#sffbookclub

I read this book five years ago, and thought I'd refresh myself before the #SFFBookClub read of the sequel this month. I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed this story and world. The writing has a brusque, hardboiled tone from the cynical point of view of a survivor, and it really works for this particular kind of book.

This is a multiverse travelling story, where there is technology that can send people between similar worlds, but only safely to ones where their "other selves" are not alive. Cara is somebody who has fought to survive her whole life and thus has few other selves alive, so she gets a job as a "traverser" to be sent to other worlds to collect information. Because it deals with worldwalking between closely related worlds rather than wildly different ones (like Charles Stross' Merchant Princes series), it gets the opportunity to explore the same characters in different timelines where their lives had taken different paths.

The post-apocalyptic wasteland locale of this novel is split into the wealthy folks of Wiley City living behind a wall (literally and metaphorically the airquotes nice white people of this story), the religious Ruralites, and the survivors of Ashtown between them. Cara is constantly code switching and crossing borders, both locally and multiversally--she is pretending to be a Ruralite, is secretly from Ashtown, while she precariously lives in Wiley City (hoping to get citizenship). Thematically, I love how the book ends with doubling down on Cara's role as an intermediary between worlds.

Bones & Runes was the #SFFBookClub January 2025 selection. It's a modern mythological quest of three friends trying to recover something stolen and grow as people and friends along the way. Overall it was a bit of a disappointment.

@eldang's thorough feelings after stopping reading sums up the majority of my thoughts. I'll try to get at a couple of other thoughts past that.

This book is attempting some interesting things by trying to mix together African, Irish, Hindu, and Greek mythology all at once. I can understand a story that is trying to stir together a variety of myths and methods of accessing the divine, but overall there's too many ingredients and everything is weaker for it.

Subjectively, I was disappointed by the writing. For a book that is so thoroughly rooted in South Africa and Durban in particular, I did not come away with much of a sense of place in most of the scenes. Part of this is that the characters are driven around by Ganesh from place to place in a way that makes it feel like the cast is teleporting between scenes.

But this isn't some seven stages of hell, Dante. These are African gods. The hero doesn't always survive. Forget heaven and hell. We've got no time for the devil here. Here, in this land, on this rock, we've got so many aspects of evil that one being doesn't suffice to hold its might; it's true strength. Maybe in your western worlds where everything is black and white, where you can afford one being to hurl your hatred at; one place that is good and one that is bad. This is Africa, baby. Here the good can be both bad and good at the same time.

I quoted this because this whole statement is repeated twice in the book almost word for word, but it feels all talk and no show. There is precious little ambiguity in this fantasy quest. There are a number of dangerous and neutral characters who deal in bargains or seem chaotically neutral, but the main players all seem fairly clear cut and shallow.

This novella is a story about memories, transformation, and love; it follows the demon Vitrine, whose best love is the city Azril that she writes about in a book kept in the glass cabinet of her heart. When angels raze the city to the ground, she curses one of them with a piece of herself, and gets to the work of rebuilding the city into what she remembers.

This is an interesting book to pair with Kalpa Imperial from the #SFFBookClub this month. The way Vitrine remembers the ghost of the old city interspersed with what the new city is becoming feels like it could be a chapter from Kalpa Imperial. Subjectively, there's sort of a similar lyrical style between the two as well.

I continue to love Nghi Vo's writing, and the way this book juxtaposes the fantastic with the literal rebuilding of a city brick by brick. However, the emotional crux is the relationship between the angel and the demon and this just wasn't my jam.