Review: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

After reading a number of possibly orientalist fantasy stories, I was looking forward to reading "a Golden Compass for the Arab Spring," as one blurb has it.  However, Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson, reminds me less of The Golden Compass and more of The Historian.

Review: Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

"I ain't never been one to trust beautiful people, and Tarrin of the Hariri was the most beautiful man I ever saw."

I had a good feeling about Annana, the pirate heroine of this novel, when I read that first line.  Sure enough, she was a loveable rascal of a narrator who made the pages fly by.  But when I got to the end of The Assasin's Curse, I didn't feel like I knew Annana or the other characters any better than I did on page one. 

Booklist: Beyond Eurofantasy

Until recently, when I thought about diversity in speculative fiction, I thought about people.  Characters, authors, and readers. 

Then I discovered Martha Wells' list of fantasy books by women with settings that aren't vaguely medieval Europe-y (via Book Smugglers).  Or as she calls it "Fantasy by Women who Broke Away from Europe." And that has me thinking about place. 

Certainly, thanks partly to Tolkein and partly to Dungeons and Dragons, the majority of fantasy novels take place in quasi-Nordic, Celtic, or Medieval European settings.  The fact that science fiction and fantasy books are largely populated by white people is obviously related.  However, focusing on setting rather than character opens up new critical approaches.