No matter how fast I read, my to-be-read pile keeps growing and threatening to cause a dangerous avalanche. For the last couple of years, I’ve done a roundup of the books I read during the year, with commentary and recommendations. In 2016, I read 67 books and plays. This week I’m discussing fiction; next week it will be nonfiction.
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Science Fiction & Fantasy:
Rachel Baumann, The Archive’s Promise
Katharine Burdakin, Swastika Night
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
Karen Joy Fowler et al, Tiptree Awards, Volume 2
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Jim C. Hines, Goblin Hero
Jim C. Hines, Goblin War
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Trilogy
Ted Naifeh, Princess Ugg (Graphic Novel)
Cat Rambo, Ed., Women Destroy Fantasy
Joanna Russ, The Adventures of Alyx
James Tiptree Jr., Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Christie Yant, Editor, Lightspeed: Women Destroy Science Fiction
Dystopian science fiction is feeling all too relevant lately, particularly the Octavia Butler books. Sower convincingly portrays an America sinking into violence and anarchy. Talents continues the story with the rise of a demagogue whose motto is — I kid you not — “Make America Great Again!” (Written in 1998!) Katharine Burdakin’s Swastika Night is also relevant: written in 1937, it imagines a world 700 years after Nazi victory. The Jews are all dead, Christians are the new scapegoat, and Nazi religion teaches that Hitler was a literal god. Women, meanwhile, have been reduced to the status of livestock.
The Tiptree Awards are for stories that do interesting things with gender. I liked the first volume best, but the second one has some definite high notes, like a frog who finds a transgender princess, and an Ursula LeGuin story with a convoluted bit of time travel. The awards are named for James Tiptree Jr., the pen name of Alice Sheldon. Tiptree’s Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is a collection of short stories that are wildly imaginative, but almost uniformly depressing, including multiple pieces about the end of the world. Most chilling is “The Screwfly Solution,” where aliens let loose a disease causing men to attack women.
The Women Destroy SF and Women Destroy Fantasy volumes are special issues of Lightspeed and Fantasy magazines respectively. Both include a mix of fiction and essays by female authors. I particularly loved the Lightspeed stories, which created amazing worlds: mermaids surgically engineered by the Navy, an Austen-like setting where a young lady’s debut into society involves burglarizing an eligible gentleman’s home, and a live-tweeting of a superhero-vs-supervillain battle on top of a commuter train.
Ann Leckie’s Ancillary trilogy has an amazing voice and fantastic storytelling. The narrator is a person who used to be a spaceship (it makes sense when you’re reading, I promise). The narrator’s culture refers to everyone as “she,” so only occasionally do we learn the gender of a character. It’s not that they don’t distinguish gender — they just regard it as irrelevant.
As for William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, the framing story is different, but otherwise it has every delightful storytelling twist and memorable line as the movie. And if you haven’t seen the movie — that’s inconceivable!
Mystery:
Janet Evanovich, Tricky Twenty-Two
Carl Hiaasen, Nature Girl
I prefer mysteries with a dose of comedy, and both of these are hilarious. Janet Evanovich’s Tricky Twenty-Two continues the adventures of bumbling bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, in a love triangle that will never be resolved because she wants them both. And Carl Hiaasen’s Nature Girl has the revenge we’ve all wanted to wreak on a really annoying telemarketer.
Classics:
Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World and Other Stories
Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit
Sinclair Lewis, Kingsblood Royal
Muriel Rukeyser, Savage Coast
Rebecca West, Return of the Soldier
Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts
Dickens can be intimidating because his books are so freakin’ long, but once I start reading, I’m always caught up in the story. Martin Chuzzlewit has well-drawn characters, an engaging story, and those inimitable Dickensian names. (Do you even have to guess whether Mr. Pecksniff is a hero or faux-Christian villain?) A large piece of the plot involves the title character travelling to the United States. Martin quickly learns that there are two popular topics of conversation: (1) “freedom,” and (2) attacking anyone who opposes slavery.
Sinclair Lewis’s Kingsblood Royal is the 1947 story of a white man who discovers he has the proverbial “one drop of Negro blood.” And suddenly everyone’s treating him very differently.
A couple of the books were by authors who were favorites of mine in other genres. I love Muriel Rukeyser’s poetry, but Savage Coast was a novel where all the action took place offstage. And Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts just seemed to meander — I’d much rather reread her nonfiction.
Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World is arguably the first science fiction story (1666), but there isn’t much story to it, it’s mostly a philosophical treatise. The volume I read also included two of her novellas: “The Contract,” a traditional romance from that era, and “Assaulted and Pursued Chastity,” an early use of the trope of the woman who disguises herself as a man and becomes a soldier.
Misc Fiction:
Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Italo Calvino, Marcovaldo
Parke Godwin, Sherwood
Tova Mirvis, The Ladies Auxiliary
Tova Mirvis, The Outside World
Joyce Carol Oates, Because it Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart
J. M. Snyder, Ed., Love Is Proud
Both Tova Mirvis books were excellent, set in the world of strict Orthodox Judaism. The Ladies Auxiliary has an interesting “Greek Chorus” style of narration, giving the impression that all the women of the community are telling the story, which gives a more intimate feel that standard third-person point of view.
Parke Godwin’s Sherwood is a retelling of the Robin Hood story, which was recommended to me because it also gives the Sheriff’s point of view, where he sees himself as the hero. That part was well done, but the author was trying so hard to be true to the historical period that the book missed the fun that I need in a Robin Hood story.
Marcovaldo is a collection of vignettes, a little surreal but less so than you’d expect from Italo Calvino. The best book to discover him is still If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.
Love Is Proud was a good idea: a collection of upbeat same-sex love stories as a fundraiser for the victims and families from the Pulse shooting. Unfortunately a lot of the stories were too similar to each other: boy meets boy, there’s a minor obstacle, then happily ever after. (On the other hand, romance isn’t really my genre. If it’s yours, a collection like this is a good way to sample for new authors.)
Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is one of my favorite story forms: the novel-in-short-stories. This one works backwards from four thirtysomething sisters in America, to their childhood in the Dominican Republic and their family’s flight in a time of political upheaval. Completely engrossing. I’m going to have to check out the sequel, Yo!
On to Top Comments!
Highlighted by Meteor Blades:
This important comment by ARodinFan should be its own diary. Found in MTMofo’s diary Selling off public lands. The House rule change that went unnoticed.
Highlighted by ozsea1:
This diary-length comment by Autarkh about the Founding Fathers’ debate over how to elect a President. Found in Stephen Wolf’s diary Forget ‘imperial’ California: Donald Trump only won the Electoral College thanks to Appalachia.
Top mojo, courtesy of mik:
Picture quilt, courtesy of jotter: