October Reading

I read Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin (Hugo winner!). I liked it a lot and found it super compelling. I could not stop reading, wanting to know who was behind the spin and how it would resolve. I liked the explanation and the science and possibility of the ending, but it did feel slightly too happy. When an ending is *that* happy, it sort of makes the rest of the book feel like “why the heck was I so angsty this whole time?” But that was only the final pages, and I understand why Wilson made that choice. It still made sense, and it was *very* cool science.

I also read Dalia Sofer’s The Septembers of Shiraz, about what happened in Iran in 1982 when the Shah died. I love books about regular people caught up in political upheaval, so this story naturally appealed to me. In it, a man is falsely imprisoned and tortured for being a spy. His family deals with his absence in interesting ways. The writing was beautiful and poignant in many places, and the story was absolutely engaging. Although Sofer used the quiet-slip-into-backstory trick a few too many times, the plot was solid. It gave a vivid picture of what Iran was like in those days. I’d recommend the book if you like political history novels.