Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Linda Brent

This is an autobiography written in 1861 by Harriet Jacobs under the Brent pseudonym. It is the story of Jacobs life from about the age of 10 through 25 or so. The story tells of her years as a slave and travel to the north after escape. I won't summarize the story here, but please read this. It is a fascinating primary source telling of slavery by a particularly unique woman in so many ways. Through the telling her life story, Jacobs illuminates so many misconceptions about slavery that exist even today. She powerfully captures many of the root emotions associated with slavery, and the generational impacts of slavery on both black and white, north and south. This is not a book about slavery, but an exposure of humanity, the corruption of power, persistence, and self worth. Read!

5 stars (out of 4)

The Obelisk Gate

N.K. Jemison
Volume 2 of The Broken Earth trilogy

Picking up immediately after the first, a fifth season has begun, and it has been started by the cataclysmic actions of the powerful orogene Alabaster. Essun is now learning from her former mentor things about the world that she did not know. She gets a glimpse of an ancient grudge between humans and Father Earth that, if set right, could end the fifth seasons. And she begins to see into the roots of orogeny. But she is also still a human, a person, a mother. So amidst her explorations, she is a member of a new community, and still seeking her lost daughter. These relationships she can not put off as easy as Alabaster would have her. Jemison has us deep in this world, but there is so much mystery that we as readers are just discovering what this world is, just as the characters seem to be. 

4 stars (out of 4)

The Fifth Season

N.K. Jemison
Volume 1 of The Broken Earth trilogy

First, let me say Really Good Storytelling. I knew nothing about this world before reading and much of the pleasure of this book came in the unfolding of the characters and the plot-line. So I will not ruin for you that same pleasure (which makes this basically a useless summary). Read the book without reading any synopsis. Suffice it to say, the world that is created here is novel and interesting. It is mysterious. The stories of the characters we are following reveal to us as readers complexity and humanity and suggest political and social hierarchies and machinations that are sure to only surface in Vol 2 & 3. I can see why this is award winning and can't wait to continue.
4 stars (out of 4)

Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

Originally published in 1985, I am just now getting around to the classic sci-fi story. Ender is a chosen child and sent to a special school for training. His charge? Apparently humans came together sometime in the past to fit a truly world war... this time Earth v. some alien insects species that was invading. That time, Earth forces won, but barely and mostly with luck and on the valor of one leader. Ender is now a student in the military academy learning strategy and technique to fight space battles against the aliens should they choose to return. The story is mostly the story of his training and development as a soldier with his other child soldier conscripts. He is clearly leader material and clearly "the chosen one", so the adults put him in situation where he is tested beyond his own belief in himself to show that he can succeed. Trial by fire to develop a military leader. It is a good story... good enough that I have the sequels on my read list. But it is also pretty clearly an 80's storyline, and reading through that lens I can see how it was revolutionary at the time. It feels a lot like Ready Player One or Feed, although those push more cyberpunk than space war.
3 stars (out of 4)

Past Tense

A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child

Reacher stops off at a small town that has some family history (his dad may have lived there as a child). It so happens that near this small town is an aspiring business where rich people are able to pay lots of money to bow-hunt other people. The hunted (of course) are unwilling. Reacher gets involved in a round about way, so that it almost seems like his involvement is ancillary to main story of him discovering his past. The hunted that he helps are just resilient enough to make you wonder if they needed Reacher at all. But he helps, none-the-less, setting everyone straight and reinforcing that while interested in history, he doesn't really care about or need it. On to the next small town...


2 stars (out of 4)

Red Clocks

Leni Zumas

Set in a future Oregon where the federal government has overturned Roe v Wade and has even outlawed in-vitro fertilization. Basically, this is a semi-realistic portrayal of what life would be like if reproductive rights are managed by government. Including the adoption/foster system disfunction. Zumas is clearly an Oregonian, using her home as setting for a novel. Sometimes this comes across as unimaginative or novice. And this feels that way at the start. But ultimately, the setting adds character to the story. The story follows several residents (school teacher, student, mother, etc.) of the coastal Oregon town, each with their own life drama. But each individual story touches on or circles around reproductive issues to tie everything together. Engaging and well told. Not dystopian enough to scare anyone into changing their mind about anything, but a probable real future.
4 stars (out of 4)

Chrysalis

Brendan Reichs
Book 3 of Project Nemesis

Now it gets weird. The class is surviving on "New Earth". But of course, not all is as it seems. We go from colonizers, to space ships, to AI, back to colonizers. Continually weird, and Reichs redeems the 2nd book with some creativity here. I kept thinking, how is he going to resolve all of this... and then he throws another complete left turn. In this conclusion, the Fire Lake group meets up with a Montana group and are again surprised by where they are and what they are a part of. What starts out as a continuation of the "Lord of the Flies" fight for domination transitions into an us-against-them fight for survival of humanity. We have been turned around so many times that even up until the end, we are not sure about what is real, and what is not (just like the characters). The series overall has some holes in it in terms of continuity (Sophia seems to take responsibility for some decisions that she can't really have been responsible for in the timeline), but they are minor to the overall plot and don't really break the experience.
3 stars (out of 4)