A recommended reading list featured on the Fantasy Mistressworks blog compiled by Amanda Rutter. Since I've been trying to read more books written by women this year, I couldn't let this one pass.
Bold is what I have read, italics what I own. I've also linked the ones I've reviewed. So how did you do?
1. Songspinners – Sarah Ash
2. The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
3. Rats and Gargoyles – Mary Gentle
4. Outlander – Diana Gabaldon (this was published as Cross Stitch in the UK)
5. The Riddle-Master of Hed – Patricia McKillip
6. The Blue Sword – Robin McKinley
7. Lud-in-the-Mist – Hope Mirrlees
8. The Curse of the Mistwraith – Janny Wurts
9. Shadow Magic – Patricia C Wrede
10. Assassin’s Apprentice – Robin Hobb
11. A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K Le Guin
12. Familiar Spirit – Lisa Tuttle
13. Beauty – Sheri S Tepper
14. Diadem from the Stars – Jo Clayton
15. The Crystal Cave – Mary Stewart
16. Black Horses for the King – Anne McCaffrey
17. The Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean M Auel
18. Fortress in the Eye of Time – C J Cherryh
19. Red Moon and Black Mountain – Joy Chant
20. The Birthgrave – Tanith Lee
21. Briefing for a Descent into Hell – Doris Lessing
22. Interview with the Vampire – Anne Rice
23. The Wood Wife – Terri Windling
24. Briar Rose – Jane Yolen
25. The Porcelain Dove – Delia Sherman
26. The Winter Prince – Elizabeth Wein
27. The Time of the Dark – Barbara Hambly
28. Sword of Rhiannon – Leigh Brackett
29. Tam Lin – Pamela Dean
30. Fire in the Mist – Holly Lisle
31. The Sacrifice – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
32. The Beleagured City – Margaret Oliphant
33. The Soul of Lilith – Marie Corelli
34. The Citadel of Fear – Francis Stevens
35. Jirel of Joiry – C L Moore
36. Sheepfarmer’s Daughter – Elizabeth Moon
(added 26-May-2013)
37. Dragon Prince – Melanie Rawn
38. Black Trillium – Julian May
39. The Thief’s Gamble – Juliet E McKenna
40. Daggerspell – Katharine Kerr
41. The Blue Manor – Jenny Jones
42. The Barbed Coil – J V Jones
43. In the Red Lord’s Reach – Phyllis Eisenstein
44. The Spirit Ring – Lois McMaster Bujold
45. The Last of the Renshai – Mickey Zucher Reichert
46. Archangel – Sharon Shinn
47. The Hall of the Mountain King – Judith Tarr
48. A Blackbird in Silver – Freda Warrington
49. Kindred – Octavia Butler
50. The Red Magician – Lisa Goldstein
Four out of fifty. A pretty poor score really. I guess I have some reading to do.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Ice Owl - Carolyn Ives Gilman
Thorn is a teenager living in a future where near instantaneous communication is possible but travel is still limited to the speed of light. She and her mother are Wasters. Outcasts in most societies they are part of and often living in their own ghettos, these people are usually seen as trouble, rebels, heretics or rebels. Thorn is a teenager but has already lived parts of her life on nine different planets, making her a 145 years old in sequential time when the story starts. The planet she is living on at that time, is unstable. Riots are common, revolution is in the air. When Thorn's school burns down, she is forced to seek her education elsewhere. That is how she meets Soren Pregaldin, a refugee who will teach her more than he ever intended.
The story contains a lot of interesting science fictional ideas. The situation with information outpacing actual travellers reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe for instance, where the ansible links the the various planets but actually going to any of them takes years. Every time Thorn moves, she leaves behind the people she knew with the realization that even if she was to go back, they would have aged far more that she has. It is not only people she leaves behind either. Whole political systems and cultures can change in the time it takes for her to travel between the stars. Wasters are used to this, it is another element of what cuts them loose from mainstream society on many of the planets they are found on. For Thorn, the constant moving is becoming a burden, she is looking to lay down roots somewhere.
The planet most of the story is set on is tidally locked, only a small strip of land is inhabitable, a land in perpetual twilight. The planet has no breathable atmosphere and the city Thorn lives in is domed. In her introduction, Gilman mentioned she meant to create a culture that fitted the harsh conditions on the planet. It turned into a strict, religious society, part of which despises the Wasters' loose morals. There is an uneasy parallel with religious fascism and the attraction of such religion on young people in this story. Thorn feels this attraction, as an act of rebellion she even dons the veil proscribed to women. It makes her feel anonymous but also gives her a sense of belonging that under different circumstances could easily have drawn her in. Scary to think how easily that can happen really.
The real conflict in the novel is the relationship between Thorn and her mother though. Thorn realizes that her mother is a woman who has made a mess of her life more than once and she isn't very impressed with it. Gilman capturers the anger. disappointment and attempts at rebellion of Thorn very well I think. Thorn is quite rash in a way and very harsh in her judgement. Something that leads her to equally rash actions as the story progresses. You can't help but feel for either party really. Thorn's mother is not perfect but, even seen through the eyes of her daughter, you can tell she cares and is trying in her own way.
I have only read one of the other Hugo nominees in this category, Ken Liu's The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, which I think is a more challenging story in a way. It no doubt faces stiff competition but can see why The Ice Owl made the shortlist. It is a very well crafted novella. Gilman makes the most out of the science fictional concepts used in the story. She sketches what is essentially a very recognizable situation but the unusual circumstances raise the stakes considerably. I am definitely going to have to check out Arkfall one of these days.
Book Details
Title: The Ice Owl
Author: Carolyn Ives Gilman
Publisher: Phoenix Pick
Pages: 51
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: E-book
ISBN: 978-1-61242-111-7
First published: 2011
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon - Frederik Pohl
After successfully facing his successes and failures at Gateway, Robinette Broadhead is now living the life of a very rich man. He has married and has diverse interests in various profitable businesses as well as close ties with the Gateway corporation and even quite a bit of political influence. In other words, he has it made. Still, there is the nagging feeling of guilt that the woman who is the love of his life is stuck in a singularity. In business problems arise as well when an expedition to a distant Heechee installation, which Robinette hopes will help combat the chronic food shortages on Earth, meets with unexpected problems. It takes 25 days for instructions to reach the explorers, and as the situation in the outer solar system gets more and more out of control, Robinette's problems increase. Desperate action is needed.
One of the most striking differences between Gateway and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon is that Pohl employs a lot of different points of view in the second volume. In fact. Robinette doesn't even show up until the fourth chapter, some 50 pages into the novel. A lot of the major players in the novel get a point of view, as well as some of the machine entities, but there are quite a few of them, so we only get to scratch the surface of most of these characters. Where Pohl was very concerned with the psychology of Robinette in the first novel, the plot is obviously more important in the second. That is not to say that Robinette's internal struggle is not an important part of the story, he is still this petty, selfish but basically decent person we meet in Gateway, but Pohl leans quite heavily on events in the previous novel to convey this to the reader.
The Heechee on the other hand, although still very absent, are much more important to the story. The artifact being explored is clearly one of theirs but has been circling the sun since before humanity's ancestors learnt to use tools. It has a history of its own and that history includes other intelligences as well. Pohl reveals that history through these many points of view, gradually revealing a new part of the mystery with each chapter. It is this revealing that may put off some readers. In Gateway, the Heechee are a mystery. With only their incomprehensible artifacts and structures around, very little was actually known for sure about them. It made the story unpredictable in a way. With a Heechee artifact around, you never know what might happen. The increased understanding in Beyond the Blue Event Horizon changes that. Personally I don't think you can reasonably expect the mystery to stay intact for several books, there has to be at least some progress to keep the story moving, but some readers will no doubt prefer their own questions, answers and guesses over those of Pohl.
Pohl's answers to the riddle the Heechee and their seemingly impossible technology pose, involve a lot of guesswork and quite a bit of cosmology and physics. I must admit some of it was right over my head. Still trying to wrap my head around Mach's principle for instance, an idea that was apparently one of the inspirations to Einstein's general theory of relativity. It also contains a number of references to Stephen Hawking's work on black holes. Where electronic shrink Siegfried is Robinette's discussion partner of choice in the first book, in this one his science program, aptly named Albert, takes over. It must be said, Albert is very good at explaining his guesses, which, especially towards the end of the novel, become more and more important to the plot. One would expect a program modelled on one of the greatest physicists of all time to do a little less guessing, but Robinette often orders him to do so anyway. Some of these guesses are obviously a set up for the next novel. It appears fairly obvious what Robinette's next project will be. This novel, after all, does not solve the issue that is the basis of his ever present guilt.
Pohl's work often have a satirical undertone. Many of his works criticize the excesses of capitalism for instance, or are fairly cynical about the political influence and proper healthcare money can buy. Robinette is not adverse to using his wealth to get things done his way for instance. It is not quite as apparent in this book however. The most notable thing about this novel is that it is drenched in fear. The fear of meeting the unexpected in space, where there is no retreat and very little margin for error. More than a few science fiction novels feature fear, suspicion and paranoia. Especially the so called big dumb object stories, of which Gateway could be considered a variation, usually contain it in a general measure. I guess it is not as claustrophobic as Gateway, but the knowledge that aliens are near weighs on the characters. Due to the number of point of view characters, it is not as oppressive as in the previous novel, but it is almost always present in the background as each of these characters experiences their own personal flavour of fear.
There is one element in this novel that I absolutely didn't like, and that is the way Robinette's wife is portrayed. She is practically perfect in every way, knowing what is wrong with him before he knows himself and allowing him to go after the love of his life, who according to physics should be out of reach forever. Events in Gateway is more than enough reason to feel guilty but Robinette's treatment of his wife certainly adds to the problem. Siegfried's work doesn't appear to be done. The story is a bit open ended on this point. It looks like Pohl will get back to it in the third volume.
I guess you could say Pohl took a bit more conventional approach in writing Beyond the Blue Events Horizon. It makes the book less groundbreaking than Gateway was and probably is part of the reason why it didn't win any of the awards it was nominated for. The scope of it is obviously much wider too, and the many switches in point of view makes it appear a bit less structured than its predecessor. If you view the story as the unveiling of (part of) a mystery, it makes more than enough sense to me. In the end I guess I agree with many of the critics that it is not quite as good a novel as Gateway was. I also think it would have been nice if it had been a little more self contained; if it were fantasy I'd say this book suffered from the middle book syndrome a bit. That being said, it is a good science fiction novel in the classic sense. Plenty of hard science, scientific speculation and a much larger scope than the first book in this series offer their own attractions. I guess it depend on what you want out of a novel but I thought it was an enjoyable read.
Book Details
Title: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Author: Frederik Pohl
Publisher: Orb
Pages: 317
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: paperback
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2177-0
First published: 1980
Saturday, July 7, 2012
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall - Nancy Kress
In 2035 a handful of survivors are all that remain of humanity. Rounded up in a structure called the Shell, they are protected from the radioactive wasteland that is all that remains of the earth. A race of aliens known as the Tesslies built this shelter and has provided the inhabitants with the basics necessary for survival. Despite their best efforts, prospects are not good. Too few to prevent inbreeding in the long run and crippled by radiation related genetic damage, humanity looks doomed. One piece of Tesslie technology that may change all this is a time travelling device that allows the survivors to travel to before the fall and snatch children or supplies. The Grabs, as these expeditions are called are getting closer together and more frantic. Time is clearly running out for the survivors.
In 2013, the kidnappings have not gone unnoticed. Brilliant mathematician Julie Khan is working with he police on finding the perpetrator. She believes there is a connection between the disappearances, a mathematical pattern that allows her to predict the next attempt. As she gets closer to the truth, her mathematics leads her to even more disturbing discoveries.
After she finished the novel, my girlfriend said there were a few things I should ignore to really enjoy the book and she was right. Kress does two things in this novel I don't like. It all comes down to personal preferences mind you, it doesn't necessarily make the book a poor one.
First, Kress wrote a time travel story. I generally don't like those, simply because they always lead to paradoxes and other impossible situations. It generally makes my suspension of disbelief collapse pretty quickly. I kept wondering why nobody in the shell ever thought of trying to warn people in the past for instance. Time travel stories somehow always tie themselves in knots. I must admit Kress writes a structurally beautiful story though. The switches between the sections in 2013/4 and 2035 are woven into each other in such a way that it appears to be told in a chronological fashion. A very odd experience when you think about it and it also shows how unfair I am being towards this book. If Kress had separated the characters spatially rather than in time, and then introduced a way of quickly covering this distance, it wouldn't have made think twice.
The next bit is spoilerish.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Blightcross - C.A. Lang
Meet Capra Jorassian, fugitive solder and con artist. Her life has been a string of attempts to steal from the gullible rich while staying out of the hands of the agents sent to capture her and bring her to justice. During one of Capra's attempts to gain wealth, on such agent finds her. They have a history together and he is not going to let her slip away easily. After a wild pursuit Capra and her companion end up on the streets of Blightcross with just the clothes on their backs. They need work quickly. Fortunately a booming city with a burgeoning oil industry ought to provide plenty of opportunities. And indeed, they soon find a promising job. Stealing a work of art from Till Sevari, the mad dictator that rules the city. They quickly find out the job is a bit more complicated than a simple burglary. Soon events spiral out of control and Capra needs to find a way to stop the complete destruction of the city.
Lang has created a world where technology has advanced quite a bit. There are airships, vast oil refineries, internal combustion engines and all sorts of mechanized vehicles. In short, anything that could be found before the digital revolution appears to be present in some form. That is not to say it is a modern world in all aspects. Many of the tasks that are now being handled by machines were once accomplished by a form of magic. This magic still lingers in the world and although it appears to be obsolete and on the way out, it still fascinates the dictator of Blightcross. The is a contradiction in his actions to subdue and replace magic though is huge industrialization effort and his private research into its nature. In fact his actions are so erratic at times that he must be even more insane than the general population seems to believe he is. There is more than a bit of megalomania in him, as well as the belief that he is acting for the good of the city. He's one of the more interesting characters in the novel although the author leaves us with more than a few questions about his past.
The city of Blightcross is described as an industrial wasteland basically. There is heavy industry just about everywhere and the huge expansion of the city has attracted large numbers of migrant workers for lesser developed regions of the world. The city is rife with ethnic tensions and social conflict, working conditions are appalling and pollution is severely limiting the life expectancy of the workers. Three is clearly a parallel with the situation in the middle east present in this novel, where oil rich states employ vast numbers of migrant workers in their industries and the wealth that pours into these nations is distributed in dubious ways. I couldn't help but wonder if there is some commentary on Canada's own oil industry in there somewhere. In particular it's environmental track record.
There is quite a bit of worldbuilding in this novel but in the end, it is a very plot driven tale. Lang doesn't pause to explain the political situation or historical aspects to the reader in the middle of a fight or heated discussion. He keeps the pace high and distractions to a minimum. It does result in lots of unanswered questions about what is going on the wider world. Capra was involved in a brutal armed conflict, the details of which, apart from a number of traumatic memories from Capra, are pretty scarce. The geopolitical ambitions of Blightcross and its relationship with its neighbours (and one assumes customers) is also fairly underdeveloped. I appreciate the author wanting to keep the pace up in this novel but I think in this area the novel could have been better. Second world fantasies do need a coherent structure in which to set the story and in the case of Brightcross, some aspects remain so vague that the responses of the characters, apparently stemming from their ethnic background, don't always make sense to the reader.
That being said, there is a lot of action in this novel, from strange machines wreaking havoc to supernatural beings threatening the world and from frantic attempts to break into strange buildings to desperate pursuits through the city, this novel has is all. Capra is quit an active main character. Lang decided to focus on a female main character, an interesting choice for a male author in his debut novel. Carpa is a very independent and somewhat stubborn woman. Years on the battlefield have shown her she is physically quite capable of taking on any man and this convictions shows in her actions. One of the many elements of the novel that could have done with a bit more attention is the observation that some of the cultures Capra encounters are not as emancipated as she feels they should be. Apparently she has a history there too.
Blightcross is an action packed novel and quite impressive for a debut. While I felt it lacked a bit of detail in some areas, and failed to properly explore the depth that is obviously present in this secondary world, it is an entertaining tale. One that shows a powerful imagination on the authors part and opens plenty of opportunities to further explore the setting. There are no easy answers or black and white situations in this novel, Capra is as flawed as any of the people who surround her and the author isn't afraid of showing the reader just that. In short, it is a promising novel. I wonder if the author means to write more stories in this setting.
Book Details
Title: Blightcross
Author: C.A. Lang
Publisher: Tyche Books
Pages: 350
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: e-book
ISBN: 978-0-9878248-3-7
First published: 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Xuya Universe Short Fiction by Aliette de Bodard (Part 2)
Last year I wrote a bit about two short stories by Aliette de Bodard set in her fascinating Xuya universe. In this time line the Chinese discovered the Americas before the Europeans did, which lead to a dramatically different history from the one we know. De Bodard offers the beginnings of a chronology on her website. I recently stumbled across another two stories that are available for free online. The Jaguar House, In Shadow and Shipmaker were both nominated for prestigious awards. These two stories weren't, but in terms of quality I'd say there is very little between them.
Butterfly, Falling at Dawn
The word count for this story is about 9,000 and it was first published in November 2008 in Interzone 219. Recently, it has been reissued by International Speculative Fiction, a site that has started publishing short science fiction from outside the English language world. I definitely need to have a closer look at their other stories some time. A PDF of Butterfly, Falling at Dawn can be found here.
In the time line it is set 2006, about 20 years after The Jaguar House, In Shadow and has some clear references to the conflict described in that story. With a crime at the heart of it, superficially the story has more in common with The Lost Xuyan Bride though. The story about Magistrate Hua Ma, a woman of Mexica descent, working for Xuya (Chinese) law enforcement. She is sent to investigate an apparent murder of a Mexica hologram designer. The lives of the investigator and the victim turn out to have certain similarities. It is a case that brings up all sorts of uncomfortably memories about her own youth in the Mexica empire and the events of the civil war that made her turn away from her nation.
There are two distinct layers to this story. One is of course the finding the murderer, which turns out to be reasonably straightforward. The real attraction of this story is in the more personal side to the case. It is written in the first person and with each discovery about the life of the victim, Hua Ma is reminded of what happened to her family after she moved into Xuya territory. She has buried herself in her new life but finds out it is not so easy to leave a past one behind. Or even wise. I guess some people do learn from other people's mistakes.
I have read several stories by de Bodard where characters struggle with cultural differences or find themselves in a culture that is not they one the grew up in. Perhaps this choice of theme not entirely surprising given her own background. These stories always contain a lot of details about where these cultures differ, clash or overlap. Given that de Bodard has had to extrapolate from limited historical material what a modern Mexica culture would look like, it is quite a feat of both imagination and research. Her attention to detail regarding these different cultures and the way the are seamlessly woven into the story is something that set her stories apart.
Shipbirth
The second story is set in the future. De Bodard doesn't mention a year but sometime in the next century seems reasonable. It was first published in Asimov's in February 2011 and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2012 which has recently been awarded to Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie. The word count is about 6,400 and it can be downloaded as epub or mobi, or read online at the author's website .
Shipbirth takes into space, aboard a Mexica spaceship that is about to be completed by the birth of a mind. This crucial part of the ship allows it to travel through space. The minds are carried by volunteers and giving birth to one is a risky and very dangerous to both the mind and the woman carrying it. Aicoimi is a physician overseeing one of these births. Minds always make him uneasy and this particular quickening, as the birth of a mind and its joining with the ship is referred to, turns out to be particularly haunting.
This story is quite a different creature than Butterfly, Falling at Dawn. Much more ambiguous. Where the previous story leads you to the answer, this story raises questions. One of the things that struck me about the story is how the atmosphere is both similar and very different from Shipmaker, which is set on board a similar spaceship, only built for the Chinese fleet. De Bodard somehow manages to give these ships a very different feel. The loneliness of space is present in both but the Mexica ship feels much more like a living (somewhat scary) creature, where the Chinese feels more harmoniously designed.
Aicoimi is a complex character. When we meet him he is male but that was not always the case and throughout the story he moves up and down the spectrum of masculine and feminine thoughts and behaviours, constantly aware of society's conventions and stereotypes and constantly linking it to choices and actions. De Bodard stuffs a lot of his past in this story. Memories of his youth, as a young girl witnessing death, his military career for which he changed his gender and the revulsion that makes him turn to his current profession. The author works in a these aspects (birth and war) in the Aztec deities mentioned in the story as well. It is a detail but it pays to read up on the deities she mentions. It is one of the details that shows how much care and skill went into this story. It's a story that keeps the reader on their toes. Not as straightforward as the first story but certainly the one that stayed with me longer. I wonder if de Bodard is going to do more stories in the space age Xuya setting.
The Xuya universe is still largely unexplored and offers all kinds of interesting possibilities. I have immensely enjoyed the five stories I've read so far and I am looking forward to more. There is at least one story that I am aware of that I haven't read yet. I'll also keep an eye out for that one so perhaps there will be a part 3.
The word count for this story is about 9,000 and it was first published in November 2008 in Interzone 219. Recently, it has been reissued by International Speculative Fiction, a site that has started publishing short science fiction from outside the English language world. I definitely need to have a closer look at their other stories some time. A PDF of Butterfly, Falling at Dawn can be found here.
In the time line it is set 2006, about 20 years after The Jaguar House, In Shadow and has some clear references to the conflict described in that story. With a crime at the heart of it, superficially the story has more in common with The Lost Xuyan Bride though. The story about Magistrate Hua Ma, a woman of Mexica descent, working for Xuya (Chinese) law enforcement. She is sent to investigate an apparent murder of a Mexica hologram designer. The lives of the investigator and the victim turn out to have certain similarities. It is a case that brings up all sorts of uncomfortably memories about her own youth in the Mexica empire and the events of the civil war that made her turn away from her nation.
There are two distinct layers to this story. One is of course the finding the murderer, which turns out to be reasonably straightforward. The real attraction of this story is in the more personal side to the case. It is written in the first person and with each discovery about the life of the victim, Hua Ma is reminded of what happened to her family after she moved into Xuya territory. She has buried herself in her new life but finds out it is not so easy to leave a past one behind. Or even wise. I guess some people do learn from other people's mistakes.
I have read several stories by de Bodard where characters struggle with cultural differences or find themselves in a culture that is not they one the grew up in. Perhaps this choice of theme not entirely surprising given her own background. These stories always contain a lot of details about where these cultures differ, clash or overlap. Given that de Bodard has had to extrapolate from limited historical material what a modern Mexica culture would look like, it is quite a feat of both imagination and research. Her attention to detail regarding these different cultures and the way the are seamlessly woven into the story is something that set her stories apart.
The second story is set in the future. De Bodard doesn't mention a year but sometime in the next century seems reasonable. It was first published in Asimov's in February 2011 and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 2012 which has recently been awarded to Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie. The word count is about 6,400 and it can be downloaded as epub or mobi, or read online at the author's website .
Shipbirth takes into space, aboard a Mexica spaceship that is about to be completed by the birth of a mind. This crucial part of the ship allows it to travel through space. The minds are carried by volunteers and giving birth to one is a risky and very dangerous to both the mind and the woman carrying it. Aicoimi is a physician overseeing one of these births. Minds always make him uneasy and this particular quickening, as the birth of a mind and its joining with the ship is referred to, turns out to be particularly haunting.
This story is quite a different creature than Butterfly, Falling at Dawn. Much more ambiguous. Where the previous story leads you to the answer, this story raises questions. One of the things that struck me about the story is how the atmosphere is both similar and very different from Shipmaker, which is set on board a similar spaceship, only built for the Chinese fleet. De Bodard somehow manages to give these ships a very different feel. The loneliness of space is present in both but the Mexica ship feels much more like a living (somewhat scary) creature, where the Chinese feels more harmoniously designed.
Aicoimi is a complex character. When we meet him he is male but that was not always the case and throughout the story he moves up and down the spectrum of masculine and feminine thoughts and behaviours, constantly aware of society's conventions and stereotypes and constantly linking it to choices and actions. De Bodard stuffs a lot of his past in this story. Memories of his youth, as a young girl witnessing death, his military career for which he changed his gender and the revulsion that makes him turn to his current profession. The author works in a these aspects (birth and war) in the Aztec deities mentioned in the story as well. It is a detail but it pays to read up on the deities she mentions. It is one of the details that shows how much care and skill went into this story. It's a story that keeps the reader on their toes. Not as straightforward as the first story but certainly the one that stayed with me longer. I wonder if de Bodard is going to do more stories in the space age Xuya setting.
The Xuya universe is still largely unexplored and offers all kinds of interesting possibilities. I have immensely enjoyed the five stories I've read so far and I am looking forward to more. There is at least one story that I am aware of that I haven't read yet. I'll also keep an eye out for that one so perhaps there will be a part 3.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson
The revolution has succeeded, Mars is now de facto independent of Earth. That certainly doesn't mean their troubles are over. Earth vastness, resources and enormous population loom over the fragile environment of the red planet. Internally Martian society faces challenges as well. The population is fractured into a large number for radically different groups, all with their own values, philosophies and goals, some of which clash violently. A new way to govern such a diverse group of people will have to be devised. The great social and scientific experiment that the colonization of Mars has become continues and the First Hundred, now diminished to a much smaller number, are at the centre of these development. In a solar system here longevity and population growth threaten to overtake technological development and the carrying capacity of Earth, Mars aims to be an example of what humanity can do to overcome these challenges.
I guess Blue Mars is not as spectacular as the early exploration of the planet in Red Mars (1992) or the revolution and war that take place in Green Mars (1993). The novel opens with the last skirmishes of the revolution but soon we are drawn into the process of developing a political structure that can handle both the unique physical environment as well as the varied values and philosophies of the population. Not all readers will appreciate this section but for me it showcases Robinson's view very well. There is a sense of optimism in these negotiations, a frantic energy and a will to succeed, that defies the huge problems humanity is faced with. Climate change, overpopulation and generations of people who live well into their third century all contribute to a picture that could easily overwhelm even the most optimistic individual. As the Martians coble together a new constitution out of radical but tried Earth methods and new Martian ideas. One that is designed to leave people as much freedom as possibly while at the same time strictly regulating societies environmental impact and guarding against economic oppression. No easy task and the result is obviously not flawless, as we'll find out later in the book. Still, Robinson beliefs it can be done and in this sections, his optimism, mostly relayed by Art, just leaps off the pages. Although Nadia would no doubt tell us it is a tyranny of a different sort.
Although the Red-Green debate seems to have come out in favour of the Green side, the planet is being irrevocably changed especially at the lower altitudes, the tension between these two visions is still present. Both Ann and Sax get a point of view section and I remember Ann's in particular hitting me hard the first time I read it. One of the downsides of studying environmental science is that you start seeing signs of humanity's influence of the landscape everywhere. In the Netherlands there is no escape from this anywhere. Even landscapes that are protected for their ecological diversity or rare environmental conditions are usually brought about some kind of carefully managed use of the land. The ideal that environmental policy strives for around here is to return to the state of the land in the 1850s, when ecological diversity was at a peak. It was also a time when just about every scrap of land, no matter how marginal, was being used for something. In other words, there is no natural landscape left around here. Humanity's influence is inescapable. Which is something like how Ann experiences Mars. Change and human influence can be found everywhere on the planet if one knows what to look for. Ann's cause is hopeless but it still hit a chord with me.
It seems Sax is beginning to see this as well. While he is still in favour of terraforming, and sees the beauty of this emerging, liveable environment everywhere, he feels the need for a synthesis of these two views as well as a reconciliation between these two iconic characters personally. There is an awful lot going on in these novels, but when you get right down to it, the Green-Red debate forms the backbone of the story. Not everybody is going to agree with this vision and the utopian society that emerges in Robinson's book. In fact, the novels prompted Brian W. Aldiss in collaboration with physicist Sir Roger Penrose to write White Mars (1999), a novel that takes quite a different approach (and appears to be very much out of print). Robinson's future is believably messy but the compressed time line and extended lives of the main characters take away something of the realism I guess. By the end of this novel the First Hundred are well into their third century.
This advanced age is the topic of one of Sax' most fascinating sections though. Robinson goes back to an idea he used in his 1984 novel Icehenge and explores memory problems in the extremely long lived. Sax of course takes the scientific approach to combating the increasing problem of whole trains of thought just blanking out completely. Robinson goes into quite a bit of detail on the structure and workings of the brain, which in the 23rd century is still a bit of a mystery. These books are saturated with Robinson's love for the scientific process but no section shows it better than Sax researching his memory problems. The fact that he keeps loosing useful thoughts and he can't seem to record them as he goes add a bit of urgency and frustration to his efforts and made me wonder how much of a verbal process thinking really is.
I guess you could say this book is a bit more introvert than the previous novels. There is homesick Michel finally returning the Provence after a century on Mars, Ann dealing with the loss of the pure Martian landscape, Maya slowly loosing her grip on her mental problems, Sax deeply withdrawn in his science and Nirgal trying to figure out what a revolutionary is supposed to do after a successful revolution. They all show us facets of the newly developing Martian culture but each somehow feels like a bit of an outsider. Not a problem Zoya Boone, John's great-granddaughter has to deal with. She is the fresh new face of a part of Martian society and the Accelerando, a time of great expansion and scientific progress, as a whole. Nihilistic and hedonistic are terms often used to describe her. In a way she is naive as well. Though her eyes we explore what goes on elsewhere in the solar system in a kind of tour reminiscent of the one portrayed in The Memory of Whiteness (1985). The Mercurial rolling city named Terminator appears in both books and I understand it shows up in 2312 as well. Blue Mars my well turn out to be the lynch pin of Robinson's output. There are plenty of links between his books despite the fact that they don't fit into one larger universe or time line.
As a novel, I don't think Blue Mars works particularly well. Where Red Mars and Green Mars each had more of an overarching story to keep all the different points of view together. For most of the book, which covers almost a century, Blue Mars does not have this kind of tension. The threat of Earth, while always present, appears to be distant to most Martians, many of whom are much more concerned with their own planet. We get to see bits and pieces of the time line and various other places in the solar system but there doesn't seem to be a unifying factor that welds all this separate stories together. When the eventual showdown with Earth finally comes, it almost feels as an afterthought. The novel is carried by the strength of Robinson's ideas, the breath of the topics discussed and the fascinating descriptions of increasingly green Martian environments. For the reader who expects a bit more plot and action this novel may be a bit of a let down.
For me personally it is a fascinating book though. I loved just about every aspect of it when I first read it and my rereads have not diminished this love. No matter how many more books I'll read on the subject, the Mars trilogy will probably remain the definitive work on the colonization of Mars for me. The scale of the story, the diversity of Robinson's scientific, political and social influences and his fascinating characters make these novels some of the most captivating science fiction I've ever read. Sure, there are plenty of elements to criticize in these novels, and in my reviews I've named a few of those. That doesn't take away anything from the fact that these books are a monumental achievement in science fiction. A superb attempt to combine hard science fiction with social and religious elements, insert some optimism into the genre and expand the ecological themes which, up to this point, had been pretty rare in science fiction. Blue Mars is a fitting end to the project that will no doubt turn out to be the one Robinson will be most remembered for. I can't think of a book that impacted me as deeply as this novel has. In other words, you should read it.
Book Details
Title: Blue Mars
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Publisher: Voyager
Pages: 787
Year: 1996
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 0-586-21391-0
First published: 1996
Sunday, June 17, 2012
D.N.F. Dragon Touched by E.W. Scott
I still have a hard time putting my finger on what makes me unable to finish this book. I have read books that were very poor indeed, books that simply bored me, and books I ended up detesting and finished all of them. What makes this awkward is that unlike Bodoc's book, I received Dragon Touched as a review copy. Fortunately the author took it well. She showed some real grace and diplomacy in the e-mail conversation we've had and that is something that ought to be mentioned.
Since I haven't finished I am not going to do a review on the book. As far as I can tell it isn't badly written, I guess it just didn't manage to hold my attention. There are a few people who did write full reviews of this book so I am going to refer you to the opinions of two ladies who's judgement I trust.
Mieneke's review can be found on the A Fantastical Librarian blog, while Fantasy Bytes offers her opinion here. Both these blogs are well worth reading so have a good look around while you are there.
I will be back next week with a review of Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars which I hope to finish tonight.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
After their dual victory in the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta try to settle in the victor's village in district twelve. With her winnings Katniss tries to help as many people as possible but things have changed. As much as she wants to, there is no slipping back into her old life. Something that is underlined by president Snow himself, when he shows up to tell her what is expected of her in the tour of the districts the winners are supposed to make after their victory. Her defiance of the Capital has seriously undermined his authority. In many of the districts discontent is obvious and rebellion is simmering right under the surface. On a more personal level, Katniss seems unable to fix her relationship with Gale. The constant pressure of having to keep up the star crossed lovers charade with Peeta is weighing heavily on Gale. An explosive situation on all levels.
For a large part of the novel, Katniss is dealing with the fall out of her performance in the Hunger Games. As the effects of her defiance ripple though the districts, Katniss has plenty of time to consider her position. It makes Catching Fire a lot slower than the first book, especially in the opening chapters. I guess Katniss is finding out why winners of the Hunger Games rarely are able to settle back in any kind of normal life. With guilt over there acts or mere survival pursuing them, the knowledge of the truth behind the Games and the Capital's power weighing on them and the estrangement from their friends and families setting them apart, more than one victor has fled into destructive lifestyles or substance abuse. Katniss feels it, she is restless, as discontent as the districts appear to be, and it makes her a bit of a whiny character. In fact, she is so absorbed in her own misery that she misses quite a bit of what goes on around her.
Like the first volume, Catching Fire is written in the first person and the present tense. It took me a couple of chapters to get back into this unusual style. More than in The Hunger Games, I feel Collins is running into the limitations of a first person narrative. She is playing her part, sometimes sees glimpses of the effect her actions have on the population, but mostly she is kept in the dark. Behind the facade of the Capital's unquestionable power a lot is going on. Public opinion sways, resistance is growing and violence erupts all out of sight. Katniss certainly faces her own challenges but I didn't think her part of the story the most interesting development in the book. While the interesting stuff is happening out of sight, the reader works their way though a novel that is part dark reflection on events from the first book and part repetition of the Hunger Games ritual.
Once again, I was struck by the sheer unlikeliness of the way the Capital expresses its power over its subjects. In Catching Fire we gear up to the 75th edition and even with the problems with this show of power obviously exposed in the last Games, they insist on an even more brutal version this time around. President Snow feels his power has been undermined by Katniss' refusal to kill Peeta and his ultimate answer to this problem is putting her in the same position again, which makes very little sense to me. I guess the outcome is more or less predictable. Where in The Hunger Games you have a pretty good feeling of where the story is heading, there is still the puzzle of how Katniss will manage to get there. In Catching Fire, Katniss lets others find the solutions for her. Collins foreshadows a lot of events in the final chapters adequately and manages to avoid a true deus ex machina ending, but it is far from the strongest finale I have read. It absolutely pales in comparison to how she managed in the first novel.
I guess you could say I wasn't very impressed with this novel. It advances Katniss' struggle with the Capitol a little but not is a way that is very exciting to read about. Katniss herself is far from the admirable and capable young woman she has shown herself to be in the first volume and manages to be in the centre of the action with absolutely no idea what is going on. Fortunately Catching Fire is a quick read or I would have been seriously tempted to put the book down and read something else. No doubt there are readers who will devour this book with equal enthusiasms as the previous one, and dive right into the third book in the series, I'm afraid such devotion is not for me. I think I will borrow my girlfriend's copy of Mockingjay as well. I am mildly curious about the final showdown between Katniss and president Snow, but not enough to actually buy a copy.
Book Details
Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 472
Year: 2009
Language: English
Format: Mass Market Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-407109-36-7
First published: 2009
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Drowned Cities - Paolo Bacigalupi
The novel is set in a future Washington D.C. The USA has lost it's spot as most powerful nation in the world and climate change has dramatically altered the coastline. After a failed Chinese attempt at peace keeping, Washington is currently fought over by a number of factions, all hoping to gain control over the former capital as a first step to reunifying the country. To finance their war, they scavenge the city and sell their findings to a number of large corporations always hungry for the world's scarce resources. The communities around the war zone are regularly harvested for fresh recruits, usually children, and slave labour. In this world, Mahlia, a young girl of mixed Chinese American origin grows up. Given the resentment still carried against the Chinese peacekeepers, she is not exactly popular. Even the community she lives in, barely accepts her. The only reason she is allowed to stay is that the only man who could pass for a doctor has taken her on as his assistant. Mahlia runs into deep trouble when patients from opposing factions appear on their doorstep.
The Drowned Cities is connected to Ship Breaker but except for one character who shows up in both novels and a few minor references there is no connection between the stories. It is perfectly possible to read one without having read the other. The details of the world are the same though. Bacigalupi throws in a lot of references to climate change, genetic engineering, biological warfare and scarcity of resources (in particular oil). It is not as obvious as in his work for adults, and not discussed in as much detail, but many of the developments are similar to what happened to the world in the Windup stories (although it they are not set in the same world). Some of the things that have happened to this future Washington have roots in the great, and usually undressed, environmental problems the world faces. You can accept these as a give and ignore this background in favour of a good action story, but for the reader looking for more, there is a whole layer of highly relevant environmental and political issues to sink your teeth in.
I did think the novel was very violent. Apparently the young adult genre leans towards darker tales, with violent acts discussed more explicitly than would have been fitting a few years ago. The war Bacigalupi describes is as barbaric as the reports that have come in from various parts of Africa in recent years. Torture, mutilation and the use for children (often under the influence of some substance of other) are all accepted practices in this war and that doesn't even include the deployment of genetically engineered soldiers. America, it turns out, is not above a bit of brutality when push comes to shove. Ironically, the only pacifist character in the novel is a Muslim. I wonder how many young readers will catch that bit of social commentary. I don't think Bacigalupi gets too graphic, but with Mahlia spending much of the novel one step away from rape, death or mutilation, this book is not suitable for very young readers.
Bacigalupi's exploration of the fallen capital of a once great nation can seem a bit depressing but the motivation of the characters to put themselves in danger is all too human. The various militias may have the guns but that doesn't mean people will put up with anything. Mahlia is a girl who realizes the word has little to offer her. She doesn't shy away from violence and is not afraid to take rash action and it is her rashness that drives the story. More than once her decisions are questionable but her loyalty to her one remaining friend touches those around her. One thing that Bacigalupi did very well is show the reader how limited her view of the world is. She knows it is a large place but circumstances are such, that places beyond the immediate vicinity are shrouded in rumour and hearsay. Or perhaps we should call it the fog of war. Her world is a strange mix of fading Chinese civilization, remnants of past American glory and sheer survival instinct. Not an easy place to stick to the ideals of her rescuer and teacher in the arts of healing.
The Drowned Cities is a noticeably darker book than Ship Breaker. Although Nailer lives in a hard world and has to put his life on the line more than once, it is not the bullet riddled mess Mahlia finds herself in. I also felt Bacigalupi added much more in the way of deeper layers into this story, making it more challenging than his previous effort. With a few different choices, Bacigalupi could have turned this into an adult novel. I'm not sure it would have been better that way, but it was certainly possible. I'm not sure which one of the two I like better. When I was in the right age group, I probably would have said Ship Breaker. Right now, I appreciate a lot of the things Bacigalupi did in this story more than I would have back then. One thing is for sure, Bacigalupi doesn't underestimate his audience. I think I am going to have to revisit his brilliant collection Pump Six and Other Stories, just to tide me over until the next novel. Be it a YA one of an Adult novel, I'll read anything this man writes.
Book Details
Title: The Drowned Cities
Author: Paolo Bacigalupi
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 437
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-316-05624-3
First published: 2012
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