book review: A Stranger In Olondria

A Stranger In Olondria, Sofia Samatar. I look forward to nominating this 2013 fantasy novel for the Hugo. It's pretty far into the "literary" area of sf space and is, hrm, more beautiful than entertaining, but I would highly recommend it if you like LeGuin or maybe Tolkien. (But, really, LeGuin - in particular The Dispossessed, Voices (the middle of the Gifts/Voices/Powers trilogy), and A Wizard of Earthsea.) Samatar makes beautiful sentences and there's some really good stuff here about literature and art and inspiration and love and death and, you know, literary stuff. Narrative about narratives. Shifting referent of the title as the book progresses. I knew next to nothing about it going in and am trying to avoid spoilers here, would be happy to discuss more in comments.

I've also liked some of Samatar's short stories, Selkie Stories Are For Losers in Strange Horizons, and Honey Bear, which is one of the most powerful stories about parenting I've ever read. It looks from her website like she may have started publishing in 2012, which I think would make her Campbell-eligible? I look forward to nominating her for that too.