Fiction
podcath gifted me with a podfic of A Life Less Invulnerable (Smallville, Clark/Lex)!
Simon Sheppard, Jockboys 2: Free review copy. Short sort-of novella (sex stories connected by a frame story). There’s a lot of sex here, with moments of sharp observation and definitely very character-focused, like slash often is. The difference, aside from not previously knowing these characters, is mainly that a lot of the sex isn’t particularly satisfying, or is good but isn’t as good as the best sex the characters have ever had. For example, one main character used to be a porn star, and one guy he fucks wants to do it while watching his old films; meanwhile the ex-porn star thinks that the guy is hot but not exactly what he wants. There are a lot of middle-aged bodies with their own quirks and smells, parts that are soft where they used to be hard and parts that look and/or work great, and various kinks (including a short piss interlude, more discussed than descibed). It did leave me thinking about what it is that we want from sex that isn’t all that good. I guess it’s like meta about desire crossed with a gay porn film.
Daniel Abraham, The Price of Spring: The final volume in Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, jumping ahead in time again. Otah Machi, now Emperor, makes a desperate pact with the Galts: due to missteps with the andat many years ago, only their women are fertile and only the men of the Khaiem are, so they’ll trade. Because nothing goes right with a plan in this series, the young woman to whom he’s agreed to marry his son sticks a spanner in the works. Meanwhile, Otah’s daughter Eiah has conceived her own desperate scheme to return the power of the andat to the Khaiem; this also goes wrong in unexpected ways. Really awful things happen due to the competing plans of various actors, each of which is understandable and often well-intentioned in itself. The ending does feature rebirth, but the volume is well named.
Ken MacLeod, Intrusion: In an if-this-goes-on UK, a pregnant woman doesn’t want to take the Fix, which will correct almost all known genetic flaws. While religious objectors are excused from the requirement, her objections aren’t religious; she just doesn’t want to do it. Also, while abortion is legal during a substantial part of pregnancy, fertile women have to wear rings that monitor their exposure to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes (even secondhand), etc. and deviations or even removing the ring can lead to social services intervention. And pending legislation requiring “safe workplaces” for fertile women will make it even harder for them to work (but working from home will be exempted, of course). Torture is a normal feature of routine interrogations, but it’s all very sanitary and no one talks about it in public. Oh, and the woman’s husband and young son may have the Sight, and her unborn child may also inherit it if she doesn’t take the Fix. (Yeah, that came out of left field.) While the characters provided a recognizable if dreary portrait of people making their way under a tyrannical, well-intentioned system, I never really engaged with them as characters rather than as McLeod showing how awful and corrosive an unlimited government is even when it purports to bind itself with the rule of law. The thing I found most striking was the portrayal of serious religious belief-including Christian belief-as something considered weird by the majority of citizens; this novel could not have been written by an American and a similar American dystopia would definitely have included more official Godliness.
Matt Hawkins & Linda Sejic, Wildfire: Graphic novel about a genetically modified plant gone horribly wrong, spreading out of control in Los Angeles. It is about real concerns about GMOs the same way that Godzilla is about real concerns about radiation, which is to say it expresses a cultural anxiety, though the authors seem to think that they’re participating in a real debate.
Mira Grant, Symbiont: Volume two of Grant’s new trilogy turns into zombie territory as the “sleepwalkers” whose brains have been compromised by their genetically engineered, medicalized tapeworm implants run riot in the US (the condition of the rest of the world is not a concern of this book). Sal, the girl who figured out she was a chimera-a worm in a human body-at the end of the last book, long after the rest of us did, goes through many varieties of captivity as the government and the evil corporation behind the tapeworms and the rebel researcher trying to figure out what the evil corporation did all compete to control her. The annoying repetitions of phrases from a made-up children’s book that were characteristic of the first book continue here for the first half, and then finally, blessedly, get lost in more and more plot. Sal starts to exercise more control over her own life and gets a bit back against the sociopath in charge of the evil corporation, but the narrative ends on a cliffhanger ensuring that you’ll read the final book if you had any interest at all in this one.
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