I’m reviewing these two books together because despite their opposite takes on speculative futures, they use similar storytelling techniques to describe how women’s lives might be different in both the near, and far future. Naomi Alderman’s The Power imagines a future where women develop an ability to physically harm others with electric shocks. Due to the release and dispersion of an environmental hazard, women begin to develop a “skein” within their bodies which allows them to physically overpower people (men) with a jolt of energy. The strength of […]
These Twin “Silkpunk” Fantasy Novellas are Fantastic
This is another series that I feel I probably would have missed completely if I didn’t sign myself up as a Hugo Awards voter. And that would have been a damn shame because I’ve now discovered another awesome fantasy author. It might be odd of me to try and make this distinction, but The Black Tides of Heaven and The Red Threads of Fortune are not so much as a pair of novellas – they are too tightly entwined for that. Rather, […]
Huge case of middle book syndrome.
Project: Catch Up On Review Backlog, review #7 out of 11 This is honestly one of the worst cases of middle book syndrome I’ve ever seen. I know the first two books haven’t been everyone’s cup of tea, but I really enjoyed myself while reading them. They were fast reads with smart characters, and while utilizing some tropes, sure, Tahir also seemed to be constructing a plot using several things I’d never seen before, and that was exciting! I couldn’t really predict where she was […]
“When you’re happy for yourself, it fills you. When you’re happy for someone else, it pours over. It was almost too bright to watch.”
Throwback Thursday Bingo Square. Goodreads tells me I first read Garden Spells in 2010. (Or maybe that’s when I first signed up for Goodreads, who knows?) Either way, it was a while back. But I’ve been in transition again (in two houses, in different rooms now in each house), so I’ve been moving a lot of my things, packing others up for storage and (painfully) whittling back my bookcases, for space reasons, and the “keeper book” criteria was as stringent as I could manage (which is […]