Recent reading
Nov. 18th, 2017 09:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaThe Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
Reread. This is one of his first books, and I know I've read it before, but I hardly remembered it and I don't think it made much of an impression on me the first time. I appreciated it much more this time around. It's the post-apocalyptic version of his California trilogy, but it's not immediate post-apocalypse; rather it's narrated by a teenager who grew up in that world. When you hear "teenage protagonist in a post-apocalyptic world" you might think YA, but it is not, or at least it's very far from most books in that genre. I so appreciate the solid, grounded feeling of KSR's SF; there's so much physicality in it, that sense of human beings being in an actual real world. There's a great passage where the main character has to swim ashore from a ship a long way out to sea, and the endurance of it is so well written! For a post-apocalyptic world it's not actually depressing (except for a glimpse of someone telling a story of the horrible time just post-apocalypse).
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
For fannish book club. This was one of those rare books that everyone in book club unreservedly really enjoyed! Very good fairy-tale based fantasy; I'd love to know more about the Russian fairy tale it was based on. And there will be a sequel, too! \o/
Reread. This is one of his first books, and I know I've read it before, but I hardly remembered it and I don't think it made much of an impression on me the first time. I appreciated it much more this time around. It's the post-apocalyptic version of his California trilogy, but it's not immediate post-apocalypse; rather it's narrated by a teenager who grew up in that world. When you hear "teenage protagonist in a post-apocalyptic world" you might think YA, but it is not, or at least it's very far from most books in that genre. I so appreciate the solid, grounded feeling of KSR's SF; there's so much physicality in it, that sense of human beings being in an actual real world. There's a great passage where the main character has to swim ashore from a ship a long way out to sea, and the endurance of it is so well written! For a post-apocalyptic world it's not actually depressing (except for a glimpse of someone telling a story of the horrible time just post-apocalypse).
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
For fannish book club. This was one of those rare books that everyone in book club unreservedly really enjoyed! Very good fairy-tale based fantasy; I'd love to know more about the Russian fairy tale it was based on. And there will be a sequel, too! \o/
