To Be Taught, If Fortunate

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers (2019)

My excitement when I learned that Becky Chambers had a new book out quickly turned to disappointment when I saw that it was a novella. After reading the three thick books that make up the Wayfarers series I was hoping for another big story, and as someone who tends to enjoy short books I don't know why I was afraid it wouldn't be good. Spoiler alert: it was very good.

It opens with a plea to read it to the end. It's from an astronaut, Ariadne O'Neill, who left Earth fifty years ago with her crew. The other three are Elena Quesada-Cruz, Jack Vo, and Chikondi Daka. Their mission was to visit four habitable worlds called Aecor, Mirabilis, Opera, and Votum, and their communique is coming from the last one. What follows is the story of their flight and their experiences on all of those planets, and then at the end you get the explanation for why they are sending this missive, which of course I won't spoil for you but it is not disappointing. It is kind of open-ended, if you care about that kind of thing, and I am already sorta dying to know if there will be a sequel but mostly I just care that Becky Chambers writes more books about something.

I love reading books that contain alien life because it's so fascinating to see what comes of writers' imaginations. There was life of some sort on all the planets they visited, as they suspected, and I loved seeing them described. (Oh, if only there were illustrations!) The characters were great too, which is one of this author's strengths. They are pretty diverse in terms of sexual orientation and race, though it's not actually spelled out and is kind of irrelevant to the plot. Which I like because diversity should just be a thing that exists and not there for the sake of being diverse, if you know what I mean. If you want specifics, there was bi/poly/ace representation, and the racial diversity is obvious from (and only identified by) their names.

Throughout the book I kept wondering what the crisis would be. Like, they were just visiting these planets and making amazing discoveries and as much as I loved reading about this, it's not a story. I kept wondering when the actual plot would start. The conflict comes very late, and it's great!

I hope we don't have to wait very long for another book by Becky Chambers because her books are so imaginative and fun to read. Anyone who likes science fiction in the style of The Martian would probably enjoy Becky Chambers. If you haven't read anything by her, please consider it!

Version Control

Version Control by Dexter Palmer (2016)

After a tragedy claimed their son, Rebecca and Philip got their lives back together. Rebecca has stopped drinking and has a job a Lovability, the dating site through which she and Philip met. But everything seems off to her, just a little bit wrong. Philip doesn't seem to share the feeling, buried deep in his work. He's a physicist working on something called a causality violation device - essentially, a time machine.

This is kind of a hard one to talk about without spoiling it, but I'll spoil one thing that should be obvious anyhow, which is that the device works and there is time travel. But Palmer has taken some of our usual assumptions about how that would work and what the rules are and changed them in a way that still makes sense but is different from anything I've read or seen about time travel before.

It's the kind of book that leaves me with questions, so many questions. After I finished I went to bed but kept thinking about it and was thinking about it when I got up. I immediately went back to the book and re-read a number of passages to make sense of everything. It does make sense, it's just that of course I didn't remember everything by the time I finished.

The story is about more than just Rebecca and Philip, though I liked their story a lot, especially how they first met through the dating site and Rebecca was put off by Philip's dry, logical messages to her. We also get to meet some of Philip's coworkers at the lab, Alicia and Carson. Rebecca's good friend Kate dates Carson for a time. Rebecca's father is a minister and enjoys having philosophical conversations with Philip - there's a good amount of philosophy in this book actually, which is not surprising given that the work of the scientists is so largely theoretical. Physics and philosophy seem fairly intertwined from the little I know about each of them.

It's set in the near future, and there are some things that are different from our own reality. The president, for instance, is always just barging in on people's tvs or phones or computers to talk to them individually. Super creepy. The country is on the verge of a Civil War as the Dakotas are trying to secede from the Union. There are cars that drive themselves, and the $20-bill has Ronald Reagan on it. It was kind of fun to see all the ways that things are different in their world.

I read this for my 2019 TBR Pile Challenge and what made me put it off for so long, I think, is that it's 500 pages long. But surprisingly, it goes fast. Unlike a lot of science fiction, this one is pretty character-driven which is something that makes any book easier for me to read. Also, once I got into it, I just couldn't put it down. I spent most of a beautiful summer weekend immersed in this book (some of that outside on my back porch, at least.) I'm glad I know a couple of people who have also read it because it's definitely the kind of book you want to talk about when you finish it!

Paradox Bound

Paradox Bound by Peter Clines (2017)

In the town of Sanders, Maine an eight-year-old boy named Eli has an encounter with a mysterious woman wearing a tricorn hat and driving an old Ford Model A. He sees her again when he's 13. But when he next meets her as an adult, it's followed later by a visit from a faceless man. He asks Eli about the woman, forcing him to give answers about where she was headed, so Eli decides to head to Boston to warn her. He soon learns that the woman, Harry, is a searcher traveling throughout history looking for a literal incarnation of the American dream and that the dangerous faceless men are after her. Eli ends up hopping aboard the Model A with Harry and joining the dangerous search.

Honestly, it's so hard to describe this book because it sounds kind of ridiculous, but believe me when I say it's worth reading. I've been a fan of Peter Clines since I read 14 and he hasn't disappointed me yet. I don't actually want to go into too much detail because half the fun is figuring out what the hell it's all about as you go along. And I wasn't super clear on a lot of it, to be honest. I didn't understand what form the dream took - was it an actual object? And Harry was very particular in saying that she traveled through history, not through time, and correct Eli if he referenced time travel. I'm not sure of the difference. But none of this really matters, and it didn't make the story confusing for me.

Sanders was sort of a sleepy little town that hadn't completely caught up with the modern day, and Eli had lived there all his life so far. I think he was 29 when he leaves to travel with Harry. He always wanted to get out of his town but never quite got motivated. His childhood bully, Zeke, grew up to be a cop which can't have made things easier. He also had a relationship go South recently, so his life situation was pretty perfect for a grand adventure. As much as Eli was sort of obsessed with Harry, it wasn't a romantic thing, for which I am grateful. But they were a great duo as they traveled through history searching for the dream, encountering some famous actual people from history, and evading the creepy faceless men.

This is a page-turning adventure that moves quickly, but not so quickly that there's not good character development. It's very well thought out and well-crafted, which is exactly what I've come to expect from Peter Clines. The fact that a town in Maine features so prominently led me to look him up and discover that he is, in fact, originally from Maine. Turns out he has worked as a props master on Veronica Mars, which I am currently rewatching and somewhat obsessed with. Worlds collide.

Paradox Bound is on my 2019 TBR Pile Challenge, which I am almost ashamed to admit since he's an author I always read now so I don't know why it took me so long to get to this one. It was fun and entertaining and unexpected and strange. I've never read a story quite like it. I think I've said that about his other books too. As always, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he writes next.

The Stone Sky

The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3) by N.K. Jemisin (2017)

During the course of The Obelisk Gate, we learn that nobody in Essun's time knows that the Earth used to have a moon. Alabaster implores her to learn how to harness the power of the obelisks because the moon is in long orbit and rarely nears the Earth. But soon it will be near enough to the Earth that maybe it can be knocked back into the old trajectory. This is the crux of The Stone Sky - Essun needs to try to achieve this feat, which hopefully will end the Seasons once and for all.

But she is where we left her at the end of the last book: traveling from the destroyed community inside the geode to another place where they all hope to live. Unfortunately, they're going in the opposite direction of where Essun's daughter Nassun last was - not that it matters, because Nassun is traveling too. She is also learning to harness the power of the obelisks, but for a very different purpose. Also in this final volume, we get a really great back story - that of Hoa, the stone eater, back when he was....well, not a stone eater. This story reveals what caused the moon to be knocked out of its orbit in the first place.

There is so much great stuff in this book! I had been dying for the back story, and of course was anticipating the moment Essun would attempt to get the moon back to its rightful place. It was so tense though, since Nassun's plans were pretty opposed to Essun's and only one of them could be successful. Also, Essun was slowly turning to stone as Alabaster did in the last book, which is a side effect of harnessing the obelisks in this way. So she had to be very careful using her powers because each time she did, another part of her would turn to stone. She had to really pace herself here.

The relationships between characters in this series are complicated, and watching how they develop was one of my favorite aspects of the story. In a Season, many things are suspended and times are desperate, which means you really, really want your community as a whole to survive because your own life depends on it. Those who are commless don't last long. Survival is the most important thing, but it's a given that not everyone is going to survive. This necessarily affects interpersonal relationships and means that leaders often have to make very tough decisions for the good of their community. Essun was in rough shape while she was traveling, but knew she wasn't going to get much of a break. She also had a lot of tension with Ykka, the leader of the community Essun inadvertently helped to destroy. I also really loved the relationship between Essun and the stone eater Hoa. And of course, Essun and Nassun were headed for the same place at the end and they didn't really have an awesome mother-daughter relationship in the best of times. So, there was a lot going on here!

I may have mentioned this before, but this is the first time in a very, very long time that I have read a series start to finish, one right after the other. Surprisingly, I didn't feel like I needed a break at all (even though the story was so bleak!) and I didn't get tired of it or wish it would hurry up and be over. Generally I'm pretty impatient and always thinking about the next thing, but I was so invested in what was going on that I wasn't at all in a hurry to leave it. In fact, I'd love another visit to this place - after the things happened at the end of this book I really want to know what everything was like for everyone going forward.

N.K. Jemisin has a book of short stories coming out later this month called How Long 'til Black Future Month, which is one of the best titles I've heard in a while. Of course I'm already on hold for it, but I was very excited to learn yesterday that one of the stories takes place in the world of the Broken Earth series, so I will get to revisit it after all!

The Obelisk Gate

The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2) by N.K. Jemisin (2016)

Since this is the second book in a series, there need to be spoilers for the first book, The Fifth Season.

For one thing, Damaya and Syenite are names that Essun used during different periods in her life, so the three stories are really all one story. I didn't talk much about the plot of that book, but it begins with a huge rift in the Earth that is bringing on a Fifth Season. At the very end, Essun is reunited with Alabaster, who is slowly turning to stone, and he asks her if she's able to call the obelisks to herself yet, and if she's ever heard of a moon. The Obelisk Gate picks up during this same conversation, and Alabaster explains that she needs to find out if she can control the obelisks, and it's very important and related to the moon.

The book moves back and forth between Essun's story and that of her 8-year-old daughter Nassun, who disappeared along with her father at the beginning of The Fifth Season. Nassun has pretty powerful powers of her own and her relationship with her father is strained at best. He's taking her to a place he's heard of where they may be able to "cure" her, but that's not what this place turns out to be all about. Nassun meets her mother's old Guardian, Schaffa, though she does not know that he knew her mother. Schaffa has changed since those days and he and Nassun work together to train her and she continues to discover new ways her powers work.

There were some very cool things in this story, such as a whole community that lives inside a geode. I kind of hope this is made into a movie someday so I can see it because it sounds spectacular. Plus everything involving the obelisks was kind of cool, though I admit I'm still a little unsure about the role they play - we see ways in which they are used, but I'm wondering how they will relate to the larger picture. I also liked everything about the stone eaters - I have a hard time not picturing them like the weeping angels from Doctor Who, but I find them so delightfully creepy.

In a way, I think this books suffers a little from being the second book in that I didn't feel like the plot was furthered as much as I would like, but there was a lot going on and many new elements introduced, so I ended up liking it as much as the first. Last weekend I decided to grab The Stone Sky from the library when I went into work on Monday, but I ended up being out sick and someone else got our copy before I returned. I requested a copy from another library and was afraid I wouldn't get it before this long weekend. But I got it just in time, which is great because I need to start on it immediately! I'm really, really looking forward to seeing where this story goes in the final book!

The Fifth Season

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin (2015)

As far as I can tell, this book takes place in our world but far, far in the future. There is one big land mass called the Stillness, ironically, because it is unstable, shifting and moving and filled with geological cataclysms. Every now and then one is catastrophic enough to cause a Fifth Season, during which the sun will be blocked out for months or years, and civilization dies leaving only enough people to begin again when the Season is over. The people live in a constant state of disaster preparedness.

There are people in this world called orogenes or, disparagingly, roggas. They can sense and control movement within the earth, stopping or causing earthquakes, and moving the earth's plates. There are three stories about orogenes in this book. One is about Essun, a woman who's toddler son has just been murdered by her husband. One is about Damaya, whose parents have just reported her and she is removed by a Guardian who watch over people like her, keeping her under control while teaching her how to effectively use her powers. The third story is about Syenite, paired with a man named Alabaster to hopefully breed and create another person with the same powers. Although orogenes are powerful, that power can be controlled by Guardians and orogenes are basically treated as slaves.

It took me quite a while to get into this book. I was initially rather disoriented and confused, but also intrigued. The world-building was pretty amazing even if I didn't quite understand it. After finishing I went back and read the prologue again and it made much more sense this time - I sort of wish I had done so earlier in the book. There are still things I'm a little unclear about, like the role of the obelisks that hover in the air, but I expect some of this will become more clear in the next book, The Obelisk Gate.

It's very dark, and an unpleasant world to be in, but nonetheless compelling. Getting to know the characters and their motivations is a big part of what I like about this book, particularly since they're all in such desperate situations. It's also kind of a tough book to say much about without spoiling it.

I'm very grateful to a coworker who told me I should be sure to have the second book on hand because I would want it when it finished. Initially I wasn't sure I'd move on to the second book, or maybe not right away (this is an unpleasant world and I thought I might want to read something light and funny between books) but I'm glad I heeded my coworker's advice. I went home on Friday with close to 100 pages left, thinking I might finish it over the weekend and instead finished that evening.

I've already moved on to The Obelisk Gate and should have a post about that one before too long!

This was on my 2018 TBR Pile Challenge and is probably the final one that I'll read. The remaining title is NOS4A2 by Joe Hill, but my interest has waned in favor of some of his other work. But since I read both of my alternate titles, I can consider the challenge completed.

Record of a Spaceborn Few

Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers (2018)

This third and final book from the Wayfarers series is set among the Exodus Fleet: the last humans on a dying Earth who left to seek a better life elsewhere in the universe. It's hundreds of years later, they've made contact with other planets, and many Exodans have left the Fleet to make lives for themselves on planets, as planned. But many remain aboard the huge self-sustaining ships, continuing the only way of life they've ever known.

We meet the Fleet's Archivist, Isabel, who is happy aboard the fleet with her wife Tamsin, both of whom are getting older now. Eyas is a Caretaker, the Exodan equivalent of a funeral director, devoted to her work but also thinking about what more she wants from her life. Kip is still a teenager and longs to leave the Fleet. Sawyer, on the other hand, grew up on the planet of Mushtello but comes to the Fleet seeking a change. Tessa has two young kids, and the novel opens with a prologue, set five years earlier, when her youngest is witness to the largest tragedy ever to befall the Fleet. One of the ships has an accident resulting in its destruction and, along with it, the death of more than 43,000 people.

I was about halfway into this book and really struck by the lack of plot. It was more slice-of-life than anything, and it took me a while to get to know the characters since it moved back and forth between them. When all was said and done, some things did happen and lives were changed and huge decisions made, but it was definitely not an action-packed story. This may be why I didn't love it as much as the other books in the trilogy. Don't get me wrong, it was still 4 stars on Goodreads, just not 5.

Becky Chambers really has a knack for building worlds and characters, and it's pleasurable just getting to know them. The Exodans are in such an interesting position: they no longer have a home planet, as we are currently many generations beyond those who first boarded the Fleet, yet the Fleet wasn't planned to be a permanent home for humans. There is so much hesitation and disquiet among the Exodans because of the tension surrounding those who have left the Fleet and want to leave and those who want to stay. For instance, Tessa has had no plans to leave, but her daughter Aya really wants to go to a planet. And then there are those like Sawyer who grew up human on a non-human planet and then move to the Fleet but don't know how to fit in. The Fleet is dwindling in numbers and they need to plan for their future. They've also depended a lot on technology from other species, and they are well aware of ways they've benefitted from the Galactic Commons and the fact that they haven't given back. It's still a pretty insular community too - Tessa has an alien visitor come stay with her to observe how their community works, and it's very novel for a non-human to be aboard. It's all really very interesting to think about.

If you haven't read any Becky Chambers yet, I highly suggest giving this series a try! I'm very much looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers (2016)

As soon as possible after finishing The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, I picked up the next book in the series. I read it in just two days (and now I'm on hold for the third one, but it just came out so I'm going to have to sit tight and wait my turn.) This one is about a couple of side characters from the first book, but I'll describe it without spoilers so don't worry about that.

Pepper is an engineer who has befriend an AI (Artificial Intelligence) and put her in a body kit. This means that an AI designed to monitor a ship is now living in a very human-like body. So the AI goes to live with Pepper and her partner Blue and tries to get used to her new situation. She picks the name Sidra for herself, and she is completely disoriented and frustrated by the fact that she can't see behind her, that she isn't permanently attached to the Linkings (which is like the internet), and she just doesn't know what to do with herself. Plus it's illegal to house an AI in a body kit, so she needs to do a very convincing job of acting human.

The other story being told at the same time is Pepper's backstory, from back when she was known as Jane 23. Her early life was spent in a factory, where she sorted scrap, determining what could be useful and what wasn't. She slept in a dorm with other girls, sharing a bunk with Jane 64. Their meals were just liquid in a cup, referred to only as "meals" and Jane had no idea there were different kinds of foods. The girls were watched over by the Mothers, which were robots. Obviously she escaped and it's a really fantastic story that I loved reading about, but I'm not going to ruin things by telling you all about it here.

We don't see any of the other characters from the first book, but I'm ok with that because there's just so much good story here and I grew to love being with these characters just as I did my old friends from book one. There weren't as many different species introduced here, but we got to see more slices of life, and I'm starting to think Becky Chambers can just keep writing more and more books set in this universe and I will never grow tired of learning about these characters, their worlds, and their histories. I can't wait to get my hands on book three!

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1) by Becky Chambers (2014)

Friends, I've just read the most wonderful book! I kept hearing that it was good, and I even checked it out of the library once before and returned it without reading it. But this time I took it on vacation with me and we had the best time together!

As the title suggests, this story is about a journey to a planet. Ashby is captain of the Wayfarer and its multispecies crew. He has finally hired a clerk, which he was totally overdue for, and which has now given his team a more professional air and helped secure a very exciting new job. They are to create a tunnel to a planet called Hedra Ka, which has long been unfriendly to everyone but has suddenly joined the Galactic Commons. (Nope, not suspicious at all. Nothing to be concerned about.)

The new clerk aboard the Wayfarer is Rosemary Harper, who is trying to flee some secrets of her own. She's more than happy to take on her new job with her interesting crewmates. Like Rosemary, some of them are human: Ashby, Kizzy, Corbin, and Jenks. But their doctor/chef who they call Dr. Chef is a Grum (his real name is unpronounceable by humans) and he's described as a cross between an otter and a gecko, and he walks like a caterpillar on a few sets of hand-feet. Sissix is the pilot and she's an Aandrisk, a reptilian being with feathers on her head and claws. Her people are very physically affectionate beings and have a lot of casual sex, which is not considered especially private. Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, is Ohan. They are a Sianat Pair, which are all infected with a virus called the Whisperer that gives them a much deeper understanding of space and therefore great value as navigators. They think of themselves and their virus as a pair, so they are always referred to as "we" and "they" rather than a singular pronoun.

What makes or breaks my experience reading science fiction are the characters. Sometimes they're two-dimensional because the story is all about the plot and the world-building, and those books just don't do it for me at all. These characters are all fully realized and genuine and I had a fun time with them on their long journey. This wasn't at the price of other factors though; in fact, the world-building was great, and totally borne out of the characters, each of whom had a story that told us more about the universe in which it takes place.

But I think what I liked best about this novel was the way all these characters from very different cultures communicated and worked together. Most of them spoke a couple of languages, and they learned about the histories of other species and, at the very least, their customs and conventions. They were all super aware that their own way was not everyone's way. And when they didn't really understand another species' ways, they still respected them. They still went along with it and didn't try to convince them their way was silly or made no sense. It was pretty great. There's a point in the story when Corbin is talking to Ohan about how Jenks is in love with Lovey, their AI on the ship, who doesn't even have a body. He says "I don't pretend to understand. Frankly, I find the whole notion absurd...But it doesn't matter what I think. Jenks thinks something different, and his pain is very real right now. Me knowing how stupid this whole thing is doesn't make him hurt any less." And Corbin is an asshole. But even he has respect for others' differences.

The cultures were so inventive and well-thought out too. Aandrisks will give one of their feathers to someone who has touched their life, and keep the ones given to them as a reminder of everyone they've had an impact on, which I thought was a neat practice. More interestingly, they don't see children as fully-fledged people until they get their feathers. The death of hatchlings is fairly common and to be expected. Sissix doesn't understand why an infant would be considered of more value than an adult, saying "the idea that a loss of potential was somehow worse than a loss of achievement and knowledge was something she had never been able to wrap her brain around." Me too, Sissix. Me too. I've never understood why we consider babies and children to be more important and valuable than adults (although I still think they're people, and don't think they are necessarily of lesser value.) And the Sianat Pairs! To think that a virus is absolutely necessary to your identity, even though it is greatly reducing your lifespan. So many philosophical questions come up in relation to Ohan and their species and their relationship with this virus. And I haven't even mentioned the Aeluons, who don't speak or hear as we do, but communicate through colorful displays on their skin.

Look, I could go on at length here, and I guess I already have. There's just so much interesting stuff in this world, and it's populated with people I really want to get to know more. It was super creative and a lot of fun to read. Fortunately, there are two more books in this series (so far? I don't know if it is complete) so I may pick up the next one. I read the description and it's pretty intriguing, though I haven't heard if it's as good as this one. But I'm willing to find out.

Binti: The Night Masquerade

Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor (2018)

The Night Masquerade concludes the imaginative Afrocentric science fiction trilogy which began with Binti and continued with Binti: Home.

In this third and final volume, Binti is away from her family's home when the village is attacked by the Khoush, a people with  a long-standing rivalry with the Meduse. She rushes home but it is too late. Now Binti must try to prevent the situation from escalating into war.

This story contains many surprising and creative elements, just as the first two did. Binti continues to evolve as a character - not just emotionally, but physically, as she becomes part of many different kinds of people. In the first book she became part Meduse, and in the second she discovered and awakened her powers as one of the Enyi Zinariya. Now, after an act of violence she becomes one with yet another life form. We are transported from her family's village through the rings of Saturn, as Binti tries to save her people from destruction.

This was the longest book in the trilogy, and although the story continued to be very creative and full of surprises, I had a harder time getting into it than the first two books. In the beginning of the series it was all strange and new, and I think now a lot of the basics have already been introduced so it's harder to sustain the novelty, even though there were some new elements that appeared here. Although it didn't pull me in the way the first two books did, I still liked watching Binti develop as a character and, honestly, just wanted the girl to get a break. She's been through a lot.

Okorafor has written a number of other books, and I'm especially intrigued by her teen book Akata Witch and its follow-up Akata Warrior (I'm not sure if there are more coming in that series) so I may check those out sometime. If you're looking for something out of the ordinary, I highly recommend checking out this author.

Binti: Home

Binti: Home (Binti #2) by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti has now been at Oomza University for a year, but she is feeling a strong pull to go back to her people and go on the pilgrimage that is usual for women in her tribe. She decides to make the trip and to bring her friend Okwu with her.

If you read the first book, you know that Binti was the first of the Himba people to travel across space to attend Oomza Uni, but she did it by sneaking away from her family. Returning means that she has to face the loved ones that she abandoned. As if that weren't enough, she's returning with Okwu, a Meduse (that's Okwu behind her on the cover,) and they are considered enemies of humans. Plus now Binti is part Meduse too, which she cannot hide since her hair has turned into tentacles. Awkward.

Although considerably longer than the first book - 162 pages compared to 90 - it's still very short, and again I was amazed at the level of imagination and detail that Okorafor manages to cram into so few words. One example of that from this book related to a group of people who have a really unusual way of communicating (and one that is completely misunderstood by outsiders.) It was very creative and it - along with the very alien form of Okwu - all reminded me a bit of the movie Arrival, in terms of how different and unexpected it all was.

I also really love the character development, and the changing nature of Binti's relationships with her family members. In the course of this novella she learns some information about herself and her ancestry that challenges her identity, which is already in flux given the whole Meduse-tentacle-hair situation. Although her world is very different from ours, she is completely relatable and I completely sympathized with her problems, some of which are comparable to typical human ones.

During this story she witnessed a phenomenon called the Night Masquerade, which just so happens to also be the title of the third and final book in the series, which was just released. I can't wait to find out what that's all about, so I'm definitely planning to read it!

Binti

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (2015)

As you may know, Nnedi Okorafor is a hot new science fiction author. Every time I turn around someone is recommending one of her books, either at work in the library or on one of the many book blogs that I read. I've been wanting to read her since I saw one of her books listed on For Harriet's books by black women that everyone must read, which I used for a display last January. Finally I requested a copy of her novella, Binti, which is hard to come by since it is pretty much always checked out.

Binti is the first of the Himba people to be offered a place at the elite Oomza University, and her family would not have approved, but it's an opportunity she can't turn down. So she leaves home secretly at night to travel to another planet. Aboard the ship she stands out, with her clay-covered skin that is the hallmark of her tribe, but she quickly makes friends. But just days before arriving at their destination the ship is infiltrated by a deadly enemy.

This is one of the most creative stories I've read, and I can't even compare it to any other scifi I know of. I loved some of the details of this story - for instance, Binti was essentially traveling through space in a giant shrimp. A shrimp! That was their ship! And I don't mean that the ship was made to look like a shrimp - I mean that it was an actual living creature and they were all inside it. WHAT. Also, Binti was super into math in a way that I barely comprehended, but that was one of her special gifts. Her people were very talented with technology, but she went beyond what was usual. She was considered a harmonizer, which had something to do with the way she understood and communicated with circuits and currents. The enemies that board the ship were also fascinating: jellyfish-like creatures called the Meduse who wreak havoc but are strangely unable to harm Binti.

I always appreciate books that are character-driven, and it makes it immensely happy to find character-driven science fiction. This was all about Binti and her experiences, hopes, and fears. As I mentioned it's a novella, but even at 90 pages there was a lot going on and a great deal of world-building. This is a planned trilogy, with the third installment due in January. Highly recommended!

The Fold

The Fold by Peter Clines (2015)

Mike Erikson looks like a young Severus Snape and has an eidetic memory. He can recall anything he's ever seen; he can watch movies in his head, and his memories never fade. You'd think he would have a really interesting job, but he's a high school teacher in a small town in Maine. Until his friend Reggie arrives one day with an offer he can't refuse. He works for an organization that has built a device call the Albuquerque Door - it can transport someone hundreds of feet when they step through it, by sort of folding dimensions to shrink the distance. His team insists that everything is going fine and they are asking for more money to continue research, but he is convinced they're hiding something and he wants Mike to observe their work and report back.

The team working with the door, however, think they are doing fine and don't make Mike feel very welcome at first. They grudgingly accept his presence because their funding relies on it, but he knows they're not telling him everything. Mike pays very close attention to their work, remembering every detail vividly, and replaying his observations when needed. He also talks to the members of the team as much as he can, becoming fairly close with some of them. Everything seems to be going smoothly, until one of them steps through the door one day - just like any other day - and it goes terribly, weirdly wrong.

I think of Clines as a horror author after reading 14, and although The Fold is maybe a little less horror and more sci fi it definitely has some horror elements. I was up far too late every night that I was reading this, and a couple of those nights some pretty creepy imagery stuck with me as I finally tried to go to sleep. The story took a few interesting turns and went ways I did not expect, and I really couldn't put it down.

A lot of science fiction focuses more on the plot, action, and science aspects, leaving the characters behind. But Clines really makes his characters come alive, and you get to know Mike well throughout the story. His memory is both a blessing and a curse, a horror unto itself the more he sees horrible things that he can never unsee. And there are some pretty creatively horrific things in this story. It was clever, fun to read, and inventive. At least for those of us who don't read a ton of science fiction - for all I know, these ideas might not be as original as I think, but I had a great time reading it.

This book was on my 2017 Personal Reading Challenge, for which I only have two specific titles left. (We won't even discuss how many topical categories I haven't even touched this year.) Clines has a new book out this fall too! It's called Paradox Bound and is described as a "timey-wimey, full-barrel adventure novel that also teaches a non-ironic lesson in American civics." It sounds great! Look for it on a future list of books that have been on my to-read list for too long, because that seems to be my pattern.

Throwback Thursday: Yargo

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

The cover is the only part that's
exactly as I remember it.

I don't know how old I was when I read Yargo, but I have a feeling I may have only been in middle school. For some reason I think I may have gotten this book from my grandmother, which seems weird but not unlikely. It was published after Jacqueline Susann's death, and the only book of hers I've ever read, though she is most known for Valley of the Dolls.

All I remember is that it was a love story between a human woman and an alien man. In reality, it's about a woman who is accidentally kidnapped by aliens (accidentally as in they meant to kidnap someone else) and taken to a planet called Yargo. The people there do not have feelings or emotions, but she falls in love with one of them who, I gather, is not able to return her feelings.

What I remember about it is many intense feelings of love and romance and, oh, what a beautiful story about people from two different planets who fall deeply in love. I cannot reconcile my memories with what is apparently the reality of the story.

This is a great example of a book that I remember really loving, but that is actually terrible, so as much as I'm tempted to read it again I know that is very bad idea. I'd love to recapture what I felt when I first read it, but from the reviews I just read online I feel certain that wouldn't happen. In fact, it doesn't even sound like a love story from what I just read so I have to wonder how much of my experience was my imagination.

Did any of you ever read this book? What do you remember of it?

Armada

Armada by Ernest Cline (2015)

Zack Lightman is a typical kid at Beaverton High School outside of Portland, Oregon. His dad died when Zack was just a baby, so he lives alone with his mom. He has a job at Starbase Ace, a video game store, and video games are what Zack excels the most at. Especially a game called Armada, in which a race of aliens called the Sobrukai threaten planet Earth. One day at school Zack is staring out the window in boredom and sees a flying saucer that looks strangely like the Glaive fighters in the Armada video game. Initially elated that something amazing is finally happening to him, Zack gets more than he bargained for when the mystery of that flying saucer is revealed.

I loved Ernest Cline's first novel, Ready Player One, so I approached his follow-up with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. As I expected, it wasn't as amazing as his debut, but it shares some similarities and I ultimately wasn't disappointed. The novel starts out a bit slow, despite Zack spotting a flying saucer on the first page. This was followed by a lot of detailed descriptions of video game playing, which is hard to visualize and got a bit boring. But that all doesn't last for long, and the story picked right up and maintained plenty of momentum to propel me through.

I'm not going to say much about the plot actually because I think it's best left to discover for yourself. What you need to know: video games, aliens, 1980s pop culture. The story about Zack's parents and his job at Starbase Ace also played into the whole overarching plot in a way I really liked.

Ernest Cline apparently loves 80s pop culture, but the references made more sense in Ready Player One. That novel centered around a video game created by a guy obsessed with 80s pop culture, so of course his followers needed to know all that stuff to win the game. Here it's just a high school student who knows a lot about a long-ago decade, which is maybe not totally believable, or at least it's not explained. At any rate, the 80s were my decade so I'll take it.

As a bonus, there's a mixtape of his father's that Zack listens to while playing Armada and the music is referenced quite a bit. The mix is called "Raid the Arcade Mix" and is included in the back of the book as a photograph of a Maxell cassette cover, with the song information hand-written just like the old days. The playlist includes such classics as Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," Joan Jett and the Blackhearts performing "I Hate Myself for Loving You," and the anthem from Top Gun. (And yes, this playlist is available on Spotify.)

Like Cline's first book, Armada is different from the (albeit limited) other science fiction that I've read, primarily because it's written in a more personable, entertaining way and doesn't seem to take itself too seriously. If you go into it expecting another Ready Player One you might be disappointed, but if you just want a fun enjoyable book about video games and aliens it's a great choice.

Doomsday Book

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (1992)

In a not-so-distant future, historians are able to delve into their research like never before by actually traveling to the periods they're studying. Kivrin is preparing to visit 1320 so she can learn about how people lived in the Middle Ages, while avoiding the plague that came a bit later. The techs and faculty send her off nervously, despite all their careful preparations, and almost immediately find themselves in the midst of an epidemic. When Kivrin arrives in the Middle Ages she takes ill herself and wakes up in a village not knowing how to find her way back to the rendezvous spot.

Doomsday Book is both science fiction and historical fiction and both parts of the story were engrossing and enjoyable. I knew I'd like Kivrin's story set in the time period she has studied for so long, yet remains unfamiliar. All the ways in which she prepared so she could blend in were fascinating, and the relationships she developed with the people she met there were interesting and sometimes touching. She stayed with a family and grew close to the two daughters, the twelve-year-old already betrothed to a much older man. The youngest daughter was completely unsuspecting and therefore a fount of information. Kivrin had to be more guarded around the adults, some of whom didn't quite believe her story: that she had been attacked in the forest and couldn't remember anything about her former life. As trouble settled on the village, the inhabitants came to depend on Kivin's help, just as she began to lose hope of ever returning home.

The other part of the story, set at the college, was also quite good. The main character here was Dunworthy, the instructor who helped Kivrin prepare but nevertheless wasn't completely sold on the idea of this trip. He was determined to get Kivrin back, even as he dealt with the chaos and quarantine from the illness sweeping through the area. It was actually surprisingly humorous in parts. There was a whole cast of amusing characters thrown together during what was a disorganized and desperate time, including a group of American bell-ringers who had arrived to perform and became stuck once the area was under quarantine, and an overbearing mother who came to look out for her son whose academic stress, to her, was of just as much importance as the rampaging illness. Of course, it was a serious epidemic so this wasn't all fun and games as people got very ill and some died. All the while Dunworthy and his colleagues struggled to overcome bureaucracy and technology to save Kivrin.

Time travel tends to be very confusing to me, but here it was kept simple with some very basic rules. The cast of characters was large, but not unwieldy, and their many personalities added a great deal to the story. I liked both Kivrin and Dunworthy and continued to root for their success, while at times resigning myself to failure. (I really didn't know how it would go until the very end.) Everything about this book worked really well for me.

This was one of my choices for the TBR Pile Challenge, and I think is the last of the more lengthy books on my list. It was around 450 pages, and while it wasn't a quick read it was just a great story that I found completely engrossing. If you like historical novels or science fiction, or just want a good book that you can really lose yourself in, you may want to try Doomsday Book.

The Martian

The Martian by Andy Weir (2014)

Mark Watney has found himself in an impossible situation. On a trip to Mars, a dust storm separated him from the rest of his team and, thinking he was dead, they left. Now Mark is alone on the planet with no means of communication and no way to survive long enough to be rescued. But he is not just going to give up. This guy has remarkable ingenuity and tenacity, not to mention a healthy sense of humor, and these qualities may possibly give him a chance of survival.

He began by evaluating his situation, and methodically tackling one problem after another. His goal was to stay alive until the next Mars mission in four years. It seemed impossible, but his organized examination of everything that would be needed to survive revealed some solutions that weren't apparent at first. In addition to his expert problem-solving skills, he needed tools, information, and luck. When he failed or his plans backfired, he would reevaluate and find another approach. There was a lot of science and technical talk but, surprisingly, it wasn't as boring as that sort of thing usually is for me. It was explained in a way that I could understand, but it was also integral to a story that I found incredibly suspenseful.

Science fiction - what I've read or tried to read anyhow - doesn't generally have very well-developed characters, which is why I struggle with it even though I find the premises of the stories so compelling. Although we never learn very much about Mark Watney's life before the mission, or his future, we get the full experience of his personality and sense of humor. Relying on his crew mates' leavings for entertainment, he is left with Agatha Christie mysteries, 70s tv shows and, most upsetting to him, disco music. It gives him a whole new view on some of the other astronauts and he makes fun of them relentlessly. His narrative voice is casual and conversational, frequently punctuated with exclamations like "Yay!" and it is this that balances out the technical talk and makes it more palatable.

What struck me the most about this novel is that so much of it is about Mark being faced with incredibly difficult problems and having to solve them. He is very clever and excellent at problem-solving. Doesn't that mean that Andy Weir is also very clever and excellent at problem-solving? I realize it's fiction, which gives him some leeway, but astute science fiction readers pick up on that sort of thing and so far I haven't heard any negative reviews of those aspects of the story.

The Martian was a suspenseful page-turner that I enjoyed the whole way through. I loved reading about the everyday aspects of life on Mars, and I found Mark Watney incredibly appealing, not to mention infinitely patient. One small setback often means days of work, and at times it seemed almost Sisyphean, which is one of many reasons why I am not an astronaut. I keep hearing positive reviews of this book from blogs, podcast, and random people I run into. I read it for book group and I don't think everyone liked it as much as I do so I'm really looking forward to the discussion this weekend to find out what people didn't like about it. As for me, I'll likely be recommending it all over the place. The movie (was there any doubt?) will be out in November.

Wool

Wool (Silo #1) by Hugh Howey (2012)

Hugh Howey self-published Wool a few years back and it got very popular by word-of-mouth until Simon & Schuster bought it and published all 5 parts together in one volume. And we all realized that publishing had changed. It's an interesting and inspiring story that got my attention, but ultimately that's not why I read it.

Wool is probably my favorite kind of dystopia. An apocalyptic event has happened, society as we know it has transformed and adapted, and the book introduces us to this new society just when things are maybe about to change again. In this world, everyone lives in a huge underground silo, with well over a hundred levels of apartments, gardens, factories, and a big IT department. Screens on the top levels show the outside, a brown and barren landscape that is inhospitable to humans. When someone has committed the most serious crimes they are sent to "cleaning." This means they are sent outside in a suit that will only protect them for a brief time, and they clean the sensors to afford a better view before perishing in the toxic environment. Curiously, nobody has ever refused to clean when they are sent outside.

The story begins with Holston, a sheriff whose wife was sent to cleaning a few years ago after she comes across some information she wasn't supposed to see. It made her raise some dangerous questions, and infected Holston with doubts. He now, in turn, has requested to go outside, convinced that there is more out there than they are being told. He's right, of course, but not in the way he believes. When seeds of doubt are planted, people revolt, and those in power need to quash any uprising before it destroys them all. But does that mean keeping the status quo, and keeping everyone in the dark about the world? A young woman named Juliette may have the answer.

Wool was gripping from the very beginning and I read the entire 500-page novel in just a few days. I frequently struggle with science fiction because of poor character development or technical talk that I can't follow easily, but this was ideal. Howey created a vivid, detailed world that I was able to visualize and imagine myself in, and filled it with people who were recognizable and real and who I rooted for (well, in most cases.) It was about individuals and their actions, but also about how just a small bit of doubt can spread and cause huge societal upheaval. I think I loved everything about this book.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord (2013)

The Sadiri are suddenly a people without a planet, much of their population destroyed in an attack. Now they are on Cygnus Beta, embarking on a journey around the planet to visit groups they may share genetic similarities with in the hopes of finding potential mates for the large number of male survivors, thus ensuring the future of their race. Grace Delarua, a government liaison with a talent for languages, accompanies them on their journey around her planet as they visit various cultural groups to learn more about them.

I read so many great reviews of this book, and desperately wanted to like it as I desperately want to like all science fiction that ends up disappointing me (see: The Windup Girl, for example). I loved the idea of this story, and although I mostly enjoyed reading it, it felt rather cold and distant. The narrator could have been any of dozens of characters I've read before. Though her conversational style seemed promising early on, she was simply not very well developed, nor were the other characters.

Specific aspects of the story that I found kind of fascinating went unexplored. One character, Lian, is described as being "gender neutral" which "may or may not mean that Lian is asexual, though many of those who are registered as gender-neutral are indeed so." The significance of this declaration is never explained, though it seems to negate the possibility of a romantic relationship. Why? And how many people declare themselves gender neutral? Late in the story, Grace's mother confesses to a possible relationship with a married woman, and Grace asks "Are you sure she's interested in you or is it both of them?" Are three-person relationships a thing on Cygnus Beta? I will never know because none of this was explained. Perhaps this just isn't supposed to be what the book is about, but there is a romance taking shape throughout the novel and the journey is very much about finding mates for people, so I think my criticisms here are relevant. I want to know more about the gender/relationship landscape of this planet.

As for that romance, it felt flat for me. Although it was easy to see Grace and Dllenahkh's friendship solidify through the story, there was no romantic/sexual tension whatsoever. I don't even know if she was attracted to him; in fact, his appearance and her initial reaction to meeting him was never described, so early on I wouldn't have known if he was even a potential love interest. Few of the characters were described physically and it was tough to picture them. I only know they were "shades of brown" and some of them had hair that shimmered. (As an aside, that white woman has no place being on this book cover.) Dllenahkh was fairly Vulcan-like in his interactions and Grace rather standoffish herself, so that was not exactly a recipe for a hot romance.

Despite how all of this sounds, I still liked the book, just not as much as I wanted to or could have. Many great elements were present: different cultures, psionic abilities, a fairly conversational narration (some reviewers disliked that the narrator occasionally addressed the reader directly, but I didn't mind). This was not a struggle to read - I flew through it pretty quickly and liked it well enough while I was reading it. It just left me unfulfilled.

I am frustrated by my apparent inability to enjoy science fiction. I want to read books about space travel and alien races and technologies that don't exist (yet) and the descriptions of some of these books sound fantastic. But when I sit down and try to read them I struggle. I want them all to be The Sparrow or Losers in Space but mostly they are just so damn clinical and totally void of personality and emotion. It makes it hard to care what happens. Am I just reading the wrong stuff? Or is this just how the bulk of science fiction is written? Please enlighten me, or tell me what I should be reading instead.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (1985)

The government is preparing for the next alien invasion by training child soldiers, and Ender Wiggin is their newest recruit. Six years old, Ender is a genius living in fear of his sadistic older brother Peter. It's only his sister Valentine he'll miss when he's taken away from his family to train at Battle School. He excels and quickly rises to the top of his class, all the while afraid of becoming violent like his brother. Ender doesn't communicate with his family so has no idea that while he's training to fight an alien invasion, Valentine has allied with Peter to manipulate the public and change world politics, making these three children the most influential the world has known.

Battle School is incredibly difficult, physically and psychologically. Throughout, all I kept thinking is that Ender's life was no longer his own and never would be. All day and all night, he lived and breathed military strategy and he had no choice. He developed some friendships, but the lives of all these kids were closely controlled to make sure nothing impeded their mission.

A great deal of the book described the battle simulations Ender and the other soldiers practiced, and despite the changes to the simulations and improvements Ender made in his skills, I became a little bored before I was even halfway through. But around that time, Valentine and Peter entered the story again as they created fake online profiles with oppositional views and carefully crafted arguments to sway political opinions. I'll admit I didn't understand much about what they were arguing, but I still found this part of the story fascinating. Peter was the stuff of nightmares, as far as older brothers are concerned, but brilliant as a character. Eventually Ender's part of the story became much more interesting as well, and late in the book it became quite gripping. So maybe about 2/5 of the book was pretty boring, with an interesting beginning and end.

Some reviews of the book criticize the characters because they don't act like children. This is true - they're all geniuses and completely practical and mature. But it didn't bother me because this is a different world from ours and I don't expect it to be the same. On the other hand, I never felt like I got to know Ender very well. He was definitely a character as opposed to a person, if you know what I mean.

Since I'm reading this for my Not-So-Young Adult book group at work, I should probably mention the young adult-ness of it, or lack thereof. Although the readership does span into the teen years, it seems to be a favorite of people of all ages. Despite the age of the protagonist, 6-12 during the course of the book, the writing style is not light or breezy. It's not difficult, but not an easy quick read either. Science fiction and fantasy break age-related bounds in general, and Ender's Game is only young adult the same way that Lord of the Rings is.

I first read Ender's Game close to 20 years ago, and didn't remember a thing about it except a vague feeling that I had liked it. I'm glad the group voted for it so I had the opportunity to read it again, but it's unlikely I'll continue with the series.