Every Book Is a Conversation

Every book is a conversation between the author and the world in which the book was written, even when the book is science fiction or fantasy. That's why there are now generational divides in fandom. It was inevitable. if the genre lasted long enough, "classics" would fade and be replaced.

The divides have been more bitter because society has changed so much in the last sixty years in terms of morality and technology, especially. Liking certain books is now unacceptable because the authors are unacceptable.

I'm an old fart. I try to read new things, to stay current. But a lot of the time it feels more like eating my vegetables than the thrill of consumption I felt when I first began my SFF journey.

That said, I've read four books in the last few years that broke through the ennui:

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) 

The Fifth Season (NK Jemisin) 

Three Parts Dead (Max Gladstone) 

Zoo City (Lauren Beukes)

I didn't love all of them unconditionally, but all of them felt radically new, fundamentally strange and self-consistent. Worth reading.(Now that I think about it, all of them are fantasy...or at least they posit physical systems that are inconsistent with current thinking about physics and human biology.)

But finding them, and reading them, was like going to a party full of strangers half my age and chatting them up one by one until I found the handful that were simpatico enough to make for an interesting evening.

It took work, y'all. I had to work to have fun. Because the authors that fed my soul when I was a kid were having a conversation closer to me in time; and because (maybe) I had more energy, more curiosity, and fewer defenses as a reader. I have to be intentional about my pleasure reading now - researching books and writers beforehand, looking through award lists, soliciting recommendations.

Walking is harder for me than it used to be. Getting a solid eight hours of sleep is a vanished dream. More and more days go by in a gray haze of semi-alertness, matched by a pallid six hours of nighttime exhaustion. And now even reading books for pleasure is more difficult.

Aging isn't for the weak, kids.

Just letting you know upfront.