Book notes
Later I would see that my mother’s broken English was far more beautiful than my perfect one. She had a strong voice, writers would say. ‘I got no wave’ is so much more evocative than ‘My phone isn’t getting reception’.
Dina Nayeri • The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You
“Occasionally,” she says. Her face is expressionless, but there is something in her voice that troubles me. “Follow me.”
N. K. Jemisin • The Stone Sky: The Broken Earth, Book 3, WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD 2018 (Broken Earth Trilogy)
Set tone with hinting uneasiness
Fat Charlie went back down to the end of the corridor, and knocked on the door. ‘What is it now?’ ‘I want to talk.’ The door clicked and swung open. Fat Charlie went inside. Spider was reclining, naked, in the hot tub. He was drinking something more or less the colour of electricity from a long, frosted glass. The huge picture windows were now wide
... See moreNeil Gaiman • Anansi Boys
Use of straightforward then descriptive sentences
“A moon,” you say. It’s a strange word, brief and round; you’re not sure how much to stretch out the oo sound in the middle.
N. K. Jemisin • The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2, WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD 2017 (Broken Earth Trilogy)
She was also quite tall for a little old lady,
Ben Aaronovitch • Rivers of London: The First Rivers of London novel (A Rivers of London novel Book 1)
The clumping masses of its buildings are punctuated by great high towers like fingers of stone, hand-wrought lanterns powered by the modern marvel of hydroelectricity, delicately arching bridges woven of glass and audacity, and architectural structures called balconies that are so simple, yet so breathtakingly foolish, that no one has ever built
... See moreN. K. Jemisin • The Fifth Season: The Broken Earth, Book 1, WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD 2016
New Scotland Yard was once an ordinary office block that was leased by the Met in the 1960s. Since then the interior of the senior offices had been refitted several times, most recently during the 1990s, easily the worst decade for institutional decor since the 1970s.
Ben Aaronovitch • Rivers of London: The First Rivers of London novel (A Rivers of London novel Book 1)
Nassun walks the cobbled path above the terrace briskly, with her head down so that she can concentrate on not stumbling, since she can’t sess anything after whatever Schaffa did to the six-ringed woman. She’s always known that Guardians can shut down orogeny, but never felt it before. It’s hard to walk when she can only perceive the ground with
... See moreN. K. Jemisin • The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2, WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD 2017 (Broken Earth Trilogy)
How much something (sess in this case) affects normal funcftioming
At another comm, whose people don’t even bother to warn them before aiming crossbows, it is Nassun who saves them. She does this by wrapping her arms around her father and setting her teeth in the earth and dragging every iota of life and heat and movement out of the whole comm until it is a gleaming frosted confection of ice-slivered slate walls
... See moreN. K. Jemisin • The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2, WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD 2017 (Broken Earth Trilogy)
Good time passing