A Good Review For A Change - What Stalks The Deep by T. Kingfisher

Occasionally, when I’m perusing modern fiction, I start to wonder if I have deeply embedded bigotries that predispose me to dislike the subject matter rather than the writing, which happens a lot when I’m reading about nonbinary people.

It reminds me of this lesbian I used to work with, who was telling me I was supposed to like some dreary little art film about people who sit and talk about sex to each other, and when I hated it, she sneered that I probably would prefer to see some blockbuster. And I was like … well, yeah. Blockbusters are at least popular. You can zone out for the dull bits and drop back in for the precisely timed exciting parts. They’re made by people who know how to operate a camera and do all that fancy stuff, like key grips and best boys and whoever patches in the Wilhelm Scream. Little verite art documentaries are unpopular for a reason, and their fans would immediately drop them if they ever caught on in a big way.

She tried to frame it like I was homophobic though, and it was one of the very earliest dishonest arguments framed as bigotry that I ever encountered. There have been a few since then, and it makes me self-conscious whenever I read anything with rainbow characters. Am I allowed to not like this? Are people going to give me shit for saying I was bored? Does my dislike for a boring story that happens to touch upon some facet of representation constitute some kind of unfairness to those represented?  

I’m pleased to inform you all that it’s the writing, and not me, because I thoroughly enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s What Stalks The Deep, and I want to read the whole brilliant trilogy, and I don’t even care if there’s a swashbuckling nonbinary hero who uses nonstandard pronouns, I want more! This has both gender bending energy and blockbuster energy! Plus it’s a smart examination of the horror genre itself! Winner winner Nyarlathotep dinner! Except not literally, because that would be unpleasant.

This mininovel did not keep me up until 2am like Carl did, but that’s only because it is short. If it had been longer, it would have kept me up later.

T. Kingfisher is an author who has never disappointed me. I’ve been angsting over whether to attend the Hugos or whether to skip them and go to Disneyland, and the possibility of seeing her make an acceptance speech is one of the few things tempting me to do that instead of go stand in line for that Star Wars ride again and maybe get some Dole Whip. I seriously love Dole Whip. I also loved T. Kingfisher’s amazing whale fall speech, and I really hope she wins and does something similar so I can watch it on video. Because the combination of longwinded speeches and potentially watching KPop Demon Hunters fail to win is something I just don’t need in my life right now.

This leaves only one more novella standing between me and a brand new book I haven't read yet by Matt “Dungeon Crawler Carl” Dinniman, but I can’t see myself voting for anyone other than Kingfisher. Hope it’s not too disappointing!

Reviews: Cinder House, by Freya Marske and The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar

I bounced off of both of these relatively early. I liked Cinder House for a while, due to its intriguing premises – the protagonist is a haunted house. Unfortunately, the house then discovers a dead body inside it and feels compelled to solve a murder mystery.

The best way to get me to read a murder mystery is the Stephen King method: write fifty excellent novels in a genre I actually enjoy first. Don’t drop it on me on our first date. Mysteries hit me like "lucky you; a brilliant writer is here to show you how to think extra smart!" But actually catching criminals (I know a little about this) tends to be a team effort full of weird irreconcilable questions rather than one brilliant character successfully following the clues the author has laid out in a neat trail. 

Meanwhile The River Has Roots is like Gabriel Garcia Marquez style magical realism, and I tried a few times but couldn’t get into it. Sorry!

Review - Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

 A mystery. With body swapping. In some kind of steampunk Bridgerton setting. I noped out on page one.

There's science fiction, which has robots and aliens and thought experiments, and extrapolates based on plausible scenarios. 

And then there's this other genre, full of bodyswapping and psionics, that hits me more like religious tracts for some nutty new age multilevel marketing scheme right out of the '70s, or some utopian human potential cult that's mostly about dominance and submission. You are not your body! You create reality with your words! You must be vigilant about people spying on your inner monologue and even taking it over! It's not based on science, so it's not really science fiction per se, but it slides in through the "people used to think this was science" loophole. 

The history of these various belief systems is a fascinating subject for study. Yoga is awesome. Folklore is nifty. 

I can't say the same for art from true believers, earnestly doing their best to convince me that thinking of bodies as disposable vehicles for our marvelous minds is a desirable worldview. No it's not. Your authentic self IS your DNA. You may not invade other peoples' bodies, and they're not going to possess yours. You were not packaged with a series of disposable personality cartridges. 

I suppose you could consider this to be horror fiction for people who believe strongly in bodily autonomy; kind of along the lines of Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby. You can't have an autonomous body if different consciousnesses may invade it at will. Willy nilly, in some works of fiction. 

It hits me the same way as all the other simplistic religious propaganda in the world though; something decorating the fliers that grimy hippie is trying to hand people on the sidewalk. Or some fanatical asshole with a microphone screaming at people to accept Jesus. Believe what I believe! Then we'll all be safe! 

That aversion has put me off acclaimed works like Cloud Atlas, so I'm not interested in seeing what I've grown to think of as a boring cliched rape/control trope reinterpreted yet again. I think the fetish for considering other people to be puppets and their bodies to be discardable outfits is gross, and it reminds me of the narcissistic princess in Return to Oz, and when I see it, I'm passing unless there's some massive art incentivizing me otherwise. I'll blame it on reading way too much Jack L. Chalker in the '70s.

I Must Say I'm Really Enjoying the Asian Presence Among the Hugo Nominees

 I figured out in 2020 that South Korea had gone far beyond us in both cinema and pop music, and that was before the Korean Fried Chicken popup. It sounded like the future, so I swiftly developed an interest.

And I noticed there were even American, and Australian, and Canadian pop stars who had moved to Korea to start their careers, because western media tends to exclude actual Asians along with people of Asian descent. 

I've always lived around a lot of Asians so I tend to notice when they're not around, and for the longest time, American nerds have had a rep for craving Asian-from-Asia entertainment while not being nearly as receptive to entertainment from diaspora Asians and Polynesians and the list goes on. 

That's changed. I'm seeing lots of Asian presence in this year's nominees, and three of their stories have made it onto my final ballot so far. 

I'm not sure if you can attribute it to K-Pop Demon Hunters (oops, three stories and one movie) or the wave of excellent entertainment pouring out of South Korea -- BTS, Taemin, Parasite, Squid Games, Attorney Woo, the list goes on. But suddenly Asian folks are trendy, and this haole is there for it. Grab hold of that star. Ride that lightning. Please kick all these stale re-booters and re-treaders out of Hollywood and give us something fresh and Golden. 

Reviews - Oathbound by Tracy Deonn; Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee; and Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen

Everyone provided e-pubs except for Oathbound by Tracy Deonn – that one was a Word document. With a link (Windows Defender: are you sure want to click this shady link?) that takes you to a book site, which is absolutely free … as long as you answer a few questions. I F-4’d out of there a few questions into the interrogation. It not only wanted 50 characters about why I wanted to read this story, it wanted the login for my LinkedIn. When I tried giving it my TikTok (joke’s on you, I haven’t logged into it in forever), it said I was not authorized to TikTok. 

So I Googled the title on Goodreads to see if it seemed like something I’d want to spend money on. It did not. So it’s not even getting onto my ballot because the e-reader set up was ultra sketchy. Fail.

Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen – another high fantasy, and this one is number three in the series. I started with number one. Ultra serious high fantasy. Did not grab me.

And finally

Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee – two finalist stories about a Vietnamese-American kid battling the supernatural while getting some sapphic romance, what are the odds? This one is a gregarious social butterfly magicking her way through a complicated scenario with a large cast of characters. I just wasn’t feeling inclined toward that much immersion, but I liked the heroine’s saucy voice. 

As of right now I’m inclined to go with They Bloom at Night, with Coffeeshop beneath it just because I liked the cut of the heroine’s jib. Collins has already won lots of awards, and has written better books too. Am I prejudiced against high fantasy that takes itself Very Seriously? Umm, I might be. I do know that I am doing quite well with my self-imposed reward scheme, and am only a few more novelitos from finishing my chores so I can go read Dungeon Crawler Carl 8 again. 

Review – They Bloom At Night by Trang Thanh Tran

Nhung, aka Noon, is a Vietnamese-American kid from a Louisiana shrimp boat family, dealing with a red bloom, which coats her section of coast in bizarre red algae, and monsters. I won’t say more about the monsters because there’s a very clever monster twist towards the end. 

Which I skipped forward to read. This book had a good strong beginning, as Nhung befriends bad grrrl Covey (hey, there was a Covey in the Collins book too), who is so spicy she reads all the time and uses a knife as a bookmark. She’s also the daughter of this story’s racist bully bastard, who gnashes his teeth and stomps around earning his satisfying comeuppance. 

And there’s this Scooby Gang of kids, featuring a fashionable bisexual lad named after Laura Ingalls Wilder. My train of thought derailed somewhere after they showed up for some earnest discussion about feelings, and orientations, and romance, and cooking, when there’s a monster sitting right outside just waiting for a skirmish. Kissing happens. Monster fights happen. Nhung loses so many pairs of glasses I kinda wanted to throw her a gofundme so she can get Lasix. Ending satisfies. 

This is a decent body horror tale that sticks to reasonable violence parameters and I enjoyed the setting and the protagonist’s voice. So far it’s ahead of the Collins book in my opinion, but I’m just getting started.

Review – Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

When I pulled this one up on my Kindle app because I read books on my phone or ipad or pc, it was already at 99%, indicating I already read it. So I looked up the summary in Wikipedia – oh yeah, the one with Haymitch, where they quote The Raven a lot. It’s a tragedy, as one might guess from the way Haymitch turned into the cynical drunk who mentored Katniss in Hunger Games. 

I’m not going to re-read it, and I’ll note that I got all the way through it at least once. The summary refreshed my memory a little – it’s a Hunger Games story, about a crawler who goes into the dungeon to kill kill kill – oops, wait, that’s from Dungeon Crawler Carl, the latest and freshest in the Deadly Games genre. 

A genre I tend to enjoy. The Long Walk. Squid Games. Jumanji. A good gamer story is nearly as good as playing an actual game, and at this phase of my life, it’s a toss-up as to whether I’ve spent more time reading books or playing games. 

I think Carl is currently doing a bangup job with the “gamers united against the game masters” theme, which is kind of a weak subtext in the Hunger Games series, where people are too demoralized and brutalized to get organized and throw a revolution. 

I might have mentioned it before, but these days I have a special dislike for “this is how you beat fascism” stories. Bad plan. Didn’t work. Try something else.

 Sunrise has an even worse premise: this is how fascism happens despite your best efforts – maybe it’s because you’re just a tragic guy destined to lead a fucked-up life with an unhappy ending. Born to lose. Hero of a story about “what horrible things could have happened to this man to turn him into a total lush?” The answer unfolds, detailing all his stressors. Then there’s an especially unhappy moment. Then the hero wanders off to get blackout drunk and our participation in his story mercifully ends. Leaving us staring bleakly at Ms. Collins’ latest depressive episode. 

This one’s kind of the standard by which I’ll judge the others, since I already read and forgot it once. Not great, not terrible, compelling enough to finish but sad enough to ask yourself why.