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tachyondecay's reviews
2019 reviews
Emergent Mars by Russell Klyford
adventurous
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
My ride or die and I finally caught up on For All Mankind, the latest season of which sees an incipient society on Mars against the wishes of the suits back home. So it felt like a good time to pick up Emergent Mars—I received a copy of this book far too long ago in exchange for a review—and see Russell Klyford’s take on a similar idea. Unfortunately, while Klyford’s storytelling is competent, the characterization is uneven (and the manuscript could have used a more thorough copyedit), and ultimately the story doesn’t do anything particularly new or exciting with its tropes.
Ailia Bax is a former war correspondent, now on a tech journalist beat as a result of her PTSD. With much cajoling from her therapist, she accepts a contract to go to Mars and interview people there. When she arrives, however, life on Mars is like nothing she was led to expect. As she works her way down her interview list, Ailia learns more about the politics of this planet. But the machinations of an anonymous terrorist and the ulterior motives of her employers back on Earth have Ailia raising her hackles: she is no one’s pawn, and she is determined to uncover the truth at the beating heart of this newborn society.
The big sell of Emergent Mars lies in Klyford’s relatively hard approach to the science in this science fiction. Life on Mars is challenging and often dangerous, something Ailia experiences for herself more than once. There are few easy solutions to the challenges that face people here, and Mars is still quite dependent on Earth for some of its most basic and necessary supplies. Consequently, this lays the foundation for the political tension in the plot as Ailia learns about the competing visions for Mars’ future. Klyford uses her interviews with prominent administrators, researchers, and others to lay out a possible vision for “economic democracy” on Mars, a Martian nation that is united, cooperative, and resolute in seeking a productive yet independent relationship with Earth.
Now, much of this book is a series of talking heads conversations between Ailia and her respondents. Each person she interviews lectures the reader on the possible society they could achieve here on Mars. Ailia’s role for most of the novel is simply to be the proxy for the reader, at times incredulous or skeptical. I’m reminded a bit of For Us, the Living, one of Heinlein’s earliest works and similar in the ways its protagonist is expected to soak up the exposition about a possible world. Although Emergent Mars is not straightforwardly utopian, it picks up the threads of utopia in an attempt to create an atmosphere of hope.
With this in mind, much of one’s enjoyment of the novel will depend on how interested one is in thought experiments. I’m rather impatient with this approach to storytelling in science fiction these days: I wanted more than Emergent Mars is willing to deliver. Although Klyford sets up some interesting characters (including Ailia herself), they tend to come cross like NPCs in a video game instead of real people who coalesce into a community around her. Klyford attempts to infuse his cast with diversity, yet it feels uneven and stilted. At no point do we ever see the distinctive base cultures or cohesive Martian society that the characters insist is there.
Likewise, the parallel plot of the Slow Bomber is itself quite a slow burn. There is no urgency, except at the very end, to this mystery, even when one of Ailia’s closest friends is caught up in one of the bombings. Ailia’s involvement in solving the mystery feels unearned, her epiphany coming seemingly by chance after literally zero effort prior to this to investigate or learn more about the Slow Bomber.
I don’t want to damn Emergent Mars with faint praise. Klyford, to his credit, wants to present a coherent and compelling vision of Martian society as a tonic to the existential dread that seems to be overtaking us these days. In this sense, I wish him great success, for is that not one of the most significant roles science fiction can play? However, there’s a difference between poignant but flat thought experiments masquerading as a science-fiction thriller and character-driven political thrillers masquerading as planetary romance. Emergent Mars is too much the former for my taste, as much as it strives to be the latter.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Ailia Bax is a former war correspondent, now on a tech journalist beat as a result of her PTSD. With much cajoling from her therapist, she accepts a contract to go to Mars and interview people there. When she arrives, however, life on Mars is like nothing she was led to expect. As she works her way down her interview list, Ailia learns more about the politics of this planet. But the machinations of an anonymous terrorist and the ulterior motives of her employers back on Earth have Ailia raising her hackles: she is no one’s pawn, and she is determined to uncover the truth at the beating heart of this newborn society.
The big sell of Emergent Mars lies in Klyford’s relatively hard approach to the science in this science fiction. Life on Mars is challenging and often dangerous, something Ailia experiences for herself more than once. There are few easy solutions to the challenges that face people here, and Mars is still quite dependent on Earth for some of its most basic and necessary supplies. Consequently, this lays the foundation for the political tension in the plot as Ailia learns about the competing visions for Mars’ future. Klyford uses her interviews with prominent administrators, researchers, and others to lay out a possible vision for “economic democracy” on Mars, a Martian nation that is united, cooperative, and resolute in seeking a productive yet independent relationship with Earth.
Now, much of this book is a series of talking heads conversations between Ailia and her respondents. Each person she interviews lectures the reader on the possible society they could achieve here on Mars. Ailia’s role for most of the novel is simply to be the proxy for the reader, at times incredulous or skeptical. I’m reminded a bit of For Us, the Living, one of Heinlein’s earliest works and similar in the ways its protagonist is expected to soak up the exposition about a possible world. Although Emergent Mars is not straightforwardly utopian, it picks up the threads of utopia in an attempt to create an atmosphere of hope.
With this in mind, much of one’s enjoyment of the novel will depend on how interested one is in thought experiments. I’m rather impatient with this approach to storytelling in science fiction these days: I wanted more than Emergent Mars is willing to deliver. Although Klyford sets up some interesting characters (including Ailia herself), they tend to come cross like NPCs in a video game instead of real people who coalesce into a community around her. Klyford attempts to infuse his cast with diversity, yet it feels uneven and stilted. At no point do we ever see the distinctive base cultures or cohesive Martian society that the characters insist is there.
Likewise, the parallel plot of the Slow Bomber is itself quite a slow burn. There is no urgency, except at the very end, to this mystery, even when one of Ailia’s closest friends is caught up in one of the bombings. Ailia’s involvement in solving the mystery feels unearned, her epiphany coming seemingly by chance after literally zero effort prior to this to investigate or learn more about the Slow Bomber.
I don’t want to damn Emergent Mars with faint praise. Klyford, to his credit, wants to present a coherent and compelling vision of Martian society as a tonic to the existential dread that seems to be overtaking us these days. In this sense, I wish him great success, for is that not one of the most significant roles science fiction can play? However, there’s a difference between poignant but flat thought experiments masquerading as a science-fiction thriller and character-driven political thrillers masquerading as planetary romance. Emergent Mars is too much the former for my taste, as much as it strives to be the latter.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Christina Lamb, Malala Yousafzai
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
Books like this are really tough to review. Sixteen years ago, I read Shake Hands With the Devil, and I was humbled. I Am Malala is a similarly humbling memoir. Malala Yousafzai went through a terrible ordeal that catapulted her into the world’s consciousness. More than that, however, the book she has written here with the assistance of Christina Lamb is a testimony. For Western readers like myself, it’s a crash course in the history of Pakistan, in the Taliban’s oppression of women, and how the legacy of British colonialism and American imperialism has allowed corruption and persecution to flourish. Against this backdrop, Yousafzai always brings it back to one thesis: everyone deserves education. As an educator, I can get behind that.
Most of this book is backstory. Yousafzai spends the first few chapters telling the history of her country and her family. She briefly explains Partition, and she discusses her paternal grandfather’s influence on her father, etc. Because she was only sixteen when she wrote this, much of the book is a retelling of what others have told her. She details her father’s attempts to bring education to Swat for all genders. She discusses the rise of the Taliban, the military coups that destabilize Pakistan and allow more hardline elements of Islam to gain influence, especially in rural regions like Swat. She explains how the character of her town of Mingora changes as the Taliban and other reactionary forces take power.
I’m reading this ten years later, on the eve of Donald Trump’s second presidency (!), a year into a genocide in Palestine (and similar genocides or cleansings ongoing in Congo, Sudan, etc.). Hearing Yousafzai tell us, in very plain language, about how her life gradually changed under the Taliban (and even afterwards), felt like a premonition of what might occur, perhaps in a slightly different form, as fascism rises again here in the West.
The power of this story lies in that plain language. That is not to say that Yousafzai and Lamb lack fluency or facility for telling a story, and there is plenty of beautiful description and prose here. However, it’s clear they made a deliberate description to keep this narrative mostly linear and very direct. In a world where conflicts in southwest Asia and the Middle East are often explained away as “complicated,” Yousafzai is determined to give Western readers no excuses to put this book aside or look away.
So as the DVD shops close, dancers go underground, and people’s houses are raided so their TVs can be apprehended, Yousafzai explains how some of her fellow townspeople started to comply in advance. She explains how the authorities were no help. She explains how even attending school as a girl became an act of defiance, and at one point, she has to hide her schoolbooks for safekeeping while she and her family evacuate their town for a time. She shares all of this as matter-of-factly as if she was talking about popping down to a shop for groceries—because when she lived it, that’s what it was like. This was her life.
Her point, however, is that this isn’t just her life. Malala Yousafzai has become, as her book’s subtitle acknowledges, known as “the girl who was shot for by the Taliban.” She has become known as an activist for women’s education. Yet she is far from alone in these experiences. Yousafzai was one of many, many people—many girls—who grew up in this situation. In this sense, she acknowledges towards the end of the book how she has become a symbol for something greater. She is understandably uncomfortable with this role, though I don’t think at the time she wrote this book she fully comprehended or was capable of exploring that yet. I would be curious to read more from her now, a decade later, about how she feels her role has evolved.
It is so easy for those of us who grow up privileged with education and safety to discount the stories we hear in the news or elsewhere as just that—stories. We have an obligation to learn. It’s not an exaggeration for me to say that even though I have done my best to learn a little bit about Pakistan and its complicated genesis, about Islam and its complicated relationship with the West, about the experiences of girls and women in Pakistan, I can’t really begin to describe how quickly I Am Malala put me in my place. Reading alone isn’t enough, of course. But it’s one way to avoid sticking your head in the sand. As Yousafzai has spent her life campaigning about: education is essential to our health and success.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Most of this book is backstory. Yousafzai spends the first few chapters telling the history of her country and her family. She briefly explains Partition, and she discusses her paternal grandfather’s influence on her father, etc. Because she was only sixteen when she wrote this, much of the book is a retelling of what others have told her. She details her father’s attempts to bring education to Swat for all genders. She discusses the rise of the Taliban, the military coups that destabilize Pakistan and allow more hardline elements of Islam to gain influence, especially in rural regions like Swat. She explains how the character of her town of Mingora changes as the Taliban and other reactionary forces take power.
I’m reading this ten years later, on the eve of Donald Trump’s second presidency (!), a year into a genocide in Palestine (and similar genocides or cleansings ongoing in Congo, Sudan, etc.). Hearing Yousafzai tell us, in very plain language, about how her life gradually changed under the Taliban (and even afterwards), felt like a premonition of what might occur, perhaps in a slightly different form, as fascism rises again here in the West.
The power of this story lies in that plain language. That is not to say that Yousafzai and Lamb lack fluency or facility for telling a story, and there is plenty of beautiful description and prose here. However, it’s clear they made a deliberate description to keep this narrative mostly linear and very direct. In a world where conflicts in southwest Asia and the Middle East are often explained away as “complicated,” Yousafzai is determined to give Western readers no excuses to put this book aside or look away.
So as the DVD shops close, dancers go underground, and people’s houses are raided so their TVs can be apprehended, Yousafzai explains how some of her fellow townspeople started to comply in advance. She explains how the authorities were no help. She explains how even attending school as a girl became an act of defiance, and at one point, she has to hide her schoolbooks for safekeeping while she and her family evacuate their town for a time. She shares all of this as matter-of-factly as if she was talking about popping down to a shop for groceries—because when she lived it, that’s what it was like. This was her life.
Her point, however, is that this isn’t just her life. Malala Yousafzai has become, as her book’s subtitle acknowledges, known as “the girl who was shot for by the Taliban.” She has become known as an activist for women’s education. Yet she is far from alone in these experiences. Yousafzai was one of many, many people—many girls—who grew up in this situation. In this sense, she acknowledges towards the end of the book how she has become a symbol for something greater. She is understandably uncomfortable with this role, though I don’t think at the time she wrote this book she fully comprehended or was capable of exploring that yet. I would be curious to read more from her now, a decade later, about how she feels her role has evolved.
It is so easy for those of us who grow up privileged with education and safety to discount the stories we hear in the news or elsewhere as just that—stories. We have an obligation to learn. It’s not an exaggeration for me to say that even though I have done my best to learn a little bit about Pakistan and its complicated genesis, about Islam and its complicated relationship with the West, about the experiences of girls and women in Pakistan, I can’t really begin to describe how quickly I Am Malala put me in my place. Reading alone isn’t enough, of course. But it’s one way to avoid sticking your head in the sand. As Yousafzai has spent her life campaigning about: education is essential to our health and success.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
challenging
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Some books are plodding and predictable (even if they are ultimately rewarding). Others are byzantine and meandering (even if they are ultimately rewarding). The Message is a secret, third type: it is a careful bundle of missives about the struggle for liberation. Writing about events and stories across space and time, Ta-Nehisi Coates unifies these long essays under the guise of talking to his workshop students about writing. The title belies its simplicity by taking on so many meanings.
First, Coates visits Dakar, Senegal, and ruminates on being an African American visiting Africa. What does it mean to be Black in a country populated mostly by Black people? I am reminded of Esi Edugyan’s similar reflections in Out of the Sun. This theme, of the way place can reinforce how much race is just a social construct, continues throughout The Message. Coates seeks to understand how even though different communities around the world experience oppression in slightly different ways, we are all connected; the fight is one.
This first essay gives way to a longer, more drawn out meditation on resistance in the United States. Located temporally in 2020, that fateful summer of protests triggered by George Floyd’s murder, this essay is spiritually connected to the previous one. What I learned here—what I have been learning, the more I read Black authors like Coates and Lorde and Oluo and others—is how deeply the tradition of African American scholarship goes on the subjects of freedom and struggle. It’s very easy for those of us who are not Black and (in my case) not American to view these subjects in facile ways, to understand the history of enslavement in the Americas as a simplistic story of good people and bad people, White people vs Black people, and so on. Coates’s discussion is a rich one, but he built it on the shoulders of the giants who came before him.
There is so much in this essay that I recognized—either as something I related to, or as something familiar to me from my different positionality. For an example of the latter: Coates mentions being a lacklustre student when he was younger, for school didn’t challenge him, yet this was viewed as defiance and noncompliance by his teacher. As a white educator, I am complicit in a similarly racist system here in Canada, where Black students are disproportionately disciplined or viewed as more aggressive than their peers. From here, Coates moves on to discussing the rise in book bans, censorship, and other ills insidiously making their way through classrooms and legislatures in the United States (as well as Canada), including his own personal connection thereto. He deftly weaves in and out of his personal narrative while still offering a wider perspective. At one point, he says:
First, Coates visits Dakar, Senegal, and ruminates on being an African American visiting Africa. What does it mean to be Black in a country populated mostly by Black people? I am reminded of Esi Edugyan’s similar reflections in Out of the Sun. This theme, of the way place can reinforce how much race is just a social construct, continues throughout The Message. Coates seeks to understand how even though different communities around the world experience oppression in slightly different ways, we are all connected; the fight is one.
This first essay gives way to a longer, more drawn out meditation on resistance in the United States. Located temporally in 2020, that fateful summer of protests triggered by George Floyd’s murder, this essay is spiritually connected to the previous one. What I learned here—what I have been learning, the more I read Black authors like Coates and Lorde and Oluo and others—is how deeply the tradition of African American scholarship goes on the subjects of freedom and struggle. It’s very easy for those of us who are not Black and (in my case) not American to view these subjects in facile ways, to understand the history of enslavement in the Americas as a simplistic story of good people and bad people, White people vs Black people, and so on. Coates’s discussion is a rich one, but he built it on the shoulders of the giants who came before him.
There is so much in this essay that I recognized—either as something I related to, or as something familiar to me from my different positionality. For an example of the latter: Coates mentions being a lacklustre student when he was younger, for school didn’t challenge him, yet this was viewed as defiance and noncompliance by his teacher. As a white educator, I am complicit in a similarly racist system here in Canada, where Black students are disproportionately disciplined or viewed as more aggressive than their peers. From here, Coates moves on to discussing the rise in book bans, censorship, and other ills insidiously making their way through classrooms and legislatures in the United States (as well as Canada), including his own personal connection thereto. He deftly weaves in and out of his personal narrative while still offering a wider perspective. At one point, he says:
Politics is the art of the possible, but art creates the possible of politics. A policy of welfare reform exists downstream from the myth of the welfare queen. Novels, memoirs, paintings, sculptures, statues, monuments, films, miniseries, advertisements, and journalism all order our reality.
Mmm. Yes. As an English teacher, as a book reviewer, as a media criticism podcaster … yes, I feel this so hard! I teach English to adults seeking their high school diploma; most are not “readers” in the classical tradition I have grown into. They want a diploma and the skills needed for college courses or the workplace. Yet I never stop trying to connect our English lessons to social justice, to history, to geography. I never stop sneaking in personal essays by marginalized voices or history lessons in the guise of “analyzing a text.” I say sneak, yet I am also explicit with them: I teach about storytelling, and why it is important beyond entertainment. For, as Coates says above, the stories we tell are the constraints we create for the society we can imagine.
The next essay underscores this vividly when Coates describes his visit to Palestine and Israel—mere months before the October 7 Hamas attack that initiated Israel’s most recent episode of genocide against Palestinians. While it is important, as Coates notes, that we listen to Palestinian voices on Palestine, his voice here serves an important role as interlocutor and interloper. In the US, Coates is marginalized: a Black man in white supremacist society. In Israel and Palestine, his status is more conditional. Depending on how he is read, which gate he goes through, whom he’s with, he might first be pegged as Muslim, or he might be read as an American. One interpretation gives him far more status than the other. This essay is Coates discovering and attempting to come to terms with America’s inextricable complicity in Israel’s settler colonialism—and by extension, his own complicity. He connects this to the absence of Palestinian voices from the news rooms and journalism circuits where he himself has often been the lone Black journalist.
Throughout, Coates writes with an enviable and exquisite command of language. His diction is delectable; his sentence structure second to none. Reading The Message is like floating along a river that is provoking you into deep thought. Whether or not you are well versed in the issues Coates covers here, you owe it to yourself to read this book, for it is simply beautifully written.
The Message challenges, documents, describes, decries, and clarifies. It is meditation, mea culpa, and even manifesto. It is a book unfortunately appropriate and sorely needed in the current times, with a second Trump presidency looming and the genocide in Palestine continuing seemingly unabated. With such darkness, hope sometimes feels fleeting. What can I do? What can I do? It seems trite to say that reading is resistance, but reading The Message, with its intention to spur his fellow writers into action, certainly feels like resistance. I guess what matters, of course, is where our reading and our writing goes from here, and the possible politics our art creates.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The next essay underscores this vividly when Coates describes his visit to Palestine and Israel—mere months before the October 7 Hamas attack that initiated Israel’s most recent episode of genocide against Palestinians. While it is important, as Coates notes, that we listen to Palestinian voices on Palestine, his voice here serves an important role as interlocutor and interloper. In the US, Coates is marginalized: a Black man in white supremacist society. In Israel and Palestine, his status is more conditional. Depending on how he is read, which gate he goes through, whom he’s with, he might first be pegged as Muslim, or he might be read as an American. One interpretation gives him far more status than the other. This essay is Coates discovering and attempting to come to terms with America’s inextricable complicity in Israel’s settler colonialism—and by extension, his own complicity. He connects this to the absence of Palestinian voices from the news rooms and journalism circuits where he himself has often been the lone Black journalist.
Throughout, Coates writes with an enviable and exquisite command of language. His diction is delectable; his sentence structure second to none. Reading The Message is like floating along a river that is provoking you into deep thought. Whether or not you are well versed in the issues Coates covers here, you owe it to yourself to read this book, for it is simply beautifully written.
The Message challenges, documents, describes, decries, and clarifies. It is meditation, mea culpa, and even manifesto. It is a book unfortunately appropriate and sorely needed in the current times, with a second Trump presidency looming and the genocide in Palestine continuing seemingly unabated. With such darkness, hope sometimes feels fleeting. What can I do? What can I do? It seems trite to say that reading is resistance, but reading The Message, with its intention to spur his fellow writers into action, certainly feels like resistance. I guess what matters, of course, is where our reading and our writing goes from here, and the possible politics our art creates.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants by James Vincent
informative
slow-paced
4.0
Wow, has it really been eight years since I read The Measure of All Things, by Ken Adler? It doesn’t feel that long. Referenced in Beyond Measure, that book satisfied my curiosity regarding the origins of the metre. I love history of science. In this book, James Vincent takes the story wider and further, investigating the origins of measurement and metrology (the science of measurement). It’s nerdy as all get out, but if that is your jam, then you’re in for a good time.
As with most such books, this one follows a loosely chronological structure. Starting in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, Vincent traces some of the earliest evidence of consistent units of measurement. He links units to their uses. Some of these are obvious—like facilitating trade—but as the book progresses, he addresses less obvious, less comfortable historical facts, such as metrology’s connections to colonization and eugenics. The book concludes where it starts, with Vincent’s journey to Paris to attend the celebration of the official redefinition of the kilogram and retirement of Le Grand K. In this way, the book lives up to its subtle of The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants.
We take our existing measurements for granted. By “we” I mean everyone currently alive; however, I should especially carve out millennials like myself who grew up long after metricization (here in Canada), decimalization in places like the UK, etc. (Though, to be real for a moment, Canada’s commitment culturally to the metric system has always been suspect: I still bake in Fahrenheit, talk about my height in feet and inches, and quantify my weight in pounds, at least informally.) I’ve never in my lifetime gone through a serious upheaval or change in standards of measurement. So it can be a little tough to imagine, and for some even to conceive, that such shifts must have occurred in history. There was a time before the metre. There was a time before real measurement. Yeah. Wow.
The earliest parts of this book are also helpful in belying the stereotype that ancient cultures were unsophisticated. Vincent testifies to the impressive work Egyptians put into measuring the depth of the Nile, constructing entire stone structures for this purpose. The feats of engineering these civilizations went to just to measure things properly, even if these measurements were often linked to religion, are marvelous. In contrast, as soon as Vincent transitions into talking about the absolute free-for-all that was medieval England, all I can do is shake my head. Britain, what were you even doing with your life? Things get better with the Enlightenment, of course, though the chaotic birth of the metric system amid the French Revolution and Napoleonic era remains a wild tale.
For me, the last chapters were the most fulfilling and interesting. Vincent discusses how land survey was vital to the American colonization of Indigenous lands, and of course a land survey needs reliable, standard measurements. This part of the book reminded me a bit of How to Hide an Empire: I greatly appreciate books about colonialism that focus on the immense bureaucracies set up to support it. Often we discuss colonialism as a philosophy or force in the world, but it’s important too that we remember it’s a system, created by humans and executed not just by armies but by everyday employees (like myself, as a teacher) just doing what their policies and procedures lay out for them.
Similarly, I don’t know if I was aware that Galton, father of eugenics, also invented regression! I knew of the connections around eugenics, race science, and the obsession with measurement as a way of understanding human fitness at the end of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Vincent admirably illustrates why the statistical techniques Galton developed were so seductive and seemed to support the terrible idea of eugenics. It’s a compelling parable about the dangers of following science where one thinks it leads without stopping to interrogate the human biases that lead an investigator down that path.
Finally, Vincent ponders how the elevation of metrology to a science so exacting as to rely on quantum mechanics for its definitions might have also made it less knowable as a result. For the majority of history, he points out, the quest has been to make it easier for anyone to independently verify a measurement standard. The original intention of defining the metre relative to dimensions of the Earth was so that someone else could, theoretically, verify the metre’s length through their own measuring and calculating. Now one needs atomic clocks and other instruments, not to mention a firm grasp of subatomic particle theory, in order to do that. To be clear, Vincent isn’t trying to criticize or condemn the modern metre. If anything, this level of precision is beyond commendable. But I think it’s an interesting and useful observation nonetheless.
All in all, Beyond Measure’s thesis is that humanity’s quest for more precise, more consistent measurement has often been a boon to our societies, but it has also always been exploited as a tool for political wrangling and control. Measurement is not an objective activity. This is ironic given our tendency to view quantitative variables are more reliable than qualitative ones. However, this book firmly establishes that metrology has always altered its flow in response to the politics of the day. Like any broad survey of history, it cannot do any of these topics justice—that’s what more narrowly scoped books are for—but it presents its broad ideas clearly. I learned a lot.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
As with most such books, this one follows a loosely chronological structure. Starting in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, Vincent traces some of the earliest evidence of consistent units of measurement. He links units to their uses. Some of these are obvious—like facilitating trade—but as the book progresses, he addresses less obvious, less comfortable historical facts, such as metrology’s connections to colonization and eugenics. The book concludes where it starts, with Vincent’s journey to Paris to attend the celebration of the official redefinition of the kilogram and retirement of Le Grand K. In this way, the book lives up to its subtle of The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants.
We take our existing measurements for granted. By “we” I mean everyone currently alive; however, I should especially carve out millennials like myself who grew up long after metricization (here in Canada), decimalization in places like the UK, etc. (Though, to be real for a moment, Canada’s commitment culturally to the metric system has always been suspect: I still bake in Fahrenheit, talk about my height in feet and inches, and quantify my weight in pounds, at least informally.) I’ve never in my lifetime gone through a serious upheaval or change in standards of measurement. So it can be a little tough to imagine, and for some even to conceive, that such shifts must have occurred in history. There was a time before the metre. There was a time before real measurement. Yeah. Wow.
The earliest parts of this book are also helpful in belying the stereotype that ancient cultures were unsophisticated. Vincent testifies to the impressive work Egyptians put into measuring the depth of the Nile, constructing entire stone structures for this purpose. The feats of engineering these civilizations went to just to measure things properly, even if these measurements were often linked to religion, are marvelous. In contrast, as soon as Vincent transitions into talking about the absolute free-for-all that was medieval England, all I can do is shake my head. Britain, what were you even doing with your life? Things get better with the Enlightenment, of course, though the chaotic birth of the metric system amid the French Revolution and Napoleonic era remains a wild tale.
For me, the last chapters were the most fulfilling and interesting. Vincent discusses how land survey was vital to the American colonization of Indigenous lands, and of course a land survey needs reliable, standard measurements. This part of the book reminded me a bit of How to Hide an Empire: I greatly appreciate books about colonialism that focus on the immense bureaucracies set up to support it. Often we discuss colonialism as a philosophy or force in the world, but it’s important too that we remember it’s a system, created by humans and executed not just by armies but by everyday employees (like myself, as a teacher) just doing what their policies and procedures lay out for them.
Similarly, I don’t know if I was aware that Galton, father of eugenics, also invented regression! I knew of the connections around eugenics, race science, and the obsession with measurement as a way of understanding human fitness at the end of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Vincent admirably illustrates why the statistical techniques Galton developed were so seductive and seemed to support the terrible idea of eugenics. It’s a compelling parable about the dangers of following science where one thinks it leads without stopping to interrogate the human biases that lead an investigator down that path.
Finally, Vincent ponders how the elevation of metrology to a science so exacting as to rely on quantum mechanics for its definitions might have also made it less knowable as a result. For the majority of history, he points out, the quest has been to make it easier for anyone to independently verify a measurement standard. The original intention of defining the metre relative to dimensions of the Earth was so that someone else could, theoretically, verify the metre’s length through their own measuring and calculating. Now one needs atomic clocks and other instruments, not to mention a firm grasp of subatomic particle theory, in order to do that. To be clear, Vincent isn’t trying to criticize or condemn the modern metre. If anything, this level of precision is beyond commendable. But I think it’s an interesting and useful observation nonetheless.
All in all, Beyond Measure’s thesis is that humanity’s quest for more precise, more consistent measurement has often been a boon to our societies, but it has also always been exploited as a tool for political wrangling and control. Measurement is not an objective activity. This is ironic given our tendency to view quantitative variables are more reliable than qualitative ones. However, this book firmly establishes that metrology has always altered its flow in response to the politics of the day. Like any broad survey of history, it cannot do any of these topics justice—that’s what more narrowly scoped books are for—but it presents its broad ideas clearly. I learned a lot.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
adventurous
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
New Kate Quinn just dropped? Um, yes please. The Briar Club is yet another historical installment in Quinn’s quest to tell the stories of women as they live through and participate in parts of history usually relegated to the heroics of men. In this novel—standalone from the others, though with some notable, subtle connections to reward her longstanding readers—Quinn weaves together the complicated narratives of six women living in a boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., at the height of the Korean War and the Red Scare. Accurately billed as a novel of female friendship, The Briar Club is so, so much more. It’s a testament to the narrative prowess of Quinn herself, as well as the diverse and sometimes erased lives of women of this era.
The Briar Club is told through a rather intriguing frame story. It’s Thanksgiving 1954, and Briarwood House itself comes alive and provides the third-person perspective as police arrive to take charge of a murder scene. After a quick scene in 1954, she whisks us back across the previous three years, starting with the arrival of Grace March at Briarwood House and the inception of the eponymous Thursday night dinner club. Grace’s subtle yet inexorable presence, kindness, and penchant for meddling upends the lives of the women (and young man, Pete) in Briarwood House. Each chapter, punctuated by the frame story, unspools the backstory of one of these intriguing women: Nora, courted by the scion of organized crime; Fliss, a young and exhausted mother separated from her husband by his Army service; Reka, a refugee who longs for the more sophisticated art world of her previous life; Bea, a baseball player reluctant to accept the end of her glory days; and Arlene, who has bought into the myth of the good housewife and the obedient, anti-Communist American.
The frame story is intriguing for two reasons. First, as mentioned, the house is ascribed a kind of sentience. I wasn’t expecting this from historical fiction; it’s a sentimental conceit that Quinn avoids taking too far. In the end, I was definitely on Briarwood House’s side.
The second reason the frame story matters is because of how Quinn conceals the identity of the murder victim (not to mention the murderer) for most of the book. Each brief chapter of the frame story reveals one or two salient details, while also revealing one or two other characters are still alive. You’re left wondering, “Is Bea the victim? Is Grace? Who’s dead?” It’s a really compelling mystery.
Each woman’s story is equally well told. As with any book with an ensemble cast, I always miss whoever was the previous centre of attention. Fortunately, Quinn manages to make each woman just so damn interesting. We often talk of there being no single experience of being a woman, and that is borne out here. These women are more or less feminist, more or less athletic, more or less queer. Some of the have lived long, embattled lives; others are younger, just embarking on the adventure of adulthood.
Quinn also captures the bite of fascism that crept into 1950s America through the advent of McCarthyism. From the respectability politics of Nora’s job to the ultimate secret of Grace’s past, fear of Communism permeated the working- and middle-class American experience.
But what confirms The Briar Club as one of my favourites of Quinn’s novels yet? Put simply, it’s the theme: kindness brings people together. Grace exemplifies this. Her well-meaning meddling, her kindness towards her fellow borders, Pete, Lina, and others, makes the world better. It’s an ideal I agreed with prior to reading (even though I’m not as extroverted as Grace and won’t be meddling in others’ lives any time soon). Reading this in 2024, as fascism rears its head again in the United States, I can’t help but feel … hope? Hope that as long as we find community in each other, we can get through the depredations of our day.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Briar Club is told through a rather intriguing frame story. It’s Thanksgiving 1954, and Briarwood House itself comes alive and provides the third-person perspective as police arrive to take charge of a murder scene. After a quick scene in 1954, she whisks us back across the previous three years, starting with the arrival of Grace March at Briarwood House and the inception of the eponymous Thursday night dinner club. Grace’s subtle yet inexorable presence, kindness, and penchant for meddling upends the lives of the women (and young man, Pete) in Briarwood House. Each chapter, punctuated by the frame story, unspools the backstory of one of these intriguing women: Nora, courted by the scion of organized crime; Fliss, a young and exhausted mother separated from her husband by his Army service; Reka, a refugee who longs for the more sophisticated art world of her previous life; Bea, a baseball player reluctant to accept the end of her glory days; and Arlene, who has bought into the myth of the good housewife and the obedient, anti-Communist American.
The frame story is intriguing for two reasons. First, as mentioned, the house is ascribed a kind of sentience. I wasn’t expecting this from historical fiction; it’s a sentimental conceit that Quinn avoids taking too far. In the end, I was definitely on Briarwood House’s side.
The second reason the frame story matters is because of how Quinn conceals the identity of the murder victim (not to mention the murderer) for most of the book. Each brief chapter of the frame story reveals one or two salient details, while also revealing one or two other characters are still alive. You’re left wondering, “Is Bea the victim? Is Grace? Who’s dead?” It’s a really compelling mystery.
Each woman’s story is equally well told. As with any book with an ensemble cast, I always miss whoever was the previous centre of attention. Fortunately, Quinn manages to make each woman just so damn interesting. We often talk of there being no single experience of being a woman, and that is borne out here. These women are more or less feminist, more or less athletic, more or less queer. Some of the have lived long, embattled lives; others are younger, just embarking on the adventure of adulthood.
Quinn also captures the bite of fascism that crept into 1950s America through the advent of McCarthyism. From the respectability politics of Nora’s job to the ultimate secret of Grace’s past, fear of Communism permeated the working- and middle-class American experience.
But what confirms The Briar Club as one of my favourites of Quinn’s novels yet? Put simply, it’s the theme: kindness brings people together. Grace exemplifies this. Her well-meaning meddling, her kindness towards her fellow borders, Pete, Lina, and others, makes the world better. It’s an ideal I agreed with prior to reading (even though I’m not as extroverted as Grace and won’t be meddling in others’ lives any time soon). Reading this in 2024, as fascism rears its head again in the United States, I can’t help but feel … hope? Hope that as long as we find community in each other, we can get through the depredations of our day.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat by Larre Bildeston
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Often it takes a lifetime to figure out who we are. Although internet culture has helped spread a wider array of labels to help people articulate their gender, sexuality, spirituality, and other aspects of identity, that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to find the right labels or try them out. Life is trial and error—a lot of trial and error. The Space Ace of Mangleby Flat is a challenging read that bears this out. Larre Bildeston weaves a compassionate but not always easy story about a man who doesn’t understand why he can’t find his place. I received a copy in exchange for a review.
Sam Dennon has always been a bit … different. After a sheltered boyhood in the remote Mangleby Flat, he moves to the big city, and eventually in adulthood ends up in Wellington, Aotearoa, cofounder of an architecture firm with his ex-wife. Sam is brilliant, loves space and architecture, but he has developed an idea of himself as a loner. He was never quite able to get as enthusiastic about sexual intimacy with his wife, Lisa, as she wanted—hence their split. Now Sam is getting closer with Reina, a trans woman he meets through tennis. The two of them become good friends, yet Reina clearly wants their relationship to be more physically intimate—and Sam isn’t sure he can acquiesce. Deep down, as he flashes back to his childhood, he wonders how broken he is, and why.
So it’s not a spoiler, since it is in the title and also fairly obvious if you know the signs: Sam is asexual. He just doesn’t know this word fits his experience and instead sees himself as broken. This is a common occurrence, sadly, among ace people. It’s not one I’ve had myself (though I have my days where society makes me feel like I’m not enough…), but that doesn’t make it any less real for the ace people who experience it. Sam’s attitude, his despondency, and his anxiety (compounded by being autistic as well), mean he struggles to find definitions and labels for himself that are affirming and uplifting. Instead, he focuses on what he perceives to be his deficits.
This is a difficult book to read. It’s sad, watching Sam feel so broken and unfulfilled. The story gets dark at times. I kept wanting to yell at Sam, help him discover his identity sooner, help him reconcile with people he has distanced himself from. But that’s kind of the point. As much as I want ace characters who are joyous, who are aware of their sexuality from a young age, I have to recognize that a lot of older aces have gone through what Sam goes through. And if you’re allo and reading this, you will get a glimpse of how difficult it can be to exist in a society that assumes everyone will pair off, have and want to have sex, and understand how all of that works. I’m allistic, so I can’t speak to the portrayal of Sam’s autism, but it’s good to have this dual representation.
All things considered, I really liked the supporting cast. Reina is a delight. Lisa is a wonderfully understanding and supportive ex-wife. Mick, Jan, and the other players in Sam’s past form a constellation of characters who helped make him who he is. Bildeston sets up a few mysteries, teases them out, before resolving them gradually in the final act.
I recommend this book for ace people or autistic people looking for main characters like them, with the caveat to beware content warnings (including suicide ideation and incest). I recommend this book for allo people or allistic people who are challenging themselves to learn more about ace and autistic experiences through fiction. Finally, I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a layered story set in Australia and Aotearoa with an emphasis on found family, communication, boundaries, and lifelong learning.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Sam Dennon has always been a bit … different. After a sheltered boyhood in the remote Mangleby Flat, he moves to the big city, and eventually in adulthood ends up in Wellington, Aotearoa, cofounder of an architecture firm with his ex-wife. Sam is brilliant, loves space and architecture, but he has developed an idea of himself as a loner. He was never quite able to get as enthusiastic about sexual intimacy with his wife, Lisa, as she wanted—hence their split. Now Sam is getting closer with Reina, a trans woman he meets through tennis. The two of them become good friends, yet Reina clearly wants their relationship to be more physically intimate—and Sam isn’t sure he can acquiesce. Deep down, as he flashes back to his childhood, he wonders how broken he is, and why.
So it’s not a spoiler, since it is in the title and also fairly obvious if you know the signs: Sam is asexual. He just doesn’t know this word fits his experience and instead sees himself as broken. This is a common occurrence, sadly, among ace people. It’s not one I’ve had myself (though I have my days where society makes me feel like I’m not enough…), but that doesn’t make it any less real for the ace people who experience it. Sam’s attitude, his despondency, and his anxiety (compounded by being autistic as well), mean he struggles to find definitions and labels for himself that are affirming and uplifting. Instead, he focuses on what he perceives to be his deficits.
This is a difficult book to read. It’s sad, watching Sam feel so broken and unfulfilled. The story gets dark at times. I kept wanting to yell at Sam, help him discover his identity sooner, help him reconcile with people he has distanced himself from. But that’s kind of the point. As much as I want ace characters who are joyous, who are aware of their sexuality from a young age, I have to recognize that a lot of older aces have gone through what Sam goes through. And if you’re allo and reading this, you will get a glimpse of how difficult it can be to exist in a society that assumes everyone will pair off, have and want to have sex, and understand how all of that works. I’m allistic, so I can’t speak to the portrayal of Sam’s autism, but it’s good to have this dual representation.
All things considered, I really liked the supporting cast. Reina is a delight. Lisa is a wonderfully understanding and supportive ex-wife. Mick, Jan, and the other players in Sam’s past form a constellation of characters who helped make him who he is. Bildeston sets up a few mysteries, teases them out, before resolving them gradually in the final act.
I recommend this book for ace people or autistic people looking for main characters like them, with the caveat to beware content warnings (including suicide ideation and incest). I recommend this book for allo people or allistic people who are challenging themselves to learn more about ace and autistic experiences through fiction. Finally, I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a layered story set in Australia and Aotearoa with an emphasis on found family, communication, boundaries, and lifelong learning.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Guardian by A.J. Hartley
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
As is tradition, let us begin by admiring the incredible angled-title cover art on this book! Then, as is tradition, let me remark upon how I’ve somehow let an egregious span of time elapse (six years?? Really, Kara??) before finally finishing this trilogy. Guardian is a more-than-sufficient conclusion to the series A.J. Hartley started in Steeplejack. This is a beautiful young-adult fantasy series that offers a primer on resisting fascism and bigotry along with a fun and intense mystery.
Anglet Sutong, or Ang to her friends, is now in the employ of Josiah Willinghouse. But when Josiah is arrested for the murder of the Prime Minister of Bar-Selehm, Ang is on a race against time to clear his name. If not, Josiah will be executed. Even more devastating, the new prime minister will have no opposition to his sweeping reforms that enshrine apartheid, white supremacy, and other racist and sexist discrimination in law.
Reading this book literally as the United States reelects a fascist president is, uh, a trip. The themes of Guardian have never felt more necessary or urgent. This book has so much to offer the reader in terms of a holistic understanding of how fascism rises in a so-called democratic nation and what to do about it.
Let’s start with how Hartley uses Dahlia’s character to interrogate white privilege and class privilege. Now, it’s true that the Willinghouses are technically mixed race, and this comes up later in the book. Nevertheless, Dahlia is essentially white passing, especially next to Ang. Her insular upbringing and her family’s wealth mean that, for all her good intentions, she doesn’t quite understand the struggles Ang and fellow Lani or Black citizens have gone through. Heck, Ang has similar issues sometimes with her fellow Lani since her new situation developed, or understanding the tribespeople around Bar-Selehm or Black activists and journalists like Sureyna. Hartley does a great job portraying the diversity of voices present in resistance movements, reminding us that resistance is not monolithic, and disagreement and conflict will happen.
As the mystery around the prime minister’s murder deepens, Ang must confront her assumptions about people she thought she knew. She also has to reconcile herself with losing people along the way: not everyone in a resistance movement survives.
But perhaps the most prescient and difficult aspect of this novel is the way a newly empowered fascist leader solidifies their grasp so quickly. Suspension of free elections. Redistricting. Restricting employment and free movement. The willing compliance of people in positions of power, like in law enforcement. Bar-Selehm has always had echoes of South Africa in it, but Hartley is clearly channelling a lot of twentieth-century countries that slid from democracy to dictatorship or despotism. The foreign interference angle is just another part that makes this book feel oddly appropriate for our times.
I also really enjoyed the ending, and in particular where Hartley leaves things for Ang and Dahlia. My little heart just went “aww.” My only complaint is I wish this had been developed more in the second book, so that we could see more payoff here! Maybe we’ll get to come back to Bar-Selehm one day, check in on the next generation, and see an older Ang and Dahlia and the life they’ve built….
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Anglet Sutong, or Ang to her friends, is now in the employ of Josiah Willinghouse. But when Josiah is arrested for the murder of the Prime Minister of Bar-Selehm, Ang is on a race against time to clear his name. If not, Josiah will be executed. Even more devastating, the new prime minister will have no opposition to his sweeping reforms that enshrine apartheid, white supremacy, and other racist and sexist discrimination in law.
Reading this book literally as the United States reelects a fascist president is, uh, a trip. The themes of Guardian have never felt more necessary or urgent. This book has so much to offer the reader in terms of a holistic understanding of how fascism rises in a so-called democratic nation and what to do about it.
Let’s start with how Hartley uses Dahlia’s character to interrogate white privilege and class privilege. Now, it’s true that the Willinghouses are technically mixed race, and this comes up later in the book. Nevertheless, Dahlia is essentially white passing, especially next to Ang. Her insular upbringing and her family’s wealth mean that, for all her good intentions, she doesn’t quite understand the struggles Ang and fellow Lani or Black citizens have gone through. Heck, Ang has similar issues sometimes with her fellow Lani since her new situation developed, or understanding the tribespeople around Bar-Selehm or Black activists and journalists like Sureyna. Hartley does a great job portraying the diversity of voices present in resistance movements, reminding us that resistance is not monolithic, and disagreement and conflict will happen.
As the mystery around the prime minister’s murder deepens, Ang must confront her assumptions about people she thought she knew. She also has to reconcile herself with losing people along the way: not everyone in a resistance movement survives.
But perhaps the most prescient and difficult aspect of this novel is the way a newly empowered fascist leader solidifies their grasp so quickly. Suspension of free elections. Redistricting. Restricting employment and free movement. The willing compliance of people in positions of power, like in law enforcement. Bar-Selehm has always had echoes of South Africa in it, but Hartley is clearly channelling a lot of twentieth-century countries that slid from democracy to dictatorship or despotism. The foreign interference angle is just another part that makes this book feel oddly appropriate for our times.
I also really enjoyed the ending, and in particular where Hartley leaves things for Ang and Dahlia. My little heart just went “aww.” My only complaint is I wish this had been developed more in the second book, so that we could see more payoff here! Maybe we’ll get to come back to Bar-Selehm one day, check in on the next generation, and see an older Ang and Dahlia and the life they’ve built….
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Second Review: November 2024
I recently realized I was behind on the latest Laundry Files novels, and when Blackwell’s had a big sale, I picked up all the ones I didn’t already own. Before I dive into the new ones, however, I’ve decided to reread, starting right back at the beginning.
I actually really like my first review, below, from eleven years ago. I am pleased to see The Atrocity Archives, for the most part, holds up. Despite all the world has gone through in the past decade—to the point where Stross himself lamented being able to write more of these novels—the early 2000s world of this book still feels recognizable. It’s interesting reading it now that it is twenty years old, and sure, some of the technology feels dated. However, the pathos and characterization doesn’t feel that way.
I recently realized I was behind on the latest Laundry Files novels, and when Blackwell’s had a big sale, I picked up all the ones I didn’t already own. Before I dive into the new ones, however, I’ve decided to reread, starting right back at the beginning.
I actually really like my first review, below, from eleven years ago. I am pleased to see The Atrocity Archives, for the most part, holds up. Despite all the world has gone through in the past decade—to the point where Stross himself lamented being able to write more of these novels—the early 2000s world of this book still feels recognizable. It’s interesting reading it now that it is twenty years old, and sure, some of the technology feels dated. However, the pathos and characterization doesn’t feel that way.
First Review: September 2013
This might be one of my favourite Charles Stross books. I think it’s the effortless blend of bureaucratic humour and horror, and the slight homages to spy fiction, that makes
This might be one of my favourite Charles Stross books. I think it’s the effortless blend of bureaucratic humour and horror, and the slight homages to spy fiction, that makes
The Atrocity Archives so appealing. It’s not just any one thing, and it isn’t too much of any of these things. There are plenty of ways to play the "secret government agency that fights the supernatural" angle, and plenty of them are valid. Stross has gone the tongue-in-cheek, cryptopunk route, and his particular brand of relentless, sardonic humour fits perfectly with this style.
The Atrocity Archives speaks to me as a math geek. All the magic in this book is arguably sufficiently advanced science, in the sense that it’s done using math—incredibly complex math. Turing cracked the P=NP problem, and in so doing realized it gave access to other universes. Many of these infinite universes are inhabited by beings like or unlike us—demons and spirits and Lovecraftian Old Ones. And it’s not just what Stross creates; it’s how he describes it: “the many-angled ones who live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set”. He seamlessly integrates math jargon into the conversation, never pausing to explain the lesser terms (he does give a bit of a crash course to things like the Turing problem in a little exposition). I can’t speak for how the mathematically uninitiated will feel about this—I can only hope that the patter will also be seamless, if slightly less explicable—a gentle background noise that eases on into the atmosphere Stross is trying to create.
That atmosphere is probably familiar to readers of spy fiction, particularly the over-the-top stories of Fleming and his ilk, for whom the perfect spy is the suave and sophisticated but unrealistically flashy James Bond or lookalike. The agents of the Laundry face global, perhaps even universal, annihilation on a regular basis. Standing toe-to-toe with such unimaginable horror, the only thing one can do is shrug and laugh. It’s the Dr. Strangelove, or Catch-22, appeal to absurdity. Stross reinforces this with many allusions to the Cold War and its lasting effects on the Laundry’s tangled org chart and resources.
The Laundry itself is as much a bastion of bureaucracy as it is badassery. Prior to being approved for fieldwork, Bob is little more than a glorified IT technician, running madly around the office trying to keep ancient servers running. His superiors harass him non-stop over missing paperwork; this continues even after he becomes a field agent and begins going on classified operations. Bob doesn’t like putting up with this, and he occasionally manages to wiggle out of it, but the bureaucrats always seem to get the last laugh. (Stross expounds further on that last idea in The Concrete Jungle, a sequel novella that is included in this edition of the book.)
So he’s sold me on the setting. The main character is slightly more generic than I might like for a protagonist. But Bob did grow on me—partly, I think, because he isn’t uber-competent, and his intuitive leaps of brilliance always make sense, thanks to sensible foreshadowing. For example, there is one point near the climax of the book where he needs to quickly construct a charm that will render him invisible to some bad guys. Earlier in the book, we established such a charm exists and how it’s made—and, conveniently, Bob had the principal ingredient on his person for an entirely unrelated reason. It all comes together nicely, in a way that signals tight writing and editing that I always appreciate seeing.
I’ll admit to getting a bit lost with the plot a few times. Stross draws on obscure points of history and nuances of politics that occasionally escape my grasp (especially when reading this on a transatlantic flight when I should be sleeping but can’t). This doesn’t mar my enjoyment of the story, though; the fun of the action and tone of Bob’s narration is quite enough to see my through to the end. I suspect I’m also just lazy and used to authors who feel the need to explain every detail to the reader, whereas Stross decides to leave the bigger picture disassembled and let the reader put it together—or not—at their own pace and leisure.
The Atrocity Archives is the first in a fun series. It’s James Bond meets Dilbert or Douglas Coupland, a story where black humour screens the oppressive knowledge of all the immensely powerful things that go bump in the night. It teeters on the yawning chasm of despair, its appeal to absurdity only just holding it back—and that powerful juxtaposition of light and dark tones creates a story worth reading and discussing.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Atrocity Archives speaks to me as a math geek. All the magic in this book is arguably sufficiently advanced science, in the sense that it’s done using math—incredibly complex math. Turing cracked the P=NP problem, and in so doing realized it gave access to other universes. Many of these infinite universes are inhabited by beings like or unlike us—demons and spirits and Lovecraftian Old Ones. And it’s not just what Stross creates; it’s how he describes it: “the many-angled ones who live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set”. He seamlessly integrates math jargon into the conversation, never pausing to explain the lesser terms (he does give a bit of a crash course to things like the Turing problem in a little exposition). I can’t speak for how the mathematically uninitiated will feel about this—I can only hope that the patter will also be seamless, if slightly less explicable—a gentle background noise that eases on into the atmosphere Stross is trying to create.
That atmosphere is probably familiar to readers of spy fiction, particularly the over-the-top stories of Fleming and his ilk, for whom the perfect spy is the suave and sophisticated but unrealistically flashy James Bond or lookalike. The agents of the Laundry face global, perhaps even universal, annihilation on a regular basis. Standing toe-to-toe with such unimaginable horror, the only thing one can do is shrug and laugh. It’s the Dr. Strangelove, or Catch-22, appeal to absurdity. Stross reinforces this with many allusions to the Cold War and its lasting effects on the Laundry’s tangled org chart and resources.
The Laundry itself is as much a bastion of bureaucracy as it is badassery. Prior to being approved for fieldwork, Bob is little more than a glorified IT technician, running madly around the office trying to keep ancient servers running. His superiors harass him non-stop over missing paperwork; this continues even after he becomes a field agent and begins going on classified operations. Bob doesn’t like putting up with this, and he occasionally manages to wiggle out of it, but the bureaucrats always seem to get the last laugh. (Stross expounds further on that last idea in The Concrete Jungle, a sequel novella that is included in this edition of the book.)
So he’s sold me on the setting. The main character is slightly more generic than I might like for a protagonist. But Bob did grow on me—partly, I think, because he isn’t uber-competent, and his intuitive leaps of brilliance always make sense, thanks to sensible foreshadowing. For example, there is one point near the climax of the book where he needs to quickly construct a charm that will render him invisible to some bad guys. Earlier in the book, we established such a charm exists and how it’s made—and, conveniently, Bob had the principal ingredient on his person for an entirely unrelated reason. It all comes together nicely, in a way that signals tight writing and editing that I always appreciate seeing.
I’ll admit to getting a bit lost with the plot a few times. Stross draws on obscure points of history and nuances of politics that occasionally escape my grasp (especially when reading this on a transatlantic flight when I should be sleeping but can’t). This doesn’t mar my enjoyment of the story, though; the fun of the action and tone of Bob’s narration is quite enough to see my through to the end. I suspect I’m also just lazy and used to authors who feel the need to explain every detail to the reader, whereas Stross decides to leave the bigger picture disassembled and let the reader put it together—or not—at their own pace and leisure.
The Atrocity Archives is the first in a fun series. It’s James Bond meets Dilbert or Douglas Coupland, a story where black humour screens the oppressive knowledge of all the immensely powerful things that go bump in the night. It teeters on the yawning chasm of despair, its appeal to absurdity only just holding it back—and that powerful juxtaposition of light and dark tones creates a story worth reading and discussing.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Ever since I discovered Martha Wells also writes fantasy, I’ve been dying to read more of her back catalogue. Well, clearly Tor Books is reading my reviews and my reviews only because this year they are reissuing Wheel of the Infinite, first published in 2000. Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the eARC.
Maskelle is (was?) the Voice of the Adversary, but when we meet her, she’s essentially a mendicant nun. Rian is a swordsman in exile from his country. The two meet on the road and arrive in the capital of the Celestial Empire. Maskelle hangs out with the spiritual leader of the empire, her boss, and tries to help him solve a mystery that could threaten literally all of existence. Rian tries to make sure Maskelle won’t get killed. There’s intrigue and backstabbing and an evil puppet.
I’m being glib but only because I’m tired tonight, and summarizing the plot faithfully would take more energy than I have. Wheel of the Infinite is definitely a nineties fantasy through and through. From narrative structure to dialogue style to the epic stakes, this is a fun blast from the past. It’s good nineties fantasy, mind you, fairly unproblematic overall, certainly holds up much better than, say, The Wayfarer Redemption….
Like her books before and since, Wells is great at not hitting us over the head with exposition. Rian basically exists to be the guy Maskelle explains things to, but we only ever get just enough explanation to get on to the action sequences. Whether it’s the nature of the Adversary, what it means to be a Voice, or why Maskelle is down bad, Wells plays all her cards close to her chest. Even the eponymous Wheel (not to be confused with that other eponymous Wheel [of Time]) takes some time to come into focus.
In the same way, the plot itself is a slow build. We start outside the city, see Maskelle and Rian meet as the former travels with a foreign acting troupe, and then the actual mystery gets introduced. Maskelle is an interesting protagonist, since she is clearly powerful and proximal to power, yet her disgraced status means she can’t wield all of her power in an effective way. She’s very flawed and human; she’s older than your typical female protagonist in fantasy, which is great; and she gets to have uncomplicated sex and isn’t punished for it!
Rian is a more straightforward character, to the point where he’s barely more than an archetype. That might be uncharitable. He’s just not that complex. He’s heroic but slightly flawed. Wronged by the people he once trusted. Wants to protect the people around him, like Maskelle. Generally a decent dude.
All in all, Wheel of the Infinite is a good time. Like Rian, it’s not all that complex. But a simple narrative is not a bad one. A story well told is worth reading. I can see the seeds in here of the writer Wells has become: from the intriguing magic/religion system, to Maskelle’s grey morality, to the existential threats that lurk in the deepest recesses of the plot. There are shades of Le Guin here, in a good way.
This is well worth picking up if, like me, you are eager to experience more of Wells’s oeuvre. So long as you keep in mind its age, you’ll while away an afternoon or evening or two with this fulfilling yarn.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Maskelle is (was?) the Voice of the Adversary, but when we meet her, she’s essentially a mendicant nun. Rian is a swordsman in exile from his country. The two meet on the road and arrive in the capital of the Celestial Empire. Maskelle hangs out with the spiritual leader of the empire, her boss, and tries to help him solve a mystery that could threaten literally all of existence. Rian tries to make sure Maskelle won’t get killed. There’s intrigue and backstabbing and an evil puppet.
I’m being glib but only because I’m tired tonight, and summarizing the plot faithfully would take more energy than I have. Wheel of the Infinite is definitely a nineties fantasy through and through. From narrative structure to dialogue style to the epic stakes, this is a fun blast from the past. It’s good nineties fantasy, mind you, fairly unproblematic overall, certainly holds up much better than, say, The Wayfarer Redemption….
Like her books before and since, Wells is great at not hitting us over the head with exposition. Rian basically exists to be the guy Maskelle explains things to, but we only ever get just enough explanation to get on to the action sequences. Whether it’s the nature of the Adversary, what it means to be a Voice, or why Maskelle is down bad, Wells plays all her cards close to her chest. Even the eponymous Wheel (not to be confused with that other eponymous Wheel [of Time]) takes some time to come into focus.
In the same way, the plot itself is a slow build. We start outside the city, see Maskelle and Rian meet as the former travels with a foreign acting troupe, and then the actual mystery gets introduced. Maskelle is an interesting protagonist, since she is clearly powerful and proximal to power, yet her disgraced status means she can’t wield all of her power in an effective way. She’s very flawed and human; she’s older than your typical female protagonist in fantasy, which is great; and she gets to have uncomplicated sex and isn’t punished for it!
Rian is a more straightforward character, to the point where he’s barely more than an archetype. That might be uncharitable. He’s just not that complex. He’s heroic but slightly flawed. Wronged by the people he once trusted. Wants to protect the people around him, like Maskelle. Generally a decent dude.
All in all, Wheel of the Infinite is a good time. Like Rian, it’s not all that complex. But a simple narrative is not a bad one. A story well told is worth reading. I can see the seeds in here of the writer Wells has become: from the intriguing magic/religion system, to Maskelle’s grey morality, to the existential threats that lurk in the deepest recesses of the plot. There are shades of Le Guin here, in a good way.
This is well worth picking up if, like me, you are eager to experience more of Wells’s oeuvre. So long as you keep in mind its age, you’ll while away an afternoon or evening or two with this fulfilling yarn.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Three years ago I read The Jasmine Throne, gave it three stars, and said I might read the sequel. Then that sequel, The Oleander Sword, got a four-star rating and an even better review. Now the conclusion, The Lotus Empire is out, and … y’all, this is top-shelf fantasy. Like, we’re talking one of the best fantasy novels I’ve read this year, and a stunning conclusion to The Burning Kingdoms trilogy. Tasha Suri has outdone herself. Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for an eARC.
No spoilers for this book but spoilers for the first two!
Malini is now the empress of Parijatdvipa, but at what cost? The stability of her throne is tenuous. From within, the priesthood threatens to withdraw their support if she doesn’t cast herself on the pyre to burn for the nameless god. From without, the now-ascendant yaksa have isolated Ahiranya and, through Priya, are orchestrating the return of their mother Mani Ara to usher in a new Age of Flowers. Enemies to lovers to enemies again, Malini and Priya each fight for the survival of their people despite being unable to rely on the power they have accrued in the past year or so.
The world Suri has created here is so lush and fascinating. As I ruminated in my review of The Burning God, I think mainstream fantasy’s Eurocentrism has been to the genre’s detriment. What Suri has done here feels extremely fresh not just because she is drawing from a slightly different mythological inspiration but because she’s also challenging more colonial ideas about storytelling. You still have empires and war and conquest. But we don’t have the same obsession with heroes and villains. Suri complicates our understanding of what it means to be a protagonist in a very satisfying way. Wow.
Picking up where The Oleander Sword left off, The Lotus Empire pits Priya and Malini against one another. I was so hesitant to say good things about their romance in the first two books because it just isn’t my thing. For some reason, however, this book has sold me on their love story. Their tragic, doomed, star-crossed love story. I am obsessed. Suri managed to touch this aromantic gal’s heart, and I want these two to live happily ever after even though I knew, as the story unfolded, how unlikely such an ending would be. Every scene with the two of them—and all the scenes where they are apart—drips with alluring chemistry and burning desire in a way that does not disappoint. Wow.
Similarly, Suri spins a compelling story of competing deities and the price of power. Malini and Priya (and don’t forget Bhumika!) have sacrificed so much for the power they wield. They sacrifice even more in this book. I remarked in my review of The Jasmine Throne on the presence of the female characters in this series, how they are not only high-profile but how many there are in positions of power, and that is doubly true here. Suri exemplifies how you can have “strong” female characters whose strength manifests in diverse ways. Some are warriors, some are leaders, some are sages, some are … just existing. Just grandmothers and people trying to survive in this war-torn country. Wow.
The yaksa suck, the nameless god seems to suck—there is this underlying sinister aura that surrounds the deities who seem to populate the void behind this world. Inhuman yet powerful creatures are no one’s friend, but if you are willing to pay the price, you can harness their power to your ends. That’s the message here. Pay to play and beware what you reap. Having thrown her lot in with the yaksa out of fear of reprisal against Malini, Priya now comes to rue her hollowing out at the hands of Mani Ara. Her crisis of faith is such a great parallel to Malini’s complete lack of faith.
The trajectory of this trilogy has always been one of two women coming together, travelling in parallel, and then realizing they are indeed on opposite sides of an immense conflict. How could they possibly reconcile when they are fighting for the opposite outcome? I could see there was a third path coming from at least the middle of the book, but I really had no idea how Suri could achieve it in a way that didn’t feel cheap. I don’t want to spoil anything, so all I am going to say is that Tasha Suri pulls it off. Seriously, this is one of the most intense and satisfying endings to a trilogy I’ve seen in a while. I love it.
I loved this book. I just want to make this clear, want to sing its praises, for a few reasons. First, authors of colour don’t get enough support. Second, my opinion of this trilogy has steadily improved from the first book. Indeed, I recently read Suri’s debut novel, Empire of Sand, and it’s stunning to see the arc of her skills as a storyteller grow from that book to this one. Third, I struggled at first to get back into this series (it had been two years since I read the last book). If you had asked me for my prediction when I first started The Lotus Empire, I probably would have said the book would get three or four stars, that I was reading it to complete the trilogy. Not so now.
This book is the perfect blending of romance and tragedy and epic fantasy. Although it could stand on its own, it’s worth your time to go read the first two books so you get the maximum emotional payoff (and devastation) when you read this one. The Lotus Empire does not come to play, and it has cemented Suri in my personal canon of fantasy authors to watch.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
No spoilers for this book but spoilers for the first two!
Malini is now the empress of Parijatdvipa, but at what cost? The stability of her throne is tenuous. From within, the priesthood threatens to withdraw their support if she doesn’t cast herself on the pyre to burn for the nameless god. From without, the now-ascendant yaksa have isolated Ahiranya and, through Priya, are orchestrating the return of their mother Mani Ara to usher in a new Age of Flowers. Enemies to lovers to enemies again, Malini and Priya each fight for the survival of their people despite being unable to rely on the power they have accrued in the past year or so.
The world Suri has created here is so lush and fascinating. As I ruminated in my review of The Burning God, I think mainstream fantasy’s Eurocentrism has been to the genre’s detriment. What Suri has done here feels extremely fresh not just because she is drawing from a slightly different mythological inspiration but because she’s also challenging more colonial ideas about storytelling. You still have empires and war and conquest. But we don’t have the same obsession with heroes and villains. Suri complicates our understanding of what it means to be a protagonist in a very satisfying way. Wow.
Picking up where The Oleander Sword left off, The Lotus Empire pits Priya and Malini against one another. I was so hesitant to say good things about their romance in the first two books because it just isn’t my thing. For some reason, however, this book has sold me on their love story. Their tragic, doomed, star-crossed love story. I am obsessed. Suri managed to touch this aromantic gal’s heart, and I want these two to live happily ever after even though I knew, as the story unfolded, how unlikely such an ending would be. Every scene with the two of them—and all the scenes where they are apart—drips with alluring chemistry and burning desire in a way that does not disappoint. Wow.
Similarly, Suri spins a compelling story of competing deities and the price of power. Malini and Priya (and don’t forget Bhumika!) have sacrificed so much for the power they wield. They sacrifice even more in this book. I remarked in my review of The Jasmine Throne on the presence of the female characters in this series, how they are not only high-profile but how many there are in positions of power, and that is doubly true here. Suri exemplifies how you can have “strong” female characters whose strength manifests in diverse ways. Some are warriors, some are leaders, some are sages, some are … just existing. Just grandmothers and people trying to survive in this war-torn country. Wow.
The yaksa suck, the nameless god seems to suck—there is this underlying sinister aura that surrounds the deities who seem to populate the void behind this world. Inhuman yet powerful creatures are no one’s friend, but if you are willing to pay the price, you can harness their power to your ends. That’s the message here. Pay to play and beware what you reap. Having thrown her lot in with the yaksa out of fear of reprisal against Malini, Priya now comes to rue her hollowing out at the hands of Mani Ara. Her crisis of faith is such a great parallel to Malini’s complete lack of faith.
The trajectory of this trilogy has always been one of two women coming together, travelling in parallel, and then realizing they are indeed on opposite sides of an immense conflict. How could they possibly reconcile when they are fighting for the opposite outcome? I could see there was a third path coming from at least the middle of the book, but I really had no idea how Suri could achieve it in a way that didn’t feel cheap. I don’t want to spoil anything, so all I am going to say is that Tasha Suri pulls it off. Seriously, this is one of the most intense and satisfying endings to a trilogy I’ve seen in a while. I love it.
I loved this book. I just want to make this clear, want to sing its praises, for a few reasons. First, authors of colour don’t get enough support. Second, my opinion of this trilogy has steadily improved from the first book. Indeed, I recently read Suri’s debut novel, Empire of Sand, and it’s stunning to see the arc of her skills as a storyteller grow from that book to this one. Third, I struggled at first to get back into this series (it had been two years since I read the last book). If you had asked me for my prediction when I first started The Lotus Empire, I probably would have said the book would get three or four stars, that I was reading it to complete the trilogy. Not so now.
This book is the perfect blending of romance and tragedy and epic fantasy. Although it could stand on its own, it’s worth your time to go read the first two books so you get the maximum emotional payoff (and devastation) when you read this one. The Lotus Empire does not come to play, and it has cemented Suri in my personal canon of fantasy authors to watch.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.