Yun Mi-Kyung - Bride of the Water God, vol. 02 (Eng. trans.)

I have no idea what's going on with the story!

On the other hand, I don't care because the clothes and architecture are GORGEOUS. Just... gorgeous! And there are flying ships and spreads of Korean cosmology and maids who turn into birds and tattoos and did I mention the beautiful clothes?

I have no brain today, so everything under the cut is very mish-mash.

( Spoilers )

In conclusion: tattoos and wet shirts.

ETA: here, have pictures of a guy in a wet shirt (if you look closely, you can see the dragon tattoo under it. Also, while you're there, flip through the excerpt because it is just that pretty.

Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi - The Shadow Speaker

I liked this better than Zahrah the Windseeker because it felt larger and more threatening.

Ejii is a shadow speaker, one of the four in her town. She's also the daughter of a power-hungry chief who was put into his place by Jaa the Red Queen. She lives in Niger in 2070, after what is called the Great Change has brought magic back to Earth. She ends up a-questing for some reason or another and joins up with a boy named Dikeogu.

I give rotten summary.

Anyway! There is adventure and gods and other worlds. Much like with Zahrah, the language of this is sometimes too simple for me, or too obvious; I wanted less explanation of emotions and more seeing them on display. The beginning also suffered the same flaw of Zahrah -- I never quite believed that Ejii and Dikeogu were in danger, and when two kids are a-questing across the Sahara Desert, I should be more worried about them.

On the other hand, things got much better once we met up with Jaa again. I very much liked Jaa as a character, particularly the contrasts of her small frame and her large sword, her strength and her propensity toward violence, how she is always an uneasy ally to Ejii. I also liked how large the ending felt and how all the ends weren't tied up and neatly solved.

What struck me the most about the book wasn't the characters so much as the setting. I love how central Africa is, how you get the sense of the US on the periphery (there was one scene in particular that I loved for this), but it's all about Africa. I love the references to all the languages and the different ethnicities, the sense of history, so much place. I love watching it show up in 2070 Niger and in Genin, and I particularly love Okorafor-Mbachu's explanation as to why people in Genin look African. Her acknowledgements note that Nigeria is one of her muses, and it shows in the best of ways.

Links:
- revena's review