Tag: Science Fiction

“The Marrow Thieves” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Marrow Thieves” by Cherie Dimaline

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out

Review

It’s always interesting reading apocalyptic stories with Indigenous characters from the Americas, because no matter what you can’t deny that they’ve been through an apocalyptic event already. And this story book makes no apologies for expressing that point repeatedly as the characters discuss everything that’s going on. I really enjoyed reading this book and I the characters are great. There’s a lot oral storytelling in the book as the characters make their way north. The elders of the group explaining the history to the younger ones and then also the various characters in the group telling their own stories of how they got to where they are. While the overall story is rather dark and bleak (how can it not be given the setting?) the ending is somewhat hopeful.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Marrow Thieves”.

Book Details

Book Cover with a blue background. There is an Indigenous young man on the cover with only half of his face visible. He has black hair and a white strip of paint on his cheek. The cover also has various round stickers of the awards the book has won: GG Books Winner, The Kircus Prize Winner, A Globe and Mail Best Book, The White Pine Award.

Author’s Website
Cherie Dimaline
Publisher / Date
Dancing Cat Books, May 2017
Genre
Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Page Count
240
Completion Date
June 24, 2023

“Depart, Depart!” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Depart, Depart!” by Sim Kern

When an unprecedented hurricane devastates the city of Houston, Noah Mishner finds shelter in the Dallas Mavericks’ basketball arena. Though he finds community among other queer refugees, Noah fears his trans and Jewish identities put him at risk with certain “capital-T” Texans. His fears take form when he starts seeing visions of his great-grandfather Abe, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy. As the climate crisis intensifies and conditions in the shelter deteriorate, Abe’s ghost grows more powerful. Ultimately, Noah must decide whether he can trust his ancestor — and whether he’s willing to sacrifice his identity and community in order to survive.

Book Review

This a novella, so it’s shorter than my usual reads, but I still enjoyed it. It’s another ambiguous ending however I do think the main point of the story is made and clarified. I won’t spoil it by explaining further, but I felt like the main issue is resolved in a satisfying way so while I would have liked to see more I don’t feel like I need to. There’s an interesting group of characters and the way things played out was very realistic.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Depart, Depart!”.

Book Details

The cover is dark toned water ripples at the top. There's a vague figure of a person in the background mostly under the water. The word Depart is reflected upside down in the water making the two words of the title - Depart Depart. The author's name is at the bottom

Author’s Website
Sim Kern

Publisher / Date
Stelliform Press, September 2020
Genre
Science Fiction, Horror
Page Count
94
Completion Date
June 22, 2023

“Noor” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Noor” by Nnedi Okorafor

Anwuli Okwudili prefers to be called AO. To her, these initials have always stood for Artificial Organism. AO has never really felt…natural, and that’s putting it lightly. Her parents spent most of the days before she was born praying for her peaceful passing because even in-utero she was “wrong”. But she lived. Then came the car accident years later that crippled her even further. Yet instead of viewing her strange body the way the world views it, as freakish, unnatural, even the work of the devil, AO embraces all that she is: A woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations. And then one day she goes to her local market and everything goes wrong.

Once on the run, she meets a Fulani herdsman named DNA and the race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria begins. In a world where all things are streamed, everyone is watching the “reckoning of the murderess and the terrorist” and the “saga of the wicked woman and mad man” unfold. This fast-paced, relentless journey of tribe, destiny, body, and the wonderland of technology revels in the fact that the future sometimes isn’t so predictable. Expect the unaccepted.

Review

This was a quick fun read. All of the characters are cool and the world building was interesting. I did think it sort of ends abruptly and ambiguously. It’s not entirely clear what was going to happen next to the characters though there’s hints that they’ll be okay.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Noor”.

Book Details

The entire cover is yellow/gold with a black women from the chest up facing towards the right but with her head turned slightly forward. The women has her hair up and arranged on the back of her head and is wearing what looks like a jewel on her forehead and a necklace.

Author’s Website
Nnedi Okorafor
Publisher / Date
DAW, November 2021
Genre
Science Fiction, Fantasy
Page Count
224
Completion Date
June 20, 2023

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” Review

Posted on by Jen

“How Long ’til Black Future Month?” by N.K. Jemisin

Three-time Hugo Award winner and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin challenges and delights readers with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption that sharply examine modern society in her first collection of short fiction, which includes never-before-seen stories.

Spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow South must save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

Review

This is a great collection of short stories all written by N. K. Jemisin. Some of them are early ideas that would become her larger works. Others are stories she had written for other publications. All are great. I also highly recommend reading the introduction to the book for more background and to know where the title of the book comes from. I really enjoyed each story and will likely read more by this author at some point.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “How Long ’til Black Future Month?”.

Book Details

On the cover a young black woman is facing towards the right in profile with her long hair styled with decorations that are white geometric shapes. The shirt or dress she is wearing has a thick collar that looks like two rows of white balls. The title of the book and authors name are on the top and bottom of the cover.

Author’s Website
N.K. Jemisin
Publisher / Date
Orbit, November 2018
Genre
Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories
Page Count
416
Completion Date
June 14, 2023

“The Spare Man” Review

Posted on by Jen

“The Spare Man” by Mary Robinette Kowal

With all the glittering banter of 1930s noir, this novel takes class, privilege, and identity theft and wraps them inside a murder mystery. Tesla Crane, heiress to the Crane fortune, and Shalmanseer Steward, a retired private detective, are on their honeymoon cruise from Earth to Mars. When Shal is framed for murder, Tesla has to find the murderer before they try to silence her husband.

Review

This book fits another of the prompts for the Disability Readathon I’m participating in for April: “Read a book with a person using a mobility aid on the cover” – the main character, Tesla, is using a cane on the cover.

I’m going to be honest and say I preferred Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series over this book. That said I think it’s mostly because the series is a different genre and style. This book is a murder mystery set in the future (2075), while the Lady Astronaut series is an alternate history series set in the 50s through the 70s and some choices made more sense in that series.

There was stuff I did like about the book – most of the characters are great and I did like the disability representation of the main character and her service dog. Her disabilities come from an accident and she’s still in the adjustment period so she’s still adjusting to her new reality for the most part. The murder mystery and figuring out what actually happened was interesting – sometimes a little confusing but I think it was meant to be because of how it all worked out. I also like how at the end of her books the author always has a section talking about the science of the book and how she figured things out for the plot.

There was one element of the book that stuck out like a sore thumb though and it’s the amount of intelligence based insults. I know those are far too ingrained in our society, and it’s not as though all of the other books I’ve read don’t have them too but they became very noticeable in this book. Part of the reason it was so jarring was that the main character went out of her way to call out gender based insults and failure to use pronouns, but then used intelligence based insults themselves or ignored them from another characters. One of the other characters was constantly insulting a third character with some of those insults. It must be said that at the time of reading I wasn’t in the mood for seeing one -ism called out while another was being ignored or used to fight the first one. Especially when the book had disability representation that was well done.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Spare Man”.

Book Details

A woman and man are standing at a bar on a space ship with stars visible above them dressed in formal attire. The woman is more towards the center of the cover and is wearing a white dress with a blue shawl, and is using a cane. The man is to the right and wearing a suit while leaning on the bar looking at the woman. On the floor to the left of the woman is a small white dog.

Author’s Website
Mary Robinette Kowal
Publisher / Date
Tor Books, October 2022
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
384
Completion Date
April 23, 2023

“Meru” Review

Posted on by Jen

“Meru” by S.B. Divya

For five centuries, human life has been restricted to Earth, while posthuman descendants called alloys freely explore the galaxy. But when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, two unlikely companions venture forth to test the habitability of this unoccupied new world and the future of human-alloy relations.

Review

I really enjoyed this book – the world building is great and while some terms used were a bit confusing it was mostly explained as you read a long what they were referring too. I really enjoyed all of the characters involved – even one that was kind of frustrating at first. I really enjoyed how disability is used in this book as a benefit – the planet is found is actually more stable to those who have a specific disability. There’s also a lot of learning about different people and coming to understand that sometimes you don’t know everything you think you know.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Meru”.

Book Details

Book cover of Meru showing a person standing on a rock outcropping at the bottom of a canyon with walls on either Sid e of them the sky ahead is purple. The book title is arranged vertically down the middle of the book with the author's name at the top.

Author’s Website
S.B. Divya
Publisher / Date
47North, February 2023
Genre
Science Fiction
Page Count
443
Completion Date
March 31, 2023