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28 January 2024 04:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_small_dragonEllis' Reading: Utopian Fiction!
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys:
I wish I liked this book more. The base idea of a post (sort of) communization society composed of locally based organizations struggling to repair the earth together while the remnants of governments and corporations hold out and form their own culturally distinct enclaves is interesting. The idea of aliens disdaining this care for place also has potential. However, on a plotting level I felt that a lot of ideas were introduced at or past the halfway point and then were not sufficiently resolved -- I think there ought to have been a second consistent POV thread from the beginning (those corporates who ended up leaving the enclave?), at the very least. The approach to gender was also simplistic in a way I didn't care for. Overall, I think comparisons to Le Guin were a serious mistake and gave me the wrong impression coming into this.
Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin:
Speaking of Le Guin. This is a sort of anthropological science fiction, and it's direct about that fact. I've read people's "worldbuilding" compendiums online that are and aren't this. Le Guin has a specific structure in mind, drawn from the post-civilization culture she imagines, that draws the reader in and out of her future, and she knows when to stop. Listening to the accompanying Kesh album is seriously worth doing. My 'favorite' parts were the visionary narrative and the unfinished novel excerpt.
The book is troubling as it is compelling, treading close to potential primitivism despite the sci-fi of the Exchange and the old poisons left being by old civilizations. Le Guin even critiques this herself in some of her Pandora sections. I want to come back to this book again.
Everything For Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi:
A book I originally checked out as an audiobook but couldn't get through. I gave it another chance this month. It was quicker to get through as text, but it might be best read, for me, in combination. I think this book pairs well with ACH, as they both replicate academic forms in various ways. Maybe I need to let this one simmer, or come back to it again? I liked the world they imagined, and wished I could live there. The authors' attention to what threads might need to be addressed in a future revolution is wonderfully broad.
Overall: a lot of utopian fiction reveals the limits of the imagination of its authors. But it is just as inspiring to try and start imagining past those limits oneself.
About to finish A Wizard of Earthsea and start Tombs of Atuan for Shelved by Genre. I'm not sure if I'll feel the need to make any comments on them. I've also got some Delany, a misc. sci fi duology, Aliette de Bodard's fantasy book, and two nonfiction books about mazes/labyrinths to read at my pleasure.
A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys:
I wish I liked this book more. The base idea of a post (sort of) communization society composed of locally based organizations struggling to repair the earth together while the remnants of governments and corporations hold out and form their own culturally distinct enclaves is interesting. The idea of aliens disdaining this care for place also has potential. However, on a plotting level I felt that a lot of ideas were introduced at or past the halfway point and then were not sufficiently resolved -- I think there ought to have been a second consistent POV thread from the beginning (those corporates who ended up leaving the enclave?), at the very least. The approach to gender was also simplistic in a way I didn't care for. Overall, I think comparisons to Le Guin were a serious mistake and gave me the wrong impression coming into this.
Always Coming Home by Ursula Le Guin:
Speaking of Le Guin. This is a sort of anthropological science fiction, and it's direct about that fact. I've read people's "worldbuilding" compendiums online that are and aren't this. Le Guin has a specific structure in mind, drawn from the post-civilization culture she imagines, that draws the reader in and out of her future, and she knows when to stop. Listening to the accompanying Kesh album is seriously worth doing. My 'favorite' parts were the visionary narrative and the unfinished novel excerpt.
The book is troubling as it is compelling, treading close to potential primitivism despite the sci-fi of the Exchange and the old poisons left being by old civilizations. Le Guin even critiques this herself in some of her Pandora sections. I want to come back to this book again.
Everything For Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi:
A book I originally checked out as an audiobook but couldn't get through. I gave it another chance this month. It was quicker to get through as text, but it might be best read, for me, in combination. I think this book pairs well with ACH, as they both replicate academic forms in various ways. Maybe I need to let this one simmer, or come back to it again? I liked the world they imagined, and wished I could live there. The authors' attention to what threads might need to be addressed in a future revolution is wonderfully broad.
Overall: a lot of utopian fiction reveals the limits of the imagination of its authors. But it is just as inspiring to try and start imagining past those limits oneself.
About to finish A Wizard of Earthsea and start Tombs of Atuan for Shelved by Genre. I'm not sure if I'll feel the need to make any comments on them. I've also got some Delany, a misc. sci fi duology, Aliette de Bodard's fantasy book, and two nonfiction books about mazes/labyrinths to read at my pleasure.