Women to Read: Romance & Speculative Fiction

May 8, 2013 by 15 Comments

One of the best things I discovered last month amongst all the various conversations is #womentoread on Twitter –I added lots of new writers to my completely unruly list of books to read (someday). Then I got to thinking: some people might be interested in reading outside their usual genres. So I thought I’d put together a couple of lists of romance that I think speculative fiction readers will enjoy along with explanations as to why and vice versa. The only limit I put on my recommendations was that the author needed to be someone who identified as a woman since what got me thinking about this was #womentoread.

Romance for Speculative Fiction Readers

Lord of Scoundrels, Loretta ChaseA Lady Awakened, Cecilia GrantThe Duchess War, Courtney Milan

I’m sticking with historical authors for this batch of recommendations because I think historical romance has a certain affinity for speculative fiction. Historical romances are, in my opinion, very much like fantasy novels and much like fantasy novels, the setting can and does inform the plot and characterization.

As in speculative fiction, historical romance relies upon an interlocking sequence of research and extrapolation that the story must rest upon–a strong foundation can hold up just about any kind of story. There are so many fantastic books in the subgenre that I had a difficult time picking just three writers to recommend!.

Loretta Chase: Chase is probably my absolute favorite romance author and I’m always recommending her–her books are smart, well-constructed, and thoroughly researched. I’d recommend either Lord of Scoundrels or Mr. Impossible–or both, if you want an idea of Chase’s range as a writer.

Lord of Scoundrels is one of her earlier novels–it was published in 1995–and yet it still feels fresh and revolutionary in so many ways. I can’t even imagine reading it when it was first published.  It must have been mind-blowing.

Jessica Trent is an intelligent and thoroughly self-possessed young woman and Sebastian Ballister, Marquess of Dain is a dissolute blackguard who has never been loved or loved anyone in his life. They have boatloads of chemistry together and it’s just fun to read their interactions. One of the key things about this book is that Dain is, on the surface, a stereotypical “alpha-hole” hero–but because the reader is given his backstory right at the beginning on the book, his alpha-hole-ness is subverted and the reader’s sympathy is gained. It’s a clever bit of storytelling and while it is a bit leaden, it’s also essential because otherwise Dain is essentially irredeemable. I’ve often been tempted to buy a copy of this book, remove the prologue, and hand it to someone who has never read it and see what they think. So much of the book’s success rests on the beginning.

Mr. Impossible is nearly the opposite: it’s funny and features a male protagonist who is basically a lovable and happy-go-lucky guy. Rupert Carsington is not book-smart, but he is emotionally intelligent and he basically falls in love with Daphne from the first moment he meets her. He is absolutely besotted with her intellect and he lets her take the lead on that front as they attempt to locate her kidnapped brother–the entire book is basically an extended rumination on how smart Daphne is and how very, very excellent that quality in her is. The villain of this book is, more or less, a standard issue British imperialist, but rest assured he does get his comeuppance in the end. There is also a completely ridiculous and over the top sex scene in a pyramid during a sand storm. It’s awesome. It’s also my very favorite romance novel of all time.

Cecilia Grant: A Lady Awakened was one of the best romances I read last year. There are many reasons for this but my favorite one is the truly epic bad sex and how it was absolutely right for the story and how, as the two protagonists came to care for each other their physical relationship transformed as well.

Martha is newly widowed and unless she is able to produce a boy child within the next 8 to 9 months, she will lose her home and become a poor relation. Theo is her new neighbor–the son of a minor nobleman, he’s been sent to the country to learn responsibility. Martha sees him as a possible solution to her problem and proposes that she pay him to try to get her pregnant in the next month–she knows this is unethical and it’s not what she wants to do but it is, literally, the only choice available to her. Watching Martha make this choice and still try to remain true to herself and her ideals is really something.

And Grant’s writing is simply gorgeous:

Her hands fell at random places on his back and stayed there, passively riding his rhythm like a pair of dead fish tossed by the sea. Or rather, one dead fish. The other still curled tight, like a brittle seashell with its soft sensate creature shrunk all the way inside.

That’s a sex scene. With dead fish. It’s wonderful. It’s such a perfect encapsulation of Martha at that point in the book–she is trying to be active but not being particularly successful at it–she hasn’t been taught how to be active in her own life: she’s all repressed and brittle and curled in upon herself. And the way she slowly, so slowly opens up is so very powerful. The ending is a bit rushed and didn’t quite work for me–there were too many coincidences–but for a debut novel, this was one hell of a book.

I also just love Grant’s take on romance as a whole, too.

Courtney Milan: I’m going to recommend the first two volumes in her current series, the Brothers Sinister. The first volume, “The Governess Affair” is a prequel novella that sets up the rest of the series–it’s not essential reading but it is useful background knowledge. The Duchess War is the first full-length book in the series and it’s fantastic. Milan is well aware of all the tropes in romance and she is explicitly playing with and exploding them while telling a compelling and moving story about people who feel so, so real.

Min is acutely conscious of her place in society–which is quite marginal, for reasons which are thoroughly explored within the text and which I don’t want to spoil here–and Clermont has bucketloads of unearned privilege that he’s very uncomfortable with. Milan is one of the few writers of historical fiction who is actively working within the restrictions on both women and those not of the upper classes–so often, characters in historical romances are able to move between social classes through the power of love (and buckets of money)–Milan’s body of work makes it evident that this oh-so-common genre convention is a fantasy and that while love is a powerful force, it cannot conquer all.

As for the trope-exploding, there are two very common things that occur in romance that drive a lot of readers up the wall. That would be the evil mother and the baby epilogue–Milan explodes both of them in The Duchess War, right down to the hushed dark room with a terrific amount of tension. And then when it becomes apparent what’s actually going on, it’s just a great ending to the book. And as for the evil mother–she has real motivations and isn’t just a cardboard character there for the purpose of causing trauma to her son.

There’s also a second novella in this series, “A Kiss for Midwinter” and it’s also wonderful–it’s about a couple of secondary characters and the theme of that one is knowledge and anger and horrifying Victorian medical practices. Good stuff. Can’t wait for the next one!

Speculative Fiction for Romance Readers

Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette KowalThe Sharking Knife: Beguilement, Lois McMaster BujoldIn the Garden of Iden, Kage Baker

My recommendations here have a certain something in common with my romance recommendations–these all have a strong thread of romance and they also have fully realized settings that the characters move within.

All three of these writers are firmly grounded in speculative fiction and it is mostly from these tropes these series spring–the romantic elements are essential but the stories wouldn’t be what they are without the speculative elements.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Her fantasy novels are Regency novels but with magic–they’re set during the Napoleonic Wars, a setting that should be very familiar to romance readers In the first book, Shades of Milk and Honey, Jane Ellsworth has a rare talent with glamour–the manipulation of which is considered essential for any well-bred young lady. Along with her sister, Melody, Jane’s life revolves around eligible young men and hopes of marriage. Naturally, Jane’s skill with glamour plays an important role in this book–one thing I found very interesting was the way Kowal subverts the use of magic in her book. Typically, in fantasy novels, magic is a prestigious or desirable activity and yet, in this book it’s an activity fit only for women and men on the fringes of society.

These books are an explicit exploration of women’s roles in society both in and out of marriage and how, even when entering into a marriage that both partners have agreed will be egalitarian, there is still a lot of internalized expectations that need to be overcome.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Bujold is a favorite around these parts, but I’m going to be recommending a series we haven’t covered here and that’s the Sharing Knife quartet. These were written explicitly as an exploration of romance and, as such, the romantic element is explicitly foregrounded while the fantastical elements are much more subtle. There’s a lot going on in these books and I enjoyed them for what they were but many of Bujold’s core audience did not (warning: link contains a lot of “ew, girl cooties”) and wrote the series off after the first volume, Beguilement.

The heart of this book is the relationship between Fawn and Dag and how it develops while they are dealing with magical creatures called “malices”. These books take place in a society that’s trying to rebuild after some sort of magical apocalypse–the malices are a remnant of the catastrophe and the Lakewalkers, Dag’s people, are charged with dispatching them. Fawn comes from people who are more settled and there is a tremendous amount of tension and misinformation between the two groups–most of the tension and conflict in these books comes from the clash of these two (very essential) cultures, not from the fantastic elements.. These books are definitely an experiment on Bujold’s part and while I’m not sure they’re a completely successful experiment even a bad book from Bujold is head and shoulders above a good book from other authors.

Kage Baker: Baker’s Company series is about immortal time travelling cyborgs. Specifically, one named Mendoza who is bitter, prickly, and hates humanity (and for very good reason, i.e., the Spanish Inquisition). And yet they’re also gloriously romantic although it takes many books before Mendoza gets a happy ending. I will note here that the last few books do not work for everyone and even though they worked for me I can absolutely see how the ending is deeply unsatisfying and problematic for other readers. I’ll also note that Baker passed away in 2010 after a short and brutal battle with uterine cancer. She is, still, missed.

In the Garden of Iden is the first book and it’s wonderful–it’s a science fiction historical romance which ends badly (possible understatement of the year) but it’s such a compelling story and the way Baker writes a thoroughly unpleasant character like Mendoza in such a sympathetic way is incredible. Mendoza is made into a cyborg at the beginning of this book and she trains as a botanist–her hope is to be sent someplace far away from people for her first assignment but instead she’s sent to Elizabethan England where she meets Nicholas Harpole and falls in love. Note: things end badly here. There isn’t even a happy-for-now ending.

There is wonk and angst galore in these books and I can’t recommend them highly enough. There’s also a deep and evident authorial love for all the characters and the setting–these are books about California and secret histories and pop culture and nightmare dystopian futures. With immortal time traveling cyborgs.

So to summarize: there are awesome books in lots of different genres. It can’t hurt to try something new–at worst, it’s a DNF and at best you have a new favorite. I’m hoping to make this a regular feature here, so any and all suggestions will be considered for the future.

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The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

May 7, 2013 by 4 Comments
The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

I came somewhat late to Connie Willis.  I don’t remember exactly who first recommended her to me, but it wasn’t that long ago—maybe 15 years—and I’ve been trying to catch up on her back list ever since.  I’ve always given The Doomsday Book a miss in the past because one, it’s reeeeallllly  long and two, The Black Death didn’t sound like a cheerful subject to me and I don’t think my brain was in the right place to read it.

I’m not sure why I decided to read it now.  But holy cow, what an amazing book.  It is long, but it doesn’t feel long.  And I can confirm that if you read it while the movie Chicago is playing in the background, you might have some very odd dreams about flappers during the 1300’s.

The Doomsday Book concerns two pandemics: The Black Death that swept through Europe and finally into England in 1348 and a flu pandemic hitting Oxford in “real time” (which is really in the future).  They meet in the person of Kivrin, an Oxford Historian set to travel to The Middle Ages and 1320.  Unbeknownst to her, Kivrin has been exposed to an influenza virus right before travelling, and she arrives disoriented, with a high fever, and other flu symptoms.  She is found by a “contemp” (a person contemporary to that time period) and taken to the local manor house, where the lady of the manor, Eliwys, her miserable mother-in-law Imeyne, and the local priest, Roche, tend to her.  Kivrin eventually recovers, but in her delirium during her fever she has completely blown her cover story, so she feigns amnesia in order to have a chance to get back to her drop.  If she can remember where it’s at.  What she doesn’t realize is that there’s been a terrible error on the other side and that she has not been sent to 1320, but to 1348 and that the plague is about to sweep through England.

Meanwhile, the tech in charge of Kivrin’s drop has come down with this new strain of influenza and the entire city of Oxford has been placed under quarantine.  Just before succumbing to the flu, Badri tells Mr. Dunworthy, Kivrin’s mentor, that something “is wrong” with the drop.  As the local authorities and medical staff work frantically to prevent Bahdri’s flu from spreading, Dunworthy obsesses about Kivrin’s drop– and Kivrin– when it becomes clear she has been exposed to the influenza virus that is now killing people in Oxford.  Previously worried about her being set upon by thieves or cutthroats, Dunworthy is now concerned that she is ill during a period of history where medical intervention consisted of ineffective herbs and the application of leeches, a time when people routinely died from infected scratches.

It takes a good deal of skill to stitch together two separate narrative strands occurring so far apart in time without showing the seams, and Willis does a great job of fitting the two narratives together seamlessly.  This is helped by a fundamental feature of time-travel: while Kivrin has no idea what’s going on in the Oxford she left behind, the people there certainly know exactly what’s going on in 1348.  Still, it’s crucial that the Kivrin character be someone capable of holding a nearly 600 page novel together across 700 years.  She has to be heroic, yes, but she also has to be someone others care about and whom the reader cares about.  She’s all that and more.

What I found most fascinating about this book is that Willis makes it clear that despite all the technological advantages and all the medical advances of the future, people themselves have not fundamentally changed much.  They don’t follow instructions , they’re selfish, and they’re always looking to assign blame for problems to anyone but themselves, but they’re also selfless, kind, and heroic.  There are parallel characters working throughout the two narratives that help tie them together—for example, the awful Imeyne who does nothing but assign blame, criticize, pray, and consider her own needs finds a counterpart in a contemporary woman who selfishly harangues the college staff about trivial matters when she’s not depressing flu patients by reading them gloomy passages from the Bible or smothering her more than capable son with what she sees as motherly love.  Dr. Mary Ahren  devotes all of her time to her patients with no regard for her own health, just as Roche, the priest, tends to his flock.  Mr. Gilchrist, the acting head of Brasenose College, takes steps to protect his own butt with no regard for anyone else’s needs, just as the majority of priests during the black death fled from it to protect themselves (the comparisons between the Bishop’s delegates and Father Roche make a powerful statement about what constitutes a true Christian without Willis ever having to connect those dots).  Nope.  People don’t change.

But that’s not a bad thing because ultimately what you learn here is that despite the odd bad apple, people are fundamentally decent.  Everyone rallies to help Dunworthy when it becomes clear that Kirvin is in trouble—rules are bent or circumvented, helpful tech people are scrounged out of nowhere—just as the people of the manor rally to help Kirvin in her illness, despite being suspicious of her.  And Kirvin, whom I’m sure no one would blame for fleeing once it becomes clear to her that she’s in the wrong time period, stays and does what she can to help these people she’s become attached to.  Watching the plague devastate the village and the characters you’ve come to admire is like being repeatedly punched in the gut—we already know the outcome, know Kirvin’s meager medical knowledge is going to provide palliative relief at best.  The end of this book is both heartbreaking and uplifting, somehow.  I challenge you to not find your eyes welling up toward the end.

Willis spent five years researching this book, and the sections set during the Middle Ages come alive.  Everyday life 700 years ago wasn’t all that different: mothers-in-law still criticized, children still whined and got excited about Christmas, edible food and potable water still had to be found. People were born, people died.  Only the trappings are different now—we drive instead of riding horseback, our water comes from a tap or out of a plastic bottle and not hauled by bucket out of a well, we rely on doctors instead of folklore when we’re ill.  We face medical and spiritual crises differently, but we still face them regularly.

The more contemporary sections of The Doomsday Book are a little more problematic, but only because the book, written 20 years ago, seems kind of dated, which is a weird, weird thing to say about a book set in the future.  But in our current age of instant communication, it seems odd that these people are struggling with landlines, even if they are landlines with video features, and not using cellphones, twitter, facebook, or email to communicate with both each other and the general population.  At one point, a character is putting up placards about the flu and I kept thinking “why don’t they just use the internet?”  In a world where computers are used to facilitate time travel and technology is able to allow translator implants in the brain, it seems a bit wrong that there are no cell phones or internet.  But it’s hardly Willis’ fault that our current communications tech has outstripped her book.  And that doesn’t make the book any less readable or less enjoyable.

I’m sorry I waited so long to read this.   The Doomsday Book won virtually every major SFF award in 1993, and with good reason.  If you’re like me and hesitant to read something that looks like it’s going to be depressing, take a leap of faith.  This is a great book.

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The Human Division #13: Earth Below, Sky Above, John Scalzi

April 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Human Division #13: Earth Below, Sky Above, John Scalzi

The Human Division #13: Earth Below, Sky Above, John Scalzi

And we’ve come to the end of line with John Scalzi’s The Human Division. “Earth Below, Sky Above” is the final episode and I’m going to say that Scalzi mostly stuck the landing. If I this were a gymnastics competition, imagine that I am the East German judge and I’m holding up scorecards that read “6.9″. A diving competition would probably be a better metaphor considering what happens here but I can’t be bothered to look up how they score diving. And yes, I know, the gymnastics scoring system has changed and it’s no longer a 10 point scale but it’s not like East Germany’s around anymore either.

Anyhow.

This is mostly successful. Tons of great stuff happens in the episode, characters are put in peril, there are heroics and giant space explosions and technology so advanced that it’s more or less magic.  Lots of really wonderful narrative tension. Basically everything that is great about space opera.

However, there is no resolution of what’s been driving this whole thing–to wit, the mysterious conspirators who have been stealing spaceships and wreaking havoc on the CDF’s clumsy attempts to patch things up with Earth are still mysterious at the end of it all.

Which makes me a bit cranky because I am not a fan of unresolved plots in novels, especially one as big as this one; in fact, one could argue that this is the central plot of the text and to leave it hanging is sub-optimal. In my not very humble opinion.

So it comes as no surprise, then, to see an announcement of a “second season” in which, it is to be devoutly hoped, that there’s a bit more resolution.

That said, how did the serial format work? From a story-telling perspective, I don’t think The Human Division holds up as a coherent work–however, Donna has plans to read it in its entirety sometime soon, so she’ll be able to weigh in on that front. I think as a marketing ploy, though, it was brilliant. I don’t know if Tor would have been able to pull this off without an author without the social and commercial capital that John Scalzi has. I suspect not–and I suspect that they wouldn’t have been willing to risk it, either.

And I’ve discovered that I rather enjoy reading shorter pieces of fiction and serial novels, so I’ll be seeking out more of those for myself. I’ve said for years that I don’t have short story brain, but it seems that may be changing.

First up will be David J. Schwartz’s Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic, which has four parts out and of which I’ve read two so far. And there’s oodles of short fiction online, too: Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies. And that’s just for starters.

And so, I close out this series with one last image of Ivanova. I present Ivanova with a fantastically dubious look on her face. And a sex toy (do not click this link if you are at work or otherwise subject to internet filtering). I am, for the record, endlessly amazed that they were able to get this item on television uncensored. YOU ARE ALL WELCOME. I am to educate, after all.

This is used...where?

This is used…where?

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The Human Division #12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads, John Scalzi

April 3, 2013 by 4 Comments
The Human Division #12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads, John Scalzi

The Human Division #12: The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads, John Scalzi

Woo, more plot! How exciting!

Okay, okay, I’ll stop being a facetious jerk. For at least a little while.

This is a B plot episode…or is it?

Danielle Lowen, who you may or may not remember from episode 9, “The Observers”, is the main character in this, the next the last episode of The Human Division: “The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads”.

Lowen has been sent by the Secretary of State, who just happens to be her father, to the Brazilian consulate in New York where they have been told that the Brazilian government will provide them with all the information they have on Luisa Carvalho, last seen messily exiting an airlock sans space suit (will not travel). She’s given the runaround by a minor diplomatic functionary and he pisses her off to the point where she basically tells him that if he doesn’t get her what his government promised her that she’ll cause a diplomatic incident. She gives him half an hour to comply, heads to a nearby shop for a snack, and the Brazilian consulate explodes.

PLOT. YAY. (Sorry.)

Since Lowen’s been trained as a doctor, she helps the injured and becomes a bit of a minor celebrity in the way that the US media likes to make people celebrities. After the initial furor dies down, she heads back to her home in the DC suburbs and goes out to get a drink at what we like to call yupsteraunts in my household. While there, she orders a drink as big as her head and as she’s preparing to drown her woes (and possibly herself) in it, she’s approached by a man who claims to be a pharmaceutical salesman. As they talk, she mentions her little problem with how a person as boring as Luisa Carvalho becomes a killer and he just happens to suggest something that would work–and then drops a few hints at her and disappears.

So maybe we might actually see some resolution in the next episode but unless it’s an extra long episode I’m having a hard time seeing how all the loose ends are going to be wrapped up. I guess we’ll see.

And I’ve been waiting WEEKS to post this when we came to the next to last episode of the serial (because I am nothing if not utter predictable)–

The ball is in your court, Mr. Scalzi.

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Jack the Bodiless, Julian May

April 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Jack the Bodiless, Julian May

Jack the Bodiless, Julian May

And we’re heading into the homestretch of the Julian May re-read I started back in September! I might end up drawing this out long than one book a week, mainly because I think I’ll be sad when I’m done.

Jack the Bodiless is the first in the Galactic Milieu trilogy and it’s one hell of a ride.  Taking place nearly 40 years after the events of Intervention, it again focuses on the Remillard family and is told, in part, as a memoir written by Rogatien Remillard. And, as in the Intervention duology, drunk Uncle Rogi is the best.

And he plays a slightly more active role in this book, too.

There’s a few things going on in this book–we learn more about the different alien races and I have to admit, it amuses me that the Krondaku are tentacle monsters and that the Simbiari are slimy green humanoids. May is not-so-gently poking fun at these particularly hoary tropes of SF (I especially love the scene in the Krondaku settlement at the Galactic settlement).

The heart of this book, though, is taken up with the clandestine pregnancy of Teresa Kendall, the birth of Jon (Jack) Remillard, the adolescence of Marc Remillard, and the birth and growth of Fury and Hydra.

One of the conditions of being accepting into the Galactic Milieu was the imposition of reproductive restrictions that I think most people would find onerous and oppressive–basically, if you have a defective genome (as decided by the Simbiari), no kids for you. And if you’re an operant and have an illegal pregnancy and then an illegal baby (never mind that no person is illegal), then it’s death penalty time. Also death penalty time for anyone who helps you out. It is seriously draconian and there’s really no good reason for it except for the fact that May needed to have some narrative tension around Teresa’s pregnancy with Jack. Teresa, after having four children and a number of stillbirths and then forced abortions has become secretly pregnant after being prohibited from future pregnancies by the Simbiari. For whatever reason, she feels she needs to have one last child and becomes pregnant with Jack and when she is found out, she’s informed by her family that they will terminate the pregnancy.  She has metapsychically called to Marc–her oldest son but still a kid at 14 years old–for help.

Anyhow, Marc figures out an incredibly complicated plan to spirit Teresa and Rogi away to the wilds of Canada, in the middle of a Sasquatch reserve. Because Bigfoot apparently exists. This really is a charming and readable section–we get to have lots of scenes with Rogi and Teresa (who is more or less an actual character and not just a baby-making vessel like so many of the other women married to Remillard men–at least until her narrative purpose is exhausted and May’s done with her) and we come to understand how extraordinary her fetus is and why she was willing to flout the law on his behalf. There is also a fairly explicit in terms of gore childbirth scene which is not something I’ve seen in a whole lot of SF books and while not something I’d want to encounter all the time it was nice to see it presented as a very, ah, organic process.

So there’s that going on and then there’s the Fury/Hydra plot going on, too. It’s a bit confusing in places but by the end of the book it’s clear who Hydra is and looking at this after knowing where this story line is going, it’s fairly clear who Fury is, too.  I don’t think it’s possible to really know for sure that it is this person on the first read through, though.

There’s also a lot about suffering in this book–this book is, in may ways, very religious. There is definitely a mystical component to Jack’s condition and as he is self-aware in utero, the birth experience is presented as something that will cause him pain and suffering but which will also allow him to grow. As we recall from the Pliocene Exile books, pain is one way in which metapsychics achieve latency–it is apparently one way in which they can also increase their abilities.  Jack’s suffering and eventual transformation into little more than a disembodied floating brain (srsly) is cast in religious terms.

Something else I noticed about this book is the way the Remillards know they have tons of privilege and see it as their due and rightful inheritance. They all get appointed to big deal positions in the Galactic Milieu, they’re celebrities, they can literally get away with murder. It’s quite troubling, to be honest, especially when you see that all the other characters are basically tokens and foils to show how awesome the Remillards are–even when they’re being assholes, they’re still awesome in the narrative. I can’t say it was comfortable reading them skirt around laws and knowing that they can get away with pretty much whatever they wanted because of who they are–but then again, that’s often how privilege works.

I also enjoy the many times Atoning Unifex shows up in the book, especially when he’s there to boss around Marc. It’s delightful. And Unifex feels less distant in this book than he did in Intervention, which is also a good thing. I also really liked noticing that the seeds of the Metapsychic Rebellion were independent of Marc’s rivalry with Jack and that the concept of Mental Man and the imagery of the Angel of the Abyss isn’t derived from that rivalry, either and that even the faceless (so far) entity known as Fury has a role to play in the upcoming tragedy. For it is a tragedy that will be happening over the next two books.

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Forthcoming: new releases

March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Sharp, Alex Hughes

Sharp, Alex Hughes

Since I am not quite finished with the book I planned on reviewing today—real life, it interferes sometimes, alas—I thought I’d give you a brief list of things I’m looking forward to reading that are being released in the next few months:

Sharp, Alex Hughes (April 2): the second novel in her Mindspace series featuring the struggling-to-stay-sober telepath Adam from her debut novel, Clean.  Clean was one of my favorite books last year, and I’m hoping this second installment lives up to the promise of the first—Adam is a great character, and the premise of the series is unusual.  As someone who likes mysteries and SFF about equally, Hughes’ mash-up of the two hits my reading sweet spot.

London Falling, Paul Cornell (April 16): as a true blue Whovian, bonafide mystery fan, and sucker for fantasy set in London, Paul Cornell writing a fantasy procedural?  YAY.  This is the first of a proposed series about a modern day undercover police unit in London that accidentally gains the ability to see monsters and dark magic.  Sounds very Neil Gaiman, and very much my speed.

Casino Infernale

Casino Infernale

The Human Division, John Scalzi (May 14): regular readers know that Natalie has been reviewing this episodic experiment set in Scalzi’s popular Old Man’s War universe as each installment has been released.  The complete novel will be available mid-May, and I’ll be interested to see how reading it as a complete unit compares to Natalie’s serial experience with the book.

Casino Infernale, Simon R. Green (June 4): The latest installment of Green’s Secret Histories series starring the irrepressible Eddie Drood.  Green’s OTT style and Eddie’s wise-cracking, head-cracking battles with things that go bump in the night are great fun—nice light reading that will entertain without taxing the brain.  Plus Eddie’s girlfriend, witch Molly, kicks major butt.  In a skirt.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

And speaking of Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (June 18) is his first book for adults in a long time.  The publishers are being very cagey about the plot; the Amazon blurb reads, “This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory and magic, makes the impossible all too real…”  Yummy.

And while I don’t read either of these series, I know many people will want to know that Charlaine Harris’ final Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Ever After, is out May 7th, and that Mary Robinette Kowal’s third Glamourist Histories installment, Without a Summer, will be here on April 2.

Anything you’re looking forward to that I should put on my list?

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The Human Division #11: A Problem of Proportion, John Scalzi

March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Human Division #11: A Problem of Proportion, John Scalzi

The Human Division #11: A Problem of Proportion, John Scalzi

Oh hey! Look!  IT’S THE PLOT.

HI PLOT, I MISSED YOU.

That’s right, in this, the eleventh episode of John Scalzi’s The Human Division serial, “A Problem of Proportion” and after a handful of episodes that felt more or less like filler (although they’re probably not) we finally–finally!–get some forward momentum on the whole conspiracy plot.

So maybe Scalzi can stick the landing. We shall see!

The first thing about this episode is that we’re still on the A plot and I am hoping that this is the case for the last two episodes as well.  It starts with the Clarke being shot at by what they think is a Conclave ship but which turns out to be an ex-Conclave ship.

We’ve got the whole crew here–Coloma, Schmidt, Wilson, and Abumwe as well as some wary but not entirely unfriendly Conclave aliens–notably Werd who is awesomely sarcastic.

There’s also another alien in this story, Rayth Ablant. What happens to him is heartbreaking and yet, I think, provides the emotional core of the story (finally). Through Rayth we find out exactly how far the mysterious foe is willing to go in their aggression against both the Conclave and the CDF and the terrible cost their patsies play–because Rayth is a patsy and a weapon and he is also Wilson’s friend and Wilson does a great service for him. He tells Rayth the truth and, at the end, he helps Rayth the only way he really can.

There’s a lot of good stuff in this episode–we find out a lot more about the mystery antagonist and the CDF and Conclave are coming to realize that they have a common enemy–and possibly more in common than that, too.  It’s a solid episode and it comes just in the nick of time.

I am still not convinced that the book is going to hold together, but we’ll see.

And I’m glad that neither of my predictions for this episode came true: Schmidt doesn’t die gruesomely and the story doesn’t turn into a fevered hentai-dream sequence. Both those things are, naturally, still possible.

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Short Fiction Online: What’s Free, What’s Good

March 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

If you want to find some of the really exciting short fiction being written right now, the best place to look for it is right here on the internet.  I follow a few of my favorite writers on Facebook, and they often announce online publication of short fiction there—free reading, it’s a good thing.

Neil Gaiman (American Gods, Coraline, etc.) recently published a very short piece in The Guardian, “Down to a Sunless Sea” that is a study in creating atmosphere at just under 1200 words:

The Thames is a filthy beast: it winds through London like a snake, or a sea serpent. All the rivers flow into it, the Fleet and the Tyburn and the Neckinger, carrying all the filth and scum and waste, the bodies of cats and dogs and the bones of sheep and pigs down into the brown water of the Thames, which carries them east into the estuary and from there into the North Sea and oblivion.

The unnamed narrator of the piece encounters a woman on a sodden London day walking the docks, as she does every day.  No one knows how long she’s done this because “nobody cares”.  They take refuge together under an awning, and she says “My son wanted to be a sailor’, then tells her story, and his, to her unwilling listener.

It’s a story of dreams, and horror, conveyed in lyrical, brutal prose.  The juxtaposition is captivating—it lures the reader in, lulls you into this sense that yeah, you’re going to hear a sad story, then smacks you over the head with the grotesque conclusion to the sailor son’s story.  In fewer than 1200 words, you meet three people: the narrator, the mother, and the son, and you know them as if Gaiman had been writing chapters about them.

Or do you?  Why should we believe this narrator, after all?  And the mother: did her story really happen, or has she invented it in the face of a tragedy?

“Like Ghost Cat and a Dragon’s Dog”, by Dave Freer, is part of Baen Books’ free short story collection from 2012.  There are 11 other pieces at that site (I do wish Baen’s webpage were easier to navigate, but that link does all the hard work for you), including two by Wen Spencer (one set in her Elfhome universe).  The Freer story is set in his Dragon’s Ring universe, and features Fionn and Dileas on a brief adventure, where Dileas, who’s narrating here, gives good reasons why dogs chase cats, only to have the tables turned on him.

Like most of Freer’s work, this is gently humorous, high fantasy adventure. It’s a short, easy read, perfect for a bedtime snack.  No need to even be familiar with the Dragon Ring universe, even.  Dileas gives you all the details you need.

If you’re up for something classic, though, Flavorwire offers links to ten stories by fiction masters, including Flannery O’Connor’s chilling “A Good Man is Hard to Find”.  There are also links to stories by Kafka, Bradbury, Nabokov, LeGuin, and Munro.  All of them are worth checking out.

There’s plenty of good quality short fiction available for free online if you’re will to search for it.  We  hope to do a few of these online fiction reviews a year–I want to read more short stories myself.  I’ve neglected the form for far too long, myself, and I’m trying to change that.  Refreshing my memory of Flannery O’Connor and Franz Kafka was a good start.

Filed Under: Classics, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Fiction Tagged With: , , , ,

Fire Watch, Connie Willis

March 21, 2013 by 6 Comments
Fire Watch, Connie Willis

Fire Watch, Connie Willis

One great thing about having an e-reader is that a lot of books that are hard to come by in this neck of the woods are now miraculously available to me for the first time.  Fire Watch has been on my list for ages—I’m a huge fan of Willis’ time-travelling historians (To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of the five books I’d take with me when I die; I’m just assuming there’s no library in hell and all…) and Connie Willis in general, so this early collection has been on my want list forever.

I was mostly interested in the title story, and it did not disappoint me, but I found myself pleasantly (or unpleasantly in one case) engrossed by most of the other stories in this early collection.  “Fire Watch” is the only one set in the historian universe (it is, in fact, the first story in her WWII arc, although not the first historian novel).  This story won both a Hugo and a Nebula, and with good reason.  Meticulous period details about The Blitz aside, it addresses the fundamental definition of history: a time period cannot be defined merely by statistics and numbers, and history contains the word story for a reason.  As I was reading, I was reminded of two teachers from my past.  The first was a middle school history teacher who reminded his students that history can be found in the most mundane objects, from ticket stubs to football helmets to a torn army uniform, because there is a story attached to those objects and each story is one thread of a larger piece of fabric.  The second teacher was a college professor who reminded his students throughout the semester that history is more than a series of dates—it’s a collection of people coping with a set of circumstances they have in common.  “Fire Watch” illustrates both of those philosophies as Bartholomew travels to St. Paul’s to join the Fire Watch for his final exam.

I have often wondered what it is about Willis’ time-travelling historians that appeals to me so much, and it finally came to me while I was reading this story—the characters in these stories come from both the past and the future to collide in what is, at that moment, their own present, so there is a story-within-a-story-within-a-story component to them.  Bartholomew’s story cannot be told to Langby, the verger, so Langby wrongly concludes that Bartholomew is a Nazi spy.  Addled by the time travel and trying to retrieve information he crammed into his head to help him cope with the time period, Bartholomew is often confused by the people he meets and the language they use; when he becomes exhausted both by his physical duties on the fire watch and by the mental stress of living in a dangerous alternate time, his own mind invents its own stories about the people he’s dealing with, which are not, of course, their stories.  So yes, he’s living in “history” and experiencing it first-hand, sharing a set of circumstances with these people, but their stories are not always the correct version of history—his presence has altered that.  So he’s both time-traveler and brigade member—he is the present and the future, and those story lines may mingle, but remain separate.  And he learns that history is really about the people and not the date.

There are 12 stories in this collection, and while I liked all of them, there are a few others I want to mention as having really stood out to me.  One is “All My Darling Daughters”, inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s relationship with her father [warning: triggers for rape and incest].  A group of students at a school in orbit are forced to find ways around the smothering atmosphere of the school, where the girls are sent to prevent them from forming romantic attachments.  When it becomes clear that the restrictions placed on them are not preventing them from becoming involved, the boys obtain creatures that are unable to defend themselves to attach to instead, leaving the girls bewildered by the boys’ sudden lack of desire.  The story is a little more complicated than that, as one girl, Tavvy, is smart and determined and soon figures out that the creatures, which the boys all call “daughters” are being used as sexual vessels in anticipation of their future with their own daughters.  It’s a creepy, disturbing story about mistaking possession for love and about a culture that encourages the abuse of women by ignoring it and making excuses for it.

Also high on my list was “Daisy, in the Sun”, about a 15 year old girl who is desperately trying to remember something.  As she pieces together a timeline for herself, she comes to the gradual realization that what her mother feared was true and what she thought would happen was not true.  To say much more would ruin the story if you haven’t read it, but I really liked the way this story was structured; as Daisy bounces from memory to memory to get to the truth, her fragmented memories gradually begin to form bigger pieces as she pings from one place to another.  It’s skillfully done.  And I was intrigued by the implications of the solution—so much so that I sat up for nearly an hour longer than I should have thinking about them.  Plus, Willis manages to equate the apocalypse with a girl reaching puberty, which…I can see that.  The destruction of innocence.

The last two stories, “Samaritan” and “Blued Moon” were among my favorites.  In “Samaritan”, Willis examines the tricky question of what it is, exactly, that makes us human.  It’s a moving, effective piece about whether an ape can be baptized, but what it really looks at is whether we’re human because we have souls and free will or because we say we are.  Esau, the ape in the story, can communicate, can bond with others, can appear almost human in appearance, and seems to understand scripture.  Doesn’t that make him as human as the rest of us?

“Blued Moon” is just fun—it’s built on the phrase “once in a blue moon”, and just goes from there.  When a chemical company figures out how to repair the ozone layer, the chemicals they spray into the atmosphere turn the moon blue and very odd coincidences start to happen, despite the characters’ best efforts to avoid them.  Some are for the better and some for the worse, and some have lasting consequences.

I’m glad I finally got a chance to read this, and I was surprised, despite how old it is, how well most of the stories stood up.  Science fiction can sometimes age as things that were merely dreamed of 20 years ago are now reality, but Willis wisely avoids too much gadgetry and sticks to people and circumstances and building their worlds without relying on objects.  That’s a lesson a few contemporary writers could learn something from–it makes these seem somewhat timeless and still engaging and fresh long after they were published.  Highly recommended.

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The Human Division #10: This Must Be The Place, John Scalzi

March 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Human Division #10: This Must Be The Place, John Scalzi

The Human Division #10: This Must Be The Place, John Scalzi

So in this episode of John Scalzi’s The Human Division, “This Must Be the Place”, not a damn thing happens. Seriously.

I am starting to get really annoyed.

This is a B plot installment, this time in the form of Clarke lackey Hart Schmidt’s trip home for Harvest Day–or what appears to be more or less an American-style Thanksgiving. Schmidt arrives home, enjoys some modern conveniences, then travels to his family’s home–where it is revealed that his father is a super-powerful politician and that they have live-in servants who are mostly treated like members of the family but not so much that they actually get to eat the Harvest Day meal with them (although it’s not clear that they’d want to, either).

Let me sum up what happens:

Hart goes home for ThanksgivingI mean Harvest Day.

He talks to his family’s driver who is also an award-winning poet. We get some backstory about Hart’s family and his family’s relationship with their servants.

Hart then exchanges jibes with his siblings, then goes to see his dad and gets a paternal lecture.

Hart then goes to hang out with the driver for a little bit and gets some perspective.

Then it’s time for dinner and there is bickering over who is going to say grace and Hart takes the opportunity to give a big speech about what he’s been doing on the Clarke and how awesome it is and how he loves his job.

The end.

I honestly cannot figure out how this has any relevance at all to the main plot except for the fact that Hart’s dad is connected enough to be in the loop on the reports about the various missions Hart’s been on. I can’t even tell if there is a main plot anymore because this is a bunch of short stories that are kind of linked but don’t really cohere (at least not yet). There is no center to this book, no emotional arc, no real character development–and that’s frustrating.  I cannot see how this is going to come together in the 20,000-30,000 words left in the book.  There’s no structural integrity here–a bunch of clever vignettes in search of a plot does not a novel make.

So why on earth am I still reading? I’m still reading because I have a feeling that Scalzi might be able to pull it off and I want to see if he’s able to stick the landing.  And taken separately, each of these episodes is entertaining enough on its own except for maybe this week’s which feels like more of a placeholder than the dog episode was.

I’m not even going to BOTHER with an Ivanova GIF this week because this sort of nonsense doesn’t DESERVE one.

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