Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Who Fears Death is the story of a young woman named Onyesonwu.  It takes place in a future, post-apocalyptic Sudan. Magic is real, and  coexists with legacy technology.

Onyesonwu is a child of interracial rape, an Ewu.  As a result of this heritage, her skin is the color of sand and she  immediately stands out in her culture. Her name translates as "who  fears death?"

The story is a rather character-driven  journey. The stakes are incredibly personal. Onyesonwu's mother's people  are the Okeke. The Nuru, her father's people, are invaders who have  subjugated many Okeke villages.

Okorafor pointed to this article on the Darfur crisis as inspiration. Onyesonwu's father, Daib, is a particularly nasty character. He acts as the book's main villain. For much of the story, she tries to reject that he is her father.

A large part of the story deals  with confronting her place in society and what it means to be Ewu. As she grows older, Onyesonwu  sees herself as a burden on her mother and stepfather. It's a struggle  that she pushes against throughout the entire story.

She  tries to follow her village's customs, even those her parents  disapprove of.  As an attempt to  increase her social standing within their community, . This creates a  temporary rift between her and her parents. But it provides a strong  bond with the others undergoing the ritual -- an important element to the story.

I liked this book quite a bit. I'm particularly biased towards first-person novels. In that regard, Who Fears Death  was already staged to meet my taste. Much of the book is in the first  person, from Onyesonwu's perspective. I loved getting into Onyesonwu's  views of the world. It was immediate, tense, and immersive.

It  is revealed that Onyesonwu is telling the story to a transcriber. so it becomes questionable how accurate the narration is. Which is great, because I like unreliable narrators, too. It  also changed the genre of the story from memoir to possible gospel.

The  ending left me feeling like Onyesonwu left an indelible change on her  world. She could be a possible messiah figure. It ended with enough ambiguity to  let the readers draw their own conclusion. But I would love to see how  Onyesonwu affected the two cultures presented in the future.

This  was Nnedi Okorafor's first novel for adults. She had written several  young adult novels before this one. She does a great job with the tone  of the book. I loved how it sucked me in with the beauty of the prose.  The chapter length is very well done. They read almost as well crystallized short stories.

While  this book was amazing, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. The content  could definitely make some squeamish. I felt uncomfortable during certain portions. Particularly because I was reading out in public.

I realize that caveat is a large one for many people. But it is a good story that shines a light on feeling like an uncomfortable  in society.  Now more than ever, that's an important factor to think  about. If you are all right with the uncomfortable aspects  of the story, I highly recommend Who Fears Death.

Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner

Swordspoint, published in 1986, bills itself as a "melodrama of manners." According to a little internet research, it's a foremost work in the mannerpunk subgenre. Mannerpunk hails back to the regency era, and focuses on social niceties in a fantasy world.

Think The Importance of Being Earnest, but there could be dragons and wizards.

Swordspoint is set in the fictional town of Riverside. The city used to be a monarchy, but now a council of nobles preside. The river bisects the town. The upper crust is on one side, the commoners on the other.

A major factor in the politics of the city is the duelists. Mercenary fencers take commissions from nobility. Sometimes, these are for general non-lethal performances. Weddings, parties, the like. Other jobs are law sanctioned contracted hits. The nobility use the duelists to fight a highly codified proxy war among themselves.

I enjoyed the relationship at the center of the story. Richard is a duelist in high demand, and Alec is a scholar from a noble past. They're are interesting characters with a lot of life. You can tell that Ellen Kushner worked hard to develop their romance in a real, relatable way.

The book's title comes from the following epigram: "Every man lives at swordspoint." This means that every one has something in their life that makes them susceptible. It's a great foreshadowing. One particularly odious nobleman tries to use Alec as leverage over Richard. The swordsman complies, and then wreaks a particularly nasty revenge.

While there was a great deal to enjoy in the story, I did find it a rather mixed bag.

Pacing was a bit of an issue. I had a hard time paying attention to the parties and the social fetes of the upper class. While they expanded the world of Riverside, it wasn't easy to like any of the members of nobility. They were rather flat -- as if they were scenery pieces rather than real people. I would have enjoyed it more if there weren't such a wide array of parties and fetes. Less superfluous exploration of the higher class would have tightened up the story.

I listened to this as an audio book. The author narrated it, with help from various actors. There were also sound effects and musical clips. It won an Audie Award in 2013, so I had high hopes for the quality of the production.

Unfortunately, I found it fell short. The sound effects and music were more-or-less random in execution. Only some of the characters had different voice actors. Also, some of the lines awkwardly shift from the narrator to the actors mid-break.

I would have enjoyed the book more without the "enhancements." If they created a full audio-drama, that'd be wonderful. It's one of my favorite mediums. But this amalgam of book and audio drama didn't work. It was an exercise in exasperation.

Ellen Kushner did a fine job narrating the story. If the production had maintained that, it would have been a far more entertaining work. The extra fluff only made it harder to listen to.

Final word, Swordspoint is a very serviceable work that could have been even better.

Temper by Nicky Drayden

Temper is about twin brothers, Auben and Kasim Mtuze. Set in a fictional analogue of southern Africa, they live in a society that is made up of primarily twins. As a coming-of-age ceremony, these twins are assessed and assigned a mixture of the seven vices.

Normally, it's common for the twins to split along a three to four ratio. Sometimes, it can be five to two. The Mtuzes are rare in that Auben has six and Kasim only has one.

Kasim has embraced his bad-boy lifestyle. He flirts with the girls. Classes are meant to be missed, right? Also, he isn't afraid to supplement his lifestyle with a little bit of theft.

But, as the year turns, Auben starts to hear voices. They're pushing him to go beyond petty  fun-seeking and move into more serious misdeeds. Also, he's starting to crave the taste of blood.

Overall, I really liked Temper quite a bit! This was Nicky Drayden's second effort, and I'm going to add her to my category of "to-read-upon-release."

First, I loved that the story was a standalone. There's nothing wrong with a series. But, sometimes, looking at the book store's shelves, I think that the stand alone speculative fiction novel is a lost art. It's nice to find a story that fits into less than four hundred pages.

I also liked the social structure of the world. Peoples' social status depended on how many vices they had. Since Auben had six, he wasn't looking at the rosiest of futures. Kasim was looking at the reverse. He expects to climb to a respectable position on the social ladder. Auben, though, can expect to live in a ghetto called a comfy.

Also, I liked the idea of a society of twins. There's a very specific world building reason that this happens that I won't get into here. But, in addition to the male/female paradigm, the twin effect has added the kigen gender, which was an interesting thing to think about.

The world of the story is going through an intense debate about religion and secularism. The two sides have very strongly drawn boundaries. Also, mechanical devices are verboten, due to cultural exploitation from machine-using conquerors.

The Mtuze's mother is strongly secularist, and she's raised her boys to be such as well. When they choose to explore religion as a means of understanding what's happening, she reacts strongly.

I love the sense of humor in the story. Auben revels in the funny. His uncle-in-law, Pabio, illustrates not-safe-for-work "childrens" books, such as an octopus with mouth-herpes. There are other examples, too, but some of them give away a bit too much of the story.

I was a little less thrilled with the use of language in the book. It's written in the first-person, present tense. No issues with the first-person voice -- I love it in general. It's just a touch jarring to read at first. Whenever I came back to the book, it took a few minutes to get back into the swing of the text.

Also, the chapters were really long. It was sometimes hard to find a good stopping point, particularly when I started dozing off in bed. If the chapter subsections had been a bit more clearly labeled, it would have been easier going.

Overall, though, those are some minor nitpicks. I highly recommend this for people interested in reading fantasy set in Africa (something sorely lacking at the moment), and also people interested in drama between family members.

The Healer's War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

I thought the book did a good job of humanizing war. While working in the hospital, Kitty divides her time before treating American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians. Scarborough worked hard to make the Vietnamese characters seem real, well-rounded people.

Later, during the jungle portion of the story, Scarborough shows how the ordinary people are trapped. In order to just survive, they have to keep both sides of the conflict happy. It's not an easy job, and it takes a huge toll.

I liked the magic The magical talisman doesn't help Kitty "win;" she doesn't gain some kind of power that allows her to overcome her challenges. Rather, it helps her see what lies underneath the surface of those around her.

The first-person narrative of the book is vital -- if it were told in third person, the story would not have been quite as effective. Also, as a woman, Kitty didn't have to go to Vietnam. She could have found plenty of work in an American hospital. But she took a commission voluntarily because she wanted to help. I think the book would have had a much less vibrant perspective if it were through the lens of a drafted serviceman or even a male nurse.

I think this is an important book, particularly because it shows the personal effect of battle on people. It thinks about who is involved -- the "good guys," the "bad guys," and the people just caught in the middle. It also ends well, showing Kitty struggling with PTSD and finding a way out.

It's especially important because the genre tends to glorify war to a certain extent. I wish there were more stories like this. I'd recommend this for people who are looking for a different kind of look at the violence people inflict.