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last-minute hugo reviews
Jul. 30th, 2018 09:12 amgah, Hugo voting ends in a couple of days, where did the time go?? I... have not read a lot of things I was intending to read. I blame Verdi, mostly, but also all the people who sent their Hugo packet stuff in pdf. Anyway.
Summer in Orcus (T. Kingfisher) - 4/5. Portal fantasy. I loved this book and it absolutely deserves to win the not-a-Hugo for best YA. It is the best kind of YA in that it doubles as an adult book; it resonates for this adult in recalling for me what it was like to be twelve; but also it never loses sight that the primary function of a YA book, what any good YA book must grapple with in one form or another, is to engage with the questions of what it means to be human, what it means to grow up, what this life thing is anyway. It also functions as meta about portal fantasy, particularly Narnia (but unlike The Magicians, Summer only engages it tangentially, and more to the point is a very kind book). Also I loved all the characters and their friendship. (Reginald was such an adorable Heyer!pastiche!)
Also, this was really interesting to read after the Seanan McGuire, because I felt like it took everything McGuire was trying to do and did it right -- for example, the main protagonist background/motivation involves her terrible parent, just like in the McGuire, but we're never asked to judge the parent, only see her through the protagonist's eyes, which is much preferable. (In general Kingfisher/Vernon's prose, while reminiscent of McGuire's style, is gentler, which I prefer.)
The really interesting thing is that the book engages with something that I've found to be true but haven't seen so much in YA fiction (except in Voigt, because the Tillerman cycle does everything). All things considered, I'm content with my family and growing-up experience, but there were definitely parts of it that were not optimal. But... from these very suboptimal experiences I've learned things, gained skills, that are very useful and that I'm not entirely sure I would have gotten (or would not have gotten in the same way, certainly) had I not had these experiences. (It's interesting, because there are some ways I consciously choose not to parent in the way my parents did, and with my daughter, who is so much like me, I can see how in some ways she's benefiting from that, and in some ways we have to find other, often less effective methods to work on the skills that I developed more-or-less naturally in reaction to the way I was parented.)
In Other Lands (Sarah Rees Brennan) - well, okay, I read this a year ago and never talked about it here. I liked it a lot; I like everything SRB writes. It's fic that doubles as fantasy (especially but not exclusively of the Harry Potter sort) meta, which is my favorite. Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle is the best! Elf culture is inverted patriarchical culture (all the stupid generalities our culture makes about women, elf culture makes about men), and it seems like it might get old (and perhaps for other readers might) but I just never get tired of it being hilarious and sad at the same time. (And this book also understands that it's writing about what it means to grow up and what life is about, although stylistically very differently.) Voting it second to win for not-a-hugo-best-YA.
The Cloud Roads (Wells) - 3+/5 - First book of the Raksura series, which I read because I liked the Murderbot novella so much. I enjoyed this. Some nice worldbuilding. I do think that these days maybe I'm in the wrong headspace, or something, for epic fantasy, because I enjoyed this one a lot and then couldn't get through the second one (and I have had this problem multiple times with multiple authors, it's definitely not a Wells-specific thing).
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - 3+/5 - Much of the charm in this lies in the narrator's brisk and no-nonsense character voice. Because of the conceit (older narrator looking back on the adventures of her youth in a travelogue-ish format), although there's a good plot tying it together, it meanders, and while this would have been a plus for me ten years ago it's not now (a Me problem), so I really wish I had read this a while ago. Anyway, it's great and I might vote it second in Series (after Five Gods).
Summer in Orcus (T. Kingfisher) - 4/5. Portal fantasy. I loved this book and it absolutely deserves to win the not-a-Hugo for best YA. It is the best kind of YA in that it doubles as an adult book; it resonates for this adult in recalling for me what it was like to be twelve; but also it never loses sight that the primary function of a YA book, what any good YA book must grapple with in one form or another, is to engage with the questions of what it means to be human, what it means to grow up, what this life thing is anyway. It also functions as meta about portal fantasy, particularly Narnia (but unlike The Magicians, Summer only engages it tangentially, and more to the point is a very kind book). Also I loved all the characters and their friendship. (Reginald was such an adorable Heyer!pastiche!)
Also, this was really interesting to read after the Seanan McGuire, because I felt like it took everything McGuire was trying to do and did it right -- for example, the main protagonist background/motivation involves her terrible parent, just like in the McGuire, but we're never asked to judge the parent, only see her through the protagonist's eyes, which is much preferable. (In general Kingfisher/Vernon's prose, while reminiscent of McGuire's style, is gentler, which I prefer.)
The really interesting thing is that the book engages with something that I've found to be true but haven't seen so much in YA fiction (except in Voigt, because the Tillerman cycle does everything). All things considered, I'm content with my family and growing-up experience, but there were definitely parts of it that were not optimal. But... from these very suboptimal experiences I've learned things, gained skills, that are very useful and that I'm not entirely sure I would have gotten (or would not have gotten in the same way, certainly) had I not had these experiences. (It's interesting, because there are some ways I consciously choose not to parent in the way my parents did, and with my daughter, who is so much like me, I can see how in some ways she's benefiting from that, and in some ways we have to find other, often less effective methods to work on the skills that I developed more-or-less naturally in reaction to the way I was parented.)
In Other Lands (Sarah Rees Brennan) - well, okay, I read this a year ago and never talked about it here. I liked it a lot; I like everything SRB writes. It's fic that doubles as fantasy (especially but not exclusively of the Harry Potter sort) meta, which is my favorite. Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle is the best! Elf culture is inverted patriarchical culture (all the stupid generalities our culture makes about women, elf culture makes about men), and it seems like it might get old (and perhaps for other readers might) but I just never get tired of it being hilarious and sad at the same time. (And this book also understands that it's writing about what it means to grow up and what life is about, although stylistically very differently.) Voting it second to win for not-a-hugo-best-YA.
The Cloud Roads (Wells) - 3+/5 - First book of the Raksura series, which I read because I liked the Murderbot novella so much. I enjoyed this. Some nice worldbuilding. I do think that these days maybe I'm in the wrong headspace, or something, for epic fantasy, because I enjoyed this one a lot and then couldn't get through the second one (and I have had this problem multiple times with multiple authors, it's definitely not a Wells-specific thing).
A Natural History of Dragons (Marie Brennan) - 3+/5 - Much of the charm in this lies in the narrator's brisk and no-nonsense character voice. Because of the conceit (older narrator looking back on the adventures of her youth in a travelogue-ish format), although there's a good plot tying it together, it meanders, and while this would have been a plus for me ten years ago it's not now (a Me problem), so I really wish I had read this a while ago. Anyway, it's great and I might vote it second in Series (after Five Gods).
