Books and comics read in September 2021
Wednesday, 13 October 2021 12:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhatsThe Raven Heir - Stephanie Burgis
The Book of Dragons ed. Jonathan Strahan
The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard
Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution - CLR James
Penric's Demon - Lois McMaster Bujold
Once and Future: The King Is Undead
When Sorrows Come - Seanan McGuire
Wendy, Darling - AC Wise
The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World - Kehinde Andrews
Reach for Infinity ed. Jonathan Strahan
The Raven Heir
Delightful middle grade novel about a girl who can shapeshift into animals discovering that either she or one of her triplets are the heir to the kingdom they live in, with a strong emphasis on family, honesty and trying to do the right thing. I loved it.
The Book of Dragons
Pretty solid anthology: I inevitably liked some stories and poems more than others but by and large they were all decently written at least, and I did like the variety of different takes on the idea of dragons. Zen Cho's "Hikayat Sri Bujang, or, The Tale of the Naga Sage" was easily the standout story for me.
The Hands of the Emperor
A high level bureaucrat, on a whim, invites his boss (who is also the emperor) to go on holiday with him, and Things Escalate. Despite the major political upheavals, this is a quiet book about how to build a better world, and about building and maintaining friendships. It also includes a major strand about what it's like to be a person from a non-dominant culture living within the dominant culture: although this world doesn't have the same recent history of violent colonialism as ours does (and the protagonist explicitly comes from a culture that chose to join the empire thousands of years earlier), it very much still has racism, and the main character spends a lot of time both working out how to respond to this now that he is in a powerful enough position to do so, and how to balance all the different parts of his life without losing anything he values.
I really liked that most of the action takes place after a lot of the work has been done, and that the main character was expected to have a long and happy retirement, and that he was allowed and encouraged to take time off to spend with his family - he wasn't expected to work himself into the ground forever just because the work was important and he was good at it. I also loved the emphasis on friendship and the way it was treated as just as important as family or romantic relationships.
Basically I just loved this? It was long and slow and absorbing and wonderful.
(Caveat: the main character's culture is based on Pacific Islands culture; as far as I can tell the author isn't from that background and I haven't found any comment on it from someone who is.)
Wendy, Darling
I really enjoyed this feminist reimagining of Wendy post-Peter Pan, returning to Neverland to rescue Jane, not least because its Wendy is aroace. I did feel like it wasn't entirely sure what it was trying to do and as a result threw a lot of things at the wall to see what would stick, but I appreciated all the things it was throwing so it worked for me overall.
(Content note: institutionalisation, discussion of racism)
The Book of Dragons ed. Jonathan Strahan
The Hands of the Emperor - Victoria Goddard
Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution - CLR James
Penric's Demon - Lois McMaster Bujold
Once and Future: The King Is Undead
When Sorrows Come - Seanan McGuire
Wendy, Darling - AC Wise
The New Age of Empire: How Racism and Colonialism Still Rule the World - Kehinde Andrews
Reach for Infinity ed. Jonathan Strahan
The Raven Heir
Delightful middle grade novel about a girl who can shapeshift into animals discovering that either she or one of her triplets are the heir to the kingdom they live in, with a strong emphasis on family, honesty and trying to do the right thing. I loved it.
The Book of Dragons
Pretty solid anthology: I inevitably liked some stories and poems more than others but by and large they were all decently written at least, and I did like the variety of different takes on the idea of dragons. Zen Cho's "Hikayat Sri Bujang, or, The Tale of the Naga Sage" was easily the standout story for me.
The Hands of the Emperor
A high level bureaucrat, on a whim, invites his boss (who is also the emperor) to go on holiday with him, and Things Escalate. Despite the major political upheavals, this is a quiet book about how to build a better world, and about building and maintaining friendships. It also includes a major strand about what it's like to be a person from a non-dominant culture living within the dominant culture: although this world doesn't have the same recent history of violent colonialism as ours does (and the protagonist explicitly comes from a culture that chose to join the empire thousands of years earlier), it very much still has racism, and the main character spends a lot of time both working out how to respond to this now that he is in a powerful enough position to do so, and how to balance all the different parts of his life without losing anything he values.
I really liked that most of the action takes place after a lot of the work has been done, and that the main character was expected to have a long and happy retirement, and that he was allowed and encouraged to take time off to spend with his family - he wasn't expected to work himself into the ground forever just because the work was important and he was good at it. I also loved the emphasis on friendship and the way it was treated as just as important as family or romantic relationships.
Basically I just loved this? It was long and slow and absorbing and wonderful.
(Caveat: the main character's culture is based on Pacific Islands culture; as far as I can tell the author isn't from that background and I haven't found any comment on it from someone who is.)
Wendy, Darling
I really enjoyed this feminist reimagining of Wendy post-Peter Pan, returning to Neverland to rescue Jane, not least because its Wendy is aroace. I did feel like it wasn't entirely sure what it was trying to do and as a result threw a lot of things at the wall to see what would stick, but I appreciated all the things it was throwing so it worked for me overall.
(Content note: institutionalisation, discussion of racism)