Once Upon a Fic Exchange

The Sultan of Byzantium - Selçuk Altun. My main advice to you in deciding whether to read this book is to first ask yourself if a book that is mostly about the Turkish protagonist wandering around Byzantine ruins and thinking about history, with some intrigue to spice things up occasionally, is appealing to you; and if yes, to read about a chapter and decide whether the protagonist is obnoxious or charming. If you find him obnoxious, you will hate the rest of the book, so just put it down there. I, however, actually liked him; it helped that he is possibly the most obviously autistic character I have seen in a while (he speaks to inanimate objects regularly; can read hundreds of pages of history in an afternoon; and displays the plot relevant ability to stand in a room and skim mosaics with hundreds of pieces, then quickly find the one tile out of place – after which he is vaguely embarrassed about having accomplished a difficult task implausibly fast and hangs around pretending not to be finished for a while. I found this almost unbearably relatable.) I also was amused by his blase acceptance of his childhood sweetheart coming out as a lesbian, followed by visiting her in Italy and staying with her and her girlfriend for a few weeks to catch up.

That said, he is also very, painfully arrogant, and the sexism in this novel is really just – weird. On the one hand, it's hard to say the protagonist is particularly oblivious to women when he doesn't seem to notice anyone at all unless they're involved with something he's obsessed with; on the other hand, there's some really creepy behavior in the romance subplot that otherwise affects nothing, and the protagonist repeatedly hires sex workers and is polite but oblivious to them as people, too, so that may bother some readers. (I found the parts of the romance subplot that weren't creepy and stalkerish cute; he meets her when he has to ask her permission to gain entrance to ruins she is currently supervising work on, falls in love with her in the back of a lecture she is giving on Byzantine history, and their courtship consists of three weeks of wandering around Byzantine sites in Istanbul while he provides exposition and she takes photographs and notes. As far as I can tell they discuss nothing else during this time. You see what I mean about autistic coding?)

Pile of Bones: a Novel of the Parallel Parks – Bailey Cunningham. This is a portal fantasy with a twist: the protagonists are essentially participants in a fantasy, immersive MMORPG, which they access via a park in their city. I had trouble getting invested in the basic premise because I had trouble believing anyone would voluntarily go back to the park once they found it; the life of low level players, working drudge jobs until they find an opportunity in a world much more casually violent than modern earth, seemed too miserable to actually work as escapism, whatever the lure of adventure. I also just did not like the constant low level grossness – like, it's possible to write characters sneaking in through the sewer without graphically describing the filth and specifying that they don't have time to wash after, you know? I just don't want to read that. Most people, I would venture, don't find it appealing. That said, once I was invested in the characters and plot it got a lot more interesting, I appreciated the random classical history dropped into the park, and I really loved the slice-of-life academia sections in the real world; I also loved how all of the characters are queer and one of them is a queer woman and a single parent, whose parenting is shown on screen.

Spanish Society: 1400-1600 – Teofilo F. Ruiz. Research reading, described by its author as a social history of Spain. The problem with this work is that it is only unwillingly a social history; the author is really interested in economics and political violence, and spends most of his time talking about those things. The two chapters on topics that are undeniably social history – food and clothing; and popular culture – are probably the worst scholarship in the book and the sections on food in particularly are painfully judgmental and downright bizarre (a pound of bread, half a pound of meat, vegetables and a liter of wine is inadequate food in one sitting? What on earth does the author eat? And please stop telling me about how Fat Heavy Diets Are Bad, this is a history book, not a diet manual). The rest of the book is fine, and useful, with the author's judgmental tendencies obnoxious but mostly limiting themselves to misplaced but ignorable adjectives like “bizarre” and “miserable.” A decent overview of the economics and political violence of Spain immediately post-Reconquista, with some useful citations on food. Ignore everything he says about clothing.

The Ruins of Us – Keija Parssinen. An American expat who married a Saudi man twenty-five years ago discovers her husband has taken a second wife without telling her; the slowly unraveling dysfunctions of their family are abruptly revealed all at once, and things explode. Also involved is a second American expat, a friend of hers from college who works for her husband. The major strengths of this novel are the characterization – everyone is complex and believable, if their behavior is not always likable – and the prose; I found it gripping even when I really wanted to put it down. I think the plot was mostly reasonably well handled, just not my sort of thing. I'm not sure if I bought the denouement, it seemed like the events of the conclusion should not have been so easily swept away, but what was logically difficult to believe came off as mostly emotionally satisfying and fit the generally somewhat dreamlike tone.

In the Labyrinth of Drakes: a Memoir by Lady Trent – Marie Brennan. And the series continues to improve. Loved the archaeology in this one, loved the attempts at experimental science instead of solely fieldwork, loved the protagonist's brother showing up and their sibling relationship loved the romance plot – intellectual companionship plus hilariously in character impulsive decision making, I actually went back to reread one particular scene – but was kind of torn on the setting; I really want an explanation for how the alternate history sets up the Arab caliphate(s) existing and a city that I had the impression was based off of medieval Baghdad, without the Mongol conquest or the subsequent Safavid and Ottoman rule in the region. Like, either write secondary fantasy or don't, you know? Half-accuracy is distracting. The culture also felt oddly thin in places, probably because the early modern middle east is a setting I've actually studied. But overall I definitely enjoyed this one.