Review: Provenance

Provenance by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Provenance takes place in the same universe as Ann Leckie’s Radchaai trilogy, the first of which (Ancillary Justice) won a Hugo, and which I loved. The events of Provenance take place shortly after the events of the trilogy, but don’t involve any of the same characters (or even locales) so each can stand on its own (though comparisons between the two are inevitable).

The story follows Ingray Aughskold, a young woman who is trying to prove to her mother that she - rather than her brother Danach - deserves to inherit her mother’s name. Ingray’s scheme immediately goes awry, she finds herself responsible for a person who shouldn’t exist (named Garal Ket), and her ride home accidentally draws attention from the ambassador of the alien Geck. Once home, she finds herself in the center of a tangle of local, inter-planetary, and inter-species politics that (she believes) she is ill-equipped to handle.

Much is made of Ingray’s hand-wringing and self-doubt, but this is one of those novels where it is clear to the reader (and several other characters) that the very flaws that the protagonist agonizes over are those qualities which make her the perfect fit for the job. It’s too clear, in fact. Ingray reminded me of Mia from The Princess Diaries; her misfit status and trusting nature are what endear her to everyone and make her a natural leader.

This is a perfectly fine novel, and if not for the inevitable comparison to the Radch Trilogy, I don’t know if I’d take issue with Ingray or any of the other unsubtleties. But once of the things that made the Radch Trilogy excellent, to me, was the subtlety and nuance of the characters. The characters acted and spoke in a way that belied a thoughtful underlying psyche, and the story was anchored to the internal struggles and changes of the characters, yet Leckie avoided slicing the characters open and revealing the detailed minutiae of every why and what and how of every change. It was confusing; it took me a while to really get what Leckie was doing in Ancillary Mercy. But it was rewarding. Provenance, though, has characters helpfully vocalize the qualities and traits and reasoning behind each action and decision. I enjoy a good character-driven novel, and Leckie is an excellent writer and the story and characters were delightful, so the heavy-handedness doesn’t make it a bad story, just lands it solidly in the ‘very good’ and not ‘excellent’ tier.

A more generous reading might be that the difference is intentional, and reflects the different cultures at the forefront of each story. The Radchaai have many taboos and strict social hierarchies while the Hwae are very much about public performative gestures. I could be convinced this was Leckie’s intent but it would take some strong evidence.

Leckie does a good job of growing her universe, making it wider and still recognizable. The Radchaai ambassador to the Geck is one of my favorite characters (think Mindy St. James from The Good Place but less horrible) and is the most significant reminder of the Radch Trilogy. The Hwae are a solid addition to the universe, a planet that values “vestiges” of significant cultural events. The story stumbles for me when I’m expected to believe that next to no one on the planet has ever questioned the authenticity of any of the vestiges; it felt like a moment where natural worldbuilding was sacrificed to the necessity of the plot. (And perhaps it’s just my own reading, but it felt a touch on-the-nose to talk about these monuments to culture that are are powerful symbols that are essentially valueless beyond what people see in them, in light of recent efforts to remove Confederate monuments in the U.S.)

Despite it being a few steps away from ‘excellent,’ I appreciated the themes the novel tackles. Ingray’s trust, which is read as naivete by some characters, is her strength, and I enjoy stories where trust is valuable and rewarded. In such a world, choices matter, and people are trusted when they make choices that are right for them. Here we see some of the subtlety I loved in the Radchaai trilogy; characters make personal and interpersonal choices that are treated with gravity and respect by other characters. The protagonists recognize the importance of not necessarily unquestioning, but unconditional support once these personal decisions are made. It’s radical in a soft, comforting way.

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Review: The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an example of a good book read at the wrong time and in the wrong way. I started this over Thanksgiving and didn't finish until late January and this is absolutely a book that should be read in a single sitting, if possible. It's unquestionably a wonderful, bizarre book. It just didn't land right with me because of how I read it

Oedipa Maas becomes the executor of state for her ex, Pierce Inverarity, and gets caught up in a conspiracy involving the Postal Service and alternative mail carriers that spans centuries - but she's not quite sure she should believe anything she's experiencing. Her journeys up and down the coast of California, seeing strange plays and investigating stamps and sleeping with various men who inevitably go insane, feel like a dreamlike haze. She wanders aimlessly with an unrealized mission, each stop almost accidental but becoming meaningful in hindsight. The book ends just as a dream would, right before the moment when you'd receive any answers.

Much could and has been said of the constellation of symbols and signifiers that flood the book and what they mean, and I'm not up to that right now. It's enough to say that the onslaught of symbols adds to the dreamy nature of the story. Many things feel illogical or impossible or random and simultaneously perfectly arranged and promising meaning, if you only look at them the right way. It's an impressive work. I imagine it's difficult to create something with so many layers of near-opacity and obfuscation that also reveals the hints of meaning and a deep structure if you push further, and Pynchon does it well. I mostly read speculative fiction nowadays and "The Crying of Lot 49" gives me the same feeling: a wholly constructed, imagined world with its own rules and a tenuous grip on reality.

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Review: And Chaos Died

And Chaos Died by Joanna Russ
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is classic Joanna Russ. I've mentioned her complex, often overwhelmingly dense prose before, and "And Chaos Died" is the epitome of that style. The opening of the story finds a ship crash-landed on a planet where everyone has the powers of telekinesis, teleportation, and telepathy. The rest of the book is an attempt to convey the experience of telepathy and telekinesis as a normal human would comprehend it. It's an insane goal. And somehow she succeeds. The book is crazy hard to follow, one of the most challenging things I've ever read, but I enjoyed it, I think.

I usually try to do a brief summary of a book when I review it. The plot is... fairly unimportant here, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Jai and his ship crash land on a planet populated with telepathic, telekinetic people. He slowly develops these powers as well - it seems like those abilities are inherent in humans and just being around people with them will teach you how to use them. When he's rescued one woman comes with him as a representative of the world. When they get back to Earth, she disappears and Jai travels around using his powers, trying to stay out of the hands of people who would make him into a lab rat. He makes a friend, a young boy, and they go on terrifying adventures through the strange world that Earth has become. The finale is especially bizarre. Several other telepathic people from the other planet come to Earth and offer to meet with some major leaders. There's some kind of wiping of the global human consciousness. And then it ends!

The biggest 'pro' of the book is how well it does the overwhelming, disorienting nature of telepathy (or at least, what I assume telepathy would feel like, and what Russ thinks telepathy would feel like). It would involve states of consciousness completely foreign to our experience and combined with telekinesis, it would change our entire way of interacting with the world and the way we constitute self. As I said before, Russ did this well, which makes the book good and almost unreadable. It's slow. There are huge swathes of story in which nothing concrete happens or where none of the things that happen have any basis in normal human experience. It's great! And very challenging!

There are two very interesting things in this book aside from the feeling-of-telepathy aspect: the portrayal of Earth, and Jai Vedh's sexuality.

Earth in this story is in a state of extreme overpopulation and climatic disaster. Coastal areas have flooded, plains areas are desert wastelands. There's not enough space for humans to live and when they're gathered so close together there is often hedonism and destruction. There's a chapter-long description of a riot and another chapter that follows a couple living out hyperbolic examples of 20th-century gender roles. To see Russ's vision of the future is to see a very modern vision of apocalypse: gender roles are exaggeratedly performed not because they're how people want to live them but because it's traditional, global warming is destroying the world, and the American government (or at least the puppet organization that controls it) has a secret agency that hunts people.

Jai is gay. He says this in the first few pages. It was a little uncomfortable because it was immediately connected to his interest in fashion. It got very, very uncomfortable when Russ paired him off with a woman not just romantically but sexually (over and over again). I appreciate that Russ included a queer person as her main character, and I understand that the whole story focuses on the propagation of telepathic humans throughout the galaxy, and that he would be influenced by the thoughts and desires of those around him. But to then treat him as if he were straight throughout the entire rest of the story (because he definitely keeps having straight sex until almost the very end) is a little problematic.

Overall, parts of the story feel very much of their time, other parts feel incredibly modern, but the entire effect is strikingly original. This is a story that will drag you along and stick to you after you've read it.

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Review: At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories

At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories by Kij Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There were two things about this collection that I didn't realize when I picked it up: 1) Kij Johnson is well-known and has a long career both writing and editing (at one of my favorite publishers, Tor!) speculative fiction and 2) the anthology was loosely themed, with most stories featuring some animal or another as a major character.

The first was great discovery. I bought this because I'd read Johnson's story "Spar" in Clarkesworld a few years back and when I discovered Small Beer Press had published an anthology, I was sold. And it was an excellent buy! Thanks to one of my local indie stores (Kramerbooks ) for carrying it because otherwise I wouldn't have known!

The collection reminds me a lot of Lisa Tuttle. Very solid SF work with interesting ideas, with one or two stories that blew me away. I think Johnson's SF premises are more modern and well-rounded - complex alternate worlds, a tight focus on characters, and a literary prose style. I'm writing this review almost a year later and I still think about "Ponies" anytime I think about character-driven SF with a world I'd give an arm to explore. "Spar" remains one of my favorites (though it's not for the faint of heart - and having just reviewed "The Stars Are Legion" I'm realizing I have a bit of a thing for weird body horror fiction).

Anyway, Small Beer Press publishes some great books and this is one of them. This collection is very smart (which makes sense - Johnson has my alternate-reality dream job of teaching sci-fi at the college level) and engaging.

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Review: Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1: The Shrike

Pretty Deadly, Vol. 1: The Shrike by Kelly Sue DeConnick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Oh man. Pretty Deadly and Monstress were easily my top comic reads this year. I was expecting that from Monstress but I hadn't heard about Pretty Deadly so it took me by surprise. I'm not a huge fan of Westerns - or, I thought I wasn't, but Pretty Deadly and Westworld may have convinced me otherwise this year - and the setting turned me off for a while. Oh, how glad I am that I read it anyway.

It's been too long for me to remember the details of the story so my review will be broad-strokes and brief. The plot manages feel mythological without sacrificing investment in the characters and their stories. It reminds me of Sandman, where Dream and his siblings are universal forces of nature that should be so generic they're meaningless, but are instead uniquely alive. The art - the art! Emma Rios is fantastic. Her color palettes are full of greens and pinks and oranges, colors that shouldn't look pretty but do. It matches well with the story, a dark story with bits of hope and love and fun.

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Review: We Who Are About To...

We Who Are About To... by Joanna Russ
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love bookstores and libraries of all kinds. Big ones with an endless buffet of options, curated collections with a peculiar slant to them, haphazard piles of books that the owners clearly didn't know what to do with. But I have a secret test for any book vendor that few pass and those special few have a permanent place in my heart: is there any Joanna Russ?

Russ is a classic SF writer who published during the New Wave and won or was nominated for most of the major SF awards. She also wrote kickass feminist nonfiction. She's a big enough name that most people who've read SF have heard of her, but I've only seen her books on the shelf in two bookstores ever, and through one academic library's interlibrary loan. I went into D.C. with a few friends to play Pokemon GO and we wandered our way to several bookstores until we finally settled in one that was next to a Pokemon gym. Just after taking over the gym, my phone ran out of battery, so I was able to devote proper attention to the books themselves. Their SF section was delightfully pulpy and meticulously shelved, and when I climbed up onto a step stool to check the top shelf, I found two Joanna Russ novels with green-edged pages and crazy pulp covers. I was ecstatic. (I also got an old collection of SF by female authors, which is also a rare find - things like that are much more common from the past 15-20 years).

Anyway, the book itself starts out like a pulp sci-fi novel. A group of travelers crash-lands on an uncharted planet where it's fairly certain they'll never be found. It's essentially Gulliver's Island in space. The first-person narrator is savvy and cynical and knows several things from the get-go: 1) there is no hope for long-term survival, 2) her fellow passengers will hold onto hope and try to perpetuate humanity (which means impregnating all fertile women ASAP whether they like it or not) and 3) she finds a respectable death far preferable to most of her other options.

The first half of the book explores the passengers' first week on the planet, the alliances and plans that quickly take shape, the growing distrust everyone has for the narrator. The book takes a sharp (but not unexpected, especially if you read the spoileriffic blurb on the first page of the book) turn about halfway through. The focus narrows to the narrator as she chronicles her slow death by starvation. Her hallucinations, her memories, her vacillation between panic and acceptance, her determination to die a deserved death. It's solid Russ work - even in the more lucid passages it can be difficult to follow a line of thought, and most passages are meaty enough to bear re-reading. It's a short book, though, so even though the second half is a slow march, it doesn't feel too long. And unlike 'The Female Man,' another of Russ's books I've read, it was just challenging enough to make me work without leaving me completely confused and in need of a syllabus to prep me for a re-read. Russ shows us glimpses of her characters' pasts and the world they come from that make me want to read other books set in the same universe, but she (and the narrator) refuse to elaborate on the history implied by the bits and pieces because they are irrelevant to the main event: the narrator's slow death.

It's a fascinating read with equal parts pulp and intellect. If you can get your hands on it, it's well worth reading.

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Review: The Core of the Sun

The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This one gets a lot of comparison to Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," and deservedly so - both are dystopian futures focused on women and gender relations. Sinisalo's tale has its own spicy flavor as part of the Finnish Weird genre, but the similarities to Atwood's tale are strong: women are divided into distinct castes based on their desirability and kept essentially illiterate, and while men are allowed to work and learn, most of the men are not necessarily fulfilled or happy with this arrangement. Sinisalo has been getting a lot of buzz lately in the English-speaking SF world, partly due to this translation and partly due to some good press from the Vandermeers (who are established fans of Weird in all its forms).

The story centers on Vanna, who has lived her whole life pretending to be a gender she isn't. She has the body (or "phenotype") of an eloi - she's a blonde, sexually desirable woman - but unlike the rest of the airheaded, brainwashed eloi, she's a sharp and intelligent woman, and that makes her a morlock. She's spent her whole life in the country with her grandmother (who's old enough to have a special immunity from gender assignment) and her sister (a happy, oblivious eloi). When she moves into the city to go to eloi college - where they study how to keep house and bake - she gets caught up in the illegal chili trade.

And that's where the weird comes in. Chilis have been banned like alcohol and drugs because of their addictive, mind-altering properties. That's also just about where the weird ends. The story reads as familiar to me as a non-Finnish reader. It focuses on the relationship between the sisters and Vanna's struggles as a false eloi and chili addict. Much too much of the story is devoted to basic exposition for this very familiar landscape and still doesn't fully explore little gaps where things would be most interesting. What are the lives of morlocks and minus men like? How permeable are Finland's borders? The third act hints at answers but it's not given quiet enough space in the story to explore them.

On the whole, I enjoyed reading this so much. I read the whole thing in one late night with a tiny booklight - something I don't do so often anymore. But there were definitely some flaws - it did feel too familiar, the feminist critique of patriarchal societies felt flat and unsubtle, and the story relied too heavily on flashback and "newspaper-article" insert exposition. I think I would've loved it unreservedly if I hadn't already read "The Handmaid's Tale" and other, more nuanced feminist dys/utopias. But the flashback/article format meant that the relationship between Vanna and Manna, upon which the story rests, doesn't get fully explored or have its full weight until late in the story.

The things "Core of the Sun" does that no other story like it does that I love are 1) critiquing not a patriarchal capitalist society but a socialist one and 2) loving its zany bits. The first is something you don't see in contemporary, revolutionary American literature, and it's interesting to see that whether the government i s capitalist or socialist, what we fear about it is over-regulation and prescription of our lives. I'd love to read this in conjunction with "Herland" or "The Woman at the Edge of Time" or "The Female Man" as part of a course on feminist dys/utopias. The second is mostly rewarding but occasionally a bit of a stumble. There are lots of little tidbits and facts in the books - lots about chilis, some about psychological and evolutionary research, a bit about synesthesia - and clearly Sinisalo enjoyed researching and writing about them. But sometimes they're just not as interesting to me, or they don't weave in to the story in any meaningful way. Vanna's synesthesia is an example of that. I think the writing is beautiful because of it, but having a character comment on it in the last 10% of the book made me think it would matter, and it really doesn't. Still, I learned a heck of a lot about chilis and evolutionary psychology.

I enjoyed this quite a bit, and would highly recommend it.

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Review: Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was on my (physical) to-read shelf for over a year before I finally picked it up. I think it's good that I waited - I read Jeff Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy in that time, and having an idea of how he writes is really essential to understanding his guide to writing. He writes weird (the genre, not the pejorative), dreamlike fiction, and I think this guide is most helpful for writing that particular flavor of speculative fiction. I also like that he focused on his process as opposed to the technical aspects (getting an agent, finding an editor, etc.) but that those aspects also weren't completely absent, as the book generally follows the creation of a story from idea through publication.

There were times I loved this and times I thought it was completely useless.

Most of the former were Vandermeer's descriptions of his publishing experiences and writing process or "guest post" moments where other writers contributed a few words. Reading advice and anecdotes from genre authors about the process of writing and publishing was illuminating, and the book's biggest strength is in Vandermeer's networking abilities. Lots of big names contributed bits and pieces that were substantial and worth reading on their own and complemented or contrasted Vandermeer's perspective.

Most of the latter were the completely horrendous visual aids. Honestly, I get that this is a book by writers for prospective writers and that writers are probably better at the written word than at graphic design, but someone involved with this book should have, at some point, checked to see if the graphics made any sense at all. Visual aids are there to *aid* you by *visually* organizing the information into something interesting and/or easy to digest. A good graphic stands on its own. So many of the graphics were so not good - they were just words thrown on top of a picture. Forget about checking the visual aid before reading to get a sense of how to mentally organize the material you're about to read. They didn't make sense even after reading the corresponding pages, and in some cases they managed to completely obfuscate the point. And on top of that, I wasn't a huge fan of the aesthetic that many of the graphics seemed to push, a kind of scrapbook steampunk. Since this is advertised as an "illustrated guide" I was very, very disappointed in how simply unhelpful the illustrations were.

The writing exercises were fun and interesting (though I'll confess I didn't do the ones that *didn't* seem interesting to me). I was partial to the editing/revising ones but that doesn't surprise me one bit. I'd rather reorganize and restructure book matter than generate it on my own. It was very cool to see exercises tailored to speculative fiction. I did think there would be a bit more on the accompanying website than there actually is, especially in terms of exercises, but ah well.

Overall - I enjoyed the process of reading this, and even sometimes enjoyed how angry the completely nonsensical graphics made me. It inspired me to write more and I think it improved my writing. Definitely a good read (or good gift!) for speculative fiction writers.

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Review: A Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories

A Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories by Lisa Tuttle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"A Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories" wasn't mind-blowing. I wasn't on the edge of my seat, thrilled by every page I read. It was, instead, haunting. Each story was steeped in a eerie, sharp beauty that dug into me while I wasn't looking and I only seemed to notice when I put the book down and found one of Tuttle's ideas stuck somewhere in the corners of my brain.

I like keeping track of how I found a book or author and this one was pretty fortuitous. Two and a half years ago, my school's English department had their annual book sale. Faculty contribute old books they're no longer using, and prices drop each day (until, at the end, the books are free and stick around on communal shelves for the rest of the year). I picked this one up because it had the word "spaceships" and my first name on the cover, alongside probably three dozen other books because I have a serious book-hoarding problem, and it stayed in that stack until pretty recently. I've read or found-and-have-yet-to-read several other books from the Women's Press Science Fiction collection and recently looked into Tuttle's history. To my pleasant surprise, she's a fairly well-known author (she has a collaboration with George R. R. Martin and wrote the Encyclopedia of Feminism). So, I started this brief collection.

Honestly, Tuttle reads more like Shirley Jackson or perhaps Joan Aiken than Joanna Russ or Alice Sheldon. Her command of language is powerful in its clarity (lookin @ u Russ and Tiptree, u gals famous for ur wonderful obfuscation) and pretty solidly in the camp of New Yorker-style straight fiction of the 70s and 80s. This collection is also heavy on what I keep thinking of as body horror but is also the slow realization of the horrible loneliness of being a human. Over and over again Tuttle's characters see their bodies change as they become different people, or watch their lover's body become a hollow shell forever beyond the narrator's emotional grasp, or realize that their lives have shifted and their past isn't quite what they thought.

It feels like I'm exactly the target audience for this book. I fit the descriptions of many of the narrators: young women with academic pursuits in long-term relationships (and variously successful or not in those pursuits and relationships). There are so many things I love in these stories: queer narratives, linguistics, punch-to-the-gut stories on love and loss. I didn't love it as much as I thought I would but those stories are certainly sticking with me. In particular, I loved "The Cure," about two queer women who share a love of Chomsky and writing until one loses the ability to speak or understand language. It's beautiful and poignant and I want to read it over and over and over again.

Her science fiction concepts are simpler than I expected, not quite as interesting on their own as some of her contemporaries. At times they seemed tacked-on to more mainstream non-genre stories. There was one story that, to me, emphasized how underutilized the SF aspects of her stories can be. It follows several generations of a family that takes in a marooned alien. The alien learns how to sleep and dream, and ends up teaching one young girl in the family how to experience other humans' dreams. While there are powerful vignettes exploring racism and sexism within this larger narrative, on the whole it feels disjointed. The fantastical elements don't cohere with the larger story, and the smaller stories don't build into anything larger. On the whole, the collection does a generally good job of working in the realm of SF but I expected more complexity in the concepts and enthusiasm for the genre. Perhaps I'm reading too much pulp lately.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this quite a bit and I've enjoyed thinking about it even more, even if it wasn't what I expected.

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Review: The Lottery and Other Stories

The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't know what I was getting into with "The Lottery and Other Stories." I was pretty sure I'd read the titular short story before, but couldn't bring it to mind. But Jackson's name came up regularly on on recommendation threads, even occasionally in SF forums. So I went for it.

Reading it around the same time as "The Price of Salt" was a good choice. Both focus on middle class women in roughly the 1950s. Both are permeated by an eerie sense of foreboding. Both capitalize on the creepiness inherent in the expectations and societal roles of women in the 1950s to create that sense of eerieness. Jackson steps into supernatural territory while "Salt" stands firmly on real ground, but I enjoyed reading them both so close to each other.

One of my favorite parts of this collection was an unexpected connection between many of the stories: a ghostlike man haunts the book. He shows up as a main character in some stories, only to disappear before the story's end and re-enter in the background of a later story, over and over again. It's like a literary Slenderman.

I also appreciated the insight into the subtle horrors of being a woman - pervasive in the 1950s but not at all absent today. Jackson is all about mundane horror, everyday shadows that creep in at the edges and make life uncomfortable. Many of the stories focus on women working and living alone in the city, and even when they don't veer into supernatural territory there's an edge about them as if the characters are on alert for something to go wrong.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the collection.

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Review: A Door Into Ocean

A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This review is adapted from a post I made in a discussion thread about the book.

I had my doubts after the first section of the story; it was a slow start, and I just didn't like the way the Valan society was structured. But about halfway through the book, I realized I was completely sucked into the story and found myself constantly thinking about it as I went about my day.

I want to gush about the beautiful world-building on Shora. The ecology is believable and complex, and everything about the physical and social construction of the rafts is my #aesthetic. I want to live there, or at least read more books set there. It's also amazing for a book written 30 years ago; I feel like we're already worlds closer to the kind of technology she describes the Sharers as having. Given today's climate and environmental concerns, the book seems markedly prescient.

One of the things I loved about the story (and it's something I've noticed I'm fond of in SF in general) is how well Sloanczewski created a culture that's so fundamentally different, not only in behavior but in thought, and committed to it. It reminds me of Leckie's Radch trilogy in that the perspective of the character is preserved even perhaps at the expense of making things easy for the reader. Merwen (like Breq) sometimes thinks things that the reader doesn't understand, or maybe misunderstands, unless they are fully buying into this world and this perspective and trying to understand Merwen as a Sharer would. (Also like when reading Ancillary Mercy, I feel like I 'got' the perspective about halfway into the story and went from feeling meh/pretty good to loving it.)

I'm not sure exactly how we're supposed to understand the ending. There was a moment when Realgar was trying to convince Talion not to attack Shora, and Realgar walked away from that conversation thinking that he hadn't changed Talion's mind at all and that Talion was definitely going to kill everyone as soon as Realgar left anyway. But I also felt that Spinel's last few scenes (and I guess all of the Sharers' scenes at the end) felt optimistic, like they had won their victory. Did I miss something? I couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it at like 2 a.m. so it's very possible my sleepy brain skipped something important. Are we supposed to feel like the Sharers won at the end, or that their efforts weren't enough to beat the Valans' fear of death?

I think the villains (Nisi exlucded) of the story are all drawn with a surprising lack of empathy, given how thoroughly and complexly the Sharers are drawn; they remind me a bit of villains in an Ayn Rand story, where the people are primarily stand-ins for ideas or types of people (and bad ideas/people, at that). NISI THOUGH. Great character arc. I like that she deceives even the reader, in some ways; we think that because she's a viewpoint character introduced early on she'll be the most important bridge between the Sharers and the Valans, but she ends up as the biggest obstacle to peace.

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Review: The Sparrow

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed "The Sparrow" quite a bit. It's not a perfect book, but it's certainly a page-turner, and I appreciate the incorporation of a religious journey into an SF setting. It's not something I see very often - generally, religion pops up in SF and fantasy that focus on diplomacy, but usually as constructed religions and not real ones - and Russell treated it with respect and insight.

The premise is first contact, but the story is the story of Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who becomes part of a Jesuit-led mission to visit an alien planet and contact its inhabitants. The aliens are discovered through a broadcast of a strange song, picked up at an observatory near Sandoz's hometown. Jimmy Quinn, the tech who first recognized the signal for what it was, calls his friend Sandoz and their friends - George, an engineer; Anne, a doctor and George's wife; and Sofia, an expert in AI tech - to listen to it before he tells anyone else. And the group of them realize that together, they have most of the expertise needed to lead an expedition to this planet. Sandoz's Jesuit superiors immediately back the idea (after all, Jesuits were quick to send priests to the New World after its discovery), add a few more priests, and send them off without alerting anyone else on the planet.

Russell takes her time developing the relationships between the characters; it's many chapters in before we even reach the alien broadcast. But we know right off the bat that Emilio is the only survivor of this mission, because the story of the origin of the mission alternates with chapters about Emilio's recovery post-mission. He is under the care of the Vatican and the Pope himself, and it's clear some sort of scandalous tragedy has occurred. Emilio is blamed for causing the near eradication of the Jesuits because of something he did 17 years prior (Earth time; for Emilio, not a year has passed since he began his journey back to Earth) on Rakhat, the alien planet. Emilio is a tortured man, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. One of the strengths of the novel is its ability to pack an emotional wallop and nowhere is it more powerful than in Emilio's haunted dreams, his anger toward his superiors, his brooding melancholy. And interspersing Emilio's return with the story of his life before the mission is heartbreaking; what could have made this spirited, witty, charming, devoted priest the miserably broken wreck he has become?

I'm a little ambivalent about Russell's ability to write characters. One one hand, Emilio and his makeshift family are warm and hilarious and likeable, and Emilio's misery is believable and evocative. On the other hand, there are many moments of unbelievable wittiness, dialogue too prescient and on-the-nose for any real human to have spoken it, and characters with phenomenal skill sets and personalities but no apparent flaws. Everyone is too good at everything and gets along too well, but damn, is it a pleasure to read. (Joss Whedon comes to mind when I think about the dialogue/characters - everything's too smart for its own good.)

I have generally similar but better feelings about the Big Questions that the novel tries to tackle. Russell goes after one of the biggest ones: How does one deal with God in a universe where horrible things happen? In answering that, she also takes on questions on what it means to be a priest, on the value of family, on colonialism. While the characters can feel over-the-top, Russell deals with these Big Questions wisely: by making them small. Nowhere does anyone claim to know the answers for anyone else. Instead, they lend an ear and offer their own contributions. Sandoz tells Anne, who is a firm atheist, that God is "in the why" of things, but his own faith is shaken (to put it mildly) when the "why" is horrific. There are definitely some moments where answers are provided a little too neatly, but again, those answers tend to hold for one character (and are often overturned later in the story). I've read some reviews that indicate the story is too much an argument for belief in God, but I see almost the opposite. If anything, it's an argument for the theraputic benefits of confession.

Most of my problems with the book, from characterization to lack of subtlety, are related to the prose, which isn't always elegant but is generally crafted to make the biggest emotional impact. One person described the book as "emotionally manipulative," which I would say is pretty accurate - but isn't that the point of books? To manipulate the reader's emotions? It's not the deepest book I've read, but it has substance and it was engaging, so overall I consider its obviousness an asset, not a hindrance.

There were two small aspects of the book that bothered me unrelated to the above. First off, the aliens and the alien world. There are some beautiful descriptions of the alien planet and the time they spent acclimating to the world is absolutely my favorite part of the book. It's pure joy. But. It's not a particularly alien alien world. I wrote that off as "well, in this novel, God probably exists, and the similarities are a pretty good indicator that God created all life," so it wasn't a huge problem for me. The other issue is the construction of many of the interpersonal/group interactions. There are so many times where characters react to something and then we see what they react to. Paraphrased example:

"Something that is a complete non-sequitur," Anne said in response to the look on the other characters' faces that had not been described prior to just now.

It made it some scenes difficult to follow, and it wasn't necessary except to show how quick-witted and insightful the characters are, which we already know through many other means.

One thing I did love above everything else - Russell's insight into the life of a priest and the psychology of priesthood. She handles doubt and conflict respectfully and creates a portrait of Emilio Sandoz, sinner and possible saint, that represents religion well.

Overall: engaging, tear-jerking, emotional, fun read, even if you don't like SF or priests. I'm usually one to encourage "killing your darlings" and this book is largely Russell's darlings (she admits to basing Anne and George on herself and her husband) but it works. Not a masterpiece of prose, but maybe one of heart.

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Review: Lagoon

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to "Lagoon" in audiobook format and not only was it a greatly entertaining experience, I suspect it might also be the best way for Western, white audiences to experience this book. Because, and this shouldn't have been a surprise to me since the book is set in Nigeria, all of the actors are either Nigerian or are very comfortable using Nigerian accents. It's something I wouldn't have thought much about if I were reading it visually, but fundamentally shaped the story for me when listening.

Adaora, Anthony, and Agu all happen to be on a beach in Lagos, Nigeria when a massive sonic boom occurs, followed by a wave that pulls them all into the ocean. Aliens have landed in the water, and they are particularly interested in these three. Adoara is worried that it may be because she is what her husband accuses her of being: a marine witch. She got into a fight with her husband and accidentally held him to the floor, seemingly by magic. Similarly, Agu almost killed a man with one punch. And Anthony knows that his songs draw on the power of the Earth.

The aliens can take on whatever form they like. They're mostly impervious to harm. And they come in peace, but Nigeria doesn't quite believe that. And this story is as much about Nigeria as it is about the aliens; Okorafor shows us Nigeria are by showing us their varied reactions to First Contact. A Christian priest decries Adaora and the alien she shelters; an LGBT group parades in the street next to the priest's followers; a group of young men scheme to kidnap the alien; a prostitute desperately resents the aliens and violently acts out. Even the city (and its gods) gets in on the action. The main highway is the home of the Bone Eater and feeds off the accidents and chaos caused by the aliens. Under Nigeria, the spider sits and spins the story of her people. Okorafor's incorporation of mythology, of every class from prostitutes to President, of native-born Nigerians to Black Americans, is chaotic, yes, but exciting and surprising in its activity.

Parts of the story didn't click for me, at the time, because the sheer number of voices was chaotic and I wasn't sure which characters I should invest in, which people I could expect to be important. But in retrospect I consider that a strength, because every voice is important, and that chaos is the human response to change. I do think it weakened the sense of plot, and it didn't give the story the opportunity to explore the aliens as a species, or the transforming things they said to Anthony, or the long-term impact on the lives of Adaora, Agu, and Anthony. I know that none of those things are the point, but they're still questions I wanted to see addressed (or would like to read about in the future!).

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Review: Super Extra Grande

Super Extra Grande by Yoss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I received an e-galley copy of this book from Edelweiss and Restless Books.

I was super extra excited to read this because Restless Books' last Yoss translation, "A Planet for Rent," was one of the best books I read last year. "Super Extra Grande" isn't quite up there, but it has different strengths. It doesn't have the emotional teeth as "Planet," instead showing off Yoss's comedy chops by dialing up the absurdity and dispensing with the colonialism allegory. Yoss knows how to build a functional, coherent SF world without going on at length. His universes are brightly colored with unusual (but logically consistent) working parts - think a world of Lego or K'nex.

Dr. Jan Amos Sangan Dongo (whose last name is a play on words that essentially means 'big') is a veterinarian - in space! He specializes in "super extra grande" creatures, giants from all planets. When we meet him, he's literally wading through shit as he walks through the bowels of a giant space whale. He's huge himself, for a human, and his previous two assistants (both beautiful women, for their species, who he had to fire because they were in love with him) were also incredibly tall. Sangan Dongo can't do anything small.

The book gets off to a slow start. Sangan Dongo wades through shit for a good third of the book, with many asides and reveries that give the reader background on this world. We learn that Spanglish is the universal human language. We learn that there are seven spacefaring species who all happened to discover interstellar travel at the same time. We learn that Sangan Dongo has always had an affinity for larger creatures - because in veterinary school, his size was a hindrance when working with the smaller animals - and the only giant species he has never worked with are laketons (so named because the single-celled organisms look like large lakes, and weigh tons). Once he gets out of the belly of the beast, he's sent into the belly of the beast again - to rescue his assistants, who have crash-landed (together!) on the home planet of the laketons. The plot wraps up as quickly as the beginning was slow, but altogether, it's a good ride. As I said before, the book is a riot, and it's a quick read, so if you have the chance to pick it up, do!

Personally, as a linguist who's currently in a lab focusing on bilingualism and code-switching, I'm fascinated by Yoss's (and the translator's) idea of what Spanglish will be in the future. I'd be really interested in seeing the changes Frye made in translation - what words did he switch from Spanish to English, and vice versa? Did he change the syntax? Because honestly, I don't know if I would've understood huge patches of the story if I didn't know Spanish, but it's also not in line with general patterns of Spanish-English codeswitching. One easy example: If you switch from Spanish to English in the middle of a determiner-noun pair, the determiner will almost always be masculine - you'll say "el fork" or "el spoon," never "la fork" or "la spoon," even though fork is masculine and spoon is feminine in Spanish. But "la (English noun)" occurs a lot here. So what does this sound like in the original Spanish to native Spanish speakers - like a natural extension of Spanish/English contact, or like some strange futuristic evolution of the two languages?

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Review: The Traitor Baru Cormorant

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" over a month ago, but it feels right to be reviewing it now, just after finishing "The Winged Histories" by Sofia Samatar. Both are lush, tightly constructed fantasy empires that happen to be light on the fantasy elements for most of the story. Both feature women who love women (and, in various places, are or aren't treated badly for it). Both have similar things to say about colonization, imperialism, and rebellion.

Where the two books differ, though, is in style. "The Winged Histories" was poetic, elegant, wandering, organic. "Baru Cormorant" is sharp, a perfect machine where each action triggers a precise reaction and gains momentum until every piece has fallen into place in a completely logical but surprisingly powerful ending. It's a masterwork of plot and story creation.

The titular Baru is a woman from an island nation where families are comprised of a mother, two fathers, and children (or Baru's is, at least; there may be variation we don't see). When the colonizing Empire of Masks, or Masquerade, comes, they conquer not by force but by trade. The Masquerade is ostensibly a meritocracy, totally unconcerned with inherited power; all of the public servants wear masks (at least in their official capacity) to emphasize that it's not about the person, it's about their skills. They are also obsessed with chemistry and genetics, but (predictably) focused on the more destructive aspects of these sciences, like bombs and selective breeding.

That's not to say there isn't fighting the empire, though; one of Baru's fathers leaves to fight them and never returns. Baru is smart - a savant, as the Masquerade calls her - but it's not until she's older that she realizes that he might not have died. Instead, he might've suffered the painful punishments the Masquerade deals to those who commit "unhygenic" sexual behavior. By the time Baru figures it out, she's also learned something about herself: she loves women.

She is also fiercely committed to bringing down the Masquerade and she knows it cannot be torn down from outside. She uses her savant skills to get a posting in the imperial goverment: she is the chief accountant for another colony of the empire, and in this particular economically-fragile colony, that makes her in charge.

The rest of the novel grows from this firmly established foundation. Her appointment as accountant is the first domino in a series of events that lead to Baru winning the love of the people (and saving the imperial government in the region) by destroying the value of imperial currency. She leverages that power with the nobility to foment and lead a rebellion. Baru is reticient, determined, and sharp. Her focus is the center around which this entire novel (and probably this entire world, eventually) is wound. It's hard to put so much work on the shoulders of one character and have them carry it without turning into an overpowered robot, but Dickinson has built Baru strong and fanatical, and she'll do it - and she'll stay interesting, flawed, and human the whole time.

She also forms a deep but unconsummated relationship with a noblewoman, a relationship that can't ever be real because Baru must not let the Masquerade have any ammunition to use against her. The relationship is understated but Dickinson conveys the trust and loyalty and strength between them beautifully through small, intimate moments and oblique gestures. Baru is a stoic character by nature, and hiding even the small outward signs of love buries the romance deep for even the reader privy to some of her thoughts. I think Dickinson excellently makes it so that the small hints of romance that Baru does reveal are indicative of a powerful love. Their storyline has some of the most tender and fierce moments I've seen in a fictional lesbian romance, and while I have some qualms about how it worked out, I was wholeheartedly invested in the journey.

As carefully and measuredly as each event unfolds, I do feel that if you think too hard about some of the causal connections, something is lacking. Baru's achievements and her brilliant theories seem overexalted both by the characters in the book and metatextually (the book is getting a lot of praise, and the tone of the text leads the reader to fully believe in Baru's superpowers). In retrospect, I'm highly suspicious of any secret group of elite throne-manipulating powers that decides to let someone join them just for knowing intermediate economics.

The other curious lack here is the fantasy elements. There aren't any. Some are referenced toward the end of the story and will undoubtedly turn up in the next book, if the ending is any indication. The few fantastical elements in the book lean more toward science fiction than magic, which is something that felt fresh and interesting - an old-fantasy world with almost-industrial science and some strange powers of psychological conditioning.

As ambivalent as I am about some aspects of the story, the world-building and the character of Baru Cormorant were so thoroughly and enchantingly established that I can't wait for the sequel.

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At the End of Babel, by Michael Livingston

"At the End of Babel," by Michael Livingston. Art by Greg Ruth. From Tor.com, edited by Claire Eddy.

Published: July 1, 2015

Word count: ~7600

Rating: 4/5 stars

As a linguist and avid reader, I live for words. Stories about words are the best kind of stories, in my opinion, and anything referencing the Tower of Babel immediately jumps to the top of my 'to-read' list.

In Livingston's "At the End of Babel," words are powerful - but most of them are forbidden. All languages have been outlawed except one (which I assume, but I don't think is specified, is English). Tabitha Hoarse Raven is the last remaining member of her clan, and the last speaker of Keresan. She watched her father and the rest of her community get gunned down for speaking Keresan and dancing the moondance when she was a child. Now, she is going back to her ruined village to dance the moondance and call the gods in Keresan.

The story is anchored on Tabitha, and although we know a lot about her life, I feel she's lacking in personality. Still, she has a persistent, focused determination to complete her mission, and the story feels much the same. It is focused, constantly moving forward, and while it leaves little time for niceties (like elaborate character touches), it grabs your interest and marches you through this tightly-written story. Her determination is Livingston's determination is the reader's determination. We are all in this together, and we want her to succeed.

Until it happens, it's left a mystery what this 'success' entails - and when it does, it provides the most fantastical element of the story. In the beginning, I almost didn't recognize the story as SF/F, because the premise of a country (especially a dry region of the southern US, where I imagined this taking place) outlawing any minority languages under the pretense of 'unity' is hardly far-fetched. Livingston starts the story off, even, with a quotation from a proposed amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 that states:

No person has a right, entitlement, or claim to have the Government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services, or provide materials in any language other than English.

This isn't a dystopia; it's modern-day America.

Livingston, though, shows us the visceral strength of language, the surprising and powerful things minority languages can do, in his closing act. Tabitha sings to the gods and they rain lightning down on her enemies in a storm that doesn't dissipate but travels on. And like that storm, Tabitha and the other native people she accumulates along the way show that people and cultures don't simply disappear, either, but persist.

Limbo #1, by Dan Watters, Caspar Wijngaard, and Jim Campbell

Limbo #1

Publisher: Image Comics
Art and colors: Caspar Wijngaard
Story: Dan Watters
Letters: Jim Campbell
Rating: 4/5

Another first-issue review! I have a lot of great things to say about Limbo. The comic takes place in what I imagine is a southern US town - lots of Spanish names and signs, but I also got a New Orleans feel from the city. Clay, our main character, is a detective straight of a noir film. He's got his own mystery to solve, though, because nine months ago, he woke up with no memories. A lounge singer named Brigitte asks for his help dealing with a crime lord (The Thumb) who she witnessed some freaky shit involving a sacrificial goat and a staticky TV set.

I'll say right off the bat that the one reason this isn't a 5-star comic for me is that it's just not my thing. Everything about it is quality and I liked it quite a lot, but it didn't hit that right combination of buttons for me to love it. The art is awesome, it's just not my favorite style, etc. I suspect that will change as the story grows in scope (and grows on me), but I've never been a huge fan of noir - it's just not my cup of tea.

That said, the art in this is awesome. The city is full of neon lights and Wijngaard conveys that by using cool neon blues, pinks, purples, and greens against sharp black backgrounds. It's a neat effect and gives the story great visual and stylistic coherence.

I'm also impressed with how well-paced this is. In just one issue, Clay takes on and (perhaps) completes a case, so we have a sense of continuity and closure, but that case also introduces us to the major players in the city. Best of all, it's clearly tied into some crazy otherworldly magic that's affecting the city as a whole, so we get a glimpse of the overall plot.

I'll definitely be picking up future issues of this, so stay tuned for more reviews!

Review: The Winged Histories

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received an e-galley copy of this book from Edelweiss and Small Beer Press.

I went into "The Winged Histories" without reading its companion novel, "A Stranger in Olondria." Sofia Samatar's first book came out three-ish years ago, and I'd heard of it in passing but never picked it up. I love Small Beer Press, though, so between that and the positive buzz I jumped at the chance to review this.

Now, "The Winged Histories" is explicitly not a sequel, but for a large chunk of this book I felt like I was missing something. Much of this review is going to detail what my expectations were based on the back-of-book blurb and my experience at points in the book, and how they didn't quite match up to what the book actually was. As the blurb states, it is the stories of four women - a soldier, a poet, a priestess, and a socialite - and their involvement in a war.

The soldier, Tav, gets the first story, and we're thrown into her life as a warrior right away. This was my first stumbling block: it's difficult to tell what the timeline is in this first story, at least in the beginning. Tav is disoriented and remembering events, and she alternates between short, sequential anecdotes and summary recollections with few cues for the reader. Part of my confusion might have been due to my disjointed reading, and I strongly feel a re-read would solve all of my problems (but not starting the book with this particular sequence might have prevented them, too). Once things settled down and became linear, I had an easier time with it.

The second revelation that helped me cope with the story came from another reviewer as I was skimming reviews, about halfway through. They suggested reading this as if it were four short stories, not one narrative, and that immediately made the story 100% better for me. I thought the book was going to be a slow burn that would encompass Tav's emotional trauma and recovery, paralleling the nation of Kestenya's trauma and recovery during and after the war, mostly focusing on Tav but with the other three women woven into her narrative. And even halfway through, toward the end of the priestess's chapter, I was still expecting the rest of Tav's story. That's not exactly what I got, but from this point on, I was able to adjust my expectations and thoroughly enjoy the book with no qualifications.

So, aside from the confusion, I loved this book. All the characters were beautifully written, compelling, tragic, human. The story is, generally, about a war for Kestenya's independence, led by Tav and her cousin, Dasya. The drama of the story is based largely in the elaborate culture that Samatar has created. Inheritance goes to nephews before sons and nieces before daughters. Dasya is the son of the Telkan, and heir to the throne because he has no male cousins - only Tav and her sister, Siski. Legends of Drevedi - winged vampires who supposedly share a lineage with humans - are the fantastical element lurking in the background, waiting to step forward. The Drevedi are maligned, supposedly extinct, but intertwined with the traditional religion - which has now been outlawed in favor of the Cult of the Stone. The Stone in question is covered in fragments of writings in many different languages, and supposedly fell from the sky to the middle of a desert. All in all, the worldbuilding here is fantastic, rich, and decadently layered - and remarkably fresh and original.

The characters Samatar chose to follow - Tav, Siski, Tav's lover, and the isolated daughter of the high priest of the Cult of the Stone - are all of varying importance in the war for Kestenya's independence and its fallout, ranging from Tav, who leads the charge, to her lover, who comforts her and who doesn't shy away from reminding her of the cost of such a war to the women like her who are left behind. Tav's story, appropriately, is more narrative, but troubled by the trauma of war. Her lover's story is absolute poetry. Siski, the socialite, tells a story of romance and loss of innocence. And the priestess reveals the secrets of the Priest of the Stone, who claims to know secrets of the gods but knows nothing about people. Together they form a portrait of a country that strives for unity and independence but is itself a messy, heterogeneous collection of peoples and beliefs. This is a story about history, and how what 'history' is depends on the perspectives that construct it.

This book also shines in its prose. This is the most elegantly, painfully written fantasy book I've read in years. Samatar's language is subtle but impactful and haunting. She writes poetry, outside of her novels, and it's clear and apparent on every page. She knows the power of a word in the right place and when to hold back, to wait or omit entirely. The result is a treasure where every page is steeped in beauty and emotion.

Overall, this was definitely a challenge, but one that was absolutely worth the effort and perhaps worth more because of it. The characters, the prose, the world-buidling are rich and beautiful and I am itching to pick up "A Stranger in Olondria" as soon as I possibly can. Read this book, even if you're not a fantasy fan, because this is a beautiful book first and a fantasy book second.

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Review: ODY-C, Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa

ODY-C, Vol. 1: Off to Far Ithicaa by Matt Fraction
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've talked a lot recently in other reviews about the kinds of things I particularly enjoy in comics - weird narrative structure, experimental page layouts, abstract and non-representational art with bright colors - and "ODY-C" hits all those marks and more! I was hooked the moment I read the description: it's a re-telling of the Odyssey, in space, and all the characters are women. And it's such a blast!

I'm going to start with the artwork, because I've already mentioned it and because it's the most immediately striking thing about this story. The colors are incredibly vibrant and alive, and they melt into each other or clash forcefully against each other as the story demands it. Christian Ward has done an amazing job creating art that stands beautifully and powerfully on its own but also serves and uplifts the story. There is often little dialogue on a page, and the art alone tells large parts of the story. Character design (and world design) is fabulous. Most of the characters are women, but their physicality and gender presentation vary wildly (and gloriously). Hera has a beard. Zeus is large, insisting on taking up as much space as the head of the gods deserves. The characters (usually) are clear and distinct (with some exceptions, see below). Some of the character designs remind me of Moebius, which is high praise coming from me. There are almost no traditional comic panels in the story. Ward does some amazing things with concentric circle layouts that are simply stunning. The flexible and non-linear layouts add to how weird and trippy this whole story feels.

I'm enjoying the story quite a bit, too. I'll admit that it's sometimes difficult to get through, because while the overall story mirrors the Odyssey, that provides more of a general structure and many of the specifics are original (or very loose interpretations of the original story). So often, my rusty knowledge of the Odyssey is more of a hindrance than a help, because those expectations are subverted or diverted to a different direction. Other reviewers have mentioned difficulty with the language, as well, and there are times when it is hard to understand what's happening. Generally, I followed the story pretty well. There were some scenes I puzzled over, moved on, and understood in retrospect. There are others where I think I know what happened, but am genuinely not sure (though a re-read or going back to the scene would have helped). Most of the confusion stems from the combination of abstract, poetic Homeric language with sci-fi plotlines, but some also comes from the difficulty keeping track of some of the characters. Their names are often substantially changed from their original Greek, and in at least one instance I confused two of the non-Zeus gods and am still unsure who is who. The confusion and difficulty are what knocked this down from a home-run five-star story to four stars, but I suspect as the story continues (as I get used to the prose, as characters get more established, and I get myself the cliff notes for the Odyssey) this will get easier.

The characters themselves are, as in the Odyssey, not necessarily the kind of characters you warm up to, find compelling, and eagerly await their whole life story. The gods get some personality, and Fraction has given Odyssia more grounding, more personal and emotional depth than Homer ever bothered with Odysseus. Otherwise, it's a grand narrative with larger-than-life events, and with more narration than dialogue, so it's not particularly character-driven. But that's okay; that works here, because it's like the Odyssey in that regard and the story choices complement that decision.

And often, it's the small choices here that make the story great. Hera's beard - I love it. Odyssia captains her ship through literal willpower and mental synchrony with her subordinates; if anyone is not in general coordination with the rest of the crew, the ships can be thrown dangerously off course, and only Odyssia has the force of will to command the ship. Fraction mirrors the Odyssey by frequently using wolf metaphors to refer to Odyssia. Circe is a space pirate. The jealousy and pettiness of the gods (though certainly not unique to this telling) was delightful. There's a lot to love in the small moments, and it shows that Fraction and Ward know how to tell a good story.

The concept itself is pretty great, and Fraction has woven a neat little SF premise into the story beyond the whole 'set in space' conceit. Zeus has cursed humans and made it so no male creature can exist. Humans are trying to get around this in various ways - gender-neutral people, and one old man creepily tries to father sons on young woman after young woman - and it appears that Odyssia's child, as in the Odyssey, is a young man. I'm excited to see where that plotline will go, because it's such a clear departure from the original text. I'm excited to read more of this in general, and I definitely recommend it if you want an SF comic that's both a challenge and a delight.

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Review: Find Me

Find Me by Laura van den Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Find Me" is an ethereal, eerie character piece about displacement. Its post-apocalyptic backdrop that feels almost inconsequential to the story, which focuses on a young woman named Joy and her hazy wandering existence, both in this new world and in the past. It's very much a 'literary' novel doing what a lot of 'literary' novels are doing lately - snatching bits and pieces of the sci-fi genre and weaving them into more mainstream (or prestigious) genres. I like this trend - the more SF the better! - but I'm also a little wary, as authors sometimes try to deny the SF-ness of their writing to keep themselves out of the genre ghetto. Either way, the SF premise drew me in, and while it didn't turn out to be hugely necessary to the story I wasn't disappointed at all (well, at least in terms of genre).

Joy is in a hospital. At first, it's unclear what kind of hospital she's in, or why. Outsiders gather outside, trying to get into the hospital, and no one in the hospital seems ill. Slowly, we discover that all the patients in this hospital are thought to be immune to a plague sweeping America, one that causes amnesia and then death. Joy suspects she's immune because she's already lost the memories that are important to her. She has recently received her first photo of her mother, and there is a curious year of her life in foster care she doesn't remember at all.

Joy eventually leaves this strange hospital and the people she has met there. She runs into the only foster-brother she's ever cared about while wandering the east coast on a series of sketchy long-distance buses. She's searching for her mother, who she believes she identified from TV as a lost-ship-chaser who lives off the shore of Florida.

Nothing in this book is in the foreground. Joy's memory problems and the inconsistency of memory throughout the story constantly displace both event and emotion. Though the story is roughly chronological, life-changing moments happen off-screen and are not referenced until Joy has digested them enough to temper their emotional impact. Thus the tone perpetuates a constant, unchanging level of emotional valence. Often, this deliberate disaffection creates a clashing contrast with the actual events Joy remembers, and the slow, steady grind of emotion becomes a relentless crashing wave of white noise drowning out all the things Joy should be concerned about but ignores with her single-minded goal.

It's an impressive build, but the question for me is: what does it build to, and how does it land? And, unfortunately, the answers are a disappointing 'not much,' and 'no.' I shouldn't have been surprised (and I wasn't, as the novel neared its end and with only pages left Joy was supposedly only moments away from her mother) that a novel that is primarily about lack and uses lack as a literary device displaces the ending beyond the final page of the book. Perhaps this means for the reader that we must understand Joy's journey is not about the destination, but about the getting there, but for Joy herself this isn't even the case. She has undergone a lot and her life has drastically changed, but her primary concern is still finding her mother and she refuses to foreground any of her more immediate problems.

Still, up until the last page, it was engrossing read. I could have used some closure and I feel the story would've benefited from it, but the author clearly disagrees, and I respect that.

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