Books

[seekingferret]

Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings has only one named female character in the first hundred pages. I'm now 140 pages in- we get another named character at page 135, and she dies on page 136.

The problem isn't even that it'd be nice to have gender balance. The problem is that this is a book about families and dynasties and legacies... the plot of this book makes no sense at all without women, and they're just missing. The prose is weighted heavily to the expository, but that's not necessarily a sin in a massive fantasy epic, and for significant periods the exposition rises above the tedious with the lyricism that marks the best of Liu's short fiction. There are several really engaging characters, particulary the one named female character, Jia, and her husband Kuni. And the world Liu lays out is an interesting geopolitical setup, exactly the kind of world I like to roleplay in.

But without women, the book just feels broken.


ETA Kat Howard's review says that around page 300, the women show up, and it becomes clear that Liu made a choice to exclude women from the early narrative as part of his subversion of fantasy tropes. This seems weird to me, but I'm willing to give Liu some more rope.




I finally finished Jo Walton's Among Others. It was my third attempt at reading it. I wanted to like it, but barely anything happens for long stretches, and not even a well executed ending could save it for me.

On the other hand, it's above everything else a book about the fellowship of the SF community. There were passages that I don't just want to quote, I want to scribe them on my skin so I can carry them with me forever. The passage where Mor contrasts the magic of books to the magic of fairies is incredibly beautiful: The magic of fairies is tied to a place, and it gets its power from that concentration, but a little piece of the magic of a book is invested in each printed copy and it spreads that magic around the world.

I may never love the book, but in the wake of the Hugo nomination fiasco, Among Others was precisely the right book for me to read.




I'm also a few hundred pages into Ramez Naam's debut novel Nexus, which is an excellent, thoughtful, and action-packed novel about the consequences of nano-enhanced brains and transhumanism. I'll try to check back in when I finish, but based on how much I've read, I highly recommend it. The two main characters are a fun oil and water combo, and it's one of those books where everyone, good guy and bad, is intelligent and has comprehensible goals, and the conflict comes from incomplete information. I love books like that.

Comments

[ambyr]

Well, you've certainly tempered my enthusiasm for the book. (I'm not all that fond of Liu's short fiction to begin with.)

[calledtovienna]

I was super excited about Grace Of Kings, especially since Max Gladstone reviewed it with such enthusiasm on his blog. But not having female characters is pretty close to a dealbreaker for me, because I don't have that much time on my hands. So, maybe given the amended review, I will check it out.

Someone I work with recently read Nexus and I felt dumb for not having heard of it before then, so thanks for reviewing it.

[seekingferret]

I'll keep you posted on both as I keep going.

[seekingferret]

Also, I should read Max Gladstone, shouldn't I?

[calledtovienna]

I really liked both Three Parts Dead, and Full Fathom Five. Full Fathom Five is probably more complicated, and I liked its discussion of some historical things. Three Parts Dead is more elegant in fitting together neatly (as a first novel would be).

I didn't like Two Serpents Rise as much.

I enjoy his blog a lot.

[starlady]

Hmm, I'd been seeing a lot of female authors gush about the Liu novel, and the Howard review makes that make more sense. *puts back on reading list*

[seekingferret]

Personally, I find the Howard review confusing, but we'll see how I feel when I'm further along in the book.

[alexseanchai]

Huh, okay. I think I will give Among Others a pass, then, on the grounds that I don't have enough time to read the things already on my todo list and this isn't exactly a wholehearted recommendation.