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Xotl posted:I regret that I'm getting this one too late to participate, but I did order it just because of the good word I've seen here. Best of luck on your career, Seth. The thread won't close. Discussion on books of the month can always continue.
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Oct 24, 2015 06:01
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General Battuta posted:Ah, the month is almost over! I'll never be this famous again! The last one has to be some form of soft inheritance/Lamarckism, right? I enjoyed that most of the Masquerade's atrocities were justified or driven by bad science rather than religion. It felt fresher than the usual fantasy take on things, and very 1984. I'm terrible at catching hidden storylines like the others on a first read, though. I guess it's something to look forward to on a reread, ideally when the sequel comes out  E: I thought of a question I had about the worldbuilding. Would Baru's mother think of her as a lesbian? Or, if that's unclear: was sexuality perceived in terms of identity on Taranoke before Falcrest's colonization? UnbearablyBlight fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Oct 24, 2015 |
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Oct 24, 2015 17:47
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Nah, they didn't have those constructs. I'm sure people would have socially recognized tastes, but it'd be more like 'I like vanilla ice cream' than 'I am a vanilla-eater'.
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Oct 24, 2015 19:00
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I've been debating all month if I wanted to feel some literary despair and finally decided, hell the gently caress yes and bought the book. Two chapters in and boy howdy, I am pretty sure I made the right call. Good poo poo, Battuta. I'm looking forward to this one, even if I'm also a bit late for the BOTM thread.
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Oct 27, 2015 04:23
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Its only available to order on Amazon but I think "Voices from Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexievich would be good. It's interesting, relevant, short, and she did just win the Nobel Prize. OK that will go in the poll but I need more suggestions than just that
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Oct 28, 2015 00:29
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:OK that will go in the poll but I need more suggestions than just that Should probably make a thread, I doubt most of the forum checks this thread if they aren't interested in the book
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Oct 28, 2015 00:58
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I'll nominate A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James since it won the Man Booker prize this month. It's a Jamaican novel about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley.
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Oct 28, 2015 01:41
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Crashbee posted:I'll nominate A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James since it won the Man Booker prize this month. It's a Jamaican novel about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley. Only about the first 200 pages actually. It's very good but it's a monster
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Oct 28, 2015 01:43
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Crashbee posted:About two-thirds through and I'm not really following Baru's motivation. Why is she leading this rebellion again? I don't see how it helps liberate her homeland. Yeah, I got a bit lost around that point and thought the rebel-leader part was the least interesting section of the book. I did suspect what she was up to, but since I wasn't sure I kept questioning her motivation. I did think her constant "I have everything planned out, oh wait a thing I didn't plan for is happening, oh well I solved it!" cycle got a bit grating towards the end too, but overall I liked the book and look forward to a sequel.
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Oct 28, 2015 11:06
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Darkrenown posted:Yeah, I got a bit lost around that point and thought the rebel-leader part was the least interesting section of the book. I did suspect what she was up to, but since I wasn't sure I kept questioning her motivation. I did think her constant "I have everything planned out, oh wait a thing I didn't plan for is happening, oh well I solved it!" cycle got a bit grating towards the end too, but overall I liked the book and look forward to a sequel. I was actually expecting it to turn out she'd been brainwashed into giving away the rebellion's plans without realising it, making her a traitor to herself.
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Oct 28, 2015 11:21
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Loved this. Beautifully written, there were passages that I re-read multiple times because they were just so well-composed. Also laughed out loud for real at the fencing response bit.
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Oct 29, 2015 15:13
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Just wanted to say i really enjoyed this book. Right after i finshed it i bought one for my cousins birthday and reccomended it to my mom 
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Oct 31, 2015 14:08
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I saw the title of this book and thought to myself 'That's a really cool title', so I clicked on this thread, read a few posts, and got the book. I devoured it over the course of a few days. I loved it. Everything from the prose to the characters to the setting. I've not read a book this fast since I first read Glen Cook's Black Company, nor have enjoyed it this much. I saw people saying it's soul crushing and depressing, but I didn't really feel that. Until the end of course. It made perfect sense but I didn't see it coming at all. Another reason why I want to reread this as soon as possible. Great, fantastic book. Please write more.
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Oct 31, 2015 14:48
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Impaired Casing posted:I saw people saying it's soul crushing and depressing, but I didn't really feel that. Until the end of course. It made perfect sense but I didn't see it coming at all. Another reason why I want to reread this as soon as possible. Haha, I was about to ask! I was ... admittedly caught off guard a bit by her being a traitor twice over. I mean, she said right at the start of the book, and the start of her tenure, where her loyalties lay, and yet! It's the loving title! And yet. I was so willing to buy in. Goddamn, that ending. Part of me is a bit frustrated over more tragic lesbians, oh boy, never enough of those I guess but I get why it happened that way and I did really enjoy the book. There's some really lovely prose in here. I'm looking forward to the next one for sure. Edit: Silly question, is there an 'official' pronunciation for the character names? "Lyxaxu" in particular kept varying wildly in how I thought that sounded. Also, think I missed it, but how long has the Masquerade been around as a political force/empire? A Tin Of Beans fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 17:20
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A Tin Of Beans posted:Haha, I was about to ask! I was ... admittedly caught off guard a bit by her being a traitor twice over. I mean, she said right at the start of the book, and the start of her tenure, where her loyalties lay, and yet! It's the loving title! And yet. I was so willing to buy in. Goddamn, that ending. Part of me is a bit frustrated over more tragic lesbians, oh boy, never enough of those I guess but I get why it happened that way and I did really enjoy the book. There's some really lovely prose in here. I'm looking forward to the next one for sure. I imagined Lyxaxu being pronounced as someone angrily starting to call you a liar and then sneezing in the middle of the word. Also, while I get the criticism of tragic lesbian stories on a cultural level, I don't think it holds much water on an individual one. Especially this one, where the tragic outcome was character-driven, rather than an inevitable result of their sexuality (I know that's basically what you said). E. Actually, I'm going to go on about that because I think it was quite well done. Even in an intensely homophobic society, Baru had the option to carve out a life for herself with Tain Hu. Things ended tragically because she steamrolled over her chances to be happy, or because she wouldn't have been happy with that life anyway, not because the chances weren't there. It worked for me because I never felt like tragedy was the only option for Baru, and her character was flawed in such a way that her story ending up tragic for her anyway made sense. Also there's a sequel planned, and who knows what might happen there. UnbearablyBlight fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 18:08
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Esme posted:I imagined Lyxaxu being pronounced as someone angrily starting to call you a liar and then sneezing in the middle of the word. Wasn't the point of the ending the fact that she could only live with Tain if she accepted that her relationship would be used to blackmail and manipulate her for the rest of her life? Doesn't sound like much of an option to me. Crashbee fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Oct 31, 2015 |
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Oct 31, 2015 19:02
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Esme posted:I imagined Lyxaxu being pronounced as someone angrily starting to call you a liar and then sneezing in the middle of the word. Oh, yeah, totally agreed. I mean, she's been fed the narrative her whole life - it's a choice she made because of her own flaws, a huge number of which were foisted on her by the schooling she received and society she's been raised in since the Masquerade came to Taranoke. So tragic lesbians makes sense in the context of the story at hand, and I think it's a valid commentary on that. Her choice is flawed, and like Crashbee says, it would have been held over her head the entire time as blackmail. Baru is an incredibly goal-oriented character with a real skill for self-denial. Like, she was never really looking out for the dukes of Aurdwynn. She was always looking for her own power, and for Taranoke after that - even with the chances open to her to do things differently, I don't she ever saw those as valid options. She tried sending Tain Hu away, at least, but that didn't work. If she'd taken those other routes she wouldn't have been able to go to Falcrest/work her way into the cabal behind the Throne; or she would have, but would have had a knife over her head all the while ... I get what led her to her choices, mostly, sort of. I don't necessarily agree with those choices but it made sense. Tain Hu's death makes an awful sense. And man, Baru's scary. I'm still bummed about it, though! I can accept it logically and still, as a gay woman myself, be frustrated, you dig? These are the stories I get all the time, too! Two women get together, but whoops, it's gonna end in tragedy. I think I'm displeased on a broad level, and not at the specific story. Just because it's a good story, just because it makes sense, doesn't mean it's not also still part of that broader context.
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Oct 31, 2015 20:04
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Crashbee posted:Wasn't the point of the ending the fact that she could only live with Tain if she accepted that her relationship would be used to blackmail and manipulate her for the rest of her life? Doesn't sound like much of an option to me. There were points before that where things could have gone differently, she just would have had to change a lot of her goals and priorities. See the part I bolded here: A Tin Of Beans posted:Like, she was never really looking out for the dukes of Aurdwynn. She was always looking for her own power, and for Taranoke after that - even with the chances open to her to do things differently, I don't she ever saw those as valid options. She tried sending Tain Hu away, at least, but that didn't work. If she'd taken those other routes she wouldn't have been able to go to Falcrest/work her way into the cabal behind the Throne; or she would have, but would have had a knife over her head all the while ... I get what led her to her choices, mostly, sort of. I don't necessarily agree with those choices but it made sense. Tain Hu's death makes an awful sense. And man, Baru's scary. A Tin Of Beans posted:I'm still bummed about it, though! I can accept it logically and still, as a gay woman myself, be frustrated, you dig? These are the stories I get all the time, too! Two women get together, but whoops, it's gonna end in tragedy. I think I'm displeased on a broad level, and not at the specific story. Just because it's a good story, just because it makes sense, doesn't mean it's not also still part of that broader context. To this point, sure, I agree with you. I just tend to have a kneejerk reaction against that reaction, because so often I see it used to condemn a story on sight. Which isn't what you did at all!
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Oct 31, 2015 22:19
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Super good posts. I don't know if I'm overstepping here in deploying Authorial Intent: I hope not. but I see the tragic queer narrative as the final boss of the story - the last cultural script Baru must confront. The whole novel is a series of stock fantasy narratives (colonizers arrive; feudal Game of Thrones power struggle; tragic queers; each one usually written from the perspective of the colonizer, the feudal lord, the straight person) into which Baru is deployed to claim power, subvert the story, and take over. It's a reaction to the argument that there are certain stories in which you couldn't write a queer woman of color as a protagonist because she'd be too oppressed to have agency - Baru is always able to find a way to claim agency and act as a driving protagonist, it just comes at increasing personal cost, because the forces she's fighting against wouldn't be worthy opponents unless they could inflict punishment on those who defy. The Masquerade uses a conditioning game on its prisoners: provide hope, take it away, repeat, until the prisoner falls into a state of learned helplessness, conditioned to believe that a happy ending is impossible. The Masquerade tries to use this same game on Baru, teaching her that queer relationships always end in tragedy, forcing her to reenact the dissolution of her family. Baru constantly 'solves' the Masquerade's challenges by both enacting and subverting them - is she supporting them, or fighting them? Where's the line? Is Tain Hu's death a transformative moment of hope, or a final surrender? And the book itself is structured to perform the same conditioning game on the reader. Do you see the ending as a continuation of the cycle, or an end to it? Do you walk away with a sense of hope, or profound despair? Has the Masquerade convinced you that its logic is total and inescapable? Do you believe that Baru can ever retire happily with a wife and a legacy she's proud of? Or does she finally love Big Brother? I think it's important to note that the final act is almost wholly driven by Tain Hu. We don't know how she was captured. Is it possible that she turned herself in so that she could get back to Baru and fulfill her vows both to the Fairer Hand and to Vultjag? Yeah, definitely, even if the text doesn't outright confirm or deny it. But either way, Tain Hu was able to learn from and deploy Baru's own skills in manipulating information to force Baru's hand. Through her conversations with Apparitor, she made herself the Throne's primary control over Baru, and then she put herself in a position so that Baru could remove that control. She also got it on record that Baru was lesbian, so Baru no longer has to conceal this fact from the rest of the Throne, hopefully giving her a chance to move forward into more open emotional space. As a reader of (my own) text, I'm embarrassed to admit I'm a little moved by Tain Hu's resolve and dedication. I do wish that I had more explicitly highlighted the happy queer relationships in the book, like Tain Hu's friendships with her other lovers. At the time I wrote it I felt that Baru would subconsciously deny recognition of these relationships as part of her own psychological self-defense. It was very hard to try to illustrate Baru's character with this kind of negative space, using things she didn't see as information. I hope I managed to show that the tragic queer story is a story enforced by Masquerade power, a story vulnerable to subversion and defiance, not a story intrinsic to the logic of the world itself. 
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Nov 1, 2015 06:46
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I had no idea what was happening going in to this book, and i was extremely wary after page 2 indicated the main character had two dads. I blind-suggested it for my monthly book group, and thought I was going to eat poo poo after 2 pages. That said, what an excellent portrayal and use of sexuality. I've never read a book before that utilized it so well - it's usually a gimmick to sell a sex scene or a complete bluster; in this it was a major plot point, but tasteful. I spent 50 pages waiting for Baru to gently caress Tain Hu, and then still loving cried over her sending her away. And then completely understood her being killed. What a brutal loving world they live in. Made me want to read 10 more. Great book, Battuta. My book club meets next week - I hope you'll answer our questions!
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Nov 15, 2015 00:50
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Loutre posted:i was extremely wary after page 2 indicated the main character had two dads.
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Nov 15, 2015 02:06
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SJWs, am i rite????
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Nov 15, 2015 06:52
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A human heart posted:Why would that make you wary? Two dads and a mom to be exact. I thought I was getting into either another YA novel or a tumblr thought piece. Nothing wrong at all after I got into it - just something like that being front and center page one or two worried me. I want hardcore accounting action, not a big political message. And I've been burned in this book club - our last book had a 30 page treatise on furries that scarred me forever.
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Nov 15, 2015 08:10
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Back to the book, I think Muire Lo was a real tragedy. Nothing Xate Yawa did said she deserved ascension, so I hope she doesn't get it in the next book, although I fully expect her to get it and become adversarial with Baru.
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Nov 15, 2015 09:31
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Loutre posted:And I've been burned in this book club - our last book had a 30 page treatise on furries that scarred me forever. Uh which book was this exactly?
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Nov 15, 2015 11:30
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ah, the fabled lost chapter of Wilkie Collins' 'Moonstone'...
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Nov 15, 2015 12:34
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Hedrigall posted:Uh which book was this exactly? Fables of the Bear by John Sayne, a local author. Good luck finding a copy, I'm almost positive he self published it for thousands of dollars.
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Nov 15, 2015 14:28
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I'm glad you can't patch books, I'd be tweaking sentences left and right! Last month I put out another installment of this mod I work on (for the old game FreeSpace 2), and while the ability to go back and rework systems you're not satisfied with is great, I think it's a much better idea for games than books.
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Nov 18, 2015 22:44
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This book is really drat good. As for the buried plotlines you were asking about, batutta, I'll need to reread because I kept saying to myself: "Huh, that's an interesting detail. I bet that character is known to me or I should catch that reference or something. Oh well, on with the important scheming!". Because the forward momentum of the book just kept me wanting to keep reading, I never stopped to really think about it. Saw the hooks, but ignored them because Baru did.  E: I think kj Parker's engineer series is the best comparison, but I liked this far more. Baru's schemes make much more sense than whatsisname's, and the characters are better written. Ravenfood fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Dec 3, 2015 |
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Dec 3, 2015 22:25
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Picked this up today based on all the goon recommendations I've been seeing. Have not cracked it yet, but look forward to curling up in bed tonight and giving it a read (and apparently getting really depressed)
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Dec 21, 2015 23:03
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All right, fine, I'll buy the drat thing if that's what you all want. Jeez. "best nihilistic genre fiction since Blindsight" was enough for me.
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Dec 22, 2015 17:38
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General Battuta, your book is loving uncomfortable to read and I can't put it down 
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Dec 24, 2015 22:17
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WarLocke posted:General Battuta, your book is loving uncomfortable to read and I can't put it down We just found another advertising blurb!
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Dec 25, 2015 00:35
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GreyjoyBastard posted:We just found another advertising blurb! I somehow doubt that language is acceptable for a jacket blurb, but it's totally true. I was up until the wee morning hours on Christmas Day finishing it. That ending was brutal, holy poo poo. There had better be more planned for Baru in the future because to have done all that and end there would be the worst of all options.
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Dec 26, 2015 20:14
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Had just bought some China mieville and saw this thread. Instead of reading what I bought I checked out two free chapters and was hooked. Bought it off Google play and read it in two days. Great book. I love this strange horrible world and it's many secrets. Looking forward to reading more of the same! (same but different I hope) The clarified were when I went "they did what, holy poo poo how will anyone ever stop them if they can do this?" Kinda hoping you introduce some supernatural bits from past the mother of storms. Because how else do you challenge an empire that builds slave golems from babies? Also general battuta your questions on the last page were interesting. I'll have to consider them later. Too bad nobody has really responded to them.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:34
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I finished this yesterday and thought myself clever for guessing before the ending that Baru had not yet committed enough treason to be the Traitor, and that there was only one prize left to deliver. But i missed every one of those posed questions entirely so... good job hiding things in her blind spots, i suppose. The other character i was reminded of at the end was Zakalwe; that almost-perfect ruthlessness, with one tiny flaw of humanity that keeps them just barely above total sociopathy. But where that was about the use of weapons, this seems to be the forging of them. So if you want 'some random nerd on the internet made an offhand comparison to Banks' for a dust jacket, i suppose there you go. Anyway, it was a fascinating read, even if i am somewhat unable to quite describe my reaction as "enjoyment". Has your corporate overlord delivered a schedule for the mythical Next Book you can share, and in it, will our newly minted Agonist be prot- or ant-?
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Jan 8, 2016 02:07
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Ceebees posted:I finished this yesterday and thought myself clever for guessing before the ending that Baru had not yet committed enough treason to be the Traitor, and that there was only one prize left to deliver. But i missed every one of those posed questions entirely so... good job hiding things in her blind spots, i suppose. Any comparison to Use of Weapons is a good comparison! I'll get Tor to put you right on the cover I'm glad you liked it! I am still working on the second book and hope to have it out in fall 2017.
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Jan 11, 2016 02:03
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But that is two years from now 
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Jan 11, 2016 02:52
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Affi posted:But that is two years from now It was supposed to be out this next fall but after crunching really hard working on Destiny I got super depressed and that set me back about a year I've thrown about 300,000 words on this second book, which is more than twice the length of the first one! Fortunately this latest draft seems to be sticking...
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Jan 11, 2016 03:07
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We're only bummed because your first book was amazeballs. Don't try to rush the next and burn yourself out man. We'll deal with waiting. (  )
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Jan 11, 2016 03:15
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