#books2023 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #books2023, aggregated by home.social.
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Am new to Adult ( and YA) Romance books - only started reading them last year,but I highly recommend :
The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1) by Erin Sterling
And the sequel :
The Kiss Curse
(Ex Hex #2) by Erin SterlingAll the characters are whole ass people who feel like they exist outside the confines of the story.
Their reactions , interactions and motivations make sense
The world building is subtle yet intriguing
The writing is really good !
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"I’m not a seer, I watch. I name the patterns that anyone could see, if they also watched.” She lifted her cross out from under her dress and weighed it, then lifted it off and held it in both hands. “I was baptised in Christ. But who is Christ? Who is Woden, or Eorðe? They are all parts of the pattern. The pattern is in everything. We are all part of it. We make the pattern; the pattern makes us."
The Earthseed vibes again!
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2023: book sixty-two. #bookstodon #books #jamesjoyce #ulysses #books2023 #2023books
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2023: book fifty-nine. #books2023 #2023books #books #kindle #bookstodon #johnlangan #thefisherman
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Having finished The Invisible Library: The Untold Story mere moments ago, going to savour the bittersweetness of the end of a most excellent series and dive into Scarlet (also by Genevieve Cogman) sometime in early 2024.
This book hangover will be a doozy but worth it.
I do so love the journey of having read a great book!
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Just finished The Invisible Library: The Untold Story By Genevieve Cogman
Sad the series is over - but for me that was Perfection.
#books
#Books2023
#Books2023FD
https://dice.camp/@Faintdreams/111597952734208446 -
Book 16 (?) prob last 2023 read for me of 2023
The Invisible Library: The Untold Story
By Genevieve CogmanEighth - final - novel in the most excellent series
Enjoying it so much but reading it is bittersweet. Want to finish it but then the series will be ended 😞
Wholehearted recommendation to all modern fantasy fans
Was happy/sad reading penultimate book, even more so with this final one
Gonna be so sad to finish the final book.
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Still thinking about "Hild" and how it's not Speculative Fiction as such - it doesn't really have any magic, so it's not Fantasy, and there are no Science Fiction elements like medieval aliens or something - but benefits a lot from what @Bluejo calls* "SF reading protocols".
Namely, the ability to cope well with being immersed in a strange world and alien culture, with vocabulary one doesn't know, piecing together stuff from tiny clues.
I 💙 that.
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And even though Hild likes some masculine-coded things like fighting and going out to hunt bandits, she also weaves and churns butter and spins; in fact, some of the most beautiful and striking passages of the book celebrate feminine-coded crafts, actions and friendships. Hild is complex, she contains multitudes, as does everyone.
Read this: it's beautiful, messy and awesome. Some graphic violence though, and death children, so that might be something to brace for.
(5/n, n=5)
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... we're immersed in this world, which includes using a lot of Old English, Welsh, Norse, and Latin words; we get included to the complex politics and warfare, as Hild herself learns to navigate this world. This is masterfully done, and feels like stepping into a living, breathing world.
Which would be awesome enough, but there also are complex and fascinating characters: not just Hild herself, but also her friend Begu, her brother - even minor characters have depth.
(4/n)
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Now this could be hackneyed stuff, like "the mists of Avalon" or "pope Joan", misogynistic either because it plays on "female magic" or because it emphasizes that only tomboyish girls are awesome. But even though some of the tropes are there, Griffiths masterfully avoids these traps.
Instead, we get WORLDBUILDING - both in the literal (there's a new, Christian Britain in the making here) and the SFnal (an unknown world is filled with rich depths) sense. From page 1,...
(3/n)
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A kid who's also said to be a seer - if there really are supernatural powers involved or Hild and her mother are just good at reading the signs, people, and the room, is open to interpretation.
As a royal child whose father died in battle, Hild and her family find a precarious home with king Edwin, traveling a lot, being involved in fights and wars, getting baptized - all in a checkered early medieval Britain full of different ethnicities and languages.
(2/n)
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So*, Nicola Griffith's "Hild". Historical fiction about a historical figure: Hild, or Hilda of Whitby, a seventh century British niece of a king and later abbess.
Not much about her early life and personality is known, and Griffiths fills in these blanks by making her a perceptive, highly intelligent, gender-nonconforming kid.
*Seamus Heaney translates "Beowulf'"s opening "hwæt" as "so", so it's appropriate here, considering the very similar timeframe...
(1/n)
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What a ride. What an ending (I didn't believe Griffiths would go there!).
I want to read the sequel RIGHT NOW, but there's also the new Murderbot coming out next week and I should find another nonbinary author...
The struggle is real 🫣
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Wondering about Hild's gender identity. She's assigned female, and lives mostly as such, but not completely - going out to fight, learning swordplay, wearing a masculine hairstyle. This feels at least gender-nonconforming, maybe even genderqueer. Others see her like that to: not a woman, as such. She's described as a freemartin* several times, which suggests being intersex. All in all, it feels non-binary.
*per the glossary: "female calf masculinised in the womb by male twin"
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CW: Pregnancy, preeclampsia, death in fiction
Ok, that scene was... too soon, too close.
That feels like it could have been me, without medication, without a fast way to get the baby out if necessary.
*strokes sleeping K3 gently*
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"“Oh. No. That’s a letter. A message. Words from someone far away.” Gode nodded. “Magic.”"
Any sufficiently advanced technology, eh.
(It's interesting how we don't usually think of poetry, writing apart from the printing press, and storytelling as "technology", but they are: data storage tech.)
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Book 15 (?) of 2023
The Invisible Library: The Dark Archive
By Genevieve CogmanSeventh novel in the (so far) eight book Invisible Library series
Again - I don't know how these books started off so good and *just keep getting better*.
Wholehearted recommendation to all avid readers.
Author acknowledgements: "If you enjoyed this book then I'm glad. Thank you for letting me tell you a story."
Gonna be so sad to finish the final book
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This bit
"While everything rearranged itself around them, turning them momentarily into a private island, he tapped his ring on the arm of his chair. Hild wondered how that ring might feel. All that power."
is from a historical novel, but damn can you read it as science fictional of you want to. Could be a medieval hall, could be a space station. And now I'm imagining them both, superimposed.
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At least here, one doesn't need to wonder whether Hild's story is a Hero's Journey. It isn't, of course. And why should it be? Beowulf's isn't, either.
I like the back-and-forth (warp-and-weft?) feel of it: people leave and turn up again, skills are learned and refined upon much later, there are long games played; there is growth, there may be a wyrd, even, but there's no clear path.
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I find the concept of a gemæcce very new and interesting. It's a bit like a court-appointed BFF: you live together, work together, travel together, attend to each other; a life-mate, a companion, though in a platonic way. And even if it's a formal relationship, yours isn't just chosen for you; you get a say in it.
Nice. It feels like a formalization of female friendships. Something like that should totally exist, with legal rights.
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Ok, this feels random, but... Hild reminds me a lot of Lauren Olamina from "Parable of the Sower".
Hear me out: they're both tall and can pass for male, they live in fallen worlds after the apocalypse, both on a global and a personal level; they have dead fathers and absent siblings; they have a vision and are prepared to spread it without being religious in a formal way; they have a lot of both practical knowledge and book learning... They feel like the same archetype.
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"He had no idea how difficult it was to read. To read in another tongue. To turn that tongue into Anglisc."
Yes, as the person who can translate Latin into German but not into other languages directly because that just makes my brain hurt with language confusion - I feel that. And it must be extra hard to learn to read in Latin using a Psalter.
(I've never thought about this - how did kids learn to read in the seventh century?)
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"women who had woven and spun and carded together for years, through first blood and marriage and babies, who had minded each other’s crawling toddlers and bound each other’s scraped youngsters, and wept as each other’s sons and daughters died of the lung wet, or at hunt, or giving birth to their own children—all while they spun, and carded and wove"
What a powerful image, showing the beauty and sadness of human life, of women's work.
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CW: Miscarriage, abortion in fiction discussed
All these historical novels make it sound as if inducing a miscarriage/aborting a baby is pretty easy given the right herbs. I wonder if that's actually true. Are there this reliable abortifacients? They could be easily used as contraception too, which makes me think that both the availability and reliability are somewhat exaggerated in those books.
(Also, that poor woman 😔)
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Also, read, enjoyed and seemingly forgotten! 5 more books so current 2023 total stands at 14!
i - The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1) by Erin Sterling
ii- The Kiss Curse
(Ex Hex #2) by Erin Sterlingiii - Castle Waiting, Vol. 2 by
Linda Medleyiv - The Worrier's Guide to Life by Gemma Correll
v- The Firmament of Flame (The Universe After #3) by Drew Williams
Not too shabby considering there have been only 1 'meh' and 1 'blurgh' in entire list. Quality not quantity
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2023 Book round-up
9 - The End of All Things: J Scalzi
8 - Monstress: Book 1 (inc issues 1-18 of ongoing comic)
7 - Living With The Dead by Kelly Armstrong
6 - The Human Division: J Scalzi
5 - Saga graphic Novel Vol 11 (issues 55 -60)
4 - The Secret Chapter: Genevieve Cogman
3- 'The Dispatcher: Murder By Other Means'. (sequel) Audiobook; J Scalzi
2- 'The Dispatcher' Audiobook; John Scalzi
1- "The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V & Filipe Andrade -
Book 8 of 2023: Monstress: Book One (includes issues 1-18 of ongoing comic)
Book 9 of 2023: The End Of All Things, the last book in the main book series of Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Monstress was brain meltingly good but sometimes hard to read (visually maximalist)
The End of All Things was a beautifully crafted ending to a massively scoped series
Would recommend both, warning that both have violent content
Glad I got over my prev (nasty) 'book hangover'
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Just finished The End Of All Things, the last book in the main book series: Old Man's War by John Scalzi.
So good.
So very brilliant.
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Book 7 (?) August 10th 2023
Finished another book - deeply unsatisfying
Living With The Dead by Kelly Armstrong
Part of Otherworld Women series (Urban Modern Fantasy). Have read all prev books in (13 14?) series, this was the first one that I actively disliked.
Partly it was large ensemble of main characters each chapter is a diff char viewpoint - there's a total of seven (?) characters. To many! Also intense icky adult themes with no advanced warning.
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Random "Earthseed" thought:
Structurally, it's really similar to the rise of early Christianity, isn't it? We get a very detailed account of the beginnings of the movement, of the founder's youth and travels and disciple-finding.
Then comes persecution, and we start to get other sources than just the original teachings, especially from critics and enemies. The movement spreads by conversionsof high-profile folks and the broad population.
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"I thought there was something wrong with me. But I was just not human the whole time! And you’d think I’d be happy to find out what I am but … I always thought I was human! And it’s not like I don’t want to be what I am, because that’s just pointless, but I’d rather be what I am with Maman and Mom and Nana. And, I mean, why can’t I be both?” he asks at one point.
And in the end, he gets to be both. A remarkable difference to the mythological standard.
(4/n, n=4)
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He asserts his humanity, even gets a committee to agree on it. He stays in contact with the family who took him in - and they come through for him, are there for him, make clear they /are/ his family in every way that counts. I love that.
But he doesn't reject the new identity either. He doesn't ignore the facts, he learns about his kind - not from the propaganda, but from someone he comes to trust.
And in the end, he forms a new identity.
(3/n)
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But that's being broken up, "queered", if you like, in different and interesting ways. First, he learns that him being a Schan isn't true, but that he's even more powerful in fact - not a leader of some rather obscure ethnic group, but part of a group with great abilities and influence.
But instead of accepting that, letting his impulses (who, as he now learnd, are not defects, but "normal" for his kind) run free, and claiming that identity, he... doesn't.
(2/n)
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So, Reet's arc in @ann_leckie's "Translation State". I've noticed before that it starts as a mythological classic: foundling's a loner, has unusual traits, learns that he's special: a lost leader, a person with great abilities. Think Moses, or Luke Skywalker for good measure.
Him being introduced to the Siblings of Hikipu and learning they think he's a Schan certainly fits this pattern more than well, and he likes it, too.
(1/n)
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One detail I really like is Reet's parents (who belong to an ethnic minority) teaching him how to deal with the authorities, police and court system; how not to talk to them and what to do.
Realistic.
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We get thoughts on identity and the right to assert one's, how one's not necessarily determined by one's assigned place, role, gender, and heritage but can choose what to be if one is accomodated somewhat.
We also get a courtroom drama with added space-time twisting, which certainly is a new one.
It's a great and mostly enjoyable read, which at times reminded me of @ArkadyMartine's Teixcalaan duology. Reet's (hero's?) journey I'll write more about 🙂
(4/n, n=4)
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We're on the Radch fringes: our protagonists learn about Radchaai culture and language, but have introduced new pronouns in it, disliking the general "she/her"; we meet arrogant Radchaai (and Sphene!), but we're in a different space and that's an interesting addition.
Even more interesting, strange, and disturbing is the insight into the Presger translators - we knew them to be weird, but are now seeing the extend of that weirdness - hard to take at times.
(3/n)
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... the Siblings of Hikipu offer him a possible heritage and leading role. But his ancestry turns out to be even more strange and disturbing than he thought.
Qven is a juvenile who'll become a Presger translator. We get to see eir violent and disturbing childhood, eir training, and the traumatic even leading to em wanting to escape and declare emself to be a human.
These three stories turn out to be related, and all three of them end up in a court meeting.
(2/n)
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So, @ann_leckie's "Translation State", set about ten years after the events of "Ancillary Mercy" on the fringes of the Radch.
The standalone novel weaves three characters' stories together.
Enae's on a mission to find out where a Presger translator vanished to 200 years ago - a mission more designed to get hir out of the new family head's way than expected to succeed.
Reet has unusual genetics, strange urges, and was a foundling, so he's intrigued when...
(1/n)
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So, what to make of the claim that the Presger are a Radchaai invention? The Siblings of Hikipu certainly sound like conspiracy theorists over it, but that doesn't mean it can't be true.
But it doesn't seem to serve the Radchaai that much, and that spacetime topology twisting sure doesn't seem like Radchaai technology.