Jumpdrives and Cantrips

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to sit down and take a nice leisurely stroll through the world of blogs. I figured I’d put up some of the highlights of the last little bit. It’s a start anyway, as there’s so much else out there that’s newsworthy, but will have to wait a little longer. In any case, here’s a few odds & ends for your perusal:

• Realms of Speculative Fiction makes brief tribute to Robert Aspirin, who died May 22. He was one of the authors I read early on when I started reading fantasy books, and had a great humour about his writing. Check out MythAdventures.net for more information on the man and his books. 
• Make sure you  check out Heather’s brand spankin’ new Science Fiction Romance blog, The Galaxy Express. Check her out for giveaways, news, and lots of other goodies!
• Dark Wolf reviewed Bill Blais’ Witness earlier in the month, which is one of the books I’m currently working my way through.
• James at Speculative Horizons gives us some recommended reading and talks about his Terry Brooks reading experience.
• John at Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic, another blog I’ve recently started reading and enjoy, writes about the myth of utopia in speculative fiction.
• Fantasy Book Critic interviews Greg Keyes, another author on my TBR list.
• Ann Aguirre answers some er, interesting “biological” questions from the mailbagregarding the characters in her novel Grimspace (via Fantasy Café).
• Chris at The Book Swede reviews a couple of books I was grateful to be reminded of: Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris and Sarah Ash’s Lord of Snow and Shadows.
• Graemereviews Tobias Buckell’s Sly Mongoose and has quite a few book giveaways showing up on his blog.
• Urban Fantasy Land polls readers about favourite urban fantasy elements and will post results in early June. Go add your say!

I’ve finished reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s third Sharing Knife book and Nalo Hopkinson’s recent-Aurora-winning New Moon’s Arms, and hope to get reviews up shortly. Wish me time more so than luck ;)

For a first exposure to Robert A. Heinlein, I sure picked a doozy. Historically speaking, Starship Troopers signalled the end of Heinlein’s “juvenile” science fiction era and garners a fair amount of controversy to this day. Do a cursory search online and you’ll see what I mean–there’s a lot out there. This book also helped to kick off military science fiction as a subgenre, along with placing powered armour in the spotlight. Let’s not forget it also won the 1960 Hugo Award, which Heinlein followed up with Stranger in a Strange Land, leading to another Hugo.

Starship Troopers is a densely-packed, brisk-paced novel narrated by Johnnie Rico, who enlists in Earth’s military as a member of the Mobile Infantry upon his graduation. The book follows him through basic training with the MI, into combat with the alien “Skinnies” and “Bugs”, and officer training. Johnnie’s training and his own thoughts on the military are in the forefront, with only brief instances of combat scattered throughout the story.

The story itself is simple, but Heinlein’s writing drew me in. However, I finished the book and was left thinking that not all that much really happened. Outside the military aspects of the story, there really isn’t all that much other than dialogues regarding moral and philosophical issues, which is interesting and provoking, but doesn’t do terribly much for character development. The relationships seem oddly skewed: there is no romance despite a date, and Johnnie’s father ends up as his platoon sergeant–which in and of itself seems inappropriate within a chain of command.

The political and moral philosophies espoused in the book are polemic, and the centre of many a debate. Heinlein held many controversial opinions about communism, nuclear weapons, and so on, but he isn’t really the focus of this specific review since he isn’t the book (if you are interested though, see these links where Michael Moorcock and Spider Robinson take different views on the man and his philosophy). The book itself is based in a world where to earn the vote and full citizenship one must serve in the military, where corporal punishment is accepted as a means to teach moral behaviour, and where aliens are all uniformly enemies. I seem to recall sometimes they are also the enemy of Earth’s enemy–that is, other aliens. Starship Troopers takes a strong us vs. them position and certainly the imagery is there to see “the Bugs” as a representation of a hive-mind communist society, circa America’s cold-war.

Unfortunately there’s so much background in the world left open to interpretation that it confuses the context of the philosophical arguments; we don’t have any evidence as to what sort of government Earth has, what its policy or motives are for space expansion (reacting to attack, or attacking first?), or anything else beyond Johnnie’s limited viewpoint. In fact, at times his vantage of his world is so narrow that I wondered if he really knew much of anything upon graduation.
In this respect, the construction of the future Earth in Starship Troopers is both thought-provoking and frustrating because of the obvious holes left in the story. Because of this, it’s difficult to build a well-structured argument about the book without relying on information about Heinlein himself, which is a questionable practice regardless.

I noted some interesting conflicts in the writing in terms of portraying gender and ethnicity. Women in the military mostly end up as Navy captains, reportedly in part because of their superior math skills which puts them in a position of power. However, they are almost completely absent from the infantry and seem to exist within cocoons of military protection for the most part. Ethnicity seems to be implied by name and what language the person speaks, which seems a little presumptuous to me. But if you accept that along with minor stereotyping of minor characters the book has a multi-ethnic cast, with the implication that since Johnnie speaks Tagalog he is Filipino.

It seems as though Heinlein perhaps was wanting to break out of the thought patterns of 1950s America, but couldn’t quite set his existing ideas aside. Or who knows, perhaps there was an editorial hand in this somewhere that made the book more “acceptable” for mass consumption, whichever direction the stereotypes were pushed towards. I doubt the political aspects of the book were massaged, as they are pretty explicit. Taken in context of the human-alien conflict, Heinlein makes an interesting commentary on conceptualizations of “the other” between cultural groups of one species and differing species, and certainly one influenced by when it was published.

Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is a good read, and should not be missed due to its controversial nature and its influence on the military sci-fi subgenre (including John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series and Harry Harrison’s Bill The Galactic Hero). Regardless of the flaws in this novel, I found I enjoyed it quite a bit and had lots to chew over in my head, which if nothing else, I’m sure Heinlein had fully intended.

Heinlein, Robert A. Starship Troopers. New York: Berkeley Medallion Books, 1959 [1968]. 208 pages. $0.50 (Canadian), used.

In the interests of keeping you up to date, lack of recent content is related to a) a week of me being sick and too exhausted to even read for extended periods, b) the family pet dying, and c) a brief rise in hours required at work.

However, I have reviews of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Witness by Bill Blais, and another book coming up in the near future.  And things should be picking up again in the near future, so hang in there!

Plus, I’ve had a request to review some George R. R. Martin. Any other requests out there?

Jonathan Green’s Leviathan Rising is an intriguing introduction to the UK’s Abaddon Books. It’s the third book in the Pax Britannia series featuring Ulysses Quicksilver, the “dandy adventurer and hero of Magna Britannia.” As a Victorian-style steampunk world, complete with remnant populations of dinosaurs, a Queen Victoria who celebrated her 160th jubilee, and a Bond-esque protagonist… well, really, what’s there to lose?

Ulysses sets off on the maiden voyage of the Neptune, a massive submersible cruise-liner, though his so-called vacation quickly becomes a whodunit murder mystery involving the ship’s high society contingent. In the midst of trying to figure out the initial murder, the massive be-tentacled leviathan attacks and the remaining passengers must figure out how to escape a damaged sub sitting on the brink of the Marianas Trench, avoid being murdered by the original killer who is still somewhere in the group, and not get consumed by the rampaging leviathan in the process.

Obviously a book made with heavy intent towards pulp-like entertainment value, Leviathan Rising takes a while to get the adventure gears turning in the right direction. Jonathan Green has a habit of telling rather than showing in the beginning of the book, which slows the pace. For instance, a dinner party where Ulysses mentally provides a short history on each guest, serving as an info-dump: instead the scene could have yielded great characterization through dinner conversations.

Another problem for me was difficulty “connecting” with Ulysses Quicksilver as a protagonist. As a reader we aren’t given much in the way of back-story, and Ulysses isn’t a terribly sympathetic character. If not for his actions about midway through the book that begin to redeem his earlier snobbery and arrogance, he wouldn’t ever become sympathetic. I suspect having knowledge of his past adventures would make him more multi-dimensional, but I’m not certain since this is the first in the series I’ve read.

Leviathan Rising had a lot of potential to also serve as a back-handed comedy of manners by skewering ideas of class, race, and gender relationships. Instead the novel reinforced the structural differentials present in Victorian British society. I was taken aback at the use of Chinese characters as stereotypical, inscrutable double-crossing agents and frequently described as yellow-skinned or slanty-eyed. While possibly historically relevant in Victorian times, such blatant racial profiling is unacceptable today without further deconstruction (in contrast, Emma Bull’s Territory deals exceptionally well with historical roles of minorities).

Despite its faults, there are some areas where Leviathan Rising excels. Green has a great campy sense about his writing and word choice that is unfortunately inconsistent, but when present, it shines. The adventure parts of the book are well put-together, and keep the pages turning, especially once the writing hits a good rhythm in the second half of the novel. And I think best of all was the setting, in a high-society steampunked Victorian world that nonetheless has genetic engineering, high-tech travel, transmitting Babbage machines, and dinosaur safaris.

Jonathan Green created a fascinating world and a true adventure in Leviathan Rising, despite its inconsistencies. I’d be interested enough to take other books in the series with me for beach reading, but be sure to not expect any surprises or grand literary revelation. This book is clearly made for comforting predictability and mindless enjoyment, despite having minor cautionary themes about humanity playing God. If you’re a fan of pulps, and of tentacles, and of all-out adventure with everything that comes with it, then by all means: take the plunge.

Green, Jonathan. Pax Britannia: Leviathan Rising. Oxford: Abaddon Books, 2008. 328 pages. $7.99 (US), paperback.

See also: review at Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review.

I’ve been thinking for a while about grit in the SF genre, especially in fantasy. You can’t go more than a few reviews or browse more than a few book covers in a store without the use of “grit” somewhere. What is grit, and what’s the appeal?

Read the rest of this entry »

Written as a guest reviewer at Enduring Romance for Kimber An. Go check out her lovely, lovely review blog!

I’m curious to know how the name Grimspace came about. While the title obviously comes from the name of the space humans with special J-genes “jump” into to traverse the universe, it fails to capture the joy and addictive ecstasy jumpers get from grimspace itself. Be aware that Ann Aguirre’s debut science fiction novel pulls romance into the fore, though its romantic nature doesn’t displace any action. The romantic overtones aren’t a shock considering Aguirre has written romantic fiction in the past under a different name.

Grimspace is a change from the run of the mill space opera, though, in its tone and perspective. It uses first person present tense narration that brings a kick in the pants along with it, pushing the action into the forefront. It also puts the focus directly onto Sirantha Jax, who is a heroine with loads of attitude.

We first meet Jax right before she’s about to escape from a psych unit with the help of mysterious man March. With her lover and former co-pilot dead, Jax must now make a run for it and make the first jump she has made since that time with a pilot she has never met or bonded to. Soon we’re introduced to the ship’s crew, who want Jax to start a rogue training program for other jumpers so their rebel group can reduce the monopoly her former employers, the Farwan Corp., have on space transport. To do that, they have to find other people with the J-gene. Along the way, Jax must deal with herself, her relationship with her telepathic co-pilot March, save a sentient baby lizard, escape a pirate space-station breeding programme, and dodge an extremely polite shape-shifting bounty hunter.

For a novel like this to succeed, it really requires a likable main character, and Sirantha Jax is that. She’s strong, and someone who acts with loyalty and caring despite herself. And she’s the longest living jumper out there, which speaks to her stubborn nature. I didn’t believe the psychosis that the character kept proclaiming (read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar or even Sarah Monette’s Mélusine if you want crazy done convincingly) and wondered if this was a symptom of Jax’s lack of self-knowledge. Her relationship with March overlaps with her grief from losing her last love, and their relationship grows with each argumentative exchange, fraught with physical attraction and their need for each other. Aguirre’s use of Jax’s voice is almost mesmerizing at times, and is what makes the novel speed forward so quickly.

And I’m aware of his hands on the controls as I never have been. I could almost fly the ship if I had to, because we’re not him and me, we’re…we, and then I sense his astonishment, sharing my mind’s eye as we gaze outward to grimspace.
Maybe I gave him some sense of it before, but this time, he sees completely and I know he does: the glory, the colors, and the almost-manifest monsters that writhe along the hull. The Folly ploughs through liquid fire; the world without is a conflagration of possibility, ideas and dreams barely conceived and waiting to be given form.
But March and yes, it’s the March-me spinning my mind’s eye away from the beacon. He’s doing it and I didn’t even know this was possible. He’s trying to show me—
Shit. There’s a ship coming up fast behind us (p. 148).

Grimspace was clearly designed as a “non-stop thrill ride” of action and romance, and Aguirre accomplishes that goal very well. Its rapid plot turnover helped make my nit-picky science-oriented self back off from the book’s logical inconsistencies. Most notably, a swamp planet that had planet-wide seasonal change and an ice planet with an unsustainable ecosystem without humans–who were not native to it (and seem to willingly live there despite creatures that go crazy at the scent of ANY human blood). Though there is speculation here, it’s more of the social type than the hard-science type, so don’t wrack your brain too hard.

The speed of plot elements hit a wall in the last third of the novel: the story moved too fast, and pulled too much in at once while eliminating some characters in not-so-meaningful ways. The media broadcast moment at the end struck me as too simple a solution, and something that Farwan conceded to far too easily. I have to say that the last couple of paragraphs just smacked me in the face with a corniness that seemed out of character for the novel as a whole and really disappointed me.

That said, the book takes an interesting spin on feminine-masculine power relationships, both in relationships between characters and in the societies that Jax and her fellow crew visit. “Mother Mary” is the expletive of choice, which ties into the reproductive politics explored, and the idea of exploiting women for their reproductive power. Though religion remains a mostly unexplored depth for Sirantha, she dips in her toe. It seemed to me as though later volumes have the potential to go somewhere very interesting with themes of genetic and reproductive politics entering the fray, especially if religion is bound into it all.

Ann Aguirre’s Grimspace is the kind of book that you can kick back with and enjoy the ride, as long as you don’t think too hard about it. It’s got enough humour and action to preoccupy you for a few enjoyable evenings, and its sequel, Wanderlust, is due to hit shelves in August 2008, with two more books in the series currently contracted. I’m looking forward to them.

Aguirre, Ann. Grimspace. New York: Ace Books, 2008. 326 pages. $7.99 (Canadian), paperback.

See also: selected reviews by Grasping for the Wind, Fantasy Café, Dear Author, and FantasyBookSpot.

The Outback Stars has some of the most beautiful cover art I have seen for a long time on a science fiction book. However, while good artwork sells books, good story sells them better, and that’s something Sandra McDonald understands. In fact, she wrote a solid enough debut novel that it warranted a nomination for the Compton Crook award. She also understands what she’s doing with her book: the tag-line she uses is “Love. Duty. Really big spaceships.” Which is probably a decent summation of some of the big ticket items in the book, if a very brief one.

Made up of military science fiction and space opera genre-wise, The Outback Stars is the story of Lieutenant Jodenny Scott and Sergeant Terry Myell. There’s a lot going on in this book, but if you expect space battles you won’t find them here. Jodenny has won a medal of honour for her conduct on her last ship, which ended in a fiery blaze. She escapes from her recovery period by forcing her posting on the Aral Sea as a supply officer. She gets the dubious honour of “reforming” Underway Stores, where what she doesn’t know can hurt her. With possible smugglers on board, she must deal with surviving her last ship and navigate alien transportation systems not designed for human use.

While the novel begins slowly, the pace builds with numerous subplots juggled together, scaffolding effectively into higher tension. McDonald excels in looking at the valour found in the everyday military actions during peacetime, and the ship politics that result from it. The ordinary becomes oddly fascinating, mostly because the writing makes it that way. Word choice is deft, and character portrayal is both consistent and complex. Jodenny is no cardboard cutout, and she certainly isn’t perfect.

For Jodenny and Terry, space is not the final frontier. Maybe it’s love in this particular book, or possibly the mysterious and alien Wondjina technology. Either way you slice it, the mixture of larger themes balanced with details of prose and story work well together. Terry’s intermittent gecko, Koo, was probably one of my favourite characters in the book. The details of supporting characters made for a nuanced balance, especially when Jodenny deals with some of the malcontents in her division in, er, creative ways. The interactions between characters are where McDonald shines; sometimes the unspoken is more important than what was actually said:

“What are you thinking?” he asked.
She was thinking there was no such thing as easy sex, no matter what people said. Not on a spaceship and not when the person was someone you worked with.
“I’m thinking this is just what the doctor ordered,” she lied.
Rokutan eased her back and began unbuttoning her blouse. “Is that all I am to you? A prescription?”
Jodenny touched his jaw. “A panacea.”
“A substitute for the real thing?”
“That’s a placebo,” she said (p. 250).

The mixture of alien and Aboriginal culture in The Outback Stars is fascinating, and a welcome change from the norm. Tying these two themes together bridges into the colonial nature of space, and I’m interested to see where this part of the story goes in future volumes. While this volume focuses mainly on interpersonal politics, my hope is McDonald’s next installment, The Stars Down Under, will take a broader political view and add depth to Jodenny’s world. More back story would satisfy my curiosity of how Australia became a major player in space, but it was also nice not to have the requisite info-dump when it really wasn’t required to understand the story.

One of the few weaknesses I noted was a lack of description of surroundings: it was difficult to know whether I was imagining what the author had in mind visually. Much of the Underway Stores department used specific equipment (the DNGO retrieval units were a particular highlight though I was waiting for a baby-eating joke that never came), but I wasn’t really sure what they looked like mentally. Sometimes I found myself getting distracted from the story because it was frustrating trying to situate things, and I was a little uncertain of the ship’s actual structure.

However, these are minor complaints, and overall The Outback Stars worked for me as a reader on a very basic level. These are characters who are everyday people dealing with their lives and their careers in ways that make sense to them, and the grounded nature of the story pulls the speculative into a reality that is all too rare in science fiction. I’m definitely looking forward to more from Sandra McDonald, and getting my hands on The Stars Down Under.

McDonald, Sandra. The Outback Stars. New York: Tor Books, 2007. 376 pages. $9.99 (Canadian), paperback.

See also: Fantasy Debut’s coverage, plus Tia’s interview with Sandra McDonald, and Sci-Fi Weekly’s review.

I love book sales. I love being able to search through piles of books and pick out the treasures, and sometimes find treasures for other people.

This past weekend I managed to hit part of the Children’s Hospital Book Sale–which is a bonus, because all profits go to a good cause as well. And you know something? As much as I like reading classic SF, I can’t always bring myself to shell out the $11 per book that it costs. I am a cheap person, and looking back at some of these book prices… I mean, for god’s sake not much more than twenty years ago, paperback books were still under three dollars! Talk about craziness, eh?

Of course, I managed to pull out some treasures this time around: two novels by James Tiptree, Jr. which I am sure are out of print, a pile of Leigh Brackett, a not-quite-so-battered copy of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Clarke’s Childhood’s End since I have always managed to miss it, the second and third books following Kate Elliott’s Jaran, an omnibus of the first three books in Diane Duane’s Wizard series, and a copy of Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself for $4 in trade paperback. I suppose given that I now have Abercrombie’s first book, I’ll be able to find out what all the fuss and bother is about.

One of the other things I love about book sales is looking at all the different covers over time for certain books. Stranger in a Strange Land is particularly good for this, but it’s neat to see how design ideas change (or don’t) over time. And sometimes finding odd notes in the books used as bookmarks. I once found a letter apologizing to a lover after an argument; but I commonly find more prosaic things like grocery lists, or classified clippings from the automotive section. I always wonder about the people who read the books. Did they ever finish, or did they just stop?

And just a reminder: if your book smells like vomit, please don’t give it to a book sale. I don’t care if it’s immaculate and has never been touched by projectile body fluids. If it smells like someone puked on it, I will not buy it. Not even if it was a first edition of some extremely famous literature. Not even if I could auction it off for a small fortune (a large fortune I may consider in special cases, and while using a hazmat suit).

Anyhow, largely I enjoy the smell of books. But, you know… there are limits.

If you’re wondering what’s up next, I’m currently reading Sandra McDonald’s The Outback Stars and Grimspace by Ann Aguirre.

Not all that long ago I wrote about Elizabeth A. Lynn’s Watchtower, the book that won the 1980 World Fantasy Award. It was also the first book of The Chronicles of Tornor, and The Dancers of Arun is the second volume of the trilogy. Trivia: both books were nominated for the 1980 World Fantasy Award. If you go in search of this book, there are many versions of it–but for whatever reason, the same image keeps popping up. Inevitably, it includes a dancing (mostly) nude man under the moon in a forest. This isn’t a key moment in the novel, so its persistence puzzles me.

Lynn follows the story of Kerris, an orphan living in his uncle’s keep, and Kel, his older brother who practises chearis–a dance-related variation of aikido. Kerris has been linked to Kel’s mind most of his life, and then one day Kel comes with a group of friends to Tornor to take Kerris to meet his Southern family. You can think of The Dancers of Arun as a coming-of-age sort of book: comparatively not much happens beyond character growth. It’s the purpose of the book, and by golly, it sticks to its purpose well.

Kerris’ coming-of-age involves acceptance of his newly-explained powers, which are desirable in the “witch town” that he and his brother travel to. More centrally, though, Kerris’ emotional and sexual maturation are a large part of the novel. He also must integrate his family into himself (I’m tempted to make a tasteless joke here involving him and his brother, but will opt not to), learn to live with lacking an arm, and decide what exactly to do with his life. Kerris vacillates between different levels of maturity, which can become annoying at times, yet true to making the transition to adulthood.

The Dancers of Arun deals with gender and sexuality issues, including modes of sexuality beyond hetero, as well as incest. Out there on “the internets” I noted many complaints about the so-called gratuitous homosexual erotica, but I found that the sex itself was depicted tastefully and wasn’t graphic at all. Lynn focuses more on the love–sexual and otherwise–experienced by the two brothers, and treats her topic with more depth than in Watchtower. Lynn refrains from making statements of judgement, but offers consideration. For example, the gradients of sexuality scattered in the book have no morality attached in the world of Arun; they just are.

Lynn forces her readers to consider sameness: in gender, families, sex matches, cultures, thoughts, perceptions, and so on. Kerris and Kel, while definitely not alike in many ways, functionally mirror each other. One serves as a balancing point and context for the other within the novel’s structure. The themes of relativity and “comparative comparativeness” in this book form an exploratory route rather than a focused one. This necessarily reduces the importance of plot, instead focusing on social interactions and mundane actions.

In this book, the writing improves by increasing the detail present in Watchtower, with a continuation of the same sparseness and simple prose. I felt The Dancers of Arun flowed better than Watchtower did, though Watchtower had more plot to unpack than this volume. Despite the improvement, I do have some complaints. I wasn’t entirely convinced of the resolution between the village and the nomads, which seemed more simple than it should have been. Also Lynn’s voice as a writer sometimes conceals more than it reveals: by this, I mean her tone overrides the characters’ individuality, and everything (characters, places, etc.) merges together to create a mostly-uniform environment.

Elizabeth A. Lynn is not the ideal writer for someone searching out the “grit” found in today’s de rigeur fantasy novels. Her writing makes for a definite break from the current stylistic mode, reminiscent of family sagas of the Icelandic tradition. The Dancers of Arun is a social fantasy, one wherein character development is the story and love is interwoven with all actions, violent or otherwise. While the Tornor series is not your standard epic fantasy trilogy, it looks more at change to differing people over time, taking a historic view of a culture, and with it, a philosophic view of society.

Lynn, Elizabeth A. The Dancers of Arun. 1979. New York: Berkley Books, 1980. 275 pages. $0.50 (Canadian), bought used.

Though I am currently working on writing up a review of Elizabeth A. Lynn’s The Dancers of Arun, I also have to balance out the 4-day course for work I am in the midst of. So, here are a few things of interest while I must do other things:

• Edward N. Lorenz, the meteorologist who helped create Chaos Theory, has died. He was the originator of the butterfly effect and many other important ideas, and I think it’s sad that he wasn’t more of a household name.
• Mr. Scalzi has posted a “shareware” short story, entitled “How I Proposed to my Wife: An Alien Sex Story.”  Payment is voluntary and by donation, and half of it goes to The Lupus Foundation of America.
• Mini-mechs? I find this HAL suit made by a company called “Cyberdyne” oddly horrific, and can’t quite articulate why. In part I envision lots of injuries because of it, and it oddly resembles some sort of Wii peripheral…