I’m back! A two-week vacation in DC with my husband for our 15th anniversary plus a short family vacation with my parents and siblings was just what I needed after the hecticness of June. Though vacations have their own special brand of hecticness, the packing and unpacking, the chaos of not having any sort of routine or rhythm. Now there’s less than a week until the kids start school again (assuming they can all stay healthy, which given what’s been happening here the past few weeks is in doubt).
And I got a piece of good news last night: my short story “Birthright” received an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future contest for volume 39, quarter 2. It’s not one of the top spots, but it does put me in the top 500 or so out of the thousands of entries they received. This was my first time entering, so this result makes me optimistic about my future chances–and my fiction-writing in general. I had almost talked myself out of fiction writing, having decided that I’m more of an academic and want to get an MA rather than an MFA. But now I’m all excited to start writing stories again.
Speaking of stories, this month’s book reviews include DNFs (that’s “did not finish”) and a lot of extra vacation reading. Nine books in all, which is pretty high for me. Check them out after the jump.
Speculative Fiction
The Physicians of Vilnoc by Lois McMaster Bujold – I’m sure the publisher had no idea when selecting May 2020 as a publication date for this fantasy-world epidemic that the world would be two months into a pandemic. Irony that. But if anyone can pull off an optimistic pandemic book, it’s Bujold’s characters Penric and Des. The struggles that Penric goes through in the book hit much harder given all that I’ve heard in the past two years about the struggles of medical personnel during the pandemic and all the hard choices they had to make. Additionally, I enjoyed the interaction between the Five Gods magic system and the germ theory of disease. Given that science is not there yet in this world, it was interesting to see how much the magic enabled Penric to guess, but without falling into the trope of getting all of modern medicine right so it doesn’t feel authentic to the world around him.
And now I’m all caught up in my Penric & Desdemona re-read and ready for the new novel!
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi – A fun little sketch that Scalzi himself admits is more like candy than a full-fledged meal. The novel feels like an old-fashioned SF story that explores an interesting concept without worrying too much about plot or character arcs. And the idea admittedly is genius: all of the giant monsters from the movies actually exist in an alternate dimension of Earth. The path between worlds is weakened by nuclear explosions, and so after WWII, some of them started crossing over. But scientists also learn to cross back. The explanations Scalzi comes up with for some of the difficulties of having real life kaiju are inventive and fun. But my library copy came due when I was about 40% in, and I wasn’t really compelled to finish. I had my fun; now I’m ready to move on.
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown – I tried to read this book in college and ended up giving up because of all the cheap tricks Dan Brown employs. I’m still annoyed at the writing style. Now that I’ve read more, I’ve learned that some of these issues are expected conventions of the thriller genre, but still half of my time was spent yelling at the book to stop being so frustrating and just tell me the things the characters know already. It seems like Brown ought to just write nonfiction about interesting symbols since that’s what he seems to want to write about and leave all attempts at character and suspense out of it.
But this time I finished The Lost Symbol because I was reading it for a very specific purpose: to learn about the history and architecture of Washington DC in a fun way. And the novel accomplishes that beautifully. My trip to DC was made much more enjoyable by all the symbols and connections I knew about through this book. Still, the plot is kinda meh, and I wouldn’t recommend it if I could find a nonfiction equivalent of the fun architectural knowledge.
This Shared Dream by Kathleen Ann Goonan – I tried to pick up this time travel story set in DC during my trip there this summer. The references to neighborhoods I had been walking through that day was fun, but overall the plot was way too slow for me. The speculative fiction elements, at least in the first 150 pages, seem to be buried amidst the debris of the character’s daily mundanities and anxieties. What concepts there were were fascinating, but I didn’t feel compelled to continue. Oh well.
Fiction
The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close – I put this on my reading list as part of my prep for a trip to Washinton DC even though it’s outside my normal wheelhouse. This book is confused about exactly what it wants to be. First, it seemed to be a study of Washington DC political culture from the perspective of an outsider spouse. Then we got a relationship study of the unlikely friendship between Beth and Ashleigh, a sort-of North/South, city/country kind of tale. Then it’s all about running a political campaign for a minor office in Texas and how much luck and charisma factor into political fortune, and finally, it’s about a marriage in crisis and the temptation to adultery.
Is there a thread that pulls them all together? I’m not sure. The author tries to make it Beth’s choice to finally not be passive about her marriage, but in the end, it doesn’t really fly for me. She still was mostly passive in the resolution, so I don’t really buy that much changed for her. I mostly came to the book for sections 1 & 2 (and enjoyed them!) so I wish the ending had more to do with them. Still, a fun study of the types of people involved in politics and the difficulties of living that kind of lifestyle.
Her Quiet Revolution: A Novel of Martha Hughes Cannon: Frontier Doctor and First Female State Senator by Marianne Monson – Reskimmed this book in preparation for hosting a book club on it. I still think the author could have done more to fictionalize and smooth out the narrative so it wasn’t so jumpy. The chapters on her marriage to Cannon are still the best portion of this book, giving realistic insight into why polygamy continued to happen in spite of persecution and ambivalent feelings by many members at the time.
Nonfiction
Welcome Home: A Cozy Minimalist Guide to Decorating and Hosting All Year Round by Myquillyn Smith – This book’s description spoke to me as someone who really enjoys seasonal decor and seasonal cooking but doesn’t really like interior design very much. The book sets out a theory of how to make your home feel seasonally appropriate without buying out the whole Target dollar spot or World Market. Although I wanted more specific lists on how to do this, the author makes a good case for why she doesn’t include them and instead provides principles for what elements make up the feeling of a specific season. The hospitality challenges for each season were very motivating for me. I wanted to go out and do them right now! Ditto the decor sections: I wanted to go shopping at Pier One, and I almost never want to go shopping at Pier One. I’m excited to start pairing down my goofy seasonal decor and curating a seasonal feel instead.
Latter-Day Saints in Washington, DC: History, People, and Places edited by Kenneth L. Alford, Lloyd D. Newell, and Alexander L Baugh – Interesting essays about well-known and less well-known aspects of the LDS relationship with our nation’s capital. I didn’t read every essay in the book; instead, I skipped around to give myself context about the various things we were visiting in DC. I especially recommend the analysis of the portrait of Joseph Smith in the National Portrait Gallery (particularly in light of the proposed newly discovered photograph) and the history of the first LDS chapel in DC, which I would have had no idea about without a nudge from a friend. The Smoot hearings essay also impressed upon me the importance of that event to the establishment of freedom of religion in public office and the continued legitimization of the church. I had heard of the Smoot hearings before but didn’t know the details. The essay makes me want to pick up a book length treatment of the subject.
On These Walls: Inscriptions & Quotations in the Library of Congress by John Young Cole – As we were stepping out of our self-guided tour of the Library of Congress, I remarked to my husband that I really wanted to pick up a book about the symbols in the building because I could spend ages reading about them. Lo and behold, someone did their marketing research because this book was in the very front of the gift shop. I am absolutely fascinated by this secular temple to the pursuit of knowledge. The book is a quick read and doesn’t cover every inscription or picture (because that would be a much longer book) but does enough to give you an idea of how the building is conceptualized and put together.
