Lodestar 2020
Jul. 3rd, 2020 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnI’m really really pleased with the Lodestar nominees this year. Thank you Lodestar nominators! (I did not read any YA last year and so didn’t nominate anything, so I can’t take any credit for it.) I finished all of them except the Black (and I understand why that was nominated, I just couldn’t take more of that series) and they were ALL GOOD, what is this madness. (As opposed to last year, where I felt the quality of the nominees was abysmal.) I think that the overall quality of these nominees, taken as a group of six, is actually greater than any other fiction category this year!
I’ve already written up Catfishing and Deeplight (spoilers in comments), both of which I absolutely adored, though in entirely different ways.
Riverland (Wilde) - 4 /5. Sisters’ home troubles have magical consequences as well. This one sucked me in in a terrifying way and didn’t let up until I’d finished the book. Therefore I don’t know if I can talk about it rationally. It’s definitely an issue book, and there’s definitely a kind of reader that it’s looking for. I don’t know that I would have been exactly that reader, even as a child, but I think I would have found it resonant enough that while it might not have spoken to me directly, it might have stayed with me in indirect ways. Though... the lesson it teaches, to speak up to those who care and are listening, is a good one, but what if there isn’t anyone like that who’s listening, or what if there is but that person can’t do anything to help? IDK, maybe I’ve just been reading too many horror stories lately, but it did make me wonder.
Dragon Pearl (Lee) -3 /5. Fox-shapechanger-magicadolescent Min goes on a quest to find her brother, who may be mixed up with the powerful Dragon Pearl.
There were lots of things to like about this! Korean-flavored magic IN SPACE, yeah! Fox magic, yeah! Cadet friends, yeah! I liked it a lot more than Ninefox Gambit. I think I did have kind of a hard time with it because… so… Min is, what, 12? 13? And of her own volition she runs away from home to save her brother, gets hired by a brothel, steals a ship, and impersonates a soldier. And I realize that E is not a completely typical 10-year-old, but I just… can’t see her doing aaaaaanything like this in a couple of years and so my reaction was basically MIN IS TOO LITTLE FOR THIS OMG SOMEONE TAKE HER HOME. Heck, even Miles Vorkosigan didn’t get up to things like this when he was thirteen.
Also, perhaps partially because Min is 13, I found it curiously emotionally flat. She does things with pretty serious consequences, and she doesn’t seem to really care about those serious consequences for more than one or two perfunctory lines, and neither does anyone else. Well, except for what I thought was the most egregious example of this, which turned out to be a plot point, so… there’s that. I do kind of feel like the book fell into a bit of an uncanny valley for me, though -- it needed to either have Min acting in a way that had fewer serious consequences, or it needed to be a much more serious book.
Minor Mage (Vernon) - 4 /5. Huh. I read this right after writing up Dragon Pearl, and the interesting thing is that it takes a very similar tack thematically to Lee’s book but fixes the problems I had with it. In this book Oliver, the minor mage, is 11 or 12, and he’s sent off on a mission to make it rain that is way too hard for a 12-year-old, and he has adventures and in the course of the adventures does things that have pretty serious consequences.
I mean, it’s still rather a lot for a 12-year-old, though Oliver is realistically presented as someone who’s very practical and levelheaded, so it’s easier for me to suspend my disbelief. And the major differences are (a) Oliver doesn’t go on this adventure-that’s-way-too-old-for-him on a whim, he both realizes he's the only person who can and at the same time is literally forced to do it (and the fact that he’s forced to do it is something of a point the book is making and that Oliver has to work through; the book is concerned with what happens with groups of people in mob mentalities) (b) Oliver is trying to save people in immediate danger, with no adult help available, when he does the things that have serious consequences, which just makes me feel better than Min’s rationale of “I’m going to hare off to try to save my brother who I have no real reason to believe is in imminent danger and when I have lots of adults around that I could talk to about it” (c) Oliver is greatly emotionally affected by the serious consequences and his role in them, he thinks about them, and it’s believable that it will affect his entire character in years to come.
In addition, Oliver learns during the course of this book that his “minor” skills can be used for a variety of things with a bit of cleverness, whereas Min learned… that she was very powerful and her skills could basically beat up everyone else?
Anyway, I liked Minor Mage a lot. I feel like Vernon is just very consistent in giving me books that make me happy both in the text and the subtext way.
I will say that the beginning is rather depressing and I was sort of worried about Vernon, and was totally unsurprised to read in the afterword that she wrote the beginning in a difficult part of her life. It does get better, though it’s a more serious book than others of hers I’ve read.
Rating! Gosh, I’d be happy if any of these won (except I guess the Black, but I’d understand it, at least). This category was the hardest for me to rank so far.
1. Deeplight, which was just That Good
2. Catfishing on Catnet, which was exactly what I needed to read right now
3. Riverland, which was terrifyingly immersive for me
4. Minor Mage, which I’m unhappy about having at (4) because it was so good but I guess that’s a good problem to have?? IDK I might switch it with Riverland
5. Dragon Pearl
6. The Wicked King
I’ve already written up Catfishing and Deeplight (spoilers in comments), both of which I absolutely adored, though in entirely different ways.
Riverland (Wilde) - 4 /5. Sisters’ home troubles have magical consequences as well. This one sucked me in in a terrifying way and didn’t let up until I’d finished the book. Therefore I don’t know if I can talk about it rationally. It’s definitely an issue book, and there’s definitely a kind of reader that it’s looking for. I don’t know that I would have been exactly that reader, even as a child, but I think I would have found it resonant enough that while it might not have spoken to me directly, it might have stayed with me in indirect ways. Though... the lesson it teaches, to speak up to those who care and are listening, is a good one, but what if there isn’t anyone like that who’s listening, or what if there is but that person can’t do anything to help? IDK, maybe I’ve just been reading too many horror stories lately, but it did make me wonder.
Dragon Pearl (Lee) -3 /5. Fox-shapechanger-magicadolescent Min goes on a quest to find her brother, who may be mixed up with the powerful Dragon Pearl.
There were lots of things to like about this! Korean-flavored magic IN SPACE, yeah! Fox magic, yeah! Cadet friends, yeah! I liked it a lot more than Ninefox Gambit. I think I did have kind of a hard time with it because… so… Min is, what, 12? 13? And of her own volition she runs away from home to save her brother, gets hired by a brothel, steals a ship, and impersonates a soldier. And I realize that E is not a completely typical 10-year-old, but I just… can’t see her doing aaaaaanything like this in a couple of years and so my reaction was basically MIN IS TOO LITTLE FOR THIS OMG SOMEONE TAKE HER HOME. Heck, even Miles Vorkosigan didn’t get up to things like this when he was thirteen.
Also, perhaps partially because Min is 13, I found it curiously emotionally flat. She does things with pretty serious consequences, and she doesn’t seem to really care about those serious consequences for more than one or two perfunctory lines, and neither does anyone else. Well, except for what I thought was the most egregious example of this, which turned out to be a plot point, so… there’s that. I do kind of feel like the book fell into a bit of an uncanny valley for me, though -- it needed to either have Min acting in a way that had fewer serious consequences, or it needed to be a much more serious book.
Minor Mage (Vernon) - 4 /5. Huh. I read this right after writing up Dragon Pearl, and the interesting thing is that it takes a very similar tack thematically to Lee’s book but fixes the problems I had with it. In this book Oliver, the minor mage, is 11 or 12, and he’s sent off on a mission to make it rain that is way too hard for a 12-year-old, and he has adventures and in the course of the adventures does things that have pretty serious consequences.
I mean, it’s still rather a lot for a 12-year-old, though Oliver is realistically presented as someone who’s very practical and levelheaded, so it’s easier for me to suspend my disbelief. And the major differences are (a) Oliver doesn’t go on this adventure-that’s-way-too-old-for-him on a whim, he both realizes he's the only person who can and at the same time is literally forced to do it (and the fact that he’s forced to do it is something of a point the book is making and that Oliver has to work through; the book is concerned with what happens with groups of people in mob mentalities) (b) Oliver is trying to save people in immediate danger, with no adult help available, when he does the things that have serious consequences, which just makes me feel better than Min’s rationale of “I’m going to hare off to try to save my brother who I have no real reason to believe is in imminent danger and when I have lots of adults around that I could talk to about it” (c) Oliver is greatly emotionally affected by the serious consequences and his role in them, he thinks about them, and it’s believable that it will affect his entire character in years to come.
In addition, Oliver learns during the course of this book that his “minor” skills can be used for a variety of things with a bit of cleverness, whereas Min learned… that she was very powerful and her skills could basically beat up everyone else?
Anyway, I liked Minor Mage a lot. I feel like Vernon is just very consistent in giving me books that make me happy both in the text and the subtext way.
I will say that the beginning is rather depressing and I was sort of worried about Vernon, and was totally unsurprised to read in the afterword that she wrote the beginning in a difficult part of her life. It does get better, though it’s a more serious book than others of hers I’ve read.
Rating! Gosh, I’d be happy if any of these won (except I guess the Black, but I’d understand it, at least). This category was the hardest for me to rank so far.
1. Deeplight, which was just That Good
2. Catfishing on Catnet, which was exactly what I needed to read right now
3. Riverland, which was terrifyingly immersive for me
4. Minor Mage, which I’m unhappy about having at (4) because it was so good but I guess that’s a good problem to have?? IDK I might switch it with Riverland
5. Dragon Pearl
6. The Wicked King
no subject
Date: 2020-07-03 08:03 pm (UTC)but at least it's not Children of Blood and BoneI liked Minor Mage but not as much as the other Vernon books I've read -- I think probably because it did feel bleaker. On the upside, I did love the armadillo!
Heck, even Miles Vorkosigan didn’t get up to things like this when he was thirteen.
Hehe, I was reading your list of what Min does and thinking that put like that, it was a very Miles-y list. (I've not read Dragon Pearl and probably will continue to pass on it; I LOVED the Hexarchate trilogy, but I think it's one of those cases where I love *that* world an *those* characters, and not the author's overall style.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-05 04:18 am (UTC)and have other people read them for me. But yeah, Children of Blood and Bone, I'm still completely boggling at that WHY.The armadillo was so great! Vernon does the best off-the-wall animals.
Hee, I wrote that list and was like... that reminds me of someone!
I could not get through Ninefox Gambit, despite that a lot of people I know love it and everything I hear about it are things I like! I think there's something about the style that I can't deal with; I haven't been able to identify exactly what, but whatever it is is lightened a bit in a YA book.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-03 08:11 pm (UTC)YEAH that's it exactly! Sigh.
And you're so right that reading Minor Mage and Dragon Pearl back to back is a real experience where they seem to almost be in conversation about what it means for preteens to be doing dangerous things. I love Ursula Vernon a lot.
I'm feeling nervous now about reading Riverland, given what you say about how intense it is.......
no subject
Date: 2020-07-05 04:25 am (UTC)Riverland is definitely an Issue Book, with content notes for emotional and verbal abuse, with some physical components to it. That's the part I found very intense; someone who didn't have my background might not find it quite as intense (but also might not like the book as much). (I don't think I can call my childhood abusive, it certainly wasn't physically, and in no way was it at the level depicted in the book, but there was enough commonality that I did empathize with the characters.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-06 12:04 am (UTC)I didn't have that kind of experience, but I still anticipate it being hard for me to read about. But I would like to still give it a read, assuming I manage to find the time to read everything I intend to before voting....
no subject
Date: 2020-07-11 04:44 am (UTC)Though not as hard as J. Michael Straczynski's memoirs, which are up in Related Works! I'm reading them now and (a) wow, that guy can tell a story, I'm riveted; and (b) his early life was just incredibly awful, so awful I found myself hoping he'd made it up because it would have been so hard to live through that. The memoirs are excellent writing, though, at least so far (though it might be easier to start reading a third of the way in, once he escapes).
no subject
Date: 2020-07-12 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-13 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-07-14 04:41 am (UTC)I haven't seen B5 yet, though I have several friends who adore it, and I've always meant to watch it. Now I *really* want to! :) (But not right now. My TV watching, never very good, has gone precipitiously down lately.)
no subject
Date: 2020-07-16 03:52 pm (UTC)I do recommend B5 very highly (or, well, I recommend seasons 2-4 very highly, and season 1 is not something to be avoided, and does set up the great character arcs, it's just not as good as the show later got), and was impressed by how well it aged in the 20+ years since it aired (despite some very early CGI). But it is a major time commitment - a full 20+ one-hour episode run, and you do have to watch in order because of that 5 year arc.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 04:22 am (UTC)Yeah, I knew about B5's 5 year arc and that's put me off a bit. And right now I am failing at watching any TV whatsoever (apparently bad tablet games are my drug of choice right now) so who knows when I'll get to it, but yeah, his book has definitely made me a lot more interested in checking it out.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 10:22 am (UTC)I also read Catfishing on Catnet today, which I liked a lot more than I expected to, because I bounced hard off the chirpy earnest AI narrative voice in Cat Pictures, Please. I quite liked the pacing, though it definitely ramps up.
I'm sort of looking forward to Becoming Superman ('sort of' referring only to the subject matter you mention). Babylon 5 is a bit of a Thing in my household, and my husband first showed it to me when we were beginning to date. So he had read Becoming Superman, and recommended it, long before it was nominated for a Hugo.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-18 05:06 pm (UTC)Becoming Superman is really good! Just, he went through a *lot*.
Since you're downloading the packet now, READ DEEPLIGHT!
then vote for it:D