Reviews: Sherwood Smith, James K. Decker, Ada Palmer, Cecilia Tan, M.R. Carey
Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith
I spent 85% percent of the book convinced the heroine was asexual, and the other 15% going "Okay... but what if she's asexual?"
This is also an annoying book because the heroine's actions can mostly be described as "run away!" motivated by "this confuses/frightens me, and I don't understand it." If she had had one decent conversation in the first five chapters, she probably could have avoided everything else in the book.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sun, 04 Sep 2016.
Fantastic Erotica: The Best of Circlet Press 2008-2012, by Cecilia Tan
This is an incredibly mixed bag. Categories I would put the stories into:
- Spec-fic with sex as a central part of the plot.
- Porn in a spec-fic universe.
- Speculative fiction around sex/erotica.
- I needed to come up with a scenario to justify my kink and I accidentally three cultures and a universe.
- I accidentally gave my porn OCs way too much backstory.
- I couldn't sell this porn but these guys were buying spec-fic, so I put a spec-fic hat on it.
- My speculative fiction chars are adults with sex lives.
These may not be well delineated and overlap somewhat, but some stories are very obviously one thing and not the others..
Some standouts:
Ink, by Bernie Mojzes: Noir Detective Eldritch Horror tentacle sex. You should already know if this is what you want.
The Dancer's War, by N. K. Jemisin: a sexy dance-off is a very poor description of this, but I'm not sure how else to do it. If you are familiar with Jemisin, you know that the world-building is dense and the characters are vivid.
A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment, by Elizabeth Reeve: If you have ever wanted to see Mary Bennet pursue something she could be good at, and then have sex with let's call him Robin Goodfellow, this is for you. If you haven't, let me add as enticement that reference is made to Mary's 'venerable monosyllable.' I mean, I know Elizabeth Reeve, and I'm biased, but this is really a great story that takes joy in both Austen's style and Mary's liberation.
Ota Discovers Fire, by Vinnie Tesla: A sort of fantasy twist on 'repressed earth-man discovers sexually voracious alien girl.' It's a lot of fun, because the repressed 'civilized' man is a bit of an unreliable, or at least un-observant, narrator, and it's from his point of view.
In a slightly more "I'm not sure what I just read" category, Sunny Moraine, Francis Selkirk, Elizabeth Schechter, Sacchi Green, Nobilis Reed, and David Sklar wrote stories that were definitely spec-fic. Their porniness varied, but I'm sure tastes will differ.
Some entries, however, struck me as pretty unimaginative, with nothing fantastic except a few trappings, and did the collection a disservice by their inclusion. Enslaved is straight up "unwillingly(?) topped by my sexy mistress" in which someone is wearing a leather bodice. Everything proceeds as you would imagine. Fences seems to be a story about seducing one's straight neighbour by gardening in short-shorts, with the element of the fantastic being that a superflu has handily disposed of Short-shorts' and Neighbour's respective spouses. (Actually, it is possible there is a metaphor for living with HIV that I am missing? I don't think so, though.)
Despite a few disappointing offerings, at $1.99 it was entirely worth it.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sun, 04 Sep 2016.
The Burn Zone (Haan, #1), by James K. Decker
Imma be real: the only reason I read this book was because the blurb made it sound like the author had written a story I've been half-assedly plotting out to myself.
On further investigation, no, not really, or at least, certainly not the way I wanted to write it.
So, creepy dystopian future, weird brood parasite aliens, gross government, that at the last minute takes a left turn into [spoilers removed]
I had no strong feelings about the book itself. I almost didn't finish it, and only did because I wanted to figure out who was beaming hallucinations into the protagonist's head. That part was very off-handedly explained in the last chapter.
The one thing it did that was great/terrible and I haven't seen before, was that it had the ads of the future served to you by an AI that tries to neg you into buying their product. LBR, someone's trying to script this already.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
The difficulty in discussing a very original book is that that the vocabulary to describe it is missing. I spent a lot of the time I was reading this trying to figure out who to compare it to. In my updates, you'll see a couple of stabs at it, but I'm going with:
Iain M. Banks and Gene Wolfe and Maybe Jo Walton write the Foundation Trilogy. But with pinch of The Vampire Lestat.
This doesn't really give you a solid idea what it's like, but it's about as clear as I can get.
This book was not, quite, as they say on the internet, a wild ride from start to finish, but I never managed to know what to expect from it. It kept on becoming something else as I read it.
I also do not know if I enjoyed it, which is a very strange thing not to know about a book you have read. For one thing, this book's interest in Voltaire outstripped mine right out of the gate, as did its interest in the approximately thirty-eight other enlightenment thinkers who were regularly made reference to. The book also, I think, is quite uninterested in giving you characters to like; almost all the characters eventually reveal themselves to have ugly flaws.
There is a twist at the half-way point that I feel might be quite upsetting to some people, and I think the book is committed to it, rather than doing it for shock-value, so I am trying to preserve the surprise, but [triggers: rape/torture] [spoilers removed]
The thing I came closest to enjoying was the world-building, but even that was a wild ride. I began thinking I was exploring a utopia, quickly became mired in petty and comprehensive politics, and then plunged into the realization that no one in this world is suited to raise children.
Then the story ends as the first half of a duology, leaving me confused and disoriented. Okay!
Recommended if Iain M. Banks or Gene Wolfe are your idea of a good time, or if you've ever said to yourself, "I would like this SF more if it were 20% enlightenment philosophers by weight."
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey
This is a compulsively readable book you should not attempt if you are sensitive to animal/child harm, abuse toward children, genocide, or the end of human life on earth.
Um.
I liked that the book went there, but if you're not gonna like it, fail out early because it gets grimmer.
So the relationship that pulls you into this book is Melanie's crush on her teacher, Ms. Justineau. Melanie is quite young, and the crush is chaste, but she's carrying a torch the size of the Chicago fire of 1871. Unfortunately for Melanie, Ms Justineau, and all other humans, this takes place against the backdrop of the research centre at the end of the world, where she is a subject.
Over the course of the book Melanie learns why she is a research subject, what there is to be learned from her, and how far she will go for Ms. Justineau.
I loved this book, but oh my god. Do not go in if you're gonna find it upsetting. Ask me if you need to know more.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
This post also on dreamwidth (
comments)
I spent 85% percent of the book convinced the heroine was asexual, and the other 15% going "Okay... but what if she's asexual?"
This is also an annoying book because the heroine's actions can mostly be described as "run away!" motivated by "this confuses/frightens me, and I don't understand it." If she had had one decent conversation in the first five chapters, she probably could have avoided everything else in the book.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sun, 04 Sep 2016.
Fantastic Erotica: The Best of Circlet Press 2008-2012, by Cecilia Tan
This is an incredibly mixed bag. Categories I would put the stories into:
- Spec-fic with sex as a central part of the plot.
- Porn in a spec-fic universe.
- Speculative fiction around sex/erotica.
- I needed to come up with a scenario to justify my kink and I accidentally three cultures and a universe.
- I accidentally gave my porn OCs way too much backstory.
- I couldn't sell this porn but these guys were buying spec-fic, so I put a spec-fic hat on it.
- My speculative fiction chars are adults with sex lives.
These may not be well delineated and overlap somewhat, but some stories are very obviously one thing and not the others..
Some standouts:
Ink, by Bernie Mojzes: Noir Detective Eldritch Horror tentacle sex. You should already know if this is what you want.
The Dancer's War, by N. K. Jemisin: a sexy dance-off is a very poor description of this, but I'm not sure how else to do it. If you are familiar with Jemisin, you know that the world-building is dense and the characters are vivid.
A Woman of Uncommon Accomplishment, by Elizabeth Reeve: If you have ever wanted to see Mary Bennet pursue something she could be good at, and then have sex with let's call him Robin Goodfellow, this is for you. If you haven't, let me add as enticement that reference is made to Mary's 'venerable monosyllable.' I mean, I know Elizabeth Reeve, and I'm biased, but this is really a great story that takes joy in both Austen's style and Mary's liberation.
Ota Discovers Fire, by Vinnie Tesla: A sort of fantasy twist on 'repressed earth-man discovers sexually voracious alien girl.' It's a lot of fun, because the repressed 'civilized' man is a bit of an unreliable, or at least un-observant, narrator, and it's from his point of view.
In a slightly more "I'm not sure what I just read" category, Sunny Moraine, Francis Selkirk, Elizabeth Schechter, Sacchi Green, Nobilis Reed, and David Sklar wrote stories that were definitely spec-fic. Their porniness varied, but I'm sure tastes will differ.
Some entries, however, struck me as pretty unimaginative, with nothing fantastic except a few trappings, and did the collection a disservice by their inclusion. Enslaved is straight up "unwillingly(?) topped by my sexy mistress" in which someone is wearing a leather bodice. Everything proceeds as you would imagine. Fences seems to be a story about seducing one's straight neighbour by gardening in short-shorts, with the element of the fantastic being that a superflu has handily disposed of Short-shorts' and Neighbour's respective spouses. (Actually, it is possible there is a metaphor for living with HIV that I am missing? I don't think so, though.)
Despite a few disappointing offerings, at $1.99 it was entirely worth it.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sun, 04 Sep 2016.
The Burn Zone (Haan, #1), by James K. Decker
Imma be real: the only reason I read this book was because the blurb made it sound like the author had written a story I've been half-assedly plotting out to myself.
On further investigation, no, not really, or at least, certainly not the way I wanted to write it.
So, creepy dystopian future, weird brood parasite aliens, gross government, that at the last minute takes a left turn into [spoilers removed]
I had no strong feelings about the book itself. I almost didn't finish it, and only did because I wanted to figure out who was beaming hallucinations into the protagonist's head. That part was very off-handedly explained in the last chapter.
The one thing it did that was great/terrible and I haven't seen before, was that it had the ads of the future served to you by an AI that tries to neg you into buying their product. LBR, someone's trying to script this already.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
The difficulty in discussing a very original book is that that the vocabulary to describe it is missing. I spent a lot of the time I was reading this trying to figure out who to compare it to. In my updates, you'll see a couple of stabs at it, but I'm going with:
Iain M. Banks and Gene Wolfe and Maybe Jo Walton write the Foundation Trilogy. But with pinch of The Vampire Lestat.
This doesn't really give you a solid idea what it's like, but it's about as clear as I can get.
This book was not, quite, as they say on the internet, a wild ride from start to finish, but I never managed to know what to expect from it. It kept on becoming something else as I read it.
I also do not know if I enjoyed it, which is a very strange thing not to know about a book you have read. For one thing, this book's interest in Voltaire outstripped mine right out of the gate, as did its interest in the approximately thirty-eight other enlightenment thinkers who were regularly made reference to. The book also, I think, is quite uninterested in giving you characters to like; almost all the characters eventually reveal themselves to have ugly flaws.
There is a twist at the half-way point that I feel might be quite upsetting to some people, and I think the book is committed to it, rather than doing it for shock-value, so I am trying to preserve the surprise, but [triggers: rape/torture] [spoilers removed]
The thing I came closest to enjoying was the world-building, but even that was a wild ride. I began thinking I was exploring a utopia, quickly became mired in petty and comprehensive politics, and then plunged into the realization that no one in this world is suited to raise children.
Then the story ends as the first half of a duology, leaving me confused and disoriented. Okay!
Recommended if Iain M. Banks or Gene Wolfe are your idea of a good time, or if you've ever said to yourself, "I would like this SF more if it were 20% enlightenment philosophers by weight."
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
The Girl with All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey
This is a compulsively readable book you should not attempt if you are sensitive to animal/child harm, abuse toward children, genocide, or the end of human life on earth.
Um.
I liked that the book went there, but if you're not gonna like it, fail out early because it gets grimmer.
So the relationship that pulls you into this book is Melanie's crush on her teacher, Ms. Justineau. Melanie is quite young, and the crush is chaste, but she's carrying a torch the size of the Chicago fire of 1871. Unfortunately for Melanie, Ms Justineau, and all other humans, this takes place against the backdrop of the research centre at the end of the world, where she is a subject.
Over the course of the book Melanie learns why she is a research subject, what there is to be learned from her, and how far she will go for Ms. Justineau.
I loved this book, but oh my god. Do not go in if you're gonna find it upsetting. Ask me if you need to know more.
xpost of this review originally published on goodreads Sat, 03 Sep 2016.
This post also on dreamwidth (
comments)