This was actually quite lovely. (I did not like her previous Station Eleven and was completely prepared to put this down if it did not work for me.) This novel is purportedly a time-travel novel, as a mysterious effect echoes through the lives of a disillusioned young man in 1912 Canada, a young woman in prepandemic 2020 NYC, an author on tour in 2203, and scientists in the moon colony in 2401. The first half of this book is taken up by atmospheric writing and mysterious hinting; the second half is where the time travel kicks in, and it’s done quite well. Though there’s plenty to keep a reader busy in the time travel area, I think that the real heart of the novel is in the character of the author Olive. Olive’s on a book tour but her heart yearns for home; her book tour has gone on for so long that she barely knows what city she is in or what fan she is addressing at any given moment, feeling as adrift in time and space as any time traveler. As a reader, I can’t help but think that similar circumstances must have prompted the writing of this book.
Tag: genre-scifi
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
This book is time travel, sort of, except it’s the Groundhog Day type where you don’t get a choice in how it’s done – you just rewind and get your life all over again, which is what happens to narrator Harry August. After he dies, he is reborn exactly where and when he was the first time, except this time he has all the memories of his previous life and is trapped in an infant body. (Yes, this happens fifteen times in the course of the book. Each time, North elides the weird part of having to get diaper trained and learn to walk while fully conscious and in possession of an adult mind, by simply skipping over it to when Harry is six and theoretically capable of asserting agency.) The first half of the book is Harry coming to terms with this strange existence, as well as meeting others who go through something similar; he learns that his fellow travelers – they call themselves kalachakras – have reached a sort of gentlemen’s agreement not to use their foreknowledge to greatly impact history, since that sort of thing can have terrible impacts down the timeline. Then Harry starts getting mysterious warnings passed down from the future, and begins to realize that a disaster is looming that only he can prevent. I enjoyed the ride, and North carried the story along splendidly. Unfortunately, this was the sort of book that’s super fun to read but doesn’t bear up well when you start thinking about the details and how it’s all supposed to work together.
The Dawnhounds, by Sascha Stronach
One of those books so wondrously weird that you really don’t know how you got there or what is even going on, but which is written with such intensity and lush detail that you can’t stop reading it. The action opens on a boat, manned by a skeleton crew and carrying a cargo crawling with infectious poisons, with references to wars long past (but with conflicts still simmering) and mysterious weapons. Then we alternate between the viewpoints of Jyn (former street rat, current disgraced constable, disgraced because of her attraction to women) and Sen (former soldier, current sergeant, world-weary but still trying to do the decent thing) as they patrol their city, in which people live in breathing cellulose houses which consume their inhabitants’ waste matter for food. There’s a mysterious religion in which priests dress up as their sacred crane (delightfully, Jyn and Sen call them “bin chickens” under their breaths; clearly the Aussie nickname extends to Stronach’s native New Zealand as well) and seem intent on gaining power. About halfway through the book we learn that there’s a very magical element going on as well, very much tied to the outsider status that is thrust upon characters who don’t fit into the mainstream. There’s a lot going on in the background that Stronach doesn’t bother to explain: what, besides a lust for power, is driving the bin chicken religion? Why do they want to infect everyone with spores? What are they trying to accomplish? How are they related to the god-like deities who grant powers to a chosen wounded few? The reader has no idea, but the writing in the book rockets along so beautifully, the emotions of the outcast characters so strong and the descriptive prose lush and vivid, that you barely have time to wonder what happened before it’s all over and you’re left blinking, wondering what the heck you just read. Stronach is a Maori author so maybe I need to read up on Maori mythology to get a handle on things. First in a series, apparently, though honestly I don’t know how much I’ll retain by the time I pick up the next.
The Shuddering City, by Sharon Shinn
This standalone book is full of characters keeping secrets from each other, so as a reader you start off a bit in the dark as well. It’s one of those sci-fi books where the science is so far in the past that it might as well come off as fantasy. The city in question is Corcannon, which is experiencing earthquakes of increasing frequency and intensity; as the seemingly unrelated characters pursue their separate goals, you slowly get the feeling that some kind of creepy “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” vibe is going on in the background. I found the ending a bit deus ex machina, but Shinn makes it work, and her character work is stellar as usual.
Angelica, by Sharon Shinn
Shinn’s Samaria series has always had a sort of unspoken communication with the reader: savvy sci-fi readers quickly catch on that “Jovah” is an AI satellite tasked with protecting the population on the planet, said population including genetically-engineered winged “angels” able to soar into the sky and sing coded communications to Jovah asking for anything from weather intercessions to dropped deliveries of medication. But in this installment, mysterious aliens arrive on Samaria dealing random destruction and death, and the populace (not knowing what the reader knows) has no idea how to deal with the problem. Shinn takes advantage of the reader’s knowledge of sci-fi space wars without having to explain anything, letting us enjoy the characters’ journey towards understanding, while juggling love and politics as well. One thing I haven’t been gushing over enough in this series is the description of how perfect it feels to sing harmonies and accompaniments with other wonderful singers and different types of voices; it’s really beautifully described and makes me wish that I could be singing with the characters.
Notes from the Burning Age, by Claire North
This is dystopian fiction, a kind of anti-Becky Chambers vision of the future in which humanity destroys the world, understands why and how it was destroyed, and hurtles towards doing it again anyway. Narrator Ven once belonged to the priesthood, where he interprets and sorts data excavated from the past, from trivial information like selfies and pictures of food, to more dangerous and forbidden knowledge like political screeds and diagrams of nuclear weapons. This is a very show-don’t-tell book, and Ven keeps secrets from the reader as well as from the people around him. The book builds patiently, the postapocalyptic world drawn with gorgeous detail, while Ven sinks deeper and deeper into his own head as he tries to grasp the complexities of the people around him. For a long time I didn’t know where this book was going, and then about a third of the way through it got very compelling. Slow start, amazing finish.
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings: 16 Retellings of Asian Myths and Legends, ed. Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman
This was a really neat collection. Each short story is followed by an explanation of the myth or legend that inspired it. Some authors retell a story but in a different time and place (“The Land of the Morning Calm” by E.C. Myers, which injects Korean ghosts into an MMORPG), while others latch onto a tiny detail and expand it (“Spear Carrier” by Rahul Kanakia, which imagines an entire life for a battlefield redshirt). I don’t know a lot of the stories in Asian mythologies, and really enjoyed reading both the stories and the background segments that explained the original myths.
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal
In 1952 a huge meteorite obliterates much of the East Coast of the US, forcing the country and the world into an accelerated space race in order to escape the increasingly hostile planet. Elma York, genius mathematician and pilot, gets hired on as a “calculator” but her dream is to be included in the astronaut cadre. Standing in her way: extreme amounts of 1950s misogyny, as well as severe stage fright and imposter syndrome from years of being talked down to by men in technical fields; despite the unceasing support of her husband, it’s an uphill battle. Elma also gets to see little snippets of how racism complicates life even further for women who aren’t as white and privileged as she is. Despite the apocalyptic nature of the situation, the tone of the book is weirdly light; the real conflict is Elma’s battle to get to space. Most of the book is spent on her inner turmoil while precious little attention is paid to the rest of the post-cataclysm world, a balance that didn’t sit well with me.
Jovah’s Angel, by Sharon Shinn
Set 150 years after the first book, Shinn’s Samaria now features da Vinci-esque engineers trying to figure out the secrets of flight (for non-winged non-angels) and transportation. Archangel Alleluia, raised abruptly to the position after her predecessor Delilah suffers an injury, finds herself learning more than she cares to know about the actual mechanics behind the entity they know as Jovah. Soft-spoken Alleluia and her easygoing engineer friend are a pleasure to read; their circumstances are tense but they treat one another with kindness and mutual respect, which is utterly refreshing. A very satisfying conclusion as well, though Shinn leaves the door open for further development.
Critical Point, by S.L. Huang
Next in Huang’s series about Cas Russell, amoral heroine who uses math to kick ass. Although the action is frenetic, with Cas lurching from kidnapping to bombing to fighting off bioengineered guard dogs, the overall pace of the plot is actually almost too leisurely; hints about the shadowy organizations which may or may not be controlling her life remain just hints, and her moral and emotional development is also frustratingly slow. The other characters are refreshing, accepting her strangenesses and allowing her to develop at her own (very slow!) pace, without allowing her to get away with bad behavior.