Danton: making it big in the revolutionary world
I read biographies far less often than someone of my historical bent would be supposed to. I often expect them to be dry – I’m not sure why – and I often prefer books on the minutiae of history, the stuff that often gets overlooked. That said, I have a soft spot for Alison Weir’s biographies – I’ve read most of her Tudor stuff, and I really liked her book on Isabella (“She-Wolf of France”).
One of my all-time favourites is a biography of John Dee, best known as an astrologer, alchemist and magician, but actually responsible for some pretty awesome science too. Against that is the fact that I have biographies of Dirk Bogarde (I am a big fan of the Doctor movies), Gandhi, Elizabeth I… and the Pythons autobiography… all sitting on my unread/true shelf (it’s a long story). I’d like to read more bios, they just don’t move up in the ‘must read’ queue.
This problem is exacerbated, for me, when it comes to reading of modern, controversial characters. Dee was controversial, and Isabella certainly was (and when I can get my hands on a good revisionist bio of King John, I am going to be all over it), but even I concede that arguing about them is slightly academic, although always with modern repercussions. I would desperately like to read a good biography of Trotsky – and Lenin, I guess, too – but who the heck am I going to trust? A popularist like Alison Weir? I don’t think so, sunshine. A historian of whose politics I know nothing? Problematic. I would love to read one written by Peter McPhee – God bless his Marxist soul – but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
And so we come to the fact that I have finally finished The Giant of the French Revolution. Danton: A Life, by David Lawday.
When I first started reading about the French Revolution I quickly decided that Danton was the man for me; Marat is too much a rabble rouser – although dying in the bath is sooo Greek tragedy – while Robespierre, with his insistence on continuing to wear ancien regime costume, clearly had gumption but his whole Republic-of-Virtue-or-die made me a bit uncomfortable. There are things about Danton that make me uncomfortable too, but… he’s so much larger than life, he had such energy, and he instructed his executioner to make sure to show his head to the crowd once it was off, because it was worth looking at. Plus, Gerard Depardieu plays him in a movie, and he was perfect.
So, the book. Lawday admits at the start that this is a slightly romanticised history, because Danton committed almost nothing to paper. There are no footnotes, although there are references at the back giving some indication of where ideas and quotes came from. And it is a bit romantic: Lawday sometimes lets himself go on flights of descriptive fancy about the streets of Paris and the countryside around Arcis, Danton’s birthplace; and he gets a bit smoochy over Danton and his wife Gabrielle’s relationship. The other romantic aspect, and the thing that annoyed me the most, was that Lawday’s vision of Danton as a hero apparently demanded that there be a genuine fiction-like villain for him to play against. Robespierre, the man probably responsible for Danton’s death, is the obvious candidate here, and Lawday goes out of his way to malign and belittle him as unmanly and insipid, in contrast to the testosterone-fuelled Danton. But what really, really got my back up was that Lawday also featured Manon Roland, wife of Danton’s fellow elected official Jean-Marie Roland. It seems clear that Mme Roland and Danton did not get along. Lawday, though, plays this up in sexualised and demeaning ways that were occasionally outright offensive. Having recently read Liberty, about the contribution of women to the Revolution – including Roland – this got my goat even more than it might have.
Sigh. Anyway, aside from that demonisation, I did really enjoy Danton. Lawday gives a good running explanation of the Revolution such that I didn’t get lost trying to figure out what else was going on at the time, and he does well at portraying Danton as intimately involved in most of the important events. Some of this may be exaggeration, but not all of it. It’s largely well written, although I’m not sure that I agree with The Economist that it’s “beautifully told”. It’s eminently readable, anyway, and captures the energy and urgency of the Revolution. I think this would be exceptionally good way in to the Revolution for someone with little knowledge of the events, but with a curiosity about people who shape events.
In other news, I am still struggling through Citizens. That is, in theory I am still reading it, but it’s at the top of my bookcase at the moment, not being read.
Dervish House
I have long been enamoured of Turkey. Actually, strictly speaking I have long been enamoured of the idea of Turkey: the decadence, the luxury, the it’s very different there. Over the last number of years I have come to the realisation that this idea, or dream, of the country is a very European one, and a very colonial one in many regards – it’s a view of “the East” that has existed in “the West” at least since the Romans had their snooty ideas about Egypt and Persia. Despite being well aware of its source, and feeling uncomfortable about that, there is still an allure in those incredibly not-politically-correct views. And that’s the point, of course: the allure comes from the (alleged) exotic nature of somewhere very ‘different’ (from Western Europe), and difference is always attractive. (The point, too, was that by identifying certain things like decadence as traits from over there, the viewer could take the prim moral stance and still enjoy it. But I digress….)
I got to thinking about these sorts of things in reading The Dervish House because it is set in near-future Istanbul: a city in many ways very similar to those of Western Europe, America, and Australia that I am familiar with, but with enough differences – real differences – that it retains an aura of the exotic. The story could, with some changes of course, be set in any city really. But setting it in Istanbul allows McDonald to do many things, not least of which is imbuing his setting with a deep sense of history that the relatively new cities of America and Australia just don’t have. Istanbul is very much a character in this novel; the complexity of the city itself – geographically, historically – is deeply important to the plot and the characters. There is even a character whose main interest in life is mapping the social history of the city, an idea I find very attractive.
The Dervish House is a simultaneously dense and frantic novel. In 472 pages McDonald covers five days in the life of the city, from the point of view of six main characters. An old Greek man, a young Turkish invalid, a successful businesswoman, an ambitious businesswoman, a no-hoper and a stockmarket player: with this cast, McDonald creates a vibrant city. Some of their stories interweave with one another, at one point or another, while others appear tangential; all combine to give a rich, rich view of the near future. Their plots are wonderfully varied: there’s romance, there’s adventure, there’s corporate espionage and shady deals and antiquarian detective work; religious fanaticism, world-weariness, wild success and disappointments. At times the writing is so dense that I had a little trouble following it, but the sheer beauty of it – along with the compelling sense that I needed to know what was going to happen – meant that wasn’t too much of a hassle.
One of the things that fascinated me about this book is that reading it as an SF reader, it’s clearly SF; there are enough references to nanotechnology and other futuristic things to ensure that. However, the date isn’t made clear until about two-thirds of the way through the book, and the technology isn’t really central, so it ought to have broader mainstream appeal, too.
The 24th episode of Galactic Suburbia
In which we flit over the first shortlist of the year and some charitable links, sweep though a fortnight of culture consumed, and then leap with both feet into the pet subject of Inside Indie Press. You can download or stream us from Galactic Suburbia, or get us from iTunes.
News
BSFA Awards Shortlists
QLD Flood fundraisers for writers & readers: After the Rain; Authors for Queensland auction; QWC appeal launches Saturday, on Twitter at @writersonrafts
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Tansy: no books for me, shockingly! More Big Finish audio plays.
Alex: Agatha H and the Airship City, Phil and Kaja Foglio; Transformation Space, Marianne de Pierres; Dust, Elizabeth Bear; two stories from James Tiptree’s Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (spoilery discussion); The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss. Also begun a rewatch of BSG…
Alisa: No Ordinary Family; Dexter season 5
(diversion on the subject of Whether Alisa Should Watch Doctor Who)
Pet Subject: Inside Indie Press
Big news in TPP space is the closure of Speakeasy.
Is there an obvious point at which a project becomes a non-viable project?
How do you know that you’re ditching a project just because the stories don’t fit your particular idea/viewpoint?
The older books are harder to use as examples because lots of things about them were learning.
Horn – first to break even BUT I got caught on the selling to bookstores so i ended up having to sell 80% of the print run after review and buzz copies (1/4 of the print run) to break even.
Pay scales, writing contracts, competing with the US indies…
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
The Name of the Wind
I really thought I was a bit over epic fantasy trilogies. I mean, I haven’t consciously started one in a very long time. Partly that’s because they’re black holes sucking time and energy into them, partly it’s because I am wary of starting trilogies at all – especially when the rest haven’t been written yet and I haven’t got a sense of whether the quality holds up – and partly, I’ve realised, my tastes have been veering towards science fiction, and especially hard SF and space opera, much more consistently in the last few years. No idea why, just have.
Consequently, when a friend started raving about Patrick Rothfuss and The Name of the Wind at me, I had no idea what she was talking about. And none of the above occurred to me, either, because it wasn’t until a few weeks after she had put a copy in my hands and promised me late nights reading that I discovered the darn thing was a first book, and that the others are as-yet unpublished. I started feeling annoyed… and then realised that I had forced Holly Black’s White Cat into her hands, so we’re kinda even in that its sequels are also unpublished. But I figure I still have a bit of leeway since Name is about a quarter the size of White Cat.
Anyway. I read it. And it’s the sort of book that if someone described it baldly, I would probably roll my eyes and say that I was largely over big fat magical quests in faux medieval settings with some mysterious baddy in the offing.
Yeh.
It is one of the longer books I’ve read in a while, at 662. While it was sometimes a bit of a slog, the fact that it has exceptionally short chapters – there are 92, plus a prologue and epilogue – meant that it was easier to keep ploughing through. And honestly, it was worth it. I liked the conceit that it was a man telling a story to a chronicler, and that there were occasional breaks from the main story back to the scene of the storytelling; it helped keep it grounded, and it also meant that you knew Kvothe was going to get through the obstacles put in his way. It’s an interesting way of doing it, letting the reader know that the protag is definitely going to go and be amazing, because that’s why he’s telling the story in the first place. There’s none of that “ooh, surprise! The farm boy with uncommon wit is really a magician!”
Kvothe? He’s a pretty good main character. He has lots of advantages – uncommon wit, fast reflexes, an exceptional memory – but disadvantages too – his upbringing, his temper, and a whole lot of bad luck. I had rather hoped, when the story opened with an adult man, that we would be skipping all of that apprenticeship stuff. It was not to be, and I’ll allow that I was – surprisingly – riveted by his childhood and his time at the University (that’s not a spoiler; it’s obvious pretty early on that that must happen). And, as I’m sure was the intention, I am now beside myself with wonder about what happens to Kvothe when he leaves the University, how he gets the name Kingkiller, and why he’s now an innkeeper.
The other characters pale in comparison with Kvothe; they don’t get as much time, of course, and they just can’t be as interesting. Even the woman in his life – who is one of the more interesting love-interests I’ve come across in a while, I’ll admit, and I’m wild with curiosity about her background, and if we don’t find out more about her I’ll do a Misery on Rothfuss – didn’t keep me as interested as Kvothe. They’re not boring, though, and many of them are nicely quirky; one of my favourites is Auri, a wild girl Kvothe befriends. And of course Abenthy, his first teacher, is awesome.
The worldbuilding is quite detailed; not that original, in some aspects, but nicely realised and crafted. I really liked the notion of going to University to study what others perceive as magic (and not in a Pratchett-style University, either); and I liked the sense of historical depth Rothfuss implies, too, without going into long, drawn-out, pompous epics told over the campfire or dug out as a revelation from a dusty tome.
And the plot? Again, on the face of it not overwhelmingly original. A young boy with a tragic past seeks to make his way in the world; a poor young man struggles in a world driven by money; a boy experiences a mystery as a child and strives to understand it as he grows up. Oh, and there’s a girl. But saying it like that does not, of course, do it justice. While the story might in places follow a well-worn path, there’s a reason for that: that path leads to fascinating places. And, to continue the metaphor, the scenery on this particular version of the path is marvellous and well worth making the journey. Even most of the bit-characters are interesting in their own rights, and the writing is delightful enough to lure the reader on.
I enjoyed this book way more than I had anticipated.
Dust, by Elizabeth Bear
I read this book as the January book for the 2011 Women in SF Book Club, being organised by TJ at Dreams and Speculation. I’d not read any novels by Elizabeth Bear before, although I’ve enjoyed a number of her short stories and she’s also one of the contributors to Shadow Unit, which I adore. I didn’t know what to expect from this story, but it wasn’t what I got.
In short: I really enjoyed it, and am totally cut that it’s the first of a trilogy! (I thought I was doing so well with avoiding those.) I enjoyed the characters, and I thought it was a really interesting take on a not-original (which doesn’t mean it’s not interesting) SF trope.
At length, with spoilers:
I didn’t read the blurb before reading the book. The cover gives some indication of angelic types mixed in with technology, which I thought was a fascinating idea, and then the angel comes in right at the start – sans wings. Perceval, the angel and a woman despite the name, is a really fascinating character. She’s conflicted, she’s loyal, she never gives up despite an enormous amount of wearing down and opposition.
There are numerous other characters, but most of them are really only bit parts with one, maaaybe two exceptions: definitely Rien, maybe Jacob Dust. It’s Rien’s point of view that we get most often; starting as a lowly servant, discovering that she’s Perceval’s half-sister and actually of some consequence, and going and having some adventures – she is, I think, more approachable as a character than Perceval, who despite having some flaws and being somewhat tormented is more symbolic, more… a talisman. Rien is earthier, more grounded, and I think more approachable. Dust, on the other hand, is not very likeable or approachable at all; he’s quite a quirky take on the slightly crazed AI which I really enjoyed (I enjoyed the whole idea behind and consequences of the fractured AI, actually).
It took me a while to realise that the setting was a generation ship; right at the start I wasn’t even sure it was set in space, and I was wondering whether this was going to be some planet where the people had reverted to a faux-medieval existence with just a few people still taking advantage of old tech. Which is kinda true, but everyone is aware of the fact that they live on a spaceship, even if they don’t necessarily do anything directed connected with that reality at the moment. It’s a really clever setting: being on such an enormous ship means there’s not the claustrophobia of space travel in a tin can, and there are more options for moving around – and for having two antagonistic parties at each others’ throats but far enough apart that they have to actually work at reaching other. But it also means that vacuum is a genuine threat, which is a problem you never get dirtside… and it means you have the option of moving the whole damn ship, too (hence the trilogy).
I still haven’t quite figured out whether there were more Arthurian links than just Perceval’s name (and she does talk about being a knight errant… oh and there’s also a Tristen), and I somehow missed them. The third book is apparently going to be called Grail, so maybe there are – or maybe they will be more developed over the next two books.
Finally, let me say that I really didn’t expect the conclusion, which is a pretty awesome outcome when I read a book.
Starting the Book Club: Tiptree
Over at Dreams and Speculations, the first of the year’s book club discussions is up and running. TJ has done a very clever thing by having not only one novel a month, but introducing a mid-month discussion on a couple of James Tiptree’s short stories from Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. This month, it’s “The Last Flight of Dr Ain” and “The Screwfly Solution.” I managed to be the second commenter, hurrah! … because she’s in America and has, I presume, automated the initial post to go up at midnight. Which means I’ll be waaaay behind on the conversation, but at least I got to say something early on 😀 . Essentially, while I liked “Ain” and it was certainly an interesting story for 1969, “Screwfly” was brilliant with all sorts of crunchy things to say about gender relations and sexuality and religious fanaticism.
The post is chock-full of spoilers, of course, but if you’ve read them or are interested in Tiptree’s work, it would be worth reading it and the comments.
Smellink verra nize indeed
Hoo boy. I have been looking forward to this ever since I got to interview the Foglios for Galactic Suburbia way back at Aussiecon4, when they announced they’d been given a deal with Night Shade Books for the novels.
Actually, in some ways I have been looking forward to this for even longer: I first read about Agatha Clay in Girl Genius vol 9, the Hugo-nominated (and winning!) graphic novel. I had never heard of it before I got it in the Hugo packet, and… well… it was love. Pure, sweet, love. I read the entirety of vol 9; bought the ebook of vol 1; then discovered that you could just read the whole lot online, one page at a time. So I did that. One volume is one year’s worth of comics, and pages come out regular as clockwork every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so… yeh. You figure out how much reading that was.
Yes, I know. I lot. But I love it. It’s got Romance! Adventure! Mad Science!! And this is the sans-illustration novelisation of, I think, the first three volumes of the graphic version. So yes yes, I’ve read the story before. But this is a different version. It’s like… the novelisation of a movie. Only better.
Officially, the Foglios – wife&husband team Kaja and Phil – call this ‘Gaslamp Fantasy’. Which is different from steampunk, and I can sort of see how but I can’t always explain. I think, basically, that with steampunk things are meant to make sense, in the same way that good SF makes sense in a scientific way (sorta). Fantasy, though – fantasy gets to cheat outrageously, when it wants to, by wiggling its fingers and saying ta-DA! And as long as it does it in an entertaining enough way, it’s fine. I know, I know – I’m exaggerating ridiculously here, and the genre purists will pull me up for it. Whatever. This is gaslamp fantasy because it’s kinda the European nineteenth century, but at the same time it’s really not, and there are serious mad scientists running around, mostly with The Spark. A Spark is like someone with The Knack: whatever they want to make, whatever they fix, it Just. Works. Although most Sparks end up going nuts or being crushed by their creations.
There are numerous things I love about this series. Firstly, the characters. The main character is Agatha: a sometimes-bumbling, sometimes-competent wannabe mechanic. In the graphic novel, especially, she’s wonderful because she’s this voluptuous woman unaware of her own looks and perfectly capable of looking after herself, thanks very much. The rest of the cast, as appearing in the novel, are also great: both men and women, good and bad and somewhere in between, and – something that only occurred to me in reading it rather than looking at the pictures, which is a bit crazy – a wide ethnic mix, too. Black people, Jewish people, white people, Chinese people, the marvellous Bangladesh DuPree… not to mention all the slightly non-human types, too. And a talking cat. We love talking cats. Most of all, we love the Jagerkin. The Jagerkin inspired my title, because that’s how they talk: with the most outrageous faux-German accents you could possibly imagine (having heard Phil do his impersonation, I understand the inspiration now). They are crazy, they are mischievous, they love their hats, and they sometimes look like this:
They also have a propensity for lusting after entirely inappropriate women.
I love the plot, too. Sure you could roll your eyes at yet another story about a poor orphan girl who discovers something amazing about herself, but you know what? Who cares! It’s fun! Agatha makes it worthwhile! There’s a reason those stories get written so often. And here, along with the self-discovery stuff, there’s some serious mad science, a one-km-long dirigible, lots of explosions, and a touch of romance.
I bought the hardcover version, because the trade paperback isn’t out until August and that’s waaaay too long to wait (and it’s not very expensive anyway). It’s a lovely little production, with nice paper and cool cover art. My one gripe, and I’m a bit sad about it, is that there are some editing issues. There are a few spelling mistakes (‘access’ for ‘assess’), and someone really doesn’t like semi-colons – which would be fine if they used periods in their place, but mostly they used commas, and that just really, really, grated.
Is it original? Not if you’ve read the comic, no. I have no idea what it would be like to read this cold; I imagine there are some bits that might be a little confusing, but I can’t be sure. But did I enjoy it? Hell yes. And I will certainly be buying the second one (Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess) and third (title still TBA), because I am that much of a fangirl. Wheee!
The Outsiders
I’ve heard about this book for half my life, I guess, but I never got around to reading it because it just didn’t sound like my sort of book. Actually, I think for most of that time I was confusing it with another – possibly also by Hinton? – because I thought it was about cowboys….
Anyway, I finally read it. In an afternoon. The impetus is that I have to teach it this year and I’m glad that I read it well ahead of time, because I’m not ashamed to say that there were tears when I got to the end. Tears of sadness and tears of appreciation at the beauty of the story.
What can I say about it? I love Ponyboy, I think he’s awesome and I’ve probably taught kids like him; tough background but doing his best. I know I went to school with kids like him… and a lot of them didn’t get themselves out of the hole, sadly. His relationship with his brothers is fascinating – I read a review somewhere that was highly critical of some of the language used, questioning whether a 20-something boy would call his kid brother ‘honey’, but I’m not going to assume that I know how slang worked 40 years ago so I’m going to let that slide. I think what I appreciated most was Pony’s growing awareness of what his brothers were like as people, and how that affects their relationships; I presume that’s one of the things the curriculum wants students to consider for themselves and their own families. And the fact that there is a range of families portrayed, and that the group of boys effectively act as a family for one another, is intriguing and should also get students thinking, I guess.
Clearly one of the big messages the school will want students to consider is risk-taking behaviour and its consequences. And that’s fair enough, and I have no doubt that we will have discussions about whether Pony ought to have turned up for the big rumble, whether that was peer pressure, etc. But I hope we also have discussions about the class structure of Socs vs Greasers and how that might be reflected in our school, or not, and whether Socs really did have a tough life as well. Because those are some awfully important things to consider.
I was stunned when I realised that this was written by a seventeen-year-old. For me, it doesn’t have the feel of a debut novel, and it really doesn’t have the feel of teenage writing. Quite astonishing.
My sister describes the film as “a whole bag of sexy,” and looking at the cast I can see why: Estevez, Cruise, Swaze, Macchio, Lowe… but I still don’t think I’ll watch it. I don’t think I could stand it.
Surface Detail
I got Surface Detail from my brother for Christmas; that is, I bought it, and he gets less $$ than he was going to for his Christmas/birthday present (it’s a long story). I wrapped it up and wrote the nicest note from him to me and everything, which apparently was a bit weird, according to the rest of the family (he wasn’t there)….
Anyway, I was very excited to finally have it in my hands. A new Culture novel! The world should rejoice! And this is one of the biggest ones yet, I think, at 627 pages. I’m way too much of a fangirl to give this a particularly critical review, but…
I have a really bad memory but I think this is one of the bigger casts that Banks has followed in detail, which contributes to its size. There are certainly some privileged characters, but most of those introduced do get some detail and resolution. They’re a good mix, too; mostly pan-human, but a few not, and to my utter delight a seriously warped AI whose avatar goes by name of Demeisen and whose attitude towards war, while reprehensible, was one of such unfeigned delight that I couldn’t help but adore him. In a reproving manner of course. I think the AIs, and the ships they’re encased in, are by and large my favourite part of any Culture novel. Not that Banks appears to feel any restrictions with his human characters, but with the AIs there are really no limits to the craziness he can put out there, and does. I think my other favourite character is the one who, if any deserve the name, is the main protagonist: Lededje Y’breq. She dies in the first chapter. Then, of course, she comes back.
Dying is, in fact, the focus of this entire book. I think someone who later becomes a main character is dead or dying in each of the first four chapters, and it kinda keeps happening. That’s because Banks decided to address one of the oldest issues in this book: whether there is a heaven or a hell. And the answer is, definitively, Yes There Is: because we made them. As virtual environments. Now the question becomes, should there be hells (heavens seem to be fine)? When it’s people just like us making them and deciding you go there? … which, in a place like the galaxy Banks gives us, naturally leads to war. That’s right people, war is hell and hell means war. Or something.
It is, of course, an awesome book. The scale is enormous; there have been a few Culture novels mostly restricted to one planet, but this is not one of them – it zooms all over the galaxy, faster than the speed of light. The plot, as mentioned, follows several different people or groups, some of whom end up tangling together and some of whom stay separate; the plot has an appropriate number of twists and surprises that I really didn’t see coming, such that I stayed utterly glued to the page the whole way through. And the language – well, it’s just swoon-worthy in parts. The speech from that dreadful avatar about why it likes war? Majestic. The descriptions of places? Concise yet evocative; I almost couldn’t read the descriptions of Hell.
Read it! You know you want to!
Fireship/Mother and Child
I love the idea of the novella double. Twelfth Planet Press is doing ones in the style of the old Ace doubles – different authors, back to back and upside down – and I really enjoyed the Tiptree/Russ double I read a few months ago. This one is different because it has two novellas by the same author, both of which had previously appeared in different venues. And the two stories are really quite different.
“Fireship” has the feel of a proto-cyberpunk story, to me, in that its emphasis is on a man/machine meld, and the action revolves around hacking a computer. The secondary characters are, sadly, largely two-dimensional and boring; they are there for plot resolution and really that’s it. The main character though… he is fascinating. MILD SPOILER! Ethan Ring is a gestalt: his personality is only created when a very ordinary man jacks into a superlogical supercomputer. Vinge posits the result as being entirely human in reactions and emotions, but lifted up by the computer’s abilities. Perhaps the most interesting dialogue is the internal, when human/machine/gestalt very occasionally interact. This is a really interesting take on the cyborg, and one that I’m not sure has been explored as much as it could be (if I’m wrong, tell me in the comments!). The other wonderful aspect of the story is the setting, Mars. We get intriguing glimpses of what it’s like to be on the colonised world – and it’s definitely got the feel of a colony – and some touching moments, like when the rains come and people rejoice. Additionally, there are some hints of some really interesting politics. Written in the late 1970s, it imagines politics basically being split between the US and “the Arabic states,” with Russia and China largely out of the picture.
Overall, “Fireship” is a quick read, with a fairly basic plot and ordinary characters. It’s worth reading to think about Ethan and what Vinge is saying about cyborg possibilities.
“Mother and Child” is an entirely different proposition. In three stages, the story is gradually told of a world struck by a terrible plague and suffering the consequences. The point of view gradually gets broader: at first, we see from a village smith’s perspective; then from a king’s; then, eventually – SPOILER! – from the point of view of an alien, tasked with dealing with the world and its inhabitants (reminiscent of le Guin’s Hainish cycle and Iain M Banks’ Culture, to an extent).
I’m somewhat conflicted about how it represents the main female character. On the one hand, the narrative is never from her point of view: it’s from that of her husband and then two abductors. On the other hand, she is entirely central – as the title points out – and is certainly shown as having agency: she picks her husband, and she actively decides on the fate of her child, and ultimately the fate of her world.
One of the most fascinating things about the story is its emphasis on the body. The plague has changed people, and it took me a while to realise just how much; revealing it would be too much of a spoiler, so I’ll just say that when they talk about having second sight, it’s not what you immediately think – and probably not what you thought just then, either.
I think “Mother and Child” is better written than “Fireship” and stays interesting more consistently. It certainly has better pace, perhaps because the three sections were really quite different from one another. I think I will read more Vinge, although I don’t think I will be racing out to get my hands on all her stuff.
Randomly Yours, Alex 