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A review by carlyxdeexx
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
4.0
I was so excited to read this after buying it at BookCon and chatting with Charlie Jane—I knew I needed to read more by her after reading her short story in last year’s BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY.
This book didn’t disappoint. It’s unlike any other fantasy I’ve read, and the themes are so relevant: time and and individualism as tools of oppression, the power of community and collaboration and sharing ideas, embracing instead of fearing uniqueness, evolving as the environment evolves, there’s so much here.
Also, there’s barely a man in this book and it’s a breath of fresh air to follow a main cast of women with men in supporting roles. You’ll find plenty of romantic tension, but romance isn’t everything in this story—building relationships is difficult and complicated, and sometimes our emotions get in the way of our seeing who someone really is. There’s no predicting where Anders will take you and the characters next, each new development building on the last in a way that feels organic, almost meandering. This is a book that takes its time, which isn’t to say it’s slow or padded, but it doesn’t feel precisely scripted.
This is a quality I like, but I find it can sometimes stifle my reading momentum. It’s not necessarily bad for pacing, but I’m not quite used to it. Still, in a book about time, moving from regimented time to a near lack of it, this kind of feel makes sense.
I love the Gelet, and the concept of January, and the plausibility of this future, albeit a terrifying plausibility. Maybe we can foster the community we need to foster across the borders we create now, to prevent our own climate crisis from pushing us off-world.
This book didn’t disappoint. It’s unlike any other fantasy I’ve read, and the themes are so relevant: time and and individualism as tools of oppression, the power of community and collaboration and sharing ideas, embracing instead of fearing uniqueness, evolving as the environment evolves, there’s so much here.
Also, there’s barely a man in this book and it’s a breath of fresh air to follow a main cast of women with men in supporting roles. You’ll find plenty of romantic tension, but romance isn’t everything in this story—building relationships is difficult and complicated, and sometimes our emotions get in the way of our seeing who someone really is. There’s no predicting where Anders will take you and the characters next, each new development building on the last in a way that feels organic, almost meandering. This is a book that takes its time, which isn’t to say it’s slow or padded, but it doesn’t feel precisely scripted.
This is a quality I like, but I find it can sometimes stifle my reading momentum. It’s not necessarily bad for pacing, but I’m not quite used to it. Still, in a book about time, moving from regimented time to a near lack of it, this kind of feel makes sense.
I love the Gelet, and the concept of January, and the plausibility of this future, albeit a terrifying plausibility. Maybe we can foster the community we need to foster across the borders we create now, to prevent our own climate crisis from pushing us off-world.