Clay’s Ark
Having read Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, this was not at all what I expected of a book set in the Patternmaster series. It seems only peripherally attached to the Patternmaster series courtesy of something Clay, whom we meet in Mind of My Mind, developed.
Still, the book deals with some of the same preoccupations as are developed in the first two books, in particular how people manage go live under compulsions and especially how that impacts on sex and relationships and children. It was interesting to see Butler explore similar issues coming about from different motivations.
In itself, this is a very different sort of contact story from what is more commonly written. The contact is almost just a macgyver to allow the exploration of how confinement and externally imposed obsessions might play out.
Not Butler’s strongest work, but intriguing and enjoyable (well… within the bounds of devastating sf…) nonetheless.
Later: having now read Patternmaster, this book makes a bit more sense. Interestingly, I think this is the stronger.
Mind of My Mind
Just go read it. Seriously.
As I mentioned in Wild Seed, I am glad I read that novel first – the background it provides for Doro, and Emma, is devastatingly important. Of course you could read this first – publication order – and then have the background filled in… but this order definitely worked for me.
This book is very focussed on Doro and the people he manipulates people to his own ends. Even when other characters – Emma (Anwanyu), and especially Mary – get to tell their own story, it’s always connected to Doro: against or in favour, in reaction somehow, trying to figure out how to circumvent or please him. He is the Patternmaster. He is the puppetmaster.
This book takes place over a much shorter timeframe than Wild Seed – just a few decades. In the prologue, Mary is a small child in an abusive home; the narrative picks up with Mary, one of Doro’s many children and an important part of his experimentation, in her late teens. Mary becomes the focus of the story as she seems to be the fulfilment of Doro’s plans, and it basically follows her development and discovery of her powers.
Unsurprisingly, Mind follows some of the same themes as Wild Seed. Why humans acts they way they do, how compulsions can work and why we act in our own worst interests; what slavery can look like. It develops the discussion of the difference between haves and have-nots to a greater extent, and the consequences of power. The idea of family and its power as well as its destructiveness. Humanity at its best and worst.
This book isn’t always pleasant to read, but it is always powerful and it’s always well written and I will definitely be reading it again.
FarScape rewatch: s1e16
Each week on a Sunday afternoon, join Alex (of Randomly Yours, Alex) and Katharine (of the unpronounceable Ventureadlaxre), as they re-watch the Australian-American sci-fi show Farscape, notable for the Jim Henson animatronic puppets, the excellent mish-mash of accents, and the best OTP ship of all time.
Season One, Episode Sixteen: A Human Reaction
A: Aw, John is still talking to his dad… and then Pilot sees a wormhole! With Earth at the end!!
K: I wonder if I’d be like that. I get along great with my mum, but… I don’t think I’m hopeful enough to think there’d be any point? He’s quite a good age to only be starting to get grey hairs, isn’t he? I do like how dismissive they all are about us though – no red moons indeed.
A: I like my grey hair.
Oh Aeryn. She’s clearly so torn about not going with John… and possibly about John leaving…
K: Go on, Aeryn! An adventure is an adventure, right?
Bridging Infinity
This book was sent to me by the editor, at no cost.
I have loved the Infinity series so far. I like that the focus is on science fiction, that it’s often a focus on the engineering side of the future but that that doesn’t preclude fascinating characters and intriguing worlds. I am consistently impressed by the variety of worlds presented and the writing talent included.
The anthology opens with a series of stories focused on the solar system. Alastair Reynolds gives us a problem with the sun where the narrative jumps tantalisingly between now and later, while Pat Cadigan provides what might be a prequel story for her “The Girl-Thing who went out for Sushi” in a story set on Earth but focused on colonising near Jupiter. Stephen Baxter goes to Venus with a sweeping story about human hubris and the problem of families. Charlie Jane Anders totally mocks the whole idea of going to space in a hilarious story of being, like, an adolescent in space? Tobias S Buckell and Karen Lord also take the long view, temporally speaking, about what it might mean to undertake engineering projects within the asteroid belt and elsewhere, given the distances (and therefore time) involved. Plus Calypso.
Naturally, there are some stories in the anthology that confront climate change – it’s understandably becoming a go-to theme. Cadigan’s story references the issues in passing; stories by Pamela Sargent, and Pat Murphy & Paul Doherty, suggest possible ways of dealing with the problem – the latter is one of my favourites, being both optimistic and pessimistic, and largely set in the Arctic. Ken Liu writes over an extremely long period of time in posing the idea that the coming of the singularity might solve climate change in a rather radical manner. And Thoraiya Dyer posits a rather intriguing solution to the loss of island real estate while also dealing with the problems of family.
There are also several stories with extra-solar settings. Kristine Kathryn Rusch combines desert urban planning on alien planets with a devastating mystery to great effect; Robert Reed writes a Great Ship story about how the materials you use (and the tools) can impact on the thing you’re making. Allen M Steele’s story sounds like it might be from a pre-existing set of stories, like the Great Ship suite, in that it’s focused on a group of wanderers in what is effectively a Dyson sphere called Hex. It’s less focused on the engineering and more focused on human exploration of alien tech.
A few stories didn’t especially work for me. Karin Lowachee’s story of a contractor alone on a supply depot installation didn’t have enough character development for me to get my teeth into, while Gregory Benford and Larry Niven made my teeth ache with their extra-heavy serves of techno speak and missing out on character or plot. An Owomoyela’s narrative didn’t quite seem to go anywhere… which given the narrative itself is kind of funny, but it still didn’t work for me.
Highly recommending this anthology for lovers of science fiction.
Grass
A lot of people write stories with disparate threads – multiple narratives – that then end up all coming together somehow.
If you want to know how to do it really well, you need to read this book.
It’s set on the eponymous planet, where ‘the bons’ – noble families who left Earth generations ago, probably because people weren’t giving them the forelock-tugging they thought they deserved – have set up extended-family estancia, and their lives basically revolve around the Hunt. Right from the start you get the inkling that something isn’t quite right here, but it’s not clear why.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the galaxy, Sanctity is having a red-hot go at trying to control everyone’s lives. They’re doing a pretty good job on Earth, and having varying success on other planets. Sanctity is, I think, meant to hark back to age-of-exploration Christianity and the way Christian ideas and Christian leaders were used to excuse and, sadly, encourage European colonisation and exploitation. I also suspect it’s meant to be a far-future evolution of Mormonism: there are enormous heraldic angels in the architecture, as well as some other bits and pieces that sound like it.
And there’s a plague. It’s popping up all over the place, no one has any idea why, no one has any idea how to stop it… except that it doesn’t seem to have occurred on Grass. Guess we better send someone to investigate… but Grass people don’t want Sanctity on the planet… those bons are all about the Hunt… so hey, send non-Sanctity horsey people!
Enter Marjorie Westriding Yrarier: Old Catholic, doing charitable works, rocky marriage, painful children, Olympic equestrian. You know, all-round interesting person and key to the narrative.
There are many things to love about this novel. The way that Tepper brings together such different people and their problems and achievements into one magnificent cohesive whole. The planet Grass itself, with almost no trees and an enormous variety of grasses and what that might be like as an ecology and for humans. Complicated families and the difficulties of living with them. The existence of religion and that, while the institution of Sanctity is clearly problematic, the religion itself (and Catholicism) are not. Aliens. The beautiful and evocative prose that’s just so easy to read, so enchanting, and conveys emotion brilliantly.
I love Sheri S Tepper.
Previously, in Sheri S Tepper: Beauty, and The Companions.
Wild Seed
It’s brilliant and you should just go ahead and read it and you don’t need to know anything else … unless incest (at a distance from the reader) really, really squicks you out (it happens but it’s not a huge focus and it’s not dwelt on greatly).
I know Butler didn’t write this as the first in the Patternmaster series but I am so glad I read it first, because Butler sets up the world of Doro and Anyanwu brilliantly; I can’t imagine coming to read this after already having been introduced to Doro, especially, in a different context.
There’s an enormous amount going on in this book. Doro and Anyanwu are very different from those around them: both seem to be immortal and both have talents that set them apart. Doro moves from body to body at will; Anyanwu can heal and change herself. Anyanwu has been living with her extended family and caring for them for generations; Doro has been building himself a people, gathering together individuals with some sort of psychic talent. One day Doro feels Anyanwu and goes to meet her, and Anyanwu’s life in particular changes. She hasn’t ever moved far from her birthplace, while Doro has been setting up colonies in America – this is the 17th century, and Doro and Anyanwu are both African (Anyanwu is Ibo, I believe; Doro… is something else altogether). So this means he’s trafficking in slaves, and working with slave traders. So that’s a whole thing: how people react and feel when they are enslaved, how the trading works and can be used, and so on. And somehow the fact that this is written by an African-American makes a difference. The very question about what makes someone a slave is key to the story, actually; how chains aren’t necessarily visible, how someone can become accustomed to the state – and asking the question about whether, if you don’t mind it, how bad slavery is. I think Butler firmly comes down on the side of it still being an evil, but she’s sure not making it an easy discussion.
Having two central characters who appear to be immortal means that Butler gets to write a story that goes over a couple of centuries. This allows her to explore the development of both individuals and communities, which she does really well. In some ways the people that Doro is developing are like a generation ship: they don’t know where they’re going, and it’s temporal rather than spatial, but they’re definitely on a journey. They just need to keep following orders and keeping the place running. The focus is really always on the relationship between Doro and Anyanwu, because their fraught relationship stands for everyone else: love and hate and need and resentment. Acceptance and rejection. Anyanwu is the one who changes and develops and grows, while Doro is largely static. There’s a variety of reasons for this – he’s that much older and has a very set purpose where Anyanwu is in some regards more passive (and in others really not) – but his lack of growth and change isn’t entirely presented as a positive.
It’s the complexity of Doro and Anyanwu, as individuals and in relationship, that makes this novel an absolute stand out. It bemused me somewhat when I finished reading that, really, very little actually happens: there are few really “significant” events like battles. Instead it’s a steady stream of small events. It’s a surprisingly domestic novel, in that much of it is focused on family and family relationships, centred around the home and small communities. But don’t be fooled – never has the idea of ‘domestic’ equaling ‘unimportant’ been less true.
I read this as part of “Seed to Harvest”, the compilation of Patternmaster novels. I was so engaged and intrigued that I moved straight on to reading the next novel (in internal chronology), because I couldn’t bear to leave the story.
FarScape rewatch: s1, e15
Each week on a Sunday afternoon, join Alex (of Randomly Yours, Alex) and Katharine (of the unpronounceable Ventureadlaxre), as they re-watch the Australian-American sci-fi show Farscape, notable for the Jim Henson animatronic puppets, the excellent mish-mash of accents, and the best OTP ship of all time.
Season One, Episode Fifteen: Durka Returns
Rygel’s past comes back to haunt him one more time, as the rest of the crew try to deal with both this as well as Moya’s continuing pregnancy.
K: As we join our brave heroes, Moya is still suffering through her pregnancy. Pilot is getting snippy on Moya’s behalf as their crew complain a little.
A: Turbulence, starburst, and a ship…
K: They starburst, and crash into an unsuspecting ship which Pilot brings on board, as the crash disabled them. And Lucius Malfoy arrives. And with him is an old friend of Rygel…
A: I like that Pilot is completely doing his own thing – bringing the other ship on board – without checking with anyone.
Another Rygel-heavy ep? Aw man.
K: Even Aeryn is a little shaken by the events.
A: AHAHA it’s Dennis Denuto from The Castle as Salis! Continue reading →
Galactic Suburbia 151
In which we consume culture and take names! get us from iTunes or at Galactic Suburbia.
WHAT’S NEW ON THE INTERNET?
Tansy’s novel Musketeer Space is half price this week on Kindle (and in other ebook stores)! Price goes back to normal on Wednesday.
CULTURE CONSUMED
Alisa: Vaginal Fantasy; Crosstalk, Connie Willis
Alex: Revenger, Alastair Reynolds; Crossroads of Canopy, Thoraiya Dyer; Stealing Snow, Danielle Paige – abandoned!; The Silk Roads, a New History of the World, Peter Frankopan
Tansy: Superior, Jessica Lack; Fangirl Happy Hour on Ghostbusters: Eps 49, 50 & 52
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
FarScape rewatch: s1, e14
Each week on a Sunday afternoon, join Alex (of Randomly Yours, Alex) and Katharine (of the unpronounceable Ventureadlaxre), as they re-watch the Australian-American sci-fi show Farscape, notable for the Jim Henson animatronic puppets, the excellent mish-mash of accents, and the best OTP ship of all time.
Season One, Episode Fourteen: Jeremiah Crichton
Crichton accidentally gets abandoned and Rygel features a bit too much.
K: Once again, John is being snappy and inconsiderate of others.
A: It can’t be easy losing some of his connection to Earth – no more fuel. Nonetheless, being mean to Zhaan is inexcusable.
K: Must be pretty cool to be able to fly out into space instead of just going for a walk around the block, though. Continue reading →
Revenger
I received this book from the publisher, Hachette, at no cost. It’s out in September; RRP $32.99.
It’s hard to really talk about this book without massive spoilers that completely take away from the gripping revelations that come as the story unfolds. So I’ll do that below the cut. But firstly: I really like this cover! The flat picture doesn’t do it justice. The stark black with pinprick stars and a black silhouette of a spaceship in the middle – it’s lovely. The title font is a bit Alien, although without a narrative connection, and the silver does cool things in the light. I’m interested that the title is larger than Reynolds’ name, since on his last (solo) novel, Poseidon’s Wake, it wasn’t (nor on the novella Slow Bullets). Must be a deliberate decision but I couldn’t speak to why.
Anyway. It gets a lot darker than I was expecting, it’s fair to say – not in a bad way but in an intriguing way. Adrana and Fura are sisters from a sheltered little world and a sheltered little family who decide to run away to sea – well, to space. The crew they join is welcoming if a bit dubious, as you would be, but things generally go well… until they don’t. And then things go quite bad.
Fura is the narrator, and when the action opens she’s not yet reached her majority. It’s unclear how old that is on her world, but one of the early tensions is the question of whether Fura is capable of making decisions for herself, or if she’s just being pulled along by Adrana. Of course, as the story progresses she develops and grows and – no spoilers – shows that she can indeed be responsible. Ish. There are some really interesting relationships that develop, but they really take back seat to the development of Fura herself.
A note on language: Reynolds hasn’t gone all Andrew Macrae Trucksong and re-invented language to represent the immense span of time; neither is he insisting that this is English – it’s just some universal language. But it’s not just transliterated (as it were). The spaceship crew, like sailors of the 18th or 19th centuries, have their own patois: people are coves, there’s lots of abbreviation and slang. More generally there are some words that are different – lungstuff, for instance, for oxygen; my favourite is quoins, for money. It doesn’t always work – it doesn’t always feel completely natural – but I especially like that the different social groups are clearly differentiated by their language, which is very real.
I love the narrative but I am really, really intrigued by the universe that Reynolds has created here. It is – I am almost certain – our solar system, but it’s an unimaginable time in the future. There’s an enormous number of worlds called the Congregation, most of which are not worlds as we know them, but small and many clearly artificial. There have been many collapses and resurgences of humanity, with concomitant loss of memory and history and mysterious rubbish left behind. The ship Fura and Adrana head out on are, brutally, junk connoisseurs – what can they find in places that might have been picked over several times in the last few centuries? But there’s a trick there, since the places with good junk are protected and dangerous. And there are alien races, too. I would really, REALLY like to see more stories set in this world.
A couple spoilery thoughts below… but the long shot is, this is a great fun novel and I’m super excited to see yet what else comes out of Reynolds’ brain.
Randomly Yours, Alex 