Enjoy the new short reviews!
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
I must have had the wrong expectations going into Monstrilio, especially it being listed as horror made me expect a book that aims at scaring, disturbing, unsettling. Having finished it now, I unfortunately feel underwhelmed. I don't want to say I was disappointed, but I was in a way, since the story of a boy, raised from the one lung of his parents' deceased son, a little flesh-eating monster who was forced into being a human, but who finally returned to being a monster, didn't really hit me hard enough. This book is more about grief than anything else, and the crazy things we do while it has us in its grip.
The narration is divided into four parts; mother Magos, father Joseph, family friend Lena and finally M for Monstrilio. The whole ordeal is rather tragic than terrifying and there is undeniably a way to use tragic in horror, but it needs to be done carefully. Although I have a soft spot for stories of beings who try to defy their nature, try to suppress who they really are and become something they are not, what I was offered here wasn't enough for me, it was almost boring. I wish the whole story were narrated from the point of view of M, that would have been more exciting.
I also can't warm up to books that don't have dialogue markers. I would have liked it less if one whole chapter wasn't set in Berlin.
Ten Planets by Yuri Herrera
We’re always on opposite ends of the universe.
I have never before read stories so able to embody, to convey the alienation, the strangeness, the abandonment that are their central motives, the way the stories in this book do. Everything feels new, strange, detached here, and Herrera introduces us to truly extraordinary ideas and truly alien planets – bacteria which gain consciousness, copulation as language, murderous smart homes, man eating monsters, wild bureaucracies, lonely post-cataclysmic landscapes – but always as a commentary on our own planet and its inhabitants.
The stories are often extremely short, even for short stories, but make up in substance for what they don’t provide in length. You could easily sit a whole evening and think about what Herrera has compressed into one and a half pages. Surely not for everyone but very enjoyable for some, certainly for me.
I also really enjoyed the translator’s note revealing some difficulties, or rather peculiarities, of translating Herrera, it was interesting and amusing.
The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
It took me a long time to even understand what is going on here, although it was truly enjoyable towards the end. Khaw's use of language is always something else, some praise it as distinguished and literary, some speculate if the author writes with a thesaurus by their side throwing in as many eccentric words as possible. I personally find this language very dense, sometimes forced and uneven and I'm never sure whether or not I enjoy its complexity.
This is unfortunately two in three times a miss for this author for me. I like their short stories, so maybe from now on I won't read longer writings but stick with their stories. Some authors are like that, better at the shorter form.
Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie
Episode Thirteen is a multi-media found footage book consisting of tape recordings, journals, and correspondences, which sets the tone and the fast pace from the first page on, and it was truly impossible to put it down once started. I was less than thrilled by the amount of fluff and unexplained scientific claim which fill especially the first half of the book, though I’m generally ok with the direction it went later on. I do enjoy haunted house stories and this was a decent one, though I can’t imagine being it being somebody’s favorite book or anything more than a little bit of fun.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang
For each of these nine stories Chiang takes a conventional sf trope plus a philosophical question and plays with those, never in extreme ways, yet always quite revolutionarily. I really enjoyed reading these and especially the author’s note on the writing of each story, explaining how the idea of it formed. All this was a real treat.
My highlights:
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
It is a brilliant idea to combine the Islamic concept of a very rigid, unchangeable fate, written for everyone beforehand, “kismet” or “kader” so to say, with a cute time travel/portal story and place it in Baghdad in (presumably) the middle ages. I loved above all the respect with which Chiang presents a different culture; from a skimmed down version of the oriental story telling structure to the omission of any kind of stereotype, to portraying people as people.
What’s Expected of Us
A very short piece, but amusing food for thought, about self-determination and free will and the possibility/impossibility of it in face of a technology which plays with that.
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
A novella, a little almost saga which deals with questions on AI, creation, parenting, limits of personal freedoms through the birth, development and course of life of digital little animals called digients.
The Great Silence
A couple of years ago I was watching the movie “Kedi”, a documentary about the street cats of Istanbul, and felt charmed by an interviewee who was telling that she thinks of animals like a sort of alien - our skills, our intelligences, our beings are completely different, yet we are able to find a way to understand each other. Chiang’s story is built on the same basis, but the extraterrestrial intelligence is justly a little sour about us.
As you see there’s a lot to explore here. All in all, this was a great book that I’ve read for the Shine&Shadow monthly light read.
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