I had two unsatisfactory books on the go, so now of course I’ve got two I unsatisfactory books and some comfort reading.
Unsatisfactory book #1: “Sisyphean” by Dempow Torishima. Satirical SF, in one of those biopunk-ish worlds where everything’s made of meat and people have too many organs. It’s not actually bad, but it’s a bit slow and over-described and it’s not as original as it thinks it is. And the few women in it are mostly incidental detail. #amreading
Unsatisfactory book #2: Auerbach’s “Mimesis”. It’s a work of genius but... it’s also a foundation text of the old school of literary criticism. Very individualist, with no sense that texts can be in dialogue with each other or with their cultural context. And he’s a bit too eager to credit Christianity with everything he approves of in literature. (But I’m only halfway through - ask me again when he gets out of the Middle Ages.)
Comfort reading: C J Cherryh, “Serpent’s Reach”. An early work, and not that well-regarded - probably because it takes a couple of readings to really understand what’s going on (Cherryh delivers most of her world-building by implication) and because the last third or so is a kind of feverish sustained apocalypse. I like both of those things, though: teasing out implications and characters dealing with very bad things are things I find comforting.
#amreading
(Too many “things” in that last sentence. That’s what I get for revising too many times without a final read-through.)