Some Books I Loved

 **A thought-provoking magical realism backdrop, but in the end just the story of one woman's life** This the first novel I've read by Cecelia Ahern, more notable for her romance novels such as "PS, I Love You".  Amusingly, it seems like it got mixed reviews from her fans, probably because it's not a romance novel at all.  Rather, it's a character study, the story of one woman's life, and it feels deep and real and honest in a fascinating way The twist, as it were, is that our main character Alice can sense the emotions of others.  Some of the characters in-novel refer to it as synesthesia, although she herself dismisses that as a vast understatement.  You can read this book as a metaphor, or as magical realism, or as a frikkin' superpower (I'm tagging this book "Superhero" and you all can't stop me, it's my blog, if you don't like it start your own).  But the point is, this is the story of a woman who has no choice but to fee...

 **Simply put, some of the best children's fantasy out there.  And with an all-time great main character** Long before "Shrek" came along, Patricia C. Wrede's fantastic (and funny) Enchanted Forest chronicles was playfully mocking the tropes of Western fairytales--while simultaneously being a fantastic story of magic and adventure Amusingly, even fans that grew up with the series might not realize that Book 4 "Talking to Dragons" was actually the first  book written, published a solid 5 years before "Dealing with Dragons", the first book in chronology and now considered the first book of the series Apparently, Jane Yolen (I don't know if you all know her name, but in addition to being a very well-respected editor, to me she'll always be the author of the truly fantastic "Commander Toad" series of children's books) wanted a short fantasy story.  She told Wrede, "well, what about the mother character in 'Talking to Drag...

 **A legendary group of badass female space bandits, scattered across the galaxy after a job gone wrong, is reunited for one last ride.  And gore.  And cyberpunk.  And so much gore.  God, I love Cassandra Khaw** Ok but for real, I love Cassandra Khaw.  I will read anything they write.  But I will also readily admit that they are . . . not for everyone.  Because what Cassandra Khaw loves more than anything else (and for which they have a true and delightful talent) is a mix of fantastically beautiful prose and visceral gore and horror.  It's kind of amazing.  Here, from "The Salt Grows Heavy": The girl inhales to screech, one hitching breath. I bury its denouement in the cellar of my throat, mouth locking over her windpipe, her spine. Her vertebrae break with the crisp, dewed noise of an apple’s skin when it is first pierced. She crumples, I follow her down, palm molded to her skull, taking only as much as I need, just a thimble of cider-...

**In which a generation of female comic book characters killed off as part of a male character's backstory finally get to tell their side** Ok, to start with, let's talk about the "Women in Refrigerators" trope.  If you already know what that is, I'll wave down below and you can skip there In short, [edit: I wrote "in short" but then the explanation turned out not to be very short, including multiple tangents and a full indented quote, oops sorry] the term "Women in refrigerators" was first coined in 1999 by Gail Simone.  At the time, Simone was just a comic book fan, but amazingly she's since become one of the more well-known writers for the "Big 2" American comics companies (DC and Marvel).  Incidentally, she's kind of a badass, and there are multiple examples of her on twitter weighing in on a discussion only to have some asshole guy see a woman's name and avatar and say, "uhh what do you know???"  At which po...

One more themed month!  Reading feminist literature, in particular feminist speculative fiction.  Because at its core, speculative fiction is about using the lens of the imaginary to tell us things about the world we live in.  And women have a lot to say about the world we live in Feel free to join in! * * * "The Future" by Naomi Alderman, 2023 Alderman is of course most famous for "The Power", but I'm really excited for her latest work "Ammonite" by Nicola Griffith, 1992 "Spear" by Nicola Griffith was one of my absolute favorite novels I read last year.  This one, about an isolated colony where a virus killed all male colonists, is supposed to be great as well "The Stars are Legion" by Kameron Hurley, 2017 If female authors are underrepresented in scifi as a whole, that goes quintuply for military scifi.  I'm looking forward to this one "The Shore of Women" by Pemela Sargent, 1986 Along with "The Female Man"...