SFF-KIT: February 2020: Transformation

The topic this month is Transformation. Physical, mental, existential. All of the above, maybe.

Be imaginative, and whatever you think fits, fits!

This may sound like a weird one but bear with me!
I am reading The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. The book is quite a bit different from the movie in that Bastian actually undergoes a physical transformation as well as mental. When Bastian enters Fantastica, he becomes the boy he always wanted to be - strong, handsome, brave, clever.

>2 JayneCM: Sounds like it fits to me!

>3 majkia: And I have just realised that of course Bastian is transforming the actual story itself!

I am planning on reading Decoy Princess by Dawn Cook. It's about a girl who has been raised as the Crown Princess only to find out that she is decoy and now must find her own identity and purpose in life.

We lost Vonda N. McIntyre last year, and I read The Exile Waiting for the first time in December - and really enjoyed it. I think a reread of Superluminal is in order for this February KIT.

I may actually get to Abbadon's Gate for this challenge, FOUR YEARS after finishing the previous book...

I am currently reading Green Mars which would work well for this. I guess that I will wait to read the final book of the trilogy (Blue Mars) until Feb. For those unfamiliar with this trilogy, it is about the colonization & terraforming of Mars.

>8 leslie.98: I have her book Green Earth to read for my cli fi category. I would like to read the Mars series as well. Just wondering if it would be suitable for a teenager who loves science but doesn't want to read love scenes (particularly sex scenes)? She has read The Martian four times!

>9 JayneCM: There certainly is quite a bit about relationships in Red Mars and a couple of love/sex scenes though nothing graphic that I recall (one that borders on it a bit). More about sex in Green Mars and some fairly explicit scenes so far.

BTW, the author is male (I thought Kim Stanley Robinson was a woman too until I saw his photo on Goodreads when I started reading Red Mars!).

>10 leslie.98: Oops, just assumed the author was female! I should know better - we have a male friend called Kim!

Hmmm, I might read the series first before recommending it then or her mum might be a bit cross with me!

I think reading it first would be a good idea especially as you have an interest in doing so anyway.

Transformation by Carol Berg is one of my comfort reads - so long as I complete the series!

I'm reading Muse of Nightmares for this challenge. I'm almost finished but I'm trying to slow down so I'll actually finish it in February.

>13 quondame: Oh, I didn't even think of that! I've really enjoyed what I've read of Carol Berg but haven't read Transformation or its sequels yet.

Finished The Neverending Story. I wanted to really love this book as the movie is one of my favourites. The first half of the book was wonderful but then it seemed to ramble off in a different direction and get a bit lost and bogged down. Still worth a read if you are a fan of the movie and would like to compare.

>16 JayneCM: This was a book I loved when I was a kid. I read it several times and to this day I remain stricken and impressed by the descriptions of the nothingness that devours the world little by little. I guess this is a book that is hard to like for adults, though.

The last colony by John Scalzi was a less good fit to this theme than I thought. It is about the colonisation of a planet so it seemed promising, but in the end very little is said about the colonisation and the planet is not much changed. This is still a fit though, because Jane Sagan undergoes some kind of transformation (she gets back to Special Forces strength and enhanced senses).

If I finish my three other CATs and KITs for this month I'll try to read something that is a better fit.

This was nice but I liked it a bit less than the first two in the series. It's more serious than the others as John Perry is involved in serious relationships, and in consequence there is much less of the friendly and funny banter that I enjoyed so much in the other books. And it seems to me like Scalzi is less at ease with describing serious relationships and emotions. Also one interesting part of the plot is left dangling in the air (there is a race of intelligent but hostile beings on the planet, some farmers try to kill them and get killed instead, and then these beings are never brought up again). Still this was an enjoyable read, with a captivating storiy and I really like the no-nonsense characters of this series. I'll certainly read the sequels.

>17 chlorine: It was just the last third of the book where the storyline of the nothing just disappeared without really being resolved and the storyline rambled off in a different direction. Still a good book, just a bit disjointed.

I read The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe yesterday, and it seems to fit this theme well: each of the three related novellas that make up this brief volume deal with issues of personal identity and transformation (or the lack of it). The fact that a major, unresolved question centers around whether some, most, or all of the humans involved are actually indigenous shapeshifting aliens who have somehow absorbed or killed the human colonists and repressed all memory of it also makes this one thematically relevant. Plenty of ink and pixels have been spilled on analyzing and elucidating the mysteries and meaning of the book, but it's an interesting set of interlocking stories, even if you're not as fascinated by exploring interpretations as I am.

I'd recommend this as a good entry point to Wolfe's fiction, if you're not familiar with his work. This is fairly early but also accessible, both in prose styling and plotting. Each of the three novellas is self-contained but clearly linked to one another, each helps to interpret the events of the other, and each is told from the perspective of one (or more) characters involved in the others. All take place on the twin planets Sainte Anne and Sainte Croix, some time after French colonization and after the aboriginal people (or "abos"), who may or may not have been human, have disappeared. The post-colonial society is both decadent and repressive, leaving both the humanity and humaneness of the characters open to question.

Each of the three novellas also has a different genre and voice: the title novella is a personal memoir, the second is a lengthy folktale, and the third is a hodgepodge of diary, interrogation transcripts, and miscellaneous paperwork. In the first, a young man comes to terms with his parentage/identity while reflecting on the crime that resulted in his imprisonment; in the second, an anthropologist narrates an origin myth explaining how one of the twin planets came to be colonized by humans (perhaps); and in the third, a prison official determines what to do with the anthropologist, after he becomes entangled in the crime of the first narrator.

All in all, this is a fascinating set of stories which fits the month's theme quite well, which I'd recommend to anyone who's interested in unreliable narrators and mosaic-style fiction.

>20 InfoQuest: I read this so many years ago that the only thing I really remember about it is my reaction--it is an outstanding story!!

I completed Crown of Renewal by Elizabeth Moon, a reread of the 11th volume of a favorite series. Both the land of Aare and the person of Dorrin are transformed.

I started Kushiel's Dart for this challenge, as it shows the transformation of a young girl destined for training as a courtesan (same with her mother, who sold her to the courtesan House where she had previously worked) and instead becomes a spy. So she starts as an abandoned child and is trained in spy craft. It's a long book for the shortest month!

>21 ronincats: I so love this Elizabeth Moon series! I read the last 5 first before I read the trilogy they're based on (which I read at a gasp as well), and was just totally drawn into her world.

I read Shadow of the Fox by Julie Kagawa, the first book in a fantasy series set in a land of Japanese folklore. One of the main characters undergoes a major transformation (which I can't describe without spoilers) plus the whole plot of the story is about a new age about to commence in which it is possible that the whole world will be transformed.

I followed that with Penric's Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold, a novella set in the World of the 5 Gods in which young Lord Penric is transformed at the start of the story by suddenly becoming possessed by a demon - not just a demon but one who contains the personalities of all its previous "riders". And it's just Pen's luck that, before him, these 'riders' had all been female!

I just finished Resurgence, my comments

I am going to start Jewel and Her Lapidary by Fran Wilde tonight. I am not sure if there is any transformation in this short novella but I will let you know if there is.

I finished reading the novella Every Heart A Doorway by Seanan McGuire and there is plenty of transformation in that one. McGuire shows great imagination and inventivness in this twisted fairy tale/nursery rhyme. The twists on the originals are as good in this story as they are in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Lots of fun to read.

>25 benitastrnad: I read Every Heart A Doorway and then had to quickly read the next books in the series. Eagerly awaiting publication of the latest instalment this year. It is good they are fairly short as I read each one in one sitting!

I just finished Finders by Melissa Scott. What a great read. Archaeology in SPACE! Salvagers search the galaxy for artifacts from ancient times. And, come across something that can either cause, or stop, another Dark Age.

I finished Raven Boys which I enjoyed very much!

I read and loved The sparrow by Mary Doria Russell : we see one man going from kind priest in a slum to quasi-saint briming with the presence of God to physically, emotionally and spiritually broken man. The story is hard but not desperate.

I finished Circe by Madeline Miller, which I did not pick for this challenge but which certainly fits. Circe is a witch who transforms people into various things. In the end, she herself is transformed in a surprising way.

Continuing with the myth theme, I am also reading Wake, Siren by Nina MacLaughlin, which is a collection short pieces retelling the myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses from the women's point of view, and of course there is lots of physical transformation going on as the gods turn people into other things.

March thread is up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/316759

I read Dune, and I loved it - paired the book with the audio which worked perfectly for me.

I have an unusual issue with Gideon the Ninth - it's the final sentence of my short review!

>31 luvamystery65: thank you!

I've completed my February read with The Decoy Princess by Dawn Cook.

I finished Uglies by Scott Westerfeld and might just go straight on to Pretties to find out what happens next.

I reread (via audiobook) Dune. I'm glad I revisited it but this book will never be a favorite of mine.

I'm nearly done re-reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -- it wasn't my planned read, but I finally found my illustrated edition after the move and it certainly deals with a lot of transfiguration.

I had a feeling I would probably not manage to read my initial choice Abbadon's Gate, but just read The Giver and realized it fits!

>36 AHS-Wolfy: I loved Uglies! I'm so glad you liked it! I really loved the whole series, and it deserves to be much more widely known and loved IMO!

>39 fuzzi: I really enjoyed The giver. I don't remember the plot precisely but I think I see why it fits this month's theme.

I think the two apocalyptic books I read this month would count for transformations, the world is transformed after the disaster as well as the characters who have to survive in the aftermath. In Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer, an aseroid hits the moon and causes all sorts of environmental catastrophies and changes around the world. And in Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, nuclear war hits, destroying major cities around the world and leaving a small Florida community cut off to fend for themselves. I enjoyed both of them quite a bit.

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire is a novella about teenage kids who travelled through magic gates to other worlds and came back. The travelling has changed them and their parents place them in a home, hoping they'll become their old self again.
Some aspects seemed a bit stereotypical to me but otherwise I thought it was a nice, enjoyable read about what it means to be different. I'll probably seek out the other novellas in the series at some point.

Thanks benitastrnad and JayneCM for recommending it! It also fits my personal challenge of reading all winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards since it won both of them.

>41 staci426: I read Alas Babylon for the first time in 8th grade, and have reread it numerous times since. It's one of the few school "required reading" books that I still enjoy.

>42 chlorine: Glad you liked it! I am excited for the fifth one to come out - waiting, waiting! My favourite one so far has been Down Among The Sticks And Bones, book two.

I finished Velocity Weapon and am counting it for this challenge, because, well, spoilers. ;)

>44 JayneCM: Glad to hear the second book is good!

>45 majkia: Velocity Weapon seems great! I've wishlisted it but I don't like to start a series that is not finished yet while there are so many books already out I want to read. Can this first book be read by itself or do you feel frustrated waiting for the sequel?

>46 chlorine: There are loose ends but the main threads are wrapped up. But clearly there is a lot more to the story.

>45 majkia:
I have Velocity Weapon on my gigantic TBR list. It does sound good.

I have now read books two and three of the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire. Down Among the Sticks and Bones and Beneath the Sugar Sky. Both are good books but very different in approach to the idea of alternative worlds.

>44 JayneCM:
You are correct Down Among the Sticks and Bones is really good! But it is also different from the other books in the series. You know - different worlds - different rules. Logic and Nonsense.

I just finished A Criminal Magic by Lee Kelly. Magical transformation plays a major role in the plot.

I am reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. It does have transformation in it as a one of the major themes. I am enjoying it but unfortunately I am not going to finish it by the end of today.

>51 Kristelh: lol - that is pretty much what I came here to say. I am about halfway through Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson but it won't get finished today.

>52 leslie.98: Given the size of the book it's no wonder you can't read half of it in one day! :)

>51 Kristelh: >52 leslie.98: To each their own but personally I consider a challenge completed if I began or finished the book in the right month, so I at leat consider your challenges a success! :)

Thank goodness there were 29 days last month! I finished a 900 page tome I happened upon at the local used book store that specializes in sci-fi and fantasy and was I ever blown away (both at the strength of the book and finishing it in this shortest month). Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey is the story of an abandoned child's transformation to courtesan to spy to ambassador and finally to a landholder. It's set in a historical fiction France (Terre d'Ange), with some Germany (Skaldia), Ireland (Eire), and England (Alba) also intertwined. Definitely not a young adult novel (by any means) it is gloriously written in the style of Guy Gavriel Kay and Patricia A. McKillip.