ExtraPenguin

The book: a single novel of sci-fi caving horror. Should you read it? Well, depends. If the premise sounds appealing, you should. If the concept of caving horror makes you go NOPE, you shouldn't. I went in on the basis of a rec stating it was sci-fi with canon F/F, and while the F/F was not canon imo (more extremely femslashy plus open-ended on the relationship front), I enjoyed it immensely. Gyre was an excellent narrator, and the descriptions of caves and caving excellent. I devoured it in one sitting (and promptly had nightmares the following night). I am definitely requesting it for juletide and then Yuletide and probably some exchanges in between.

(I'm also down for writing this for the equalityauction even if I didn't read it in time to officially offer. Bid away!)

So! I finally finished the anthology Invisible Planets: 13 Visions of the Future from China, ed. and tr. Ken Liu. The stories were good, and I appreciate reading it. I have some thoughts!

Firstly, the byline calls it an anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction. I wouldn't actually class that many of the stories as science fiction – a lot of them were more fantasy/mythology/hard to classify. Chinese Weird, if you will. (In analogy with Finnish Weird.) This is not necessarily a negative, merely misleading marketing (just like the marketing that called The Three-Body Problem hard SF when it imo isn't).

Secondly, the stories all had very similar tones. I don't know if Ken Liu has very particular likes or whether Chinese SF is all like this, but: it was all a bit dark and had a thread of focusing on the futility of existence/victory of entropy; no-one won big, everyone either lost or continued on trudging as they were. It's a tone not that easy to describe but also very familiar – it's ubiquitous in Finnish SF! You could've slotted something by someone like Shimo Suntila right in and I don't think I'd have even noticed. I'm trying to figure out whether there's some parallel tonal evolution going on for whatever reason, or whether Anglophone SF is just the outlier.

I still have some essays at the back to read about Chinese SF (by authors featured in the collection), but I figured those'll take me another few months to get to (*g*) so I had better post this now.

So I read this while waiting for Yuletide to reveal, and I liked it! The copy at hand was the Young Readers' Edition, so all the fucks had been edited out, but I don't think I missed all that much.

All in all, it was pretty much what I expected, that is, there was a lot of first-person "captain's log" stuff with engineering nitty-gritty which I enjoyed immensely, some third person "meanwhile on Earth" stuff that I enjoyed a bit less, and it was a heartwarming tale about people coming together. I enjoyed Watney's narration, and the ingeniousness of things like the living room. Thinking about what everyone else had to sacrifice – the Saturn mission and the Chinese solar observation mission – was sad. I might request fic about repairing the Hermes after its too-long time in space, or an AU where the blowout doesn't happen and Watney potato farms in peace. Not really into shipping.

Meme from hamsterwoman:

Comment and I'll give you a letter, and you will need to name five favorite books starting with that letter.

I got the letter B. It was surprisingly hard; the letter B seems under-represented in my favorite authors' bibliographies. Perhaps this is a sign that I should read Peter Watts's Blindsight, which sits on my shelf. Also, if you want a letter, comment with a comment that includes "Meme me!" or something to that effect.

Alphabetized by author and then title:
Barrayar, Lois McMaster Bujold
Borders of Infinity, Lois McMaster Bujold (yes, this is a collection of short stories – it's still a book)
Brothers in Arms, Lois McMaster Bujold
Beowulf's Children, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes
Beyond the Aquila Rift, Alastair Reynolds (again, a collection of short stories)

(Stuff that didn't make the list: Bowl of Heaven, Larry Niven and Gregory Benford; Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Frederik Pohl.)

All the LMB stuff is part of the Vorkosigan saga, which anyone who subscribes to me has probably already heard about, but it's mainly planetary romance (/space opera) that spans a lot of subgenres/genre fusions. Lots of loyalty kink, and the main protagonist is a schemer who gets involved in high-adrenaline hijinks. Barrayar is about the newly married protagonist (main protag's mother) figuring out how life works on this feudalist planet and oh hey domestic intrigue plot coup thingy; Borders of Infinity spans the gamut, with one story taking place in a backwater of the feudalist planet and another in a high-tech galactic prisoner of war camp, with all the stories involving our main protag's plotting mind; Brothers in Arms has our main protag discover a clone-brother and also domestic-ish intrigue.
Beowulf's Children is mainly there because I enjoyed the worldbuilding about the ecology, way back when I read it. (Not gonna reread because I liked it but in hindsight Niven is ... creepy.) It's also better than book #1, IIRC, since it deals with slightly more complex themes than just "kill the bad things".
Beyond the Aquila Rift collects a bunch of Alastair Reynolds' short stuffs. I like him as a novelist, but I like him as a short story writer a bit more. He's got good ideas, and turns them into convincing stories.
Bowl of Heaven is Big Dumb Object SF, except the object is complex and "smart". Niven's sexism was obvious, as I only read this recently, but the BDO they were exploring was more than enough to compensate. The ending was a bit of an ass pull, but that only happened in book 2.
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is part of the Heechee saga, which I enjoyed, though mostly due to the other books. Gateway was good, this one not so much.

Though I may enjoy novels, I like short things a bit more, I think. Less of a time investment, and often authors feel free to do more outrageous stuff in them. Additionally, one type of prose I hate – the purple prose overdescription of everything – is so fundamentally unsuited to the length that it's much rarer and I have less chances of disappointment. My favorite authors tend to be the ones that can write concisely, then bring their style to their novels (most recently, Yoon Ha Lee, who managed to fit into 8k what other people would spend a novel on: Battle of Candle Arc, not on the list only because AFAIK it's online-only and thus not a book).

Now, thanks to dreamkist, I have a month's worth of paid time. You know what that means? ALL THE POLLS.
( polls )

I finished it today. I was drawn to it enough to add it to my Yuletide requests!

I love Baru Cormorant. She is competent and she is ruthless, and she inspires loyalty. She uses assets to the best of her ability. She is driven. I also love her relationships with the dukes – especially Tain Hu. The loyalty kink was very button-press-y. Baru being willing to do anything to succeed at her goals was amazing.

I loved the worldbuilding. Falcrest taking over places with economics! A complex Aurdwynn with its own problems and history! Nebulous powers behind the throne and the promise of cutthroat politics!

( ending spoilers )

Now, this is not a thing I'd rec without caveats – there's homophobia, the threat of government-mandated eugenics, some sexism, and the whole imperialism shit – but if one likes competent female characters and economic worldbuilding, it's worth checking out. There'll be a sequel, The Monster Baru Cormorant, that I'll nab when it comes out.

I have acquired a terrible flu, and am frightfully bored, because I want to go outside and exercise, which is ... not advisable. Instead, I made inroads into more of my to-read pile.

The Stars are Legion
Firstly, it's a standalone, so no nail-biting wait for a squillion sequels.
Secondly, the back cover blurb doesn't quite capture the thing.

Despite the fact that it's first person, I liked it! (Especially the "Lord Mokshi, Annals of the Legion" bits that preface each chapter.) There are two narrators, Zan and Jayn. Most of the narration is from Zan's POV. The premise is that there is a Legion of organic world-ships who are decaying, but cannot leave their position – apart from one empty one, Mokshi, which Zan is sent to get into. By Jayn and her family. Zan has succeeded repeatedly, but each time she comes back without her memory. Now, Jayn's faction isn't the only one, and there's lots of interesting politics going on.
All the inhabitants of the world-ships are women, and the ship somehow makes the women get pregnant and give birth to components – gears, etc. The ships do have metal frames, but they're patterned off humans and have arteries and such. There is some gore and body horror, though I could read it, and I'm not at all a fan of body horror. If pregnancy squicks you, skip this one.

( spoilers )

On a related note, I am accepting book recs for science fiction. On a semi-related note, I tried getting into Fran Wilde's Uplift and bounced off the teenage first-person POV protagonist. I'll probably try it again later, but oh well. If that doesn't work, I have a younger sibling who's into fantasy.

It's 2004, so probably out of date, but Andrew H. Knoll is good at writing.

Life on a Young Planet is nonfiction about Precambrian life on Earth! It had lots of interesting stuffs about bacteria and other micro-organisms, as well as weird Ediacaran life. The prose was also nice, and it clearly explained a lot of new stuff, like life preferring to use carbon-12, and thus the carbon-12/carbon-13 ratio being a useful measure of life's presence. It also explained shortly some blind alleys of thought, as well as why scientists went there.

All in all, a very intriguing "What" book on an interesting subject, with brief forays into and mentions of "Who", "How", and "Why", to give better texture. It's also given me a few ideas to toy with in origfic.

Additionally, shiftingpath gave what was maybe the best explanation of the appeal of exploration narratives ever in TGE chat. (Repeated small stories of tension and release in small adventures.) I am toying with it in the aforementioned origfic.

Nominees are up. Here are my thoughts on each of the short stories, apart from the Castalia House one. Grading out of five, where
0 = this is a terrible piece of shit
1 = I didn't click at all and wish for that time back
2 = You Tried, but not my thing
3 = okay enough, could be someone else's 4 or 5
4 = a good story that I engaged with
5 = mind=blown, excellent

The City Born Great, NK Jemisin
First up, a story in the genre of Psychological Weird Magical Realism WTF. The metaphors were florid, and I didn't click with the emotional beats of the story at all.
1/5

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers, Alyssa Wong
Exactly the same emotional core as above, except with a different plot. Slightly better, if only because I like weather more than cities.
1/5

Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies, Brooke Bolander
I liked the use of formatting, but this is essentially issuefic with a Psychological Weird Magical Realism WTF veneer. At least it's shorter than the above two.
1/5

Seasons of Glass and Iron, Amal El-Mohtar
Okay, this is issuefic, too, but the experimenting on the binding magic and the femslash ending have me forgive a lot. Also, the fairytale grounding makes it more straightforward mythic than Weird Magical Realism.
2/5

That Game We Played During the War, Carrie Vaughn
ACTUAL SCIENCE FICTION. It's got some nice telepath worldbuilding and has clearly thought war with teeps through more than the average telepath-writing author. The complex feels, opaque to the narrator, transparent to everyone else, and the weary yet hopeful atmosphere mean it's the best of the pack.
4/5

440 pages, copyright 1988 (and its age shows), Space Opera.

I finally finished it. It was enjoyable but I wouldn't rec it due to major Problems: the non-Guardship female characters were few in number, and the ones with the most screentime caused me to wince, especially Valerena; I loathed all the Tregessers, especially Blessed, who should have died in a fire on page 1; the "hero" who I sensed I should cheer for was really fucking bland; and there was too much telling without even explaining (there's a network of Guardships who've upheld the law for eons, and it's just stated that this guy's troops have them secretly following a plan, without even any exposition).

( spoilers )

Mostly, I was left pitying WarAvocat, whose enemy was a total Gary Stu.

First: apologies for the long absence. My plotbunnies have all turned to dustbunnies and apparently I have real stuff to do.

I watched Christopher Nolan's Interstellar on the 7th. All in all, it was a nice romp with flashy special effects. The plot was decent, and the premise (humankind has turned into farmers while the Earth's ecosystem collapses) is scarily realistic.
The movie has aging and time as major themes, which is so blindingly logical for a film about interstellar travel that I can't believe major poductions haven't been made with those themes before.

The film's largest failing was the fact that its twist, while foreshadowed, wasn't really compatible with Occam's Razor. The ship tease between Cooper and Dr Burns was also cringe-worthy, in my opinion. However, the SFX were enticing, and they actually hired a scientist to help with them, so they're realistic, too. The portrayal of Dr Mann was excellent.

Conclusion: Go watch it