month(s)_in_books(dec2021-may2022)

ok I will genuinely try to be brief and like speedrun thru everything I've read the past 6months~ . by which I mean two books I read in december and like everything I've read in the last month. and no one say anythingggg about how this entire list is scavenged from braintransplant.dreamwidth.org/tag/books like it's my fault I'm unoriginal.

list: olondria, the foundation series + prequels, the imperial radach, the sparrow, drive your plow over the bones of the dead, a memory called empire
to read: my name is red(60%), a little life, foundation sequels, left hand of darkness, deathless, asimov's short stories, maxmin gorky's short stories, nemesis, a desolation called peace.

(...)

THE WINGED HISTORIES sofia samatar
this ruined my life when I read it. which is really funny because both DURING reading and after I was like Wowwwww.... 60% of this book sucks major ass, but the 30% that was good literally killed u dead and the other 10% was just pretty writing for the sake of pretty writing. I will be honest literally everything this book was supposed to be about went over my head because I tend to focus on personal narratives opposed to the bigger picture sofia samatar painted... the reviews I read of this book that got me to read this book, all like were like 'it's about the pieces left after War' well I thought it was about the pretty writing. definitely top10 books ever that rip your heart out though.
some lines:

• In the desert there are empty places, but once we were not afraid. We rode through noon. You sang, my heart is white with love.
• Sometimes she made herself eat the charcoal as a sort of penance and vomited ecstatically over the balcony.

A STRANGER IN OLONDRIA sofia samatar
the problem with this book is that it's travel vlogging, but also trying to set a religious war and show it's machinations From The Perspective of A Dude Who Doesn't Know Shit and is Only Cataclysmically Involved and keeps Promising u the most heart-wrenching love story ever and then only delivers for about <30 pages out of it's 300 page runtime. that love story, when you finally reach it, is very worth it. or, jessivet's story is worth wading through the whole book for. ALSO. the folktales invented for olondria lore are so beautiful and worth reading for... I do think the story of the cousins's should've been in TWH to set up for siski/dasaya and warm the reader's heart towards cousincest, because reading this After just makes u realize Ah. or made me realize Ah. IDK in general all the folklore introduced and written was so seamlessly and thoughtfully placed and weaved through with the narrative. like terrible book, but as it is with sofia samatar, worth reading for the 20 pages of unbearably beautiful writing.

some lines:

• I am the last thing you will see, I said in my heart. I am the last, I have carried you in my arms, I have brought you home.
• Life comes back, the shadows of leaves.

THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY isaac asimov
my mom was obsessed with me reading these books and so I read them. it WAS fun reading old classic scifi by the Inventor of the genre interspersed with modern sci-fi written by women who know Women and Gay People Also Exist. and that ethnic ambiguity is the name of the game now. these books + a discussion with my dad made me realize like Wow...Wait ...YEAHHHHHH scifi is about sociology/anthropology not robots and tech. it's interesting because I read these after Mempire and between Imperial Radach so the difference in what subjects the respective authors focused on and cared about was a fun comparison. I think the charm of the foundation series is that Asimov locked himself into a short story anthology format, and as the trilogy progresses you see him try to break it by making longer and more closely related [both in time and characters] and ... honestly I think it makes the books less and less effective as you read, but still good. I think some of these books are clever, and I think it's hilarious that you can see his switch into Feminism and Second Wife Making Him Realize Women Are People And Therefore Book Characters Too.... Arcady Darell forever in my heart as she is THEEEEE HORRIBLE NIGHTMARE LITTLE GIRL OF THE WORLDDDD....

PRELUDE TO / FORWARD THE isaac asimov
these books suck so much ass compared to the original series. and are too obsessed with robots. which #yasss continuity etc etc #TheIACU [Isaac Asimov Cinematic Universe] but like genuinely, I think you can tell how much more of a short fiction writer Asimov is and how he always returns to this short-split form rather than a true chaptered format. but seriously, these books drag and while some of the exposition about how trantor functions and is bound to fall is interesting, it's like nowhere near interesting enough to make up for a painfully boring protagonist and a forgone conclusion about ROBOTS. I think had it really focused more on how this journey added to Seldon's creation of psychohistory, then it would've been much more worth the read, but Asimov didn't even TRYYYYY on that front. whatever.



ANCILLARY JUSTICE ann leckie
(original thread)
can I just say. gt9? flop. Mempire? flop. any other gay progressive scifi I might be inclined to read? Pre-emptively, Flop. THE IMPERIAL RADACH? INVENTED. I need to dedicate another reread to these books and an entire three essays about these books but GOD. please please please if you read anything from this list ... ANCILLARY JUSTICE!!!! ANCILLARY JUSTICE!!!! first of all I think this book is perfect even as a standalone, and then is perfect as not a first book, but a prequel of sorts. I think when you read mercy/sword, they read as 'Main Plot' and justice then feels like the expositionary pre-show that sets up for explaining all about Breq and how they got here and so forth. in saying that. AGAIN. this book is the perfect standalone, and I think, in more of an objective way than my personal opinion way, this is probably the best Book of the 3. It's literally space adventure. that's it. it's like.... the perfect literary equivalent of 'It's about the Journey, not the Destination' ... also the first and only book where like there are Stakes of some sort and Breq isn't like omnipotent, OP, has everything figured out, hemlock shlomes-esque... I loved this book because it genuinely just feels like you're --- IDK this is about to sound sooooo stupid but it's like The Essene of Reading where you're learning more as the book progresses and you really are like On This Journey with Breq and dealing with Seivarden and trying to kill Emperor of the Galaxy and realizing over and over it's Grief, you're feeling Grief, this is all about Grief this is -- Breq is the last remaining fragment of a grief-crazed AI, which has just managed to trigger a civil war.

lines:

• The omen Stillness had flipped, become Movement. And Justice was about to land before me, clear and unambiguous.
• She was never one of my favourites.

ANCILLARY SWORD / ANCILLARY MERCY ann leckie
I think these books are just One Book. in terms of books, they are a duology and ancillary justice is the prequel ... but like. spiritually. this is just one book. Again, Justice was for people who wanted Journeys and Epics Lows and Highs ... sword/mercy are for people who love to watch sherlock episodes and nod as everything is fixed and Breq always has a contingency plan and everything always works out perfectly. I would almost say feel-good in terms of Plot. BUT LIKE. THE PLOT IS A FLIMSY EXCUSE TO HAVE SOMETHING TO BUILD THE CONCEPTION OF
ANCILLARIES. SHIPS. THEIR CAPTAINS. THEIR OFFICERS.
ONNNN... people will be like X media Invented a New Form of Love. and X media is never Ancillary Mercy. and therefore that statement is untrue. I think these last two books are sooooo charming, not because the plot is particularly moving or interesting as it was in justice; but because of the way the cast interacts with each other and all the little subplots and subpolitics like.... the intricate rituals between two ships....one ancillaryless one shipless..... the teaseat politics haptics .... whatever the fuck was happening with the translator.... IDKKKK it's kind of a very charming 'workplace' setting ... and then like randomly near the end of the series you get the most fucked up conversation of all time ever between Breq, Ship, while like Seivarden and also a bunch of other officers Are Right THEREEE....... T-TT-T-T-T-T--T-T-T

lines:

• ...but back at Omaugh Palace, weeks ago, the Lord of the Radch tried to assign me a new captain and I told her I didn't want anyone but you. Which was foolish, because of course she could always force me to accept her choice. There was no point in my protesting, nothing I could say or do would make any difference. But I did it anyway, and she sent me you.
• And I like Lieutenant Seivarden well enough, but mostly because she loves you.

THE CAT THAT ATE THE LEMON.JPEG THAT I AM TODAY.... I think it's soooo fucked up because this directly goes back to Once Again being about Lieutenant Awn and how she was doomed no matter what, but had she known, she would've refused earlier. IDKKKKKKKK this books were so good and changed my life forever maybe even. I think it was crazy that it was set in book1 that this was all because of and For Lieutenant Awn and that held true through the end. SO GOOD.



THE SPARROW mary doria russell
imagine my surprise when I read this book and assume it was published in 2019 and it was actually published in 1996. that's how woke it is. but surely I have more feelings about this book besides how modern it reads.... and to answer that... I think that very few authors are willing to make their characters devout, but it's just True that religiosity adds layers to a character and a narrative that makes it Fuck ... the only other example in my mind is Daredevil really. but ummm... seriously this book settled my views on the intersection of characters and their beliefs, and I think a character who is devout is always more compelling than a fuckall athiest/agnostic.
aside from that, I cannot say anything about this book that is not constantly referenced through out it - which is - 'Not comedy. Not tragedy. Perhaps, farce?' (...) not to plagiarize braintransplant's review wholly but this book makes it very clear what happens, and what will happen and what it's about and You Know. You are an omniscient reader! you know!!! and it's still like being slapped in the face. like. really. COMEDY? TRAEGDY? FARCE? I think it handles some of it's emotional punches far better than others, and I think for the sake of readability, it chooses to deafen some of the more tragic moments but like, the waves those leave still ripple later into the narrative. one of the moments that broke me most most retroactively, was when Emilio speaks of how his rape was transcribed into poetry and songs and how everyone on earth surely had heard those broadcasts and I ended up thinking of how both Sofia's physical prostitution and intellectual prostitution were in complete privacy and that No One Knew and No one would have ever known and how it was both a perfect crime and her secret to bear completely alone for the end of her life. and how Emilio's is the complete opposite because it's sexual slavery, and it was so publicized, not only to Eden, but to Earth and confesses to an Audience of it. IDKKKKKKKK. IT JUST BROKE ME SO BAD. LIKE I WAS JUST GENUINELY SHATTERED AT THEIR RESPECTIVE TRAGEDIES.

lines: sorry that these are 1:1 to the lines braintransplant choose but it . LIKE THOSE REALLY WERE THE PARTS.

• “But it was my body. It was my blood," he said, choking with fury. "And it was my love”
• “Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.” / “But still, the sparrow falls,” Felipe said.
• “The problem with atheism, I find, under these circumstances," he continued with academic exactitude, each word etched on the air with acid, "is that I have no one to despise but myself. If, however, I choose to believe that God is vicious, then at least I have the solace of hating God.”

DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones
this book is funny as a comedy. mid as a book. I enjoyed it far less than I thought it would. it's not the crazy old woman-ism got old, but everything that Detracted from that got old. the letters to the police were the highest parts. and then everything else moved soooo slowly like I think it was the constraint of linear timeline that made this book kind-of a pain to get through like it would've been very fun if it was just stream of consciousness narrative voice allowed to do Fuck All and Also Murders are happening in the background. IDKKKK. anyway I 100% think this book should be read as a comedy.

lines

• "I know, I know I'm neurotic and oversensitive, and I should go and get treatment." She glanced at me with sudden hope, as if expecting me to contradict her, but meanwhile I was noting mentally that there are still normal people in this world.
• I find this division of people into three groups – skiers, allergy sufferers and drivers – very convincing. It is a good, straightforward typology. Skiers are hedonists. They are carried down the slopes. Whereas drivers prefer to take their fate in their hands, although their spines often suffer as a result; we all know life is hard. Whereas the allergy sufferers are always at war. I must surely be an allergy sufferer.
• This is a very rare configuration of the planets, and thus I have great confidence in commending it to the attention of the Police. I am taking the liberty of enclosing both Horoscopes, in the expectation that the police Astrologer will consult them, and then support my Hypothesis
• It’s strange how the Night erases all colours, as if it didn’t give a damn about such worldly extravagance.

A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE arkady martine
isn't it fucked up that all the most interesting shit in this book happens like. in the preludes of each section. Fucked up. terrible plot. interesting linguistics. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE ROMANCE FUCK THREE SEAGRASS. huge L for old man yaoi. ummmmmmm..... not bad overall. sorry this was 10 million years ago and I remember not liking it enough to immediately read the sequel but it still being vaguely interesting enough to make me at least think about reading the sequel. literally like, the sparrow did the linguisitics better, and imperial radach did Everything Else better. STILL imago-tech was a very very veryyyyy cool innovation

BE FUCKING FREE!!!! sorry that these 'reviews' are in noooo way helpful or communicate anything At All about any of these books at all. if it helps, my recommendations are ancillary justice and the sparrow. 

+++ ash's review of twh, which is super super insightful + director's cut of beautiful lines  Anddddd   noura's imperial radach posts  which goes wayyy more into depth about the books