Fantasy & Sci-Fi without the Macho BS!
Some standalone gems. WSIR #29
In my entire life as a reader, I’ve never been into the fantasy and sci-fi genre. (Excluding the obvious Harry Potter and Mists of Avalon of the world because please, am I not mere mortal flesh and blood?) But generally, it has not been my jam. I’ve never read Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones nor anything cyborgian or futuristic. I know so many people who read this as their primary genre - probably people reading this right now, hi - and I just never “got it.”
My hesitation was primarily two-fold:
The sci-fi genre always seemed aggressively masculine in all the bad ways (dirty machinery, zombies, macho worldbuilding, violence, disposable female characters with the exception of the one Lara Croftian-fantasy babe), not to mention generally quite dystopian and, BONJOUR, we live in the MODERN WORLD, is this not DYSTOPIAN ENOUGH?
Fantasy and sci-fi require so many characters and so much alt-universe exposition that, unless expertly done, it felt opaque and exhausting to me. There’s always that clunky, impenetrable line of dialogue in chapter two that’s like “‘During the clash of the Gurgians and Phrygians we lost the power of shymetry’ Llagorn said as the steamer craft hovered silently in the forest of Ragill.” And as a reader it’s just “wha … who? Should I know what this is? They have hovercrafts but not modern cookery?” You know I’m right.
Which is why I was as shut-the-door-shocked as anyone when 2021 rolled around and all I wanted to read was the fantasy genre! Perhaps it was just a new take on escapism since so much of the current literature, however accomplished, feels unbearably dreary and depressing right now.
Whatever the reason, it turns out that of course my biases are pretty unfair and there are plenty of emotional, thoughtful, engrossing fantasy reads, that through its un-reality give us a chance to think about our own humanity in a different way. Not to mention the bonus that so many of them are series, which affords the delicious chance to revel in the characters and world for a thousand-odd pages.
So if you’re someone who has also hesitated to jump into this genre, or if you’re someone who loves fantasy and rolled their eyes through my initiation into it, either way - here are a few fantasy & sci-fi books I’ve loved. I’m deliberately listing stand-alone books here but will share some of my favorite fantasy series in a future newsletter! Call it a cliffhanger. :)
Everyone loves the Shadow and Bone series by this author, and I liked that series, but I loved Ninth House.
Power summary: At modern-day Yale, there exists an entire society of magic amongst the secret societies. Troubled, mysterious high school dropout Alex is offered a Yale scholarship and a job monitoring these secret societies as their activities become more sinister and more dangerous.
It’s part mystery, part reflection on power and privilege, and a really fun, eerie read written for adults. I particularly loved the expertly complex interplay of the “real world” and the magical world, and the imaginative plot twists. Plus, Alex is a compelling, complicated, funny heroine. I actually hope this becomes a series.
The Bone Maker is another standalone fantasy novel by an author who writes mostly series, so she’s packing a whole philosophy into one shot. In many ways it’s very traditional in its world-building (lots of natural settings and people in cloaks) but I loved its bittersweet, mature take on mortality, evil, the desperate beauty of time, and what we would sacrifice for our loved ones and for the greater good. It would be too hard to give you a power summary without giving away too much of the plot, but it’s worth checking out. Plus, when do you have middle-aged protagonists? So SATISFYING.
If sci-fi is more your thing, well, you probably know all about William Gibson, but The Peripheral is a great read especially for readers who fear sci-fi.
Power summary: It’s set in two “near future” worlds - one with our heroine, Flynn, in rural America where jobs are scarce and drugs are plentiful, and one with Wilf, seventy years later in a post-apocalyptic London. When Flynn witnesses a crime in a virtual game, their lives intersect between worlds.
Sure, Flynn is kind of a tough-chick male fantasy, and there’s lots of sci-fi robotics and cyborgs, but it’s a page turner and feels spookily prescient in how realistic it could be. I should probably read more William Gibson, now that we’re talking about it.
Lastly, I rather desultorily picked up Chosen Ones just because I liked the Divergent series by this author, and I was pleasantly surprised how substantively it tackled the aftermath of the hero’s journey (in some ways the same topic as in The Bone Maker.)
Power summary: Fifteen years ago, five teens defeated the Dark One and saved humanity from evil. But what happened next? How do you live the rest of your life as a teenage hero? And can evil really be banished?
I loved the premise of a hero’s legacy, and PTSD, and what it means to be a “chosen” one once your quest is over, and how to grapple with life after a life-changing event (sorry, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child thought it was addressing this topic but it was t.e.r.r.i.b.l.e.) And of course, there’s still the deeply descriptive and fascinating meta-verse building that you want in the genre. Surprisingly good!
A Year of Reading Shakespeare That Isn’t: On Habits & Obligation
If you’re new here, I started the year with a bright-eyed plan to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, and I feel like I owe you an update. (Of course, if you’re new here, you’re probably thinking “girl, I didn’t even know I was owed an update.” If not of interest, you can just skip to the next section to see what’s on my current reading list.)
So, the update: I have not read all, most, or many of Shakespeare’s plays. In fact, I haven’t read one in 10 weeks. I’m not proud of it, but here we are.
Partially this is feeble simple-mindedness. It’s simply more fun and less work to read something in modern prose, especially when the library constantly feeds you new books you want to read. Of course this is an unflattering reality.
But also in a world, and especially the past 18 months, where obligation and stress have been in grand supply, it’s felt self-battling to force myself into yet one more thing that does not bring me joy, but rather mostly a sense of time pressure and need to power through pages. And once you GET out of a habit, it’s much easier to STAY out of a habit.
So where does that leave Mr Wills & Kerry? Like everything else in our lives, walking a tightrope of “good for you goals” and “find joy.” Which is to say - hoping I can let go of the rigid Shakespeare-in-a-year gold-star accomplishment and view Macbeth as another sweetener to the joy of life that is reading.
Because sometimes even I need to remember what our motto is here, friends - read what you love, leave what you don’t, and don’t let nobody tell you different.
As always:
All links go to Bookshop.org, which supports independent bookstores in the US, UK and Spain.
You can see all past recos on my Bookshop.org page. If I were ever to get any $$ for you buying a book via these links I would first fall over in a dead excited faint and then donate it to the Los Angeles Public Library Foundation which provides free resources to LA county adults and kids. This was especially important during COVID as the library provided multi-lingual tutoring and loanable hotspots to the 30% of homes without broadband access. LIBRARIES, y’all!
Images made in Projector, which is super easy for non-designers like me.