Book round-up: December 2021
Jan. 11th, 2022 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sixthlightMentally I staggered towards the end of the year, but I finally got my hands on a few novels that had been highly recommended for months (and one that I had started in October, been absolutely Not In The Mood For, and had to send back to the library for a later go-around) and most of them were absolutely excellent. Huzzah!
Non-fiction
Colonising Myths, Māori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro (Ani Mikaere)
This is a series of papers and essays by the author, written over a period of time as an academic in the School of Law at the University of Waikato, mostly in the 90s and early 2000s. At the time the author was based there it had a very good and hard-won (by Māori academics, rather than the administration) reputation as the most bicultural of NZ's universities; unfortunately that has been absolutely blown up by the administration in the last couple of years and many of the most respected Māori academics have left. The papers focus on the relationship between Māori tikanga and the current New Zealand legal system, and the realities of cultural survival in a Pākehā-dominated space. They are not addressed to a Pākehā or non-Māori audience, and I feel a bit weird even saying that I got something useful out of reading this, because it's not a book that I have standing to grant or deny approval to. But I think if you're not Māori and interested in that relationship, and in understanding how you might support Māori colleagues in their work, it's a valuable read.
Fiction
She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker Chan)
This was the book I had to give up in October because it opens with a very depressing scenario of a village dying in a famine. When I picked up again in December and didn't make myself re-read the first bit, I was hooked. It's a genderbent(ish, the lead's gender is Complex) retelling of the rise of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming Dynasty, in a space somewhere between historical fiction and epic fantasy. There are fantastical elements but the history is very real. Incredibly compelling and also there's character development fisting, which I was Not Expecting but you know what? It worked.
Seven Devils (Laura Lam and Elizabeth May)
Recommended as "Fury Road IN SPACE" but UNfortunately the authors do not fucking understand what Fury Road was really about. Manages to be full of action and still slow-paced, with character and worldbuilding doled out awkwardly. Plus it does the thing where it's ten thousand years in the future or whatever but the patriarchy is the patriarchy of early-21st-century America and the protagonist gets annoyed at one point because her sexy dress doesn't have pockets (ugh, why does that always happen, amirite ladies?). I finished it but only so I could complain about it with full knowledge.
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E Harrow)
Novella about a young woman in near-future Ohio with a terminal illness who has fixated on Sleeping Beauty, until one day she falls through the multiverse and into another Sleeping Beauty's story - and then another's. The concept does not hold up exactly if you think about it too hard but the execution is fun, and it manages to pack in some unexpected twists, as well as a Tamsyn Muir-style meme joke I cannot spoil for you but which lands PERFECTLY. Apparently there will be more with other fairytales; I'll read them.
A Master of Djinn (P Djèlí Clark)
The first full-length novel in the author's steampunk magical Cairo setting, following crack agent for the Ministry for Supernatural Entities Fatima el-Sha'awari as she races to solve the mystery of whether the legendary Al-Jahiz, who released djinn and magic into the world fifty years ago, has truly returned - and if so, what he wants. Pulled a twist on me I am absolutely furious about because I should have seen it coming. Displays a nice understanding of the complex dynamics of being one of very few women in a male-dominated organisation, and what it means when other women start to join. I hope we get more novels with Fatima & co, they're a lot of fun.
The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers)
Apparently the last novel Chambers is going to write in her Wayfarers series. Some odd companions are trapped together for a few days at an interplanetary truck stop by a technical malfunction that lingers on, and on...but not that long because Chambers doesn't write that sort of book. That is truly and honestly all the plot there is, because if you've read this series you know how it goes, but as always it's extremely soothing, a story about well-meaning people doing their best to be kind to each other even if they trip over the occasional unexpected rough edge.
Vespertine (Margaret Rogerson)
Artemisia is a grumpy teenage nun, barely comfortable in human society after being rescued from an abusive and literally possessed childhood, who only wants to be left alone to bury corpses properly (and also stop their spirits rising as terrifying ghosts). Of course, she doesn't get that - instead, she gets a very unwanted adventure. Ultimately it's a story about surviving abuse, and learning to accept kindness not looked for, and also why you maybe shouldn't try to make friends with people by putting spiders on them. Billed as "Venom meets Gideon the Ninth in a medieval French nunnery" and even more fun than that description sounds. If you think that description does not sound fun, you should try it anyway, it's great.
(I also re-read Dealing with Dragons in November for Yuletide but obviously couldn't mention it then - nothing to add really from when I read it in 2020, still a classic, had a blast writing a Cimorene & Kazul story and queering up another fairytale.)
Non-fiction
Colonising Myths, Māori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro (Ani Mikaere)
This is a series of papers and essays by the author, written over a period of time as an academic in the School of Law at the University of Waikato, mostly in the 90s and early 2000s. At the time the author was based there it had a very good and hard-won (by Māori academics, rather than the administration) reputation as the most bicultural of NZ's universities; unfortunately that has been absolutely blown up by the administration in the last couple of years and many of the most respected Māori academics have left. The papers focus on the relationship between Māori tikanga and the current New Zealand legal system, and the realities of cultural survival in a Pākehā-dominated space. They are not addressed to a Pākehā or non-Māori audience, and I feel a bit weird even saying that I got something useful out of reading this, because it's not a book that I have standing to grant or deny approval to. But I think if you're not Māori and interested in that relationship, and in understanding how you might support Māori colleagues in their work, it's a valuable read.
Fiction
She Who Became the Sun (Shelley Parker Chan)
This was the book I had to give up in October because it opens with a very depressing scenario of a village dying in a famine. When I picked up again in December and didn't make myself re-read the first bit, I was hooked. It's a genderbent(ish, the lead's gender is Complex) retelling of the rise of the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming Dynasty, in a space somewhere between historical fiction and epic fantasy. There are fantastical elements but the history is very real. Incredibly compelling and also there's character development fisting, which I was Not Expecting but you know what? It worked.
Seven Devils (Laura Lam and Elizabeth May)
Recommended as "Fury Road IN SPACE" but UNfortunately the authors do not fucking understand what Fury Road was really about. Manages to be full of action and still slow-paced, with character and worldbuilding doled out awkwardly. Plus it does the thing where it's ten thousand years in the future or whatever but the patriarchy is the patriarchy of early-21st-century America and the protagonist gets annoyed at one point because her sexy dress doesn't have pockets (ugh, why does that always happen, amirite ladies?). I finished it but only so I could complain about it with full knowledge.
A Spindle Splintered (Alix E Harrow)
Novella about a young woman in near-future Ohio with a terminal illness who has fixated on Sleeping Beauty, until one day she falls through the multiverse and into another Sleeping Beauty's story - and then another's. The concept does not hold up exactly if you think about it too hard but the execution is fun, and it manages to pack in some unexpected twists, as well as a Tamsyn Muir-style meme joke I cannot spoil for you but which lands PERFECTLY. Apparently there will be more with other fairytales; I'll read them.
A Master of Djinn (P Djèlí Clark)
The first full-length novel in the author's steampunk magical Cairo setting, following crack agent for the Ministry for Supernatural Entities Fatima el-Sha'awari as she races to solve the mystery of whether the legendary Al-Jahiz, who released djinn and magic into the world fifty years ago, has truly returned - and if so, what he wants. Pulled a twist on me I am absolutely furious about because I should have seen it coming. Displays a nice understanding of the complex dynamics of being one of very few women in a male-dominated organisation, and what it means when other women start to join. I hope we get more novels with Fatima & co, they're a lot of fun.
The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers)
Apparently the last novel Chambers is going to write in her Wayfarers series. Some odd companions are trapped together for a few days at an interplanetary truck stop by a technical malfunction that lingers on, and on...but not that long because Chambers doesn't write that sort of book. That is truly and honestly all the plot there is, because if you've read this series you know how it goes, but as always it's extremely soothing, a story about well-meaning people doing their best to be kind to each other even if they trip over the occasional unexpected rough edge.
Vespertine (Margaret Rogerson)
Artemisia is a grumpy teenage nun, barely comfortable in human society after being rescued from an abusive and literally possessed childhood, who only wants to be left alone to bury corpses properly (and also stop their spirits rising as terrifying ghosts). Of course, she doesn't get that - instead, she gets a very unwanted adventure. Ultimately it's a story about surviving abuse, and learning to accept kindness not looked for, and also why you maybe shouldn't try to make friends with people by putting spiders on them. Billed as "Venom meets Gideon the Ninth in a medieval French nunnery" and even more fun than that description sounds. If you think that description does not sound fun, you should try it anyway, it's great.
(I also re-read Dealing with Dragons in November for Yuletide but obviously couldn't mention it then - nothing to add really from when I read it in 2020, still a classic, had a blast writing a Cimorene & Kazul story and queering up another fairytale.)
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Date: 2022-01-12 04:26 am (UTC)