Recent reading

[luzula]

Writing up two books that I read (or didn't read) for book club. I feel like I am turning into the grumpy person who just complains and nitpicks...

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor (2015)
This is sort of like X-Men, in that there are people who are experimented upon and then they get superpowers. I finished it, but I wasn't that into it. I kept getting thrown out by issues related to the worldbuilding. The main example was Phoenix's wings: she has a thirty-foot wingspan and can't ride in an airplane because they won't fit. But she can ride in a car just fine, and when she has a burka on, the wings fit underneath so well that everyone just thinks she is a hunchback? This makes no sense to me. Maybe the wings magically change size or something, but no reference is made to that, and it just seems...careless.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (2019)
I dropped out of this early--I could not stand Gideon's character voice. Or rather, it makes no sense to me (worldbuilding-wise) combined with the setting.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Everyone loved Gideon on my reading list but I bounced off hard because of the same thing you did. I instantly hated the character and did not care what happened to them. At all.

[luzula]

I didn't hate the character, it's just that it felt like she was dropped into the world from some other place and didn't make sense as part of it.

[cyphomandra]

Gideon does have a terrible start. I hung on grimly for about nine chapters, and after Gideon takes a vow of silence it got abruptly a whole lot better and I ended up really enjoying it. But that is a long time to wait!!

(I was unsurprised to discover the author was in Homestuck fandom, which I’ve found similarly impenetrable)

[luzula]

Heh, if you need the main character to shut up before you can enjoy the book, that is maybe a sign! But I'm glad you enjoyed the rest of it, anyway.

[china_shop]

I listened to about half a chapter of Gideon in audiobook, but I kept getting distracted and gave up. But I actually think it's kind of cool that it's written in a specific internet dialect, like it might be a "translation" from whatever language they speak in the distant future -- maybe that's the best way to convey the appropriate amount of meme-iness for the world-building? Idk. :-)

[luzula]

I don't mind the thing where modern slang stands in for whatever the slang the future has, it's just that she was the only one using it?

Ah well. Clearly this is an authorial choice that really works for some people, and for others, not.

[china_shop]

Oh, I hadn't heard that part. Interesting. Secret body-sharing time-traveller?

[luzula]

Well, I only read 40 pages of it, so maybe my impression isn't completely reliable...