The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

NOS4A2 Joe Hill, 2013 Crossposted to Mainlining Christmas Premise: Victoria “Vic” McQueen has a special talent: she can use her bike and a bridge that isn’t there to find lost things. Unfortunately, Charlie Manx has a talent too. Vic is the only child to escape from Manx’s one-way trip to Christmasland, but it takes more than luck to break an evil man, and every power comes with a price. I thought this book was good, but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed reading it. The tone wasn’t quite my cup of tea, and it needed to be more tightly written. Some positives: Vic herself is a great protagonist. She’s broken and flawed in completely believable and sympathetic ways. She’s brave when she has to be, even if she has to talk herself into it. The talents are interesting. Broadly and only vaguely defined, they hint at much more out of sight. The writing is quite good: the descriptions of the supernatural and creepy as well as the mundane and everyday were evocative and often poign...

The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974 Hugo Award Winner - 1975 Premise: Shevek is a physicist on the moon Anarres. The followers of Laia Odo fled the planet Urras several generations ago to settle on Anarres, to create a truly free society, without government, where everyone shares in needed work per their skill. Shevek eventually discovers that freedom and choice might be as complicated as any theory of the universe. I put off reviewing this book for a long time, because I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m still not entirely sure. As a story of two different societies and a person trying to survive in each, it succeeds very well. It reminds me a little of The Left Hand of Darkness, because that also took as its main character a man seeking to understand a culture foreign to his own. This moved me less than the former book. However, I think it’s because I personally care much more about perception of gender than political theory. Both Anarres and Urras have problems with the...