Ms. Hen reviews This is How You Lose the Time War

 

This is How You Lose the Time War

Amal El-Mohtar

Max Gladstone

Saga Press

2019

Ms. Hen does not know how she decided to read this novel, but she had it on a post-it note on her desk for a long time, so she decided to buy it. She knew she must have read about it, or listened to a podcast about it, but she does not remember.

This novella is written by two people, which Ms. Hen thinks is interesting. It's an epistolary book, which means it is written in letters. The entire book is not letters, some are sections in third person, but it is a conversation between two people, Red and Blue, and they are agents in a time war.

Red and Blue send letters to each other, and they receive them in unique ways. One is through the rings of a tree, an another is delivered by a Canada goose. 

They travel through time, and avoid each other, but pine for each other at the same time. Lots of images of nature appear in this book, birds and insects and flowers. Ms. Hen loved the description of birds, because she is a fan, being one herself.

A statement in the book spoke to Ms. Hen because it is something she has been thinking about, "It's not that I never noticed before how many red things there are in the world. It's that they were never any relevant to me than green or white or gold. Now it's as if the whole world sings to me in petals, feathers, pebbles, blood." Ms. Hen has noticed the red things in the world recently, and how they pop out in her vision. She thinks this might happen to a lot of people.

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of other works, like the fairy tale novels she has read recently, such as A Spindle Splintered. It also reminds her of Doctor Who, of course, because of time travel.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is charming and beautiful. It's short, but sometimes Ms. Hen likes to read things that are fast. This book is about love through time, and despair and desperation. Ms. Hen believes this book would delight the right type of person, one with Ms. Hen's impeccable sensibilities. 

 

Ms. Hen reviews Master of Poisons

 

Master of Poisons

Andrea Hairston

Tor

2020

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she saw the author at the Arisia con in January, and she thought she was so fantastic Ms. Hen decided she wanted to read a book by her. The author did a reading from her forthcoming book, and Ms. Hen was impressed by her presentation.

This is different from the novels Ms. Hen usually reads. MASTER OF POISONS is fantasy. Imagine LORD OF THE RINGS with Afrofuturism, climate issues, and pirates, and that's this book.

The Masters of Poisons, or Djola, is a man who is captured on a pirate ship, and performs evil deeds. He drinks seed to forget his troubles, but makes friends along the way. Awa, a young sprite is training to be a griot, or storyteller, tries to learn to perform her work the best she can. The two meet each other eventually, and try to save the empire.

The characters go to a place called Smokeland, which is a type of fantasy world where things are not real. Dead people can live there, and people can slip in and out, and magic happens. Ms. Hen thought this reminded her of the Other World that exists.

Ms. Hen likes that some chapters are from the point of view of animals. The reader hears from a dog, a horse, and an elephant, which Ms. Hen thinks is charming. Ms. Hen believes that animals have opinions similar to humans, and their voices should be heard.

The prose in the novel is exquisite. Each sentence is like a poem. It reminded Ms. Hen of reading MOBY DICK, which Ms. Hen considers one long prose poem about chasing a whale.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a difficult book to read, but it's worth it. It's difficult because the prose is so lush, one could sink in it, and not be able to get out. Ms. Hen recommends this if you want to get lost in another world.

Ms. Hen reviews The Kid Mobster

The Kid Mobster

Michael Decicco

2017

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she met the author at an event, and he found out she wrote reviews, and he gave her his book. She likes reading young adult novels at times, as her readers know, so she decided to try out this book.

This novel is about a high school senior named Eddie who works as a courier for a company that services banks. He is saving money for college, but he decides he needs to make more money. He starts to work at a call center for a man named Mederick, and his business raises money for the police and fire departments.

Eddie works with a group of strange people, and his ex-girlfriend's sister, Ruth. They call people and try to make money. The office moves to a different location, and Eddie doesn't understand what is going on, because he is young, and nobody spells it out for him in the beginning. Mederick is part of the mob, and the people who surround him are shady.

One of the good aspects of this novel is the character's voices. They sound like the low-down wise guys that are on TV about mobsters. Ms. Hen could hear what the characters were saying, and she knows what these people are like. These are the types of people that Ms. Hen stays away from, wheelers and dealers, and the kind that will crush a person if they get in their way.

But the character Eddie is too innocent and unbelieving to accept that his coworkers are scumbags. He almost succumbs to their depths, but he learns his lesson, that if something seems too good to be true, he should beware.

Ms. Hen likes to look for chickens or eggs when she reads a book, and there is a place where the characters eat eggs, or would like to, "Heading their way, I felt angry, and I drooled as I passed a case full of rich-looking cakes and pies and booths with steaming plates of bacon and eggs and pancakes..." Ms. Hen always thinks that eggs are enticing, and even though Eddie could not afford breakfast that day, she knew he enjoyed eggs when he could. Mederick was not kind to Eddie, who should have known better, but mafia types are not nice people, no matter how much they have, they want more, and they will do whatever they can to get it.

Ms. Hen enjoyed this novel. It is not her usual cup of tea, but she likes to dive into different types of worlds sometimes. She can imagine this novel as a TV show, with the wise guys cracking at each other. Everyone has to learn life lessons somehow, and Ms. Hen believes Eddie will never make the mistakes again.
 

Ms. Hen reviews Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

 

Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Temi Oh

Saga Press

2019

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she researched African science fiction novels, and this one came up. She checked it out of her local library.

This novel is about a group of teenagers who study to go to another planet, Terra-Two. A special school outside of London trains students to compete to go to another planet someone discovered one hundred years ago. 

The idea is that they will get to the planet in twenty-two years when they are in their forties, and can colonize the new planet, and prepare it for other travelers.

This novel is an alternate history novel. In this timeline, people have already been to Mars in 2012, and Britain has a space program.

The teenagers go to space, but one of them, Ara, commits suicide before the mission. Everyone is devastated, and they have to find a backup crew member, which turns out to be Jesse, who had the same specialization as Ara, horticulture.

The crew travels slowly through the solar system. Six beta members and the adults on the crew work together. They have problems, but they find solutions, or at times they don't.

Ms. Hen enjoyed this novel, but there were a couple of problems. She had a difficult time imagining the area of the ship they were on. It is large, but she didn't understand the spacial differences between the quarters, and what they looked like.

Also, some of the novel reads like a teenage romance. Romance usually shows up in sci-fi, but here it seems like it's poured on thick.

The characters are well-drawn, and the plot moves along well, and surprises occur, which Ms. Hen appreciates.

Ms. Hen liked this novel, but it's not the best she's ever read. But it's a great recovery novel from DEATH'S END, which she just finished, which was very heavy, whilst this was charming and light, and refreshing, though not perfect.

Ms. Hen reviews Death's End

 

Death's End

Cixin Liu

Tor Books 

2010

Translated by Ken Liu

Ms. Hen decided to read this because she wanted to finish the trilogy. She took her time reading all the books because they are dense and take a long time to read. Even so, she enjoyed them.

This novel is the third in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. In this book, the reader follows Cheng Xin through time as she hibernates and goes into the future.

A man who she knew in college, Yun Tianming, buys her a star, because he has some money, and he was dying. The stars are on sale as a type of joke, to see if anyone is foolish to purchase something they could never truly own.

Nobody knew at the time that would give great power to Cheng Xin in the future after she awakens from hibernation. She has great wealth, and is voted to be the Swordholder, the person in charge of the Earth's defense.

She does not succeed as the Swordholder. Instead, the Trisolarans demand that everyone on Earth relocate to Australia.

Cheng Xin becomes a pariah, but Earth recovers. Many events occur in this novel, and Ms. Hen does not want to reveal the whole thing.

This novel is romantic, but in a twisted way. It proposes the idea that love can conquer all, but the outcome is not what the Ms. Hen expected.

This trilogy is a depiction of what would happen if aliens came to Earth, and wanted to take over. In reality, they would not be the pleasant aliens we know like E.T. or Mr. Spock. They would be like the Trisolarans, and they would come to steal our resources and enslave humanity.

The ending of this novel is trippy and psychedelic, like 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY. Ms. Hen doesn't know if she quite understands it, but it's about the end of the universe, and the beginning of a new one.

Ms. Hen believes these books are important, and will tell us a lot about humanity, and how it would be able to handle an alien invasion. She's excited to see the Netflix series, to see how the first book is depicted. Ms. Hen is a forward-looking hen, and she looks to the stars for her dreams.

Ms. Hen's Top Ten

 

Ms. Hen's Top 10 2023

Ms. Hen discovered when she was reviewing the books she had read this year, it was difficult to come up with the top ten. Usually she has an excess of wonderful books that she has enjoyed, but this year her list was deficient.

Ms. Hen thinks that the world has problems, and there's nothing anyone can do. Between those not respecting other people, violence and war, all around misery, not to mention the environmental crisis, and utter desolation of the human race, she thinks that anyone who tries to be happy or positive is borderline ridiculous. 

She doesn't want to feel this way, but she does. She still enjoys making herself laugh, however, because that is the only thing that gets her through each day.

The Top Ten:

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/02/ms-hen-reviews-mists-of-avalon.html 

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/05/ms-hen-reviews-exhalation.html

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/06/ms-hen-reviews-three-body-problem.html

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/07/ms-hen-reviews-penelopiad.html

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/07/ms-hen-reviews-hidden-girl-and-other.html

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/08/ms-hen-reviews-how-high-we-go-in-dark.html

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/09/ms-hen-reviews-convenience-store-woman.html

House of Leaves by Mark D. Danielewski

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/11/ms-hen-reviews-house-of-leaves.html

A Modern Mephistopheles by Louisa May Alcott

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/12/ms-hen-reviews-modern-mephistopheles.html

Julia by Sandra Newman

http://mshenreviewsthings.blogspot.com/2023/12/ms-hen-reviews-julia.html

Ms. Hen hopes 2024 will be better for everyone, but she's not counting on it. She wants to work on finding better books to read.

Happy New Year!

All the best,

Ms. Hen

(S.O.)

Ms. Hen reviews Julia

 

Julia

Sandra Newman

Harper Collins

2023

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she has always been fascinated with 1984 and dystopian fiction. She heard the author on the radio recently talking about writing the book, and she said she lived in a totalitarian world while she immersed herself in it. Ms. Hen decided to read this during the Christmas season, because nothing says Christmas like dystopian fiction.

This novel is about Winston Smith's lover, Julia, from 1984. It's a feminist retelling of the novel. Ms. Hen came to realize that Julia was much more important to Winston than he was to her.

Julia works in the Ministry of Truth as a mechanic. She has had many lovers, and she works on getting Winston to become her lover because she thinks he's attractive. She lives in a hostel with a group of women, and they get along. Telescreens sit by their beds and play while they sleep. 

Julia prowls the prole district to buy black market goods. She and Winston become lovers, and she has other lovers at the same time. She works for the Thought Police in trying to expose the men. A telescreen is behind the painting in the room where she has her affairs. She gets arrested and is sent to the Ministry of Love.

This novel reminds Ms. Hen of other novels that are written now about bad women, such as EILEEN and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh. In these types of novels a woman is an anti-hero, unlike traditional women characters who are kind and nurturing and enjoy helping other people. These women are out for themselves, like to have a good time, have their own agenda, and enjoy being bad for bad's sake, but the reader can't help rooting for them. JULIA is like this.

Julia is a woman who has had a complicated life history, and she is dysfunctional is ways that are incomprehensible in today's world. She grew up in a totalitarian state, and learned that she had to survive by lying and cheating early in life, and she spends her time in pursuits of things that seem pointless, but she does these things to survive.

Ms. Hen thinks this is an important novel, and one that fans of Orwell's 1984 should read. Julia is an important character, and she ends up in a strange place, but Ms. Hen knows that she will find a way to survive.