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sdwoodchuck's reviews
75 reviews
The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
This is a gender-flipped retelling of the Chinese classic The Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh depending on your translation (which was also the loose inspiration for the Suikoden videogame series). Lin Chong is a martial arts instructor for the military who is framed by a jealous superior, and sent to die. With the help of a couple of her pupils, she escapes from her would-be murderers, and is taken in by the bandits of Liangshan marsh, a group of (mostly) women who remain loyal to the empire, but who stand up against the corrupt within it.
I'm a fan of the original (despite some very dated elements), and this takes that monster of a text and makes it much more accessible and fun, with a style inspired more by Wuxia cinema and fantasy elements that are maybe a little overcooked, but never too overbearing.
Overall Grade: Solid A. It's fun, it's insightful, and it has some great characters.
4.0
This is a gender-flipped retelling of the Chinese classic The Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh depending on your translation (which was also the loose inspiration for the Suikoden videogame series). Lin Chong is a martial arts instructor for the military who is framed by a jealous superior, and sent to die. With the help of a couple of her pupils, she escapes from her would-be murderers, and is taken in by the bandits of Liangshan marsh, a group of (mostly) women who remain loyal to the empire, but who stand up against the corrupt within it.
I'm a fan of the original (despite some very dated elements), and this takes that monster of a text and makes it much more accessible and fun, with a style inspired more by Wuxia cinema and fantasy elements that are maybe a little overcooked, but never too overbearing.
Overall Grade: Solid A. It's fun, it's insightful, and it has some great characters.
Peace by Gene Wolfe
A tree falls over outside his home, and Alden Dennis Weer wakes to find that he's had a stroke, and that he's able to wander freely through his own memories. His wanderings around his property and through the recesses of his own mind move at a leisurely pace as he recounts the the struggles and Christmas surprises of his youth and growing up in a small town, his fumbles with love, and his wealthy old age, after he had made his fortune. ...But doesn't it seem like something is missing, from this story?
This was a reread for me, of a book that I try to revisit once every couple years. Gene Wolfe is known for his unreliable narrators and puzzle-box stories, and Peace is probably my favorite. Neil Gaiman famously described it as just being a gentle midwest memoir on first reading, but that it had become a horror story by the third. There is certainly something dark lurking beneath the surface here, and it's fascinating to me that there's no concrete answer as to what. There's one element that is largely agreed on regardless of interpretation, but to this day readers each see the events as spinning off in wholly different directions, leading to completely different resulting stories. Every time I've revisited Peace, it has been a new mystery for me. Yes, I know who and what Weer is, but is that all that he is? I will never have an answer, but the question keeps me coming back more than any answer could.
5.0
A tree falls over outside his home, and Alden Dennis Weer wakes to find that he's had a stroke, and that he's able to wander freely through his own memories. His wanderings around his property and through the recesses of his own mind move at a leisurely pace as he recounts the the struggles and Christmas surprises of his youth and growing up in a small town, his fumbles with love, and his wealthy old age, after he had made his fortune. ...But doesn't it seem like something is missing, from this story?
This was a reread for me, of a book that I try to revisit once every couple years. Gene Wolfe is known for his unreliable narrators and puzzle-box stories, and Peace is probably my favorite. Neil Gaiman famously described it as just being a gentle midwest memoir on first reading, but that it had become a horror story by the third. There is certainly something dark lurking beneath the surface here, and it's fascinating to me that there's no concrete answer as to what. There's one element that is largely agreed on regardless of interpretation, but to this day readers each see the events as spinning off in wholly different directions, leading to completely different resulting stories. Every time I've revisited Peace, it has been a new mystery for me. Yes, I know who and what Weer is, but is that all that he is? I will never have an answer, but the question keeps me coming back more than any answer could.
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel by Amy Hempel
All of Amy Hempel's short stories collected into one book.
This was a reread for me, and Amy Hempel is probably my favorite short story writer. There are short stories that I like more than hers, but she is such a master of writing sentences that accomplish so much text and context and tone in so few words that I can't help but be impressed with the craft. The one mark I'll put against reading her stories this way, though, is that many of them are pretty similar in tone and narrative voice, so back to back to back they can feel a little samey and maybe get a tad tiresome. Still. What a writer.
A couple of recommendations, if you can track them down: The Harvest and In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried. The former begins with:
I've always loved that sentence.
5.0
All of Amy Hempel's short stories collected into one book.
This was a reread for me, and Amy Hempel is probably my favorite short story writer. There are short stories that I like more than hers, but she is such a master of writing sentences that accomplish so much text and context and tone in so few words that I can't help but be impressed with the craft. The one mark I'll put against reading her stories this way, though, is that many of them are pretty similar in tone and narrative voice, so back to back to back they can feel a little samey and maybe get a tad tiresome. Still. What a writer.
A couple of recommendations, if you can track them down: The Harvest and In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried. The former begins with:
The year I began to say vahz instead of vase, a man I barely knew nearly accidentally killed me.
I've always loved that sentence.
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Robin Swift, a half-Chinese boy adopted and raised in England by a Guardian, is a natural with linguistics. And considering 1830's England is powered by magical silver pilfered from all over the world, and energized with the power of translation, he becomes a valuable asset, being one of the few who speaks both English and Cantonese. He enrolls at Oxford, at the English translation institute, and finds himself enmeshed in a group of friends, as well as an underground movement to break the colonialist grip of England over their homelands.
I'm so conflicted on this one, because I love the early chapters, the rising action, the establishment of the characters and the friend group, and their group dynamics in particular. It's such a good foundation for the story being told here, that it becomes doubly frustrating when it just kind of fizzles out in the last quarter. Unfortunately, at that point it turns a corner where the message that has served as a satisfying foundation for the story instead subsumes it, and the work begins to take on the shape of polemic. And it's polemic in service to a topic I think is important and that I care about very much, but a work needs to do more than agree with my worldview to engage me, and sadly it doesn't reach much further than that, when the rubber meets the road.
Still, there's a lot of quality here, and a rough ending doesn't sink it overall.
3.25
Robin Swift, a half-Chinese boy adopted and raised in England by a Guardian, is a natural with linguistics. And considering 1830's England is powered by magical silver pilfered from all over the world, and energized with the power of translation, he becomes a valuable asset, being one of the few who speaks both English and Cantonese. He enrolls at Oxford, at the English translation institute, and finds himself enmeshed in a group of friends, as well as an underground movement to break the colonialist grip of England over their homelands.
I'm so conflicted on this one, because I love the early chapters, the rising action, the establishment of the characters and the friend group, and their group dynamics in particular. It's such a good foundation for the story being told here, that it becomes doubly frustrating when it just kind of fizzles out in the last quarter. Unfortunately, at that point it turns a corner where the message that has served as a satisfying foundation for the story instead subsumes it, and the work begins to take on the shape of polemic. And it's polemic in service to a topic I think is important and that I care about very much, but a work needs to do more than agree with my worldview to engage me, and sadly it doesn't reach much further than that, when the rubber meets the road.
Still, there's a lot of quality here, and a rough ending doesn't sink it overall.
Embassytown by China Miéville
A colony on the edge of the known universe is in jeopardy when humans ambassadors trained to speak the natives' language have unintended side-effects.
I'm aware how silly that description sounds, but it's actually pretty remarkable as an exploration of language and the ways communication across different ways of thinking becomes possible. Probably most interesting to me, though, is the way that it borrows and inverts concepts from traditional alien invasion stories. Here the humans are the invasive species wreaking havok (albeit unintentionally), and the native "aliens" are reacting in fear and pushing back in ways that may not always be in their best interests.
It's hard to explain just how well the strangeness of this book works, but I've never read anything quite like it. Not my favorite Mieville novel, but it's up there.
4.0
A colony on the edge of the known universe is in jeopardy when humans ambassadors trained to speak the natives' language have unintended side-effects.
I'm aware how silly that description sounds, but it's actually pretty remarkable as an exploration of language and the ways communication across different ways of thinking becomes possible. Probably most interesting to me, though, is the way that it borrows and inverts concepts from traditional alien invasion stories. Here the humans are the invasive species wreaking havok (albeit unintentionally), and the native "aliens" are reacting in fear and pushing back in ways that may not always be in their best interests.
It's hard to explain just how well the strangeness of this book works, but I've never read anything quite like it. Not my favorite Mieville novel, but it's up there.
Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop
It's the summer of 1943 and young men all over the US are being drafted for the war in Europe and the Pacific. Danny Boles, still a year away from draft eligibility, is recruited to join a minor league baseball team out of Georgia called the Highbridge Hellbenders. His speech impediment (a stutter that occasionally flares up into full-blown muteness) gets him paired up as roommate to the team's other outcast, "Jumbo" Hank Clerval, who is hideously ugly and seven feet tall, but also well-read, polite, and one hell of a first baseman. The two strike up a friendship over the course of the Hellbender's 1943 season, culminating in... well...
Here's the thing. You wouldn't know it by that description, but Brittle Innings is a sci-fi novel, and those elements don't reveal themselves until the book's second half. Normally I am not one to encourage the avoidance of spoilers, but I make an exception here, not because I think the story is better for not knowing, but because the turn it takes seems so absurd on paper that some folks might never give it a shot. And that's a damn shame, because Brittle Innings has emerged as one of my absolute favorite novels in the genre.
I don't think it's quite perfect (the ending stumbles a bit, and the love story feels a little perfunctory), but the audacity of it is incredible, and that it delivers on that audacity is some kind of miracle. I also want to point out that Bishop's command of voice is excellent, both in the narrator (who always feels like a person with an opinion on what he's reporting), and in characters having speech patterns that feel unique and alive, to the degree that you can often tell who is talking without ever being told.
This was the best book I read in 2024.
5.0
It's the summer of 1943 and young men all over the US are being drafted for the war in Europe and the Pacific. Danny Boles, still a year away from draft eligibility, is recruited to join a minor league baseball team out of Georgia called the Highbridge Hellbenders. His speech impediment (a stutter that occasionally flares up into full-blown muteness) gets him paired up as roommate to the team's other outcast, "Jumbo" Hank Clerval, who is hideously ugly and seven feet tall, but also well-read, polite, and one hell of a first baseman. The two strike up a friendship over the course of the Hellbender's 1943 season, culminating in... well...
Here's the thing. You wouldn't know it by that description, but Brittle Innings is a sci-fi novel, and those elements don't reveal themselves until the book's second half. Normally I am not one to encourage the avoidance of spoilers, but I make an exception here, not because I think the story is better for not knowing, but because the turn it takes seems so absurd on paper that some folks might never give it a shot. And that's a damn shame, because Brittle Innings has emerged as one of my absolute favorite novels in the genre.
I don't think it's quite perfect (the ending stumbles a bit, and the love story feels a little perfunctory), but the audacity of it is incredible, and that it delivers on that audacity is some kind of miracle. I also want to point out that Bishop's command of voice is excellent, both in the narrator (who always feels like a person with an opinion on what he's reporting), and in characters having speech patterns that feel unique and alive, to the degree that you can often tell who is talking without ever being told.
This was the best book I read in 2024.
Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakmi's second novel picks up with the same protagonist as Hear the Wind Sing, and (eventually) follows his quest to track down a rare Pinball machine that made a meaningful impression on his life, while The Rat struggles with love and finding a way forward.
I don't quite love this one, but I do like it, and what a fantastic leap forward from the slog was Hear the Wind Sing. Murakami has a better grasp of his style here, a little more confidence in leading us to places that have the texture of the real world despite feeling wholly unreal. The start still meanders, but the meandering feels alive this time, and once it gains some traction I found myself wholly invested in the character's completely inconsequential quest. This character and The Rat would go on to feature in Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, both of which I'd read in the past (and are disconnected enough that they can be read without either or both of these), and both of which I like quite a bit. Pinball, 1973 doesn't rank among my favorites of Murakami's work, but it's quite good.
3.5
Haruki Murakmi's second novel picks up with the same protagonist as Hear the Wind Sing, and (eventually) follows his quest to track down a rare Pinball machine that made a meaningful impression on his life, while The Rat struggles with love and finding a way forward.
I don't quite love this one, but I do like it, and what a fantastic leap forward from the slog was Hear the Wind Sing. Murakami has a better grasp of his style here, a little more confidence in leading us to places that have the texture of the real world despite feeling wholly unreal. The start still meanders, but the meandering feels alive this time, and once it gains some traction I found myself wholly invested in the character's completely inconsequential quest. This character and The Rat would go on to feature in Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance, both of which I'd read in the past (and are disconnected enough that they can be read without either or both of these), and both of which I like quite a bit. Pinball, 1973 doesn't rank among my favorites of Murakami's work, but it's quite good.
Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami's first novel follows a young man's summer vacation home from University as he drinks with a friend named The Rat, ruminates on past loves, hangs out with a record store clerk who can't decide if she likes him or mistrusts him, and smokes a lot of cigarettes.
I read this book less than a week ago, and it made so little of an impression that I had to look up a wikipedia summary to jog my memory. I like Haruki Murakami even as I acknowledge he has some bad habits dealing with writing women and sexuality, and he returns to the same wells (both figurative and literal) a little too frequently. But this is the second book of his that I just loathe (the other being Norwegian Wood). I'd love to cut it some slack as it's his first novel, and to be sure some of his signature dreamlike weirdness is here, but as unrefined as it is in this text, it instead just feels like boredom and drunken haze. It's like Green Day's Dookie album in novel form, but with none of the charm or energy.
Overall Grade: F. That said, if I judge it as a first outing, that probably bumps up to a D+; still not good, but bad in ways that are understandable.
1.0
Haruki Murakami's first novel follows a young man's summer vacation home from University as he drinks with a friend named The Rat, ruminates on past loves, hangs out with a record store clerk who can't decide if she likes him or mistrusts him, and smokes a lot of cigarettes.
I read this book less than a week ago, and it made so little of an impression that I had to look up a wikipedia summary to jog my memory. I like Haruki Murakami even as I acknowledge he has some bad habits dealing with writing women and sexuality, and he returns to the same wells (both figurative and literal) a little too frequently. But this is the second book of his that I just loathe (the other being Norwegian Wood). I'd love to cut it some slack as it's his first novel, and to be sure some of his signature dreamlike weirdness is here, but as unrefined as it is in this text, it instead just feels like boredom and drunken haze. It's like Green Day's Dookie album in novel form, but with none of the charm or energy.
Overall Grade: F. That said, if I judge it as a first outing, that probably bumps up to a D+; still not good, but bad in ways that are understandable.
The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
In the sequel to Hyperion, a human/AI hybrid seeks to understand the significance of the pilgrims' journey to the time tombs, while the Human Hegemony falls further into warfare and chaos.
When I'd previously read Hyperion, I stopped after the first book. It ends with an open ending that is very satisfying, and all I've ever heard about the series is that each subsequent book is a little worse than the one before, so I decided to leave it on that high note. But my book club is reading all four, so on I went with the second this time, and... I don't really like it. The Keats Cybrid is not an interesting character to me, despite what he's meant to represent. Gladstone is not an interesting character to me. The characters that I'm invested in from the first book make appearances and are involved, and this leads to brief moments where I'm completely on board, but overall I just found myself going through the motions while the text gave me answers that were much less interesting than the questions I'd had previously.
3.25
In the sequel to Hyperion, a human/AI hybrid seeks to understand the significance of the pilgrims' journey to the time tombs, while the Human Hegemony falls further into warfare and chaos.
When I'd previously read Hyperion, I stopped after the first book. It ends with an open ending that is very satisfying, and all I've ever heard about the series is that each subsequent book is a little worse than the one before, so I decided to leave it on that high note. But my book club is reading all four, so on I went with the second this time, and... I don't really like it. The Keats Cybrid is not an interesting character to me, despite what he's meant to represent. Gladstone is not an interesting character to me. The characters that I'm invested in from the first book make appearances and are involved, and this leads to brief moments where I'm completely on board, but overall I just found myself going through the motions while the text gave me answers that were much less interesting than the questions I'd had previously.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Far future sci-fi through the lens of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Three factions war for control of the mysterious world called Hyperion and its mysterious Time Tombs, while a seemingly unstoppable Slasher Diety called The Shrike abducts those unfortunate enough to be his targets, and impales them on his vast tree of thorns. Into this maelstrom, seven pilgrims are chosen to make pilgrimage to the Time Tombs. To pass the time, each shares a story about him or herself, revealing their secret pasts, their reasons for embarking on the journey, and hopefully some clue that can help them survive their imminent encounter with the Shrike.
This was the second time through Hyperion for me (for a book club that is reading the entire tetralogy), and I enjoyed it just as much this time. The love isn't uniform though. The Scholar's and Priest's tales are especially excellent, while the Detective's has never been able to grip me. The characters too are a mixed bag, but as a satisfying mix of sci-fi and horror and Chaucer, it's remarkable.
3.75
Far future sci-fi through the lens of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Three factions war for control of the mysterious world called Hyperion and its mysterious Time Tombs, while a seemingly unstoppable Slasher Diety called The Shrike abducts those unfortunate enough to be his targets, and impales them on his vast tree of thorns. Into this maelstrom, seven pilgrims are chosen to make pilgrimage to the Time Tombs. To pass the time, each shares a story about him or herself, revealing their secret pasts, their reasons for embarking on the journey, and hopefully some clue that can help them survive their imminent encounter with the Shrike.
This was the second time through Hyperion for me (for a book club that is reading the entire tetralogy), and I enjoyed it just as much this time. The love isn't uniform though. The Scholar's and Priest's tales are especially excellent, while the Detective's has never been able to grip me. The characters too are a mixed bag, but as a satisfying mix of sci-fi and horror and Chaucer, it's remarkable.