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Feb. 20th, 2023 05:35 pmBlack Water Sister by Zen Cho
I am so glad I read this, even though I didn't love Sorcerer to the Crown. A story about Malaysian gods butting up against the modern world, a story intensely about the pressures of family and expectation and figuring out how to grow into them. It is so beautiful and so powerful and so evocative, it comprehends the spiritual realm as such a strikingly potent force. I loved how little it's a metaphor, how impossible it is to read these characters as Jess's subconscious. What if myth isn't just a conventional sop for the older generation, what if our heritage stories really have heft and animating energy, what if the world we live in is shaped by forces beyond our ken? I thought this book was going in a lot more whimsical directions than it did, but I was very grateful that it took everything as seriously as it ended up.
The Seep by Chana Porter
A short novel about the discontents of fully automated luxury gay space communism. A trans woman goes on a quest to grieve after her wife decides to forsake immortality for a chance to live as a child again, using creepily omnibenevolent alien technology. It reminded me a lot of Brian Francis Slattery, a lot of Samuel Delany, a little bit of Ellison and Spinrad and PKD and a lot of 1970s paperback SFF in general, but it also felt of the moment. I enjoyed it.
I am so glad I read this, even though I didn't love Sorcerer to the Crown. A story about Malaysian gods butting up against the modern world, a story intensely about the pressures of family and expectation and figuring out how to grow into them. It is so beautiful and so powerful and so evocative, it comprehends the spiritual realm as such a strikingly potent force. I loved how little it's a metaphor, how impossible it is to read these characters as Jess's subconscious. What if myth isn't just a conventional sop for the older generation, what if our heritage stories really have heft and animating energy, what if the world we live in is shaped by forces beyond our ken? I thought this book was going in a lot more whimsical directions than it did, but I was very grateful that it took everything as seriously as it ended up.
The Seep by Chana Porter
A short novel about the discontents of fully automated luxury gay space communism. A trans woman goes on a quest to grieve after her wife decides to forsake immortality for a chance to live as a child again, using creepily omnibenevolent alien technology. It reminded me a lot of Brian Francis Slattery, a lot of Samuel Delany, a little bit of Ellison and Spinrad and PKD and a lot of 1970s paperback SFF in general, but it also felt of the moment. I enjoyed it.