Kindred - Octavia Butler

Kindred is unlike anything I have read before. Set in the 1970s, it is the tale of a modern Black woman living in California who suddenly begins to experience involuntary time travel episodes to antebellum Maryland. Each time Dana is transported to the past, she arrives at a moment of extreme peril for a young plantation owner's son named Rufus Weylin. Repeatedly saving Rufus' life leads them to develop an unlikely bond, but as Rufus gets older and takes over running the plantation (and its many slaves), and as Dana gets sucked into the past for longer and longer stays, she learns first-hand the ugly realities of slavery and the complexity of the relationships it breeds. A truly remarkable and original tale, offering a very compelling first-person account of a cruel and strange time in American history. Powerful and a must-read, in my opinion.

The Peripheral - William Gibson

The Peripheral is Gibson's most recent novel, and it did not disappoint. The tale opens in a a world that appears to be our near future, the logical extension of our society's tendency to favor technological advancement amidst crumbling physical infrastructure. The increasingly unstable economy is marked by intensified monopolization, and the average person can only get wealthy by "funny" means - "building" (producing and selling drugs), or "fabbing" (3D printing) prohibited items. Our morally-conscious protagonists - a wounded special ops veteran named Burton and his spunky sister, Flynne - choose instead to eke out a living by playing security forces in a video game for a mysterious employer. It is during one of these gaming sessions that Flynne becomes sole witness to a gruesome murder, an event that ignites a series of radical changes in their lives and world. The novel is ultimately set in two futures, whose inhabitants are able to influence each other by means of shared "peripheral" technology. Fascinating stuff, as always!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

In contrast to The Prince and the Pauper, this gorgeous Folio Society Edition is Twain at his most critical, sarcastic and mordant.  The title suggests a romance or comic adventure - the tack taken by the gauzy 1949 movie starring Bing Crosby - but from the very beginning, though wildly funny in places, this is a fierce critique of human nature and society.  And the illustrations, by David Hughes, are perfectly married to this dark text.

Twain wrote the sweet and simple Prince and the Pauper in 1881, followed by Huck Finn - not so sweet or simple - and then Connecticut Yankee in 1889.  While Prince and the Pauper celebrates human mercy, Connecticut Yankee emphasizes

The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world.  And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor.

There is much humor - some sly (The chapter titled Morgan le Fey starts, "If knights errant were to be believed, not all castles were desirable places to seek hospitality in.") and some uproarious:

It was a very fine show.  In a gallery a band with cymbals, horns, harps, and other horrors, opened the proceedings with what seemed to be the crude first-draft or original agony of the wail known to later centuries as 'In the Sweet By and By'.  It was new, and ought to have been rehearsed a little more.  For some reason or other the queen had the composer hanged after dinner.

But the foundation of the book is the brutal and callous treatment of poor or powerless people by the lords and Church.  Some of these episodes are heart-rending.  And, without spoilers, the conclusion of the book is that in general, men are powerfully molded by society, making it nearly impossible to reform the oppressor or free the oppressed.

This is a powerful and wonderful book, simply but beautifully written, portraying, with love, sympathy, humor and horror, the full range of human behavior.