A game for one to thirteen billion players

The Deep by Rivers Solomon is about a society of merfolk living in the deep of the ocean, who choose a historian to hold their ancestral memories for them. Yetu, the current historian, is struggling to maintain her own identity under the weight of the memories, so she gives them all back to the other merfolk and runs away. Her actions have far-reaching consequences that force her to confront her purpose, her place in the world, and prompt her to find a better way for her people to live.
The book has several narrative threads, and my engagement with each of them ebbed and flowed somewhat (see what I did there?) throughout the story. I struggled with the deeper meaning of some aspects of the story, while others felt a bit too bluntly stated. But it went to some interesting places and I liked how Yetu's thread developed in the latter stages. I really wanted to be able to just accept the ultimate conclusion as really heartfelt and beautiful but it didn't quite land for me, which was a shame. But there was a lot of profound beauty in this novella, even though I didn't connect to it as much as I wanted to.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin is probably the book that's been on and off my wishlist the most over the years. It kept getting recommended to me in various ways but then I would keep getting put off it for various reasons and never actually reading it.
This month, the time finally came to give it a try - but I only got about 25 pages in before I gave up, so now it's off the wishlist for good, unfortunately.
It may have been the wrong time for me to try and read it - but I found it almost incomprehensible. There was a lot of discussion of various aspects of an alien world and culture in the opening chapter, but with very little context and almost no explanation of anything. And some of the wording was so unfamiliar and dense that I had to read some sections several times and still couldn't quite work them out.
I wasn't engaged by the first-person protagonist, the story didn't seem to be going anywhere, and the whole of the second chapter was a rather dreary and unpleasant folk tale, which isn't my favourite thing at the best of times.
I was also confused by the internal inconsistency. The protagonist stated that the natives of the planet he was visiting shouldn't be gendered but that he automatically did so, because it was what he was used to. But they also called their leader 'the king', which is a gendered title, and referred to that leader as 'he' and 'him' when discussing him in direct dialogue, so the society didn't seem to follow its own rules.
Anyway, I'm sure I'm more at fault than the book here - just not for me.

I loved the TV show of Tipping the Velvet when I first saw it in the early 2000s, and have watched it several times since, as well as seeing an excellent stage version quite some years ago. So, when I spotted the book in a charity shop recently, I snatched it up eagerly. And it's very well written and engaging. The problem was, the TV show is such a good adaptation, it was almost a bit boring reading the book because I knew almost every detail of what was going to happen. It was all a lot more intense in text - though I liked Nancy less as a protagonist after spending nearly 500 pages in her head. And Kitty was much less of a real character because we only got to see her through Nancy's eyes and unhealthy obsession. And it did all seem a lot more unhealthy than I remember from the TV show somehow - and I wasn't sure until right before the end whether I would feel Nancy had redeemed herself and deserved a good outcome. But it totally got me by the end, and - life-changing TV show aside - it's a very good book.

This was a reread for the Reviews Revisited series of videos on my YouTube channel.

I enjoyed it overall, though it felt like it took a while to really get going and engage my emotions as well as my interest. It's a cleverly woven tale - while certain aspects of the magical world don't really make sense, if you just go with it, it's complex, layered and impactful.

As with a lot of stories, it's about abuses of power and members of the groups being exploited or marginalised eventually rising up to fight the sytem.

There's a good range of characters, though the number of different factions and agendas makes it a bit confusing at times.

Generally, a good read and I'm looking forward to finally getting round to the sequel, now I've remembered the story of this one.

These are the remaining reviews for the books I read while on retreat last week.

The Imaginary Corpse by Tyler Hayes:
This one broke me. Admittedly, it was perfectly designed to hit me with all of the trauma and all of the feels. It's set in a realm called the Stillreal, where abandoned concepts and outgrown imaginary friends end up when their humans suffer some kind of event that changes their worldview and forces them to give up their Ideas. We follow Tippy the triceratops, who is a private detective in this realm - and who is plunged very much into the deep end, when a newly arrived Idea starts killing Friends - permanently... There is so much trauma in this book (on the part of the humans and the Ideas), so much pain and despair - but also so much love and loyalty and beautiful sacrifice and support. It even made me feel sorry for the bad guy! I wasn't wholly sold on the ending when I first finished it (after it made me cry really hard multiple times and want to hug all my teddy bears at once and never let them go) but, having reflected on it since (and I've been thinking about the book nearly every day for a week now) I've come to the conclusion that it was exactly right. A tough read but an awesome one.


The Defiant Spark by Annie Percik:
Yes, I know I probably shouldn't review my own debut novel - but I've never sat down and just read it in paperback form before - and I really enjoyed it! I'm never going to claim it's high literary art, but it's a fun ride, with characters I'm proud of having created, and it largely holds together! I was surprised I didn't find more to criticise - though there was one very annoying typo I spotted...


Chaos Vector by Megan E O'Keefe:
I remember enjoying the first book in this series - but I unfortunately left it too long to get to this next instalment and I just couldn't remember enough of the plot, characters and concepts to be able to make sense of what was going on. Definitely not the book's fault - very much mine.


The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi:
I only got fifty pages into this before I had to put it down.
The world was very well described and interesting - but it was pretty grim from the start. And what happens to the girl of the title in the first of her viewpoint chapters was very graphically unpleasant. I hope, by the end of the story, she finds a better place to be and comes into her power - but I decided I didn't want to go on that journey with her because it was too distressing.


Fray by Rowenna Miller:
This is the second in a series and I remember the first one very well and definitely enjoyed it. I was glad to be back in this world of magical fashion and social upheaval. I like all the characters, the world was expanded in an interesting way, and the different demands on Sophie's time, loyalties, affections and activism were very well portrayed. A very solid middle instalment of this trilogy.