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lunaraen · 2 months ago

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For the ask: 3!

3: What were your top five books of the year?

Under a cut, because I included excerpts from each book and each entry deals with different serious topics, ranging from child death to body horror to suicide to religious warfare.

Honorable mention: Time's Mouth by Edan Lepucki. I read many books this year that were overall stronger offerings with more solid stories, but they didn’t make the honorable mention because none of them have stuck with me the way Time’s Mouth has. Time’s Mouth looks at cycles of generational abuse, sexism, and child endangerment through the life of Ursa, a woman able to relive memories down to exact sensations, and the lives of her son and granddaughter. For me, the most powerful sections of the book were the parts where the reader sees life in Ursa’s rural Californian compound through the eyes of her son, Ray, and the parts where Ray’s partner, Cherry, struggles to adapt to life outside the compound once she and Ray establish a life for themselves in Los Angeles.

Their daughter, Ursa’s granddaughter, inheriting the memory reliving power and being subject to supernatural fuckery (the nature and cause of which is telegraphed a bit too obviously, in my opinion, and ties into one of my least favorite elements in all of fiction) contribute horribly well to the alienation Cherry faces and lead to her abandoning both Ray and her daughter Opal in the hopes she will stop fucking things up for them. Cherry is probably my favorite character in the book and, while the third section does interesting things with Ursa’s domineering matriarchal position in a changing society and Opal’s own experiences as she learns about the circumstances of her family, I would have loved more of Cherry and a fair bit less of the last third we ended up getting.

The reason this is an honorable mention and not any higher is because the book is 416 pages long. That took me one evening, but I imagine I would be far less favorable of the parts I liked and far more critical of the parts I disliked if I was a slower reader and could not finish it in a few short hours. If your reading speed means a 416 page book is a multi-sitting affair, which is very reasonable and common, I cannot recommend giving this a read. If this sounds interesting enough for you to suffer through weaker parts or if you are a fast reader, then I recommend it.

“Let’s go,” Mama Ursa said, taking Mama Mary’s hand, and together they led the other mamas away from the tree and the buried body and the clumps of children watching. Taz was already down the driveway yelling, “Shit!” and Baby Martha was sitting in the dirt, crying, until Cherry lifted her up. The mamas locked themselves in the eastern wing for two days. They didn’t care what the kids did. During that time, Ray drank a bottle of whiskey he discovered in Mama Ursa’s bureau. Drunk, he watched from the porch as Cherry picked eleven rocks—one for each year of Hawk’s life—and placed them in a circle on his grave. Who died of a fever in 1970, anno domini? Ray didn’t know what to think. His mother had always warned them not to go into the eastern wing. Or even try to. She said she would kill him. And now Hawk was dead. Was it because of what he’d done? For those two days following Hawk’s death, the children heard wailing and other strange sounds coming from the eastern wing. Tara finally took the truck to Santa Cruz and traded a bag of weed for a bag of hoagies. When the mamas emerged, they looked sick and drained but resolved. There were no tears. One of the, went to the market and another took a trip to her favorite herbalist for more tea and shampoo. They needed to get the house back on track. A few went into the packing room to return to work. No one said Hawk’s name.

5. Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder. This book has many narrators, whose stories weave together in ways which are less obvious at first and then become increasingly apparent as events progress. It’s a book about a viral pandemic and the various measurements put in place to continue or restore a sense of normalcy even when everything has changed and nothing can be returned to. It’s a story about cannibalism as a metaphor for queer relationships, and also as cannibalism. It’s a series of events leading to an attempted cosmic reshaping of the world and the establishment of a body-horror-rich Mother of Monsters who does not want the role and has been chosen by unseen gods for unknown reasons. It’s a lot of things with a lot of characters, a cast which is slowly whittled down and highlighted as a rapture of sorts progresses and infected individuals mutate into brain-or-blood devouring creatures who cull the masses and prepare the world for some sort of new era.

This book tackles the ways in which reproductive health is unfairly portrayed as a female problem while our first narrator tackles her new need for brain-meat to survive and her secret romance with a vampiric woman, each feeding on the other until they have become something altogether new. This book tackles the dangerous and undervalued labor of sex workers while our second narrator murders the mutated husband of the first narrator in self-defense before she herself tackles her own mutations and the unique status that comes with it. This book tackles the way older professionals will prey on younger partners and manipulate them into isolating themselves from their support groups, while our third narrator fights to escape a narrative she refuses to be forced into by the second narrator, who has eaten the brains and memories of our third narrator’s sister.

There’s a lot going on, and I feel all of it is done remarkably well. There is so much gore, and so much sex, and so much body horror on both the mundane and cosmic scales. If you’re good with that, you’re in for a good time.

“I think the problem is I’m selfish.” I stare down at the red, open cavity of her skull. “I’m descended from a long, long line of selfish people. People who murdered and enslaved other human beings when they damn well knew better, but they constructed elaborate justifications for themselves. Codified those dishonest justifications into laws. And I was raised up in a world of their creation.” I pause, swallowing against a stray tatter of dura mater that seems to have gotten stuck in the back of my throat. “That’s why I hunted you. That’s why I killed a nice woman who befriended me against her better instincts, instead of going out and finding a stranger. That’s why I killed a strong, accomplished Black woman who was pretty much the living embodiment of the American Dream instead of going in search of a scrub. You looked consumable. And maybe I was still pissed off that you called me ‘sheltered’ that day.” I take a deep breath. “You’d have died soon anyway. An Archivist would take you. Tear you open. It wouldn’t worry about making your death quick.” “Is that justification actually supposed to make me feel better?” She puts her fists on her hips. “Is that actually supposed to absolve you of what you’ve done here? “No. I guess not.” “How is this any different than the murder that got you in trouble with your gods? How is this not another transgression?” “Your death serves them. I needed an education to do what they want, and you’ve given me one.” She shakes her head. “What you call ‘selfish’? I would call it predatory. I would call it evil. Just straight-up evil.” I shrug, feeling profoundly ashamed and numb at the same time. “You could call it that, yes.” “So your eyes are opened,” she says. “You know better than to do what you’re doing. Are you going to do the decent thing and stop?” “I don’t know,” I reply. “It depends on what the gods will let me do.” “The gods.” Looking disgusted, she pokes at my discarded dagger with the toe of her slipper-shod foot. “You have the means to stop anytime you want to.” I stare down at the knife. “Oh. That kind of stopping myself.” I pause. “As a mental health care nurse, aren’t you supposed to, you know, not tell people to kill themselves? Isn’t that just a little frowned upon in your profession?” “You ended my career as a nurse about an hour ago. Since then, I have had no professional obligations with regard to medical ethics,” she replies coldly. “So the question remains: What are you going to do?” “I think I’m going to think about it.” I look at her body, and a fresh wave of regret washes through me. “I think I’m going to cover you, and I’m going to clean up some. Maybe have a cup of that coffee you offered me.” She rolls her eyes and throws up her hands. “Fine. Eat my brain. Drink my coffee. By all means, make yourself at home. But don’t expect me to stay here. I have better things to do with my afterlife than haunt the mind of a psycho killer who betrayed me on my day off.”

4. The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn. The Wild Dead is the second book in the Bannerless duology, but I did not know this when I first read the book, and I found that enhanced my reading experience.

It stands up amazingly well upon a first read with no prior exposure or familiarity with the first book, and after reading the first book, Bannerless, I found I much preferred this book. Bannerless does a decent job of setting up its world and establishing the main character for both books, but I found The Wild Dead benefited from not having the same burdens of expectation as far as exposition and worldbuilding go. The world is still conveyed masterfully and our main character, Enid, is a more developed character who excellently fulfills the role of Investigator. This means, literarily, she fulfills the position of private investigator trying to piece together a murder mystery in a postapocalyptic world where her society is built upon maximizing efficiency and minimizing waste. In the context of the story and world, her role as Investigator means she functions as both private eye and cop, in a society where the explicit role of police officer doesn't exist, where capital punishment is categorically rejected, and where her new partner tries to abuse his power in the name of wrapping things up and going home already. The mystery is not particularly compelling or surprising, but it is satisfying to see Enid push for the truth and help define her role as far more of a community helpful private investigator than a power-hungry cop in ways her rookie partner pushes against and the remote community they’re investigating are undeniably fearful of. In this way, the book inherently investigates the nature by which abuses of power by law enforcement benefit not only lazy, self-righteous, and incurious cops but also communities which have let prejudice and resentment fester into the status quo.

(For those interested in the general premise of this world: The Coast Road is a postapocalyptic trade-and-law connected series of communities along the Californian coast, where society has reached a comfortable agrarian status comparable to the Shire decades after the US as we know it fell to climate and economic ruin, where a focus on resource management leads to communities sparingly using the few electric cars and power tools maintained from before The Fall while households are made up of unrelated individuals who work to contribute enough to society to prove they are ready for a Banner and therefor the ability to bear and raise a child. By default, all members of the society have birth control implanted from a young age to prevent unapproved procreation, which proves a relevant source of tension in both this book and its prequel.)

“Anyway, I wanted to thank you,” he said. “For what?” “For making it all clear. What the job’s really about.” “I’m not sure I know what it’s about.” “The truth. Not justice, not the rules. Just truth, the very bottom of it.” That was a grand statement. She wasn’t sure she agreed, truth with a capital T. She smiled sadly. “Tomas always said it was about being kind. The only reason any of us is here is kindness. “I’m not sure I know what that means.”

3. The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older. This is also a post-apocalyptic murder mystery novel, if very different in setting and tone. This is very intentionally a sapphic Sherlock Holmes in space, where researcher Pleiti and investigator Mossa work to discover the means and motives behind a murder on Jupiter, and how it relates to eventual plans to restore Earth ecologically (while working out their own complicated past and feelings for each other). If I compared the society of The Wild Dead to that of the Shire, this is very much comparable to a steampunk London further out in the solar system. It has a sequel released earlier this year, which I have not read but have heard excellent things about, and a third book releasing next year.

I squatted reluctantly beside her, feeling my knees creak. “See these scratches?” Mossa reached into her bag and pulled out a crumple of cloth. A crumple of blood-stained cloth, I realized, recoiling. “Mossa! Is that--” She was already straightening out the shirt, aligning the punctures in the cloth with the damage to the metal of the platform. “Yes. The last claw did not find much purchase, but these are clearly from the same--” “A caracal’s claws are retractable,” I pointed out, having looked this information up during the long period of wakefulness after cleaning her wounds that night. “Why would it leave claw marks on the ground?” Mossa looked up at me, her eyes bright and present above her atmoscarf. “Why indeed? In fact, that hint of a mark here is more telling than the lack of scratches up till this point. It seems that something made the feline angry just before it touched the ground here.” I considered that. “Someone carried it here, harassed it somehow, and--” “Pointed it at us,” Mossa wrinkled her nose. “I concur. Still not a very efficient or certain method of assassination, or even injury.”

2. Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. This book is perhaps the best historical fiction I have ever read, masterfully combining a fulfilling narrative with the many trends and events of interest over the course of our protagonist’s life (from the American Coup of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the changing practices on the island of Moloka’i to the increased involvement of Catholic clergy members in overseeing young patients to the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in internment camps to the development of meaningful treatment for leprosy). It’s a story about a young girl with leprosy, Rachel, who grows up to be an old woman with leprosy, a luxury many of her friends over the years are unable to attain, who spends much of her life isolated from the rest of the world while richly interacting and living her life with other patients and volunteers, who witnesses many of the developments and changes from the 1890s to the 1970s from within their forced confinement. The cast of characters is varied and strong, with occasional glimpses from others’ perspectives, and each character feels well-written regardless of how long they appear in the book. I wish to highlight how this book, published in 2003, treats a transgender character with the same respect as any other and develops her into an equally strong presence whose friendship is rather meaningful to Rachel.

Dorothy and Sarah, still weeping, watched the carriage go; when it was lost from view Dorothy glanced up and for the first time noticed her neighbors gathered in knots on their doorsteps. Their eyes looked away as they quickly retreated into the safety of their homes; and Dorothy, hot with shame, knew nothing would ever be the same again. It seemed a long carriage ride down past the harbor to Kalihi, a marshy triangle of land jutting into the sea west of the harbor. A thick grove of algaroba trees obscured the Receiving Station from the sight of both tourists and residents who didn’t wish to be reminded of its presence. But even without the trees it would scarcely have attracted much attention: it was nothing more sinister than a neatly landscaped complex of dormitories, cottages, schoolhouse, hospital, and an infirmary, encircled by a tall wire fence. The iron gates swung open to admit them and Henry struggled to maintain his composure as the carriage, coming to a halt, was quickly surrounded by curious patients. Most appeared normal, a few merely tattooed with florid spots on faces or arms, but some… some of the faces were pocked with ugly sores, some were as bulbous and knobby as a coral bed, while others were mercifully bandaged like mummies. “Papa,” Rachel cried, clinging to his shirt, “don’t leave me here, don’t make me stay!” “It’s okay, baby, Papa’s here.” He lifted her up, cradled her in his arms and carried her through the crowd. Rachel buried her face in her father’s chest to blot out the monstrous faces all around her.

1. Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer. This book is the final entry in the Terra Ignota quadrilogy, and listing it here is yet again cheating because I read all four back-to-back and fully recommend every entry in this series. To keep this list from being too homogenous, I cheat by recommending Perhaps the Stars, which is an excellent conclusion to a fantastic series, and by extension I heavily recommend reading the first three for this one to be even close to comprehensible. The Terra Ignota series explores a future where citizenship is not bound by territory and rather by self-appointed allegiance, where capital punishment does not exist and rehabilitation is meaningfully pursued, where gender is they/them at all times outside of taboo perversion, where individual location and action is almost always opt-out for broader governmental surveillance, and where religion is a tightly held personal secret not to be discussed with others. It explores a future where, after centuries of peace have followed centuries of warfare, all of this blows up spectacularly, written by unreliable narrators largely attempting the style of 18th century essayists and largely failing in endearing ways to be expected of people writing in the 25th century. This book, Perhaps the Stars, is a magnificent conclusion that not only meaningfully follows through on the collapsing of the formerly stable perceived utopia, but on the ways society and its members learn from their mistakes and conflicts and attempt a new stability with the lessons learned from the collapse of the last one.

Every book is of considerable size and intentionally unwieldy language and I adored it all so much I cannot put this book or series any lower. It’s new-society sci-fi once again, where much of what is initially presented as magical or otherworldly by 18th century standards can be and is later explained scientifically- but not all of it. There is undeniable magic at work at the core of this series’ events, with hinted cosmic supernatural and spiritual shenanigans on a vast and fascinating scale.

“And apples and honey are for the ceremony?” “Mostly to make clear we intend to work hard to source things for ceremonies. Etrog and lulav for Sukkot will be the first tricky one. The Conclave has them growing already, but not everyone will, but a lot of basic kitchen trees actually have Etrog and the rest if they have the default multifaith pack, and while there isn’t time to grow the who fruit before Sukkot, we asked some rabbis, who say there’s time for the tree to grow lower that would become an Etrog, so you can pollinate that and use it so long as the lump at the flower base that will be the fruit has swelled enough to be visible to the eye, and happily there is time for a well-fed kitchen tree to do that and grow the other three plants too, since leaves are fast. If we solve the Sukkot problem it’ll set people at ease. And it would be great if some of you personally attended the first few ceremonies at the Conclave, both to endorse the program, and as cover in case any of you does practice a ceremonial faith, because it’s really important no one here who’s running Romanova now gets outed, it’ll cause panic if people think one faith is seizing power, and--are you going to announce rationing? Please announce rationing? I assume we’ll need rationing, because nobody can ship food anywhere anymore, and if we could announce that ceremony meals at Conclave centers are exempt from rationing, that would be an amazing excuse people can use to come, and participate, and pretend it’s just to get extra food, and nobody has to be suspicious of anybody!” This long meander poured out of Carlyle, frantic yet rehearsed, as if they’d lain awake all night in bed chewing it over. “But we really, really have to do it right from the beginning. We’re too late for the equinox and the start of Mahalaya, but if we do really well with this set of Jewish holidays, and with Navaratri, then practitioners of all ceremonial faiths will calm down, but if we botch them, and everyone sees us botch them, and people get outed, then all people of ceremonial faith will get more and more scared as their big holidays approach, and it’ll be a giant powder keg added to the war, and it’ll get worse, and worse, building up to December, when we’ll hit every single winter solstice-type holiday all at once, dozens of religions threatened, including Christmas, and also, Ramadan is likely to begin December twenty-first.” Breath left me. Christmas and Ramadan? The twin sleeping dragons whose tussles have so often drenched the Earth in blood! Had Islam’s flowing lunar calendar really landed Ramadan so close to Christmas? With cars it’s effortless to hide a month of fasting, restaurants reverse their hours, “Party Nights”, and everybody bips around the world top never eat in daylight just for fun. Now will they all be outed? Every Christian and Muslim in our world within five days? The public fear of that event alone could shatter screen and window both.

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