Holiday Reading
Sep. 11th, 2020 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearDragon Bike, edited by Elly Blue:
This is one of a series of anthologies that collect feminist fantasy and science fiction stories that have to involve bicycles. It's a very interesting concept and produces some fun stories. This collection all also involve dragons, and I was impressed by the huge range of approaches, based on this strange combination of criteria.
There were classic fire-breathing dragons, metaphorical dragons, machine dragons, paper dragons, and many more. I loved discovering how the dragons and bicycles would appear in each story, and most of them were masterfully constructed and beautifully told. There's always at least some range of quality in an anthology, but I enjoyed all the stories in this one.
Great concept, well executed.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver:
When I started reading this book, it quickly became clear to me that I had read the opening chapter before. I have no idea when, or why I didn't then continue on with it (because the story from the second chapter onwards was completely unfamiliar) but I'm glad I persevered this time around because I enjoyed the book overall.
It's a split story. One strand, in the 2000s, follows a woman named Willa, struggling to keep her family together in the face of tragedy, unemployment, differing ideologies and a collapsing house. The other strand in the 1800s, follows a high school science teacher named Thatcher, facing opposition to his teach methods and a lack of understanding from his new wife, while also forging a friendship with the female scientist who lives next door. What links the strands is that both characters live in the same house in different time periods.
As is always the case with Barbara Kingsolver, the settings and characters are richly drawn and involving. I felt the ideas and themes were a bit overdone, though, with a lot of intense discussion of philosophy, science, economics, and politics amongst the characters. The inclusion of variations on the title jumped out at me every time and felt heavy-handed as well.
But both storylines reached very satisfactory conclusions, with a well-executed sense of the characters' lives continuing on after the end of the book. It felt like a bit of a slog at times, but overall it came together nicely and I enjoyed it.
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall:
This is a very weird book - in a good way!
It tells the story of a man who wakes up in a house with no memory of who he is. He finds a letter, supposedly from himself at an earlier time, directing him to contact a psychiatrist for answers. She tells him he is suffering from a rare condition that means he remembers less and less of his life every time he has a 'recurrence', and that it's all to do with the death of his girlfriend. So far, so Memento...
But no. He starts receiving more and more letters, packets and information from his former self, and it soon becomes clear that the situation is far weirder and more complicated than it seems.
The story delves into the realms of the surreal and the philosophical, the absurd and the terrifying. It explores the nature of identity and the experience of loss. There is some ambiguity to the ending, but I have no problem with that.
For me, the only weakness was the presentation of the female characters and the relationships between them and the protagonist - it all felt a bit adolescent in terms of how they were portrayed and how the protagonist reacted to them, and dropped the narrative down a few levels from the elevated nature of the main plot.
Overall, though, an ambitious novel that largely succeeds in a fascinating and unexpected way.
This is one of a series of anthologies that collect feminist fantasy and science fiction stories that have to involve bicycles. It's a very interesting concept and produces some fun stories. This collection all also involve dragons, and I was impressed by the huge range of approaches, based on this strange combination of criteria.
There were classic fire-breathing dragons, metaphorical dragons, machine dragons, paper dragons, and many more. I loved discovering how the dragons and bicycles would appear in each story, and most of them were masterfully constructed and beautifully told. There's always at least some range of quality in an anthology, but I enjoyed all the stories in this one.
Great concept, well executed.
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver:
When I started reading this book, it quickly became clear to me that I had read the opening chapter before. I have no idea when, or why I didn't then continue on with it (because the story from the second chapter onwards was completely unfamiliar) but I'm glad I persevered this time around because I enjoyed the book overall.
It's a split story. One strand, in the 2000s, follows a woman named Willa, struggling to keep her family together in the face of tragedy, unemployment, differing ideologies and a collapsing house. The other strand in the 1800s, follows a high school science teacher named Thatcher, facing opposition to his teach methods and a lack of understanding from his new wife, while also forging a friendship with the female scientist who lives next door. What links the strands is that both characters live in the same house in different time periods.
As is always the case with Barbara Kingsolver, the settings and characters are richly drawn and involving. I felt the ideas and themes were a bit overdone, though, with a lot of intense discussion of philosophy, science, economics, and politics amongst the characters. The inclusion of variations on the title jumped out at me every time and felt heavy-handed as well.
But both storylines reached very satisfactory conclusions, with a well-executed sense of the characters' lives continuing on after the end of the book. It felt like a bit of a slog at times, but overall it came together nicely and I enjoyed it.
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall:
This is a very weird book - in a good way!
It tells the story of a man who wakes up in a house with no memory of who he is. He finds a letter, supposedly from himself at an earlier time, directing him to contact a psychiatrist for answers. She tells him he is suffering from a rare condition that means he remembers less and less of his life every time he has a 'recurrence', and that it's all to do with the death of his girlfriend. So far, so Memento...
But no. He starts receiving more and more letters, packets and information from his former self, and it soon becomes clear that the situation is far weirder and more complicated than it seems.
The story delves into the realms of the surreal and the philosophical, the absurd and the terrifying. It explores the nature of identity and the experience of loss. There is some ambiguity to the ending, but I have no problem with that.
For me, the only weakness was the presentation of the female characters and the relationships between them and the protagonist - it all felt a bit adolescent in terms of how they were portrayed and how the protagonist reacted to them, and dropped the narrative down a few levels from the elevated nature of the main plot.
Overall, though, an ambitious novel that largely succeeds in a fascinating and unexpected way.
