Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 110
June 20, 2019
Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Avrana Kern had only limited and artificial emotional responses, being dead and a computer composed at least partially of ants.
Shine on, crazy bug-shaped diamond. Shine on.
Tchaikovsky’s sequel to Children of Time is similar enough to be delightful if you enjoyed the first book, while different enough to recapture the original’s sense of wonder and mind-expanding qualities. It catches up with the next generation of spiders and humans, while introducing some new sets of humans and uplifted societies:
The population of the planet now stands at some thirty-nine billion octopuses.
The octopus civilization is marvelous, and rather more alien than the spiders.
At first she was baffled and almost offended: this is not, after all, how sentience is supposed to work. Humans and Portiids agree on these things. Now, after enough time to reflect, she wonders if the octopuses are not happier: free to feel, free to wave a commanding tentacle at the cosmos and demand that it open for them like a clam.
There’s a lot of really funny bits in this story, mostly involving the octopi. I was cracking up at the early stages of their uplifting, which involve one guy who really likes octopi and his baffled colleagues. There’s also some absolutely terrifying horror. And a whole lot of uplift (in both senses of the word), touching human or rather touching sentient being moments, a vast scope, and more sense of wonder than you can shake a stick at.
( Read more... )
This is what science fiction exists to do. Just marvelous.
Feel free to have a spoilery discussion in the comments.
Children of Ruin[image error]
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Shine on, crazy bug-shaped diamond. Shine on.
Tchaikovsky’s sequel to Children of Time is similar enough to be delightful if you enjoyed the first book, while different enough to recapture the original’s sense of wonder and mind-expanding qualities. It catches up with the next generation of spiders and humans, while introducing some new sets of humans and uplifted societies:
The population of the planet now stands at some thirty-nine billion octopuses.
The octopus civilization is marvelous, and rather more alien than the spiders.
At first she was baffled and almost offended: this is not, after all, how sentience is supposed to work. Humans and Portiids agree on these things. Now, after enough time to reflect, she wonders if the octopuses are not happier: free to feel, free to wave a commanding tentacle at the cosmos and demand that it open for them like a clam.
There’s a lot of really funny bits in this story, mostly involving the octopi. I was cracking up at the early stages of their uplifting, which involve one guy who really likes octopi and his baffled colleagues. There’s also some absolutely terrifying horror. And a whole lot of uplift (in both senses of the word), touching human or rather touching sentient being moments, a vast scope, and more sense of wonder than you can shake a stick at.
( Read more... )
This is what science fiction exists to do. Just marvelous.
Feel free to have a spoilery discussion in the comments.
Children of Ruin[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
June 19, 2019
The Outsider, by Stephen King
A heinous child murder rocks a small town, especially when incontrovertible evidence, both DNA and eyewitness, makes it inarguable that the murderer is Terry Maitland, a well-liked football coach who's never done anything wrong ever. Except then more incontrovertible evidence, both fingerprint and eyewitness, proves that he could not have committed the crime as he was far away when it occurred. What in the world is going on?
Much like the preceding Mr. Mercedes novels, this book was extremely readable and had some great bits, but was frustratingly uneven and less than the sum of its parts. It sets up an intriguing dilemma and takes so long over the question of "are some things just inherently unknowable" that you expect it to be about that, but it isn't really.
( Read more... )
But like I said, the book is very, very readable. I started listening to it on audio read by Will Patton, but had to stop when Holly Gibney showed up, because his take on her style of speaking was so incredibly annoying. I then continued in print form and ended up staying up till 3:00 AM to finish.
Also, the heroine was very refreshing. She's a gray-haired, middle-aged woman on the spectrum with severe social anxiety who takes Lexapro, and she's badass and great. The books she appears in aren't my favorites, but I love that she exists.
The Outsider[image error]
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Much like the preceding Mr. Mercedes novels, this book was extremely readable and had some great bits, but was frustratingly uneven and less than the sum of its parts. It sets up an intriguing dilemma and takes so long over the question of "are some things just inherently unknowable" that you expect it to be about that, but it isn't really.
( Read more... )
But like I said, the book is very, very readable. I started listening to it on audio read by Will Patton, but had to stop when Holly Gibney showed up, because his take on her style of speaking was so incredibly annoying. I then continued in print form and ended up staying up till 3:00 AM to finish.
Also, the heroine was very refreshing. She's a gray-haired, middle-aged woman on the spectrum with severe social anxiety who takes Lexapro, and she's badass and great. The books she appears in aren't my favorites, but I love that she exists.
The Outsider[image error]
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June 15, 2019
Three things meme
A meme from
![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1491408111i/22407843.png)
sholio
, in which I asked for and received three things to talk about "that I may or may not know or care about." I was given:
1. Alexander Hamilton (the real person, not the fictional one!).
When I was in high school I was given Gore Vidal's novel Burr, and subsequently became obsessed with the contemporary-at-the-time controversy over who fired first at their duel. I spent something like a month reading contemporary accounts of the duel, arguments and theories about the duel, etc. For some reason my high school library had a lot of material on that, and this was pre-ordinary people having internet access so all my research was done via dusty books that had probably never been opened before or since. The whole thing was one of the few times I actually enjoyed myself while on my high school campus, although to be fair all of those times also occurred in the library.
I eventually came to the conclusion that Burr had fired first, and Hamilton had fired as a reflex when hit, which was why his bullet was so far off the mark (IIRC, it hit a tree branch way above Burr's head.) As for Hamilton's intent, hard to say as he could have either been bringing his gun into position to fire at Burr or to delope. Again IIRC, at the time I thought it was probably the former as all the people arguing that he meant to delope tended to portray him as a total saint and I didn't think he was, which made me doubt their arguments in general.
And that was the extent of my interest in Hamilton until Hamilton.
2. fireflies.
I have never seen them but have always wished to. I love glowing natural phenomena in general, but have never seen any of it: no phosphorescence, no fireflies, no Northern Lights. Hopefully some day.
Fireflies specifically are very associated in my mind with certain media: nostalgic anime about happy childhoods gone by, and also southern Gothics. When I think of them, I picture animated Japanese children in idyllic landscapes, or hot and humid southern nights perfumed with magnolias, while inside the house an intricate drama involving drunkenness, incest, and murder is playing out.
3. tentacle accidents.
sholio
and I watched The Umbrella Academy together and really enjoyed it. This delightfully coincided with the Hurt-Comfort Exchange - those poor kids could really use some comfort. One of them, Ben, 1) was mysteriously dead and a ghost, 2) had tentacles. While musing about how he died, we wondered if it could have been an interdimensional tentacle accident, and promptly added "tentacle accident" to the tagset. Sadly I don't think anyone used it.
If you would also like three random things to talk about, just let me know!
comments
sholio
, in which I asked for and received three things to talk about "that I may or may not know or care about." I was given:1. Alexander Hamilton (the real person, not the fictional one!).
When I was in high school I was given Gore Vidal's novel Burr, and subsequently became obsessed with the contemporary-at-the-time controversy over who fired first at their duel. I spent something like a month reading contemporary accounts of the duel, arguments and theories about the duel, etc. For some reason my high school library had a lot of material on that, and this was pre-ordinary people having internet access so all my research was done via dusty books that had probably never been opened before or since. The whole thing was one of the few times I actually enjoyed myself while on my high school campus, although to be fair all of those times also occurred in the library.
I eventually came to the conclusion that Burr had fired first, and Hamilton had fired as a reflex when hit, which was why his bullet was so far off the mark (IIRC, it hit a tree branch way above Burr's head.) As for Hamilton's intent, hard to say as he could have either been bringing his gun into position to fire at Burr or to delope. Again IIRC, at the time I thought it was probably the former as all the people arguing that he meant to delope tended to portray him as a total saint and I didn't think he was, which made me doubt their arguments in general.
And that was the extent of my interest in Hamilton until Hamilton.
2. fireflies.
I have never seen them but have always wished to. I love glowing natural phenomena in general, but have never seen any of it: no phosphorescence, no fireflies, no Northern Lights. Hopefully some day.
Fireflies specifically are very associated in my mind with certain media: nostalgic anime about happy childhoods gone by, and also southern Gothics. When I think of them, I picture animated Japanese children in idyllic landscapes, or hot and humid southern nights perfumed with magnolias, while inside the house an intricate drama involving drunkenness, incest, and murder is playing out.
3. tentacle accidents.
sholio
and I watched The Umbrella Academy together and really enjoyed it. This delightfully coincided with the Hurt-Comfort Exchange - those poor kids could really use some comfort. One of them, Ben, 1) was mysteriously dead and a ghost, 2) had tentacles. While musing about how he died, we wondered if it could have been an interdimensional tentacle accident, and promptly added "tentacle accident" to the tagset. Sadly I don't think anyone used it.If you would also like three random things to talk about, just let me know!
comments
June 14, 2019
I'm running a new Stephen King Exchange!
iknowcommawrite
,
sholio
, and I are the mods of a new exchange for Stephen King fanworks,
![[community profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1497869825i/23063418.png)
kingofexchanges
! It covers all works by Stephen King or based on something by Stephen King. It's for art and fic, and the minimum fic length is 500 words.
It includes crossover fandoms, and that part is set up so you can nominate all sorts of varieties of those, from characters meeting each other (Jessie Burlingame and Dolores Claiborne meet in person) to placing a character from one book in the world of another (Lisey in 'Salem's Lot, presumably bashing the vampires with a shovel) to putting a whole set of characters together (Danny Torrance, Trisha McFarland, Charlie McGee, and Carrie White become a ka-tet in Mid-World).
Come on in, the water's fine! Except for the monster lurking beneath the surface.
comments
FF Friday: Ashlin & Olivia, by Aster Glenn Gray
A sweet and extremely relatable F/F second-chance romance by the author of Briarley.
Olivia is on a one-week trip to Florence with her college class when she spots someone she hasn’t seen in seven years – Ashlin, who was her best friend when they were both thirteen, before that relationship came to a disastrous end. She can’t resist approaching her, though she’s nervous about whether Ashlin will still be mad at her.
From then on, the story alternates chapters from when Ashlin and Olivia were both thirteen, and in the present day when they’re both 21. At first it feels very cozy and idyllic, but it soon becomes clear that that’s a reflection of how Olivia idolized Ashlin. The depiction of what it feels like to be 13 and have a friend who’s your entire world and who understands you like no one ever has before, and how you create a two-person reality together, is incredibly vivid. And so is the depiction of the downside of that, and the intensity of being 13 in general.
There’s nothing melodramatically tragic going on – just ordinary pain and ordinary joy –
but it’s intense in a way that captures the intensity of those particular experiences. If you’ve ever experienced social anxiety or had a bad experience trying to introduce a new friend to old friends… let me put it this way, I am still gunshy about that.
It’s a romance, and a very believable, sensual one at that, but a bit of an unconventional one in that its main concerns are slightly to the side of the usual concerns of romance. (Perception, memory, a specific set of real-life experiences – there’s a moment involving crushed magnolias that is just brilliant.) The ending is more romance-conventional than the rest of the book, and I could have used it being either more open-ended or for it to be longer.
A lovely story and one that I think a lot of you could really relate to.
Only $2.99 on Kindle: Ashlin & Olivia[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
Olivia is on a one-week trip to Florence with her college class when she spots someone she hasn’t seen in seven years – Ashlin, who was her best friend when they were both thirteen, before that relationship came to a disastrous end. She can’t resist approaching her, though she’s nervous about whether Ashlin will still be mad at her.
From then on, the story alternates chapters from when Ashlin and Olivia were both thirteen, and in the present day when they’re both 21. At first it feels very cozy and idyllic, but it soon becomes clear that that’s a reflection of how Olivia idolized Ashlin. The depiction of what it feels like to be 13 and have a friend who’s your entire world and who understands you like no one ever has before, and how you create a two-person reality together, is incredibly vivid. And so is the depiction of the downside of that, and the intensity of being 13 in general.
There’s nothing melodramatically tragic going on – just ordinary pain and ordinary joy –
but it’s intense in a way that captures the intensity of those particular experiences. If you’ve ever experienced social anxiety or had a bad experience trying to introduce a new friend to old friends… let me put it this way, I am still gunshy about that.
It’s a romance, and a very believable, sensual one at that, but a bit of an unconventional one in that its main concerns are slightly to the side of the usual concerns of romance. (Perception, memory, a specific set of real-life experiences – there’s a moment involving crushed magnolias that is just brilliant.) The ending is more romance-conventional than the rest of the book, and I could have used it being either more open-ended or for it to be longer.
A lovely story and one that I think a lot of you could really relate to.
Only $2.99 on Kindle: Ashlin & Olivia[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
June 13, 2019
A Sword Named Truth, by Sherwood Smith
Sherwood's latest Sartorias-deles book, A Sword Named Truth, is finally out!
She has an open post here where you can ask her questions about the worldbuilding in her books. Go forth and ask. I think her worldbuilding is really unusual and cool. I asked her about the waste spell.
A Sword Named Truth (Rise of the Alliance Book 1)[image error]
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She has an open post here where you can ask her questions about the worldbuilding in her books. Go forth and ask. I think her worldbuilding is really unusual and cool. I asked her about the waste spell.
A Sword Named Truth (Rise of the Alliance Book 1)[image error]
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June 12, 2019
More All-of-a-Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor
Another delightful book in the series. I realized when reading it that I had in fact read it before. It features many more relatable kid moments, fascinating historical details, and a total lack of Suck Fairy.
Gertie lies that she can tell time, and then gets stuck running to check the time for her teacher at the school clock, where she lurks miserably until some passerby rescues her. Most writers would use this to hammer home a "don't lie" message. In fact, Gertie spends so much time desperately staring at the clock that she eventually learns to tell time ahead of her class!
Slovenly but kind Uncle Hyman has a romance with Lena, a brave and plump recent immigrant. Everything about this romance between very unglamorous, middle-aged people is completely lovely. Also...
( Read more... )
comments
Gertie lies that she can tell time, and then gets stuck running to check the time for her teacher at the school clock, where she lurks miserably until some passerby rescues her. Most writers would use this to hammer home a "don't lie" message. In fact, Gertie spends so much time desperately staring at the clock that she eventually learns to tell time ahead of her class!
Slovenly but kind Uncle Hyman has a romance with Lena, a brave and plump recent immigrant. Everything about this romance between very unglamorous, middle-aged people is completely lovely. Also...
( Read more... )
comments
Monster (conclusion), by Naoki Urasawa
In conclusion, that was great and epic and had some of the best characterization and suspense and working out of themes in action/character I've ever encountered in manga, or possibly in any media. Also, I am now somewhat confused about some of the plotting, and very confused by the epilogue.
( Read more... )
I am debating whether to immediately move on to 20th Century Boys, which I started but never finished, or have a palette cleanser first with something lighter/shorter.
Monster, Vol. 9: The Perfect Edition[image error]
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( Read more... )
I am debating whether to immediately move on to 20th Century Boys, which I started but never finished, or have a palette cleanser first with something lighter/shorter.
Monster, Vol. 9: The Perfect Edition[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
June 9, 2019
Drinking the Rain, by Alex Kates Shulman
Shulman, a 50-year-old, newly divorced, feminist New Yorker, decides to get her head together in solitude by spending long stretches of time in a family-owned cabin on an island off the coast of Maine. Previously, the cabin had only been used for brief excursions, as it has no electricity, plumbing, or telephone.
Schulman lives almost entirely by foraging mussels and plants and berries, writes, and observes nature. Periodically, she comes back to the city and finds that she doesn't enjoy it as much as she used to. Environmental catastrophes keep escalating, threatening both the entire world and her corner of it, but by the end of the book, the ecosystem of the island is changed but survives.
I would estimate that a minimum of 60% of this book consists of foraging narration. If you have ever dreamed of living alone on an island and foraging for mussels and herbs, then enjoying the resulting chowder, this book will be a pleasant way to vicariously experience that. I did enjoy it on that level, but for me it was missing that certain spark that makes a book truly immersive.
Drinking the Rain: A Memoir[image error]
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Schulman lives almost entirely by foraging mussels and plants and berries, writes, and observes nature. Periodically, she comes back to the city and finds that she doesn't enjoy it as much as she used to. Environmental catastrophes keep escalating, threatening both the entire world and her corner of it, but by the end of the book, the ecosystem of the island is changed but survives.
I would estimate that a minimum of 60% of this book consists of foraging narration. If you have ever dreamed of living alone on an island and foraging for mussels and herbs, then enjoying the resulting chowder, this book will be a pleasant way to vicariously experience that. I did enjoy it on that level, but for me it was missing that certain spark that makes a book truly immersive.
Drinking the Rain: A Memoir[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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June 8, 2019
All of a Kind Family, by Sydney Taylor
This book was a favorite of mine when I was a kid, but I don't think I realized there were sequels.
It's about a Jewish family in New York in 1914 with five little girls two years apart. The oldest is twelve, and the youngest is four. It's a sweet, gentle book, filled with period atmosphere and kindness and relatable kid issues, from losing a library book to inexplicably refusing to eat soup you normally love. Upon re-reading, it had been visited by the opposite of the Suck Fairy - it was, if anything, even better than I remembered. The publication date is 1951 but it feels timeless. The illustrations are great too.
As a kid, I loved it for being that rare book about Jewish girls that was not about the Holocaust. Apart from being crushingly depressing, those books were not very relatable for an American Jewish girl in Los Angeles in the 70s-80s, especially since I didn't have Holocaust survivors in my family. But I completely related to being obsessed with books and dolls, getting lost in a crowd, being poor, and fighting and bonding with friends.
Recommended for literally anyone who wants something sweet, cozy, and domestic, without being saccharine. It's pure comfort reading, and I can't wait to get to the sequels. And if you know any little Jewish girls who haven't already read it, it would make a nice gift.
Thanks to Rosefox for reminding me to re-read this!
All-of-a-Kind Family (All-of-a-Kind Family Classics)[image error]
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It's about a Jewish family in New York in 1914 with five little girls two years apart. The oldest is twelve, and the youngest is four. It's a sweet, gentle book, filled with period atmosphere and kindness and relatable kid issues, from losing a library book to inexplicably refusing to eat soup you normally love. Upon re-reading, it had been visited by the opposite of the Suck Fairy - it was, if anything, even better than I remembered. The publication date is 1951 but it feels timeless. The illustrations are great too.
As a kid, I loved it for being that rare book about Jewish girls that was not about the Holocaust. Apart from being crushingly depressing, those books were not very relatable for an American Jewish girl in Los Angeles in the 70s-80s, especially since I didn't have Holocaust survivors in my family. But I completely related to being obsessed with books and dolls, getting lost in a crowd, being poor, and fighting and bonding with friends.
Recommended for literally anyone who wants something sweet, cozy, and domestic, without being saccharine. It's pure comfort reading, and I can't wait to get to the sequels. And if you know any little Jewish girls who haven't already read it, it would make a nice gift.
Thanks to Rosefox for reminding me to re-read this!
All-of-a-Kind Family (All-of-a-Kind Family Classics)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
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