The Book Thread

[warty goblin]

I thought I'd do a bit of end-of-year book reflection, organized as a sort of list, as is internet tradition:

Most Pleasant Surprise (fiction)
Joint award to the Scholomance series. I did not think much of A Deadly Education when I first read it, but a call from the local bookstore asking if I wanted to pre-order The Golden Enclaves got me to reread and re evaluate the entire series. While I don't think it's a complex masterpiece for the ages, it is rich, fun, and deeper than I had thought. Well worth reading.

Most pleasant surprise (non-fiction)
Years of Endurance. A memoir by the chief medical officer of HMS Tiger from 2914 through 1916. Really excellently written in that understated fashion you find in early 20th century British prose. It isn't very useful as history - memoirs generally aren't - but it's an excellent look at actually living on board a battlecruiser. Not surprisingly, living on a battlecruiser is wretched and boring and also somehow grand. Mostly this was a surprise because it popped up in my Amazon recommendations, and I've never seen it referenced anywhere.

Most Interesting (Fiction)
Without a doubt this goes to Blood of Roses, by Tanith Lee. Arguably this is in fact a complex masterpiece for the ages, albeit sadly one very few people will actually read, even if they pick it up. This book is a relentlessly difficult read, the plot is bizarre, difficult to summarize, and on first exposure makes absolutely no sense, as in you didn't understand why anything happened, or even what happened. Then the book goes back in time and tells you a bunch of obtuse backstory to the plot you don't understand. This also makes no sense, as you need the next section, which goes back even further and gives you backstory for the backstory. And understanding the plot isn't even half the battle, because the text is so deeply symbolic and metaphorical you need to figure out what the hell everything actually means. Or could mean. Lee gives you an immense amount of interpretive freedom, so like the best abstract and symbolic works, you can use it as a sounding board or interpretive device for your own thinking. Highly recommended, so long ad you are ready to work, and prepared for some really dark content. Like super, super dark.

Most Interesting (nonfiction)
At War, At Sea, a history of, roughly speaking, the evolution of the demands on sailers over the 20th century. This is a bit of a cheat, since I haven't finished it yet, but it's really good and the bibliography has gotten me a whole pile of additional books. Naval history is often deeply obsessed with technology (if you want a catfight, just ask about the relative merits of British 12 inch vs. German 11 inch guns) but this book is extremely uninterested in that. Rather the focus is on how the Navy was perceived, how it was trained, how it fought and what the experience of fighting was like and how it changed with time.

Best Reread
Dragonlance Legends. There's always a bit of trepidation going back to a beloved book after a lot of years, but this held up better than I was afraid it would. For all that it looks like the most cliche fantasy possible, Dragonlance strikes me as frequently weird and daring. This series in particular does a lot of strange things, and is willing to focus on really flawed people with both affection and honesty.

Better than it had any right to be
Dragonlance: Dragons of Deceit. Look, this should be just a lazy nostalgia trip, and I would have been happy with that. Recontextualing arguably the biggest moment in the original Dragonlance trilogy was not in the cards, to say nothing of strongly hinting at massive timeline changes to come. That it does all this mostly successfully, and in classic Weis & Hickman style, is something I am very grateful for.

Exactly as good as it should be
Book of Shadows, by Holly Black. I want to start by saying this is fine. Its also, from theme to plot, unsurprising to the last molecule. Its got a magic system complete with official and slang words for stuff so the world feels Lived In, the protagonist is Complicated and Flawed but not in ways that matter, it's About Trauma and also Inequality, it has a Big Plot Twist that you will see coming from Mars, and standard modern prose which is just fine but also passes through the brain like a linguistic neutrino. This is exactly what you think it will be when you pick it up, and that's fine.

Also Holly Black edited Cassandra Claire's pornographic Rin/Ginny incest fic back in the day. This is completely irrelevant to the text, and also the most interesting thing about it. And - say it with me - that's fine. Not the Ron/Ginny porno fiction, that's disgusting trash and more power to it, but the book. Is fine.

So what stood out to you this year?