Books Are Jazzy: 2017

I first heard about Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning this past fall when I went to Worldcon in Helsinki with my aunt. There, Palmer won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. I filed the book away into my ever-growing list of books to read, hoping to eventually get to it. However, when I decided to do my Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies final project about female authors in science fiction, I thought it was time to dive into Too Like the Lightning.

Too Like the Lightning is a far-future science fiction novel set in the year of 2454. The narrator Mycroft Canner, follows the events of a few days in the history of 2454, which will be continued in the next three books. Canner has found a young child who can animate toys into autonomus beings. This is extremely dangerous in a society, which has banned most discussion of religion.

The worldbuilding in Too Like the Lightning is superb. Firstly, the society no longer holds much value in the gender binary, with all the characters going by they/them pronouns. Secondly, rather than being tied by a national identity, citzens are allowed to choose which “Hive” they belong to. Hives are divided by the different vocational interests the groups represent. Finally, rather than having strict biological families, individuals can choose a group of people who share similar values with them, to form a “bash”. Members within the bash can then marry amd have children, but the bash as a whole is present in raising the children.

Too Like the Lightning had the potential to be an extremely well written socially conscious science fiction novel. With the agender characters, and loose family structures I was excited to see how the novel would cover what sounds like a millenial dream. However, the novel managed to fall short of my expectations on these accounts. There was a distinct lack of same-sex relationships, when with the lack of the traditional gender binary should be much more prevalent. Moreover, Canner decided to use gendered pronouns within his narrative. On a positive note, Canner did not assign the pronouns by sex, but rather by gender performance, which is progressive compared to our modern world. Despite these slight complaints, I found the story to be riveting and I cannot wait to read the second book in the series, Seven Surrenders, a copy of which is waiting for me back in the States.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

-Laura

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A lot has changed since last year's book fair. Neither one of us lives at home anymore and thus I no longer live close to Helsinki. Because of this and considering that the book fair was our tradition, I decided already a long time ago that I would skip the event this year. So I arranged other plans for this weekend and did just that. But I did have four moles at the event to tell me some inside details.

Firstly and most excitingly the guest of honor was Dan Brown, whose autograph I assigned one of my trustworthy moles to fight for (though it is not actually for me but my father who received Brown's newest novel as a gift). In retrospect I must say it would've been cool to be there with such a world class visitor present.

I have also been informed that the fair has put much effort into presenting Harry Potter and the newest addition to the family, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which has recently (finally!) been translated into Finnish. I can feel the excitement of all the Finnish fans who have waited this long to read the play! Though I must say that had I any acquaintances who did not understand English or who would largely prefer Finnish, I would have read (acted??) out the play for them translating it myself (I know, I will make a good bedtime story reader for my kids one day :D).

And as always, the fair is the mecca of books, bookstores, publishers, authors, comics, and about everything else that has anything to do with literature. And lets not forget all the lectures and speeches that often represent a colorful array of different topics and cover so many genres that everyone is bound to find something of interest.

Also, a sneaky plus is that at the time of the book fair Messukeskus also hosts the annual Food and Wine Fair. So in between book fandom there is no need to go hungry, just march on upstairs and start strolling and tasting samples. I was a little jealous when I saw that Goodio, the brand of my favorite (and Finnish!) raw chocolate, has a station there and is serving free samples of EVERY flavor. :D

Next year I would love to visit the Turku book fair as I am now living in the city. But while we wait for that, there is still time to head over to the Helsinki fair tomorrow! And have a great Halloween next week!

-Anna

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As promised, here's some actual thoughts on Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi.

There was so many things I loved about the book that I really don't know where to start. Maybe at the beginning? Well, from the beginning I got a strong sense of Alice in Wonderland vibes. I don't know wether that's for the protagonist's first name, Alice, the whole idea on venturing into a magic land or something more, but I found it gives the story a very cute childlike playfulness.

This same colorful theme is very strongly present in the whole of the book, the setting, the characters, the plot and most delightful of all remarks, the language. I loved how the words played together like they were the notes that form a beautiful melody, and how the structure gave the music its nuances and dynamic. Altogether the text is very much like a poem. Personally, literature like this is something I admire very much and love to read. In this particular instance I fell for the use of synaesthesia. For example: the smell of sunshine, shoes so shiny one could hear them glitter. So beautiful! Such music"

A melody can't form a song and a poem can't form a point without content. The story, as I already mentioned was quite adorable. But even with the ring of childhood, I discovered some points of meaning. The most important being the most obvious one: selflove and acceptance. It is a topic that Alice struggles with throughout the plot.

Last note on this book before anyone gets bored reading this, is the narrator. She (he? it? I resonated with a she) tells the story like she had heard it from Alice and Oliver later, trying to remember and understand events, actions and thoughts. Most explanations are in fact her own interpretations of things. This was the cream to the cake for me (I mean this as a good thing though if you know me well you would have misunderstood since I don't like neither cake nor cream) and it gave the piece its final finish, the conductor of the orchestra of words.

All in all, long story cut short, I really liked reading Furthermore and absolutely think you should too. If not for any other of my points at least for a joyful 400 pages.

-Anna

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