The "You Should Read This" feature will focus on the books I love and find myself pressing on people. Commentary and suggestions are welcome.One of my goals in 2014 is to be better about blogging. Towards that end, I’m implementing a daily post, “You Should Read This,” in which I’ll briefly describe a book that I recommend. The plan is to range around a bit, and include notable new fiction, some forgotten classics, some writing books, and some books that I just plain love.
In doing this, I’ve followed the classic quintet of questions: what, who, where, when and why (and sometimes how). I’ll try to keep those brief, to the point, and yet still entertaining.
But why, I hear you saying, should we believe you’ll follow through on this?
Because I have already written a number of these, and they’re lined up in the queue and ready to go. Take THAT, forces of disorganization.
If you’re a writer that has a book coming out and would like a guest spot in which you can share a recommendation for a book (other than your own) you think people should read, drop me a line.
Want access to a lively community of writers and readers, free writing classes, co-working sessions, special speakers, weekly writing games, random pictures and MORE for as little as $2? Check out Cat’s Patreon campaign.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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You Should Read This: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
Ammonite is beautifully real, and a good example of the heights speculative fiction can reach.Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith, is subtle and beautiful and a terrific piece of speculative fiction. An anthropologist, Marghe Taishan, arrives on the planet GP, there to test a vaccine against the deadly virus that has killed all but a few of the original colonists. She finds that the survivors, all women, have developed the ability to give birth without men.
The book won both a Lambda and Tiptree Award, and it’s easy to see why. A dynamite protagonist interacting with intriguing and beautifully three-dimensional characters. The world is fabulously drawn, evocative, and both the anthropological and physical science are accurate and carefully thought out.
Ammonite was Griffith’s debut novel. I’d also recommend her most recent, the absolutely amazing Hild, a retelling of the life of historical figure, Saint Hild of Whitby. Come to think of it, nothing I’ve read by her has been shabby, including Slow River, a near-future thriller that is also beautifully told and engaging.
I had the luck to sit in on a class Griffith taught for Clarion West a couple of years ago. She is a consummate, careful wordsmith. The word “luminous” keeps appearing in reviews of her work, and that’s because it’s so beautifully crafted that it seems to glow from within.
The first three paragraphs of a piece set up so much. Here’s the first three of Ammonite, to give you a taste:
Marghe’s suit was still open at neck and wrist, and the helmet rested in the crook of her left arm. An ID flash was sealed to her should” “Marguerite Angelica Taishan, SEC.” The suit was wrinkled and smelled of just-unrolled plastic, and she felt heavy and awkward, even in the two-thirds gravity of orbital station Estrade.
She stood by the airlock at the inside end of A Section. THe door was already open. Waiting. She rested the fingertips of her right hand on the smooth ceramic of the raised hatch frame; it was cool, shocking after two days of the close human heat of A Section.
The sill of the airlock reached her knees; easy enough to step over. No great barrier. The lock chamber itself was two strides across. THe dar door was still closed, sealed to another sill, like this one. Four steps from here to B Section. Four steps. She had recontracted with SEC, endured six months of retraining on Earth, traveled eighteen months aboard the Terragin, and spent the last two days on the Estrade bumping elbows with the three-member crew, all to take those four steps.
In the past I’ve found the promotional bag of books from a con can vary widely in terms of quality. One treasure that emerged from my World Fantasy Convention bag, though, is THE RED KNIGHT by Miles Cameron. I’m about to send my copy off to a friend, and I thought I’d recommend it to other folks as well.
In flavor, it reminds me a little of what I like about Joe Abercrombie – a nice grittiness to the characters, as well as a melange of viewpoints that end up weaving together coherently to deliver a story that pulls you along. The social structure feels medieval, full of knights and squires, but while noble by birth, most are not noble in nature. I like strong female characters in my fiction, and there’s plenty of them in here, including some older ones, which I appreciate. The fighting is nicely choreographed and realistic, without the description ever getting tedious.
It’s the usual some dark mystic force is invading sort of plotline, but it’s enjoyable and tense. I’m a fan of big fat fantasy novels, and this is both engaging and highly satisfactory, to the point where I’m eager to read the next, since THE RED KNIGHT is the first of a trilogy. The jacket says Miles Cameron writes historical fiction under another name, and I’m going to poke around and see if I can’t find his other work, since I enjoyed this so much.
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