Reading Wednesday
Mar. 20th, 2024 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabby This is going to be a longboi as I have covid and haven't been able to do anything but read.
Just finished: Crow Winter by Karen McBride. This remained a weird one for me until the ending, and it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. I think, besides the questions I raised earlier, part of it for me is that as a settler I'm used to stories that deal with colonialism making me uncomfortable. They should make me uncomfortable. I didn't choose to live on stolen land, but I do, and I benefit from that, as well as from the ongoing dispossession and genocidal violence directed at Indigenous peoples. I'm witness to land theft that is blatantly illegal but nevertheless sanctioned by the state, and no amount of democratic processes are likely to elect a government that tips the scales in favour of Indigenous Nations and against the corporations lining up to plunder their land.
Which is to say the ending of this book, which relies on the protagonist uncovering an historical legal malfeasance, confronting the white CEO of the mining company with it, performing an act of physical self-sacrifice, and changing his mind, felt too easy to me. It felt too comfortable. Which isn't to say that books like this shouldn't show ways to win—I wish more would—but it felt off. I still think the book was beautifully written and I loved the portrayal of the family relationships and the reservation, though.
The Saint Of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
Okay.
So.
You know how last year I read The Spear Cuts Through Water and couldn't shut the fuck up about it? This is going to be like that. Go read it. Go read it now. It's another one where I feel like someone went and wrote a book for me, even though it's not actually for me and I apparently missed a fairly major thing about it because I don't have the cultural context (more on that in a bit) but even with that caveat it's still my favourite book of the year so far.
It's about a boy, Fetter, who is raised by his mother to assassinate his father, the Perfect and Kind, a powerful cult leader with the ability to alter reality. When Fetter is born, his mother nails his shadow to the ground and rips it from him. If he isn't paying careful attention, he floats rather than walks, and has to train himself to stay on the ground. He sees devils and antigods that no one else can see but nevertheless are tangible, real forces in the world. His childhood is spent training and picking off various relatives in his village, until at thirteen, she tells him “The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence,” and sends him off to the big city, Luriat, to fulfil his destiny.
And then he...doesn't do that. He finds a support group for his fellow "unchosen," failed messiahs from the many other cults across the country, and through it gets recruited into a revolutionary group. He goes on dating apps and gets a boyfriend. He helps other new immigrants complete the complicated paperwork required of them by the Baroque political structure. He impersonates a student and gets a gig studying bright doors, a phenomenon in Luriat where a door that cannot be seen through closes forever and through which a cold wind can be felt. By the time his destiny actually comes knocking, he has ties to friends, lovers, and communities, and the city is facing a White Year, where both plague cycles and pogrom cycles line up, and the prospect of violently changing the world is much more complex than it seems.
The big cultural context that I understood is that the author is Sri Lankan and this is heavily influenced by the Sri Lankan Civil War, the genocide against the Tamils, and more generally on the history of colonialism in Southeast Asia. The bit that I missed is that it's based on the story of Rāhula, the son of Yaśodharā and Siddhārtha (Buddha). I don't think you need to know that to be blown away by the book but it's just an example of how many different layers of meaning and symbolism the author manages to pack into a relatively short novel.
Oh, also the prose is pure poetry. Fantastical premise + lit fic writing and pacing is basically my kryptonite and this has it all.
This is basically why I love fantasy and what I wish more fantasy novels would do and it should win all the awards and Goodreads is on crack based on the reviews for it there. It's brilliant.
Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction by Jessica Page Morrell. Sometimes it's not fun to listen to me rave about something I really liked so now you get to hear me talk about something I didn't. One of the people on one of my Discords was raving about this, so I read it. I think my villains are pretty well-written tbh but it never hurts to read a craft book now and then.
Give this craft book a pass, though, unless you are the level of newbie writer who does not know what a protagonist or an antagonist is. That's the level of advice that's actually helpful in it. Past that, it reads like it was either written by ChatGPT (it wasn't; I checked the dates) or by a high schooler frantically trying to pad an essay that was due a few weeks ago. The author's background, outside of the classics required by an American education, seems to be mainly in romance and Hollywood superhero movies, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's certainly not going to add any depth to your characterization. It's very repetitive, and she uses fairly basic terminology like "bad-ass" and "potent" in ways that suggest that she doesn't actually know what they mean.
I will save you some time and suffering. Her advice amounts to:
1. Make your villains bad.
2. Have them do bad things that harm vulnerable characters who the reader cares about.
3. Now you have added some sizzle to your potent story that will excite and terrify the reader.
(It's written exactly like that, by the way.)
It's also chock-full of bad information and misogyny. There's a whole section on alphas, for example, that reproduces the long-debunked wolf study on which we can blame the manosphere and the omegaverse (no shade on David Mech, who retracted the study. This is not his fault). The section on Bitches (female villains) is particularly cringe. There's a lot of nasty stuff about mental illness and how you should use that to create your villains. There's no insight into why people do evil acts to be found here, just a lot of repetition of tropes that I wish would die already.
Currently reading: Archangel Protocol by Lyda Morehouse. I am remiss in never having read this before but in my defence, it was out of print well before I ever met Lyda, and now it's back in print and it's never too late. I just started it last night and I love it so far. It's cyberpunk noir, featuring a washed-up PI (of course) who lost her career as a cop after her partner was arrested for assassinating the Pope. In an increasingly theocratic world, everyone is linked into a shared network in which cybernetic angels manifest, claiming to do God's will, but having been excommunicated, Deirdre's implant is removed and she's cut off from it. A visit to her office from a stranger (described in a pitch-perfect hardboiled reversal of the male gaze) gives her a chance at redemption. This is a delight.
Just finished: Crow Winter by Karen McBride. This remained a weird one for me until the ending, and it's hard to put my finger on exactly why. I think, besides the questions I raised earlier, part of it for me is that as a settler I'm used to stories that deal with colonialism making me uncomfortable. They should make me uncomfortable. I didn't choose to live on stolen land, but I do, and I benefit from that, as well as from the ongoing dispossession and genocidal violence directed at Indigenous peoples. I'm witness to land theft that is blatantly illegal but nevertheless sanctioned by the state, and no amount of democratic processes are likely to elect a government that tips the scales in favour of Indigenous Nations and against the corporations lining up to plunder their land.
Which is to say the ending of this book, which relies on the protagonist uncovering an historical legal malfeasance, confronting the white CEO of the mining company with it, performing an act of physical self-sacrifice, and changing his mind, felt too easy to me. It felt too comfortable. Which isn't to say that books like this shouldn't show ways to win—I wish more would—but it felt off. I still think the book was beautifully written and I loved the portrayal of the family relationships and the reservation, though.
The Saint Of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera.
Okay.
So.
You know how last year I read The Spear Cuts Through Water and couldn't shut the fuck up about it? This is going to be like that. Go read it. Go read it now. It's another one where I feel like someone went and wrote a book for me, even though it's not actually for me and I apparently missed a fairly major thing about it because I don't have the cultural context (more on that in a bit) but even with that caveat it's still my favourite book of the year so far.
It's about a boy, Fetter, who is raised by his mother to assassinate his father, the Perfect and Kind, a powerful cult leader with the ability to alter reality. When Fetter is born, his mother nails his shadow to the ground and rips it from him. If he isn't paying careful attention, he floats rather than walks, and has to train himself to stay on the ground. He sees devils and antigods that no one else can see but nevertheless are tangible, real forces in the world. His childhood is spent training and picking off various relatives in his village, until at thirteen, she tells him “The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence,” and sends him off to the big city, Luriat, to fulfil his destiny.
And then he...doesn't do that. He finds a support group for his fellow "unchosen," failed messiahs from the many other cults across the country, and through it gets recruited into a revolutionary group. He goes on dating apps and gets a boyfriend. He helps other new immigrants complete the complicated paperwork required of them by the Baroque political structure. He impersonates a student and gets a gig studying bright doors, a phenomenon in Luriat where a door that cannot be seen through closes forever and through which a cold wind can be felt. By the time his destiny actually comes knocking, he has ties to friends, lovers, and communities, and the city is facing a White Year, where both plague cycles and pogrom cycles line up, and the prospect of violently changing the world is much more complex than it seems.
The big cultural context that I understood is that the author is Sri Lankan and this is heavily influenced by the Sri Lankan Civil War, the genocide against the Tamils, and more generally on the history of colonialism in Southeast Asia. The bit that I missed is that it's based on the story of Rāhula, the son of Yaśodharā and Siddhārtha (Buddha). I don't think you need to know that to be blown away by the book but it's just an example of how many different layers of meaning and symbolism the author manages to pack into a relatively short novel.
Oh, also the prose is pure poetry. Fantastical premise + lit fic writing and pacing is basically my kryptonite and this has it all.
This is basically why I love fantasy and what I wish more fantasy novels would do and it should win all the awards and Goodreads is on crack based on the reviews for it there. It's brilliant.
Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction by Jessica Page Morrell. Sometimes it's not fun to listen to me rave about something I really liked so now you get to hear me talk about something I didn't. One of the people on one of my Discords was raving about this, so I read it. I think my villains are pretty well-written tbh but it never hurts to read a craft book now and then.
Give this craft book a pass, though, unless you are the level of newbie writer who does not know what a protagonist or an antagonist is. That's the level of advice that's actually helpful in it. Past that, it reads like it was either written by ChatGPT (it wasn't; I checked the dates) or by a high schooler frantically trying to pad an essay that was due a few weeks ago. The author's background, outside of the classics required by an American education, seems to be mainly in romance and Hollywood superhero movies, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's certainly not going to add any depth to your characterization. It's very repetitive, and she uses fairly basic terminology like "bad-ass" and "potent" in ways that suggest that she doesn't actually know what they mean.
I will save you some time and suffering. Her advice amounts to:
1. Make your villains bad.
2. Have them do bad things that harm vulnerable characters who the reader cares about.
3. Now you have added some sizzle to your potent story that will excite and terrify the reader.
(It's written exactly like that, by the way.)
It's also chock-full of bad information and misogyny. There's a whole section on alphas, for example, that reproduces the long-debunked wolf study on which we can blame the manosphere and the omegaverse (no shade on David Mech, who retracted the study. This is not his fault). The section on Bitches (female villains) is particularly cringe. There's a lot of nasty stuff about mental illness and how you should use that to create your villains. There's no insight into why people do evil acts to be found here, just a lot of repetition of tropes that I wish would die already.
Currently reading: Archangel Protocol by Lyda Morehouse. I am remiss in never having read this before but in my defence, it was out of print well before I ever met Lyda, and now it's back in print and it's never too late. I just started it last night and I love it so far. It's cyberpunk noir, featuring a washed-up PI (of course) who lost her career as a cop after her partner was arrested for assassinating the Pope. In an increasingly theocratic world, everyone is linked into a shared network in which cybernetic angels manifest, claiming to do God's will, but having been excommunicated, Deirdre's implant is removed and she's cut off from it. A visit to her office from a stranger (described in a pitch-perfect hardboiled reversal of the male gaze) gives her a chance at redemption. This is a delight.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 02:45 pm (UTC)Okay.
So.
*flails at you*
For the record, I have been heroically restraining my impulse to demand your thoughts about this because it seemed unfair while you were ill, so I am so delighted to see this.
Also The Spear Cuts Through Water just got published over here and my pre-order turned up, so if that's as good as this, I will be very happy.
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Date: 2024-03-20 02:51 pm (UTC)Isn't it so good???? I didn't even go through all the cool things like the cult chain emails or the Island becoming the mountains or the Five Unforgiveables or Mother-Of-Glory's phone calls or THAT POV SWITCH* or anything.
* Since I listened to the DEATH // SENTENCE podcast, I knew about the POV switch but it was still cool.
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Date: 2024-03-20 03:15 pm (UTC)I didn't even go through all the cool things like the cult chain emails
I have pitched it to some people with:
Just SO MUCH LOVE for fucking doing that in a fantasy novel and proving that you can, and for the plague which is so overt in its Covid resonances, and all of these things which I've never seen put into a fantasy novel before.
or Mother-Of-Glory's phone calls
THAT REVEAL. OF THE REALITY-ALTERING. And also the slipperiness and genre-slippage of what's family mythology versus what's literal reality.
He goes on dating apps and gets a boyfriend.
I love the way that relationship is real and also not necessarily the One True Love of a lifetime and subtly splintered by Hej's casual privilege and it would also be awful if he was murdered.
* Since I listened to the DEATH // SENTENCE podcast, I knew about the POV switch but it was still cool.
I was unspoiled for that so got fully body-slammed into the ground by it. LOVE it when a book can do that to me.
Very much looking forwards to listening to the DEATH//SENTENCE ep on it.
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Date: 2024-03-20 03:26 pm (UTC)The protagonist is grappling with issues like "what if the guy you're dating forwards you the crowdfunder to invite to the city the revered religious figure who (little does he know) is the father you've never met and who you were raised to assassinate, and it's awkward because you don't know if he's forwarding it ironically or not", and despite everything you might infer from this, it's not a broad comedy world
HAH YES. This could have been played for laughs, and it kind of is in the sense that it is legitimately funny, but also it's not comedy so much as a very grounded take on how humans would behave in a world with the kind of magic that exists in the book.
Just SO MUCH LOVE for fucking doing that in a fantasy novel and proving that you can, and for the plague which is so overt in its Covid resonances, and all of these things which I've never seen put into a fantasy novel before.
That detail of the cop who stops Fetter for not having a mask when he returns but the cop is wearing the mask around his chin.
Again, that could be comedy but it's horrifying. And yet it doesn't feel like the author had to write his covid novel so much as it's a natural outgrowth of how the world of the story works.
THAT REVEAL. OF THE REALITY-ALTERING. And also the slipperiness and genre-slippage of what's family mythology versus what's literal reality.
It plays the balance of magic realism vs. straight-up fantasy well too, where the character doesn't know if the magical thing is a metaphor or not.
I love the way that relationship is real and also not necessarily the One True Love of a lifetime and subtly splintered by Hej's casual privilege and it would also be awful if he was murdered.
It's a very normal relationship that you'd have in your 20s and just because who the character is gives it mythic qualities doesn't make it any more or less significant. Also that bit at the end irt Hej and the other three is just beautiful and humanistic to me.
Very much looking forwards to listening to the DEATH//SENTENCE ep on it.
I'm so behind on my podcasts but I might give that one a re-listen because I obviously didn't know anything about the book but it sold me on it.
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Date: 2024-03-20 03:43 pm (UTC)Yes! It's funny because the social awkwardness of not quite knowing someone well enough to be sure whether they forwarded you that thing ironically, when they don't know it's a fraught topic for you -- that's so recognizable and human.
But it's not being deliberately bathetic or using that to mock the "high fantasy" elements of the book; they just co-exist.
That detail of the cop who stops Fetter for not having a mask when he returns but the cop is wearing the mask around his chin.
Yesss, all the observations of when precautions get taken and when they don't and who gets targeted for infringing rules and when it becomes contradictory security theatre, like the bit in the quarantine centre/prison:
The staff at the desk are in full-body protective suits complete with masks and gloves, even though the accompanying policemen and soldiers are unmasked, ungloved and in their ordinary uniforms.
(I'm reminded of the many places that did grand security theatre about how they were DISINFECTING ALL SURFACES DAILY and therefore it was totally safe, long after aerosol transmission was established.)
Also that bit at the end irt Hej and the other three is just beautiful and humanistic to me.
Yes. They don't matter less because they're not Protagonists.
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Date: 2024-03-20 04:03 pm (UTC)He does secondary world SO WELL. For everyone who complains that they want to see secondary worlds evolve or not just look like Generic European Medievalland, there's shockingly few examples of secondary world where there's actually rich cultural diversity, humour, ads, technology and people abusing that technology. The second they got into cars I was like "HOLD UP WAIT" and just fell in love with the worldbuilding.
(I'm reminded of the many places that did grand security theatre about how they were DISINFECTING ALL SURFACES DAILY and therefore it was totally safe, long after aerosol transmission was established.)
Yes. And also the Foucauldian dimensions of the prison country.
Yes. They don't matter less because they're not Protagonists.
Right? There's that moment of relief and then that guilt/anger at well, you should still care. They're still important.
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Date: 2024-03-20 03:50 pm (UTC)Yeah, it's not that the book is "about Covid", just: here are things we happen to know now about how the world and humans and power structures react to a plague. Just like the book reflects things we know about, say, the experience of immigrants. And those things can exist in a fantasy world.
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Date: 2024-03-20 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 05:19 pm (UTC)Which felt cathartic, for me.
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Date: 2024-03-20 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 07:55 pm (UTC)Yessss, which is what makes it so effective as one of the things being counter-balanced against the Chosen One stuff.
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Date: 2024-03-21 08:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-21 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-21 11:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-21 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-22 02:53 am (UTC)I, too, didn't know about the connection between "Fetter" and Buddha's son, that would *definitely* have changed my reading ... pretty much completely.
I think I'll wait to see if it's on the Hugo ballot before I decide how soon to get it out of the library again.
ETA, again:
One reason I didn't press through after the part where the plates feel off the poles was that I peeked ahead and it was clear that Fetter was going to still be Chosen in some way. But I was hoping, from the very start, that it would be a book about the deeds of Unimportant people, because that's what I'm most interested in reading about these days. I don't want yet another story about Gandalf or Aragorn, I want more stories that know the real hero is Sam..
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Date: 2024-03-22 08:24 am (UTC)That's fascinating because for me it had completely the opposite effect -- the sudden genre slippage felt elating. Absolutely felt like having the rug pulled out from under me, but I loved it.
One reason I didn't press through after the part where the plates feel off the poles was that I peeked ahead and it was clear that Fetter was going to still be Chosen in some way.
YMMV, but I think he's very much not, especially at the end of the book. I'll be interested to know what you make of it if you do return to it.
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Date: 2024-03-22 10:48 am (UTC)I wouldn't say Fetter is Chosen. Or, rather, a lot of the conclusion hinges on the importance of ordinary people over chosen ones.
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Date: 2024-03-22 01:55 pm (UTC)That is, in fact, *exactly* the droid I'm looking for! I'll put it back into the library rota.
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Date: 2024-03-22 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-22 03:40 pm (UTC)That's a nicely-precise distinction. Because Fetter is covered with Protagonist Markers. He has cool powers and and an important familial relationship to the Big Bad! And I love the fact that at least some of the other members of the unchosen support group -- like Caduv, like Ulpe -- also do, in relation to their own contexts and backstories (Ulpe clearly has their own drama going on with the Man in the Fire just offscreen during the final chapters).
The book just doesn't think that having the traits of a Chosen One/Designated Protagonist make you more important or more central to the world than anyone else.
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Date: 2024-03-22 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 03:27 pm (UTC)That all looks amazing!
> it wasn't; I checked the dates
LOL
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Date: 2024-03-20 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 05:57 pm (UTC)And yes, I've been pondering the genre thing and my conclusion is that I am strongly interested in some types of genre content (spaceships), perfectly willing to read other types (magic), but often dubious about what genre does when it comes to expectations around character and narrative. It did get nominated for a Nebula, anyway, so it hasn't been received badly by the industry. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that it wins (and this year I can vote!).
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Date: 2024-03-20 06:40 pm (UTC)I will do my best to read the other Nebula nominees but I am pretty sure nothing is going to top this for me. And since you can keep editing ballots, I've already submitted mine.
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Date: 2024-03-20 06:18 pm (UTC)Which is indicative of poor reading comprehension, frankly, because I feel like the book does a very good job of signalling: hey, we are not going to be doing the standard thing with this. Right from the left turn of "the seed of many hours in therapy to come" in the second sentence.
Maaaaybe you could read Chapter 1 and still think you're getting an upringing-of-the-Chosen-One, but by the time you get to Chapter 3 and Fetter's on a third date and going to the support group for the unchosen, I feel it should be very clear that the book is explicitly doing something meta in relation to Chosen One narratives.
And "yeah but in the end it turns out he is the Chosen One without whom the world cannot be saved" is not where I would expect that to end. Or I'd be very disappointed if it did.
It's not even like Fetter doesn't get to do any cool badass things! He has his moments!
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Date: 2024-03-20 06:45 pm (UTC)They pointed out on D//S that this is also a book that immediately tells you what it's about and how it ends. It's many things but it's not a subtle opening.
And yeah, it has moments that are pure \m/ \m/ METAL, it's just that this is not the primary focus.
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Date: 2024-03-20 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 04:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 05:38 pm (UTC)YAY Archangel Protocol! I should re-read. And yes, THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS is on my wishlist.
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Date: 2024-03-20 05:40 pm (UTC)Anyway read The Saint Of Bright Doors. You will love it and can add to the screaming.
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Date: 2024-03-20 08:38 pm (UTC)*
Date: 2024-03-20 08:42 pm (UTC)makes a note of three of these, not needing stupid How To Write Books
Re: *
Date: 2024-03-20 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-21 12:05 am (UTC)And to pick an appropriate corny supervillain name, what about Slopmistress?
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Date: 2024-03-21 10:41 am (UTC)Crow Winter
Date: 2024-03-20 11:41 pm (UTC)Re: Crow Winter
Date: 2024-03-20 11:48 pm (UTC)important Spear Cuts Through Water update!
Date: 2024-03-22 03:24 pm (UTC)Re: important Spear Cuts Through Water update!
Date: 2024-03-22 09:25 pm (UTC)