Dust Cover Dust-Up: Round Two, Part Three

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge vs. Glasshouse by Charles Stross

Two science fiction books I really enjoyed last year. A Deepness in the Sky is a really interesting take on how we might interpret an alien culture, and comes with a truly bone-chilling technology, the implications of which kept making me take a break to just breathe. On the other hand, Glasshouse was also chilling to read, but the chills were more of the close shave variety. His world where 1950s gender norms prevail and mob mentality is encouraged - even though the technology is vastly different, the threats felt so unsettlingly real. Out of two unsettling books, this round goes to Stross

Winner: Glasshouse

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce vs. The Escapists by Brian K. Vaughn 

I really did enjoy Vaughn's extrapolation on a book that I truly loved, looking at a new generation of cartoonists building on what they grew up with, and what kind of stories they might tell, and how. It's beautifully done. However. On the other side, we have James Joyce, in a much more accessible book than Ulysses, capturing something about growing up and writing it in such gorgeous prose that this round just has to go to him.

Winner: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare vs. Farthing by Jo Walton

Strangely, here we have two books about fascism going head to head. While I enjoyed my first foray into Albanian literature, I'm afraid this is an easy choice. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost was interesting, melding storytelling with life in a world where you can be disappeared all too easily for having the wrong political convictions. However, Farthing just knocked my socks off. It is a horrifying, chilling look at an England that made peace with Nazi Germany, and some people are all too happy to push fascist ideals to seize power there as well. 

Winner: Farthing

The City and the Stars by Sir Arthur C. Clarke vs. The Martian by Andy Weir

Sorry, Arthur C. Clarke. I'm knocking off one of the giants of the field in favour of one of the young punks. It's just that The City and the Stars is not Clarke's best, although it's not bad. While The Martian isn't deep, it's got everything I want in an entertaining read - suspense, humour, and NASA never giving up.

Winner: The Martian

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline vs. Let Me Explain You by Annie Liontas

I think this is going to be one of those rare times that the mainstream book wins out over the genre one. Science fiction and fantasy are my favourite kinds of reads, to be sure. However, in this case, while I enjoyed Cline's loving references to 80s culture, I was really quite taken by Annie Liontas' first novel. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's really very good. And so it wins this particular battle.

Winner: Let Me Explain You

Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon

 

It has taken me a while to get to writing this review. I read The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh over Christmas, sitting in front of the fireplace at my in-laws, with a little book nest beside me and snuggled up with the new teddy bear my husband got me, whom I have named Sasquatch. (He has Big Feet.) It was pretty much the ideal place to sit and read for a while, taking a break both from work and my dissertation.

The only other Michael Chabon book I have read is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but that was enough to put him on my radar in a big way. In picking up this book, I was going back to his very early work, a coming-of-age-in-a-hot-summer tale of sexuality and transgression.

There's an interesting thing going on here with the prose. It's flowery at times - indeed, my husband picked the book up and read the first couple of pages and wrinkled his nose at it. However, Chabon has a neat knack for both having those flowery passages and then undercutting them with an offside observation that both points out and gently mocks the overwritten passages. It made me laugh out loud at least a couple of times.

The main character, Art, is working in Pittsburgh after finishing college (I think he's finished? Perhaps between years.) He's avoiding his father's world, or maybe his father wants to keep him out of it, or both. His father, it is gradually revealed, is rather more involved in organized crime than not. Over the summer, which exists in kind of a liminal space of working at bookshops, haunting the campus and hanging out with friends, Art does not so much discover who he is as discover how complicated a question that is.

Witnessing a fight over a young woman, he strikes up a conversation with Arthur (and how rare is it for two characters in fiction to have the same first name?) Lecomte, a young gay may who works at the campus library. Arthur is from Pittsburgh, in the midst of several on-again, off-again relationships, and makes his interest in Art as more than just a friend clear.It is initially something Art tries to ignore, as he wants the friendship without the attachment or the sex. Arthur brings along a suite of other friends, including a biker named Cleveland. Cleveland went to school with Arthur, has a tempestuous relationship with his girlfriend, and is a walking cloud of charismatic bad influence.

And then of course, there's Phlox, a young woman who also works at the library, dislikes what she sees as Arthur's choice of homosexuality, dresses as though she's trying on a different image every week, and wants to date Art.

Art drifts through his summer, intersecting with all these people, but in the end, oscillating between Phlox and Arthur, both of whom have hooks in him. He's occasionally pulled headlong by Cleveland into interactions with his father's world, even though he never really wanted to see it.

In the end The Mysteries of Pittsburgh isn't anywhere as good as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but isn't that what we want to see from authors? That they grow and develop? There's certainly enough here to make it worth a read, although it's not a classic.

Dust Cover Dust-Up: Round Two, Part Two

Worldwired by Elizabeth Bear vs. Imago by Octavia E. Butler

That's a tough choice right off the bat. I like both of these books an awful lot, both are by authors for whom I have a lot of affection. Both authors won their other respective battles in the first part of Round Two. I'm having a hard time choosing, but I think that because I found Imago so very troubling and indelible, I'll have to give this battle to Octavia Butler.

Winner: Imago

Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey vs. The Magician King by Lev Grossman

This is another tough choice. Both these books were good. I mean, really good. They're urgent and pressing and one is great science fiction and one is great fantasy. In the end, however, this round is going to go to Lev Grossman, as his prose lifts The Magician King above the fray. There's a line near the end that resonates so strongly with me that I still carry it with me.

Winner: The Magician King

In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne Valente vs. Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Interesting. I can't say that this is my favourite Catherynne Valente - I wasn't able to keep up with all the stories in In the Cities of Coin and Spice. Still, they're so beautiful written, so momentarily indelible that I'm still picking it over Zone One. I enjoyed this literary zombie apocalypse/meditation on post-civilization PTSD. But not as much as I love my fairy tales.

Winner: In the Cities of Coin and Spice

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman vs. Telempath by Spider Robinson

It's truly not fair. I mean, this was probably the twentieth time I've read Telempath, which tells you something, namely that I find enough there to read it over and over. The same could be said with any of Spider's books. They've already passed the test of time, and so a very old book by my favourite author wins out over a book I enjoyed.

Winner: Telempath

All Clear by Connie Willis vs. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

These are both very good books by authors I really, really like, but in both cases, I'm not sure they're their absolute best. However, the choice is clear, because I've been thinking about The Bone Clocks a lot since I read an earlier Mitchell and realized how those particular books dovetailed together. It added a whole other layer to reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, and the way his books continue to weave together enchant me. I liked All Clear, but I didn't love it. Sometimes Willis goes through the same material too many times, and it felt a little like that was what was happening here. It was still an enjoyable book, but I am definitely feeling The Bone Clocks more.

Winner: The Bone Clocks

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

I had heard a lot of people rave about this book, and this author, but not yet picked up any of her books. Young Adult isn't my preferred genre, although I don't mind it every once in a while. I get tired of the reliance on insta-love and problems that are not really problems. Still, this book was spoken of highly enough that I was at least interested. Then I was at the library, almost done the book I had on me, the library was about to close, and I still had an hour before I was meeting a friend. I ran over to the YA section (it's nearest the door, whereas the rest of fiction is on the third floor), and scanned the shelves quickly. This was only there in large print, but what the hell. I grabbed it and checked it out while I still could.

I read it over the Christmas holidays, and was pleasantly surprised. More than pleasantly surprised. This is a really good YA romance, with actual problems. The relationship brews slowly, in fits and starts, mediated by peers and parents. 

Park is a music loving teen in the 1980s, on the punk side, not living up to his father's expectations, including his inability to drive a stick shift. He's half-Korean, and on the whole, his life is pretty good, other than standard teenage-sized angst. Eleanor, on the other hand, has problems. She's just moved back in with her mother, her stepfather and four siblings, after being kicked out by her stepfather a year or six months before. There's no money, not enough food, a stepfather who creeps her out and hurts her mother, and then she starts a new school, where the cool kids decide she's an easy target. 

Eleanor and Park together starts when he impulsively lets her sit beside him on the bus. It takes a long time, and many baby steps. Eventually, as you could guess from the back of the book, they fall in love. Pure teenage love, with a tinge of desperation exacerbated on Eleanor's part by how dire her life is and how much she needs this lifeline. 

Rowell does a really great job of capturing teenage emotion, and not making it overwrought or silly. When Eleanor and Park ache for each other, it's palpable, and more powerful for not being overdone. Neither are experienced, and how they try to slowly negotiate the physical side of a desperately tentative teenage relationship is delightful. 

But the problems are real, and large, and become more and more troubling. They aren't going to be broken up by a silly misunderstanding. When things come to a head, they're a real head, and because they're teenagers, they don't have the freedom to find an optimal answer. All they're left with are terrible ones, and even adults who are sympathetic are limited in what they can do.

I keep using the word desperate in this review, and that feels like the right one. As teenagers, everything is intense and immediate, and this isn't written in such a way as to overdo it or undermine it. The world they inhabit is all too hurtingly real, and the dangers that lurk around the corner are unfortunately also a reflection of real-life problems that teenagers simply can't solve by themselves. 

The adults occupy a good range of spaces, each given a personality rather than a role. Park's Mom is suspicious of Eleanor, then decides she likes her. Park's Dad knows Eleanor's stepfather of old, and subtly tries to help her as best he can. Eleanor's Mom is trapped in an abusive relationship and nowhere near ready to try to leave. 

This is such a delightfully, painfully solid young adult novel that doesn't talk down it its characters or readers.

Dust Cover Dust-Up 2015: Round Two, Part One

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry vs. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

Interesting choice. Mainstream fiction vs. genre fiction, and most of the time, genre fiction would win. I just enjoy it in a different way. But not in this case. I liked The Diamond Age well enough, but Rohinton Mistry's huge brick of a book utterly gobsmacked me. It was sometimes difficult to read, but always indelible. It has stayed with me vividly all year, and I can't say the same about Neal Stephenson's book.

Winner: A Fine Balance

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold vs. The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Sorry, Lois McMaster Bujold. You know I love your books. Very, very much. And I enjoyed The Curse of Chalion quite a lot. It's just that The Magicians was one of those books that knocked me on my ass, and most of a year later, I'm still recovering. There's no question. I love Narnia. I love Harry Potter. And a grown-up take on the two, with beautiful writing and complex characters? It's like it was written just for me. And a lot of other people.

Winner: The Magicians

Scardown by Elizabeth Bear vs. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

You know what? I really wasn't enthralled with the book version of The Princess Bride. Maybe it's just having seen the movie too many times, but it wasn't something I felt deeply connected to, or added anything to the experience. In comparison, I thoroughly enjoyed Elizabeth Bear's Scardown. I'm a huge Jenny Casey fan. Easy battle.

Winner: Scardown

Adulthood Rites by Octavia Butler vs. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

It was totally by accident that we ended up with two of the only black female authors I read last year (not a great record, Megan) up against each other in the second round. Well, damn. On the other hand, it's an easy choice. I am such a huge Octavia Butler fan, and Adulthood Rites is the book in the middle that suckers you into feeling more comfortable before she hits you with the deep unsettling nature of the third. In contrast, while I liked the essays in Bad Feminist, it's just not on this level.

Winner: Adulthood Rites

Heart of Iron by Ekaterina Sedia vs. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Ooh, sorry Heart of Iron. You got through the first round because I didn't like the other book more, but here you come up against a book I purely loved. Haroun and the Sea of Stories hit all my sweet spots, with its playful story, fantastical elements, and rootedness in Indian politics. It's an easy choice, I'm afraid.

Winner: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

I am not the best person at putting together what the title of a book means, and so I find it delightful when it becomes apparent in the book (as long as it doesn't have all the subtlety of an anvil). The moment of discovery always feels like a delightful unfolding. So imagine my delight when I discover that this particular title keeps meaning different things over the course of the book. There are two or three reframings of what "time being" means, and all are simultaneously true and beautifully balanced.

This book made it on to my reading list because it was on a recent Canadian Top 100 that I am trying to work my way through, despite the fact that it's heavily weighted towards books from the last ten years. However, I really haven't connected with several of the books so far. It was a great relief to come to this one, which I unreservedly enjoyed. This is the kind of book that leaves me in a meditative state of mind - where I finish a passage or a chapter and need to simply sit and think. 

It's a weaving story, which is also something I very much like when it's done well. We go back and forth between a character living on an island in British Columbia and a girl in Japan. The character in British Columbia has the same name as the author, with a husband with the same name as the author's husband. It's one of those blurrings of what fiction is, similar to what's done in Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table. The other story comes from a diary she finds washed up on the shore, possibly but not necessarily, swept away from Japan by the tsunami. It was written by a girl in her late teens, as she struggles with a move back to Japan from the United States. It's also supposed to be a story about the girl's grandmother, a anarchist feminist author who became a Buddhist nun after her son was enlisted as a kamikaze pilot in World War II.

It never really ends up being about that though, and it's one of the many ways this book is about the act of writing, and the act of reading. The story you tell is not always the story you set out to tell. Nao doesn't ever fully tell the story of her grandmother. Ruth is struggling with a memoir manuscript about her mother's last years that refuses to coalesce into something publishable. The story of the pilot uncle has many layers, each unfolded by a separate set of documents. 

While I've read several books that are metafictional in how they look at the role of the write and the characters in what you're reading, this is perhaps the first one that I've encountered that extends that to the reader. What the reader brings to the document, how the words are changed by the person reading them, these are beautifully and subtly explored as the text Ruth reads seems to shift under her fingertips. What part does she play in the story she is reading? If it feels urgent and real and now, how do we separate ourselves from the act of reading? Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be wise. 

I am probably making this book sound too cerebral. It isn't. It's relentlessly present, grounded in place and time, even as it incorporates Buddhist precepts that encouarge a way to step away from the temporal. These are held in tension beautifully, the present and the transcendent. Many characters struggle with depression, with suspension, with a world that makes no room for them but which they cannot escape. 

After a couple of duds from the Canadian Top 100, and a couple that were fine but not lovable, I am delighted to have read Ruth Ozeki's book. I will definitely be searching out further novels by her. 

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

 

*Mild Spoilers Below*

Dammit, are there any handy people out there who can tell me why this blogging site has suddenly started posting the picture so far down the page? There are no spaces above it! And I'm doing exactly the same thing I've always done, on the computer I've always done it on. 

Okay, to the book! I picked this up at our local library's big sale in the fall, and I think it brings me up to date on Vorkosigan books, with the exception of the first two from before Miles' birth, which still elude me. I've read a lot of Lois McMaster Bujold the last couple of years, and have loved every single one of them. 

Cryoburn doesn't knock my socks off within that pantheon, but it is still better and more engaging than most books I read. As I always say about Bujold, she has a knack of putting what would be the end for other people about two-thirds in, or as my husband says when I mention it, "she has an actual third act!"

In this case, Miles is on a planet that has built its entire economy and culture on access to cryo-freezing. People are getting (if they can afford it) frozen younger and younger with less and less wrong with them, in hopes of a future where aging has been cured. In the meantime, their votes still exist, given as proxies to the companies who hold their bodies. With more frozen people on the planet than warm ones, this has led to certain abuses, and a heavily stratified society of those who can afford to be frozen, and those who can't.

One of the companies is thinking of opening a branch on the second planet of Gregor's Empire, so Miles, as Imperial Auditor, is sent to see whether or not this smells. Of course, it does, but it's not the only thing that does. He finds a world where dissidents have been frozen without due process, to keep them from making things difficult for those who run the world. It might be a little out of his purview, by when has that ever stopped Miles?

Along for the ride this time is long-suffering Roic, Raven, (one of the Durona group doctors), and an ambassador from Barrayar who is shocked and exhausted by Miles' tactics. He also picks up an entourage of two children, one of whom is a perpetual runaway from an aunt and uncle who took him in after his mother was involuntarily frozen. He also discovers an illegal freezing organization that attempts to make the service accessible to the poorer people who are otherwise doomed to die permanently. 

Without ever quite overtly going there, it's also a meditation on a world where the prolongation of life is valued above the quality of life while you have it. Is it something Barrayar wants in large amounts? And what happens when you're watching your own parent fail, and this is something that could keep them alive, but not present? 

It's an excellent caper, with some heavier thoughts and a painful ending. All things Bujold excels at, and for which I love Miles.

Booklinks:

I read this book as part of an attempt to read all the Hugo Nominees