Delayed Gratification: Slow Journalism as an Antidote to the InsanityApril 20, 2020I first heard about the concept of slow journalism in Slow Media, by Jennifer Rauch. Whether or not the term is just a re-branding of the best ideals of what journalism has always strived to be is up for debate, but focusing on accurate and ethical reporting instead of first and fastest seems an admirable aim in the age of the 24 hour news cycle, and something I’d very much like to support. So, I sought out and subscribed to Delayed Gratification, one of the more prominent slow journalism periodicals. It was an idea I wanted to know more about, and I think of it as an antidote to the onslaught of social media reactionary nobody-actually-reads-the-article-they-just-read-the-headline-and-skip-to-the-comments-to-learn-what-their-opinion-should-be “news” we are hyper-addicted to. The somewhat ironic poetry of subscribing to this magazine was that I had to wait kind of a long time for the first issue to arrive. Delayed Gratification publishes quarterly, and each issue covers a three month period of time. While waiting I had to fight back thoughts of getting in touch with the publisher to see when the issue was scheduled to arrive. Every time I wanted to email or call to check on my first issue’s status, I remembered a time a few months back at the bookshop where I work: a rabid Ayn Rand fan was complaining about the price of a rare hardcover edition of The Fountainhead. As I explained the basics of the free market, their own dogma, to them I will never forget the moment their righteous indignation slipped into self-pity as they observed their own lack of self-awareness. Remembering what the title of the magazine was, and motivated by a desire to never be that person, I shelved the idea of calling and resigned myself to waiting patiently for the magazine to arrive. Already the magazine was helping me to slow down. Delayed Gratification seems particularly aimed toward those who have grown up with social media and have never been exposed to long-form journalism. They’ve never read a newspaper, or any weekly or monthly periodicals that have historically taken this slower approach to news reportage. The index has articles labelled as either frivolous or serious. There are relevant, informative pieces on recent enough events, comfortably nestled between lighthearted infographics that relate interestingly to major events during the three month period covered. In addition to slow journalism, I’ve heard it described as fast history. My first issue of Delayed Gratification covered January to March, 2019. Something that added value to my enjoyment of this issue: during those months, I was actively writing in a journal everyday. Because of this, I discovered some interesting things that happened around the world while I was preoccupied with the subtle frustrations and pleasures of my own life. The same day that a recently discovered, possible lost Michaelangelo painting was stolen from a Belgian church, I was listing my house for rent. A month later, on February 15th, when 10,000 UK students skipped classes and took to the streets to protest their government’s non-handling of climate change, I was showing the house to a family that would eventually end up renting it. And the month after that, while I was gushing about the animation style of Netflix’s Love, Death, and Robots, Elisa Jorge was clinging to a tree for her life as cyclone Idai made landfall in Beira, Mozambique. The first of two cyclones to devastate the area that year of only nine in recorded history. Two of nine ever. Both in the same year. Both outside of their storm season. “Last to Breaking News” I was on the internet a lot during the three months covered in this issue, reading news articles, skimming through twitter and Instagram. Generally thinking I was informed about the world around me. However, all three of these stories were things I had zero knowledge of. These were important global events. Why didn’t I hear about them? My thinking is that a large chunk of the news we’re bombarded with day in and day out, might not be all that useful or even informative. It’s all too soon, too quick for any kind of perspective. I understand the importance of chronicling every small step made by politicians in my country as it slowly slides into authoritarianism, but is it actually useful for me to personally monitor these steps in real time, or do they collectively act as noise, obscuring the more accurate picture that can be shown just a few months removed, when we all have a little more perspective? I understand the trajectory of things right now and I’m doing all I can. I don’t think it’s important or healthy for me to be constantly reminded of it a hundred times a day. Once a day maybe, but not a hundred. My cup of news is full. Attempting to pour more into it does nothing to increase the capacity of the cup. When there are millions of people actively monitoring events around the world in real time, driving themselves to the ragged edge, it may not be such a bad idea for some of us to take a step back with a different approach. When there are so many ways to get breaking news, I think Delayed Gratification’s approach is a breath of fresh air, and summed up beautifully by their motto printed on the spine of every issue: “Last to breaking news.” Nine or so months have passed since my first issue arrived. In that time I’ve learned all kinds of interesting things in subsequent issues. These are events that have expanded my worldview, all of which I learned very little to nothing about from my usual news sources.... Read more... Barbarian Days: William Finnegan’s Joy-Drenched Reason to LiveApril 13, 2020No matter what we tell ourselves, we all secretly want to live forever. It follows that a good memoir serves as vicarious life extension, toward this eternally minded, unachievable end. A glimpse into an alternate possibility. Between the pages unfolds what could’ve been — if. If we were born at a different time. If we had different circumstances. If we had different interests. If we were altogether different people through any number of natural or nurtural deviations against our norm. I’ve long been obsessed with those whose lives are lived on the rough and ragged edges of society. The way in which William Finnegan splits his time between war correspondence and surfing — two extreme lifestyles on their own, together in one individual — was properly interesting. His clean prose and serious storytelling chops certainly didn’t hurt either. There’s a very good reason this book won him a Pulitzer. Throughout his childhood in Hawaii, he didn’t fit. An outsider, ethnically and socially. As a child his whole personality seemed to ricochet off of the locale, grasping at a world filled with violence for a handhold to guide him. The time period in which he came of age added to his dissociation among his peers. Eventually he found surfing as a wild, violent, introverted escape from his lack of acceptance. It held just enough of a loner mentality to capture those with similar social needs. This conglomeration of loners he met while chasing waves became his friends; a tertiary social net composed of outcasts. “We were fellow skeptics—rationalists, readers of books in a world of addled, inane mystics.” He describes surfing as “a consuming, physically exhausting, joy-drenched reason to live”. One that had a “vaguely outlaw uselessness” that “neatly expressed one’s disaffection.” Who doesn’t want something like that in their life? It’s the reason people free climb, skateboard, race motorcycles, and spend time in the woods, running themselves to exhaustion. It’s why marathons are a thing, bull-fighting, spelunking. Throughout Barbarian days, Finnegan contrasts the intensity of a life spent surfing, with that of a life spent chasing stories across war-torn countries. These are the divisions that comprise his whole. He sees himself as a man who needs to chase danger, and can only relax after having exhausted that part of himself. I can relate to a tiny degree. He can only be calm when he has faced his intense, possible death. I can only truly rest when I’ve exhausted my dual needs for effective productivity and creative endeavor. I need to see evidence of my existence in the world or I can never be still. Eventually he would settle down: marriage, children, home ownership, and moving to New York City did indeed soften him somewhat, but the fire at his core was never extinguished. It only sat at a simmer, waiting to be flooded with the particular brand of fuel needed to burn up the excess energy of his life. After writing up a report of those around him — including other reporters — dying in the act of journaling the insanity they were embedded in, he would surf. Every chance he got, he would surf. The fervor with which he expressed his desire to surf, was never repetitive. Surfing, it seems, is part addiction, part meditation. A calming obsession for the soul. Being not remotely interested in surfing, or living that kind of life, I was still fascinated to see the myriad ways something I had previously thought extremely repetitious — the act of waiting for a wave, catching it, riding it back to shore, again and again — was instead full of rapturous intrigue, and a kind of fascination that I had not previously known associated with any sort of sport. My favorite parts of this book, again having no interest in surfing myself, were the human moments between surfing sessions. The characters that populate this memoir, were so interesting, simply because they weren’t normal people. They live intense, chaotic lives, left of center, unstable, but full of passion. Something most of our stable, silly lives could use a lot more of. A life in vans, sleeping on beaches, running from cops, defrauding American Express to pay for hospitalization due to malaria. These are wild lives. People who thrive only through chasing death, and therefore have a better grasp on what a good life might entail. Things most of us are far too cowardly to do ourselves—or I am at least. “If this was a religion, perhaps it didn’t bear thinking about what was being worshipped.” A particularly touching moment in Barbarian Days is when William asks his wife why she never gets angry about all of the “stupid risky things” he does. She responds that she simply assumed he needed to do them. “When things get bad, I think you get very calm,” she says. “I trust your judgment.” It’s such a tender moment that illuminates a relationship built on trust and mutual respect. They all seem like intense people, even the girlfriends of his youth and his eventual wife. Artist to lawyer is not a normal career path to follow, but it makes sense for her. It shows an intensity in all things. A life full of passion. And who doesn’t want to read about passionate people?... Read more...Lanark, by Alasdair GrayAugust 5, 2019“I wish I could make you like death a little more. It’s a great preserver. Without it the loveliest things change slowly into farce, as you will discover if you insist on having much more life.” Lanark is one of those huge, pain-in-the-ass, crufty novels that I just wasn’t going to be able to avoid much longer. I find that I particularly enjoy Scottish literature, for whatever reason, and I plan on reading Iain Banks’ The Bridge fairly soon, which was largely influenced by Lanark. It was inevitable that I’d need to check this one off my list sooner rather than later. “I was absolutely knocked out by Lanark.” Banks mentioned, in conversation with Andrew Wilson. “I think it’s the best in Scottish literature this century. It opened my eyes. I had forgotten what you could do – you can be self-referential, you can muck about with different voices, characters, time-streams, whatever. Lanark had a huge effect on The Bridge. I’m quite happy to acknowledge that debt.” In Rodge Glass’s biography of Alasdair Gray, Irvine Welsh remarked that Lanark is: “probably the closest thing Scotland’s ever produced to Ulysses. What it said to me was, it would be fucking great to be a writer.” According to the tailpiece present in Canondale’s The Canons edition: “How Lanark Grew” Lanark is both largely autobiographical—a fact made more interesting by the book’s fantastical nature—and was written over the course of thirty years. Alasdair Gray’s early masterpiece definitely has some flaws—weak secondary characters, poorly written female characters—but is such a wild ride that I didn’t mind them too much. “You pessimists always fall into the disillusion trap,” said the cheerful man cheerfully. “From one distance a thing looks bright. From another it looks dark. You think you’ve found the truth when you’ve replaced the cheerful view by the opposite, but true profundity blends all possible views, bright as well as dark.” The book staunchly refuses to comply with the usual rules of genre and structure. It begins with Book Three, set in the fantastical city of Unthank, followed by a nicely nested modernist coming of age story-within-a-story: Prologue, Book One, Interlude, and Book Two. We then continue on in the world of Unthank with: Book Four, followed by an Epilogue, and then strangely… four additional chapters. What an unorthodox structure. The chapter Index itself even plays a narrative role, as do the section titles present on the top of each page. The Epilogue is where the book really shines in my opinion, and where all of the threads come together. I can’t say much about it, but I will mention two things: It’s much more playful than the rest of the novel, and it contains an annotated list of plagiarisms present in Lanark, which is just… an incredible idea. I have to applaud Gray for this inclusion. It’s wonderful, and remarkably helpful for unpacking the themes and influences present in this bizarre narrative. “It is a dangerous thing to suddenly deprive a man of hope—he can turn violent. It is important to kill hope slowly, so that the loser has time to adjust unconsciously to the loss. We try to keep hope alive till it has burned out the vitality feeding it. Only then is the man allowed to face the truth.” I could’ve actually done without the four chapters that succeeded the Epilogue. I found them mostly pointless, and the Epilogue itself has a sort of choose your own ending option baked in that I think would’ve worked remarkably well as an ending itself. All in all, Lanark is for all of you that prefer your fiction to contain heavy doses of both self-referential, weird as hell fantasy, and depressingly bleak modernist realism, all of which is coated with vaguely Marxist under and overtones, as well as fascinating social and philosophical commentary on free will, art, and what constitutes a satisfying life. ... Read more...Dark Eden pre-read episode on Spectology: Linguistic drift, creating myths, and rogue planetsApril 2, 2019Late last year I had a blast talking with Matt and Adrian about eBooks and Audiobooks and the different ways in which a reader’s experience can be impacted by the medium through which they read. We had such a great time talking that we thought it would be fun to have me come back on for one of the regular monthly book club episodes. So this month, I’m guesting again on Spectology: The Science Fiction Book Club podcast. Adrian, Matt and I will be reading and discussing Dark Eden by Chris Beckett. This is the no spoiler pre-read episode, so you can listen and get a feel for the themes and ideas addressed in Dark Eden without having any of the book spoiled for you. We’ll be back near the end of the month for the post-read episode, which is sure to be a fun time. You can listen to the podcast episode below:... Read more...But What if We’re Wrong?: Thinking About the Present as if it Were the Past, by Chuck KlostermanMarch 24, 2019I’m thirty-four years old and have only just now read a Chuck Klosterman book—or a Chuck Klosterman anything to be more precise. He’s been on my radar for about a decade, and I’ve had a copy of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs on my shelf for almost as many years, but I’ve never even cracked the spine. I never felt traditionally cool enough to read Klosterman. I’ll be the first to admit that none of this was based on anything remotely resembling an informed decision. Looking back at my motivations for never reading him, now with a little bit of hindsight, I think it was an entirely prejudiced, subconscious decision based mostly on myself not identifying with the group of people I had imagined to be fans of Klosterman’s work. I was trapped by my perception of his audience. It sounds completely ridiculous writing those words, but there they are. That isn’t who I aspire to be, but we often fall short of our aspirations don’t we. The covers and overall consistent visual style of his books with their simultaneously over and under-designed aesthetic both did and didn’t work for me. I loved the visual simplicity and unified design, but something about these books always rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe they looked like they were trying too hard. Like they were so desperate to project an easy sense of ironic detachment that it backfired, leaving me with an instinctive distrust of the authenticity of their content. I always assumed Chuck Klosterman books were things you read in your early twenties, and never stopped extolling, without ever reevaluating the merits that informed your opinion later in life as a more experienced reader. I saw them as the kind of books read mostly by people who didn’t read anything else. I put them in the same category as Chuck Palahniuk novels, which I myself had read in my early twenties and couldn’t shut up about back then. Back when I never really read anything else. Maybe I didn’t feel like I had much in common with my friends that read Klosterman, and even less with those who had only read Klosterman. I see now that I was trying to distance myself from the person I perceived myself to be back when I would’ve read Chuck Klosterman, if I didn’t only read Chuck Palahniuk. Wait, how many of my reasons for equating these two writers are based solely on them sharing the same first name? Am I that unknowingly surface level? Basically, I was being an asshole, and was completely wrong about Klosterman. It is entirely unfair to judge something based on our perception of its targeted audience, but we still do it all the time, or at least I do. It’s just one of the many, many ways in which we are often very wrong about most things. Snapping back to the present moment, having now read this Chuck Klosterman book, I am realizing how off I have been on a lot of my assumptions about his writing. Which really is the point of But What If We’re Wrong. Human beings are wrong at a near constant level. We are so riddled with cognitive biases, irrational behavior, and misperceptions, not to mention our notoriously bad ability to predict future events based on present variables or our own current efforts. This is the entire reason that balloon payments are a thing. All of it adds up to make us terribly inaccurate and more often than not, dead wrong. These days when I read something, I make every effort to build my opinions solely on the words on the page, attempting to judge the book based on whether or not it achieved what was intended. This is impossible of course, as I can’t help but be influenced by other aspects of a book, themselves sometimes only marginally related to the actual work itself. My perception of the readers of a certain writer for example. Also, how exactly am I supposed to know what a book was intended to be? How am I supposed to compare my subjective opinion of what it is, against something unknowable? Reading a book with the intent to write about it, is itself a creative process, because I have to imagine all of these things. There’s a weird, blurry line that separates fiction from non-fiction. There is so much fiction in real life, and so much real life stuffed into, and elaborated through what we read in fictional novels and stories. The more I think about it, the more that division begins to blur into something nearly non-existent. I blame David Shields for breaking my head by pointing out this added layer of our post-modernity. Being wrong is important. As Klosterman notes in this book, certainty can often be paralyzing. It locks us into paths that may not be preferable, and takes us in directions we may not want to go. When we base our opinions on bad information, it is often only years later that we might realize we have been wrong about something from the start. A lot of Trump voters, for example are only just now, slowly, starting to admit not only that their God Emperor has no clothes, but is in fact not a god at all. Many will never allow themselves to be that wrong. It becomes gradually harder and harder to change our minds the more we have built up our lives on the certainty of bad information. The Sunk Cost fallacy is a prime example of this. As is the old adage, improperly attributed to Mark Twain: “It is easier to fool someone than convince them they have been fooled”. For this reason, your oldest opinions are often the most important to reexamine, as well as the hardest to change. Thinking about the present as if it were the past is such a novel idea. Not only novel, but fun, incredibly useful and addictive. What are we wrong about right now? Our view of the past is always flavored by the values of our present. In much the same way that all good fiction is a statement about some aspect of the present in which it was conceived, it follows that our current values are blinding our judgement about current events, opinions, and ideas. What sort of values will future societies interpret our current events through? Which events will even be remembered as these future societies flatten our time period into a handful of individuals, stories, and pieces of media? “History is a creative process (or as Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “a set of lies agreed upon”). The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us, too.” Great stories are always about something other than the surface level plot they contain—something that Klosterman touches on quite a bit in the chapters about literature and media in this book. These chapters—which were the most aligned with my personal interests—were my favorites of the whole book. Klosterman uses this process of thinking about the present as if it were the past in an attempt to find the great contemporary pieces of literature, television, and film that will be elevated to the status of classic or important in an unknowable future with unknowable values. Of course, this attempt is doomed to fail, but using what we know about past classic or important works, he is able to at least narrow down what likely won’t be thought of as important in the future. It is a fascinating thought experiment and a brave new way to approach one’s own relationship with history, opinion, belief, and the value of doubt. And that oh so recognizable black and white design aesthetic that didn’t quite work for me back in my early twenties? Here it is, turned up to eleven with this upside down cover. I’m glad to say that It works for me now. It really, really works for me. But what if We’re Wrong? is one of the short list of books that I consider essential reading if you are trying to make sense of, or cope with, the insanity of the last few years. It provided me with some much needed distance from the twenty-four hour news cycle and the pre-apocalyptic feeling of our current events. I highly recommend this book.... Read more...Again, Dangerous Visions 1, edited by Harlan Ellison®February 14, 2019Again, Dangerous Visions was split into two for its mass market paperback release in 1973. This first half contains a few knockout stories, some pretty good ones, and lots of mediocre ones. At twice the length of the original Dangerous Visions, I can’t help but think that maybe Harlan Ellison® (who registered his name as a trademark in 2002) should’ve trimmed the fat a little more. Personally, I would’ve suggested starting with his overly long introductions to each story, a carryover from the original Dangerous Visions, and something I’ve written about previously here. One small book full of great stories beats two large mediocre ones any day. If I average my scores for each story, the collection as a whole ends up just slightly lower than 2.5 stars out of 5. I’m rounding this up to 3, because the handful of terrific stories contained within—plus the unique opportunity for cultural examination of early 70s western social movements and politics through an SF lens—makes this a wholeheartedly worthwhile read, even in 2019. The stories that either missed the mark for me, or don’t hold up any longer, seem to be those that valued shock over storytelling. What was shocking in the western world of 1972, isn’t always so 40+ years later. Good storytelling however, remains good storytelling. Standouts: The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin The Funeral, by Kate Wilhelm When it Changed, by Joanna Russ Monitored Dreams and Strategic Cremations, by Bernard Wolfe Bottom of the Barrel: Ching Witch, by Ross Rocklynne Time Travel for Pedestrians, by Ray Nelson King of the Hill, by Chad Oliver Harry the Hare, by James B. Hemesath Individual Story Reviews: The Counterpoint of View, by John Heidenry: 1/5 Q: Who really wrote this story/essay, was it me The Author or you The Reader? A: It was you, The (pretentious) Author. Somebody read Don Quixote recently. *sigh* Ching Witch, by Ross Rocklynne: 1/5 Earth blows up, and it’s last remaining human goes to another planet to teach them various dances and live in luxury. Pointless and meandering. The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin: 5/5 Terrific novella, obviously influential to James Cameron’s Avatar (which I now believe can be 100% constructed from elements of Old Man’s War & The Word for World is Forest). Also very influential to the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Read my full review of this novella here. It’s a moralistic story, and it had some insightful things to say about dangerous ideas entering the public consciousness. Basically, there is no going back. Here, specifically in relation to the concept of murder. For Value Received, by Andrew J. Offutt: 3/5 A short little bit of absurdism, entertaining enough, but not particularly great. Mathoms From the Time Closet, by Gene Wolfe: 2/5 I usually like Gene Wolfe a lot, but this was just two little pointless stories filled with pretentious bullshit, sandwiching one that was sort of fun, almost a mermaid tale in the sky. Time Travel for Pedestrians, by Ray Nelson: 1/5 Weird little hallucination of a story. Christ, Old Student in a New School, by Ray Bradbury: 3/5 A poem, not sure the meaning exactly but it seemed to allude to mankind imprisoning itself through religion. King of the Hill, by Chad Oliver: 1/5 This story tried way, way too hard and failed absolutely to be dangerous or remotely visionary. The 10:00 Report is Brought to you by…, by Edward Bryant: 4/5 While it was overly obvious from the first couple pages what was going on, it was still a deeply disturbing vision of the possible future of journalism in a society like ours that fetishizes suffering as a spectator sport. The Funeral, by Kate Wilhelm: 5/5 Another deeply disturbing story, but it had a genuine point to make, and it made it well. Harry the Hare, by James B. Hemesath: 1/5 Totally pointless. Soapbox opinion bullshit about cartoons and copyrights. Literary equivalent of Old Man Yells at Cloud. When it changed, by Joanna Russ: 5/5 Terrific. I need to track down more of her work. Very impressed with this one. The Big Space Fuck, by Kurt Vonnegut: 3/5 Yep, it’s weird and Vonneguty all right. Bounty, by T. L. Sherred: 2/5 Too self congratulatory. Not dangerous or visionary. Still-life, by K. M. O’Donnell: 1/5 Terrible. Skip it. Stoned Council, by H. H. Holis: 3/5 Lawyers do a ton of drugs and then battle their cases out with their minds. Sort of a proto-cyberpunk story. Original at least. Monitored Dreams and Strategic Cremations, by Bernard Wolfe: 5/5 This is really two stories, 1. The Bisquit Position, 2. The Girl with Rapid Eye Movements. They’re both excellent, and exactly the kind of stories I was looking for in this collection. Vietnam social commentary, with some slight SF backings. With a Finger in My I, by David Gerrold: 3/5 Very nearly a bedtime story; a comedy of errors and literal/figurative mix ups. Some social commentary about belief, and self fulfilling prophesy as well. In The Barn, by Piers Anthony: 2/5 I get it, I do.. but it’s cliche even by 70s standards.... Read more...Feersum Endjinn: Iain Banks Dabbles in Cyberpunk (sort of)January 31, 2019Even though his work was split about fifty-fifty between literary fiction and science fiction, Iain Banks considered himself first and foremost a science fiction writer. He cut his teeth on space opera, writing several novels in the seventies that went unpublished for decades. By 1984 he had shelved his earlier work and focused his attention on the world of literary fiction—what he referred to lovingly as “Hampstead” novels—hoping for better luck in the mainstream. The Wasp Factory, his first published novel, was a breakout hit that same year. He followed it with a string of successful mainstream novels in the mid-to-late eighties, publishing one nearly every year. At this point his publisher was hungry, Banks was hot and readers wanted more, so in the late eighties he began rewriting his earlier rejected science fiction work. These novels would become the first three novels set in the Culture (Consider Phlebas (1987), The Player of Games (1988), and Use of Weapons (1990)) and a standalone space opera Against a Dark Background (1993). They were published pseudonymously as Iain M. Banks and timed for release between his mainstream novels. In conversation with Andrew Wilson, with regards to Against a Dark Background, Banks noted: “Against a Dark Background was the last of the old books to get redone, so it seemed like the end of an era to me.” It was the end of an era in more ways than one. In the years since Banks was first published, cyberpunk had taken the science fiction world by storm and eventually given way to post-cyberpunk with Snow Crash in 1992, Neal Stephenson’s deconstruction, reinvention, and nail in the coffin of the genre as it existed in the eighties. By 1994, the cyberpunk literature bubble had mostly burst and wouldn’t see a real resurgence for another twenty years. If I may speculate a bit, I think that Banks looked at cyberpunk—a genre he missed out on participating in while working in the mainstream and rewriting his earlier work—and thought, hmm… I wonder what I could do with that? Speaking with Andrew Wilson about what he wrote to start this new post Against a Dark Background era, Banks spoke of his desire at the time to write something entirely different, something not related to the Culture or his earlier work: “I had wanted to write something I could cut loose on, something that wasn’t the Culture… …I had the idea that what virtual reality would become eventually would start to resemble myth and legend.” Feersum Endjinn grew from this “myth and legend” angle, and what a departure it was from his earlier space operas. Computers, nanotechnology, virtual reality—all mostly absent from his first four science fiction novels—are woven into and through every aspect of the societies illustrated in Feersum Endjinn. Far from a space opera, the story is entirely grounded on Earth and addresses themes common to cyberpunk (identity, oppression, etc). I think the most important aspect of Banks’ storytelling was his tight grip on the differences between theme and setting. Something that is not as common among science fiction writers as you might think. Cyberpunk stories are primarily known for two things: 1. Themes of isolation, paranoia, and self-identity in an oppressive world grown out of control. 2. A dirty, high-tech setting full of seedy characters. The themes of Feersum Endjinn are cyberpunk through and through, but the setting—even in the entirely virtual Crypt—is much closer to that of epic fantasy. After all, it wouldn’t be a Banks novel if genre tropes and conventions weren’t completely turned on their side. Splitting cyberpunk themes from their usual counterpart setting, shows a terrific understanding of the genre and the unique power of the different storytelling tools available to writers. Instead of the usual cyberpunk mega-corporations and seedy streets filled with high-tech low-lifes, Banks set Feersum Endjinn sometime in the far future after most of humanity has abandoned Earth, their tech becoming a somewhat mythical element to our point of view characters, themselves descendants of those who chose an Earth bound existence. A somewhat modified Feudalistic society now exists in the ruinous mega structures built by their ancestors. Underlying all of this is the Crypt—a virtual reality maintaining a near one-to-one relationship with the real world. In the dark corners of the Crypt lurk strange digital societies: monstrous chimeric beings, artificial intelligences, and the digitally migrated dead of the corporeal world. Some privileged corporeal characters have the ability to access the Crypt at will, and some Crypt lifeforms are able to force themselves into physical reality, terrorizing humanity via what is perceived as apparition and animal possession. Little is known about the ancient human society that built the Crypt inhabited by our POV characters—their history thoroughly corrupted by time into the realm of myth. We’re thrown right into the world to find our way as the characters find theirs. You can tell Banks is having a blast using the cyberpunk toolbox to tell the story he wants in the way he wants to. There are four main POV characters in Feersum Endjinn, including one who never properly learned to write. Banks represents these first person chapters in a phonetic style. Initially they were difficult for me to read or comprehend. The somewhat fantastical terminology written in a phonetic Scots prose made for a difficult reading experience. I ended up listening to the audiobook while reading those chapters in order to get a better idea of how the words were supposed to be pronounced, and just what the hell was going on. A strategy I’ve used often for Irvine Welsh novels written in Scots. After a few chapters of simultaneous reading and listening I was right as rain and could continue forward with just the physical book. My favorite moment in Feersum Endjinn is a beautifully written chapter in which a character is psychologically manipulated through a series of increasingly elaborate digital environments designed to make it easy and even preferable for her to divulge the information her interrogators are attempting to extract. The section takes place entirely inside the virtual construct of the Crypt, and on its own makes little sense without the context provided in previous chapters. The way in which these scenarios are presented to the reader is a thing to behold. Each situation is introduced in turn, without resolution, then each resolution is presented one after another after another at which point the narrative curtain is lifted and the impact is demonstrated for us in the physical world. The combined effect, presented in series like this is breathtaking to read, and speaks to the courage and singular sense of purpose present in this character. It’s a fantastic moment. “She was the only speaker in a tribe of the dumb, walking amongst them, tall and silent while they touched her and beseeched her with their sad eyes and their deferent, hesitant hands and their flowing, pleading signs to talk for them, sing for them, be their voice.” Of course not all of the story works flawlessly; there are a handful of plot-lines brought up that never resolve, the story drags somewhat through the middle chapters, and the phonetic writing style is sometimes extremely difficult to read. I wouldn’t suggest going into this anticipating a Culture novel. This is Banks in full on experimentation mode, and in retrospect, the book is odd, maybe too odd. It isn’t my favorite SF/F, it isn’t my favorite cyberpunk novel—I’m sure that several would argue it isn’t cyberpunk at all (is post-post-cyberpunk a genre yet?)—and it definitely isn’t my favorite Iain Banks novel, however… If you’re a Banks completist, or up for something wild, something different, something completely left field, something so out there I initially assumed it was written under the influence of some sort of psychotropic, I’d highly recommend checking out Feersum Endjinn.... Read more...Paying For It, by Chester Brown: Sex Work, Regulation or Decriminalization?January 17, 2019I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this book. On the one hand, Paying For It is a fascinating memoir detailing Chester Brown’s time soliciting prostitutes in Toronto from the late nineties through the late zeroes. It brings up all kinds of noteworthy questions about sex work, romantic relationships and the different kinds of love we experience. I have no idea what the answers to these questions are, but I love the questions themselves. Questions are almost always more interesting than answers, and sex work seems like a topic we should be talking more about right now. On the other hand, the way in which Brown approaches possible answers to these questions is at times shortsighted and irresponsible, something I’ll elaborate more on later. I’ve long thought that prostitution should be legalized and regulated in a similar manner as other “vice” industries: tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, etc. It seems strange that it hasn’t happened yet. Prohibition has a long history of causing more harm than good (see Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness for several examples). Paying For It is pushing a slightly different option for sex work legalization that Brown suggests would be better than regulation: decriminalization. Brown argues that regulation would bring more negatives for sex workers than positives, and that the eventual normalization of sex work after decriminalization would follow as a natural result, given enough time. I’m still not entirely sold on the idea that regulation is a bad option, as I found Brown’s arguments against it not always sound, not to mention a little self-serving. He does however make some very valid points in this always entertaining graphic novel; enough I think, to make anyone consider the alternative he’s suggesting. The main idea from this book that I still find intriguing a few months after having finishing it, is Brown’s suggestion that we should abandon the concept of possessive monogamy, or in other words, propriety in romantic relationships. Putting aside whether the idea has merit or not, if we are able to change this about ourselves, the problem then becomes: how should we value sex as a society if we decouple sexual propriety from romantic relationships? Brown suggests valuing it directly with money. While it is possible that money might be the best option, that option is not without its own set of drawbacks. Money, particularly when combined with free market capitalism, often has an insidious way of ruining everything it touches. This is a complicated sociological and psychological problem to tackle, but fascinating to read and think about. I feel like the more interesting question is whether sex and love can even be decoupled from one another. Personally, I don’t think they can—not entirely at least. Like most of this book, it seems like a libertarian ideal that is decently sound in theory but falls apart in practice. Of course, that is just my subjective opinion, and speaking more in a sense of utilitarian ethics, I see nothing wrong with the separation; It may actually be better for the world, but I remain unconvinced of the concept’s large scale feasibility. On a case by case basis, sure, I can see it working for specific individuals, but beyond that, I think it wouldn’t be possible without a radical restructuring of western society. All of these questions are brought up and examined fairly well in the main narrative of the comic as Chester Brown introduces himself to the world of prostitution. In addition to this, about 1/5th of the book is a set of appendices and notes containing information and arguments against potential counters to the idea of decriminalized sex work. Unfortunately, the appendices are where you start to see some of the blind spots in Brown’s perception and reasoning. I think his argument would have been more effective without their inclusion. Most of the logic is sound, but several sections, especially the Drugs, Pimps, and Human Trafficking ones, are entirely too reductive on extremely complex, nuanced issues. At one point he dismisses drug addiction as a myth, and clearly has no solution to the issue of human trafficking, so he brushes it aside as a non-issue. This is insanely irresponsible. Brown argues his point against easily defeatable straw men of his own invention. If often feels like he is more interested in being right than arriving at the best possible conclusion, which suggests he is someone who has too much personally invested in the argument. One aspect of sex work under decriminalization that Brown seems entirely blind to, is its potential for the emotional manipulation of sex workers as well as other psychological abuses. Brown appears to be a highly logical, reasoning person, which I believe partially blinds him to the reality and experiences of those of us who may be further toward the emotional, feeling side of the personality spectrum. I would love to read some perspectives from sex workers themselves on the different legalization options. Decriminalization vs. regulation arguments aside, Brown’s blind spots aren’t doing his argument any favors. Whatever the solution to the issue ends up being, it needs to first and foremost address the safety and security of sex workers. That is the priority and the entire reason for suggesting a change to the legal status of the oldest profession in the first place. All in all, Paying For It was a fascinating, thought-provoking read. I enjoyed the visual aesthetic provided by Brown’s minimalistic, clinical illustrative style. There’s a lot of cartoon sex, and after a while it became a little visually comical, but it is presented in such a straightforward manner as to never feel over-the-top or exploitative. It made me question several preconceived notions about sex work, love, monogamy, relationships, and other social norms and introduced me to several experiences and perspectives I have never considered. If you are interested in any of these topics, especially from an epistemological or sociological angle, it’s definitely worth a read.... Read more...Persepolis Rising (Book 7 of The Expanse), by James S.A. CoreyJanuary 11, 2019This one changes things. I assumed that the pace was going to quicken, since Persepolis Rising is moving us into the final three Expanse novels, but I am in awe at how much this book moved the series forward from where we left off in Babylon’s Ashes. We are now nearing the end of the long Expanse arc that began with Leviathan Wakes in 2011, and it is thrilling to see where we’re heading. “Your empire’s hands look a lot cleaner when you get to dictate where history begins, and what parts of it count.” As far as the story goes: The only constant is change, and empires aren’t built overnight. That rise to power is fraught with great and terrible things. There are good and bad people on multiple sides of every argument. History is full of grey, contradictions, and passionate people with good intentions committing atrocities for their causes. Persepolis Rising feels like the story of the necessarily messy history between A and B. The history that usually gets rewritten by the victors. This narrative also brings with it some unique adaptation challenges for the Amazon television series. Thirty years have passed between the end of Babylon’s Ashes and the beginning of Persepolis Rising, making most of the crew of the Rocinante at least in their seventies. Of course, these are “future humanity” seventies, and it is hinted that there is regenerative medicine available. Seventies may be the new thirties. “It seemed to her that the real sign you were getting old was when you stopped needing to prove you weren’t getting old.” As much as I want this series to last forever, I’m a firm believer that good stories end, and great stories end well. Persepolis Rising is setting up the Expanse saga for inclusion in the latter category. I can’t wait for Tiamat’s Wrath in 2019, with the final Expanse novel to follow in 2020. I believe a tenth book which collects the short stories and novellas together in print for the first time is scheduled to follow in 2021.... Read more...The Book of Joan, by Lidia YuknavitchJanuary 3, 2019What exactly is atmosphere in fiction? For me, it’s the specific headspace a story creates as I read and process it. Reading The Book of Joan, that headspace became an ocean of calm reflection, concealing currents of boiling anger just below its surface. I think of it as the literary equivalent of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, an album I like to describe as anxiously calm. In the future, our Earth is ravaged—torn apart through warfare and ecological collapse. The most affluent of the most affluent followed their cult leader to the orbital sanctuary CIEL where they have remained ever since. The remnants of humanity have mutated into hairless, pale white, near androgynous simulacra of their former selves. No longer able to function sexually, they have mythologized their past sexuality. Grafting, their predominant art form, involves branding stories in intricate patterns into grafted flesh with specialized instruments—using their own bodies as canvases for self-expression. A part historical/part mythological story within a story unravels through a clever nesting mechanism as our main character starts her newest self-graft. She sears the narrative of Joan of Dirt—revolutionary to some, bio-terrorist to others—into her skin. Earth’s song entered Joan as a girl and gave her a quest: act as nature’s violent emissary, bringing about dirt’s will: destruction and renewal. The Joan of Arc analogies abound in this retelling, as she passionately rages forward. Back on CIEL, our protagonist leads a new revolution with her band of misfits, carrying Joan’s song within her and Joan’s story in her skin. “Two things have always ruptured up and through hegemony: art and bodies. That is how art has preserved its toehold in our universe. Where there was poverty, there was also a painting someone stared at until it filled them with grateful tears. Where there was genocide, there was a song that refused to quiet. Where a planet was forsaken, there was someone telling a story with their last breath, and someone else carrying it like DNA, or star junk.” This story is uncomfortable in the best way, meaning it contains a lot of hard experience and truth, but the poetic beauty of its language insists on being read. It unfolds, persists, and you need to know where it’s going, because it feels like it could go almost anywhere. It’s a page-turner of the rarest variety: one that is propelled forward not just through story, but by thematic intricacy as well. A book you will want to read again and again because it disturbs as it harmonizes dissonantly with something inside. At the risk of making a sweeping statement: for whatever reason, I’ve found that disturbing or unnerving books are often much more impactful for me when they are written by women. Women seem to have a unique ability to tell stories that affect me deeply. Dangerous stories, or more often than not, just a perspective that I haven’t been exposed to. It’s easy to see new or different as dangerous. I think this might come from the vast majority of Western literary canon being written by men, so whole gamuts of possible theme and experience are absent from the ideas we internalize (see Joanna Russ’ excellent How To Suppress Women’s Writing for a terrific history of the censorship of women’s writing). Speaking from my own experience, when I read a story written by a woman, there’s a much higher likelihood it will knock me on my ass and give me a lot of new things to think about. The more I venture outward, the more I want to read books written by those unlike myself—more books by women, more translated works, more writing by people of color, more genres I don’t usually expose myself too, etc. There is just so much possible growth precipitated through experiencing art created by those different from ourselves. The more removed we are from a perspective the more potential that perspective has to influence us. One of my favorite aspects of this, is how new ideas can upset our own; sometimes my ideas are bad and need a good upsetting. So, bring it on, I want to be exposed to wild new ways of thinking! I think that’s a terribly exciting place to be. The Book of Joan is heavily interested in false opposition and symbiotic nature present in divisions and dualism: nature and humanity, love and hate, creation and destruction. It’s more interested in theme, subtext, and character than narrative cohesion. It’s not quite an environmental cautionary tale, but one could interpret it along those lines. I’d say it’s more a call to exist corporeally, to exist in and love one’s own self—or, to borrow a phrase from Yuknavitch’s The Misfit’s Manifesto: to use one’s own body as a “site of rebellion.” The Book of Joan is a celebration of the power of art, and particularly the role that stories play in who we allow ourselves and others to be. “Joan knew one thing we never learned: to end war meant to end its maker, to marry creation and destruction rather than hold them in false opposition.” This book is awesome, and absolutely brimming with possible interpretation. It reads like it was born fully-formed, and fought through a sea of monomyth for its right to exist. It feels alive through sheer force of will. It contains special treats for anyone intimate with Joan of Arc’s story or the thirteenth century French writer Jean de Meun. I highly recommend it for any fan of speculative fiction, but especially those who enjoy disturbing or macabre stories, or those familiar with Joanna Russ, Octavia Butler, or Kameron Hurley’s work, particularly The Stars are Legion.... Read more...2018 in Review: Reading Stats, Music, and MiscellaneaDecember 22, 20182018 is drawing to a close, and in a lot of ways it feels like the longest year I have ever lived. It was a good year though, lots of change and new things coming on the horizon. Can I just mention how satisfying it has been to watch Trump’s presidency begin to crumble all around him these past few weeks? Every day is like a beautiful gift. Things I did this year: slept through a third of it, turned 34, read a bunch of books, kicked Facebook and Instagram to the curb, closed the computer repair business I have been running for the last eleven years, raised three and a half chickens in my backyard, ate their eggs (tasty), helped save The Expanse, paid off my house (yeeees), wrote a few terrible short stories that I’m going to fix in 2019, voted, subscribed to a newspaper, volunteered at the Blair library, went on a podcast, camped/hiked at Petit Jean State Park, published a few dozen reviews and essays, went on a lot of bike rides, started writing a thing with my brother, had a few panic attacks, distanced myself from the panic inducing news cycle, and finally finished a bunch of house projects. Books I read fewer books in 2018 than any other recent year. I bailed on a lot of books halfway through as well, something I usually don’t do. When I hit a point where the only thing keeping me engaged is the resolution of the plot—a thirst that could easily be quenched with a quick Google search or wiki article—there’s not much point continuing until the end. Where I’m at right now, if something doesn’t grab me with its prose, entrance me with its characters, or wow me with its world building in addition to telling a great story, I’m just not interested. If there is no subtext to be found in a story, a ragtag spaceship crew is only a ragtag spaceship crew, and sure, that’s fun, but that’s been done a million times. As a result, I’ve read about half as many books this year compared to 2017, but they have mostly been a higher caliber experience, and I’ve found many new favorites—Several of which I still haven’t written about, mostly because I’m trying to get my take on them just right. New favorites I discovered in 2018: Mr. Gwyn, by Alessandro Baricco The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin The Wilds, by Julia Elliott Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion The Gone World, by Tom Sweterlitsch (review) Gnomon, by Nick Harkaway (review) Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid (review) The Gigantic Beard that was Evil, by Stephen Collins To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi 2018 Reading Stats Because I’ve been obsessively tracking my reading habits via a Google Docs spreadsheet over the last four years, I have some fun stats to share. Click any of the charts to see the full document with lots of charts and graphs. This year: I read 18,537 pages spread across 65 books published from 1932 to 2018, written by 58 writers from 8 different countries. I averaged 50.79 pages per day, and 5.48 days per book. The author I read the most was John Scalzi. Mostly because I was sick for a week in October and I did nothing but read Scalzi books, one right after another. I highly recommend it. Of the books I read in 2018: 6.2% were audiobooks 46.2% were trade paperbacks 21.5% were non-fiction 11.1% were short story collections 29.3% won awards 32.3% were part of a series 26.2% were written by women 4.7% were translated from a foreign language 39.2% were science fiction 4.6% were written by people of color (this is abysmal, it’s something I’m improving in 2019) 2018 Music I found so much incredible music in 2018. Janelle Monáe’s terrific Dirty Computer, The Presets’ nineties electronica throwback HI VIZ, and Metric’s Art of Doubt were all on high circulation in my headphones this year. One of my favorite musical discoveries of 2018 is Cigarettes After Sex. They’re incredible. Calm like Mazzy Star, but with highly sexualized lyrics. Their vocalist’s voice is just transcendently soothing and beautiful. Here are the 100 songs I listened to the most in 2018. There are some incredible tracks in here, but then again, I’m extremely biased. Things I’m excited for in 2019 Tiamat’s Wrath Season 4 of The Expanse Big Black Delta‘s third LP Trump’s inevitable fall and deserved canonization as the worst U.S. President of all time The final season of Game of Thrones All the books I’m going to read Be excellent to each other. See everyone in 2019!... Read more...Other Worlds, Other Gods, edited by Mayo MohsDecember 18, 2018I’m a sucker for speculative fiction anthologies, especially these themed editions from the sixties and seventies. There’s something aesthetically vibrant about old sci-fi paperbacks, with their weirder-than-thou cover art depicting God knows what strangeness in an attempt to grab the wandering eyes of potential readers. I found this tattered copy hiding somewhere in the middle of a big stack of mass market SF in the local warehouse of an online bookseller. This was a few years ago, back when they used to let you wander around their warehouse; they’ve since closed it up and only sell online, which if you ask me, is a real loss. I spent a lot of hours and dollars in that place back then, based only on a weird cover that I had to check out. A title and an ISBN in a list on a website just doesn’t compare to those stacks of musty books. Other Worlds, Other Gods was published in the early seventies, and contains stories ranging from the fifties to the sixties, all religiously themed. A few of these were originally commissioned and published by the late Harlan Ellison® in the first of his Dangerous Visions anthologies. There are only two or three terrific stories, a few decent ones, and a few that weren’t particularly good but at least were interesting conceptually, with prose that left a little to be desired. All of the stories however, are worth reading and finishing, and the book itself, long since out of print, is worth tracking down for the terrific seventies SF artwork. I greatly enjoyed the collection and ended up finishing it in a few sittings. The Cunning of The beast, by Nelson Bond: 4/5 Fun concept, great execution. I would’ve liked a little more info on these non-corporeal beings that authored man though. A Cross of Centuries, by Henry Kuttner: 3/5 Good/Evil internal struggle. A little formulaic, relied too heavily on a reveal toward the end that was entirely predictable. Posed some nice philosophical questions though: Does the end justify the means? What power to facilitate change toward peace does a peaceful person really have? Soul Mate, by Lee Sutton: 4/5 I liked this concept a lot, and disliked the protagonist with a passion. I am fairly sure that his fevered misogyny was written as a negative character trait, and not so much as the author’s voice. You never know with some of this old sci-fi. Different times, etc… The Word to Space, by Winston P. Sanders: 3/5 The idea of contacting an alien race and having their sole pursuit be proselytization is such a hilariously juicy concept. The exposition was terribly clunky, and the resolution seemed a bit idealistic (breaking up a theocracy simply by illustrating its flaws and logical problems). In a perfect world, etc, but that’s not how people behave in reality. Having this suggestion come from Catholicism of all sources, was a little more irony than I could accept. Prometheus, by Philip Jose Farmer: 3/5 This is the longest story in the collection. A planet where birds seem to be the dominant species, nearly capable of audible speech. A monk is sent to observe their development and begins to interfere. I think that this would work a little better as a full novel, or even a series of novels. The birds progressed much too quickly to be believable. The ethical and theological concerns this monk has over the group that is eventually following his lead, is the core of the story, and was handled decently. The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C. Clarke: 2/5 A cautionary tale of sorts. The lesson? Don’t look down on those who seem less intelligent than yourself. Cliche story, but Clarke’s writing style is worth a couple stars on it’s own. I’ve seen this story get high marks from a lot of SF aficionados, and my dislike may be a case of having read it much too late in my life. The Vitanuls, by John Brunner: 5/5 Such an amazing short story. Stop what you’re doing now and track it down. Judas, by John Brunner: 5/5 Okay, I have to read more John Brunner. This story was incredible and exactly the type of thing I was looking for from this book. Easily my favorite of them all. The Quest for Saint Aquin, by Anthony Boucher: 4/5 A catholic priest and a robot donkey (“robass” really? Couldn’t think of a better name for it?) ride in search of a miracle in a future where Christians are a persecuted minority. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Actually, it was quite good. Balaam, by Anthony Boucher: 2/5 The only thing that really saves this story for me was the multisided POVs. Again, Boucher found a way to work in a “Mule” character, this time on Mars. Evensong, by Lester del Rey: 4/5 A desperate God on the run from Man’s vengeance. The idea of man slowly becoming more and more powerful, until God fears Man is really intriguing. Nice prose. Shall The Dust Praise Thee?, by Damon Knight: 3/5 God’s vengeance may have been a little bit more than he bargained for. It seems that man could only take so much torment. This could’ve been executed a lot better, but I liked the concept. Christus Apollo, by Ray Bradbury: 3/5 Poetic speculations into a slightly differing Christ mythology on other worlds.... Read more...The Dispatcher, by John ScalziDecember 10, 2018I find that speculative fiction is usually best when married with another genre. Personally, I’m partial to a good mystery. Set that mysterious tale in a science fiction/fantasy setting, and I’m probably going to be on board. In my eyes it’s a longstanding recipe for success: Jack McDevitt’s Alex Benedict novels, The Gone World, Altered Carbon, Leviathan Wakes, Zero World, Gnomon. The list is great mystery/spec fic novels is unknowably long. The basic idea: Would you murder someone if it also meant saving their life? The Dispatcher is a tightly constructed urban fantasy mystery, set in a world mostly like ours but with one key difference: When someone is murdered, they disappear and materialize at home, alive and well in their bed. This happens nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand. This small change sets the stage for a truly unique murder mystery, with a main character and setting I desperately hope Scalzi returns to. If there were more stories set in this world, I would read them all. Come to think of it, there’s room on my shelf for a nice paperback collection of Dispatcher novellas. Got a nice little spot for it, all ready to go. Write, Scalzi, write. I’m not usually into urban fantasy, but this one is quite different. Most people hear urban fantasy and think werewolves and vampires and magical objects which, while technically true, isn’t all urban fantasy is capable of. The way I see it, urban fantasy has two rules: 1. The story is told in a somewhat contemporary setting, e.g., not middle earth and 2. The impossible happens. Everything else is just how the writer wants to use those building blocks to tell their story. Something Scalzi has done a terrific job of here. The fact that he usually writes science fiction serves to make his branching out into fantasy all the more interesting and rewarding. The Dispatcher is a prime example of how quality fantasy world building can have far reaching ethical, societal, and industry specific ramifications. It also explores that impact pretty thoroughly for a novella. Like proverbial butterfly flapping its wings and causing a hurricane, one little modification to the world we’re accustomed to changes so many aspects of human society and social norms. It impacts everything from the kinds of intimidation organized crime families utilize, to the methods detectives use to investigate them. Insurance policies, experimental surgical procedures, and even frat boy posturing are all changed. “I know what side of the street I like better. But you don’t always get to choose the side of the street you walk on.” I listened to the Audible audiobook version of this last year. Zachary Quinto provided the narration, and turned in a graceful performance—bringing each character to life with subtlety. It was nice to listen to a Scalzi book not narrated by Wil Wheaton for once. Not that I have anything against Wil Wheaton, I’ve just grown a little tired of his narrative style. This year I read the hardcover edition published by Subterranean press. In addition to the text, Vincent Chong has provided several illustrations of key scenes. He draws in an almost airbrushed hyper-realistic style that’s difficult to describe, but it truly brings the story to life. Having experienced this story in both formats, it’s hard to recommend one over the other, so I’ll wholeheartedly recommend them both. Whatever form you enjoy your books in, the Dispatcher isn’t something to be missed.... Read more...In Conversation: Books, Ebooks, & Audio Books; or, How Aesthetics Drive Reading ChoicesNovember 29, 2018I recently had an opportunity to sit down with Matt and Adrian from Spectology to discuss the differing aesthetic experiences between physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks. It was a really fun conversation and I had a blast talking with them. I hope to come back and visit with them again sometime early next year. You can listen to the podcast episode below:... Read more...Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid: The World Made FlatNovember 13, 2018Mohsin Hamid has created something wonderful with this endearing, and perfectly formed short novel. What an evocative and striking way to discuss refugees, ideological war, tribalism, and love. This book broke through my exterior barriers and nurtured something tender inside of me. It seems for the most part, people are really the same, and we all want the same things regardless of where we come from: security, companionship, and the means to better ourselves. The things we’ve lived through, our experiences, coalesce and form us into who we are, shaping the basis of what we might become. “We are all migrants through time.” Windows and doors feature heavily in Exit West. The dangers of the ongoing war between the militants and the government in our protagonists’ unnamed middle eastern country, enter through windows. As the war grows more serious, every glass pane holds within it the potential to become lacerating shrapnel. The ongoing fighting perverts everything into something it was never intended to be. Windows into shrapnel. Streets into battlegrounds. Characters are killed accidentally through the glass windshields of their cars by misguided munitions. Windows are boarded up, taped up, or obscured for security, limiting the light available indoors. Doors are where the magical aspect of the story comes into play. Most of the time doors operate as normal, allowing passage from one room to another, from outside to inside, or inside to out. But sometimes, at seemingly random and unpredictable moments, certain doors have started leading elsewhere, to adjacent doors in other lands. Offering a means of escape from local dangers, and passage to the relative safety and wealth of the West. Doors like these are opening up all over the world, and just as the relative size of the world was flattened and reduced dramatically with the invention of the internet, these doors literally fold and flatten the space between the Eastern and Western, Southern and Northern corners of the world. The myriad ways in which this change impacts the societies in the novel was the most interesting aspect of the story for me. As the effective distance between continents diminishes, the realities of the world that were once far away from the wealthy and fortunate, were once nebulous and ethereal to them, are made vividly real and close. Travel, particularly meeting and interacting with those unlike ourselves, is said to be one of the best ways to overcome existing prejudices and preconceived notions about those from human tribes different from our own. With these doors that have started connecting us, everyone, everywhere has now come into contact with several individuals unlike themselves. Millions begin fleeing from the poorer nations to the richer ones, and this starts to cause a rapid change and instability among the natives of the richer lands. “Location, location, location, the realtors say. Geography is destiny, respond the historians.” This change is met with a variety of responses: fear, compassion, intrigue, curiosity, hope, etc. What Exit West does so well is give a glimpse into the daily realities of refugees fleeing from war torn countries, the sorts of terrors they can be running from, the sort of hope they often subside on. It broke my heart, and I think will go a long way toward making me a better, more compassionate person. In addition to the wonderful social commentary, Exit West is also a love story of the highest caliber, a magically real fairy tale, unafraid to shy away from the realities of love, loss, and the changes quickened or postponed by devastating circumstances. The relationship between Saeed and Nadia grows and expands as the narrative progresses. They are one thing to each other in the beginning and another thing entirely by the end. They meet as students of higher education in their country of origin, and I found it interesting to compare and contrast their story with that of a western couple meeting for the first time at a college in America. In a lot of ways, the extreme situations they find themselves in, possibly hold them together for longer than would be ideal had they been born into different circumstances. As someone who has never had a similar experience, I found the ways in which Nadia was able to insulate and protect herself in a culture she felt somewhat apart from, particularly interesting. The ways in which a system sometimes inadvertently makes available tools with which we can protect ourselves from that system is a fascinating area to examine. I think it speaks toward the ingenuity of humans to utilize everything that is available to us to better our prospects and secure the future we desire. “He knew how little it took to make a man into meat: the wrong blow, the wrong gunshot, the wrong flick of a blade, turn of a car, presence of a microorganism in a handshake, a cough. He was aware that alone a person is almost nothing.” All of my friends who have previously read Exit West specifically mentioned to me that the ending crushed them, brought them to tears or reduced them into a weeping, bumbling mess. It didn’t have that effect on me at all. Instead, I found it unbelievably beautiful, and I sat in contemplative awe, marveling at how perfect the ending was, that the author had pulled it off so elegantly. How in retrospect it was the only possible real ending, and the one I hoped the book would arrive at. It was an evocative, emotionally satisfying scene to finish the story. To me, Exit West is overall, a hopeful novel, but it touches on deadly serious themes and the brutalities of human existence. I found it moving and beautifully expressed. It is a book that I plan on revisiting many times throughout my life.... Read more...Recent SF: Hidden Gems from Mainstream PublishersSeptember 25, 2018There are tons of science fiction and fantasy publishers these days. From Tor to Orbit, Del Rey to Night Shade Books, EOS, ACE, Solaris, etc, chances are you’re familiar with at least a few of these. Some of the SF publishers you’re familiar with are independent, but I’ll let you in on a little secret: Most of them are owned by just five publishing houses (the big five). As readers, we become familiar with the names of these publishers and trust them as marks of quality or as indicators that we might like a new book. I have particularly loved recent titles from Orbit and Tor, whose books have deservedly dominated the Hugo, Nebula and Locus award nominations and winners in the last few years. The flip side of this affinity for the same few publishers is that a lot of great SF novels published by non SF imprints can go under noticed by the SF community. There have been several terrific recent science fiction and fantasy novels from mainstream literary imprints and independent publishers that I think deserve much more attention than they received. I’ve put this list together to remind readers that there is quality SF all over the place. Most of the books in this list are still from the big five, but I’ve included some from smaller, independent publishers as well. They are all wonderfully well rounded stories, told through beautiful language. Hopefully you’ll find something you like, or maybe even a new favorite. Enjoy! Version Control, by Dexter Palmer (2016, Pantheon/Vintage) Publisher Synopsis: Although Rebecca Wright has pieced her life back together after a major tragedy, she can’t shake a sense that the world around her feels off-kilter. Meanwhile, her husband’s dedication to his invention, “the causality violation device” (which he would greatly prefer you not call a time machine) has effectively stalled his career—but he may be closer to success than either of them can possibly imagine. Emotionally powerful and wickedly intelligent, Version Control is a stunningly prescient novel about the effects of science and technology on our lives, our friendships, and our sense of self that will alter the way you see the future—and the present. Why it’s awesome: This was one of my favorite reads from the last few years. It came out of nowhere and knocked me on my ass in 2016. It’s a slow burn novel with one of the most emotionally fulfilling conclusions that I have ever read. It’s a highly character driven, yet cerebral examination of causality, physics, and concepts like parallel worlds and time travel. But it never loses it’s core focus: humanity, and human relationships. It’s set in a near near-future, and does a fantastic job of telling a beautiful story about the far reaching effects that advances in technology might bring to our lives, particularly the collision of the Maker/DIY community and advanced self driving vehicles. Version Control is a masterpiece of literature, SF or otherwise. Void Star, by Zachary Mason (2017, FSG) Publisher Synopsis: Not far in the future the seas have risen and the central latitudes are emptying, but it’s still a good time to be rich in San Francisco, where weapons drones patrol the skies to keep out the multitudinous poor. Irina isn’t rich, not quite, but she does have an artificial memory that gives her perfect recall and lets her act as a medium between her various employers and their AIs, which are complex to the point of opacity. It’s a good gig, paying enough for the annual visits to the Mayo Clinic that keep her from aging. Kern has no such access; he’s one of the many refugees in the sprawling drone-built favelas on the city’s periphery, where he lives like a monk, training relentlessly in martial arts, scraping by as a thief and an enforcer. Thales is from a different world entirely―the mathematically inclined scion of a Brazilian political clan, he’s fled to L.A. after the attack that left him crippled and his father dead. A ragged stranger accosts Thales and demands to know how much he can remember. Kern flees for his life after robbing the wrong mark. Irina finds a secret in the reflection of a laptop’s screen in her employer’s eyeglasses. None are safe as they’re pushed together by subtle forces that stay just out of sight. Why it’s awesome: It not only has that famous sense of wonder that only SF can do so well, but also elegant prose evidencing an author well acquainted with the great works of literary fiction, solid worldbuilding, an engaging story, and well developed characters that feel like they’ve genuinely lived their lives. It’s a novel of ideas, a hugely ambitious narrative, and a character novel all rolled into one. If elements of Neuromancer and The Diamond Age merged with an epic mythology poem and in the process became more than the sum of their parts, you would have Void Star. I’d call it post-cyberpunk, minus the noir element. There is a mystery present, but no tropey, down on his luck detective piecing it all together while chewing the scenery. Mason’s prose has an inherent beauty to it, and is a joy to read. It is poetically descriptive in a clever, nebulous way. He describes only just enough to jump-start your imagination, leaving the hard-edged details for the reader to incorporate into the world themselves. You meet the novel halfway. It makes it highly engaging. It’s an approach that can backfire if handled by a less steady hand, but it’s wonderfully executed here. To me it’s a little reminiscent of Jeff VanderMeer’s prose. Read the full Heradas review of Void Star Little Sister, by Barbara Gowdy (2017, Tin House) Publisher Synopsis: Thunderstorms are rolling across the summer sky. Every time one breaks, Rose Bowan loses consciousness and has vivid, realistic dreams about being in another woman’s body. Is Rose merely dreaming? Or is she, in fact, inhabiting a stranger? Disturbed yet entranced, she sets out to discover what is happening to her, leaving the cocoon of her family’s small repertory cinema for the larger, upended world of someone wildly different from herself. Meanwhile her mother is in the early stages of dementia, and has begun to speak for the first time in decades about another haunting presence: Rose’s younger sister. In Little Sister, one woman fights to help someone she has never met, and to come to terms with a death for which she always felt responsible. With the elegant prose and groundbreaking imagination that have earned her international acclaim, Barbara Gowdy explores the astonishing power of empathy, the question of where we end and others begin, and the fierce bonds of motherhood and sisterhood. Why it’s awesome: Little Sister has a setup that hooked me in the first handful of pages. There is a well crafted, subtle symmetry at play in this novel. The story is teeming with thematic intrigue, and these themes mirror each other in creative ways as the story progresses. You could describe it as a feedback loop of sorts; the matching elements bouncing off each other and informing different areas of the story, creating a prism that resolves as it all comes together. It’s masterfully done. I’d call it a summer literary thriller with a touch of magical realism, and a lot of substance. The prose is sober and clear; the story utterly captivating, and the characters well developed. There is a general sense of unease, making it suspenseful in the same way a good horror movie can be, without ever fully submerging into the horrific. For me, some of the main themes in Little Sister are reminiscent of the motifs of duality present in the best Christopher Priest novels, and Gowdy writes dialogue like a more reasonable DeLillo in his prime. Read the full Heradas review of Little Sister Gnomon, by Nick Harkaway (2018, Knopf/Vintage) Publisher Synopsis: In the world of Gnomon, citizens are constantly observed and democracy has reached a pinnacle of ‘transparency.’ Every action is seen, every word is recorded, and the System has access to its citizens’ thoughts and memories–all in the name of providing the safest society in history. When suspected dissident Diana Hunter dies in government custody, it marks the first time a citizen has been killed during an interrogation. The System doesn’t make mistakes, but something isn’t right about the circumstances surrounding Hunter’s death. Mielikki Neith, a trusted state inspector and a true believer in the System, is assigned to find out what went wrong. Immersing herself in neural recordings of the interrogation, what she finds isn’t Hunter but rather a panorama of characters within Hunter’s psyche: a lovelorn financier in Athens who has a mystical experience with a shark; a brilliant alchemist in ancient Carthage confronting the unexpected outcome of her invention; an expat Ethiopian painter in London designing a controversial new video game, and a sociopathic disembodied intelligence from the distant future. Embedded in the memories of these impossible lives lies a code which Neith must decipher to find out what Hunter is hiding. In the static between these stories, Neith begins to catch glimpses of the real Diana Hunter–and, alarmingly, of herself. The staggering consequences of what she finds will reverberate throughout the world. A dazzling, panoramic achievement, and Nick Harkaway’s most brilliant work to date, Gnomon is peerless and profound, captivating and irreverent, as it pierces through strata of reality and consciousness, and illuminates how to set a mind free. It is a truly accomplished novel from a mind possessing a matchless wit infused with a deep humanity. Why it’s awesome: Gnomon is simultaneously many different things: A cautionary tale about our modern moment’s convergence of technology, surveillance, and human hubris. A matryoshkian novel, as narratively complex as it is straightforward and readable, that is itself ultimately all about storytelling, narrative, and books. A satisfyingly self-aware postmodern book that wants access to your mind as a tool to self-propagate. A beautifully designed physical book (Chip Kidd doesn’t mess around). A book that teaches you how to read it as you read it. Gnomon is also staggeringly vast in its scope and ambition: It’s about math, immigration, surveillance, sharks, encryption, ancient Rome, video games, economics, hive minds, the near future, the far future, liberty and security, mirrors and parallels, disconnection, right angles, mythology, time travel, social manipulation, the human connectome, steganography, racism, intertextuality, detective novels, religion, castouts, manipulation, our ever changing definition of reality, interrogation, torture, and so many, many other things. If you like books by Borges, Neal Stephenson, Cherise Wolas, David Mitchell, David Foster Wallace or Ted Chiang, this is one I think you will immensely enjoy. Borne, by Jeff VanderMeer (2016, MCD) Publisher Synopsis: In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company―a biotech firm now derelict―and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump―plant or animal?―but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts―and definitely against Wick’s wishes―Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford. “He was born, but I had borne him.” But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same. Why it’s awesome: Jeff VanderMeer is a literary author, writing almost exclusively speculative fiction. He’s at the center of that illusive Venn diagram containing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Literary Fiction, and belongs in whatever section of your bookshelf Octavia Butler, Adam Johnson, Ursula Le Guin, Dexter Palmer and Gene Wolfe inhabit. All of the VanderMeer story staples are here in full force: Ruinous ecology, strange bioluminescent life, forgotten memories, a misplaced sense of self-identity, life that might not be human, animals that (maybe) used to be human, a hint of something much larger happening on the periphery, a creepy company meddling in things they shouldn’t, and a perfect mix of mystery and resolution in the story. All told through beautiful prose that itself lends an eerie literary landscape for the rich characters to inhabit. The most obvious comparison here is VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, being his most recent work. I can guarantee that if you enjoyed those novels, you’re very much going to enjoy Borne. Maybe even more so. I could even make a case that it is entirely possible, and doesn’t take all that much head canon, to connect Borne to the Southern Reach novels. Read the full Heradas review of Borne Mort(e), by Robert Repino (2015, SOHO) Publisher Synopsis: The “war with no name” has begun, with human extinction as its goal. The instigator of this war is the Colony, a race of intelligent ants who, for thousands of years, have been silently building an army that would forever eradicate the destructive, oppressive humans. Under the Colony’s watchful eye, this utopia will be free of the humans’ penchant for violence, exploitation and religious superstition. As a final step in the war effort, the Colony uses its strange technology to transform the surface animals into high-functioning two-legged beings who rise up to kill their masters. Former housecat turned war hero, Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bio-weapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind his recklessness is his ongoing search for a pre-transformation friend—a dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony, where he will discover the source of EMSAH and the ultimate fate of all of earth’s creatures. Why it’s awesome: A terrific, wholly original story. Brutal, straightforward and unflinching yet really fun at the same time. It had elements of Planet of the Apes and the better works of Heinlein, but with a lot more heart. Mort(e) did that thing that only SF can do so well. It told a story about humanity and all the things that we get wrong, transplanted into a completely alien, unfamiliar point of view, so as not too come across as obviously preachy. Repino removed the “serial numbers” from a great story about humanity, and turned in a thrilling science fiction tale. The Gone World, by Tom Sweterlitsch (2018, Putnam) Publisher Synopsis: Inception meets True Detective in this science fiction thriller of spellbinding tension and staggering scope that follows a special agent into a savage murder case with grave implications for the fate of mankind… Shannon Moss is part of a clandestine division within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In western Pennsylvania, 1997, she is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL’s family—and to locate his vanished teenage daughter. Though she can’t share the information with conventional law enforcement, Moss discovers that the missing SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra—a ship assumed lost to the currents of Deep Time. Moss knows first-hand the mental trauma of time-travel and believes the SEAL’s experience with the future has triggered this violence. Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection from her own past, Moss travels ahead in time to explore possible versions of the future, seeking evidence to crack the present-day case. To her horror, the future reveals that it’s not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work, for what she witnesses rising over time’s horizon and hurtling toward the present is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself. Luminous and unsettling, The Gone World bristles with world-shattering ideas yet remains at its heart an intensely human story. Why it’s awesome: This is a disturbing and unique take on time travel and alternate worlds that’s unlike anything I’ve read. Think the horrific existential dread of Lovecraft or Robert Chambers, that so obviously inspired the first season of True Detective, filtered through Arthur C. Clarke’s grand ideas, all told as an incredibly tight mainstream suspense thriller with a terrific protagonist. Throw in a dash of Minority Report, and a pinch of the complexity of Primer and you’ve got a good idea what you’re getting yourself into. Mysteries in mysteries in mysteries, and they all resolve pretty well. Usually I’ve found Science fiction suspense thrillers to be a little ham fisted. There’s often a solid idea but the execution is clumsy, or the SF aspects are merely genre tropes. Sometimes the mystery is a little too obvious, or the characters are as translucent as the paper in a cheap paperback. Worst of all is when the story gets bogged down by the science and it becomes more of a textbook than a novel. This isn’t to say that I’m not a fan of “hard” sci-fi, but story and character need to come first. The Gone World doesn’t succumb to any of these traps. It works surprisingly well as both science fiction and a modern mainstream suspense thriller. The SF aspects help the story to avoid the tropes of suspense thrillers and vice versa, each genre serving to make up for the possible shortcomings of the other. Read the full Heradas review of The Gone World The New and Improved Romie Futch, by Julia Elliott (2015, Tin House) Publisher Synopsis: A debut novel that is part dystopian satire, part Southern Gothic tall tale: a disturbing yet hilarious romp through a surreal New South where newfangled medical technologies change the structure of the human brain and genetically modified feral animals ravage the blighted landscape. Down on his luck and still pining for his ex-wife, South Carolina taxidermist Romie Futch spends his evenings drunkenly surfing the Internet before passing out on his couch. In a last-ditch attempt to pay his mortgage, he replies to an ad and becomes a research subject in an experiment conducted by the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia. After “scientists” download hifalutin humanities disciplines into their brains, Romie and his fellow guinea pigs start debating the works of Foucault and hashing out the intricacies of postmodern subjectivity. The enhanced taxidermist, who once aspired to be an artist, returns to his hometown ready to revolutionize his work and revive his failed marriage. As Romie tracks down specimens for his elaborate animatronic taxidermy dioramas, he develops an Ahab-caliber obsession with bagging “Hogzilla,” a thousand-pound feral hog that has been terrorizing Hampton County. Cruising hog-hunting websites, he learns that this lab-spawned monster possesses peculiar traits. Pulled into an absurd and murky underworld of biotech operatives, FDA agents, and environmental activists, Romie becomes entangled in the enigma of Hogzilla’s origins. Exploring the interplay between nature and culture, biology and technology, reality and art, The New and Improved Romie Futch probes the mysteries of memory and consciousness, offering a darkly comic yet heartfelt take on the contemporary human predicament. Why it’s awesome: A glorious postmodern tale of a mid-south middle-aged burnout divorcee taxidermist who hits rock bottom and answers a classified ad to become a guinea pig for some experimental neurological enhancements. It’s incredibly good writing, while being effortlessly engaging, humorous, poignant and actually kind of endearing too. Julia Elliot’s prose evolves as the novel builds, expertly juxtaposing the realities and habits of uneducated southern life with the transformative power, and self reflection that accompanies an acquisition of knowledge. She crafts characters that drip with such potent realism, I swear these are actual people – some of whom I absolutely know from the mid-size mid-south town I currently reside in. Tin House is one of my favorite smaller independent publishers in the business today. In addition to publishing ten or so terrific books each year, they also run the Tin House literary magazine, which recently published a new all time favorite story by Julia Elliott in their Candy issue. Read the full Heradas review of The New and Improved Romie Futch... Read more...Transition, by Iain Banks: Untapped PotentialSeptember 14, 2018Transition reads like it was intended to kick off a new series for Banks, and like Consider Phlebas, the first in Banks’ Culture series, it was kind of a hot mess but I loved it anyway. There’s just so much room in the universe of Transition for more stories featuring the Concern / l’expérience. The concept is so large that there is the potential for all of Banks’ fiction to take place inside of it. Even the Culture could’ve existed inside of this. It’s massive. I’m kind of mourning that loss of potential future stories right now. Something I find myself doing more and more after I finish reading an Iain Banks novel these days. Who even knows if he intended to return to this universe, but it could’ve been spectacular if he did. The bottom line is: Fuck cancer. Strangely enough, Transition was published in the UK as a mainstream Iain Banks novels, but in the US under his Iain M. Banks pseudo pseudonym that Orbit used for his science fiction novels. His mainstream literary novels never took off in America (they’re almost entirely impossible to find at any brick and mortar book shops here), so maybe the publisher thought the book would sell better if labelled as science fiction? Although it’s a much stranger decision to me that it wasn’t labelled as science fiction in the UK. It’s very much a science fiction thriller. Perhaps SF doesn’t sell well there? “Perdition awaits at the end of a road constructed entirely from good intentions, the devil emerges from the details and hell abides in the small print.” This is the perviest Banks novel I have ever read. Like a late Heinlein romp, all of the women are gorgeous, their bodies described in detail, and they all want to fuck the protagonist. There’s one scene where minds are transferred from body to body to body so that a couple can orgasm over and over and over again until the experience crosses from heightened pleasure into torture. Just like Aaron Sorkin has his characters continually walking-and-talking, if the characters in Transition are dropping some exposition in dialogue, they’re fucking-and-talking, talking and then fucking, fucking and then talking and then fucking some more…and then talking about fucking. There are endless double entendres and sexual puns. It’s all just exhausting, extremely transparent and ridiculous. There’s also a lot of sexual assault in this book, an inclusion I’m not entirely opposed to if its inclusion is in service of the story and is handled well. Here it’s just uncomfortable, lazy, and almost entirely unnecessary. Come to think of it, there’s a lot in this book that is unnecessary. You could say it’s more of a maximalist short story than a novel, padded out to 400 some odd pages with so much cruft. That would be one way to look at it. Another way is that almost nothing actually happens. It sort of fizzles and pops at the end as well. This is all sounding very negative, I still truly enjoyed the book, but I’m finding it difficult to explain exactly why. The concept of an organization that borders on cultish behavior, established to serve the betterment of humanity, with agents who are able to transfer their minds into parallel universes to achieve their ends is just fantastic fun. Also, Banks’ prose is just unbelievably expressive at times; the kind of mood he’s able to create with words is occasionally breathtaking. I am beyond biased when it comes to this author, but if you’ve read anything else I’ve written about him or his writing, you already knew that. “Apparently I am what is known as an Unreliable Narrator, though of course if you believe everything you’re told you deserve whatever you get.” There’s an interesting story in Transition, we just never really get a glimpse at it. Instead we get stories that butt up against that story, bouncing off and spiraling around it, only ever hinting at the more interesting narrative. There are also these little narratively conflicting moments spread throughout the book, and while they seem intentional (we are dealing with infinite worlds and infinite versions of the characters as a story device after all) they don’t lead anywhere, and only serve to obfuscate and confuse. I don’t think he quite pulled off what he was going for with their inclusion. There are a lot of loose ends, and it feels like we’re maybe only getting about half of the story in that oh-so-clever, postmodern kind of way that can come across as pretentious if handled poorly. Transition was close to what it could’ve been, but it just wasn’t quite there. I think that sums it up pretty well. Massively ambitious, but he didn’t pull it off, not quite. I would’ve loved to see some more stories in this universe though. They could’ve been incredible in the same way that Consider Phlebas only ever hinted at how great the Culture novels would eventually become in the fully realized Use of Weapons, Excession, or Look to Windward.... Read more...The Gone World, by Tom SweterlitschAugust 14, 2018Sometimes the best way to experience a novel is going in completely blind. I found The Gone World at my local library bookshop and had no idea what I was getting myself into, in the best way. Reading it split my head clean open. From the first page to the last, I was enthralled. After finishing the novel, it left me in this kind of fugue state that I haven’t been able to escape. It completely blindsided me. Usually I dislike the phrase “compulsively readable” but it definitely applies here. I couldn’t put it down, I had to know what was going on in this story. The Gone World is a bit of a genre-bender, so I’m going to back up and talk about genre a little. Several years ago the visual artist Ward Shelley created a piece chronicling the history of science fiction. He began with the roots of the genre: Fear and Wonder, Speculation and Observation, and traced them down through Philosophy and Cultural Criticism all the way to our current moment, marking notable works along the way. Forgive my oversimplification of this magnificent piece of art (you really should check it out for yourself, it’s quite a thing), but there’s a moment along the visual line where a branch occurs, Science and eventually Science Fiction coming through The Enlightenment, the Gothic Novel and eventually Horror following from the Counter-Enlightenment/Anti-Rational thread. These disparate lineages, one born of Fear, the other of Wonder, branch out into genres and sub-genres, staying mostly separate. What The Gone World does so expertly is marry the pre-horror Gothic novel “fear” back together with Science Fiction’s “wonder” in perfectly equal measure. Usually I’ve found Science fiction suspense thrillers to be a little ham fisted. There’s often a solid idea but the execution is clumsy, or the SF aspects are merely genre tropes. Sometimes the mystery is a little too obvious, or the characters are as translucent as the paper in a cheap paperback. Worst of all is when the story gets bogged down by the science and it becomes more of a textbook than a novel. This isn’t to say that I’m not a fan of “hard” sci-fi, but story and character need to come first. The Gone World doesn’t succumb to any of these traps. It works surprisingly well as both science fiction and a modern mainstream suspense thriller. The SF aspects help the story to avoid the tropes of suspense thrillers and vice versa, each genre serving to make up for the possible shortcomings of the other. “The totality of human endeavor is nothing when set against the stars.” The Gone World’s prologue begins with a hell of a hook. I haven’t been hooked like this in the first few pages of a novel in a long time. This is a disturbing and unique take on time travel and alternate worlds that’s unlike anything I’ve read. Think the horrific existential dread of Lovecraft or Robert Chambers, that so obviously inspired the first season of True Detective, filtered through Arthur C. Clarke’s grand ideas, all told as an incredibly tight mainstream suspense thriller with a terrific protagonist. Throw in a dash of Minority Report, and a pinch of the complexity of Primer and you’ve got a good idea what you’re getting yourself into. Mysteries in mysteries in mysteries, and they all resolve pretty well. I little googling revealed that both of Tom Sweterlitsch’s novels have been optioned for film adaptations, and that The Gone World is set to be written/directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). In addition to this, Sweterlitsch co-wrote several of those incredible Oats Studios short films that Blomkamp directed last year. If you haven’t seen them yet, check them out. They’re terrific. It’s been recently announced that Blomkamp’s next film will be a direct sequel to the original Robocop, which makes me worried his adaptation of The Gone World may be on the back burner for now. Only time will tell. The Gone World gut-punched my head over and over again, which is enough to solidify my interest in everything that Sweterlitsch does from here on out.... Read more...The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis: Trapped in SubjectivityJuly 29, 2018Whenever I’m the mood for fiction about first world problems, unloved rich kids and the fucked up lives they lead, I reach for something by Bret Easton Ellis. I get on a serious kick for this kind of stuff sometimes. Transgressive fiction, I’ve heard it called. Maybe it’s soothing to my soul to think that an abundance of money doesn’t necessarily alleviate our problems. Maybe I get a heavy slathering of schadenfreude by reading representations of the most fortunate among us enduring harrowing emotional torment. Whatever the cause, when I’m in the mood for this type of stuff, Ellis hits the spot perfectly. As a teenager, Chuck Palahniuk was my go to when I felt the creeping dread of the unfairness of the world, the uncertainty of life and our lot in it. I quickly grew out of Palahniuk after his fourth or fifth book, I can’t remember precisely which one. He hit some truly brilliant highs from time to time that resonated deeply with my angst riddled teenage mind, but it quickly became apparent that he had already said what he came to say and wasn’t working in an interesting space any longer. Anyway, I feel like Bret Easton Ellis is probably who Palahniuk was most inspired by. They touch on a lot of the same themes, but Ellis does it with a lot more subtlety and grace. Where Palahniuk beats the reader over the head with a theme, Ellis writes his way around it, guiding them toward the conclusion he’s striving for. “No one will ever know anyone. We just have to deal with each other. You’re not ever gonna know me.” The Rules of Attraction is mostly told through a series of short, unfiltered, internal, first person POV narratives that often contradict one another. They read almost like journal entries or summaries of events. Where these disparate points of view don’t quite align, where they butt up against one another, something more interesting is revealed: how subjective everyone’s reality is, how deep the well of self deception runs within us. We simply can’t see through another’s eyes. Our accounts of reality, our retellings of history, will never align with anyone else’s. We are all fully alone within ourselves, but crave social connection and understanding. It’s a sick joke that we cannot escape. I didn’t find this story nearly as disturbing as Ellis’ first novel, Less Than Zero, something that I greatly appreciated, however it’s still pretty messed up: The novel begins with what is arguably a date rape, and continues on to accidental overdoses, suicide, suicide attempts, and continual emotional manipulation. The most disturbing element for me though, was that none of these events seem to phase any of the characters involved. They’re all dead inside, lying to themselves, in heavy denial of something or other, and entirely self-centered. Their apathy is palpable, and drips all over every aspect of their lives. My suspicion is that this novel is a reflection on the futility of love and relationships, the improbability of knowing one another well enough to communicate from within the infinite walls of experience and subjectivity that separate us from everyone else. We become trapped in our personal experience of the world, each of us wandering around in our locked down boxes, misunderstanding one another as we inadvertently help to reinforce their own boxes. “What else is there to do in college except drink beer or slit one’s wrists?” The unfiltered internal thoughts of these characters highlighted for me a youthful period of my own life, a time where my desire for belonging and acceptance within peer groups was paramount. I cared so much what others thought of me, where I stood in relation to them. These needs, only expressed internally, desperately hidden externally, or so I thought. I loved this glimpse into the characters’ emotional lives. It rings true for anyone who remembers being young and caring so much about things that matter so little. I imagine this book would read a lot differently in your twenties, than your thirties or forties. I enjoy the shared universe in which Ellis’ novels take place. “That kid from LA” that is occasionally referenced in The Rules of Attraction is Clay, the protagonist from Less Than Zero. One of the main POV characters, Sean Bateman, is the younger brother of the titular American Psycho, Patrick Bateman, pro/antagonist of Ellis’ follow-up to The Rules of Attraction. Patrick even narrates his own short chapter near the end of the novel. From what I hear, there are little crossover moments like these peppered throughout all of Ellis’ novels, and the connections are not always limited to his own work, but occasionally those written by his contemporaries such as Donna Tartt or Jay McInerney. I look forward to suffering through all of his stories, along with his coterie of broken, apathetic, wealthy, unloved characters… when I’m in the mood for them that is. Just like a quality psychedelic experience, set and setting are crucial elements with his writing. These novels can be a dreadful, disheartening experience if you’re not in the right state of mind. If you’re up for it though, they’re a blast.... Read more...Noumenon, by Marina J. LostetterJune 22, 2018My path to this book was a meandering one. In my day job I repair computers: recover data, replace screens, cleanup malware, that sort of thing. A few years back a woman came into my shop when an external hard drive of hers had failed. Unfortunately, the mechanical damage to the drive was too extensive for me to be able to recover any data in my shop, so I recommended a place out of state she could send the drive to. This usually happens once or twice a week, and I promptly forgot about the whole encounter. Flash forward to a few months ago, I’m walking through the local Barnes and Noble when I see a stack of signed paperbacks on the Sci-Fi shelf. Usually this happens when a writer visits a bookstore for a signing, or is just in town for whatever reason. They’ll sign their books on the shelf, and then B&N staff will slap those “Signed by the author” stickers on them. It’s a fun little treat for readers, and it helps to move the merchandise. I pick up a copy and flip it over, read some blurbs, check out the cover art, etc. It looks promising. Harper Voyager has been on my radar as a pretty solid SF imprint since they published The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet a couple years back. And this writer’s name is just really familiar for whatever reason. I pull out my work phone and start googling her because I’m sure I’ve heard of her before, but as I’m typing it suggests a contact in my phone before the usual google supplied results. Wait, do I know her? And then it clicks. She must be a client of mine, so I pull up my client records and realize she came into my shop a few years back to get some data recovered. Well, that’s fucking cool. I’m going to buy this book and check it out. Turns out, it’s pretty great. The basic setup of the novel is that of clones aboard a generation ship embarking on a voyage into the unknown to check out an anomalous star. They’re thinking it might be a Dyson Sphere, or some new stellar phenomena. The thing I found the most interesting about this book is that the main setup is treated more as a setting than a story. In most BDO novels I’ve read, it’s all about the BDO itself. In Noumenon, the real story deals more with the clones, their struggles aboard the ship, and the difficulties and different yet familiar societal problems that emerge from this unique situation. The narrative is told through a series of vignettes that cover a few hundred years, or two thousand, depending on your relativity. Sometimes hopeful, sometimes dystopic, these vignettes build on one another to tell a larger story about humanity, nature vs. nurture, hypocrisy, prejudice, and the complications of sentience. Some of these stories resonated more with me than others. I was also impressed with the scope of themes that were covered. In some ways I was reminded of the structure of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion, or the more recent Old Man’s War novels (The Human Division, and The End of All Things) built out of several stories or novellas. The comparisons to Alastair Reynolds’ House of Suns will also be obvious to readers, and some similar themes are addressed in that novel, but Lostetter’s prose and approach is so different from Reynolds’ that I don’t really find it an apt comparison. All in all I’d say Noumenon is the messy, chaotic history between A and B and C. The history that usually gets swept under the rug, or left between the lines in the history books. It’s a terrific story, and I’d highly recommend it. Noumenon Infinity, the follow-up, comes out August 4th. I’ll definitely be picking up a copy, but I’ve got to be honest, I’m going to buy the UK edition, because holy shit that is one gorgeous cover. I mean, look at it. Beautiful.... Read more...Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks: Peripheral Storytelling and the Politics of GenreJune 18, 2018In my introductory essay on Iain Banks and the Culture, Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Principle of Charity, I mention that he approached fiction with a certain kind of duality, representing and considering ideologies and viewpoints antagonistic with one another. In Consider Phlebas, his first published novel in the series, he takes this to an extreme, showing us the Culture almost entirely from an antagonistic point of view before giving readers a glimpse of the positives. It went way over my head the first time I read it. I think I didn’t know how to read it exactly, or even what it was. Only after moving on to The Player of Games and finishing it, did Consider Phlebas start to take form and make a measure of sense to me. It’s not without its problems, but what it does well, it does very well and I have to commend it. Iain Banks is an incredibly nuanced, subtle writer, and he accomplished something unique with Consider Phlebas. The narrative begins with a short prologue detailing the birth, escape, and subsequent pursuit of a Culture Mind in a rare time of war, followed by a particularly grim introduction to our protagonist, Bora Horza Gobuchul, in which he is slowly drowning in a prison cell via sewage and waste created as a result of a banquet held in his “honor”. It’s a startling introduction, and when I think back on the series as a whole, one of its most striking moments. After that introduction the story appears to be a fairly standard space opera, populated with the familiar tropes of the genre: a cast of bizarre aliens, strange locales, and a lone protagonist with an overly simplistic moral code fighting for their life through a series of perilous adventures. However, when Banks is involved, things are never that simple, especially with regards to genre tropes. Under this familiar surface, Consider Phlebas is a much more nuanced story. The narrative is structured somewhat like a sixteenth century Spanish picaresque novel, a form of episodic storytelling in which a “picaroon” (rogue or untrustworthy anti-hero) rambles from place to place, stumbling into situations that are ultimately used to satirize the society in which he lives. By combining the form of picaresque with the notoriously conservative, highly American genre of space opera, Banks carved out a niche to comment on space opera and politics. When it was published in 1987, Consider Phlebas is arguably the spark that initiated the New Space Opera fire, effectively reinventing a long stagnant genre and taking it in a more literary minded, left leaning, progressive direction. Writers like Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, and Peter F. Hamilton continued the change forward from there. There have been several others over the years, but most recently progressive American writers like John Scalzi, James S.A. Corey, and Becky Chambers have helped keep New Space Opera going well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, alongside the British writers that continue in that tradition. Historically, space opera has been a simplistic genre. In fact, before being adopted by publishers and fans, the term “space opera” was used pejoratively to describe the simplicity of the drama. Think: soap opera. Space opera protagonists usually travel around correcting wrongs and promoting an idealized version of American morality, while their views and opinions were confirmed for the reader. In Consider Phlebas, Banks contrasts this by having Horza fight alongside the objectively-in-the-wrong Idirans, as they wage a crusade-esqe holy war against the Culture, a post-scarcity, multi species, utopian society run by artificially intelligent machines known as Minds. The Culture are arguable the “good guys”. For the most part the Culture keeps to themselves and does whatever they want, but Contact division, and within it “Special Circumstances” goes around interfering with other societies, nudging them here and there in an effort to slowly bring them alongside the Culture’s way of thinking. Idirans win arguments by killing and conquering the opposition, the Culture wins them by showing its opposition why its views are correct so effectively, they can’t help but adopt them as their own. Horza despises the Culture, and everything they stand for. He comes from a species that is mostly extinct, possibly as a result of interference in its past. He doesn’t believe artificial intelligence is life, sees the Culture as hedonistic gluttons who take no active role in their existence, sees the Idirans as the lesser of two evils, and decides to fight on “the side of life”. The enemy of his enemy is his friend. “Gentile or Jew O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you (319-321).” – T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land I think Consider Phlebas operates surprising well as meta commentary on belief, hubris, and the politics of genre. There is a lot to be discovered between the lines in this book. The title itself is quoted from a line of the T.S. Elliot poem The Waste Land, which serves as a warning against hubris and a call for historical contemplation. The preceding line in the poem is also sourced for another Culture novel title, Look to Windward, which deals heavily with the far reaching impact of the Idiran/Culture war. I’ll be touching on the connection between these two novels when I write about Look to Windward in the coming months. They are possibly the most connected of any two in the series, but the threads are still tertiary. Excellent sources for these between-the-lines details are Simone Caroti’s “The Culture series of Iain M. Banks: A Critical Introduction” as well as Paul Kincaid’s “Modern Masters of Science Fiction: Iain M. Banks”. These are books I’ll be recommending frequently. Both Caroti’s and Kincaid’s insights are numerous and have dramatically expanded my perspective on each of the Culture novels. Consider Phlebas is a strange introduction to, and not necessarily an accurate representation of, the rest of the series. The main narrative, while entertaining, is a distraction of sorts from the more interesting story happening between the lines, where the book sneakily introduces the reader to the Culture by peripheral means. It handles a huge amount of world-building, and is multilayered and complex. It’s one thing on your first read, and something else entirely on subsequent visits. It isn’t the best Culture novel, and will usually show up on the lower end of most fan rankings. Personally, I think it’s a fantastic entry once you know what it is and how to read it. It has some pacing problems in the second half, and a painfully uneventful, tension building ~80 pages near the end, but I think the lack of love it receives in contrast with the Culture novels it preceded is mostly a result of being almost universally misunderstood. I find that a large chunk of its value lies in what it contributes to the experience of reading the rest of the series, and I think it’s a mistake to reduce or negate its contribution. My favorite sections of the book are the short “state of play” interlude chapters, with the character Fal ‘Ngeestra, one of the handful of Culture citizens who can occasionally match the strategic intelligence of the Minds that run the Culture. Her conversations with the drone Jase give us a nice introverted, contemplative respite from the more adventurous, swashbuckling chapters of the main narrative. Fal ‘Ngeestra holds up ideas and turns them, thinking about them from all angles. She’s able to comment on the story as it’s happening, almost like the narrator in Don Quixote or other epic picaresque novels. She serves as just a step below an omniscient point of view, and our only glimpse into the proper Culture society in the book. She speculates about the other characters, revealing exposition about the Changer race, the Idirans, and the history of the Culture itself. She’s able to see the Culture from the perspective of the Idirans, and the Idirans from Borza’s perspective. She thinks the way that Banks writes, examining ideas from multiple sides, poking holes in arguments and patching them until they’re watertight. “We are a mongrel race, our past a history of tangles, our sources obscure, our rowdy upbringing full of greedy, short-sighted empires and cruel wasteful diasporas… “ “…We are such pathetic, fleshy things, so short lived, swarming and confused. And dull, just so stupid, to an Idiran.” The dynamic play between these different veins of Consider Phlebas truly embody Banks’ style of storytelling, and represent the antisyzygy that underlies his writing. He knows readers want the action and adventure, and he delivers in strides, but still finds a way to bury the soul of the story on the periphery of the chaos. This is how the Culture is introduced to us, hidden in the horse, wheeled through the gate because it’s large and exciting. All that being said, Consider Phlebas is a weird way to start a series. If you’re not feeling up for a long novel that is best, and sometimes only, appreciated through a close analysis of its themes and commentary for your first glimpse of a series, The Player of Games can genuinely serve as a better entry point. Since the Culture novels are almost entirely standalone, you can cycle back to Consider Phlebas at any point after you’ve read some others without missing anything particularly crucial. However, if you’re a patient reader, and can intentionally postpone gratification a little, it’s better to start the series here, just know that the best is still to come. Up next: The Player of Games, my personal favorite in the series, where we’ll become intimately acquainted with life in the Culture: Orbitals, Minds, Drones, Contact, Special Circumstances, etc… and of course the empire and game of Azad. Culture Essay Index: Iain Banks’ Culture series: Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Principle of Charity Consider Phlebas: Peripheral Storytelling and the Politics of Genre... Read more...Iain M. Banks’ Culture Series: Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Principle of CharityJune 9, 2018I often find it difficult to pick favorites, but when it comes to novelists it’s easy: Iain Banks, hands down, is my favorite. It’s hard to overstate the impact his writing has had on me, the Culture novels in particular. Reading The Player of Games rewired the way I think about class and economics. Use of Weapons forced me to confront difficult philosophical and ethical questions, both highly personal and utilitarian in scope. Its story also destroyed me emotionally for weeks, more on that to come. Inversions made me reconsider what sort of intervention policies might be most functional. Look to Windward intimately addressed mental health, PTSD, and the far reaching impact of warfare on the personal and cultural psyche of humanity. The Culture series, published from 1987 to 2012, comprises nine standalone science fiction novels, one novella, and two short stories set in a shared universe. It is often described as utopian fiction, but I find it not so easily reducible to just that. The majority of the stories take place on the periphery of The Culture’s post-scarcity, godlike AI run utopia, not in the Culture proper. But even inside that flawed paradise, things are often a little more complicated than they seem. I don’t mean that this is one of those utopias which is (dun dun duuun!) secretly a dystopia or anything narratively cliche like that. The society of the Culture is a true utopia, but the narratives in Culture novels usually deal with questions of meaning within conceptual utopia. What do you need when you lack for nothing? How do you construct purpose and value when your society is generally materialist? “The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great a remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless.” – Iain M. Banks, Consider Phlebas Every Culture novel is brimming with these philosophical, ethical, moral, and existential ideas while somehow also being entertaining, heartbreaking, darkly humorous, disturbing and exquisitely written. His writing is like a virus that gets in your brain and codes for self-reproduction. It’s not too often that a fun science fiction romp might also literally change the way you think. I just cannot recommend these books enough. I’ve written a handful of Culture reviews in the past, but I’ve been longing to reread the novels and properly write up my thoughts. Last February when Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon Studios was adapting the Culture novels for television, I thought, what the hell, it’s been a few years since I’ve read them, this is a great time to dig back in. So here I am, on the fifth anniversary of his passing, going round once more. Over the next few (or several, or dozen, or who knows how many) months I’ll be publishing thoughts and ramblings on Iain Banks, the Culture novels and their related works. I tend to take a mostly spoiler-free approach when writing about fiction, opting instead to focus more on theme, style, prose, narrative structure, and characterization while keeping recaps to a minimum. There is no shortage of excellent recap and synopsis writing available elsewhere, but I’m much more interested in introducing these books to readers in a way that doesn’t ruin the potential enjoyment of discovery. That being said, in order to discuss certain aspects of Culture novels, I may have to bend my usual rules slightly, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to keep spoilers to a minimum and mark them where applicable. So, let’s begin with Banks himself: Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Principle of Charity Banks was a highly prolific writer, publishing a total of thirty books over twenty-nine years. He considered himself a science fiction writer, but his creative output was wide, covering also the spectrum of mainstream literary fiction, memoir/travelogue, and a posthumous collection of poetry — his own bundled together with those of his lifelong friend and fellow Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod. As a fierce, outspoken leftist, socialist, and atheist with a quick sardonic wit, Banks was often in the news regarding UK and world politics, particularly regarding Britain’s participation in the West’s post 9/11 involvement in Iraq. In his home country of Scotland and the rest of the UK he may be best known for his highly polarizing 1984 debut, The Wasp Factory. A book which famously printed alternating positive and negative blurbs from various publications on its dust jacket and subsequent paperback editions. A brilliant piece of marketing if you ask me. Or possibly it’s his 1992 novel The Crow Road that he’s best known for. It’s an enrapturing and mysterious portrait of a large intertwined familial Scottish community that began with the unforgettable first line: “It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Although his novels have been critically lauded worldwide, none of his mainstream literary fiction, what he referred to as his “hampstead novels”, achieved much measurable popularity in the United States. Here, he’s best known for his Culture series of science fiction novels, and even that work is relatively unknown. Something that is hopefully about to change with the upcoming Amazon Studios adaptation of Consider Phlebas. As an American, I regret that Iain Banks wasn’t properly on my radar until he died of gallbladder cancer in 2013, just two months after announcing to the world that he was “officially very poorly”. Since stumbling upon his work I have devoured all but one of his science fiction novels (published under the quite obvious pseudonym of Iain M. Banks) and a handful of his mainstream novels (published without the M). There is a certain thread of macabre humor and fascination with the dark corners of human nature that binds most of his work together. He also had a unique internal dialogue of opposing ideas encapsulated in his novels. While doing some research in preparation for this essay, I stumbled upon the concept of antisyzygy, and more specifically what is referred to as Caledonian antisyzygy, or in other words, the Scottish variety. The term was first used in 1919 by George Gregory Smith, a Scottish literary critic, in his book Scottish Literature: Character and Influence. He described it as “..a reflection of the contrasts which the Scot shows at every turn, in his political and ecclesiastical history, in his polemical restlessness, in his adaptability, which is another way of saying that he has made allowance for new conditions, in his practical judgement, which is the admission that two sides of the matter have been considered.” I found this fascinating, mainly because I have never come across a more perfect description of how Banks explores philosophies and ideas in his writing. In her book The Mighty Scot, Maureen M. Martin further elaborates: “Writings by Scots on their country’s national psyche and literature often point to what has been called a ‘Caledonian antisyzygy’ —a conflict between rational and romantic, canny and reckless, moralistic and violent, an idea of dueling polarities within one entity that finds fictional expression..” The revelation that this duality is common not only among Scottish writers, but the Scottish people in general lends credence to the idea that something about the historical, political, religious and social aspects of Scottish life creates this internalized way of dealing with conflict. I find that Caledonian antisyzygy is deeply entwined in everything Iain Banks wrote. In all of his fiction he spends quite a lot of time chipping away at his own arguments as if they were opposing views, patching and refining them over the course of each book. He does this frequently, and most effectively in his Culture novels, and he’s very, very good at it. As a reader you find yourself unsure of your own opinions by the end of a Banks novel. Instead of an end all solution to whatever question has been posited by the story, you’re left in the wake of the dissonance created by the question itself, with a variety of possible solutions to consider. In 1990, in conversation with the British science fiction writer Michael Cobley he discussed his approach toward writing: “..in fiction the trick is to give people a choice of potential answers so they can disagree with what you’re saying, or what they think you’re saying.” Offering that option to the reader, to be free to disagree with the message, and still enjoy the book on some level, creates a well rounded experience and speaks to his mastery of the craft. It also gives each story the possibility to resonate on different levels for different readers, not to mention enabling tremendous reread value, and lending towards several different possible interpretations by the same reader when read at different points in their life. Another aspect of his writing that’s worth noting, is just how fully he explores the societies or ideas in opposition to his main social ideals as represented by the Culture. He isn’t merely setting up straw men to be easily overcome. This approach reminds me of the Principle of Charity, which states that when in argument with an opponent, argue against the most charitable version of their view. Mainly, assume they’ve come to their argument rationally, and have valid reasons for believing as they do. Only then can you have a meaningful dialogue with someone holding an opposing view to your own. I’ll be back in the coming weeks to discuss Consider Phlebas, his first published Culture novel, and in my opinion, one of his least understood and most divisive. If you haven’t yet read any Iain Banks, it’s a fantastic time to start. This weekend pick up a Banks novel, preferably a Culture book and spend a little time celebrating his life by getting to know one of the most unique writers of our modern time. The series of books share almost no continuity with one another, so feel free to dig in anywhere. I highly recommend The Player of Games as an easy entry point as well as one of the best in the series. Culture Essay Index: Iain Banks’ Culture series: Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Principle of Charity Consider Phlebas: Peripheral Storytelling and the Politics of Genre... Read more...Burning Chrome, by William Gibson: Cyberpunk as an Alternate NowJune 8, 2018William Gibson blew the Science Fiction world wide open in the mid eighties with his cyberpunk novels, particularly the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick award winning Neuromancer. Ridley Scott gave us the visual aesthetic with Blade Runner, but Gibson firmly established Cyberpunk as a literary movement. As a genre it would go on to live a fairly short life, plateauing in the late eighties, followed by a handful of peak post-cyberpunk moments in the nineties (Snow Crash, Ghost in the Shell) culminating in The Matrix and then almost immediately fading into relative obscurity. Burning Chrome collects Gibson’s short fiction, mostly published in OMNI magazine in the early eighties. Unlike a lot of short fiction collections, this one isn’t a totally mixed bag, most of the stories ranging from “good” to “great”. Three of them, (Johnny Mnemonic, New Rose Hotel, and Burning Chrome) are set in the same universe as Gibson’s Sprawl series (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive), with some of their characters and events mentioned or referenced in the main novels. As a rambling aside, I was born in 1984, making me much too young to have experienced cyberpunk when it was new and revolutionary. When I read cyberpunk now, nearing the third decade of the twenty-first century, it’s hard to think of it as anything other than a form of retrofuturism. The technological tropes of the genre were one possible direction for things to head. In reality, they didn’t. Instead of the cumbersome and clunky virtual reality user interfaces, and “jacking in”, we went with the more boring, economical methods: a little white search box on a screen, and fingers on keys or key analogs. Just as space opera was written back before anybody knew the realities of space travel, cyberpunk was written before anyone knew the realities of the internet. All we knew was that it was going to change everything, no one knew how exactly. There are of course still giant multinational evil corporations, another trope of the genre, but instead of inspiring monolithic dread, they have friendly, marketable faces. We all know that Amazon is terrible to their employees, and drives small businesses into the ground, but it’s just so.. convenient. We all know that our devices are made by slaves, but those new animated emoji are just so cute. In the twenty-first century we adore the giant evil corporation. We buy their devices to put in our homes and listen to our conversations, so it’ll be easier to order things with our voices. Convenience kills us, slowly but assuredly. “It was hot, the night we burned Chrome.” This current drowning-in-technology age has brought with it a sort of resurgence in, not specifically cyberpunk, but a more modern interpretation of its core theme: alienation among ubiquities connection. Being alone together. Television shows like Black Mirror embody this better than anything else currently around. There has also been a cyberpunk resurgence in pop culture, specifically music, visible primarily in the retrowave / synthwave / “outrun” genre of electronic music. Retrowave is a Baudrillardian simulacra of eighties electronic music usually created by those too young to have first-hand experience of eighties culture. It’s created with postmodern sensibilities, as an idea of what eighties culture could’ve been, not what it actually was. A sort of copy of a copy of some collective idea that never existed, except in the imaginings of its purveyors. Highly influenced by multimedia created in the eighties, specifically science fiction and horror films and books, it’s dark and menacing, and accompanies with it a mental image of dystopic science fictional landscapes. It’s the aural version of cyberpunk. I say all of this because I think right now, with all of these elements converging, is the perfect time to read cyberpunk literature. Our temporal distance from its inception gives us the perspective to appreciate it as retrofuturism, and the relational closeness of the technological and emotional aspects of our lives to its themes, creates this nebulous landscape that makes it highly relatable to our modern moment. Our technology makes us chrome and neon and dark inside, but externally we’re living it up on social media while we collectively experience a sort of soul-death alone behind our screens, our modern day mirrorshades. It’s a weird ass world, and these stories give us a glimpse into a stranger one that could’ve been, had just a few things played out differently. Cyberpunk is an alternate now. High points: The Hinterlands, New Rose Hotel, and Burning Chrome Low Points: Johnny Mnemonic, Red Star, Winter Orbit Johnny Mnemonic: 2/5 I find Gibson’s writing very difficult to digest here. The structure of the writing is unlike anything else I’ve read, and I think it’s safe to say that no one quite saw the world the was that he did. Weird concepts, weird execution. Set in the Sprawl universe. This was adapted into the not-so-great Keanu Reeves film in the mid nineties. The Gernsback Continuum: 4/5 A man gets stuck in an idea of a future 1980s that never was. Built out of the retrofuturism of 1930s design. Great little paranoid Philip K. Dickian story. Fragments of a Hologram Rose: 3/5 A melancholy take on lost love and being out of place in the world. The ASP tech is a cool idea, and it seems to be the analogue of reading someone’s journal, in a sense. The Belonging Kind: 3/5 Nice analog for social anxiety, it was fun but nothing special. The Hinterlands: 5/5 This is a new personal favorite. It’s written in exquisitely beautiful prose, and has such a unique story, like nothing I’ve ever read. I actually read it twice in a row, because I was initially confused by the first few sections. It all became much clearer with the accompanying context of the rest of the story. A great little tale about loss, alien contact, and psychology. I loved it. Red Star, Winter Orbit: 1/5 Very difficult to follow, kind of boring. New Rose Hotel: 5/5 A great corporate espionage noir. For me, this is the definitive high-tech low-life story. It was adapted into the eponymous Christopher Walken/Willem Dafoe film by Abel Ferrara in 1998. Set in the Sprawl universe. The Winter Market: 4/5 Entertainment in an age where we’ve moved beyond the audiovisual form, and into something much stranger. I enjoyed the existentialism. Dogfight: 3/5 A drifter on the way to Florida picks up a competitive VR game, and befriends a college student. Burning Chrome: 4/5 The most ‘Cyberpunk’ story in the collection. Set in the Sprawl universe.... Read more...Pantsuit Nation, edited by Libby ChamberlainJune 4, 2018These stories and photos are powerful. They are a more accurate representation of American greatness than any idealized non-existent past that some are eager to return to. America is already great, and these people prove it. The first half of the book contains pre-election writing, and I can’t help but feel a sense of dread and impotent omniscience reading this along with the knowledge of what ended up happening on election day, and the continual trainwreck that has followed since then. The stories are hopeful and heartbreaking. It’s wonderful to see so many different kinds of people coming together in an attempt to stop a disaster. Up until about 8pm that night, it seemed to be a sure thing that Clinton would be the next President of the United States, and against all odds (and the majority of Americans’ votes) Donald Trump won. The day after the election was terrible. I live in a small university town that is generally a pocket of reason in an otherwise notoriously under-informed backwater state. Close to my work there’s a small coffee shop that I walk to when I need to stretch my legs a bit. I usually get coffee and a bagel a couple times a week, and it’s always a bustling, vibrant place. Cheery faces with kind, hopeful demeanors. Youthful, artistic energy. That early November morning everyone was still in a state of shock, thousand yard stares on their faces, envisioning what kind of future we might have now that the worst possible candidate that has ever existed, was elected to the office of President of the United States by a minority of the voting public. There was a sense of hopelessness in everyone I saw. I think we all felt like we were just going through the motions of our lives, unsure what we were doing. No one thought he could win, the whole thing was an absurd joke, until it wasn’t. Now, everyone was on edge, and in the midst of an existential crisis. The second half of the book is post election, and these events are still very fresh in my mind. It’s comprised of reactions to the news that our votes didn’t matter this year, and yes, Americans really are misinformed enough that almost 46% of them thought a reality television character was the best option for Commander in Chief. And for some reason that was enough to elect him to office. This is where the stories became the most emotionally powerful for me. People pull together, we regroup, we redouble, we protest in large and small ways, and we keep working toward the type of future that we want. It’s good stuff, and highly motivating. As I’m writing this, Robert Mueller and his team are investigating the Russian interference in our 2016 election, and it’s starting to look like Donald Trump’s presidency might be one of the shortest in the history of the United States. I am very eager to see this monomaniacal bond villain caricature’s tenure come to a quick and decisive end. Although, his line of succession is equally terrifying. Hopefully they’re all tied tightly into his many crimes, and will go down together, RICO style. It’s a beautiful dream, but I realize it’s most likely just a dream. In reality, powerful people often get away with it. This is a difficult book for me to review because it keeps forcing me to imagine how things could’ve been different in the 2016 election. As they say, Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back with some perspective, I don’t think Clinton was the right candidate to defeat a monster like Trump. I’m a humanist, feminist, atheist and generally liberal leaning dude, but I pay enough attention to history to never call myself a Democrat or a Republican. I know how quickly these divisions can mutate into something they were never meant to be. Just look at the neo-conservative, alt-right takeover of the Republican party in the last ten years. I feel terrible for legitimate conservatives who have no representation in our government anymore. The GOP has completely lost its mind, and I fear that the DNC may be in the midst of a similar problem. Personally, I’ve never been an avid fan of Hillary Clinton. I think her statements against the LGBTQ+ community in the past have been appalling (something she’s very recently started to change, thankfully). But she was undeniably the much, much better candidate of the two options that were presented to us last year, and I voted for her wholeheartedly. I’m still very disturbed by both the DNC and the GOP’s behavior in the primary elections. The best candidates from each camp did not make it to the general election; the most incendiary ones did. The ones that banks and plutocrats knew they could leverage for their own benefit. I understand how necessary representation is, and I genuinely hope our next President is a woman. Girls and women everywhere seeing themselves reflected in such a powerful position, would carry an unknowable importance and a far reaching, generational effect. If Clinton had won, I would’ve been extremely pleased, but there would always be a sliver of disappointment that it wasn’t someone even better. I can only hope that the DNC stops playing the games they’ve been playing and realizes the only way forward is to let the people be heard with a candidate that is genuinely incorruptible and won’t cower to money, or dogma’s influence. That is, if such a candidate is allowed to exist within the realm of the established party in 2020. Whoever that ends up being, whatever their gender, sexuality, race, religion, I do not care. I’ll support THAT candidate wholeheartedly. And in the meantime? Midterm elections are the most important thing we can put our energy into right now. We need better congressional and senatorial representation. I want a president who represents the people of this country, and I can’t accept that Donald Trump is an accurate representation of us.... Read more...Science Fiction: Five Short ReviewsMay 28, 2018Under The Skin, by Michael Faber Literary science fiction that is compulsively creepy and disturbing in all the right ways. Orwellian by way of Ursula Le Guin or Octavia Butler. More Animal Farm than 1984. I think fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s style of New Weird fiction would have a lot to enjoy here. It’s a moral story, without particularly taking any one side, mostly just intended to provoke some discussion I imagine. It could easily be interpreted as an animal rights activism novel, but I’m not so sure it actually is. I thouroghly enjoyed Under the Skin; very unnerving and hard to put down. I read this before watching the film, and loved both. They are as different from one another as they are similar. The Affirmation, by Christopher Priest I genuinely can’t decide if I liked this or not. I certainly enjoyed reading it, but doing so was somewhat like losing my mind. I also have a suspicion that Priest crafted the novel precisely to elicit this effect on the reader, which makes me respect him even more in an odd way. All in all, I’m very confused, but I still enjoyed it. I have a theory that this book inspired Haruki Murakami to write Sputnik Sweetheart. There are just so many similarities in story, narrative, and theme between the two novels to ignore. Plus, I kind of love the idea of Murakami reading Christopher Priest. Maybe I’ve invented this whole thing. The closest conclusion I can come to is that The Affirmation is a story about mental illness, or maybe alternate realities, or maybe self identity, or maybe something else entirely. I really don’t know, but it was good and I’d read it again. The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers I’ve never read a book quite like this. There wasn’t much of a story at all, but it was still engaging just on the strength of the characters alone. Each chapter felt like a moral-of-the-week episode in a nineties TV series. The overall arc is more about the characters and how their relationships change over time than any actual describable narrative. That all sounds kind of negative when I read it back, but it’s not meant to be. Mostly I’m just impressed with how well it worked here, because I think something like this would be incredibly difficult to pull off. It’s a comfort read, like a warm bowl of soup, but with fantastic world-building and great characters. This universe is very lived in, and extremely ripe for more stories in the future. Chasm City, by Alastair Reynolds “How long would you have to live; how much good would you need to do, to compensate for one act of pure evil you’d committed as a younger man?” Very, very good. One of those books that I massively enjoy having read, past tense, but ultimately didn’t enjoy while reading. It slogs, and turns its wheels for about 200 pages in the middle, but I see now why it was necessary, and it ultimately pays off in strides. Strong similarities to Iain M. Banks’ Use of Weapons, except that it didn’t rely on a reveal in the same way, instead slowly telling the reader what is afoot. It’s subtle, but I strongly suspect that it’s intentional. I picked up on it around 1/3 of the way through, and was initially disappointed, thinking that it might be a shocking twist ending that was too obvious and heavy handed. However, my initial assessment of the reality of the situation I thought I comprehended early on, was incomplete and less than half of the true picture. Ultimately, this novel is about redemption. It’s a personal favorite of mine, and I suggest it to everyone. Saturn Run, by John Sandford and Ctein It’s been a while since I’ve read some good old fashioned hard science fiction. Hard SF novels are a different sort of beast than most novels. I find they usually need to be approached differently and appreciated using a different set of metrics. It doesn’t have to be the case, but a lot of times hard SF will lose itself in the details, which can be fun if you’re interested in those specific details. Other times, hard SF will sacrifice an ungodly amount of character development for those same details, which is a little less forgivable, but it’s amazing what I can forgive in the narrative department when I’m really into the “hard” part of the science. Saturn Run, unfortunately, falls victim to both of these pitfalls, but you know what? I don’t care, I’m letting it slide. Different metrics for different books. It describes in detail one of the coolest conceptual heatsinks that I’ve ever come across. It’s not particularly well written in the traditional sense, and the prose is merely passable, but the conceptual stuff here is fascinating, and it’s really fun once it gets going. I do think the novel nailed the sort of macro decisions that humanity would make in this sort of first contact scenario, but at a micro level the individual characters were not very believable to me. The story also dragged a lot in the middle. I would’ve enjoyed it much more if it were tightened up a little. But, it had a stellar second half and it really stuck the landing. Somebody could come along and adapt this into a fantastically entertaining smart summer blockbuster a la Interstellar.... Read more...Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison®May 25, 2018Something clicked in my head when I turned thirty; I started devouring older science fiction stories. I was an avid reader during my teens, but I read very little during my twenties for whatever reason. I think I suddenly realized how many valuable novels and stories and how much interesting history and perspective I missed out on throughout my twenties. Catching up for lost time became a real priority in my thirties. The Golden Age science fiction stories of the thirties, forties and fifties were a little less focused on stylistic prose or quality writing, and a little too culturally and scientifically removed from my era to interest me. Instead of beginning there, I jumped forward to the New Wave era that hit in the mid sixties. Story-wise, New Wave was much more inwardly focused, and valued style and prose as much as the Golden Age valued grand ideas and outward exploration. This was the beginning of what a lot of folks today call “Literary Science Fiction” or “Speculative Fiction”. It was a concerted effort spearheaded by Harlan Ellison® (yes, his name actually has a ® in it) to bring Sci-Fi out of the pulps and show the world the literary value of speculation in fiction. Dangerous Visions is the defining Speculative Fiction anthology of the New Wave era. Released in 1967, this anthology announced New Wave SF to the world. It contains 35 stories, each never before published. When assembling the anthology, Ellison had each author write a story that they thought explored a dangerous vision or concept. There are some excellent stories here, a few decent ones, and some real stinkers that are terribly trite and not at all dangerous or visionary. Then again, it’s hard to read these within the context of the time in which they were written. Free love, the civil rights movement, women’s lib, etc. Considering all of this, I was surprised by how misogynistic and backward some of these stories were. There has been a lot of progress since the sixties. Harlan Ellison® writes an introduction to every story, and the author has a brief afterword. The introductions quickly became my least favorite part of the book, as Ellison gushes and extols endlessly about each author. It became a little tedious, like an advertisement by a stakeholder for their project right before experiencing the project itself. I eventually began skipping the introductions, only coming back to read them if I wanted more background about an author or story. I would much rather let each work speak for itself than hear the editor of the anthology tell me why it is valuable. Some of these stories may have been dangerous visions in the late sixties. Now? Mostly not so much. I still immensely enjoyed the anthology, and there is a huge wealth of knowledge and historical perspective to be gained from reading it. I rated each story individually, with the average rating for the whole collection being 3 out of 5, rounded up. Individual reviews: Evensong, Lester del Rey: 4/5 A desperate God on the run from Man’s vengeance. The idea of man slowly becoming more and more powerful, until God must fear Man. Very nice prose. Flies, Robert Silverberg: 1/5 Robert Silverberg completely botches the definition of empathy in the most pseudo-intellectual manner imaginable. I get what he was trying to say, but he failed miserably. The Day After the Day After the Martians Came, Fredrick Pohl: 3/5 Probably really great in ’67, but it relied very heavily on cultural jokes that everyone at the time would’ve been familiar with; I’ve never heard any of them. Still a cool little story. Riders of the Purple Wage, Philip Jose Farmer: 1/5 Nearly incoherent misogynistic rambling about a future where everyone is mentally deficient. He almost had an idea, but gets distracted by how women are fat liars and just want to have abortions all of the time. This is Ellison’s favorite story in the collection, which is uh… okay dude. The Malley System, Miriam Allen deFord: 2/5 A future in which violent crimes are punished in unique ways. It didn’t really resonate with me. A Toy for Juliette, Robert Bloch: 5/5 Terrific. Sadistic and disturbing, but written very well and with a nice cyclical tone. The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World, Harlan Ellison: 2/5 A sequel to the previous story. Started out strong, but devolved rather rapidly. I find myself disliking Ellison more and more as I go on. The Night That All Time Broke Out, Brian W. Aldiss: 3/5 Cool premise, uneven execution. The Man who Went to the Moon Twice, Howard Rodman: 4/5 Not speculative fiction at all, but I really liked it. Faith of our Fathers, Philip K. Dick: 3/5 This one had a lot going for it; a little let down by the ending. The Jigsaw Man, Larry Niven: 3/5 Tackles the problem of organ shortages in a world were immortality is in reach…for some. Gonna Roll The Bones, Fritz Leiber: 4/5 I nearly didn’t read this one after suffering through its terribly heavy handed first sentence. I’m glad I did. Like most old science fiction, it was too misogynistic for my liking, but the storytelling and prose eventually won me over. Lord Randy, My Son, Joe L. Hensley: 5/5 My favorite so far. Great characters, and a captivating, sad story. Eutopia, Poul Anderson: 4/5 Inter dimensional anthropology. I liked this one, although the language was a bit too ‘fantasy’ for my personal tastes. Incident in Moderan, David R. Bunch: 5/5 Happy warmonger robots. Awesome. The Escaping, David R. Bunch: 0/5 Terrible. Total gibberish. The Doll-House, James Cross: 3/5 Like a twilight zone episode. One of those cautionary tales. Sex and/or Mr Morrison, Carol Emshwiller: 3/5 I like her writing style. I didn’t quite get the story but the prose was beautiful. Shall The Dust Praise Thee?, Damon Knight: 3/5 God’s vengeance may have been a little bit more than he bargained for. It seems that man could only take so much torment. This could’ve been executed a lot better, but I liked the concept. If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?, Theodore Sturgeon: 5/5 So far, the only story that I would actually consider a ‘Dangerous Vision’. It’s disturbing, and pokes at deeply held moral and cultural constructs. It also really weirded me out. Disturbing. What Happens To Auguste Clarot?, Larry Eisenberg: 1/5 Meh. Ersatz, Henry Slesar: 2/5 Slightly less meh. Go, Go, Go, Said The Bird, Sonya Dorman: 2/5 Post apocalyptic cannibals. The Happy Breed, John T. Sladek: 4/5 People slowly turning their happiness over to machines. A really solid little cautionary tale, born of a fear of technology. It’s even more interesting thinking about how much more we depend on technology these days. Encounter With a Hick, Jonathan Brand: 3/5 A fun little biblical/evolution bar conversation recounted to an authority. From the Government Printing Office, Kris Neville: 1/5 Told from the POV of a 3.5 year old in the future. Boring. Land of the Great Horses, R. A. Lafferty: 4/5 Cool little story about the origin of Gypsies. The Recognition, J.G. Ballard: 3/5 Terrific writing, not speculative fiction at all. Not particularly dangerous either—maybe in the 60s—in the 2010s it’s a bit trite. Judas, John Brunner: 5/5 Okay, I have to read more John Brunner. This story was incredible and exactly the type of thing I was looking for in this book. Solid solid solid. Test to Destruction, Keith Laumer: 4/5 Political usurping, tyrany, sentient hive mind aliens, testing people’s limits and morality. Carcinoma Angels, Norman Spinrad: 3/5 An overachiever sets his sights on cancer; takes it one step too far. This one is kind of quirky/fun. AUTO-DA-FÉ, Roger Zelazny: 3/5 Man vs machine, told in a matador vs bull analogy. I liked it. It felt like a fairytale or half remembered dream of a mechanic. Aye, and Gomorrah…, Samuel R. Delany: 1/5 A story about attraction between earth bound people, and neutered space dwelling people. Interesting concept, bad execution. It didn’t flow well, and was hard to follow.... Read more...House of Leaves, by Mark Z. DanielewskiMay 21, 2018“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.” If you’ve ever wanted to read a novel about a group of editors who have re-compiled a second edition of a book, that was originally found (and edited) by a slowly mentally unraveling tattoo artist apprentice junkie, and was originally written in a mixed media form by his junkie friend’s neighbor (found when he died under mysterious circumstances), that is a written description, history and analysis of a “found footage” documentary (that doesn’t exist) about a family inhabiting and exploring a house that is (much, much) larger on the inside than the outside, and is told in such a nonlinear and disorienting fashion to the point of inducing trepidation, extreme boredom, claustrophobia, anxiety, and general unease, then I’ve got some great news for you! House of Leaves is all of these things and tells all of these stories. It’s also kind of fun if you’re into weird mental puzzles. I enjoyed it. Going into it, it was hard to deny the thematic similarities it shares with Infinite Jest, but as it progressed it started to diverge quite a bit from the direction I expected it to travel toward. Unfortunately, it doesn’t contain any of the amazingly beautiful prose or “new sincerity” of David Foster Wallace’s writing, but it has other qualities that make it very interesting. Mainly, the form of the novel mirrors the story. When characters are crawling through ever shrinking passageways, the margins on the outside edges of the text start to crawl inward. When characters are falling into ever deepening chasms, the text will angle or fall down the page, etc. It’s a very visual novel, and in that way I don’t think it could ever be an eBook. It’s a piece of art that is reliant on the exact physical specifications of the book containing it. “He knows his voice will never heat this world” Would I ever read it again? Nah, I don’t think there’s really much of a point. The story itself is overly soap operatic, the prose is good but it’s nothing amazing. The amount of cruft in this book is just mind-bogglingly excessive, and without the amazing prose or story to make that cruft serve a point, it’s just sort of there to make the experience disorienting, which I get is part of the form mirroring the story, but still, it’s the illusion of complexity rather than complexity itself. There are puzzles encoded into it that would probably be kind of fun to suss out, but I can pretty much guarantee that they aren’t going to provide some sort of satisfying answer to any questions left lingering. Reading it was an experience that I’m glad I had, and I have to admire the dedication and exacting nature it must’ve taken to bring something like this to life — it definitely rewards attention to detail — but, having read it, I have no desire to read it again.... Read more...Help Save The ExpanseMay 16, 2018If you’re like me, you recently found out that SyFy has opted not to renew The Expanse for a fourth season, and you’re wondering what you can do to help save the show. Fortunately, The Expanse is not owned or produced by SyFy, and it turns out there is a lot you can do to help it find a new home on a streaming service that is a much better fit for its predominantly cord-cutting audience. First off, I’m going to assume you don’t have Cable TV, because this is 2018. So… Watch the show live (Weds, 9/8c) on a service like YouTube Live or Hulu Live TV. Nielsen count views from live TV streaming services like YouTube Live, Hulu Live TV, Playstation Vue, Sling TV, etc. All of these services have free 7 day trials. Use one every week. TV Streaming services usually have DVR options. Set these DVRs to record the show, and watch it again within 3 days to help with the “Live +3” Nielsen ratings. Stream the Show on SyFy.com if you know someone with a cable provider login. You’ll need to disable your ad blocker for their streaming site to function. I know, I know. Live Tweet with the hashtags #SaveTheExpanse and #TheExpanse Sign the petition: ... Read more...Literary Fiction: Five Short ReviewsMay 16, 2018Euphoria, by Heinz Helle I was absolutely blown away by Superabundance last year, and resolved to read anything Heinz Helle wrote then and there. His stories are philosophical ruminations told through tight, clean prose. This followup was slightly different territory than Superabundance, but still recognizable for its quality and conceptual vision. Euphoria was bleak and highly disturbing. I love the way the characters’ lives before and after “the event” were juxtaposed. They were never particularly good people, it just wasn’t as obvious before everything went to hell. If you would like to lose your faith in humanity, this one is the ticket. Fantastic prose, extremely depressing, but it gives you a lot to think about. Ice, by Anna Kavan It’s difficult to determine which parts of Ice are actually happening and which are hallucinated by our unnamed protagonist. Making it even more disorienting, the point-of-view dips away from first person occasionally, capturing events that happen (maybe?) when he isn’t present, only to snap right back to our protagonist’s perspective as if nothing happened. Although, maybe he was actually there the whole time, he’s not really sure himself. Sometimes, mid-book, his character takes on attributes and personas that are entirely new, (he is an invading military figure for a few paragraphs), only to suddenly not be anymore. There’s an almost omniscience to him that becomes rather disturbing. It feels highly metaphorical, but not quite so easily reducible to just that. Ice becomes harder to label the more that you think about it. Not quite fantasy, not quite science fiction, not necessarily straightforward mimetic literature; it may be something new where those three converge. It perpetually defies classification. I think Jonathan Lethem says it best in his forward to the 50th anniversary Penguin Classics edition: “The whole presentation is dreamlike, yet even that surface is riven by dream sequences, and by anomalous ruptures in point-of-view and narrative momentum.” Amen to that. It’s definitely strange, but oddly, instead of coming across as abrasive and unrefined storytelling, these tactics work to draw the reader into a multifaceted, disturbing, kaleidoscopic, fever-dream that unfolds. Animals Eat Each Other, by Elle Nash A story about the myriad ways we consume one another and ourselves in an effort to get what we need to feel whole. Elle Nash is a hell of a writer. What I loved most about this book, is that it’s possible to view each main character as both protagonist and antagonist. It’s all a matter of how closely you look at their situation. They’re all terribly selfish and acting only in their own interests, but it’s hard to blame them when you think about things from their individual perspectives. They do what they think they need to. Each character in Animals Eat Each Other suffers from a discrepancy between what they possess and what the need, and they use each other mercilessly to narrow that gap. Universal Harvester, by John Darnielle This was leaps and bounds better than Wolf in White Van, which I thought showed a lot of promise, but ultimately didn’t deliver on it. The plot strayed just a little bit from what I was expecting, but I feel like the detours eventually built the foundation for the path to the climax/ending. Fantastically clever storytelling, with just enough of a resolution to satisfy while still leaving a few threads unexplained. I feel like this novel would heavily reward a second reading. Something I definitely intend on giving it myself. Darnielle’s prose reminds me a little of Paul Auster, or maybe Don DeLillo and J.G. Ballard would be a more apt comparison. The whole affair has that just slightly postmodern/magical realism/horror genre tinge to it, but ultimately remains in the realm of mainstream literary fiction. The prose is clear, the characters vibrant, and the story just creepy enough to really be engaging. I’ll be reading everything that John Darnielle writes from here on. I feel like he’s only going to improve in the future, which is a very exciting thought. Pond, by Claire-Louise Bennett What a fascinating story collection/novel, and honestly I’m not sure which it is. If you read between the lines, you can put together a narrative of sorts. The character seems to be working things out for herself, possibly some past trauma, through these short musing and ramblings about everything and nothing all around her. It’s a unique window into rural life in an Irish village. It works just fine as a story collection as well. I think it’s probably all in how you approach it. I try to judge books on whether or not they are what they were intended to be, and not so much based on whether I, one opinionated reader, enjoyed them or not. I did enjoy this one, and I believe that it is exactly what it was intended to be. I also think that Claire-Louise Bennett is a phenomenal writer, and I’ll be paying attention to her writing in the future. That being said, I had a hard time with the voice of this character. “If you must know” she seemed to find everything “really” “very” something “actually”. Over and over and over. It’s written in first person, so I’m hoping this is meant to be a tic of the character; a hint at her wandering mind. Perhaps it’s an Irish thing? I haven’t read much Irish literature. I still had a hard time with it, and think the fault entirely my own, but thought it worth mentioning.... Read more...The Long and Faraway Gone, by Lou BerneyMay 10, 2018“Sometimes the best lie was just the truth left to ripen on the branch too long.” I’m kind of a snob when it comes to physical books. There’s a very specific kind of trade paperback aesthetic that I just adore: A little shorter than a hardcover, thick ass pulpy paper, matte cover, very floppy. Think about the kind of book you can roll up a little while you’re reading, and when you set it down, it flops right back to flat. The lack of any sort of gloss coating on the covers and not too much glue in the spine means the binding is nice and malleable, so there’s no chance of it cracking if you read the book a little too hard. Seriously, if a book is like this, at the very least I am going to pick it up and flip through it. It’s just a perfect feel for a book. I found a paperback copy of The Long and Faraway Gone in the used book store at my local library that had these exact characteristics. I picked it up, flopped through it, read the synopsis and said “Yep, getting this one.” Then I set it on my shelf and proceeded to forgot it entirely until a few months later, one night last week, when my wife decided she was going to make pasta from scratch. When I help prepare any dough based food, I tend to hinder more than help, so my job that night was to select a book and read to her while she pressed the dough. I’d step back in when it was time to boil and drain. I was taking too long at the bookshelf as usual, trying to select just the right book to fit the mood of the evening when she came in, flour all over her hands, an impatient look on her face. She closed her eyes and pointed randomly at the book from the library bookstore that I’d forgotten about. Remembering, I took it off the shelf and followed her back into the kitchen to start reading. “Was memory like a river that slowed over time to a trickle? Or was it like a house with many rooms that became a house with fewer rooms and then finally just a single room you could never leave?” The first thing that struck me was that it had great characters. Great, great characters. They were all so unique and different from one another, especially the secondary ones. They felt alive with their own voices. The next thing was that it had that clipped prose style that mystery novels are well known for. I loved the short, incomplete sentences. When a story calls for them, they add so much to the pace and feel of a book. The story itself dripped with youthful nostalgia for shitty summer jobs, rural summer fairgrounds, and summer flings. It dealt with loss and blame and guilt and questions of purpose. I loved how there were multiple mysteries unfolding at the same time. Some were resolved along the way, like side-quests in a videogame, or b-plots in a season arc of television. Others not until the book came fully to its close. The setting of Oklahoma City was a nice change of pace from the usual Los Angeles, New York, Louisiana based mysteries that are a dime a dozen. Plus, OKC is only a few hours from the city I’ve been living in the last twenty years, so it was fun seeing something similar to where I live represented so well. We ended up taking turns reading it to one another and absorbed the book over the next three or four nights. It was so good that I immediately went out and bought another novel, Gutshot Straight, by the same author. It’s sitting on my shelf right now, but I want to wait a while. I’m planning on forgetting all about it, so it can be picked at random some night, and read together with my wife.... Read more...Boundless, by Jillian TamakiMay 8, 2018I have to admit I was entirely unfamiliar with Jillian Tamaki going into this, but I love love love her illustration work here, and I want to thank Drawn & Quarterly for sending me a copy of this. I’m also a big fan of the way that the narration jumps around sometimes “documentary style” in these stories. Most of them are slice-of-life focused, kafkaesque, or modern fantasy, which are all genres I think graphic novels are particularly well-suited for. I’ve written about this previously in reviews of other comic/graphic stories, and it’s still rings true here. Every story collection is going to be a little uneven to some degree, but most of these stories are solid, with just a couple that didn’t quite land for me. The artwork is always something to behold, and the characters feel three-dimensional and genuine. ‘SexCoven’ is a definite standout; it alone makes this collection worth reading. I don’t know if it’s just that I’m around the same age as the author, but I feel like this story perfectly captures the late 90s / early 00s internet culture of niche communities and the ways that they almost universally disbanded in the mid 00s. I probably spent around 6 solid months on message boards dedicated to The Matrix when I was around 20 (please don’t judge me, I thought it was cool as fuck back then). A couple years later and all of those boards are just… gone. It seems like almost every message board or little niche community has been replaced by a subreddit these days, and that brings a whole other subset of problems along with it. Instead of communities of likeminded internet individuals coming together over some obscure cultural element, we have a subset of the already monoculture-prone redditors coming together over some obscure element of culture. It’s a slice of a slice of what it once was, and way more confirmation-bias enabling. I really do feel like we’ve lost something. I also particularly liked the story dealing with adultery/bedbug removal, and the one with the shrinking woman. There were so many cool things to read between the lines in all of these. I’ll definitely be checking her other work out.... Read more...The Expanse: Origins, by James S.A. Corey, Hallie Lambert, Georgia LeeMay 8, 2018First things first, these stories follow The Expanse television series continuity and not necessarily the book series continuity. Granted, there isn’t much difference between the two, but they are growing further apart as the show continues to develop the books to series, and I’m starting to make an effort to keep them separate in my head. Each issue collected here covers a backstory for an individual main character on the show. The first four of these were originally released as individual digital comics. They are combined in this collection with a new fifth issue covering Detective Miller’s backstory before the events of The Expanse, and this is the only physical release of these issues. James S.A. Corey (Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham), the writers of The Expanse book series and the television adaptation, created these backstories, but the nitty gritty writing is done by Hallie Lambert and Georgia Lee, two more writers from the show. The stories are a little uneven, quality wise, but the Naomi, Amos, and Miller issues are very good. I’d read 100 more issues of Miller going around catching bad guys and being morally ambiguous on Ceres. All in all, they’re much better than the usual TV tie-in comic book fare, and this collection is definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of The Expanse. Issue #1: James Holden: 2/5 Holden disobeys an order to fire on a ship, gets into a fight with a superior officer, gets discharged. I was really hoping for more from this. It doesn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know, and the artwork was fairly generic. The Alex/Amos/Naomi backstories in the novels/novellas have a lot more to them, so hopefully their issues in this series will get into some of that stuff. Issue #2: Naomi Nagata: 4/5 This is a great little backstory for The Expanse tv series involving Naomi hiring Amos as a mechanic for the Canterbury. The story hints heavily toward additional background yet to be revealed for both Naomi and Amos. It has some terrific moments that really add to the overall development of these characters. I think it’s a massive improvement compared to the first issue which focused on Holden, although the artwork is still just.. Okay. Issue #3: Alex Kamal: 2/5 Ehh, It was okay. I was hoping for something much more interesting in Alex’s past. Issue #4: Amos Burton: 4/5 What a clever way to give a little hint of Amos’ backstory. His life from The Churn is so tragic. I cannot wait to see how they handle it on the show. Also, the inclusion of the infamous socio/psychopath trolley problem test in this was a nice touch. Issue #5: Josephus Miller: 5/5 The best of the five for sure. This story makes the whole collection worth checking out. Heartbreaking and bittersweet. Miller makes some concessions to take down a big hitter on Ceres, and it costs him more than what he bargained for.... Read more...Recent(ish) Non-Fiction: Five Short ReviewsMay 7, 2018 The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck, by Mark Manson Sort of an anti self-help book, meaning that it actually contains a useful philosophy, which is (mostly) just Buddhism/Stoicism dressed up a little for millennials. It’s not as douchey as the title would have you think, and it’s very entertaining. There’s a lot of cross-over with Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World, surprisingly. A lot of good advice for those, like me, who over-stress themselves about mostly nothing at all. I really loved it; I’ll probably circle back to it a few more times in the future. The Geek Feminist Manifesto, by Kameron Hurley Terrific essays, a little repetitive in some spots, and slightly more sarcastic than I’m used to. But, great stuff nonetheless. At the very least read ‘We have always fought’, the essays on Mad Max, Die Hard, and True Detective, as well as ‘In Defense of Unlikeable Women’. I’ve never read any Kameron Hurley fiction, but I would really like to after reading this. It sounds like she has a fantastic grasp on writing real, living, breathing characters. She also clearly understands—and opened my eyes to—the monumental power that storytellers have to change the world, and how our worldview is flavored and interpreted through the lens of fiction. Information Doesn’t Want to be Free, by Cory Doctorow Doctorow expertly breaks down and illustrates just how much we lose societally by allowing intermediaries to stipulate things entirely outside of their business through lobbying and extortion of all parties involved. It’s a fascinating, multi-faceted deep examination of digital rights, copyright, piracy, net neutrality, and the human tendency toward protecting our own interests at the detriment of everyone else (including, unbeknownst to us, ourselves). At first it made me angry, then it made me paranoid, and finally it made me angry again when I realized just how paranoid I actually have to be now that I understand this stuff a little more. After working my way through that cycle a few times, I’ve actually come out the other side more hopeful than I was when I went in. I feel a little more informed on just how serious the situation actually is, and I now have a huge amount of respect for the EFF and all the work they’re doing to combat ridiculous things like SOPA/PIPA, and anti Net-Neutrality nutjobs. I recommend it for pretty much anyone that would like to hang on to their privacy in an increasingly invasive world. Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff This book doesn’t challenge your assumptions. If it is to be believed, the day-to-day functioning of Trump’s White House appears to be simultaneously worse than we all imagined, and exactly as we all thought it probably was: Trump’s an idiot, the least self-aware person alive, interested only in his own celebrity and validation, and wholly unqualified to be the President of anything. Everyone around him is 1) Trying to save face. 2) Pushing their competing agendas. 3) Making fun of Trump. 4) Stabbing each other in the back. 5) Pulling their hair out. 6) Trying to avoid jail time. 7) Competing for Trump’s attention. 8) Trying to rein Trump in. 9) Trying not to get fired. 10) Trying to get everyone else fired. 11) Failing miserably at everything they do, because they themselves are wholly inept, and generally awful humans. All things considered, it was a surprisingly compassionate portrayal of everyone involved. It’s the blind leading the blind leading us all off a cliff. P.S. Pence is mostly absent from the book, which makes it seem like he’s just sitting on the sidelines, twirling his thumbs, waiting for the moment he can step in and become President. Between the World and Me A deeply illuminating, honest look at the realities of being black in America, written as a letter to the author’s teenage son. It doesn’t insult by offering a solution to the problems, but aims only to make the reader acknowledge the deeply internalized, institutionalized racism, hate, and fear that built America and the American Dream. Read it. “The forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary component of the Dream. They have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world. I am convinced that the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free.” “..a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker.” “The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Slowly, I was discovering myself.” “I am black, and have been plundered and have lost my body. But perhaps I too had the capacity for plunder, maybe I would take another human’s body to confirm myself in a community. Perhaps I already had. Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus confirmed in the tribe. But my tribe was shattering and reforming around me.”... Read more...Spectology: My New Favorite Book Club PodcastApril 30, 2018I’ve been listening to Science Fiction book podcasts for several years, and have been relatively disappointed with them for equally as many. The hosts are always a little too into whatever they’re into, making them unwilling to examine their darlings critically or in any sort of depth. Worse than this, I’ve listened to many podcasts where the hosts seem to suffer from a severe reading comprehension deficit, and place that blame squarely on the text they didn’t pay attention to. I’ve heard podcast hosts brag about listening to audiobooks at 3x speed and then mention — without a shred of self-awareness — that the book was confusing, they didn’t understand the story, as if this was some sort of educated, or valid criticism instead of a revealing look at their own attentional issues. I feel like this is the literary equivalent of playing on your phone while watching a movie, and it’s not only disrespectful of the text, but of oneself. I don’t want a book club podcast that is effectively just a mirror, held up to the worst of our inclinations as readers. I want something better than this. I’ve longed for a science fiction/speculative fiction podcast where the subject matter was respected, taken seriously, and used as a jumping off point to engage in a more socratic dialogue on theme, philosophy, characters, prose, politics, storytelling, etc. I want hosts that are thoughtful and engage with books in a way that shows their respect for the process of reading and writing. I want opinions that are backed up by evidence, presented in a clear way. I want hosts that understand that reading a book is having a dialogue with it; if you don’t meet the book halfway, bring something to the experience, you’re not really meeting it at all. I want podcasts that feel like a conversation with readers who have something to say. Of course, it should still remain relatively unstructured to allow for some meandering, and get into interesting areas or topics to be examined. I want to learn something from the experience. For years I’ve been unable to find anything like this, but apparently there are more out there who have been looking for it, because the new Spectology podcast is nailing it. This is precisely what I’ve been looking for. There’s a dialogue here about interesting things, with hosts that have actually paid attention to the book they’re discussing. Their discussions don’t break down into polemic, or black-and-white blanket statements. They’re capable of thinking about and discussing ideas, without wholeheartedly agreeing or disagreeing with them. It’s so refreshing. This is a podcast that I would love to be involved with in some way if they are ever interested in having an occasional contributor. If you find yourself frustrated with science fiction and literature podcasts, I highly suggest you check out Spectology. The first book they discuss is Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.... Read more...Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted ChiangApril 30, 2018Ted Chiang’s name continually comes up in lists of great short stories. He’s never written a novel, but his short fiction has won nearly every SF award that exists. 4 Nebulas, 4 Hugos, John W. Campbell, Locus, and on and on. He’s greatly admired among authors and almost entirely unknown by most readers. I’ve heard him referenced as an inspiration by several authors that I enjoy reading. Specifically Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (who collectively write the Expanse series under the pseudonym James S. A. Corey cite him as “the best SF writer”. I figured I should probably do myself a service and check this collection out. After reading it, I have to agree that his writing is mind-blowing. High concept science fiction that is grounded heavily in the real world. A writer of ideas. Every single story is incredibly unique, tonally diverse and powerful in different ways. If the quality among these 8 stories wasn’t at such a consistently high level, I’d say that Chiang was merely a ghostwriting team, comprised of 8 different authors, all exceptionally talented, each with different interests, politics and prose styles. Every story genuinely feels like it could be penned by a different author. I’ve never come across a creative powerhouse like this guy. He impressed the hell out of me with every sentence. “My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don’t. The reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.” Tower of Babylon: 5/5 Killer story. The Old Testament cosmology was especially fun to hear described–passing beyond the moon, sun and stars, etc. A telling of the construction and journey up the tower of Babylon, and what lies beyond the vault of heaven. Blew my mind right open. Seriously creative. I get why it won all kinds of awards. Understand: 5/5 Again, with the unique approach to storytelling. While reading this one, I started realizing how some of these concepts have clearly influenced other stories. Most obviously, the movie Limitless and the Max Barry novel Lexicon. I particularly liked how the language and vocabulary of the story evolves as the protagonist’s intelligence and recall increases. Division By Zero: 4/5 An examination of loss of belief, mental illness, suicide and math. What happens when everything you’ve worked for in your life, every kind of order that you’ve relied on, is suddenly incorrect? Story of Your Life: 6/5 Stop what you’re doing now and read this. This is the absolute best short story I have ever read. Chiang’s grasp on the English language is deeply integrated into the story itself, causality, and omniscience. It’s insanely good. This was the basis for the Denis Villeneuve film Arrival. Seventy-Two Letters: 3/5 Interesting concepts, but storywise it was a little boring. The power of language to shape action and perception. Reminded me a lot of early 50s Asimov. All conceptual, not much character development. The Evolution of Human Science: 3/5 Interesting and extremely short little tale about a scientific understanding breaking down between regular humans and meta-humans. Conceptually cool, but too short to really be that interesting. Hell is the Absence of God: 5/5 The moral of the story? God is a maniacal motherfucker who doesn’t give a shit about humans, and you should love him unconditionally. This one was a real brain twister. I loved it. Liking What You See: A Documentary: 5/5 Advertisers, elective localized brain damage, culture jamming, politics, coming of age, concepts of beauty, love, relationships. This was terrific and heavily subversive.... Read more...My Brilliant Friend, by Elena FerranteApril 27, 2018What you should know: The book is fantastic, and I couldn’t help but absorb it in just a few days. I feel like it really got at the core of human insecurity, gender and income inequality, female friendships, and our hierarchy of needs. Somehow it’s also a page-turner and an engaging story. It blows my mind that all of those things are possible in one short novel. I guarantee that it’ll get under your skin and soak in. Ferrante vs. Knausgaard: Even though I’ve only read this first novel in the sequence, it’s hard for me to resist the urge to compare Ferrante’s Neapolitan series to Knausgaard’s My Struggle. Both series are: multi-volume, non-English, first person page-turner novels spanning several decades of their character’s lives, first published in English in 2012, with subsequent volumes appearing annually. They both feature straightforward, simple prose, detailing the ins and outs of their characters’ lives, and are deeply, sometimes disturbingly honest in tone. They both tackle a lot of the same themes, but from inside different experiences. If you enjoyed one, I’d highly recommend the other. Especially if you’re a guy who enjoyed Knausgaard, you owe it to yourself to read something similar, but from a female perspective. Ferrante’s writing really put me inside that experience in an empathic way. They are also vastly different from one another: The Neapolitan Novels are fictitious, set in Italy, viscerally violent, told in a mostly linear, chronological order, feature short chapters, supposedly gained a lot in translation, are written pseudonymously, and have a tight focus on the friendship between two female characters over the years. My Struggle is wildly non-linear, purportedly autobiographical, set mostly in Norway, meandering, has no chapters whatsoever, steeped in nostalgia, and is tightly focused on Knausgaard’s view of his general failings as a man, before, after, and during his journey toward becoming a writer. For more on the similarities between the two works, I’d suggest Joshua Rathman’s terrific essay for The New Yorker: Knausgaard or Ferrante?... Read more...Body to Job, by Christopher ZeischeggMarch 5, 2018“There was a momentum in the way we worked, fucked, and saw ourselves consumed by the world.” Body to Job begins with the disclaimer: “The following stories were written between 2010 and 2016, and closely resemble my memoirs. They are also works of fiction.” Since reading Reality Hunger last year, I’ve been increasingly interested in the shrinking difference between memoir and fiction. I see it as this: To work in the adult film industry is to exist partially within the shared cultural fantasies of the populace. When your life has, to some extent, revolved around the fulfillment of fantasies for others, I would imagine it seems only natural to tell your story in the form of fiction. But fiction often carries within it a seed of truth. These are brutal stories, and very well written. They are often heartbreaking, and deal primarily with Christopher’s experience working in the adult film industry, and the difficulties involved with that work. They also occasionally dip into the surreal, which is a nice reminder that there’s a dose of fiction present. What most struck me about this collection, is the way in which Zeischegg presents everything with little commentary. The stories are raw and straightforward. As the narrative unfolds, things happen that are quite intense, and it’s up to us to interpret these events. People approach pieces of art with bias and preconception. Zeischegg seems aware that the reader will bring their own commentary, so he keeps his sparse. I think it was a wonderful creative choice, and added to the occasionally disturbing content of these stories. “You know how every urban, twenty-something community is made up of broke-ass DJs, models, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, and writers? Add ‘porn star’ to that list. It’s become just as boring and pointless. And you’re always a stone’s throw away from someone unremarkable who will do the job for nothing.” The book really starts to hit its stride when it begins dealing with the mundanity of the pornography business. The boring details, the ins and out of the creation of something made to entice and fulfill fantasies, were my favorite part of the book. It also deals heavily with the unique alienation and ostracization experienced by adult performers who work in both the “straight” and “gay” camps of pornography. It’s a fascinating read, and I highly recommend it.... Read more...The Promise of the Child, by Tom TonerJanuary 26, 2018I haven’t seen worldbuilding of this breadth and scale since Iain M. Banks’ Culture series, Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, or Alastair Reynolds’ Revelation Space. That’s not to say that the story is anything like those other series, but the worldbuilding is just as expansive as they are, if not more. It’s just absolutely massive, and well thought through. I think when all is said and done The Amaranthine Spectrum will stand at a similar level as those Culture/New Sun/Revelation Space novels in the canon of great SF works. This is far future Speculative Fiction with tight roots to its past. A lot of that past is still the future for us, some is closer to our present, and some is our past both recent and ancient. The future of 14,6xx that Toner has assembled is fascinating. Humanity has fractured into a prism of species, spread across the galaxy. There are various wars between them and among them. At the top of the power structure and social hierarchy are the Amaranthine, the descendants of humanity who have unlocked some of the secrets of immortality. But, a new secret has been unlocked by a member of a lower – as far as the Amaranthine are concerned – Prism species, and a new challenger to the Amaranthine’s rule is gaining traction among some of their factions. Things are changing for the first time in a long time. The story starts in the deep end, and you have to learn to swim in this world to understand what’s going on. I’ve always been a big fan of this approach to storytelling. It’s more challenging, but it makes the story that much more rewarding, the journey that much more exciting as you unpack things in your mind. This learning-to-swim stage lasts for around 200 pages or so, and then you’ve firmly got it and you’re swept away in the novel. There’s a lot of mystery, secretive dealings and espionage in the story, which always adds a fun layer for me. The prose is fluid and beautiful, the characters and their societies well rounded and interesting. The narrative throughout is subtle and requires some focus at times. This isn’t a book that spoon feeds the reader; you have to pay attention, but your attention is rewarded. This first book in the series feels a little disjointed at times on a first read. Mostly I think it had a lot of heavy lifting to do, introducing the reader to this massive universe, and telling a compelling story at the same time, are difficult tasks to do simultaneously. It mostly succeeds at both, but sometimes I felt a little lost in it. I believe it will age very well when taken in context with the series as a whole. Flipping back and rereading parts after finishing, I think it has huge potential for future rereads. This is one of those books that you get a lot more out of the second time through, when the worldbuilding is already established, and you can just enjoy the story and let it take you on a journey. I’m excited for the second book in this series for the same reason: a lot of the heavily lifting has already been done. I can’t wait to see where this all goes. It’s new and fascinating territory.... Read more...The Art of John Harris: Beyond the HorizonDecember 18, 2017John Harris is hands down my favorite Science Fiction cover artist. I’m a simple man: I see his artwork on a book, I pick it up. Every single time. There’s just something about his work that is instantly recognizable and always draws me in. His covers have become so highly sought after that their inclusion on a book has become a personal indicator for me that a publisher has faith in that book. It’s a certain mark of quality, or almost a seal of approval. It says: “This book lives up to the John Harris cover”. If you’ve read any Samuel Delany, Frederik Pohl, John Scalzi, Ann Leckie, Jack McDevitt, Ben Bova, Jack Vance, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Allen Steele, John Barnes, etc, then you’re most likely familiar with his artwork. His paintings are absolutely dripping with massive scale, temperature, atmospheric motion, “otherness”, a marriage of the alien and the recognizable, and far future antiquity. He provides a real aged quality to everything he paints. Everything feels old and lived in: ancient ships, xeno-archaeological remnants, etc. He provides just enough detail to spark your imagination, but he leaves the edges blurred, ambiguous and almost out of focus, so you have to fill in the mental blanks yourself. It all has a photographic feel to it, although no one would confuse his painting for photographs. How he manages to do this with a paintbrush is beyond me. It’s like he thinks through a lense and paints it with a brush. Just like reading a story, you meet the artwork halfway with your own imagination and fill in the blanks. I immensely enjoyed this collection because it not only had most of his gorgeous cover artwork, it also had earlier iterations and sketches of them, as well as sections of writing by John Harris describing his process and a little bit of his own history. John mentions playing as a child in the post-war wreckage around rural England. He guesses that this probably had an effect on his artistic output, and I have to agree. You can see it in his art, the giant fuselages, war machines, airplanes, etc. Pieces that would certain look alien in a rural English landscape. I was thrilled to discover that for many of his images, he has also written a rough history or story to correspond. He has imagined a whole world that we only glimpse a single moment of. He is able to show us this history and story with just a still image. It’s such perfect art to be paired with novels. I’d highly recommend picking this up if you’re a fan of SF artwork.... Read more...Growth, by A. J. SmithNovember 26, 2017This novel was really something special, definitely a new favorite and a book that I’ll be coming back to often in the future. It’s undeniably clever, darkly humorous, and highly self-aware. It’s cerebral and incredibly well written. It rewards the reader, and sends them down and through a rabbit hole of literature. I found myself torn between wanting to read it slowly, savoring the prose and unique deconstruction of language, and wanting to quickly arrive at the resolution because the story was so engaging. I ended up reading the first half over three or four days, and slamming the second half all in one sitting. Growth’s main character Bburke is a relatively uneducated fellow, living a simple life, rooted in the present. His primary pursuits are his artistic passion toward landscaping, and consuming a comically large but sadly plausible quantity of cheap beer. He’s never learned how to properly probe the depths of his lack of self-awareness. Ambrose Bierce’s highly cynical early twentieth century lexical masterpiece, The Devil’s Dictionary, said it best when it defined Education as: “That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.” The question is: To which camp does Bburke belong? Is he wise or foolish? Sometimes blissful ignorance may be preferable to a better understanding, especially when that better understanding holds the power to make us painfully aware of the sad state of our affairs. Enter S.A. and Dickie T, Bburke’s “well-read” recently higher educated hired helpers at his landscaping company. Bburke is about to receive an education of sorts, whether he’d like to or not. I loved the unique structure used to frame the story. Different literary forms and styles are stacked and layered, like a cake that at first glance has six layers, but on closer inspection actually contains three sublayers inside each macro one. Hopping from style to style kept things fresh, but throughout all of this was a taut narrative thread, tightly connecting events and creating a barreling momentum. The result was a highly engaging, fun, character based tale that never sacrificed quality prose or form in pursuit of being fun or engaging. It’s safe to say this is a book written for book lovers. Those familiar with the works of Camus, David Foster Wallace, Mary Shelley, Mark Twain and others will be pleasantly surprised. A lot of the main story revolved around the ways in which steeping oneself in literature can change a person, for better and worse. Reading a book is often said to be like having a conversation with the author, and Growth utilized a fun, postmodern take on that saying to illustrate the method in which Bburke internalizes what he reads. He is a non-traditional learner, and he reads in unconventional ways. Have I mentioned how fun this novel is yet? It’s very fun. Growth actively comments on itself throughout. This is a living breathing thing. The narrator calls out obvious macguffins in the plot and marks future ones as such, the legitimacy of thin characters is called into question, and Bburke himself occasionally seems right on the cusp of realizing that he might exist only as a character in a novel. I’m a sucker for anything that continues in-line with that terrific Cervantes tradition. The way that Dickie T and S.A.’s dialogue was handled is so perfect. They read like two halves of the same theoretical person, and their banter felt straight out of a DeLillo or DFW novel. Since they are the two characters who are readers, it seems most likely that S.A and Dickie T are familiar with those writers, wish they existed in their novels, and choose to speak as if they do. So much is revealed about them just through the form of their banter. Basically, they’ve read some books, and they think oh so highly of themselves for it. Writing their dialogue, and only their dialogue in this style shows fantastic restraint on Smith’s part. The form itself served the characters and story. I’m not particularly well-read when it comes to the classics, but I could see Growth rewarding those who are. I wouldn’t say being well-read is a prerequisite for enjoying it, but I think there’s another layer of entertainment available to those who are. I think this works on many different levels for many different readers. Be forewarned though, it will instill in you a desire to revisit some classics, or maybe even approach them for the first time. There are definitely a few more books on my TBR because of this one. I don’t want to say any more or comment on any vital story points, because I think this is probably best experienced with unspoiled eyes. Check it out, it’s fantastic.... Read more...Bang Crunch: Stories, by Neil SmithNovember 14, 2017A solid little collection of human stories. Clever themes, tight writing, and very vibrant three dimensional characters. Something to relate to in every story, with only one stinker in the bunch. Neil Smith is Canadian, so there was a little more french in it than I was prepared for. I should probably learn at least some basic French at some point. 3.5 stars averaged, rounded up because there are some killer ones in here. Isolettes: 4/5 Sad, but very poetic and knowing. Love this guy’s writing. Green Fluorescent Protein: 3/5 Coming of age, dealing with the hand you’re dealt. Being comfortable with yourself. B9ers: 3/5 Clever and cute story about pushovers and correlation. One race based plot point fell flat for me near the end. Bang Crunch: 5/5 Really reminded me of Ted Chiang’s writing. Good stuff. Scrapbook: 3/5 Could’ve been terrific, but ultimately left me wanting something more from it. I’m not sure what, so that may just be my fault. The Butterfly Box: 5/5 Damn, this was beautiful and real. Funny Ha Ha or Funny Weird: 4/5 Alcoholism and dealing with loss. Excellent follow-up on a specific secondary character from Green Fluorescent Protein. Extremities: 1/5 Just not a good story at all. It felt more like a creative writing exercise on weird POVs. Jaybird: 5/5 Thespian life has always seemed for the crazies. I went back and forth between loving and hating this one as I read it, ultimately I settled on loving it. Revenge against a crazy industry, and life working better when you accept who you are and work with it instead of against it.... Read more...House of Suns, by Alastair ReynoldsNovember 10, 2017This is my first Alastair Reynolds standalone novel. Having previously absorbed everything remotely related to his Revelation Space series over the last few years, I wanted to dip my toes into some of his one-off writing before digging into his newer series work. For some reason this book has been out of print in the US for a few years, making a physical copy a little tedious to come by, but I did eventually find one. Come on ACE, it’s time for a reprint! Coming from the RS camp, I was surprised with the linearity of this story. The whole thing is written in first person, with two main point of view characters in alternating chapters. Every 6-7 chapters brings a flashback interjection that slowly reveals details and moves everything forward. I suppose adding unnecessary linear complexity to a story that already has so many strange new concepts in it, might’ve been overkill on the reader. As a result, the story flows nicely and was easier to follow than Revelation Space. I’d say this would be a terrific jumping in point if you were interested in checking out Reynolds’ work. House of Suns is epic in every way the word can be defined. The scale of some of the conceptual elements was so broad that I initially had some difficulty finding a handhold to comprehend them. I felt like it stretched my mind a little bit just reaching for a way to relate. The best Science Fiction always does this for me in some way. It exists in that sweet spot directly between what you currently understand, and what you are capable of understanding. The best stories can be a linchpin, connecting you to your future, slightly more experienced self. I suppose this is true of all fiction, but I find it particularly so with the genres of Speculative Fiction, which are after all, more interested in investigating the “other” than fiction firmly rooted in the realm of realism often is. The amount of mind-bending concepts Reynolds managed to pack into this novel while maintaining a coherent story is impressive: Star dams, ring worlds, causality, time dilation, artificial intelligence, solar system relocation, ancient technology, the nature of memory, longevity, cloning, wormholes, civilizational “turnover”, etc. It’s simply exploding with these huge ideas, but the story is never sacrificed in favor of them. It churns along, always moving forward. Reynolds occasionally gets some slack for his character development or lack thereof, each character’s voice tending to just be the author’s voice, etc. So, when I realized that most of the characters in House of Suns were literal clones of the same character, I rolled my eyes a little and thought “Well, I guess that’s one way to get around the criticism.” But, it actually worked very well here. These clone characters are “shatterlings” with indefinitely long lifespans that have drifted from their source individual, and each other, for 6 million years (epic scale!) and are essentially unique individuals as a result of their differing life experiences. Because they are clones, instead of noticing their similarities, you’re drawn toward their differences. The ways in which they are similar just reinforce the fact that they started from a near identical point. It’s a brilliant way to reframe the reader’s perception regarding character work without actually changing the writer’s approach to characterization. It feels very self-aware, and it’s clever as hell. It’s almost like he’s acknowledging his critics, but saying “See, it’s not necessarily bad, it’s just how you look at it”. Personally, the character work in Reynolds’ books has never bothered me, but if it bothered you, I think you’ll find this one has a refreshingly different take. The story concludes satisfactorily, but leaves some things open for more. I would absolutely love another novel set in this universe, and the point at which this novel arrives could be seen as a great widening of that universe’s potential scope. It’s ripe for more tales, and I hope we get them. Reynolds has said: “I would like to return to this universe but I have no fixed plans for when that will happen.” Fingers crossed that those plans will materialize soon!... Read more...Superabundance, by Heinz HelleOctober 5, 2017A deeply philosophical, hopeful little novel about fear, attention, community, morality, perception, and the nature and/or existence of consciousness. As sparse as Don DeLillo, but descriptive in a vague, matter of fact manner. God I loved this book. The unnamed protagonist in Superabundance states the obvious in an alien way. Not just alien as in, not from around here alien, but alien to the point that it seems like this character may only recently have become human, and may not yet be aware of the fact. It begins as a look at the lives of Americans in New York City from an outsider’s perspective. The protagonist overanalyzing everything around him, social norms and situations, the nature of his work, how basic and repetitive life truly is, etc, and progresses from there into an existential question about the human condition and the nature of control. It somewhat reminded me of The Stranger by Camus, mostly in the way that the protagonist seems simultaneously cripplingly self-centered, self-unaware, but also hyper aware of everything around him, the world swimming past him that he’s drowning in. There’s a telling moment where he feels the need to apologize to everyone and everything for his nature. He is powerless to change who he is. His attention is continually drawn in by everything except what he wants/feels he should be attentive toward. He is realizing how little control he actually possesses. He fears his libido, fears that he may not stay loyal, fears that he can see his relationship deteriorating before his eyes, fears that he may not be conscious, fears that he may be all too conscious. “I don’t think you even know what love is, she says, running her fingernail across the fitted sheet and looking at the books on the floor beside the bed, and I look at her fingernail, then at the books, and I think, of course I don’t know what love is, and I say: Of course I know what love is.” I was particularly impressed by the subtlety Helle exercised in illustrating this slow deterioration of a relationship. Little things, eventually snowballing into something insurmountable. No real starting point, nothing to point to and say “This is where it all went wrong”, just a gradual decline from a seed that had no inception. An inevitability of two people being who they are. It’s a powerful statement on materialism in the philosophical definition of the word. The last few scenes in the novel may be my favorite scenes in any book ever. Its delicious, strangely hopeful celebration of the majesty, glory, and variety of life present in humanity makes me want to embrace the next person I see and scream “We are the same, you and I! We are the same!”... Read more...Hyperion, by Dan SimmonsOctober 2, 2017This is another one of those classics of SF literature that I have somehow missed reading over the years. Had I been more of an active reader in the nineties, I’m sure I would’ve come to it much sooner. Thankfully, I finally got there, and Hyperion was not what I expected, in the best way possible. It’s most often compared to Dune, The Book of the New Sun, or other great works of Science Fantasy. Obviously, coming into the novel my expectations were high, and I knew the most basic gist of the plot: a pilgrimage across a world to meet an unimaginable being. What I got was partly what I anticipated, but in a very left-field form, which was such a refreshing subversion of my what I thought I was getting myself into. It delivered on what I thought it was, but in a way I never imagined, and it was fantastic. Instead of straight-forward narrative momentum, Hyperion is almost entirely the backstories of these pilgrims. It’s heavily character based, and the only book I can honestly say is 100% both a novel, and a story collection. These stories are more technically novellas, because of their length, but you get what I’m saying. Each story genuinely adds to the forward narrative, by going backward. It’s really quite breathtaking to see this done so well. I’ve read other collections that are also novels, but they’re always more one or the other. This is equally both. Each tale feels like a slightly different genre married to science fiction, and the interstitial sections weave them together tightly. Only one of them fell slightly flat for me. Mostly because it was more akin to cyberpunk than anything else, and I have a real love/hate affair with cyberpunk. I tend to judge the genre entirely too harshly at times, mostly because if I have any sort of professional knowledge, it’s in the Information Technology arena, and I have a difficult time suspending my disbelief about the realities of virtual worlds in regards to how they’re represented in cyberpunk. That’s a topic for another day. Hyperion has that indescribable, almost lovecraftian terror, dread and brooding present throughout, and one tale in particular left me unbearably heartbroken. There’s honestly only one thing I can objectively complain about here, and it’s more endemic to the genre during the time period this was written in than anything else: the way the narrator spends an inordinate amount of time describing women’s bodies, broken down into parts, particularly breasts and nipples. It’s just kind of eye-roll pervy, but it’s my only real gripe. Thankfully, it’s not quite at a Haruki Murakami level, and this doesn’t much happen anymore in the really well written stuff of the genre, but I’m more embarrassed for the author than anything else, award winning fiction like this is fairly written in stone for future generations to examine. I was torn whether or not to dig straight into The Fall of Hyperion after finishing this, but ultimately I decided not to just yet. I want to let this percolate and grow in my mind, but mostly I’m one of those anti-bingeing types that prefers to spread great stories out over a long period of time, to elongate my enjoyment of them, and better unpack their themes. I think it’s time for a non-genre novel, and then I’ll dig back in when the time is right. That being said, I can’t wait to come back to the world of Hyperion, and see what new terrors await these fantastic characters.... Read more...The Intuitionist, by Colson WhiteheadSeptember 19, 2017The time period is difficult to pin down. 1950s, 1960s? The setting is never explicitly said to be New York City, but it is. There are clues peppered here and there but the whole thing also has a timeless, every-major-city quality to it. This world is exactly like ours, except elevators are a big, big deal. Their creation has shaped the form and structure of cities; buildings with arrangements of floors vertically stacked ad infinitum up into the sky, a concept itself only possible as a result of reliable, mechanical elevation. Those elevators highly utilized only because they are safe, safe only because of the skilled elevator inspectors laying down the law regarding their maintenance, and upkeep. All of this is true in our world as well, but here it’s more than just a technicality, it’s elemental as a foundation of their entire modern society; an alternate Americana. Elevators and elevator inspectors are given the same level of awe that airplanes and pilots once had in our version of America. Just as the airplane compressed our world’s surface horizontally, elevators compressed theirs vertically, bringing the unrealized potential of the sky down to earth. Elevators aren’t just a large aspect of the literal plot of the novel, but used as a metaphor for the ongoing racial struggle of black Americans, among other things. It’s handled elegantly, and I don’t want to touch on it all that much for fear of spoiling the experience. Suffice it to say there are several layers to this elevator-as-metaphor aspect, and they have a unique dialogue with one another. Two warring factions in the Department of Elevator Inspectors in a bustling metropolis vie for dominance: The Empiricists, who go by the book and rigorously check every structural and mechanical detail; and the Intuitionists, whose observational methods involve meditation and instinct. The Intuitionist conjures a parallel universe in which latent ironies in matters of morality, politics, and race come to light. Almost every corner of the novel mirrors, and folds on itself. The narrative is broken into two sections: Down, and Up: a fall from grace, and a rise from the ashes. A literal crashing down of one elevator, and a possible rising of another, perfected model; a “black box”. The dual and dueling, mirrored approaches to elevator inspection, Empiricism and Intuitionism. The former being the familiar method of visually inspecting, and testing components to ensure their reliability, checking them against tolerances and allowances. The latter embodying what you might call a holistic approach; feeling and communicating mentally, or spiritually with the elevator in an effort to understand what issues may be affecting it. The concept of intuitionism is where a lot of the surreal comedy of the novel stems. Can you imagine a sillier approach to checking a mechanical system? It’s all very Pynchonesque. This book is an exemplary illustration of the power speculative fiction wields as a form of literature. Because of course, intuiting what ails an elevator is completely ridiculous in the real world, but it’s oddly endearing in an America slightly off from our own. Empiricists don’t respect Intuitionists, but they can’t argue with their results, which statistically, are ever so slightly more effective. It’s a slap in the face for those living a life guided by rules and measurements, when “feeling” a system merits slightly better results than doing your best to follow the rigid structure you are trying to impose on the world. Couple this with the double standards governing white America and black America, men and women, and it becomes poetic. This is used to show that there is always more than one way to approach any topic, any reality that you can interact with. That only using our eyes, can sometimes blind us in other ways, to other things. Reality is what we make it, and limiting ourselves to just one sense can be a dangerous practice indeed. You have to be able to fathom change before you can start to affect it, and this novel has a lot to say about where innovation and change originate, and how best to implement them. The Intuitionist reminded me, in an odd way, of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. I am unsure if it’s the somewhat similar setting, similar themes of an underclass breaking upward into America proper, or the general mystery aspect of the narrative. Both were published in 1999, maybe there’s a similar cultural background at play? Whatever the reason, I find them comparable novels.... Read more...The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle), by Ursula K. Le GuinSeptember 9, 2017The Library of America just published these definitive hardcover collections of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle novels and stories, which made my decision to finally start working my way through this classic series of speculative fiction again that much easier. I’m going to be tackling these in no particular order, since they’re only tertiarily connected to one another, but take place in a shared universe. The Word for World is Forest is a terrific novella, originally published in the Harlan Ellison edited Again, Dangerous Visions anthology in 1972. It went on to win the Hugo award for best Novella later that year. I believe it was very influential to James Cameron’s Avatar (which I am now certain was constructed entirely from story elements and themes originating in Old Man’s War & The Word for World is Forest). The novella also definitely influenced George Lucas’s Ewoks from Return of the Jedi, to such a degree that I think plagiarism is the better suited word. When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters. Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back. It’s a social science fiction story, and a moralistic/ethical one with some wonderfully insightful and precient things to say about dangerous ideas entering the public consciousness. In this way it was perfectly suited for that Dangerous Visions anthology. My main takeaway from tWfWiF is that once a dangerous idea is out there for the first time, there is no turning back. It becomes a part of the public consciousness. Here, specifically that dangerous idea is the very concept of murder, introduced to the peaceful Athsheans by their human/yuman occupiers. I enjoyed the waking dreams that the Athsheans were capable of, and how deeply dreaming was ingrained into their culture and at such a foundational level. Especially when that was contrasted with how little the humans/yumans dreamt; how they had almost lost the ability altogether and required drugs to fully dream. It speaks volumes to how overworked and under-rested western, and specifically American culture has become. Assuredly, this has only become a larger problem since the seventies when this was written. Dreams are necessary, not only as moments of respite from our chaotic lives, but as catalysts for forward imaginative thinking. We need downtime in order to reset. Dreams fuel us and encourage us to create. What are we without dreams? Without the possibility to imagine something different? There was a great line in this book about how suicide harms those who live on, but murder harms the murderer herself. I really liked that. It may not be entirely true, but poetically, it was beautifully constructed. This story almost represents the antithesis of that sentiment, when the concept of murder enters the societal consciousness of the Athsheans, it continues to harm them after the fact, by perpetuating itself ad infinitum. It’s impossible to go back once innocence is lost. The Athsheans are forever changed by the invading yumans. Be cautious what you allow into your lives and societies. Okay, so onto the Ewok/Return of the Jedi connection: You’ve got a forest planet, filled with furry little creatures about a meter tall. They’re described as looking quite a bit like teddy bears. They live in the forest city named Endtor. Some of them were being used as slaves. They eventually rise up and decide to take on their occupiers, and reclaim their planet. All of their names are exactly 2 syllables long. Hmm… sounds a little familiar. Are you kidding me George Lucas? For real dude? It took about 9 years, but you massively ripped that concept off from Le Guin. You didn’t even scrape the serial numbers off it. If Le Guin were particularly litigious, she could probably get a percentage on all Ewok merchandizing past and future. She doesn’t strike me as the type to sue, and Disney is a bit of giant to go up against these days. Still, credit should be given where credit is due. The Ewoks originated in Le Guin’s mind, and she deserves the recognition.... Read more...The Grip of It, by Jac JemcSeptember 3, 2017This short novel thoroughly creeped me the hell out. It’s been a few years since I’ve read anything that maintains this level of unease throughout. It’s not intended to be outright scary, instead it maintains an eerie tone (think VanderMeer’s Annihilation) and punctuates it with some genuine goosebump moments that snuck up on me. The narrative plays the POV characters’ relationship woes (something we can relate to) against a supernatural backdrop (something we cannot). Juxtaposing the relatable with the unrelatable works so well here, and serves to pull the unrelatable closer until it feels solid, foundational, and within the realm of possibility. This narrative tactic also got me heavily invested in the characters and their troubled relationship; rooting for them to find a way out of their situation together; to come out the other side a more entwined, singular team. They’re two people who in a misguided attempt to navigate up out of a downwardly spiraling situation, inadvertently ensnare themselves into another, accelerated, more deadly one. I love the way that these events escalated, and built on one another. The way that they dealt with that escalation also felt incredibly like actual human behavior. Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between ocean and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture—claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mold spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julia and James. Written in creepy, potent prose, The Grip of It is an enthralling, psychologically intense novel that deals in questions of home: how we make it and how it in turn makes us, mapping itself onto bodies and the relationships we cherish. The story found its way to a terrific resolution. I imagine it’s difficult to end a haunted house novel in a way that is satisfying to the reader, but doesn’t undercut the creepy tone — that built it in the first place — with too much clarity. Do you completely explain the haunting and lose all the mystery, or do you leave it entirely unknown by ending in an ambiguous manner? The finale of The Grip of It finds that perfect middle point between these two extremes, balancing resolution/irresolution to both fulfill my deeply rooted desire for closure as a reader, and keep the eeriness fully at play. We’ve all got that old lizard brain resting below our rational one, nearly all that it understands is fear, and it love a good poking. Logically, I know none of these supernatural events are real or even remotely possible, but my lizard brain doesn’t care about logic, it likes being afraid. It wallows in the macabre, and thrives in the unknown terrors that might lurk in the shadows residing just at the periphery of my vision. I mostly read this right before going to bed, and I found myself double checking silhouettes in my bedroom as I lay there, imagining how the strange sensation of seeing my wife’s face, but not recognizing her, would feel; finding patterns where none exist, and missing patterns previously obvious. The whole affair put me on edge. The prose is clean, the chapters short, and the pacing tight. You could even read it in a single sitting if you wanted, and it’s engaging enough that the decision to do so might end up outside your control. It might just happen, you looking at the clock afterward and wondering where the time disappeared to.... Read more...Escapology, by Ren WaromAugust 24, 2017This novel changed my perception of what modern cyberpunk could be. I have to apologize in advance because this is going to be a little long-winded and meandering for a review. In order to approach my feelings on Escapology, I first need to share some thoughts about genre and how it can inform expectation. Modern cyberpunk stories are operating in an interesting retro-futuristic narrative space these days. Cyberpunk had its big moment in the mid-to-late eighties, right at the convergence of rapid technological growth, reaganomics, corporate overreach, and heightened cold-war tensions. In addition to this collection of odd ingredients, the world had a general ignorance regarding computers and micro-technology, but had the knowledge that these things were coming toward us at breakneck pace. Tech was a sort of magic – in the Clarkesian sense – that was unknowable to the general public. Cyberpunk was a reactionary genre to all of this, and an extrapolation of a possible future that we might soon all be subjected to – shadowy mega corporations, invasive rampant technology, and the value of human life plummeting as a result. High-tech low-life was the general idea. Of course, these things did eventually come to dominate our modern lives, but in entirely different ways than cyberpunk predicted. Because of this, most modern cyberpunk feels like it takes place in this “future of the past” that is firmly rooted in misunderstandings about technology. It’s more alternate history than plausible future at this point. I could go on and on about the woeful inefficiency of wasting CPU/GPU cycles in order to render an overly complicated GUI for every user’s interaction with a system while “jacked in”. Don’t get me wrong, I love that concept, it’s such a wonderful visual way to describe digital actions, but it just doesn’t make a lot of sense in a real world context. I would, however, be missing the point if I pushed this, a point which I didn’t realize until reading this novel: modern cyberpunk is no longer science fiction, but fantasy, because we’ve passed the point where it’s scientifically plausible. This might not be an important distinction for most readers, but I think we subconsciously allow genre to inform the expectations that we have when we approach a piece of fiction, so let’s take a step back and define the differences between fantasy and science fiction by paraphrasing the simple terms John Joseph Adams laid out in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015: In fantasy, the impossible happens. In science fiction, the currently impossible but theoretically plausible happens. Cyberpunk as a genre was theoretically plausible to the world of the eighties, mostly because we misunderstood how computer technology functioned. Today, we understand quite a bit more, and I think that some aspects of the genre may no longer be. I think it operates under the umbrella of fantasy now, and therefore allows a lot of interesting possibilities and growth. Warom gets this, but I didn’t at all going into this book. Something happened about halfway through Escapology that broke my suspension of disbelief. It was something that just isn’t scientifically plausible and I had an atavistic reaction against it, initially not understanding why; it just bothered me at a deep level. It took a while to realize that I felt like it broke the genre rules I had imposed on the story. It was then that I realized I had been mistakenly approaching the novel with a narrow angle of allowances. Warom wisely approached this story from a wider angle, or rather approached it without those rigid genre rules regarding what can or can’t happen in a story. The plausibility rules of science fiction do not apply here. When I realized this, it all clicked and I was able to get out from underneath my expectations and just let the story take me along for the ride. That was when I started to enjoy it for what it could be: a much needed stretching of the boundaries that readers have imposed upon cyberpunk as a genre. Of course, it would be much better to just approach all fiction without any thought of genre expectations beforehand, but I have a very difficult time doing that. It’s something I’m working on. Escapology has one of the more interesting representations of avatars in a shared virtual world (the “jacked-in” state) that I’ve seen in while. It seems that Warom took inspiration from underwater earth life to represent this element of the story; the world that exists below the surface. I think it’s a fitting analogy, especially considering the protagonist’s dual avatars, each representing an element of his sexual identity and/or history. I also liked the land ships and the concept of the world literally having its crust broken apart at some point in the past. I’m hoping there’s more info about that in the sequel. Conceptually, Escapology is a breath of fresh air for the genre, and I have a lot of respect for what it accomplished in the genre stretching/meshing department. It also had a strong weird fiction vibe going, which helped inject a heavy sense of wonder. It feels like Warom is trying to shock some new life into a genre that has long been stagnant, and I commend her for it. I thought the characters were a little thin, and the narrative got a little overly melodramatic for my taste, but all in all it was a fun story. I guarantee you haven’t read a cyberpunk novel like this. Just remember to go into it with an open mind, as I didn’t. We all need a good mind fucking now and again. Escapology definitely filled that quota for me.... Read more...The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, by Cherise WolasAugust 15, 2017Finishing this magnificent novel was a bittersweet affair. Sweet because it was a powerful joy to read; experiencing what a writer that possesses such a mastery of her craft can do with words, continually in awe at the bravery of this story, and how she approached it. Bitter because I’ve lived with her character Joan Ashby these past couple weeks, judged her a little unfairly at times, learned as she did, gotten to know her well as she grew and adapted, and now we are forced to part ways because the book is done. She’s such an interesting creation, and I want to keep her around a little longer. Most especially, I want to read the rest of her stories, and novels that she wrote during her life inside of this book. I’d be 100% okay if Wolas chose to write and publish them eventually. This is Cherise Wolas’ debut as a novelist, but it is so well formed you would never think it her first published novel. It has none of the usual shortcomings that early efforts often do. I’m thinking she has always written. She is obviously very practiced, and a remarkably skilled storyteller to have put together something this comprehensive. If this book doesn’t get shortlisted for several big awards next year, I’d be shocked at the injustice. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins more than a few of them. Her prose is beautiful and flowing, and her characters contain multitudes, especially Ashby as we get to see her create her own characters (some of them writers as well) and bring them to life with flowing prose. Wolas’ ability to write as herself, as her characters, and as her characters’ characters is just breathtaking. The subtle shifts in style as the novel dips into and back out of Ashby’s writing, were handled with grace, and they added some postmodern flair to the whole thing. It’s like a novel that contains a short story collection, and reminds me of reading both at the same time, breaking up the main story with little miniature ones that interject here and there, never taking away from the momentum. It just works. My favorite part of this is seeing how Ashby learns about herself, and deals with events in her own life through her fiction; through the characters that take on some of the traits of those around her; never directly putting her own life, events, and acquaintances directly into her work, but borrowing bits here and there and reconfiguring them into new dramatic events and characters. It’s refreshing to see the creative process stripped bare and represented accurately like this. Everything is a remix of our influences, and our lives, blown apart and amalgamated. In the latter half of the book, we even start to get a small glimpse into one possible future direction for Ashby, through the fiction that she creates. It’s subtly done and I love it. We see her working things out, coming to terms with traumatic events, and coming out the other side, all part of her process of creation and renewal. Read this novel. It’s out August 29th from Flatiron Books in the US, and Sept 7th via The Borough Press in the UK.... Read more...The Dark Dark, by Samantha HuntJuly 27, 2017“…voices that insist on being heard, stories that demand to be told, writers who are compelled to show us something new.” is how FSG Originals describes the books they publish, and I would absolutely describe Samantha Hunt’s writing in this way. Her stories are brutal yet beautiful, magical but grounded, sincere, horrific, and essential. Her characters have such unique perspectives on their lives and the events surrounding them; a lot of the time these were perspectives that I’d never fully considered, but instantly empathized with once exposed to them. These are stories I obviously needed to read. Stories about women and men of all walks of life passing through stages of the fantastic and the mundane, learning about themselves and the world(s) around them. While reading this book I was reminded of that old saying about how reading someone’s book is like having a conversation with them, or getting to know them a little better. With Hunt’s writing, it felt like getting to know several different women at the same time. It’s extraordinarily powerful stuff. Seeing things from these many new perspectives was fascinating for me. There isn’t a bad story in the bunch, but the standouts for me were: The Story Of, All Hands, Love Machine, Wampum, & The Story Of Of. Her prose is tight and expressive. She manages to say so much in so few words, and her writing often dips into the magically realistic, with postmodern sensibilities. I think it’s past due time for me to pick up her novels, and I’m kicking myself for not paying attention when friends were telling me that I should. Oh well, better late than never! P.S. I need to sing a few praises for this cover as well. Book designers have really been outdoing themselves this year, and this one is no exception. This cover fully subverted my pattern recognition engine by using it against itself, that is until I plopped it down on my coffee table absentmindedly and accidentally saw it from a different angle as it lay there sideways, smirking at me. Clever clever.... Read more...Strange Dogs, by James S.A. CoreyJuly 18, 2017Holy shit. This changes things. I love that we get these short stories and novellas between the main Expanse novels. If the novels are considered big, pulpy action movies with great characters, then the short stories and novellas in The Expanse are tightly focused character pieces, in smaller stories. But this, this is something special in addition to all that. It stands incredibly well on its own as a self contained story, but in the context of the larger narrative happening in this series, it’s extremely exciting as a taste of things to come. If this is the direction the series is heading, then sign me the hell up! What always impresses me about The Expanse, is that these guys can seemingly write from any point of view, any perspective, and they completely nail it. They’ve demonstrated this over and over again: A pampered daughter of the richest businessman in the system out for revenge against what she perceives as a wrong orchestrated against her family? They nailed it. An ex Martian Navy pilot who abandoned his wife and turned renegade pilot in an effort to find his true self out among the stars? Yep, they nailed that too. A botanist growing soybeans on Ganymede? A priest presiding over a small congregation on Europa? A washed up detective living in a spun-up ceres station, looking for some sort of salvation? Nailed it with all of ‘em. They’re either extremely empathetic, extremely in tune with the human condition, or extremely creative – probably a combination of all three – because these characters are just too good The narrative in Strange Dogs unfolds through the eyes of another entirely new, unique point of view: Cara, a 10 year old Earther girl living a life on Laconia, a science colony in a remote part of the milky way galaxy. She moved there with her scientist parents when she was very young, and their stay has been made indefinite due to calamitous events unfolding back in the Sol system, and an unexpected arrival of a military presence on Laconia. The things she discovers on Laconia have the weight to potentially change the entire direction this series is heading. Because of that I would say this is the first of the shorter Expanse fiction that may be absolutely essential to read. The others have been incredible, but this one feels like required reading; like a longer than usual prologue to a huge story to follow. What I really enjoyed about Strange Dogs, is that this same story told instead from the perspective of either of her parents, or some other secondary character, might belong more comfortably in the horror genre. But, because we’re seeing events through the youthful eyes of Cara, there is instead a childlike wonder to it all. Her perspective also brings an ambiguity, and slightly unreliable narration to everything, which combines to set a tone of general unease in addition to that wonder. December, or whenever Persepolis Rising comes out, cannot get here soon enough. ... Read more...Escape Velocity, by Jason M. HoughJuly 2, 2017This is the second half of and conclusion to the Dire Earth duology that began with Injection Burn. This duology itself is also a follow up to the Dire Earth cycle, a trilogy of novels published a few years back. I haven’t read the Dire Earth cycle novels, but these books do a wonderful job of filling in any gaps that may be present for readers new to the series. I never felt like I was missing anything, but undoubtedly there are little character details that are probably improved by a more complete understanding from having read the trilogy. If Injection Burn was basically “get there”, Escape Velocity is very much “get it done and get home in one piece”. It hits the ground running at the same breakneck pace established in Injection Burn, and never really hits pause. At the end of Injection Burn our characters have been forcefully separated, thrown in different directions by their AI ship in a last ditch effort to accomplish their collective goal. We have three main group POVs to follow, each fighting for survival on a hostile alien world, trying to find each other, trying to gather their bearings and figure out how to do what they need to with nearly everything (even the air) trying to kill them. It’s a great conclusion to this story, but leaves the universe open enough for more. I’m particularly interested in what may come after this. There’s a lot of potential for some really interesting far future Earth society stuff, as well as more information about some of the alien societies present here. I was introduced to Jason M. Hough through his fantastic sci-fi spy thriller Zero World a couple years back, which I absorbed (and need more of! Don’t be shortsighted Del Rey, make it happen). It was the most original science fiction novel I’ve read in a long while. He writes really straightforward prose that gets out of the way and lets the fun flow straight to the brain. You often forget you’re reading a book, instead you’re just experiencing the story. It reads so effortlessly. I’d recommend these books for fans of the The Expanse novels for sure. They’re very much written in a similar style: huge, narratively driven ideas, delivered in a fun, highly-readable package. Like classic era science fiction for a new generation. Blockbuster page-turners with great characters, adventure and thrills. These are great summer reads.... Read more...The Cruft of Fiction, by David LetzlerJune 18, 2017Our world has never been more filled with incoherent clutter masquerading as information. It’s present in every corner of our lives today; tomorrow it’ll likely be even worse. The data pool has been so polluted with gibberish that in 2017 we have politicians who can’t seem to agree on what exactly constitutes a fact. Vapid internet-meme culture teaches us to repeat slightly modified nothings to each other, over and over again for internet points redeemable for exactly the same – nothing. We are bombarded with huge amounts of junk data every single day of our lives, and sorting through it to get to the morsels of useful information is becoming a necessary life skill. How often do you read a headline, skip the article, and read the most popular comment to learn what your opinion should be? I’m guilty of doing that, big time, and I wasn’t even aware of it until someone pointed it out. There is just so much information available to us from every outlet, all competing for our attention – most of it trying to sell us something – that we don’t have near enough time to read it all. So, what do we do? Let’s circle back to that in a sec. As defined in this book, Cruft is any text in a work of fiction that doesn’t particularly add anything to that work. You could call it “junk text”. When you hear someone complaining about a particular page-count heavy novel as “meandering” or “painfully boring”, they’re most likely complaining about the Cruft of that novel. Instead of merely being extraneous fat that should’ve been trimmed by a more talented editor, Letzler argues that Cruft may have a specific, useful purpose in these mega-novels, and he has well thought-out, very persuasive arguments to back up his thinking. The gist of the argument is this: Cruft isn’t necessarily bad. It can be viewed as a tool to help us learn to modulate our attentional faculties. He argues that by reading Cruft containing mega-novels we learn the valuable skill of how to sift pertinent information from the non-important, and this skill can be applied to other areas of our lives; learning when to skim and when to pay attention. After all, mega-novels so often hide bits of useful information buried in a pile of red herrings. If you read enough novels like this, you’re bound to improve picking the useful bits through the clutter. This line of thinking redefines boredom and confusion as features of mega-novels, instead of pejorative descriptors. He also argues that these descriptors often say a lot more about the person doing the describing than the actual novel itself. I tend to agree, and I love this argument. It’s something I’ve been dancing around for a while, but never really put into words. If you’re a fan of huge, “boring” novels (like I am), then you’ll undoubtedly adore this academic literary criticism deconstructing the inherent value of the most boring parts of those novels. I had to laugh at myself a little while reading it, because there’s something so deliciously postmodern about reading a book all about the most boring parts of boring books. It was always interesting, and to its credit, contained no Cruft of its own. Something that I consider a huge achievement, given the subject matter. Of course, the argument is not without its own issues, the least of which being that it’s a tad self-serving for a fan of mega-novels to find a way to praise even the most boring parts of them, but Letzler does a wonderful job illustrating these counter arguments right off the bat. I love a good academic approach like this, because when it’s done correctly, the author will spend a good portion of their writing laying out all of the problems with their main thesis, and then work backward from there in order to argue their point more effectively. It adds so much solidity if you can show that you’re already aware of the detractions against your view. He pulls it off marvelously here, and covers absolutely every angle of the concept. Each chapter is categorically organized according to the different types of extant Cruft commonly found in mega-novels. There are numerous examples and case studies from novels like Infinite Jest, Gravity’s Rainbow, 2666, House of Leaves, J R, and lots of others that are notoriously Cruft heavy. It’s all very well illustrated and argued, and the sections covering the handful of novels discussed that I haven’t read, were often more interesting to me than the ones covering the novels that I have. I’ve always thought that good non-fiction books should introduce the reader to several more books to read, and this one is no exception. My TBR pile has grown, yet again. So the next time you feel your attention wandering, try to approach your boredom as a feature rather than a failure. Focus in on it and see what it’s telling you. Instead of just reading that headline and skipping to the comments, read the whole article, but try skimming through it; pull the interesting bits forward from the Cruft. You just might be able to train yourself to be a more effective reader. The Cruft of Fiction is available from University of Nebraska Press.... Read more...My Struggle: Book 5, by Karl Ove KnausgaardJune 16, 2017Book five details Karl Ove’s life from around age nineteen to thirty-three, but in a lot of ways it feels like the closing chapter of My Struggle. Of course there is still one more book coming in the pipeline; whose english translation I hear has been delayed again, this time until “Fall 2018” due to it being twelve-hundred pages and requiring an additional translator in order to handle the extra page load. According to Knausgaard, the forthcoming sixth volume is supposed to be more about his friends’ and family’s reception to their portrayal in the first five books. That should be very interesting. This wouldn’t be a review of a My Struggle book if I didn’t mention how fascinatingly readable the prose was. I say fascinatingly readable because I have no idea why it is. I really can’t explain it, but his writing gets inside of me and latches onto something. He does such a fantastic job of relating the deep rooted sense of isolation we experience apart from, and along with the rest of humanity. We seem to keep two groups in our minds: the self (Us), and everyone else (Them). We are always alone even in company, because we can never truly verify that anyone else really exists. “What was consciousness other than the surface of the soul’s ocean?” More than any of the others this book is all about Karl Ove coming to terms with the realities of being a writer. At 19-20 he is in love with the mythology of writing, but not so much the actual act itself. He loves the idea but not the reality. He takes criticism of his work very poorly, very personally. He sees himself as not having the depth of soul to truly write like his influences. He feels that there is a chasm between him and others; that he is living a duplicitous life; that he is an imposter and everyone else the genuine article. I think that this ties deeply into his ultimate reason for writing My Struggle: I think he’s trying to demolish the barrier between his private and public life in a way so destructive, it cannot be undone. I think he needs that barrier to break down. He states several times that he feels he is a separate person internally than who he is perceived to be externally. He’s able to alleviate this somewhat through heavy drinking, but heavy drinking causes him insurmountable other issues. When he drinks too much, he’s finally comfortable, but he does all kinds of things that bring him shame, and this adds to his compartmentalization of his true self from his public self. In writing this 3600 page, six volume highly personal memoir novel, he is forcing his internal and external, depth and surface selves to intermingle and become one. Since he feels trapped in this situation, to me it seems like a way for him to force himself out. The character of Karl Ove – I say character because he says over and over that he doesn’t remember much from the periods of time he’s covering, therefore there is definitely a percentage of events and memories that are invented – is the perfect anti-hero. He is often very abrasive to those around him, doing things that are terrible to those he loves, but we’re given so much of his internal thought process that we relate with the reasons for his actions. In a way, it’s more that he’s just very honest about his faults and shortcomings as well as his achievements. Usually when we tell our own stories, we leave out all of the rough edges, and paint ourselves in a much better light. Instead, he seems to be making an effort at self-mythologizing as objectively as he can. Worts and all. Really, we are all anti-heroes in our own stories when we’re honest about both the bad and the good that we’ve done. I think this is why the concept of an anti-hero is so broadly appealing in stories; it’s really just a well developed character. If a character doesn’t have a little darkness inside of them, they don’t feel real to us. In conclusion, I loved this book. It tightly wove together the disparate threads from the previous four books. It was also the first to move almost entirely in a linear fashion, which was a big departure from the others. Finishing it makes me want to go back and reread book two, which was previously my least favorite, but I think the additional insight and perspective gained from reading five would make it much more interesting. The main narrative of book two chronologically lands right after the events of book five. I think that book five could be read before book two, and might even be best experienced in that order. Now begins the long wait for book six.... Read more...Off Rock, by Kieran SheaJune 11, 2017I read this novel almost entirely from a hammock in my backyard, and I’d recommend taking that approach. It’s good and pulpy, a light summer Science Fiction read. A blue collar crime caper set during the closing days of a mobile mining station on an asteroid. Seedy characters, none particularly too bright, almost all involved in some sort of side action, fumbling their way through life with the limited choices left to them. Blackmail, vices, bribes, and lost causes are all welcome here. Shea writes in a straightforward, no-nonsense style that reads fast and easy. Think a pulpy crime mag from the 40s, but make that 2740, and transplant that magazine onto a virtual rack residing on an illicit local intranet, accessed from portable “CPUs”. There are no lessons learned, no moral philosophies tying everything together. No overall takeaway. Sometimes a gold heist is just a gold heist. I think it works very well here. The worldbuilding is sparse, but it has a vague feel of existing just on the outside edges of Cyberpunk. There are mega-corporations that demand complete loyalty, drones that watch your every move, and offenses against mega-corporations carry the harshest punishments: medical experimentation, and if you survive, maybe life in prison afterward. It’s a rough life for an asteroid miner, but if a highly illegal once-in-ten-lifetimes capital one corporate offense comes up, you say fuck the odds, grab hold and see how far it might take you. Maybe it’ll be just the right ticket to get out of that life, but you still have to get your loot off rock to have it do you any good. That’s where things might get difficult. Who do you trust? How much should you trust them? Give ‘em just enough rope for them to hang themselves if they fuck you over? Fuck them over first just in case? All pertinent questions if you’re a low life with limited options trying to better your situation. This is some great sci-fi escapism, read it on a lazy Sunday, or take a copy on vacation, grab a chair by the pool, or chill in a hammock with a highly alcoholic cold drink. Turn off your head and enjoy. It was just what I needed to read between some heavier non-fiction that I’ve been slowly working on over the last month or so. I plan on picking up copies of the Koko books by the same author this summer as well. I’m hoping it’s more of this, but in a more detailed cyberpunk setting. I’ve heard good things. ... Read more...Injection Burn, by Jason M. HoughJune 8, 2017A high concept Space Opera full of huge ideas; instantly readable, and a hell of a lot of fun. I have been reading a bunch of really heavy non-fiction lately and this was just the right fun SF to break out of that over the last few days. It’s been such a ride reading this. I am extremely impressed with the pacing of this novel. It builds and builds and builds, and just never lets up. A real page turner like James S.A. Corey’s The Expanse series, but exploring loftier themes similar to some of those covered in Iain M. Banks’ The Culture novels. I’m a big fan of both, so this resonated with me on nearly every level. The cover is extremely action/military Scifi looking, and there is a lot of that toward the end, but I’m extremely happy that it’s not just an action story. There is a lot of classic, high concept, creative idea science fiction going on here as well. If you’ve read last year’s fantastic Zero World, you know this is something that Jason M. Hough is particularly fantastic at. At the risk of diverging a little here, I’m just going to say that Zero World needs a lot of sequels. It’s absolutely crying out for them. This book is technically both the fourth Dire Earth novel, and the first in a new duology. I had previously read about the first hundred pages of The Darwin Elevator, the first Dire Earth novel, and couldn’t really get into it. So, I was only slightly familiar with the concept of the series going in, but never felt like I missed anything. I’m happy to report that this could absolutely be read without having to read any of the other Dire Earth books first; I have a feeling there are some small moments of payoff for longtime fans of the series sprinkled throughout though. I’m always really impressed with books that are both standalone, and a part of a larger series like this. That takes some serious writing chops to pull off, which Jason M. Hough obviously appears to have. It is definitely half of a much bigger story, and ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. Thank god that Del Rey is publishing them less than a month apart. I think I would lose my mind if I had to wait much longer than that to finish this narrative. Del Rey, if you’re reading this, please send me a copy of Escape Velocity ASAP. I kind of need it. Injection Burn is out now, and the follow up Escape Velocity will be out June 27th. Skyler Luiken and his ragtag crew of scavengers, scientists, and brawlers have a new mission: a long journey to a distant planet where a race of benevolent aliens are held captive behind a cloud of destructive ships known as the Swarm Blockade. No human ships have ever made it past this impenetrable wall, and Skyler knows not what to anticipate when they reach their destination. Safe to say that the last thing he expects to find there is a second human ship led by the tough-as-nails Captain Gloria Tsandi. These two crews and their respective captains initially clash, but they will have to learn to work together when their mutual foe closes in around them and begins the outright destruction of their vessels along with any hope of a return to Earth.... Read more...Man of the Year, by Lou CoveJune 5, 2017“Howie is right: if we’re all going to get whacked, what matters is who is standing beside you when the universe speaks your name. And it matters that you stand with them.” Synopsis: In 1978 Jimmy Carter mediates the Camp David Accords, Fleetwood Mac tops charts with Rumours, Starsky fights crime with Hutch, and twelve-year-old Lou Cove is uprooted from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Salem, Massachusetts– a backwater town of witches, Puritans, and sea-captain wannabes. After his eighth move in a dozen years, Lou figures he should just resign himself to a teenage purgatory of tedious paper routes, school bullies, and unrequited lust for every girl he likes. Then one October morning an old friend of Lou’s father, free-wheeling (and free-loving) Howie Gordon arrives at the Cove doorstep from California with his beautiful wife Carly. Howie is everything Lou wants to be: handsome as a movie star, built like a god and in possession of an unstoppable confidence. Then, over Thanksgiving dinner, Howie drops a bombshell. Holding up an issue of Playgirl Magazine, he flips to the center and there he is, Mr. November in all his natural glory. Howie has his eye on becoming the next Burt Reynolds, and a wild idea for how to do it: win Playgirl’s Man of the Year. And he knows just who should manage his campaign. As Lou and Howie canvas Salem for every vote in town – little old ladies at bridge club, the local town witch, construction workers on break and everyone in between – Lou is forced to juggle the perils of adolescence with the pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Man of the Year is the improbable true story of Lou’s thirteenth year, one very unusual campaign, and the unexpected guest who changes everything. You simply must read this memoir. It was fantastic, and genuinely one of my favorite reads of the year. It’s endearing and thought-provoking, and a great conversation about the differing degrees of honesty and openness required in different relationships. Being a child of the mid eighties, and growing up in a tiny little (population ~2000) tourist trap meets hippie haven town in Northwest Arkansas in the nineties, I knew nothing of late seventies Salem, MA when I cracked the spine on this. My ignorance of the time period and the area, mixed with a killer synopsis established my initial intrigue, and the universal coming-of-age themes present in the narrative sucked me the rest of the way in. I ended up absorbing the book in a couple sittings. The cast of characters in the Cove family and extended family — as well as Lou’s childhood friends — are odd, vibrant and alive. Louis’ family and upbringing could not be more different than my own, but there are some things that are universal to all childhoods. As each event occurs in the story, I found myself comparing the reactions that my family would have had with the ones that Louis’ did. It’s great to read about people so different from myself and those I’m familiar with, but so similar in other ways. A handful of times throughout the book, late nineteen-seventies Salem is compared to the Salem of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s day by way of some quotes from him regarding the city he loathed, and characters mentioning him and his works. What a brilliant way to contrast the seventies conservative crackdown on “smut” that was sweeping the area (and the country) at the time, with the narrative witch hunt of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, as well as the more literal witch hunt that is nearly eponymously associated with the word Salem. It reads a like a first person novel, written from the perspective of a boy in his twelfth year. There is a tiny bit of unreliable narrator going on here as well, since a large portion of the story is about the goings on of the adults in Louis’s life, but told from a perspective that doesn’t quite yet understand that adult world. The hinting at the reality of each situation is handled with skill and finesse. Ultimately, it’s a story about Louis having an adventure, growing up, or rather being forced to confront the adult world and coming out the other side a changed person.... Read more...D’Arc, by Robert RepinoJune 2, 2017This sequel to Mort(e) picks up right where we left off and then propels itself forward. It feels like a few different genre novels married to each other: A western, a murder mystery, and an action/adventure story. I’ve always enjoyed that approach in speculative fiction. You take something fantasy or scifi, and write a story in that world from a different genre. I thought it did a great job building up a mystery, while expanding on the mythology and worldbuilding quite nicely. In some ways it’s also a coming of age novel; a moral tale about choosing your own path, and writing your own story. Repino’s writing is extremely clean and tight. It reads effortlessly, and never gets in the way. Simple declarative sentences lay it all out for the reader. When the story really starts to get going, it’s almost like the writing entirely disappears, and you’re just… in it. I have to applaud him for that. I’m not even sure how one accomplishes something like that, but it’s impressive. There was some fun closure for secondary and tertiary characters from the first novel, particularly Wawa. I really loved her arc in this. She was one of the better developed characters in Mort(e), so it was nice to see her get something good to chew on again in this one. The last third, and the conclusion to the story didn’t really work for me. Early on there were a few big questions that were set up, and a great antagonist built through his own POV chapters, but those questions were mostly sidestepped, and the antagonist just fizzled out. I suspect that there will be more novels that may resolve my questions, and in fact, there was quite a bit of setup for what may be coming next. I have to admit it sounds very interesting. The world really is ripe for more stories. All in all, it’s a fun continuation of the story that began in Mort(e), but it feels much less it’s own thing, and more an interstitial chapter in a continuing saga; something that needed to happen before the next part can occur. I’m still very excited for that next part though!... Read more...Void Star, by Zachary MasonMay 29, 2017I’m notoriously picky, and it’s hard to find something that checks every one of my boxes: worldbuilding, prose, characters, and story. Usually I’ll find something that hits 2 or 3 of them; a great story, written well, but with weak worldbuilding or characters. Or a top notch world, with vivid characters, but only serviceably written. Void Star nails them all. It’s true literary Speculative Fiction, and a rare find. It not only has that famous sense of wonder that only SF can do so well, but also elegant prose evidencing an author well acquainted with the great works of literary fiction, solid worldbuilding, an engaging story, and well developed characters that feel like they’ve genuinely lived their lives. It’s a novel of ideas, a hugely ambitious narrative, and a character novel all rolled into one. If elements of Neuromancer and The Diamond Age merged with an epic mythology poem and in the process became more than the sum of their parts, you would have Void Star. I’d call it post-cyberpunk, minus the noir element. There is a mystery present, but no tropey, down on his luck detective piecing it all together while chewing the scenery. Instead we have three main POVs, which build the narrative like three avalanches, accelerating as they accumulate, eventually converging violently and spiraling out in interesting and unexpected directions. The chapters are very short, often only five or six pages, seventy-seven chapters total in just under four hundred pages, which makes it really approachable. I would often sit down with not much time, intent on only reading a chapter or two, but the short chapters gave it a forward momentum that made it difficult to put down. The conclusion satisfies immensely, and I have a strong feeling that it’s even better on subsequent readings. If I didn’t have a few novels and novellas I still need to read before the Hugo vote this year, I would reread this one right now. I’m considering it a strong contender for the Hugo or Nebula awards next year. I do think it’s a little better suited for the Nebula though, as that award usually embodies novels with terrific prose. Mason’s prose has an inherent beauty to it, and is a joy to read. It is poetically descriptive in a clever, nebulous way. He describes only just enough to jumpstart your imagination, leaving the hard-edged details for the reader to incorporate into the world themselves. You meet the novel halfway. It makes it highly engaging. It’s an approach that can backfire if handled by a less steady hand, but it’s wonderfully executed here. To me it’s a little reminiscent of Jeff VanderMeer’s prose. The worldbuilding is so thorough: favelas that are nearly alive with their continually evolving construction by drone, layers of society and culture, poverty and wealth all clashing at their intersections, powerful corporations pulling strings, artificial intelligences that are as distant from us as we are to bacteria. It’s near(ish) far future, but the tech isn’t all state of the art. It’s presented in a much more realistic way; the way things have always been. You might have some tech that is cutting edge (your phone, or tablet, etc), but you still interact with other bits of technology that are nearing their obsolescence (maybe you drive an old carbureted pickup truck, or an antique motorcycle, maybe you use an ancient fax machine at work). In this world there is tech that is still far in the future for us, but to the characters using it, it’s a bit obsolete. This small detail makes all the difference in my suspension of disbelief as a reader, and makes this world that much more comprehensively thought out and impressive. I love novels that tell a huge, satisfying science fiction story in a relatable world like this. Highly recommended.... Read more...Little Sister, by Barbara GowdyMay 16, 2017“Get your own head straight before hanging around in someone else’s.” Little Sister has a setup that hooked me in the first handful of pages. There is a well crafted, subtle symmetry at play in this novel. The story is teeming with thematic intrigue, and these themes mirror each other in creative ways as the story progresses. You could describe it as a feedback loop of sorts; the matching elements bouncing off each other and informing different areas of the story, creating a prism that resolves as it all comes together. It’s masterfully done. I’d call it a summer literary thriller with a touch of magical realism, and a lot of substance. Our protagonist is a woman who never really got a chance to know herself. She’s been drifting through her own life as a passenger; never really taking an active role. She’s stuck in a lot of what I would call soft-traps: caring for her mentally deteriorating mother, running the family business: a movie theater that screens classic films, and then there’s her adequate (but never exciting) romantic relationship that she settled for after a string of bad ones. She has large choices to make, but she can’t see them yet. I really think it’s a novel about escapism, the many different ways we deal with and process grief, and what we can learn from each other if we could only walk a mile in their shoes. Reading between the lines a little, I also think it’s about how important fiction can be for our personal development. Instead of escaping into reality tv, soap operas, or novels, Rose’s escape is the main fantastical element of the story: during a string of summer thunderstorms she loses consciousness and finds herself inhabiting a different body. She has no control over this body, but feels and experiences everything that it does. These “episodes” as she calls them, have the feel of a mythological God toying with its creations. The woman she inhabits lives a much more exciting, soap operatic life, full of ups and downs that Rose has never experienced in her own life. She finds herself enraptured and confused, unsure whether she’s dreaming, losing her mind like her mother, or if something truly fantastic is happening. She becomes very invested in this other person, and begins a quest to confirm or deny this mystery woman’s existence, and regain her sanity. In addition to the main narrative, there is a secondary story that unfurls in Rose’s past, involving her sister and a tragic accident she feels partly responsible for. The prose is sober and clear; the story utterly captivating, and the characters well developed. There is a general sense of unease, making it suspenseful in the same way a good horror movie can be, without ever fully submerging into the horrific. For me, some of the main themes in Little Sister are reminiscent of the motifs of duality present in the best Christopher Priest novels, and Gowdy writes dialogue like a more reasonable DeLillo in his prime. Little Sister is out May 23rd from Tin House Books. ... Read more...We Did Porn, by Zak SmithMay 12, 2017“When death comes, it very often comes with eyes averted, and with interceding machinery.” I don’t think anyone who has read this book would argue that there isn’t a fierce and creative intelligence at work here. Zak Smith’s memoir of working in the dual capital-a industries of Adult entertainment and Art scene in NY is pretty scathing, and as honest feeling as a memoir can hope to be. It also paints the alt-porn industry, as well as the greater Adult film industry, as pretty much exactly what you’ve always imagined them to be: complicated as hell. Things are never, not ever, black and white. Shades of grey abound. I’ve read a few reviews of this book that spend most of their time talking about him specifically: He’s an asshole, or a misogynist, etc. All of which may or may not be true, I don’t really know enough to make that call, however, this isn’t a review of Zak as an individual, but of his book. I’m really not interested in an ad hominem angle. You have to separate the art from the individual. Look at George W. Bush for example, his paintings are just fucking adorable, and he’s literally a war criminal. Keep the individual separate from their art. It’s hard to do, but at worst it’s a good mental exercise, and at best it keeps you from being an asshole. I always take memoirs with a grain of salt anyway, because seriously, you have to be completely bonkers to believe everything in them. Memory is mostly fiction. Just get together with some old friends or family and talk about the time you… or the other time when so-and-so… and see how often your versions of truth agree with each other’s. “Give four art people a banana and they will say: It’s wonderfully yellow, it’s too yellow, it’s not yellow enough, I’m so glad it isn’t yellow, and then say it’s wonderfully squishy, it’s too squishy, it’s not squishy… and on and on until the banana gets so famous that they start getting paid to agree that the banana is yellow and good.” Onto the actual content: This book is well written. There are some absolutely gorgeous sentences, metaphors, and sentiments presented, and I really want this guy to write some novels, because I would read them all. His published art project relating to Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow aside, you can tell that Zak Smith’s literary influences swing heavily toward the postmodern side of things. I’m guessing that David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith, and Hunter S. Thompson were all influential in the intended direction for this book. This is basically a three year slice-of-life character based story on those in the alt-porn industry in Los Angeles and New York from 06 – 08. Everyone’s names are kind of changed, and supposedly details have been altered and swapped around and shared to make it not so obvious who is who for those that are familiar with these real life people. If you’re like me, you’re not very familiar with porn stars, but there are a few stories in here that broke into the mainstream a little, that you’ll most likely recognize. If you are familiar with porn stars, you’ll have a good time trying to match these fake names with their “real” fake names. It seems like he really wanted to give another angle on the people involved in the porn business. Something different from what’s already out there. There is so much misinformation, bad information, and downright obfuscation on the subject, from a lot of different camps. Pornographers have been very unfairly pushed into categories of sluts, whores, and victims (the women), and misogynist abusers (the men). Well, if I have to point out just how sexist that demarcation is, then you probably should read this book, or maybe something more along the lines of The Woman That Never Evolved, by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, or really just any Feminist writing (please just make sure it’s not Tumblr feminism, go for the legit stuff). Not to say that there aren’t abusers, or victims involved in the Porn industry, I’m sure there are, and probably a lot. But again, things are never black and white like that. Between the memoir bits there are a few sections with scans of his artwork; mostly drawings and paintings. Personally, I really like his art, but completely understand why someone else wouldn’t. He spends some time contrasting the art world with the porn world, drawing similarities and differences among the two. He’s very aware that both industries are kind of bullshit. He also seems very aware of how incredibly lucky he is to be able to make a living from his artwork. It has one of the best ever descriptions of how bizarre the middle-zeroes were, which I think was intended to read as a “look at how strange things were then in comparison to how much better they are now” vibe, but in hindsight it works very well as an illustration of the starting point for exactly when our current issues (Trump, “alt facts”, not agreeing on objective reality, etc) began and stem from. It’s pretty disheartening that things seem only to have gone downhill from there on: “I’m not sure future generations, comfortable with all the names in their history books, will appreciate the degree to which, in the mid-zeroes, everything even remotely resembling public life in America felt like a crudely mounted shadow-puppet play smoke-screening some unspeakable underlying soul-death.” I love what this had to say about sexual abuse, and abuse of all kinds. There are a disproportionate amount of porn stars that have experienced some kind of abuse in their past. And if you’re like me, you have a hard time understanding why anyone who had been abused would want to be in the porn business, especially in some of the darker or more kinked corners of it that more closely resemble their abuse. But, it really makes a lot of sense when it’s all laid out. This was one of my favorite sections of the book. Really, anyone who chooses a life on the fringes or edges of what’s considered mainstream or normal society is utterly fascinating to me. There are all kinds of people, and just because the majority of people behave in one way doesn’t necessarily mean that way is right, and all others are wrong. Again with the black and white reference. “Things that are supposed to make ordinary people happy or sad are molehills in the shadow of a morbid, thousand-mile-high monument to suffering and shame at the center of the city of the brain. “The abused person then not only wants to not be abused–but she also wants to try to set up experiences of pleasure that equal or exceed the mental and emotional peak of pain that, otherwise, will be the highest and clearest peak in the history of her feelings. “So she goes to the place the heavy bad thing came from–the sex place–and tries to see if there is a heavy good thing there, too. Because nothing else has that weight. You can’t erase pain from life, but you can get enough pleasure that life seems worth living anyway.” I know quite a lot of people who are sexual assault survivors, probably more than I realize. It’s a widespread problem, and the victim blaming platitudes that I hear constantly from politicians and religious leaders infuriate me to no end. It appears that this double standard also pisses Zak off, and I can appreciate that. There are some sections in here talking specifically about the ways that politicians (esp. those on the right), and religious leaders have perpetuated and exacerbated the cycle of abuse through their rhetoric and actions. It’s very satisfying to hear someone lay it out so clearly. In conclusion, a lot of this book is pretty vulgar, but then again it is about pornography and those in the industry. I think it’s important to talk about these things in our society rather than just push them off to the side and pretend they don’t exist. They exist. These people exist. And yes, they are people. I think the whole point of this book is to maybe force people to acknowledge this world that he’s familiar with. It’s real and we should talk about it. ... Read more...Hostage, by Guy DelisleMay 9, 2017I’m convinced that graphic novels are the perfect form for historical accounts and memoirs. Like film it’s partly a visual medium, but it’s free from the tropes, narrative boundaries, and language of film. It’s also firmly in the realm of literature, but free from the usual trappings of that medium as well. It has all of the strengths of both, and few of their weaknesses. The story can be presented in a simpler language, straightforward and raw, and this often gives it a lot more emotional impact. In several ways historical accounts feels more real, and more personal when presented in panels. There’s a long history of doing just that: Persepolis, Maus, and last year’s March for example were all exemplary, and Hostage belongs right alongside them. Delisle has done admirable work capturing the disorientation of Christophe’s hostage experience. The language barrier between him and his captors keeps him entirely in the dark as to why he’s been kidnapped, where he’s being held, what the status of negotiations (if any) for his release are, etc. His world is reduced to 4 walls and a ceiling. The reader is kept in the dark right there along with Christophe, experiencing his story as he tells it. Noises and events occur outside of his view and understanding, and he’s left only to guess what they are; constructing his greater world from fantasy. His mind escapes through his love of military history, as he attempts to lose himself in some of the great battles of Napoleon and the American Civil War. The illustration uses subtlety and simplicity to emphasize how slight the differences in Christophe’s day-to-day life become while in captivity. For example, the thin light moving across the wall shows how his perception of time has been drastically reduced. It’s absence after he’s moved to a more tightly controlled area, is devastating. This isn’t said, but subtly shown. There’s a story unfolding in the words, and more detail unfolding in the illustrations. They meld together, and create the greater story where they overlap. It’s fantastically well done. Occasionally a new person feeds him, or forgets to, or leaves him uncuffed at night. Sometimes he’s allowed a shower, sometimes his captors offer him a cigarette. The most heartbreaking part of this for me was the hyper excitement that Christophe experienced at the most basic of pleasures; things I take for granted every day of my life. Finding some Garlic in a storeroom that he’s kept in, and eating it after months of the same soup and bread day after day puts him into a state of euphoric bliss unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. That hit me really hard. When your life consists of being handcuffed to a radiator for months, any little deviation from the norm is the highest peak imaginable. At one point he’s given an omelette, and nearly forgets that he’s a captive, it’s so indescribably delicious to him. Christophe obviously lived to tell his story to Delisle, but I’ll leave that resolution up to you to discover for yourselves. I will say that it’s quite a nerve wracking ordeal, and the most thrilling part of this book. I highly recommend checking it out. Hostage is available from Drawn & Quarterly. ... Read more...Not the End of the World, by Christopher BrookmyreMay 6, 2017A fundamentalist Christian TV mogul, an ex-pornstar, an awkwardly oversized Scottish photographer, a cop who doesn’t want the job, and a failed abortion clinic bomber walk into a foreign distribution event for American B-movies in Los Angeles at the tail end of the twentieth century. That setup alone sold me on this one, and it all plays out to hilarious effect. The fact that it’s written by the brilliant Scottish crime fiction/satirist Christopher Brookmyre, pushed it to the top of my to-be-read pile. Seriously, this writer is completely unknown in the US, and that needs to change. I’m impressed with the depth of character development present here, especially in the antagonist(s). Most crime fiction I’ve read had fairly cookie cutter characters, or comically one dimensional bad guys. But Brookmyre took some of the people I despise the most, and made me empathize with them to some extent. That’s good writing. It’s still abundantly clear where they’ve gone wrong, but you can see why they made/make the decisions that they do, however misguided. In our protagonists, particularly in the retiring pornstar, he’s done a wonderful job of demystifying a profession that is generally demonized. And the writing during the sections dealing with her past, internal conflicts, and struggles are some of the best in the novel. I tend to read a couple books at a time, usually one novel, and one non-fiction book on some subject that I’m interested in. I unintentionally started reading this one around the same time as We Did Porn, by Zak Smith, not knowing that the two books would inform each other splendidly while reading them together. Both dealt with the pornography industry, Los Angeles culture, fundamentalist Christians, and the republican party at length. I’ve heard others say that this book came off as too preachy for their tastes, and I can understand that sentiment, as the story was probably a bit too heavy on the wish-fulfillment for a general audience, but it satisfied my inner liberal, socialist, atheist, feminist, godless heathen heart to no end. ... Read more...The Somnambulist’s Dreams, by Lars Boye JerlachApril 30, 2017There is something tragically romantic about lighthouses: The structures themselves stand watchful and solitary, a beacon of warning and assistance to those at sea. The broad scope of protection proffered by one individual toward so many others. It makes the profession of lighthouse keeper appear selfless, but in my mind it’s more symbiotic than that. I imagine a lighthouse keeper as someone who strives to be useful, but requires isolation the way others require companionship. Introspective in a world that forces continual socialization; the job facilitating a way for them to achieve fulfillment while maintaining the functional distance they inherently need. I imagine them as superheroes in a way. Working alone in the dark for the betterment of humanity, but if they’re really being truthful, they do it for themselves more than anyone else. I’m obviously taking a lot of liberties here, but it’s how I’ve always imagined that world and those who inhabit it. As far as I understand, modernity has mostly removed the need for lighthouse keepers, relocating that profession to an era of the past. This only adds another layer to the romance and tragedy for me. Basically, this is a long winded explanation of why I am inexorably drawn to stories featuring lighthouses, or lighthouse keepers, and what a story this one was. We have two main points of view nested within each other: A third person narrative of a lighthouse keeper on a particularly cold night, reading a parcels worth of letters written by his somnambulant predecessor, each detailing a dream experienced during his sleepwalk events. These personal accounts are where the bulk of the story is contained, and in my opinion, where it really shines. The third person interludes between the dreams felt unnecessarily repetitive to me. I wanted something more introspective from these sections. However, I do believe the context in which they reside would change on a subsequent reading, so that may be a rash judgement on my part as a reader. The story itself has some strong elements of Paul Auster’s style of storytelling. Mystery upon mystery. Or maybe it’s more along the lines of Haruki Murakami’s fantastical realism. In his dreams, the somnambulist momentarily inhabits the bodies of others (or sometimes Poe’s raven Nevermore). Some of these characters are historically known to him, others are known to the lighthouse keeper reading the somnambulist’s accounts, and others still, aren’t known by either (but should be apparent to the reader of this book itself). There are a few fun surprises here as you become aware of who is being inhabited, and the way that these characters relate to each other. The somnambulist is unsure whether his dreams are genuine experiences, premonitions, or merely dreams. It’s really a clever story structure; each additional dream sequence adding to the mystery and intrigue as the story unfolds toward its conclusion. The writing style took some time to become accustomed to. The whole book is double line spaced, there are almost no first line indentations, and the author has an on-again/off-again relationship with paragraphs. It feels like a stylistic choice, and I’ve seen it before, but I’m still unsure of the reasoning. The Somnambulist’s Dreams is postmodern literature with a capital P. Which I’m all about, but have to be in the right kind of mood to properly enjoy. When it comes to postmodernist writing like this that is more ontological, paradoxical, etc, I find it often helps me if I know that that is what I’m getting myself into from the start. The gorgeous cover artwork and synopsis communicate this quite nicely. Every thread may not pull itself together into a pretty little bow in the end, but that’s part of the appeal; it’s the journey, not so much the destination with this kind of novel. I enjoyed this for the type of presence it cultivated while being read, not so much the definitive conclusion or ending that a traditional story builds toward. That’s not to say that The Somnambulist’s Dreams doesn’t conclude in a satisfactory way, it does. It’s just that it’s a bit of paradox in itself, which to me can be infinitely more interesting when it’s handled with grace like this.... Read more...The Survivors, by Nick FarmerApril 26, 2017“Do I miss it? I dunno, man, maybe. I feel like everything before the sleep was a lie, and now I’ve woken up, in more ways than one. But being awake is scary.” The Survivors is a clever viral outbreak story that takes a unique, layered point of view on survival of the fittest. On the surface there’s a straightforward tale of post-apocalyptic existence at play, but there is also a lot between the lines about transhumanism, genetic modification, living rather than just being alive, fear motivating division motivating hatred, etc. It’s a great story, and the novelette form is the perfect length for it to unfold in. Personally, the thing I love about short fiction is that when the word count is only so long, instead of filling in every last detail, writers have the freedom to tell a smaller, more human story, while hinting toward the greater fictional universe. This lets the reader’s imagination fill in the gaps and personalize their experience, effectively meeting the text halfway. I think this serves to kickstart our sense of wonder, which is the root of speculative fiction, and why short fiction has always been SF’s bread and butter. It’s that “What if…” that gets the ball rolling, and helps us to imagine. In The Survivors, the main “what if” questions are: What if the infected were the survivors, while still representing a mortal danger to the uninfected? What if it were preferable to be infected? What if there were desirable side effects? This novelette is a jumping off point for those kinds of questions. Part of the fun of post apocalypse stories, is the fantasy that everything could change in an instant. All of the daily drags, work, responsibilities, etc could evaporate and you could live a more exciting, adventurous life full of danger and genuine struggle. I think that a lot of us are so removed from the reality of living to survive, that we almost crave it. For most of us in the western world, what we call work barely resembles anything physically demanding. We sit in front of screens, and move pixels around, which somehow corresponds to a paycheck, but it’s all virtual; we aren’t really doing anything. I think this can sometimes leave us rather unfulfilled physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally. In turn, we crave some adventure, or maybe just something more “real”, something that ties into our mammalian core, and what’s more real than the struggle to survive? This is probably why we go camping, or hiking, why we ride motorcycles, or partake in other risky activities. It’s also most likely why we tend to love apocalyptic fiction in all its varieties. It’s a thrill to read. Something else I want to touch on is the absolutely gorgeous graphic design both outside and inside this book. Each chapter heading has a visual progression that changes as you get closer to the conclusion. Little details like this really make a physical copy a worthwhile thing in an age of easy digital books. Farmer first came to my attention through his work as the creator of the Belter conlang for The Expanse TV series. If you’re not familiar with Belter, it’s a creole language created specifically for the Syfy adaptation of the book series by James S.A. Corey. It has a surprisingly rich history built into every word and phrase. He has been very active in the online community of fans who latched onto Belter, often answering questions, adding to the Belter lexicon, and correcting usage from his twitter account. There was obviously a remarkable amount of thought and creativity that went into the creation of Belter, and I’d suggest looking into some of the podcasts and videos featuring Nick explaining the process. It’s fascinating stuff. When I heard that he was writing fiction, I had high hopes that his output would be as good as his conlang creation. So I’m very glad to see that Farmer is not only gifted as a linguist, but is also showing quite a bit of talent and promise as a writer. His prose is clean and straightforward, the pacing smooth, and it’s a well structured story. I’ll definitely be picking up his future writing. The world has changed. So have the Survivors. When Daniel wakes up from a disease he never knew he had, he finds a nearly empty New York City, inhabited by a small number of people, who, like him, were infected, yet lived. They are biologically immortal, yet as carriers of the deadliest pathogen in human history, they are feared and reviled by their uninfected neighbors. Under constant threat of attack, Daniel and this new community are looking for answers about what happened, and why. ... Read more...High-Rise, by J.G. BallardApril 26, 2017A disturbing/enthralling allegory – class struggle, self deception, and the animalistic brutality concealed just below the surface of human civilization. I knew of Ballard from the new-wave SF of the late 60s / early 70s, particularly Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions compilations, wherein he’s described – by Ellison in his story introduction – as one of the few mainstream lit crossovers coming from the world of speculative fiction. He is an eloquently gifted writer, straightforward but poetically descriptive at the same time. High-Rise is one of those few short novels that could be the topic of a very concise thesis, that ultimately clocks a longer page count than its source material. There is a simple story of ascent/descent at play, but quite a bit of expressive analogy hiding between the lines. There are three main characters, each representing a differing class; lower, middle and upper. This isn’t immediately apparent, but becomes clear through their differing motivations and desires as society in the High-Rise begins to break down. Each of their stories play out to their logical, disturbing conclusions.... Read more...Poems, by Iain Banks and Ken MacLeodApril 23, 2017Unless someone seriously goes against his publicly (and hopefully legally) stated wishes, there will only ever be 30 Iain Banks books, including this one, his last and only posthumously published work. It combines his personally selected poems, mostly unpublished, with the poetry of his friend and colleague Ken MacLeod. Now, I have to be up-front here: I know very little about, and have a hard time understanding poetry. I know enough to be fairly certain that my lack of knowledge concerning the form probably shares a strong causal relationship with my difficulty in appreciating it. I say this just to be clear. I think that like most folks who pick this one up, I read it more as a fan of Iain Banks, than as someone who knows literally anything about poetry. The prose in his novels has often been described as poetic, which seems correct to me. He had quite a way with words, and his writing has a lyrical feel to it. Reading these poems kind of feels like looking at his novels through some sort of obfuscation lens. If you’re a fan of Banks, you’ll recognize some familiar locations and some themes that are obviously his, and I can assure you that the same wit, snark, and clever antagonism at work in his novels bleeds through in his poetry as well. The plot is stripped, the characters are simpler, but there’s still a story at play in most of them, and his signature lyrical prose is ever present. What I can’t say for sure is if these poems have any merit to someone who is either unfamiliar with Banks, or themselves familiar with poetry. My entirely subjective, layman’s opinion is that I enjoyed several of them, and the rest were either not great, or went completely over my head. I would really only recommend this for die hard Banks’ completists. Otherwise, you can probably skip it and be just fine. Apologies to Ken MacLeod, I didn’t actually read your section in this collection. I am just not interested in poetry enough to want to read it for any reason other than already being interested in the author’s work, and wishing to read literally everything they’ve written. In the extremely thin chance that you are reading this: Hi there! I hope you understand and take no offense. Also, thank you for suggesting the changes made to Use of Weapons, we all owe you big time for that one.... Read more...Ethics in the Real World, by Peter SingerApril 21, 2017A wonderful collection of short essays, aimed toward every day people. Each designed to introduce some difficult ethical questions to those that may have never been forced to confront them in their day-to-day lives. Peter Singer, photo credit: Tony Philips The only failure of this book is, in retrospect, actually a success, it being inherent to the function of what the book set out to achieve; the essays are too brief, and as a result, often too black and white. The author, a utilitarian, undoubtedly understood that this was unavoidable, and chose to sacrifice a more complete, complex examination of each ethical quandary, in favor of reaching those most likely in need of asking these questions, by keeping the essays concise and to the point. Easily digestible in a few minutes. Demonstrably, this could be seen as the more ethical choice according to utilitarianism, and with it Peter Singer has shown how legitimate his commitment to living an ethical life really is. The essays really are perfect for reading while you’re waiting in line at a bank, or waiting to meet some friends at a restaurant, etc. Bite size big questions about the world and how we fit into, both as a species, and individually. And you can read them whenever you have a spare 3-4 minutes. It’s fantastic! Since finishing this collection, I’ve started following Singer online and reading his essays, published fairly frequently on Project Syndicate and various other websites. They’re all very insightful, and bring up all kinds of fun questions and dilemmas to ponder. I think it’s good for us to have to think occasionally about things that might make us uncomfortable. It helps to free us of our various cages, protective barriers, ideologies, and comfort zones that we’ve constructed around ourselves over the years. It’s good to stretch those bonds at least a little, so we can test them and see if they’re still useful. ... Read more...Relief Map, by Rosalie KnechtApril 18, 2017This was a such a great story, with a cast of characters that I swear I grew up with. It brought back a lot of memories of the shadier aspects of being a teenager in a tiny town, and how much can change for you in one summer when you’re young and haven’t really done anything terrible yet. The characters were mostly teenagers, but I wouldn’t call this YA fiction. It’s more of a coming-of-age story set within a powder keg of a small town, featuring universal human themes. The prose was clear and descriptive, which really brought the story to life. The style here is reminiscent of Kent Haruf’s Plainsong, and his favorite location of Holt Colorado in some ways. Although, it’s entirely separated from that geographic location. The main idea being that this city and these characters are of that same rich, multi-layered caliber. I have to admit that Tin House has quickly become one of my favorite publishers. They tend to publish these very human stories that you don’t usually find from the big 5. Everything they publish feels like it’s been personally curated for me, and their cover design in consistently on-point.... Read more...Reality Hunger, by David ShieldsApril 14, 2017You’ll usually find this in the literary criticism section of a book shop, and having now read it, I can’t exactly argue with that placing, but I can say that it would also be right at home in many other sections: cultural anthropology, sociology, memoir, philosophy, history, poetry, or even general fiction (if I’m feeling particularly objective). It’s a lot of things in one, which means that the book itself fully embodies the crux of its own argument, to get all postmodern on you, which simply put is: the distinction between fiction and non-fiction is not as black and white as we think. Or written another way, and quoting directly from the book: “Writing is writing. Every act of composition is an act of fiction.” I picked this book up and put it back down several times before eventually breaking down and buying it. I kept bumping into it at my favorite used bookshop, thumbing through it and reading little bits here and there, finding myself confused by the format — was it a book of quotes or a book of random thoughts? — eventually judging it too odd and putting it back on the shelf. The next time I came back, it would be gone (of course!), and I found myself missing it, getting what I would consider the opposite of buyer’s remorse, wishing that I had taken it home with me when I had the chance. Eventually, of course, another copy would show up on the shelves and I would start the whole process over again. Eventually that Chip Kidd cover won me over and I took it home. This is basically the postmodern literary equivalent of building a song out of samples. I was about halfway through before I realized that a huge chunk of this book is sourced from elsewhere, remixed, modified, recombined, and used interstitially between genuine writing done by Shields himself to tie this whole crazy opus together. It’s brilliant and absurd and since it’s sourced from hundreds of different people, it speaks in a lot of contradictory absolutes about art, writing, reality, “reality”, memory, copyright, fiction, identity, persona, subjectivity, the nature of creativity, etc. It contains a lot of things I agree with, a lot that I don’t, and a lot that I’m not so sure about anymore. Whatever it is, it’s deeply misunderstood. Read a few reviews and you’ll find people who hate it with a passion or ecstatically adore it. You won’t find too many in the middle. Which honestly, is the exact kind of reaction you want something to evoke in others. Otherwise, it’s just mediocre right? Anyway, I think those people with intense opinions on it are thinking way too literally, and might benefit from the practice of trying to hold two opposing opinions in their heads at the same time, and mulling them over. I think what this book really is, is a jumping off point to start a conversation about what is real, what is fake, and why ultimately, maybe it really doesn’t matter that much, and maybe we should stop classifying things and let art be art. Let journalism handle facts, and let both our non-fiction and fiction pieces of art just be.. pieces of art. Maybe we don’t need to worry about which box to put things in anymore. Maybe the process of telling a “true” story injects it with fiction anyway. Or maybe none of that too. Or maybe — and this is more realistic here — just some of it. Pick and choose, etc. It would be a mistake to read this quickly, which is easy to do since it’s so short, and presented in little bite size chunks. There’s just too much going on here to rush through it. It’s a genuine book of ideas. I had to take a lot of breaks — short and long — to give myself time to process the concepts. I took a lot of notes to organize my thoughts; trying to get to the bottom of what I was feeling about what was being said. If I came across something that really got my thinking, I threw the book down and went for a walk to mull it over a little. Or maybe I would just put it down for a few days, read something else, and come back to it when I was really interested again in the questions it was posing; when the ideas were pulling me back in. Paraphrasing, of course, but some of those questions were: What sort of responsibility should a memoirist have to literal facts? Can we actually trust our memory enough to state anything we remember as fact? How much truth is there in fiction? How much fiction do we allow in non-fiction? If fiction uses lies to tell the truth, can memoir be just another literary genre, soaked in the author’s subjective experience, but the truth of that experience used only as a means to illustrate something more important? If the point of memoir is that more important bit, does it actually have to be married to truth at all? Just what is being “created” in creative non-fiction? Who owns ideas? Do we necessarily always need Form and Story and Narrative and the other usual pieces of storytelling? Is the space between truth and fiction actually more interesting anyway? I don’t really have a conclusion on this. Like I said earlier, the book is a jumping off point, and I’m still kind of lost in all of the ideas it presented. If you’re interested in any of those questions, I’d suggest you check it out, it’s really quite bizarre, and I think you’ll enjoy it a lot.... Read more...Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, book 6), by James S.A. CoreyApril 12, 2017Let me start by saying, if you’re 6 books into an ongoing series like this, than I’m going to assume you’re in it for the long haul, and I think you’ll enjoy the hell out of this one too. James S.A. Corey (Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) refer to their Expanse series as 3 duologies and a trilogy (forthcoming books 7,8 & 9) to cap it all off. Leviathan Wakes/Caliban’s War tell a fairly contained story about the protomolecule in the style of noir and political thriller respectively. Abaddon’s Gate/Cibola Burn deal with the expansion out into deeper space as a ghost story/western, but Nemesis Games/Babylon’s Ashes really read like two halves of the same larger novel. They are much more deeply intertwined than any of the other sets in the series. If each novel is a different genre married into the science fiction backdrop, then I’d call Nemesis Games a survival tale, and Babylon’s Ashes a great russian tragedy a la Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. Gone is the simple narrative structure of the first five books, each — excluding Leviathan Wakes — with four alternating POV characters. Instead we’ve got nineteen unique points of view. But if you’ve made it this far, you’re ready for that kind of complexity, you’re already intimately familiar with most of these characters. Holden, Pa, and Filip are the main ones, but we get lots of tertiary views on the action and plot. I really love this change to the structure, and can’t help but think that The Expanse television series influenced it in some way. It does feel more like the way that a TV show handles narrative. We get a perspective from nearly every main and secondary character still living, and some new ones as well. This opens up the world even more, something that this series has done so well along the way. The main story involves the aftermath of the events of Nemesis Games, and how those events affect everyone, both inside and outside of the Sol system from here on. The Free Navy is causing havoc all over the place and has essentially taken over several large belter settlements. Holden and crew are caught in the middle, working with Avasarala and Fred, trying to do what they can to clean things up and bring Marcos down. Meanwhile, a splintered remnant of the MCRN is working in the shadows, silently preparing for what’s to come. And don’t forget the even larger threat looming on the periphery: whatever killed the protomolecule makers. It’s a sad story, ultimately a tragedy, but there are several threads woven throughout that are paving a path to redemption for some, and death and destruction or others. It all makes for a terrific story, and moves at a breakneck pace toward a very tight conclusion. One that comes together so smoothly in fact, that a lot of people have been confused, thinking this was the end of the entire series. Of course, that isn’t the case, but I think you could approach this as the penultimate end to some of the earlier narratives begun all the way back in the first novel. Call it a semicolon; the conclusion of the series to follow.... Read more...The Hidden Dimensions, by Alex LanierApril 10, 2017This one was a trip, like a flu induced fever dream. Storywise think early David Cronenberg body horror + Alice in Wonderland + Saga + The Boondocks + 70s Sexploitation. I’m very surprised this isn’t being published by Image Comics, who are currently in the middle of a creator-owned renaissance of adult themed, fantastic storytelling. This would fit right in over there. The story starts out with some great Science Fiction intrigue and escalates as the characters learn the darker truth lurking beneath the surface of their hometown and their own personal past. They find themselves in stranger and stranger situations while journeying through realms of reality previously unknown to them. There are some cleverly subtle undertones that highlight the kind of marginalization / abuse of populations that can occur when there’s too much power in the hands of too few. I’d recommend this for fans of Saga, Sex Criminals, and adult themed cosmic horror narratives. I don’t want to be too specific with story details, because that would ruin half the fun of discovering this for yourselves. But be warned, it is definitely a Mature comic with a capital M. The dialogue can be a little clunky at times, and the characters are fairly one dimensional (albeit, very imaginative and unique) but this does read like the first several issues of an ongoing story, so there’s room for them to grow and become more fully realized as the story continues. Lanier’s artwork is the real standout here. It’s fantastic, grotesque and disturbing at times, and done in a truly unique style that I haven’t seen before. It modulates effortlessly between hyperreal and a colorful caricaturesque style. I really love it. He plays with the framing a lot, rendering scenes using angles that are so beautifully cinematic, they feel like they’re drawn through virtual camera lenses. There is also a lot of work here that emphasizes what can only be done so well in the graphic novel medium. The Hidden Dimensions can be previewed / purchased on Alex Lanier’s site here.... Read more...My Struggle Book 1, by Karl Ove KnausgaardApril 5, 2017 Memoirs are fascinating to me, because we know how truly fallible memory is. It is demonstrably unreliable. It’s completely insane that eyewitnesses and line-ups are such a fundamental part of our criminal justice system. But the cool thing about memoirs is that it really doesn’t matter if it’s a legitimate telling of events or not. I think that David Shields said it best in his book Reality Hunger: A Manifesto: “Memoir is a genre in need of an informed readership. It’s a misunderstanding to read a memoir as though the writer owes the reader the same record of literal accuracy that is owed in newspaper reporting. Memoirs belong to the category of literature, not journalism. What the memoirist owes the reader is the ability to persuade him or her that the narrator is trying, as honestly as possible, to get to the bottom of the experience at hand.” This is literature, it’s a story, it has characters, etc but for Knausgård it’s all about form: “For several years I had tried to write about my father, but had gotten nowhere, probably because the subject was too close to my life, and thus not so easy to force into another form, which of course is a prerequisite for literature. That is its sole law: everything has to submit to form. If any of literature’s other elements are stronger than form, such as style, plot, theme, if any of these overtake form, the result suffers. That is why writers with a strong style often write bad books. That is also why writers with strong themes so often write bad books. Strong themes and styles have to be broken down before literature can come into being. It is this breaking down that is called ‘writing.’ Writing is more about destroying than creating.” The characters have the same names as real people, and the story is based around Knausgård’s recollection of events, however accurate/inaccurate they may be, but these events, and this story was broken down and rebuilt to serve the form of literature. And it is really, really good stuff. It took about 20-30 pages until the prose clicked for me, and then it became difficult to put down. I found myself coming back to it again and again, “Oh, I’ll just read another page or two while I’m waiting for such-and-such.” I think it’s something to do with the method that Knausgård uses to jump around in his story. He’ll write toward an event, we know what the event is, we know that it’s important. And then the Karl Ove ‘character’ in the story will think back to something, and we’re instantly back with him, experiencing a different event. We eventually forget that we’re in the past-past, and that’s right when he goes back to just before that event that’s coming up. The story progresses with some forward trajectory, but skips right over the event, to 20 years later, and he describes the room in which he’s sitting writing his second novel. Its marvelous. The story itself is simple, brutally honest, and relatable. It’s also very foreign for me, having known very little about life in Norway until this small glimpse has expanded my knowledge slightly. It’s the first thing I’ve read that I would count as both literature, and a comfortable, easy read.... Read more...The Collapsing Empire, by John ScalziApril 3, 2017Scalzi is accessible science fiction, and this is Scalzi (the storyteller) at his best. He’s improved at structuring a story over the years, and The Collapsing Empire is more evidence to support that claim. You can tell how much fun he’s having writing a space opera in a universe entirely separate from the Old Man’s War series. My one complaint would be with Scalzi’s prose, and only because I know he can do better than this. See the codas at the end of Redshirts, or the novella The Sagan Diary for perfect examples of just how good his prose can be when he really goes for it. Very much the first book in a series, The Collapsing Empire resolves the main plot expertly while simultaneously paving the way for a lot more stories that will undoubtedly follow. This series really feels like it has legs. There is a lot of stuff going on here, and I need at least 3-4 more books in this universe. This is basically Scalzi’s Dune. Several powerful houses competing for power and resources, an Emperox (Emperor) that reigns from a planet called Hub, which resides at the epicenter of The Flow, a trade network of one-directional interstellar wormholes that humanity found a thousand years ago, religion and politics intertwined, etc. Using The Flow humanity branched out into the galaxy and started living in some areas that were not so hospitable. Each colony is dependent on the others for resources they do not have available locally. So what happens if this network doesn’t always function the way it has in the past? What happens if Hub isn’t always where all paths in The Flow lead? With the exception of a fantastic interlude, the story is told through the point of view of three main characters (and mostly through dialogue): a representative of a powerful family aboard a trade ship, a Flow physicist living in the ass end of the empire, and the new Emperox who didn’t ask for, and doesn’t want the job or the responsibilities it entails. The allusions to the impending issue of Climate Change are apparent, but not so heavily handed that it becomes preachy. I enjoyed this book a lot, and I’ll definitely be checking out the next ones in the series. Still, I know that Scalzi can write more elegant prose, and it would drastically improve his novels if he did. Our universe is ruled by physics and faster than light travel is not possible — until the discovery of The Flow, an extra-dimensional field we can access at certain points in space-time that transport us to other worlds, around other stars. Humanity flows away from Earth, into space, and in time forgets our home world and creates a new empire, the Interdependency, whose ethos requires that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war — and a system of control for the rulers of the empire. The Flow is eternal — but it is not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well, cutting off worlds from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that The Flow is moving, possibly cutting off all human worlds from faster than light travel forever, three individuals — a scientist, a starship captain and the Empress of the Interdependency — are in a race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.... Read more...Iain M. Banks (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), by Paul KincaidApril 2, 2017A concise yet comprehensive literary analysis on the works of the late Iain Banks. Kincaid’s writing functions primarily through illustrating and deconstructing the thematic lineage and interplay between Banks’ novels published with and without the M, but also delves into the deeper political and societal backdrop in which Banks’ wrote and lived. The bits of history that Kincaid feels influenced Banks are particularly illuminating for myself, someone who knows little of Scottish or UK life, especially concerning the 70s and 80s. Not as obviously praising of Banks’ writing as Simone Caroti’s The Culture Series of Iain M. Banks: A Critical Introduction, and in a lot of ways it does feel like a response to it. Caroti called for a need to examine Banks’ entire catalog of writing, not just the M or non-M work as had previously been done. Kincaid’s book takes exactly this approach, but with an emphasis on his science fiction work. It is also a much more balanced examination of the strengths and weaknesses at play in the novels. That being said, the rabid Banks fan inside of me enjoyed Caroti’s book quite a bit more because it more closely aligned with my own reading and interpretation of Banks; which is of course an admittedly subjective, masturbatory reason. Caroti’s book started a new conversation; addressing the ways in which Banks had been grossly ignored, misunderstood, and misinterpreted in literary circles and criticism over the years. It posited a much better interpretation of Banks’ work than had previously existed. I’m please to see that it appears Caroti’s contribution had it’s desired effect, because this continuation of the conversation seems to have benefited greatly from it. Gone are the misreadings and general sloppy analogies in the pre-Caroti analyses. Of course, as a result, Kincaid is much more objective and more in line with a standard literary analysis, which is more intellectually pleasing, but it remains thoughtful to the corrections and additions that Caroti made previously. The bulk of this analysis deals with Banks’ writing chronologically, but also takes into account the order in which the novels were written, rewritten and released. Since so many of them — the Culture novels specifically — were written very early and then reworked later in Banks’ career before being published, this method helps to trace the evolution of themes and thoughts throughout the novels as they changed and adapted. There are quite a few biographical details and quotes interspersed throughout, which I always welcome, especially considering that there is still no extant proper biography on Banks. The book then comes to a close with an illuminating interview between Banks and Jude Roberts, who received her P.h.d. on The Culture series. This book is something I’ve been waiting a long, long time for, and I am extremely pleased that Kincaid has not only continued the conversation on Banks’ work and legacy that Caroti jump started, but also added so much to it in the process. This is a fantastic addition to the Modern Masters of Science Fiction series and I look forward to seeing where we go from here. Personally, I feel that Banks’ work needs to endure the test of time, and welcome future writings on him as a subject. Paul’s book is available to purchase from the University of Illinois Press, and will be released on May 30th, 2017.... Read more...Borne, by Jeff VanderMeerMarch 28, 2017VanderMeer’s writing is engaging, difficult, and worth the effort required to read. It takes me a little longer to finish his novels than I feel like it should. It’s the kind of writing that makes me a better reader. It’s challenging and uncomfortable. Something about his prose makes me have to go back and reread sentences to make sure I understood what was being said. It reminds me of William Gibson’s writing in that way. Of course, VanderMeer and Gibson write in entirely different styles, but I have to do the same thing with Gibson novels as well. I kind of love it. There is a lot going on in each sentence, and I feel that it gives his novels tremendous reread value. Onto Borne specifically. First off, whoever designed this cover is brilliant. Not only is it gorgeous, and visually hard to pin down, perfectly describing the character of Borne itself, but there is also a glossy spot coat image printed across it that is entirely hidden until the light hits it just so. I’ll leave the mystery of exactly what is revealed in the light intact for you to discover when you see it in person. But it is a story element, and it’s very clever. Little touches like this really sell me on having physical copies of books over digital. Bravo FSG. All of the VanderMeer story staples are here in full force: Ruinous ecology, strange bioluminescent life, forgotten memories, a misplaced sense of self-identity, life that might not be human, animals that (maybe) used to be human, a hint of something much larger happening on the periphery, a creepy company meddling in things they shouldn’t, and a perfect mix of mystery and resolution in the story. All told through beautiful prose that itself lends an eerie literary landscape for the rich characters to inhabit. The most obvious comparison here is VanderMeer’s Area X/Southern Reach trilogy, being his most recent work. I can guarantee that if you enjoyed those novels, you’re very much going to enjoy Borne. Maybe even more so. I could even make a case that it is entirely possible, and doesn’t take all that much head canon, to connect Borne to the Southern Reach novels. I’m really looking forward to the publication date to see what fellow readers think here. Unlike the Southern Reach trilogy — one story broken into three parts — Borne is a complete story in and of itself. It’s also a literary universe I would not at all mind returning to in the future. The story is told in a first person narrative, and the reader is acknowledged to exist. So it’s got that slightly post-modern thing going on. There are only a handful of characters, only one of which I found slightly underdeveloped, and they’re all unique. Nobody is one dimensional here. The story itself deals with themes of nature versus nurture, self identity, parenting, childhood, survival and the different forms that love can take. It’s violent, disturbing, endearing and quite a feat of imagination. At some points it felt so vivid and alive that it somehow became visually stunning. This is of course not a common description of a written work, but it absolutely applies here. Jeff VanderMeer is a literary author, writing almost exclusively speculative fiction. He’s at the center of that illusive Venn diagram containing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Literary Fiction, and belongs in whatever section of your bookshelf Octavia Butler, Adam Johnson, Ursula Le Guin, Dexter Palmer and Gene Wolfe inhabit. Borne comes out April 25th, 2017 from MCD/FSG books. “Am I a person?” Borne asked me. “Yes, you are a person,” I told him. “But like a person, you can be a weapon, too.” In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company―a biotech firm now derelict―and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump―plant or animal?―but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts―and definitely against Wick’s wishes―Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford. “He was born, but I had borne him.” But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.... Read more...The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016, Edited by John Joseph Adams and Karen Joy FowlerMarch 9, 2017For those who are interested in the best that Science Fiction and Fantasy has to offer as a literary form. This is an equal mix of F and SF stories, and John Joseph Adams truly understands the difference between Fantasy and Science Fiction, which is refreshing. In Fantasy the impossible happens. In Science Fiction the impossible but theoretically plausible happens. The stories started out a little rough but quickly got into some AAA level stuff about a quarter of the way in, including a few new personal all-time favorite short stories from any genre. It’s wonderful to see this published along side The Best American Short Stories. I’ll be picking this yearly collection up every year, and so should you. Standout stories: Interesting Facts, No Placeholder for You My Love, The Duniazát, Things You Can Buy for a Penny, and Three Bodies at Mitanni. Individual story reviews: Meet Me in Iram, by Sofia Samatar: F, 2/5 Narratively unique but otherwise not particularly interesting. The Game of Smash and Recovery, By Kelly Link: SF, 3/5 Enjoyed this one. I like it when authors write outside of their usual genre like this. It’s dedicated to Iain M. Banks at the end, which automatically made me rethink it as a Culture story, which it isn’t. But it very easily could exist in that universe. Interesting Facts, by Adam Johnson: F, 5/5 A new all-time favorite. Heartbreaking and human, with mind-blowing prose that literally changes the way you read the story AS you’re reading it. Fantastic fantasy. Planet Lion, by Catherynne M. Valente: SF, 2/5 Alien lion analogs act out some soap opera drama when they come in contact with advanced colonist tech. A real eye-roller, with a neat tech concept near the end that is its only redeeming quality. The Apartment Dweller’s Bestiary, by Kij Johnson: F, 1/5 20 very short non-stories written in second person about imaginary creatures in apartments, often detailing whether or not “your” boyfriend or girlfriend likes or gets along with them. By Degrees of Dilatory Time, by S.L. Huang: SF, 4/5 I liked this one. Near future transhumanistic tale about adaptation and the process of healing being more than a physical one. The Mushroom Queen, by Liz Ziemska F, 4/5 Creepy little fantasy story. Reminded me a lot of Jeff VanderMeer, but that might just be the Mushrooms talking. Daydreamer by Proxy, by Dexter Palmer: SF, 3/5 Short little comedy about what seems like the worst place to work. Tea Time, by Rachel Swirsky: F, 2/5 Great writing for literally being a piece of fan fiction. Headshot, by Julian Mortimer Smith: SF, 4/5 Realistic near future democracy concepts. Very thought provoking. The Duniazát, by Salmon Rushdie: F, 5/5 Fantastical alternate mythical history. Beautiful prose. No Placeholder for You, My Love, by Nick Wolven: SF, 5/5 Fucking hell, that was brutally good. An SF romance/tragedy mixed in with Simulacron 3. Fantastic writing, and a compelling story. The Thirteen Mercies, by Maria Dahvana Headley: F, 4/5 Great writing. I want to know more about this world. Brutally grimdark fantasy that’s just one click off our world. Lightning Jack’s Last Ride, by Dave Bailey: SF, 4/5 Loved the way this one was written. Feels like a story straight out of the prohibition era, transported to the slight future. Things You Can Buy for a Penny, by Will Kaufman: F, 5/5 Such a perfect cautionary fairytale. I wanted to hate this one when I started it, but it very quickly won me over and became another high peak in this collection. Rat Catcher’s Yellows, by Charlie Jane Anders: SF, 4/5 An almost perfect little SF story. The Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History, by Sam J. Miller: F, 3/5 Solid oral history of a paranormal event that took place during a police raid on a gay bar during the late sixties. Three Bodies at Mitanni, by Seth Dickenson: SF, 6/5 This story exemplarily embodies everything about what SF can accomplish as a literary form. An absolutely fantastic cerebral, philosophical, moral human story. Ambiguity Machines: An Examination, by Vandanna Singh: F, 2/5 It was okay. The stories within the story were fun. The Great Silence, by Ted Chiang: SF, 2/5 Really surprised that this wasn’t better. Ted Chiang almost never disappoints, but this one kind of left me wanting.... Read more...Gutshot, by Amelia GrayMarch 9, 2017Gutshot, by Amelia Gray “Here, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom, and that road is paved with handjobs.” I’ve found that these FSG Originals are at the very least, always something unique that you might not find published elsewhere. They have the feel of something published by a much smaller press like Tin House, Two Dollar Radio, or Coffee House Press. This means that they’re usually going to be divisive as well. But, when their niche lines up with yours, it’s like a curator personally picking books for you. With the exception of Ted Chiang, story collections are always going to be a little hit and miss from story to story. At worst Amelia Gray’s stories are uncomfortable and unsettling, with great prose. At best they’re uncomfortable, unsettling, hilarious, disturbing, and moving, with great prose. Great prose is the common denominator. There are 4-5 really great stories in here, and 1 fantastic one. There are about 30 or so that relied way too much on their gimmick to accomplish anything worthwhile as stories. Think Chuck Palahniuk trying to gross you out, and forgetting to you know, tell a story. But if you’re like me, you’ve already been desensitized to that sort of thing, and you’re un-gross-outable. So you’re just left with no story. Amelia Gray ‘Go For It and Raise Hell’ is a high point and you should go read it right now. It reads like a character introduction from The New and Improved Romie Futch, which had fantastic secondary characters. You should go read that book right away. I was also really surprised by ’50 Ways to Eat Your Lover.’ The way it hid the story in the least interesting part of each sentence was brilliant and really snuck up on me. It accomplished so much in 50 sentences. ‘The Swan as Metaphor for Love,’ was another one that really worked for me. It illustrated how from afar something can be much more appealing than the up-close reality. The stories that are good, are really good. Gray does this thing with her writing, where there’s just a hint of something else going on in each story and the reader has to sort of weed it out for themselves a bit; they have to meet the story halfway. When it works, it really works. All-in-all this is an uneven collection, but the gems are hidden in here, and the stories are short enough that you can slam one out in a couple minutes flat. I’d say go for it. The good stories are worth digging through the rest.... Read more...Axiomatic, by Greg EganFebruary 27, 2017Axiomatic, by Greg Egan Hugely original ideas, not every story is a home run but there are enough 5/5 stories here to make this very recommended for any fan of hard science fiction. The concepts are extremely unique even 20 years later. Very similar to Ted Chiang’s writing. I have no idea why Greg Egan isn’t a household name in SF. “As the unknowable future becomes the unchangeable past, risk must collapse into certainty, one way or another.” “We think of our lives as circumscribed by cultural and biological taboos, but if people really want to break them, they always seem to find a way. Human beings are capable of anything:torture, genocide, cannibalism, rape. After which — or so I’d heard — most can still be kind to children and animals, be moved to tears by music, and generally behave as if all their emotional faculties are intact.” “I’d rather swim in this cacophony of a million contradictory voices the drown in the smooth and plausible lies of those genocidal authors of history.” Individual story ratings: The Infinite Assassin: 3/5 Multiverse drugs messing everything up all over the place. The Hundred-Light-Year-Diary: 5/5 Existential, philosophical fiction. Eugene: 2/5 Right when it got interesting it veered off to left field and ended abruptly. Caress: 5/5 Creepy and awesome. Life imitates art. One of the most interesting characters I’ve ever encountered. Blood Sisters: 3/5 Chrichtonesqe Axiomatic: 5/5 Terrific. Post Office Box: 5/5 A more practical quantum leap. Terrific story. Seeing: 5/5 Brilliant concept, very well written. A Kidnapping: 4/5 Egan is so clever. Learning to be Me: 5/5 So uncomfortably, unnervingly good. The Vat: 2/5 Clever, but this one was missing something for me. The Walk: 5/5 Damn it Egan, quit writing such terrifically layered, philosophical, existential stories! The Cutie: 3/5 Gross and Weird, awesome concept. Into Darkness: 3/5 Great concept, story wasn’t that stellar though. This one would probably be the most likely pick to adapt into a film. Appropriate Love: 3/5 Gross and Weird, awesome concept. The Moral Virologist: 4/5 Total psycho – inspired by the AIDS virus – attempts to make a moral virus that only punishes adulterers, fails magnificently. Closer: 3/5 Set in the same universe as ‘Learning to be Me’, a couple look for ways to become more like each other, in order to better understand each other’s perspective. Unstable Orbits in the Space Of Lies: 3/5 Similar concept as ‘Closer’, except on a very large scale, and more about theology/religious/political views than individual perspectives.... Read more...Infinite Jest, by David Foster WallaceFebruary 27, 2017There are 2 kinds of difficult novels: those that you don’t enjoy while reading, but you genuinely enjoying having read, and those that you only enjoy while reading because the small picture stuff is infinitely better than the novel as a whole. Infinite Jest is one of the latter, and I think that’s why people never really stop reading it; it’s only good while you’re reading it. You finish and then start right over again, trying to piece things together until you create something in your mind that slightly makes sense of it all. This thing is a real love/hate affair. There are moments of true brilliance that are exceptional achievements, and the characters are fantastic, the world-building absolute top-notch, but if you have to leave the “ending” up to your audience to imagine in their collective heads instead of – I don’t know – WRITING IT, you wrote yourself into a corner and didn’t/couldn’t write your way out. Yes, I’ve gone back and read the first chapter after finishing it. Yes, I understand the chronology. Yes, I’ve read all the theories online. I get what probably happened, but how did it happen? Why did it happen? How did those strings and threads of story and plot actually come together? The answer is: they didn’t. If I have to construct a way for all of this brilliant stuff to come together myself, it means that the author never did. It’s just a hand-wavy sort of “oh and then stuff happened and then the end” cop-out. David Foster Wallace There are threads in this book that insinuate all kinds of things, meaning that you can find evidence to setup any sort of ending that your heart desires, and it’s just as valid as anyone else’s theories, because there is no actual ending. Think Hal in that first chapter is actually Mario pretending to be Hal? They’re both described as hire hydrant shaped, maybe it was. Think John Wayne was an AFR plant all along, AFR agents and John Wayne are both described by the same quotes from The Terminator, maybe he was. Or maybe none of that, because there isn’t an ending, so we do not and will not ever know what actually happened. DFW created a piece of entertainment that once read, leaves the reader only wanting to read it again and again and again and again. It is an Infinite Jest. Again, the brilliant stuff is so brilliant that I still enjoyed it immensely, and have to give this 4 out of 5 stars, and I get that postmodernism is all about ontological vs. epistemological approaches to fiction, but good lord at least have it slightly wrap up just a tiny bit!... Read more...The New and Improved Romie Futch, by Julia ElliottFebruary 26, 2017 Julia Elliott Synopsis: Meet the South’s newest antihero: Romie Futch. Down on his luck and pining for his ex-wife, the fortysomething taxidermist spends his evenings drunkenly surfing the Internet, then passing out on his couch. In a last-ditch attempt to pay his mortgage, he becomes a research subject at the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience, where “scientists” download humanities disciplines into his brain. Suddenly, Romie and his fellow guinea pigs are speaking in hifalutin SAT words and hashing out the intricacies of postmodern subjectivity. With his new and improved brain, Romie hopes to reclaim his marriage, revolutionize his life, and revive his artistic aspirations. While tracking down specimens for elaborate animatronic taxidermy dioramas, he learns of “Hogzilla,” a thousand-pound feral hog with supernatural traits that has been terrorizing the locals. As his Ahab-caliber obsession with bagging the beast brings him closer and closer to this lab-spawned monster, Romie gets pulled into an absurd and murky underworld of biotech operatives, FDA agents, and environmental activists. Part surreal satire, part Southern Gothic tall tale, The New and Improved Romie Futch is a disturbing yet hilarious romp through a strange New South where technology can change the structure of the human brain and genetically modified feral animals ravage the blighted landscape. In Romie Futch, Julia Elliott has created an unwitting and ill-equipped protagonist who nevertheless will win your heart. A glorious postmodern southern gothic tale of a mid-south middle-aged burnout divorcee taxidermist who hits rock bottom and answers a classified ad to become a guinea pig for some experimental neurological enhancements. It’s incredibly good writing, while being effortlessly engaging, humorous, poignant and actually kind of endearing too. Julia Elliot’s impressive prose evolves as the novel builds, expertly juxtaposing the realities and habits of uneducated southern life with the transformative power, and self reflection that accompanies an acquisition of knowledge. She crafts characters that drip with such potent realism, I swear these are actual people – some of whom I absolutely know from the mid-size mid-south town I currently reside in. It’s a smidge of Flowers for Algernon, a little bit of Moby-Dick, and possibly even some Max Barry thrown in, and the whole thing is romantic and realistic while simultaneously bringing the fantastical to life. P.S. Have a dictionary handy, and you may want to brush up on your Baudrillard, postmodernist theory, and various mythologies.... Read more...The Stars are Legion, by Kameron HurleyFebruary 26, 2017“We all create the stories we need to survive.” Synopsis: Set within a system of decaying world-ships travelling through deep space, this breakout novel of epic science fiction follows a pair of sisters who must wrest control of their war-torn legion of worlds—and may have to destroy everything they know in order to survive. On the outer rim of the universe, a galactic war has been waged for centuries upon hundreds of world-ships. But these worlds will continue to die through decay and constant war unless a desperate plan succeeds. Anat, leader of the Katazyrna world-ship and the most fearsome raiding force on the Outer Rim, wants peace. To do so she offers the hand of her daughter, Jayd, to her rival. Jayd has dreamed about leading her mother’s armies to victory her whole life—but she has a unique ability, and that makes her leverage, not a leader. As Anat convinces her to spend the rest of her life wed to her family’s greatest enemy, it is up to Jayd’s sister Zan—with no stomach for war—to lead the cast off warriors she has banded together to victory and rescue Jayd. But the war does not go at all as planned… In the tradition of The Fall of Hyperion and Dune, The Stars are Legion is an epic and thrilling tale about familial love, revenge, and war as imagined by one of the genre’s most imaginative new writers. This one was, wow, very interesting. I won’t be forgetting this one any time soon. It’s going to be very divisive. It had some interesting pacing, and a couple plot holes, but nothing I can’t overlook. The ideas and resolution were wild as hell, and that is where the novel really shined. It really did feel like it was written during the New Wave era of the late 60s/early 70s; some weird combination between Joanna Russ and Iain M. Banks. I’m thinking of some elements of Matter by Iain M. Banks specifically, but structured more like Consider Phlebas. None of the characters are likable in any way, but that’s a good thing. They’re not meant to be your friends, they’re meant to be brutal. There’s a goal that a few factions are trying to reach, and I found myself not particularly caring who achieved it in the end, because everyone seemed to me to be equally shitty. Honestly, it’s more realistic that way. I really liked that. Kameron Hurley There is just a metric fuck-ton of gore and blood and nasty, disturbing, bizarre shit in this thing. People eating their deformed babies, guns that fire squid-like creatures for ammo, organic ships with asexually reproducing characters who birth whatever the ship needs at that moment. It’s wild stuff, really interesting. I really enjoyed the decision to not elaborate too much on the world building for the readers sake, it’s just presented to you, and a lot of it is weird as hell, but you sort of feel it out and figure it out as you go along. A few of the characters took way too long to discover basic things that I thought were glaringly obvious to the reader, and the prose was just okay, but the story is just wild and huge and definitely worth checking out.... Read more...
