You Daughters of Freedom
This splendid book was sent to me by the publisher, Text, at no cost. It’s out at the start of October; RRP $49.99 in Australia.
Firstly, this is a hefty tome: it’s 550 pages. But the text itself is only (?) 480 pages, and it must be stressed that this is an immensely readable book with generally short chapters that make the story very readable. So don’t let the size put you off if this is a part of history that appeals to you.
If you know nothing about women achieving the vote in Australia or elsewhere, this is an excellent starting point. If, like me, you’ve read a bit already, this puts it all together in an excellent narrative, explores some of the most important characters, and sets it all in historical context magnificently. I also think you should read it if you’re at all interested in Australia’s early history as a nation.
I have a lot of Opinions on this topic. I think the fight for women’s suffrage in the first part of the 20th century is endlessly intriguing. (In fact my latest zine is on this topic. Do you get my zine?) Wright does a really great job of showing how suffrage was achieved in Australia, and then the influence that had on the rest of the world.
You may have heard that SA women got the right to vote in 1894 – a year after NZ women. But here’s the thing: because of an outrageous attempt by conservatives to be more radical than the progressives, which gloriously backfired, SA women were the first to also have the right to stand for election. Which most women around the world weren’t asking for because they thought it was a step too far. And here’s the other amazing thing: it included the right for Indigenous people of SA to vote. Oh yes. That’s really quite amazing. And because of this, and some smart wrangling from the SA delegates to the Federation conferences, that right eventually got transferred to Australian women, at least for federal elections, in 1902.
Um. Except for Indigenous women. And this is one thing that Wright excels at: pointing out that what’s being celebrated here – and it should be celebrated, certainly – is the right to vote and stand for elections for white women. It was an important step, and indeed was a revolutionary one for the world, but it wasn’t complete enfranchisement. It should be noted that Wright includes in the book some of the arguments about extending the franchise to Indigenous women from the Senate, and… I found it very hard to read that language coming from our politicians, in public. Yes, even though most of them were supporters of the White Australia Policy and I’ve seen Frazer Anning’s words. It was still sickening (so be warned). (The Indigenous population unreservedly got the right to vote in federal elections in 1962.)
Australian women fighting for the right to vote is only half the book. The rest is the way in which Australian women contributed to the struggle in “the Mother Country” (England) (where by comparison there was limited suffrage for women by 1918, and on the same basis as men only in 1928. I say ‘only’ but that’s earlier than France, which was 1944.) I’ve read about Muriel Matters, who was amazing, and about Vida Goldstein (who supported the White Australia Policy and by golly those historical folks are complicated to appreciate). I’ve also read a lot about English women’s activities in fighting for the vote. What I didn’t realise is how influential Australian women specifically were, in working for the various organisations and inspiring particular actions, AND as inspiration in general. Because the other thing that Wright does splendidly is draw out just how much of a ‘social laboratory’ Australia was seen as in the first decade or so of the twentieth century. People in the UK and USA in particular were watching Australia, this new nation, as we tried new things and made them work (first Labour govt in the world, various somewhat socialist things, ladies voting…). Vida Goldstein was the first Australian woman to meet a US president! and so on. It’s quite thrilling to see what Australian women were doing out in the world.
Finally, I also adored the final chapter, wherein Wright destroys the notion that Australia should see its participation at Gallipoli as the birth of the nation, and instead points out just how much it had achieved before then.
This book is amazing.
Women in science history
In a theoretical feminist bingo card, there is one square for Marie Curie: The Only Female Scientist. (If you are particularly nerdy you may also have Ada Lovelace, First Computer Programmer.) Of course this does not reflect reality, and it doesn’t reflect historical reality either – but science history books are so often focussed on the Lone (invariably male) Genius labouring away in the lab that you could be forgiven for thinking that science does actually happen in a vacuum. This is, of course, a fallacy, as these four books demonstrate.
Patricia Fara, Pandora’s Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment(Pimlico, 2004)
Pandora in breeches is an abomination. Pandora is already a problem: the first woman, in Greek mythology, whose existence brings all sorts of problems to the (male) world. But Pandora in breeches means that Pandora is also trying to take over the male world. In this book, Patricia Fara delves into the myth of the lone male scientific genius and exposes it as just that – a myth. While refusing the suggestion that Hypatia and Katherine Johnson could have been at all comfortable sitting next to each other at a dinner party, Fara reclaims the existence of women in scientific endeavour. She does this by taking several Lone Genius men (Descartes, Linnaeus, Lavoisier, Newton…) and examining the role that women played in their scientific lives. In some cases, this is domestically: when science is being done in the home, wives and sisters and household staff get drawn into the science almost automatically. In other cases, it is through correspondence, or through a woman’s own writing that is picked up and expanded on by a man because the woman wasn’t allowed to present her ideas in a public forum. Fara has surely only scratched the surface of the ways in which women contributed to science in this period (and, as she points out, also the male labourers who constructed equipment and so on).
Dava Sobel, The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars (Viking, 2016)
When the Harvard Observatory started taking pictures of the night sky, they did so with glass plates. In order to understand what was happening on those plates, the Observatory needed meticulous ‘calculators’ to look at each one and catalogue the tiny pin pricks of light. This job was usually perceived as tedious, and therefore perfect for women – who were also cheaper to hire. So for decades, women worked on the half a million or so plates made by Harvard and in doing so, made or contributed towards the significant discoveries that form the basis of astronomy today. What stars are made of, the idea of variable stars, classifications of stars – these things were enabled by these women. An intriguing aspect of Sobel’s narrative is that as well as exploring the contributions of the women employed by the Observatory, she explores the contribution of women who gave substantial funding to it – thereby enabling the place to conduct science that might otherwise have been impossible – and the place of the male astronomers’ wives, who also helped significantly in the running of the Observatory.
Patricia Far, A Lab of One’s Own: Science and Suffrage in the First World War (Oxford University Press, 2018)
The blurb for this book may surprise many readers, since it proclaims 2018 to be a ‘double centenary: peace was declared in war-wracked Europe, and women won the vote after decades of struggle’. Presumably this edition of the book was never meant to be seen outside of the UK. Nonetheless, this is a generally absorbing account of the scientific contribution of women during the First World War. As with her book on the Enlightenment, Fara has dug into archives and found significant records of women in various scientific establishments, doing experimental work, as well as munitions factories and other such manual labour, generally replacing the men who have gone to fight. Women were active in museums, and as doctors (why have I never heard of the female British doctors in places like Salonika?), and in intelligence work. There are also mysteries, like the unnamed clerk awarded an MBE… war secrets taken to the grave, presumably. It must be said that sometimes the book is confused about exactly what it wants to do. There are chapters on science with little discussion of any women being involved, and sections about suffrage that have very little to do with science. Nonetheless overall this book does expand the idea of who contributed to the UK’s war effort in World War 1, and explores the many reasons that women had for wanting to be involved in those efforts.
Margot Lee Shetterly, Hidden Figures (HarperCollins, 2016)
Thanks to the film that was made at the same time as the book was published, this story of the black female mathematicians who worked for NASA (and for NASA’s predecessor) is probably the best-known of these stories. It is a crucial one, since as far as I can tell all of the women in the other three histories were white. Black women are historically even more obscured than white women. Shetterly has done an excellent job of unearthing references to the work of these West Area ‘computers’ so that their contribution to American space exploration can be appreciated. She gives their educational and social context – which was vital for me since although I know a little about segregation I know almost nothing about historically-black colleges. Shetterly traces the connections between places, people, and influences through some specific women, like Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Goble Johnson, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden; she also sets the work of these women in the larger NASA context to show just how vital their work was. Shetterly also shows how these women fit into their communities, and how they encouraged the women and girls around them simply by being who they were, and working where they did.
Restoration: Angela Slatter
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Jo Fletcher Books, at no cost. It was launched just a week or so ago – hooray!
I’m going to be smug and say this is actually the second time I’ve read this, because Slatter sent me a very early version which, as I say, makes me feel very smug indeed. I’ve loved Verity since I first came across her many years ago in the Twelfth Planet Press anthology Sprawl; that short story, “Brisneyland by Night,” morphed into the first book in this trilogy.
This post will contain spoilers for Vigil and Corpselight (which apparently I didn’t review?? What even, PastMe??). If you like urban fantasy, if you like banter, if you like angels and sirens and Weyrd and weird things, you really should just go and get them. Also it’s set in Brisbane, and I don’t know Brisbane but it seems to make an excellent backdrop for these shenanigans.
So. Verity has made a deal with a broken angel in order to save her mother, newly back from the apparently dead, and the rest of her newly created family. She has had to give up her job working as the go-between for the Weyrd and the normal, there are several Weyrd who loathe her, and the angel has stuck her with a sidekick-cum-informant who has been responsible for several atrocities in Verity’s life. So we just know that it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and of course that’s the case. Not that I was able to predict any of the narrative beats; it all took weird and wonderful turns, for Verity and for Brisbane and for the whole set really.
I continue to adore McIntyre. Also her police sidekick. And Ziggi. Also the sirens in general. … ok, so I just really like this whole crew, and I want to eat the food served by the Norns. But I do not want to actually live with any of them because that just seems like a recipe for disaster.
This is a fine end to the trilogy, if it has to only be a trilogy. Because delightfully there are definitely signs that there could be a book four, which I HEARTILY APPROVE. Also there is looots of room for short stories to fill in a whole bunch of back story. JUST SAYING.
Highly, and happily, recommended.
The Girl with the Dragon Heart
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Bloomsbury, at no cost. I believe it comes out in Australia at the start of September; RRP $14.99.
I heard about this book from Tansy, who adored it, so when I got to a chance to review it I was pretty stoked. But a thing I did not realise: this is a sequel! When I read the first chapter or so I wasn’t sure whether Burgis was doing something quite ambitious for this middle grade/ YA book (the protagonist is 13: I don’t know how to classify books for younger readers) – that is, leaping right into the story and then adding a bit of background information. Then I found out that before this is The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, and it made a bit more sense. That said, I think that the narrators are different in the two books, and obviously I haven’t read the first but I still managed to read and love this book… so it does stand by itself.
Silke is 13 and determined to write her own story of her life, with herself as heroine not victim. She and her brother have been on their own since their parents were captured or killed as the family were fleeing their homeland some years ago. Most recently, Silke has been making herself useful to the chocolate makers at The Chocolate Heart, who have employed her best friend who is usually in human form but is actually a dragon (it’s complicated). She’s waitressing, and telling stories both orally and via broadsheet. But then she gets a job from the crown princess when the neighbouring fairy royalty, who have been living underground for a century, suddenly come for a visit. Silke has the chance to prove herself but of course things won’t go as smoothly as one might hope…
There’s a lot to like here. The action moves quickly, but there’s still lovely moments of character development. And the characters are great: mostly girls and women, with genuine diversity of character. The crown princess might be well loved, but/and she’s also a ruthless politician when necessary. The younger princess feels overshadowed; the chocolate apprentice is true to her dragon heritage; the adult women are sometimes compassionate, sometimes impatient, sometimes ignorant. The male characters are also diverse – Silke’s older brother is, basically, an older brother; sometimes the men are greedy, sometimes loving. Silke herself is basically creating herself as she goes along, which is probably her most intriguing characteristic: after early trauma she is determined not to have her life written for her. And so she puts on an act – which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not, and that’s acknowledged by the text.
As for the action: it’s clear from early on that the arrival of the fairies isn’t going to be the wondrous thing that the population might hope. It takes some unexpected turns, much like Silke learning the ins and outs of the servants’ passageways within the castle. The fairies have a bit less development than some other characters, but it does all work well as a narrative.
I really enjoyed this and look forward to giving it to the younger readers in my life.
Early Riser: Jasper Fforde
I received this book from the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. It’s out now; RRP $29.99.
If you tried reading one of the Thursday Next books and you hated everything about the whimsy of Fforde’s alternate world, just stop reading now: this book won’t be for you.
If you quite liked the early Next books and got a bit sad as they got sillier, keep reading.
If you’ve never read a Fforde book, you can keep reading too.
And if you’re a hardcore Fforde fan who’s been waiting… and waiting… and waiting for the sequel to Shades of Grey… well, this isn’t it, but it does mark Fforde’s return to writing after a hiatus of a few years, so: maybe it will arrive at some point?
This book is immediately recognisable as part of Fforde’s very particular way of constructing alternate worlds. There’s just enough recognisable from our world – what else would a Welsh near-zombie play but a Tom Jones song – but with some completely and wildly different things thrown in. In the Thursday Next world, the Crimean War never ended, and genetic manipulation means people have dodos as pets. Here, humanity hibernates. The vast majority of the population packs on fat, grows a winter pelt, and sleeps away the winter. Except, in more modern times, for the Winter Consuls – and a few dangerously antisocial types. The Winter Consuls help to keep things running through the winter; like keeping the antisocial types under control.
Charlie is the focal character – he’s just joined the Winter Consuls and is, of course, discovering that everything is not as it seems (whatasurprise). Through Charlie as novice, the reader learns about the Winter and how to survive, as well as about Morphenox – the drug that helps with hibernation, preventing the previously hideous losses, although only if you can afford it – and the various criminal and/or mythical types who also stay awake through winter. Oh and this isn’t just the winter of our world; this is the sort of winter that means mammoths are still alive and well. And global warming will mean something rather different.
It’s a very silly book in a lot of ways. There are silly/amusing jokes riffing off contemporary culture, and for some reason a massive painting of Clytemnestra. But at the same time, Fforde touches on all sorts of intriguing social ideas that might come about because of the hibernation – or simply from different ways of doing things. Like mandating childbearing, but providing the option to pass that responsibility off – to the willing or the desperate. Loss of population from hibernation means that society has developed coping mechanisms such as requiring every citizen to have at least general capabilities, and significant infrastructure to be commensurately accessible to those with those capabilities. Which does interesting things to notions of mastery, I think, although that’s not a huge part of the story. There’s clearly different things going on in terms of international politics, too, but it’s barely touched on.
I feel that Fforde is quite a divisive author. Readers are either willing to go along with his particular method of looking at the world and enjoy the ride, or the first couple of pages will make you angry or annoyed or bored. In general, I really enjoy his work. I think that milking too much out of one of his worlds leads to problems like the later Next books where things went beyond my tolerances – but that’s true of a lot of sequels. Fforde is doing what the best SFF does: making tweaks to the world and showing the consequences, and making the reader think about how those things reflect the world in which we actually live. And if there are jokes about ‘Winter cutlets’ and Carmen Miranda along the way, I’m up for it.
Too Big to Walk
Buy this book, my beloved said. You love dinosaur science, he said! It’ll be great, he said.
I do love dinosaurs. I was intrigued by the ideas that Brian Ford presented. But I did not love this book. This book is at least three books, maybe more, in one. I’m not sure Ford realised that.
The blurb says that the book “reviews the latest scientific evidence” about dinosaurs to suggest that a lot of things palaeontologists are presenting “are no more than convent fictions.” Whoo, way to go with the controversy. And I would have loved the heck out of a well-argued, well-presented, scientific book about that. In fact, I did love those 80 or 100 pages of this 450-odd page book. But that leaves another 350 or so pages.
In those pages, Ford is doing something completely different. For a start, he’s presenting a history of how humans have interacted with dinosaurs – that is, a history of palaeontology, complete with the theories about some bones belonging to giant humans of the past and so on. Fascinating! but so totally irrelevant to a scientific book about dinosaurs that, to use an in-joke, it’s not even wrong. And then there’s the section on the discovery of continental drift and tectonic plates and so on. Also fascinating. In fact, I think I’ve read a book about that already. This time, not quite so irrelevant to a book about dinosaurs – Ford’s theory is that dinosaurs lived by wading in shallow lakes, and they went extinct with Pangea breaking up and the climate changing and the lakes evaporating – but it didn’t need 50 or so pages on the topic. It definitely didn’t need the entire history lesson on the topic; just a page or two on the facts would have been quite sufficient.
Lastly, there’s also an irritated article for a science journal lurking in here: one which details the ways in which Ford has been ignored and calumniated by the scientific world (in his view). I think that calling out established science, when you have a solid theory that fits the evidence, is a necessary and reasonable thing to do. Maybe it would even fit into a book about that new and exciting but controversial theory. (I’m no palaeontologist but Ford presents a compelling case that should surely actually be considered. But I don’t think it’s presented well here – in that I think it should have been more clearly separated out from a discussion of the science.
So. The theory is really interesting, and if what he says is true – like the astounding energy required to pump blood up to the head of one of those enormous herbivores with super long necks – then I’m not going to be surprised if in a couple decades it’s the standard, or at least viable, way of talking about dinosaurs. But this book was incredibly frustrating because it just didn’t know what it wanted to be.
The Black God’s Drums
This novella was sent to me by the publisher, Tor.com, at no cost. It will be published on August 21.
As an Australian, I’m sure I only picked up the surface detail of what Clark is doing here in his alternative history of America. That was enough, though, to be both utterly intrigued by the world he’s imagined and to follow this awesome story that I really hope everyone goes out and grabs.
This is alternative history in two senses. One is that there’s airships and some other tech that doesn’t fit with what the nineteenth century actually had; a variation on steampunk I guess. The other is that, partly because of this technology, things went somewhat differently in Haiti after and during the slave revolt there, and when Napoleon tried to reimpose slavery; and, possibly connected to this although that’s unclear, things are also different in the USA: like it’s not the USA. This is post-Civil War, but instead of reconstruction, Confederates and the Union are still separate. Oh, and New Orleans is neutral, and basically seems to be operating as its own city-state.
There’s a lot going on here, and all of that is just background to understanding why our protagonist, Creeper, is trying to find someone to pass along some information to, and then ends up in an unexpected adventure.
This is a beautifully written novella, both fast-paced and with complex enough characters that I cared about them. Creeper is awesome, there are seriously odd nuns (I REALLY want a story about them please and thank you), and the captain of an airship who takes zero nonsense from anyone. Plus a scientist with dangerous knowledge in his head and… yeh, you get the picture. The characters are a multitude of colours and ethnicities and nationalities, as befits New Orleans as a neutral and open port; there’s really interesting discussion about old, African gods being brought to this new world, and what power they might have. This is alternative history that really works: it makes sense (see caveat above re: me and American history), and it challenges modern conservative white notions of what alternative history is; it also just straight-out challenges boring old racism pretty much just by its existence.
I loved it a lot and would be very happy to read more in this world.
Artificial Condition
aka Murderbot Diaries part 2.
This novella was actually sent to me by the publisher um, quite a while ago. I read it then and I’ve talked about it on Galactic Suburbia but… my mind just hasn’t been in reviewing mode in the way it needs to be. So I feel bad. And now I’m reviewing it when it’s just come out. So at least if it sounds like your sort of thing, you can just go and buy it immediately?
Anyway, this follows directly on from All Systems Red, which is generally just known as Murderbot, after the character telling the story. If you haven’t read that, I don’t recommend reading this… but I DO recommend going and getting the first one, and THEN coming to this one, because what’s not to love about a robot that’s self-aware and knows that if the humans find out about that there’s going to be trouble, but maybe not as much trouble as if there’s not enough soap/space opera to watch in their downtime?
I might love Murderbot a lot.
Interestingly, I didn’t love this one quite as much as the first one. Don’t get me wrong, I devoured it and am very excited that there are more to come. But it wasn’t quite the same revelation as the first one – which is only to be expected.
Basically this is following Murderbot as they go off into the world (galaxy) alone, trying to figure out how not to be compromised, and also trying to figure out a bit of their past. For me, I think the best parts were Murderbot interacting with other AIs, and figuring out their limitations and how to interact with them without revealing too much. That whole negotiating yourself and others who are kind of like you and kind of really not.
It’s really, really great, even if it’s not quite peak swoon-worthy-ness like the first one. I can’t wait to read more of Murderbot as they figure out how to be what they want to be.
Echoes of Understorey
I read and really enjoyed Crossroads of Canopy a while back, so when Thoraiya offered to send me a review copy of the sequel I was all YAASSSS GIMME. So yes, this is a review copy, and yes I know the author.
The world is Titan’s Forest, and there are classes within classes in this place. The population is divided in three: those who live in the Canopy, closest to the sunlight; those in the Understorey; and those on the Floor, who basically live in the dark. The first book was very focussed on the Canopy, even though a lot of it happened in the Understorey; this one is focussed on the Understorey, even though a lot of it happens in Canopy; I really hope that a) there’s a third book coming and b) it will give us more about Floor. But I said there are classes within classes: within each physical division, there are wealth divisions (I mean I assume this applies to Floor), too. This is one of the interesting things Dyer is doing: the books aren’t just about the lucky ones, easy as that would be, nor just about the lonely outsiders. Instead, it’s a mix, as life and society are, showing the uneasy ways in which people mingle across borders. In fact that’s the whole point of this second book: Imeris doesn’t feel like she fits either in Understorey or in Canopy, and the people around her are equally unsure. So she crosses between worlds, trying to find her place, as well as an existential threat to the societies more generally.
Imeris is a minor character in the first book, but the focus here; Unar, the protagonist of the first book, is significant but minor here. I like this a lot; it makes the society the overall focus, rather than just one character. It also means we get to see Unar as other people see her, which gives some of her actions in the first book different nuances. And honestly, much as I enjoyed Unar in general, Imeris is a generally easier character to read! She’s not quite as driven and proud and amoral… not that those things are inherently bad in a character, but I found Imeris more sympathetic in her desire to be normal, not heroic in the slightest. Unar’s ambition got… wearying… especially because of its toll on others.
At a macro level, Imeris is trying to deal with the problem of Kirrik, an issue left over from the end of the last book, basically as a way of getting everyone off her back so she can have a normal life. To do that she has to become an excellent warrior, even if she doesn’t especially want to. This leads to various clashes with people who don’t like or trust her, and she ends up being thrust into a difficult quest that’s not really something she wants to do. As so often happens. There’s setbacks and deaths and compromises and moments of happiness too. And there’s a lot about the the Canopian gods, too, who play a significant role in the organisation of Canopy, living as they do amongst their people. This book has some even more intriguing hints at what those gods have done to get their place in society, which is another reason why I’m reeaaallly hoping for a third book because I could not stand to be left not knowing what Dyer knows about those gods.
The book is beautifully written and deeply evocative of the natural environment. It made me happy every time I came across a plant that was clearly inspired by Australian flora – like tallowwood and quandong and floodgum.
I’m really happy these books exist.
Galactic Suburbia 184
In which we care about Hugo Awards, Aussie SFF awards, harassment at conventions and tea-brewing spaceships all at the same time. You can get us at iTunes or Galactic Suburbia.
WHAT DO WE CARE ABOUT THIS WEEK?
Hugo shortlist!
Aurealis winners
Ditmars
Survey on Harassment in Aussie SF conventions
CULTURE CONSUMED:
Tansy: The Teamaster & the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events S2, Runaways (TV)
Alisa: Annihilation; Planetfall, Emma Newman; 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson; Santa Clarita Diet S2; Rise
Alex: Echoes of Understorey, Thoraiya Dyer; Till We Have Faces and The Cosmic Trilogy, CS Lewis; The Craft Sequence, Max Gladstone
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon – which now includes access to the ever so exclusive GS Slack – and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Randomly Yours, Alex 