50books_poc | Entries tagged with genre:sf.fantasy

The Meridian: a land where magic has been codified and the worship of gods suppressed. How do you live when legends come to life, and the faith you had is rewarded?

This is the second book in the Between Earth and Sky series! And I’m very sad to say it was not for me. I wanted to love it from the beginning, but I didn’t find most of the character perspectives that engaging. There was very little plot development here as well, which didn't help my enjoyment when reading. :/

I believe people who enjoy Fantasy stories set in alternate history times—in this case: the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas—with prophecies and gods and a bit of a slow pace will have a good time with this one.

wearing_tearing

In a fallen kingdom, one girl carries the key to discovering the secrets of her nation's past—and unleashing the demons that sleep at its heart. An epic fantasy series inspired by the mythology and folklore of ancient China.

A two-for-one post! I finished the duology this month, but thought it'd be a little weird to only post about the second book. The best thing I can say about this duology is that it reads like the most adventurous TV show! The writing is engaging from beginning to end and the world-building is very well developed. The main POV characters, Lan and Zen, go through a loooot as the story progresses and their character arcs are pretty satisfying in terms of personal growth and what they're willing to do to achieve what they want.

( Song of Silver, Flame Like Night Review )

( Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White Review )

And I also leave you with this:

"Perfect for fans of The Untamed. I loved it!” —Shelley Parker-Chan, #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun.

wearing_tearing

During a brutal winter, a young woman longing for love finds more than she expected in the woods, in this wickedly sensuous short story by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

I ended up listening to this novella on audio and it was pretty great! The story is about two sisters, Judith and Alice, and the many things that come between them. It also deals with Judith's relationship with two men during winter storms. And there's a wolf!

Content warnings for: ( Read more... )

( Mini Review )

cesy

Black No More by George Schuyler is early sci-fi about race. I found it very much in the style of its era rather than modern pacing and readability, but really good. It does the thought-provoking thought experiment on society that a certain type of speculative fiction is really good at. And given its age, it's easy to find cheap or free ebooks. Check the blurb for the concept if you might need content notes, but I can't quite work out how to summarise effectively without spoilers.

brainwane

In 2016, Nisi Shawl wrote "an annotated list of 40 black science fiction works that are important to your understanding of its history" -- and now it's on the Carl Brandon Society blog.

I did not know W.E.B. Du Bois had written scifi!!!

yatima

(Hi! I'm new here. Let's jump in.)

Kel Cheris is a gifted mathematician underemployed as an infantry officer. Shuos Jedao is the technological ghost of a genocidal general. Together, they fight crime, where "crime" is defined as heresy against the calendar. In Yoon Ha Lee's brilliant device, a calendar is a social contract from which physics - and hence, weaponry - flow. Calendrical heresy disables these weapons and thus undermines the power of the state.

If you love bold, original world-building, reflections on colonialism, and complicated relationships between clever protagonists who have every reason to distrust one another, you'll eat up the Machineries of Empire series as avidly as I did. If military SF and n-dimensional chess sound like a bit of a slog, see if you can stick with it anyway. The language and imagery are utterly gorgeous, and these very timely stories have a great deal to say about complicity, responsibility, and the mechanisms of societal control.

brainwane

I read The Underground Railroad in 2016. I thought it was engaging, moving, and accessible,* and I nominated it for a Hugo Award (Best Novel).

Na'amen Gobert Tilahun reviewed Underground Airlines as well as The Underground Railroad in Strange Horizons and discussed several aspects of both books. That review mentions speculative elements in Whitehead's book beyond the railroad mentioned in the title, in case you are wary of spoilers.

I have read John Henry Days, The Intuitionist, and I think at least one other Whitehead book, and am trying to reflect on how Whitehead approaches and uses the railroad, because I think it's different than the way a lot of speculative fiction authors do, and has more in common with how other mimetic fiction authors tend to use speculative premises. I want to compare The Underground Railroad to Never Let Me Go, where the story doesn't concentrate on (or, sometimes, even mention) the origin story of the big plot premise, and instead the story is entirely about the lives of people living or resisting -- just for themselves, to survive or thrive -- within that system.

* I think Whitehead deliberately works to make the book accessible to people who have not previously read slave narratives, fictional or nonfiction -- I think he spells out subtext more often than he would if he assumed the reader had more of a grounding in antebellum history or the history of anti-black racism in the US.

kaberett

This came into my possession via the latest Humble Ebook Bundle, and I am so glad it did. This is how glad I am: I am about two-thirds of the way through it and I can't wait to finish before I tell you all how good it is.

The protagonist, Hanna, is sixteen, manic depressive (and explicitly, canonically prefers that descriptor to "bipolar", Because Reasons), and Finnish-"island girl" (Hawaiian?), raised (for most of her life) in Dallas. She describes herself as biracial and bicultural, and she's bilingual in English and Finnish - and the codeswitching is genuinely plausibly represented.

The dude she ends up hanging around with a lot is the same age, Latino, and bilingual in Spanish and English - again, really nicely represented.

The story takes place in creepy smalltown Texas. It's sub/urban fantasy and abusive parents and a critique of the medical-industrial complex and teenagers having (complicated, not always happy) sex lives all tied up in tight, funny monster-killing brilliance. It's lovely.

( Content notes. )

delfinnium

(recommended to link here by Deepad. First post, first review thing!)

Thanks to

deepad, I'm currently reading the series Gameworld Trilogy by Samit Basu. (can be found here. It can be bought here!)

And it does start off a little slow, in the beginning, especially if you're like me, and have very little familarity with the Ramayan other than a very vauge understanding of 'something happens, Demons evil attack! Princess is involved, there is a vanar, Lord of monkeys and a damn good archer, involved somewhere, there is a lot of fire, and a chariot happens to be there somewhere', you might be a little thrown by all the terms there.

And it's GOOD!

I like that!

I mean there are some books (like the God of War series) that use terms so obscure and strange that it is hard to actually understand what is going on in the world unless you read it several times (and I'm not so sure I'm drawn into it), but this world is not like that!

I mean there are creatures whom you don't know what they are - vaman, pashan, vanar (though since I know passingly from School the ramayana, i know what vanar are), khuldran, and so on and so forth, and Samit doesn't explain, not at first.

But then as the story opens up, you start to realise what they are. Vaman are the equivalent of dwarves, vanar are monkeys/apes, pashan seem to be troll types, asur are... I'm not sure what they are, really, other than that no one likes them and they do all the dirty shitty jobs that no one wants.

( Yet longer incoherent flailing review here! )

Just.

You like POC cultures and fantasy? Sick of male dominated Generic White Medieval Fantasy?

THIS WILL BLOW YOUR SOCKS.

Genre: SFF, fantasy, parody
Subject: parody, trope inversion, non-white fantasy
Author nationality/ethnicity: Indian

sumofparts

I finished my second set of 50, yay and started a new set. Below are some thoughts on the books.

Remainder of second set:
39. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
40. A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
41. Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice
42. Zone One by Colson Whitehead
43. The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd
44. The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
45. Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai
46. Snakes and Ladders by Gita Mehta
47. The End of East by Jen Sookfong Lee
48. Beijing Confidential by Jan Wong
49. Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre
50. Brick Lane by Monica Ali
New set:
1. Decoded by Jay-Z

( Cut for length )

snowynight

Title: 滅亡三部曲 Mie Man San Bu Ku Destruction trilogy
Author: 張草 Zhang Chao
Author Nationality and race: Chinese
Language: Chinese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Science fiction
Summary: In the future, The Earth Alliance sent a pure breed Chinese back to the past to study history, and thus started an epic journey that spanned history.
Review: Extensive world building, wonderful use of time travel. A science fiction classic.
Link: 北京滅亡, 諸神滅亡, 明日滅亡

inkstone

This is a debut young adult novel and is that rare breed of dystopian that's more action-driven in terms of the plot. Think more Hunger Games, less Delirium.

The basic set-up is that some catastrophe happened and in the aftermath, the western coast of the U.S. broke off and formed the Republic. The Republic is under the totalitarian rule of a dictator who's been in power for 44 years. The Republic is at constant war with the Colonies. I never quite figured out who the Colonies were -- I couldn't tell if they meant a different country (like Mexico or Canada) or if they meant the rest of what was once the United States. I'm thinking the latter but it's never explicitly spelled out although I could have missed it. There are also these rebels called Patriots, who believe the United States once existed. (In this reality, everyone thinks the United States is just a legend and never existed.)

The story is about the Republic prodigy, June Iparis. She scored a perfect 1500 on the test that essentially determines the rest of her life and is well on her way to having a distinguished career in the military. But when her brother, a military officer, dies in the line of duty, she graduates early and becomes the youngest detective agent ever. To test her, they send her after Day, the Republic's most infamous criminal, who's in desperate straits because his younger brother has been infected by the plague. (The plague is a highly mutable virus that sweeps through the slums on an annual basis.)

The book is pretty predictable. Though I can see why it'd be considered pretty original if the other books in its category are more introspective and emotionally driven like Delirium, Matched, and Wither. But despite the fact I could pretty much tell where we were going, I did enjoy reading it.

I wish we could see have seen more done with the genetic engineering being conducted by the Republic's regime. The way it's handled here is kind of throwaway but it really shouldn't be since it's the main reason why June and Day are on opposite sides of the law!

My other complaint has to do with the fact that, of course, it's the guy (Day) who's right about things and it's the girl (June) who needs to be enlightened in order to get onto the right path. It'd be nice if we could have that plot point gender-reversed once in a while. I'm failing to think of a YA book where it's the guy who's aligned with the sketchy, evil people and the girl who's just trying to do what's right.

On a side note, Day is biracial (Asian/white) and so is June. (Day thinks June is part Native -- which I assume means Native American and would support how her hair is constantly described in the book.) Their race has no bearing on the story but I thought I'd mention it.

dorothean

I read Ash when it came out, but was trying to prevent myself from buying books when Huntress came out, so it passed me by. Then I realized my library had it! So I re-read Ash (actually enjoyed it better the second time around) and then read Huntress. And halfway through, I ordered a copy of Huntress for myself, because I'll definitely want to read that again, too.

No-spoiler reviews on Goodreads: Ash and Huntress.

I really loved both of these, but at the same time noticed a lot of flaws. In Ash, it's mostly that the character Ash is rather stiff and remote, and her feelings about the King's Huntress are not as vivid as they might be. I think the technical problems of Huntress (which I described in the Goodreads review) come from the same source -- Lo is trying to evoke the feel of a fairy tale while writing a novel. She succeeds pretty well overall, but it's tricky because in novels, so much depends on learning deeply about the characters and their relationships, whereas those don't matter in fairy tales. Part of what makes a fairy tale what it is is that things happen just because that's how they happen. Filling in human motivations can make the story less of a fairy tale.

Mostly, though: I love how in Ash, Cinderella's fairy godmother becomes a dangerous temptation. And how in Huntress, dreaming you love someone can change your life.

snowynight

Book 7
Title: 蟲と眼球とテディベア| Bug, Eyeball, Teddybear
Author: 日日日
Author Nationality and race: Japanese
Language: Japanese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy
Summary: The ordinary life of a teacher and his student lover is abruptly interrupted by a girl who uses a spoon as a weapon. Then three of them are involved in an incident surrounding "The apple of God"
Review: As the beginning of a fantasy series, this novel captures my attention with its fast rhythm and intriguing mystery. I'll follow the series.
Link to Amazon.co.jp

Book 8
Title: ジョニー・ザ・ラビット|Johnny Love Rabbit
Author: 東山彰良
Author Nationality and race: Japanese
Language: Japanese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy Noir
Summary: "You should aim to be sahara if you are a flower; you should aim to be Johnny if you are a man."

　　“Love is playing Italian folk song while holding a gun."
　　"Love，the petrol to let me to be Johnny Rabbit，LOVE，my middle name that I 'll never regret.”

　　Go! Johnny! Go! Go!
　　What's love? What's pride? What's life?

Review:
Rabbit and hardboiled fiction seem to be two path that should never meet, but the author successfully creates Johnny Rabbit, who's a totally a hardboiled PI, a knight who walks on a mean street and a complete rabbit. It makes the story insightful. It has a bitter sense of humour, and a story that's among the good of noir.
Link to Amazon.co.jp

snowynight

Book 4
Title: 失落大陸|The Lost Continent| Si Luo Da Lu
Author: 多木木多|Duo Mu Mu Duo
Author Nationality and race: Chinese
Language: Chinese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy

( Scifi Post-colonial version of Robinson Crusoe )

Book 5
Title: 麒麟!Qi lin
Author: 桔子樹|Ji je Shu
Author Nationality and race: Chinese
Language: Chinese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Military

( Chiniese military fiction about men and mission )

Book 6
Title: 诺亚动物诊所病历记录簿（第一季）| Nuo Ya Dung Wu Zhen Suo Bing Li Ji Lu Bu (Di yi gui) | Noah Animal Clinic medical record
Author: live
Author Nationality and race: Chinese
Language: Chinese
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy

( An animal clinic for mythological creatures )

snowynight

Title: Ballad of a Shinigami
Author: K-Ske Hasegawa
Author Nationality and race: Japanese
Original language: Japanese
Publish place: Japan
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy

Amazon summary:Momo is a shinigami (a Grim Reaper), the messenger of death. Unlike the scary dark cloaked man holding a sickle, she is draped in gleaming white--her gown, sickle, hair and all. Accompanied by a black cat named Daniel, Momo takes up a mission to convey human souls to the Great Beyond. She appears before dying people and relieves them from their mortal fears, but she also comforts those who suffer the anguish of losing loved ones in tragedies.

Review: The summary doesn't do the book justice It's more a series of stories linked together by Momo the shinigami. It sometimes deals with heavy subject such as family abuse but the tone's never overly maudlin. Recommended.

Link to the book on Amazon:

inkstone

This is the fourth novel in Michelle Sagara's (writing under the Michelle West name) House War series, which in turn is part of her larger traditional fantasy milieu about the continuing struggle against the impending arrival of the Lord of Hell. While the previous three novels in this particular series filled in the gaps of Jewel's background and past, this book is set in the present timeline.

While I liked the previous three books well enough -- especially the first one though not so much the third -- this book reminds me of why I love Michelle West's brand of epic fantasy. Unlike the previous three books, you don't know what's going to happen so there's a lot more dramatic tension which suits her narrative style. You can see the groundwork being laid down for the end of the world, although we're a few books away from that yet.

In this book, Jewel (finally) comes into her own as her house prepares the funeral rites for their fallen lord, The Terafin. There's the usual demonic interference, magical battles and since it's Jewel, we learn more about the kind of powers the seerborn of old used to have. We also learn a little more about Haval's background -- or rather, a lot more -- and it confirms why he's so good at he does. (And I'm not talking about the dressmaking.) The talking cats make a return and while I can understand why some people would find them twee, they cracked me up and lighten what would otherwise be such a solemn, griefstricken book. They acted so much like cats: "I'm bored. Entertain me!!"

As a reader who was a little disappointed by the last book in this series, this one really re-energized my interest again so I'm really excited to see what happens next. Unfortunately, the next installment is not due out for another year. Le sigh.

On the downside, it would be nice if the cover artist would try to take into consideration that Jewel is biracial in this world's context and unless I've been reading the books wrong all these years, actually has darker skin than that.

[Mods: As you can see, I tried to tag this post but I must not be awake yet this morning because I'm not entirely confident I did it correctly despite having read the FAQ. D:]

snowynight

Title: Ghost Hunt vol. 1
Author: Fuyumi Ono
Author Nationality and race: Japanese
Original language: Japanese
Publish place: Japan
Genre: Fiction
Length: novel
Subject: Fantasy

Amazon summary: Meet the members of the Shibuya Psychic Research Centre - an agency specialising in the investigation of paranormal activity...

Review: The beginning of the book is a bit slow, as it's mostly set up, but when I continue I'm hooked by the banter, the comedy and the solid mystery. I think I'll continue reading the series.

Link to Amazon

sumofparts.livejournal.com

Haven't posted in a while. Here's a series of mini-reviews with some spoilers. Also, some of the books contain potentially triggering content.

6. Un-Nappily in Love by Trisha R. Thomas
7. Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
8. Tracks by Louise Erdrich
9. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
10. Umbrella by Taro Yashima
11. Little Joy by Ruowen Wang
12. Why War is Never a Good Idea by Alice Walker
13. Erika-san by Allen Say
14. Dahanu Road by Anosh Irani
15. What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
16. The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
17. In the Company of Ogres by A. Lee Martinez
18. Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
19. Divine Misfortune by A. Lee Martinez
20. Monster by A. Lee Martinez
21. Certainty by Madeleine Thien
22. So Long Been Dreaming edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan
23. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo
24. Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez
25. A Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez
26. A Person of Interest by Susan Choi
27. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead

Mention (not counted)
Josias, Hold the Book by Jennifer Riesmeyer Elvgren (white); illustrated by Nicole Tadgell (person of colour)

( Read more... )

ms-mmelissa.livejournal.com

The Lifecycle of Software Objects may be a novella, but its story stretches out over years, with Chiang providing a compelling narrative which leads us through the early years in the life of several digients, i.e. computer software avatars imbued with artificial intelligence. The story begins with their creation and development as overseen by two people who work at Blue Gamma, the company that creates them: Ana and Derek. Both are impressed with the technology and quickly become attached to the childish avatars. While the digients are a success, their popularity is short-lived. Being first generation digients they quickly become unpopular and out-moded. While most are quick to abandon their digients, Ana and Derek adopt some and develop a child-parent bond with these cyber creatures, eventually proving they will do almost anything to ensure their safety even as the online world limits their choices.

There is a curious lack of sensory detail in the book. This has been a frustrating feature of Chiang's previous work, but the absence is particularly felt here, when the differences between the flatness of the online world and the richness of the real world is made so apparent. In Chiang's world the digients are able to transcend the online world by downloading their software into a robot body which allows them to interact with their trainers in a new way. Ana, training her future digient adoptee, is hugged by him in his robot form, an obviously emotional moment. Later the narrator notes that Not surprisingly, the sensor pads in the robot's fingers are the first thing that needs replacement. In the world of the novella, the avatars become enchanted by the real world, craving time in the robot suit so that they can feel. Unfortunately, Chiang's world is devoid of any richness in detail which leaves an uncomfortable void running through the novella. There are also some truly terrible transitions. The story flips through the years at a brisk pace, but Chiang often chooses to convey this with the phrase A year passed which seems clumsy the first time it is used and downright annoying by the sixth or seventh time.

What Chiang does excellently though is track the decline and fall of the digients. There is an undercurrent of sweetness and nostalgia running through the book. The more time and energy their care-givers give to the digients and the more self-aware and intelligent they become, the better they are able to realize that software incompatibilities mean that their world is rapidly shrinking. The ugly choices that Ana and Derek consider in order to give them a full "life" are devastating and would have seemed even more so if only Chiang had spent a little more time on the emotional and a little less of the scientific.