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One of these is seasonal. The other is not. But the seasonal one is coincidence, so like it matters.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve been meaning to try Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series, but haven’t had a chance to get copy of the first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Meanwhile, I came across this novella and thought maybe this was as good a place to start with Chambers as any. It’s also my first time reading solarpunk, an emerging subgenre which involves futures that are generally optimistic, if not utopian. In this case, the action takes place on Panga, an Earth-like moon where humans have achieved an equilibrium with nature after an Industrial Age that went wrong. Part of that history involved factory robots that achieved sentience and went on strike. The humans offered them citizenship – instead they politely chose exile and vanished into the wilderness.
A few centuries later, Sibling Dex is following their calling as a Tea Monk, which involves traveling from village to village, and serving tea to people as they tell Dex their problems. Dex enjoys the work, but something is missing, though they don’t know what. Dex decides to travel to an abandoned hermitage in the middle of the wild. In the process, they become the first human in hundreds of years to encounter a robot: Mosscap, an emissary tasked by the robot community to re-establish contact with humans, find out what they need, and how the robots might help. From there, the story is basically a road trip during which Dex and Mosscap discuss the basic question "What do humans need?" – which is of course tricky since even Dex has no idea what they personally need.
So the story mostly involves two beings exploring the similarities and differences between them, and why so many humans struggle to be satisfied even in a society that is more or less harmonious. There’s no antagonist (apart from Dex’s own mind and the wilderness) – just a quest for meaning. Which may put off readers who expect SF to have at least some action in it. And yet there’s something charming and cozy about it, thanks in part to Dex and Mosscap being two strikingly relatable characters. And in this increasingly insane and polarized world, charming and cozy is kind of refreshing. To sum up, if the philosophical parts of the Matrix films bored you senseless (and/or the use of nonbinary pronouns sends you into an anti-woke conniption fit), this possibly will too. If (like me) you thought those were the most interesting parts of the films, you may get something out of this.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this in high school, mainly because of the 1983 Disney film. It was my first time reading Bradbury, and it may not have been the best introduction. Bradbury’s ultra-lyrical prose threw me, and I found it hard to follow. I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of Bradbury since then, and as I’ve been re-reading some of his stuff, I decided I might as well give this one another go to see if I’ve matured enough to appreciate it.
In small-town Illinois, a week before Halloween, a mysterious carnival called Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in the middle of the night. Two 7th graders – Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade – witness its strange arrival. The next day, they visit the carnival and notice its effect on the older people in town, including Will’s father Charles. When Will and Jim discover the carnival’s sinister secret, they are pursued by the proprietor Mr Dark, who makes them an offer that Jim is more than tempted to accept.
This time around, I still found Bradbury’s lyrical storytelling a bit offputting at first, especially in terms of the dialogue. But as I went on, I started reading it more as a nightmare dreamscape rather than a straight horror story, and it works a lot better that way – especially the ending, which is otherwise too corny, if not contrived. I also appreciate that Bradbury is working on several levels here – small-town Americana nostalgia, the dark allure of carnival freaks, the price of impossible wishes granted, and our obsession with age, whether it’s old people wanting to reclaim youth or young people in a hurry to grow up. So it’s a lot better than I remember it.
View all my reviews
Nightmare alley,
This is dF
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky ChambersMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve been meaning to try Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series, but haven’t had a chance to get copy of the first book, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Meanwhile, I came across this novella and thought maybe this was as good a place to start with Chambers as any. It’s also my first time reading solarpunk, an emerging subgenre which involves futures that are generally optimistic, if not utopian. In this case, the action takes place on Panga, an Earth-like moon where humans have achieved an equilibrium with nature after an Industrial Age that went wrong. Part of that history involved factory robots that achieved sentience and went on strike. The humans offered them citizenship – instead they politely chose exile and vanished into the wilderness.
A few centuries later, Sibling Dex is following their calling as a Tea Monk, which involves traveling from village to village, and serving tea to people as they tell Dex their problems. Dex enjoys the work, but something is missing, though they don’t know what. Dex decides to travel to an abandoned hermitage in the middle of the wild. In the process, they become the first human in hundreds of years to encounter a robot: Mosscap, an emissary tasked by the robot community to re-establish contact with humans, find out what they need, and how the robots might help. From there, the story is basically a road trip during which Dex and Mosscap discuss the basic question "What do humans need?" – which is of course tricky since even Dex has no idea what they personally need.
So the story mostly involves two beings exploring the similarities and differences between them, and why so many humans struggle to be satisfied even in a society that is more or less harmonious. There’s no antagonist (apart from Dex’s own mind and the wilderness) – just a quest for meaning. Which may put off readers who expect SF to have at least some action in it. And yet there’s something charming and cozy about it, thanks in part to Dex and Mosscap being two strikingly relatable characters. And in this increasingly insane and polarized world, charming and cozy is kind of refreshing. To sum up, if the philosophical parts of the Matrix films bored you senseless (and/or the use of nonbinary pronouns sends you into an anti-woke conniption fit), this possibly will too. If (like me) you thought those were the most interesting parts of the films, you may get something out of this.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray BradburyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this in high school, mainly because of the 1983 Disney film. It was my first time reading Bradbury, and it may not have been the best introduction. Bradbury’s ultra-lyrical prose threw me, and I found it hard to follow. I’ve read and enjoyed a lot of Bradbury since then, and as I’ve been re-reading some of his stuff, I decided I might as well give this one another go to see if I’ve matured enough to appreciate it.
In small-town Illinois, a week before Halloween, a mysterious carnival called Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives in the middle of the night. Two 7th graders – Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade – witness its strange arrival. The next day, they visit the carnival and notice its effect on the older people in town, including Will’s father Charles. When Will and Jim discover the carnival’s sinister secret, they are pursued by the proprietor Mr Dark, who makes them an offer that Jim is more than tempted to accept.
This time around, I still found Bradbury’s lyrical storytelling a bit offputting at first, especially in terms of the dialogue. But as I went on, I started reading it more as a nightmare dreamscape rather than a straight horror story, and it works a lot better that way – especially the ending, which is otherwise too corny, if not contrived. I also appreciate that Bradbury is working on several levels here – small-town Americana nostalgia, the dark allure of carnival freaks, the price of impossible wishes granted, and our obsession with age, whether it’s old people wanting to reclaim youth or young people in a hurry to grow up. So it’s a lot better than I remember it.
View all my reviews
Nightmare alley,
This is dF
