I read largely sff, some romance and mystery, very little non-fiction. I'm trying to write at least a little review of everything I'm reading. I love love love talking about books, and always appreciate replies or disagreements or bonus opinion comments on any book I'm reading or have talked about.
I'm @picklish@weirder.earth elsewhere, where I also send out the monthly poll for #SFFBookClub. See sffbookclub.eatgod.org/ for more details.
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From Alix E. Harrow, the New York Times bestselling author of Starling House, comes a ā¦
"In order to have a future worth fighting for, you must have a past worth remembering."
It was a good line; the heartless scholar in me tucked it quietly away for the conclusion of my next article.
— The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Page 104)
Content warning full spoilers for Livesuit
I have so many plot questions.
How do they sell this process to civilians? Do they have fake veterans who talk about being in livesuits and having "come back"? Do they have fake livesuits that can come off so they have real veterans?
Why would you manufacture a lie about this when people probably aren't signing up for the benefits package when there's a planet and civilization-destroying war going on?
Why would they let livesuit soldiers have access to scanning machines? Why would the scanning machines not lie?
Maybe I'm cynical, but I kind of figure if you're in the middle of this intergalactic war that is destroying planets, probably people are going to be a bit more gung-ho on war?
There is a mention of a scientist who defected and the crux of the story hangs on the anti-war sentiments of the protagonist's wife, and I feel like the story wants you to believe that both of these things are because of the livesuit lies. There is a lot of "I'm not sure why we're here" and "what is command doing" in the background that makes it possible to believe that this is foreshadowing for some other larger corruption going on, but this story isn't about that either.
Humanity's war is eternal, spread across the galaxy and the ages. Humanity's best hope to ā¦
But in the thousands of systems where life had solved the complex problem of defying entropy, there were only so many shapes. Sometimes weird shit was going to look familiar. An enemy alien was going to look like a tree or a vulva or a bird because there were too many things and not enough room in design space for all of them.
— Livesuit by James S. A. Corey (The Captive's War, #1.5) (11%)
Humanity's war is eternal, spread across the galaxy and the ages. Humanity's best hope to ā¦
Series by James SA Corey really like to have optional novellas in between the longer novels. Livesuit is "book 1.5" in their latest Captive's War series.
It's a short military sf story from the perspective of humans fighting against the Carryx. This novella functions as supplemental worldbuilding for impatient readers, and also brings a different perspective than the one from the captive humans in the novels.
Ultimately, the story is weak and doesn't stand on its own. I would consider this novella strongly optional.
Series by James SA Corey really like to have optional novellas in between the longer novels. Livesuit is "book 1.5" in their latest Captive's War series.
It's a short military sf story from the perspective of humans fighting against the Carryx. This novella functions as supplemental worldbuilding for impatient readers, and also brings a different perspective than the one from the captive humans in the novels.
Ultimately, the story is weak and doesn't stand on its own. I would consider this novella strongly optional.
From Alix E. Harrow, the New York Times bestselling author of Starling House, comes a ā¦
When my mother read the first draft of this book, she sent meāby my request, and to my gratitudeāsix single-spaced pages describing everything I'd gotten wrong about horses. (If you'd like to be a fantasy author, it's not absolutely necessary to have a mother who is a writing professor, falconer, archer, and horse trainerābut it doesn't hurt.)
This first paragraph of the author acknowledgements made me laugh.
@Tak@gush.taks.garden grimacing emoji
The monstrous Carryx empire was built by subjugation and war. Thousands of species are bound ā¦
A lot of us want to pretend that this is a temporary aberration from the right and normal working out of history. It isnāt, and we know it isnāt. But weād like it to be. Part of that is weāre old as shit, some of us, and God help us if we have to keep reinventing ourselves.
— The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey (59%)
The monstrous Carryx empire was built by subjugation and war. Thousands of species are bound ā¦
Book two of this series is the expected broadening of worldbuilding and perspectives. It's not that the first book didn't follow multiple characters but they were largely all in the same situation, and this book opens up to parallel stories. From a pacing and tension perspective, this development diffuses the impact of the plot.
This is all less of a critique and more of an observation. There's only so many places a story can go like this, and this is a natural path for an ensemble cast story. That said I enjoyed it a lot, but it's also book two of a trilogy, so from a closure perspective you could sleep on this one until the final one is out.
Other assorted thoughts in no particular order:
I am a sucker for the drip feed of worldbuilding reveals about the Carryx, their war, their opponents. I always ā¦
Book two of this series is the expected broadening of worldbuilding and perspectives. It's not that the first book didn't follow multiple characters but they were largely all in the same situation, and this book opens up to parallel stories. From a pacing and tension perspective, this development diffuses the impact of the plot.
This is all less of a critique and more of an observation. There's only so many places a story can go like this, and this is a natural path for an ensemble cast story. That said I enjoyed it a lot, but it's also book two of a trilogy, so from a closure perspective you could sleep on this one until the final one is out.
Other assorted thoughts in no particular order:
I am a sucker for the drip feed of worldbuilding reveals about the Carryx, their war, their opponents. I always always love exploration of wrecked planet and space ship settings. I love the ongoing exploration of captivity sociology and psychology, of the variety of coping mechanisms that characters use to deal with their lives that have irrevocably changed and are much more out of their control.
I like what's going on with the swarm here. I really like its complicated relationship with Dafyd. They have reasons to hate each other, they have reasons to love each other, they are forced together because they both have the same singular secret goal. The swarm does struggle with "should I tell Dafyd these secrets that he will rightfully be angry at", but it is also a spy in enemy territory and managing the emotions of its greatest ally makes sense too. You could argue that this book is an (approximate trans? non-binary?) identity arc for the swarm as well. Despite the fact that Dafyd explicitly gives good reasons why he pushes away the Jellit swarm and is closer to Clae, the dynamics here feel quite heteronormative. Finally, and minorly, the swarm feels a bit like a plural system adjacent story too, but in other ways not.
I love Vaudai the slug's buddy comedy routine with Ghati and Campar. I love Jessyn continuing to be super competent. I laughed at the lamp shading of "we'll do horrific things to prosecute a secret war against the Carryx, but we won't force people to have children". Mostly, I love Dafyd trying to hold everything up and together even as everybody hates him for it.
@j12i@wyrms.de oh!! I guess I should go read that too! They did that with the Expanse too, having optional novellas in between each novel, although I do think this series is supposed to be a trilogy and not ten books or whatever.
The monstrous Carryx empire was built by subjugation and war. Thousands of species are bound ā¦
A part of himāthe small, sane voice behind all the restātold him that the invasion and abduction, the violence and the loss, had broken him in some fundamental way. And quietly, privately, he accepted this fact the way he would any new and irrefutable data point. Then he set it aside and went back to the business of being himself. They were all broken, one way and another. That didnāt make Dafyd Alkhorās mandatory meetings any less bullshit.
— The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey (13%)
enneš
boosted
Quintus Shu'al is the world's only navigating fox. He's also in disgrace after leading an ā¦
Whew, the ending felt so sudden I think I hurt something.
The Navigating Fox is like a thousand-page fantasy epic crammed into 150 pages. It's super well written, and the setting is great and I want more, particularly the Northern Membership - although I could stand to go a few days without reading the word "knowledgeable". Now give me the thousand-page edition. š
Whew, the ending felt so sudden I think I hurt something.
The Navigating Fox is like a thousand-page fantasy epic crammed into 150 pages. It's super well written, and the setting is great and I want more, particularly the Northern Membership - although I could stand to go a few days without reading the word "knowledgeable". Now give me the thousand-page edition. š
Content warning the navigating fox plot discussion / spoilers
@Tak@gush.taks.garden Reading between the lines, my conclusions were: Quintus was (probably) made by Toosa who taught Quintus about the roads, since multiverse Toosa is there right at Quintus's first moments of self-consciousness. I think it's possible that Quintus was traveling the roads prior to meeting Toosa as well. Toosa also made Cynthia promise to save Quintus (which happens off-page, right?), which also makes me feel like Toosa was in the know about the future (which lines up with the old/young Toosa appearance earlier). Maybe I'd guess that the "why" of Quintus was something around sabotaging the resurrection plan to thwart the incursion of the empire somewhat? That's what I got.
Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother, Argent, left ā¦
Celia was twelve years old on the day she cursed her brother.
— The Summer War by Naomi Novik (Page 1)
Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother, Argent, left ā¦
It's funny synchronicity that both this book and The River Has Roots are up against each other in the same Hugo category, as they are both fairy borderland stories. They feel entwined together in my mind and it's hard to talk about one without the other. The River Has Roots is about riddles, songs, and promises. The Summer War is about curses, revenge, and unbreakable oaths. They're both about the bonds between siblings where one sibling is lost to the faerie equivalent of the book.
What I like most about The Summer War is that despite being a very fairytale story with a pat ending, all of the characters (even their father) get a little bit of an arc and depth to them.
āI was only twelve,ā Argent went on. āI barely even knew, yet. I didnāt understand what you were trying to do. All I understood ā¦
It's funny synchronicity that both this book and The River Has Roots are up against each other in the same Hugo category, as they are both fairy borderland stories. They feel entwined together in my mind and it's hard to talk about one without the other. The River Has Roots is about riddles, songs, and promises. The Summer War is about curses, revenge, and unbreakable oaths. They're both about the bonds between siblings where one sibling is lost to the faerie equivalent of the book.
What I like most about The Summer War is that despite being a very fairytale story with a pat ending, all of the characters (even their father) get a little bit of an arc and depth to them.
āI was only twelve,ā Argent went on. āI barely even knew, yet. I didnāt understand what you were trying to do. All I understood was that there was something wrong with me, the same thing that was wrong with them, and you were showing me what it meant. What you had to do about it. And I didnāt see anything I could do to stop being wrong, because I hadnāt done anything to start. So afterwards, I was only waiting for you to come and take me, to do the same.ā
It's a minor point, but an early plot point in the novel is the judgement of a case by Celia and Argent's father. Their father deliberately brings Argent along to court to show him harshly punishing two men who are involved with each other illegally. But the reason he does it is not from overt homophobia of believing this is truly wrong but from the more subtle homophobia of not wanting his son Argent to be judged negatively by others for something similar in the future. This is the plot point which causes Argent to leave, and it more or less breaks his father for the rest of the novel.
I like it because the more nuanced "I have made horrific parenting mistakes" leaves a lot more room for the father to come around. But also, it feels more applicable as a fairy tale for this age. Maybe I have just heard enough thirdhand stories lately of parents and grandparents wanting to shove young queer kids back in the closet to """protect""" them from the bullying of others that this rang particularly true to my ears.
Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire, After The Fall by ā¦
āYou know,ā John says as they clomp down the too-large stairs from the porch, āIām getting kind of tired of your I know things you donāt know routine.ā
Six shrugs. āSorry. Maybe you should try knowing more things?ā
— After the Fall by Edward Ashton (17%)
