Hello everybody, and welcome to my weekly
wrap-up of March 6, 2016, where I tell you
about all the things I read this pas week.
You may have noticed that I didn't do one
of these last weekend and that's because I
filmed separate review videos for all three
books that I read that week, so I decided
I wasn't going to.
But those videos will be up in the very near
future.
This past week I read 3 novels, a comic, and
I reread a novella.
First, The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar.
This is the sequel to A Stranger in Olondria,
which came out in 2014.
I loved A Stranger in Olondria.
I loved the writing, I loved the story, I
loved the world - it was beautiful and so
well done.
It was a 5 star book!
And this is not like a direct sequel but it
takes place in the same world and involves
the historical event, this rebellion, that
happens in the background of Jeveck's journey
in A Stranger in Olondria.
The Winged Histories is told in 4 separate
narratives, from 4 women who are connected
to each other and whose lives are caught up
in this rebellion.
The first one is Tavis; she becomes a soldier
and along with her cousin Dasya, she leads
the rebellion of Kestenya against Olondria.
Then there is Siski, her sister, who is in
love with / was in love with and was supposed
to marry their cousin Dasya.
There is a woman named Seren, who is Tavis's
lover and a singer and musician.
And then there is Tialen, the daughter of
the Priest of the Stone, and the cult of the
Stone is part of the rebellion, people are
trying to fight against it.
Tialen and Siski's stories were my favorites,
they're the 2nd and 4th, I think, in this.
And Siski's in particular because it's the
capstone of the story when everything comes
to a head and all these things that are hints
in the story start to bear fruit at the end.
The tabs in here for example are - I basically
got to Siski's story and I suddenly realized
that there are all these references to the
Drevedi and I was like "Oh!"
I'm going to go back and see these symbolic
references to what was going on.
That was really cool.
This is about women, I think, realizing how
central they are to history.
Wanting to make a mark, not wanting to be
forgotten, but also wanting to live their
lives.
They all have to make decisions in this book
that feel like they aren't incredibly momentous
decisions, and yet by the end you realize
that they ARE.
And, I think in a way that when anybody becomes
an adult you might have that moment where
you realize that you have just done something
that is going to affect other people, that
you are not a child anymore: what you do in
this world matters.
And I think that all of these characters have
moments like that, or you can see yourself
that they have moments like that where they
cease to be a child and they are now an adult.
And there are a lot of flashbacks to these
women's childhoods, which I also thought was
really interesting, like all of this was set
in motion when they were young.
And they are just now beginning to realize
that there was lot more going on in their
childhoods and with their families than they
knew when they were kids.
I don't think this is a book to just read
on its own.
I think that it's a much more enjoyable and
rich reading experience if you've A Stranger
in Olondria first.
Not necessarily because you need to know everything
that happened in A Stranger in Olondria - you
don't.
But I think that the accumulation of the worldbuilding
and knowing what the world is like just helps
with this story a lot more.
I particularly feel like the narrative of
A Stranger in Olondria was smoother and more
straightforward, and was just easier to get
into that story.
And this one was a bit disjointed.
It is 4 distinctly separate narratives; it
has 4 parts.
In this one I really had parts that I liked
and I really had parts that I did not understand
exactly what was going on, or why it was being
told in that way.
And I did not have that problem with A Stranger
in Olondria.
So, I enjoyed it overall and I thought it
was very beautifully written, and I think
that the characters are sticking with me a
lot longer than I thought they would.
There's just something very haunting to me
about Tavis and Tialen - I hope I got her
name right - and about Siski.
So if you've read A Stranger in Olondria and
you really enjoyed it, then I would definitely
say pick up The Winged Histories, but keep
in mind it is a very different book.
It is just different in every single way and
just because you love A Stranger in Olondria,
I wouldn't say that you would necessarily
love this.
Then I finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel
Keyes, which is a very famous speculative
fiction / science fiction story about a mentally
disabled man named Charlie, who is given an
operation that turns him into a supergenius
but then he slowly slides back into being
mentally disabled and less intelligent.
Maybe my expectations were too high but I
felt it was slightly underwhelming.
Like, I expected it to hit me harder, and
mainly it just made me really furious about
how mentally disabled people are treated horribly
by people who are supposed to love and care
for them, like their family and their friends.
And then they're taken advantage of by everybody.
I was just so angry about how Charlie was
treated by people, especially because it's
painful enough to read that kind of story,
but this is also from Charlie's perspective.
The story is what he has written in his own
progress reports, so you get to see how his
intelligence improves.
You get to see him understanding for the first
time what his memories actually mean.
That he suddenly comprehends that his friends
aren't really his friends.
That those things they have done that he thought
meant they were friends actually means that
they were making fun him.
And him realizing that and realizing also
how his family has kind of abandoned him...
and then knowing that he is going to slide
right back into that kind of life and he can
do nothing about it.
That hurts!
There's a point in the story where Charlie
says to one of the men who has done this to
him - this scientist is claiming that he's
made Charlie a person - and Charlie tells
him, I was a human being before you did this
to me.
I was a person!
You know, mentally disabled people, people
who have problems, are not less than human.
They are people too.
And yet so often they are viewed as being
not human, not being a real person.
I loved reading about Charlie realizing that
people are thinking of him that way and then
fighting back against it - like actually saying
something.
That he would say that felt like a very strong
moment for his character.
That's the part that really got to me, but
pretty much everything else I was kind of
iffy about.
Especially the bit about Charlie investigating
sexual relationships and romance for the first
time.
Like, I can understand why that was part of
the story.
But I was really uncomfortable with his relationship
with Miss Kinnian.
By today's standards and like scientific experiments
and stuff, this whole thing is incredibly
suspect, but that bit about him getting involved
with Miss Kinnian really pushed my boundaries
of what I thought was probably ethically acceptable
in this situation.
And I felt really bad for both of them though
because I could understand why in both cases
they were involved with each other.
It was pretty difficult though.
I ended up rating this one 4 out of 5 stars,
for whatever star ratings are worth these
days, and I would recommend it to people who
want to read classics in the field.
Next I read The Traitor Baru Cormorant by
Seth Dickinson, which is another book that
wants to punch you in the gut and make you
feel things.
The story follows the woman of the title,
Baru Cormorant.
Her land is conquered by the Empire of Masks,
the Masquerade.
Her parents - her fathers and her mother - are
badly hurt by the empire and her whole way
of life has been destroyed basically, but
she is kind of a savant, the Masquerade takes
her in, and trains her to be the perfect Masquerade
citizen.
And then they send her off another kingdom
that they have conquered to suppress a growing
revolution.
Baru, of course, is secretly planning to subvert
the empire from within: to become her enemy,
to know her enemy, and to bring them down.
All so that she can save her homeland.
But man, she really gets in over her head!
At a certain point, every single thing that
Baru does in this book, you're like oh my
god, that is not going to work out the way
you think it is.
You are making too many sacrifices.
You are compromising yourself so much that
nothing of YOU is ever going to survive this.
There's only so far you can go before you
truly become the thing that you hate and despise
and it just doesn't MATTER anymore!
It's a question of how many wrongs make a
right.
Well, NO wrongs make a right.
I'm sorry.
I really enjoyed this story though.
I think that some people think that the middle
of the story kind of dragged because it was
a lot of just talking about how things were
going to work.
I never at any point felt like the story was
dragging, because I just really enjoy stories
like this.
It was very political.
It was very much about how a rebellion or
a revolution can be run with money, about
the accounting and economic side of things,
because Baru is for most of the story an accountant
for the empire.
And I really liked seeing war and revolution
from that standpoint.
I think Baru is really close to being - probably
for many people - an unlikable narrator, and
not exactly a reliable one either, and that
just makes the story have more layers.
There were a lot of other things that I enjoyed
about the story as well, including how multicultural
and diverse it was.
I thought that it incorporated both multiple
ethnicities and sexual orientation and cultural
differences to really highlight what was going
on in the story and how the characters were
motivated and what they wanted.
It just - it really worked and it felt like
a real world.
And at first when I heard that this was probably
going to be a series, I thought really, why?
But now I want to know a lot more!
And I should conclude by saying that I do
understand why this is not the right novel
for many people.
I understand why people give this low ratings
because you just might not like it.
And I just happened to really like it!
The last thing that I finished was The Sandman:
Overture by Neil Gaiman with art by J.H. Williams
III and Dave Stewart.
This is beautiful and it's got an OK story,
I guess.
I was quite happy to find out that this is
sort of a prequel story.
It's that thing that Dream has done, that's
referenced at the beginning of Sandman and
you never find out what it was - this is that
story.
One of the versions of Dream is killed and
then "our" version of Dream goes off to find
out why.
And then essentially I think it's a story
about Dream tying up loose ends from a mistake
he made along time ago.
This is the hardcover deluxe edition, and
it's got a beautiful cover.
But it also has artwork underneath the dust
jacket... like that...
I love how vibrant and colorful this is.
It's definitely using all the colors of the
rainbow!
And there are also a couple of places where
- I think it's a double "gatefold" or something,
where you get these huge spreads.
There are two of these.
I thought that was really cool.
As a piece of art, I think this is amazing.
I could just spend a lot of time staring at
the artwork, which I think is intentional.
And it really makes me want to go back and
reread Sandman now.
Not just for the story but also to admire
the artwork because when I first read Sandman,
when I was a teenager - I think I started
reading it when I was 14 or 15 - I'd never
read graphic novels or comics or anything
like that before.
And I don't think I really understood how
the artwork *worked*, especially why illustrators
changed from issue to issue.
It really threw me off and I really want to
go back now and check that out again.
Oh, and the other thing that I read: I reread
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor which is a novella.
It's been nominated for the BooktubeSFF Awards
and I said I would reread it, and I did.
I'm not going to talk about it however because
I still have a review of this which I'm very
proud of, so I will link that for you.
I am currently reading The Snow Queen by Joan
D. Vinge, and I'm more than halfway through
this, so I hope to finish this probably not
today but very, very soon.
And on Monday I'm going to be starting a buddy
read for Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton
with a bunch of people.
That is everything that I read this past week
and that's what I'm currently reading.
And I don't have much more to say than that.
I hope you guys had a great weekend; I hope
you got lots of reading in.
And I will talk to you again soon.
Bye!
