Media diet, Jul-Aug

[superborb]

As I was on vacation for like a month (post... still forthcoming), my media consumption dropped way off. Still, got to read a bunch of stuff on planes.

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: Two enemy agents travel through time + universes altering events to favor the future in which their side wins, begin to exchange letters, and fall in love. I'd have loved it if it were half as long, but it felt, well, approximately twice as long as it needed to be. Fluffy language, and I thought it rather neatly tied together the foreshadowing at the end.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: An independent space station living at the edge of an expansionist empire receives a demand to send a new ambassador. Mahit is, like the previous ambassador, a huge fan of the empire's culture, but is without some critical tools an ambassador from her station would normally rely on, namely a functional copy of the previous ambassador's memories and consciousness to guide her. I really loved that the historical referent was something more obscure and you could really tell that Martine knows that history inside and out. As a result, it felt like a unique and rich exploration of colonialism and politics. I do think it tried to guide me on what to think a little too much-- sometimes the narrow and twisty plot was a little too narrow. Still, I found this book to be really meaty and well worth sinking your teeth into.

Desdemona and the Deep by C.S.E. Cooney: The wealthy daughter of a mining family has finally found the line where she will have to take a stand, when her father forces an exchange of a tithe of men in exchange for oil. This reads extremely YA to me, in a negative way. The plot was rather straightforward and the problems always immediately solved. There /are/ really interesting and imaginative details in the worldbuilding though! Just not very satisfying and felt rushed.

Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley: I thought this was very interesting, the way it skipped between the hypermodern and the alliterative / playing with the original poetic form. Definitely easier to read than the translation I read in high school English class haha.

Also I've been reading They All Say I've Met a Ghost for reading club and watching Couple of Mirrors (livetweeting under #coupleofborbs here), but I'll probably do full reviews for those when I finish. Ooh, I should also compile the more interesting poems from the Shijing / 19 Old Poems for poetry club! We're onto Mulan now, doing some short one offs for now. Over on dankodes if you want to check it out!

Comments

[halfcactus]

You read so much even on hiatus! And I'm forever amazed at how many reading commitments you have, on top of your personal reading.

(I'm avoiding adding books to my to-read right now but A Memory Called Empire seems something I can read eventually. I do think it tried to guide me on what to think a little too much is very much a plus for me. XD)

I hope someday I have the bandwidth to read about Chinese poetry because they sound really interesting to discuss. :O

[superborb]

Hah, it was over two months!!

[silveredeye]

I think I spent the middle part of This Is How You Lose the Time War suspecting that the mysterious stalker was a version of Blue (although I cannot remember my exact reasoning. I definitely enjoyed the language (I usually do, with those authors) and the sense that the authors had had plain fun writing this. Fun historical moments? A beloved author? Gratuitous nature porn? Lyrical descriptions of highly technological places? Yeah, they like it, so it's going in the draft.

A Memory Called Empire is straight-up one of my favourite novels. (It probably helps that I (over)identify with Mahit - her conflict between knowing that Teixcalaanli culture is already eroding her home station's culture and still loving Teixcalaan and its culture really hits me in the feels.)

Ooh, I've been thinking about trying the Headley Beowulf (the Browulf?). It got a lot of buzz when it came out, which intrigued me, but then I was too lazy then to go looking for it. Skipping between alliterative and supermodern definitely sounds fun.

[superborb]

I do get the impression that you'd like this kind of language way more than me! Though yeah, the authors did clearly have fun with it haha.

Oh, I can see how that would definitely bring A Memory Called Empire right to the top! I don't think I really identified with Mahit very much; the novel felt much more like an exploration of feelings about colonialism that I was only intellectually appreciating instead of viscerally. Still, I enjoyed it a lot!

HAHA Browulf is excellent! It was a really fast read, since it's quite short.

[stultiloquentia]

This post is full of stuff I've had in my read/watch queue for months. Looking forward to your Couple of Mirrors review.

Obligatory ICYMI rec for hunxi's CQL Time War AU: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601210. I need to reread it, now that I've chewed through a little more Chinese poetry.

[superborb]

Thanks!

Yeah, I've seen it.

[littledust]

Hee, the pretty language in This Is How You Lose the Time War was the selling point for me, but I have agreed with every critique I've seen of it! And I LOVED A Memory Called Empire, and I loved its sequel even more! Intrigued by the new Beowulf translation after all I've heard about it...

[superborb]

Haha, yeah, I'm pretty sure that Time War rides or dies based on if the reader likes the language!

I'm #50 in line for the sequel, so it may be a while... We'll see if I break down and buy it before then haha

[hiddenramen]

BIG agree on This Is How You Lose the Time War. I always have such conflicted feelings on it, just because I'm like, "If this were a short story / novella, it would be one of my faves." As it stands, though, it's so flowery and bloated that I struggled with it at points.

[superborb]

YES, I'm glad I'm not alone! It really felt like there was a core novella length story that could have been incredible.