Valley of Spiraling Winds by Peter J. Oluloa Britos

This book has an interesting structure. A huge chunk of it is an extended dream sequence experienced by Estrella, who uses some kind of VR rig to “travel” into the past.

It’s the most interesting part of the book - a family saga and love letter to Hawaii. In contrast, the speculative part of the narrative falls oddly flat, perhaps exposing the author’s interests. It’s far future, Earth has been invaded by aliens (who may just need fuel to get off), and First Contact caused a break in history that Estrella is…trying to retrieve records?

The book tries to go into our relationship with the other, including at least one incident of alienf*ing. It’s better, though, when it explores ourselves…and Hawaiian culture.

The other issue I had is that the author has a large vocabulary…and seeks to inflict it on us as much as possible. Unfortunately, in some places, this ends up as Thesaurus vomiting…as using complicated language when simple would work just as well, if not better.

That said, there’s definitely some interesting things about this book…just not the ones I was hoping to find entertaining.

For Emma by Ewan Morrison

This book has a slightly experimental narrative, taking the form primarily of transcripts and descriptions from a vlog kept by a terrorist for the 30 days before he blew something up…and secondarily of notes from the journalist who gets her hands on it.

It’s in a near future that’s drifted even more fascist. Even being sent “hate speech” can get you put in jail. I’m not a fan of bigots, but I’m also not a fan of censorship, and this book does kind of demonstrate why.

It leaves us on a major down note; AI is taking over the world and the people fighting against it have lost. Unless, of course, Morrison thinks that’s desirable, but the descriptions of experiments point in a different way, and are clearly inspired by various rumors surrounding Neuralink.

Content warning: Rather graphic descriptions of infection and the early stages of sepsis. Just eww.

Despite that, it’s an interesting book, but if AI is making you depressed right now, you might want to set it aside for a bit, because it’s…a bit of a depressing work that reminds me oddly of Thomas Hardy. I hope it was intended that way.

I was sent copies of these books for review or award consideration purposes.