Reading Wednesday
Apr. 30th, 2025 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyJust finished: Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. I ended up loving this one. The scary mermaids were...not mermaids. (I don't want to give spoilers, but I imagine that a Black reader will understand much earlier than I did.) I should have seen what they actually were coming but I did not, and it was incredibly cool and incredibly brutal. It's funny because this story has like, half a dozen tropes I normally dislike, but it was done so well that they completely worked in this context. This ended up being my pick for best novella in the Nebulas based on vibes alone.
Currently reading: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Frustratingly, I'm like a chapter away from having finished this. Let's just say that it is a perfect pairing with Lost Ark Dreaming.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar. I'm not finished it yet but let's just say it was going to be a toss up as to whether this was my Nebula pick. This is a very strange and dreamy story about class divisions and the carceral state on a mining ship. In the Hold, generations of workers are Chained, never seeing anything other than their miserable conditions. But a boy who is good at drawing is plucked from the Hold and brought up to the ship's university, where he joins the bluelegs, people like his professor, who get an electronic ankle bracelet instead of a chain. Some people even have no fetters, and get names instead. This is so cool so far.
Currently reading: Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons From Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Frustratingly, I'm like a chapter away from having finished this. Let's just say that it is a perfect pairing with Lost Ark Dreaming.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar. I'm not finished it yet but let's just say it was going to be a toss up as to whether this was my Nebula pick. This is a very strange and dreamy story about class divisions and the carceral state on a mining ship. In the Hold, generations of workers are Chained, never seeing anything other than their miserable conditions. But a boy who is good at drawing is plucked from the Hold and brought up to the ship's university, where he joins the bluelegs, people like his professor, who get an electronic ankle bracelet instead of a chain. Some people even have no fetters, and get names instead. This is so cool so far.
