2022/60: The Sea of Lost Girls -- Carol Goodman

“For all the town’s fascination with its dark history–the Indian massacres and early colony, the influenza epidemic and lost girls– those stores are meant to be part of the past, told on candlelit ghost tours or sold in glossy paperbacks to be read on rainy weekends the lost girls aren’t meant to come back.
But here I am. [p. 186]

Tess has secrets, but doesn't everyone? She teaches at an elite boarding school in Maine, and is married to a professor. Her teenaged son from an earlier relationship, Rudy, is troubled: but so many young people are troubled, these days. Tess just hopes his nightmares clear up and he doesn't remember the trauma in which they're rooted.

One night, Rudy phones in a state of distress, asking Tess to collect him. Four hours later, Tess learns that Rudy's girlfriend Lila has been found dead at the Point, near where Rudy was waiting for Tess. She knows Rudy didn't do it: but does she know Rudy at all?

The Sea of Lost Girls felt ... claustrophobic. Tess (whose first impulse is always to lie) seems to be trapped, her secrets about to be exposed. It gradually becomes clear that she's rotting with guilt, with shame, with self-loathing -- and that the past is never very far away.

I would probably have enjoyed this novel much more if I'd liked any of the characters. Tess vexed me: she is not to blame for what happened when she was very young, but she is certainly instrumental in the erosion of the life she's constructed in the aftermath. She's not the only character who has made poor moral choices: the pervasive sexism of modern America is mirrored in the school's production of The Crucible, and in various discussions of power and agency. There are historical elements, too: the school was originally a Refuge for Wayward Girls, and a certain kind of man gravitates to such places. (There is a positive depiction of a male character in this novel. Just the one, if you don't count poor troubled Rudy.)

I liked Goodman's prose a lot, and found her first-person depiction of a pathologically unreliable narrator not only credible, but meticulously constructed. I will probably read more by her, but the plot and characters here did not engage me as much as I'd hoped.

Read for Lockdown Bookclub.

2022/59: The Raven Tower -- Ann Leckie

“It would be a great deal easier,” the Myriad said to me, “if you would take a different body.”
“No doubt,” I agreed. “But I do not want a different body.”
“It wouldn’t need to be permanent... It would be far more convenient for the rest of us!" [p. 185]

A young man, Mawat, rides towards his home city of Vastai, accompanied by his aide Eolo. The Raven's Instrument -- an actual raven who symbolises the power of the god known as the Raven -- is expected to die soon, and the Raven's Lease, its human counterpart, must sacrifice himself thereafter. The Lease is Mawat's father, and Mawat has come home to claim his heritage. But when he reaches the Raven Tower, it is to find his uncle Hibal in the Lease's place, and his father accused of having fled rather than do his duty. Mother Zezume, votary of the God of the Silent, and Lord Radihaw, of the Council of Directions, both stand with Hibal, and counsel Mawat to accept the situation.

So far, so familiar. But it's not that simple. The narrator has not yet made themselves apparent, and they tell two distinct stories: their own history, in first person, and their observations of Mawat and Eolo, told in the second person -- not to Mawat himself, but to Eolo. It took me quite a while to work out what the narrator and Eolo have in common: it's a refusal to be shaped to others' convenience.

This is an alt-medieval world in which gods are real, and when they speak their words must be 'made true': if they speak an impossibility, or something beyond their power to make true, they will suffer and perhaps die. There are many gods in this novel, some of them more relatable than others: the Myriad, the Raven, the God of the Silent, the Mounder-Up of Skulls. These gods were taught language by humans, and they grant favours in return for worship and loyalty. If necessary, they will wage war on their worshippers' behalf. There are ways, for humans and deities alike, of tricking gods, of enslaving them, of misdirecting them: our narrator, who is known as 'Strength and Patience', recounts some of these along with their own story, which starts (more or less) with trilobites.

This is a fascinating novel, and I think the fascination for me hinges on two factors: the narrative voice of Strength and Patience, and the balance of the first- and second-person narratives. Told from another viewpoint, the story itself might not be as engaging, and the ending would seem more abrupt. The Raven Tower would be a very different, and much more conventional, novel if narrated by Eolo, much less Mawat. Leckie has taken a familiar plot (it took me a while to spot all the Hamlet consonances!) and transformed it into something quite new, many-layered and with a unique voice. I loved it, and would love to read more about this world, these gods, these mortals.

Fulfils (or half-fulfils) the 'second-person narrative' prompt for the 52 books in 2022 challenge.

2022/58: Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy -- Ben Macintyre

...he had long imagined himself as the central character in his own drama. He had played the part of a high-rolling gangster. Now, he recast himself in the glamorous role of spy. There was little thought, if any, given to whether such a course was right or wrong. That would come later. [p. 28]

A non-fiction book from the depths of my 'unread' folder, purchased in 2015 and forgotten until now. Eddie Chapman was a career criminal before World War 2: when the Germans invaded Jersey, Chapman was serving a prison sentence on the island. After his release, he went straight to the Germans' HQ and offered his services as a secret agent. After arduous training and team-bonding with his new, German colleagues, Chapman parachuted into Cambridgeshire one dark night, and promptly contacted the authorities, offering to become a double agent.

From Macintyre's account, Chapman was possessed of considerable charisma. He formed strong attachments to women (at one point he had 'two different women, under the protection of two different secret services, on opposing sides of the war' [p. 255]) and a real friendship with his German handler, Baron Stefan von Gröning -- known to Chapman as 'Doctor Graumann' -- who attended Chapman's daughter's wedding. Chapman, who died in the late 1990s, is the only British citizen to have been awarded the Iron Cross.

Macintyre writes with tremendous zest, and Agent Zigzag, while copiously footnoted with sources and commentary, reads more like a novel than a biography. I'm not sure I'd have liked Chapman, but I admire his courage and his odd loyalties: and I was genuinely touched by his enduring friendship with von Gröning.

Read for the 'Memoir | Biography | Autobiography' prompt of the Annual NonFiction Reading Challenge.

2022/57: Jews Don't Count -- David Baddiel

This – a handful of the total incidents – is why Jews don’t feel white, if by white you mean safe. [loc. 1231]

Baddiel's short book about a particular type of racism -- antisemitism -- is surprisingly cheerful for such a grim topic. As well as being funny, it's angry. Baddiel explores the intrinsic contradictions of antisemitism: Jews are 'somehow both sub-human and humanity's secret masters'. On 'yid' and 'nigger': 'the Y-word isn’t as bad as the N-word... because Jews are rich'.

This was an engaging read, because Baddiel is an accomplished and witty writer who writes from his own lived experience as well as giving an objective overview of how Jews are treated in contemporary Western culture. I learnt a lot, because (like many) while noticing specific instances of antisemitism, I hadn't been aware of the depth, the breadth and the strength of it. One key statistic that surprised and horrified me: 'in 2018, 60 per cent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States were perpetrated against Jews (by contrast 18.6 per cent targeted Muslims).' [loc. 1218]

Read for the 'Short | 150 pages or less' rubric of the Annual NonFiction Reading Challenge: 111 pages in the print edition.

2022/56: Without the Moon -- Cathi Unsworth

Upon her first taste of gin, it had come to Lil with the force of revelation that only her looks stood between this tantalising taste of glamour and the lifetime of drudgery to which she had been assigned. She awoke in a hotel room in Paddington with a five-pound note on the pillow beside her ... [p. 81]

London, 1942: blackouts, the Blitz, servicemen from abroad, black marketeers, prostitutes, spiritualists ... Without the Moon (a line, like the chapter headings, from a popular song of the time) is a fictionalised account of the 'Blackout Ripper' murders -- four women killed in six days by a Canadian airman -- and another woman murdered on Waterloo Bridge days later. Unsworth gives us DCI Greenaway, former star of the Flying Squad (which focussed on organised crime), now with the Murder Squad: an old-school policeman with plenty of friends and contacts in the criminal underworld.

I enjoyed Unsworth's That Old Black Magic more than Without the Moon, though the two books share a setting and some characters, and a distinctly noirish ambience. I kept expecting supernatural elements, but though there (arguably) are some, they're very obliquely described. And I could have done without the grisly details of the murders. As in that previous book, Unsworth writes a lot of flashbacks: typically, Greenaway is standing somewhere, staring broodily out into the blackout night, and then reflecting on recent events.

I didn't dislike the novel, but I found it rather disappointing, without the energy and weirdness of That Old Black Magic (or, come to think of it, Weirdo). Some intriguing characters, and a powerful evocation of wartime London; plenty of cosmopolitan London slang, with its Yiddish / Polari / Cockney elements; the rough justice of the underworld.

Unsworth's ebooks seem to have been withdrawn: I'd had this wishlisted for ages before I went hunting and found it on Hive.co.uk.

2022/55: Magic for Liars -- Sarah Gailey

Fucking Tabitha. She still did that thing to her eyes, the thing that made them look bigger and more open, more alive. Not makeup, something else. Something fucking magic. I didn't like looking at myself, seeing my eyes, and knowing that she had them, the exact same ones, and had decided that they needed to be better. [p. 72]

Tabitha Gamble is a Professor of Theoretical Magic at Osthorne Academy for Young Mages. Her twin sister Ivy is a Private Investigator, who believes that her own lack of magic explains all her failings and failures. When a woman is found dead in the library at Osthorne, Ivy is recruited by the headmaster to investigate the case. She has not, until now, seen or spoken to her sister for many years, since their mother's death from cancer.

Ivy finds herself in a world she's always avoided -- and is struck by how mundane it all is. There's slut-shaming graffiti in the corridors, and the linoleum is scuffed. There's a young man, Dylan, who's convinced he's the Chosen One who will change the world. (It can't possibly be his half-sister Alexandria: 'all she cares about is eyeliner and who's friends with who and popularity' [p. 69], though Ivy is not alone in finding Alexandria unsettling, and she's certainly the queen of her clique.) There's a charming teacher, Rahul, head of the Physical Magic department, who flirts with Ivy until even she can't deny he's attracted to her. And of course there's her estranged sister, who knew the dead woman, and who Ivy still can't help wanting to be friends with.

And, to quote Doctor House, everyone lies. Ivy lies to herself as well as to others; Alexandria weaves masterful webs of deceit; Tabitha is economical with the truth ... Even the murder victim, Sylvia, may not be what she seems.

It felt to me as though this novel was more about the characters than the plot: I don't think that's a bad thing, but anyone reading for the murder mystery aspect may find it disappointing. I was not disappointed. The focus is very much on Ivy and the (mostly female) individuals with whom she interacts. There isn't a huge amount of worldbuilding (the standard 'nobody non-magical knows about the magical world' applies) and Ivy's first-person narrative means that much of the backstory is about the relationship between Tabitha and herself. There's not even a great deal of magic.

Sarah Gailey's writing is evocative and emotionally complex, and they give us an unreliable and not always likeable narrator (Ivy did remind me, at times, of Evelyn in The Echo Wife, though she has too little power rather than too much) and makes us care about her. And we care, too, about the young women at the school, and the subplot of medical magic (particularly as it applies to women); and we care about dead Sylvia, whose room Ivy stays in while she's investigating.

A downbeat but utterly credible ending: a book I'll want to return to, I think.

2022/54: River Kings: the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads -- Cat Jarman

Combined with the scientific evidence that women were part of the migration both into and out of Scandinavia, we really can’t exclude their agency from those worlds any longer. We have to carefully consider what roles they had; whether they were warriors, wives, traders, slaves (or slavers) or explorers. [loc. 1981]

The story starts with a single carnelian bead found 'within the detritus of a Viking terror attack' in Repton, Derbyshire. Jarman, investigating how it came to be there, reveals a network of trade, violence and exploration stretching from northern England to Byzantium and to Gujarat, the likely source of the bead.

I found this a fascinating account of Viking society. Jarman worked on the Repton excavations, as well as on several other important Viking sites: she explores the river-routes through what is now Russia, the origins of the Rus', the roles of women (from slave girls to powerful traders), and a myriad fascinating insights. For instance, I didn't know that much of the silver found in Viking hoards came from melted-down dirhams, or that Vikings may have buried those hoards due to a handy get-out clause that allowed a dead warrior, bound for Valhalla, to 'take not just what he had with him on his funeral pyre, but also what he had hidden in the ground'. [loc. 2038]. I learnt about double burials -- often two people of the same sex, like the two women of the Oseberg grave -- and the probability of human sacrifice as part of the funeral ritual.

Sometimes the account felt a little repetitive, as is to be expected when different aspects of the same situation are explored. There's a passage on sacrifices (slaves were asked to volunteer -- both male and female slaves) where I felt Jarman could have discussed homosexual behaviour. And at one point Jarman referred to a female scientist by her first name, which is (to say the least) impolite: I did not find any instances of male scientists being treated in this way.

Overall, though, a very readable, interesting and informative book. (It's also made me want to reread Rosemary Sutcliff's Blood Feud, about a Viking and an Englishman travelling to Byzantium.) I initially gave River Kings three stars but on reflection have amended this to four, as I found myself thinking and talking about it a lot.

2022/53: Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes -- Travis Bardee

"...I’m also a retiree, now.”
“I, uh….”
“You’ve found a very peaceful place here. A special place. You’ve planted something, and now it’s blossoming. Very nice. A good spot to rest. My thanks to you for letting an old-timer shade under the branches of what you’ve grown.” [p. 203]

Viv is an orc, dedicated to battle and violence: but at the beginning of Legends and Lattes she leaves her squad -- taking just one fabled artifact, and a cash float -- and sets out for the city of Thune, where she plans to open a coffee shop. Coffee is not big in Thune, but Viv tasted it for the first time recently, and she's hooked ...

This is another feelgood, upbeat novel. Viv accumulates a group of ... are they friends, or colleagues? Or could they be both? A Hob carpenter, a succubus who means to subvert expectations, a rattkin pastry chef, a bard who seems to have an electric guitar (except without actual electricity), the old lady across the street, and a marvellously bolshy dire cat (mis)named Amity. Most of the novel focusses on Viv finding a property, settling in, making a success of it and acquiring all these new friends (and an old foe) along the way. And though the arcane relic beneath the floorboards may not be having the effect Viv expected, she's beginning to appreciate the ways in which things are coming together. There is some peril, but Viv refuses to take down her battlesword to deal with it: she's learnt the hard way that violence isn't the solution to everything.

The author, I learnt, is a veteran audiobook narrator, who decided to try Nanowrimo in 2021, and published this, his first novel, in February 2022. Perhaps he too has an arcane artifact lying around somewhere? I am impressed.

2022/52: The Kaiju Preservation Society -- John Scalzi

"Remember when you interviewed, and you were asked what you thought about science fiction? ... We ask that question because the people who watch Godzilla movies and Jurassic Park movies are fundamentally better prepared for the reality of this place."

Jamie is working for a food-delivery startup in New York City when the pandemic hits. Cue Jamie's demotion to deliverator (one of several nods to Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash) and Jamie struggling to make ends meet. Luckily, one of Jamie's clients is an old friend, and offers Jamie a job 'working with large animals'. The animals are indeed large; they do not inhabit the same Earth as Jamie; and their improbable biology is lovingly explored by Scalzi, who says in the Afterword that he thinks of this novel as a 'three minute pop song' to put a smile on the reader's face. I found it vastly enjoyable in a very geeky (or nerdy) way: plenty of genre references, a gleeful mashup of 'real' science and wild speculation, evil billionaires with selfish goals, and a diverse cast of, mostly, scientists. (Jamie, who's there to lift things, is the odd one out, having only a masters in science fiction.)

I was trying to work out what the actual plot reminded me of, and my conclusion is that it's a typical children's / YA adventure story: plucky kids -- or in this case newbies, the four most recently-recruited employees -- team up with a maverick pilot to save the world. But really this is a novel about friendship, and geekery, and pheremones, and what it says on the cover. (Oh, and the epic romance of Edward and Bella.) Vastly enjoyable, very funny -- mostly because of the dialogue -- and a great antidote to pandemic-related woes.

2022/51: The Changeling -- Rosemary Sutcliff

Something flashed downstream. Not the blue flash of a kingfisher, but something stranger, more shining and yet more shadowy. And looking after it, Murna's sight was caught and dazzled by the low sunlight through the budding twig-tangle. And when the sun-dazzle let her go, and she looked round again, there in the hollow of the alder roots, instead of her own red-haired baby, lay a tiny creature with great dark eyes in a little wizened face. [p. 20]

I hadn't previously read this short work by Sutcliff, written for the Antelope imprint of books for primary-school children and illustrated by the splendid Victor Ambrus (whose obituary I read recently in British Archaeologist, realising only then that he was known for Time Team and visualisations of prehistory as well as for his illustrations). As far as I can tell, The Changeling has been out of print since first publication in 1974, and the libraries I frequented in my youth did not possess copies.

It's the tale of Tethra, who is adopted by Conan and Murna of the Epidii after being left in exchange for Murna's own son. The Old One of the tribe predicts doom, dark days, curses et cetera: but Tethra grows up as part of the tribe, until a bad year comes to pass and the Old One reiterates his dire predictions. Tethra walks away before they can exile him, or worse: finds the Little Dark People, and is reunited with his birth-mother; seeks her help when he sees Conan, his adoptive father, badly wounded while hunting; and finally returns, not without regret, to the Epidii. It's not a wholly cheerful book, even when you ignore -- or, like many younger readers, are oblivious to -- the implications of withcraft, child sacrifice and ritual murder. (Tethra, bringing medicine to Conan, tells the other Epidii that he knows they will kill him if Conan dies from that medicine.) But it is full of the beautiful details that Sutcliff did so well: the stockade that's taken root and become a blackthorn hedge, the shimmer of light on water, a necklace of green plover feathers ...

The Changeling came to my attention because there's a new ebook edition from SF Gateway. I cannot recommend that version, as (a) it's £4.99 for 32 pages of text (b) it omits Ambrus's illustrations (c) the blurb includes the line 'Raising a child of the Fae Folk will bring disaster upon the Epidii people.' I cannot stress enough that there are no Fae here, nor (as far as I can recall) in any of Sutcliff's work: just Picts and Celts.

2022/50: Hostis -- Vale Aida

He could wash away the stain of Cannae in Hannibal’s blood -- Hannibal, the savage, the warmonger, who had massacred eight legions in a single afternoon. Who would not justify himself. Who lit candles to Vesta, and knew Aristophanes on sight. [loc. 2249]

I greatly enjoyed this author's previous novels, Elegy and Swansong, and was intrigued to read that she was working on a novel about the Second Punic War. Hostis -- the title means 'enemy' -- did not disappoint, though I would probably have appreciated it even more if I'd known enough history to determine where her version diverges from canon.

The focus is on Publius Cornelius Scipio, later known as Africanus, and his encounters with Hannibal Barca, beginning at the Battle of the Trebia (when Scipio saved his father's life) and covering the next seven years. The primary viewpoint is Scipio's, but there are also scenes from other perspectives, including Hannibal's brother Mago. Hannibal himself is seen from several angles: the great general, the book-lover who can quote Aristophanes and Alcibiades, the boy still mourning his own father. His respect for Scipio is only gradually reciprocated, as Scipio comes to understand Hannibal -- and accept that the tales of Carthaginian barbarism may be fake news -- while feeling increasingly frustrated by and alienated from the city of his birth.

It's refreshing to read a historical novel which isn't concerned with romance. There are alliances, of marriage and otherwise, but no loving couples. Though the focus is on Scipio and Hannibal, there are several excellent female characters, in particular Hannibal's spymaster sister Arishat (who has a few salient remarks about her dead husband) and Scipio's mother Pomponia. Both have agency, personality and opinions: both are integral to the story.

I suspect I will need to reread this novel with some historical reference material to hand. This will not be a hardship: Vale Aida's prose is wry and witty, and she has a gift for depicting the minutae of everyday life: rotten figs, fishponds, Greek tutors, the sole surviving elephant.

When he looked at Hannibal he saw a network of veins and arteries, streets and highways rushing with blood, a city under siege, burning, burning. [loc. 4553]

2022/49: Love for the Cold-Blooded: or, the Part-Time Evil Minion’s Guide to Accidentally Dating a Superhero -- Alex Gabriel

Mom had been hibernating for the better part of two years. Why did she have to rise in terrible glory now, of all times?...Couldn’t she have begun her ascension at a time when Pat was not right in the middle of patching up his relationship with Silver Paladin’s alter ego? [p. 174]

Patrick West is studying to be an urban designer, and takes a job as night manager for superhero Silver Paladin, a.k.a. Nick Andersen. When Nick asks his household AI to 'send up a guy', Nick answers the call, only to discover that Nick is expecting a prostitute. Pat embraces this new duty with enthusiasm... and, several days later, finds himself needing to be rescued by Silver Paladin, who is perplexed to find his latest hookup on a rooftop, attempting to retrieve a rare CD.

Nick is somewhat clueless, but Pat makes up for it in sheer bravado: they end up dating, though there are quite a few things that Pat doesn't share with Nick. Such as 'I am a part-time minion for whichever villain -- sorry, 'challenger' -- needs staff'. And, ah yes, 'my mother is the legendary supervillain Serpentissima'.

This was great fun, though I confess I did not warm to Pat, who likes frat parties and wears a baseball cap. Nick seems considerably more mature (his date of choice is a trip to see The Magic Flute), and devoid of family ties in a way that Pat emphatically isn't. Perhaps that's why it felt as though there was a larger age gap between the two than is actually the case. I could see why Pat liked Nick, but not necessarily vice versa.

I liked the worldbuilding: this world is quietly but distinctly not our own, with its infowebs and stasis containers, and its small towns that seem American but have ancient castles at their heart. I also liked the relatable humanity of the villains! One, the steampunkish Sir Toby, requires 'a tribute of all high-quality imported teas and biscuits': Doctor Destiny is enraged by big-name bookstores, 'a morally decrepit sell-out of a chain with an abysmal selection'. And the West family, technically if not actively villains challengers, are mostly very likeable: Pat's elder sisters tease him mercilessly but are also wholly on his side, and always ready to set up a fake company (for the 'escort' business) or provide dating advice.

A lighter-hearted take on the 'heroes and villains' theme than Hench: possibly I should not have read it immediately after that novel. (NB: there's quite a lot of explicit M/M sex in this one, but much less violence than in Hench.)

2022/48: Hench -- Natalie Zina Walschots

“You know what’s more criminal than anything I have ever done? That you’ve been overshadowed by that lantern-jawed cockwit when you’re obviously better than him in every imaginable way.”
Pain crossed her face. “Well. No one is willing to make some bitch the head of the greatest superhero team in the world.”
She was repeating something that had been said to her; I could hear it in her voice. [loc. 4711]

Anna Tromedlov is a hench, short for henchperson, short for expendable staff in a villain's entourage. The work -- mostly temp contracts, via an agency -- is generally less unpleasant than other menial jobs, and Anna's more likely to be employed for her spreadsheet skills than for anything especially nefarious. She's working for Electric Eel, at 'some tech unveiling thing', when it all goes wrong: the hero Supercollider shows up in the nick of time to rescue the Mayor's son, and Anna is in his way. “They told me I would just have to stand there...” She's left permanently disabled by the impact, in constant pain, suffering PTSD, unable to work for months, and (of course) with her contract terminated.

Initially to distract herself, she begins to tabulate the human cost of superhero activity. Her calculations are based on the real-world DALY (Disability-Adjusted Life Years) measure used to evaluate the impact of natural disasters, and she quickly discovers that Supercollider is, all by himself, as destructive as a major earthquake.Her calculations, and the blog she writes, bring her to the attention of supervillain Leviathan, who offers her paid employment. Leviathan is ... extremely focussed on Supercollider, but Anna finds herself targeted by the superhero too -- not because of her new employer, but because Supercollider recognises that, in injuring Anna, he has created another potential villain who wishes him harm.

Hench is a thoughtful and painstaking examination of the ecology and sociology of superheroes and supervillains. The worldbuilding is excellent: there's the Superhero Municipal Insurance (Anna is not eligible, as the police think she must have been 'confused' about how she was injured); the Bureau of Superheroic Affairs, who routinely test all pubescent children for latent powers; the celebrity cults around particular heroes, and the fake relationships they present to the public; care homes for ageing heroes, dangerously out of control due to dementia; clandestine human experimentation ... The novel is also (after a somewhat sluggish start) an immensely engaging and entertaining read, though there is some truly nauseating body horror in the climactic scenes as Walschots examines what it means to be indestructible.

Hench foregrounds several extremely competent female characters, who have conversations that aren't about men (and, in one case, that are about men and the emotional labour of 'taking care of their feelings'). Anna, our protagonist, isn't always likeable, and she's not much given to self-examination: her first-person narrative is full of elisions and misinterpretations. There are a couple of plot points where the reader will be several steps ahead of her, and other points where she displays an inability to assume responsibility, likely a protective mechanism developed in all those soul-destroying temp jobs. There are, perhaps, too many incomplete plot threads: Anna's friendship with June (who took her in after the Supercollider collision), Anna's various crushes (usually on women), the friends-to-nemeses relationship between Leviathan and Supercollider, the superheroes' soap-opera interactions (reminiscent of Watchmen more than the MCU) ...

It's tempting to map the characters -- at least the superheroes -- to familiar protagonists from Marvel, DC, et cetera. I caution against this, not only because it amps up the emotional impact of some of the nastier scenes but also because I don't think it's as simple as that. Walschots is patently familiar with comics canon and I suspect she had a great deal of fun developing her own versions of assorted tropes.

I enjoyed this immensely: it's one of the first books for a while that I've wanted to reread immediately after finishing it. I very much hope Walschots will write more in this universe.

2022/47: Circe -- Madeleine Miller

'Take them to your bed.'
‘That is absurd,’ I said. ‘They would run screaming.’
‘Nymphs always do,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell you a secret: they are terrible at getting away.’
At a feast on Olympus such a jest would have been followed by a roar of laughter. Hermes waited now, grinning like a goat. But all I felt was a white, cold rage. [p. 158]

Circe is one of the children of the sun god Helios and the naiad Perse. She grows up maligned by her father and her siblings, derided for her yellow eyes and thin voice. As a young woman, she brings nectar to Prometheus: later, she falls in love with a mortal, and uses pharmaka, witchcraft, to make him a god. This does not work out well and Circe is exiled to Aiaia, where she is befriended by Hermes and visited by various relatives and strangers. Then comes Odysseus ...

I have attempted The Song of Achilles several times and found it unengaging, so I hesitated to read this: but a reliable friend recommended it, and I'm grateful. Circe, here, is a goddess and a witch, but also intrinsically a woman. She is emotionally, and later physically, abused: she acquires and exerts power and agency in the ways available to her, she falls in love, she exacts her vengeance, and she tries to temper the more extreme acts of her sister Pasiphae. Giving birth to Odysseus' son Telegonus (concerning whom dark prophecies are uttered) she experiences post-partum depression; she mourns the death of her favourite lioness; she approaches pharmaka as a scientist. And when she transforms men into swine, she has a very good reason.

I wasn't familiar with the story of Circe's son Telegonus, but Miller's treatment of his tale, and its aftermath -- and especially Circe's interactions with Penelope and Telemachus -- has emotional resonance: the interactions ring true, they feel human. Odysseus apparently told Penelope, about Circe, that 'he had never met a god who enjoyed their divinity less': and that is the theme of the novel, Circe's fraught relationship with mortality and with mortals. Deceived by Medea -- her niece, her favourite brother's daughter -- and the mortal Jason into granting a form of absolution (katharsis, 'the oldest rite of our kind', means that Circe cannot ask about the evils for which they seek cleansing), mocked by her family, beguiled by love, grieving mortality, transforming 'the other woman' to an actual monster: this Circe is wholly relatable, her exile sometimes enviable, her skills self-taught and powerful enough to terrify the Olympian gods.

I'm very glad I read this: I might now even have another try at Achilles.