Review | Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Prime Meridian

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My Rating: 

Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life. It awaits her.

Amazon | Book Depository | Innsmouth Free Press

I've been a huge fan of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's work since her debut novel, Signal to Noise, became one of my favourite novels of all time back in 2015 so I couldn't let the opportunity to support the publication of her new novella pass me by. I, along with the other lucky backers, were able to receive copies of Prime Meridian in December, but it will be available for everyone else to buy this summer!

I've read two of Moreno-Garcia's novels so far and am currently reading her third, The Beautiful Ones, and I've also read one of her short story collections, This Strange Way of Dying, so I was interested to see her bridge the gap between novel and short story with a novella. Novellas are something I've become more and more interested in lately and there are so many more I'd like to read, and now I'm glad to have this one under my belt.

At this point Moreno-Garcia is already one of my favourite authors so I knew I was going to enjoy it, but I didn't know what to expect from it. In the realms of SFF I lean far more towards fantasy than science fiction and the science fiction I do love is quiet, character-focused sci-fi such as Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. Luckily for me, Prime Meridian is also that kind of sci-fi.

Amelia is a college dropout, forced to quit her academic pursuits to look after her mother before she passed away and now stuck sharing a tiny apartment with her pernicious sister. Now she works odd jobs, from working as a professional friend for the lonely to donating blood to those who believe it will restore their youth, all the while dreaming of a fresh start as a colonist on Mars.

Once again Moreno-Garcia's writing was a dream. This is moody sci-fi at its best, full of equal measures of regret and hope and reminiscent of films such as the 1990 version of Total Recall with elements of early sci-fi novels such as Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. There's a wonderful Old Hollywood vibe throughout the story, making this the ideal novella for fans of Catherynne M. Valente's Radiance or indeed for any fans of those old classic movies starring beauties like Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren.

But it's Amelia who ultimately steals the show throughout this story. What I love about her is how unspectacular she is. She's a young woman like any other, looking around at her life and wishing for something better in a city where there are no jobs and all the money she does manage to earn has to go on getting by one day at a time. There are so many times when she could settle for what's in front of her, even a relationship with someone who has the finances to keep her in a better place than the one she's accustomed to, but that dreamer in her never quite goes to sleep, never quite gives up, and it's her quiet persistence I loved most.

I'm in the middle of a bit of a change in my own life right now. Next week I'm starting a new job and moving to a new city where I know absolutely no one, and this novella was just the kind of pep talk I needed. Whether you love sci-fi or you're fairly new to the genre there's something in this novella for you, and I implore you to get your hands on a copy later this year.

Review | McTavish Manor by Inés G. Labarta

McTavish Manor

by Inés G. Labarta

My Rating:

Scotland, 1803. A rejected marriage proposal compels a doctor to escape to the Highlands, where he takes care of a local family. What started being as a rural retirement soon becomes a dangerous challenge when he realises that the inhabitants of the house are more threatening than the wild mountains themselves. In the cruellest point of the winter, a mysterious illness descends on the house, turning people into monsters. The servants claim that a bhampair is hiding among them, but Mrs McLean doesn’t give credit to their pagan beliefs and tries to find a logical explanation. The doctor wants to develop a vaccine against the disease, but he is hunted by the memories of his bloody past. Who is the real monster inside the isolated mansion in Glenfinnan?

I was sent a copy of McTavish Manor by the author in exchange for an honest review.

If there's one thing I enjoy more than historical fiction, it's Gothic historical fiction, so when I was offered the chance to review McTavish Manor I wasn't about to say no.

Set in the spooky landscape of the Scottish Highlands, McTavish Manor is a grotesque and darkly erotic tale of superstition, science and the ways in which we can turn mad and turn on each other when we're isolated. Reading this felt like reading something written in the 19th century, and I mean that in the best possible way; I took a module in Victorian Gothic in my third year of university and ended up reading a lot of short ghost stories and monster novellas for the course, and McTavish Manor is a wonderful homage to all those earlier works while still being a completely original tale in and of itself. This is the kind of story that Crimson Peak should have been.

Like many of the great Gothic stories of yore, such as Dracula and The Moonstone, McTavish Manor is partly an epistolary novella; our two scientists (one far more experimental and a little more unhinged than the other) give their accounts of the goings-on at the Manor in the form of a diary and letters, which is always a fun way to read a book as we're only told what the characters choose to share with us, or with whoever they believe will be reading the documents. What I loved most, however, is that sections in first person were dedicated to Mrs. McTavish's Yoruba servant - Mrs. McTavish refers to her only as 'dubh', the Gaelic word for 'black' - and I always enjoy it when direct voices are given back to the voiceless in historical fiction.

The real star of this novella, however, is Labarta herself. This is an excellent book if you enjoy the way a book is written as much as the story itself, perhaps even more so. Labarta doesn't sugar-coat anything - when I say this novella is dark, it really is dark - but she writes it so brilliantly and with such attention to detail that it never feels melodramatic, never erases the feeling of unease that seeps through the pages. This is the very beginning of a new author with real, raw talent for writing, and I'm really looking forward to whatever she does next.

Review | Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor

My Rating:

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.

I've been meaning to read something of Nnedi Okorafor's for a while now. She's very popular in the realms of SFF and so much of her work seems to deal with themes that I love to read in my fiction, while also dealing with fantastical characters and places influenced by Africa as opposed to all the American and European-based fantasy and science fiction out there. Binti won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in last year's Hugo Awards so I was eager to check it out, especially as I don't read many novellas and I was hoping this story would give me the same kind of vibe I got from Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet which I love very much.

Like The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Binti is a piece of science fiction that explores how we react to and treat cultures different to our own, and how mutual respect can lead people from war to peace, but I found it to be a much darker story than Chambers'. This isn't a bad thing and is truly no surprise considering the situation Binti finds herself in after she flees her homeland to attend university, something her people never do, on a ship that is doomed when it finds itself caught in the crossfire of a war that has been raging on for years.

I love Okorafor's imagination, particularly Binti's culture and how it's viewed by outsiders versus people like Binti who understand the importance of her people's customs and traditions. To be honest I wanted to know even more about Binti's life before she left for university; I wanted to meet her family, to see what life was like at home for her and how she fit into her society and what everyone she knew at home thought of her and how she'd ended up applying to university in the first place. In fact I'd've liked Binti to be longer in general, because I enjoyed what I read but there was so much that I felt could have been explored more that the novella left me a little dissatisfied; I felt as though I didn't really get to know Binti's friends very well at all or what her relationship with them was like, which made it difficult to feel emotionally connected to the story during its darker moments.

In general I felt as though everything was wrapped up a little too quickly for my liking - I was particularly frustrated with a section near the end of the novella where Binti accepts something about her being physically changed without her permission more easily than I was expecting her to - so I'm looking forward to the sequel, Home, which is being released at the end of this month and I'm hoping will explore a lot of the things I was hoping would be explored in this novella.

All in all I didn't fall head over heels in love with Binti as I was hoping to, but I still really enjoyed it and I think Okorafor is completely worthy of all the praise she's been receiving for it. I think this was a great introduction to Okorafor's work and I'm definitely planning to read more of her work in future - I've got my eye on Akata Witch.

If you want to read science fiction that explores cultural differences and is less Americanised than so much science fiction out there, I recommend picking this up and giving Okorafor a chance. She's a much-needed voice in the realms of SFF and I can't wait to see what she does next because Binti is full of potential.

Review | The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Poor Clare

by Elizabeth Gaskell

My Rating: 

A departure from the stories Elizabeth Gaskell wrote for Charles Dickens’s Household Words magazine, The Poor Clare is a dark, gothic novella of thwarted love and a family curse that vividly illustrates the social tensions of Victorian England.

The purposeful slaying of lonely Bridget’s beloved dog unleashes a torrent of rage that surges down through the generations. In her desire for revenge, Bridget utters a fearsome curse upon the dog’s killer: All that the murderer loves most, he will lose.

This haunting story of “the sins of the father being visited upon the children” brilliantly shows off Gaskell’s pioneering understanding of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants, and the harsh realities of class society. The Poor Clare stands as an innovative and exciting gem in Elizabeth Gaskell’s oeuvre.

I'm dedicating my October to spooky reads, and my first read of the month was this novella - one of many classic novellas published by Melville House - which returned me to my literary love: Victorian Gothic.

When it comes to the classics, Victorian Literature is where my heart lies; I took modules in Victorian Gothic and Victorian Popular Fiction at university and loved them both, so I've come across Elizabeth Gaskell before. She's probably most famous for North and South, and for being a life-long friend of the Brontës, but she also wrote quite a few spooky tales, too. I read her short story 'The Old Nurse's Story' while studying ghosts for my Victorian Gothic module, and if you've yet to read anything by Gaskell, or you're a little intimidated by 19th century literature, I recommend starting with a story like that one!

The Poor Clare is a little story of religion, violence, witchcraft and a family curse. Basically, it's no less than what you'd expect from Victorian Gothic! Our narrator falls in love with a young woman named Lucy, who, naturally, is beautiful and pure, but is also plagued by something her only companion, Mrs. Clarke, daren't speak of. Determined to marry her, he sets out to free her from whatever it is that has befallen her.

It's a fun novella, and very easy to read, and though I guessed a lot of the connections that cropped up between the various characters I was still impressed with the way Gaskell weaved her characters' stories together into one overarching plot. There were even some sections that gave me the heebie jeebies; little sentences that alluded to Gaskell's potential as a Gothic writer. The main problem I had with it was that I felt as though it could have been longer. The Poor Clare is very much a 'tell, don't show' kind of story, which isn't uncommon in Victorian Literature, but there were some sections of the plot that were breezed over in such a hurry it surprised me, and I thought there was room there for Gaskell to expand and write a fully-fledged Gothic novel, rather than a novella.

I didn't dislike it, though, and I'd say this is another great starting point for anyone dipping their toes into Victorian Gothic fiction. I look forward to reading more spooky stories throughout the month!