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A review by benjobuks
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
4.0
This book was disconcerting at the start, but became something I couldn't turn away from once I became accustomed to the narrative voices and Hairston's writing style. It immediately drew me in with the poetic voice Hairston employs to bring us into complex experiences of other-than-human sensory worlds, interweaving past, present and futures and other non-linear modes of thinking/being. It was also powerful to read a story so solidly in a different worlding than traditional European/American science fiction (i.e. Tolkien, Asimov, Jordan, etc...) or even those which describe alternatives that are nonetheless still built directly as critiques of those worldings (i.e. LeGuin and some Butler.)
Transitions between spaces and moments in time were sudden, often requiring backtracking to figure out what was happening, but I got used to needing to pay more attention between paragraphs and chapters. I didn't love it in the beginning, but came to deeply admire the world of multispecies kinship, non-linear time and deep queerness Hairston created in an epic story of how we can address socio-environmental crisis. Much love for this world and this author.
Transitions between spaces and moments in time were sudden, often requiring backtracking to figure out what was happening, but I got used to needing to pay more attention between paragraphs and chapters. I didn't love it in the beginning, but came to deeply admire the world of multispecies kinship, non-linear time and deep queerness Hairston created in an epic story of how we can address socio-environmental crisis. Much love for this world and this author.