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Non-Horror Reading
The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre. An absolutely fantastic fantasy novel set in the court of Louis XIV. Marie-Josephe is a naive, relatively poor, convent-educated young woman working as lady-in-waiting to the king's niece. Her brother, Yves, is a Jesuit and natural philosopher, particularly interested in dissecting and studying a 'sea monster' he's just been the first to successfully capture. Louis XIV believes the legends that say sea monsters (perhaps more recognizable to us as 'mermaids') can grant immortality to the person who eats them, and is determined for Yves to prove this to be so and figure out how to make the king immortal. Lucien, a dwarf and a courtier, is the closest thing the Sun King has to a best friend and trusted advisor, but repeatedly finds himself called upon to protect these newcome siblings from the various troubles they get into as they try to maneuver through the court of Versailles. Meanwhile, Marie-Josephe is becoming increasingly convinced that the sea monster is in fact a sentient human, who needs to be protected from Yves's experiments, Louis's hunger, and, oh yes, the visiting Pope Innocent XI's determination to declare her a demon.
The novel's real strength is in its incredibly well-researched portrayal of life at Versailles, both in the good (jewels, dresses, the Hall of Mirrors, concerts), the bad (the constant threat of rape for women without status, drafty attic rooms, occasional slaves, zoos that would count as animal abuse by modern standards) and the downright weird (bowing to portraits of the king, the levee ceremony, the king's special gout carriage, the conclusion that being a Protestant is worse than being an atheist). Plus all the standard fun of any book with court politics (the incredibly complicated geometry of who's having an affair with who, arranged loveless marriages, legitimated bastards and secret bastards, how to figure out who's trustworthy and who would sell your soul for an invitation to that levee ceremony). It's captivating and marvelous historical fiction – even before you add in mermaids! I read the entire book in one big gulp, because I was just having too much fun with it to put it down. I've never heard many people talk about The Moon and the Sun, which is too bad because I absolutely loved it and wish it were better known. I mean, the Sun King plus mermaids! It's everything I've ever wanted out of a novel.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.Historical fiction with a magic realism bent. Hiram is born into slavery in 1840s Virginia, the son of the master of the plantation and an enslaved mother who disappeared when Hiram was still very young and whom he can't remember. Given who his father is, Hiram is allowed an education and a relatively high-status position as his half-brother's assistant in running the plantation. But soon enough shit abruptly gets real, and Hiram is forced to face the fact that for all his relative privilege, he's still enslaved: his father sells him, the woman he loves is taken away, he ends up in a slave jail, he's physically and psychologically tortured, he runs away, he gets involved with the Underground Railroad, he meets Northern abolitionists including Harriet Tubman, and many more plot twists. Throughout all of this, Hiram slowly discovers he possesses a power called Conduction, which essentially allows him to teleport from one location to another. Such a power would obviously be hugely useful to the Underground Railroad, among other groups, and while their attempts to push Hiram into gaining better control over Conduction are well-intentioned, they fail terribly at treating him as a full person. Hiram's ability to Conduct ultimately seems to depend on recovering his memories of his mother and reclaiming his own history.
Coates obviously knows his history, and is an incredibly talented, powerful writer, but this is his first venture into fiction and unfortunately I think it shows. For all the details of the setting and insights into the psychology of slavery, the characters and situations just never engaged me. I set this book down in the middle several times and went to read something else, and ultimately had to force myself to finish it. Maybe it's just that I've read several other takes on "escape from slavery + magical realism", but I felt like there was nothing new or exciting in The Water Dancer. It's a very cool premise, and it's not a bad book by any means, but there are better books out there doing very similar things.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The novel's real strength is in its incredibly well-researched portrayal of life at Versailles, both in the good (jewels, dresses, the Hall of Mirrors, concerts), the bad (the constant threat of rape for women without status, drafty attic rooms, occasional slaves, zoos that would count as animal abuse by modern standards) and the downright weird (bowing to portraits of the king, the levee ceremony, the king's special gout carriage, the conclusion that being a Protestant is worse than being an atheist). Plus all the standard fun of any book with court politics (the incredibly complicated geometry of who's having an affair with who, arranged loveless marriages, legitimated bastards and secret bastards, how to figure out who's trustworthy and who would sell your soul for an invitation to that levee ceremony). It's captivating and marvelous historical fiction – even before you add in mermaids! I read the entire book in one big gulp, because I was just having too much fun with it to put it down. I've never heard many people talk about The Moon and the Sun, which is too bad because I absolutely loved it and wish it were better known. I mean, the Sun King plus mermaids! It's everything I've ever wanted out of a novel.
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.Historical fiction with a magic realism bent. Hiram is born into slavery in 1840s Virginia, the son of the master of the plantation and an enslaved mother who disappeared when Hiram was still very young and whom he can't remember. Given who his father is, Hiram is allowed an education and a relatively high-status position as his half-brother's assistant in running the plantation. But soon enough shit abruptly gets real, and Hiram is forced to face the fact that for all his relative privilege, he's still enslaved: his father sells him, the woman he loves is taken away, he ends up in a slave jail, he's physically and psychologically tortured, he runs away, he gets involved with the Underground Railroad, he meets Northern abolitionists including Harriet Tubman, and many more plot twists. Throughout all of this, Hiram slowly discovers he possesses a power called Conduction, which essentially allows him to teleport from one location to another. Such a power would obviously be hugely useful to the Underground Railroad, among other groups, and while their attempts to push Hiram into gaining better control over Conduction are well-intentioned, they fail terribly at treating him as a full person. Hiram's ability to Conduct ultimately seems to depend on recovering his memories of his mother and reclaiming his own history.
Coates obviously knows his history, and is an incredibly talented, powerful writer, but this is his first venture into fiction and unfortunately I think it shows. For all the details of the setting and insights into the psychology of slavery, the characters and situations just never engaged me. I set this book down in the middle several times and went to read something else, and ultimately had to force myself to finish it. Maybe it's just that I've read several other takes on "escape from slavery + magical realism", but I felt like there was nothing new or exciting in The Water Dancer. It's a very cool premise, and it's not a bad book by any means, but there are better books out there doing very similar things.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.