storyorc's reviews
643 reviews

Thought-provoking enough as a non-linear series of existential gut punches in the form of HR interviews, I'm looking forward to re-reading this with some red thread and push-pins to see if any more information can be gleaned by connecting the dots of its piecemeal nature.

Typically creepy execution of these imaginative horror concepts but only the titular one was truly spooky. Bio House, Where the Sandman Lives, and Long Hair in the Attic were really freaky but slightly undercooked. I did enjoy a higher than normal level of affection for characters in this volume though, primarily the girl in Where the Sandman Lives and the villain and her love interest in Face Thief. Ito continues to find very unnerving imagery and ideas in seemingly ordinary troubles like a child bullly and theatre kid drama.

As much and as often as I wanted to condemn characters in this book, they're written with such rich humanity that it would feel hypocritical. Butler holds your eyelids open, Clockwork Orange style, to the ugliness of a soul under impossible strain until you admit you feel for them. Wild Seed does not sidestep the racial tensions of 1600s-1800s Africa and America either, but rather lets it inform and enrich the more insular struggles of these little communities of enhanced humans. Our main characters, Anyanwu and Doro, are immortal shapeshifters (though in thematically very different ways) and therefore make for an incredible vehicle to grasp at the ever-shifting, ever-evolving nature of humanity with all its flaws and spirit. Many side characters tug on the heartstrings as well.

Wild Seed does take its time but the effect is mesmerising rather than dull. I read it in two sittings, faster than I've read much shorter novels. It's also a world apart from the usual sci-fi novels I read from this era in terms of queer acceptance (and obviously feminism and anti-fascism). These shapeshifters are practical enough to be mostly unfazed by sex between all kinds of different bodies.

Rarely do I get invested so quickly as I did for Demane. I blame the perfect storm of

That said, I would have benefited from about 20% more clarity in what actions are actually taking place. I wouldn't want to sacrifice the closeness to Demane or the dreamlike, mythical style of this book for standard prose, but there were a few points where my ability to sympathise with the implications of an event was hindered by not being sure I'd correctly interpreted what that event was. Not asking to be told how to interpret actions, just the action itself; like the difference between knowing someone fell overboard and whether you think they survived is up to you vs. not being sure if they just got soaked or actually fell.

Finally, I have to shout out the delightful way Ashante Wilson uses different dialects to quietly but profoundly display differences in classes, cultures, and relationships. Code switching galore.  One character even literally uses a different voice to speak to a loved one! The AAVE surprised me but it really locks in that feeling of a group and the different flavours within (one man uses some French, one some Spanish, the younger ones use certain words more, Demane less) get across the feeling of these people being a true mish-mash of backgrounds so well. Not many authors would be bold or informed enough to pull it off.

Creative concepts with implications explored
The Ringworld, with its carefully-considered technologies for air, landscape, a day/night cycle, spaceports, defence and more, is just the start. Teleportation has rendered all human cities one homogenous soup. One weapon disables and addicts an enemy via artificial bursts of happiness. The ships have a stasis field that freezes you in time when it detects trouble. Some races can move entire planets. The idea of breeding for luck is a surprise through-line that explores how being the luckiest person alive might make you something that is barely even human.

Oh, and one of the principle characters is from a two-headed, three-legged horse alien race of highly-advanced cowards. I love him.

Multi-faceted characters

I also enjoy how the aliens stayed alien. The formal affectations of their speech makes you as a reader have to learn to read between the lines along with Louis. Rewarding.

Game theory politics
Bucking the trend of early hard sci-fi being all plot and no character, this party is like a group of colleagues desperately trying to remain professional on a business trip whilst the extended proximity reveals more and more to admire and despise about each other. Since the outcome of their mission to the Ringworld will greatly effect their races' futures, each character, despite being atypical for their race, is trying to optimise a particular cultural value - survival for Nessus, honour for Speaker, and whatever Teela's luck decides it wants - with Louis mediating. They hurt each other constantly, often while regretfully explaining their logic for doing so. At times, the coldness of it reminded me of the chess-like moves Cixin Liu's characters make in his Remembrances of Earth's Past trilogy. And yet, Ringworld retains its jovial road trip atmosphere between the gut punches.

Proof that Descartes was wrong about only knowing je pense donc je suis. There is no way in hell I could ever pense up these ideas so it's at least me and Borges. Read for an existential crisis/awakening with no mushrooms required. Not just one, either! It's every other story.

The characters range from vehicles for the story to idiot vehicles for the story but when the stories do this to your brain, who cares. They are also brief enough not to overstay their welcome. 

I wish all books that make you a more thoughtful member of society had been serialised initially. The short chapters really keep this one clipping along. The battle scenes had me sweating, cheering, and sometimes wanting to puke.

It starts off with grievous training and first blood where every death is a gut punch, every war crime a sick feeling in your stomach, then tosses in time dilation - how every battle is going to wrench Mandella further into the future, away from what he's fighting for - and you realise you are going to experience whole new dimensions of loss. The times he tries to fit back into a culture that has moved on are a chilling glimpse at how alien we must seem to returning combat vets. I could never understand before what would possess someone to do a second tour.

If I had any lingering romantic delusions about soldier life after Slaughterhouse 5, this held their heads under until the bubbles stopped. Where Slaughterhouse was a more intellectual critique, this one just plain shows the inescapable daily terror, boredom, and general suck of being recruited.

Can't give full stars due to the homophobia and subtle misogyny. Wild to say that for a book that contains more women and gays than any other type of character but see content warning for light-spoilers details.

Orconomics is to D&D/TTRRPGs what Shrek is to fairytales.

80% of this book is a fun popcorn movie that occasionally aims an under-the-table kick at our modern, profit-driven society. The supporting characters' arcs are simple and don't break any new ground (except Niln's), but they are solid. No-one felt like a waste of pages; if anything, I preferred them. You see plot twists coming early enough to get excited about being proven right but not so early as that it gets boring waiting to be. I would also put money on Pike being a DM because the worldbuilding is as clever as it is coy. It rides the line of how many winks and puns one can enjoy but doesn't cross it. 

Orconomics is also blessedly well-edited (thanks to one Karin Cox apparently). It has single-handedly restored my confidence in independently-published books after the editing nightmare that was The Atlas Six. That said, Ms. Cox, if you are reading this, please strip every instance of 'Ye' from the sequel. 'Aye' is enough of an indicator that Gorm is as Scottish as they come. Reading 'Ye can't' feels like having a Scotsman and an American whispering in one ear each.

Structurally, I found too much reliance on POVs beyond Gorm's, especially the one-and-done types. Not only are POVs outside the party antithetical to D&D, they pad the first two-thirds of the book to a length that feels like a joke spread a touch too thin. Even the other POVs within the party, which I am much more open to, felt a little more like a quick fix when the author realised Gorm wouldn't be privy to something he wanted to show rather than an integrated part of the book. I would love to pop into the alternate universe where this book has multiple main characters, though in this one I agree with the decision to give Gorm, the straight man, the lion's share so that at the end, when he

sheds his willful ignorance and starts taking direct action, the reader has already been tricked into seeing themselves in him.

 

I was all set to finish this book with my appetite for this micro-genre sated when the last 50 pages hit. Now, I'm hovering over the 'to read' button on the sequel. I can't believe Pike got me with the age-old DM advice for turning casual gamers into invested ones -

kill a beloved NPC (or town, in the case of Bloodroot). I felt sick when the party, while racing for Bloodroot, starts seeing 'heroes' on their way home joking with each other, weighed down by loot and blood.

Until then, I had figured this novel's build only dipped into social commentary but it is a full multi-class.

The BBEG is the system. Put hit points on everything in D&D and players put aside their morals and kill; put a price on everything in 'Arth' and they do the same for the grind.

Suddenly those puns ripped from real-world institutions seem more accusations than jokes. If nothing else, I now realise the the title, which I grumbled over when orcs weren't even mentioned until page 70, is

chillingly

appropriate.

All in all, if the upcoming D&D movie is half as entertaining and a quarter as smart, I'll be thrilled.

(See my content warnings for detailed, non-spoiler information on why I rated this novel's diversity as 'complicated'.)

This book is what comes directly after every high fantasy happily-ever-after where the protagonist deposes an evil tyrant. I cannot overstate how critical it feels to have this reality check. That may be a tall claim for a story where one of the political enemies is a drug-addicted frog-man who lives in a goo orb but I stand by it. Messiah is to Dune what catching your mom filling stockings is to Santa. Herbert's publisher splitting this into a separate book was an act of thievery from all the readers who stopped after one.

Where the sandworm ecology was most fascinating in Dune, the political ecosystem takes the spotlight in Messiah. We meet competing factions that were only name-dropped before. Each is hyper-competent in their own way and equally chained to each other and their new emperor. None are exactly evil but nor are they sympathetic. Their leaders operate more as concepts than characters. Everyone talks in the abstract, concealing layers upon layers of meaning, and they do so at great length. I appreciate Herbert's dedication to portraying nuanced scheming but at the same time, I am not as smart as I like to think and would have enjoyed more of the book with a few clues as to the moves being carried out in this 4D chess game. (For example, I still don't grasp exactly why Paul felt bound to play out his visions as he saw them, unless it is just that he believes them to be the lesser evil.) Often, a character would refer to something matter-of-factly and only then would I realise that's what so-and-so was hinting at two chapters ago. If those explanations came even one chapter after the hinting rather than two, I would have been able to keep pace more instead feeling dragged along like an upset water-skier.

In a much-needed reprieve, Paul's court is more human than the others, thanks to little touches like nicknaming Stilgar 'Stil'. Neither Atreides is too regal for love, even as their loyalties are stretched in mutually exclusive directions. Alia's romance lacked much build-up (though with the 2021 casting... understandable) but Chani was easy to treasure through Paul's eyes. A reader has to care to appreciate tragedy and Herbert did wring out some care here, even if they speak so formally it keeps the reader at a distance. (That might be intentional; Idaho explicitly ponders reflects on how the language of office obscures the horrors it orders.) 

Themes of fate and identity shout the loudest in this book. The latter had a great pincer maneuver of an exploration; Alia grapples with who she is when she has held all the lives of a Reverend Mother since her time in the womb while Idaho/Hayt's zombie status makes his every thought and preference call into question of how much he is the dead man he wears vs something of his own creation. The fate theme is what really cuts to the core however, dogging Paul's steps right to the end when,

even in tapping out, he only cements the mythic qualities of his bloody legacy

. Brought to mind War & Peace's criticism of Great Man theory via positioning Napolean as carried along by events more than directing them, though with the added dimension of foresight. Herbert never quite lets you forget he's writing sci-fi.

Messiah feels shockingly long for its wordcount.  Despite that, I recommend print over audio (or at least not sped up audio) to stand any hope of digesting it. 

 "Charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead... the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon because he taught us to distrust government." 
- Frank Herbert

What Moves the Dead slots in neatly between Mexican Gothic and Dracula in the Something in This Spooky House is Fucking With My Friend genre. Would LOVE to see it get the limited series treatment in a few years.

The characters are the stars of this show, with Easton and Ms. Potter shining brightest. They aren't even new concepts - ka is a roughish ex-soldier and she is a chronically underestimated spinster respectively - but they feel fresh, immediate, and funny. I'd love to hang out with them. Angus was a bit too reliant on stereotypes but I was pleased how the resident American, Denton, both embodied and rose above his.

The setting carries enough hinted-at depth to sustain a whole series. It overshadowed the plot a few times, but rightfully so. The late 1800s of this world are just different enough to spark curiosity while still being able to leverage the very real weariness of war needed to sell the veteran characters. I at times felt like I was reading War & Peace through the narrator of Slaughterhouse 5. Gallacia was my favourite invented nation of course, conjuring up a ridiculous amount of charm for a people that seemed so stubbornly hopeless, and I am distraught that I can't visit and stumble over their idiosyncratic pronouns for myself.

My issues with the plot are:

Finally, I congratulate Kingfisher on keeping the book no longer than it needed to be for the shape of its plot. I stand a good chance of re-reading this one.

(PS - Enjoyers of this novel should also check out Annihilation, though it takes place in a swamp rather than a house.)