Halfway There - My Subjective Chaos Update

Helloooo!

Subjective Chaos in the year of 2020 and a bit continues! We’ve agreed that we will finish first round reading end of August so a quick progress update from myself. I’m now up to date on two categories and two to go!

Best Blurred Boundary

I reviewed The City We Became by N K Jemisin  last year and loved it. A merging of urban fantasy; cosmic horror and sharp political commentary all done by an author who we all know by now tells great stories. A worthy candidate but for me feels like it’s clearly part one of a trilogy and I’m of the view the series entries to come may offer even more to digest.

Another read last year The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart merges an epic fantasy tale with some interesting almost technology driven magic systems. It’s creative, has some fascinating characters but I think as with City for this category I’ve only seen part one of the story and for me not sure its yet all said all it’s planning to say.

You won’t see a review of Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir here as I’m afraid I bounced off it hard. I liked Gideon The Ninth as a funny stylish murder mystery in space but I found this one very much to be trying to be hard and this time the style over substance approach turned me off. Other readers love it. It’s just not the type of thing I tend to enjoy.

Now   Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia  was my joint favourite book of 2020 so all I will sy is this is a great example of the category.

The final nominee Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu reminds me why I love Subjective Chaos for finding books that I missed in the previous year. It’s unusual, funny, intelligent and emption ally engaging yet sharp in its analysis and commentary on racism and being an immigrant in the US. I loved it.

Best Fantasy

First up I apologise in advance for the absence of The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune – it’s just for me it did nothing to me at all. I can see it is lovely; has charming characters and its heart in the right place and I know very many people find it a comforting read. But I wasn’t getting very much out of it and I think it’s because I like a little more grit in my reading and this was a bit too sweet for me. Great book but for the wrong reader.

Easily one of my favourite fantasy characters ever has appeared in The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K S Villoso a tale of powerful queen left all alone in enemy territory relying on herself to survive. One of the best examples of inner and outer voice you can see in fantasy.

Now  Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is doing loads differently from worldbuilding and approach. It’s creating a world then smashing it. On that alone it deserves the praise it gets. But the other shoe has not yet dropped so I need to ponder on this one a bit more.

With The Midnight Bargain by CL Polk I get a great combination of a new fantasy world to explore; some wonderful characters to pull for in a romance plot and a study about the rights of women to live their own lives. I really liked the way this was handled s very much in my thoughts at the moment.

Then with Comet Weather by Liz Williams I get what is some ways is a very traditional British Folklore fantasy that sits in an established tradition of modern world meets old world but I did like the way the four sisters look at the world with a modern eye. The writing here is gorgeous.

With The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow we get another tale of magic; women’s rights and protest combined with gorgeous prose. It was also a delight to read

Yes you can guess making my mind up this year is once again hard!