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Shauna reviewed How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

How High We Go in the Dark (Hardcover, 2022, William Morrow)

Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …

A hard but beautiful read

5 stars

If I had known ahead of time what the structure and focus of this book was, I probably wouldn't have read it. That would have been my loss.

"How High We Go In the Dark" is a series of interconnected short stories set in the same world. This is not my favorite structural style: I prefer to follow a set of characters from beginning to end. Nagamatsu, though, has a rare talent for sketching out characters you can quickly attach to. I felt sorrowful every time I reached the end of a chapter and had to say goodbye.

In this way, the structure was a good fit for the world itself, and the story the author wanted to tell: one focused on death, loss, and how it transforms us. With some frequency, leaving a character at the end of their chapter meant watching them die.

This is one the most …

If I had known ahead of time what the structure and focus of this book was, I probably wouldn't have read it. That would have been my loss.

"How High We Go In the Dark" is a series of interconnected short stories set in the same world. This is not my favorite structural style: I prefer to follow a set of characters from beginning to end. Nagamatsu, though, has a rare talent for sketching out characters you can quickly attach to. I felt sorrowful every time I reached the end of a chapter and had to say goodbye.

In this way, the structure was a good fit for the world itself, and the story the author wanted to tell: one focused on death, loss, and how it transforms us. With some frequency, leaving a character at the end of their chapter meant watching them die.

This is one the most depressing novels I've ever read, but it also deeply creative, empathetic, hopeful, and beautiful. It was satisfying seeing the strands from earlier chapters weave their way through the later ones. In a lesser writer's hands, this novel would be unbearable, but in Nagamatsu's, it becomes something hard to bear, yet worth bearing.

Shauna reviewed Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum

Unraveling by Benjamin Rosenbaum

5 stars

Content warning some mild spoilers ahead

The Unraveling is set in the far future, in a world that's meant to be very different from our own. There is accordingly a ton of worldbuilding in this novel, ranging from the familiar to the wildly experimental. I won't spend much time on the familiar stuff - the hyper-networked reputation systems, computers in your head you can talk to, a small shadowy group that controls a massive society, etc. They're fine, but they're not what makes this book special.

There are two elements of the worldbuilding that really stand out. First, Rosenbaum has invented two entirely new genders, and a novel set of gender and family politics which much of the world, and the book, is based around. Second, in this far future society, people can inhabit multiple bodies at once. Combined, these elements make for a disorienting read. I found it fairly easy to follow along with the pronouns (xe/xir & ze/zir) used for the new genders, but following three bodies at once was much, much harder to get used to. The triple-narration confused more than it enlightened. Perhaps this was intentional - it certainly felt alien! - but it came at the price of taking me out of the story.

This book reminds me quite a bit of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, both in its ambition and in the way that its narrative choices can alienate the reader. If you like rich world-building and explorations of gender, give this a shot.

Shauna reviewed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi (Paperback, 2020, Bloomsbury Publishing)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an …

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

5 stars

This is one of those books that's unlike any other. It's surreal and dreamy and the sheer "what the heck's going on?" factor compelled me to read it all in one day.

A novel like this - light on plot, with an extremely limited cast of characters, told in an epistolary style - really sinks or swims on the narrative voice. Luckily the titular Piranesi is fun to read, and comes across as practical and clever, curious and sweet. His ignorance is charming rather than frustrating, and of course his naivete is all part of the mystery.

Highly recommended to anyone who loves an atmospheric and/or experimental story.