Orbital by Samantha Harvey ***

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

The International Space Station orbits the Earth 16 times every day. This is a poetic vision of a day when a super-typhoon passes over the Philippines, and a manned mission flies to the moon. A companion to Artemis II. Beautiful poetry, but not much plot.

The ISS crew is divided between two Russians (Anton and Roman) and four non-Russians (Chie, Japan; Nell, GB; Pietro, Italy; and Shaun, US). The ISS circles the Earth in an oblique orbit between 52° north and 52° south latitude every 90 minutes. Meanwhile, the Earth rotates once a day. This means that the view under the ISS constantly changes, and it visits all points within its latitude range. Cambridge, UK, Saskatoon, Canada, and Mongolia to the north. Southern Chile, south of New Zealand and way south of the Cape of Good Hope. Much of the book repeats this geography 16 times.

The Booker Prize frequently rewards "bold voices" that challenge traditional storytelling. This book won the Booker Prize, possibly for its unique style. Orbital has been called a space exploration meditation. This style may be pioneering and unique, but I wouldn’t give it the subtitle, “A Novel.”

Quotes

She finds she often struggles for things to tell people at home, because the small things are too mundane and the rest is too astounding and there seems to be nothing in between.

Why would you do this? Trying to live where you can never thrive? Trying to go where the universe doesn’t want you when there’s a perfectly good earth just there that does. He’s never sure if man’s lust for space is curiosity or ingratitude. If this weird hot longing makes him a hero or an idiot. Undoubtedly something just short of either.

Artemis: It’s about those four astronauts on their way now to the moon, and the next men and women, the men and women who will one day be going to live on a new lunar station, those who will go into deeper space, the decades of men and women who’ll come after them. Except it’s not even about that, it’s just about the future and the siren song of other worlds, some grand abstract dream of interplanetary life, of humanity uncoupled from its hobbled earth and set free; the conquest of the void.

The book has many lists: They see someone’s dog washed down the street in two metres of soupy thing-thronged water, and the dog’s someone following promptly after it, and a parasol, a pram, a book, a cupboard, dead birds, tarpaulin, a van, many shoes, coconut trees, a gate, a woman’s body, a chair, roof timbers, Christ on his cross, a flag, countless bottles, a steering wheel, clothing, cats, door frames, bowls, road signs, you name it.

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The Wedding People by Alison Espach ****

 The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Phoebe’s husband cheated and left her. She went to a fancy hotel to commit suicide. Instead, she became Maid of Honor at Lila’s week-long, million-dollar wedding. Phoebe is the natural foil for Lila, though both are introspective & self-obsessed.

Phoebe has a PhD in 19^th-century literature. After graduating, nothing worked.  Despite years of trying, she was not about to publish her research. She “wrote a dissertation tracking each time Jane Eyre went on a walk in Brontë’s novel.” She was unable to secure a tenure-track teaching position. She is married to  Matt, a successful Professor of Philosophy. After five rounds of IVF, she could not get pregnant. Matt leaves Phoebe for Mia, a tenured professor with a child, who has achieved everything Phoebe failed at. Phoebe shines at the wedding, where she is a novelty. This is a novel of redemption through leaving home.

While Phoebe is a total failure at her St. Louis school, she is a celebrity among the Wedding people. “I like that you know when gargoyles were invented.”

“I think it’s just your vibe,” Gary says. “You come off as … very smart. Like you’ve studied everything and now have all the world’s knowledge inside of you.”

“Is that obnoxious?”

“It’s the best.”

 

Phoebe was a “small fish” within her school faculty, but a “big fish in a small pond” among the wedding people. While Phoebe was ordinary in mid-America, she shines among the sophisticated elite of Newport, Rhode Island. I had a similar experience when I left my elite college for the real world.

Most nights, she looked back at all of her research, all of her spreadsheets, all of her journals and her papers and her injections and thought, What the f**k?

Art helps us feel alive. And this had been true for Phoebe—Phoebe used to read books and feel astounded. She used to walk around galleries, inspired by the beautiful human urge to create. But that was years ago. Now she can’t stand the sight of her books. Can’t bear the thought of reading hundreds of pages just to watch Jane Eyre get married again.

“And my advisor kept emailing me being like, Who cares if it’s a piece of shit! Everybody’s dissertation is a piece of shit. That’s what dissertations are.”

“What are you doing to the décor?” Lila asks. She looks at them like she’s stumbled upon a bank robbery. “They’re books, not décor,” Phoebe says. Phoebe doesn’t have too many beliefs, but this is one of them.

“Tomorrow morning, you can join us for the bridal brunch in the conservatory.” A ridiculous sentence if Phoebe ever heard one.

So many clever observations.

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The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters *****

 The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters

Four-year-old Ruthie was abducted and raised by Lenore as Norma. Her six-year-old brother Joe was the last to see her. Years later, Joe abandoned his pregnant wife. Norma and Joe were two lost souls until they reunited with their biological family.

This book is about the powerful (and fictional) attraction to our biological roots. Ruthie is never comfortable as Norma. Norma is obsessed with the differences between herself and her parents, Lenore and Frank. “Both my parents had earlobes firmly attached to the sides of their heads. Mine were not.” Joe feels guilty for Ruthie’s abduction, his brother Charlie’s murder at a carnival, and for hitting his wife, Cora. He runs away, waiting for the family to get him. They don’t.

This novel is set within the larger struggle of Native Americans in North America to reclaim their culture and identity within the pressure and coercion of white society. Ruthie’s abduction by Lenore and her judge husband, Frank, stands in for the Indian Schools. “Kill the Indian and save the man.” As an allegory for this battle, the book works well. However, the surface story of the primal attraction to one’s biological roots is overstated. For every person drawn to their biological origins, there is another who couldn't care less.

The author, Amanda Peters, is a citizen of the Glooscap First Nation in Nova Scotia, specializing in stories about Indigenous experiences.

“That’s why I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.”

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The House of Unexpected Sisters: No. 1 Ladies' … (18) by Alexander McCall Smith *****

The House of Unexpected Sisters by AlexanderMcCall Smith

Precious Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency investigates a suspicious firing of a saleswoman, the discovery of another lady named Ramotswe, and unexpected competition for Co-director Makutsi’s husband. As usual, all ends well in Botswana.

Mma Charity Mompoloki comes to Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, unhappy that she was fired for being rude to a customer. She was an outstanding salesperson. Can the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency get her job back? Her mother thinks she was rude. Did a customer complain? Did the boss make up the complaint? Does Mma Makutsi think she is innocent because they both went to the Botswana Secretarial College? How does troublemaker Violet Sephotho figure in? There are so many red herrings and a surprise twist at the end.

The second mystery is Mingie Ramotswe. Ramotswe is an uncommon name, and Mma Ramotswe thought she knew everyone with this name. When she sees a newspaper mention of Mingie Ramotswe, she has to find out who she is. The path to discovery includes many difficulties.”

This is the eighteenth book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. These are cozy books with more interest in slices of fruit cake, Mma Ramotswe’s “rather old and inclined to rattle” white van, “traditionally built” women, “old Botswana morality,” and cattle, rather than serious crimes.

The book includes LGBTQ themes.

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Notorious RBG: The Life & Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik ****

Notorious RBG: The Life & Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik

Notorious RBG was published in 2015, so it ends with an optimistic view of RBG holding on to her position on the Supreme Court to the very end. “A Hillary Clinton presidency might be the perfect moment for RBG to step down.”

Notorious RBG is a bitter-sweet biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She thought strategically. Under her leadership, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project systematically took cases to the Supreme Court to advance women’s rights one step at a time. She faulted Roe v. Wade because it moved too fast, legalizing abortion throughout the country before society was ready for that move. She would have preferred progress that went state by state.

While she was on the court majority, she espoused compromise and collegiality, but when the court shifted, she let those ideals slide and wrote many dissents. “RBG NEVER ESPECIALLY WANTED to be a great dissenter. She prefers not to lose, which is what, by definition, has happened to judges who write to dispute the court’s majority opinion.”

For all her strategic thought, in the end, Trump was the one who replaced her.

“RBG declared that Roe itself was the problem. If only the court had acted more slowly, RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women’s equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.” RBG was always confident in her decisions, though not always correct. RBG was pushing sixty, and she had never been a large woman. “I told Ruth she should sit in the back of the boat, because she was so light that if they hit a rock, she would go flying over,” Neuborne says. “Her response: ‘I don’t sit in the back.’”

Sexism: When I asked her if she still experiences sexism, RBG replied readily. “Yes. Less than I once did. Once it happened all the time that I would say something and there was no response. And then a man would say the same thing and people would say, ‘Good idea.’” She laughed. “That happens much less today.”

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The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King ****

 The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King

A multi-generational story of Taiwan through the last 90 years, the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the Nationalists' retreat from Communist China, and immigration to the United States. The book also explores who owns your story. Tech and History.

The book revolves around the power of a family of women to “reforge” pencils. They can retrieve what the pencil has written by piercing their wrists and bleeding out what has been written on paper. The form of eavesdropping (spying) is compared to software that scrapes information from social media accounts. Both extract stories from unsuspecting participants.

The book collects the writing of Monica Tsai, a second-generation Chinese-American, and her grandmother, Wong Yun. Monica’s story is collected from her online diary, and the grandmother’s story is reforged from a pencil. Thus, the entire book is stolen from the authors with magic (reforging) or technology (hacking Monica’s online diary with a program called EMBRS - Electronic Memory Bank Enabling Radical Sharing).

While different characters attempt to justify stealing writing without consent, in the end, Monica attempts to sabotage the EMBRS project/company.

The book also includes a lesbian love story.

The book often refers to the latitude and longitude (42.3721865, -71.1117091). This is Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ignoring these coordinates, Harvard is mentioned four times, and MIT is mentioned nine times.“The joy of understanding her family.” Implicit in much of this book is ancestor worship and the idea that one can’t be happy unless one understands one's ancestors. Many books are built on this strange premise.

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The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong *****

The Teller of Small Fortunes by JulieLeong

When Tao, born in Shinara, was eight, her father died. Her mother, Shi-Wen, moved to Eshtera and remarried. Since she foresaw her father’s death, she felt responsible and restricted her talent to small fortunes. Can Tao find her place in the world?

At fifteen, Tao left her unhappy home. She traveled Eshtera in a wagon pulled by her mule, Laohu. “Teller of Small Fortunes was painted in neat black letters.” Along the way, she met (1) Mash, “a grizzled, bearded giant of a man, who wore studded leather armor, a menacing steel mace, and a truly enormous backpack from which various weapon hafts were protruding.” (2) Silt, “Siltarien Silvertongue, the gentleman thief, friend of fortune, villain to the wealthy, pilferer of pearls, who has now given up his felonious ways, and has instead become an honest adventurer.” (3) Kina, “the baker of unsightly pastries.” Later, they are joined by Fidelitus, the cat, and Fortis, the pony.

Tao restricted herself to small fortunes because of her guilt for foreseeing her father’s death and not wanting to attract the Royal Guild of Mages, who would force her to work for them. Because of her Asian appearance, everyone recognizes her as a foreigner, exacerbating her feeling of not belonging.

Mash is searching for his six-year-old daughter Leah, whom he believes was kidnapped.

Silt wants to be a reformed thief, but he can’t define himself by what he is not. He needs to be something.

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Cultish by Amanda Montell ****

Cultish by Amanda Montell

The language of cults, from religious ones to multi-level marketing schemes, from fitness to political & conspiracy groups. The 47^th US president is mentioned 25 times in the text and 14 more in the notes. A survey of online & offline influencers.

Some examples of common techniques are: (1) cults have their own jargon: elusive acronyms and insider-y mantras. It all inspires a sense of intrigue, so potential recruits want to know more; then, once they’re in, it creates camaraderie, such that they start to look down on people who aren’t privy to this exclusive code. (2) create community, establish an “us” and a “them,” to align collective values, to justify questionable behavior, to instill ideology and inspire fear. And the most compelling techniques had little to do with drugs, sex, … instead, they had everything to do with language. (3) the thought-terminating cliché. Catch phrases aimed at halting an argument from moving forward by discouraging critical thought. Also known as semantic stop signs, to hastily dismiss dissent or rationalize flawed reasoning.The author discusses many organizations that use language to influence people. She starts with the most infamous cults that led to mass suicides, such as Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate, before moving on to other religious-type organizations. She doesn’t stop there. Next is MLMs (multi-level marketing) groups like Mary Kay and Amway. Next comes exercise groups like SoulCycle and CrossFit. She closes with political groups like QAnon and politicians.

She struggles to differentiate between good and bad groups. The words and intonation put exercisers in a transcendent headspace, but just for the length of a class. If it gets to be too much, followers are free to tap out at any time without life-ruining exit costs. Fitness studios have their followers’ consent. At least they’re supposed to. However, as we’ve learned, wherever there are magnetic leaders charging money for meaning, there’s the chance for things to go awry.

She makes influencing groups of people seem easy and sleeping at night hard.

The author has a podcast called, Sounds Like a Cult.

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Culpability by Bruce Holsinger *****

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

Self-driving car. Teen Charlie at the wheel. Dad Noah writing a memo beside him. Young sis Izzy texting Charlie. Genius mom Lorelei between her two daughters. Older sis Alice screams. Charlie grabs the wheel. Two old people die in the crash. All the *s.

The question is: who is culpable? Can it be the self-driving car? How about the minor in the driver’s seat? How about the supervising parent in the front seat? Could the blame go to young Izzy, who texted Charlie, or her older sister Alice, who distracted him by screaming? Who or what is culpable? The best AI novel. Read it.

I can’t help contemplating, as I have many times since that day: Would the AI have prevented an accident altogether if Charlie hadn’t acted? Without Alice’s scream from the back seat, would our car have simply performed a gentle swerve, passing the Drummonds’ Honda without incident? Would we even have noticed anything amiss? Would the Drummonds be alive?

If the accident had never occurred. If only I hadn’t brought work along to a lacrosse tournament, I would have been driving, or at least paying more attention to Charlie’s driving. If only Lorelei hadn’t insisted on buying a car with an autodrive system, Charlie would likely never have dared to text while behind the wheel. If only we had never bought smartphones for our kids— A regression of if onlys: bleak, infinite, fruitless, yet impossible to elude, these grim questions of what we all could have done differently.

After the accident, the Cassidy-Shaw family retreats to a cabin on the Chesapeake Bay. Next door, billionaire Daniel Monet has built an enormous armed compound. First, Charlie and Eurydice Monet are attracted to each other. Then, Noah discovers that his genius wife, Lorelei Shaw, knows Daniel Monet. Later, Charlie and Eurydice become lost on the Bay.

Noah Cassidy is the narrator. Quotations from —Lorelei Shaw, Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds, and chats between Alice and Large Language Model Blair. Note to eBook reader. The chats are published as images, thus hard to see on an eReader.

Lorelei Shaw received a MacArthur Fellowship, Genius Award. “[Lorelei sees] all those [vase] fragments on the floor and immediately you start putting the vase back together in your head. It’s why nobody wants to do jigsaws with you, because you can do a thousand-piece puzzle in half an hour. This goes with this, that goes with that, here’s how everything ties together.”

The astute reader will see most of the reveals coming. This increases the impact of the final reveal.

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Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler *****

Parable of the Talents by OctaviaE. Butler

In Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler made a dismal but accurate prediction for the 2020s. Don’t stop there! Read Parable of the Talents for her optimistic thoughts for the rest of the century. “God is change.” Read about “fulfilling the Destiny.”

The Parable of the Sower (you must read this first) ended with Earthseed thriving in the small settlement of Acorn. In the sequel, Parable of the Talents, Jarret’s Crusaders overrun Acorn, renaming it Camp Christian; steal the children, including Lauren Oya Olamina’s infant daughter Larkin; murder her husband, Dr. Taylor Franklin Bankole; and enslave her with a ‘slave collar.’ The Crusaders live in the Acorn cabins and abuse the adult slaves. Lauren struggles to gain her freedom and locate her stolen daughter.

A talent was a unit of weight between 75 and 100 pounds or about 35 to 45 kilograms. Today, a silver talent is worth around $50,000.

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The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy *****

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy

 Alice’s Restaurant for the 2020s. Four millennial black women, leading their best lives. Family. Vacations. Travel. An award-winning restaurant featuring grits. A doctor. An influencer. A mother. Life is good, but then things get real. A dark look at 2027.

Desiree is estranged from her father and sister; her mother died when she was young; her grandfather raised her. Nakia is a successful proprietress of a couple of trendy LA restaurants. January is an influencer and a graphic designer. Monique is a university librarian and blogger. The four friends support each other, like when Desiree has family problems or January has a difficult pregnancy.

Monique’s university has preserved the quarters where faculty housed their enslaved servants. Monique protests the university’s plans to remove references to the occupants as enslaved and relocate the building to a remote part of the campus.

After January’s pregnancy, she has a painful prolapse, not recognized by her doctors. Her friends come to her aid. She struggles with motherhood.

The four friends moved between NYC and LA. Nakia went to a restaurant management program in NYC, and her friends joined her on a trip to Chicago for a restaurant convention. The women also traveled to Martinique, Thailand, and Abu Dhabi.

Desiree’s grandfather cajoles her to accompany him on a trip to Paris and on to Switzerland for his assisted suicide.

While the women have relationship challenges, they are together, and over the years, from their 20s in 2008 to middle-age in the 2020s, they are doing well. You might be excused for reading this book as a romance or a black version of Sex in the City. However, like Alice’s Restaurant, it turns dark at the end. It is reminiscent of Octavia Butler. Read it.

Desiree’s family. Her older sister, Danielle Joyner, is a doctor. Her father is Terry Joyner. Her mother, who died of a heart attack at 42, is Sherelle Richard Joyner. Since her father left for a new wife and new family before Desiree was born, her mother named her Desiree Richard. Desiree was raised by her grandfather, Nolan Richard. After Nolan dies, Desiree is alone.

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Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson *****

Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

 All California 4^th-graders study the 21 California missions, many building models. From San Diego to San Francisco, they have all been preserved/restored, thanks to Helen Hunt Jackson and her book Ramona, published in 1884 and never out of print.

Helen Hunt Jackson campaigned for the rights of native Americans. She published A Century of Dishonor (1881), castigating United States policy, which led to Congress appointing her to a commission to study the issue and publishing her Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California (1883). She was not satisfied with the impact of these reports, so she wrote the novel, Ramona. “If I could write a story that would do for the Indian a thousandth part what Uncle Tom’s Cabin did for the Negro, I would be thankful the rest of my life.”

Ramona was the “daughter of an unnamed Indian woman and a Scotch seaman named Angus Phail.” Ultimately, Señora Moreno took charge of Ramona and her fortune, which Ramona was to receive upon marrying worthily. Ramona was raised in luxury alongside Felipe, Señora Moreno’s only child. She didn’t know her Indian parentage. Señora Moreno planned for her to marry a Mexican aristocrat. Instead, Ramona ran off with the Indian Alessandro Assis.

With Alessandro, Ramona is subject to all the atrocities that the Americans inflicted on the Indians, including having their land and homes stolen, and being starved and murdered. “According to Ramona, those who were victims of Manifest Destiny were not just human beings; they were paragons of industry, gentle creatures who were hardworking, law-abiding, and devout.”

Helen Hunt Jackson died shortly after Ramona was published (August 12, 1885). However, her work was not forgotten. On January 12, 1891, Congress passed “the Act for the Relief of the Mission Indians in the State of California. This bill not only established a fund for the aged and destitute, but called for the appointment of a three-man commission, which, covering the same ground that Jackson had, ultimately set aside approximately 136,000 acres on twenty-six reservations for 3,200 Mission Indians, reservations that still exist today.”

The heroes of Ramona were the Mission Indians, the Mexicans, and the Franciscans, against the Americans. “The American law is different.” “It’s a law of thieves!” cried Ramona. “Yes, and of murderers too,” said Alessandro.” “They are a pack of thieves and liars, every one of them!” cried Alessandro. The other heroes were Capitan, Felipe’s sheep dog; Benito, Alessandro’s horse; and Baba, Ramona’s horse.

Helen Hunt Jackson was friends with Emily Dickinson.

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Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler *****

 Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

“So what are we in for? [2024 President-elect] said that as soon as possible after his inauguration next year, he’ll … suspend “overly restrictive” minimum wage, environmental, and worker protection laws ...” Published in 1993. Read it if you dare.

Lauren Olamina is 18 years old. She lives in a walled community in Los Angeles until a gang of pyros breaks through the gate to burn, murder, rape, and rob. She escapes and begins her odyssey north in search of safety and a better life. “In some places, the rich are escaping by flying out in helicopters. The bridges that are still intact—and most of them are—are guarded either by the police or by gangs. Both groups are there to rob desperate, fleeing people of their weapons, money, food, and water—at the least.”

Lauren has hyperempathy syndrome. She is a “feeler” or a “sharer.” When she observes someone in pain, she feels their pain. If she attacks someone (even in self-defense), she’ll feel their pain (until they die). She shoots to kill because if she wounds them, they will both be incapacitated. In a battle, she might die three or four times.

Lauren creates Earthseed and collects people during her journey to build an Earthseed community at the end of her odyssey. “As wind, as water, as fire, as life, God is both creative and destructive, demanding and yielding, Sculptor and clay. God is Infinite Potential: God is Change. EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING.” “God is Power— Infinite, Irresistible, Inexorable, Indifferent. And yet, God is Pliable— Trickster, Teacher, Chaos, Clay. God exists to be shaped. God is Change.”

At one level, this book is a survivalist manual. Do not attract attention. Appear strong. Water: Carry water purification tablets. Filter seawater with sand. Guns: Keep them maintained. Have ammunition. A handgun is not effective against a rifle. People: Those with children tend to be more trustworthy. Suspect everyone. Supplies: Seeds. Money. Dried food.

The book ends with The Parable of the Sower (KJV Luke 8:5-8)

A Sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And others fell on good ground, sprang up, and bore fruit a hundredfold.

Lauren’s parents are both Ph.D.’s

The author discussed company towns and debt slavery.

Some quotes

“A tree cannot grow in its parents’ shadows.”

“In the night, a woman and three kids might look like a gift basket of food, money, and sex.”

“I drew the gun and held it in my lap. If I needed it at all, I would need it fast. We weren’t strong enough to survive slowness or stupid.”

“Most people suspected it had begun in Los Angeles, where, according to them, most stupid or wicked things began. Local prejudice. I didn’t tell any of them I was from the L.A. area.”

“There was more hunger in those eyes than we could fill with all our food. I thought I had probably made a mistake. These people were so desperate, they were dangerous. It didn’t matter at all that [mother and daughter] looked harmless. They were still alive and strong enough to run. They were not harmless.”

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A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna ******

 A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

Sera is a powerful witch. Too powerful. When she uses a very illegal spell to resurrect her great-aunt Jasmine, Sera is exiled from the Witch’s Guild and loses most of her magic. Her nemesis, Chancellor Albert, is overjoyed. Excellent. All the stars.

Before Sera, the most powerful witch was Albert Grey. He bullied everyone in the British Guild of Sorcery. He controlled the guild’s gargoyle-bedecked castle in Northumberland and its library. He took Sera as his apprentice and did his best to convince Sera and everyone else that he was the strongest witch. Sera moved to Batty Hole Inn in Lancashire to get away from Albert. Their rivalry persisted.

As a young witch, Sera charmed the inn. “The best way Sera could describe her spell was this: if you didn’t need the inn, you’d drive on. (And if you were a d**k, you’d definitely drive on.)” Some of the residents included: “Jasmine (briefly deceased great-aunt), Clemmie (overly opinionated witch doomed to live out her days as a fox), Sera’s young cousin Theo (also a witch, but thankfully not one doomed to a lifetime as a woodland creature), Matilda (geriatric oddball and aspiring hobbit), and newest arrival Nicholas (a knight).” Later, they were joined by Luke, a magical historian, and young Posey, his autistic sister.

Even after Sera lost most of her magic, the inn’s enchantments continued. “Whenever Sera checked, she could see that the inn still glowed bright with the spell she’d cast over it as a child. Spells were supposed to be finite, so there was no reason it ought to still be going strong, but somehow, it was. Unfortunately, it had also evolved. Over time, the spell had developed a most inconvenient propensity for whimsy and mischief. Wildflowers bloomed spontaneously in empty teacups at unexpected moments. The sunlit rooms teased her with echoes of her past selves. Doors opened and closed on a whim. One of the guest bedrooms rained apple blossom tea for exactly one hour every Sunday, after which said tea vanished like it had never been there. And it was anyone’s guess what might come next.”

The restoration spell to return Sera’s magic required three impossible ingredients. “A Strand of Sunset. A Phoenix Feather. A Thorny Heart.”

The conflict between Albert and Sera was about more than who was the strongest. Albert represented the entrenched, white colonizers, while Sera represented the new, diverse generation.

This is a story of love of home, hearth, family, and friends.

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Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor ****

 Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

Onyesonwu is the child of weaponized rape and a victim of genital mutilation. She lives in a world of racism and slavery. As a mixed-race Ewu, she is scorned by all. She is a sorceress, an Eshu (shapeshifter), and the prophecy tells that she “will end their suffering.”

In post-apocalyptic Africa, the light-skinned Nuru enslaved the dark-skinned Okeke and were intent on killing all the Okeke. Below the Okeke were the mixed-race Ewu, often the product of Nuru soldiers raping Okeke women. The Great Book supported this world order. Onyesonwu’s Okeke mother, Najeeba, was violently raped by Nuru General Daib. Onyesonwu is on a quest to kill her father as foretold in the prophecy.

Onye leaves her village, Jwahir, to travel to her father’s village, Dufar. She travels with her lover, Mwita, the three women who were in her genital mutilation group, Luyu, Binta, and Diti, and another male, Fanasi.

Technology: Capture stations collect water from the air in sufficient quantities for drinking, cooking, and bathing. They could build rock fires for cooking and heating. They had devices that could keep time, work like a GPS, play video disks, and read books.

Magic, Juju. Onye could start rock fires, become ignorable (invisible), shapeshift into a vulture, and visit the wilderness. Her father poisoned her by writing on her palm, but she was saved when other sorcerers wrote counter spells. The leader of the Red People controlled the sandstorm.

As part of her sorceress training, Oyne learned the four Mystic Points. The Uwa Point represents the physical world, the body, Change, death, life, and connection. The Mmuo Point is the wilderness (a mystical space beyond the physical world). The Alusi point represents forces, deities, and spirits. The Okike Point represents the Creator.

During her odyssey, Onye encounters the Red People who live inside a sandstorm, a green jungle, nothing like the desert, and a fire lizard, kponyungo (the spirit of her mother).

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