First Quarter 2021 Reading

[ljkeane]

I really enjoyed A Deadly Education too. I found the potential dark lord being a girl from south Wales named Galadriel who just can't be doing with the whole thing and keeps calling people spanners quite entertaining.

After that I read Siege of Rage and Ruin by Django Wexler which was ok but not as good as the start of the series. Wexler seems to start his series really strong and then peter out a bit. I also read Terminus by Peter Clines which was fun.

Next up I'm going to read Micaiah Johnson's The Space Between Worlds.

[polishgenius]

On 2/26/2021 at 8:11 PM, Iskaral Pust said:

  While I wouldn’t dispute any Chinese (or Korean) person’s right to do so, the portrayal of the Japanese analogues lacks any nuance or humanization.

It's obviously a delicate balance and we'll see how it goes in later books (not read the sequels yet) but I feel this was deliberate:

the main character wouldn't have been able to cause the atrocity she did if she thought of her opposition as human. The reaction of characters around her suggests they know she's been brainwashed

[Iskaral Pust]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

It's obviously a delicate balance and we'll see how it goes in later books (not read the sequels yet) but I feel this was deliberate:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

the main character wouldn't have been able to cause the atrocity she did if she thought of her opposition as human. The reaction of characters around her suggests they know she's been brainwashed

 

I didn’t read it quite that way

Spoiler

I thought the atrocity was a direct analogue for Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and the reaction of the other characters was not so much about brainwashing as the willingness of the main character (well, it was the god, not her) to cause a genocide to win a war.  It was more about the magnitude of the stakes than disagreeing about how they viewed the enemy 

 

[polishgenius]

That is definitely also true, but (though I read it a while back so I could be remembering details wrong) I seem to remember some wrestling with the fact that she characterises them all as basically automatons and how that can't be true.

[ljkeane]

The Space Between Worlds is pretty good. I was a little concerned it might be overly preachy but it's not. It's a good story with an interesting premise that's definitely worth a read.

Next up I'm taking a bit of a break from reading Sci fi and fantasy books with The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.

[williamjm]

I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Bear Head. I'm not sure whether Tchaikovsky was planning a sequel to Dogs of War when he wrote it since I think the first book was fairly complete in itself but I thought this book did do a good job of picking up the story a few decades down the line and examining some of the consequences of the events in the first book in more detail. The main new elements is that much of the book is set on an under-construction Martian colony where the workers (not all of whom are human) have had various genetic modifications to adapt to the planet. I think the Martian part of the story was more interesting than the plotline back on Earth following an up-and-coming politician launching a crusade against bioforms. There are a few characters returning from the first book and they have gone through some interesting character development since then. There are some good new characters as well, although as a protagonist I don't find Jimmy to be as compelling as Rex was in the first book. Overall I'd say the first book was maybe a bit better but I still thought this was a good sequel.

[mushroomshirt]

On 3/4/2021 at 11:01 AM, ljkeane said:

I really enjoyed A Deadly Education too. I found the potential dark lord being a girl from south Wales named Galadriel who just can't be doing with the whole thing and keeps calling people spanners quite entertaining.

Apparently there is quite a controversy about the book and the author being racist.  This went completely over my head when reading the book twice.  (although perhaps the most offensive stuff may have been removed from my version already).

https://www.themarysue.com/racism-vs-representation-the-missteps-of-naomi-noviks-a-deadly-education/

Novik even issued an apology that addresses some (not all) of the controversy:

https://www.naominovik.com/apology/

 

[Zorral]

The thing is -- the elephant in the white sf/f writer's writer room -- is that no writer is going to create a plausible diverse cast of characters, and not make terrible mistakes, etc. --  without being part of diverse communities themselves.   And for a long time.

A friend of mine, a white, well-meaning writer, who lives in a completely white world, now has sworn to create characters who are Black. But she knows not a single Black person.  I'm not even saying here she doesn't have a single Black friend -- which is true -- she doesn't have a single Black friend.  She doesn't even see Black people at all and hasn't probably, since at a distance, in her east Texas childhood.

Nor has she had any interest in the literature and music and cultures that are the immense varieties of Black communities. 

But I can't say that to her because she will take it personally, as a criticism, and that she can't write Black characters.  Which, honestly, ya, I am saying,  I cannot for the life of me figure out how one writes such characters with any meaning without ever having shared even going to lunch together with somebody who isn't You, not even once. 

So what is she to do?  It's equally offensive to Black communities for a person to try to enter a Black community just to put somebody Black in her fiction.  The only thing that works for a white person is to have spent years in rooms and situations as the only or one of the very few white people in those rooms.

And the wail is, "I can't afford years and there aren't any around here."

 

 

[VigoTheCarpathian]

Finished the Heaney translation of Beowulf, and a book of assorted poetry, and some self-improvement/meditation texts.  Picked up “Jade War” and “The Witch’s Heart”.

I stopped reading Bakker at “The White-Luck Warrior” when it originally came out, and for whatever reason, have felt a completist compulsion to finish the AE series.

Just finished “The Judging Eye”, and my library has the next two, but looks like I would need to buy a used copy of the final book...and recalling the Bakker threads of yore, I’m on the fence if it’d be worth it? 

[ljkeane]

15 hours ago, mushroomshirt said:

Apparently there is quite a controversy about the book and the author being racist.  This went completely over my head when reading the book twice.  (although perhaps the most offensive stuff may have been removed from my version already).

I remember the dreadlocks stuff being a bit of a thing a few months ago and that was still in the book. I can't say it particularly bothers me but obviously other people's mileage varies.

[Ormond]

Last night I finished Transformation by Carol Berg, her first published novel and the first in her Rai-Kirah trilogy of fantasy novels.

I really enjoyed this book. I often don't like books told in the first person, but Seyonne, the narrator of this story, was a complex character, who discovers much about himself in the course of the story. He begins the book as a slave who has just been sold to Aleksander,  the heir to the throne of the Derzhi empire. Seyonne an Ezzarian, a nation conquered by the empire about a decade ago. Many Ezzarians have magical abilities which allow them to fight demons, which in this world are spiritual beings who take over the souls of humans to cause havoc. 

Slavery as practiced in this world is particularly brutal, and Aleksander at the start of the story is an thoughtlessly cruel arrogant jerk of a prince. That changes over time. In the course of the story Seyonne discovers that some of his own Ezzarians can be as corrupt as the Derzhi. 

Berg's writing and characterization are excellent. In a story which is usually very dark, her characters nevertheless come up with humorous comments in a completely natural way, and the twists and turns in the story were always believable to me. I highly recommend this.

Carol Berg has published at least 17 fantasy novels so far. Her "Lighthouse Duet" pair of books won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in 2009. But like many fantasy authors whose sales have never reached blockbuster status, her latest trilogy, the Chimera series, has been published under a pseudonym -- "Cate Glass".  I found Transformation such a great book, though, that I wonder why Berg never seems to get mentioned on this board. I think many GRRM fans would really enjoy her work. I certainly plan to read more books by her in the future. 

 

[RhaenysBee]

I finished the Witcher novels. It’s been a ride. Overall, I can’t say I particularly liked it. I liked having a fantastic book series that reach for and I liked certain aspects of the novels. But I certainly didn’t like it the way I loved other book series in the past, that I wanted to read over and over again because I couldn’t bear for the adventure to end. 

I’m certain it didn’t help that the Witcher was translated to English and it definitely was a poor decisions to read it in English. The structure of Polish language is far more similar to that of my own mother language. To the point that I recognized a lot of proverbs, phrases, expressions in my own language before my brain even finished reading or comprehended the English sentence. For this reason, my suspicion is that I would have enjoyed and appreciated  the linguistic style of the novels if I read it in my language rather than English. Oh well. This is what Netflix and globalization will do to you. Everything in English, even what shouldn’t be. (Don’t get me wrong, I obsessively love English language and have done so for almost 20 years) 

I found the story itself terribly strange. The way it was told, the flow, the proportion of detail and generalization, the pacing. It was all incredibly peculiarly and nothing like I’ve ever read before. The plot was a train wreck and the storytelling that led me through this train wreck was equally wobbly. The world building felt like fanfiction. Very good fanfiction but fanfiction nonetheless. (I do love and value a good fanfiction, there’s no negative judgement in this, what I’m trying to describe is the sensation that literally everything was tossed into this soup from real life European history, through the lord of the rings, Grimm fairy tales and Slavic folk tales, Eastern European cultural heritage, a song of ice and fire and who knows what else that I didn’t detect. It didn’t feel like its own world. It felt like a mix of a lot of fantastic worlds tossed together) 

As far as the characters go, they had very very very little room to shine among all the elements listed above that the author wished to write about (often for the only reason that he wanted to). They had little room to truly unfold and grow and many remained entirely one dimensional. And there were very few I found myself liking. A tad more though still few I found myself caring about. (For instance, I did keep pushing through the books because I wanted to find out what happens to Ciri, and I often felt for her trials, but there was hardly any time when I didn’t actively dislike her personality) This was likely fueled by the structure of the novels that was too fragmented between tiny moments and four tier character perspectives for anybody to really grow on me. Most of these supporting characters are also 100% plot devices with no real persona. That was one of the reasons I found them difficult to like or care about. 

Everything beyond, the themes, the morals the values, the references, the real history was beautiful. I have absolutely no clue what the author’s intention was or why he chose to say what he wished to say in this shape and form, as I said it’s certainly the strangest book series I’ve ever read.

There were two particular parts that I actually truly enjoyed reading (and didn’t just want to get through in order to find out what happens), one was Ciri in the desert and the other was the post war segment of the last novel. 

One thing the author did much better than his inspirational works (which I pettily criticized for showing through too obviously) was showing the impact of war. That was always masterful, raw, and morbidly beautiful. Asoiaf is often praised for showing the true face of war and deromanticizing it. Nah. The Witcher does that. And so much better. 

Would I read this series again? No. Do I recommend it? Honestly, not sure. Certainly, if you’ve got nothing else to reach for and want a fantasy series. Do I regret that I spent months on reading 7 books in this series? No, though if I could do it again I would only read the five novels. The prequels add literally nothing to anything and they really are a waste of time. So if you’re curious about it, I’d say read the five novels and the decide about the rest after you finished. 

I do apologize if someone loved this series and I’ve been unkind to it. Needless to say I have only respect and admiration for the author, he created something big and influential. It just wasn’t particularly my cup of tea. 

[williamjm]

4 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Would I read this series again? No. Do I recommend it? Honestly, not sure. Certainly, if you’ve got nothing else to reach for and want a fantasy series. Do I regret that I spent months on reading 7 books in this series? No, though if I could do it again I would only read the five novels. The prequels add literally nothing to anything and they really are a waste of time. So if you’re curious about it, I’d say read the five novels and the decide about the rest after you finished. 

I do apologize if someone loved this series and I’ve been unkind to it. Needless to say I have only respect and admiration for the author, he created something big and influential. It just wasn’t particularly my cup of tea. 

I read the first book sometime last year and I do vaguely intend to read more at some point, but I don't feel in any particular rush to do so. I did like it, but I can think of a lot of other fantasy series I've liked more.

[ljkeane]

The Brass Verdict was a solid courthouse thriller. It's very much in the airport book bracket but it's readable enough.

Next I'm going to read A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. I've been looking forward to this one for a while so hopefully it should be good.

[Zorral]

22 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

This is what Netflix and globalization will do to you. Everything in English, even what shouldn’t be.

It's not the fault of the English language, it's the fault of the choice of translator.  Translation is as much of an art as writing good literature is an art.  This is why I find the Witcher books unreadable.  They are very very very badly written in English.  If it is the translation, not the original language version, then the translator is at fault.

The translator would have to be as familiar with the culture out of which these books came as the original language.  Which is why generally, no matter how fluent a person may be in the language into which the original is being translated, it will not generally work.  One must know the original language so well that one knows one isn't understanding something or getting it right, and call a native writer - speaker, and then translate that into the translated language, along with the rhythms, cadences and so on. Translation doesn't work when the translator isn't a native speaker of the language into which it is being translated.

There have been many occasions when a not-so-beautifully written, but very popular book turns out to be better written in the translated language because the translator was a better writer than the author of the book.  This happens quite a bit in academic works that win prizes and part of the prize is to be translated into English, as we have learned over the years.

Yet translators get paid on the level generally of long term care facility workers.

 

[RhaenysBee]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

It's not the fault of the English language, it's the fault of the choice of translator.  Translation is as much of an art as writing good literature is an art.  This is why I find the Witcher books unreadable.  They are very very very badly written in English.  If it is the translation, not the original language version, then the translator is at fault.

The translator would have to be as familiar with the culture out of which these books came as the original language.  Which is why generally, no matter how fluent a person may be in the language into which the original is being translated, it will not generally work.  One must know the original language so well that one knows one isn't understanding something or getting it right, and call a native writer - speaker, and then translate that into the translated language, along with the rhythms, cadences and so on. Translation doesn't work when the translator isn't a native speaker of the language into which it is being translated.

There have been many occasions when a not-so-beautifully written, but very popular book turns out to be better written in the translated language because the translator was a better writer than the author of the book.  This happens quite a bit in academic works that win prizes and part of the prize is to be translated into English, as we have learned over the years.

Yet translators get paid on the level generally of long term care facility workers.

 

Of course it’s not. As for the translator, I’m sure a lot depends on the translator, although I’m not sure they have unlimited control over the outcome of the book.

I have no way of judging how much I would have liked the original, as I don’t speak Polish, thus my comparison ran between the translation to English, which I read and the translation to Hungarian, which I feel I should have opted for. Simply because I think that it would be far easier to capture the style of the original in Hungarian. We have similar proverbs, similar expressions, similar folklore, likely a more similar way of thinking due to the cultural and historical links. The language is similar in certain aspects, eg. we like sentences that go on and on and on and have twenty billion clauses too, which doesn’t work all that well in English . That, in my non professional opinion, is likely to make the Hungarian translation (for me, maybe for a French reader it would be all the same whether they read it in French or English, I have no idea, I don’t speak French) closer to the original. ETA: this is my perception, by the way, it’s entirely likely that a Polish person wouldn’t agree at all. 

As for the English translation on its own, I do agree that it was ghastly. The first novel and the first prequel book were actually translated by a Polish lady (who I’m sure is great at translating texts to Polish), however, as you said, did a very poor job of translating these books to English. Then a British gentlemen David French took over and the difference is striking. I posted about this back then, it was astounding how the linguistic quality of the books leveled up. But, one can still tell it’s a translation, one can still feel where he was struggling and one can still not enjoy the linguistic style I’m certain the original book possesses. Which is a shame. And here’s the point where I run out of understanding. Could it have been better if another British translator worked on it? Could it have been better if a bilingual Polish-British translator worked on it? Are there limits to what one can make of the source material? I don’t know.  

I have encountered translations that are superb and interpret the humor of a language so beautifully and seamlessly that the translation is sometimes better than the original pun/joke/one liner. I have encountered this a lot with Harry Potter, our translation of which is absolutely marvelous. And then there were those botched YA novel translations behind which I could hear the original English sentence in my mind and all I could do was scream as the atrocious translation (entirely void of understanding or effort) burned my eyes. So yes, I’m sure that effort and skill counts for a lot. Again, no idea if there’s a limit though. 

[williamjm]

I just read Ben Aaronovitch's Tales from the Folly, a collection of short stories related to his Rivers of London series. I always enjoy the novels and I enjoyed this as well although none of the stories are particularly essential. However, often they do provide a few more world building details or development for some of the characters (particularly the stories which are not told from Peter's perspective).

I'm also wondering if the soon-to-be-released novella What Abigail Did That Summer will be as much of a Veronica Mars homage as the story featuring Abigail in this collection seemed to be.

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

...I think that it would be far easier to capture the style of the original in Hungarian. We have similar proverbs, similar expressions, similar folklore, likely a more similar way of thinking due to the cultural and historical links. The language is similar in certain aspects, eg. we like sentences that go on and on and on and have twenty billion clauses too, which doesn’t work all that well in English . That, in my non professional opinion, is likely to make the Hungarian translation (for me, maybe for a French reader it would be all the same whether they read it in French or English, I have no idea, I don’t speak French) closer to the original. ETA: this is my perception, by the way, it’s entirely likely that a Polish person wouldn’t agree at all.

I have no idea whether a native Polish speaker writer would agree with you either, but your points seem valid to me, for whatever that's worth, particularly the bolded parts.

Just as with the languages I know best that aren't my native language, there are 'protocols' so to speak in Spanish and Portuguese and Italian, for a single instance -- formalities that are always included whether during public occasions in speech, and in written works, that don't work well in English.

[Mexal]

On 3/7/2021 at 8:18 PM, Mr Gordo said:

1/5th into Jade City and not feeling it at all. This one has like a billion 5 star reviews and tons of authors I love gushing about it on the cover too. Maybe mafia SFF just isn't my thing.

I really liked it. Thought she went into some interesting directions and I found Hilo a fascinating character.

[Plessiez]

On 3/8/2021 at 1:18 AM, Mr Gordo said:

1/5th into Jade City and not feeling it at all. This one has like a billion 5 star reviews and tons of authors I love gushing about it on the cover too. Maybe mafia SFF just isn't my thing.

I liked Jade City quite a lot (barring one slightly irritating POV character). 

But, that said, I think the early parts of the book are probably a good indication of what to expect from the rest of the story.  If you're still not into it a decent fraction of the way in I wouldn't expect anything to happen to suddenly change your mind.