Among Others by Jo Walton

If you love books enough, books will love you back.

This book felt more like a love letter to Jo's 15yr old former self than a novel for me to read. As one blogger I read put it succinctly: it's an ode to SF. And that's exactly how it felt reading it.

I just read a review by Elizabeth Bear who eloquently put my ideas into words here. Kinda tough writing amongst giants. In any case, the story is about a young girl Morwenna or Mor and her unlimited love for SF and fantasy books. I unfortunately hasn't read the vast majority of what she mentions except for the Le Guin and Heinlein.

The book the diary of Mor's thoughts about her day to day life, having survived a horrific accident that killed her sister, a battle with an evil witch of a mother and her fractured hip that leaved her in constant pain and needing a cane to walk. After running away from her mother's she is sent to her father who she hasn't ever met and his three half-step sisters. They ship her off to a pretentious English boarding school where, as a book-worm, she's bullied. I got a kick from the class description of these silly girls.

What's surprising about our typical, manner of fact yet charming protagonist? She can see fairies. And talk to them although they are a completely different species of fairies we've ever seen, ugly most of the time and unresponsive sometimes. I spent the entire book wondering: am I reading the story of a schizophrenic? Because there is very little in the evidence of the truth of these claims. It felt as though our Mor still hadn't woken up from a shroom induced voyage. I was left unconvinced... Is this a case of mythopoeia or is it a modern, happy version of The Turn of the Screw..? The matter-of-factness of Mor's writing and explanation of magic reminded me of Pratchett's headology: the unfolding of reality can be bent to your will if you accept that your will can be interpreted in a myriad of ways and that people will believe anything they are told to really.

Her refuge, comfort and inspiration are the books she plunges in: "It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books". The book for me picks up half way through when she forms, by magic, a karass (borrowed from our dearest Vonnegut's Cat Craddle) that finally brings her a breath of fresh air when she finds like minded individuals in a book club, friendship, generosity and even love.

I wish I had read this book as a teenager. It would have made me dream of a place where there are people ought there, like myself, who think books are so much more worthwhile than people: "I care more about the people in books than the people I see every day" (Amen sister!) that despite being slightly deformed or in a cast, others will see through that or better, not notice, and that there is a good looking thoughtful guy at the end of the book. As a 30 year old though, I don't know what to make of this book though I am grateful that Mor exists as a character in my wordly world and that she is one of the most charming, believable and thoughtful character I've had the pleasure to encounter.

And I've gained a new favourite word:

"Bibliotropic," Hugh said. "Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop."

Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

Spoilers! 

I bought this novel after having read in a blog how few women SF writers had been read or recognised. As a former boxer, I made the very classic and pathetic mistake of being seduced by the title before reading the summary. *though I did love that the main spiritual trickster of our novel is called affectionately Jab-Jab. Only once I finished the book did I also discover it is a classic Boney M song. We learn everyday. Doux-doux has now become my favourite nickname. 

This is Nalo's first novel, written in 1998. And I must admit, I was impressed. The self-identified queer Jamaican born authoress is impressive in her command of the Jamaican mythology and the lingo our main characters use to after or before reverting to their 'English' all easily immerse you into a post-apocalyptic Toronto. Again, I was rusty on the narrational edges and it took me about 20 pages to set the scene in my head. The story is centred around Ti-Jeanne, a newly made mother, who sees visions of how people will die and lives with Gros-Jeane/mami, her herbalist, healer gran-ma. By far, the strength of the novel is the subtle description of the relationship between the two characters and the tough-loving, rough strong woman who Ti-Jeanne loves and is afraid of. Most of the novel describes Ti-Jeanne's development beginning our story a frightened of the spirits and power she hardly controls, resentful of her baby (mistreating it at time) and obsessed with Tony, the baby's father though she walked off on him for his drug habit. 

Tony could give sweet, sweet talk. Words so nice, they would charm the money from your pocket, the caution from your heart, the clothes from your body. Words so sweet and soothing, they sounded like love, like let me hold you the way your mama never held you, like come and be my only special one, my doux-doux darling. Words that promised heaven. 

Though poetic, our Ti-Jeanne is selfish, and angry and petty at times and I love Nalo for having given us an unflinching gaze at a flawed main character. Tony, good for nothing, must find a heart for a corrupt politician who has commissioned the gang leader of our dystopic city with finding a donor. Ti-Jeanne is at the centre of this intrigue as Tony ends up killing her mami to provide the gang leader with a heart, who ends up being Ti-Jeanne's evil granpa, who manipulated his own daughter, Ti-Jeanne's ma, to do his evil biddings. The scenes described of magic rituals and death are brilliantly terrifying and I was reminded of Mieville's capacity to instill fear in his readers by giving them a mirror to their unknown worst nightmare. 

“But doux-doux”, Prince of Cemetery said, “Your granddaughter head full of spirits already; she ain't tell you? All kind of duppy and thing.When she close she eyes, she does see death. She belong to me. She is my daughter. You should 'fraid of she.” 

Two downsides noted (mainly by my Kiwi, but that I agree with wholeheartedly). There are no redeeming or in depth male characters. Nalo reserves her insightful character building for the women, from the insane mother to the leader of a gang of children fending for themselves in the anarchic city. Nalo only touched on - and left us begging for more - some of the fascinating aspects of the various spirits that come all together at the epic climax of the book, the final battle scene if you will, where Ti-Jeanne summons all the spirits at her aid. It gave us a taste of a Jamaican style American Gods. So so so much could have been weaved in the novel and I felt a little disappointed that I was not given more. It underlined how little SF has delivered in terms of Caribbean mythology and I hope this book will be one amongst many others to open this much needed Pandora box. 

All in all though, I devoured the book in 2 days and my Kiwi read it in one go in a car trip.

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

In an overzealous effort, I ended up purchasing The Long Earth thinking: for once! a Pratchett you haven't yet read... Well: not quite worth it Kiwi mine. 

The plot is relatively simple: one day, in the near future, a device called the Stepper is sent out and, once hand built, enables people to 'step' to a parallel earth. There are a seemingly infinite number of Earths to the East and West. Some though can't step, the 'phobics' causing resentment. Joshua Valiente -and oh what a choice of names- was born stepping. He's our protagonist and a boring one at that. As someone who's read 5 Discworld to date, I was expecting a lot more from our hero. Lobsang -the artificial intelligence of the reincarnated soul of a Lhasan motorcycle repairman- approaches Joshua to embark on an expedition on the Mark Twain to see just how far this Long Earth. 

This is an interesting take on the colonisation of the wild, wide West of the Long Earth, the new frontier. When there are no more limitations of space or resources, what does humanity do? Well, apparently, a fifth of us step, to whatever world they so choose. I cannot quite express my incredulity at this outcome. Have Pratchett or Baxter ever tried living ... in the wild? No TV, no internet, no cars, no ipad and no Kindle!!! No running water, heating or A/C. Unknown diseases and as our characters discover, a strange evolution of various species with several variations of our own humanoid one (we have trolls or the elves version of us). As the other half likes to remind me, I am a pessimist. This is true but... the romanticisation that plague this book makes my scholar's heart churn. Rural, low-tech is not the paradise that a fifth of this humanity so secretly desires. And if it were, once out in the wild, many would return within a week having lost weight and slept very little, probably hunted down by non-extinct large predators and severely diminished by yet unknown diseases... This bucolic take on the journey in the Wild of various different earths is painfully rendered in the subplot of the Green family (the name, the name!!!) that choose to ... abandon their phobic son back on Earth Datum, the original (I didn't not buy this for a second) and journey with their remaining two daughters to West 101754. In a 'little house in the prairie' fashion, these brave new American pioneers create a pretty ideal society. 

Our authors' indulgence in weaving Edenic stories of pioneering efforts not only falls flat, it disappoints. Gender roles are the same, there are no explorations of discriminated groups -in whatever country- heading off and setting up their own communities... the historic reason for the majority of migrations. As a fellow human, I refuse to believe we'd settle into plain living communities re-instating the ideals of patriotism. There was so much potential to explore the communities of other forms of humanoids (they are only alluded too, wetting our appetite though failing to satiate it) or of creative forms of governance in a world of endless space. 

What I have enjoyed was the realistic portrayal of the backlash the long earth caused back home: the emergence of hate groups, the desperate attempt of governments to set dominion on the endless versions of their nation, and the scrabble of corporations to commercialise the endless space... I guess I am a pessimist. Finally, I loved the of First Person Singular, the being that has evolved out of cooperation rather than competition. Genial. She evolved on one of the earths as one huge curious and lonely organism that seeks other organisms to escape her unique all encompassing singularity. She is the threat that has been hinted at throughout the book, in the sad pursuit of others in escaping her loneliness. Why have you given me so little of FPS... I love her!

All in all, huge concept dealt with in wide brushstrokes, feeling slightly disbanded and lacking the energy I associated with Pratchett's creativity. 

number9dream by David Mitchell

The better half has been pushing this one on me for some time now and was curious to know what I think. So thank you for having now added to my list of favourite quotes:

Dreams are shores where the ocean of spirit meets the land of matter.

Before I launch into my ramblings, it's worth pointing to here that this novel doesn't actually fall into the sci fi/fantasy categories I aim to explore. Though it weaves dreamlike narratives into the story, in my opinion, it can classify as fiction. The reason I include it here is because I was disoriented many times in ways that reminded me of fantasy novels and that, on the whole, I think Mitchell has a grandeur vision of all his novels as a pyramidal structure of a fantastical tale loosely seeping into one another and all pointing to some end of the world finale... to be continued with Cloud Atlas! 

It's my second novel by Mitchell, after The Bone Clocks, whose title takes inspiration from Lennon's song. Try playing it as Eiji's imagination runs wild! I must admit, though I was enthused by the promising psychedelic beginnings, with fantasies of shoot outs and floods and reunions with abandoning fathers, a chunk of the book forgets its dreaming tendencies only to revert to them in full swing by the end... David seems to have made a mental note of using a literary trope that doesn't serve him throughout. Shame. Another trope that ended exasperating me was his use of story within a story as both interlude and echoing narrative. Didn't do it for me. And to be expected, throughout, the book uses unabashedly the reference of the number 9 in its multiple forms as wink wink nudge nudges.

The story is a straightforward bildungsroman in Japan of a Eiji, a young man setting out from his village home to big chaotic Tokyo in search of his father which is really his search for identity, family, love and meaning.

You look for your meaning.  You find it, and at that moment, your meaning changes, and you have to start all over again.*

*don't we know this

His mom is a nutcase with an alcoholic propensity who threw him over the balcony in a fit of anger when he was a baby and his twin sister died drowning after he had prayed for success in a football match in exchange for 'anything'. In the end, he finds love and a renewed interest in his mother whilst we are afforded a short glimpse of a jerk of a father as our Eiji delivers him a wonderfully named Kamikaze pizza. We are given 8 chapters with the 9th left blank. Tada!

After a good 20 pages of disorientation, I enjoyed navigating what is real and what is fantasy or (waking) dreams. I did find it slightly tedious in the end because David fails to capitalise on his idea. He is a master of describing scenes of violence where heads get crushed by bowling balls and heads sizzle on grizzles whilst eyes pop out of their sockets. Reservoir Dog style. Yummy! And Yuzu Daimon is one of the biggest literary jerks I've encountered.

It was one of the rare books that for me depicted perfectly first love with its awkward charms and confounding. David does like his strong, tough, ambitious young female characters. Three spring to mind: Ai (the lover's interest with the perfect neck), Anjum the spirited twin with all the sparks her twin lacks and Sachiko, Ai's room mate and Eiji's pizza boss whose every comment made me want to laugh out loud then memorise them to use in my own everyday discourse.

You are a biped sent from heaven... 

I smugly picked up on the echoes of Murakami's "Norwegian Wood", especially with Eiji and Yuzu's double date in the Love hotel. Unlike Murakami, there is kindness that infuses the book, from Eiji's quirky landlord, to the Cat and Sachiko's blunt comments helping our protagonist out when at a loss and Onizuka's silent generosity.

And finally, to end on one of my favourite passages because in the end, this is about sketching the literary memories of my Kiwi:

I was your age. I was in love. Or maybe I was mentally ill. Same difference.... We started going out in my cousin's car for sessions at the reservoir. Counted stars. Counted her birthmarks. Never knew bliss like that, never will again. 

The Player of Games by Ian M. Banks

*only read if you've read the book! here's a summary. 

I've already had the wondrous pleasure of reading Transition whilst I was away on my second fieldtrip in Mexico. Having binged on Terry Pratchett, my better half slyly put this book in my hands and just left it to that. 

As someone still new to SF, not quite a virgin, I always start SF books with slight rigidity and frustration, waiting for my brain to embrace the internal logic the writer has created for his/her new world. It took about 30 pages for my mind to go: ok, I think I know where we are!

I enjoyed the book, mainly for the main quality I find in SF literature: it allows writers to create a world that contrasts ours so sharply by rendering the familiar uncanny yet recognisable. Banks writes with ease and surgical precision about the Empire of Azad, a world that is primitive and barbaric and whose humanoid species is ruled by a the winner of a game. The sheer naked violence of Azad put in stark contrast our own assumptions about private property, corporeal punishment, and sexual relations. Basically, Gurgeh, the hero of our novel, is from the Culture, a utopian type of world governed by machine and whose Marin language -again invented by machines- is the closes to reflecting subtle nuances and devoid of all the aggressive traits of domination and violence that Azadians demonstrate with their own crude and primitive lingo: 

It is especially important to remember that the ownership of humans is possible too; not in terms of actual slavery, which they are proud to have abolished, but in the sense that, according to which sex and class one belongs to, one may be partially owned by another or others by having to sell one's labour or talents to somebody with the means to buy them. In the case of males, they give themselves most totally when they become soldiers; the personnel in their armed forces are like slaves, with little personal freedom, and under threat of death if they disobey. Females sell their bodies, usually, entering into the legal contract of "marriage" to Intermediates, who then pay them for their sexual favours... 
... despite the Empire’s obvious, if limited, technological sophistication, its formal side remained so entrenched in the past” ... “a people so concerned with rank and protocol and clothed dignity might well want to restrict such things [pornography], harmless though they might be” ... “I have chosen to represent the intermediates—or apices—with whatever pronominal term best indicates their place in their society, relative to the existing sexual power-balance of yours. In other words, the precise translation depends on whether your own civilisation is male or female dominated.

There is a great take on Gurgeh’s story perceived as a bildungsroman (check out Gareth Rees here) and the take on the sexual appetite and maturity of Gurgeh from a predator to a more morally rounded character here. I disagree with both bloggers though. Banks' novel is for me really a critique of the utopia represented by Culture and I don't believe Culture was in any shape or form trying to reform our dearest hero into a more civilised Culturnik at all. I think he lost a little of himself, that gave him his edge and that Culture used him for its own ends. 

A couple comments on what tickled my literary buds. 

The reference of language as a medium that shapes our behaviour and world view. Though Banks directly refers to Gurgeh's change as he increasingly speaks Azad's language. He experiences a psychological paradigm shift as Azadhian language has inbuilt assumptions of hierarchicalisation and dominance… Something I think was necessary for Gurgeh to adapt in order to win the games. In the end, he wins over Nicosar, the emperor of the Empire, by becoming Azadhian and understand Nicosar's strategy then breaking it with a logic entirely foreign - by playing distinctly 'Culture'. In the end, Culture absorbs Empire because, that is what it does. The books is a metaphor for the very notions embodied in the terms 'culture' and 'empire': it doesn't matter if you get dominated by an Other, your culture will permeate theirs and in the end, they will fold into your culture and become You. An interesting idea of consuming, absorbing the other with a 'superior' culture... Reminiscent of some neocolonial tropes I am deeply interested and unsettled by. Personally, for me, the genius of Banks is to make this very point: it is unsettling. Culture is a worrisome entity that sends of Gurgeh, to the detriment of his own wellbeing, to penetrate Azad's culture and implode it from the inside. You have another interesting theme of the fire burning all to ashes when the Games come to a close. 

The book is framed by an unknown omniscient narrator who turns out to be the little drone that first blackmailed him into leaving his life behind for 5 years and go to the Empire to play for Culture and that endlessly manipulated him throughout his stay to whip him into the correct state to face each phases of the games. So: Culture, not all that it appears and the ultimate frame of a story that seems to be hiccuping forward unexpectedly. And a little nod at my better half when I am reminded by your favourite little drone that it's all about chance, just like a game: 

Does identity matter anyway? I have my doubts. We are what we do, not what we think. Only the interactions count (there is no problem with free will here; that’s not incompatible with believing your actions define you). And what is free will anyway? Chance. The random factor. If one is not ultimately predictable, then of course that’s all it can be.