Media roundup, August

[superborb]

Metal from Heaven, by August Clarke:

In an industrializing fantasy setting with a horribly oppressed labor class, a lesbian highwaywoman seeks her revenge. Reading this was roughly like being hit over the head, so much was happening. It was quite satisfying and the whole hung together, but it picked up and abandoned complete genres as it went. I'm not sure its politics fully held together, but it sure was a ride.

Where the Axe is Buried, by Ray Nayler:

A revolution brews in a world where the West is ruled by AI Prime Ministers and the Federation is ruled by the President, who maintains his grip on power by transferring his mind to new bodies. Very meaty, though no individual idea was especially novel, it was put together in a satisfying way. I liked solving the puzzle of who was pulling the strings and the larger plot, but despite its ostensible focus on systems, it is very much a Great Man type of story. Really enjoyed!

The City in Glass, by Nghi Vo:

The story of a demon who loves a city, told over centuries. A beautiful read, but not too much substance. Well, it was still satisfying as a story of grief and moving on, but because of how brief each described snapshot is, it felt less substantial than it ought to have? I enjoyed this, but found it forgettable.

Semiosis, by Sue Burke:

Pacifist colonists escape the war and ecological disaster on Earth for a distant planet, and the story of the colony and the alien life they encounter is told by one character per generation for seven generations. The science is pretty bad and not consistent: if no Earth plants/animals can survive, why are humans the exception? Why not try to bring some samples over? And then after all the detail about how the biochemistry is different... it's similar enough that they are largely affected by drugs the same way. I also wish it dug more into the difficulties of pacifism or how specific culture is (the prohibition on eating the dead is not universal even on Earth...). Basically, while the story itself was satisfying and I really enjoyed the conceit of the generations passing, I wish it were more than it was.
PS: If you're worried about reproduction on the new planet and only have frozen ova/sperm for reproductive technology, why not have way more woman colonists in gen one?
Spoiler CW: there was two paragraphs of on screen rape that came out of nowhere

Gauguin (game): A sudoku like game that I enjoyed for being a bit tricky to figure out. I was searching for puzzle-y games to play while nursing, and went through several similar type games (Tents and Trees, Star Battle) for being too easy... I wanted to like Cosmic Express or Mini Metro for this, but they require too much movement during gameplay. Games like Two Dots and Candy Crush get a little too same-y since they aren't solvable the same way, and games like Rummikub and Azul are too solvable when played against the computer. Basically, I'm too picky, and I fear the end result of this is that I really need to get into Tsumego...

Comments

[genarti]

"I'm not sure its politics fully held together, but it sure was a ride" sums up my feelings on Metal From Heaven nicely, except I would say "I'm not sure it fully held together" full stop! I had a great time, and I respect its gonzo, balls-to-the-wall ambition and weirdness, and I had numerous logistical questions all through, lol

City in Glass I loved, except that I was never fully satisfied by the angel stuff? Either the relationship or the worldbuilding of it. I found myself viewing that whole plot as kind of unnecessary and grafted on, while being fairly sure that Vo would have described it as absolutely central, which is a weird feeling. I think if the angel had been another demon, I wouldn't have felt that way. But even in that subplot there were a lot of moments I loved, and I did love the demon-eye long view of the city.

[superborb]

I felt like it wanted its politics to hold together, while it didn't care so much about handwaving much of the other weirdness (the logistics, economy, mechanisms of the ichorite etc etc)! But that might also be my bias about a book having to ~say something~ and the politics being the closest thing to a message it had...

I felt a bit more satisfied about the angel when I thought of the ultimate message as being about grief and recovery? So that the angel was tied to moving on from that grief. The worldbuilding around it doesn't make sense though.

[genarti]

I was okay handwaving a lot of the weirdness, but I kept running into stuff like, "The narrative has made a major point about how you can't eat the food without an allergic reaction unless somebody sympathetic surreptitiously slips you a roll from the kitchen or something... but also it's now been a solid week of athletic, uh, pursuits and also some blood loss and as far as I can tell you haven't eaten since day 1???" If the author had handwaved that too I'd've rolled with it, but I felt like it kept pointing out logistical issues to me and then not following through. But this may be me as a reader who is simply more focused on such things than this book wanted its readers to be.

I agree about grief and recovery; I think the book is very much about that. I think it's partly that I didn't care about the eroticism side (this is probably a me-as-a-reader thing) and partly that I felt Vo was very deliberately playing around with disrupting assumptions about what demons are and might do, but then not doing likewise with the angel, so it felt unbalanced. But as part of working through and moving on from grief, yes, absolutely -- that aspect of it worked very well.

[superborb]

I thought the implication was the food sneaking was ongoing! So she was getting food the whole time from the kitchen, though it was less than she maybe wanted.

Oh true, the eroticism also didn't really work for me... It was def focused on the lore about the demons while the angels were flat; I guess Watsonianly that was Vitrine's own focus, but you're right that as a book it was unbalanced!

[halfcactus]

I've never tried any of Nghi Vo's novels bc I think her wheelhouse is novellas but that description of City of Glass is making me want to check it out bc it makes me think of Invisible Cities, which I loved.

Good luck with your nursing gaming! I'd be interested to see what else you've tried hehe

[chestnut_pod]

It's been so fun watching people read Metal From Heaven here and there on my flist. It IS like getting hit over the head, for good and ill.

Nghi Vo's full-lengths have all been kind of light, I feel… It's strange to me, because the novellas pack so very much in!

[superborb]

Hm! Actually not a bad comparison book -- did have that same 'snapshots of a city', but the Vo is more focused on specific people

[superborb]

It was a very confident book!

Yeah, I don't think it could've been a novella, but it kinda wanted to be one in terms of how much idea was packed in?