Book Review: The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin

Following up on The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate continues Essun's story, but this time includes the point of view of her daughter Nassum as well. In an attempt to stay away from spoilers, as the book is only a few years old, I will say that although I was a pretty big fan of the first novel, the second one took the concepts and world building from its predecessor and starting looking at them in detail, including a much more in depth look at the stone eaters and the character of Hoa.

I'm really interested to see where this series is going and although I'm still not certain as to whether I'll ever own copies of it myself, I'm finding this tragic, intimate story to be much more affecting than I was initially expecting.

Turns out I may be more a Science Fiction Fan

So here's the thing - as a long-time fan of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction reading I have a sort of internal measurement in which I can say which genre has more sway on my reading habits at any given time.

I like to think of it as my "Zombie Robot Unicorn" meter.  Basically I liken my current reading habits to an internal image of a Zombie Robot Unicorn and use it to describe my current thoughts about whatever I'm reading.

In practice the image shifts to a much more "zombie-fied" robot unicorn in October and perhaps a bit more "Unicorn-ed" Zombie Robot during the winter.

Over the weekend however I went through my book award and top 100 lists I've been reading my way through over the last decade and realized that I'm actually steadily reading more Science Fiction than either of the other two and have been for some time...

I guess my Zombie Unicorn is much more robotic that I've previously though.

IMAGE CREDIT

http://schlogger.de/wordpress/zombie-robot-unicorn/

Genre Character of the Week: Snake the Healer

Taking a ten-year jump in my Science Fiction reading, from Bug Jack Barron last month to Dreamsnake this month I think I need to take a quick pause and explain my reading choices. As I’ve said in a number of previous posts, I’m currently working my way through a list called Science Fiction: The 100 Best Books by David Pringle, which had me starting in 1945 with 1984 and currently has me beginning the ‘70s with Poul Anderson’s Tau Zero (next month, hopefully), but at the same time I’m working my way through the winners of various genre fiction awards, of which Vonda N. McIntyre’sDreamsnake won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for best novel. Anyway, this week’s genre character is Snake the Healer.

Snake is a recently graduated healer in a post-apocalyptic world that may or may not have been Earth all along. She begins her story in the desert (like many great post-apocalytic stories do) on the way to doing a healing for a nomad band. Things do not go as planned.

The story is a great example of world building, reminding me of Earth Abides and Lord Valentine's Castle. What causes this book to stand out however, is the characterization of Snake, a woman trying her best to make the world a better place. As she travels through her world (it is never named), she faces a huge number of challenges and I loved exactly how she sorted each of them out, this character is pretty amazing.

Would she be allowed to come and visit my house? Yes, but I would be pretty nervous about the large number of snakes she would bring with her.

A great read.

You owe it to yourself #3: Award Winners

All my life I've watched movies - tons of them. So when I got a job at a video store at the age of 20 I got to watch eight hours of them a night, five nights a week, for almost a year.If you asked my twenty-year-old self if I was a movie buff, the answer would definitely have been yes. But unfortunately, I had a secret shame; even though I had seen hundreds of movies, there were some large gaps in my repertoire.

I had never seen Rocky - Rocky II, III, IV, yes, but never the original.

I had never seen Cassablanca.

And yes, to my incredible shame as a young man in Canada, I had never seen Porky's (which by the way was the top grossing Canadian film from 1982 to 2006). For those of you in the States, this is like saying I had never seen Revenge of the Nerds, which as we all know, for a guy who grew up in the '80s, is entirely unacceptable.

So one day I went online and found a list of all the movies that had ever won a Best Picture Oscar, and over the course of 2 years, watched them all. (It actually was my wife who ensured that I watched Porky's - thanks Hon). And you know what - in addition to seeing a lot of really great movies, I started getting a LOT more of the jokes in episodes of The Simpsons.

Inspired by my success, I then decided to try the same thing with my reading, and found genre books have awards too!

For Fantasy books - The World Fantasy Awards (since 1975)

For Horror - The Bram Stoker Awards (since 1987)

For Science Fiction - The Hugo Awards (since 1955)

Although I'm completely up-to-date with the Bram Stoker awards, I'm still working my way through the Hugo's and the World Fantasy's, and let me tell you this - these books let you check out the classics, the innovative, and the current best books in these three genres. And for those of you who aren't into any of these, there are awards for westerns, romances, and even literature out there as well, just waiting for you to check them out.

If you visit these award websites you are going to find one of three things. 1) You've already read all the winners, and deserve to treat yourself to some cake! 2) You've read a bunch of the winners and now have a list of other books to check out, or 3) You've read none of these books, and believe me, an awards list is a great place to start.

Take the time to read the award winners, even if they are just a popularity contest, you owe it to yourself to be familiar with the big books in the genres you love.