recent reading
3 July 2017 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frayadjacentWhat I've read since I last posted
Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. I liked this even more than Binti, mainly because it dealt with the emotional aftermath of the events in that book, because I found Binti's relationships with her family really complex and interesting, and because it has quests in the wilderness . Both books deal with Binti becoming a different person than who she was raised to be. It dealt with coming home after leaving and all the complex emotions really well. But then, on top of all that, Binti discovers that who she thought she was, what she thought was her heritage, wasn't even true. I like how the stories interrogate the notion of a pure, authentic, true cultural heritage (which exists in opposition to corrupting outside influences). As with Binti, and as with The Book of Phoenix, I really wished this book had been longer, and spent more time with the characters just interacting and with less focus on the plot/action.
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor. This is an older book that Binti. The story is in principle really interesting, but I actually stopped reading it about 3/4 through because...there was just so much plot, so much action, so much movement from one place to another. I wanted time for the characters. I wanted to spend time with Phoenix before she escaped the tower, so I would understand her motivations more, and how and why her belief about herself and the world changed so much, so fast. I wanted to see her everyday life during that year in Ghana, not just have it described to me by the narrator in retrospect. It really reminded me of Kate Elliott's A Passage of Stars, in which so much happens and the main character just keeps passing through various events and people's lives and...I just want time for the relationships to breathe.
Among Others by Jo Walton. Written as the journal entries of a disabled Welsh teenager at an English boarding school circa 1980. She knows magic, she loves to read, especially SF, and she's fled an abusive mother and a family who she loves but who didn't protect her. One of my favourite books this year. The prose was gorgeous; the main character so deeply felt. (I did have a "goddamn it, I got tricked into reading YA again" moment. It's not that I have any problem with YA, I just wish I could find more stories centred on women over 30.) An added bonus: the character takes the train from Shrewsbury to Cardiff several times in the book, and I took the same train to/from VidUKon while I was reading it! This was my first book by Walton but I definitely want to read more.
I've come to realise that for a story to really stick for me, I almost always need there to be a slice of life element. I think that's just one of the reasons my three favourite tv shows all have a lot of episodes where the characters are just doing stuff, getting serial character development but no major long-term plot developments, before the Big Plot starts.
What am I reading now
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. A clone murder mystery in space! I was already sold from the moment I heard that description (which is funny, none of those things in isolation is something I'd automatically go for, but in combination they sounded fantastic). As it happens, it's also a big story with fascinating politics going back hundreds of years before the time the story is set. And presents clones and cloning in a very different way than I expected. The prose is not nearly as lovely as Among Others, which I finished just before, so it took me a while to come around to this. But the unfolding plot has been fun and interesting and now I like it a lot.
What I'll read next
I really want to read The Power by Naomi Alderman, but I'm putting it off till I've read more of the books I already own. Probably Redshirts by John Scalzi (another author I haven't read any of yet). I also now have two volumes of Saga to read, which means I probably need to go back and skim/reread all the rest of them.
Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor. I liked this even more than Binti, mainly because it dealt with the emotional aftermath of the events in that book, because I found Binti's relationships with her family really complex and interesting, and because it has quests in the wilderness . Both books deal with Binti becoming a different person than who she was raised to be. It dealt with coming home after leaving and all the complex emotions really well. But then, on top of all that, Binti discovers that who she thought she was, what she thought was her heritage, wasn't even true. I like how the stories interrogate the notion of a pure, authentic, true cultural heritage (which exists in opposition to corrupting outside influences). As with Binti, and as with The Book of Phoenix, I really wished this book had been longer, and spent more time with the characters just interacting and with less focus on the plot/action.
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor. This is an older book that Binti. The story is in principle really interesting, but I actually stopped reading it about 3/4 through because...there was just so much plot, so much action, so much movement from one place to another. I wanted time for the characters. I wanted to spend time with Phoenix before she escaped the tower, so I would understand her motivations more, and how and why her belief about herself and the world changed so much, so fast. I wanted to see her everyday life during that year in Ghana, not just have it described to me by the narrator in retrospect. It really reminded me of Kate Elliott's A Passage of Stars, in which so much happens and the main character just keeps passing through various events and people's lives and...I just want time for the relationships to breathe.
Among Others by Jo Walton. Written as the journal entries of a disabled Welsh teenager at an English boarding school circa 1980. She knows magic, she loves to read, especially SF, and she's fled an abusive mother and a family who she loves but who didn't protect her. One of my favourite books this year. The prose was gorgeous; the main character so deeply felt. (I did have a "goddamn it, I got tricked into reading YA again" moment. It's not that I have any problem with YA, I just wish I could find more stories centred on women over 30.) An added bonus: the character takes the train from Shrewsbury to Cardiff several times in the book, and I took the same train to/from VidUKon while I was reading it! This was my first book by Walton but I definitely want to read more.
I've come to realise that for a story to really stick for me, I almost always need there to be a slice of life element. I think that's just one of the reasons my three favourite tv shows all have a lot of episodes where the characters are just doing stuff, getting serial character development but no major long-term plot developments, before the Big Plot starts.
What am I reading now
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty. A clone murder mystery in space! I was already sold from the moment I heard that description (which is funny, none of those things in isolation is something I'd automatically go for, but in combination they sounded fantastic). As it happens, it's also a big story with fascinating politics going back hundreds of years before the time the story is set. And presents clones and cloning in a very different way than I expected. The prose is not nearly as lovely as Among Others, which I finished just before, so it took me a while to come around to this. But the unfolding plot has been fun and interesting and now I like it a lot.
What I'll read next
I really want to read The Power by Naomi Alderman, but I'm putting it off till I've read more of the books I already own. Probably Redshirts by John Scalzi (another author I haven't read any of yet). I also now have two volumes of Saga to read, which means I probably need to go back and skim/reread all the rest of them.
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on 3/7/17 02:09 pm (UTC)I've added Among Others to my TBR - it sounds fascinating!
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on 10/7/17 03:52 pm (UTC)Glad you added Among Others to your TBR -- I'd love to know what you think of it!
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on 3/7/17 05:16 pm (UTC)I read Okorafor's "Lagoon" this year and didn't care for it at all. Her ideas are great but her prose left me cold.
Redshirts is a blast, but you'll be done in an hour, so I recommend having something else queued up. (:
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on 10/7/17 03:51 pm (UTC)I would love any Jo Walton recommendations you have. At VidUKon purplefringe mentioned a different book that either she or someone else read and didn't care for (I think the most recent one?). I picked up 'The Just City' yesterday. Nothing I can tell about the actual story from the outside is attractive to me, but people seem to love it. So yeah, I definitely get the impression she can be hit or miss.
I find Okorafor's prose to be very...tell-not-showy. The narrative is always in the head of the main protagonist, but rather than feeling things with the protagonist, it's like the protagonist is explaining things to me. I liked Binti and Binti: Home, but tbh I think it was in spite of the writing style rather than because of it.
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on 10/7/17 07:27 pm (UTC)What I've loved: Tooth and Claw, Lifelode, and the Small Change trilogy. All very different from one another.
Total agreement about Okorafor's writing. That's exactly it!
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on 4/7/17 12:52 am (UTC)I feel this deeply in my boooooones.
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on 11/7/17 12:17 pm (UTC)Speaking of covers, another reason I'm putting off buying The Power is I actually prefer the US cover to the UK cover, and I'm going to the US in August.
Or I could just buy the electronic version, which would be best for travel!
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on 16/7/17 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
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on 10/7/17 03:36 pm (UTC)