3.5
The Best of All Possible Worlds
ByPublisher Description
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED • A stunning epic that is at once a new vision of science fiction and a deeply moving love story, from the award-winning author of Redemption in Indigo
“An engrossing picaresque quest, a love story, and a moving character study . . . [Karen] Lord is on a par with Ursula K. Le Guin.”—The Guardian
A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, leaving the survivors no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life but discover that to protect their culture, they may have to change it forever.
Now a man and a woman from opposite sides of these clashing societies must work together to save this vanishing race—and end up uncovering ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. As their mission hangs in the balance, these unlikely partners—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all.
Includes two bonus short stories
“[A] fascinating and thoughtful science fiction novel that examines] adaptation, social change, and human relationships. I’ve not read anything quite like it, which makes it that rare beast: a true original.”—Kate Elliott, author of the Crown of Stars series and The Spiritwalker Trilogy
“Reads like smooth jazz comfort food, deceptively familiar and easy going down, but subtly subversive.”—Nalo Hopkinson, Los Angeles Review of Books
“If you want to see science fiction doing something new and fascinating . . . then you shouldn’t sleep on The Best of All Possible Worlds.”—io9
“Rewarding science fiction for emotional grown-ups.”—Mysterious Galaxy
“[A] marvelously formed universe.”—The A.V. Club
“A rewarding, touching and often funny exploration of the forms and functions of human culture.”—SFX
“The Best of All Possible Worlds . . . poses an interesting question: What parts of you do you fight to preserve when everything you know suddenly changes?”—Associated Press
“An engrossing picaresque quest, a love story, and a moving character study . . . [Karen] Lord is on a par with Ursula K. Le Guin.”—The Guardian
A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, leaving the survivors no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life but discover that to protect their culture, they may have to change it forever.
Now a man and a woman from opposite sides of these clashing societies must work together to save this vanishing race—and end up uncovering ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. As their mission hangs in the balance, these unlikely partners—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all.
Includes two bonus short stories
“[A] fascinating and thoughtful science fiction novel that examines] adaptation, social change, and human relationships. I’ve not read anything quite like it, which makes it that rare beast: a true original.”—Kate Elliott, author of the Crown of Stars series and The Spiritwalker Trilogy
“Reads like smooth jazz comfort food, deceptively familiar and easy going down, but subtly subversive.”—Nalo Hopkinson, Los Angeles Review of Books
“If you want to see science fiction doing something new and fascinating . . . then you shouldn’t sleep on The Best of All Possible Worlds.”—io9
“Rewarding science fiction for emotional grown-ups.”—Mysterious Galaxy
“[A] marvelously formed universe.”—The A.V. Club
“A rewarding, touching and often funny exploration of the forms and functions of human culture.”—SFX
“The Best of All Possible Worlds . . . poses an interesting question: What parts of you do you fight to preserve when everything you know suddenly changes?”—Associated Press
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3.5
ConstelaciondeOrion
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Lindsay
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“This is a strange book.
At its core, it's basically a marriage plot - one could say it's a love story, but there's also a huge marriage plot. It's about a planet, Sadira, where an almost total femicide happened, and now the surviving males are on a sort of diplomatic mission to find wives and rebuild the culture (this also means, of course, that it's also super duper heterosexual, because the point of the following marriages would be reproductive).
It doesn't help that the characters involved in the love story are performing current gender roles on crack: the Sadiri men and particularly Dllenahkh are hyper-rational academics into logic and not showing emotion (speaking like Vulcans), and our narrator, Grace Delarua, comes from a hominid species called Ntshune, who tend to be hyper-emotional. Grace has a lot of insecurities about that when it comes to interacting with the Sadiri. Perhaps I'm being unfair, because there is at least one hyper-rational woman, Nasiha, who I rather loved.
So yeah, not a lot of queerness here, because it's all about mating, wanting to mate, genetics and reproduction. There is one non-binary and maybe asexual person mentioned at some point, and an older woman who might be bisexual, maybe?, and then there's apparently a lot of polyamory on the planet they're on, Cygnus, but the focus is strictly monogamous, super annoying. The queerness and non-normative aspects feel perfunctory in how they're introduced.
I'm trying to figure out how I feel about this book while writing the review. Because I absolutely loved it at points. There's a lot here on emotions and how they work and how they're triggered in the lymbic system, and stuff on telepathy, projecting emotion and such that I found fascinating. But the book itself is almost episodic in nature, with jarring leaps of tone from episode to episode and from utter silliness (a sort of shopping montage) to utter darkness (the shopping montage is preceded by a violent attack on a woman, with a knife). The darkness always feels extremely abrupt, taking me out of the narrative - a lot of heavy gaslighting and emotional abuse done through telepathy and also weird consent issues.
The episodic nature of this year-long diplomatic mission means that we're in a fae court story at one point, then in a slavery / oppression one, then a survival story and so on. And I could not follow it emotionally after a while. And it just got weird, but not in a good way?! The most jarring was the final chapter and the backstory elements introduced there made me bump the rating down from 3.5 to 2?!?! That was just mad and I don't even know what to do with that.
Which is such a shame, because I enjoyed the warm, fun narrative voice from the beginning and then my attachment to the characters and the world just dwindled until it was pummelled by that same last chapter. I am still a bit shocked by it, to be honest. So yeah, the book just felt like a mish-mash of way too many elements and the politics of it felt more than iffy to me. I am curious to read the next one in this world, see what happens without the marriage plot aspects, but I don't know.
Also, one last critique: way too many Ray Bradbury references for me to feel ok with it.”
About Karen Lord
Karen Lord has been a physics teacher, a diplomat, a part-time soldier, and an academic at various times and in various countries. She is now a writer and research consultant in Barbados. Her debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, won the Frank Collymore Literary Award, the William L. Crawford Award, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, and was nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
Other books by Karen Lord
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