Mike Perschon's Blog, page 2

Spotlight on J.M. Frey, author of the forthcoming Skylark Saga!

Reuts Publishing announced this morning that they've signed a three-book deal with science-fiction/fantasy author J.M. Frey (rhymes with Sci-Fi!), for the Skylark Saga, with the first book due out in 2017. This is really exciting for me, as I've been waiting for this book since I first met J.M. Frey back in 2011 at the Canadian National Steampunk Exhibition (CNSE). Frey was foisted on me during my first presentation, something I normally chafe at, but since it was Liana Kerzner who had paired us up, I was willing to play nice. Just as I had been blown away by Liana when we co-presented the previous fall at Pure Speculation, I was floored by how quickly Frey jumped into the fray, ad-libbing reading parts of my slides and bantering with me as I presented on steampunk. By the end of the weekend, we had become fast friends, beginning a friendship through social media that has lasted since.

At the end of the second day of the CNSE, I caught up to Frey in the Green Room, where she was sporting a platinum wig and what looked to be an aviator's outfit. I soon learned this cosplay was of the lead character in a steampunk book she was working on called The Skylark's Song. I filed the information away, as the number of people you meet at steampunk conventions who are cosplaying as a character from the book they are working are legion. My reservations were obliterated the next day when I cracked the book she had given me to read: Triptych, her first published novel, which sported a blurb from Publishers Weekly promising that this was a "deeply satisfying debut.

Only a few pages in, reading while eating in an airport restaurant, and I was jaw-dropped by how good Frey's writing was. The first line was so powerful: "A body collapsing with no muscular control onto plush carpeting makes a kind of muffled thudding, all raw meat and cut strings." So she's a word-smith. The scene is a domestic shooting...a husband, a wife, and an...alien? Like any good writer, Frey knows to unleash crucial thematic information in the first pages. While Triptych is about time travel, its trump card is what it does with the domestic setting, with that husband, wife, and alien. Like Ursula K. LeGuin, Frey uses SF to explore social spaces that are alien to the reader, and to do it in a way that causes one to ponder the sexual and social norms of modern North American society. I can't say more, because more would be a spoiler. And I refuse to spoil Triptych, because it's such a treat. I just didn't have time to tell the web about it back in 2010, while racing to finish my PhD.

But as soon as I finished Triptych, I wondered when Skylark would see the light of day. After all, Triptych was great -- shouldn't her agent be striking while the steampunk anvil was hot? For one reason or another, Skylark got shelved, and my opportunity to crow very loudly about Frey's writing through this blog passed away. Ostensibly, steampunk was no longer the hot, hip thing it had been in 2009.

Then Frey announced she had a deal with Reuts Publishing for a fantasy trilogy beginning with The Untold Tale, and it seemed like I'd have something to talk about over at my other blog, Doc Perschon. I can tell you already (working my way through the ARC) that The Untold Tale is up to par for Frey's writing, though it's far more whimsical than Triptych. It's more along the lines of her Dark Side of the Glass, a short piece which I highly recommend for people who loved Twilight, AND for people who hated it. Trust me.

So it's with no small amount of excitement that I am happy to pass along the good news that Skylark is finally going to see the light of day. Aviator behind enemy lines in World War II with a rocketpack? I loved The Rocketeer, how could I not want to read this book?

Plus, how could you NOT want to read a book by a woman who owns a TARDIS dress?Here's the skinny on the story, ripped right from Frey's blog:

A flight mechanic with uncanny luck, seventeen year old Robin Arianhod was raised in the shadow of a decade-long war. Thrust unexpectedly into the pilot’s seat during a dogfight, Robin’s first flight proves her among the rare few girls with the strength to pilot the ornery Gliders. But the skies are stalked by the Coyote, a ruthless pilot who has earned his nickname by dishonorably picking off crippled airships and retreating soldiers.
When the Coyote shoots her down, Robin is forced to take shelter behind enemy lines. She’d be dead if anyone found out who she was, so the only way Robin can do her job – and stay alive – is to don a disguise, and the prototype rocket-pack she stole from the Coyote, to try to finish this war from the inside, to become… the Skylark.
The Skylark’s Saga follows The Skylark over three books as she tries to not only end the Saskwayin-Klonn war, but also put paid to the class feud between the Saskwayin Benne and her own people, the traditionally migrant Sealies. All while, of course, trying to figure out the origins of W.I.N.G.S., her wondrous rocket-pack, and to find the true King of Klonn and get his butt back on the throne… before the Coyote corners her into having to take it for herself.

So that's the good new: The Skylark's Song will take wing. But we have to wait until 2017 for liftoff, and that's the bad news. But in the meantime, I guarantee, as someone who has followed Frey on Twitter for years, that she'll be leaking lots of teasers, like this artwork of her main cast by Archia:

So follow her blog. Follow her tumblr. Follow her tweets. In the meantime, order Triptych and read it. In December, get The Untold Tale, and learn, while waiting for her steampunk debut, that J.M. Frey is no one-trick pony. She's the real deal. And she's about to spread her wings. You'll want to be around for that, believe you me. 

Mainspring Reconsidered - in memory of Jay Lake

Jay Lake made me famous. Well, as famous as any academic working on steampunk can ever be, but it was when I posted my review of Lake's steampunk novel Mainspring that I saw my visitors shoot from the tens to the hundreds, and then over a thousand. Back then, I was still in my old-school book-review blogger mode, and I assessed Mainspring, not from an academic view looking to determine the steampunk aesthetic, but from the perspective of whether or not it lived up to my expectations. Consequently, I said I didn't like it. Lake posted a link to my unnecessarily critical review, and suddenly, I had a much bigger audience.

Lake could have called me a jerk. He could have said I was out to lunch. Instead, he just wrote, "not so much with the liking," and linked to the review, rather than ignoring it entirely. I'd come to understand later, after being introduced to Lake in person by Christopher Garcia, and getting to know him a bit through Twitter and Facebook, that it was because Lake was a just a cool, laid-back guy.
You know you're famous in the steampunk scene when you get your face on a set of Bicycle cards done steampunk pirate style.
I felt badly about the post, so I promptly followed up my review of Mainspring with a laudatory post about Lake's short story in Extraordinary Engines, which I enjoyed very much. Thing was, I found myself thinking an awful lot about Mainspring as I proceeded with my research. My initial dislike of the work was based on flawed expectations for what steampunk should be, a concept I've since divested myself of. The more I thought about the book, the more I liked what it did. And I kept thinking, "I need to revisit and reconsider Mainspring."

I was given the opportunity to do so in a course on nineteenth century works: I wrote a paper comparing Mainspring with Conrad's The Secret Sharer. My prof hated it, mostly because he thought science fiction was rubbish, beneath academic attention, but I kept meaning to share the results of that paper online. Lake had wanted to see it, but it was one of those things I kept putting off, and never got around to. Add that to my list of things I'd do differently.

We have lost Lake's voice to the future of SF and Fantasy, but his previous words are preserved. And so, while I'd meant to have this later this year, I'd like to make this my tribute to Jay Lake, who passed away June 1 after a long, and touchingly public battle with cancer. I cry just about every time I read through his posts on that struggle.

So I felt like I owe Jay Lake this. I owe it to him because I promised him I would do it, I owe it to him because I've known since 2010 that Mainspring was a better book than I'd said, and just never got around to publicly stating. The following is an edited version, with all references to The Secret Sharer excised, of that paper my prof hated. It is not a review, since I don't do those much any more; it is an exploration of the major themes of hospitality and messianic duty in Mainspring.


Clockwork Messiah: Mainspring Reconsidered 

Mainspring takes place in an alternate history of early twentieth century earth. The majority of alternate history contains a clearly established moment of break which transforms a readily recognizable historical event, thereby setting off a chain of cause and effect which results in a different version of present reality. Unlike other alternate histories, which might suppose a break in a known historical event such as Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Lake’s alternate earth has its moment of the break at its creation. When God “hung Earth in the sky on the tracks of her orbit around the lamp of the sun” (43), it was on a very real, not abstract track: Mainspring’s Earth is bisected by a massive gear, which serves as a colossal brass wall, separating the world into the oppressive, industrialized Northern hemisphere, and the Edenic, pre-industrial Southern hemisphere. The historical ramifications of such a break are obviously further reaching:

On the other side of the Equatorial Wall lies the southern Earth. It is vastly different from our contentious, industrialized Northern Earth. Where we have smoky mills and laboring children and great cities of brick and wood, the Southern Earth has cathedral forests whose dwellers live free of misery, without even the need of labor for their daily fare. Where we have competing empires shaking the very air with the thunder of their cannon, the Southern Earth shakes to the thunder of hooves as great beasts migrate across endless plains. Where England and China each struggle to bend Creating to their will, the Southern Earth abides comfortably in the lap of God’s world. As man was meant to do. (162) 

The inclusion of a massive, physical proof of the existence of a clockmaker God permits Lake to have angels trouble the flights of his steampunk airships, and allow Mainspring's protagonist Hethor Jacques a type of clockwork magic to assist him on his quest: Hethor is himself a precision instrument, gifted at hearing the sounds of the gears and machinery which keep the earth on its great brass track orbiting the sun. While he is in the Northern Earth, his “sense of time was always with him, always accurate” (46). While crossing the Equatorial Wall, he is deafened by close proximity to movement of the orbital track. He does not regain his hearing until reaching the Southern side of the Wall, at which point he begins to hear the sound of gears in everything, discovering that “[a]ll Creation was artifice, was it not?” (208). Hethor’s powers are not an anachronism: they belong in the world of Lake’s radical break.

Hethor as hero of the story does not begin his journey aware of such powers; instead, he is a lowly clockmaker’s apprentice who receives a visit from a suitably steampunk angel Gabriel, “bright as any brasswork automaton” (11). Hethor is entrusted with a quest to find the legendary “Key Perilous”, one of seven sacred artifacts given to humanity by the Brass Christ following his “horofixion” on a “wheel-and-gear” instead of cross (12). Hethor’s journey takes him from his comfortable, predictable life in New Haven, Connecticut, to the court of the viceroy of Boston, then onto an airship in the Royal Navy before crossing the Equatorial Wall and passing into the savage lands beyond. There he finds a primitive race of hairy primates who call themselves the “Correct People”, who are intelligent enough to communicate verbally and “human” enough that Hethor finds a sense of community and belonging among them, ultimately becoming husband to one. The Correct People aid Hethor in his mission, assisting him in the last leg of his journey to the South Pole by another airship. Upon arriving there, Hethor finds the Key Perilous in an unexpected way, and winds the Mainspring at the cost of this own life.

Unlike many works of steampunk where the hero or heroine is tasked with saving the Empire, or saving the people by bringing the Empire down, Hethor Jacques will save the entire world. The ideas of messianic expectation in science fiction and fantasy result in metaphysical, not merely moral messiahs. In The Secret Life of Puppets, Victoria Nelson has suggested that the presence of the religious in science fiction is no mistake, but that “[c]onsuming art forms of the fantastic is only one way that we as nonbelievers allow ourselves, unconsciously, to believe” (vii). Unlike the increasingly inhuman Paul Atreides of Dune, however, Hethor Jacques still presents an intensely immanent and human messiah. Further, the solution to the world-threatening problem of its clockwork running down is strongly connected to the ideas of hospitality to the stranger, and the sacrificial action of the Christian messiah, rather than the redemptive violence of science fiction messiah Neo in The Matrix trilogy.

I would like to situate Mainspring in the context of the uncanny, not to investigate the concept of the uncanny double in some psychoanalytic reading of Hethor Jacques, but in regards to Gary Watson's investigations of hospitality, and the Other as potential Messiah in Opening Doors, where he writes about Joseph Conrad's The Secret Sharer as “the kind of Hospitality narrative that takes the form of Welcoming the Other or Strangers (who may just turn out to be the Messiah)” (158). Rather than employing the uncanny as it relates to Freudian readings, I wish to explore how Lake deals with the idea of belonging in Mainspring, of how creating a space of belonging constitutes the idea of home, and how a sense of not belonging results in a sense of the uncanny.

While Freud's essay title is translated as “The Uncanny” in English, the German word unheimlich etymologically refers to the idea of home-liness. The root word heim means “home” or being “rooted in home”, while “Heimlich” means something hidden, secret, or clandestine, while unheimlich generally understood as that which is eerie, uncanny. According to Friedrich Schelling, everything that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light is unheimlich. In "The Houses of Fiction: Toward a Definition of the Uncanny," Maria Tatar shows how the German word heimlich, which can be taken to mean “belonging to the home”, and unheimlich, which is commonly translated in Freud as “uncanny” relate the literature of the fantastic to the concept of home as a place of “domestic comfort” (170). In the Biology of Horror: Gothic Literature and Film, Jack Morgan notes that “in this etymology, the house is the defining symbol of what is right and normal, the violation of which situates primitive anxieties” (183).

 In Mainspring, Hethor Jacques is an orphan, living on a meager inheritance from his late father, and the goodwill of Master Bodean, the clockmaker he is apprentice to. Consequently, we meet him in an unheimlich space, the home which is not his home. He is reviled by Bodean’s sons: Pryce Bodean, the sanctimonious seminary student, and Faubus Bodean, a loutish, violent ruffian. Hethor spends the course of his journeys finding and losing a series of temporary “homes,” places of belonging: Master Bodean’s house, The Bassett, the British Navy Airship he is press ganged onto, and a monastery high on the Equatorial Wall. Offered a permanent place at a monastery, Hethor finds the offer tempting enough to nearly cause him to abandon his quest for the Key Perilous. Shortly after leaving the monastery, Hethor is asked if he wants to turn back in the face of a difficult and dangerous descent down the southern side of the colossal Equatorial Wall. Hethor replies, “I didn’t come here just to go home again,” and then ruminates that “[t]here was no home to go to.” He was a failed apprentice in Connecticut, under order of imprisonment in Massachusetts, and absent without leave from the Royal Navy. Souther Earth could only be an improvement. “Onward, sir. Onward.” (172) Hethor is a man without a home, or at the very least, unfamiliar enough in the spaces he inhabits to feel a sense of unease, “utterly lost to anything familiar” (Lake 217).

I have appropriated Watson's discussion of spaces of “Chaos” which are “Out of Context” or represented by the “Open Road” to apply to the unheimlich spaces which Hethor Jacques journeys through on his way to the Equatorial Wall and beyond (133). Hethor has been removed from hisnormal context, cut loose from the trajectory of his apprenticeship, out in the wide world. He has set his foot upon the path of the Open Road, understanding that he does not know where it leads, and that things are out of his control. According to Jacques Derrida, it is only in the space of the Open Road where one can accomplish true acts of hospitality: “If I had a criteria, a set of norms, that I would simply apply or enforce, there would be no decision . . .  Otherwise it would be a mechanical development, a mechanical explication, not a decision” (qtd. in Watson 172). In short, we cannot accomplish a true act of hospitality if we are acting within social norms when we do so. It is only when we are in chaotic spaces of lawlessness where we can truly make moral choices.

Steampunk heroes are often outlaws of one stripe or another. They exist at the periphery of law-abiding society, or are thrust from the comfort of a structured, moral and ethical society into the realm of lawlessness and chaos. In general, they are opposed to concepts of Empire and oppressive authoritarianism. In Mainspring, Hethor moves sequential further and further into lawless space, metonymically represented by the presence of clockwork machinery. The clockwork precision of the Northern hemisphere’s industrialized world is illustrated in a steampunk version of the Lord’s prayer spoken at a funeral aboard the Basset:

“Our Father, who art in Heaven
Craftsman be thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy plan be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Forgive us this day our errors
As we forgive those who err against us
Lead us not into imperfection
And deliver us from chaos
For thine is the power, and the precision
For ever and ever, amen." (102-03)

Hethor begins his journey within the quotidian and structured world of Master Bodean’s workshop as a clockmaker’s apprentice. This is an environment which prizes consideration and precision. When Hethor is thrown out of Bodean’s workshop, catalyzing the start of his journey, Hethor goes to Boston, where he is thrown into prison, and then press ganged into service aboard the Basset. There is still a structured society to the airship, but it is radically different from that which he had known before. He rises in the ranks of the ship’s crew through his knowledge of precision instruments, which makes him a natural choice to learn navigation. However, as the airship approaches the Equatorial Wall, it passes over evidence that Hethor is leaving civilization behind. Lake makes use of colonial European ethnocentrisms of the late nineteenth century travel-adventure stories by describing The Basset’s progress over Bermuda and then onward to Africa in a series of increasingly chaotic and morally compromising experiences.

Following a disciplinary and somewhat initiatory flogging, Hethor is thrown off the airship with a rude parachute to plunge into a lagoon in a rather violent baptism to his life as an airship sailor. Immediately following this violent induction to the social community of The Basset, Hethor is carried off “toward a haze of rum and hemp, and even a prostitute someone else paid for, though all she did for Hethor was dab ointment on his back and sew up the wider wounds” (85). It is important that neither in this episode (which would have been somewhat ludicrous given Hethor’s ruined back), and later when he has healed and is on shore leave in Georgetown, Guyana, that Hethor refuses to have sex with a prostitute. Earlier, on his way to Boston, he is propositioned by a young woman who gives him a ride, “to spoon a bit.” Refusing her advances, Hethor runs away and releases his erect penis from where it was “straining at his pants”, although he is “careful not to touch himself” since “[t]hat way lay sin and madness, everyone knew” (50). So long as Hethor is in the North, he abides by the moral law of the North. Once he reaches the lands south of the Wall, however, he not only engages in a sex act, but engages in interspecies intercourse with a female of a race of technologically primitive but spiritually advanced hominids who take Hethor under their care, seeing him as a sort of Messiah figure. The loss of his virginity is framed in an entirely positive light, juxtaposing Hethor’s jettisoning of the moral code of the formalized religion of the north for a more dynamic morality in the south. Derrida posits such a dynamic when he states, “Justice is the relation to the other. That is all. Once you relate to the other as the other, then something incalculable comes on the scene, something which cannot be reduced to the law or to the history of legal structures” (qtd in Watson 138).

Hethor’s sexual epiphany is paralleled by another realization: Hethor is a precision instrument, gifted at hearing the sounds of the gears and machinery which keep the earth on its great brass track orbiting the sun. While he is in the Northern Earth, his “sense of time was always with him, always accurate” (46). While crossing the Equatorial Wall, he is deafened by close proximity to movement of the orbital track. He does not regain his hearing until reaching the Southern side of the Wall, at which point he begins to hear the sound of gears in everything, discovering that “[a]ll Creation was artifice, was it not?” (208).

Watson spends a good deal of time in Opening Doors exploring the idea of radical hospitality and the idea of "entertaining angels unaware." Not in a spiritual being in the sense Milton meant when he described angels as “more refin'd, more spirituous, and pure” (line 475), but rather as an unexpected guest, of the sort mentioned in the book of Hebrews, where it reads: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (13:2 RSV). The writer of Hebrews is advising his readers to remember to extend a radical hospitality to strangers. The possibility of the stranger being an angel is most likely an allusion to Genesis 18-19, “in which Abraham offered hospitability to the mysterious visitors, who turned out to be angels …[t]he principle is that it is better to assume that guests are angels and to act accordingly rather than risk treating people unworthily” (Guthrie 268).

As Caputo and Yvonne Sherwood note, it is of course always possible that the stranger knocking at our door might be a “monster”, which might well make us tremble. But then, as Derrida reminds us according to St. Paul we should always be in a state of trembling (Watson 139). 

The fear and trembling in Mainspring is readily apparent, beginning with the appearance of the angel Gabriel, whose manifestation causes Hethor to hold his breath, “afraid to even share the air with such perfection” (12). But Gabriel is not the stranger in need of hospitality. Clearly a real angel, in a steampunk sense of what Milton meant, Gabriel presents a mission which almost immediately makes Hethor the stranger. When Hethor investigates the history of the Key Perilous the next day by questioning Pryce Bodean, he inadvertently sets the stage for dismissal from his master's workshop. By the end of the day, he is cast out into the world, and is on the Open Road, in need of the hospitality of others. Yet even before he begins his journey, Hethor is aided by kind individuals who provide him with information, transportation, lodging, food, and healing:

Master Bodean, Librarian Childress, the farmers who had helped him, that girl with the hearse, even the crazed and foolish candlemen, Her Imperial Majesty’s sailors, the Jade Abbot—all their lives hung on him … Perhaps he was her angel, her Gabriel come from the sky to awaken her people to their peril. (299) 

These are all individuals who extend hospitality to Hethor along his difficult road. It is not simply a list of people counting on Hethor to achieve his mission, but those who have effectively taught him how to achieve that mission. Master Bodean provided shelter, Librarian Childress was the first to believe his fantastic story, the farmers and the girl with the hearse gave him transport, all selfless acts which have prepared Hethor for one final selfless act:

Hethor had always possessed the Key Perilous, he realized. His journey wasn’t to find the key. Everything else—Gabriel’s mission, the messages on the golden tablets, all his tribulations—were his schooling … Well, perhaps he had learned something. (316) 

Hethor is the messiah of Mainspring. “The world hurts” he says of the numerous earthquakes, tidal waves and other disasters he witnesses along the way. Ultimately, Hethor extends the greatest act of hospitality of all. At the heart of the world, Hethor finally deciphers the meaning of a golden tablet he found along the way. The tablet reads, “The heart of God is the heart of the world / As man lives, so lives God / As God lives, so lives the world” (225). Hethor comes to the realization that this means that as he lives, so lives God, and consequently, the world. “Love is the heart of God,” Hethor says, providing a first line to the scripture of the golden tablet (317). Man must choose to live well in order for the Mainspring of the world to be fixed.

Drawing upon his ability to hear and work within the gears of Creation, he sacrifices himself to resurrect his beloved, Arellya, one of the southern denizens on the other side of the wall. This selfless act, accomplished in the presence of the Mainspring, heals the world’s hurt, but results in Hethor’s death. This action places Hethor firmly in a messianic position, as he is reenacting the sacrifice of Lake's steampunk Jesus, the Brass Christ, on the horofix 2000 years prior. While this may seem a convenient deus ex machina conclusion, it must be remembered that the world of Mainspring is a machine, and that Hethor’s quest is effectively, like the Blues Brothers, "a mission from God." More importantly, it is the moment each episode of kindness extended to Hethor has been building towards.


Georgio Agamben states that, “[i]n Judaism as in Christianity and Shiite Islam, the messianic event above all signifies a crisis and radical transformation of the entire order of the law” (qtd. in Watson 158). In other words, when the messiah comes, the law is no longer the highest authority. A religious impulse transcends the law. Hence, Hethor can abandon home and nation and all former allegiances to achieve his quest. He is engaged in a radical, dynamic morality which seems to fulfill Jesus’ dynamically radical reinterpretation of Torah law in two gestures: love toward God and love toward neighbor (Luke 10:17-28). One must constantly assess the question of who is God, and who is my neighbor, to which the parable of the Good Samaritan replies: the person in front of you who is in need. The parable of the Good Samaritan also teaches that we are likely to meet our neighbor on the Open Road, or Out of Context, in a place of Chaos; in the unheimliche Länder, the place where we are no longer in our homely homes, but are standing before a stranger in need of help, knowing that our action may very well place us in danger. Hethor Jacques represents this moment beyond the Pale of normative decision making, where one must base their decision not on safety of self, but love for the Other. In the action of welcoming the stranger on the Open Road, the chaotic space is made into a place of belonging. Hethor makes the entire world a place of safety in a hyperbolic act of hospitality, because he has been the recipient of similar hospitality. This is the heart of the world, love for each other, not rationality, and not even religion. Love, radical love, beyond law, beyond safety, out in the chaos of the open road.

Love. Thanks, Jay. You will be missed.

Murdoch Mysteries (Guest Post)

The following is a guest post by an ardent fan of Murdoch Mysteries who wishes to remain anonymous. Once you read the opening paragraph, you'll know why. As a Canadian citizen, I can run the risk of angering the evil overlords of International Syndication Deals without reprisal. My anonymous contributor, an American citizen, cannot. I realize in saying this that many of you will assume that I've struck a persona to blog about Murdoch Mysteries, but believe me - this is not the case - I've only watched the show occasionally, and posted on it once, for the steampunk web episodes for Curse of the Lost Pharaoh . The following post is the creation of a fan who needed a serious signal boost to promote Stateside fans of Murdoch Mysteries to raise the level of their squee to eleven, and for those who have never watched the show to get around to doing it already. I know I was inspired to do the same. 
 
Dear U.S. Steampunk Community, the evil overlords of International Syndication Deals have most-wittingly conspired to deprive us of Murdoch Mysteries, the One True Steampunk-themed TV show, merely because it is produced by our Natural Enemy, the Working-Healthcare-System-Mongerer: Canada. The Ovation channel smuggled this Canadian gem over the border last summer, but then kept it for themselves and their handful of Twitter subscribers by cloaking it under the name The Artful Detective. How dare those dastardly art snobs deny the entertainment-starved masses this choice morsel? In the following review, I shall let you in on the best kept secret in cult TV fandom.

Murdoch Mysteries is a beautiful bricolage of every cult classic that you ever stayed up until 2am at college to watch in the college pub TV room: Wild Wild West retro-gadgetry, the toy box feel of The Prisoner, a smart-and-angst-ridden-is-sexy X-Files shipperfest, the genre/period fusion of Firefly, the quirky fun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek's interest in humanity, and the iconic paraphernalia of Dr. Who. Blend it all together and wrap a scrumptious pastry of science fantasy and Victorian period style around a tasty detective filling, and you get Steampunk CSI Murdoch Mysteries. The American entertainment-industrial-schlock complex doesn't even know how to pull this off. Our television shows are sordid trash heaps of meaningless sex, random violence, torture porn, the cruelest personal betrayals, and hordes of crass people who are supposed to be signifying "the real" but just make everything feel dirty. American TV is sick. Murdoch Mysteries is the cure.

Set in late Victorian Toronto, Murdoch Mysteries presents culturally clueless American viewers with what we might easily mistake for Belle Epoque Europe (dude, some of those Canadians speak French!). Enter this playground of nostalgia-gone-wild and revel in more elegant costumes, millinery confections, graceful manners, and brass-bound props than you will ever need to adorn your most elaborate Steampunk fantasies. Heaven forfend that those Victorian prophets of retro-futurism settle for pedestrian technological advances like the telegraph and the gramophone: Murdoch Mysteries whips out zeppelins, steam men, mole machines, Tesla death rays, time machines, and gas masks for the impending Cloud of Doom. The stories are layered with authentic historical events and generously sprinkled with historical figures, period-significant objects, or issues that could only spawn from the material and social culture of that time. Any historical license stays within a zone of plausibility, and the most spectacular wonders of science never exceed the laws of physics -- unless they will soon be exposed for a fraud. The careful waltzes of decorum, attended by picturesque scenery and a whimsical soundtrack, creates the overall impression of an exquisite music box.

The long-suffering hero of the story, William Murdoch, is a morally earnest, impeccably dressed, infallibly courteous closet genius. He works at a police station that is just emerging from the era of apes beating on a monolith constables beating up hapless vagrants. Murdoch is not a good fit: he's a Catholic in a Protestant preserve, a keen intellect and rather a pretty boy among thugs, a lower class upstart who is trying too hard to prove he belongs in a better station. Beyond the default reticence of the Victorian gentleman, Murdoch is socially awkward, moody and extremely introverted; some fans have speculated he's on the high-functioning end of the Asperger's spectrum. Because he's meticulous and methodical, he is usually right, and he doesn't know when to stop pushing it. Murdoch can be outright annoying, but, miraculously, his boss, the irascible Inspector Brackenreid, recognizes Murdoch's merits and chooses to use them. Everyone who hates trying to "fit in" to the American system of shallow self-promotion will feel heartened.

 Murdoch parlayed what the world under-values--a penchant for reading and a powerful imagination--into a way of getting stellar results at work. His copious reading (he's somewhat embarrassed to know the Dewey Decimal System by heart) kept him abreast of rapid change in an age of heroic inventors and scientific challenges to the traditional understanding of the world. While he applies practical forensic science and invents useful thingamajigs to solve crimes, he dreams of discovering a new dinosaur. Murdoch's combination of persistence, curiosity, and imagination transform him into Detective/Inspector Gadget, the first dork super hero (another Canadian creation!).

Each episode of Murdoch Mysteries is a well-crafted concoction of police procedural, medical whatdunit, and Sherlockian parlor sleuthing. The plots are tight and twisty, and the ending always satisfies. The episodes are self-contained, so it's easy for new viewers to drop in at any point. The first episode I saw was from the third season, and the only thing that took me a while to catch on to is why Murdoch was so at odds with his surroundings - first I had to figure out the show was set in Canada, and then I thought Murdoch was an American detective who was disliked as a foreigner. However, there is a gentle arc that runs over the course of the seasons that allows the characters to develop and grow closer to each other.

Over the course of the seasons the misfit Murdoch gains increasing respect and admiration from his peers, to the point where he's generally regarded as "the greatest detective in the realm". The audience now has cause to suspect hubris will be Murdoch's fatal flaw and this whole thing may turn out to be Greek Tragedy. On the other hand, the "regular Joe" constables warm up to him and become his family: their daily workplace interactions are leavened with good-natured humor. Everyone tolerates each other's foibles, and they all have each other's back in times of trouble. No cult TV show is complete without an epic romance, and Murdoch Mysteries has a heart-wrenching one.

Murdoch starts out as a lonely man who keeps his risque fantasies about Dr. Julia Ogden, the brazen female coroner, to himself. She is his intellectual match but socially above his station. Dr. Ogden also has a thing for Murdoch, but she is equally busy challenging gender roles, dealing with baggage from the past, and trying to build her career in a man's world. Early on it seems her opinions might be a bit too frank for the easily-scandalized Murdoch. But they have something together that is partly sexual tension, but more of a mutual appreciation that they forge into a strong partnership. Their struggle navigate their relationship through the shoals of respectable conduct provides abundant material for ship-promoting fan vids. For those who ship with slash goggles on, candidates abound - particularly the exhuberent inventor James Pendrick, who encourages Murdoch to hang out in his skyscraper, drive his electric car at the unholy speed of 55 miles per hour, and fly the first airplane that can bank into a turn. Murdoch is so discrete there is plenty of room for shipping of any stripe.

What gives Murdoch Mysteries unexpected depth is its gentle pursuit of human themes, where personal/emotional dilemmas are often mirrored by the interrogation of suspects. Murdoch is the quintessential good man, trying to bring justice to his world by upholding the law. However, sometimes pursuit of the truth conflicts with the best social outcome, enforcement of the law may conflict with mercy or the moral good, or the dictates of faith may clash with science. Murdoch's surroundings are wracked with social tensions, moral conflicts, and spiritual contradictions that still reverberate today. Victorian sensibilities clash with modern notions of progress regarding abortion, contraception, divorce, homosexuality, racism, police violence. These conflicts often touch Murdoch personally, and watching the poor guy lurch between love and loss, elation and devastation, will rip your heart out.

Regarding period sensibilities, as forward-thinking and modern as Murdoch strives to be, he is trapped in the cultural preconceptions of his era, and can be as oblivious to his own prejudices as anyone else. The show keeps a wry eye on the 21st century, and indulges in an ongoing in-joke about Murdoch's failure to recognize the innovations that will make the future. In fact, his less-gifted-but-sincere apprentice Constable Crabtree seems to be more tuned in to the future, though he tends to veer off into crackpot theories. But Murdoch's blindspots are easily forgiven when you realize these people are being confronted with the idea that their deepest beliefs about religion and nature are wrong. The British Empire, the triumph of their civilization might be morally wrong. Regarding women as an inferior species might be just plain wrong. At the same time some of the most fantastic Jules Verne-esque ideas are turning out to be right. Messages are being transmitted across the country by magic, electricity is lighting up the world, people fly through the air. It was a true age of wonders, and science was the fountain of wonder.

Murdoch Mysteries also offers a corrective to Victorian stereotypes: they weren't all repressed, conventional, passionless, preachy etiquette-bots. Their class and gender notions were troubled. When their human desires met social opposition, they found another way. They recognized their hypocrisies. Women found "respectable" ways to challenge the theology and law that reduced them to breeding stock. Boarding house busybodies and stern churchmen didn't stop sweethearts from getting a little nookie. The ostensibly strait-laced Victorians could be more radical thinkers than we are today: students became disciples of communist revolution, women advocated anarchy, and street-corner preachers were the crusading bloggers of their day. The aspect of Murdoch Mysteries that sneaks up on you is that struggles are deep, and really quite dark. But in a way this portrays the true essence of Victorianism: great turbulence roiling behind the polite veneer, speaking terms maintained via dapper suit and lace parasol.

The discerning audience will also spot a "budget arc" that resulted from Murdoch Mysteries' great success in Canada. Despite it's shoestring budget, the show aimed for high production values from the start. The casting was inspired, chock full of dedicated and skillful actors that adhere to high standards of performance. No one ever "phoned it in". The settings were achieved through a great deal of modeling and matte-painting, and a shrewd investment in music gave Murdoch Mysteries its special ambience. Over the years, sets and costumes became more elaborate. Special effects got better, CGI more seamless: most notably the sinking of a "titanic" steamship at the start of Season 7. Canadian actors aren't paid on the same awesome scale as American ones, so it's been a miracle that the show has kept such a terrific cast working together for so long. Some American appreciation (and distribution) might help reward them for it.


Last but not least, Murdoch Mysteries is a great ambassador for Canada. It's no secret that Americans are geographically ignorant and largely unaware of their global context. We disregard Canada as a bland country with a successful healthcare system, much like William Murdoch initially comes across as a bland guy with a successful crime-solving system. Murdoch Mysteries puts the many flavors of Canada on display - its relics of European culture, its melange of peoples, its natural grandeur. It also makes a turns the "Canadians are nice people" trope to best advantage: Canadians like thoughtful, quiet, earnest people. They respect intelligence and integrity over a slick image. They have a sense of moral responsibility. This is a useful mirror for the US, where Americans have by and large lost touch with their values: the voice of "morality" is usually someone trying to manipulate them for their own self-serving reasons. It's refreshing to watch a show where the characters want to be "good people", and that doesn't make them corny, naive saps or sanctimonious preachers. A year ago I only knew Canada was a big country to the North. Now I want to go see Canada for myself.

In sum, Murdoch Mysteries is the ultimate cult TV show. Murdoch himself is visually iconic in his homburg, riding his antique bicycle to the crime scene, crossing himself every time he kneels to examine a body. Smart viewers will glom onto the references to the past and the future, rich in opportunities for interpretation. These invitations to audience reading imbue it with the mythic quality of all great cult TV, but somehow this occurs in a cozy rather than epic manner. Murdoch Mysteries seems like light fare, but it sticks with you and calls for repeat watching. It's addictive. It's binge-worthy. And it's Steampunk CSI! Murdoch Mysteries: watch it, love it, spread the gospel.

Auf Wiedersehn to the Steampunk Scholar

As I mentioned in previous posts, posts I've now deleted, the past few months have been a time of soul-searching for me. Did I want to keep being just the Steampunk Scholar? Steampunk has been very good to me: I've never had to want for an academic publishing opportunity as a result of the visibility the blog provided, haven't had to purchase much of my primary sources since 2010, and have been invited to many lovely events and met a lot of great people. Nevertheless, I was feeling a bit tired of being confined to reading steampunk. Every book I received for review was another book I had to read that kept me from reading something in speculative literature in general. Last year, the blog suffered for posting because I had vowed to get through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in a year. I had abandoned that series during my PhD. research, but since I'd started it the year the first book was released, I wanted to finish it in the year the final book was released.

It's not that I've grown to dislike steampunk. But after reading so much steampunk, my taste for it is very refined. I don't enjoy all steampunk, and I have no wish to be reading books I don't enjoy. Last year, I found myself increasingly abandoning the review books I'd been sent. They couldn't hold my attention. Only a handful of steampunk in 2014 enticed me to read to the end. It had become a chore to read much of the review copies I was being sent. It was clearly time for a change.

So after much speculation, I've settled on leaving this blog as The Steampunk Scholar, and creating a new blog called Doc Perschon , to allow wider play for my reading and research interests, where I'll be working on a 10-year project to read through 200 years of speculative fiction, beginning with The Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. This has created a new problem. Like my students who often choose topics for their papers that are too general, I was suddenly faced with the question of how to refine my attention so as not to be looking at everything. I decided I would use the speculative literature awards to focus the blog. While I've read science fiction, fantasy, and horror since I was a wee lad, I haven't always paid attention to the award winners. I chose by browsing, mostly, and while that served me well as a younger man, it has become a dissatisfying crap-shoot as an academic adult. The Hugo, The John W. Campbell Memorial, the World Fantasy, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Arthur C. Clarke, and Locus awards provide me with a filter, like panning for gold. Someone else has waded through the dross, and we are left with the gems.

I'll still pop in here from time to time to post about steampunk, or at least I hope to. I always mean to go back to the first blog I created online at gotthammer.com, but as time goes by I do it less and less. But I felt poorly about changing this blog to something else. It's a steampunk blog. It's the blog that fueled my research. And I want it to remain that, as a sort of digital artifact. Thanks to everyone who has kept reading over the past six years. While I certainly hope this is au revoir or auf wiedersehn and not "goodbye," I hope you'll join me in the new journey at Doc Perschon .

Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

According to Wikipedia, Apocalyptic Literature refers to that strain of religious revelation in Jewish and Christian scriptures; etymologically, the word apocalypse means "to reveal," and not all apocalyptic literature is necessarily about the destruction of the world. This likely comes as a surprising revelation for the reader of apocalyptic fiction, which is a modern sub-genre of science fiction which does imagine the end of the world. The science fiction classic Earth Abides by George R Stewart is both a seminal work of apocalyptic fiction which relies heavily on biblical imagery and allusion to give the text a sense of that ancient apocalyptic literature.

As SF sub-genres go, I love a good apocalypse, and the first part of Earth Abides, titled "World Without End," was no exception. That sub-title is indicative of the sort of apocalypse Stewart imagined, one where humans were nearly wiped out, but the rest of the world continued. The events are related by Ish, who initially seems to be the only survivor of a devastating pandemic. Having been in the country doing research when the pandemic struck, he is unaware of the death of the human race. Stewart artfully reveals the extent of the devastation through Ish's journey in from the country to San Francisco, so that both Ish and reader learn how bad things are together. The destruction felt conventional, arguably because of the temporal distance between myself and this seminal work, published in 1949. Numerous apocalyptic scenarios have been inspired by Earth Abides, most famously Stephen King's The Stand, a book I read as religiously as St. John's Apocalypse in my youth.

The move from apocalypse to post-apocalypse was less compelling for me. I guess I like to watch the world burn, not get rebuilt. Once Ish and his little enclave of survivors begin to live life after people (one has to wonder about the intertextual conversation of the History Channel series Life After People and works like Earth Abides - both are speculative works, after all), I found the narrative less compelling. The last two sections of the book are nevertheless artful post-apocalyptic conjectures, albeit ones which illustrate post-WWII American sentiments and biases.

These sentiments and biases were among the most engaging parts of the text for me. After all, there is an interesting meta-fictional intersection in the idea that "Language changes, but the text remains the same." I first learned of this concept from Dr. Michael Drout of Wheaton College, but agree entirely in the idea of the text as an artifact, a frozen moment in time. I can imagine Earth Abides as a time capsule from an alternative earth, where there really was a pandemic that nearly wiped out the entire human race. And in reading it, the text freezes Stewart's post-WWII American perspective, complete with its now-anachronistic views of madness, STDs, essential gender differences, and morality.

Of all these views, the one I found most surprising was the lack of religious sentiment in a book that relies so heavily upon biblical allusion. From the title of the book, which quotes Ecclesiastes 1:4 to the italicized sections of text which echo Biblical language, but seemed to me to be the voice of the Earth, the book has a decidedly biblical feel to it. But that biblical feel is one without the God of Abraham and the Church. Ish and the survivor do not reinstate the dominant religion of America, despite the ubiquity of churches in the US in the post-war era. Instead, Stewart seems to be playing with ideas of Earth Goddess in the character of Em, Ish's African-American wife. He refers to her as "Mother of Nations" (276), and renders her one of the most noble and admirable characters. While Ish is a limited first-person narrator, the italicized sections are clearly the voice of an omniscient third-person narrator, which I assume is the voice of the Earth herself. I assume a feminine voice, due to the potential connections I see between that voice and the character of Em. This is not a literal connection mind you, but a thematic one. Speculative scholars doing work on Ethnicity and Gender should find much to say about Em and the voice of the Earth.

But even if we accept the italicized soliloquy-like passages as the voice of the Earth, Earth Abides is still a decidedly secular apocalypse, a movement in literature going back to Mary Shelley's Last Man. What we see here is not the end of the world with the coming of a New Jerusalem, but the end of mankind. Stewart's Earth Abides does the same thing for post-war America that H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds did for Britain. It challenged the idea of a Manifest Destiny or the imago dei by imagining a scenario wherein we are brought to the brink of destruction, and then saving a remnant, not by God's hand, but by the caprice of biology and natural selection. This is an area I'll continue to explore in my reading, as I think SF offers us godless apocalypses regularly--it is due to works like Earth Abides that we no longer think of the word apocalypse as a revelation, but as devastation. While it didn't grip me all the way through, I'm in full agreement with Mike Resnick, who said of Earth Abides: "A beautiful book, one that should never be allowed to go out of print."


Intertexts: Everything from the Bible to the recent video-game Plague Inc. It was fascinating for me to consider that a nuclear holocaust was not the only fear post-WWII SF writers were speculating upon. While recent films like Contagion explore the dread of a global, civilization-shattering pandemic, it is one that has been with us much longer - I was just surprised to see how far back this went, having assumed this sort of fear was gaining currency with Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain. I was also impressed by Earth Abides predating both 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead with the idea of the recovering convalescent emerging from an illness into a world that has been utterly changed. However, as I've already stated, Earth Abides is a richer read if you can catch all the Biblical allusions. 

Secondary Sources: 

Scott, Donald M. Life And Truth Of George R. Stewart: A Literary Biography Of The Author Of Earth Abides / Donald M. Scott. Jefferson, N.C. : Mcfarland, 2012.

Wells, Elizabeth. "Earth Abides: A Return To Origins.(Critical Essay)." Extrapolation 3 (2007): 472-481. 

ABSTRACT: Stewart's fictional exploration of the "end of the world" offsets the contingent and unquantifiable nature of "Armageddon" by deploying some of the following stages of action: (1) the experience or discovery of the cataclysm; (2) the journey through the wasteland created by the cataclysm; (3) settlement and establishment of a new community; (4) the re-emergence of the wilderness as antagonist; and (5) a final, decisive battle or struggle to determine which values shall prevail in the new world. It is perhaps noteworthy that this movement, mirroring a cyclical process of cataclysm-regeneration-civilization, does not only re-articulate the prodigal son paradigm offered by Robinson Crusoe, but recalls the "movement out to an unknown periphery or movement inward" of the archetypal "heroes in motion" which characterized the genre of the novel from its inception.

Teaching Tips: Obviously, Earth Abides is a must-have text in a study of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, but instructors working in literature departments at Liberal Arts colleges and universities affiliated with Christian denominations would find this a challenging work to include in courses looking at the Bible in modern fiction. Check out Krista Karyn Hiser's "Pedagogy Of The Apocalypse" in Transformations: The Journal Of Inclusive Scholarship And Pedagogy for a suggested approach for constructing a course on the end of the world.

Potpourri: I can't do better than to recommend downloading Plague Inc. from Ndemic Creations. It's a clever strategy game built for iOS and Android platforms, where you try to build a deadly pathogen to bring about the very sort of apocalypse George R. Stewart imagines in Earth Abides. It's dark entertainment if you take it too seriously - my son thinks I'm a terrible person for playing it -- given that you only win if everyone dies. I have to admit, there's something chilling about watching the population of Canada drop to zero, while I sit there orchestrating my own demise.

The New Mission: The Award Winners

The past few months have been a time of soul-searching for me. Did I want to keep being just the Steampunk Scholar? Steampunk has been very good to me: I've never had to want for an academic publishing opportunity as a result of the visibility the blog provided, haven't had to purchase much of my primary sources since 2010, and have been invited to many lovely events and met a lot of great people. Nevertheless, I was feeling a bit tired of being confined to reading steampunk. Every book I received for review was another book I had to read that kept me from reading something in speculative literature in general. Last year, the blog suffered for posting because I had vowed to get through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series in a year. I had abandoned that series during my PhD. research, but since I'd started it the year the first book was released, I wanted to finish it in the year the final book was released.

It's not that I've grown to dislike steampunk. But after reading so much steampunk, my taste for it is very refined. I don't enjoy all steampunk, and I have no wish to be reading books I don't enjoy. Last year, I found myself increasingly abandoning the review books I'd been sent. They couldn't hold my attention. Only a handful of steampunk in 2014 enticed me to read to the end. It had become a chore to read much of the review copies I was being sent. It was clearly time for a change.

So after much speculation, I settled on changing the blog to The Speculative Scholar, to allow wider play for my reading and research interests. Now I had a new problem. Like my students who often choose topics for their papers that are too general, I was suddenly faced with the question of how to refine my attention so as not to be looking at everything. I decided I would use the speculative literature awards to focus the blog. While I've read science fiction, fantasy, and horror since I was a wee lad, I haven't always paid attention to the award winners. I chose by browsing, mostly, and while that served me well as a younger man, it has become a dissatisfying crap-shoot as an academic adult. The Hugo, The John W. Campbell Memorial, the World Fantasy, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Arthur C. Clarke, and Locus awards provide me with a filter, like panning for gold. Someone else has waded through the dross, and we are left with the gems.

Now I'll readily admit there are gems that are overlooked by these awards. I hope I'll be paying enough attention to my Twitter feed and sites like Tor.com and i09 to catch the gems that slipped through the filter. But I only have so much time, and I want to read the best. I want to catch up on the classics I overlooked when The Savage Sword of Conan was my preferred reading material. I will also be choosing from each year's nominees from here forward, to read some of the books that are "in the running," and perhaps give my own choices for who should have won. I'll focus on novels and films, with occasional diversions into novellas, novelettes and short stories. For years where there is no consensus, I will choose based upon my own interests - I've already noticed how many LeGuin novels are winners, and since I'm interested in expanding my scholarly interests regarding LeGuin, I choose her whenever I can, in this list at the expense of reading Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. While I recognize Bujold's contributions, I am more interested in how LeGuin is recognized in both her fantasy and science fiction. This same choice process occurs for the writing of Dan Simmons (I focus on Simmons' horror, not his SF) and Connie Willis (If Willis and LeGuin are in the same year, I choose both). I tried to keep my selections down to two per year, but some years, such as 1993 were chock-full of books I'm interested in, and see as being important. 

I also want to compile my reading/viewing list somewhere both my readers and I can see it. I'll be announcing what I'm reading on my Twitter feed, and also in the sidebars at the blog. So here is my first draft of the reading list, considering the various award winners from 1961 forward. Since the list is quite long, I'll say here how excited I am to have created this opportunity for myself, to read the great works of speculative literature and share my thoughts with you, my readers. I look forward to finding the classic ones in used bookstores, a pleasure I've not indulged in much these past few years. I look forward to finally knowing for myself what I've often had to simply take others' word for. There are 112 titles on the list. My goal is to complete the list in a decade.

The list consists of a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It is, to some degree, a work in progress.  

1961:
Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
1962:  
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
1963:
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
1964:   
Here Gather the Stars by Clifford Simak
1965:  
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber. Film: Dr. Strangelove
1966:
Dune by Frank Herbert
1967:  
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
1968:  
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
A Wizard of Earthsea* by Ursula K. LeGuin
1969:
Nova by Samuel R. Delaney (nomination, not winner)
"Dragonrider" by Anne McCaffrey
Film:  2001: A Space Odyssey
1970:  
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
Film: "News coverage of Apollo XI"
1971:  
Ringworld by Larry Niven
"Ill Met in Lankhmar" by Fritz Leiber
1972:  
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Tombs of Atuan* by Ursula K. LeGuin
Film: A Clockwork Orange
1973:  
The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
The Farthest Shore* by Ursula K. LeGuin.
Film: Slaughterhouse-Five
1974:  
Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
Film: Soylent Green
1975:  
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip.
Film: Sleeper
1976:
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson
Films: Young Frankenstein and A Boy and His Dog
1977:  
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle. 
1978:  
Gateway by Frederick Pohl
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
Film: Star Wars
1979:  
Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
Film: Superman: The Movie
1980:  
Harpist in the Wind by Patricia A. McKillip
The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
Film: Alien
1981:  
Timescape by Gregory Benford
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Film: The Empire Strikes Back
1982:  
The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe
Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh
Film: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1983:  
The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe
Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov
Film: Blade Runner 
1984:  
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Startide Rising by David Brin
Film: Return of the Jedi
1985:  
Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Film: 2010
1986:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Postman by David Brin
Film: Back to the Future
1987:
Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
Film: Aliens
1988:  
Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
Film: The Princess Bride
1989:
Red Prophet by Orson Scott Card
Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh.
Film: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1990:  
Prentice Alvin by Orson Scott Card
Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
Film: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1991:  
Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Mine by Robert R. McCammon
Film: Edward Scissorhands
1992:
Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
Film: Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1993:  
Last Call by Tim Powers
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Blood of the Lamb by Thomas F. Monteleone
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Children of the Night by Dan Simmons.
1994:  
The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle
The Throat by Peter Straub
Film: Jurassic Park
1995:  
Towing Jehovah by James Morrow
Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder.
1996:  
Alvin Journeyman by Orson Scott Card
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
The Prestige by Christopher Priest.
1997:
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
The Green Mile  and Desperation by Stephen King.
1998:  
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
Children of the Dusk by Janet Berliner & George Guthridge
Film: The Truman Show
1999:
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson
Film: Dark City
2000:  
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Film: The Sixth Sense
2001:  
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
Declare by Tim Powers
Perdido Street Station China Mieville
Film: Galaxy Quest and Shadow of the Vampire.
2002:  
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Passage by Connie Willis
The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Film: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2003:  
The Scar by China Mieville
Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
The Night Class by Tom Piccirilli
Film: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
2004:  
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
lost boy lost girl by Peter Straub
Film: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2005:
Iron Council by China Mieville
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Film: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Shaun of the Dead
2006:  
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Film: Serenity
2007:  
The Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
Film: Howl's Moving Castle
2008:  
Making Money by Terry Pratchett
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
The Missing by Sarah Langan.
Film: Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro. 
2009:  
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Film: WALL-E
2010:  
The City and the City by China Mieville
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan
Film: District 9 and Moon
2011:  
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald.
Film: Inception
2012:  
Among Others by Jo Walton
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Leviathan Wakes by James Corey.

2013:   
Redshirts by Jack Scalzi
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan.
2014: TBA - this is the year I will be reading a selection of nominees as well. 

Was not nominated at the time for awards, but has been recognized for its contribution to the genre since.

Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction defines Space Opera as "colourful action-adventure stories of interplanetary or interstellar conflict." Space Opera concerns Big Events, action done on a big scale. Whenever I picture Space Opera, I think of a Star Wars poster by John Berkey I had as a kid. It's likely what drew me to James SA Corey's Leviathan Wakes, since Daniel Dociu's cover art echoes Berkey's work. The cover blurb was just as inviting, including this crucial line: "one small ship can change the fate of the universe." 

Leviathan Wakes jumps back and forth between the limited third-person perspectives of Jim Holden, the reluctant captain of that small ship, and Detective Miller, a cop looking for a missing girl. Their paths are obviously set to converge, and when they do, they not only find the missing girl, but an alien technology that threatens to destroy the solar system. And while Leviathan Wakes has fine moments of interplanetary  political manuevering and Machiavellian plotting, it is more interested in the view of those bigger movements by the small people those events are focalized through.

This is the major theme of Leviathan Wakes, and requires spoilers for me to illuminate further, so if you haven't read the book, it's time to jump ship and take my recommendation that every Hugo, Nebula, and Locus nomination this series has received is fully deserved. It's the space opera any child who read books on our solar system and its planets and dreamed of what it would be like live in the Asteroid Belt, or on one of the moons of the gas giants, has been waiting to read.

Now for the spoilers, and the discussion of how Leviathan Wakes addresses the theme of the individual human in the big wide reaches of space. While the fictional devices of alternating between the limited third-person perspectives of Holden and Miller serve to subtly convey the small, unreliable perspective of Big Events encompassing multiple planets and the civilization living in the asteroid belt, it is Leviathan Wakes' finale that drives the idea home.

Miller's search for the missing girl and Holden's quest for revenge intersect in the discovery of the protomolecule, an alien technology discovered on one of Saturn's moons. Originally destined for earth, the protomolecule has been locked in the ice of Phoebe for millions of years. Protogen, a powerful corporation, hopes to use to protomolecule to evolve human physiology, thereby finally giving the human race the ability to reach the stars. Juliette Mao was one of the people caught in Protogen's experiment to determine the effects of the protomolecule on the human form.

Mao, infected with the protomolecule had fled to Eros, one of the Asteroid belt stations, where she apparently died of the subsequent Bosch/Giger-painting inspired transformations. The protomolecule is then deliberately, systematically, fed into Eros' system, thereby infecting thousands of people, who are transformed into a protean biomass. Miller, detective that he is, discovers the interface between Mao's desire to go home and the protomolecule's original programming have this monstrous entity on a catastrophic collision course with Earth.

The conversation between Miller and the infected and drastically transformed Mao brings the story of two small men trying to make big changes to a climax. When Miller reveals that many people on Earth are certain to die if Eros does not change course, he convinces Mao to set her will against the collective entity that is Eros station. Like Miller and Holden, Mao becomes a type of David in the valley of Elah, set against the giant of Goliath, or better yet, the biblical allusion in the novel's title: Leviathan, the great sea serpent. Mao overcomes the Leviathan and sets Eros on a new course for uninhabited Venus.

In the wake of Miller's resultant death and with the solar system in a state of unstable peace, Holden is in conversation with a leader of one of the solar system's political factions: he recommends that Miller be remembered as a flawed individual - a real person with a real history. The political leader rejects this in favor of making Miller a symbol of people living in the asteroid belt, in a bid to earn respect for "Belters" in the eyes of Earth and Mars, once again underscoring the tension between the reality of the individual against the press of Big Events: "I know it's hard, but we don't need a real man with a complex life. We need a symbol of the Belt. An icon," the political leader tells Holden. Holden replies, "That's what got us here . . . Icons. Symbols. People without names. All of those Protogen scientists were thinking about biomass and populations. Not Mary who worked in supply and raised flowers in her spare time" (559). It was Miller's refusal to treat Juliette Mao, missing girl, as anything less than a human that ultimately saves the day - it is a surprisingly peaceful solution in a book that has been constantly poised on the brink of war.

However, this is not simply an optimistic look at how one person's actions have ramifications on the Big Events; earlier, when Miller and Holden are involved in a hostile takeover of Protogen's secret lab, Leviathan Wakes explores the dark side of how one person can make terrible changes. They find Antony Dresden, Protogen's executive vice president of biological research as the mastermind behind the experimentation with the protomolecule. Like any good villain, Dresden gets the opportunity to monologue, to wax eloquent on the reasons why mass murder in the name of scientific progress is justified: the protomolecule could render humans capable of working in space without wearing a suit, capable of centuries-long hibernation on colony ships. "We decide what we want to be, and we reprogram ourselves to be that . . . You think it's monstrous, but . . . I am giving humanity the stars" (419-20). Miller shoots Dreden in the head to silence his convincing rhetoric, but muses later that he didn't do it soon enough. There are hints that others were influenced by these ideas. And with the rejection of Miller as a real person interested in individuals, the book darkly concludes, with the statement that on the one hand, humanity is faced with the "very real threat of mutual annihilation. On the other . . . the stars" (561).
    
Intertexts: There are so many, I can't begin to enumerate them, but Miller seems a likely reference to the golden age of SF, when detectives were to be expected, as in Asimov's Robot stories. The protomolecule is the SF version of Lovecraftian horrors and their descendants, such as Carpenter's The Thing, the Alien design by H.R. Giger (and much of his art in general), and the dark liquid of Ridley Scott's Prometheus. The book certainly has more horror elements than I'd expected.


Secondary Sources: Pringle, David. "What Is This Thing Called Space Opera?." Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction. 35-47. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.

The Expanse Wiki - everything you need to know about the details of the Expanse trilogy.

Teaching Tips: Leviathan Wakes is too big to use in a survey course on Science Fiction, but one might form a discussion around the ideas I've outlined above by putting chapters 41, 53-54, and the Epilogue on e-Reserve. They comprise 37 pages out of 560, which still leaves room to include another chapter of your choosing to help students understand the plot (copyright with e-Reserves allows for up to 10% of the work). I don't know that Leviathan Wakes is the best example of space opera, but it certainly would provide a contrast to earlier examples found in good SF anthologies (My recommended anthology for teaching SF is Heather Masri's Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts, though sadly, it looks like it's currently out of print).

Potpourri:Speaking of Space Opera, you've likely already seen this, but the National Post's favorite tweets from Peter Mayhew candids from the set of Star Wars are lovely nostalgia for the SF fan. Aside from my inner adolescent's glee at a few pics of Carrie Fisher in the iconic metal bikini, I love seeing behind-the-scenes--these photos show more than just the "making of." Seeing these actors and crew having a blast making these beloved movies has a strong nostalgia factor that goes beyond scholarly interest, back to the childhood roots of why I study SF and fantasy.


 

The New Mission: The Speculative Scholar

This past week, I finished Seth Grahame-Smith's Unholy Night, an irreverent take on the Gospel of Matthew's Nativity Narrative that was one part Conan the Barbarian, one part Spartacus (the gory sword and sandal television series), spiritual cousin to Christopher Moore's Lamb, and one part reverent adaptation of the Christmas story. The next day, I started James SA Corey's space opera, Leviathan Wakes, and am enjoying traveling through our solar system--it's been awhile since I traversed the stars in some SF I've never read before. I'm reading Ben Bova's SF Hall of Fame anthologies, and working my way through back issues of my favorite speculative literature magazine, On Spec (published right here in Edmonton!). It is the first time in five years that I am reading nothing but what I want to read, and it is lovely. Despite being forever thankful for everything steampunk did for me, it's time to explore new worlds.

Let me make it perfectly clear that the new title of the blog is in no way meant to signify that I am the Speculative Scholar. While I might have been able to lay claim to my previous title, I am only one among many who are wending their academic way through the worlds of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and every close cousin affiliated with that trinity. To that end, I'd like to introduce the new format I'll be following here at Speculative Scholar:

Each post will contain FIVE elements.
1. Main Article - briefer than what I've written in the past, but long enough to convey a key concept or explore a particular work. So as an example, I might write a post on Gojira, the original Godzilla movie from 1954 (which I will be doing in an upcoming post).
2. Intertexts: I will list 1-3 works that are companions to the idea or work in the main article. This could also include antecedents/inspirations. In the case of the original Gojira, I would choose to point readers toward the original King Kong, as well as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and the short story by Ray Bradbury that it was based on, "The Fog Horn."
3. Secondary Sources: I will list 1-3 secondary sources, usually scholarly, that one could use to expand on the concepts from the main article. For an article on Godzilla, I'd certainly be referencing Steve Ryfle's "Godzilla's Footprint" or William Tsutsui's "Godzilla and Postwar Japan." 
4. Teaching Tips: I'll provide an idea for how to include the concept or work in the classroom. For Godzilla, I'd talk about using the movie as a way to introduce a class looking at the real-world atrocity that inspired the film: the bombing of Hiroshima.
5. Potpourri: This is a space for a funny cartoon, a new geek meme, or potentially, a YouTube video of me doing a reading from the work I looked at in the main article.

In short, I'm hoping to make the blog a resource hub rather than a straight-up review site. While I've enjoyed being a book blogger, it's too difficult to keep up with. I'm hoping I'll still get the occasional book to review, and I'll certainly still write about steampunk from time to time. But for now, I'm excited about sharing the world of speculative literature with my readers.

Top 5 Steampunk Reads of 2013

This year was a tough one for steampunk. While precious few steampunk writers continue to produce quality work, from Gail Carriger's manga editions of The Parasol Protectorate and her new Finishing School series, Cherie Priest's ongoing Clockwork Century (of which I am two books behind - I have no doubt Fiddlehead would have been on this list given how much I enjoy Priest's books), and Mark Hodder with Burton and Swinburne sequels, new voices worth reading in steampunk this year were rare. By fall, I despaired of being able to construct a proper top list. Arthur Slade wrapped up his awesome Hunchback Assignments series last year with Island of Doom, and no YA steampunk series really fills the void left by Slade, Westerfeld, Reeve, and Oppel. Friends in the publishing industry have told me that the market was flooded by so much poorly-written steampunk, that the term has become somewhat synonymous with B-grade fiction. Much of what I read this year corroborated that claim; rather than give bad reviews to new authors, I chose to simply not review their work. I'd rather recommend what's worth reading than bash what isn't. The Internet is full of invective, and I'd prefer my blog not be a space that perpetuates pointless negativity. To that end, my top 5 steampunk reads are outside the big steampunk series: Hodder's The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi could easily have made the list, but if you're a regular here, you don't need me to tell you Hodder is awesome anymore: likewise Priest, Carriger, and Gilman. Instead, aside from Nemo: Heart of Ice, I chose my favorite reads that were outside the pale of popular steampunk reading. Blaylock, despite being called a legend by his marketing people, is still vastly underappreciated in speculative literature. That said, none of these are courtesy recommendations. They are genuinely awesome books, well worth your attention.
Nemo: Heart of Ice by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill: The top spot for this year's best steampunk read has to go to Moore and O'Neill, for redeeming themselves after the brilliant-but-far-too-esoteric Century: 1910, the last League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book to feature Janni, Captain Nemo's daughter, as a key character. Heart of Ice is a mash-up on par with the earliest League books for accessibility, intertextuality, and sheer-icy fun. Moore mixes At the Mountains of Madness, She, Eddisonades, and Tom Swift in an adventure across the Antarctic. Nemo + Nameless Terror = Happy Reader. And to think, I was once told steampunk's future didn't lie in mashups with Lovecraft.  Luminous Chaos by Jean-Christophe Valtat - My greatest challenge as a book-blogger is that I hate having to read books at a breakneck pace to review them in time for their release. Thankfully, the folks who sent me a review copy of Luminous Chaos made no such demands, and I was able to savor Jean-Christophe Valtat's exquisite prose. Comparisons have been made between Valtat and Pynchon, and insofar as Pynchon's Against the Day, I concur. Luminous Chaos is easily the most literary work of steampunk I've read since Dexter Palmer's disappointing Dream of Perpetual Motion . Where Palmer tried too hard to be profound, Valtat revels in the absurdity of the steampunk aesthetic, revealing one batshit-crazy idea after another. However, Valtat's gorgeous writing mediates the absurdity as something wondrous and beautiful. Highly recommended for those expecting more from steampunk than the average adventure tales are delivering. Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff - While I know that some critics see Kristoff's work as cultural appropriation and/or Victorientalism, I have trouble with how earnest the Lotus War series is. I'm also nonplussed that so much attention is focused on minor foibles of creating a secondary world based on fantasy Japan, rather than celebrating his frequent use of strong female characters or his eco-criticism. Kristoff hamstrings his heroine Yukiko with simultaneous problem and insight: she learns why her father became an addict, and why she faces the same potential future. Rather than simply resorting to force/violence or heartbreak/retribution as drama, Kristoff gives Yukiko an inner battle, rendering her physical challenges and adventures all the more desperate. I remain a dedicated fan of this series, and eagerly anticipate the next installment, which is much more than I can say for many steampunk series. The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock - Many of Blaylock's trademarks are present here: use of Mayhew's dirty and destitute London denizens, a motley crew of Everymen, and St. Ives once again as the reluctant hero. But this book brings the darkness of Blaylock's horror novels to his steampunk London, with a Narbondo more wicked than ever before. Combining the best of what I love in Blaylock's writing, The Aylesford Skull is one of his best steampunk offerings. FULL REVIEW HERE.
.Steampunk Wells by H.G. Wells and Zdenko Basic: While I consider H.G. Wells's Time Machine and War of the Worlds early SF, not steampunk, RP Classics' omnibus edition certainly puts the steampunk aesthetic to good use, and for that, I'm including it in my top five list for this year. RP Classics' earlier offerings of Steampunk Poe and Steampunk Frankenstein were also laudatory in this way, but I think series artist Zdenko Basic's art works best with Wells's visions. It's really Basic's art that makes the series steampunk. The texts are pure originals: Shelley, Poe, and Wells. And while Basic's art is great eye-candy, his rendering of War of the Worlds in Steampunk Wells is spot-on. He really captures the violence and darkness of Wells's vision. Kudos to RP Classics for finding a sharp way of introducing a new generation to these classic books. 
I also want to give a shout-out to Trent Jamison's Roil and Night Engines, which weren't published in 2013, but were among my favourite steampunk-related reads this year. 

And while this marks the end of the five year journey I began in the fall of 2008, it does not mark the end of my steampunk research. Even as the blog has now become the Speculative Scholar, I will continue to read and study steampunk, along with my other speculative interests. I owe the steampunk community a huge debt, and for that I will always be very thankful. I look forward to journeying with you all beyond the worlds of steampunk, into the larger worlds of science fiction, fantasy, and horror!

Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

At the 2009 Eaton Science Fiction Conference in Riverside, California, SF writer Rudy Rucker commented that the Wardrobe of C.S. Lewis' Narnia chronicles was just another way of traveling to another world, no different from spaceships, transporters, or entering virtual space. It was an inversion of Lewis' own reflections on the idea, when he stated that "I took a hero once to Mars in a space-ship, but when I knew better I had angels convey him to Venus." If ever there were a quotation to sum up the blurry lines of science fiction and fantasy in "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," it would be that one, slightly modified: "I took a hero to Narnia in a wardrobe, but when I knew better, I redesigned it as a dimensional portal...thingie."


It is also the quotation that springboards me from being the Steampunk Scholar to rebranding the website as the Speculative Scholar, and I'm going to use "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe" ("DWW"), to explore a bit of what the blog will be like in the New Year.

The bulk of the content will still be a short article, that talks about an aspect of speculative fiction. "DWW" has a mix of all three of the literary genres John Colombo states make up speculative fiction:  Science Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, and Weird Fiction (we might say Horror for this last one). "DWW" might not be fantasy itself, but it certainly makes fantasy references in drawing Act I of the episode from C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW). Certainly, there are minor differences - in LWW, a young girl goes through a portal into another world via a Wardrobe; in "DWW," a young boy goes through a portal into another world via a huge Christmas present. As Rudy Rucker suggested, they are simply devices for getting us into another realm. In LWW, it is magic. In  "DWW," it is technology. We call one fantasy, another science fiction, but in both cases, a small child ends up with in a snowy wonderland beyond the pale of our reality.

But there are further permutations of what be understood as the aesthetic differences between science fiction and fantasy- just as LWW's fantasy wardrobe is rendered as "DWW's"science fiction dimensional portal, the gleaming rocket ship of SF's golden age is made into a flying fantasy tower, powered by the magic of the wooden king and queen. The boundaries of science fiction and fantasy are regularly blurred throughout the episode, much to the delight of someone like me, who doesn't care much for those boundaries in the first place.

Now some might balk that "DWW" has any horror in it, but that would only be those who have long since grown out of their fear of things that go bump in the night. It was plenty scary enough for my children, both from the perspective of the episode beginning with the loss of a parent, and moments with the Wooden King and Queen. These are childhood horrors - the mute creepiness of the Wood Sovereigns, the need for a young priest and an old priest when they speak through others, and above all, the horror of losing a parent. This is a foundational fear of childhood, one I suppose we forget. But as  parent, I could witness my own children's horror, and mirror Madge's horror as a parent who has lost her children. Certainly, it is Doctor Who, and therefore it is a secure horror, but it is a form of horror nonetheless.

Doctor Who is a lovely bricolage of fantasy, SF, and horror elements, pulled together in a speculative soup that continues to delight viewers. And it's a soup I find myself not only needing more tastes of, but also desirous to engage in a similar mission to the one I began with steampunk five years ago. So as with the Doctor, I am undergoing a regeneration - a rebranding. After the top 5 steampunk list next week, the blog will cease to be The Steampunk Scholar and will become The Speculative Scholar. This is not to say I am the only scholar of this nature. Rather, it will be to say that this blog will function as a resource for speculative scholars, and I hope in time, a hub for other speculative scholars to assist in the production of the content.

I will continue to talk about steampunk, but I want to begin disseminating other scholarly studies I've been doing in Giant Monster films, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, the relationship between World Literature and speculative literature, and really, any area of speculative fiction that appeals to my research interests. Thank-you to everyone who came along this far for the steampunk journey - now, let's step into the virtual TARDIS and see where it takes us. After all, what's the point in being a Doctor if you aren't going to take advantage of traveling through Time and Space? 

dimensional portal... thingiedimensional portal... thingiedimensional portal... thingie