I was having dinner with the wonderful founder of the Seattle Ladies’ Comic Book Club the other night and she recommended a book she had read recently, Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I was excited to get my hands on a spec fic work by a female Muslim author, so I dove right in. As a brief summary: Alif is a gray hat hacker in an unnamed middle eastern city state who has devoted his talents to helping anyone who wanted to stay one step ahead of their governments’ censorship on the net. Islamists, Feminists, Anarchists, he didn’t much care what your views were, he would help you be able to share them with less fear of persecution. Until one day it all comes toppling down on his head and he ends up begging for help from none other than a jinn living at the edge of the market.

Coming to this book after a long string of mediocre reading was a serious breath of fresh air. The writing is crisp and clear, the characters multi-dimensional, and the world understandable, even for a white-bread American girl like me. In fact, when I was about 2/3 of the way through the book, I actually downloaded a copy of the Quran so I can read some of the referenced stories and passages for myself when I am next in a scholarly mood. I was continuously impressed with Wilson’s handling of situations around things such as veils or other cultural differences as they never came across as alien or alienating. One of the main supporting characters, Dina, has chosen a veiled life for the sake of piety, and I felt like I understood the basic nuances of her choices, her family’s dismay at her choice, and felt she was all the stronger for having made it, which is an entirely foreign concept to me. Thus, impressed.

There was also an excellently executed commentary on political power, revolutions, gender dynamics, and belief woven delicately through the novel. If all you were looking to read was a rollicking magical/techno book, Wilson’s messages never got in the way. But if you were willing to look deeper into the text, there was a lot of fascinating discussion going on. I highly recommend picking this up or putting into your queue to read sometime in the near future. Now, please excuse me while I add all her other books (and comic books!) to my list to read.