Book round-up: December 2020

[sixthlight]

Either I was in a better mood in December or I picked better books; not sure, but pleased with it whichever it was. 2020 round-up coming...sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Non-fiction

1912: The Year The World Discovered Antarctica (Chris Turner)

What it says on the tin, a history of Antarctic exploration focused around the year 1912, which encompasses not only the famous and doomed Scott expedition (and the famous and less-doomed Amundsen one) but all the others, many of which I’d never heard of - the German, French, Japanese, and Australian/New Zealand expeditions particularly. Very readable and interesting, although not particularly ground-breaking in its social history.

Fiction

Drowned Country (Emily Tesh)
A sequel to Silver in the Wood, gothic fantasy with romance elements. I like the author’s ability to turn expectations on their heads re: female characters; I wish I liked the protagonist more (but then, he’s not meant to be likeable).

Piranesi (Susanne Collins)
It’s really hard to summarise this without spoilers - let’s just say it’s a story of discovery, set largely in a very magic-realism secondary world that is connected to our own. The narrator lives in a House that is the world, recording its halls and life, and only ever speaking to its one other inhabitant, and then...beautiful and philosophical, and very kind. The only sour note for me was when a villain’s queer sexuality is described as ‘transgressive’ as part of a pattern including murder; he’s the only queer character on the page, which makes this...mmmm, possibly intended as an insight into the person who says it, but I still wasn’t thrilled.

Unconquerable Sun (Kate Elliott)
Genderbent Alexander the Great in spaaaaaaaaace. Fun, tightly-paced space opera, with a full cast of women given room to be and do all sorts of things. I liked it very much and cannot wait for the continuation, and it made me want to go back and brush up on my Alexander to catch more of the references I know must be lurking, which is exactly what a good [REFERENCE] in spaaaaaaaace should do. SUPER-recommended for anybody who wanted Honor Harrington to be...more than what it was.

The Winter Duke (Claire Eliza Bartlett)

In the icy duchy of Kymal, the fourth daughter of the reigning Duke - about to run south to university and away from her murderous family - is abruptly thrust onto the throne when her entire family fall ill. A tense, claustrophobic political/magical thriller. Hard for me to really love because a central conceit is that the main character is totally unprepared for her new role, which means she spends almost the entire story doing and saying the wrong thing; I like a little more competence. But points for including a believable democratic movement.

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Stuart Turton)

Some sort of sci-fi country house murder mystery, included only for completion’s sake: my wife thought I’d really like it because I like British murder mysteries (true) but the narrator was so annoying I DNF’d hard about fifty pages in. Nobody had yet been murdered. Not sure who the target audience is, but it’s not me.

Comments

[cortue]

I appreciate the head's up on the intentionally unlikeable protagonist in Drowned Country. I've been meaning to read that, since I really enjoyed Silver in the Wood, but I really need to be in a particular headspace to deal with that sort of character choice.

[sixthlight]

I mean, I cannot guarantee the unlikeability is intentional, but I find it hard to imagine a female(?) author writing a man being wrong about women the way he is and not intending some unlikeability, you know?

[cortue]

Ahh, gotcha. I'm thinking from the way you're writing about this that there isn't really any payoff to the character being written like this?

[sixthlight]

I mean...he gets a bit better by the end?

[cortue]

Haha, waves the tiniest flag of 'man less bad than he could be'.

[fitzcamel]

Pause to note: your comment about Weber and Unconquered Sun (which I'm currently in the middle of) sparked off something in my brain and made me realize how much you can see Cherryh's influence on the feel of A Memory Called Empire (in the good way), in terms of the way that Mahit spends basically the entire novel confused and in way over her head, etc. So thank you for that insight. ;)

ETA: I will say (as someone who has read Honor Harrington any number of times and mourned the many ways it fell short), I don't entirely see the family resemblance to Weber. TBH the person I come back to a bit in terms of feel is maybe mid-period Melissa Scott? (And not just b/c she wrote her own Alexander in Spaaaaace, either, lol.)

[sixthlight]

I did mean it mostly in a broad sense; that it's a military sf/space opera series with a strong focus on conflict between multiple human empires, politics, and spaceship battle tactics, translating a historical series of conflicts, and with a female protagonist who stands in for a male historical figure, except with much less of Weber's right-wing...everything. I agree the *tone* is quite different from Weber.

[fitzcamel]

No, that makes a lot of sense.