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 . . .

Traveling to the Twelve Kingdoms

I am in awe of the world building in The Twelve Kingdoms series. Not only does it have ridiculously off the wall ideas, but it pursues them to logical extremes and often leaves me wondering, "Would that actually work in the real world?"

In this world, babies grow on trees. Yeah, you read that right. Sounds silly and whimsical, right? Well, it's actually pretty intriguing. A married couple goes to pray on a specific day and wraps their prayer on a branch of the tree. If the heavens deem them capable of being good parents, a child grows for a year on that branch, and then, when it's ripe, they whack it with a rock to crack the eggfruit shell, and the baby is born. Because it's so hard to get a child, children are quite highly valued.

Think of the sociological implications! Women don't spend months increasingly incapacitated; they don't breastfeed. Either parent can serve as primary caretaker, but mostly the responsibility is shared. Both parents can work on the farm or serve in the government. Wild, right?

And then there's the way that the society is set up. Until age 20, children are taken care of and taught how to take care of themselves. At age 20, they receive a standard land grant in the town where they're registered. They can sell it and take the money to open up a shop in a town. They can trade it if they marry someone from another place. The plots of land are laid out in a standard way so that there are 8 plots and 1 communal plot in each grouping. Unless the kingdom is in turmoil, no one who works has to risk starvation. And if you can't work or are under 20 or over 60, you live in the communal house and are taken care of. In a small country with mainly agricultural land going for it, this could really work! Just like every other system, it works better in theory-world where no actual humans are involved, but still.

Anyway, I wrote a bit elsewhere about it, and I do highly recommend picking up the series not if you're interested because the publisher just went under, so the books are now technically out of print.  Good luck finding the first one for anything approaching a reasonable price.  The fourth one ends in a good place. When I finished it, I got a bit teary-eyed because I might never read a new volume again, but I'm really grateful for the four we did get.  I hope someone rescues this license and reissues the books (and maybe does a better job marketing them to the wider audience they richly deserve).

Have you read this series? Your thoughts?

In which I rhapsodize about Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia books

Apparently, I waited the perfect amount of time to reread the Eugenides books by Megan Whalen Turner because, after four years, I remembered pretty close to nothing about them except that they were awesome.  It really was like reading them again for the first time, and they were incredible.  What a treat after four years!

What I remembered

• The Thief: Gen goes to steal a legendary gem.
• The Queen of Attolia: The Queen of Attolia cuts off Gen's hand, and he comes to terms with it eventually and then proposes to her.  I thought that was the whole book, but it's only about half of it.  I can't tell you how surprised I was about how much stuff happened after that . . .
• The King of Attolia: Gen has become the King of Attolia, and he eventually wins over the Queen's supporters in his own special way . . .

Seriously, that's all I remembered.  I reread all of them in preparation for reading A Conspiracy of Kings, and it was good that I did because I didn't remember anything about the main character Sophos, and the fourth book wouldn't have been nearly as good without knowledge of him and his relationship to the various rulers in question. 

Oh, it was so wonderful.  And awful too, because those kinds of things shouldn't happen to anyone, and some of those choices were just awful.  I'm so glad I'm not royalty or involved in politics and high-level decision making.  The responsibility is terrible.  I had such mixed emotions watching them grow into their roles because of what they had to sacrifice.

Beautifully crafted Attolia books

One of the things I've liked about this "series" is the craft that goes into each book's point of view, meaning that it doesn't exactly feel like most series that turn on a single, charismatic character to lead the show.  Book one unreliable narrator Gen gives a masterful performance in first person limited.  Book two includes more points of view, but Gen is still central.  The third book is told through an entirely new (and initially completely hostile) character, and the only glimpses we get of Gen are from this new narrator's less than fair observations.  The fourth book is third person limited Sophos (and it is on this POV that the plot turns, once again).  I just admire how perfectly the POV matches the story.  Beautiful! 

And the world-building! Oh, the politics, the tragedy, the relentless character-development, the slow-burn tension, and the incredible excitement!

And then there's Gen

I adore Gen.  The fact that he can be so interesting even when he's really a peripheral character speaks of just how wonderful a creation he is.  I hope he will forgive me for forgetting all the awesome parts of the first three books.  They were just as amazing this time around.

I would love another book (I feel like there might be one more here), and I am totally content to wait another 4 years for it.  By then, I'll have forgotten everything, and I'll get to read it all again for the first time.  I can't wait to meet Gen and company once more.

Join the Library Wars

I just finished reading the second book in a series that appeals to me on many levels.  It's a bit hard to describe the book, since it's a mashup of many genres.  Part romantic comedy, part social commentary, part combat movie, part political drama, part compelling and harrowing near-future science fiction, Library Wars is really all over the place but in a good way.  It's actually hard to describe what makes it so delightful because if someone tells you the premise and the world it takes place in and the nature of the conflict, you are likely to think they are crazy. 

I mean, what kind of near future involves actual physical combat over library books?  What kind of funny odd-couple comedy is set in a world where national and local governments and a ton of other shadowy political bodies manipulate the press and jockey for position using freedom of  expression as their hot-button issue?  Is it more important to protect people from the bad expressions than to allow the freedom to have differences (and smut and pornography and dangerous ideas)? When was the last time you saw Library and War used in the same sentence?  This isn't Fahrenheit 451, but it might be distantly related (and much more fun since the focus isn't really on the heavy drama, though there is a small sense of dread about that drama always lurking in the background).

It's true that I really like clever premises that work and make me think (enough that sometimes I don't even care if everything else is a mess), but from the number of times I found myself laughing at interactions between the two clueless romantic leads and thinking really hard about how far I would go to defend freedom of expression, I'd like to think this is actually a well-executed story overall.  I just really enjoy it all the way through.  It's a delightful experience to read and enter this bizarre but not-so-different world.  At least I think so.

What do you think?  How far would you go to censor the bad for the public good or defend free access to it all?  (It's really not a trite and easy issue, especially not as it's presented in Library Wars.)  If you love books, you might want to give this series a read to see how much you really love them and how much you would be willing to sacrifice in their defense . . .

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.

Books I'm going to love this April: A Conspiracy of Kings

The next Megan Whalen Turner book is coming out, and I am more than a tad excited to go back into the highly charged world that began with The Thief all those years ago, took me through the ringer with Queen of Attolia, and totally won my heart with the politics and subtle romance of King of Attolia.

I didn't know if there was going to be a next book after King came out.  In fact, I only started reading the series when King came out because I thought it was the last book in a trilogy.  Then it ended, and I needed to know more, but I heard nothing for years, and I began to despair that no sequel would come.  No new adventures in this world I love: too sad to contemplate.

And then, a title.  No data on whether it was a new series or part of the old one.  For months, I agonized.  And then, yes!  A kid who was an aristocrat who never wanted to rule has to choose between his somewhat comfortable life as a slave and a chance to save the people he loves (or die trying).

Turner uses a different point-of-view for each of her books, and I love how well she pulls it off.  The point-of-view she picks is the organic one, the only one that will make the story work, the one that will tell you most about the characters you love from a new perspective.  It makes me tingly.  :)

I'm not sure if my favorite characters will really be making much of an appearance in this book, but, to be honest, I don't care because Megan Whalen Turner wrote it.  I will most likely love it.  She will, no doubt, surprise me time and time again.  And, as an added bonus, I will have to go back through the whole series since one of the main characters from this book was a side-character in the first, and I totally don't remember him at all.

At least I know to bring extra tissues for Queen.  Man, that was rough.  And cathartic.

Waiting for death

I waited 17 months for this character to die. 

It's not like I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.  I probably forgot about it within a week of reading the last volume back in July of 2008; that's just how my book memory works, but when this volume came, I decided to brush up on how that last volume ended, since I knew it had been quite some times since its release.  Of course, that little catch-up made me want to read the whole series again, but I have job applications to work on, and I do have some self-control.  Sometimes.

I waited for most of the whole volume for him to die.  I was in agony. 

Maybe they'll surprise me, I thought.  Maybe I'm forgetting something; it has been a while.  Maybe I'm misremembering the absence of this character from the book's present in earlier volumes.  I can't keep all these characters straight, especially when they're supposed to look like each other!  I tried so hard to convince myself that he wasn't necessarily going to die. 

As the end of the story arc neared, it looked like I might be right.  They survived the dicey situation, and everyone was planning relatively-happily-ever-afters, sort of, and then it happened.  I knew he would die on the next page.

I wouldn't turn the page.  I didn't want to see.  I didn't want to cry.  I had another book to read next.  I didn't want to be right.  But I couldn't just stay stuck like that.  I couldn't leave the book unread.  I owed it to the character to see his life through to the end even though I didn't want to be right.

But I was.  Sometimes I hate being right.  A lot. 

It didn't make me feel better that this revelation about the past helped the more recent past and the present make a lot more sense, that it explained some mistifying behaviors logically and powerfully and with quite an emotional impact.  I just didn't want him to die, dagnabbit.  I liked him.  I didn't care that the logical conclusion of his beliefs, the acting out of his ideals, the very integrity that made me like him necessitated his demise in the world of this story.  I just didn't want to lose him. 

It's a good thing writers don't always give us what we want.  I would have been disappointed if he had survived after all that set-up.  I would have felt betrayed by the author, would have thought her weak for being unable to follow through this time, would have been irritated at this missed opportunity to tie up some niggling, bothersome loose ends/plot holes.  I hated being right, but the alternative would have been worse.


Can you remember any books like this?  Any times you really wished you had guessed wrong about the fate of a character?  If you were the writer, do you think you would have been able to find a way to save the life and somehow make the story have integrity, too?  (Or is that why you don't want to be a writer? :)

To kill or not to kill

I am being a big, huge coward right now.  I am not only not writing a story I really want to write but am actively avoiding even thinking about it because someone in the story does something that is worthy only of death, and I just don't want him to die. 

It's not that he doesn't deserve it, and it's not that I feel sorry for him.  He's an adult who made his own choices, and he chose to betray everyone who loved him.  I just feel bad for the people who must pass judgement on him.  They are the ones most cruelly betrayed because they really love him.  To ask them to condemn and execute him is really hard on me.  (It's like that bit in Barrayar.)  But coming up with any other outcome seems fake and forced and thoroughly unfair. 

He doesn't want pardon; he wanted to betray everyone and then die.  It's not that he hated them.  He was mostly trying to get back at someone else entirely, but he had to go through them.  He's consumed by bitterness.  His revenge plot was thwarted (yes, I think he was relieved about that, but despair can warp you).  You can't leave dynamite like that sitting around for so many reasons both general and specific.  The only appropriate ending in this fantasy world is death.

But I still want pardon, somehow, or mercy or grace that isn't forced but flows organically from the plot, the story, the characters, the world.

I really need to just start writing and see what happens, but I'm afraid I know how this ends.


Have you ever read a book like that, where you start liking people and suspecting that things just won't end well, and you drag your feet reading it?

Graceling: a book that took self-control to stop reading

I just read Graceling by Kristin Cashore!  I am ecstatic!  I am on an adrenalin rush!  I want to go write something great right now!  I loved this book!

Some reasons why it's great:

• It's a standalone novel.  Yes, an entire story and world in one book!  I have no patience for series right now!  Bring on the standalone novels!
• There is action.  Much is kicked.  Fighting is integral to the plot and characters.  Hooray.
• The characters rock.  I love me some grouchy characters.  They tease each other.  You can tell they have known each other for long times.  They relate to each other like people.  I like them.
• It has a sweet, funny, heart-twisting romance.  Wow.  Just, wow.  (No, really.  Woooow.)
• My sister will like the ending.  Yes, I said it, ST!  You will not hate the ending!  (Maybe a little.)
• It's in great company.  In a spot on review, Publisher's Weekly said, "Tamora Pierce fans will embrace the take-charge heroine; there's also enough political intrigue to recommend it to readers of Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia trilogy."  PW is so right!  I love both of those authors for those reasons among others, and I found similar things to love here.  Now I want to go re-read Turner's stuff . . .

If I were looking for a good example of world-building and seamless, organic plotting, I could start right here.  Too often, characters behave in certain ways because of cliches and tropes that have been established in certain kinds of genre literature.  They don't act like people; they act like characters.  A great author can take those tropes and cliches and 2-dimensional characters and turn them around so that the very same actions/set-ups/character relationships have meaning and are integral to the plot and world, so that there are people populating the world, and they do things the way real people in the real world do. 

For example, sometimes you might find yourself rolling your eyes because the young, male character says something wise and tender beyond his years, and you think of the times you've seen that (so many times) in YA fantasy books or romance, and you get to thinking about those guys and how it doesn't work for those words to come out of their mouths because it's obvious they're present in the story to play that role of the wise, supportive male character who will help the female character become empowered (blah blah blah), and then you remember the circumstances the actual character you are reading about in Graceling grew up in, and of course he said that, of course he would say that and think that; it's who he is, and you know why, and it practically breaks your heart watching them interact. 

I'm explaining this badly.  You should probably just go read the book right now.

It's impressive.  For every cliche (meaningless action or set-up), the author negates its status as a tired, pointless device by showing you how it is a necessary part of this world and by revealing enough about the characters that you know things really would be this way if this world existed.  It's just wonderful. 

I am adding her to my list of authors I will read no matter what they come up with next.  (In this case, Fire!  Also a standalone but vaguely related to this world.)


Have you encountered any authors who made you excited like this lately?

Plotting from left field

I'm watching this show right now where the plot keeps twisting and turning.  There's a lot of conflict and fighting and philosophy and moral quandaries and horrible, awful tragedy.  The plotting is pretty brilliant.  Every so often, things start lining up so that you can see a future that doesn't involve characters dying horribly or living miserably.  Then, something screws it all up beyond repair, and things get worse. 

It's kind of brilliant but dangerous.  It has that feeling of thrill, like what you feel when you think it would be fun to run down a hill and realize part of the way down that gravity has taken over.  You want things to end well, but you don't know if they can (or if you can hold on until they do).

One reviewer mentioned that this tactic is dangerous because it can't be kept up indefinitely.  Maybe people will only watch until they think there's no more hope for anyone's happiness?  I guess it's different if you go in knowing it's all tragedy and that the ending will leave a lot of people crying, but many people won't even start a show like that because they don't like that feeling of hopelessness and fate/destiny.



What do you think?  Will you start a show or book if you don't know how things will end up in terms of tragedy? 

More dead characters

So, continuing yesterday's morbid thoughts on character mortality . . . 

Some authors go out of their way to bring mortality into the story early.  It's part of the world they're building.  They want you to know that in their world bad things can suddenly happen to anybody, that sometimes people die by accident or for stupid reasons, that good things can be smashed and destroyed between eye blinks.  Brent Weeks mentioned that he learned from George R.R. Martin that killing off a main character early on shows you're serious and gets people to pay attention. 

Or, as my sister points out, it makes some people stop reading.  Her philosophy is that the world is dark and sad enough, thank you.  Why spend additional time reading depressing things?  She doesn't like to start watching epic shows unless they're over, so she can know who dies and who lives.  She wants to know who she can safely attach to. 

Don't we all.

However, in real life we have no guarantees.  We can't take anyone for granted because we could all die really at any moment.  To take it down a notch, we don't make friends only with those who we foreknow will stick with us through life.  I frequently strike out in this area.  I befriend people and enjoy their company immensely and think they enjoy mine just as much, but then they drop me and leave. 

It's true that I am more cautious about investing in people now, but I seem to have transferred that fearless befriending ability to characters in stories.  Shows where everyone dies in the end?  Bring it on (and bring the tissues).  Books where everyone pretty much dies in the first chapter?  Hit me.  Stories set in dark and horrible worlds full of unexpected mortality, cruelty, and the evils of humanity?  Yup. 

Sometimes experiencing works like this is like being spiritually pummelled.  It's like having your face ground into the broken fallenness of humanity.  Of course no one likes that!  That's not what I like about these works. 

What I like is hope.  I have become a bloodhound of hope.  I sniff out the faintest traces in the story, the smallest whiffs of grace and mercy and God, and when I find them, it's like He's whispering in my ear, "See what I can do?  I love you."

I think maybe most of us in American are too used to being comfortable and having things our way.  We like nice things.  We don't like to think about things that aren't nice.  We are self-deluding and blind, aren't we?  We like to imagine the world is a nicer place than it is, and so we try to only listen to stories that make us feel good and safe and happy.  We only want our children to know about nice, safe, happy things.  But is that what's best for them?  For us?  Is that's what's best for the world we live in?

It's not that I like pain.  I think maybe I love pain transformed.  I want to write stories like that.  I'm sad that I will lose a lot of readers who aren't willing to go through the grit and dirt and sludge to see just how amazing that hope is, shining like a diamond in a swamp. I wish more people would brave the swamp for the chance to see the beauty.

I wonder if this is part of my wishing for the last lines from the story "Aftermaths" from Bujold's Shards of Honor to be true: 

"Yes, he thought, the good face pain.  But the great--they embrace it."

How do you react to character mortality in stories?  Do you try to avoid the sad ones?  Do you try not to read anything too dark and gritty?  Too graphic?  Do you read just about anything?  What will make you stop reading a story, and why?

Who is Hannah Montana?

While on the topic of how Disney bought Marvel Comics, a co-worker and I started talking about good crossovers.  My favorite one of his: Hannah Montana is really Miley Cyrus, but did you know about her third alter ego?  Bruce Banner.  Yes, Hannah Montana as The Incredible Hulk. 

Indeed.

Every so often, I'll be reading and think, man, I wish this series could cross over with X.  Most recently (so it was a while ago), I was reading Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, and when they were spending a bit of time with the Fey, I thought, "I wish this world could cross with the Jim Butcher's Dresden Files for a short story."  Impossible, of course.  The worlds don't quite mesh, but I would have liked to see one anyway.

How about you?  Any crazy or not-so-crazy crossovers you wish you could see?

Building Blind

I wonder how world-building works for other writers.  Right now, I'm working on a 12-year-old girl in the Midwest in the early 90s and a fantasy world trying to find a comparable historical time period, so I can do some research.  Since the story about the young girl is semi-autobiographical, you'd think it would be much easier, but my memory is so poor, and I hate to fictionalize if I can factualize.  As a result, I've been thinking more about the fantasy world. 

Most writers I know talk about an image being the first thing that happens to them, and the world grows from there.  I don't have that option because, for whatever reason, my mental lens cap is on, so I can't visualize like that.  Images don't come to me; words do.  All of my major advances in building this world (Napkin Epic World in honor of its humble beginnings in college) have come in the form of either dialogue explaining some action or me wondering what led to certain actions I know are part of the plot.  They just are.  It's my job to find out why, I guess.

What's your catalyst when it comes to world-building/writing?  Do you just write in your world and let the details come, or do you plan/plot things out carefully in advance?