THE WISE MAN'S FEAR, by Patrick Rothfuss (4/5)

Rothfuss is a master of storytelling, in all the most frustrating ways. The prose of The Wise Man's Fear is just as good, if not better than, The Name of the Wind. Kvothe is equal parts compelling and relatable. His adventures are intriguing and fresh in the kind of behind-the-scenes style that this series has innovated.

And yet, several things were frustrating about this book. Like NotW it remains unafraid to stray from the beaten path of conventional plot, but being almost twice as long as NotW, TWMF was at times dragged down by its own meandering. With two thirds of the story told (or so we're led to believe), this book covers surprisingly little ground, to the point that it feels like Rothfuss might be rambling over trivialities to hold back the inevitable. Kvothe's learned some new tricks by the end, but he's still seemingly a far cry from the man of the present "who is waiting to die."

This was also a more political book, and Rothfuss had a few things to say, especially in the Ademre subplot, which perhaps sit too close to his heart, and consequently too close to the surface of the plot. Preachy is a strong word, but parts of the book are just that. Not unforgivable, just distracting.

For all that, I enjoyed it immensely, and cannot wait for the final installment.

THE MARTIAN, by Andy Weir (4/5)

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4.5 stars, really. Would have been 5, but I'm trying to be more selective with my perfect scores.

Anywho, this book was incredible on several counts. First and foremost is the science. Never before have I read hard science fiction so accessible, and the humor went along way toward that, but honestly the scientific applications just felt real throughout. The problems were consistently variable and escalated in intensity, and the solutions were always equal parts genius and digestible simplicity. Does that make any sense? If Andy Weir were writing this review, it probably would.

WILD SEED, by Octavia E. Butler (5/5)

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I get the Butler hype. I loved this book.

In a good year, I read 25-30 books. Maybe one a year serves to capture me the way Wild Seed did, enthralling from the first pages, compelling with its conflicts, fascinating with its magic. The resolution was somewhat unsatisfying in the moment, but only because, for a while, I'd convinced myself that this story was heading toward tragedy, when the beginning had actually promised a love story. I was so afraid Anyanwu would never regain her agency. I thought Doro unredeemable, though I'd started out liking him and felt he cared more than the narration would ever let him properly admit.

I was wrong on both counts, and the finale was so deftly orchestrated that it had me rooting for the "villain," for the sake of what and who he loved. That's how you know you've just read a special book--you want happily-ever-after for all the characters, even the bad guy.

As for the protagonist, Anyanwu, she really didn't need any help winning admiration. In fact, her one flaw seemed to be a distinct lack of flaws (much like Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead by OSC, which I reviewed last year), but I've never been a subscriber to the law that your protagonist must be significantly flawed. Not every superhero needs kryponite, they just need to be human enough to struggle with the obstacles placed before them. It's the author's job to make those obstacles big enough that the reader believes even a superhuman can struggle with them, and that's what Butler has done with this book by pitting the perfect human against her antithesis, the perfect inhuman. A compelling read, from the first page to the last.

THE TORTILLA CURTAIN, by T.C. Boyle (3/5)

The Tortilla Curtain is about two men, Delaney and Candido, who are tied together after Delaney hits Candido with his car in the opening scene of the book. Things only get worse from there for Candido, who is an illegal immigrant with a pregnant wife, and Delaney's got his own troubles, including dogs which keep getting eaten, a ball-busting wife, and an inferiority complex which drives him toward hatred of all things migrant, especially Candido, whom he cites as the source of all his 1st-world problems.
This book would have been a 2/5, as 75% of the plot is just the unrelenting depression of foolish people in shitty situations that trend shittier out of control, but the quality of the prose saved it for me. Boyle deals deftly in the transitions between lyrical and blunt, and that for me was the strength of the book.
As far as weaknesses, I feel this story falls into the "literary" trap. Literary Fiction is so often marketed as "realistic," but I find more often than not that lit fic eschews true-to-life realism in favor of flashy, inescapable tragedy. That's fine for a 2 hour play, but over a 400 page book? It gets discouraging, especially with a book like this, which starts at a low where most real lives bottom out, and only gets worse from there. 
A masterclass in empathy, but one that makes you regret taking the course.

SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD, by Orson Scott Card (5/5)

So I'm going to do some book reviews now. Not so much because I feel any particular need to make known my opinions, but because my memory, as far as memories go, isn't super, and in 8-12 months I know I'm going to need some sort of written aid to help me remember not only what happened, but also who did what, and what I liked about them. So yeah.

Speaker for the Dead:

I liked this book more than I thought I would. Loved it actually, and that was really surprising, because when I read Ender's Game about four years ago, my principle reaction was, Eh, kinda slow. The twist at the end blew me away, but struggling through 200 pages of cryptic dream sequence and battle school strategerie wasn't exactly my definition of "worth it."

Speaker for the Dead wasn't that. The stakes were monstrous right from the word "go," the characters were varied and relatable, and the world building felt so natural in its uniqueness that I never once felt the need to question it, even though, half the time, they spoke about it in Portuguese. 

This book came out almost 30 years ago, so I'm a little late to the party, but I now get why Card is perhaps the biggest name in Science Fiction, ever. Ender's Game was Card's first exploration into Ender's world, and in several respects this was apparent. In Speaker, Card has perfected and mastered his world, and it makes this novel an exciting and thought-provoking read from beginning to end. 

My beef with many works of SciFi is that the stories trend toward the unrelatable. The authors get so excited about their SciFi universe that the character development takes a back seat to the world development, and that rarely flies with me (pun intended), even in short stories, but especially in novels. 

Not so in Speaker. The world feels so natural, so quickly, that both author and reader are free to focus on the tortured Novinha, the stoic Miro, and the singular Ender from the very beginning. It's the perfect storm of characters who fit naturally into their environment, even as the seek to change it.

My one criticism is small, but notable. For a work filled with deeply flawed, imperfect characters, Ender is surprisingly flawless. He's a genius, he's compassionate, he's perhaps the most perceptive and empathetic human being ever, and he's relentlessly driven to correct a wrong for which he, arguably, isn't to blame. He's pseudonymously published his own space-age humanist Gospel, inadvertently founded his own religion, he hates no one, understands everyone, and still has the time to become functionally proficient in Portuguese in under three weeks. All his B.M.'s are single wipers, he's pitch-perfect as both a Tener 1 and a Bass 2, and he's the most generous lover from here to Trondheim. Some guys just got it all.

And yet, despite his seeming perfection, Ender still manages to convince me of the difficulty of all his decisions, as though his 3000 year unbeaten streak were on the line with every one, and that's what makes him a true champion: he's got the goods, and he knows how to use them, just like this book.

5/5

Thomas out.