Rachel Swirsky's Blog, page 32
January 31, 2013
Rachel Swirsky's short fiction from 2012
Since I just tossed this up on a message board I belong to, I figured it might be time to put it in blog-form, too.
I had several short stories out last year, but the ones I liked best were a novelette and a short story. The novelette is a fantasy set in a fictional analog of Renaissance Italy, concerning the broken romance between two painters, one a genius and the other her protege, and how their relationship is overwhelmed by art and magic. It can be read on Tor.com, "Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia"
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The other was a short story that appeared in Nick Mamatas's THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE. My work aside, I thought this was the strongest anthology of the year with some really lovely work by Ken Liu, Project Itoh, Issui Ogawa, and Cathrynne Valente, among others. The anthology is absolutely worth it for those four stories, not to mention other strong pieces.
The short story of mine that appeared in it is called "The Sea of Trees" and it's a ghost story about the suicide forest, Aokigahara.
I've been a bit obsessed with ghosts lately, or rather I suppose with death, and its melancholy and incomprehensibility and savageness. With ghosts, there's always a twist of memory, too, and of either reconciling or of becoming stuck, both things I've done, at different times. "The Sea of Trees" is still under exclusivity so I can't publish it online, but if you would like to read it for award consideration, ping me and I'll be happy to provide a copy. (ETA: It's also available to SFWA members on the discussion forums.)
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I had two other pieces published as well that weren't quite as close to my heart. I've heard from a lot of people who really enjoyed "Decomposition" which can be read in Apex Magazine, and as always, I feel lucky to have received such kind reception. "Decomposition" is the story of a villain who obsesses over the decaying corpses of his kills.
I also published a story in WHEN THE VILLAIN COMES HOME (eds Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood), a small anthology that follows on the heels of an earlier success, WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME. They've got a third anthology planned for this year, too. My story, "Broken Clouds," is about a girl who turns to dark magic to save her sister.
I am, of course, also happy to provide copies of this story to those who are interested.
I had several short stories out last year, but the ones I liked best were a novelette and a short story. The novelette is a fantasy set in a fictional analog of Renaissance Italy, concerning the broken romance between two painters, one a genius and the other her protege, and how their relationship is overwhelmed by art and magic. It can be read on Tor.com, "Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia"
It was summer when I first came to Lisane’s house. The sun shone brightly, casting rose and gold across squared stone rooftops, glimmering through circular leaded windows, emboldening the trumpet-shaped blooms that peaked out of alleys and window boxes. Women sat at upper-story windows, watching events in the streets, their heads and shoulders forming intriguing triangles. Shadows fell everywhere, rounding curves, crisscrossing cobbles, shading secretive recesses.
That wasn’t how I saw it as I walked to Lisane’s house that morning, holding the hand of the journeywoman who’d met my boat. It was Lisane who would teach me how to dissect the world into shapes and shadows. That day, I was still ignorant, overawed by the chaos and clamor of beautiful, crowded Patagnia.
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The other was a short story that appeared in Nick Mamatas's THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE. My work aside, I thought this was the strongest anthology of the year with some really lovely work by Ken Liu, Project Itoh, Issui Ogawa, and Cathrynne Valente, among others. The anthology is absolutely worth it for those four stories, not to mention other strong pieces.
The short story of mine that appeared in it is called "The Sea of Trees" and it's a ghost story about the suicide forest, Aokigahara.
The forest grew eight-hundred-and-fifty years ago after an eruption of Mount Fuji. Green things sunk their roots after the lava cooled.
The woods are very quiet. Little lives here except for ghosts and people on their way to joining them. Wind scarcely blows. Mists hang. Overhead, branches and leaves tangle into a roof underneath which the world is timeless and directionless.
Everything is trapped.
Everything is waiting.
A pair of tennis shoes, sitting alone.
Pants, voluminous over leg bones.
A suicide note nailed to a tree: “Nothing good ever happened in my life. Don’t look for me.”
The yurei, watching.
I've been a bit obsessed with ghosts lately, or rather I suppose with death, and its melancholy and incomprehensibility and savageness. With ghosts, there's always a twist of memory, too, and of either reconciling or of becoming stuck, both things I've done, at different times. "The Sea of Trees" is still under exclusivity so I can't publish it online, but if you would like to read it for award consideration, ping me and I'll be happy to provide a copy. (ETA: It's also available to SFWA members on the discussion forums.)
*
I had two other pieces published as well that weren't quite as close to my heart. I've heard from a lot of people who really enjoyed "Decomposition" which can be read in Apex Magazine, and as always, I feel lucky to have received such kind reception. "Decomposition" is the story of a villain who obsesses over the decaying corpses of his kills.
Once outside the city gates, Vare had planned to deposit the girls in some lonely place where wild animals would devour them before they could receive a decent burial. But in the morning, as he bowed beneath their bodies, he found himself unwilling to part with them.
Each ounce of their weight upon his back gave him a thrill of rich, red pleasure, the kind he’d never thought he’d feel again. Ayl’s bony elbows jutted into his shoulder blades. The uneven pressure of Delira’s curves created a jigsaw of pain across his back.
Their deaths had been his life’s obsession; their corpses were his prize.
I also published a story in WHEN THE VILLAIN COMES HOME (eds Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood), a small anthology that follows on the heels of an earlier success, WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME. They've got a third anthology planned for this year, too. My story, "Broken Clouds," is about a girl who turns to dark magic to save her sister.
She’d been browsing a perfectly ordinary shelf, filled with rumpled paperbacks, but suddenly, everything was different. Tall, narrow mahogany bookcases formed an endless, twisting maze, their shelves populated by dust and spiders and books far too old to belong in a local library branch. She scanned for a way out, but saw nothing except corridors of books.
She jumped as a crooked man stepped around a corner. He was lean and dark like an evening shadow. He wore an old-fashioned suit with tails, elegantly cut but shabby. Tattered lapels sported desiccated flowers that had withered where they were pinned. Long, pointed fingers poked out of holes in his pockets.
I am, of course, also happy to provide copies of this story to those who are interested.
January 28, 2013
Rachel Swirsky's YA & MG Novel Recommendations 2012, Distilled
This is the distilled list of my young adult and middle grade novel recommendations from 2012, for people who just want to see titles for reference.
PROBABLY ON MY BALLOT:
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
POSSIBLY ON MY BALLOT:
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Ask the Passengers by A. S. King
Every Day by David Levithan
The Broken Lands by Kate Milford
A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix
OTHER BOOKS I HAPPILY RECOMMEND:
(a partial list)
Dark Companion by Maria Acosta
Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite by Barry Deutsch
Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand
And All the Stars by Andrea Host
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
Cinder by Melissa Meyer
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
PROBABLY ON MY BALLOT:
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
POSSIBLY ON MY BALLOT:
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Ask the Passengers by A. S. King
Every Day by David Levithan
The Broken Lands by Kate Milford
A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix
OTHER BOOKS I HAPPILY RECOMMEND:
(a partial list)
Dark Companion by Maria Acosta
Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite by Barry Deutsch
Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand
And All the Stars by Andrea Host
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
Cinder by Melissa Meyer
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
Rachel Swirsky's Young Adult and Middle Grade Novel Recommendations, 2012
For people who want to see only titles without commentary, a distilled list is here.
This year, I read 40 young adult and middle grade novels that were published in 2012. (That I have a record of; it's possible that I read others during the year and forgot to document them.) I compiled my list through: 1) books that caught my attention during the year, usually because of familiarity with the author or because of recommendations, 2) contacting members of the Norton jury (the Norton award is the award for young adult and middle grade novels that's granted by the Science Fiction Writers of America) toward the end of the year for their recommendations, and 3) contacting young adult and middle grade authors of my acquaintance and asking them which books they'd felt passionate about during 2012.
The nice thing about this method is that it allowed me to skip straight to the really good books. I didn't end up reading the, say, 60 random books that aren't very good which I might have picked up otherwise. It's possible that one of those sixty would have blown me away and that's always a negative of using other people's filtering, but doing it this way meant that half of the books I read rated highly above average for me, thirty that rated above average, and only 6 that I rated below average.
Since I know the distinction isn't clear to everyone, young adult and middle grade novels basically represent two facets of the market for children and teens. Young adult novels tend to be marketed at ages 13-20, have main characters around 16, and feature more romantic content (e.g. the characters may be having sex). In middle grade novels, the characters are more likely to have their first kiss, and be around 12-14, and the novels are marketed at ages 9-14. There are finer distinctions than that, and of course the books vary individually from the broad template, but those are more or less the basics. To put this in movie language, CORALINE is middle grade and TWILIGHT is young adult.
MY BALLOT:
I'm still taking some time to think through what exactly will be on my ballot, so here are some likely candidates (order is alphabetical).
PROBABLY ON MY BALLOT:
THE DROWNED CITIES by Paolo Bacigalupi - THE DROWNED CITIES is the sequel to Bacigalupi's extremely successful SHIPBREAKER. Although the book is set in a future, post-apocalyptic, post-global-warming-floods United States, it deals with issues that affect contemporary nations.
The main character is the daughter of a local woman and a Chinese peacekeeper who abandoned his family when China pulled its forces out. The warlord factions who filled in the void of power have no love for "half-breeds"; girls like her are routinely killed. Before the book begins, one faction captures her and cuts off her right hand. They would have killed her, if she hadn't been rescued by the secondary character, a young boy fleeing the destruction of his own home. The book opens with both children studying medicine from a doctor who believes in showing orphans mercy, but when a bio-engineered dog/man/warrior shows up, trailed by a warlord's troops, both children are forced to run again. The boy is captured by a faction and forced to become a child soldier; the girl chases after him, trying to save him from that fate.
Like much of Bacigalupi's work, this, too, is depressing and often horrific. However, the book avoids the pitfalls of some narratives that deal primarily with the bleak--the book isn't just a one-note drumbeat of emotion, pacing, or imagery. The characters are fully realized; there are moments of humor and beauty. One-note books often flatten themselves out into something dim and muddy. The variety here allows the emotions of the book--positive and negative--to come across more keenly.
Both viewpoint characters are so well-rendered that I suspect they are the primary reason why the book succeeds as well as it does.
THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray - This is the first book in a series, which generally makes me grumpy, but it does manage to complete a full, satisfying arc, while still leaving tantalizing hints about the sequel-to-come. The story follows several teenagers in the 1920s in New York City, each of whom is gifted with a kind of magical power. The first is a young, white, fun-loving flapper who was banished to NYC after using her gift of reading the stories from items in order to expose the perfidy of a wealthy, influential boy. She becomes the story's protagonist, but almost as important is a black poet from Harlem who once had the gift of healing, and now helps protect his little brother who has the gift of prophecy. While the book has epic fantasy elements about saving the world through magic, it's also a successful character piece and historical novel which gives it a broad base of ways in which to tantalize and delight.
The book has a lot of careful, historical details, which I enjoyed, although there were moments when it felt as if the book was giving me a... how do I put this?... stereotypical version of the 1920s? Ish? It felt like it was covering all the bases. Dance marathons and speakeasies and the things one thinks of when one thinks 1920. But I don't think this is a particular problem per se. I just kind of had a check-list in my mind. There's the country girl who ran away from home to get on the stage, sort of thing.
What stands in immediate contrast to that feeling, though, is the inclusion of characters from diverse backgrounds. We're rounding all the flapper bases, but how many books from the 1920s also focus on the Harlem Renaissance? I can envision the check-list as almost a political statement. Here are the things you think you know, see? And you can still enjoy the fringe and sequins. And here are the things that the history books ignore: the untold, subterranean stories.
My reservation about recommending this book as young adult is that the main plot features a serial killer along the lines of H. H. Holmes, and when he appears, the book is dark and gory in an extremely gut-clenching, visceral way. I don't have an objection to dark material in young adult books--if I did, I couldn't recommend DROWNED CITIES, for one. But in DROWNED CITIES, it's very clear from the beginning what you're in for, whereas THE DIVINERS is a cheerful, Charleston sort of story, with magic and bobbed hair, that suddenly drops into these intense scenes. Also, Bray's novel is distinct from most sorts of urban fantasy that have a fun theme interleavened with darkness because, well, she's a very good writer. She brings one into the scene sensorily, vividly; you breathe and feel the murders. There's a particular detail... I don't want to bring it up spoiler-fashion here, but if you've read the book and want to ping me, I'll share my shiver moment and see if you shared it.
Anyway, I thought about this, and I decided that the violence really doesn't disqualify the book from being something I can recommend as YA. It's not what I turn to YA for -- as an adult reader, I want my YA to be predictable in certain fashions, and usually I read it when I'm not ready to give over my spirit to be crushed without warning. But whatever. I don't think that's why teens are in the reading game, and they certainly don't need fussy protection from me. THE DIVINERS is a very good book and I think most teens will enjoy it.
VESSEL by Sarah Beth Durst - A desert civilization is broken into many nomadic parts (ten?), each of which worships one of the gods. Once a generation or so (it might be once a century; I read the book a bit ago), one child from each group is chosen to be the vessel for the group's god, which they welcome into their bodies by dancing. VESSEL's main character is such a girl, but when she dances for her goddess to come, nothing happens. Her people declare her unfit and leave her alone in the desert to fare for herself, with only the resources her family is able to hide for her before they depart.
She goes out on a quest to find what has become of the gods. She travels between groups, finding other vessels who have been rejected, and gathering information about why their rituals didn't work, and a threat from the nearby empire which appears to have colonial ambitions.
I thought this book was a real vivid, fun adventure, the kind of yay-we're-on-a-quest literature that I loved as a kid and want to love as an adult even though I'm more picky now. This one passed my picky test. I thought the quest journey itself was gorgeously described, and enjoyed seeing how Durst decided to build up religions and civilizations.
Someone asked me recently in email whether this book might be considered appropriative if there were a contingent of Bedouin bloggers who were evaluating it. Honestly, I don't know. (And if there are such evaluations and I haven't run into them, I'd be interested in seeing them.) I didn't think Durst was building her civilization as a Bedouin analog per se; there are a number of nomadic desert groups, and it was my impression that she was building one that shared some of the traits common to those, while not imitating any one group specifically. Other, more knowledgeable readers may see something I didn't.
The first book by Sarah Beth Durst that I read was ICE which was nominated for the Norton award several years ago. It had some lovely imagery, and some interesting ideas, but overall I thought it was way too fast-paced for me to actually sink my teeth into; every time there was the potential for an interesting scene, the prose just raced past it, as if terrified to ever stand still for a moment and let emotions run their course. Next, I read last year's DRINK, SLAY, LOVE, about a vampire who gains a soul, which I enjoyed as a quirky, self-aware urban fantasy. This one is even better; I'm excited to see what she does next.
SERAPHINA by Rachel Hartman - SERAPHINA takes place in a world where there are both dragons and humans. After years of fighting, the two factions have made an uneasy truce. Dragons, who can shapeshift into human form (but never quite understand human culture), visit the human kingdom, but are viewed with suspicion. As the time comes for a royal visit from the dragon king, tensions rise, and a young woman who is secretly the daughter of an illegal dalliance between a human man and a dragon woman must navigate the two parts of her heritage so that she can protect the peace.
I'm not sure how much I have to say about this one. It's just kind of sharp and interesting. The best character is the main character's dragon uncle who is struggling with the assimilation of human culture and how it changes his draconic-oriented mind. There are lots of cool details about music, since the main character is the assistant to the court musician, and then there are just some randomly cool details, like the garden that exists in a corner of the main character's mind, which is populated by strange, unpredictable and sometimes dangerous denizens, whom she must take care to tend each night. Also, there's a demi-species of not-dragons, not-humans, who cling to walls and the undersides of things like geckos, and like to make sculptures, which are bizarre and kind of fantastic.
POSSIBLY ON MY BALLOT:
SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo - There are concerns about this text as being appropriative. (I obviously don't agree with every word of those posts; one of the readers clearly thought the book was really bad as a book, and I obviously don't agree. I did think that some other points made in the posts were well-made.) That said, I felt that there was a lot to recommend this novel. It has an interesting magic system, a sensory exploration of a variety of settings, and an immersive adventure plot.
The book (which takes place in a faux-Russian setting*) follows the life of a war orphan who joins the army as a cartographer. In this fantasy Russia, the nation is divided by a magical rift of darkness, filled with monsters who can't survive the light, which prevents easy traffic between the majority of the country and its ports. When her regiment is called to enter the rift, the main character is almost killed by the flying monsters, and only near death does she discover that she has the rarest of all magical powers--the power of light--which she calls upon to decimate the beasts. After that, she is pulled out of her former life, and sent to train with the elite magicians, called the grisha, whose lives, while filled with wealth and luxury, are also fraught with conflict and danger.
The magical rift is interesting and well-rendered, and the magic system is one of those that you just want to dig into and find out all about. Also, I really liked the way the army scenes were handled. It seemed unique to me. There was drudgery, yes, and a sense of the way in which these young people, who had no choice but to serve, were being exploited. But there was also a sense of companionability between the "soldiers," and a sense of comfortable routine. And the forces contained people of both sexes, which changed the dynamic from what we see in most literature as well. It seemed to strike a note that I haven't seen before, at least in YA, and I appreciated that.
ASK THE PASSENGERS by A. S. King - My favorite book from last year was A. S. King's EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS which you should read because it's this amazing book about masculinity and bullying and oh, my God, read it. This year's is less compelling, but it's still pretty awesome. It's the surrealist story of a girl who's trying to figure out her sexuality. Is she asexual? Bisexual? A lesbian? Her best friends are out to her--a gay boy, and a lesbian girl--but she just doesn't feel like she knows herself well enough to choose a box. Yes, she likes making out with the girl from work. Does that define her?
When she's caught up in her life, she looks up at the planes overhead and sends her love to the passengers. She sends them thoughts and questions. Her love and thoughts go up, and we see the passengers thinking about what she's sent them, how their lives intersect with, and branch away from, hers.
I'm making this book sound more sort of soft-edged than it is. It has its hard moments of homophobia and apathy and isolation. It's not all love in the skies and making out on the grass. There are dark corners.
That said, one of the reasons that I wasn't as taken with this book as I was with EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS is that the ending veers a bit toward the sentimental for me. It's not a big deal, just something that I felt didn't quite work.
But I highly recommend this book, and most everything A. S. King has done. Like PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ. Oh, my God. And did I mention EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS? This isn't at the top of her books, but even being not-the-top of A. S. King's books makes it soar higher than most.
EVERY DAY by David Levithan - This book makes me sad. It makes me sad because I should be able to put it in the "definitely on my ballot" category. I should be able to, but I can't quite do it.
So--there's this amazing book, and it's called EVERY DAY by David Levithan. It's about a kid who has grown up switching bodies every day. He goes to sleep in one flesh, with one family, and wakes up in another. It's as if he's possessing people in sequence. He has access to the memories of those he's possessing, but he controls their actions; he's living his life in the interstices of theirs. He never goes back to someone he's been before. He has almost no continuity except what he can carve for himself by doing things like setting up e-mail accounts that he can check from anyone's computer.
Well, I say "he," but he's not really a he. Ze is bodiless, genderless. One day, while occupying a boy's body, ze goes out with the body's girlfriend and falls in love with her. He pursues her. Tries to make her a constant in his life. They push and pull at each other, trying to figure out how to engage despite the almost impossible circumstances.
This book is really good on LGBT issues. It's smart, it's sharp, it's well-done. The handling of the main character's perception of zir gender and sexuality is cool, and I also appreciated the handling of how that affects his embodied, straight girlfriend. There were also other moments in which the book explored LGBT issues--we learn that ze has been involved with boys in the past, and ze occupies the bodies of trans and gay people.
Which leaves me with three issues with the book. 1) Someone pointed out to me that it's got a lot of that creepy romance-movie "I will PURSUE you and it will be ROMANTIC and you will have NO CHOICE" trope. This is true. It didn't bug me because I thought the circumstances made it clear why the protagonist would choose to act that way, and I also thought the creepiness was, itself, clear in the text, and held up for the reader to consider. So, it wasn't a problem for me, but it may be for other readers. 2) The ending is weak. All of a sudden, this intense character novel became a weird monster-adventure thing, and meh. That happens, though, and I didn't think it spoiled the book.
For me, the thing I couldn't get over was issue 3 -- near the end of the book, there's a scene that exemplifies striking fatphobia. Ze jumps into the body of a fat boy. Ze goes to meet zir girlfriend in that body, and this is the impetus for the girlfriend to finally decide that she can't deal with ze switching bodies. "Fat" is kind of a lazy way to code for "beyond-the-pale not attractive," but okay--people do feel that way. My problem was that there are details in the book of what it's like to be embodied as a fat person that are... well, odd. They seem like a thin person's imagining of what it's like to be fat.
Even that I could probably get over, but there's a bit--just a very small piece--where ze describes the fat person as having, more or less, a mental surface like an "emotional burp." Now, ze can access the memories of other bodies that he jumps into, bodies that are given internal lives and struggles. But the fat body is reduced to just flesh. Moreover, it is just a bodily function--not even an absent mind, but a burp. Fat is associated with uncouth bodily functions; it is flesh without mind.
Now, the book is quite long, and this is a very short section. I was very torn about how to react. I'm not a teenager anymore, but I admit, this passage still gave me pause. I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had still been sixteen and bulimic.
I described this dilemma to a friend of mine, further explaining that the book is really good on LGBT issues, as if that erased the fatphobia. My friend asked, "If the book was homophobic like that, would you vote for it?"
I admitted that I wouldn't.
Fatphobia and homophobia are, of course, not identical. Fat politics are so off-the-charts radical that most people don't know about them if they don't make an effort, which makes me feel like maybe I should forgive any issues with them. (Though, a burp? Really?) I wouldn't throw a homophobic book at gay teens who are already at elevated risk of bullying and suicide. But depression, bullying and suicide are a big deal for fat teens, too.
So, I don't know if I'm going to vote for this book or not, which makes me sad. I wish that the same level of political empathy that's displayed in the rest of the book could have been applied to this brief section. It could have been so easily fixed.
THE BROKEN LANDS by Kate Milford - Strange things happen at crossroads, and the bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn was one of the biggest crossroads of the time. Agents of Jack Hellcoal plan to take advantage of the construction of the bridge so that they can take over New York City and make it into a new hell. Only the pillars that represent the city stand in their way, but most of them are dead. That leaves it up to Sam, a teenage cardsharp, and Jin, a fireworks expert, to save the city.
I'm not much of a geek about New York City history, but I imagine this book is even more of a treat for those who are. The book takes place on Coney Island and has a strong sense of history, setting, and depth. The adventure is fun; the use of American tall tales to construct a mythology makes the book distinct and also brings out the historical flavor in an interesting way.
The real strength, though, is the characters--Sam and Jin, and a few others who appear in more minor roles. Their romance feels real in a way that most romances don't, and never overly sentimental, just like a practical fact that's developing along with the characters and the plot. The romance isn't the emphasis of the books, or the primary emphasis of the characters, but it's a nice garnish.
The characters are sharp; the plot is fun; the history is detailed but not overwhelming. I found the last section of the book overly complicated as the plot worked toward its resolution. This is something that I feel often afflicts the endings of novels with save-the-world plots. The rules of what magic can happen when, and who needs to be where, and whether someone can use the Wand of TrueTelling against a troll or not, blah blah blah, get confusing and hard to follow. There was some of that. But in the same section, there were also descriptions of how to build fireworks, and how construction workers navigated the heights of the unfinished Brooklyn bridge, and that's some nice compensation.
A CONFUSION OF PRINCES by Garth Nix - This is one of those books that I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable calling YA. In this case, it's not because of the content--and I mostly end up dismissing my content concerns anyway. It's because the book seems, to me, to rely so heavily on the constructs of space opera and hard science fiction that I'm not sure it can be read without an understanding of that history, which makes it something that I have trouble thinking of as actually aimed at teens.
That said, it does have a young character, and a coming of age plot, and boy, is it fun. In this galactic empire, there are thousands of princes, each raised in isolation and given training until he or she reaches the age of majority. (I was so happy when I realized it was he *or* she.) At that point, he or she becomes a full-fledged prince--and imagines, or at least our protagonist does, that he or she can now stroll onto the scene of the universe and be the most heroic, awesome prince ever, and be specially appointed the next emperor.
Actually being a prince turns out to kind of suck. First of all, all the other princes are trying to kill you so that you won't be competition. Also, you don't just get to be a high-and-mighty adventurer; you have to do boring things, like go be a drudge at the nearest military academy. The book follows the main character through his princely career as he realizes being a prince isn't what he expected, and confronts the question of whether the world is anything like he thought it was, either.
This is lots of fun, and full of the kind of eyeball-kicks that far-future space opera is best at. It's got all the best kinds of "roll around in cool, weird technology and cultural evolution" stuff that I crave from space opera. I wasn't totally into the ending (I almost never am), but I really enjoyed the whole book, and I definitely recommend this to fans of fun space opera with a traditional flavor and a modern edge.
OTHER BOOKS I HAPPILY RECOMMEND:
Honestly, it's hard to put this together, because there were lots of books that I really enjoyed. I'm just going to concentrate on a few. There were many, many others that were also wonderful.
DARK COMPANION by Maria Acosta - A young woman from foster care is given the opportunity to go to an exclusive private school where she learns that other young women in her circumstances have gone missing. It's an urban fantasy. Really strong description of class struggles, often elided in fiction. Also, critiques via its plot some of the common literary notions about gender; I think feminists will like this one.
HEREVILLE: HOW MIRKA MET A METEORITE - I love this graphic novel series about an eleven-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl who wants to fight monsters. I admit that I probably partially love it because it's written by my best friend and I have a hand in helping to revise it. :P Still, there's just a sort of free-wheeling, loose-shouldered joy in the text and in the illustrations that I love. It taps into the kind of joy I had as a pre-adolescent. This book isn't as good as the first. The plot bears some emotional significance for the character, but it doesn't change her life in any marked way, which makes it less dramatic and compelling than the first. "Mirka discovers a magic world" (book 1) lends itself to a stronger plot than "Mirka encounters a magic double" (book 2). That's not to say I don't quite enjoy it; it just doesn't have the same heft.
RADIANT DAYS by Elizabeth Hand - A young artist who is experimenting with graffiti as her medium is homeless and exhausted when an old rock musician who can move back and forth through time hooks her up for one night with French poet Artur Rimbaud, who is even younger than she is. Both artists are gay. Intense, long descriptions; slow pacing; somewhat aggrandizing of art and artists; exceedingly beautifully written.
AND ALL THE STARS by Andrea Host - Aliens prepare for invading the earth by inundating it with a powder that turns some humans into hosts for the aliens. There are those who turn green, who remain human, but can be ordered around. There are also those whose bodies are blue and studded with stars who the aliens can possess. After possession, they die. The book follows the main character and a band of other blues as they try to avoid the aliens and preserve themselves. Had an unusual SFnal vibe for YA, some interesting alien stuff, and a twist at the end that I actually quite liked.
THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND by Margo Lanagan - On Rollrock, a witch decides to take out her vengeance on the people who outcast her by calling beautiful sea-women out of the seals. The women step out of their seal-skins, which the men steal and keep away from them, and are beautiful and docile models of femininity. The natural-born women eventually flee, leaving only men, sons, and seal-women who long to return to the water. Multiple points of view, the best realized of which is the witch, who has a single long section. Very creepy. Very detailed. Very smart. Perhaps a bit circuitous.
CINDER by Melissa Meyer - Cinderella is cybernetic in a world that discriminates against cybernetic creatures. Interesting future descriptions. Just very different from other YA that's out there, and a fun read. Also, Cinderella is a super-competent mechanic, and I just loved that unexpected deviation from the very girly origin story.
DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT by Laini Taylor - The first book of this series was quite good and was on last year's Norton ballot. It's about a girl who was raised by demons that collect teeth to make into magic and wishes. She lives in the human world and has always belived herself to be human, but discovers that she's actually a reincarnated demon, and meets the angel who she'd fallen in love with before she was executed for that love. I didn't necessarily expect great things from the sequel, but to my surprise, I liked book 2 better. Book 1 had featured long, romantic passages that bored me. This book was invigorated with interesting world-building and visuals.
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*I think there's a difference between an imagined group that doesn't align with any real-world analog, and something that's clearly a "faux [nation]"; in this case, describing historically specific details and using language from the country seems to make it a faux, not a construction. A faux doesn't have to be perfect, but in my opinion, it takes on more of a responsibility toward its origins than a construct. Things can get weird when drawing the line between a faux and a construct, but on the edges, it can be pretty clear.
This year, I read 40 young adult and middle grade novels that were published in 2012. (That I have a record of; it's possible that I read others during the year and forgot to document them.) I compiled my list through: 1) books that caught my attention during the year, usually because of familiarity with the author or because of recommendations, 2) contacting members of the Norton jury (the Norton award is the award for young adult and middle grade novels that's granted by the Science Fiction Writers of America) toward the end of the year for their recommendations, and 3) contacting young adult and middle grade authors of my acquaintance and asking them which books they'd felt passionate about during 2012.
The nice thing about this method is that it allowed me to skip straight to the really good books. I didn't end up reading the, say, 60 random books that aren't very good which I might have picked up otherwise. It's possible that one of those sixty would have blown me away and that's always a negative of using other people's filtering, but doing it this way meant that half of the books I read rated highly above average for me, thirty that rated above average, and only 6 that I rated below average.
Since I know the distinction isn't clear to everyone, young adult and middle grade novels basically represent two facets of the market for children and teens. Young adult novels tend to be marketed at ages 13-20, have main characters around 16, and feature more romantic content (e.g. the characters may be having sex). In middle grade novels, the characters are more likely to have their first kiss, and be around 12-14, and the novels are marketed at ages 9-14. There are finer distinctions than that, and of course the books vary individually from the broad template, but those are more or less the basics. To put this in movie language, CORALINE is middle grade and TWILIGHT is young adult.
MY BALLOT:
I'm still taking some time to think through what exactly will be on my ballot, so here are some likely candidates (order is alphabetical).
PROBABLY ON MY BALLOT:
THE DROWNED CITIES by Paolo Bacigalupi - THE DROWNED CITIES is the sequel to Bacigalupi's extremely successful SHIPBREAKER. Although the book is set in a future, post-apocalyptic, post-global-warming-floods United States, it deals with issues that affect contemporary nations.
The main character is the daughter of a local woman and a Chinese peacekeeper who abandoned his family when China pulled its forces out. The warlord factions who filled in the void of power have no love for "half-breeds"; girls like her are routinely killed. Before the book begins, one faction captures her and cuts off her right hand. They would have killed her, if she hadn't been rescued by the secondary character, a young boy fleeing the destruction of his own home. The book opens with both children studying medicine from a doctor who believes in showing orphans mercy, but when a bio-engineered dog/man/warrior shows up, trailed by a warlord's troops, both children are forced to run again. The boy is captured by a faction and forced to become a child soldier; the girl chases after him, trying to save him from that fate.
Like much of Bacigalupi's work, this, too, is depressing and often horrific. However, the book avoids the pitfalls of some narratives that deal primarily with the bleak--the book isn't just a one-note drumbeat of emotion, pacing, or imagery. The characters are fully realized; there are moments of humor and beauty. One-note books often flatten themselves out into something dim and muddy. The variety here allows the emotions of the book--positive and negative--to come across more keenly.
Both viewpoint characters are so well-rendered that I suspect they are the primary reason why the book succeeds as well as it does.
THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray - This is the first book in a series, which generally makes me grumpy, but it does manage to complete a full, satisfying arc, while still leaving tantalizing hints about the sequel-to-come. The story follows several teenagers in the 1920s in New York City, each of whom is gifted with a kind of magical power. The first is a young, white, fun-loving flapper who was banished to NYC after using her gift of reading the stories from items in order to expose the perfidy of a wealthy, influential boy. She becomes the story's protagonist, but almost as important is a black poet from Harlem who once had the gift of healing, and now helps protect his little brother who has the gift of prophecy. While the book has epic fantasy elements about saving the world through magic, it's also a successful character piece and historical novel which gives it a broad base of ways in which to tantalize and delight.
The book has a lot of careful, historical details, which I enjoyed, although there were moments when it felt as if the book was giving me a... how do I put this?... stereotypical version of the 1920s? Ish? It felt like it was covering all the bases. Dance marathons and speakeasies and the things one thinks of when one thinks 1920. But I don't think this is a particular problem per se. I just kind of had a check-list in my mind. There's the country girl who ran away from home to get on the stage, sort of thing.
What stands in immediate contrast to that feeling, though, is the inclusion of characters from diverse backgrounds. We're rounding all the flapper bases, but how many books from the 1920s also focus on the Harlem Renaissance? I can envision the check-list as almost a political statement. Here are the things you think you know, see? And you can still enjoy the fringe and sequins. And here are the things that the history books ignore: the untold, subterranean stories.
My reservation about recommending this book as young adult is that the main plot features a serial killer along the lines of H. H. Holmes, and when he appears, the book is dark and gory in an extremely gut-clenching, visceral way. I don't have an objection to dark material in young adult books--if I did, I couldn't recommend DROWNED CITIES, for one. But in DROWNED CITIES, it's very clear from the beginning what you're in for, whereas THE DIVINERS is a cheerful, Charleston sort of story, with magic and bobbed hair, that suddenly drops into these intense scenes. Also, Bray's novel is distinct from most sorts of urban fantasy that have a fun theme interleavened with darkness because, well, she's a very good writer. She brings one into the scene sensorily, vividly; you breathe and feel the murders. There's a particular detail... I don't want to bring it up spoiler-fashion here, but if you've read the book and want to ping me, I'll share my shiver moment and see if you shared it.
Anyway, I thought about this, and I decided that the violence really doesn't disqualify the book from being something I can recommend as YA. It's not what I turn to YA for -- as an adult reader, I want my YA to be predictable in certain fashions, and usually I read it when I'm not ready to give over my spirit to be crushed without warning. But whatever. I don't think that's why teens are in the reading game, and they certainly don't need fussy protection from me. THE DIVINERS is a very good book and I think most teens will enjoy it.
VESSEL by Sarah Beth Durst - A desert civilization is broken into many nomadic parts (ten?), each of which worships one of the gods. Once a generation or so (it might be once a century; I read the book a bit ago), one child from each group is chosen to be the vessel for the group's god, which they welcome into their bodies by dancing. VESSEL's main character is such a girl, but when she dances for her goddess to come, nothing happens. Her people declare her unfit and leave her alone in the desert to fare for herself, with only the resources her family is able to hide for her before they depart.
She goes out on a quest to find what has become of the gods. She travels between groups, finding other vessels who have been rejected, and gathering information about why their rituals didn't work, and a threat from the nearby empire which appears to have colonial ambitions.
I thought this book was a real vivid, fun adventure, the kind of yay-we're-on-a-quest literature that I loved as a kid and want to love as an adult even though I'm more picky now. This one passed my picky test. I thought the quest journey itself was gorgeously described, and enjoyed seeing how Durst decided to build up religions and civilizations.
Someone asked me recently in email whether this book might be considered appropriative if there were a contingent of Bedouin bloggers who were evaluating it. Honestly, I don't know. (And if there are such evaluations and I haven't run into them, I'd be interested in seeing them.) I didn't think Durst was building her civilization as a Bedouin analog per se; there are a number of nomadic desert groups, and it was my impression that she was building one that shared some of the traits common to those, while not imitating any one group specifically. Other, more knowledgeable readers may see something I didn't.
The first book by Sarah Beth Durst that I read was ICE which was nominated for the Norton award several years ago. It had some lovely imagery, and some interesting ideas, but overall I thought it was way too fast-paced for me to actually sink my teeth into; every time there was the potential for an interesting scene, the prose just raced past it, as if terrified to ever stand still for a moment and let emotions run their course. Next, I read last year's DRINK, SLAY, LOVE, about a vampire who gains a soul, which I enjoyed as a quirky, self-aware urban fantasy. This one is even better; I'm excited to see what she does next.
SERAPHINA by Rachel Hartman - SERAPHINA takes place in a world where there are both dragons and humans. After years of fighting, the two factions have made an uneasy truce. Dragons, who can shapeshift into human form (but never quite understand human culture), visit the human kingdom, but are viewed with suspicion. As the time comes for a royal visit from the dragon king, tensions rise, and a young woman who is secretly the daughter of an illegal dalliance between a human man and a dragon woman must navigate the two parts of her heritage so that she can protect the peace.
I'm not sure how much I have to say about this one. It's just kind of sharp and interesting. The best character is the main character's dragon uncle who is struggling with the assimilation of human culture and how it changes his draconic-oriented mind. There are lots of cool details about music, since the main character is the assistant to the court musician, and then there are just some randomly cool details, like the garden that exists in a corner of the main character's mind, which is populated by strange, unpredictable and sometimes dangerous denizens, whom she must take care to tend each night. Also, there's a demi-species of not-dragons, not-humans, who cling to walls and the undersides of things like geckos, and like to make sculptures, which are bizarre and kind of fantastic.
POSSIBLY ON MY BALLOT:
SHADOW AND BONE by Leigh Bardugo - There are concerns about this text as being appropriative. (I obviously don't agree with every word of those posts; one of the readers clearly thought the book was really bad as a book, and I obviously don't agree. I did think that some other points made in the posts were well-made.) That said, I felt that there was a lot to recommend this novel. It has an interesting magic system, a sensory exploration of a variety of settings, and an immersive adventure plot.
The book (which takes place in a faux-Russian setting*) follows the life of a war orphan who joins the army as a cartographer. In this fantasy Russia, the nation is divided by a magical rift of darkness, filled with monsters who can't survive the light, which prevents easy traffic between the majority of the country and its ports. When her regiment is called to enter the rift, the main character is almost killed by the flying monsters, and only near death does she discover that she has the rarest of all magical powers--the power of light--which she calls upon to decimate the beasts. After that, she is pulled out of her former life, and sent to train with the elite magicians, called the grisha, whose lives, while filled with wealth and luxury, are also fraught with conflict and danger.
The magical rift is interesting and well-rendered, and the magic system is one of those that you just want to dig into and find out all about. Also, I really liked the way the army scenes were handled. It seemed unique to me. There was drudgery, yes, and a sense of the way in which these young people, who had no choice but to serve, were being exploited. But there was also a sense of companionability between the "soldiers," and a sense of comfortable routine. And the forces contained people of both sexes, which changed the dynamic from what we see in most literature as well. It seemed to strike a note that I haven't seen before, at least in YA, and I appreciated that.
ASK THE PASSENGERS by A. S. King - My favorite book from last year was A. S. King's EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS which you should read because it's this amazing book about masculinity and bullying and oh, my God, read it. This year's is less compelling, but it's still pretty awesome. It's the surrealist story of a girl who's trying to figure out her sexuality. Is she asexual? Bisexual? A lesbian? Her best friends are out to her--a gay boy, and a lesbian girl--but she just doesn't feel like she knows herself well enough to choose a box. Yes, she likes making out with the girl from work. Does that define her?
When she's caught up in her life, she looks up at the planes overhead and sends her love to the passengers. She sends them thoughts and questions. Her love and thoughts go up, and we see the passengers thinking about what she's sent them, how their lives intersect with, and branch away from, hers.
I'm making this book sound more sort of soft-edged than it is. It has its hard moments of homophobia and apathy and isolation. It's not all love in the skies and making out on the grass. There are dark corners.
That said, one of the reasons that I wasn't as taken with this book as I was with EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS is that the ending veers a bit toward the sentimental for me. It's not a big deal, just something that I felt didn't quite work.
But I highly recommend this book, and most everything A. S. King has done. Like PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ. Oh, my God. And did I mention EVERYBODY SEES THE ANTS? This isn't at the top of her books, but even being not-the-top of A. S. King's books makes it soar higher than most.
EVERY DAY by David Levithan - This book makes me sad. It makes me sad because I should be able to put it in the "definitely on my ballot" category. I should be able to, but I can't quite do it.
So--there's this amazing book, and it's called EVERY DAY by David Levithan. It's about a kid who has grown up switching bodies every day. He goes to sleep in one flesh, with one family, and wakes up in another. It's as if he's possessing people in sequence. He has access to the memories of those he's possessing, but he controls their actions; he's living his life in the interstices of theirs. He never goes back to someone he's been before. He has almost no continuity except what he can carve for himself by doing things like setting up e-mail accounts that he can check from anyone's computer.
Well, I say "he," but he's not really a he. Ze is bodiless, genderless. One day, while occupying a boy's body, ze goes out with the body's girlfriend and falls in love with her. He pursues her. Tries to make her a constant in his life. They push and pull at each other, trying to figure out how to engage despite the almost impossible circumstances.
This book is really good on LGBT issues. It's smart, it's sharp, it's well-done. The handling of the main character's perception of zir gender and sexuality is cool, and I also appreciated the handling of how that affects his embodied, straight girlfriend. There were also other moments in which the book explored LGBT issues--we learn that ze has been involved with boys in the past, and ze occupies the bodies of trans and gay people.
Which leaves me with three issues with the book. 1) Someone pointed out to me that it's got a lot of that creepy romance-movie "I will PURSUE you and it will be ROMANTIC and you will have NO CHOICE" trope. This is true. It didn't bug me because I thought the circumstances made it clear why the protagonist would choose to act that way, and I also thought the creepiness was, itself, clear in the text, and held up for the reader to consider. So, it wasn't a problem for me, but it may be for other readers. 2) The ending is weak. All of a sudden, this intense character novel became a weird monster-adventure thing, and meh. That happens, though, and I didn't think it spoiled the book.
For me, the thing I couldn't get over was issue 3 -- near the end of the book, there's a scene that exemplifies striking fatphobia. Ze jumps into the body of a fat boy. Ze goes to meet zir girlfriend in that body, and this is the impetus for the girlfriend to finally decide that she can't deal with ze switching bodies. "Fat" is kind of a lazy way to code for "beyond-the-pale not attractive," but okay--people do feel that way. My problem was that there are details in the book of what it's like to be embodied as a fat person that are... well, odd. They seem like a thin person's imagining of what it's like to be fat.
Even that I could probably get over, but there's a bit--just a very small piece--where ze describes the fat person as having, more or less, a mental surface like an "emotional burp." Now, ze can access the memories of other bodies that he jumps into, bodies that are given internal lives and struggles. But the fat body is reduced to just flesh. Moreover, it is just a bodily function--not even an absent mind, but a burp. Fat is associated with uncouth bodily functions; it is flesh without mind.
Now, the book is quite long, and this is a very short section. I was very torn about how to react. I'm not a teenager anymore, but I admit, this passage still gave me pause. I'm not sure how I would have reacted if I had still been sixteen and bulimic.
I described this dilemma to a friend of mine, further explaining that the book is really good on LGBT issues, as if that erased the fatphobia. My friend asked, "If the book was homophobic like that, would you vote for it?"
I admitted that I wouldn't.
Fatphobia and homophobia are, of course, not identical. Fat politics are so off-the-charts radical that most people don't know about them if they don't make an effort, which makes me feel like maybe I should forgive any issues with them. (Though, a burp? Really?) I wouldn't throw a homophobic book at gay teens who are already at elevated risk of bullying and suicide. But depression, bullying and suicide are a big deal for fat teens, too.
So, I don't know if I'm going to vote for this book or not, which makes me sad. I wish that the same level of political empathy that's displayed in the rest of the book could have been applied to this brief section. It could have been so easily fixed.
THE BROKEN LANDS by Kate Milford - Strange things happen at crossroads, and the bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn was one of the biggest crossroads of the time. Agents of Jack Hellcoal plan to take advantage of the construction of the bridge so that they can take over New York City and make it into a new hell. Only the pillars that represent the city stand in their way, but most of them are dead. That leaves it up to Sam, a teenage cardsharp, and Jin, a fireworks expert, to save the city.
I'm not much of a geek about New York City history, but I imagine this book is even more of a treat for those who are. The book takes place on Coney Island and has a strong sense of history, setting, and depth. The adventure is fun; the use of American tall tales to construct a mythology makes the book distinct and also brings out the historical flavor in an interesting way.
The real strength, though, is the characters--Sam and Jin, and a few others who appear in more minor roles. Their romance feels real in a way that most romances don't, and never overly sentimental, just like a practical fact that's developing along with the characters and the plot. The romance isn't the emphasis of the books, or the primary emphasis of the characters, but it's a nice garnish.
The characters are sharp; the plot is fun; the history is detailed but not overwhelming. I found the last section of the book overly complicated as the plot worked toward its resolution. This is something that I feel often afflicts the endings of novels with save-the-world plots. The rules of what magic can happen when, and who needs to be where, and whether someone can use the Wand of TrueTelling against a troll or not, blah blah blah, get confusing and hard to follow. There was some of that. But in the same section, there were also descriptions of how to build fireworks, and how construction workers navigated the heights of the unfinished Brooklyn bridge, and that's some nice compensation.
A CONFUSION OF PRINCES by Garth Nix - This is one of those books that I'm not sure whether or not I'm comfortable calling YA. In this case, it's not because of the content--and I mostly end up dismissing my content concerns anyway. It's because the book seems, to me, to rely so heavily on the constructs of space opera and hard science fiction that I'm not sure it can be read without an understanding of that history, which makes it something that I have trouble thinking of as actually aimed at teens.
That said, it does have a young character, and a coming of age plot, and boy, is it fun. In this galactic empire, there are thousands of princes, each raised in isolation and given training until he or she reaches the age of majority. (I was so happy when I realized it was he *or* she.) At that point, he or she becomes a full-fledged prince--and imagines, or at least our protagonist does, that he or she can now stroll onto the scene of the universe and be the most heroic, awesome prince ever, and be specially appointed the next emperor.
Actually being a prince turns out to kind of suck. First of all, all the other princes are trying to kill you so that you won't be competition. Also, you don't just get to be a high-and-mighty adventurer; you have to do boring things, like go be a drudge at the nearest military academy. The book follows the main character through his princely career as he realizes being a prince isn't what he expected, and confronts the question of whether the world is anything like he thought it was, either.
This is lots of fun, and full of the kind of eyeball-kicks that far-future space opera is best at. It's got all the best kinds of "roll around in cool, weird technology and cultural evolution" stuff that I crave from space opera. I wasn't totally into the ending (I almost never am), but I really enjoyed the whole book, and I definitely recommend this to fans of fun space opera with a traditional flavor and a modern edge.
OTHER BOOKS I HAPPILY RECOMMEND:
Honestly, it's hard to put this together, because there were lots of books that I really enjoyed. I'm just going to concentrate on a few. There were many, many others that were also wonderful.
DARK COMPANION by Maria Acosta - A young woman from foster care is given the opportunity to go to an exclusive private school where she learns that other young women in her circumstances have gone missing. It's an urban fantasy. Really strong description of class struggles, often elided in fiction. Also, critiques via its plot some of the common literary notions about gender; I think feminists will like this one.
HEREVILLE: HOW MIRKA MET A METEORITE - I love this graphic novel series about an eleven-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl who wants to fight monsters. I admit that I probably partially love it because it's written by my best friend and I have a hand in helping to revise it. :P Still, there's just a sort of free-wheeling, loose-shouldered joy in the text and in the illustrations that I love. It taps into the kind of joy I had as a pre-adolescent. This book isn't as good as the first. The plot bears some emotional significance for the character, but it doesn't change her life in any marked way, which makes it less dramatic and compelling than the first. "Mirka discovers a magic world" (book 1) lends itself to a stronger plot than "Mirka encounters a magic double" (book 2). That's not to say I don't quite enjoy it; it just doesn't have the same heft.
RADIANT DAYS by Elizabeth Hand - A young artist who is experimenting with graffiti as her medium is homeless and exhausted when an old rock musician who can move back and forth through time hooks her up for one night with French poet Artur Rimbaud, who is even younger than she is. Both artists are gay. Intense, long descriptions; slow pacing; somewhat aggrandizing of art and artists; exceedingly beautifully written.
AND ALL THE STARS by Andrea Host - Aliens prepare for invading the earth by inundating it with a powder that turns some humans into hosts for the aliens. There are those who turn green, who remain human, but can be ordered around. There are also those whose bodies are blue and studded with stars who the aliens can possess. After possession, they die. The book follows the main character and a band of other blues as they try to avoid the aliens and preserve themselves. Had an unusual SFnal vibe for YA, some interesting alien stuff, and a twist at the end that I actually quite liked.
THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND by Margo Lanagan - On Rollrock, a witch decides to take out her vengeance on the people who outcast her by calling beautiful sea-women out of the seals. The women step out of their seal-skins, which the men steal and keep away from them, and are beautiful and docile models of femininity. The natural-born women eventually flee, leaving only men, sons, and seal-women who long to return to the water. Multiple points of view, the best realized of which is the witch, who has a single long section. Very creepy. Very detailed. Very smart. Perhaps a bit circuitous.
CINDER by Melissa Meyer - Cinderella is cybernetic in a world that discriminates against cybernetic creatures. Interesting future descriptions. Just very different from other YA that's out there, and a fun read. Also, Cinderella is a super-competent mechanic, and I just loved that unexpected deviation from the very girly origin story.
DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT by Laini Taylor - The first book of this series was quite good and was on last year's Norton ballot. It's about a girl who was raised by demons that collect teeth to make into magic and wishes. She lives in the human world and has always belived herself to be human, but discovers that she's actually a reincarnated demon, and meets the angel who she'd fallen in love with before she was executed for that love. I didn't necessarily expect great things from the sequel, but to my surprise, I liked book 2 better. Book 1 had featured long, romantic passages that bored me. This book was invigorated with interesting world-building and visuals.
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*I think there's a difference between an imagined group that doesn't align with any real-world analog, and something that's clearly a "faux [nation]"; in this case, describing historically specific details and using language from the country seems to make it a faux, not a construction. A faux doesn't have to be perfect, but in my opinion, it takes on more of a responsibility toward its origins than a construct. Things can get weird when drawing the line between a faux and a construct, but on the edges, it can be pretty clear.
March 20, 2012
"Fields of Gold" Reprinted on Tor.com
I'm excited to link to Tor.com, which has reprinted my Nebula-nominated novelette "Fields of Gold!"
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/03/fields-of-gold
Woo!
The beginning of the story as possible teaser:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/03/fields-of-gold
Woo!
The beginning of the story as possible teaser:
When Dennis died, he found himself in another place. Dead people came at him with party hats and presents. Noise makers bleated. Confetti fell. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
His family was there. Celebrities were there. People Dennis had never seen before in his life were there. Dennis danced under a disco ball with Cleopatra and great-grandma Flora and some dark-haired chick and cousin Joe and Alexander the Great. When he went to the buffet table for a tiny cocktail wiener in pink sauce, Dennis saw Napoleon trying to grope his Aunt Phyllis. She smacked him in the tri-corner hat with her clutch bag.
March 12, 2012
Writing about Sex Roles: A Book by Clarisse Thorn and an Essay by Me
For a couple of years now, Clarisse Thorn has been interviewing and hanging out with the community of pick-up artists, a community she finds fascinating and... well, from a feminist perspective, sort of problematic, too.
There's an unbelievably compelling thing that happens when you combine one of your interests (flirting! analyzing human behavior! body language!) with that consistent prickling, nettle that's sometimes irritation and sometimes anger. I know that exploring the cognitive dissonance of horror and fascination has led to some of my more interesting obsessions. Clarisse's book captures that frenetic, obsessive feeling, as well as including a large amount of clear-eyed, sharp analysis.
CONFESSIONS OF A PICK-UP ARTIST CHASER: LONG INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN
Currently $2.99 on Amazon, price to go up on March 17th.
Clarisse dissects the pick-up artist movement in a way that's easy and intuitive to read for people who aren't familiar with it, and does a good job of balancing insightful feminist critique with generosity toward her interview subjects. Readers will probably have different reactions to that balance--I fully expect this is a book which some PUAs will call irredeemably vicious and some feminists will find frustrating for its light hand. I come down somewhat more grouchy and skeptical than Clarisse Thorn does in the narrative, but I don't think that's a barrier to reading the text; in fact, I think Clarisse's generosity makes the analysis much more interesting than it would otherwise be since it creates subtle, highly finessed arguments.
Clarisse's analysis is as interesting, easy-to-follow and well-laid out as it is in all of her writing, but the most compelling thing in this book is not the analysis itself (which I was expecting), but the way in which Clarisse uses memoir to supplement her analysis. Clarisse is a brilliant sex writer with what appears to be (on the page, at least) an unflinching ability to reveal personal information. That talent is highlighted here as Clarisse fleshes out scenes that create a parallel emotional and intellectual journey, allowing the reader to travel with her through the insights and frustration of her time on the fringes of the pick-up artist community. Her intelligent writing about S&M and polyamory help establish her presence in the text as someone with a subaltern point of view, and place pick-up artistry within the context of other sexual subcultures so that the book's criticism is grounded in an almost ethnographic framework which works to keep the text from becoming sensationalist or exotifying.
I found a few nitpicks from a social justice perspective as I think is inevitable with this type of book, and I'm sure that others would find different ones. Reading with my writer's eye, I'd suggest that the book could use a 5-10% trim, particularly between the halfway point and the two thirds point. Leaving aside those points, I found this a really interesting read, and I would particularly recommend this book to anyone who has found feminist writing about the pick-up artist movement intriguing in the past.
**
Speaking of writing about sex and relationships, Clarisse Thorn is the Sex + Relationships Section Editor for Role/Reboot, a website devoted to investigating the modern upheaval in gender/sex roles. A few months, she invited me to write something for them which I finally got around to; the result was posted last week.
THE STORY OF LEAH AND VANESSA:
The full article is at the link.
There's an unbelievably compelling thing that happens when you combine one of your interests (flirting! analyzing human behavior! body language!) with that consistent prickling, nettle that's sometimes irritation and sometimes anger. I know that exploring the cognitive dissonance of horror and fascination has led to some of my more interesting obsessions. Clarisse's book captures that frenetic, obsessive feeling, as well as including a large amount of clear-eyed, sharp analysis.
CONFESSIONS OF A PICK-UP ARTIST CHASER: LONG INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN
Currently $2.99 on Amazon, price to go up on March 17th.
At the goth club, one PUA was too involved in making out with his gorgeous girlfriend to talk to me. I still managed to get his number, though. He was on the scrawny end of slender, and he looked awesome in eyeliner. Five minutes of conversation showed me that he was an expert on feminism and polyamory, and he was an S&M switch just like me. His name was Brian.
A few days after the goth club outing, Brian and I started talking about meeting for drinks. We were both busy, though, and had to reschedule several times before we met. As we sized each other up, I tried to explain what drew me to PUAs like a moth to a flame.
"I don't know," I said, fumbling for words. "It's interesting from a feminist perspective, but it's more than that. It's like…." I looked away from him and thought about where else in my life I felt this intense, sexually-tinged fascination. "It's like a fetish."
He started laughing. "You're a PUA chaser!" he cried, and I had to agree.
Clarisse dissects the pick-up artist movement in a way that's easy and intuitive to read for people who aren't familiar with it, and does a good job of balancing insightful feminist critique with generosity toward her interview subjects. Readers will probably have different reactions to that balance--I fully expect this is a book which some PUAs will call irredeemably vicious and some feminists will find frustrating for its light hand. I come down somewhat more grouchy and skeptical than Clarisse Thorn does in the narrative, but I don't think that's a barrier to reading the text; in fact, I think Clarisse's generosity makes the analysis much more interesting than it would otherwise be since it creates subtle, highly finessed arguments.
Clarisse's analysis is as interesting, easy-to-follow and well-laid out as it is in all of her writing, but the most compelling thing in this book is not the analysis itself (which I was expecting), but the way in which Clarisse uses memoir to supplement her analysis. Clarisse is a brilliant sex writer with what appears to be (on the page, at least) an unflinching ability to reveal personal information. That talent is highlighted here as Clarisse fleshes out scenes that create a parallel emotional and intellectual journey, allowing the reader to travel with her through the insights and frustration of her time on the fringes of the pick-up artist community. Her intelligent writing about S&M and polyamory help establish her presence in the text as someone with a subaltern point of view, and place pick-up artistry within the context of other sexual subcultures so that the book's criticism is grounded in an almost ethnographic framework which works to keep the text from becoming sensationalist or exotifying.
I found a few nitpicks from a social justice perspective as I think is inevitable with this type of book, and I'm sure that others would find different ones. Reading with my writer's eye, I'd suggest that the book could use a 5-10% trim, particularly between the halfway point and the two thirds point. Leaving aside those points, I found this a really interesting read, and I would particularly recommend this book to anyone who has found feminist writing about the pick-up artist movement intriguing in the past.
**
Speaking of writing about sex and relationships, Clarisse Thorn is the Sex + Relationships Section Editor for Role/Reboot, a website devoted to investigating the modern upheaval in gender/sex roles. A few months, she invited me to write something for them which I finally got around to; the result was posted last week.
THE STORY OF LEAH AND VANESSA:
We were all in college together, 19 years old and naïve as hell (call it equal parts ignorant and innocent) when our friend Leah met this girl.
This older girl.
“She’s how old?” we asked.
Presumably, some individual one of us asked, but it’s not worth distinguishing; our incredulity was unanimous.
She fidgeted uncomfortably. “35.”
“Thirty-five? Vanessa is 35? And you made out with her?”
“I thought she was 30!” she protested. “She told me she was 30. Then we made out. Then she admitted she was really 35.”
We narrowed our eyes at Leah and glared. Vanessa lied about her age was not making it seem like Leah’s new love affair was a better idea than we’d previously thought.
The full article is at the link.
March 7, 2012
A response to Lou Antonelli's single-word platform of "diversity"
A response to Lou Antonelli's single-word platform of "diversity":
Lou, given that the word diversity is usually used to talk about people's identities along axes of oppression--to talk about the fact that white men are usually the majority and people who aren't white men are usually underrepresented--can you understand why it's offensive to me when you indicate that I don't bring any "diversity of outlook" to the board?
I understand that you may not be particularly aware of a lot of my attributes. You may not know I'm ethnically Jewish or that I'm the only person under 30 running for one of the four "executive" posts. You don't know that I'm queer. It's okay that you don't know these things, but the way you've framed your campaign implies that they either don't exist or that they don't matter.
Lumping me in with John and Mary--and they're wonderful! but they're not my identical twins--erases a number of facets of my person and my fullness as a human being. It erases a lot of theirs, too.
You may be the only Baptist, but as far as I know, I'm the only queer person (ETA: running for an executive position). You may be different as a writer because you're the person with the fewest sales, but I'm different as a writer because I'm the person with the most experience of writing within literary and experimental communities. We both bring perspectives that other candidates don't share. The way you're framing your candidacy as one that increases diversity, and explicitly stating that mine is one that doesn't, is inaccurate.
Lou, given that the word diversity is usually used to talk about people's identities along axes of oppression--to talk about the fact that white men are usually the majority and people who aren't white men are usually underrepresented--can you understand why it's offensive to me when you indicate that I don't bring any "diversity of outlook" to the board?
I understand that you may not be particularly aware of a lot of my attributes. You may not know I'm ethnically Jewish or that I'm the only person under 30 running for one of the four "executive" posts. You don't know that I'm queer. It's okay that you don't know these things, but the way you've framed your campaign implies that they either don't exist or that they don't matter.
Lumping me in with John and Mary--and they're wonderful! but they're not my identical twins--erases a number of facets of my person and my fullness as a human being. It erases a lot of theirs, too.
You may be the only Baptist, but as far as I know, I'm the only queer person (ETA: running for an executive position). You may be different as a writer because you're the person with the fewest sales, but I'm different as a writer because I'm the person with the most experience of writing within literary and experimental communities. We both bring perspectives that other candidates don't share. The way you're framing your candidacy as one that increases diversity, and explicitly stating that mine is one that doesn't, is inaccurate.
Running for SFWA VP
Hey y'all,
I think people already know that I'm running for SFWA vice president, but I thought I'd drop my platform here in case it's of interest.
Dear SFWA Members:
I am running for vice president of SFWA.
I support the work that the current administration has done toward strengthening SFWA's foundation, and I hope to participate in the ongoing efforts to run the organization in an efficient, cooperative, business-like manner. I hope to continue their practices of acting from near-consensus and constructively resolving conflicts with an assumption of good faith.
I joined SFWA in 2008. From then until the membership committee was dissolved, I worked as a liaison between said committee and those writers and editors who had questions about short story eligibility.
I've worked as both a writer and an editor. I spent two years editing a reprint market, and recently co-edited an anthology from Prime Books. I've published more than fifty short stories since 2006, in venues including Subterranean Magazine, Tor.com, and Clarkesworld. My short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, the Sturgeon Award, and the Million Writers Award. In 2011, my novella "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window" won the Nebula Award.
As a board officer, I would come to the organization with certain interests and priorities. For instance:
1. As Scalzi says, many SFWA members "have come of age professionally using the Internet and its precursors." This is true literally as well as professionally; writers from the millennial generation—of which I am on the oldest fringe—are taking part in the copyright conversation as content creators. In aggregate, SFWA represents a wealth of knowledge about navigating technology and copyright concerns. It's important for the organization to have a conversation about those issues, and to make the collective's knowledge available to all its members, allowing writers to make informed choices about how to handle copyright violations and the vulnerabilities (as well as the benefits) of new media.
2. As a writer who is (barely) from the millennial generation, I am in a good position to address the concerns of the up-and-coming writers who share my experiences but have chosen not to join SFWA. Recruitment is up, but it could always be higher. I'm positioned well to help increase recruits from that demographic.
3. I hold an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop where I was fortunate enough to teach creative writing for two years. I instructed students who have gone on to publish in semi-pro and professional venues and even join SFWA. As the founding editor of the audio reprint market, PodCastle, I had the opportunity to present stories to people who don't often read in print format. I am particularly interested in fostering new writers and in engaging in community outreach. I'm excited by the prospect of doing this work through SFWA. In his candidacy statement, Scalzi outlines the ways in which the Nebulas and the Grand Master awards help establish the importance of genre in the broader American culture. I endorse these things, but I'm also interested in doing more work in the vein of the readings series that Mary Robinette Kowal has begun in Portland and Seattle. I'd like to see SFWA increase the hands-on interactions between members, new writers, and readers.
Nevertheless, while I do have particular areas of interest, I envision my role as vice president being primarily one of support. I'm excited to help the new president of SFWA carry out his or her goals as efficiently and competently as possible. SFWA is standing on a more–or-less solid foundation these days; it's time to start building higher. I have some ideas for the imaginary parapets, but I'm happy to spend my term laying pragmatic and utilitarian—if not especially glamorous—bricks.
Thank you,
Rachel Swirsky
I think people already know that I'm running for SFWA vice president, but I thought I'd drop my platform here in case it's of interest.
Dear SFWA Members:
I am running for vice president of SFWA.
I support the work that the current administration has done toward strengthening SFWA's foundation, and I hope to participate in the ongoing efforts to run the organization in an efficient, cooperative, business-like manner. I hope to continue their practices of acting from near-consensus and constructively resolving conflicts with an assumption of good faith.
I joined SFWA in 2008. From then until the membership committee was dissolved, I worked as a liaison between said committee and those writers and editors who had questions about short story eligibility.
I've worked as both a writer and an editor. I spent two years editing a reprint market, and recently co-edited an anthology from Prime Books. I've published more than fifty short stories since 2006, in venues including Subterranean Magazine, Tor.com, and Clarkesworld. My short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Locus Award, the Sturgeon Award, and the Million Writers Award. In 2011, my novella "The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window" won the Nebula Award.
As a board officer, I would come to the organization with certain interests and priorities. For instance:
1. As Scalzi says, many SFWA members "have come of age professionally using the Internet and its precursors." This is true literally as well as professionally; writers from the millennial generation—of which I am on the oldest fringe—are taking part in the copyright conversation as content creators. In aggregate, SFWA represents a wealth of knowledge about navigating technology and copyright concerns. It's important for the organization to have a conversation about those issues, and to make the collective's knowledge available to all its members, allowing writers to make informed choices about how to handle copyright violations and the vulnerabilities (as well as the benefits) of new media.
2. As a writer who is (barely) from the millennial generation, I am in a good position to address the concerns of the up-and-coming writers who share my experiences but have chosen not to join SFWA. Recruitment is up, but it could always be higher. I'm positioned well to help increase recruits from that demographic.
3. I hold an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop where I was fortunate enough to teach creative writing for two years. I instructed students who have gone on to publish in semi-pro and professional venues and even join SFWA. As the founding editor of the audio reprint market, PodCastle, I had the opportunity to present stories to people who don't often read in print format. I am particularly interested in fostering new writers and in engaging in community outreach. I'm excited by the prospect of doing this work through SFWA. In his candidacy statement, Scalzi outlines the ways in which the Nebulas and the Grand Master awards help establish the importance of genre in the broader American culture. I endorse these things, but I'm also interested in doing more work in the vein of the readings series that Mary Robinette Kowal has begun in Portland and Seattle. I'd like to see SFWA increase the hands-on interactions between members, new writers, and readers.
Nevertheless, while I do have particular areas of interest, I envision my role as vice president being primarily one of support. I'm excited to help the new president of SFWA carry out his or her goals as efficiently and competently as possible. SFWA is standing on a more–or-less solid foundation these days; it's time to start building higher. I have some ideas for the imaginary parapets, but I'm happy to spend my term laying pragmatic and utilitarian—if not especially glamorous—bricks.
Thank you,
Rachel Swirsky
March 5, 2012
Review: THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE by Mazarkis Williams
A few months ago, I had the privilege of being approached by Nightshade Books to blurb THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE by Mazarkis Williams. I blurbed it thus:
Needless to say, I enjoyed the book. Because I am reviewing as well as blurbing in this context, I'll add some of my criticisms as well. The pacing in the book is uneven so there are moments when it moves slowly and moments when I would say that it moves too quickly. (This is not, in my experience, unusual for long fantasy novels.) There are points where it seems to want to be Guy Gavriel Kay, but isn't, where the emotional energy of the scene could use a bit more finessing so that it creates the same emotion in the reader as it does in the characters (again, in my experience, not unusual for long fantasy novels).
My largest complaint about the book, though, is that the evil characters are a Bit Too Evil. There were points where I wanted much more ambiguity--from the protagonists, sometimes, but definitely from the villains--then the book was willing to provide me. Since there's a lot of delicate work in the background of the novel, it felt weird for unsubtle villainous elements to drop in; it felt like they were working against the intricacy elsewhere.
One thing I really like about the book, though, which I didn't know when I blurbed it, is that this is a book that grew on me. I find that very few books stay static in my memory from the time I read them. Some grow; others diminish. EMPEROR'S KNIFE is a book that increases in richness for me and has left a strong impression of mood and images. I credit this to Williams' world-building. A lot of the books in Nightshade's recent line seem to emphasize worldbuilding--Kameron Hurley's GOD'S WAR, Courtney Schafer's WHITEFIRE CROSSING, even Stina Leicht's BLOOD AND HONEY which is very careful about building its world even though it takes place on boring old Earth (which isn't boring as she writes it).
I think at Nightshade, the editors may subscribe to the philosophy that Kameron Hurley describes in her recent blog entry "The Dirty Little Secret of Imaginative Worldbuilding"--" I got tired of reading unimaginative fiction that claimed to be fantastic. If I just wanted a story about people who lived and loved, I'd read more lit fiction. I come to the SF/F for the worldbuilding, for the ways things can be different."
To be honest, the first part of that statement drives me kind of nuts because I think there's lots of fantasy & sci fi that's not dependent on world-based differences and still is strong fantasy & sci fi. I'd better think that given what I write. But ignoring that, I think Nightshade is publishing writers who are doing interesting work with creating worlds that are unusual.
Readers who are interested in gender/sex/stuff may be interested to know that Mazarkis Williams is writing from a gender neutral persona. This is of particular interest to me because I automatically gendered Williams male as you can see from the above blurb. I'm not sure if that's because, in the absence of cues, my brain went "hey, Williams is a male name"--but it wasn't until I contacted the author to talk about doing a short review of the book that I realized, "Wait. On what basis am I assuming this person is male?"
I think the gender neutral persona is fascinating from a marketing perspective, but it also makes the text interesting meta-fictionally. It would be super-interesting to see how differently people read the book based on whether they unintentionally gendered the author male or female. It would also be interesting to see how many people did not come to a conclusion regarding the author's gender, assuming that they're readers who are interacting with author-as-presence-in-the-text (which may just be a feature of the way that writers read, or at least of how this writer reads, I dunno).
Also, it's just kind of cool. Because it's unusual. And it means hir avatar on the Nightshade site is a silhouette with glasses.
Mazarkis was kind enough to do a brief interview with me to supplement my ramblings and explain more about hirself and the book.
Mazarkis Wiliams on THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE
RS. Your book seems similar to several of the other recently published Nightshade texts I've read over the past few years in that there's a heavy emphasis on building a sweeping setting that fits easily within the traditional fantasy oeuvre, but distinguishes itself with an inventive magic system. How did you approach working with the magic and setting in this book? Was it your intent to comment on other kinds of magic systems? Was either the magic or the setting part of your primary inspiration when you started writing?
MW. I am surprised and pleased to fit right into the Night Shade catalogue.
The first thing you should know is that I lack imagination. When I first wrote about the marks on the skin, I was thinking of bubonic plague. And from there, thinking about biological warfare, how infecting a population can precede an invasion. But of course, that's not magical. That's not fantasy. So the infection had to be a magical one.
After the book was written I began to see a number of stories in which marks on the skin, or tattoos, conferred some sort of magical benefit or disability. I was not attempting to comment on these or any other magic systems. I usually don't pay a lot of attention to the magic systems in other books. I see them as elements of the more important themes.
For example, in WHITEFIRE CROSSING, there is a predatory element to the magic (I don't want to give too much away here). I'm interested in the guy who has magical ability but also carries a great deal of guilt. The magic contributes to the bigger story of how he will balance his talent and his conscience.
Fantasy novels often turn upon a choice or sacrifice made by a character in relation to the magic. And it's the character I care about, his journey, his struggle.
The story of TEK began with Sarmin, in a room. It started with a character.
RS. THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE follows a number of characters through intense plotlines. What was it like to juggle so many characters and events? Did you start out knowing how they'd intersect? Were some of the characters/plotlines more comfortable for you, and did you ever have trouble moving from one to the other?
MW. It was fairly difficult. I did have an idea how they would intersect; that part was easy, because of the paths laid for each character. I was impatient for them all to get together, and when they finally were, it was a hair-pulling adventure to bring all the storylines to a close. I'm trying to be smarter with the second one, but it doesn't look as if it will be any easier.
I did find, and do find, it difficult to move from character to character. I get into one character's head and want only to write about her or him. It sometimes takes a great effort of will to say to myself, 'No, it's time to write about the next person.' Once I've adjusted I'd say I have the same comfort level with any of them, except for a new POV in book two. I feel extremely comfortable with that POV compared to the others.
RS. What about the book gives you the most joy?
MW. Well, there are two things. Sometimes I create a turn of phrase and then read it back and think, 'That sounds really great!' I can't believe I'm really doing this, that it's me.
The second joy is that I love my characters. Even the bad ones. Like a parent, I don't differentiate.
RS. Do you have any upcoming projects? Are you working on a sequel to this, something else in this world, or another kind of text entirely?
MW. I am working on the sequel to The Emperor's Knife. It's called Knifesworn. It's in the same world. TEK does come to a satisfying end, but there are a few loose threads that can be followed. That's what Knifesworn does.
Mazarkis Williams creates a world in which magic is written in an alphabet of triangles, circles, crescents; inscribed on skin; spelled out in blood and bodies. Likewise, his epic story is written on the blood and bodies of his characters, swept up in grand designs in which they are merely letters. In Williams' decadent empire, everyone—even the emperor—is subject to the constraining hands of fate and tradition. A royal can only be imprisoned by silk, but in Williams' world, silk does not yield easily. Even as their options narrow, his characters struggle to fulfill their desires. It's easy for someone with a thousand freedoms to choose heroic paths, but Williams renders characters who must strive to do their best even as the path they tread tapers to a fine line. They are revealed in the way they navigate the impassable and the impossible.
A fascinating magic system, a decadent empire, secret paths, hidden princes, dust and silk and horses: THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE considers the humanity of the standard fantasy set pieces, especially those men who were initiated by blood and who rule by blood, and the ways in which their actions are both unforgivable and bound by strings they didn't create and don't entirely understand. Sarmin is forbidden to leave his lonely tower; Beyon's throne is soaked in the blood of his loved ones; a little girl in the Maze falls under her father's strike. None of them could control the circumstances that put them there—the fathers who turned the key and guided the Knife and wielded the cleaver—but unlike the dead child, Sarmin and Beyon have the fortune and power to change what happens next.
Needless to say, I enjoyed the book. Because I am reviewing as well as blurbing in this context, I'll add some of my criticisms as well. The pacing in the book is uneven so there are moments when it moves slowly and moments when I would say that it moves too quickly. (This is not, in my experience, unusual for long fantasy novels.) There are points where it seems to want to be Guy Gavriel Kay, but isn't, where the emotional energy of the scene could use a bit more finessing so that it creates the same emotion in the reader as it does in the characters (again, in my experience, not unusual for long fantasy novels).
My largest complaint about the book, though, is that the evil characters are a Bit Too Evil. There were points where I wanted much more ambiguity--from the protagonists, sometimes, but definitely from the villains--then the book was willing to provide me. Since there's a lot of delicate work in the background of the novel, it felt weird for unsubtle villainous elements to drop in; it felt like they were working against the intricacy elsewhere.
One thing I really like about the book, though, which I didn't know when I blurbed it, is that this is a book that grew on me. I find that very few books stay static in my memory from the time I read them. Some grow; others diminish. EMPEROR'S KNIFE is a book that increases in richness for me and has left a strong impression of mood and images. I credit this to Williams' world-building. A lot of the books in Nightshade's recent line seem to emphasize worldbuilding--Kameron Hurley's GOD'S WAR, Courtney Schafer's WHITEFIRE CROSSING, even Stina Leicht's BLOOD AND HONEY which is very careful about building its world even though it takes place on boring old Earth (which isn't boring as she writes it).
I think at Nightshade, the editors may subscribe to the philosophy that Kameron Hurley describes in her recent blog entry "The Dirty Little Secret of Imaginative Worldbuilding"--" I got tired of reading unimaginative fiction that claimed to be fantastic. If I just wanted a story about people who lived and loved, I'd read more lit fiction. I come to the SF/F for the worldbuilding, for the ways things can be different."
To be honest, the first part of that statement drives me kind of nuts because I think there's lots of fantasy & sci fi that's not dependent on world-based differences and still is strong fantasy & sci fi. I'd better think that given what I write. But ignoring that, I think Nightshade is publishing writers who are doing interesting work with creating worlds that are unusual.
Readers who are interested in gender/sex/stuff may be interested to know that Mazarkis Williams is writing from a gender neutral persona. This is of particular interest to me because I automatically gendered Williams male as you can see from the above blurb. I'm not sure if that's because, in the absence of cues, my brain went "hey, Williams is a male name"--but it wasn't until I contacted the author to talk about doing a short review of the book that I realized, "Wait. On what basis am I assuming this person is male?"
I think the gender neutral persona is fascinating from a marketing perspective, but it also makes the text interesting meta-fictionally. It would be super-interesting to see how differently people read the book based on whether they unintentionally gendered the author male or female. It would also be interesting to see how many people did not come to a conclusion regarding the author's gender, assuming that they're readers who are interacting with author-as-presence-in-the-text (which may just be a feature of the way that writers read, or at least of how this writer reads, I dunno).
Also, it's just kind of cool. Because it's unusual. And it means hir avatar on the Nightshade site is a silhouette with glasses.
Mazarkis was kind enough to do a brief interview with me to supplement my ramblings and explain more about hirself and the book.
Mazarkis Wiliams on THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE
RS. Your book seems similar to several of the other recently published Nightshade texts I've read over the past few years in that there's a heavy emphasis on building a sweeping setting that fits easily within the traditional fantasy oeuvre, but distinguishes itself with an inventive magic system. How did you approach working with the magic and setting in this book? Was it your intent to comment on other kinds of magic systems? Was either the magic or the setting part of your primary inspiration when you started writing?
MW. I am surprised and pleased to fit right into the Night Shade catalogue.
The first thing you should know is that I lack imagination. When I first wrote about the marks on the skin, I was thinking of bubonic plague. And from there, thinking about biological warfare, how infecting a population can precede an invasion. But of course, that's not magical. That's not fantasy. So the infection had to be a magical one.
After the book was written I began to see a number of stories in which marks on the skin, or tattoos, conferred some sort of magical benefit or disability. I was not attempting to comment on these or any other magic systems. I usually don't pay a lot of attention to the magic systems in other books. I see them as elements of the more important themes.
For example, in WHITEFIRE CROSSING, there is a predatory element to the magic (I don't want to give too much away here). I'm interested in the guy who has magical ability but also carries a great deal of guilt. The magic contributes to the bigger story of how he will balance his talent and his conscience.
Fantasy novels often turn upon a choice or sacrifice made by a character in relation to the magic. And it's the character I care about, his journey, his struggle.
The story of TEK began with Sarmin, in a room. It started with a character.
RS. THE EMPEROR'S KNIFE follows a number of characters through intense plotlines. What was it like to juggle so many characters and events? Did you start out knowing how they'd intersect? Were some of the characters/plotlines more comfortable for you, and did you ever have trouble moving from one to the other?
MW. It was fairly difficult. I did have an idea how they would intersect; that part was easy, because of the paths laid for each character. I was impatient for them all to get together, and when they finally were, it was a hair-pulling adventure to bring all the storylines to a close. I'm trying to be smarter with the second one, but it doesn't look as if it will be any easier.
I did find, and do find, it difficult to move from character to character. I get into one character's head and want only to write about her or him. It sometimes takes a great effort of will to say to myself, 'No, it's time to write about the next person.' Once I've adjusted I'd say I have the same comfort level with any of them, except for a new POV in book two. I feel extremely comfortable with that POV compared to the others.
RS. What about the book gives you the most joy?
MW. Well, there are two things. Sometimes I create a turn of phrase and then read it back and think, 'That sounds really great!' I can't believe I'm really doing this, that it's me.
The second joy is that I love my characters. Even the bad ones. Like a parent, I don't differentiate.
RS. Do you have any upcoming projects? Are you working on a sequel to this, something else in this world, or another kind of text entirely?
MW. I am working on the sequel to The Emperor's Knife. It's called Knifesworn. It's in the same world. TEK does come to a satisfying end, but there are a few loose threads that can be followed. That's what Knifesworn does.
March 2, 2012
Rachel Swirsky: A Brief Short Story Recommendation
I've got a couple writing and reading assignments that have me busy right now, but I'll be doing a post on the first few months of Asimovs and F&SF in 2012 as soon as I can get to it.
In the meantime, I wanted to post a quick short story recommendation.
I've been following Matthew Herreshoff for several years now, ever since I stumbled onto one of his stories on the Online Writing Workshop. I invited him to join a private workshop after that where I enjoyed more of his stories. It had long mystified me why he wasn't published. In my more outre moments, I imagined that he was in fact an industry professional who was working under a sly psuedonym. I mean, he's just fucking good.
Anyway! He has at last broken that publication boundary. His first published short story came out in Pedestal Magazine a couple of months ago. It's strange, post-apocalyptic fiction, which I always think of as sort of his ballywick. (He's got a wonderful story about cockroaches which had better find publication one of these days.) He writes about industry, and post-industrial societies, and decay, and that sense of eerieness those things bring when they're rusting and empty. Sort of Ballardian in the way that he interacts with the mechanical in the post-human world.
This story is a more human-centered post-apocalypse.
Peace by Matthew Herreshoff:
In the meantime, I wanted to post a quick short story recommendation.
I've been following Matthew Herreshoff for several years now, ever since I stumbled onto one of his stories on the Online Writing Workshop. I invited him to join a private workshop after that where I enjoyed more of his stories. It had long mystified me why he wasn't published. In my more outre moments, I imagined that he was in fact an industry professional who was working under a sly psuedonym. I mean, he's just fucking good.
Anyway! He has at last broken that publication boundary. His first published short story came out in Pedestal Magazine a couple of months ago. It's strange, post-apocalyptic fiction, which I always think of as sort of his ballywick. (He's got a wonderful story about cockroaches which had better find publication one of these days.) He writes about industry, and post-industrial societies, and decay, and that sense of eerieness those things bring when they're rusting and empty. Sort of Ballardian in the way that he interacts with the mechanical in the post-human world.
This story is a more human-centered post-apocalypse.
Peace by Matthew Herreshoff:
We were bunkered-up in the old cold-storage plant when they brought the Mary in. "Look what we found," Baby Bird said, all smiley and proud of hisself.
You never knew what you'd find when you went out foraging. We'd found canned goods, even chocolate, a storeroom full of Pampers, a cache of iodized salt. But this was the first time we'd found a live person. And a Mary! I hadn't seen a Mary since before the draft-man came. She was bone-thin and wore coveralls, torn and streaked with dirt. And she clutched a bundle in her arms. A baby!
February 19, 2012
Reviews of Online Stories (Jan1-Feb15) at Last Short Story
I'm reviewing stories at Last Short Story now. I've done my first roundup, reviewing the stories from the eight online magazines I'm planning to follow this year, from Jan 1st through Feb 15th.
Here's my favorite:
Click through to see other cool stories.
Here's my favorite:
"Aftermath" by Joy Kennedy-O'Neill (Strange Horizons) - This extremely affecting story features zombies--which you're probably sick of (I am)--but it looks at them through the lends of reconciliation. How do people move on after a civil war, an apartheid, a genocide, a zombie attack--where neighbors kill each other and subsequently have to live side by side? The emotional and character work here is very skillful. I found it hard to read; it made me cry.
Click through to see other cool stories.
