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The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Celebrated author Sofia Samatar presents a mystical, revolutionary space adventure for the exhausted dreamer in this brilliant science fiction novella tackling the carceral state and violence embedded in the ivory tower while embodying the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin.
"Can the University be a place of both training and transformation?"
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out amongst the stars.
His whole world changes―literally―when he is yanked "upstairs" to meet the woman he will come to call “professor.” The boy is no longer one of the Chained, she tells him, and he has been gifted an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
The woman has spent her career striving for acceptance and validation from her colleagues in the hopes of reaching a brighter future, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will learn from each other to grasp the design of the chains designed to fetter them both, and are the key to breaking free. They will embark on a transformation―and redesign the entire world.
"Can the University be a place of both training and transformation?"
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out amongst the stars.
His whole world changes―literally―when he is yanked "upstairs" to meet the woman he will come to call “professor.” The boy is no longer one of the Chained, she tells him, and he has been gifted an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.
The woman has spent her career striving for acceptance and validation from her colleagues in the hopes of reaching a brighter future, only to fall short at every turn.
Together, the boy and the woman will learn from each other to grasp the design of the chains designed to fetter them both, and are the key to breaking free. They will embark on a transformation―and redesign the entire world.
93 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 16, 2024
379 people are currently reading
8837 people want to read
About the author
Sofia Samatar
82 books647 followersSofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, the short story collection Tender, and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 552 reviews
August 3, 2025
Holy symbolism. Holy heavy-handed symbolism.
The problem when you make your characters so abstract and indistinct that they are little but vehicles for the message you’re getting across is that while themes may be important, it’s really hard to really care.
Leaving the main characters nameless - “the boy”, “the woman”, “the child” - while giving names to the peripheral characters from the oppressor class is the point I can intellectually appreciate since it’s clear what Samatar is after here, but to me, combined with the overall dreamy philosophically abstract atmosphere it added that didactic pseudo-fable feeling that makes my brain go on auto-reject mode.
The books that convey their message while feeling timeless are great. Le Guin was a perfect example — cerebral anthropologically-centered fiction that was intelligent and thought-provoking my interesting at the same time. The books that don’t quite reach that skill level, however, just feel like they are hitting the current hot button issues without the same impact.
Not to mention the heavy-handed symbolism-laden premise here, with chained people in the generation ship hold doing manual asteroid mining in a way that would be better suited for 19th century slavery, while above deck we get middle-class-like set-up of society virtually chained by desire to rise above those most oppressed, with suggestion of sinister elite above it all. The middle class is shown through the lens of academia squabbles very much with the current era vibes. And the plot is actually rather light, with the story open-endedly stopping at the point where things would be getting both interesting and difficult, without presenting any actual attempt at a solution to the clearly dysfunctional society, with some mystical supernatural force helping along in a vaguely convenient but very confusing way.
In the end I felt zero level of investment and was frankly bored. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the exploration of academic hypocrisy and solidarity through shared oppression in science-fictional setting, but with stronger characters I’m actually invested in, a better developed setting and plot without mystical handwaving. And on a generation ship, please.
But I’m still planning on giving other books by Sofia Samatar a try because despite disliking this novella, I do see something interesting in her writing style that may work for me in a different story.
2 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
The problem when you make your characters so abstract and indistinct that they are little but vehicles for the message you’re getting across is that while themes may be important, it’s really hard to really care.
Leaving the main characters nameless - “the boy”, “the woman”, “the child” - while giving names to the peripheral characters from the oppressor class is the point I can intellectually appreciate since it’s clear what Samatar is after here, but to me, combined with the overall dreamy philosophically abstract atmosphere it added that didactic pseudo-fable feeling that makes my brain go on auto-reject mode.
The books that convey their message while feeling timeless are great. Le Guin was a perfect example — cerebral anthropologically-centered fiction that was intelligent and thought-provoking my interesting at the same time. The books that don’t quite reach that skill level, however, just feel like they are hitting the current hot button issues without the same impact.
“Too many people, not enough stuff: the result is extra people. What are you going to do with all these extra people? If you’re smart, you’ll turn them into a business. That’s the Hold. So there will always be a Hold. Because the Ship is a problem. And the Hold is the answer.”
(I’d suggest using contraception in this technologically advanced society to battle the overpopulation, but apparently it’s not there for what must be reasons).
Not to mention the heavy-handed symbolism-laden premise here, with chained people in the generation ship hold doing manual asteroid mining in a way that would be better suited for 19th century slavery, while above deck we get middle-class-like set-up of society virtually chained by desire to rise above those most oppressed, with suggestion of sinister elite above it all. The middle class is shown through the lens of academia squabbles very much with the current era vibes. And the plot is actually rather light, with the story open-endedly stopping at the point where things would be getting both interesting and difficult, without presenting any actual attempt at a solution to the clearly dysfunctional society, with some mystical supernatural force helping along in a vaguely convenient but very confusing way.
In the end I felt zero level of investment and was frankly bored. But I wouldn’t mind seeing the exploration of academic hypocrisy and solidarity through shared oppression in science-fictional setting, but with stronger characters I’m actually invested in, a better developed setting and plot without mystical handwaving. And on a generation ship, please.
But I’m still planning on giving other books by Sofia Samatar a try because despite disliking this novella, I do see something interesting in her writing style that may work for me in a different story.
2 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
April 24, 2024
Ignore immediately anyone who calls this book "dark academia." They either don't understand the term, or they don't understand the book. This is a sci fi mythology. It reads like Coehlo's The Alchemist, or like Le Guin's later Earthsea books. It is a story of miracle that happens to be set in a dark and awful sci fi setting. But it's fundamentally a story of joy and goodness and connection and humanity - and how easy all of that is to lose and to abandon. It is connected to academia in the same way that Hamlet is a story about ghosts.
A plot summary is silly here. The chains of slavery become sci fi and tangible in metaphor. Connection is found through darkness. Just read the book, it'll take you like 3 hours.
A plot summary is silly here. The chains of slavery become sci fi and tangible in metaphor. Connection is found through darkness. Just read the book, it'll take you like 3 hours.
Read
May 6, 2025A terrific, thoughtful book about incarceration, exploitation, and oppression of various forms, as well as a cry for the power of solidarity (of class, of women, and of humanity). It's a short, elegant read that packs in a great deal without making you feel it needed to be longer. Hopeful.
March 7, 2025
I thought this was an interesting novella with important themes related to oppression and incarceration. As someone in academia I could see how what happens in this book manifests in real life academia too, like performative social justice with no real material changes, and/or people who act like they care about inequity and then perpetuate that inequity toward their colleagues and students with less power. I unfortunately found the writing a bit abstract and the characters generic – they felt more like symbols or vehicles for a message than three-dimensional characters – but I respect what Sofia Samatar set out to accomplish with this novella.
May 10, 2025
Some say the writing was lyrical, but I say it was fucking insufferable. Tomato, tomato.
More thoughts on YouTube.
More thoughts on YouTube.
August 21, 2024
This is a SF novella that attempts to tackle important problems from inequality of opportunities (including in academia), and human rights for freedom, and a few others. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for August 2024 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.
The book starts with a boy’s memories of how, as he grew up, he got a new bolt on his ankle that chained him to others. He lives in the Hold and works with others, linked by a gain, on a strange job – using picks to take asteroids apart from inside. Sometimes chained workers die if something goes wrong. Die as one, for they are chained. The boy starts to express himself by drawing on walls, he gets noticed and moved up.
A woman who moved the boy up is the daughter of another man from the Hold. Unlike the chained underclass, she and people like her have blue leg bracelets, which initially are something akin to smartwatches, a useful item, but really just another kind of chain. The woman works in local acedemia, she is a version of a ‘diversity hire’, and she tries to set the boy on a similar path. There are a few of thinly disguised jokes on modern academia, where researchers are afraid to be accused of cultural appropriation of ‘lower classes’, but have no qualms exploiting them. Or a struggle to re-name Old and New Knowledge to The task force had been successful, the names changed—not, as the woman had wished, to the Department of Arts and the Department of Sciences, but still, the shift from Old to Older Knowledge was an improvement, and to get those arrogant windbags on the other side of the bridge to call themselves Newer, rather than New…
However, despite the strong and talented prose, the story hasn’t worked for me at all. The messages, like slavery is bad, and we are slave in disguise aren’t new. The economics of hand-mining asteroids is plainly stupid, added to show how miserable lives can be, but actually bringing from SF fans questions – in zero-g when you hit by a pick, you just fly away! The economics as described: Certain things are always with us.” She counted on her fingers. “One: scarcity. Limited space and resources. Two: the need to maintain order, which, when things are scarce, is always under threat. Three: surplus. Too many people, not enough stuff: the result is extra people. What are you going to do with all these extra people? If you’re smart, you’ll turn them into a business. That’s the Hold. So there will always be a Hold. Because the Ship is a problem. And the Hold is the answer.” As an economist I say it is mind-blowingly stupid. If your people add net value they aren’t a surplus, if they subtract it ‘business’ won’t help.
Sadly, I think on the strength of prose alone it very likely will be nominated for SFF awards…
The book starts with a boy’s memories of how, as he grew up, he got a new bolt on his ankle that chained him to others. He lives in the Hold and works with others, linked by a gain, on a strange job – using picks to take asteroids apart from inside. Sometimes chained workers die if something goes wrong. Die as one, for they are chained. The boy starts to express himself by drawing on walls, he gets noticed and moved up.
A woman who moved the boy up is the daughter of another man from the Hold. Unlike the chained underclass, she and people like her have blue leg bracelets, which initially are something akin to smartwatches, a useful item, but really just another kind of chain. The woman works in local acedemia, she is a version of a ‘diversity hire’, and she tries to set the boy on a similar path. There are a few of thinly disguised jokes on modern academia, where researchers are afraid to be accused of cultural appropriation of ‘lower classes’, but have no qualms exploiting them. Or a struggle to re-name Old and New Knowledge to The task force had been successful, the names changed—not, as the woman had wished, to the Department of Arts and the Department of Sciences, but still, the shift from Old to Older Knowledge was an improvement, and to get those arrogant windbags on the other side of the bridge to call themselves Newer, rather than New…
However, despite the strong and talented prose, the story hasn’t worked for me at all. The messages, like slavery is bad, and we are slave in disguise aren’t new. The economics of hand-mining asteroids is plainly stupid, added to show how miserable lives can be, but actually bringing from SF fans questions – in zero-g when you hit by a pick, you just fly away! The economics as described: Certain things are always with us.” She counted on her fingers. “One: scarcity. Limited space and resources. Two: the need to maintain order, which, when things are scarce, is always under threat. Three: surplus. Too many people, not enough stuff: the result is extra people. What are you going to do with all these extra people? If you’re smart, you’ll turn them into a business. That’s the Hold. So there will always be a Hold. Because the Ship is a problem. And the Hold is the answer.” As an economist I say it is mind-blowingly stupid. If your people add net value they aren’t a surplus, if they subtract it ‘business’ won’t help.
Sadly, I think on the strength of prose alone it very likely will be nominated for SFF awards…
July 8, 2025
Still doing the one sf/f short fiction piece a day and trying to catch up with Hugo finalists, and doing two birds one stone: novellas are short fiction and this is a finalist. (It is actually a short novella so very feasible in one sitting).
I had this in my radar pre-release due to a lot of praise, but after reading the sample I had decided not to get it, and my instincts back then were right.
First thing: Sofia Samatar’s writing is frequently praised. This is the first work of hers I read so I had expectations regarding the prose, but her style is just not to my taste. Such long long sentences, full of adjectives and descriptions, a hint of omniscience, but it all feels so dead, lifeless, so little unexpected, so wordy, so descriptive, imagery all spelled out word and word and word. And the way the main characters are nameless just always described as “the boy”, “the woman”, the prophet, “the jaded elder” while minor characters are given names is twee. I do not like her writing, not at all, so count me as a phillistine.
And then the story: it’s all vibes. There is no sense to the worldbuilding putting together slave trade cargo holds and African American freed society from one century coexisting with current western academia politics with just some vague handwaving to glue it together. There is no sense to the plot, just more vague handwaving. The plot is ultimately that very common thing in Hugo finalists and tordotcom works: the fantasy of supernatural unexplained power enforcing social justice by doing something bad to the "opressors" on a grand (and generic) scale like a cataclysm.
This is getting compared to LeGuin (by people selling this book, yeah), and that is probably making me cranky and lower the rating. LeGuin did her best to make her sf plotting and worldbuilding consistent. I am also reading this while reading (in short bursts) Adrian Tchaikovsky’ newest book, and this looks even worse in comparison, because Tchaikovsky’s future is similar (far future, earth inhabitable, exploitative companies are how humans are organized and spread around the galaxy mining for materials) but so much more thought out, scarier, more real than this mishmash of different past centuries.
This book is being marketed as science fiction, and while its setting is nominally in space and in a far future, it really is not, because it has no attempt to even justify anything using logic or consequences. It’s vibes thrown together in a patchwork like way. I did not like it, and not even respect it much. My first instincts were right and I am getting burnt on my virtuous intentions to read all main categories Hugo finalists (next year I will be smarter and just nope out of even thinking of it)
I had this in my radar pre-release due to a lot of praise, but after reading the sample I had decided not to get it, and my instincts back then were right.
First thing: Sofia Samatar’s writing is frequently praised. This is the first work of hers I read so I had expectations regarding the prose, but her style is just not to my taste. Such long long sentences, full of adjectives and descriptions, a hint of omniscience, but it all feels so dead, lifeless, so little unexpected, so wordy, so descriptive, imagery all spelled out word and word and word. And the way the main characters are nameless just always described as “the boy”, “the woman”, the prophet, “the jaded elder” while minor characters are given names is twee. I do not like her writing, not at all, so count me as a phillistine.
And then the story: it’s all vibes. There is no sense to the worldbuilding putting together slave trade cargo holds and African American freed society from one century coexisting with current western academia politics with just some vague handwaving to glue it together. There is no sense to the plot, just more vague handwaving. The plot is ultimately that very common thing in Hugo finalists and tordotcom works: the fantasy of supernatural unexplained power enforcing social justice by doing something bad to the "opressors" on a grand (and generic) scale like a cataclysm.
This is getting compared to LeGuin (by people selling this book, yeah), and that is probably making me cranky and lower the rating. LeGuin did her best to make her sf plotting and worldbuilding consistent. I am also reading this while reading (in short bursts) Adrian Tchaikovsky’ newest book, and this looks even worse in comparison, because Tchaikovsky’s future is similar (far future, earth inhabitable, exploitative companies are how humans are organized and spread around the galaxy mining for materials) but so much more thought out, scarier, more real than this mishmash of different past centuries.
This book is being marketed as science fiction, and while its setting is nominally in space and in a far future, it really is not, because it has no attempt to even justify anything using logic or consequences. It’s vibes thrown together in a patchwork like way. I did not like it, and not even respect it much. My first instincts were right and I am getting burnt on my virtuous intentions to read all main categories Hugo finalists (next year I will be smarter and just nope out of even thinking of it)
August 9, 2024
This is fairly good, but as with most recent fantasy novellas, never fully satisfying for me. It’s a story of hierarchy, oppression and resistance in space, and handles its themes well. Plenty of ideas those familiar with current discourse will recognize (physical and metaphorical chains, the symbols of oppression functioning also as the locus of solidarity, etc.), but Samatar does not feel the need to explicitly point these things out as a lesser author would—she’s confident enough to just show characters behaving like people, without comment. If the privileged seem self-centered and clueless, well, power does that to people, and Samatar’s portrayals feel believable rather than exaggerated for effect.
The writing is also good, with some complex sentence structures as one would expect from Samatar, and there’s a lot of worldbuilding introduced quickly and naturally to the reader. The story is engaging and moves at a brisk pace, given the brief page count; basically, it involves a professor with lower-class roots, who has revitalized a scholarship program for ex-slaves, and the teenage boy she is mentoring as a result. The characters are sympathetic enough and I wanted the best for them, but despite some harrowing experiences (including a very effectively written bit in which the dehumanizing nature of the system is brought home through an unexpected betrayal), I was never fully invested. This is likely related to the fact that I cannot describe either of the leads’ personalities; they are more personification of roles than people.
In fact the characters may be intentionally generic (to me always a bad decision, though some seem to like it), given the name thing. Neither of the protagonists is named, being referred to instead as “the boy” and “the woman.” At one point the book implies that in fact only the highest caste even possesses names (and they are the only ones named in the book), but then this situation is never actually explored, and a big deal is made at the end of a higher-caste character not knowing a lower-caste person’s name. So presumably they have them after all. In the end I think the whole naming situation is intended thematically rather than literally, and am not sure the distance and confusion it creates quite justifies it. But I would be interested to hear from a reader who loved this aspect or saw a clear purpose to it.
Finally, I wasn’t fully satisfied with the ending: it’s a natural conclusion in terms of plot, but so many recent fantasies have ended in places like this that I’m reminded of Matthew Desmond’s critique of a particular strain of progressives, fluent in the language of grievance but far less interested in concrete steps forward. Of course, this may be in part because
Despite the criticism, however, I do think this is fairly good, and short enough to be worth a read, especially for social-justice-oriented sci-fi lovers, or those who particularly enjoy novellas.
The writing is also good, with some complex sentence structures as one would expect from Samatar, and there’s a lot of worldbuilding introduced quickly and naturally to the reader. The story is engaging and moves at a brisk pace, given the brief page count; basically, it involves a professor with lower-class roots, who has revitalized a scholarship program for ex-slaves, and the teenage boy she is mentoring as a result. The characters are sympathetic enough and I wanted the best for them, but despite some harrowing experiences (including a very effectively written bit in which the dehumanizing nature of the system is brought home through an unexpected betrayal), I was never fully invested. This is likely related to the fact that I cannot describe either of the leads’ personalities; they are more personification of roles than people.
In fact the characters may be intentionally generic (to me always a bad decision, though some seem to like it), given the name thing. Neither of the protagonists is named, being referred to instead as “the boy” and “the woman.” At one point the book implies that in fact only the highest caste even possesses names (and they are the only ones named in the book), but then this situation is never actually explored, and a big deal is made at the end of a higher-caste character not knowing a lower-caste person’s name. So presumably they have them after all. In the end I think the whole naming situation is intended thematically rather than literally, and am not sure the distance and confusion it creates quite justifies it. But I would be interested to hear from a reader who loved this aspect or saw a clear purpose to it.
Finally, I wasn’t fully satisfied with the ending: it’s a natural conclusion in terms of plot, but so many recent fantasies have ended in places like this that I’m reminded of Matthew Desmond’s critique of a particular strain of progressives, fluent in the language of grievance but far less interested in concrete steps forward. Of course, this may be in part because
Despite the criticism, however, I do think this is fairly good, and short enough to be worth a read, especially for social-justice-oriented sci-fi lovers, or those who particularly enjoy novellas.
May 30, 2025
Not sure I have the words for this one. Examines a setup already made familiar by Piranesi and I Who Have Never Known Men, but Samatar’s discussion of race and academic politics adds a new layer of substance alongside beautiful, almost frantic prose. Shelved next to The Fifth Season and Metal From Heaven
Please note I work for Macmillan but opinions are my own. I am not involved in book production
Please note I work for Macmillan but opinions are my own. I am not involved in book production
June 15, 2025
One of the best SF works I've read so far this year. An indictment on capitalism, academia, and class systems with a beautiful reminder that community disrupts masters, managers, and owners.
January 13, 2025
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is fine. It’s not bad, but it’s not the life-changing novella the accolades had me expecting either. It has all the makings of something great: a stark critique of capitalism, a mining ship setting with a rigid caste system, and the promise of revolutionary change. And yet, it left me feeling... well, not much.
The story opens with “the boy,” a chain-gang worker in the depths of a mining ship, and “the woman,” a professor who plucks him from the hold through an academic scholarship program. What follows is a mix of bleak realities and hopeful attempts to “humanize space” through education and art. It’s a noble premise, but the execution felt heavy-handed. The book often seemed more interested in delivering a lecture than telling a story, with its metaphors about labor exploitation and societal hierarchies spelled out in bold, underlined, and highlighted for good measure.
There are moments of beauty-Samatar sure can write-but sometimes I felt elegant sentences masked the thinness of the plot. The worldbuilding is subtle, sometimes to a fault. Details trickle in, but not enough to ground me fully in the setting. Psychic powers tied to physical chains? Sure, why not. But with little explanation or buildup, it felt like a narrative shortcut. Or, to be more blunt, the world-building feels like a teaser rather than the whole package.
At 128 pages, it’s a quick read. And it’s not bad, just... fine. Maybe worth a read if you like your sci-fi dense and with a side of moral philosophy.
The story opens with “the boy,” a chain-gang worker in the depths of a mining ship, and “the woman,” a professor who plucks him from the hold through an academic scholarship program. What follows is a mix of bleak realities and hopeful attempts to “humanize space” through education and art. It’s a noble premise, but the execution felt heavy-handed. The book often seemed more interested in delivering a lecture than telling a story, with its metaphors about labor exploitation and societal hierarchies spelled out in bold, underlined, and highlighted for good measure.
There are moments of beauty-Samatar sure can write-but sometimes I felt elegant sentences masked the thinness of the plot. The worldbuilding is subtle, sometimes to a fault. Details trickle in, but not enough to ground me fully in the setting. Psychic powers tied to physical chains? Sure, why not. But with little explanation or buildup, it felt like a narrative shortcut. Or, to be more blunt, the world-building feels like a teaser rather than the whole package.
At 128 pages, it’s a quick read. And it’s not bad, just... fine. Maybe worth a read if you like your sci-fi dense and with a side of moral philosophy.
February 11, 2025
داستان در سفینهای معدنکاو جریان دارد. مجموعهای از فضاپیماهای چندنسله مثل یک شرکت در کار استخراج مواد معدنی هستند. در این جامعه مثل تمام داستانهای پادآرمانشهری بیعدالتی افسارگسیختهای وجود دارد. عده کثیری در بخشی از فضاپیما به نام هولد در تاریکی و نکبت زندگی میکنند و وظیفه پستترین کارها رو برعهده دارند. این افراد همیشه با زنجیری به پای خود زندگی میکنند. پسری از هولد که تحت تأثیر شخصی به نام پیامبر قرار دارد، بهکمک بورسیهای ریاکارانه به بالا میرود تا در میان اغنیای سفینه زندگی و تحصیل کند. زنی که استاد نامیده میشود و پدرش مثل پسر هولدی بوده با او همراه میشود تا در نهایت بساط ظلم را برچینند.
کتاب بسیار گنگ و با وجود حجم کم تا حدی کسلکننده پیش میرود ولی عمق زیاد و معنای ژرفی دارد. بهنظر فضای داستان عمدا توسط نویسنده مبهم نگه داشته شده است. اگر حجم کتاب کم نبود شاید خیلیها خیلی راحت آن را کنار میگذاشتند چون بیشتر به یک بیانیه عدالتخواهانه سیاسی شباهت دارد تا یک داستان پادآرمانشهری. در مجموع اگر به داستانهای علمی تخیلی علاقه دارید تجربه کوتاه و خنثی (نه عشق و نه نفرت) را با این کتاب خواهید داشت. بهخاطر همین سه ستاره تقدیمش کردم.
کتاب بسیار گنگ و با وجود حجم کم تا حدی کسلکننده پیش میرود ولی عمق زیاد و معنای ژرفی دارد. بهنظر فضای داستان عمدا توسط نویسنده مبهم نگه داشته شده است. اگر حجم کتاب کم نبود شاید خیلیها خیلی راحت آن را کنار میگذاشتند چون بیشتر به یک بیانیه عدالتخواهانه سیاسی شباهت دارد تا یک داستان پادآرمانشهری. در مجموع اگر به داستانهای علمی تخیلی علاقه دارید تجربه کوتاه و خنثی (نه عشق و نه نفرت) را با این کتاب خواهید داشت. بهخاطر همین سه ستاره تقدیمش کردم.
Read
October 5, 2023This was awesome, the true dark academia. I hope to review it soon once I've climbed out from under the grading pile!
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Source of the book: Print ARC from publisher (I was very vocal about requesting it and it did not disappoint :) )
____
Source of the book: Print ARC from publisher (I was very vocal about requesting it and it did not disappoint :) )
December 1, 2024
4,5✨
Sofia Samatar is Always Amazing !! Magnifique comme toujours, la plume de l'autrice m'emporte.
Sofia Samatar is Always Amazing !! Magnifique comme toujours, la plume de l'autrice m'emporte.
April 20, 2025
Author interview with Ancillary Review of Books:
"In the case of the woman, who is the professor in this story, she’s doing this research project on play and on children’s play, and on play among children who don’t have very much stuff. These are impoverished, marginalized children. They make their games out of almost nothing. She calls it “a slender materiality” where there’s almost nothing there. That’s how I see DEI. It’s actually almost nothing. It’s really not doing anything. But, you can make something out of almost nothing. That’s the ambivalence. Instead of trying to address the fact that you have something that is a university on top and a prison underneath and it’s floating through space forever, you’re in no way trying to change that structure, and your justice work is to pluck this one kid up and have him go to university. That’s basically how DEI works. So it is doing almost nothing—but it’s not quite nothing. From that almost nothing, the question the book is asking is, what can you build? How can we actually use this almost nothing and create something?"
https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/20...
artist collective: a’stric
"In the case of the woman, who is the professor in this story, she’s doing this research project on play and on children’s play, and on play among children who don’t have very much stuff. These are impoverished, marginalized children. They make their games out of almost nothing. She calls it “a slender materiality” where there’s almost nothing there. That’s how I see DEI. It’s actually almost nothing. It’s really not doing anything. But, you can make something out of almost nothing. That’s the ambivalence. Instead of trying to address the fact that you have something that is a university on top and a prison underneath and it’s floating through space forever, you’re in no way trying to change that structure, and your justice work is to pluck this one kid up and have him go to university. That’s basically how DEI works. So it is doing almost nothing—but it’s not quite nothing. From that almost nothing, the question the book is asking is, what can you build? How can we actually use this almost nothing and create something?"
https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/20...
artist collective: a’stric
April 10, 2024
I think this is a me problem, but it took me a bit too long to latch onto the meat of the story. Because the majority of it is told in these vague abstractions (made more impersonal by using euphemisms instead of names for our main characters), I had a hard time following what was actually happening. I also have absolutely no idea what the timeline of this story is. For me, that’s a pretty important anchor - especially in spec fic where the rules as we know them might not apply.
I did however really like the theme of connection and community, even when they’re people you might not know or would ever interact with. I wished we’d seen it earlier.
My copy also had some really distracting formatting issues, which hindered my reading
{Thank you Tor.com for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review}
I did however really like the theme of connection and community, even when they’re people you might not know or would ever interact with. I wished we’d seen it earlier.
My copy also had some really distracting formatting issues, which hindered my reading
{Thank you Tor.com for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review}
May 5, 2024
An incisive novella exploring systematic injustice (especially in academia), set on a fleet of generation ships that have left a post-climate apolocalytic Earth. Samatar's plotting is tightly paced, and her characters, while archetypical, are well developed. The clear historical parallels lend the narrative compelling weight and Samatar's prose balances mysticism and practicality well.
As a Jew in academia, as the recipent of grants and scholarships designed to "raise me up" to an (white) upperclass world of generational wealth and priviledge, a world I am allowed to witness, but never fully participate in, Samatar captures in hideous perfection the trap of respectability politics, of "buying in" to a morally bankrupt system, and the power (and moral imperative) of resistance.
As a Jew in academia, as the recipent of grants and scholarships designed to "raise me up" to an (white) upperclass world of generational wealth and priviledge, a world I am allowed to witness, but never fully participate in, Samatar captures in hideous perfection the trap of respectability politics, of "buying in" to a morally bankrupt system, and the power (and moral imperative) of resistance.
May 29, 2025
Too deep for me
In his Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote
I read Sofia Samatar's The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain because it is a finalist for the 2025 Best Novella Hugo award. It won't get my vote. It is one of those books that is so deep and literary that the story, such as it is, becomes indiscernible through the layers of symbolism and literary sophistication.
I will admit that it's more than likely that The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is just over my head. Although it felt like a hi-falutin allegory to me, I never did quite discern what it was an allegory of. I mean, it is obvious that Samatar doesn't like slavery, but that hardly counts as an avant garde position. It is not even avant garde to equate capitalism with slavery and be against that, which may possibly have been the deeper message here.
Bottom line: if you, reading this review, are thinking, "It went right over this idiot's head" -- well, then, you're probably right. But it DID go over my head and it was no fun at all.
Blog review
In his Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote
I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.I guess I have become old and wary, because when I found myself asking what the blue anklets stood for, I detected the presence of something enough like allegory to be virtually indistinguishable, and I cordially disliked it.
I read Sofia Samatar's The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain because it is a finalist for the 2025 Best Novella Hugo award. It won't get my vote. It is one of those books that is so deep and literary that the story, such as it is, becomes indiscernible through the layers of symbolism and literary sophistication.
I will admit that it's more than likely that The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is just over my head. Although it felt like a hi-falutin allegory to me, I never did quite discern what it was an allegory of. I mean, it is obvious that Samatar doesn't like slavery, but that hardly counts as an avant garde position. It is not even avant garde to equate capitalism with slavery and be against that, which may possibly have been the deeper message here.
Bottom line: if you, reading this review, are thinking, "It went right over this idiot's head" -- well, then, you're probably right. But it DID go over my head and it was no fun at all.
Blog review
May 15, 2024
Like Samatar's earlier, excellent collection Tender, this is always complex, nuanced, and thoughtful. Instead of inundating us with clunky world-building details, we're allowed to observe through a few sympathetic but often bewildering characters, and impressionistically infer and absorb the intricate systems and relationships in her dark, troubling world. As in her short fiction, this is packed with ideas and thought-provoking engagements (on incarceration, academia, cultural friction, levels of control...). Much is left unexplained, but the emotional impact is powerful.
May 19, 2024
2.5/5 I may have just been in the wrong mood or looking for something this wasn’t trying to be, but I read this in one sitting and was never really feeling it. It’s more of an allegory than a story and the general premise of caste, class, and oppression didn’t seem that original to me and was overshadowed by lyrical writing and a corresponding lack of comprehensible world building and story. Maybe it just went over my head and I need to try again in a different frame of mind.
Read
June 10, 2025DNF at 25%. Could not get into the story.
2024
October 8, 2025Black History Month TBR
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom
January 28, 2025
A short but impactful novella on class and race oppression in academia but also society at large.
A boy lifted from the confinement of slavery to the world of academia for his unusual talents, separated from everything familiar. Expected to be gratedful. A professor, child of a similarly chosen father, slowly having her perception of the world changed. A prophet, still held down below, robbed of his child, telling stories of worlds unknown.
A novel considering practices both used to oppress them and used by them to survive. Reflecting on a horizon never seen, the horizon that could be. Contemplation the chains that contain, that oppres us, but also the ones, the connect and unite us.
This is a novella of only 122 pages. Of course, there could have been more depth to the relationships between characters. Certain character developments would have been more believable if the reader were given more time to witness them. The world-building was also rather vague, although that was an aspect I quite enjoyed.
What I mean to say is that the format of a novella naturally has specific constraints, and within those constraints, this story did quite well what it set out to do. It asked questions that keep me thinking and gave answers that give me hope.
A boy lifted from the confinement of slavery to the world of academia for his unusual talents, separated from everything familiar. Expected to be gratedful. A professor, child of a similarly chosen father, slowly having her perception of the world changed. A prophet, still held down below, robbed of his child, telling stories of worlds unknown.
A novel considering practices both used to oppress them and used by them to survive. Reflecting on a horizon never seen, the horizon that could be. Contemplation the chains that contain, that oppres us, but also the ones, the connect and unite us.
This is a novella of only 122 pages. Of course, there could have been more depth to the relationships between characters. Certain character developments would have been more believable if the reader were given more time to witness them. The world-building was also rather vague, although that was an aspect I quite enjoyed.
What I mean to say is that the format of a novella naturally has specific constraints, and within those constraints, this story did quite well what it set out to do. It asked questions that keep me thinking and gave answers that give me hope.
April 21, 2024
Okay first thing I need to address: the eARC formatting in this was bad-bad. Like, mistakes are cool, minor formatting errors are totally expected! But at times, this was simply not readable. I mean, some of my favorite quotes include "Hislifehadbeensoordinarythatgoingupstairsinthe lift,thatbrilliantboxoflightwhoseraysseemedtopierce", and the ever famous "Intheshower,thewomanrememberedthatlaugh.She recalledthevoiceoftheprophet.Hiswordsreverberated aroundher,slurredandbreakinglikefallingwater,telling" What am I supposed to do with that? Look, I did translate them all, but how much is one enjoying a story that way? This is all to say, take my thoughts with a grain of salt. Or several, or the whole damn shaker, frankly.
Because here's the rub: the premise was cool and I appreciated the ideas, but I was mostly confused and bored. Was I confused because of the formatting? Well, no, because like I said, I meticulously figured out what it was supposed to say, because I think I have problems. But also, when you spend so much time just deciphering the words, the context has a tendency to get lost in the shuffle (no, really! This is a thing that happens to kids who are not fluent readers- their comprehension doesn't lack because they can't comprehend, their brains are just too busy decoding the words to bother with the meaning.
Erm. Anyway, that has nothing to do with this book. The premise, like mentioned, is great! A kid who was doomed to spend his whole life in servitude on a mining ship is plucked out of obscurity and given a chance to be educated with the "elite". But is life "up there" really any better than before? And probably some other philosophical stuff I missed because I don't always understand symbolism. The thing is, I just didn't feel all that connected to any of the characters, they felt... distant, maybe is a good word? Muffled? I don't know, I just didn't feel all that immersed in the story.
Bottom Line: I really wish I had read a more coherent version, because I truly can't tell if the problem was the formatting, the story, or a combination. But because of that, I feel like it is unfair of me to really rate it. (For the sake of argument, let's give it a three for now on sites where I have to.)
You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
Because here's the rub: the premise was cool and I appreciated the ideas, but I was mostly confused and bored. Was I confused because of the formatting? Well, no, because like I said, I meticulously figured out what it was supposed to say, because I think I have problems. But also, when you spend so much time just deciphering the words, the context has a tendency to get lost in the shuffle (no, really! This is a thing that happens to kids who are not fluent readers- their comprehension doesn't lack because they can't comprehend, their brains are just too busy decoding the words to bother with the meaning.
Erm. Anyway, that has nothing to do with this book. The premise, like mentioned, is great! A kid who was doomed to spend his whole life in servitude on a mining ship is plucked out of obscurity and given a chance to be educated with the "elite". But is life "up there" really any better than before? And probably some other philosophical stuff I missed because I don't always understand symbolism. The thing is, I just didn't feel all that connected to any of the characters, they felt... distant, maybe is a good word? Muffled? I don't know, I just didn't feel all that immersed in the story.
Bottom Line: I really wish I had read a more coherent version, because I truly can't tell if the problem was the formatting, the story, or a combination. But because of that, I feel like it is unfair of me to really rate it. (For the sake of argument, let's give it a three for now on sites where I have to.)
You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight
February 7, 2024
Read via NetGalley.
To be honest I don't even know where to start with reviewing this novella.
To say that it's breathtaking is insufficient. I can say that it should be on every single award ballot for this year, but that only tells you how much I admired it.
I could try and explain how it explores ideas of slavery, and the experience of the enslaved; ideas of control, and social hierarchy; about human resilience and human evil. Draw connections with Ursula K Le Guin's "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas," and probably a slew of stories that connect to the Atlantic slave trade and which I haven't read (mostly because I'm Australian).
There are odes to be written to the lyricism of Samatar's prose, but I don't myself have the words to express that. Entire creative writing classes would benefit from reading this, and sitting with it, and gently prying at why it works the way it does.
I could give you an outline? There's a fleet of space ships, and they're mining asteroids, and mining is dreadful work so you know who you get to do the dreadful work? People that you don't call enslaved but who are indeed enslaved. There's an entire hierarchy around who's doing the mining in the hold, and who's a guard and who's not a guard, and the people at the top have convinced themselves there's not REALLY a hierarchy it's just the way things need to be. Sometimes someone from the Hold is brought out of the Hold, and then has to learn how to be outside of the Hold... and then someone starts to see through the system, and maybe has a way to change things.
The outline doesn't convey how powerful the story is.
I should add: the main characters are never named.
Just... everyone should read this. It's not long, so there's no excuse! But it will stay in your head, and it will punch you in the guts. In the good way.
To be honest I don't even know where to start with reviewing this novella.
To say that it's breathtaking is insufficient. I can say that it should be on every single award ballot for this year, but that only tells you how much I admired it.
I could try and explain how it explores ideas of slavery, and the experience of the enslaved; ideas of control, and social hierarchy; about human resilience and human evil. Draw connections with Ursula K Le Guin's "The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas," and probably a slew of stories that connect to the Atlantic slave trade and which I haven't read (mostly because I'm Australian).
There are odes to be written to the lyricism of Samatar's prose, but I don't myself have the words to express that. Entire creative writing classes would benefit from reading this, and sitting with it, and gently prying at why it works the way it does.
I could give you an outline? There's a fleet of space ships, and they're mining asteroids, and mining is dreadful work so you know who you get to do the dreadful work? People that you don't call enslaved but who are indeed enslaved. There's an entire hierarchy around who's doing the mining in the hold, and who's a guard and who's not a guard, and the people at the top have convinced themselves there's not REALLY a hierarchy it's just the way things need to be. Sometimes someone from the Hold is brought out of the Hold, and then has to learn how to be outside of the Hold... and then someone starts to see through the system, and maybe has a way to change things.
The outline doesn't convey how powerful the story is.
I should add: the main characters are never named.
Just... everyone should read this. It's not long, so there's no excuse! But it will stay in your head, and it will punch you in the guts. In the good way.
May 21, 2025
I have been terrible at updating my Goodreads. Here is my full review:
I’ve read a handful of Sofia Samatar’s short fictions, and while they seem to be highly praised in the genre community, none to this point had really stuck with me. So it was with some apprehension that I approached my first of her novellas, the Hugo finalist The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain. But in the end, I was rewarded with the best book I’d read all year.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain takes place on a spaceship with extremely strict class boundaries. The upper class enjoys wealth, freedom, and technology and has seemingly unlimited power over the others. Those in the middle class tend to work ordinary jobs but are forced to wear anklets through which they can be punished by anyone privileged enough to have a phone. And those in the Hold spend their entire lives shackled to each other, without a hint of privacy as they work in the mines that are the lifeblood of the ship. One of the two lead characters, an academic known only as the woman, is spearheading a program in which a talented youth from the Hold may have their Chain removed and be brought into the academy and the middle class. That talented youth is the other lead, the boy, whose artistic skills have caught the attention of the guards but whose visions will not allow him to leave the Hold entirely behind.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is concerned with its themes more than its plot, with archetypical characters, a poetic style absolutely dripping with symbolism, and more than a hint of magical realism. It’s exactly the sort of book that I usually bounce off, so it’s easy to understand my trepidation in picking this one up. And yet all these elements I ordinarily dislike worked wonderfully here.
How? It starts with the prose and the characterization. I’m happy reading theme-driven books if they’re able to immerse me in the story, but poetic language and archetypical characters usually keeps me at an emotional arm’s length. Not so here! In fact, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain reminds me somewhat of one of my favorite books, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, in that it’s unapologetically philosophical and is willing to descend into what almost feels like a fever dream in the final 10% but generates enough investment in the characters in the more comprehensible opening segments that I had the reading momentum to carry me through the more difficult sections. Samatar’s style is a bit less straightforward than the famously approachable Lewis, but it’s still much more readable than I expected, and it supplements the archetypes with enough detail that the unnamed leads nevertheless feel like real people.
Those humanizing flourishes start early, with the boy struggling even to walk without the familiar weight of the Chain anchoring him to his brethren. The culture shocks continue in dining, in reading social cues, and in differences in taboos across class boundaries, and those small elements all help make the boy feel less like a thinly-sketched folk tale lead and more like a real person. But the woman is even more relatable. Perhaps I’m biased because of my academic background—one shared by Samatar herself, who clearly writes from deep personal experience—but the woman comes vividly to life in almost all of her struggles. Her entire livelihood depends on getting others to see the value in niche research interests that she finds fascinating and illustrative and that so many others find superfluous and impractical. But we see relatively little of these research interests, because much of the time that she’d like to spend on research is reallocated in service of the diversity program that brought the boy to the academy. The real-world commentary on junior and adjunct faculty shouldering the burden of service to the department even when they’re the ones with the most pressure to publish is clear enough, and unnamed though she may be, the woman is a vibrant character who is extremely easy to invest in.
But while I may praise the characters, this is a theme-heavy novel, and it develops those themes with aplomb. The stark class divide and shocking oppression of the Chained draws the eye and delivers real narrative weight, but the portrayal of the academy’s role here is remarkably nuanced and fascinating. The culture shock aspects of the boy’s story remind me a lot of the strongest elements of Premee Mohamed’s We Speak Through the Mountain or R.F. Kuang’s Babel, but The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain digs much deeper. It’s easy to see the academy’s tacit endorsement of oppressive structures, but just as firmly on display are the efforts of faculty members—themselves in precarious positions—to try to make a difference, mostly yielding small-scale programs that suck up time while only nibbling around the edges of the real problem, but that are nevertheless better than nothing. The tremendous interview with Samatar in Ancillary Review of Books directly draws the parallel with DEI initiatives, offering a critique from the left that’s even more fascinating in light of the current political battles around DEI.
The same interview digs into the use of symbolism that I see as one of the major strengths of the novella. I immediately noticed the references to biblical prophecy, divorced from their context and lingering as cultural images for which there are no reference points—they dream of a River that is a Sea without ever having seen either a river or a sea. But the most fascinating symbolic element is the twofold meaning of the Chain. It’s undoubtedly a shackle and a symbol of oppression, but at the same time, it’s also a means of connection and support. This comes through extremely early in the story, with the boy’s inability to balance without the Chain, and it only develops further as the novella progresses. I won’t wade too deeply into the subject so as to avoid spoilers, but I’d argue that the development of the Chain symbol constitutes the thematic climax to the story, anchoring a tale whose plot in the third act can otherwise wander a bit too far into the surreal for my taste. I’m not usually such a symbol guy, but here, it brings everything together in spectacular fashion.
With its poetic language, heavy use of symbolism, and prioritization of theme over plot, I imagine that The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain will be a divisive story. But while there are some critiques I can make—the final quarter, for instance, moved a bit quickly for my taste—I have surprised myself by coming down vehemently on the favorable side of the divide. Perhaps this is partially informed by my own experiences, but I found it remarkably accessible in light of its obvious literary ambition, with excellent characterization that made it easy to invest in the story. The thematic work is both hard-hitting and nuanced, coming from an author who is clearly deeply familiar with academic settings. And the symbolism provides layers upon layers that deliver an emotionally compelling conclusion and spur a whole lot of reflection and conversation after the fact. It’s a very good read, but it’s an even better book club selection that only improves during the discussion.
Recommended if you like: theme-driven novels, academic settings, literary speculative fiction.
18/20
I’ve read a handful of Sofia Samatar’s short fictions, and while they seem to be highly praised in the genre community, none to this point had really stuck with me. So it was with some apprehension that I approached my first of her novellas, the Hugo finalist The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain. But in the end, I was rewarded with the best book I’d read all year.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain takes place on a spaceship with extremely strict class boundaries. The upper class enjoys wealth, freedom, and technology and has seemingly unlimited power over the others. Those in the middle class tend to work ordinary jobs but are forced to wear anklets through which they can be punished by anyone privileged enough to have a phone. And those in the Hold spend their entire lives shackled to each other, without a hint of privacy as they work in the mines that are the lifeblood of the ship. One of the two lead characters, an academic known only as the woman, is spearheading a program in which a talented youth from the Hold may have their Chain removed and be brought into the academy and the middle class. That talented youth is the other lead, the boy, whose artistic skills have caught the attention of the guards but whose visions will not allow him to leave the Hold entirely behind.
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain is concerned with its themes more than its plot, with archetypical characters, a poetic style absolutely dripping with symbolism, and more than a hint of magical realism. It’s exactly the sort of book that I usually bounce off, so it’s easy to understand my trepidation in picking this one up. And yet all these elements I ordinarily dislike worked wonderfully here.
How? It starts with the prose and the characterization. I’m happy reading theme-driven books if they’re able to immerse me in the story, but poetic language and archetypical characters usually keeps me at an emotional arm’s length. Not so here! In fact, The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain reminds me somewhat of one of my favorite books, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis, in that it’s unapologetically philosophical and is willing to descend into what almost feels like a fever dream in the final 10% but generates enough investment in the characters in the more comprehensible opening segments that I had the reading momentum to carry me through the more difficult sections. Samatar’s style is a bit less straightforward than the famously approachable Lewis, but it’s still much more readable than I expected, and it supplements the archetypes with enough detail that the unnamed leads nevertheless feel like real people.
Those humanizing flourishes start early, with the boy struggling even to walk without the familiar weight of the Chain anchoring him to his brethren. The culture shocks continue in dining, in reading social cues, and in differences in taboos across class boundaries, and those small elements all help make the boy feel less like a thinly-sketched folk tale lead and more like a real person. But the woman is even more relatable. Perhaps I’m biased because of my academic background—one shared by Samatar herself, who clearly writes from deep personal experience—but the woman comes vividly to life in almost all of her struggles. Her entire livelihood depends on getting others to see the value in niche research interests that she finds fascinating and illustrative and that so many others find superfluous and impractical. But we see relatively little of these research interests, because much of the time that she’d like to spend on research is reallocated in service of the diversity program that brought the boy to the academy. The real-world commentary on junior and adjunct faculty shouldering the burden of service to the department even when they’re the ones with the most pressure to publish is clear enough, and unnamed though she may be, the woman is a vibrant character who is extremely easy to invest in.
But while I may praise the characters, this is a theme-heavy novel, and it develops those themes with aplomb. The stark class divide and shocking oppression of the Chained draws the eye and delivers real narrative weight, but the portrayal of the academy’s role here is remarkably nuanced and fascinating. The culture shock aspects of the boy’s story remind me a lot of the strongest elements of Premee Mohamed’s We Speak Through the Mountain or R.F. Kuang’s Babel, but The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain digs much deeper. It’s easy to see the academy’s tacit endorsement of oppressive structures, but just as firmly on display are the efforts of faculty members—themselves in precarious positions—to try to make a difference, mostly yielding small-scale programs that suck up time while only nibbling around the edges of the real problem, but that are nevertheless better than nothing. The tremendous interview with Samatar in Ancillary Review of Books directly draws the parallel with DEI initiatives, offering a critique from the left that’s even more fascinating in light of the current political battles around DEI.
The same interview digs into the use of symbolism that I see as one of the major strengths of the novella. I immediately noticed the references to biblical prophecy, divorced from their context and lingering as cultural images for which there are no reference points—they dream of a River that is a Sea without ever having seen either a river or a sea. But the most fascinating symbolic element is the twofold meaning of the Chain. It’s undoubtedly a shackle and a symbol of oppression, but at the same time, it’s also a means of connection and support. This comes through extremely early in the story, with the boy’s inability to balance without the Chain, and it only develops further as the novella progresses. I won’t wade too deeply into the subject so as to avoid spoilers, but I’d argue that the development of the Chain symbol constitutes the thematic climax to the story, anchoring a tale whose plot in the third act can otherwise wander a bit too far into the surreal for my taste. I’m not usually such a symbol guy, but here, it brings everything together in spectacular fashion.
With its poetic language, heavy use of symbolism, and prioritization of theme over plot, I imagine that The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain will be a divisive story. But while there are some critiques I can make—the final quarter, for instance, moved a bit quickly for my taste—I have surprised myself by coming down vehemently on the favorable side of the divide. Perhaps this is partially informed by my own experiences, but I found it remarkably accessible in light of its obvious literary ambition, with excellent characterization that made it easy to invest in the story. The thematic work is both hard-hitting and nuanced, coming from an author who is clearly deeply familiar with academic settings. And the symbolism provides layers upon layers that deliver an emotionally compelling conclusion and spur a whole lot of reflection and conversation after the fact. It’s a very good read, but it’s an even better book club selection that only improves during the discussion.
Recommended if you like: theme-driven novels, academic settings, literary speculative fiction.
18/20
December 26, 2024
What did I read? I don't exactly know. It's a very abstract, dense little novella with a lot about class and slavery, academia, and human connection packed into a modest pagecount. The boy moves up in the world, but does he really? Both he and his mentor still wear an anklet and I don't think it's a coincidence that neither he nor she get named while their superiors do. The prose is good as always, but distant, and heavy on the philosophy/religion of the titular Practice. Definitely a lot to think about, but I still wish we got a little more.
Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 4/5
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 4/5
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
September 1, 2025
just go read simon jimenez's vanishing birds please. that's this but better
Read
November 2, 2024DNF @ p. 32 or so. I’m sure academia does suck but I don’t really care to read about it, and this didn’t feel super original/compelling to me otherwise. Can’t win em all!!
April 14, 2025
My month in reading is going to be mostly dominated by a couple of thousand page tomes, so to keep my sanity I’m breaking them up with whichever of this year’s Hugo nominees for Best Novella my library has handy. Practice, Horizon and Chain was the first one on the list, and besides that nomination I went it literally entirely blind as to its context and contents. Having finished it, it was...not awful. It would, I think, have been better served as a short story than a novella – the added page count mostly gave time for the plot to strain and buckle and the prose to wear out its welcome and go from poetic to overwrought. It was short enough to not entirely overstay its welcome, but the thing felt more like something that would get written as part of an MFA than one of the year’s best pieces of science fiction.
The story is a bit of space age mythology, centring around a boy living in the Hold at the centre of a gargantuan spaceship – one of a whole fleet the journeys from asteroid to another, pulling likely rocks in to their core for the toiling masses to chip away at and process into useful materials for those living in the ship’s more luxurious upper layers. Noted by a doctor changing the size of the chain he would otherwise spend his entire life shackled to for his artistic talents, he’s plucked from the Hold to a new life as a scholarship student at a university, his chain replaced with an anklet that arks him as a provisionally accepted member of polite society. The professor organizing the program – the daughter of the scholarship’s great success story before it was suspended generations ago, now a junior humanities professor in her own right – does everything she can to socialize him and help him make the most of his new life, at least until she has it rubbed in her face how her life outside the hold is just as precarious and conditional as his.
So this is a very academic novella. All the scenes that take place outside the university feel surreal and dreamlike, it is only when the campus that anything feels real enough to actually bite. Which, to be fair, they absolutely do – when it’s trying, the book does very good satire regarding the deeply precarious lives of international students whose acceptance in the first world (and, often, whole lives) is entirely conditional on the good will of the university around them. Similarly with the uselessness of much campus activism, the hierarchy and oppression that is politely unacknowledged right up until the knives come out, the humiliation of one’s presence being justified in terms of the benefit it provides everyone else around them – the exaggeration of chains and anklets and the instantly visible caste system is really quite effective (the author’s incredibly obvious chip on the should about the humanities vs. STEM is rather eyeroll-inducing, but entirely forgivable). Which is why I say that if this had just been a short story, it very likely would have been an excellent one.
As is, the story begins decomposing into something more like a tone poem as soon as the plot properly kicks into gear. Every character aside from the Child and the Professor are rote archetypes, their actions transparently motivated by the need to move things along just so and make the point the author wants to as clearly as they can. The story flips over into a sort of magical realism, the power of love and the (implicit and primordial) solidarity of the oppressed revealing itself as a magical force of all-surpassing power in a way that feels both saccharin and like it’s dodging the actual thematic conflict the story was incredibly explicit about raising.
Now, raising thematic conflicts you don’t know how to resolve is a proud tradition – it’s half the appeal of writing a Novel Of Ideas instead of a manifesto – but still. The book is very, very clear about wrestling with the question about whether it is possible for a university to be a place of both training and transformation – whether an institution created to drill in technical competence and socialization into an expected professional culture can also be a place for moral development and personal or political awakening. Which is a nicely meaty question, and one that I imagine is of no small personal interest to professed radical academics. But after raising it – and dramatizing the conflict and the hypocrisy of the academy really quite wonderfully – it’s just, totally punted. Left behind and replaced with platitudes of solidarity and connection. Again, this is something where it feels like the length of the story counts against it – there’s enough word count there that you feel like there should be some actual meaningful resolution here.
The prose is trying very, very hard to be poetic and literary. Sometimes successfully – it’s beautiful at points! - but more often distractingly. The symbolism and imagery is at times so overwrought it risks drowning the actual characters and events, and is not nearly so affecting as to justify it. As with the rest of it, this becomes worse the further along into the book you get.
All in all, this was short enough that I don’t really regret reading it, and really very interesting at points. But I really can’t say the juice is worth the squeeze unless you have the same masochistic commitment to reading every best novel and novella nomination for the Hugos that I do.
The story is a bit of space age mythology, centring around a boy living in the Hold at the centre of a gargantuan spaceship – one of a whole fleet the journeys from asteroid to another, pulling likely rocks in to their core for the toiling masses to chip away at and process into useful materials for those living in the ship’s more luxurious upper layers. Noted by a doctor changing the size of the chain he would otherwise spend his entire life shackled to for his artistic talents, he’s plucked from the Hold to a new life as a scholarship student at a university, his chain replaced with an anklet that arks him as a provisionally accepted member of polite society. The professor organizing the program – the daughter of the scholarship’s great success story before it was suspended generations ago, now a junior humanities professor in her own right – does everything she can to socialize him and help him make the most of his new life, at least until she has it rubbed in her face how her life outside the hold is just as precarious and conditional as his.
So this is a very academic novella. All the scenes that take place outside the university feel surreal and dreamlike, it is only when the campus that anything feels real enough to actually bite. Which, to be fair, they absolutely do – when it’s trying, the book does very good satire regarding the deeply precarious lives of international students whose acceptance in the first world (and, often, whole lives) is entirely conditional on the good will of the university around them. Similarly with the uselessness of much campus activism, the hierarchy and oppression that is politely unacknowledged right up until the knives come out, the humiliation of one’s presence being justified in terms of the benefit it provides everyone else around them – the exaggeration of chains and anklets and the instantly visible caste system is really quite effective (the author’s incredibly obvious chip on the should about the humanities vs. STEM is rather eyeroll-inducing, but entirely forgivable). Which is why I say that if this had just been a short story, it very likely would have been an excellent one.
As is, the story begins decomposing into something more like a tone poem as soon as the plot properly kicks into gear. Every character aside from the Child and the Professor are rote archetypes, their actions transparently motivated by the need to move things along just so and make the point the author wants to as clearly as they can. The story flips over into a sort of magical realism, the power of love and the (implicit and primordial) solidarity of the oppressed revealing itself as a magical force of all-surpassing power in a way that feels both saccharin and like it’s dodging the actual thematic conflict the story was incredibly explicit about raising.
Now, raising thematic conflicts you don’t know how to resolve is a proud tradition – it’s half the appeal of writing a Novel Of Ideas instead of a manifesto – but still. The book is very, very clear about wrestling with the question about whether it is possible for a university to be a place of both training and transformation – whether an institution created to drill in technical competence and socialization into an expected professional culture can also be a place for moral development and personal or political awakening. Which is a nicely meaty question, and one that I imagine is of no small personal interest to professed radical academics. But after raising it – and dramatizing the conflict and the hypocrisy of the academy really quite wonderfully – it’s just, totally punted. Left behind and replaced with platitudes of solidarity and connection. Again, this is something where it feels like the length of the story counts against it – there’s enough word count there that you feel like there should be some actual meaningful resolution here.
The prose is trying very, very hard to be poetic and literary. Sometimes successfully – it’s beautiful at points! - but more often distractingly. The symbolism and imagery is at times so overwrought it risks drowning the actual characters and events, and is not nearly so affecting as to justify it. As with the rest of it, this becomes worse the further along into the book you get.
All in all, this was short enough that I don’t really regret reading it, and really very interesting at points. But I really can’t say the juice is worth the squeeze unless you have the same masochistic commitment to reading every best novel and novella nomination for the Hugos that I do.
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