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Wednesday Reading Meme for July 24 2024
Jul. 24th, 2024 11:02 amWhat I’ve Read:
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - by S. A. Chakraborty – (Hugos and Xing) Above all else, this was a fun book to read – the term swashbuckling is tempting, and I think comparisons to Alexandre Dumas are merited, tho the writing style is much swifter. This is a story where people have adventures in a world of true companions and dangerous enemies and seductive creatures of unknown magical origin. I genuinely liked Amina and I felt like the book didn’t have to pull its punches to make her approachable and kind.
(I am somewhat vagueblogging in reaction to a criticism I saw on tumblr that called it ahistorical in attitudes towards queer people, but largely, I think that person was barking up the wrong tree – this is a book for pleasure and there’s no reason for 11the century pirates to adhere to a standard of homophobia that the reviewer thought would be common. Cultures are complex, acceptable behaviors vary over time, and pirates are not traditionally very conservative. Why should an 11th century pirate captain of a ship in the Indian Ocean be ignorant of queer people, or upset that they exist?)
As I said last week when I was about 80% in, I have not read any Chakraborty before this and I like the characters here – they feel like they have really different voices and tones. The structure of the book is that Amina (voiced by Lameece Issaq in this audiobook) is telling her story verbally to a scribe, Jamal (voiced by Amin El Gamal), and they both really nail the different tones of each of these characters. Amina is savvy and bold and has lots of life experience in a lot of places; she prioritizes decency over societal morals and she’s not hesitant to criticize her own religion or culture. Jamal is a scholar and has ~niceties~ and ~shame~ - it’s adorable when he’s shy about Amina talking about her life.
While it’s a complete story, it is definitely setting up future adventures for Amina and her crew, and I think I’ll keep an eye out for future volumes. I was hopeful for a bibliography and there’s a short one available thru the publisher’s website here: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/theadventuresofaminaalsirafi
Choir of Lies – Alexandra Rowland – a re-read
Strictly, this is a book about a young man traveling the world after a heartbreak, finding a community, screwing them over royally, and trying to make it right before it's too late. It’s also about the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s, how to treat a borrowed story responsibility, conflict among branches of religion, the duties we have to one another, and the power of a good metaphor. I am a big heaving softy for the passages about the people coming together to manage a crisis. This book has heart and an earnest belief that people can make choices to help others, and while it’s not always the first choice or the easiest one, making those decisions matters.
I appear to be in a Rowland renaissance! I read this until a while after it came out - Storygraph says July 2020, when it was published in fall 2019. That feels like an oddly long gap, but I will attribute that to my reading habits getting a lot more organized since I started doing a Reading Journal in 2022 and doing these Reading Memes regularly. I didn’t do a lot of reading in 2020 – like a lot of people, the depths of the pandemic were bad for my brain being organized.
SO, I picked up this audiobook not with a real sense of purpose, but honestly because I wanted a book I knew already to play in the background as I got sleepy in bed – more fool me, because once I started, I immediately only wanted to listen to this book. I really fell back into this book and fell in love anew with Rowland’s writing – each book I read adds to the others and it feels like a reward to pick up a book I already loved and see it in a new light.
Many of Rowland’s novels are set in a shared world, and I didn’t realize that Choir of Lies had already included references for the countries in A Taste of Gold and Iron and Running Close to the Wind. Rowland’s world builds on itself so organically that you just get to enjoy little touches of culture that Rowland decided looong ago. As a reader, I was really just charmed by how far back it went. (I think there’s a connection between the main character of this book and the Chants mentioned in RCttW, but I’m not solidly sure.)
Yield Under Great Persuasion (unfinished advance copy for Patreons) - Alexandra Rowland – This is unfinished both in the sense of unedited and in the sense that it hasn’t been published yet. The book announcement says it comes out in September 2024 – it’s an m/m romance in a fantasy world with the strong focus on the virtues and problems of being a horrible little gremlin who has to face the fact that someone loves you for your horrible little gremlin self. I’m looking forward to reading the finished version in a few months!
EDIT AFTER THE FACT: Turns out there is a FINISHED advance copy for Patreon supporters on the Discord, which I have since joined, and finished the book - The ending did not disappoint, it hit the notes that the story set up about compassion and accountability. Solid novel!
What I’m Reading:
Some Desperate Glory – Xing -like 10%
Mo Dao Zu Shi - Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu – Part 5 – 23% - No movement
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York– Robert Caro – 31% (aka 9%of audiobook #2)- back to reading this a bit
What I’ll Read Next
Bury your gays – chuck tingle – purchased!
Space Between Worlds – Neocromancer’s Book Club
Hugo Nominees:
Translation State Starter Villain “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” “On the Fox Roads” “One Man’s Treasure” “The Year Without Sunshine” I AM AI Rose/House “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet” The Mimicking of Known Successes Mammoths at the Gates “Seeds of Mercury” The Culture: The Drawings A City on Mars A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller, All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023) “Answerless Journey” / 没有答案的航程, 韩松, “The Sound of Children Screaming” “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” “The Mausoleum’s Children”
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi - by S. A. Chakraborty – (Hugos and Xing) Above all else, this was a fun book to read – the term swashbuckling is tempting, and I think comparisons to Alexandre Dumas are merited, tho the writing style is much swifter. This is a story where people have adventures in a world of true companions and dangerous enemies and seductive creatures of unknown magical origin. I genuinely liked Amina and I felt like the book didn’t have to pull its punches to make her approachable and kind.
(I am somewhat vagueblogging in reaction to a criticism I saw on tumblr that called it ahistorical in attitudes towards queer people, but largely, I think that person was barking up the wrong tree – this is a book for pleasure and there’s no reason for 11the century pirates to adhere to a standard of homophobia that the reviewer thought would be common. Cultures are complex, acceptable behaviors vary over time, and pirates are not traditionally very conservative. Why should an 11th century pirate captain of a ship in the Indian Ocean be ignorant of queer people, or upset that they exist?)
As I said last week when I was about 80% in, I have not read any Chakraborty before this and I like the characters here – they feel like they have really different voices and tones. The structure of the book is that Amina (voiced by Lameece Issaq in this audiobook) is telling her story verbally to a scribe, Jamal (voiced by Amin El Gamal), and they both really nail the different tones of each of these characters. Amina is savvy and bold and has lots of life experience in a lot of places; she prioritizes decency over societal morals and she’s not hesitant to criticize her own religion or culture. Jamal is a scholar and has ~niceties~ and ~shame~ - it’s adorable when he’s shy about Amina talking about her life.
While it’s a complete story, it is definitely setting up future adventures for Amina and her crew, and I think I’ll keep an eye out for future volumes. I was hopeful for a bibliography and there’s a short one available thru the publisher’s website here: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/theadventuresofaminaalsirafi
Choir of Lies – Alexandra Rowland – a re-read
Strictly, this is a book about a young man traveling the world after a heartbreak, finding a community, screwing them over royally, and trying to make it right before it's too late. It’s also about the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 1630s, how to treat a borrowed story responsibility, conflict among branches of religion, the duties we have to one another, and the power of a good metaphor. I am a big heaving softy for the passages about the people coming together to manage a crisis. This book has heart and an earnest belief that people can make choices to help others, and while it’s not always the first choice or the easiest one, making those decisions matters.
I appear to be in a Rowland renaissance! I read this until a while after it came out - Storygraph says July 2020, when it was published in fall 2019. That feels like an oddly long gap, but I will attribute that to my reading habits getting a lot more organized since I started doing a Reading Journal in 2022 and doing these Reading Memes regularly. I didn’t do a lot of reading in 2020 – like a lot of people, the depths of the pandemic were bad for my brain being organized.
SO, I picked up this audiobook not with a real sense of purpose, but honestly because I wanted a book I knew already to play in the background as I got sleepy in bed – more fool me, because once I started, I immediately only wanted to listen to this book. I really fell back into this book and fell in love anew with Rowland’s writing – each book I read adds to the others and it feels like a reward to pick up a book I already loved and see it in a new light.
Many of Rowland’s novels are set in a shared world, and I didn’t realize that Choir of Lies had already included references for the countries in A Taste of Gold and Iron and Running Close to the Wind. Rowland’s world builds on itself so organically that you just get to enjoy little touches of culture that Rowland decided looong ago. As a reader, I was really just charmed by how far back it went. (I think there’s a connection between the main character of this book and the Chants mentioned in RCttW, but I’m not solidly sure.)
Yield Under Great Persuasion (unfinished advance copy for Patreons) - Alexandra Rowland – This is unfinished both in the sense of unedited and in the sense that it hasn’t been published yet. The book announcement says it comes out in September 2024 – it’s an m/m romance in a fantasy world with the strong focus on the virtues and problems of being a horrible little gremlin who has to face the fact that someone loves you for your horrible little gremlin self. I’m looking forward to reading the finished version in a few months!
EDIT AFTER THE FACT: Turns out there is a FINISHED advance copy for Patreon supporters on the Discord, which I have since joined, and finished the book - The ending did not disappoint, it hit the notes that the story set up about compassion and accountability. Solid novel!
What I’m Reading:
Some Desperate Glory – Xing -like 10%
Mo Dao Zu Shi - Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu – Part 5 – 23% - No movement
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York– Robert Caro – 31% (aka 9%of audiobook #2)- back to reading this a bit
What I’ll Read Next
Bury your gays – chuck tingle – purchased!
Space Between Worlds – Neocromancer’s Book Club
Hugo Nominees:
Translation State Starter Villain “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” “Ivy, Angelica, Bay” “On the Fox Roads” “One Man’s Treasure” “The Year Without Sunshine” I AM AI Rose/House “Life Does Not Allow Us to Meet” The Mimicking of Known Successes Mammoths at the Gates “Seeds of Mercury” The Culture: The Drawings A City on Mars A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller, All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays “Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023) “Answerless Journey” / 没有答案的航程, 韩松, “The Sound of Children Screaming” “How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub” “The Mausoleum’s Children”
