Review: Into the Sunken City

Into the Sunken City by Dinesh Thiru
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There's one strike against this book that you should be aware of before going in--most likely people who are strict about the "science" in their science fiction won't like this book at all. That is the initial premise: five hundred years from now, in a post-climate-change environmental-disaster scenario, the Earth is shrouded in permanent cloud cover that dumps constant rain on the world, to the tune of thirty feet a year, with concomitant sea level rise (the climax comes with the characters making a deepwater dive into "Vegas-Drowned," twenty-five-hundred feet down). When you logically ask how a weather pattern could hold like that, the only vague handwaved answer is that the clouds were somehow "fused," in an event called the Stitching.

To put it bluntly, this is ridiculous. I'm sure when some readers hit this so-called "explanation," they threw the book against the wall. I didn't, and I think the reason why is that this story reminded me of the Kevin Costner movie Waterworld, which is equally ridiculous but one of my guilty pleasures. Also, the characters--our narrator Jin Haldar, her sister Thara, and her ex-boyfriend Taim Mazatlan--were much better written than the worldbuilding, and succeeded in holding my interest. Jin in particular works through a lot of grief in this story, over her father's death in a diving accident, and her coming out from under this shadow was sensitively done. Jin's love for her sister, and her willingness to do almost anything to keep Thara safe, made her a moving character to root for.

The dangers and terrors of deepwater diving, and the often-monstrous sea creatures encountered at those depths, were also well depicted. I'm certainly not an expert in that area, and real experts may have considerable bones to pick, but the author seemed to have done enough research to make that part of the story sound believable. I just wish he had put more thought into his worldbuilding and had come up with a scenario that felt halfway plausible. Still, if you can get past that initial hurdle, this is an engrossing story.

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"We're All Stories, In the End"--Recent Notable Short Fiction

                                                                                                 

The first story I read this year made me cry.  That is "Not Lost (Never Lost)" by Premee Mohamed. This is a beautiful story about Voyager, the probe launched from Earth nearly fifty years ago, and the various alien beings it has encountered along the way--including one that lifted it to sentience. But its nuclear power pack is finally running down, and it is facing its own death. Would that we mere human beings could come to terms with our end as nobly as this fictional artificial intelligence. 

I picked up the anthology Alternative Liberties after reading about it on Facebook. The publisher, B Cubed Press, put out a few "alternative" anthologies (named after Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway's infamous crack about "alternative facts") during Trump's first term, and now they have started up again. This book was thrown together hastily following the election, and it shows: to be honest, most of the stories are just so-so, and one has a severe typo/formatting issue that resulted in not only misplaced words, but entire lines.  

However, there is one shining diamond in this mediocre rough, and that is "Diminished Horizons," by Adam-Troy Castro. This story is a powerful exploration of fascism that takes two different paths. At the end, the story turns into outright eldritch Lovecraftian horror, as the protagonist emerges from his prolonged house arrest to find that his front yard, and seemingly the entire Earth, has disappeared into a "thick pea-soup fog." The narrator has no idea if there is anything left, but he has had his fill of "learned helplessness," and steps out his front door anyway. The story ends there with his final benediction: "Fuck them all, I thought, and stepped into the abyss." 

But how he gets there is arguably the most horrifying thing of all, as this story lays out in precise terms how fascism operates, how people are oppressed, dehumanized and everything is stripped away from them, one step, one humiliation and one removal at a time. First it is his freedom, then his books and his movies; then his physical house starts narrowing, ending up as a first-floor hallway with a portrait of Dear Leader hanging at the end, replacing the picture of the protagonist's deceased wife. It's one of the most frightening things I've ever read, even without the fantastical aspects. 

The January issue of Clarkesworld Magazine has two outstanding stories: "The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe," by Tia Tashiro (one of my favorite new authors) and "Autonomy," by Meg Elison.

The MacGuffin of Tia Tashiro's story is the "medtag," an implanted device that will resurrect someone from the dead by using nanobots to restore brain neurons. But what this story is really about is the relationship between parents and children, and the smothering and manipulation of the protagonist Thomas Monroe by his mother and father, who are trying to force him down a career track he is totally unsuited for. Finaly, he essentially takes out a mob hit on himself in his attempt to break free. Despite the burst of violence at the beginning, this is a gentle story that has a lot to say about the limits of love.

"Autonomy," on the other hand, is a short, sharp, bloody feminist howl of rage, against men who catcall, stalk and sexually assault women. It involves a code that can turn a self-driving car into a weapon, and it references, among other things, the trans woman Christine Jorgensen and an almost forgotten 80's horror movie, Christine, about a demon-possessed '55 Plymouth Fury (based on, what else, a Stephen King novel, and also one of the first times I ever heard George Thorogood's "Bad To the Bone"). This story is definitely in-your-face with its message, but hell, we need that sometimes.

These stories are all worth your time and consideration, and in Adam-Troy Castro's case, requesting your library order Alternative Liberties so you can read his story (if you don't want to pay for the entire anthology). Hopefully any subsequent printings will correct the errors. 

Not the Dragon of Your Dreams: The Sky on Fire, by Jenn Lyons

The Sky on Fire by Jenn Lyons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I usually have an uneasy relationship with fat fantasy books that could double as bricks, as in, I actively avoid them for the most part. (Sorry, I don't think I could lift one of Brandon Sanderson's concrete blocks off the ground, much less read it.) But occasionally the concept of a book catches my eye and I have to check it out. That happened with this book, and I'm glad I cranked up my weightlifting and took a chance on it.

First and foremost, if you're into dragons, this is the book for you. They are most definitely not the benevolent mind-linked children of Pern that most of us grew up with; they're telepathic all right, but they're some of the nastiest non-human characters you'll ever meet. In this world, dragons are regarded as (and nearly are) gods, albeit gods with one huge flaw; in their overuse of magic, they have a tendency to go berserk--here called "going rampant"--and need humans to keep them relatively sane. This does not engender a, shall we say, warm and fuzzy feeling between the two species. Specifically, the dragons consider themselves superior to the pesky humans, and resent the necessity of pairing with a rider. Humans are for the most part confined to settlements on seven mountain peaks, called the Seven Crests. Every year children from the Seven Crests with potential for bonding with a dragon are forced to come to the dragon city, Yagra'hai, where they are trained and tested--and in the case of our protagonist Anahrod Amnead, thrown over the side of a floating skyboat when she refuses bonding with the dragon queen of Yagra'hai, Neveranimas.

Anahrod has a powerful psychic talent with animals, and manages to use a flock of "blood crows" to cushion her fall (although she breaks nearly every bone in her body). She ends up living in the Deep, the jungle below Yagra'hai and the Seven Crests, and makes a life for herself far far away from dragons. But seventeen years later, both humans and dragons are hunting for Anahrod Amnead--humans because they have heard rumors that Anahrod stole something from Neveranimas' hoard (although she really didn't); and dragons because Anahrod's magical talent might interfere with Neveranimas' tyranny. There is a revolution brewing, and both sides think Anahrod might be the key to overthrowing the dragon queen.

Once I started this book, the worldbuilding sucked me right in, followed by the characters. This book is told from Anahrod's POV for the most part, thus avoiding another trope of fat fantasy bricks I dislike--a cast of thousands and a chapter seemingly from every one of them. We follow our core group of characters, Anahrod among them, on a quest to steal an artefact from Neveranimas' hoard (for real this time) which turns out to be a dragon "memory stone" that Neveranimas has been using to deliberately make dragons go rampant and consolidate her power. There's a lot more to it, of course, including a key draconic character from a hundred years ago, the former ruler of Yagra'hai, Ivarion, who went rampant and has been sleeping on an island in the middle of a lava lake ever since. The climax involves Anahod flying the dragon of her lover, Ris, to the Cauldron where Ivarion sleeps and attempting to awaken him--and awaken him to sanity, reversing his rampancy, so he can reveal what Neveranimas has done.

(One interesting thing about the author's worldbuilding is that her dragons have the typical four legs and two wings--but other creatures of this world, including the fifty-foot titan drake that Anahrod is bonded to in the opening chapters, are also six-legged. It's a seemingly small detail that definitely increased my appreciation for the story.)

This book is not all heists and dragon fire--there is also a bit of philosophical discussion about the stories both dragons and humans tell themselves, stories about gods that are revealed to have never really existed. At the end, Anahrod and her two partners Ris and Sicaryon (polyamory is an accepted thing in this world as well, apparently) set out to break down the centures of draconic rule over humans, and create a society where the latter is viewed as equal to the former. This leads to another welcome feature of this book, a storyline that is wrapped up in one volume--although the story could continue if the author wished it, perhaps with the next generation.

In any event, I'm glad I gave my arms a workout and read this book. If you like dragons, I think you'll appreciate it as well.

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Review: The Naturalist Society

The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was a breath of fresh air as far as I was concerned. This fantasy/alternate history structured around science and birds, complete with relatable characters that outgrow the limits of their former selves while making you root for them every step of the way, rates as one of the best books I've read recently, and one of the best three books I've read that were published last year.

In this alternate history, magic is wielded by people who follow the discipline of Arcane Taxonomy. This is the art and science of identifying new species of birds and animals and giving them official Latin names, and in the process tapping into the magic of what makes those animals what they are. (For instance, a major plot point is trying to determine how to navigate in the Arctic and Antarctic, by using the abilities of the arctic tern, who migrates between the two every year.) The setting and time period also plays into the story as a whole, as it is set in America in 1880, long before women had any rights. One of our main protagonists is Beth Stanley, an ornithologist, naturalist and arcanist who has developed Arcanic Taxonomy abilities entirely on her own, as women are not allowed to enter the titular Naturalist Society. Beth married renowned naturalist Harold Stanley, who has been passing off her work and research as his. But as the book opens, Harry Stanley dies, and Beth has to completely remake her life.

The other two protagonists are Brandon West and Anton Torrance, another naturalist and expert cold-weather explorer respectively, who are trying to finance an expedition to the Antarctic. They are also lovers, and Anton is of mixed race. All three of these characters are well-drawn and interesting people. Bran and Anton worked with Harry Stanley, not knowing that Beth was really doing the work, and after Harry's death they are drawn into Beth's orbit and realize that she was the one behind Harry's discoveries. The three of them become professionally and personally involved (in fact, they end the book as a polyamorous triad), as Beth struggles to escape both the general constraints placed on women at the time and the specific horrors of her own family. Beth's mother and brother disapprove of virtually everything she does and resent her growing independence, and end up trying to commit her to an asylum. This doesn't last very long as Beth is able to use her Arcanist abilities to break free, but that is the impetus for her to move West to Colorado Springs and leave her old life behind (and also Bran and Anton, briefly, before they track her down).

This entire book is suffused with a love of birds, science, exploration, and discovery, with more fascinating details about birds and other animals than you could ever imagine. (As you may have suspected, the author is a birder herself.) It also is an encouragement for any woman who wants to become her own person and pursue her own dreams. It doesn't have world-shattering stakes as such--the Naturalist Society still exists at the end of the book, even if I rather wanted Beth, Bran and Anton to burn it all down--but our three characters still triumph. It's just a lovely book.

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For the New Year

 

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hadn't intended to start the year out with a story that made me cry, but this one did. 

"Not Lost (Never Lost)" by Premee Mohamed

Review: Loka

Loka by S.B. Divya
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book in the Alloy Era series, the first of which, Meru, I read and reviewed here. This story takes a time jump of seventeen years, and focuses on Akshaya, the daughter of the first book's protagonists, the human Jayanthi and the genetically engineered post-human (and 120-meter-long star-traveling space mermaid) Vaha. Akshaya is coming of age and starting to break away from her parents. She has been raised on the construct Chedi, a sort of independent AI generation ship that travels a regular route between outlying star systems and Earth. Akshaya wants to visit Earth, the home of one of her parents and a place she has never seen, before their exile--as told in the first book--ends and they can return to Meru, a habitable planet two hundred light years away. Akshaya has been genetically engineered to live on Meru, but she is not sure she wants to do so. She wishes to visit Earth and complete the Anthro Challenge, a circumnavigation of the planet within a specified time period, utilizing present human technology and not relying on the alloys.

This is kind of a stand-alone story, as enough background information is provided (without being overwhelming) that you can follow it without having read the first book. However, I would recommend doing so, as reading the first book will make your experience of this story that much richer.

In this story, Akshaya uses her time on Earth to figure out who she is and what she wants. The Anthro Challenge is more difficult than she anticipated, as she soon discovers that her health really does not permit her to thrive on Earth, and there are other setbacks, mainly with the weather. The Challenge is also being recorded as a kind of far-future reality show, turning Akshaya and her parents into something of a political cudgel to relax some of the restrictions on alloys in the Compact (the document governing Earth in this future, as there aren't any countries or governments as we know them today, and this is a post-capitalist society). Unfortunately, along the way the fact that Akshaya has some alloy genes leaks out and turns many humans against her. She manages to finish the Challenge, but she realize that the life she wants to live can only be found on Meru.

We don't have a story of high stakes here. Oh, the stakes are important enough, but they aren't of the planet-busting or universe-ending variety. They are deeply personal to Akshaya and her family. That doesn't lessen the suspense one bit. There is also a great deal of philosophy and ethic conundrums built into this story, as there was in Meru. As with the first book, this is a thoughtful, deliberately paced tale that is not to be rushed through. Take your time with it and savor the ideas and nuances. You will be rewarded.

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Review: The Relentless Legion

The Relentless Legion by J.S. Dewes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was disappointed by another space opera series I finished this year (the Devoured Worlds trilogy) but this series did not disappoint. In fact, it stuck the landing with a bang.

Unfortunately, this book won't make much sense unless you've read the other two, as it picks right up after the ending of the second book, The Exiled Fleet, without so much as a "the story so far" recap. (I can imagine the trilogy being re-released in a giant omnibus edition in a few years, but it would be about six inches thick.) However, the first two books are absolutely worth your time. This one, in addition to tying up all the outstanding plot and character threads, expands our POV characters--Adequin Rake and Cavalon Mercer, up to this point--to include a crucial third: Jackin North. Jackin traded himself to the series' villain, Augustus Mercer, at the end of the last book to enable Adequin's and Cavalon's escape, and this book shows us the full ramifications of that. Jackin is tortured and eventually broken, and is used as a Trojan horse to foil Adequin's and Cavalon's revolution.

All this is in addition to the overarching storyling of the universe collapsing, and Adequin and her Sentinels working with the alien Viators to halt the oncoming collapse at the borders of our galaxy. Cavalon is also attempting to undo the effects of the Viator mutagen of five hundred years before that threatens to make humanity extinct. This particular plot thread culminates in a trip to a parallel universe (which is mercifully a brief part of the story as a whole, as a multiverse setting is getting a bit overused by this point). At the climax, Adequin, Jackin and Cavalon team up to take Augustus down. The series ends with Cavalon taking up Augustus' rulership of the Mercer family in the Core worlds, and Adequin and Jackin returning to their Sentinel duties at the galactic border--with a new understanding and a new relationship unfolding between them.

As in the previous two books, the sometimes breakneck pacing is leavened by slower and deeper character moments, particularly for Jackin and Cavalon. The reason I appreciated this series more than the other one I mentioned (despite the first two books of the Devoured Worlds trilogy being excellent) is that this book does not introduce another high-level threat out of basically nowhere. The deadly and extinction-level obstacles were laid out in the first book and followed all the way through to the end, with no unlikely and unnecessary surprises.

I really liked all three of these books, and recommend them highly. If you are a space opera fan, I think you will enjoy them as well.



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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 216, September 2024

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 216, September 2024 by Neil Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This issue is a bit below Clarkesworld's usual quality, but there are two outstanding stories here. The first, "Broken," by Laura Williams McCaffrey, is a creepy and uniquely structured tale of Flyer 247-3, who we gradually realize is a human so caught up in her virtual-reality universe that she refers to it as the "real world" and other people as "shadows." After her helmet breaks, she must journey across a flooded and climate-change-ravaged city to get it repaired, and we see in this future, robots are running what remains of the world. The different structure of the story is that it is actually reading backwards, ending at the moment of her helmet failing. I had to read it twice to get the full impact, but it was worth going through again.

The second story, "A World of Milk and Promises" by R H Wesley, tells us the tale of a pregnant woman stranded on an alien planet after her space station breaks up and all her crewmates die, who then has to survive and raise her daughter alone. She gradually realizes this planet's ecosystem is based on cooperation and symbiosis instead of prey and predation, with the planet's organisms feeding each other. She and her daughter are gradually adopted into the alien ecosystem, until her daughter abruptly dies--but the child's bones keep on growing, creating a giant skull and ribcage that shelters her mother. The nameless woman also dies at the end, waiting to fully merge with the planet and perhaps meet her daughter again. This story is dense and layered in its exploration of a mother's love, and is amazingly Wesley's first published story, according to the author notes.

I didn't particularly care for the other stories in the issue, but these two are worth your time.

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Review: A Haunted Girl

A Haunted Girl by Ethan Sacks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This slender graphic novel packs a lot of elements into a surprising and very effective story. The author's afterward reveals it was co-written by his daughter, who at one time suffered a major depressive episode that led to her being hospitalized. This story obviously incorporates that real-life experience, opening with the protagonist, Japanese-American Cleo Newman, at the end of her own two-month hospitalization. She is released into the custody of her father, but not before seeing a horrific visage in her hospital room that she thinks she imagined.

Turns out she didn't. Cleo can see ghosts, in particular a Japanese death goddess named Izanami who is trying to tear down the barrier between the living and the dead, and loose vengeful ghosts to eradicate human life on Earth. Cleo is the last of the bloodline who can see and fight those ghosts and save humanity. This is the story of her efforts to get past her own disbelief and her depression, and find the strength to save those she loves.

The aspects of depression and suicidal ideation are dealt with realistically and sensitively, and it's apparent that the author's daughter has contributed greatly to this, making the story more grounded. Cleo doesn't defeat the death goddess alone--her best friend Flor, her father Gus, and even Cleo's therapist Marcy come to her aid in the end (as well as the ghost of her elder brother Hiro, who was taken by Izanami fifteen years before). Hiro was originally sent to fool Cleo and lead her into the death goddess's clutches, and Cleo nearly succumbs. But at the end, in a glorious three-page spread showing Cleo's life and loved ones, she declares, "I want to LIVE! I am going to LIVE! I'm done being made to feel powerless. I will not be beaten. Not by you, not by principal jerkface, not by stuck-up bullies. And not by my damn depression."

It's enough to make you stand up and cheer.

The story features a near-perfect balance between the horror aspects and the mental-health aspects, and also emphasizes the power of friendship and people working together to triumph. It's a striking example of how a graphic novel can be far more than just a "comic book."

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Review: A Fire in the Sky

A Fire in the Sky by Sophie Jordan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The recent "romantasy" craze is a mixed bag, for me. The eight-hundred-pound elephant in that room is of course Rebecca Yarros, author of Fourth Wing and Iron Flame . Her 600-page bricks books combine explicit sex scenes with some fairly inventive worldbuilding, although by the time of the second book the relationship between the two leads is beginning to drag the story down (I mean, when you've read one "thrusting cock" and "wet sex" you've read them all, really).

(And who the heck decided that the silly, incongruous descriptor "sex" is a suitable synonym for the vagina and/or pubic mound, anyway? "Clit" has a much snappier ring to it, but it's not quite the portion of the female anatomy these writers are usually going for. Not to mention that in this book, unwilling virgin bride Tamsyn had no idea such an organ existed, since she apparently didn't play with herself before her marriage.)

Unfortunately, there are a lot of fantasy romances (w/dragons) following in Yarros' wake, which means you will get generally pale, less interesting imitations. Like this one. This book tends toward the shallow and frothy side, with inadequate worldbuilding and characterization. The difference in this book is that instead of bonding with a dragon, Tamsyn is one: a human/dragon shapeshifter. She didn't know this until one of her new warlord husband's warriors, disapproving of their marriage, tries to kill her, and she shifts into her dragon form and roasts him.

(This is a misstep in the worldbuilding that knocked me out of the story, by the way. Jordan's dragons are the usual winged, four-legged and serpentine-tailed type, and immediately after Tamsyn shifts she is able to fly? In a new larger body with three extra limbs that she should have no idea how to maneuver? She should be tangling up in her wings and falling out of the sky, and no, "instinct" isn't going to cut it to help her stay aloft. It should take a great deal of time and practice to be able to do anything in her dragon form, and yet there she is swooping and diving through the air, dodging other dragons and even bearing her husband on her back, as if interspecies flight is just another day in the medieval castle. And of course her husband Fell turns out to be another dragon shifter...sigh.)

This book is half the size of the Empyrean books, but in this case, less is not more. It's the first book in a series, but I'm not inclined to continue it.

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