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I Who Have Never Known Men, The Martian, & Elantris - 3 Books for February

I Who Have Never Known Men, The Martian, & Elantris - 3 Books for February
Photo by Rey Seven / Unsplash

Last month I read three books! Very unusual for me. Here's a quick recap:

Book #1: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

This book was lent to me by a friend of mine. It's a good read, pretty short. It creates a world that is very rich and intriguing while somehow revealing almost nothing about it.

A group of women have been kept underground as long as they can remember. Some have vague memories of a calamity that forced them there, but they can't remember any detail. They are attended to by a group of guards who never speak. One day, the guards vanish and the women escape to a desolate wasteland that only provides more questions than answers.

At its heart, this book is more of a philosophical thought experiment than a science fiction tale. It is more interested in examining the psyches of its narrator character and her co-captives than unraveling the mysteries of how they got there in the first place.

It's very good, but not exactly an uplifting story, so be warned. It comes at a good time for me because we've been watching Silo, and it's hard for me not to draw parallels to that story.

Book #2: The Martian by Andy Weir

This past month I got myself a used, decade-old Kindle from Unclaimed Baggage, and linked my library card through Libby. Changed the game for me. This book was available to loan instantly and I remember hearing it was good so I went for it, mostly to test out the Kindle.

Couldn't be more different than the last book I had read. Where I Who Have Never Known Men is all about a dystopian wasteland and the hopeless internal struggle of the women, The Martian is all about a different kind of wasteland and the quite optimistic external struggles of one man. If the former is more like a philosophical text, the latter is more like a video game. Loved 'em both!

I don't feel like I need to recap this book much, I feel like most people know the premise. I had seen the movie and remembered enjoying it, but didn't remember the plot details. Despite how much some sections feel like I'm back in high school physics class, it does a good job of keeping things interesting, and the narrator-less sections do a great job of building tension.

I've heard his latest book is very good, maybe better than this one, so I've put it on hold at the library. It's a very long wait, but I'm good with that.

Book #3: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

As a dog returns to its vomit, so I have returned to Brando Sando.

Elantris is his first published book and it definitely shows. Despite the sometimes stilted or cliched dialogue, it still manages to become a riveting ride by the end. It's got all the usual elements: living gods, dead gods, holy wars, arranged marriages, trade negotiations, secret death cults, public death cults, demon monasteries, hidden identities, foreign vocabulary, sudden violence, and a balanced and logical magic system. That's all you really need to know. It's good! There's a "post-credits" scene that also ties together some of the other stories I've read of his. It's all coming together now...

What's next

I swung hard to fiction this month, so next up I'm going to try to read some non-fiction. I've just started Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond, which I've been meaning to read for a very long time. As someone living in one of the most unaffordable areas in the country, anything about the housing crisis interests me.

Other books on loan from the library include...