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: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente

Published: Feiwel & Friends, 2012

Series: Book 2 of Fairyland

Awards Nominated: Locus YA Award

The Book:

“September has longed to return to Fairyland after her first adventure there. And when she finally does, she learns that its inhabitants have been losing their shadows—and their magic—to the world of Fairyland Below. This underworld has a new ruler: Halloween, the Hollow Queen, who is September’s shadow. And Halloween does not want to give Fairyland’s shadows back.” ~WWend.com

This, the 2^nd Fairyland book, is the third novel I’ve read by Valente, though I have also read some of her short fiction. I would strongly recommend readers to begin this series with Book 1, The

Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making.

My Thoughts:

On this journey to Fairyland, September is no longer a mostly-heartless child, but instead has the painful new heart of an adolescent, with its confusing, intense feelings.  This causes the story to be slightly more mature, and also, in my opinion, gives it more of a feeling of connection to the real world.  In the first book, September initially ran off to Fairyland with little thought to her parents, but this time she carries her fear and worry for her father, a soldier in World War II, with her. Her experience in Fairyland is accordingly darker, as she comes into a world that is slowly losing its magic (which is now rationed) in a war with Fairyland Below.

The story builds on a decision September made in the first book, when she chose to sacrifice her shadow in order to save someone. That shadow has now become the queen of Fairyland Below, and the queen is using her terrifying henchman, the Alleyman, to pull the shadows of others into her kingdom. However, Halloween is not exactly evil, she is merely someone who wants things very badly, and who is not too concerned with the effects of her actions on the wider world.  This left her as a rather ambiguous and complicated villain, especially since many of the things she wanted were not necessarily bad in themselves.  

This ties in to one of the things I found most interesting about the idea of the shadows—Halloween was not September’s evil twin, but instead represented the things about herself that she kept hidden or suppressed. The novel describes people’s shadows—their ‘dark sides’—as follows:

“…sometimes people keep parts of themselves hidden and secret, sometimes wicked and unkind parts, but often brave or wild or colorful parts, cunning or powerful or even marvelous, beautiful parts, just locked away at the bottom of their hearts” ~p. 72

Several major recurring characters appear throughout the story as their shadow selves, and I found it really interesting to see what parts of their personalities they chose to hide from others. I missed seeing some of them in their ordinary forms, like A-Through-L and Saturday, but there were plenty of interesting new characters to get to know as well.

Fairyland Below is just as large as Fairyland Above, and this second novel has just as impressive of a whirlwind of fantastical creatures and ideas—the economic systems of Goblin Markets, Järlhopp miners with gem-stored memories, minotaurs, forests of glass and much more.  There’s also magical Physickists this time around, which naturally piqued my interest.  I was delighted by the bizarre translation of physics academia into the fantastic, and especially loved this particular little joke about Questing Physicks: 

 “It is my dearest hope that one day I shall be the one to discover the GUT—the Grand Unified Tale, the one which will bind together all our Theorems and Laws, leaving out not one Orphan Girl or Youngest Son or Cup of Life and Death.” ~p. 120

Sure, it’s a simple joke,but it made me happy. Valente’s writing is also as lovely and poetic as ever, and I feel like I could have quoted half the book here as memorable passages. Altogether, this is an excellent addition to the Fairyland series, and I am looking forward to following September as she grows up through the coming novels.

My Rating: 4.5/5

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There is a wonderful sequel to the delightful first book of the series.  September is a little older now, and as she moves from childhood into adolescence, her story has become a bit more mature and darker as well.  This time, she is dealing with shadows, the parts of themselves that people conceal, as well as her fear for her father, who is away in World War II.  September’s Fairyland adventures still run through a seemingly endless barrage of creative fantastical ideas, and the villain is, once again, more complicated than one might expect.  I'm really enjoying the series, and can’t wait to read the next novel!

Review: Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy

Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy

Published: Bantam UK, 1983

Awards Nominated: Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards

The Book:

“When Marth Macnamara’s headstrong, intelligent daughter Elizabeth calls her for some kind of unspecified help, Martha rushes across the country to aid her. After Martha arrives at the luxurious hotel her daughter had booked for her, however, Elizabeth seems to have vanished.

While waiting anxiously for any contact from her daughter, Martha meets a mysterious Chinese gentleman by the name of Mayland Long.  Mayland seems to be living at the hotel, and he is drawn to Martha and her zen approach to life.  According to the hotel’s bartender, Mayland also believes he is a dragon.  Together, perhaps they can learn the truth about Elizabeth’s situation, before it’s too late!” ~Allie  

Tea with the Black Dragon is the first novel I’ve read by R.A. MacAvoy.

My Thoughts:

Tea with the Black Dragon is a short novel, but one that uncoils to reveal its mysteries with a slowly building speed.  The first part of the novel is full of tea and philosophical conversation, but the tension begins to mount as Martha and Mayland slowly start uncovering the truth about Elizabeth’s disappearance.  The story ends up being part mystery, part fantasy, and part thriller, and I especially enjoyed how the mystery was handled.  The solution to the mystery was not obvious from the beginning, but instead slowly becomes clearer with each character interaction in Mayland and Martha’s investigation.

The story does feel very dated, in some charming and some not-so-charming ways.  On the positive side, I really enjoyed the focus on 1980’s computer science. It is truly amazing how much has changed in computing during the past few decades, and I thought it was really cool to have this window back into how things were when I was very young. 

On the more negative side, I was not a huge fan of the exoticization of Mayland and the general portrayal of the female characters.  It seemed like Mayland’s ethnicity was mentioned nearly every time he or his actions were described, always to distinguish how he was totally different from white (or black) people. It didn’t help this feeling of othering that Mayland, as a Chinese dragon, was also a literal outsider to the human race. In terms of the female characters, most of the novel is basically a standard damsel-in-distress story, though I’d say it is a very good one.  I was also not thrilled with what the story seemed to be saying about women through the characters of Martha and Elizabeth, from their life perspectives and experiences.  Despite these complaints, I found the personalities of Mayland and Martha to be very likeable and engaging, so it was very easy to cheer for them as the story took its more dangerous turns.     

As far as fantasy goes, the single fantasy element is undeniably present, but also mostly irrelevant to the story. Mayland Long claims to be a dragon in human form—and this is confirmed by several details in the text—but the story would have changed very little if he had just been a wealthy man in the middle of a philosophical crisis.  I rather liked this approach, since it made the story more about the characters, their thoughts, and their connections to one another than about external magical influence. It’s an entertaining book both as a story of Mayland’s personal growth and as a thriller about Martha’s missing daughter.

My Rating: 3.5/5

Tea with the Black Dragon is a short but sweet novel that slowly uncovers the central mystery of Martha’s missing daughter.  While the story begins peacefully, the tension mounts as the underlying thriller plot is revealed.  Martha is aided in her investigation by Mayland Long, a Chinese dragon in human form who is searching for a philosophical master that can lead him to understanding.  The novel feels a bit dated now, with its inclusion of 1980s computers and what seems like some outdated approaches to gender and ethnicity, but the story is still easy to enjoy. Overall, it was a very pleasant and entertaining book to read, and one I am happy to have encountered.