psocoptera

The Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison, 2025 trilogy conclusion. Previous one here. I haven't been able to make myself read any Hugo homework recently but I've postponed this a couple of times while trying to make myself prioritize said homework and it came up again and it was like, oh, I could read that, I know more or less what it will be like and it will be a pleasant read, and, lo, so it came to pass. A lot to be said for that. (I am very much in one of those moods where I'm like "what if I gave up on sff and just read KJ Charles romances for a month" but this kind of sff is fine. Possibly I just really don't want to do any more homework.)

One spoiler: ( Read more... )

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley, 2024 novel. My first problem with this book was that I couldn't buy into the premise; the set-up as given did not feel like a way anyone would go about doing what they were ostensibly doing, nor did that thing even make sense to me, so it seemed like something else must be going on, and I was not very interested in plodding along waiting for a reveal. My second problem was a turn towards romance where I was put off by the ship. In the end the whole thing felt muddled and contrived - Bradley's interest was clearly in this one historical blorbo, to use the fannish term (possibly literally a fannish blorbo if the genesis of this book was in Terror fandom) and she knew what beats she wanted in the story about them and had tried to assemble a plot that would give them to her. But to me some of them felt arbitrary and under-motivated and the whole thing didn't quite hang together.

I do get to rank Hugo novels now, though. ( Read more... )

The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett, 2024 novel, first of a trilogy. A young apprentice investigator with total recall like Simon Illyan, only these abilities are granted via Witcher-like potions (apparently even giving some people the white hair and yellow eyes), gets involved in a murder case in an empire threatened by kaiju and maybe also the manipulations of the Cetagandan-haut-like gentry. Which is to say that if an author admits to being an LLM user, even if he claims he isn't using it for his creative writing, I cannot help but start playing the "which parts of this seem borrowed" game. In all fairness it was a good book, fun, fast read, the mystery seemed to hang together as far as I noticed and I enjoyed the plant-tech worldbuilding. I'll probably read the other two. (I wasn't into Foundryside, but I liked the City-of books, so he is neither a definitely-read or definitely-don't-read author for me at this point.) And I'm actually all in favor of creative recombining/repurposing/riffing! If there's, like, a person doing it. I don't want to think I'm reading a book if I'm actually reading extruded text product though.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell, 2024 fantasy novel. This was cute and fun and then I got kind of tired of it, which might say more about my short attention span than it says about the book. I don't know, insofar as it wanted to center the main characters' relationship (I hesitate to say romance, since it seemed like it was maybe more of an ace/aro queerplatonic partnership kind of thing) that relationship didn't particularly hit any of my squees or zings. And while there was some evidence early on of not the tightest editing (like, mention of a damaged eye, which I couldn't find any sort of antecedent for where it *took* damage), as the book kept going I ended up feeling pretty nitpicky about it, which I think tends to be a sign I don't feel sufficiently entertained.

(But, like, armor with "something denser than gold" under a gold coating? Like what, tungsten? Platinum? If you had platinum armor why would you put gold over that? Or a *spruce* tree with "succulent crimson and tangerine hues of the tree's leaves", one of which falls fluttering? Has neither Wiswell nor his editor ever seen a spruce? And I was thrown by the use of "allosexual" in a fantasy setting, like, okay, this one is a style choice and I respect that sometimes if you want to include vocab of whatever sort in whatever setting, sometimes the easiest thing is to just use modern words, especially if you are not doing the sort of fantasy where you're making up *other* words so your shaych or your marnis or whatever would really stand out. However, I think I personally find short Germanic-ish words like "gay" or "queer" to have a better ring of plausibility, a more organic feel, than technical-sounding, deliberately coined words like "homosexual" or in this case "allosexual". (Or, like, "lesbian"... are you saying this second world has a Lesbos somewhere?) I personally probably would have tried to rephrase "allosexual virgins" as something like "fantasizing virgins" or "attraction-flushed virgins". I can only assume that Wiswell didn't because he specifically wanted to get "allosexual" in there, but it felt like a break in the voice to me.)

Anyways. Not terrible, but I don't particularly think it ought to win a Hugo, although I'm also feeling a general lack of enthusiasm re the Hugos given open questions like "how much of their credibility did Nicholas Whyte take with him when he bailed". :/

Mirrored Heavens, Rebecca Roanhorse, 2024 fantasy novel, concluding her Between Earth and Sky trilogy started with Black Sun and continued in Fevered Star. I've probably said this before but it's a real struggle for me these days to read a trilogy spread out over a span of years. I didn't have time to sit down and reread the first two and so I came to this one without much of a recollection of what was happening or what I was hoping to see happen. I said about the last one that I thought Roanhorse was doing a good job balancing the intrigue plot and the epic fantasy plot, but reading this one I didn't feel particularly invested in either, and the end felt muddled and kind of anti-climactic. One of my favorite aspects of the previous books was their settings, and in theory we were spending some time in some new locations in this one, but I never got much of a sense of them. It was a fast read despite its length and had some good fantasy-action sequences, so, what more could I ask for, I guess, and I think I'll still give the series my Hugo Series vote. (With genuine enthusiasm - there is some definite Cool in these - although also out of disinterest in the other nominees. I mean, I'm definitely not voting for InCryptid, Stormlight, or whichever Tchaikovsky series that is, I read a Tasha Suri book a few years ago for the Astounding and wasn't into it enough so much as to to not want to read more of her work, although apparently that book is not part of this particular series, and I read Annihilation and decided not to read more of those, although apparently I liked it okay. Maybe I'll give those my second-place vote, hm.)

Moonstorm, Yoon Ha Lee, 2024 YA novel, the first of a planned trilogy. This was great - teen mecha pilots, divided loyalties, an interesting setting and worldbuilding where gravity is sort of a collective faith, and a rivalry that seems like it might be possibly heading for an f/f romance. On both the Norton and Lodestar ballots but recommended even if you're not reading for those.

The Transitive Properties of Cheese, Ann LeBlanc, 2024 novella. Transgender transhuman hijinks. A must-read if you like Greg Egan, or maybe Snow Crash, or just want to read about the pros and cons of repeatedly forking your personality. The end felt a little muddled but overall it was great - LeBlanc is both having fun with the possibilities of early-adopter uploading, and exploring them seriously. I'm sorry I read it too late to nominate it but at least I can recommend it here.

The Girl from the Sea, Molly Knox Ostertag, 2021 YA graphic novel. Selkie story, not for losers. (Sorry.) Cute and sweet story about a closeted high school girl having a summer romance, coming out to her family and friends, and finding solutions other than eco-terrorism to a local ecological problem, what's not to like.

The West Passage, Jared Pechaček, 2024 novel. I went through a few phases reading this - an early phase of "holy shit this is brilliant", a later phase of "hm, but there's rather a lot of it", and then a final phase of "... huh". Considered as a whole I think I come down on the side of it being awesome, but it's not a fast read. It's the kind of book that works well having no idea what you're getting into, but I know that's not much to go on, so, uh, a little triangulation: Piranesi, Tombs of Atuan, Dark Is Rising, Neverending Story, Kameron Hurley's The Stars Are Legion. Also I'm sorry I didn't get my library hold until after Hugo nominations; I would have loved to nominate it for Best Novel and Pechaček for Astounding. I did go change my Locus vote for Best First Novel at least. Oh, here is one other potentially useful piece of information, there are illustrations/decorative chapter headings, and they're neat and relevant, so this is maybe one not to do as an audiobook.

Some big-ish spoilers: ( Read more... )

In the Shadow of the Fall, Tobi Ogundiran, 2024 novella. If you're looking for epic fantasy in a West-African-inspired world, this is one! Competently done but didn't have the little hooks of humor or character or beautiful writing that might have made me really care about it. Also felt more like the first act of novel than a complete story, which is fine - serialization is a valid way to publish - but means it could be awhile to an actual conclusion. ETA: Quite cinematic, though - I can see it working well as the first act of a movie, or the first couple episodes of a series. Maybe animated? Dreamworks style? A good theme would do a lot for emotional engagement - John Williams introducing Luke, but African. (Who did Black Panther, that was well-scored as I recall. Ludwig Göransson, apparently, who is... Swedish. Perhaps Michael Abels, who did Nope. I mean, probably actually someone from Nigerian cinema I've never heard of.) Anyways, I think it works better for me if I think of it as wanting to be a dramatic work.

Sheine Lende, Darcie Little Badger, 2024 YA novel prequel to Elatsoe. I ended up liking this a lot, although after a strong beginning I thought the middle got a little slow and muddled. But the last act was strong and I have ended up adding it to my Lodestar nominations.