more fantasy and science fiction
16. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
Somehow I seem to have omitted to review The Intuitionist, which was the very first book I ordered for this challenge. About a world in which elevator inspecting is a highly regarded and complex profession, in which empiricists battle the intuitionists of the title, a sort of mystical philosophy of gestalt elevatorness which has an inexplicably higher success rate. I thought this book was going to be quirky and charming, full of love of cities and complex machines. Instead it was bleak and spare, set in what I think is meant to be an alternate 50s and 60s, full of far more overt racism and sexism and therefore far more isolation. It is powerfully envisioned and lyrically written, but in the end, the heroine's lack of real connection with anyone else made it an unsatisfying experience for me. I would definitely read more Whitehead though. Am thinking of getting his The Colossus of New York because it sounds fascinating, even though it would ruin my all-50-in-F&SF plan.
17. Parable of The Talents by Octavia Butler
The sequel to Parable of the Sower.
I read this on the recommendation of heyiya, and according to all logic I should have warmed to it, since it is told from the point of view of the previous protagonist (and religion founder) Lauren Olamina's skeptical daughter. But logic and I don't get on, apparently. The book covers both the continued adventures of Olamina, this time as discovered and narrated by the daughter who she calls Larkin, but who gets taken from her and forcibly adopted by Christian fundamentalists who give her the name Asha Vere. The greater distance of a narrator who isn't part of the action, is finding it out later and in pieces, and interspersing it with other info made the rest of Lauren's story somewhat less sufficient to pull me over the other things I found problematic, though I still had a lot of sympathy with her losses, and I had absolute rage on her behalf at her brother by the end of the book.
Unfortunately, I never got to really grapple for good or ill with her troubling messianic side -- her daughter finds it problematic but never really focuses on why, except a sort of sibling rivalry, and virtually all of the growth of Earthseed from vestigial personal philosophy to successful popular movement happens offstage in the last few pages. And since all the daughter has to contrast it with is an empty religious observance in which she does not believe but finds comfortable, the pungent critiques I was hoping for never really occurred. Despite the daughter's repeated assertion that Earthseed is Olamina's true and favored child, the part we get to experience is her unavailing quest to find her daughter, who was all but hijacked by the preacher-brother who knowingly stayed with the sect that enslaved his sister. By the last page I was so pumping with adrenaline in anger at Mark, and at the daughter for excusing him, that I could not sleep, and the fulfillment of the Earthseed "Destiny" struck me as a decided anticlimax, equivalent to Ye Olde Standard Romance Novel epilogue, only replacing children with spaceflight..
18. J. by William Sanders
Sanders goes light and rollicking over well-worn territory in the set up for J. -- meeting oneself in an alternate universe may not be an original premise, but I scarcely noticed and did not at all care, given the immensely appealing character of Mad Jack, the sympathetic narrator and foil Ann the mental patient. Not to mention their burgeoning, believable and charming romance, and how deeply satisfying it is to see characters deal with common SF tropes like real people -- Jack and Ann have plenty of sensible guesses and plans as well as freak outs as they figure out they are in some ways twins and evade pursuit in 2 universes.
I didn't have the same kind of instant warmth for Jay, their third self, suicidal alcoholic and science fiction writer, though I love that it was the detail of different actors playing Star Trek's Kirk that convinced her of the alternate realities. I found her sometime participation in sex with Jack and Ann to be a little bit creepy -- I got nothing against threesomes or triads, but the total lack of awkwardness, jealousy, wanting more, asymmetrical interest, or anything else I associate with working out this dynamic in the real world, especially with someone having so many Issues and not much practice, felt strange to me -- like Saunders wanted to have his cake and eat it too on the question of how much of this attraction is driven or defined by their kinship.
However that's a minor caveat and doesn't spoil the book. What did spoil the book for me is that the resolution is incredibly Deus Ex Machina, even more so than in The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan. This time the woman with godlike powers comes out of a literal machine! And explains everything, and solves everything! I am beginning to think Saunders just doesn't know how to end a story without having someone ride in on a white horse to fix it..
Somehow I seem to have omitted to review The Intuitionist, which was the very first book I ordered for this challenge. About a world in which elevator inspecting is a highly regarded and complex profession, in which empiricists battle the intuitionists of the title, a sort of mystical philosophy of gestalt elevatorness which has an inexplicably higher success rate. I thought this book was going to be quirky and charming, full of love of cities and complex machines. Instead it was bleak and spare, set in what I think is meant to be an alternate 50s and 60s, full of far more overt racism and sexism and therefore far more isolation. It is powerfully envisioned and lyrically written, but in the end, the heroine's lack of real connection with anyone else made it an unsatisfying experience for me. I would definitely read more Whitehead though. Am thinking of getting his The Colossus of New York because it sounds fascinating, even though it would ruin my all-50-in-F&SF plan.
17. Parable of The Talents by Octavia Butler
The sequel to Parable of the Sower.
I read this on the recommendation of heyiya, and according to all logic I should have warmed to it, since it is told from the point of view of the previous protagonist (and religion founder) Lauren Olamina's skeptical daughter. But logic and I don't get on, apparently. The book covers both the continued adventures of Olamina, this time as discovered and narrated by the daughter who she calls Larkin, but who gets taken from her and forcibly adopted by Christian fundamentalists who give her the name Asha Vere. The greater distance of a narrator who isn't part of the action, is finding it out later and in pieces, and interspersing it with other info made the rest of Lauren's story somewhat less sufficient to pull me over the other things I found problematic, though I still had a lot of sympathy with her losses, and I had absolute rage on her behalf at her brother by the end of the book.
Unfortunately, I never got to really grapple for good or ill with her troubling messianic side -- her daughter finds it problematic but never really focuses on why, except a sort of sibling rivalry, and virtually all of the growth of Earthseed from vestigial personal philosophy to successful popular movement happens offstage in the last few pages. And since all the daughter has to contrast it with is an empty religious observance in which she does not believe but finds comfortable, the pungent critiques I was hoping for never really occurred. Despite the daughter's repeated assertion that Earthseed is Olamina's true and favored child, the part we get to experience is her unavailing quest to find her daughter, who was all but hijacked by the preacher-brother who knowingly stayed with the sect that enslaved his sister. By the last page I was so pumping with adrenaline in anger at Mark, and at the daughter for excusing him, that I could not sleep, and the fulfillment of the Earthseed "Destiny" struck me as a decided anticlimax, equivalent to Ye Olde Standard Romance Novel epilogue, only replacing children with spaceflight..
18. J. by William Sanders
Sanders goes light and rollicking over well-worn territory in the set up for J. -- meeting oneself in an alternate universe may not be an original premise, but I scarcely noticed and did not at all care, given the immensely appealing character of Mad Jack, the sympathetic narrator and foil Ann the mental patient. Not to mention their burgeoning, believable and charming romance, and how deeply satisfying it is to see characters deal with common SF tropes like real people -- Jack and Ann have plenty of sensible guesses and plans as well as freak outs as they figure out they are in some ways twins and evade pursuit in 2 universes.
I didn't have the same kind of instant warmth for Jay, their third self, suicidal alcoholic and science fiction writer, though I love that it was the detail of different actors playing Star Trek's Kirk that convinced her of the alternate realities. I found her sometime participation in sex with Jack and Ann to be a little bit creepy -- I got nothing against threesomes or triads, but the total lack of awkwardness, jealousy, wanting more, asymmetrical interest, or anything else I associate with working out this dynamic in the real world, especially with someone having so many Issues and not much practice, felt strange to me -- like Saunders wanted to have his cake and eat it too on the question of how much of this attraction is driven or defined by their kinship.
However that's a minor caveat and doesn't spoil the book. What did spoil the book for me is that the resolution is incredibly Deus Ex Machina, even more so than in The Ballad of Billy Badass and the Rose of Turkestan. This time the woman with godlike powers comes out of a literal machine! And explains everything, and solves everything! I am beginning to think Saunders just doesn't know how to end a story without having someone ride in on a white horse to fix it..