Deborah J. Ross's Blog, page 4

Short Book Review: Mammoths and Mystical Talking Birds

 Mammoths at the Gates, by Nghi Vo (Tordotcom)

What a gem this novella is! It’s a bouquet of readingdelights with very cool premise, memorable characters—both human, avian, andelephantine—gorgeous use of language and dramatic tension.

Chih, a wandering cleric, returns home to the Singing HillsAbbey only to find…mammoths at the gate. It seems that after the death of theirbeloved mentor and head of the abbey, the mentor’s relatives want to bring thebody to their ancestral home, a move that appalls the other clerics, as well asthe “nexien,” magical talking hoopoe birds that preserve history. I loved thenames of the birds, such as Almost Brilliant and Myriad Virtues. The author’swords painted a cloistered world so believable and vivid, it was hard to keepin mind this is fantasy.

I definitely want a nexien of my own! Can I name her SereneChaos?

Highly recommended, and since it’s part of a series, there’seven more to savor.

Book Review: A Brilliant, Addictive Fantasy

 The Will of the Many, by James Islington (Saga)

The Will of the Many sets a heroic coming-of-age talein a richly imagined, magically imbued empire. The Catenan Republic has manyechoes of our own Roman Empire in names, language, conquests, politics andrivalries, and powerful families, but with a crucial difference. Itsoperational principle is the Hierarchy, in which masses cede their “Will,”their strength, drive, and focus, to those above them, with each successivelyhigher rank accumulating more power. This kind of moral and physical slavery isan engraved invitation to abuse.

Within this cauldron of oppression, a young man callinghimself Vis ekes out a living working by day in the orphanage that houses himand at night in the underground of street fighting. Vis has a secret: he’snever ceded his Will, and the whip scars on his back show the price of hisdefiance. But he harbors an even deeper secret, one that means his death if itwere discovered.

Vis's life takes an abrupt turn when a Senator, very high inthe Hierarchical ranks, recruits him into his aristocratic family to solve amurder and ferret out a secret in the elite Academy, one that can tear theRepublic apart. It’s an all but impossible task and the price of failure isworse than death.

Vis is an engaging character, at once courageous, beset bythe overwhelming nature of his task, desperate to protect his identity, andtouchingly fallible. He’s perfect for bringing the reader into theoften-bizarre, often-familiar world of the Academy. His friends, allies, andenemies within the school, as well as his patrician adopted father, are allbeautifully drawn. Best of all, the dramatic tension and action scenes arehands-down some of the best I’ve read.

Beware, though, the book is addictive. And just when youthink it’s got to wrap up, you find out it’s the first of a trilogy.

 

Excerpt: The Duty to Disobey

 From Valerie Rivera's thoughtful Substack essay on The Contrarian (read the whole thing!):

In the not-too-distant future, military members across the Department of Defense might have a difficult choice. Will they take a stand and uphold their oath to the Constitution, or will they be complicit in the downfall of democracy?
.....
As Americans, we are faced with an administration that is displaying open hostility to the Constitution. It is blatantly testing boundaries, running roughshod over established law, and careening towards autocracy.

As a young airman, I worked on a signals intelligence “watch floor” with service members from every military branch. Surrounded by computer screens and informed by data feeds, we monitored our area of responsibility for “indications and warnings” to keep our deployed military comrades safe. Most of the time, the work was predictable. But one night, there was unusual activity in our region, creating confusion that could lead to dangerous delays in reporting.

Just when it felt as if we were losing control of the situation, our watch chief, an Army sergeant first class with a booming voice, shouted across the dark room: “If you see something you don’t understand, yell ‘WHAT THE F$CK?’ and I will come over there, and we will figure it out together!”

And that’s exactly what happened. Throughout the night, we sounded the alarm and used our collective experience to make sense of the data, fulfilling our duties.

Unfortunately, the time has come yet again to stand up and yell, “WHAT THE F$CK?”

With remarkable speed, this administration has limited First Amendment rights and due process, and restricted freedom of the press. As opposition to the president strengthens, his urge to consolidate power through any means necessary grows.

The stage has been set to put the soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and the guardians of the United States in an untenable position: to force them to choose between following orders or upholding the Constitution. In fact, the military might very well be democracy’s last line of defense.

The test is coming—and it’s coming fast.

Book Review: A Sword and Sorcery Flop

 Red Sonja: Consumed, by Gail Simone (Orbit)

I tried hard to like this book, but I failed. I neverovercame my initial, extremely unpleasant impression of Red Sonja as callous,self-centered, and incompetent. Even the queen she beds and betrays divesheadlong into revenge without a second thought. Jumping from one POV characterto another further disrupted any engagement with the story.

Sword and sorcery in the tradition of Robert E. Howard is a stylizedsubgenre. The tropes are distinctive but consistent: larger-than-lifecharacters with larger-than-life adversaries, colorful settings with mythicovertones, exaggerated action sequences, and a tendency toward florid prose. Consistency with Howard’s literary style without becoming ridiculous amounts to a high-wire act. Inthe hands of a master, the elements come together like an amusement park ride:breathless, engaging escapism that is ultimately emotionally satisfying. Thebest of these stories work by evoking psychological resonances (see JosephCampbell’s The Hero’s Journey) in an immersive reading experience.

Alas, not only was I unable to connect with any of the charactersin the book’s opening, but too many details strained my credibility even by thestandards of the subgenre. For example, Red Sonja is remarkably unaware of hersurroundings, allowing enemies to sneak up on her on a regular basis. She’sjust plain incompetent at basic survival skills. Many details about riding andhorses are wrong in the sense of being ignorant. (Example: a skilled rider on afamiliar and extremely well-trained mount does not haul on the reins to haltbut uses a shift in weight and pelvic angle.) Once my confidence in the authorhad been impaired, other things that might not have otherwise kicked me out ofthe story became barriers, like “firing” arrows in an era before gunpowder. That’sa linguistic bobble that has become commonplace and can be excused in anotherwise consistent setting.

On the plus side, Simone occasionally comes up with a memorableturn of phrase, action, or characterization (but not, alas, of Red Sonja).

I checked other reviews, both critical and defensive, to seewhat other readers thought. I wondered if I was missing something because Ihadn’t read all the modern stories. The reviewers divided mostly into twocamps: those with extensive knowledge of the Red Sonja novels and graphic andthose who just want a fun reading experience. Some of the former novels areeither critical of the many lapses in geography, nomenclature, and history,while others insist that this book cannot be properly appreciated without in-depthknowledge of the franchise. I disagree with the latter.

Good storytelling is good storytelling, regardless of genre. Nobody expects high literary values from sword and sorcery,but perhaps that is a mistake. Consider the work of Tanith Lee, C. J. Cherryhor C. L. Moore. Unfortunately, Gail Simone is not in their class.

 

Boycotting Amazon? You can still read my ebooks on your Kindle!

 If you want to buy my books inprint format and you're boycotting Amazon, do not despair! Your friendlyindependent bookstore will be delighted to order them for you. Borderlands, MysteriousGalaxy, Powell's,and others do mail orders. Some of these stores carry my autographed editions.Don't forget Barnesand Noble (for both print and ebooks).

What about ebooks? Never fear, you are not restricted to buying from Amazon foryour Kindle! Buy my books in epub format from one of the many otherebook vendors (Google Play, Apple, Smashwords, and many others). Side-load toyour Kindle thus:

1. Download the file and place it where you can find it on your computer (Istore mine in Calibre)
2. Go to your Amazon account and locate your unique Kindle email address. It's under Account &Listsà Content & Devicesà Devices. Your device shouldhave the Kindle email listed (one that ends in “@kindle.com”).

3. Send the file as an attachmentto your Kindle email. It should instantly appear on your Kindle. 

For more detailed instructions, check out this tutorial.

Book Reviews: Two Fantasies by Martha Wells

Martha Wells has become one of my favorite authors. I lovedher “Raksura” series and was bowled over by her “Murderbot” novellas. I thoughtI would follow her across genres. Two of her recent releases soar in terms ofworld-building imagination, but fall short in dramatic shaping and plotstructure.

Witch King, by Martha Wells (Tor)

Witch King opens with a mystery as demon Kai (not “a”demon, THE demon) wakes up in captivity with a mage attempting to seize controlof his magic. His immediate goal is to free himself and locate his companions.This proves to be both easier and far more challenging than it appears on thesurface. For one thing, Kai’s last (dead) host body has been murdered and he’sin another, quite unfamiliar (and much less fit) body; for another, he has noidea how much time has elapsed since he’s been unconscious (a lot), whatpolitical changes are afoot in the world, and where the wife of his closestally has disappeared to.

So far, so good, and Wells does a superb job in introducingcomplex characters, an unusual system of magic, and millennia of history andworld-building without dumping expository lumps on the reader.

Wells then shifts to the distant past when Kai inhabited avolunteer body and lived in a rich, joyful, and emotionally warm culture. Fromhere, the two timelines alternate chapters. A few characters, such as Kai whois almost immortal, appear throughout, but many others (many, many others) arespecific only to one. Still more are alive and active in the past but distantmemories in the present. Because the focus is on Kai and a few others who arepresent in both times, I had to search for other clues as to where and when Iwas.

Both storylines are filled with action and wonderfulcharacters, situations, and relationships. Each one would be more than enoughfor a novel in itself. Some readers will love the weaving back and forth andall the myriad ways the past informs and shapes the present. I was one of them,but only at first. As the book went on, however, I found it increasinglyfrustrating trying to orient myself—which time is this? what’s been going on?who’s still alive? and, most importantly, what is the present goal or threatfor the protagonist? There didn’t seem to be a single plot arc, a buildingdramatic tension that carried through in both past and present. It didn’t helpthat my favorite character from the past is long since dead in the present. Withineach timeline, unrelated problems arise and are resolved. I could never figureout what the overall “Big Bad” was, especially after one candidate villainafter another is eliminated. The “Big Bad” at the end seemed to come out ofnowhere. Mark Twain famously said that life is “one damned thing afteranother.” Fiction must play by a different set of rules.

Witch King is hugely ambitious, filled withimaginative elements, compelling personal drama, and a huge landscape acrosstime as well as space. Wells handles these elements with the effortless skillof a seasoned professional, but fails to shape them into a single dramatic story.

 

Wheel of the Infinite, by Martha Wells (Tor)

Wheel of the Infinite starts with a fortuitousencounter on the road between Maskelle, a confident and immensely powerfulmagic wielder, and handsome, enigmatic swordsman Rian. After she saves hislife, he and a band of motley other characters accompany Maskelle to the heartof the Celestial Empire. Much later, we learn that she’s returning from exileafter being judged a traitor and much, much later, that her task is to helpremake the beautiful, orderly mandala known at the Wheel of the Infinite,thereby ensuring peace and harmony for the Empire. At turns, the action movesswiftly with leaps of dramatic tension or as slowly as any travelogue. In this,it reminded me of The Lord of the Rings (the books, not the movies),which alternated between seat-of-the-pants action and pages upon pages ofpassing scenery. Also that there’s a quest, although in Rings, themission is much more clear and consistently present.

Maskelle was one of my favorite characters in a long while.She’s an older woman, always a plus with me, she’s quite comfortable with hersexuality (double plus), and she’s terrifyingly competent as a magician (tripleplus). Once the question of whether she’ll decide it wise to take Rian as herlover is settled, he pales by contrast as a character. Many, many othercharacters appeared (and disappeared, some temporarily, others not so much) butweren’t around for long enough to engage my sympathy.

As with Witch King, the premise, world-building,magical system, and protagonist in Wheel of the Infinite were allmarvelous. The book is highly ambitious, offering fresh, original takes ontime-honored tropes. Its sheer size and scope break down under their own weight.It’s as if Wells, whose novellas and shorter novels are tightly plotted gems,hasn’t quite made the leap to books of this length and complexity.Nevertheless, both are enjoyable reads with many twists and innovations. Whileneither worked perfectly for me, I’m eager to read her next project.

Excerpt: Meditations on the Wise Use of Power

 From Rebecca Solnit's marvelous blog, Meditations in an Emergency:

 Here's another thing about power; the power the Trump Administration has is largely what we give it. They often cave when it is not given or when it's taken away by the courts. And they're spending power, not tending it, by breaking alliances, support, relationships, treaties. their threats to seize Greenland. They may desire to make the US weaker, because they may think a weakened country with undermined institutions may be easier to dominate, but as the heads of government they're also making themselves weaker. The administration has sabotaged relationships with our neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and with NATO and EU allies. So they're losing the power of alliances abroad, along with the power of public support at home. They seem to have miscalculated--so far as I can tell by assuming their power is boundless, to be endlessly spent, never built up and protected, as political leaders normally do. Take the threats to seize Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, which in turn is part of the European Union and NATO, so that any invasion of the indigenous-majority island would be an attack on these powerful alliances. The loud threats have infuriated and alienated Greenlandic and Danish and many other people around the the world. The stunt whereby the administration decided to send the vice president's wife to Greenland for what was clearly a publicity campaign pretending to be a little holiday backfired badly.  Usha Vance was going to attend a dogsled race, show herself about, and then the vice president decided to join her. Greenlanders made it so clear they were so unwelcome that they limited their tour to a few hours at the isolated US military base for a pathetic photo op. It was a fool's errand and they showed their weakness by backing down from something that was always a dumb idea and maybe one that shows they lack intelligence in the ordinary sense of being smart and the specific sense of having good analysis of the political situation and the consequences of given actions. Or maybe they think their power is irresistible, but a small indigenous population resisted it effectively. They certainly failed, again, to anticipate both public reaction to their conduct and the fact that the public has power too.  Elon Musk has helpfully just proven how resistible power is, or the folly of confusing mountains of money with outright power. He had an apparent meltdown last night over his failure to buy the Wisconsin supreme court election, in which his candidate didn't just lose but lost in a landslide. And earlier he choked up on Fox News talking about the protests against Tesla and the impact it's having on the company's valuation. Both these things demonstrate the limits of his power and the scope of our power. The Tesla protests are working. People have the power. 

Article summary: The cognitive resilience of older women

Silent X chromosome genes 'reawaken' in older females, perhaps boosting brain power, study finds

This is an excerpt from the above-titled article in Live Science. I highly recommend clicking through to read the whole thing!


Females have one active X chromosome and one dormant X chromosome in each cell. But a study suggests that genes on the dormant X get "reawakened" later in life, potentially giving the brain a boost.

Dormant genes on the X chromosome may reawaken in old age, potentially giving the aging female brain a boost that the male brain doesn't receive. This phenomenon may help to explain why, on many measures, females show a higher level of cognitive resilience in old age than males do.
There seem to be fundamental differences in how males and females age. When it comes to the brain, females have lower rates of various forms of dementia than males do, even though females live longer, on average. One exception is that females have higher rates of Alzheimer's disease than males do, although females with Alzheimer's tend to survive longer than males with the condition.
Males typically carry one X and one Y in each cell; they inherit the X from their mother and the Y from their father. Females, on the other hand, usually carry two X chromosomes — one from mom and one from dad. But each cell needs only one X to be active, so in females, the second X is "silenced," leaving only the maternal or paternal X switched on.
Among the 22 reawakened genes, one called PLP1 carries the instructions to make a key component of myelin, the fatty insulation that helps neurons send signals efficiently. It's known that mutations in PLP1 can decrease the amount of myelin in the brain, resulting in intellectual disability. It's also known that myelin can be compromised in aging and that loss of myelin function can contribute to cognitive decline.
To see if the reawakening of PLP1 might boost cognition, scientists confirmed that older female mice had more PLP1 activity in their hippocampi than the older male mice did. They artificially increased PLP1 using gene editing in both old males and old females found that both sexes performed better on tests of learning and memory after that boost.
To see if any of the findings extended to humans, the team looked at data previously collected for a large study of human brain tissue. Data weren't available for the hippocampus, but the brain tissue immediately surrounding the hippocampus showed more PLP1 activation in older women than in older men. So that hints that the same phenomenon might be unfolding in people.

Book Review: A tour-de-force of the heart

EleanorOliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman (Penguin)

This marvelous debutnovel is mainstream, not genre, but with overtones of “domestic thriller” andsuperb handling of an unreliable narrator. The growth of the central characterskillfully parallels the gradual revelation of her past.

At first, EleanorOliphant seems to be a tediously bland, often annoying office worker. Hersocial skills leave a great deal to be desired, she’s compulsivelyroutine-bound, and she rebuffs every effort at friendship. Although she insiststo herself and to everyone else that she is completely fine, her weekly phonechats with her emotionally abusive Mummy result in weekly bouts of heavy drinking.Her doomed infatuation with a third-rate singer provides more fodder forMummy’s manipulations.

At first, I thoughtthat her problem was that she was a functional alcoholic, but the situation turnedout to be much more complex and nuanced. From the beginning, there are hints ofa deeper, darker story. When Eleanor and Raymond, a big-hearted if physicallyunattractive IT guy, rescue an elderly man who collapses on the street, Eleanorgets drawn into new social circles and relationships. The walls she has builtaround her profound emotional damage begin to crumble. Needless to say, inHoneyman’s capable hands, there is more than one surprise along the way.

Highly recommended.A tour-de-force of the heart.

Reprint: Social movements constrained Trump in his first term – more than people realize

This article first appeared in The Conversation. I offer it here with permission because now, more than ever, we need hope. Hope and belief in our power to resist and ultimately defeat a tyrant. 

Social movements constrained Trump in his first term – more than people realize Kevin A. Young, UMass Amherst

Donald Trump’s first term as president saw some of the largest mass protests seen in the U.S. in over 50 years, from the 2017 Women’s March to the 2020 protests after George Floyd’s murder.

Things feel different this time around. Critics seem quieter. Some point to fear of retribution. But there’s also a sense that the protests of Trump’s first term were ultimately futile. This has contributed to a widespread mood of despair.

As The New York Times noted not long ago, Trump “had not appeared to be swayed by protests, petitions, hashtag campaigns or other tools of mass dissent.” That’s a common perspective these days.

But what if it’s wrong?

As a historian, I study how our narratives about the past shape our actions in the present. In this case, it’s particularly important to get the history right.

In fact, popular resistance in Trump’s first term accomplished more than many observers realize; it’s just that most wins happened outside the spotlight. In my view, the most visible tactics – petitions, hashtags, occasional marches in Washington – had less impact than the quieter work of organizing in communities and workplaces.

Understanding when movements succeeded during Trump’s first term is important for identifying how activists can effectively oppose Trump policy in his second administration.

Quiet victories of the sanctuary movement

Mass deportation has been a cornerstone of Trump’s agenda for more than a decade. Yet despite his early pledge to create a “deportation force” that would expel millions, Trump deported only half as many people in his first term as Barack Obama did in his first term.

Progressive activists were a key reason. By combining decentralized organizing and nationwide resource-sharing, they successfully pushed scores of state and local governments to adopt sanctuary laws that limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

When the sociologist Adam Safer examined thousands of cities and dozens of states, he found that a specific type of sanctuary law that activists supported – barring local jails and prisons from active cooperation with ICE – successfully reduced ICE arrests. A study by legal scholar David K. Hausman confirmed this finding. Notably, Hausman also found that sanctuary policies had “no detectable effect on crime rates,” contrary to what many politicians allege.

Another important influence on state and local officials was employers’ resistance to mass deportation. The E-Verify system requiring employers to verify workers’ legal status went virtually unenforced, since businesses quietly objected to it. As this example suggests, popular resistance to Trump’s agenda was most effective when it exploited tensions between the administration and capitalists.

The ‘rising tide’ against fossil fuels

In his effort to prop up the fossil fuel industry, Trump in his first term withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, weakened or eliminated over 100 environmental protections and pushed other measures to obstruct the transition to green energy.

Researchers projected that these policies would kill tens of thousands of people in just the United States by 2028, primarily from exposure to air pollutants. Other studies estimated that the increased carbon pollution would contribute to tens of millions of deaths, and untold other suffering, by century’s end.

That’s not the whole story, though. Trump’s first-term energy agenda was partly thwarted by a combination of environmental activism and market forces.

His failure to resuscitate the U.S. coal industry was especially stark. Coal-fired plant capacity declined faster during Trump’s first term than during any four-year period in any country, ever. Some of the same coal barons who celebrated Trump’s victory in 2016 soon went bankrupt.

CBS News covered the bankruptcy of coal firm Murray Energy, founded by Trump supporter Robert E. Murray.

The most obvious reasons for coal’s decline were the U.S. natural gas boom and the falling cost of renewable energy. But its decline was hastened by the hundreds of local organizations that protested coal projects, filed lawsuits against regulators and pushed financial institutions to disinvest from the sector. The presence of strong local movements may help explain the regional variation in coal’s fortunes.

Environmentalists also won some important battles against oil and gas pipelines, power plants and drilling projects. In a surprising number of cases, organizers defeated polluters through a combination of litigation, civil disobedience and other protests, and by pressuring banks, insurers and big investors.

In 2018, one pipeline CEO lamented the “rising tide of protests, litigation and vandalism” facing his industry, saying “the level of intensity has ramped up,” with “more opponents” who are “better organized.”

Green energy also expanded much faster than Trump and his allies would have liked, albeit not fast enough to avert ecological collapse. The U.S. wind energy sector grew more in Trump’s first term than under any other president, while solar capacity more than doubled. Research shows that this progress was due in part to the environmental movement’s organizing, particularly at the state and local levels.

As with immigration, Trump’s energy agenda divided both political and business elites. Some investors became reluctant to keep their money in the sector, and some even subsidized environmental activism. Judges and regulators didn’t always share Trump’s commitment to propping up fossil fuels. These tensions between the White House and business leaders created openings that climate activists could exploit.

Worker victories in unlikely places

Despite Trump self-promoting as a man of the people, his policies hurt workers in numerous ways – from his attack on workers’ rights to his regressive tax policies, which accelerated the upward redistribution of wealth.

Nonetheless, workers’ direct action on the job won meaningful victories. For example, educators across the country organized dozens of major strikes for better pay, more school funding and even against ICE. Workers in hotels, supermarkets and other private-sector industries also walked out. Ultimately, more U.S. workers went on strike in 2018 than in any year since 1986.

This happened not just in progressive strongholds but also in conservative states like West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky. At least 35 of the educators’ strikes defied state laws denying workers the right to strike.

In addition to winning gains for workers, the strike wave apparently also worked against Republicans at election time by increasing political awareness and voter mobilization. The indirect impact on elections is a common side effect of labor militancy and mass protest.

Quiet acts of worker defiance also constrained Trump. The early months of the COVID-19 pandemic featured widespread resistance to policies that raised the risk of infection, particularly the lack of mask mandates.

Safety-conscious workers frequently disobeyed their employers, in ways seldom reflected in official strike data. Many customers steered clear of businesses where people were unmasked. These disruptions, and fears they might escalate, led businesses to lobby government for mask mandates.

This resistance surely saved many lives. With more coordination, it might have forced a decisive reorientation in how government and business responded to the virus.

Labor momentum could continue into Trump’s second term. Low unemployment, strong union finances and widespread support for unions offer opportunities for the labor movement.

Beyond marches

Progressive movements have no direct influence over Republicans in Washington. However, they have more potential influence over businesses, lower courts, regulators and state and local politicians.

Of these targets, business ultimately has the most power. Business will usually be able to constrain the administration if its profits are threatened. Trump and Elon Musk may be able to dismantle much of the federal government and ignore court orders, but it’s much harder for them to ignore major economic disruption.

While big marches can raise public consciousness and help activists connect, by themselves they will not block Trump and Musk. For that, the movement will need more disruptive forms of pressure. Building the capacity for that disruption will require sustained organizing in workplaces and communities.

Kevin A. Young, Associate Professor of History, UMass Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.