thevampiremars's reviews
207 reviews

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

fast-paced

3.0

I know I’m going against the grain by not giving this book a high rating, but I genuinely feel that Are Prisons Obsolete? fails to answer or properly consider its central question, and that the points it does raise are largely underdeveloped, misguided, and ultimately unconvincing. I say this as someone who already supports prison abolition, who picked up this book hoping to find well-articulated arguments and suggestions for alternatives to the prison system.

Sexual assault, labour exploitation, medical experimentation – these are all things that happen in prisons but they are not inherent to the prison system, no matter how prevalent they might be. If we were to eliminate one or all of these occurrences, the fundamental character of the prison would not change. These are arguments for prison reform and regulation, not abolition.

Likewise, the racism angle does nothing to challenge the prison system itself, only to argue that the wrong people are sent to prison. Also... maybe there is a direct lineage that can be traced from slavery to the modern prison system but it’s not made clear here; the comparison seems superficial, noting that black people are disproportionately represented in the prison population so therefore it’s akin to slavery. Yes, both systems are fundamentally racist, but pointing this out doesn’t convincingly prove they are the same system or two sides of the same coin. Black people are more likely to be deemed “criminal” and sent to prison than white people who commit the same offences, who might face lighter sentences or no punishment at all (this much is abundantly clear). That does not equate, however, to black people being sent to prison expressly to become slaves. It’s a weak argument. Or maybe I’m wildly misunderstanding it?

I did appreciate Davis’s notes on the gendering of punishment (“deviant men have been constructed as criminal, while deviant women have been constructed as insane.”) I thought that was a valuable addition to the conversation on prison abolition/reform which often focuses on the subjectivities of male inmates (or inmates generally, assumed to be male by default), and it’s always worthwhile to factor mental institutions into discussions on criminalisation and imprisonment.

What, then, would it mean to imagine a system in which punishment is not allowed to become the source of corporate profit? How can we imagine a society in which race and class are not primary determinants of punishment? Or one in which punishment itself is no longer the central concern in the making of justice?

Only in the last ten pages does Davis propose alternative approaches to justice, including an emphasis on “reparation rather than retribution”. She suggests decriminalising drug use and sex work, which is a good start. But it’s disappointing that such a small portion of the pagecount actually addresses the question of what might replace prisons, and it offers only a few vague ideas and anecdotes. This ought to have been the substance of the book.

This is hardly a prison abolitionist manifesto. A good primer, maybe, if you haven’t given much thought to prisons and what goes on inside them.

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

Incredibly long-winded and dense and sometimes difficult to parse. Still, I think it’s well worth reading for Foucault’s keen insights not only on the origin/evolution of punishment but on its context within society, its connections to psychiatry, pedagogy/the education system, military discipline, etc. A couple of concepts that stood out to me as I was reading were 1) the idea that criminals (and madmen and perverts) are individualised and deemed distinct from a collective Normal People, and 2) that power produces reality rather than acting negatively (ie: limiting, destroying, negating). I’d like to read Foucault’s writings on madness/mental illness.

Another reviewer (modestothemouse) said “reading Foucault is like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer wrapped in velvet” and, having now finished this book, I totally understand what they meant. I need a lie down.

Cynosure by Jessica Peng

emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

3.5

I am cruel to this woman, for no real reason. Perhaps we both needed a goal.

At first I took this comic at face value, and I projected my own assumptions about how a story/conflict is supposed to play out. I thought it felt incomplete, lacking. But the ending recontextualised everything and gave me pause, so I reread the whole thing.

Two women torment each other just because – they’re both trapped in a shitty situation and don’t know what else to do. Instead of a typical violent climax where one triumphs over the other, they break the cycle and learn to forgive/be forgiven.

I still think it feels incomplete; more could have been done to build tension before that resolution. That said, I really appreciate what this comic does <3

A Three Body Problem by Tan Juan Gee

adventurous hopeful fast-paced

3.0

I like the artwork. The clean lines and blocks of blue give the comic a bit of a blueprint feel, which is apt for a sci-fi story featuring spaceships and cyborgs (maybe the author could have leant into this when

Io was depicted opened up and having their parts replaced

) It also fits the anticapitalist perspective (spotlighting how everything (and everyone) is viewed by capitalists as an asset to be exploited) ...Or maybe Tan just likes the colour blue?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wasn’t impressed by the story itself. I don’t think the comic does enough to drive home its political message. I know capitalism is exploitative but the text doesn’t demonstrate that – beyond the first page or two we don’t see Io working, so their line about “do[ing] all the work” falls flat. The murder mystery plotline was incredibly predictable too.

I dunno. I like the concept but in the end A Three Body Problem doesn’t quite hit the mark.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

Brisk; doesn’t outstay its welcome. The ~relatable~ sarcastic introvert thing doesn’t do a whole lot for me but I actually did find Murderbot endearing – vexed yet vulnerable is a good combination of traits to play with in your main character.

I had fun with it. I’m not rushing to read the rest of the series but if the mood strikes me I may revisit this socially awkward SecUnit at some point. 

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

slow-paced

2.0

“Only a Radchaai would misgender people the way you do.”

I had high hopes for this book, having seen rave reviews and recommendations and the array of awards it won. I was disappointed.

It is not well written (“Her voice was slightly breathy, and I thought maybe she was hyperventilating slightly.”) The paper-thin plot is stretched to fill four hundred pages, with the resulting pacing issues not helped by backstory/exposition dumps. The slow then lurching narrative is unintentionally comedic (dare I say camp?) (the bridge scene, oh my god...) Overall it’s just not compelling which is a real shame because there are a few concepts which could have been intriguing had they been handled better.

I feel like I have to comment on the pronoun usage, which is probably the most talked-about aspect of this book. The POV character and narrator, Breq, refers to everyone with she/her pronouns. At first I assumed this was because she’s an AI and (despite not struggling with any other aspects of human speech and expression) she can’t wrap her head around the concept of gender. Defaulting to she/her made sense considering she is a ship AI specifically; ships are often referred to as she, so maybe Breq interprets she as a gender neutral pronoun. Neat. But it was later revealed that this universal she/her usage is not unique to AIs and is instead part of Radchaai culture (sort of) – they don’t use gendered pronouns in their language.

I had a look at Leckie’s website and in her FAQ she kind of dodges the question of why she chose to use she/her pronouns in this way. Yes, Radchaai language doesn’t use gendered pronouns, but why use she when “translating” the text to English instead of the actually gender neutral pronoun they? Maybe it’s supposed to be a feminist counter to generic he? I can’t assume that’s the intention behind it though because every explanation I’ve come up with so far has been proven false.

Here’s the thing: I’d heard that this book has some interesting things to say about gender, so I went in looking for that. I couldn’t find anything substantial and satisfying so I had to project my own interpretations onto what crumbs there were.

As I said at the start of this review, I set my expectations high. Maybe too high. Maybe I’m being unreasonable expecting Leckie’s debut novel to be something spectacular. But the accolades and the praise... I don’t know. It’s another instance of me reading a book, being totally underwhelmed, and left wondering what others see in it that I don’t. For me, Ancillary Justice doesn’t live up to the hype at all. 

Mercury Retrograde by Emily Segal

sad medium-paced

3.5

There’s a folkloristic idea of “common knowledge” that I sometimes think of when I try to remember what Marcus and I actually talked about when we discussed our projects. A lot of it was just pressured assent. Not exactly pressured by one another, more like pressured against an absent voice, the voice of the art world or perhaps the world-world, which we thought had the wrong ideas about cooperation, the wrong ideas about appropriation, the wrong ideas about authenticity, the wrong ideas about the lives of artists. At the same time we were still romantic about what we were doing. There was a quest-vibe to it. But there weren’t a lot of proper nouns.

At first, I thought my mental illness was considered a mark of belonging. I thought I was destigmatizing something by describing my new medication to any coworker who asked; now I’m not so sure. Maybe it was brave, weird, exhibitionist, socially suicidal, or all of the above. Maybe I just felt scared and alone, and thought that talking about it would make me feel less disconnected and better understood. I wanted the sustenance of friends looking on and knowing that I was imperfect and touched by the devils and angels of madness.

Our friendship was like stilts.

Any Other City by Hazel Jane Plante

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

Kind of soft and hard. Like pretty and angry. Like quiet and loud. You look confused, and that is perfect. It’s kind of like music for confused people.

Memoir or novel? It seems to be semi-autobiographical. Tracy is a self-insert (or maybe the opposite of a self-insert; a device to remove oneself from the narrative). The author avoids difficult introspection. She tries to be raw and honest but from a safe distance and with the defence of this being a work of fiction. Not that novels can’t be raw and honest, but this particular book has detachment baked in.

What makes this particularly frustrating is the spotlighting of art; artworks presented and deconstructed, songwriting demonstrated with the intention behind lyrics explained. It sets the reader up to analyse and interpret this novel. But I really don’t know what to make of it. Maybe that detachment I mentioned is entirely intentional on the author’s part; Tracy drifts aimlessly until she finds an inspiring grownup to imprint upon, she goes along with what they want, then there’s a timeskip and she’s out, she’s making music, she’s having lots of sex, but none of it feels real (maybe because she’s not real, she’s a fictional version of something real), and this could be a meta commentary on the nature of autobiography and storytelling more broadly, with direct comparison drawn with the dissociation that so many trans people experience as they reflect upon their lives and transitions, as well as the disruption brought on by trauma. Or maybe not. Was it the author’s intention to make me think about intention? Or am I trying to project meaning onto something that is ultimately shallow and only gesturing at depth and substance?

I really did want to like this book but every time I thought it might be doing something interesting, something annoying would happen (everyone clapped). I’ve been left with lots of questions that I don’t feel compelled to seek answers for. It is what it is.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

3.0

I really liked the first short story in this collection, titled “The Repairer of Reputations”. It’s a surprising mix of sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction, with evocative imagery made dubious by the unreliable narrator. It’s infused with dark humour, and these tumbling contradictions and twisted truths make for some good political satire, for example the decriminalisation of suicide being seized upon by the government, warped from a declaration of bodily autonomy into a warrant to execute those deemed undesirable. I would gladly read a novella or novel following this story’s protagonist, Hildred, and his delusional perception of the world. Good prose.

Unfortunately, the rest of this book doesn’t meet the expectations set by that first story. There are a few fairly run-of-the-mill gothic tales; decent, but nothing spectacular. The last two or three stories abandon the supernatural elements altogether, instead detailing the romantic exploits of some American artists in Paris. I have to admit I skimmed those (they were quite boring). They feel very out of place and weaken the collection as a whole. 

The Three Electroknights by Stanisław Lem

funny inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.0

Sci-fi fairytales. Whimsical and absurd. Refreshing after being bogged down by Dune.

These stories were taken from a collection called Mortal Engines. I want to read that full collection at some point.