2021 Roundup: Books That I Loved
Time has been strange for some time now. There’s a joke I’ve seen online, the gist of which is:
“How can it be 2022? I still haven’t finished processing 2020!”
Which, well, yes. Very much
yes.
Nevertheless, we’re already
almost in the middle of the first month of the new year. 2021 was strange and
hard, but there were spots of light, too, and among those spots of light were
books and stories. Here are some books that I loved.
Novels and Collections
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu
This was the first book I
finished in 2021. If you don’t know Ken Liu’s work yet, you should fix that
immediately; I think he is one of the most important writers working today,
both in and out of speculative fiction. The Hidden Girls is his second
collection of short stories, and a worthy follow-up to his first. Here are
mind-bending far-future science fiction stories, equally mind-bending fantasy
(with elements of sci-fi), and tender stories of family. The opening story, “Ghost
Days,” is a poignant story of migration, adaptation, change, loss, and memory
that spans a time period from 1905 Hong Kong to a far, far future on a distant
planet where biologically-modified children struggle to understand the Earth
history their unmodified elders try to teach. “Maxwell’s Demon” is a stunning,
brutal piece that ranks with Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary,”
in its complicated, ambitious and, yes, brave look at the horrors of war and
the humans behind it. Some of my other favorites are “Grey Rabbit, Crimson
Mare, Coal Leopard” and “The Hidden Girl”—both wildly original fantasy
adventures that combine science fiction elements with classic Chinese fantasy
tropes and inspirations in surprising ways. A characteristically brilliant,
thought-provoking collection by one of the field’s masters.
Interior Chinatown by
Charles Yu
A National Book Award Winner,
this book merits the buzz. It’s delightfully inventive and meta, a Hollywood
satire told in the form of a Hollywood screenplay, starring Willis Wu, a
Taiwanese-American actor who is struggling to ascend the only acting ladder
that has been allowed for him—from Generic Asian Man to Kung Fu Guy. This book
is frequently laugh-out loud funny, a hilariously sharp sendup of Hollywood and
the stereotypes and barriers Willis Wu must navigate. . . but it’s also deeply
moving in its portrayal of family and community, of the silences and
complexities therein, and of both the dreams and losses that occur during the
immigrant experience.
A Sinister Quartet, stories
by Mike Allen, C.S.E Cooney, Amanda J. McGee, Jessica P. Wick
A wonderful quartet of
fantasy/horror novellas.
“The Twice-Drowned Saint” by C.S.E Cooney
This is actually technically a short
novel, and it’s one bursting with wild, fantastical world-building and emotion,
lit with the pyrotechnics of Cooney’s prose. In the city of Gelethel, terrible
angels rule and demand human sacrifice. But one marginalized angel, who has the
ability “to spontaneously produce eyeballs whenever and wherever he fancied”
(though never more than eleven at a time) is different. And this angel and his secret
saint, the woman who runs the Quicksilver Cinema movie palace, will (along with
a second saint) change the city of Gelethel forever. A rollicking adventure
that is by turns joyous, funny, horrifying, moving, and tender.
“An
Unkindness” by Jessica Wick
A sister determined to rescue
her brother from the Faeries. A graceful and witty reworking of old fairy
tales, woven into something new and both lovely and sinister.
“Viridian” by
Amanda J. McGee
A modern-day Bluebeard
retelling. This starts off deceptively quiet, in a moving realist-mode, as we
meet a lonely woman grieving the loss of her sister. But from the beginning
there are notes of foreboding, and the tension ratchets up steadily. A
gracefully told tale that explodes into full-blown horror and then a
satisfying, cathartic ending.
“The
Comforter” by Mike Allen
The third in a series of
horror tales that began with the Nebula award-nominated “The Button Bin” and
continued with “The Quiltmaker.” Although “The Comforter” picks up the narrative
where “The Quiltmaker” left off, and features characters from that previous
work, this story also works as a stand-alone novella. It is epically weird,
a wild cosmic horror fantasia about dark forces possessing the bodies and minds
of a town’s people. Rich in body horror,
this tale is perhaps not for the squeamish but oh, Allen is good at evoking dread
and absolutely bizarre, grotesque, and vivid images.
Wendy, Darling by
A.C. Wise
A fabulously dark and gorgeous reimagining of the Peter Pan story, one that goes to surprising places. My full review here
She Who Became the Sun by
Shelley Parker-Chan
An absolutely brilliant and thrilling
fantasy retelling of the founding of the Ming Dynasty. . . where the future
emperor is a nameless peasant girl who steals her dead brother’s identity,
makes her way into a monastery, and rises from repeated tragedy to scheme and
plot her way to the heights of power. This book is epic, sweeping, and intimate
all at once; once I started it, I couldn’t stop. If you love anti-heroes, this
book has them in spades; if you love schemes and betrayals, this is for you.
This book is filled with ruthless, scheming, very morally dubious characters driven
by intense emotions and backstory and I am in love with them all. The book
jacket cites epic East Asian historical television dramas as an inspiration for
this novel, and that is EXACTLY the vibe.
Strange Beasts of China by Yan
Ge, translated into English by Jeremy Tiang
Sorrowful beasts are gentle by
nature, and prefer the cold and dark. They love cauliflower and mung beans,
vanilla ice cream and tangerine pudding. They fear trains, bitter gourd, and
satellite TV.
A book that bent my mind in all
the best ways. In the city of Yong’an, a multitude of strange beasts live side
by side with humans. The narrator of this tale once studied these beasts as a
zoology student; now she writes romance novels. But she’s still known for her
expertise in beasts in some circles, and people come to her with their beastly
tales and for help. The narrator is drawn into one beastly mystery and then
another, seemingly disparate tales connecting. Each chapter is structured as a
separate story showcasing a different species of beast, yet slowly the pieces
come together as a whole. The entire book is deliciously strange, filled with
surprise and mystery, humor and melancholy, and sudden shocks of horror. One of
the best things I read in 2021.
Six Dreams About the Train and
Other Stories by Maria Haskins
I’ve been following Haskins’
work for years now, and was delighted to see her come out with her first
collection of short stories this year. Collected here are stories of fantasy,
horror, science fiction, and stories that cross and blend genres. There are
deep-diving punks working on Enceladus and Ceres, in the far reaches of our
solar system, mining resources for the Company. . . who return to Earth and
discover that Earth’s deep seas may hold the greatest danger yet. There’s an
alternate history alien invasion story; flat-out horror; whimsical humor; Very
Good Dogs, and delicate, exquisitely wrought fairy tales. There are stories
that blend horror and wonder, beauty and tenderness, and Haskins’ gorgeous
prose lights all of it. Some of my favorite stories were the haunting opening
flash piece, “When Mama Calls”; the absolutely exquisite “Hare’s Breath”; the
wonderfully dark and surprising “The Brightest Lights of Heaven” with its
twists and turns and depiction of childhood friendship and fantasy; and
“Cleaver, Meat, and Block” an intense and horrifying zombie-plague story as
you’ve never seen before. Two stories, “And You Shall Sing Me a Deeper Song”
and “Blackdog” are original to this collection, and both are wonderful. Something
special about Haskins’ work is the tenderness at the heart of each of her
stories, a generosity and complexity that’s there even in the midst of the
greatest darkness and horror.
The Shadow Book by Ji
Yun, translated by Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum
There are books that bend my
brain. And there are books that bend and twist and seem to reshape my brain
into entirely new patterns. The Shadow Book by Ji Yun is one of those.
The eighteenth-century Chinese
writer Ji Yun was a writer, poet, leading intellectual, Imperial Librarian,
Special Advisor to the Emperor, Head of the Department of War, and holder of
other grand titles. He was also a collector of strange tales. At the age of
sixty-five he began publishing them—eventually publishing over 1200 stories over
five volumes. Yi Izzy Yu and John Yu Branscum have edited and translated a
selection of these for The Shadow Book. Here are vampires, fox spirits,
a white fungus spirit defeated by poetry, and a child’s toy that comes to life.
There are cannibal villages, prophetic poems, a broom that steals flowers, and an
encounter with wild mountain men. Ghosts in need of passports, transmigrating
souls, love stories and debts owed across lifetimes, and more. These are
zhiguai—a Chinese genre of strange tales—similar to what’s found in Pu Songling’s
classic Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, but darker and more
unsettling, with philosophical commentary and musing essays. Ji Yun’s tales
have an altogether different voice from the prettiness of Pu Songling’s literary
tales. The stories of The Shadow Book are plain weirder, more
disturbing; they read not as polished, constructed literary fictions, but as missives
straight from an alternate shadow realm, brought to us from witnesses there.
And indeed, the premise of these stories is that they are all true: they are strange
accounts that Ji Yun witnessed himself, or “true stories” related to him by
friends and family or friends of his friends. They’re an eruption of
strangeness into our ordinary world; they are profoundly unsettling. And they
are a marvelous gift to us, brought to us English-speakers across the centuries
and from another language by a pair of generous translators and scholars.
Nonfiction
Wild Swans by
Jung Chang
The classic memoir of one
family’s experiences in China through Japanese occupation, the start of the
Communist revolution, the utter madness of the Cultural Revolution, and beyond.
More of my thoughts here
Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed,
Unbroken, poetry by Lee Murray, Geneve
Flynn, Christina Sng and Angela Yuriko Smith
Books in progress
Some collections I bought in
2021, which I am still slowly working my way through, savoring the stories one
by one.
Never Have I Ever by
Isabel Yap
The Ghost Sequences by A.C.
Wise
The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy
and Horror: Volume 2, edited by Paula Guran
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