Steven > Recent Status Updates

So, it's been a while since I was on here. Work/life balance and all that. So, let's get back into it.

How about a demented kids show mascot monster?
With a protagonist who's on the Spectrum....

Barely 30 pages in and I'm checking all the woman's personality boxes...

Pretty well roped in at this point. Just arrived on the Saruthi planet in search of the Glaws and Mandragore...

I feel like I'm reading a cross between Mad Max, David Cronenberg, Blade Runner and Transmetropolitan.

O.o

Holy shit.....holy shit.....holy shit....

A slow burn so far. Character setup, unsettling environment. Our host Grant has just started to fly off the deep end so I'm wondering where this will lead....

Reading this far with the kinds of anecdotal stories peppered throughout this, I'm kinda reminded of the likes of, aside from the obvious ones like Marion Zimmer Bradley and David Eddings, also people like Eric LaRocca and Isabel Fall.

Basically, authors either rightfully were found to be scumbags, or writers who got dogpiled because of social media unfairly.

So by the end of this, the Avatar's woken up, R'lyeh been chased back into the shadows and the story ends as it began. The Avatar's still largely a bland non-entity, the city's avatars are largely bland stereotypes with little to their name and the Enemy is white people.

Why is this story lauded again?

Manny turned into King Kong to protect the primary avatar. And instead of an awesome fight, Jemisin cuts away and returns after the fight.

For fucks sake.

Couple things:
1. The Enemy is literally the embodiment of R'lyeh. Lovecraft's city. So either this is a backhanded compliment to him or Lovecraft is the Enemy of mankind.

2. It's taken this long for the plot to finally kick it up a gear. The pacing is horrible.

They're being attacked by buildings infested by the Enemy. Cosmic horror mixed with architecture. Except....the buildings are Starbucks. They're being attacked literally by gentrification.

This should be scary or at least tense. Its making me roll my eyes.

Are you kidding? You're racing across the city to prevent the apocalypse and you think now is the time to discuss the sociology of rap music?

So the actions finally kicked in. That's cool. But it's kinda rich for the Bronx to be complaining about stereotypes when her and the rest are almost nothing but.

I love that all the avatars have gathered and yet finding Staten Island is the last thing they consider doing.

You lot are dumb mother fuckers.

References to the Summit - some parliament of cities. And I couldn't give a shit because it's all loredumping.

Adding to that the gentrification is a result of....a massive corporation.

Because subtlety is for nerds.

Ah yes, the evils of gentrification, another hamfisted thing for Jemisin to shove into the book.

And again, I should state, I largely share Jemisin's politics. This is just lazy writing

Of course when Jemisin references Lovecraft specifically, she references the Horror at Red Hook, the one story that I wager most readers of Lovecraft dismiss with extreme prejudice because it's a vile piece of racist rubbish.

Jemisin, you're not subtle and you're not smart. This is lazy.

Okay this is getting ridiculous. Yes Staten Island's dad checks all the boxes of being a conservative stereotype. Ex-cop, racist, sexist, pro-life, Christian etc. Fine.

But he thinks only liberals care about the environment? This isn't just evil, it's cartoonist. This is some Captain Planet shit! How can I take this book seriously when you drive a dumptruck over any subtlety?

The worldbuilding in this book is so fucked. Its either massive loredumps or taking in world specific abstracts that you're just going expected to parse out.

So the Scooby wannabes have done a group communi on and found Staten Island and the primary avatar - the teen from the start of the book. Problem is that as beautiful as the language vis, I feel nothing for any of these characters. This is an exercise in shallow poetry.

I love Bronx has literally both become a loredump and a wise native American elder spouting spirituality in one swoop.

I know it's not fair to simplify like this but every other character is more or less a stereotype, so why stop now?

So Bronx kicks the others out of her office but then a single inspirational speech from a coworker motivates her to bring them back?

Is this a Saturday morning cartoon?

You know what's really fucked up? Staten Island - the xenophobic, neurotic woman raised by a racist cop father - has had more character development than any other protagonist so far, with the rest being flat, static or stereotypes.

Either Nora is pulling some gaslighting shit, or she expects the reader to just identify with everyone except Staten Island.

Ah. So Staten Island's dad's new friend is a brainwashed Nazi in league with the Enemy. Because of course he is.

Okay back to reading this.

The Bronx and the Enemy have faced off. Big tense situation. And the Bronx just resolves the fight in a single attack. No conflict, no consequence, the art gallery was threatened with arson and nothing happened.

Anticlimactic much?

Book's gone back to the library for now. But it's not looking good so far.

Seriously, anyone who's read Jemisin's work, am I missing something here? There's some nice prose sure, but the story is barebones, the characters are either flat or stereotypes and the themes are hamfisted and lazily shoved in.

What's to like?

So far, all the villains are white people or look like white people. All the heroes are POC or LGBT+.

Real subtle, Nora.

It's very telling how much if this book has been filled with just dialogue at this point. For a book that's effectively about getting the gang together to fight the Enemy, very little of substance has happened.

"Something about the old him is incompatible with the new identity that the city wants him to have. So he has chosen to be Manhattan..."

So why should I care? He effectively has no personality. Give me something. A conflict of identity. Existential dread. Something!

1. Queens is an Indian college student studying math and IT. Stereotype much?

2. I love how Manny wants to protect the city despite his entire personality is modelled off the city's brainwashing.