Translation State

Ann Leckie
Completed 9/10/2024, Reviewed 9/11/2024
4 stars

This book wasn’t as bad as it started out to be.  Honestly, I was predisposed to not liking this book.  I really disliked Ancillary Justice and hadn’t read anything else by Leckie since.  This book started out tough, with three points of view alternating every three chapters.  It was hard keeping up with who was who and what the point of their existences were.  I kept one foot out of the water as I was expecting this supposedly standalone book to require a lot of background from the original trilogy.  To my surprise It came together after about a hundred pages or so.  And by the end, I actually cared what would happen to the main characters.  This book was nominated for the 2023 Nebula and the 2024 Hugo and Locus SF Awards.  I dare say that maybe it deserved these noms.  

The book begins with Enae, whose grandmaman has just died.  Instead of money or property She lives hir the task to find fugitive whose been missing for over 200 years.  When she arrives at her destination, she meets Reet, a liaison/body guard with his own mystery.  He’s searching for birth parents to explain a genetic anomaly.  Finally, there’s Qven, a Presger translator.  As a translator, they will merge with a human to create a link between the humans and the very dangerous Presgers, a relationship defined by an all encompassing but fragile treaty.  These three come together in their quests and to find their true selves while keeping the treaty from exploding into all out war.

All three characters are pretty interesting.  While I didn’t like any of them in the beginning, they each grew on me.  But the real star of this story is Qven.  They want to rebel against the expectations their society has for them.  As they get to know Enae and Reet, they desire to be human, not the cannibalistic, merging creature that’s expected of them.  As Qven navigates the journey to declare themselves human, they have a lot of awkward, dare say humorous, moments.  But it is also very serious as the integrity of the treaty must hold.

In the over ten years since the first novel, the multi-gendered characters with their myriad of pronouns has become a lot less shocking.  In fact, I took it in stride and was not flustered at all by the relationships that developed between the all the non-binary genders.  I was able to focus more on the story, which initially was difficult to keep up with.  It was not easy reading about Qven before they meet Reet.  The otherness of his character was an irritating unanswered question.  But stick with it, as it comes together eventually.

I give this book four stars.  I was going to give it three, but it really is pretty well done how Qven, Enae, and Reet come together and interact.  I definitely changed my mind about Leckie, although I don’t think I’ll go back and read the other two of the initial trilogy.  Suffice it to say that this book is very good and I am now interested in reading her foray into fantasy, The Raven Tower, which I picked up on sale several years ago.  

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon

Wole Talabi
Completed 8/31/2024, Reviewed 9/1/2024
4 stars

This was an interesting book.  It is based in Nigerian mythology as well as a sprinkling of other myths and religions.  The story is basically a heist tale, but with lots of world building around the mythology.  It made for generally fun book, although, the jumping around of the timelines was a little confusing.  And, as usual, it is always fun to get out of Euro-based fantasy.  Overall, I really liked the book.  It was nominated for 2023 Nebula and British Science Fiction Awards and won the Nommo Award, which is for African Science Fiction and Fantasy.  

The story is about Shigidi, a nightmare orisha who works for the Orisha Spirit company.  He meets a succubus named Nneoma on one particular assignment.  She convinces him to leave the company and join her in eating souls outside of its soul feed distribution.    However, the elder gods will have none of that and pursue the two renegades.  Then, a high god asks the two of them to steal a Nigerian artifact from the British Museum, via both the natural world and the spirit world. 

The plot is pretty simple.  What makes the book complex and interesting is becoming familiar with the Orisha pantheon.  Some of the gods overlapped form me.  Many of them began with the letter O.  But their interactions with the main characters were fascinating.  The book also jumps around in its timeline.  From the activities of the heist, to the making of Shigidi, to the development of the relationship between he and Nneoma, and even a meeting between Alastair Crowley and Nneoma back at the turn of the 20th century.  It’s a little confusing at times, but all works together to get you to understand the reason for the heist and what transpires afterwards.  

I really liked Shigidi, for the most part.  I wasn’t always immersed in his character, empathizing with his situation.  I think part of it was the jumping around of the timeline.  The POV also changes a lot, between him and Nneoma, as well as the high god who runs a board meeting of the Orisha company.  But overall, I found him fascinating, especially when Nneoma teaches him to manipulate the clay from which he’s made.  I also like Nneoma.  Despite the misogynistic connotations of the succubus motif, she was a very well-developed character that had purpose and self-respect.  

I can see why this book was nominated for awards.  The prose was terrific and the world building phenomenal for a mythology that’s not very well known.  I give this book four stars out of five.  I also give props to the author for being able to describe a massively supernatural ending well enough that I followed the wonder of the scene easily despite the noise of reading in airports and on airplanes.  It kept me engaged and intrigued.