#dedicated review

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My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

This is a horror novel following Jessica, an investigative journalist whose husband, Dawit, is secretly an immortal being who will kill to cover his secret, but when other immortals tell him he has lingered too long in the mortal world, he begins to plot to turn Jessica and their daughter immortal as well, whether they want it or not.

This was fantastic. As always, Due's writing is electric and enthralling while also being steeped in historical research and context. She also does an excellent job of having the reader sympathize with Dawit- all he has lost and all he has suffered through the years- and understand his motivations while still building a pervasive sense of dread around him as he takes more and more of Jessica's life from her. And Jessica, as with so many horror protagonists, can be infuriating at times with how she doesn't see the threat closing in on her, but Due manages to thread the needle of having Jessica's denial be entirely understandable, allowing her to remain an incisive, strong character through it all.

The edition of the audiobook that I listened to had an interview with Due at the end where she states that her goal in writing the book was to explore how grief, loss, and trauma repeated ad nauseam on a time scale longer than humans can comprehend would affect a person's psyche. And grief and loss are of course major themes, but beyond what fits in the soundbites, exploring those particular ideas with black characters also of course lends itself to exploration of generational trauma. Jessica may not have literally lived through slavery the way Dawit did, but she is still deeply affected by her family's history and Dawit puts a human face to that embodiment of pervasive, continual trauma. I also think the book explores elements misogynoir- as I said, Dawit has lived through unimaginable trauma as a black man and should, theoretically, be able to understand the similar ways Jessica and Kira are dehumanized as black women, but he continually refuses to conceptualize them as full and complete people with their own wants and desires that could be counter to his own because he views them as his and because of his having lived in an explicitly sexist society- both the mortal and immortal worlds- for centuries that has seeped into his own perception despite his love for them.

Stephen King apparently blurbed the book saying that it bears favorable comparison to Interview with the Vampire, and that is so true. For all that Interview is an iconic exploration of grief and abuse, this book explores those same themes in my opinion much better and adds so much more. (And it's not outrageously racist the way Rice is!) I already loved Tananarive Due's writing from the one book of hers I had read prior to this, but now I really can't wait to read more from her, starting with the rest of this series. 5⭐️

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Network Effect by Martha Wells

This is book number five in The Murderbot Diaries. A hostile group has captured ART and its crew, and it needs Murderbot's help, so it tricks the hostiles into kidnapping Murderbot too so it can get that help.

Once again, I don't really have much smart to say about a Murderbot book, just that I love Murdebot so much. It's so easy to get swept away in the stories Wells tells, particularly in this actual full length novel instead of a novella. But beyond the actual plots- interesting as they are- my favorite parts of Murderbot books are the relationships it forms and watching it be a complete mess as it struggles to process its own emotions, and this book is a smorgasbord of both. There's some really great stuff here with Murderbot's relationship with Dr. Mensah, which is further built upon with Murderbot befriending her daughter- though Amena is fully her own character with her own fun and interesting relationship to Murderbot, not just an extention of Mensah. And, of course, Murderbot's relationship with ART takes center stage in all of its unique and fascinating glory. And Murderbot is absolutely floundering in all of these relationships, all of the time, and it's beautiful to witness- especially because, awkward though Murderbot is, it is learning that it can feel secure and build relationships simply existing as it is. It's both very funny and heartwarming.

This book is also long enough that it gets more room to breathe and really dissect its themes beyond the usual found family and fuck capitalism. This one has a strong throughline of trauma recovery, initially shown primarily through Mensah, though it becomes more and more clear how desperately Murderbot itself needs to process its own trauma. And with Three's introduction, we also get the idea that fighting for your own rights and freedom, even if it seems like you aren't making big, concrete progress, makes it easier for those like you to follow in your footsteps because you have shown the path.

Truly a delightful time. The only reason I didn't finish it all in one day is because I got embarrassed by how absorbed in it I was, so I purposely put off the last 20% for the next day. 5⭐️

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The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko by Derek Tyler Attico

This is the fictional autobiography of Star Trek's Captain Benjamin Sisko. After he ascends beyond linear time at the conclusion of the show, he sends his son Jake a message saying that he had planned to tell Jake all about his life in person as Jake got older, but since he doesn't know when he'll return to Jake's point in time, he is instead sending him his story and advice.

This was very poorly edited; on several seperate occasions the book contradicts itself. This does improve further on as Attico is able to draw more upon established canon, but some parts of the beginning saying one thing and then a few pages later saying the opposite did not feel like it was trying to establish Benjamin as an unreliable narrator or saying that his new relationship with time altered his perspective on his past the more he looked at it, it just felt poorly written.

In addition, it does not feel like a cohesive narrative thread is being drawn here. The framing device of this all being a letter to his son does a lot of heavy lifting here because a personal letter doesn't need a narrative, but a book does. Many scenes, especially the ones featuring cameos of characters from throughout the Star Trek universe, don't feel like they're here to say that it was an important event that shaped Sisko's future or his outlook on life, but rather to say "wouldn't it be interesting if this happened?" and then moving on without ever addressing it again. And I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't have fun whenever those cameos happened, but that doesn't stop me from wanting more substance in the interactions. The only one that feels like it adds any real value to the book is Sisko's brief relationship with Tryla Scott, which began after they met in a class at the academy where she offered a scathing criticism of Starfleet and the Federation's colonial practices and when questioned why she would join Starfleet if she feels that way says that it is precisely because she loves Starfleet and sees the potential in it that she wants it to be better. Which I would of course argue is one of the main themes of Deep Space Nine. However, after she offers this critique in the book, Benjamin basically "Nuh-uh," and then it doesn't come up again.

But perhaps my biggest issue with the book is the conservativism of the Sisko family. This book establishes them as for generations having eschewed technology like transporters and communicators, refusing to leave Earth, and staying in New Orleans. The stated reason for this is a desire to preserve their history and culture rather than be assimilated into wider white USAmerican dominant Federation norms, and Benjamin and his siblings are even homeschooled instead of attending Federation public schools in service of this idea. And on paper, I do like this idea- like I said, I do view the Federation as an assimilationist structure, I typically appreciate art about preserving culture despite colonialism, and I think sowing a fear of assimilation early on in the life of a character whose life will be so fundamentally altered by an encounter with the Borg could be great if executed well. But, if you then go on to tell me that these homeschool classes taught Ben the names of all of the captains of all of the Enterprises before he learned of even the concept of slavery, then his family is not working to preserve his people's history, they are simply working to keep a so called glorious past where people had to work and suffer for their daily bread alive in a post-scarcity setting.

It's not like I don't see what threads Attico is pulling on from ds9 to construct this idea of the Sisko family, but I do think the execution of the idea reads deeply conservative and yet doesn't engage with these conservative ideas enough to make anything of them and thus just ends up glorifying the Protestant ideals of suffering as a virtue. And again, what with the whole saint in paradise speech, I do see how you could look at ds9 and come away with an understanding of Sisko behaving and believing these things, but it is such a polar opposite of what I come to Star Trek for that I can't appreciate it.

I really did not vibe with it at all. It's fun to learn various facts and connections with the wider canon that Sisko has in beta canon, but I think reading his beta canon fan wiki page would be more enjoyable. And I haven't even touched the whole can of worms that is confirming Benny Russell's existence as real, the horrifying to look at AI-esque photo edits featured in the book, or the revelation of what happened to the Dominion fleet in Season 6 that then immediately gets dropped. I don't regret reading the book, but I also don't recommend the experience. 2⭐️

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Spock's World by Diane Duane

This is a Star Trek tie in novel in which Vulcan is considering seceding from the Federation, so various members of the Enterprise crew and also Spock's dad have been called to offer testimony in the debates. The chapters alternate between this story and snapshots of various moments throughout Vulcan history.

Mixed but mostly negative feelings on this one to say the least. It has certainly earned its status of one of the most well known Star Trek novels. Its worldbuilding and its efforts to add nuance to one of Star Trek's infamous monocultures is to be respected, and for the most part, if this were just generically set in the Star Trek universe instead of focusing on specific characters the reader already knows from the show, then I think I would have received it much better.

I still wouldn't have received it perfectly though, I do think it has greater structural issues than just characterization. First of all, you can't have a Star Trek novel be this capitalist. It would be one thing if it were just the villians and if it were made a point of that part of why they want to leave the Federation is to bring back wealth and land acquisition since, you know, the Federation doesn't have money and private property doesn't exist. But it's not; everyone is talking about money all the time and it's treated as completely comprehensible that they would do this for money. That's not how Star Trek works.

More importantly though is the ways in which the main anti-xenophobia theme doesn't succeed. I, first of all, think it's just boring to make humans constantly be the main character of the Federation and to make it so that Vulcans actually don't seem to have much problem with the Federation at large, just specifically humans. But the focus on humans is worsened by the fact of how not diverse our human characters are. Uhura doesn't get to do anything here, there's just one paragraph where Jim basically turns to the camera and goes "Did you know her job is more complicated than "just answering phones"?" and then she is not mentioned again. Sulu gets even less- I honestly can't recall him being mentioned at all- and though one of Duane's original characters is Sikh, he also doesn't get anything after his initial introduction. The only original character to have any impact on the book is an alien to whom the concepts of any real world bigotry can't apply, and even she has a very small role due to the fact that humans are made to be the center. But this means that with Kirk, McCoy, and Amanda as our only characters representing humanity at large, we are making white people the main characters of the universe and also making the victims of our racism metaphor only be white people, which I think weakens the metaphor. Literally, a Vulcan calls Kirk and McCoy a rude word and Bones translates it to "gringo" and I went "You have them being upset at being called crackers and expect me to be on their side???"

But by far the biggest issue is characterization. Kirk, Spock, and Amanada are fine for the most part- any issue I could point to with them would very much be nitpicking. But Bones and Sarek feel very out of character to me. Sarek is way too warm and understanding and Leonard "I challenge to find a single episode where he doesn't make a rude comment about Vulcans" McCoy suddenly has a deep appreciation for Vulcan philosophy and culture and is very nice. I admittedly don't like Bones, so I may be biased, but I think even the people who love him would agree with the assessment that he is kind but not nice, and he is way too fucking polite in this book. And it isn't even just an issue confined to characterization. It is bad for the book's main themes to sanitize the main characters and not engage with the characters' canonical bigotry when the subject of your book is bigotry.

But even Bones and Sarek's mischaracterization pales in comparison to that of T'Pring. This book predates Strange New Wolrds by decades, so I am only going to discuss T'Pring in Amok Time. The T'Pring that we see in canon is a woman forced into an engagement she does not want in a system that is designed to offer her no way out of it without a man to fight for her and without bloodshed. She uses her intelligence to manipulate that system against itself and protect both herself and the life she has chosen. Yes, her plan is cruel, but what was being done to her was also cruel. She had no options available to her that brought no harm to anyone. She is not evil. And also. She! Dumped! Him!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my fucking god!!!!!! It's not just unbelievably misogynistic to characterize her a spiteful, petulant, childish bitch who wants to "get back" at Spock, it also doesn't make any goddamn sense. She did not want that man! In the least!!!!! The rage I felt when she explained her stupid fucking motivations and Spock repeated the "flawlessly logical" line is indescribable. And then it got better for a bit when it was revealed that actually she lied about her motivations and was doing this for money, still stupid for previously mentioned anti-capitalist reasons, but at least not cartoonishly misogynistic. And then Duane fucked it again in the epilogue saying that actually, both motivations were true. And how fucking condescending the triumvirate were telling her what an emotional little girl she is and thag Spock never wanted her? I was incandescent. I genuinely thought they were about to bring up spanking her like in Elaan of Troyius. Un-fucking-believable to write her this way. This is on the same level to me as Strange New Worlds' missing the point with the Gorn shitshow.

The Vulcan history bits were good at least. For the most part anyway. After I got to the T'Pring reveal, I realized in retrospect how much Kesh and T'Theliah were motivated by the men in their lives and how T'Vei, a good and proper little wife, was treated with respect while Alieth, who didn't care for her husband, was portrayed as frivolous and spoiled. But those were slight enough elements that I genuinely did not notice them until I was already mad and looking back with a deliberately ungenerous eye. Not to say that I'm reaching with that reading, it is supported, but it's also definitely unintentional and not one I think most readers would come away with. I also think Surak's writings were way too Christian-y, but to be fair, I don't think it would be possible to satisfactorily give any of Surak's writings. And other than those issues, the historical bits were genuinely very good and, for lack of a better word, fascinating.

It's famous for a reason. It does a lot of interesting things with Vulcan and has become wildly influential in both fanon and in proper canon because of the unique elements it adds to the world. But. I think the prose has a tendency to become so purple that it turns entirely opaque, I don't think it succeeds in conveying its central message, it betrays itself to underlying outmoded and condescending views of colonialism, and the characterization and underlying misogyny makes me too angry for words. I can't say that I regret reading it because it does provide a unique look at Vulcan and holds such importance for the wider Vulcan story to the point that it has affected actual canon. But I also can't say I enjoyed it and certainly wouldn't be able to recommend it without a billion asterisks. 1.5⭐️

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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P Djèlí Clark

This is a fantasy novella following Eveen, brought back from the dead with no memories of her previous life so she can execute her job contracted with the goddess of assassins for 100 years. However, on the night of a festival, she goes to make a contracted kill only to suddenly regain a memory, making her spare the girl. Having broken one of her vows as an assassin, Eveen and the girl must traverse the city looking for a way to spare themselves from the goddess' vengeance.

Once again, Clark knocks it out of the park. The characters and world he has created are electric; Eveen and Sky are delightful protagonists, and it is so much fun to watch the two bounce off of each other. As for the world itself, the city of Tal Abisi is only hinted at through the edges of its underworld, but it is as much a fascinating and alive character as our main girls. I kept calling it the cooler Ankh-Morpork in my head while I was reading, and I would be ecstatic if Clark similarly chose to set several more stories here.

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins is ostensibly less centered on race than Clark's other works, but through it's focus on class combined with the many cultures blending together in Tal Abisi, it does still provide the commentary Clark is renowned for. It also features a throughline of the relationship to the self and the abuses of oppressive systems for which you must decide the line of what you can tolerate, which plays out in a fascinating manner.

There's not much more I can say about such a bite sized book, but Clark is a master at crafting stories to fit within the constraints of the novella, and this is no exception. Though I will say that it is incredibly jarring to hear a fantasy world's lore crafted to include slang such as "edgelords," it is excused well enough in the text, and the rest of the book is wonderful enough for me to let that flaw slide. 5⭐️

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Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women's Speculative Fiction by Sami Schalk

This is nonfiction doing exactly what it says: analyzing the way disability, race, and gender, but primarily disability, is represented in Black women's sff. It discusses how Octavia Butler's Kindred goes beyond simply using disability as metaphor and orients itself around aspects of disability; how Phyllis Alesia Perry's Stigmata critiques Western standards for sanity and the psych system; how Butler's Earthseed duology imagines a future where disability remains present despite and because of technological advances; and how NK Jemisin's The Broken Kingdoms, Shawntelle Madison's Coveted series, and Nalo Hopkinson's Sister Mine use their non-human characters to make readers question their preconceived notions of how disabilities function.

I enjoyed this. I have lamented before that it can be rather difficult to find nonfiction books that strike a balance between being a 101 level assuming that the reader needs everything about the topic introduced to them and a graduate level assuming the reader is already deeply, deeply well versed in the topic, and this one strikes that balance well. It doesn't feel like it's holding my hand in terms of either feminist media analysis or disability justice, but it is still fully parsable to someone not steeped in the academia surrounding these topics. Which isn't to say it's not dense, it absolutely is- it's only 145 pages of primary text, but it still took me five days to finish. Schalk does say in the introduction that she intends to keep the language simple and accessible, and I don't think she entirely succeeded in that, because this book was definitely work for me to get through, but it does absolutely reward that work.

In a way, I am glad it took me so long to make my way through because that allowed me to, whenever I was watching or reading spec fic while taking a break from this, thoroughly consider Schalk's analyses of these texts and consider how I could similarly examine the things I was watching/reading. So I do already know that reading this book has changed how I engage with fiction and will continue to do so going forward. I don't always 100% agree with Schalk's critiques, but they are fascinating and valuable, and I am glad I've read them.

The only real issue I have is the way the last chapter positions Sister Mine's portrayl of incest as a way to make readers question social norms around gender and sexuality. Now, I have not read Sister Mine, so I cannot say how salient of a reading that is or have opinons on how it is depicted in the source text, but I do think that it's something that if you are going to bring up, you must handle it with care and a further attention to detail than Schalk gives in this analysis. It's like when Star Trek uses discrimination against people who have been genetically engineered as metaphors for racism or ableism. Like, okay, I do see what you are going for, but given that in real life the thing you are using as a metaphor is a tool of abuse, you have to put more care into this exploration. I think that if Schalk had stuck to analyzing one book or series per chapter the way she did with previous chapters, she could have paid the attention this topic demands to Sister Mine, but since it had to share space with two other works, the discussion ended up a bit shallow.

All around, a fascinating book that will undoubtedly stick with me for some time. I have added Stimgata to my TBR because of it and will absolutely keep it in mind whenever I inevitably reread Earthseed or Kindred. 4.5⭐️

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The Fifty Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to JJ Abrams: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek by Edward Gross and Mark A Altman

This is what the title says: the second volume of a nonfiction series recounting the behind the scenes story of how Star Trek was made, specifically the Trek made from 1991-2016. (Sort of. TNG started before '91 and movie VI came out that year, but whatever. They wanted to split it between the original series and everything else and didn't name the volumes accordingly. That's not the only problem with the title.)

Would that I could just encode an audio file of me groaning. When I tell you this book was a fucking slog to get through. All of the problems in the first volume are still present and magnified. Tell me you only care about white men without telling me you only care about white men. I've got some great ideas how you can do that: you can make half of your fucking book about The Next Generation and have everything else share the other half. And even within that other half, give Enterprise's chapter a higher page count than Voyager's despite the fact that Enterprise lasted three seasons fewer. You can include numerous quotes about how it's actually totally fine to cast the whitest motherfucker on the planet to play a character named Khan Noonien-Singh. You can include a quote from a showrunner saying that the actor for the first black lead acted "too black" and not criticize that at all. You can have quotes from fans about what meaningful representation the war stories are but not about the racial representation the actors worked hard for. You can not include not include anything from Whoopi Goldberg herself about how seeing a black woman in a non-subservient role in the form of Uhura is what made her get into acting in the first place, just have some guy mention she was a fan before she came on the show. You can have quotes from an actress talking about how a producer continually harassed and belittled her followed up by quotes from said producer calling her a liar and not use the material in other parts of the book showing what a lying hypocrite he is in that section. You can include gratuitous quotes from the producers endlessly discussing the actresses' bodies over their performance and never give the slightest indication that there's anything wrong with that. You can just write this book- everything about it screams that Gross and Altman don't give a shit about the women or people of color either involved in the making of Trek or those fans.

I wanted to read these books so I could learn about how characters and storylines were created and the real world circumstances that influenced them, and that's not really what they're about. It's mostly writers and producers talking about themselves and only about half the time relating it to how the stories they're telling impacted the stories in Star Trek. And it's not for lack of better things to talk about- I know so much behind the scenes drama just from being in the fandom for a decade that isn't included here. Gates McFadden and Maurice Hurley's conflict is heavily glossed over, the fact that Diana Muldaur said she'd never do sci fi again because of her experience with Trek isn't mentioned, Jennifer Lien's departure isn't discussed at all, and most damning of all, only Terry Farell's quotes about how Rick Berman made her quit the show are included even though I know at least Denise Crosby, Wil Wheaton, and Garrett Wang had problems with him. Which is held in stark contrast to the fact that half of the Voyager chapter is dedicated to how Kate Mulgrew bullied Jeri Ryan. I don't know if it's motivated by being more willing to talk about a woman's bad behavior or simply the fact that Kate Mulgrew is the bad actor who owns her shit, has apologized, and admitted she was wrong and thus isn't likely to sue for defamation. But regardless, it's ridiculous to call yourself "The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized History" when you leave this stuff out.

The only reasons I didn't DNF it are that I was having fun making fun of it on my Trek blog and that I have a trivia night coming up. But jesus christ, is it paced so poorly, is needlessly long, is unbelievably biased, and only maybe 30% of it is made up of shit I actually care about. Do not ever spend money on these books- even if you are a die hard trekkie, only read it if your library has it, and even then, put it on as an audiobook while you're doing other stuff. 1⭐️