Which Genre Are We In, Again?
Michigan photos will be sorted some time this week! In the mean time, we have cyberpunk disguised as fantasy, “is this fantasy or is it weird SF",” and some surrealism.
Review: Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
Per the author, the setting to this book is inspired by Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City in the 1990s…and it has 1990s technology. Rich people have cellphones and PCs. There are internet cafes.
There’s also possession. Most humans can invade other people, although they vary in strength. One particular bloodline can’t be invaded.
This leads to some interesting things. For example, you don’t have an ID card, because it’s the qi…the person…that matters, not the vessel…the body. You have an identity number you have to memorize. People’s eye color follows them, but that’s not always helpful.
The author uses this for some serious shenanigans. What is identity when you can jump bodies? (It’s actually stated at one point that trans people tend to just abandon their birth body in favor of one of the correct gender…including swapping with somebody going the other way).
Our protagonist refuses to jump ever, even at risk to her life. Why? The love interest refuses to stay in any given body.
It’s a very interesting take…that makes this fantasy novel more cyberpunk, in the true sense, than many “cyberpunk” works I have read. It’s about the intersection of body and identity…just using magic, not uploading.
I liked this book a lot. It’s a fun read, but instead of recommending it to fans of fantasy or cultivation novels (which it also resembles), I have to recommend it to the cyberpunks out there. Because this is cyberpunk in fantasy drag.
I love it.
I received a copy of this book for review purposes.
Review: Beautiful Serpent, Restless Embers by Ynes Freeman
There have been quite a few books on the theme of sexism and arranged marriages. Freeman, in many ways, produces more of the same…Laurel is a Damica, gifted with magic and doomed to be sold as a bride to the highest bidder. To her, this is normal…but she is also a Lunare, doomed to be shackled and weakened.
Fed opiates to contain her power, she is prepared for marriage to an evil man…and, of course, flees with a much better one.
It’s all very predictable, except that Freeman is a truly excellent writer. Laurel is neither the quiet, soft girl accepting her fate nor the classic “strong female character.” If this is the kind of book you like, you won’t do better than this particular take on the trope.
It’s not a very nice book…it has a body count and while there’s no on camera sexual assault, this is a very, uh, rapey society.
But it’s just so nicely written I have to recommend it anyway…if you like that kind of thing.
I received a copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: The Wings Upon Her Back by Samantha Mills
An excellent writer of short fiction, Mills makes the leap to the long form with aplomb…and this is much of what I would have expected from her.
A city that serves five sleeping gods…entities that may be aliens, or true deities, or who knows. A woman who only wants to fly…and flying means changing from the scholar sect to the warrior sect.
Zemodai becomes tangled with Vodaya, her mentor, who…is an abusive piece of shit. This is not, at its heart, a story about gods and magical technology.
It’s a story about an abusive relationship. It’s a story about manipulation and isolation and where it ultimately leads.
Vodaya is a villain one loves to hate...and feel a little sorry for because it’s clear this is a cycle of abuse.
The worldbuilding is solid, but constrained. We never leave this one city, we have no idea what happens on the rest of the planet. It’s fantasy masquerading as science fiction masquerading as fantasy, which I’m often there for.
Recommended.
I received a copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: The Curator by Owen King
Sometimes I come across a book that just needed an editing pass. Ironically, it’s often larger publishers. Unfortunately, The Curator falls into this category. It just needed a copyeditor…somebody to add in the missing commas, break up the run on sentences.
Not the author’s fault and I feel a bit sorry for him. One expects a division of S&S to do better.
The story itself was on the surreal side and demonstrated a potential obsession with cats. And death. And revolutions…and, ultimately, how revolutions fail.
I didn’t like it. If you like surrealism, you probably will. It couldn’t decide quite when and where it was set, the language was just that bit too literary, and I lost track of the plot a few times. So I csn’t recommend it, but it’s probably a good book for the right audience.
With another editing pass. Sorry, Owen King.
I received a copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.