice: Gods Among Us, Year 2 vol. 1: Free review copy. After his decision to take over the world for its own good, Superman teams up with Sinistro, who does not interest me, to consolidate his hold on power, much to the dismay of Flash and Lex Luthor. There’s at least a beginning of a case made for a dictatorship by Superman when it’s compared to the impositions and neglect of the Guardians/the Green Lantern Corps, but it’s pretty much negated by the brutality of Superman’s thugs in Gotham. Of course then to fight the thugs Jim Gordon turns to artificially conferred superpowers because Batman is out of the picture. I’m not sure why these guys are supposed to be any better other than that they’re designated heroes, but ok. There are also boss fights, which I find the least interesting part of a “Superman decides to take over the world” story. Needs more Luthor.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.