Hot on the heels of “The Bees Her Heart, the Hive Her Belly,” I started “Fade to Gold.” I think I like this one even better. It is definitely a more straightforward narrative, and it feels like some kind of fable. Benjanun Sriduangkaew delivers a sucker-punch kind of tragedy: a lone soldier, a woman, is making her way back to her village when she encounters a fellow female traveller. But the traveller is actually a krasue, and herein lies the conflict.

Sympathetic monsters are nothing new in fiction, but what matters is how they are used to interrogate our own humanity. Is the monster sincere in its declaration of peace? Can a monster be redeemed, or is it monstruous forever? Sriduangkaew’s protagonist kills the krasue because she feels that it cannot be trusted, that its instincts to feed would have ultimately won out despite its assurances. This is usually the rationale for killing the sympathetic monster: like the scorpion of the fable, it cannot but help its nature.

Sriduangkaew plays the trope straight, but to good effect. The protagonist’s horror at discovering that her travelling companion is a krasue is palpable. Suddenly this small world has unravelled around her, and she is faced with the dilemma of how to confront this creature. Although mere paragraphs pass between her dispatch of the krasue and the conclusion of the story, it’s enough for us to understand the conflicted feelings that she has about what she has done—and, in the end, that razor-edged sense of conviction that she has made the right choice. It’s this kind of deft characterization, so difficult to get right in so few pages, that makes me enjoy Sriduangkaew’s writing from the start. We get a strong sense of how this woman has succeeded as a soldier (despite having to conceal her sex) through a ruthless commitment to courses of action that she might otherwise have regretted or wanted to avoid.

This is quite a cool little short story, and if it were nominated for a Hugo itself I might even be voting for it. As it is, it has definitely boosted my already favourable opinion of Sriduangkaew as a new writer.

The seemingly inevitable retreat from a human presence is space is as disappointing as it was probably predictable … space just isn’t an hospitable environment for humans. Or, more to the point, we’ve finally become capable of constructing machines that do the job much better than we could ever do. In “The Exchange Officers”, Brad Torgersen posits a retro–Golden Age future in which soldiers remote-operate robot proxies on the skin of space stations and do battle with foreign powers. His main character is an army warrant sergeant itching for some excitement and action in an age where, as with space, machines increasingly replace soldiers on the field.

What makes this story so clever on Torgersen’s part is that topical connection to the modern military world. The idea of soldiers strapped into a control booth so they can pilot machines by proxy sounds absolutely like something out of a science fiction story—except it’s actually happening, right now. In the field soldiers remote-operate bomb detection robots, sniper suppression robots, you name it…. And back at home base, soldiers pilot drones over enemy territory, collecting surveillance and even taking targets out when ordered. The future is already here; killer robots are a thing, albeit killer robots with human masters (for now). It’s only a matter of time before the technology becomes as immersive as Torgersen describes here.

What makes this story so unfortunate on Torgersen’s part is the casting of China as the communist aggressor trying to take over good ol’ redblooded American space property. Seriously, I thought we got over the idea of the Chinese or other Eastern, communist societies as “the enemy” after the Berlin Wall fell, right? But stories like this and asinine attempts to present North Korean terrorists as credible antagonists only expose the latent racism that remains in Western society towards anything that seems anti-captialist or non-Western. China is not exactly a bastion of freedom and democracy, sure, but then again, neither is the United States these days. And attempting to resurrect the bad blood between these two countries seems petty at best and xenophobic at worst.

Unfortunately, there’s little else to “The Exchange Officers” aside from the tense standoff between Chopper and the Chinese astronauts. Torgersen alternates between this present moment and flashbacks to when Chopper first joins the Operator program, alongside another exchange officer from the Marines. Although I’d like to think this is an effective structure, with the jumps acting as miniature cliffhangers to enhance tension and suspense, in this case I just found it annoying.

And the most interesting parts of the idea of Operating space robot proxies just don’t seem to get much page time. Torgersen shows us Chopper’s entry into the program and his training. But there is little substantive exploration of the conflicts and issues that surround this idea of space proxies. Throughout the story, past and present, Chopper is presented as a gung-ho, “I love this job!” kind of guy. He doesn’t have character development, and he never seems to think this job is anything less than exciting and fulfilling. While it’s nice to have job satisfaction, it does make for boring reading.

Thus, “The Exchange Officers” rests on a great premise but doesn’t do enough with it. Torgersen prioritizes confrontation with an ill-advised choice of antagonist over deeper philosophical issues surrounding robot proxies. I’m not saying this is an either/or choice—it would have been possible to do both. But the fact that it lacks one almost altogether is definitely to this story’s detriment.

You know Alien ends with Ripley getting into the shuttle with Jones, fighting off the alien one last time, and consigning herself and Jones to a lonely trip home in stasis? And then in the sequel, she’s essentially drafted into accompanying another team back to the planet where they found the Alien eggs, and almost everyone dies again? No? Well, sorry for spoiling Alien and Aliens.

Anyway, Children of God is kind of like that. At the end of The Sparrow, Emilio Santos arrives home, sole survivor of the first expedition to Rakhat. He is psychologically and physically maimed thanks to gross cultural misunderstandings—the muscles in his palms have been removed, rendering his fingers almost useless, and he has been subject to rape and molestation at the hands of the Jana'ata nobility who kept them as their plaything. Emilio is hurt and resentful—towards the Church, towards God, and mostly towards himself. After about a year, Emilio is on the road to recovery. He starts working again, meets a love interest, and seems to be reconnecting to the world. But then he gets drafted to return to Rakhat, and it all goes wrong. Again.

Mary Doria Russell moved me deeply with The Sparrow. Her approach to first contact and interstellar exploration was a mixture of cultural anthropology and religious faith. The first mission is funded by the Jesuits, and throughout the story, questions of the role of religion, the Church, and God are prominent. With Emilio’s fate we are left to wonder with him why God would permit such a thing to happen. And all the while, the characters asking and precipitating these questions are complicated and three-dimensional, whether they are human or alien, priest or layperson. MDR’s touch is a subtle and deft one.

Truth be told, I was somewhat apprehensive about Children of God. Several of my Goodreads friends had commented on my review of The Sparrow advising me to read this book, even as they told me it wasn’t as good. Even if they hadn’t, The Sparrow is that type of standalone jewel that is almost always diminished by a sequel—why re-open old questions only to spoil them with answers?

MDR makes several very smart choices, however, that mitigate the damage to The Sparrow’s memory. For instance, she reveals that Sofia Mendes is still alive despite what Emilio and everyone else believed. Living among exile Runa now, Sofia gives birth to an autistic son, Isaac. MDR tells Sofia’s story in parallel with the story of how Emilio goes from recovering dependant of the Church to independent researcher to hostage of relativity. To these two perspectives MDR adds a third, visiting for a time various Runa and Jana'ata characters.

This proves to be a brilliant stroke of storytelling. Although I found these sections the most confusing (little bit of name soup going on), they were also very enlightening. I liked hearing Suupari’s side of the story of Emilio’s transition into prostitution, for example, and was glad to hear that Suupari was contrite. It would be blatantly inaccurate to say that MDR humanizes the Jana'ata, but she definitely provides us with the opportunity to empathize with their worldview.

Thanks to these choices, Children of God is a good story regardless of how it fulfils the role of sequel. Despite my apprehension, I eventually sunk comfortably into my role as reader and enjoyed the story. There is plenty of tragedy to be had here, especially for Emilio, but it is not as dark or unforgiving as The Sparrow was. Of course, that may or may not be an improvement depending on what one expects from these kind of novels. I admit it’s a little disappointing and makes Children of God feel a little more shallow—but then again, this book, unlike The Sparrow isn’t really about Emilio’s personal struggles any more.

The possibility of there being intelligent life, the suspense leading up to confirmation that the signals were actually coming from an alien species, was a huge part of The Sparrow. But as the opening part of Children of God makes clear, knowing that we are not alone hasn’t changed life on Earth all that much. MDR doesn’t spend too much time speculating why this is, leaving us to draw our own conclusions. I suspect the major reason is expense: numerous expeditions set off for Rakhat, but only two made it there intact, and of those two, Emilio is the only human who returned. Space travel is expensive and provides little in the way of return so far. Plus, with a sole survivor in the custody of the Jesuits, there is little in the way of information about Earth’s nearest neighbours. In this respect, the sequel shows us how merely discovering that we are not alone is not necessarily the life-changing event that we might expect it to be.

The same cannot be said for humanity’s influence on the Rakhat. Stumbling in where we are not invited, we destabilize the tenuous predator–prey relationship between the Jana'ata and the Runa. By the time Emilio and the second Jesuit expedition arrive, the Jana'ata are almost extinct and the Runa are free. Just by existing and exposing the Runa and the Jana'ata to our peculiar cultures and beliefs, we caused massive change. Is it for the better? Even making that distinction assumes that the way we, as humans, define better is relevant to life on Rakhat. Again, MDR doesn’t necessarily spend too much time on this point, but issues of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism are implicit in the relationship between humans, Jana'ata, and Runa. Recall, too, that this is the result of a handful of human representatives visiting Rakhat, none of them representatives of any government other than the Vatican—and even then, only loosely.

Children of God certainly provides interesting food for thought, and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Rakhat. We learn more about the Runa and Jana'ata in this book; their cultures are not as confusing or as alien any more. And by far, the best part of the book is Celestine. Precocious child characters usually annoy me, but Celestine captured my heart and wouldn’t let it go. The involuntary separation of Emilio from Gina and Celestine is one of the more brutal acts in this book.

It’s obvious that there’s no contest between this book and its predecessor. The Sparrow stands alone as an amazing work of science fiction, one that demands an examination of faith and empathy and science against the backdrop of contact tragedy. Children of God is more like DLC than a sequel—a little more content, a few extra missions with familiar characters that flesh out the storyline of the original game without taking too many risks themselves. It’s fun while it lasts, but it does not have the same staying power as the original. And that’s the perfectly fine, considering what it’s up against in that comparison.

What is this I don’t even.

Argh, my brain hurts. Where did it all start going so wrong? Was it when the sexually ambiguous cadre of private female shock troops seized the recreation of the Titanic in order to force its first-class passengers to toil at menial labour in an effort to rehabilitate them? Or was it earlier than that, when the ludicrously one-dimensional antagonists unleash a clone army of aborted foetuses on unsuspecting would-be parents? Or maybe even earlier, when a lone philosopher discovers that his tutee is in fact a sociopathic clone of his employer?

The Philosopher’s Apprentice is just … odd. And not good odd, like Christopher Moore or Nick Harkaway or Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. All of those authors’ writing has something in common with James Morrow’s slightly absurdist deconstruction of Western morality … but they manage to create a coherent story while they are being absurd, whereas Morrow seems more interested in sandwiching in yet another layer of plot twists.

Part of me worries that I dislike this book not for its merits (or lack thereof) but because it didn’t turn out to be what I expected. From the description, the premise sounded like an Emile-inspired take on Sophie’s World. I was looking for another romp through the history of Western philosophical thought, this time with a focus on morality and ethics. Instead, Morrow discards this pretence of philosophical discourse fairly early on. Mason discovers Londa’s true nature, and he quickly concludes her moral education so that the rest of the story can happen (if that is, indeed, the correct word for the train wreck that follows).

It’s one thing to write a book steeped in philosophical thought that also stimulates a reader’s own thoughts. Sophie’s World accomplishes this through its overtly didactic tones. Umberto Eco’s numerous novels are similar, with his characters wrestling over philosophical dilemmas that are integral to the plot. Morrow, on the other hand, keeps his philosophical discourse on the surface. The Philosopher’s Apprentice is a volatile headache of intertextual allusions and philosopher name-dropping. And while this is consistent with the idea of Mason’s character—one wouldn’t expect a doctoral candidate in philosophy to explain the nuances of various philosophers when he is narrating his life story—it does the reader no favours. Reading this made me feel like what someone a few decades from now will probably feel when they listen to the pop-culture–laden dialogue of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer: a mixture of annoyance and confusion because they don’t understand the references.

Now, I could get past that if, beneath this surface layer, there were a more compelling story into which I could sink my teeth. Alas, nothing like that seems apparent. Mason reminds me of Michael Youngs from Making History: delusional and self-absorbed, obsessed with achieving his place in academic history through a masterpiece thesis of staggering genius. I don’t really feel sorry for any of the things that happen to Mason, as absurd and undeserved as they might be. I don’t really feel sorry for many of the characters, because they don’t feel like real people.

I want to call The Philosopher’s Apprentice allegorical, because that’s the only way to excuse the naked characterization that happens here. There is no attempt to make any of these characters seem like actual human beings; rather, they are a hodgepodge of caricatures, plot devices, and set pieces. They seem just as lost in this illogical and convoluted tale as we readers are; at least we have the option of leaving the story. Mason and his companions are trapped within the confines of these pages, doomed forever to live out this story over and over. Is Hell perhaps becoming a character trapped in a terrible story?

I just don’t get this book. Maybe I’m not smart enough, not well-read enough or well-studied enough in philosophy, so I don’t deserve to get it. I’m the last person to charge that literature needs to be accessible to be good. But I want to believe that, issues of accessibility aside, the story within this book just isn’t very good. Morrow makes a big deal of the fact that Mason is supposed to be Londa’s conscience, that her actions flow inexorably from an inconsistently developed code of ethics laid over her innately sociopathic mind. As far as I can tell, though, her actions seem arbitrary and driven more by plot than character motivations.

The Philosopher’s Apprentice is a hot mess, but not the kind of hot mess you want in your bedroom. There are far better books that manage to mix philosophy with good story telling—just indulge in a little of The Name of the Rose, Foucault’s Pendulum, or Sophie’s World to see what I mean. I’ll give Morrow credit for some of his ideas here, but it took a lot of effort to eke out much enjoyment from this book.

Having not grown up during a time with segregation, it’s difficult for me to understand completely what such a society is like. But stories like Wakulla Springs at least help by highlighting some of the less overt but no less harmful racist and oppressive tactics used in the United States to maintain the social status quo. In this eponymous Florida town, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages allow their characters to dream—and then sacrifice those dreams on an altar of realism.

The first part of the story is like watching a car crash in slow motion. Mayola has so much potential: she has a dream, goals, and is very practical about how she wants to achieve them. But it’s so obvious, from the moment Johnny Weissmuller enters the scene, what will happen. Mayola becomes trapped in a story that is far older than her but no less tragic for this reason. It leaves her bitter, both about the town and about the film industry that is so enchanted with its clear lake. But this bitterness doesn’t stop her son, Levi, from dreaming big himself.

Klages and Duncan quite skilfully tie their setting into their characterization. The subtle repetition of this generational cycle, and the way the lots of our protagonists incrementally improves with each generation, mirrors the slow march of progress over the twentieth century. Levi has more opportunities than Mayola, and Anna in turn has more opportunities than him. All are united by their love of the springs where they grew up. Just as it is the springs that draw the Hollywood film company to Wakulla Springs and Johnny in turn to Mayola, the same springs draw Anna back to research and catalogue the life that they harbour. And so the story comes full circle.

Wakulla Springs reminds me a lot of a Hugo-nominated novella from a few years ago, Shambling Towards Hiroshima. (I didn’t remember until now that it was written by James Morrow, whose The Philosopher’s Apprentice I recently read and detested. But that is neither here nor there.) Like the other nominee, this book does not seem very fantastical or science-fictional. Indeed, aside from a few small and isolated elements of fantasy, which do not seem all that integral to the plot, I’d question whether this book is speculative fiction at all. In this sense, I’m not sure I can vote for it in the Hugos. It is a gorgeous and well-written story, but I don’t know if it is an exemplar of science fiction and fantasy.

Aliette de Bodard’s Xuya short fiction continues to be a universe that I enjoy reading but don’t hanker to return to very often. “The Waiting Stars” continues her heavily figurative style of writing, something that doesn’t always work for me. So my feelings about this story are ambivalent: I want to like it, but I also have to admit it doesn’t appeal to my personal aesthetics.

Lan Nhen and her cousin Cuc are on a mission to retrieve a captured Mindship from the Outsiders. But when they finally find her, they stumble into a mystery far larger and more confusing than they expected. The ships are beaming massive amounts of data back to the Outsiders’ homeworld, Prime … and while the ships themselves live, the Minds are conspicuously absent.

On Prime, de Bodard follows tumultuous events in the life of Catherine, a Dai Viet orphan kidnapped at an early age by the Outsiders. Her Otherness in appearance marks her, and she suffers because of how the Outsiders wiped her childhood memories, a process they deemed “necessary”. One by one, Catherine’s peers have been disappearing, committing suicide … not exactly the kind of things that are conducive to a healthy and stable life.

De Bodard eschews almost all exposition, really forcing you to pay close attention and study the narrative as it unfolds. The link between Catherine’s story and Lan Nhen’s seems nonexistent until the very end, when things finally become clear. The idea that the Outsiders have somehow embodied these ship Minds in human form and tried to install them into their society is intriguing. It’s not clear from this story whether the Outsider claim that the Dai Viet force their women to give birth to Minds is true, or if it’s true, if they accurately depict the process in their propaganda videos. (Stories like “Shipbirth” clear this up, however, see here.) Clearly Lan Nhen and Cuc consider the ship’s Mind a family member, adding an interesting twist to the idea of blood relations and AI.

“The Waiting Stars” isn’t my favourite Xuya story to date. I still really enjoyed “Immersion” and On a Red Station, Drifting. This also has stiffer competition among this year’s Hugo nominees, so I’m not sure I’ll rank this as highly as it might otherwise deserve. It’s one of those stories where I quite like it from a craftsmanship point of view but wouldn’t necessarily put it in my living room, if you know what I mean.

My ePub copy of this from the Hugo Voters Packet had really messed up formatting, but I perservered anyway, because this story is awesome. Six-Gun Snow White is the classic Snow White fairytale reinterpreted through the lens of the Old American West. Snow White is the ironically-named child of a silver mine owner and a Crow woman, Gun That Sings, who married him against her will so that he would leave her people alone. Gun That Sings dies in childbirth, and Snow White’s father hides her away, embarrassed or uninterested in her upbringing. Then he remarries and his wife decides to “civilize” Snow White.

Catherynne M. Valente delivers a tale that is a compelling bundle of postcolonialist considerations, tatters of the fairytale ethos, and feminist musings. Snow White is a complicated protagonist and narrator (and the book is in first person for the most part, so take that into account when ascribing veracity to her account!). Her social interaction has been limited to the few staff her father employed in her upkeep, plus, of course, her oft-absent father and her wicked stepmother. The latter is a perfect role model for any unloved child: cruel, heartless (heh heh), yet stalwart in her misguided insistence that her actions are necessary because she “loves” her charge and only wants the best for her.

There’s just so much to unpack from this novella, which verges on being a short novel. Snow White is hobbled from birth by virtue of her skin: too dark to be considered a white woman, too light to be considered Crow; she is an outcast from everywhere. Then, of course, in the setting Valente has chosen, women have very limited social choices, and none of them seem applicable to Snow White. But Snow White rejects this fate. She flees her father’s gilt prison and her stepmother’s nefarious designs. She becomes a fugitive, learning as she goes that the problem with being on the run is that one never stops. It reminds me a lot of Marian Call’s song “Vera Flew the Coop.”

Six-Gun Snow White is just absolutely enthralling. I haven’t always been a fan of Valente’s style, but Snow White’s one-step-removed tone of narration works well here. It preserves that fairytale aspect of the story even if the events themselves are anything but a fairytale—no fairy godmother, no Prince Charming, just a glass coffin at the end. Brilliant story that definitely deserves its Hugo nomination—check it out.

This is something I probably never would have read had it not been nominated for a Hugo Award. I generally eschew tie-in fiction—I have enough fiction set in original worlds to read. The Butcher of Khardov is set in the world of Warmachine, which Wikipedia reliably informs me is a “tabletop steampunk wargame.” So, Dungeons & Dragons on steroids.

The cover art and illustrations scattered throughout the story reinforce this perception. Orsus Zoktavir is a big—really big—and strong—really strong—man—a manly man!—with a serious psychological scar after losing the love of his life in the village of his childhood. Dan Wells tells Orsus’ story thematically, out of chronological order, as Orsus wrestles with the concept of loyalty at various points in his life. From witnessing the death of his parents at the hands of the cannibalistic Tharn raiders to working as the muscle for a logging baron, Orsus sees his fair share of death and fighting. And he proves to be really, really good at it. But the woman he loves declares herself unable to be with a killer. So what is a dude to do?

The story culminates through two parallel climaxes. Although it becomes apparent early on that Orsus loses his way after he loses Lola, we have to wait until the very end to witness the actual event. Years later, having joined the Khadoran Army and formalized his talents as a warcaster and controller of warmachines known as “steamjacks,” Orsus loses control and butchers an entire village for “treason” (hence the name of the novella). This earns him a tense, heavily-fortified conversation with the Queen of Khador, in which she questions Orsus’ motivations and he has a chance to explain how fucked up his ideas about loyalty, morality, and just action have become since losing his parents, girlfriend, and basically any sense of normal human empathy.

I will give it this: The Butcher of Khardov inspired me to consider why we give fantasy warriors so much of our love and allegiance despite the fact that they are essentially sociopaths with big swords. The only sane character in this story is Lola, who is 100% correct when she points out that killing people is, you know, wrong. But we write big fat blank cheques when fantasy warriors do it, far more than we are willing to do for characters in any other setting. Somewhere along the way, the narrative of the fantasy warrior shifted from the hulking image of self-absorbed Conan to the noble, smokey-eyed Aragorn or Legolas; the antihero became just a straight-up hero.

In a way, Wells is stripping away all of this pretty packaging and getting back to basics: Orsus likes to kill, and he is good at it. He admits this freely. He just so happens to also want to remain loyal to a cause bigger than himself. These ingredients are the perfect recipe for an effective warrior, but that first one—liking to kill—is one we tend to ignore. We like to pretend that our nobler, almost Disney-fied warriors of these modern days are somehow reluctant killers. They kill “in self-defense” or “to protect” their loved ones. And we can debate the ethical justification for killing, for any reason, as much as we like. I’m just wondering why we are so willing to label as heroic such killers….

So, that’s the thought-provoking aspect of The Butcher of Khardov, and I will give it that. Everything else about it is just ridiculous, though. Over-the-top hulking brutes who need six steam-powered soldiers guarding them? And the ending, with the Queen essentially letting Orsus go free because “Oh, well, you did it to show your loyalty to me!” is repugnant. (Then again, I guess if you are the ruler of a country at war, you need to do repugnant things once in a while, and she recognizes Orsus as a valuable weapon, albeit one that is likely going to come at the cost of a few more villages here and there.) This is a brutal, almost grisly story—perfect as a companion to a brutal and grisly tabletop wargame. But my projection of my philosophical hang-ups about hypermasculine warrior worship in fantasy literature onto it aside, I’m not sure what else this story has going for it.

Whoa, this came out in 2011? It’s already three years old? I knew it wasn’t a new release, but I thought it had only been a year or two. The hype is so fresh in my memory…. Well, that goes to show how unreliable one’s memory is.

Whether you agree with the hype or not, it’s understandable why Ready Player One has received so much attention. With its supersaturation of 1980s pop culture allusions, it is a nostalgia gold mine for the Generation X readers that Ernest Cline is targeting. That first generation of gamers, intrepid digital entrepreneurs, and virtual reality pioneers will all recognize and find familiar the atmosphere that Cline recreates in his near-future dystopia. It’s like the eighties all over again, but with better computer graphics!

Let’s start with a disclaimer: I was born in September 1989, hence I was alive long enough for the very last gasp of the eighties to pass me by in my crib. I recognized a great deal of the references here, either from passing familiarity or because things like Monty Python and John Hughes are timeless. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a gamer, but I game enough that I’m familiar with the concepts behind those classic arcade games, even if I haven’t experienced them for myself. Likewise, I don’t play MMORPGs, but I can spot one when I see it. So that’s where I’m coming from when I read Player One: I am not a child of the eighties, but I have occasionally visited.

Like many dystopias, it’s probably a mistake to take this one too seriously. It is all too easy to poke holes in Cline’s worldbuilding. For example, Wade’s assertion that “most of humanity” spends their days on the OASIS? It’s possible to chalk that up to Western-centric exaggeration, but I’m guessing that in 2044, “most of humanity” is still labouring in digital poverty and barely has access to clean water, let alone computers and haptic rigs. Then there’s GSS, the owners of OASIS, who supposedly generate their revenue from in-game purchases of items and property. I’ve yet to see a corporation that can avoid cannibalizing its golden goose for the next big release, and I’m sceptical that GSS could have avoided this fate, ironclad will from its dead founder notwithstanding.

Rather than spend all this time picking apart the world of 2044, though, I’d rather take a look at this contest that Cline uses as the main focus for the plot. James Halliday, geek billionaire creator of the OASIS, dies and decides to leave all his money to whoever can find and open three gates with three keys within the OASIS. To finish this quest, the hunters for Halliday’s Easter egg—gunters—need a rock-solid familiarity with all of the pop culture that Halliday was obsessed with as a teenager. He’s going to expect them to do incredibly demanding things, like play perfect games of Pacman or recite the entire dialogue of the main character of WarGames accurately, with the correct tone and actions. It’s actually kind of crazy.

As commentary on the immersive nature of virtual reality juxtaposed with a real reality that sucks, however, it’s quite adept. I think it’s safe to say that Cline has picked up several threads of emergent discord from the modern day—ineffectual governance in the face of corporate power, pervasive surveillance, crumbling of the education system, the growing gap between rich and poor—and amplified them, always a sound strategy when building a dystopian future. Atop this uneasy world he has added an expansive layer of virtual reality. OASIS is Facebook meets World of Warcraft, and it is more believable than it might seem. As more of the Web becomes app-ified, it seems more and more that people log in only to visit a few sites (Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc.) or Google things. I don’t necessarily buy into the premise that we will strap ourselves into haptic rigs like the ones Wade uses here, but I could definitely see a Second Life—like MMORPG spin-off, like OASIS, becoming a reality. Well, virtually.

Wade’s career as a gunter alternates between intense and disappointing. Cline is at his best when he explores the tension between Wade’s desire to find the egg and his own moral and personal growth—for instance, Wade’s ill-timed and problematic attraction to the enigmatic Art3mis. Although Wade is categorically the type of introverted loner geek who would be at home in a “girls don’t exist on the Internet” cartoon, Cline strives to make him more three-dimensional. He exercises IRL to stay fit despite the punishing hours he spends immersed in OASIS. And his crush on Art3mis is founded on respect and admiration. In fact, I was a little disappointed at the end to find out the truth behind Art3mis’ “big secret” about her appearance—I was expecting something more extreme than the revelation that Cline gives us, which I feel is a bit of a cop-out to modern ideas of beauty. It’s not enough for Wade to win; he also has to win the girl too!

And that’s where Ready Player One can sputter and run out of steam. As a conceptual work of science fiction, this is one hell of an intriguing story. But as an adventure story, it’s a minefield of exposition mired in an unattractive obsession with male adolescent fantasy. It would have been more interesting if Art3mis (or any non-white, non-male character) were the protagonist. Although Cline refers to the anonymizing nature of the Net, he does so only in a way that preserves the whitewashed, heteronormative narrative of online presence. And with its reliance on the 1980s for as its cultural touchstone, there is little progressive or subversive about Ready Player One. At its core, it is a classic eighties video game, in which the loner male protagonist beats the bad guys, gets the girl, and ascends to godhood. Joy.

I can’t stop comparing this book to The Magicians. Superficially it’s the similarity in the way both take something from one’s youth or childhood—1980s pop culture versus the Narnia-inspired world of Fillory—and reify it. But both books also have a deeper cynicism embedded into them. Quentin discovers magic is real, but it’s not a cureall to his problems. Wade is the first gunter to obtain the Copper Key, but from thereon in he becomes the target of a concerted corporate effort to stop or coopt his hunt for the egg. In the end, both protagonists see their visions of the world swept aside as they change irrevocably and get a glimpse of the workings of the world. I wish there had been more to the ending of Ready Player One. I can understand the desire to end on an upbeat, positive note—if Cline had continued, I guess he would have had to burst Wade’s little bubble with the realities of their new situation. But I was really interested to see what Wade and Art3mis and the others would do. Sequel, maybe?

I’m ambivalent here. I can see why people both love and hate this story: it has so much going for it, yet all of those reasons create a great gulf of potential that it doesn’t seem to fulfil. Ready Player One is a tour de force romp of 1980s nostalgia mixed with a video-game–inspired virtual reality dystopia. It’s a great example of science-fictional thought, even if the story and the writing leave something to be desired. In the end, owing to its intensely topical focus, I suspect a great deal of the equation comes down to the personal: do you remember the eighties, do you miss the eighties, do you want to revel in a specific aspect of eighties culture? If so, Ready Player One is definitely going to resonate. If not, you might find you’re missing out on the fun.

In Grade 12 English we were responsible for an Independent Study Unit, where we read two novels and wrote an essay comparing their common themes. We also had to give a presentation on a theme from the books. I studied Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostradamus! and Girlfriend in a Coma; my presentation was on theodicy and the Problem of Evil. A classmate gave a presentation about Pride and Prejudice. We had the opportunity to ask questions, and someone (it might have been me; I hadn’t read the book at that time, but I can’t remember) asked about how Austen portrays the Industrial Revolution in her novel. His answer: “She doesn’t. She basically ignores it.” Fair enough. Indeed, while there are minor echoes of industrialization in her works, Austen’s novels are not concerned with the social change happening as a result. Their focus instead on the everyday lives of the rural gentry is what makes them so invaluable (plus, you know, the fact that they are really quite good).

This is the feeling that Mary Robinette Kowal replicates in Shades of Milk and Honey, a novel which she describes as “Jane Austen, with magic.” It is essentially a straight-up Regency-era comic novel in Austen’s style; the only difference is the addition of a minor, illusionary form of magic known as “glamour.” Lacking much in the way of practical use, glamour has become a “womanly” accomplishment much in the vein as drawing, painting, needlework, pianoforte, etc. The protagonist, Jane, is an accomplished amateur glamourist yet still well on her way to being an old maid. Her younger sister, Melody, is more attractive but less accomplished.

Kowal is careful to stress that glamour has not largely altered Regency England. It has no use in war. It’s decorative, fit for enhancing the beauty of a painting or covering the threadbare nature of a room. And this stance remains throughout the book: there is no secret twist halfway through in which glamour suddenly figures as a major plot point. Jane admirably employs glamour in a number of innovative ways throughout the book to further her own ends and help people in a moment of need … but by and large, the existence of glamour does little to change the nature of this book as a romance.

Doubtless this annoys some readers, who would insist that if glamour exists it has to be for a reason within the story. Why bother having it otherwise? Why not just write a Regency era romance novel and be done with it? Indeed, I would be lying if I claimed that a small part of me didn’t harbour such thoughts. And it’s fair enough to reject this book on these grounds, if that’s the kind of fantasy one is looking for. But I think that would be a mistake. Like Austen, Kowal is writing a story very confined in scope. This is the story of Jane and the Ellsworths, of the Dunkirks, of Mr Vincent and Captain Livingston. But it’s the story of these Austenian characters while they live in a world with magic. And glamour is there to highlight the differences in the social positions between Jane and Mr Vincent—for, unlike Austen, Kowal’s novel is necessarily socially conscious, being as it is a novel of historical rather than contemporary fiction.

Kowal can do things with glamour as a womanly art that she can’t with, say, painting. By inventing a new art all her own, she has the freedom to create mystery and the potential for innovation that would be harder to do with an established and mundane art. Part of the conflict in Shades of Milk and Honey comes from Jane’s repressed ambition, reawakened in her encounters with Mr Vincent, who misinterprets her curiosity and appreciation as an attempt to strip the sense of wonder from his meticulously created illusions. If Jane were a talented male glamourist, she could have become a professional tutor like Mr Vincent, and continued to explore glamour for its own sake. As a woman, though, Jane’s use of glamour is supposedly for entertainment only—for husband-catching. Even Jane herself seems to view it in this light, despite the fact that her talents in the area cause her to experiment and revel in the practising of glamour in a way few others do.

So on balance I appreciate the inclusion of glamour. I’m less enamoured of the attempts to replicate Austen’s clever characters and intricate plotting. Kowal’s painstaking labour to replicate a Regency flavour to the text and speech is laudable, yet in her homage to Austen’s characters, she verges on creating caricatures of a combination of them. Mr Ellsworth is the stereotypical disinterested, amused father figure who cares for his daughters but doesn’t deign to interfere unless he has to. Mrs Ellsworth is the stereotypical invalid/hypochondriac whose sole concern is getting her daughters married. It’s kind of the Uncanny Valley of Regency Emulation, but what bothers me is that I can’t figure out whether the problem is Kowal’s emulation of Austen or my awareness of Kowal’s emulation of Austen.

But if we set this question of style aside for a moment, then all I can say is that I really enjoyed Shades of Milk and Honey. I enjoy the way Kowal sets up the characters, introduces them, before beginning a far deeper and more sinister story full of heroes and heroines and rogues and scoundrels. The plot itself is predictable to anyone familiar with this type of story. That doesn’t matter, though: it’s still a fun Regency romp. This is the kind of novel I might suggest to myself if I were looking for a “beach read,” in the sense that when people talk of beach reads, they talk of books that don’t require much brainpower to plough through—lighter fare. Shades of Milk and Honey has layers of meaning, fantastical elements mixed with Regency drama … but it is still a beach read. It’s easy to follow, easy to enjoy, and perfectly pleasant.