Sometimes, when one is introduced to a gifted writer who has been crafting fine works for going on two decades, one feels both excited to have found such a trove and yet irritated to have not known about her sooner. This is how I feel after reading Nalo Hopkinson’s first novel Brown Girl in the Ring, published in 1998. The novel won several awards and was nominated for a Philip K. Dick Award. It is an absolutely fascinating combination of dystopian future, Caribbean folk tale, […]
Reading Under the New Moon
The Strange Library combines two things that I love dearly: libraries and strange supernatural occurrences. The story begins with a boy returning his books to the library. When he asks the librarian for help finding more books, she directs him to a confined room in the basement where a small old man helps him locate three gigantic volumes on tax collection in the Ottoman Empire. However, when he tries to check the books out, he is told that he must instead read the books there, […]
Pretty Confusing, Vol. 1: . . . uh, what?
So I had to sit on on this one for a while before even committing to a star rating, and even now I’m still not sure about it. I mostly only chose three because it seemed like the most neutral option. This book is hard to think about, hard to digest, and hard to categorize. Ultimately, that’s probably a good thing. Confusing and hard to categorize generally at least means ‘original.’ And Pretty Deadly is certainly original. But it’s also confusing and confounding and hard to […]
A nice glass of sweet tea.
Lately I’ve been into non-fiction. Some of them have been uplifting and given me renewed hope in humanity–would that there were more Dr. Mutters in the world, right? How amazing that we can treat things with antibiotics! However, some of them, although well written and fascinating, make me despair for humanity. The Devil in the White City‘s psychopathic murderer bummed me out, and I’m currently reading King Leopold’s Ghost, which is very good and also seriously so depressing. At the 50% mark, I needed a break. The public library […]
Mindbending
So I finally read Alif the Unseen. Wow — what a genre-bender. So many questions about belief, ideology, loyalty, technology, humanity, and identity are explored across multiple metaphysical planes and in achingly familiar real-world contexts. To back up to a plot summary, which I’ll ape from Goodreads: “In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble. He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and […]
Because There’s Enough Reality Already
Short stories have never been my cup of tea. It takes so much effort to get into the groove of a story that it seems pointless to have it end so quickly. After a friend suggested short stories via audiobook, I’m starting to change my mind. In audio form, short stories become podcast-like and I adore podcasts. Kelly Link’s Get In Trouble was a great starter collection. All of the stories could be classified as magical realism (which I love already) and are extremely well-written. […]