A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

I am reading a lot of short stories for my “Year of Short Fiction”. But short fiction also includes novellas. There are many different definitions for the length of a novella, but The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association defines word counts for different length formats like this:

Short Story: less than 7,500 words
Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words
Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words
Novel: 40,000 words or more

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers is therefore a novella and is the latest of my short fiction reads. It is the sequel to her previous novella A Psalm for the Wild Built. Both take place on a moon and follow a monk and a sentient robot. In the second of these novellas, the monk acts as the travel coordinator for the robot as it re-introduces its kind to humans for the first time in generations. When robots gained sentience, they left the humans and their factories and moved to the wild to live on their own. For more details, read the first novella. It’s really good.

While the theme of the first book was more individual, this second takes on relationships. How will people relate to a sentient robot after generations of separation? How will the relationship between the monk and the robot change during the tour? Once again the writing is colorful, bringing to life the world around the characters and the characters themselves. The conversation feels realistic to the situations. And the interaction of the characters shows the changing relationships through the story rather than exposition. Overall, a worthy sequel, but not quite as good as the first book for me.

My rating: 4/5

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue book cover

Wow! I simply loved this book! It was one that I had been putting off reading for some time. I’m not sure why. The premise just didn’t grab me, I guess. But it was considered one of the best books of the year when it came out (2020). The story revolves around the title character who ends up living forever but no one remembers her. As soon as she is out of their site, they forget they ever met her. Pretty straightforward fantasy stuff, but what the author does with it is nothing short of amazing.

This is a novel about emotions and relationships. How does it feel to be alone in the world? What if your worst enemy was the only one who remembered you and said your name? What kind of relationship would that be? How do satisfy your need for human connection when no one will remember you when they wake up next to you in the morning? What if your parents suddenly didn’t know who you were? Or your best friend? You follow Addie as she moves through the world finding answers to these questions.

The prose is immersive and evocative. I had such a feeling for the characters and what was happening to them. Some books when I read them I deeply admire the writing and how turns of phrase are used to paint mental pictures. This book went beyond that. I simply forgot about the words and watched the movie as it played in my mind. And those invisible words connected with the emotional experiences of my life in a way that, as I said before, I could just feel. Not everyone will fall in love with this book, but I sure did.

My rating: 5/5

Portable Magic by Emma Smith

I learned of this book through one the many book-focused email lists I subscribed to. It interested me as a history of the book and another in my category of “books about books”. It wasn’t quite what I expected. It turned out to be more a collection of essays than a coherent, sequential history of the book. In any case, I mostly liked it.

The essays cover such topics as Gutenberg and the beginning of books, books as Christmas gifts, book trafficking, book burning, censorship, and choose your own adventure books. None of these essays is very strong for me. They could be introductions to books that go deeper into such topics. Thus the book is sort of an incoherent primer on the history of books as objects rather than the actual contents of books.

That said, I enjoyed it for what it is. The author is British and the book was originally published in the UK, so that is the perspective for history and publishing. I am not all that familiar with the history of the British monarchy (nor am I particularly interested in it), so that complicated the context for me is some places. But as a quick read on different perspectives on the history of the codex, this might be an enjoyable intro.

My rating: 3/5

Lightspeed Magazine Issue 153

Let’s dive right in. Issue 153 of Lightspeed Magazine is for the month of February 2023. It is edited by John Joseph Adams, and all the stories are original.

First up is “Learning Letters” by Carrie Vaughn, a story of the far future after “the Fall”. An isolated and primitive but successful community is visited by a stranger in an airplane. Where did they get the fuel for it? Where have they come from? And what do they want? This world just drew me in and made me want more. (My rating: 5/5)

After a nuclear war forces people to live underground, people have the desperate choice between staying underground and slowly going crazy from the lack of sunlight or venturing to the surface and dying from radiation poisoning. “In(con)solation” by Octavia Cade is the story of a couple living together facing this impossible choice. The story is told in an interesting combination of first and second person voices. (My rating: 3/5)

In “The Day the Earthman Didn’t Show“, Adam-Troy Castro tells the tale of a collectivist alien society that knows the future and works together to plan for it. For millennia. Only what if something happens and the prophecy doesn’t come true? Read this delightful story and find out. (My rating: 4/5)

Have you ever written to your congressperson or senator? If so, I bet it was nothing like the letter in “Subject: More Monsters Will Not Make Us Safer” by Paul Crenshaw. The problem this author is concerned with is using monsters to make children safer in schools. An interesting look at a current hot button issue. (My rating: 4/5)

All houses change as you live in them, even if you never renovate them. But the changes in “The House of Linear Change” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe are way beyond that! The son of the homeowner finds himself in a bit of spot. This one was a bit trippy for me, but may be just your thing. (My rating: 3/5)

The title “Real Magic” by Sharang Biswas at first doesn’t quite seem to fit. People nervously approach the local witch to seek her help with a problem. One by one she sets them each on a quest that gets them what they want but with no real magic. She saves the real magic for the really important things. (My rating: 4/5)

I was surprised to learn that the title library in “Guidelines for Using the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library” by Marie Brennan actually exists. The author created a fantastic version of guidelines for using it based on her own time there. A fun read. (My rating: 4/5)

As a child did you ever need to stay with family or friends when something unexpected came up with your family? The boy in “His Guns Could Not Protect Him” by Sam J. Miller experiences this when something happens to his father. No one will tell him as he tries to protect his little brother from learning the danger their dad is in. This one really brings that childhood feeling to life. (My rating: 4/5)

That’s it for this month’s Lightspeed fiction! My ratings come out to 3.875 on average so another successful issue. Happy reading!

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

I read and loved Station Eleven, but when this book came out I wasn’t sure I was going to read it. As last year came to an end, many people had it on their lists of best books of the year. So it got on my “to read” list. And last week I finished reading it. It was much shorter than I expected and also much better than I expected.

The story takes place in different time periods from 1912 to the far future. That’s part of what turned me off to the book. Sounded like it was all over the place. It’s not. Well, it is in terms of time but not in terms of the story. It all connects. And in a most satisfying way.

The characters, like her previous book, are fully formed and relatable even when I don’t like them. The writing flows drawing me into the story and keeping me reading long after I had planned to stop for the evening. And surprisingly it shows a lot of compassion and humanity through a few core characters. I’m glad that I decided to read this one.

My rating: 4/5

Babel by R. F. Kuang

This book was one of the biggest published in 2022. I kept hearing people rave about it online and in podcasts. I knew it was about language and colonialism and was a fantasy that takes place in an alternative past. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to expect when I finally picked it up a few weeks ago. While I did enjoy it, I’m not sure I would rate it quite so highly as so many others.

The main thrust of the world is that England is a world power due to silver, and not just because of its value as a precious metal. When similar words from different languages are engraved on bars of silver, the subtle differences between the words are brought out by the bar. Babel is the name of the tower and school of translation at Oxford. A cohort of an Indian, a Haitian, a Chinese, and an Englishwoman bond over their experience at the school. But as they start to learn the consequences of their school and its work, danger and revolution ensue.

In many ways this book reminded me of Kindred. Like that book, Babel really helps the reader feel what the characters are struggling with, in this case colonialism. And the characters come alive, whether you love them or hate them. Being a bit of a linguist, I also really loved how translation is a central part of the story. Unfortunately, there is also a lot of explication, more telling than showing in some places. That said, I am not sure how else the writer could have shared such a complex topic. But for me the explanations never really interfered with my enjoyment of the story. I was carried along nonetheless. In the end the book was a bit long but still worth the read.

My rating: 3.5/5

Carrie by Stephen King

I co-teach a writing class at work. My co-teacher is a big horror fan, especially Stephen King. She gave me a list of recommendations as I am not much of a horror fan. I appreciate dark tales that explore the human condition, but to me that isn’t horror. One of her recommendations was Carrie, which I hadn’t realized was King’s first novel. I was familiar with the story from the first time it came out as a movie when I was a kid, so I sort of knew what to expect. Still, I was surprised by how much I liked it.

The story is about the horror of growing up ostracized and ridiculed due in part to being raised in a fanatically Christian home. Carrie is even straight up bullied. And one girl and her boyfriend try to take the sting out of what has happened to her. But there is another girl who simply can’t let it go. And that really triggers the explosive use of Carrie’s budding telekinesis.

Throughout the tale, King brings alive believable characters. I also appreciated the format of the novel. It intersperses telling the story as it happens with news clippings and testimony reporting about it after the events of the novel have happened. It effectively builds the tension and keeps you reading to find out what in the world actually happened.

My rating: 4/5

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat

I was drawn to this cookbook because it was more than a bound collection of recipes with pretty pictures. Instead, it aspires to teach principles of cooking. I do my best to eat as vegan a diet as I can, so this was very appealing. Most cookbooks and recipes I find are not vegan. Learning how cooking works might help me learn to “veganize” any recipe I come across.

Part One of this book is divided into sections named after the title of the book. The idea is that with the proper combination of salt, fat, acid, and heat you can learn to cook without recipes or to modify them successfully. The author is a professional cook who developed this system from all that she learned in her decades in the kitchen. After learning this system, I think very differently in the kitchen. For example, I am much more liberal with salt and have more than one kind in my pantry.

For me the second part was much more disappointing. So much of it includes meat and dairy. Even so, these recipes are a great jumping off point for learning and experimenting. The author connects her recipes and lessons building confidence in the kitchen. This cookbook will become a staple in many kitchens and teach a whole new generation how to cook.

My rating: 4/5

Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 197

I didn’t start my subscription to Clarkesworld Magazine until after the first of January, so the February issue is my first issue. It was worth the wait.

For me the first story is an outlier. I didn’t like it very much. In fact, I’m not sure I really understood it. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe it just isn’t for me. You be the judge of “The Portrait of a Survivor, Observed from the Water” by Yukimi Ogawa. It didn’t work for me. (My rating: 2/5)

There is a lot of talk these days about AI. One researcher even believes that the AI he works with is sentient! In “Somewhere, It’s About to Be Spring“, Samantha Murray tells how a space ship achieves sentience throughout its systems after losing its crew. A touching story. (My rating: 4/5)

A philosopher of cognition doesn’t sound promising as a short story writer. But in “Larva Pupa Imago” Eric Schwitzgebel tells the fascinating journey of a caterpillar from birth to becoming a butterfly. As a caterpillar he enjoys a close friendship until he becomes a butterfly and sets out to procreate. (My rating: 4/5)

“An Ode to Stardust” by R. P. Sand is about a woman hampered by real chronic pain her whole life. She tries to hide it from everyone around her and succeeds to become the youngest commander on the moon. There, for the first time, she makes a friend that she can be completely honest with. And it changes both their lives. (My rating: 5/5)

“Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” by Gu Shi, translated by Emily Jin is presented as the introduction to a book in the future about cryosleep. People are frozen until their terminal illness has a treatment. This is nothing new in fiction. But the author goes a bit further. People become voluntary “time migrants”. They allow themselves to be frozen for a time so they can travel into the future where presumably things will be better. Throughout this story is weaved the author’s relationship to the history of cryosleep. Wonderfully told. (My rating: 4/5)

“Silo, Sweet Silo” by James Castles is one of my two favorite short stories of the year so far. The story takes place after a nuclear war. A group of survivors looking for safety and shelter find a missile silo complex that has been abandoned by humans but is controlled by a missile that failed to launch. They come to an uneasy agreement. The humans can stay if one of them will launch him in thirty days. After all, he wants to complete his mission. Read it to learn how it all turns out. (My rating: 5/5)

In a world with no food other than nutritious but tasteless bran bars, an old woman awaits her “Going Time“. Amal Singh describes a chaotic society that is barely held together by a religious leader. The old woman’s daughter learns some things about the leader that she refuses to believe. And her neighbor shares with her a view of where she will retire to. But is everything as it seems? (My rating: 4/5)

My average rating for the fiction in this issue is 4/5. Let me know if you agree with my ratings. Happy reading!

Struggling with History

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. I devoured this book. It is a historical novel about a woman living in 1979 who keeps being yanked back to an antebellum Maryland plantation worked by enslaved people. Why? It’s not clear, but a member of the plantation family turns out to be one of the woman’s ancestors. The story explores how a twentieth-century black woman would fare on a slave plantation.

That on its own is an interesting premise for a story, but with Butler’s storytelling and imagination it is so much more. It explores slavery and humanizes both the enslaved and the enslavers while still exposing the absolute inhumanity of slavery itself. Her husband is white and is with her on one trip to the past. This allows Butler to explore not only the obvious injustice and brutality suffered by those enslaved, but also the effect on the enslavers of growing up in a culture and family that endorse such a violent and degrading economic system.

And now I have made the book seem depressing, and at times it is. But the best word to describe this work is human. It is the story of everyday people trying to live their lives as they struggle with the lived reality that was slavery. It honestly made me think in ways I had never considered. It exposed the ugliness and cruelty of slavery as well as how those involved did their best to simply live their lives. Most controversial issues get oversimplified. Not in this book. Butler stares directly at the problem, making the reader experience it and, hopefully, start to come to terms with what many call America’s original sin. It’s a book every American needs to and should read.