When I was younger, I was ridiculously fond of watching Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. (I still am. I just don’t have the time to watch it as much any more, nor am I spry enough to stay up until 1 am when it’s usually on these days.) The show is typical of the 1990s sitcom-with-a-twist: typically, each episode consists of Sabrina trying to solve a typical adolescent dilemma with magic, only to make the situation even worse when her spell goes awry. From time to time, the bureaucrats of the magical world would interfere (and because this could involve Penn Jilette, it was often hilarious), but mostly it was about how life in high school is hard, and magic doesn’t make it any easier (and actually seems to make it somewhat harder). And then Sabrina went off to college, dumped jock Harvey for sensitive photographer Josh, and the show began its inevitable decline. For a time, though, it was a lot of fun.

Despite a few, notable darker storylines, though, that’s all it was. The problem and spell would be fixed by the end of the episode, and everyone would laugh and smile—it was, after all, the 1990s. There was no reason for the show to explore the darker implications of the existence of hereditary witchcraft and the enemies this might attract, not when its goal was a half-hour of light entertainment each week.

Poltergeeks, then, for all its adolescent protagonists, probably bears more resemblance to the grittier witches and wizards of the past two decades. Julie is fully aware of her abilities as a witch, but her mother hasn’t been completely forthcoming about Julie’s magical heritage. When an enemy with a vendetta against Julie and her mother puts the latter in a coma, Julie finds herself squaring off against an entity that seems to have more power than she could ever hope to match. Though she has allies, she is largely forced to rely on her own skills and determination not to be beaten. If she fails, the stakes are very real: her mom will die, she will most probably die, and no one will be left to stop whatever dark plans this spirit has for the rest of Calgary.

Oh yeah, it’s young adult urban fantasy set in Calgary. Not quite my neck of the woods, but yay, Canada!

As far as supernatural elements go, Sean Cummings plays it fairly conservative, which definitely works here. We get the basic overview of witch politics: a Grand Council oversees local covens, and then some witches, like Julie’s mom, freelance as long as they stay inside the rules. There are also ghosts, poltergeists, and spirits, as well as immortals like the information broker Holly Penske. But so far there are no signs of vampires, werewolves, goblins, etc. If these creatures exist, Cummings is keeping the lid on them until later books—and that’s fine. I hate it when a book spends so much time attempting to catalogue its particular bestiary that it loses track of the plot.

That’s far from the case with Poltergeeks. This is a short book, but it still feels like a complete and satisfying story. The threat appears very quickly, Julie and Marcus spend most of the book investigating and dealing with it, and then the confrontation and denouement make for an exciting final twenty pages or so. Cummings keeps the story moving at a comfortable pace, alternating between scenes of significant events, whether they involve action or exposition, with pauses for reflection.

In the case of the latter, most of that comes from Julie, our first-person narrator. Now, I like Julie: she’s honest with herself, a little lacking in self-esteem—which seems realistic enough—and loyal to her friends and family. In this respect, Cummings has nailed her characterization. Her voice, however, is too self-aware. That is, rather than immersing me in a story narrated by Julie, I find myself very much aware of the techniques he is using to make the story seem like it is narrated by Julie. Maybe I’m just being overly critical on this point—certainly, I have no idea how realistic a younger reader would find it, and that’s what really matters, no?

This is, of course, the trouble I have with reviewing fiction aimed at younger adults. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between obvious plotting and clues laid for less experienced readers; for example, I deduced the identity of the vessel of Matthew Hopkins pretty quickly, but I wonder if someone less familiar with these types of stories would be more surprised. Similarly, for me the entire subplot involving Julie and Marcus’ nascent romance is lacklustre and difficult to find exciting. (Cummings deserves kudos, however, for the skilful way that he actually manages to tie all of this together into the main plot and still have it make sense.)

I might have some reservations, then. But there’s a lot to admire about the book as well. Unlike a lot of fiction aimed at young adults, there is a notable lack of characters carrying the Idiot Ball here. Julie’s mother and father elected to keep Julie in the dark about certain aspects of her heritage, but Cummings explains it in a way that is sensible and honest on the part of her parents—and, to be fair, this particular crisis is not one that they could have foreseen. Everything that happens in the story happens for a reason, and in the end it all coalesces into a satisfying picture that the attentive reader—regardless of age—can admire and enjoy, especially if they have been guessing and sleuthing alongside Julie for the entire thing. So I certainly hope that I’m striking a good balance of criticism here.

Because the bottom line is this: I really like Poltergeeks and would recommend it for young adult readers itching to bite their teeth on some urban fantasy. This is the kind of young adult fiction I’d love to pitch to my school library. It reminds me a lot in its structure and tone of The Dresden Files, albeit for a younger audience. Julie is a proto-Dresden—even better, she isn’t a chivalrous-yet-chauvinistic smartass, so in some ways she is far superior to Dresden. Cummings is channelling that same mixture of cynical noir mystery with humorous, heroic characters that I find so appealing about the Dresden books. Just as it seems that everyone and their mother is keeping secrets from Harry about his heritage and his role in a deeper supernatural conspiracy, Julie’s involvement in supernatural politics through her inherited position as a Shadowcull is a compelling hook for what will hopefully be a robust, nuanced series.

I want to emphasize that second adjective. For all its lightheartedness, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch also had its moments of keen nuance: it would use its humour to belie the stereotype of Libby the cheerleader, or subtly demonstrate to the audience the moral dubiousness of some of Sabrina’s choices. It did this all with a female protagonist who, in a house with two aunts and a talking cat, still managed to find her way. That’s more than I can say for some of the grittier series now populating the schedule, which seem to use the promise of dark imagery and endless romantic triangles to disguise the vacuousness of its characters.

I’d like to see more books like Poltergeeks. Books where the heroine isn’t moping because she’s the object of affection for only two supernatural beings but instead is a dynamic person who has her own goals and agenda. Books where the stakes are real, the grit is tangible, but at the same time, the drama and romance are natural extensions of the story, rather than afterthoughts necessary to tick all the boxes on the "supernatural YA" checklist that’s tacked on the door of Plato’s cupboard somewhere. These are the books I want to read. These are the books I want the upcoming generation of adults to read. These are the books you should want to read. Maybe not this book, if it isn’t particularly your cup of tea, but books like it.

Still, give it a try. It has its main characters researching for supernatural activity by searching on YouTube. If that isn’t timely and realistic, I don’t know what is.

Recall in my review of The Scar how I was whining about my opinion of China Miéville and his novels remaining relatively constant? How I wanted to read something different, something I could say didn't rank equally with the other three novels by him that I have read?

This is the story of why I should have been more careful with my wishing.

I knew something was wrong—perhaps I should say off—almost from the beginning of this book. The opening was grandiose in Miéville's usual style (which, if you've read Miéville, is explanation enough; if you haven't—why haven't you?) but our first meeting with the main characters is more confusing than enlightening. Worse still, none of the characters are all that interesting. I didn't care about Cutter, Elsie, or Pomeroy. I didn't care about Ori or Spiral Jacobs or Toro. I certainly didn't care for Judah, who seems like a monumental jerk wrapped inside a coat of comfortable self-sacrifice.

Characterization in The Iron Council is not sloppy, because nothing Miéville does is sloppy. From purple prose to passive voice, Miéville writes with impunity—and a vocabulary to show it—because the end result is something captivating and beautiful; the novel itself is work of art. So it's not sloppy; it is, unfortunately, rather lacklustre. Both of the preceding Bas-Lag novels, Perdido Street Station and The Scar, had a strong central protagonist: Isaac and Bella, respectively. We lack such a protagonist in The Iron Council. The present-day narrative alternates between two convergent plots, with Cutter and Ori providing a perspective for each respective storyline. The middle of the book tells the genesis of the Iron Council and follows Judah; ironically, while Judah is my least favourite character, this is probably the best part of the entire novel.

Cutter follows Judah out into the unexplored wilderness beyond New Crobuzon. Judah is searching for the Iron Council, a runaway train of railworkers, Remade slaves, and prostitutes. He knows that New Crobuzon is finally sending an expeditionary force to wipe out the train, and he wants to find the Iron Council first. Cutter follows Judah not because he has faith in the Iron Council but because he has faith in Judah (this point is important to the rest of the plot); Cutter is in fact in hopeless, unrequited love with Judah.

Neither Cutter nor Judah seem very real or three-dimensional; they are just names, with the barest amount of personality. So I didn't feel a lot of sympathy for Cutter as he allows Judah to manipulate him:

There were none of the chances Cutter had wanted, no opportunity to tell the stories of the Collective, to ask for the stories of the Council. It was rushed and ugly. He felt desperately angry as the Councillors prepared to die. He felt as well a sense of his own failure, that he was letting down Judah. You knew I couldn't do it, you bastard. That's why you're still there. Getting ready some plan or other for when I fail. Still, even though Judah had expected it, Cutter hated that he had not succeeded.

The dynamic that Miéville creates between these two is brilliant, and it's a rather timeless tragedy. In this case, however, its characters are not drawn with enough depth, and so the tragic effect is instead rendered a cliché.

Back in New Crobuzon, Ori is the New Crobuzon equivalent of a Marxist disenchanted with all the talk and ready for some good ol' proletariat revolution. The New Crobuzon of The Iron Council is an even grimmer place than the city of Perdido Street Station. The fallout from Isaac's alliance with the Construct Council caused a messy curtailment on the use of constructs throughout the city. Coupled with economic recession and a war with Tesh, and New Crobuzon is under martial law in all but name. These are not fun times. But Ori is tired of reading newspaper articles and meeting with a group of people who all call themselves "Jack" the way a communist uses "comrade." He wants some action.

Ori, like me, should be careful what he wishes for.

He falls in with a group led by Toro, a character who wears a massive helmet forged in the shape of a bull. With the helmet, Toro can sense magical energies and even teleport through space (by charging like a bull and tearing a hole in reality with the helmet's horns). The group plans to assassinate Mayor Stem-Fulcher (remember her from Perdido Street Station?), reasoning that a successful mission would be like beheading the "snake" of Parliament. I'll leave it up to you to guess how well that works out.

I quite enjoyed Ori's storyline, if not Ori himself, and the tale of revolution on the streets of New Crobuzon. It was almost like the good old times back in Perdido Street Station, when the city almost felt alive through Miéville's careful descriptions. Almost, but not quite. New Crobuzon is present in The Iron Council, but it is no longer the front-and-centre locus around which the novel revolves.

Instead, Miéville once again chooses a mobile location as his central focus. This time it's a train instead of a floating city. There's some metaphor to be found within the idea of a train, which is bound to go only where there is a railroad, representing one's freedom. (Indeed, one of the conceits of The Iron Council is that these fugitive railway workers are constantly tearing up the track behind them and laying down new rails before the train. It's odd, but it's very Miéville.) As with so much else of his work, he creates an almost-but-not-quite-romantic vision of life on an ever-changing railscape. Like New Crobuzon and Armada, the citizens of the Iron Council are cosmopolitan; however, the scale of the city is a lot smaller and more constrained. We get a sense of the fragility of the Council—everything is reused, if possible, because their resources are limited—as well as the sense of boundless adventure—they have maps no one in New Crobuzon has. In that respect, the Iron Council is as well-developed, as a "weird city," as any of Miéville's creations.

I'm very ambivalent about the fate of the Iron Council and the ending of the book. Part of me hates it, if only because it seems so inevitable the way Miéville has written it. Part of me enjoys its creativity. It is consistent with my favourite thing about this book, which is its portrayal of the difficulty of staging a class revolution. Ori quickly realizes that it's one thing to begin an uprising and quite another thing to succeed at it; the militia is ruthless, and even the death of New Crobuzon's mayor is not necessarily going to stop them. This real but unattractive truth fuels a lot of the tension in the last part of the book, as well as Judah's final act that affects the Iron Council and everyone aboard it.

If anything, The Iron Council, with its brief allusions to the events of Perdido Street Station, hasjust made me want to reread that first Bas-Lag novel all over again. I want to return to the delightful machinations of Mayor Rudgutter and then-secretary Stem-Fulcher; I want to see them negotiate with the Ambassador from Hell and the Weaver. In addition to these allusions, there are plenty of new, small glimpses at the weird and wonderful world that is Bas-Lag. Once again, Miéville shows that his imagination and his ability to create a world are without parallel. And beyond the worldbuilding lurks a good tale too: The Iron Council is a strong story of standing up to authority and striking, albeit not always succeeding. However, none of its characters could interest me, and I found that to be a massive stumbling block in reading this book. I read it, but I wasn't really into the story. There was no point where I would have been disappointed if something had interrupted me during my reading; I was a casual visitor to Bas-Lag this time. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, per se, but with a writer as good as Miéville, I'm always going to be disappointed when the experience is just casual.

I've rated, out of five stars, each of the 69 stories in this book, and taken the average of those ratings to determine my overall rating. My actual rating is 2.86 stars out of 5.

It took me a long time to read this book—because it's long. That's not always bad, and for an anthology called "Book of Canadian Short Stories," a certain girth is required to have a truly representative sample. Still, the length can be daunting for a reader, and I repeatedly questioned why I spent $24.00 on a book of stories in which I wasn't particularly interested. This definitely isn't the sort of book you should buy on a whim, like I did.

There are some definite gems in this collection, however, and that's what I'll focus on for the rest of this review. I'm going to iterate all of the stories to which I gave 5 stars and give a brief reason why.

"The View from Castle Rock" by [a:Alice Munro|6410|Alice Munro|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245100102p2/6410.jpg]

"And then there was Andrew himself, who ever since that day on the rock has felt about his father a deep bewildered sense of responsibility, much like sorrow."

A moving tale about the disenchantment with life that often accompanies growing up . . . the sacrifices one makes in the name of practicality over idealism. This is an excerpt, rather than the full book, and cannot do justice to the characters or the relationships depicted therein.

"Last Rites" by [a:M.G. Vassanji|44080|M.G. Vassanji|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg]

"I wanted to say to him, as I saw him, Look, Bharwani, this is not the time for your smart, sceptical arguments. This is real, this is how you leave the world; at least this once, walk along with the rest of us."

Wonderful story about the conflict between belief and faith. Told from the point of view of a Torontonian mukhi, “Last Rites” concerns the fallout of Karim Bharwani's request to be cremated after death. Bharwani was always an agitator in life, but carrying out his last request may prove a difficult decision for his family and the community. As Bharwani's wife is quick to point out, is it better to honour the request of the deceased, even if that may mean damning them according to one's religion? Such questions do not evaporate as science and technology march inexorably onward.

"The Collectors" by [a:Rohinton Mistry|3539|Rohinton Mistry|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1238081582p2/3539.jpg]

"I know!" said Jehangir. "That's the one Burjor Uncle lost and thought that I..."

Mrs. Mody squeezed his arm which she was still holding and he fell silent. She spoke softly, but without guilt: "He did not lose it. I destroyed it." Then her eyes went moist as she watched the disbelief on his face. She wanted to say more, to explain, but could not, and clung to his arm. Finally, her voice quavering pitiably, she managed to say, "Forgive an old lady," and patted his cheek. Jehangir left in silence, suddenly feeling very ashamed.

My favourite story in the entire anthology, "The Collectors" demonstrates how much of our lives is determined by what others do rather than the choices we make. His characters are tragically three-dimensional, and even the young Jehangir finds himself full of regrets and confusion about the choices that were his to make, and the choices made for him by others.

"The Flesh Collectors" by [a:Michael Redhill|48194|Michael Redhill|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

Roth had long since given up on making sense of the many laws that were to govern his life and his behaviour. These things had been drummed into him as a child, which was part of the reason he had strayed, although straying from orthodoxy to conservativism was a deviation on the order of dark rye to light.

As with "Last Rites," this is the story of conflict between one's religious beliefs and one's personal convictions. The main character is Jewish and planning to undergo a vasectomy so that he and his third, younger wife can continue to have sex without risking pregnancy. But Roth worries he may want to have more children in the future and contemplates freezing some of his sperm—an act that would, his rabbi opines, definitely result in sin, whether he uses the sperm or not. As Roth's vasectomy looms, he's torn between safeguarding against the unknowable future or conforming to the tenets of his faith. At the centre of this crisis, we have to wonder: how much of us, of our personalities and beliefs, comes from the religion in which we were raised?

"Fever" by [a:Sharon Butala|64078|Sharon Butala|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

She wanted to tell him that she too had been gone, that she had been exploring, lost, in a wild, violent country, that she had narrowly escaped, that she had had to tear herself away, lest the swamps and bogs and blackness claim her forever.

A man inexplicably becomes ill on a business trip to Calgary. As he lies in a hospital, wavering on the threshold between life and death, his wife, who has accompanied him on the trip, dallies with another guest at their hotel. For reasons she does not understand, she cannot bring herself to worry about her husband, cannot feel anything.

It's difficult for me to say why I liked this book; the main character seems selfish at times and mostly foolish. Maybe it's those foibles, her inability to play the dutiful bedside wife, that I find so endearing. She strays, yes, but ultimately she comes back—as does her husband—and for perhaps the first time in their stagnating 15-year-old marriage, they are changed.

"Ray" by [a:Guy Vanderhaeghe|98125|Guy Vanderhaeghe|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1253558267p2/98125.jpg]

Over all the months of separation her voice had changed, or his way of hearing it had. Coming out of the void, how false, how insincere it sounded, how actressy. It struck Ray that the owner of such a voice might not know all there was to know. Something more had passed between him and his father, borne on his dead brother's train, than a mere exchange of drinks and loose chang. What, was for him to decide.

This was an absolutely stunning story about the relationships a man has with both his wife and his father. Ray is an utterly practical individual who fails to grasp the nuances of society and humanity; his wife married him because he makes her feel better about himself, not because she loves him. Ray feels a bond with his father despite the fact that he received little affection, whether as child or as adult. But ultimately, I love the development Ray undergoes in such a short story. He starts off as a shy, unassuming man and becomes more confident—with the right amount of tribulation along the way.

"Jhoomri's Window" by [a:Anita Rau Badami|83925|Anita Rau Badami|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

Amma acts like she did not hear me and asks Jhoomri again, “Well Jhoomri, what is wrong with Mungroo?”

A great big smile spreads across Jhoomri's face, “Bibi-ji, he has a hairy nose,” she says.

Amma frowns at her, “You still behave like a child, girl, and about to get married too.”

“No Bibi-ji, I am no longer a child, am I?” says Jhoomri.

Amma pats her on the shoulder and says, “Don't worry, you'll be happy, you'll learn how to be happy with Mungroo.”

“Yes,” says Jhoomri.

“And your window?” I ask, totally confused now. How can Jhoomri be happy about marrying Mungroo? “Will you be getting your pink window today Jhoomri?”

“What will I do with a window now, child?” asks Jhoomri. And all of a sudden she sounds just like my mother.

Told from the point of view of a capricious seven-year-old, “Jhoomri's Window” is a bittersweet story about growing up and turning in one's vibrant cloak of idealism for the more muted colours of pragmatism and practicality.

"Catechism" by [a:Wayne Johnston|54816|Wayne Johnston|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-M-50x66.jpg]

He had always had great reserves of politeness, consideration, and forbearance, which were fatally combined with a desire to be liked, and so he had never been able to dismiss someone out of hand or offend them even when he knew it would have served their interests even more than his if they were to never meet again.

Much more happens in “Catechism” than one would expect to find in the average short story. The narrator shows us little moments, without judgement, from the life of the main character. In many ways his life is on hold, static and dreary like the Canadian winter in which much of the story takes place. He fails to connect with anyone even though he yearns for connection. In the end, he must confront the fact that he is unhappy. While “Catechism” is not very uplifting, it felt very emotionally true.

"An Easy Life" by [a:Bronwen Wallace|663027|Bronwen Wallace|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

Sometimes what Marion thinks is simply that she's lucky to have such an easy life. “Karma” some of their friends used to call it, hanging out at the farm, smoking black hash, letting the boys run naked through the fields.

Other times she knows damn well it's because of Carl and their double income, her education, her parents' double income even, everything that's made her luck possible. Political, not spiritual, and she should damn well face up to what that means. Whatever that means.

Sometimes she just doesn't know, and it scares her.

This story moved me because of Wallace's portrayal of parallels ... how circumstances beyond our control can profoundly influence our lives, more than we'd like to admit. “An Easy Life” also has a ray of hope, as Marion Walker's easy life is not an empty one, and she manages to pay her karma forward to the young Tracey Harper.

"The Art of Cooking and Serving" by [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1254258412p2/3472.jpg]

I couldn't understand why she'd chosen to do what she'd done—why she'd turned herself into this listless, bloated version of herself, thus changing the future—my future—into something shadow-filled and uncertain. I thought she'd done it on purpose. It didn't occur to me that she might have been ambushed.

To a child, everything is amplified, larger than life. Additional responsibilities—such as caring for one's pregnant mother or for a younger baby sibling—can seem like monumental tasks. Atwood replicates the stresses a child can feel, and the ways in which he or she copes in the absence of real parental guidance. I loved both the tone of the narrator and the denouement, in which the narrator seeks her freedom. There's a certain amount of generational observation here, as modern children have a sort of independence less common in previous generations of families.

"The Glass Sphere" by [a:Sean Virgo|654059|Sean Virgo|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

“The sphere had frozen, and baked. The air inside it, which was the breath of a man, had made frost-flowers upon its walls, and had filled it with mist.”

The title is slightly misleading, since the story is less about the sphere than it is about how that sphere connects two people across two centuries. It's about the breath trapped inside the sphere, the incredible journey on which it has gone, carried in the seemingly-indestructible blown-glass vessel, until it was finally released and taken in by another person. Virgo writes with such wonderful conviction; his descriptions are beautiful, as is this story.

"Constance" by [a:Virgil Burnett|1125802|Virgil Burnett|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg]

The identity of the partner in the sins of which Constance was suspected by the court gossips was a subject of endless discussion. A multitude of theories was advanced, factions developed, and the probability of each candidate for her affections was debated hotly and with utter frankness. . . .

Evidence was collected by every imaginable means. Servants were threatened, bribed, beaten. Patrols were organized along the ramparts so that Constance's windows could be constantly observed. Informing, eavesdropping, and spying became as prevalent in the palace as gossip had always been. This diligence was rewarded by the exposure of a score of entertaining scandals, but none of them involved Thibault's wife.

This is one of my favourite stories because it's just so different from the rest of the anthology. It actually has a plot, for one thing. And I love this idea that the courtiers are going to such great lengths to discover if Constance is having an affair (all the while she is, although her lover's identity is never discovered). Burnett uses this irony to inject some humour into a story that might otherwise be considered tragic or even haunting.

Well, this concludes my reading of this year’s nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and I’m struggling to decide which, if any, I should support. Last year The Dervish House hacked my brain and made it an easy choice. This year, not so much. Of all the nominees, however, I think Leviathan Wakes comes closest—it’s certainly the novel I enjoyed the most. (A Dance with Dragons is probably the second choice, but it just didn’t live up to my expectations.)

Leviathan Wakes has a lot to get excited about: scattered and sprawling humanity still confined to the solar system, an evil corporation (TVTropes) meddling with something better left alone, heroes on the run from pretty much everyone, and a noir murder mystery that turns into an obsession. It sounds like it could be a mess, but thanks to tightly twinned perspectives and a good eye for pacing, James S.A. Corey (i.e., Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck), manage to make it work.

People often speak of their “beach reads” or their “guilty pleasures”, books that they turn to when they want comfort and fun more than, say, thought-provoking or challenging reading. I know what they mean—space opera is kind of like that for me. I still read it actively and critically, but these are the kinds of books that I turn to when I need something fun and hopefully good. Reading the other Hugo nominees has been fun, but for the most part they have been somewhat heavy-handed (Embassytown) or just not that good (Deadline). Because when I come to these books, it’s not the action that I crave—though that helps—it’s the application of fascinating SF concepts.

I love space opera so much, and I also love hard SF, and I think I’m not alone in conflating the two terms. It doesn’t help that hard SF has two contradictory meanings, and that we tend to equivocate between them unconsciously. On one hand, hard SF refers to science fiction that attempts to extrapolate plausibly from the science and technology available today or projected to be available in the future. This emphasis on plausibility means that, proportionally, hard SF spends more time talking about and explaining its technologies instead of just handwaving them away. Hence, on the other hand, hard SF has become kind of synonymous with any story that pays a lot of attention to the gritty details of its technology. A lot of hard SF these days is actually just science fantasy masquerading under very good technobabble.

There’s a sweet spot, of course. Those science fantasies of nanotechnology and wormhole drives are often born out of the author’s desire not to just make up a “warp drive” and be done with it. They see that space travel is hard and then look at possible ways to get around that. This nexus of creativity from the ashes of cynicism is what I love about space opera/hard SF. You still need a good story to go with it, but if you can find a compelling idea and figure out what you want to say about it, then you are on your way to a good space opera.

I often tend to neglect near-future space opera for its more dazzling, somewhat sexier posthuman cousins, like Singularity Sky or Revelation Space. Leviathan Wakes is set close to our time. Humanity has colonized parts of the solar system—particularly the asteroid belt—but hasn’t quite made it out of the system yet. When they do, it will be in generation ships, the first one apparently crewed by Mormons. It’s a picture of the future that, assuming we ever get off our societal asses and start actually flying beyond low-Earth orbit again, is all too realistic of how we might end up; throughout Leviathan Wakes there is a constant subtext that humans aren’t really cut out for living in space, but we’re doing it anyway. I love that, because it contains something that’s true (living in space is hard) and something I hope will be true soon (we’re going to do it anyway).

There are two main characters in this book: Jim Holden, XO of the ice hauler Canterbury; and Miller, a detective/cop on Ceres. Holden and Miller and diametric opposites in many ways. Holden is a diehard optimist when it comes to human nature; he believes that, given enough information, people can make the right, rational choices. Miller, on the other hand, is more tight-lipped. He has a darker view of human nature, one he believes comes from growing up as a Belter and serving on the somewhat lawless Ceres base. When he and Holden meet and circumstances dictate that they work together, watching them work out these conflicting worldviews is very interesting.

The plot of Leviathan Wakes comprises two mysteries that are pretty obviously one big mystery. Holden and his crew stumble onto what looks like a plot to get Mars fighting the Belt. (Ironically, his attempt to get “all the facts” out there is the proximal cause of Mars attacking the Belt.) They end up on the run, hurt and scared, turning to a semi-terrorist organization of dubious character to protect them while they figure out their next move. Meanwhile, Miller gets a case he isn’t supposed to solve about a girl he isn’t supposed to find. He ends up falling in love with someone he can’t ever meet and learning that Julie Mao was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are fight scenes. There is epic spaceship brinksmanship and posturing. There is plenty of exciting discussion of acceleration and g-force, of oxygen deprivation and radiation exposure and rail guns. Leviathan Wakes definitely reads like a cinematric thriller. But it’s more than that, because it goes deeper, exploring the rifts created in human society by our colonization of the solar system.

Perhaps one of the reasons I enjoyed this book is that it draws upon a lot of the latent, half-formed ideas and thoughts about near-future space colonization that are floating around in my head. (What? I read a lot of science fiction.) One of the more pragmatic but somewhat disturbing consequences of colonizing our solar system would be the speciation through specialization of the human species. That is, we might begin altering ourselves—probably through genetic engineering—to better suit the particular environments we colonize. The human body evolved to work well on Earth at about sea level. As the elongated bodies of natural-born Belters attest, that doesn’t work so well in lighter gravity or microgravity. So the views expressed by Mr. Dresden in this book are somewhat extreme but not all that wrong, even if his methods are disturbing and unacceptable (which is why Miller does what he does).

Speciation might be a necessary adaptation if we are to survive outside Earth’s biosphere. Corey reiterate that, despite having spread throughout the system, losing Earth would still likely be a mortal blow to humanity. But preserving Earth could be difficult. Environmental catastrophes aside, humanity is not exactly a united species. In the future of Leviathan Wakes, Earth and Mars are nominally allies but have a lot of bad blood because of Mars’ bid for independence. Similarly, those two inner planets are not friendly with the more anarchic Belt. This atmosphere of animosity and distrust is exactly what the bad guys need to draw attention away from their master plan, and it’s the powder keg that Holden ignites with his first broadcast. And these are just differences between different pockets of humans. Imagine what it would be like if we started diverging as species!

Corey don’t go quite that far in this book, which is fine. But it’s clear they’ve thought about such wider implications. The ultimate threat in Leviathan Wakes hints that humans have bigger problems than their own internal struggles. I love how Corey throw in mentions of relativistic warfare without bothering to stop and explain it to the reader; I think it speaks of a certain amount of trust in one’s audience. Some readers will know already that accelerating something (like an asteroid) to a significant fraction of c and then aiming it at a planet (or a ship) is a good way to kill the target. Those who don’t aren’t missing out on much, and of course, the real threat is more than just a rogue asteroid. It involves the possibility that we aren’t alone in the universe, that our neighbours know we are here, that they don’t want us here, and that they have a three-billion-year head start. Yeah. I don’t want to think about it either.

Look at me, I’m not even talking about the book that much any more. It’s a fine plot, entertaining, and the characters are pretty good. But it’s just a story. Whatever—the fact that it has inspired me to go off on all these tangents, has given me that prompting I need to start rambling about space colonies and alien threats and relativistic warfare, should be enough to attest to how much Leviathan Wakes got under my skin in the best way possible. If, like me, you geek out about all these ideas, read this book.

My reviews of the Expanse series:
Caliban’s War → (forthcoming)

World War II is understandably an attractive point of divergence for writers of alternative history. "What if the Nazis won?" is a compelling question that has been explored many times over. Dominion takes a slightly different tack, imagining instead that the war itself was largely averted through appeasement. C.J. Sansom takes as his point of divergence the fateful meeting in which Churchill, Halifax, and Chamberlain decide who will succeed the latter as Prime Minister. In Dominion, Lord Halifax’s accession over Churchill results in a Britain that makes peace with Germany, which leaves the island alone as it prosecutes its war across the continent. In 1952, when the novel takes place, Britain is still nominally a sovereign power, but it bows often to Germany’s influence, and homegrown Fascism has taken root.

Sansom is treading sensitive ground. Alternative history where the Allies lose offers the condolence that at least we fought the good fight. Dominion posits rather that we stuck our heads in the sand, and that’s harder to bear. Yet it is inescapable that, at the time, a large number of people favoured appeasement. The horrors of Nazi Germany that are now printed baldly in textbooks and preserved indelibly in the memories of survivors and their families were, at that time, more rumours and whispers than hard truths. Hindsight makes it easy to view the war as the only viable option. But that was not always as apparent.

That makes the vision of Britain that Sansom presents so chilling and simultaneously compelling. This is a Britain of the 1950s that, in some ways, is very recognizable. I’m glad I read this after having lived in the UK for some time. More of the vocabulary makes sense, and although I haven’t visited the places referenced in the novel, I’m more familiar with the atmosphere and the cultural assumptions embedded herein. This, in turn, makes it easier to understand how the Britain of Dominion is a different, darker place. Through careful, well-paced developments in plot, combined with an exquisite attention to differences in media and transport and public services, Sansom builds a strong case for how peace with Nazi Germany would have led to a Britain that is less free, less democratic, and less prosperous than the Britain we got instead.

David Fitzgerald is not an action hero. He’s not a fighter. He’s a civil servant, one who gradually allows himself to be recruited into the Resistance movement. At first he is little more than a spy inside the Dominions Office. But when Frank Muncaster, his roommate at Oxford, becomes privy to secrets about the American atomic bomb project and lands in an asylum, the Resistance taps David to get him out of there before the German and British police close in. Already upset about lying to his wife, David does not relish the possibility of having to give up everything he knows and go on the run.

David’s wife, Sarah, comes from a pacifist family. But her sister has married a Blackshirt. So the family politics are … complicated. Dinners can be tense. And Sarah notices that David is working many late nights and weekends—and she suspects him of having an affair. Still torn by the loss of their son two years ago, Sarah is not sure what to do as she senses David drift further away from her.

And on the other side, Sansom provides the perspective of Gunther Hoth, a Jew-hunting Nazi transplanted from Berlin to London to question and apprehend Muncaster at all costs. Gunther is a good antagonist: he hates Jews and genuinely believes the party line on such points. Yet he is not a sadistic or cruel man. He has an ex-wife and an eleven-year-old son; he is a person, just a particularly bad one. He is also genuinely threatening, able to guess quite a bit of the Resistance plan for extracting Muncaster and getting him to an American submarine. Gunther is, if not one step ahead, then never more than one step behind. It’s this keen intelligence and insight that allows him to come close to catching David and other members of the Resistance several times, and eventually it allows him to leap ahead and lie in wait at the climax of the story.

Through these various characters and their various political and personal beliefs, Sansom builds a holistic picture of this alternative 1952 Britain. It is a warning of what might have happened if Churchill and others had not prevailed in prosecuting the war with such vigour. It is also a cautionary tale of what happens when one allows one’s country to get too caught up in the throes of nationalism. (In his historical note, Sansom goes from recounting the events leading up to the Halifax/Churchill decision before going off on a tangent about how awful the separatist Scottish National Party is, and while I can see the relationship, I’m not sure the connection between the SNP and the events in Dominion is as apparent as he might like. I was more caught up by the terrible things happening to the British Jews rather than the occasional mention of trade union crackdowns and the SNP.)

Dominion is a long novel, but it’s worthy of such length. It has a nice level of detail, not just in terms of history but in the actions and thoughts of the characters. It’s a potent demonstration of the dangers that are always lurking at the edges of so-called democratic processes, something that we would do well to remember given current events. I won’t pretend to understand what life was like in the 1940s, what it was like to see the end of the war and the defeat of Fascism. But it’s interesting to see Sansom’s take on what could have been different: a more isolationist America that actually wants to have ties to Russia, a weakened Britain losing its grip on its empire much more slowly yet more feebly; a terrifying unstable Germany that has bent Europe to its will on the brink of its own implosion.

Definitely interesting and moving, Dominion will appeal to fans of alternative history or anyone just interested in what might have been had we not quite fought World War II.

Congratulations, Hero. You have defeated the Big Bad and freed the empire from its thousand-year reign of terror. Everyone is now free! Well, kind of. You still have to feed and clothe them. And the nobility won’t suddenly want to mix with the peasants. Oh, and the more remote regions have started calving off into kingdoms of their own faster than you can say “melting ice caps” (and I can say it pretty fast).

What, you expected post-victory life to be easy? Some kind of utopia?

Most fantasy books are over when the bad guy has been defeated. Indeed, that’s where many trilogies end as well: all three books were the build-up to the final, climactic confrontation. With the bad guy out of the picture, the implication is that the world can somehow proceed to become a more just and better place naturally. This is perhaps the biggest lie that fantasy novels peddle. The world doesn’t become more just spontaneously. You have to make it more just. And that is difficult, as Brandon Sanderson shows us in The Well of Ascension.

I was really impressed last year with Mistborn, so I decided to make its sequel my second Sanderson reading experience. Set roughly a year after the first book, Vin and Elend are tentatively in charge of the new Kingdom of the Central Dominance. I say tentatively because Elend, out of idealism, has taken an experimental stab at representative democracy by forming an Assembly of twenty-four individuals—eight nobles, eight merchants, and eight skaa workers. The Assembly has all sorts of Super-Dithering™ powers, including the ability to depose the king. (I really enjoyed watching Tindwyl go bug-eyed when Elend explained that technicality to her.)

This might not be a problem, except that two of the upstart kings from other dominances have marched on the capital of Luthadel. One of them is Elend’s father—and there are some serious daddy issues in this family. Hot on the heels of these two armies is a third, composed of the massive and brutish koloss, meta-human creatures that just don’t stop growing. Luthadel, meanwhile, has a rag-tag band of old men and young children, and maybe some spears and swords to share between them. It’s not looking good.

I completely understand why most fantasy books don’t delve into this aspect of rebellion, but I love it when they do. George R.R. Martin does something similar when Daenerys decides to stay in Meereen instead of abandoning it as she has her other conquered cities. She quickly finds that taking a city and ruling it are entirely different propositions, and it is an unforgiving test of her mettle as a supposed queen. The problems that Vin and Elend face are slightly different, given the context of their revolution, but the atmosphere is much the same.

This setting is part of a larger narrative about power relations. Sanderson hammers home the point that most rebellions fail not because of insufficient numbers or ideals but because, in the end, people are happier with a tyrant who takes care of them than freedom at the cost of stability. This is a theme that recurs throughout history, sad as it might seem to our present society, where the ideals of both freedom and individuality are highly prized. The majority of people in the former Final Empire keep asking when the Lord Ruler will return. They can’t understand that their god is dead, that he won’t be returning, and that they have to start fending for themselves.

Somewhat implicit in such imprecations is the question of whether Vin and crew were justified at all in defeating the Lord Ruler. I’d argue that this is more of a red herring, though, that they pose to themselves to distract themselves from the more pertinent question: where do they go from here? The armies camped outside Luthadel are the external manifestation of that pressing problem.

There can be no more Final Empire, at least not as they currently sit. The Lord Ruler unified such a vast territory only through the sheer power of his position. Vin and Elend lack that power, so the fracturing we see here is only natural. With no way to defend Luthadel from a protracted siege by one army, let alone two or three, it seems like they will lose even this small bastion of freedom that they have started to set up. The two of them deal with this impending doom in different ways: Vin becomes obsessed with the mystery of the mists and the mythical Well of Ascension, while Elend gradually accepts that he needs to act more kingly, more self-assured, and start taking more risks.

I liked Elend’s development in this book. He is such a raw and naive individual, and it’s nice to see that change as he struggles with how to mould he idealism into a more useful form. Sanderson does a good job showing these changes not just in how Elend acts but in how other people react to him. That being said, Sanderson could have done this in subtler ways.

Vin’s development is not as profound in this book. Whereas Mistborn saw her transform from a wretched, suspicious street urchin into a heroic, self-sacrificing woman in love, The Well of Ascension plagues her with a lot of unnecessary self-doubt and burdens her with an uninteresting rival for Elend’s affection. I mean, seriously—did anyone think that insane Zane in the membrane was ever a palatable alternative to Elend? I know that Vin was all angsty because she felt that Elend could never understand her angsty Mistborn angst, but he did have one major thing going for him, in that he wasn’t totally crazy and hearing voices.

So, I thought that whole abortive love triangle was too contrived and protracted for my tastes. And that’s something that applies to much of this book, sadly. The Well of Ascension is long. I have nothing against long books, but they need to be long for reasons, and there seem to be few enough here. There is a lot of talking and debating that might have been condensed. I don’t want to downplay the importance of the intrigue, for that is a major part of why this book is so entertaining. But the overall pacing seems very unbalanced, with the last fifty pages or so devoted to an inordinate amount of action and explanation. It’s telling when you need to, once again, resort to some magical shenanigans to get Vin back in play in time for the climax.

Allomancy continues to be a fun magical system, but there is very little we see here that we didn’t see (more of) in Mistborn. Vin discovers the counterpart to aluminum (no spoilers, though) and continues to test her limits as some kind of über-Mistborn. Perhaps the best thing I can say about magic in this book is that, with a lot of the burden of explaining and developing it out of the way, Sanderson has the time to just show allomancy being used as if it were an everyday part of these people’s lives—which it is. As such, allomancy is intentionally a little less remarkable in this book.

All writers are like painters when it comes to the application of their words; it’s just that some use broad strokes while others use incredibly tiny, detailled touches (and some use a combination). Sanderson likes his detailled touches, and depending on your preferences, that might captivate you more.

I’m of two minds about The Well of Ascension. On one hand, Sanderson displays a keen awareness of the twisted nature of power. This makes for some great intrigue between the characters. On the other hand, the pacing of the book drags at times. With the lack of a single, central antagonist like the Lord Ruler, there is less of a sense of urgency for the protagonists, despite their city being under siege. Ultimately, I suppose this is one of those books where I can say that I enjoyed it, though I’m not overly impressed with it. If ever there was a candidate for Middle Book Syndrome, this is it.

My reviews of the Mistborn series:
← Mistborn: The Final Empire | The Hero of Ages →

After a somewhat bumpy relationship with literary fiction for the past few weeks, The Housekeeper and the Professor delivers an enjoyable experience that reassures me some literary fiction is sublime. Full disclosure: I am studying mathematics, so I do find the subject matter in this book fascinating. I understand that less mathematically-inclined readers might not, but I don't see that as an excuse for enjoying this book any less. The Housekeeper and the Professor isn't a textbook, nor is it a treatise. Most of the math is high school level, and one doesn't need to pay attention to it to follow the story.

Instead, one must focus on the emphasis on mathematics and the way the characters in the book embrace it. The Professor never misses an opportunity to observe an interesting relationship between two numbers or educate the Housekeeper or her son, Root, about some sort of mathematical proposition. Ogawa perfectly captures the way I feel about math, the reasons why I'm studying math in the first place. There's something transcendent about this search for truth through numbers . . . math allows us to express aspects of the universe that would otherwise remain invisible. You don't have to be a math genius to comprehend this, as Ogawa demonstrates with her character of the Housekeeper.

I'm not just fond of these people's titles. Ogawa is very stingy with her names: a famous baseball player gets one, and Root's designation is more of a nickname than a title, but everyone else is out of luck. The Housekeeper and the Professor are exactly that; the former has a "Director" as her boss and the latter has a "sister-in-law" as a minor antagonist. Most of the time, when a character lacks a name, that means he or she is minor and unimportant. Obviously this is not the case here, and by making almost everyone nameless, Ogawa manages to make it feel normal. Still, the lack of names can make it hard to establish identity. While I contend that Ogawa succeeds at this for all three of the main characters, I understand how one could find it difficult to empathize with them.

The characters' namelessness is fitting considering the novel's subject matter. Like the mathematics that he studies, the Professor is an abstraction. In fact, owing to his condition, he is a Professor of Mathematics—and that's all he is. His memory loss has shrunk his world such that math is the only thing he has left. He grasps numbers because they haven't lost their meaning for him like the rest of the world has: whether it's 1975 or 1990, 220 and 284 will still be amicable numbers. To some degree, one can say the same for the Housekeeper. After her young pregnancy, she takes up the only work she knows how to do; since then, this has been her life. Hence, these titles are fitting enough identities for the characters. They would be stifling if Ogawa failed to develop the characters beyond their titles; fortunately, that's not the case.

For a story set in Japan, The Housekeeper and the Professor is completely accessible to the Western audience. I could almost forget its setting and think it takes place in North America. The most important relationship, in my opinion, is the one between the Professor and Root. It takes on the qualities of a father-son relationship that anyone will recognize. Not only does the Professor educate Root and challenge him, but Root in turn looks after the Professor, cares for him, and rekindles the Professor's love of baseball. This shared enthusiasm for baseball is one of the few ways in which the Professor ever comes close to transcending the eighty minute barrier on his memory. By this I mean that, whenever Root engages the Professor in a discussion about baseball, the fact that Enatsu has long since left the Tigers seldom matters . . . suddenly the Professor has something other than mathematics he can talk about to a like-minded person, and his little world has just grown bigger.

Root matures considerably throughout the book. At first, the Professor's manner startles him, but he quickly grows accustomed to the rituals he must endure. Soon, he becomes not only fond but protective of the Professor. At one point, the Housekeeper has to leave to buy cooking oil. She is worried about leaving Root alone with the Professor, but Root assures her that it's fine. However, when she returns, Root has accidentally cut himself with a kitchen knife. It isn't a big deal, but after, Root is cold toward his mother. When she asks why, he says, "I'm mad because you didn't trust him. I'll never forgive you for that." It's a small scene, but it's significant, for it shows a strength of character and a sense of judgement far advanced of Root's age.

Despite such incidents, their time at the Professor's house strengthens the relationship between the Housekeeper and her son. It's the Professor who suggests—nay, practically orders—that the Housekeeper have her son come to his house after school so he doesn't have to be a latchkey kid. She cooks dinner for three now instead for one, and the arrangements are more domestic—like a family, but not quite. The Professor is always happy to show Root and his mother some new numerical notion. When she first meets the Professor, the Housekeeper is fascinated by his interest in math and his gift for teaching. However, it's Root's involvement that truly encourages her budding appreciation of mathematics. As she sees the Professor and Root explore math, both through Root's schoolwork and the problems posed by the Professor, she joins them in order to avoid feeling excluded—and in so doing, she becomes enchanted by math.

The only other character of any importance is the Professor's sister-in-law. She only appears when there's trouble, and she seems curiously intractable and eager it misunderstand. When never get a complete picture of how she feels about the Professor, other than that she feels compelled to care for him. I didn't enjoy the confrontation between her and the Housekeeper and didn't quite understand the significance of the Professor settling matters by scribbling down Euler's formula. Indeed, the inscrutability of this part of the plot is one of this book's few miscalculations. In almost every other respect, Ogawa manages to hit just the right notes.

The depiction of the Professor's anterograde amnesia is realistic and harrowing. The poor man only has an eighty-minute memory and walks around with notes clipped to his suit! Throughout the book, the Housekeeper has so many conversations with him, learns so much from him, even takes him to a baseball game . . . and he remembers none of it. For him, it's always 1975. Enatsu is still a famous pitcher for the Tigers. Ogawa shows us how the Professor's condition makes it difficult for him to live a fulfilling life. Oh, he enjoys himself when he's solving a math problem and constructing a proof . . . but he will never remember all of the proofs he's constructed prior to that, all of the contests he's won, or any of the great new developments in number theory since 1975. The thesis that the Housekeeper finds beneath the false bottom of a cookie tin containing baseball cards gives us a glimpse into the Professor's past life, one from which he is now irrevocably separated by his accident. He can experience transitory joy, but he no longer has the capability for lasting satisfaction or contentment.

Then when the Professor's amnesia worsens toward the end of the book, it's just heartbreaking. Here is a man who is so kind and thoughtful, and he's already had so much taken from him. Now he's lost the rest, and his eighty-minute memory becomes a zero-minute memory. He lives entirely in the present, which is not as wonderful as it might sound. As a result, Ogawa reminds us that the past has immeasurable value. It helps form our personality and is full of a vast collection of experiences, both good and bad, that contribute to how we understand the universe. The Professor was always happy to meet Root and teach him mathematics. But he would never understand the joy of watching Root grow up over a number of years, never watch Root's love of mathematics blossom into a passion that would lead to teaching math in elementary school. This experience is forever lost to him.

I wouldn't call the ending to The Housekeeper and the Professor sad, but it certainly wasn't happy. Although there is a little romantic tension between the two eponymous characters—and the Professor becomes a strong father figure for Root—this is not a romance, and there is no happily-ever-after. The Professor's anterograde amnesia becomes total, and he loses what small amount of independence he has managed to retain. The Housekeeper and Root must move on to other jobs, must continue on with their lives without the Professor, without his lectures or his mathematics or his note-covered clothing. It's a separation more profound than death, for they must go on with their separate lives, changing and growing even while the Professor continues to forget, and forget, and forget. . . .

Memory is fragile and tenuous, yet oh so important to our conception of self. Yoko Ogawa reminds us of the importance of memory in a fascinating, unassuming way. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a whisper of a novel, something that will take root in your mind and blossom into a fond memory.

The Roanoke Colony was in trouble, and when its governor returned from an expedition to secure more help from England, he discovered the entire population had disappeared: all 114 people, including his grandaughter, Virginia Dare, the first English colonist born in the Americas. To this day, there is no definitive explanation for the colonists’ disappearance, making it the perfect fodder for the literary imagination.

In Blackwood, Gwenda Bond takes some liberties with another Elizabethan contemporary, Dr. John Dee. Positing that the colonists were in fact members of a cult led by Dee, Bond uses this expanded mythology to bring the Lost Colony mystery into the present day. The eponymous Miranda Blackwood is a teenager who has spent her whole life on the island. Her father has turned to the bottle since the death of her mother, and Miranda lives her life at the edges of society—more responsible than her father but out of touch with most people her age. But when her father and 114 other people go missing one day in the summer, Miranda finds herself drawn into a modern-day repeat of the Lost Colony.

Bond immediately makes Miranda an endearing, sympathetic protagonist. She has been forced to become more responsible, shouldering more of the burden of running a household than a teenager should have to. (In this respect, she reminded me a lot of Atlanta Burns in Chuck Wendig’s Bait Dog/Shotgun Gravy, although Miranda is a much less broken character.) Miranda is a very practical, focused person who does not like to rely on others. But this latest mystery is too much for her to handle alone.

Enter the love interest (because, alas, Blackwood is both young adult and a “romance”, so boys). Phillips (not Phillip, Phillips) is the son of the Roanoke Island police chief. Thanks to his inheritance from his grandmother, the “witch” of Roanoke Island, Phillips hears voices of the island’s dead. He returns from self-imposed exile because he senses that the island needs him. Despite a rocky past, Philips and Miranda begin working together as John Dee is revealed as the mastermind behind the disappearance of all these people.

As far as romantic subplots go, Blackwood’s is tolerable. Bond portrays Miranda and Phillips’ changing relationship with subtlety and realism: she is still mad at him for how he treated her when they were younger, but they recognize the need to work together during this present crisis. They have different skill sets (Phillips is remarkably good at sneaking around and breaking and entering, for example) that complement each other and allow both characters to shine at different moments. As with Poltergeeks, another YA title from Strange Chemistry that I read recently, I’m heartened to see a young woman as the protagonist in a dynamic, complex role.

I also enjoyed the slang and cultural allusions Bond works into Miranda’s characterization. The casual mentions of shows like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica both establish Miranda’s interests and feel timely—these are the sorts of things that a teenager interested in science-fiction and fantasy would be watching, definitely through torrents and cheap eBay DVDs.

Bond advances the plot at a fast pace, with few lulls in the action. She doesn’t pause too often to provide belaboured exposition on a certain point, trusting the reader instead to keep up and fill in the blanks with new information as it becomes apparent. This is great, and definitely refreshing to see in fiction aimed at younger adults in particular.

I was very enthusiastic about the first half of the book, both intrigued by the mystery and interested in the characters. As the mystery deepened, I had a little bit of trouble following exactly what was going on, and my enthusiasm dimmed. Since I was reading this during a transatlantic flight, though, that might have been down more to fatigue than a problem with the book—your mileage may vary.

In the end, Blackwood provides a good balance between history and mystery, romance and action. It is all of these things, but it’s none of these things in excess. I’m also glad that Bond’s next book, which I’m looking forward to reading, is not a sequel—it’s nice to see a simple, standalone fantasy novel! (I wouldn’t begrudge a sequel to Blackwood at some point, but I appreciate the acknowledgement that not every young adult book needs to be in a trilogy.)

Definitely something I’d recommend, even if, like me, you aren’t particularly interested in the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

For the past three years, I’ve paid for the privilege of voting in the Hugo Awards. I do this not because I love voting in the Hugo Awards (though that’s cool) but because, for the past few years, they have made available a voter packet containing digital copies of most of the nominated works. All I need do is purchase a supporting membership at the year’s WorldCon, which is always cheaper than if I were to buy the various novels and anthologies in which these works might be found. (Also, all the digital copies are DRM-free, a philosophy I support.)

This year I’ve actually managed to read two of the Hugo-nominated novels—though 2312 is not one of them. I’ve read fairly little of Kim Stanley Robinson’s work, but what I have read hasn’t impressed me. He’s a good enough writer to deserve the reputation and fandom he has, but he’s not really my kind of writer. Nevertheless, I settled into 2312 (albeit a password-protected, PDF version of 2312) and tried to keep an open mind.

As the title suggests, 2312 is set in the opening decades of the twenty-fourth century, specifically in the years leading up to 2312. Humanity has spread across the solar system. Mars has been partially terraformed, and Venus isn’t far behind. A city flees the sunrise on Mercury, moving around the planet on a system of rails. Various colonies and outposts exist on asteroids, moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and even as far out as Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. Never before has the solar system been so teeming with human life and industry.

But it’s still a fragile time. On Earth, the ecological problems we’re beginning to see now have come to a head. While this has motivated much of the advances in spaceflight and terraforming technology, it’s also created a kind of backlash. The people who live off-Earth are “spacers”, obvious from how they move in Earth’s relatively-heavy gravity. Far from providing a united government to deal with its extraterrestrial children, Earth is more fractured than ever, with over 400 countries vying for resources that grow ever more precious each day. Robinson creates a sense that this is a planet in steep environmental decline—not exactly a catastrophe as much as a long, debilitating illness—and no one has really gotten their act together to try to stop it.

In the rest of the system, humanity flourishes politically, psychologically, technologically. But that sense of fragility remains, as the protagonist Swan er Hong reflects upon one of her many visits to Earth. She remarks that the inhabitants of Earth have no idea how precious it is: the only place where humans can walk on the surface, under a sky, without a suit. Robinson does an amazing job letting us see Earth through her eyes, and with that sight, reawakening a love for our planet and a sense of responsibility.

Humans have begun to adapt to their non-terrestrial homes. Those who live among asteroids are “smalls”, adults of child-like proportions, such as Inspector Jean Genette. At the other end of the scale are those who have become so accustomed to the lighter gravity that their mass would be an issue on Earth, such as Wahram. Advances in medical technology allow people to transcend our binary ideas of gender, leading to all sorts of combinations. Longevity treatments also allow people to live in excess of two hundred years. Finally, quantum computing has become a reality, albeit one still in its infancy. With so-called “strong AI” in quantum boxes (even ones that can fit in someone’s head!), humanity should be on a trajectory towards a golden age.

Except, something fishy is afoot.

With the death of Swan er Hong’s grandmother Alex, she becomes inducted into a loose conspiracy investigating the qubes (quantum computer cubes). Swan’s new associates, including Wahram and Genette, were working with Alex to determine whether some qubes might have self-awareness and an agenda of their own. They are not just paranoid—suspicious incidents have been cropping up for the past few years that seem to point to this conclusion. Their investigations continue, in secrecy, and as Swan becomes drawn deeper into the fold, her experiences during her travels begin to change her, perhaps for the better.

That’s a loose plot summary, but the plot to 2312 is as incidental as it can be. It’s really just an excuse for Robinson to tour the solar system, from Mercury all the way to Pluto. And I can see why: he has done an impressive job building this twenty-fourth century civilization, and he does nearly as impressive a job at telling us about it. Sure, there’s some clunky exposition—but I actually rather liked the “extract” chapters that interrupt the various character-driven chapters. It’s neat to see how Robinson depicts the confluence of different technological breakthroughs and social revolutions and describes the changes that these wrought.

It’s not science fiction’s job or purpose to predict the future, but one thing science fiction can do is offer us possible futures. To me, 2312 is a very believable picture of what the future could be like. If we developed better AI, if we had the right pressures and luck to develop slightly better space travel, if we started spreading into the solar system. Right now, even crewed expeditions to Mars remain mostly a pipe dream. But the way Robinson explains it makes it all seem not just possible but likely. His gentle, uncomplicated explanations combining physics and politics and psychology somehow leave you with the impression that this could all happen in three hundred years.

Robinson provides us with an impressive scope in his setting. It’s almost to the point of giving us too much, of overloading us with the variables involved to the point where the book has become a cacophonous calculation. Great science fiction often relies on simplicity, or at the very least a reductive type of complexity that allows the book to assume a still beautiful and coherent nature. 2312 is a complex, interwoven exploration of how humanity would change after three hundred years of crisis and colonization. Whereas other writers might focus on one or two “Big Ideas” in order to put them under the microscope and examine their consequences, Robinson remains with a bigger-picture approach.

This holistic view works well, because it avoids any kind of tunnel vision that can mar otherwise interesting stories. It’s all well and good to write a book about cloning. But there is never just one technological breakthrough; it’s never just cloning but cloning and AI, or cloning and brain augmentation, or cloning and instant soufflé making. However, this holistic view can also quickly become decoherent, much like the superposition in a quantum computer. It’s hard for the reader to become invested in the characters.

This was my problem with 2312 as a story. Swan is not a very likable protagonist, in my opinion; she is somewhat inscrutable and unknowable. We don’t get a very good sense of her life: despite being over a century old, everyone still refers to her as a “girl”, and despite being the revered designer of several spacefaring terraria, people still seem to look down on her as immature. Though she changes as the story progresses, I never quite feel comfortable around her.

Similarly, the plot moves in fits and jerks, and sometimes it moves without seeming to move at all. There is an extensive section where Swan and Wahram are trapped beneath the surface of Mercury, forced to make a lengthy walk along service tunnels in order to reach safety. It is arguably a moment of intense character development for them, but all the while my inner critic was just screaming, “Get back to the killer quantum computers already!”

The trouble with 2312 is that it draws from two somewhat divergent approaches to pacing. On one hand, it reminds me of Samuel R. Delany’s bigger-picture work, like Triton (a book which, incidentally, deals with a lot of the same themes and issues but to better effect). On the other hand, the underlying mystery and conflicts are more suggestive of a thriller, in the vein of Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon. I desperately love both approaches, but I’m not as fond of slamming them together in the way Robinson has done here.

There’s no doubt in my mind that 2312 is deserving of an award like the Hugo. I’m not at all surprised it won the Nebula. It has the kind of gravitas I expect from an award-winner. Indeed, when I look at the other nominees in this category, I wonder which of them will be the biggest challenger. The rest don’t immediately signal how they approach the big ideas that drive the best science fiction—which is not to say that they are devoid of such reflection. With 2312, despite my complaints about its plot and story, it’s obvious that this is a measured, thoughtful work about humanity’s future. Robinson asks—at times playfully, at times plaintively—who do we want to be?

If you write enough book reviews, eventually you start sounding like everyone you never wanted to be. Today, I'll be the annoying guy who brags about how he saw everything coming. That's right, I found this book utterly predictable from start to finish. Even the Arctic fox sex scene.

The Magicians is a very postmodern type of fantasy, deconstructing as it does the Narnian-style childhood fantasy of saving the world. It's one of those curiously self-aware books that nevertheless stays firmly on the other side of the fourth wall. It is meta. And with this comes a sort of candour necessarily absent from actual epic fantasy. This xkcd comic communicates the gist of The Magicians' theme if you're not yet inclined to read the entire book.

As far as this commentary on fantasy goes, The Magicians works. This is something that most people recognize, if only subconsciously. It may sound heroic to fantasize about killing monsters and enemies with a sword and magical spell. Yet in reality, killing, as war movies are so eager to drive home, is rarely glamorous. The Magicians is not "magic realism" so much as "magic hyperrealism."

There's more here than magic, though. Quentin finds himself a licensed magician at 21, set adrift in the world to make his own way and find a life worth living. As a university student, I'm acquainted with the notion that I'll put my five years into schooling, graduate, get a job, and that's my life. I'm also aware that, in all likelihood, it won't work out so smoothly and discretely. Instead, I'm going to have to make plenty of choices, plenty of compromises, and plenty of mistakes; if I persevere, I might find happiness. Quentin's problem is the paradoxical nature of being a magician: so much power, yet so little to do with the power. It's mirrored in the psychological fragility conferred upon any child who saves the world: what do you do if you've hit the epitome of your existence by 20?

There is one respect, however, in which I think Grossman drops the ball. He does a fine job analyzing fantasy itself, but he fails to go further and identify anything in contemporary society that drives our desire for escapist-yet-illogical worlds. He skirts close to this topic on numerous occasions but never embraces it. In fact, the parts of The Magicians grounded in reality are, upon closer inspection, hazy.

Quentin's parents are little more than abstractions. I think they have only three lines of dialogue in the entire text. Otherwise, we learn about them only from what the limited third person narrator says Quentin thinks about them. Such paltry characterization irked me while reading the book and continues to irk me, and it's a perfect example of how Grossman neglects the "real world" portion of The Magicians even when it may be the most important part. We're supposed to get the idea that Quentin feels unchallenged in school, neglected or ignored by his parents, and generally unhappy—but we only know this because we're told; Grossman never really shows us what's so boring about Quentin's life.

What I desire, and what The Magicians fails to provide, is a look at the social origin of the individual's obsession with escapist fantasy. It's not enough to simply start with the loner, imaginative archetype we see in Quentin and go from there; that's begging the question. After all, this entire book is about not taking fantasy worlds at face value, but it's asking us to take the origins of the desire for those worlds at face value.

There's also quite a few loose ends here. Far be it from me to insist that a book tediously explain every plot point! Yet I'm not satisfied with Julia's appearances—she just happens to have her life sent out of control by being rejected from Brakebills? Why? What exactly does she hope to gain by confronting Quentin? Most importantly, how did she end up finding Janet, Eliot, and Josh? Likewise, Dean Fogg's relationship with the world of Fillory is never made clear. Most of the magical community perceives Fillory as just another fictitious world. Yet Fogg recognizes the "woman with the braids," as Quentin describes her, who is inextricably connected to the Fillory tale.

When the loose ends do get resolved, Grossman tends to tie them up in a neat way. As I intimated at the beginning of the review, this leads to a certain amount of predictability: the identity of Emma Greenstreet's lovers, the identity of the woman with the braids, the fate of Quentin and Alice's relationship, etc. There are times when a book is so well constructed that its predictability doesn't matter; merely watching the events fall into place is a beautiful thing. The Magicians is not so carefully constructed, unfortunately; I would have preferred to be surprised.

For a book that is both fantasy and about fantasy, it's that lack of literary magic that prevents me from embracing The Magicians as a great work. It's competent, even interesting, but many of the seams still show. It's a shame, too, because Grossman has a flair for fun dialogue and a knack for well-placed expletives. Above all, what's needed is better characterization. Good characters are the glue that binds together the plot and the meta-fictional commentary. Unlike [a:Douglas Coupland|1886|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1264509011p2/1886.jpg], Lev Grossman doesn't manage to create a cast of characters who are believable, albeit not probable. With The Magicians, there's too much smoke and not enough mirrors.

My reviews of The Magicians series:
The Magician King →