Stargate SG1, season 3
… we jump straight back to Hathor threatening SG1 – did I mention Daniel’s non-floofy haircut? it’s so odd (but the bandana/cap is a much better option) – and the entirety of the SGC is mustered to go get our kids back.
More importantly, Carter gets promoted to Major! Hooray! And then Jack totally steals the award show by being beamed aboard an Asgard ship, what a diva. Still, it gives us Thor, and that the Asgards will negotiate with the System Lords on behalf of the Earthlings. And that negotiation will happen on Earth what could possibly go wrong. And we get ~foreshadowing~ of a “far worse enemy” in the Asgard’s home galaxy.
We see Sam being able to access Goa’uld tech thanks to the aftereffects of Jolinar’s presence, and we get another!alt!Sam, this time coming through the mirror, complete with a picture of her and Jack getting married. Which is honestly all very uncomfortable. (However, alt!Teal’c and alt!Apophis both have little goatees, and I know enough Star Trek that this made me very happy.) Then we get Martouf back again, needing Jolinar’s memories. I just don’t like Martouf, and there’s no good reason for it.
The range of cultures represented continues to expand – Nirrti from the Hindu pantheon (I have thoughts about using a living religion…); Yu from Chinese mythology (?); Aztec deities represented on a planet that seems to be entirely inhabited by very white people and has no connection to anything we know about Aztec culture. A medieval European Christian village! Guess it was only a matter of time before they tried it – but of course an American show couldn’t make Jesus a Goa’uld… and the Canon is an appropriately cartoonishly evil churchman. And then later we visit Sokar’s planet – Hell, basically – and O’Neill makes a comment about it being a “dry heat” – is that an Aliens 2 reference??
Despite the visit to Hell, this season’s most distressing episode is the one where Daniel is thought to have schizophrenia and treated appallingly. Michael Shanks really gets to shine in the episode, and it’s awful.
Furthermore, one part of Daniel’s story – his search for Sha’re – comes to an end, with Sha’re’s death at the hands of Teal’c. Once again Michael Shanks gets a chance to do some particularly poignant acting. And then he discovers that Amaunet & Apophis’ child is the Harcesis – a human born with knowledge of the Goa’uld. Thus begins a new quest – and consequently Daniel meets Oma Dasala, which is also the beginning of his rather epic story arc. (I’m having anticipatory grief.) This really is Daniel’s season.
Importantly, this season has some really fantastic Jack/Daniel interactions.
People I haven’t mentioned much: I really like Dr Janet Fraiser, and I’m so pleased that she appears more in this season – she even gets to go off-world! And he doesn’t appear often, but I also really enjoy Major Davis. Plus: there haven’t been many guest stars, or people who went on to become well-known, but Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol, of Battlestar Galactica) turned up as a Jafar for about 10 seconds in this episode, before dying. (Also the crystal skull, Indiana Jones should be ashamed for stealing it.)
I am realising that parenting is a significant thread running through this show. Apophis wants to make a human child who will become his new host; the Sam/Jacob Carter dynamic; Jack’s dead son (used against him again in this season) and his relationship with Skaara – who is finally freed! – and there’s a strong suggestion that Jack leaves Laira pregnant; Teal’c and Rya’c; the clone son from the Reetou, Merrin and other Urrone children of the Orban (do I remember ever being a little teary from an SG1 episode? No I do not. I think I’m getting old). The man looking for his child in Seth’s cult. Aris Boch lies about having a child to get sympathy; the Jafar practising to be an SG unit are basically children. And, of course, Cassandra. Looking forward, the question of children – relating to parents, how they develop – continues to be massive, especially in the last two seasons.
On a broader level there’s another incredibly significant through-line, too, about SG1 interfering with the way things are done, usually to what is perceived as the benefit of the newly-visited population (not quite always in the short term, but mostly in the long term). Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a show – or rather, it would be a very different show – if there weren’t this overtone of, frankly, colonialism. And of course, they don’t call it colonialism, and the SGC folks don’t want to actually live in those places. But they do want to trade for useful things, and they do feel more comfortable if everyone goes along with their same morality and processes. At least we do occasionally get folks like the Nox – and more obnoxiously, the Tollan – who refuse to give the SGC any tech because they’re too inferior. So that’s some balance.
And the season ends with replicators… (I have so many thoughts about replicators v Goa’uld insofar as enemies go).
You know what else season 3 brings? DVD extras.
Character featurettes:
- Capt (now Major) Carter: apparently it was important to have a beautiful woman! Bah. I did enjoy hearing her reflections on Richard Dean Anderson, and how odd it is to act before a blue screen; her description of Sam as the midpoint between Jack and Daniel is nicely observed.
- Teal’c’s feature is a sweet piece about Chris Judge’s acting career, and his enjoyment of the role.
- General Hammond: got his start as MacGyver’s boss’s double, and now plays O’Neill’s boss! That’s so cool!
- Daniel Jackson: Michael Shanks comes across as adorable. His comment about how the regular cast react when new directors come on board and then freak out at how huge a production it is? Hilarious.
Other bits:
- In the “Producing Stargate” featurette – which I assume was made for the DVD, so maybe a couple years after it aired in 1999? – Brad Wright, co-creator, suggests “at least ten seasons” for the show. Awww.
- Costuming! Interesting to hear Christina McQuarrie talking about how she’s certainly not aiming for any sort of cultural verisimilitude, and that she’s combined elements of various cultures. But she’s often only given seven days to costume an episode, so… that’s a whole thing from tv 25 years ago! They costumed hundreds of people for the pilot, and while other episodes have fewer it’s still a lot.
Stats:
- Sam gets a raw deal for being female: 0 (… does this mean the show is actually treating Sam properly??)
- Someone falls madly in love Sam: 1 (blergh, Narim – get over it)
- Sam reciprocates: 0 (you go girl)
- Jack gets seduced: 1 (well, it was a mutual seduction with Laira)
- Daniel gets seduced: 1 (
at least she’s not evil(hahaha she’s amnesiac Linnea) but it’s literally immediately after Sha’re dies soooo that’s rude) - Sam gets seduced: 0
- Teal’c gets seduced: 0
- The team brings dangerous stuff back to Earth: 2 (once wasn’t SG1’s fault)
- Something timey-wimey happens: 1 (plus one alt-timeline)
- Daniel apparently gets killed: 0 (but also that time Daniel went out of phase; turns out I love shows where actors have to not respond to someone who’s meant to be invisible)
- Jack apparently gets killed: 0 (briefly out of phase)
- Sam apparently gets killed: 0 (briefly out of phase)
- Teal’c apparently gets killed: 1
- Jack gets replaced / becomes an alien avatar: 1.5 (half because the Goa’uld binding didn’t take)
- Sam gets replaced: 0
- Daniel gets replaced: 1
- Teal’c gets replaced: 0
- Everybody else at the SGC gets replaced: 1
- Sam and Jack have A Moment: 2 (sometimes they’re really brief but I see them) (Jack and alt!Sam doesn’t count)
- Maybourne gets thwarted: 1 (serious lack of Maybourne in this season)
- Extra special episodes where it’s not Maybourne’s fault / he actually helps: 0.5 (because there was one episode where he was MEANT to help but instead he was an ARSE and only helped EVENTUALLY; at least he gave Carter the credit)
- Specific human cultures represented:
- Medieval European Christians?!
- Keb is vaguely Buddhist? the flutes, the architecture… the monk’s robes, speaking vaguely in koans… this one also makes me uncomfortable
- Goa’uld encountered:
- Hathor (RIP)
- Seth (distressingly, but appropriately, hot; RIP)
- Chronos
- Yu (we haven’t had many non-vaguely-Western deities, I guess this is a good thing?)
- Nirrti (again) (I had missed she’s meant to be a Hindu goddess… so yeh, another one from a living religion, not cool)
- Amaunet (RIP)
- Bynarr
- Sokar
- Reincarnated!Apophis
- did everyone forget Sokar had a sarcophagus? I had!
- he just won’t die
- I love the way he tells Teal’c “It is I, your god, Apophis” as if Teal’c could have forgotten his name
- Klorel
- Zipacna
Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica
I love a really good travel book. (Do I know what I mean by that? Not really. But apparently, from recent experience, it often includes at least a little bit of history.)
I also love good history books; and Roman/British/women centric is definitely up there as a favourite.
Echolands is fantastic.
An English archaeologist decides to visit all the can-actually-be-identified Boudica-associated sites. And discusses Tactius, Dio, and the archaeology (what’s been found + the history of the finding – is there a word for historiography but it’s archaeology?) along the way. Plus adds some appropriate personal aspects – both about the travelling (some by foot, some by bicycle, some by car, some by train), his career, and occasionally his family. Plus some reflections on the modern physical landscape, and what Boudica means today.
It’s 300 pages long, and it’s extremely readable.
There are many aspects I found fascinating, but one that really stood out is his experimentation with caligae – the hobnailed “sandals” Roman soldiers wore, often – yes – with socks. His conclusion? Incredibly comfortable and sensible for long treks – especially on gravel and other such surfaces, not on tarmac and other such formed surfaces where the nails get little grip. Having heard just a little bit about things like trench foot, just the fact of airflow makes a lot of sense!
Mostly I was enchanted by the way he visits places like the castle at Colchester, and then also places that look completely unremarkable (weird little lakes created by peat mining in WW2), talks about why those spots were so important in the Boudica story, and presents the history of archaeological discovery in the area.
You don’t need to have any Roman or Iron Age British history knowledge to appreciate this.
Stargate SG1 season 2
We go straight from defeating Apophis in the first episode (following a cliffhanger at the end of the last season!) – including truly hilarious CGI of NASA’s shuttle, and also the hilarious suggestion that the shuttle could be launched with zero notice – to Sam getting infected by a Goa’uld, and suddenly we discover the existence of the Tok’ra. Again, not something I remembered starting this early.
Across this season we get reference to “the System Lords” as if it’s something we’ve been talking about for many episodes, but I’m pretty sure it’s not. Plus I remain confused as to why Daniel is compelled to wear that ridiculous floppy hat while Jack and Sam get caps. I mean, I understand it’s meant to make him look goofy – it’s the sartorial equivalent of his equally floofy and floppy hair. But still.
“The Gamekeeper” is one of the more harrowing episodes so far – Jack and Daniel being put through the emotional wringer as a game. And then very soon after, Daniel being corrupted by the sarcophagus – it’s fascinating that he’s played as the most vulnerable of the whole team because of his depths of compassion. Of course, this gets more complicated in later seasons, and I do love it as a continuing exploration of his character. It’s also an example of Michael Shanks actually being a good actor – he doesn’t get much opportunity to showcase a range of emotion usually.
Poor old Daniel only gets a bit of personal development in the first half of this season: in “Gamekeeper” we learn his parents were also archaeologists or similar and they were killed in a museum accident; his wife is largely forgotten. Still that’s more than either Jack or Sam gets. Teal’c gets much more – the whole Rya’c storyline is interesting enough, although I don’t love it. And I can’t begin to say how much I loathe the fact Teal’c calls his wife “woman” – something about a heroic culture requiring misogyny?
… the problem with writing this as I watch, rather than at the end – so that I don’t forget these oh-so-erudite points – is that then things change completely: the episode after I wrote the above, we get an episode I had completely forgotten: Sha’re is back home, pregnant with Apophis’ child. Daniel has to decide whether he can still love his wife after she has been raped (happily, doesn’t take very long to choose Yes – which is an interesting difference from Teal’c, who struggles to deal with his wife having agreed to a new husband so that she and their son could have a decent life). Tragically, they only have a brief period together before the Goa’uld returns. (Daniel also gets to threaten Apophis when the SGC have him as a prisoner.) And we get Sam’s dad in the same episode, an Air Force general still trying to organise his daughter’s life while he’s dying of cancer. Both of these events – the child and the fact that Papa Carter chooses to blend with a Tok’ra – have enormous repercussions for the next few seasons… and further in personal lives. we keep playing on the loss of Jack’s son, too, giving him new sons to connect with (and lose).
Meanwhile, the SG1 must finally face some consequences of their actions: they destroyed the anti-Goa’uld defence system set up by Thor, and then that planet gets invaded, so SG1 goes back to try to help out. And hooray, we get The Real Thor! – another case of “already??” Plus they go to a planet where they fear they might have introduced a disease – and for the first time there’s concern that this is something that might happen when meeting new folks. Along those same lines, I appreciate that the show does sometimes examine moral quandaries. Like whether they should just shoot that snakehead Apophis out of hand, or take him prisoner and try to make use of him.
Remember those useless end-of-season recap episodes that occurred when you had 22-24 episodes dropping weekly? At least Stargate has so far been somewhat clever – last season, Senator Kinsey being an arse but nonetheless making some uncomfortably sensible points; this season, the team seem to be in the future but are actually being held captive, and made to remember some of the peoples they’ve encountered. Still, I forwarded through all of the recap bits (again). The joys of the DVD.
Further opportunities for actual acting: Daniel being inhabited by Marcello, Jack and Teal’c swapping bodies (mostly this is a Chris Judge opportunity, not so much for Richard Dean Anderson).
Costuming hilarity: there’s one planet where the humans appear to be naked, with body paint. It’s very obvious that they have zips up the back of their outfits; there’s also wrist and neck edges. (Most of the actors in this episode, though, are wonderful physical actors.) PLUS I am 100% certain the only reason for the episode “1969” is so that they could put the team into those ridiculous outfits.
Stats:
- Sam gets a raw deal for being female: 0 (hooray! Progress!)
- Someone falls madly in love Sam: 1
- Sam reciprocates: 0
- Jack gets seduced: 0 (impressive! or sad, take your pick)
- Daniel gets seduced: 1
- Sam gets seduced: 0
- Teal’c gets seduced: 0
- The team brings dangerous stuff back to Earth: 7 (urgh Linea) (I’m including black hole gravity)
- Something timey-wimey happens: 4
- Daniel apparently gets killed: 0
- Jack apparently gets killed: 0
- Sam apparently gets killed: 0
- Teal’c apparently gets killed: 0
- This lack of dying is truly impressive across this season. Made up for by…
- Jack gets replaced / becomes an alien avatar: 3 (including swapping with Teal’c, etc)
- One instance of which basically turns him into MacGyver, I realised on this viewing)
- Sam gets replaced: 1 (inc. Jolinar)
- Daniel gets replaced: 2 (ish; can we count the whole multiple-sarcophagus-use experience? I say yes)
- Teal’c gets replaced: 1 (by Jack, etc)
- Sam and Jack have A Moment: 2 (sometimes they’re really brief but I see them)
- Maybourne gets thwarted: 1
- Extra special episodes where it’s not Maybourne: 1
- Specific human cultures represented:
- Native Americans (I don’t know enough about the history of representation of Native Americans to know just how racist this portrayal is… I suspect it’s a combo of somewhat progressive – they’ve got technology! they keep their culture despite the changes! – and racist: the costuming, apparent naivety… plus their spirits are “actually” aliens: which is true for every other culture too; is it worse to do this to a culture still living today? I suspect it might be)
- Goa’uld encountered:
- Apophis and Klorel (poor old Skaara)
- Heru’ur
- Amaunet
- Sokar (kinda)
- Hathor (my girl! that wig is so impressive)
The Book of Records
I feel like a fraud even trying to write a review of this book. I don’t think I have anything particularly coherent to say – I’m sure that since it came out last year, people who actually know something about Hannah Arendt and Baruch Spinoza and Du Fu have made all sorts of thoughtful, insightful, comments about how they’re portrayed there. And I’m sure literary critics have written fabulous words about how the book is structured; and philosophers have examined what it has to say about time, and love, and freedom, and choice.
I don’t really have anything to add. But I do want to add my tiny little flag, waving, to say that this is an amazing book and people should read it.
Somehow this passed me by last year – I hadn’t heard of it until I came across the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize 2026, for which the book was shortlisted this year. This prize is for a book that does clever things with nonfiction, and that’s exactly what Thien has written.
A young girl and her father, fleeing Foshan in China for environmental reasons, arrive at a liminal space called The Sea where people from across the world end up as they leave one place and go somewhere else. They stay much longer than most, however, because of her Lina’s father’s illness. As she tries to understand this new place, she has little to comfort her, except for three books her father snatched up as they fled: biographies of Arendt, Spinoza, and Du Fu. Eventually she meets three adults who are prepared to spend time with her, and tell her stories – especially when they see these books, because (and it’s a slight spoiler, but I already knew it going in and it actually improved the reading experience for me, so there you are) these three are Arendt, Spinoza, and Du Fu. And they share the stories of their lives and fill in what those books missed.
The choice of these three people is a fascinating one, and one that I am not fully equipped to analyse. Arendt and Spinoza in particular have some similarities that require more understanding than I have to untangle, in their approaches to life and philosophy – plus, Arendt studied Spinoza herself. The inclusion of Du Fu is probably a more surprising choice from the point of view of most Western readers… actually who am I kidding, lots of Western readers haven’t heard of Arendt or Spinoza either, or know basically nothing about them (and I know only slightly less than nothing, so I’m not exempt from this criticism!). Anyway, they all faced immense trauma – the Holocaust, the plague and being exiled from your community, famine and civil war – and all created art before, through, and after. One of the balancing acts Thien manages here is not minimising any of those horrors, but also not making the book only about them; instead she keeps pointing to the living that goes on around them.
All of this is also relevant to Lina, whose own life has been upended – her family torn in half – for reasons she really doesn’t comprehend.
This is, at best, a surface level explanation of the novel. It sounds weighty and I guess it is; there are definitely bits that I didn’t understand because I just don’t know enough philosophy. But it was still a remarkable book, and I hope lots of people will come to it.
The Old Drift
I believe I bought this when it won the Clarke Award, so late 2020. I didn’t read it then – I think I assumed it would be too heavy for that particular year, and then that assumption has coloured my way of thinking about it ever since. I finally picked it up this week: partly gesturing to my endeavour to at least read the oldest books in my TBR pile.
This is not the book I expected it to be, given the Clarke Award. It definitely has SF elements towards the end, when it’s projecting into the future – and goodness it’s weird, in 2026, reading a book that was published in 2019, therefore written the few years before that, and/but has significant things happening in 2020 that are not Covid.
Rather than feeling like “a science fiction novel,” the connections I more strongly made for The Old Drift are the works of Edward Rutherford – his place-based historical novels that followed a few of families through many, many generations. Serpell does that here, following three main families as they interact across four generations. The central location is (what is today known as) Zambia, and in particular Lusaka. As befits modern Zambia, some characters are descended from pre-colonial inhabitants of the area; some are descended from British migrants, some Italian, and some Indian. Some of the actions happens in England, some in Italy, and some in India, as well as a couple of other sites in Zambia.
Across the novel – around 550 pages – Serpell traces the fortunes and misfortunes of the families. Marriages and births, infidelities, education, employment, tragedy – and only rarely triumph; illness (the last third or so revolves significantly around “The Virus”) and cleverness and revolution. Some of what Serpell portrays is based in truth: Edward Nkoloso plays a role – a real figure in Zambian independence, who proclaimed the country would send “Afronauts” to the moon and Mars; and one of the characters is Matha Mwamba, one of those Afronauts. Percy Clark, one of the progenitors and an early British colonialist, was real; and the fictional characters interact with some other historical figures. I don’t know much about modern Zambian history, but I know that a lot of the moments that appear in the background – like the issues around Northern Rhodesia becoming part of the Federation and then eventually getting independence; “Rhodes Must Fall,” the fight to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Cape Town University – are real.
What Serpell does in this novel is show both how individuals can be deeply affected by larger historical moments, and how sometimes personal issues are far, far more important. And neither of those experiences de-legitimises the other.
It’s fair to say that this isn’t an easy read. None of the characters do not spend their lives in comfort and ease, with no problems beyond what to have for dinner. They experience heartbreak and personal tragedy; families are difficult, opportunities are lost, life simply doesn’t go the way they hoped. Racism and misogyny play enormous roles – unsurprisingly. While there are moments of triumph, and doggedly continuing despite setbacks, Serpell has not set out to write inspiration porn. It’s much more real than that.
A connecting thread across the generations is a plural first-person narrator: mosquitos. Which, of course, have an important role to play in disease transmission; I’m fairly sure characters comment on their pesky existence in every section of the novel. Precisely why mosquitos are used as an almost Greek chorus isn’t entirely obvious, except for the fact that they’re ubiquitous – which I guess is enough.
The Old Drift is by turns bawdy, clinical, grim, lighthearted (occasionally), earnest, and reflective. It’s also beautifully written – while I wouldn’t say easy to read, it doesn’t require a quiet room and intense concentration to follow. I’m glad I bought it and have finally read it.
33 1/3 Africa: Graceland
I read this courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, Bloomsbury. It’s out today.
Graceland is a really important album to me. When I was in my teens, it was one of my favourite albums – it was different from other things I had been listening to, it had such a brilliant beat, I was already a fan of Paul Simon’s, and it just really clicked for me. Reading this consideration of the album – musically, historically, politically – has deepened and complicated (complimentary) my relationship to the album.
I had no real knowledge of the background to the album, aside from the fact that it’s Simon working with groups like Ladysmith Black Mambazo at a time when bands from Africa in general weren’t particularly well known outside of the continent (what am I saying, that’s still the case today). Dinh does a particularly good job of briefly setting the political scene – foreign attitudes towards the Apartheid regime, questions about the cultural embargo – and also refers back to related issues as they arise across the book.
I enjoyed the structure of the book a great deal. The introduction and first chapter set up the history – Simon’s experiences with African music, in particular, and his own musical history. Four of the next five chapters look at specific tracks from the album as a way of exploring how the album was put together in time and space, what can be understood about music and history and politics from both the lyrics and the music, and some of what is known about the personal experiences of the musicians. As someone who has read very little musical history, this approach was fascinating. It’s made slightly more difficult by the fact that Dinh wasn’t allowed to quote slabs of lyrics, due to copyright issues – which I frankly find amazing, that the copyright holders weren’t able to come to some reasonable agreement rather than charging standard rates, but what would I know. For someone like me, who basically knows the album off by heart, it wasn’t as annoying as it will be for folks who only know it in passing! The other chapter in this middle section looks specifically at South African popular music – about which I previously knew nothing, and now have some appreciation for the layers of influence going on there.
The penultimate chapter looks at “the politics of collaboration” and picks up on issues that have been touched on in other chapters too – about the power imbalance of Paul Simon, the white American pop star, working with lesser-known, brown- and black-skinned musicians, sometimes also American but many from various African countries. Dinh comes to no easy conclusions here: some folks have spoken up about being disgruntled for the way they were treated; others have remained steadfast in saying it was a good experience. Presumably both are telling the truth. I appreciated that across the whole book, Dinh is interested in neither maligning nor lionising Simon – or indeed any of the others. They’re just humans.
Finally, the last chapter looks at one of the weirdest aspects of the album – the cover art: St George. It’s always just been ubiquitous to me; I didn’t pay much attention to it as a kid, and as I got older it was just… the album. Now? Well, the image is based on a painting by a medieval East African artist, and George himself is an important figure across a sprawling set of cultures. So he does sort of make sense.
There was always the potential for a book like this to ruin a favourite album. It’s true that I can’t listen to it now without feeling a degree of discomfort, knowing that some musicians felt taken advantage of; that there were political questions around whether it meant Simon was crossing the embargo line; and some of the other political questions around the music. However, Dinh in no way wants to stop people from listening to the album – my sense is that he wants people to appreciate the issues, as well as many of the intriguing lyrics, more deeply. Which is good because I’ve had “Boy in the Bubble” stuck in my head for days.
The Mortons
Back in the mists of time, when Justine Larbalestier’s Liar first came out, we on Galactic Suburbia invented the Spoilerific episode just to talk about it in all its glory.
The Mortons isn’t as tricksy as Liar was. It is, however, a book to talk about, chew on, examine the bones of… and those metaphors get really uncomfortable when applied to this book.
The sprawling Morton family are not a family that ordinary people will have heard of. But if you have money, or power – or your family might one day have those things – you may well hear from them. They can help. They can get things done, smooth paths, remove obstacles. And all you have to do is sign a blank piece of paper.
The Mortons aren’t just killers, although that’s a significant part of their brand, if you like – just take a look at that cover. They also work in other ways to make the correct outcome occur; torture, accounting, social manipulation, and so on. They have been doing this for generations, because their children are taught – pretty much from infancy – how to Be A Morton. And sometimes they adopt children, too.
If you’ve Seanan McGuire’s InCrytpid series: imagine if the Price family were actually like the Covenant. And now make them the actual Covenant.
Jessica Morton is the prodigy of her generation. She is nearing the end of her schooling at Helshire College – along with her Morton cousins, the offspring of the other three legacy crime families, and a large number of children from wealthy ‘ordinary’ families… some of whom will end up being incorporated by the Mortons. She is eager to be blooded, and be acknowledged as an adult Morton. Fer first kill isn’t quite what she expected, though; and then her summer internship isn’t either. And then things escalate, and… well. Life can’t be the same again. Probably.
This is the author photo at the front of the book. When I first saw it, I thought it was Larbalestier and Westerfeld having a fun photo shoot. And it is. And then you get to a certain point in the book and you realise that they’re cosplaying, and it’s still a fun photo shoot but also just a little uncomfortable.
This novel is vicious. The characters aren’t spending their time asking whether killing is evil; the only questions are around motive. If you’re very squeamish, you’ll probably want to avoid it; there are a couple of bits that were a bit gruesome. Having said that: I read this very quickly. It was un-put-down-able. The writing itself is a delight: evocative, smartly paced, leavened with a touch of humour. The characters are really where it’s at. Jessica is an intriguing character to sit in the head of. She is completely committed to her family, and the family legacy. She has experienced trauma, and uses it to feed her desire to be excellent. Even when she is tasked with doing terrible things – things she actually doesn’t want to do – the family comes first. I had no idea where the authors could possibly be going with the story for a long time. When a change does occur, it blindsided me – it’s such a good twist – and of course it didn’t just stay as one thing, either. No, I am not going to put more spoilers here, this is a book where you do not want to know more than the minimum before going in.
The short version is that this is a brilliant book and I hope a lot of people read it. The main characters are in the late teens but I really hope it doesn’t get classified as ‘young adult’ – I might give it to a mature late-teen reader, but no younger than that. I would not recommend it, as noted, for those who are very squeamish (no shade!), or if you’re not prepared to read about children and adolescents happily considering (and undertaking) murder.
Wickhills
The short version is that if you enjoy a thoroughly realised fantastical city, and you like spies and mystery, you should probably just stop reading this review and go get this.
And if you’ve heard of Mohamed as a predominantly horror writer, don’t worry; while there are certainly unpleasant things happening in this novel, I don’t think I’d classify it as horror. (I say this as a mostly non-horror reader.)
If you’re still here… this review contains some minor thematic spoilers, but nothing major.
There’s something about a novel that loves a city that tends to delight me. Sometimes it’s a real city — China Mieville’s Kraken loves London; sometimes fantastical… to make a similar point, Mieville’s The City and the City. Tolkien’s Minas Tirith has elements of this; Grace Chan’s Melbourne in Every Version of You; Makana Yamamoto’s space station in Hammajang Luck has some of the same vibe. And when that city has weirdness as well… you’ve got me. And I say that as someone who is distinctly not good at directions; if the clue to who the murderer is relies on knowing what’s west and what’s east, from a comment ten pages ago, I am not going to pick up on it.
Wickhills the city is a significant character in its own right in this novel. We’re thrown into it, and its fantastical nature, very quickly: the Market Street Wyrm is on the first page; we have windmills and museums, banks, a busy port, child labour. Across the novel we learn about omnibuses, a variety of options for artificial light, and the fact that humans are only one of the sentient species inhabiting the city. Wickhills is unstable – its geography can change in an instant; Wickhills is a version of democratic; and Wickhills is impossible to know completely.
The main narrative character is Ferec, which is fitting as he has made it his goal in life to try and understand Wickhills as best he can. Unconnected – except insofar as his obsession is useful on-the-job knowledge – for nearly ten year he has worked for Seaborne, a highly secretive counter-terrorism organisation. His jobs have ranged from assassination to seduction to infiltrating and undermining seditious groups. As the novel opens, he and his partner are waiting for a ship to arrive, so that they can locate and procure a particularly valuable asset.
And it all goes downhill from there.
This sort of novel will often feature a ‘getting the band together’ section – which I usually enjoy; I love some repartee and squabbling to figure out team roles. Mohamed, however, largely eschews that. Ferec doesn’t get to pick most of his team; they spend very little time on bonding or coming to know one another. Instead, the entire focus is the mission. Because that asset Ferec lifted off the boat turns out to be wanted by some very serious people (of course) and is far more dangerous than anyone had understood (of course).
Much of the novel is the action of Ferec securing the asset (and losing it and retrieving it etc). But there’s a philosophical aspect to the novel as well, which for me puts the novel in quite a different light. Ferec himself is not an innately moral man, but he does believe in the importance of Seaborne and its place in the city. Over the course of the novel, however, the place and use of Seaborne — effectively a secret police — is brought into question by various characters. Ferec is made to look at how his world works, and where it fits with what he understands of the city. And these questions — of how societies function, the role of secretive power structures, where and how power is exercised — they’re always important to ask; they feel vital at the moment.
Mohamed writes beautifully; her descriptions are evocative, her conversations often tantalisingly full of ellipses but conveying just enough information. The novel provides some answers, but nowhere near all of them — I could imagine at least half a dozen more novels just picking up on some of the points mentioned here. I haven’t even mentioned that Ferec’s boss is a manticore.
Some people are going to find the lack of clarity around some points very frustrating. But no one ever knows their city completely, so what makes you think you would know Wickhills — a much weirder city than the one you live in — any better?
Highly recommended.
Sugar, season 1
I was spoiled for The Big Reveal before I started watching Sugar. I’m a bit mad about it, I’ll admit – it would have been tantalising; it was still tantalising enough; but it did also make me move watching the show further up the list. So there’s that.
ALL THE SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1, stop reading now.
Seriously.
Continue reading →The Missing Thread
A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It.
I am so conflicted about this book.
The theory: absolutely up my alley. Writing women back into the (hi)story they were always a part of? Of course that’s a good idea!
And yet… I can’t help but feel this book isn’t quite the right way to do it.
Some of the good things first:
It is great to have women like Atossa and others who get one line as a wife or a mother brought to the forefront. Discussing Fulvia and Octavia a lot when discussing Marc Antony and Octavian? Brilliant! Not to mention Olympias when you’re discussing Phillip and Alexander of Macedon. There’s a nice amount about women like Sappho, too, so it’s not just all fighting – and the book opens with what we might be able to understand about Minoan culture, which probably had important roles for women, so that’s also excellent.
And yet. I have reservations.
One issue is that it’s still trying to tell exactly the same story of battles and political intrigue, just with women in it. Sometimes the women feel shoehorned in – this is a story the author wants to tell, and has to fit in the women to justify the story. So that’s frustrating. Partly this is a result of my own expectations: I was hoping for some new stories, making “history” not just about battles.
A large part of my problem is that the author doesn’t make much attempt to differentiate hearsay, calumny, and verifiable stories. There’s occasionally a gesture at that – “oh, these words were used to make the woman / man associated with the woman look bad” – but it’s usually after the story has been presented as legit. And sometimes the stories are just presented as fact: Cleopatra in the rug to sneak into Caesar’s room, for example. So in some instances, the worst stories about women’s roles are blithely repeated.
And then there’s the fact that this is presented as a history “of the ancient world.” Which, to me, suggests “of the world.” The occasional reference to China – with no context at all – does not make a global history. This is a history “of the Classical world” with very occasional reference to things in “the Near East” and about three sentences about China. Which would be fine if the book had made it obvious that’s what it was doing.
So. Yes. I am disappointed. As someone with knowledge of most of the general stuff discussed in the book, I could contextualise what was being presented and it did indeed give me info about women’s actions I hadn’t come across before. But I would not give this to someone with no prior knowledge.
