Midnight Lamp – not really a review
Spoilers for the first two books, because it can’t be otherwise.
I actually don’t think I can write an adequate review of this book without massive spoilers in general – and really, how do you review the third in a series of five, and do justice to it and the characters and everything else? So why am I writing a review? – mostly because I just want to note having read it, and remind people that THEY SHOULD READ THE SERIES.
This series is monumental, and much as I want to rush through and devour the last two I think it is a good idea that I leave a little time between them. Without that space I would just fall into Gwyneth Jones’ world and be lost for a while. And I’m not sure that would be entirely healthy, because being like Fiorinda, Ax and Sage is not a healthy place to be. Fi is suffering in the aftermath of the death of Rufus O’Niall and the murky, difficult discovery/growth/development of her ?magical abilities (they’re definitely magical, but they’re also kinda maybe something else). Sage is in a weird place in the aftermath of Rufus’ death and his own experimentation with the Zen State, and is even more conflicted than Fi over the status of his relationship with the other two. And then there’s Ax, kinda caught between them and kinda leading them on, reluctant to use his political clout but desperate to change and improve things nonetheless.
This part of the epic is different from the others in being set in Mexico and America, which brings some large changes: for a start, the trio are popular but not idolised; feted but not mobbed. For another, the USA was not affected by the technological losses and massive shifts in attitude that impacted on the UK with Dissolution Summer and the internet viruses, so this feels a bit more familiar, a bit more ‘real life’. Which is actually a bit weird when you’re used to having the heroes in a recognisably other place. There are also more fractures between the central trio and their band, their merry band, of cohorts – understandable after a few years of high-stress, high-weird life.
Many things happen. There are tragedies, averted and not; there are adrenaline-laced adventures; there are still, reflective moments of contentment. Characters develop and some change a lot.
You have to read the first one, and then you’ll probably be hooked.
Galactic Suburbia 71
In which Tansy & Alex talk sexism, steampunk, Samuel Delaney and tiny baby Avengers fighting tiny baby X-Men. Also, feedback from listeners! You can get us from iTunes or at Galactic Suburbia.
News
Pornokitsch on the Mammoth Best New Horror introduction
Twelfth Planet Press announces Best YA SF anthology – Alisa & Tehani reading for this in 2013 and we hope it doesn’t break them.
The Fantasy Pin-Up Calendar Thing
The Calendar itself
Tansy’s post – when fantasy art embarrasses us all
Skepchick asks us to Please Stop Making Calendars
NK Jemisin on her involvement in the project
Sexism in the Skeptic Community – what happened after she spoke out
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alex: Edge of Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan; Babel-17, Samuel Delaney; The Contrary Gardener by Christopher Rowe in Eclipse Online
Tansy: Wilful Impropriety, Ekaterina Sedia (ed); Hawkeye #1-3, Matt Fraction, David Aja; “A-Babies Vs. X-Babies” one-shot written by Skottie Young with art by Guruhiru
FEEDBACK
Suzy McKee Charnas story at SnackReads
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!
Galactic Suburbia 69
In which we admire our Hugo pins, discuss the narrative around bestseller authors like JK Rowling, and take on the idea of what a Best Of anthology actually means. You can get us from iTunes or from Galactic Suburbia.
News
HUGO PINS
Trifle Club
The Casual Vacancy released – are you going to read it?
Giveaway from ages ago – copy of Showtime goes to Terry Frost for Joshua York from George R R Martin’s Fevre Dream
New Giveaway for Kaaron Warren’s Through Splintered Walls. Tweet, comment, email or Facebook us about your favourite Australian ghost story OR your favourite female vampire.
Paul Kincaid in the LA Review of Books suggests that SF is tired. Reviewer, heal thyself? He also talks on this subject at the Coode Street Podcast.
Aurealis Awards reminder: submit your books and stories now.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Soft Apocalypse, Will McIntosh, SportsNight (& Newsroom)
Tansy: Sea Hearts, Margo Lanagan; Marvel Heralds; Outer Alliance Episode 24 Changing the Conversation with Julia Rios, Nnedi Okorafor, Jim C Hines & Sofia Samatar.
Alex: Battleship; The Forever War, Joe Haldemann; City of Illusions, Ursula le Guin; The Shapes of their Hearts, Melissa Scott; Nova, Samuel Delaney
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!
Galactic Suburbia 68!
The post-Hugo edition! In which stats are chewed and swallowed, rebels become the government, the secret (true) history of Wonder Woman is revealed and Alisa joins another cult. You can get us from iTunes or at Galactic Suburbia.
News
Hugo Awards: The Winners, the Ustream and the Stats (you can download the stats pdf at the bottom of the page that links to)
Caroline Symcox on coming out as Christian to SF Fans & coming out as SF fan as a curate.
Another Wonder Woman TV show in development – this one may contain some Wonder Woman.
Further discussion on conventions, creepers & safe spaces
Genreville
We Don’t Do That Anymore
And the SF Signal Podcast
Science books written for girls, or possibly “girls”.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Newsroom; Getting Things Done podcast, David Allen
Alex: Outcasts; Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn; Midnight Lamp, Gwyneth Jones
Tansy: How to Train Your Dragon audiobook; To Spin a Darker Stair (Fablecroft); The Twelve Labors of Wonder Woman;
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!
Among Others: not a review
A friend asked me about this book the other day. She knows that I am into the Hugos, and she had heard people on Triple J – a radio station branding itself as the ‘youth station’ – talking about this as having won Best Novel. She said they described it as basically Harry Potter.
I imagine my reaction looked pretty funny, because I just. I can’t even. What?
Yes, there is a boarding school involved in both; yes, there is magic (…maybe?) involved in both.
But still. What?
Anyway. I loved this book. I read it so long ago that it seems a bit pointless writing anything that pretends to be a review, so I won’t – I just want to note down a few thoughts.
For all that I loved it, I did not love it as much as others. I know it resonated strongly for a lot of people because it reflected their own experiences, of The Discovery of Science Fiction especially. Mine it does not. Partly this is an age thing: Morwenna, the narrator, who tells this book via diary entries, is doing stuff on my birthday. I mean my actual birth day. So there’s that. More significantly though, it does not record my experience of discovering science fiction. In specific terms, I haven’t read most of the authors and titles Morwenna reports discovering (and there are a few I hadn’t even heard of) – I had to promise myself that I will read the novel a second time with pen in hand, to stop myself from feeling bad about not keeping a list of books to read as I read it the first time. In more general terms, this isn’t how I came to it. I started more with fantasy, and I was also reading a broader range of stuff, in my teens. I can remember one kid at my school with whom I shared an interest in speculative fiction, and we never talked about it. So… yeh. For me this reads as a fantasy both in magical terms (which I still think might not necessarily be real) but perhaps even more in the finding-of-like-minds aspects. Outside of cons (and sometimes even there, let’s be honest) I’ve rarely had the sort of experience Walton describes for Morwenna. It’d be nice though.
I really enjoyed Morwenna’s voice, and the novel worked especially well as a diary. She often sounds a bit older than she is, but I think the diary format explains that (as well as her somewhat precocious nature, and her voracious reading lending her an excellent vocabulary): it makes sense for someone like her to be experimenting with language in a private forum, and giving herself permission to push her imagination and storytelling to its fullest extent. I liked her ambiguity – about herself and in her attitudes towards her parents, friends, and school. She has very sensible reasons to be concerned on some of those fronts, especially about her mother, that do not translate to ‘real life’ – but the general feelings can, and do.
I admit that I am surprised that it won the Hugo, given its competition. Everyone seemed to think that GRRM had it sown up; in a year without that, I would have thought Mieville would win hands down, but then I adored Embassytown immensely so possibly I’m biased. But no: a book with a smattering of magic that is all about the discovery of SF and SF fandom won. I think that’s rather lovely, actually, and obviously also reflects the voters themselves… although what it says about them, I’m not willing to speculate.
Galactic Suburbia 67
In which we talk trolling, internet pile-ons and Twittiquette (it’s a word, right?) as well as Weird Tales, Analog, heavy metal, straight white YA dystopias and (this may shock you) Joanna Russ. You can get us from iTunes or from Galactic Suburbia.
News
Announcing the brand new Last Short Story podcast starring (so far) Jonathan and Mondy.
Tansy visits the Panel 2 Panel podcast to talk about comics with Kitty.
TPP event at Melbourne Writers Festival and Alisa’s Woman Achievers Award
Alisa’s report and Jason Nahrung‘s report.
The Weird Tales dramah:
Round up of links
Jeff VanderMeer’s take on it.
In happier news, Ann VanderMeer now editing at Tor.com
Stanley Schmidt steps down from Analog
When authors go bad (on social media) and reviewers get burned.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Glory in Death J D Robb; trying to read Matched by Ally Condie, Outer Alliance podcast on the lack of queerness in YA dystopias
Tansy: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; What Women Want by Nelly Thomas; Big Finish Audio – Invaders From Mars by Mark Gatiss & The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman (2002)
Alex: Metal Evolution; We Who Are About to…, Joanna Russ; CSZ special on Joanna Russ; The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason
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!
Brian Caswell: Merryll and Butterflies
I don’t know how, but I had forgotten about Brian Caswell until my sister linked My Sister Sif with Merryll of the Stones, and I realised that NO nostalgic trip to early adolescence would be complete, for me, without him.
Merryll of the Stones has time travel, romance, dragons and other mythical creatures, and Wales. Also tragedy, but romance. Old book, and romance… yeh yeh ok, I actually am a total sap. Have we not realised that yet? Whatever.
Megan’s parents are killed in a car crash; she wakes up from a coma speaking Welsh, and conveniently having to go live with relatives in Wales. She meets unpleasant school girls, a mostly sympathetic but vague set of relatives, and the odd and intense Em. She then goes back in time to a period when Wales was being all mythological and warlike, and… there’s a prophecy, and mistaken identity, and struggling to find your way physically and mentally and emotionally, and it is JUST ALL AWESOME. Megan, so far as I recall, is an immensely sympathetic and believable character – not perfect, but aiming for the right; her relationships with the girls around her really resonated with me. Plus, yes, the awkwardness of her relationship with Em had a great appeal – dealing with his intensity and oddness, his secrecy and mystery but he’s neither a vampire NOR A STALKER. Just saying. And again plus, a really cool vision of ancient Wales. I’ve always had a thing for Wales and the Celts. This was absolutely one of my go-to books as a young girl. (And I currently can’t find my copy. I think my sister has stolen it.)
Cage of Butterflies is verrrry different in theme, but equally awesome and resonant in tone and characterisation. Super intelligent teens in a ‘think tank’ educational facility discover that just over there, in the bit of the institute they shouldn’t know about, is a bunch of babies with… abilities. Who do not like being kept in the institute and experimented on.
I remember this as being a bit more plot-driven than Merryll; the lead characters, Mikki and the boy whose name I’ve forgotten, have to find out about the Babies and then have to figure out what to do with/for them and then deal with some consequences (it has a bit of ‘much later…’ as the conclusion). And I definitely remember that as being exciting and tense the first time I read it. However, as with Merryll, the real draw is the characters themselves. Perhaps this won’t surprise anyone, but I was absolutely a square at school, and the idea of a place filled with really smart kids hanging out together and, while not necessarily just sitting around talking about books all day – there are still fights and awkwardness and general teen-type things – there’s no condemnation for being smart. That was a pretty exciting thing to read about. I liked the alternating point of view – girl and boy, who by the way rather like each other, ooh er, as well as working really, really well together and complimenting each other beautifully physically (the boy has, IIRC, something wrong with his legs…) and mentally (different strengths – and genuinely different, not better/gender based. Again, IIRC… maybe I’ve got rosy glasses towards this). It was a delight in general, is what I’m getting at.
Brian Caswell, I owe you a great debt for adding lovely gentle readable and believable romance and characters and story to my life.
My Sister Sif
Look, I’ll just admit it up front, ok? I was not a horse-y girl. I could not understand Saddle Club; even though I wasn’t very maternal as a young girl, I still preferred Babysitters’ Club books over the horsey ones. (I also did not understand the appeal of the Gymnasts books.) But what I lacked in love for equines I more than made up for in adoration of dolphins. Yes, I was That Girl. I wanted to be a marine biologist for aaaages – until I discovered that they usually spend their time studying plankton, and only the luckiest get to swim with dolphins and make a living from it. I had (… have) dolphin jewellery, and dolphin statuettes, and… yes, you get the picture.
Unsurprisingly, this story captured my heart and made it ache. Terribly. For many varied and heartbreaking reasons.
Riko and Sif go from Australia to their family home on a Pacific island, where it’s revealed (to the audience) that they’re related to mer-people. Who have a connection to dolphins.
There’s romance – for Sif, with a scientist, and for Riko a somewhat confused attempt from what I remember as being a not-entirely-human character, but maybe that’s my memory. There’s adventure – people doing suspicious things on their island, especially. And there’s character. Riko is wonderfully realised – rebellious, envious of her sister and desperately loving and protective of her at the same time, practical and down to earth and determined. Sif is the more fey – physically, having more of a connection to their mer-relatives, as well as personality wise; this is, I realise, something of a Jane/Lizzie Bennett pairing. Hmm. And in the end, there’s also a lesson to be learnt, which is done blatantly but also in a ‘you’ve seen all of this, isn’t it obvious?’ way: Riko goes home determined to change society, beginning with the children, to make it more like dolphins and less likely to destroy the environment… as is happening around the island, and which has helped bring about the great tragedy in her life. Which is the bit that made me cry. Which is Sif dying.
I remember incredibly evocative descriptions of the people and the places, I remember desperately wanting to BE Riko and try to save Sif, and I remember trying to swim like the mer-people are described as doing, too, to my embarrassment. On which note, this was one of the first serious attempts at explaining merfolk that I remember reading, and it still strikes me that their attempt to include their land-bound brethren is a remarkable one – developing breathing apparatus and the like. I think I still want to be Riko.
I should re-read this. I’m quite sure the power of Riko and Sif has warded off the Suck Fairy.
It’s Tansy’s fault I’m reliving these childhood memories. See this post for her love of Grange Hill…
Riddle of the Trumpalar
I mentioned in my last post that Lord of the Rings was not my first conscious experience of speculative fiction. I know that I had read some before I got to that point. The first book that I can consciously remember reading that counts as fantasy is The Riddle of the Trumpalar, by Judy Bernard-Waite (who I know now was not one but three people).
Oh how I loved this book with all my heart. I’m afraid to go back to it now, for fear of the suck fairy, but it had a powerful pull on the childhood imagination of me. Twins, living in Sydney, get sucked into a Moreton Bay fig, where they meet the Trumpalar, who is not quite your normal living-in-a-tree dryad figure… and then up end spat out in the early Sydney colony, and have to help out one of their (maybe convict? I forget. Probably Irish) ancestors.
It’s a little bit Playing Beattie Bow, really, isn’t it? I bet they all came out round about the bicentenary.
Anyway: twins! time travel! even history! (although I didn’t know I loved history at that stage.) I was living in the tropics at the time so I didn’t know Moreton Bay figs from a rose, but since moving south – as an adult! – I’ve had a bit of a Thing for them. And let’s be honest here, an enigmatic figure living in a tree rather predisposed me to fall in love with Legolas and Lothlorien. I remember really enjoying the interaction of the twins – a boy and a girl – with each other and with their ancestor. My fuzzy memory tells me that their parents were actually alive and both around, although of course they lived in the present – but their mum in particular was cool. The Trumpalar I also don’t remember very clearly, although the picture above – which was the copy that I had – also made a strong impression on me. Check out that flowing grey hair! The strength and nobility of that nose! He may have had a book-lined study inside the tree… or maybe that was just my imagination.
I blame this as the beginning of my affair with fantasy. Thanks, all three of you, Judy Bernard-Waite.
Lord of the Rings: a child’s memory
Tansy is doing a series of blog posts this week in honour of Book Week about childhood reading and everything around it, so I thought I would add a few thoughts myself. And I am starting with Lord of the Rings.
When I was 12, I was in competition with a friend: who could read the most in that year. We decided it would be on both pages read and total number of books read, but books had to have over 100 pages. Now I got my total books up fast because I was reading a lot of Babysitters Club (I know, right?). However, they were short, and I was mighty competitive back then. So I looked at my parents’ book shelves and I picked the fattest book I could. And why yes, it was LoTR.
I had read fantasy before- that’s another post- but I had definitely never read anything like this. I don’t actually rememeber whether I had read Hobbit first or not… something says not. Anyway, I was blown away. I imagined myself joining the fellowship, and Legolas was my first serious book crush. I loved it so much I read it in 20 days, which was quite quick work for 12 year old me… and important in making sure that I didn’t fall behind in the reading competition, too. I loved it so much that when I started working as a checkout chick, my first major purchase was my own, one volume, not-falling-apart copy – and that was SO exciting. I loved it so much that for a while there, I read it every year; I think I’ve got up to about a dozen or so. This is one book that has had a genuinely long-lasting impact.
Weird fact: I listened to a cassette of the Beach Boys a lot of the time while I read LoTR the first time, such that I had flashbacks to the mines of Moria and the forests of Lothlorien in response to Little Deuce Coupe and California Girls for years after.
For those who care, I don’t think my friend and I ever decided who had won our competition. I think we might have got sick of it.
Randomly Yours, Alex 