Review: The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

Published: Orbit, 2017

Series: Book 3 in the Broken Earth Trilogy

Awards Won: Hugo, Nebula, and Locus SF Awards

The Book:

“The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.” ~Goodreads.com

It has taken a lot of time to figure out what to say about this book, because it was really amazing. I’m still not doing it justice, but here goes...  

Short Review: 5/5

The Broken Earth Trilogy as a whole tells a brutal, emotionally powerful story. The life of Essun, under her variety of names, is at the heart of it, but she shares this final novel with her daughter Nassun and the Stone Eater Hoa.  The Fifth Season sees Essun as she grows up in a society that dehumanizes her and repeatedly destroys her life, and The Obelisk Gate follows her and her daughter as they go through different journeys and grow in different directions.  The Stone Sky is the culmination of both of their arcs, when the two most powerful orogenes must decide what is to be done with the returning moon--change the world, or destroy it?  At the same time, we finally get a glimpse back to the original shattering of the world, through Hoa’s history. It was very interesting to see back into this ancient civilization, to see the fault lines of greed and oppression that led to the destruction of their world.

I feel like another reason this series is so popular lately (aside from it being awesome), is that it addresses the fears and anxieties of my generation.  We, too, live in an energy-greedy society that is facing the reality of environmental decline, and we, too, live in a world where oppression is and has been the norm on many axes.  While The Stone Sky does not shy away from the violence and emotional damage inflicted by these problems, it also does not show us a world without hope.  Despite all of the suffering, there is still hope that the world can change, and that we can find a better way to live.

Review: The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

Published: Orbit, 2016

Series: Book 2 of The Broken Earth

Beware some spoilers of book 1, The Fifth Season, below!

The Book:

“A world-wrecking Season is underway, and Essun’s search for her daughter has reached a dead end. She remains in the underground city of Castrima, a community that claims to accept orogenes as equals.  Castrima may also be the final home of her former mentor and lover, Alabaster, who is now dying. Even if there is no forgiveness between them, he needs her to perform a dangerous task that he no longer has the power to undertake.  

In the meantime, Essun’s orogene daughter Nassun travels with a father that struggles to reconcile his love for his daughter with his conviction that all orogenes should be killed on sight.  He is intent on finding a way to ‘cure’ his daughter, but their bond is already poisoned by the hatred he carries. She will find a new kind of guardian at her destination, as well as a new focus for her life and considerable talents.” ~Allie

I loved The Fifth Season, and I am excited to continue Essun’s story.  I would definitely recommend reading this series in order.  Also, to note, I don’t normally give all the books I review 4.5-5 stars.  I’m just in the middle of a stretch of reading really good books.

My Thoughts:

While much of the story of The Fifth Season takes place during a relatively stable period in the history of the Stillness, The Obelisk Gate starts and continues firmly in apocalyptic territory. The environment is changing, and there’s no guarantee that humanity will be able to endure until the world becomes stable again.  In this world, the Seasons are uncommon but not unexpected, so people fall back on harsh lore that they hope will help them survive.  The conditions stress the characters to their breaking points, and force them to center day-to-day survival as their goal.  The story mostly follows two viewpoint characters, Essun and her daughter Nassun, as they find shelter in two very different communes.  There are a number of parallels in their stories, and it is interesting to see the differences in how they each come to see the world.

The Obelisk Gate sometimes lacks the momentum of the first book in the series, but this allows for an interesting exploration of the richly complex characters.  This is the kind of story where no one is completely admirable, but their reasoning and actions feel emotionally authentic.  This can sometimes be uncomfortable, as their relationships generally lack the definite moments of closure or reconciliation that I guess I have come to expect in fiction. Of the main characters, I feel closest to Essun. While she makes some horrific decisions, I can understand and sympathize with the impulses behind them.  Underneath everything, right now I feel like she is a good person who is constantly forced to make impossible choices.  The situation with Nassun and her father Jija is simply heartbreaking.  No child should ever have to manipulate their own parent into caring for them, or to live in fear of violence from the one that should protect them.  That being said, I am worried about the path that Nassun is currently following, and the harm it is likely to cause to so many people.  There are many memorable moments between the characters, and I hope that the final book in the trilogy leaves them in a better state than they are right now.

The Obelisk Gate also expands considerably on the nature of the world and orogene.  Some questions from the first novel are beginning to be answered, and I feel like I have a better sense of what the endgame is going to involve.  I enjoyed learning more about the origins of the stone eaters and guardians, and to see both Essun and Nassun developing and refining their skills in orogeny.  I was surprised that orogeny is explicitly labeled as magic, probably because so much in the world feels very physical and explainable.  As one would hope after the second book in a trilogy (the darkest of the three acts), I can’t see right now how the story can ultimately have any kind of happy ending.  I’m anxious to see how things will turn out for Essun and the others, and thus impatient for the final novel, The Stone Sky, to come out this August!  

My Rating: 4.5 /5

The Obelisk Gate is a sequel that lives up to the impressive, award-winning first novel of the series, The Fifth Season. Now fully an apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic story, the novel follows the roughly parallel stories of Essun and her missing daughter, Nassun. There was less action in this middle part of the trilogy, since the main characters stick with the communes that have accepted them as conditions worsened.  However, there was considerable development in terms of the characters and their understanding of the world they inhabit.  The main characters are a major draw of the story, as they are both deeply flawed and deeply human.  I am loving this series so far, and will certainly pick up The Stone Sky when it is available this August.

Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Publish: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015

Awards Nominated: Derleth & Campbell Memorial Awards

Awards Won: Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Book:

“Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.” ~Amazon.com

I’d never read anything by Emily St. John Mandel before, and picked this one up due to the attention it received in SFF awards (as well as a strong recommendation from George R.R. Martin).

My Thoughts:

I put off reading this novel for quite some time, because I was afraid it would be terribly depressing.  After all, it is about mass death, the collapse of civilization, and the survivors who live in the wreckage.  Though the material was extremely sad, I liked that the tone felt more contemplative and hopeful than I had expected. Rather than a story about an inevitable end, it was a story of death and rebirth.  The end of our civilization was something to be grieved and remembered, but it was not the end of everything.  It was important for the survivors to remember the past, but not to let it constrain how their world would develop in the future. Just after the flu pandemic, people could only struggle to meet their basic needs.  As time passed, those remaining began to gather into communities.  Twenty years later, the success of the Traveling Symphony shows that mere survival is no longer sufficient, and that people are beginning to once again long for art and music.  Though the new world is dangerous, and though the pre-flu world will never return, the existence of Kirsten’s group gives me the sense that there is still hope for the future.

The novel’s atmosphere is enhanced by the fictional unpublished “Dr. Eleven” comics created by Arthur Leander’s ex-wife. “Dr. Eleven” ties characters together in unexpected ways, and is a kind of nexus for connecting several different storylines.  The characters in the comic are forced to build a new life in a space station, though many of them still long for the now-forbidden Earth.  The descriptions of the comic, as well as the work that was put into its creation, were hauntingly beautiful.  I found myself wondering if someone might actually create the fictional work someday, because I would love to actually see the artwork.  In any case, I enjoyed reading about the comic, and I liked the way it reflected the emotion of the story.

The story itself jumps back and forth in time, with scenes before, during, and twenty years after the pandemic.  The most continuous storyline is the one involving Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony, with difficulties they encounter in the new world.  Other scenes involve the fate of a handful of characters, all loosely connected by the actor Arthur Leander and the “Dr. Eleven” comics.  There was not a whole lot of time to become invested in each character, and some of their stories seemed to just trail off.  I was less interested in the pre-pandemic sections, which mostly followed Leander’s celebrity love life.  In the post-pandemic sections, I thought Kirsten’s amnesia and impressive knife-throwing skills felt a little clichéd, but I did enjoy her as a heroine through which to observe the slow growth of a new civilization.  For me, rather than in plot and characters, the strength of the novel was in the poetic and atmospheric depiction of the death and rebirth of human civilization.

My Rating: 3.5 /5

Station Eleven is the story of a worldwide civilizational collapse, but it thankfully avoids being relentlessly depressing or nihilistic.  Instead, it is a quiet, thoughtful book showing the death of one world and the birth of another.  The handful of characters are all connected through the actor Arthur Leander and through his ex-wife’s haunting comic, “Dr. Eleven”.  Kirsten’s storyline twenty years after the pandemic has the most conventional plot, but it is interspersed with scenes from other characters that take place before and during the collapse.  I had a hard time getting emotionally invested in the characters, but I really enjoyed the writing and the emotional tone of the story.  Also, “Dr. Eleven” is fictional, but it looks like St. John Mandel may write a script for the comics.  It would be interesting to see if the pictures match what I imagined while reading Station Eleven!

Review: Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

Published: HarperCollins/Voyager (2014), Original Finnish Publication (2012)

Awards Nominated: Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke, and Golden Tentacle Awards

The Book:

“Climate change has dramatically altered the world, and water—or rather the lack of it—is at the center of everyone’s concerns.  Noria Kaitio is the daughter and apprentice of a rural tea master, but even their small town must cope with water rationing and military oversight.  When she is old enough, her father teaches her the family’s secret, an illegal hidden spring. 

After her father’s death, the water shortages get worse and the military begins to execute perpetrators of water crimes. Noria’s secret could help her friends and neighbors, but the risk is high.  As she learns more about the foundation of her world, Noria will have to choose the path that will define her life.” ~Allie  

Memory of Water is Emmi Itäranta’s debut novel, and she is currently working on her second novel, City of Woven Streets. If I’m understanding correctly, she worked simultaneously on the Finnish and English manuscripts of Memory of Water, so the English version is also directly written by the author.

My Thoughts:

I would consider Memory of Water a dystopian young adult novel, but it’s also very different from the image (Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.) that this might bring to mind.  It is a slow, meditative novel that is more about observing the world as it is than about bringing change.  The story carries very strong messages, as well, about the need to protect the environment and the value of integrity.  The environmental concerns were laid on pretty thick, especially in the early parts of the novel, where the main characters talk about the irresponsibility and short-sightedness of the global society that ruined the world.  Considering the state of our world today, I think this is a good message to communicate.  However, with the ruined world, all of the death around Noria, and the inability of the characters to do much about it, it made for a pretty depressing book.

Due to the nature of the story, there really aren’t any plot twists or unexpected turns.  The book’s description more or less covers the plot, and anything else is heavily foreshadowed.  I kept waiting for the pace to pick up, and only realized that was not going to happen as I approached the end. However, Noria was an interesting and eloquent narrator, and the descriptions of her study as a tea master, her daily life, her friendship with her neighbor Sanja, and her ideas about life were sometimes quite beautiful. Noria also carried a particular naïveté, in that she both believed deeply in the way of tea masters and her parents teachings, but—with the invincibility of the young—she also did not seriously believe that she could meet with failure. When the novel ended, I was frustrated by how little had changed, but perhaps readers should carry that frustration with them as they return to the current reality.

My Rating: 3/5

The Memory of Water is a very slow, thoughtful dystopian young adult science fiction novel, set in a water-poor world after an environmental collapse.  It follows the life of an apprentice tea master apprentice, Noria, whose family also illegally holds knowledge of a secret spring.  While the prose is often lovely, I felt like very little happened in the story.  I would say the focus is more on Noria’s understanding of her life, her craft, and her world, as well as on the importance of protecting the environment.  At the conclusion, I found the lack of change depressing, even though I felt the ending fit with the tone of the novel.  I think this was a well-written novel, but it was not exactly what I was looking for.

Review: Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod

The Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod

Published: P.S. Publishing, 2008

Awards Won: John W. Campbell Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award

The Book:

“A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman who discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself... or a new kind of life she can barely contemplate.

Does death still exist at all, or has it finally been obliterated? And who is this strange man she's found? Is he a figure returned from her past, a new messiah, or an empty vessel? Is he God, or the Devil?” ~WWend.com

This is the first book I’ve read by Ian R. MacLeod, which is a shame, because I briefly met him at Loncon 3, before I’d finished the book.  It was an e-book, so I suppose I couldn’t have gotten him to sign it anyway, but I would have liked to be able to say something to him about his work.

My Thoughts:

The Song of Time is not extremely long novel, but the story it told felt sprawling and immersive in a way that I would generally expect from a doorstop of a book.  The story is told from the perspective of Roushana Maitland, now an elderly, terminally-ill woman who is recounting the important personal events of her long life, in order to fix all the memories in place for the post-human life she is contemplating.  In the process, she is also re-forming her experiences as a story, and making sense of the many changes that have happened to the world and to herself in the past century.  The man who washes up on the shore, who she calls Adam (and who calls himself Abaddon), becomes her audience.  The quiet, contemplative domestic life of Adam and Roushana gives a nice anchor for delving into Roushana’s tumultuous memories.

Roushana has lived through the end of the world as we know it, and the long apocalypse has a feeling of authenticity.  It isn’t any one thing that changes the world, but a variety of disasters and developments over many decades.  There are weaponized diseases like WRFI (wide range food intolerance), nuclear war in politically unstable regions, environmental problems and natural disasters.  However, the story is focused on Roushana’s life, and how she has navigated these changes in the world. This seemed to me to make the story more personal and human, and much more easily relatable.  For instance, Roushana heard about the first nuclear strike from the news on TV, while she was busy doing something else—just as most of my generation in the US first heard of the events of 9/11 from news broadcasts, when I was in high school.  It did not feel like Roushana was shoehorned into major events unrealistically, but her life made an excellent lens through which to see her world’s future history.   

I think it is impressive that Roushana does not come across to me as passive, despite her inability to affect anything that is happening on a wider scale.  She may not be stopping nuclear wars, but she has goals, dreams, and a strength of personality that aids her struggle to find her own path. As a child, she is driven by her adoration of her brother to pursue musical excellence. As an adult, she is known worldwide as a brilliant violinist, and I enjoyed reading the whirlwind of her young adulthood in the wild, declining Parisian art scene. Altogether, I felt that the novel balanced well the large-scale slow apocalypse and the small-scale story of Roushana’s life, such that both were equally compelling.

Near the end of Roushana’s life, her story has moved into a contemplation of the nature of identity, mortality and memory.  Roushana’s musing on the imperfection of stories, as they change depending on the perspective of the teller, is reflected in a major musical piece of her century, an artificially intelligent symphony that changes over time.  There isn’t a lot of information on the technology of the symphony, or on the technology that would enable Roushana to exist past her physical lifetime.  Instead, the story focuses on the meaning of these technologies in the context of human life.  I don’t know if I would have made the same decisions as Roushana, but I felt like the conclusion was true to her character. 

My Rating: 4/5

Song of Time tells the life story of an elderly violinist who has lived through a turbulent century, through the memories she recounts to an amnesiac man she has rescued. The story worked extremely well on the large-scale level of the world’s slow collapse as well as on the small-scale, personal, emotional level of Roushana’s life.  The mystery of the rescued man, Adam, ties into the ideas about identity and mortality that Roushana is exploring as she considers the end of her life, and whether she should seize the chance for a post-death existence in the future world. Song of Time was a wonderfully immersive story, though a pretty sad one, and is a novel that I think I will remember for a long time to come.

Review: Dinner at Deviant's Palace by Tim Powers

Dinner at Deviant’s Palace by Tim Powers

Published: Ace Books, 1985

Awards Won: Philip K. Dick Award

Awards Nominated: Nebula Award

The Book:

“Gregorio Rivas is retired from the Redemptionist trade - at thirty-one, he's no longer willing to risk his life rescuing new recruits from the savage religion of the Messiah Norton Jaybush, no longer eager to track the caravans of the faithful through the mutated wildernesses of Los Angeles. Once he was the best Redemptionist for hire - once he even tracked a victim right up to the walls of the Messiah's perilous Holy City in Irvine - but that's all over now.

Or it was - until he's approached to perform one last Redemption. And this time the victim who has been brainwashed and carried away by the brutal faith is his long-lost first love, Urania. And so Rivas sets out to save her, beginning a violent pilgrimage that will take him through the landscape-of-the-damned which is 22nd Century California, and into the very heart of the Jaybush cult - and finally to the nightmare city of Venice, and the fabulous, feared castle at the core of it... Deviant's Palace.” ~WWend.com

This is the third of Powers’s novels that I’ve read, and I definitely plan to read more of his work.  Thus far, I have had a consistently very positive experience in reading his entertaining and unusual style of fiction.

My Thoughts:

Dinner at Deviant’s Palace throws the reader down in the middle of an exceedingly strange world, without very much information to guide the way.  The world is clearly a post-nuclear wasteland, but many of the stranger aspects of the world—like Venice and its ‘blood’, hemogoblins, and the jaybird cult—were also not necessarily entirely understood by the protagonist.  I enjoyed the slow process of figuring everything out, especially since almost all of the world-building details ended up being essential for the story.  I also appreciated how this approach allowed the increasingly weird details of the world to be uncovered at a gradual pace.  I think introducing too much information too soon would have risked startling readers off with too much strangeness.

 

As usual, I loved Powers world-building and the physical way he incorporated the more fantastical elements into the story. I even recognized some ideas that I’ve seen show up again in later works. For instance, the idea of particular music or rhythms providing protection from inhuman power (here the jaybird cult) comes up again in protection from djinn in Declare. However, I was struck by the feeling that this seemed like an early work, and that the prose and the story were not quite as polished as in other novels I’ve read.  Since Dinner at Deviant’s Palace was actually published after The Anubis Gates, I am suspecting that it is just not quite as timeless a story.  It might be that the fear of nuclear apocalypse, and of the mental damage that comes from cult indoctrination or heavy drug abuse, is more rooted in the 20^th century experience. 

The basic story also seems a little old-fashioned, focused as it is on a hero’s quest to rescue, and rekindle romance with, his long-lost love.  It seems a little bit like the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, especially given the way Greg uses his musical talent during his quest.  However, the story is not quite that simple.  I felt like the deeper story involved the importance of discarding illusions and interacting with the world as it is.  This is true for Greg’s idealization of Urania as his tragic muse, his romanticized view of himself, and for other things, such the comfort that can be found in the Jaybird’s damaging Sacrament.  I really enjoyed Greg’s journey and his development as a person. While I thought the epilogue seemed unnecessary, I thought the ending of the novel made for a fitting conclusion of Greg’s story.

My Rating: 4/5

Dinner at Deviant’s Palace is a strange post-nuclear science fiction novel from a skilled storyteller.  The wasteland of California feels well-developed, and increasingly strange details crop up as the plot progresses.  Greg Rivas begins on a quest to redeem his long-lost ex-girlfriend from a dangerous cult, but his journey will force him to face some difficult truths about himself and the world he lives in.  This story feels a little more dated than some of Powers other novels, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly.

Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Published: Lippincott (1959), Easton Press (1994), Gollancz(2013)

Awards Won: Hugo Award

The Book:

“The Flame Deluge has wrecked the world, and the following anti-knowledge cultural backlash has eliminated most of what remained of the previous civilization.  However, out in the desert, in the Monastery of the Blessed Leibowitz, monks are patiently spending their lives to preserve the knowledge of the earlier age, regardless of how little they understand it.

In a story spanning many years, A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the events surrounding the Albertian Order of Leibowitz—through the dark ages that follow nuclear war, through the re-awakening of scientific thought, and through the rest of the destructive cycle of human civilization.” ~Allie

A Canticle for Leibowitz is the only novel Walter M. Miller, Jr. published in his lifetime, though a sequel (Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman) was completed and published posthumously. 

My Thoughts:

Like a few of the early Hugo winners I’ve been reading lately, A Canticle for Leibowitz, was originally published as three shorter works and then reconstructed into a novel. In this case, the three stories were the stories of three separate eras of post-nuclear-disaster Earth: a dark age, a scientific renaissance, and a new nuclear age.  Each section is a complete story, but the sections are connected by their themes and common history.  I haven’t read the stories in their original short forms, but I have read that they were extensively reworked to make a stronger whole.  I feel that the final product is a really impressive work of long fiction, and that the three stories fit together well in service of a larger, more complex story.

Each of the three stories that comprised the novel took place in a different era and concerned a different cast of characters.  I think that the novel was pretty successful in relating the society of each era, and the cast of characters that reflected the values of that society. The monastery is one constant throughout the centuries, as is an apparently immortal Jewish character, Benjamin, a reference to a myth that might be offensive to some readers.  However, I enjoyed following the stories of Benjamin and the various casts, which included abbots, monks, scientists and others.  Many of the characters were engaging as individuals, and they were often also interesting in terms of the points the author was using their existence, thoughts, and actions to make.

One thing that really surprised me was how the story could run the gamut from very serious to quite funny, without feeling uneven in tone. The content seems quite depressing—it starts with a bleak post-apocalyptic future, and shows a humanity that is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.  There’s also quite a lot of death and tragedy within the stories of individual characters.  However, the darkness of the story is counterbalanced by an occasional lightness and humor. For instance, the first protagonist, a monk-to-be named Francis, was both endearing and comical in his over-earnestness and simple piety.  He considered an ancient shopping list a holy relic, and believed a “fallout” was a kind of demon that had once attacked humanity. I appreciated how these little touches of humor throughout the novel helped to keep the story from feeling too heavy or bleak.       

In addition to being entertaining, A Canticle for Leibowitz was also a complex book, full of many interesting ideas and hidden meanings to uncover. The novel is heavily Catholic, so I have probably missed some allusions or symbols, along with missing some of the meaning of the Latin phrases. However, I really enjoyed the complexity of the representation of religion in the story.  For instance, there was some interesting discussion of the relationship between science and religion, and consideration of the effect of prosperity and its lack on human attitudes.  In terms of the religious symbolism, the last section ended up a little too weird for my tastes, and I’m not sure I ultimately agree with some of the arguments of the novel. Altogether, I think this is a novel that rewards an attentive reader, and would probably benefit from being read more than once.

 My Rating: 4.5/5

A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the development of human civilization after a nuclear war, through a new cycle of growth and destruction.  The three sections of the novel relate three separate stories that are connected through the Monastery and themes of the novel.  Each story has a distinct set of characters that represent their respective eras.  I enjoyed the religious and philosophical ideas, though I may have missed some points due to my outsider’s view of Catholicism.  The seriousness of the story was also pleasantly counterbalanced by light touches of humor.  Overall, A Canticle for Leibowitz delivers a story that is both thoughtful and entertaining, and I can see why this one is considered a classic!      

Review: Galveston by Sean Stewart

Galveston by Sean Stewart

Published: Ace Books, 2000

Awards Won: World Fantasy Award

The Book:

“During Mardi Gras of 2004, Galveston was inundated by a Flood… not of water, but of deadly and dangerous magic.  When the disaster began to settle, the city was split into two halves.  In normal Galveston, people lived in the ruins of the old technological civilization.  Their fragile community was held together through the efforts of the secular leader, Jane Gardner.  Magical Galveston remained in Mardi Gras forever, reigned over by a god of magic, Momus.  The two halves were held separate by the power of the witch Odessa Gibbons, who exiled anyone contaminated by magic to the Carnival.

Jane Gardner’s daughter Sloane is still trying to find her place in this new society.  As her mother’s health fails, she knows that she doesn’t have what it takes to live up to Jane’s legacy.  At the same time, a boy she once knew, Josh Cane, struggles with his lot in life.  Though his family was once somewhat wealthy, he now lives alone as an herbal doctor, treating poor folk that he despises.  Like a game of poker, their futures will be determined both by chance and by their skill at playing the hands they’re dealt.” ~Allie

This is the first book I’ve read by Sean Stewart, and while I appreciated the creativity of the story, it didn’t really work for me. I already have a copy of Mockingbird on my bookshelf, though, so I am going to try reading at least one more book by Stewart at some point.

My Thoughts:

The thing I most enjoyed about Galveston was the setting.  The survivor community of Galveston and the chaotic, time-stopped Mardi Gras area both had a distinct flair and ambience.  Normal Galveston was a drab, desperate place that relied on its past as it searched for a future. The details about the foundations of their everyday lives, such as how they generated power or made clothing, made the setting feel immediate and grounded.  However, as they began to run out of their carefully hoarded pre-Flood goods—from soda to penicillin—there was a creeping sense of dread and uncertainty about the future. Mardi Gras, on the other hand, was mysterious, wild, and confusing.  It held all the allure of a wild night of drinking and carousing, but with a level of danger exaggerated by magic.  For one thing, the revelers tended to slowly transform into creatures, and for another, the party never ended. There weren’t many details about the larger concerns of the world—how other areas were faring, what caused the magic in the first place, or what rules it followed—but real and magical Galveston were beautifully imagined in all their grimy, sleazy glory.   

In this troubled world, I think the main characters, Josh and Sloane, were intended to be pretty unlikeable characters. I think that the fairly sympathetic secondary character, Josh’s only friend Ham (named after Noah’s son), was supposed to win over the audience and connect them to the protagonists.  While Ham’s compassion and good cheer did win me over, I was never able to bring myself to care the slightest bit about the fate of Josh and Sloane. Josh was creepily obsessed with Sloane based on a childhood crush, and he was extremely bitter about having to associate with poor people.  He was almost universally nasty to anyone who had the misfortune of interacting with him. Sloane, on the other hand, didn’t really seem to have a strong identity at all.  Her personality changed a lot throughout the book, but it was mostly a result of external magical meddling.  Since her character seemed to lack integrity, any personal growth seemed more like something that was done to her than something she achieved.  I know all readers have different tolerances for unsympathetic characters, but these two were well past mine.

In addition to lacking a connection with the protagonists, I was frustrated by a plot that often seemed directionless, and occasionally even clumsy.  One example of this clumsiness was the plot device used to force the male and female protagonists to meet.  In short, Sloane encountered Josh as a result of her rescue from a gang of generic rapist thugs that set upon her as she was walking home.  This event was largely irrelevant to the rest of the story, but I was also frustrated by the unexamined victim blaming in the later reference to the event as “her stupidity afterward in nearly getting herself raped” (p.75).  Overall, the story seemed to move from event to event in a rather unfocused way, and often plot points that I expected would be important were just solved by chance or dismissed.

I think part of the reason for this structure was to make the story a reflection of the mechanics of the game of poker (specifically Texas hold’em), which was heavily featured in the story.  Poker was common in both real and magical Galveston, and there were many discussions of strategies, bluffing techniques, and detailed accounts of games.  As in poker, the story was strongly influenced by chance events, and the importance of various plot points shifted as more of the story was revealed.  While I appreciated the idea, it didn’t work for me as a narrative structure. The end was also a little bit of a letdown, as the story didn’t resolve so much as it just stopped, leaving a number of threads hanging. Though I was a bit unsatisfied by the ending, I did appreciate the realistic treatment of some of the remaining problems, which were of the sort that can’t be solved quickly.

My Rating: 2.5/5

The setting of Galveston was fascinating, though I was less intrigued by the characters and the story.  I loved the different atmosphere and rich description of the post-technological real Galveston and the time-stopped, sometimes nightmarish, Carnival.  The main characters, Sloane and Josh, were too unsympathetic for me, and I had a hard time caring about what would eventually happen to them.  The story, which seemed to parallel aspects of the game of poker, was just too random and unfocused for my taste, and the ending also seemed very abrupt.  I did really enjoy the world, though the story didn’t really work for me, so I will probably try another of Stewart’s novels in the future.

Review: This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

This Immortal by Roger Zelazny

Published: Ace Books 1966

Awards Won: Hugo Award

The Book:

“Radiation has ravaged the Earth, and the surviving humans live on islands, away from the hot spots of the mainland.  Mutants and monstrous creatures roam the wilds, making travel even more dangerous.  In humanity’s darkest hour, an alien civilization from Vega came to their rescue.  Humans moved in droves to the worlds of the Vegans, willing to live as second-class citizens in exchange for a home in a comfortable and highly advanced society.  Those who remained on the Earth saw their home slowly turned into an exotic Vegan vacation spot, despite their violent efforts to stop the process. 

Conrad Nomikos, Earth’s Commissioner of Arts, Monuments and Archives, is a mysterious, close-lipped figure with a long history.  He is not especially happy to find himself impressed into the service of a visiting Vegan, Cort Myshtigo, especially when he finds the alien insisted on him personally.  Myshtigo plans to tour the remains of the Earth, ostensibly for a book he intends to write.  Some humans believe there’s more to his trip than meets the eye, and they are not willing to watch more of their home slip into the hands of aliens.  Conrad may be the only thing that can stand between Myshtigo and an untimely death, but should he?” ~Allie

Zelazny is an author I’m rather familiar with, as I have read his Amber novels.  I believe this was actually Zelazny’s first published novel, though I wouldn’t have guessed it from reading.  It’s pretty impressive that he was able to win a Hugo Award with a debut novel, and tied with Frank Herbert’s Dune, no less!

My Thoughts:

 This Immortal or …And Call Me Conrad, as Zelazny preferred the novel to be titled, is a book that works on several different levels.  The intrigue surrounding Myshtigo’s presence provides an undercurrent of tension throughout the story.  There’s very little evidence along the way about Myshtigo’s true intentions, but speculation on them illuminates parts of Conrad’s history and the continuing political situation of the remaining humans.  It also provides an interesting moral dilemma for Conrad, who is hired to protect Myshtigo but driven to protect the Earth.   On top of this mystery, the basic plot concerns the adventure of the journey Conrad and the others undertake.   There’s plenty of well-written action to move the story along, as they encounter mutants and dangerous creatures.  The action segments seemed episodic to me, but I appreciated how they were used to highlight information about the world, the characters, and the situation with Myshtigo.

Of the characters, Conrad is the most memorable.  He seemed somewhat similar to Corwin, from the later Amber books—both of them are flawed, (probably) immortal super-humans, who have a wry sense of humor and seem like fundamentally decent people. Conrad also appears to be instrumental in the fate of his world, shown both through his role as commissioner and Myshtigo’s guide, and through his comparison to the Greek kallikanzaros.  I am not usually a fan of main characters that are vastly more powerful than everyone around them, but Conrad’s down-to-earth personality made this story work for me.  While he is undeniably physically strong and long-lived, he is not untouchable.  Conrad is also very invested in the future of Earth and the lives of his friends, and even his superhuman abilities cannot assure positive outcomes for either of them.

Aside from the surface plot and characters, I also enjoyed the confluence of science fiction and fantasy atmosphere in the story.  One can see this clearly in the case of Conrad, who can be seen as either a kind of god (or kallikanzaros), or as simply an extraordinarily long-lived mutant.  In a similar vein, the monstrous and mutated animals of the irradiated Earth are often compared to mythological creatures, as if the ruined planet was sinking back into times of myth and legend. There are actually quite a lot of Greek mythological references throughout the story, which were pretty fun to pick out.  On the science fiction side of the story, I enjoyed piecing together the future history that led to the current situation for humanity and their home planet. The future history was also quite interesting, and I enjoyed piecing together the events that led to the current Earth.       

My Rating: 4/5

This Immortal (or ….And Call Me Conrad) is a highly entertaining novel from early in Zelazny’s writing career.  The superhuman Conrad is rather similar to future Zelazny heroes, such as Corwin of Amber.  The story features a ruined future Earth, where many mutated creatures seem almost mythological.  The references to Greek mythology and the nature of Conrad’s identity also give the story an atmosphere that seems like a mix of fantasy and science fiction influences. Conrad’s task of escorting the alien Myshtigo around the Earth is full of conflict and action, but the story is also underpinned by the tension surrounding Myshtigo’s true purpose.  I think the novel has stood up well to the test of time, and will undoubtedly be enjoyed by many more readers in the future.