Ancillary Sword picks up almost immediately after Ancillary Justice ends. Breq, kind of forcibly adopted into the house of tyrant Anander Mianaai, is sent by said tyrant to Athoek Station. Anander wants Breq to look for signs of the other Anander’s influence in the system; Breq just wants to protect the surviving family member of a lieutenant she once knew when she was Justice of Toren.

The specifics aren’t really important here, and you can read Ancillary Sword without reading the first book (though I recommend the first book!). What matters is that Breq is the highest military authority in the system, and what she discovers there she does not like. She proceeds to turn the social order topsy-turvy—and, surprise surprise, some people don’t like that. But mostly, this book is about Breq’s struggle with scale.

Leckie doesn’t employ flashbacks here. Rather than interlace Breq’s growing individuality with glimpses of her past as a ship, Leckie keeps the narrative pretty linear. We get occasional and abrupt shifts of perspective as Mercy of Kalr shows Breq the feelings or events happening to a member of her crew. However, these are always fleeting. Breq remains an embodied individual. Whereas in the first book Breq simply had to develop an individual personality, this book is about how she is adjusting to the limitations of that body.

Think about it: as a troop carrier, Justice of Toren could literally be and act in more than one place at a time through the use of its ancillaries, as Breq had once been. Now she is limited to a single body—yes, she can keep tabs on more than one location, but her ability to act is greatly reduced. Similarly, Justice of Toren’s life-span measures on the order of millennia, while Breq gets maybe a little more than a century. So the scale of Breq’s experience has been drastically reduced.

The other pesky problem with embodied individuality is a sense of guilt triggered by persecution. Many people are eager to discuss the way Leckie treats gender in this book and its predecessor. That’s all well and good, and I’ll get to it in a moment. But I don’t want us to lose sight on another valuable theme here, which is the difficulty of tearing down colonialism.

When Breq goes downwell to the planet, she has a chance to speak with people who hate her not as a person but as a symbol of the Radch. This isn’t the first time it has happened of course—Justice of Toren participated in numerous annexations and knows what it is like to be hated impersonally. Yet in many ways this is a new experience, because Breq is not here to annex, invade, or impose the Lord of the Rad’ch’s will. She is a bit of a crusader. Unfortunately, being a crusader and a rebel and wanting to tear down colonialist structures is easier said than done.

See, just because Breq wants to help doesn’t mean anyone else wants her to help. That includes the people being oppressed. She’s an outsider and an instrument of the oppressors, so why the hell should they trust her? Leckie portrays this scepticism in several, subtle variations. Breq comes to understand that there is only so much she can do: she can open doors, create opportunities, but she can’t really force anyone, on either side, to change or accept that help. Once again, she runs up against the limitations of being a single person, a single body. And it makes me think about my own limitations as one individual trying to do my best not to reinforce systems of discrimination.

As for the gender thing: Leckie continues to the practice of only using feminine pronouns when the characters are speaking Radchaai. I don’t visualize stuff while I read, so I’m not seeing all the characters as women—but I certainly tend to think of them as women as a result, and constantly have to remind myself that some of them might have penises. (Leckie uses the opportunity of a festival on Athoek that involves lots of penis effigies to remind us that neither gender nor sex are really binaries, and people with penises are not always men, as well as the converse.)

At the very least, I didn’t think, “Why are there so many women in this book?” Visibility of women in fiction simply by ratio is still a big deal. Technically what Leckie does here is a form of erasure, since she kind of wallpapers over all the subtleties of gender in a Left Hand of Darkness-esque move. (Vi Hart, fabulous mathemusician/VR pioneer, recently posted a video explaining why she’s had a change of heart about such a viewpoint.) I don’t think Leckie (or Le Guin, for that matter) intended it to be that way so much as they wanted to play with and challenge or notions of gender. And that’s all to the good. But we should also critique the critiques, no? So Ancillary Sword doesn’t necessarily boost the visibility or diversity of women characters on the page, but it at least contributes to the intertextual conversation that includes this topic. And the more we talk about this, the more likely we are to make positive change.

I’m perplexed by how much I think I liked this story over Ancillary Justice. Perplexed because by most metrics the latter should be a better story. It has higher stakes, a much deeper mystery, feels a lot more ambitious. In contrast, Ancillary Sword offers some pocket intrigue on a space station, and the amibiguous threat of the Presger, deferred ultimately until the next book. Nevertheless, I think I liked this one better. Can’t really explain it, not going to apologize. Just telling it like it is.

Leckie continues to receive crazy hype for these books, and all the more power to her for that. I don’t think they live up to such hype. But that shouldn’t be held against them, since the hype is pretty spectacular, and they certainly deserve some of it. Certainly I understand why this received a Hugo nomination. I doubt it’ll be my first choice on the ballot. But I can certainly see others appreciating Leckie’s creative contributions to the field and voting accordingly.

My reviews of the Imperial Radch series:
← Ancillary Justice | Ancillary Mercy →

For the first time in a while, I actually regret sticking out this book instead of DNF-ing it. It was bad. Just as I was starting to lose all hope, there was a glimmer a couple of hours in that made me hang on a bit longer. And then I figured I might as well finish the whole thing just to learn why Jeff keeps replaying parts of his life. Because when you get right down to it, Replay has a sick and amazing premise, but Ken Grimwood's writing leaves much to be desired.

Grimwood's prose is so purple I'm surprised it's not gangrenous. I listened to the audio version (because that was the only version available from my library), mostly at 2.4x speed, and it still felt like too long. Grimwood feels it's necessary to describe every single thing in detail. It's not just a table; it's a luxurious oak table with a fine gold inlay that Jeff purchased with money he won or got from investments or whatever. She's not just a woman; she has pert yet simultaneously round breasts that rise just the right amount as she raises her long, slender arms above her head. Every time Jeff picks up a glass of wine or looks at an album label the narrator has to interject with some kind of commentary on the vintage or irrelevant facts about the career of that band.

It is, quite literally, a maddening experience.

I could almost forgive that, but Replay is also just creepily male gazey. At one point, pretty early on in the novel, Jeff literally calls a woman "a machine made for fucking."

NO.

You just don't say that, ever, with the possible exception of writing (bad) erotic fiction.

Oh, and then he gives that character a huge bag of money because he's breaking up with her, and she pity fucks him, because "for $250,000 you deserve it." What??

But this isn't just poor writing. Indeed, it should be a laudable thing when I inform you that, aside from Jeff, almost every other character of note in this book is a woman. That is, until you realize that's the case because they are all sex interests for Jeff. Grimwood spends an inordinate time focusing on Jeff's sex life. The bulk of Jeff's replays focus on which woman he decides to shack up with and how well she satisfies his physical and emotional man-baby needs. And with the exception of his mother (because ew), even if Jeff doesn't sleep with a woman, he still thinks about sleeping with her, and the narrator describes her entirely in terms of how fuckable she is.

This is pretty much the textbook example of male gaze. It's painful to listen to this for hours on end. Now I know what's like for women to watch or read most movies or books. So, yeah. Thanks, Replay, for helping me to build empathy with how women feel in our society by being so terribly creepy? I think?

It's just such a shame that this amazing premise gets squandered. Jeff, and then Jeff and Pamela when he meets her during his third replay, speculate a little as to the cause and reason behind their staggered, spiralling reincarnations. Yet there is no payoff. None. We never learn why or how they keep reliving their lives, just that they have learned some big lesson about making the most out of their futures. Except I'm pretty sure that Jeff is just going to continue evaluating women's worth as sex objects and being a terrible husband, because he is the worst.

Just don't read this book.

In In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey to Freedom, Yeonmi Park simply and starkly relates her struggle, and the struggles of her family, to just survive under the brutal North Korean regime and in their subsequent escape to China. She does not sugarcoat or elide any part of her suffering—nor does she glorify it, use it as an excuse to discount or erase the suffering of others. Indeed, what strikes me so profoundly about this twenty-two-year-old, who has been through more in her life than I’ll probably ever experience in mine, is the depth of her empathy and her compassion for her fellow humans. Despite growing up in a culturally stagnant and deprived society only to escape into more hardship and oppression, Park has managed not just to survive but to blossom and flourish, to become a symbol for hope and a voice against oppression. And while she shares her ambivalence over this latter turn of events, she shows us how it’s possible—perhaps even necessary—to take on such a role while retaining one’s own goals and personal ambitions.

This is a coming of age story like you’ve never seen, and you better buckle up your seatbelts, because this shit gets real. It’s a very emotional read, and I found myself on the verge of tears every couple of pages; I was crying as I finished it, and not just because of Park’s anguish—but from her incredible resilience as well.

There is so much in this book to talk about, so many things I learned or want to remember. I’ll mention but a few. Let’s break it down.

Life in North Korea
I didn’t learn much about North Korea in school. I knew it as a distinct country from South Korea, communist where the South was democratic, and isolated. I knew there had been a war, one in which Canada was, to some extent, involved. More recently, of course, North Korea has been in the news for its nuclear arms program and its posturing. So most of us know of North Korea as a political entity, and maybe we have a vague notion of what life is like for North Koreans—most live in poverty, have no access to computers or the Internet, and are raised on propaganda where Kim Il Sung and his progeny are all-powerful benefactors.

Park’s simple prose is eye-opening in describing how people in North Korea actually live (or, in some cases, fail to live). Her family, based in a town bordering China far from the more stable capital city, alternates between prosperity and poverty as their father’s criminal enterprises grow and then collapse. Park explains how, for all but the most privileged families, life in North Korea is like something from medieval Europe. Forget about computers and electricity—the former non-existent outside of a few places, the latter so unreliable and unpredictable that when it’s on everyone stops what they’re doing simply to enjoy using it briefly.

This is a country fully committed to realizing the end state of a corrupt communist regime imploding on itself. Park explains how the government once provided everyone with a job, housing, and food—and now it doesn’t. It can’t. The infrastructure of the country is so broken that it can’t transport fertilizer properly, so schoolchildren and adults alike have to save their own poop to use as manure. Park explains this with no trace of humour, and I wanted to laugh at how absurd it seems to us.

At least in other places that experience abject poverty, people know of and aspire to something better. Not so here. Although I was surprised to learn about the burgeoning trade of smuggling bootleg DVDs out of China—Park mentions how she watched South Korean and Chinese movies and soap operas—even this act of rebellion does little to counter the programming North Koreans receive in school and society at large. It’s one thing to know about the use of propaganda and another to hear it described and explained in the words of someone who experienced it from birth. From the way she was taught arithmetic—how many American bastards you’ve killed—to people’s cognitive dissonance regarding their own poverty despite the idea that the Kims are beneficent and omnipotent—Park helps us to understand how life in North Korea continues like this.

Early on, Park gives a brief history of how North Korea came to be after World War II. And of course, it’s another story of a country suffering from the Russian and American superpowers staking out their territory. Let’s just draw a line down the middle: communists in the north, democrats in the south! What could possibly go wrong?

It’s bizarre to think a country like North Korea could continue to exist as it does. And while I’m not one to advocate invading a foreign country to “liberate” its people, I think there are probably more proactive steps that we outsiders could be taking to end the North Korean regime and isolation more quickly—and less violently. But first we need to understand what makes North Korea unique, and why people like Yeonmi Park go through so much to escape.

I recently made the not-entirely-facetious comparison between Soviet gulags of the 1940s with the American prison system of today. But when Park says that North Korea is like one big prison camp, I understand why she is not joking.

Fight and Flight for Freedom
In many ways, Park’s story of her harrowing escape from North Korea and secret migration through China and Mongolia to South Korea is the most conventional, least surprising part of this book. Sadly, it doesn’t shock me that there are people out there who take advantage of desperate refugees and traffic them, selling them as slaves into marriage, to brothels, etc.

Nevertheless, I was fascinated by the entire process, and by the emotional toll it takes on Park and her mother. She reaches a point where she is determined to die rather than be raped or captured and returned to North Korea … and I believed her. When they decide to run from China and try for South Korea, their conduit is through missionaries who insist they study the Bible and profess Christianity. Park shares her mixed feelings about believing in a higher power that could let North Korea continue the way it does. And she talks about how some of the pastors make her feel so ashamed and “sinful” for working as a cam girl to subsist. It’s heartbreaking that her first exposures to ideas about sex and sexuality came in this way—and then that the very people so generous and kind to help her and her mother escape also condemn what they did to survive.

When relating her life in North Korea, Park is sometimes dismissive of the hardships she and her family experienced. Compared to what other families were going through, she feels that her family was often better off—even when they didn’t have enough food to eat well, or when she and her sister nearly froze to death while her mother was in Pyongyang trying to get their father out of prison. Park displays incredible empathy and compassion even when reliving her own struggles. And she does this with the section on China as well. She does not mince words when describing Hongwei, the human trafficker who purchases Park and her mother and sells the latter while trying to get Park to live as his mistress. Yet she also displays a sympathy for Hongwei’s life and choices. While not apologizing for him, she says she can understand what drove him to this career. She is not obligated to say this; she could, and maybe in all rights should be angry at and disgusted by Hongwei. But even with all her negative experiences, Park is able to show the complex and contradictory nature of humanity.

Learning How to Live Again
If this were fiction, In Order to Live might end with Park and her mother arriving in South Korea, getting a hero’s welcome, and settling down to a new life of freedom, justice, and the South Korean way. Maybe she would meet a shy, unassuming boy.

But the problem with real life is it doesn’t hand us those kind of tidy endings.

Park and her mother finally make it to South Korea. First they face interrogation—to weed out spies, sure, fair enough. But adjusting to life in South Korea proves far more complicated than they expected. Park explains how they had trouble acclimating to living on their own after spending so long in a society where individuality was punished. She makes it clear that while South Korea officially welcomes North Korean refugees, the attitude of its people can sometimes be indifferent or hostile towards individual North Koreans. And the atmosphere of excellence that pushes South Korean students to succeed creates a supercilious view that North Korean defectors can seldom catch up. Park found herself in a new “home” that was wary of her, had no idea what she had been through, and had no confidence in her ability to learn or contribute to society.

Once again, Park details the hard choices she made. She reluctantly agreed to join the cast of an entertainment series starring defectors, because she thought the exposure might help her find her sister. Although the show’s intentions were benign, Park found herself and her mother exaggerating their stories of their lives and saying what they thought would play well with audiences. I can imagine few things worse for an uncertain teenage girl trying to fit into a new society than being forced not only to relive her past but retell it in new, interesting ways for the entertainment of the masses.

I also liked hearing about Park’s trip to the United States and Costa Rica, and her realization that other people in the world suffer as much as people in North Korea. She confesses her own self-centred and very narrow view of the world, reminding us in the process that we all have biases and blinders. And finally, she shares her evolving perspective on her fame and notoriety, and its role in galvanizing her to write this book. I can understand her ambivalence. On one side, she has North Korea denouncing her, targeting her, pressuring her family back in the country to make up lies or face the consequences. On the other side, she has people trying to take advantage of her, twist her message, or insist that she is lying or making things up.

I admit that when I first started reading I felt a twinge of cynicism. What good sceptic wouldn’t? But that also speaks to the low standard in our mass media: so much of what we see is managed, staged, or massaged to present certain perspectives. While In Order to Live certainly evokes pathos for Yeomi Park, it does not strike me as having an agenda. The prose is simple and easy to follow. She talks about the good and the bad times in North Korea, acknowledging the human drive to find the light within the darkness. She shares a journey that is complex and perhaps incredible—because often the truth is stranger than fiction.

Above all else, Park reminds us that refugees are people. Recently there has been much debate about plans to take in thousands of Syrian refugees, and media portrayals and discussions of these refugees often forget that simple fact. Park is a refugee, a defector, a victim, yes—but she is also a survivor, a young woman, a scholar, an advocate, and an activist. She is, like everyone else, so many different things; she defies a single, simple label. It behoves us to recognize this and remember it when considering others who have experienced comparable struggles surviving and escaping from untenable situations.

I remain moved and inspired by In Order to Live. It is without question one of the best books, if not the best book, I have read this year. Yeomi Park teaches us about North Korea, makes us aware of the depths of its wrongness, and at the same time sheds light on the amazing lengths to which people will go to obtain freedom. That’s a word that many people like to use fairly liberally, and it’s worthwhile reflecting on what it actually means to us. Park cautions us that not only do some people lack freedom, but they might not even have a proper understanding of its meaning or its possibility.

Instalments like this one make me sad that regular Animorphs novels were sandwiched into bite-sized morsels that …

… wait, let me restart this with a metaphor less likely to make me hungry.

Instalments like The Hork-Bajir Chronicles demonstrate what K.A. Applegate can do when she can write longer-form stories. The shorter Animorphs novels have their advantages—they are easy to read, almost episodic, and obviously we wouldn’t have as many of them if they were longer. Nevertheless, the Chronicles specials are always a welcome change of pace. Applegate always delves deeper into the mythology behind the Animorphs universe, and she also exposes readers to different perspectives that are otherwise impossible to consider. In The Andalite Chronicles we got to hear Elfangor tell his story in his own words. Now we get three unique perspectives: Aldrea, the daughter of the Andalite who “allowed” the Yeerks to become a galactic threat; Dak Hamee, a Hork-Bajir “seer” who quickly realizes that trying to save his people will still destroy them; and Esplin 9466—aka our friend, Visser Three, before he was Visser Three.

I guess if you want to understand The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, we could look at it through the lens of dystopian YA.

Aldrea is a teenage Andalite who is upset that male Andalites get to fight while she’s expected to learn physics and do art like a good little female. After watching her entire family get slaughtered by evil parasitic aliens, Aldrea has to join forces with a Hot Boy she likes in order to fight back against these jerks. I mean Yeerks. The Hot Boy is Hot but not that bright, at least not at first—Aldrea has to tutor him, but as she educates him, he gets suspicious that she’s manipulating him and using him for his body. Which she totally is.

Dak Hamee is a hot Hork-Bajir teenager who wonders why all the adults around him are much dumber than he is. He is the only one in this small society who can figure things out, and he soon decides it’s up to him to help his people when the aliens come.

Esplin 9466 is the bad guy. We get his perspective so we can see how twisted he is. He’s gross and grey and inside brains! And he captures Aldrea and Dak, but he spends too long gloating, so naturally they have the opportunity to escape. Then they get to plot a rebellion and lead guerilla units against the Yeerks in an attempt to overthrow their new overlords.

See? Totally dystopian YA.

Except for the part where everyone dies.

Set almost forty years prior to the Animorphs novels, this book explains how the Yeerks spread from their homeworld through the galaxy, and in particular how they acquired Hork-Bajir as shock troops. Because it’s set in the past, however, the outcome is foregone and well known to your average reader of the series: the Hork-Bajir are goners. Applegate simply explains how it happens here … and it’s really depressing. Unlike your typical dystopian YA novel where the plucky teenage protagonist finds a way to nearly–single-handedly defeat the system that is both older and smarter than them, this book does not sugarcoat things. War is ugly; there is no such thing as “good guys” versus “bad guys,” and everyone gets confused and has major denial.

I want to talk a bit more about this last idea. Everyone in this novel suffers from some kind of denial at some point. Aldrea allows cognitive dissonance to creep into how she deals with Dak: she wants his help because she needs it to survive, and she knows that if the Yeerks take the Hork-Bajir as hosts, the war is going to go much worse for the Andalites. She tries to tell herself she is doing this to save the Hork-Bajir, but Dak calls her on it time and again. He rightly accuses her of doing things because she wants to kill Yeerks, not save his people—something she claims is “the same.”

In many ways Dak has the fewest illusions. Clear-headed for a Hork-Bajir, he recognizes immediately how turning his people into fighters will damage their simple culture, probably beyond repair. Nevertheless, he clings to the illusion that somehow he and Aldrea together can hang on long enough for the Andalites to show up and wipe out the Yeerks.

The Arn are probably the best, albeit least subtle, example of this phenomenon. Aldrea and Dak try to persuade them to fight against the Yeerks, and the Arn just shrug and go, “We’ve modified ourselves so we self-destruct if the Yeerks try to infest us. NBD.” Yeah, you can guess how well that works out for them. Unfortunately, this kind of “stick your head in the sand” mentality is prevalent in situations like this. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend there is no problem when acknowledging the problem is so uncomfortable and depressing.

This discomfort is so important to acknowledge and deal with. Stories like this can be depressing because they are so bleak—we are talking genocide here, of a society if not the physical bodies of the species. But as Applegate demonstrates with the epilogue, there is a reason that these stories are important. They are a part of our history, of our cultures, and need to be told so we know what we’re fighting for now. It reminds me of the stories of residential schools and other colonial atrocities perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in Canada, both in the past and currently. It’s hard to talk about these things, but they are important because they are part of the fabric of our society. But ignoring these stories does not make their effects go away.

The Andalites have long been a symbol of power in this series. Their technology is impressive. Nevertheless, Applegate always portrays them as vulnerable too. They have not learned this lesson. They are not just arrogant: they are still unable to acknowledge their shame. As Elfangor reveals in The Andalite Chronicles, the Andalite High Command covers up Alloran’s actions on the Hork-Bajir world. For all their technological supremacy, the Andalites have much to learn.

At its core, Animorphs is a very moralistic series. This isn’t surprising considering Applegate’s audience; she’s trying to make points. Fundamentally, then, this book serves as a contrast to the books of the main series. It’s as if she’s saying that a single individual, even a child, can make a decision to be more moral, more upstanding, than a being with so much more experience or technology. The Animorphs continually face decisions like the ones in this book, and they always struggle—but they almost always do the right thing. And that’s kind of amazing.

My reviews of Animorphs:
← #22: The Solution | #23: The Pretender →

Back on the Animorphs re-read train with The Pretender, our first Tobias book in what feels like forever. Tobias leads the Animorphs in rescuing a captured free Hork-Bajir child; meanwhile, he has to deal with the usual teenage angst: some woman claiming to be his cousin wanting to take care of him, a letter from his departed father to be read on his birthday, and another red-tailed hawk muscling in on his prime feeding grounds.

The usual.

The B plot (or A plot? I don’t know which is which) is not great here. After The Hork-Bajir Chronicles we have a much better idea of Hork-Bajir life and culture. Applegate drops some references into this story, but for the most part this is your standard “Animorphs have to break into a Yeerk facility and sabotage it” plot. It just has some added Hork-Bajir muscle and some new punchlines from Marco. So in terms of the challenges the Animorphs face, there is nothing really new here, which is probably why Applegate spends surprisingly little time on this plot.

Tobias’ arc totally steals the show here. I know this was a Nickelodeon show when it was a TV show (so I think it was on YTV here in Canada, if I remember correctly), but Tobias was an angsty CW boy before the CW existed or had angsty boys on it. He just drips with regret and self-loathing and self-pity. Don’t get me wrong: I feel a lot of sympathy for him. This is well-deserved angst, not “some other person likes the person I like” angst. (Which I guess is also legitimate angst, if you’re at the age where that’s your life. I was never that age.)

I enjoy the way Applegate offers Tobias a legitimate, difficult dilemma. He can morph his human body and become Tobias the human again—but after two hours, that’s it. He can have a regular life, but he won’t be an Animorph any more. On the one hand, this would be a huge relief. He wouldn’t be under direct threat from the Yeerks. He could eat human food and sleep in a proper bed. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be in the fight any more. And his life as a human seemed pretty crappy, to be honest.

This book also directly addresses Tobias/Rachel for the first time in a while. Rachel pretty much comes out and says that if Tobias were human she would date him. It’s heartbreaking, especially because I totally ship Tobias/Rachel. Her conversations with Tobias are the best part of this book, because she is all about keeping it real. She’s like, “This is what it is. You’re a hawk, but you’ll never be a hawk.” And Rachel—who, let’s not forget, is the most gung ho, warlike of the Animorphs—advocates for Tobias to drop out and become human again.

Almost as if she is envious of that option. Almost.

Tobias has an out. He doesn’t take it. Does that make him a hero? I don’t know. Even at this point in the series, I think Applegate has already come down pretty hard on the “in war, there are no heroes” theme: Tobias has done his share of questionable things, and he will go on to do more questionable things, as will the rest of the Animorphs.

Speaking of questionable things, next time, You’ll Never Believe How Cassie Shrinks Her Waistline With This One Easy Trick!

My reviews of Animorphs:
← The Hork-Bajir Chronicles

What happens when you meet someone online and you’re struck by a sudden need to help them, but they live on the other side of the world and don’t speak English? Jen Wang and Cory Doctorow ponder the intricacies that teenagers have to deal with, often on their own, in our globalized world. There’s a lot to like about In Real Life, so let’s get into it.

Firstly, the obvious: this is a story about gamers and gaming, but as the title implies, it treats these things as serious aspects of “real life.” Much like The Guild shows how a group of people manage to forge some pretty strong—albeit strange—bonds through gaming together, Anda’s experience playing Coarsegold changes her perspective on many real-world issues. Doctorow and Wang remind us that games are not merely distractions or diversions. They can be educational, informative, and thought-provoking—often unintentionally.

Doctorow says in the introduction that this is a story about economics. That’s true, in that Anda learns the basics of labour issues and trade unions, as well as the slightly newer economy involved in gold farming. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention to those themes, though, because I never felt the economic message was all that overt—except perhaps at the very end, when Anda helps some of the other Chinese gold farmers to organize a little. Instead, what impressed me more was the way In Real Life charts Anda’s growth, particularly her self-confidence.

I love the way Wang portrays Anda as a teenager who just happens to be overweight. There’s no big deal. The only time weight comes up is in the context of ice cream, and even then it’s Anda’s mother commenting about her father’s weight. Nevertheless, as you might expect, Anda’s physical appearance and nerdy interests mean she’s on the quiet side. It’s nice to see her grow and become more confident, and Wang very successfully uses visual storytelling to enhance this. For example, we see Anda peer down a supermarket aisle of haircare products—then cut to her dying her hair red to match her game avatar’s.

In Real Life is body-positive, and it prominently features a variety of women and personalities. From aggressive, fiery Lucy/Sarge to the commanding, imposing Liza we get women with different attitudes and priorities. And then there’s Steph. When this skinny “prep” girl crashes the Sci-Fi club asking for help starting a “board game club,” she gets rebuffed. And I totally thought it would be a case of the nerds “taking down” the preppy girl for being mean—because that’s how we’re programmed to see the narrative. It’s so much more complex than that, and I really like the follow-up and payoff that happens near the end of the book. It’s an empowering reminder that people with different interests can work together.

Similar to the no-big-deal portrayal of Anda’s body type, Wang and Doctorow also show her in a programming class, coding games, and in the Sci-Fi club, playing D&D like a boss. The message here is subtle but all-too-welcome: girls, you can be gamers; you can be coders; you can like D&D. It’s just something Anda does, and by making it background instead of foregrounding it as a “struggle,” they send the message that this is normal—as it should be.

Other than Anda, most of the characters are not well-developed. Her parents in particular are pretty stock, with Anda’s mother stereotypically overreacting to Anda’s online activities. I understand the need, in some cases, for this kind of shorthand to advance the story. Still, it’s a noticeable shallow area in a graphic novel that otherwise reaches deeper than you might expect.

In Real Life is a fun graphic novel that combines the best aspects of this form with Doctorow’s usual didactic flair. It’s a quick read—I read it in one sitting over lunch—but a worthwhile one. Despite this brevity, there is so much going on here. Adults like me can get a lot out of it, and I expect teenagers will also find it enjoyable and appealing. Above all else, while it shows challenges and onflict, its message is overwhelmingly positive and encouraging: you can do the thing.

It’s books like One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich that make me glad I don’t do video or podcast reviews, because I cannot pronounce Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s last name. Indeed, as is often the case with books originally written in a language one does not speak, names of people and places would be a huge problem in this review. I don’t know how difficult a translation this was for H.T. Willetts, but I can imagine. In addition to reconciling the censorship performed both before and after Solzhenitsyn submitted this manuscript, Willetts had to contend with a uniquely dull story.

That might sound odd considering the positive rating I’m giving this, but stick with me.

The conceit of this novel is that it is literally one day in Ivan Denisovich’s (or Shukhov as he’s called throughout the book) life as prisoner Shcha-184 in a Soviet prison camp. And, short though it is, the novel still covers Shukhov’s entire day in great detail. So as far as plot goes, it’s dull. That’s an accurate description. There are no dragons here, not even any fights. It is just a straightforward accounting of the drudgery Shukhov faces. And that is entirely Solzhenitsyn’s intention and why this book is so successful.

Most novels work by amping up the drama, by exaggerating and exacerbating. Like a Hollywood movie, they often rely on gimmicks and scenes pitched and calibrated for maximum emotional impact. They are, after all, written by storytellers—those consummate and inveterate pathological liars whose only joy comes from repeating things that aren’t true.

Solzhenitsyn takes it in the opposite direction. The point here is that this isn’t just one day; this is pretty much every day for Shukhov. He wakes up, rolls out of bed, has a meagre breakfast, is force-marched to work in some godforsaken, cold place outside of the camp, and then force-marched back in the evening for an even more meagre dinner. Don’t bother trying to count the days until your release, because they’ll just slap another sentence on you. Don’t hope for a better future or spend too much time dwelling on how you’ll make a living and support your family when you get out—those things are too far gone. Just keep your head down and focus on making it through the day.

If that sounds bleak, that’s because this kind of is. It is a Russian novel, after all!

But actually, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is not bleak or tragic in the sense of Tolstoy’s work. It isn’t reassuring either, of course, or upbeat. It’s more resigned, though, and it reminds us that when dealing with hardship, perspective is often vital to our survival. This is just one Iay in Shukov’s life—and while the form remains the same, the substance can vary. At the end of the book, he reflects upon how this was a good day. Some of his days are much worse.

Just think about that for a moment. You’re sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, with every chance that you’ll be sent back to prison on another set of trumped-up charges. You get inadequate nutrition. You have to scheme for every extra scrap and be careful to keep yourself in good health, not to mention on the good side of your gangmates. And if you don’t get caught with a piece of metal that might have been a knife, if you get a little more to eat than normal, then that is your definition of a good day. That is your new normal.

I’m sitting on a couch right now, in a house with electricity and WiFi, typing this on a brand new laptop that is frankly terrifyingly fast and light. There are people who live Shukhov’s life, or some variation thereof, in this world, at this present moment.

None of us would want to do that, and few of us probably could. I probably couldn’t.

So this novel is a stark, unvarnished, simple portrayal of life without a horizon. It’s Of Mice and Men for the Russian gulag: these guys are never going to have their cabin and pet their rabbits. It’s a reminder that for all the small, unfortunate things that happen throughout our day, our lives could be worse. I also want to talk about how it chronicles, as a kind of historical footnote these days, the perversity of the corrupt Soviet penal system. But considering how messed up the penal system is in so-called “civilized” Western states, I think that’s a bit … optimistic. These prison camps haven’t disappeared, just metamorphosed into newer, fresher hells.

It’s in this sense that One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is still relevant. Solzhenitsyn’s observations are simple and to-the-point. There is little embroidery here, yet this starkness is in itself a kind of poetry. This is a book that is beautiful because of its simplicity. While it’s not interesting in the sense of providing excitement, it is still rewarding and fascinating. I don’t envy Shukhov, and I’m glad I happen to be lucky enough to have the privilege that I do. Reading books like this reminds me of that privilege, however, and why we need to keep fighting for democracy—even if we think we have it already on paper.

I'm always down for some historical/mythological fiction in a comedic style, so The Table of Less Valued Knights seemed like a good proposition. Marie Phillips delivers an Arthurian quest beset with archetypes, allusions, and anachronisms. Her characters quip like they're in a Christopher Moore novel (albeit slightly less self-aware) and her vision of Knights of Camelot is every bit as decadently absurd as Monty Python's.

There. Have I name-dropped enough comparisons yet? Good. Let's get on with it.

The story starts a little slow, actually, and for the first part I was somewhat skeptical as to how much I would end up enjoying it. This type of humour is easy to get wrong (as evidenced by how inconsistently I've enjoyed Moore's work). While there's nothing wrong with Sir Humphrey and the idea of a "Less Valued Table of Knights" who have been demoted from the Round Table over the years, none of it particularly grabbed my attention. Indeed, it isn't until Martha shows up and steals the show that this story gets going.

Queen Martha of Tuft has a tough time of it, especially after she kinda-sorta becomes a man, in that classic "gender swap/mistaken identity" trope. Phillips creates an interesting character here: in many ways, Martha is naïve. She knows little of life outside a castle (has no idea of the value of money, for instance). Yet she also has many skills she once perceived as pointless, such as the ability to speak many foreign languages. Her observations of Humphrey and Conrad and attempts to fit in and emulate maleness are funny, sure, but they're also part of a larger commentary on gender that Phillips weaves throughout the book.

Stories like this, stories that poke fun at the tropes and shorthand we've constructed of medieval worlds and legends like Arthuriana, are valuable. It's one thing to strive for "historically accurate" fiction and another to just take a can-opener to history and tear the top off to find out what lies beneath. The Table of Less Valued Knights starts as a light-hearted, humorous story. Yet the deeper I went, the more plot I found.

Martha's a wonderful protagonist, and her reviled husband, Edwin, is an equally wonderful antagonist. He starts off as a stock, stereotypical villain type: a lascivious lout with no respect, for women or for men, and far too big an opinion of his own cunning. But Phillips soon lends substance to his pomp, showing that Edwin has some teeth. The moment he goes from comical thorn in the side to actual villain is pretty shocking, in the sense that I'm surprised the author lets him get away with it.

This sense—that the characters are more two-dimensional actors in the author's drama—does run throughout the story, and it's possible this could be a bigger problem for you than it was for me. Phillips never quite breaks the fourth wall like other authors do (and I love me some fourth-wall breaking), but the narrative structure is both absurd and serendipitous at points. You kind of just have to go with it, and want to enjoy this type of book. Wishing it's something more complex is only going to get you disappointment.

I was ambivalent about The Table of Less Valued Knights when I began, but by the end I had a smile on my face. Surprises like that are always welcome; here I was starting a book I thought I'd like at best, and I ended up having a much better time. It's not even the over-arching plot or the characters so much as all the little bits Phillips throws in—like the dwarf manning the customs post at the border of Tuft showing up again at the border of Grint, much to Edwin's irritation and surprise. It's these little things that show how much fun Phillips must have had inhabiting this universe, and when the fun an author has shines through, the experience is that much better for a reader.

Yes, it’s another review of Saga, this time of Volume Three, the last of three volumes I bought for a friend. It’s hard to think of original things to say, having read and reviewed the first two in quick succession. So let’s look at the journey Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples are taking us on after nearly twenty issues of this incredibly story.

I’m impressed at the complexity of the supporting cast. Kiara, Marko’s mother, spends much of this volume processing her husband’s death. It’s a significant subplot that affects how she related to the others present in Heist’s lighthouse, including the ornery pacifist author himself. Through these multi-generational moments, Vaughan justifies the somewhat generic name for Saga here. Kiara is walking around with a whole lot of prejudices. But she wants what is best for her child and her grandchild, and a good part of this volume concerns her need to reconcile her prejudices with Alana and Marko’s relationship. (I enjoyed the moment where she is watching them out the window of the lighthouse and asks, “What is Alana doing? Is she prayiny—no, no she is not.”)

Likewise, the Will and Gwendolyn really undergo a huge transition in this volume. At the beginning they are nearly at each other’s throats, and by the end, Gwendolyn is forced to tell Marko that “the man I love” is dying. She is forced to confront her hypocrisy of falling in love with a man from another species even as she hunts Marko for much the same “crime.” I admit I was a little sceptical about Gwendolyn falling for the Will so quickly. One of the limitations of graphic novels, however, unlike its wordier sibling, is that it is more expensive to devote time to flashbacks and other backstory exposition. So there is a lot we don’t know about Gwendolyn (or the Will, for that matter, although there are some interesting revelations concerning his family life towards the end of this volume) that might come up in future issues.

If I thought Volume Two ended with an excellent cliffhanger, then Volume Three is not a disappointment either. Vaughan allows some time to pass. Hazel foreshadows that the antagonists and our heroes are going their separate ways for “a very long time.” I still think Prince Robot IV is a dick, but I kind of like Gwendolyn and the Will, and I really want the best for them. So, you know, stupid Vaughan and Staples for making me care about people who want our heroes captured or killed! I shake my fist at you.

This is not the place to jump in if you haven’t read Saga before. Do yourself a favour and pick up the first two volumes. But as far as I’m concerned as a days-old fan of the series, it just keeps getting better.

My reviews of Saga:
← Volume 2 | Volume 4 →

Alana and Marko have escaped danger for now, but they are still fugitives. Their unique child, Hazel, will be recognized for what she is no matter where they go. So they are living in disguise on a backwater planet called Gardenia, and it’s causing no end of tension. Alana tries to support her family through a superhero soap opera, while Marko takes care of Hazel. Life seems both easier and harder than it was before. But as the end of the first chapter says, “This is the story of how my parents split up.” Sucker punch, much? Saga, Volume 4 delivers some of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ best work yet.

At first as I was all, “Noooooo, Alana/Marko forever!!!!” in my most fangirly of internal dialogues while I sat reading this volume. In retrospect, though, it was a cool move. It’s a natural development of the pressure they have been under—it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Vaughan and Staples don’t go for the cheap plays—they introduce a potential affair for Marko, but I really like how that gets resolved—and instead show us that the disagreement Alana and Marko have is a result of stress and tension. It’s not that Mommy and Daddy don’t love each other anymore—things are just … difficult … at the moment.

And then a robot shows up and kidnaps, like, everyone. Because Saga!

It has been literally a year since I read the first three volumes of Saga, because I bought those for a Christmas present for a friend. So my memory of the specifics is pretty vague. But it started coming back to me as Vaughan and Staples jumped to the various storylines. I suppose those multiple storylines is one reason this is called Saga, and I imagine it must be difficult deciding how much space in each chapter to devote to each story. So far they seem to be balancing it pretty well.

Although external conflict makes an appearance towards the end of this volume—and boy does it make an appearance when it finally shows up—most of the conflict in this volume is internal and emotional. I appreciate that, especially in a series that does have a lot of violence. This volume is a bit of a respite from that violence (at least at first) but no rest for Alana, Marko, et al. In particular, Vaughan and Staples show a new side of Alana we couldn’t see until now: motherhood guilt. She feels so bad not being able to spend enough time with Hazel, even though she is single-handedly supporting the family with her job. And it’s a crappy job at that. The resulting spiral culminating in substance abuse, recriminations, and an epic argument is nothing short of excellent.

Towards the end, as the storylines start to converge again, the theme of parenting and the extent to which parents will go for their children becomes more apparent. That very last shot at the end of Chapter 24 … well, without spoiling it, let’s just say that it’s the kind of use of the Enemy Mine trope (TVTropes) that we love.

If you’ve been reading Saga until now, you have no reason to stop. If you haven’t read Saga, go start at Volume 1 (or get Book 1, which collects the first three volumes) and settle in for a crazy ride.

Minor spoiler: I love that King Robot has a massive flatscreen TV as a head. I had to stop at that two-page spread and laugh for a solid minute before I could go in. It’s perfect.

My reviews of Saga:
← Volume 3 | Volume 5 →