Should ‘Better Living Through Algorithms’ Win the Hugo?

Looks like it’s time for my SECOND short story Hugo Award nominee review of 2024 (the first was How to Raise a Kraken In Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark).

This week, we have Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer.

A quick google search has revealed to me that Naomi Kritzer is no stranger to the Hugo circuit with nominations in 2016, 2019, 2020 (I’m counting Lodestars), two in 2021, and now 2024. They took wins in 2016, and 2020 (again counting Lodestars), and have been getting nominated for other awards as early as 2003.

I am . . . hugely impressed.

And a bit embarrassed that my only other coverage of this author on this blog was for Little Free Library back in 2021. Apparently I enjoyed that story but did not think it would take the award.

It would seem that if there was an algorithm for writing award worthy fiction, Kritzer has figured it out. And then gone beyond it.

Better Living Through Algorithms is both a story and not a story. It hardly feels like science fiction because its set so firmly in our modern day reality. We’re already living this premise although it isn’t one app, it’s twelve, or fifteen, or a hundred apps which should add up to something wonderful like Abelique, but — like the fabled “universal” remote — never do.

I say it’s both a story an not a story because while we have a pretty easily identifiable protagonist in Linnea, the story’s antagonist is somewhat harder to pin down. Linnea’s skepticism of Abelique kind of positions the app itself in an antagonistic role, although it never seems to do anything outright nefarious, and indeed the opposite seems to be true. It’s actually be helping people.

Of course when the app is shut down, it is because people are acting badly on the app, and again, not because of anything nefarious that the app is doing.

Of course there is the issue of privacy and the amount of data the app needs to have in order to work as magically as it does. I think there is a lot to consider here. If this data is given freely and with consent is it as big a problem?

There’s an example in which Linnea takes a picture of her closet in order for someone on the app to help her make outfit decisions. In theory she consents by snapping the photo, and could just NOT do that in order to retain privacy. But did the app do enough to allow her to make an informed decision? Abelique does not really disclose where that image is stored and what else it can be used for.

Where I feel this story does resemble a more classic mode of science fiction is the way it evaluates a technology and warns of dangers and misuse. Even more so in that there is a way we can read this in which the tech is neutral, and (inevitably) it is people using the tech which are the bad actors. Big mood right here.

There’s just so much here to consider. So many pertinent questions which we must answer not in ten years, or fifty years time, but today, as we live and breath. I won’t spoil the ending, but I think the author leaves us something of a solution but again something we must ponder and tease out for ourselves . . . as the best stories ask us to do.

Should This One Win The Award?

I’ve only read two stories so far, but this is where I would put my money if I was betting for this category.

Better Living Through Algorithms is in some ways not like any other science fiction stories I’ve read. It’s casual in it’s approach, almost simple, but as we read, we find ourselves questioning seemingly foundational story elements like the role of the antagonist. Can something BE an antagonist if all it does is help people?

Yet for all that it is “not a story” it still manages to do what many great science fiction stories have done, which is to posit potential futures of a technology. Kritzer seems to strike a neutral stance, showcasing both positive and negative side effects of the tech, but what I thought was interesting about the story, was how it was the human element which inevitably caused it to go wrong.

All of this seems extremely relevant to today’s moment, but also to the future, as the decisions we make regarding this type of tech will surely influence generations to come. Ultimately, it is this pertinence to today’s world that I think will set it above the other nominees.

That’s all I have for this week. How’d I do? Did I miss anything? Would you use an app like Abelique? Let me know in the comments!

See you next time?

Superhero Scadrial? ‘The Lost Metal’ Is Good But Hard to Pin Down.

Well we’ve made it. The end of an era. Specifically, the end of the 2nd era of Mistborn novels by Brandon Sanderson.

We’ve followed Waxillium Ladrian, Wayne (lolz Wayne doesn’t have a last name), and Marasi Colms through three previous adventures, each of which has tested our heroes not only against the worst criminals, conspirators, and evil gods in the Cosmere, but also against the conventions, tropes and themes of several different genres of Fantasy as well.

In Alloy of Law, we had the perfect alloy of a rough(s) and tumble(weed) Western mixed with Sanderson’s typical Fantasy stylings. Shadows of the Self focused on the city, and the inner depths of character, like noir but with fantasy elements. And The Bands of Mourning took on the deconstruction of Action-Adventure, with perhaps somewhat mixed results.

What is left then for The Lost Metal?

Honestly it’s pretty hard to pin down. The comparison which stands out to me the most is actually like a kind of “team up” style Superhero Film. Like the 2012 Avengers movie, in which a group of characters must work together to solve a really big problem.

This is most obvious in the Marasi chapters as she literally teams up with an Avengers-like organization, partnering with (primarily) two other heroes from other places within the Cosmere to keep an evil army from another planet from coming to Scadrial (Wow that is actually JUST like The Avengers lol).

But there is enough going on (perhaps too much going on) in The Last Metal that a one-to-one genre comparison is difficult, and perhaps not really useful anyway, because this book does not seem to be doing the same kind of deconstructive work that we’ve seen in previous Era 2 titles. It does not focus on trope subversion (it seems to play all the aforementioned super-hero stylings pretty straight) and seems to generally be trying to do its own thing.

While I felt this was somewhat a shame — part of my enjoyment of the previous books was exactly that kind of genre spoofing — ultimately I still enjoyed the book because of how it progressed the overarching Cosmere narrative, which (without spoilers) was basically to blow the whole thing wide open.

If you’re even a little bit of a Cosmere junkie, this book will be like crack cocaine for you. There are so many little details dropped so casually that my head was pretty much spinning the entire time trying to process it all. Did I know this bit of info before? Should I have seen this coming? Where does this fit in?

These were the questions going through my mind at almost every point within the novel, but especially during the aforementioned Marasi chapters. Like woah.

If these are not the parts of the story you enjoy, or if this is somehow your first Cosmere book (weird flex starting on the fourth book of a series but ok), then it’s hard to say what your experience will be. I’ll admit that even I had to eventually just let these details go by as there was too much to fully investigate or consider. And once I kinda stopped paying attention to the all the Cosmere connections, I still feel the story was serviceable if somewhat crowded.

Finally, I felt myself getting a bit sad, and almost grieving a little while reading this one, as it is presumably the last Wax and Wayne book we’ll read. And with that realization, came the realization that there was still so much I had hoped to see and explore before these stories were through.

For instance . . . the entire Malwish (southern?) territories. Perhaps they will get their own spin off in like a Dawnshard/Edgedancer type novel or novella, but so far as I know, this has yet to be announced. Sigh . . .

Give This One A Read?

Yep! If you’ve been trying to “keep up with the Cosmere” I think it’s virtually a must. If you’re just looking for a good send off of these beloved characters, I’d say The Lost Metal is a satisfying read on this front as well.

If you’re hoping for the same kind of nuanced commentary and genre deconstruction present in previous outings of the series, you may be somewhat disappointed as I didn’t feel this book continued that approach, but ultimately I did feel that it was an enjoyable read overall.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this one yet? What were your thoughts? Were there any lingering questions you wanted answered? Any places you wished you could have seen? Let me know in the comments. I’m looking forward to talking about this one!

Until next time!

Skip the Hype: Douglas Preston’s ‘Extinction’ Fails to Deliver

Generally, I hate posting about a book I didn’t like on this blog. Celebrate the things you love, and don’t bother with the things you don’t.

However, Extinction by Douglas Preston was sent to me through Netgalley with the assumption that I would post an honest review, and so I feel a bit compelled to go against the above advice. I read somewhere that they keep track of whether or not you’re actually reviewing the books you get, and not doing so may hurt your chances of getting something later. I’m not sure whether that is true or not, but I figure why risk it.

Anyway, a bit about this book and why it didn’t really do it for me.

Namely, this book felt SLOW. Generally, I’m a big fan of precision and attention detail. A well researched book is a well written book. However, there’s a balance here that is potentially difficult to achieve, and I think the crucial element to getting that balance ‘right’ actually has less to do with how much detail an author provides, and more to do with what the audience expects those details are about.

I’m going to just get this comparison out of the way early since it will doubtless come up, but in a book like Jurassic Park, we patiently read (and if you’re me enjoy) a veritable ton of information about DNA, how genes work, and how de-extinction could work, but we do so because we’ve been promised DINOSAURS WILL EXIST (!!) and wow what an amazing and awe inspiring thing that is.

If you’re hoping that Extinction will provide something of an update (after all JP is over 30 years old) to that science, you’ll be severely disappointed as very little time is devoted to it. Most of the exposition in Extinction seems to be focused more on police procedure and depicting a ‘realistic’ investigation.

As such, there are long stretches of this book which felt like they had little or nothing to do with de-extinction at all, and could have taken place anywhere, and been about any random crime. It seems to me, that the hook for this title was its connection to prehistoric life, and while this connection does take on more prominence with a twist towards the end of the book, Extinction expects its reader to work through about 75% of the story before getting to this point.

Something else which stood out to me, was the book’s orientation towards its characters. In general, I felt like the book spent more time setting up characters we don’t like to fail, rather than building up characters we do like to triumph. This is my first Douglas Preston book, and in general I’ve read very few thrillers, so I’m not yet certain whether this is a convention of the author or the genre, but it didn’t quite land for me. I like to see a ‘bad’ character get their ‘just desserts’ (lolz) as much as the next person, but here it felt a bit one-note.

In the afterword, Preston writes: “My novel Extinction is a way for me to say to readers: welcome to the Island of Dr. Moreau.” In some ways this is a good comparison and one of the areas in which I felt the book succeeded was in presenting some argument surrounding the ethics of de-extinction.

One character in particular, chief scientist Marius Karman, actually suggests that we have a moral imperative to resurrect species which we had a hand in the extinction of. I’ve seen this argument around in other places, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen it come up in a work of fiction.

On the surface, this argument seems reasonable, but I think the novel is able to show that this kind of thinking doesn’t work wholesale, and isn’t a good idea for every species.

So Should I Read This One or Not?

Ultimately, I’d say it’s ok to miss this one. The best comparison I have for the experience of reading this book would be like watching a show like NCIS. While the story is kind of sandwiched between a unique (ish) premise, and a action-packed finale, most of this book felt like boilerplate police procedural, unengaged with the very premise which hooked readers in the first place.

Where the book succeeds, is perhaps in updating some of the moral argument around genetic engineering, though there is only slight reference to the state of the science behind such issues.

That’s all I have for this week. What are your thoughts? Am I missing something big here? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

A Short But Powerful Read: A Review of Fonda Lee’s Untethered Sky

It can be easy, I think, to get cute when reviewing novellas. Even having read some fairly heavy/profound stories in that form (looking at you The Deep), the shorter page count always pulls me towards trivialization instead of, perhaps, proper consideration.

Romp, lark, gambol (why have I never described a book as a gambol!). A tasty morsel. A delicious snack. These are the ways it feels appropriate to describe something small — that we are enthusiastic about — even when the only thing small about something is the form.

It would be a mistake to apply any of these terms to Untethered Sky. Lee’s Green Bone Saga may have a more sprawling scope, but this dive into the perils of obsession and their consequences for relationships, is no less affective on the reader.

Though it was perhaps more muted than some of her other works, I still finished reading this one with a feeling of: Ooof.

Don’t be mistaken, it’s not my intent to drive readers away by pointing out the shades of grimdark in Ester’s (the MC’s) journey. In fact it’s just the opposite. If you’re looking for a nuanced, highly evocative story, you could do much worse than Untethered Sky.

Tight prose, worldbuilding and family drama is the currency of the realm in most stories by Fonda Lee (see Jade City and Jade War specifically), and while Untethered Sky does trade in this currency, I was excited to see other elements of story telling taking prominence.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference between this work and previous stories lies with the actual prose used to tell Ester and Zahra’s tale. I stopped many times while reading to appreciate the poetry of a line, or the sense of wonder derived from a description. Considering much of the action takes place in open grassy fields or cramped but relatively featureless wooded environs, I was quite often impressed with the author’s ability to make these seemingly blank spaces interesting and even beautiful.

We’re meant to believe that Ester considers her Roc the most beautiful and terrifying creature that exists, and while we are sometimes told this straight out, more often we are left to derive it from the language and awe with which the creatures are described. To me, there was no doubt, and that assurance rests in the thoughtful and often lyrical prose through which the birds are described.

However, I would say that even with this lyrical — almost fairytale-like — use of language, Untethered Sky still feels very grounded in ‘the real’ as compared to stories like Shannon Chakraborty’s Daevabad Series with which it shares the use of monsters like Rocs and Manticores from Arabian and Persian folklore.

I attribute this mostly to (I believe) the complete lack of magic within the story. Gods and religion are referenced briefly but even the evil manticores are shown to be living, breathing, flesh and blood animals.

Another aspect of the story which I felt showed a kind of evolution from one work to the next was the way in which relationships are handled within Untethered Sky. In the Green Bone Saga, the thrust of the story was clearly centered around loyalty to family, responsibility for past history, and the bonds that are formed or broken through shared trauma.

In Untethered Sky relationships are again paramount to the meaning of the story, however they emphasize completely different aspects of the theme. Ester’s family are either (small spoiler) dead or estranged, and her only real family are the other Rukhers living within the same camp who all prioritize their dedication to their craft above friendship, love, or intimacy. Bonds are found more than forged, and they’re found somewhat accidentally it seems.

Of course there is the bond between Rukher and Roc, which caries the primary weight of argument throughout the story. I will not delve too deeply into the ways in which this bond is pressured as I do not want to spoil too much about the story, but I will say that its use felt different than the stories I’ve read from this author in the past, and while it caused me all sorts of feelings, ultimately I was here for it.

The last thing I’ll mention was not really something I caught on my own, but something I found interesting while reading other reviews of the book, and trying to gather my thoughts about this novella. Emily over at EmilyRandolphEpstein.com wrote in her Book Recommendation: Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee post that she felt many of the characters within this story had autistic traits which were able to “. . . thrive within the very regimented lifestyle required of the Royal Mews.” and that “. . . none of these potentially autistic-coded characters came across as a stereotype.”

Something similar was noted a little while ago in The Mimicking of Known Successes. Perhaps there are already heaps of stories which feature this kind of representation and I’m only now noticing, or perhaps its a trend we’re beginning to discover. Either way, it seemed a thing worth noting for any seeking out that kind of representation in the stories they’re reading and just generally another positive thing in an already fantastic novella.

Give This One A Read?

Absolutely! Though it’s not necessarily a easy read, there is a great deal to discover within its relatively few pages. As it fits into the cannon of Fonda Lee’s other works, I would say Untethered Sky was a welcome departure from previous modes, and an interesting evolution of the skills and craft we’ve come to expect from this author.

That’s all I have for this week! Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I’m excited to talk about this one!

With Arm of the Sphinx, the ‘Books of Babel’ Is Quickly Becoming a New Favorite Series

I think we’re reaching Green Bone or Deavabad levels of excitement with this Books of Babel series.

Back in February, I was pretty much gushing about Bancroft’s character work in Senlin Ascends. For Arm of the Sphinx, its the twists. Of course its hard to write about this without giving the game away (which I won’t do), but let’s just say that this book is easily living up to my favorite mantra in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere novels:

“There’s always another secret.”

It seems like even small things are not what they seem, and Bancroft really leverages dramatic irony — when the audience knows more than the character — to great effect. I’m also quite astounded by the thought and planning it must have taken to weave these threads together. Things in Arm of the Sphinx are often unexpected, but never outright contradictory to what we know from book 1 and so it seems he must have had many of these ideas at least in mind if not fully fleshed out when writing that first book.

It has me wondering, and somewhat nervous (in a good way), what groundwork has been laid (that I missed), which will take me by surprise in book 3.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that we finally meet the enigmatic Sphinx in this book (they’re right there in the title lol). What a bizarre, eccentric and weirdly sinister character. Despite Senlin and friends flying around in an airship for about the first half of the story (I was actually a little worried this book would just be pirating and we wouldn’t explore any more of the tower at all), I felt that it was the time we spent with the Sphinx in which the book fully embraced its potential as a piece of Steampunk fantasy.

What strange and evocative technological marvels we get to experience, many of which should feel like old news in our modern times, but Bancroft really manages to inject a new sense of awe into them.

During the first levels of our ascent through the ringdoms of the tower (meaning while I was reading Senlin Ascends) I felt the only major weakness of the story was the book’s depiction of women. Senlin’s wife Marya is basically a MacGuffin, and Iren and Edith read a bit like male heroes in dresses (although I guess Iren doesn’t actually ever wear a dress). I finished book one hoping for a Marya POV chapter somewhere in the future, which I felt would give the story some complexity if not some much needed diversity.

In Arm of the Sphinx I’m slightly disappointed we still never got to see the tower through Marya’s eyes, but I’m happy to report that our other leading women take on more nuance and complexity through the course of this second book. In fact, Senlin isn’t even around in one chunk of the book, which just gives Edith and Iren more time to shine.

We also have Voleta taking on a more prominent roll. In my humble opinion, results here are mixed. I think she’s supposed to be around eighteen but read much younger to me. On the surface, this may not have been a problem if there was some backstory reason for her stunted maturity, which given the general anything-can-and-does-happen vibe of The Tower could have probably been pretty easy to explain away.

However, the Voleta we see in book one was essentially a prisoner in a brothel. Though her brother Adam tries to shield her as much as possible, I felt a large part of the dynamic there is that he’s mostly absent and ineffectual. As such, I would have expected Voleta to be more mature/jaded, and less childlike. Her devil-may-care disposition towards authority and personal safety (she should really be more freaked out by spiders) would still fit, but perhaps fit just a little better.

Despite the complaints above, I still managed to love and enjoy so many, many parts of this book. I’ll begin winding this love letter down with a passage which stuck out to me towards the end of the book. It reads:

“The tradition among libraries of boasting about the number of volumes in their collection is well established, but surely, it is not aggregation that makes a library; it is dissemination. Perhaps libraries should bang on about how many volumes are on loan, are presently off crowding nightstands, and circulating through piles on the mantel, and weighing down purses. Yes, it is somewhat vexing to thread through the stacks of a library, only to discover an absence rather than the sought after volume, but once the ire subsides, doesn’t one feel a sense of community? The gaps in a library are like footprints in the sand: They show where others have gone before; they assure us we are not alone.“

I think we just need to hire Bancroft for the Library’s marketing team. Which library? All of them. Just in general.

Obviously given my background, this insight was much enjoyed and highly relevant to me personally, but I bring it up in this post to do more than just prattle on and feel seen. I included it as an example of the level of quality and care that Bancroft brings to every scene within Arm of the Sphinx. I’m sure there are a hundred other pieces of wisdom hidden within its pages which I do not have time to hunt down and record, but it feels like enough to know they are there.

Give This One A Read?

Please yes. The Books of Babbel is quickly joining the ranks of stories like the Greenbone Saga, Deavabad books, and Cosmere novels as all-time favorites. And Arm of the Sphinx only strengthens that positioning. With twist after twist (on things large and small), Bancroft continues to ratchet up my excitement about these novels.

Though we still never saw a point of view from Marya, I felt like we made great strides in fixing some of my issues with Senlin Ascends in regards to “writing women”, and while Voleta’s character seemed a bit off to me, it was not enough to detract from the things I enjoyed about the story, which were its sense of awe and (particularly Steampunk) brand of wonder, as well as Bancroft’s unique insight into a plethora of topics like art and libraries.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone been climbing this tower along side me? What are your thoughts so far? How stoked are you for The Hod King? And what has been your favorite part of this series to date?

Leave your answers in the comments. I’m excited to talk about this one!

The Unexpected Party Never Ends: #TolkienReadingDay & Why The Hobbit Is Still Special

Happy Monday everyone!

We’re mixing up our normal alternating Friday/Saturday schedule to bring a special “broadcast” (it’s a blog post) for a fledgling tradition here on A&A, #TolkienReadingDay.

Yes, it was decided in 2003 that March 25th, the day in which The One Ring was destroyed should be a day of celebration, in which we read and spread our love for all things J.R.R. Tolkien.

Last year, I reviewed the 1968 BBC Radio adaptation of The Hobbit, quite by accident as I ordered the wrong audio edition of the story from the library. It was an unexpected party and despite some cringe worthy dialogue and confusing sound design (for which the BBC won many awards), I did enjoy the presentation overall. It would seem that Tolkien’s worldbuilding and characters are enough regardless of the medium through which the story is told.

This year, I got my act together, and managed to get a physical copy of The Hobbit, again from the library. Apparently it was the 175th printing (published in 2020) of the story. I make note of this, because apparently there are many editions of the story floating around, with the biggest changes to the story occurring in editions of the story published after The Lord of The Rings came out. (which makes some sense)

The forward in the 2020 edition makes note of some small continuity changes like correcting inconsistencies in dwarf naming and lineage, but also notes that the “Riddle Game” (in this edition chaptered Riddles in the Dark) as set down in the ‘Red Book’ (I’m guessing the original edition?) by Bilbo has changed after the true events were “eventually revealed (under pressure)”. But ultimately the reader should not concern themselves with the changes if it is their first outing in Middle Earth.

My inner history nerd wanted to fall down a research (hobbit) hole, attempt to find this ‘Red Book’ so I could compare the differences and see what affect the changes had on my understanding of the story, but I decided to forego all that in order to accomplish what I originally set out to do . . . simply enjoy the book.

And enjoy it I did!

What first stood out to me as I was reading was just how humorous and whimsical Tolkien’s writing can be. Perhaps I’ve been over influenced by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies (I’m actually wondering if I ever saw The Hobbit Trilogy in full), but any happenings in Middle-Earth have always seemed like a rather serious affair to me. Yes, there is some humor in those movies, but in general it is all very grim and severe.

There is a way in which The Hobbit (book) moves towards this more stoic attitude as the story goes onward, but in the beginning it is quite whimsical. The infamous unexpected party reads almost like the opening of Disney’s Snow White, and the following tidbit of in-world history feels more like a Terry Pratchett book than Tolkien:

“…and knocked their king Golfimbul’s head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards and went down a rabbit hole, and in this way the battle was won and game of golf invented at the same moment”

Lolz. I fully imagine something like this happening to Carrot Ironfoundersson of The Watch but not as much to some Middle-Earthian King. In any case I was delighted by its inclusion.

Something else which surprised me, was how relevant the story felt to a modern audience. There’s a way in which all speculative fiction, whether set in the past or in the future, is actually about the time in which it was written and reading old books can sometimes feel akin to digging up a time capsule from beneath an ancient oak or perhaps in some extreme cases, shining a light into a dusty old tomb.

I’m always a little nervous when reading a ‘classic’ work that what we’ll find is at best irrelevant to a modern audience (looking at you Dune Part 2) , or worse actively harmful. We’ve seen a few examples of the latter on this blog with works such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Death on the Nile so I feel relatively justified in my apprehension.

If The Hobbit embodies any embarrassing ideals, they are not obvious. It seems there is active debate on the use of race in its sequels, The Lord of the Rings, but within this volume, nothing really jumped out at me (although a more critical look at Goblins within the story might be warranted).

I can’t recall any women in the story (something I think The Hobbit films attempt to address), but it does not feel like a malicious omission.

For a story that is little more than a mere decade away from its 100th birthday (although I suppose it’s the one hundred and eleventieth birthday that matters), I’d say that this is actually pretty surprising and kind of refreshing. And as I mentioned earlier, there were actually a few parts which felt quite modern.

For instance, after Lake-town is attacked, we have the following call for a change in leadership:

“We have had enough of the old men and the money-counters!” And people further off took up the cry: “Up the Bowman, and down with Moneybags!” pg 252.

With the ages of presidential candidates in the U.S. being in their late 70s and early 80s, I think many might share this sentiment in regards to having had “enough of the old men”. With the top 1% of earners making more than the other 99% combined, “down with Moneybags!” also feels quite relevant (although perhaps this is a somewhat timeless maxim).

So is it Worth It All These Years Later

Yup! Middle-Earth is a vast and perhaps overwhelming prospect, but The Hobbit is the perfect toe in the water. Not too grim, not too silly, a story which in a lot of ways feels just right. I’ll admit that Tolkien’s humor and whimsy were somewhat surprising but ultimately much needed. And while many stories from ‘back in the day’ have not aged well, I felt this one stood the test of time with remarkable prescience.

Certainly a perfect read for #TolkienReadingDay

What do you all think? Is this still a beloved classic? Or was there something I missed? What’s your favorite part of the story? Leave your answers in the comments!

Until next time!

Deep or Dated? Re-Reading The Bands of Mourning

No promises, but I think 2024 is the year I FINALLY get caught up on the Cosmere.

According to the QuilToLive: Cosmere Reading Order Guide (which I only chose because it was the easiest list to understand), there are currently (as of this post) 19 ish Cosmere novels?

Even though Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors (and I’ve been reading him religiously since like 2007), I’ve made very few attempts to review his work on this blog. I think the sheer quantity of work has probably held me back.

However, with this review of The Bands of Mourning, I should finally be finished rereading Cosmere books (if not reviewing them), and starting new-to-me Cosmere adventures with The Lost Metal.

Will I finish the last Wax / Wayne book and 3 secret projects in time for the release of the next Stormlight book in December? Only time will tell, but it feels like a good challenge for me to undertake this year.

In any case, I found The Bands of Mourning to be much more interesting in this year of our lord, 2024, than I think I gave it credit for when I originally read it back in April of 2016 (wow I’m feeling old).

Namely, I was not expecting it to feel so dated.

As I mentioned in my review of Alloy of Law, one of the major things I enjoy about this “Era” of Mistborn novels, is the way Sanderson mixes genres to create a unique “alloy”. For AoL, he mixed the Western and Fantasy genres. For Shadows of Self (which I’ve apparently just neglected to review), I feel pretty confident the genres being mixed were Noir and Fantasy.

For The Bands of Mourning?

Old school Pulp Action-Adventure (and of course Fantasy) complete with tomb raiding, a train robbery, and a clandestine enemy base infiltration scene. Of course all of this is made much richer and more interesting through its highly detailed Fantasy setting, as well as easter eggs and call-backs to other books, both Sanderson’s own, and allusions and homage to other authors.

One aspect of Sanderson’s writing that I generally consider a strength, is his ability to take the most well-worn or nearly invisible tropes, and subvert them for dramatic or comedic affect. Without spoilers, the original Mistborn trilogy takes a huge swing at fantasy tropes like The Chosen One, the use of Prophecy within the genre, and the kinds Great Evil / Dark Lord types found in tons of fantasy after Tolkien.

Previous Wax and Wayne outings have also implemented some similarly fun trope deconstruction of the Western and Noir genres, although these were perhaps not as central to the plot as in the original Mistborn and often done for laughs.

This is indeed the tack Sanderson took with The Bands of Mourning taking many shots at the action-adventure genre, archeologist-adventurer stories in general, and probably Indiana Jones in particular. Much of the humor in this book focused around traps, undermining their dramatic effect by rendering them insignificant and ineffectual (perhaps an acknowledgement that real Tomb Defenses are Lame).

These types of subversions are pretty low stakes, easy to read, and probably somewhat timeless. They held up for me on a second read almost a decade removed from the book’s original publication date.

Where the stakes get higher, and for me, a little more dated, was the deconstruction this novel does surrounding gender roles in the action-adventure genre.

I felt these themes were mainly approached through Marasi and Steris’s character development.

Marasi is interesting in that she is not only trying to find her own place in her world (ie the crew, her profession, and society at large), but she is also grappling with her identity as it compares to Vin, the Ascendant Warrior, whose legacy has had a profound effect on gender roles within Elendel.

Some criticism that I’ve seen about the original Mistborn trilogy, is that Vin is the ONLY female character within the cast, and as such, will be seen as a stand in for ALL women. It’s perhaps more eloquently put on the Strong Female Character wikipedia page:

“When these roles are displayed with a small scope of characteristics, it becomes the default expectation for what a woman should be while leaving so many other types of women underrepresented.”

Throughout the original Mistborn trilogy, Vin is one of the most powerful pieces on the chess board. Her combat abilities are, even by in-universe standards, supernatural. Because so much of the action of the story involves her using those abilities, it can be said that her character is still championing traditionally masculine traits. As the lone woman in the story, you don’t need to be a coinshot to make the leap to the idea that women are valuable in stories if they behave like men.

Also, the books have often been called out for their use of the Not Like Other Girls trope which essentially implies a value judgement (better/worse) because the subject does not fit into the normal / accepted confines of “feminine”.

Screen Rant’s 7 Problems A Mistborn Series Could Fix From The Books explains it:

“In addition to lacking female characters, Mistborn tends to put down any women who aren’t Vin — or at least Vin does, and much of the story is told from her perspective. Vin doesn’t trust easily, but she often gives the male characters more slack than the women she meets. In some cases, this is justified; Shan Elariel certainly deserves her scorn. However, Vin judges allies like Tindwyl, and she distrusts Allrianne for all the wrong reasons. It seems anyone with frivolous or feminine tastes meets Vin’s disapproval, even though she spends much of the books grappling with her own desire to embrace such qualities.”

These things are . . . problematic.

Obviously, Sanderson cannot rewrite already published work (or shouldn’t?), but he can acknowledge mistakes when they’re made and try to improve as he writes more books (I personally think this is something which has allowed him to stay not only relevant, but beloved across his MANY books, and decades of his writing). In many ways, I see Marasi’s interiority and character arc as an attempt at engaging with the criticism leveled at the original trilogy.

It seems worth noting here that in The Bands of Mourning, there are two women (gasp) so already we’re making a ‘promising start’ towards righting past wrongs. But does the book manage to break the habits of his earlier work, and all the baggage of the pulpy action adventure genre in general?

I would say results are mixed.

In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I’ll try to remain as vague as possible, but in Marasi’s case, there is a point within the novel in which she has the ability to ‘do the superhero thing’ and really save the day. It’s what she imagines Vin would do (although this is more complicated if you’ve read the original trilogy), and she briefly struggles with this fact, before passing up the opportunity and allowing Wax to fill the role.

Ultimately, it was the logical thing for her arc, and should have felt satisfying because she essentially frees herself from the shackles of Vin’s legacy and the narrow expectations of the society she lives in. However, stepping aside so that a man could save the day did not feel like a win.

I guess I could entertain the argument that the opportunity to do either, the choice, is the true win, but somehow it just doesn’t quite sit with me.

Steris’s arc looks less at past books in the series and more at the action-adventure genre as a whole. Her quest is also one of identity, with the main goal of finding her place within the crew. In one role she serves as a love interest for Wax (and I really do like them as a couple). And in a traditional pulp action adventure story, perhaps this would have been all she wrote.

For Sanderson, this is not enough (so far so good), and he endeavors — much as Steris endeavors — to find some more meaningful place for her within the story. The task is complicated by the fact that Steris does not have allomancy and cannot really fight in the same ways the other characters can (in Alloy of Law, Marasi struggles with something similar: she has allomancy, but the type of power she has is perceived as useless and small spoiler . . . it is not).

Here again we see the emphasis on combat and strength as the traits in the society which are a) masculine, and b) valued. This is no accident as this is exactly the type of world view present in pulp action adventure novels.

The stage is seemingly set for subversion.

And then I’m not really sure how but things seem to fall apart. Perhaps there is simply too many other parts of the plot to resolve? Or we don’t linger on her victory for long enough? Something else?

Steris (again as best I can without spoilers) does use her unique skill set (her overpreparedness) to resolve an issue in the resolution, and Wax does marry her in earnest (this book opens and closes with weddings) . . . her most memorable scene in the story is still somehow the one in which she literally compares herself to a piece of luggage.

And perhaps that is unfortunately what makes her arc feel so unsatisfying and not a subversion of the tropes discussed above. Despite the fact that all of the pieces are “technically” there, it still feels like she’s carried through the story. Window dressing. Someone which will generate a laugh when needed or stir emotion in our dark and brooding hero, but other than that, just another tool for the author.

Which ends up being kinda brutal, because she is truly a great character.

My final complaint about The Bands of Mourning, is that I’m starting to tire a bit on Wayne. There is a storytelling trap which writers can fall into, described in Brandon Sanderson’s own writing podcast (Writing Excuses), called Flanderizing. It was coined for The Simpsons character, Flanders, who assumedly (I haven’t watched a ton of Simpsons) became more and more 1-dimensional over time as the writers focused on his quirks, and less on interesting character development. Flanders essentially became a button the writers could press when they could feel the show should have a laugh, but there was no organic humor present.

It feels like this is what is happening to Wayne throughout The Bands of Mourning, which only gets compounded by the fact that Sanderson routinely uses the same rhetorical device, malapropism, in Wayne’s humor. I think Sanderson could feel this happening while writing Bands, and Wayne’s character takes on some more interesting shades of gray LATE in the novel, but ultimately if felt like too little too late.

Give This One A Read?

Though I’ve written A LOT of words in this post which present it unfavorably, I did enjoy the book and would certainly recommend it. The parts I enjoyed most were perhaps the easiest parts: the action, magic, humor and adventure we expect from a Brandon Sanderson novel.

The criticism I have of the book is primarily focused on its larger themes which were ambitious, and well intentioned, but ultimately felt unsatisfying. In regards to these larger themes, I found myself often wondering why The Bands of Mourning was the right book for exploring them, and why Sanderson the right author to do so.

All that said, I’m still chomping at the bit to start The Lost Metal. The flaws I’ve described above only seem to infuse this final outing with even MORE potential.

That’s all I have for this week. What are your thoughts? Have any of you read this one before? What were your favorite parts? Your least favorite? Let me know in the comments.

See you next time!

The Black God’s Drums: A Moment in Speculative Fiction

It would seem I’m becoming quite the P. Djeli Clark fan on this blog. I wrote in my review of The Book of Witches that “. . . this author just has my number. It seems like I’ll come out drooling no matter what he’s written.”

This has certainly been true for any of the books in his A Dead Djinn in Cairo series, but also for his more horror-focused works like Ring Shout.

Perhaps I wasn’t drooling at the end of The Black God’s Drums (I’ve been working really hard on that lol) but I can genuinely say I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Clark is becoming THEE Steampunk author in my mind, the one whose themes and tropes I will associate with the genre moving forward.

The Black God’s Drums, shares many elements of Clark’s other works, namely queer representation, richly detailed alternate history, and truly great cast of leading women.

Where I felt The Black God’s Drums stood apart from Clark’s canon, was its setting, and the prominence of Orisha gods and goddesses.

Focusing a bit more on the setting, I found that I could not wholly divorce Clark’s New Orleans from that of other short stories and novels I’ve read recently which took place in that (kinda weird but never dull) city.

Indeed, The Black God’s Drums felt as if it could have been happening right alongside N.K. Jemisin’s “The Effluent Engine”, which was published originally for a fundraiser in 2010 (A Story for Haiti), and then again in an anthology Steam-Powered: Lesbian Steampunk Stories (2011).

Effluent Engine was published twice more in 2018 — the same year as The Black God’s Drums debuted — once in Lightspeed Magazine, and finally in How Long Til Black Future Month (which is where I read it). This seems significant somehow and though this is pure conjecture and feels entirely too well conceived and executed, I would not be surprised if it had something to do with 2018 being New Orleans’s tricentennial.

Of course, The Ballad of Perilous Graves was never far from mind either and even though I didn’t pick out any shared elements (besides things that fly that “shouldn’t” (like boats or buses)), Clark’s novella certainly felt like it could have existed in Perilous Graves‘s history.

I felt this conversation (which might not have been intended at all; but also might have been) with other New Orleans based speculative fiction was a feature of the story, and not a bug. Much in the same way The Deep had a history which added significance and meaning to its existence beyond just the story within its pages, so too did The Black Gods Drums acquire a kind of place within the geography of speculative fiction (even if only in my own mind).

I also mentioned Orisha gods and goddesses earlier, and it would be a shame not to return to them now as they were also one of my favorite parts of the book. Because of their use and inclusion in the story, I think we might also be able to consider TBGD part of the Godpunk genre as well.

My previous experience with the Orisha pantheon, and Yoruba religion, stems mostly from books like David Mogo Godhunter, and the Nsibidi Scripts (Akata) series from Nnedi Okorafor.

I didn’t recognize Oya and Oshun from either of those books (although the Okorafor books I read a LONG time ago), so it was cool to encounter two new (to me) goddesses. Their appearance in a setting outside of Africa seemed noteworthy and if their actions in the story are anything to judge by, powerful and badass.

It’s worth mentioning that this book was nominated for a Hugo in 2019, against heavy hitters like Martha Well’s Artificial Condition, Seanan McGuire’s Beneath the Sugar Sky, and Binti: The Night Masquerade. Of the novellas I’ve read from that year, I probably would have chosen Binti, but Murderbot is also high on my list. While everything I’ve mentioned above means that The Black Gods Drums is an excellent story and well worth reading, it just didn’t quite reach the level of those other nominations for me.

Give This One Read?

Definitely. There is so much to consider in these scant 107 pages that I feel like my review is longer than the text itself. For me, Clark has proven himself to be THE Steampunk author, and this novella is a great addition to his canon. In many ways it resembles his other works, primarily in its themes of queer representation, detailed alternate history, and a great cast of female characters.

But it is also different. It’s setting in New Orleans connects it with other author’s works of the time, marking it as part of a moment in SFF. The use of the Orisha pantheon connects it still further with similar work, but also just ups the cool factor in general.

While I would not have awarded this one the Hugo myself, that doesn’t mean it isn’t still an incredible book. I hope to see Creeper and the captain in another steampunk New Orleans adventure soon!

That’s all I have for this week! What are your thoughts? Have you read this one before? Would you consider giving it a shot? What are your favorite P. Djeli Clark stories? Your fav Steam punk? Any other stories set in NOLA that I should read?

Can’t wait to read your thoughts in the comments.

Until next time!

Senlin Ascends: A Monument to Great Character Writing

I really loved this book.

There is so much within its pages that shines so brightly that it’s actually a bit hard to know where to begin.

In most books, the intricacy of the setting is what really draws me in. I love being immersed in a new world, and appreciating the time and effort an author has taken to get every little detail just right.

Of course Josiah Bancroft has displayed a phenomenal level of skill in building his ‘Tower of Babel’ but I found that it was not really the part of the book which kept me turning the pages.

What kept me coming back night after night, and what had me checking the clock at the end of each chapter to see if I had time to squeeze in just one more before I absolutely had to go to bed — what has me refreshing my amazon tracker to see how soon the sequel will arrive — is by far Bancroft’s characters.

Everyone in The Tower has an agenda. EVERYONE. Even the most inconsequential throw-away-I-just-need-a-body-here character is up to something, even if the reader doesn’t know what it is, which just makes everything feel more alive. There is a way in which I feel like this could easily sour, with loads of exposition being dumped here an there to set up the most trivial of encounters. Somehow this book avoids that.

I’m sure it will be worth my time as a writer to go back and study this further, but as a reader — and without a quote handy — my impression is that Bancroft is just super economical with his prose, able to paint whole lives in just a sentence or maybe two.

Of course Senlin’s ascension up the ‘Ringdoms’ of The Tower is somewhat episodic, with each new setting revealing an entire new world to explore. However, there are several recurring characters which tie what could be very disparate adventures back together.

What was most impressive to me about the inclusion of these recurring characters was just how much each had changed since their last appearance and what we could learn about them — what we could glean of their essence — from the differences between then an now.

Each of them has lived multitudes since their last appearance. In one way or another, each has lost innocence in some way, and each is holding a hope and a mystery close to their heart. I just wanted to spend a little more time with all of them.

Finally there is Senlin himself. A quote on the back cover of my copy from Fantasy Faction, reads: “The most unlikely yet likeable hero since a certain hobbit rushed out of Bag End leaving his second breakfast half-finished.”

There’s really not much more to say.

Senlin is an amazing protagonist because in most ways, he’s hardly amazing at all. He has no superpower other than and unending supply of hope, determination, and forgiveness. He simply refuses to see the world in the grim light which The Tower tries to cast it, mostly to his detriment, but ultimately to his triumph.

As Bancroft states in an interview published as an extra at the end of the book:

“Senlin is not a hero. He’s a human. Which means he’s a bit of an idiot. And he doesn’t really know himself, which is the cause of so much misfortune. He is slow to let go of his illusions because they’re so essential to him. When he encounters a problem, he proudly learns a lesson, but it’s often the wrong lesson. He rushes when he should linger, and he is patient when he should insist. He does learn, but slowly; he grows, but not in a straight line. Senlin’s strength, ultimately, is his adaptability. His education and his determination make him a capable chameleon. But otherwise, he’s a small man on a big adventure, which means he makes a lot of mistakes.”

Another quote from this interview which I love:

“When I’ve experienced setbacks, I don’t rise from the ashes with all the answers. I flail about. I fall over. I take a step back and fall over again. I think that developing strength and wisdom takes time and practice.”

These could be words to live by even outside the context of this novel, but I think they also really encapsulate what makes Senlin’s character so relatable and so compelling. He’s just a dude looking for his wife . . . and the dude don’t quit.

If there is one complaint I have about the book it’s that we never get any POVs of Marya. Not only do I think a few chapters from her perspective would have added to the complexity and richness of the story, but I think it would have helped steer the book away from its biggest pitfall which is its treatment of women.

Though its presumed that Marya is still alive throughout the story, ultimately, she’s a ‘refrigerator woman’ as much as any superheroes’ girlfriend, or 007 love interest.

We are teased with her memory here and there, but unfortunately she mostly reads like an object. Something for Senlin to chase after. And as the novel progresses, an ideal. Senlin does seem to struggle with this fact at several points in the novel which makes the book somewhat self-aware, but if the book is able to acknowledge this pitfall, why continue with it?

And if you’re not Marya, and are a woman in the tower, it seems that all that is left for you is prostitution. The two main arguments against this are Edith and Iren, who are both simply amazing, but in an action hero kind of way we typically associate with male heroes.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of these two characters in Arm of the Sphinx (the cover of which seems particularly symbolic of Edith), so I hope we get a little more nuance in their characters, and in general some female characters who are badass for other reasons then their skill with a weapon.

Give This One A Read

Wholeheartedly yes. Even with the complaints I had above, I still feel there is a great deal here to enjoy.

That’s all I have for this week! Let me know your thoughts? Has anyone read this one yet? Which Ringdom did you enjoy the most? Would you want to visit any?

Let me know in the comments. See you next time!

Beyond Gaslamp: The Unseen Depths of The Mimicking of Known Successes

It’s often the case that a book just cannot outrun what is being said about it. And no matter how much I try to remove expectation from my reading, it is even more often the case that I will still have plenty of preconceived notions at the start, and ultimately a large part of my enjoyment of the book will hinge on whether or not I felt the book met the expectations I had going in.

If the book is by a certain author which I know and like? I’ll have one set of expectations. If the book is simply getting dragged on TikTok? Then I’m sure I’ll have a different set of expectations.

If Charlie Jane Anders is quoted on the cover calling the book “An utter triumph!”? Well . . .

The Mimicking of Known Successes does contain many very cool pieces, but I couldn’t help but feel as I read it, that I was just on the verge of being blown away by something incredible, which unfortunately just never happened.

The coolest of the ‘very cool pieces’ for me was definitely its setting. Mossa’s and Pleiti’s investigation (and inevitable romance) takes place on a network of ring platforms orbiting Jupiter. Humanity has resorted to such extreme methods of survival because Earth is no longer inhabitable, destroyed by . . . well a general lack of care for the planet (I don’t remember if a particular environmental disaster is mentioned or not).

Woah.

Older has clearly put a lot of thought into how this society works, and the ring platforms feel real and quite plausible despite a relatively little amount of scientific explanation. Things like ‘atmoscarfs’ and rail cars are simply a part of everyday life on Giant, and we don’t need to think much about them, or understand really anything about how they work in order to be immersed in what they do.

Perhaps the most clever part of all this, is how Jupiter’s harsh climate is used to simultaneously put us further in the future, while sending us back technologically. Residents of Giant have gone back to relying on people to deliver messages and refer to news items read in broadsheets, because presumably Jupiter’s atmosphere is so harsh as to make things like cell phones or wifi untenable (it is not particularly clear to me how much they rely on computers but it seems they must still exist.) And of course, everything is dependent on trains and train schedules since nobody drives (something which is a seemingly amoral artifact of the past as it is just impossible given space and resources of the platforms).

In this way, we have a setting that is rather Gaslamp in its aesthetic, but without any Tolkienesque magic or trappings of Victorian society. If I do end up reading a sequel, I would hope to see a little bit more about how said society (aka government) runs as Giant seems a bit utopian — and honestly quite cozy — despite its seemingly harsh environment.

During my first read through, I thought this book sagged somewhat in its characters. My initial impression of Mossa and Pleiti was that they both felt a bit wooden somehow with most of their history and attraction for one another being implied rather than shown.

Upon discussing the pair with my book club, and searching around on the internet, it’s become apparent to me that at least one but likely both characters are somewhere on the Asperger’s / Autism spectrum. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/18ldaje/comment/kdwtfc4/)

In Mossa it’s perhaps more obvious, but also something we’re more familiar with if we’ve ever read a mystery before. She’s focused on all the wrong things (like work and solving murders), while aloof to everything else (like relationship signals and eating the proper amount of meals in a day). She’s intelligent, knows it, and can be somewhat dramatic about it. She’s very reminiscent of detectives like Sherlock, Dupin and Poirot.

I learned that Sherlock in particular is linked with Asperger’s / Autism, with much of his almost superhero-like deductive reasoning abilities attributed to his being on the spectrum. It might be easy to chalk up Mossa’s disorder to contrivance and reliance on detective tropes put forth in Sherlock but given that Older has approached this topic before through the character of in Mishima in the short story Narrative Disorder and later in Infomocracy, I’m more convinced that its representation here is thoughtful and nuanced.

Pleiti is a bit more enigmatic. She’s an academic with some clearly held opinions about right and wrong (and the environment). And I would say that she’s a lot less obvious than Mossa in her presentation, but I still think the shoe fits here as well.

Give This One a Read?

It’s really hard for me to come to a firm recommendation on this one either way. Though the book ended up being more nuanced than I originally thought (and I learned a great deal), the romantic parts still seemed too understated, and I found myself mostly wanting to know more about the worldbuilding.

That’s all I have for this one. Let me know your thoughts. Did I miss anything important? Is anyone excited for the sequel: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles?