Don't give up on yourself. The dead win when you quit singing and let them take you on down the road with them.
Ageing rock-star Judas Coyne (real name Justin Cowzynski) buys a ghost on the internet. It'll be great for his collection of the weird and occult. It arrives in the shape of the dead man's best black suit, with silver-dollar buttons, packed up in a heart-shaped box. And Jude's got his money's worth, for the goods are definitely as advertised.
Jude doesn't just collect occult paraphernalia. He collects girlfriends (a succession of young girls who he names after their state of origin: the present incumbent is Georgia, and her deceased predecessor was Florida). He collects admirers, drawn to his 'melodies of pain and hate' -- though by the start of the novel all that's behind him: 'Jude didn't care if there was any more music' -- and his brooding air of menace and darkness. He's haunted in more mundane ways by the ghosts of his past: dead bandmates, an abusive father who Jude hasn't seen for over three decades and who's slowly dying in the old house in Louisiana, the girls who he's left broken by the wayside.
That said, Jude's life is remarkably wholesome. His two German Shepherds, Bon and Angus, are his constant and most loyal companions: his secretary Danny is devoted to him: he lives in an old farmhouse in New York State, rebuilds cars, namedrops Trent Reznor and Jimmy Page, mocks My Chemical Romance and goth girl groupies.
Then Craddock, the ghost -- who is not an 'accidental ghost': a hypnotist and psychic in life, he came back on purpose -- begins his work.
This was an odd reading experience: very pacy, immediate, evocative, but once I'd put it down it all faded very quickly. The plot, a tale of supernatural revenge with plenty of twists (some more surprising than others) is well-constructed and builds ominously to its finale. There's enough of the supernatural to make this a gothic (small-g) tale -- Southern gothic, perhaps, because Jude's inner Southerner becomes more present as his layers are peeled away -- and enough rock'n'roll, sharp edges, drama to reel in the goths, despite all the nasty things Jude (or is it Mr Hill?) says about them: their taste for the weird, their emotional neediness, their embarrassing sincerity.
In terms of theme, I could say that this is a book about fathers. (I expect there's already plenty of analysis on this level, given that the author is Stephen King's son). There's Jude's relationship with his father, who punished him for running away to play in a band; there's Craddock's relationship with his family; there are shadows of abuse everywhere, from Georgia's great-aunt's abduction as a child (her ghost haunts the garden) to the used-car salesman who Jude punches out in the parking lot. And there's Jude's father, dying in a bed in a dark Louisiana house.
I think it's also a novel about loyalty -- not just loyalty to friends, lovers and family, but to one's ... I want to say 'vassals', it fits better than 'dependents' -- and about staying true to oneself. And perhaps about growing up, learning what to leave behind and what to keep. It's not just Jude who learns that lesson.
Heart-Shaped Box is cool and competent: the prose is clear, unpretentious and vividly visual. That said, sometimes it felt shallow, like a film: but in the horror genre I'd rather have shallow and arresting than deep and melodramatic.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
#34: Sin Cities -- Ashley Hames
I think my own motivation is a selfish need to seek out kicks, put myself outside my comfort zone and feel the endorphin rush of a new and anonymous encounter. And I don't think having such a drive for sexual thrills is an entirely uncommon thing.
Saw this book reviewed in one of the free papers, and thought it sounded fascinating: Hames' increasingly extreme sex-related adventures as he roams the globe in search of audience-grabbing footage for LIVE TV. (Disclaimer: I do not have a TV, I do not watch 'Sin Cities', I did not know.)
Hames makes some interesting observations about a dominatrix's clientele ("I don't think it's any coincidence that a high proportion of paying customers tend to be from the upper reaches of society, often with highly-powered jobs ... the dominatrix helps [them] to fill a vacuum and find a balance in life." He doesn't, however, go on to make the connection between the price and the income.) And there are some fascinating details, the kind of information that might come in handy one day: porn directors keep a microwave handy to destroy the film if they're raided; a viewer's report on the Paris Hilton sex tapes; the best way to nail the male anatomy to a piece of wood. You never know.
There were points, though, when I wondered if Hames had ever actually talked seriously to any actual, non-professional women about sex. On the rise of homemade porn: "It can't be just the boyfriend who wants to do these things, can it? No, it takes two to tango, and my hunch is that girls can be just as naughty when they're shown enough trust and respect." Woof! Er, that is, as a woman I rolled my eyes and made an exasperated noise. But perhaps it isn't that obvious to the average young British male. Or perhaps I' ve become accustomed to greater openness about and enthusiasm for sex than Hames has encountered. (I'd recommend a read of Kerry Sharp's Women's Sexual Fantasies before his next conversation with a porn actress. Maybe he'll get past the 'but surely you can't be enjoying that' stage.)
I'm not this book's intended audience. I'm female, not easily shocked, and I can spell minuscule. That said, the book didn't really live up to my hopes. Hames's style is a peculiar mash of laddishness, confessional and occasional glimpses of a rather narrow-minded outlook. I suppose it goes with the territory -- he's looking for extreme sexual habits, so he needs to be somebody who finds them extreme. Though he says at the end of the book that he's been 'freed from the very British mistrust of sexual difference, and liberated ... from a fear of the unfamiliar', it seemed more like acceptance than understanding or enthusiasm. Not a bad thing, and probably as much as the target audience would be willing to accept.
Mr Hames could do with a better editor / proof-reader, too. And if he is that keen on having a larger penis (thank you, dear author, for so very many details) then I can forward him some emails. I won't be needing them.
Quite an entertaining read but ... unfulfilling.
Saw this book reviewed in one of the free papers, and thought it sounded fascinating: Hames' increasingly extreme sex-related adventures as he roams the globe in search of audience-grabbing footage for LIVE TV. (Disclaimer: I do not have a TV, I do not watch 'Sin Cities', I did not know.)
Hames makes some interesting observations about a dominatrix's clientele ("I don't think it's any coincidence that a high proportion of paying customers tend to be from the upper reaches of society, often with highly-powered jobs ... the dominatrix helps [them] to fill a vacuum and find a balance in life." He doesn't, however, go on to make the connection between the price and the income.) And there are some fascinating details, the kind of information that might come in handy one day: porn directors keep a microwave handy to destroy the film if they're raided; a viewer's report on the Paris Hilton sex tapes; the best way to nail the male anatomy to a piece of wood. You never know.
There were points, though, when I wondered if Hames had ever actually talked seriously to any actual, non-professional women about sex. On the rise of homemade porn: "It can't be just the boyfriend who wants to do these things, can it? No, it takes two to tango, and my hunch is that girls can be just as naughty when they're shown enough trust and respect." Woof! Er, that is, as a woman I rolled my eyes and made an exasperated noise. But perhaps it isn't that obvious to the average young British male. Or perhaps I' ve become accustomed to greater openness about and enthusiasm for sex than Hames has encountered. (I'd recommend a read of Kerry Sharp's Women's Sexual Fantasies before his next conversation with a porn actress. Maybe he'll get past the 'but surely you can't be enjoying that' stage.)
I'm not this book's intended audience. I'm female, not easily shocked, and I can spell minuscule. That said, the book didn't really live up to my hopes. Hames's style is a peculiar mash of laddishness, confessional and occasional glimpses of a rather narrow-minded outlook. I suppose it goes with the territory -- he's looking for extreme sexual habits, so he needs to be somebody who finds them extreme. Though he says at the end of the book that he's been 'freed from the very British mistrust of sexual difference, and liberated ... from a fear of the unfamiliar', it seemed more like acceptance than understanding or enthusiasm. Not a bad thing, and probably as much as the target audience would be willing to accept.
Mr Hames could do with a better editor / proof-reader, too. And if he is that keen on having a larger penis (thank you, dear author, for so very many details) then I can forward him some emails. I won't be needing them.
Quite an entertaining read but ... unfulfilling.
#33: Cocaine Blues -- Kerry Greenwood
Lydia hinted, dabbing at her unreddened eyes with a perfectly white, perfectly dry handkerchief, at sexual perversions too grim for words. Phryne pressed a little, hoping that words might be found, but Lydia just shook her head with a martyred expression, and sighed.
It's the end of the 1920s and the Honourable Phryne Fisher, born to poverty in Australia and unexpectedly elevated to the British aristocracy, is bored of the social whirl. Foiling a jewel theft, she attracts the attention of an elderly Colonel who's worried about his daughter Lydia, unhappily married in Melbourne. Phryne (named after a Greek courtesan with beautiful breasts, due to her father being hungover at her christening) decides to try her hand at sleuthing in Australia.
Acquiring a set of loyal followers (and a gorgeous and passionate Russian dancer), Phryne sets about her task with energy, wit, enthusiasm, and a coolly decadent style that's all her own. She's worldly-wise enough to evade traps both intentional and otherwise, and elegant enough to do as she pleases -- the prerogative of the upper classes, though of course it helps if you can scatter largesse as you go. Phryne has a taste for strong cocktails and gaspers, carries a gun as well as devices supplied by the Marie Stopes Clinic in her luggage, and is generally thoroughly Modern.
Lydia's predicament is tangled up in a mess of illegal abortion, the cocaine trade, dodgy stock trading, communist cabbies and Turkish baths. It should surprise nobody that Phryne proves herself more than adequate to the untangling, though she does at one point wish she'd made a will: "I should have liked to have left my money to the Cats' Home."
This was a present from a friend, to cheer me up, and it's marvellously effective medicine: witty, dry, and vividly evocative of the period -- via telling details (shops and tea-rooms staying open late into the evening, Nellie Melba singing at a private party, dirty streets and dyed feathers) rather than heavy-handed comparisons with contemporary life. The whodunnit isn't transparent, and the pacing is excellent. I have another Phryne Fisher book and am saving it for a low day: shall, however, be on the lookout for more.
It's the end of the 1920s and the Honourable Phryne Fisher, born to poverty in Australia and unexpectedly elevated to the British aristocracy, is bored of the social whirl. Foiling a jewel theft, she attracts the attention of an elderly Colonel who's worried about his daughter Lydia, unhappily married in Melbourne. Phryne (named after a Greek courtesan with beautiful breasts, due to her father being hungover at her christening) decides to try her hand at sleuthing in Australia.
Acquiring a set of loyal followers (and a gorgeous and passionate Russian dancer), Phryne sets about her task with energy, wit, enthusiasm, and a coolly decadent style that's all her own. She's worldly-wise enough to evade traps both intentional and otherwise, and elegant enough to do as she pleases -- the prerogative of the upper classes, though of course it helps if you can scatter largesse as you go. Phryne has a taste for strong cocktails and gaspers, carries a gun as well as devices supplied by the Marie Stopes Clinic in her luggage, and is generally thoroughly Modern.
Lydia's predicament is tangled up in a mess of illegal abortion, the cocaine trade, dodgy stock trading, communist cabbies and Turkish baths. It should surprise nobody that Phryne proves herself more than adequate to the untangling, though she does at one point wish she'd made a will: "I should have liked to have left my money to the Cats' Home."
This was a present from a friend, to cheer me up, and it's marvellously effective medicine: witty, dry, and vividly evocative of the period -- via telling details (shops and tea-rooms staying open late into the evening, Nellie Melba singing at a private party, dirty streets and dyed feathers) rather than heavy-handed comparisons with contemporary life. The whodunnit isn't transparent, and the pacing is excellent. I have another Phryne Fisher book and am saving it for a low day: shall, however, be on the lookout for more.
#32: The Host -- Stephenie Meyer
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.
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.
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
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