Feb 11 2017

Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1) by Vic James

So I was trying to explain to a friend why I think this book is important for the generation of YA readers who may encounter it, thinking, much like Gilded Cage’s Abi does (and I did, tbh, when I first picked it up,) that it’ll be a romantic Upstairs/Downstairs sort of novel with magical powers, with dystopian overtones to give it all a frisson of Seriousness. And maybe I haven’t read enough dystopian YA, maybe I’m underestimating the average reader, maybe they’re smarter and more aware than I am. But reading that very first chapter where the reality of slavery comes crashing down on the very white, very middle class, very Anglo Hadley family, where all their hopeful expectations get violently trampled upon: my body reacted even more than my mind did, upset to my stomach at the horrific violation of their humanity, no matter how voluntarily they surrendered their rights. Because, despite being brown and politically aware (and oh my God, irrevocably middle-aged now with this last birthday,) the framework of my mind and life experiences are traditionally British schoolgirl, a vestige of my upbringing, and while I always knew and felt and believed that slavery was evil, it’s not often that the reminder of it acts like a punch to the gut. And that’s just in Chapter One!

In this alternate reality, the British monarchy was overthrown not by Roundheads but by people with magical abilities called Skill, who set themselves up as a ruling gentry called Equals. Everyone not an Equal must serve a ten-year term of slavery in order to keep the apparatus of economy going. Abi and Luke Hadley are teenagers who go into their slavedays with the rest of their family, thinking they’ve figured out a way to ride out their terms in relative comfort. Boy, are they in for a surprise! And so are we readers, as the book twists and turns both in plot and in emotion, presenting the complex realities of not only abolition but what it means to be an ally. I can’t overstate the importance of that last enough or, unfortunately, say much more without going into spoilers, but it was extremely refreshing to read, particularly in the current political climate.

I want this book to sell millions of copies because, much like Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, it tells a very important story (tho, tbh, I did prefer that Vic James got to the point faster instead of waiting till a third book to explicitly state her central message, as Ms Collins did.) The only thing that stopped me from giving this book 5 stars on Goodreads was the writing itself, which could use a bit more polish. It serves to get the (very important) point across and tell an entertaining story, but it feels very often bare bones. I’m hoping Ms James builds on this terrific debut and am looking forward to reading more, of this series and of her writing in general, as she’s definitely got terrific narrative and ethical instincts, and only needs to work at the wordsmithing to be truly exceptional.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/02/11/gilded-cage-dark-gifts-1-by-vic-james/

Feb 04 2017

Wallenstein I by Friedrich Schiller

The best thing about zipping through Wikipedia’s entry on these two plays by Friedrich Schiller — the first volume of Schiller’s Wallenstein plays comprises Wallensteins Lager (Wallenstein’s Camp) and Die Piccolomini (The Piccolomini) — was learning that Goethe directed both premieres. (He also directed the premiere of the trilogy’s third part, but I am still reading that one.) I probably should have known that already, but one of the quirks of earning a degree in German from a small university is that Goethe and Schiller are not taught every semester, and the one time it was offered when my reading had advanced to where I could have benefited from the course was when I was in Germany. That was the spring and summer that Communism began to fall in Central and Eastern Europe, so I can hardly say I regret missing the course. A visit to Weimar in the spring of 2016 prompted me to fill in some of the gaps in what I know of German classics, and so I picked up copies of several of Schiller’s plays.

The worst thing about reading them was putting the small book down for about two months in the middle of The Piccolomini. Stepping out for intermission is ok, but I really should have returned after a shorter interval.

The trilogy follows the final stages of the life and career of Albrecht von Wallenstein, a military leader during the Thirty Years War. (Schiller was 50 years closer in time to the war than the present is to Schiller.) At the time the plays open, Wallenstein belonged to the Imperial party in the war, had won significant victories, and had amassed the largest army at that stage of the war. That army is making its winter quarters in and around the Bohemian city of Pilsen.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/02/04/wallenstein-i-by-friedrich-schiller/

Jan 31 2017

Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Ugh, I’m so fucking tired of “literary” writers slumming it in genre fiction. Authors, if you’re going to attempt dystopian fiction or science fiction or fantasy, understand: the most important thing is the world-building. You HAVE to build a convincing setting that makes sense and works according to a) rules of internal logic, and b) a general understanding of the real world and human nature (important in “literary” fiction too!) This latter is especially important for dystopian fiction. The fact that your fiction is speculative does not mean you get to conveniently handwave plot points: when your shit doesn’t make sense, the reading experience is tedious at best, maddening at worst. Be like Margaret Atwood with The Handmaid’s Tale. Don’t, sadly, be like Emily St John Mandel with Station Eleven.

Golly, I don’t even know where to start to tear into this absurd vision of a dystopian future. From the highly unlikely and unchecked contagion rate of an illness with such a rapid incubation time to the utter ridiculousness of twenty years without anything but bicycle-powered electricity (I mean, really, did the dying/looting people burn down all the libraries out of spite? Before the internet, we had books that contained useful survival information, you know,) the sheer lack of basic logic was extremely off-putting. And I felt a lot of “what’s the point of you?” I didn’t care about any of these people. Okay, maybe Clark, but for most of the book, I felt I was coasting on the surface of everyone’s emotions, as much a voyeur as Jeevan in his life as a paparazzo. I did finally feel something in Kirsten’s last confrontation with the prophet, but what happened with the kid was just way too fucking convenient. This book felt less lived than displayed. And of course it ended before having to display any scientific rigor, just as things were about to get interesting.

The parallels to King Lear were interesting but really only of note to people who love the play/Shakespeare. And the layering of the narrative was only impressive if you’ve never read David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas or other good science-fiction. Ms Mandel writes fluidly, thank goodness, else I wouldn’t have finished this book in two days, but ugh, it was not worth my time at this point in my life.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/31/station-eleven-by-emily-st-john-mandel/

Jan 27 2017

Fairest: In All The Land (Fairest Vol 6) by Bill Willingham

Cinderella is easily my favorite character in the Fables universe, so I’m always thrilled to read the stories that place her front and center in the action. In this stand-alone story, someone is going around killing the women who’ve been proclaimed The Fairest In All The Land, and it’s up to Cindy to prevent more murders. The disconnected business office is also somehow involved, and it would probably help the new reader to have read the first volume of the Fairest series to find out more about Hadeon (so I guess it’s not really as stand-alone as it might be.)

The Magic Mirror narrates the, ahem, framing story, and there are a lot of interesting narrative and story choices made throughout. My favorite, by far, was the conversation between Snow and Cindy at the end, where they discuss Cindy’s choices and their after-effects. This definitely felt like one of the more thoughtful installments of the Fables universe in a while.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/27/fairest-in-all-the-land-fairest-vol-6-by-bill-willingham/

Jan 27 2017

Fairest Vols I and II by Various

Fairest Vol 1: Wide Awake by Bill Willingham and Phil Jimenez

I have loved Phil Jimenez since his work on Wonder Woman, so it was delightful to see him turning his pencil to the world of Fables. Interestingly, this volume is less an origin story of Sleeping Beauty than it is a redemption tale of the Snow Queen. Ali Baba and the bottle imp are great additions to the cast, but the story belongs wholly to the women.

AND THEN THE LAMIA SHORT STORY, ZOMG!!!

Good stuff.

Fairest Vol 2: The Hidden Kingdom by Lauren Beukes and Inaki Miranda

So on the one hand, I really enjoyed the various ways different parts of the Rapunzel mythology were woven together to create this. And I can see why having her in Japan makes a bunch of things make more sense thematically (what with the well etc.) but I couldn’t help but feel like it was somehow disrespectful of Japanese culture. I can’t even pinpoint the exact causes of my disquiet, but this volume, much like the bulk of its parent title, Fables, comes firmly from a conservative colonial European mindset, where other cultures as presented as weird and wacky and ultimately irrelevant. Idk, maybe it was just the general tone.

From a less socio-political perspective, the pacing of the comic was a bit off, particularly in the Rapunzel-Joel Crow interactions. Which, honestly, was prolly part of the former problem, as uneven pacing often makes it difficult to add depth to circumstances and relationships. So a worthy, entertaining effort, but not as good as the first volume.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/27/fairest-vols-i-and-ii-by-various/

Jan 03 2017

Landscapes of Communism by Owen Hatherley

Owen Hatherley places Landscapes of Communism at an intersection of several modes: serious but not academic architectural criticism; political and social history, as reflected in a region’s built environment; companion for both travellers and residents; and thoughts on living in cities shaped by different social systems. Hatherley writes early on that he uses the term “communist” largely as a matter of convenience. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe ruled by socialist party-states look different from their counterparts in Western Europe, their cities have different landmarks and features. Although “communist” is hardly satisfactory as a descriptor, alternative terms are even worse: “Stalinist,” “state socialist,” “state capitalist,” or even just “Soviet.” This initial choice could stand in for much of the rest of the book. Hatherley is trying to put his finger precisely on things that are difficult to put one’s finger on, and the terminology is slippery across both space and time.

“The paradoxical nature of architecture in the Soviet Bloc, with its sharp, sudden zigzags of official style — from Modernism to classicism to Baroque to a bizarre despotic Rococo to Modernism to Brutalism and back — has long puzzled historians.” (p. 30) Indeed. Hatherley’s careful text, informed by personal experience of almost all of the sites discussed, and copious photographs (three cheers for the digital photography and advances in printing technology that have made this possible and affordable) begins to make sense of the paradoxes involved. Because building in communist countries was always “an architecture parlante, a speaking architecture — one that constantly tells you about the state it represents,” (p. 30) speaking sensibly about what was built requires knowledge of both the history and the politics of the Bloc. Hatherley borrows a framework from Soviet architectural historian Vladimir Paperny, who proposed two cultures competing within the system across time, opposed to each other and supplanting each other in turn as personalities and doctrines in the communist parties fought for ascendancy. Paperny “called the Stalinist style ‘Culture Two,’ contrasting it with the future-oriented ‘Culture One’ of Modernism.” (p. 30) The changing dominance among the two over time, their dialectic as it were, explains much about cities under communism. “Culture one was obsessed with movement, wanting its cities to be fast, instant, disposable, dynamic; Culture Two was equally fixated with immobility, preferring its buildings to be monumental, solid, massive, immovable. Culture One built horizontal blocks of flats, long, low and linear; Culture Two opted for the vertical, creating skylines of spires and state offices which rose, step by step, like pyramids and ziggurats.” (p. 30)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/03/landscapes-of-communism-by-owen-hatherley/

Jan 02 2017

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice (The Austen Project #4) by Curtis Sittenfeld

Quite charming, and for the most part a note-perfect retelling of the classic for modern times. There were really only two false notes for me: the first was the laughable idea that, as a writer-at-large, Lizzy Bennett earns $105k a year, and the second was the last marriage proposal of the book, which I thought came a little too soon in that relationship, modern-day updating notwithstanding. Otherwise, it was quite interesting to see the parallels Curtis Sittenfeld drew between Eligible and the source material. I particularly enjoyed how she “split”, for lack of a better word, the original’s Wickham character to make for more interesting, topical reading. In addition, the coda as to Mary’s life was quite refreshing to read, even as someone who is quite happy to be coupled up (and has, on occasion, been lovingly accused of being boy-crazy.) It was nice to read a defense of singlehood in a book teeming with marriage plot upon marriage plot.

And for some reason, I suffered from the vague notion that this and Margaret Atwood’s Hag-Seed were from the same series, which I only cured myself of about 70% of the way through. Both excellent retellings, of course, but from quite different oeuvres.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/02/eligible-a-modern-retelling-of-pride-and-prejudice-the-austen-project-4-by-curtis-sittenfeld/

Jan 02 2017

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett


Twenty books into Discworld, Terry Pratchett has set up enough pieces of furniture in the various fictional rooms on the Disc that moving just a few of them around is bound to produce something interesting. In Hogfather, he has Death, Death’s granddaughter Susan, a member of the Assassins’ Guild who’s too good at what he does and enjoys it too much, and some of the senior faculty of the Unseen University. Pratchett also tries out one of the classical unities, setting the novel’s action almost entirely in one night, although some of the characters’ abilities mean that time does not behave in a strictly linear fashion when they are around. The particular night is the longest one of the year, when according to Disc tradition, the Hogfather speeds around on his sleigh (drawn by flying pigs) distributing gifts to children.

Only this year, something seems to have gone seriously wrong, and the Hogfather is nowhere to be found. His usual stand-ins are there for the commercial frenzy leading up to the holiday, but the jolly man in the red suit is not where he is supposed to be. That is the first sign that all is not well in the lattice of superstition and belief that supports much of the doings on the Disc. Death steps in to fill part of the gap, but he has to learn the role as he goes.

At a department store, a child has just agreed to be good in exchange for a toy castle, a play army

—and a sword. It was four feet long and glinted along the blade.
The mother took a deep breath.
“You can’t give her that!” she screamed. “It’s not safe!”
IT’S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY’RE NOT MEANT TO BE SAFE.
“She’s a child!” shouted Crumley.
IT’S EDUCATIONAL.
“What if she cuts herself?”
THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.
Uncle Heavy whispered urgently.
REALLY? OH, WELL, IT’S NOT FOR ME TO ARGUE, I SUPPOSE.
The blade went wooden. (pp. 142—43)

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/02/hogfather-by-terry-pratchett/

Jan 02 2017

Taking Stock of 2016

In reading, as in so many things, 2016 did not end quite the way I had reckoned it would. About halfway through the year I noticed I was near the end of several series, with more on the to-be-read shelf that I could knock out and clear space. That bookcase nearly full, double shelved, so I clearly need to get with the reading and do less of the buying. I had visited Goethe’s and Schiller’s houses in Weimar earlier in the year, and figured that reading about one Schiller play per month was a good and achievable way of closing up an odd gap in this German major’s education. I also figured that a Discworld book per month would be both fun and a way to make steady progress through the series.

Not much of that happened.

A death in the family, the electoral crisis, this that and the other, all put reading and writing toward the back of the queue.

I did finish some series: Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books, Jo Walton’s Thessaly trilogy, re-reading Barry Hughart’s tales of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, Rick Riordan’s Heroes of Olympus, Ferrol Sams’ trilogy about Porter Osborne, Jr. I’m almost there with Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland books. I’m up to date (save one, which is not out in paperback) on the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, current on Dave Hutchinson’s Europe books, and on Charles Stross’ Laundry chronicles. Looking forward to what happens next in all three of those. I’ve got two more Witcher books to catch up with what’s been translated into English. I may yet read the last Fandorin books in German, since he never caught on enough for the final volumes to be published in English. Grr. My Russian, to say the least, does not extend as far as reading full books.

Filling in gaps turns out to have been a theme of 2016. I finally read The Left Hand of Darkness, and was amazed. I finally read part of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and will pick up some more as the opportunity presents itself. I finally read one of Schiller’s major works, and can see how it shaped German drama. I finally read Catch-22, and agree that it’s a modern classic.

This past year, I read two books in German, four graphic novels, eight Discworld books, and one book-length work-in-progress by a friend. I read one book about the history of Fascism, and joked that my picking it up again was a sign of zeitgeist. I re-read three books. I read three books in translation (one from Russian into German).

Best Hamilton mention by someone other than Lin-Manuel Miranda goes to Naomi Novik, on page 157 of Blood of Tyrants. Best application for asylum goes to Charles Stross, at the end of The Nightmare Stacks. Best Victorian sentimental novel of cannibalistic dragons goes to Jo Walton, for Tooth and Claw. Best musical contest also goes to Jo Walton, for the dramatic climax of The Philosopher Kings. Best Discworld book is a close contest between Men at Arms and Maskerade. Best non-fiction were Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow and The Vanquished by Robert Gerwarth, although I enjoyed arguing with The Collapse by Mary Elise Sarotte as I went along. In the second half of the year, I spent a lot of time with Postwar by Tony Judt and Landscapes of Communism by Owen Hatherly but did not finish either by the end of 2016.

Full list, roughly in order read, is under the fold with links to my reviews and other writing about the authors here at Frumious.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/01/02/taking-stock-of-2016/

Dec 31 2016

Fables: The Deluxe Edition Vol 10 by Bill Willingham et. al.

While I’m going to review the rest of the series as a whole, I thought this book merited its own review, as it contains the entirety of the crossover with Jack Of Fables and has a distinctly different tone from the preceding books, being very much more a metaphysical caper and thus closer in theme to the JoF series. That said, it also contains the entirety of Werewolves Of The Heartland, which I reviewed as its own book and which seems, honestly, a bit like filler. Extra material, if one is feeling generous, and saves the purchase of the standalone, if one hasn’t purchased it already.

Anyway, this is a playful look at literacy and its attendants, and is quite charming but, in my opinion, devoid of any pathos, which I find quite a necessary part of a complete literary experience. It will also make not the most sense to people who don’t already follow Jack’s solo book, so while it is an interesting addition to the canon, I would not call it essential unless you really want to know what happens with Kevin Thorne, the world’s most annoying writer. But it’s witty and dreadfully meta, which carries a lot of weight with some types of reader.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2016/12/31/fables-the-deluxe-edition-vol-10-by-bill-willingham-et-al/