gifts by ursula k. le guin

Having had a hard time with how long Always Coming Home is, Gifts is a really quick and fulfilling read. Obviously it's for kids; it ends when Orrec is 17 and it's basically all about The Power Of Storytelling, but it's got not only a ~cool magic system~ but the trademark Le Guin themes of pacifism and balance and imagining a better world.

sacred and terrible air by robert kurvitz (trans. group ibex)

 This was the first novel I've read in a while that has such a strong and, perhaps, obvious philosophical grounding. Novels written in present tense are also rare. Altogether the effect was piecing together not a story but a historical event, that had already happened, slowly and diffusely. The prose is fun and atmospheric and hard to follow. Because of the philosophical conclusiveness of this story, I don't really have a desire to play the video game.

stars of chaos 1-5 by priest (trans. lily and louise)

Originally, I was drawn to the "ancient China steampunk" setting, but the most unique aspects of the steampunk in this story (the capacities of "iron puppet" robots, and "violet gold" as a commodity) end up influencing the story very little in the end. Another appeal is that, as a "light novel" published in little bites online, the series meticulously explains every plot detail, which is useful to a novice reader of military novels and political dramas. Having found Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn difficult, and The Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee impossible, a light novel is as good as it gets for me. Yet, the characters' emotional lives, if you can call it that, were written in this overexplicated style as well, which had the effect of being super corny - especially since I didn't really find any reason to love the characters other than them being superficially humorous.

To compare Stars of Chaos to the last "light novel" I read, The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, might not be fair, since the latter has a TV show and a super-fun accompanying soundtrack. But note, despite their similarities in setting and tone, how TGDC deals with more philosophical and interesting themes - how does a person come to be evil when society deems them as evil? What does evil even mean? - while SoC deals with, bluntly, the steps Chang Geng takes to lay the legal foundations of a stable empire. Do we find this question worth pondering?

I want to say that it was enjoyable enough to finish 5 books; I wanted to know what happened. The thing about romance novels or romance-centric novels, though, is that since the main couple is guaranteed to end up with a happy ending, a huge chunk of the mystery and suspense in the plot is just dead. I've never understood how readers don't see following these genre conventions, "being a romance novel", as not majorly detracting from the book. SoC is hardly romance-centric, but as you can tell by the cover, you know what happens. And given the length of the series, you also know by when it will happen. Between this series and The Darkness Outside Us by Elliot Schrefer, I'm still looking for a satisfying romanscifi. If such a book exists or could exist.

2024 Ursula Mention: Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin

People compare Native Tongue disparagingly to The Handmaid's Tale, but first of all, Native Tongue was published a year earlier, in 1984. Second, Native Tongue has a vision not just that women can resist oppressive patriarchy in subtle and in dramatic ways, but how. And that's through... the sapir-whorf hypothesis. How fun! The Handmaid's Tale doesn't have ~cool aliens~. Native Tongue is a feminist classic and a scifi classic. What more could you ask for.

For the record, the 2023 Ursula Mention was The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, and 2022 was Kalpa Imperial by Angelica Gorodischer (trans. Ursula Le Guin.) The Ursula Mention is whichever book I read that year that Ursula Le Guin was compared to or connected to somehow that I liked the best/thought was the most Guinlike.

biogenesis by tatsuaki ishiguro (trans. brian watson & james balzer)

Each story is somehow less interesting than the last but since the first story (It is with the Deepest Sincerity that I Offer Prayers…) is very interesting, the book is still readable. It's not really biology-scifi but ecology-epistemologyfi, so plot-wise, the closest point of resemblance is probably The People In The Trees by Hanya Yanagihara.

the afflictions by vikram paralkar

 this book clearly wants to be compared to Borges and Calvino, but my experience reading it was more like The Cabinet by Un-Su Kim, or kind of like watching a season of mushi-shi. Although the biggest departure from those kinds of media is the academic-Catholic themes. Which just made me want to reread The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. 

The Afflictions is very short, but not too short. It contains a thesis about three-quarters of the way through. 

mina's matchbox by yoko ogawa (trans. stephen snyder)

this book only has a short film's worth of content, in my opinion, stretched out to novel length. there's some interesting content here and there but the prose isn't as evocative or imaginative as the works it (frequently) referenced.