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Reading meme
Mar. 20th, 2013 11:19 pmRecently Finished
About a week ago I finished The Highest Frontier by Joan Slonczewski. Mostly I liked this book: the main character was sympathetic, the setting interesting, the ideas cool. It was slow at times, and there were too many ideas. So much was going on, and so many ideas were packed in, that the emotional arc was at times lost in all the detail.
I liked reading about the ultraphytes and the risks and rewards of living on a space habitat, especially going to college there. I liked the many characters: disability was normalized, as were different races, religions, and orientations. People of different classes were represented, and a new class system seemed to be emerging based on genetic cultivation. Scientists were well portrayed. Jenny, the main character, is mostly interested in botany and politics. She volunteers for EMS and a Habitat-for-Humanity-like group, and plays slanball. Meanwhile she has obligations to her famous political family and is mourning her deceased brother.
Whole sections of this book, however, could have been cut out and replaced with things that fleshed out the characters better, spending more time on their emotional development. Ken and Yola, for instance, are pretty 2-dimensional. Or just cutting those sections and not replacing them would have worked also. There is a good emotional arc in this book, and it would have been better served with more attention.
( spoilers )
---
Today I spent the day reading Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore and I freaking loved it. It is brilliant. I don't want to give too much away, and I need to think about it some more. But in brief: it focuses on a young queen, bringing her land back from the disastrous rule of her sociopathic father. I loved the central conflicts in this story: truth and lies, seeking out painful memories versus covering up the past, how to heal and move forward when awful painful things have happened to a whole country. And this somewhat sheltered queen trying to figure things out. It was great!
Didn't read
The Female Man by Joanna Russ. I stopped after 50 pages. Couldn't get into it.
What I'll read next
Not sure! My girlfriend and I have been talking about reading a book simultaneously (you know what I mean), but haven't for sure decided which book. She reads mostly history, biography, memoir, some fiction. I read almost exclusively Sf/F but am also interested in books about social justice. Any suggestions?
About a week ago I finished The Highest Frontier by Joan Slonczewski. Mostly I liked this book: the main character was sympathetic, the setting interesting, the ideas cool. It was slow at times, and there were too many ideas. So much was going on, and so many ideas were packed in, that the emotional arc was at times lost in all the detail.
I liked reading about the ultraphytes and the risks and rewards of living on a space habitat, especially going to college there. I liked the many characters: disability was normalized, as were different races, religions, and orientations. People of different classes were represented, and a new class system seemed to be emerging based on genetic cultivation. Scientists were well portrayed. Jenny, the main character, is mostly interested in botany and politics. She volunteers for EMS and a Habitat-for-Humanity-like group, and plays slanball. Meanwhile she has obligations to her famous political family and is mourning her deceased brother.
Whole sections of this book, however, could have been cut out and replaced with things that fleshed out the characters better, spending more time on their emotional development. Ken and Yola, for instance, are pretty 2-dimensional. Or just cutting those sections and not replacing them would have worked also. There is a good emotional arc in this book, and it would have been better served with more attention.
( spoilers ) ---
Today I spent the day reading Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore and I freaking loved it. It is brilliant. I don't want to give too much away, and I need to think about it some more. But in brief: it focuses on a young queen, bringing her land back from the disastrous rule of her sociopathic father. I loved the central conflicts in this story: truth and lies, seeking out painful memories versus covering up the past, how to heal and move forward when awful painful things have happened to a whole country. And this somewhat sheltered queen trying to figure things out. It was great!
Didn't read
The Female Man by Joanna Russ. I stopped after 50 pages. Couldn't get into it.
What I'll read next
Not sure! My girlfriend and I have been talking about reading a book simultaneously (you know what I mean), but haven't for sure decided which book. She reads mostly history, biography, memoir, some fiction. I read almost exclusively Sf/F but am also interested in books about social justice. Any suggestions?
