User Profile

The Finnish translation of this book will be given to every Finnish pupil finishing their primary education this spring. One of the columnists for the Finnish National Broadcasting Company yesterday made some sweeping comments on how ideology is being pushed to children, and complained how this book doesn't really reflect the reality of Finland in 2000s.

So, I decided I need to read it.

And, to a degree, she's right. That is to say, when it comes to Finnish dating culture, people aren't probably as focused in getting married as Adichie describes the Nigerian culture in her essay.

Apart from that, there are plenty of issues that are very much present in the Finnish culture as well as in the Nigerian and American cultures Adichie explores. Gender stereotypes on use of money, professions, role in the family are still alive and kicking. There are still far too few successful business women to act as role models. Kids are still raised to certain, gender specific expectations, and all too often they end up being miserable about it. Victim blaming is rampant in social media and, still, even in official comments about rape cases.

Adichie tells all this using anecdotes and lively language. It's easy to read, fast paced, relatable - and just foreign enough so that there are both recognizable features and differences to make perfect conversation starters. It expands the horizon from Finland to the US to Nigeria.

So, I completely disagree with the columnist. This is exactly the thing that should be given to children in primary school. To help them learn. To make them think.

"All of us, women and men, must do better."

The Obelisk Gate is the sequel to [b:The Fifth Season|19161852|The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)|N.K. Jemisin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386803701s/19161852.jpg|26115977], and as such, there's no introduction: it jumps straight into action. So, if you haven't yet read the first book of The Broken Earth trilogy, go and read it now. It's worth it.

The Obelisk Gate is, in many ways, symmetric to The Fifth Season. The first book started with the world ending, and Essun finding her son dead, killed at their home. The Obelisk Gate starts with the same situation, but instead of Essun we see the scene through her daughter's, Nassun's, eyes.

Whereas The Fifth Season eased the reader into the brutal world that is Stillness, The Obelisk Gate does no suh thing. It's immediately clear there will be violence, and there will be plenty of it, by good people as well as bad - although as the world comes undone, lines blur and it's hard to distinguish between the two.

The Obelisk Gate is slower in pace than its predecessor. It adds a lot into the world that was introduced in the Fifth Season, giving us a glimpse - but still only a glimpse - of what's happening behind the scenes. It teases us with science-fictiony elements but at the next moment turns into pure fantasy. And that's fantastic.

More than anything, though, The Obelisk Gate is a study in psychology. Or, perhaps more accurately, it's a description of persistent mass psychosis, caused by generations of people living under violent threat caused by Father Earth.

It's a brutal and lovely book, and I can't wait for the third book in the series.

The Core of the Sun is a story of two sisters, Manna and Vanna. Manna is a proper eloi - feminine, a bit on the dumb side and eager to please men. Vanna, on the other hand, is a genetic freak: morlock in eloi's clothing, a bright woman that is able to breed.

Yes, The Core of the Sun is definitely a dystopia. It's the Nordic welfare model gone horribly wrong; the state wants to take care of everyone, and it has turned to eugenics to make that happen. The society is filled with propaganda, and state's willingness to control substances hasn't stopped at drug, alcohol or even tobacco - now it's time to come down on chili users.

Sinisalo walks a fine line, describing the aspects of eusistocracy - the ultimate welfare state. In many cases it's absurd, often it's a bit humorous, but it also makes you think about the role of the state and its extents. Dividing women into two "subspecies" sounds horrible, but at the same time, some of the demeaning aspects of the society are things we've seen men's rights activists suggest.

The beginning of the novel didn't exactly hook me, but once I got past the first few chapters, the story started rolling and I couldn't put the book down.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is feel-good science fiction, in some ways a rarity. It's a story set in post-apocalyptic future, after mankind managed to dig its way out of the destroyed Earth, but there's nothing apocalyptic about the story itself.

The Wayfarer is a tunneling ship, a spaceship used to create stable wormholes to enable faster than light travel between faraway places. The main plot involves creating a passageway to manage contact with a previously isolated civilization.

The plot, though, is a side issue. The book is really a description of a journey of friends - the crew of the Wayfarer - who meet new people and visit new places. Most of the book is about more or less mundane, everyday things, so even if every chapter has a defined date, it's actually hard to follow the journey.

There are plenty of aliens in the Wayfarers universe, and it's nice to see they are different - some of them are humanoid, some are something else. Different species have clearly different modes of communication and different social norms. The species could be more complete, though; most of the species have their appearance described, but the norms and peculiarities are often also just descriptions - they are not really a part of the story, just something thrown in.

Social norms also present the author with means for social commentary, and in places that becomes a bit tedious; I heartily approve of the message of acceptance, but the way it is delivered - and the way it so obviously mirrors current events - is a bit heavy handed in places.

Having said that, I still enjoyed the book and I'm definitely going to read the sequel.

Paris is run by the Houses, which are mostly run by the Fallen - that's right, angels that did something bad enough to earn the righteous anger of God. In this case, they are literally fallen: one of the main characters is introduced by hitting the ground at high, bone-pulverizing speed.

The world is an interesting blend of religion and fantasy; there's magic, and the Fallen are just a bit better, more innately capable than mere mortals. De Bodard adds eastern philosophies to the mix, bringing their own kind of magic to Paris.

The book starts at fast pace and introduces the main characters and the basic tenets of the world efficiently. In place of our WWI this world had their on Great War, a huge and devastating war between Houses. Most of the story involves House Silver spires, the first and greatest House which, at this time, seems to be on steep decline.

The setup is interesting and the story is gripping. It introduces us to Philippe, Isabella, Madeleine and others, turns a post-apocalyptic world of magic wasteland into a murder mystery. It reaches a high point, a perfect place to wrap things up, and then... it continues.

After such a strong start, it's really hard to keep the tension up. In this case, the story becomes more convoluted, the characters more mysterious, and because of that, more distant. A wonderful story slowly tapers off and transforms from gripping to mildly interesting.

Even though this book can easily be read as a stand-alone, there's also an obvious route to continue the story. Despite being a bit disappointed about the ending of the book, I definitely plan on reading the sequel when it comes out.

Human race has warred itself to oblivion. The rescue comes from an unexpected source: as Earth turns uninhabitable, alien race Oankali rescue the few survivors and give the humanity a way to continue its existence.

Oankali, however, are traders, whose whole existence is based on trading in genes. This means that the humans must accept their ways: a forced symbiotic relationship, without which humans are unable to reproduce.

Each book of Butler's trilogy is a leap forward in time - the first happens after the main character, Lilith, gets woken up. In the next book, the focus is on her son, and the trilogy completes with her younger child, about a hundred years after the events of the first book.

More importantly, though, the point of view moves from human to more and more Oankali view. The picture the first book paints of the alien race becomes more and more complete, and at the same time, it gets harder and harder to like the new alien overlords.

It's a magnificently written book full of wonder, and while aliens are very much present, they are also used as an introspective mirror to take a look at humans. It describes a complex mesh of emotions, loyalty, biology and chemistry that drives people towards their various destinies, and really gives food for thought.

The book starts with a foreword by Milo Yiannopoulos, building a strawman of a SJW, and the actual book keeps on building it to magnificent proportions. And of course it must, since "This is a cultural war, not a garden party", and in war you must demonize your enemy.

Next comes Day's beef with SFWA; he first kind of implies he was expelled because of his failed attempt at presidency, later he insinuates the expulsion might have been because he caught John Scalzi lying about his blog traffic. That pretty much makes no sense.

From that point on, it continues by lamenting over various people losing their jobs because of SJW attacks, by celebrating various people losing their jobs because of GamerGate attacks, and then with strategy suggestions on how to best deal with SJWs in a community. Apparently it's the quiet old ladies who you should be worried about, and it's best to get rid of them quick.

Day doesn't seem to like codes of conduct, and he notes the way they are often vague. Admittedly that may be the case. In a perfect world, the code of conduct would be "Don't be an ass", and people would get along nicely. Since people don't seem to know what that means, though, those codes tend to be more wordy and still leave a lot to be desired.

Effects of that ambiguity of rules can be seen in one of the examples of the book: Don Imus apparently was fired over some comments, even though "all the previous, more offensive comments" were overlooked. In addition to Day not recognizing that standards for acceptable behavior change over time, it's also kind of weird to see a person's earlier, worse behavior used as an excuse for not taking action on bad behavior later.

All the way, the book is full of half truths and unfounded opinions. Here's one of my favorites:

We also managed to tip the scale and ensure that Cixin Liu's hard science fiction novel, The Three-Body Problem, won Best Novel over Katherine Addison's tedious SJW angst-fest, The Goblin Emperor.

Day fails to mentionthat The Three-Body Problem wasn't part of either Rabid or Sad Puppies slate. In fact, neither The Goblin Emperor nor The Three-Body Problem were part of the original 2015 Hugo finalists: they were replacements after Larry Correia and Marko Kloos declined their nominations. Nicely "ensured".

The book ends with Aristotle, dialectic and rhetoric - former "based on the construction of logical syllogisms", latter using "incomplete or invalid arguments that merely take the form of syllogisms". Guess how I would describe this book?

The Aeronaut's Windlass introduces us to a world of aether and spires. The surface of the world has been taken by vegetation and monsters, and people have been living in huge spires for thousands of years. The Builders constructed them using methods and materials unknown to current populace, so it's no wonder they are revered.

The moving force in the world is ether. People grow crystals that can harness and focus the power of ether flows, and thus accomplish things both mundane and magnificent: illumination, levitation, protective force fields, energy bolts... Ethersilk, made by monstrous silkweavers, can be used as sails for airships to ride etheric currents. Some people, etherealists, are sensitive to etheric energy, and can even see future.

Why exactly that is, is unclear. Ether is central to everything happening in this book, yet there's no discussion about its nature. Maybe its use is just so ingrained into the characters that they take it as self evident, but it would've been nice to have at least some kind of explanation on what it is. Why exactly etheric energy passing through a person makes that person able to see the future. Or why it tears holes into their mind.

Other things could use an explanation as well. Like why all other crystals lose their power when they age, but core crystals become more efficient. And please don't say it's only because otherwise it would be hard to tell what's giving The Predator an edge against just about all the other airships in the world.

Or the cats. Why are there cats? Why did Butcher think it would be a good idea to write chapters from the point of view of a cat? And when he did, why did he decide to write it with the stereotypical superiority complex?

I'm not saying this is a bad book. There's plenty of action, it flows reasonably well, and there's occasionally some funny dialogue. It's also perfect for people who want to know what they are getting: at least in this opening book, the main characters are undeniably good guys - even the purported character flaws are just badmouthing - and the opponents are very obvious bad guys. The bad guys do what they do because they are bad; the motivations aren't really revealed.

If you're into series, there's bound to be continuity - according to an interview, Cinder Spires could be a trilogy or it could be nine books depending on how it's received. If the next book has less cats, I might be interested.

Agnieszka is a 17-year old girl living in a small village in the valley. She's part of a special group, for every ten years, the Dragon chooses a girl from the villages as his companion. It's a scary proposition, and unfortunatel for Agnieszka, against all odds, Dragon chooses her.

This starts an epic straight out of fairytales - in some ways literally, since Uprooted borrows from Slavic folklore. It's a story of finding power from within you, of the meaning of co-operation, at places even of love and romance.

It's also a story full of familiar tropes. There's a young woman who is special in some unseen manner. There's an old man who's grumpy and dismissive. There's a clash of personalities, an exasperated teacher, scheming in the court, eventually romance - even if the only way the main characters seem to be able to communicate is through anger. The plot has its twists and turns, but it's built of familiar components and everything seems just too... simple.

The character development is lacking: there's some for the main character, and Kasia is transformed physically as well as mentally, but other than that, there's nothing worth mentioning. Dragon transforms from a master of his domain into an obedient sidekick, but he still stays the same grumpy, hurtful old man throughout the book. Short bouts of lust don't change his overall demeanor. Other characters are paper thin.

Maybe I'm expecting too much, but I would've liked to see more layers. In characters, in development, in everything.

The one layer I did notice - and it's altogether possible I'm reading it wrong - is about gender roles of the magic wielders. The traditional magic wielders are all males, except for Alosha, who's then masculinized by making her a swordsmith and having her act very coldly towards Agnieszka.

That traditional magic is orderly, precise, measurable, and so are the wizards: if something can't be measured, it doesn't exist. This goes so far that some books are removed from library because they don't seem to have value, and (Baba) Yaga, even though having been described as real earlier, is labeled as a folk tale by one scholarly wizard.

The opposite of this is the magic the main character wields. There doesn't seem to be any rules to how that works - she just follows her intuition and everything flows according to her will. Instead of force she uses gentle powers of persuasion to bend elements, people, everything.

You can also read this in a positive way: the magic seems to be the most effective when it's Agnieszka and Dragon working in collaboration, complementing each other. But did it really have to be hard, scientific, enforcing, masculine magic complementing soft, intuitive, persuasive (or manipulative) feminine magic?

The author doesn't seem to set limits on how the magic works in the book. Agnieszka is warned that you can burn yourself out if you use too much of magic, but there's not a moment in the book when that seems to be a real danger, even though particularly the main character seems to use her magic for everything from mundane to earth-shattering. There are no rules, either - she just comes up with all kinds of ideas that just happen to work. As a weird detail, her constant untidiness is plugged to be a manifestation, or a side effect, of her magic abilities. Why?

The way the main character uses her magic also smells of anti-intellectuality. She's partly unwilling and partly unable to learn magic. That doesn't matter, though, since all she has to do is follow her intuition, throw things together, sing a little song, and magnificent feats get accomplished.

If it seems like I'm complaining, that's because I expected more of the book. It's a multiple award winner book with apparently movie on the way. That's as far as my expectations went, though - I didn't even read the back cover.

I did end up wolfing it down, so I can't say that I disliked it. But I expected a fine dinner. Instead, I got bubble and squeak.

In Stillness, Earth is never still. Tsunamis are frequent events, and almost all of the humankind has been wiped out by volcanoes, earthquakes and other seismic activity multiple times in history.

Luckily, some people are able to calm the quakes and control the earth. Unfortunately, these orogenes need warmth and movement to do it, and sometimes warmth and movement means people. And controlling the earth is only good as long as the people doing the controlling are themselves kept in control. Old Sanzed Empire found a way, and that's how it's survived thousands of years while other civilizations stumble and fall.

Being feared, hated and supernaturally powerful makes an orogene a natural main character for the book, and that's exactly what we get. The Fifth Season follows three stories of orogeny: two before the end of the world, and one after.

... Oh yes. Just to get it out of the way, N.K. Jemisin starts the story by destroying the world.

And what a world it is. It's reminiscent of our Earth, but some things are a little off - apart from the obvious fact of orogeny, of course. It might be far future where constant cataclysms have wreaked havoc on culture: people are living in stone age, and because stone is what's often killing them, that's what they focus on. On the other hand, they do have electricity, so it's not like all is lost.

It's a beautiful world having a horrible time, and Jemisin builds both the world and the story perfectly. And since it's a Hugo nominee, I should also say that although completely different, in some ways it reminds me of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. And while I quite liked Seveneves, it had some quite obvious flaws. In The Fifth Season, I can't point a single one.

Five years ago, a civil war wrecked the Gardens. It ended with a betrayal, and now it's time for a payback.

The Builders is a story that would come out if Disney ever decided to create an animated version of Dirty Dozen: the twist of the story is that the characters - all shady, all with a bloody past - are animals.

And I liked it. It's kind of fun to read about the fastest draw in the Gardens, who just happens to be a salamander. Or a sniper opossum. The animalism adds the characters a depth that the author would otherwise have to spell out - now he can play with the animal stereotypes, of course occasionally breaking them.

The novel is short, made shorter by having incredibly short chapters - sometimes only a sentence, never beyond a few pages. The staccato style forces the story forward fast, but it also makes it a bit jumpy.

Writing style is a bit too pompous, but at least at this length it doesn't become annoying. All in all, a fun, quick read in the vein of best spagetti westerns. With furry animals.

Story about God-Emperor Kairominas, the absolute ruler of his realm, and his date with and equal. The story is ambitious and convoluted, and, in my opinion, doesn't quite pull through. There's potential, but it turns into a mess of tropes and ends awkwardly.

A strange combination of medieval-style sword and sorcery, Matrix-like brain-in-the-jar, cyberpunkish world-hacking, big robots... Sanderson just seems to borrow ideas from various sources and puts them together into a mish-mash that's ok to read but doesn't really explore the ideas it presents.

So, someone takes care of the humankind, which is, at this point, a massive farm of brains living in nutrient soup and spending their time in worlds created just for them. Why? The emperor needs to procreate, and that's why he needs to meet a fellow woman (brain) from a different tailored world. Again - why?

In other words, the setup of the story isn't motivated in any way - actually the weirdness of the meeting requirement is even mentioned in the novella itself. Liveborns know they live in a virtual reality, and seem to be able to hack their reality quite easily, which speaks volumes about the capabilities of those who are supposed to take care of the humanity.

Then there's the nemesis, who's a nemesis because the story needs one. And he uses robot avatars, because that's apparently a thing in his personal world, and every story needs a giant robot.

There's potential for existential discussion about human rights of virtual lifeforms, but when there are two sides where one takes those rights for granted and the other just as clearly doesn't care about them, there's little to discuss.


I don't know. If the story was longer, maybe it would flesh out into something interesting. Now it is a handful of ideas that never really take off.

Scur has a clash with a war criminal, ends up making an autosurgery and gets evacuated because of a cease-fire. Some time later, she wakes up in a transport ship and realizes something's wrong.

The story has an post-apocalyptic feeling to it, and it's easy to find stories that have similar plot devices. Lord of the Flies for building a society, Planet of the Apes for the post-apocalyptic rediscovery of an old world, Seveneves for the whole "small number of humans thousands of years later" thing. I'm, of course, talking about similarity in wide sense. The main character, Scur, seems to be a natural leader, who has the tendency to find the right words, do the right thing and put her own needs and emotions aside when the greater good demands it.

The writing is occasionally a bit clunky: there's a lot of dialogue, and sometimes characters end up explaining things awful lot. It's something you start to notice as the story progresses, but it does not quite become annoying.

And even if it did, the story itself is strong. As I mentioned, there are similar plot devices used in various novels, but there's some originality to this, and the focus of the story is just tight enough for the length. There's even enough slow bullets to justify the name ;)

The only complaint regarding the focus is the ending. What was the need for reopening Scur's past, and then leave it hanging? It just annoys the reader and adds nothing to the story.