Catherine Shaffer-Book Recommendations

Here are a few books I've read recently that I can recommend:

Hominds by Robert Sawyer--This book won the Hugo for best novel this year. It was originally published as a serial in Analog. I didn't read it at the time, even though I subscribe, because I don't like to wait for the next installment to come out. I found Hominids very enjoyable. The research was meticulous and impressive. Was it the best of the year? I'm not sure. I didn't read all of the nominees, but I wasn't blown away, and it is very obviously set up for a sequel. I'm sure that Sawyer's being a Toronto native had nothing to do with his winning the Hugo at a Toronto Worldcon. Surely. But that has more to do with the nature of awards than the quality of the book.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix--This was as engrossing a read as all of the other Harry Potter books. I think Rowling's greatest strength is the worldbuilding. I will continue to follow Harry's adventures, but I did not think OotP was among the better installments. It needed editing, and the climax did not do justice to the plot. I am noticing a weakness in Rowling's handling of her characters' emotional lives. Still, the worldbuilding is fun and playful and I couldn't seem to put it down for the entire 24 hours plus that it took to read the thing.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson--I've met this author on one or two occasions and found her to be lovely and fascinating. She's received many awards and accolades, so I thought it was time to check out some of her work. I wasn't disappointed with Midnight Robber. It's a wonderfully imaginative science fiction/multidimensional romp set in a futuristic Carribbean world in some version of Earth's distant past...okay, if you're confused, I am, too. There's goat curry, and Carnival, and artificial intelligences, and nanotechnology, and...ankylosaurs? The book is written in very heavy dialect, which was, at times a problem for me, since I've had very little exposure to the sort of English/French patois creole whatever that's spoken in the Carribbean. In fact, there were a few words that appeared repeatedly throughout the story that I STILL didn't understand at the end, like bassourdie and duppy. Others I was able to puzzle out from context, like pickney and mako. The worst part is that due to my unfamiliarity with the existant culture and dialect of the Carribbean, I couldn't tell what she made up and what she took as-is. But this is my failing, not the book's. I did lose some of my suspension of disbelief at times, especially toward the end, but I would still recommend Midnight Robber as a fun and entertaining read.

Comments

[Erica]

I would like to put in a vote for Hominids being a great book as well. I really enjoyed it, so much so that I ran right out and picked up Humans. I didn't like that one quite as much, but will certainly read the conclusion of the trilogy.

Nalo Hopkinson's Midnight Robber is another really fine book. The mythology and culture of the story are something rare in a field largely dominated by North American/European writers.

[Lisa]

Duppy is a voodoo term for the "soul". I think it's an alternate term for ti-bon-ange, which in voodooism is the part of the soul that remains with the body after a person dies. After a person dies, it's important to do the Nine Night ritual to prevent the duppy from doing evil acts.

I recommend TELL MY HORSE by Zora Neale Hurtson if you want to read more about Haiti and Jamaica and voodoo.

[Catherine]

Do the lady and the neanderthal finally get it on in Humans?

Thanks for the translation, Lisa. If you've done a lot of reading about haiti and voodoo and so forth, you'd probably enjoy Midnight Robber even more than I did. I thought a duppy was some kind of ghost, but it wasn't clear.

[Erica]

Yeah, Ponter and Mary get together finally in Humans. We also get to see a lot more of Neandrethal society.

I've got to say that the thing I liked least about Humans was Mary. She seemed to turn more and more into a cardboard cut-out of a middle-aged, insecure woman who indulges in pseudo-feminist musings of the 'if women didn't have to deal regularly with men in their daily lives, everything would be just peachy'. Sisterhood blah blah blah.

While there are people that think this way (quite a few of them, I know), this combined with an unsophisticated defense of theism/Catholicism just made me more annoyed with Mary than sympathetic to her. I mean, I expect a bit more in the rigorous logic department from a world-renowned scientist than 'it makes people happy to believe this, so how dare you say it isn't true'.

Unfortunately, I ended up liking both Ponter and Mary less at the end of the book than I had at the beginning. I want to stress that I still enjoyed reading the book and found it really engaging. It's just that some of the character's quirks started to push my buttons by the end.

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