I finally return from the land of the dead! The day after I graduated with my master’s, the stress reading on my Garmin watch suddenly improved by about 10 points, which goes to show that the background stress of graduate school is no joke. But I passed my thesis defense, and so it’s officially over. I’ll be taking a few years off to consider whether to apply to go on for a PhD, but I plan to continue my research and post more updates here in the meantime.
Since my last reading update, I have attended three conferences: LTUE 43, ICFA 46, and the Eaton Conference on Speculative Fiction. All really interesting events with the chance to soak up a lot of speculative fiction thinking. One thing ICFA’s fantasy track did this year that I loved is send out a reading list of all the texts that people were presenting on. Of course, there was no way to read them all, but I got to 4-5 of them, which made many of the papers more relevant to me. More conferences should do this!
I also just got finished with attending Storymakers with my friend Marinda Misra, whose debut novel The Healer Academy was a finalist for the Whitney Awards in two categories. She’s on substack, so if you like YA fantasy with a religious and romantic bent, you should check her out!
For the next month, I’m in another marathon sprint of conferences before taking the summer off to relax a bit, travel to Japan, and honestly, just declutter my house from everything that has accumulated over two years of grad school. Here’s the schedule of places you’ll find me:
May 16-17: Faith and Knowledge Conference (SLC, UT) – I’m really excited by the chance to meet with so many other interesting early career scholars and grad students. The conference is closed to the public, so I can’t share who else is there, but I’ll be presenting on “The Risks and Rewards of Imagining the Divine.”
May 28-30: AML/MSH Joint Conference (Ephraim, UT) – I’m on a round table discussing the “great Mormon epic,” and why Mormons seem draw to the epic form. (Obviously, this has implications for why Mormons keep writing epic fantasy as well.) I’m also the MC for the AML Awards.
June 5-7: MHA Conference (Ogden, UT) – I’ll be presenting my research on Orson Scott Card’s rewrite of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. It’s a shame that so much of Card’s explicitly LDS work gets neglected. As I argued in another post, Card is unique as an LDS SF writer because he speaks both to the general public and to an insider audience. I think he’s had a greater influence on LDS thought than people realize, not the least of which is through the Hill Cumorah pageant’s framing of the “Mormon story.”
June 18, 7 pm: Wayfare Fantasy and Religion Lecture for The Compass Gallery (Provo, UT) – I’m really excited to see the Compass Gallery doing an exhibit of fantasy artists in June and explicitly tying in faith. I’ll be on a panel with Steven Peck and Chanel Earl (possibly others) about how fantasy can build faith. It should be an engrossing discussion, and it’s open to the public!
Geez, seeing it all laid out like that, no wonder I’m tired! Anyway, I have four months of book reviews for you now, some longer than others. Hopefully I can get back to a more regular pace of updates now that grad school is over (right??).
Speculative Fiction
Gwenhwyfar: The White Spirit by Mercedes Lackey – As I’m taking a class on women in Arthurian legend that focuses more on the medieval and early texts, I’m trying to supplement with my own reading of some of the more recent takes on the legend that fall within the speculative fiction umbrella. This retelling of the story of Gweneviere certainly hits that mark. Gwenhwyfar recasts Gweneviere as a woman choosing between her own innate magical talents and her desire to become a horsewoman warrior. Lackey’s reimagining of the story apparently derives from a scrap of ancient poetry that mentions not one but three women named Gwenhwyfar associated with the Arthur legend. So the book gets rather confusing in that the main character’s sister is also named Gwenhwyfar (she ends up becoming the protege of Morgaine and the wife of Mordred) as is Arthur’s first wife (the protagonist become Arthur’s second wife after this first one runs away).
For me personally, the pacing of this book was uneven. I nearly gave up in the first 25% because of the constant focus on Gwenhwyfar’s horse obsession. I’ve never been a horse girl, but if you are one, you might enjoy this book. The Arthurian connections are barely present in the first half of the book, then begin to grow slowly then exponentially as we near the finish line. That made the book feel rushed at the end, trying to get through Gwenhwyfar’s affair with Lancelot and the betrayal of Mordred. I don’t think it will be one of my favorite Arthur retellings, but it’s worth a look for those interested in a more feminine take on the legend that isn’t the now-tainted Mists of Avalon.
Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin – A very different take for Earthsea. This one finally pulled me in where the others in the series have been meh or middling for me. I guess I’m just a sucker for fantasy books about middle-aged women and where the answer is not violence. LeGuin is doing really cool stuff here, and I see a re-read in my future to figure out exactly what and how.
The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Picked this one up as the author will be the guest of honor at ICFA 2025 and I hadn’t yet read any of her works. This one came in first on the library holds. The book reminds me strongly of Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamour in Glass in that it’s primarily a regency romance with some very decorative and frivolous magic thrown in for entertaining the upper classes.
Where Kowal’s book felt very Pride and Prejudice, I’d put this one somewhere between a Jane Austen and something more like Wuthering Heights. There’s a strong love triangle here, along with the trope of first love being all consuming. Both of these are tropes that I usually roll my eyes at, but for this book, they absolutely worked. The novel had the kind of over-the-top emotional magnetism that you’d get out of your favorite guilty-pleasure reality TV, but with a lot more sophistication in language and imagery. Indeed, I was certainly pulled through the novel in less than a week. I also enjoyed the female lead’s “not your typical romantic protagonist” hobby of collecting bugs, but I’m always a sucker for academic women in my fiction.
If I had to pick one adjective to describe this book, it might be “gothic,” which seems to fit with the rest of her work. Mexican Gothic had been on the edges of my TBR for a long time, with me hesitating on whether I would enjoy it when I’m not a bit fan of gothic fiction, but after reading and enjoying this, I will likely be picking it up.
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Really excellent twisting of the original story. A dark Gothic fantasy with everything bubbling under the surface of the naive narrator. I liked the strange twist on the Eve mythology throughout. Highly recommend.
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis – I have put off reading the final book in the Space trilogy for many years because I had heard about how super weird it was. But I figured if there was ever a time to read it, it was while taking a class on Arthurian legend. Now, the Arthurian aspect was actually a lot smaller than I expected, as was the planetary aspect. Honestly, the main thing you need to do to prepare to read this book is to read The Abolition of Man, which contains a lot of the same ideas but in nonfictional form. I can also see a lot of the influence of Charles William’s The Place of the Lion in this book, from the character of the female academic avoiding marital duties to the idea of the gods coming down. Honestly, it’s a very prophetic book to read in the age of AI, but not as engaging as a work of fiction as Out of the Silent Planet or Perelandra. Also, no one told me there was a Busby in this book, so that was a fun Easter egg.
Wild Seed by Octavia E. Butler – What an absolutely wild book. The feeling of utter horror and inevitability for most of the book is extremely well executed. I don’t know how she managed to pull off the ending without making it feel cheap, but it’s extremely impressive. I may continue with the rest of the series when I can handle the trauma.
The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman – I was skeptical when the NYTimes review called this the first major Arthurian retelling for the 21st century, but I think Grossman pulls it off. I didn’t enjoy the film version of his Magicians series, so I never picked up his other books, but I really enjoyed this one. You can tell he’s playing with quite a bit of Arthuriana, from medieval legends through Victorian classics all the way through modernish versions like The Winter King and Mists of Avalon. The storytelling is unpredictable and goes in cycles that tend to end in dead-ends, but it works with the theme of the book. Highly recommended.
The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White – I did not anticipate just how faithful the Disney adaptation was to the original. Granted, Madam Mim was made a lot less scary and misogynist, but that’s a positive change. Lots of dialogue in the film was lifted straight from the book. Sometime I’ll continue on to read the read of the larger work, but this gave me a good sense for what T.H. White was about.
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle – Absolutely thrilled to finally have read this book. Again, amazed at the faithfulness of the film version, right down to the butterfly’s dialogue. I enjoyed the longer version of Mummy Fortuna’s zoo in this one, particularly that Arachne is thrown in. The mixing of mythologies here reminds me strongly of what Lewis did in Narnia, not being too worried about making things cohesive. It’s also clear that this universe is somehow connected to ours in unclear ways. Anyway, you don’t need me to tell you this is a fantasy classic and worth reading.
The Way Home: Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle – Two very strange novellas, both of which feel utterly different from the Last Unicorn, yet there’s something about the narration that ties them together even if the world-building is almost entirely different.
The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo – I really enjoyed the Asian ghost story vibes of this book, but the twist seemed like a complete non-sequitur to me. But that could be my bad, as I might have zoned out on the audiobook and missed something. Anyway, worth it for a short listen, but I was left wanting more.
The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko – This book is a combination of a Beauty and the Beast-type folktale and a handbook on how to lead a Marxist uprising. You probably know if you’re in the target audience for that. The magic was the highlight of this book and what kept me reading when I got tired of descriptions of how everyone rich is evil. It’s a cleaning-based magic system based on how we are influenced by others expectations. The romance isn’t too bad either. I just got bored of the didactic, simplistic message.
Fiction
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin – I don’t think I’ve reread this one since I first read it in fifth grade. I remembered it as being one of my favorite books that year, though it had strong competition from Tuck Everlasting. Returning to The Westing Game for a quick January book club read, I found it still charming but a little less clever. As a more experienced reader, you can tell that the author didn’t really know where she was going from the beginning but opened a lot of possibilities and then scrambled to close them all. For me, this meant that the beginning is much more fun than the ending, but it’s still a fun mystery read for kids.
Lancelot; Or, the Knight of the Cart – A fascinating side of Lancelot that I had never seen before my Arthurian class.
The Winter King by Bernard Cornwell – Excellent retelling of Arthurian legend. Though I dislike the low/no magic aspect as a fantasy reader, Cornwell makes it work very well. The frame narrative of a side character looking back and explaining the story provides interesting color. Worth reading if you enjoy Arthuriana and haven’t already read it.
Le Lai de Lanval by Marie de France – A fun short story about Sir Lanval who becomes the lover of the fairy queen but can’t tell anyone. Pretty fun and worth a read.
The Knight of the Parrot: Early Adventures of Young King Arthur, translated by Thomas E. Vesce – A very weird medieval text about a young King Arthur. Guaranteed that you have never heard these episodes before, including the fish knight and the giant nursed by a mother unicorn, all narrated by King Arthur’s parrot sidekick.
Nonfiction
Winning Arguments: What Works and Doesn’t Work in Politics, the Bedroom, the Courtroom, and the Classroom by Stanley Fish – I expected to like this one more than I did, and I think the issue was a matter of expectations. I had seen some of the Goodreads reviews rant about the “unnecessary religion stuff” brought into the book. Of course, being myself someone who is always bringing in “unnecessary religion stuff” into my conversations, I thought that would be a plus for me.
In reading the book, I found the real issue was not the religion per se but the fact that this book is secretly a literary analysis of Paradise Lost masquerading as a book about argument. That’s not a bad thing in itself; I just read Paradise Lost last summer and would be very interested to look at argument in the book. It’s just the false advertising that really throws you off. Rhetoric is all about predicting and managing the expectations of your audience, so the fact that this was bungled so badly in a book about rhetoric seems problematic.
Other than the expectations issue, the book flows freely through ideas rather than being practical. It’s a fun listen, but not particularly applicable to the context of teaching persuasive writing, which was where I was trying to go with it.
The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too by Tim Clare – A really fun book if you’re a board game nerd like me. This book includes not only the obvious board game stories (eg Monopoly was invented by a woman and later ripped off by a man) but goes one layer deeper (eg Monopoly was possibly based on a Native American board game), so there was lots of new and interesting information. I especially enjoyed learning about the Japanese game of Karuta, where players race to be the first to slap a card containing the second half of a poem which is being read by a judge. I absolutely need there to be an English language version of said game; plus I hear there’s an anime series based on the game that I’m adding to my watchlist. My only complaint about the book is that the ending is a bit abrupt: a research thread for the book leads the author to receiving a diagnosis of autism. While the story is interesting, it seems a strange note to end the book on without bringing it back around to board games. Other than that slight stumble, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys board games and wants to defend their closet full of very expensive paper and cardboard as a legitimate and important part of humanity.
Divine Law: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants by Justin Collings – A good summary of the theme of divine law throughout the Doctrine and Covenants. I’m still thinking about a few of the ideas from this book after finishing it. The biggest one of these is how the D&C sets up divine law as a component of God’s mercy and love rather than an opposite to it.
Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King – Brunelleschi himself is fascinating! I really enjoyed learning more about renaissance architecture (and remembering some of what I learned back in my high school humanities course). There are some great stories here that were mind-blowing not only in their content but in how they survived as stories to this day–like an epic practical joke that Brunelleschi played on a rival.
Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard – A reread for book club. This book has only grown on me since I first read it back in 2016, and ironically the state of the nation has continued to make President Garfield’s story even more resonant. Millard’s writing absolutely holds up. She’s compulsively readable. Even if you aren’t usually into thick historical books, you should pick up this one.
