The City We Became

[psocoptera]

The City We Became, NK Jemisin. I did not particularly want to read this book - I wasn't into the trial-balloon short story, and I find the whole concept of "New York is So Special" pretty insufferable as a theme. I mean, I'm not saying Jemisin shouldn't write that! People should write about whatever interests them! I just would have been way more into the "let's personify cities" concept if it had centered around São Paolo or Hong Kong, or Shanghai or Delhi or Mexico City or Buenos Aires or any of the "great cities of the world" where I will probably never go but could get to know a little bit in a book. Or there are so many American cities with long histories I'd be curious to spend some time with! Detroit or Baltimore or San Francisco or St. Louis! Somewhere like Philadelphia or Seattle where I've lived but only in a limited way! But no. NYC. (And in the next book we're apparently going to Paris, which has always felt similarly oversold, to me... although, I don't know, do actual Parisians feel like Paris is the center of the universe, in the way that NY people do, or is Paris just a tourist fixation?)

Anyways, all that said, Jemisin is a terrific writer, so it wasn't a terrible read once I got through the eye-rolling stage. Some fun scenes and sequences, and the whole thing moved along nicely. I don't think it's going to win the Hugo, but I'm going to boldly predict that it will come in third after Wells and Kowal, and I am fine with that (except for how I expect my personal first-place vote, Piranesi, to do poorly in the voting, but the Hugos are like that sometimes).

Comments

[conuly]

Okay, New Yorkers don't feel NYC is the center of the world. That's a vile calumny, and I resent that.

It's not a feeling if it's self-evidently true, after all /s