The Book Eaters and 2024 Astounding

[psocoptera]

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?) I thought it was pleasantly critical of book fetishism in the way the books were treated as objects (consumed, altered for consumption, criticized for their palatability), the way that thoughtless book-consumption was linked with lack of imagination (I liked the parallel in the quotes between George MacDonald and George MacDonald Fraser as two different kinds of fairy tale/stereotype being fed to people), and the way that video games were celebrated as an alternative and liberatory kind of narrative experience. 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!

I talked about Hannah Kaner here, Moniquill Blackgoose here, Em X. Liu here, Xiran Jay Zhao back here. Ai Jiang's "I AM AI" here, and I also read "Give Me English" from the packet and thought it was a powerful and well-done concept and then was really confused by the ending to the extent that I thought I might have missed a page or something.

So, ranking-wise, Blackgoose was an easy first place for me, and I think Dean is second. (I was glad to see Dell do the one thing anybody could do to rectify any of the 2023 bullshit by extending XJZ's eligibility, but for me, that doesn't go as far as "and we should also rank them first in our voting", although I wonder if it will for other voters.) I do think my mixed feelings about XJZ beat my lack of much any feelings about Kaner. And maybe my wanting to like Liu's characters pushes Ai Jiang down to last?

1 - Moniquill Blackgoose (1st year of eligibility)
2 - Sunyi Dean (2nd year of eligibility)
3 - Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
4 - Hannah Kaner (1st year of eligibility)
5 - Em X. Liu (1st year of eligibility)
6 - Ai Jiang (2nd year of eligibility)

Comments

[ruthling]

I don't know how I ended up reading this, but I liked it a lot better than I expected to. I agree with a lot of what you say here as well. I don't think I've read anything by Moniquill Blackgoose, and will have to see what I can dig up. I didn't care for what I've read by XJZ, but similarly am glad they are still eligible.