Eliza Chan on the best book she has read this year, why she could never finish Ulysses and her writing inspirations.
The first book I remember reading:
Probably not the first books I read, but I remember getting a set of children’s classics for Christmas when I was in primary school and they were the first books I owned. Before that, there was a handful of second hand books passed down through my older sisters and my parents were big believers in the local library, but a matching set of book that didn’t have their spines creased and pages thumbed was a monumental occasion in my life! I devoured them all: from Treasure Island to The Secret Garden ,The Water Babies to Heidi. I distinctly recall pleading with my mum to buy goat’s milk and swiftly deciding that perhaps we also needed wooden bowls and mountain air to make it taste any good.
A book I recommend to everyone:
On my honour, my life and my jade, I will never stop recommending Jade City by Fonda Lee, the start of the Green Bone Saga. It’s a gangster family saga but with jade magic to power their martial arts. It has all the messy family dynamics, ruthless morally grey characters, shock twists and sudden violence you’d expect from that mashup. More than that, for non-fantasy readers it’s got an accessible set up (which is absolutely screaming for a TV adaptation) in a modern cityscape. It’s neither our world nor an ancient fantastical Asia — they have cars, drugs and guns. I had never seen anything like it before, and it’s a masterpiece in making you invest and understand the logic of every character, even though I’d most definitely cross the road and run if I met them in real life. Reading Jade City gave me permission to envisage the world of Fathomfolk and Tideborn: modern, multicultural and Asian.
The best book I have read in this year:
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong was my favourite read last year. It’s a cosy fantasy about a travelling fortune teller and the healing power of friendship. I am the type of person who doesn’t read a lot of cosy but this book hit the spot with its commentary on diaspora identity, on breaking away from prescribed roles and enjoying the journey rather than the destination. Honestly if you cried during Encanto, this is the book for you. Bring tissues and lots of snacks, it will make you hungry.
The book I am most looking forward to:
I’m going to cheat here and say all the forthcoming lady knight books! As someone who grew up loving Arthurian tales, Mulan and Eowyn, I am very excited about the number of female knights donning armour and being exceedingly competent with swords. Yes, I am the type of fantasy writer who owns weapons that I don’t know how to use, why do you ask? This includes Tasha Suri’s The Isle in the Silver Sea, Neon Yang’s Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame and V.L. Bovalino’s The Second Death of Locke.
A book I didn’t finish:
Don’t tell my English Literature lecturers this, but it would be Ulysses by James Joyce. I can understand what it’s trying to do, and to some degree its importance, but I did not enjoy the experience one bit. It felt like being at a dinner party with someone grandstanding about how much better they are than every other person in the room.
An author that has inspired me:
So many. Both Ken Liu and Zen Cho’s short fiction for showing me I was allowed to write people who looked like me, and that fantasy can mean so much more than what’s on the surface. David Mitchell and Kazuo Ishiguro for expanding my mind in my 20s on what is form and genre. Authors like Rebecca Roanhorse, Jesse Q. Sutanto and V.E. Schwab who move seamlessly between genres/mediums and write like they’re running out of time — I’ll have what they’re having.
The book I am reading now:
I’m reading The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, a lyrical novella filled with song and poetic folktales. The magic is based in grammar and it reads like a fairytale — the old fickle ones rather than the sanitised cartoon versions. It’s a short read but I’m savouring every moment of it. Amal El-Mohtar is probably better known as one half of This is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone, which organically went viral online three years after release and ended up hitting the bestseller lists. I’ve read a few of her short stories and she is an instant buy author for me.
Eliza Chan grew up near Glasgow. Her no 1 Sunday Times bestselling fantasy Fathomfolk and the sequel Tideborn, exploring identity and revolution in a flooded city of humans and mythological seafolk, are out now.
Read more of The Good Books here.
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