Reading Wednesday 24/06
Jun. 24th, 2020 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livRecently read A memory called empire by Arkady Martine. (c) AnnaLinden Weller 2019; pub 2020 Tor; ISBN 978-1-5290-0160-0.
Basically everybody who even slightly shares tastes with me has been recommending me this. The rec that tipped me over the edge into actually getting hold of it was a comment bycjwatson that made me think, ah, it's a diaspora book. And then I was grumpy because several of my partners own it in annoying Amazon ebook format that can't easily be lent, and I didn't really want to re-buy it, or faff about breaking DRM and format shifting, but in the end I decided to stop being grumpy and just go out and rebuy it in non-Amazon format.
Anyway, I'm glad I did because A memory called empire is basically pure Liv-bait, and also very good.
Murderbot: Artificial condition by Martha Wells. (c) Martha Wells 2018; Pub 2018 Tor; ISBN 978-1-250-18693-5.
I enjoyed All systems red and I was excited to read the sequel, especially now there's a full-length novel out. This one I read by physically borrowingjack's Kindle, which works well for reading while I do my exercise.
Artificial condition is fun and short, a bit middle-of-trilogy-ish but generally worth reading.
I pretty much always love SF about cross-cultural contact, especially where the viewpoint character is the 'alien'. I love space-operaish things with a strong focus on characterization, and big casts where the minor characters seem real. I love snarky head-voice companions. I love unlikely friendships with romantic tension but not necessarily actual romance. I love moral ambiguity about who should win politically, aside from the goals of viewpoint characters.
And this is just a really great example of exactly the kind of thing I like. Martine is a historian of the Byzantine empire, which means that she avoids the pitfall of much of SF where the only model for 'empire' is (popular stereotypes of the Western) Roman empire. Instead you get really interesting world-building. I really like the way the Teixcalaanli empire has both the romance of a great, galaxy spanning empire with a deep culture, and the awfulness of imperialist hegemony. Also there are no tedious naval-battles-in-space, you get the outcomes of war and conquest, not the mechanics.
I love Marit, she's easily one of my favourite fictional characters. She's young and impulsive without being gratuitously stupid, she's driven by curiosity and an important part of her self-image is about doing well academically. She's bi. She's not the chosen one but she's a hero in the classical sense, she makes key decisions that alter the balance of major events. Generally I just really enjoyed spending time in her head, and her relationship with Three Seagrass is just gorgeous.
There's about the right amount, for me, of political intrigue; the focus is on character interactions but since Marit is the Ambassador from a minor outpost to the Empire, she has a good excuse to get involved with powerful and influential people. I cared about the Imperial succession, but not as much as I cared about Marit saving her homeworld. There is plenty of action, kidnapping, murder successful and attempted, and Martine isn't afraid to kill major characters. There's a surprisingly gory brain surgery scene.
Inevitably aMCE is being compared to Ann Leckie's Ancillary series, but it reminds me most of one my favourite books, Golden Witchbreed, partly because the latter is also about an ambassador.
I enjoyed Artificial Condition, it was good to see more character development for Murderbot and I am completely charmed by the ART, Asshole Research Transport. I found the actual plot a little slight, though certainly exciting. I was more interested in Murderbot investigating its own past than in trying to save humans from their own foolishness and an evil corporation trying to kill them.
But I didn't feel the book really stood alone, it only works as a bridge between All systems red and the next in the series, which I'm somewhat looking forward to reading but not massively impatient for.
Currently reading The cooking gene by Michael W Twitty. This is non-fiction by an African-American man (who is also gay and Jewish) tracing his personal roots while investigating the various historical and culinary influences on contemporary African-American soul food. It's really well written and readable, and obviously the subject matter is quite depressing, but I'm finding it pitched in a way that I can learn from.
My only minor complaint is that it's written for an American audience and sometimes he's contradicting a commonly held simplification of history without explaining what it is I'm assumed to believe by default. This is especially an issue with the food history sections, because he'll say, everybody knows [dish I've never heard of].
Up next: My sister sent us a book she thought we'd like, Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill. It's apparently about post-apocalyptic conflict between robots...
Basically everybody who even slightly shares tastes with me has been recommending me this. The rec that tipped me over the edge into actually getting hold of it was a comment by
cjwatson that made me think, ah, it's a diaspora book. And then I was grumpy because several of my partners own it in annoying Amazon ebook format that can't easily be lent, and I didn't really want to re-buy it, or faff about breaking DRM and format shifting, but in the end I decided to stop being grumpy and just go out and rebuy it in non-Amazon format. Anyway, I'm glad I did because A memory called empire is basically pure Liv-bait, and also very good.
Murderbot: Artificial condition by Martha Wells. (c) Martha Wells 2018; Pub 2018 Tor; ISBN 978-1-250-18693-5.
I enjoyed All systems red and I was excited to read the sequel, especially now there's a full-length novel out. This one I read by physically borrowing
jack's Kindle, which works well for reading while I do my exercise. Artificial condition is fun and short, a bit middle-of-trilogy-ish but generally worth reading.
I pretty much always love SF about cross-cultural contact, especially where the viewpoint character is the 'alien'. I love space-operaish things with a strong focus on characterization, and big casts where the minor characters seem real. I love snarky head-voice companions. I love unlikely friendships with romantic tension but not necessarily actual romance. I love moral ambiguity about who should win politically, aside from the goals of viewpoint characters.
And this is just a really great example of exactly the kind of thing I like. Martine is a historian of the Byzantine empire, which means that she avoids the pitfall of much of SF where the only model for 'empire' is (popular stereotypes of the Western) Roman empire. Instead you get really interesting world-building. I really like the way the Teixcalaanli empire has both the romance of a great, galaxy spanning empire with a deep culture, and the awfulness of imperialist hegemony. Also there are no tedious naval-battles-in-space, you get the outcomes of war and conquest, not the mechanics.
I love Marit, she's easily one of my favourite fictional characters. She's young and impulsive without being gratuitously stupid, she's driven by curiosity and an important part of her self-image is about doing well academically. She's bi. She's not the chosen one but she's a hero in the classical sense, she makes key decisions that alter the balance of major events. Generally I just really enjoyed spending time in her head, and her relationship with Three Seagrass is just gorgeous.
There's about the right amount, for me, of political intrigue; the focus is on character interactions but since Marit is the Ambassador from a minor outpost to the Empire, she has a good excuse to get involved with powerful and influential people. I cared about the Imperial succession, but not as much as I cared about Marit saving her homeworld. There is plenty of action, kidnapping, murder successful and attempted, and Martine isn't afraid to kill major characters. There's a surprisingly gory brain surgery scene.
Inevitably aMCE is being compared to Ann Leckie's Ancillary series, but it reminds me most of one my favourite books, Golden Witchbreed, partly because the latter is also about an ambassador.
I enjoyed Artificial Condition, it was good to see more character development for Murderbot and I am completely charmed by the ART, Asshole Research Transport. I found the actual plot a little slight, though certainly exciting. I was more interested in Murderbot investigating its own past than in trying to save humans from their own foolishness and an evil corporation trying to kill them.
But I didn't feel the book really stood alone, it only works as a bridge between All systems red and the next in the series, which I'm somewhat looking forward to reading but not massively impatient for.
Currently reading The cooking gene by Michael W Twitty. This is non-fiction by an African-American man (who is also gay and Jewish) tracing his personal roots while investigating the various historical and culinary influences on contemporary African-American soul food. It's really well written and readable, and obviously the subject matter is quite depressing, but I'm finding it pitched in a way that I can learn from.
My only minor complaint is that it's written for an American audience and sometimes he's contradicting a commonly held simplification of history without explaining what it is I'm assumed to believe by default. This is especially an issue with the food history sections, because he'll say, everybody knows [dish I've never heard of].
Up next: My sister sent us a book she thought we'd like, Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill. It's apparently about post-apocalyptic conflict between robots...
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