Some Books I Loved

Pride Month!  Speculative Fiction, scifi in particular, has been queer as hell for the entirety of its history (like, that's not an exaggeration, there are absolutely elements in Shelley and Verne).  After all, the genre is about imagining the world not as it is, but as it could be.  And a marginalized and oppressed people will always have a lot  to say, when that's the topic Most years, I try to mix in at least one or two classics of the genre.  But unfortunately, there's just too many  great contemporary authors that I want to support.  Ahh well.  We do what we gotta do As always, I can't personally speak for any of these books.  I've put together this list based on friends' recs, reviews, and for some of them just really interesting-sounding blurbs.  But I am excited, should be a great month! * * * "Metal from Heaven" by August Clarke, 2024 Epic fantasy with author reviews like "pulpy, bloody, sexy, gleefully seditious and seditiously...

 **Gorgeous, baffling at times but undeniably gorgeous, galaxy-spanning space opera inspired by Korean mythology** Yoon Ha Lee is a ton of fun, as an author.  He actually has a fantastic collection of Young Adult novels, I'd highly recommend them (released under the "Rick Riordan Presents" line).  He actually first came to my attention for his "flash fiction", short stories usually no longer than a page or two.  Some of them even shorter: Raven Tracks The thing to know about ravens is that they don’t leave tracks the way other birds do.  It is not just a matter of raven feet, of tearing raven talons. Rather, ravens leave their thoughts scattered sideways in out-of-print books, in footnotes that should not be there and that are written in extinguished languages.  Sometimes they discuss the number of coins it would take to imbalance a businessman’s greed.  Sometimes they dissect (pitilessly, that goes without saying) the libretti of operas where too many...

 **A beautiful and poignant portrayal of Hawai'i, both modern and carrying the weight of history and tradition** Hawai'i is, in many ways, a contradiction.  Obviously, most people picture the resorts, beaches, and general "paradise" nature of it all.  And don't get me wrong, all of that is true.  My mother lived in Hawai'i for years, and I remember one time I visited her and I called to her one morning to say that there was a rainbow over the ocean.  She replied dismissively from the other side of the house, "yeah, yeah, there's a rainbow every day."  Hawai'i is a paradise, no question Stunning nature, rich culture, great food, some of the best research in marine biology and geology and astronomy in the country . . . there's so much about Hawai'i that is remarkable and worth celebrating But there is also the other side of Hawai'i, the side that tourists obviously never see.  Homelessness and drug use above the national average.  A...

**One of the finest speculative fiction short story collections of this millennium** Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.  And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human? We live for such miracles. I absolutely adore Ken Liu's short fiction.  The funny part is that for much of it, it was literally his side project.  He was a software engineer at Microsoft in the late 90s, and later got his law degree and worked as a high-tech litigation consultant ...

**Simply put, an absolutely perfect short story about how we view the choices we make in our lives** Ted Chiang, second-generation Taiwanese-American, rose to prominence when his fantastic "Stories of your Life" was adapted into a movie with Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.  His first collection published after that, "Exhalation", was released to great fanfare and absolutely lived up to the hype.  That said, he's quietly been putting out story after story of truly breathtaking Science Fiction for decades Chiang walks the line between the two competing camps of Science Fiction--those who believe that scifi must be grounded in hard science extended to its logical ends; and those play fast and loose and have futuristic technology be simply a backdrop.  Although Chiang is incredibly intelligent and bases many of his stories on the latest scientific advances, he takes these ideas and builds worlds upon them with the fundamental elements of the human spirit as his buildin...

 Oh man.  This one was hard to pare down to a manageable list.  There's an incredible renaissance right now in English-language Asian lit--both works from diaspora authors getting publishing contracts they might not have gotten a decade ago, and a big push for translation of works.  It's amazing.  Too many books, not enough time Let me know if you want to discuss any of these! * * * "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, 2015 While "cozy" fiction is having its moment in the sun in the West, and South America is generally more famous for magical realism, Japanese authors have quietly been mastering understated, contemplative, magic-infused fiction forever.  One of the most famous, about a cafe in Tokyo where you can travel back in time to revisit an event in your past, but you have to return before your coffee gets cold "Out" by Natsuo Kirino, 1997 Similarly, Japan has been absolute rocking the psychological thriller crime novel genre...