Exploring Hope and Strangeness
Back from RavenCon. Which needs more ice cream. I need more ice cream. Anyone got ice cream?
Review: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
This is a very hopepunk, very far future and very vegan book. I don’t know Newitz well, but I would definitely guess she’s probably a vegan from this.
Uplifting, human speciation, and a different relationship with nature flow through the story, which is a little slow in places but mostly very readable. I don’t typically believe in “plot book” or “character book” per se, but this book leans towards plot and almost has an Analog feel. (I’m trying to remember if Newitz has ever written for Analog).
And being hopepunk, it has just a bit of the queer about it. My one issue was one of science. I don’t think that the Neanderthals genetically engineered to be anaerobic would actually work. I don’t think there would be enough energy to fuel humans that way. It would make more sense (but not work as well for the story) if the first generation were robots.
But it’s kind of important to the story, so I have to let it pass. An entertaining read with a large cast of extremely diverse characters.
Copy received for award consideration purposes
Review: Translation State by Ann Leckie
Psst. It’s a romance. I mean, it’s a really weird and alien romance, and it takes a while to get to being one. But it is.
It’s the kind of weird alien romance I wish I’d come up with but also a bit of a homage to the strangest of Asimov’s work, The Gods Themselves. Except very different and it is, at its core, about consent.
CW: Sexual assault. Weird alien sexual assault.
And the victim being treated as tainted…it’s about rape, it’s about consent, it’s about choice and it’s a beautiful book that I can’t describe better without massive, massive spoilers.
I loved this book. It’s definitely my Nebula choice (although all the others belong there). I haven’t read much Leckie. Going to have to fix that when *eyes massive tbr pile* I can.
Copy received for award consideration purposes.
Review: Be The Sea by Clara Ward
Solarpunk is an interesting genre. Originating in Brazil it combines climate fiction with hope with something ineffably queer.
Is Be The Sea solarpunk? In spirit, but not in scale. Although the story itself takes place amongst an intentional community that are by various measures queer, neurodivergent, and kinky (including rare representation of non sexual kink), it is also the story of the entire ocean, of the pacific. Needless to say, Hawai’I plays an important role.
There are a number of mysteries in this book and it should be unsatisfying that the only one that’s solved is the mundane one.
The mechanism that makes the various characters psychic is speculated on, but never explained or uncovered, in or out of character. They simply are, but what holds them together is the sea. Gaia theory, but of the ocean…Oceania theory? (And while neurodivergence as a superpower often falls flat, Ward handles it in a way that makes me assume they are neurodivergent themselves)
It’s also most definitely a story of hope, because it’s a story of survival. Be The Sea postulates a future in which, no, we haven’t stopped or reversed climate change, and no, we might not save the coral. But it’s also a future of zero-emissions air travel flowing across the planet. Of zero-emissions superyachts and slow, intentional travel.
It says “We can survive this. We don’t have to give up our civilization or even our cellphones to do it, but we do have to be intentional.”
Yes, it’s definitely solarpunk, and it may be my favorite full length work in the genre.
(The downside is that the author is also obviously vegan and spends a good chunk of the book trying to convert people by describing delicious vegan food…99% of which would make me very sick indeed. Sorry, Ward, that isn’t going to convert me ;). Not their fault. I can see what they’re trying there).
Copy received for review and award consideration purposes.