Books read in July 2019

[nou]

Definitely recommend

• Under The Pendulum Sun, Jeannette Ng (re-read). naraht asked for opinions about a book bundle including this, which reminded me that I’d been thinking of giving it another go. The first time I read it, I was under the mistaken belief that there was going to be a sequel, which may have been part of why it seemed incomplete. This time, knowing it was standalone, I didn’t have that problem, but I did feel that knowing the plot twists in advance took away a lot of its power. So I’m bumping up my recommendation for anyone who’s not read it from “maybe recommend” to “definitely recommend” (but not as a re-read).
• A Matter Of Oaths, Helen S Wright (re-read). It’s interesting thinking about this in relation to Under The Pendulum Sun, since actually this has so many more potential hooks for sequels to hang from — not just an interesting universe to tell further stories in, but actual questions unanswered in the text — yet it did feel complete in itself. The cast of principal characters is very male-dominated, but that felt OK, at least partly because of the good queer representation.
• The Song Of Achilles, Madeline Miller. I wish I’d read this before The Silence Of The Girls, because having read the latter I can see the gaps where The Song Of Achilles basically skips over the trauma the Trojan war would have caused to women. But that’s not an unreasonable authorial choice given the viewpoint character, and it’s still very good.
• The Jungle School, Butet Manurung translated by Anya Robertson and Ro King. Memoirs and reflections from an Indonesian educational activist who worked with several Orang Rimba ("people of the forest") communities in Sumatra. Pretty interesting, not exoticising, and both realistic and practical.

Maybe recommend

• The Belles and The Everlasting Rose, Dhonielle Clayton (DNF the second one). These were fine, certainly a lot better than the absolutely terrible Only Ever Yours (which for some reason people seem to be comparing them to?), and the setting is a very imaginative one, but the plot is rather “this happened, then this, then this”, and I just lost interest around two-thirds of the way into the second book. It was well-written, and I thought the choice to do it all in present tense was well-handled, but it just wasn’t really for me.
• Exhalation, Ted Chiang. I was actually a bit disappointed by this, even though I enjoy the author’s work, mainly because I’d read most of it before. Of the nine stories here, seven have been published previously and I’d already read six of them. I’m definitely glad to have the two new ones, but I’d been expecting more.

Wouldn’t recommend

• Dissidence (re-read), Insurgence, and Emergence, Ken MacLeod. I tried to read the first of these at least twice before, and was determined to get further this time, since a few people whose opinions I rate have said they liked them. I not only got to the end this time, but also worked out that the reason they bug me is that things keep getting interrupted by fight scenes, and I hate fight scenes. It kind of felt like lots of things were happening but at the same time nothing was happening. Also it bugged me that I had to keep translating from "kiloseconds" to quarter-hours. I understand that robots who’ve never seen the solar system won’t think in terms of hours, but it’s weird to translate their 31st-century robot dialect into 21st-century English everywhere except when time is involved. (Oh, and I’m not massively keen on the way the author invented his own N-word so he could let his viewpoint Nazis say it.)
• The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon (DNF). This one’s just not very well thought out — every few pages there’s a detail that seems reasonable on the surface but when you think about it, you realise it makes no sense. The characterisation and world-building are paper-thin — all facade and no depth. There are too many ill-fitting similes. And I can’t help mentally pronouncing the protagonist’s name as “Eid Durian”, which makes me want to have a durian party. I made it a third of the way through and wished I’d given up sooner.

Poll #22481

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

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Hello Kake!
18 (94.7%)

I read this!
18 (94.7%)

I would totally come to a durian party
3 (15.8%)

Comments

[nou]

As in she might get better at it? Maybe :)

[watersword]

One always hopes for improvement! But really I meant that it was likely going to take her a few more books (and possibly a different editor?) to write something I want to read.

[nou]

I see what you mean, yes!