Back in Grade 7, we studied short stories and storytelling. We covered Freitag’s Pyramid: introduction, inciting force, rising action, crisis/climax, denouement, and resolution. We studied The Most Dangerous Game, and we listed the different types of conflict: man vs man, man vs himself, man vs nature, etc. It’s a simplistic way to analyze literature, but it does provide a good foundation to build upon in later years, once you have the ability to make more nuanced observations. I still remember it this day, and drew upon it as I considered how to first cover short stories with my sixth form students! And, reading Roil, all I can think about is man versus nature. The eponymous phenomenon that threatens the twelve cities of Shale is a fierce manifestation of nature, a rejection of the mechanical hubris that humans in this world have used to remake it for their purposes.

This isn’t the most straightforward of books to follow. In both setting and style, it reminds me a little of China Miéville’s work. Trent Jamieson doesn’t quite replicate Miéville’s truly wondrous sense of the weird, but he comes close. Roil is a good case study for the debate of where to demarcate the line between fantasy and science fiction, and it demonstrates that sensible people will eventually conclude it’s difficult, nigh impossible, to draw such a line. The atmosphere of this book is decidedly fantasy, in a dark, swashbuckling sense. The technology is almost steampunk, with fantastic airships and moving carriages and cannons and guns that shoot ice. Oh, and trains. Good, old-fashioned trains. And a world-controlling Engine.

The Engine of the World is one of the most interesting parts of this book, even if it doesn’t get that much page-time. It ostensibly is the reason the Roil has not expanded as much or as fast as it could have. The Engine (which seems to be some kind of dimensional gateway on its best days) held it in check in the past. Now the Roil is on the march again, and the remaining cities of Shale are desperate enough to contemplate using it. But the only one who might be able to do so, the only sane architect of the Engine left alive, has escaped their custody.

I didn’t have the easiest time getting to know the main characters. Truth be told, I’m not sure I know them even now. Their names spring to mind easily enough, but if you asked me about their parentage, their motivations, their story arcs, I’d be hard-pressed to discuss them at any length. Roil is one of those works that skilfully disposes of exposition, preferring to establish its world through hints in dialogue, epigraphs, and the occasional epistolary evidence. It makes for a more intriguing story; I’d really like to spend more time in this world and get to know its people. But I didn’t get too close to them this time.

Hence, I find it difficult to really highlight any specific part of the book. There is no subplot that jumped out at me, no moment of redemption that moved me to tears, no triumph that inspired a cheer or laughter. Half the time I wasn’t sure what was going on, and the other half of the time I knew what was going on but didn’t necessarily understand its importance. For me, the most intriguing mystery was what Cadell wanted to do to the Engine of the World and how it would help them beat the Roil. The fact that David picks up Cadell’s mantle to complete the mission, with very little exposition explaining what was going on, doesn’t clear much up.

Jamieson’s world of Shale is one that intrigues me. I’d like to learn more. But he doesn’t give me enough to go on, enough to make me care about the insane conflict we land in the middle of at the beginning of Roil. It’s one thing to come up with an intense story featuring zombie-like creatures and a world-spanning phenomenon that wants to eat your cities; it’s another to present that story in such a way as to sustain the reader’s interest. In the end, Roil just didn’t leave much of an impression on me, as this somewhat over-generalized review probably demonstrates.

This is my second P.G. Wodehouse experience following Cocktail Time, which was not a Jeeves and Wooster novel. I enjoyed Cocktail Time and was looking forward to Carry on, Jeeves, which I didn’t actually realize was an anthology. This proved to be even better than a novel as an introduction to Jeeves and Wooster. It gave me a nice sense of their relationship through the ages. And with each story nice and short and self-contained, I could read one, pause, and then dip into another. I could easily have done this for several days, but I was having so much fun that I finished the book in just one.

Jeeves is a “gentleman’s personal gentleman”, or a valet as we might call him, to Bertram “Bertie” Wooster. Bertie is the stereotypical young, carefree aristocratic detritus of the 1920s: old money combined with a youthful entitlement and sense of invincibility. Jeeves is a scarily-competent valet who is not just skilled at managing Bertie’s attire and household but, indeed, at managing Bertie himself. Jeeves has the ability to come up with schemes and plans to rescue Bertie—and, quite often, Bertie’s friends—from the embarrassing upper-class mistakes that might affect their social standing, if not exactly their lives or livelihood. Sometimes these schemes are so clever that they go off without a hitch. Other times, they seem to backfire and have the opposite intended effect, yet they still work out anyway—making you wonder if, just maybe, Jeeves knew what was going to happen all along. All in all, the stories remind of the saying: you don’t always get what you want, but sometimes, you get what you need.

The stories are, for the most part, rather formulaic. Bertie begins by complaining about some opinion Jeeves has asserted about part of his wardrobe, whether it’s a necktie or a shirt or even Bertie’s most unfortunate moustache. Then, either Bertie or one of his friends gets into a scrape, most often involving the need to deceive an overbearing aunt or uncle, lest that person cut off their allowance (gasp!). Bertie turn to Jeeves for a plan, Jeeves furnishes said plan, and hilarious hijinks ensue as the plan falls to pieces, only to reveal that it all works out anyway.

(Is that a spoiler? Did I just spoil every single Jeeves and Wooster story by outlining the formula?)

As with many comedic pairings, Carry on, Jeeves lives and dies by the relationship between Jeeves and Bertie. The latter narrates all but the last story in this collection. Bertie is little more than a child, in many ways, unable to form lasting meaningful relationships with women and generally persisting in a permanent state of bachelor-induced immaturity. Jeeves is not just his valet but his keeper, something that Bertie freely admits in the first story, "Jeeves Takes Charge". As Jeeves reveals in the last story, which he narrates, he often feels compelled to orchestrate circumstances that influence Bertie’s moods and desires. On this note, it’s interesting to ponder how much of Jeeves’ actions are truly done for the service of Bertie and how much are self-interest (and how often do these two ends conflict?). Jeeves confesses in "Bertie Changes His Mind" that he doesn’t want Bertie to get married because that would likely mean an end to his employment under Bertie. What if Bertie met a woman whom he truly loved and who was truly good for him? Would Jeeves scheme to dispose of her anyway?

Wodehouse doesn’t really address such a moral dilemma. Similarly, he never really examines the morality behind the various deceptions Jeeves and Bertie undertake (thought it’s all very satirical). The greatness of these stories lies in their pitch-perfect dialogue, description, and timing. I ploughed through this book so quickly because I was chortling every few minutes at the latest scheme or the latest conversation between Jeeves and Bertie. The formula of the stories quickly becomes familiar, comfortable, and you start expecting certain things, like Jeeves appearing as if from nowhere and Bertie remarking upon that fact. This is my first Jeeves and Wooster experience, yet I already feel like we are old friends.

I don’t regret reading Cocktail Time first, but there’s no question which of the two works I prefer. That was a fun novel, but this is something more. This collection has an amazing pair of characters. Whereas Cocktail Time was an amusing diversion, Carry on, Jeeves leaves me wanting more of Jeeves and Wooster, despite being subjected to ten straight short stories so recently. If the novel piqued my interest in Wodehouse and confirmed what others had been telling me in their recommendations, this book has cemented my admiration for Wodehouse as a writer and a storyteller.

This year’s Vorkosigan novel is up for a Hugo nomination. The previous book, also a Hugo nominee, was my first exposure to Lois McMaster Bujold’s sprawling and successful series, although I wasn’t as impressed as I wanted to be. I went on to read the first two books, though, and those provided a firmer grounding in the series, not to mention better stories. I’m also glad I read them before reading Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. This book makes some allusions to the characters and events of the first two books, so I enjoyed seeing the connections.

Humour is much in evidence from the beginning of Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. It’s been over half a year since I read Bujold, so I didn’t recall how much wry banter she likes to pack into her dialogue. But things really pick up when Ivan, Tej (the aforementioned femme fatale), her assistant Rish, and Bylery are trapped in Ivan’s apartment. Immigration, as well as the local police, are at the door. In an inspired moment of insanity, Ivan decides to marry Tej, thus making her a Barrayaran subject. They travel back to Barrayar, where Ivan introduces Tej to his family, and they try to obtain a divorce. Except they can’t, because they haven’t been abusing each other, sleeping around, not sleeping with each other (mmm-hmmm), etc. It’s an old, old story, but Bujold makes it new again.

So we essentially have a romance masquerading as a situational comedy alongside a political thriller, which makes it awesome. Bujold is that rare combination of a writer who can comfortably straddle multiple styles within one book. Plenty of writers can switch between comedy, tragedy, and drama in different works, but it takes a special kind of skill to do it all within the same chapter (and occasionally, when she’s especially cheeky, the same paragraph). Thanks to the abundance of dialogue, most of the story proceeds at a heightened pace, as the characters hash out what’s going on and what their next step should be. There are plenty of arguments and disagreements, but not so much in the way of action or physical conflict. This is definitely a story that shines because of its wit and the pleasure inherent in watching a complex plot unfold.

It’s also a joy to watch the characters converse. Bujold’s characters are just so much fun, from the smiling but serious Emperor Gregory to the more nonchalant, slightly scary Miles Vorkosigan. Even Simon Illyan, once the head of ImpSec and now retired on a medical basis, is a joy to watch, as he engages Shev’s father in a deal (“more of a bet, really”) to see who can outwit whom. Although the book itself is fun, each individual scene stands alone as an almost exquisite vignette set within the context of Barrayaran politics. Even for someone like me, whose exposure to Barrayar is still minuscule compared to the amount of literature available, it’s still possible to understand and enjoy what’s happening.

The marriage between Ivan and Tej is a sham. That’s obvious. It’s equally obvious that they are going to end up in love and together. This is the type of romance novel I can get into, because even though the romance element is front and centre, Bujold takes the time to make her characters rounded, and the obstacles to their happiness are more than contrived character flaws. For one thing, Tej’s parents and family are, in fact, alive. They show up on Barrayar and immediately co-opt her into a scheme to raid an underground bunker left over from when her grandmother worked in it as a geneticist. They want to use these ill-gotten gains to finance a re-takeover of their House back on Jackson’s Whole. The only possible problem is that the bunker happens to be beneath ImpSec headquarters.

Oh, did I mention it’s also a heist story? My love of heist stories is second to none. The family is working against time before their emergency visa runs out. Tej’s loyalties are divided, and it’s fun to watch her genuinely struggle—should she be the upstanding daughter that her family never appreciated, or the dutiful wife of a Barrayaran nobleman? It doesn’t help that, much like Cordelia Naismith before her, Tej appears to be falling in love with her Barrayaran beau.

(I can’t believe I just said that. Sorry.)

I enjoyed Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance even more than I was expecting. In fact, unlike Cryoburn, I actually think this book deserves a Hugo Award. It’s an excellent example of how to create a compelling science-fiction setting in which storytelling happens. And there are big ideas here, but they are more latent—Bujold works them into the cultural fabric that underlies her story, instead of hitting us over the head with them. And though this is the fifteenth published Vorkosigan book, new readers could start the series here and go back and read previous books without too much confusion. It’s always a pleasure to pick up yet another book in a long-running series and discover that the author still has that essential spark necessary for a great read.

One of the nice things about working in a school is that I can nick books from the English cupboard, bring them home for a day, or a week, or most of the year, and quietly return them without anyone complaining. It’s a perk that almost makes those times you accidentally stand under the bell worth it.... Anyway, earlier this year I was reaching for short stories to show my sixth form students, and it occurred to me that “A Sound of Thunder” is a damn fine short story, both in a technical and a literary sense. I found copies of this anthology, which includes “A Sound of Thunder”, and away we went. Long after we were finished with Bradbury, I kept my copy of the book, intended to read the rest of the stories “soon”. Now it’s almost the end of the school year—but better late than never!

The Golden Apples of the Sun is an old collection, older than I am. It showcases the diversity as well as the sameness of Bradbury’s writing. I think of him (and a lot of people, I think, would agree) as a science-fiction author. Yet many of the stories here aren’t overtly science fiction. There are a few I can’t quite puzzle out, and a few that are definitely science fiction, but not in the sense that we conceive of science fiction these days. Bradbury is a master of that space within the science-fiction experience where the writer exaggerates one or two scientific or technological phenomena as a tool for social commentary (“The Meadow” and “The Garbage Collector” are both good examples of this.) In contrast to the rockets and blasters and robots that pervaded Golden Age SF, Bradbury focuses on the everyday.

There is a strong, almost melancholy sense of loss to most of these stories. People are losing their homes, their livelihoods, their dignity. In “The Fog Horn”, the monster has lost its potential mate again after waiting millions of years. The eponymous “April Witch” is torn between her heritage and her love for a mortal, a choice she tries to avoid in vain. In “The Great Wide World Over There”, Cora loses her temporary connection with the rest of the world when her nephew leaves after writing letters for her but not actually teaching her to read or write. And, of course, the protagonists of “A Sound of Thunder” lose their present.

On a larger scale, Bradbury seems rather ambivalent about how technology is transforming society. “The Pedestrian”, “The Flying Machine”, “The Meadow”, and “The Garbage Collector” all depict slightly-exaggerated ideas about the future that will be familiar to anyone who has read Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury is obviously concerned about the convergence of communications technology and nuclear capability. We are simultaneously able to talk faster and make war faster; and everyone knows how easy it is to get into a heated argument and then do something one regrets. So, these stories display a healthy scepticism for the benefits of better phones, more TV, etc. And the nuclear apocalypse that was such a threat following World War II looms over the backdrop of some of the later stories.

I don’t mean to give the impression that this is a downer book. Far from it: I think this collection celebrates a lot of the strongest ties that bind our society. It’s an ecomium of family and friendship, of connection to our past and the importance of always looking towards the future. Though there is a deep foreboding in some of these stories, it’s only there because of Bradbury’s fears about what the mechanization of the world does to these ties. Bradbury wants balance; the trouble is, he doesn’t seem sure what that balance might be or how it might even be achieved (let alone maintained). Thus, while this isn’t a downer book, it isn’t necessarily optimistic about human capacity for moderation. Whatever else we might be, we are an eager species when it comes to what we perceive as “progress”.

The nice thing about this being a slim anthology volume is that I can’t really feel bad about recommending it. Regardless of past experience with Bradbury, you will probably find something interesting in The Golden Apples of the Sun. The stories are all short enough to read in a single, brief sitting—but they are deep enough that even the shortest provides enough meaning to spend an afternoon with. It’s a nice snapshot of the early part of Bradbury’s fiction, and it’s an interesting exposure to an attitude towards writing SF that is, if not as cynical as some of the cyberpunk that would come much later, then just as apprehensive about the developments it sees happening.

Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire has been nominated in the novel, novella, and novelette categories for the Hugo Awards this year (and twice in the novelette category). All the more power to her! I admit that I’m not a fan of the Newsflesh series. (I read the first two books when they were nominated for Hugo Awards.) So I’m surprised that San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, a prequel (told through flashbacks) set in the same universe, managed to impress me.

Mahir, Shaun and Georgia’s correspondent and editor from London, has tracked down the only survivor of the 2014 San Diego Comic Convention. This occurred during the early days of the Rising, when people had not yet gotten to grips with what the infectious nature of the zombie apocalypse meant for large, open-air gatherings like Comic Con. Lorelei survived only because she happened to be in the hotel at the time, outside the main convention centre. She has lived with the guilt of losing her parents and their friends ever since.

Each chapter is a flashback recounted from Lorelei’s recollection or assembled by Mahir from evidence and recovered footage. Grant prefaces each chapter with some pithy quotations from Mahir’s writing and snippets of his conversation with Lorelei. Both of these serve to set the tone and remind us that the fate of the California Browncoats is sealed: there will be no eleventh hour rescue from the army.

It’s easy to identify why San Diego 2014 works for me while Newsflesh doesn’t. Try as Grant might, she just can’t make me care that much about her zombie-stricken characters. The plots of Feed and Deadline were too anaemic, the writing too pedantic to sustain much tension. Working over a much more condensed length, with the characters against the ticking clock as the infection spreads and nobody from the outside world comes to help, Grant manages to create a much more compelling conflict. The tragedy of the Kellis–Amberlee virus is apparent in the novels, but here it is more intense in its ruthless presence.

The ensemble cast of disconnected characters helps as well. Grant lets us see how the zombie apocalypse affects this narrow cross-section of people who are from all walks of life but united in their affection for comics, science-fiction, and other nerdery. She touches on the types of isolation and marginalization these people feel, especially those fans (or actors, in the case of Elle) who are women and at risk of being branded a “fake geek girl”. In this respect, San Diego 2014 is a very topical story that’s really of its time.

We’re having a lot of conversations right now about what it means to be a “fan”, “geek”, “nerd”, “gamer”, etc. These conversations are inextricably connected to larger discussions about race and sex/gender. Geek has gone mainstream in a big way, which worries some people. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to people going after vulnerable, visible minorities, branding them as posers and fakes. (And there seems to be a lot of sexist resentment pent up in certain sectors of geekdom, almost a “you can’t come and play with my toys” type of deal, despite the fact that women have always been a part of geek culture, as both creators and consumers, since Day Zero.)

So San Diego 2014 addresses a lot of these issues in the guise of a look at a slice of the zombie apocalypse. The meaning of fandom, the extent to which one is a fan, changes as people can no longer gather post-Rising. Also, this is a bit of a love-letter to geek culture in the way Grant portrays the self-sacrifice and bravery of the California Browncoats. It’s a bit of a “hell yeah” feeling of cameraderie, a sense that these people have come together to celebrate the shows and books that they love, and instead they have decided they will die together, if that’s what needs doing….

The thematic statements here are a little heavyhanded and on the nose, subtext often scraping the surface. Embedded in the zeitgeist as it is, I’m not sure how well this story will age as geek culture continues to evolve—as a clear product of its times, I suspect that we might look back at as “vintage” one day, rather than “classic”. Don’t get me wrong: it’s still a good story. But the trappings of the story are difficult to decontextualize. I think that readers who aren’t as familiar with the idea of Comic Cons or the issues that are currently front-and-centre will have a harder time understanding parts of this story, much like we’re less sensitive to the socialist imprecations of Dickens in this day and age.

I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this story for people who haven’t read previous Newsflesh books. It’s an accessible place to start, providing a taste of the universe and a little exposition, while also lacking much in the way of spoilers. Aside from Mahir, it doesn’t feature any major characters (to my knowledge), which means you can read it, get a taste of Grant’s writing, before checking out Feed. Mind you, I liked this better than either of the first two books, so take that for what you will…. While not my pick for the Hugo Award, it definitely earns its nomination, and I’m pleased there’s finally a Newsflesh story I can say I haven’t tried to shred into tiny pieces.

I need to give a shout-out to fellow reviewer Rob here, because I feel like I know Aliette de Bodard’s work mostly through him. I have quite a fair bit of her fiction knocking around in ebook form (thanks, Angry Robot), but I haven’t actually gotten around to reading much of it. So far I’ve only managed those stories nominated for Hugo Awards—and hey, look, another one. But seriously, if you want to get the scoop on de Bodard’s other universes, you should check out Rob’s reviews.

On a Red Station, Drifting is set in the same universe as de Bodard’s other Hugo nominee for 2013, the short story “Immersion”. I really liked how de Bodard captures the viral nature of colonialism in “Immersion”. The Galactics’ immersers are so entrenched in the Galactic culture and way of thinking that one has to think like a Galactic before one can reverse engineer them. Of course, that kind of assimilation is exactly what the Rong who would reverse engineer the technology are trying to avoid. Whereas “Immersion” is set on Longevity Station, this novella takes place on Prosper Station, at an unspecified time. The Dai Viet Empire crumbles from a rebellion, and a disgraced magistrate, Linh, flees to her relatives on Prosper Station, running from the crime of pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

Linh finds a station in the disorganized grip of Quyen, who is unable to summon the authority and drive necessary to keep things running smoothly. Quyen is trying to cope even as she clings to the fantasy that her husband will return from going to quell the rebellion. Others are in similar straits; the mood is comparable, I imagine to places far behind the front lines in Europe in World War II that have seen their best and bravest go off to fight. It doesn’t help that the Mind running the station, referred to only as Honoured Ancestress, appears to be malfunctioning in some way. So, Linh has arrived at a terrible time. She makes and awful first impression, and she soon finds she doesn’t fit in. She is too cultured for such a provincial atmosphere, and her boredom makes her sullen and rude.

This is a story of character and grace. It’s subtle, in the sense that the plot simmers in the background while de Bodard spends most of her time fleshing out the main characters and placing them on her chess board. It’s obvious, in the sense that there is very little left ambiguous: it’s clear that Quyen hates Linh, and Linh is simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by Huu Hieu. If this were a movie, a lot of it would take place without a score, just the characters speaking against a backdrop of silence. There is a stillness to this story that is at times unbearable, because you just start waiting for something to happen. This is not a critique against plot, mind you, but an observation of how de Bodard chooses to build tension.

When external forces prompt Linh and Quyen to action, the conflict seems inevitable, given the way honour and family play a huge role in this culture. Quyen must act a certain way towards Linh for the good of the family. Linh, similarly, makes choices that go against her preferences just so she can avoid tearing the family apart. It raises the question of what would have happened had Linh not been so strong—if she had succumbed to her childish impulses to take the family down with her, where would we be? Perhaps this is a subtle comment on de Bodard’s part about the fragility of such an honour-based system: it can only be as strong as the weakest link. There are echoes of this fragility in Linh’s criticism of the emperor: everyone around him his frozen into inaction by his unwillingness to engage with the rebels directly. The authoritarian nature of the culture means that everyone defers to the emperor, even though he might be wrong.

All these critiques seem to lurk below the surface of the story, though. Overall, On a Red Station, Drifting really seems to be about Linh’s personal sense of loss and lack of direction. Her life is, if not literally, then figuratively over. In a way, her decision at the end of the story is inevitable, because it is the best way for her to gain some form of closure. Unlike another option for closure (suicide), this way also offers the hope of further combat with her enemies. Linh is someone who likes to take action, to be constantly engaged in combat or conversation. She is ill-suited to life on Prosper Station; both she and Quyen recognize that from the start, but it takes a while for them to figure out how to solve it.

This novella didn’t affect me as strongly as The Emperor’s Soul, but it’s still quite good. I think it’s more a case that it showcases the intricacy of de Bodard’s writing than anything about the story in particular. There are so many layers here that combine to form a particularly pleasing whole, even though, when pulled back piece by piece for further examination, they appear diaphanous and less compelling. More than meets the eye but better in one big piece, On a Red Station, Drifting is another exquisite entry in this year’s Hugo nominees for best novella.

This is one of the plays I could have selected to teach my sixth form students this year. I ultimately decided to go with Kindertransport, also excellent. (I realize now as I write this that I haven’t written a review for it. I will eventually rectify that.) Having read both now, that was probably the right decision. I quite enjoyed Arcadia, and I think my students would have as well. But Kindertransport is much easier to write about—the social commentary here is a lot more subtle and closely-linked to the fast-paced, rapid-fire dialogue that, while entertaining, is a little harder to analyze. Kindertransport lays its emotion bare in a way that is just as compelling and also easier to interrogate.

Arcadia obviously appeals to me for its mix of math and English, the two subjects closest to my heart. Tom Stoppard seamlessly moves from discussions of algebra and iterative algorithms to Byron and Romantic poetry. His characters, too, are at home in the intersection of these subjects. Nowadays when I announce that I teach both math and English—and that I feel equally at home with either—the reaction is invariably, “Oh, that’s an unusual combination!” This twisted, unnatural impression is evidence of the warping effect the isolation of school subjects has on people’s minds. There’s something to be said for specialization, but I think that there is a tendency—well-meaning but still harmful—to encourage a way of thinking that marginalizes one’s natural abilities in one subject in favour for apparent abilities in another. People who gravitate towards literature see an equation and shudder, “Oh, I haven’t the brain for math!” even as they blithely budget for their next vacation.

Such blind rejection of anything outside their perceived sphere is unknown to the characters of Arcadia. Septimus Hodge is Thomasina’s tutor in everything—history, Latin, mathematics, literature, and art. Mr Chaterley acts as both poet and botanist over the course of the story; Mr Noakes is supposedly the garden architect, but that doesn’t stop Lady Croom from exerting her own considerable influence over the subject. Similarly, though Hannah’s principal bailiwick at the moment appears to be history of gardens, she shows her chops as a modern polymath by holding her own against Bernard in the arena of literary criticism.

I’d like to say that Stoppard casts a perpetually positive aura over academe, but of course that isn’t the case at all. Bernard is a boorish chauvinist whose ego gets in the way of his endnotes. Even with such critiques, however, Arcadia bursts with enthusiasm for learning and, more importantly, sharing that learning by writing about it. I’ll speak more about the use of parallel times in a moment, but for now I’d like to point out how Thomasina’s conversations with Septimus mirror those between Hannah and Bernard or Hannah and Vincent—in both cases, the characters quickly fall into an academic cadence. Each of these conversations is slightly different: Thomasina and Septimus’ is one of student-teacher, with the latter prompting and occasionally correcting the former; Hannah and Bernard are agonistic equals, each bouncing ideas off the other, simultaneously collaborating and competing as their research progresses. The last pairing is perhaps the most interesting, at least to me. It’s one of those situations where the two academics have little knowledge of each other’s field and so must painstakingly explain (and justify) their project to the other. I have often run into this problem when discussing my math research with my academically-inclined but non-mathematical friends and can sympathize with Hannah’s somewhat blank reception of Vincent’s grouse tales!

Beyond the academic element, however, we have the poetry. The plot of Arcadia consists of comic misdirection and a healthy dose of dramatic irony. Bernard thinks he has discovered evidence that Byron killed a man in a duel on these estates, which is why Byron later left England forever. His evidence is wrapped up in the journals and letters on the estate, which Hannah and Vincent are both investigating for their own research projects. As these contemporary characters attempt to unravel what actually happened, we get to watch it during the portions of the play set in the past. Through lines of dialogue both witty and matter-of-fact, Stoppard demonstrates how a series of comic misunderstandings can lead to so much conflict and strife.

This is the other side of that Enlightened coin, the dark, brooding aspects of the Romantic period shining through. Byron himself never appears on stage—perhaps having such a strong historical personage would overshadow the fictitious characters—but his presence is still felt. When Chaterley continually challenges Septimus to a duel, when Bernard is describing his version of those events, Byron’s spirit looms heavily over the proceedings. Even as the dialogue comes out crisp and clean, there is still the sense that, at any moment, things could turn ugly. This is evident from the first scene: it opens with Thomasina grilling Septimus on the particulars of "carnal embrace", eventually dragging out from her reluctant tutor an admission that such activities might include kissing. Meanwhile, the butler has delivered to Septimus an ultimatum from Chaterley demanding a duel because of Septimus’ own carnal embraces. Stoppard, working over multiple levels here, manages to drive home the humour without overworking it at any point. (I can only imagine it would be even funnier when performed by the right cast. This edition includes the original performance’s cast at the front, and I spent the rest of the book imagining Bill Nighy delivering all of Bernard’s lines. Sorry to have missed it!)

Arcadia is fast-paced and funny. It’s steeped in that dry British humour I love so much, with the jokes based on turns of phrase and subtleties of class that I, as an outsider, still don’t fully understand. Nevertheless, I can appreciate the way Stoppard takes seemingly-disparate elements, like math and poetry, or gardens and literature, and brings them together to create a compelling narrative. Serious and silly at the same time, this play spans nearly two hundred years despite being less than half that in page count. Along the way, Stoppard delivers an ode to academics, a story of misunderstood love and miscommunication, and a reflection on how time and chance change what we think we know about the people who came before us.

I’m quite glad I went with my gut and chose to order a copy of this as well as Kindertransport! No regrets about teaching the latter, but I would have missed out on something special if I had completely ignored this gem.

Zombie fiction always sneaks up on me. I never consciously seek it out, but I end up reading it nonetheless. Nowdays is different from any other zombie fiction I’ve read so far in that it’s a graphic novel, a medium I enjoy but don’t necessarily follow as much as I could. It’s also notable in that its authors are from my hometown, and they chose to set the story in that area. Whereas most zombie fiction focuses on the survivors of a zombie apocalypse as a kind of microcosm for the remnants of society, Nowadays decides to turn most of its main characters into zombies. The twist is that, provided they aren’t too badly injured, zombie!you is pretty much the same as human!you, except with a thirst for blood.

The book opens with a kind of prologue: a man wakes up to discover he has had a heart attack and is now a zombie. So he eats part of his dog. Then his dog becomes a zombie. Together, they dig up his wife and daughter, who died in a car crash, and find blood to help regenerate them. We meet this character again later in the book, but the action quickly jumps to follow the main cast: a group of young tree-planters and their boss, Tree, as well Ray, who escaped from alcohol rehab and joins up with them. They quickly fall prey to zombies, and as they begin to operate under the principal that, once you’re bitten you’re doomed to become one of them, the group begins to fracture as some people prove to be more ruthless than others.

Eventually they discover that a sense of self remains intact after zombification. This is a neat twist that introduces a number of new dilemmas. Should you still kill all the zombies when they can talk and reason? Will we instead have to find a way to co-exist with zombie-kind? Merk and Martell don’t really address these bigger issues, preferring instead to focus on what the apocalypse does to a small group of people thrown together by the outbreak. Their different reactions to the revelation that life doesn’t end after zombification offer a glimpse at what might be happening in the wider world.

I love that this was set in Northwestern Ontario, if only because I get a kick out of reading place names that I’m familiar with. The art in this book uses a combination of drawing and photo manipulation (the latter mostly on background scenery), which creates an interesting, surreal effect. I have to admit that I’m not overly impressed by the style of the drawing; it lacks a certain flair in favour of a simple colour palette and blocky depictions at a distance. But that doesn’t mean the art is bad—the style is clearly a deliberate choice that I’m sure will work for other people.

I really enjoyed the story. At first I was a little sceptical, both because of my general wariness towards zombie stories and because nothing grabbed me at first. So I was surprised when I turned the last page and found myself hungry for more. In part this is because of the kickass cliffhanger at the end—without spoiling anything, I am really interested to find out what the military are really up to in the cordoned off Thunder Bay. And, of course, what’s up with that weird voice uttering "Blood is power" in Latin to everyone who wakes up as a zombie? Nowadays tells a satisfying story on its own while still setting up enough to keep the series going into several books.

I’m not sure that if I truly hated zombie stories this would be enough to win me over (or maybe I’m just going soft in my old age). It helps that the authors don’t try to do too much here. They focus on the conflict created within the group by each person’s differing priorities. They aren’t afraid to split the group up and bring it back together after creating a certain amount of tension and exploring subplots. For example, both Ray and Tree become separated from the main group at different points, and it seems like they are “goners”, if you can say that about a world where the dead rise as zombies. But they both find their way back to the group (first after finding each other), both changed in different ways—Ray a zombie, Tree oddly sympathetic to the dead folk. Meanwhile, the rest of the group is holed up in a hotel, where one of them is going crazy and wants revenge. So it goes.

Nowadays is some good zombie fiction and a good graphic novel. It’s something new, something different from what I often encounter when I dip my toes into this sub-genre from time to time. And that’s always good.

I do not like the cover on this edition of Fifth Business. I don't remember when I first read this book—definitely in high school, but I hate to say that it's now long enough ago I can't remember the exact grade. I didn't like the cover then, and I don't like it now. There is just something unsettling about the composite of faces. I interpret it as a representation of the various people we are, at different stages of our life and even simultaneously, an allusion to the Jungian archetypes that become more pronounced in the later books in the trilogy. Nevertheless, I just disturbs me. And I suppose I could have bought one of the newer editions, which have quite different covers, as I did for World of Wonders. Yet I got this for free from BookMooch—and besides, I won't judge a book by its cover.

The best way I can explain how I feel like Fifth Business is like so: it's the kind of book I have no trouble imagining as a movie, but I know that if one were ever made, it would almost certainly suck. (it appears that the rights were tied up in legal hell for thirty years). I just don't see how a movie could adequately capture Dunstan Ramsay's narration, and it's Dunstan's voice that makes Fifth Business so powerful.

Dunstan is not the sort of character one would imagine as the main character of a novel. (This is, in fact, rather the point of the title.) He lives on the periphery of the lives of other characters who seem like they are up to things much more interesting than anything he does. From the rich and powerful Percy Boyd "Boy" Staunton to the mysterious magician Magnus Eisengrim, Dunstan is a witness. This is obvious from the first scene of the book. A young Boy throws a snowball at Dunstan, and in an example of Boy's vicious streak, it has a core of rock. When Dunstan ducks, the snowball hits the pregnant Mrs. Dempster instead, an event that reverberates through the entire novel.

As a narrator, Dunstan is everything I enjoy. He's self-deprecating, but not to the point of whining or over-extending his attempts at humour. He passes judgement on his younger selves, but that judgement and his contrition are genuine, rather than smug or superior. And Robertson Davies made Dunstan a writer, which provides perfect justification for the clever, indulgent little passages like this one:

I thought I was in love with Leola, by which I meant that if I could have found her in a quiet corner, and if I had been certain that no one would ever find out, and if I could have summoned up the courage at the right moment, I would have kissed her.

Dunstan appears earnest and honest, confessing to his foibles—his childhood lust for Leola, his sense of responsibility for Mrs. Dempster's condition and Paul Dempster's new life—but one of the themes of Fifth Business concerns how we conflate myth and history to recreate ourselves. And so, Davies has gone a little meta on us and done the same with Dunstan as the narrator. As he recounts his life to the headmaster of Colborne College—the entire novel is actually epistolary—he is creating a version of himself, a myth of himself. We all do it, and that is one of Dunstan's points.

No character better exemplifies this than Boy Staunton, who might be my favourite character (other than Dunstan). In fact, Dunstan is at his best in his scenes opposite Boy. Though Fifth Business lacks an antagonist per se, Boy certainly serves in that role on occasion. He is a sometime rival, sometime ally of Dunstan, and they are friends almost as much out of necessity as out of any sense of kinship or fondness. Dunstan and Leola are Boy's last links to the village of Deptford, and I think Boy keeps Dunstan around for that reason.

Boy, of course, begins reimagining himself by dropping his first name, Percy, and shortening "Boyd" to the more youthful "Boy." He quickly corners the market on sugar and soft drinks and candy and graduates into the land of corporate tycoons who own fabulously rich companies that do nothing but manage other fabulously rich companies. When the Second World War breaks out, Boy goes into politics. He essentially becomes detached from reality, his vision of the world skewed by his own eerie success. Dunstan is the only one who ever attempts to talk sense to Boy, and that seldom works.

Dunstan emphasizes Boy's petulance. Of course, we shouldn't necessarily take Dunstan at his word, but this is what makes Boy one of the most interesting characters, and one of the darkest. He has climbed so high, but when he is finally re-united with the now-adult Paul Dempster, he falls. He has edited out any memory of ever throwing the snowball that led to Paul's premature birth, but deep down inside, he's still the capricious, spoiled boy. Just as Dunstan is a curious, serious, yet sometimes altogether-too-credulous boy who doesn't quite belong in our society.

Other than the narrator, the other awesome thing about Fifth Business is that it's short. This may sound like a surprise coming from me, a guy who loves doorstopper fantasy novels and recently complained that Liars and Saints, at 260 pages, could not do its multi-generational story justice. My copy of Fifth Business is only 266 pages—but in comparison, it is the autobiography of a single man. It is intensely, almost compulsively purposeful in scope; Davies fanatically reins in any attempt by Dunstan to comment at length about matters of world politics or history. The entire First World War takes only a single chapter, but it works for the type of story Davies is trying to tell. Unlike Liars and Saints, where I felt like I was marking time until the end of the book, every moment of Fifth Business is alive and full of potential.

I can't help it: it's also Canadian, OK? And not aggressively Canadian, like so much Canadian literature, nor politely and apologetically Canadian. But I feel that growing up as Canadian was an essential part of making Dunstan Ramsay the character and narrator that he was. From our immediate involvement in both the World Wars, to Dunstan's Victoria Cross, to Boy's bid for the Lieutenant-Governorship, this book is filled with aspects of Canadian culture. Fifth Business isn't just good, or great, or even simply amazing. It's an iconic book, one of few that I feel deserve the label of "classic."

My Reviews of the Deptford Trilogy:
The Manticore →

It's easy to review something you hate. Indeed, reviewing a bad book is enjoyable, because you feel free to tear it apart and vilify it as much as possible--your harshness is excused, justified by the poor quality of the book itself. Reviewing a good book is more difficult; you have to struggle to find something interesting to say or to come up with criticism. It is nearly impossible to review a great book with any amount of confidence, for then you feel the weight of having to do justice to something that, in your opinion, exceeds the excellence of sliced bread by a long measure.

That's how I feel about Midnight's Children. I began the book wanting to fall in love with it, anticipating it because I'd previously read other works by Salman Rushdie. Thus, I was already favourably predisposed toward the book. Yet at first, I thought it merited only four stars--I desperately desired to give it five, but the critic in me stubbornly demanded four. However, at some point during the last half of the book, my resistance melted, and I got it. I thought, This is good--not "good" in the sense of mediocre, but "good" in the sense of good storytelling and good writing and, crucially, good will. Try as I might, having finished the entire book, I am at a loss for criticism. What follows is an untempered, completely biased encomium of Midnight's Children. I make no apology for this.

Rushdie personifies the country of India in a single citizen, and tells its history allegorically through the autobiographical account of the narrator, Saleem Sinai. To borrow some phrasing from the book, India is Saleem and Saleem is India. The significance of this narrative framework was lost on me at first; the frame story of recounting one's autobiography seemed like a mere interesting plot device rather than a brilliant theme.

Saleem has taken narcissism and followed it to its extreme logical conclusion--i.e., he is so self-absorbed that he believes events in his life precipitated events in India's history. As he recounts his life story, he pronounces judgement upon his past self (whom he often refers to in the third person, a separate entity from the omnipresent, judgemental "I" of the unreliable narrator). It took some time for me to realize that this was Rushdie's way of generalizing the Indian collective consciousness at various key points during its history--Saleem's judgements weren't a statement about Saleem, but a statement about how Indians felt about India, how they saw themselves and their society, at that period in their history. With this in mind, the entire narrative-as-allegory fell into place, and I truly began to appreciate the masterpiece that Rushdie has created.

Rushdie's prose and style are second to none. He takes liberties with the English language the likes of which we haven't seen for the better part of a century. As with any good writer, his diction and syntax are just two more tools he uses expertly to create atmosphere and tone. Midnight's Children is packed full of one-sentence paragraphs consisting of semi-colon connected clauses. Commas become optional if they'll break the stream of consciousness. While ignoring (or at least stretching) such basic rules of grammar can be perilous, running the risk of making the story hard to follow, Rushdie never crosses the line.

In fact, the actual experience of reading Midnight's Children reminded me why I love prose so much, why reading is eminently superior to other forms of entertainment (I'm looking at you, television!). In the hands of an author like Salman Rushdie, words can transcend language, and prose becomes beautiful. While other authors can describe a scene in such a way that I feel present, that I can smell the smells and feel the textures, Rushdie wields a different sort of literary magic: his words evoke emotions, their euphony resonating with the soul and reminding us of the beauty of life itself. I savoured the words of Midnight's Children, each one dear to me because I knew I could only read it once--this is the type of book, of course, that requires many readings before one can truly get a handle on it, but the first time is always special. I can tell, without reading any other reviews, that many will reject Midnight's Children on the grounds that it is too difficult to read. That viewpoint is valid, but it represents a denial on the reader's part of a willingness to surrender themselves to the experience. Such people prefer lighter fare, books that are easier to digest or utterly linear in narrative. And there's nothing wrong with that per se, but it is their loss.

Many of the characters are at once complex and stock, deep and three-dimensional while still blatantly allegorical. In this way, Midnight's Children reminded me of Shakespeare, whose characters were often representative of abstract concepts or environs. Amina Sinai, who changed her name from Mumtaz Aziz in order to have children, is the mother of Saleem, and thus the mother of India--except that we quickly learn that Saleem is not Amina's biological child (yes, a changeling, he was switched at birth!)--so what implications does this have for India? Here Rushdie interweaves his favourite motifs of post-colonialism. Saleem has two possible biological fathers: Wee Willie Winkie, and impoverished street singer and performer, and William Methwold, an expatriate Brit who subsequently left India after it gained independence. This uncertainty mirrors the deep-seated identity crisis that India must have undergone shortly after becoming its own country--is it the byproduct of colonial Britain, or the creation of its own common people? By never answering the question for certain, Rushdie preserves the duality of this crisis (the answer, of course, is that India is both, and neither, but such a phenomenon would stretch Saleem-as-metaphor somewhat further than necessary). Saleem observes his tendency to "give birth" to parents in a sort of "reverse fertility", much like India struggles to find its own leaders and voice as its various internal ethnicities vie for power. Although Saleem himself is Muslim, he often refers to the Hindu mythology entwined with Indian culture, and at times he refers to himself as a buddha (not, however, a Buddha with a capital B!).

Religion figures prominently in Midnight's Children. Lack of religion is the motivating factor behind Saleem's grandfather's life, one which leads to his obsession with a perforated sheet, dooming Saleem and India to its fate. The partitioning of India, into Pakistan-and-India, and then Pakistan-and-India-with-states, is a response to the religious tension among India's people. Who is Muslim, who is Hindu? Who can have power, and who must be persecuted? Former friends become enemies, opposing generals moving their armies into battle against each other. And ultimately, no religion is safe from corruption by the humanity that drives it: Hindus and Muslims alike do terrible things, to their own people and to each other. India, like many countries in the world, unlike many countries in the world, was never One Big Happy Family, much like the Sinais struggled with their own dysfunctional unity.

The culture and history of India make it a perfect setting for magic realism in a way that is no longer true for places like Canada and the United States. This is the romance that has lured me into my love for fiction about India. Even now, when India is quickly modernizing, it's the duality of technologically-advanced cities alongside undeveloped rural villages that preserves India's vulnerability to magic (and perhaps to the optimism virus of the Rani of Cooch Naheen). The thousands of gods of the Hindu pantheon and the one-true-God of Islam coexist alongside the gods of technology, their religion enshrined and embedded in their culture far beyond what we experience in our increasingly secular countries. That is not to say that India is superior to other countries. But it goes a long way in explaining the attraction of India, its siren call to young, impressionable travellers who are looking for meaning in a world they have discovered, much to their discomfort, to be harsh and unforgiving.

In Midnight's Children, Rushdie captures the simultaneous states in which India exists throughout its history, much like a particle may actually exist in several states of quantum superposition, only to have is wavefunction collapse upon being observed. Yes, I just compared India to Schrödinger's Cat. You want to make something of it?