Bacigalupi, Paolo: The Alchemist
The Alchemist (2010)
Written by: Paolo Bacigalupi
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 95 (Hardcover)
Why I Read It: Because it's Paolo Bacigalupi. As soon as I saw the pre-order, this sucker was mine!
The premise: ganked from Amazon.com: The first foray into fantasy from Hugo winner Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) is one of two novellas (the other by Tobias S. Buckell) set in a world where using magic has terrible consequences. Jeoz is a destitute alchemist living in Khaim, a city literally being strangled to death by bramble, a "wormy malevolence" that expands its thorny vines every time someone uses magic. The bramble's hairs are poisonous, and the forest of vines has already destroyed entire empires. The genius alchemist, obsessed with finding a way to destroy the bramble--and desperately motivated by his sickly six-year-old daughter--invents a device that he believes will rid the region of the thorny pestilence forever. But when he unveils his potentially realm-saving creation to Khaim's mayor, Jeoz realizes his benevolent work has darker applications. This bite-sized tale is charming, lyrically written, and thematically rich.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay, because it's a short book. Instead, I'm gonna talk about the world-building and my own hypocrisy of why THIS story of a parent trying to save a child works better for me than it did in The Executioness. In fact, I'm gonna drop the whole "thumbs up/thumbs down" bit, because really, there's nothing I can think of to make a fuss about, and also, it's Bacigalupi, people. Do you expect me to be objective and rational? No, I didn't think so. :) But I do get into a very interesting comparison between The Executioness and The Alchemist in regards to gender roles, so you may have fun with this even if you don't intend to read the book. :)
Let's talk story and world-building. In Buckell's The Executioness, we learn that bramble exists and it's taking over the land city by city, that people can't fight the spread. In The Alchemist, we learn a LOT more about this bramble. For starters, welcome to fantasy land, and in this fantasy land, when magic is used, it leaves behind a kind of odor and residue that the bramble is attracted to; therefore, the more magic that's used, the more the bramble grows.
And it seems that everyone and anyone can learn the use of magic, and that's the trouble. We don't have a ton of wizards running around with great power doing great things (although we learn of that very thing happening in the history of this world and the bramble destroyed that city), but rather, we have individuals who are using little bits of magic to make their lives better, easier.
In the case of our protagonist, Jeoz uses to keep his daughter from dying of the wasting cough. It's a magic he has to use over and over, healing his daughter bit by bit, but when her condition deteriorates to near death, he has to pull out the magic again, even though it's been made illegal by the Mayor.
For such a short book, there's a lot of philosophical heft involved about the ethics and morality of using magic. It's stressed over and over that everyone things they have a good reason to use it, even though they KNOW that the use of it will cause bramble to encroach even farther into the city, or sprout in their neighbors' roof. Hey, as long as the magic can't be traced to them, and as long as their intentions are pure, why not? But it seems that EVERYONE has a good reason to use magic, and the Mayor, obsessed with rebuilding the glory of cities long glorious but long gone, only wants those he appoints to use magic, and no one else.
The tale that follows is well executed. Not only is it personal, in that Jeoz is using magic to keep his daughter alive, but he's also seeking a solution to the bramble, to completely eliminate it (so that everyone can use magic for whatever they need, like him saving his daughter), but what he ends up with is used in ways he never imagined, making him complicit in events he'd rather have no part of.
So here's why the story of a FATHER doing everything in his power to save his DAUGHTER works better than Buckell's story of a MOTHER doing everything in her power to save her SONS.
1) It's Bacigalupi. I'm biased. But also, even if you compare the two authors' prose, I feel Bacigalupi is the better technical writer. Hell, this is made starkingly clear in the introductions the two authors write for each others' work. Not only is there difference in length, but even the sentence structure the authors use for the introductions reveals volumes about their individual writing styles. I do wonder, however, if circumstances forced Buckell to write the intro to Bacigalupi's book in a hurry? Whatever the case, my point is simply this: Bacigalupi's writing style sweeps me away and suspends disbelief easily; Buckell's doesn't.
2) We see the father, Jeoz, interact quite often with his daughter, Jiala (great name!). We see the pain Jiana's in every time she starts coughing, and we feel Jeoz's panic and desire to make his daughter better. In The Executioness, we only meet Tana's sons once, and one of them has -- if I recall -- a lame foot. I worry the disability is meant to be shorthand to elicit sympathy, but regardless, we meet them at the beginning of the book, and we never see them again (neither does Tana!). It makes it harder for me to connect to Tana's quest because I don't know her sons as characters, whereas I know Jeoz's daughter quite well.
Of course, Jeoz's daughter isn't being kidnapped and the point isn't that kind of rescue, either.
3) Personal reasons: because of the way I was raised and the things missing in my own life, I connect more to fathers because I'm always looking for what I didn't have growing up. Whereas with mothers, well, me and my own didn't have a great relationship, and I worry about what kind of mother I'll end up being should I ever become one due to the person my mom is. Sorry, that's convoluted. Point is, it's easy for me to romanticize fathers and villainize mothers due to the way I grew up. I shouldn't take that out on a poor author trying to write the best story he can, I know, but we all bring our personal experiences to a story, and that's just something the author can't control. At least I'm being honest here!
4) Regardless of personal reasons, Jeoz's story is just more compelling. It's the ethical question of the use of his device, the ethical question of the use of magic, combined with the desire to put others before one's self really spoke to me. The story felt complete, and there was never a moment I felt yanked out of it.
5) Something else to consider: whereas having women be MOTHERS is simply conforming to a gender role, having men be FATHERS in fiction is kind of a gender reversal, because how often do we see the tender sides of dads in fiction? I'm sure there's plenty of examples out there, so there's no need to point them out. But my point is when we meet a female character, seeing her as a loving mother isn't a surprise. Whereas seeing a man in the same role in, because usually, in fantasy fiction, the men are the adventuring heroes, not the nurturers.
So there's irony here: while both characters are similar in their motivations, to save their children, both characters do break gender conventions: Tana goes on to become a warrior and adventuring hero; Jeoz is the nurturing father taking care of his household and family.
I'm sure that's very intentional on the part of the authors. Really, I'm sure. I have no confirmation of this, but I'd be shocked if they said otherwise. At any rate, I appreciate that irony and what they're doing. It's kind of cool in hindsight.
My Rating
Must Read: This is a great story, and I say that with no reservations. Despite being a rabid Bacigalupi fangirl, I will say that in my defense, I wasn't OMG-EXCITED-CRAZY over his debut, The Windup Girl, even though I was INLOVE with his short fiction. So don't think that I'll love EVERYTHING Bacigalupi puts his name on. I probably won't. But this is a great story, and the ending feels just right. The two tales combined give us an interesting glimpse into this world, and I do hope Buckell and Bacigalupi return to it, because I'm quite interested in seeing what other stories are out there.
That said, I prefer The Alchemist to The Executioness for all the reasons stated in my review. Not that it's a competition or anything. But hey, Bacigalupi did pick up a Nebula nod with this, and it's easy, super-easy, to see why. As far as I know, it's his first foray into fantasy, but it works. It really works. :)
Buy or Borrow: I bought the expensive edition, with the leather cover and autograph, and I don't regret a dime of it. Then again, I'm a Bacigalupi fan girl, and probably am not the best judge when it comes to spending money on this particular author!
Cover Commentary: I don't love this one as much as the one for The Executioness. For starters, I think the shadow is overused in the lower left corner, and the image of the hero with the bottle in his hands just isn't compelling (what is that supposed to be, anyway? Magic? A genie? What?). I do like the consistency of the overall image framed by the bramble, and the art is pretty (and the art inside is, of course, gorgeous), but of the two covers, I'm meh on this one.
Next up: Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler