Recent reading

[luzula]

Imago by Octavia Butler
Aaaggh. Well, this is really successful in describing creepy yet well-meaning (on their terms) aliens. Like, they literally go: "Yes, human, I know you said no, but with my superior perceptions I could tell that you actually wanted to say yes! Aren't you glad now that I impregnated you/linked my tentacles to your nervous system and had mind-sex with you/chemically bonded with you for life without telling you the consequences first? :D" And yet I think the worst thing they do is actually that they are going to let their spaceship lifeforms expand and eat Earth's whole biosphere and then depart after several centuries, leaving Earth a barren rock (okay, they keep genetic records of everything, but that doesn't even remotely compensate for it). And despite this you still don't feel that they are evil--they just have a...very alien morality. Which does somewhat overlap with human morality, so that they are horrified by some of the actual bad things that humans do.

Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones
Well, that was weird. Like, you think you start out reading one book, but she keeps changing the characters on you, like peeling off layers. And yet, it all made sense at the end! I think. I enjoyed it a lot--it felt like DWJ in her most out-of-left-field mode. Ha ha, the Bannus was like a gleeful fanfic-writing machine that got to act out all of its AUs.

Comments

[skygiants]

Hexwood is SO WEIRD and it is possibly my favorite, or at least one of my favorites, and I've read it so often now that I have to consciously remind myself that the first half the book doesn't make sense the first time you read it because it's completely out of order and you don't know who anyone is yet and ALSO DWJ is just like "OK, what tropes haven't I hit yet? -- ah yes, OK, now it's an office rom-com! now he's a dragon! now it's Arthurian AND ALSO aliens are trying to make them do it!" God bless.

[luzula]

I didn't read it when I was younger, and I think I am more attached to the DWJ I read as a kid. But I did like it a lot! As you say, it's confusing in the beginning, but it makes sense to me in retrospect.

Unlike Fire and Hemlock which did not make sense to me (though of course it's very possible that it does actually make sense and I just don't understand it). And I was put off by the romance in that book, so there's that too.

[baronjanus]

Sounds like those aliens are actually very very human-like :)

[luzula]

Ha. Sadly, I suppose you have a point.

[jesse_the_k]

Yes, that was one reason I liked Lilith's Brood so much: the aliens were smarter than the humans, but not by much. Butler is the queen of ambiguity. Made for very chewy discussion in our book group.

[nonesensed]

Octavia Butler sure has written some super creepy, but very interesting characters - alien and not. Now that I think about it, I should add more of her (and DWJ's) works to my to-read list.

Really like your book reviews! Both for your comments on the books, as reminders to myself to read more, and as a way to discover books I'd otherwise not read :)

[luzula]

Thanks, I'm glad you like my book reviews! Or, well, my notes feel a little too random to call reviews, but I do enjoy writing them. And yeah, I get many ideas for books to read from people's reading logs, too.

[nonesensed]

Notes are sometimes better than a full-on review. Sometimes just getting a reader's impression of a single aspect of a book, or getting a "this book made me feel/think this" comment, makes me want to read a book in a way a 'full' review can't :) So yeah, thanks for sharing and inspiring!