I read the titular story several years ago, and although I understood it, I don't think I got it.

I'm still not sure if I completely got it this time around either, although knowing the twist at the end gives the story more emotional resonance throughout instead of only at the last moment.

I picked Chiang up again despite knowing I usually suck at reading short stories because I've been listening to short story podcasts when I run, and the two of his I've listened to ("Exhalation," which isn't in this collection, and "Hell Is the Absence of God," which is) were fairly engaging.

I suspect Chiang works better for me as a audio experience; I read too quickly to completely figure out what's going on in his stories until they're already over. Unsurprisingly, the two that worked best for me in this collection were the ones I've read or listened to before, along with "Seventy-Two Letters," which I read as fantasy.

On a whole, I would say the collection is very concept-driven; Chiang usually grabs a cool, SFnal idea and centers a story around that idea.

I had issues with the portrayal of disability in "Hell Is the Absence of God" and with the parallels he draws between lookism and social justice issues in "Liking What You See." It's nothing I can quite put my finger on, save that I dislike how disability can be God-given in the first story and how much of the language in the story is about being a saintly disabled person or resenting it, but how the bottom assumption always seems to be that disability is a terrible thing to happen to someone.

I also find it very interesting that three of the stories in the collection have to do with religion. This includes my favorite story of the collection, "Seventy-Two Letters," which has golems! Sadly, they aren't the center of the piece, but still.

In conclusion: extremely interesting read, still puzzling over some of them, and I feel Chiang's brain really does not work the way mine does (not a compliment or an insult, just an observation).

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I was actually a little afraid to read this because I know I frequently bounce off short stories and off science fiction short stories in particular—the amount of worldbuilding to figure out in a short amount of pages makes my brain hurt. Also, it didn't help that I read some of it while extremely sleep deprived.

Possibly because of that, the stories I loved most tended to be the ones that felt like folktales or the ones from a child's POV that gradually introduced you to the fantasy in the world, while the ones I categorize as needing a reread (or many) are the ones with much denser worldbuilding.

One of my favorites was "Wallamelon," with its focus on growing up and growing apart from people, along with the growing joy of learning about something. I also liked the mix of the child-POV in "The Rainses'" with the ghost story and the mystery and the legacy of slavery; I laughed at the narrator thinking an actual railroad ran underground because I think I had the same impression as a kid. I also loved the land of the dead and the overall feel in "The Beads of Watu," and "The Pragmatical Princess" made me laugh with delight. The latter isn't a deep story, but I love the dialogue between the princess and the dragon, and I really loved having a Muslim princess in a type of story that's usually Eurofantasy.

I don't think I fully understood "Shiomah's Land" or "The Water Museum," but I liked them nevertheless for the setting and the characters, especially Shiomah and the examination of love and pregnancy and children.

I think I need to reread "Deep End," "Momi Watu," "Good Boy," and "Maggies" because there was a lot of worldbuilding in there that I couldn't concentrate on. The world in "Deep End" reminded me of a short story in So Long Been Dreaming. I liked the tense, paranoid atmosphere in "Momi Watu," need to reread all the bits about computers in "Good Boy," and even though I am still not quite sure how the worldbuilding works in "Maggies," I like the main relationship between the POV character and the maggie, as well as the creepy literalness of "getting under your skin."

And even for the stories I didn't get, I love all the emphasis on female relationships. I can't even single out a particular story for it because there are so much, romantic and sexual and intergenerational. I loved all the mothers or grandmothers or parental figures nurturing young and not-so-young girls, the oral transmission of knowledge, the teaching. There's just so much there, and normally it feels like I'm going through fiction with a fine-toothed comb just to find a fraction of the women there are in this book. I am so glad it won the Tiptree.

And, of course, I love that the entire collection is so grounded in non-Eurofantasy, that space is populated with brown people, that Shawl writes about an America built on slavery and racism and violence instead of simply erasing the past and the people in it (*cough*unlike certain pioneer fantasies*cough*).

Even with my not getting all the stories, I feel like there's so much in here; it is so rich with things I did not even know I was looking for.

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At Wiscon this year, Victor Raymond passed around copies of a letter the nascent Carl Brandon Society wrote to the Wiscon ConCom... on May 27, 1999.

http://carlbrandon.org/wiki/index.php/Founding_Letter

I meant to type this up for the letter's ten-year anniversary, but haven't until now. I'll also upload a PDF version of the letter sometime during the week.

Ten years, people. TEN YEARS.

And POC are still being ogled at and made to feel unwelcome.

Yes, there's been progress, but there still needs to be much more.

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In a not-too-distant future, a bout of infectious disease and possibly other things have lead the U.S. government to cordon off pieces of Texas as outposts. These outposts are walled off and supposedly exist to protect U.S. borders from Mexican people intent on either crossing the border or sabotaging the U.S. Loup Garron grows up in one of these outposts, the daughter of a local and a mysterious soldier who was the product of the army's genetic experiments, and the constant limitations on all her abilities chafe at her. But the only way out of Outpost is by winning a boxing match, and not only has no one in their town done so, no one is even sure the army general will keep his promise.

The plot isn't exactly what the book is about; rather, the book is about giving hope to those who have lost it, from the people of Outpost who don't know what's outside the walls to the church orphans who are Loup's friends to Loup herself.

Loup is a great protagonist. Yes, she can kick pretty much anyone's ass thanks to genetics, but the most interesting thing about her is not her physical ability, but rather the need for her to keep her abilities hidden so that she's not taken away by the army. I love her relationship with the church orphans and how we see those relationships change as everyone grows up and grows through puberty, along with her relationship with her big brother and another person who comes in halfway through the book. Also, she is POC! Not just that, but I think she is POC/POC multiracial (Latina?/Black).

I think this is Carey's best work to date, with the note that I haven't read the Banewreaker duology. The futuristic setting and the third-person narrative means much less of the occasionally over-the-top prose that's in Carey's Kushiel books, and much of what I loved about the book was Loup's distance and reserve, which also differs from Carey's other protagonists. That said, although there's not nearly as much sex as in the Kushiel books, there's the same fairly positive attitude toward sexuality. However, the relationships are much more couple-focused than her other books, and there's much less bi- and homosexuality. Still, the lesbian relationship is the main romantic and sexual focus of the book. (I wish Loup and the love interest would identify as lesbian or bi, instead of the slash trope of "This is just who I happen to love," but oh well.)

The ending of the book isn't the strongest—I think it is a little too easy—and although I think the book is a standalone, I actually wish it were the first book of a trilogy or a series. The entire situation on why the outposts were created and what's really going on in the U.S. and Mexico begs answering, and I personally wanted to see Loup out there dismantling things and changing things. And although it's pretty obvious that the U.S. is the bad guy in the scenario, I wish there had been more information on Mexico and what was happening there. Of course, I'm not sure how Carey would have fit that in, given that all her POVs are in Outpost and therefore have limited information, but that's why I really want more books in the universe.

Fun and recommended if you like X-Men-type stories, boxing, and/or stories of unlikely heroes.

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( Spoilers for all four books )

( Spoilers for Water Logic )

In the end, although I still love these books, I feel like they sometimes read as a white geek paradise. I sympathize with this greatly and totally want to be a steerswoman, but there is a way in which Kirstein does not question the right to pursue knowledge that feels very much like white geek entitlement to me, particularly when it is related to culturally sensitive subjects. There is something about the open source ideology here that assumes that knowledge is open to all and that is the way it should be (that's why the steerswomen are so annoyed by the wizards) that is extremely alluring and that I completely buy into at times, but is also potentially problematic as well. Knowledge can only be as open as systems of power allow it to be, and it hinges on all groups having the same access and knowledge about all groups being equal, which is simply not the case.

Rowan, thankfully, does not pursue knowledge when it will be harmful, but she is an individual, and I do not think that restraint is built into the structure of the organizations in the books. Of course, I have completely forgotten about what happens in the next two, so that will be interesting to look at!

ETA: and hey! delux_vivens just posted about respect for Hopi knowledge!

This entry was originally posted at http://oyceter.dreamwidth.org/836773.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

And once again, I pick up a book that is the first of a trilogy, although it is never mentioned on the cover. Argh!

The really sad thing is that I am fairly certain people online made note of this, so I made note of it in my head, but it took so long for me to get my hands on the book that I forgot. My memory = sieve.

It's sometime in the future, and the United States (the book says North America, but there is no mention of Canada and Mexico, boo) has torn itself apart and reformed itself as Panem. There's the Capitol and twelve Districts, and when the then thirteen Districts once rebelled, the Capitol put them down, eradicted District Thirteen, and instituted the Hunger Games. Each District must send 2 teenagers, one boy and one girl, to the Games, in which they battle each other to death in several weeks, all televised. Katniss Everdeen is from District Twelve, the poorest District located in what once was Appalachia. When her twelve-year-old sister is picked, Katniss volunteers in her place.

I haven't read other books in the genre of teenagers-battle-to-death-while-televised, especially Battle Royale, so I can't compare this to any of them. That said, I'm not wowed by the social critique of dictatorship or conquering people via media, but that is because I have seen enough of the use of TV in dictators' hands. Still, I very much like the portrayal of political oppression in the book, particularly how Katniss and her friend Gale as so much more aware of some forms of oppression than her slightly-better-off teammate Peeta from District 12, simply because Peeta is the son of a baker and has a few more resources to draw on. My favorite thing about the book is Katniss, who is strong and brave and cunning and the exact opposite of spunky. I love that she will do nearly anything to survive, that she coldly calculates how to manipulate the viewers' emotions, and I very much like how the love story in the book ended up going.

The weaknesses of the book lie largely in the plot or how characters must act because of the plot. The other contestants in the Games are not fleshed out very well, and I was particularly bored by the final battle. I thought Collins was going to go a different route, but she settled on a more familiar and standard resolution instead. That said, the unresolved bits of story make me really anticipate the next two books.

( Spoilers )

This can be read without having the next books in hand; a few things are left hanging, but the book comes to a very satisfactory conclusion by itself.

Definitely recommended. How is Battle Royale, especially in terms of heroines? I may look it up once my nerves recover from this book. (I spent the day I was reading it convinced I was living in a media dystopia where everyone was going to kill me. Not particularly comfortable, but it says something about the power of the book!)

Links:
- buymeaclue's review

In the world of Blonde Roots, the people of Aphrika have enslaved people of Europa, which lies in the Southern Hemisphere. The Middle Passage runs from the Cabbage Coast of Europa to New Ambossa and Little Londolo in the West Japanese Islands, and then back to Aphrika, particularly the United Kingdom of Great Ambossa.

Doris Scagglethorpe was kidnapped from her home and sold into slavery; she has since borne several children, all whom have been torn away from her, and is currently trying to escape. While Doris is the main character, the focus is Evaristo's worldbuilding. Europa is the Gray Continent; whytes try to flatten their noses and perm their hair to emulate blak standards of beauty; skience says the prominent jaw of blaks indicates their forward nature while the flatter skulls of whytes indicate smaller brains and less capacity for emotion. "Beating the hide of a Caucasoi is more akin to beating the hide of a camel to make it go faster."

It's a great concept, and sometimes the way Evaristo turns about tropes is brilliant. I particularly love the way Europa is exoticized and made Other, from cabbages to clothing to religious rituals to superstitious beliefs. The book is set in the past, I think, although there are the occasional mention of skateboards and trains, but it reminds me more of the deliberate anachronisms in The Emperor's Babe. But because it's set in the past, I feel the point might not get through to some readers, that they too will look at things like witch-burning and drawing-and-quartering and corset-wearing to be foreign and Other, and it will be all too easy to miss how those views and cultures shaped the views and cultures we have now.

On the other hand, I really don't know what Evaristo could have done about that, given that when Doris is at home in Europa, there's also a sense of familiarity instead of Otherness for me, probably just because of what I grew up reading. And there are some pitch-perfect moments, like when the whyte slaves sing old songs from their homeland such as "Happy Birthday" (a song once sung to celebrate a child's entrance into the world) and "Auld Lang Syne."

The narrative itself is brutal in parts, but not surprisingly so, given the subject matter, and the ending was actually happier than I thought it would be. I also love Evaristo's voice, which slips between historical and modern (more frequently modern), and is both tongue in cheek and dead serious at the same time. I wish I knew how she did it.

I don't think the concept entirely succeeds, but honestly, this is the best version of the black/white flip that I've seen, and I say that as someone who is not sure the concept will ever entirely succeed (not because of authorial skill, but just because of how difficult it is to Other the familiar and the multiple levels and complications that have to be addressed to not simplify things or to make it so "Oh, anyone can be racist!"). It's a very impressive reconstruction of the institutions of slavery, not just story of one slave.

As I'm sure most people know, coffeeandink was outed by W*ll Sh*tt*rly and Kathryn Cramer. Although they have now removed her legal name, neither of them have prevented others from outing her in their comments, and WS has deleted his LJ¹ and Kathryn Cramer has taken down the entries (be warned, the one outing Mely leads to a malware site). WS has noted he will not out anyone, but quite frankly, given that he had apologized to Mely, Willow, deepad, and vom_marlowe only a month before, I do not trust anything he says (the apology was on his LJ, which has been deleted). In interest of full disclosure, I note that Mely is a good friend of mine, as well as an ally I value a great deal.

I am disturbed and frightened by WS and KC's actions, not in the least because they tie directly back in to issues of gender, race, class, and other social injustices.

Here's rydra_wong's timeline of RaceFail '09, so people can decide what they think themselves.

SF media and book fandoms and power

RaceFail has, from the very beginning, had authors and editors on one side and readers and consumers on another. Although authors and editors and readers and consumers are not and never will be mutually exclusive categories, it is fair to say that those who have more power in the SF/F publishing world (Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, the Nielsen Haydens, Emma Bull, W*ll Sh*tt*rly, Kathryn Cramer) were arguing against people who did not have power in that world (Willow, Deepa, Mely²), with the exception of some SF/F authors and editors such as Nora Jemisin, K. Tempest Bradford, and Liz Henry (eta: Nora and Tempest and Liz are also arguing against that power, as they are not as firmly established and are therefore risking more).

veejane has posted about SF book fandom versus SF media fandom. I generally do not agree with posts that hold up media fandom (eta: this circle of media fandom, not all media fandoms) as something to be learned from, as it is not a haven to fans of color or a hotbed of diversity. However, the divide between SF book fandom, particularly the segment that is directly involved in the publishing industry, and SF media fandom exists, and as a whole, SF book fandom has had more professional power in terms of the publishing industry, more men, and probably more white people. It's not some accident or random twist of fate that created this divide. The unofficial nature of media fandom is indirectly responsible for its relatively larger diversity—and I never thought I would say this, because being more diverse than media fandom is not that high of a bar—institutional power makes it that much easier for white people, abled people, male people, middle-aged people, middle-class people to get in and to stay in. There are, of course, disadvantaged people in SF book fandom and in SF publishing, and I personally benefit a great deal from people like Nalo Hopkinson and Tobias Buckell and organizations like the Carl Brandon Society and Wiscon. But the face of SF book fandom is very limited.

This is why WS and KC's attempts to reframe the argument in their own terms is so harmful. They are attempting to force a conversation which started in LJ and make it follow their own rules. WS is doing so after having had an LJ for many years, and both WS and KC are doing so after many people have told them repeatedly about pseudonyms and about the dangers of outing. It is widely agreed upon by nearly everyone in media fandom that outing someone is unacceptable; furthermore, this is not LJ specific. Political and personal bloggers around the internet have lost jobs by being outed, and that's only one consequence. The important thing is not that they are reframing the conversation around pseudonymity and outing, it is that they are reframing the conversation so that it once again leaves that of race and racism in SF fandom. This reframing of the argument is not dangerous simply because of this one incidence of race fail; it is dangerous because it is representative of what happens when a group with more power and a group with less power argue.

This reframing is a cousin to the tone argument (search for "tone"). Both are ways of asserting power, of staking metaphorical ground; they are rhetorical forms of control that deliberately uphold current power structures. Mely writes, "This conviction, in the face of public conversation and well-documented timelines, that a discussion about race in science fiction is about the personal grudges of white people -- this inability to recognize, hear, or speak to the people of color involved in the discussion -- this in itself contributes to the institution of racism and the continuing whiteness of science fiction." Note how frequently WS and KC refer to race and racism in their posts. There has been an amazing moving bar of who has the "right" to speak; first, Deepa and Willow didn't critique Bear's book properly because they were too "emotional;" now we are too educated, not oppressed enough. Furthermore, WS in particular has had a long history of changing the subject. The arguments happening don't start with WS talking about classism; they start with someone else talking about racism. This is power at work, trying to keep itself in power.

SF book fandom, where are you?

Although a few authors and editors have come out against what WS and KC have done, where is the rest of the fandom? Like Jane says earlier, "Where are the con-comms, going apeshit to distance themselves from these serial fails of race and culture? Where are the guests-of-honor, specifically inviting underserved communities to visit at an upcoming con? (Where are the "discount if this is your first con evar" programs?) Why aren't the SF organizations like SFWA (okay, bad example) having a cow and putting out official position statements on outreach? Where are press-releases from the publishing houses, explaining their diversity efforts (in their lists and in their workplaces)?"

Why the resounding silence? Editors, authors, fans—all the people who were not talking about RaceFail and what people in their field were doing: where are they?

If the prior months of RaceFail were "both sides behaving badly" (which I disagree with), what is this, and why has no one said anything?

Mely previously wrote, "Is group protest always right or good? No, it's not. It's a way to establish and enforce community norms, and it's only as right and good as the community norms are. It can be profoundly oppressive and profoundly abusive. But silence in the face of injury is also a way to establish and enforce community norms. You don't opt out of a community by remaining in it and never commenting on its big controversies; you just opt to abide by whatever party wins."

What SF book fandom is telling me—a woman, a person of color, and a long-time fan of SF books and a con-goer—what you are telling me is that you don't care. That these are, in fact, your community norms, that you are all right with people who have more power in your community (by virtue of profession, race, and gender) using that power to harm other, less powerful, members of your community. That you are fine with the erasure of women, of people of color, of those without the same professional privileges you enjoy, and that you are willing to stand by silently and let people be hurt. This is how it affects us. This. And this.

Your silence speaks volumes.

The intersectionality of threats

Even though this started as RaceFail, it does not affect "just" race. For one, that assumes that people of color only suffer from a single oppression. Secondly, as many, many people have noted, outing can be threatening on many levels, and I would like to highlight that it can seriously harm women who are being sexually harrassed, GLBT people who are not out, POC who have been threatened, and etc. Media fandom is a safe space for some people. Again, this is something I never thought I would say, as it has proved time and again that it is not a safe space for all people. But in this particular case, it is more of a safe space than SF book fandom because of media fandom's lack of business deals and money-related matters, because of the general lack of ways to retaliate in the offline world. The act of outing comes out of the attempt to control conversation and thereby acts as an attempt to control the people having the conversation, and it comes from not just from two individuals trying to silence an anti-racist ally, but also from a community with more power in terms of gender and race.

WS and KC did not do this in a vacuum; they did it in an environment in which they could reasonably not fear many consequences (and as far as I can tell, they will not suffer consequences at all, save being banned from some blogs they probably never visited). They may not have knowingly taken advantage of this power, but they did regardless. And right now, that same environment's reaction is saying that it's ok.

This is why I think a threat to one of us is a threat to all of us. It is upholding a social norm that makes it ok to make threats against people talking about issues of social justice, and even more, it is upholding a norm that says these issues of social justice do not exist at all. I do not think feminists or GLBT activists or anti-classists or anti-ablists will be attacked right this second. But I do think the reduction of social justice is something that affects us all. If nothing else, these few years in my communities have taught me that yesterday's classism is today's anti-Semitism and becomes tomorrow's misogyny. And quite frequently, these attacks hurt the same people, because oppressions do not come singly.

What I want

I want to know if this is the norm for SF fandom. I want to know what SF fandom is doing to welcome oppressed groups—actively welcome, because simply saying "Come in" to someone who has just been assaulted in your house is not the same as showing them the precautions you have taken against further assault. I want to know if I and my allies will be safe.

But mostly, I want to know what you who have been silent are going to do.

I say this because it is all too easy for me to stay on the periphery. So don't tell me. Show me. Not via links or comments, but by making changes—in yourself, in one aspect of your life, online or offline, public or private, large or small. Help us all change.

What I'm going to do

I'd like to spend this week focusing on POC; in particular, I will try to catch up on all my backlog of book write ups by and about POC. I am going to read the 12th POC in SF Carnival. I will continue working on making my blog a safe space for oppressed people and issues of social justice. I will work on my pieces for the Asian Women Blog Carnival and the Remyth Project. I am going to continue to deal with these same issues of safety and trust and social justice offline.

eta: Also, any pointers about bringing up these things and dealing with them offline are incredibly appreciated.

Rules of discourse

I have, for the first time, preemptively banned people (WS and Greyorm). Having seen their comments in other places, I have no desire to have them in my blog. If they would like to respond to me, they are perfectly free to do so in the entire rest of the internet. I especially do not care how wonderful WS is offline; this is online, and he has years of history of behaving badly. I will be on- and offline periodically tomorrow, but I will still be moderating comments.

Notes:
¹ It was deleted when I wrote this, and he restored it while I was editing this prior to posting. (eta: deleted again as of 3/5)
² No, I don't think having worked nine months for an SF/F publishing house thirteen years ago is the same as being an editor or an author right now.

Half a Crown concludes the Small Change or Still Life with Fascists trilogy, which also consists of Farthing and Ha'Penny.

It's 1960, eleven years after the events of Farthing and nineteen after a group of powerful British politicians brokered a peace with Hitler. Elvira, the adopted niece of Carmichael, is about to debut when she's drawn into the world of politics that her uncle inhabits.

I didn't like Ha'Penny as much as I liked Farthing. But I think Half a Crown is the strongest in the series, largely because it departs from the mystery format that worked so well with the first book and not so well with the second. Of course, this may be influenced by my not being much of a mystery reader. Part, though, is because the second and third books in the trilogy lack the element of surprise and discovery about the worldbuilding that's so intrinsic to Farthing, so what we're left with in Ha'Penny is a more standard mystery, not one that simultaneously works as mystery and worldbuilding.

I also found Half a Crown effective because it places Carmichael front and center; we've been waiting for his story after realizing he's the continuing thread that ties the books together, and it's good to get it at last.

( Spoilers )

I cried when I read this, and then I remembered elections and the change come January.

Links:
- oursin's review
- kate_nepveu's review

I am woefully behind on comments, reading LJ, book posts and TV posts, and will probably remain so as I scramble to get through the last two weeks of school! Of course, I may also spam LJ obsessively in a desperate attempt to avoid studying. Who knows?

I've read Clay's Ark and Wild Seed before, which sort of ruined my attempt to read the Seed to Harvest series in the order it was published. Still, I gave it a shot. I think Wild Seed is the best of the series, though I will have to reread it to be sure. Mostly, reading Patternmaster was interesting largely because Butler wrote that one first, then used the other three books in the series to explain how the world got to where it was in Patternmaster.

Patternmaster is set in a future in which most humans are telepathic and linked to the Pattern, non-telepaths are called "mutes," and everyone is threatened by the clayarks, once-humans who were infected with a mutating virus from outer space. Mind of My Mind is set in a not-too-distance future and details the rise of the Pattern and the telepathic race of people.

I... have absolutely no idea what to write for these books, since many of the surprises and twists in worldbuilding were completely unsurprising to me, given that I had read Wild Seed and Clay's Ark, or I felt like there was no tension because I knew the outcome from Patternmaster. I was particularly disappointed because I read Wild Seed first, many years ago, and none of the characters in the other books come close to being as fascinating as Doro and Anyanwu. Mind of My Mind was odd reading because Anyanwu in particular doesn't get much development; of course, this is also not a valid complaint on my part because Wild Seed was written after Mind of My Mind, and Butler probably developed Anyanwu's character much more then.

So overall, this was a rather confusing experience, although Butler's worldbuilding and characters are interesting and complicated nevertheless. I especially like Mary in Mind of My Mind and wish the book had gone on for a bit longer instead of ending where it had; I wanted to see the development from Mary's Pattern to the Pattern in Patternmaster.

I think I'd recommend that people read this in the order it was published, although I'd also recommend that people skip Clay's Ark entirely for the violence and gratuitous depressingness.

(possibly shelved under Merovingen Nights: Angel with the Sword?)

Altair Jones is a canaler in the under-city of Merovingen ("Merovingen lived, which was its own misfortune, just well enough not to die"). One day, a rich young man falls out of the sky from a bridge, and against her better judgment and all her instincts, she rescues him. She's soon drawn into some city-wide intrigue involving Mondragon, the aforementioned man.

I actually found the beginning of this book extremely accessible, which is unusual for me with Cherryh, largely because it's told in Altair's voice. She's not snarky exactly, but she's tough and a canal rat and a bit young in some ways, and I like her a lot. I was afraid that the book would end up moving to the high-class circles of Merovingen, in which Mondragon would have all the advantages of knowing the turf and Altair would be a fish out of water and stop being as proactive, but thankfully, this is not the case. While we do get to see a fair amount of Mondragon, he's very clearly The Boy and the damsel in the distress, which I love.

Does anyone know if Altair is POC or not? The book describes her as having a "dusky tanned face," and I can't figure out if the dusky is part of the tan or not.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how the book ends, possibly because I read the latter half when I was severely sleep-deprived, uncaffeinated, and allergic to everything. (Speaking of which, Bay Area ppl, have the past few days been particularly bad for allergies, or is it just me?) So take it with a grain of salt when I say that it felt very fast and not entirely resolved. Also, I would have liked a bit more incluing about the world, though I suspect Cherryh didn't and left everything in a giant appendix because it was planned as a shared world (? is this standard practice for shared worlds?).

Wow, that was depressing. I mean, I do not read Butler books for the fun and frothy, but still.

It's the near-distant future, and society has deteriorated so that there are walled cities and gangs running amuck outside. Blake and his two daughters, Rane and Keira, end up being kidnapped, but not by the normal suspects. Instead, they've been kidnapped by a group of people infected with a strange organism from outer space.

It's particularly terrifying reading about the leader of the group, Eli's, flashbacks, from the unbearable compulsion to spread the organism, stay alive, and procreate. Of the Butler books I read, I think this one has the thinnest line between human and Other, and it's harrowing reading about the infected people's attempts to stay human, even as their humanity constantly erodes.

As usual, I like Butler's multiracial world, and it'd be interesting to do a closer examination of pregnancy and procreation in her books, since they're so often focused on extending the human race, or extending it as a hybrid of human-alien.

( And then, the depressing (spoilers) )

I didn't quite like this as much as Dawn or Adulthood Rites, despite being more fascinated by the POV character, who is a Human-Oankali ooloi construct. Also, I giggled a little at the first-person POV, as I'm sure Butler did it to avoid annoying pronoun issues (ooloi are sexless).

Unlike the previous two books in the series, the threat to Jodahs didn't feel particularly urgent to me, especially after being terrified for Akin in Adulthood Rites. I am not quite sure why. Possibly the ending of Adulthood Rites has something to do with it. I suspect my general lack of caring had to do with the human couple Jodahs mates with -- they're not particularly interesting, and I finished the book yesterday night and still can't tell you what kind of people they were.

As such, I didn't care that much about Jodah's struggle to stay with the two. I think I wanted less of an "Oankali and/or constructs interact with Humans" and more of an exploration of the constructs and the ooloi themselves, so ... it's not particularly fair to judge the book on what I wanted it to be, but there it is all the same.

Still, though I've read some Butler before (Wild Seed, Parable of the Sower, Dawn), reading Adulthood Rites and Imago close to each other reinforces what a powerful writer she is, and I hate that I have started to really enjoy her work after she's died, as opposed to appreciating it when she was still writing.

I read Dawn about five years ago, so I didn't remember it very much. Thankfully, that didn't seem to matter for this book.

Akin is the Human construct son of Lilith, but though he looks Human, he's half-Human, half-Oankali. He's stolen by resister Humans who want their own children, but cannot have them.

My plot summary sucks more than usual. The book is a continuation of themes that I remember from the first book: what it means to be Human, if Humans can keep from destroying themselves, what it means to be different. I read this very slowly because it was extremely painful at times, particularly Akin's childhood in the resister city. Just... the way people treated him and constantly focused their rage at the Oankali on him. And their blind insistence on making him just like them, or attempting to ignore the differences or try to eradicate them violently.

He does meet a few good people, and his relationship with Tate is one of the most interesting in the book, as they disagree about some very major things, but still try to understand each other.

Butler's exceptionally good at portraying Akin's partially alien POV and making it feel normal to the reader; she's equally good at rendering recognizable human behavior as foreign and frightening. I, of course, keep bringing this back in my head to race and racism, though clearly the two aren't analogues. On the other hand, if this was what Butler was doing and not me reading too much into things, it works better than other SFnal attempts to comment on race, as her humans are multi-racial and not just, so pushing race commentary onto a separate species doesn't read as a cheat.

Excellent book, though definitely not light reading.

(second in a series beginning with Fire Dancer)

Rheba and Kirtn are back to schlepping across the universe, and this time, they are going to the planet Daemon with its exiled ruler, also called Daemon.

( Spoilers for Fire Dancer )

Overall, I liked this book, but less than the first one, as I constantly wanted to whomp Daemon over the head and because the UST between Rheba and Kirtn is not as foregrounded. Also, Kirtn! I sympathize a little with your angst over Rheba's premature sexual maturity and lack of corresponding sexual awareness, but given that your planet blew up and not many people are there to educate her about it, I feel a better course of action would be less angst and more sex ed. I also realize Rheba is too young for sex ed in terms of the planet's rules, but the whole "planet blowing up, races nearly extinct" thing is a very good mitigating factor.

As the subtitle notes, this is a book of postcolonial SF/F, more leaning toward the SF side of the spectrum.

I am a really bad person to write about this book, as I generally suck at reading short stories that focus more on the conceptual than the emotional. I found most of the stories that I "got" were the ones I wanted to argue with ("Native Aliens" and "Lingua Franca" in particular), and the ones with the neatest concepts were the ones I didn't really "get" (a lot). I, uh, largely feel like I fail at reading comprehension.

On the other hand, it was really cool just to have an anthology centered around this particular topic, given that it's one that is always lurking there, particularly in SF, and one not usually addressed from the POV of the colonized (or so says Hopkinson in her foreward, and from what I've seen from the little SF I've read). And, as a double plus bonus, I have another batch of authors to look for!

Some of them I've known: I was disappointed that the Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu story was one that was actually turned into a chapter in Shadow Speaker and was probably overly giggly over the fact that Larissa Lai had written Bladerunner fan fic, but I'll be looking for things from the other writers.

So... YMMV, especially if you are better at parsing short stories than me (and I think it would be difficult to be worse at parsing them than me).

Brenna Kincaid was tortured by a Psy serial killer, and though she's healed much faster than expected, she's still got scars. Judd Lauren is an ex-Arrow Psy, a super-secret soldier who used to kill and etc., supposedly to the benefit of the Psy race.

Though the back cover says they're drawn together when a series of murders start happening because Brenna thinks she could be doing it, the book is really more about Judd learning to how partially break Silence and about his angsty past. The mystery of whether or not Brenna's psychic encounters with the Psy serial killer have made her capable of murder is solved fairly quickly, and I was sad that she soon stopped being the focus of the book. I shouldn't be surprised that most of the emotional growth goes with the Psy character, but I was still disappointed.

Also, because the two main characters are already unconnected to the PsyNet, much of the larger, series-specific plot really has nothing to do with either of them. That's too bad, as that was the main draw for me. Judd does have a little to do with the major plans of the Psy Council, but much of it isn't essential to the romance plot, and that weakens the book.

Singh also falls into the trap of constantly telling me things that I don't believe, from people being surprised at a completely unsurprising piece of information to everyone telling Brenna's she's strong. Yes, her past indicates that she is, but I would have liked some proof outside of hearsay. There's also too much of the "Once again, he was amazed by her strength and courage" thing when Brenna reacts to something in a way that I think is fairly normal.

I probably won't continue with the Psy-Changeling series after this; the prose is just too clunky and the characterization isn't good enough to catch my interest.

Faith NightStar (this is a PsyClan name, not a pretendian one, I think) is one of the world's top F-Psy; she forecasts business trends with unerring accuracy and can even be prompted by triggers, further upping her value. But lately, she's been getting visions of horrible violence, disturbing because the Silence has supposedly wiped emotion from all of the Psy. She ends up getting help from a leopard Changeling clan, though she's instantly attracted to a jaguar Changeling, Vaughn.

Wow, that was a lot of information.

I picked this up in a used bookstore after reading magicnoire's rec of Singh's first book. I couldn't tell if the heroine of this one is multiracial or not (ditto with the hero), but in general, the book has a lot of side characters who just happen to be Asian or Caribbean or etc., which is promising.

This had pretty much everything I am sick of in romances -- the clear signs of a series, including way too much information about the couple from the previous book and a bazillion alpha males, each more alpha than the last; Very Special eyes -- all cardinal Psys have eyes like the night sky, completely black with spots of white and occasional lightning depending on mood; instant lust; extreme and literal alpha maleness complete with almost biologically ordained protectiveness; and psychic mating.

On the other hand, what made me keep reading was how it differed from paranormals I've read in the past. First, the psychic mating is an optional life-long bond, unlike most forced soulmate bonds. And even though the heroine from the first book was an empath, Faith is icy cold. Her breaking away from emotionless Silence went a little too fast for me to entirely believe it, but I like that she still retains her brain for logic and strategy. I rolled my eyes at the hero's Angsty Past and his jaguar-ness and growling, but it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the bulk of the book was about Faith -- I think we get one or two mentions of the hero's Angsty Past, and the rest is all about Faith breaking away from the only society she's known and avenging herself on her sister's killer. I approve!

And while the power dynamic is still a little too imbalanced for me to like, particularly the focus on male physical strength and sexuality, I was happily surprised when the very alpha Vaughn actually lets Faith go off on her own and explicitly says he trusts her strength enough to just watch her back for her instead of jumping in himself. And! Giant bonus points for finally tying the guy up during sex, even though he's still too commanding for it to be totally trope-breaking.

I also wish there were less about jaguar-ness and cat-ness and other such animalistic descriptions, though at least they're literal. Also also, I wanted more female Changelings and more male Psys, as the story structure and social set up of the Psys basically calls for alpha Changelings and Psys learning to get in touch with their feelings. Still, I'm glad that there's a divorce between physical strength/sexual charisma and emotional vulnerability in that the men seem to be much more primed to fall in love than the women.

I've also grown very interested in the world; it's much deeper and richer than past paranormals I've read, and it has psychics running corporations and forming psychic webs! Much of my dislike of the male-Changeling/female-Psy pairings and potential essentialism is also diffused by getting a broader look at Psy society, though Changeling society still feels largely male.

Plus, the next book has psychically wounded female wolf Changeling who reacts to psychic damage by getting more violent + ex-assassin Psy guy, and it is now on hold at the library.

Verdict so far: not completely a fan yet, but Singh's doing enough interesting and different things for me to overlook the tropes I dislike.

ETA: OMG! I totally didn't comment on this at first because I didn't realize. But, people, the couple from the first book? The woman is not pregnant! There are no adorable children running around at their feet! This book does not end with Faith pregnant!

I liked this better than Zahrah the Windseeker because it felt larger and more threatening.

Ejii is a shadow speaker, one of the four in her town. She's also the daughter of a power-hungry chief who was put into his place by Jaa the Red Queen. She lives in Niger in 2070, after what is called the Great Change has brought magic back to Earth. She ends up a-questing for some reason or another and joins up with a boy named Dikeogu.

I give rotten summary.

Anyway! There is adventure and gods and other worlds. Much like with Zahrah, the language of this is sometimes too simple for me, or too obvious; I wanted less explanation of emotions and more seeing them on display. The beginning also suffered the same flaw of Zahrah -- I never quite believed that Ejii and Dikeogu were in danger, and when two kids are a-questing across the Sahara Desert, I should be more worried about them.

On the other hand, things got much better once we met up with Jaa again. I very much liked Jaa as a character, particularly the contrasts of her small frame and her large sword, her strength and her propensity toward violence, how she is always an uneasy ally to Ejii. I also liked how large the ending felt and how all the ends weren't tied up and neatly solved.

What struck me the most about the book wasn't the characters so much as the setting. I love how central Africa is, how you get the sense of the US on the periphery (there was one scene in particular that I loved for this), but it's all about Africa. I love the references to all the languages and the different ethnicities, the sense of history, so much place. I love watching it show up in 2070 Niger and in Genin, and I particularly love Okorafor-Mbachu's explanation as to why people in Genin look African. Her acknowledgements note that Nigeria is one of her muses, and it shows in the best of ways.

Links:
- revena's review

My foray into the world of poetry continues, this one prompted by Asia Pacific Arts' Best of 2007: Wordsmiths.

Dance Dance Revolution has nothing to do with the video game; instead, it's set in the not-too-distant future, in a place only called the Desert. The Desert is hotels and glamour and rich tourists in the center, and poverty everywhere else; the introduction compares it to Dubai or Las Vegas, though probably more apocalyptic. We're introduced to the Historian, who has come to interview the Guide, a Korean expat survivor of the Kwangju Massacre turned tour guide.

The Historian introduces the volume by saying that the Guide, like many others in the Desert, speaks Desert creole, a mix of hundreds of languages. The poems in the books are a mix of actual Desert creole and a mix of English clarifications that the Historian has provided/inserted; any ellipses are when he didn't clearly record what the Guide was saying.

This was a very difficult book for me to get through; the Desert creole meant having to sound out everything in my head as I read it. I did like the conceit of the book, and there are bits of prose taken from the Historian's memoir (largely set during his childhood in Sierra Leone). And some passages I took to very much, particularly the one below. But overall, I suspect this would reward a rereading or three on my part, only I don't quite have the mental energy to do so.

( The Lineage of Yes-Men )

This piece is a pretty good example of the Guide's voice, though this piece and others on Korea have more Korean than the rest of the book. From what I recall, much of the language doesn't play with Asian languages (the APA article says it's largely English, Spanish and Jamaican), which I sorely missed, particularly considering that the Guide is Korean. I'm sure adding in Asian languages would make the poems even more difficult to read for the average English-speaking reader, but still.

This will be an interesting book to revisit some day when I can concentrate more.