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cahnThese are stories that I thought were really good and very well-written, possibly better-written than the stories that are actually going on my ballot; they had interesting premises and sometimes very cool execution. But they didn't quite... click for me. But they might for you. These are all from pscoptera.
The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington
by Phenderson Djèlí Clark. This is one apparently a lot of people liked (it's on the Nebula ballot) but I mean. It's about teeth. Well, it's about a lot of other things, but also... about teeth. Which is turns out is not really my thing.
Orange World, Karen Russell. Actually I thought this was a really good story, with the fantastic elements clearly in dialogue with the fears and magical thinking of being a postpartum mother. (Being a postpartum mother, specifically, in this decade in the US. Are you breastfeeding? If not, are you DOOMING YOUR CHILD TO low IQ and a terrible immune system and [insert study here]?? (Life spoiler: your baby will be fine whether you breastfeed or not.) Are you giving your baby enough skin-to-skin massages?? Etc. Oh God, I remember those days and I'm so glad they're over with, and this story really evoked that.) If anything I think my issues with it are that it starts bringing in all these really interesting questions and then it sort of backs away from really engaging with them in a meaty way. I don't know. It might end up on my ballot after all.
The Word of Flesh and Soul, Ruthanna Emrys. Grad school distorts your life in more tangible ways than in this universe! I'm not sure why this didn't grab me. I think part of it was the autism of one of the main characters and how the language they are studying refers to autistic people as "monsters," which was obviously supposed to be Making a Point, but instead it made me think about grad school in the sciences and how more than half of us weren't exactly what you'd call totally neuro-social-typical in every way and how that was generally regarded as pretty standard, and what would that look like in a story where what you were studying was literally magic, and okay I had started daydreaming a story in my head that looked very different from this one. Which is not this story's fault!
STET, Sarah Gailey. Okay, so, here's the thing. I really liked the unconventional format and sort of darkening way of telling the story. I did not like how the editor-character came across as so clueless as to be effectively completely unbelievable. I feel like there's a good story in here that I just couldn't buy the way it was.
pscoptera.The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington
by Phenderson Djèlí Clark. This is one apparently a lot of people liked (it's on the Nebula ballot) but I mean. It's about teeth. Well, it's about a lot of other things, but also... about teeth. Which is turns out is not really my thing.
Orange World, Karen Russell. Actually I thought this was a really good story, with the fantastic elements clearly in dialogue with the fears and magical thinking of being a postpartum mother. (Being a postpartum mother, specifically, in this decade in the US. Are you breastfeeding? If not, are you DOOMING YOUR CHILD TO low IQ and a terrible immune system and [insert study here]?? (Life spoiler: your baby will be fine whether you breastfeed or not.) Are you giving your baby enough skin-to-skin massages?? Etc. Oh God, I remember those days and I'm so glad they're over with, and this story really evoked that.) If anything I think my issues with it are that it starts bringing in all these really interesting questions and then it sort of backs away from really engaging with them in a meaty way. I don't know. It might end up on my ballot after all.
The Word of Flesh and Soul, Ruthanna Emrys. Grad school distorts your life in more tangible ways than in this universe! I'm not sure why this didn't grab me. I think part of it was the autism of one of the main characters and how the language they are studying refers to autistic people as "monsters," which was obviously supposed to be Making a Point, but instead it made me think about grad school in the sciences and how more than half of us weren't exactly what you'd call totally neuro-social-typical in every way and how that was generally regarded as pretty standard, and what would that look like in a story where what you were studying was literally magic, and okay I had started daydreaming a story in my head that looked very different from this one. Which is not this story's fault!
STET, Sarah Gailey. Okay, so, here's the thing. I really liked the unconventional format and sort of darkening way of telling the story. I did not like how the editor-character came across as so clueless as to be effectively completely unbelievable. I feel like there's a good story in here that I just couldn't buy the way it was.
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Date: 2019-03-10 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-11 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 01:27 am (UTC)being meand found that he lost his teeth gradually between 1756 and 1789 (even in 1789, he had one real tooth left, and his plate had a hole in it so he could keep that tooth instead of having it pulled). Throughout those years, as he lost one tooth after another, he went from partial dentures to full plates.The nine teeth from slaves were purchased in 1784, so during the in-between stage. We're also not certain which set or sets of dentures they made it into; so they could have been spread across multiple sets over the years. I'm not sure if, being purchased at once, they would have gone into 9 different interchangeable sets of dentures, which is how the story reads to me, but at least splitting them across *some* different dentures across the years is maybe feasible.
/geekery
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Date: 2019-03-13 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 04:10 pm (UTC)I got a little bored by the character descriptions, but the teeth part didn't bother me at all, fwiw.
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Date: 2019-03-13 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-13 06:37 pm (UTC)https://www.livescience.com/61919-george-washington-teeth-not-wood.html
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/false-teeth/