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Books I& #39;ve read "recently" (like, probably this year? time is hard) in no particular order, a thread:
I liked all of these books - I don& #39;t finish reading books that don& #39;t grab me to some extent - so, like, even if I& #39;m a bit cool on them I still think they& #39;re worth reading. I& #39;m not trying to critique or criticize, just say a bit about them and why I liked them.
The Compleat Nakata: Almost all of the stories in this collection are unbearably sad and deeply beautiful, but Unsworth is more than capable of ramping up the tension to almost intolerable levels when he wants to. It also has a rather compelling model of what & why ghosts are.
This is horror in the vein of classic ghost stories, complete with a heartbroken and methodical investigator linking the stories together and a richly realized geography. It reminds me vaguely of Carnacki, although Nakata has less of a mystical bent.
The last story in the collection, "Baby Way", also engages in a wonderful slight of hand that I find that I& #39;m increasingly adoring as a vehicle for horror. If you want more of that, Pseudopod& #39;s episode 701 is in the same vein.
Finna: It& #39;s a short, weird, surreal story centered around alien Ikeas and the question of when to really let go of a failed relationship. Despite how strange parts of it get, the characters keep it grounded in a way that not all weird fiction manages.
Finna& #39;s main antagonists also seem to be a metaphor for how heteronormative, capitalistic models of existence suck the life and individuality from those who subscribe to them, so that& #39;s neat. I always like when queer stories come down firmly against assimilation.
Queens of Noise: Crust punk werecoyotes in a battle of the bands! With lots of queer romance, hot goths, and gentrifying witches. Honestly, if that description isn& #39;t enough I don& #39;t know why you& #39;re reading this thread. It& #39;s great.
I& #39;ve lent my copy out to a friend who I think is going to love it, and I& #39;m probably going to badger some of my other friends to read it after that. And, really, is there any higher compliment to give to a book than shoving it into as many hands as possible?
Monster of Elendhaven: An uncomfortably visceral story of revenge in a frozen city poisoned by industry and magic. I loved every moment of it, but it& #39;s going to be a while before I reread it. It& #39;s chock full of body horror, plague, and palpable sexual tension. It& #39;s an experience.
I feel like I should have more to say about it, but, honestly, reading it felt like letting a flood of words and imagery wash over me. I didn& #39;t have time to stop to think about it or try to dissect it. Exceptional horror is like that.
Shorefall: It& #39;s a grimy, industrial fantasy heist novel! With a lot of trauma, programmatic magic occasionally powered by human sacrifice, and lesbians. It sucked me in and wouldn& #39;t let go. I& #39;m very much looking forward to the final book in this trilogy.
Both Bennett& #39;s last trilogy and this one do a lot with abusive power structures, trauma, and the cost of innovation, but this one feels rather more refined. It certainly does a very good job of giving everyone, even the antagonist, compelling motivations.
Since all of the prominent characters oppose the current order of their world, a lot of the conflict is simply over what form revolution should take - whether it should be within the system, outside it, or wipe the board clean and change what it means to be human. It& #39;s neat.
Recursion: It& #39;s, uh, hard to talk about this book at all without spoiling parts of it. Even what it ends up ultimately being about is a slowly unveiled revelation. But it& #39;s near-future science fiction that grapples with questions of how memories inform identity, and visa versa.
There& #39;s a romance at its core, although the book elides the questions of consent that its circumstances raise in favor of souls and trauma bonding. I think it& #39;s best read as a thriller, and not taken too seriously otherwise.
My favorite part of it is its model of (spoiler!) time travel, which is both inherently unstable and deeply traumatic to everyone it affects. I& #39;m a sucker for well thought out time travel.
Unnatural Magic: A fantastic mystery, chock full of unexpected horniness, compelling characters, fascinating worldbuilding, and gender politics. A neat magic system too, which feels well thought out and compelling without falling into the trap of being overly defined.
It takes a long time to gather momentum, with many chapters serving mostly to explore the world or deepen characterizations, and when it speeds up it feels like it& #39;s skipping over a few things. I found this enjoyable, but it did take me a few chapters to get used to.
