Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 41

The Annual Epic Best Books of 2016 List You Can’t Miss!

Do you like that title? It makes me feel all sorts of important. My ego is satisfied.

Well, here it is. The list I HATE to write more than any other list in the history of lists. This is the list where I sit down each year, and kind of glare at myself and wonder why I put myself through this. You see, I love “Best Of” lists, but compiling them sucks. I love just about every book I read, and I always feel like crap when I leave some deserving books off the list, and forget to add some books on that should be there. That happens every year. I always try to be so careful, and I always fail. So there’s the guilt.

On the other hand, holy crap guys, you have no idea how much time it takes to make this list.

So here it is, my Best Books of 2016 list. All of these books were published in 2016, and read in 2016. I will list them in no particular order, and this list will be as long as I need it to be (Which ended up being 17 books long, because odd lists please me, or something). Some of these books I’ve reviewed already, some I haven’t reviewed yet.

Enjoy!

A Green and Ancient Light – Fredrick S. Durban

Amazon

This book really worked for me. It’s written in a really unique style, which honestly threw me a bit at first, but I ended up really appreciating the reasons the author chose to write this book in that particular way. It’s a really enchanting, almost slow-burn story, and it’s vividly crafted and exquisitely detailed. It’s a fairytale that is both emotionally powerful and haunting at the same time, and that unique writing style makes this book fit in just about anywhere, at nearly anytime, which makes this one of those stunning novels that seems to transcend time and location. It’s a book that spoke directly to my soul, and left me amazed by its beauty.

The Devil You Know – K.J. Parker

Amazon

Seriously, K.J. Parker is one of my top three authors in this genre. Everything he writes is gold, but this one really did it for me. It seemed to flirt with my cynicism quite a bit, and poked holes in a lot of my common musings, while keeping me enthralled all the while. This is a novella, and I absolutely, positively tore through it. I was really reluctant to read Parker’s novellas, because I first found my way to Parker through his Engineer Trilogy, but after reading this novella and a few others, I’ve determined that novellas really are where Parker shines. They are shorter, and he gets right to the point and has some of the strongest dialogue I’ve come across in any genre books. Furthermore, there’s something about his world building that just amazes me every time. But really, his wry wit, natural cynicism, and stunning talent combines to really make this book shine. Nothing with Parker is ever what it seems to be, and it’s no different with this novella, and that’s part of the thrill.

Borderline – Mishell Baker

Amazon

If you haven’t read this book yet, I really want you to sit down and ask yourself a serious question. Ready? Here’s your question: WHY HAVEN’T YOU READ THIS BOOK YET? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? (Okay, that’s TWO questions). Borderline was just about everything I ever wanted to read in an urban fantasy novel. It features an absolutely addictively unique plot, a fast moving heroine who is far different than typical (which is why I loved her), some stunning writing, and some of the most finely crafted characters I’ve had the honor of coming across this year. Borderline is unapologetically what it is, and it’s confident and finely crafted, making everything that’s different about it stand out for the wonder that it really is. And the fact that it features a disabled protagonist, who is realistic, was the icing on my triple layer cake. This book is emotional, powerful, but also full of understanding, and that plot! Wow!

All the Birds in the Sky – Charlie Jane Anders

Amazon

I went into this one not knowing what to expect, and I came out of it just amazed, really. The writing blew me away. The attention to detail amazed me. The characterization was out of this world. And aside from that, Anders seemed to flawlessly smash together both fantasy and science fiction into a novel that never once felt anything but deliberate, and thoughtful. This isn’t a book you go into expecting it all to come to you easily. This book reveals its secrets slowly. There are twists and turns along the way, and plenty of emotional gut punches, but this book is one of those slow, delightful burns that just gets right under your skin and refuses to leave you. I am incredibly glad that Charlie Jane Anders decided to write it, if for no other reason than the fact that it is rare for a book to blow my mind as soundly as this one did, and I cherish the experience every time it happens.

The Last Days of Magic – Mark Tompkins

Amazon

Yeah, I have a serious Celtic addiction, but in all honesty, even if I didn’t, this book would have blown me away. I went into it expecting some good historical fantasy, but I was seriously overwhelmed by just how much Tompkins effortlessly launched himself over every hurdle in his path. This historical detail was fantastic, and Tompkins spared no effort in planning out every single aspect of this novel. The characters really made me care, and the entire book sort of left me panting and wondering when in the holy hell I can get more. You see, this is what historical fantasy should be. It’s real, and it’s lush and thoughtful. It sucks you under the river of history and sort of drowns you in all sorts of amazing qualities it contains, but you don’t really care. You just want more. This is the slow drowning, the kind that sways you, pulls you under, knocks you out, overwhelms you, and leaves you completely changed, and begging for more.

The Wolf Road – Beth Lewis

Amazon

If you’re looking for something personal, gritty, and unpredictable, look no further. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, we’re confronted by an uncomfortable character, in an uncomfortable world, in an uncomfortable situation and damn, I couldn’t get enough of any of it. This one had me on the edge of my seat, biting my nails down to the quick. I was actually surprised by how much this book surprised me. I was constantly learning that what I expected to happen wasn’t actually what happened at all, and it’s really rare that an author manages that many plot twists on me that effortlessly. On the other hand, the world is fantastic, even though it’s written in a rather intimate way, and the survivalist measures that are mentioned in this book are really realistic. There were a few times I wanted to ask Lewis if she’s actually lived out any of the stuff she wrote about because it didn’t feel like research when I read it – it felt real. So yeah, this one is amazingly written, amazingly crafted, amazingly imagined… just amazing. And uncomfortable. And that’s actually a really good thing.

Everfair – Nisi Shawl

Amazon

I didn’t honestly expect to like this book as much as I liked it, but I’m learning that I’m kind of a sucker for books that bill themselves as something new and different, and this one did just that. It’s the first thing written by Nisi Shawl that I actually read, and I promise you it won’t be the last. It’s a sort of steampunk-ish-victorian-ish-settler-explorer-ish thing set in an alternative Congo. It’s packed full of diversity, and culture clashes, and plenty of emotions and conflict, but what really amazed me about it aside from all that was how brave it was. How many books set in the Congo – this Congo or an alternative Congo, have you actually read? Not many, I’d wager, and I really, really appreciated that. This book actually drove me to learn more about the Congo. In fact, I just finished a gigantic nonfiction book set in this region just so I could learn more about this fantastic place and the people that Shawl based this wonderful book on. We need more books like this in the genre. It got me to expand my world a bit, and I can only thank Nisi Shawl for that.

The Forgetting Moon – Brian Lee Durfee

Amazon

This book is huge. HUGE. It’s an epic tomb that is dark, and bloody, brutal and grim and it is absolutely unapologetic in any of that and that’s why I loved it so much. Durfee put a ton of thought and effort into writing this book, and I enjoyed that effort immensely. Durfee has a knack for crafting an incredibly intricate, convoluted, surprising story. This book set out to do a few very specific things, and it did every last one of those things with brutal efficiency. This is the first book in an epic saga, and I’m anxious to get my hands on the next one. If this book is a sign, then Durfee has a long, promising, fantastic career ahead of him. I was really burned out on epic fantasy and grimdark until I read this book, and now I can feel that fire burning inside of me again. Durfee took a story I’d expected to have already read a few times, and made it something unique, different, and memorable.

The Last Days of Jack Sparks – Jason Arnopp

Amazon

You know, I didn’t think I’d like this one, but man did I ever. I positively devoured it. It’s twisted, and cerebral. This one got into my hindbrain and I was absolutely obsessed with it, and the slow, devolving mental trail of Jack Sparks. It’s a fascinating journey into the mind of someone falling apart, and the reasons that happens. This book was incredibly intimate, and that’s why it worked so well. Arnopp pulled me into the mind of Jack Sparks, and he did it in a way that made me wonder what was real, and what was fake. Jack Sparks has a really interesting voice, and it was fascinating to watch his obsession grow, and his conceit shatter as events transpire around him. The fact that Arnopp managed to build up such a fantastic, memorable character, and then shatter him so ruthlessly and in such a mental way, was nothing short of delightful, in a really dark sort of way.

A Gathering of Shadows – V.E. Schwab

Amazon

This series is everything. I loved the first book, but this second book took everything I loved about the first book and made it all even better. There was absolutely nothing about this book that didn’t work for me in some spectacular way. A Gathering of Shadows was absolutely out of this world amazing. You have to read the first book in the series before you get to this one, but really it’s worth it. This book was dark, and intricate, insightful and surprising. Schwab has some real skill with weaving a story that grabs you and refuses to let go, and she really lets her mad talent fly free with this installment. This was everything I’d hoped it would be, plus some. I cannot wait for the next book in the series and I’m so very, very glad that V.E. Schwab decided to grace the world with her books, because we are all the better for it.

False Hearts – Laura Lam

Amazon

I was really looking forward to reading this one, but when I got it I was almost too nervous to actually read it. What if it didn’t live up to the hype I built for it in my head? Well, it did. In fact, I really can’t praise this one enough. I read it a few months ago, and I still think about it occasionally. There are elements of the story that will inevitably remind readers of other stories you’ve read, but really not in a derivative sort of way, but more of a paying-homage-to sort of way. Lam has a way with making her characters very distinct, and some of the parts of this novel, the quiet parts, were absolutely haunting with their emotional resonance. The story itself was superb, and the mystery really kept me going, as was the merging and blending of all of these near-future cultures, and some thoughtful exploration of the evolution of technology, belief, and privacy. All in all, this novel exceeded all of my expectations by miles.

Stiletto – Daniel O’Malley

Amazon

I love this series so hard. I love the wry humor, the thoughtful twisting and turning of the plot, the characters that are so fantastic they make the book ending actually painful for me. This is a weird, delightful book that reminds me a bit of Jasper Fforde’s stuff. This second book had much the same tone as the first, but the world expanded a bit as our POV characters were different than the previous book. I enjoyed this, the different insight into the system that O’Malley has crafted, and the wry humor that never really left the book, or the characters behind. It’s twisted and weird, and absolutely addictive. Start off with Rook, but don’t stop there. This series will amaze you.

Wall of Storms – Ken Liu

Amazon

Another second book in a series that just gets better and better with each installment. Liu has created a really interesting world here, and this book just adds to what he intricately crafted in the first installment. However, Liu felt a bit more comfortable here, a bit more willing and able to spread his wings and play around with his creation. This book felt a little deeper, a more layers added to it. Things have happened and now Liu is really playing with the “what happens next” part of his empire, and while some of it was predictable, much of it wasn’t. As with the first book, I was really amazed by how enthralled I became, and how quickly that hit me. These people are so incredibly real, and their empire is so tempestuously wrought that I can’t help but just hang on and see where Liu takes me. He truly is one of the most skilled authors in the field today, and this series is a fantastic entry into the epic fantasy genre, blazing its own trail, and taking me along for the ride.

The Wheel of Osheim – Mark Lawrence

Amazon

I don’t know how this man does it, but holy crap he certainly does it. The Wheel of Osheim was a fantastic end to a trilogy that I just loved. In fact, I loved this trilogy so much, I was really reluctant to read this book because I didn’t want it to end. This was the perfect ending to this series. It was surprising, but just glorious. I love how Lawrence can manage to pull off such a character-driven dark epic, but somehow he seems to always manage to redeem his characters in some way. Jalan has spent much of this series growing up, but you really see that in The Wheel of Osheim. He is an adult now. He’s still the cheater you fell in love with early on, but he’s certainly got a bit more foresight and insight into his actions and their effects now. There were a lot of “Ah ha” moments in this book, a lot of pieces to the puzzle that were suddenly clear, and a ton of tension. This book was darker than I expected it to be, but damn, it was glorious. Absolutely glorious. I never want Mark Lawrence to stop writing. Never.

Age of Myth – Michael J. Sullivan

Amazon

Sullivan’s books are all insta-reads for me. This one was no exception. This might actually be my favorite book of his that he’s written so far. It takes place thousands of years before his Riyria books, but don’t let that put you off. It’s full of myth and magic, lots of lore, and the changing of cultures and tribal life as progress is felt, and sometimes uncomfortably impacting the world they live in. One of the things that really astounded me about this book was the fact that Sullivan just feels so comfortable now. He can weave such an effortless tale that is so incredibly gripping, but the passion for his craft is felt in every single word. He’s written a lot of books, and in many ways, he’s pioneered his own form of publishing and he’s been such an inspiration to many authors. All of that experience and love is felt. This book was fantastic. Superb, actually. I do honestly think it stands above his other books in many aspects, but it’s the passion and experience that really made me love this book. Sullivan loves what he does, and I love how I can feel that in every book of his that I read.

Defying Doomsday, Edited by Tsana Dolichva & Holly Kench

Amazon

This is a short story collection, and it’s one I was beyond thrilled to recieve for Our Words, and review over there. I’m putting it on my list here, though, because this short story collection was one of the best things I read this year. This is a collection of stories by some incredible authors, all featuring disabled characters that kick ass in their own unique ways. We don’t have enough of that in our genre, and I’m so glad that Dolichva and Kench decided to combine their love of the genre, and brainpower, to create such a steller assortment of stories. Every story in here shines, and every character is so incredibly real. This collection of stories was put together with real thought, and insight into the disabled community, and helped shine a light on how, we can, and do, kick ass, and we can add to the genre, and we deserve to be in it. Period. This was a crafty collection, and memorable, and very important to the genre that I love. Bravo, ladies. We need more stories and books like this in our genre. Thank you for shining a light on this community.

After Atlas – Emma Newman

Amazon

I actually just finished this one, but I had to put it on my list. Have you ever opened a book and figured out that you’d absolutely LOVE it within the first paragraph? That’s what this book was like for me. I read the first paragraph, and I was in love. This can be read as a standalone, so if you haven’t read Planetfall, don’t worry too much. It’s kind of a noir crime/thriller type thing, and it’s just P-E-R-F-E-C-T. Newman took to writing crime like she was born to do it, leaving readers just the right amount of crumbs and clues as she goes. The protagonist, Carlos Moreno is incredibly cynical, very closed off and shut down (and rightfully so), but also ridiculously talented as an inspector. The murder mystery is intricately, and perfectly crafted. I loved all the cultural, and social details that filled the book, sometimes in the foreground, but often times just nice little details sprinkled throughout, and these details all added up to create some fantastic world building. The whole thing mixes together to create a book that is absolutely unputdownable. This is, hands down, my favorite Emma Newman book.

 

As with last year, Saga Press wins my BEST PUBLISHER OF 2016 award again. Feel special, guys. Your content is amazing, and your quality is above reproach. I’m super glad to be on your reviewer list. I hope you feel a fuzzy feeling from this award, because unfortunately that’s all I have to give you.

Best Audiobooks of 2016

Ah, it’s that time of year again… the time for lists. While I love reading these lists, I hate actually compiling them. It’s so hard for me to narrow things down to a few favorites.

My audiobook list is different than the other lists I’ll be creating. For my Best Books Of 2016 list, all the books will have been published in 2016. For my Most Anticipated list, all the books will be published in the early part of 2017. This one, however, is different. The books will have been published whenever. The stipulation for this list is, I listened to these books in 2016.

So, best audiobooks of 2016, in no particular order.

What are some of your favorite audiobooks that you listened to this year?

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Becky Chambers

Narrated by Rachel Dulude

Audible – Amazon

This book was one of the best books I read (erm… listened to) this year. Regardless of how you actually enjoy this book, you’re bound to love it. You really can’t go wrong here, and if you’d like you can search for my review and read up on how epic this book really was. Rachel Dulude was an absolutely superb narrator. She never really got too into the voices, but she managed to pull off everyone’s unique personalities just enough to drive who they were home. So, when you mix a nearly perfect book, with a nearly perfect narration, what do you get? A diamond that shines bright, and this book is exactly that. I honestly cannot recommend the audiobook highly enough.

 

Six-Gun Snow White – Catherynne M. Valente

Narrated by Julia Whelan

Audible – Amazon

This made it onto my Best of list last year, and I think, if I remember correctly, it was my favorite book of the year. Well, I was moseying through my library’s audiobook site, and I saw that they had the copy of this one available. How could I say no? I really think this might be my favorite novella in the history of novellas, and I was kind of nervous to try out the audiobook version. If the narrator ruined a beautiful story, I’d have been upset. Thankfully, Julia Whelan took something that is beyond perfect, and just knocked it out of the park. She got the voice, the tone, the drawl, the atmosphere – everything… EVERYTHING was absolutely perfect. I listened to it twice, back to back, because I loved it that much. So take that for what it’s worth.

The Fireman – Joe Hill

Narrated by Kate Mulgrew

Audible – Amazon

I really want Kate Mulgrew to narrate all the thoughts in my head. I do. Honestly. I just want her to dig her way into my brain and just read my mind to me constantly. She’d make my random musings of, “Huh, I wonder what Frodo would look like with cockroach feet?” actually sound interesting. The Fireman is a fantastic book, and Kate Mulgrew is one of the best narrators out there. I think she kind of struggled with the English accent, but that’s easy to forgive because… LISTEN TO HER. She made this book one of those rare experiences where I listened to the book as much for the story as to just hear her talk to me.

 

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

Audible – Amazon

This was probably the best worst decision I’ve ever made. I randomly picked up this book because it seemed interesting. I had no idea it would leave me weeping in my office like a sap. I probably should have, but holy crap this book sucked me in, and Rosalyn Landor’s narration really just drove the whole thing home. I felt suckerpunched, and I spent the next two days after finishing it in some sort of daze. This book is hard. It’s hard to listen to. It makes you face emotions that you probably don’t want to face at work, but it was also one of the most worthwhile, fantastic, poignant books I’ve read (erm… listened to) this year, and Landor’s narration is a big, big reason why it worked so well.

The Rook – Daniel O’Malley

Narrated by Susan Duerden

Audible – Amazon

I freaking love this series so hard it hurts. It’s the right balance of thought provoking and funny, insightful but manages to not take itself too seriously. I listened to this book, and read the second one, and I’ll tell you that listening to the book was a better experience for me. Don’t get me wrong, however you get through this series is worth it, but Susan Duerden really has the right tone to pull this one off. So, the book is hilariously thoughtful, and the narrator managed to pull off the balance between hilarious and insightful flawlessly. Bravo.

 

Nemesis Games – James S. A. Corey

Narrated by Jefferson Mays

Audible – Amazon

Okay, so this series is fantastic in any form, but I’m so enamored with its audiobook form that I honestly can’t read the actual books anymore. Jefferson Mays just rocks. He reads the books, his voice is easy to listen to, and he never gets too involved in making the voices sound too different, or acting too much. He just reads the book, and I can sit back and just enjoy. Nemesis Games was a fantastic addition to the series, and I really enjoyed its different path from the previous books to it. I read book four in this series, and I listened to this one, and honestly, just listening to the book made me feel like I was coming home. Jefferson Mays is one of the best narrators out there. Period.

 

Good Omens – Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Narrated by Martin Jarvis

Audible – Amazon

Seriously. Do I really need to say anything here? Just… yeah. EPIC.

 

 

 

 

 

Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard – Lawrence M. Schoen

Narrated by J. G. Hertzler

Audible – Amazon

This was one of the most unique, interesting, heart wrenching books I listened to this year. Hertzler was a superb narrator. He has a really unique voice, and I thought it would take me a lot of time to adjust to it, but it really didn’t. I just sort of slipped into it, and before long I realized I couldn’t honestly picture enjoying this story any other way than with J.G. Hertzler reading it to me. The book is really one of the most unique, different, stunning things I’ve come across recently, and that, combined with Hertzler’s interesting voice slammed this one home for me. It wasn’t a book I read, it was a book I absorbed. I sort of took it into myself and it became part of me.

Midnight Taxi Tango – Daniel Jose Older

Narrated by Daniel Jose Older

Audible – Amazon

I always love it when an author narrates their own book. It really adds a special something-something to the work when I can hear how the author wants their own work read. Older has a voice that I just love, and this series is everything I love about urban fantasy. Added to that, Older is unapologetically diverse, and I love that. I love the breath of fresh air, and the color he brings to the genre. There’s nothing that I can really condemn about this series, or Daniel Jose Older reading it to me. It’s just what it is, and that’s more than enough for me.

 

 

Gardens of the Moon – Steven Erikson

Narrated by Ralph Lister

Audible – Amazon

Malazan is one of the best series out there. I’ve read it about three times, and I will probably read it about a hundred more. This year I figured I’d shake things up a bit and listen to the series. I’m going slow, a book here, a book there, but it’s more because the experience of listening to the books is so different than reading them. I’m picking up on things that I never picked up on before, which makes me feel silly because I’ve read it so much, but it’s true. And seriously, you gotta really recognize Lister and his superb skills for being able to bring such a sprawling series, with so many numerous characters, to such blazing, memorable life for his readers. If you’re wondering if this series is better read or listened to, my answer is you can’t really go wrong either way, but I sure as hell enjoy the listen, and I’m surprised at how much I’ve picked up on that I haven’t caught before.

In preparation for…

This week I’m planning on rolling out a TON of “Best of” lists: Best books of 2016, Best Audiobooks of 2016, Most anticipated releases in 2017, and whatever else. This will be the week of lists.

But…

I’m finishing up a few books right now which, I’m pretty sure, will land on some “Best of” lists, but I want to finish them before I actually put them there. Also, these lists take a stupid, really incredible amount of time to concoct. So today you get a picture, and I’m hoping to roll the lists out for Tuesday, possibly Wednesday and on.

Here’s your photo:

The Forgetting Moon – Brian Lee Durfee

About the Book

A massive army on the brink of conquest looms large in a world where prophecies are lies, magic is believed in but never seen, and hope is where you least expect to find it.

Welcome to the Five Isles, where war has come in the name of the invading army of Sør Sevier, a merciless host driven by the prophetic fervor of the Angel Prince, Aeros, toward the last unconquered kingdom of Gul Kana. Yet Gault, one of the elite Knights Archaic of Sør Sevier, is growing disillusioned by the crusade he is at the vanguard of just as it embarks on his Lord Aeros’ greatest triumph.

While the eldest son of the fallen king of Gul Kana now reigns in ever increasing paranoid isolationism, his two sisters seek their own paths. Jondralyn, the older sister, renowned for her beauty, only desires to prove her worth as a warrior, while Tala, the younger sister, has uncovered a secret that may not only destroy her family but the entire kingdom. Then there’s Hawkwood, the assassin sent to kill Jondralyn who has instead fallen in love with her and trains her in his deadly art. All are led further into dangerous conspiracies within the court.

And hidden at the edge of Gul Kana is Nail, the orphan taken by the enigmatic Shawcroft to the remote whaling village of Gallows Haven, a young man who may hold the link to the salvation of the entire Five Isles.

You may think you know this story, but everyone is not who they seem, nor do they fit the roles you expect. Durfee has created an epic fantasy full of hope in a world based on lies.

Published on August 30, 2016

Published by Saga Press

Author’s website

Buy the book

This book was sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

—

I have been having a really hard time getting into epic fantasy recently, and an even harder time getting into grimdark. I put off reading this book due to that. I figured I just wouldn’t be in the right frame of mind to really appreciate it. One day, however, I decided to give it a go. I was quickly addicted. That’s saying something right there. When you realize just how hard I’ve been struggling with both epic fantasy and grimdark, finding a book that is both of those things addicting is almost an act of god.

Durfee is a fellow Utahan, which interests me because it’s Utah, and I live here, and I feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I think about how vibrant my local SciFi community really is. We have quite a few very talented authors in this state. There must be something in the water.

Durfee’s debut is hella ambitious. It’s long. I mean, this sucker is a doorstopper, and it’s complex, weaving between a few storylines that all interact, but are each their own unique thing, as well. What really impressed me was just how well Durfee managed to keep all these stories separate and surprising without ever making anything feel incredibly formulaic. Each part of the book is its own unique, and memorable.

This book is dark, and there is a lot of violence and none of it is really glossed over. Occasionally it felt a bit gratuitous, but not too often. It’s a violent, brutal world, ad Durfee’s writing reflects that. Innocent people have hard things happen to them (as do not so innocent people), and Durfee carries the reader through the intricacies of all of it. There are a few moments that made me think that this book might need trigger warnings for some people, but generally speaking, if you go into this knowing it’s going to be a no-punches-held-back grimdark epic fantasy novel, you’ll know what you’re getting into.

Part of what makes me pretty exhausted with epic fantasy these days is a European/western setting, and this book has exactly that, complete with royal families, royalty, commoners and whatever else you can think of. Yeah, I’m a bit exhausted with that, but Durfee got me past that pretty easily with his well-crafted characters. Furthermore, the world itself is really well done, and while it is set in a European-esque setting, there are enough details here that kept me interested. There are secret societies, backhanded dealings, plots that had a ton of twists, passageways, and whatever else you can throw in there. I’m a sucker for the details, and it’s those details that took a setting that could have easily had me ho-humming, and launched it into something that kept me interested. Ah, those beautiful, beautiful details.

This book is long (I’ve said that already), so it’s pretty easy to say that once you start it out, you’ll really have no idea where it ends up. There were plenty of points along the way that had me sitting back saying, “Damn. I did not expect that.” The plot moves pretty quickly, and all those different threads I mentioned earlier converge and depart at different times. The story is being told from both sides of the main conflict, and the characters are so well crafted that it’s hard to really hate any of them. Even the guys I’m probably supposed to think of as the “bad guys” really worked for me. I will give it to Durfee, he can write a hell of an antagonist.

If I had an issue with the plot at all, it would be regarding the flow. Some scenes felt like they dragged on a little too long, while there were other points where I would have loved more detail. Furthermore, some aspects of the book were kind of hard for me to believe, but other than those issues, things came together quite well, and I often found myself wondering just how many notes, charts, graphs, maps and whatever else Durfee has littered around his house. This is a book that must have required an absolutely shocking amount of notes and outlines to pull off, and all those beautiful details and intricacies that I love so much prove that.

So, The Forgetting Moon.

It set itself out to be some huge epic grimdark saga that will keep readers hooked, and it does that. It really, really pulls everything it sets out to accomplish off. Is it perfect? No, but perfect things are boring, and I tend to think the flaws in this one keep it interesting. It’s raw, and real. It’s a brutal tome that had a ton of thought, planning, and energy poured into it, and damn, it wowed me. I mean, it got me, the woman who has said to her husband several times over the past year, “I swear to God I am not going to read another grimdark novel for at least three years” to actually read this book, and be glad I read it. I honestly cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Thanks for making me a believer in the glory of grimdark again, Brian Lee Durfee. You rock.

4/5 stars

SPFBO2 Final Round Details

Yeah, so I’m a little late with this. If you follow the SPFBO at all, then you’ll probably already know who the finalists are, but I’ll put them all here just in case you missed it.

I’m going to do this round the same way I did the finalists last year. I’m going to read each book fully, and give each one a full review and rating. I’m hopefully going to have all this done by the end of January, but I hate setting dates for myself because my health issues so often derail me. So, I’m ballparking the end of January, but if I somehow waver on the date, please don’t hate me.

If things go well, then this group of finalists should be done fairly quickly. We shall see. Winter is a pretty hard season for me health-wise, so there is that to consider, and this year has been royally kicking my butt with all things Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Anyway, to sum it up, I’ll be doing a full review of each of the final books, and you’ll know which ones are part of the SPFBO because I’ll mark them that way in the subject. Then, when they are all said and done, I’ll make a special overview post, with final thoughts, my favorite book out of all the finalists, and all that.

Now, onto the finalists. Click on the covers to link to more information about each book.

 

I’ve started working my way through these, and I should have my first full length review up next week. I’m going through them in random order, whichever book suits whatever mood I’m in at that moment, so no predictions on which books will be up to bat first.

Thanks for tagging along on this SPFBO journey! I really love doing this, and I’m glad so many people seem to enjoy participating and tagging along with me.

Stay tuned for more soon!

Excerpt from The Found and The Lost by Ursula K. Le Guin

 

Ursula K. Le Guin is an author I’ve always wanted to read, but she has SO MUCH out there. I have had a hard time deciding where to start. When these two gigantic books, both compilations of her work, arrived on my doorstep I was thrilled. This was where I was going to start. I am taking my sweet time working through both of these anthologies. They are rich and vivid and superbly written, and they are something to be savored, not devoured. They are also proving to me that Le Guin deserves every last bit of the honors she has earned as an author. Wow. Just wow.

When I was approached about putting an excerpt on my website, i jumped on it. Yes, by all means, I’d love to put an excerpt from this wordsmith on my website! Please, hook me up! I want to share how amazing Le Guin’s work is with as many people as possible! The author kindly chose the following snippet to share with my readers. I hope you love it as much as I do.

The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin (Buy the book)

The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin (Buy the book)

Now, onto the excerpt.

—

Dragonfly:

“ “Why can’t I give myself my own true name?” Dragonfly asked, while Rose washed the knife and her hands in the salt water.

“Can’t be done.”

“Why not? Why does it have to be a witch or a sorcerer? What do you do?”

“Well,” Rose said, and dumped out the salt water on the bare dirt of the small front yard of her house, which, like most witches’ houses, stood somewhat apart from the village. “Well,” she said, straightening up and looking about vaguely as if for an answer, or a ewe, or a towel. “You have to know something about the power, see,” she said at last, and looked at Dragonfly with one eye. Her other eye looked a little off to the side. Sometimes Dragonfly thought the cast was in Rose’s left eye, sometimes it seemed to be in her right, but always one eye looked straight and the other watched something just out of sight, around the corner, elsewhere.

“Which power?”

“The one,” Rose said. As suddenly as the ewe had walked off, she went into her house. Dragonfly followed her, but only to the door. Nobody entered a witch’s house uninvited.

“You said I had it,” the girl said into the reeking gloom of the one-roomed hut.

“I said you have a strength in you, a great one,” the witch said from the darkness. “And you know it too. What you are to do I don’t know, not do you. That’s to find. But there’s no such power as to name yourself.”

“Why not? What’s more yourself than your own true name?”

A long silence.

The witch emerged with a soapstone drop spindle and a ball of greasy wool. She sat down on the bench beside her door and set the spindle turning. She had spun a yard of grey-brown yarn before she answered.

“My name’s myself. True. But what’s a name, then? It’s what another calls me. If there was no other, only me, what would I want a name for?”

“But,” said Dragonfly and stopped, caught by the argument. After a while she said, “So a name has to be a gift?”

Rose nodded.

“Give me my name, Rose,” the girl said.

“Your dad says not.”

“I say to.”

“He’s the master here.”

“He can keep me poor and stupid and worthless, but he can’t keep me nameless!”

The witch sighed, like the ewe, uneasy and constrained.

“Tonight,” Dragonfly said. “At our spring, under Iria Hill. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Her voice was half coaxing, half savage.

“You ought to have your proper nameday, your feast and dancing, like any young’un,” the witch said. “It’s at daybreak a name should be given. And then there ought to be music and feasting and all. A party. Not sneaking about at night and no one knowing…”

“I’ll know. How do you know what name to say, Rose? Does the water tell you?”

The witch shook her iron-grey head once. “I can’t tell you.” Her “can’t” did not mean “won’t.” Dragonfly waited. “It’s the power, like I said. It comes just so.” Rose stopped her spinning and looked up with one eye at a cloud in the west; the other looked a little northward of the sky. “You’re there in the water, together, you and the child. You take away the child-name. People may go on using that name for a use-name, but it’s not her name, nor ever was. So now she’s not a child, and she has no name. So then you wait. In the water there. You open your mind up, like. Like opening the doors of a house to the wind. So it comes. Your tongue speaks it, the name. Your breath makes it. You give it to that child, the breath, the name. You can’t think of it. You let it come to you. It must come through you and the water to her it belongs to. That’s the power, the way it works. It’s all like that. It’s not a thing you do. You have to know how to let it do. That’s all the mastery.”

“Mages can do more than that,” the girl said after a while.

“Nobody can do more than that,” said Rose.

Dragonfly rolled her head round on her neck, stretching till the vertebrae cracked, restlessly stretching out her long arms and legs. “Will you?” she said.

After some time, Rose nodded once.

They never met in the lane under Iria Hill in the dark of the night, long after sunset, long before dawn. Rose made a dim glow of werelight so that they could find their way through the marshy ground around the spring without falling in a sinkhole among the reeds. In the cold darkness under a few stars and the black curve of the hill, they stripped and waded into the shallow water, their feet sinking deep in velvet mud. The witch touched the girl’s hand, saying, “I take your name, child. You are no child. You have no name.”

It was utterly still.

In a whisper the witch said, “Woman, be named. You are Irian.”

For a moment longer they held still; then the night wind blew across their naked shoulders, and shivering, they waded out, dried themselves as well as they could, struggled barefoot and wretched through the sharp-edged reeds and tangling roots, and found their way back to the lane. And there Dragonfly spoke in a ragged, raging whisper: “How could you name me that!”

The witch said nothing.

“It isn’t right. It isn’t my true name! I thought my name would make me be me. But this makes it worse. You got it wrong. You’re only a witch. You did it wrong. It’s his name. He can have it. He’s so proud of it, his stupid domain, his stupid grandfather. I don’t want it. I won’t have it. It isn’t me. I still don’t know who I am, I’m not Irian!” She fell silent abruptly, having spoken the name.

The witch still said nothing. They walked along in the darkness side by side. At last, in a placating, frightened voice, Rose said, “It came so…”

“If you ever tell it to anyone I’ll kill you,” Dragonfly said.

At that, the witch stopped walking. She hissed in her throat like a cat. “Tell anyone?”

Dragonfly stopped too. She said after a moment, “I’m sorry. But I feel like—I feel like you betrayed me.”

“I spoke your true name. It’s not what I thought it would be. And I don’t feel easy about it. As if I’d left something unfinished. But it is your name. If it betrays you, then that’s the truth of it.” Rose hesitated and then spoke less angrily, more coldly: “If you want the power to betray me, Irian, I’ll give you that. My name is Etaudis.”

The wind had come up again. They were both shivering, their teeth chattering. They stood face to face in the black lane, hardly able to see where the other was. Dragonfly put out her groping hand and met the witch’s hand. They put their arms round each other in a fierce, long embrace. Then they hurried on, the witch to her hut near the village, the heiress of Iria up the hill to her ruinous house, where all the dogs, who had let her go without much fuss, received her back with a clamor and racket of barking that woke everybody for a half mile round except the master, sodden drunk by his cold hearth.” –Pages 626-630

——————————————————————————————————–

Nonfiction Review | Pandemic – Sonia Shah

About the Book

Scientists agree that a pathogen is likely to cause a global pandemic in the near future. But which one? And how?

Over the past fifty years, more than three hundred infectious diseases have either newly emerged or reemerged, appearing in territories where they’ve never been seen before. Ninety percent of epidemiologists expect that one of them will cause a deadly pandemic sometime in the next two generations. It could be Ebola, avian flu, a drug-resistant superbug, or something completely new. While we can’t know which pathogen will cause the next pandemic, by unraveling the story of how pathogens have caused pandemics in the past, we can make predictions about the future. In Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, the prizewinning journalist Sonia Shah—whose book on malaria, The Fever, was called a “tour-de-force history” (The New York Times) and “revelatory” (The NewRepublic)—interweaves history, original reportage, and personal narrative to explore the origins of contagions, drawing parallels between cholera, one of history’s most deadly and disruptive pandemic-causing pathogens, and the new diseases that stalk humankind today.

To reveal how a new pandemic might develop, Sonia Shah tracks each stage of cholera’s dramatic journey, from its emergence in the South Asian hinterlands as a harmless microbe to its rapid dispersal across the nineteenth-century world, all the way to its latest beachhead in Haiti. Along the way she reports on the pathogens now following in cholera’s footsteps, from the MRSA bacterium that besieges her own family to the never-before-seen killers coming out of China’s wet markets, the surgical wards of New Delhi, and the suburban backyards of the East Coast.

By delving into the convoluted science, strange politics, and checkered history of one of the world’s deadliest diseases, Pandemic reveals what the next global contagion might look like— and what we can do to prevent it.

288 pages (hardcover)

Published on February 16, 2016

Author’s webpage

Buy the book

—

I’ve always been a huge sucker for the spread of illness in books I read. I blame part of that on my degree in health science, but another part is just because I’m morbid. It’s the one thing that I can believe could actually happen any day, without warning at all. BAM, suddenly a virulent strain of something or other just swamps your location and life as you know it is over. It chills me to the bone, and apparently I enjoy being chilled to the bone because here I am, reading an entire nonfiction novel about the stuff.

Shah covers some weighty topics in this novel, but she has real skill with boiling things down to their roots so the thick concepts are easier to understand and digest, and she never really digresses into navelgazing or pondering too many what-ifs and could-have-beens. It’s business. She goes in, says what she needs to say, presents facts to back up her story, and leaves. It’s perfect.

Now, there are a lot of ways that she could have gone about writing this book, and I think most of them would have been too scattered to really make much of an impact on readers. She chose a smart mode of discussing this topic of pandemics. She traced a few bugs and their impact on history, and sort of added modern day details, insights, and extrapolations as she went. In this way, not only did she manage to fill in a lot of historical gaps that I had, but she also gave me more “Ah ha!” moments than I can possibly recall.

The disease that she mostly chose to follow through history is cholera, and it was incredibly enlightening, and rather terrifying to learn just how much of a global impact this one illness has had. Shah really gets into it, from where exactly cholera came from, how it spread into the human species, and just where it went from there and how it spread.

Interspersed in this cholera story, which is really the story of humanity and how our understanding of health and disease has spread throughout time, is the story of numerous other viruses, like swine flu, some resistant strains of staph, ND1, and various other superbugs. She also talks about modern science, evolutions of how these illnesses are understood, and things that are possible, as well as things that are projected to happen with them. It’s not all terrifying, but admittedly some of it is.

This story travels the globe, and Shah pulls in plenty of different cultures, their cultural norms, and various struggles they face and how all of this impacts the story of viruses. For example, the cholera outbreak(s) in Haiti are covered quite a bit, because they’ve happened a lot, and each time it’s been a bit different. She discusses the health tourism trade in India, and how that’s spread the ND1 bug. She talks a bit about Ebola, and the Ebola outbreak, its impact on numerous countries worldwide, and so much more.

Shah does some absolutely meticulous research, and I could honestly find no fault in either her research or the mode she chose to tell this complex tale. It all works flawlessly together to create a really compelling, shockingly fascinating story of a threat that has impacted societies for eons, and will continue to do so well into the future. She doesn’t really present any answers, but she does raise current problems that will impact the spread of disease, like air travel, the autovaccination movement(s), health tourism, farming issues, sanitation issues, the overuse of antibiotics, and the list could go on. But the lesson is obvious, we can better address the future if we fully understand the past.

It’s not a comforting book, but it is an informative one, and in a lot of ways, studying how cholera has impacted so many different societies, and how it has been addressed, and how the virus has mutated, has helped me understand just how pandemics spread, how they start, and what we can do about them. We are, in truth, almost helpless in the face of these superbugs, but not quite. Science is amazing, and the story of humanity has told us that we will survive. Put the science, and the survival together, and in some warped, kind of twisted, sort of dark way, this is a book that actually ended up giving me a bit of hope, and a whole hell of a lot of understanding.

I listened to the audiobook, which is narrated by the author, and it is absolutely superb. Highly recommended.

 

5/5 stars

Things, they are a’changing

This year I’ve been struggling a lot. There are a lot of reasons for that, most of them focused on my own personal health, but I’ve also been really struggling to keep up interest and enthusiasm for my website. Not because I’m sick of reviewing books. I’m not. Not even close, but I think I’m just getting… worn out.

I’ve had a bit of a heart to heart with myself, and I figured out the problem.

I’ve been running this website for six years now, almost seven. That’s six years of reading mostly, or exclusively SpecFic books. That’s not a bad thing, but I think I’m getting a little burnt out. I have other interests, and I feel like I need to feed them a bit. This will, in turn, keep up my enthusiasm with SpecFic.

So in that respect, I am going to expand the scope of my book reviews here. It will still be mostly speculative fiction, but I have been reading a ton of really, really good nonfiction that I’m dying to talk about. I really don’t want my website to fade away, but I also need to do something to keep my enthusiasm up, to give me fresh perspective and desire to read speculative fiction, and I think allowing myself to read books outside of the genre, and talk about them, will help me keep this website going and keep me from the burn out I’m very afraid of experiencing.

I realize this may or may not cause me to lose readers, but in the end, I run this website for me, because I kind of go a little nuts if I don’t talk about the books I read. Therefore, I’m going to be doing this, selfishly, for me in an effort to keep my creative outlet, my bookish obsession alive and well.

To kick it off, tomorrow (unless something unexpected happens) you can expect a review of Pandemic by Sonia Shah.

Boy Robot – Simon Curtis

About the Book

Seventeen-year-old Isaak discovers the truth about his origin and the underground forces that must come together to fight against a secret government organization formed to eradicate those like him in this high-octane science fiction debut.

There once was a boy who was made, not created.

In a single night, Isaak’s life changed forever.

His adoptive parents were killed, a mysterious girl saved him from a team of soldiers, and he learned of his own dark and destructive origin.

An origin he doesn’t want to believe, but one he cannot deny.

Isaak is a Robot: a government-made synthetic human, produced as a weapon and now hunted, marked for termination.

He and the Robots can only find asylum with the Underground—a secret network of Robots and humans working together to ensure a coexistent future.

To be protected by the Underground, Isaak will have to make it there first. But with a deadly military force tasked to find him at any cost, his odds are less than favorable.

Now Isaak must decide whether to hold on to his humanity and face possible death…or to embrace his true nature in order to survive, at the risk of becoming the weapon he was made to be.

In his debut, recording artist Simon Curtis has written a fast-paced, high-stakes novel that explores humanity, the ultimate power of empathy, and the greatest battle of all: love vs. fear.

Published on November 15, 2016

Published by Simon Pulse

Buy the book

This book was sent by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

—

When I first got this book, I wasn’t that excited to read it. There really isn’t no reason behind that besides the fact that robots have never really appealed to me. I’m really, really glad that feeling lasted about ten minutes’ total. I enjoyed this book a hell of a lot more than I expected to.

Boy Robot is really a story about a young man who has never truly fit in. It’s a book about an outsider who has spent most of his life looking in. Then things happen, and Isaak learns the truth about his origins, why he is the way he is, and why he has never really fit in anywhere.

There is some important action at the start of the novel, which really serves as a huge revelation point after a short, but well done buildup. This action is fast moving, and really hits Isaak in the gut, but it also pushes him from his surroundings and into a new world. One he didn’t know existed before. One where he fits.

So the book starts with a bang, and Isaak is on the run and off he goes. He runs into a few other people like himself. Relationships are formed and broken, trust is hard to come by. Things happen at a nearly constant rate, and these things tend to be very well done and really ramp up the tension in the book.

There are some adult themes, as well. There is some sexual assault mentioned, abuse, dark happenings as the chapters flip between Isaak and telling the story of someone else, someone who, well I’d go into her narrative more but it’s kind of more interesting to find out as you go.

These two storylines juxtaposed the way they are was a well thought detail. You get Isaak, who is young and naive and discovering himself as well as his place in the world he’s been thrust into. On the other hand, you have someone who was created, who survived absolutely horrible situations and training, and now has missions to accomplish. You have Isaak, who always thought he was human until recently, and this other woman, who always knew she wasn’t human and they are both attacking the same situation from different angles. It’s well done, and a rather wonderful way to examine the primary theme of what makes us human.

I want to take a moment to discuss the diversity in this book, because it is there, and it comes in many forms, and it’s absolutely fantastic. I love it when authors aren’t afraid to pepper their books with characters that reflect the diverse group of readers who read their books, and this is one of them. It’s also billed as a young adult book, but I feel like it works as a crossover new adult novel as well. It is one of those books that will appeal to a wide variety of readers, not just for the diversity, but also for how it was written.

All in all, this book really surprised me in a good way. I was really glad I read it. The writing is wonderful, the characters are compelling and delightfully diverse, and the action is pretty constant. Furthermore, Curtis knows how to play with atmosphere and tension, and I found myself quite worried about what would happen next. I did feel that sometimes situations resolved in ways that I didn’t find quite as believable as I probably should, like when Isaak’s family dies, I didn’t really feel the impact of that as viscerally as I felt like I should. Some of the pacing felt a little off, but those are small potatoes. This book was heart wrenching, a punch in the gut, a journey in more ways than one, and it’s a journey I’m really glad I took.

 

4/5 stars

On the Value of Anger

I’m going to write a really long thing, and I’m pretty sure everyone in America is going to disagree with me for this, but I think it needs to be said. It’s also rambly. Also, this post has NOTHING to do with books, so if you don’t care about/are sick of politics, feel free to move along.

—-

When I was first married, I managed some campus computer labs. It was a quiet night, snowy outside, most of the students were gone and I was done studying, just passing time. This lady walked in, wrapped in a thick coat and carrying a really heavy backpack. She came up to my desk and said, “You’ll think I’m a silly girl, but I need help with my computer.”

I spent the next few hours with her, helping her doggedly type out her paper, helping her format, showing her the basics of Word, and while I did this, we talked. She was a refugee from Uganda. The war in that country had torn it apart, and her family had died. She, at the age of ten or thereabouts, was captured by a warlord. She got away, obviously, and eventually wound up in that school, on that night.

We talked a lot about the people that helped her, rehabilitated her, the things that had to happen in order for her to turn from being that girl owned by a warlord to the young woman sitting typing out a paper in a university. We talked about how much action was required to change a situation, and how much determination, not just by the individual herself, but by society as a whole.

I have never been a person who likes to sit idly by. Talking to her, in some ways, fundamentally changed my perspective on the world and my place in it. A week later I announced to my husband that I was doing a book drive. I gathered together about 1500 school books, and a few hundred dollars in donations, and I shipped them off to schools in a few different African nations, schools for girls. Education will change the world.

You see, what talking to her made me realize is the fact that we, people, save each other. We make our messes, and we have to clean them up. We have to help our fellow man in order to survive. I fundamentally, in the core of my soul, believe that this world will succeed or fail based on our actions, both yours and mine.

I believe in action. I believe in getting my hands dirty and making a change, being the difference. I believe that we can rise above our challenges by actually rising above them, by refusing to be tethered by circumstance or situation, by not letting “power” and those who think they have it, cow us. Entire civil rights movements were formed this way. People’s lives have been fundamentally altered this way, a young girl got away from a warlord in this way.

There are a lot of tensions right now. A lot. And I feel them all. I am hurt, angry, terrified. I am so many things that it’s hard to put a name on them all, and I’ve addressed it on my various social media platforms so I won’t go into it again here. But I’m trying to keep that in mind. In the future that we are about to enter, our fellow man will need our help and service now, more than ever before. I urge people to be civil servants, to help where help is needed, to give what you can afford to give, to lend help to those marginalized communities, and never forget that by helping someone else, you are helping yourself, and your world as well. Doing this is letting everyone know that the government might not forget you, might marginalize you, might feel like your rights are something that should be bartered because they know better, but we never will. We won’t forget you. We won’t let you fade away and become forgotten. We, the people, will stand up for you. You fit with us, because you are us. Power and authority only goes so far.

It is a small thing, but it is a way to fight, and it is powerful. It creates ripples. It births change.

This morning I was catching up on podcasts. I’m a practicing Buddhist (though I lose the path occasionally, I always come back to it) and today’s Dharma talks were about three things: Anger, uncertainty, and change. Very applicable for how I’m feeling right now. These three topics were exactly what I needed to hear for the current social situation.

There is a very real power with anger, and I think anger is a valid thing to feel. It should be felt. I’m absolutely furious, I’m so furious I’m aching inside, burning from it. But I think there is a way to feel that anger, and channel it into good means. The fundamental question I’ve been asking myself is, How am I improving the world I live in? How can I improve it? How can I take all of this stuff eating at me inside, and try to make it into something better for my family, my community, my future? How can I take my anger, and create with it?

If I was starving, and someone found me and they had food in their hand, I wouldn’t want them to stand next to me and rant and shout about how horrible it is that I’m starving. I’d want them to give me that food. In a broader scope, I think that’s what we need to keep in mind right now. We need to be angry. We should be angry. We need to let our concerns and voices be heard, and damn it, we need to stand up and refuse to sit down. We need to defend what we believe in, but we need to remember that actions speak louder than words, and if we band together, we can change the world through those actions. We have the power to do that.

People are so incredibly powerful.

The violence that has erupted makes me sick. I don’t care what side of the line people are on, there is no excuse for violence. Period. I am saddened, anguished that our country has divided so deeply that smashing and burning buildings is the answer some people seek. I’m upset that racism has spread so rampantly and hungrily. We are better than this. People are better than this, and we need to rise above it. Neither side is innocent.

I will never stand on the side of violence, or bigotry, regardless of the politics behind it. We are more than this. This is not a discourse, this is not an exchange of ideas, this is not progress.

I refuse to live in a world of fear, and that fear is coming from both sides. A man just won a powerful office based on a campaign of fear, and now the other side is afraid for their rights, their health, their lives. Fear is everywhere. It’s a bomb just waiting to go off. It’s a virus that spreads and infects everyone it touches. I can’t live in a life where I’m just waiting for the government to come and haul my loved ones away. I refuse to give anyone that much power over me.

But I can act. I can stand up, and say, “This is not okay. I won’t stand for it. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.” And then I can act.

I don’t have the answers, and I won’t pretend to, but I do think an Us vs. Them dialogue is a huge part of what got us into this mess. The truth is, a gigantic chunk of America felt (and feels) left out of their own country, and they are reacting. Right or wrong, that’s the heart of it. Now, we can either yell at them and call them fools, or we can try to understand why they feel that way and what pushed them to this point. What pushed us, the other side, to this point? We are coming at things from other directions, and dialogue and discourse is essential to move us forward and bridge the gap that is dividing our society.

Progress, any kind of progress, stops when we stop seeing the other side as people, when we stop seeing disagreements as learning opportunities. It stops when we think burning our way through a city is a viable option, rather than listening in an effort of finding common ground, and acting in service to those who feel like they have been forgotten, regardless of their personal ideals. Progress is forgotten when we forget that helping you, helps me, which in turn helps us.

I am scared. I am sad. I feel homeless in my own country. I am worried about the violence. I am an outsider looking in. I don’t agree with anything happening. I don’t like it. I have felt sick for days.

But I’m trying. I’m trying really hard. This is the world I woke up to, and I am fighting it in my own way. I’m doing service with my daughter, volunteering to make the world a better place, acting as a safety net where I can, and speaking out when I can. I’m writing letters to Very Important People. I’m trying to stay in touch with the disabled community and various organizations affiliated with us to help where I can in that regard. I’m also talking to the people I disagree with. I do disagree with them, but they are people, and they are just as upset as I am (though for different reasons). We are two sides of the same coin, and I am trying to understand that, because understanding them, and understanding where they are coming from is helping me understand how we got to be in this situation.

At the end of the day, I am creating a world that my children will inherit, and I cannot, and will not forget that.

Because I fundamentally believe, in the core of my soul, that we can save each other. We are the only ones who can make this work. The power is in our hands. It truly is, because we are powerful, incredible creatures. We are people, and people can move mountains. But this will only happen if we stop fighting and start talking; if we use our anger and turn it into something productive. We need to see a world we can all live in, and then work together to create it. No more Us vs. Them. This is about all of us.

—

Comments on this post will be HEAVILY moderated. Please be civil. Please be polite. Talk, but don’t yell.