Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

Published: Tor, 2018

Series: Book 1 of the Lady Astronaut series

Awards Nominated: Campbell Memorial Award

Awards Won: Hugo, Nebula and Locus SF Awards

The Book:

“A meteor decimates the U.S. government and paves the way for a climate cataclysm that will eventually render the earth inhospitable to humanity. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated timeline in the earth’s efforts to colonize space, as well as an unprecedented opportunity for a much larger share of humanity to take part.

One of these new entrants in the space race is Elma York, whose experience as a WASP pilot and mathematician earns her a place in the International Aerospace Coalition’s attempts to put man on the moon. But with so many skilled and experienced women pilots and scientists involved with the program, it doesn’t take long before Elma begins to wonder why they can’t go into space, too—aside from some pesky barriers like thousands of years of history and a host of expectations about the proper place of the fairer sex. And yet, Elma’s drive to become the first Lady Astronaut is so strong that even the most dearly held conventions may not stand a chance.” ~MaryRobinetteKowal.com

I decided to read this one because it won a Hugo Award (among other awards), but also because I’ve enjoyed Kowal’s work in the past.  Back when I was reviewing short fiction (which I will totally do again someday, just not for a while yet), I featured some of her work on this blog that was set in this universe.  In my opinion, she and Marie Brennan have a similar style, so I’d expect fans of one would like the other.

My Thoughts:

The Calculating Stars is an alternate history that imagines a very different Space Race in the 1950s.  Instead of competing for political capital, the countries of the world are pushed into space research by a climate disaster that may make the Earth uninhabitable.  The desire to colonize other planets or moons, rather than to simply plant flags, provides the motivation for men in power to seriously consider a women’s astronaut training program.  After all, a colony with no women can’t sustain itself independently of Earth. The story begins with an intense first-hand experience of the meteorite strike, and continues through the development and progress of the fledgling space program.  The latter part of the story involves much more political and social maneuvering than action. 

The person doing most of this maneuvering is the heroine, Elma York.  With the character of Elma, Kowal has embraced the familiar “you have to be twice as good to be thought half as able” adage, by which I mean to say that Elma is amazing.  She’s a brilliant mathematician, cool under pressure, and a highly skilled jet pilot. The difficulties she faces are primarily external, with the exception of a debilitating anxiety associated with public speaking.  Her anxiety makes the necessary public performances required for changing hearts and minds challenging for her, even though it doesn’t impact her capability as a scientist or astronaut. I appreciated how this part of the story showed the stigma associated with asking for help, as well as the fact that taking medication for a mental health condition does not make a person any less than they were.  Overall, I liked Elma, and I wanted for her to make her dreams come true.

In addition, I enjoyed seeing Elma’s relationships with others.  She’s a scientist and a pilot, but she is also happily married. She and her husband are a very affectionate couple, and this doesn’t impact either of them being taken seriously as a scientist. I liked seeing that their marriage is a source of strength for both of them, and not a source of stress.  Stable and supportive relationships don’t seem to be very common in fiction, so this was a nice change. Elma also counts many female pilots from diverse backgrounds among her friends, and we see through them the additional barriers that are often faced by women of color. I appreciated the way Elma’s solidarity with others demonstrated that she was part of a larger movement, and that her push to make “Lady Astronauts” a reality was not going to end with her.

My Rating: 4.5/5

The Calculating Stars is an interesting alternate history that imagines a different Space Race spurred into action by a meteorite-related climate disaster.  Within the frame of this story, we follow the exceptionally skilled and intelligent Elma York, who is determined to become an astronaut.  Elma has to fight against the conventions of the day, but her intense anxiety associated with public speaking makes this a challenge. I appreciated that Elma was able to be a scientist, a pilot, and a loving wife, and that she cultivated many friendships with other highly skilled women.  With the conclusion of this book, I feel confident that she is blazing a trail for many and not just for herself. The second half of this duology, The Fated Sky, is already out, and it is definitely on my list of books to read.

TV Musings: The Man in the High Castle, Season 1

I watched the pilot for The Man in the High Castle during Amazon’s free pilot preview session, and discussed it briefly along with the novel, here.  Now I’ve seen the rest of the first season, and I wanted to discuss it a little bit.  This is going to be less of a general review, and more along the lines of pointing out things that I thought were interesting.  I’m also not going to compare it to the original novel any longer, since by now the show is really a separate entity. Given that a second season is already confirmed, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would need to deviate dramatically from the source material.

Beware of spoilers from here on out!

One of my first reactions to the show was simply to be impressed by the high quality of the production.  It felt like a lot of care went into crafting the setting, the costumes, and the details of the world, and I think all of the actors for parts minor and major did really excellent work. I think that choosing “Edelweiss” from “The Sound of Music” as the opening theme was a also a good idea, since the American audience would likely associate that particular song with the grief of losing one’s nation to a foreign occupation.  

I really don’t know any German at all, but I can comment that I thought the Japanese language was well done. I found it a little amusing that all of the Japanese characters primarily spoke English to one another, but I think that was mostly to avoid scaring off English audiences with long stretches of subtitles. I was also initially a little confused by the value of yen. Today, yen is in the ballpark of around 100 yen per US dollar, so the amounts quoted for various extortions and ransoms seemed ridiculously low.  However, I had a look at the historical exchange rates, and pre-WWII Japanese Yen were around 2-3 yen per US dollar.  I thought that was an interesting historical detail that they carried forward into the alternate post-WWII world.

A good show, but so sad.

The Man in the High Castle quickly became a show I wanted to watch each evening, even though the turns the story took were often surprisingly painful to witness. By the end of the second episode, I realized that this was going to be a brutally depressing story, and one which would make me feel terrified of governments for a while.  The reveal at the end of the second episode--that the Kempeitai had executed Frank’s sister and her children--set the tone for the rest of the series.  Up until that point, I genuinely thought they were going to be saved at the last minute, or that the threat was just being used to scare Frank.  Afterward, I think I lost some essential bit of hope for the eventual outcome for the characters, and I spent each subsequent episode bracing for the worst to happen. The show has a very skillful way of showing the magnitude of impersonal evil that can be committed by humans for the most unworthy of reasons.

The Cost of Loyalty

I felt like loyalty, to a nation or a person, was a major theme throughout the show.  Rather than showing this as a positive trait, it seemed like loyalty always brought suffering to those who held it. For instance, Frank went through hell due to his connection to his girlfriend Juliana and his continuing support for her, while Juliana’s choices rarely took him into account at all.  The compassion and loyalty of Frank’s best friend Ed was admirable, but it also cost him dearly.

When it came to nations, loyalty was shown to be just as destructive. Tagomi, Kido and others were willing to sacrifice their lives and their integrity for the well-being of their government, even if the force demanding that sacrifice was the government itself.  I was also interested by the situation of John Smith, whose psychological comfort depended on his false belief that his loyalty to the Reich had helped build a better world.  Throughout the season, we see the cracks start to appear in this conviction, as he must confront the fact that the monstrous world he has built is going to destroy everyone he loves, as it has already done for millions of others.

The Ending

The Man in the High Castle ended with quite a few surprise twists, and I can only be happy that it has already been renewed for a second season.  Unless I miss my guess, we have now met The Man in the High Castle, and he is not at all who I expected him to be. Juliana’s decision at the end was quite a shock, and with Tagomi-san’s final scene, it looks like the second season may move into more mind-bending territory.  What do you think of season one?   

Review: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Published: G.P. Putnam’s Sons (1962), Gollancz (2009)

Awards Won: Hugo Award

The Book:

“It's America in 1962, but not the America you know.  The United States lost World War II, and the country has been divided and jointly occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.  In this world, genocide is commonplace and slavery is legal.  In San Francisco, both the Japanese and the downtrodden locals consult the I Ching for guidance.

A handful of people, with limited power to change the reality of the world in which they live, move through the actions of their daily lives.  As their stories intersect or influence one another, they may come closer to seeing through artifice and understanding the truth of their lives and their world.” ~Allie

I’ve read a few of Philip K. Dick’s novels before, but this is the first one I’ve reviewed on this blog. By complete coincidence, I finished The Man in the High Castle directly before the pilot for a series adaptation on Amazon Prime was announced! I watched the pilot, of course (it is available here), but it remains to be seen if it will be greenlighted for a full season.  I’m going to include my impressions of the pilot after the book review. This is a book I chose to read both for Stainless Steel Dropping's Sci-Fi Experience and Little Red Reviewer's Vintage Sci-Fi Month.

My Thoughts:

The Man in the High Castle shows a world where World War II has ended very differently, with Japan and Germany dividing up and occupying a defeated United States.  It was set in modern day for the time of publication, which puts it around half a century into our past. Thus, it has now become an alternate past extrapolated forward from a more distant alternate past. I’m sure plenty of people have discussed the I Ching and the nested/interconnected authentic and inauthentic realities of the story.  Since I’m not familiar with I Ching, and I just spent a lot of time writing about multiple WWII realities in my review of The Separation, I’m not going to go into that discussion here. Instead, I will focus on the parts of the novel that have stuck with me the most—the characters and how they cope with their world.

The story follows a handful of characters that are each leading their ordinary lives. Frank Frink is an artisan hiding a Jewish heritage, and his vanished wife Juliana just wants to live peacefully in the unoccupied Rocky Mountain States as a judo instructor. Robert Childan is a shopowner who sells antiques of American culture to enthusiastic Japanese patrons, and Tagomi, a San Francisco trade missioner, is one of his top customers.  Tagomi begins the story in preparations to meet with Mr. Baynes, supposedly a rich Swedish industrialist who seems to have an ulterior motive. Some of these characters’ stories intersect, or influence one another in indirect ways, but there is never a point where all the stories converge. I was pretty equally interested by each of the storylines, since they each showed a mental perspective from a different level of society.

However, while it was interesting seeing views from people of various levels of power and privilege in a fascist world, the portrayal of the world and the characters necessarily involves a lot of racism. This racism ran from quietly held beliefs, to racial slurs, to acceptance of genocide, and I think it was clearly intended to be shocking. It seemed that the point was to show how people can get used to a world like their (or, well, like ours), and how they can pass their daily lives without examining their prejudices or really thinking about distant atrocities that seem unchangeable.  At the same time, while the characters may have had little power to affect their world on the large scale, their thoughts and actions still have meaning and impact the lives of the people around them.  I really enjoyed seeing how each character’s actions could intentionally and unintentionally affect the lives of the others. The ending of the novel is pretty weird, but I took it in a metaphorical way.  That may not have been the intention, but I think that interpretation makes for a rather satisfying ending.

My Rating: 4/5

The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history story about the daily life of a defeated American people.  The novel follows many loosely connected characters living in a western US occupied by Japan, whose stories influence one another but never merge into a single narrative. I thought each of the storylines was pretty interesting in its own right, and I enjoyed seeing how they intersected with each other. With the I Ching, the alternate history within an alternate history, the portrayals of people in various strata of society and more, I think that this is a book that merits a lot of discussion. I also enjoyed the Amazon Prime pilot, though it differs from the novel in some very significant ways. I hope the rest of the show is produced!

The Man in the High Castle: The Amazon Pilot 

(Some Mild Episode 1 TV Spoilers Ahead)

Overall, I thought the pilot episode of The Man in the High Castle was pretty entertaining.  There were some changes made to the story from the novel that I agree were necessary, and also others that seemed unnecessary.  On the unnecessary side, for instance, I believe Juliana is into aikido instead of judo.  Perhaps Aikido is more stylish these days?  On changes that were necessary for the adaptation, they have managed to connect all of the disparate storylines into two main plot threads, cutting out only one viewpoint character at this point. I think this was probably needed for a one-hour television pilot, or the story might have seemed too disjointed.  Also, I think there is a rule written somewhere that science fiction pilots must have action—something that only shows up later in the novel’s story.  To this end, they have introduced an American Resistance, which provides violence and tension for the early story. I am really interested in seeing what direction they go with this adaptation, so I hope Amazon greenlights its season!

Review: The Separation by Christopher Priest

The Separation by Christopher Priest

Published: Old Earth Books (2003), Scribner (2002)

Awards Won: BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards

Awards Nominated: John W. Campbell Memorial Award

The Book:

“Twin brothers Joe and Jack, both with the initials J.L. Sawyer, competed together as rowers in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and their lives afterward were shaped by the coming war. Their differing ideologies caused them to become estranged as the paths of their lives diverged. Joe became a conscientious objector and worked with the Red Cross. Jack became an RAF bomber pilot, going on endless missions against the German people to defend his own.

However, this is not only a story of two different perspectives of the same war, but an examination of what the war might have been in numerous contradictory realities. Which of the brothers, if either, dies in a bombing raid?  Does the UK sign a separate peace with Germany, or do they fight the war through to the end? The past, present, and future are ambiguous and full of possibilities.” ~Allie

This is the third of Priest’s novels that I have read, the first two being The Prestige and The Islanders. I listened to this one on audiobook, thanks to a new blue-tooth iphone connector that will allow me to listen to novels on my commute. There will be more audiobook reviews to come! I thought the narrator, Joe Jameson, was excellent, though I have no idea how accurately he represented the various regional accents of the UK. For another interesting coincidence, this is the first of two reviews that will focus on alternate histories of WWII, since my next review will be of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle.

My Thoughts:

The Separation is a less fantastical story than the other two novels that I have read by Priest, but there are common elements between the three appear to be characteristic of his style.  Perhaps most notably, twins or doubles are an integral element of the story. The Sawyer brothers are not the only pair that makes an appearance, and the nature of being or having a twin or double is often touched upon.  In the case of the Sawyer brothers, they are tied together by their similarities, and their differences serve to emphasize the alternate versions of WWII. Joe tends to dominate the narrative of a WWII with a peaceful resolution, while Jack dominates the narrative of a war that continues to allied victory.  The two brothers’ stories often interact in confusing ways, and sometimes others even take them to be the same person.  It was sometimes difficult to keep track of each twin’s current experiences at different points in the novel, but they made an interesting pair with which to explore variations on WWII history.

The two other elements that seem to be characteristic of Priest are the extensive use of fictional documents, which comprise most of the novel, and unresolved puzzles. The story is told through the Sawyer twins’ personal records, through the experiences of others who knew them, and through a historian who is investigating their life history.  I thought the documents were very well done, with each fictional author having a distinct voice that was further enhanced by the audiobook narrator.  The puzzling part of this collection of documents arises from the fact that they are often contradictory. They seem to describe more than two simple separate timelines (peace and war) since there are also records within each of these broad categories that seem to differ in key details. It is never clarified how much of the disagreements arise from unreliable narrators, and how much arise from differing realities. I think the confusion and contradictions might be intended as a comment on the uncertainty of recorded history, but they were also fun to try to piece together into coherent worlds. As in The Islanders, one should not expect to find definitive explanations in the text, or for the story to have a particularly clear resolution.  However, it felt like a very carefully constructed novel, and I think it would benefit from multiple readings to help filter all the information into the right patterns.

While trying to keep all the details straight, it also occurred to me that this would probably be an easier book to follow for readers with extensive knowledge of the UK during the WWII time period. Being able to pick up immediately how Priest is altering history might help one see more clearly the intentions behind the particular changes.  I am not especially knowledgeable in this area, but I enjoyed going over the details with my father, who has read more extensively than I have on the subject.  For instance, I didn’t really know anything about the theories surrounding Ruldolf Hess, and the possibility of peace between the UK and Germany in 1941.  The Separation might be better appreciated by someone coming to it with more knowledge than I have, but I enjoyed being inspired to learn.  It is a novel that demands an engaged and attentive reader, and one that is well worth the consideration.

My Rating: 4/5

The Separation tells the story of Jack and Joe Sawyer, twins who took two different paths in the Second World War.  Jack joined the RAF, while Joe joined the Red Cross. While they share the same reality, they also seem to exist in alternative, overlapping realities.  For instance, in Joe’s dominant reality, the war ends in 1941 with a peace arrangement between the UK and Germany.  The story is told through many different sorts of fictional documents, which often tell contradictory stories about the lives of the two young men.  The story is a kind of puzzle, requiring the reader to be actively engaged in piecing information together from the many sources.  Many questions are never explicitly resolved, and I think the novel would require multiple readings to appreciate fully. I thought The Separation was intensely interesting, and I enjoyed continuing to think through the various unresolved questions long after I'd finished the novel. I look forward to reading more of Christopher Priest's work in the future! 

Review: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu

Published: Angry Robot Books, 2013

Series: Book 1 of Tao

Awards Nominated: John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

The Book:

“When out-of-shape IT technician Roen Tan woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it. He wasn’t.

He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Now split into two opposing factions – the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix – the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries. Both sides are searching for a way off-planet, and the Genjix will sacrifice the entire human race, if that’s what it takes.

Meanwhile, Roen is having to train to be the ultimate secret agent. Like that’s going to end up well…” ~WWend.com

The Lives of Tao is Wesley Chu’s first novel, and the sequel, The Deaths of Tao, was published in October of the same year.

My Thoughts:

The Lives of Tao is basically a male power fantasy. Roen Tan is below average in many ways, and doesn’t seem to have any significant skills or talents.  However, his lacks make him a very blank slate for his new resident alien to rework into an action hero.  Roen is overweight, but the alien Tao soon pushes him to get his body into perfect shape.  Roen has no hand-eye coordination or spatial skills, but it’s Tao’s mission to get Roen prepared for hand-to-hand combat, gunfights, and various espionage activities.  Roen is socially awkward and lonely, but with Tao’s guidance, he becomes suave with the ladies.  Roen has to fight to protect the human race, and most especially, the beautiful women that fall for him.  Roen Tan’s zero-to-hero tale does make for a pretty fun ride, but it seems to carry a strong element of wish fulfillment.     

On the other hand, what seems like the point of Roen’s story is undercut by the irrelevance of human beings in this fictional world.  This is a world where just about every significant historical event or development (including the evolution of the human race) has been inspired or carried out by the aliens who live within human beings. This seems to me to reduce human beings to being passive tools in the history of their own species, a history that is completely orchestrated by squabbling aliens. 

Roen, whose life is completely commandeered by aliens, is a small-scale example of this. It seemed odd to me that the aliens didn’t take Roen on as an IT technician, since it seems that the single computer scientist in the entire Prophus organization is out of action at his time of recruitment.  The fact that they train him for combat and espionage (Tao’s specialty) instead of computer science (supposedly Roen’s specialty) really drives home the irrelevance of Roen’s pre-alien life.  In short, Roen does not matter as an individual; he is only important due to the fact that he is Tao’s current host.  This shows up again and again, as humans on both sides of the conflict devalue their own lives and desires in favor of the aliens’.  This seems really weird for a wish-fulfillment story—while Roen does grow from an ordinary guy into a super-spy, he also becomes a passive alien tool.

The story moves along at a nice clip, with a fair amount of action-movie-style violence.  The bantering between Roen, Tao and the others could be pretty funny at times, though Tao was not altogether convincing as a wise, ancient being.  The writing was pretty plain, and it had occasional awkward phrases, sentences, or word repetition.  The ending was actually pretty surprising, but I’m not sure I’m happy with how the ‘boss fight’ was resolved.  The conclusion ties up the story of The Lives of Tao, while giving a clear direction for the sequel.  In the end, I don’t think I’m really the target audience for The Lives of Tao, but it was still a fairly enjoyable light read, despite my complaints.

My Rating: 2.5/5

The Lives of Tao is a light sci-fi story of a particular kind of male wish-fulfillment, featuring a below-average guy, Roen, who is possessed by an alien.  The alien prompts Roen to get in shape, learn combat and espionage skills, and to improve his game with the ladies.  On the other hand, Roen is also being trained to be a tool to be used by the aliens in their centuries-long war.  The writing is plain, but the story moves along quickly, with lots of action and a fair amount of humor.  I had a few issues with the story, and in the end, I don’t think I’m the target audience. It’s still a pretty fun, undemanding read, and I think I can see why others have enjoyed it.

Review: The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter

Published : HarperCollins UK/HarperPrism (1996)

Awards Won : British Science Fiction Association,  John W. Campbell Memorial, and Philip K. Dick Awards

Awards Nominated : British Fantasy Society, Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo and Locus SF Awards

The Book :

“After H.G. Wells’s time traveler returns from his first journey, he is determined to head back to rescue his companion Weena from the deadly Morlocks.  However, as he travels forward in time, he finds that he is no longer passing through the same future.  Faced with the proof that history is not as concrete and unchangeable as he would have liked to believe, the time traveler moves into a world that baffles his comprehension.

Instead of fighting Morlocks, a gentle scientist and nursemaid Morlock, Nebogipfel, becomes his companion.  They travel through the eons together, altering both future and past as they struggle to survive and to see what the future might become.  Also, somewhere within the multitude of realities created by their travel through time, a frightened Weena is still being lost to the Morlocks of that original dark future.” ~Allie

This is the first of Baxter’s works that I’ve reviewed for this blog, but I have read a fair amount of his short and long fiction in the past.  In general, I’m a fan of his work, so I was happy to finally get around to reading this highly acclaimed novel. Sadly, I finished this book in December 2013, so it’s not eligible for any of my 2014 challenges.   My next two reviews, of The Shadow of the Torturer and Fairyland, are also not going to be considered eligible.  I finished them in January/February of 2014, but I started reading them both in December 2013.  I’m starting the year a bit behind in challenges, but I hope I’ll be able to catch up soon!

My Thoughts:

The Time Ships is a direct sequel to H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, and I do think it would be necessary to read that first—though I imagine most people with an interest in science fiction will have already read it!  The Time Ships is told from the point of view of the Time Traveler, and Baxter even mimics the voice of the first novel somewhat, with its stiff Victorian prose and plenitude of exclamation points!  There’s also plenty of discussion of the nature of time travel, as well as other scientific or philosophical topics, so The Time Ships also keeps up with Wells’s dryness. At first, I wasn’t sure if this style was going to work in a modern piece of fiction, but, in my opinion, Baxter managed to make it seem charmingly reminiscent of Wells while still telling a fun story about interesting characters.

The novel followed Wells’s style in some ways, but it also provided a more modern view of its time-traveling Victorian explorer hero.  I enjoyed the protagonist more that I usually do with this character type, and I think part of the reason may have been that the story constantly acknowledged his arrogance and small-mindedness.  I felt that the story managed to show him as an admirable person who was also a product of his time and culture, without minimizing the flaws that this implied. I also enjoyed how his adventures forced him to confront his prejudices and preconceptions, forcing him to grow little by little.  The story also benefited greatly from its secondary hero, the Morlock Nebogipfel.  While Nebogipfel’s culture is nothing like our own, his attitude often seemed closer to a modern ideal than the Time Traveler’s. Nebogipfel has his own flaws, but he tries very hard to be understanding and patient with the Time Traveler’s shortcomings.  Together, the two of them made a team that I was happy to follow in their journeys through the ages of the Earth.  

Though the style can sometimes be a bit dry, and there are many side discussions, I think that The Time Ships is a pretty exciting time travel story.  I thought it was a neat idea to update The Time Machine’s time travel to the more current multiple-universe idea, and I appreciated that the novel stuck to its in-universe rules.  The Time Traveler and Nebogipfel range widely in their travels, and experience more than either of them could have expected. We get to see the planet’s deep past, its far future, several different civilizations, and even the effects of the development of time travel on the course of histories. All of this fits together logically and narratively with the personal story of Nebogipfel and the Time Traveler, and the conclusion brings the story full circle.

My Rating: 4/5

I think that The Time Ships is a worthy sequel to H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, and it manages to tell a very different sort of story while still linking to the previous novel.  I appreciated the acknowledgement of the Time Traveler’s flaws, and the addition of the more enlightened Morlock protagonist Nebogipfel. I liked the use of the multiple-universe theory of time travel, and how the story followed the branches of different futures caused by the actions of the protagonists.  There is a lot of scientific and philosophical discussion throughout the story, but I found most of it quite interesting.  In the end, I can see why this one ended up on the radar for so many awards!

Review: Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle

Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle

Published: Eos(2000), Gollancz(2000)

Awards Won: BSFA Award

Awards Nominated: Campbell, Clarke, and Locus Fantasy

The Book:

“If history could be changed, how would we know? 

Historian Pierce Ratcliff has plans to publish a new translation of historical documents detailing the life of a 15^th century female mercenary commander, known as Ash.  What starts out as a simple contemporary translation becomes increasingly strange, as unexplainable discrepancies from established history come to light within his supposedly genuine latin manuscripts. Is this a case of simple scholarly error, or is something far more extraordinary happening?

Within his translation, Ash is a woman of legend in continental Europe—a kind of mercenary Jeanne d’Arc, who is credited with hearing voices that help lead her to victory. She and her company, the Lion Azure, are inexorably drawn into the machinations of a (mysteriously undocumented) Visigothic civilization in northern Africa, which seems inexplicably driven to wipe the wealthy duchy of Burgundy completely off the face of the Earth.” ~Allie

This is the first book I’ve ever read by Mary Gentle, and my fourth entry in WWEnd’s Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge.  To help no one else to fall into the same trap I did, I want to explain some publication details. Ash: A Secret History was published as a single book in the UK, and it has a sequel called Ilario.  However, in the US, Ash: A Secret History is published as a series of four books.  The first US book, which corresponds to roughly the first quarter of the novel, is titled A Secret History: Book 1 of Ash. This last is the book I initially bought secondhand in a US bookstore, believing that “Book 1” was a reference to the existence of Ilario.  As I approached the end the book, it became abundantly clear that it was a piece of a larger novel. I ordered the full book, and so this review is of the entirety of Ash: A Secret History. 

My Thoughts:

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I started reading Ash: A Secret History, and I kept that feeling through most of the book.  I absolutely adore fiction that defies my expectations, and my inability to tell where the story was going kept me glued to the book.  I’ve been reading Ash since January, but that isn’t evidence of any reluctance to read on my part—it’s just that long of a book.  From the beginning, I had a really hard time telling what kind of a story it would be; Ash’s backstory made me think of standard medieval European fantasy, and then a plot twist made me suspect it would be a romance (it isn’t, really).  I think the official genre is science fantasy, and I would agree with that classification.  Despite its setting, I think it is much closer to science fiction than fantasy, as everything that could be considered ‘magic’ does have a scientific-style explanation. I’m going to try very hard not to spoil any of the many twists or revelations that made experiencing this novel so enjoyable. 

The world of Ash, for the most part, seemed like a surprisingly realistic take on medieval life.  I’ve read that Gentle earned a War Studies MA during the writing of the novel, and it shows in the detail with which the life of Ash’s mercenary company is portrayed.  Ash’s world is one where armor needs to be constantly cleaned of rust, and battles involve a lot of confusion and death (and no epic single combats between heroes).  The violence is not sugar-coated, and neither are the psychological effects of making your living out of brutally killing people for money.  I am no historian, but the accounts of battles, mercenary politics, and daily life seemed much more believable than I am accustomed to in fantasy.  I think this meticulous description of the mundane made it a bit more difficult to swallow the more outlandish fictional elements (such as certain combinations of quantum physics concepts and religion), but the story was definitely worth choosing to suspend my disbelief.

The framing story, while interesting in its own right, also serves several very important purposes with respect to the alternate historical account.  Since Ash’s story is presented as a translation, ‘Dr. Ratcliff’ was free to write it in modern English, so that it would be more accessible to his readers.  I think this was probably the best possible decision for language, since attempting to write in the languages of the time period would be either stilted and pseudo-medieval or just nearly impossible to read.  The framing also gave a perfect in for Ratcliff to write in footnotes to explain archaic words, historical references, and at which points the story diverges from actual history.  The character of Ash is naturally fictional, but a lot of the events and some characters are actually historical, and I would have little chance of telling them apart without the help of Dr. Ratcliff.  Even my fiancé, who has lived in France for most of his life, was a pretty hazy on the details of 15^th century Burgundian dukes, so I think the explanations would be useful for most readers.  As a result, I feel like I’ve actually learned a bit about late medieval period history through reading this novel.

The characters take shape slowly throughout the story.  Pierce and his editor we get to know only through their email correspondence, but their personalities came through quite clearly in the informal writing.  Many of the people in Ash’s company were little more than names (there are hundreds in her company, after all), but the people closest to her are gradually fleshed out.  Some of the most important characters are women: Ash, the Carthaginian general, and a close female friend of Ash who is living as a man. I appreciated that Ash and other prominent female characters did not feel like 21^st century women dropped into history, but more like products of their time.  For instance, Ash doesn’t have an enlightened understanding of gender, she just thinks of herself more as a soldier than as a woman.  She’s mostly interested in her gender in terms of the complications it throws into maintaining her authority over her company.  As usual for my reviews, I especially enjoyed Ash and her companions because they were flawed and fallible, and capable of failing in truly devastating ways.  At the same time, Ash was an exceptionally intelligent and driven young woman, which made her story a particularly compelling one.

My Rating: 5/5

Ash: A Secret History was a surprise to me, and a very good one! As an alternate history story set in 15^th century continental Europe, It exists on the crossroads between science fiction and fantasy (though further on the science fiction side from my perspective). Gentle seems very knowledgeable about 15^th century war, history and life, through the details she includes of the life of Ash’s mercenary company. The framing story, which involves the historian translating the “Ash” manuscripts, allows an easy way to include explanatory notes when necessary, without bogging down the story.  Many characters, including the three primary female characters, had their own character arcs, and I loved how they were slowly built up through the course of the story.  Finally, this was a tale with many unexpected twists and turns, and I loved that I could rarely tell exactly where it was going next.  I thoroughly enjoyed Ash: A Secret History, and I’m happy that I was prompted to read it by the WoGF reading challenge!

Review: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon

Published: HarperCollins/Fourth Estate, 2007

Awards Won: Hugo, Nebula, and Locus SF Awards

Awards Nominated: John W. Campbell Memorial Award, British Science Fiction Association Award

The Book:

“For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. 

Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage, and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.” ~Wwend.com

I heard of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union through the recognition it gained in science fiction award circles. I was attracted by its striking cover art (I know, don’t judge a book by its cover…) and frustrated by my inability to find it in e-book format (I only ever found it in Spanish, oddly enough). I eventually got my very own physical copy of the book, and now I’ve finally read it!

   

My Thoughts:

One main speculative element in The Yiddish Policeman’s Union was its alternate history setting, which seemed to be very well thought out.  The Jewish settlement at Sitka had distinctive social customs, culture, traditions, local quirks, and even slang (which was helpfully decoded in a glossary).  In short, Chabon’s Sitka felt like a real, physical place with a believable history.  (I should point out that Sitka is, in fact, a real place, though Chabon’s Sitka is fictional.) With all the descriptions of the buildings, various social groups, and even specific kinds of local food, I thought that the community of Sitka felt as complex and organic as any small community. I think I might have been even more appreciative of the construction of this imaginary settlement if I were more familiar with actual Jewish culture.  I was never exactly sure which aspects of their society were based on existing traditions, language and attitudes, and which were specific to fictional Sitka.   

The story itself seems like a pretty traditional detective tale.  For various reasons, Meyer Landsman pursues a murder that ends up to be both more and less than it appears.  Landsman is also a fairly ordinary detective character—he was once a respected cop, but now he suffers from some emotional trauma and substance abuse (alcoholism).  Even if it does fit the common detective story mold, though, I enjoyed how everything unfolded.  As the story progressed, each layer of the mysterious murder was slowly peeled back, and the story grew more and more complex.  However, at the end, everything collapsed back together in a satisfying way. 

In my opinion, the attention to characters and atmosphere of the story also set it apart from an ordinary murder mystery. Though most of the characters have serious emotional problems, I thought that they were very well-drawn. Landsman may have once been a great homicide detective, but his flaws are not romanticized.  His alcoholism is a serious detriment to his social life and career, and his partner, Berko Shemets, seems to be the only thing keeping him from professional (and possibly physical) suicide. Berko, Berko’s father, and Bina Gelbfish were also particularly interesting and complex characters.  The murder victim is also surprisingly well developed, through the information Landsman slowly uncovers about him.  By the end of the story, I felt like I knew him almost as well as those characters who were still living.

Though it was not without humor, much of the story seemed shaped by feelings of despair and powerlessness. From personal grief and guilt to the elimination of their way of life, Landsman and the other Sitka residents faced a lot of problems that they could do little about.  Landsman’s decision to pursue the murder case seemed like an attempt to reject the increasing pointlessness of his career and life. His boss was ready to classify the case as unsolvable without even trying, for no reason except that they’d been asked to wrap things up before Reversion.  The story isn’t all slow and melancholy—there are some very exciting scenes—but I felt like the novel never lost its undercurrent of sadness.  I know this might not be to everyone’s taste, but I can’t help but respect an author who can bring me near to tears simply by describing someone waking up.  Though it was, in some ways, a pretty depressing story, I felt like it ended with some hope for the future.

My Rating: 4/5

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union has few speculative elements, but those that exist are very well explored. I loved Chabon’s thorough depiction of Sitka as the fictional temporary Jewish homeland, and his extrapolation of what that society might be like. I enjoyed the slow reveal of the central murder case, but I also enjoyed the exploration of the characters of Landsman, the murder victim, and others.  The entire story has a very melancholy atmosphere, but the conclusion is not entirely devoid of hope.  I felt like I might have missed some subtleties due to my lack of familiarity with Jewish culture, but I still found this to be a rewarding reading experience.

Review: In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield

In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield

Published: Jonathan Cape, Del Rey, 2009

Awards Nominated: World Fantasy Award

The Book:

“During a time of great upheaval, the citizens of Venice make a pact that will change the world. The landsmen of the city broker a treaty with a water-dwelling tribe of deepsmen, cementing the alliance through marriage. The mingling of the two races produces a fresh, peerless strain of royal blood. To protect their shores, other nations make their own partnerships with this new breed–and then, jealous of their power, ban any further unions between the two peoples. Dalliance with a deepswoman becomes punishable by death. Any “bastard” child must be destroyed.

This is an Earth where the legends of the deep are true–where the people of the ocean are as real and as dangerous as the people of the land. This is the world of intrigue and betrayal that Kit Whitfield brings to life in an unforgettable alternate history: the tale of Anne, the youngest princess of a faltering England, struggling to survive in a troubled court, and Henry, a bastard abandoned on the shore to face his bewildering destiny, finding himself a pawn in a game he does not understand.  Yet even a pawn may checkmate a king.” ~WWend.com

I read In Great Waters for the April selection of Calico Reaction’s Theme ParkChallenge.  

My Thoughts:

In Great Waters is a supernatural alternate history, though I don’t think that it adheres strictly to any particular historical events.  The story seems to be set in a Europe several centuries in our past, and it focuses primarily on the English royal court.  The main difference between this world and our own is the presence of merpeople, known as deepsmen.  The deepsmen are not the shell-wearing princesses of Disney cartoons.  They’re violent and clannish, have a simple language based on clicks, whistles, and other sounds that carry cleanly through water, and are quite biologically dissimilar to humans, called ‘landsmen’.  The deepsman tribes represent a naval advantage to any nation that can hold their loyalty.  I liked how the story fleshed out the deepsmen’s society and way of seeing the world, and the attention that was paid to how their presence would affect human society.

Though I enjoyed the exploration of the role of deepsmen in European politics, certain elements seemed rather implausible to me.  First of all, I did not feel that there was a compelling reason for all the coastal royal families to interbreed with deepsmen.  The purpose of the interbreeding was to gain the ability to speak with the deepsmen and form alliances with them. It seemed like creating a translator position at court to be filled with non-royal hybrids would have been a much less extreme way to achieve the same goal. Considering how obsessed the royals were with protecting their bloodlines, I had a hard time accepting that they would all consent to interbreed with an entirely different species.  The mingling of blood also left the royal families as physical cripples, both on land and in the sea. I would have liked to have been given a convincing reason why the monarchs themselves absolutely needed to have deepsman blood.   

The eventual ban on interbreeding seemed a little unmotivated as well.  I suppose I wasn’t successfully impressed with the importance of deepsman blood to think that executing all hybrids would be a reasonable step in securing the position of the royalty.  After all, in reality, all humans are of the correct physical form to overthrow their monarchs, but most monarchs don’t seriously propose that slaughtering all their citizens is the only way to secure their power.  It didn’t really make sense to me in terms of protecting royal bloodlines, either.  The royal bloodlines were already mixed with the deepsmen, anyway, and preventing further mixing only resulted in severe birth defects from inbreeding.  It seemed like the worst of both options—the royal bloodlines were already ‘tainted’ and they still had to deal with genetic disorders.  I wished there could have been more of an explanation for this development in deepsman-landsman relations.

Though I had trouble buying some of the landsman policies regarding deepsman, I was very interested in the portrayal of the two societies and their differences.  On this topic, I particularly enjoyed the early story of the two hybrid protagonists, Anne and Henry.  Henry was an illegal hybrid who spent his first few years living with deepsmen.  I thought his introduction to above-water life was shown very skillfully.  It was clear that his worldview was shaped by his years underwater, and that this affected his efforts to make sense of his new world. Anne, on the other hand, was a child of the English royal family.  She was very conscious of her surroundings from a young age, and I enjoyed watching her slowly develop a construct of her world and the rules that bound it.   I loved these chapters, and their exploration of how the main characters were shaped by their upbringing and environment.

However, as the story progressed, it seemed to lose its tension and drive.  Both protagonists seemed to live lives marked by abnormally good luck, so their personal journeys never felt as difficult as they might have.  This became more pronounced later in the story, where their run of luck began to seem progressively more unlikely.  The protagonists’ good fortune also seemed to outstrip their ambition, which also seemed to mute the joy of their successes.  For instance, the only reason Henry ever wanted to be king to avoid being executed—he had no real interest whatsoever in landsmen. I remained interested in what would become of Henry and Anne, but I was never quite as engaged as I was with the story of their early lives.    

My Rating: 3/5

In Great Waters is an interesting fantastical alternate history story, where the existence of merpeople, called deepsmen, has changed European politics.  The deepsmen are not the cute kind usual to children’s stories, but are a territorial people who live violent, often short, lives. The detail given to developing the deepsman society and their effects on strengthened the story, though their exact role in society stretched credulity in some ways.  I most enjoyed the story of the early life of the two protagonists, which showed how their environments shaped the way they saw their world.  The story seemed to lose steam as it progressed, mostly because success seemed to come a bit too easily to the main characters. In Great Waters was definitely a creative and interesting story, despite my complaints, and it was fun to read such a different take on a familiar supernatural creature!