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Deeplight and the Deep
May. 15th, 2020 04:35 pmSciiiience fiction, double feeeeature... ok, more like fantasy, but it's been awhile since I managed to have two books to write about at once!
Deeplight, Frances Hardinge, YA, on the Lodestar ballot. I've really liked some Hardinge I've read (Well Witched, Skinful of Shadows) and not others (Fly By Night); I have three of her older books on my to-read list. I found this hard to get into at first, but thought it really picked up once the plot broke out and once we got to spend some time with a relatively-late-introduced secondary POV character. Spoilers: ( Read more... ) There's some pretty good stuff from the middle onwards - some very cinematic action/vehicle sequences. Skinful of Shadows did not do especially well on the 2018 Lodestar ballot - it got the fewest first-place votes, although eventually beat Art of Starving and Book of Dust for fourth place (losing to Akata Warrior, Summer in Orcus, and In Other Lands in that order) - so I don't know that I expect Deeplight to do much better, but I'm pleased to have read it and it may well crack the top half of my personal ballot. (I still have one more to read, and I'm not entirely sure how I'm ranking things.)
(To digress a little, I think part of why I was having such a hard time getting into it is that I'm really not in the mood to read anything difficult or uncomfortable at all right now. In a world with no Hugo voting and where I wasn't trying to juggle my library holds, I would probably be reading nothing but romance novels. I have so many good queer-romance recs that I just never get to, and I actually have even thought about bailing on the Hugos this year. But I like the community aspect of the Hugo reading, like, if I keep at it, I get to talk to my Hugo friends about books, and I don't want to cut that particular tether to the outside world right now. So the ballot reading will continue and morale may or may not improve.)
The Deep, Rivers Solomon, novella. Mixed expectations here as I really liked the clipping. song and really didn't like Solomon's previous novel. Unfortunately this was a slog; repetitive, belaboured, didn't do much with the aspects of the song I found most interesting. Might have worked for me at novelette length.
I have however now read all six Hugo novellas, and that means it's ranking time! Behind the cut. ( Read more... )
Deeplight, Frances Hardinge, YA, on the Lodestar ballot. I've really liked some Hardinge I've read (Well Witched, Skinful of Shadows) and not others (Fly By Night); I have three of her older books on my to-read list. I found this hard to get into at first, but thought it really picked up once the plot broke out and once we got to spend some time with a relatively-late-introduced secondary POV character. Spoilers: ( Read more... ) There's some pretty good stuff from the middle onwards - some very cinematic action/vehicle sequences. Skinful of Shadows did not do especially well on the 2018 Lodestar ballot - it got the fewest first-place votes, although eventually beat Art of Starving and Book of Dust for fourth place (losing to Akata Warrior, Summer in Orcus, and In Other Lands in that order) - so I don't know that I expect Deeplight to do much better, but I'm pleased to have read it and it may well crack the top half of my personal ballot. (I still have one more to read, and I'm not entirely sure how I'm ranking things.)
(To digress a little, I think part of why I was having such a hard time getting into it is that I'm really not in the mood to read anything difficult or uncomfortable at all right now. In a world with no Hugo voting and where I wasn't trying to juggle my library holds, I would probably be reading nothing but romance novels. I have so many good queer-romance recs that I just never get to, and I actually have even thought about bailing on the Hugos this year. But I like the community aspect of the Hugo reading, like, if I keep at it, I get to talk to my Hugo friends about books, and I don't want to cut that particular tether to the outside world right now. So the ballot reading will continue and morale may or may not improve.)
The Deep, Rivers Solomon, novella. Mixed expectations here as I really liked the clipping. song and really didn't like Solomon's previous novel. Unfortunately this was a slog; repetitive, belaboured, didn't do much with the aspects of the song I found most interesting. Might have worked for me at novelette length.
I have however now read all six Hugo novellas, and that means it's ranking time! Behind the cut. ( Read more... )
