Tag: Sci-Fi

2021 End of Year Wrap-Up

Posted on by Page and Prose

 

 

 ðŸ¥‚ Happy New Year, readers! May your books be ever plentiful! 📚

 

So, it has been a long while since last we posted on the website, because things have been absolutely nuts. But here we are, mostly alive and definitely kicking! We are also still alive and active on our Instagram page, for which the handle is @pageandprosereviews. And in more good news, Hailey and I plan to resume our monthly buddy reads, starting with Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey.

 

2021 has come and gone, and therefore, it is the end of all annual reading challenges for that year. Hailey and I, in and excess of overachieving, made the ambitious decision to complete TWO reading challenges. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish either of the list of prompts by the end of the year, but you can see just how far we made it on the Indigo Reading Challenge here, and you can find our 52 Book Club Reading Challenge here. I have to say, we did pretty well, all things considered!

 

Nonetheless, since we did not finish our reading challenges, we must now face a Dire Consequence. And we have every intention of following through with it…as soon as we come up with a Dire Consequence for ourselves.

 

I don’t really like doing top ten lists, or “Best of the Year” lists. There are so many fantastic 2021 books that I haven’t yet read, and so I would always feel that a Best of the Year list was incomplete. Instead, here are a few 2021 books that I absolutely loved, and would whole-heartedly recommend:

 

 

  • A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine: Technically, only the latter part of this duology was published in 2021. However, since I am recommending the duology as a whole, it doesn’t really matter. This series tells a beautiful, brilliant, devastating story about colonialism, and identity, and humanity, and also giant space battles. If you prefer action and adventure in your science fiction, the duology has it in spades. If you prefer philosophy in your science fiction, there is plenty of that as well. Really, it is a win all around! (Science fiction)

 

  • Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, by Alexis Hall: Remember how the wholesome delightfulness of the Great British Bake-Off helped many people through the past two years? This book follows the titular Rosaline Palmer as she juggles competing on a GBBO-type show, raising her precocious daughter on her own, and navigating the various relationships in her life. Oh, and it is absolutely hilarious in a wryly British manner, so that’s a major plus as well. (Contemporary fiction)

 

  • The Witch’s Heart, Genevieve Gornichec: A beautiful, heart-breaking retelling of the Norse mythology around Ragnarok. The story follows a witch named Angrboda, who has suffered betrayal and cruelty at the hands of the Aesir, and wants nothing more than to be left alone now…but the world is not yet done with her. I was sorely disappointed with the sexism in Madeline Miller’s Circe (see my post here for more), and this book was a fantastic antidote to all of my frustrations. PS: Hailey, you should really read it! It is tailor-made for you, and it prominently features Loki! (Fantasy/Norse mythology)

 

  • Longshadow, by Olivia Atwater: The third in a trilogy of loosely connected fairy tales — as in, with literal fairies — set in an alternate history version of Regency England. The story follows a young apprentice magician named Abigail, who is determined to make her adoptive parents proud by solving a string of high-profile murder, with the help of her wits, her magic skills, and a mysterious young woman who keeps appearing in strange places. You can pick up any of these books as a standalone adventure, but I would really recommend reading all three in order, because some of the characters recur over the series. And if Studio Ghibli is looking for new source material, all three of Atwater’s Regency fairy tales would make AMAZING Ghibli movies! (Fairy tale/Alternate history)

Cover for A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Title page for A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady MartineTitle page for Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, by Alexis Hall

Title page for The Witch's Heart, by Genevieve GornichecTitle page for Longshadow by Olivia Atwater

 

 

In some book-related news: my own brilliant, talented, marvelous sister was chosen as one of the authors for for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 anthology, and her short story is the very first one in the collection! I am so incredibly proud of her.

 

Readers, have you read any of the books listed above? And what were some of your favourite books from 2021?

 

Sorrowland

Posted on by Page and Prose

 

Sorrowland was certainly an interesting read. At the tender age of 15, flees from Cainland, the isolated compound where she has spent her entire life, and makes a life for herself and her twin children in the woods. The spectre of Cainland and its dark secrets continues to threaten Vern, Howling and Feral even in the wilderness and they find themselves in a fight for their very survival.

I was really taken with the beginning of the book, I was intrigued by Vern’s story and eager to learn the truth about Cainland. I was also incredibly impressed by the diverse representation in the book – albinism, disability, LGBTQIA2S+, BIPOC. I adored the characters especially Howling and Feral, and I was so happy when Vern and her twins built a “found family” with Gogo and Bridget.  Rivers Solomon  created empowered characters that faced racism, abuse, homophobia, transphobia, religious indoctrination, and yet refused to accept oppression or succumb to circumstance. I really wanted to give the book 5 stars … and then the big reveal. 

Warning – Spoilers ahead.

For more than half of the book I had assumed a supernatural/haunting theme to the story and then suddenly the book switches gears and we’re into government conspiracies, human experimentation and hybridization with sentient fungi.  That’s where Solomon lost me, it just seemed very disjointed and I just couldn’t suspend disbelief a as Vern turned into an immortal, psychic, exoskeleton covered fungus creature.  It became hard for me to remain engaged in the story and I almost DNF’d the book. It was unfortunate because Sorrowland had started out so strong. Maybe other people will appreciate the book’s twist, but it simply wasn’t for me. I did really enjoy the author’s rich storytelling and character building though, so I’d still be willing to try reading more of their work in the future.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an eARC of this book for review.

– Hailey

 

She was a girl made of aches and she flung her body at the world in the hopes that something, anything, might soothe the tendernesses.

Rivers Solomon

The End of Men

Posted on by Page and Prose

 

The End of Men was, in a word, phenomenal. I wasn’t sure how I would feel reading a book about a global pandemic whilst in the midst of a global pandemic, but if anything it only made the story more compelling because the worldwide response to the “Male Plague” seemed highly believable. 

In 2025, a startling medical anomaly emerges in a Scottish hospital. Dr. Amanda MacLean tries to alert public health services and relevant branches of the government, but her cries of alarm are ignored and soon a terrifying virus is sweeping across the world – a virus that only affects men. Narrated by various women (and a few men) in the UK and other parts of the world, The End of Men is a thoroughly engaging debut novel that explores family, grief, motherhood, gender dynamics, and how a catastrophic event affects the human race both on a personal and global scale.

The book was an interesting thought experiment about how deeply gender and sex shape our societies and how removing nearly half of the world’s population from the equation truly highlights the lack of equality and balance across the political and professional landscape. In addition the book was so emotionally gripping that you simply can’t put it down. From the incomprehensible grief of suddenly one’s sons/husband/father/brothers all in quick succession, to the relief of having female children that are not at risk of dying, to the guilt of being an asymptomatic female carrier of the virus and unwittingly passing the disease on to your loved ones – there was such raw and palpable emotion that you couldn’t not be moved.

There were however, some aspects of the book where it became difficult to suspend disbelief, namely when it came to “scientific” discourse about the virus. I find it extremely improbable that it would take months of round the clock research by all the world’s greatest scientific minds before someone would realize that a virus that affects individuals on the basis of biological sex might have something to do with XY chromosomes. Honestly, I’m no geneticist or virologist but I thought that as soon as I read the words “male plague”. The explanation about immunity was similarly unlikely, but if you wave away the questionable science it’s still a fantastic reading experience.

I have never felt so powerful. This must be what men used to feel like. My mere physical presence is enough to terrify someone into running. No wonder they used to get drunk on it.

Christina Sweeney-Baird

Could there have been more diversity in the narration? Sure. Most of the key characters are educated and middle-class, and there is minimal racial diversity, however, to give the author the benefit of the doubt this is a fairly accurate reflection of the scientific community and political leaders. Could there have been more commentary on gender vs. sex and LGBTQIA2S+ issues? Perhaps. There was one chapter briefly addressing the affects of the plague on Trans individuals and gay men, and there was some speculation on the nature of female sexuality (women who had never before dated other women doing so after the majority of the male population has died). Again, to give the author the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she does not feel it is her place to speak on behalf of an entire community when she is not an expert. All authors write what they feel comfortable talking about and not every novel can fully address every issue. So, while in the spirit of objectively I have laid out some possible “short-comings”, I thought that the book did a great job of what it set out to do – explore the impact on the human race if a disease only affected one sex.

I thoroughly recommend this book for any fans of The Power or  Y: The Last Man. It’s one of my favourite reads of 2021 so far and I’m very much looking forward to exploring more of  Christina Sweeney-Baird ‘s work in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Doubleday Canada for providing an eARC of this book for review.

– Hailey

Skyward Inn

Posted on by Page and Prose

 

Cover of Skyward Inn, by Aliya Whiteley

Skyward Inn was certainly unique. I took a few days after I finished reading this book to collect my thoughts and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel. Aliya Whiteley succeeded at creating an engaging novel that captivates the reader. I was thoroughly invested in the story and I didn’t want to put the book down, however, I’m not sure if that’s a credit to the actual writing or simply an indication of how confused I was and much I wanted answers.

We burn history down, over and over, as an act of remembrance. When there are no answers, there is recollection, and repetition.

– Aliya Whiteley

I was a bit irked by the alternating points-of-view (Jem’s was first person, yet Fosse’s was third person) and I thought that some unnecessary elements were added simply to unsettle the reader, when the surrealist nature of the book would have been sufficiently unsettling on it’s own. I really could have done without Fosse’s masturbatory scenes at the farm and the rather distasteful revelation about “brew” and bodily fluids. There was also a sudden and unexplained timeline shift toward the end of the book that didn’t feel all that effective as a plot device.

Initially, the book seemed to be a commentary about colonialism and the exploitation of indigenous peoples, their land and their resources. When the “Kissing Gates” appear on Earth, humans immediately seize the opportunity to mount a military incursion on the planet of Qita. They then take advantage of the Qitan’s peaceful nature in order to appropriate the planet’s resources and bring them back to Earth. Ultimately, it is revealed that the Qitan’s aren’t quite as docile as they appear, and that maybe it isn’t the humans who are the colonizers. So perhaps the story is actually a critique of human arrogance. Either way, it was a stunning twist that I very much was not expecting.  The author also makes a powerful statement about the nature of assimilation and how little choice people are often given in the matter.

Most of the story is set in the Western Protectorate, which seceded from the UK and rejected all modern technology following the appearance of the Kissing Gates. I thought that the Western Protectorate beautifully encapsulated the concept of hiraeth, a Welsh word with no true English equivalent that can be translated as a “longing for a home that no longer exists or never was”. Many characters in the book have an idealized, nostalgic view of the Protectorate that they try to cling to even if change is inevitable. I think that in our rapidly changing world, where technology seems to take precedence, the desire for simpler times will resonate with a lot of readers.

At then end of the day, I do think that Skyward Inn is a worthwhile read. Stylistically, it’s quite different from other books on the market and the content will challenge the reader’s perceptions and leave them thinking long after they finish reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Solaris Books for providing this ARC.

– Hailey

The Power

Posted on by Page and Prose

 

I first read The Power last January and I loved it. When I found out that my book-club would be reading this book for our next meeting, I was interested to see if my reaction to this book would be the same after the intervening year (especially after a year like 2020). Sometimes I find that a bit of the magic can be lost during a reread because you already know everything that will happen, but this book is such a remarkable social commentary and Naomi Alderman’s writing is so richly nuanced that there is something new to discover or think about each time you reread The Power.

 

Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn’t. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it’s hollow. Look under the shells: it’s not there.

– Naomi Alderman

Sometimes we are so used to “things as they are”, that we don’t notice the absurdity ingrained in our societal norms. Gender inequality and gender-based violence has existed for thousands of years, has been so tightly woven into the fabric of our lives that we tend to ignore or overlook the infinite number of small ways in which our day to day lives are determined by gender dynamics. Sure we take notice of the anomalies, things that make news headlines, but not all violence or oppression is so overt. We think it’s absolutely normal to tell our female children to be careful around boys, to not walk alone, to exercise caution in order to ensure their own safety. Why wouldn’t we do these things? Yet, when it is flipped in reverse, when male children in the novel are ferried to school on separate buses, to avoid girls at school or outside the home in an effort to ensure their physical safety, it seems silly. We cannot fathom a world in which teenage boys or grown-men should be scared of schoolgirls because our society consistently teaches us that the balance of power lies with men, that women are, if not outright weak, then at least less intimidating, less physically capable.

When women around the world suddenly gain a new electrical power, they become physically stronger, more imposing than their male counterparts and the global balance of power shifts. The pendulum swings in the favour of women and now men find themselves oppressed and even endangered. Let’s make this patently clear, this is not feminism. Feminism is by definition the belief in and the quest for equality – a society based upon misandry would be just as toxic and damaging as a society based upon misogyny. In truth, the world of The Power is not so disparate from our own, the only difference is which gender holds power and privilege, who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed. It is very clear that we would not want to live in a world such as the one in the book, so why then do we accept our world as it is? Gender supremacy and a rigidly imposed gender binary serve no benefit to us as a society, no matter which way you slice it.

Really, you could write a thesis, multiple theses, about all the themes in this book. Alderman explores
politics, terrorism, violence, love, religion, revisionist history, journalistic integrity, disability, identity, navigating the web of lies and half-truths on the internet, and yes, power. Why does anyone exert their power over another human being? Simply because they can.

– Hailey

One of them says, ‘Why did they do it?’ And the other answers, ‘Because they could.’ That is the only answer there ever is.

          – Naomi Alderman