Lanna Michaels (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lannamichaels) wrote2022-09-10 09:31 pm
lannamichaels) wrote2022-09-10 09:31 pm
Entry tags:
I read things!
Behind the cut: Tuesday Mooney, Piranesi, The Martian, Memory Called Empire.
- Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia: I finished it before the library due date. The book does not have the courage of its convictions to commit to if ghosts are real or not. I don't know if I want to write fix-it fic or whatever, but the book I imagined it would be when I put it down and consigned it to the library returns pile was better than the one I read when I picked it up again to read while icing my knee.
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke: Unlike JSMN, this is a light, quick read, so much so that I read this in one sitting. A good book, well executed. My one big surprise is how they get into the House; from reading Dorset: Portal to the House by Edonohana last Yuletide, I'd thought it was more of a stable wormhole with fixed locations. Curious as to how The Narrator picked up the habit of capitalizing nouns, since he didn't do it in his previous style. Doylistically, it causes the confusion over when the book takes place, and the style is delightfully jarring between it and then getting a reference to things in the 2010s. So it's well done on style. It just calls attention to itself and I don't know that it's fully justified in the text.
- The Martian by Andy Weir: Reread. Two things:
1) I kept saying, "huh, the third-person bits aren't as deeply awful as I remember, but yes, wait until it gets to the third person about Mark's journey", over and over, because yeah. This book is very memorable in that the first-person parts are excellent and the third-person bits are not.
2) I don't know if I picked up on it specifically before, but I don't think Weir has a good understanding of how little a million dollars is, and that, no, overall, the price to save Mark is gonna start with a B. I was clear on this in fic but the book really undersells the dollar amount, while at least having a nod to understanding the research and scientific costs (but it doesn't ever touch on people thinking that they shouldn't rescue Mark, it only ever gets to saying they shouldn't risk the rest of Ares 3 to do it). So my occasional complaint as to how some fics really don't understand how little a million dollars is... well, neither does the book, so the fics are canon compliant.
(He also, per many previous complaints, truly does not understand what it means, pop-culture-wise, for his book to take place in the mid 2030s, as well as not understanding how much can be put on a flashdrive, but I have also There I Fixed It multiple times) (Murderbot is much more aware of storage space for media) - Miss Marple, The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie: Did Not Finish. They were good, but it turns out I'm not in the mood for murder mysteries, and especially not the body count that accumulates in a collection of short stories where each one has a murder. Can anyone rec good mysteries that aren't murder mysteries? (maybe rereading Holmes?)
- A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Okay. So.
- When I got to the end of the book, and saw that there was a glossary, I got angry. I feel this says something about the book, although, to be honest, I don't know what.
- Probably that I nearly tossed the book within its first 10 pages because it kept doing the impenetrable sci-fi thing where it throws a ton of terms at you, with italics, and has some impenetrable prose. I only persevered because I knew people really liked this book and so it must get better, it truly must. And I persevered beyond the first few chapters and behold, it did. But.
- But I never really cared about the empire. When it reached the point where it seemed like it was going to devolve into civil war, I wasn't, like, all worried about the people. Instead it was like, "oh great, this is super convenient for the Lsel folks, an empire that is eating itself from the inside in multi-sided civil war and multiple ongoing coups doesn't really have the time right now for planned conquest".
- And why do they really want to invade and conquer Lsel anyway? And if 6D really wants an imago, couldn't they... buy one or trade for one or send a spy to steal one?
- The deus ex machina of "you can't go to war, we'll stop you because there's aliens", on the face of it, doesn't make too much sense (except it didn't need to, since it was a fig leaf, but even still) but then you think about Yskandr trying really hard to get the empire pointed in another direction AND THE ENTIRE TIME HE KNEW ABOUT THE ALIEN INVASION. And... didn't tell anyone? He could have at any point been like "so, hey, Empire folks, there's some alien threat, we have proof" and if it was a good enough excuse for Mahit, it should have been a good enough excuse for anything else.
- Really did not understand why Yskandr loved the Emperor
One Direction, like, yes, all we're getting is his feelings and emotions and all that, but I just... don't get it? - The ending felt so weird. What happened with Eight Loop? Where was she? Is this one of those loose ends to get tied up in the sequel? It sets up this triangle of power with That Flower Dude*, and Eight Loop, and The Kid. And in the end, we know about That Flower Dude, and we know about the kid, and we know about 19A, but 8L is ... what? Where? Oh, so you couldn't find her in time for the Emperor's public suicide, so she's shut out of everything? What's going on???
- (*late edit on reread, the fact that I couldn't remember this guy's name (Larkspur???) but could remember Azelea whose nickname is Petal makes it sound like Azelea was this guy and suddenly I want that version of this book, that book would have been so good)
- Also don't particularly understand 19A but also I don't care about her.
- I should probably care about The Art and The Poetry and The Beauty Of Imperial Culture, but I truly do not. I do congratulate the author for coming up with the ingenious solution of having to write excellent poetry: not doing that, and instead having it all be in translation, so we can say this is some kind of beautiful form in the original language, and not have to do that form in the actual text.
- I also don't care about Three Seagrass? What's she doing? Is she meant to be a spy on Mahit or not? Because she seems signaled to be a spy on Mahit but then she's not and, you know what, not to be all The Importance Of Diplomacy -- albeit, in discussion of a book with a diplomat as a protagonist -- but if your spy agency is the one proving a liaison for a diplomat, that is sending specific signals. Oh, sorry, your information ministry. That is the same exact damn thing.
Don't you have a department of state? A foreign affairs department? A PLACE WITH DIPLOMATS? Why is your liaison from The Place Where We Do Spies and not The Place Where We Do Diplomacy if that person isn't meant to be a spy.
A diplomat falling in love/entering a relationship with someone whose job it is to spy on her is VERY DIFFERENT from a diplomat falling in love/entering a relationship with a cultural liaison there to help ease the transition and teach her how to use the internet, and I feel like the book was giving me the second but in the clothes of the first, and I'm not so much confused as mystified. - I do care about 3S's friend whose name I no longer remember... Azalea. 3S called him Petal. I am good at names.
But yes, I care about that dude, who seems to have a lot of friends and great depths and then got killed for no real narrative reason that couldn't have been solved by him just getting injured or even... not killed or injured, just captured. So whatever. - The time frame of this book... such a rush. Everything all at once, running Mahit ragged, having to deal with logistics and confusion. Back when I was reading Anita Blake, one thing that came up in discussions was how the time frame in the later books kept getting condensed until things took place over the course of like 18 hours.
Did this book take place over the course of more than a week? And then the aftermath another week? Because it felt like such a short period of time and I just do not understand why. - Cloudhooks might sound all cool and futuristic but they also sound like a way to have everyone walk into walls and doors and fall down stairs. That is not practical. I could not suspend my disbelief.
- So... there was some kind of sabotage on The All-Knowing AI that got the city defenses to attack someone and also the hive minded police, but we're not going to resolve any of those problems. I guess something else for the sequel.
- I also don't really understand Mahit but I don't know why. I guess she kept doing the Cordelia Naismith thing of making decisions that seem to come out of nowhere in the narrative. But we are deep into her head! So I don't know.
I kept thinking, okay, she was picked because she has good resonance with Yskander. But what are her diplomatic skills? She seems not to have any diplomatic training. And then she pulls out some great diplomatic double talk and innuendo. I don't get it. I don't really get her? Okay so she likes the Empire because Art and Culture and Soft Power. And she loves her home. And she's getting called in as a diplomat at no notice even after the last one has disappeared/died. And if not that, she would have tried to go to the Empire to visit or live. And she got picked because she speaks the language and had resonance with Yskandr. So... not a trained diplomat but good at politics? Knows what she's doing? She was, yes, relying on the imago but then she lost the imago but was still fine and able to do things like be savvy enough to play to the audience and change how people perceive her. So she's good at her job, except, in normal circumstances, her job is approving visas and permits, and not hanging out at the top of Imperial power? This paragraph is going nowhere but I am just confused, but, I don't feel like I understood her voice As A Diplomat.
If this had been the book of how Tourist Mahit got dragged into intrigue and, as the only Lsel person around, got shoved a random imago in her head of the last ambassador and had to deal, and ended up doing well, maybe pulling on her knowledge from all her arts education and watching tv shows, I probably would not have ended up so confused. - (yes I keep calling it the Empire because even after reading the book, I would have to copy/paste its name, the name of its adjective, and the oddly-very-long-and-somewhat-confusing name of its people. Ending that with, what was it, litzlim? And, yes, confusing specifically to me, it ends in "im" even if it's singular?)
- (does no one have nicknames, except that the people have nicknames, there are three nicknames in this book! Maybe more! But everyone always says the entire name of the Empire, its adjective, and the people. That is so many syllables. That is so long. An empire that has the same name for "city" and "city planet capital" and "known space"... maybe could get a slang term for itself? Call itself the cool kids?)
- Okay but also one thing that I thought it did very well, in contrast with The Martian, because it was something I was thinking about over the weeks I was in the process of reading this book (no, it's not a slow read, but I was doing things like reading it while icing my knee &etc):
The book does a very good job of making technological failure part of the plot and something that has consequences and narrative weight.
One of the major issues in The Martian is that Mark is able to talk to Earth only so long as he outright needs it, narratively, to survive. He needs to get to Pathfinder to talk to Earth. Once they have finally set up a plan, he pretty much immediately bricks Pathfinder in a very stupid and strange way. He is then not able to talk to Earth until he needs to do it to get picked up by the Hermes. In the meantime, the only problem that would have been helped at all is the dust storm which 1) Earth couldn't have really helped him with, other than warning him about, 2) he didn't have too much of a problem dealing with, 3) narratively, it draws too much attention to the first dust storm in the book and brings up questions of why, if Martian dust storms are the type to get a mission scrubbed immediately, why they send a MAV up years in advance, where it could then be tipped over in a dust storm -- why all that, if dust storms aren't really a problem except for solar panels, and, finally, 4) is so pointless narratively, they left it out of the movie.
Meanwhile, technological access and technological failure and the ability to communicate with home are major plot points that have resonance and complications and happen because of real narrative reasons in Memory Called Empire. - (how did That Dude At Home Whose Name I Don't Remember, he was in with the miners, know that the other person -- the cultural one? None of this stuck with me, it was too much impenetrable machinations with no background and too many things dropped in at once -- but anyway, how did he know to suspect sabotage and also why didn't he think Mahit would be the one reading the thing, since -- he sent a dead drop or something to be sent to Yskandr after someone logged into his machine after he was reported dead? But by the time he was reported dead, they were already sending Mahit? So he shoudl have known Mahit could very well be the one logging in and seeing that? When were things sent? How fast does it travel? How did he know about sabotage in the first place since it happened with no witnesses and no suspicious circumstances?)
- All that and a giant empire can't fix Mahit's implant because... neurological stuff is icky? That seemed a little pastede on yay to explain why Mahit has to go see how the other half live and get experimental surgery on a tight time frame.
- So in terms of what I wondered about:
-yes, Yskandr and Six Direction were fucking
-no, nothing about Eight Antidote's name or ancestry
-Eight Loop was the one who called for Mahit and it's really really not clear why. She says she wanted Mahit to do something for her but doesn't need her now. But three weeks (months? I don't remember) ago she needed something? Eh. Whatever.
-yes, 6D thinks he can make an imago of himself to help ease the transition of power, which apparently Yskander sold to him as a bill of goods, because Yskandr knew that imagos don't work like that, except, apparently, if you did do that to a ten year old, it actually would overwhelm the kid. And Yskandr figured that was a price he was willing to pay for peace in the Empire.
...which wasn't really his job? His job was to get the Empire on Lsel's side so that the Empire would get rid of the aliens for them?
-and no, the names are never ever plot-relevant. (I don't care that they thought that All Terrain Tundra Vehicle name was passe, I thought it was hilarious and excellent and a very great fuck you to "you need me to rename myself to fit into your Empire, so I am going to lean into this and go all the way, and TECHNICALLY I'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG." - Things I care about, apparently, after reading this book:
-Eight Antidote.
-Eight Antidote and his relationship with his crèche auntie, if that's how they think of things, and his potential regent Eight Loop if they don't.
-Yskandr deciding to seduce a bunch of high ranking folks and making it work.
-Role Reversal AU where Mahit is an T and her name is Nine Orchid (which I don't care that she embarrassed over it, that's a great name) and she has some kind of role reversal adventures
-All those random rebels and how they ended up hanging out with Petal The Spy - The sequel is on hold at the library, but from the blurb it's gonna be Mahit and 3S on Lsel and dealing with the alien invasion? Which I don't care about? I am pretty much never here for Oh No This Is An All-Devouring Alien Civilization That Are Just Monsters We Can't Communication With Them They Only Want To Destroy We Must Go To War. I mean, I presume they succeed in averting war and communicating with the alien unknown. But-- if I read this, am I gonna be confused the entire time why they send some random inexperienced diplomat to do this instead of people who specialize in communicating with the alien species they already know about and have treaties with?
- Started and in progress: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Which, when I started it, I was saying to myself "a little bit more and I'm gonna get the fucking ebook out from the library and ctrl-f to see if this book says "Jew" at any point" and then, very thankfully, the word "Jew" did show up.
I'm like a hundred pages into it. I may or may not finish. It's not bad, I'm just not that gripped. I am also like a hundred pages in and there are approx two good/helpful male characters and a lot of threat of rape, and I'm not really in the mood for All Men Are Scum Or At Best Useless, With Bonus Anti-Semitic Violence.
So this is possibly a book I will finish only because I don't have anything else from the library available to read while icing my knee. Which, hey, worked for Tuesday Mooney.
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I mean, *really* Yskandr's job was to get the Empire to leave Lsel as alone as possible; the aliens didn't start being A Thing until after he was already over there - I think. It's been awhile, but that's what I remember.
My takeaway was that Yskandr started out seducing Six Direction as some combination of "oh no, he's hot" and "but it's also potentially a power play, so it's part of my job and totally justified, yes, that's what we're going with," and then ended up more Actually Attached than he'd planned. And in that context, offering him the imago was equal parts strategy and wishful thinking on his own part; if it worked at all, he might get Six Direction as an ally for the much longer term, both for himself and for Lsel (Eight Antidote's own personality being essentially a casualty Yskandr is willing to disregard), and if it didn't, the Empire would probably be too busy with internal convulsions to swat the relative fly of a 30k pop space station.
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He's known about the aliens for at least 15 years, and I think it's 20. There's a scene in imago memory that happens after the second one shows up that has Yskander being told about all the aliens, I could not tell if that happened at the original sending (in which case, why didn't the original imago, taken at 5 years, remember it) or if it was done at the 5 years and after the imago transfer, but it seemed to me like it happened when he was originally being sent and so that's why they sent an ambassador in the first place. Like, it seemed his entire brief was to make the empire like Lsel so they'd fight the aliens for them.