The Locked Tomb series: 3 volumes (and counting) of unreliable narrators, necromancy, and not quite knowing why I like this series as much as I do

The first book Gideon the Ninth is basically a mystery puzzle video game full of necromancy and POV characters being terrible to each other because they have been so traumatized that they don't quite know how NOT to be terrible to each other.  None of these things should appeal to me.  But I got a huge kick out of this snarky, quirky book even as it killed off basically everyone, including the people I liked.  It was hilarious and ridiculous (in addition to being gross).

The sequel Harrow the Ninth was harder to like (just like Harrow).  I mean, there are unreliable narrators and then there are guilt-ridden and unlikeable narrators who arrange destructive brain surgery for themselves to make themselves even MORE unreliable before the beginning in a book full of even more gross necromancy and characters I don't like, and my time with my preferred narrator was limited.  How do you solve a bunch of mysteries when you've sort of foxed the brain of the person you most spend time in?  And how can this super complicated and sad set of situations be resolves?  Well . . . 

The third book Nona the Ninth was just a delightful breath of fresh air for the most part.  This unreliable narrator had complete memory loss and could have been one of two people and had a bafflingly endearing personality.  The book once again had the sort of end that upends everything that came before it and had the sort of end reveal that required me to read it again immediately after finishing it the first time.  There was very little gross necromancy.  The point of view character was a sweetheart.  The memory loss trope was complicated further by the whole souls and bodies in different combinations.  

I am waiting for the next book to see what curveballs come our way and if certain characters that aren't quite dead do better in any way.

Audiobook Narrator Stalking Euan Morton on Free Library Apps

I'm kind of narrator stalking Euan Morton right now.  I first heard him in Jim Butcher's swashbuckling sci-fi The Aeronaut's Windlass, and he was fantastic.  He has this swoon-worthy baritone hero voice he uses for Benedict . . .  Then I found out he'd narrated a couple of Guy Gavriel Kay's historic fantasy books, one of which involved Troubadours (Song for Arbonne), and by I was hopelessly voice crushing.  He seems to have a tremendous amount of fun and talent, and his voices are generally distinct enough to recognize clearly. 

More recent listens were completely different.  They were comedies by Christopher Moore, and they were incredibly bawdy and full of inappropriate (and sometimes hilarious) humor. The first (Fool) was like an offstage comedy version of King Lear.  Moore made it work, really.  It's fascinating to see how he can twist things that didn't happen onstage until he has an extremely R-rated version that is not a tragedy (for the Fool, anyway) and ends up matching exactly.  I might actually finally read King Lear now that I will have this story happening in the background . . .   

For Moore next trick, he crashes the Fool character into The Serpent of Venice, a mashup of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and a somewhat random short story that must have involved a sea serpent who (in this version) eats a number of the characters in the two Shakespeare plays that really should have been eaten in the originals but were not.  As that last sentence indicates, he did NOT adhere to the actual play this time.  Morton's best voices in this one (aside from the Fool) are the villainous Iago and the heroic but dumb Othello. The afterward about how Moore crammed it all together was fun, too.  And I apologize to the older lady at the physical therapy pool while I was listening to this one.  I suspect you think I am insane.  I hope you noticed the earpiece and didn't just think I was barking with random laughter.  A lot.  I think my favorite part was when Morton was playing Portia (a rich young lady) pretending to be an adolescent boy genius lawyer.  The Quality of Mercy speech is a totally different experience when the actor's voice keeps cracking HORRIBLY at the most serious parts.

After that, I decided to give a listen to Carry On, a YA novel by Rainbow Rowell.  It is, lets be honest, a Harry Potter x Draco Malfoy fanfiction, but do NOT let its derivative nature make you think it's not worth your time.  The final product is a completely different world and characters distinct enough to work for your Harry and Draco needs (if you had them) while still being their own strong characters.  The things this book says about loneliness, self-loathing, and feeling monstrous when we are teenagers/young adults are important and well done.  Harry Simon is a totally believable dork.  The mage is charismatic through voice alone.   Also, Draco Baz has this amazing baritone voice that goes from sneering to vulnerable with complete believability.  You want to give him a hug and hit Harry Simon on the head with a rolled up newspaper when he's an insensitive clod, even as you agonize about how sort-of evil he is (just not in the ways he hates himself for being evil).

Basically, if I ever write a book, and someone wants to make it an audiobook, I will want Euan Morton to read it.

Cleaning with Murderbot (kids, definitely try this at home, but only when the kids aren't home or if you're using an earpiece, so they can't hear it)

Do you know what makes cleaning more fun bearable: Cleaning with Murderbot!  The audiobooks of Martha Wells' splendid series of Murderbot novellas are fantastic.  Kevin R. Free is crabby, frustrated, annoyed, irritated, and obsessed in such a way that I almost can't imagine how reading the text myself could possibly be as much fun as listening to him as he brings this character and its world to life.

When I realized that part 3 had come out, I was excited.  And then I saw that part 4 was the "conclusion" and had also come out. ALL OF THEM WERE AVAILABLE THROUGH MY LIBRARY SYSTEMS.  I may have listened to them all.  Twice.  In a row.  Oh, Murderbot, ART, Miki, and assorted annoying humans, it was wonderful to listen to you while I cleaned and did laundry and dishes and came up with as many excuses as I could find to keep listening (and laughing and wincing and wanting to give Murderbot a hug, even though that would totally freak it out).

Murderbot is a construct, a SecUnit (security unit) created of organic, cloned human parts (including a face) and inorganic computer/mechanical parts (most of its brain, I think).  Most areas of the inhabited universe consider them robot tools; they are not considered sentient beings capable of self-determination, and they are strictly controlled by corporations that own and deploy them to places where human security would cost more and be less effective.  They get nearly destroyed a lot.  It hurts, even when you can control your pain receptors to some extent.  These units all have a failsafe installed to prevent them from running amok and destroying everything around them. The failsafe monitors all their actions and can override their self-control.

Murderbot does not have a functioning failsafe; it hacked its Governor Module after something went wrong and Murderbot killed a bunch of people.  (It wasn't held responsible for its actions, of course, because it is considered a tool.)  That is also when it started to refer to itself as Murderbot.  Now that it has its freedom of conscience, control of its actions, and a lot of experience and scary strength it could wreak an awful lot of havoc.  What it actually does is hide from (and complain about) its annoying human clients as much as possible, try to fill in the gaps in its patheticly inadequate, corporate security module education, and binge-watch TV/media every spare second.  And give some powerful (and frequently hilariously aggravated) commentary on what it means to be human and / or a person.  And sometimes accidentally-kind-of-on-purpose go on murderous rampages to save dumb people. 

Murderbot is not interested in becoming a human (humans are pretty dumb, for the most part) or even more human (its revulsion when a helpful AI offers to give it functioning sexual organs is thought-provoking on a number of levels and also pretty stinkin' funny).  But all the humans seem to assume that's what everything wants.  Pretending to be human and fitting in better with humans gives it more freedom, though (and about 800x the stress and aggravation), so it goes back and forth a lot on the topic.

I LOVE ME SOME MURDERBOT. 

Best of all?  There's a novel coming out next year.  I hope they get Kevin R. Free to narrate it.  Except then I will have to go on a 16-hour cleaning binge, and I think that would be a terrible idea.  Maybe if it comes out in the spring . . .

Miles wins

I've been in a bad mood for a while now. I'm crabby enough from pain-related clumsiness, sleeplessness, and frustration that I can't even like books I don't want to read because they are by authors I like but not in the series I want a new book in. (I promise that totally makes sense.) I was afraid my discontent would stretch even to books I love, but I am happy to say Miles is still Miles. 

My genuine enjoyment of Vor Game actually puzzles me because, when I'm like this, I hate reading nonfiction books about people who have it worse than me and succeed and are truly inspiring because they make me feel like an even bigger failure. But Miles? Crippled worse than me and a huge success? Love it.

Science Fiction is transformative in a less threatening way? Sure. Anyway, I'm glad. Now I'm going back to Kyril Island while I exercise. Forensic plumming. Snort.

Dykstra's War

Dykstra's War by Kooistra: This was a solid, (mostly) standalone sci-fi novel.  Like a lot of old sci fi, the ideas carry the day (not so much the plot or execution).  There were some guns hanging on the walls unused at the end, making it seem like the author might have written (or intended to write) a third part.  Which I would totally read if it exists because I really want to know what happened to . . .

Well, anyway, the main protagonist is an aged genius physicist enjoying his retirement but a bit bored when some aliens decide to attack, and the government finds that none of their folks can get the job done.  They've been ignoring Dykstra, thinking him over the hill and worthless, but he's still got some life (and a lot of brainpower) in him, and he gets deeply involved.  There are a decent number of characters, most of them very likeable and none of them with names like Smith or Jones.  I kind of appreciated that a lot.  It was done so effortlessly and practically.  I also liked how a lot of the conflict arose from plain old miscommunication.

One of the pleasant surprises of the book was the way that some of the characters were just allowed to be Christians, and that was treated as a natural part of their characters.  (Some Evangelicals might actually take offense because these are mostly Mainline Protestants/Catholics.)  There's not a lot of this room-for-God-and-people-who-believe-in-Him-in sci-fi nowadays, which I find sad.  This is not any kind of theology book.  It's not C.S. Lewis' Space trilogy or Ender's Shadow.  It's just a world where people of faith can do science and muse about the implications as they try to figure out how to save the world from an alien species they simply can't communicate with.

New books I am drooling over this fall

What's coming up this fall that makes me want to curl up in a ball and read all day?  So many things!  But these two sort of eclipse anything else.

• Cold Days by Jim Butcher: Oh, Harry.  He was kind of dead in the last one, but now that he's not dead anymore, things get even worse.  Making a deal with a fae is not a good idea, but, honestly?  Harry didn't have any other choice if he wanted to save people he loved.  He tried his best to wiggle out of it, but, well, the fae can be pretty determined.  I don't know if he'll manage to wriggle out of this one in this book or a future one, but I am signed up with bated breath to watch how he tries.
• Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold: I have grown to appreciate Ivan somewhat more in my mellow old age, but he still drives me a bit crazy.  I have no idea what kind of company he'll be on a novel-length outing, but he did all right in his part in A Civil Campaign.  And, honestly?  Who wouldn't want to see the big lout finally really fall in love and maybe actually settle down just like his mother always wanted.  (Kicking and screaming and whining the whole heroic way, I've no doubt, and I can't wait to find out.)

Others that look interesting:

• The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson: He can pull off series work, spin offs, stand-alones, and other people's series.  And it has a cool cover that makes me think of Guy Gavriel Kay for some reason.
• The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks: I am being SO GOOD and not starting series that aren't finished yet.  It huuuuuuuuurts.
• Son by Lois Lowry: How does she get away with writing about these subjects?  Whoa.  This is another book set in the same world as The Giver, and the setup is even more brutal, so bring along your tissues.
• The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams: His War of the Flowers was awesome, and I've no doubt that this will be engaging (and happily theologically incorrect), as well, but it's a series, so it's on the backburner for now.

Anything freshly out or on its way in the next few months that you're looking forward to reading?

Keep flying, Yukikaze

I am stalled out reading Good Luck, Yukikaze, a collection of science fiction short stories as dark, tense, and talky as the first.  The problem is that I don't want it to end, especially since I know the third and final collection is preeeeetttttyy likely to never be licensed for English distribution.  Sad.

Anyway, I really like these stories, even though they are best read while sitting in a sunny place with birds tweeting and the sounds of happy children playing in the background to stave off the paranoia and depression.  I realize this probably does not sound terribly appealing, but it's meant to be an endorsement.  Really.

I love this stuff.  I loved the confusing, dark anime full of dark, silent soldiers, creepy aliens, aerial dogfights, and questions about the nature of humanity and its interactions with machines.  I loved the first book, and I loved its afterward. 

I sort of inhaled most of this one, too, even as the formerly silent and antisocial protagonist started to develop more humanity, but then, when I saw the end was near, I just . . . couldn't go on.  I need to finish soon, though, before I start losing all the threads of the plot.  Maybe this one will come to a decent close like the first one.  That's what I will tell myself. 

Two chapters and counting.  Tension mounting.  Must push through the pain . . . : )

Glad not to be a redshirt

John Scalzi cracks me up on his blog Whatever, frequently.  His newest novel Redshirts had the same effect.  I'm not sure if I should call it a satire, but it's more than a parody.  It's definitely a darkly comic work built around what would happen if the poor red-uniformed schmucks who died with idiocy and frequency on the original Star Trek series realized that something was screwy and tried to do something about it.  As someone who has never seen all of the original Star Trek series (or any of it recently), I wondered if it would be something I would be able to enjoy.  I've read quite a bit of science fiction and have liked the other Scalzi novels I've read (and have resonated with his sense of humor), so I figured I was in safe hands.  I was.

One of my favorite things about the Scalziverses is that John Scalzi leaves room for God in his books.  He is not a believer (he has spoken at length and very well about these topics on his blog), but he doesn't think all faith and religion will go away in the super-advanced, all-science worlds of the future, and he doesn't think or write as if all people who believe in God are stupid.  I appreciate this because his politeness on the topic is not universal in speculative fiction these days.  In fact, it seems kind of rare for authors to leave any room for God or faith in their books.  More frequently, I see anti-theism and bitterness or nihilism or science explains it all and no room or time for any higher power's existence even to be speculated about worlds.  I much prefer ones where I can feel un-hated  and not completely marginalized as a person of faith.

Pretty much everything I could say about the story itself would be a spoiler.  This is unfortunate.  If you go to his blog, he has some links to reviews (with cautions about the ones with spoilers).  You'll figure out if you're likely to enjoy his sense of humor based on posts like this one in which he says, "As part of my continuing mission to remind authors and other creative people that there is nothing they will ever create that will be universally loved, here are some choice comments from one-star reviews of Redshirts, my current, fastest-selling and in many ways most enthusiastically received book."

And if he's not your cup of tea, he wants you to know that's okay.  You don't have to read his books if you don't resonate with his sense of humor.  ". . . why would you do that to yourself? Life is often unpleasant enough without choosing to fill your recreational hours pursuing a book from an author with whom ample previous readings have shown you have little rapport."

Anyway, after reading this book, I found myself happy that when our division got matching red polo shirts last year, our secretary short ordered and gave mine to someone else while I was on vacation.  There are many days when someone in the department is wearing theirs.  Since I read this book, whenever I see someone wearing one, it makes me snicker.  Thanks, Mr. Scalzi.  Now I know whey the engineers asked for orange.  Must not have been any geeks on the color-choice selection committee for our division . . .

So when's the TV show going into production?

Another book I'll have to read (with pleasure)

I read this quote and thought of my earlier post about fans and their potentially vicious hatred of movie adaptations of books they loved.  This person says it way better.

There was that miniscule chance you’d get it oh-so-very-wrong and then I’d have to become all nerd rage-y and rip the book apart, because that is something unfortunate we fans have a habit of doing. We love these things so much, when we feel they are not being treated with the respect they deserve, we tend to become irrational jackasses in an effort to protect whatever it is we love. - Source: Geeky Pleasures

Yes, that's it exactly.  Sounds like maybe John Scalzi's Redshirts (an apparently loving and very competent send-up of those poor guys who die inevitably pretty much every episode in the original Star Trek TV series) manages to avoid this problem of inciting nerd rage and irrational jackassery.  Sigh, now there's another book I have to read even though I don't think I've ever seen the original Star Trek series in its entirety.  (Note that this is one of Mr. Scalzi's comic novels, like Android's Dream, not one of his uber-serious military sci-fi epics.)

See the movie, then read the book

My awful book memory (I read for pleasure and then almost immediately forget almost everything) usually makes it okay for me a see a movie if it's been a couple years since I read the book, but I found myself kicked out of the Harry Potter movies sometimes wondering, "Did this happen in the book?" or "Did this happen differently in the book?"  Recently, I've decided not to read a book immediately if I know a movie is coming out.  I'll see the movie and then later read the book; that way I'm more likely to enjoy both.

For the Hunger Games, I was waiting for the whole series to come out, and then they announced the movie, so I put off reading it, and it seems like a good decision on my part in some ways.  I was able to see the movie as its own, real story, and I thought it did a good job of being coherent if abbreviated and making me want to go read the book to fill in the details.

It also made me kind of sick because I can't handle graphic violence, so I may just switch to the books.  That way I won't have to wait as long to find out what happens in the end, too.  On the other hand, there was some amazing acting in the movies, and if I read the books, I'll find scenes I really want to see in a movie and be disappointed . . .

Tough choices.  If the Hunger Games is on your horizon, how are you handling this?

What's your score on NPRs top 100 sf/f books?

.
Neil Gaiman says it's not the best flowchart ever, but it is so very, very close.

What's your score out of 100?  What are your favorites that made it on the list?  Any you were surprised to see there?  Any you want to read but haven't gotten to yet?
.

When the storyline diverges

Did you ever read Dune by Frank Herbert?  It's kind of a sci-fi classic, but I never finished it.  I got stuck in the part where the main character started to see all these diverging futures, and it made him a little insane.  I can kind of understand that because I'm dealing with no more than three, and it's wearing me out.

In one most likely future, I stay here with my current job but purchase a decent condo or townhome to move into when my lease expires this summer.  (Other variations involve extending my lease 3-6 months and going after the perfect short sale home and possibly getting a roommate or subletting from someone else/moving in as someone else's roommate while looking for that short sale home, thus necessitating two moves in the space of a year, which is . . . problematic.)

In the other future, I get a job elsewhere, and I have to purchase a condo or townhome in another state to move into this summer at the same time as I start the new job.  House hunting from afar is . . . difficult.

The timing is bad/good because I think I'll likely end up moving at the same time either way, so there will definitely be packing, and I can get a head start on that.  See?  I can be positive!

The closer I get to the divergence, the more I feel like I'm living two lives.  I have to put all my eggs in both baskets because there will be serious repercussions and difficulties if I neglect one or the other.  I thought I was having enough trouble trying to fully commit to one life.

Well, Paul (if that was your name) I think with your tons of future vision diverging paths, you were entitled to a little bit of insanity.

I watched Firefly

It's not like I waited 10 years.  Only 9.

I liked it.  I like ensemble casts and mysterious pasts and space cowboys and space pirates.  I love good music (and this show had some outstanding music).

With its themes of hardship, personal freedom and responsibility, frontier, and family, Firefly had a lot going for it.  It reminded me of a lot of things.  It wasn't really like any of those things, but there were some similarities.

• Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy: I'm not totally sure why this one.  Maybe it was the world/universe?
• Outlaw Star and Black Lagoon: Blond, Hawaiian-shirt wearing  pilots, mysterious girls in boxes, fish out of water, running from the powers that be, women fighters who could kill you with their pinkies, bounty hunters, space courtesans, and more.
• Cowboy Bebop: It had a bit of that scruffy, rough-and-tumble, mercenary, dark past, ragtag crew of misfits vibe.

It wasn't all great, though.  There were some very wooden acting moments, occasional continuity issues, and big, honking plot holes that yanked me out of otherwise good stories. 

To be fair:

• This is a huge, sprawling story, and they had to build the world from the ground up.  I would guess that their percentage of continuity errors was lower than most shows; it was just more noticeable because of the sheer volume of things that had to be created and could thus be messed up.  
• Also, sci-fi shows always have wooden acting moments.  Sometimes, due to script revisions (or last minute scripts), things don't make enough sense for the actors to spin them right.  These kinds of errors are particularly obvious when everything else is crafted and pulls together (in post-production and editing).  These errors must be forgiven because, dudes, this is a weekly show.  Can you imagine doing all this stuff in that short of a time period?  Really?  When you're building a future world from ground zero?
• Even though they must be forgiven for the above reasons, the plot holes were the worst distraction for me.  There was one episode that could have been amazing had one gaping plot hole been smoothed over.  Because it wasn't, the end was dramatic but ridiculous and totally preventable, and thus I couldn't really feel as bad about it as I was supposed to.

I'm pretty bummed it got cancelled.  Its cancellation seemed partly like a self-fulfilling prophecy made by network folks who "wanted a Joss Whedon show" but didn't really, you know, want a show created and controlled by Joss Whedon.  Playing it out of its intended order and making stupid demands that alienated casual fans were probably not smart choices made by the network.  The people who suffer are the actual fans and the people who loved and created the show, and that seems a shame.  I bet the executives are still making money off the more than decent DVD sales.  They could have made more, I'd bet, if they'd just believed in the project and its creators.  Alas.

On to the movie, eventually.  I'll like that, too, and then it will be more of a bummer that the show didn't get to last 2 or 3 seasons.  In the presentNow fans own the internet even more, and I think if the show were to happen now, the fans would've been able to save it for at least a whole season or two.  It worked with Chuck, right?

When did you first see this show?  What did you think then?  Seen it recently?  What are your thoughts on it now?

Oh, those silly writers

I got a kick out of this post that shows that some science fiction and fantasy writers can seem just as embarrassed about reading poetry as many "literary writers" seem about reading fantasy and sci-fi.  A lot of people miss out on a lot of good books due to snobbery, in my opinion.  "Art is a powerful inspiration for more art."  And some speculative fiction is art.  Preach it!


I'm omnivorous, so I like it all and think that people should just read what they like without caring what category or genre it's in.  It's fine to like Charles Wright and Charles Stross and Charles Baxter.  Be proud of it!

I want to read Kay in the worst way.  Unfortunately, I suspect he shall be one of those authors I then have to read the whole back catalog of immediately, and I have way more temptations than I have time for right now.  He's high on my list!  Anybody read any of his mouth-watering books?  Have any suggestions for good ones to start with?

On Never Let Me Go

I finally read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro recently, and now I find out they made it into a movie.  I have some mixed feelings about that. 

I saw an ad for the limited release, independent film while flipping through someone's City Pages at a corporate outing to, of all places, a local beer brewery.  I was somewhat stunned (not just by the beer fumes); I would not have thought of the book as one that would translate well into film.  It would be difficult to get that sustained sense of low key creeping horror/dread going without the narrator's voice in the book, and it was all so unhurriedly told with such detached melancholy.  Then again, one of my biggest problems with the book is that I didn't like the narrator/POV character, so maybe being out of her head would be better.  You see, she's what we're all told in writing is the cardinal sin for a POV character: someone who is almost totally passive.  (That's not really why I disliked her; I'm totally fine with passive POV characters who don't go along with the flow to gain the approval of someone who encourages them to do wrong, whose opinion shouldn't matter, and who abuses her power.  I'm fine with passive characters who THINK.  Then again, this whole story construct wouldn't have worked its atmosphere without such an unthinking character in the lead . . .)

One of the things the book did well that I could see a movie possibly doing better is leaving a lot up to the audience.  Since it's an independent film, I'd like to believe that's more likely.  Nowadays, cheesy acting to show that something bad is going on is probably less likely, and melodramatic or annoying music or sound cues would be less likely, as well.  And I would love to hear the song that gives the story its name because it's described so beautifully in the book.

Upon seeing the ad, I wondered if they changed the ending.  The book's ending is just not cinematic at all unless you like your resolution long and sad and, honestly, unresolved.  Brilliant, don't get me wrong, but I could see actual speculative fiction fans crying foul because so much of the mechanics of the world are just never even acknowledged.  Anyway, I'm not sure I'll see the movie because it's rated R because it sounds like the movie decided not to be as subtle and elegant about the sex as the book was, and that's a shame.  This work didn't need to show any explicit sex because it was more about connections and disconnections of a different kind.

I'm always nervous when a subtle, slow-burn sort of speculative fiction story gets turned into a movie because the subtleties tend to get blunted, and things get said and summarized and compacted all out of their original beautiful shape. 

MaryAnn Johanson: "[C]om[es] at its horrors gently, almost idyllically... This is science fiction of a keen but subtle sort... so gorgeously delicate and lovely a film that it’s almost impossible to convey how (appropriately) horrific it is..."

Roger Moore: "Lovely and melancholy, poignant and chilling, Never Let Me Go is an old school sci-fi dystopia with lovely, wistful performances that never quite overcome the fatalism that hangs over the whole affair."

The reviews are decidedly mixed on whether that's the case.  For some people, it sounds like the experience of book translated well to film.  Eric Melin said, "Like great science fiction should, it serves as an allegory and inspires some deep thinking about the world we live in now."  I totally agree.  Tom Long called "Oddly cold and detached" what Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle called "superbly crafted, shot with the self-contained radiance of a snow globe."  I think they both caught the same thing there but judged and reacted to it differently.   The TomatoMeter summary seems apt, too.  "With Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek has delivered a graceful adaptation that captures the spirit of the Ishiguro novel -- which will be precisely the problem for some viewers."

Biancolli's pull quote at Rotten Tomatoes was pretty excellent in summing up both my experience of the book and her experience of the movie.   "Never Let Me Go is gorgeous. And depressing. It's exquisitely acted. And depressing. It's romantic, profound and superbly crafted, shot with the self-contained radiance of a snow globe. And it's depressing."

(Which is a recommendation for those who like their literature to make them think.)

Anybody seen it?  Read it?  Any opinions either way?

Protecting/Defending Innocence

There's a fun discussion about one of my favorite series going on right now, and in this one, several people brought up something that was bothering them: one character seems to be going out of his way to protect the other character's innocence, even to the extent of not wanting the poor kid to learn how to protect himself (by hurting/maiming/killing other people).  This seems very two-dimensional to the readers, like it's turning the protected into some sort of lesser person.

(NOTE: The referenced discussion only covers up to the first third of the work in question; I've read the whole thing, which might color some of what I think.  Also, if you're a Princess Bride fan, you should definitely check out the rather hilarious references that pop up in the discussion, especially if you've read Banana Fish.)

It's true I'm pretty generous with characters.  I work hard so authors don't have to.  It is very difficult to make me believe your characer is two-dimensional; I will do all sorts of extra work in the background to flesh out that character unless you go above and beyond. That said, I don't really think this character is two-dimensional at all.  Out of his depth?  Totally.  Frustrated and helpless and conflicted and protected?  Yeah.  Unrealistically simple?  Not really.

One of the ideas I was getting from the discussion is one that I've encountered before, the one that says it's wrong to protect someone because it's the same as reducing them somehow.  I think that idea comes from the way we protect children from as much reality as we can.  Kids hate that as they grow older; it makes them mad.  I think that anger's still sort of fresh in the minds of disillusioned young adults, especially ones who were raised by people who denied them reality and the chance to face it in a more controlled environment.  I don't think that every attempt to protect someone else's innocence is necessarily like saying you think they're a child.

I'm totally willing to buy that one young adult male might really respect and cherish another young adult male's relative innocence without that reducing the one being cherished and protected.  And of course there's a risk of transforming the one you cherish into an object on a pedestal, a thing that must be protected rather than a person, but I don't feel like that's really happening in this story.

[ASIDE: There's another character who is really irritated by that same character's innocence at least partly because it represents everything he never had (peace, a loving family, a life of relative ease, etc.).  I suppose you could say he's two-dimensional because you can infer all that quite easily (more because the author is skilled than because it's blatantly spelled out).  I don't think that being able to figure out part of what motivates someone renders them less-complex, whether they are fictional or non-fictional.]

Another more recent pop-culture example I've been considering is from the TV show Chuck.  Chuck ends up with a head full of government secrets and all kinds of danger his nearly-completed engineering degree and several years in retail hell have really not prepared him for.  He is kind of goofy and adorable, and he has a huge heart and is a good guy.  People like him, even spies.  They like his innocence and his willingness to trust and his desire to do the right thing.  And they don't want him to change.  They are there to protect him from the bad guys, but at least one of them is also interested in protecting him from becoming just another spy.  And one of the bad guys is even very concerned that he'll turn into just another jaded public servant putting his rights and freedom on the line every day to protect the rights and freedoms of others.

(Apparently, in season three when he comes into some special skills, he starts acting like just another spy.  The more cognizant viewers saw what the writers were trying to do; the less-cognizant just got mad because Chuck wasn't good-ole' sit-com Chuck anymore.  And while the show has always had a healthy lot of comedy, it's never been a sit-com because the characters are in flux and changing as they go, you know, like people.  People don't always make the right choices; sometimes they choose very poorly, and we have to watch them live with the consequences (and often share those consequences with us).  That doesn't make them less realistic.  Perhaps it makes them more realistic and thus less funny.  :)  And we wouldn't want any reality in our science fiction because it's all just supposed to be brainless genre-fluff anyway, right?  Riiiiiight . . . )

Anyway, do you have any thoughts on protecting someone's innocence and/or what makes a character two-dimensional for you?

Loving the fallen sparrow

We're back from the dead and ready to roll.  Thank you for your concern about my dead computer and lack of internet access for, er, too long.  My lack of access to the net (and several delayed and canceled flights) meant I read a great book lately, and I wanted to tell you about it while I am still gobsmacked.

READER GEEKING OUT

I loved the characters.  I loved the plot.  I loved this book.  It made me cry so much that my nose peeled from tissue over-use, and I had to do all kinds of wonky things to prevent my awkwardly peeling nose from being what people at my new job remembered about me henceforth. 

This is a difficult and beautiful story.  The characters are lovable and believable and painfully awkward and broken in so many different, normal ways, and that's why this book may break your heart.  It's challenging and moving and heartbreaking and harrowing and full of fragile happiness and despair and death and sadness and tragedy and seeking and surviving and not-finding and truth and grace and faith and hope and love in so many forms.  I can't give you details because it must be read to be understood. 


WRITER GEEKING OUT

No plot summary could possibly do it justice.  Such summaries only serve to cheapen it (as I have proven by trying and getting less-than enthusiastic reactions.  This is a tight book, a finely crafted piece of speculative fiction no "literary fiction" reader should feel ashamed of reading.  World and plot and characters are melded to each other.

The parallel narrative structure is pulled off wonderfully.  I've read other books that try to be this good at a parallel story, and I ended up feeling jerked back and forth, always in the middle of things, as if constantly being in media res is a good thing.  No thank you; I don't appreciate the whiplash.  There is no whiplash here, just elegant execution.

Great balance of new information, great use of point of view to control what is withheld and what we learn and what the characters learn without making the readers feel like the writer is toying with or torturing them.  It's all remarkably organic.  We are on a journey with the main character in the present, and we are reliving the past with him.  We are restricted, but it doesn't feel manipulative because it rises from the story itself and the way it is being told.

It deals extensively with ideas and themes I wish more people would think about (good and evil, maturity, change, celibacy, society, community, mistakes, hindsight, judgment [without facts or love], respect, kindness, tenderness, love and friendship, dignity, fate, good intentions, God, sin, nature, and some other things).  This is a smart book with smart characters, and you will think whether you plan to or not.  Also, regard the calm foreshadowing with awe and dread.

The paperback version I read had some extras at the end, including author insights, and I was blown away by Russell's comments about how we look back at the past and judge harshly, as if we are better people now who would not do these things, as if we are not still the same human beings who make the same mistakes ad nauseum, as if we have the right to judge based on our imperfect information and the twisting of facts and historical records.  If you have any smugness in you, it might be beaten out of you by the end.  Read the book before you read the extra bits because it's kind of like being punched (in a thought-provoking way) if you read it in the context of the whole story.

AND FINALLY

One of the most amazing things about the book is that when you come to the end of the story, having been pummelled and rung out and smashed, somehow there is hope.  This is a miracle.  Don't miss it.

If you've read The Sparrow, feel free to gush or just talk about it or recommend other books people might like.  It's vaguely similar to but clearly better than Out of the Silent Planet and is somewhat redolent of Madeleine L'Engle to me (criticisms I've seen of this work and some of her thinkier works are very similar, and I couldn't help but connect this with The Arm of the Starfish for the sparrow quotes alone).

I'm sorry I waited so long to read this for the first time.  Feel free not to repeat my mistake.

A Confession

I have a confession to make.  I have not seen an entire season or series or, really, anything by Joss Whedon.  This makes me want to. 

Are you already a fan?  On the fence about whether to take the plunge into his world?  Anti-Whedon?  Why?

Sci Fi and Memory

One of the things I love about science fiction is the way it can explore things like human memory from an outsider's perspective.  Heading off to the imaginary future and throwing in some robots or something is still a viable way to make us consider the value and nature of our own humanity in the present.

One series I read lately has androids who only remember the last 22 years of their lives.  Sometimes, there are memories they want to keep, and their torment as that 22 year deadline approaches got me thinking.  As a writer, would I want that kind of clear and detailed memory completely accessible to me for 22 years and then irretrievably gone, or would I rather have my increasingly spotty memories that come and go seemingly as they please, unbound by time?

Another series (recently named one of Publisher's Weekly's top comics of the year) deals with the consequences of creating artificial intelligence in our image, making rules to protect them and us, and then breaking them.  What happens when we try to forcibly remove memories?  Would it be better if we could get rid of the memories that haunt us?  Or is dealing with them part of what makes us human?

Ah, speculative fiction.  The older I get, the more fully I appreciate questions like these as my stock of memories I wish I could retrieve and destroy grows.  :)


How about you?  Any good science fiction that got you thinking about the nature of memory?  Any thoughts on what you wish you could do if you could control your memories?

Another Reason to Love John Scalzi

This is classic.   Be sure to read down to his paraphrase of the letter in question.

My favorite line:

"So, despite the fact that you’ve made science fiction a foundational part of your life, follow and support the genre, and are grown-up, accomplished people who are on average both smarter and better read than the average Joe, you are somewhat full of FAIL."

I wish The Vorkosigan Companion had won the Hugo for Best Related Book, but I am obviously completely biased, so congrats to Scalzi for taking that trophy for 10 years of "Taunting the Tauntable" in Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008.