There’s no theme with these!

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown

I don’t know how much the rest of America/the world learns about the Donner Party in school but for me, growing up in Northern California, it was local history and something that was taught to us in the fourth grade, probably right after we did the mission project. I enjoyed learning about the Donner Party at the time, because nine year olds are morbid little assholes who find people having to resort to cannibalism fascinating, but never felt the need to dig into the story further. Daniel James Brown managed to interest me deeply in a story that was, I thought, old hat to me. With a combination of just the right amount of detail and some truly lovely writing, he wove a fascinating narrative that made clear how things went so very wrong for the Donner Party. His attempt to pick a main character to follow through the story didn’t always work but he did use it to good effect most of the time. The audiobook is to be avoided at all cost, the narrator wouldn’t know an emotion if it kicked him in the face and just generally, I really, really did not like his voice. Four stars.

Followers by Megan Angelo

Followers has two main storylines, one set in the current era and another thirty-five years into the future, after some catastrophic Event has devastated the world.  The modern storyline progresses in a linear fashion, if I recall correctly, but the future storyline bounces around a bit, giving us important narrative clues as it does. We slowly learn what the Event was and the changes it wrought in America, while following the lives of three very different women. The book has a lot to say about fame and social media and the information about all of us that is floating around out there. It does not say anything particularly new or inventive on these subjects but it does present its opinions in a fairly readable story. That said, this book is SO white. So, so white. The fact that the narrative acknowledges the whiteness of the story and gives a “reason” for it does not, in my mind, excuse the overwhelming whiteness of it all. Going into it, I wanted to like this books a lot but, in the end, it’s a resounding “meh” from me. 2.5 stars.

Timeline by Michael Crichton

A corporation discovers how to time travel. It funds groups of historians/archeologists to study historical sites in the hopes of finding a good location for the ultimate Medieval Times venue (now with Real History^TM!). One thing leads to another and a group of intrepid history students have to travel back in time to rescue their professor. All I have to say about this book is: OMG, is this what all Michael Crichton books are like? Why do people like them? What the actual fuck? This book was like all the worst parts of Doomsday Book with none of the redeeming emotional arcs or well written women. I hated every single thing about this book. I cared about none of the characters, the plot was boring (y’all, there’s this whole part that’s just about having to fill part of the time travel machine with water. Oh no, will putting the water in too fast break the machine? Oh no, do we have repair supplies for the water chambers? Oh no, can we fill the water chambers quickly enough save our heroes? Oh no, CAN YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT THE WATER), the villains were cartoonish, the writing was terrible, and it was sexist like whoa. I just cannot even with this fucking book. Like, no shade at anybody who enjoys Michael Crichton, but I am genuinely curious as to why?! Did my bookclub just happen to pick the worst possible Michael Crichton book to read or is this actually a fair example of what he had to offer? Because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, I hated every single part of this fucking book. One star.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

The story begins in 1901, with January Scaller, a young girl who lives in a lovely home in rural Vermont. This home is filled with strange and wonderful objects, found by her father for owner of the home, Mr. Locke. Mr. Locke is a member of a prestigious archaeological society and loves to be known as a collector of wondrous things but prefers not to do the collecting himself. So he sends Julian Scaller on the search, sometimes for months at a time. While Julian is away, Mr. Locke looks after young January. He buys her starched dresses and shiny shoes and extols her to behave while on trips of their own to sell select pieces of his extraordinary collection to other members of the archaeological society.

On one such trip brings them to a small town in the South. The staff at the hotel do not know how to react to January because while her caregiver is obviously rich and she is finely dressed, she is also clearly not white. When Mr. Locke leaves her to her own devices while he conducts his business, January feels uncomfortable in the hotel and wanders outside in search of entertainment. What she finds is a Door. It seems to be all that is left of structure that has fallen, freestanding in a field. But when she steps through the Door, she can smell the sea. She is overwhelmed and soon retreats to the field where she found the Door but not before picking up a coin she finds in the strange, brine scented place. Mr. Locke, who has come in search of his lost pet, listens to her astounding story before telling her it is nonsense and insisting that she stop making up such fanciful things. He becomes so angry that he burns the Door in front of January and when they returns home, hires a very strict nanny for her, to see that her wayward behavior is curbed.

The story begins with hints of larger things to come. It shows us January’s anger (at times left to seethe and at times exploding forth), it teases at the true character of Mr. Locke, it introduces a single Door, leaving you even more curious about the ten thousand in the title. This is a story about the power of words, of finding your place, of seeing new things. It contains fully fleshed characters, simple kindness, a very good dog, darkly evil deeds, and at least one vampire. It’s a story with revelations that will make you gasp and plots that will make your heart yearn for adventure. It’s a story that is an incredible accomplishment for a debut author and one that has left me eagerly awaiting Ms. Harrow’s next.

A bunch of gay as hell space books

These are some of the sci-fi books I read in 2019. I’m not going to specify how for each one but they are all gay as hell in various ways, which is honestly just how I think space is going to be for us when we finally get there. Or at least, I sure hope.

The Disasters by M.K. England takes one of my favorite tropes, a ragtag bunch of outcasts who circumstances force together must fight for their survival and learn to trust and love each other along the way, and does it with charm, humor, and a bunch of inclusivity that to me, never feels forced. It’s not a super deep novel but it is a ton of fun and tugs the heartstrings a time or two.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Ambassador Mahit Dzmare is from a small collection of space stations. She’s been assigned to the expansion happy Teixcalaanli Empire. The community she is from is so small that it cannot afford to lose the knowledge and experience of previous generations, so certain people are implanted with devices that record their memories and personalities, which can be passed on to the next generation. However, the previous ambassador to the Teixcalaanli Empire hadn’t visited home in many years and they did not have a recent recording when he died. So Mahit is sent to her new post with memories nearly 20 years out of date and which a filled with a deep appreciation for the culture she must prevent from swallowing her own. But cultural imperialism is hard to resist when you’re beginning to fall for it too.

Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear. Haimey, her crew member Connla, and their AI, Singer are salvagers. They travel the scars of interstellar travel, looking for ships that didn’t make it through White Space back into the universe. They find something disturbing and are almost immediately attacked by space pirates. I loved the world building in this one, it made space seem vast and strange and terrifying and wonderful, which is my favorite way for space to be. There are also bonus space cats!

The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz. Kenna’s family are philosophers. They have, in the past, counselled kings and empires. But Kenna can’t find his philosophy. Most because all he can think about is how hungry he is. So when he comes to a space station with a famous restaurant that is booked out for years but that, each day, gives away the chance for one lucky customer to dine at their restaurant, Kenna takes his chance. He’s thrust into a world he could never have dreamed of, full of amazing new food, new friends who soon come to mean the world to him, and a new way of looking at life. This book is charming, sweet, and full of what I like to call Space!Feels!

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. Vivian Liao is a tech genius who has pissed off the government. She’s decided to go into hiding but before she does, she wants to stick it to the government one last time. In the midst of a server farm, she’s whisked away by a mysterious glowing figure, transported instantly to a space station under siege, where she has to dodge killer robots and fight alongside a cyborg monk. The book spans galaxies, includes giant spiders who battle by dancing, and is just generally a whole lot of fun. And shockingly un-male-gaze-y for a book with a sexually active lesbian main character written by a (as far as I know) cis dude.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling. The only one on the list I didn’t like! I’ve seen other reviews call this the horror version of The Martian and while I get why once somebody else said it, it never reminded me of The Martian because the science is SO BAD. And the characters constantly make very stupid choices. They’re not forced by circumstance into reckless or ridiculous actions, they, time and again, choose to do the stupidest thing possible. It’s very annoying and wasted all the good will that I went into this book, about queer WOC, with.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Ooooh, boy, what a wild ride. Space necromancers! Lesbian space necromancers! Zombies! Secret keys and hidden doors! Repressed feelings and noble sacrifices! Sass! Sass for days! Sword fights and battles of wits! It’s so weird and it’s so good and it’s so much fun.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers. Humanity sends explorers into space. We seemed to have learned a few lessons from our time on Earth and send them with a mandate to harm nothing, change nothing, to observe and catalog and learn. The team travel form world to world, sleeping between each stop, transforming into something suited to each new planet. The ice world sees antifreeze in their blood, the sun drenched world sees reflective skin. Each new world brings a new change. But when the message from Earth begin to change and then stop all together, what responsibilities do our explorers have?

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Galaxy by Alex White. We start as we began, with a ragtag space crew. This one blends big ass space ships with fantasy and humor and characters who both want to hug and punch each other. There’s a washed up reality star, a hot-shot racer, a possibly murderous mechanic, and a world weary captain, among others. The fight amonsgt themselves but they also are big damn heroes. Both this and it’s sequel are a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the final book in the trilogy later next year.

The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper

Set post a nuclear war that wiped out most of the population. Most of the action takes place in Marthasville, a town that is divided into two parts: a garrison of men and Women’s Country. Life in the garrison consists of training, drinking, literal penis worship, and going to war with other garrisons. Life in the Women’s Country consists of a lifelong dedication to learning, farming, building, herding, dancing, acting, weaving, etc. Life, basically. Books, crafts, and more than cursory healing knowledge is forbidden for men.

Twice a year there are month long festivals where men and women mingle freely and boys under 15 go home to visit. This is when women become pregnant. If they have a boy at the age of 5 that boy is taken to live in the garrison until age 15 when they must decide to stay or to go back to Women’s Country, though they have until age 25, when they become a full warrior, to finally decide.  If men choose to return to Women’s Country, they become servitors, allowed to learn a trade and to live among the women.

Women’s Country is ruled by a council. Unbeknownst to nearly everybody, they are running a selective breeding program. The men who choose to return to Women’s Country (and therefore have repudiated violence) are the actual fathers of all the children. During the medical exam that is required before an adult(ish) woman can participate in the fucking part of the festivals, they are either given a birth control implant that they’re told is something else or are artificially inseminated with a servitor’s sperm.

The selective breeding program seems to be working as a couple of generations ago 5% of boys returned to Women’s Country and now 20% do. The women of the council believe they are breeding aggression and violence out of the population.

So, yeah. Did not like that. Didn’t like the gender essentialism, didn’t like the idea of breeding people into compliance, didn’t like women not being allowed to make informed choices about their reproductive health. Didn’t like how very White Feminist the whole thing was. Also, just didn’t let the writing. It was a very dull book, generally speaking, and the framing device didn’t leave a lot of tension in the narrative. It also didn’t help that I felt like I’ve read this book before. Being a fan of feminist speculative fiction, I’ve read a fair amount of it and this book was very similar to a lot of it. It reminded me in particular of Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story The Matter of Seggri (though the novel was published several years prior to the short story) and didn’t come off well in comparison, in my opinion.

So if you’re a feminist speculative fiction completest, by all means, give it a whirl. Just don’t expect a very exciting ride.

Vessel by Lisa A. Nichols

Spoilers for this book, because I’m NOT recommending it and I very much would like y’all to know why.

The blurb from Amazon is:

An astronaut returns to Earth after losing her entire crew to an inexplicable disaster, but is her version of what happened in space the truth? Or is there more to the story…A tense, psychological thriller perfect for fans of Dark Matter and The Martian. 

That sounded intriguing and I’m always down for sci-fi thrillers, but this books so relentlessly stupid that I only finished so that I could full articulate how much I disliked it.  A bullet point list of incredibly stupid things that happened in this novel, because it doesn’t deserve full paragraphs:

• The main character went on a nine year mission where she was the only survivor and didn’t remember the middle part where the rest of the crew died (or became unicorns, you don’t know what happens on alien planets, man).  She made it back to Earth and started having memory gaps that involved waking ups in parts of NASA HQ that she had no reason to be in and told not a single person about it.  Including her mandated therapist.  Or her husband who also worked for NASA.
• Six astronauts go to another planet, the journey there AND back is years long and when they get to the planet they apparently offload all the supplies they’d need to make that return journey. As if the need to leave an alien planet NOW and not after you spend two days reloading supplies never occurred to them.
• NASA as depicted in this book somehow thought it was a good idea to send a man who was in love with one of his married colleagues on a years long space mission with her.  Because there’s no way that would cause friction while they were trapped together on a spaceship for NINE YEARS.
• The main character eventually realizes she has been infected with an alien, which takes the form of parasitic telepathic spores.  She keeps running around in public like it isn’t an issue to be filled with parasitic, telepathic, violent, hate humans spores.  And then has sex with her new love interest.  Who she hated until two days before.  Maybe she was actually hoping to infect him with the parasitic, telepathic alien spores?
• NASA as depicted in this book shows little to no interest in the memory lapses of the two surviving astronauts who went through wormholes.
• NASA as depicted in this book has terrible, TERRIBLE quarantine protocols.  We’d all be infected with parasitic, telepathic alien spores within two days, y’all.  SO BAD.
• NASA as depicted in this book FINALLY believe that the parasitic, telepathic alien spores are a threat to the new group of astronauts they’ve sent through the wormhole.  The solution is apparently to send the main character (the one infected with the parasitic, telepathic alien spores) and her new love interest (who was an admin at NASA and has had little to no astronaut training) after the other group.  And do so in a matter of months, because it’s really easy to put together a spaceship that must sustain two people for years.  They just had to get it off the shelf and dust it off, basically, super easy, don’t know why more countries haven’t accomplished the whole space thing.

So, yeah.  Didn’t like this one very much.  I don’t recommend you waste your time on it.

You expect me to jump up on board with you and ride off into your delusional sunset

We open on a young man on a quest. He is the prince of his land and his father has just died. To claim his kingship, he must travel to the grey land, defeat a dragon, and bring back a damsel for his bride. This is how things have always been in Harding. The farther dies and to claim his place, the son must complete this rite.

Tradition in Harding decrees that the prince can be give no help to defeat his dragon, not even in the form of advice. But the prince picks up tidbits through gossip and prepares as best he knows how, practicing hunting, arms, and the type of conquests that involve a (reluctant) maidservant and a deserted hayloft. His mother (once a damsel herself) sends for him each day, to hear of his achievements and praise him. He omits any hayloft adventures, though he thinks she must know and approve of his manly pursuits.

The day the prince’s father dies, his mother sends for him once more. She breaks with tradition, telling him he has two weapons to fight the dragon (his mind and his sword) but that to win the day, he will need a third. We see the prince enter the dragon’s castle, using cunning and steel to bring the dragon low, as he frantically thinks what his third weapon could be.

We open again on a young man, his quest now finished. The naked damsel lies in his arms, no memories of her past in her head. “I rescued you,” the prince tells her. He defeated the dragon and carried her down the cliff to bring her home as his bride. He gives her clothes and food and a name (Ama, because women’s names should start with a soft sound, he says); he is handsome and strong, this must be her destiny.

Ama enters the prince’s castle and begins to learn what her role will be. She is to be beautiful and compliant, silent and submissive, eager to please her king. She should seek the king permission to walk in the garden, she shouldn’t admit she knows she’s beautiful, she should ready herself for her wedding night. Women are vessels, the king tells her, to be filled by men. It is her duty to listen, he says, and his to speak. She must wait, he will take action; she admires, he creates.

Distressed at this picture of her future, Ama seeks council and kindness from those around her.

“Wild creatures must be broken so they can be tamed,” the falconer, the king’s best friend, tells her.

“You’d better pretend to enjoy it, because the king will be angry if you don’t,” the reluctant maidservant tells her.

“If you marry my son, I will die when his seed is planted in you, as all queens do when the new damsel takes their place.” the queen mother (who, if you do the math, is only thirty-two) says. “If?” Ama ask. “When,” the queen says. “If,” Ama thinks. “If, if, if.”

Damsel is a familiar story in many ways. The handsome prince rescues the damsel in distress and is rewarded with her heart. Tale old as time. So is the other story being told. That of young women penned in by the rules and expectations forced on us, constantly told what we should and shouldn’t do, what we can and cannot be. Told that it is our job to fulfill men, how to make men feel smart and wanted and strong, we must make ourselves soft and gentle and weak. It’s a story women know deep in our bones. But do we know how that story will end?

We open on a young man on a quest. How will we close?

The first, last, and only

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon.  This was the most difficult book I’ve read all year and perhaps the most worthwhile.  The story takes place on a generation ship, where the wealthy white people live in luxury on the upper decks and the black people* live enslaved on the lower decks, forced to do manual labor and endure the cruel oversight of the white people (who have developed a(n even) weird(er) religion to excuse/justify their behavior).  It’s definitely a book filled with vivid and shocking (and shockingly mundane) cruelty and it can be difficult to read because of that, but that’s kind of the point.  However, the characters were fantastic and Rivers Solomon managed to infuse a great deal of humor into the narrative and overall this book was heartbreaking but so worth your time.

In the first scene, our protagonist, Aster, a gifted chemist and healer, is called upon to amputate the foot of a child, Flick.  The foot has become gangrenous due to frostbite because of the cold conditions on the lower decks.

     “Guards be calling Tarlanders dogs all the time,” Flick said, hand on hip.
Aster twitched at the sound of the familiar word; she hadn’t heard it in ages, but it still stirred a sense of belonging.  Tarlanders were the inhabitants of P, Q, R, S, and T decks, and it was as close to a nation as anything on Matilda.
“The guards are hardly a compass by which to measure right and wrong,” said Aster.
Flick’s eyes flashed open in what was presumably mock shock.  “You gonna get struck down for saying that, woman.  Don’t you know that Sovereign Nicholaeus is the Heavens’ chosen ruler?  And that the guards are Nicolaeus’s soldiers and, by extension, soldiers of the Heavens?  A spurn to them is a spurn to the Heavens direct,” Flick said in a high-pitched voice.
“Well, let’s hope the Heavens exact vengeance after I’ve amputated your foot.  I wouldn’t want you – righteous defender of the moral order that you are – negatively affected by my sacrilege.”  Without meaning to, Aster smiled.
“How about if you promise to do my surgery up good, I’ll write a letter to the Guard begging they spare you?  I been practicing my vocabulary and I already know what I’m gonna say.  Want to hear?”  Mischief draw Flick’s face into a sly grin.
“Dear Sirs,” Flick began before loudly inhaling, “On account of there being no heat down here on account of there being no electricity on account of the brand-new energy rations so thoughtfully and nobly and honorably imposed on the steerage decks by Sovereign Nicolaeus on account of the blackouts – Aster fell prey to a brief fit of hypothermia-induced delirium and spoke out against you in her maddery.  She’s healed up now so you don’t have to worry about it happening again.  Yours humbly, deferentially, meekly, and respectfully, Flor “Flicker” Samuels.”  Flick erupted in laughter and took a bow. “Opinions?”
“Your sarcasm reveals clear disregard for the sanctity of the Sovereign’s Guard, which I appreciate,” Aster said, blowing into her cupped palms before vigorously rubbing them together.

Aster must create an improvised stove from rags and alcohol to warm her hands enough to perform the amputation. When it is over, Flick’s  family give her a warm cloak, which she protests is too much for services rendered. She’s told the payment is mostly for the idea of the stove, because ingenuity and cleverness are valued by the people of the lower decks.

An Unkindness of Ghosts is filled with small acts of cleverness, kindness,  sedition, defiance, and rebellion. These small acts eventually lead to a tipping point, setting off great acts of rebellion. Will these great acts be enough to free the people of the lower decks?  It’s definitely worth your time to find out.

*including the mixed race people who cannot “pass.” Those who can pass are taken from their mothers either by their white fathers or by others and given fyi white families.

January 2017 Books

1. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. Audiobook. Eeeeeehhhhhh. I really wanted to love it, but I didn’t. I think I would have liked it much more if the guy was the nature loving witch and the girl was the techno geek. I feel like it would have forced the author to think about the characters more, if that makes sense? Idk, just, despite having ingredients that I love, the final product wasn’t really for me.

2. Cyborg Heat by Lisa Lace. Audiobook. Wow that was bad. Like, so bad I’m not convinced Lisa Lace isn’t a cyborg who has never actually had sex with a human. So bad that at one point the male lead shoves his penis (which had just been described as “almost too big”) into his female partner’s ass with no prep and she, of course, loves it. So bad that there’s not one but two near rapes of the female lead. So bad that the female lead used soap to masturbate. SO BAD. I’m reading the second book now.

3. Cyborg Fury by Lisa Lace. Audiobook. Well, it was less rapey than the first book but now featured an obsessed bordering on abusive ex, so kind of a wash. On the plus side, the author actually used the word “clit” instead of dancing around it with flowery language, so that’s a plus?

4. Scott Pilgrim vol 1 by that guy I’ll add in later. Ebook. I now dislike the casting of Michael Cera in the movie version even more.

5. Steel World by B.V. Larson. Audiobook. Somebody read waaaaaaaaay too much Heinlein in their youth but didn’t manage to notice any of the things that made Heinlein not totally terrible.

6. Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie. Audiobook, reread.

7. Infinity Lost by S. Harrison. Audiobook. Holy unexpected really gruesome violence, Batman! I also guessed the “twist” about five pages in. And it didn’t even end on a cliffhanger, it ended in the middle of a scene. I’m debating reading the next one though because it was mostly decently written fluff (for various values of fluff, given the extreme violence (seriously, there was this thing with a thumb and an eyeball that was totally unnecessary) but you know what I mean) and that’s just what the doctor ordered sometimes.

8. The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black. Audiobook, reread.

9. Scott Pilgrim vol. 2 by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Ebook.

10. Armada by Ernest Cline. Audiobook. I’m going to have to write a full review of this one. Long story short, it’s not a terrible book but Ernest Cline needs somebody who is more socially aware to avoid falling into sexist and racist pitfalls.

11. Manners and Mutiny by Gail Carriger. Audiobook. Fun, good, would recommend.

12. Proposal by Meg Cabot. Audiobook. Mediator novella. Squeeeeee! Not the best thing in the world but I enjoyed it.

13. Overheard by Maya Banks. Audiobook. Smut. Okay smut, not great.

14. Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix. Audiobook. Some stories were eh and some were great and none were bad.

15. 50 Shades of Gay by Jeffery Self. Audiobook. Lololololololol. Just as bad as you might imagine. Still not as bad as 50 Shades of Grey.

16. Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews. Audiobook. Good! Not sure I buy Kate being as sappy as she ends up being but a small quibble over all.

The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu, trans. by Joel Martinsen

UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH is my main reaction to this book.  My feelings can also be summed up like so:

The whole thing was just so very, very frustrating mostly because there was some legitimately brilliant writing but the sexism was almost overwhelming.

There will be spoilers for the first book in this review and while I’m going to try to avoid major plot spoilers for the second book, it will be impossible to adequately convey my frustrations with the book without talking about some of the things that happen.

Okay.  So, in the first book, the world discovers that the Earth is going to be invaded by aliens in 400 years.  The aliens are intent on wiping out the human race and shaping Earth to fit their needs.  The aliens know that humans have the capability of making great technological leaps forward* so they have sent multidimensional subatomic particles called sophons, able to communicate instantaneously across space, to block certain kinds of research going forward and to spy on humans in general.  Some humans are sympathetic to the aliens (and think the human race need wiping out) and the  sophons also communicate with these humans, getting them to plan and scheme on behalf of the aliens.

At the start of this book, it is realized that to keep plans hidden from the aliens, humans must not write or speak their plans.  They must also not use any conventional strategies, since those are written in books of histories and tactics.  To this end four men are granted extraordinary powers and privileges.  They are the Wallfacers.  They have near unlimited resources for fighting the aliens and they must keep their plans a secret, having only to say that something is part of their plan to see it done.  Three of the men granted this power are respected statesmen or scientists.  The fourth is an unambitious Chinese professor, Luo Ji.  He is our main character.

Luo Ji tries to decline the honor of being named a Wallfacer but every word that comes out of his mouth is seen as part of the plan, even “I quit.”  So Luo Ji orders the project to find him his dream house in an idyllic location and goes to live a quit life far from the people who now want to kill him.  And this is where the problems start for me.  Well, the really big ones, at least.  Just as Luo Ji is able to describe his perfect house, so he describes his ideal woman.  She is tiny and beautiful and pure and flowerlike.  He thinks such an impossibly pure and lovely person cannot exist.  But the head of his security disagrees and says that finding such a woman should be no problem.  And it isn’t.  A couple weeks after her requests her, Luo Ji is sent the woman of his dreams.  She is told that she is part of the Plan to save Earth, to save humanity.  Her part of the plan is to make herself happy.  Apparently that involves falling in love with Luo Ji because the next thing we know the two are married and have a daughter.

But then a Wallfacer fails.  His plans are uncovered by an ally of the aliens, a Wallbreaker. So the world is growing increasingly worried about this Wallfacer Project and want to see something concrete from Luo Ji.  But as long as he has his wife and child and a beautiful place to live, why would Luo Ji do anything but what he is doing now?  So the world security counsel take his wife and child and put them in cryogenic sleep, to be woken when they are content that Luo Ji has really done all he can.  The main character’s wife (who, I remind you, was literally ordered up like delivery food (“No, not too much intelligence, wouldn’t want to ruin it too much spice.”)) is put on ice to motivate the main character.  ARG.

Authors, we’ve been over this.  Using the death/rape/harm of the female love interest of your male main character as motivation for that character is A TERRIBLE IDEA AND NEEDS TO STOP.  Esepecially when your book only has one other female character of significance and she has major daddy issue.  I repeat:

The thing is, I can’t just call Cixin Liu a sexist asshat and call it a day.  Because The Three-Body Problem wasn’t sexist, as far as I can recall.  And I don’t think he meant to be sexist in this book?  Like, at one point it is mentioned that 50% of the people in the space fleet are women.  I honestly thing the author wanted things to come off as balanced?  But he failed so very, very badly in that.  But other parts.  Oh damn, he did not fail at all.  As I said, parts of this book were legitimately brilliant.  If the novel solely consisted of those parts I would be praising this as one of, if not the, most amazing sci-fi books I’ve ever read.

Do I think this book is worth your time?  If you like The Three Body Problem, then yes, absolutely.  I just also wanted to forewarn you that OH MY GOD SO SEXIST is also a reaction you will probably be having.

*Like, guys, planes were invented in ~1903 and we put a man on the moon in 1969.  That’s fucking astounding.  Go humans.

Book review: J is for Jones #atozchallenge

Okay, I am aware that I have totally failed at this challenge, but I had this entry already 90% completed, so I thought I might as well post it anyway!

Remember how I said I might change things up a bit of I didn’t have a book that fit the letter of the day?  Well, I have read several books that start with J but none of them are striking my fancy.  So instead I’m going to briefly review a few books by Diana Wynne Jones.  I’m going to limit myself to three because otherwise we might be here all day.  According to Goodreads, I’ve read 42 books by Diana Wynne Jones, because she is the best, yo.

Dark Lord of Derkholm is a hilarious and loving send-up of the epic fantasy genre.  It’s a fantastic novel in its own rights but it also pokes gentle fun at Tolkien, Lewis, Eddings, etc, etc.  It’s engaging and funny and clever and seriously, so much fun.  Read it now.

Hexwood is a mix of sci-fi (Other planets!  Robots!  Space travel!) and magic (Spelled swords!  Blasts of lightening!  Transformations!) and Arthurian legend (Spelled swords again!  Knights on quest!  A magic cup!).  It’s a bit more on the adult side of DWJ’s writing (see also Deep Secret) and deeply upsetting/sad in places (see any number of DWJ’s books because she knew kids could (and did) handle a lot more stuff that usually given credit for) but the characters are fantastic and it features one of my all time favorite romantic pairings.

I’m cheating a bit by writing about four books as one but it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want, dammit!  The Dalemark Quartet is a series that I accidentally read completely backwards.  I started with the last book and finished with the first.  Oops.  Still one of my favorite series of all time.  The series is set in the kingdom of Dalemark, a kingdom divided by both geography and political beliefs.  The books are about reluctant heroes, about the power of words, about not wanting to fight but recognizing that sometimes it is necessary.*

Overall, books my Diana Wynne Jones are wonderful.  Her characters are vibrant and relatable, she writes with great humor and emotional depth, her plots are diverse and interesting, just Diana Wynne Jones is the best, y’all.  Pick up a book by her today.

*Thanks to my lovely friend Zanna for helping me come up with that, the Dalemark quartet is really hard to sum up!