Wrapping up the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge

Despite a late start and the requirement that all books for the challenge should be reviewed (for last year's Grand Master Reading Challenge it was only half that had to be reviewed) I finished with a few weeks to spare. It was more challenging to find reading material for this challenge. One of the rules was that it had to be a book by a female author I had not read anything else of before. Another  That rules out a number of my favourites and quite a few books by female authors I mean to review one of these days. It also meant I couldn't go nosing around in my bookcase for reading material. In the end I read two books that I already owned, borrowed one from my girlfriend, accepted one for review and bought seven specifically for this challenge. The remaining one is Gemsigns, my random read. I won that book in a giveaway over at Worlds Without Ends.

Here is the complete list:

1. Grass- Sherri S. Tepper
2. Sheepfarmer's Daughter - Elizabeth Moon
3. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm
4. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
5. The Secret City - Carol Emshwiller
6. Gemsigns - Stepanie Saulter
7. Jaran - Kate Elliot
8. Who Fear's Death -Nnedi Okorafor
9. Palimpsest - Catherynne M. Valente
10. Arslan - M.J. Engh
11. The Best of All Possible Worlds - Karen Lord
12. Debris - Jo Anderton

Eight of these reviews have also been posted on the World Without Ends blog where they did surprisingly well in the monthly polls. You should check out the rest of the reviews that the owners of the site have selected. There are quite a few very talented reviewers hanging around on that site, reviewing a wide range of books by female authors.

I tried to make my own selection it a mix of classic and more recent work, although I must admit I didn't go back very far. Engh's Alrslan and Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang are both 1976 publications. Those are the oldest. The morst recent is probably either Lord's The Best of all Possible Worlds or Saulter's Gemsigns, both of which are released this year.

When you pick books from authors you haven't read before it chance of picking something that doesn't turn out to be to your taste is always a bit greater. This set of books is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn't like Moon's Sheepfarmer's Daughter at all for instance. Okorafor's Who Fear's Death was probably the most interesting book in terms in a literary sense. I had issues with it, but I it also had quite an impact. It's one of those books one has to admire for dealing with a number of very difficult themes unflinchingly. In terms of sheer enjoyment I probably liked Emshwiller's The Secret City and Lord's The Best of All Possible Worlds best.

There is going to be a new challenge for next year but Worlds Without End hasn't announced what it is going to be yet. I trust them to come up with something interesting so I'll likely be participating. In fact, I'm looking forward to it.

Debris - Jo Anderton

For my twelfth and final read for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I selected Debris (2011) by Jo Anderton. It is a first part in the Veiled World trilogy. The second part, Suited, has been published last year while the third part Unbound is scheduled for sometime next year. I got a whole bunch of Angry Robot title last year for a bargain price and this was one of them. It has been lingering on the electronic to read stack for quite a while now. I even meant to read it earlier in the year for the reading challenge by every time some other book managed to sneak in first. Fortunately for Anderton I ran out of books by women I haven't read anything of before last month so the last slot is hers. As usual with Angry Robot publications, Debris is a book that is hard to put into a specific genre. Their strategy to look for books that are different has given us a number of very good novels but also some that don't work that well. Debris works for the most part but it is not the most challenging read I've come across this year.

Tanyana is one of Varsnia's most important architects. Her supreme tallen in handing the pions, the force that drives most of Varsnia's society, has placed her at the very pinnacle of her filed, in control of one of the most talented circle of pion manipulators. When working on another magnificent construction, two inspectors show up to monitor the work. Promptly, something goes awfully wrong. Tanyana and her circle are attract by a type of pions she has never encountered before and the whole collapses around her. She is seriously wounded in the accident and when she regains consciousness she is discredited, in debt and has lost her talent to see pions. Tanyana has lost everything that defined her life.

Debris is a very fast paced novel. Anderton tries to hit the ground running and in terms of pacing she certainly have. I have wondered if a more measured approach would have worked better in this case. We don't get to see any of Tanyana's life before the accident. What we do learn of it, makes her come across as spoiled and unaware of how privileged she is. Her accident is horrible and obviously not as accidental as the authorities would have us believe but I couldn't quite suppress that feeling that a bit moe humility would have suited her. Because we really can't connect the way she reacts to the trauma of her accident, her response to it doesn't add as much to her character development as it might have.

What is clear is that she has lost a lot. Her talent for manipulating poins has been replaced for seeing debris, a waste product associated with pion manipulation. To prevent the debris to interfere with the working of all kinds of pion machinery and the prevent structural damage to the city, debris has to be collected and disposed of. Like waste collection in our world, it is not the most respected or well paid job, to put it mildly. It is however, the way in which Tanyana is supposed to repay her debt to society. Before she has a chance to recover form her wounds, she is outfitted with a suit. A piece of technology fully integrated with her body, adding to the trauma and giving yet another set of scars on top of the ones she already has. Most of the novel, Tanyana is busy adjusting to her new life and, in a series of heartbreaking scenes, finding out, how much her status mattered in her social circles.

Tanyana's response to her change in status is at times a bit problematic. She is ready for a fight at some points but also easily convinced it is futile. She is livid at the injustice that is being done to her but also stunned to inaction at times. The way she hangs on to her old apartment, a place she knows she cannot afford anymore, symptomatic in that respect. When the inevitable eviction comes, it still takes her by surprise. The crisis forces her to examine the extent of her newfound talents but a more active approach in adjusting to her new life would have been more interesting. It is not the only situation in which she only reacts to the challenges she faces instead of trying to think ahead.

The way the novel takes off doesn't leave much room for explaining things. Anderton lets the reader find out how her system of poins and debris works along the way. Earlier in the novel I was wondering if there was some parallel with particle physics but the level of anthropomorphizing of the poins seemed to point in another direction. Gradually a link to the belief system of Varsnia appears. Although the lack of information can be a bit frustrating at times, Anderton manages to dose what information the reader needs very well. If the aim was to keep the pace as high as possible she certainly succeeded. What I did think unlikely about the pion/debris system is the sheer ignorance Tanyana displays about the debris side of things. Pion manipulators may not be able to see it, they certainly feel it's impact. To so completely ignore the subject and leave it to the lowly caste of debris collectors strikes me as more than a little arrogant for someone approaching their field in an almost scientific manner.

While Anderton slips in some information about the wider world, most of the novel is dedicated to Tanyana's search for the truth. The whole accident reeks of a setup of course and when the entire system that has raised her to the highest level of society turns on her, she goes in search of other ways to find out what is going on. A whole new world opens up during this investigation and at the end of the novel a motive for the actions taken against Tanyana is starting to appear. There are more than a few questions left for the sequels however.

Debris has more than a few things going for it. If you like your Fantasy with a twist, or are looking for a book that does things just a bit differently this is probably as good a read as you'll be able to find. It's not a novel of huge complexity or unfathomable depth but it will hold your attention from the first page an not let go until the final chapter has been read. I have some issues with the novel, especially the development of the main character, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I found Debris to be a entertaining read. Not a bad way at all to conclude this year's reading challenge.

Book Details
Title: Debris
Author: Jo Anderton
Publisher: Angry Robot
Pages: 464
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-0-85766-155-5
First published: 2010

The Best of All Possible Worlds - Karen Lord

Karen Lord's debut novel Redemption in Indigo was one of the books that received a lot of attention in 2011 and 2012. It's one of those books I mean to pick up but so far I haven't read it yet. From what I understand of the reviews, it's a book well worth reading. While looking for suitable books for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I came across Lord's second novel, The Best of All Possible Worlds, in a bookstore in Amsterdam. If her first novel is anywhere near as good as the second, I can see what the fuss was about. The Best of All Possible Worlds is a very good science fiction novel. Comparisons with the work of Ursula K. Le Guin are made on the inside flap of the cover. For once, I don't disagree with what it says there. Something the flap text doesn't mention is that there clearly is a bit of Bradbury in the novel too.

What do you do when your planet and the center of your culture has been wiped out in a single strike? That is the question facing the Sadiri who had the good fortune to be away from home at the time of the strike must answer. Besides drastically reduced numbers, they also face a severe gender imbalance. The question of whether the Sadiri have a future as a separate people or should blend in with the other peoples of the galaxy is very much on their mind. Scientist Grace Delurua is assigned to a project to see if salvaging Sadiri culture by introducing new blood from the planet Cygnus Beta is feasible. It will be a life changing experience of Delurua and the Sadiri.

The Best of All Possible Worlds is not a novel that easily fits into one of science fiction's many subgenres. It is a very character driven novel. Don't expect a lot of scientific speculation or detailed future histories. Lord inserts what the reader needs to know when the characters run into it, so it takes quite a while for the basic outlines of this universe to become clear. Even with what the characters add to the reader's knowledge, quite a few questions about how this universe works, and especially Earth's position in it, remains a bit underexposed. The novel is carried by the dynamic between the two main characters Delurua and the Sadiri councilor Dllenahkh.

Lord does describe a number of cultures on the Cygnus Beta that vary from a Faerie court to a feudal society, although on most of the planet, there seems to be a bit of a frontier mentality. As a striking contrast, the few cities the planet possesses are very liberal. According to the acknowledgments Lord, who is from Barbados herself, has made the planet into a mix of cultures and societies to mirror the situation in the Caribbean. This mix also contains people of Sadiri ancestry, which is why the Saridi are so interested in the planet.

The Sadiri are one four strains of humanity in the galaxy. Their culture has developed to potential of the human mind in ways that others cannot achieve. They are a long lived and telepathic people, who value mental discipline and self-control. Their actions are guided by logic and reasoning rather than my emotion and impuls. I'm probably not the first to note that there is more than a bit of Vulcan in these people, although it must be said, they have a much better sense of humour. Their self control is stretched to the max by the prospect of not being able to find a suitable bride however. When Sadiri snap the results can be quite dramatic, even violent.

The novel is mostly written as a travelogue, with Delurua doing the narrating. It covers the entire year the project she is assigned to is running. Delarua's chapters are written in the first person. Between chapters there are short sections seen from Dllenahkh's point of view. The create a sense of distance and mute the emotion in these sections Lord opts for a third person point of view here. This division works very well. The mind of a Sadiri is obviously alien to the reader, where Delurua's way of thinking is much more recognizable. When the novel opens, she feels she already knows a thing or two about the Sadiri but her understanding deepens immensely throughout the novel.

In essence, and this is another element that will not be to the liking of some science fiction fans, The Best of All Possible Worlds is a romance. Throughout the novel the feelings Delurua and Dllenahkh have for each other grow until the outcome is inevitable. I guess you could say it is a case of opposites attract. Delurua is a very intelligent woman but lacks the Sadiri mental discipline. She often displays much more emotion than the Sadiri and over the course of the novel learns how to reconcile her emotions and intuition with the Saridi way of thinking. Dllenahkh has some adapting to do as well. On more than one occasion he takes a leap of faith and accepts Delurua's conclusions, reached by intuitive leaps rather than measured reasoning. The relationship, both on a personal and professional level develops in a very natural way. It is the key element in this novel and one that is very successfully executed.

My experience with books I've read for the Women of Genre Ficiton reading challenge has been mixed. I've found some very enjoyable reads, some excellent novels and a few that didn't appeal to me at all. The Best of All Possible Worlds is without a doubt one of the excellent ones. With only one book left to read, it is probably my favorite so far. The strong character development, the subtle romance and the sense of humour worked into the novel are a combination that you find very rarely in science fiction. I would not be surprised if it was nominated for an award or two next year. As far as I'm concerned this book is a must read.

Book Details
Title: The Best of All Possible Worlds
Author: Karen Lord
Publisher: Del Rey
Pages: 307
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-345-53405-7
First published: 2013

Arslan - M.J. Engh

For my tenth read in the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I picked Arslan by M.J. Engh. I've read a couple of more recent works in the past few months so I thought I'd pick an older one this time around. Arslan is Engh's first novel and was published in 1976. To date, only four novels by Engh have appeared but with that small oeuvre she did manage to make quite an impression. She was named author emerita by the SFWA in 2009. Engh is also a scolar of Roman history. Something that clearly influenced this novel. the edition I've read is the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition. I guess the editors of that series have a knack for picking controversial books. Personally, I'm not sure I would have included it.

Some time during the later stages of the cold war, a figure from the small nation of Turkestan rises to prominence in the world. Caught between China on one side and the USSR on the other, he cleverly uses a combination of politics and extortion to gain control of the armies of the major powers in the world. What he means to do with it remains unclear but the inhabitants of the small town of Kraftsville, Illinois get a shot at finding out when the new dictator of the world settles there for a time. His motives are unclear but he brings great change to the town. Whatever Arslan is up to, he has changed to world for good.

The main problem I have with this novel is that it is horribly implausible. Engh is not to specific on how Arslan gains power, by the time we meet him in the opening stages of the novel, he is already firmly in control. Since his nation has less inhabitants than most of the major cities on the planet, force of arms is clearly not an option. Force of personality obviously has something to do with, and cleverly manipulation people, but world politics is full of people who can do just that. And know how to defend themselves.

In the opening stages of the book, Arslan is portrayed as a brutal dictator. He rapes a young boy and a young girl in front of his men shortly after arriving, in what is certainly the most shocking scenes in the book. Arslan appears to think himself a Caesar. Divine, entitled to shape the world in whatever way pleases him because he has the power to do so. He feels that the rules he imposes on others do not apply to him. In more modern terms we'd call it megalomania. Arslan believes he is so invincible that he even offers one of the main characters the chance to shoot him. As it turns out it is not the first, nor the last, time that he exposes himself to such a risk. Unbelievable, nobody takes him up on the offer and the world is left to pay the price for this stunning bit of cowardice.

Arslan enforces a way of life that even in small town America, with it's ideal of a simple country life, is a serious step back. The economy is reverted to local produce only, contact with the outside world is reduced to a minimum and any technology that can't be sustained by local means phased out. Arslan appears to want to create a sort primitive agrarian state, which is quite scary if you consider what what going on in Cambodia at the time this book was published. You don't really want to think about the effect such policies would have on highly urbanized areas. It is back to basics for Kraftsville but that is not all he has in mind. After a while it becomes apparent no children are born anymore and then his true motivations come to the surface.

It is at this point it becomes clear what Engh is trying to achieve with the novel. Arslan is further developed into a round character. No longer the archetype of a tyrant, he is described as tirelessly working towards his goals, prepared to make large personal sacrifices of his own and living by his own moral standard, albeit a different one from what would be acceptable in small town America. Engh is trying to make the reader feel sympathy for Arslan and puts in a lot of effort to achieve this.

All of this is seen through the eyes of two main chanters. The first is Franklin L. Bond, principal of the town's school and a respected figure in Kraftsville society. He feels it is his duty to keep the place together and to that end collaborates extensively with Arslan. He is also in control of a pitiful excuse for resistance that arises in Kraftsville. Ironically, most of their work seems to consist of restraining people from doing something suicidally stupid. His ambivalence towards Arslan prevents him from doing anything meaningful beyond running the town. Given Arlan's plans, that is simply not enough.

The second point of view is that of Hunt Morgan, the boy who is unfortunate enough to be raped by Arslan. Later on, Hunt develops a complex relationship with his rapist, of appearing jealous when he lavishes his attention on others. Engh uses Hunt to show the reader that in his own way Arslan does care, thereby creating another shade of grey. It's another part of the story I had trouble believing. The voice of Hunt is also much more difficult to read. He uses just about every adjective in the dictionary at least once in his point of view sections. I didn't think it was quite convincing for a boy his age. Although it must be said he is very well read.

I guess whether or not you will like this novel depends on how well you think the author succeeds in making a very unlikely plot sound plausible. For me this pretty much failed on all fronts. I appreciate the efforts of the author to make the reader go back and froth between seeing Arslan as Lucifer himself and a caring man for those around him but in the end his character feels forced. Too extreme in many areas to be believable. The same goes for Hunt really. Franklin is more realistic. People keeping their heads low and muddling through would be very common in such a situation. He can't carry the story though, and so Arslan turned into a skillfully written but ultimately unsatisfying read for me.

Book Details
Title: Arslan
Author: M.J. Engh
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 303
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-09501-4
First published: 1976

Palimpsest - Catherynne M. Valente

Palimpsest is my ninth read in the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. I picked it mostly because Valente had caught my eye a few times in the last few years but I never got around to reading anything by her. I remember this novel being well received when it was published. It was nominated for the Locus SF, Hugo and Mythopoeic awards and took the Lambda Literary Award home. Quite an impressive list. The novel also served as an inspiration for Valente's crowd-funded novel The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011) and it's sequels. In other words, more than enough reasons to have a closer look at it.

Palimpsest is a city unlike any you've heard of. It is a city of wonders, a mystery and a curse at the same time. Only a few people can gain access and only for a single night at a time, before being flung back into their mundane existence. Those who make the passage are marked forever but finding others to help them relive the experience isn't easy. The city keeps pulling them in however, the lure of Palimpsest is irresistible, and for a lucky few, permanent residence in the city appears possible. If they can overcome that challenges the city sets them.

The novel follows four main characters who have been introduced to the wonders of Palimpsest in their search for the city an each other. There is a Japanese woman, an Italian bookbinder, a Russo-American locksmith and a beekeeper from California. Each of them have been introduced to the city though sex with a stranger and it remains their portal throughout the novel. As a consequence their is a lot of sex in the book. Sex in all manner of places, sex between people of the same gender, sex with more than one person at a time. Valente is is poetic in her depictions of the act. Rarely very descriptive or unnecessarily explicit but if you don't like sex scenes in a book Palimpsest is not for you.

Some people have described the novel as erotic but personally I didn't really think that was the case. The four main characters are driven by a need that is not unlike a heroine addiction. They are constantly looking fro the next partner, the next trip to Palimpsest. Some of it is erotic but quite a lot of it is lusting after the city rather than the partner they are with. There is something compulsive about it. Something decidedly sordid. Sex as a price to be paid for what you really want, or, as some have observed, the city as a sexually transmitted disease.

As the story progresses and the obsession of the main characters with Palimpsest increased, a lot of the scenes become downright tragic. the characters cease to care about heir life in our world. They lose jobs and partners, the city disfigures them or drives them to physical and psychological extremes. For much of the novel we are reading about characters on the verge of destroying themselves. One might wonder if the city is worth it.

The characters seem to think it is and Valente does create a mysterious city, full of surreal cityscapes and strange inhabitants. I found it vaguely reminiscent of Miéville's New Crobuzon. Valente adds to that by her use of language. There is lots of imagery and de descriptions are very poetic. Some sentences practically beg to be read again and again. To an extend it distracts from the terrible process the main characters are going through. The story features lost of symbols having to do with finding passage to another places. Trains, keys, maps and dreams to name a few.

Palimpsest is clearly not without its dangers but attracts the characters at the same time. Each of them is damaged in a way and it provides the city with the leverage it needs to draw them in. While they have their own motivations for looking to escape to Palimpsest, they share that none of them makes much of an attempt to function in their own world. The novel doesn't show their own lives at all. They don't interact with anybody not involved with Palimpsest in some way. Their isolation and obsession is pretty much complete.

Valente takes her time in shaping the plot. Introducing the city and all four main characters take up quite a few pages. Just looking at the plot, the novel is a bit thin. Each of the characters is introduced to Palimpsest and ends up wanting it more than anything. Then they find a fairly straightforward way to get it. Not much of a story line for a novel really. If you are a very plot oriented reader than Palimpsest is probably going to be a tough read for you.

I must admit I'm not too fond of novels that use beautiful language for the sake of it. It took me a while to read it as I can only take in so much of this style at a time. Puzzling out the the language is challenging and this is one of the few novels I've recently read that make me feel I'm a second language English speaker. At some points I think Valente does go overboard on the poetic descriptions. Despite that, I enjoyed the novel more that I thought I would.  Novels like these are rare in fantasy and especially in the urban sub genre, overrun as it is by sparkling vampires and sexy werewolves. Valente has created something special here, but it will certainly not be everybody's cup of tea.

Book Details
Title: Palimpsest
Author: Catherynne m. Valente
Publisher: Bantam Books
Pages: 367
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-553-38576-2
First published: 2009

Jaran - Kate Elliott

Jaran is my eighth read for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. That means I'm finally more or less on schedule. It's the first book of a series of four, being released in e-book format by Open Road Media. They have been kind enough to provide me with a review copy of this first volume. Jaran was originally published in 1992. It was the first novel Elliott published under this pseudonym after her first three novels sold modestly. Since then, a steady stream of fantasy and science fiction novels have appeared. Definitely a notable voice in the genre for the past couple of decades, it is only fitting that I sample her work for this reading challenge.

After a brief expansion following the discovery of interstellar flight, humanity's empire has been incorporated into that of a more advanced and much older alien civilization. Their rule lies lightly on their subjects but not everybody is comfortable with it. Charles Soerensen starts a rebellion and when it fails is, incomprehensibly to most humans, rewarded with a position in the empires nobility. Lacking children, Charles appoints his much younger sister Tess to be his heir. She wants noting to do with it, preferring her studies in linguistics over a life of political intrigue but she is drawn into it nevertheless when she uncovers an intrusion into the fief of her brother but one of the alien factions. Against her better judgment. she decides to investigate the matter and ends up cut off from interstellar civilization, marooned on a planet with a pre-industrial society. It will take a continent spanning trek to get back in touch again with her brother. As time passes, Tess becomes increasingly unsure if getting back is what she really wants.

I guess you could call this novel science fiction, it has aliens and spaceships and incomprehensible technology after all. Most of the novel is set in a low tech environment however, giving much of the narrative more of a fantasy atmosphere. For good measure Elliott also adds a generous measure of romance to the story, making it something of a hybrid. I don't think fans of had science fiction will find this book to their liking but for readers who read across multiple genres, there is lot be be had here.

Most of the story revolves around Tess. There are short interluded featuring Charles scattered throughout the novel. They are mostly concerned with the search for his missing sister and his political manoeuvres. A lot of these scenes are used to impress on the reader that the planet Tess is on, is not quite what it seems. One unanswered question for instance, is how human beings came to populate it. From these sections it becomes quite clear that this book is the first volume in a much longer work. The bare outlines of what Charles is trying to do become clear but not much beyond that.

Tess' story is much more fleshed out. She faces a whole lot of challenges after being marooned. Learning a new language, adapting to among a nomadic tribe, learning to ride on horseback and use a saber and of course come to terms with the conflict between the duty she has to her family and the feeling she is developing for Ilya Bakhtiian, the leader of the tribe she is adopted into. A large part of the novel is devoted to the complicated relationship between Ilya and Tess and to be honest I thought it dragged a bit. Elliott is quite wordy throughout the novel. I think it could have been a bit more concise here and there.

Elliott uses the conflict between a group of fiercely independent nomadic tribes and encroaching agricultural civilizations as a source of conflict and the driving force for Ilya's actions. He is the man who can  unite the tribes and push back the settlers. There is a district echo of Gengis Kahn here. Ilya is a hard man, driven by an all consuming vision for the tribes. His struggle to unite them is probably harder than the campaign he means to wage against the settlers. The nomads are used to being divided into a thousand tribes, warring and feuding against each other. Their independence is ingrained in their culture, expressing itself in every aspect of life, from leadership to sexual morals. Ilya's ideas are unprecedented among the tribes, getting them to agree, by the strength of he personality, his strong arm or the power of his arguments, is half the victory. Ilya is arrogant, harsh, ruthless and apparently quite irresistible to Tess.

Tess' journey is not only physically demanding. Along the way she finds out that she wants different things from life than her brother envisions for her. She is torn between returning and staying with the tribes. Of course she is a well educated woman and quite aware what awaits the tribes once Ilya pushes them forward in battle. The universe is far larger than they can imagine and this knowledge presses on Tess. I think that aspect of the novel is a bit underexposed. The temptation to enlighten them must be overwhelming. Her brother, in a way, can't resist it.

Jaran is a novel that promises a lot for the next volume in the series and offers a decent story arc of its own. That said, it is not a particularly demanding read. If you can let yourself be carried away by Tess' dramatic journey it is a very entertaining read. There is a deeper layer to the novel that I would not have minded seeing more of however. For a novel with a print length of almost five hundred pages, it makes very little progress in the political intrigue that is introduced. It is a very good adventure novel but demands patience from the reader who wants more than that. I can see myself reading the next volume in between some heavier reading.

Book Details
Title: Jaran
Author: Kate Elliott
Publisher: Open Road Media
Pages: 496
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: E-book
First published: 1992

Who Fears Death - Nnedi Okorafor

Who Fears Death by the Nigerian-American author Nnedi Okorafor is my seventh read for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. Not bad considering I only started in May. At this pace I may finish the challenge after all. Who Fears Death was one of the more interesting books that came out in 2010 so of course I missed it back then. It was nominated for a Nebula and the Locus Fantasy Award and won the World Fantasy Award. Okorafor tackles some very difficult themes in this book, stuff that I haven't come across in many other works of speculative fiction so it is not that surprising the book received so much attention. Thematically this is a very unflinching look at the combination of problems some parts of Africa are facing these days. Structurally, I was less impressed with the later stages novel, which is firmly grounded in a number of overused Fantasy clichés.

The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Sudan, where the light skinned Nuru people are waging a war of genocide against the dark skinned Okeke. The main character, Onyesonwu, is born from the rape of an Okeke woman by a Nuru man. Her mother flees the violence and Onyesonwu grows up in a region relatively unaffected by the violence. As an Ewu, a half blood child born of violence, she is something of an outcast in Okeke society. It is believed that a child born of violence can only be violent herself. The situation doesn't improve when Onyesonwu starts to display extraordinary powers. This combined with her rather temperamental character seem to prove the superstitious Okeke right.  She is destined for great things, that much is clear.

According to Okorafor the origin of this story can be found in an article in by Emily Wax in the Washington Post in 2004. It discussed the use of rape as a weapon in the Darfur conflict. Arab militias systematically raped black women with the intend to make 'light' babies. It is one of the most horrific things that went on in a conflict that is still ongoing. Okorafor is fairly graphic throughout the the novel and she certainly doesn't shy away from showing the full effect his crime has on the victims and the children born from such rapes. People with personal experience with sexual violence may not want to read this.

The setting of the novel is said to be post-apocalyptic but this part of the story is a bit underdeveloped. It is a future Africa where technology is more advanced than what we are used to but magic has found a way into everyday life too. Traditional structures of society have survived in a way, with the community being lead by its elders. I'm not entirely sure how much of it Okorafor based her society and its customs on one that exists in present-day Sudan. The exact location isn't that important to the story anyway. A lot of what drives the story could easily be transplanted into a different kind of setting.

Like any child would, Onyesonwu is looking for acceptance and this search leads her into a second important and controversial theme; that of female genital mutilation. Onyesonwu feels that going through the ritual that is performed at the age of eleven, she will gain the respect of the Okeke and form a bond with other girls. Her mother thinks it is a barbaric ritual so Onyesonwu doesn't tell her about it. Again the description is graphic. Even without possessing the parts that are mutilated it is painful to read. What makes is even worse is that, to an extend, it works. A lasting friendship with the three girls going through the ritual with is is formed.

Onyesonwu's motivation for going through the ritual is nothing short of tragic. Despite her mother's wrath, she feels she has come out a winner at first but she clearly doesn't understand what she has given up to gain a small measure of acceptance. That realization comes much later. The way Okorafor deals with this difficult subject could have been one of the strongest aspect of the novel but I felt the effect of this tragedy was somewhat lessened by Onyesonwu's solution for this. It is one of the many places in the novel where she is able to use her powers to overcome the consequences of rash decisions. She often does rash things and speaks harsh words but rarely does she have to face the bitter consequences of what she has wrought.

When Onyesonwu starts exploring magical abilities she quickly runs into another wall of sexism, tradition and superstition. Magic is for men. She cannot possibly train to become one. Her cycle and her ability to get pregnant would pose too much of a risk. Onyesonwu is determined though. Her father, a great sorcerer himself is trying to kill her. She needs to be able to defend herself. In the end sheer violence is the way to break down this all, again confirming to the Okeke what they already believed, Onyesonwu is a violent creature.

The story turns into something of a messianic tale later on in the novel. Survival is no longer enough, the genocide that is being committed against the Okeke must stop. This is the point where I think the novel lets the reader down a bit. Okorafor has challenged to reader with a number of very difficult and painful themes thus far and then proceeds to put them into the frame of a fairly standard fantasy story. The prophesized heroine who, at great personal cost, savers her people from certain destruction. What saves it from being a complete letdown is that Okorafor continues to use her characters hard. This story burns up a lot of them before their life has well and truly begun.

After finishing the book I thought is was no all it could have been. The novel's strengths, the way it deals with a number of very uncomfortable themes are partly undone by the choice to make Onyesonwu into a messiah. It did occur to me however, that without the hope the prophecy provides it would have been a very dark book indeed. Maybe a little too hard, many people will have trouble with it as it is. Then again, women facing this kind of violence and prejudice in real life don't have the luxury of magicking their way out of it. I think I feel Okorafor may have gone a bit too easy on her readers to get the full effect out of what she has written. Nevertheless, Who Fears Death is a book that is very much worth reading. It is a brave attempt to tackle themes that are rarely discussed in genre fiction. As such, it is very notable work.

Book Details
Title: Who Fears Death
Author: Nnedi Okorafor
Publisher: Daw Books
Pages: 386
Year: 2010
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-7564-0617-2
First published: 2010

Gemsigns - Stephanie Saulter

I was lucky enough to win a copy of Gemsigns by Jamaican born author Stephanie Saulter in a recent giveaway over at Worlds Without End. I'd never hear of the author before, which in hindsight is not that surprising as Gemsigns is a debut novel. It is the first novel in the ®Evolution series, the second book in the series, Binary, is expected sometime in 2014. I understand Saulter has a book deal for three volumes but I'm not sure if she intends to take it beyond that.  Since I'm still a few books short for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I decided to read this novel right after I got it. I found it to be a book with a lot of potential but I'm not sure Saulter has made the most of that.

Humanity has survived a crisis that nearly lead to the extinction of the species. The Syndrome, as it is being referred to by the survivors, wiped out a whole generation of young people, drastically reducing the world's population. In order to survive, extensive research has been done in genetic engineering. Several companies have created a host of genetically modified humans with a vast range of capabilities beyond what was possible before the crisis. These Gems have been the property of the companies that created them until recently. After a series of scandals that exposed the atrocious conditions the Gems were being kept in, the world has come to realize it must come to terms with its creation. A conference has been organized to decide on what the future relationship between Gems and Norms will be and Eli Walker is the man unfortunate enough to provide a scientific underpinning for the decision to be reached.

Saulter describes the events in the week leading up to the conference, when several parties try to influence the outcome. They don't shy away from any means to prevent an outcome that would give Gems more rights that they already have in the legal limbo they find themselves in. The short time span in which the characters chase their goals make it a very fast paced novel. The characters rarely have time to reflect on things as reality often turns out to be a step ahead of even the most well laid plan. Unfortunately the speed with which the plot moves goes at the expense of the depth of the story in some places.

There is a lot of potential for conflict in this novel. I guess you could say Saulter focuses on two main sources. The first has to do with corporate greed. The Gems are created to do dangerous and specialized work. They are designed with a specific task in mind and what their modification does to their health or well-being is considered completely irrelevant as long as the remain functional. This attitude has lead to a great number of abuses, failed experiments and tragically crippled creatures the companies would rather have the world forget. There is an obvious parallel her to slavery here, a legacy someone form Jamaica must be very aware of. A less obvious connection with current affairs in the world the the recent ruling of the US supreme court in the matter of patenting genetic material. An idea so scary in its implications that it is beyond me how any reasonably educated human being could support it.

Although the corporations would like to see control of Gems handed back to them, such a to slavery seems out of the question. There is a political current active that tries to minimize the damage to corporations and advocates a kind of special status for the Gems. They would be allowed to live their lives and find employment where they wish as long as they are registered and can be closely monitored. Fear of their unique abilities makes this solution attractive to some. To the reader it is probably akin to to sewing a yellow badge on your coat. In fact, the corporations have already gone so far as to build a gemsign into their models. Once again a historical parallel is clear. Even the reproductive rights of Gems are a matter of debate, it is quite obvious where this path would lead.

The second focal point for conflict is religious. It's not entirely clear to me how the church developed during the years of the crisis and beyond but it appears to be an organization that still adheres to some of the core values of Christianity. There certainly are plenty of Christian symbols present in the novel. Most of the church rally to the cause of the Gems, providing assistance to many of them. A minority seems them as abominations, creations of wicked men rather than God. They are a disgrace that must be wiped of the planet in the name of the Lord, of at the very least locked away. This kind of fanaticism predictability leads to violent confrontations, which in turn are encouraged by those who would see the Gems locked away. The Gems are walking on eggshells. On the one hand vulnerable, yet aching to strike out. The mood in the part of London where many of them have found a home is tense. It is one of the better aspects of the novel.

Public relations are a very important part of the struggle. All factions involved they to appear reasonable, while on the other hand trying to make their opponents look bad. The fighting in the media is almost as fierce as what goes on on the streets of London. The way the media are used in this battle by all parties involved is fascinating to read. The standard of reporting doesn't seem to have improved much in the years since the crisis. Reporting is rarely nuanced and often extremely biased. It nevertheless remains a great tool to direct public opinion.

What I think this novel lacks is a measure of subtlety. Once the history of the Syndrome and the events that followed are laid out to the reader in the rather infodumpish fifth chapter, the eventual conclusion Walker arrives at is inescapable. There are so many obvious paths to disaster, illustrated by some of the blackest pages in human history that the only way out is forward.  Those who oppose equal rights for Gems are trying to put the genie back into the bottle. They may be able to do a lot of damage on the way out but their fight is doomed from the start. Just from an ethical point of view, Eli's conclusions are clear from early on in the novel. Despite Saulter's attempt to build suspense.

What doesn't help is that the lack of subtlety isn't limited the core concepts of the novel. Most of the main characters suffer from it too. The corporate evil genius Zavcka Klist for instance, as seen through the eyes of Eli, is manipulative, considers lying and illegally withholding information perfectly acceptable and doesn't give a damn about the lives of Gems or her opponents. She gives you the creeps from the very moment we meet her. At that point it isn't clear what she is up to, but she clearly is the the bad guy in the novel. Her main enemy is Gem community leader Aryel Morningstar, whom Eli is clearly enamored with. She is bright, willing to do whatever it takes to keep her community from harm and displays a kind of openness that borders on the unbelievable for someone who is essentially a politician. Not that she doesn't have a few secrets but I assume that is material for the next books. Caught between these two opposites, which way do you think our honest to his science Eli would move?

Gemsings is a novel of few surprises. I would have liked to seem some more grey in the characters and find out what they would do if the right choice was not quite so obvious. There are plenty of opportunities to do just that in the second novel, which will no doubt deal with the fall out of the conference and the events leading up to it. That being said, the novel is a entertaining. It has that kind of readability that keeps you up later than you should to read one more chapter. It's a book you can immerse yourself in completely. In short, I have mixed feelings about it. I see room for improvement but that is not the worst thing you can say of a debut novel. I also see potential. I'm considering reading the second book.

Book Details
Title: Gemsigns
Author: Stephanie Saulter
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Pages: 389
Year: 2013
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-78087-865-2
First published: 2013

The Secret City - Carol Emshwiller

Looking for interesting novels to read for the WWend Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge I came across Carol Emshwiller's wprk. She is well into her nineties now and still writing. A lot of her output is short fiction but over a career that spans more than six decades she produced a number of novels as well. The Secret City (2007) is her most recent novel. It grew out of a short story called World of No Return, first published in Asimov's in the December 2005 issue. Emshwiller is not an author that receives a lot of attention but certainly a steady voice in science fiction. She strikes me as an author you have to at read at least something of and thus a good choice for the reading challenge. It turned out to be one of my better picks in the reading challenge.

A group of alien tourists is stranded on Earth. They are equipped with homing beacons so they expect to be rescued soon enough. Trying not to attract attention to themselves, keep away from human society as best they can but as the years go by, rescuers fail to appear and their money runs out, closer contact with humans is inevitable. A new generation grows up not knowing their home planet. The aliens prepare their children as best they can for a return, but having been born on Earth, not all of them are sure they want to go back.

The Secret City is short novel, written in a very to the point style. The prose is sparse, supplying just the bare bones of what is going on in the world around the main characters. Emshwiller lays out her story in just over 200 pages. I finished it in a single day, which is something I haven't done in quite a while. Another interesting feature of the story is that it is written is the first person and the present tense, which always takes me a few pages to get into. I thought it was a highly readable style but some readers might prefer a bit more detail.

Emshwiller follows the story of two main characters. Lorpas, the male protagonist, is the more worldly of the two. He has had extensive contact with the outside world and has integrated to the point of loosing most of his native language. He is basically a good man but not above a little stealing to make his way. Very few other ways to make a living are open to him. One of the most interesting things about him is how he is at the same time not quite human and yet able to fit in almost seamlessly. His point of view clearly shows how ignorant the aliens are of Earth and if you read between the lines, he doesn't think much of his parents' attitude.

The female protagonist Allush has a different view on the world. She grows up in the hidden city somewhere in the mountains of the western United States, much more focused on what her parents' generation has been able to salvage of their alien civilization. They have tried to minimize contact with the outside world but because of a steady drain of people leaving the city and the death of the older generation, the city is slowly emptying. While desperately trying to hold on to their idea of civilization they have regressed to a barely self sustaining hunting and gathering community. The city as their last refuge, symbol of their ignorance pride and foolishness.

Lorpas sees the city as a goal, a place where he might find others of his kind. Something he longs for after years of wandering the world alone. Allush on the other hand realizes she will have to leave it, either for the home world or human society. There is something intensely tragic about both these stories. It might have been a tragedy but somehow, as soon as Emshwiller brings the two together, the story takes another direction. For me, that was one of the most appealing aspects of the story.

The Secret City is a wonderfully understated meditation of being different, of not fitting in. The otherness of the mail characters is constantly present in the narrative and, usually between the lines, they are permanently struggling with it. It is perhaps not the most ambitious science fiction novel ever but the minimalist style and clear language appealed to me. I may have to dig up some of her short fiction. I suspect Emshwiller's writing is even more effective in the short form. This book is definitely the most pleasant surprise in the reading challenge thus far.

Book Details
Title: The Secret City
Author: Carol Emschwiller
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Pages: 209
Year: 2007
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-892391-44-9
First published: 2007

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is another one of those books everybody but me has read. It is one of the few works of science fiction (I'm not going to get into Atwood's reluctance to classify it as such in this review) that has managed to appear on required reading lists for English literature classes. I've never read anything by Atwood before so I decided to pick this one up for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge over at WWend. I think I can see why it has a certain appeal to both readers of genre fiction and those who prefer mainstream fiction. I found it to be a fascinating read but also a book full of very, very unpleasant things.

In the near future plagued by environmental degradation and decreased human fertility, Christian fundamentalists manage to take over the United States. A war ensues and a new theocratic government is established. Soon they start to stripping away rights from women and persecuting other religious groups. Our narrator, a woman renamed Offred, is separated from her husband and child and given to a high ranking member of the new regime. It is her job to provide him with the child his wife has been unable to conceive.

Atwood's description of a theocratic United States, renamed to the republic of Gilead, is pretty extreme. Offred is little more than a broodmare. She has no say whatsoever over her life. She can't own property or money, can't hold a job and even her own body is in effect property of a man. Sex is relegated to a job, devoid of any kind of affection or intimacy. Atwood describes the monthly ceremony in which the Commander she is supposed to provide a child for tries to get her pregnant. It must be one of the most revolting sex scenes in the history of literature. Which is precisely the effect Atwood is aiming for.

One of the critiques this book has gotten over the years is the comment that something like that could not happen in the US. I think what Atwood describes is a bit too extreme to be likely. Too few people would benefit from such drastic change for the new regime to create enough support to survive in the long run. There are places in the world however, where the situation for women in particular, is little better. Perhaps even more scary is the fact that a large portion of the US population would approve of more than a few things mentioned in the novel. Not to mention the surge of distrust for anybody who doesn't identify themselves as Christian. I don't see Atwood's vision of a theocracy in the US become reality tomorrow but to put it completely outside the realm of possibility... that would be dangerous.

The story is told entirely through the eyes of Offred. She is a woman who clearly remembers her freedoms and accomplishments in her life before the republic of Gillead was founded. Through a series of flashbacks we get to see her life before and after the revolution, although Offred admits she is not the most reliable chronicler. Reading and writing has been forbidden for women so her story is only as reliable as her memory. It is one of the many ways in which women are reduced to possessions. The scene in which Offred witnesses a group marriage and realizes that in a few years, the women who are given away will not remember a life before Gillead is painful to read.

The way in which Gillead was created is nebulous and not all that believable but the manner in which is stays in control the population is frighteningly realistic. Atwood describes the brutal indoctrination the women destined to become Handmaids are forced to undergo. Those who cannot be bullied into accepting their new role are sent of the to colonies, a network of work camps with a reputation similar to the Soviet Gulag system. There is a huge purging of everything that is considered sinful or subversive. Book burnings, destruction of anything that empathizes female sexuality, suppression of homosexuality, complete control over the media and of course a security service to rival the Stasi. Atwood has even taken into account the need for release when a man convicted to rape (it is suggested in the book that he is actually a political prisoner) is literally being torn to pieces by a group of women gathered for a compulsory ceremony called Salvaging.

There is little in the way of hope in this book. On the surface her fertility is prized by the regime but she meets jealousy and condemnation at every corner. Perhaps the most painful of these is the way other women treat her. A commodity to men, a slut to women. Whatever the fundamentalists think they may have achieved, hypocrisy and double standards most certainly haven't disappeared. Despite being surrounded by people and checked upon all the time, her position in society makes her lonely. Something the first person perspective reinforces. The text radiates  loneliness and paranoia.

Offred clings to tiny things to make life bearable. A cigarette, a picture of her daughter, the daily walks she is allowed to take to get groceries. Anything that distracts her from her purpose becomes something to look forward too. Even a message in mock Latin  scratched into the wood of a piece of furniture is cause for excitement. What is even more encouraging is the discovery that resistance is still possible despite the insane level of oppression. Offred has no idea what is going on in the world but gradually a picture of corruption within the government and small scale resistance emerges. Her world is kept so small however that bu the end of the novel there is no telling how effective they are or how far their influence stretches.

The Handmaid's Tale is a thoroughly depressing novel. Atwood has taken just about every outrage committed against civil liberties in the US and pressed them into one nightmarish scenario. Not terribly likely perhaps, but given the fact that just about everything she describes has historical precedents, it is still very disturbing. The first person perspective of the story give us a very intimate view of the horrors of this particular regime. Atwood grants us luxury of an open ending so I guess the reader could choose to believe in a happy end. That is about the only ray of light in this tale. I am glad I read it but it is such an intensely disturbing book, that I doubt I'll be up for a reread any time soon.

 Book Details
Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Pages: 35
Year: 2006
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 1-84159-301-X
First published: 1985

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang - Kate Wilhelm

I picked Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang as my third read for the Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge. It's another one that I've head lying around fro quite a while. I originally intended to review it late last year but got caught up in moving. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is one of Wilhelm's most well know works. It won the Locus and Hugo awards and was nominated for a bunch of others, including the Nebula which eventually went to Man Plus by Frederik Pohl. Later on, Wilhelm moved to other genres but in the 1960s and 1970s she produced quite a few science fiction novels. Wilhelm and her second husband Damon Knight, another iconic figure in science fiction, are the founders of the Clarion Workshop, which has become something of an institute in the past decades. The list of participants who went on to become successful authors is impressive.

Human abuse of the Earth's ecosystem is finally catching up on mankind. Pollution, radiation and environmental degradation are becoming such huge problems that if affects fertility of just about every plant and animal important to the human food chain.Humanity itself doesn't escape this tragedy either. Governments pretend it is business as usual, despite the mounting international conflicts over food and other resources. A few people see the end coming however, and set up an isolated community, equipped to survive the end of the world somewhere in a fertile valley in the Eastern USA. Even they are sorely tested when a pandemic breaks out but for the moment the group survives. With sexual reproduction all but impossible, they are doomed to die out however. To ensure humanity's survival, they resort to cloning themselves in order to create a new generation.

Clones never have it easy in science fiction. They are inevitably depicted as less than human, expendable replacements or somehow morally inferior creatures. At some level is would seem, the belief that we can actually make a perfect copy of a human being is somehow to frightening to consider. There has to be something wrong with a creature that did not grow out of an egg and a sperm cell. As if being a clone takes away some special part of our identity. Since human cloning is in its infancy and the subject of intense debate on the ethics of such research I guess we won't know for a while yet if there is any truth to it. Wilhelm joins the science fiction authors who depict clones as psychologically fundamentally different though. Her clones develop in frighting ways and threaten that pillar of American society: individualism.

I mentioned a perfect copy earlier in the text but achieving such a level of perfection is not easy. There are lots of studies on cloned animals that show abnormalities later in life. In Wilhelm's story this plays an important part. One of the first challenges the survivors face is the reduced fertility rates in clones. I'm not entirely sure if this part of the story is based on real research. Some of the biology (and psychology) in the novel seems a bit dodgy to me. A problem that has to solved if a return to the natural order of things, i.e. sexual reproduction, is to be achieved. It is another sign of the clones abnormality that later on in the book they try to remove a reliance on sexual reproduction entirely. Add to that the air of incest that is all over the clone society and there is no way the reader would not be disturbed by their way of life.

In effect, Wilhelm depicts cloning as the way to survive a serious population bottleneck in human history but in the end it limits human expansion and prevents them from recolonizing the mostly empty world. The clones, all grown in groups of up to ten individuals, develop a sense of togetherness that borders on the telepathic. Separating them, even for short periods of time, is a psychological trauma to them, that in some cases becomes irreversible. The colony is a safe place, where constant contact an reassurance of brothers or sisters is present to make life bearable. Without this, the successive generations of clones become increasingly unable to function. The doctors of the clone society, who in effect run the show, realize this threat, notice the increasing tendency to think only of the task at hand and not beyond what they are thought, and yet never consider raising single clones. The thought of being alone is just too much to bear.

The book is divided in three sections. The first dealing with the end of the world itself, and the establishment of the survivor's colony. The second deals with one of the later generation of clones, where the valley the colony is located in becomes to small to sustain them and critical scientific supplies and chemicals run low. The third describes a clash between the clone's way of life and the reemerging individualism of one of the main characters. Each section has their own set of main characters, although they overlap to an extend in the second and third part. It is an interesting approach to storytelling, enabling Wilhelm to depict developments in society that take decades to come about.

I've been giving a lot of thought about whether or not this book is worth the praise that is heaped upon it. On the one hand it is a very well written novel. Wilhelm captures the struggles of the characters very well and manages to draw the reader into the, in our mind, strange way of thinking of the clones. The whole novel creates an atmosphere of crisis, one step short of desperation. One false move could lead to the extinction of the human race and whatever else may be said of the clones, they do have a sense of self preservation. Being one step away from disaster casts a large shadow over the book. It penetrates every scene, Wilhelm makes very sure the reader doesn't for a moment forget the stakes.

On the other hand the tendency to see any form of communal society as inferior, ultimately a dead end in development of humanity annoys me. There are whole libraries of novels where the self reliant individual triumphs and thus shows his or her fellow men the way to a brighter future. This worshiping of individuality, and the inevitable decent into moral deficiency and stagnation of any other approach to forming a society, is grating. I will grant you, there are worse novels in this respect but the way Wilhelm handles it are far from subtle. In the end, the clones' efforts are means to an end, a return to normality, a way back to the way things were before. As if the end of the world doesn't clearly highlight the risks of a society where the individual's needs and desires are accepted as the only possible way in which humanity can advance. Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is not a happy novel but perhaps the most depressing element in the story is seeing humanity fall back into the basic pattern that caused disaster in the first place.

Does that make it a bad book? I guess not. The libertarian streak that is prevalent in a lot science fiction is not really in line with my own convictions but this book certainly has a way of making one think. It is a compelling story in a way. Personally I think the way she depicts the clone society is too stark a contrast to the world we are living in to be entirely believable. I couldn't shake the feeling that the author was trying to make her point about the evils of suppression the individual a bit too bluntly. If you can deal with that however, the book is a good read. I can see why it was so popular at the time. Maybe the fall of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s  has made the book slightly less relevant to today's reader but there are certainly novels of that period that have aged less gracefully. In the end, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is not entirely my kind of book but I am glad I read it anyway.

Book Details
Title: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
Author: Kate Wilhelm
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 242
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-575-07914-4
First published: 1976

Sheepfarmer's Daughter - Elizabeth Moon

I ran out of books to read on my recent trip to Norway so I borrowed one of the books that my girlfriend had left behind. Sheepfarmer's Daughter is the first book in Moon's Paksinarrion series, the later books of which my girlfriend is very impressed with. This novel also had the added benefit of meeting the criteria for the WWend Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge as I have never read anything by Moon before. The series currently has eight books published, with a ninth coming next month and a tenth expected. Sheepfarmer's Daughter is also part of The Deeds of Paksenarrion, an omnibus collecting the first three books in the series.

When eighteen-year-old Paksenarrion "Paks" Dorthansdottir is forced to marry a neighboring pig farmer, she decides that life is not for her. Although her father expressly forbids it and has already paid her dowry, she decides to run off to join a mercenary corps and find wealth and glory as a soldier. This novel follows Paksenarrion during the first two campaign years with her company. Years that show that she is no ordinary soldier but that fighting is in her blood. So much so, that the deities of her world appear to take an interest.

 I can't say I liked this book very much. At first glance it was probably refreshing to have a female protagonist of a fantasy series, which were in very short supply at the time. Almost the entire story is seen though the eyes of Paks, who does a great many soldiery things without showing any interest in finding a husband or raising a family. She is not a the only female soldier but they are a minority and she has to prove herself equal to a man at several points in the novel. Which she proves to be as far as the physical aspects of soldiering go.

A strong female main character she may be, she is also intensely annoying. She is loyal to a fault for instance, ending up with one of the noble mercenary companies in the realm. The reputation mercenaries have for turning to the winning side as soon as the odds appear to be against them may be a bit exaggerated in Fantasy but the fierce loyalty commanded by the Duke that leads them strikes me as very unlikely. They fight for money (during their first year that is) and that alone, generally doesn't inspire heroics. It is not until one of the competing mercenary companies acts against the conventions of the trade that their motivation becomes a shade more likely.

Paks is surrounded by, with a few exceptions, very well behaved and disciplined soldiers. They are career soldiers, not press ganged, no convicted criminals, no desperate men and women running away from enemies, debts or poverty. In fact, in many cases one wonders what prompted these men and women to take up a profession with a very high risk of premature death. Paks has a motivation, which is dealt with in about three pages at the very beginning of the novel; the secondary characters are mostly decoration.

Another problem with the novel is that it contains very little plot for a five-hundred page text. Most of it is taken up by very detailed, and rather dry, descriptions of Paks' training an daily activities as a soldier. Most of which is not very exciting. Soldiering is mostly make work, routine and waiting after all, battles are infrequent. Moon has the unfortunate tendency to explain what is going on to the reader by having Paks ask lots and lots of obvious questions. It makes her seem very dull witted to say the least, especially because she almost never seriously questions what she is told. Paks is a good soldier in the sense that she follows orders and feels supremely guilty when some unforeseen circumstance prevents her from doing so or necessitates she does something else instead. Add to this the tendency to repeat certain information over and over in dialogue and you get a novel that is very slow in actually pushing the plot forward.

Because we see most of the story form Paks' point of view, we generally have no idea what is going on in the rest of the world. The Duke directs them to go certain places and fight certain enemies for reasons that are very unclear most of the time. Paks has no idea what their long term goal is. She also doesn't display much in the way of ambition other than the rather childish dream of being a great warrior on a big warhorse. The politics of the world are largely uninteresting for Paks, she shows little interesting in the non-human sentients of her world (your regulars elves and dwarves mostly) and she doesn't seem to be very religious either. Even after it becomes clear that one of the gods worshiped in this world has taken an interest in events, Paks shows no initiative in finding out what is going on. Same goes for the magic she encounters during her travels. It is mention but never explored in any depth.

What remains is an account of two campaign years. Moon obviously has a good idea of how an army works, what it takes to move one and supply it and what the human toll of the fighting is. The military detail overwhelms the plot and bogs down the novel in several places however. As much as I appreciate the care Moon took to paint a realistic picture of what campaigning is about (if we overlook the fact that her soldiers are a bit too well behaved to be completely believable), it simply gets in the way of telling a good story.

So what does that leave us with. Sheepfarmer's Daughter is essentially five hundred pages of Paks going through the motions of becoming a mercenary and finding out how to be a good soldier, a lot of which is no more interesting that my average day at the office. She does what she is told, never seriously questions what she is doing and turns out to be good at pretty much everything she is required to do. In short, neither Paks, or the events described in the novel really managed captivate me. It is readable but I wouldn't go as far as calling it good.  I understand that Sheepfarmer's Daughter was Moon's first published novel. One can only hope she has improved plotting and characterization since.

Book Details
Title: Sheepfarmer's Daughter
Author: Elizabeth Moon
Publisher: Baen
Pages: 506
Year: 2000
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 0-671-31964-7
First published: 1988

Grass - Sheri S. Tepper

I was hoping to find the time to take part in the WWend Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge this year. Until now that has been a dismal failure. I haven’t had time to research and acquire the book I need for it and have mostly been reading stuff that was already on the to read stack this year. I would be surprised if I could still manage to read the twelve required but I can at least read some of them. After the reading challenge for 2013 was announced I picked Sheri S. Tepper’s novel Grass to be my first read. Tepper is a prolific writer in various genres and this novel is one of the few written by a woman that made the Gollancz science fiction Masterworks series when they were still being numbered. I have absolutely no experience with Tepper’s writing but the premise looked interesting so this novel was a logical place to start. The novel didn’t quite turn out to be what I was expecting but it is a very good read nonetheless.

In a far future, overpopulation and environmental degradation have forced humanity into space. Many planets have been colonized but under the influence of humanity’s main religion the expansion has stopped for the moment. One of the colonized planets is named Grass. Most of its surface is covered with numerous species of a genus that resembles the grasses of old Earth. Despite its position at a galactic crossroad, the planet has remained something of a backwater, governed by a small group of families descended from various noble families in Europe. The ‘bons’ as these families are known would rather be left alone but when a plague strikes humanity for which no cure can be found, eyes turn to Grass anyway. For some reason, the population on Grass appears to be immune. Reluctantly, the bons allow an embassy on the planet to look into the matter.

Grass is a pretty hard novel to get into. There are plenty of science fiction novels that explore the mysteries of an unknown planet and manage to do so in 200 pages. Tepper needs will over 500 and there is a reason for that. The social structure of Grass and how it clashes with that of the rest of the galaxy is an important part of the story and not something than can be unraveled in a few pages. Tepper takes her time to set all of it up properly. That does mean that the first part of the novel I rather slow and the relevance of a lot of that material is not directly clear to the reader. I suspect more than a few readers would be tempted to put the book down in that stage. It requires patience. I think it pays off in the end.

The bons of Grass (I assume the name is taken from the ‘von’ found in many names of German nobility) have developed a culture bases on hunting.  They ride the native Hippae and hunt another native creature named Foxen but apart from the name, the resemblance to foxhunting is superficial at best. De bons are a very closed society and not much is known about their planet and way of life in the rest of the galaxy, except their obsession with hunting. Based on this information, the ambassadors sent to Grass are two Olympic medalists in the Equestrian disciplines in hopes of gaining acceptance with the Grassian elite. They are hopelessly ill prepared for what they find on Grass but, aware of the stakes, very driven to succeed anyway. The clash between the desperate ambassadors and the bons, wanting to protect their isolated and privileged lifestyle, is fascinating to read.

The novel has a very strong religious theme as well. Most of humanity is firmly under the influence of a religion referred to as Sanctity. Their motto is Sanctity/Unity/Immortality and immortality is what they promise their followers in the ‘second creation’. This, as the name implies, comes after the first creation is undone. Sanctity influence stretches far and the church jealously guard their influence over human occupied space to the point where they restrict further expansion and strictly limit procreation. Combine this with even more strict taboos on contraception and you get the picture of a very scary organization indeed. They are not the only religion however. The ambassadors sent to Grass adhere to ‘old-Catholicism, which appears to be a religion mostly in line with the stance of the (more conservative parts of) catholic church at the moment.  Here again, Tepper introduces conflict into the story. Ambassador Marjorie Westriding-Yrarier, the woman who could be considered the main character of the novel, is forced to examine her beliefs when they clash with Sanctity, the duty to her family and humanity as a whole, and the sense of superiority displayed by the bons. There is more than a bit of feminism worked in this part of the story. Personally I found both religions equally disturbing for various reasons. Grass is often described as a dark tale and in this respect it certainly is.

Tepper isn’t done weaving strands into the story though. Grass was once colonized by the Arbai, a mysterious alien race that went extinct for unknown reasons. Their ruins can be found on Grass and are being excavated by Sanctity. The reason for their extinction is suspected to have something to do with the plague that is currently affecting humanity but so far, the ruins have not yielded the answers that are needed. Indeed, one might wonder at the motivations of Sanctity, eager as they are to reign in the ever expanding numbers of humanity. This strand in the story is perhaps the most mysterious of all. Grass is the first book in a trilogy in which, as far as I can tell, the Arbai are involved in all three. Grass resolves most of its plotlines and works fine as a standalone but if anything is left dangling it is probably the history of the Arbai. Tepper explores it for as far as it suits her story and not much beyond. Given all the other material already stuffed into the novel that is probably a good thing.

Personally I liked Grass just fine but I can see a few problems other reasons might have with it. The novel is intricately plotted, that is absolutely true, but at some points it lacks subtlety. Especially the depictions of religious madness are taken a bit too far. Marjorie’s family is dominated by a man who feels everything should revolve around him and resents Marjory for having her own interests. On top of that he is hypocritical enough to openly have a mistress and yet accuse her of being unfaithful. The sheer stupidity of his approach to religion is a bit hard to swallow. Sanctity on the other hand is not only hypocritical but plain megalomaniac. I’m not a religious man myself and the disasters, pain and suffering people will put up with in the name of religion never cease to amaze me. I think Tepper’s approach is a tad too stereotypical to be really believable though. In that respect the madness that afflicts the bons is much more believable and disturbing.

Another issue I have with this novel is that the ending, especially compared to the long buildup, feels rather rushed. The novel ends with the reader overseeing the battlefield just after the battle has concluded so to speak. There is no sense yet of the implications of what has just happened. The author needs an epilogue to clean up after herself. The ending fits I suppose but I do think it could be handled better. I can’t shake the feeling that it throws the pacing of the novel off balance.

I do see a few problems with Grass but on the whole it is a fascinating read. There is so much in the way of social, religious and scientific ideas stuffed into this novel that the scope of it is comparable with some of the most ambitious works in science fiction. I felt the execution is not quite good enough to name it a great work of science fiction but it is not far off. The novel is essentially one big puzzle and examining the pieces is enough to keep a science fiction fan reading. It’s not often that one finds a science fiction novel that has taking in so many aspects of human life and manages to weave them into a satisfying plot. The novel may have its imperfections but for me it included so many things I like to see in a good science fiction novel that is was an irresistible read anyway. Opinions will likely be divided on this novel but I would recommend it.

Book Details
Title: Grass
Author: Sheri S. Tepper
Publisher: Gollancz
Pages: 535
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-8579879-8-0
First published: 1989