The Book Eaters and 2024 Astounding

The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean, 2022 novel. I liked this quite a bit, although it was sometimes a difficult read for me - I will go ahead and spoil/content note that the forcible separation of a parent and child and harm/threats to other children are major parts of the story. Upsetting stuff if you are me. However, I thought it was neat that it was still possible in 2022 to come up with an interesting take on vampires. Dean definitely gets points for that, and for general pacing/narrative arc. Some of the worldbuilding didn't quite work for me if I thought about it (there is a definite "who is cleaning the toilets/who is sweeping the floors" problem, like, Dean proposes this Gothic manor setting with only gentry and no servants, divorcing that lifestyle from the historical reality of requiring a ton of staff support and erasing domestic labor as a necessity at all) but fair enough if she felt this was irrelevant to the story she wanted to tell. I did not put this on my to-read list when I first heard about it because I was suspicious that it would be precious about books (you know, "only works of stylistically-elevated fiction bound and printed on nicely book-smelly paper can truly inspire the human soul" unlike whatever we're against this week, thrillers/comics/movies/etc) but in fact (I guess this is spoilery?) ( Read more... )

Anyways, recommended if you can deal with the forced breeding/child taking plot aspects (as well as the more expected vampire-novel themes about, you know, eating people).

And now I get to rank Astoundings! ( Read more... )