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tachyondecay
Alternative title: Tobias is Not OK. Another extremely well-written, gut-punching character story with an otherwise uninteresting plot to keep it chugging along.
The Test reveals that Tobias is still basically shattered from his torture at the hands of the sadistic, and possibly mad, Yeerk Taylor. While the rest of the Animorphs have been dealing with their own shit, apparently, for the last ten books, Tobias has been keeping it together around them but then metaphorically going off and crying in a corner.
We see Applegate explore PTSD and related symptoms of war in many ways over the course of this series. The Test is different in that Tobias’ trauma is linked to a very specific incident, rather than the culmination of years’ worth of battle scars and moral dilemmas. It’s also still quite raw, and when he suddenly encounters Taylor again—and has to work with her—all those feelings come flooding back.
I also think there’s something to the fact that Tobias, now living in the form of a hawk, suppresses a lot of his emotions. He always describes his hawk-self as a cool, calculating, deadly being. There isn’t much room in the hawk for mercy. So I get the sense that it’s much easier for Tobias to push down his more human emotions when he’s cruising around in hawk-mode, especially if he’s hunting. You don’t want your compassion for living creatures to get in the way of that dinner you need. Yet this means that it becomes ever more difficult for Tobias to process his feelings, and I think we really see that here.
Basically, The Test is a roller coaster of emotion. In addition to the prominent problems of our protagonist, Applegate shows Cassie breaking ranks once again when it comes to the morality of a mission. The Animorphs have gone from “how do we fight the Yeerks” to “should we even be doing this” and seeing the Yeerks as a more diverse, rather than monolithic, enemy. In an era where a lot of villains came in Saturday morning cartoon flavour-of-the-week cookiecutter squads of minions and bad guys, this kind of shades-of-grey portrayal is stunning. In this book we’re reminded that there are Yeerks who are much worse than Visser Three (like Taylor), Yeerks who want peace, and of course, Yeerks who are just there, Yeerking it out. And as the Animorphs come to terms with this, it becomes harder and harder to accept just wholesale slaughtering Yeerks as a way of fighting their invasion.
Tobias’ voice ultimately carries this one. It’s not a coincidence that this book was written by the same ghostwriter who did The Illusion. Tobias isn’t usually my favourite character/narrator, but I have to admit that a lot of his books are just good, and this is no exception.
I’ll finish with another retro tech thought: wow, the lengths to which Ax goes to get Internet out in their little hideaway, and the whole thought of dialing in to go onto AOL. Wild.
Next time: Cassie is stranded in Australia! Let’s guess how many stereotypes we’ll get to see.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #42: The Journey | #44: The Unexpected →
The Test reveals that Tobias is still basically shattered from his torture at the hands of the sadistic, and possibly mad, Yeerk Taylor. While the rest of the Animorphs have been dealing with their own shit, apparently, for the last ten books, Tobias has been keeping it together around them but then metaphorically going off and crying in a corner.
We see Applegate explore PTSD and related symptoms of war in many ways over the course of this series. The Test is different in that Tobias’ trauma is linked to a very specific incident, rather than the culmination of years’ worth of battle scars and moral dilemmas. It’s also still quite raw, and when he suddenly encounters Taylor again—and has to work with her—all those feelings come flooding back.
I also think there’s something to the fact that Tobias, now living in the form of a hawk, suppresses a lot of his emotions. He always describes his hawk-self as a cool, calculating, deadly being. There isn’t much room in the hawk for mercy. So I get the sense that it’s much easier for Tobias to push down his more human emotions when he’s cruising around in hawk-mode, especially if he’s hunting. You don’t want your compassion for living creatures to get in the way of that dinner you need. Yet this means that it becomes ever more difficult for Tobias to process his feelings, and I think we really see that here.
Basically, The Test is a roller coaster of emotion. In addition to the prominent problems of our protagonist, Applegate shows Cassie breaking ranks once again when it comes to the morality of a mission. The Animorphs have gone from “how do we fight the Yeerks” to “should we even be doing this” and seeing the Yeerks as a more diverse, rather than monolithic, enemy. In an era where a lot of villains came in Saturday morning cartoon flavour-of-the-week cookiecutter squads of minions and bad guys, this kind of shades-of-grey portrayal is stunning. In this book we’re reminded that there are Yeerks who are much worse than Visser Three (like Taylor), Yeerks who want peace, and of course, Yeerks who are just there, Yeerking it out. And as the Animorphs come to terms with this, it becomes harder and harder to accept just wholesale slaughtering Yeerks as a way of fighting their invasion.
Tobias’ voice ultimately carries this one. It’s not a coincidence that this book was written by the same ghostwriter who did The Illusion. Tobias isn’t usually my favourite character/narrator, but I have to admit that a lot of his books are just good, and this is no exception.
I’ll finish with another retro tech thought: wow, the lengths to which Ax goes to get Internet out in their little hideaway, and the whole thought of dialing in to go onto AOL. Wild.
Next time: Cassie is stranded in Australia! Let’s guess how many stereotypes we’ll get to see.
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #42: The Journey | #44: The Unexpected →
Ana of California is one of those books that had to grow on me. This isn’t particularly a problem with the book but more my mood going into it. I guess I was hoping for something more, but Andi Teran’s story tends to move at a more sedate pace than I was expecting. I would hesitate to describe this as “coming of age” or anything so grand as that, but this is a novel where small things have big impacts for the protagonist and the people around her.
Ana Cortez is almost sixteen and an orphan. Out of options—going back to the group home is not an option—she reluctantly agrees to work on a farm in the small town of Hadley for the summer. The farm is managed by a brother-sister team, the brother not really down with Ana’s presence, the sister far more enthusiastic. As Ana gets to know her new foster family and meets more people her age in Hadley, her role as fish-out-of-water provokes all manner of small conflicts that allow us to get to know these characters and, ultimately, Ana to know herself.
Ana of California epitomizes, in some ways, telling rather than showing. I say this because telling is not necessarily as problematic as people make it out to be—there are situations where exposition is a welcome respite. In places, Teran uses this to her advantage, with conversations between characters fleshing out the backstory and providing insight into the dynamics of Hadley prior to Ana’s arrival. In other places, though, the telling-not-showing vibe is less useful. Teran’s omniscient narrator has a habit of jumping into various characters’ heads—not in and of itself a bad thing—and then explaining a bunch of stuff to us that we then hear again, much later, when Ana learns it. This narrative choice is interesting—this would be a very different story if it were told solely from Ana’s perspective—but the precise way in which Teran executes it leaves much to be desired.
These qualms didn’t sit well with me for the first part of the story, but my mood gradually improved. As Ana interacts more with the residents of Hadley, starts to form relationships, starts making her own choices—good or bad—and basically exercises more agency, I warmed up, both to her and to this book. Her learning curve feels real and believable. And for a story that often exists in a low gear, it has surprising moments where it ramps up to high gear and full speed and delivers insightful commentary on racism, poverty, crime, etc. This novel is far from fluffy, and I’m really glad I stuck with it.
Abbie’s little romantic arc doesn’t do much for me. I’m much more partial to Ana’s relationships, both her complicated thing with Cole and her friendship with Rye. In the case of Cole, there’s definitely a filigree of romance, but it’s not always there. And I really like the ambiguity of the ending, both in terms of how Cole makes that decision, and how they might or might not end up “together” (for some value of together). The whole development of this relationship steers clear of some of the more stereotypical tropes of girl-meets-boy-girl-falls-for-boy, for which I’m grateful. Similarly, Ana’s friendship with Rye has some interesting ups-and-downs that fit with her outsider role in Hadley, from the way Rye constantly misjudges Ana’s past to Ana not always being ready to discuss her feelings because, hey, this is the first time she’s actually had a best friend.
It has been far too long since I read Anne of Green Gables, so I’m not going to compare Ana of California to its influence. Suffice it to say that I can see the parallels. In short, while Teran’s writing doesn’t always work for me, and the story might be so-so, I came to appreciate this book’s emotional intelligence. Depending on what you’re looking for, that might actually be all you need.
Ana Cortez is almost sixteen and an orphan. Out of options—going back to the group home is not an option—she reluctantly agrees to work on a farm in the small town of Hadley for the summer. The farm is managed by a brother-sister team, the brother not really down with Ana’s presence, the sister far more enthusiastic. As Ana gets to know her new foster family and meets more people her age in Hadley, her role as fish-out-of-water provokes all manner of small conflicts that allow us to get to know these characters and, ultimately, Ana to know herself.
Ana of California epitomizes, in some ways, telling rather than showing. I say this because telling is not necessarily as problematic as people make it out to be—there are situations where exposition is a welcome respite. In places, Teran uses this to her advantage, with conversations between characters fleshing out the backstory and providing insight into the dynamics of Hadley prior to Ana’s arrival. In other places, though, the telling-not-showing vibe is less useful. Teran’s omniscient narrator has a habit of jumping into various characters’ heads—not in and of itself a bad thing—and then explaining a bunch of stuff to us that we then hear again, much later, when Ana learns it. This narrative choice is interesting—this would be a very different story if it were told solely from Ana’s perspective—but the precise way in which Teran executes it leaves much to be desired.
These qualms didn’t sit well with me for the first part of the story, but my mood gradually improved. As Ana interacts more with the residents of Hadley, starts to form relationships, starts making her own choices—good or bad—and basically exercises more agency, I warmed up, both to her and to this book. Her learning curve feels real and believable. And for a story that often exists in a low gear, it has surprising moments where it ramps up to high gear and full speed and delivers insightful commentary on racism, poverty, crime, etc. This novel is far from fluffy, and I’m really glad I stuck with it.
Abbie’s little romantic arc doesn’t do much for me. I’m much more partial to Ana’s relationships, both her complicated thing with Cole and her friendship with Rye. In the case of Cole, there’s definitely a filigree of romance, but it’s not always there. And I really like the ambiguity of the ending, both in terms of how Cole makes that decision, and how they might or might not end up “together” (for some value of together). The whole development of this relationship steers clear of some of the more stereotypical tropes of girl-meets-boy-girl-falls-for-boy, for which I’m grateful. Similarly, Ana’s friendship with Rye has some interesting ups-and-downs that fit with her outsider role in Hadley, from the way Rye constantly misjudges Ana’s past to Ana not always being ready to discuss her feelings because, hey, this is the first time she’s actually had a best friend.
It has been far too long since I read Anne of Green Gables, so I’m not going to compare Ana of California to its influence. Suffice it to say that I can see the parallels. In short, while Teran’s writing doesn’t always work for me, and the story might be so-so, I came to appreciate this book’s emotional intelligence. Depending on what you’re looking for, that might actually be all you need.
What a gutsy way to title a book! Another book that I took some time to warm up to, Want is a YA dystopian thriller that reminds me a little bit of William Gibson’s work. There’s an edge to this book that I wasn’t expecting. Cindy Pon’s plotting and characterization results in a tight-rope–walk of suspense. At times cinematic, other times somewhat shallower than I wanted, this is a really intriguing adventure.
The year is [some date in the future] and the setting is Taipei, Taiwan. Jason Zhou is a mei, i.e., member of the have-nots of Taiwanese society. The yous have the money and prestige, particularly when it comes to affording customizable suits that help protect them from the filthy, disease-ridden air in this over-industrialized city. But Zhou isn’t any ordinary mei: he’s part of a cabal. Along with four other people, Zhou launches an ambitious gambit to infiltrate and bomb the headquarters of Jin Corp, manufacturer of the suits. If successful, they hope to topple Jin Corp’s monopoly and upset a cancerous system. If they fail, then they lose their lives, and Jin Corp will continue to reap record profits from the oppression of millions.
If this sounds familiar, or over the top, you would be forgiven for thinking so. In many ways, Pon does not depart from a lot of the standard set-pieces of this subgenre of science fiction. We’ve got the evil mega-corporation, with a predictably immoral or amoral CEO. We’ve got evil plots to let people die from diseases intentionally released upon the unsuspecting population. We’ve got technology spying on us. And we have a ragtag group of plucky youths who feel they have the know-how and the moxie to do something about this unbearable status quo.
What helps Want succeed, perhaps, is that this setting no longer seems quite as remote as it did in decades past. Aside from the airpeds and the suits and the proliferation of bodymods, Want could easily be set a year or two from now. The way the world has developed has moved us closer to this universe of possible futures, in many ways, and Pon seizes that opportunity to create a setting eerie in its closeness to reality. This is still science fiction, but it is a disturbing echo of a future that might be yet to come.
It took me a while to warm up to Want because, honestly, the first few chapters are a bit rough. First there’s a kidnapping, but then the book jumps back several months, and then it jumps forward again to long after the kidnapping so the cabal can initiate its great gambit. And we get very little in the way of description of where we are, what’s going on, who any of these people are, etc. Beyond their names and some physical description, Lingyi, Victor, Arun, and Iris (especially Iris) remain ciphers to varying degrees. We learn one or two things about them and their relationships with one another, but we never really get to know them. Other side characters, like Joseph Chen, show up out of the blue a couple of times only to be put on a bus and never really picked up again. In short, if Want is a brilliant tapestry of science fiction, it has a few loose threads marring its otherwise captivating stitch work.
Still, when one takes a moment to consider the premise and the plot that Zhou’s gang has hatched, one has to admire Pon’s ambition here. This is a book where the protagonists are terrorists who want to blow up a building. This can’t be sugarcoated. Yes, they have lofty moral reasons for doing so, and yes, they want to evacuate everyone from the building before they destroy it. But at the end of the day, this is a book about a gang of criminal vigilantes (who kidnap, break-and-enter, intimidate, and possibly inject people with lethal influenza strains) committing acts of mass terror in order to bring down a late-stage capitalist hegemony. This shit is dark and anarchic. And I like it.
So as one cozies up to Zhou, setting aside the fact he wants to blow up a building, one also gets to see his relationship with Daiyu. Although technically a romance, I preferred reading it as a kind of ersatz friendship—because, without going into spoiler territory, let’s just say that neither is being particularly honest with the other. I appreciate how Pon attempts to create moments where each character underestimates the others: Zhou underestimates Daiyu and her you friends, who in turn often underestimate the meis. Sometimes the lessons learned from these encounters feel too quick or cheaply obtained.
Indeed, returning for a moment to the subject of characterization and the supporting cast, I’m disappointed we never get much depth from the others, or much in the way of group dynamic conflict. There’s a little bit towards the end. I was expecting one particular character (the suave one, if you’ve read the book) to betray the rest of the group, and when they didn’t, I was upset—not that I disliked that character and wanted them to be a traitor, but I was just bored of these four supporting characters existing without much in the way of personality beyond stock traits of “the closer”, “the hacker”, “the healer”, and “the fixer”, hmm? Like, sure, we learn Arun’s backstory, but the rest of the characters never really grow or change much.
If I sound like I’m being very critical of a book I’m giving three stars to, it’s just because I am impressed enough by Want to hold it to even higher standards. Yes, I am moving goalposts here. It’s what I do! This is one of those books I could picture as a movie: Pon has some incredibly tight, well-paced action scenes. I expect that if this were ever adapted they’d probably change the ending (though, you never know, an indie flick might keep the ending the way it is, bittersweet and kind of lovely). The issues with characterization are flaws, yes, but they never overshadowed my enjoyment of the story.
The year is [some date in the future] and the setting is Taipei, Taiwan. Jason Zhou is a mei, i.e., member of the have-nots of Taiwanese society. The yous have the money and prestige, particularly when it comes to affording customizable suits that help protect them from the filthy, disease-ridden air in this over-industrialized city. But Zhou isn’t any ordinary mei: he’s part of a cabal. Along with four other people, Zhou launches an ambitious gambit to infiltrate and bomb the headquarters of Jin Corp, manufacturer of the suits. If successful, they hope to topple Jin Corp’s monopoly and upset a cancerous system. If they fail, then they lose their lives, and Jin Corp will continue to reap record profits from the oppression of millions.
If this sounds familiar, or over the top, you would be forgiven for thinking so. In many ways, Pon does not depart from a lot of the standard set-pieces of this subgenre of science fiction. We’ve got the evil mega-corporation, with a predictably immoral or amoral CEO. We’ve got evil plots to let people die from diseases intentionally released upon the unsuspecting population. We’ve got technology spying on us. And we have a ragtag group of plucky youths who feel they have the know-how and the moxie to do something about this unbearable status quo.
What helps Want succeed, perhaps, is that this setting no longer seems quite as remote as it did in decades past. Aside from the airpeds and the suits and the proliferation of bodymods, Want could easily be set a year or two from now. The way the world has developed has moved us closer to this universe of possible futures, in many ways, and Pon seizes that opportunity to create a setting eerie in its closeness to reality. This is still science fiction, but it is a disturbing echo of a future that might be yet to come.
It took me a while to warm up to Want because, honestly, the first few chapters are a bit rough. First there’s a kidnapping, but then the book jumps back several months, and then it jumps forward again to long after the kidnapping so the cabal can initiate its great gambit. And we get very little in the way of description of where we are, what’s going on, who any of these people are, etc. Beyond their names and some physical description, Lingyi, Victor, Arun, and Iris (especially Iris) remain ciphers to varying degrees. We learn one or two things about them and their relationships with one another, but we never really get to know them. Other side characters, like Joseph Chen, show up out of the blue a couple of times only to be put on a bus and never really picked up again. In short, if Want is a brilliant tapestry of science fiction, it has a few loose threads marring its otherwise captivating stitch work.
Still, when one takes a moment to consider the premise and the plot that Zhou’s gang has hatched, one has to admire Pon’s ambition here. This is a book where the protagonists are terrorists who want to blow up a building. This can’t be sugarcoated. Yes, they have lofty moral reasons for doing so, and yes, they want to evacuate everyone from the building before they destroy it. But at the end of the day, this is a book about a gang of criminal vigilantes (who kidnap, break-and-enter, intimidate, and possibly inject people with lethal influenza strains) committing acts of mass terror in order to bring down a late-stage capitalist hegemony. This shit is dark and anarchic. And I like it.
So as one cozies up to Zhou, setting aside the fact he wants to blow up a building, one also gets to see his relationship with Daiyu. Although technically a romance, I preferred reading it as a kind of ersatz friendship—because, without going into spoiler territory, let’s just say that neither is being particularly honest with the other. I appreciate how Pon attempts to create moments where each character underestimates the others: Zhou underestimates Daiyu and her you friends, who in turn often underestimate the meis. Sometimes the lessons learned from these encounters feel too quick or cheaply obtained.
Indeed, returning for a moment to the subject of characterization and the supporting cast, I’m disappointed we never get much depth from the others, or much in the way of group dynamic conflict. There’s a little bit towards the end. I was expecting one particular character (the suave one, if you’ve read the book) to betray the rest of the group, and when they didn’t, I was upset—not that I disliked that character and wanted them to be a traitor, but I was just bored of these four supporting characters existing without much in the way of personality beyond stock traits of “the closer”, “the hacker”, “the healer”, and “the fixer”, hmm? Like, sure, we learn Arun’s backstory, but the rest of the characters never really grow or change much.
If I sound like I’m being very critical of a book I’m giving three stars to, it’s just because I am impressed enough by Want to hold it to even higher standards. Yes, I am moving goalposts here. It’s what I do! This is one of those books I could picture as a movie: Pon has some incredibly tight, well-paced action scenes. I expect that if this were ever adapted they’d probably change the ending (though, you never know, an indie flick might keep the ending the way it is, bittersweet and kind of lovely). The issues with characterization are flaws, yes, but they never overshadowed my enjoyment of the story.
I’ve finally figured it out: this is a buddy cop story.
Wait wait wait wait wait—it makes total sense! Think about it. Laurence is the by-the-book, hardnosed detective who has been on the job for years when, one day, out of the blue, this smartass rookie with a talent for learning languages and blowing hot air waltzes into his life. The two become partners and start working cases together, and Temeraire keeps getting Laurence in trouble, but Laurence always has Temeraire’s back—because even if Laurence does value procedure, deep down, his heart agrees with his new partner.
I figured this all out because Blood of Tyrants takes one of the most tired, soap operatic plot devices of all time (amnesia, oooooh, scary) and turns it around and uses it to good purpose. Although the first half of this book still feels a little too long, most of it is actually a pretty good story. As someone who, unfortunately, isn’t sad to see this series end—because it rather feels like it has lost the wind from its sails—this is a much better penultimate story than I was looking for. Naomi Novik manages to remind me why I fell in love with Temeraire and her storytelling in the first place.
As mentioned above, the story opens with Laurence having amnesia after being tossed overboard. This isn’t really a spoiler, I hope, because it is literally in the back cover copy and also on the first page. He winds up in Japan, which is closed to foreigners at this point in time, so that’s rather bad news. Meanwhile, Temeraire is beside himself wanting to look for Laurence, but there’s a dragon transport to fix and the whole closed-to-foreigners thing to be mindful of. The storyline unfolds in parallel for a hundred pages or so until the two are reunited (again, not a spoiler, it’s on the back of the book), though it’s unclear whether Laurence’s memory will ever return. So we have a dude who thinks he’s a Navy captain being told he’s actually an aviator for a very independently-minded dragon. Oh, and they are traitors. Were traitors.
Napoleonic War Facebook status is: it’s complicated.
Oh man is it ever complicated. At this point Novik’s alternate world looks extremely different from the nineteenth-century Earth we’re used to, and that isn’t a bad thing. In particular, this novel gives us tantalizing glimpses into what the American colonies, one place Laurence and Temeraire haven’t managed to end up, are like at this point. We meet a dragon from those colonies who is part-owner of a shipping company. It appears that basically everywhere except a handful of European countries treats its dragons as competent persons, and that’s a subtle but intriguing revelation.
It was also nice to return to China after so long away. We spend less time focusing on China itself and how its dragons and humans co-exist. But there are some nice moments, and of course, a new Chinese dragon general character who accompanies Laurence and Temeraire to Moscow. Chu’s cool.
Once we finally make it to Moscow, the plot really picks up the pace. We see the frustration of trying to account for all the logistics involved in dragon warfare. We see how close these allies come to being defeated, not by superior weapons or numbers on the side of the French, but a simple inability to cooperate and listen to each other. It’s some of your typical military fiction themes, of course, but presented very well. There are a few side-plots to keep things interesting and keep us on our toes, and I like how Novik dovetails them all together towards the end, instead of letting them just lapse.
Laurence runs into Napoleon in person again. And there is an interesting exchange between Laurence and the Russian general towards the end of the book that aptly underscores the entire series, I think: Kutuzov basically accuses Laurence and Temeraire together of having almost as much, if not more, of a world-changing impact as Napoleon himself, what with their abolitionist, pro-dragon politics being spread literally the world over. It’s one of those “huh” moments when the protagonists realize how far they’ve come from the first book when they are pretty much nobodies, and it is a nice chance for the series to acknowledge, without being too meta, how far it has come.
One more Temeraire novel to go. As I already said, I am not sad to reach this point. Blood of Tyrants is another solid entry in the series, so I’m optimistic that Novik can deliver a satisfactory finale. But it’s time.
My reviews of Temeraire:
← Crucible of Gold
Wait wait wait wait wait—it makes total sense! Think about it. Laurence is the by-the-book, hardnosed detective who has been on the job for years when, one day, out of the blue, this smartass rookie with a talent for learning languages and blowing hot air waltzes into his life. The two become partners and start working cases together, and Temeraire keeps getting Laurence in trouble, but Laurence always has Temeraire’s back—because even if Laurence does value procedure, deep down, his heart agrees with his new partner.
I figured this all out because Blood of Tyrants takes one of the most tired, soap operatic plot devices of all time (amnesia, oooooh, scary) and turns it around and uses it to good purpose. Although the first half of this book still feels a little too long, most of it is actually a pretty good story. As someone who, unfortunately, isn’t sad to see this series end—because it rather feels like it has lost the wind from its sails—this is a much better penultimate story than I was looking for. Naomi Novik manages to remind me why I fell in love with Temeraire and her storytelling in the first place.
As mentioned above, the story opens with Laurence having amnesia after being tossed overboard. This isn’t really a spoiler, I hope, because it is literally in the back cover copy and also on the first page. He winds up in Japan, which is closed to foreigners at this point in time, so that’s rather bad news. Meanwhile, Temeraire is beside himself wanting to look for Laurence, but there’s a dragon transport to fix and the whole closed-to-foreigners thing to be mindful of. The storyline unfolds in parallel for a hundred pages or so until the two are reunited (again, not a spoiler, it’s on the back of the book), though it’s unclear whether Laurence’s memory will ever return. So we have a dude who thinks he’s a Navy captain being told he’s actually an aviator for a very independently-minded dragon. Oh, and they are traitors. Were traitors.
Napoleonic War Facebook status is: it’s complicated.
Oh man is it ever complicated. At this point Novik’s alternate world looks extremely different from the nineteenth-century Earth we’re used to, and that isn’t a bad thing. In particular, this novel gives us tantalizing glimpses into what the American colonies, one place Laurence and Temeraire haven’t managed to end up, are like at this point. We meet a dragon from those colonies who is part-owner of a shipping company. It appears that basically everywhere except a handful of European countries treats its dragons as competent persons, and that’s a subtle but intriguing revelation.
It was also nice to return to China after so long away. We spend less time focusing on China itself and how its dragons and humans co-exist. But there are some nice moments, and of course, a new Chinese dragon general character who accompanies Laurence and Temeraire to Moscow. Chu’s cool.
Once we finally make it to Moscow, the plot really picks up the pace. We see the frustration of trying to account for all the logistics involved in dragon warfare. We see how close these allies come to being defeated, not by superior weapons or numbers on the side of the French, but a simple inability to cooperate and listen to each other. It’s some of your typical military fiction themes, of course, but presented very well. There are a few side-plots to keep things interesting and keep us on our toes, and I like how Novik dovetails them all together towards the end, instead of letting them just lapse.
Laurence runs into Napoleon in person again. And there is an interesting exchange between Laurence and the Russian general towards the end of the book that aptly underscores the entire series, I think: Kutuzov basically accuses Laurence and Temeraire together of having almost as much, if not more, of a world-changing impact as Napoleon himself, what with their abolitionist, pro-dragon politics being spread literally the world over. It’s one of those “huh” moments when the protagonists realize how far they’ve come from the first book when they are pretty much nobodies, and it is a nice chance for the series to acknowledge, without being too meta, how far it has come.
One more Temeraire novel to go. As I already said, I am not sad to reach this point. Blood of Tyrants is another solid entry in the series, so I’m optimistic that Novik can deliver a satisfactory finale. But it’s time.
My reviews of Temeraire:
← Crucible of Gold
Nobody expects the Australian Inquisition!
Animorphs #44: The Unexpected is a wildly uneven book that vacillates from cringe-worthy to touching and back, with little to no regard for anything resembling a unified plot, coherent characterization, or actual writing skills. It’s not that it’s a bad story; it’s just a mess.
Cassie ends up in Australia after inadvertently stowing aboard a passenger jet bound for that country. The first half of the book comprises her hiding from the Yeerks aboard this jet in various morphs and in her human form, culminating in a dramatic escape from the plane by jumping out of it. This is Megamorphs-level action, I must say, and it is quite exhilarating. But when Cassie touches down in Australia, half the book is already gone, yeah? And so the rest, no matter how interesting, feels far shorter than we deserve.
This book is notable for how little the other Animorphs appear in it. I do enjoy Cassie as a narrator, but having her carry virtually the entire book on her own is a tough ask. I would have preferred to see all, or even some, of the Animorphs stranded in Australia. There’s so much more the writer could have done with that idea! Instead, Cassie makes friends with a kid of Aborigine descent (presumably?) and then they get to amputate his grandfather’s leg together. Fun times!
I kid, but I kid you not—that leg amputation scene is some of the darkest shit we’ve seen so far in this series, at least for its grittiness. And that’s where I have a big problem with The Unexpected: it just can’t decide if it wants to be a light romp in the Outback or this serious rumination on Cassie’s misgivings about prosecuting this war against the Yeerks. And in not making a decision, we get these incredibly jarring transitions from light-hearted to dark in a way that doesn’t work. At all.
Anyway, next time we’re back to Serious Drama™ as Marco’s father gets embroiled in a suspiciously advanced physics project!
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #43: The Test | #45: The Revelation →
Animorphs #44: The Unexpected is a wildly uneven book that vacillates from cringe-worthy to touching and back, with little to no regard for anything resembling a unified plot, coherent characterization, or actual writing skills. It’s not that it’s a bad story; it’s just a mess.
Cassie ends up in Australia after inadvertently stowing aboard a passenger jet bound for that country. The first half of the book comprises her hiding from the Yeerks aboard this jet in various morphs and in her human form, culminating in a dramatic escape from the plane by jumping out of it. This is Megamorphs-level action, I must say, and it is quite exhilarating. But when Cassie touches down in Australia, half the book is already gone, yeah? And so the rest, no matter how interesting, feels far shorter than we deserve.
This book is notable for how little the other Animorphs appear in it. I do enjoy Cassie as a narrator, but having her carry virtually the entire book on her own is a tough ask. I would have preferred to see all, or even some, of the Animorphs stranded in Australia. There’s so much more the writer could have done with that idea! Instead, Cassie makes friends with a kid of Aborigine descent (presumably?) and then they get to amputate his grandfather’s leg together. Fun times!
I kid, but I kid you not—that leg amputation scene is some of the darkest shit we’ve seen so far in this series, at least for its grittiness. And that’s where I have a big problem with The Unexpected: it just can’t decide if it wants to be a light romp in the Outback or this serious rumination on Cassie’s misgivings about prosecuting this war against the Yeerks. And in not making a decision, we get these incredibly jarring transitions from light-hearted to dark in a way that doesn’t work. At all.
Anyway, next time we’re back to Serious Drama™ as Marco’s father gets embroiled in a suspiciously advanced physics project!
My reviews of Animorphs:
← #43: The Test | #45: The Revelation →
Unless I’m mistaken, I haven’t read anything by A.E. van Vogt, so this is me rectifying that. Reading so-called Golden Age is always interesting. Some of it holds up to the test of time; some of it … does not. Slan, while it has its moments, falls into the latter camp in my opinion. Nevertheless, for contemporary readers, Golden Age SF never fails to provide an invaluable view not of our future but of our own past. Slan was first published in 1940, pre-dating electronic computers as we know them and so many other technologies we now take for granted as the backdrop to our science fiction. Its chief novum is atomic energy, and even so this story predates the first atomic bombs and nuclear reactors. For van Vogt, what he was writing was cutting edge, even if it seems to us somewhat laughably naive. And the ways in which he envisions this technology and others being used tells us so much about the way we saw science and technology in this era.
Slan is set in our future. The world is ruled by an authoritarian but not particularly oppressive (if you’re human) regime headed up by Kier Gray. The slans are an offshoot of humanity, mutants with tendrils on their heads that allow them to read minds. As such, so the propaganda goes, they see themselves as superior to humans. Centuries prior to the story, there was a war between slans and humans. Humans barely prevailed, leading to a dark age, and now slans are hunted and killed wherever they have found. Our slan protagonist, Jommy Cross, watches his own mother hunted down in the middle of a busy city street when he is only nine years old. He narrowly escapes with his own life and spends his early adolescence educating himself and mastering his thought powers so that he can carry on the legacy of his parents—for, you see, his father invented an ingenious way to use atomic energy to disintegrate matter. But there are other powers out there, powers who are suspicious of Cross, and they might make a move first.
Some of the blurbs on this book praise van Vogt for Slan’s “headlong, breakneck pacing” and “electric, crackling paranoid tension” … and I … guess I kind of see it? I mean, the story does open with fugitives on the run—and this particular set piece gets a reprise several times throughout this fairly short novel. There are definitely instances where almost all seems lost, as Cross’ plans are foiled and he has to think quickly to regain the upper hand. Yet there are also moments where the tension seems to fizzle out, or where it never existed in the first place. Slan is, in many ways, a psychological thriller, yet some of its characters’ psychology is incredibly flimsy.
Perhaps not surprising considering its age, Slan has a dearth of good female characters. Van Vogt sets up Kathleen Layton as a secondary protagonist very early in the story, then pages after she finally crosses paths with Cross, he fridges her! I know she comes back at the very end—hello, cliffhanger—but that’s irrelevant. It’s a shock-and-awe tactic that leaves much to be desired. Granny is … helpful … I guess, but the extent to which she is willingly helping Cross and how much is the result of his mental meddling (more on that in a moment) is an open question. That leaves Joanna Hillory. Although in her first appearance she proves a fine match as antagonist to Cross, when she reappears towards the end, it’s to suddenly turn face and tell Cross that she (despite the gross age difference) is the only logical choice of intimate companion for him. Um … OK? So he sends her off to retrieve his magic spaceship while he returns to Earth, and we basically don’t hear from her again.
Don’t even get me started on the random council member who decides he wants to fuck teenage Kathleen so badly that he proposes using her for a human/slan “breeding experiment”.
Anyway, my issues with this book’s portrayal of women and with its characterization in general are actually wrapped up entirely in the plot. I wonder how much of this comes from Slan’s origin as a serial, and the way in which writing serial fiction sometimes leads to repetition and inconsistencies (though there’s no reason those couldn’t be corrected when it was finally published in novel form). But basically, the plot is a hot mess. It’s kind of your basic revenge plot, except Cross is also trying to protect the slans from genocide, except it also turns out the slans are secretly in control of everything anyway, except when they’re not. And most of the book is basically Cross building himself a really cool secret hideout with atomic technology, then posing as someone who looks like him so he can get himself caught. It’s … dull.
Cross himself is not a great or sympathetic protagonist. Indeed, I’m not sure I’m on board with Team Slan here. Don’t get me wrong … I don’t advocate genocide or oppression of the slans. But if you’re claiming you want to coexist in harmony and then go around hypnotizing and mind controlling people with crystals—well, yours is not a moral ground I want to stand on, because it’s liable to collapse at any moment. And keep in mind this is a dude who has access to atomic disintegration technology.
If it sounds like I’m hating on this book, then I apologize, because that really isn’t my intention. I’m just trying to catalogue its various flaws and critique the elements I find particularly unsatisfactory. Because there are many intriguing elements to this story. Aside from van Vogt’s use of the then-nascent prospects of atomic power, this is an early story to feature the spectre of genetic engineering on a mass scale. I can only imagine that the origin story of the slans has some inspiration in the eugenics movement that was mixed up in the fascism and Nazism of the day. The central “what if” here, “what if a strain of humanity involves that truly does have superior capabilities in some fashion?” is as pressing and interesting now as it was in 1940.
Indeed, I think it’s somewhat silly that so much Golden Age SF, from van Vogt to Asimov to Heinlein, is social/soft SF, yet somehow that only becomes a problem when women start writing it. So many of these famous male authors are ultimately writing stories about the future psychology of humanity, not our technological tribulations. Slan reminded me more of something from Nancy Kress than, say, Arthur C. Clarke. And that isn’t a bad thing—I just wish we would stop pretending that women writing SF is somehow problematic because of all the icky feels they supposedly mix in with the technology. Slan is much more about society than it is about science. Science fiction has always been socially conscious.
I’m glad this was as short as it is, because I don’t think I could have enjoyed 400 pages of this. At its present length, Slan is an adequate diversion. I wouldn’t say it’s a great novel, and I have zero desire to read the sequel finished by Kevin J. Anderson (though that has more to do with my opinion of Anderson, I’d wager). If, like me, you’re interested in delving more deeply into the back-catalog of Golden Age SF, then sure, this is a novel you might want to check out. For the neophytes or the readers with more particular tastes, I’d say there is little here. The themes van Vogt explores crop up, and are dealt with much better, in later works. This is a wonderful piece of history but not a compelling vision of our future.
Slan is set in our future. The world is ruled by an authoritarian but not particularly oppressive (if you’re human) regime headed up by Kier Gray. The slans are an offshoot of humanity, mutants with tendrils on their heads that allow them to read minds. As such, so the propaganda goes, they see themselves as superior to humans. Centuries prior to the story, there was a war between slans and humans. Humans barely prevailed, leading to a dark age, and now slans are hunted and killed wherever they have found. Our slan protagonist, Jommy Cross, watches his own mother hunted down in the middle of a busy city street when he is only nine years old. He narrowly escapes with his own life and spends his early adolescence educating himself and mastering his thought powers so that he can carry on the legacy of his parents—for, you see, his father invented an ingenious way to use atomic energy to disintegrate matter. But there are other powers out there, powers who are suspicious of Cross, and they might make a move first.
Some of the blurbs on this book praise van Vogt for Slan’s “headlong, breakneck pacing” and “electric, crackling paranoid tension” … and I … guess I kind of see it? I mean, the story does open with fugitives on the run—and this particular set piece gets a reprise several times throughout this fairly short novel. There are definitely instances where almost all seems lost, as Cross’ plans are foiled and he has to think quickly to regain the upper hand. Yet there are also moments where the tension seems to fizzle out, or where it never existed in the first place. Slan is, in many ways, a psychological thriller, yet some of its characters’ psychology is incredibly flimsy.
Perhaps not surprising considering its age, Slan has a dearth of good female characters. Van Vogt sets up Kathleen Layton as a secondary protagonist very early in the story, then pages after she finally crosses paths with Cross, he fridges her! I know she comes back at the very end—hello, cliffhanger—but that’s irrelevant. It’s a shock-and-awe tactic that leaves much to be desired. Granny is … helpful … I guess, but the extent to which she is willingly helping Cross and how much is the result of his mental meddling (more on that in a moment) is an open question. That leaves Joanna Hillory. Although in her first appearance she proves a fine match as antagonist to Cross, when she reappears towards the end, it’s to suddenly turn face and tell Cross that she (despite the gross age difference) is the only logical choice of intimate companion for him. Um … OK? So he sends her off to retrieve his magic spaceship while he returns to Earth, and we basically don’t hear from her again.
Don’t even get me started on the random council member who decides he wants to fuck teenage Kathleen so badly that he proposes using her for a human/slan “breeding experiment”.
Anyway, my issues with this book’s portrayal of women and with its characterization in general are actually wrapped up entirely in the plot. I wonder how much of this comes from Slan’s origin as a serial, and the way in which writing serial fiction sometimes leads to repetition and inconsistencies (though there’s no reason those couldn’t be corrected when it was finally published in novel form). But basically, the plot is a hot mess. It’s kind of your basic revenge plot, except Cross is also trying to protect the slans from genocide, except it also turns out the slans are secretly in control of everything anyway, except when they’re not. And most of the book is basically Cross building himself a really cool secret hideout with atomic technology, then posing as someone who looks like him so he can get himself caught. It’s … dull.
Cross himself is not a great or sympathetic protagonist. Indeed, I’m not sure I’m on board with Team Slan here. Don’t get me wrong … I don’t advocate genocide or oppression of the slans. But if you’re claiming you want to coexist in harmony and then go around hypnotizing and mind controlling people with crystals—well, yours is not a moral ground I want to stand on, because it’s liable to collapse at any moment. And keep in mind this is a dude who has access to atomic disintegration technology.
If it sounds like I’m hating on this book, then I apologize, because that really isn’t my intention. I’m just trying to catalogue its various flaws and critique the elements I find particularly unsatisfactory. Because there are many intriguing elements to this story. Aside from van Vogt’s use of the then-nascent prospects of atomic power, this is an early story to feature the spectre of genetic engineering on a mass scale. I can only imagine that the origin story of the slans has some inspiration in the eugenics movement that was mixed up in the fascism and Nazism of the day. The central “what if” here, “what if a strain of humanity involves that truly does have superior capabilities in some fashion?” is as pressing and interesting now as it was in 1940.
Indeed, I think it’s somewhat silly that so much Golden Age SF, from van Vogt to Asimov to Heinlein, is social/soft SF, yet somehow that only becomes a problem when women start writing it. So many of these famous male authors are ultimately writing stories about the future psychology of humanity, not our technological tribulations. Slan reminded me more of something from Nancy Kress than, say, Arthur C. Clarke. And that isn’t a bad thing—I just wish we would stop pretending that women writing SF is somehow problematic because of all the icky feels they supposedly mix in with the technology. Slan is much more about society than it is about science. Science fiction has always been socially conscious.
I’m glad this was as short as it is, because I don’t think I could have enjoyed 400 pages of this. At its present length, Slan is an adequate diversion. I wouldn’t say it’s a great novel, and I have zero desire to read the sequel finished by Kevin J. Anderson (though that has more to do with my opinion of Anderson, I’d wager). If, like me, you’re interested in delving more deeply into the back-catalog of Golden Age SF, then sure, this is a novel you might want to check out. For the neophytes or the readers with more particular tastes, I’d say there is little here. The themes van Vogt explores crop up, and are dealt with much better, in later works. This is a wonderful piece of history but not a compelling vision of our future.
Let’s get one thing straight: I am absolutely a Non Pratt fanboy, so if this review sounds a little too gushing, that’s because it is. Pratt’s books are a rich, tasty dessert to me: eminently satisfying, far longer-lasting than candy, and sometimes even a little bit good—but not too good—for you. Second Best Friend is no exception. Like Unboxed, her previous novella from Barrington Stoke, Second Best Friend is an encapsulated, somewhat brief story about a specific point in time. Whereas Unboxed was about four friends dealing with the loss of a fifth, this story is about friend almost losing another to an envy that might be all in her imagination. It’s real; it’s raw, but it’s also deeply humorous and forgiving.
Protagonist Jade is good, but she feels like everyone compares her to her best friend, Becky, and that she always comes out second. Becky is prettier; Becky is smarter; Becky is more responsible; Becky is basically just better than Jade and always will be. When Jade’s break-up with her boyfriend backfires and triggers a crisis in confidence centred on Becky, Jade throws herself into a school election campaign. She winds up competing with her own best friend (because that always goes well). While dealing with the perhaps-wanted attentions of her campaign manager, Jade mulls over her feelings about Becky. How does one improve one’s sense of self-worth when one only compares oneself to perfection?
Second Best Friend works so well for two reasons. Firstly, Pratt carefully and compellingly builds the case for Jade’s perspective. From dinners with her own family to differences in Instagram likes to teachers picking Becky over Jade for solo parts, we see, from Jade’s POV, the injustice of the situation. And what’s so frustrating for her—and therefore, by extension, us—is that Becky doesn’t mean for any of this to happen. Becky is not the bad guy here; she is not an antagonist we can plot against, undermine, or take down. The bad guy is Jade’s own self-esteem—and that proves to be a much bigger boss fight.
The second reason this book works is because it’s really easy to identify with Jade’s feelings on the matter. They’re a kind of version of imposter syndrome. I don’t necessarily have any one friend whom I’d consider too perfect (no, sorry, not even you, real-life Becky). But I think it’s a very common experience to see other friends excelling in fields you are passionate in, and to worry that you will never measure up. Milieus like Instagram and other social media platforms, where eyeballs and self-worth are measured in likes, only compound this problem. We could try to dismiss this as the particular hang-up of “young people” who are too “obsessed” with their online image, but that ignores the messages we send—particularly to young girls—about how you’re only valuable if people are looking at you.
I also appreciate how Pratt never really pushes the story over the top. Even Jade’s betrayal of one of Becky’s darkest secrets is, really, rather tame. Truth or Dare is predicated upon some pretty heavy guilt regarding someone jumping off a bridge and suffering a traumatic brain injury as a result. In contrast, Jade exposing something Becky did as a young child is embarrassing but not life-altering—and Pratt plays it that way. This is a betrayal not because of how it affects Becky’s social standing but because of the way it alters Becky’s ability to trust, implicitly, her best friend. It’s a deeply personal action and a deeply personal consequence, and I love the way Pratt portrays that against the backdrop of this ultimately unimportant school election.
(As an aside, I discovered some latent PTSD-like flashbacks to my days teaching in England while reading this. The students at this school are way too into this social responsibility class and planning this election. I remember my days of being a form tutor and dreading the SMSC topics we were somehow supposed to cover in the ten minutes we had each morning, while my students just looked at me with an apathy bordering on pity and or disgust. Oof. There were many lovely students I taught and many excellent classes, but I do not miss that particular dimension of teaching in England!)
Without going into spoilers, let me just say that the ending is extremely abrupt. Even physically reading this book and knowing there were only a few pages left, I still kind of did a double-take when I turned the page and realized that I was done. And I love it. Once that shock wore off, I thought it was a perfect way to conclude the story. Because it offers this sliver of hope—for redemption, reconciliation, recapitulation—without collapsing the waveform of our own glorious imaginations as to how, exactly, that might be achieved. It’s like ending the romantic comedy just as the one love interest walks back in the door. You don’t necessarily know how it ends, but you can fill in the blanks yourself.
Also, I read Becky as aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum. On page 10, Jade mentions, “The truth is that Becky’s not up for it with anyone”. (There are also indications that Becky might be a little touch-averse.) The words aren’t used on page like they were for the character of Seren in Truth or Dare, and it’s never really explored any further than that. This is understandable, given the length of the story, though I do wish that we reach a point where we can throw out words like aromantic and asexual in passing and not have to digress to define them.
For my closing thoughts I want to spend a little time complimenting both Pratt’s writing in general and the construction of this book itself. Barrington Stoke just publishes these lovely little editions. The covers are fantastic (and shiny!) but the paper. Oh wow, the paper is just such high quality. And the typeface! I’m not necessarily a die-hard typography nerd, but I respect it, and the book designers here outdid themselves. Reading this book is an exercise in self-care. And the design only serves to enhance and complement Pratt’s writing, which is deliciously descriptive, evocative, and entertaining. From cute turns of phrase like “a boy so hot he should be measured on the Scoville scale” to descriptions of a teacher dressing like an ASOS ad to supporting characters with defining, but not stereotypical, traits, Second Best Friend might have been a shorter read for me, but it was predictably a great one.
That’s about it. Non Pratt keeps coming up with new and different stories, and as long as that is the case, I will keep trying to come up with new and different thins to say about them. But really all I want to say is that if you haven’t read any of her books yet, you should pick one up. There are several, and even if some of them don’t sound right for you, I’d like to bet at least one will. And above all else, I’m excited that voices like Pratt’s are out there, awaiting young adult readers who might be wondering if everyone experiences feelings of envy, of second-bestism, of impostership if it’s just them. (Spoiler alert: it’s not just you.)
Protagonist Jade is good, but she feels like everyone compares her to her best friend, Becky, and that she always comes out second. Becky is prettier; Becky is smarter; Becky is more responsible; Becky is basically just better than Jade and always will be. When Jade’s break-up with her boyfriend backfires and triggers a crisis in confidence centred on Becky, Jade throws herself into a school election campaign. She winds up competing with her own best friend (because that always goes well). While dealing with the perhaps-wanted attentions of her campaign manager, Jade mulls over her feelings about Becky. How does one improve one’s sense of self-worth when one only compares oneself to perfection?
Second Best Friend works so well for two reasons. Firstly, Pratt carefully and compellingly builds the case for Jade’s perspective. From dinners with her own family to differences in Instagram likes to teachers picking Becky over Jade for solo parts, we see, from Jade’s POV, the injustice of the situation. And what’s so frustrating for her—and therefore, by extension, us—is that Becky doesn’t mean for any of this to happen. Becky is not the bad guy here; she is not an antagonist we can plot against, undermine, or take down. The bad guy is Jade’s own self-esteem—and that proves to be a much bigger boss fight.
The second reason this book works is because it’s really easy to identify with Jade’s feelings on the matter. They’re a kind of version of imposter syndrome. I don’t necessarily have any one friend whom I’d consider too perfect (no, sorry, not even you, real-life Becky). But I think it’s a very common experience to see other friends excelling in fields you are passionate in, and to worry that you will never measure up. Milieus like Instagram and other social media platforms, where eyeballs and self-worth are measured in likes, only compound this problem. We could try to dismiss this as the particular hang-up of “young people” who are too “obsessed” with their online image, but that ignores the messages we send—particularly to young girls—about how you’re only valuable if people are looking at you.
I also appreciate how Pratt never really pushes the story over the top. Even Jade’s betrayal of one of Becky’s darkest secrets is, really, rather tame. Truth or Dare is predicated upon some pretty heavy guilt regarding someone jumping off a bridge and suffering a traumatic brain injury as a result. In contrast, Jade exposing something Becky did as a young child is embarrassing but not life-altering—and Pratt plays it that way. This is a betrayal not because of how it affects Becky’s social standing but because of the way it alters Becky’s ability to trust, implicitly, her best friend. It’s a deeply personal action and a deeply personal consequence, and I love the way Pratt portrays that against the backdrop of this ultimately unimportant school election.
(As an aside, I discovered some latent PTSD-like flashbacks to my days teaching in England while reading this. The students at this school are way too into this social responsibility class and planning this election. I remember my days of being a form tutor and dreading the SMSC topics we were somehow supposed to cover in the ten minutes we had each morning, while my students just looked at me with an apathy bordering on pity and or disgust. Oof. There were many lovely students I taught and many excellent classes, but I do not miss that particular dimension of teaching in England!)
Without going into spoilers, let me just say that the ending is extremely abrupt. Even physically reading this book and knowing there were only a few pages left, I still kind of did a double-take when I turned the page and realized that I was done. And I love it. Once that shock wore off, I thought it was a perfect way to conclude the story. Because it offers this sliver of hope—for redemption, reconciliation, recapitulation—without collapsing the waveform of our own glorious imaginations as to how, exactly, that might be achieved. It’s like ending the romantic comedy just as the one love interest walks back in the door. You don’t necessarily know how it ends, but you can fill in the blanks yourself.
Also, I read Becky as aromantic- and/or asexual-spectrum. On page 10, Jade mentions, “The truth is that Becky’s not up for it with anyone”. (There are also indications that Becky might be a little touch-averse.) The words aren’t used on page like they were for the character of Seren in Truth or Dare, and it’s never really explored any further than that. This is understandable, given the length of the story, though I do wish that we reach a point where we can throw out words like aromantic and asexual in passing and not have to digress to define them.
For my closing thoughts I want to spend a little time complimenting both Pratt’s writing in general and the construction of this book itself. Barrington Stoke just publishes these lovely little editions. The covers are fantastic (and shiny!) but the paper. Oh wow, the paper is just such high quality. And the typeface! I’m not necessarily a die-hard typography nerd, but I respect it, and the book designers here outdid themselves. Reading this book is an exercise in self-care. And the design only serves to enhance and complement Pratt’s writing, which is deliciously descriptive, evocative, and entertaining. From cute turns of phrase like “a boy so hot he should be measured on the Scoville scale” to descriptions of a teacher dressing like an ASOS ad to supporting characters with defining, but not stereotypical, traits, Second Best Friend might have been a shorter read for me, but it was predictably a great one.
That’s about it. Non Pratt keeps coming up with new and different stories, and as long as that is the case, I will keep trying to come up with new and different thins to say about them. But really all I want to say is that if you haven’t read any of her books yet, you should pick one up. There are several, and even if some of them don’t sound right for you, I’d like to bet at least one will. And above all else, I’m excited that voices like Pratt’s are out there, awaiting young adult readers who might be wondering if everyone experiences feelings of envy, of second-bestism, of impostership if it’s just them. (Spoiler alert: it’s not just you.)
Hard to know what I could add to my previous review of Sophie’s World. I suppose in the 6 years that have passed since that second reading I have grown and changed and that means my perspective on this book will have changed as well. But I stand by the earlier review, and now I’ll just elaborate.
I bought this fresh copy of Sophie’s World as a gift; actually, I bought it twice over. One will go to a coworker about to go on parental leave. She requested some book recommendations, and this one in particular seemed to get her excited. The other copy was a birthday gift for my friend Amanda, who in addition to watching Doctor Who with me every Sunday also enjoys having philosophical conversations. There is no better book than this one to help give someone a grounding in the basics of philosophy while simultaneously awakening interesting questions in the mind. I took the liberty of underlining some of my favourite passages as I read her copy, even annotating here and there—I don’t usually do that with birthday books, but this one is something special.
Last time I reviewed this I concentrated on how deeply I loved Jostein Gaarder’s meta-fictional storytelling. Still do. This time, though, I have to marvel at just how cleverly he executes it. My jaw drops at the sheer amount of history and philosophy that he crams into this text, and the way he orchestrates the meta-fictional storyline to emphasize each of the various philosophical schools of thought just as Sophie learns about them. When you first read this novel, you’re probably too focused on the sheer density of its content to really notice these touches. So it’s these subsequent readings, when the explanations have the comforting cadence of familiarity, that allow you to notice just how intricately constructed Sophie’s World is. If I hadn’t given this novel 5 stars before, I would definitely be doing so now.
The way Gaarder develops and frames Western philosophy is fascinating too. Towards the end of the book, as Alberto expounds upon Hegel, he observes:
I don’t know if I entirely agree with this in a practical sense. Could we not have a future where knowledge has regressed? It is popular, these days, to imagine catastrophes of such an apocalyptic nature that the remnants of humanity lose all connection to their history and culture. I suppose this is arguably the “trivial case”, though, because it’s essentially a reset. What about some kind of world-wide, oppressive, authoritarian rule—Orwell-style? One could argue that there might always be torch-bearers, secret knowledge-keepers, etc. And perhaps I am simply guilty of taking this too literally; Hegel’s point is more that as long as we have the knowledge we will collectively continue to build upon it….
See, this is the thing about this book, and about philosophy in general. It just gets you thinking. You don’t always have to agree. You don’t always have to fully understand a point. You just have to open your mind to listening to it, and then turn it over, examine it from different angles. I love the way Gaarder models that here through Sophie, the way she mixes credulity with scepticism, patience and open-mindedness with the kneejerk opinionated attitude common to most of us (and especially so among teens, natch).
I’ve never really been one for small talk. I understand its usefulness and that it is hella weird to start asking strangers intensely personal questions. Yet, there are also impersonal questions that can nevertheless be very deep. These are the conversations I like to have. I like to ask questions that make people think. I like when my friends and I are talking, and they think they have a line of thought worked out towards a strong conclusion, until I ask a question—and they pause. And reconsider. And I love when my friends do that to me.
Sometimes it’s lonely up in here. Without getting too solipsistic, we are all, all of us, somewhat alone in our brains. Philosophy is one of the few ways we can touch other human minds, because it is an exercise that requires us to be our most human selves. When I’m having a conversation of a philosophical nature with someone, I feel a little less alone. But you can’t always be with your friends. So I gave this book as a birthday gift. I give birthday books because they require a lot of thought, and I can write in them, and ultimately because they’re like giving pieces of yourself. Sophie’s World is a big piece of myself, I think. It’s a microcosm of how I want to approach the world, how I want to think, to learn, to teach.
I bought this fresh copy of Sophie’s World as a gift; actually, I bought it twice over. One will go to a coworker about to go on parental leave. She requested some book recommendations, and this one in particular seemed to get her excited. The other copy was a birthday gift for my friend Amanda, who in addition to watching Doctor Who with me every Sunday also enjoys having philosophical conversations. There is no better book than this one to help give someone a grounding in the basics of philosophy while simultaneously awakening interesting questions in the mind. I took the liberty of underlining some of my favourite passages as I read her copy, even annotating here and there—I don’t usually do that with birthday books, but this one is something special.
Last time I reviewed this I concentrated on how deeply I loved Jostein Gaarder’s meta-fictional storytelling. Still do. This time, though, I have to marvel at just how cleverly he executes it. My jaw drops at the sheer amount of history and philosophy that he crams into this text, and the way he orchestrates the meta-fictional storyline to emphasize each of the various philosophical schools of thought just as Sophie learns about them. When you first read this novel, you’re probably too focused on the sheer density of its content to really notice these touches. So it’s these subsequent readings, when the explanations have the comforting cadence of familiarity, that allow you to notice just how intricately constructed Sophie’s World is. If I hadn’t given this novel 5 stars before, I would definitely be doing so now.
The way Gaarder develops and frames Western philosophy is fascinating too. Towards the end of the book, as Alberto expounds upon Hegel, he observes:
In fact, you cannot detach any philosopher, or any thought at all, from that philosopher’s or that thought’s historical context. But—and here I come to another point—because something new is always being added, reason is “progressive.” In other words, human knowledge is constantly expanding and progressing.
I don’t know if I entirely agree with this in a practical sense. Could we not have a future where knowledge has regressed? It is popular, these days, to imagine catastrophes of such an apocalyptic nature that the remnants of humanity lose all connection to their history and culture. I suppose this is arguably the “trivial case”, though, because it’s essentially a reset. What about some kind of world-wide, oppressive, authoritarian rule—Orwell-style? One could argue that there might always be torch-bearers, secret knowledge-keepers, etc. And perhaps I am simply guilty of taking this too literally; Hegel’s point is more that as long as we have the knowledge we will collectively continue to build upon it….
See, this is the thing about this book, and about philosophy in general. It just gets you thinking. You don’t always have to agree. You don’t always have to fully understand a point. You just have to open your mind to listening to it, and then turn it over, examine it from different angles. I love the way Gaarder models that here through Sophie, the way she mixes credulity with scepticism, patience and open-mindedness with the kneejerk opinionated attitude common to most of us (and especially so among teens, natch).
I’ve never really been one for small talk. I understand its usefulness and that it is hella weird to start asking strangers intensely personal questions. Yet, there are also impersonal questions that can nevertheless be very deep. These are the conversations I like to have. I like to ask questions that make people think. I like when my friends and I are talking, and they think they have a line of thought worked out towards a strong conclusion, until I ask a question—and they pause. And reconsider. And I love when my friends do that to me.
Sometimes it’s lonely up in here. Without getting too solipsistic, we are all, all of us, somewhat alone in our brains. Philosophy is one of the few ways we can touch other human minds, because it is an exercise that requires us to be our most human selves. When I’m having a conversation of a philosophical nature with someone, I feel a little less alone. But you can’t always be with your friends. So I gave this book as a birthday gift. I give birthday books because they require a lot of thought, and I can write in them, and ultimately because they’re like giving pieces of yourself. Sophie’s World is a big piece of myself, I think. It’s a microcosm of how I want to approach the world, how I want to think, to learn, to teach.
So let’s say you acknowledge white privilege exists. (If you don’t, you should back up and maybe read something like So You Want to Talk about Race.) But maybe now you’re wondering how much white privilege actually affects people, particularly when it comes to issues of education and the workplace. That’s what White Privilege: The Myth of a Post-Racial Society tackles. Kalwant Bhopal carefully and in great detail pieces together a picture of how American and British schools, universities, and places of business continue to discriminate in favour of white people. Thanks, NetGalley and Policy Press, for letting me read this eARC.
White Privilege is very much an academic research book, so know that going in. Unlike Ijeoma Oluo’s aforementioned book, this is not really a mainstream publication. That doesn’t mean I think only academics should read it—there’s a lot of interest in here for people outside the academy, particularly teachers and those interested in public policy. However, it is definitely very dry in tone, and Bhopal writes with the considered cadence of someone who really wants to define every term clearly and leave little to doubt. Each chapter is meticulously cited and has extensive endnote references (a good thing, of course). But an evocative read this is not.
Bhopal splits each chapter down the middle and addresses data from both the UK and the US. This is an interesting, informative approach. As a Canadian who has taught in the UK, I found the chapters focusing on UK secondary school education the most interesting. Much of what Bhopal describes dovetails and resonates with my own experience, which I’ll discuss presently. Other facets illuminate parts of my time there or only occurred after I left. In any event, it is clear that both the US and the UK (and Canada, but that’s outside of the scope of this book) have a long way to go in addressing racial inequity in education.
After graduating from my education degree in Canada, I taught in the UK for two years at an academy that primarily served students from a working class socioeconomic background. There was a mixture of white families and families predominantly of an Eastern European background, though there were definitely some Black families as well. While class was a large factor, I think, in the students’ attitudes towards school and their success, racial and ethnic background definitely contributed too. In particular, Bhopal hits the nail on the head when she examines the call to teach “British values” and other, similar movements, and how these replicate patterns of (white) cultural supremacy within the education system.
She’s also accurate when she points out that so many teachers in these systems are white and themselves under-prepared to teach racialized pupils. That was definitely me (I’m white, btw, if my avatar’s terrible fashion sense didn’t give that away). This is an oversight in our teacher education programs, but it’s also an artifact of my white privilege within a larger, white supremacist society. I’m aware of my privilege on an intellectual level, yet I’m also painfully aware I lack tools necessarily to relate to and understand the needs of some of my racialized students. This was the case when I was in the UK, and it is still sometimes the case now that I’m back in Canada and teaching adults, many of whom are First Nations. My toolkit has gotten better (thanks, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood and Indigenous Writes). Still, thinking bigger picture, we need a seismic shift in the ways we prepare and train teachers at a system level.
White Privilege occasionally hints at or navigates around the periphery of the wider issue that the US and UK are still, in many ways, white-supremacist states. It would have been nice to see the book engage with this issue more directly—but perhaps that would verge too far into the polemical; Bhopal appears more interested in making concrete arguments backed up by data. As such, there is little I can disagree with in this book, but there are times when I feel it doesn’t quite go far enough—but maybe that’s just my revolutionary idealism speaking.
I can’t fault this book’s information, organization, or content. This is a strong work of academic writing with excellent details and an ironclad, logical presentation. I wish the writing were less dry. If you can handle this style, you’ll find lots in here about the topic of privilege and its practical consequences for education, among other things. However, this is also a good example of how it takes more than a solid understanding of data and a good thesis to write a great book. White Privilege is illuminating, but it lacks that final touch to really make a book shine.
White Privilege is very much an academic research book, so know that going in. Unlike Ijeoma Oluo’s aforementioned book, this is not really a mainstream publication. That doesn’t mean I think only academics should read it—there’s a lot of interest in here for people outside the academy, particularly teachers and those interested in public policy. However, it is definitely very dry in tone, and Bhopal writes with the considered cadence of someone who really wants to define every term clearly and leave little to doubt. Each chapter is meticulously cited and has extensive endnote references (a good thing, of course). But an evocative read this is not.
Bhopal splits each chapter down the middle and addresses data from both the UK and the US. This is an interesting, informative approach. As a Canadian who has taught in the UK, I found the chapters focusing on UK secondary school education the most interesting. Much of what Bhopal describes dovetails and resonates with my own experience, which I’ll discuss presently. Other facets illuminate parts of my time there or only occurred after I left. In any event, it is clear that both the US and the UK (and Canada, but that’s outside of the scope of this book) have a long way to go in addressing racial inequity in education.
After graduating from my education degree in Canada, I taught in the UK for two years at an academy that primarily served students from a working class socioeconomic background. There was a mixture of white families and families predominantly of an Eastern European background, though there were definitely some Black families as well. While class was a large factor, I think, in the students’ attitudes towards school and their success, racial and ethnic background definitely contributed too. In particular, Bhopal hits the nail on the head when she examines the call to teach “British values” and other, similar movements, and how these replicate patterns of (white) cultural supremacy within the education system.
She’s also accurate when she points out that so many teachers in these systems are white and themselves under-prepared to teach racialized pupils. That was definitely me (I’m white, btw, if my avatar’s terrible fashion sense didn’t give that away). This is an oversight in our teacher education programs, but it’s also an artifact of my white privilege within a larger, white supremacist society. I’m aware of my privilege on an intellectual level, yet I’m also painfully aware I lack tools necessarily to relate to and understand the needs of some of my racialized students. This was the case when I was in the UK, and it is still sometimes the case now that I’m back in Canada and teaching adults, many of whom are First Nations. My toolkit has gotten better (thanks, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood and Indigenous Writes). Still, thinking bigger picture, we need a seismic shift in the ways we prepare and train teachers at a system level.
White Privilege occasionally hints at or navigates around the periphery of the wider issue that the US and UK are still, in many ways, white-supremacist states. It would have been nice to see the book engage with this issue more directly—but perhaps that would verge too far into the polemical; Bhopal appears more interested in making concrete arguments backed up by data. As such, there is little I can disagree with in this book, but there are times when I feel it doesn’t quite go far enough—but maybe that’s just my revolutionary idealism speaking.
I can’t fault this book’s information, organization, or content. This is a strong work of academic writing with excellent details and an ironclad, logical presentation. I wish the writing were less dry. If you can handle this style, you’ll find lots in here about the topic of privilege and its practical consequences for education, among other things. However, this is also a good example of how it takes more than a solid understanding of data and a good thesis to write a great book. White Privilege is illuminating, but it lacks that final touch to really make a book shine.
Time travel: tricky stuff. Meta-fiction: tricky stuff. Combining time travel and meta-fiction? Extremely tricky stuff. Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe aims high by doing just this. I read it at a time when I was precisely in the mood for this kind of timey-wimey, universe-bending confusion of a narrative, so that was a point in its favour. And by and large I think Yu manages to pull it off, though it’s lacking a certain something that might have pushed it to the next level—likeable (or simply less cardboard) protagonist, more clearly defined conflict/antagonist, or more tense worldbuilding—pick one.
Charles Yu is a time travel technician in Minor Universe 31. He lives, sleeps, etc., in a TM-31 (coincidence?) pod thing that lets him travel through time. His job is to rescue people whose time machines have broken down or, more often, intercede when they try to do something stupid like alter their own timeline. All the while, Yu narrates for us his own feelings about his relatively mediocre existence, laments the loss of his father (who kind of invented time travel but then disappeared, like fathers do), and shoots his future self.
That’s when the shit gets weird. See, his future self has a book on him, called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe … and it’s this very book. So there’s a page or three where the book talks about Yu reading that the book talks about Yu reading that the … well, you get it. It’s kind of like that moment in Spaceballs where they check the tape.
I love self-referential stories, provided they do it right. This is a tight rope: too self-referential and the story becomes confusing, circular, and boring; not self-referential enough and it becomes a meaningless, minor gag. Yu walks the tight rope by including the book within the universe of the story, making it a kind of guidebook and part of the mystery that he has to solve before his “time” runs out and his worldline loops back on itself. I read this following on fromSophie’s World , which also does meta-fiction well, but in a very different way.
Similarly, I like how Yu deploys time travel here. Actually, there isn’t that much time travel. It’s just kind of part of the setting. Obviously the main plot wouldn’t exist without it. Beyond that, however, this is a fairly linear story about a guy who shoots his future self, and his quest to find his father.
I think that’s where How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe starts to lose me. The whole conflict of Yu missing his father, wanting to find him again, and reliving memories of the past for our benefit … it’s just a little clichéd at this point. How many more stories about sons feeling like they never measured up to their fathers, wanting to reconcile, needing to find where they’ve hidden/lost themselves within a temporal universe, do we really need?
The same can be said for Yu himself, as a narrator and protagonist. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, but he isn’t exactly likeable either. He’s just your average sort of everydude protagonist of any nerdish comedy: can’t get a “real” woman so falls in love with his feminine computer instead, resigned to a life of mediocrity because he can’t be bothered to do anything else, etc. As with the father–son plot, it’s not that his is poorly done, just an example of a larger trope that is overdone.
So I’m left with a book that I enjoyed reading but whose contents are not, in my opinion, all that stellar. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe has its fun moments; it’s just that unlike Charles Yu’s own narrative, the story itself never escapes the boundaries of its own tropes to blossom into its own, intriguing universe. This was a nice enough pit stop in between a very dry, academic book and an Animorphs read, but it’s not something I’m going to be remembering for a long time.
Charles Yu is a time travel technician in Minor Universe 31. He lives, sleeps, etc., in a TM-31 (coincidence?) pod thing that lets him travel through time. His job is to rescue people whose time machines have broken down or, more often, intercede when they try to do something stupid like alter their own timeline. All the while, Yu narrates for us his own feelings about his relatively mediocre existence, laments the loss of his father (who kind of invented time travel but then disappeared, like fathers do), and shoots his future self.
That’s when the shit gets weird. See, his future self has a book on him, called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe … and it’s this very book. So there’s a page or three where the book talks about Yu reading that the book talks about Yu reading that the … well, you get it. It’s kind of like that moment in Spaceballs where they check the tape.
I love self-referential stories, provided they do it right. This is a tight rope: too self-referential and the story becomes confusing, circular, and boring; not self-referential enough and it becomes a meaningless, minor gag. Yu walks the tight rope by including the book within the universe of the story, making it a kind of guidebook and part of the mystery that he has to solve before his “time” runs out and his worldline loops back on itself. I read this following on from
Similarly, I like how Yu deploys time travel here. Actually, there isn’t that much time travel. It’s just kind of part of the setting. Obviously the main plot wouldn’t exist without it. Beyond that, however, this is a fairly linear story about a guy who shoots his future self, and his quest to find his father.
I think that’s where How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe starts to lose me. The whole conflict of Yu missing his father, wanting to find him again, and reliving memories of the past for our benefit … it’s just a little clichéd at this point. How many more stories about sons feeling like they never measured up to their fathers, wanting to reconcile, needing to find where they’ve hidden/lost themselves within a temporal universe, do we really need?
The same can be said for Yu himself, as a narrator and protagonist. It’s not that he’s a bad guy, but he isn’t exactly likeable either. He’s just your average sort of everydude protagonist of any nerdish comedy: can’t get a “real” woman so falls in love with his feminine computer instead, resigned to a life of mediocrity because he can’t be bothered to do anything else, etc. As with the father–son plot, it’s not that his is poorly done, just an example of a larger trope that is overdone.
So I’m left with a book that I enjoyed reading but whose contents are not, in my opinion, all that stellar. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe has its fun moments; it’s just that unlike Charles Yu’s own narrative, the story itself never escapes the boundaries of its own tropes to blossom into its own, intriguing universe. This was a nice enough pit stop in between a very dry, academic book and an Animorphs read, but it’s not something I’m going to be remembering for a long time.