The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2024, pt. 3: Cheryl Morgan

 

The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2024

by Cheryl Morgan

 

This year hasn’t been good for reading that I can talk about. What that means is that Wizard’s Tower Press has been unusually busy this year, and I have had a lot of books to read that I can’t talk about. However, I did get some reading done. Here are the highlights.

By far my stand out book of the year was The Library of Broken Worlds by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Marketed as YA, it is a phenomenally sophisticated science fiction novel that blows away most of what gets published these days. I wish I had read it in time for last year’s Hugos.

Mike Carey’s Echo of Worlds completed the story stated in Infinity Gate in a very satisfying way. Cat Valente once more produced incredible and often hilarious prose in Space Oddity. And Kelly Link’s The Book of Love was every bit as good as everyone expected.

 

I’ve enthused about Stark Holborn’s space westerns before. This year’s offering, Ninth Life, does not disappoint. I also have another UK writer to recommend. I really enjoyed Lorraine Wilson’s novella, The Last to Drown, and I have just ordered her latest novel, We Are All Ghosts in the Forest, because everyone else here is enthusing about it.

In terms of feminist SF&F, something very interesting is happening in RSA Garcia’s The Nightward, but I can’t say much about it until I see how the story unfolds in the second book, which won’t be out for a while.

I’m trying to get a handle on the Welsh science fiction scene, which is quite strange. Some Welsh writers, such as Al Reynolds and Gareth Powell, just get lumped into the British Writers bucket. Others are published by small presses in Wales and are almost unknown outside of the country. A few publish in Welsh.

This year I found two gems in the second group. Gwyneth Lewis is best known as having been chosen as the first National Poet of Wales after devolution. Her novella, The Meat Tree, is part of a series of modern re-tellings of stories from The Mabinogion from Seren Books. It is a fine piece of science fiction, and very much about gender.

JL George is a young writer from Cardiff. Her novel, The Word, is a YA dystopia set in a Britain run by a far right government. It is the sort of anti-Brexit novel that mainstream British publishers are probably afraid to touch.

I’m trying hard to champion books by trans people. Chief amongst these at the moment is the Endsong trilogy by Sascha Stronach, a Māori trans woman. The first two books (The Dawnhounds and The Sunforge) are out, and they feel very New Weird to me. I’ve also enjoyed books by South Africa’s Xan Van Rooyen (Waypoint Seven), and Scotland’s Elaine Gallagher (Unexploded Remnants). Next up will be Sundown in San Ojuela by Mexico’s M M Olivas.

 

Two books deeply embedded in ancient history impressed me this year. Geoff Ryman’s HIM is a fascinating re-interpretation of the life of Jesus, which starts from the assumption that a virgin birth can only produce a child identical to the mother, so Jesus must have been a trans man. Meanwhile Lucy Holland followed up the excellent Sistersong with a new book, Song of the Huntress, which weaves together the Wild Hunt and actual events from the early history of the Saxon kingdom of Wessex.

In a class all of its own is Tim Pratt’s latest, The Knife and the Serpent, which is fairly cozy multiverse high jinks but with a main character who is in the story almost by accident, has no special abilities, and has a decidedly kinky sex life.

Novellas continue to produce excellent reading. I enjoyed the latest offerings from Malka Older and Nghi Vo (The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles and The Brides of High Hill respectively), T Kingfisher’s latest Sworn Soldier story, What Feasts at Night, was a lot of fun, as was her Thornhedge, and Arkady Martine’s Rose/House.

In nonfiction, Sophus Helle followed up his book on Gilgamesh with a translation of the poems of Enheduana (the first known literary works which are ascribed to a named author). I gather that he is working on The Descent of Inana next, which I am eagerly looking forward to.

The Fantasy Centre at the University of Glasgow continues to produce interesting volumes. I was impressed by Taylor Driggers’ Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature, which provided a very different take on The Left Hand of Darkness.

John Clute’s The Book Blinders provides some fascinating literary history alongside the necessary lambasting of the British Library for its cavalier disposal of dust jackets.

Is it possible to have a feminist take on Evolutionary Biology? I would have said no before reading Ghost Stories for Darwin by Banu Subramaniam. It is a little heavy on the academic science in places, but a fascinating read.

And my tour of nonfiction would not be compete with mention of Alex Pierce’s excellent new online magazine, Speculative Insight. Please do support her. There are few enough places for paid SF&F criticism so this venture is very welcome.

There continues to be a lot of SF&F on television, but most of it is pretty meh. The best stuff appears to be in cartoons. My favorite of the year is the second series of Star Trek: Prodigy with the new season of Lower Decks not far behind. Being a tragic X-Men fan from way back, I also enjoyed X-Men ’97. I am looking forward to starting Scavenger’s Reign.

 

The best of the live action has been Agatha All Along which managed to turn the relatively simple task of introducing Billy Maximoff to the MCU into a clever little series with a great supporting cast.

I have seen very few films this year, though I was pleased to see Dune 2 in an actual cinema because the visuals are glorious.

I watch a lot of sport on TV. The less said about the current state of Welsh rugby the better, but our soccer players have been outstanding. If the Aqueduct staff follow Seattle Reign they will be familiar with our star player, Jess Fishlock, and our captain, Angharad James. This year we qualified for the finals of the European Championships, which is our women’s team’s first ever trip to a major international tournament.

This year’s travel has taken me to Malta for an Assyriology conference. If you are at all into history (or Caravaggio) the island is a must-visit destination. The weather is glorious too, which helps a lot. I have also been to conventions in Finland and Sweden. I was even able to go to Worldcon this year, as it was in Glasgow, but I spent almost all of my time there behind a dealer table so I saw very little of the convention, or of the many friends who came over for it.

 

 Cheryl Morgan blogs, reviews and podcasts regularly at Cheryl’s Mewsings and Salon Futura. She is the owner of Wizard’s Tower Press. She also lectures regularly on topics of SF&F literature, and on queer history.