Trashy Books for Smart People: Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Maybe my favorite genre #77
Let the flags flourish and the trumpets volunteer, it’s time for volume 4 of Trashy Books for Smart People, which I don’t really have to tell you because a/ you’re smart and b/ you read the subject line of this email!
This is the time wherein we have the supreme self-confidence to read engrossing books that may not excavate our spiritual detritus or solve the climate crisis or make us more accomplished venture capitalists (if you think I might be writing this pointedly about you, yes, I AM, HI.) Past editions include the masterful and pulpy Pat Conroy, the sublimely romantic yet oddly unsentimental Rosamunde Pilcher, and just a few other fiction choices which I will avoid floridly characterizing, for maybe the first time in 77 newsletters.
In the fantasy genre especially, it is a truth universally acknowledged that you have to work to find the books that are not only fun reads but also interesting or intricate enough to engage an adult mind, possibly have a few substantive notions or themes, and inspire with its creativity. Yes, it takes some leg work to uncover the gems that do not leave you feeling vaguely dazed and rumpled and a little disgusted with how you just spent three hours. But they’re out there! (For other fantasy & sci-fi faves, go here.)
Of course, if the fantasy genre, or even the TBfSP idea, is a waste of time for you, I get it! Beloved, in this house, we read what we want, without apology. Go find something you love in the archive like investigative non-fiction or contemporary Black fiction or some great LGBTQ selections for Pride. But also, may I plant the tiniest of thought seeds in your already-stipulated big brain to suggest that you too - yes, you! - deserve reading for pure joy and escape. So, have a think about what that might mean to you.
Are the rest of you with me? Once more unto the breach!
The Atlas Six, about a group of six magical people who are recruited to guard a magical library, became a best-seller due to TikTok. I know, it’s an inauspicious launching pad. But this was a total page-turner, an academic schemer and a Gothic quest-style book with a solid undercurrent of both quantum mechanics or something like it.
It hearkened back to both Ninth House and The Secret History, though to be fair it’s not as well written as either of those. And it’s so clearly written as a series that I felt the stand-alone nature of this book was a little unresolved. But still - I thrilled through it.
Click here for a guide to these purple lambs.
I’ve mentioned Midnight Riot and the Rivers of London series before as a Fun Mystery, but now that I’ve just finished number eight of the nine books (why won’t you order the ninth book, local library?! Why! After all we’ve been through?) I can confidently recommend it as a smart fantasy and - dare I say? - sci-fi adjacent series. It’s about a London cop who joins the magical police force, solving the “weird bollocks” cases that his contemporaries would rather ignore.
The author (a former Dr. Who writer) approaches the magical theory in a very scientific way, and while each book has a stand-alone “case of the week”, there’s a series through-line that’s getting increasingly sci-fi (drones! electrical manipulation! Neurology!) and metaphysical. Plus, they’re very funny and, perhaps unlike a lot of fantasy titles, a series that I think men and women would enjoy equally.
If you’ve read Sarah J. Maas books before, I acknowledge that they teeter on the edge of being actually just trashy, while also acknowledging that I inhaled the entire ACOTAR series in a feverish, unstoppable fugue state.
However! House of Earth and Blood is a step up from those books in terms of plot, characterization and theme, and while no one will mistake this for “literature,” I think deserves its place in this newsletter. Basically, fierce, funny, bold, half-Fae Bryce is living her mid-twenties party-girl fantasy when her best friend Danika (who’s a person but also a wolf who’s kind of a cop?) is murdered. Bryce goes on a mission to avenge her death and … honestly, any summary of this book sounds ridiculous.
It’s the most traditional of these fantasy books despite being set in a sort of modern world. It has intricate fantasy world-building, inter-species romances and conflicts, and a more balanced amount of sexual tension than her previous pornography books. All I know is, the true love story at the core of this book really moved me, the characters are complicated in a thoughtful way, and I literally sobbed through the last 100 pages over the cinematic heroics of the characters. Ridiculous, and fun.
(Giving this 3.5 lambies because it’s more violent than the other two.)
A Book Anecdote
So, I put books on hold at my local library and usually pick up three or four at a time. They’re listed alphabetically for easy pick up, and friends — there is a guy with my SAME LAST NAME who seems to read the same breadth and genres of books at the same voracious clip.
What is the meaning of this coincidental sorcery?!?
Should I leave him a post-it note with this book newsletter? Should I start using his selections as a reader’s guide? Will I be devastated if he takes out Sapiens? I’m officially obsessed with Daniel J Bennett, Speed Reader. Please join me on this journey.
