2024/133: Red Plenty — Francis Spufford

The capitalists looked surprisingly ordinary, for people who in their own individual persons were used to devouring stolen labour in phenomenal quantities. [p. 33]

A collection of linked short stories exploring the economics of the USSR in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm not sure whether this counts as fiction or creative non-fiction: while Spufford does invent characters, he explains their inspiration in the footnotes. (For example, geneticist Zoya Vaynshteyn, who speaks out against closed trials and suppression of research, is modelled on biologist Raissa Berg.) There are plenty of real people in here, too, from Kruschev himself to computing pioneer Lebedev and poet Sasha Galich. And there are real events -- the Novocherkassk massacre, the American Exhibition -- mixed in with the 'confabulations' about rural poverty, about death trains, about the value of industrial equipment being calculated by weight.

I'd absorbed, by osmosis, the notion that this was a science-fictional work: yes, if the science in question is economics. (See Adam Roberts' excellent review in Strange Horizons for more discussion of this argument.) Spufford himself introduces the book as 'not a novel. It has too much to explain, to be one of those. But it is not a history either, for it does its explaining in the form of a story...' [p. 3] And as he documents the rise and fall of the Soviet economic model, and the horrors perpetrated in its name, this blend of fact and fiction allows for exuberant prose and amusing exchanges. I'm wowed by Spufford's recent novels (especially Cahokia Jazz), but this has persuaded me to pursue his (alleged) non-fiction as well.

One of the many things I learnt from Red Plenty: 'Russian has no ‘h’, and renders the ‘h’ sound as ‘g’ rather than as (the other option) ‘kh’. The USSR was invaded in 1941 by a German dictator called Gitler.' [p. 401]. And due to the reading habits of some of the characters, I have been sparked by an urge to read one or more of the Strugatsky brothers' SF novels -- Roadside Picnic, Monday Begins on Saturday et cetera...

2024/132: Swordcrossed — Freya Marske

Something in him quietened, within the skins of these other invented people. [they] might have had their own small worries, but they didn't have a disaster sprawled in their wake. Or an unwanted future hanging over their heads.
Being himself was a failed experiment... [loc. 546]

I liked Marske's 'Last Binding' trilogy (A Marvellous Light, A Restless Truth, A Power Unbound) very much. Swordcrossed is considerably less epic, and though the world it's set in is not our own, there is no obvious magic. (Though there might have been in the past of that world, when the gods were more active in human life...) 

Mattinesh Jay is the hardworking, dutiful heir to a House which trades in wool. Business has been extremely bad lately, and he's about to make a marriage of convenience to the likeable, sensible Sofia, heiress to a brewing empire. Unfortunately, getting married involves hiring a swordsman as best man, to duel anyone who raises an objection to the wedding: Sofia's admirer Adrean is certain to challenge, and cashflow issues mean that Matti can't afford to spend as much as he'd like on a swordsman. Instead, he ends up hiring Luca Piere, a newcomer to the city who says he wants to build up his reputation.

Luca, with his mass of red hair and his inability to sit still or stay quiet, is chaos incarnate. It's unsurprising that straitlaced Matti, having more or less blackmailed him into providing lessons in swordsmanship as part of the deal, finds himself attracted to Luca. More surprising, but utterly credible on the page, is Luca returning the sentiment. Not everything is as it seems, though: the Jays' run of bad luck may not be random mischance, Sofia's ardent swain may be more pest than prospect, and Luca is definitely not being entirely honest with Matti.

This was a delightful read: there's just enough about the wool trade and the Houses, and their gods and quarrels, to sketch out the lines of the world, but the focus is primarily on the romance between Matti and Luca. They work well together as men with a shared goal (Luca being fascinated with Matti's trials and tribulations, and determined to bring his skillset to bear on them) as well as having instant sexual chemistry which, for different reasons, both try to resist. There's a tantalising glimpse of a trans character -- apparently when you have your naming ceremony you can choose a new name and new pronouns! -- and an absence of racism, homophobia and sexism. Matti's sister Maya has as much agency, and more freedom, than Matti himself, and she -- along with Luca's brother Perse -- is a character I'd have liked to see more of. Overall, a frothy romance with swords, farce, maritime fraud and satisfying resolutions.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK Publication Date is 10 OCT 2024.

2024/131: Chain-Gang All-Stars — Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

...the massive violence of the state was “justice,” was “law and order,” and resistance to perpetual violence was an act of terror. It would have been funny if there weren’t so much blood everywhere. [loc. 2540]

'Chain-Gang All-Stars Battleground' is the top-rated show on CAPE, the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment channel. Prisoners facing a death penalty or incarceration over a certain amount of time can volunteer to become a Link, a part of a Chain. Individuals on one Chain engage in mortal combat with opponents from another Chain. If a Link survives for three years, they win their freedom. The average life expectancy is three months.

The novel's multitude of viewpoint characters include Links Loretta Thurwar and Hurricane Staxxx, lovers and stars of the Angola-Hammond Chain; Hendrix Young, one-armed spear-wielder; and Simon J Clark, utterly broken by torture and nicknamed the Unkillable. (All were imprisoned for murder, from violent rape and murder to self-defence. And of course have committed many more murders since, as part of the show.) There are also other voices: fans, protesters, an announcer, a scientist... These are interesting for their angles on the show, the cultural context, the prejudices of race and class (the Links are mostly non-white) and the creeping complicity of it.

Though it's the future, with new and exciting technology utilised to cause pain and record violence, Adjei-Brenyah's footnotes snag our frame of reference back to the present day, with stats about race, innocence and violence in the US carceral system. This is more a pitch-black satire than it is science fiction: and it is a love story that finishes on an irredeemably tragic note.

Read for lockdown book club. It took me a while, because this is a very violent book, in terms of physical and social violence. I think it is a timely and important novel, with powerful prose and complex characters, tackling important issues. The fact that I didn't enjoy reading it is incidental.

2024/130: Curfew — Phil Rickman

City-type dangers is something they takes for granted – never questions it. But they never thinks there might be risks in the country, too, as they don’t understand. Well, we don’t understand ’em properly neither, but at least ... at least we knows there’s risks. [p. 639]

Crybbe is a quaint little town on the Welsh border, not really on the tourist trail despite its picturesque town square, its ancient monument the Tump, and its centuries-old traditional curfew bell, rung one hundred times every night at 10pm. The townsfolk are placid, untalkative, relentlessly ordinary. Radio reporter Fay Morrison, who's moved to Crybbe to look after her father the canon (early stages of dementia) finds it an unwelcoming place. Bransonesque music mogul Max Goff wants to turn Crybbe into a New Age mecca, importing tarot readers, mediums and the like. His latest recruit is J M Powys, author of a well-received Earth Mysteries book, who's mourning the death of his friend, the dowser Henry Kettle. Powys -- Joe -- finds that Kettle left him a legacy, a house in Crybbe. But he also begins to realise that there is something very dark about Crybbe, something that the townsfolk tried to keep at bay when they destroyed the ancient standing stones: something that Goff and his cohorts risk awakening.

This, Phil Rickman's first novel, is extremely long -- 700 pages in print -- and somewhat rambling: nevertheless, I raced through it in two evenings, because it's engaging, well-paced and keeps the mysteries coming. There's a nice balance between actual dark horror and gentle mockery of the New Age types, with interesting characters (including plant hire magnifico Gomer Parry, who appears in the Merrily Watkins books but is rather younger here) and some powerful scenes. First published in 1993, so it feels authentically 1990s rather than dated: no mobile phones, no internet to speak of, that pre-millennial new age culture that seems to have either faded away or transmuted into activism.

I bought this in November 2014, and finally read it as part of my 'Down in the Cellar' self-challenge, which riffs on the metaphor of to-be-read pile as wine-cellar rather than to-do list.

2024/129: Tooth and Claw — Jo Walton

You can make your way by your own wits and claws, while I must always be dependent upon some male to protect me. Wits I may have, but claws I am without, and while hands are useful for writing and fine work they are no use in a battle. [p. 63]

Patriarch Bon Agornin dies, and his children gather at the deathbed to distribute his wealth amongst themselves. Penn the cleric hears his father's confession; eldest sister Berend and her husband Daverak take more than their share; Avan, enraged by Berend and Daverak's behaviour, mounts a legal case against them; Selendra is compromised by another cleric, Frelt; and Haner is dispatched to live with Berend and Daverak, away from her beloved Selendra and the only home she's ever known.

So far, so Victorian. Walton acknowledges a debt to Trollope, and adds that 'this novel is the result of wondering what a world would be like…if the axioms of the sentimental Victorian novel were inescapable laws of biology'. Bon Agornin and his children are dragons; the wealth to which Berend and Daverak help themselves is the flesh of his body (dragons only grow when they devour another dragon); and Selendra's 'compromise' happens when Frelt gets close enough to trigger a full-body blush, traditionally linked to marriage.

This is an entertaining comedy of manners, with doomed romances, buried treasure, disapproving mothers and loyal servants: and the darker sides of those elements, sexism and class privilege, oppression, servitude, snobbery, and (unlike Trollope) cannibalism. Set against this, there's a strong thread of radical thought, as Selendra in particular begins to question why the servant class must have their wings bound and be denied dragon-flesh. Selendra is probably my favourite character, though Sebeth (Avan's lover, lower-class and 'no maiden... head to toe an even eggshell pink') has a poignant and fascinating history, and a very satisfactory resolution.

Yes, there are humans (the loathed Yarge) but they are mentioned only in passing, apart from one scene at the end of the novel with an Ambassador. The focus remains on the dragons, with their railways and their hats, their legal and physical conflicts, and -- as the last line of the novel tells us -- 'the comfort of gentle hypocrisy'. A delightful pastiche with some thoughtful world-building.

I have owned this novel for over a decade: I read it as part of my 'Down in the Cellar' self-challenge, which riffs on the metaphor of to-be-read pile as wine-cellar rather than to-do list. I enjoyed it a great deal, and can't say whether I regret having ignored it for so long, or whether I'm glad to have read it at a time when it granted me some much-needed uplift.