What I'm Reading Now

A lot of what I'm reading now is books that I'm reviewing for various publications, so I don't want to review them here. I'm also doing a lot of rereading -- I just reread all of Chaim Potok, for instance, and most of Joe Haldeman. I won't bore you with those, either. Here's some of the rest of what I've been reading lately.

Claudia Gray, The Murder of Mr. Wickham

More Jane Austen fanfic. I can't get enough of it. This one pulls together all the characters from all the Austen novels (well, not Sanditon) and puts them in an English Country House murder mystery. Mr. Wickham gets murdered, as the title suggests; and Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth's son joins forces with the daughter of Catherine and Mr. Tilney to solve the murder. 

Both Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney are about seventeen, and young Mr. Darcy is neurodivergent, which works pretty well in the book. Further, Gray does a good job of capturing the characters of all the other Austen favs.

I don't know that I would read this one twice, but it was fun to read once.

R.F. Kuang, Babel: Or, the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

In part this is an academic novel, about academic life in the 19th century. But that is just its cover. In fact, it is about colonialism, and the effect colonialism has on the colonized. At the start of the novel, a young Chinese boy is "rescued" from the cholera plague which has killed his mother, his grandparents, his tutor, and his entire neighborhood. As we read further in the novel, we come to realize that this "rescue" is not what it seems. 

Robin Swift (the English name he takes at the request of his "rescuer") is raised on a Lord's estate, given excellent tutors, educated to take a place at Oxford, which -- in time -- he does. Only slowly do we realize that he has, in effect, been bred -- like a prize Corgi -- by the man who rescued him. This is a magic-infused Oxford. England runs on the ensorcelled silver bars produced by Babel, the tower of translators, who need to be fluent in several languages if they are to work the magic that creates the power that English trains, lights, water purification, and other necessities run on, including the English Navy. The magic is powered by the gap between an English word (say) and the Chinese word used to translate it, or v.v.

Set just before the Opium Wars begin, this is an engaging look at the evils of colonialism, and the way the colonized frequently lose their ability to see their own oppression. An important and wonderfully written book.

John Crowley, Flint & Mirror

Another historical fantasy. This one is about the British colonization of Ireland, and part of the reason I didn't like it more may be that I know very little about the colonization of Ireland. It's also mostly history with very little fantasy -- the main character, the leader of an Irish clan, is connected to and controlled by Elizabeth I through an ensorcelled bit of obsidian, cleft to produce a mirror-like surface. It wasn't very clear how Elizabeth controlled the chief of the clan. Maybe the connection was enough.

There's also a flint blade, given to him as a child by the Fey. That seems to connect him to his land? I'm not sure.

Most of the book was about historical events, though there's also a slight digression about a selkie (male) who comes ashore and impregnates a lord's daughter. 

This probably wasn't the book for me. It was readable, but I had the feeling I was missing the point most of the time. If you like historical novels, this might be your cup of tea.