Ry Herman's Blog, page 12

Favorite Books — September 2021

September turned out to be quite a good month for reading. Three short novels in three different genres particularly took my fancy:

MEMOIRS OF A SPACEWOMAN by Naomi Mitchison

Mary is a communications expert, passionate and compassionate about the strange and often unnerving life forms she encounters on her travels to distant galaxies. Non-interference is the code, but her emotional and erotic entanglements cannot always be avoided, and scientific detachment is not always easy to maintain.

This book is a fascinating look at the problem of communicating with aliens who are truly alien, the ethics of dealing with creatures entirely outside the human moral framework, and the experience of observation changing both the observed and the observer. Although it contains some outdated concepts of gender differences, overall this is the kind of imaginative, innovative book that shows just how thoughtful good science fiction can be.

WHITE IS FOR WITCHING by Helen Oyeyemi

In a vast, mysterious house on the cliffs near Dover, the Silver family is reeling from the hole punched into its heart. Lily is gone and her twins, Miranda and Eliot, mourn her absence with unspoken intensity. All is not well with the house, either, which creaks and grumbles and malignly confuses visitors in its mazy rooms, forcing winter apples in the garden when the branches should be bare.

Beautiful, frightening, multi-layered, and often ambiguous, I think this is a book that most people will either love or hate. A haunted house story where the house itself is one of the characters, the prejudices of the past are still poisoning the present, and the narrative often moves with the logic of dreams. You can count me among those who loved it.

OUR SPOONS CAME FROM WOOLWORTHS by Barbara Comyns

Sophia is twenty-one years old, carries a newt — Great Warty — around in her pocket and marries — in haste — a young artist called Charles. Swept into bohemian London of the thirties, Sophia is ill-equipped to cope.

Like a tragic song with a bouncy melody, the disarming wit of this book’s narrative voice serves to heighten the horrific events. Since I have had the experience of being young, naive, artsy, poor, and trapped in a bad marriage, much of this book struck me with a sense of eerie familiarity, but I think it would also appeal to anyone who appreciates a story told with pointed humor and verbal flair.

Other books I very much liked in September included THE LAST GRADUATE by Naomi Novik, THE LILY AND THE CROWN by Roslyn Sinclair, THE LYING LIFE OF ADULTS by Elena Ferrante, ANY WAY THE WIND BLOWS by Rainbow Rowell, ONE DARK THRONE by Kendare Blake, WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power, and THE AFFAIR OF THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER by Alexis Hall, along with rereads of both A DEADLY EDUCATION by Naomi Novik and THE MIDNIGHT LIE by Marie Rutkoski.

Short Story One Verb

She ran her own business — she ran seminars. They ran every Tuesday at 8 PM, and they always ran late. But she ran the company into the ground. Room rental ran her $2000 a week. When she ran out of money, she ran for office.

A rumour ran through the city. The tabloid press ran the story: ‘Candidate Ran Drugs!’ ran the dramatic headline.

Her blood ran cold. Her face ran with sweat. Her nose ran. Her stockings ran. She ran to the bus; it ran every half hour. It ran a red light.

Back then, before it ran dry, the river ran to the sea. She ran in fully clothed. She ran the rapids, then ran aground on a sandbar.

The dye in her T-shirt ran into the water.

Favorite Books – August 2021

I got less reading done this month than I might have liked, but even so, there was a standout book in the pack:

A DOWRY OF BLOOD by S. T. GIbson

Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets.

This is an evocative, atmospheric, and extremely well-written book that plumbs the emotional depths of a controlling, emotionally abusive relationship lasting hundreds of years. A fantastic piece of writing. Highly recommended.

Other books I very much liked this month included ABADDON’S GATE by S. A. Corey, THE EMPIRE OF GOLD by S. A. Chakraborty, LILA by Marilynne Robinson, ORPHEUS GIRL by Brynne Rebele-Henry, and HARD REBOOT by Django Wexler.

Background for a New Pathfinder 2E Character

Seaholly Evergreen lives at the circus
Bending the barbells and hefting the mimes
Cheerfully doing it, glad that her work is
Away from the rat nests and sewers and grime

Born to a hardscrabble working class family
Clearing the rats from the gutters and pipes
Sewer work leaving her smelly, and clammily
Dreaming of lives of a different type

Seaholly Evergreen vowed she would leave before
Life made her bitter as well as defiant
But no one hires a twelve inch tall stevedore
Strongest of sprites is no match for a giant

When Madame Dusklight said, you are hilarious,
Lift tiny weights! Holly took to the stage
Not knowing that her new boss was nefarious
Soon she decamped with her friends in a rage

Now that her worklife has different parameters
Seaholly’s cheerful and chatty and thrilled
(Doubtful she speaks dactylic tetrameter,
Though she might rhyme if it won’t get her killed)

Favorite Books — July 2021

My absolute favorite book this month really knocked my socks straight off. It’s a bit of an odd book and I’m not sure it’s managed to find its way to all the readers who would love it yet. I hope it does. It deserves it.

STRANGE CREATURES by Phoebe North

From the moment that Annie was born, she and her older brother, Jamie, were inseparable. They created their own space in the woods behind their house: a fantasy world of their own making, where no one else could find them. And then, one day, Jamie disappears…

Wow. Just wow. A glittering jewel of a book, and one that takes an unflinching look at the tangled emotions of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood — as jagged, confused, vibrant, horrible, and sweet as they can be. I very much hope it finds its audience, because it’s one of those books that sits between the boundaries of genre. While marketed as YA, it doesn’t fit comfortably within its confines. The fantasy elements are subtle and highly ambiguous. While Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is going to be the obvious comparison for many, I actually think The Rift by Nina Allen might be the closer equivalent, maybe with some shades of The Interior Life by Katherine Blake. But the book really stands unique on its own, and for those who have a fondness for stories that blur the boundary lines, this one is something special.

Other books I liked quite a lot this month included ELATSOE by Darcie Little Badger, THE ALBUM OF DR. MOREAU by Daryl Gregory, A MASTER OF DJINN by P. Djèlí Clark, THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH by Alison Bechdel, FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE by Fannie Flagg, DEFEKT by Nino Cipri, THE WITCH’S HEART by Genevieve Gornichec, THE JASMINE THRONE by Tasha Suri, and NOMADLAND by Jessica Bruder.

The Walking Dead Musical That No One Asked For

Old man zombie,
That old man zombie,
He don’t say nothing
But won’t stop moving —
He just keeps shambling
He just keeps shambling along.

It might be fungal,
It might be viral,
We might be trapped in
A downward spiral,
But old man zombie
He just keeps shambling along.

You and me, we sweat and swear,
Body all aching and racked with fear,
Bar that door!
Hide that pit!
I wandered off alone
And I just got bit.

I’m infected
Your brain I’m eyeing,
I’m scared of living
And tired of dying,
I’m old man zombie
And just keep shambling along!

Also Monsters. Always Monsters.

I talk about my books, queer fiction, and characters who dictate the plot to the author with Nicholas Yanes of SciFi Pulse:

Ry Herman discusses his career and his latest novel, “Bleeding Hearts”

Favorite Books — June 2021

Two VERY different books are my picks for June. One was a reread of a childhood favorite, the other a work of nonfiction on a subject that’s only becoming more urgent with time.

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOTH, by Norton Juster

For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem very different indeed…

Decades after it was written, this book remains astonishingly clever and charming. Rereading it made me realize exactly how much I’ve been unconsciously using it as a standard to judge other books.

THE END OF POLICING, by Alex S. Vitale

In this short but comprehensive volume, Vitale offers overwhelming evidence that when issues of poverty, public health, racial inequality, and political expression are treated as criminal matters with only one solution — sending in armed police — far more problems are created than solved.

The book explains why this is the system working exactly as designed, details the damage it causes, and offers a roadmap for how it could be changed for the better: by fundamentally altering the scope, power, and mandate of the police.

Other books I thought were excellent this month included AN UNKINDNESS OF GHOSTS by Rivers Solomon, ALL THE THINGS WE DO IN THE DARK by Saundra Mitchell, SICK KIDS IN LOVE by Hannah Moskowitz, THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake, INTERIOR CHINATOWN by Charles Yu, WINTER’S ORBIT by Everina Maxwell, and THE KINGDOM OF COPPER by S. A. Chakraborty.

FIRST DRAFT DONE!

At 85,000 words, it’s the longest first draft I’ve ever written.

Now I just have to make it make sense.

Queering SFF

On Thursday June 24, I’ll be on a panel with Laura Lam and Celine Frohn, hosted by Jess Brough and organized by Lighthouse Bookshop!

NEW FRONTIERS: QUEERING SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

Tickets for online viewing can be booked at:

https://lighthousebookshop.com/events/new-frontiers-queering-science-fiction-and-fantasy