When I went to Worldcon last month I attended a reading by Martha Wells. She packed the largest room we had. I believe her reading was from the upcoming novel Platform Decay (Murderbot Diaries #8). I already had All Systems Red (Murderbot diaries #1) in my To Read Pile. As soon as I finished Veronica Roth’s The Fates Divide I read books 1 - 7. I want more Murderbot! It’s so good. Platform Decay won’t be out until next year. The series does a good job of exploring otherness and non-humaness. A lot of stories about intelligent non-humans portrays them as wanting to be human (ST:TNG Data, Pinocchio, Ariel, Frankenstein’s monster, etc). Martha Wells non-human characters have zero interest in being human and to some extent find humans disgusting (which we kind of are). Of the 7 the only one I had even a bit of criticism for was Network Effect (#5).
I think Wells took a chance with Network Effect and it mostly paid off. The prior books were all shorter and only had one POV character. This was a terrific story! I had trouble at times keeping track of all the factions, all the colonist groups, and all the secunits. It’s a great story. “the company” was always confusing, it’s nice to finally have some clarification, even if its retcon, why it’s always referred to that way. I like how Muderbot is evolving. I suspect this was great practice and her future books will be even better.
I also finished reading Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs and it was really good. It reminded me of Deborah Harkness’s Discovery of Witches. It’s a story of modern day witches. I really liked the relationship between Pearl and Esther (one of the POV characters). I was a little disappointed with some other relationships. Some aspects of the plot were signposted, perhaps too well. I had heard a short story by Törzs recently so I was excited to dive into something more longform.
These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling is YA fantasy. The main character Hannah is a witch and Junior in HS living in modern day Salem with her family. She recently broke up with another witch from her coven. There are flashbacks to an encounter with a blood witch in NYC that helped lead to the breakup. The story is about dating somebody new in town while trying to solve a mystery. It does a good job of talking about prejudice against people you don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time in Salem and I didn’t find any inconsistencies in the setting of These Witches Don’t Burn.
My biggest issue with Frankenstein was that it never struck me as feminist. Yes, the creature can be seen as a representation of women’s otherness in society but why not give the female characters agency! Or if not agency, have them express their want for agency. Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill puts that issue right. It discusses the challenges women faced at the time. How they were rarely accepted in academic circles. How men used women as bartering chips. How very few women were allowed to control their own finances and destinies. How horrid expectations for women were and in many ways still are. I love how instead of the creature and it’s creator fighting they showed affection towards each other.As I read it I sensed that Mary Frankenstein was partly based off of Mary Anning. Like Anning, the fictional Mary enjoyed finding fossils near the beach.I also enjoyed the ethical discussion about science. Too often things are built without their creators caring about the negative effects of their creations.My one gripe about this book is that it felt like queerbaiting.