Aurora's Sundry Notes

I haven't done a book post in a while! And I've actually read lots of books I enjoyed lately. In lieu of a Reading Wednesday post on a Wednesday, I'm now going to list and briefly describe a bunch of books I've enjoyed particularly in the past weeks.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. (First in her Teixcalaan series - the second volume will be out next year, but the first is also a self-contained story, you're not left at a huge cliffhanger with nothing resolved.) This is a really interesting science fiction story about a space empire and a woman who arrives there as an ambassador from her home station to find out what happened to her predecessor. It's more political science fiction than space opera, since it mainly stays in one planet and looks at the space empire and its conquests mainly through political machinations in the capital. I liked it a lot, in particular the fascinating worldbuilding, the richness and detail with which the empire's culture was described, the delightfully weird mind-implant technology that is in the centre of the plot, somewhat reminiscent of Ninefox Gambit yet not at all like that (you'll know what I mean if you read it), and great characters. I loved the main character as well as sooo many supporting characters. Mahit, the main character, is lots of fun, a very active, curious and determined character who's sure to keep the plot moving and keep things interesting. Lots of queer characters and relationships. The main character is a lesbian and there's some f/f content, although it's not a romance-centric story and you shouldn't expect that; also she shares her head with a delightful disaster bisexual guy.

I also really enjoyed how this book explored the themes of empire, culture, cultural imperialism and colonization. The description of what it is to love a culture that threatens to drown your own while you know it felt like the author knew what she was doing. I'm saying this as someone who's far too in love with many British and North American cultural products while also conscious of the hegemony and what it's doing to smaller cultures, including my own.

Okay, on to the next book.

Siren Depths (Book #3 of the Books of the Raksura) by Martha Wells. I'm turning into quite a fan of this series! I started reading it last year when I was voting in the Hugos for the first time and it was a nominee in the series category. I didn't manage to read enough in the category to vote for it, but I stayed interested in the Raksura, and continued reading the series this year. Anyway, it's a fantasy series about these shapeshifters called the Raksura who are sort of human/reptile people/dragon shapeshifters with very particular social structures, matriarchy, no concept of monogamy, very different gender roles than we do, fascinating culture, and lots of arguments with each other. The main character is a sardonic loner who suddenly becomes a part of a very social community and doesn't know how to trust people or believe he belongs, and the characters are lovely. I thought this book was the best yet, I was riveted and loved it all so much. And oh, all the feels! There are still two more novels, and some short stories, and I look forward to them all.

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. It's alternate 1920s Mexico, Mayan gods, and a girl on a heroine's journey. This was a bit of an uneven reading experience, and there were parts in the middle where I had trouble staying into the story, maybe because of some pacing issues. But overall I really loved diving into this colourful world, and I loved the heroine a lot. I also enjoyed how it handled the romance aspect of the story. I often have issues with het romances in books and other media, as I've mentioned before, but I had no problems with this one, it worked well enough for me.

Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee. It's a collection of short stories set in the universe of the Machineries of Empire novels as well as a novella taking place after the last novel of the series, Revenant Gun. The short stories were fun and/or interesting glimpses into the world, characters, and history of the novels. The novella, Glass Cannon, just, OMG OMG!!! So much what I was left wanting after finishing Revenant Gun, and also wonderfully over-the-top, and a really satisfying resolution for the main characters. And ended in such an exciting place, OMG. I want the non-existent sequel right now. I may have to yell and flail about these books properly in a separate spoiler-cut post at some point.

I've also been able to read and finish some beautifully written books in Finnish, which is really nice, as I often have trouble finding books I enjoy in my native language, other than modernist poetry and non-fiction.

And I finally bought myself the first Murderbot novella, All Systems Red, by Martha Wells, which I hadn't previously owned because I first read it from the library. And that meant I of course had to read it. I mean, I don't always read books immediately (or even reasonably soon) after buying them, but well, I opened it, my eyes fell upon the first sentence, and then I couldn't not read it. And now I'm all into rereading all of the Murderbot novellas soon. Well, this is a very appropriate time since the first Murderbot novel, Network Effect, is coming out next May. A whole novel of Murderbot! I was privileged enough to get into Martha Wells's reading in the WorldCon (ie. I and one of my friends went to queue early enough to fit into the room), and she read an excerpt from Network effect. It was brilliant and so much fun, and I can't wait to get my hands on the whole book.

Currently I'm reading Sarah Pinsker's first novel, A Song For a New Day. It's a interesting and largely well-written, but I'm bothered by some of the vagueness of the worldbuilding, because it just makes certain things not feel realistic. I may try to say more when I've finished it and know how I feel about the whole book.

Next, I hope to start with Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone - I've heard a lot about it, and after loving This Is How You Lose the Time War I want to read more of the authors' work. Also, I'm so much in the mood for badass lesbians in space, which this should deliver.

I've just got to break my accidental posting silence to say I seem to have managed to watch the absolutely worst New Who episode, now that my Series 9 watching reached 'Sleep No More'. At least I'm not managing to come up with another as terrible. 'Kill the Moon' made equally little sense and its 'science' was also basically nothing but holes, but at least it had a few character moments worth seeing.

( More detailed complaints, cut in the case someone needs to avoid spoilers about this episode )

When I think about it, the only Mark Gatiss episode I've really liked is The Unquiet Dead. Cold War and the Empress of Mars were okay, but seriously... how about he's not allowed to write Doctor Who episodes anymore now? Just stick to playing Mycroft and keep away from writing Doctor Who, Mr Gatiss.

Well, at least I had heard enough not to expect a masterpiece, going into this story. And now I'm only a few episodes away from having watched all of New Who.

So on the positive side of Doctor Who things: Twitch is going to show a marathon of all of the classic series, from 1st Doctor to 7th Doctor, free everywhere in the world (so it says), between May 29th and July 23rd! Just when I'd planned to start finding ways to watch some of the classic series! And bemoaning how expensive it would be to buy all or even a sizable fraction of them on DVD!

They're running a few stories each day in blocks that they run three times a day, so that makes it easier to catch at least some stories in different timezones and with different schedules. The full schedule is here (that's for UK times; here are the US times). In the case you didn't all know this already!

What with only being on weekdays, it's not absolutely the easiest to manage with my time zone - a lot of the showings will be when I'm either sleeping or working - but I should manage many of the first stories before I have to go to bed, and I should catch most of the Friday stories on the second or third run which will actually be Saturday for me. Also sometimes I may be able to catch the last story or two after I get home from work. Not that I've been furiously browsing the timetables and comparing it to lists about how many 25-episodes each story is, converting it all to my timezone... I think I'm going to need to buy a calendar book. A good thing they're cheap at this point of the year.

Don't know how to combine this with the fact that I went and bought a supporting membership for this year's WorldCon just so I could vote for the Hugos, and probably ought to read the nominated novels at some point... And haven't read the previous volumes of any that are second or third in a series. I've read some of the novellas and the short stories, though, and fully intend to read the ones I haven't. I'm otherwise not too worried about managing the novels, but the Jemisin books are kind of big and don't seem to be the easiest writing (some of it's in 2nd person! I've never managed to wrap my brain around 2nd person POV!) and I haven't read the previous ones. I'm also a bit concerned about the Yoon-Ha Lee book because I've read many times that the series is rather brutal and violent, and I have a hard time reading any of that. But I especially want to read all the novellas that I haven't read yet - I hope the voter package gets here soon. I want that Binti #2 as soon as possible! (I could just buy it, yes, but I'm planning to wait for the pretty hardcover editions that will be released this summer before buying the Binti series.) I also want all those Seanan McGuire books. If I end up not being able to read the Best Novel nominations, I guess I could always see how many of the series I get through in two months?

But actually the biggest obstacle to my Hugo reading success, other than an impending Classic Who marathon, is that at the moment I apparently just want to read about soldiering AIs. I'm impatiently waiting for the second Murderbot novella to get here because I wasn't smart enough to preorder so it's still on its way; and last week I finally read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and now want to read the sequels, and basically I just want to keep reading about Breq. And about Murderbot. I'm not sure what it says about me that they're my most happy-making book characters at the moment, but yay them both, anyway. I probably am about as sociable as Murderbot these days, so yeah.

But look, I wrote an actual post! I only came here to complain about Sleep No More, but the post ran away with me. Success! So, hi, everyone who is still reading by this point, I hope you have been well.