2024/090: All the Little Bird Hearts — Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow

... in a painting, the artist intends all the uncomfortable truth he has put there, somewhere within the beautiful image, to be read. In life, the opposite is more often true. [loc. 1264]

Sunday is neurodivergent, raising her teenage daughter Dolly alone (though Dolly's father, who Sunday calls 'the King', is still around: Sunday works in his parents' greenhouse) and accustomed to a solitary, quiet life. Then she befriends, or is befriended by, glamorous new next-door neighbour Vita, and is beguiled by Vita's kindness and her childlike demands. Sunday is not very good at people, but Vita and her husband Rollo welcome her and Dolly, and don't seem fazed by Sunday's insistence on dining solely on white food and cold fizzy drinks.

Sunday's painful family history comes gradually to the surface as she watches Dolly bloom under Vita's attention. Her unique perception of the world is not sufficient for her to interpret or withstand Vita's machinations, or to unravel the 'social riddles' of Vita's behaviour.

This Booker-shortlisted novel is fascinating because of its protagonist: the author is also autistic. I found Sunday's memories of her relationship with her mother acutely painful and disturbing, and that relationship's shadows still persist: Sunday takes great pleasure in making choices that seem good to her, 'without being told I am making a show of myself. That I am hysterical, attention-seeking and to be ignored' [loc. 55]. Her sensual enjoyment of gardening, her sensory overload, her reliance on her book of Sicilian folklore (and an etiquette book from the 1950s), are vivid and immediate. And she sometimes addresses us directly: 'people like you', neurotypicals. I felt more like Sunday than like Vita.

2024/089: Queen B — Juno Dawson

She forgot sometimes that they were not as the others. They were not women, or ladies, or girls. They were something primeval; something fundamental; as unforgiving as the desert sun or frozen tundra. They were witches. [loc. 1107]

This novella is a prequel to Dawson's 'Her Majesty's Royal Coven' series (of which I've read and enjoyed Her Majesty's Royal Coven, the first book). Queen B is set in 1536 and begins with the beheading of Anne Boleyn, mourned by the remaining witches in her coven. Lady Grace Fairfax is determined to wreak vengeance on the woman she holds responsible for Anne's death; Jane Rochford, Anne's sister-in-law, is now the de facto leader of the coven; and the traitor witch who claims to have Cromwell's ear is fleeing for her life.

The story alternates between 1526, when Grace first came to court, and 1536, when witchhunters such as Ambrose Fulke stalk the ladies of the coven. Court life, with its machinations and alliances, is vividly depicted, though the witches also venture into the slums of Bermondsey to hear a prophet speak.

I found this rather disappointing. It didn't have the verve of the modern-day setting, and some of the dialogue was horribly anachronistic ('show ponies', 'see you later for a bevy', 'it's OK'). If the book had been longer, perhaps the characters could have been explored in more depth: as it was, only Grace, Jane and Cecilia really came to life. The ending -- with Grace assuming a new name to care for the infant Elizabeth -- is intriguing, and might be the start of a new series. Queen B, however, doesn't really explore the genesis of the covens. An overly narrow glimpse of an interesting world.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 18 JUL 2024.

2024/088: Tokyo Express — Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood

People might laugh at the idea that just because a man and woman were found lying almost in each other’s arms they should immediately be assumed to have committed a love suicide. And yet, since time immemorial, thousands upon thousands of couples have been found in just such a state, without anybody suspecting foul play. Once their deaths are deemed a love suicide, the inquest is never as thorough as it would be for a murder. [loc. 2197]

Around 6pm one evening, a man and a woman (Sayama and Toki) are seen leaving Tokyo together on the Asakaze express train: some days later, they are found dead on the beach at Hakata, in what appears to be a lovers' suicide. The case is initially investigated by the local police, including veteran detective Jūtarō Torigai, who feels uneasy about the deaths. As new evidence reveals that the dead man, Sayama, was implicated in a bribery scandal, Torigai is visited by Kiichi Mihara of the Tokyo police. Mihara is young and dynamic and equally convinced that something doesn't add up. Was the departure of Sayama and Toki set up precisely so that it could be witnessed by businessman Yasuda and two of Toki's colleagues? And why has Yasuda gone to such lengths to demonstrate that he was nowhere near Hakata on the night of the couple's deaths?

This was an enjoyably twisty murder mystery, quite different in tone to most modern crime novels. The detectives aren't, as far as we can tell, struggling under immense psychological burdens; there are no romantic subplots; there's very little background detail (to the extent that I had no idea when it was set: 1957, apparently) and Matsumoto does not seem interested in scene-setting or vivid description.

I'm reminded of Sayers' Five Red Herrings, which also focuses on railway timetables, but in other respects is a sharp contrast to Tokyo Express. The translation seemed smooth, and I suspect several of Matsumoto's prose idiosyncrasies have been retained. I'd happily read more, though I think I would prefer a novel set in Japan (especially 'historical' Japan) to give me more atmosphere. Character and place names aside -- and ignoring the elephant in the room, the social acceptance of suicide -- this story could have taken place in any industrialised country.

Fulfils the ‘A Thriller/Mystery By A Non Caucasian Author’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/087: Godkiller — Hannah Kaner

People make gods, and, for better or worse, gods make people. We show each other for what we truly are. Yearning beings, desperate for love, power, safety. [p. 237]

As a child, Kissen survived the massacre of her family during a conflict between gods. Mostly survived it, anyway: she lost her leg below the knee, and was badly burnt. As an adult, she's a veiga -- a professional godkiller, taking contracts to rid the world of various gods. Not, usually, the small gods of rural communities, but rather the ones who've been worshipped enough that they are growing too powerful. For gods (of whom there are a plethora, even after many were killed in a great war) are forbidden in Middren, by order of King Arren.

In a tavern, celebrating her latest successful godkilling, Kissen encounters a young girl named Inara who has a unique problem. She's somehow bonded to a little god, Skediceth, who's the size of a rabbit and has some power over white lies. Inara would like to be free of Skedi, even though they're fond of one another. Kissen is revolted... but after tragedy strikes, she and Inara (and Skedi) travel together to ruined Blenraden, city of a thousand shrines, where they hope to sever the bond between Inara and Skedi. Travelling with them is a baker called Elo, who was once a knight named Elogasat and a close friend of King Arren, who's sought his help.

The brutality and grime of the setting reminded me somewhat of George R R Martin's Game of Thrones, though I found the characters more likeable. The narrative alternates between Kissen, Inara, Elo and Skedi: each has a distinctive voice, and is keeping secrets from the others. There are some disturbing scenes (not just those involving physical violence) and some intriguing -- and unexpected -- character development. Plenty of diversity, too, with disabilities, varying skin colour and a range of sexual preferences. I didn't get much sense of the world through which the four protagonists move: it was an unexceptional fantasy-medieval setting. And the prose did not excite me. The pacing was good, though, and the characters' voices strong and consistent.

This is the first in a trilogy, and is on the shortlist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, 2024: I read it as part of the Hugo Voters' Pack.

Fulfils the ‘A Book About Women Committing Acts of Violence’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/086: Liberty's Daughter — Naomi Kritzer

When someone's locked away for doing the right thing, that makes them a prisoner of conscience. Not merely a grounded teenager. [p. 62]

Beck Garrison lives on a seastead off the west coast of the USA: her father is an influential member of the community, and Beck's mother died in a car crash before they left California. Beck is sixteen and earns pocket money by working as a seeker: she takes requests for things that people want, and sources them from other inhabitants of the seastead. One day, trying to locate a pair of sparkly sandals, size eight, she's asked instead to discover what happened to a bond worker's missing sister. Beck's investigations bring her into conflict with the leaders of the seastead, and -- not quite coincidentally -- into the surreal and influential world of reality TV. She finds much more than she set out to find, and is instrumental in instigating sweeping changes that affect every inhabitant (bonded worker, guest worker or stakeholder) of the seastead.

Beck is a tough-minded and courageous narrator, with considerable chutzpah (at least in part because of her father's status) and determination. Kritzer shows us Beck exploring the hidden underside of the libertarian seastead, and discovering some uncomfortable truths about the privilege which she has enjoyed since childhood. The seastead -- actually six 'nations', assembled from a motley collection of cruise ships, artifical islands and oil rigs -- is an experiment in utopian living, with an ambiguous relationship to the USA, from where many of the inhabitants have migrated. The draconian laws of the US contrast with the lawlessness of the seastead, and especially of Liberty, a nation known for having no law at all.

I greatly enjoyed Catfishing on CatNet, so had high hopes of this novel: I was not disappointed. Though the setting was, in some ways, comparable to Brightly Burning, the world-building here felt more solid, and the social aspects more foregrounded than the romance.

Shortlisted for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Book, 2024: read as part of the Hugo Voters' Pack.

2024/085: The House of the Red Balconies — A J Demas

"Men like you and Loukianos are a great boon to women like me, you know."
"W-we are?" He'd have thought it was the opposite.
"Oh, yes. One can't do all one's politicking in bed. It's handy to have men to deal with who don't expect it." [p. 98]

Hylas Mnemotios has come to the island of Tykanos to build a much-needed aqueduct. He's something of an innocent, in more ways than one, and is dismayed to find that he's been assigned a lodging in a tea-house, the eponymous House of the Red Balconies. Tykanos' tea-houses are its pride and joy: places where one can enjoy good food and drink, conversation and music -- and, for a consideration, the charms of the companions. Hylas finds himself sharing a garden with the companion Zo, the most beautiful person he's ever met. And Zo, with his mysterious past and his chronic illness, finds that Hylas is kind, unassuming, and willing to bring him his breakfast every day.

Hylas quickly becomes known in the house as Aqueduct Man, but his professional endeavours are frustrated by the unpredictable customs of Tykanos: the fact that he has to seek out the quartermaster's mistress to assemble a team of workers, the drunken outings to other tea-houses with his employer Loukianos, the gorgeous map of the island's water sources and piping which is wholly inaccurate. He begins to feel more comfortable in the House of the Red Balconies, despite its impoverishment, and despite its bad-tempered Mistress Aula. And he is enraptured by Zo's music: by Zo. But Mistress Aula demands that Zo find a wealthy patron, and Hylas doesn't even know when he's next getting paid ...

The House of the Red Balconies is a novel about kindness, friendship, secrets and mutual support; a slow-burning, sweet romance; and a cheering vision of a society in which same-sex love is regarded as natural and normal, and in which women, though precluded from formal power, find plenty of ways to exert influence. Demas' alt-Classical world, based on but not identical to the ancient Mediterranean, is full of the minutae that bring the best historical fiction to life: the romance novel that everyone's eager to read, lent to Hylas by Mutari (the quartermaster's mistress), the adjustments Zo's made to his room so that he can manage better on bad pain days, the gossip in the kitchen. I'm reminded of the little details in Rosemary Sutcliff's books that bring a lost world to life.

And I loved the alternation of Zo's and Hylas's narratives, and their complementary strengths and weaknesses. Hylas comes from Sparta-flavoured Ariata and has a lot to unlearn about toxic masculinity: Zo is from Persia-styled Zash, and left his identity, as well as his family, behind. Each man, at the beginning of the story, Is adrift, without connections or any sense of home: by the end of the novel they (and others) have found stability, security and love. The House of the Red Balconies is an absolute delight, highly recommended. The sign of a good novel, for me, is that on finishing it I immediately want to reread the author's other works: I've already reread most of Sword Dance, and I'm looking forward to rereading more by Demas this weekend.

Many thanks to the author for the review copy! UK publication date is 24th June 2024.

2024/084: Thornhedge — T Kingfisher

I am very ugly and she will be beautiful and there is no reason that you should believe the fairy instead of the girl. The stories go the other way. [p. 84]

Toadling has been guarding the tower, and the thorn wall around it, for more years than she can remember. The world around the tower has changed beyond recognition. Surely by now people have stopped telling stories about 'a princess in a tower and a hedge of thorns to keep the princes out'? But one day a knight makes camp near the thorn hedge, and Toadling, whilst tying elf-knots into his hair, finds herself conversing with a human for the first time in centuries.

This is a sweet story with dark shadows: not the Sleeping Beauty familiar from fairytale and film, but a story about a changeling, a knight, and a monster. Halim, the knight (who gently tells Toadling that the word 'Saracen' is not used much any more), prefers stories to swordplay, and wants to break the curse that he believes is afflicting Toadling. She tries to convince him that there's no curse: that her occasional dropping into toad-form is normal and natural. If there's a curse, it's her own gift gone awry. But she has tried, for such a long time, to do her best. And she tells him of the time when she lived in the castle, before the hedge of thorns grew...

Subtle, poignant and written with precision and elegance, Thornhedge tells a familiar story in an unexpected way. And, after all the horrors, there's a happily ever after -- though time, as Toadling reflects to herself, flows differently depending which world you're in. Ever after, or just for now: happiness still matters.

Shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novella, 2024.

2024/083: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi — S.A. Chakraborty

...my mother and I had been arguing about my path since the morning I left at sixteen to beg mercy from my father’s creditors and instead stole the ship and cargo intended to pay his debts. [loc. 737]

Amina is a middle-aged mother living in a small, secluded village in Aden with her daughter. Somehow, interested parties learn of her storied past (though 'to be a woman is to have your story misremembered') and seek her out for one last job. A young woman has been kidnapped by a Frankish adventurer -- and her dead father was a valued member of Amina's crew. Everything ended in ruin: can Amina get her crew back together, rescue the girl, and come to terms with at least some of the horrific memories that shadow her life?

I think you know the answer to that question. 

The voyage is as important as the destination, though, and Amina's adventure (dictated to a humble scribe, whose expostulations occasionally erupt onto the page) is great fun. Amina's adventures take place in the lands around the Indian Ocean, in the medieval period, and though the novel is firmly rooted in history it also features fantastical elements familiar from the Arabian Nights -- djinns, sea monsters, lunar spirits and peris. Amina's faith is strong: she strives to be a good Muslim (no sex outside marriage, which is why she's had four husbands), prays for forgiveness for her lapses, and tries to apply the teachings of the Koran to the situations in which she finds herself. It was refreshing to read a historical fantasy novel that was grounded in a non-Western culture, and Chakraborty peppers her narrative with little details that bring that world to life. I was also happy to see queer and trans characters in this setting.

That said, I'd have liked more seafaring, and I didn't wholly engage with any of the characters -- though Dalila and Raksh were both intriguing, and I hope to see more of them in future novels. (Why, yes, this is the first in a trilogy.) And I believe I have at least one volume of Chakraborty's 'Daevabad' trilogy, set in the eighteenth century: I shall read it some day.

A minor quibble: the Kindle edition renders some passages, designed to look like letters, as images: this is not easy to read on a monochrome device.

Shortlisted for the Hugo award for best novel, 2023.

2024/082: Build Your House Around My Body — Violet Kupersmith

There was a tacit agreement between them to never, ever bring up the incident in the graveyard, and to avoid all topics that might possibly lead to it -- the dead, the undead, the pass in nearby Chu Dreh that was haunted by French soldiers, a spirit-possessed neighbor who had spent a full week speaking in tongues and eating nothing but bananas before abruptly returning to normal with no memory of it, the water ghosts of Ea Wy, the disappearance and rescue of the Ma daughter under mysterious circumstances back in the eighties, anything involving funerals.[p. 142]

From the very first page -- with its chapter heading 'June 2010, Saigon, Nine Months Before Winnie’s Disappearance' -- we know that Winnie, a young Vietnamese-American woman visiting Vietnam for the first time, is going to disappear. But how? And why? Winnie (whose 'real' name, Ngoan Nguyen, she barely registers as her own when it's spoken) is something of a slacker: she's not interested in her job teaching English, she's awkward with everyone she encounters, and she seems to want to disappear into the shadows.

Entwined with Winnie's narrative are other stories: Long, the office administrator at the school, who finds Winnie intriguing; Tan, Long's brother, who is a police officer; a man known as the Fortune Teller, who has some disturbing tricks and a complex history; the almost-caricatured Cooks, married Americans who teach at the same school as Winnie and blog incessantly about their Vietnam Adventure... and Binh, the girl who Tan and Long both had a crush on as adolescents, who was known as Bé Lì -- bad girl. 'It was what Binh had always been, and so it was what she had always been called.'

This is a novel which deals with colonialism, with sexism, with racism; with the tourist industry and the importance of speaking English; with bodies, and how to live in them, and who has power over them; with family, and how it can fail a younger or less gifted child. There is humour, which I had not expected to find in a novel concerned with such dark themes. And there is a great deal of Vietnamese folklore -- though that seems a dismissive, and somewhat offensive, term for the supernatural world which is fully present, tangible and influential, and operates with its own internal logic. The story of Winne, and of the other lives that intersect hers, isn't linear, and it's far from predictable. There are ghosts (probably), snakes (definitely), something unsettling in the rubber tree forest, and a small dog with a definite sense of purpose.

Build Your House Around My Body is tremendously atmospheric, and its layers are opaque: I suspect I'll see different aspects of the story when I reread. I liked it very much, and I also admire it as a complex work of fiction. 

Fulfils the ‘Any Of The Monthly Picks From The Indulgent Bibliophile Bookclub’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.

2024/081: Black England: A Forgotten Georgian History — Gretchen Gerzina

While [Granville Sharp] and others were fighting to resolve the issue of freedom for British slaves, the American colonists adopted similar rhetoric to agitate for white colonists’ freedom from England. [loc. 2957]

Black England was sparked by a London bookseller who told Gerzina ‘Madam, there were no black people in England before 1945’: a falsehood which Gerzina explores in this account of Black people, history and culture in Britain. There's been a continuous Black presence in the UK since the 16th century, and by the 18th century there were over 20,000 Black people living in Britain: some were slaves, but others were free.

Gerzina examines aspects of Black life in England, from the entertainers and translators in Elizabethan London to the hypocrisies of the slave trade -- a trade that was condemned by many Britons. "From Yarmouth to Penrith, from Newcastle to Leeds to Cardiff, from cities to small villages, British citizens signed petitions and implored their government to stop trading in human lives." [loc. 3967] There's a thorough examination of how the British class system intersected with notions of race: "Black footmen might and did marry white serving maids without eyebrows being raised, but anyone marrying his cook, of whatever colour, committed a different, and far worse, sort of social transgression." [loc. 1701] Gerzina argues that there was generally less prejudice against Black people in Britain than in America (though still too much) and examines the 'myth' that Black slaves would become free as soon as they set foot on British soil. And even the most well-meaning and philanthropic individuals, Black as well as white, were prone to double standards and snap judgements.

I learnt a lot from this book, not least the history of the Sierra Leone Colony, which was founded as a settlement for freed slaves, but foundered due to mismanagement, delays, disease and conflict with local tribes. And I am inspired by the work of those who fought, with their time and their money and their energy, for the abolition of the slave trade.

First published in 1995, this updated edition has an impassioned foreword by Zadie Smith, and a Note from the author, written in 2022, that highlights some of the changes since the 1990s: research methods have changed, but so has society. Black Lives Matter, better racial representation in media, and international political movements. "This is still a past that deserves to be remembered."

2024/080: Life as We Made It — Beth Shapiro

...it is clear that our actions not only alter the evolutionary trajectories of the species that go extinct (as an understatement), but also fundamentally change the evolutionary landscape in which other species, including our own, live. [loc. 1096]

This book -- subtitled 'How 50,000 Years of Human Innovation Refined — and Redefined — Nature' -- is very much a book of two halves: first, Shapiro (an evolutionary biologist specialising in ancient DNA) explores the ways in which human activity has affected ecosystems for millennia; then she describes recent advances in genetic engineering and editing, discusses the notion of de-extinction, and suggests ways in which biotechnology could revolutionise food production, benefit the environment and save endangered species.

I found the first half much more engaging than the second, though Shapiro is good at explaining scientific concepts and methods, and leavens her arguments with lots of fascinating factoids. (I did not know until reading Life as We Made It that a female elephant will regrow her hymen after giving birth. Ouch. And why?) There's a lot, too, about her early experiences in paleogenetics, and cheerful anecdotes about various embarrassing errors. Some of the most fascinating parts of the book were about ecosystems, their delicacy, and how easily humans or human-adjacent animals (rats, for example) can destroy a natural balance that's evolved over millions of years. I also learnt more about using genetics -- human and rat -- to trace prehistoric migration patterns, and about why passenger pigeons thrived in flocks of millions or even billions. And Shapiro stresses that prehistoric human-related extinctions were not deliberate (unlike some modern examples, where overhunting or overfishing has continued in spite of dwindling populations) and may have been exacerbated by other factors. 

Shapiro is broadly in favour of genetic modification, and critical of those who hold 'unscientific' beliefs about it: she points out 'the hypocrisy of ignoring the thousands of uncharacterized and random genetic alterations that emerge through mutation breeding while excluding products from the market that contain few, specific, and deliberately induced mutations on the grounds that unintended consequences of these mutations might turn out to be dangerous.' But she does sound a note of caution, arguing that social and cultural changes are as vital as genetic editing if famine, climate change and environmental degradation are to be countered.

There were some issues that should have been caught by an editor, several involving incorrect units of measurement ('[Elephants] produce 100 kilometers (220 lb) of manure daily') or typos ('white-footed mouse populations in Aotearoa/New England'). For a book so favourably reviewed in the scientific as well as the popular press, this sort of error is embarrassing.

Fulfils the ‘extract’ rubric of the Annual Non-Fiction Reading Challenge -- extracting and combining genetic material...

2024/079: Normal Rules Don't Apply — Kate Atkinson

No matter how hard she tried to keep them at bay, every new beginning [of the universe] led to the same old end – people. They always came back. Unlike everything else, they couldn’t be got rid of. [loc. 2620]

A collection of eleven stories, some more connected than others. We start with 'The Void', which takes place in 2028 and threatens humanity as we know it: much later, in 'Gene-sis', we encounter God's sister, Kitty, who's juggling reboots of the universe (they start with a 'ting!' and the smell of violets) and her job in advertising. En route, there are several iterations of a chap named Franklin (actually his middle name) who is given a racing tip by a talking horse; who becomes engaged to Connie (short for Constance) and finds her sisters predatory; who was writing a novel called What If, an infinitely recursive exploration of diverging timelines; who meets a fairytale princess, Aoife, who's lost her way home... Some of the stories (like the 'talking toys' dystopia of 'Existential Marginalisation' or the doomed romance of a Hollywood starlet and a British prince) don't seem to fit with the others, but even then there's the soft sound of a bell, and the scent of violets ... or at least a stuffed toy named Violet.

I couldn't help feeling that there was a novel hidden inside there, waiting to get out. Franklin would be in it, and Aoife, and the delightful Florence, the vicar's daughter (‘Did you just use the F word, Florence?’ her father asked mildly. ‘I am the F word,’ Florence muttered.). And there would be fewer loose ends and unresolved fates. What did happen to Mrs Peacock? What was Pamela's horrible past? Why did Mandy's afterlife look like wallpaper?

I do love Atkinson's prose but I don't think these stories are anything like her best work.

I remembered reading Atkinson's previous collection of short stories Not the End of the World and can see from my review that it shares some characters and elements with Normal Rules Don't Apply -- Hawk, Green Acres... Maybe time to reread that earlier book and see what other connections are revealed -- and whether it changes my perception of this later work.

2024/078: What Feasts at Night — T Kingfisher

I'd learned long ago that things you don't see can kill you, but at least the visions don't stalk your mind for decades after. [chapter 2]

A sequel to What Moves the Dead, the horror at the core of this novella is based on folklore rather than on any existing work of literature. Sworn soldier Alex Easton travels, with batman Angus and the redoubtable mycologist Miss Potter, to the remote hunting lodge which is Alex's inheritance. Alex would rather be enjoying themself in Paris, even before they hear the stories of a moroi, a creature that haunts dreams and steals breath. The widow Botezatu, who has come to cook and clean at the lodge after the death of Codrin (the previous caretaker), makes no secret of her disapproval of Alex -- and the widow is convinced that a moroi was responsible for Codrin's death.

I found the characters more vivid than the plot, but the setting (rural Gallacia, with deathly silences and mist-shrouded forests and gentle decay) was evocative. Alex's PTSD was more evident here than in the previous novella. Miss Potter's hilariously useless Gallacian phrasebook was entertaining and provided some levity, but there's a strong sense of nightmare here.