Friday, July 8, 2022

Very Short Book Reviews: Smart Oceans and Other Treasures

 Along the Saltwise Sea, by A. Deborah Baker (Tordotcom)

Along the Saltwise Sea follows the children from A. Deborah Baker’s (Seanan Mcguire’s) Over the Woodward Wall. Two adolescents—conformist Avery and adventuresome Zib, have found their way into the Up-and-Under, a magical world, via the aforementioned wall. Here they encounter all manner of creatures, from sarcastic owls to evil Pages to Niamh the drowned girl, and a girl composed of a murder of crows. Of course, they’re given a quest to fulfill to return home.

Along the Saltwise Sea adds even more delicious elements to their story: pirates! An intelligent ocean! A mysterious passenger!

  





Noor,
by Nnedi Okorafor (DAW)

Okorafor’s work invites us into a world of the future, but one in which the foundational culture is not derived from Western Europe but situated in Africa. Her underlying premise is that the Africans of the future, in this case Nigerians, have developed their own rich technologies. Two stand out for me in this novel: harvesting solar and wind energy in the deserts of northern Nigeria; and the heroine herself, whose cyborg body has been extensively augmented. At the same time, herdsmen follow ages-old traditions. In Okorafor’s skillful hands, high tech and ancient ways of life blend into a seamless whole.

 

 



The Cat Who Saved Books, by Sosuke Natsukawa (HarperVia)

What a sweet story, featuring a reclusive teen, a bookstore full of used classics, and a talking cat bent on saving books. I found the slow pace deceptive, for there is a great deal going on between the words and the worlds. The book weaves together a series of quests with the slow process of Rintaro’s grief at his grandfather’s death evolving toward renewed engagement with life and self-confidence, all framed in discussions of the role of books, ideas, and story-telling, not to mention the publishing and book-selling industries.

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