A Jungle of Tales

  2022 was a really good reading year for me – everything I picked up was at least decent, and many were really, really good. But here’s a top 15 of things that were new to me, plus some old favorites.   Most “made for me” book: The Doors of Eden Inspired by a concept from favorite science writer and childhood biology inspiration Stephen Jay Gould? Doorways into alternate earths? A diverse set of characters uniting against a fascistic antagonist? Yes, please!   Best Non-Fiction: The Invention of Nature and Sister Outsider . The former is a delightful biography of Alexander Von Humbolt – a fellow well ahead of his time in both his approach to science (thinking in ecosystem terms before we had a word for that) and his social and political ideas. The latter is a collection of essays and addresses by Audre Lorde. Classic intersectional feminism, from before the word was coined.   Best New-To-Me Series: Broken Earth Trilogy Devoure...

              When I read the description of this book I got very excited because it had so many elements that reminded me of my favorite ongoing manga, ‘Seraph of the End’ : A post-apocalyptic world populated by monsters, a cult that’s experimenting on kids to turn them into biblical-angel-themed super-weapons, a queer main character who is an escapee of said cult ending up with a rag-tag found family of child fighters, and a cute but sorta grumpy dark-haired boy in that group that the MC clearly has a crush on. So obviously I had to read it, given that I am not yet sure if ‘Seraph’ is going to end in a way that I like! Indeed, this story does those elements well, but takes them in a different direction that is more inspired by political and religious movements in the US, 1 and that has more true horror 2 . It was an enjoyable read that was hard to put down. However, the way violence is treated is quite di...

  My mom gave me this book as an early Christmas present, pitching it as “Jewish Good Omens”.   And she was not wrong: This felt a lot like the best kind of ‘Good Omens’ fan fiction – which I 100% mean as a compliment! At the same time, the story is its own thing – “classic Yiddish novel, but it’s queer” is what the author said they were going for – and would thus be enjoyable even for someone who hasn’t read GO and doesn’t feel like they are visiting with alternate-universe Aziraphale and Crowley!   The reason for the strong GO vibe is two of the three main characters: a demon and an angel who have been studying the Talmud together for several centuries in a shtetl too small to have a name and have in the process have become friends. Ashmedai, more commonly known as Little Ash, is an easily-bored mischief-maker but not actually evil, relies more on his wits than on the strength of his magical powers to get out of scrapes, has vertical-pupiled eyes...

  This was my first encounter with Audre Lorde’s work. If she had not mentioned that she considers herself primarily a poet and finds writing prose difficult I never would have guessed – because these essays, letters, and speeches contain some really powerful stuff! That poetic sensibility is certainly there, of course, as the words have a rhythm to them that pure prose authors rarely capture. I kept wanting to underline things every other paragraph, and for that reason I’m sure this is a collection I will come back to.   One of the things that particularly struck me was Lorde’s approach to inclusivity in social movements: "The above forms of human blindness [racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia] stem from the same root - an inability to recognize the notion of difference as a dynamic human force, one which is enriching rather than threatening to the defined self, when there are shared goals."  She, of course, was unfortunately in the positi...

  The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness. ‘Unstill’ is the word Leah uses…” This book combines the tragic melancholy of a gothic novel with Lovecraftian sea-critter-and-body-horror creepiness in a very creative way. It follows two timelines. The first is narrated by Miri, whose wife Leah has come back from an unexpectedly extended deep sea voyage…different. It is mostly the present timeline, though we do get insight into Miri’s memories of who Leah used to be. And there is a past timeline, in which we see that voyage from Leah’s perspective. We never entirely, exactly, understand what happened to Leah, but that only adds to the horror vibes, really. Throughout the book I found myself thinking of this quote from ‘The Tempest’: “Full fathoms five thy father lies/ Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes/ Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea change/ Into something ric...

      This book is a very enjoyable cross between speculative science fiction and a political/spy thriller. The basic concept is that the matriarchal colony world of New Amazonia possesses a mysterious power source that Old Earth wants; Unofficially, Earth also wants to bring New Amazonia under the hegemony of the Coalition. However, the Amazonians won’t accept a male ambassador unless he is “gentle” (AKA gay). This is a problem for patriarchal Old Earth, as it doesn’t have any female ambassadors and homosexuality is criminalized. But, luckily for them, Vincent Katherinessen and Michelangelo Kusanagi-Jones are highly skilled ambassador-spies who, while having been disgraced for a previous failed mission and the subsequent revelation of the relationship between them, are at least still alive. However, the leadership of Old Earth either fails to consider that those classified as essentially “useful trash” might not be 100% loyal…or just figures they have ...