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Locus Awards²⁶ finalists

Posted in Books with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2026 by xi'an

[Here are the ten finalists in some categories of the Locus Awards for 2026. Run by the Locus Magazine. With some usual suspects, but also authors I never heard of. Interestingly, Locus has a translation category!]

SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS

FANTASY NOVELS

FIRST NOVELS

TRANSLATED NOVEL

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a journal of the extremes year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2025 by xi'an

 Read Carrying on by Stewart Tolnay, for no clear reason a posteriori! The story centres in a successful sociology senior professor in an imaginary university in Seattle (which also appears in the 1996 Sentinel), who finds himself arm-bent into becoming the new HoD and the subsequent difficulties he faces against some contrarian colleague. While this should obviously appeal to me, and despite the novel being written by a former faculty at Udub, the scenario quickly plummets down to unimaginable depths of boredom and suspension of belief. The main character is transparent, with a whining tendency and a personality as solid as a sodden marshmallow, and the other ones are almost uniformly caricatures as perfect representatives of minorities. Without getting into spoiling details, the main antagonist to this unlikely HoD conveniently accumulates all “qualities” a colleague should not possess, with an unrealistic ability to cross most of the department. More glaringly, research seems unimportant, except when applying for an NSF grant or when attending a conference where the future HoD behaves in a most unethical way imho. Add to this an endless accumulation of details about a new dog acquired by the HoD to recover from a divorce (!) and the collection of all the menus enjoyed by the HoD and his friend, and there is no compelling reason to carry on.

Also read Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, the Winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 jointly received by Banu Mushtaq, the author of the short stories in Kannada and Deepa Bhasthi, her translator into English. A beautiful, moving, profound book that builds on the everyday woes of Karnataka Muslim women to expose the wrongs of a deeply patriarchal society that denies freedom and autonomy to women. The writing style is deceptively set at a narrative level that could be found in mundane conversations, with a powerful translation, grounded in collaboration with the author, keeping some words from the original, that is prize-worthy by itself!, but may mean readers from other cultures missing some aspects of the book. In the postface, the translator Deepa Bhasthi exposes her difficulties and choices, pointing out at the differences in the Kannada versions both women speak. The Booker recognition is both definitely richly deserved for a unique piece of literature and for signaling the richness and diversity of Indian literature that Modi’s goons would like to replace by an Hindu monoculture.

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Kazuo Iwamura (1939-2024)

Posted in Books, Kids with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2025 by xi'an

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a journal of the plague and pestilence year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2022 by xi'an

Hard to concentrate on anything while a European capital is besieged and shelled by Russia… The second horseman of the apocalypse (representing War) has joined the first one (called Pestilence).

Read the hiking story, L’île-montagne, written by Gilles Modica on his n-th traverse of Corsica, from South to North, of the mythical GR20 hiking trail. A gift from Florence at my p-th birthday party, after she spotted my blog entry on my few hours on that trail… While the author does not appear there as a particularly sympathique personnage, with a common form of mountaineering elitism, the call of the mountains and the intrinsic and wild beauty of the trail is undeniable. Renewing my desire to hike more of it. And the story is full of fascinating historical tidbits. As with so many mountain books, it reads better with a detailed map at one’s side, unless one is already familiar with every rock and every cow on the GR20. (There is a map at the start, but partial maps on the margin would have been more helpful. Esp. for a top quality editor like Guérin.) I also went quickly through two volumes of Arnaldur Indriðason‘s Inspector Konrad new trilogy, The Darkness knows and The Girl by the Bridge, in their French translation. Ending up rather disappointed with a feeling of déjà vu. For the first one, the themes of Indriðason are there (impact of the second World War, poverty, domestic violence, childhood memories, icefields). With the added annoyance of seeing the same events reported twice within a few pages. For the second, it brought back the memory of walking in the downtown Reykjavik cemetery, a few years ago, in less dramatic circumstances, but otherwise, I found the scenario rather lazy and the resolution predictable. With an added touch of supernatural, which I do not appreciate at all outside fantasy books!

Watched All of Us Are Dead, a (of course!) Korean zombie series.  At first as a way to temporarily escape the anxiogenic influx of horrific news from Ukraine with a brainless diversion… Despite my general reluctance for zombie movies. And then for the powerful satire behind the story! The construction of the network of the few teenagers escaping their former colleagues indeed proves rather efficient, with the characters growing into several dimensions, if the scenario is overly stretched, and too prompt to sacrificing a member of the group when tension goes down. Incl. some most unexpectedly, scenario-wise… But it remains biting, humorous, moving at times, full of references to the Korean zombie culture (incl. many to Last train for Busan) and the shortcomings of a competitive and inegalitarian society…

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waste tide

Posted in Books, pictures, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2021 by xi'an

I presumably bought this book upon a suggestion made by the Amazon AI. It sounded quite original and interesting. And translated by Ken Liu. I had not seen the above cover, but it would have only helped. (And reminded me of the daunting and bittersweet Tales from the Loop.)

“None of this, of course, existed in the digital world. In their place were highly abstract algorithms and programs that turned the complicated messy world into a set of mathematical models and topological spaces. Like a real spiderweb, the web would be deformed by any insect that got caught into it, and the rate at which such deformation evolved exceeded the rate at which information might be transmitted under the restricted-bitrate regulations. In this world, the shortest path between two points was no longer the straight line.”

Waste Tide is immensely puzzling and definitely interesting. A Chinese form of Neuromancer…. With further links to the Windup Girl. The location of the novel is a near-future island in Guiyu, China. Where the World electric waste ends up, to be processed and recycled by “waste people”. Who are despised by the original inhabitants of the island. And exploited by clans and American companies. Several of the main characters find themselves torn between several cultures, but these characters often sound a bit too caricaturesque. Just like the take-over of a “waste girl” by a residual AI is somewhat clumsy. Far from the constructs of Neuromancer or Windup Girl.

Another interesting side of the book is the translation by Ken Liu, who also translated The Three Body Problem. As well as published short stories of his own. The preface warns about the multiple languages co-existing in China, beyond the most well-known Cantonese and Mandarin and the book includes footnotes about the proper pronunciation of some words.

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