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Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter - a Novel (2022, Liveright Publishing Corporation)

A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …

Ok, I think I'm putting this down now - it has become a slog. I took a little break, thinking maybe I just needed a change of pace, but I'm just not into it.

I'm reminded a bit of when, having loved The Historian, I picked up The Shadow Land, also by Elizabeth Kostova. I spent much of the novel anticipating how the surreal elements were going to be introduced, only to eventually realize that it was just a "normal" mystery story (coincidentally also set in / revolving around Bulgaria).

Some of the concepts are intriguing, but they don't seem to be going anywhere (so far).

#SFFBookClub

Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel: Time Shelter - a Novel (2022, Liveright Publishing Corporation)

A 'clinic for the past' offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces …

Lina Rather: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Lina Rather's A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is an eldritch historical fantasy of midwifery, monstrosity, …

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

An interesting mix of victorian(?) midwifery and eldritch mysticism. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as groundbreaking as Our Lady of Endless Worlds.

#SFFBookClub

a cité A Season of Monstrous Conceptions par Lina Rather

Lina Rather: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Lina Rather's A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is an eldritch historical fantasy of midwifery, monstrosity, …

Lina Rather: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Lina Rather's A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is an eldritch historical fantasy of midwifery, monstrosity, …

a publié une critique de A Season of Monstrous Conceptions par Lina Rather

Lina Rather: A Season of Monstrous Conceptions (2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Lina Rather's A Season of Monstrous Conceptions is an eldritch historical fantasy of midwifery, monstrosity, …

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions

This was a fun novella about 17th century London midwifery where there's a spate of babies being born with monstrous appearances and magical abilities. This is the September 2025 #SFFBookClub pick.

There's a fun angle of respectability politics, of not wanting to be publicly seen as queer so that Sarah can get better midwife clientele (and survive as a widowed woman), but also taking the angle of her having to cover the parts of herself that are uncanny. (Sure, sure, I am a sucker for the metaphor of queer as monstrous.) There's also a strong gendered metaphor of Sir Christopher Wren, creepily representing science and men cataloguing the world (and thinking they truly know it) versus the midwives having their own knowledge of other worlds and of magic.

Overall, this book met my expectations for exactly what I thought it was going to be in a good way. I love …

a publié une critique de In Universes par Emet North

Emet North: In Universes (2024, Cornerstone Publishing)

For fans of Emily St. John Mandel and Kelly Link, a profoundly imaginative debut novel …

In Universes

Incredible.

We've read a number of books for #SFFBookClub that have a short story structure with interconnecting themes and worldbuilding (How High We Go in the Dark, and Under the Eye of the Big Bird) but In Universes is my clear favorite among all of these.

Structurally, this book is a series of short stories with a single point of view. Each story takes place in different adjacent-ish branching multiverses, some of which veer into more magical realism and externalized metaphors while others are more realistic. Thematically, this book is about dealing with internalized homophobia, trauma, depression and grief. But it's also about (queer) possibility and transformation and acceptance.

It's interesting to me just how many things I underlined (virtually) while reading this book. Delicious turns of phrase. Devastating sentences seemingly directly targeted at my feelings. Interconnecting thematic ideas everywhere. I found myself utterly engaged in its …