pammab's 2018 challenge

Back for 2018!

I'd like to read at least 1 book across each of 8 categories (the last digit of 2018, you see), with the official total goal of 36 books -- chosen for its whimsical value (36 = 2*18).

(In truth, I'd quite like to hit 52 books this year. One book each week on average is within sight, and it would break my record for books read in the past 12 years! But I'm not going to stress about it getting to 52 books seems unreasonable partway through the year.)

Categories:
A. Speculative Fiction
B. Book Groups
C. Famed
D. Discovered in 2018
E. Empathy
F. Bücher auf Deutsch
G. Bingo!
H. Freedom

I tend to read a lot of speculative fiction, just about anything except fantasy/magical realism/grit or edgy settings, and a lot of famous fiction that I'm only getting to now, especially prize winners and bestsellers from the last decade or so. I also read a sizeable amount non-fiction, usually fact-based plus a handful of business/interpersonal relationship books. A sizeable portion of my reading right now is driven by a queer book club. I particularly love engagement with (all) religion, education, social identity, and culture.

Ratings:
I rate according to this scale:
1 - Eek! Methinks not.
2 - Meh. I've experienced better.
3 - A-OK.
4 - Yay! I'm a fan.
5 - Woohoo! As good as it gets!

Two stars don't mean I hated it! It just means the book wasn't especially shiny when I read it. In fact, I tend to end up with a bimodal distribution, with a small peak around 2 and a larger peak around 4.

🌲 marks SantaThing books (excellent choices from ryvre!)

A. Speculative Fiction
I read a heavy diet of speculative fiction. Let it live here!

11. The three-body problem by Cixin Liu (March -- ponderous Chinese SF -- ★★)
12. The long way to a small, angry planet by Becky Chambers (March -- spec fic cozy -- ★★★★)
18. The fifth season by N.K. Jemisin (April -- hidden cost of stability -- ★★★★★)
20. The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (May -- political intrigue-- ★★★★★)
21. An excess male by Maggie Shen King (June -- near-future China -- ★★★★)
22. The obelisk gate by N.K. Jemisin (June -- an entertaining sequel -- ★★★★)
28. Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold (October -- stuck in a bubble -- ★★★★½)
29. Flowers of Vashnoi by Lois McMaster Bujold (October -- mountain folk be crazy -- ★★★★½)
30. The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (October -- mountain folk be crazy -- ★★★★)
34. The Edge of the Abyss by Emily Skrutskie (December -- fallout of prior book -- ★★★★)

Ideas:
-- Fledgling by Octavia Butler
-- "You'll Surely Drown if You Stay Here" (Alyssa Wong)
-- Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
-- Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill (rec from mathgirl40)
-- Among Others by Jo Walton
-- The root: a novel of the wrath & athenaeum (rec from karenb)
-- Spaceman of Bohemia
-- Time and Again (via DQ, whitewavedarling)
-- The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage via scaifea

-- Babel-17 by Samuel Delany
-- Long List Anthology of Hugo Winners (rec & SantaThing from ryvre)

B. Book Groups & Discussions
For books read as part of online and offline book groups and discussions. I'm imagining CATs and KITs fitting here.

1. Orlando by Virginia Woolf (January -- witty classic genderbending -- ★★★)
6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin (February -- scifi of its times -- ★★½)
8. Autonomous by Annalee Newitz (March -- near-future bot romp -- ★★★★)
16. Passing Strange by Ellen Klages (April -- 1940s SF, CA lesbians -- ★★★★)
25. Against Equality by Ryan Conrad (August -- radical queer reflections -- ★★★)

Ideas:
- Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me
- In Other Lands

C. Famed
What all I've been missing out on...

7. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick (March -- drugs & hallucinations -- ★★½)
9. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (March -- serial killers & architecture -- ★★★)
17. The Honor of the Queen by David Weber (April -- military in space -- ★★★½)
19. Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright (May-- questionable social science -- ★★★½)
27. Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon (October -- identity formation -- ★★★½)

Ideas:
-- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
-- Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery
-- Influencer
-- All the Pretty Horses
-- Being Mortal
-- World War Z -- for Yearlong letters X and Z
-- Mistborn
-- Mrs. Dalloway
-- The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
-- Ride the Wind

-- Born a Crime

D. Discovered in 2018
An unplanned category, for books where reviews or covers or chatter particularly piques my interest.

2. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (January -- Jesuits in space -- ★★★★★) 🌲
4. Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff (February -- sociology & horror -- ★★★★) 🌲
10. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan (March -- restaurant Americana -- ★★★½)
14. All Systems Red by Martha Wells (March -- murderbot on an adventure -- ★★★★)
23. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (June -- a fitting series conclusion -- ★★★★)
26. Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler (September -- impressively naturalistic -- ★★★★★)
31. America for Beginners by Leah Franqui (November -- light and fun -- ★★★★)

Ideas:
-- Homegoing
-- Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain
-- Kicking Away the Ladder
-- Fangirl
-- Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World (via Mamie)
-- Conclave (via Vivienne)
-- A Thousand Splendid Suns (via lkernagh)

E. Empathy
For anything that helps me understand people or things a bit better.

3. Uptown Thief by Aya de León (January -- social justice erotica -- ★★★½)
13. Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell (March -- humanizing Western -- ★★★½)
15. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (April -- character <3 -- ★★★★★)
24. So Lucky by Nicola Griffith (June -- trapped in your body -- ★★★)
32. Qi Stagnation by Jonathan Clougstoun-Willmott (December -- Chinese medicine -- ★★★)
33. Yang Deficiency by Jonathan Clougstoun-Willmott (December -- Chinese medicine -- ★★★★)

Ideas:
-- Evicted
-- The Anxiety and Worry Workbook
-- Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Overseas Harm America and the World
-- Under the Udala Trees
-- A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
-- Orphan Train (via dudes22)
-- The Two-Income Trap

-- The Star-Touched Queen (rec & SantaThing from ryvre)

F. Bücher auf Deutsch
My language skills are atrophying -- best to stop them! It's been a few years since I read Die Wand / The Wall, which I loved and which drained me. Perhaps I can find happier options this year!

5. Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (February -- whimsical classic -- ★★★★)

Ideas:
-- Brombeersommer
-- Drei Liter Tod
-- Gehen, ging, gegangen: Roman

G. Bingo!
The Bingo card for 2018 looks like it's going to have a number of spots that push me to read outside my comfort zone -- they deserve a category of their own!

And for tracking purposes...

 1. Book fits at least two CATs/KITs: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
 2. Title contains name of a famous person, real or fictional: Lovecraft Country
 3. Money in the title: Uptown Thief
 4. Originally in a different language:
 5. Book bought in 2017 that you haven’t read yet:
 6. New-to-you author: Autonomous
 7. Autobiography or memoir:
 8. Book published in 2018: So Lucky
 9. On your TBR for a long time (or the longest time): Borders of Infinity
 10. Book with a beautiful cover: Passing Strange
 11. Poetry or play:
 12. LGBT central character: The Traitor Baru Cormorant
 13. Read a CAT:
 14. Title contains a person’s rank, real or fictional: Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince)
 15. Published more than 100 years ago:
 16. Humorous book: The Hate U Give
 17. Fat book (500+ pages): The Fifth Season
 18. X somewhere in the title: An Excess Male
 19. Relative’s name in the title:
 20. Related to the Pacific Ocean: The Edge of the Abyss
 21. Set during a holiday: Last Night at the Lobster
 22. Title contains something you would see in the sky: The Obelisk Gate
 23. Book on the 1001 list: Orlando
 24. Number in the title: The Three-Body Problem
 25. Involves travel: The Sparrow

H. Freedom
Just in case the book fits nowhere else, you see.

Ideas:
-- Elephant Company
-- Modified: GMOs and the Threat to Our Food, Our Land, and Our Future
-- Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace
-- The Buried Giant (recommended by saroz in SantaThing 2017)
-- Crucial Accountability
-- Change Anything
-- "A Day in/on the ___" series by Kevin Kurtz (rec from pantsu)
-- On Tyranny
-- America Chavez comic series by Gabby Rivera
-- A Beautiful Place to Die

Welcome back! I'm looking forward to following your reading!

Glad to see you here! I'll be following along.

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy Doc: A Novel -- I really loved it!

I've dropped my star and I am ready to settle in. Looking forward to following along.

Welcome back! I like your setup. Have a great reading year!

Hope your 2018 is filled with good reads!

Ah! Here's your 2018 thread. Welcome back.

Welcome back!

>2 pammab: I hope you love Fledgling as much as I did!
>4 pammab: All the Pretty Horses was amazing!

Hope you enjoy your year!

Enjoy your 2018 reading. And yay for Der kleine Prinz!

The Sparrow was a 5* read for me, I loved it. The main character, Emilio, is probably my biggest literary crush.

Hi guys! Thanks for all the welcome backs. I really, really need a way to manage this group on my phone -- I am almost never on the computer in the evenings these days, and it means I miss out on All The People. And I miss you, and I'm always happy to come back.

>12 christina_reads:
>18 mamzel:
>19 Chrischi_HH:
I'm really looking forward to Doc, Fledgling, Der kleine Prinz and -- in a different way with slightly more trepidation for the darkness -- All the Pretty Horses

>20 Jackie_K: I finished The Sparrow a bit back and it was amaaazing. I am going to try to write up reviews tonight. :)

I started this year with my first Virginia Woolf! I was surprised -- I didn't like as much as I'd wanted to, and it wasn't anything like I'd expected. I'd heard such excellent things about Mrs. Dalloway and I'm sure I read some essay excerpts from her back in high school, but I've never committed to an entire book by her before. I wasn't expecting the huge amounts of humor, nor the magical realism -- I had a (false?) impression that Woolf wrote serious and literary "women's fiction". So, huh. I'm really glad to have read it. Not a bad year opener!

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1. Orlando
Virginia Woolf
2018.01.07 / ★★★ / review

This classic novel by Virginia Woolf follows long-lived Orlando through many centuries and a change of gender.

Magical realism, English literature, pretty language -- these seem to be why people like this book. Those don't particularly speak to me, unfortunately, especially as the plot seems merely there to hang long pretty discursive prose on, and to gossip about the thinly veiled main character representing Woolf's lady lover's family stories. A few asides were humorous to me, and I liked the sense that the houses and trees and lineages have lives just this long in our normal reality, and that our childhoods really are quite different from our presents but we tend to forget all the ways how they differ because as we live, everything is normalized, and that nostalgia sells works that would fail in their own time.

Alas but I am not the target for this book. It isn't my style and didn't speak loudly enough: it was work to read. (On the bright side, I now have a much better informed opinion of Virginia Woolf.)

This is the first year I've read SantaThing books early on! I both received from ryvre and was recommended The Sparrow over the holidays, so I picked it up first thing. Any book that blends Jesuits, aliens, music, and linguistics is right up my alley (almost seems written for me!), so I was very excited to pick this book up -- and it delivered.

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2. The Sparrow
Mary Doria Russell
2018.01.18 / ★★★★★ / review

When a routine SETI scan stumbles upon celestial music, humanity launches a mission to its source in Alpha Centauri. Do governments launch a mission? Nope -- the Jesuits do. The mission team is connected through our protagonist Emilio Sanchez, a linguist and priest from the streets of Puerto Rico. We follow him in two timelines simultaneously: into the journey of a few years, and into his return many decades later.

Highly engaging, this book uses the journey into the unknown -- more than the existence or the attributes of the alien race -- to explore core questions to Christianity, especially the tension between a loving, aware God and the presence of pain in the world. The focus on religion is quite different from my expectations that a premise like this one would lead to engaging sociology ("what is the essence of humanity?") or history ("how was it to be a European explorer in the Western hemisphere?"), but it was as magnetic as it was surprising. My only criticism was that extremely unlikely aspects weren't always given a purpose; for instance, the humanoid-ness of the aliens didn't even warrant an explicit thematic "oh yes, this makes sense, in God's image and all".

Anyway. Enjoyable, different, and recommended.

Ever wondered about "social justice erotica"? Well. It exists. I just finished my first book in this subgenre today, in which a very sexy escort service robs the rich to pay for public health clinics. This book was chosen for me, and it is ridiculous... but it isn't bad.

I have to share the cover as I round out my review catch-up, because it's a fast way to convey the ludicrousness and it deserves your appreciation:



(Uh huh. I am really, really surprised that I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot more than Orlando.)

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3. Uptown Thief
Aya De León
2018.01.18 / ★★★½ / review

Marisol Rivera is the executive director of a public women's health clinic for sex workers in New York. Her organization provides vocational classes, psychological help, and overnight shelter in addition to condoms and gynecological exams -- and it's funded officially by donations from rich men in exchange for escorts, and unofficially by escort-led heists of those rich men's friends. As money gets tight for the clinic, Marisol and her team fight their way to independence in the only way they know how. In the process, Marisol faces demons and hangups from her past.

This book was nowhere near as terrible as I expected from its cover (zomg) and the super-sexy escort-focused summaries I skimmed, which initially made me giggle uncontrollably and worry that such a ridiculous premise would result in a terribly written story and/or just be a vehicle for purple prose erotica. To my delight, this book was quite enjoyable and well-written -- even in its (many) sex scenes. Marisol is damaged but finds a way to make her way into her own identity as an adult stickup kid, and the surrounding plot is a rollicking light read.

That said, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the valorizing of stealing and deceit in this book. The ends-justify-the-means argument that stealing from rich white men is okay -- and especially so when it supports poor brown women without options -- is quite unpalatable to me. Of course, I also have to question whether I'm reacting that way because I subconsciously align primarily with the rich white men, and then I have to interrogate why I align myself with the assholes in power, and so on it goes, down the rabbit hole. So, in addition to being a fun and light read, this book has more-than-average moral and social justice depth.

Given its sexual content, this isn't the sort of book I will be recommending widely -- but there is much more heft to it than I'd have suspected just reading the blurbs, and it turns out that I'm glad I didn't pass on it.

I had difficulty with my first Virgina Woolf, Jacob's Room but I intend to give at least one more of her books a try, probably Mrs. Dalloway. I hate it when an author that seems beloved by so many is an actual chore to read - I keep thinking that I am missing something.

>24 pammab: That cover!!!

Thanks for stopping by my thread. Dropping a star here so I can follow your reading. Nice review of The Sparrow - I have that one in the stacks.

>22 pammab: I've only read a few of Woolf's books and that was the one I liked the least. It was very different from the others I had read. I enjoyed Mrs Dalloway far more and intend to read more of her works - just not maybe the entire catalogue.

>26 DeltaQueen50: I completely agree -- it's really hard to have an opinion on a book that is so different from the mainstream. I was quite surprised at the humor and I liked the whimsy, so I wonder if it might also be connected to my mood while reading the book -- perhaps in a slower, more language-enjoyment-focused mood, Woolf would be just what the doctor ordered. I'll keep that in mind...

>27 christina_reads: I know! I'm torn as to whether the cover does the book a disservice. It's not at all in keeping with the tenor of the story... but if it hadn't been so ostentatiously provocative, it's quite likely it would have never been read at all. Catch-22 for the author and editor, I expect.

>28 Crazymamie: I hope you enjoy The Sparrow whenever you get to it! I was very happy with it. I haven't found a ton of fiction that addresses religion while also avoiding the extremes of being thinly-veiled apologetics or existing primarily to conclude something in the vein of "God is dead".

>29 Helenliz: I have heard that Orlando is quite unlikely the other Woolf novels, and I really appreciate knowing that you've been in the same spot and you still came out in favor of liking Woolf as a whole. I'll have to try again in a bit!

>22 pammab: - Excellent review! My first Woolf was Mrs. Dalloway, which I absolutely loved so I was a bit let down when I then read To the Lighthouse, which was still good, but didn't wow me like Dalloway did. ;-)

>24 pammab: - "social justice erotica".... Okay, that is a new "genre/subgenre" for me.

>31 lkernagh: Another vote in favor of Mrs. Dalloway! I suppose that will just have to be my next Woolf now. :)

As to social justice erotica... yeah. It tickled the fancy of the book group. I didn't vote for it. But I am quite glad it wasn't awful, since I did choose to read along -- that one is entirely at my feet.

>32 pammab: Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are my favorite Woolf books that I would recommend to start with. I also LOVE The Waves, but I think you need some context on reading Woolf first. I enjoyed Orlando, but I think it makes more sense when you read it as a departure from her other novels. Hope you give her another shot. Woolf is difficult to read but I find her books intriguing and challenging and she's become a real favorite of mine.

>33 japaul22: Okay, okay, Mrs. Dalloway is making it onto the list of possible middle-term reads in 2018 due to rousing consensus. :-D I did get the impression from everything I'd read that Orlando deviates from "core Woolf" pretty substantially, and I do tend to like books that are intriguing and challenging....

4. Lovecraft Country
Matt Ruff
2018.02.03 / ★★★★ / review

In the mid-1800s, an ancient order of natural philosophers wipe out its most powerful members through magical misstep. By the mid-1950s, political in-fighting leads them to seek the engagement the sole remaining founder's descendant, albeit illegitimate: a literal Magic Negro who just wants to live his life. They coerce, co-opt, and generally encumber our protagonist and his friends and family toward their goals.

Highly entertaining and episodic, Lovecraft Country mixes realistic and fantastic race-based horror in the Lovecraft style. I found the initial chapter to be reminiscent of Jordan Peele's Get Out (there must have been something in that shared 2016 artistic water), and the book uses the unsettling nature of being black in white spaces to help build the horror. In addition to fun adventures (like visits to new worlds), the threat from both traditional Lovecraftian evils and pervasive racism is palpable. I'm still not sure what the book was trying to say, if indeed it was trying, but the setting was excellently drawn.

I am also a fan of Mrs. Dalloway.

>35 pammab: Nice review! I have that one in the stacks, just waiting patiently.

I hope you enjoy! It has a traditional horror vibe, and I'd recommend picking it up when eeriness speaks to you.

Finished The Little Prince in German, which I bought in Berlin mmmfity years ago yet had never read even in English. I'm pretty pleased with how easily I followed it after having not read German in quite a while, and I'm glad to have picked up a few new words like zähmen (to tame :)).

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5. Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
2018.02.09 / ★★★★ / review

Whimsical and bright, The Little Prince is a meditation on love, loss, and the ways in which the worlds of adults and children differ. A pilot crash lands in the desert, where he meets a little boy from another -- very small -- planet.

Without being too metaphorical or too heavy handed, this book has a very earnest feel. It reminded me a lot of The Phantom Tollbooth, though I liked this one much better. It is a classic for cause, with utterly undated observations on adults' quixotic focus and the responsibility of love. I also loved the illustrations (I never get illustrations anymore!). Glad to have read and kept this classic.

35- I read and enjoyed Lovecraft Country last year. I thought it was a great blending of horror and social commentary plus some just crazy stuff in there.

>39 cmbohn: I agree! I've never read anything else even close to it.

Revisiting one of the first books I read in this group and celebrating LeGuin with book club, I headed back into The Left Hand of Darkness. It turns out I found the book highly forgettable, because it read entirely new. I liked it more..but not a ton more..than I did the first time through.

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6. The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula Le Guin
2018.02.12 / ★★½ / review

2010-09-17:
This is my first book by Le Guin that I've wanted to finish! Huzzah. It's a classic work of science fiction that I've stayed away from much too long. Le Guin imagines a planet on which there is only essentially one gender (so male and female are mixed) -- and it contains an actually-interesting adventure story and political story set in that environment.

Things I loved:
-- worldbuilding
-- the epilogue, in which we can read different potential ways to gender the same prose (I found this one of the strongest aspects of the entire book -- possibly because it was written closer to the present day and with my sensibilities in mind)
-- experiencing the source of many echoes I've seen in later books in science fiction
-- the fact that the story stood on its own apart from these things and was interesting (and vaguely homoerotic, albeit as vaguely as possible)

Things I didn't love:
-- uncomfortably second wave perspective on women
-- the use of male pronouns
-- sex being fundamentally reduced to procreation
-- tediousness of some parts of the writing
-- overwhelming sense of "oh wow isn't language/Eastern mysticism/political naval gazing cool?" that would pop up throughout book, albeit for only a sentence or two

I'm impressed by her worldbuilding and I appreciate this book as a classic and as a pivotal work, but like most fundamental classics, I really didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoy other things. I suspect now that my "has read Le Guin" box is checked, I will be done with her (possibly with the exception of one or two of her children's stories, as I've heard those are very different).

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2018-02-12:
I found this book slightly less tedious than last time, but all my criticisms still stand -- most especially the ones around gender essentialism.

Interesting comments on Virginia Woolf. I read The Waves at Uni and can't say I understood (or enjoyed) a huge amount. I now understand I should have picked Mrs. Dalloway instead. Good to know.

>42 -Eva-: I'm getting that impression. It makes me wonder, though, why Woolf is so lauded, if most people only enjoy a single novel of hers. Is it just that our tastes diverge from the taste-makers tastes?

I haven't been in the mood to pick up anything new recently at all, and it's showing -- hard to say whether this for lack of good options or for feeling behind on my reading goals or just a bleh feeling.... I possibly need to read some really light books to balance myself out from the Serious Ideas addressed in The Three-Body Problem and Philip K. Dick. Time for some series books and female authors, I think!

I'm going to count #7 for the year (ouch) as A Scanner Darkly even though I didn't finish it. I picked it up at a bookstore a year or so back, primarily because I like bookstores and I want to help them keep the lights on, and because I absolutely adored Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- but this book didn't really connect to me. I must be too square.

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7. A Scanner Darkly
Philip K. Dick
2018.03.04 / ★★½ / review

Dropping this Dick novel about drug usage fifty pages in. It is too gritty and whacko for me, and I am afraid the conceit might be that our normie has been hallucinating all along. I am impressed by the reality of the imagined future; I wish there were relateable characters or a clearer plot.

>43 pammab:
She does hold an important place in modernist literature, so there’s that. Perhaps she’s an acquired taste? I’m actually a huge fan of stream of consciousness writing, but hers didn’t click with me (or hasn’t so far, at least).

>44 pammab: That's very reasonable. I'm not well-versed in modernist literature, and there might well be layers of meaning that I'm missing entirely. Or, possibly, the Woolf fans didn't feel comfortable coming out to express their fanaticism after I said I didn't like it, so it's just quite a lot of selection bias on the thread. ;)

>46 pammab:
Haha! Very possible. :)
Actually, I might get an annotated edition when I try her again, if one’s available.

>47 -Eva-: I'd be very curious how much an annotated edition might help. I really like annotations for Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky, but I had the impression (perhaps false!) that I was understanding most of Woolf's intents. Some allusions probably went right over me, though, and with the literariness of the writing, I bet they are intended and important in some way....

LeGuin is one of those authors I think I ought to like a lot more than I actually do. And the only Woolf novel I read was back in college, so I don't really remember it. Better luck with your next book.

>48 pammab:
I feel that with "important" works, it's usually better to know a little side-information in order to understand the intent. It shouldn't be necessary, mind, but it helps for me. I recall seeing Barnett Newman's art for the first time and my response was, "Uuuh, what?" Until I did some studying and better understood what he was about. Note, it might just be that Woolf isn't for us... :)

>49 cmbohn:
Someone pointed out to me that LeGuin was probably writing some of what I was reacted to poorly with tongue-in-cheek intentions. If I read it more as satire, it is much more palatable -- so there's that. I think perhaps with that interpretation, then I might actually be aligned with my own "ought to like this more than I do". Thanks for the good wishes. I'm already halfway through Autonomous after just 2 days, which I'll attribute to your good wishes. :)

>50 -Eva-:
I love abstract art just aesthetically, so folks like Newman never raise any questions for me that get in the way of enjoyment -- but I also absolutely see how more context leads to much deeper appreciation. I also love all the random interpretations that people have that might not even be intended by the author but that are so well-supported anyway. That's the point of much art, for me....

>51 pammab:
I'm in the architecture field, so Newman's paintings first looked like wallpaper-samples to me. :D

I absolutely believe that the author isn't always aware of some of the layers that a reader can find in his/her writing, so you don't want to do too much research, but sometimes having an idea of the cultural climate in which a work was created can help with understanding.

>52 -Eva-: Amen to that! (And a snort at wallpaper samples for good measure. :))

Found a light book I really liked! I also picked up a second Becky Chambers (A long way to a small angry planet) and Doc: A Novel, so I am very hoping to banish this reading slump via highly entertaining worlds. Fingers are crossed.

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8. Autonomous
Annalee Newitz
2018.03.08 / ★★★★ / review

In the future, society is organized by companies, laws are enforced by the International Property Coalition, and university students engage their drive to self-actualize their morality through the rebellious act of publishing in the public domain. The story opens in a submarine, with a pharmaceutical pirate named Jack who reverse engineers and sells patented drugs. Her work is the only defensible approach, even if it is extremely illegal, she reasons. When Jack releases a new attention-sharpening worker drug onto the streets, however, she finds herself facing a moral dilemma -- and in the crosshairs of a human-bot IPC agent partnership brought online to ferret her out.

With excellent near-future worldbuilding, Autonomous uses the imagined future social structure, Jack's questionable-yet-unquestioned morality, and the relationship between the human Eliasz and the bot Paladin to explore all kinds of questions: emotional skill, ethics vs. law, gender, identity, physical essentialism, what it means to be human, where unchecked corporate power might lead, how queerness/sexual transgressiveness is socially inescapable, and more. The adventure is rollicking and light, if a bit cavalier with death, and there is a lot of food for thought in the realistically flawed characteristics.

I found the technical future particularly rich and likely. Newitz nails this area in an impressive display of imagination and face validity, even down to explicitly naming the implicit question of how bots can be perpetually active: they have skin with flexible solar collectors. I had only one quibble: the technical side of Paladin's journey into autonomy is far too pat and narrative-driven. Any old memories that used to be accessible will always be accessible in any copies the IPC made, even if Paladin re-encrypts them in the main location with a new key! She can never make past memories only hers -- she can only truly secure future memories. There could even have been a narrative Point here. Oh well.

The closer you are to tech and to academia, the more this book's charms will resonate. If you're interested in patents, pharma, selfhood, and/or politics, it will resonate even more. I suspect it's likely to be a cult classic, especially in the author's naive San Francisco, since the point-of-view is redolent of SF although the story itself never touches the city. Recommended as good fun to folks who touch on the target audience.

9. The Devil in the White City
Erik Larson
2018.03.09 / ★★★ / review

At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, architects and city planners work to impress elites around the globe, while a solitary man continues to prey on and dispose of the bodies of the vulnerable.

I'm about a third through, and I'm clearly duty reading. Sigh. I'm putting this book aside. I am very happy with the execution (such wry-ness in reflecting on strange events in the serial killer's life, like small children and old women disappearing to visit their family far away!) -- I suspect it's just that I'm not inspired to devour the premise.

10. Last Night at the Lobster
Stewart O'Nan
2018.03.09 / ★★★½ / review

This novella is a snapshot of Americana: the final day before the local Red Lobster closes down forever, the manager Manny and his staff exist with each other, a blizzard, and their very last patrons.

The book itself is an impressive characterization feat -- I really know and care about these people, even though nothing much happens and there aren't very many pages.

(I did have a strong reaction the blurber who indicated "this invisible universe is populated with people readers need to see". I was offended by the assumption that "readers" don't already live and work and engage in the world of working at restaurants, nor having their employers wither and die. Grrr. I didn't get that sense of us-vs.-them framing at all from the book itself, which is a joy.)

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Thank you to whomever in this group shared thoughts on this book a few months back! (I forgot to write down your name.) I recommended it to someone else, and then picked it up myself when I got a chance. It was a nice length to get back into reading, and the pages turned themselves after the first third.

>44 pammab: Oh, dear. I am hoping I like this one more than you did when I get to it - I love PKD and have been slowly making my way through his stuff.

>54 pammab: You hit me with this one - very good review, which I will thumb if you posted it to the book page. Adding it to The List.

>55 pammab: I enjoyed this one, but I loved the parts about the World Fair more than the serial killer parts.

>56 pammab: I love this one! I have read it multiple times, and it is my favorite O'Nan, although, I have not come across a bad one. I really enjoy his writing.

Hi Mamie! I really like PKD too, and I was looking forward to A Scanner Darkly. I wasn't sure what I was getting into thematically, though, and I know I have a pattern of not relating to drug themes -- I should have been self-aware enough to pick up another book.

I hope you read Autonomous and enjoy it! I really liked it and I want to share, share, share. :) Thanks for the compliment -- the review is posted.

And, I think I need to read more O'Nan. I haven't encountered him previously, and the book was really nicely painted.

Forgive this long review -- there was a lot of There There in my head with this Chinese science fiction book!

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11. The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
2018.03.11 / ★★ / review

Extremely well-known in China and the winner of a Hugo in 2015, The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu is a first contact novel between Earth and the inhabitants of a nearby star. First contact with the aliens is made by China back in the 1960s, and it inspires interstellar warnings from both sides about their warlike nature. It is a quite ponderous novel, a sweeping epic that eventually ties up all its loose ends, heavy on plot and heavy on physics.

Multiple people have mentioned this book to me recently. The most intriguing conversation indicated that this book took China by storm because it allowed people to discuss the Cultural Revolution without actually discussing the Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately, I can't say it stood up particularly well to my viewpoint. The characters are stereotypes (archetypes?): a neurotic professor, a chainsmoking gruff cop, a mother character acting like water, a lazy genius, an insane old woman. The plot was told more than showed; the minimal dialogue that did exist was poorly written and mostly filled the purpose of information dumping. There was tons of repetition (I suspect this is intentional as Chinese stylistics), and a lot of the plot points were fairly obvious (one young woman's radicalizing incident? she accepts a copy of a banned book from a pretty man, and when she is so kind as to hand write and send his letter to the Chinese authorities decrying their bad decisions, she comes to regret it -- please). Scientifically, I found myself repeatedly blinking and asking "seriously?" -- genetic algorithms "solve" the three-body physics problem? it is possible to "unfold" high dimensional spaces into low dimensional spaces, and doing so is subject to off-by-one errors? self-aware photons can reproduce themselves? Yeah, no.

I am positive part of my reaction comes from missing a lot of the cultural texture of the novel, and not being used to that experience. The only texture I saw was Chinese political will to power texture, and I can't say I'm politically aligned. Textural nuances I picked up on: Western folks being painfully rude, China doing major research and being engaged on world issues even back in the 1960s (aka not mostly starving and dying from forced labor), Americans and Brits speaking Chinese in China as China leads an effort to unite the world against an external threat, the book's climax occurring in Panama with an explicit remembrance of the US shame-facedly giving Panama back and reducing its influence abroad, and the usual propaganda about how the West has shipped all its polluting industries to China because it didn't want to deal with the pollution (completely ignoring that Chinese elites decided the economic boon from zero pollution controls was more important than the health of their population). Grr on the political level. I'm not a fan, and I can see why this book was published by the "China Educational Publications Import and Export Corporation", a propaganda publisher name seemingly straight out of 1984. There are clearly some overtones around religion, the importance and downfalls of science, and the Cultural Revolution, which are texture that seem core to the book -- but I could only recognize their existence; the commentary itself was opaque to me without the cultural context. I suspect the hidden commentary must be what speaks to people, because it unfortunately didn't stand up for me as either hard science fiction, plot-driven adventure, or character study.

I didn't hate it, though -- I was just mostly nonplussed. Three aspects I particularly liked: the aliens have evolved self-dehydration powers given their planetary environment (interesting!), fanatics after first contact develop a unique approach to share the aliens' plights with Earthlings (interesting!), and China very naturally lays claim to the same core European and world history that we do. Whether China has equal or lesser right to claim to European history than the USA is an extremely interesting question raised by this book, and the one that has me reflecting deeply.

Similar to Stephenson in its intellectualism, huge scope, and weak characters/plots (with direct analogies to both Anathem and Reamde, though The Three-Body Problem preceded them both) -- but not matched with Stephenson in dry wit or, for me, entertainment -- I would be comfortable recommending this book to people familiar with modern China or people who can discuss it with Chinese expats or scholars. I would, in fact, like to have such discussions, because I'm sure I'm missing something -- its international acclaim can't all be based on emerging Chinese influence.

Poking my head in to get caught up and making note of your review >55 pammab:. I have that one waiting, very patiently, on the stacks, but hoping to get to it later this year when White is the monthly colorCAT theme.

I think I'll pass on the Liu book. It sounds like a worthy read, but not an enjoyable one. I don't like those. Life is too short to read stuff I don't enjoy. That principle helped clean up my TBR list considerably.

>59 pammab: I enjoyed reading your thoughtful review of The Three Body Problem. I actually liked the book myself, but I also agree that it has many of the weaknesses you've observed. The comparison to Stephenson is apt, though I think Stephenson does a better job with characters. Being Chinese Canadian, it is possible that I understood a bit more of the cultural context but I can't say that confidently. A friend of mine who grew up in China thought the novel was brilliant and from her comments, I think I missed a lot too.

I'm undecided about reading the sequel, which I have on my shelves. Of two friends whose opinions on literature I generally trust, one said it was a "worthless slog", while the other said the first half was a slog and the second half was great.

>60 lkernagh: I really hope you enjoy it! The Devil in the White City is beloved, and the scene setting and dry wit is top-notch.

>61 cmbohn: If you don't know much about China, I think it may be lost on you too, unfortunately. I really wanted to like The Three-Body Problem and the central conceit is fantastic, but I really got the impression that it is commenting on themes I couldn't even discern -- and careful reading just made the politics stick out more. Definitely one to embrace for a book group, even if you don't pick it up though.

>62 mathgirl40: Do you know anything about what your friend perceived in it? I am wondering if the coming of the aliens is supposed to be an allegory for the coming of the Maoists, and the scene with the winnowing of the game players an analogue for the scene with Ye's father? It is really hard for me to pull those pieces out (I do feel like an awkward 6th grader trying to perform literary analysis, putting forward self-conscious theories...).

I imagine the sequel might be very interesting, especially if it focuses directly on the arrival and effect of that arrival. That is the piece of the story that I want to hear -- who wins out, and why?

More Becky Chambers! She is so good at family themes -- all warm and fuzzy. I just finished The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet today and I am looking forward to writing up a true review when I am next at a computer.

Now on to Doc: A Novel, which makes this the year of Mary Doria Russell, who was new to me only a couple months ago. I am very glad I do not have tuberculosis, as Doc did, and I wish we could fully eradicate the disease.

>63 pammab: Looking over the messages to me from my friend, I see that she hadn't given that kind of detail about possible allegorical meanings. She did say she loved the vast scope and she found the motivations of the characters plausible, as explained by the effects of the Cultural Revolution. (I trust her on that one, as her parents did live through the Cultural Revolution.) She complained about the poor development of the characters, so I think we're all in agreement here.

One big difference is that my friend had read the book in the original Chinese. It's a little bit strange that the second book is translated by someone else while the third book is translated again by Ken Liu. I heard that Tor did that mainly to accelerate the publication schedule.

>65 mathgirl40: That's really interesting. It suggests something is resonating beyond allegory that isn't transparent to me. So frustrating to not have a feeling for what that is! Sigh. I feel half-blind in the story.

I also wonder about the translation. I have heard that it is a very good translation, but even the best are always missing context. I saw that the printed translation had extensive footnotes, and I listened on audiobook without them, which makes me suspect I missed some of the interpretation provided by the translator as well. I didn't realize that the books were translated by different people -- seems like a practical consideration overrode artistic consistency? I am a bit surprised they pushed the publication schedule that hard, given that it isn't uncommom to wait for translation for years...

I remember the footnotes in The Three-Body Problem too -- they were terrible on my library ebook. Print sounds like it would be the best way to get that information.

Also, as a former translator I am breaking out in hives at the thought of dividing a trilogy among more than one translator for reasons of speed. We would often have to split up larger texts among several people to get the job done by the client's deadline, and invariably we would not have time or resources for a single person to read the whole thing and edit for voice and style (and check for consistent terminology). I hope each book will at least be consistent with itself :-/

I didn't realize you were a translator in a former life! I can't imagine the work that must go into translation of literature -- so much more challenging than forms. I was always impressed by translations of books like Harry Potter that have so much wordplay, and there's a bit of that even in The Three-Body Problem with the group names like Adventists. I also have to imagine different people have different opinions on what and how to footnote for an English-speaking audience.... Smoothing all those differences out must be well-nigh impossible -- so an even more impressive task at hand.

>68 pammab: I was a scientific and technical translator, with lashings of boring administrative texts, and I'd consider that job a cakewalk compared with literary translation. The only thing more difficult would be translating poetry.

>69 rabbitprincess: Amen to that.

12. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers
2018.03.19 / ★★★★ / review

The multi-species crew of the Wayfarer punches wormhole tunnels through space. When they get offered a dangerous job that will pay them extremely well, they set off on a year's journey toward an unstable, small, angry planet, so they can punch their way home again and make that planet accessible to the rest of sentient space.

I came to this book because I adored A Closed and Common Orbit, which is the second book set in this universe. Although I liked The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, I'm glad I unwittingly picked up the second book initially -- I'm not sure I would have been motivated to return to Becky Chambers nearly as quickly in the other direction. This first book has the same lovely coziness, excellently drawn characters, and thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human vs. sentient, but it also has a character who seems ripped out of Firefly and an unavoidable dose of modern liberal orientation. It's still a fantastic light read that kept drawing me in, with characters I want to spend a ton of time with -- it's just not quite as close to perfection as the second book, which left me with tears and awe.

I'm quite looking forward to the third book in this universe, which comes out this summer.

(Also, it's green and not set on Earth, so it's 1-kit-1-cat-in-1-month! *excited*)

>71 pammab: I am reading A Closed and Common Orbit right now and it is truly fantastic!

>72 DeltaQueen50: I 1000% agree! A Closed and Common Orbit was one of my very favorite things I read last year -- so unlike so much of what I read, so warm and so real. I'm excited to see what you think of it.

And, it's funny that I actually just read your review of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet this evening as I was working through the reviews, and I find myself very much in agreement and appreciating the way you explain yourself. (I like to read all or almost all the existing reviews when I really enjoy a book -- lots of different perspectives and new ideas in there, and it's a way to stay connected a bit longer. ;))

>71 pammab: Very good review. I agree with you that the second book is better - I really loved A Closed and Common Orbit.

>73 pammab: Prepare yourself of a gushing review, this is just the most perfect book to curl up with. My biggest problem today is that I want to read it but my Kindle needs charging!

>74 Crazymamie: They are both very, very good -- it is just that A Closed and Common Orbit is phenomenal. I don't think the comparison is fair at all, and I think the author really found her voice in the second book.

>75 DeltaQueen50: Very excited! Good luck getting the Kindle charged up. :)

>76 pammab: Yep. I completely agree.

Very excited by the set of books I just brought home! They are all ones that I have heard excellent reviews of from many quarters.

- All Systems Red about a murderbot, recommended by two authors, nodding heads in a crowded room at a talk, and literally a half dozen people on LT
- River of Teeth about gay cowboys riding hippopotamuses in an alternative history that could have happened in the USA with a single congressional vote different
- The Hate U Give which I have seen literally everywhere since I saw it at a bookstore last summer and which I've seen recommended by scaifea and virginiahomeschooler and VioletBramble...
- A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor, which was so strongly recommended by RidgewayGirl and which falls right into my current love for short stories

I was really surprised to see the lengths -- a bunch are shorter than I expected, and The Hate U Give is substantially longer than I remember.

13. Doc: A Novel
Mary Doria Russell
2018.03.27 / ★★★½ / review

A human recasting of Doc Holliday, the Earp brothers, and the other inhabitants of Dodge City in 1878. A pitch-perfect description of lung disease. Copious prostitution, drinking, violence, and vice.

I picked this book up for two intertwining reasons: many strong reviews from my world's opinion makers, and a captivating first experience with Mary Doria Russell a few months back (somehow I had never heard of her prior to last December/January's The Sparrow). And, I quite liked this book, its story, its placefulness, and its characters. It just didn't glow for me. My pet theory? Readers who are familiar with the Westerns of the 1960s are best able to see the nuance of how Russell reimagined these characters. I visited Tombstone a long while back, but I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I didn't even realize "get out of Dodge" referred to a city in Kansas -- or even that when we talk about the Wild West we're talking about dear, tame Kansas -- that's the level of knowledge I was entering with. Glad to be more educated now, and I'll be recommending this one to folks who know the legends and folks who want to learn about the setting.

14. All Systems Red
Martha Wells
2018.03.29 / ★★★★ / review

Our protagonist robot is a security unit, commissioned as part of the insurance package for surveyors on a new planet. It thinks of itself as a "murderbot", doesn't try very hard at its job, has no comfort with humans, and loves secret doses of serial entertainment. When someone starts trying to kill the group, however, it rises to the challenge.

Loved the droll voice of murderbot, the not-totally-cliched subplot around finding oneself and finding friends, the quick and not-totally-cliched adventure story, and the reflections on "the company" as a highly self-interested rational actor. Light and easy fare, not quite as earth-shattering as I expected from the positive press, and definitely a series I'll follow.

I have both of those last two in the stacks. I am betting I will get to the Wells before the Russell. Very nice reviews - I appreciate your sharing your thoughts on them.

>79 pammab:
I think I have the audio-version of that on Mt. TBR and I know a little about the "Wild West." Hope that's enough. :)

>81 Crazymamie: The Wells is a LOT shorter, so I'd probably be inclined to take it on first too. :)

>82 -Eva-: Doc: A Novel absolutely stands on its own -- don't worry! Just even more shiny if you have more background for it to stand out against, I expect.

Time to fill back in!

15. The Hate U Give
Angie Thomas
2018.04.01 / ★★★★★ / review

A teenager becomes unexpectedly embroiled in the core questions of modern US race.

Great voices, great characterization, extremely devourable. Thank you to all the folks who recommended this one, and especially Amber (scaifea), who broke down my last barrier to reading the book by sharing that there's a good reason that "U" is in the title.

Unfinished: River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

In US history in the late 1800s, we had a shortage of meat and an overrun Louisiana wetlands; Congress had a plan to fix both problems that failed by only one vote: import hippos to live free and graze in the bayous. (That would, of course, have been disastrous; hippos are not nice animals.) This book imagines that alternative history and puts gay hippo-riding cowboys in the center, and the premise caught many queer book club fancies. I found the first few pages much too violent / lacking in "nice" people for my taste, so I set it aside -- too gritty for me.

Unfinished: A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

Picked up at RidgewayGirl's strong recommendation and excellent review a bit back. Really strong stories with a fantastic sense of rural South -- I'll come back to these when I'm in the mood for something darker.

16. Passing Strange
Ellen Klages
2018.04.14 / ★★★★ / review

A novella about supportive lesbians in 1940s San Francisco, focusing on the personal life of an pulp fiction cover artist who mysteriously disappears after a relatively short career, and his (her?) last work. Recommended to me by LibraryPerilous during SantaThing last winter, and pulled into book club.

It held me rapt from its first words for constant reading for a full day -- excellently drawn setting and tight plotting. I'd count slight detractions from a few too many characters to flesh out in 200 pages, and a lot of seemingly modern sentiments on race and gender feel (but what do I know, they may not be ahistorical at all). Definitely worth a read for the 1940s, San Francisco, "nice artists", or lesbian fiction crowds -- I barely put it down.

Sorry to see two books made it to the DNF list, but your explanations for why would probably have me DNF them as well.

>87 lkernagh: "Dark" is just not what I'm in the mood for right now. Nothing about the books themselves was bad -- I always feel a bit bad walking away from perfectly fine or even excellent stories. Ah well.

>88 pammab: there is, I believe, such a thing as the right book at the wrong time. I've certainly read a couple that were just not right and, while they are excellent books, they simply didn't work for me right then. Hope you find something to enjoy.

>89 Helenliz: Thank you! I believe that too.

17. The Honor of the Queen
David Weber
2018.04.23 / ★★★½ / review

The second book in an early 1990s military space adventure series by David Weber, this book focuses on exactly the theme that I was so incredibly impressed wasn't overwrought in the first book: our starship captain protagonist is female. The thematic obviousness of an alternative-and-backwards culture that is heavily male-dominated and struggles unto violence to accept powerful women is just... disappointing. By negating the unique existence of a post-gender story, the author leaves us only a fast-paced military space adventure. And that story is absolutely fine and entertaining. It's just not special or iconoclastic or particularly remarkable.

18. The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
2018.05.02 / ★★★★★ / review

Completely devourable speculative fiction in three interwoven stories: a young girl is thrown out by her family because she can bend the earth to her will, a young woman in an academic setting is asked by her mentor to sleep with a powerful man who has just returned to the academy, and an adult woman sets out to take revenge on her filicidal husband on the day that a massive earthquake ushers in the lored "the fifth season" of ashfall and climate change.

By focusing on people in different life stages as well as different geographies, Jemisin builds up a completely tangible world that takes on the ways that societies create and maintain stable power structures, with asides on the need for preparation, love, and the importance of noticing what usually goes unnoticed. Brief cultural excerpts conclude chapters; these quickly move from seeming like whimsical context to ominous warnings. We experience the world as the characters do, coming to understand how it is structured, how that structure is maintained, and who invisibly pays the price to maintain it -- and like the best of speculative fiction, this novel's core questions are a call and a question about our own world and our place in it.

The earth magic flavor is far outside my usual cuppa, but it's a vehicle for the speculative fiction frame that I adore. I made the time to finish this chunkster within 48 hours -- I'll be grabbing the sequel as soon as I can.

--
Apparently mathgirl40 recommended this one (though I can't for the life of me figured out where, so possibly I have it wrongly attributed?), and it also came up through book club -- I am so very glad to have read it!

>92 pammab: I keep seeing this one everywhere and hearing such good things. Think I'm going to take that as a sign I need to get it. ☺

>93 virginiahomeschooler: It is one of my favorites so far this year! I hope it works for you too.

Long time without being around! Had a whole bunch of family and friend issues in the downtime, but I'm back now for a while. Starting off with a bunch of belated reviews from the past month....

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Unfinished: The Jaguar's Children by John Vaillant

Welded into a water truck with other illegal immigrants, our narrator crosses the Mexican-US border and is abandoned by the drivers when the vehicle breaks down. Much too depressing for me -- I abandoned this book, though I can see how it would speak to many people.

19. Why Buddhism is True
Robert Wright
2018.05.23 / ★★★½ / review

Robert Wright tries to make basic Western Buddhism even more Western by engaging it from a social science perspective. I break with much of the acclaim I've heard for this book, because from my perspective there is nothing mindblowing from a Buddhist perspective nor from a science perspective. In particular I found the arguments in the book less than compelling. It relies extensively on that old hobbyhorse "natural selection" as a causal mechanism, which is underwhelming in that "natural selection" can support any argument and cannot be disproven. It also calls on huge amounts of psychology papers of dubious calibre, including the willpower exhaustion study that has been discredited.

I suspect the author is a pop culture writer rather than a scientist, and if I can identify that as a layman, the "scientific" arguments should be taken with tons of salt. The book is quite readable, though, and probably would function well as an introduction to Buddhism.

(Disappointingly, there are a number of quasi-scientific connections that I would love to see spelled out in greater detail, but which were not touched at all. In particular, the entire realm of computer neural networks and how they relate to dependent arising is missing. A discussion of the central conceit of Goedel, Escher, Bach -- that dependent arising within complicated systems is identical to selfhood -- is also missing, even though it is an obvious counter-argument to the Buddhist philosophical proof that self cannot exist because it is not held in any of the five aggregates, and even though GEB aligns perfectly with what meditation teaches and harnesses. I also fully expected to see an aside about how medical advances that bring vision to the blind produce people who see light and dark but no objects or colors, suggesting again that mental models are untrustworthy. So, my expectations for this book were for much harder science than it actually contained; I expect that is part of why I was underimpressed.)

20. The Traitor Baru Cormorant
Seth Dickinson
2018.05.26 / ★★★½ / review

As a young girl, Baru Cormorant is extracted from her home by its colonizers to be educated away from her "unhygienic" family unit of two fathers and a mother. She vows silent vengeance on the colonizers, and embraces their education to become an economic and political savant. In her late teens, she is awarded responsibility for the purse of another colony, where she intends to work with other government representatives to avoid a rebellion. This book follows the story of her engagement with that colony.

With rather more political intrigue than my usual tastes, this book was not wholly satisfying to me. I liked best observing how the author wrote a character smarter than himself -- he had characters hint around implicit topics and he captured only minimum description of the setting and physical engagement, all of which culminated in a conversation whose main take-away required substantial textual inference. The approach contrasted sharply with a must less-smart novel with some similar family-based worldbuilding that I read at approximately the same time, which always stated explicitly the participants' desires and outcomes, sometimes even stating the context explicitly before the conversation began.

I'd recommend this book to folks who both love reading highly political fantasy and who consider themselves smart. I was underimpressed relative to the rave reviews I've been hearing; even the surprises didn't seem particularly surprising.

>95 pammab: I was tremendously touched by The Jaguar's Children but it really is a very depressing read - it should come with it's own warning label!

>97 pammab: I can see why! I loved the characters and the voice. I just can't stomach particular depressing right now, so I'm punting.

21. An Excess Male
Maggie Shen King
2018.05.26 / ★★★★ / review

In near-future China, the surfeit of males has led the government to an ingenious solution for social stability: polyandry to stabilize as many men as possible, and a military-light preparedness preoccupation to occupy the rest. Core to being a good member of Chinese society now is men's deep love for their husbands, polyamorous child-raising, and families' wooing of each other to find their sons a mate. The book also incorporates literary reflections on autism, male homosexuals, security, and authoritarianism.

This is a fast and engaging read, featuring a phenomenal setting that raises core questions and extremely loveable characters. The plot is by far the weakest part, being mostly there to allow the author to explore the world and characters. The book also felt a bit propagandist against China -- or at least very explicit in its messaging -- perhaps because it is written by an author of Taiwanese heritage. Overall, I found the book unputdownable and representative of the very best contemporary speculative fiction.

22. The Obelisk Gate
N. K. Jemisin
2018.06.11 / ★★★★ / review

A continuation of The Fifth Season, one of my favorite books so far of 2018, I found The Obelisk Gate just as entertaining and unputdownable, but missing the excitement of thematic discovery. It also verges a bit too far into fantasy for my tastes -- acceptable here only because I'm already bought in from the spec fic framing of the first book. I'll give it 4 stars for an extremely engaging extension of characters and world (450 pages over a weekend!), but it doesn't garner the 5 stars of its predecessor's balance of candy floss entertainment with intellectual heft.

Some other books I've tried and put aside:

Unfinished: Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee
Heard great things, but I found it too hard to understand, too requiring trustful immersion initially. Didn't grab me.

Unfinished: The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Coming off more excellent Jemisin, I wanted more. After a few pages, I sense similar themes (moons, named minerals, world similar to Earth) but not as cleanly worked out, and way too many characters, and a much more fantasy flavor than usually speaks to me. Put aside for now.

I'm also a few pages into A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn, which is a mystery set in South Africa that has caught my eye -- but I'm working on the first few pages still, not sure if they will grab me or not. So far the answer is "not", but I will give it a bit more before I make that decision.

>102 pammab: I hope you start enjoying A Beautiful Place to Die a bit more. I found Nunn did a great job of capturing the surroundings and the depressed state of the country during Apartheid.

>101 pammab:
I have the Broken Earth-trilogy on my waiting list at the library, but it's very popular, so I have some waiting to do. :)

Been away, but want to finish up the 2018 thread!

>103 VivienneR:
It's exactly the depression in A Beautiful Place to Die that made me put the book aside. I'm definitely in the mood for happy and escapist fiction -- the YA shelf was my most consistent source of completed reads in the second half of the year.

>104 -Eva-:
Since it's been a few months, I hope the Broken Earth trilogy has come in for you and that you enjoyed it! As I catch up with threads, I'm sure I'll find out. :)

23. The Stone Sky
N. K. Jemisin
2018.06.19 / ★★★★ / review

Excellent conclusion to an excellent series. A bit less engaging to me than the others, possibly because the worldbuilding and characters are stable and established and all that's left is the denouement, but this book still delivers in entertainment and thought-provoking value. And perhaps I'm writing this review too many months after finishing the book, but what of Essun simultaneously being pregnant and becoming a stone eater? Seems like some interesting territory there that I don't think was played with like it could have been.

Definitely a recommended series.

24. So Lucky
Nicola Griffith
2018.06.28 / ★★★ / review

Disturbing novella thriller where the main thrills come from being trapped in your own body that is betraying you, and the psychological effects that situation engenders. This isn't my usual genre, but it was well worth reading.

25. Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion
Ryan Conrad
2018.08.06 / ★★★ / review

Rather too radical for my taste (surprising). During book club discussion, I found myself the most conservative person in the room as I expressed that the military isn't inherently evil, that it's fruitless and bad public policy to fight against an adult's ability to assign next-of-kin rights to someone of one's own generation rather than forcing all inheritance and decision making through generationally distinct blood relations, and that spellings like "Amerikkka" are amusing but rhetorically lazy and undermine the core message.

There is nevertheless some excellent food for thought here, even though at this point it's quite dated and almost worth analyzing as a historic artifact. It would pay dividends for anyone to read the book and tease apart the personal unhappiness from the idealist rants from the legitimate criticisms of our system (one of the most resonant for me was the criticism of rich gays opening their wallets for gay marriage, which tends to benefit already-privileged groups, while letting money dry up for LGBTQ initiatives in the rural towns where folks get bullied and beaten). I expect depending on where you are on life's journey, different subsets of this book will resonate deeply.

26. Taking Charge of Your Fertility
Toni Weschler
2018.09.01 / ★★★★★ / review

Fascinating book. Female hormones / biology are both complicated and interesting in all kinds of ways I wouldn't have expected. Book-length content also goes into more and more useful detail than I've been able to find anywhere on the internet, again demonstrating that internet content may be broad broad but it is also extremely shallow.

27. Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity
Andrew Solomon
2018.10.04 / ★★★½ / review

Andrew Solomon takes on identity formation where the shared characteristic isn't fully socially sanctioned. This is a very qualitative reporting on a variety of identities, mostly related to what are considered disabilities in the outside world. Judging from the reporting on Deaf culture, Solomon is an excellent and balanced reporter who hits all the important themes and raises all sides to them -- I was very impressed. But the chapter on autism caused me extensive angst and heartbreak for those parents, and I found myself completely avoiding continuing to read this book at that point.

28. Borders of Infinity
Lois McMaster Bujold
2018.10.06 / ★★★★½ / review

I came to this novella after knowing all about it from flashbacks in other books, which is too bad, really. Would definitely recommend reading in internal story chronological order because of the experience. It is a great story, but it doesn't have the sparkle when you know the future and wider consequences...

29. The Flowers of Vashnoi
Lois McMaster Bujold
2018.10.06 / ★★★★½ / review

Featuring Ekaterin, this short novella takes on the questions posed by the Dendarii mountains and the beliefs of the hill people. The world building here is excellent, and the story and perspective a lovely one.

30. The Mountains of Mourning
Lois McMaster Bujold
2018.10.06 / ★★★★ / review

Also came to this novella after seeing the larger repercussions in later books. This is an excellent coming of age story, and it should be read chronologically.

31. America for Beginners
Leah Franqui
2018.11.23 / ★★★★ / review

I adored this light book of self discovery and its knowing nods to its characters' foibles and strengths, and I will stay on the lookout for more books by Leah Franqui. I passed it on to my mother, who had the same reaction. I was only discomfitted by the Indian mother's quick change of heart regarding her son and his lover; such a change seems likely to happen, but only over a slower period of time.

All in all, exactly the kind of book I was hoping for from the description, with exactly the right time. I wasn't sure if the story could be carried off, but it went better than I could have hoped for.

32. Qi Stagnation
Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott
2018.12.24 / ★★★ / review

A discussion of qi stagnation (often stress induced) in English, with an introduction to the Chinese medicine mythos and links to Western understandings of the same problems.

I struggled to follow the interrelationships presented in the book, and I didn't leave with any actionable advice (the same author's Yang Deficiency was much better on the actionability front). That said, it was still a useful resource and another location for a deeper understanding of Chinese medicine writ large.

33. Yang Deficiency
Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott
2018.12.24 / ★★★★ / review

As an introduction to yang deficiency, I found this book's metaphysical explanations high cyclic and not very satisfying ("if you're seeing X, it might be caused by Y -- but if you're seeing the opposite of X, it might also be caused by Y!") -- but its actionable chapters on different forms of yang deficiency were both excellent and useful. A table near the beginning of the book points readers to the chapters that are most likely to be helpful and explains how to use the book as a guide to health, and thinking about myself and others that I'm close to, the clusters of symptoms that arise within each section were spot-on, which indicates to me that there is value in the recommendations, even if not in the explanations.

34. The Edge of the Abyss
Emily Skrutskie
2018.12.27 / ★★★★ / review

Heading back into the world of lesbian future pirates of The Abyss Surrounds Us, I was pleased that the book picked up where it left off, that it was just as light and ridiculous, and that it took on some of the more obvious worldbuilding challenges presented in the first book. This isn't high literature, but it's fun and easy. The best kind of potato chip book, in my opinion.

Plus there's a host of books that I've started over the past few months but that I have neither given up on nor finished yet, including:

- Silence on the wire: A field guide to passive reconnaissance and indirect attacks by Michal Zalewski -- a cybersecurity book that lost my interest relatively early by just reviewing what I'd had in college; I keep intending to give it a skimming chance, but it's been bookmarked for more than all of 2018...
- The Long List Anthology: More Stories from the Hugo Awards Nomination List by Eugie Foster -- a collection of SFF stories
- The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi -- a story embedded in Indian mythos
- Babel-17 by Samuel Delany -- having not read this gay SF icon and also being interested in languages, this seems like a good fit for me
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah -- I'm most likely to finish this one, having started it most recently and listening to it while cooking dinner and doing chores, and adoring Trevor Noah as I do

which I'd like some 2018 credit for, though they don't deserve much ;)

And in conclusion -- I didn't quite make my year's goal of 36 books (though I did experience more than 36 books this year), but I hope you all had an excellent 2018, and I wish you an even better 2019! More happy reading planned for me in 2019, and hopefully for you as well.

❤️

Great wrap-up of your reading year! I hope you have a great reading year in 2019 :)

>120 rabbitprincess:
Thanks, rabbitprincess!