Exercise, in any form, goes hand-in-hand with rest. No bodybuilder lifts billion-pound dumbbells seven days a week. No marathon runner runs twenty miles every day. Proper exercise involves planning days of lighter exercise between the days when your muscles get put to the test. These rest days are critical for preventing injury and building muscle strength and endurance. The same can be said for your brain; while not a muscle (popular misconception!), your brain needs rest days too. 

Have you ever pulled an all-nighter to cram for a test only to find your mind blank when the proctor tells you to begin? Or pulled several days of overtime at your job only to come home for the weekend and binge-watch TV? Overworking our brains leads to this kind of low-level burnout, akin to a runner getting shin splints. Don’t listen to grind or productivity culture- if you don’t set aside time for your brain to rest and rebuild, it’ll only get worse. It’s important to set aside time to do something fun or relaxing when you feel your brain getting “sore”. 

A couple weeks ago, I noticed my brain getting sore. It wasn’t until I binged Bridgerton Season 2 did I realize that I was working a little too hard (“I will stop,” Anthony Bridgerton said on-screen; “I won’t,” I said, shoveling more mint-chip ice cream into my mouth). What’s lucky is that, even though I’m not great at recognizing my body’s cues, I am pretty good at predicting my own future. The book I chose for May, my birthday month, is a rest day for my brain: a sci-fi/fantasy novella. Shoutout to 2021 Cyndy for recognizing that after two books that are a complete departure from my normal fare I’d need something to relax with.

In The Watchful City, a debut book from author S. Qiouyi Lu, is a queer bio-cyberpunk sci-fi novella set in the city of Ora. The main character, Anima, is tasked with keeping the city safe, watching over Ora with extrasensory abilities. From the reviews I’ve read, the book touches on power, boundaries, and diaspora, all within the framework of short stories and an overarching theme. At this point, I would typically list the awards the book has won or the fellowships the author was granted after publishing. In The Watchful City has no awards I could find, no great acclaim besides one article I found it mentioned in about fresh sci-fi. This choice is intentional. 

I’ll admit that when I pick books for this blog, I look for books that have received a lot of attention or awards. Awards often dictate what will be passed down through the literary canon as “Important Work”, what books will be given to future generations as classics. These are good books to read if for no other reason than a lot of people agree they are good (and how often can people agree on stuff these days?). That said, the publishing industry, book marketing, and the foundations that give out awards are all intertwined. These big three, though getting better, are still woefully behind in buying, promoting, and awarding diverse books from diverse authors. We must seek out authors of different backgrounds that don’t have book awards, to support their craft and explore the ideas and communities they represent in their books. 

One of the reasons I chose In The Watchful City was the blurb’s inclusion of neopronouns. Neopronouns are pronouns used by people who do not feel “he”, “she”, or “they” accurately describe their gender, or have issues with the singular “they”. In reading up on this book, I found several different characters use neopronouns such as “æ/ær/ær”, “se/ser/ser” or “e/em/eir”. While this may take a little getting used to, I am so excited to see a revaluation of gender in a sci-fi world. Ever since reading The Left Hand of Darkness by Our Queen Ursula K. LeGuin, I’ve always wondered how sci-fi can look into far-flung futures, break the boundaries of our imagination, and question what it means to be human and still be restricted by the gender binary. One of the biggest criticisms of Left Hand, a book that clearly calls into question our perceptions of gender, is that LeGuin used male pronouns to refer to the genderfluid people of Gethen. To see new work by an author that goes all-in on questioning the gender binary’s relevance in the future is wonderful. 

Another construct that seems to be called into question in In The Watchful City is that of the linear narrative. Every review I’ve seen has mentioned it (sometimes as a positive and sometimes as a negative), so I know not to expect a straight Hero’s Journey. It’s been compared to Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, a book where two historical figures, Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, discuss different cities through prose. Each city has its own short vignette and then a discussion before moving on to the next. Those discussions between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan are used as a framing device for the rest of the vignettes, allowing short little stories to unfold between their interludes. Knowing that In The Watchful City’s Anima possesses extrasensory abilities and keeps watch over the entirety of Ora, there is a lot of potential for several stories to appear, whether past, present, future, or simultaneous. 

All of this, combined with what I’ve heard about how many unique cultures are represented, makes this book perfect for my “rest day” (though it’s more of a rest month!). It has all the marks of a book I’ll enjoy and, even if I don’t, will at least open my mind to new possibilities within the sci-fi genre. I hope you’ll join me in reading this book- it’s a short one! The main barrier I need to mention is that I had issues finding it on my library apps or at my local library. You can always request it via your librarian or you can buy it at one of the links in the Book of the Month tab. I’ve seen the price range between eight and fifteen dollars for brand new, which is a great price and an awesome chance to support the author. 

A little bit of housekeeping before I sign off for this week: 

1. As May has five Sundays, there will be no post on May 15th. I know you’ll all be bereft without me throwing a thousand words at you that week. 
2. If you’re not following the Tea Reads Instagram already, I highly recommend it. There may or may not be a little contest I’m running starting tomorrow, May 2nd. 

I hope everyone’s excited for In The Watchful City this month! I look forward to sharing my thoughts on it with you. Until then, happy reading!