The rest of the Lodestars
Jul. 15th, 2021 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn-Legendborn (Tracy Deonn): So this was a fun romp: Black UNC student, Bree, meets King Arthur-themed Secret Magic Conspiracy to Save the World from Monsters. (Or: American POC future author gets imprinted by Susan Cooper at a young age and grows up to be like, well, why can't I write fantasy about King Arthur?? I... have a lot of empathy for that.) There was a lot to like about it: the writing is quite compelling; I loved the through-line about Bree's family and mother, and the way that magic can be different in this world and the way her heritage connected with that, and the ending was just awesome!
It was... also very YA, complete with ~romance~ that is at least as important to the characters as the part where monsters might take over the world. And the worldbuilding was also, um, well, it benefited from being read after Harrow the Ninth because I had most of my critical worldbuilding circuits turned way down, but even so I was like "how... how does this American King Arthur thing even work?? Because it Makes No Sense." Also, I thought it was hilarious how it's like this Soooooper Sekret Thing That Must Be Kept From Muggles but the characters are constantly texting each other about it; in the world I live in it would be showing up on the news in a couple of weeks.
The afterword made it clear that Deonn was putting in some of her own life experience with regards to Bree's mom (which I'd kind of suspected from the tone of those parts), and I think I kind of wish that it had been a different book in that regard, because it's a little hard to take that pain as seriously as I think it should be taken, in a book that was as extremely and dramatically YA as this one was.
So, like, I wouldn't buy this for myself, but eh, I'll probably rec it to E in a few years (after warning her about the worldbuilding).
-Cemetery Boys (Aiden Thomas): So, I liked the magic system and it is cool to get a trans gay Latinx protagonist, but gosh Yadriel is such a whiny kid. I mean, I see that he has a lot to whine about, being trans and gay and no one really understanding that, but a) after reading a whole book about him I still can't tell you very much about his personality except that he angsts a lot about being trans and gay and no one really understanding that. (Okay, and that he likes Julian and cares about school.) And b) I have passed the stage in my life where I empathized with that kind of thing and have passed on to another stage where I find it annoying to read about. (sorry teenagers everywhere! sorry teenage!me who was also very whiny!)
Also, the plot was a bit... So halfway through I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if this was just like Legendborn and the murderer was the uncle because it's got to be the least suspicious character?" Welp, there it is. I thought this was kind of dumb because there wasn't any indication beforehand that I remember (maybe I wasn't paying enough attention) that the uncle had a propensity for murder and being Sooper Eeeevil (not only is he a murderer, he is legit Sooper Eeeeevil) and so on (at least in Legendborn we had stereotypes to fall back on, and Bree didn't know the villain very well).
-Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger): This was a fun one for me; it reminded me a lot of those meandering children's books I used to snarf up regularly as a child. (It does have an overarching plot/mystery, and Elatsoe is 17, although I think it kind of wanted to be a meandering children's book instead (there are lots of meandering parts that don't really seem to have much to do with the main plot, and there was something about the sort of arch and aware-of-itself-as-a-book nature of the dialogue where the book really coded to me as one of those 12-year-old child detective books rather than a YA/teen book.) After reading Cemetery Boys, I really, really liked that Elatsoe is Not Whiny. Sometimes crap things happen to her (she is Native American and sometimes racism is A Thing. and sometimes there are vampires, because it's that kind of book) and she acknowledges it's crap, and gets on with her life (sometimes by damaging the vampires). Not that I'm suggesting that this is the way everyone has to be (it's not like I'm that way), but it was restful to read, at least right now. (Not going to rec to E, at least given her preferences right now, because it's soooo slow to get action started that she'd probably nope right out -- she strongly prefers action that starts earlier in the book.)
-A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher) - Pretty obvious that Kingfisher/Vernon was the other author on the ballot (besides Novik) who, uh, has actually written more than one book. The thing I enjoyed most about this book (as opposed to the three above and Raybearer, all of which were first books) was that there was a sense of a whole community, not just one love interest and a couple of friends sprinkled in for diversity's sake. And I loved the defensive baking!
That being said, I thought this was a reasonably slight book -- dealing with some major issues, of course, but I sort of felt like it wasn't as ambitious as Raybearer (although better written) and somewhat one-note in what it cared about thematically, though that theme was interesting (what makes a hero, what does it mean to be a hero).
Voting:
Honestly I'm going to be seriously annoyed if anything but Deadly Education wins this, but on the other hand, whenever I feel this way, Hugo voters tend to disagree strenuously with me (like the last time Novik had something on the ballot I thought was miles better than any of the other nominees), so maybe I should just get used to being annoyed :P And I liked all of them better than No Award, so go Lodestar nominators :)
IDK, I feel like the four in the middle could be moved around some -- maybe I will -- but right now I am thinking
Deadly Education >> Raybearer > Baking > Legendborn > Elatsoe > Cemetery Boys
It was... also very YA, complete with ~romance~ that is at least as important to the characters as the part where monsters might take over the world. And the worldbuilding was also, um, well, it benefited from being read after Harrow the Ninth because I had most of my critical worldbuilding circuits turned way down, but even so I was like "how... how does this American King Arthur thing even work?? Because it Makes No Sense." Also, I thought it was hilarious how it's like this Soooooper Sekret Thing That Must Be Kept From Muggles but the characters are constantly texting each other about it; in the world I live in it would be showing up on the news in a couple of weeks.
The afterword made it clear that Deonn was putting in some of her own life experience with regards to Bree's mom (which I'd kind of suspected from the tone of those parts), and I think I kind of wish that it had been a different book in that regard, because it's a little hard to take that pain as seriously as I think it should be taken, in a book that was as extremely and dramatically YA as this one was.
So, like, I wouldn't buy this for myself, but eh, I'll probably rec it to E in a few years (after warning her about the worldbuilding).
-Cemetery Boys (Aiden Thomas): So, I liked the magic system and it is cool to get a trans gay Latinx protagonist, but gosh Yadriel is such a whiny kid. I mean, I see that he has a lot to whine about, being trans and gay and no one really understanding that, but a) after reading a whole book about him I still can't tell you very much about his personality except that he angsts a lot about being trans and gay and no one really understanding that. (Okay, and that he likes Julian and cares about school.) And b) I have passed the stage in my life where I empathized with that kind of thing and have passed on to another stage where I find it annoying to read about. (sorry teenagers everywhere! sorry teenage!me who was also very whiny!)
Also, the plot was a bit... So halfway through I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if this was just like Legendborn and the murderer was the uncle because it's got to be the least suspicious character?" Welp, there it is. I thought this was kind of dumb because there wasn't any indication beforehand that I remember (maybe I wasn't paying enough attention) that the uncle had a propensity for murder and being Sooper Eeeevil (not only is he a murderer, he is legit Sooper Eeeeevil) and so on (at least in Legendborn we had stereotypes to fall back on, and Bree didn't know the villain very well).
-Elatsoe (Darcie Little Badger): This was a fun one for me; it reminded me a lot of those meandering children's books I used to snarf up regularly as a child. (It does have an overarching plot/mystery, and Elatsoe is 17, although I think it kind of wanted to be a meandering children's book instead (there are lots of meandering parts that don't really seem to have much to do with the main plot, and there was something about the sort of arch and aware-of-itself-as-a-book nature of the dialogue where the book really coded to me as one of those 12-year-old child detective books rather than a YA/teen book.) After reading Cemetery Boys, I really, really liked that Elatsoe is Not Whiny. Sometimes crap things happen to her (she is Native American and sometimes racism is A Thing. and sometimes there are vampires, because it's that kind of book) and she acknowledges it's crap, and gets on with her life (sometimes by damaging the vampires). Not that I'm suggesting that this is the way everyone has to be (it's not like I'm that way), but it was restful to read, at least right now. (Not going to rec to E, at least given her preferences right now, because it's soooo slow to get action started that she'd probably nope right out -- she strongly prefers action that starts earlier in the book.)
-A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking (T. Kingfisher) - Pretty obvious that Kingfisher/Vernon was the other author on the ballot (besides Novik) who, uh, has actually written more than one book. The thing I enjoyed most about this book (as opposed to the three above and Raybearer, all of which were first books) was that there was a sense of a whole community, not just one love interest and a couple of friends sprinkled in for diversity's sake. And I loved the defensive baking!
That being said, I thought this was a reasonably slight book -- dealing with some major issues, of course, but I sort of felt like it wasn't as ambitious as Raybearer (although better written) and somewhat one-note in what it cared about thematically, though that theme was interesting (what makes a hero, what does it mean to be a hero).
Voting:
Honestly I'm going to be seriously annoyed if anything but Deadly Education wins this, but on the other hand, whenever I feel this way, Hugo voters tend to disagree strenuously with me (like the last time Novik had something on the ballot I thought was miles better than any of the other nominees), so maybe I should just get used to being annoyed :P And I liked all of them better than No Award, so go Lodestar nominators :)
IDK, I feel like the four in the middle could be moved around some -- maybe I will -- but right now I am thinking
Deadly Education >> Raybearer > Baking > Legendborn > Elatsoe > Cemetery Boys
no subject
Date: 2021-07-20 07:34 am (UTC)I'm Jewish,
I was wondering if that was part of it when I asked, because the more complicated reactions to that book I've seen on my flist have all been from Jewish readers (which makes sense -- presumably we feel more entitled to have opinions on how the book is doing Jewish Representation than other readers).
My own background, for context, is also Jewish; born in Eastern Europe (former USSR), with my childhood in the Old Country and my teenage years in the US. Given that background, I consider myself ethnically Jewish, culturally Jewish (specifically in the Soviet ex-pat culturally Jewish way, which tends to be quite different from, e.g. American-born culturally Jewish folks, in my experience -- although my children *are* American-born Jews who grew up in that community, so I do have some exposure to it), but not religiously Jewish (I'm atheist/agnostic, like a lot of Soviet Jews tend to be).
Anyway, it's interesting what you say, about feeling disoriented/conflicted about identifying with Miryem -- she felt very identifiable (wrong word, but you know what I mean) to me in a way most protagonists don't, and even the points where we have no commonality were weirdly affecting to me. I had to go back and poke at my write-up to refresh my memory, but even without specific details I remembered how unexpectedly poignant I found certain aspects of Miryem's family's Judaism specifically, something to which I feel very little personal connection.
But, interestingly, a flister of mine who is also Jewish-of-Soviet-extraction read it and Miryem's Jewishness didn't feel quite right to them / was not as affecting as I found it. It surprised me more than it should have, because, well, there are so many different ways of being anything, but I feel like there are particularly many different ways of being Jewish, given the length and breadth of the Jewish diaspora. But it made me wonder in restrospect why that aspect of the book had worked so well for me... Maybe I'm in some kind of sweet spot where I'm Old Country enough to feel entitled to identify with Miryem, but American enough not to miss the things my non/less-American Jewish flisters felt were lacking.
readers, even readers who are Jews, are supposed to understand his Judaism as a kind of generic Otherness
I do feel like that's true, but I also feel like it's maybe becoming less true? or I've been luckier than in the past at finding stories where the Jewishness doesn't feel like just code for Otherness. They don't necessarily all work for me, in general or with the Jewishness specifically, but it's neat they exist.
And I keep seeing Jews around the edges of stories centering on members of other minority groups (Ring Shout, Future of Another Timeline, Winter Tide, The City We Became), mostly, it seems, as a way of indicating that the book is meant to be welcoming to minorities.
I did notice that in Ring Shout (though I liked the Jewish communist lady and her philosophical debates with Chef); the rest I haven't read, but am now curious what I'll think of this setup in The City We Became.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-21 12:16 am (UTC)I agree with that! And I did like the communist lady in Ring Shout, I just thought she also fit into a pattern I've noticed. Anyway, thanks for this and I'm curious to see what you think as well.