psocoptera

Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water, Vylar Kaftan. A nice one-sitting novella, a size of work I appreciate the existence of. Lesbian telepaths in the cave system of a prison planet, and our POV character has amnesia. I wasn't blown away but it was an enjoyable read.

The Perfect Assassin, K.A. Doore.

Disclosure: I came into this with a bias towards liking this book, because Doore is the wife of the little sister of one of *my* little sister's best friends when she was small. Not exactly a personal acquaintance - I wouldn't recognize her in a room (I really wouldn't recognize her, because when I got the book I flipped to the back to see the author bio and the library had put their security sticker right over her photo. I know she has a left shoulder but that's not a very distinguishing feature) and I'm sure she's never heard of my existence, but she still falls under the umbrella of "younger people I feel vaguely avuncular about", by virtue of being married to someone I remember as an adorable toddler. (I believe they now *have* an adorable toddler - my mom is still good friends with my sister's friend's mom, and I always get to hear who has new grandchildren.)

Anyways. I really liked the worldbuilding - a neat setting on giant platforms up above a desert, a water-based economy, men who wear face veils and have emotions about revealing their faces (I was so there for this aesthetic). And I also really liked the main character, who is an assassin-in-training who enjoys being part of a secret parkour-and-weapons club but has some reservations about actually murdering people, which felt like a very relatable emotional take on the assassin trope. The plot was a little convoluted - a lot of backstory, and a lot of people saying things like "you need to solve this" but then withholding illuminating information - but had a couple of good action sequences. Apparently the next one in the trilogy switches viewpoint characters and jumps forward in time, and it sounds like the third one will again, so it's more like three related standalones than a obligate trilogy. I would like to read the next one - it's also apparently f/f, so, hey.

(Is there a thing now of m/m first books getting f/f sequels, or is it just this and Witchmark? I should note that while there is some UST in this, the protag is mostly ace/aro, so don't take the comparison to Witchmark to mean that you'll get realized m/m romance.)

Gephyrophobia, Rykie Belles. Portal fantasy aftermath.

Hunting the Viper-King, Kathryn Harlan. A girl, her father, a quest. Note for animal harm.

2086, T.K. Lê. Teleportation and displacement.


Thoughts: nothing from Strange Horizons this year jumped out at me as particularly likely to turn up in awards discussions. SH doesn't always end up with much on the Locus list, although they had more last year than the year before; maybe "2086", of my recs?

Spin the Dawn, Elizabeth Lim. I liked this a lot - fairy-tale YA with a competition, a quest, and an appealing het romance. Goodreads describes it as "Project Runway meets Mulan" but I would throw Howl's Moving Castle in there too. It was well-constructed and hard to put down, with some vivid details, and I can't wait to see what happens next in the sequel coming this summer. (Bit of a cliffhanger in this one.) I think I'm going to nominate it for the Lodestar. Note for animal harm.

Finally watched Fast Color, which got a festival showing in 2018 but a release in 2019 and is thus I *think* 2019-eligible?? It was *awesome*, anyways. Clever, thoughtful movie about families and superpowers and secrets, terrific acting across the board. I admit I am the kind of viewer who gets a great deal of enjoyment out of just getting to look at gorgeous faces portray emotions, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle, San Junipero) and Lorraine Toussaint (apparently the voice of Shadow Weaver on new She-Ra!) definitely appealed to that. But in fact the story was also compelling, great tension in the pacing, powerful climax. Cutting for spoilers: ( Read more... )

This is a long and probably disorganized post, which I will put entirely behind a cut. ( Read more... )

The Queen of Nothing, Holly Black, conclusion to the trilogy started in The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King (links to my comments). On the one hand, this was a fast-moving fun read that I enjoyed reading, and on the other hand I can't forget that this series started with the romantic lead casually maiming a child, and all the "oh but he had an abusive childhood don't you feel sorrrry for him, and also he's so hot" since then has not actually made me forget that, even if Holly Black did. I myself liked the sex scene and romantic banter! But, you know, always with that awareness in the back of my mind.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark. Takes place in the same world as his "Dead Djinn in Cairo", which I wasn't particularly into, but this one is a lot of fun - cable cars, folk mythology, suffragettes, robot revolutionaries, sexy genderfluid djinn. If you enjoyed the adventure and plethora of fun minor characters in his Black God's Drums (one of my favorite things I read last year) I would also very much recommend this one.

I feel like I've seen a lot of recs for Gideon the Ninth along the lines of "omg it's great and I can't say anything about it" and indeed I read it without knowing anything about it other than "lesbian necromancers in space" and thought that was a great reading experience, so you could stop reading this before I even get to the part where I start comparing it to other books and go have a similar experience. I will throw out the fact that I bumped it way up my priority list when a friend told me that Tamsyn Muir is also a fanfic author she had particularly liked (in a fandom I don't myself read). Other than the fic link, it's like the Goth offspring of Hunger Games, The Westing Game, and a country house mystery like And Then There Were None; might also appeal to people who wanted Nix's Confusion of Princes to be better than it was (I have an unfinished alternate ending of that somewhere), and, let's see, I think I'd also like to recommend it to fans of the Machineries of Empire series. In terms of specifics, the setting/worldbuilding/atmosphere are really well done; Muir's doing some very clever combining of different aesthetics. And the writing is well done in other ways; there are some great lines and character beats, and once it gets going it's hard to put down. I'll definitely read the next one.

A few more thoughts behind a cut: ( Read more... )

Enjoyable! Some of the plot developments felt abrupt but elemental magic is a great schtick. None of the songs seemed as memorable to me as the songs from the first one but I also can't remember what it was like to have heard them for the first time before I'd heard them dozens or possibly hundreds of times playing the soundtrack for the kids. The Kacey Musgraves cover during the credits was really pretty (you can hear it here if you're not going to this movie). Some weird sync with some of the singing and mouth animation, though, like, somehow in Elsa's big songs it kept feeling like she "wasn't really singing"? I mean, obviously, she's not really singing, because she's animated, but I didn't have this problem with the other characters, or the effects noises. And there was some gorgeous water animation so the animation as a whole gets a thumbs up.