#some of the worldbuilding (like all the science learning) is probably setup for next books - we don’t really see any practical application | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

terramythos · 4 years

Text

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 27 of 26

Title: How Long ‘Til Black Future Month? (2018)

Author: N. K. Jemisin

Genre/Tags: Short Story Collection, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror, Dystopia, Magical Realism, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Post-Apocalyptic, Female Protagonist(s), LGBT Protagonist(s).

Rating: 8/10 (Note: This is an average of all the stories -- see below the cut for individual story blurbs/ratings).

Date Began: 9/27/2020

Date Finished: 10/4/2020

I really liked this collection! Jemisin wrote my favorite fanstasy/scifi series ever with The Broken Earth trilogy, and I really enjoyed her recent novel The City We Became. I was in the mindset for shorter fiction so decided to read this collection of short stories. Of these 22 stories, my absolute favorites (9/10 or higher) were:

The City Born Great - 10/10

The Effluent Engine - 9/10

Cloud Dragon Skies - 9/10

The Trojan Girl -10/10

Valedictorian - 9/10

The Evaluators - 10/10

Stone Hunger - 9/10

The Narcomancer - 9/10

Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows - 9/10

Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters - 9/10

A more detailed summary/reaction to each story under the cut. WARNING: IT’S LONG.

1. Those Who Stay and Fight - 8/10

Describes a utopia called Um-Helat that exists solely because no one is seen as superior or inferior to anyone else. Over time we learn it's a future, or potential future, of America. But America today is pure anathema to it due to rampant structural inequality. In order to achieve its utopian ideal, Um-Helatians have to root out and destroy people corrupted by the past.

This story was apparently written as a tribute/response to the Ursula K. Le Guin story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”. I first read this without context, then went and read the Le Guin story. I definitely see the parallels. Both feature a narrator describing a wonderful utopia in the midst of festival, trying to convince the reader of the place's existence, before introducing something dark that is the price of the utopia. In the Le Guin story, the utopia exists at the price of the horrible misery and suffering of one child, and everyone is aware of it. Most live with it, but a few leave for the unknown rather than continue to live there (hence the title). In Jemisin's story, the price is instead the annihilation of those tainted by exposure to the evils of the past. The choice, instead of leaving, is for those tainted yet capable to become protectors of the new world, or die.

The thesis is pretty clear: that only by abandoning horrible ideologies and refusing to give them any ground or quarter can a utopian society truly exist. I will say that rings clear, especially when one considers Naziism and fascism. Not all ideologies deserve the light of day or debate, and even entertaining them as valid allows it to take hold. I liked this story, though it comes off as a social justice essay more than a story in and of itself.

2. The City Born Great - 10/10

This one is told from the perspective of a homeless young black man who feels a strange resonance with New York City. He meets a mysterious figure named Paulo, who tells him the city is about to be born as a full-fledged entity, and the man has been chosen to assist with its birth. However, there’s an eldritch force known simply as The Enemy that seeks to prevent this from happening.

I've read this one before since it's the prologue to The City We Became. And honestly it was one of my favorite parts of that book. New York City is a phenomenal character. I love that the proto-avatar of NYC is a young homeless black man, one of the most denigrated groups out there. Cops being the harbingers of eldritch destruction is... yeah. It was fun to reread this. The ending is a little different, because in the novel, something goes terribly wrong that doesn't happen in this short story. There is also a flash forward where he is, apparently, about to awaken the avatar of Los Angeles. Makes me wonder if that is ultimately the endgame of the series. But otherwise it's the same thing with absolutely phenomenal character voice and creativity regarding cities as living creatures. I'm glad Jemisin expanded this idea into a full series.

3. Red Dirt Witch - 7/10

Takes place before the (1960s) Civil Rights Movement in Pratt City, AL. The main character is Emmaline, a witch with three kids. A creepy figure called The White Lady comes to visit and steal one of her children.

I love the little twist that The White Lady is a faerie. And the different take on rowan/ash/thorn instead being rosemary/sage/sycamore fig. There is a lot of touching bits about the horrible trials and human rights abuses during the Civil Rights marches (which are unfortunately all too relevant still), but ultimately a hopeful glimpse of the future of black people in America, though hard-won.

4. L'Alchimista - 6/10

Stars a Milanese master chef named Franca, who fell from glory for Reasons, who now works as head chef at a run-down inn. She feeds a mysterious stranger, who then challenges her to fix a seemingly impossible recipe.

This one was fun and charming. I thought the food (and magical food) descriptions were very vibrant and interesting, especially the last meal. I can tell this is an earlier story and it's pretty light hearted, but I enjoyed it. It felt like it needed a little more of.. something.

5. The Effluent Engine - 9/10

In an interesting steampunk take, Haitian spy Jessaline comes to the city of New Orleans to meet one of its foremost scientists. Her goal is to find a viable, unique energy source to strengthen Haiti in a world that wants to see her nation dead.

I really liked this; it's one of the longer stories so there's more time for character development and worldbuilding. And it's gay. I'm not hugely into pure steampunk because a lot of it comes off as very... samey (hyper Eurocentric/Victorian, etc) but I thought this take was fresh.

Like much of Jemisin's work, there is a lot of racial under and overtones; this one specifically goes into the terrible atrocities committed against the Haitians during their Revolution, and the varied social classes of black/Creole people in New Orleans at the time. A lot of this is stuff I was unaware of or knew very little about. I thought it was interesting to bring all of these to the forefront in a steampunk story in addition to the dirigibles, clockwork, action, and subterfuge. Also, everything tries together in a very satisfying way by the end (the rum bottle!), which I love in short fiction.

6. Cloud Dragon Skies - 9/10

Takes place in a post-apoc future where some humans evacuated to space while others stayed behind and took on more indigenous traditions to heal the Earth. The sky has suddenly turned red on Earth, and some representatives from the "sky-people" come to study it and figure out why.

I really enjoyed this little story; fantasy/scifi fusions are my jam, but science fiction specifically told through a fantasy lens is just so cool to me. The cloud dragons were very interesting and imaginative. Also, I love how the opening statement's meaning isn't particularly clear until you read the whole thing.

7. The Trojan Girl - 10/10

This one is about sentient computer programs/viruses that struggle to survive in something called the Amorph, which is basically a more advanced, omnipresent version of the Internet.

Holy fucking shit was this a cool story. Probably the coolest take on cyberpunk I've ever read. The main character Moroe has formed a messed up little family of creatures like him who live and hunt in Amorph's code, but can upload to "the Static" (real life) if needed by hijacking human hosts. The way this is described is so damn creepy and unsettling. I love that while they're anthropomorphized, the characters are mostly feral and compared to a pack of wolves. Soooo much wolf pack imagery. And the ending is so fucking good and imaginative.

This was apparently a proof of concept story that Jemisin decided not to adapt to a longer series, which I'm kind of sad about, but it was REALLY cool nevertheless. The next story is apparently in the same universe and serves as the "conclusion".

8. Valedictorian - 9/10

This one is about a girl who is, well, top of her class in high school, and the stresses that mount as graduation approaches. But while it seems like a familiar setup, there is something decidedly Off about everything, which is revealed gradually over the course of the story.

I originally gave this an 8, but honestly I couldn't stop thinking about it so I boosted it to a 9. It doesn’t become clear how this connects to the previous story until the midpoint. I liked this one because it functions as a nice dystopian science fiction story but also biting social commentary on the modern American education system. I'm not going go say more on it because spoilers. While I personally like the first story more I think this is an interesting followup/conclusion with a more cerebral approach.

9. The Storyteller's Replacement - 6/10

This one's presented as a traditional "once upon a time" fable told by a storyteller narrator, about a shitty despotic king named Paramenter. Desperate to prove his virility, he eats the heart of a dragon, which is said to be a cure-all for impotence. It's successful, but the six strange daughters that result seem to have plans of their own.

Not really my cup of tea-- it's pretty fucked up. But it's definitely cathartic by the end, which I appreciate, and I do like how creepy the daughters are.

10. The Brides of Heaven - 5/10

Framed as an interrogation in an offworld colony called Illiyin, in which a terrible accident occurred on the way that left all the adult men dead. Dihya, who lost her only son to an alien parasite, is caught trying to sabotage the colony's water supply for reasons unknown.

I like some things in this story. I love the trope of alien biology affecting human biology in unexpected ways. I'm not terribly familiar with Islam but thought it added an interesting faith vs practicality vs tradition element to the science fiction. However I found the sexual body horror REALLY squicky which turned me off the story as a whole.

11. The Evaluators - 10/10

Stylized as a collection of logs and excerpts from a First Contact team of humans visiting and studying a sapient alien species to potentially set up trade relations. There's a focus on one team member named Aihua and her conversations with one of the aliens, but there's miscellaneous important hints/excerpts from the survey that hint Something Creepy Is Going On.

This one was BIZARRE and took me two reads to fully appreciate, but it’s a great work of nontraditional science fiction horror. Just... the epitome of "*nervous laughter* 'what the fuck'". I can't say more without spoiling but dear lord. That whole Jesus bit hits different on a second read. Fucking hell.

12. Walking Awake - 7/10

Takes place in a dystopian society in which parasitic creatures known as Masters keep a small number of humans alive to be flesh suits for them, which they take over and trade around at will. The main character Sadie is a human "caretaker" responsible for propagandizing and raising well-bred human children that eventually become the Masters' hosts. She starts to have disturbing dreams when one takes over the body of a teenage boy she was particularly attached to.

This is apparently a response to Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, which I have never read. It's a full damn novel so I probably won't. Google tells me it's about parasitic aliens, but was obviously also Red Scare paranoia about communist Russia. The argument in the Jemisin story is that the parasites are a result of human folly in an attempt to punish/control people their creators didn't like. This went poorly and resulted in the whole world being taken over.

The story itself is disturbing since the victims are innocent children, but it's ultimately about standing up and taking the first step toward revolution. I felt pretty neutral about the story itself; perhaps I would have liked it more if it was longer and I had more time with the world and protagonist. I wanted to connect to Sadie and her maternal relationship the boy who got killed more. Or maybe it's more impactful if you're familiar with the Heinlein novel and can see the nods/digs.

13. The Elevator Dancer - 7/10

A very short story that takes place in a Christian fundamentalist surveillance state. The protagonist is an unnamed security guard who occasionally sees a woman dancing alone in the elevator and obsesses over her.

I like this one but I'm not sure if I really get it. It's heavily implied the dancer is a hallucination, and the narrator gets "re-educated" but it's all a little ambiguous. I think it's about the struggle to find meaning and inspiration in an oppressive world.

14. Cuisine des Mémoires - 8/10

This one's about a man named Harold who visits a strange restaurant that claims it can replicate any meal from any point in history. He orders a meal which his ex-wife, whom he still loves very much, fixed for him years ago.

This one was certainly different, but I really like the idea of food-as-memory, especially because that's an actual thing. This story just takes it to an extra level. Honestly this story made me feel things... the longing of memory and missed connections/opportunities. Jemisin did a great job with emotion on this one.

15. Stone Hunger - 9/10

Stars a girl in with the ability to manipulate the earth who's tracking down a man she senses in an unfamiliar city. It's heavily implied the world is in a perpetual post-apocalyptic state. When she's caught damaging the outer wall of the city to break in and injured/imprisoned, she's aided by a mysterious, humanoid statue creature with motives of its own.

I have to say it's really interesting to see an early beta concept of The Broken Earth. Orogeny is a little different (and not named)-- there's some kind of taste component to it? Though that's possibly unique to the main character? While hatred of orogenes exists I don't think it's a structural exploitation allegory at this point. Ykka + proto-Castrima existing this early is pretty funny to me. People also use metal, which is VERY funny if you’ve read the series. But I was thrilled to see stone eaters were Very Much A Thing this early and almost exactly how they appear in the series (a little more sinister I guess. At least the one in this story is. I think he basically gets integrated into the Steel/Gray character in the final version).

Anyway as a huge fan of The Broken Earth it's inspiring to see these early ideas and just how much got changed. It's hard for me to look at this as an independent story without the context of the series. I think I'd like it due to the creative setting and strange concepts, but I appreciate the final changes to narrative style and worldbuilding, which really made the series for me.

16. On The Banks of the River Lex - 8/10

Death explores a decaying, post-human version of New York City. He and various deities/ideas created by humans are all that survives in the future and they struggle to exist in the crumbling infrastructure of the city. But Death gradually observes new and different creatures developing amid the wreckage.

I liked this! Despite a typically bleak premise the story is very optimistic and hopeful for the future of the world post-humanity. I like anthropomorphized concepts/deities/etc in general. I thought the imagery of decay and life was gorgeous. Also octopuses are cool.

17. The Narcomancer - 9/10

Told from the perspective of Cet, a priest known as a Gatherer, who can take the life of someone through their dreams in order to bring them peace. When a village petitions his order to investigate a series of raids conducted by brigands using forbidden magic, Cet joins the party. However, he is troubled by his growing attraction to a strong-willed woman of the village.

This apparently takes place in the Dreamblood universe, which I have not read and know nothing about. However, I really enjoyed this story. It's the longest in the collection so I felt I really got to know the characters. The dream-based religion and fantasy was captivating to learn about. It was also romantic as hell, but not in the typical way you’d expect. I thought the central conflict of a priest struggling between an oath of celibacy and his duty to do the right thing (bring peace to someone who needs it) was fascinating.

18. Henosis - 4/10

A short piece, told anachronistically, about a lauded, award winning author on the way to an award ceremony. He gets kidnapped, but there's Something Else going on.

Honestly I get the sense this one is personal, lol. I will say I like the disturbing play on expectations, but I didn't connect much with it otherwise.

19. Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows - 9/10

Follows a group of bloggers who have found themselves caught in isolated quantum loops. Their only human contact is through tenuous online conversations with each other. Styled as various chat logs and emails interspersed with the thoughts and perspectives of Helen, a young black woman who before the loop was teaching English in Japan.

This one is real depressing and definitely Social Commentary (TM). The central thesis about loneliness and disconnect at the end made me pretty dang sad. Good stuff in an ouch kind of way and made me think.

20. The You Train - 6/10

Told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator talking (presumably on the phone) to a friend about her struggles adjusting to life in New York City. She regularly mentions seeing train lines that either don't exist or retired a long time ago.

This is the kind of story I'd normally really like. I think trains are interesting and like vaguely supernatural, inexplicable shit. The one-sided phone call is also an interesting narrative device. But I'm not sure I really got this one. It comes off as vaguely horror-y but also optimistic? I couldn't really figure this one out, and it was too short to feel much investment on top of that.

21. Non-Zero Probabilities - 7/10

Luck has gone completely out of whack in New York City. Highly improbable events suddenly become way more likely, both good and bad. This story follows a woman named Adele and coming to grips with the new ways of life this brings.

I liked this one well enough but I don't have a lot to say about it. I liked how the story looks at how people would adapt to a life where probability doesn't mean anything anymore.

22. Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters - 9/10

A magical realism story about a man named Tookie struggling to survive in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He meets a talking, winged lizard and the two help each other out. But it soon becomes clear there is something sinister lurking in the flooded ruins of the city.

This story was very imaginative and a great cap to the collection. I thought it was an intriguing time period to set a magical realism story in. I love the little details, especially those of omission -- the "lizard" is never called a dragon, for example. I can see echoes of this story in The City We Became, especially the themes of cities as powerful entities, vague eldritch fuckery centered around hatred, and certain people being guardians of the city.

#2020 reading challenge #BONUS ROUND #taylor reads #8/10 #i am posting this Late but i was basically writing this review as i read so it's like. all done lol

9 notes · View notes

terramythos · 5 years

Text

Review: The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth #2)

Length: 391 pages.

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Apocalyptic, Post-post-post Apocalyptic, Female Protagonist, Antagonist POV, First-Person, Second-Person, Third-Person, Gray Morality, Dark, Great Worldbuilding, Great Character Development, LGBT Characters, Diverse Cast, Trilogy

Warning(s): Like before, this is not a happy book. Child death, abuse/torture, graphic violence and gore, major body horror, and a whole lot of murder. References to slavery. Pretty par for the course at this point.

My Rating: 4.5/5

**WARNING: THIS REVIEW (INCLUDING THE SUMMARY) CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE FIFTH SEASON. IF YOU WANT A SPOILER FREE REVIEW, PLEASE READ MY FIFTH SEASON REVIEW (X), OR, BETTER YET, JUST READ THE BOOK.**

My Summary:

A Fifth Season is well and truly underway, but unlike the dozens of others humanity has weathered through the ages, this one threatens to cast the world into ash and darkness for a million years, ending life as we know it. Essun’s search for her missing daughter has gone cold as she discovers Castrima, a strange underground city built into a geode, led by— bizarrely— a feral orogene. It is here she finds Alabaster— once her friend, mentor, not-quite-lover, and most powerful orogene alive— on his deathbed. He tore open the giant Rift in the center of the continent, kicking off all the death and destruction since the Season began. His actions and goals seem incomprehensible. Then, he tasks Essun with the impossible: use the power of the obelisks--the ancient, floating relics of a bygone era--to return Father Earth’s missing child.

But stranger forces are at work. The stone-eaters— immortal, statue-like humanoid creatures--have taken a sudden interest in humanity, and orogenes in particular. Essun herself is trailed by Hoa, the story’s narrator, a stone-eater wearing the disguise of a human child. He assures her that not all of his kind want the same thing, that he is on her side, but what does that really mean?

Meanwhile, Essun’s daughter Nassun grapples with the reality of her life— one in which the world is ending and everyone thinks of her as a monster. She will soon come to realize that love comes cloaked in pain— with dire implications for those around her.

There is a thing you will not see happening, yet that is going to impact the rest of your life. Imagine it. Imagine me. You know what I am, you think, both with your thinking mind and the animal, instinctive part of you. You see a stone body clothed in flesh, and even though you never really believed I was human, you did think of me as a child. You still think it, though Alabaster has told you the truth— that I haven’t been a child since before your language existed. Perhaps I was never a child.

You should imagine me as what I truly am among my kind, then: old, and powerful, and greatly feared. A legend. A monster.

Minor spoilers and my thoughts follow.

As I mentioned in my Fifth Season writeup (x), this is a hard series to summarize and review. By their nature, these books are full of unexpected and strange twists, and half the joy of reading them is discovering new things about the world and characters. So, it’s difficult to get specific without spoiling a lot. At the same time, it’s impossible to describe any context for this book without spoiling some of The Fifth Season, so… fuck it.

Did I like this one as much as The Fifth Season? I don’t think so— it’s still great, and much better than most of what I’ve read— but I tend to struggle with second books. The Obelisk Gate is very heavy on characterization and worldbuilding, and it definitely feels like setup for the third book, which might explain part of my reaction. That being said, as middle books go, this one has plenty going on and a lot of interesting drama. The writing itself is exquisite and very entertaining to read. There’s all sorts of lore details that shed a new light on the events and characters of the first book. And, well, there’s a very good chance I’ll look at this one in a new light based on book 3. I’m willing to bet these are very interesting to reread when one knows all the little twists and turns.

(As an aside, I randomly guessed a Big Twist in this one while reading The Fifth Season. So… go me, I guess).

Like The Fifth Season, this book follows three central characters. There’s Essun, of course, who once more serves as the main protagonist. But joining her now are Nassun— her missing daughter— and (of all characters), Schaffa, the main antagonistic figure from the previous book. These latter two offer a very different and interesting perspective on things. For example, early on you learn Nassun HATES her mother, which seems totally at odds with what we know to this point. Schaffa is also an interesting choice— we don’t see his perspective much, but we learn a lot about him and the Guardians in general. Why the fuck are they so creepy? Why do they smile all the time? Boy, you’re about to find out, and it’s not gonna be great.

One thing that continues from The Fifth Season which I really dig is the narrative style. I didn’t want to mention it in my previous review, but the whole story is technically in first-person, narrated by Hoa. He shifts into second-person when describing Essun’s life, whereas Nassun/Schaffa are both third-person. In The Fifth Season, Hoa seems like an odd choice of narrator, as he’s a fairly minor character, but that changes big time in The Obelisk Gate. There’s also small interludes from his perspective (my quote is one of them). Toward the end of this entry, he occasionally lapses out of second-person entirely for the Essun passages. This never felt jarring— in fact, in context it made sense. Or maybe Zero Escape numbed me to that type of thing.

And I super don’t want to spoil why, but Hoa’s an unreliable narrator. Which is great. I love unreliable narrators so, so much. You can probably pick it up in the first book, but this one really gets into the nitty gritty of it.

The stone-eaters in general are super interesting. They’re certainly not par for the course compared to typical fantasy races. In The Fifth Season they’re just sort of bizarre background characters, except at one or two key points. But you learn quite a bit about them in this one. Something I find especially interesting is that they don’t fall into the trap of “X fantasy race wants Y thing”. In fact, Hoa’s quite direct when he says his kind have many differing goals, much like the humans they follow around. I don’t think we get the full implications of that in this entry, but I bet it’s going to be an interesting thing to explore in the next book.

As for the characters, The Obelisk Gate doesn’t introduce very many new ones. I think Nassun is the only one who really qualifies outside of the very minor. Instead, the story focuses on active character development, or glimpses how certain characters have changed over the years. And everyone does (or HAS done) some real questionable shit. There’s certainly a sense of gray morality in the previous book, but this one drives it home. EVERYONE is morally gray. Fucking everyone.

Alabaster, my fave from last book, isn’t doing so great in this one, but he’s still the snarky asshole I liked in The Fifth Season. Schaffa gets some real unexpected development. Ykka, the rogue orogene leader of Castrima, is pretty interesting as well; she’s introduced in the previous book but you really don’t see much of her until this one. I continue to find Tonkee fucking hilarious (thanks for making the weird feral scientist trans, by the way). Nassun was absolutely not who I expected her to be at all, and she’s definitely set up to play an interesting role in the future.

Of them all, though, I think Hoa’s my fave this time around. As I’ve mentioned, he has a much more prominent role in this one and is just super intriguing. Definitely looking forward to his role in the conclusion.

I’ll state for the record that The Fifth Season put me on an emotional rollercoaster. The Obelisk Gate is no different. I feel so invested in these characters, flaws and all, and I’m interested to see where each of them ends up as we reach for the conclusion.

So where does that leave us? Well, kind of in the awkward place of a middle book. I really enjoyed this one, even if not as much as The Fifth Season. I think it’s a crime that this trilogy has practically no fan following, because it’s excellent. Maybe one of the best fantasy series I’ve read? I guess we’ll see with the next book. Either way, please read these books. I need more people to talk to about them!

#taylor reviews #taylor reads #4.5/5

11 notes · View notes