Books: smoke 'em while you got 'em

Well there's more sitting in the queue, so WHY NOT.

Martha Wells — Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries

May 12

This series isn't my favorite Martha Wells thing (that's a tie between the Raksura books and the Fall of Ile Rien), but I'm enjoying it.

Like I said last time, these are novellas, which is a weird form IMO, because some of the most reliable answers to storytelling problems in novels or short stories don't work there. I've been trying to figure out why I'm pretty satisfied with the Murderbot books (for example) but frustrated by The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (for example), and two elements I'm thinking about right now are:

• Subverted development
• Ragged flapping edges

Like: I was thinking the situation those researchers found themselves in was going to turn out to be part of a conspiracy that linked up with what had happened to our hero years ago. Which is how you'd do it in a novel, usually! But it turned out to be just what it looked like on the surface... or, no, in fact it was probably even dumber than that, as Murderbot points out during the climax. And that actually works brilliantly, because it takes too much space to weave everything together like that in a way that feels legit, and if you try to cram that in it feels too pat and forced. But by doing it "wrong," it lets two simple but tense plot lines co-exist and ricochet off each other in a way that makes the setting feel spacious and unpredictable.

Leaving some edges flapping has a similar effect, creating an illusion of spaciousness within a really cramped area. Consider that one sexbot. What the fuck was his deal, like really? Well, we don't really find out, because Murderbot needs to gtfo and doesn't really have time to deal with that in any kind of thorough way. But there's probably a story there.

Anyway, novellas, what are they.

Rivers Solomon — An Unkindness of Ghosts

May 7

Believe the hype, this book is great. Super intense, tho! Like, this is a setting where past rape and the constant threat of future rape is down at like, number three or four on the protagonist's urgent problems list, so, fucking... make sure you're girded up for THAT before starting, damn.

But anyway, I thought I was super done with generation ship settings/plots, and this book showed me that I am in fact NOT. Not only were the social commentary and character drama knife-sharp, this actually did some seriously new shit with the physical mechanics of packing a whole society (multiple unequal whole societies) into a tin can for centuries! And even better, the SF-nal innovations are all informed by the social awareness that drives the plot. I kind of don't even want to get into it in detail, because of how much fun it was watching it all spin out! Listen, this is some good-ass science fiction.

In broad strokes it vaguely resembles Snowpiercer, but in my opinion it's much smarter and deeper and more curious about its world. Anyway, this book is probably on your list already based on how much buzz it had this spring, but maybe move it up a few slots. I enjoyed this a lot.

Ursula K. Le Guin — The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

May 18

This was excellent.

The first 2/5 or so was slow and tough going. Some of that was just because my attention span issues get much worse during periods of depression or anxiety, and I had a rough spring. But also, this might be a book that frontloads a lot of the demands it makes of the reader, and the demands aren't small. At any rate, it accelerated pretty rapidly after that and I blazed through the remainder.

Speaking of demands. What I wanted from this book was for someone to help me make sense of anarchism as a philosophy and way of life, which I realize was a completely unfair thing to ask of a SF novel, even a really smart one. ASTOUNDINGLY, I feel like it delivered that anyway??? Or at least, it gave me a handle to grab onto, even if it maybe raised more questions than it answered.

Probably not a book to be read casually, but so, so rewarding.