Literary-Fiction

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled For each of us, the last day is coming, like the terminus of a transcontinental railroad trip. It’s far enough away to put out of mind, but we all know the end is coming. If the afterlife is unknowable, at least we can learn from others what pulling into the station feels like. Japanese death poems collects the final poems spoken or written before death over a period of hundreds of years. By alternating between poems and commentary, there is just enough context to make the different poems enjoyable, and the book proves surprisingly snackable. Many of the poems are simple imagery, in some way comforting of how one can approach the last days with a sense of awe and wonder. ...

A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the arc of a post-apocalypse humanity, through three story arcs: Through the discovery of key artifacts during the new dark ages after a nuclear disaster. Another about the struggle for control of information and innovation between scientists and religious scholars A third in post apocalypse space age, where interplanetary colonization is possible, but nuclear war turns out to be a repeating cycle rather than a one off event. Perhaps the highlight of the book was the different characters, who seemed more real and flawed than typical protagonists. Unfortunately by the time I would become invested in any of them, the plot would fast forward by a few hundred years, with hardly a sentence spared about how our main character died an untimely death and was eaten by buzzards. As a remix of history, providing a scenario showing humanity in an apocalypse-rebirth-cycle, but the structure of disjointed stories made it hard to get into and I never really understood what I was supposed to pay attention to in each canto.

Shorefall was a James Bond film, set in the Foundryside universe. Start with a caper, introduce a cookie-cutter villain, then spend the next few days going from one exotic locale to the next, blowing everything up in the process. In this installment, we find the old gods, who are coming back and are angry, and then spend the rest of the book fearing their wrath. Our heroes never really have time to catch their breath, and Bennett is deliberate with the chaos. ...

2025 Re-review Sometimes, a fragment of a book stays with you - like a song you can’t get out of your head. That’s what has happened with Sanderson’s first ideal. The ideal itself is pure Sanderson: cliche, optimistic, noble. But the structure works. Plug in some different ideals, and the grammar has worked as a prayer ever since. “Life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination.” * 2020 Review: 21st book of 2020. ...

7th book of 2020. A story about a boy who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else (check), who grew up with a traveling troop of nomads (carnival?), was homeless before eventually ending up at university while scraping pennies together studying magic (code?). So I guess this is the fantasy drama version of my life from 16-20.

2nd book of 2020 When I was a kid, the X-Wing series was perfect for my imagination. After devouring a few of the books, I could spend entire evenings just imagining an X-Wing dogfight in my mind. I was curious what a new-generation X-Wing series would look like. The book was fine, and I was amused at how much time the author spends focused on bureaucratic wrangling, and leadership posturing within the team. I’m not complaining, this is my jam. Yet no detail or character was memorable enough for me to recall 6 months on. I’ll pass on the sequel.

59th book of 2019. I liked the two main characters Iad and Tane, didn’t really like the secondary characters, and didn’t like the plot. Throughout the entire book, the plot felt like special effects with the wrong lighting and color. The rules of the magic seemed arbitrary, the politics of the kingdom felt simplified, and the religious reconciliations played out in a wish-fulfillment scenario of world peace. Maybe it just felt like things tied up too neatly in the end, and maybe I’m just too used to fantasy like George RR Martin such that other things start to feel fake.

54th book of 2019 – I enjoyed it. It felt like a sci-fi version of bureaucratic fiction (i.e. 驻京办主任) where the grinding gears of tradition and succession are as much an element of the plot as the living characters. Moreover, it captures the feeling of being a foreigner, and to quote another review: “This is for all those who have ever fallen in love with a culture that was not their own.” ...

A great American novel I missed when too busy reading Dragonlance growing up, now it’s time to catch up. For the first 2/3 of the book, I wasn’t sure what made this book special, as the plot, characters, and setting all felt mundane. I can see, however, why teachers and parents would recommend it as a must read for American students, as this felt like me the sort of story that affluent parents would want to tell themselves and convince their kids about their own interactions with children and society. ...

A book more of ideas than plot, I liked the premise and enjoyed Le Guin’s curious explorations of gender (akin to Ancillary Mercy) rather than exhibitionist sexual deviance that seems to be common in modern Sci-Fi (Too Like The Lightning, Raven Stratagem).