Hello lawful, chaotic, and neutral readers! All alignments welcome. Today we’re talking Raven Stratagem, Beren and Lúthien, Octavia Butler Day, global warming in dystopias, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (SORRY/NOT SORRY.)
This newsletter is sponsored by The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber.
From award-winning author Mary Weber comes a story of video gaming, blood, and power. As an online gamer, Sofi Snow battles behind the scenes of Earth’s Fantasy Fighting arena. Her brother Shilo is forced to compete in a mix of real and virtual blood sport. When, a bomb shatters the arena, Sofi thinks Shilo’s been taken to an ice-planet – Delonese. Charming playboy Miguel is a Delonese Ambassador. He’s built a career on secrets and seduction. When the bomb explodes, the tables turn and he’s the target. The game is simple: Help the blackmailers, or lose more than Earth can afford.
Let’s get topical!
In honor of Octavia Butler’s birthday yesterday, we had a whole day of posts celebrating her work (including one by yours truly about how I discovered Butler via Betty Smith; true story.)
I love Rachel’s on-going round-ups of speculative fiction in translation, as you will have noticed because I keep linking to them! This month she’s looking at spec fic from from Israel, and I’ve already requested Isra-Isle from my library.
For my fellow data-nerds, here are some global warming projections a la The Hunger Games. I confess I had never bothered to look at a map of Panem before, or consider how plate tectonics work in combination with a rising coastline. A+ would learn again!
For your summer reading lists, we’ve got SF/F June book picks from Barnes & Noble booksellers and io9. While there is some overlap between the two, there are enough differences for it to be worth looking at each. I have already waxed poetic about my love for The Prey of Gods, definitely get that on your list.
We’re getting a Dracula TV show from the BBC’s Sherlock team. Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss will be adapting the novel as a mini-series of feature-length episodes. I have very mixed feelings about this; Sherlock had some amazing episodes, but there are Known Issues with Moffat’s representation of women and minorities, and it’s hard to believe that the source material of Dracula will incline them to do any better. So: we’ll see, I guess? (But I must confess I am dying to know who the cast will be.)
And now, reviews!
Raven Stratagem by Yoon Ha Lee (The Machinery of Empires #2)
OH BOY, YOU GUYS. This is an excellent sequel to Ninefox Gambit, a stellar Book 2 overall, and I need everyone to read it immediately so we can have feelings and thoughts and theories about it together.
Raven Stratagem picks up with General Kel Cheris, a.k.a. Jedao, taking over a fleet recently dispatched to deal with the invading Hafn forces. What are Jedao’s motives? What will happen to the fleet now under their command? What follows is an incredibly high-stakes game of political poker, made further complicated by the fact that we never get Jedao’s perspective. Instead, we’re forced to speculate along with the rest of the Hexarchate. This was both diabolical — I was half-convinced I had forgotten what actually happened at the end of Ninefox Gambit, and more than once yelled “BUT WAIT” at the pages in front of me — and genius, because it makes the book truly impossible to put down. It doesn’t hurt that the supporting characters are so well-drawn; watching General Khiruev struggle with Kel formation instinct, or Hexarch Mikodez manipulate literally everyone he ever encounters, was both engrossing and a delight. (Also I now want an onion deskplant.) I have a few favorites that I’m hoping will reappear in Book 3, and a few theories — @ me when you’re done and we’ll talk, ok?
As you might have noticed, this review reads like a whole lot of word soup if you haven’t read Ninefox Gambit. And while I’m usually all for picking things up mid-stream, the world-building here is complicated enough that I unequivocally recommend starting at the beginning. The twists and turns and tricks that Lee plays out in Raven Stratagem are masterful and deserve full appreciation. This series is well on its way to my Top 5 Favorites, and both books are in paperback. What are you waiting for?
Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien
Are you a completist, a Middle-earth scholar, and/or a lover of epic poetry? Then Beren and Lúthien is 100% for you. Do you generally enjoy The Lord of the Rings and like the thought of knowing more about these characters in particular? Maybe get it from the library.
As noted in the announcement, this book is a collection of different iterations of the story that Tolkien the Elder was working on over the course of many years. Christopher Tolkien has arranged them, with extensive annotations and explanations, end to end in order to give the fullest possible look at where their story starts and ends. Some of it is in prose, some of it is in poetry, lots of names undergo changes, a few characters’ histories are rewritten entirely, and the plot points shift from version to version.
It doesn’t make for smooth reading; while some of the sections have a wonderful internal flow and structure, the annotations and framing necessarily interrupts every few pages. And since I struggled my way through The Silmarillion and never picked up any of the other books edited by Tolkien the Younger, I often was at a complete loss when he was working to establish the context of the story in the greater mythology of Middle-earth. That all being said, I remember Aragorn telling Frodo the tale (including a few actual lines from that rendition) in Fellowship of the Ring well enough that I stuck with it, and the story itself does not disappoint. No matter which version, Lúthien is the hero, and that’s a welcome (and much needed) addition to the canon.
And that’s a wrap! If you’re interested in more science fiction and fantasy talk, you can catch me and my co-host Sharifah on the new SFF Yeah! podcast. For many many more book recommendations (including the occasional book club question!) you can find me on the Get Booked podcast with the inimitable Amanda.