Review: The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee

The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee

Published: Orbit, 2010

Series: First of a trilogy

The Book:

“A recently established civilization, which has immigrated from from a foreign land, is facing war on two sides.  On one hand, they face the hostile aboriginal peoples of their new home.  On the other, they face the powerful civilization of their former homeland, Sairland.    

The aboriginal Aniw people of the far north have no interest in these wars, but the arrival of soldiers with guns make it clear that they have no choice. After an ill-fated act of violence, an Aniw spiritwalker, Sjennonirk, is taken into custody by these soldiers and imprisoned far from her home.

Sjennonirk’s story may have ended there, if a certain general had not been highly interested in the military potential of her powerful spiritwalker magic.  Now, her only possible path to freedom lies in teaching the general’s reluctant son, a soldier named Jarett Fawle, dangerous skills that will change both of their lives forever.” ~Allie

This is the December selection for the now-finished “2011 Women in Fantasy Book Club”, and the first of Lowachee’s novels that I’ve read.  It’s definitely the first novel of a series, though the rest of the series may or may not be forthcoming.  The personal character arcs of the two viewpoint characters do reach some resolution at the end of the novel, but it seems that the overall story is still only beginning.  

My Thoughts:

The world of Gaslight Dogs is fictional, but it reminds me strongly of dynamics between civilizations during the early movement of Europeans to the United States and Canada.  I enjoyed the fact that the novel did not show either the natives or the newcomers as purely good or evil. With Sjenn providing the viewpoint of Aniw culture and Jarret providing insight into the ‘invaders’, it was clear that both sides had their share of difficulties to face. I thought it was very interesting to see how their different cultural backgrounds shaped their interactions.  A lot of the book revolves around the relationship between Sjenn and Jarret, but it is more an uncertain alliance of necessity than anything approaching romance.  It was kind of refreshing to read a story about a man and a woman who do not fall in love.

One major aspect of the aboriginal cultures is their ‘spiritwalker’ magic, which is also the main fantasy element of the story.  Essentially, certain people have a ‘little spirit’ that lives within them.  This little spirit is a kind of ancestral god, and it can come out of the host human’s body in the form of a powerful ‘Dog’.  These Dogs are incredibly dangerous, and different aboriginal tribes have different techniques designed to keep them under control.  I thought it was a neat idea, but the frequent ritualistic calling and sending away of Dogs verged on feeling a little repetitive at times.  Jarret’s people’s former civilization, Sairland, also seemed to have some kind of magic, and there are hints that disagreements over it tie in to complicated religious politics.  This is delved into very little in Gaslight Dogs, but enough is shown to make me feel fairly certain that Jarret’s society’s religion and magic will play a larger role later in the trilogy. 

The writing in Gaslight Dogs was very effective at communicating physical sensation.  It was easy to imagine the winter cold, the summer heat, the grime of the frontier, and Sjenn’s hunger and physical discomfort.  However, I occasionally felt like there was some overuse of adjectives, which sometimes made the writing feel a little clunky.  The pacing also seemed a little uneven.  There wasn’t much action in the story, since most of the novel was focused on Sjenn and Jarret’s slowly developing partnership. The climactic scenes of the novel occurred with little buildup, making them seem a little abrupt and rushed next to the slow pace of the rest of the novel. 

Gaslight Dogs got off to a slow start, but I enjoyed getting to know the characters of Sjenn and Jarret.  The novel ended in a way I didn’t expect, but I can see in hindsight how much sense it makes in terms of the characters.  As a single novel, Gaslight Dogs did not feel dissatisfying.  There is a definite ending point, which concludes the character’s personal arcs, but it is obvious that there is a much larger story that is only beginning.  I believe it is still uncertain whether the second two novels will be written, but I think this is a story that certainly deserves continuation.  

My Rating: 3.5/5

Gaslight Dogs is an interesting story of ancient magic and a clash of cultures that seems similar to the clash between European immigrants and Native Americans.  Instead of showing either side as the ‘bad guys’, the novel provides a main character viewpoint from each side of the conflict.  I enjoyed watching the (very) slowly developing bond between spiritwalker Sjenn and soldier Jarret, possibly in part because they did not fall into any typical romantic patterns.  I had some complaint about construction, notably with the overuse of adjectives and the uneven pacing, but I thought Lowachee’s description of physical sensations was remarkably effective.  Overall, I think this is a story worth continuing, and I hope that Lowachee ends up publishing the rest of the trilogy!

Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Published: Feiwel and Friends, 2011

Series: Book 1 of Fairyland

Awards Won: Andre Norton Award, Locus YA Award

The Book:

“Twelve-year-old September is an ordinary girl who lives what seems to her a quiet, constricting life.  Her father is gone to war and her mother works, leaving September mostly to herself in their home.  One day, the Green Wind arrives, offering to take her away for adventures in Fairyland.

Without a backward glance, September takes him up on his offer. However, for all its wonders, Fairyland is a tricky, dangerous place.  September makes new friends as she travels, including a ‘Wyverary’ named A-Through-L and a Marid boy named Saturday. She also finds new enemies, such as the cruel Marquess who has taken over Fairyland after the disappearance of the good Queen Mallow.

Though her journey started as a whim, it is going to take every ounce of resourcefulness, courage, strength and compassion September can muster to see her way to the end of it!” ~Allie

Here is my very late review for the final selection of the Calico Reaction blog’s 2011 book club.  This is my first foray into Valente’s work, though I’ve heard a lot of praise for her novels.  The Girl Who… was originally a fictional children’s book referenced in Valente’s novel Palimpset. The novel feels complete in itself, though I can certainly see where there are many more stories to tell in this universe.  So far, Valente has published a prequel (The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While), and I imagine we’re likely to see more young adult novels set in this world in the future.

My Thoughts:

The basic story of The Girl Who… is pretty familiar—a child is whisked away to a magical land that is plagued by a cruel ruler.  In very general terms, it has a lot in common with other children’s classics, such as The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, or Alice in Wonderland. It also features a technique commonly found in old children’s fiction, where the narrator constantly inserts comments and asides into the flow of the story. The novel, though, seems conscious of the nods it’s making towards previous work, and manages to keep its own spark of originality. For me, the vibrant writing, profusion of imaginative creatures and societies, and unexpectedly serious turns of the plot helped The Girl Who… to stand as a wonderful new example of this familiar kind of story.

In the beginning, the writing was playfully descriptive and more than a little silly (intentionally so—that is not an insult).  The writing occasionally felt a little too self-consciously clever and whimsical, but it was not long before I was enjoying the story so much that I didn’t mind.  The Girl Who… progressed with an impressive forward momentum that packed a lot of story and subtext into a pretty short novel.  September was constantly moving through new situations and problems, and meeting all sorts of new supernatural creatures.  These creatures included a wish-granting Marid, a ‘wyverary’ (half-wyvern, half-library), 100+-year-old sentient household objects, a golem made of soap, and many others.  I loved the constantly changing setting and never-ending introductions of new beings.

While the vividly described supernatural elements gave the story a fun and exciting sense of place, it was the characters that really captured my attention.  Like most tales of this kind, The Girl Who… combines a fantastical adventure with a story of maturation.  In the beginning, September is described as “Somewhat Heartless”, as all children are, though she’s a well-meaning, pleasant heroine.  Through her harrowing journey, September is forced to a deeper understanding of herself and the effects of her actions on others.  I especially liked how she was confronted with difficult decisions that had no clear ‘right’ response.  Like most of us humans, she simply had to move on, carrying nothing but an uneasy and never-confirmed hope that she’d done the right thing. Altogether, September is a fallible, dynamic heroine, and I loved following her story.

Of course, the wonderful characterization doesn’t end with September.  Her closest companions—A -Through-L and Saturday—were also fully formed characters, and I could easily see them starring in their own adventures.  In fact, it seemed that everyone and everything in the novel had a strong, memorable personality, all the way down to September’s helpful coat.  Even the villain, the Marquess, is far from the cardboard character one might assume her to be at her first entrance into the story.  Fairyland is so wide and varied, and filled with such interesting characters, that I am sure Valente can find many different stories to tell there in the future.  

My Rating: 4.5/5

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is, in my opinion, a children’s novel that has enough depth to be enjoyed by adults.  The imagery is amazing, and the characters are memorable and very easy to love.  September is a wonderfully tenacious, imperfect heroine, and even the villainess is the hero of her own story.  While it has a lot in common with other child-whisked-away-to-magic-world stories, I think this novel’s individual strengths are its lovely writing, creative supernatural world, and the unexpected places Valente takes the story.  This novel does feel complete, but it is clear that there are many more stories to be told in Valente’s Fairyland! 

Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Published: Houghton Mifflin/McClelland & Stewart, 1985

Awards Won: Arthur C. Clarke Award

Awards Nominated: Nebula & Locus SF Awards

The Book:

“In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words, because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are only valued if their ovaries are viable.

Offred can remember the days before, when she lived and made love with her husband Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now....” ~from WWEnd.com

The Handmaid’s Tale was the November selection for the 2011 Women in Science Fiction Book Club.  My autumn ended up being pretty busy, and I didn’t get some of the novels read in time.  With this, I’ve finished reading and reviewing all of the Book Club’s 2011 selections.  Reviews of the last two novels from the Women in Fantasy Book Club, and the last novel of Calico Reaction Alphabet Soup Challenge are coming up later this January.

My Thoughts:

The Handmaid’s Tale is told from the perspective of the nameless Handmaid Offred (as in ‘Of Fred’, the man she serves).  Offred is an unreliable narrator who tells a disjointed story. While the narrative does follow one chronological chain of events, Offred constantly jumps back to tell stories from different parts of her past.  Sometimes she abandons telling these stories partway through, or even fabricates tales of her past that never really happened. She’s a very passive protagonist, and she mostly just tries to keep her head down and survive.  As a result, she doesn’t really have much to tell us about the overall organization or purpose of her society.  In some ways, she is a very effective narrator, but seeing the world through her passive, blinkered eyes could sometimes be very frustrating.

I think that Offred’s namelessness and non-heroic nature are meant to make it easy for readers to imagine themselves in her place, and to force us to imagine what it would really be like to live in such an oppressive society.  Instead focusing on the large-scale structure of the society, The Handmaid’s Tale features a very small-scale story of a single household.  Instead of dramatic rebellion, we see Offred’s daily life and the little mental tricks she uses to try to keep from despairing.  The writing itself is very plain, terse, and given to a clumsy kind of poetic rambling that one could easily attribute to a person of Offred’s position.  The whole story is told as a reconstruction of events from the mind of Offred, so she also inserts many introspective comments about herself and other characters along the way.  Overall, it felt like reading someone’s diary, and that’s exactly what I believe the narrative is meant to resemble.

The dystopia itself was highly detailed, even though we mostly see just Offred’s small corner.  Men and women were strictly separated by their defined functions, and sexuality was strictly controlled.  All the details of the society were carefully defined, from public and private social rituals, to punishments for deviation, to the role-defining color-coded clothing each person wore. There were comments about how ‘the details were still being worked out’, but they were typically said with respect to fairly trivial matters.  The dystopia is explicitly connected to the novel’s contemporary society, and I had a hard time believing that such a thorough set of changes could be forcibly implemented in only a few short years.

While I enjoyed reading The Handmaid’s Tale, I think it is definitely a product of its time. For the more trivial 80’s connections, there were a number of pop culture or slang references that lost most of their resonance with me. In more serious territory, I’m guessing this was written with the recent shocking Iranian revolution (in 1979?) in mind, carrying the implication that something similar could happen in the US. While things probably felt different in the 1980s, I don’t think that the current US is in danger of this particular kind of pseudo-Christian revolution.   As a result, the tale felt less like a warning and more like a compelling depiction of a fictional society that is truly horrific—not just for women, but for everyone.

My Rating: 3.5/5

The Handmaid’s Tale is an interesting take on an oppressive, theocratic dystopia.  The narrator Offred is a very small, passive person in the midst of a huge societal change, and she mostly just tries not to attract attention to herself.  As a result, she does not have an awful lot of insight on the workings of the society beyond the house where she lives.  However, the story is more about the state of mind of ordinary people who are caught up in this kind of a situation.  Rather than rebellions, gunfights, or protests, Offred demonstrates the ways, both beneficial and not, that people might try to manage their own minds, to keep themselves sane and alive for a better future that may never come.