Valerie

Amazing book. Another SF classic that passed me by when I should have read it. Having finally done so with the perspective of an educator who has spent her entire adult life learning how to work with young minds, I'm deeply impressed by Card's impression of them. The children in the story all feel like very real children despite their intellectual advantages. Real children who have seen and experienced far more than they are supposed to have done. The idea of applying playground psychology to interstellar war is absolutely brilliant, and I understand why this book is as famous as it is. Not sure if I'll get to the sequels. There are a lot of them and my catch-up list is very long, but even without them ths book holds its own.

Solid follow-up to Sleeping Giants. Neuvel's style is fast-paced and reads like a high stakes disaster movie, this one even more so than the previous. And yet, it doesn't have the characterization issues often faced by disaster movies and other popcorn type entertainment. It's a solid story, and while the narrative occasionally suffers from everything having to be a transcript or a journal entry, overall, it works.

I was in the mood for classic high fantasy, and this book certainly captured that. It's a pretty straightforward quest story about a boy discovering his mysterious past and how the fate of the world hangs in the balance. It is very obviously the first of a trilogy, and as such primarily feels like exposition, but I think it will probably feel better as part of a whole rather than a stand alone. This book was written before 900 page fantasy novels were a norm, so I'll cut it some slack there. The series has been sitting on my shelf for a while in the “classics what I should have already read” section, so I'll likely finish it out.

Back during the election, I think I remember Octavia Butler and this book specifically being referenced as eerily prescient. I don't think I clued in to how specifically prescient it was in that the nation would elect a reactionary demagogue working from a elitist form of Christian values who literally uses “make America great again” as his tag line. Guys, we weren't even recovering from an Apocalypse when it happened...

But unsettlingly accurate future visions aside, this is an unsurprisingly amazing book. It is vast, encompassing both Olamina's story after founding Acorn and her daughter's story and opinions as a frame. It speaks a lot towards the imperfections that come with being human, the betrayals which can so quickly escalate to horrific, as the traitors and bystanders repeatedly justify their actions and move along. It forces us to look at even what the protagonist justifies, and then what excuses we ourselves make, what moral compromises would we rather just not think about.

Butler pulls no punches, and I often struggled to get through because I couldn't handle that much vicarious suffering. Her prose makes Sharers of us all. She was a master, fully deserving of her acclaim and reputation, and this duology in particular are necessary reading in America's current climate.

I don't know that I've ever finished reading a book, sat up in my chair, and then just started cussing it out for a full minute or so. I certainly haven't felt so emotionally affected by a book in ages. I've read Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy and loved them, but while these books are wonderful and connected, they also each exist as stand-alones. Different protagonists, different themes, connecteed by an amazing world. When I saw her new book sitting on a shelf at a used book store, I picked it up expecting it to be the start of a similar trilogy.

As I closed in on the final chapters and realized there was no way this was wrapping up to my satisfaction, I checked the release date on book 2. It's August 2016.

insert string of expletives I try really hard not to use on goodreads because my students could find me here

Then I finished it and another string of expletives came right out. I walked around my apartment shaking for a while and trying to figure out if I had anything else I could read as a salve. I'm not sure that I do. expletive

I should probably talk about the book. Jemisin is probably the best world-builder of my generation. I say that as a fan of Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. LeGuin and all of the other world builders I deeply admire and love. The world of Inheritance is rich and immersive, but the world of the Broken Earth? I don't know that I've every come across anything like it. We've got a magic system unlike anything I've ever read before, a power system unlike any I've ever read, and an apocalyptic setting that manages to be fresh and original in a world currently oversaturated with apocalypses. Jemisin takes familiar fantasy tropes and adjusts them just slightly to make something new. Father Earth hating his children. “Earth” magic that is far more an unstable science. Catastrophic climate changes as part of routine.

Then there are her characters. Jemisin is a stalwart advocate for diversity and her fiction demonstrates that without being overly preachy. Some authors try for diversity and end up with Power Rangers. Jemisin creates a world where race, gender, love, and power are so diverse, so fluid, and yet so intricate to the relationships developing in the story that her world is complexly diverse rather than statistically representative. I do think this is the first novel I've read with an openly trans character that wasn't about being an openly trans person. Maybe Sandman is the only other series I've seen it done so seamlessly without being an anvil on the plot. All of this allows Jemisin to address the issues of prejudice in all of its myriad forms without being a parable, with morality always a blurry line.

And then there is the story. I won't say it's completely unpredictable. Most of the major “twists” are easy to see, but in a way that made me feel like a smart, aware reader and not like the author just wasn't trying, and one element caught me genuinely by surprise. The time shifts take a bit of getting used to, but once you catch on are easy enough to follow. So are the shifts between third and second person. I'm not generally a fan of second person, but this is an author who can handle what should be a gimmick and make it into an effective tool.

So what I'm saying is don't read this book. Not yet. Wait until this series is completed because otherwise you're going to sit her for the next 8 and a half months like me, refreshing the pre-order button on your Amazon page and just hoping that release date will somehow magically change to today.