Its All About ⚛️🚀 Sci-Fi and 🧌🧝‍♀️Fantasy

 

    Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree is High Fantasy. I recently learned this term from @Eliabeth_Wheatly on YouTube. It means a story that takes place in a realm other than this one, like Lord of the Rings, whereas Low Fantasy is set in our world. An example is the Harry Potter series. 

    As the fantasy genre has grown beyond its earlier sci-fi category into its own genre, it has many spawned subgenres. Here is a link to a list of fifty: https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/fantasy-subgenres.

📚🧌🧝‍♀️

    I have read the Martha Wells series The Murderbot Diaries and loved it. Here is a link to my reviews: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=murderbot.

    I was excited to read her book, Witch King. However, the audiobook starts with several minutes of a list of characters with a brief description and affiliations, and I realized it might be tough to keep everyone straight. And it was. Yet it was still a captivating, inventive story. Wells is a fantastic architect of imaginary, robust worlds. The main character, Kai, is a demon prince of the underworld who inhabits a mortal body. The story starts with his being awakened from an imprisonment in stasis. He frees is his witch bff Ziede. Together with a ragtag band of misfits, they journey to find Ziede's captured wife, discover who has imprisoned them, and try to make the world a better place. This universe is infused with magic that is used for good and evil purposes. It is a world that has been conquered and now seeks to be liberated. Wells creates a place where gender identity and queerness are the norm. This aspect reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's writings. 

For a clearer and more in-depth review, I recommend:

https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2023/07/10/unburning-the-world-review-of-witch-king-by-martha-wells/

😈🦂🧚‍♀️👿

    I watched the series 3 Body Problem, based on the book The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu. It is unusual that I watch the series/film before I read the book. There is so much happening in the book that seeing the series helped me understand as I read. In the book, most of the action takes place in China; the series has locations and characters that are more international. The author is Chinese and a computer science engineer. This gives the book a non-western feeling and adds to its alien feeling. Strange things are happening to Earth's scientists. They are seeing things no one else can see, and it causes them to commit suicide. The reason this is happening is slowly revealed to be tied to one woman--a Chinese physicist--who serves at an isolated radar station. Her actions set in motion world-ending events. 

    I found this book somewhat technical, but I understood what was happening and why. There are two more books in the series, and I plan on working through them. If you like science-y science fiction, this is a terrific read.

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Thinking about Francis Schaeffer ✨and Fantasy Shadow Organizations ♜

    Dear Husband and I went to Dallas for the eclipse, and while we were there, we did our usual things of eating good food (hello Texas BBQ), going to art museums (Wow, Dallas Museum of Art! https://dma.org/), and visiting bookstores. So, there I was in Dallas, eating lunch at the restaurant Food from Galilee, and across the way was a Christian bookstore. Christian Bookstores are a dying breed, offering more Christianish stuff and fewer books. DH and I hurried over, and I chose for my vacation book Redeeming Heartache: How Past Suffering Reveals Our True Calling by Dr. Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel, MA.

 

 I have been slowly reading for several months. I would file this book under Christian Self-Help. I have read many books by Allender and appreciate his depth of knowledge and bluntness. Their view is taken from Francis Schaeffer that we are glorious ruins. 

We are glorious because we were created by God for the noble purpose of being His image bearers, yet we are ruins because sin has marred the divine image we were designed to display, at times seemingly beyond recognition.

~Francis Schaeffer

 Allender and Loerzel create six related roles that express how we exist in the world: orphan, widow, and stranger, and the flip side of prophet, priest, and king. I have found myself reacting as an orphan who has no help or resources. My dad was in the military, and we moved frequently, and I often like a stranger in a strange land. Allender and Loerzel explore why we adopt those roles and how we can learn to transform into more of our glorious selves. I was encouraged and challenged.

😑👑✨

    Last week, I stumbled across a recommendation for The Rook by Daniel O'Malley and was captivated. A secret British organization, The Checquy, with members with supernatural powers, protects and defends the realm from bizarre creatures with mystical powers and abilities. The protagonist, Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany) Thomas, is an executive called the Rook. Or she used to be, but she's gone, and someone else is inhabiting her body trying to discover the traitor who erased Myfanwy, as well as protecting and serving. She was warned this would happen and prepared by writing herself several letters. It's a fun, action-filled story. I liked it so much that I immediately checked out the sequel, Stilleto. The story continues with Myfawny seeking to unite centuries-long enemies, the Checquy and the Grafters. There are deep secrets, treachery, and the attempt to create a force for good uniting bitter rivals. There is lots of tension, subplots, humor, and action. I listened to the twenty-three-hour audiobook (at 2x the speed), which went by quickly.

♜♟️♝♖

Six Very Different Books.📚❓❣️🌱🐉⏳ What A Week!

 

    Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story by Bess Kalb is a quirky memoir of Bess Kalb's grandmother, Bobby Bell. They had an amazing grandmother/granddaughter relationship as depicted by this book. Kalb speaks with her grandmother's voice. It is like she's playing dress-up using her grandmother's thoughts. Kalb has her grandmother's literal voicemails on her phone. I had the feeling Kalb was processing her loss through her writing, much like Joan Didion in The Year of Magical Thinking. I enjoyed seeing the impact that a grandmother can have. 

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    I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai is filed in the mystery category because it is a gripping mystery. However, this book is more than a whodunit. Bodie Kane is a successful podcaster and film professor living in Los Angeles. She is invited to do a winter mini-mester at her old New Hampshire boarding school. The story zigzags back and forth in time as Bodie reconsiders the death of her roommate that occurred senior year. This book covers a lot of meaty topics like racial injustice, casual misogynistic abuse, and the curious fascination with the deaths of young, pretty white girls, but at its heart, it is a suspenseful mystery. 

❄️⛷️🏫🎞️💀

    Emily Henry is great at writing witty, pithy romance books. People We Meet On Vacation was the perfect read while traveling by airplane. It made the miles fly by. This book follows a friends-to-lovers path. Poppy and Alex meet in college when he gives her a ride home for summer break. They both live in the same small town. They are opposites. Poppy's sole desire is travel; Alex's is to build a stable life. So, they agreed to be best friends who would take a week-long vacation together once a year. But one year, something happens, and they stop. Poppy makes one last desperate attempt to get her best friend back.

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    The main focus of The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman is the romance of gardening. As someone who gets poison ivy whenever I try to pull weeds and considers houseplants a bouquet that lasts slightly longer than average, I was charmed by this lovely book and the problem-free garden. Lillian Girvan has been a widow for three years. She is drawn in and compacted--much like a seed in hard ground--when she signs up for gardening class, where she transforms, with the help of others, into something unexpected. Interspersed between the chapters are short, witty essays on how to prepare and grow a garden.

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    I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle doesn't strictly follow the traditional fantasy tropes. The story's hero is a lowly dragon exterminator who hates his job. Gaius Aurelius Constantine Heliogabalus Thrax, his friends call him Robert, has inherited the job of ridding hovels to castles of dragons. When the princess of Robert's kingdom falls hard for the neighboring kingdom's handsome prince, Robert is called for a long overdue castle dragon cleansing; however, everything doesn't go as planned. Beagle's writing style is humourous while also telling a rollicking tale.

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    The Ministry of Time by Kaleane Bradley is a debut novel. Her concept is clever. Time travel is possible, but instead of sending someone from this timeline, the government chooses to secretly pull people from the past who would have died if they hadn't been rescued. Then, study the physical and mental effects on these unwilling participants. A small group of Expats from several centuries are gathered in a future where the climate crisis is becoming overwhelming. The book's narrator is the bridge helper/keeper of a British officer who would have died in an Arctic expedition in 1847. She must help him acclimate to the current timeline and regularly report to the ministry about him. She is both his friend and his foe. Time travel makes things weird. I like weird. The genre is humorous sci-fi romance with a conscience.

⏳☀️🥵❤️ 

Psalm 23 🐑 and Contemplative Decision Making 🤔

    Buckle up; it's going to get theological.

 

    I recite the 23rd Psalm in my head at night to help my brain know it's time to go to sleep. I had a severe bout of insomnia fifteen years ago and read that mentally saying a poem would help train your brain for sleep. I still do it, so  I am deeply familiar with the 23rd Psalm. The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host by David Gibson piqued my interest because I had wondered about the transitions from third-person to first-person during the Psalm and where the setting is: a field, a stream, a path, a valley, a dining room, heaven? The subtitle laid out the Psalm in a new (to me) coherent way. I was curious what else David Gibson had to say. The book is based on the sermon series he preached. He drew surprising parallels between Psalm 23 and the Exodus, which were intriguing. I'm planning on rereading this book, which is a rarity for me.

  Psalm 23

         The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.  
                He makes me lie down in green pastures.

 He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness

for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD

forever.

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    How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away by Emily P. Freeman kept coming available on my holds list, and I would delay it because I wasn't in the headspace for deep thinking and contemplation. Most of my books are consumed by audible books, so I can multitask; however, this book needed me to sit down and read it with my journal and pen. Freeman asks excellent questions evaluating understanding of leaving or staying in a room. Rooms are interpreted broadly to mean any space you occupy, like a school, a relationship, a church, a house, etc. I occasionally listen to Freeman's podcast; she comes across as kind and thoughtful. Her book also reflects those qualities. Reading the book felt like talking with a wise, compassionate friend about a difficult situation. 

Link to podcast: https://emilypfreeman.com/podcast/

🤔💡⛪️