Staff Picks Category: Fiction

Tipping Point: The War With China—The First Salvo by David Poyer [Book]

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Set in a near future near and far east on the brink of war(s), this addition to a long series about naval officer Dan Lemson doesn’t require you to know his back story. Nor is this about, as the publisher would have you think, the potential for a war with China. That is only the background to a very well drawn psychological tale of a commanding officer under stress, with realistic problems, human and mechanical. Applicable to management dilemmas, except of course in this case, errors can cause death. An anti-war tale of how wars are “sleep-walked” into, and how those on the front lines are puppets to the orders from those safely at home. Not much resolution of issues by the end of the story, several books follow this tale.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik [Book]

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Spinning Silver is a fairy-tale inspired fantasy set in Lithvas, a fictional country with with elements of Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian history and culture. The kingdom is ruled by a tsar. The economy is largely agrarian with barley and wool playing an important role. Winters are harsh. With its combination of Eastern European culture, fairy-tale like magic, and modern sensibilities, Spinning Silver has much in common with Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, and folks who enjoyed Uprooted will enjoy Spinning Silver as well. That said, Spinning Silver is the darker and more complicated story, and much of that complexity and darkness comes from a simple fact: Miryem, the central character in the novel, and her family are Jews.

Though much of Spinning Silver is fantasy, the antisemitism that shapes the outlook of so many of its characters is not. Novik said in an interview with Paste magazine that “Spinning Silver is about my father’s family, and they were Lithuanian Jews who had to escape persecution”. Distrust is high and misunderstandings are common (Wanda, a farm girl, mistakes the family’s sabbath prayer for a magical spell), and Miryem and her family are always aware that their lives could be disrupted by anti-Jewish violence. And as moneylenders their role in the local economy is both welcome and despised.

Spinning Silver is about value and assessment, debts and promises, trades and bargains. Miryem’s strength comes ultimately from her recognition of her own worth and her insistence on not being undervalued. And Miryem, Wanda, and Irina, the three main women in the story, are all remarkable for their cool level-headedness and practical outlook. Whether trading in the market, bargaining with an otherworldly ice king, exorcising a demon, or deciding whether or not to accept the hand of suitor, these women stand up for themselves and make careful, calculated decisions. In Spinning Silver these well reasoned decisions and difficult compromises are celebrated and, at least in Miryem’s case, elevated to the point of high magic.

Spinning Silver is one of the most enjoyable books I have read this summer. If you enjoy a good fairy tale I highly recommend you give it a try.

Census by Jesse Ball [Book]

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How does one convey a sense of understanding about something that is significantly hard to describe – whether due to its ephemeral qualities, or because the subject is profoundly personal? Author Jesse Ball writes about this challenge in the introduction to his newest book Census, stating that he “realized I would make a book that was hollow,” when trying to figure out how to write about his deceased older brother. Ball makes an astounding attempt by writing around the difficulty being investigated, and so creates a contour by which details emerge and a sense of the indescribable can be gleaned.

A book perhaps essentially about empathy, on both a personal and cultural level – prescient of our current social atmosphere where some philosophy on understanding others might be a bit lacking. Written with simple yet poetic prose, which will likely garner the re-reading of passages when finding yourself bowled over by the dense sentiments embedded within a short paragraph. And an impressive amount of language pushing, which holds up against the steep standards placed by the comparisons to Borges and Calvino that Ball has received. Truly otherworldly writing in the best ways that those giants of literature have shown to be possible.

A road trip from towns A to Z with tattooing and physiotelepathy – this is my current favorite book of 2018!

Close to Home by Peter Robinson [Book]

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This is the first title by this prolific British author I’ve sampled, and I’m hooked. Well written with interesting main characters both male and female. Suspenseful, but not heart pounding. You can, as I did, dive in into the middle of the Inspector Banks series, as the back stories of the main characters are interwoven into the story as necessary. For lovers of British mysteries like the Inspector Morse stories.

Passage by Connie Willis [Book]

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This is a difficult-to-classify tale of a medical researcher studying near death experiences. An interesting cast of characters of different races and backgrounds populate the novel and the story takes several turns, mostly unexpected. The politics and gossip and in a hospital setting are realistically portrayed. For mystery lovers who don’t mind a touch of medical-science-fiction. And for the philosophically inclined lover of escape fiction. A bit of a spooky read, and not everyone lives happily ever after. I found the main character a bit exasperating. But I had trouble putting it down until the end.

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin [Book]

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The Fifth Season is the first in The Broken Earth trilogy, a complex narrative work of fantasy that tells the tale of a world that may once have been like our own Earth, but has suffered from repeated environmental catastrophe’s, the “fifth seasons” of the book’s title. The world is frequently subjected to seismic stresses and acid rains and societal breakdowns. To survive,folks rely on the knowledge—and prejudice—passed down as “stone lore”.

The Fifth Season paints a detailed vision of a world with a rich but incomplete history full of deep prejudices and injustices, its own unique vocabulary, and a magical system that is almost scientific. It ends on a cliff-hanger, so you’ll want to read the whole series!

Report to the Men’s Club by Carol Emshwiller [Book]

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Though we’ve labeled this science fiction, for the most part these short stories are magic realism, little worlds where everything is normal, except perhaps, grandma can fly. Some funny, some a bit macabre (think Joyce Carol Oates with a sense of humor.) One is a paean to a feminist anthropologist, many about the lives of women. They will stick with you after the volume is closed.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides [Book]

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Middlesex is an multi-generation immigrant family drama limned by an omniscient narrator with a serious predicament. At turns funny and poignant, it is about identity and finding where you belong, including inside your own skin. Winner of the Pulitzer for fiction in 2003; I highly recommend this lushly written page turner.

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz [Book]

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Imagine a future in which genetic engineering is commonplace, artificial intelligence has advanced to the point where machine consciousness is taken for granted, and robots, which are built from a mixture of electrical, mechanical, and biological components, are an accepted part of everyday life. Property is key in this world. Robots can be owned, and people too, but the most valuable property is information, and corporations will do nearly anything to defend their patents. The individual in this world, whether human or machine, has few rights and less power.

Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous is set in such a world. Jack is an anti-patent pirate, skilled at chemical and bio engineering and determined to make pharmaceuticals available to those who need them, but she is in trouble when she realizes the dangers inherent in a new highly addicting productivity drug. Meanwhile Paladin, an AI, and Eliasz, both employed by a military organization dedicated to protecting intellectual property, are on her trail.

Told from varied perspectives, including the perspective of a new Artificial Intelligence learning about the world, Autonomous is a moving and engaging novel. With great characters, adventure, sci-fi, philosophy, and romance, it has a lot to offer. I enjoyed this book enormously!

Content warning: drug use and abuse; some sexual content; some violence which can be graphic at times, including a disturbing description of a torture during an interrogation

A Catalog of Birds by Laura Harrington [Book]

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Laura Harrington’s A Catalog of Birds is a novel about a family in Geneva, NY and what happens when the youngest son, Billy, returns from Vietnam, a wounded veteran. It’s also about nature and listening, about trees and birds and lakes, about ambition, disappointment, loss and love. It is beautifully written and I would have happily continued to read about these people and this place had the book been twice as long, even though their story often brought me to tears.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell [Book]

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Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On reads like a compact and quirky alternative Harry Potter. The parallels are impossible to miss. Our protagonist had no knowledge of the magical world until he was discovered and brought to a magic school where he quickly makes friends and begins a series of fantastic adventures. We have characters who clearly have analogs in Harry, Hermione, Draco, Hagrid, and Voldemort, and there are more subtle references as well. Carry On is more than an homage, however. It is an engaging fantasy with good world building and a satisfying plot. Many aspects of the book simply seem better than they have to be, which is delightful. The story is told from a number of viewpoints, each of which satisfyingly reveals something different about the characters. (The everchanging dynamic between our protagonist Simon and his rival Baz is a driving force in the book, and the contrast between their individual perspectives is part of what makes the book work so well.) The world is well thought out with complex politics and an intriguing, novel, and entertaining magic system. And Carry On is compact—it is as if Rowling had decided to tell the entire Harry Potter story in a single Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone sized volume that concentrated mainly on Harry’s last year, only touchiching upon earlier adventures in brief flashbacks.

The Dispossessed: A Novel [Book]

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Shevek is born in a world created by anarchists. This world, a moon in fact, is home to a planned society in which the concept of property does not exist and the language has been designed to discourage selfish thought. The people there have very little contact with the world from whence they came—the capitalist planet of Urras. Shevek is a brilliant physicist whose groundbreaking work is too advanced to be understood by his colleagues. If he wishes to continue his research he must, therefore, visit Urras and work with the scientists there.

Le Guin’s writing is excellent. In telling the story of Shevek, of his research, and of his journey, she also subtly explores some very interesting ideas about culture, language, government, and psychology. This imaginative work, like most of Le Guin’s science fiction, stands alone, and if you have never read any Le Guin this would be an excellent place to start. And if you like it you will find that Le Guin has written many more excellent books set in the same universe.