Book Review: THE TOMBS OF ATUAN (Earthsea Cycle # 2) by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"You were taught to be a slave, but you have broken free."

Finished work in a hurry so I could dive into this immediately after finishing Book 1. This 2nd volume is definitely in the HORROR category 😳 hahaha! Great atmospheric writing about a girl who becomes a slave to a religious order and spends most of her time in a vast underground city where she. Is. Not. Alone.

"There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds."

As an indictment against organized religion, this one is more powerful than most. And of course, the crisis of conscience in the end was superbly captured. This unique Le Guin blend of maximum emotional impact combined with minimum word count is a feat to behold.

View all my reviews

Book Review: THE WIZARD OF EARTHSEA (Earthsea Cycle # 1) by Ursula K. Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"There is a horror follows you. I will tell you its name."

Utterly devoured Book 1 in a single sitting, on a school night (!!!) because reading it seemed like the most essential thing to do!

Le Guin wrote it for younger audiences, but it certainly did NOT feel nor sound like that to me! The story made me tear up in some parts!! A comparison that comes to mind is C.S. Lewis, such is her grace and command with the pen, and the gravitas of what's at stake (the ruination of a soul and of a world). Of course, her poetic style is all her own. Very few books make me hear a narrator say the words in my head. This was one of those "play a mental Audible recording" ones where you hit PAUSE and REWIND only about a million times!

Le Guin said "In the name is the magic" when she wrote this story of a young mage's education. To compare it to Harry Potter would do it a disservice. She herself is the archmage of Earthsea and her words weave the best kind of conjuring spell: A short meditation in terms of page number, that felt like it aged the reader a million years and came away so much wiser!

This is not a book to be taken lightly, despite any impressions the cover may give (Wizards? A quest? A dragon?). To be honest, it felt like horror to this reader, of the best kind. And despite the elements of fantasy, the evil is scary because it tells of what humans can bring into the world, so easily.

The hype is more than justified. Am going to the docks tomorrow at first light to explore the rest of Earthsea. Look for me in a few years, or better yet, join me and read this book as well!

View all my reviews

Book Review: THE CITY WE BECAME (Great Cities #1) by NK Jemisin

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Come, then, City That Never Sleeps. Let me show you what lurks in the empty spaces where nightmares dare not tread."

NK Jemisin is pretty much an automatic buy ever since this fan tracked down her award-winning BROKEN EARTH trilogy (with all books winning the Hugo in three consecutive years!!). But this book is very different from her previous sci-fi / fantasy / genre-bending novels, because it is set in our own world.

Welcome to a world where cities have avatars, where New York has several because each of its boroughs has a distinct personification (and none of them are White!!). A damning treatise against systemic racism and a love letter to Jemisin's city, this is a thrilling action-packed novel that uses fiction's facade to highlight modern-day injustices that people of color face.

Jemisin has managed to turn all that justified anger into something beautifully hopeful. The over-all message is one of inclusivity borne out of mutual respect amongst peers.

If you knew nothing about the book, from the very first chapter you could tell that it was written in 2020, and that the author paid tribute to writers like Lovecraft and Whitman in borrowing their phrases but turning out something completely original. (Thank you to Le-Creative-Writing-Major-Twinnie for pointing out why the opening phrase "I sing the city" seemed so familiar!).

Jemisin's writing, built on building from past authors, is pretty much like cities built upon centuries of history, with all its people and cultures forming a unique entity whole unto itself.

And another reason why the first chapter sounded like a song I'd heard before became apparent when I dug up another Jemisin book of short stories, and saw that the second story (THE CITY BORN GREAT) was the first chapter of THE CITY WE BECAME.

I was a bit worried at first because I thought about how "dated" the language of the book is, so utterly modern, so 2020 with sentences like "She's got maximum Don't Give a F*** mode engaged, and I'm surfing on her b**** wave" and the concept of Starbucks as an aggressive evil eldritch monster.

But then again, I suppose I worry needlessly about future generations reading this book. After all, we read books in 2021 from centuries past, and still understand them (only with a bit more effort required, thank you footnotes!). Isn't literature lovely?

"It's impossible not to smile, too, even here at the end of the world. Joy is joy."

Jemisin is amazing! Looking forward to the rest of this new series!


View all my reviews

Book Review: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS (Hainish Cycle # 4) by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"Alone, I cannot change your world. But I can be changed by it."

Thus spoke Genly, a man from Earth, sent as a diplomatic representative to the planet Gethen. But not all its inhabitants believe that the Terran comes in peace, and he finds himself running for his life in an Arctic world where he cannot distinguish friend from foe, nor male from female.

Sounds sci-fi-ey enough, but the book does not "read" like sci fi.

You know how, when you open a few epic books (usually mythology ones with heroes and gods) and you start hearing an epic narrative voice like Morgan Freeman's in your head? This book was like that.

This was my first Le Guin, and let me preface this by saying that I have EVERY intention of looking for her other works and reading them!! (Please don't kill me, Le Guin fans LOL)

That being said... I didn't enjoy the book as much as I expected I would. This expectation comes from hearing about her from friends, and also from the number of awards her books got (this particular volume garnering both the Hugo and the Nebula in 1970!!?).

As a wordsmith, she is no doubt a master (a mistress?! This newfound gendered word sensitivity is proof of a hangover from the book!).

With sentences like: "It was all golden, all benign: that week of walking."
and
"We creep infinitesimally northward through the dirty chaos of a world in the process of making itself."
plus
"What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy."

DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN? Le Guin's sentences are miniature masterpieces.

There were so many times I'd stop to reread particular phrases because their artistry demanded it of me, but if one does this too often (as I did), I found myself unable to get into the spirit of the story. If books are objects I'd gotten used to diving into as if they were pools of water, this book was a beautiful impressionist painting: I looked and admired at individual strokes of the brush, at the expense of appreciating the whole. But I could only approach and admire from a distance.

Another factor that prevented me from identifying with the main characters is, I think, the fact that Le Guin set her novel in a world where humanoids are androgynous. Physically, they remain gender-neutral until they enter a period called "kemmer," which is similar to animals being in heat. So you have kings who become pregnant, and friends turning into lovers then going back to being friend zoned, which can be quite confusing for this Terran reader.

I suppose it's hard to throw away a lifetime's identification as female. This book does make me reflect on how much of our identity is tied up with our gender. Le Guin also ruminates on how "masculine" traits drive humanity into acts of aggression, like war.

As a love story, it left me unmoved. Again, perhaps it is because of the reader's own sexual orientation.

I do look forward to reading her other works! There is much to learn from Le Guin's craftsmanship.

View all my reviews

Book Review: THE CONJUGAL DICTATORSHIP OF FERDINAND AND IMELDA MARCOS by Primitivo Mijares

The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos by Primitivo Mijares
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's just no way one short social media post can do justice to all 768 pages of this monumental, historic book. There is so much detail of a man who would be king and broke every law of God's and man's to do it.

From shooting his father's political opponent when Julio Nalundasan won the elections for representative in Ilocos Norte, to antedating documents to suit his political purposes (hence the lack of consecutive numbering of his decrees)... from making false multi-million dollar war claims to claiming that he was "the most decorated Filipino soldier of World War II who single-handedly delayed the surrender of Bataan by three months and saved Australia and New Zealand from Japanese conquest"... behold the worst of our race: Ferdinand Marcos.

Not a single page of the book is wasted. The reason it's so long is because there's just SO. MUCH. FILTH. Never mind spilling something as weak as tea. With his voice shouting from beyond the grave, the author spilled hot, thick blood, quite literally, for this book to be published. His 16 year old son's body was thrown out of a helicopter as punishment, and a year after, the author also disappeared. Two of the thousands upon thousands killed, not to mention those tortured, during the Marcos regime.

Imagine if the number one media man of the President, a trusted confidante able to waltz in and out of his office at will, wrote a tell-all book.

Now imagine that same man defecting and being a chief informant against his former master before a U.S. Congressional Committee, despite attempts at silencing him through bribery ($100,000.00 in 1976!).

This is not mere gossip. This is a primary source, from a man who was in the inner sanctum. He sacrificed life and child for this book. The least we can do is read, and remember.

It's terrible enough that lawmakers in the House of Representatives declared F. M's birthday a special non-working holiday in Ilocos Norte. But let us not hand our country back to this evil family when we vote in 2022. They have lied about EVERYTHING, from educational backgrounds to World War II medals, so why believe in their fake history videos and propaganda?

We have the power to show, by our actions, by our votes, that we condemn this bloody legacy. We do not forget. And we do not forgive.

(Rated 5 out of 5 and tag under ESSENTIAL READING!)


View all my reviews

Book Review: THE PULL OF THE STARS by Emma Donoghue

The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Influenza delle stelle - the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates."

I became a fan of Emma Donoghue's after reading "THE WONDER," which will soon be a Florence Pugh/ Ciaran Hinds film. Raved all about it to my book club so I won't do so here, hehe, but it was UNFORGETTABLE.

So when I saw my local bookstore carried her next novel, it was an automatic buy! And I only found out that it was about a pandemic when I cracked it open and dove headlong into Dublin in 1918, where a country was crumbling from a world war, an Easter insurrection, and the deadly Spanish flu ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

"A nurse is like a spoonful of tea leaves. Her strength only shows when she's in hot water."

Emma Donoghue's female characters stand apart because they're no-nonsense, dedicated, and dutiful. If they do happen to find romance, it's unlooked for and it isn't the focus of the story. Her heroines are utterly dedicated to A Great Cause, one they aren't afraid to break social norms for.

Just like in THE WONDER, this book was based on the true story of the incredible Dr. Kathleen Lynn, "The Rebel Doctor," and an amalgamation of real nurses and hospital aides from the period.

"The way this godforsaken island's misgoverned, it's mass murder by degrees. If we continue to stand by, none of us will have clean hands."

I found it very interesting, style-wise, that Donoghue never used quotation marks in the entire book. It had the weird effect of making me more focused than usual, and everything seemed more immediate, as if events were unfolding right that very second TO ME.

Emma Donoghue's genius lies in making a tiny room (in this case: a maternity ward) the center of the universe. The reader feels that every patient, every blood pressure reading, every temperature check is the most important thing in the world!

If you're worried that your heart is becoming cold and callous with the daily heartbreaking news, don't be! Because Emma Donoghue will break that ice and make you cry with this book, not just for what has happened before, but for what continues to happen today.

How hellish it was to combat a pandemic a hundred years ago, with no vaccines, no medicine but gauze masks, whiskey, onions, and avoiding the color red! How far we have come! And how far yet we have to go!

Another feature of Emma Donoghue's writing is that she can both showcase our terrible inhumanity (she has this thing for the hypocrisy found in some members of the Catholic Church) and yet leave her readers believing that humans are capable of being our best selves in the worst fixes, that we can go beyond our personal hells to strive for the common good. All this, with a book I was simply powerless to put down (thank goodness it was a Sunday)!

It should be noted that this is strictly for mature readers only due to the controversial themes!

View all my reviews

Book Review: FOUNDATION'S EDGE (Foundation # 4) by Isaac Asimov

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos."

A friend and fellow Asimov admirer (hi Rich!) told me that Books 4 and 5 are completely different from the original trilogy.

And upon finishing Book 4 in the series, I do agree.

Perhaps it's only to be expected. When Asimov wrote the first part of what would later become the original FOUNDATION novel, it was the '50's. The world changed so much in thirty years, and so did his concerns. FOUNDATION's EDGE was written in the '80's, an entire generation later.

If the original FOUNDATION trilogy could be read as a metaphor for the struggle between democracy and fascism, this fourth book introduces a new enemy: AI.

Who is more powerful? The man with a gun? The man who controls the will of the man with a gun? Or an artificial intelligence (with the hive mind power of an entire planet under his/their control) capable of controlling both men?

What is more essential for humanity? Free will? Peace and order? Or life and growth?

"However small the chance of catastrophe might be, if enough people take enough chances, the catastrophe must happen eventually."

I am left with an urgent need to continue with Book 5 straightaway, since the TV series starts in a week! And with a bit of horror and despair comes a dawning realization that I need to read Asimov's other series of books (the Robot ones!!) if I want to be able to fully appreciate the mind-blowing epic that is FOUNDATION.

View all my reviews

Book Review: SECOND FOUNDATION (Foundation # 3) by Isaac Asimov

 Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"It was a time of absolutes, of the great final generalities, at least in thought. It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas."

This is the third book in the original FOUNDATION trilogy: this epic literary quest about the mathematician/prophet Hari Seldon's mission to preserve civilization from mankind's destructive tendencies of war and chaos.

What I appreciate about Asimov is how unpredictable the plot is: you THINK you know where it's going, who's the bad guy, where the secret hideout is... but then you're proven wrong. And the most seemingly insignificant character or tidbit in dialogue can turn out to be the most important of them all. Very few authors can do this. Agatha Christie and Isaac Asimov are absolute masters of this!

Most sci-fi novels are about external forces like big space ships and hyperspace and deadly futuristic weapons of mass destruction. And FOUNDATION has them, but this volume in particular was mainly about the battles FOR minds, WITH minds.

"When can a man know he is not a puppet?"

Imagine if an enemy, intent on being invisible, was able to meddle with your brain, changing your motivations, your very self, entirely undetected?! The horror!!!

And it's so relevant to today, if you think about it. We ARE battling for hearts and minds and souls, and so the true conquest is no longer of physical territory, but of idealogy.

It's the best feeling in the world to finish this book, knowing I have Books 4 and 5 on hand. Ahehehe.

View all my reviews

I miss "you"

Sometimes you appear in dreams. 

I wake feeling younger, feeling the thrill of being seen, of being understood by one who reads the same books, who can quote from our common favorite poets. 

But then I remember the real you. 

And although I try not to judge, I realize that I never really knew you, for I too was surprised by the choices you made. 

Every now and then your name pops up again: a journal article here, a common friend mentioning you ("what ever happened to... ?") 

And I know now how it has all worked out for the best. 

Lives mingle and separate, and we are left utterly changed. 

And although I wish you well, years and years later, I can finally, honestly tell... I never really knew you.

But I miss the "you" I knew. 

As one misses sweet dreams when shaken abruptly awake. 

It is morning. Real life, and real work, calls.