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Dec. 30th, 2009 03:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furyofvissarionStarbook - Ben Okri. In a mythical African kingdom, a young prince is dying & a young maiden is, well, just weird. And not interested in suitors. For some reason everyone loves the prince & even people who've never even heard of him are moved to incredible sorrow when they hear that this prince exists somewhere & is dying. Despite being a weirdo, the maiden inspires fierce competition among suitors, to the point where eventually it is said that she must choose a suitor (despite her disinterest) because she's tearing apart the community by not having done so.
There are some beautiful bits about the purpose of art & the healing nature of art. The maiden lives in a hidden tribe of artists, for whom making art is everything; it sounds like kind of a cool place. There's also some good stuff about what happens when you feel overwhelmed w/all the evil in the world.
But if I'm making the book sound precious, it's because it is, even given the fairy tale nature of the book. Okri's writing can be really smart & elegant at times, but that still couldn't really save the book for me. I loved the consideration of art & creativity that dominated a large part of the book, but overall I was left cold.
The Heart of the Mirage - Glenda Larke. Ligea Gayed is high-ranked in the military of the Tyranian Empire. She's from Kardiastan, long subjugated to Tyranian rule, but adopted as a child & raised Tyranian. When she is assigned to capture a Kardi rebel leader, she begins, unwillingly, to decolonize herself. I appreciated that the book was about decolonizing, & realizing that what you've been told your whole life is wrong. However, it felt very pat to me in places, very easy to shake Tyranian ideology from Ligea's eyes (despite her never having questioned it at all before, which is itself a bit dubious). Also I really hated one part where one of her slaves says that he's stuck w/her all these years because he wanted to; if he didn't want to be her slave, he wouldn't have. There's some interesting--& creepy--stuff going on with magically-gifted & nonmagical Kardis (in terms of them building up their own hierarchies). There's also some interesting magical geography & stuff around the land deciding who to protect or who to expel. I might read the next book if I happen upon it somewhere but not sure I'd seek it out.
The New Moon's Arms - Nalo Hopkinson. Wonderful. Calamity Lambkin is a 50-something grandmother living on a Caribbean island. Her father's just died, she's going through menopause, & she has a prickly relationship with her daughter. Suddenly, things from the past start reappearing around her: toys from her childhood, a tree from her childhood home. She also ends up becoming a foster mother to a strange boy found half-drowned on the beach. Are these happenings magical, or is there some mundane explanation? I loved that Calamity was an older woman who was still allowed to be a sexual character, & that she changed her name to Calamity (how awesome is that?). I loved the mythology around the little boy she takes in.
Ragamuffin - Tobias Buckell. I didn't like this as much as the predecessor, Crystal Rain, partly because it did that second-book thing where we are taken to wholly different characters & setting, & the ones I liked so much previously don't come in until much later. Still, lots of interesting stuff here on how to resist oppression & how not to become the oppressors yourself, etc. Also the oh-shit factor gets turned up later on in the book for some thrillingness!
The Shadow Speaker - Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Re-read. Still fantastic; I appreciated the questioning of violence as a tactic & I always love a strong (yet realistic) female POC teenage protagonist.
Acacia - David Anthony Durham. Hated the first half of this massive tome (which was 600+ pages). It's about a POC empire built on drugs & slavery, & the king believes he wants to dismantle the terrible things upon which his, & his family's, wealth & comfort are built. Then he's assassinated by some of the white folks he colonized, who come back & take over & even though some of them state their goal is to right the wrongs committed by the first empire, they--you guessed it--settle quickly in to being the oppressors. The last half of the book finally drew me in; there's a lot of stuff going on about how to break free from oppression w/o falling into the trap of oppressing your former masters, & how is political & social change possible, etc. I'm not sure I have the energy to read the sequel--my tolerance for epic fantasy is limited--but the last half of this book almost made up for how annoying I found the first half.
There are some beautiful bits about the purpose of art & the healing nature of art. The maiden lives in a hidden tribe of artists, for whom making art is everything; it sounds like kind of a cool place. There's also some good stuff about what happens when you feel overwhelmed w/all the evil in the world.
But if I'm making the book sound precious, it's because it is, even given the fairy tale nature of the book. Okri's writing can be really smart & elegant at times, but that still couldn't really save the book for me. I loved the consideration of art & creativity that dominated a large part of the book, but overall I was left cold.
The Heart of the Mirage - Glenda Larke. Ligea Gayed is high-ranked in the military of the Tyranian Empire. She's from Kardiastan, long subjugated to Tyranian rule, but adopted as a child & raised Tyranian. When she is assigned to capture a Kardi rebel leader, she begins, unwillingly, to decolonize herself. I appreciated that the book was about decolonizing, & realizing that what you've been told your whole life is wrong. However, it felt very pat to me in places, very easy to shake Tyranian ideology from Ligea's eyes (despite her never having questioned it at all before, which is itself a bit dubious). Also I really hated one part where one of her slaves says that he's stuck w/her all these years because he wanted to; if he didn't want to be her slave, he wouldn't have. There's some interesting--& creepy--stuff going on with magically-gifted & nonmagical Kardis (in terms of them building up their own hierarchies). There's also some interesting magical geography & stuff around the land deciding who to protect or who to expel. I might read the next book if I happen upon it somewhere but not sure I'd seek it out.
The New Moon's Arms - Nalo Hopkinson. Wonderful. Calamity Lambkin is a 50-something grandmother living on a Caribbean island. Her father's just died, she's going through menopause, & she has a prickly relationship with her daughter. Suddenly, things from the past start reappearing around her: toys from her childhood, a tree from her childhood home. She also ends up becoming a foster mother to a strange boy found half-drowned on the beach. Are these happenings magical, or is there some mundane explanation? I loved that Calamity was an older woman who was still allowed to be a sexual character, & that she changed her name to Calamity (how awesome is that?). I loved the mythology around the little boy she takes in.
Ragamuffin - Tobias Buckell. I didn't like this as much as the predecessor, Crystal Rain, partly because it did that second-book thing where we are taken to wholly different characters & setting, & the ones I liked so much previously don't come in until much later. Still, lots of interesting stuff here on how to resist oppression & how not to become the oppressors yourself, etc. Also the oh-shit factor gets turned up later on in the book for some thrillingness!
The Shadow Speaker - Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. Re-read. Still fantastic; I appreciated the questioning of violence as a tactic & I always love a strong (yet realistic) female POC teenage protagonist.
Acacia - David Anthony Durham. Hated the first half of this massive tome (which was 600+ pages). It's about a POC empire built on drugs & slavery, & the king believes he wants to dismantle the terrible things upon which his, & his family's, wealth & comfort are built. Then he's assassinated by some of the white folks he colonized, who come back & take over & even though some of them state their goal is to right the wrongs committed by the first empire, they--you guessed it--settle quickly in to being the oppressors. The last half of the book finally drew me in; there's a lot of stuff going on about how to break free from oppression w/o falling into the trap of oppressing your former masters, & how is political & social change possible, etc. I'm not sure I have the energy to read the sequel--my tolerance for epic fantasy is limited--but the last half of this book almost made up for how annoying I found the first half.