A year ago, I made this post with notes I had kept on the books I'd read in the prior year. I wasn't sure anyone would be interested, but I had the notes and figured I might as well post them. I was stunned by the positive responses. Well, it's been another year, so here are my notes from the books I've read since then.
I've tried to write these such that any spoilers are of the kind you might find on the back cover: first chapter setup kinds of things. Also, the original list was just notes for myself to remind me of the books and if I liked them, but I've had friends ask to see them since, and ask for updates, so it's changed the way I write them slightly because I'm aware other people will read them.
Rule 34, Stross
Somewhat of a sequel to Halting State, taking place a few years later. Spammers are being killed around the world, many at the same time. Story mostly follows a detective on the case, a psychopath involved, and a flunky who is unwittingly part of things. Interesting, though as with Halting State, the use of second person seems weird.
Consider Phlebas, Banks
Both sides in a war raging across the galaxy are trying to get to an advanced artificial intelligence. Mostly told from the POV of a human variant who can change appearance. Banks’s first SF novel - pretty good though I didn't find the main character especially likable.
The Fifth Season, Jemison
Fantasy - first book in the Broken Earth trilogy. Set in an earth where all the land is one big continent that goes through periods of big seismic/volcanic activity such that there's well-followed lore about how to get through them. There are “orogenes" who have a power to control the seismic activity to varying extents. The story alternates from the perspective of three female orogenes struggling with their respective situations. Very well crafted and structured. Good.
Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro
This is an odd book. It's very slow paced, and not much actually happens. I think it's best to read it without knowing anything at all, so I'm going to avoid spoilers. It's a story told first person by a woman who attended a special boarding school. For a quarter of the book, there are barely even hints that there's anything unusual going on. We don't get an understanding of it until halfway, and even then not fully. I feel like this might have been better as a novella. That said, it was highly regarded and even made into a movie (that I never saw). The premise is really interesting, and the story moving, but for half the book we're just reading a woman reminiscing on her school days.
Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, Wells
A short story in the Murderbot series, taking place between Exit Strategy and Fugitive Telemetry (but published well after). This one from the point of view of Dr. Mensah and the after effects of the ordeal in Exit Strategy. Would be good to read in between those books.
The Saint of Bright Doors, CHANDRASEKERA
A boy is raised by his mother to kill his father (and others). He has no shadow, and has to work to keep from floating off the ground. He grows up and moves to a big, strange city to escape his mother's vision for him, but he has a strange destiny. An odd fantasy story, with odd bits of magic, odd characters, and an odd arc. Enjoyable.
The Player of Games, Banks
Second in the Culture Wars series, set in the same universe as Consider Phlebas, but otherwise unrelated. A better book than the first. A man who is somewhat famous for his prowess at playing all sorts of games is recruited to go to a recently discovered empire that has a complicated game that's central to its culture and structure. Banks does well at creating multidimensional characters, and the story is compelling. The main characters in this book and in Phlebas seem to lack truly close relationships, which is odd.
Children of Ruin, Tchaikovsky
Sequel to Children of Time, set not long after. Similar structure to Time, we follow another terraforming group contemporary with Kern, and a group from the world at the end of that book a thousand+ years later, but in this one, nothing in between. Very interesting, with multiple intelligent species in play, and communication between them difficult. If you liked Children of Time, you're sure to like this.
The Edge of Worlds, Wells
Fourth Raksura book. Moon’s tribe goes with Groundlings to check out a city that may have been built by the same people who made the underwater city of the last story. This one is the first half of a two-part story, which explains why it felt like it got off to a slower start than the others.
17776, Bois
Not really a novel, more of a multimedia story. The title is the year it's set, and since around our present day, people have stopped being born, getting old, or dying, and no one knows why. It's a society where the thing everyone has an abundance of is time. It's an interesting setting, explained in an especially interesting way. There isn't an awful lot of actual story, but it's fun. Free online at https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football/.
Echopraxia, Watts
Sequel to Blindsight. A biologist gets roped into an expedition investigating alien signals. There's more about consciousness in this one, and commentary on religion. It somehow felt both more and less weird than Blindsight. Not at all an easy read, and will likely leave you scratching your head about what happens.
Dangerous Visions (anthology of short stories), Ellison (editor)
I'll admit to being slightly disappointed by this anthology, though there are some good explanations for that. Dangerous Visions has a reputation for being a collection of stories that the authors would not have been able to sell to publishers at the time because of taboos and themes. I've read enough early SF to know that you have to read it with an understanding of the context of the time it was written, but I'll still admit that I expected more of the stories to be on themes that would be considered taboo today. For many of them, the taboo was atheism or similar religious commentary, which seems milquetoast today. There are also a number of stories that just don't seem that strong to me, and the book’s reputation made me expect more. There are a number of exceptions to both observations though, and it's well worth the time to read it if you keep the context in mind.
A Psalm for the Wild Built, Chambers
Hundreds of years ago, in a civilization on a moon of a planet, the robots became sentient and decided to go off into the forest. Without their mechanical labor, people had to remake society differently. Now, these centuries later, a young person is searching for purpose, and while in the woods is approached by a robot for the first time in all those years. It's a cute little story - sweet - and not very long.
Kiln People, Brin
Set a couple hundred years in the future, technology is ubiquitous that lets people make a living clay duplicate of themselves that has their memory and thoughts to the point they were created, lasts about a day, and whose memories can be reintegrated with the real person if desired. The duplicates are property, have no rights, and are used to do almost all work and to take any risks without risking the humans. A private detective and some of his duplicates gets pulled into an increasingly complex plot that could reshape society. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, with lots of twists, and an interesting narrative as we follow copies who may or may not reintegrate with our detective.
The Harbors of the Sun, Wells
Continuation of the story in The Edge of Worlds. If you liked that, you'll like this. Wells is a very consistent author, who writes a variety of likable heroes, detestable villains, and complicated others. The stories aren't especially deep, but they're interesting, moving, and satisfying. That's true of all of her books that I've read so far.
The Terminal Experiment, Sawyer
A man is digitally scanned and three copies are made - essentially artificial intelligences - but two are modified. One of the three becomes a murderer. I had big problems with this book and nearly stopped reading it, which is something I rarely do. There are a number of things given “scientific" explanations that seem like Sawyer trying to give proof to religious views, and that seemed really weak (I looked him up after reading it and apparently he's agnostic but wanted to explore how people would react if there was proof of these things). Also, the way they decide to modify the copies, and the way they go about it, seem like a real reach. Still, overall it's an interesting premise and an interesting story.
The Last Policeman, Winters
A newly promoted young detective is trying to solve what looks like a suicide, but he thinks is a murder. No one else seems all that interested in solving it, though, because in six months a giant asteroid is going to hit the earth. This is a straight murder mystery, except in an unusual setting as humanity deals with the looming catastrophe in their different ways. Well written, interesting characters.
Sleeping Giants, Neuvel
A little girl falls down a deep hole in the woods and lands on a gigantic, glowing, metal hand that's thousands of years old. This is a wonderful alien artifact story with some interesting twists. I really enjoyed this book. Not exactly hard SF, but checks a lot of the boxes for me, including the wonder of discovery.
The Long Earth, Pratchett & Baxter
Plans appear on the internet for an easily constructed device. When activated, the person is moved to the next in a series of alternate earths, each more or less different from the one we know, and none with indigenous people. This reminded me of other books that had exploration as the main plot point, like Rendezvous With Rama or 20,000 leagues under the sea. Good.
Old Man's War, Scalzi
Humans are a minor race, fighting to get and keep additional planets for its colonies. Many of the soldiers are old folks from earth who are made young and trained to fight. I'm not generally a fan of military SF, but was told this wasn't like most of it. I suppose that's true, but it's still very much military SF. Scalzi is a good writer, and the story was engaging. I might read the sequel.
InterWorld, Gaiman, Reaves
An infinite number of earths exist, some ruled by magic, some by science, and some in the middle. Variants of the same person on these earths are able to walk between them, and they fight to keep the balance between magic and science. I had read that this was a combination of science fiction and fantasy, but it's pure magical fantasy, with just a nod that science exists. It's a fun story, with an interesting premise, in no way deep or challenging.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin
A coalition of human planets has sent the first envoy to an icy world where the people are gender neutral and sterile most of the time, but once a month become male or female (essentially randomly) and fertile. This is a classic, written in 1969, and my second reading - the first being in the late 80s. Le Guin creates an amazingly rich world, even with its harsh, frozen landscape. The characters grow to understand how gender impacts their cultures, and the biases they didn't know they had. It's also aged remarkably well for an SF book written 55 years ago. There's nothing about it that feels outdated.
The Peripheral, Gibson
A computer server links the late 2020s to a time 70 years later, allowing communication and telepresence between the two times. A young woman in the earlier time witnesses a murder in the later time and gets sucked into a battle between powerful people in both times. This is a great book; I think I could have recognized it as Gibson's writing even if I hadn't known it in advance. Very interesting premise, engaging characters, and fun without feeling like fluff.
Agency, Gibson
Sequel to The Peripheral. Many of the same characters, but dealing with a 2017 America in which Hillary won the election, Brexit failed, an incident between Turkey and Russia is driving the potential for an imminent nuclear war, and a newly conscious AI is figuring out a contentious situation. A good sequel, though some of the ground felt covered in the prior book. Trump and Hillary are never named. Will read the final in the trilogy when it comes out.
Children of Memory, Tchaikovsky
Third in the series that starts with Children of Time. Not a cookie cutter sequel, and a somewhat challenging book. The first two in the series alternate between two linear stories set a long time apart. This one isn't told in a linear way. Many of the characters from the prior book go to one of the planets listed as a terraforming project of the original earth civilization and find a struggling town of people. I really like how Tchaikovsky wrestles with what the right thing to do is in complex situations. Good series all around.
Look to Windward, Banks
Third in the Culture series - no characters in common. A famous composer from a predator-evolved race has renounced his citizenship over a caste system of that race and lives on a Culture ring orbital. Another of that race is sent to convince him to return, but there are layers to the story. Compared to the first two books, there's much less overt action, with the story being more character and emotion driven. Good.
Pattern Recognition, Gibson
First of the “Blue Ant" trilogy. A woman with an allergy to logos, and an obsession for a mysterious viral film, gets hired to find the film's maker, and gets more than she bargained for. Very likable main character, with side characters that come in a spectrum of trustworthiness. Very Gibson, except set in the then-present of the early 2000s.
The Time Traveler's Wife, Niffenegger
The story of man with a generic condition that causes him to travel in time without control, and the woman he falls in love with. They often struggle because of the unreliability of him staying in one time and place, but they also meet each other when each is at varying ages. The focus is really mostly on the love story, and it's only lightly SF. There were times, especially early on, when it felt like I was reading fan fiction - the writing didn't seem super strong and it felt more like a romance novel - but I liked the way the characters realistically grew and changed over the course of the book.
Coalescent, Baxter
Going through his childhood home after his father's death, a man learns he has a twin sister who was sent off to live with a mysterious cult/organization, and he sets out to find her. The story is told mostly from his point of view and that of the woman who founded the organization in the fifth century, plus a few other scattered viewpoints. I spent half the book wondering how it was classified as SF, though that eventually became apparent. Good story, well told.
The Dispossessed, Le Guin
Two worlds: an earth-like planet with earth-like countries, and its moon, a much more desolate environment settled a couple hundred years earlier by rebels from the planet who created a kind of non-government communist society. The two have had only minimal contact, based on trade, but now a leading physicist from the moon is going to the planet to try and bring down the walls between them. Written in 1974, the novel is another impressive Le Guin work that just seems timeless - it doesn't feel at all dated. I've read that many people think this is her greatest work, but I did enjoy The Left Hand Of Darkness more. In that book, Le Guin’s commentary is mostly embodied in the relationship between the main characters. Because she's making more political commentary in this one, there's a lot more verbiage given to explaining the differences in the societies, which is interesting, but feels less like storytelling. Still, a really great book.
Spook Country, Gibson
Second in the Blue Ant series, really Bigend is the only character from that book of any significance. Three eventually interlocking story lines: Hollis, the singer from a defunct cult band, now a freelance writer doing a piece on locative art; Tito, a young Cuban Chinese guy whose family does support work for organized crime; and Milgram, a (Russian?) guy, addicted to an antianxiety drug, being held captive as a translator by an ex-military man tracking Tito and his family. All are intertwined with a mysterious shipping container. Probably the least “science fictiony" Gibson novel I've read. Written and set in 2006/2007, with things to say about the post-9/11 world. Enjoyable, but somehow more perfunctory feeling than his other novels.
The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi
Sequel to Old Man's War. Main characters are mostly different, but it takes place shortly after the prior. I actually liked this one better; it's somewhat less military SF, with some interesting philosophical issues and interesting use of technology.
The Stand, King
A couple of things about this book. The first is, it's long. Without realizing it, I grabbed a version that had 400 pages restored that had been cut in editing the original, which was notably large anyway, resulting in a total of 1,152 pages. That's like four times the size of many books on this list. The second is that I knew nothing about it going in other than it was on several lists of the best SF and fantasy, and I thought it was SF. It starts with the accidental release of an engineered bioweapon that wipes out much of humanity, but where it ends up is clearly in fantasy territory. All that said, it's a good book - fairly dark, as is to be expected from Stephen King. Very rich characters. Hard to say more without spoilers.
The Deep Enders, Reardon
Dave Reardon is better known as the husband of Ann Reardon, who has the very popular “How To Cook That" YouTube channel. This, his first novel (though apparently he's ghostwritten some), isn't the kind I normally read (not at all SF or fantasy). It's a fictional story of friendship set in Australia around the time the Japanese bombed the northern coast, shortly after Pearl Harbor. The larger events are real, but the characters are fictional. It's a young adult novel about a teenager from Honolulu, sent to Australia to be safe after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, who strikes up a friendship with an aboriginal teen and a Japanese girl. Colorful, quick read.
The Fold, Clines
A brilliant guy with an eidetic memory is asked by a DARPA friend to check out a secret teleportation project because, though it seems to work, something seems off. Pretty interesting story, though it goes a bit off the deep end in the closing acts, and it's pretty far from hard SF. It's apparently the second book set in “The Threshold Universe," though I didn't realize that when I started it. Not actually a sequel, just in the same universe. I'll probably read the first one, 14.
We Are Legion (Bobiverse book 1), Taylor
A contemporary programmer dies in an accident and is revived as a digital image running on a computer 100+ years later. The story follows him and copies of him on various adventures. Heavy stuff happens, but it's a fun, lighthearted book. Not especially deep, and it suffers a bit from following so many storylines, with an end that feels abrupt. That's possibly just to set up the sequels though.
Waking Gods, Neuvel
Sequel to Sleeping Giants (The Themis Files series). A bunch of the same kind of giant robot shows up on earth and the team has to figure out what to do. If you liked the first, you'll probably like the second, but it's shorter on the wonder of discovery and longer on the solving of a global problem.
Only Human, Neuvel
Third in The Themis Files series (potentially the last). Rose, Vincent, the general, and Eva spend 9+ years on the planet where the giants were created, and get caught up in turmoil there before returning to turmoil on earth. Pretty satisfying conclusion, the whole series is enjoyable.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Paoloni
Kira, a xenobiologist in 2257, accidentally uncovers and gets merged with an ancient alien entity. An alien race starts attacking human settlements in the galaxy and Kira ends up in the middle of everything. There's an awful lot going on in this book, enough for multiple books - it manages to be both epic and fast paced. Very engrossing, I really enjoyed it.
Some Desperate Glory, Tesh
A seventeen year old girl, the best of those trained since birth to be obiedient soldiers protecting the dregs of humanity fifty, years after the earth is destroyed in an alien war, leaves her assignment to save her brother from a suicide mission. Along the way she learns that things are not what she had been taught to believe. Good story, with an interesting development of the main character.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein
A revolution is taking place on Luna (the moon), which is used as a penal colony by earth and ruled by an earth agency to ensure cheap labor and food shipments. The revolution is helped by a sentient computer that runs almost everything on Luna. Lots of political commentary. Published in 1966, there are lots of liberal ideals for its time, but it's also sprinkled with racial and gender stereotypes of the time. Great story.
Living Next Door to the God of Love, Robson
I write these blurbs so as to avoid spoilers, but I hadn't read the first book when I wrote the following and now that I have I realize even the most basic description of the second book will contain spoilers for the first book. Skip this one if you haven't read Natural History.
A loose sequel to Natural History, which I haven't read, taking place some thirty years later. Humans have encountered “Stuff," alien technology that is able to create whole worlds based on desires, and to reshape people themselves. They also encounter Unity, the alien sentience that can absorb living things that are then added to it and live on within it. In this story, several characters are trying to understand who they really are and how they're shaped by their world. That includes Jalaeka, who isn't human, but isn't quite Unity either. This is an oddly wonderful book that took me a bit by surprise somehow. I will for sure go back and read the first novel.
Made Things, Tchaikovsky
A novella, and the first fantasy story I've read by Thcaikovsky, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Set in a place where a few people are Magelords that have a lot of magic, many people have a little magic, and some have none. A young orphan girl with a little magic and a knack for making puppets scrapes by with petty theft and the help of a couple tiny living dolls. A fun, quick read.
The Book of Koli, Carey
Set hundreds of years after global ecological disasters and wars in the mid-21st century obliterated most of humanity. The remnants are clustered in small, scattered villages, scraping by with the help of the bits of technology that have survived and still function and are treated almost religiously. Koli is a teenager from one such village who makes some decisions for love and for status that prove to be very good and very bad.
Natural History, Robson
A few hundred years in the future, the variety of the people of earth include the Forged, whose bodies (and to some extent, minds) were developed for specific purposes, including as ships. There's somewhat of a caste system, with the Forged lower down. A Forged exploration vessel/person encounters alien technology and an uninhabited alien world in deep space, and hopes to use both the technology and the world to help the Forged create a new home. I like the second book better, but read this one first if you intend to read Living Next Door to the God of Love.
Planetfall, Newman
Suh is a woman who awakens from a coma with the coordinates for a planet in her head that she's certain are god calling her to go there. She convinces 1000 people to go with her, where they indeed find an alien structure they call the City of God. The story mainly takes place 20 years later, after Suh's death, and is told from the perspective of Ren, a woman who is a genius engineer, and who was in love with Suh. Ren has secrets and issues, and so do others. Very well worth reading, though the ending seems somehow slapped on.
Iron Council, Mieville
Third in the Perdido Street Station series. Like the others, set in a sort of Victorian steampunk world with magic and a number of alien races. This one focuses on rebel factions fighting against the imperialist, militant leadership of the city. The story is told from three different viewpoints: Judah Low, who learns to animate lifeless materials into golems, and who becomes entwined with the people of a steam train, forging across the continent; Cutter, a friend and sometimes lover of Judah, trying to find him and protect him from the government militia; and Ori, who wants to fight against the government, but feels the various factions aren't doing enough. Like the first two in the series, this is an excellently written and crafted story/world, but also like them it's far from uplifting. There were times I picked up the book to escape the anxiety induced by reading the news, only to find myself more anxious by the story.
The Uplift War, Brin
Third in the Uplift series, taking place about the same time as the prior book, Startide Rising. Humans have been granted lease to Garth, a world that was nearly destroyed fifty thousand years earlier, when a recently uplifted race started wiping out all life on the planet, starting with the largest, before they were stopped. The humans and their uplifted chimp clients/partners are working to restore ecological balance. With a number of galactic races pursuing the dolphin ship Streaker of the prior novel, an Avian race decides to capture and hold Garth hostage to get the humans to capitulate. Most of the humans are rounded up, and the remaining chimps on Garth have to defend their world against the much more powerful aliens, with a little help from a few humans and friendly aliens. This is a really great book, heartily recommended.
Ammonite, Griffith
A planet has been discovered that has the remnants of a ship that landed there a couple hundred years prior. The powerful earth-based corporation that controls many things and is just called The Company had previously sent a ship of military and teachers down, but a virus killed all of the men and some of the women, so the remnants are quarantined. Into this, an anthropologist goes down, being paid to test a new vaccine, but personally wanting to study the completely female culture, and find out how they've continued to have kids for 200 years. I really enjoyed this book. It's interesting that I didn't find myself thinking about gender roles at all in a book where every character is female. I didn't think of it as a lesbian novel, even though there are love stories within it. It's just a story about cultures and people, some finding their way in new situations.
The Ministry for the Future, Stanley Robinson
Starting about current day and moving forward, it's the story of the world on the heading towards complete ecological disaster, and efforts of a newly-created international ministry to reverse the problems. This is an unusually told story. Much of it is told third person from the perspective of Mary, the head of the ministry, and Frank, a survivor of a devastating heat wave that kills everyone in his town but him, which radicalizes him. But interleaving their chapters are various first person accounts from people who are never named and generally never reappear. For instance, one chapter is from the perspective of a woman kayaking the LA basin, helping to rescue people after an unprecedented flood. We never get her name nor hear more of her story, just that event. There's something odd about these one-off chapters being first person, which makes them seem more intimate, while the recurring characters are third person and less intimate. There's a lot of hard science here, mostly on ecological issues and geo engineering, and I kept feeling like it's an important book, but it also felt strangely unemotional, even when characters were experiencing traumatic events.
Six Wakes, Lafferty
A generation starship with 2500 stored human cargo is on a 400 year journey, crewed by six clones. They are slated to live consecutive lives, being put into new bodies when one dies, until their destination is reached. They do this to get new starts, because each is a criminal, convicted of past crimes over their prior couple hundred years. The story begins as the six all become conscious in newly cloned bodies, while the murdered corpses of their prior bodies float around them, and they have no memories since the ship set sail. This is a murder mystery and a psychological thriller. It's entertaining and kept me turning the pages, though some of the medical technology seems strangely primitive given some of the advanced tech.
Blood Music, Bear
A brilliant but reckless scientist creates intelligent cells and ends up injecting himself with them to sneak them out of the lab where he works. It doesn't go as planned. Written in 1985, I originally read it a few years later, and it's stuck with me since. It definitely gets weirder than I had expected when I first started it, but it's wonderfully imaginative - managing to be both apocalyptic and hopeful. Great book.
Autonomous, Newitz
Set in the mid 2100s, human equivalent robots, and actual humans, can be owned as property. A newly activated military bot working for the Intellectual Property Coalition (IPC) and its human partner are sent to stop a woman who reverse engineers popular drugs and makes them available for cheap on the black market. She has learned that a popular drug that she's been selling was illegally designed to be highly addictive, and it's killing people. Interesting story, but I didn't find it especially engrossing (full disclosure: possibly because of distractions in my personal life). Some of the characters seemed a little superficially drawn, and there's a romance between a human and a bot that I think we're supposed to find romantic but to me just seemed creepy. Still, lots of interesting ideas, and there's a lot of commentary on property and the patent system.
Embassytown, Mieville
On the planet Arieka, the native alien race speaks a language (only called Language) that requires two voices with one mind to speak it. They are incapable of understanding anything else - in fact, they don't recognize anything else as even being language. A city of humans lives adjacent to one of their cities, and the humans have created specially trained and augmented twins, called Ambassadors, who are capable of speaking Language, and have negotiated important trade with the native population. Now a new Ambassador is arriving from off-planet who will change everything. China Mieville has a knack for creating strange cities populated by various alien races that infuse his stories, and this one is no exception. I found it pretty interesting, but this is one of those books that I wouldn't recommend broadly. There are dense passages about the nature of communication, and most of the action is in the form of ideas more than events.
Spin, Wilson
Tyler is an adolescent boy with his two friends, twin brother and sister, when the stars all go out and, soon after, all the satellites fall out of the sky. The earth has been surrounded by a black membrane, and time runs differently inside of it. The three of them deal with the impacts and uncertainties of this in different ways as they grow older and humanity adjusts to the ramifications, but their lives remain intertwined. This is a great book with an unusual premise. It's full of flawed characters, but it recognizes that flaws are just part of being human. Unlike the prior book, I would recommend this one broadly - I very much enjoyed it.
Brightness Reef, Brin
This is the first book in the second Uplift trilogy. For a few hundred years, members of six galactic races (including humans) have made a somewhat primitive society on one small piece of Jijo, a planet designated to remain fallow for a millennia. Being on the planet is illegal, and word of it could have ramifications for each race in the broader galactic society, so there is lots of anxiety when a starship lands. But what race is on the ship, and what do they want? Excellent story. Unlike the prior books, this one does not stand alone. Apparently this trilogy is one long story with no gaps in the timeline. It would also be useful to have read the prior trilogy.
In Ascension, MacInnes
A marine biologist participates on an expedition to a newly discovered thermal vent in the ocean with unusual properties, and it alters the arc of her life in profound ways. Her difficult childhood and relationships with her family permeates the story. This is an odd book, slowly paced, that feels like a melancholy dream. There are wondrous things happening, but they often feel like they're happening offstage, even when the characters are in the thick of them.
