My life in books

John Chu, "Making the Magic Lightning Strike Me"; Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2017
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/making-magic-lightning-strike/

What prices are we prepared to pay to become what we most want to be - or think we want to be? This science-fictional story of the proverbial 98-pound weakling who wants to be a muscle man explores this question with sensitivity and compassion. The protagonist has made a heavy bargain - taking a dangerous underground job in return fir extensive alterations that turn his body into the muscular machine he longs to be, but even with all the external changes, it isn't quite enough.


Nicole Kornher-Stace, "Last Chance"; Clarkesworld, July 2017
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kornher-stace_07_17/

A post-apocalyptic story about a young girl who is captured by scavengers and used as a labourer to search for 'Before' treasures in a dangerous ruin. The protagonist's voice is well-developed and consistent, the story interesting, and the ending holds out some hope that taking the proverbial last chance nay bring something good. A good read.


Vina Jie-Min Prasad, "Fandom for Robots"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/fandom-for-robots/

Computron is the only sentient robot ever created, by accident, by a scientist who was never able to recreate his achievement. Computron 'lives' in a museum devoted to the history of robotics; it displays its sentience to museum visitors by answering their random questions. One day, a young visitor asks Computron if it has ever watched a particular anime series about a human and a sentient robot seeking revenge for the destruction of the human's family. Computron watches the anime, and discovers fandom. It's a charming story with sone spot-on observations about fandom, shipping, and fanfic. It's also a bit of a parable, about the way that the most unlikely of outsiders can find acceptance and friendship in the online world of fandom.


Rebecca Roanhorse, "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience (TM)"; Apex Magazine, August 8, 2017
https://www.apex-magazine.com/welcome-to-your-authentic-indian-experience/

Jesse Turnblatt, like most of his co-workers at Sedona Sweats, is a 'real Indian' who sells VR fantasy experiences to white tourists who "don’t want a real Indian experience. They want what they see in the movies." So he gives them fantasies about Indians who never were, until one day he meets a client who wants so much more.

This is half science fiction, half horror, and all about the real Indian experiences of cultural appropriation, the intersection of racism and sexism, theft of land, culture and even identity, and ultimately, genocide. The ending floored me with its parallels to the history of white appropriation of everything Indigenous. Read it.


Malinda Lo, "Ghost Town"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October, 2017 (originally published in Defy the Dark, ed. Saundra Mitchell, 2013)
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/ghost-town/

It's Halloween in Pinnacle, a small town in Colorado with a history of mining prosperity during the 'Old West' and a tradition of celebrating its ghosts. Ty is a young butch transplanted from San Francisco with her family to a place where she doesn't fit in, where there's no real place for a young lesbian among all the Beckys and Chads. When popular girl at school McKenzie invites her to go ghost hunting on Halloween, Ty accepts.

This is a ghost story. A good one. It's also a story about bullying and anti-queer bigotry and the history of violence against transgressive women - and a sisterhood that transcends the grave. It's told in layers, peeling back the events of the evening until the reader finally understands everything, and the impact is all the more because of this. I liked it a lot.


Lavie Tidhar, "The Old Dispensation"; Tor.com, February 8, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/02/08/the-old-dispensation/

The short story is framed as the observations of a telepathic ruler (or rulers, or some intermediate being with multiple consciousness) known as the Exilarch torturing one of its trained assassins to determine just what happened on his latest mission, from which he returned somehow changed. It is set in an interstellar theocratic empire based on Jewish tradition and culture, but it's a nasty place indeed, where heresy merits death and the Treif - races outside the rules of acceptability - are freely warred on to the point of extermination. Lavie leaves quite a lot to the reader to work out, including the nature of the Exilarch, the origin of the Empire, and the consequences of what happened to the assassin during his mission. Interesting reading, but I found it unsatisfying despite the suggestion at the end that the Exilarch's reign of terror might be nearing its end.


Yoon Ha Lee, "Extracurricular Activities"; Tor.com, February 15, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/02/15/extracurricular-activities/

Lee's novelette is set in the same universe as his novels Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, and features one of the protagonists from that series, but is more accessible to the casual reader. It is set early in Shuos Jedao's career, and demonstrates the combination of skill, daring and foresight that will make Jedao legendary. The narrative has a light, at tines almost comedic tone, but there are hints of what is to come, particularly in Jedao's consciousness of the number of kills he makes. Yet at the sane time it's clear that he is dangerous, and thinks in terms of threat and violence. For readers of the novels, it's an interesting glimpse into one of Lee's most interesting characters. For those who don't already know Shuos Jedao, it's a finely crafted sf spy story.

As any good sequel should, Inheritance resolves the threads left hanging at the end of Lo's previous novel, Adaptation.

Now that the presence of aliens on Earth has been revealed, the Imrians come forward and we learn why they are on Earth, and what they have been doing. Reese and David face massive media attention and government scrutiny over their experience with both secretive government organisations and the mysterious aliens. And they must come to terms with the changes in their personal lives and relationships brought about by Reese's attraction to the alien Amber.

Satisfying at many levels, not the least being the willingness of both Reese and David to explore more fluid understandings of sexuality and relationship.

It's always a joy to find a new author whose work intrigues, delights, entertains, or amuses. This year, new authors (and the books that called to me) included:

J. M. Frey, Triptych

Frey's debut novel knocked my socks off. Well written, with characters that come alive, a riveting plot told in an original way, and a careful exploration of gender, race and cultural integration. Loved it.


David Anthony Durham, Acacia: The War with the Mein

First volume of a series that I will definitely have to finish, a sweeping epic of empires and prophesies, politics and war.


N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Jemisen's book is another superior entry in the genre of epic fantasy, all the more so because of her highly original style and approach to the matter of moribund empires and supernatural forces that form the basic framework of such novels. Again, a series that I'm looking forward to finishing.


Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

And how could I not read the YA sensation that everyone else and her cat is reading? Enjoyable if somewhat derivative of many books that have gone before it. The author does well at giving Katniss a true and consistent voice.


Malinda Lo, Ash
Malinda Lo, Huntress

Both of Lo's YA fantasies have been long-listed for James Tipree Jr. Awards, which is always in my mind a formidable argument for checking out a new book. In these books, Lo creates a high fantasy world of humans, elves, ghosts and assorted things that go bump in the night, where her characters can find their own destinies, seking adve ture while challenging gender roles and sexual identities. More, please, Ms. Lo.

Nalini Singh, Angel’s Blood
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Kiss
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Consort
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Blade
Nalini Singh, Angel’s Flight

Singh's books are my newest guilty pleasures. There's actually a lot I don't like about these books, including some very questionable gender isues abd waaaay too much not very original sex. I hate the plot about the spunky woman and the arrogant man who hate each other on sight until he beats her up and then they have mind-blowing sex and stay together despite the fact that he never really repects her as an equal. And these novels are full of that kind of shit. But there's also a very interesting world to explore here, with humans being governed and controlled by powerful winged beings called angels, even though they pretty much lack any compassion or other such angelic qualities, and their servants, the vampires, who are humans infused with a special angelic secretion. It's very much a 'red in tooth and fang' kind of world, with naked power plays all over the place, and that's the bit that fascinates me. So I read them and love to hate them.


Nathan Long, Jane Carver of Waar

And this book, which already has a sequel on the way, is just plain fun. A John Carter of Mars scenario turned upside down, Jane Carver is a biker chick on the lam after accidentally killing a guy who was harrassing her. She finds a secret cave, is transported to a distant low-gravity planet, and the typical Barsoomian-style adventures ensue. Burroughs fans who don't mind gender-bending should love this. Goreans will cringe. And that's a good thing.


Kameron Hurley, Brutal Women

This collection of science fictional short stories by the author of the Bel Dame Apocrypha (a series that I now know I must read) is certainly well-named. Not for the faint of heart, these stories explore women (and other beings of other genders) in the midst of violence - physical, emptional, psychological - and their reactions to such environments. Worth reading and thinking about.