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Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Premise: Wolf Hall essentially gives the reader an account of Thomas Cromwell's life and rise to power in the court of Henry VIII Tudor, from his POV, and an inextricably linked account of the political and religious turmoil that took place in 16th century Europe – with the focus being on England, obviously.
And I honestly really liked this first entry in Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy. I wouldn't say this is a new favourite by any means, as it doesn't really feature anything I tend to love from a theming or world-building POV (and yes even considering this is based on real-world history). But I found it very interesting from, well, a historical point of view. I also found Wolf Hall's character work superb: it is rich, nuanced and probably the book's (or series', I suppose) main selling point for me. It additionally meshes beautifully with the complexity of the story's historical context. I was already familiar with this period, but am by no means an expert in it either; both story and characters did a really good job of showing just what a massive societal upheaval the Reformation actually caused in Europe.
Stylistically, well... this is definitely a slower story, which is fine. It felt a little too slow in places, but this wasn't otherwise a problem overall. I enjoyed Mantel's prose on the whole as well, but found her choice of referring to Cromwell as "he" unnecessarily confusing. It was certainly highly confusing at first, but I think it remained confusing, in places, later on in the story – especially on audiobook.
Still, I was mildly, but pleasantly surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did, and am happy to continue with this trilogy and see it through!
And I honestly really liked this first entry in Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy. I wouldn't say this is a new favourite by any means, as it doesn't really feature anything I tend to love from a theming or world-building POV (and yes even considering this is based on real-world history). But I found it very interesting from, well, a historical point of view. I also found Wolf Hall's character work superb: it is rich, nuanced and probably the book's (or series', I suppose) main selling point for me. It additionally meshes beautifully with the complexity of the story's historical context. I was already familiar with this period, but am by no means an expert in it either; both story and characters did a really good job of showing just what a massive societal upheaval the Reformation actually caused in Europe.
Stylistically, well... this is definitely a slower story, which is fine. It felt a little too slow in places, but this wasn't otherwise a problem overall. I enjoyed Mantel's prose on the whole as well, but found her choice of referring to Cromwell as "he" unnecessarily confusing. It was certainly highly confusing at first, but I think it remained confusing, in places, later on in the story – especially on audiobook.
Still, I was mildly, but pleasantly surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did, and am happy to continue with this trilogy and see it through!
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Basic premise: A lite historical fantasy tale of witching, sisterhood and women's liberation set in the late 19th century, in the United States, drawing on symbols and archetypes taken from Western fairy tales and mythical tradition.
Thoughts: I'm having a hard time thinking of anything super specific to say about The Once and Future Witches. I certainly liked it: its pagan/neopagan (as the case might've been) motifs, or symbolism (e.g. the triple Goddess as Maiden, Mother, Crone; the multiplicity of the number three itself; the triquetra or ouroboros, Avalon, etc...) and classical Western witchcraft imagery (e.g. familiars, rhyming spells, herb lore, witch trials, etc...) were all very appealing to me.
I would also contend this novel just about counts as real feminist fantasy fiction insofar as it does thematically centre, to a large extent, on the struggles of downtrodden women within a patriarchal (and classist, and racist) system. On their anger as well, more specifically. But also on female community and interconnectedness... in a manner not entirely dissimilar to the way When Women Were Dragons (which I also read this month) develops these same themes.
But I think The Once and Future Witches does a better job of exploring, or at least expressing: anger, rage... just the darker pain-fuelled emotions that arise from oppression than When Women Were Dragons overall. And I really appreciated that about the former.
Its character work was... what it needed to be. I feel the novel's three main characters chiefly functioned as archetypes, but wouldn't say they were completely devoid of actual personality either. And I liked the fact the story didn't shy away from the fact healing from familial wounds, even trauma, isn't necessarily a straightforward process. When Women Were Dragons doesn't exactly portray female familial ties as simple or simplistically 'lovey-dovey' either, but like I said I feel it chose to focus on a more, ah... "direct" path overall when it came to these topics.
Yet I feel like something was missing here, and I don't really know what, exactly. Dragons on the one hand, witches on the other: I adore both, and both are important to me as personal symbols, archetypes, concepts, signifiers. In terms of 'aesthetics', I think I preferred The Once and Future Witches, but my best guess is that its feminist, and broader theming, felt a smidge lighter, overall, than When Women Were Dragons' and also slightly less emotionally impactful... and that's why I just don't feel like I enjoyed the former quite on the same level as the latter.
Still, I'd recommend The Once and Future Witches for more or less the same reasons I would When Women Were Dragons: both are contemporary and enjoyable, female-led stories centred on a classic supernatural and/or mythological motif with decent feminist theming.
Thoughts: I'm having a hard time thinking of anything super specific to say about The Once and Future Witches. I certainly liked it: its pagan/neopagan (as the case might've been) motifs, or symbolism (e.g. the triple Goddess as Maiden, Mother, Crone; the multiplicity of the number three itself; the triquetra or ouroboros, Avalon, etc...) and classical Western witchcraft imagery (e.g. familiars, rhyming spells, herb lore, witch trials, etc...) were all very appealing to me.
I would also contend this novel just about counts as real feminist fantasy fiction insofar as it does thematically centre, to a large extent, on the struggles of downtrodden women within a patriarchal (and classist, and racist) system. On their anger as well, more specifically. But also on female community and interconnectedness... in a manner not entirely dissimilar to the way When Women Were Dragons (which I also read this month) develops these same themes.
But I think The Once and Future Witches does a better job of exploring, or at least expressing: anger, rage... just the darker pain-fuelled emotions that arise from oppression than When Women Were Dragons overall. And I really appreciated that about the former.
Its character work was... what it needed to be. I feel the novel's three main characters chiefly functioned as archetypes, but wouldn't say they were completely devoid of actual personality either. And I liked the fact the story didn't shy away from the fact healing from familial wounds, even trauma, isn't necessarily a straightforward process. When Women Were Dragons doesn't exactly portray female familial ties as simple or simplistically 'lovey-dovey' either, but like I said I feel it chose to focus on a more, ah... "direct" path overall when it came to these topics.
Yet I feel like something was missing here, and I don't really know what, exactly. Dragons on the one hand, witches on the other: I adore both, and both are important to me as personal symbols, archetypes, concepts, signifiers. In terms of 'aesthetics', I think I preferred The Once and Future Witches, but my best guess is that its feminist, and broader theming, felt a smidge lighter, overall, than When Women Were Dragons' and also slightly less emotionally impactful... and that's why I just don't feel like I enjoyed the former quite on the same level as the latter.
Still, I'd recommend The Once and Future Witches for more or less the same reasons I would When Women Were Dragons: both are contemporary and enjoyable, female-led stories centred on a classic supernatural and/or mythological motif with decent feminist theming.
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Full video review: https://youtu.be/o4extjLoo8s?si=IrY4HjV1ppaTAUcc.
When Women Were Dragons is lite, domestic fantasy that features a version of reality where women are capable of "dragoning", i.e. transforming into dragons, and this has been consistently bound in shame and/or secrecy throughout history. The story itself is developed as the memoirs of its female character, named Alex, and largely takes place in the United States, in the 1950s, when an event called the 'Mass Dragoning' took place and was subsequently covered up.
As stated above, this is lite, domestic fantasy (or realistic fantasy, as a 'step above' magical realism I guess). This is partly because When Women Were Dragons is a very quiet story centred on the very domestic lives, and interrelatedness of its main and secondary (principally female) characters. As such, it is decently character-focused as well, in a way that beautifully synergised with the book's theming on, well, aforementioned interrelatedness, especially as it applies to – specifically female – familial ties... and a certain knot motif I thought paired nicely with the novel's much stronger draconic one.
When Women Were Dragons is also domestic in that it actually features properly feminist theming (yay!) centred on the silent, every day sex-based oppression experienced by women socialised, through gender, into domestic submission... and the shame, then rage, this has often led, and still often leads to (to varying extents, in varying ways, across time and culture, of course). And yes, I include both physical violence, and the psychological violence of stifling a person's individuality and greater aspirations within this too-gentle label of 'domestic submission'. Dragoning, in effect, largely (though not exclusively) serves as a metaphor for pain, festered into rage, that can no longer be silenced, and contained within oneself. Shame, silence, and transformative anger are also tied into broader theming on social injustice... but also segues into surprisingly good commentary on the ways oppression, discrimination, stereotyping – and the bias those things inevitably lead to – impact the acquisition and transmission of empirical knowledge, especially as it applies to the life sciences.
A couple of additional thoughts, both positive and negative:
1) To this dragon, mythology and feminist nerd, the very fact women can transform into dragons just kinda reflects the archetypal relationship (in the Western spiritual tradition, at any rate) between the Supernatural Female, fantastical serpents/dragons and Nature. This symbolic equivalency has certainly been painted as negative by Western patriarchy but it also has a rather glorious aspect, and the fact I got a whiff of that through the book's central conceptual motif gave me the "squee feelz". 😄
2) That being said, I am also, unfortunately, disappointed the book didn't commit more deeply to female rage and 'wildness' as a theme.A lot of the 'dragoned' women not only eventually return to their families, some are shown to go back to wearing... lipstick? Carrying handbags, and cooking dinners for their families like the good little housewives they used to be. Now, don't get me wrong: I understand some of that just illustrates the fact women are interconnected human beings just like everyone else... because they are human beings, first and foremost. And most of us want to care for those we love and be part of their lives. But part of the problem of women's oppression is precisely that our human capacity for empathy (nurtured, on average, in girls and women to greater extents than it is in boys and men, though one may hope this is in fact improving), for loving and caring about others before our own selves, has been 'weaponised' against us. Women 'erupting' in full draconic glory... only to go back to wearing kitchen aprons and fucking lipstick thus felt like a massive letdown. Additionally... I'm an excellent visualiser and a dragon wearing lipstick, or carrying a handbag (outside of perhaps absurdist fantasy) is just a big fat ridiculous nope for me. 😅 I understand this was a choice made by the author, and I don't think it's intrinsically 'good or bad'. I just would've preferred something with even more, well... 'draconic bite'.
Either way, I would definitely recommend this novel, if only because it's an actual example of (good) contemporary feminist SFF – something which I've honestly struggled to find. Have I seen better in this particular domain? Oh yes, absolutely: the best feminist SFF I've read firmly remains written before... the 2010s at most recent. 😅 But this, at least, is something, and it's a something with freaking dragons so that gets an automatic point from me!
When Women Were Dragons is lite, domestic fantasy that features a version of reality where women are capable of "dragoning", i.e. transforming into dragons, and this has been consistently bound in shame and/or secrecy throughout history. The story itself is developed as the memoirs of its female character, named Alex, and largely takes place in the United States, in the 1950s, when an event called the 'Mass Dragoning' took place and was subsequently covered up.
As stated above, this is lite, domestic fantasy (or realistic fantasy, as a 'step above' magical realism I guess). This is partly because When Women Were Dragons is a very quiet story centred on the very domestic lives, and interrelatedness of its main and secondary (principally female) characters. As such, it is decently character-focused as well, in a way that beautifully synergised with the book's theming on, well, aforementioned interrelatedness, especially as it applies to – specifically female – familial ties... and a certain knot motif I thought paired nicely with the novel's much stronger draconic one.
When Women Were Dragons is also domestic in that it actually features properly feminist theming (yay!) centred on the silent, every day sex-based oppression experienced by women socialised, through gender, into domestic submission... and the shame, then rage, this has often led, and still often leads to (to varying extents, in varying ways, across time and culture, of course). And yes, I include both physical violence, and the psychological violence of stifling a person's individuality and greater aspirations within this too-gentle label of 'domestic submission'. Dragoning, in effect, largely (though not exclusively) serves as a metaphor for pain, festered into rage, that can no longer be silenced, and contained within oneself. Shame, silence, and transformative anger are also tied into broader theming on social injustice... but also segues into surprisingly good commentary on the ways oppression, discrimination, stereotyping – and the bias those things inevitably lead to – impact the acquisition and transmission of empirical knowledge, especially as it applies to the life sciences.
A couple of additional thoughts, both positive and negative:
1) To this dragon, mythology and feminist nerd, the very fact women can transform into dragons just kinda reflects the archetypal relationship (in the Western spiritual tradition, at any rate) between the Supernatural Female, fantastical serpents/dragons and Nature. This symbolic equivalency has certainly been painted as negative by Western patriarchy but it also has a rather glorious aspect, and the fact I got a whiff of that through the book's central conceptual motif gave me the "squee feelz". 😄
2) That being said, I am also, unfortunately, disappointed the book didn't commit more deeply to female rage and 'wildness' as a theme.
Either way, I would definitely recommend this novel, if only because it's an actual example of (good) contemporary feminist SFF – something which I've honestly struggled to find. Have I seen better in this particular domain? Oh yes, absolutely: the best feminist SFF I've read firmly remains written before... the 2010s at most recent. 😅 But this, at least, is something, and it's a something with freaking dragons so that gets an automatic point from me!
Blindsight by Peter Watts
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
Full video review: https://youtu.be/uWr5nWDJvwE?si=Sauc4x267eW_B9-V.
Preliminary reaction:
This was garbo, and I'm mad at myself for not being able to DNF, and mad that this is considered the "hardest of hard SF" by many, give me a freaking break! Argh, so so mad. Actual review later when my thoughts have collected.
Premise:
Post-scarcity future (suuuure...). Lots of people upload their minds into a kind of Matrix (aight). Main character isa teenage edgelord who read some Nietzsche and Dawkins and thinks that makes him extra deep and smort a dude who has... ASPD? IDFK. Because of a therapeutic hemispherectomy he underwent as a child (that's not what hemispherectomies actually do to people but aight). And that makes him Speciully™ qualified to 'translate' science done by human-AI hybrids or some shit for normier humans. So a glorified data analyst, don't @ me. Then BAM! Lights show up in the sky all over the world: aliens LESSS GOOOOOOO. And our main bruv, Siri (just like the Apple thingie, can't make that shit up though in all fairness to the author his book came first – I'm pretty sure), gets recruited by Big Gov, along with a couple of other non-normie humans (I won't dignify this shit with the word neurodivergent here, fuck off), an... InGen-style resuscitated prehistoric... "vampire" (dies of cringe dies of cringe dies of cringe) to go off into space, uuuuuueeeeeeee! Because a Big Dumb Object, thought to be the source of the visiting alien lights/cameras/whatever has been identified bopping about in the solar system. Our crew thus needs to establish, audience say it with me: FIRST CONTACT WOO! With what turns out to be a rather weird and creepy alien entity, which might be super-intelligent... WITHOUT BEING CONSCIOUS ERMAGERD!!! 😱🤯
Ranty thoughts:
As you can probably tell, I'm not going to be able to write about this shite without copious amounts of salt and sarcasm, because I freaking hated this novel. I thought I'd seen the worst of it with The Book of the New Sun, but naur: this bish is the worst thing I have read this year – so far (and lawd have mercy on my soul there, please).
Blindsight was "sold" to me as the "hardest of hard SF (hurr durr)". That turned out to be a fat load of bollocks, gah dayum, and this book has now cemented my decision to abandon the soft(er) v. hard(er) SF dichotomy altogether . Because it is now painfully clear to me that specific labelling dichotomy comes with a lot of off-putting, posturing, pretentious, and yes, sod it, sexist baggage... I am so not interested in engaging with, much less perpetuating. From now on, it's: (primarily) ideas-driven v. (primarily) entertainment-driven SF baby, please and thank you.
And sure, Blindsight technically counts as ideas-driven SF, I'll give it that. But it's shite ideas-driven SF, in my book. Its concepts, ideas and theming specifically are what I take the biggest issue with, but before I tear into that:
a) Prose and plot: bruh. I'm not even that difficult when it comes to prose, and honestly I read through Blindsight really quickly... but that's precisely because I realised I could basically ignore a big chunk of its fanceh, I am so very smort-sounding technobabble words. A lot of the prose doesn't actually convey anything substantive: it's gobbledeegook I was able to breeze through without missing a beat. I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to info-dumping, but even I couldn't give a pass to Siri's egregiously unsubtle 'philosophy of mind' and neuroscience monologues. Yes, I'm a world-building and theming-driven reader, but when I pick up a novel, I expect concepts and ideas to be developed through the art of storytelling, not to read an essay masquerading as fiction, with 30 pages of 'citations' on top of that. I don't want to slip into ad hominems here; I wish the author nothing but health, happiness, and success in his future endeavours. But come the fuck on: who does that? What the hell are you trying to prove when you provide a short bibliography at the end of a novel ?! You know full well the vast majority of readers aren't going to fact-check your sources. Though, for what it's worth, I have seen, here and there, a few STEM-trained readers who didn't enjoy the novel comment on the issues with its "hard" science with greater detail than I ever could.
The pacing was also rather janky overall. The genuinely neat bit of the story, with the eldritchy-adjacent alien entity, could have – and I'd argue should have – been a short story, it was so, well... short, under-utilised, and ultimately underwhelming. Said entity "farts" a beam of electro-magnetic (?) particles, or something, at one point and that's honestly how the Scramblers felt to me: a cosmic wet fart, big whoop.
b) Character work: ppppffffffff. Where do I even begin? Just because I'm not a character-driven reader (in SFF at any rate), doesn't mean I'm just going to be chill with an edgily nihilistic (and sexist) main character snarkily spouting r/IAmFourteenAndThisISDeep levels of Rationalist™ philosophy in my face. Nor does it mean I'm just going to be chill with the shit I saw in Blindsight regarding its "non-normie" characters. IDGAF that it was written in 2006: this thing is still, currently, presented as Genius™-level "hardest of hard SF" and so I'm gonna call massive bs on that. Because the drivel said about autism, (with) sociopathy, dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia, even synaesthesia of all fucking things, and of course hemispherectomy is not only mildly offensive, it's laughably inaccurate. Outdated, at the very least, but again... no one seems to point that out so again, I'm calling it out. This book is supposedly Big Smort™ about philosophy of mind and neuroscience... but it's just not. I mean heck, for all its supposed brilliance and 30 pages of citations it is never once suggested Siri might suffer from freaking alexithymia ! And I just checked: the term was first introduced in 1973, so that's a fail.
And yeah, Siri is a(n edgy and sexist) shithead, who mostly acts like, well: a normie. Who. Is. A. Shithead. Nothing more. Then sometimes, I guess the plot needs to remind the reader that he is not, in fact, a normie, but Speciul™ with his lack of empathy... which then apparently also means he lacks a consciousness! Riiiiiiight, but I'll get back to the absolute grade-A clusterfuck that is the book's theming shortly.
c) World-building: humanity has supposedly reached a post-scarcity state but the world Siri lives in seemed rather dystopian to me. Aight. A lot of peeps upload their minds into the Matrix, essentially, and offline relationships have almost entirely ceased to exist... because reasons!? Stuff is said about drugs and neuro-chemicals used to enhance mood, people editing their personalities... then one dude still smokes actual cigarettes for some reason. Siri underwent a hemispherectomy to treat epilepsy, okay... I mean, I dunno it was a mishmash of things, honestly. It wasn't egregiously bad, but it wasn't very good or convincing either.
But then you have the fucking vampires... Oh my lawd what was that?! I'm not opposed to vampires in SF as a concept, but holy shit was their species-building in Blindsight abysmally stupid. Nothing about them made a lick of sense from an ecological, evolutionary or paleo-anthropological standpoint. And I repeat: this bish is primarily sold on the merit of its "hard SF" quality! I just... I couldn't with the freaking vampires. An infuriating conflation is also made between the concepts of sociopathy, asociality and predation. For fuck's sake: predatory animals and human sociopaths are not the same thing. Many predatory mammals are also social animals, and capable of empathy. Hell, killer whales are name-dropped, specifically, and I just wanted to laugh at the cosmic irony of that, given killer whales form extremely tight-knit family groups and may even have a part of the brain specifically devoted to social and emotional cognition we humans lack . AAAAAAAAAAAAGHH.
Look, if you want to make your prehistoric vampies sociopathic by default, go right ahead feller! Just: a) don't conflate that with "high-functioning autism" for one thing, please and fucking thank you, b) don't lazily argue they're sociopathic just because they're predators and "muh evolutionary psychology theory". Or do, but don't claim this shit is "hard science-fiction" because omegalul it so isn't. Also I called the I Am Legend "aw shid vampies taking over the world" schtick from kilometres away but it was just so "pointless addendum-y" I didn't give the slightest shit.
Whaddabout the super-smort but non-conscious aliens doe? Like I said: they provided the story with a smidge of decently executed SF horror for all of ten minutes (or however long it took me to read that section). And that's about it. Cross a spine, with a spindly starfish and a burr, and voilà! Ya gots yerself a Scrambler, congratulations! Their species-building was... fine, I guess? Their "invisibility"... didn't really make sense given the text's explanation, and their biology felt a little hand-wavy but eh, fine. Coulda been worse, coulda been better, whatevs.
d) Dah theming: because the simple fact is the Scramblers, Rorschach, the serial killer cave-vampies, Siri being ateenage edgelord human Chinese Room ( not , as it turns out, because fucking duh 🙄)... even the gods-awful character with DID (that's... not... how DID works, JFC, but anyhoo). Everything, in this novel, is there to bore its central "philosophical" conceit deep into the readers' brain with a sledgehammer: that consciousness is not only an accidental by-product of evolution (that only humans possess, deep breaths)... it is a deleterious one!
Hoooooooooo boy. Never mind the fact I don't personally agree with the conceit's first clause, or the fact "only humans are conscious" is a statement of opinion, and not one deriving from actual scientific consensus. Never mind the fact I agree even less with the conceit's second clause. If you're going to tackle this complex of a theme, and make the case for that huge of a claim, I expect to see the nuanced work required to prop it all up and make it passably convincing. Especially, once again, if I'm to consider your story the "hardest of hard SF". Blindsight, in my opinion, utterly, and I mean utterly fails on this front.
The two greatest issues I found with the books's theming on consciousness, and its philosophical conceit that "consciousness is bad", are as follow:
a) Consciousness is one of the hardest fucking concepts to define in the first place, oh my god! And there is so much egregious conflation of terms and concepts that I couldn't even tell, past a certain point, what exactly the author was even talking about. Consciousness, sentience, awareness, self-awareness: all are essentially used interchangeably and identically across different fields of knowledge. Which is understandable and fine in a colloquial context, but not when you purport to write diamond-hard SF with diamond-hard theming. Just no. Like holy shit this theme, of all freaking themes, needs nuance and specificity if you want me to engage with it, at a high level, in good faith! What's worse: empathy is also conflated with the previous terms. What the actual fuck?! An über-weird equivalency is drawn between sociopathy/ASPD/lack of empathy and lack of self-awareness/consciousness, and I was like: the fuck is that about?! How in the hell is this abject nonsense considered the hardest of hard science-fiction?!
b) So consciousness is bad, aight. Never mind the muppetty fact you're never really sure wtf is actually meant by consciousness in this book, exactly, nor the fact evolutionary theory isn't about qualifying things as "better" or "worse" in a human values sense... Blindsight's philosophical conceit rests, entirely, on circular reasoning. Because in point of fact, the only reason the book can confidently state consciousness is bad is because humans get fucked by a super-smort alien without a consciousness (and I guess 'half-conscious' serial killer cave-vampies, because empathy and consciousness are also conflated, like I said). Except that super-intelligent alien doesn't actually exist because this is a novel. Duh. So it's just incredibly bizarre how preachy and adamant Blindsight feels with regards to this idea. That a being could be 'super-smort' without self-awareness isn't simply presented as a neutral possibility, an avenue natural selection could explore with as much gusto as intelligent sentience, because why not. No, the book posits instead that because consciousness is weak and worthless evolutionary trash, there surely must be a non-sentient super-mort alien out there who could wipe us off the cosmic map. And, because it then presents you with a non-conscious but super-smort alien that could easily wipe humanity off the cosmic map, it must surely follow that consciousness is, in fact, weak and worthless evolutionary trash.
'Scuse me wut?! "Hardest of hard, ideas-driven SF" you said? GTFO.
And so yes, you have the whole "boner for sociopathy" deal, as well, kind of. I mean fuck our MC, Siri, who gets his feelz back after a... uhm, violent assault... Wait wut? How the fuck does that work exactly? Oh right, we're just supposed to accept this is super Smort™ and Deep™ akshual science-based SF, my bad, moving on. So Siri is stuck in a box, floating in space. He got feelz n' empathy again, cool beans. But then he kinda muses over the fact the cave-vampy captain of his crew was right, and that consciousness, and empathy (because again why be specific with your concepts when you can just conflate shit to your heart's content) are Weak™. And Might Makes Right™, because (very bad understanding of) Evolution™.
Here's the thing: let's assume we are all hard-core materialist atheists – I'm not, but for the sake of argument. That we all agree Life, the Universe and Everything (yes that's right I did hehe) are inherently meaningless, and that consciousness, self-awareness, the Self, what have you... is a simple accident of natural selection. SO. THE. FUCK. WHAT? You can still create meaning for yourself, in this world, in this lifetime. And the fact is that even if the self is an absurd and pointless 'waste product of the brain', it still exists, despite everything, and isn't that, in and of itself, kind of wonderful? Isn't there beauty in this "accident"? Isn't that good enough, in a way, at least some of the time?
Extra salt on the book's discourse:
This is the core of what fundamentally bugged me about Blindsight, as an ideas-driven piece of fiction, and its promotion by some readers: the fact the book "pushes a message" of edgy, misanthropic, quasi-pro-sociopathy nihilism does not, de facto, make it brilliantly intelligent or Rational™. It is not a question of science (hard or otherwise), of fact, of (also generally masculine-coded, ahem) Reason™. It is a question of subjective opinion. The book's central philosophical conceit, or at least its first clause, does not have to lead to its thematic conclusion. It is a belief, worldview, ideology, what have you-driven narrative choice. And I'm so sick and tired of seeing it presented as something it is not: a mark of Genius™, IQ-busting intelligence, superior Reason™, #factsnlogic, etc... You can be a "genius" and an optimistic humanist; you can be a dumbarse and a bitter arsehole. You can, in effect, be intellectually gifted and a teenage edgelord, but my point is that you are not a genius because you're a teenage edgelord. And to be clear: I'm not attacking the author. What I'm "attacking" is the troubling takes and attitudes I see surrounding works like Blindsight and their (majority male, ahem) authors.
If you like this kind of über-nihilistic theming, more power to you. I hated it, and thought it was very poorly executed besides. This book was hot garbo on all fronts for me, and I would absolutely not recommend it, unless you adore nihilistic or grimdark SF with creepy aliens.
PS: also, I'm sorry (not sorry), but am I really the only one who finds it kinda gross the first chapter's epigraph is a quote from FUCKING TED BUNDY?! Like how am I not supposed to feel like the book is screaming: "TEENAGE EDGELORD OVER HERE" at me? It's not a crime, obviously, but like... Ted Bundy has contributed exactly nothing of value to Humanity. The only reason he is known by the public is because he has raped and murdered about 30 girls and women... can we just... not? Obvious disclaimer that naur, it doesn't make the author a bad person who should be cancelled and whatnot. I'm just saying it is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste, and yeah needlessly edgy... 'cause I mean the book is prefaced by two or three other über-nihilistic quotes. JFC mate, we get it: "life is pain, the universe is violence, sociopathy ftw", just... ugh please shut the fuck up. 😂
Preliminary reaction:
This was garbo, and I'm mad at myself for not being able to DNF, and mad that this is considered the "hardest of hard SF" by many, give me a freaking break! Argh, so so mad. Actual review later when my thoughts have collected.
Premise:
Post-scarcity future (suuuure...). Lots of people upload their minds into a kind of Matrix (aight). Main character is
Ranty thoughts:
As you can probably tell, I'm not going to be able to write about this shite without copious amounts of salt and sarcasm, because I freaking hated this novel. I thought I'd seen the worst of it with The Book of the New Sun, but naur: this bish is the worst thing I have read this year – so far (and lawd have mercy on my soul there, please).
Blindsight was "sold" to me as the "hardest of hard SF (hurr durr)". That turned out to be a fat load of bollocks, gah dayum, and this book has now cemented my decision to abandon the soft(er) v. hard(er) SF dichotomy altogether . Because it is now painfully clear to me that specific labelling dichotomy comes with a lot of off-putting, posturing, pretentious, and yes, sod it, sexist baggage... I am so not interested in engaging with, much less perpetuating. From now on, it's: (primarily) ideas-driven v. (primarily) entertainment-driven SF baby, please and thank you.
And sure, Blindsight technically counts as ideas-driven SF, I'll give it that. But it's shite ideas-driven SF, in my book. Its concepts, ideas and theming specifically are what I take the biggest issue with, but before I tear into that:
a) Prose and plot: bruh. I'm not even that difficult when it comes to prose, and honestly I read through Blindsight really quickly... but that's precisely because I realised I could basically ignore a big chunk of its fanceh, I am so very smort-sounding technobabble words. A lot of the prose doesn't actually convey anything substantive: it's gobbledeegook I was able to breeze through without missing a beat. I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to info-dumping, but even I couldn't give a pass to Siri's egregiously unsubtle 'philosophy of mind' and neuroscience monologues. Yes, I'm a world-building and theming-driven reader, but when I pick up a novel, I expect concepts and ideas to be developed through the art of storytelling, not to read an essay masquerading as fiction, with 30 pages of 'citations' on top of that. I don't want to slip into ad hominems here; I wish the author nothing but health, happiness, and success in his future endeavours. But come the fuck on: who does that? What the hell are you trying to prove when you provide a short bibliography at the end of a novel ?! You know full well the vast majority of readers aren't going to fact-check your sources. Though, for what it's worth, I have seen, here and there, a few STEM-trained readers who didn't enjoy the novel comment on the issues with its "hard" science with greater detail than I ever could.
The pacing was also rather janky overall. The genuinely neat bit of the story, with the eldritchy-adjacent alien entity, could have – and I'd argue should have – been a short story, it was so, well... short, under-utilised, and ultimately underwhelming. Said entity "farts" a beam of electro-magnetic (?) particles, or something, at one point and that's honestly how the Scramblers felt to me: a cosmic wet fart, big whoop.
b) Character work: ppppffffffff. Where do I even begin? Just because I'm not a character-driven reader (in SFF at any rate), doesn't mean I'm just going to be chill with an edgily nihilistic (and sexist) main character snarkily spouting r/IAmFourteenAndThisISDeep levels of Rationalist™ philosophy in my face. Nor does it mean I'm just going to be chill with the shit I saw in Blindsight regarding its "non-normie" characters. IDGAF that it was written in 2006: this thing is still, currently, presented as Genius™-level "hardest of hard SF" and so I'm gonna call massive bs on that. Because the drivel said about autism, (with) sociopathy, dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia, even synaesthesia of all fucking things, and of course hemispherectomy is not only mildly offensive, it's laughably inaccurate. Outdated, at the very least, but again... no one seems to point that out so again, I'm calling it out. This book is supposedly Big Smort™ about philosophy of mind and neuroscience... but it's just not. I mean heck, for all its supposed brilliance and 30 pages of citations it is never once suggested Siri might suffer from freaking alexithymia ! And I just checked: the term was first introduced in 1973, so that's a fail.
And yeah, Siri is a(n edgy and sexist) shithead, who mostly acts like, well: a normie. Who. Is. A. Shithead. Nothing more. Then sometimes, I guess the plot needs to remind the reader that he is not, in fact, a normie, but Speciul™ with his lack of empathy... which then apparently also means he lacks a consciousness! Riiiiiiight, but I'll get back to the absolute grade-A clusterfuck that is the book's theming shortly.
c) World-building: humanity has supposedly reached a post-scarcity state but the world Siri lives in seemed rather dystopian to me. Aight. A lot of peeps upload their minds into the Matrix, essentially, and offline relationships have almost entirely ceased to exist... because reasons!? Stuff is said about drugs and neuro-chemicals used to enhance mood, people editing their personalities... then one dude still smokes actual cigarettes for some reason. Siri underwent a hemispherectomy to treat epilepsy, okay... I mean, I dunno it was a mishmash of things, honestly. It wasn't egregiously bad, but it wasn't very good or convincing either.
But then you have the fucking vampires... Oh my lawd what was that?! I'm not opposed to vampires in SF as a concept, but holy shit was their species-building in Blindsight abysmally stupid. Nothing about them made a lick of sense from an ecological, evolutionary or paleo-anthropological standpoint. And I repeat: this bish is primarily sold on the merit of its "hard SF" quality! I just... I couldn't with the freaking vampires. An infuriating conflation is also made between the concepts of sociopathy, asociality and predation. For fuck's sake: predatory animals and human sociopaths are not the same thing. Many predatory mammals are also social animals, and capable of empathy. Hell, killer whales are name-dropped, specifically, and I just wanted to laugh at the cosmic irony of that, given killer whales form extremely tight-knit family groups and may even have a part of the brain specifically devoted to social and emotional cognition we humans lack . AAAAAAAAAAAAGHH.
Look, if you want to make your prehistoric vampies sociopathic by default, go right ahead feller! Just: a) don't conflate that with "high-functioning autism" for one thing, please and fucking thank you, b) don't lazily argue they're sociopathic just because they're predators and "muh evolutionary psychology theory". Or do, but don't claim this shit is "hard science-fiction" because omegalul it so isn't. Also I called the I Am Legend "aw shid vampies taking over the world" schtick from kilometres away but it was just so "pointless addendum-y" I didn't give the slightest shit.
Whaddabout the super-smort but non-conscious aliens doe? Like I said: they provided the story with a smidge of decently executed SF horror for all of ten minutes (or however long it took me to read that section). And that's about it. Cross a spine, with a spindly starfish and a burr, and voilà! Ya gots yerself a Scrambler, congratulations! Their species-building was... fine, I guess? Their "invisibility"... didn't really make sense given the text's explanation, and their biology felt a little hand-wavy but eh, fine. Coulda been worse, coulda been better, whatevs.
d) Dah theming: because the simple fact is the Scramblers, Rorschach, the serial killer cave-vampies, Siri being a
Hoooooooooo boy. Never mind the fact I don't personally agree with the conceit's first clause, or the fact "only humans are conscious" is a statement of opinion, and not one deriving from actual scientific consensus. Never mind the fact I agree even less with the conceit's second clause. If you're going to tackle this complex of a theme, and make the case for that huge of a claim, I expect to see the nuanced work required to prop it all up and make it passably convincing. Especially, once again, if I'm to consider your story the "hardest of hard SF". Blindsight, in my opinion, utterly, and I mean utterly fails on this front.
The two greatest issues I found with the books's theming on consciousness, and its philosophical conceit that "consciousness is bad", are as follow:
a) Consciousness is one of the hardest fucking concepts to define in the first place, oh my god! And there is so much egregious conflation of terms and concepts that I couldn't even tell, past a certain point, what exactly the author was even talking about. Consciousness, sentience, awareness, self-awareness: all are essentially used interchangeably and identically across different fields of knowledge. Which is understandable and fine in a colloquial context, but not when you purport to write diamond-hard SF with diamond-hard theming. Just no. Like holy shit this theme, of all freaking themes, needs nuance and specificity if you want me to engage with it, at a high level, in good faith! What's worse: empathy is also conflated with the previous terms. What the actual fuck?! An über-weird equivalency is drawn between sociopathy/ASPD/lack of empathy and lack of self-awareness/consciousness, and I was like: the fuck is that about?! How in the hell is this abject nonsense considered the hardest of hard science-fiction?!
b) So consciousness is bad, aight. Never mind the muppetty fact you're never really sure wtf is actually meant by consciousness in this book, exactly, nor the fact evolutionary theory isn't about qualifying things as "better" or "worse" in a human values sense... Blindsight's philosophical conceit rests, entirely, on circular reasoning. Because in point of fact, the only reason the book can confidently state consciousness is bad is because humans get fucked by a super-smort alien without a consciousness (and I guess 'half-conscious' serial killer cave-vampies, because empathy and consciousness are also conflated, like I said). Except that super-intelligent alien doesn't actually exist because this is a novel. Duh. So it's just incredibly bizarre how preachy and adamant Blindsight feels with regards to this idea. That a being could be 'super-smort' without self-awareness isn't simply presented as a neutral possibility, an avenue natural selection could explore with as much gusto as intelligent sentience, because why not. No, the book posits instead that because consciousness is weak and worthless evolutionary trash, there surely must be a non-sentient super-mort alien out there who could wipe us off the cosmic map. And, because it then presents you with a non-conscious but super-smort alien that could easily wipe humanity off the cosmic map, it must surely follow that consciousness is, in fact, weak and worthless evolutionary trash.
'Scuse me wut?! "Hardest of hard, ideas-driven SF" you said? GTFO.
And so yes, you have the whole "boner for sociopathy" deal, as well, kind of. I mean fuck our MC, Siri, who gets his feelz back after a... uhm, violent assault... Wait wut? How the fuck does that work exactly? Oh right, we're just supposed to accept this is super Smort™ and Deep™ akshual science-based SF, my bad, moving on. So Siri is stuck in a box, floating in space. He got feelz n' empathy again, cool beans. But then he kinda muses over the fact the cave-vampy captain of his crew was right, and that consciousness, and empathy (because again why be specific with your concepts when you can just conflate shit to your heart's content) are Weak™. And Might Makes Right™, because (very bad understanding of) Evolution™.
Here's the thing: let's assume we are all hard-core materialist atheists – I'm not, but for the sake of argument. That we all agree Life, the Universe and Everything (yes that's right I did hehe) are inherently meaningless, and that consciousness, self-awareness, the Self, what have you... is a simple accident of natural selection. SO. THE. FUCK. WHAT? You can still create meaning for yourself, in this world, in this lifetime. And the fact is that even if the self is an absurd and pointless 'waste product of the brain', it still exists, despite everything, and isn't that, in and of itself, kind of wonderful? Isn't there beauty in this "accident"? Isn't that good enough, in a way, at least some of the time?
This is the core of what fundamentally bugged me about Blindsight, as an ideas-driven piece of fiction, and its promotion by some readers: the fact the book "pushes a message" of edgy, misanthropic, quasi-pro-sociopathy nihilism does not, de facto, make it brilliantly intelligent or Rational™. It is not a question of science (hard or otherwise), of fact, of (also generally masculine-coded, ahem) Reason™. It is a question of subjective opinion. The book's central philosophical conceit, or at least its first clause, does not have to lead to its thematic conclusion. It is a belief, worldview, ideology, what have you-driven narrative choice. And I'm so sick and tired of seeing it presented as something it is not: a mark of Genius™, IQ-busting intelligence, superior Reason™, #factsnlogic, etc... You can be a "genius" and an optimistic humanist; you can be a dumbarse and a bitter arsehole. You can, in effect, be intellectually gifted and a teenage edgelord, but my point is that you are not a genius because you're a teenage edgelord. And to be clear: I'm not attacking the author. What I'm "attacking" is the troubling takes and attitudes I see surrounding works like Blindsight and their (majority male, ahem) authors.
If you like this kind of über-nihilistic theming, more power to you. I hated it, and thought it was very poorly executed besides. This book was hot garbo on all fronts for me, and I would absolutely not recommend it, unless you adore nihilistic or grimdark SF with creepy aliens.
PS: also, I'm sorry (not sorry), but am I really the only one who finds it kinda gross the first chapter's epigraph is a quote from FUCKING TED BUNDY?! Like how am I not supposed to feel like the book is screaming: "TEENAGE EDGELORD OVER HERE" at me? It's not a crime, obviously, but like... Ted Bundy has contributed exactly nothing of value to Humanity. The only reason he is known by the public is because he has raped and murdered about 30 girls and women... can we just... not? Obvious disclaimer that naur, it doesn't make the author a bad person who should be cancelled and whatnot. I'm just saying it is, at the very least, in extremely poor taste, and yeah needlessly edgy... 'cause I mean the book is prefaced by two or three other über-nihilistic quotes. JFC mate, we get it: "life is pain, the universe is violence, sociopathy ftw", just... ugh please shut the fuck up. 😂
A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult by D.K. Publishing
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
Overall, this is a very good, and beautifully illustrated overview of the interrelated topics of magic, witchcraft, and occultism/esotericism – just like it says on the tin!
A few nit-picky drawbacks that prevented this from being a 5 stars book for me:
a) I'm pretty sure I spotted a couple of mistakes, or inaccuracies in the text itself.
b) A geographical, or hybrid, rather than purely chronological, structuring of the material might've been better? The focus here is also clearly on the Western esoteric/magical tradition, which isn't a bad thing as such... I just wish this had been made clearer in the book's titling and introduction – for the sake of intellectual transparency.
c) I really didn't care for the content about stage, or performance magic. I guess it's technically relevant, sure, but at the same time... I mean come on, it's just really not the same thing as spiritual/religious/esoteric magic and/or witchcraft. 😅 It just isn't, and I don't think there needed to be more than one or two pages tops about the 'entertainment stuff'. 🤷♀️
Otherwise, and to reiterate: this is definitely a worthwhile reference book I would confidently recommend to anyone with an interest in the topics at hand.
A few nit-picky drawbacks that prevented this from being a 5 stars book for me:
a) I'm pretty sure I spotted a couple of mistakes, or inaccuracies in the text itself.
b) A geographical, or hybrid, rather than purely chronological, structuring of the material might've been better? The focus here is also clearly on the Western esoteric/magical tradition, which isn't a bad thing as such... I just wish this had been made clearer in the book's titling and introduction – for the sake of intellectual transparency.
c) I really didn't care for the content about stage, or performance magic. I guess it's technically relevant, sure, but at the same time... I mean come on, it's just really not the same thing as spiritual/religious/esoteric magic and/or witchcraft. 😅 It just isn't, and I don't think there needed to be more than one or two pages tops about the 'entertainment stuff'. 🤷♀️
Otherwise, and to reiterate: this is definitely a worthwhile reference book I would confidently recommend to anyone with an interest in the topics at hand.
Uzumaki by Junji Ito
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Here Be Dragons Spirals! 😱🌀
Uzumaki tells, in nineteen chapters focusing on a main female character named Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi: the tale of a Japanese town that goes to absolute shite because of/in relation to spiral patterns... present in basically everything, and people spiralling (heh) into madness. Said spirals might, additionally, be linked to the town's deeper, more eldritchy past... dun dun dun!
This standalone manga is, for me, an example of near-flawlessly executed cosmic horror graphic fiction. And not just that: there is also, in these pages, a significant amount of – very well executed – body and psychological horror, but those facets ultimately spiral around and towards (that's right I did) the story's cosmic horror foundation.
Uzumaki also just... fully commits to its central, conceptual motif: those damned spirals! A natural pattern I have great fondness for, and which I also view through a spiritual lens. Well... here, it was all, rather, creepy. 😂 Though the funny thing is you could still technically apply that spiritual lens, if in an awe-full, rather than awe-some sense. Spiritual/religious ecstasy and cosmic dread can, after all, be seen as related experiences. 🤪 Either way, yes, the manga unashamedly, but masterfully commits to its spiralling horror in a way that garners my utmost respect.
The character work was what it needed to be, and sufficient to make me care about the story's protagonists. There were a couple of, to my mind 'goofier' moments, or elements here and there that didn't quite land for me. But that could also simply be because I'm not that easily scared, or even disturbed, by "biology-inspired" body horror (cough cough snail people cough cough). The art, however, was stunning overall – especially when it came to full or double-page panels.
I was strongly reminded of Lovecraft's work (duh), but also VanderMeer's The Southern Reach (eldritch light house lens... ahem) and the Miévillian side of Weird Fiction, all of which gets a "fuck yeah!" from me. This was an excellent manga and I definitely want to read something else by Junji Ito in the future.
Uzumaki tells, in nineteen chapters focusing on a main female character named Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi: the tale of a Japanese town that goes to absolute shite because of/in relation to spiral patterns... present in basically everything, and people spiralling (heh) into madness. Said spirals might, additionally, be linked to the town's deeper, more eldritchy past... dun dun dun!
This standalone manga is, for me, an example of near-flawlessly executed cosmic horror graphic fiction. And not just that: there is also, in these pages, a significant amount of – very well executed – body and psychological horror, but those facets ultimately spiral around and towards (that's right I did) the story's cosmic horror foundation.
Uzumaki also just... fully commits to its central, conceptual motif: those damned spirals! A natural pattern I have great fondness for, and which I also view through a spiritual lens. Well... here, it was all, rather, creepy. 😂 Though the funny thing is you could still technically apply that spiritual lens, if in an awe-full, rather than awe-some sense. Spiritual/religious ecstasy and cosmic dread can, after all, be seen as related experiences. 🤪 Either way, yes, the manga unashamedly, but masterfully commits to its spiralling horror in a way that garners my utmost respect.
The character work was what it needed to be, and sufficient to make me care about the story's protagonists. There were a couple of, to my mind 'goofier' moments, or elements here and there that didn't quite land for me. But that could also simply be because I'm not that easily scared, or even disturbed, by "biology-inspired" body horror (cough cough snail people cough cough). The art, however, was stunning overall – especially when it came to full or double-page panels.
I was strongly reminded of Lovecraft's work (duh), but also VanderMeer's The Southern Reach (eldritch light house lens... ahem) and the Miévillian side of Weird Fiction, all of which gets a "fuck yeah!" from me. This was an excellent manga and I definitely want to read something else by Junji Ito in the future.
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
Pitch: after her daughters have devoured the lands of her late (and equally devoured) husband, Ariel's deep-sea horror doppelgänger goes a travellin' with a plague doctor... and a decent serving of body horror involving children, and a trio of surgeons undoubtely related to Dr Frankenstein, ensues.
Thoughts: I found The Salt Grows Heavy a decently effective tale of body and vaguely supernatural horror. It was very atmospheric; written with rich, and evocative prose. It featured an odd and out-of-place "romance" element and... that's it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thoughts: I found The Salt Grows Heavy a decently effective tale of body and vaguely supernatural horror. It was very atmospheric; written with rich, and evocative prose. It featured an odd and out-of-place "romance" element and... that's it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand
dark
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Premise:
A young woman named Sweeney goes to a Liberal Arts college with a particular historical affinity for all things theology-related in Washington D.C., where she meets a magnetic couple of students named Oliver and Angelica, and becomes embroiled with the shadowy Benandanti, an occult organisation (based on a real thing, as an FYI) set-up to protect (patriarchal) Humanity from the deep and ancient magic/power of the Goddess (in her darker aspects, specifically) – as worshipped by the Paleolithic and early Neolithic matristic/matrifocal societies of old.
Basically, the set-up feels like a supernatural version of The Secret History, inspired by early feminist anthropology and the Goddess Spirituality movement of the 1970s.
Thoughts:
I so wanted to love this.
I was disappointed by The Secret History (partly) because it didn't feature a specific element – that of ancient pagan mystery cults – as much as I wanted it to (and was led to believe it would by my ex). And yes, even despite the fact I knew full well, going in, that it would be general fiction. Waking the Moon counts as lite supernatural fantasy, and whilst it had a lot of appealing base elements, the way these were utilised and subsequently developed (or not) left me sorely disappointed. Even more disappointed, in fact, than I was by Donna Tartt's classic of 'Dark Academia'. Speaking of which: Waking the Moon doesn't really count as Dark Academia itself past its first part, which also left me feeling a bit meh, quite frankly.
On the upside:
– It was really neat to see a bunch of familiar references (some of them outdated, or incompletely portrayed, sure, but still) to esoteric lore, works of feminist history, archeology, anthropology and pagan theology thrown together in a vaguely The Da Vinci Code fashion.
– It was also neat to see those same references (initially) used to prop up a bit of feminist theming on patriarchal v. matristic/matrifocal societies, female rage, 'female darkness', gynocentric spirituality, etc...
Butty but but:
– The theming just kinda died, just as it was taking off. Or, at the very least, I felt like the bits of nuance it displayed were shucked in the bin for... reasons?The (pro-patriarchal status quo) 'baddies' were kind of shown to be right in the end, I guess? The Darker Side of the Goddess (the Dark Moon, basically) – which isn't meant to be 'pretty', mind you, I don't disagree with that portrayal as such – whose symbolic/conceptual intricacies were shown in a decently understanding/fair light was ultimately reduced to just another flight of female 'hysteria' (bitches be crazy amirite, doesn't matter they had plenty of reasons to be full of bitter rage after centuries of systemic violence, no sir-ee!). And, by extension, so was the very notion of gynocentric theology or 'egalitarian matrifocality'... and it's like, aight, you're allowed to have that take, but since that's not how it'd been initially set-up, I was left reeling by the tonal shift there. Sure, one professor character kinda expresses sympathy for all of that (especially as compared to patriarchy's ridiculously higher body and suffering count) in the second half of the novel, but it felt like a drop in an ocean of simplistic, plot-servicing condemnation.
– And then yeah the character work wasn't particularly good either, especially in relation to the above. The book's freaking MC just kinda flips on a previously held opinion becauseshe gets the hots, as a 37 year-old woman, for the 18 year-old son of her ex-friend-turned-crazy priestess and the dude she used to be in love with (bruh). Okay I guess.
– Ditto with the plot and its pacing. Bloody hell this thing had so many plot inconsistencies and short-cuts: all for the sake of a trippy climax that felt cheap given how the book's tentative theming was fucked in the process. The page-count, as a result, also feels indulgently excessive. This novel absolutely did not need to be 600 pages long. Or, rather, given its page-count: there was no excuse for the shoddy plotting, janky character work and shot-in-the-head theming. Oh, and I guess there were also angels in this thing and a parallel universe with giant bugs in it for some reason? So yeah, the non-ancient pagan religions part of the fantastical world-building had a "thrown in for shits n giggles" feeling to it as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gah! I feel sad-salty (sadlty? 😆) about this one. I initially rated it more harshly but I guess it was just about worth reading once.
A young woman named Sweeney goes to a Liberal Arts college with a particular historical affinity for all things theology-related in Washington D.C., where she meets a magnetic couple of students named Oliver and Angelica, and becomes embroiled with the shadowy Benandanti, an occult organisation (based on a real thing, as an FYI) set-up to protect (patriarchal) Humanity from the deep and ancient magic/power of the Goddess (in her darker aspects, specifically) – as worshipped by the Paleolithic and early Neolithic matristic/matrifocal societies of old.
Basically, the set-up feels like a supernatural version of The Secret History, inspired by early feminist anthropology and the Goddess Spirituality movement of the 1970s.
Thoughts:
I so wanted to love this.
I was disappointed by The Secret History (partly) because it didn't feature a specific element – that of ancient pagan mystery cults – as much as I wanted it to (and was led to believe it would by my ex). And yes, even despite the fact I knew full well, going in, that it would be general fiction. Waking the Moon counts as lite supernatural fantasy, and whilst it had a lot of appealing base elements, the way these were utilised and subsequently developed (or not) left me sorely disappointed. Even more disappointed, in fact, than I was by Donna Tartt's classic of 'Dark Academia'. Speaking of which: Waking the Moon doesn't really count as Dark Academia itself past its first part, which also left me feeling a bit meh, quite frankly.
On the upside:
– It was really neat to see a bunch of familiar references (some of them outdated, or incompletely portrayed, sure, but still) to esoteric lore, works of feminist history, archeology, anthropology and pagan theology thrown together in a vaguely The Da Vinci Code fashion.
– It was also neat to see those same references (initially) used to prop up a bit of feminist theming on patriarchal v. matristic/matrifocal societies, female rage, 'female darkness', gynocentric spirituality, etc...
Butty but but:
– The theming just kinda died, just as it was taking off. Or, at the very least, I felt like the bits of nuance it displayed were shucked in the bin for... reasons?
– And then yeah the character work wasn't particularly good either, especially in relation to the above. The book's freaking MC just kinda flips on a previously held opinion because
– Ditto with the plot and its pacing. Bloody hell this thing had so many plot inconsistencies and short-cuts: all for the sake of a trippy climax that felt cheap given how the book's tentative theming was fucked in the process. The page-count, as a result, also feels indulgently excessive. This novel absolutely did not need to be 600 pages long. Or, rather, given its page-count: there was no excuse for the shoddy plotting, janky character work and shot-in-the-head theming. Oh, and I guess there were also angels in this thing and a parallel universe with giant bugs in it for some reason? So yeah, the non-ancient pagan religions part of the fantastical world-building had a "thrown in for shits n giggles" feeling to it as well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gah! I feel sad-salty (sadlty? 😆) about this one. I initially rated it more harshly but I guess it was just about worth reading once.
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
Pnin is basically a character vignette about a kooky professor character named Timofey Pnin, who works at a small college in… I’m going to guess New England, mostly because of Lolita, so don’t quote me on that! And it’s oddly told from the perspective of an outside character you only learn the identity of at the end of the novella – actually, it almost felt like Nabokov was self-inserting at times. 😝
It was not worth my time.
A lot is said about native and expatriated Russian culture which undoubtedly went over my head and would, perhaps, appeal a lot more to Russophiles and actual Russian people… and, sure, the book featured Nabokov’s reliably evocative and playful prose, but that’s all it had going for me. There’s not much plot to speak of, I didn’t really care about Pnin as a character, I didn’t really care about anyone else, the novella’s cultural commentary nor its jabs at the stuffier facets of higher academia.
I mean, honestly, there’s a lot of that in Pale Fire, and even in Lolita. And whilst it was interesting to identify these parallels, it also felt very redundant to experience these beats again. Lolita remains a top-tier, all-time favourite, absolutely; I remember thoroughly enjoying Ada or Ardor as well – though I’ll have to re-read it someday. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck, so far with Nabokov’s other works. Pnin, for me, was pointless and boring, hence the mediocre rating.
It was not worth my time.
A lot is said about native and expatriated Russian culture which undoubtedly went over my head and would, perhaps, appeal a lot more to Russophiles and actual Russian people… and, sure, the book featured Nabokov’s reliably evocative and playful prose, but that’s all it had going for me. There’s not much plot to speak of, I didn’t really care about Pnin as a character, I didn’t really care about anyone else, the novella’s cultural commentary nor its jabs at the stuffier facets of higher academia.
I mean, honestly, there’s a lot of that in Pale Fire, and even in Lolita. And whilst it was interesting to identify these parallels, it also felt very redundant to experience these beats again. Lolita remains a top-tier, all-time favourite, absolutely; I remember thoroughly enjoying Ada or Ardor as well – though I’ll have to re-read it someday. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had much luck, so far with Nabokov’s other works. Pnin, for me, was pointless and boring, hence the mediocre rating.
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.25
Base premise:
A cellist named Tiny becomes pregnant with an... owl-baby she believes issued from her union with a wild (female) owl-lover and, well, tries to deal with that, her (heterosexual) marriage, and her very strange perception of reality (to put it mildly).
Thoughts:
Chouette was... weird. But not my kind of weird. The prose was good enough, so I'll dispense with that and go straight to the crux of the matter: the novella's theming. Chouette's main theme is, to put it simply, that of motherhood. And its story works as one giant, "magically realistic" metaphor for the trials and tribulations of motherhood... and being a mother to an, ahem, unusual child – in this case a literal (or is it?) owl-baby.
And it's not like the theming is garbage: it isn't. In fact, there are decent kernels of insight here, about the complicated thoughts and emotions tied to the experience of motherhood, and I can acknowledge that despite the fact I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in ever being pregnant, or a mother. But there are also several issues with its execution.
1) The book's theming centres on the experience of motherhood, sure, but it also tries (and largely fails) to focus in on a couple of secondary strands, such as the strain parenthood places on heterosexual marriages, the challenge an unusual child presents to parenting. But also the way 'difference' is judge by society more broadly... and the experience of pre- and post-partum psychosis, maybe? I'll come back to that.
2) And it just doesn't work. Because the character work isn't really there to prop a large part of that additional theming, and because the plot is shackled to the metaphorical/magical realism nature of its premise. With regards to the former: there isn't much character work to speak of, outside of the narrator's, and even then it's hard to get a solid grasp of who she is, given the trippy framing of her story. With regards to the latter:
3) It's hard to empathise with Tiny's position, and that of her child, when said child isn't even human in any meaningful sense of the word – at least, that's what you're led to believe as the reader, I guess? Some of the child's traits could be interpreted as a metaphorical representation of high support needs autism, sensory processing disorder, etc... which is fine, but the kid also fucking eviscerates small animals, including neighbourhood pets, and almost disembowels a pregnant woman. Because she's an owl -baby: an 'apex predator'. Given that, it's entirely reasonable to take the dad's side in the matter and call Tiny out in her bullshit for enabling deeply dysfunctional and violent behaviour – not to say mildly sociopathic. It's certainly not acceptable behaviour for a human being, at any rate – though honestly, I'd argue it also paints a reductive portrait of owls, but that's a separate issue.
4) You can choose to view this novella through the lens of magical realism, the lens of deep psychosis (and a delusional understanding of one's own childhood?), or perhaps both. Either way, the 'owl-babiness' of it all certainly, firmly functions as a metaphor... and Tiny can honestly be read as very mentally ill even if you choose to believe her child literally is a, uhm, "were-owl". This then breaks the quality of the story's theming on motherhood, because it doesn't so much present the experience of motherhood as it does an experience of motherhood. And a particularly challenging one at that. Tiny needs medical help, and her marriage isn't properly fulfilling or even all that supportive. So it's kind of obvious, in a way, that hers would be such a horrible experience. And that hers would be a really warped understanding of unconditional maternal love. Because even my childfree arse knows unquestioningly enabling all of your child's dysfunctional behaviours isn't at all a mature or healthy way to love and nurture them. I could also add that as a (former) disabled and neurodivergent child, Chouette and her dark triad behaviour acting as metaphorical stand-ins for those things felt a smidge unpalatable at times, but I'm also not actually all that fussed about it so it's like whatever.
It all comes down to the fact that, for me, Chouette is over-committed to, and thus severely hampered by, its central, metaphorical quality. The story sticks way too much to the guns of Tiny's therianthropic daughter – whether real or hallucinated makes no real difference, functionally – and nixes the subtlety, or nuance its theming requires in the process.
Then of course the plot takes a turn for the wildly trippier (and more violent) towards its end, and I duly rolled my eyes at it. This novella/short novel has essentially confirmed the nebulous, 'in-between' genre of magical realism (or magical science-fiction, metaphorical fiction, whatever you want to call it) just isn't meant for me. As a general rule at any rate. I will thus avoid titles belonging to it entirely going forward, unless it comes highly recommended from a trusted source.
A cellist named Tiny becomes pregnant with an... owl-baby she believes issued from her union with a wild (female) owl-lover and, well, tries to deal with that, her (heterosexual) marriage, and her very strange perception of reality (to put it mildly).
Thoughts:
Chouette was... weird. But not my kind of weird. The prose was good enough, so I'll dispense with that and go straight to the crux of the matter: the novella's theming. Chouette's main theme is, to put it simply, that of motherhood. And its story works as one giant, "magically realistic" metaphor for the trials and tribulations of motherhood... and being a mother to an, ahem, unusual child – in this case a literal (or is it?) owl-baby.
And it's not like the theming is garbage: it isn't. In fact, there are decent kernels of insight here, about the complicated thoughts and emotions tied to the experience of motherhood, and I can acknowledge that despite the fact I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in ever being pregnant, or a mother. But there are also several issues with its execution.
1) The book's theming centres on the experience of motherhood, sure, but it also tries (and largely fails) to focus in on a couple of secondary strands, such as the strain parenthood places on heterosexual marriages, the challenge an unusual child presents to parenting. But also the way 'difference' is judge by society more broadly... and the experience of pre- and post-partum psychosis, maybe? I'll come back to that.
2) And it just doesn't work. Because the character work isn't really there to prop a large part of that additional theming, and because the plot is shackled to the metaphorical/magical realism nature of its premise. With regards to the former: there isn't much character work to speak of, outside of the narrator's, and even then it's hard to get a solid grasp of who she is, given the trippy framing of her story. With regards to the latter:
3) It's hard to empathise with Tiny's position, and that of her child, when said child isn't even human in any meaningful sense of the word – at least, that's what you're led to believe as the reader, I guess? Some of the child's traits could be interpreted as a metaphorical representation of high support needs autism, sensory processing disorder, etc... which is fine, but the kid also fucking eviscerates small animals, including neighbourhood pets, and almost disembowels a pregnant woman. Because she's an owl -baby: an 'apex predator'. Given that, it's entirely reasonable to take the dad's side in the matter and call Tiny out in her bullshit for enabling deeply dysfunctional and violent behaviour – not to say mildly sociopathic. It's certainly not acceptable behaviour for a human being, at any rate – though honestly, I'd argue it also paints a reductive portrait of owls, but that's a separate issue.
4) You can choose to view this novella through the lens of magical realism, the lens of deep psychosis (and a delusional understanding of one's own childhood?), or perhaps both. Either way, the 'owl-babiness' of it all certainly, firmly functions as a metaphor... and Tiny can honestly be read as very mentally ill even if you choose to believe her child literally is a, uhm, "were-owl". This then breaks the quality of the story's theming on motherhood, because it doesn't so much present the experience of motherhood as it does an experience of motherhood. And a particularly challenging one at that. Tiny needs medical help, and her marriage isn't properly fulfilling or even all that supportive. So it's kind of obvious, in a way, that hers would be such a horrible experience. And that hers would be a really warped understanding of unconditional maternal love. Because even my childfree arse knows unquestioningly enabling all of your child's dysfunctional behaviours isn't at all a mature or healthy way to love and nurture them. I could also add that as a (former) disabled and neurodivergent child, Chouette and her dark triad behaviour acting as metaphorical stand-ins for those things felt a smidge unpalatable at times, but I'm also not actually all that fussed about it so it's like whatever.
It all comes down to the fact that, for me, Chouette is over-committed to, and thus severely hampered by, its central, metaphorical quality. The story sticks way too much to the guns of Tiny's therianthropic daughter – whether real or hallucinated makes no real difference, functionally – and nixes the subtlety, or nuance its theming requires in the process.
Then of course the plot takes a turn for the wildly trippier (and more violent) towards its end, and I duly rolled my eyes at it. This novella/short novel has essentially confirmed the nebulous, 'in-between' genre of magical realism (or magical science-fiction, metaphorical fiction, whatever you want to call it) just isn't meant for me. As a general rule at any rate. I will thus avoid titles belonging to it entirely going forward, unless it comes highly recommended from a trusted source.