kamreadsandrecs | Recent Entries

Jade City by Fonda Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The air-conditioned section of the cafeteria at my workplace (called the “Executive Lounge”, even though it is neither a lounge nor used exclusively by executives) has a wall-mounted flatscreen television with cable access. It sees a lot of use, especially during important sports events (such as the NBA finals or important college basketball matches) and the Miss Universe pageants. Sometimes it’ll even be switched to a channel that broadcasts foreign movies dubbed in Filipino. The quality of the dubs tend to vary, so sometimes it’s a passable dub job, but other times the voice acting is so stilted that it just sounds weird to listen to.

But there was one time when the TV was showing a movie, but not a foreign film dubbed in Filipino. Instead, it was tuned to a channel that aired old, local films - in that instance, an action movie from the 1990s, starring a person whom I had almost completely forgotten about: Cynthia Luster, the Philippine stage name for Japanese actress and martial artist Yukari Oshima. She starred in many of the Hong Kong gangster-style action movies that, some cinephiles say, is the greatest legacy that Hong Kong cinema has given to the world. Unsurprisingly, such films were also popular in the Philippines, and as a result the local film industry produced copycat films using the same kinds of plots but with a few tweaks here and there to account for Filipino culture. Oshima was invited to perform in a handful of such films, which is why she looms large in the pop culture memory of Filipinos who grew up in the 1990s.

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An Ancient Evil (Stories told on Pilgrimage from London to Canterbury, #1)

An Ancient Evil by Paul Doherty

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It has been a long while since I read Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales in full. The first time I encountered the work was in high school, when we read an excerpt from the Wife of Bath’s Tale, but it was only when I got to university that I was able to read the work in its entirety. It’s not an easy read at all - Chaucer’s Middle English (a style even older than Shakespeare’s) is hard to get accustomed to, even without having to take the idiosyncrasies of the time period into consideration as well. I was fortunate to have access to a heavily-annotated and copiously-footnoted edition while at university, and that helped significantly in understanding the context of the tales, as did having access to the other books in the library and online journals.

Despite that, though, I have never really found much appeal in Chaucer’s work. I understand why some people enjoy it, but reading it requires more drudge work than I strictly like. I suppose if I could get ahold of Peter Ackroyd’s modern English adaptation I could attempt to read it again, but since I do not have any particular inclination to do so it might be a while yet before I reread Chaucer’s greatest work.

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Touchstone by Melanie Rawn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Theatre is a fascinating art. It combines so many arts together: literature, visual art, music, and acting. Combine all of these together in just the right proportions, and, well, magic happens. While it is true that television and film enjoy broader audiences than plays and musicals, “magic” is still the best word to describe the feeling viewers get when they watch a live performance that can be had no other way. Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to watch a play or musical live knows the magic being referred to: even watching a recording of the exact same performance will always pale in comparison to actually being there, in the audience, sharing the same air as the performers onstage. Because of this, theatre has not completely died out as an art form, despite the popularity of TV and movies.

It is this magic that Melanie Rawn attempts to capture and portray differently in the novel Touchstone, first in the Glass Thorns series. Set in a fantasy world that reads a lot like Renaissance England, it tells the story of Cayden “Cade” Silversun, a young tregetour out to make a name for himself with his friends, Jeska and Rafe - Jeska is a gifted masquer, while Rafe is the best fettler Cade knows. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have a glisker they can actually work with - until a chance meeting brings Mieka Windthistle into their sphere. Though Cade is leery of Mieka’s unpredictable personality, he decides to let the other young man perform with them - and finds out that Mieka is the most brilliant glisker he’s ever worked with. Despite his misgivings Cade brings Mieka into his troupe, and together the four of them decide to attempt the Trials: a contest held at the Royal Court where the best theatre troupes compete for glory and patronage. Under the name “Touchstone,” Cade and his friends are determined to beat the odds, and become the best and most famous troupe in the land.

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London Falling by Paul Cornell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If there is a city that has a soul in the same way we humans think of a soul, then London would definitely be it. Though it is far from the oldest city that ever existed, nor is it the oldest city still standing, it is probably one of the most vibrant in the world. It is a city with its own unique pulse, its own unique personality - and if we can define a soul as anything, it is probably according to that sense of self, the idea of the self being unique and separate from everything and everyone else. And London, as a city, is very much that.

Because of this, London - and the United Kingdom as a whole - make the perfect setting for urban fantasy stories. Though some of the most well-known authors of the genre have been American, who often mix the aesthetics and sensibilities of mid-twentieth century noir detective fiction with the shadows of the supernatural, British authors have been catching up, and have been using London as the primary setting. And in a way, this makes a lot of sense: the United Kingdom has an immense weight of history to it, and when a place has that much history - history that is constantly cycling through stages of remembrance and forgetfulness - then there is sure to be magic somewhere in there.

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In Vino Duplicitas: The Rise and Fall of a Wine Forger Extraordinaire by Peter Hellman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

German is an utterly fascinating language. Though I haven’t actually studied it, and cannot actually understand it, I am familiar with one particular quirk: how easily it can create new words. It’s something of a joke on the Internet that if someone needs a new word to describe a concept, it is best to turn to someone who knows German, because apparently, the language is uniquely suited to creating new words out of already-existing ones.

But like any other language, German has its own, unique words for specific concepts, and my absolute favourite one is “schadenfreude.” It’s a combination of two German words: “schaden,” which means “harm,” and “freude,” which means “joy.” Taken together, it means “to take joy in the harm of others,” or “to take pleasure in another’s misfortune.” While this is not the most positive sort of emotion, it is a very common one - common enough that I wonder how it is that English does not have its own equivalent. Maybe because the German word is already sufficient? That would make sense.

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Quietus by Tristan Palmgren

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is based on an ARC sent to me for free by the publisher, Angry Robot Books. This does not in any way affect my review. The novel is slated for release on March 6, 2018.

Generally speaking, journalists and anthropological researchers are supposed to maintain objectivity as often as possible when they are covering a story or doing research. This is to ensure that the information is untainted by politics of moral judgements: especially vital in a practice that purports to tell the truth and record history (journalism), and the study of humans in societies both past and present (anthropology). In both cases, moral and emotional distance is required in order to ensure that only the unvarnished truth is conveyed.

But this can lead to dilemmas for journalists and anthropologists alike. In many cases they are witness to acts that might be truly, morally reprehensible - like mistreatment of children, or rape, or systemic spousal abuse. This is especially true during times of widespread social crisis, like during wars or famines. A classic example of this is the story behind a photograph dubbed “The vulture and the little girl,” or sometimes “Struggling Girl,” taken by photographer Kevin Carter during the massive civil war-caused Sudanese famine in the early 1990s. Though Carter scared the vulture away after taking the photograph, and watched the child (actually a boy) in the photo finally get up make it to a UN-run feeding centre, there was widespread criticism of the fact that he did not do more to help the subject of his photo. While no one can be certain if that particular criticism is what weighed most on Carter’s mind when he committed suicide in 1994, it is interesting to note that he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in April of that year, and he committed suicide not long after, on July 27. By that point Carter had done more photographs of equally harrowing events (though “The vulture and the little girl” would be his most famous) and it would not be too outrageous to speculate that perhaps the weight of all the things he had seen and all the things he had done (and perhaps more importantly not done) in the name of journalistic integrity finally crushed him completely.

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Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire #1)

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As someone who enjoys speculative fiction across a variety of media, I have sometimes been asked the question: “Which do you prefer: Star Trek or Star Wars?” If I must be coy, I will say “Dune,” because I am all too aware of the kinds of arguments that picking a side in the “Star Wars versus Star Trek” debate can cause. Fortunately it is rather hard to argue against the standing of Dune, which is considered one of the great sci-fi classics.

(It probably also helps that not a lot of the current generation of sci-fi fans have actually read it. This is through no fault of their own, of course, especially if they are the kinds of sci-fi fans who prefer to consume their stories through television, film, video games, or other media. The film adaptations of Dune have not met with widespread or even critical success, and since there are no adaptations currently in the works, Herbert’s work may continue to remain in relative obscurity for some time yet.)

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God: A Human History by Reza Aslan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Religion has always made me curious. It’s because of how I was raised: born in a Catholic country, educated in Catholic schools, and operating in a socio-cultural-economic system that places great importance on being Catholic (to the point that a baptismal certificate can count as valid ID). Like many Catholics, I have since fallen off the bandwagon, as it were, but unlike others who either turned to other forms of Christianity or other religions entirely, I’ve since decided that I do not wish to adhere to any particular faith at all. If someone talks religion to me, my answers will depend on the nature of that interlocutor: sometimes I will say I’m Catholic - an outright lie, but necessary when dealing with more conservative folk. Sometimes I will say I’m Christian - not as much of a lie as saying I’m Catholic, but not quite the truth either. Still, it is a necessary lie in this country, where people can and will judge you for being of any other faith except one that believes in Christ.

However, if I’m lucky enough to be speaking with someone who is more open-minded, I will give the closest-to-true response: that I am “spiritual.” If they are even more open-minded and are looking for details, I’ll admit that my practice of faith is rooted in Christianity but has a lot of elements drawn from Wicca, since I was a practicing (but closeted) Wiccan for a majority of my college years. I sometimes even joke that I’ve abandoned Catholicism because “I want to pray to a god with boobs:” a response to the deeply-ingrained misogyny of Philippine Catholicism.

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The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Note: This is a review of the third book in a trilogy. It contains no spoilers for the book being reviewed, but may contain spoilers for the two previous books. Please do not read this review without having read the first two books.

There is a feeling I get when I approach the ending of a story: a strange roiling sensation in the gut. It makes me feel like I want to get to the end as quickly as possible, to know how it all ends, but sometimes - with the best of stories - it is mingled with the sensation to just stop. It is as if my subconscious already knows that to hurtle towards that ending means I will hurt myself, as if it can already predict I will do myself a kind of emotional injury. Not that I actually stop, of course, but it must be said that some books are worth the pain, and others are very much not.

It all depends on the ending. For a story, no matter the length, to be truly worth any emotional turmoil I undergo to finish it, it must have a good ending. I do not expect it to be happy, of course; not all stories can end happily, after all. But whatever that ending might be, happy or heartbreaking, it must, at least, ring true to the story that came before it. Too happy or too sad, and it will ring false. It must be just right, land in a kind of Goldilocks zone where it makes sense. This is especially important with long-running series, since I invest so much time reading the individual books that the ending has to be worth that investment.

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The Wolf of Oren-yaro (Annals of the Bitch Queen, #1)

The Wolf of Oren-yaro by K.S. Villoso

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review was based on an ARC given to me for free by the author, K.S. Villoso. This does not in any way affect my review.

The book is due for release on January 29, 2018.

I may have mentioned elsewhere that I like flawed characters - not because I think they are good people, but because I think they make interesting characters to read about. I understand that not all readers are capable of drawing the distinction between a good person and a good character and insist that they mean one and the same thing, but I am well aware that that is not the case. It is possible for a character to be great while still being flawed - while being evil, even, if their reasons for being evil are more nuanced and complex than those of the average Scooby Doo villain. Had I not learned this difference my professors at university would have kicked me out of the Literature program, and they would have been very right to do so.

But I have learned the difference, and moreover, I appreciate it wholeheartedly. While I do not always ask for verisimilitude in the things I read (there is much pleasure to be derived from stereotypes after all - they would not exist otherwise), I do insist on a certain amount of complexity in the novels I read, regardless of genre. It does not always have to be very high, but it has to be there, and it has to be employed well.

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Red Right Hand by Levi Black

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Of all the things Neil Gaiman has ever written, I think that American Gods is the best. not everyone will agree with me, of course; there are those who firmly believe the Sandman graphic novel series is his best creation, while others are going to say Neverwhere, or Stardust (which trades places sometimes with American Gods in my personal list of Neil Gaiman’s Greatest Hits). Yet others might point to his young adult books like Coraline and The Graveyard Book, while others might say that his short story collections like Smoke and Mirrors and Trigger Warning are the best. And while all of those works have their own individual merits, I still think that American Gods is the best.

It’s rather hard to explain why, though. A lot of it has to do with personal bias (which might come from the fact that I picked up American Gods at just the right moment in my life when I was most open to it and when it most appealed to me), but I also think I just like the idea of gods walking among humanity, unseen and unacknowledged, waging a war of their own and with nobody the wiser. The idea of the divine, the supernatural, coexisting invisibly with the mundane is something that thoroughly appeals to me as a reader, which is why American Gods was my gateway drug the genre of urban fantasy.

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The Armored Saint (The Sacred Throne, #1)

The Armored Saint by Myke Cole

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher, Tor.Com Publishing. This does not, in any way, affect my review. The Armored Saint is slated for release on February 20, 2018.

Coincidences are a fascinating aspect of life. When they are positive, they can be thrilling; when they are negative, they can be outright horrifying. Some people think they are a sign of divine guidance, that some great being has their hand upon the universe and is guiding it towards some unknown destiny. Those who believe in no such thing just shrug their shoulders and insist that it’s just the human brain making connections where no such connections exist, adding that “correlation does not imply causation.”

Whether or not one takes coincidences as a divine message, they are still fascinating, and still powerful. For instance: this book, The Armored Saint by Myke Cole, is scheduled for release on February 20, 2018. Two days later, on February 22 to 25, my country will be celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the People Power Revolution, which ousted Ferdinand Marcos and his family from power. Despite being peaceful in nature, however, the EDSA Revolution (as it is more commonly called here in the Philippines) was ignited by blood: specifically, that of Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on August 21, 1983. Though the People Power Revolution has been lauded as one of the greatest nonviolent protests in history, and has provided the inspiration for many other, similar protests since, denying its violent roots would be disingenuous.

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Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It goes without saying that the world is getting smaller every day. It’s human nature to explore, to find what lies beyond the mountains or on the other side of the horizon, but thanks to the technology of the 21st century there are very, very few places left that might still be considered unexplored. The places that are left, like the jungles of Papua New Guinea, or the thickest portions of the Amazon, will soon be fully mapped as mining and logging interests carve pathways through them while claiming resources. In a few more years, most if not all of Earth’s land will be mapped, and there will be nothing left to discover.

This does not, however, include the ocean. Seventy percent of this planet is underwater, and a huge portion of that has yet to be explored. To be sure, technology has gone some way towards giving humanity an idea of what lies at the bottom of the sea: sonar, radar, and submersibles (with and without people aboard) have given scientists a glimpse of what lies in the deep, but so much is still unknown. We know more about the surface of the Moon and of Mars than we know about the bottom of the ocean - something some people find utterly ludicrous. The Challenger Deep is closer to home; Mars is thousands of miles away, and any planets that could potentially harbour life (let alone intelligent life) are even farther still. Never mind fears of extraterrestrial invasion; if anything is going to destroy humanity (aside from itself), it will come from the ocean, not outer space.

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Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone by Juli Berwald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I have an appreciation for creatures with tentacles. Anyone who’s known me long enough also knows that I’m not above cooing over a boogly-eyed octopus, or squid, or cuttlefish - especially if it’s soft and plushy and comes in pastel colours. It’s a very weird definition of cute, I know, but it appeals to me regardless.

Despite their tentacled nature, however, jellyfish have never struck me as cute. “Cute” is not the right word, but “beautiful” certainly is. Typing “jellyfish video” into a Google search will pull up several videos like this one, which showcase the ethereal beauty of jellyfish swimming. There is something hypnotic about the way they move through the water, trailing translucent tentacles behind them like tulle streamers, or shreds of elaborate antique lace. Watching them is an exercise in tranquility: tracing their slow movement through the water with one’s eyes can be extremely calming, as can timing one’s breathing to the pulsing of their bells.

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Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3)

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a review for the third book in a series, and may contain spoilers for the previous books. Please make sure to read the previous books before reading this review.

I love a good doorstopper. Not everyone has the patience for them, to be sure, but I enjoy them immensely. In the years since I first immersed myself in Tolkien’s trilogy (which technically can be considered a doorstopper cut into three parts), I have found myself happily getting lost in other, very long stories. Not all of them have been speculative fiction (the Tale of Genji is a literary classic: the first novel ever written), but since epic stories are generally more accepted in fantasy, many of my favourite doorstopper tomes have been in that genre. This is not entirely surprising; after all, fantasy - especially secondary-world epic fantasy - requires a fair amount of world-building.

One of the best examples of this currently in publication is Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive: a truly epic tale with a projected ten books in the series. Oathbringer is the third book in that series, and continues where the first two books, Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, left off.

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The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the eighth book in a series. While this review is spoiler-free for the book itself, it might contain spoilers for the other books in the series. To avoid getting spoiled, please do not read this review without having first read the other books in the series.

I think it is safe to say that nowadays, politics is more like a circus than anything else, and we all have front-row seats whether we like it or not. I certainly feel that way, watching an erstwhile mayor-turned-president attempt to use brutish small-town tactics on a national level, while his sycophantic followers praise him to high heavens and use his influence to forward their own agendas. This, while on the other side of the Pacific, an equally incompetent president helms the most powerful (and therefore most dangerous) country in the world, whose actions and words alternately threaten total political collapse or World War III - and sometimes, both at once.

Against this backdrop of troubled (and troubling) politics and world events, the Elder Gods loom larger than ever. Though these powerful denizens of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos have always been popular in speculative fiction, they have recently become popular enough that they are surfacing in more mainstream consciousness. On one hand, there is a growing movement in SFF that attempts to deconstruct Lovecraft’s oeuvre by casting a wary and hairy eye on his racism and classism, both of which are deeply embedded in the bones of the Mythos itself. More and more, SFF authors - especially those from minority backgrounds - are beginning to realise that Lovecraft’s disgusting politics cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, and many of them have found excellent and fascinating ways to address those politics via stories ranging from short stories to immersive novels, along with essays and reportage across various forms of media.

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The Tiger’s Daughter (Their Bright Ascendency, #1)

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoy a good love story. It’s what drives me to read (and write) fanfic, and why I return, time and time again, to romance novels. Of course, I cannot say for sure that the stories I, myself, write are any good, but I can say with confidence what kinds of love stories I do and don’t like. In general, I am amenable to all sorts of tropes and clichés, but what I do require is a certain level of believability. That level can be quite flexible, since I do not always expect complete and total adherence to lifelike verisimilitude, but I do expect that a story can, at the very least, convince me of the authenticity of the feelings on display. Happy endings are appreciated, of course, but they are not an absolute requirement; if the story is such that a happy ending would not be believable, then I am likely to be dissatisfied with the story in question if it tries to give me a happy ending when a tragic one strikes me as more appropriate. Similarly, I am not entirely opposed to the love-at-first-sight cliche, but I do expect any writer making use of it to, at the very least, use it well.

Unfortunately, finding a good love story has not been easy as of late. To be sure, young adult books (YA being what currently appears to be the most popular genre) tell a great many love stories, but an enormous chunk of them don’t read as very convincing. More often than not they feel trite and hurried, relying entirely too much on cliches in place of showing genuine, actual feeling. That is, after all, the hard part of writing a love story: convincing the reader that what the characters are feeling is authentic. (This is also why I do not often show the fanfic I write to other people; what I write feels authentic to me as the writer, but I cannot guarantee that it will feel the same way to others. But since I write such stories for my own personal pleasure and not for an audience, I am content to keep them squirrelled away for my own fun.)

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The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This review is based on an ARC given to me by the publisher, Angry Robot Books. This does not in any way affect my review.

This novel is slated for release on November 7, 2017.

I have a confession to make: I came late - very late - to the Firefly bandwagon. When the series first came out in 2002 I was deeply involved in other fandoms, but even when its popularity resurged after Serenity was released, I took a long while to finally make my way to it. When I did, though, it was immediately clear to me why it had the following it did, and why it continues to be popular today, long after the series ended and the movie was released. While the concept and storyline are certainly quite good, it’s the characters that really explain why the series caught on as it did and remains, to this day, much-beloved in SFF circles. To be sure, they are not without their problems (mostly because the show was cut far too short for any solid character development to happen), but for the most part, the Serenity’s wisecracking, somewhat amoral, internally-broken, but intensely loyal found family was - is - the franchise’s beating heart.

Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for a story (not specifically sci-fi) that plays with similar themes, and I’ve been lucky to find it, to a greater or lesser degree, elsewhere: for example, in Scott Lynch’s Gentlemen Bastards series, and in Foz Meadows’ Manifold Worlds duology, as well as in Bioware’s Mass Effect video games. It’s a quality I always look out for, because while there is nothing wrong with romantic relationships, I have a great appreciation for stories that focus on platonic and filial relationships - especially if it’s about building one’s own family, instead of relying exclusively on one’s blood relations.

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Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alternate history has always fascinated me. I suppose this should come as no surprise, since anyone who reads my blog can easily see that I enjoy both historical fiction and science fiction, but based on my reviews for the former, plus my reviews of nonfiction history-focused books, some might assume that I hold history sacred: something that cannot be touched, cannot be manipulated, no matter what. The truth, however, is that I enjoy a good tale of alternate history - enough that a good friend and I have engaged in it before, building an alternate reality of the Borgias and Renaissance Italy. And besides, as the host of the podcast Hardcore History often says, very few historians can resist playing around with “what if?” questions, though most of them are disciplined enough not to let such speculation spill into the more academic corners of their lives.

Despite this interest, however, I I do not often pick up alternate history stories, mostly because very few of them really interest me enough to want to spend money and time on them. Most of the time, I pass over alternate history novels because a lot of them don’t engage with a historical period I’m interested in reading about. I see plenty of alternate histories based around the Industrial Revolution and onwards, but those periods hold very little interest for me except under certain specific circumstances. On the other hand, I would happily spend money and time on an alternate history of Renaissance Italy, or of the ancient world, but those tend to be few and far between, or are sufficiently obscure that I do not really encounter them at the usual places I go to for books.

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The Changeling by Victor LaValle

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

More and more these days, people are choosing not to have children. People may marry, it is true, but just because people are married does not necessarily mean they want to have children. I can point to my own cousin as an example; she and her husband have been married for more than five years now, and neither of them has any plans to have children. The idea of having kids, at least for them, is more a nebulous idea: maybe they will, but more likely they won’t. When asked, they often cite cost of living; it’s expensive raising a child in the United States, even though both of them are financially well-off and are in stable careers. There are likely other reasons, of course, but that is the one they give out the most to my aunt and uncle - most likely because it is the reason that is easiest for my aunt and uncle to swallow. I suspect that my cousin and her husband have decided to opt out of having children for a few other reasons than simply the financial aspect, but I cannot ask them the question without lacking delicadeza.

But it is hard to blame people for opting out of parenthood - not least because being a parent means being in a constant state of fear. For a person with a uterus, that fear starts from the moment they find out they are pregnant, and subsequently decide to keep the foetus. Pregnancy is immensely taxing on the body, to say nothing of the financial strain it can cause. And then, provided that the baby comes into the world relatively healthy, the new parents must now ask themselves how they can keep their child not only safe, but become healthy, happy, well-adjusted individuals. These fears are further fuelled by the Internet and social media, where Facebook and celebrity endorsements inundate parents with things they are doing wrong and how this book or toy or baby carrier or whole new parenting ideology can help them raise a better, faster, stronger child (apologies to Daft Punk).

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