Books I Read April 10th, 2024

Long winter. Spring looms. I hope you're getting by OK.

In the Drift by Michael Swanwick – Machiavellian politicking in a United States shattered by nuclear accident. A familiar premise elevated by deft but brief world-building, nuanced characters, and irregular, episodic plotting compressing decades of time into a few hundred pages. I liked it enough to read several more of his in rapid succession.

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick – A shadowy government agent investigates a shadowy, magical figure on a planet soon to be flooded by the sea. Shades of Gene Wolfe (high praise, if you hadn't gleaned) in the world-building, which is rich and textured but offered in the sort of oblique asides which are likely to infuriate most genre readers. I liked this lots.

I Loved you for your Voice by Selim Nassib – The history of modern Egypt's most beloved musician as told by her lyricist/tame poet. A wistful meditation on music and the middle-east.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick – A bildingsroman for (of?) a changeling stolen to a modern fairyland, resembling ours in its injustice and cruelty. Erotic, disturbing, and thoughtful, utilizing genre tropes to discuss essential questions of theodicy.

The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan – The story of an ad-hoc group of woman in pre-Roe Chicago who set themselves up as illegal abortion providers. Fascinating and disturbingly relevant.

Physiognomy by Jeffrey Ford – In a surreal fantasy world where the eponymous pseudo-science has been elevated to divine law, a monstrous government agent investigates a mystery far from the capial. Actually, that's really only the first third but to get into all the specifics would be a waste of space, as this is the sort of literary-genre mash-up in which an incoherent narrative serves to illustrate an aesthetic/philosophical point, in this case a Pynchonesque dislike of technocracy/capitalism/imperialism.

Saving Room for Dessert by K.C. Constantine – Three patrolmen in a fading rust-belt town try and do right by themselves, their community, in the last of many works by the once widely beloved but now largely forgotten K.C. Constantine. Nuanced characters but limited plot.

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman – I've never really been the sort of person suffering from any great excess of optimism, but if you need a primer on stoicism you could probably do worse.

Bone China by Roma Tearne – Three generations of indigenous nobility suffer through the Sri Lankan civil war, emigration to England. I've probably read dozens of entries in this sub-genre, from various parts of the planet, and most of them were not nearly this good,. Tearne has a talent for plotting and pace which is rare outside of genre writing, and her characters are complex and sympathetic. I dug it.

Pirate Utopia by Bruce Sterling – An alternate history of D'Annunzio's failed attempts at turning Fiume into an Adriatic futurist state. Weird, fun, very brief.