I’ve read a lot of good books this year, but I feel confident that Her Body and Other Parties will be my favourite read of 2018. Carmen Maria Machado’s collection of short stories is nothing short of perfection, and brings everything I was looking for in a year of reading mostly feminist, female-identified, and woman-positive fiction writers. Every story in this collection is deliciously good, though, like many, my personal favourites are “The Husband Stitch,” “Real Women Have Bodies,” and “Eight Bites.” My least favourite was “Especially Heinous” but only because […]
Speculative extremes of women’s futures clearly demonstrate how everyone loses when inequality wins
I’m reviewing these two books together because despite their opposite takes on speculative futures, they use similar storytelling techniques to describe how women’s lives might be different in both the near, and far future. Naomi Alderman’s The Power imagines a future where women develop an ability to physically harm others with electric shocks. Due to the release and dispersion of an environmental hazard, women begin to develop a “skein” within their bodies which allows them to physically overpower people (men) with a jolt of energy. The strength of […]
“I can wait for the galaxy outside to get a little kinder.” (CBR10Bingo)
Science Fiction is one of the genres that grew on me over time. I find myself drawn more to the space-based versions, books like the Red Rising trilogy, The Martian, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Sparrow, and Children of God have been favorites over the years. There’s something about the exploration and survival stories that are part of the genre that work for me. I became particularly interested in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet when I heard it described as a […]
All Empires Fall, Eventually
This was a CBR Book Exchange book from a few years ago, thank you Mrs. Smith. I lent it to my father, who lent it to a friend, and then when I got it back it shuffled to the bottom of my tbr pile. That eye stares at me accusingly. I decided to start it last night hoping I would finish in time to write a review for bingo. Um. Less than 24 hours later, I’m finished and writing the review. The review may take […]
Your Pinky Swear Sits on a Throne Of Lies
Last year I listened to Wil Wheaton narrate John Scalzi’s Lock In. Later in the year, angry dimples told me that Amber Benson had also narrated Lock In and that her narration was very good. I listened to it and agreed. As much as I enjoyed the Wil Wheaton narration, I liked Benson’s even better. And then we found out that both Wheaton and Benson were narrating versions of Scalzi’s follow up novel, Head On. We agreed, Benson first, Wheaton later. I enjoyed Head On quite a […]
Oxford Temporal Historians At It Again
I really wanted to title this review “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego”. Not for any correlations to the bible story in To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis. Because the characters reminded me of former high school classmates of mine who received those nicknames our freshman year of high school from a very cranky history teacher. Much of the struggles of Ned, Terrence, and Cyril through the early portions of the book reminded me […]