May 23 2018

A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes #1) by G.S. Denning

Weirdly, given how I love and devour mystery novels, I have never really been into reading Sherlock pastiches. For that matter, I’ve never been a huge fan of the source material, having read the originals only insofar as they were available to me in the library of a paternal uncle whom my family visited in my father’s hometown once a year. Books being much scarcer for me then than now, I would usually read whatever was available to me whenever it was available, and would store the locations of books like a pirate carrying a mental map of buried treasures (and never mind actually socializing.) So reading Sherlock Holmes, for me, carries a visceral memory of sun-warmed concrete blocks, sliding glass doors on rattan bookshelves and the old, almost sepia pages of a Penguin Classics volume that I read as I tried not to fall asleep in the heat of a Malaccan afternoon. Perhaps it was this perpetual drowsiness that made it so difficult to fully appreciate Holmes’ deductive powers, or his and Watson’s feats of derring-do: all I remember from my reading was how very unlikely their adventures felt, but how much more interesting than trying to make small talk with much older relatives whom I barely knew.

Anyway, the main reason I’ve been so lukewarm over most modern continuations of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures in print is that they are entirely faithful to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tone as I remember it: crushingly serious in the face of events that are implausible at best. Enter G. S. Denning. Not only does he make his Holmes a literal Warlock, amping up the supernatural (and in my opinion, most interesting) aspect of the original stories to eleven, but he also serves up a healthy dose of humor and strips the insufferable aura of self-importance almost completely from his subject. It’s a breath of fresh air and, frankly, the only time but one in all my enjoyment of Sherlock-related media that I’ve felt compelled to go back and look up the source material (the exception being Kitty Winters in the excellent Elementary TV series. My reluctance to consume Sherlockiana is mostly confined to reading, as modern dramatizations tend to add humor and humanization.)

Watson is the true deductive hero of Mr Denning’s A Study In Brimstone, which reimagines six classic Sherlock stories as overtly supernatural cases that fall neatly under Warlock’s purview. The hijinks feel refreshed and the references renew my interest in reading the originals, which is some of the highest praise I can give to any homage. I love the twist with Moriarty, and am very interested in reading more of the character introduced in the very last story included here. Excitingly, I’ll be able to read the next two volumes quite quickly, courtesy of Titan Press. Reviews of those soon!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/23/a-study-in-brimstone-warlock-holmes-1-by-g-s-denning/

May 21 2018

An Interview With Roger Levy, author of The Rig

Q: Every book has its own story about how it came to be conceived and written as it did. How did The Rig evolve?

A: It came very slowly. I was processing a lot of things in my life while completing Icarus, and The Rig came in fits and starts. I wanted to say something about how isolated we can be, how poorly we comprehend the world and the people around us, and how much we need all those people and their understanding. And of course I wanted to do it with mystery and suspense and action – so not ambitious at all! A few scenes and characters – the Chute, Alef and Pellonhorc, Razer – came first, and of course the concept of AfterLife, and everything else just flowed from there. It flowed like cold treacle. It’s really hard to say more without giving spoilers, as I’m sure you’ll understand.

Q: The Rig deals with the intersection of faith and technology in a way I find refreshingly different from most other science fiction. Religion and tech were also important themes in one of your previous books, Dark Heavens. What inspires your ongoing engagement with these subjects?

A: It’s always intrigued me that so many of us can hold in the mind, and quite comfortably, two such conflicting systems as evidential science and belief in a god. There is an evolutionary advantage to having a belief. As you say, I’ve previously looked at the malign manipulation of those holding faith in a technologically advanced society, and in The Rig I’m looking at a different aspect. Might we begin to shed faith only to find that we suffer in the absence of its comfort, and need some way to replace those comforts? Thus AfterLife.

Q: When Razer, the writer in The Rig, is asked why she writes, she responds “curiosity and dissatisfaction.” I couldn’t help but wonder if she was speaking for you as well. What are your reasons for being a novelist, and particularly one who writes science fiction?

A: Yes, Razer is speaking for me. As for my reasons for being a novelist, I just wanted, always, to write. It was never a reason for me, but a drive. The best motivation to write that I ever heard, though, was Hubert Selby Jr’s reasoning, ‘I know the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer.’ And where science fiction is concerned, when Reckless Sleep was picked up, the die was cast and I was a science fiction writer. In fact I wouldn’t have it any other way. Science fiction is an inexhaustible repository of ideas. Those who write it and those who read it are the most varied, inquisitive, disputatious, interesting of people.

Q: Do you write with any particular audience in mind? Are there any particular audiences you hope will connect with this story?

A: I always write for myself, in the hope that if something interests me, it might interest others. I like to be caught in a story, to be challenged, to learn something, and I like it when a story has a twist or two that I don’t see coming. I hope I’ve done some of those things in The Rig. I’d like my writing to be conversing with readers, not speaking at them.

Q: What is the first book you read that made you think, “I have got to write something like this someday!”

A: That would be Wasp, by Eric Frank Russell. I was twelve or thirteen, and the first pages just hooked me.

Q: I very much enjoyed the way you incorporated linguistic evolution into the writing of The Rig. Words like “goddery” and “threedy” reflected the social incorporation of futuristic developments in religion and technology in a way that felt very natural. I also enjoyed your playful almost-puns, e.g. ParaSites, arkestras. What stimulates your experimentation with language?

A: Thank you. I’ve always loved puns and wordplay. Shortly after I’d thought of putery, I went to Bletchley Park, where the Enigma codes were broken, and discovered that Alan Turing had talked of computery. That satisfied me a lot. I derive as much writing pleasure from wordplay as from plot and idea. And I enjoy reading a book so much more if the writing, word by word and sentence by sentence, is as interesting as the greater span.

Q: Do you adhere to any particular writing regimen, given your other, very busy (ed: I originally used the word worthy but it somehow got changed in the interview process) occupation as an NHS dentist?

A: I am part of a writing group, which keeps my work ticking along, and I try to go once a year to a writing retreat in Spain, run by my friend Anne Aylor, who also teaches there. Other than that, I write when I can, but it’s always in my head, composing and recomposing itself.

Q: We usually like to ask whether an author is a pantser (someone who writes by the seat of their pants) or a plotter, but it’s hard to imagine a novel as layered and thoughtful as The Rig being written extemporaneously. Did you find yourself surprised, however, by any unexpected directions the plot took outside of what you’d planned?

A: I’m a pantser who panics and becomes a plotter. There was a lot of panic in the writing of The Rig, a great many holes I dug myself into. There was also an entire subplot that got cut. But yes, the plot skidded all over the place, and I was constantly steering it back. I knew where I wanted it to end, and how, but the book didn’t want to make it easy. And without the detailed editing of Miranda Jewess and Ella Chappell at Titan, it certainly wouldn’t be what it is.

Q: I can’t help but be fascinated by Razer’s evolution through the course of The Rig. Arguably, she becomes the most important, if unsung, shaper of AfterLife through her actions and omissions. What is your opinion on the power of the written word to influence history and civilization?

A: That’s such an interesting question. I think that the spoken word is more important in the moment, than the written – look at Churchill, Hitler, Martin Luther King – but the written word comes into its own as event becomes history. We have always acted from the spoken word and learnt from the written word. Having said that, I realise I’m talking about the considered written word, the cold and detailed analysis, and we’re in a time when the written word is not always so considered. The written word now has to be instant and short. And what worries me is that this new written word may influence history and civilisation to the point of annihilation, and it may come in a tweet.

Q: One thing I desperately wanted to read more of in The Rig was the subject of The Question. This actually led me to wonder whether The Question was left deliberately vague so that the reader could assign their own interpretations to the accompanying faith. Can you tell us more about The Question, or will that be the subject of another novel?

A: Yes, it was left deliberately vague, and not solely for the reason you suggest, though of course you’re right. There are clues to its basis in the book, both actual and by omission, but I don’t want to say much more. Without being cryptic, mystic or coy, The Question isn’t even, necessarily, a faith as we understand it. What it may be, from a human perspective, is hopeful. And where some beliefs claim answers, I wanted the idea of uncertainty. I wanted to provoke thought. My character representing The Question is named in reference to a character in Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomix, and Calvino is a writer of metafiction. I’d say more, but there’s the risk of spoilers.

Q: What can you tell us about your next project?

A: Just that it’s set a little closer to home and a little nearer to now.

Q: What are you reading at the moment?

A: I always have a number of books on the go. At the moment I’m going through Adam Hall’s Quiller series.

Q: Are there any new books or authors in science fiction that have you excited?

A: I wouldn’t single anyone out, nor give gravity to my own personal taste.

Q: Tell us why you love your book!

A: Apart from the simple fact that it’s finished? I’m really happy with the twists. I have a great fondness for the humechs, Beata and Lode, who crept up on me. But what I really love about it is the beautiful cover by Julia Lloyd at Titan.

~~~

Author links:

RogerLevy.co.uk

~~~

The Rig was published May 8th 2018 and is available via all good book sellers. My review of the book itself may be found here.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/21/an-interview-with-roger-levy-author-of-the-rig/

May 20 2018

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells

All Systems Red by Martha WellsLoads of fun, in large part due to the main character/narrator of Murderbot. That isn’t actually Murderbot’s name, but it’s what our narrator chooses as a self-referential, and to tell you why would possibly tell you too much about this novella. Murderbot is a Security Unit, a half-machine half-organic being created solely to protect humans in a highly corporatized, planet-faring future. The plot itself is a somewhat straightforward adventure narrative laced with progressive sci-fi concepts. The military bits occasionally get elided enough for even me, the civilian, to notice, but any criticism is quickly subsumed by how awesome Murderbot is. And that’s not to imply that Murderbot is some kind of hardcore badass (tho there are definitely moments of that): on the contrary, Murderbot’s appeal comes largely from the flaws of this fascinating, self-aware being as Murderbot guides and protects a group of explorers on a dangerous planet.

Murderbot, you see, is the epitome of socially hostile (“antisocial” and “socially awkward” just don’t accurately describe the condition.) Murderbot would much rather sit in a Cubicle, watching entertainment feeds, than interact with humans. When circumstances force Murderbot into very personal quarters with the human members of the expedition, the results are both comic and almost painfully insightful into what it means to shun human company. Any introvert can empathize.

I also really enjoyed the economy of emotion put into that ending, and am very much looking forward to the rest of the novellas in the series, tho I rather wish they could all have been published together in one volume to begin with. While I do think that this novella could have been fleshed out into a meatier novel, it is pretty great on its own, and its brevity lends itself to recommendation as an introduction to the joys of progressive hard sf.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells was published May 2 2017 by Tor.com and is available from all good booksellers, including

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/20/all-systems-red-the-murderbot-diaries-1-by-martha-wells/

May 19 2018

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1) by Justina Ireland

Wow, I didn’t even know about the firestorm over this book and the author and her Twitter use until after I’d read and thoroughly enjoyed Dread Nation. It’s a really terrific novel: what if zombies rose after the Battle of Gettysburg, and American history took a decided turn to deal with this new existential threat? It’s not a sunshine and roses look at the American psyche, tho. If anything, it’s a very realistic look at how the prevailing mindset would still find a way to oppress anyone who wasn’t white “enough”. Slavery might have been abolished, but systemized oppression remains, built into the structures of the new society that has grown to grapple with the threat of shamblers, as the zombies are called. Jane McKeene was born into this society, a biracial daughter of means who is still forced to go to combat school because the law demands that all black children be taken from their parents to learn to fight the shamblers. Good thing Jane is so good at it. If it weren’t for her ornery nature, she’d likely excel at Miss Preston’s School for Combat, whose graduates can look forward to relatively cushy lives as the Attendants (essentially personal bodyguards) of society ladies. Even so, she’s set to graduate near the top of her class, when disaster strikes and Jane soon finds herself fighting for her life against enemies undead or otherwise.

One thing I really enjoyed about this book is that you can tell it was written by an African-American woman. I loved Ben H Winters’ Underground Airlines and Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country, but the nuance and layers built into Dread Nation’s first person narrative of a young black woman (who also happens to be bisexual!) read with a sharp authenticity that goes beyond the universal emotional wellspring available to all talented writers. It makes for compelling, eye-opening reading, which is one of the many reasons that the #OwnVoices movement is so important. Like Ms Ireland, I don’t believe that people can’t write outside their race/ethnicity/culture but I do believe that it is very, very important that the voices of people writing about their own minority race/ethnicity/culture are promoted so that they have an equal shot at being heard in the contemporary market. I also liked this a whole lot better than Octavia E Butler’s Kindred because it tackles racism and sisterhood without blinders on, and is whip smart about the ongoing corruption and self-deception at the heart of white supremacy.

I also thought that the way the narrative was framed was very clever, with the letter excerpts opening each chapter. I very much want to read the sequel because I like Jane (she reminded me a lot of Tom Sawyer, even before his novel showed up in the narrative — a sly reference I greatly enjoyed) and Katherine, but I admit to being meh on Ms Ireland herself, after her choice of words on Asian-American writers and her refusal to apologize for being a shitty Tweeter. I guess I’m just going to have to put her down as a problematic fave; hopefully, by the time the sequel comes out, she’ll have seen why refusing to apologize for sounding like an asshole to other marginalized communities makes her just as arrogant as the people she criticizes.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/19/dread-nation-dread-nation-1-by-justina-ireland/

May 14 2018

Mani: Travels in the Southern Peleponnese by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Mani grew in the telling. Patrick Leigh Fermor meant it “to be a single chapter among many, each of them describing the stages and halts, the encounters, the background and the conclusions of a leisurely journey … through continental Greece and the islands.” He undertook the journey, “to pull together the strands of many previous travels and sojourns in all parts of Greece, for I had begun wandering about this country and living in various parts of it a few years before [World War II].” Combining understatement and insouciance as he will throughout the book, he adds, “The war did not interrupt these travels though for the time being it altered their scope and their purpose; and since then they have continued intermittently until this very minute of an early morning on a white terrace on the island of Hydra.” (all p. 5)

“All of Greece is absorbing and rewarding,” (p. 6) which tells the reader as much or more about the author as about Greece itself. Enthusiasm seems his natural mode; a published book of one of his correspondences is titled In Tearing Haste and I can see that as the closing in many letters, dashed off from here or there as he explored places, met people, discovered their pasts and presents, and filed away notes to charm multitudes of readers decades hence. “There is hardly a rock or a stream without a battle or a myth, a miracle or a peasant anecdote or a superstition; and talk and incident, nearly all of it odd or memorable, thicken round the traveller’s path at every step.” (p. 6) Considering his natural style and approach, a single volume encompassing all of Greece was clearly impossible. The 350 pages of Mani encompass a single peninsula in the Peleponnese, but this is no dry recounting of every nook and cranny. “Thus I could allow myself the luxury of long digressions, and, by attempting to involve the reader in them, aspire to sharing with him a far wider of Greek lands, both in space and time, than the brisker chronicle of a precise itinerary would have allowed. … there was now no need to furnish this free elbow-room with anything which had not filled me with interest, curiosity, pleasure or excitement.” And indeed he does.

The temporal dimension is particularly important, as Michael Gorra notes in his introduction to Mani. “In Leigh Fermor’s pages any account of the present begins a thousand years back, and to read him is to enter a mind that delights in bounding from moment to moment and century and century, a mind in which all times appear to exist at once. … [I]t’s instead as though they were each one indexed, and available for use.” (p. viii) Leigh Fermor sees the centuries that have shaped the settlements and the landscapes he travels, the ebb and flow not only of Greek power (both ancient and otherwise) but also Frankish, Venetian, Ottoman, and more, each leaving telltale evidence in building, names, technology, words, or local legend.

The second aim, both of this and other books to follow, is to situate and describe present-day Greeks of the mountains and the islands in relationship to their habitat and history; to seek them out in those regions where bad communications and remoteness have left this ancient relationship, comparatively speaking, undisturbed. In the towns and the more accessible plains many sides of life which had remained intact for centuries are being destroyed apace—indeed, a great deal has vanished since my own first visits to Greece. Ancient and celebrated sites are carefully preserved, but, between the butt of a Coca-cola bottle and the Iron Curtain, much that is previous and venerable, many living mementoes of Greece’s past are being hammered to powder. It seems worth while to observe and record some of these less famous aspects before the process is complete. (pp. 6–7)

In the end, he only managed one other book of similar depth about a Greek region, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece. What might have been takes nothing away from the amazing achievement of Mani in bringing an obscure region vividly to life. Leigh Fermor carries his learning lightly and leavens it with personal encounters.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/14/mani-travels-in-the-southern-peleponnese-by-patrick-leigh-fermor/

May 14 2018

Batman: Nightwalker (DC Icons Series #2) by Marie Lu

As hoped, it was better than the first in the DC Icons series, Wonder Woman: Warbringer. Maybe that’s due in large part to the fact that Batman as a mortal character needs to have his origin updated for each leap in technological progress: it’s absurd to think that this iconic character, dependent as he is on gadgets and tech, could be anything less than hyper-modern, whereas to do the same to the ageless and essentially immortal Wonder Woman feels both unnecessary and insulting to her background (but since DC Comics doesn’t have a problem with it, who am I to complain? ::eye-roll::)

Which isn’t to say that Batman: Nightwalker doesn’t have issues of its own. It’s not particularly clever or ground-breaking — and it definitely hasn’t carved out a place for itself in the essential canon — but it’s an entertaining and not entirely unconvincing depiction of a pivotal chapter in a teenage Bruce Wayne’s life. My main problem was with the editing: I was more than happy to let a few weird mistakes go, but by the time this came along, I was grinding my teeth so hard that I had to bookmark the damn thing so I wouldn’t forget to quote it verbatim for this review:

“Half a flight ahead of him was [redacted], who seemed to move with a speed and agility that belied everyone else.”

Are you fucking kidding me?! Look, as an Asian-American first-generation immigrant, I get that the nuances of the English language can be hard, so I legit don’t hold it against Marie Lu (or any other author, no matter what background) to fuck that one up. But that a professional editor read through this and didn’t immediately red line that shit makes me want to scream in horror. I do not have the time or patience to go through the rest of the book again to pick out the other glaring mistakes, but I am aghast at the standards here. Also? My copy had an excerpt from the next novel, the Catwoman re-imagining, and oh my God, fuck you everyone involved. Elegant cat burglar Selina Kyle is a teenage cage fighter, like ayfkm? I get that it’s more palatable than being a young prostitute, as she was in canon (tho this also opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms about sex work and shame,) but oh fuck it, I give up, Catwoman in non-comics media has been a hot mess since Tim Burton fucking ruined her in his stupid movie. Yeah, I said it. I am grossed out by the association of gratuitous violence with the character, particularly in a YA setting, especially since it looks like it’s taking the place of voluntary, if transactional, sex. Definitely not reading the next book.

Anyway, if you can get over the basic editing errors in this volume, it’s a perfectly serviceable piece of entertainment that is recognizably Batman and not some appalling bastardization of the character.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/14/batman-nightwalker-dc-icons-series-2-by-marie-lu/

May 12 2018

The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine — Halftime Report

One of the unexpected pleasures of The House of Government is Yuri Slezkine’s occasional playful way with words. Given the subject matter, and particularly given Slezkine’s argument that Bolshevism can best be understood as a millennarian sect that gained control of the state, a reader would be forgiven for thinking that his prose would range from ardent to dry. My sense from reading the book, however, is that Slezkine was enjoying the writing, page by page, sentence by sentence. Nothing else can really account for his light touch and occasional exercise in drollery, sometimes where it is least expected. “The main selection criterion [for execution during the Red Terror of 1918] was class belonging, manifested (or not) in antigovernment actions and opinions. The main markers of class belonging were in the eye of the beheader.” (p. 159) In another passage whose page number I have misplaced, he writes of party activists putting the cart before the material preconditions necessary for it.

The virtues that I found in the book’s first chapters have continued through the halfway point; namely, thoroughness without belaboring the point, a desire to tell his story comprehensively if not completely (and the cast of characters of the book as it does exist points out the impossibility of telling the story completely), and an ability to show how the parts relate to the whole. Modern printing technology also helps the book greatly; a significant number of two-page spreads feature photos of people mentioned on the pages, reproductions of period art, or pictures of locations discussed in the text. All of these combine to give a richer, more immediate sense of the times that Slezkine describes. Chapter 9, “The Eternal House” covers the construction of the House of Government, and it is particularly rich with illustrations. These show the building in progress, plans of the whole and individual apartments, how it fit with planners’ concepts of transforming Moscow, and more. Chapter 10, “The New Tenants,” shows many of them. That chapter also contains an interesting digression into the theater that was built into the House, the company that was selected to reside there, and the hazardous interplay between art and politics that shaped creative life in the Soviet Union.

Living up to expectations, and worth the time required to read.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/12/the-house-of-government-by-yuri-slezkine-halftime-report/

May 12 2018

The Rig by Roger Levy

It’s been quite a while since I’ve taken this long to read a book (four days, to be precise, which is a total humble brag given that I’ve read 72 books in the past 4 months and 11 days.) Granted, The Rig clocks in at over 600 pages and since I had it in paperback — the better to enjoy that gorgeous cover — it was harder to binge read in the dark as I do with ebooks on my Paperwhite before I go to sleep. But ooh, what an intelligent, layered 600+ pages! Imagine a far future where humanity has abandoned a dying Earth to colonize a system of planets far less conducive to human health and happiness. This is the setting for the interwoven tales of two men who met as boys on the fanatically religious planet of Gehenna, and a plucky writer sent to interview two other men, a cop and an engineer, on the appropriately named planet of Bleak. As we follow these narratives, pieces slowly shift and slide into place to present us with an overarching picture that is as breathtaking as that cover. Some of these pieces are more obvious than others (Pireve, the origin of the cancer) but many more are unexpected enough to make even the most seen-it-all readers stop and say “Oh.”

At its heart, The Rig is a novel about faith that, in my opinion, does a much better job of looking for the divine in the stars of the future than most of the overtly religious science fiction out there. I really, really loved the ending even as I wanted much, much more from the climactic scene on the titular Rig. A lot of that has to do with The Question, which I think is at once an elegant concept and one that needs more explaining than Roger Levy gives us in this novel. Granted, it is entirely likely that this was done on purpose, to provoke readers to form their own thoughts regarding the issue (and if I get a chance to interview the author, hopefully, we’ll find out more!) But don’t mistake The Rig for a pious novel. The social media system known as AfterLife, which gives its subscribers a shot at resurrection via the votes of other subscribers, is presented as a completely viable alternative to goddery, as the holdover religions from Earth are known. The Rig thoughtfully explores the need for and forms of faith through fiction that is part space opera, part noir novel (I’m still mad about Delta) without ever sermonizing. It raises terrific questions of power, technology and omniscience in an atmosphere as perpetually unstable as a rig floating on a turbulent sea.

I also loved Mr Levy’s way with linguistic evolution, with the aforementioned “goddery” as just one example. “Putery” was the one awkward extrapolation, I felt, but I really appreciated the use of words like “threedy” and “flycykcle” that perfectly captured the way technological advances come to be just another part of language. And, of course, I am a sucker for a good, intelligent pun, with which The Rig is perfectly peppered.

Recommended if you want thought-provoking scifi that acknowledges human frailty while celebrating our resilience. I do hope he writes more on The Question (or perhaps the subject is explored in his previous books and I should go read those!)

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/12/the-rig-by-roger-levy/

May 11 2018

A Hero Born by Jin Yong

“The Chinese Lord of the Rings.” Or, as translator Anna Holmwood puts it in her introduction, “one of the world’s best-loved stories and one of its grandest epics, a series that can count its fans in the hundreds of millions. And yet this is the first time it has been published in English, despite making its appearance in a Hong Kong newspaper over half a century ago. … Generations of young readers have stayed up past their bedtimes, following Guo Jing and his descendants in their fight to regain the glories of the past…” (p. ix) The promise and the peril of A Hero Born are all right there in the description.

Holmwood sets the scene, “We begin in the year 1205, as the Song Empire has been pushed southwards out of its capital by the Jurchen Jin Empire. Meanwhile, the great Mongol commander Temujin, who will later become known as Genghis Khan, is gathering power and men out on the steppes.” (p. viii) Last year, I read a specialist collection of scholarly essays that also covered this period and was enthusiastic about the stories implied by even the smallest historical details. “The nativist-irredentist movement that acquired momentum in the late 1120s was led by the monk Myoch’ong, who was able to gain influence over the young king Injong by virtue of his thaumaturgic reputation,” is from history, but is the kind of story that would fit perfectly into the world of A Hero Born, the first of a prospective twelve translated volumes in the Legends of the Condor Heroes.

Indeed, A Hero Born is full of wandering monks, martial arts warriors, hidden princes, cunning soldiers, mysterious travelers, corrupt officials, and much more. The story sweeps from China’s south to the Mongolian steppes and back to the northern capital, known today as Beijing. It follows the coming of age of Guo Jing, whose life is shaped by the circumstances of his father’s death and by an encounter among different schools of martial artists when he is still in his mother’s womb. It ought to be an amazing and wonderful story, and for many millions of people it clearly is. I wasn’t one of them.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the book was first serialized in 1959. Although it was revised in 1976 and 2003, the book still felt dated in a way that was neither charming nor historically interesting. Fantasy storytelling has developed in the decades since, leaving A Hero Born a bit stranded in the twenty-first century. It’s new to the English-speaking world, but it’s also of its time, as if the first episodes of Doctor Who were expecting to compete for audiences’ favor with Game of Thrones or the Marvel movies. Yes, I can see why people love it, but no, it’s not the equal of the best of what today has to offer.

Another part is that I want greater depth and sophistication from what I read, even when I am reading just for fun. The book is all plot, and plot of the one thing after another variety. Consequences sometimes arise from characters’ choices, but essentially never from the characters’ nature. One of the longest narrative threads arise from a bet taken between an antagonist and a group of martial artists. It’s a clever way of solving the conflict between the two, but it’s also a terribly contrived way to drive the story. The characters do things that, on the surface, involve a lot of action, but there isn’t any depth to them. They go here, they go there, and they fight a lot.

One aspect that Jin does not stint on is descriptions of the fights. They were sometimes fun to read, and it was interesting to see what kind of inventive names he gave to the kung fu moves, but I did not find that their contribution to the story warranted the amount of space Jin gave them. I would have preferred to find out more about the settings, or to have the characters more fully developed.

I’m glad that the Condor Heroes are available in English, and particularly that younger readers will have a chance to take these stories to heart and make them their own. I may peek in on later volumes to see if Jin took them in the directions that I would enjoy reading about, and I will definitely leave A Hero Born lying around to see whether the next generation in my household discovers this beloved set of stories.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/11/a-hero-born-by-jin-yong/

May 02 2018

The Changeling by Victor LaValle

The fairy tales that we’re familiar with have spent centuries being smoothed down by retelling after retelling, retaining their magic despite the years and multiple minor tweaks because, as stories, they make sense to us. Some might argue that those minor tweaks Disney-fy the process, but I believe that they whittle away the things that we, as human beings, find implausible or unacceptable. There is a reason that it is never the venal siblings who are rewarded, that wit and courage trump power and wealth, and that goodness and love triumph in the end. Fairy tales make sense to our innate moral compasses.

The proven longevity of these narratives inspire each new generation to spin their own versions in hopes theirs too will join the slipstream of folk consciousness. Unfortunately, Victor LaValle’s The Changeling likely will not succeed in this as, despite the trappings of myth and the (clever) allusions to modernity, it relies too goddamn much on the main characters doing things that are either under-explained or fly directly in the face of everything you know about the character till then. Emma’s transition from doting mother to homicidal maniac is completely glossed over, which is a really weird oversight in a book that enjoys having its main character, Emma’s husband, Apollo, have exhaustive conversations with just about everybody. And there’s a crucial decision in Little Norway (>when he takes Emma back to the house where he just killed the homeowner and left the front door standing wide open, what the fuck?!) which makes not a lick of sense for his character, given how justifiably paranoid he is about the negative attention of white people and cops. But Mr LaValle needed it to happen in order to further the plot, which is some cheap ass writing right there (also? Gratuitous sex scene. Hard pass.)

And, crucially, I didn’t like Apollo. Or rather, I didn’t see him as the “good man” that the book was trying to portray him as. He’s a conflicted individual trying to do the best he can, but he treated Emma poorly, right from the incident with the red bracelet, IMO. I’m definitely of the camp (that Mr LaValle is aware enough of in the book to mention) who would view what he did as a total dick move. And again, it’s only towards the end that you get the idea that Emma’s decline came gradually and not just out of nowhere. I really, really hated how awful they were to each other, and wonder, especially after reading Everything I Never Told You, if this is some sort of thing Americans since the 70s or so have been raised to believe, that it’s okay (even funny! Fuck you, crappy sitcoms) to be casually cruel to your spouse because true love or something dumb.

Anyway, I really enjoyed The Ballad Of Black Tom but The Changeling just didn’t work for me despite the fact that the modernization aspect of it was impressively good. I neither believed in nor cared about that characters. And wtf was up with Apollo’s parents? There’s the bones of a good story there but Mr LaValle did an awful job of telling it. Literally, it was all tell from Lillian, not show. And, as a woman, I didn’t care for the overarching portrayal of women finding their own feminine mystical powers only after deep betrayal turns them into monsters (tho I guess this is progress after TBoBT erases Ms Suydam from the narrative altogether.) Still, I’ll look out for his next novel because there’s promise here, and I want Mr LaValle to succeed. He writes about modern fatherhood really well, and I absolutely support his mission to explore the African-American experience via fantasy and horror writing. I just want him to write better.

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