Despite everything that had happened between them—small things only, like having Aranen jailed until she gave up the secrets of her god, or Aranen holding Luca’s life in the vengeful grip of said god—Luca admired the woman.
CL Clark's writing is notable and substantive, not something to be set aside and forgotten after struggling to get through. I don't know Clark and haven't yet watched any interviews, but aside from being inclusive and effortless, centering queer women within the fabric of the story, there are also present remarkable parallels to the contradictions, traumas, and struggles of oppressed, colonized people navigating lives as they remain in relationship with their captors/oppressors. This book is layered with delicious complexity.
“The stories contained within will delight your sensibilities, inspire your wonderings, and connect you to your humanity, which is the point of good storytelling”
― New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color
― New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color
“For the horrors of the American Negro’s life,” wrote James Baldwin, “there has been almost no language.” This was what the United States was for longer than it was not. It is a measure of how long enslavement lasted in the United States that the year 2022 marks the first year that the United States would be an independent nation for as long as slavery lasted on its soil. No current-day adult will be alive in the year in which African-Americans as a group will have been free for as long as they had been enslaved. That will not come until the year 2111.”
― Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
― Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
“Balladaire, land of honey and whips. That poisonous combination of fear and hope had kept the Sands in line for ages. Had kept Touraine in line for ages.”
― The Unbroken
― The Unbroken
“In that moment, he realized that the Land of the Free had imposed a caste system not unlike the caste system of India and that he had lived under that system all of his life. It was what lay beneath the forces he was fighting in America.”
― Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
― Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
“She was as free now as she ever would be. She could choose what she fought for. She could choose who she was willing to die for.”
― The Unbroken
― The Unbroken
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