THE SNOW QUEEN – Joan D. Vinge and the colonialist narrative

The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years, deriving wealth from the slaughter of the sea mers. But soon the galactic stargate will close, isolating Tiamat, and the 150-year reign of the Summer primitives will begin. All is not lost if Arienrhod, the ageless, corrupt Snow Queen, can destroy destiny with an act of genocide. Arienrhod is not without competition as Moon, a young Summer-tribe sibyl, and the nemesis of the Snow Queen, battles to break a conspiracy that spans space.

This is a childhood favorite. Unfortunately, though for the most part it does hold up fairly well–and has been noted for its gorgeous cover art–rereading it again years later does bring to light some… problems.

But it still remains one of my favorite things, a book I know so well that I can review it from memory.

 

SILENTLY AND VERY FAST – Catherynne M Valente

Fantastist Catherynne M. Valente takes on the folklore of artificial intelligence in this brand new, original novella of technology, identity, and an uncertain mechanized future. Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great grandmother-a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote. But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever . . .

As far as books I review, this one is unusual in that–far from having nothing to say–is a book of which I don’t have anything to say. Not because it’s hollow, but because its subject matter and the way it engages with it are not things I’m familiar with. I didn’t realize one of the story-fragments is about Alan Turing! That’s how clueless I am about this sort of thing.

 

STEAM-POWERED 2 – more lesbian steampunk stories!

The formatting of the ebook is, unfortunately, kind of rubbish. I’ve half a mind to reformat it and reconvert back to the Kindle format, but meh. But it really is rubbish. So much so that each story’s title isn’t formatted any differently from any other text (no bolding, no up-sizing), there is no table of contents, and sometimes there’s text that must have been meant to be italicized but… isn’t. It’s a shame. A crying shame.

It’s probably fair to disclose that I’m a) not a fan of steampunk (in that I have no real interest in it as a subject or sub-genre) and that b) I’m not generally into multi-authors anthologies due to their natural unevenness in quality, and I always prefer longer stories over short ones, which makes it a little tricky to appreciate many of the pieces in Steam-Powered 2 since some tend toward the shorter end of the scale. But despite all that, in the end I found many of the stories contained in this anthology amazing, moving, affirming. This is the kind of collections we need, the kind of material that should exist and be encouraged to thrive, and I can’t praise Joselle Vanderhooft enough for making it happen.

 

Catherynne Valente’s HABITATION OF THE BLESSED

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, twelfth-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible, immortality is easily had, and the Western world is nothing but a dim and distant dream?

Brother Hiob of Luzerne, on missionary work in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century, discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and Hiob becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John, and his rise to power in this country of impossible richness. John’s tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a blemmye–a headless creature who carried her face on her chest–as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family. Hugo and World Fantasy award nominee Catherynne M. Valente reimagines the legends of Prester John in this stunning tour de force.

This is a difficult book to review. It’s The Orphan’s Tales all over again, a reminder of just why I fell in love with Valente’s writing. Not necessarily because I haven’t liked her other works, but Habitation of the Blessed has much more in common with The Orphan’s Tales duology than anything else she’s written–it keeps you reading not simply to find out what happens but to find out what a boundless, fresh imagination will present you with next: something lovely, something surprising, because Valente has what so many author lack, which is the ability to invoke the sense of wonder.

I made the conscious decision to read this slowly. Good, rare things need to be rationed out. Even then I went through it much faster than I meant to. It’s that absorbing, that demanding.

 

DARK EDGE OF HONOR: manly rapeathon

Sergei Stolkov is a faithful officer, though his deepest desires go against the Doctrine. A captain with the invading Coalition forces, he believes that self-sacrifice is the most heroic act and his own needs are only valid if they serve the state.

Mike, an operative planted within Cirokko’s rebels, has been ordered to seduce Sergei and pry from him the Coalition’s military secrets. His mission is a success, but as he captures Sergei’s heart, Mike is tempted by his own charade and falls in love.

When the hostile natives of the planet Cirokko make their move, all seems lost. Can Mike and Sergei survive when the Coalition’s internal affairs division takes an interest in what happened in the dusty mountains of Zasidka Pass…?

Trigger warning: rape. Lots of. 

Skimming Dark Edge of Honor I get the impression that if Aleksandr Voinov or Rhianon Etzweiler ever discovers WH40K they would be writing slash fanfic of it in a hot minute, which by itself would be nothing special. Unfortunately, I also get the impression that they would be writing rapetastic slash where every Space Marine rapes a recruit and every Chaplain rapes a battle-brother and the ten thousand psychics sacrificed to the Emperor every day are, in fact, sent to be ravaged by his rotting cadaverous penis. And possibly the Custodes. Or maybe the Custodes rape the Emperor’s rotting cadaver, I don’t know. And Slaanesh would turn out to have a tender side. While filling Khorne’s every orifice with tentacles to atone for having touched Nurgle inappropriately.

Yeah, this is that kind of book.

 

Pride of Baghdad: suddenly, gang-rape!

In the spring of 2003, a pride of lions escaped from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing raid. Lost and confused, hungry but finally free, the four lions roamed the decimated streets of Baghdad in a desperate struggle for their lives. In documenting the plight of the lions, PRIDE OF BAGHDAD raises questions about the true meaning of liberation — can it be given, or is it earned only through self-determination and sacrifice? And in the end, is it truly better to die free than to live life in captivity?

Based on a true story, Vaughan and Henrichon have created a unique and heartbreaking window into the nature of life during wartime, illuminating this struggle as only the graphic novel can.

This comic could have been really cool. It could have been something I can recommend lightly, happily, in the spirit in which it was written: lovely art, not-bad writing, excellent use of colors. Misleading product description because it’s not half as deep or nuanced as it thinks it is, but hey.

Instead I’m slapping a trigger warning in bold on this review; see subject line. Well done, Brian K. Vaughan.

 

Catherynne M. Valente’s DEATHLESS

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.

Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei’s beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

Sometimes I almost hate good books. First they make me so deliriously happy, and when they end it just breaks my heart. The synopsis quoted above is kind of crap, by the way, but what synopses aren’t?

 

Jeff VanderMeer’s CITY OF SAINTS AND MADMEN

City of Saints and Madmen is one of the most dangerous books I’ve ever read. After a few pages, paper cuts started appearing on my thumbs. By the time I closed the hefty volume, my thumb sported six cuts, my forefinger four. At the time of this writing, most have yet to heal. They still sting.

Now that’s what I call edgy.

 

PALIMPSEST and the dubious sexual politics

The city of Palimpsest exists somewhere outside our reality, accessible only during the sleep that follows sex. The immigrants to Palimpsest, marked forever by the tattoo-like impression of a map on their skin, seek out one another for real-world sexual adventures that function as passports to new otherworldly quarters. In outstandingly beautiful prose, Valente describes grotesque, glamorous creatures sometimes neither human nor animal, alive nor dead, and mortal travelers who pursue poignant personal quests to replace the things (and people) they’ve lost. Valente’s fondness for digression at times makes for a difficult read, and her fable of quest and loneliness is less an engrossing fairy tale and more a meticulous travelogue of a stranger’s dream.

My first thought: so are asexuals SOL or what? I mean sure, at the best of time we’re invisible as fuck-all, but this is a whole new level of exclusion.

 

Valente and Lee: Orphan’s Tales and Secret Books of Paradys

You know, when a terrible, terrible writer writes about fucking elves dancing in a fucking starlit meadow in a fucking enchanted forest, he or she is probably trying to evoke a sense of wonder. Something beautiful. A fantasy. But the problem with that is, it’s elves. It’s yet another starlit meadow. It’s yet another enchanted forest, which no doubt Our Hero is about to venture into, set on yet another Fantasia Generica variation, which is threatened by yet another Evil Overlord bent on destruction and desecration of all that is natural, beautiful, and good. We see this, and we call it escapism. “Escapism” is used to excuse mediocrity; “escapism” is what you cite when someone points out that those Harry Potter books are not that good or that batch of paranormal romance novels or that yaoi fangirl-bait in novel form are really, really shitty. What’s wrong with elves and dragons and evil people who are hideous psychopaths, and good people who are pure and beautiful? It doesn’t have to be original, or well-written, or intelligent, you don’t have to think about it. It’s just for fun and it’s “escapist.”

Fun may be subjective, but I fail to see how it’s an escape.