The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Ken Liu
Completed 7/25/2024, Reviewed 7/25/2024
4 stars

My introduction to Ken Liu was in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2013.  It featured the title story from this collection.  I absolutely loved it then and I loved it reading it again for this online book club selection.  In fact, I loved almost all the stories in this collection.  A few were boring, but still had beautiful prose.  The prose was a feature in every story.  It set the mood and enhanced the world-building.  Almost all the stories featured Asian characters struggling with identity.  Several of them were indictments of the treatment of the Chinese people by other peoples and countries.    In my usual manner with collections, I’ll mention a few of the stories here that I thought stood out from the others.

The Paper Menagerie was my favorite.  It’s so poignant.  It shows how a kid who is different, in this case, Chinese, tries to eschew everything about himself that is different in an effort to be like everyone else. This includes his mother, who used to make magical origami animals for him when he was very young.

The Literomancer – the daughter of an American operative in Taiwan befriends an old man and his sort of grandson.  The old man tells the future by analyzing the pictures of Chinese words.  The girl unknowingly tells her father about something the old man says which is sympathetic to the Communists which gets him in trouble. This one was very hard to read, but one of the indicting stories.

All the Flavors – Mixing history with myth, this story tells about the Chinese immigrants from the railroad days who settled in Idaho Territory.  Some of the whites are welcoming, most are not. However, one girl befriends several of them and begins to learn about their culture through stories and food.  

The stories in general are a little fantasy-ish or a little sci fi-ish, just enough to give them some flavor so that it’s not like a history lesson, but many of the stories are.  They give voices to a people who have been shut down for a long time.  It’s like Liu said, “I got a few awards for some of my stories.  Well here they are, plus a bunch that tell some uncomfortable truths about the recent history of the Chinese people.”  They may be uncomfortable, a few downright horrifying, but they are very well written and draw into the way they are told.

I give this book four stars out of five.  I didn’t care for the first and the last stories.  The first was hard to follow and the last was way too long.  I didn’t like the conceit of the last: a man figures out time travel and finds out the truth about Japanese torture of Chinese people pre WWII.   The story is told in a documentary format, which felt repetitive.  One of the stories completely eluded me.  Except for these three, the collection is marvelous.

Some Desperate Glory

Emily Tesh
Completed 7/14/2024, Reviewed 7/15/2024
5 stars

I hadn’t realized I had read this author before until I read the pages at the end of the book.  She previously wrote Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country, award winning novellas I loved.  Now she is nominated for several awards, including the 2024 Hugo for this her first novel, and I loved it.  It’s a queer space opera with an unreliable, unlikable main character.  It plays with parallel universes and trying to make the future turn out the way you want it to.  At times it was a little tough to follow the universe jumping, but once I got used to it, it was breathtaking.  The prose is as intense as the main character.  Even though it took me a week to read this, I read the majority of it on just a few nights, going to bed early on the others to catch up from reading so late LOL.  

Kyr, as in Valkyr, is a young warrior woman on Gaea, the last outpost of rebellious humans, a space station built from several war vessels on a planetoid.  She is ready to go claim vengeance on the aliens who destroyed the Earth.  When she doesn’t get the appointment she was expecting, she goes to look for her twin brother who supposedly betrayed the rebels.  Her journey takes her to a planet where a large group of humans live in peace with each other and the aliens.  There she learns the truth about her brother, Gaea, and the aliens.

Kyr is quite the intense character.  She, like almost everyone else on Gaea, lives for revenge on the aliens for destroying Earth.  She is the top female cadet, the darling of Gaea’s commander, her Uncle Jole.  He’s not really her uncle, but he adopted her and her twin brother Magnus after their mother died and their older sister betrayed Gaea.  Despite all the accolades, her “sisters” from the same age group don’t like her.  But she ignores that, living for the glory of humanity.  Even when she goes searching for Magnus, she is still intense, despite all the revelations she encounters.

The other characters are quite believable as well.  They are all pretty intense; that is how they are raised.  I liked that there were multiple queer characters, but no real romance going on.  Romance is basically eschewed for the greater glory of humanity.  And they weren’t all good.  Magnus’ seditious gay friend is bitchy and as unlikable as Kyr initially is.  Ironically, the only character in the first half or so of the book who acts human is an alien.  

The tough part about this book is that there are a lot of trigger topics.  They include, suicide, rape, forced birth, and almost every ism and phobia you can think of.  The society on Gaea exists as a militaristic installation with the sole purpose of the remnants of humanity taking revenge on the aliens.  Swept aside are things that make us human.  This is all represented in the character of Kyr.  Fortunately, she does go on a journey of revelation and change.  But it takes time for her to get there, and that may be problematic for some readers.  

I give this book five stars out of five.  I found it intense.  Kyr has completely bought into the cruel dystopia she was raised in.  When she does begin to transform, it is not sudden, and she learns the hard way what her belief system has done to those around her.  Eventually, you do come to like her, but just like for Kyr, the journey for the reader is not easy.  

Witch King

Martha Wells
Completed 7/7/2024, Reviewed 7/7/2024
3 stars

This book wasn’t my cup of tea.  It was told in two timelines, and despite being clearly delineated by chapter titles, I found it confusing.  I had trouble getting into the initial timeline, the “present,” and when the “past” began, I lost track of the objective of the present.  Then I lost track of the objective of the past.  When it all came together in the end, I was non-plussed.  I have a mixed history with Wells.  I mostly enjoyed her Murderbot series, culminating in the award-winning Network Effect (although several more Murderbot books have been released since).  I didn’t care for her fantasy novel we read for book club, The Cloud Roads.  But this was nominated for several awards, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.   It won the 2024 Locus Award for Fantasy and was nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards.  It lost the Nebula; the Hugo will be announced in August.  

The book opens with Kai being revived from being dead for a year, his consciousness being suspended while his body lay trapped in an elaborate water tomb.  He awakens and escapes, capturing a new body from a group of marauders at his tomb.  He also finds and rescues Ziede, a witch who was one of his companions and was also entombed nearby.  Kai himself is a demon with a human body and is known as the Witch King.  He takes the gender of the body he inhabits.  The two begin a quest to find out who was responsible for their situation.  They also search for Ziede’s wife Tahren and Tahren’s brother Dahin.  The book then goes back to explain how Kai was captured when the Hierarchs took over, was rescued, and then with Ziede, Tahren, Dahin, and others try to overthrow the Hierarchs.  

Despite never feeling like I got into the book, I did like Kai’s powers as a demon as well as the magic of the others in the story.  There were magical people as well as mortals.  And the magic system seemed different depending on whether you were a demon, a witch, a Blessed Immortal, or a Hierarch.  It was always an interesting scene when they were using their powers for battle.  

I didn’t care for the world building.  I never quite got the scenario of Kai, Ziede, and their cohorts riding on a boat, and then later a raft through rivers, canals, and bays.  Water played a huge part in the story, but I had a tough time understanding how it all was laid out.  I thought the prose, while extensive, focused on the wrong things at crucial times, like clothing.  Or maybe I just was not getting it as I was reading it.

I give this book a tentative three stars out of five.  A part of me recognizes that a lot of effort went into organizing and executing the production of this novel, keeping the past and the present exciting and the plots moving forward.  I just didn’t get into it enough right from the beginning to understand, appreciate, and care about what was going on.  

The Thick and the Lean

Chana Porter
Completed 6/25/2024, Reviewed 6/25/2024
5 stars

This is the last remaining book nominated for a 2024 Speculative Fiction Lammy.  The winner was I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself.  I think it deserved to win.  However, this would have been a very strong runner up.  I was floored by the power of this novel.  It’s about a dystopian planet with capitalism run amok, where fat shaming has become engrained in the government and religion.  Corporations and ministers convince people that to eat is to sin.  The poor live on the ground, vulnerable to the rising seas while the super-rich live in towers.  At first, I was rather put off by the book, but after about one hundred pages, I had bought into the premise.  I was hooked.  

There are two main characters told in alternating chapters.  Beatrice is a teen living in a corporate owned community called Seagate.  Everyone there has bought into the societal and religious doctrine to eat as little as possible, as chewing, digesting, and defecating has become taboo, worthy only of animals.  Beatrice believes in the doctrine, but also believes food can taste good.  She wants to be a chef, but of course will have to leave home to live that dream.

Reiko has graduated high school with a scholarship to an expensive technical university where she can develop her amazing programming skills and have a chance at a good job.  She is of the lower class, the indigenous people who don’t cover their mouths when chewing and don’t starve themselves on nutrition pills, but are also not considered citizens of their own land.  When her funding is cut, she takes to a life of hi tech grifting to make her way to the top of society.

I think my initial hesitation with the book was that I didn’t like the circumstances of the main characters.  It was too bleak.  Sometimes a good book is too bleak to appreciate because you don’t want to enter that world.  However, I soon found myself very much inside Beatrice and Reiko’s heads.  They are both wonderful characters with fascinating arcs.  They start as naïve teens but grow into self-empowered women.  Neither is perfect, but they are both strong.  I enjoyed reading about them even when they were making bad decisions.  

One interesting thing about this society that Porter created is that the substitute for eating is sex.  Besides controlling hunger, society, particularly religion, has normalized sexual promiscuity as a form of worship.  Eventually, the reader realizes is that it has become the substitute for eating.  The book is not one big orgy, but sex plays a major role in how people interact with each other.  For people who are monogamous, it is almost as culturally difficult as wanting to chew food.  

The world building of this book is tremendous.  I was amazed at the imagination that went into extrapolating fat-shaming into a cultural, religious, and corporate norm.  When we finally get to parts where food is savored by the eaters, it is a splendid visceral experience.  

I give this book five stars out of five.  Reading it was profound, with the experiences of both Beatrice and Reiko, regarding food, sex, and simple control over their own bodies.  It’s a dark book and may be too much of a downer for some.  But I found it to be a worthwhile experience, provoking my own hangups around food and sex.  It’s well written and beautifully imagined.  Porter hasn’t written a lot yet, but I would definitely be open to more of her work in the future.

Foundryside

Robert Jackson Bennett
Completed 6/20/2024, Reviewed 6/21/2024
4 stars

I was surprised by how much I liked this book.  I hadn’t read Bennett since City of Stairs in 2018 and loved that book.  However, I didn’t remember I had even read it until a friend found it in my blog and pointed it out to me.  It was one of those really good books that just kind of slips out of mind considering the number of books I read a year.  I’m hoping this one sticks in my head a little better.  It’s a book club read and the first in a trilogy.  It features a kind of industrialized magic in a place so entrenched in capitalism, government no longer exists and the ruling merchant houses abuse their power over the people.  I found it a gripping statement on late-stage capitalism and the pursuit of the ultimate weapon to wipe out all the competition and remake the world.  This book was nominated for a 2019 British Fantasy Award and a 2023 Best Series Hugo.

Sancia is an orphaned thief.  She’s so good, she scores a lucrative deal to steal a powerful magical artifact from one of the merchant houses.  Curiosity gets the best of her and she opens the plain box holding it.  She finds an ornate key.  When she touches it, it speaks to her.  After forming a strange bond with it, she does not hand it over to her employer and she finds herself at the center of a grand chase by unknown assailants.  Soon, she is in race to keep the key out of the hands of those who would use it to remake the world.

The book begins a little mundanely.  It feels like standard fantasy fare with a thief and a treasure.  It’s not until the key begins communicating with Sancia that the feel of the book takes a turn and it becomes completely engrossing.  I found myself wanting to understand Sancia and Clef, the key, about her horrific past, and what that means for her relationship with the Clef.  Then all the intrigue between the merchant houses and the system of magic all make sense and gives everyone their motivation.  

The little group of people Sancia ends up working with consists of dicey characters.  She has no reason to trust them except for the fact that there is no one else to trust.  They are all generally likable, although they are all very flawed.  The one character who seemed the most trustworthy was Berenice, with whom, Sancia has a little spark of a burgeoning romance.  However, not much happens in this book.  I assume their relationship takes off further in the series.  Her two other companions, Gregor and Orso, I didn’t trust until the end of the book. 

The book is very well written, with multi-dimensional characters and an unbelievably complex magic system and society.  I was constantly amazed by unfolding description of the society, including its founding by a king who tried to tap into the power of the gods, that is, the making of everything.  It kept me intrigued right up to the end, which of course leaves you hanging and wanting more.  I don’t know if I’ll actually follow through on this trilogy, but I wouldn’t be averse to it.

I give this book four stars out of five.  It’s exciting, fast paced, and one of the best world-building books I’ve read in a while.  It felt very original and well thought out.  I liked the main characters and eventually loved Sancia and was pained by her backstory.  And I was pleasantly surprised by the little romance between her and Berenice.  But the star of the book is Clef, the key.  He ties everything together and makes what could have been just another thief fantasy something extraordinary.

The Road to Roswell

Connie Willis
Completed 6/7/2024, Reviewed 6/7/2024
2 stars

I was sadly disappointed with this novel.  It’s supposed to be fun fluff.  For the most part, it was cute.  Unfortunately, it suffered from the same tired formula Willis has used in most of her books.  People don’t listen to the protagonist, they talk over him/her, the protagonist gets into some kind of trouble, someone saves them.  My disappointment was compounded by a tediously trite ending.  I’ve really liked some of Willis’ other books, including Blackout and Passage.  While they had the Willis formula, the circumstances and specifics were enough to make them terrific books.  Roswell simply didn’t have enough interesting circumstances or specifics, despite it being about UFOs and aliens.  The one thing it had going for it: it was a very fast read. 

Francie goes to Roswell to be the maid of honor at her college roommate’s wedding.  Shortly after she arrives, she’s kidnapped by an alien and forced to drive it into the New Mexico desert to some unknown destination.  Along the way, they pick up others:  Wade, an alien abduction insurance salesman; a sweet little old lady casino aficionado; a UFO conspiracy theorist; and a western movies fan in an RV.  But there’s more to these characters than meets the eye.  Everyone is hiding secrets.  As they travel together, they figure out how to communicate with the alien and Francie and Wade figure out that it needs their help to find another alien out in the desert, and it’s of utmost importance.  

As far as characters go, I actually liked them.  I thought they were a well-rounded collection of pushy people.  You may ask about Francie, the protagonist.  Was she pushy?  Actually, she had a pretty strong self-editing brain.  She didn’t need the people around her to prevent her from talking.  She prevented herself just as much.  But she was nice.  Wade clearly has massive secrets.  The hints in the text are pretty obvious, but I kind of liked him anyway.  And just when the jokes seemed to run out with a character, Willis introduces a new one.  

I’m not sure whether I liked the alien, who Wade and Francie nicknamed Indy because of the way he whipped around his tentacles.  Indy reminded me a lot of the character named Cheese from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.  He’s comical, but if used too much, is just plain annoying.  I did like the process of Indy learning to “speak” in English, learning jargon from all the Westerns’ DVDs on the RV.  However, Indy’s mode of communication, letters or characters scrolling across their tentacles, was bizarre and a little tough to accept.  I like the concept of imagining different communication modalities, but couldn’t totally buy into this one.  

I know quite a few people who really liked this book.  I give it two stars out of five.  It would have been three stars, but the end killed it for me.  It was just too trite and formulaic.  If I’m going to read any more Willis, I think I’m going to stick with rereading the Oxford Time Travel series.  I’d recommend them to people new to the author.  To Say Nothing of the Dog particularly is much better at being a fun book than this one was.  

The Archive Undying

Emma Mieko Candon
DNF 6/2/2024, Reviewed 6/2/2024
1 star

This is the first book I did not finish (DNF) in a very long time.  I found it simply unreadable.  I got 150 pages in, about a third of the way through the book, and had to put it down.  I had no idea what was going on.  I’m pretty sure the author did, but I did not.  I found a review by one of my favorite authors these days, Rebecca Roanhorse.  In it, she articulated every issue I had with the book, and then some.  I hope I don’t repeat what she said here, but my main issues overlap with what she wrote.  For some inexplicable reason, this book was nominated for a 2024 Lambda Literary Award.  

From what I could tell, the plot went something like this.  The world was controlled by AI’s.  They collapsed or self-destructed and destroyed their central cities and killed many people in the process.  There are some people who still can communicate with the AI’s.  They are called relics.  The main character Sunai is a relic.  Sunai may also be a god, or maybe just an eternal.  I wasn’t clear on that.  But he heals very quickly, maybe even gets resurrected.  Despite this, he has a bum ankle.  Sunai’s been squandering his life with booze and anonymous sex.  After one such hook-up, he finds himself on a rig and the guy he had sex with is now his boss, Veyadi.  Adi is a doctor, I think, and the mission of this ship is to find the remains of an AI, or its city and temples, or something like that.  Then they come back and someone asks Sunai to go on another mission.  He brings Adi along even though Adi is disgraced or wanted by the Harbor.  I wasn’t clear on that either.  After a while on this mission, I gave up.  

The most confusing thing was that Candon took everyday words and changed their meanings:  Archive, relic, Harbor, ENGINE (yes, in caps), etc.  Also, the names of the AI’s and the ships were all very similar.  I think there were giant robots that wandered the countryside causing mayhem and tried to destroy the rigs Sunai and Veyadi were on.  And rigs were some kind of ships that floated like boats but also could traverse land.  I’m not sure if they could fly as well.  Lastly, the point of view changed occasionally.  The majority was general third person omniscient.  Other times, there was something in italics that I think was first person.  And there was second person narrative as well.  I didn’t know who was narrating the first and second person POVs.  From reading other reviews, the POV changed more frequently as the you got farther into the book and it got even more confusing.  

Character-wise, I think I liked Sunai.  He was a bad boy.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out what he was doing and the decisions he was making.  Apparently, he made a lot of readers mad doing a lot of terrible things.  I hadn’t gotten to that part before I put the book down.  I couldn’t figure out Veyadi at all, other than it seemed he was falling for Sunai.  

I think the prose was good in spots.  Candon chose lots of pretty words and made pretty sentences.  However, the world-building was as confusing as the plot and characters.  Occasionally, I would find myself understanding a page or two and think I was finally catching on.  Then there’d be a turn of events, or dialogue between characters that would lose me again.  

I give this book one star out of five.  It reminded me of Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning, which I also thought was unreadable.  After reading other online reviews from readers, it was clear that many people did not understand the book.  Still, some of those people loved the experience.  On the Worlds Without End site, only four people had read it so far, giving it 2, 3, 4, and 5 stars, respectively.  I’m the fifth reviewer and I give it one star, amusingly rounding out the ratings.