Dec 18 2021

Putting the World into Worldcon

The 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCon III in Washington, DC, is in full swing as I write. In fact, presentations of this year’s Hugo Awards are set to begin in 15 minutes an hour and fifteen minutes, and I plan to write about those in the morning when I wake up and find out who won. I had hoped to be at DisCon III. I lived in DC for four years and still have friends in the area. The hotel where DisCon is being held is where I stayed when I visited Washington as a high school senior taking part in Presidential Classroom. It would have been neat to go back, especially as the summer dates for the con could have been made to coincide with my 25th graduate school reunion. (My cohort was small enough that I could have organized the event and set the dates.) The pandemic put paid to all of that. DisCon, unlike last year’s CoNZealand, is having an in-person convention — with significant virtual participation — but at the cost of moving the event from August to mid-December.

DisCon

The biggest news to come out of the convention so far is not about this year’s Worldcon, but about the convention in 2023. Members of a given year’s Worldcon select the site of the convention two years in the future. So, for example, voters from CoNZealand chose Chicago as the site of the 2022 Worldcon. One wrinkle is that voting in site selection involves extra costs, so typically a noticeably smaller slice of a year’s members will form the electorate to choose the location for two years hence. Another wrinkle is that in recent years (and in some of the coming years, too) bids to host Worldcon have been unopposed. Washington was unopposed in 2019, after having lost to Helsinki in 2015 for the right to host the 2017 convention. Glasgow, Scotland is presently unopposed for 2024. Yet another wrinkle is that the campaign to host a Worldcon often runs about 10 years, and is a grueling task for the volunteers who undertake a labor of considerable love.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/18/putting-the-world-into-worldcon/

Dec 17 2021

Spílexm: A Weaving Of Recovery, Resilience, And Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell

Hrm, well, if I’d known this was essentially a memoir by a woman in her 40s, I would have probably skipped it (as I do for memoirs by men in their 30s, and for roughly the same reasons.) I feel that the 40s are a bad age for a woman to try to do a retrospective on her life, and I think it has a lot to do with how Western thought has taught us that this is an age where we’ve achieved enough wisdom to look back on our lives and even-handedly consider them. Because, too, memoirs at this age seem to be a complacent “this is how I’ve achieved happiness” how-to, and then half the time reading them, I’m cringing because the author clearly has a lot of sublimated misery that another decade will absolutely help her figure out. Weirdly, memoirs by younger women don’t have this problem, probably because they’re not expected to have all the answers yet and are usually focused on single events or topics instead of being a whole life retrospective.

I actually didn’t realize this was a memoir at all when I started it: I thought it was the transcription of an oral history, or a collection — a weaving, as in the title — of the stories of a people, perhaps a family. And in large part, it is, or at least that’s where it begins, with letters written from Nicola I Campbell’s mom from when the author was a baby. Ms Campbell’s poetry is interspersed with short personal essays that detail her childhood and troubled adolescence, and how she assimilated her people’s culture and pain as she grew, eventually focusing on personal growth and then the upholding of her people’s ways and memories. Worthy aims certainly, and there are a lot of ways in which that last is manifested throughout this book. The use of Indigenous language and the frank discussions of the intergenerational trauma that continues to impact her and her people make for compelling reading. The poetry, too, isn’t bad.

And yet, and yet. While I appreciated the glossary at the end, I wish there’d been a pronunciation guide as well, so that my brain could spend more time on the prose and ideas rather than mulling over whether I was pronouncing the words properly in my head. Never mind not knowing what half of them meant in the moment: I could gather enough from context but kept snagging on how to correlate spelling with sound, with failure resulting in a sort of white noise effect in my head — very distracting when trying to read. There’s also a weird, crescendoing emphasis on exercise, such that when she finally mentioned she does Crossfit, my eyes rolled so far back in my head, I nearly gave myself a concussion. Contrast this with my impatience with her younger self’s waffling about canoeing in earlier chapters. As someone whose adult-onset asthma has sharply curtailed the amount of exercise I can get these past few years, I found the “just do it” chirpiness of the newly converted incredibly grating. If only, madam, if only.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/17/spilexm-a-weaving-of-recovery-resilience-and-resurgence-by-nicola-i-campbell/

Dec 16 2021

The Cursed Carnival And Other Calamities: New Stories About Mythic Heroes compiled by Rick Riordan

First, a small pat on the back to myself for slowly but surely catching up on my reading backlog.

Second, a huge pat on the back to everyone involved with Rick Riordan Presents, an imprint that showcases fantastic middle-grade fiction based on world mythologies. The representation is gloriously diverse and fascinatingly educational. I love mythology myself, but when I was growing up the only stories really accessible to me were the standard Greco-Roman. Sure, there were some Norse, but nowhere near as well explained as Greek — I’m still learning some of the Norse tales today! And as for the rest of the world’s mythologies? Nearly inaccessible, up to and including my own.

But now we have RRP, which presents entire books out of mythologies world-wide (with slight modifications, ofc) for readers of all ages. Younger me would have read these non-stop. Older me is just so glad to be able to share these with my kids, and so grateful that young people have this kind of thing available in their lives.

As of this writing, there are almost two dozen RRP books in print, covering a vast array of the world’s mythos. The Cursed Carnival And Other Calamities is essentially an introduction to several of those series, incorporating legends from almost all of the continents, giving readers a bite-sized idea of what the full books have to offer. The stories are overall very strong examples of fantasy/sci-fi writing for middle-grade, with perhaps my favorite being Yoon Ha Lee’s The Initiation, which continues the very cool space story begun in Dragon Pearl, following Min and Jun as they’re sent off to train as agents.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/16/the-cursed-carnival-and-other-calamities-new-stories-about-mythic-heroes-compiled-by-rick-riordan/

Dec 15 2021

Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard & Deloupy

It’s always so frustrating reading books like this and feeling the shock of recognition turn into a weariness, then a resentment at the fact that people don’t think this shit could happen to them, too.

The Iranians certainly didn’t think they’d lose their freedom in the late 70s when a coalition of communists and Islamic fundamentalists banded together to throw out the American-backed, corrupt Shah. The fundamentalists quickly turned on and routed the communists, setting up a hardline right-wing regime that was swiftly, if unwittingly, propped up by Iraqi aggression. Decades later and the Iranian fight for civil liberties seems to be on its last legs, the Green Revolution a dying gasp in the face of a brutal authoritarian state that hides behind theology to justify its excesses. The Iranian people are tired, and cowed, and doing whatever they can to survive.

This is the atmosphere that Jane Deuxard, the pseudonym for two journalists who travel through Iran undercover, reports on in the pages of this distressing graphic novel. Everyone they interview is in an extended state of coping: their material needs may be more or less cared for, but their psychological, existential crises almost bleed off the page. From the sincere young revolutionary broken by the death of Neda, the figurehead of the Green Revolution’s rebellion, to the gleefully anti-feminist young woman who insists that women are treated much better in Iran than in the West, the stories of these mostly young people makes for traumatizing reading.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/15/iranian-love-stories-by-jane-deuxard-deloupy/

Dec 14 2021

Dance Class Vol 12: The New Girl by BéKa and Crip

This slight but amusing volume is perfect for dance enthusiasts anywhere and of any age!

We catch up with Lucy, Alia and Julie as a new girl joins their classical ballet class. Maya’s real love is basketball, but she’s been forced by her mother to try ballet before it’s “too late”. Maya is a team player tho, so she’s ready to give it the old college try. However, her background in competitive team sports makes for a lot of culture shock, not only for her, but also for her new classmates and their teacher.

Meanwhile, mean girl Carla is up to her old tricks again. When she’s cast as the lead in their Afrojazz class recital, the rest of the girls decide to take her down a peg or two, to hilarious result. And while the older girls are working on their programs, the younger class, including Lucy’s irrepressible sister Capucine, are also hard at work, to the dismay of Capucine’s dad, who’s been roped in to his daughters’ efforts one time too many. Can he finally find a way to turn his daughters’ dance obsession to his own advantage?

Told in loose vignettes that highlight the humor of young dance-obsessed lives, this series continues to be an antidote to the superabundance of moody, self-destructive dancer narratives out there. And don’t get me wrong, I love me some messed up ballet psychodrama but it’s always nice to remember too the giddy joy of being a young dancer learning the craft, before it becomes a job or a chore or a burden.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/14/dance-class-vol-12-the-new-girl-by-beka-and-crip/

Dec 13 2021

The Dead Don’t Sleep by Steven Max Russo

Steven Max Russo sent this to me with a warning about graphic violence, but honestly? I’ve read enough horror novels and thrillers that, while this book is definitely on the violent side, it never descends into gratuitous gore, instead giving a visceral depiction of what really happens in war and bloodshed and refusing to look away from the cost of taking a life and what that means for the killer, justified or otherwise.

The Dead Don’t Sleep tells the story of Frank Thompson, a mild-mannered Vietnam vet who’s recently lost his beloved wife. After grieving alone for a while in his rural Maine home, he decides to accept an invitation to spend a week with his nephew Bill and family down in New Jersey. While out trap shooting at a range with Bill, he runs into a face from the past, even tho he initially pretends to have no idea of their connection.

Jack Sprague is the kind of guy who never forgets a face, however. Despite having last encountered Frank decades ago, he instinctively remembers the man, as well as the grudge he still bears him. After recruiting several other vets who also knew Frank back in Vietnam, they trace Bill’s Jeep to its home address and spring an unpleasant surprise on their former brother-in-arm’s family.

Determined to protect what few relatives he has left, Frank makes it clear to his old “buddies” that he’s gotten the message and is clearing out of New Jersey post-haste. But his old comrades believe that revenge is a dish best served cold (and high), and decide to take their revenge trip on the road, following Frank back up to Maine for a final, lethal showdown.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/13/the-dead-dont-sleep-by-steven-max-russo/

Dec 12 2021

Station Island by Seamus Heaney

I still struggle with a notion I first mentioned when writing about Heaney’s inaugural collection, Death of a Naturalist, the idea that with each collection of poetry I should take time to live with it, read through several times, maybe even commit bits to memory so as to have them always at the ready. I remember a formative English teacher saying that you should read a poem seven times before thinking that you understand it. Much of my literary upbringing said that poetry should be absorbed as much as it should be read, it should become a part of the reader. The only poem of Heaney’s I have come close to readily calling to mind is “Digging,” the very first poem in the very first collection.

Station Island by Seamus Heaney

The truth, though, is that I read Station Island like I read Heaney’s other collections: on the train during my daily commute, in between helping kids with homework, late in the evening when things are quiet and even, occasionally, during longer periods when I can devote some uninterrupted time to reading. I would like poetry to be like a pilgrimage, but in practice it’s more prosaic.

Heaney manages both in Station Island. The eponymous central section arises from a pilgrimage Heaney made more than once in his younger days to an island in Lough Derg in County Donegal, Ireland. The island is home to “Patrick’s Purgatory” and has been a pilgrimage site at least since 1185. As practiced today, the pilgrimage has a three-day fast, an all-night vigil the first night, and nine stations of prayer. Heaney’s poem has twelve stations, and in each of them the speaker encounters a ghostly presence, country people he has known, fellow poets, a young priest, James Joyce. I was most struck by the eleventh and twelfth parts: the eleventh for its nearly mystical vision of a fountain of life and its repeated invocation “although it is the night”; the twelfth for its conjuring Joyce’s voice in Dante’s stanzas, closing the poem with invocation and instruction, the ghost telling the poet “You’ve listened long enough. Now strike your note.”

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/12/station-island-by-seamus-heaney/

Dec 11 2021

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye by Alan Dean Foster

It’s 1978. There is only one Star Wars movie, and it doesn’t have a subtitle or an episode number. Star Wars is still playing in some movie theaters, more than a year after its release. There are a ton of toys, and fans are busily imagining what their beloved characters were up to before and after the events of the movie (well, American fans mostly, Star Wars did not premiere in the UK until late December of 1977, and it took even longer to arrive elsewhere), but as far as official Star Wars stories go that was it. Until Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was published in March 1978. With that cover!

Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Darth Vader dominates Ralph McQuarrie‘s painting. Vader has the drop on Luke and Leia, standing atop a pile of rubble between stone two columns with a misty forest in the background. Something bright and red and glowing is in the middle of the pile, commanding a viewer’s attention almost as much as Vader does. What’s happening? How did they get to where they are? I still find the cover and the title almost as irresistible as I did when I first bought the paperback way back in the days before the Empire struck back.

A copy recently made its way to me, a Del Rey paperback with a cover price of $1.95 and an ad in the back to mail-order books by Robert A. Heinlein, 50¢ to cover postage and handling, please allow four weeks for delivery. I hadn’t read Splinter of the Mind’s Eye in at least thirty years, more likely forty. Had the Suck Fairy paid a visit? I mentioned it on social media, and replies ran the gamut — liked it, couldn’t get into it, anticipation followed by disappointment, loved it (but how did Luke learn to swim while growing up on Tatooine?), it always sucked — but nobody said they had read it recently.

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/11/splinter-of-the-minds-eye-by-alan-dean-foster/

Dec 10 2021

Cardboardia Vol 1: The Other Side Of The Box by Richard Fairgray and Lucy Campagnolo

This delightful adventure follows four young friends (or three young friends and one pesky younger sister, according to at least one of our foursome) as they’re drawn into the strange and wonderful realm of Cardboardia, there to serve as heroes or villains, depending on whom you ask.

If you ask our four protagonists, ofc, they’ll all claim to land firmly on the hero side, even as they all have very different personalities and ways of coping with their lives back in the real world. Pokey Stilton is the youngest, the pesky little sister to Mac, the quiet, troubled one who may have been the very first to get a glimpse into what Cardboardia has to offer and why. Pokey’s certainly the most eager explorer of this odd new place, after getting separated from the responsible, if hardly straitlaced enough for her conservative parents, Maisie. The fourth member of their group is the even-keeled Bird, whose calm temperament comes from a lifetime of dealing with his own rambunctious siblings.

Mac, Bird and Maisie are all classmates who are planning a sleepover that Pokey also desperately wants to attend, but when Pokey and Maisie accidentally stumble into Cardboardia while at school one day, all thoughts of sleepovers are banished from their minds. When an accident shoves Maisie back into the real world without Pokey, Maisie must recruit the boys to help her rescue the younger girl. Weirdly, everyone in Cardboardia keeps staring at the trio as they begin their search for Pokey, and they soon discover why. Apparently, they’re on a Most Wanted list. But whose list is this and why have they deemed the kids public enemies?

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/10/cardboardia-vol-1-the-other-side-of-the-box-by-richard-fairgray-and-lucy-campagnolo/

Dec 09 2021

If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich

Funny story, I actually had a brief Twitter conversation with the very lovely Sophie Gonzales about this book and how, while it is a romance, it isn’t a rom-com, as many are expecting. I thought this misapprehension was due to a combination of the cartoon-y cover and the glowing blurbs that all accentuate how light and adorbs it is — the kind of stuff you’d see in the marketing for a rom-com. And now I’ve read the book, and can confirm that while there are definitely humorous parts in the prose (mostly courtesy of Angel and Jon,) this book is definitely on the more serious side of YA romance.

Essentially, Ruben and Zach are members, with the afore-mentioned Angel and Jon, of the mega-selling boy band Saturday. Ruben has been told by Chorus Management, the company that basically runs Saturday’s entire existence, to stay in the closet despite being openly gay for years. Since each of the boys in the band is meant to fit an appealing archetype, Ruben acquiesces, comfortably enough filling the Nice Guy role while wishing he had more chances to showcase his vocal abilities. The Nice Guy, ofc, doesn’t get the starring roles, despite the stage-trained Ruben easily having the best vocal range of the group. Chorus assures him that this is all temporary but Ruben is starting to have his doubts.

Zach is the Bad Boy, tho in reality he’s the quiet one with the dream of becoming a singer-songwriter in the vein of the pop punk bands he admires. Alas that Chorus prefers to go with more easily palatable pop music for Saturday’s repertoire. But they do encourage him to keep writing, in hopes of eventually snagging some songwriting credits. Zach is also straight… he thinks. When he finds himself attracted to Ruben, he starts having to reevaluate everything he thought he knew about himself, as well as everything he thought he’d be able to put up with as the price of being part of Saturday.

As Ruben and Zach fall in love, the pressures to keep their relationship quiet and not rock the boat begin to get to them, even as the pressures of being in a boy band start to wear on all its members. With media rumors rife about (fake) feuds and (even faker) girlfriends, can the four guys who originally started Saturday out of friendship and a shared love of music find a way to hold on to their bond and their band without losing their integrity?

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2021/12/09/if-this-gets-out-by-sophie-gonzales-and-cale-dietrich/