Queer Fiction Free-for-All Book Bracket Tournament: Round 1B
Choose a book:
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato
Voting ended onFeb 22, 2025
Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Endorsement from submitter: "That book was written in 1969 and yes, not everything hold up today, but for the time is very progressive"
A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants spend most of their time without a gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.
Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.
Has the world’s hottest pop star been kidnapped, joined a secret sect, or simply gone into hiding? The answer lies in the abandoned subway stations of Chicago . . .
One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone.
A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system.
It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women?
Babitz has included the Chateau in nearly every one of her books. In Eve’s Hollywood:
I spent the [Watts] riots in a penthouse at the Chateau Marmont with this ex-philosophy major from Stanford whose family owns all the more oily pieces of land in Arizona, Mexico and California.
In Slow Days, Fast Company:
The Chateau’s basement parking lot is so impossible. Even sober. It’s no mean feat to negotiate, with its gigantic pillars everywhere, so they must have meant for all the boozers and dopers and midnight drivers to pull into the open field across the street.
In Black Swans:
I had almost a year frequenting the Château Marmont as the girlfriend of someone who lived there, Walter. In fact breaking up with him, my worst regret was that I’d broken with the Château Marmont too.
Narration: Epistolary. ‚Catie Disabato’ is both a detached narrator and active character, reminding me of Lemony Snicket from A Series of Unfortunate Events. Catie explains in the introduction that she edited and completed the book based on the research notes of the late Cyrus Archer, who had taken it upon himself to investigate the disappearance of Caitlin Taer, who was investigating (with the help of her girlfriend Regina Nix and Nick Berliner) the disappearance of a pop star named Molly Metropolis. Because of this complicated chain of narrators, the reader is often 3 or 4 steps removed from the story. The book feels like reading a piece of investigative journalism, with ample footnotes sourcing quotes and providing Archer‘s personal notes, and Disabato‘s notes on his notes. Confusing at first, but by the end I felt like I understood.
Vibe: neon yellow
Gay: Of the five most significant characters, 3 are gay. However, having found this book in the Romance section, I feel it was mislabeled. The relationships of the main characters (straight and gay) are not described in a romantic fashion, but in detached, matter-of-fact statements or speculations, as is the rest of the book.
Rating: solid 4/5. Not life-changing, but I enjoyed the mystery, layered narration, and surrealism. I finished the book within 26 hours of starting it. Obviously I wasn’t reading that whole time.
So now that I've put #TheWallofStorms to bed, I decided to cast around for a one-shot read to give myself some breathing room after Liu's massive (and heartbreaking) epic. Decided to randomize my TBR, and this came out on top. Let's see how this goes :).
