Nov 09 2017

Binti (Binti #1) by Nnedi Okorafor

So for real, Binti is a terrific character and the setting is amazing and the way Nnedi Okorafor builds a whole universe and sci-fi system is breathtakingly good considering the novella doesn’t even break a hundred pages but Jesus fuck, I was not okay with how the Meduse were deferred to. They did something to Binti which she would likely have agreed to if only they’d fucking asked her, but no, they completely disrespect her bodily autonomy but are also referenced as a culture of truth and honor and no, fuck no, they’re assholes. Fuck this noble savage trope: you can absolutely respect a culture without blindly rubber stamping everything they do. It was a perspective disappointingly lacking in nuance especially in comparison with how Ms Okorafor discussed the Himba and Khoush. Furthermore, it’s this kind of shit attitude that lets predators get away with bad behavior because they’re “good” men. I expected so much better than a Stockholm Syndrome-y book that rewards fucking terrorists.

Anyway, I’m still waiting on Akata Warrior from the library and I’m really, really hoping that it improves on the rest of the stuff I’ve read from Ms Okorafor as otherwise I’m giving up on her. Settings are absolutely her forte and I love how she writes about young people learning — and God knows we need more voices outside of the white Western perspective — but her drawbacks are starting to outweigh her strengths for me. Please, please, Akata Warrior, be a novel worthy of the acclaim she’s received otherwise. I want to believe.

Read Doug’s less angry review here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/09/binti-binti-1-by-nnedi-okorafor/

Nov 09 2017

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

I keep going back and forth on how I feel about this book. I actually enjoyed the romance in it, and the setting was pretty great. As a woman who was horse-mad as a young girl but who was frustrated in her interests, I reveled in all the great detail that the younger me would have done violence to obtain firsthand. But I really had problems with how realistic two of the main characters were, as well as with certain other craft issues.

The most minor of my complaints (at least in terms of how it affected my reading enjoyment) is that the pacing felt a bit stop-start, and I think this has to do with how mystified I felt through large sections of the book as to why the characters did what they did. I still don’t understand how Gabe thought it was okay to run away and leave his family in penury without giving them any warning of their impending homelessness. It was a total asshole move, but forgiveness was automatically expected somehow? Look, just because you feel trapped by your circumstances doesn’t mean you can use it as an excuse to fuck other people over. I totally understand the urge to leave, but not telling people about the bad things that were about to happen is just coldly selfish. I was aghast at how it was rolled so easily into his very real and understandable feeling of suffocation, as if seeking to grow and being a cowardly jackass necessarily go hand in hand. I was also mystified by how someone as business-focused and manipulative as Benjamin Malvern would let his son keep getting away with things that were destructive to both self and financial profit.

And then I didn’t like the way the novelty of Puck’s riding was handled. Again it had that stop-start feel, as if it only mattered when it was convenient to what Maggie Stiefvater wanted to write about at the moment. I mean, yes, no one thinks about gender discrimination all the time — that would be exhausting! — but every time it was brought up, it was like something new all over again. And the conversation Puck had with Tommy’s dad was another mystifying interaction. He sorta explains the cultural significance of having the race be for men on water horses, how that relates to his religion and how her decision to enter on a regular horse is disrespectful, and she apologizes but doesn’t actually care and no one says anything else? I’m not asking for a sociological treatise here but some attempt at reconciling the tradition with more modern sensibilities beyond a “hur hur, girls can’t do guy stuff” would have been nice. I felt sometimes that everyone’s general laconic demeanor was used as an excuse to not explain things, which is especially irritating in a book written from first-person perspectives.

Anyway, I got the enhanced version of the book which included a recipe for November cakes and they were tasty but not as wildly delicious as described in the book. I wanted that burst of butter and orange flavor in my mouth, darn it! They were still quite good but perhaps more work than I’d like to put in on the regular. I’d totally buy them from a bakery every once in a while tho, should they be on offer.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/09/the-scorpio-races-by-maggie-stiefvater/

Nov 04 2017

Thor, Volume 1: The Goddess of Thunder by Jason Aaron

So I’ve been reading comic books for over three decades now and this is the first time I’ve actually given a damn about Thor. I mean, I’ve certainly watched all the movies (Ragnarok soon!) but Thor was always a secondary character to me even before then, and certainly not interesting enough to pick up a book about. So when this turned up for free as part of Amazon’s periodic Kindle Marvel graphic novels sale (even though, for the hundredth time, this is a trade paperback not a graphic novel,) I figured, oh why not.

You guys, this is a really good book. Firstly, it does an amazing job of catching up the casual reader with all the convoluted nonsense of the Marvel Universe to set the stage for where the book begins. Secondly, the story itself is engaging and fun, with Frost Giants coming to Midgard, and the new Thor in conflict with old Thor. The B-plot of Odin’s return to Asgard(ia) was also excellent reading, and I’m very excited to see where this book goes, so much so that I’ve already purchased the next volume.

If Thor was always this interesting a character, then I’ve definitely been missing out. His title always just struck me as General Hospital with superpowers and squabbling deities, and I’d much rather have been reading about the angst of teenagers and beyond in the X-books and other titles I so enjoyed growing up. My only complaint is that Sif gets short shrift as usual (plus, did they change her hair back from being made of the night sky? Bummer, if so.)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/04/thor-volume-1-the-goddess-of-thunder-by-jason-aaron/

Nov 04 2017

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

So this is not the book to start with if you’re new to Liane Moriarty. Ordinarily, she writes suspenseful novels of the secrets hidden behind the facade of the average (Australian) suburbanite, and usually she makes good use of interesting plot mechanisms to create dazzling puzzle boxes of novels. But Truly Madly Guilty’s mechanism is far too clunky, creaky and slow, dragging us back and forth between the present-day and a disastrous barbecue several weeks in the past. Ms Moriarty’s characterizations are spot on, as always, revealing the good, bad and ugly of the people she writes about, but the build-up towards the revelation of What Happened on the day of the barbecue was less suspenseful than tedious, and I’m not sure why that is. I liked the characters (my favorite was Vid, and I’m not sure what that says about me) and I enjoyed the writing, but I felt it was far too drawn out in the before and perhaps not as accomplished in the after as I’m used to from her. I thought it most telling that the sentence that resonated with me most was when Oliver said to Erika, “Nothing bad has ever happened to them” and I whole-heartedly agreed: What Happened at the barbecue was rough but Sam especially was such a baby about it, tho I’m glad Ms Moriarty resolved it all the way she did. Just because someone is a big baby doesn’t mean they don’t have real problems that need solving after all (so that they can perhaps stop being big babies and start being functional people again.) That said, Ms Moriarty is a writer of great sympathies and talents, and this is still a novel far above the average of popular fiction.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/04/truly-madly-guilty-by-liane-moriarty/

Nov 03 2017

Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain

I didn’t even know this existed till I stumbled across a free Kindle copy. It’s really a novella (about 80 pages) of what happens when Tom and Huck get entangled in a murder mystery, based on an actual case that Mark Twain freely admits to using in the opening paragraphs. It’s an entertaining story set in the Tom Sawyer universe but nothing dreadfully ground-breaking (tho I did learn a bit more about the times and laws. I’m still astonished that a barely adolescent Tom was his Uncle Silas’ de facto lawyer during the court case, and that this was totally acceptable.) I’m actually more intrigued by the story that preceded this one in the canon. Apparently, Tom goes steampunk? I shall have to search it out.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/03/tom-sawyer-detective-by-mark-twain/

Nov 03 2017

Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive #2) by Brandon Sanderson

I HAD ALL THE FEELINGS.

I did not, however, cry for forty pages straight as I had with the first book in the series: instead, I burned with all sorts of emotions for and with the characters. There were parts where I literally wanted someone to hold me back, because were it possible to enter a narrative, I would have flown right in there in a justified rage. And I cannot even with how nuanced and considerate Brandon Sanderson is with the many, many moral dilemmas at play here in this book. What does it mean to be honorable? What is the moral value of lies? How does circumstance create evil, and how much can we forgive? There are no easy answers in Words Of Radiance.

And how much did I love that the newly introduced Big Ambiguously Bad hearkens back to a precept of evil I’d most memorably encountered in fantasy via Terry Pratchett’s The Light Fantastic? I super need to go read Edgedancer after this (and before my editor sends me a copy of Oathbringer, squeeeeee!)

That said, I was a bit disappointed by the ending, not for content so much as for how oddly rushed a lot of it felt. We know that Kaladin and Shallan are destined for great things, but I felt the bit with Dalinar and his son joining them near the end seemed, while natural on the face of it, handled without Mr Sanderson’s usual deftness. Perhaps I was just a bit bleary of mind considering that I stayed up till 7a.m. to finish the book, and am still feeling the after-effects these few days later (oh, for the resilience of my well-spent youth!) I do know that the coda with Wit has me convinced I need to seek out more of the Cosmere books so I can get a better handle on what’s going on.

Gah, so much reading to do! It is so lovely to have these problems tho.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/11/03/words-of-radiance-the-stormlight-archive-2-by-brandon-sanderson/

Oct 29 2017

Movie review: Kingsman: The Secret Service

This combines James Bond-like debonair spying (including some very nice toys) with a Quentin Tarantino-esque love of joyful violence (there is a massacre that is practically an exercise in interpretive dance), leavened with a lisping Samuel L. Jackson and random humor. Not a great film, not a horrid film, just an entertaining film, one that I liked enough to write something about, mostly because of the interpretive dance.

THE END.

(Interpretive DANCE)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/29/movie-review-kingsman-the-secret-service/

Oct 27 2017

Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire

Finally picked this up despite getting it free from Tor.com (thanks, Tor!) ages ago, due to Doug’s review tweet. I wanted to know if I’d have similar feelings towards this novella, and I’m going to write down my own thoughts first before reading his review and comparing our experiences.

So here is a really terrific, unique take on what happens to the children who return from fantasy worlds. Nancy has just come back from an Underworld that she longs to return to, spurred on by the bewildered insistence of her family on somehow normalizing her disappearance. Her well-meaning parents have sent her to Eleanor West’s school/sanitarium, ostensibly to “heal” i.e. revert to the Nancy they knew. Unbeknownst to them, the school is more of a refuge, a place where children like Nancy are believed and helped to adjust to their new reality. This school specifically is for kids who want to go back, as not all do (there’s another school for kids who just want to move on.) At first, Nancy is thrilled to be in a place where she’s accepted and can learn more about the doorway she traveled through, in hopes of finding it again. But then her classmates start being gruesomely murdered, and fear grips the school.

I loved how this novella just bursts with excellent fantasy ideas (like the Virtue-Logic dichotomies) and I really enjoyed all the different fantasy lands the children had been to. I also really liked the inclusion of the different sexualities even as I thought they could have been included in a way that seemed more seamless and less clunky. It felt almost as if Seanan McGuire took a deep breath and said “we’re going to talk about asexuality and masturbation and since I’m not sure how to have it come up organically, I’m going to just put it in the foreground here” via a really unlikely conversation between Nancy and her roommate. The stuff with Kade was handled much better. I was also wtf with how Nancy’s speed changed so drastically, as if Ms Mcguire forgot how she’d described it just a handful of pages earlier. It was a weird oversight in a book that had pretty good attention to detail otherwise.

I also don’t know how earned I felt the ending was, especially after poor Loreli. I’m not the hugest fan of people running away from reality, and I can understand having a refuge be used as a reward, but as a reward for what, exactly? Given the context, it felt as if Ms McGuire was essentially condoning suicide for the misunderstood, and that made me uncomfortable.

Anyway, gonna go read Doug’s review now and see how mine compares (you should, too! Click here.) Ha, unsurprisingly, we have similar feelings. I think I’m generally grouchier, tho, particularly when it comes to craft.

Speaking of which, I was annoyed by the ebook version that I had for immediately tacking on the first chapter of the sequel without a separating page announcing that this was bonus material. I thought it was still part of the novella, which threw me for a loop when it ended so abruptly. Hmm, do I even want to learn more about Jack and Jill? Enough to place a digital hold at the library, I suppose. That review will show up eventually (Doug, look, I made a Coming Attraction note!)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/27/every-heart-a-doorway-wayward-children-1-by-seanan-mcguire/

Oct 27 2017

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson, Takeshi Miyazawa et al

I’m incredibly impressed by how this book makes me care about the Inhumans. And also how it makes me like Agents Of SHIELD more, despite my extremely mixed feelings about that show. The Loki story was fun, but Kamala’s First Crush was better, and I’m totally looking forward to the day when her older brother has to eat that horrible speech he gave Bruno about how their parents would never accept Kamala marrying outside of her people. Those arguments might seem reasonable but they’re totally not (and hello, also the kind of things Nazis say in re: racial and cultural purity) and I’m quietly confident that G Willow Wilson et al only included it here in order to debunk it later. Terrific series that I’m rationing to myself in order to enjoy its wonderfulness over a prolonged period of time. Plus, the art is pretty much perfect for the storyline.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/27/ms-marvel-vol-3-crushed-by-g-willow-wilson-takeshi-miyazawa-et-al/

Oct 27 2017

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This was pretty terrific. Kambili is the daughter of Eugene, a Great Man: he’s a pillar of the community, and not just of the towns they shuttle between in a migration familiar to anyone who’s ever grown up middle class or better in a third-world country. He’s a big deal in Nigeria, a wealthy, self-made man whose fortune comes from manufacturing but who also owns a newspaper that fights for democracy and the rule of law: a tenuous position in a country whose fairly elected government has recently been overthrown by the military. He’s compassionate and generous to his employees and to the needy, but he’s also estranged from his impoverished father, an adherent to the traditional Igbo religion that Eugene spurned in his fanatical embrace of Catholicism. The fact that he’s also a complete monster to his family makes Purple Hibiscus a fascinating examination of the contrasts between one’s public and private selves.

When Eugene’s sister, a widowed university professor in another town who isn’t very well-off herself, invites Kambili and Jaja, Kambili’s older brother, to stay with her and her own three children for a few days, it sets in motion a chain of events that changes Kambili’s life forever. There’s an inappropriate crush, a lot of family turmoil, and a good, hard look at the culture and recent history of Nigeria, all written with compassion and an unflinching honesty that refuses to romanticize a country that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie clearly loves. I ached so much for the quiet, cowed 15 year-old who gradually learns that her home life is not normal and not okay, and whose personality begins to unfold like one of the rare purple hibiscuses of the title when exposed to the sunshine of a normal family’s unconditional love. The only thing I didn’t really like about this book was how rushed the ending felt, and how confusing it was in terms of when the poison was obtained and administered. The first 90% or so of the book was excellent, though. I can see why this was nominated for but ultimately didn’t win the Orange. Would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for good fiction outside of the usual white Western canon.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/10/27/purple-hibiscus-by-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie/