That's how we realised you were here, you know. When the evening news was nothing but inspiring human-interest stories, when pedophiles and junkies were lining up at the hospitals to turn themselves in, when everything morphed into Mayberry, that's when you tipped your hand (p. 106)
Meyer, author of the successful teen vampire romance series 'Twilight', turns her hand to SF for a mature audience -- though The Host will almost certainly appeal to a teenage reader as much as to an adult.
The Host (which could be summed up as Invasion of the Body-Snatchers from a body-snatcher's point of view) is set in the near future, some time after the discovery of Earth by souls. Souls are small, silvery creatures with a thousand hair-fine limbs or tendrils, who can be transplanted from body to body, taking control and experiencing the host's sensorium. Most humans on Earth have been 'civilised' by the pacific souls, who are horrified by the violence and hatred endemic in human society. A few bastions of free-living humans survive, but they are hunted down by Seekers.
The Host is the tale of Wanderer, who comes to Earth after the colonisation and is inserted into the body of Melanie, a young woman who was a member of the human resistance, and who suffered appalling injuries while seeking her cousin. Melanie isn't dead, though, and she's terribly strong: her thoughts and emotions keep surfacing, until the Wanderer fears for her own sanity, her integrity, her self. She leaves her job as a teacher and heads into the desert, hoping to discover the fate of those Melanie loved, and thus give Melanie some closure.
Despite Wanderer's long experience -- she's thousands of years old, and has inhabited bodies on seven planets, including a sentient form of seaweed and a bat-like creature that sang -- she's never encountered anything, anyone, like Melanie. Human emotions are much stronger and more varied than those of other host species. And she comes to know Melanie more intimately than anyone, anybody, else ever could.
Meyer examines the philosophy, psychology and biology of self. Is sexual attraction a product of body or of mind? What about familial affection? What about violence, and violent impulses? Can one separate oneself from one's body's wants and needs? What does it mean to take a life? Is the host/soul transaction theft, murder, rape? What does it mean to belong? Can one learn to be selfish, or to be selfless? What happens when 'I' becomes 'we'?
Early in the novel I wondered if Meyer was creating a parable about mental illness. There's a Comforter who feels like a therapist: "Get involved with life rather than with her," she advises Wanderer. "You're struggling so hard with your problem that it's all you can concentrate on." The difference, of course, is that there really are two people, two individuals, in the body that was once Melanie's: as the novel progresses, Melanie emerges as a person in her own right -- rather abrasive, angry, scared, desperately searching for the people she loved -- and because we see her through alien eyes, we also see the alien. Wanderer, too, is afraid and lonely, and finds herself in the midst of humanity at its worst -- and its best. Drawing on her past experience, her other lives, Wanderer sees more than Melanie might.
There are elements of The Host that remind me of YA literature: youthful good-looking protagonists, a strong romantic thread, and an ending that ... well, there are two endings, and I was surprised (and a little disappointed) by the second, which modifies and resolves the first. The Host is a gripping read, well-paced and emotionally engaging, and there are moments of lyricism and astute observations which flesh out an occasionally soft-focus sfnal setting.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
#31: Storm Front -- Jim Butcher
I walked through a spectral landscape littered with skulls, into the teeth of the coming storm, to a house covered in malevolent power, throbbing with savage and feral mystic strength. I walked forward to face a murderous opponent who had all the advantages, and who stood prepared and willing to kill me from where he stood within the heart of his own destructive power while I was armed with nothing more than my own skill and wit and experience.
Do I have a great job or what?
The first novel in the Harry Dresden series, Storm Front sets up a great deal of backstory for the protagonist: I'm sure this will be picked up in subsequent novels, but it does make Storm Front itself feel somewhat unfinished.
Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (named after three magicians) is a freelance wizard working the mean streets of Chicago. He's called in to solve a gruesome double murder that was almost certainly committed using black magic. Problem is, very few magic-users could pull this off, and Harry is one of the suspects ...
Harry Dresden is more than a little chauvinistic: together with his problems with technology (his very presence causes things to malfunction) this made for some confusion about when the novel's set. It has a noir ambience, and I'd initially thought it might be set in the Forties or Fifties: then, quite a way in, another character used a cellphone and I had to rethink my assumptions. (Never a bad thing.)
It's a competent whodunnit, with a well-constructed theory of magic and a supporting cast who are vividly drawn but do, unfortunately, tend towards the stereotypical. A couple of plot points bothered me (a discarded film canister provides a major clue -- but if they have cellphones, why not digital cameras? And if Harry's a magic-user, surely he'd be able to contact other magic users while they were away from home?). And there was evidence of poor proofing (stray apostrophes) and editing ('whatever contents they contained'). On the whole, though, it was an enjoyable read, and while I'm not hooked I'll probably read more of the series sooner or later.
By the way, am fairly convinced that Dresden's cat is much smarter than Dresden himself.
Do I have a great job or what?
The first novel in the Harry Dresden series, Storm Front sets up a great deal of backstory for the protagonist: I'm sure this will be picked up in subsequent novels, but it does make Storm Front itself feel somewhat unfinished.
Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden (named after three magicians) is a freelance wizard working the mean streets of Chicago. He's called in to solve a gruesome double murder that was almost certainly committed using black magic. Problem is, very few magic-users could pull this off, and Harry is one of the suspects ...
Harry Dresden is more than a little chauvinistic: together with his problems with technology (his very presence causes things to malfunction) this made for some confusion about when the novel's set. It has a noir ambience, and I'd initially thought it might be set in the Forties or Fifties: then, quite a way in, another character used a cellphone and I had to rethink my assumptions. (Never a bad thing.)
It's a competent whodunnit, with a well-constructed theory of magic and a supporting cast who are vividly drawn but do, unfortunately, tend towards the stereotypical. A couple of plot points bothered me (a discarded film canister provides a major clue -- but if they have cellphones, why not digital cameras? And if Harry's a magic-user, surely he'd be able to contact other magic users while they were away from home?). And there was evidence of poor proofing (stray apostrophes) and editing ('whatever contents they contained'). On the whole, though, it was an enjoyable read, and while I'm not hooked I'll probably read more of the series sooner or later.
By the way, am fairly convinced that Dresden's cat is much smarter than Dresden himself.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
#30: The Road to Samarcand -- Patrick O'Brian
"Impress ... an archaeologist, huh? Well, Ay reckon Ay would strike him just behind the shoulder with a twenty-four pound harpoon. Strike hard and fast, not too far back, see? My old man, he chanced on one of them things north-east of Spitzbergen in the fall of, lemme t'ink, 1897 was it, or 1898? It chawed up his long-boat something horrible, but they got fifty-three barrels of oil out of it."
This little-known early novel by O'Brian was first published in 1954, before The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore and well before the first Aubrey/Maturin novel, Master and Commander: I'd never heard of it, and snapped it up as soon as I noticed it in a Cambridge remainder shop.
It's a boy's own adventure, set some time in the 1930s (from internal evidence: the year is never stated). Protagonist Derrick, the orphaned teenage son of American missionaries, is learning seamanship aboard his uncle's schooner, the Wanderer, as they roam the South China Sea. He's all set for a life on the ocean wave until his elderly academic cousin appears with plans to send him off to school in England, sugaring the pill by promising that they'll journey by way of Samarcand.
Samarcand is, of course, about as landlocked as you can get: fans of O'Brian's nautical writing be warned. Apart from the first couple of chapters, the action is relentlessly terrestrial. Derrick and his companions (his uncle Sullivan, and Sullivan's good friend Ross; the Wanderer's Chinese cook, Li Han; three Mongol brothers, direct descendants of Genghis (or Chingiz) Khan; Professor Ayrton, Derrick's cousin and a great authority on Oriental archaeology; Olaf, Svensson, a Swedish sailor; and Chang, a disreputable hound rescued from shipwreck) encounter Mongol warlords, perfidious -- yet stupid -- Russians, bellicose lamas, priceless jade treasures and unseen monsters above the snowline. It's all very wholesome and heroic.
O'Brian's gentle mocking of idiosyncrasy, verbal and otherwise, is already there: the Professor describing himself as a 'hep cat' and gently correcting Derrick's attempts to teach him actual (i.e. non-grammatical) American slang; Li Han's surprising, self-taught English vocabulary; Olaf's long Swedish vowels and knack for anecdotes (there's a lovely one about a camel). There are aspects of the Professor that remind me of Stephen Maturin, and aspects of Sullivan (and Ross) reminiscent of Jack Aubrey, though they're at best prototypes.
It's a quietly bloodthirsty novel, informed by the attitudes of the period: physical punishment, quiet courage, perhaps a hint of racism. O'Brian's prose, though not as polished as it later became, is measured, and his dry wit is evident. An entertaining read, but a shadow of what the author later achieved.
Can't help wondering why The Road to Samarcand was never reissued, or even really mentioned, during O'Brian's lifetime (presumably he objected?) and why it's taken rather longer than his other early works (Hussein, Caesar: both published under his birth-name, Richard Russ) to appear posthumously.
This little-known early novel by O'Brian was first published in 1954, before The Golden Ocean and The Unknown Shore and well before the first Aubrey/Maturin novel, Master and Commander: I'd never heard of it, and snapped it up as soon as I noticed it in a Cambridge remainder shop.
It's a boy's own adventure, set some time in the 1930s (from internal evidence: the year is never stated). Protagonist Derrick, the orphaned teenage son of American missionaries, is learning seamanship aboard his uncle's schooner, the Wanderer, as they roam the South China Sea. He's all set for a life on the ocean wave until his elderly academic cousin appears with plans to send him off to school in England, sugaring the pill by promising that they'll journey by way of Samarcand.
Samarcand is, of course, about as landlocked as you can get: fans of O'Brian's nautical writing be warned. Apart from the first couple of chapters, the action is relentlessly terrestrial. Derrick and his companions (his uncle Sullivan, and Sullivan's good friend Ross; the Wanderer's Chinese cook, Li Han; three Mongol brothers, direct descendants of Genghis (or Chingiz) Khan; Professor Ayrton, Derrick's cousin and a great authority on Oriental archaeology; Olaf, Svensson, a Swedish sailor; and Chang, a disreputable hound rescued from shipwreck) encounter Mongol warlords, perfidious -- yet stupid -- Russians, bellicose lamas, priceless jade treasures and unseen monsters above the snowline. It's all very wholesome and heroic.
O'Brian's gentle mocking of idiosyncrasy, verbal and otherwise, is already there: the Professor describing himself as a 'hep cat' and gently correcting Derrick's attempts to teach him actual (i.e. non-grammatical) American slang; Li Han's surprising, self-taught English vocabulary; Olaf's long Swedish vowels and knack for anecdotes (there's a lovely one about a camel). There are aspects of the Professor that remind me of Stephen Maturin, and aspects of Sullivan (and Ross) reminiscent of Jack Aubrey, though they're at best prototypes.
It's a quietly bloodthirsty novel, informed by the attitudes of the period: physical punishment, quiet courage, perhaps a hint of racism. O'Brian's prose, though not as polished as it later became, is measured, and his dry wit is evident. An entertaining read, but a shadow of what the author later achieved.
Can't help wondering why The Road to Samarcand was never reissued, or even really mentioned, during O'Brian's lifetime (presumably he objected?) and why it's taken rather longer than his other early works (Hussein, Caesar: both published under his birth-name, Richard Russ) to appear posthumously.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
The Margarets -- Sheri S. Tepper
This review originally appeared in Vector, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, in Winter 2008.
Margaret Bain, born 2084, grows up as the only child on Phobos. Earth is over-populated, ecologically devastated and governed by draconian reproductive laws. Those who come from large families (the calculation is based on number of children and number of siblings) are shipped out to one of the colony worlds, or indentured as bond-slaves to various unpleasant alien races. Not all the aliens are bad guys: the Gentherans, small besuited bipeds who made contact with Earth in 2062, seem to feel indebted to humanity, and have provided ships, assistance and galactic good will.
Like many solitary children, Margaret invents alter egos: a spy, a queen, a shaman, a linguist. Unlike most children, though, her fantasy selves become real: they split off at critical junctures, and go off to have adventures (and narratives) of their own. At nine, a version of Margaret leaves Phobos with a woman in a red dress whose spaceship looks like a dragonfly. At twelve, multiple selves leave Earth for different fates. At twenty-two ...
Margaret ends up seven-selved, each self on a different world and usually known by a different name. One self is male. One self is much older than the others, having passed through a time anomaly to reach the colony for which she's bound. Each self is only vaguely, if at all, aware that there are other versions of Margaret out there. And each berates herself for making the wrong choices, or bewails fate stacked against her.
Pan back from the Margarets. There's a plan millennia in the making, and a shadowy Order of the Siblinghood to implement it: there's a cosmic gathering-place, like an ocean or a forest or a galaxy, where the gods of all mortal races dwell. (Well, they say they're gods, but they would, wouldn't they?) The gods can only think, only do, what their followers are capable of thinking and doing; but this does not limit them in any useful way. Humankind's pantheon includes Mr Weathereye (a one-eyed gentleman of indeterminate age), Lady Badness, and the Gardener. There are other, less balanced entities in this assembly, notably a triptych of bloodthirsty Quaatar gods: the Quaatar harbour an innate loathing of humanity, and their gods are hatching a dreadful plot.
Now, blend in Tepper's big themes: population control (at all levels from intra-familial to racial); ecology and the fragile biome of Earth; inscrutable aliens; the need for rescue. Throw in a pinch of kindness-to-animals (in a kind of fairytale morality, this is a gift that benefits the giver), lost children, lost memories, some truly nasty religious practices, slavery and human trafficking, conjoined twins and the misuse of religion. And season with a new take on 'the human problem' -- not the problem perceived by various alien races, of the galaxy (and the pantheon) being overrun by humanity, but the more basic issue of humanity's appetite for wasteful destruction, and whether this appetite can ever be removed.
Stir well.
The Margarets is less about the roles and rights of women, and more about humanity regardless of gender, than in some of Tepper's earlier novels. There's a strong undercurrent of outrage at aspects of contemporary life: the dumbing-down of education, the ineffectuality of environmental policies, the pro-life movement. There's also humour, and something that I suspect an antagonistic reviewer might term 'whimsy', though I found it heart-warming. The seven-fold Margarets give Tepper ample room to indulge other favourite themes (shamanism, medicine, linguistics and a rather swashbuckling romance) without upsetting the balance of the novel. Which is, in a sense, about balance.
There's a certain amount of handwaving at the end of the novel ("The how is less important than the why," insists the Gardener). And readers who've followed Tepper's career may experience a sense of déjà vu from time to time. But this is a complex, cleverly-plotted novel, and a vastly entertaining read.
My personal review of The Margarets is here
Margaret Bain, born 2084, grows up as the only child on Phobos. Earth is over-populated, ecologically devastated and governed by draconian reproductive laws. Those who come from large families (the calculation is based on number of children and number of siblings) are shipped out to one of the colony worlds, or indentured as bond-slaves to various unpleasant alien races. Not all the aliens are bad guys: the Gentherans, small besuited bipeds who made contact with Earth in 2062, seem to feel indebted to humanity, and have provided ships, assistance and galactic good will.
Like many solitary children, Margaret invents alter egos: a spy, a queen, a shaman, a linguist. Unlike most children, though, her fantasy selves become real: they split off at critical junctures, and go off to have adventures (and narratives) of their own. At nine, a version of Margaret leaves Phobos with a woman in a red dress whose spaceship looks like a dragonfly. At twelve, multiple selves leave Earth for different fates. At twenty-two ...
Margaret ends up seven-selved, each self on a different world and usually known by a different name. One self is male. One self is much older than the others, having passed through a time anomaly to reach the colony for which she's bound. Each self is only vaguely, if at all, aware that there are other versions of Margaret out there. And each berates herself for making the wrong choices, or bewails fate stacked against her.
Pan back from the Margarets. There's a plan millennia in the making, and a shadowy Order of the Siblinghood to implement it: there's a cosmic gathering-place, like an ocean or a forest or a galaxy, where the gods of all mortal races dwell. (Well, they say they're gods, but they would, wouldn't they?) The gods can only think, only do, what their followers are capable of thinking and doing; but this does not limit them in any useful way. Humankind's pantheon includes Mr Weathereye (a one-eyed gentleman of indeterminate age), Lady Badness, and the Gardener. There are other, less balanced entities in this assembly, notably a triptych of bloodthirsty Quaatar gods: the Quaatar harbour an innate loathing of humanity, and their gods are hatching a dreadful plot.
Now, blend in Tepper's big themes: population control (at all levels from intra-familial to racial); ecology and the fragile biome of Earth; inscrutable aliens; the need for rescue. Throw in a pinch of kindness-to-animals (in a kind of fairytale morality, this is a gift that benefits the giver), lost children, lost memories, some truly nasty religious practices, slavery and human trafficking, conjoined twins and the misuse of religion. And season with a new take on 'the human problem' -- not the problem perceived by various alien races, of the galaxy (and the pantheon) being overrun by humanity, but the more basic issue of humanity's appetite for wasteful destruction, and whether this appetite can ever be removed.
Stir well.
The Margarets is less about the roles and rights of women, and more about humanity regardless of gender, than in some of Tepper's earlier novels. There's a strong undercurrent of outrage at aspects of contemporary life: the dumbing-down of education, the ineffectuality of environmental policies, the pro-life movement. There's also humour, and something that I suspect an antagonistic reviewer might term 'whimsy', though I found it heart-warming. The seven-fold Margarets give Tepper ample room to indulge other favourite themes (shamanism, medicine, linguistics and a rather swashbuckling romance) without upsetting the balance of the novel. Which is, in a sense, about balance.
There's a certain amount of handwaving at the end of the novel ("The how is less important than the why," insists the Gardener). And readers who've followed Tepper's career may experience a sense of déjà vu from time to time. But this is a complex, cleverly-plotted novel, and a vastly entertaining read.
My personal review of The Margarets is here
Thursday, June 26, 2008
#29: The Margarets - Sheri Tepper
The Quaatar bother easily. Some time in the remote past, they may have encountered humans under adverse circumstances. Perhaps a Quaatar tried to eat a human and got an upset stomach. That would have been enough. (p. 278)
I'm a great fan of Tepper's earlier novels (Grass, Sideshow and others) but my interest faded in the mid-90s, because I didn't find her later novels as captivating. (On the other hand, I'm of the camp that admires the twist in the middle of The Family Tree.) Nevertheless, I leapt at the chance to review The Margarets, and I've enjoyed it immensely: perhaps this is because, though I'm sure she's revisiting themes and tropes she's explored before, I haven't had time to get bored with her take on them.
The Margarets is set at the end of this century, more or less. Margaret Bain, born 2084, grows up as the only child on Phobos. Earth is over-populated, ecologically devastated and governed by draconian reproductive laws. Those who come from large families (I'm simplifying) are shipped out to one of the colony worlds, or indentured as bond-slaves to various unpleasant (arachnid / reptilian / generally vile) alien races. Not all the aliens are bad guys: the Gentherans, small besuited bipeds who made contact with Earth in 2062, seem to feel indebted to humanity, and have provided ships, assistance and galactic good will.
Margaret is a self-possessed child, and like many solitary children she invents personalities: a spy, a queen, a shaman, a linguist ... Unlike most children, though, her fantasy selves become real: they split off at critical junctures, and go off to have adventures (and narratives) of their own. At nine, a version of Margaret leaves Phobos with a woman in a red dress whose spaceship looks like a dragonfly. At twelve, multiple selves leave Earth for different fates. At twenty-two ...
Margaret ends up seven-selved, each self on a different world and usually known by a different name. One self is male. One self is much older than the others, having passed through a time anomaly to reach the colony for which she's bound. Each self is only vaguely, if at all, aware that there are other versions of Margaret out there. And each berates herself for making the wrong choices, or bewails fate stacked against her.
Pan back from the Margarets. There's a plan millennia in the making, and a shadowy Order of the Siblinghood to implement it: there's a cosmic gathering-place, like an ocean or a forest or a galaxy, where the gods of all mortal races dwell. Well, they say they're gods, but they would, wouldn't they? The gods of humankind include Mr Weathereye (a one-eyed gentleman of indeterminate age), Lady Badness, and the Gardener. There are other, less balanced entities in this assembly, notably a triptych of Quaatar gods (the Quaatar being vast, multi-limbed lizards who can only count to six -- it's unclear how many limbs they do have! -- and who harbour an innate loathing of humanity for reasons that are lost in the mist of time, or 'the first chapter') brewing hatred and bloodshed against the human menace. The gods can only think, only do, what their followers are capable of thinking and doing. This does not limit them in any useful way.
Now, blend in Tepper's big themes: population control (at all levels from intra-familial to racial); ecology and the fragile biome of Earth; inscrutable aliens; the need for rescue. Throw in a pinch of kindness-to-animals (in a kind of fairytale morality, this is a gift that benefits the giver), lost children, lost memories, some truly nasty religious practices, slavery and human trafficking, conjoined twins and the misuse of religion. And season with a new take on 'the human problem' -- not the problem perceived by various alien races, of the galaxy (and the pantheon) being overrun by humanity, but the more basic issue of humanity's appetite for wasteful destruction, and whether this appetite can ever be removed.
Stir well.
The Margarets is less about the roles and rights of women, and more about humanity regardless of gender, than I recall from earlier Tepper. There's a strong undercurrent of outrage at aspects of contemporary life: the dumbing-down of education, the ineffectuality of environmental policies, the pro-life movement. There's also humour, and something that I suspect an antagonistic reviewer might term 'whimsy', though I found it heart-warming. The seven-fold Margarets give Tepper ample room to indulge other favourite themes (shamanism, medicine, linguistics and a rather swashbuckling romance) without upsetting the balance of the novel. Which is, in a sense, about balance.
I confess I was irritated by aspects of the actual, physical book. (Gollancz trade paperback edition: 505pp, rather than the 384pp that Amazon claim.) I think the page numbers are supposed to be grey rather than black: they're almost unreadable. There's a map at the front of the book (no, this is not a fantasy novel!) and some of that's printed in Invisible Grey as well. And having the map, and the dramatis personae, at the front of the book is irritating in a different way: even casual perusal reveals plot twists and developments that are better handled by the narrative.
That said, I enjoyed The Margarets very much, though the plot seemed to become vaguer at the end. "That is one of the ways it could have happened," says the Gardener in response to a hypothesis, and maybe I'm imagining her defensive tone. "The how is less important than the why." The 'how' is complex and cleverly plotted, the 'why' is an interesting speculation, and together they make a vastly entertaining tale.
My Vector review of The Margarets is here
I'm a great fan of Tepper's earlier novels (Grass, Sideshow and others) but my interest faded in the mid-90s, because I didn't find her later novels as captivating. (On the other hand, I'm of the camp that admires the twist in the middle of The Family Tree.) Nevertheless, I leapt at the chance to review The Margarets, and I've enjoyed it immensely: perhaps this is because, though I'm sure she's revisiting themes and tropes she's explored before, I haven't had time to get bored with her take on them.
The Margarets is set at the end of this century, more or less. Margaret Bain, born 2084, grows up as the only child on Phobos. Earth is over-populated, ecologically devastated and governed by draconian reproductive laws. Those who come from large families (I'm simplifying) are shipped out to one of the colony worlds, or indentured as bond-slaves to various unpleasant (arachnid / reptilian / generally vile) alien races. Not all the aliens are bad guys: the Gentherans, small besuited bipeds who made contact with Earth in 2062, seem to feel indebted to humanity, and have provided ships, assistance and galactic good will.
Margaret is a self-possessed child, and like many solitary children she invents personalities: a spy, a queen, a shaman, a linguist ... Unlike most children, though, her fantasy selves become real: they split off at critical junctures, and go off to have adventures (and narratives) of their own. At nine, a version of Margaret leaves Phobos with a woman in a red dress whose spaceship looks like a dragonfly. At twelve, multiple selves leave Earth for different fates. At twenty-two ...
Margaret ends up seven-selved, each self on a different world and usually known by a different name. One self is male. One self is much older than the others, having passed through a time anomaly to reach the colony for which she's bound. Each self is only vaguely, if at all, aware that there are other versions of Margaret out there. And each berates herself for making the wrong choices, or bewails fate stacked against her.
Pan back from the Margarets. There's a plan millennia in the making, and a shadowy Order of the Siblinghood to implement it: there's a cosmic gathering-place, like an ocean or a forest or a galaxy, where the gods of all mortal races dwell. Well, they say they're gods, but they would, wouldn't they? The gods of humankind include Mr Weathereye (a one-eyed gentleman of indeterminate age), Lady Badness, and the Gardener. There are other, less balanced entities in this assembly, notably a triptych of Quaatar gods (the Quaatar being vast, multi-limbed lizards who can only count to six -- it's unclear how many limbs they do have! -- and who harbour an innate loathing of humanity for reasons that are lost in the mist of time, or 'the first chapter') brewing hatred and bloodshed against the human menace. The gods can only think, only do, what their followers are capable of thinking and doing. This does not limit them in any useful way.
Now, blend in Tepper's big themes: population control (at all levels from intra-familial to racial); ecology and the fragile biome of Earth; inscrutable aliens; the need for rescue. Throw in a pinch of kindness-to-animals (in a kind of fairytale morality, this is a gift that benefits the giver), lost children, lost memories, some truly nasty religious practices, slavery and human trafficking, conjoined twins and the misuse of religion. And season with a new take on 'the human problem' -- not the problem perceived by various alien races, of the galaxy (and the pantheon) being overrun by humanity, but the more basic issue of humanity's appetite for wasteful destruction, and whether this appetite can ever be removed.
Stir well.
The Margarets is less about the roles and rights of women, and more about humanity regardless of gender, than I recall from earlier Tepper. There's a strong undercurrent of outrage at aspects of contemporary life: the dumbing-down of education, the ineffectuality of environmental policies, the pro-life movement. There's also humour, and something that I suspect an antagonistic reviewer might term 'whimsy', though I found it heart-warming. The seven-fold Margarets give Tepper ample room to indulge other favourite themes (shamanism, medicine, linguistics and a rather swashbuckling romance) without upsetting the balance of the novel. Which is, in a sense, about balance.
I confess I was irritated by aspects of the actual, physical book. (Gollancz trade paperback edition: 505pp, rather than the 384pp that Amazon claim.) I think the page numbers are supposed to be grey rather than black: they're almost unreadable. There's a map at the front of the book (no, this is not a fantasy novel!) and some of that's printed in Invisible Grey as well. And having the map, and the dramatis personae, at the front of the book is irritating in a different way: even casual perusal reveals plot twists and developments that are better handled by the narrative.
That said, I enjoyed The Margarets very much, though the plot seemed to become vaguer at the end. "That is one of the ways it could have happened," says the Gardener in response to a hypothesis, and maybe I'm imagining her defensive tone. "The how is less important than the why." The 'how' is complex and cleverly plotted, the 'why' is an interesting speculation, and together they make a vastly entertaining tale.
My Vector review of The Margarets is here
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
#28: Darkmans -- Nicola Barker
"I've often found that my most successful lies ... generally benefit from the addition of the odd loose screw. If all the facts add up, if everything feels too neat and pat, if all the elements fall too readily into place, then you automatically arouse suspicion, because life simply isn't like that. ... Put it this way, if the truth was a woman she'd be a whore. She'd be an extremely supple, highly sinuous, ridiculously wanton slut." (381-2)
I've been looking forward to reading Nicola Barker's Darkmans since it was shortlisted for the Booker and I read a sample chapter. Then I went through a reading-drought and the paperback (the thick paperback) sat on the shelf for months. Once I'd started, though, I found it hard to set the book aside for long.
The novel's plot spins out over just a few days, starting and ending in media res: we're dropped into the midst of dysfunctional family relations, illegal activities, historical research and a case of possession, or haunting, or psychiatric illness. Or all of the above.
Key characters include Kane, twenty-something slacker and dealer in illicit prescription drugs; his father Beede, an upstanding member of the community; chiropodist Elen, object of fascination to father and son; Elen's husband Dory, who has some very odd (and old-fashioned) ideas; their son Fleet, who's building an precise scale model of a medieval cathedral he's never seen; Kelly, Kane's chavvy ex-girlfriend, and her formidable mother; Gaffar, the Kurdish immigrant with a salad phobia who may be a devil-worshipper; Peta, forger and antique dealer ...
"This day just keeps on getting better," Kane mused, to no one in particular, "first ambushed by my dad, then blandished on my own sofa by a Goth nymphomaniac."
He returned to his paperback.
I am not even going to attempt to summarise the plot. "Just wait a while," says Beede very early on, "and everything will become clear. I promise." Yeah, right: though that promise is what kept me going ...
There is so much here, all woven -- all heaped -- together. Recurring images of jokers and jesters; the smell of burning; tiles falling or being thrown from a roof (and subsequently going astray); burn-scars; peacocks; the contrast of water and fire; sore feet. There's a thread to do with the evolution of language, and the way that written language can make something concrete or pin it down. Another thread about being forbidden, prohibitted from speaking. There are extravagant, humorously exaggerated metaphors: the beach road at Dungeness "slithered through the plain landscape like a contorted mamba searching for a nook in which to shed its skin". There are some truly nasty moments, mostly (though not all) off-stage: some, the building-blocks of the characters' lives, are dropped in well after the events or actions they explain.
As if I am the only one who feels history, who sees the storm of pure emotion raging away behind everything. The buzz and clash of the atom. This awful friction. This urge to truth. This urge to destruction.
Aspects of the plot are rooted in medieval history, with particular reference to Huizinga's wonderful The Waning of the Middle Ages and the medieval mindset, with all its symbolism and form -- and how the medieval mindset is reflected in modern life. (I've just noticed that the character who discusses medieval history -- and makes the remark quoted at the beginning of this review, about truth being a whore -- stands outside the story as a whole. She's like a Greek chorus. She might be the voice of the author. It'd be interesting to reread the novel with close attention to what she says, thinks, does.)
The page layout is eccentric, and sometimes seems illogical. (The book'd be much shorter if it was laid out more traditionally.) There are rather too many double-space breaks between paragraphs that don't need to be separated. Thoughts are parenthesised, italicised, given separate paragraphs. It took me a while to work out what this reminded me of, and I think it was the frequent italicisation in dialogue that made it click: it's like reading acomic graphic novel, short and snappy and full of emphasis.
It's also a very funny book, on multiple levels. There are farcical scenes and black humour, jokes that aren't funny (because out of context). There is the sly complicit humour of Gaffar's dialogue -- mostly in Turkish (indicated by a different font) with the occasional word in English -- which plays on the language barrier, with Gaffar's clever rudeness quite impenetrable to those around him.
I've avoided reviews of the novel -- I wanted to record my own reaction first -- but I'd bet good money that there's dissatisfaction with the ending. I liked it. It works. Listen:
Life's too short. Just enjoy the mystery. Take from the situation what you need. Be selective. Pick and mix. ... The truth is that there is no truth. Life is just a series of coincidences, accidents and random urges which we carefully forge -- for our own sick reasons -- into a convenient design.
And the funniest thing? While she's speaking, coincidences and accidents are rattling and multiplying and making sense of it all. There's hubris to Barker's mischief and it makes me very happy.
I've been looking forward to reading Nicola Barker's Darkmans since it was shortlisted for the Booker and I read a sample chapter. Then I went through a reading-drought and the paperback (the thick paperback) sat on the shelf for months. Once I'd started, though, I found it hard to set the book aside for long.
The novel's plot spins out over just a few days, starting and ending in media res: we're dropped into the midst of dysfunctional family relations, illegal activities, historical research and a case of possession, or haunting, or psychiatric illness. Or all of the above.
Key characters include Kane, twenty-something slacker and dealer in illicit prescription drugs; his father Beede, an upstanding member of the community; chiropodist Elen, object of fascination to father and son; Elen's husband Dory, who has some very odd (and old-fashioned) ideas; their son Fleet, who's building an precise scale model of a medieval cathedral he's never seen; Kelly, Kane's chavvy ex-girlfriend, and her formidable mother; Gaffar, the Kurdish immigrant with a salad phobia who may be a devil-worshipper; Peta, forger and antique dealer ...
"This day just keeps on getting better," Kane mused, to no one in particular, "first ambushed by my dad, then blandished on my own sofa by a Goth nymphomaniac."
He returned to his paperback.
I am not even going to attempt to summarise the plot. "Just wait a while," says Beede very early on, "and everything will become clear. I promise." Yeah, right: though that promise is what kept me going ...
There is so much here, all woven -- all heaped -- together. Recurring images of jokers and jesters; the smell of burning; tiles falling or being thrown from a roof (and subsequently going astray); burn-scars; peacocks; the contrast of water and fire; sore feet. There's a thread to do with the evolution of language, and the way that written language can make something concrete or pin it down. Another thread about being forbidden, prohibitted from speaking. There are extravagant, humorously exaggerated metaphors: the beach road at Dungeness "slithered through the plain landscape like a contorted mamba searching for a nook in which to shed its skin". There are some truly nasty moments, mostly (though not all) off-stage: some, the building-blocks of the characters' lives, are dropped in well after the events or actions they explain.
As if I am the only one who feels history, who sees the storm of pure emotion raging away behind everything. The buzz and clash of the atom. This awful friction. This urge to truth. This urge to destruction.
Aspects of the plot are rooted in medieval history, with particular reference to Huizinga's wonderful The Waning of the Middle Ages and the medieval mindset, with all its symbolism and form -- and how the medieval mindset is reflected in modern life. (I've just noticed that the character who discusses medieval history -- and makes the remark quoted at the beginning of this review, about truth being a whore -- stands outside the story as a whole. She's like a Greek chorus. She might be the voice of the author. It'd be interesting to reread the novel with close attention to what she says, thinks, does.)
The page layout is eccentric, and sometimes seems illogical. (The book'd be much shorter if it was laid out more traditionally.) There are rather too many double-space breaks between paragraphs that don't need to be separated. Thoughts are parenthesised, italicised, given separate paragraphs. It took me a while to work out what this reminded me of, and I think it was the frequent italicisation in dialogue that made it click: it's like reading a
It's also a very funny book, on multiple levels. There are farcical scenes and black humour, jokes that aren't funny (because out of context). There is the sly complicit humour of Gaffar's dialogue -- mostly in Turkish (indicated by a different font) with the occasional word in English -- which plays on the language barrier, with Gaffar's clever rudeness quite impenetrable to those around him.
I've avoided reviews of the novel -- I wanted to record my own reaction first -- but I'd bet good money that there's dissatisfaction with the ending. I liked it. It works. Listen:
Life's too short. Just enjoy the mystery. Take from the situation what you need. Be selective. Pick and mix. ... The truth is that there is no truth. Life is just a series of coincidences, accidents and random urges which we carefully forge -- for our own sick reasons -- into a convenient design.
And the funniest thing? While she's speaking, coincidences and accidents are rattling and multiplying and making sense of it all. There's hubris to Barker's mischief and it makes me very happy.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
#27: The Steep Approach to Garbadale -- Iain Banks
I've spent my life waiting for my life to start. It's as though one needs permission from somebody ... to finally take responsibility for one's own actions, one's own life. Only the permission never comes, and gradually you realise that it will never come, that the way you've lived your life, stumbling through it, winging it half the time, is all there really is, all there ever was. I feel cheated because of that. I feel, sometimes, like I've cheated myself.
The Steep Approach to Garbadale is classic Iain no-M Banks, which is a polite way of saying that I recognised recurrent themes in it. Odd relationship with sister-figure? Check. Dark family secrets? Check. Rich bloke pretending / arranging to be poor? Check. Suicide? Check. Drug-fuelled bad behaviour? Check. Games? Check. Peculiar injuries or infirmities? Check.
Nobody gets turned into furniture which is always a plus.
Alban Wopuld, self-exiled from his family -- who've apparently built a fortune and a dynasty on a single product, the boardgame Empire! -- is summoned back to Garbadale (the family's Highland estate) for an Extraordinary General Meeting. The stated purpose of said meeting is to decide whether to sell Empire! to an American company, or not. From Alban's point of view, the agenda's more than a little muddled by the possible attendance of his cousin Sophie, with whom he had a brief but intense fling in their mid-teens; the disapproval of the aged Win, matriarch and iron fist; his own return to the house where his mother killed herself; the unexpected company of his girlfriend, exotic and likeable mathematician Verushka.
It's a novel about growing up in the Eighties, about developing ethics and ideals in a wicked world. About learning to take responsibility, to grow up, to accept one's adult self. About doing the right thing, I suppose.
And it's funny, and poignant, and there are many moments of verbal clarity -- finely-observed tics, the telling details of a landscape, a discarded coat as a ghost -- that make me stop and reread the sentence and nod, yes, that's the way it is. It's not a bad book by any means: it just seems to be revisiting old ground. Perhaps this is an older / wiser / more reflective Banks. I'd need to reread Espedair Street, The Crow Road, maybe even The Wasp Factory to see how differently he's handling those recurrent motifs.
But then I'm older, more reflective, than I was when I read them first.
The Steep Approach to Garbadale is classic Iain no-M Banks, which is a polite way of saying that I recognised recurrent themes in it. Odd relationship with sister-figure? Check. Dark family secrets? Check. Rich bloke pretending / arranging to be poor? Check. Suicide? Check. Drug-fuelled bad behaviour? Check. Games? Check. Peculiar injuries or infirmities? Check.
Nobody gets turned into furniture which is always a plus.
Alban Wopuld, self-exiled from his family -- who've apparently built a fortune and a dynasty on a single product, the boardgame Empire! -- is summoned back to Garbadale (the family's Highland estate) for an Extraordinary General Meeting. The stated purpose of said meeting is to decide whether to sell Empire! to an American company, or not. From Alban's point of view, the agenda's more than a little muddled by the possible attendance of his cousin Sophie, with whom he had a brief but intense fling in their mid-teens; the disapproval of the aged Win, matriarch and iron fist; his own return to the house where his mother killed herself; the unexpected company of his girlfriend, exotic and likeable mathematician Verushka.
It's a novel about growing up in the Eighties, about developing ethics and ideals in a wicked world. About learning to take responsibility, to grow up, to accept one's adult self. About doing the right thing, I suppose.
And it's funny, and poignant, and there are many moments of verbal clarity -- finely-observed tics, the telling details of a landscape, a discarded coat as a ghost -- that make me stop and reread the sentence and nod, yes, that's the way it is. It's not a bad book by any means: it just seems to be revisiting old ground. Perhaps this is an older / wiser / more reflective Banks. I'd need to reread Espedair Street, The Crow Road, maybe even The Wasp Factory to see how differently he's handling those recurrent motifs.
But then I'm older, more reflective, than I was when I read them first.
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