Wednesday Books: Good Stuff

by Doctor Science

This week: novels by Ada Palmer, Adam Rakunas, and Frances Hardinge; novella by Seanan McGuire.

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Dinner was delayed slightly because I was reading the last few pages of Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning while snapping beans.

I love the style, how much everyone talks and thinks, the layers of world-building and characters. The fact that the Enlightenment includes both Voltaire and De Sade.

One part of the world-building that frankly baffles me: how monolingual most people seem to be. The fact that people talk in *Latin* to conceal the topic of their conversation from speakers of other Indo-European, and even Romance!, languages, wtf. Particularly surprising because their Enlightenment heroes were all polyglots.

There's one thing that bugs me, but I don't know if it's going to be dealt with later or not. This is yet another futuristic novel (of a string I've read recently) with hereditary aristocracy and even rulership, where the aristocrats/princes include people of exceptional charisma, intelligence, and beauty. That trick never works! -- at least, not when the general population is healthy and well-fed. Regression to the mean is one driver toward democracy, especially since charisma seems to be poorly heritable (or not at all). Contemplate Prince Charles if you find yourself thinking that a long line of royal ancestors will tend to produce exceptional leaders.

Similarly, I can't figure out why control of the transport network is so hyper-centralized: not just in one group, but one family. Why would people do that? Wouldn't it make more sense to have more people doing it, in more places (not an earthquake zone, for instance), and have the workers chosen on the basis of skills/talent/experience, not family membership? Am I missing something?

Basically, I can't figure out if Palmer has almost forgotten about democracy and how it works, or if there are guillotines in these aristocrats' future.

Wow, what a complicated book. This is SF you have to keep your brain on for. Written in a 18th-century style including digressions, talking to the reader, and Homeric similes, it is actively in dialogue with the Enlightment: Voltaire and Diderot, Madame de Pompadour and De Sade. It's a novel of ideas, plot, and world-building, past and future. I wonder if I should lend it to my mother, who loves Ideas and litfic but usually finds SFF unappealing.

My response can only be love when the author calls the book part of "the path which flows from Gilgamesh and Homer to the stars." That's it, that's why I love SFF.

I've left more detailed comments on the spoiler thread at Making Light.

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Windswept by Adam Rakunas. It's such a goddamn relief to read a science fiction or fantasy novel that doesn't focus on aristocrats of some sort. "Windswept" is tropical-colored noir, with the focus on people who do dirty, hard work and don't get paid enough to do it. Our protagonist, Padma Mehta, is a union rep with a (highly-specific) alcohol problem, trying to take care of her people while keeping more than half an eye on her plan to retire and run a distillery. The planet she's on, Santee, is part of the underbelly of interstellar civilization, growing sugarcane for the molasses that's a basic chemical feedstock. It really makes you think about the kind of work that has to go on behind the scenes of your favorite space adventure, and how unsung the people doing it tend to be.

I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel, coming out next month. My only uncertainty is whether I'll get a hardcopy (paperback) or an e-book. The paperback of "Windswept" is set in a font just a bit smaller than my old eyes are comfortable reading -- I can do it, but it makes my vision blurry if I read for more than a couple hours. I'll probably get the e-book if the rest of Casa Science doesn't care for "Windswept", but a paperback if the others want to read it, too.

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The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge continues to cement her rep, for me, as a writer of exceptionally sophisticated YAs. I'm not even sure what makes "The Lie Tree" YA except the age of the protagonist, and the fact that there's no sex and little violence. No-one's motives are simple or unlayered, there's a good deal of description of setting and character ... aha, that's what it reminds me of! Joan Aiken! But with extra layers of complexity in the characters. I think I need to re-read "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase" for comparison purposes.

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Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. A great premise, beautifully creepy prose, and not the expected ending. My only problem: it's a murder mystery, and it fails the John Donne Test. That's a matter of personal preference, of course.

Comments

[Mooseking]

For Too like the Lightning; I haven't read it yet, but the author's Big Idea article imagined it as future derived from the past. So maybe in this world democracy and such never got a shot, monarchies never failed in the ways that encouraged democracy? It sounds like one I'll want to read, carefully.

[Nigel]

Considering we (well, the Japanese at least) are already starting to farm with robots, is an interstellar civilisation really going to overworked farm workers ?

[Nigel]

Languagelog on Too Like the Lightning
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=25807

[Plarry]

What I'd like to know about Too Like the Lightning, Windswept, and all other books that start a series is: does the book stand on its own as a story?

[Doctor Science]

Nigel:

The workers aren't farmers, they're maintenance, construction, and quality control (sorting), for the most part. The kind of thing that involves a lot of pattern recognition and responding to complex situations.

[Doctor Science]

Plarry:

Windswept definitely stands on its own, it's a fully-contained story. Too Like the Lightning ... not really, there are too many things that still need explaining.

[Ugh]

Doc - I've not read SciFi in a long time, unless the Games of Thrones books count.

Any chance you could recommend 3-5 books that have been published in the past 10 years or so? Thanks!

[Doctor Science]

Ugh:

Certainly, though it would help if I knew some of your old faves.

Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series, starting with "Ancillary Justice", is a must-read: there's a reason it swept the awards.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Enh. Counter-opinion: Leckie's trilogy (or at least the first two; I've not had any inclination to try the third based on the decline in quality between the first and second) is honestly a journeyman work as far as the plot development and writing goes, and may not even rise to that level in terms of character development. It has nice world-building, but past that it's nothing special.

I'd strongly agree that not knowing what you're fond of makes it nigh-impossible to make recommendations.

[Ugh]

Fair enough. Although funny thing, I'm drawing a complete blank on what I liked years ago. Hmm.

Can I say Gillian Flynn in space? I guess something with a little mystery to it.

Not sure that helps.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

For anyone peripherally aware of Trek stuff, Redshirts by Scalzi is a total hoot.

[Doctor Science]

Well, that's not much help. Lemme see:

You should def. try Ancillary, find out if you're Team Doctor Science or Team Nombrilisme Vide. (fight! fight!)

If you like litfic, you should look at China Miéville. Try "The City & the City" and/or "Embassytown".

Most Hugo & Nebula nominees are worth looking at, to see if they're your cup of tea. The Locus Award winners are trustworthy, I find.

Good books will get left off these lists, of course, but they make a good starter set until you can say what kind of things you actually like.

[Ugh]

I know not much help - but thanks! Perhaps I will start with Ancillary and provide the tiebreaker.

Bribes are welcome.... :-)

[Nigel]

The City and the City is a great book - and also discussion fodder for the previous Donne thread.

Embassytown is a bit tougher read, though fascinating.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I'll third The City and the City.

[Kaleberg]

I'll put in a good word for Hardinge's 'Gullstruck Island' too.

Joan Aiken strikes me as writing in a slightly lighter, less allegorical style, but I understand why you might associate the two having read 'The Lie Tree'.

[Matt McIrvin]

I found Ancillary Mercy much more satisfying than Ancillary Sword. The second volume had middle-installment problems: the story seemed to go in a completely different direction from the suspenseful plot threads set up in Ancillary Justice, and concentrate mostly on a smaller-scale story with a new batch of characters. A bunch of Chekov's guns stayed unfired.

The third book seems like it's continuing the second's plot development for the first 100 pages or so (with some nice comic relief from the second Presger ambassador); then things actually start paying off.