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tachyondecay
Fans of Christopher Moore may be shocked by this book. Exclamations of “Sacré bleu!” followed by monocles popping out from eyes and spilled cups of tea are probably going to be the norm. For, you see, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It was an excellent supernatural mystery set in Paris and involving great artists and their muses. But it is not very funny, or at least, it doesn’t have the same, non-stop humorous dialogue and description that I have come to expect from Moore.
I’m not sure I can do the plot justice. It’s a mystery, and a convoluted one at that. Sacré Bleu is really a chain of events surrounding the mysterious death of Vincent Van Gogh. Widely considered a suicide, Van Gogh dragged himself a mile from where he was painting to the house of his doctor—he had a chest wound, you see. In actuality, Van Gogh was shot by a mysterious fellow known only as the Colorman, an itinerant colour maker whose interest in artists is far from benign. When the Colorman starts sniffing around Paris, Van Gogh’s friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec starts putting together some of the pieces of this mystery. Meanwhile, his friend Lucien Léssard is obsessed with painting the woman who broke his heart and then came back. And somehow, it all comes back to the true blue, ultramarine blue, the sacré bleu that started it all….
Despite not having the same laugh-out-loud dialogue that endeared me to Moore in Fool and Lamb, Sacré Bleu is still an eminently satisfying read. Indeed, my appreciation for Moore’s writing has actually increased now that I see he can turn his wit to a more subtle design when he desires. For make no mistake: Sacré Bleu is still hilarious, with plenty of moments of alternatively light-hearted and dark humour. Humour is embedded in the streets of Paris where most of the novel is set as well as in the artist characters who populate its pages. But there’s a darker, more sinister side to this story as well. It’s this dual nature of the narrative that really impressed me.
Sacré Bleu succeeds in part because Moore makes these famous artists alive. He designs personalities for them, extrapolated in part from the writings and stories and, of course, paintings that they left behind—and fabricated wholly, I’m guessing, when the need was there. I have no idea how accurately he portrays people like Renoir and Manet and Pissarro—working at an art gallery, unlike staying at a Holiday Inn, does not magically give you intimate knowledge of the Parisian art scene—and I don’t really care. What matters is that he makes these artists come alive. And as he points out in the afterword, the possibilities for a story set among artists in late nineteenth-century Paris are endless—there’s just so many cool famous people to rope into the chaos.
Moore wisely chooses to focus on a small core group. Lucien and Henri are the main movers and shakers in Sacré Bleu. Lucien becomes mixed up with Juliette, whom we soon learn is also involved with the Colorman. At first her role in his schemes is unclear—is she a willing accomplice or some kind of dupe? Later, we learn that the situation is far graver and more complicated than one might ever have suspected. As Lucien paints her, he starts ignoring his other responsibilities at the family bakery, and it’s up to his friend Henri to intercede and get to the bottom of the mystery of the Colorman. Of course, sometimes Henri gets distracted—it is Paris after all….
Moore takes his time unspooling the mystery of the Colorman in front of us. He stintingly makes use of flashback, preferring instead to jump once in a while and follow Juliette and the Colorman directly before returning to Henri and Lucien. Through these conversations, he challenges the reader to theorize on the nature of the Colorman, of his relationship to sacré bleu, of his designs on these artists. And throughout the story there is a constant, unshakeable feeling that there is something supernatural going on here, something otherworldly about the Colorman (I kept picturing Toby Jones’ portrayal of the Dream Lord in season 5 of Doctor Who). Yet just when I was convinced the Colorman was something out of fairy, he would go ahead and say or do something that seemed so utterly banal, mundane, and human that I would wonder if I was right after all. Moore keeps me guessing, going around in circles, uncovering bits and pieces of the truth but not quite the whole story—not, of course, until the end.
I wasn’t frustrated at all, though, because I was having a lot of fun along the way. Sacré Bleu isn’t just a mystery about artists—it’s a mystery about, and a discussion of, art itself. It’s a truism that artists suffer—must suffer—for their art, that it is this suffering that somehow allows them to create such masterpieces. Moore takes this idea and examines it from several different angles, teasing out its various formulations and implications. Similarly, the artists talk about light, and line, and form, about colour and technique. I suspect my friends who have studied art or art history would enjoy this book, but no special knowledge of those areas is required. Indeed, Sacré Bleu is a kind of layman’s guide to the painter’s zeitgeist of Paris circa 1890.
And beneath it all there lies a sombre undercurrent, a dark tone to the narrative. Whether or not Van Gogh killed himself or was murdered, he was a disturbed man (eating paint will do that to you). All those artists dying of syphillis. And, of course, the resolution to the mystery of the Colorman, the nature of Juliette and Lucien’s own unique kind of sacrifice, all speak to the muddled nature of human existence. From the good comes the bad, from the bad comes the exquisite. We are all inextricably bound together and wrapped up into a complicated web of truth and lies and everything in between—and nothing evinces that more than great art.
So I’m going to give Sacré Bleu five stars. Here’s why. First, it has a well-realized historical setting, with plenty of fascinating famous characters saying scandalous things (Renoir likes big butts and he cannot lie). Second, it has an excellent historical mystery with just the right hint of the supernatural. Third, Moore puts his characters in real danger and has them make some important choices. Fourth, even with all that gravity, Moore still manages to find time to remind us that this is a comedy—and yeah, it has a happy ending.
I’m not sure I can do the plot justice. It’s a mystery, and a convoluted one at that. Sacré Bleu is really a chain of events surrounding the mysterious death of Vincent Van Gogh. Widely considered a suicide, Van Gogh dragged himself a mile from where he was painting to the house of his doctor—he had a chest wound, you see. In actuality, Van Gogh was shot by a mysterious fellow known only as the Colorman, an itinerant colour maker whose interest in artists is far from benign. When the Colorman starts sniffing around Paris, Van Gogh’s friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec starts putting together some of the pieces of this mystery. Meanwhile, his friend Lucien Léssard is obsessed with painting the woman who broke his heart and then came back. And somehow, it all comes back to the true blue, ultramarine blue, the sacré bleu that started it all….
Despite not having the same laugh-out-loud dialogue that endeared me to Moore in Fool and Lamb, Sacré Bleu is still an eminently satisfying read. Indeed, my appreciation for Moore’s writing has actually increased now that I see he can turn his wit to a more subtle design when he desires. For make no mistake: Sacré Bleu is still hilarious, with plenty of moments of alternatively light-hearted and dark humour. Humour is embedded in the streets of Paris where most of the novel is set as well as in the artist characters who populate its pages. But there’s a darker, more sinister side to this story as well. It’s this dual nature of the narrative that really impressed me.
Sacré Bleu succeeds in part because Moore makes these famous artists alive. He designs personalities for them, extrapolated in part from the writings and stories and, of course, paintings that they left behind—and fabricated wholly, I’m guessing, when the need was there. I have no idea how accurately he portrays people like Renoir and Manet and Pissarro—working at an art gallery, unlike staying at a Holiday Inn, does not magically give you intimate knowledge of the Parisian art scene—and I don’t really care. What matters is that he makes these artists come alive. And as he points out in the afterword, the possibilities for a story set among artists in late nineteenth-century Paris are endless—there’s just so many cool famous people to rope into the chaos.
Moore wisely chooses to focus on a small core group. Lucien and Henri are the main movers and shakers in Sacré Bleu. Lucien becomes mixed up with Juliette, whom we soon learn is also involved with the Colorman. At first her role in his schemes is unclear—is she a willing accomplice or some kind of dupe? Later, we learn that the situation is far graver and more complicated than one might ever have suspected. As Lucien paints her, he starts ignoring his other responsibilities at the family bakery, and it’s up to his friend Henri to intercede and get to the bottom of the mystery of the Colorman. Of course, sometimes Henri gets distracted—it is Paris after all….
Moore takes his time unspooling the mystery of the Colorman in front of us. He stintingly makes use of flashback, preferring instead to jump once in a while and follow Juliette and the Colorman directly before returning to Henri and Lucien. Through these conversations, he challenges the reader to theorize on the nature of the Colorman, of his relationship to sacré bleu, of his designs on these artists. And throughout the story there is a constant, unshakeable feeling that there is something supernatural going on here, something otherworldly about the Colorman (I kept picturing Toby Jones’ portrayal of the Dream Lord in season 5 of Doctor Who). Yet just when I was convinced the Colorman was something out of fairy, he would go ahead and say or do something that seemed so utterly banal, mundane, and human that I would wonder if I was right after all. Moore keeps me guessing, going around in circles, uncovering bits and pieces of the truth but not quite the whole story—not, of course, until the end.
I wasn’t frustrated at all, though, because I was having a lot of fun along the way. Sacré Bleu isn’t just a mystery about artists—it’s a mystery about, and a discussion of, art itself. It’s a truism that artists suffer—must suffer—for their art, that it is this suffering that somehow allows them to create such masterpieces. Moore takes this idea and examines it from several different angles, teasing out its various formulations and implications. Similarly, the artists talk about light, and line, and form, about colour and technique. I suspect my friends who have studied art or art history would enjoy this book, but no special knowledge of those areas is required. Indeed, Sacré Bleu is a kind of layman’s guide to the painter’s zeitgeist of Paris circa 1890.
And beneath it all there lies a sombre undercurrent, a dark tone to the narrative. Whether or not Van Gogh killed himself or was murdered, he was a disturbed man (eating paint will do that to you). All those artists dying of syphillis. And, of course, the resolution to the mystery of the Colorman, the nature of Juliette and Lucien’s own unique kind of sacrifice, all speak to the muddled nature of human existence. From the good comes the bad, from the bad comes the exquisite. We are all inextricably bound together and wrapped up into a complicated web of truth and lies and everything in between—and nothing evinces that more than great art.
So I’m going to give Sacré Bleu five stars. Here’s why. First, it has a well-realized historical setting, with plenty of fascinating famous characters saying scandalous things (Renoir likes big butts and he cannot lie). Second, it has an excellent historical mystery with just the right hint of the supernatural. Third, Moore puts his characters in real danger and has them make some important choices. Fourth, even with all that gravity, Moore still manages to find time to remind us that this is a comedy—and yeah, it has a happy ending.
I don’t abandon books lightly, but it had to be done. If I hadn’t borrowed enough books from the library that I have to read about 1 per day to finish them before I move to England, I definitely would have finished this. I don’t think I would have liked it, mind you, but it’s not horrible enough to abandon.
I should have paid attention to Jeet Thayil’s biography. Poets-turned-novelist rarely work for me. Their emphasis of style over substance and urge to be “experimental” in that style often leave me shaking my head and looking around frantically for some kind of, any kind of plot. That’s definitely my experience with Narcopolis. The plot telescopes backwards through each character, moving from the main character (whose name I forget) to the eunuch prostitute Dimple to her Chinese opium mentor Mr. Lee and so on, swinging back around eventually (I hope).
This will work for some people, I’m sure, and since I haven’t finished it, I can’t really talk much about the story itself. Thayil seems to work hard to capture the atmosphere of the Bombay drug underworld, the mixture of brutal criminal enterprise with addict tourism. Along the way we get glimpses of politics and philosophy. It might be good—but I don’t really have the patience or the time, right now, to find out.
I should have paid attention to Jeet Thayil’s biography. Poets-turned-novelist rarely work for me. Their emphasis of style over substance and urge to be “experimental” in that style often leave me shaking my head and looking around frantically for some kind of, any kind of plot. That’s definitely my experience with Narcopolis. The plot telescopes backwards through each character, moving from the main character (whose name I forget) to the eunuch prostitute Dimple to her Chinese opium mentor Mr. Lee and so on, swinging back around eventually (I hope).
This will work for some people, I’m sure, and since I haven’t finished it, I can’t really talk much about the story itself. Thayil seems to work hard to capture the atmosphere of the Bombay drug underworld, the mixture of brutal criminal enterprise with addict tourism. Along the way we get glimpses of politics and philosophy. It might be good—but I don’t really have the patience or the time, right now, to find out.
I’ve doubtless read many works of fiction that have passed through Gardner Dozois’ hands as an editor. Until now, however, I don’t recall reading any of his own fiction. I’ve remedied this by snatching When the Great Days Come from the New Books shelf at my library. I like anthologies, I really do, but as a novel lover first and foremost, I always find myself overcoming a certain prejudice towards shorter fiction. Fortunately, Dozois makes that prejudice easy to overcome in this case.
One advantage to the anthology of a single author’s work is the insight it provides into that author’s recurring motifs and themes. Every writer has them, some more obviously so than others, and short stories often reveal them more boldly than the lengthier, multi-faceted narratives of novels. I noticed several recurring motifs in Dozois’ work—he is fond of brownstones as the habitations for his main characters, who are often socially isolated, everymen who have a weird or astounding encounter with the Other.
Dozois’ stories almost always concern the clash between the human worldview and the Other worldview. Sometimes this manifests itself as tales of first contact: “Chains of the Sea”, where the spaceships land and make contact with the masters of Earth—not humanity, nor our AI children; “Ancestral Voices”, where an accident during landing turns an alien ambassador bearing messages of peace into a crazed, electromagnetic monster. Other times it involves the conflict between humanity and posthumanity (“Recidivist”, “A Kingdom by the Sea”, “A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows”). He’s also a master at switching up perspectives, taking us inside the mind of a rat (“When the Great Days Came”) and even cats (“A Cat Horror Story”).
A few of Dozois’ stories also deal with tensions within the United States, particularly between North and South. I’m neither American nor very familiar with American history, so some of the subtleties here escape me. In “Counterfactual”, Dozois posits an alternative history where the General Lee refused to surrender, complete with a writer imagining a universe where Lee did. In “Dinner Party”, economic recession reignites the hostilities between North and South, while in “The Peacemaker” and “Community”, two different visions of extremist religion co-opting government play out. (These are a little uncomfortable even these days, given some of the hypocritical rhetoric coming out of certain parts of the American political arena.) These weren’t my favourite stories (though “Counterfactual” is a really fun thought experiment), but I did find Dozois’ conjecture about how the United States might implode in times of economic or natural catastrophe fascinating.
To single out one story for commentary, though, let me point to “Chains of the Sea”. I like it because it doesn’t try to be too overbearing in its “humans are not in charge” theme. Aliens land in their impenetrable, inscrutable spaceships. Humans can’t make contact; the AIs, who are somewhat more intelligent than they allow their human masters to believe, can’t make contact. Interspersed with narration of how the various governments and authorities are trying to deal with this crisis, there are scenes that follow Tommy, a young boy who sees Other People (fairy folk!). Obviously these two plots must be related in some way, but it’s not entirely clear how at first, so I had to have faith. Gradually, though, I was intrigued by the fatalistic tone of the story—the idea that humans might one day meet their end not of our own doing but simply because another species, one that barely recognizes we are here, decides they want the planet. Add to this the idea of all these other species that have lived here, undetected, for all human history … and that makes a pretty interesting story.
Dozois’ writing style is heavy in narration and light in dialogue. Many of these stories, in fact, have almost no dialogue at all. Rather, he will spend pages and pages describing a character’s thoughts or actions. Many of the stories involve loner characters who spend most of the narrative isolated from other beings. I haven’t read any of Dozois’ novels, so I don’t know if they are similar in style, and I’m not sure I’d enjoy reading an entire novel with paragraphs of such dense description. However, for short stories, one only needs to look to the majority of this collection to see that it works fine. I didn’t like every story—for example, I found “Morning Child” difficult to follow or enjoy—but the gems here definitely outweigh any of the less-than-sterling items.
When the Great Days Come is a great anthology by a great science-fiction writer. I’m glad I pulled it off the shelf. Like most anthologies, it’s uneven in its quality. But it makes up for that with a few stellar stories and a very consistent tone—one of humanity embroiled in constant conflict, the fight for survival, with our darker impulses always essential to our salvation. Gardner Dozois spins a good tale and has a top-notch imagination.
One advantage to the anthology of a single author’s work is the insight it provides into that author’s recurring motifs and themes. Every writer has them, some more obviously so than others, and short stories often reveal them more boldly than the lengthier, multi-faceted narratives of novels. I noticed several recurring motifs in Dozois’ work—he is fond of brownstones as the habitations for his main characters, who are often socially isolated, everymen who have a weird or astounding encounter with the Other.
Dozois’ stories almost always concern the clash between the human worldview and the Other worldview. Sometimes this manifests itself as tales of first contact: “Chains of the Sea”, where the spaceships land and make contact with the masters of Earth—not humanity, nor our AI children; “Ancestral Voices”, where an accident during landing turns an alien ambassador bearing messages of peace into a crazed, electromagnetic monster. Other times it involves the conflict between humanity and posthumanity (“Recidivist”, “A Kingdom by the Sea”, “A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows”). He’s also a master at switching up perspectives, taking us inside the mind of a rat (“When the Great Days Came”) and even cats (“A Cat Horror Story”).
A few of Dozois’ stories also deal with tensions within the United States, particularly between North and South. I’m neither American nor very familiar with American history, so some of the subtleties here escape me. In “Counterfactual”, Dozois posits an alternative history where the General Lee refused to surrender, complete with a writer imagining a universe where Lee did. In “Dinner Party”, economic recession reignites the hostilities between North and South, while in “The Peacemaker” and “Community”, two different visions of extremist religion co-opting government play out. (These are a little uncomfortable even these days, given some of the hypocritical rhetoric coming out of certain parts of the American political arena.) These weren’t my favourite stories (though “Counterfactual” is a really fun thought experiment), but I did find Dozois’ conjecture about how the United States might implode in times of economic or natural catastrophe fascinating.
To single out one story for commentary, though, let me point to “Chains of the Sea”. I like it because it doesn’t try to be too overbearing in its “humans are not in charge” theme. Aliens land in their impenetrable, inscrutable spaceships. Humans can’t make contact; the AIs, who are somewhat more intelligent than they allow their human masters to believe, can’t make contact. Interspersed with narration of how the various governments and authorities are trying to deal with this crisis, there are scenes that follow Tommy, a young boy who sees Other People (fairy folk!). Obviously these two plots must be related in some way, but it’s not entirely clear how at first, so I had to have faith. Gradually, though, I was intrigued by the fatalistic tone of the story—the idea that humans might one day meet their end not of our own doing but simply because another species, one that barely recognizes we are here, decides they want the planet. Add to this the idea of all these other species that have lived here, undetected, for all human history … and that makes a pretty interesting story.
Dozois’ writing style is heavy in narration and light in dialogue. Many of these stories, in fact, have almost no dialogue at all. Rather, he will spend pages and pages describing a character’s thoughts or actions. Many of the stories involve loner characters who spend most of the narrative isolated from other beings. I haven’t read any of Dozois’ novels, so I don’t know if they are similar in style, and I’m not sure I’d enjoy reading an entire novel with paragraphs of such dense description. However, for short stories, one only needs to look to the majority of this collection to see that it works fine. I didn’t like every story—for example, I found “Morning Child” difficult to follow or enjoy—but the gems here definitely outweigh any of the less-than-sterling items.
When the Great Days Come is a great anthology by a great science-fiction writer. I’m glad I pulled it off the shelf. Like most anthologies, it’s uneven in its quality. But it makes up for that with a few stellar stories and a very consistent tone—one of humanity embroiled in constant conflict, the fight for survival, with our darker impulses always essential to our salvation. Gardner Dozois spins a good tale and has a top-notch imagination.
Emissaries from the Dead hits a lot of sweet spots for me. First, of course, there’s AI. Second, it’s a mystery novel. Third, the protagonist is essentially a government agent with diplomatic immunity (though not in this case). Fourth, she’s messed up but not too messed up. The resulting cocktail is a heady mix indeed. Although I found it slow going at first, Emissaries from the Dead quickly grew on me; by the end, Adam-Troy Castro had persuaded me this is a series with great potential.
Love AI. Can’t get enough of it. I know it’s been done to death and is kind of boring the Singularity is so 2000s … but I can’t help it. AI remains, for me, one of the most intriguing parts of our posthuman futures. In Emissaries of the Dead, the AIsource is an all-knowing, all-seeing conglomeration of software that has transcended the organic species who created it. Its motivations are shrouded in mystery, and it no doubt has the capability of wiping out all organic life should it choose. So Andrea Cort is treading on dangerous ground in One One One, especially because all evidence points to the AIsource as the murderer(s). Castro draws on all the wealth of decades of fiction about AI and adds an excellent political dimension that makes the mystery much stronger.
Mystery was the first genre that really grabbed me as a reader. My first novels were Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, from which I graduated on to Conan Doyle and Christie. I’m more of a science fiction geek now, of course, so I love it when those two genres come together. Emissaries of the Dead starts as a murder mystery—double homicide—but turns into more of a political thriller. Castro knows how to write action scenes and keep the suspense going. That being said, sometimes the novel gets bogged down in the dialogue, particularly during Andrea’s audiences with the AIsource. Sometimes it seems like Castro is so eager to show off Andrea’s train of reasoning, and in this way, he takes exposition to the extreme.
Andrea is not some independent private investigator stumbling into the habitat of One One One. She’s a Judge Advocate for the Diplomatic Corps. I’m fascinated by stories that have mercenaries or other semi-autonomous individuals with great authority parachuted onto planets to settle disputes, kick ass, and take names. It hearkens back to the sheriffs of the Wild West, but it also rings true to how society would function if we spread out among the stars. And it’s clear, from the detail into which Castro goes, that he has thought out the way the Diplomatic Corps functions. The time debt indenturement that its employees undergo is just uncomfortable enough to hint that, in this future, humanity is far from the enlightened federation of planets we might hope it becomes. Andrea’s own past notwithstanding, it seems like we continue to muck around and eke out an existence as best we can.
Indeed, I kind of wish Castro had dropped a few more bombshell big ideas into this story. We’ve got the Diplomatic Corps, the AISource (and their connection to Andrea’s past, which I won’t reveal), the cylinked Porrinyards, and of course the habitat of One One One itself. There are more tangential technologies—the faster-than-light travel and communication and stasis that brings Andrea to One One One in the first place. For the most part, though, this is a locked room murder mystery—just replace the room with an upside down artificial ecosystem. Castro tickles us with a lot of interesting descriptions and hints at bigger ideas, but that’s all they are—hints.
So I return to the characters to find solace in them. Most of them—even the Porrinyards—are unremarkable. They are stock characters, types to fit into moulds to be broken later in the book. Andrea is really the only exception—and I like Andrea. I like that Castro sets up her past from the beginning, showing us the demons that haunt her and taunt her and label her “Monster”. He gives us a good reason for her being so special and unique and capable of doing what she does—something many authors aren’t easily able to do with their protagonists. Yet even with all her issues, Andrea manages to change and grow over the course of the story. She doesn’t stay angry or insular—she gets answers, asks new questions, and makes decisions. I predicted her change of circumstances fairly easily—but I’m happy I was right, because I think it’s an intriguing start to this series.
This book didn’t runaway with my heart, but I definitely want to read more. I want to see how Andrea’s relationship with the AIsource and its problems evolves. I want to see more of this galaxy that Castro has created. Emissaries from the Dead is an OK mystery and a fine standalone novel, but it’s an even better introduction to Andrea Cort.
My reviews of the Andrea Cort series:
The Third Claw of God → (forthcoming)
Love AI. Can’t get enough of it. I know it’s been done to death and is kind of boring the Singularity is so 2000s … but I can’t help it. AI remains, for me, one of the most intriguing parts of our posthuman futures. In Emissaries of the Dead, the AIsource is an all-knowing, all-seeing conglomeration of software that has transcended the organic species who created it. Its motivations are shrouded in mystery, and it no doubt has the capability of wiping out all organic life should it choose. So Andrea Cort is treading on dangerous ground in One One One, especially because all evidence points to the AIsource as the murderer(s). Castro draws on all the wealth of decades of fiction about AI and adds an excellent political dimension that makes the mystery much stronger.
Mystery was the first genre that really grabbed me as a reader. My first novels were Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, from which I graduated on to Conan Doyle and Christie. I’m more of a science fiction geek now, of course, so I love it when those two genres come together. Emissaries of the Dead starts as a murder mystery—double homicide—but turns into more of a political thriller. Castro knows how to write action scenes and keep the suspense going. That being said, sometimes the novel gets bogged down in the dialogue, particularly during Andrea’s audiences with the AIsource. Sometimes it seems like Castro is so eager to show off Andrea’s train of reasoning, and in this way, he takes exposition to the extreme.
Andrea is not some independent private investigator stumbling into the habitat of One One One. She’s a Judge Advocate for the Diplomatic Corps. I’m fascinated by stories that have mercenaries or other semi-autonomous individuals with great authority parachuted onto planets to settle disputes, kick ass, and take names. It hearkens back to the sheriffs of the Wild West, but it also rings true to how society would function if we spread out among the stars. And it’s clear, from the detail into which Castro goes, that he has thought out the way the Diplomatic Corps functions. The time debt indenturement that its employees undergo is just uncomfortable enough to hint that, in this future, humanity is far from the enlightened federation of planets we might hope it becomes. Andrea’s own past notwithstanding, it seems like we continue to muck around and eke out an existence as best we can.
Indeed, I kind of wish Castro had dropped a few more bombshell big ideas into this story. We’ve got the Diplomatic Corps, the AISource (and their connection to Andrea’s past, which I won’t reveal), the cylinked Porrinyards, and of course the habitat of One One One itself. There are more tangential technologies—the faster-than-light travel and communication and stasis that brings Andrea to One One One in the first place. For the most part, though, this is a locked room murder mystery—just replace the room with an upside down artificial ecosystem. Castro tickles us with a lot of interesting descriptions and hints at bigger ideas, but that’s all they are—hints.
So I return to the characters to find solace in them. Most of them—even the Porrinyards—are unremarkable. They are stock characters, types to fit into moulds to be broken later in the book. Andrea is really the only exception—and I like Andrea. I like that Castro sets up her past from the beginning, showing us the demons that haunt her and taunt her and label her “Monster”. He gives us a good reason for her being so special and unique and capable of doing what she does—something many authors aren’t easily able to do with their protagonists. Yet even with all her issues, Andrea manages to change and grow over the course of the story. She doesn’t stay angry or insular—she gets answers, asks new questions, and makes decisions. I predicted her change of circumstances fairly easily—but I’m happy I was right, because I think it’s an intriguing start to this series.
This book didn’t runaway with my heart, but I definitely want to read more. I want to see how Andrea’s relationship with the AIsource and its problems evolves. I want to see more of this galaxy that Castro has created. Emissaries from the Dead is an OK mystery and a fine standalone novel, but it’s an even better introduction to Andrea Cort.
My reviews of the Andrea Cort series:
The Third Claw of God → (forthcoming)
Time travel poses a host of complications, no matter which set of rules one follows. Plus, I mean, as cool as it might be to pop back to ancient Egypt or Rome or Tudor England for afternoon tea, I wouldn’t want to live there. Hello, indoor plumbing much? Flush toilets and high speed Internet? I like my “modern” conveniences, and I can understand why the first employees of the Company didn’t enjoy their duties much. And the Company happened to have a formula for immortality lying around. So, you know, it makes total sense to train contemporary people, make them immortal, and have them do your bidding. Collect genetic samples from extinct plants, rescue lost works of art … the sky is the limit.
Kage Baker has some pretty interesting rules going on in In the Garden of Iden, and she lays them out explicitly at the beginning of the book. So I’m not going to bore you with the details. Mendoza is a little girl languishing in the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition until she gets rescued and recruited by the Company. They make her immortal (yay, cyborgs!) and train her in history—past and future. She specializes in botany, which, for the Company, means she will spend most of her time identifying extinct plants and taking samples so they can be resurrected in the future.
Mendoza is rescued when she is about three or four, so she essentially grows up as a ward of the Company—and as an immortal cyborg (yes, there are immortal cyborg teenagers). This has the interesting result of estranging her from ordinary—such as it is in the sixteenth century—human society. She isn’t fond of ordinary humans and specializes in the New World, hoping for an isolated posting somewhere devoid of dense contemporary populations. Instead she gets assigned to a Spanish delegation to England, where she will study the exoticon plants in the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Much to her surprise, she falls in love with a contemporary Protestant at a time when Catholicism was just beginning to come back into vogue in England in a big—Bloody—way.
Mendoza makes for a great protagonist. Her prejudice against her fellow contemporary humans speaks volumes about how the Company operates. It’s kind of like a vast pyramid scheme—throughout the ages they’ve offered these people from the past the chance to transcend history and inherit a promised land in the future, provided they do the Company’s bidding. I’ve only read one novel, but I hope Baker explores this theme more and the ramifications of what happens when all these employees catch up to the Company in “the present”. I can’t help but feel there is going to be … friction. For instance, Mendoza’s counselor is apparently from a Paleolithic tribe—so he’s been on the job for quite some time. Isn’t there going to be a huge seniority issue in the future? Or is there something more sinister happening?
But I digress. Mendoza: she’s smart and opinionated without being too sarcastic for her own good. She is good at what she does but often oversteps or overreacts—quick-tempered is perhaps apt. Again, this is why she’s a good protagonist. She keeps things moving, keeps us in the action, but at the same time she can be meditative when necessary. Baker goes for an intimate portrayal of a (Catholic) English household during the brief Counter-Reformation. The friction between Nicolas and the rest of the household underscores Mendoza’s observations regarding how this conflict over religions and politics is brutal and barbaric, rendering them poignant when they might have been trite or overdone.
I’m not nearly as impressed by the supporting characters. Joseph is an interesting father figure for Mendoza, but ultimately he and Nef are really just foils for her without much in the way of character development for themselves. This is a little disappointing. Likewise, Sir Walter is more plot device than anything. Nicolas is fascinating in that he reminds me why I would hate to be alive during the sixteenth century, but that’s about it.
In the Garden of Iden reminds me of so many other period dramas. It spends a lot of time showing off its setting and focusing on the zeitgeist of the period at the expense of the plot. It’s a testament to Baker’s writing ability, then, that she can distract me long enough not to care about these things. I enjoyed Mendoza’s experience in England, watching her change from feeling superior to humans to sleeping with and loving a stupid human. And this is more of a historical novel than a science-fiction or time-travel story, despite what the trappings might otherwise imply. Baker has essentially swapped time-travel in for prophecy, for its most important contribution to the plot is Mendoza’s awareness of what the future holds—namely, a Protestant queen who becomes one of the most influential people in history. Hence, the science-fictional element of the book is the source of dramatic irony that transforms Mendoza’s romance with Nicolas into a classical tragedy.
This book didn’t quite blow me away like I was hoping it would after what I had read about it. But I’m glad I finally got around to reading it, and I’m looking forward to reading more of the series. Baker has done something different from the traditional “smash-and-grab” idea of time-travel artifact retrieval, and I’m interested to see where she takes it. Combined with a smart protagonist who has her share of flaws and failings, and you have a successful novel and the start of something good.
Kage Baker has some pretty interesting rules going on in In the Garden of Iden, and she lays them out explicitly at the beginning of the book. So I’m not going to bore you with the details. Mendoza is a little girl languishing in the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition until she gets rescued and recruited by the Company. They make her immortal (yay, cyborgs!) and train her in history—past and future. She specializes in botany, which, for the Company, means she will spend most of her time identifying extinct plants and taking samples so they can be resurrected in the future.
Mendoza is rescued when she is about three or four, so she essentially grows up as a ward of the Company—and as an immortal cyborg (yes, there are immortal cyborg teenagers). This has the interesting result of estranging her from ordinary—such as it is in the sixteenth century—human society. She isn’t fond of ordinary humans and specializes in the New World, hoping for an isolated posting somewhere devoid of dense contemporary populations. Instead she gets assigned to a Spanish delegation to England, where she will study the exoticon plants in the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Much to her surprise, she falls in love with a contemporary Protestant at a time when Catholicism was just beginning to come back into vogue in England in a big—Bloody—way.
Mendoza makes for a great protagonist. Her prejudice against her fellow contemporary humans speaks volumes about how the Company operates. It’s kind of like a vast pyramid scheme—throughout the ages they’ve offered these people from the past the chance to transcend history and inherit a promised land in the future, provided they do the Company’s bidding. I’ve only read one novel, but I hope Baker explores this theme more and the ramifications of what happens when all these employees catch up to the Company in “the present”. I can’t help but feel there is going to be … friction. For instance, Mendoza’s counselor is apparently from a Paleolithic tribe—so he’s been on the job for quite some time. Isn’t there going to be a huge seniority issue in the future? Or is there something more sinister happening?
But I digress. Mendoza: she’s smart and opinionated without being too sarcastic for her own good. She is good at what she does but often oversteps or overreacts—quick-tempered is perhaps apt. Again, this is why she’s a good protagonist. She keeps things moving, keeps us in the action, but at the same time she can be meditative when necessary. Baker goes for an intimate portrayal of a (Catholic) English household during the brief Counter-Reformation. The friction between Nicolas and the rest of the household underscores Mendoza’s observations regarding how this conflict over religions and politics is brutal and barbaric, rendering them poignant when they might have been trite or overdone.
I’m not nearly as impressed by the supporting characters. Joseph is an interesting father figure for Mendoza, but ultimately he and Nef are really just foils for her without much in the way of character development for themselves. This is a little disappointing. Likewise, Sir Walter is more plot device than anything. Nicolas is fascinating in that he reminds me why I would hate to be alive during the sixteenth century, but that’s about it.
In the Garden of Iden reminds me of so many other period dramas. It spends a lot of time showing off its setting and focusing on the zeitgeist of the period at the expense of the plot. It’s a testament to Baker’s writing ability, then, that she can distract me long enough not to care about these things. I enjoyed Mendoza’s experience in England, watching her change from feeling superior to humans to sleeping with and loving a stupid human. And this is more of a historical novel than a science-fiction or time-travel story, despite what the trappings might otherwise imply. Baker has essentially swapped time-travel in for prophecy, for its most important contribution to the plot is Mendoza’s awareness of what the future holds—namely, a Protestant queen who becomes one of the most influential people in history. Hence, the science-fictional element of the book is the source of dramatic irony that transforms Mendoza’s romance with Nicolas into a classical tragedy.
This book didn’t quite blow me away like I was hoping it would after what I had read about it. But I’m glad I finally got around to reading it, and I’m looking forward to reading more of the series. Baker has done something different from the traditional “smash-and-grab” idea of time-travel artifact retrieval, and I’m interested to see where she takes it. Combined with a smart protagonist who has her share of flaws and failings, and you have a successful novel and the start of something good.
I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as anti-American, but I will cop to having anti-American sentiments. I have plenty of American friends, but I chose to move to England before the United States—and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to live in the United States. There are just some ideas so apparently entrenched in American society that seem so backward to me. And I know my American friends understand—a lot of it seems backward to them too!
It’s something of a trend these days to discuss the “hijacking” of American politics. Corporations have hijacked politics; ultra right-wing evangelicals have hijacked politics; Tea Party patriots have hijacked politics … at this rate, if Bigfoot hasn’t hijacked politics by December, I will be disappointed. There is, of course, a great deal of truth in some of these perspectives, and these discourses are valuable. At the same time, one should not neglect the fact that the United States has always been in a state of uneasy tension between religious freedoms and religious establishment, between liberal and conservative, between society and business. So much of the hijacking happening today is not so much an aberration as it is the latest recurrence in a long line of such events, as Simon Schama attempts to demonstrate in The American Future: A History.
Here are some things I learned from The American Future: A History. Some of them are obvious, yes, and probably don’t require a book to become evident. But it’s always good to be reminded.
There were no “good old days”. Well, maybe if you were a rich, white, European male. But if you’re a rich, white male today, wake up and stop complaining: your days are still pretty good. The idea that the United States of the past was somehow a golden land of opportunity and prosperity, and that it has since declined into its present state, is a myth. Imperialism, racism, and colonialism have always been a part of the United States of America. The religious persecution that so many of the original colonists fled in coming to the shores of the New World eventually caught up with them, and Catholics, Jews, and the apostate Protestant sect of the week were routinely barred from livelihoods and politics. Let’s not even get started about slavery.
Despite the bad, we too often forget about the good. In our rush to cringe at the past, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the people who stood up against tyranny and oppression. I’m not talking about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionaries or Founding Fathers. I’m talking about the people who, quietly or not, worked tirelessly on behalf of the disenfranchised, the minorities, every group who did not get a voice in the system. From Return Jonathan Meigs to Fred Bee, there were numerous good people who deserved to be remembered for trying to stop oppression and atrocities, even if they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Hero worship is for losers. The way—or at least this is how it seems from my perspective as an outsider—Americans are taught to venerate the Founding Fathers and other such historical figures without much time spent on more critical perspectives really concerns me. I understand that it’s a big deal that these people helped liberate the colonies from British rule. But they weren’t gods; they were ordinary, flawed individuals. Jefferson had some good ideas. He also owned slaves. And, while his attitude towards the indigenous peoples of the Americas was not as antagonistic as Andrew Jackson’s, it still rested upon the principles of Eurocentric, cultural assimilation. And from what I read about the various textbook guidelines being pushed in certain states, I doubt these views are being explored. And it’s a shame, because if there’s one thing studying any history, from the United States or elsewhere, can teach us, it’s …
We can do so, so much better. We’ve got a long way to go. In the two centuries since gaining independence, the United States has changed greatly—but in some ways, it and the rest of the world continues to repeat the same old mistakes. Claiming we are superior to the people of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, that we’ve learned our lessons, is misguided at best and woefully delusional at worst. It will be interesting to see what historians two hundred years hence write about our intolerance and indiscretions.
But I’m still an optimist. Even if I would let myself, I can’t bring myself to yield to despair and the cynical proposition that we have finally achieved that crucial intersection of environmental irresponsibility, cultural apathy, and anxious nationalism that will somehow doom us all. History shows that humans are really, really good at screwing things up. We’re also really, really good at surviving our mistakes, in one form or another.
And armed with the knowledge of—and more importantly, the discussion sparked by—history, we can do better. Schama’s history, like a lot of popular history books, tends to focus on episodic accounts of individuals’ contributions. It’s easier that way; we like narratives and we like protagonists. And while that doesn’t always provide an holistic view of the era, it does recreate one salient feature: individuals can make a difference. I’m trying not to get too trite and inspirational here, and I’m not going to wax poetically about how one person can change the entire world. Chances are, most of us are going to go on to lead fairly unremarkable lives and fade away without too many people remember us. (Though we individuals output more information about ourselves than the entirety of the nineteenth century put out, so much of it these days is digital and therefore ephemeral.) But just because we skim along the surface instead of swimming in the deep doesn’t mean we are unimportant, or that our actions have no effect on this world around us.
The American Future: A History left me with very mixed emotions. On one hand, I had been treated to a greatest hits playlist of some of the United States’ most insular and bonehead moves. On the other hand, as you can tell from the above paragraph, Schama manages to convey that contagious optimism emblematic of the 2008 American presidential election. Schama starts by setting himself a goal of exploring where the United Sates might by going by looking to its past. In this, I think he is successful. That being said, I can’t give this book high marks in every category. Schama is very good at belabouring his points and overstaying his welcome. We spend so much time on certain episodes, such as Montgomery Meigs. I enjoyed it, but it was also a little exhausting. Schama’s use of detail is both a blessing and a curse.
As a Canadian whose grasp of American history is probably rudimentary at best, I certainly found this book informative. It was also helpful in a more general sense, for it illuminates the sources of certain cultural habits Americans often express that can puzzle the rest of the world. We learn about manifest destiny in school, but we don’t necessarily understand its origins—now I kind of do. I recommend this book for non-Americans who are trying to understand why some Americans think and act the way they do. American friends, we know not all of you are crazy, and we’re trying very, very hard to put up with those of you who are. But some of us are running out of patience, and it’s time you step up, mmkay? Because the American future is coming, and I want it to be a good one.
It’s something of a trend these days to discuss the “hijacking” of American politics. Corporations have hijacked politics; ultra right-wing evangelicals have hijacked politics; Tea Party patriots have hijacked politics … at this rate, if Bigfoot hasn’t hijacked politics by December, I will be disappointed. There is, of course, a great deal of truth in some of these perspectives, and these discourses are valuable. At the same time, one should not neglect the fact that the United States has always been in a state of uneasy tension between religious freedoms and religious establishment, between liberal and conservative, between society and business. So much of the hijacking happening today is not so much an aberration as it is the latest recurrence in a long line of such events, as Simon Schama attempts to demonstrate in The American Future: A History.
Here are some things I learned from The American Future: A History. Some of them are obvious, yes, and probably don’t require a book to become evident. But it’s always good to be reminded.
There were no “good old days”. Well, maybe if you were a rich, white, European male. But if you’re a rich, white male today, wake up and stop complaining: your days are still pretty good. The idea that the United States of the past was somehow a golden land of opportunity and prosperity, and that it has since declined into its present state, is a myth. Imperialism, racism, and colonialism have always been a part of the United States of America. The religious persecution that so many of the original colonists fled in coming to the shores of the New World eventually caught up with them, and Catholics, Jews, and the apostate Protestant sect of the week were routinely barred from livelihoods and politics. Let’s not even get started about slavery.
Despite the bad, we too often forget about the good. In our rush to cringe at the past, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the people who stood up against tyranny and oppression. I’m not talking about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and other revolutionaries or Founding Fathers. I’m talking about the people who, quietly or not, worked tirelessly on behalf of the disenfranchised, the minorities, every group who did not get a voice in the system. From Return Jonathan Meigs to Fred Bee, there were numerous good people who deserved to be remembered for trying to stop oppression and atrocities, even if they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Hero worship is for losers. The way—or at least this is how it seems from my perspective as an outsider—Americans are taught to venerate the Founding Fathers and other such historical figures without much time spent on more critical perspectives really concerns me. I understand that it’s a big deal that these people helped liberate the colonies from British rule. But they weren’t gods; they were ordinary, flawed individuals. Jefferson had some good ideas. He also owned slaves. And, while his attitude towards the indigenous peoples of the Americas was not as antagonistic as Andrew Jackson’s, it still rested upon the principles of Eurocentric, cultural assimilation. And from what I read about the various textbook guidelines being pushed in certain states, I doubt these views are being explored. And it’s a shame, because if there’s one thing studying any history, from the United States or elsewhere, can teach us, it’s …
We can do so, so much better. We’ve got a long way to go. In the two centuries since gaining independence, the United States has changed greatly—but in some ways, it and the rest of the world continues to repeat the same old mistakes. Claiming we are superior to the people of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, that we’ve learned our lessons, is misguided at best and woefully delusional at worst. It will be interesting to see what historians two hundred years hence write about our intolerance and indiscretions.
But I’m still an optimist. Even if I would let myself, I can’t bring myself to yield to despair and the cynical proposition that we have finally achieved that crucial intersection of environmental irresponsibility, cultural apathy, and anxious nationalism that will somehow doom us all. History shows that humans are really, really good at screwing things up. We’re also really, really good at surviving our mistakes, in one form or another.
And armed with the knowledge of—and more importantly, the discussion sparked by—history, we can do better. Schama’s history, like a lot of popular history books, tends to focus on episodic accounts of individuals’ contributions. It’s easier that way; we like narratives and we like protagonists. And while that doesn’t always provide an holistic view of the era, it does recreate one salient feature: individuals can make a difference. I’m trying not to get too trite and inspirational here, and I’m not going to wax poetically about how one person can change the entire world. Chances are, most of us are going to go on to lead fairly unremarkable lives and fade away without too many people remember us. (Though we individuals output more information about ourselves than the entirety of the nineteenth century put out, so much of it these days is digital and therefore ephemeral.) But just because we skim along the surface instead of swimming in the deep doesn’t mean we are unimportant, or that our actions have no effect on this world around us.
The American Future: A History left me with very mixed emotions. On one hand, I had been treated to a greatest hits playlist of some of the United States’ most insular and bonehead moves. On the other hand, as you can tell from the above paragraph, Schama manages to convey that contagious optimism emblematic of the 2008 American presidential election. Schama starts by setting himself a goal of exploring where the United Sates might by going by looking to its past. In this, I think he is successful. That being said, I can’t give this book high marks in every category. Schama is very good at belabouring his points and overstaying his welcome. We spend so much time on certain episodes, such as Montgomery Meigs. I enjoyed it, but it was also a little exhausting. Schama’s use of detail is both a blessing and a curse.
As a Canadian whose grasp of American history is probably rudimentary at best, I certainly found this book informative. It was also helpful in a more general sense, for it illuminates the sources of certain cultural habits Americans often express that can puzzle the rest of the world. We learn about manifest destiny in school, but we don’t necessarily understand its origins—now I kind of do. I recommend this book for non-Americans who are trying to understand why some Americans think and act the way they do. American friends, we know not all of you are crazy, and we’re trying very, very hard to put up with those of you who are. But some of us are running out of patience, and it’s time you step up, mmkay? Because the American future is coming, and I want it to be a good one.
I didn’t quite manage to read all the library books I borrowed before leaving the country. In the Thunder Bay airport, prior to boarding the plane to Pearson, I renewed my library books online so my dad wouldn’t be obligated to take them back until it was convenient for him. However, I made it a priority to finish Fuzzy Nation before venturing across the Atlantic—not because it would prepare me better for Britain or anything, though it is another world over here. I just didn’t want to have to go to the trouble of borrowing it again from the library or even buying it as a tasty DRM-free ebook….
Anyway.
I haven’t read Little Fuzzy, though I certainly want to now that I’ve finished Fuzzy Nation. The conflict in this book is all too easy to imagine happening in a possible future: lawyers and judges and advocates battling it out in court to determine if a species is sentient. If we ever do encounter alien life, it could be far from obvious whether the life is sentient. Indeed, it’s possible aliens exist out there with sense perception so different from ours that they barely know there’s an external universe at all. (Maybe we’re the ones who don’t perceive the external universe properly. Welcome to Flatland.)
Anyway, Jack Holloway is a contractor-surveyor who discovers the Fuzzies, mammalian cat-like bipeds on Zarathustra XXIII. Though he resists the idea they’re sentient, eventually the Fuzzies convince him (and his ex-girlfriend, ZaraCorp’s resident biologist), that this is the case. That’s bad news for ZaraCorp, since the presence of a sentient species would require them to terminate their insanely lucrative mining operations and cede control of the planet to the Fuzzies. It’s also quite bad news for Jack, since just prior to discovering the Fuzzies he made a discovery for ZaraCorp that would net him quite a nice amount of money.
So everyone hollers for the judge and starts playing dirty legal tricks—and not-so-legal tricks—as they manoeuvre themselves into what might be the case of the century. John Scalzi is excellent at writing quippy dialogue, and he’s great at making characters into sarcastic, ill-tempered jerks. In fact, Jack Holloway is a good candidate for a sympathetic but unlikable protagonist. He’s not a very good person, and he admits it. Figuring out his motivation is an important part of this story—for ZaraCorp and for the reader—and I think there’s a case to be made for ambiguity on Scalzi’s part here. It’s possible to conclude that, deep down, Holloway’s a good guy doing the right thing—more likely, I tend to believe him when he says, “I’m not a good man, but sometimes I’m the right man.” It reminds me of the conclusion to Season 5 of Buffy, in which Giles ruthlessly disposes of Glory when she’s in the form of Ben: “… she’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.” There are some things really good people—heroes—can’t bring themselves to do, and when that happens, someone else steps up to do it on their behalf. Jack’s like that.
Though Fuzzy Nation has its share of tense scenes and action sequences, one’s enjoyment likely rests more on how much the legal wrangling in the courtroom stays interesting. I think that, at times, Scalzi gets a little carried away with showing off how clever and/or sleazy his characters are—he’s proud of all of them, especially the bad guys, and wants us to know it. The book is a little smug, in this way, and that would be forgivable if its pacing were different. But because so many scenes are very flat, dialogue-driven courtroom dramas, it’s hard to do anything but sit back and watch the smugness steep. While this didn’t stop me from liking Fuzzy Nation—there are parts of this book that are laugh-out-loud funny and parts that are so tragic—it’s something I could have done without.
The best parts of Fuzzy Nation are probably when Jack is wrestling with his own feelings about the Fuzzies. He’s an unreliable narrator—hence our ability to question his motivations even though we’re inside his head—so one mustn’t take his reasoning at his word. But I like that he doesn’t immediately believe the Fuzzies are sentient. Although I think Scalzi makes ZaraCorp and Wheaton Aubrey into rather two-dimensional villains, they’re really evil two-dimensional villains, and I like how some of the protagonists don’t realize the extent to which the villains will go to win. Fortunately, the villains don’t know the extent to which the protagonists will go—especially after Aubrey and his minions force Jack’s hand.
As I said above, there is no escaping the fact that Fuzzy Nation is a clever little book. I liked it and laughed at it. And it has its share of important themes, most of them centred around whether humanity, as it expands into the galaxy, will continue the same destructive practises of exploitation and corporate misconduct that we see today. The characters aren’t necessarily very deep, and the action and plot are largely predictable. I saw the Crowning Moment of Awesome comeback coming from a kilometre away, and yet I still tingled as I read it. I’ve gone from reading none of Scalzi’s novels to several of them in a very short time, and I wouldn’t say that he’s a master of the craft—but he’s definitely a master at certain aspects of it. Fuzzy Nation is about tiny furry cat-like people, enriching oneself by exploiting others, and dogs blowing stuff up. So read it!
Anyway.
I haven’t read Little Fuzzy, though I certainly want to now that I’ve finished Fuzzy Nation. The conflict in this book is all too easy to imagine happening in a possible future: lawyers and judges and advocates battling it out in court to determine if a species is sentient. If we ever do encounter alien life, it could be far from obvious whether the life is sentient. Indeed, it’s possible aliens exist out there with sense perception so different from ours that they barely know there’s an external universe at all. (Maybe we’re the ones who don’t perceive the external universe properly. Welcome to Flatland.)
Anyway, Jack Holloway is a contractor-surveyor who discovers the Fuzzies, mammalian cat-like bipeds on Zarathustra XXIII. Though he resists the idea they’re sentient, eventually the Fuzzies convince him (and his ex-girlfriend, ZaraCorp’s resident biologist), that this is the case. That’s bad news for ZaraCorp, since the presence of a sentient species would require them to terminate their insanely lucrative mining operations and cede control of the planet to the Fuzzies. It’s also quite bad news for Jack, since just prior to discovering the Fuzzies he made a discovery for ZaraCorp that would net him quite a nice amount of money.
So everyone hollers for the judge and starts playing dirty legal tricks—and not-so-legal tricks—as they manoeuvre themselves into what might be the case of the century. John Scalzi is excellent at writing quippy dialogue, and he’s great at making characters into sarcastic, ill-tempered jerks. In fact, Jack Holloway is a good candidate for a sympathetic but unlikable protagonist. He’s not a very good person, and he admits it. Figuring out his motivation is an important part of this story—for ZaraCorp and for the reader—and I think there’s a case to be made for ambiguity on Scalzi’s part here. It’s possible to conclude that, deep down, Holloway’s a good guy doing the right thing—more likely, I tend to believe him when he says, “I’m not a good man, but sometimes I’m the right man.” It reminds me of the conclusion to Season 5 of Buffy, in which Giles ruthlessly disposes of Glory when she’s in the form of Ben: “… she’s a hero, you see. She’s not like us.” There are some things really good people—heroes—can’t bring themselves to do, and when that happens, someone else steps up to do it on their behalf. Jack’s like that.
Though Fuzzy Nation has its share of tense scenes and action sequences, one’s enjoyment likely rests more on how much the legal wrangling in the courtroom stays interesting. I think that, at times, Scalzi gets a little carried away with showing off how clever and/or sleazy his characters are—he’s proud of all of them, especially the bad guys, and wants us to know it. The book is a little smug, in this way, and that would be forgivable if its pacing were different. But because so many scenes are very flat, dialogue-driven courtroom dramas, it’s hard to do anything but sit back and watch the smugness steep. While this didn’t stop me from liking Fuzzy Nation—there are parts of this book that are laugh-out-loud funny and parts that are so tragic—it’s something I could have done without.
The best parts of Fuzzy Nation are probably when Jack is wrestling with his own feelings about the Fuzzies. He’s an unreliable narrator—hence our ability to question his motivations even though we’re inside his head—so one mustn’t take his reasoning at his word. But I like that he doesn’t immediately believe the Fuzzies are sentient. Although I think Scalzi makes ZaraCorp and Wheaton Aubrey into rather two-dimensional villains, they’re really evil two-dimensional villains, and I like how some of the protagonists don’t realize the extent to which the villains will go to win. Fortunately, the villains don’t know the extent to which the protagonists will go—especially after Aubrey and his minions force Jack’s hand.
As I said above, there is no escaping the fact that Fuzzy Nation is a clever little book. I liked it and laughed at it. And it has its share of important themes, most of them centred around whether humanity, as it expands into the galaxy, will continue the same destructive practises of exploitation and corporate misconduct that we see today. The characters aren’t necessarily very deep, and the action and plot are largely predictable. I saw the Crowning Moment of Awesome comeback coming from a kilometre away, and yet I still tingled as I read it. I’ve gone from reading none of Scalzi’s novels to several of them in a very short time, and I wouldn’t say that he’s a master of the craft—but he’s definitely a master at certain aspects of it. Fuzzy Nation is about tiny furry cat-like people, enriching oneself by exploiting others, and dogs blowing stuff up. So read it!
Thanks to the Internet, it’s very easy to transmit information around the world much faster than it used to be. It’s also easy to spread misinformation. “Democratization” of the Web and media aside, we still rely on authorities and experts for our news—and often their job, even if they are doing it properly, is made much more difficult by secretive and uncooperative governments and organizations trying to obscure what’s really happening on the ground. It’s the age old story, whether perpetrated by an autocratic regime in the Middle East or a corrupt official in North America or colony and resource extraction planet out in the middle of nowhere.
In Embedded, Dan Abnett comes up with a novel way to circumvent such circumspection: journalist Leo Falk goes along for the ride by piggybacking the mind of a soldier. His body suspended in a sensory deprivation tank, Falk’s consciousness takes up residence in the back of Nestor Bloom’s brain. After a sneak attack by terrorists devastates the teams travelling with Bloom, Falk finds himself in control of Bloom’s body, facing the daunting task of regrouping the few survivors and figuring out what’s happening fast enough to stay a survivor. It’s a gritty, fast-paced, high stakes thrill ride as Falk races to discover who was behind the attack and why—wondering, all the while, whether he or Bloom or both of them will ever make it out alive.
Mental eavesdropping. It has so much potential as a plot device. In this case, Bloom was aware of and consented to the eavesdropping. The tech people who make this possible for Falk never really explain how it works, so I don’t know if it requires the host mind to be equipped and prepared for such a connection—if it didn’t, that would be on hell of a way to spy. Similarly, there are all sorts of psychological issues when it comes to inhabiting—or cohabiting in—someone else’s body. So it is frustrating that Abnett spends very little time investigating any of this, choosing instead to focus on a straight shoot-em-up style action novel with very little in the way of subtext.
Look, we get it: war is hell. Corporations do evil things because they need to keep their discoveries secret so they can make a profit. Everyone lies. Let’s move on, shall we? Let’s do something.
Embedded sure takes its time getting started. Falk begins leisurely meandering about Eighty-Six, sticking his nose into places that don’t want him around, before falling in with the right group of people to send him on this little assignment. Their motivations aren’t all that complex—essentially they want the truth out there, and they also want to be the first ones to break the story. Yet, as with the other things I noted above, Abnett spends precious little time delving deeper into the ethics and ideas behind this type of journalism. It’s more like, “Falk is a journalist. People don’t tell him the truth. Oooh, look, a gun.”
Abnett seems more interested in the military part of military science fiction than the science fiction part. And that’s fine to a certain extent—I’m aware he’s a Warhammer 40K author, and his style is definitely reminiscient of a shared universe franchise author. But it’s not just style. Embedded lets me down because it never really accomplishes anything.
Let’s consider Leo Falk for a moment. Yes, analyzing the protagonist—scary stuff. Let’s look at his relationships. He’s reunited with Cleesh, someone he has worked with before but has never met in person, since she spent all her time working remotely from a space station. They talk, she gets him this gig, and then he doesn’t see her again. He develops a rivalry that evolves into some kind of tenuous mutual respect with another reporter, Noma, also known as “green hiker girl”. He is a jerk to just about everyone else he can possibly manage to offend.
And then there’s Nestor Bloom.
Bloom talks to Falk for about a minute, enough to tell him that Bloom is not interested in talking—because talking to yourself is not advisable when you, and everyone else around you, are heavily armed. So it would be inaccurate to say that Bloom and Falk have any kind of relationship, but at one point Falk is the only thing keeping Bloom’s body alive. Despite all that rich potential for serious explorations of philosophy of mind and the sense of self, all we get a few wry moments of introspection at the end of the book, as Falk wonders at not having any scars on his own body. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but it’s still not much.
The actual plot is little better. The attack that wipes out Bloom’s squad and nearly kills Bloom and Falk is over something “big”, as in significant. This is obvious, because nothing else would motivate the Central Bloc (ooh, such an original name for an antagonist!) to turn the cold war on Eighty-Six into a legitimately lukewarm one. Instead of dropping tantalizing hints and making it more central to the plot, though, Abnett prefers to have Falk stumble through a few hundred pages of live fire before getting a glimpse of the thing. It’s alien tech, obviously (what else would it be), but if you’re hoping for so much as a bare description of what it is (or might be), you will be out of luck. Even the fact that it’s alien tech is never so much as whispered, but Abnett is at least competent enough to telegraph it in some fairly heavy dialogue.
I miss the good old days when the alien tech was actually a part of the story, the bad guys weren’t faceless factions sending soldiers after the good guys, and there protagonist’s relationships were more than a set of names and some vague feelings associated with each of them. But I guess that’s too much to ask for in this case. Embedded has some nifty action sequences and definitely comes up with an interesting premise. Its execution, in plot and character, comes up way too short.
In Embedded, Dan Abnett comes up with a novel way to circumvent such circumspection: journalist Leo Falk goes along for the ride by piggybacking the mind of a soldier. His body suspended in a sensory deprivation tank, Falk’s consciousness takes up residence in the back of Nestor Bloom’s brain. After a sneak attack by terrorists devastates the teams travelling with Bloom, Falk finds himself in control of Bloom’s body, facing the daunting task of regrouping the few survivors and figuring out what’s happening fast enough to stay a survivor. It’s a gritty, fast-paced, high stakes thrill ride as Falk races to discover who was behind the attack and why—wondering, all the while, whether he or Bloom or both of them will ever make it out alive.
Mental eavesdropping. It has so much potential as a plot device. In this case, Bloom was aware of and consented to the eavesdropping. The tech people who make this possible for Falk never really explain how it works, so I don’t know if it requires the host mind to be equipped and prepared for such a connection—if it didn’t, that would be on hell of a way to spy. Similarly, there are all sorts of psychological issues when it comes to inhabiting—or cohabiting in—someone else’s body. So it is frustrating that Abnett spends very little time investigating any of this, choosing instead to focus on a straight shoot-em-up style action novel with very little in the way of subtext.
Look, we get it: war is hell. Corporations do evil things because they need to keep their discoveries secret so they can make a profit. Everyone lies. Let’s move on, shall we? Let’s do something.
Embedded sure takes its time getting started. Falk begins leisurely meandering about Eighty-Six, sticking his nose into places that don’t want him around, before falling in with the right group of people to send him on this little assignment. Their motivations aren’t all that complex—essentially they want the truth out there, and they also want to be the first ones to break the story. Yet, as with the other things I noted above, Abnett spends precious little time delving deeper into the ethics and ideas behind this type of journalism. It’s more like, “Falk is a journalist. People don’t tell him the truth. Oooh, look, a gun.”
Abnett seems more interested in the military part of military science fiction than the science fiction part. And that’s fine to a certain extent—I’m aware he’s a Warhammer 40K author, and his style is definitely reminiscient of a shared universe franchise author. But it’s not just style. Embedded lets me down because it never really accomplishes anything.
Let’s consider Leo Falk for a moment. Yes, analyzing the protagonist—scary stuff. Let’s look at his relationships. He’s reunited with Cleesh, someone he has worked with before but has never met in person, since she spent all her time working remotely from a space station. They talk, she gets him this gig, and then he doesn’t see her again. He develops a rivalry that evolves into some kind of tenuous mutual respect with another reporter, Noma, also known as “green hiker girl”. He is a jerk to just about everyone else he can possibly manage to offend.
And then there’s Nestor Bloom.
Bloom talks to Falk for about a minute, enough to tell him that Bloom is not interested in talking—because talking to yourself is not advisable when you, and everyone else around you, are heavily armed. So it would be inaccurate to say that Bloom and Falk have any kind of relationship, but at one point Falk is the only thing keeping Bloom’s body alive. Despite all that rich potential for serious explorations of philosophy of mind and the sense of self, all we get a few wry moments of introspection at the end of the book, as Falk wonders at not having any scars on his own body. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but it’s still not much.
The actual plot is little better. The attack that wipes out Bloom’s squad and nearly kills Bloom and Falk is over something “big”, as in significant. This is obvious, because nothing else would motivate the Central Bloc (ooh, such an original name for an antagonist!) to turn the cold war on Eighty-Six into a legitimately lukewarm one. Instead of dropping tantalizing hints and making it more central to the plot, though, Abnett prefers to have Falk stumble through a few hundred pages of live fire before getting a glimpse of the thing. It’s alien tech, obviously (what else would it be), but if you’re hoping for so much as a bare description of what it is (or might be), you will be out of luck. Even the fact that it’s alien tech is never so much as whispered, but Abnett is at least competent enough to telegraph it in some fairly heavy dialogue.
I miss the good old days when the alien tech was actually a part of the story, the bad guys weren’t faceless factions sending soldiers after the good guys, and there protagonist’s relationships were more than a set of names and some vague feelings associated with each of them. But I guess that’s too much to ask for in this case. Embedded has some nifty action sequences and definitely comes up with an interesting premise. Its execution, in plot and character, comes up way too short.
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Empire State is a frenetic concoction of noir mystery, Prohibition-era gangster-style criminal conspiracy, and Golden Age superhero fiction. Reading it is like sitting in a bare room, concrete walls and a single steel table with an uncomfortable chair, as the clock above the door ticks steadily towards 3 AM. It’s minimalist and rough, sometimes surreal and always uncomfortable. Just when I thought I had it figured out, Adam Christopher changes gears and leaves me in the dust. I like that I was always kept guessing in that sense. However, Empire State’s characters and story also leave much to be desired. I’m not sure how great a book this is, but it’s definitely a very interesting experience.
Without spoiling too much of the story, Empire State is basically about the relationship between two alternate universes. The first universe is like ours, except that New York in the 1930s came with two superheroes attached. The second universe, the Empire State, is itself a distilled, distorted version of the first, even more different from our own universe. (And don’t worry, Empire State obeys the airship law of alternate universes (TVTropes), though it’s somewhat justified here because of the time period.)
Although mysteries were my first novel love, way back in grades five and six, I never made it as far as the noir and pulp traditions—I stayed safely in the posh land of Poirot and Holmes and their ilk. Empire State features a private detective named Ray Bradley. He’s exactly what one would expect: short on funds, caught in the middle of an interminable separation/divorce with a woman he might still kind of love, not quite an alcoholic but well on his way to being dependent on the bottle, and possessed of slightly too much in the way of integrity to make his way in this broken town. Unlike his counterpart from New York, Rex, I found Ray a rather tolerable and sometimes even entertaining protagonist.
Christopher aptly bridges the noir genre with speculative fiction. Though I’m not really qualified to judge the noir aspects of Empire State, I think that in general this is a very natural union. The science fictional parts of Empire State are almost but not quite Lovecraftian in atmosphere, almost but not quite steampunk in implementation. Both of these styles are compatible with the dreary, gritty atmosphere of the noir realm, that sense that the world is a tough, unyielding place of grey skies and unceasing rain.
On top of this union Christopher adds the superhero element. The Skyguard and Science Pirate were once a crimefighting duo in 1930s New York. Then they became bitter enemies for reasons no one knows. Their final, climactic fight is related directly to the origins of the Empire State, and the identities of the Skyguard and Science Pirate play a crucial part in the resolution of the book. These heroes are of the technological, Batman kind rather than the alien or mutant kind: their powers are marvels of science and engineering, not natural gifts. This all fits with the setting Christopher has created. Some other reviews have questioned whether these superheroes are necessary (or, along similar lines, lamented the way their stories are sidelined and shoehorned into the rest of the plot). I can see the reasoning behind those critiques, but I personally didn’t mind the superhero part of the plot. Could Christopher have achieved the same ends with different means? Perhaps. But the inclusion of superheroes doesn’t hurt anything.
Instead, I am more disappointed in the characterization—of the superheroes, yes, but also the rest of the characters. Most of the time, the narration follows Rad, occasionally jumping to a different character. Sometimes their actions come out of the blue—Carson’s twist during the climax is a good example of this. With other characters, like the anomalous Katherine Kopek or the Science Pirate, are complete ciphers without so much as a motivation call their own. Christopher has an interesting in-universe excuse related to the paradoxical nature of the Empire State’s existence. Even so, as someone who reads books primarily for the juicy drama of relationships between real human beings, this leaves much to be desired.
I still liked Empire State, mostly because I love what Christopher attempts to do with these universes he has created. I’m not just talking about worldbuilding (a term about which I feel increasingly ambivalent these days), though I can see why Angry Robot decided to use it as the basis for the WorldBuilder project. I’m referring to the way Christopher has intentionally taken these disparate but very compatible genres of noir, superhero, and alternate universe and fused them into a recognizable, workable story. The plot is sometimes lackadaisical in its pacing, and the characters irritate me, but the framework on which these two elements hang is itself very intriguing.
But better a novelist should take a stab at something clever and original and fascinating than play it safe. Empire State doesn’t succeed in a marvellous fashion—but its very attempt, and the creativity behind it, deserves high marks. It’s a story that should appeal to a broad audience—fans of noir mysteries or alternate universe shenanigans will probably find this a must-read.
Without spoiling too much of the story, Empire State is basically about the relationship between two alternate universes. The first universe is like ours, except that New York in the 1930s came with two superheroes attached. The second universe, the Empire State, is itself a distilled, distorted version of the first, even more different from our own universe. (And don’t worry, Empire State obeys the airship law of alternate universes (TVTropes), though it’s somewhat justified here because of the time period.)
Although mysteries were my first novel love, way back in grades five and six, I never made it as far as the noir and pulp traditions—I stayed safely in the posh land of Poirot and Holmes and their ilk. Empire State features a private detective named Ray Bradley. He’s exactly what one would expect: short on funds, caught in the middle of an interminable separation/divorce with a woman he might still kind of love, not quite an alcoholic but well on his way to being dependent on the bottle, and possessed of slightly too much in the way of integrity to make his way in this broken town. Unlike his counterpart from New York, Rex, I found Ray a rather tolerable and sometimes even entertaining protagonist.
Christopher aptly bridges the noir genre with speculative fiction. Though I’m not really qualified to judge the noir aspects of Empire State, I think that in general this is a very natural union. The science fictional parts of Empire State are almost but not quite Lovecraftian in atmosphere, almost but not quite steampunk in implementation. Both of these styles are compatible with the dreary, gritty atmosphere of the noir realm, that sense that the world is a tough, unyielding place of grey skies and unceasing rain.
On top of this union Christopher adds the superhero element. The Skyguard and Science Pirate were once a crimefighting duo in 1930s New York. Then they became bitter enemies for reasons no one knows. Their final, climactic fight is related directly to the origins of the Empire State, and the identities of the Skyguard and Science Pirate play a crucial part in the resolution of the book. These heroes are of the technological, Batman kind rather than the alien or mutant kind: their powers are marvels of science and engineering, not natural gifts. This all fits with the setting Christopher has created. Some other reviews have questioned whether these superheroes are necessary (or, along similar lines, lamented the way their stories are sidelined and shoehorned into the rest of the plot). I can see the reasoning behind those critiques, but I personally didn’t mind the superhero part of the plot. Could Christopher have achieved the same ends with different means? Perhaps. But the inclusion of superheroes doesn’t hurt anything.
Instead, I am more disappointed in the characterization—of the superheroes, yes, but also the rest of the characters. Most of the time, the narration follows Rad, occasionally jumping to a different character. Sometimes their actions come out of the blue—Carson’s twist during the climax is a good example of this. With other characters, like the anomalous Katherine Kopek or the Science Pirate, are complete ciphers without so much as a motivation call their own. Christopher has an interesting in-universe excuse related to the paradoxical nature of the Empire State’s existence. Even so, as someone who reads books primarily for the juicy drama of relationships between real human beings, this leaves much to be desired.
I still liked Empire State, mostly because I love what Christopher attempts to do with these universes he has created. I’m not just talking about worldbuilding (a term about which I feel increasingly ambivalent these days), though I can see why Angry Robot decided to use it as the basis for the WorldBuilder project. I’m referring to the way Christopher has intentionally taken these disparate but very compatible genres of noir, superhero, and alternate universe and fused them into a recognizable, workable story. The plot is sometimes lackadaisical in its pacing, and the characters irritate me, but the framework on which these two elements hang is itself very intriguing.
But better a novelist should take a stab at something clever and original and fascinating than play it safe. Empire State doesn’t succeed in a marvellous fashion—but its very attempt, and the creativity behind it, deserves high marks. It’s a story that should appeal to a broad audience—fans of noir mysteries or alternate universe shenanigans will probably find this a must-read.
I read Pretty Little Dead Things with shivers down my spine. It’s that kind of book: Gary McMahon creates suspense and no small amount of dread as he introduces us to Thomas Usher, a sometime private investigator who sees dead people. Usher becomes mixed up in a series of grisly murders that all point to something much more sinister going down (yes, more sinister than murder). And he isn’t the only one who is slinging supernatural power. A malevolent being from another dimension has discovered Usher’s powers and is now playing a fatal game of cat and mouse.
Pretty Little Dead Things has an impressive, gritty atmosphere to it—but it also got me down. It’s just not a very uplifting book. This guy’s family dies in a car crash in the first chapter, and then we skip forward a few years and find him kind-of-functioning but still unable to move on. He’s a loner who hangs out with low-life businessmen. The closest thing he has to a friend is a police detective who is dying from cancer and therefore not long for this world. Thomas Usher is not having a good time—and neither did I.
It’s a clever little title, and this is a clever little book. But it never seems to go beyond clever. It’s all surface and no depth beneath. McMahon tours us around Usher’s life and shows us Usher’s power—and that’s it. Usher sees dead people. He can’t talk to them per se, but they can communicate certain things to him in a kind of subliminal way. This should be a very cool power, but the way in which McMahon portrays it makes it the most mundane thing ever. So Usher uses the power to help solve crimes, but mostly all we see of it involves the flashbacks McMahon provides to help flesh out Usher’s backstory.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not happy with how Pretty Little Dead Things takes so long to get to the good stuff. Most of this book seems like filler—tasty, albeit depressing filler, but filler nonetheless. It doesn’t get good until Usher figures out that the mystery is much bigger than anyone so far has supposed. And even once that happens, McMahon dashes any hope of redemption by writing an ending that, to me at least, was rather difficult to follow. I’m still not sure what happened (or why I should care).
And that’s the bottom line: nothing really made me care about Thomas Usher or this book. It’s written well enough, so if noir urban fantasy is your cup of tea, you might enjoy this. I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm though.
Pretty Little Dead Things has an impressive, gritty atmosphere to it—but it also got me down. It’s just not a very uplifting book. This guy’s family dies in a car crash in the first chapter, and then we skip forward a few years and find him kind-of-functioning but still unable to move on. He’s a loner who hangs out with low-life businessmen. The closest thing he has to a friend is a police detective who is dying from cancer and therefore not long for this world. Thomas Usher is not having a good time—and neither did I.
It’s a clever little title, and this is a clever little book. But it never seems to go beyond clever. It’s all surface and no depth beneath. McMahon tours us around Usher’s life and shows us Usher’s power—and that’s it. Usher sees dead people. He can’t talk to them per se, but they can communicate certain things to him in a kind of subliminal way. This should be a very cool power, but the way in which McMahon portrays it makes it the most mundane thing ever. So Usher uses the power to help solve crimes, but mostly all we see of it involves the flashbacks McMahon provides to help flesh out Usher’s backstory.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not happy with how Pretty Little Dead Things takes so long to get to the good stuff. Most of this book seems like filler—tasty, albeit depressing filler, but filler nonetheless. It doesn’t get good until Usher figures out that the mystery is much bigger than anyone so far has supposed. And even once that happens, McMahon dashes any hope of redemption by writing an ending that, to me at least, was rather difficult to follow. I’m still not sure what happened (or why I should care).
And that’s the bottom line: nothing really made me care about Thomas Usher or this book. It’s written well enough, so if noir urban fantasy is your cup of tea, you might enjoy this. I couldn’t work up the enthusiasm though.