Book review: Jo Walton "Just City"

This was an easy and pleasant read. But it could have been so much better if it had actually tackled the premise that it promised. The premise seemed ambitious; ir promised speculative fiction with the capital S. But it didn't deliver.

The Just City in the title of the book is the city that Plato talked about in the Republic. The story describes the social experiment of the Republic implemented in real life. It's set on an island somewhere, presumably, in the Mediterranean sea, in an undefined time in the prehistory. The time it's set in is before the rise of the classical world. Even Illiad and Odyssey had not yet been written. It doesn't matter, because the inhabitants of the island are completely shut off from the surrounding world and have no interaction with it. Most of the inhabitants are 10-year-old children (10080 of them), that were bought from slave traders of different eras, and brought to this island, across time, to be raised according to the Platonic concepts of justice. They are expected to implement Plato's Just City in real life. They are schooled by a number of teachers from different eras of history, and all of them have one thing in common is that at some point they prayed to Athene. For it was Athene that set up this experiment, and transported people through time to bring them here.

The plot of the book is rather uneventful, but I was hoping for plot twists based on the moral dilemmas these people face, and how they have to adjust their experiment when it is not turning out as planned. Of course, the experiment does not turn out as Plato envisioned, because people are people and they bring their human natures with them here. They also bring their prejudices, perceptions, beliefs, and ways of doing things from their eras. So, not surprisingly, even in the Just City rape victims are still responsible for their rape.

What's odd is that the "masters" -- the teachers who are responsible for the upbringing of these 10080 children -- do not question the notion of justice beyond the Platonic ideal. This ideal was held by a person who lived 2000+ years ago, and much of it doesn't jibe with our modern notion of justice. And many of the masters were from eras historically close to ours, or even beyond ours.

So it's strange that none of the teachers entertain a more modern paradigm of justice, even in the matters of life and death. Such as availability of modern medicine. Athene "imported" something from technologically advanced era (I won't say what, because one of the plot developments hinges on that), so she could have imported advanced medicine as well. And yet they don't treat sick newborns, but "expose" them, i.e. leave them in the wilderness to die. They oddly think it's more humane than to kill them. They do it even to the babies with small birth defects like cleft lip or palate, which are entirely correctable in our times. What about treatment of injuries and illnesses that surely must have occurred among those 10080 children, because of sheer statistical likelihood? Was their medicine as barbaric as the medicine of the ancient times? To be fair, one of the teachers mentions "mold drugs", so apparently they did import the antibiotics from the future. But what about everything else? I would think that realistically this question would have popped up very early in the existence of the city, and I also think that those teachers who came from the more modern times would find it a gross violation of ethics to not provide lifesaving treatments when they could be brought in from the future. And if you are dedicating your whole life to put a vision of justice in reality, then surely you would assign the utmost importance to ethical questions?

In other words, I expect that realistically in such a city there would be never ending debates, serious arguments, maybe even fights over whose ethical system is considered the most just. Yet none of it happens. Everybody leads largely untroubled existences filled with philosophy, music, arts and sports, and nobody runs into ethically ambiguous situations, in which Plato's vision directly contradicts their own internal sense of justice.

To be fair, something similar does start to happen towards the end, but it was a bit too late to make me "buy" into the book. The whole book seemed like one big missed opportunity to get deeply into ambiguities and paradoxes of justice.

ArmadilloCon 2015: New Feminist Science Fiction

Beside book and story recommendations, this panel on the best recent feminist science fiction and fantasy involved a discussion on what the panelists would like to see more in the feminist SF/F.

Feminist speculative fiction writers, recommended by our panelists

Stina Leicht recommends:

Kameron Hurley, Elizabeth Bear, Ann Leckie, Nisi Shawl, N. K. Jemison, G. Willow Wilson.

Katherine Sanger mentioned science fiction written by men that has awesome female characters, but it went by too fast for me to write down the names (-- E.)

Nancy Jane Moore recommends:

Andrea Hairston -- her work "Mindscape" really plays with gender stuff. Jennifer Marie Brissett "Elysium". Also, Aqueduct books. If you need a reading list of feminist SF, just go to the Aqueduct books page. And anything on the Tiptree awards page.

Kelley Eskridge's collection Dangerous Space. It has a character named Mars, and I defy you to tell me whether Mars is male or female.

Going into fantasy world -- Laurie J. Marks, whose Elemental Logic series starts with Fire Logic. Gender politics, war and peace, you name it, it is covered in the Elemental Logic.

Caroline Yoahim recommends:

Nicola Griffith Hild -- historical fantasy. She is a really intelligent female character. There is a freedom for her to explore sexuality in the way that was not available to women.

Tina Connoly: IronSkin, Copperhead, and Silverblind: steampunk Jane Eyre with fairies.

Nnedi Okorafor Who Fears Death

Nalo Hopkinson writes fantastic feminist stuff, such as Brown Girl in the Ring.

Short fiction

Caroline Yoachim recommends the Crossed Genres magazine. Of the notable stories there she recommends these:

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley "Space travel loses its allure when you've lost your moon cup".

Rachael K. Jones "Makeisha in Time" -- story of a black woman who lapses backward in time.

Alyssa Wong "The Fisher Queen" is up for a Nebula this year. It is a mermaid story, and some themes in it require trigger wanings. Cost of not speaking up against injustice.

Sofia Samatar "Selkie Stories are for Losers".

Amanda Downum recommends:

Kij Jonhson short story "Spar";

Catherine Valente's Fairyland series for children that starts with "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making".

What they would like to see more in the feminist science fiction

Amanda Downum. I am a fan of playing with subtle things, instead of bringing a hammer. I like Trojan horses. I like books with an array of women doing an array of interesting things. Not just having one special woman, because then it becomes a token.

Stina Leicht. I'm like you. I don't like having one special, kickass token female character to who nothing bad can happen. (She refers to Arya from Game of Thrones as an example of a female character that's singled out for special treatment.) Arya is great! She's never going to be raped!

Amanda Downum. I like the normalization of women doing things.

Caroline Yoachim. I like a wider range of cultures represented in SF.

Amanda Downum. I also have hard time pulling feminist out of broader range of cultures. (Perhaps she meant that it is impossible to dissociate diversity of cultures from feminism. -- E.)

Caroline Yoachim. The broadening of feminism in science fiction is a good thing.

Nancy Jane Moore. [I like that] We finally moved away for the reality where white male is the default, and anyone else's existence needs to be justified.

Stina Leicht. Minorities and women are historically not permitted anger. You're supposed to have a sense of humor, laugh it off.

Nancy Jane Moore. The same issue as with Sandra Bland dying in a jail cell. She was not permitted to get angry when she got pulled over.

Stina Leicht. When the Hunger Games movie was made, a lot of people got upset, because they were convinced that Rue was white. They thought it was not OK for her to be a person of color.

Amanda Downum. You can describe your character very clearly, and some readers will still sail past what you're trying to do. (I think she means that some readers will visualize your character as white even if you described him or her as a person of color, simply because white is the default to them. -- E.)

Caroline Yoachim. It's tricky. I'm half Japanese, and I write a lot of Asian characters. But you don't want to bludgeon people with the character's race. When you're writing a modern Japense American character, they don't have to have a traditional Japanese name. And people will automatically whitewash it.

Stina Leicht. It happened to Ursula LeGuin, the Earthsea wizard -- people assumed he was white.

Left to right: Caroline Yoachim, Nancy Jane Moore, Katherine Sanger, Amanda Downum, Stina Leicht. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2015 (37) are in my photo gallery.

Amanda Downum. One of the things that frustrated me in science fiction is that people stop questioning. They have their speculative idea, their fantasy world, but then they don't question and push -- they just stop. They found one thing they wanted to write about, and they don't think that anything else can be different. You have a world you are creating from scratch, so why don't you push yourself to imagine more? Why your gender relationships are like from the 1950s America?

Nancy Jane Moore. Academic book "Brain Storm" by Rebecca M. Jordan-Young -- most of research that find brain differences between men and women are bad science. When you look at differences among people, they don't break down along gender lines.

Amanda Downum. When you're a shallow writer, you're a shallow writer. It manifests in more than just not being able to write female characters.

More book recommendations

Caroline Yoachim recommends:

Collections of short stories: "Women destroy SF", "Women destroy fantasy", "Women destroy horror".

Nisi Shawl "Filter House" -- another Tiptree winner.

Amanda Downum recommends:

Jacqueline Koyanagi Tangled Axon books. The first book is "Ascencion".

Caroline Yoachim recommends:

Maureen McHugh: short story collections "After the Apocalypse", "Mothers and Other Monsters".

Nancy Jane Moore recommends:

"Necessary Ill" by Deb Taber. Her main character is a neuter. The neutter people go by "it". They are neither male nor female. They don't have genitals. They do very disturbing things. It is a disturbing book , and that's the greatest recommendation I can give for a book.

Amanda Downum. Talking about characters doing unpleasant things: I would like to have a discussion about female characters doing unpleasant things, and how audiences respond to them.

Stina Leicht. Women are people, and part of being people is making terrible mistakes. It happens, and it needs to be OK in the books.

Questions from the audience

Q1. How do you like the treatment of those issues in film?

Nancy Jane Moore. 10 minutes of Fury Road was a great movie. Overall I think film is way behind fiction.

All the panelists agree.

Amanda Downum. Marketing constraints, etc.

Stina Leicht. And there are very limited roles for women once they hit 35.

Caroline Yoachim. Also, other contraints like race, sexuality. When we celebrate the broad range of female characters in the books, that's totally not true for film.

Nancy Jane Moore. The only SF movie I liked last year was "Her". It is not feminist, but it is going someplace really interesting science fictionally. And the best feminist film of the last years is "Obvious Child", which is not science fiction.

Q2.Do you have high hopes for Ghostbusters?

Stina Leicht. I really don't, sorry to say. What does it say that our best feminist movei hope is a movie that's completely lacks in plot? It is just explosions. A woman driving a monster truck. I don't like what Hollywood is doing where we rehash everything. Hollywood caters to the established audiences, and they don't take chances.

They mention Geena Davis institute for women in film, and it is doing good work.

Q3 (not really a question, but a remark). A movie that was very interesting from feminist perspective was "The Age of Avalon" -- about a woman who doesn't age, and the difficulties she's going to have. She comes across one of her former lovers, who is 65, but she still looks 29. And she's dating his son.

The Hugo Award's Struggle for Relevance: an ArmadilloCon 2015 panel

It's not too much overstatement that blood was expected to flow on "The Hugo Award's Struggle for Relevance", a.k.a. the Sad Puppies debacle, panel at the ArmadilloCon. But the discussion was instead polite and even funny at times. Here are the main points of the discussion. (Pretty much everything is paraphrased.)

The panelists were Lou Antonelli, Justin Landon, Michelle Muenzler (moderator), Marguerite Reed, and Jacob Weisman.

The discussion opened with moderator Michelle Muenzler asking who exactly the Hugo Awards represent. A lot of fandom claims they don't represent them.

On one hand, Hugo Awards are the only science-fiction and fantasy genre awards that the general public (at least the portion that reads those genres) has at least heard about. But upon closer look, Justin Landon said, only a very small part of the SF/F-reading population has heard of Hugos, cares about Hugos, or lets Hugo Awards influence what authors they read. At the end of the day, it only represents the Worldcon voters. Marguerite Reed agreed that people who vote on Hugos are a small percentage of SF/F readers. Jacob Weisman too agreed with everyone else that this award represents mainly, or only, the fans who bought memberships to Worldcon.

Left to right: Michelle Muenzler, Jacob Weisman, Lou Antonelli, Marguerite Reed, Justin Landon. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2015 (37) are in my photo gallery.

If that's really the case, why are we worried about what the future of Hugo Awards means for the future of the speculative fiction genre?

I could say that there was a brief argument as to whether the fans who bought WorldCon supporting memberships were "true fans". But in reality, none of the panelists were presumptuous enough to divide the fans into "true" and "false", so it was more like a meta-argument, a survey of popular arguments. For example, one could say that the "true fan" would be considered someone who buys Worldcon memberships and votes for Hugos year after year. But the panelists agreed that the definition of a fan can't be as restrictive as that. Marguerite Reed said that she didn't believe that everyone who bought supporting membership was a true fan, and that no doubt some people bought it for questionable reasons, such as to put Sad Puppy nominated authors on the Hugo ballot; but she is willing to welcome all those people into the science fiction community. She hopes that they will like it enough to stay. Jacob Weisman said that, on the contrary, it might bring such a deep divide that people will opt out, as happened to the Nebula Awards a few years ago.

Justin Landon had very harsh words to anyone who likes to divide fans (even the politically-motivated Hugo voters) into true geeks and not true geeks. He, too, has been accused at conventions of being a fake geek. "When we see someone to come into our community, how screwed up it is to say, you're not one of us, get out, just because you're a conservative?" he said.

Left to right: Michelle Muenzler, Jacob Weisman, Lou Antonelli. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2015 (37) are in my photo gallery.

All this discussion or meta-discussion about true vs. fake fans/geeks seemed a bit pointless to me. The notion of being a science fiction fan or geek is so subjective, it's not like there could ever be a test administered who is and isn't a true fan or geek.

Lou Antonelli, who was nominated for Hugos by the Sad Puppies, said that he regretted how it turned out, and that he didn't want the Hugo ballot to be full of authors nominated purely based on political agenda.

Lou Antonelli. Whenever you have a system with laws, you chug along until someone finds a loophole, and then you rectify it. So maybe this year we will introduce some provisions. I think people should have fewer nominations than there are places on the ballot, to assure that there won't be a slate. It is ridiculous when someone is nominated more than once in the same category. I hope some reforms will come out of it. I got nominations, but I'm not happy with the way it turned out.

Naturally, other panelists asked Lou why he is not happy with the way it turned out (especially since, according to Marguerite Reed, Lou in his blog called current science fiction "dystopian slipstream pornography", or something like that); and more importantly, why he didn't recuse himself from the Hugo ballot, like so many people had. He said that he stood on it as a matter of principle, to not give in to the abuse that people heaped on the nominated authors.

Lou Antonelli. I think Letters from Gardner was good enough for Hugo nomination, good enough to make it on the ballot otherwise. But I said, I didn't need two nominations. And then ... I refused to be bullied and insulted. So I stayed the course. The first short story was withdrawn by the nominee, Annie Bellet, because she couldn't take the heat. When she went down, I decided I wasn't going to let that happen to me.

Justin Landon pointed out that while some nominees indeed withdrew because of the bullying they got from "people we would identify as social justice warriors", other nominated writers withdrew themselves without being bullied.

Lou Antonelli. I would rather make a decision that turned out to be wrong, but not bow down just to be popular.

Justin Landon. I have a lot of empathy for people like Lou, who worked in science fiction for many years, and one year they get a chance to get nominated for a Hugo, and I can't imaging being in their position and having to say "no". I don't want to beat up Lou. I don't envy position you are in.

Left to right: Lou Antonelli, Marguerite Reed, and Justin Landon with a glass house in front of him, ready for people to throw stones. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2015 (37) are in my photo gallery.

If, as everybody on the panel agreed, conventions and organizations can run their awards however they see fit, it begs a question, voiced by Marguerite Reed: Why didn't Sad Puppies have their own award? Justin Landon thinks it is because Sad Puppies are intent on destroying the Hugos. So then the question is, what are we going to do about it? Justin Landon thinks we should still vote. Not voting would be worse for Hugo Awards.

Justin Landon. If you want to vote No Award in some category, go ahead. But if you vote that way in all categories, you are making a statement. But statement-making is what Sad Puppies do. {I think he says, don't do it.} If you don't want to read sad puppies, don't read them. How many people before voting for Hugos, read everything on the ballot? (Nobody in the room raised their hands.) If we vote No Award in every category this year, what will it mean for Hugos next year?

But does it matter if Hugo Awards are destroyed or made irrelevant (which is likely to happen if many people vote for No Award)? Panelists and audience think it does.

Jacob Weisman. Science fiction and fantasy genres are more fragile than realized. More books are published but fewer numbers per title are being sold. Too much acrimony will shrink fandom because of the culture war.

A fan from the audience echoed that concern. "In the past, the science fiction community always healed itself, because there was a sense that it was important to maintain the community. This time, there are many who do not feel the preservation of the community is more important than getting their agenda met. This makes this a far more problematic and "dangerous" time in fandom."

The TL;DR version: the panelists would like you to go and vote for the Hugos no matter what. Find something you like, or at least are not opposed to, in as many categories as you can, and vote, and let the Hugo Awards continue.

ArmadilloCon 2015: What You Should Have Read in 2014-2015

A bunch of authors, editors, critics and booksellers discuss their science fiction, fantasy and horror picks of the year.

Some books got a nod from more than one panelist. This year those were Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven, Ken Liu Grace of Kings, Kim Stanley Robinson Aurora, and Neal Stephenson Seveneves.

Below are each panelist's recommended books, and his or her comments about why they are worth reading.

John DeNardo recommends

Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois. If you don't read short fiction, here are 3 reasons why you should read this collection. 1. "The Regular" by Ken Liu. I made a mistake of starting it late at night. it pulls you in, and you can't wait to find out what happens next. The way he does it, alternating viewpoints. The way he reveals these plot twists. 2. Rachel Swirsky "Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)". A pinocchi'esque story about father and inventor whose daughter has cancer, so he transfers her memories into a lookalike automaton. It is heartbreaking, but not for a reason you think. It is very moody and emotional. 3. Nancy Kress "Yesterday's Kin", also sold as a short novel by Tachyon. A story of first contact -- a ship landed in New York, and has been there for several weeks, and nobody is able to make contact, because the ship is surrounded by a force field. A geneticist is called to make contact. She also has family issues. The aliens affect her family and relationships.

Emily St. John Mandel Station Eleven. It is is a great character study of people. For our muggle friends, who don't like science fiction, this is a very accessible book -- it is something we could share with our friends mainstream readers. (Also recommended by Justin Landon.)

Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany, edited by Nisi Shawl & Bill Campbell.

Neal Stephenson Seveneves.

John DeNardo. One of the things I like about science fiction is worldbuidling, and Seveneves is stuffed with it. I even thought there was too much worldbuilding. I never thought I would say it about any SF. But you'll learn about orbital mechanics in a way that you'll never think you are learning about orbital mechanics.

Willie Siros. It is Stephenson's best work since Baroque Cycle. It is Moonfall done right. Bad stuff happens, and mankind doesn't step up to the plate well. It's not really apocalyptic, and it ends with a more hopeful ending than you would think halfway through the book. It is amazingly well-written, very tight, more accessible than his other books.

Andy Weir The Martian. It's all about problem-solving. John DeNardo could especially relate to it because he's an engineer by day, and engineering is all about solving problems. In "The Martian" you don't feel like you're getting a science lesson. And it is very positive, at least for someone who is stuck alone on Mars. The most the character would say is "I'm not feeling up to it today", so you know what he is going through, but it's not in your face.

Justin Landon recommends

Joe Abercrombie Half a King, Half the World and Half a War (forthcoming). Justin Landon is a sworn fanboi of Joe Abercrombie. 'Nuff said.

Bradley P. Beaulieu Twelve Kings in Sharakhai -- Middle Eastern-flavored world; protagonist is 18-year-old woman who is a gladiator and a smuggler.

Becky Chambers The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It was self-published before it was published traditionally. It's like Firefly, but better. Cleverer, more charming, more real. It is social science fiction about a family living on a spaceship, and how they deal with relationships and xenophobia.

(Forthcoming) Kate Elliott Black Wolves, coming out this fall. It is phenomenal. The protagonist is 70-year-old beaten up woman, well past her prime, and has to figure out a way to protect her father's legacy, king's legacy, her grandson's legacy. Show me another fantasy that shows a capable old woman!

Robin Hobb Fool's Assassin

Rebecca Levene Smiler's Fair. Rebecca Levene used to be a Dr Who writer. It is Night Circus if G. R. R. Martin wrote it.

Sara Lotz The Three. The story is a thriller that may or may not be supernatural -- it is up to you. Four airplanes crash around the world simultaneously. Everybody dies. But on 3 of them, a young child survives. On the fourth there is apparently no such child, but there are rumors that a child might have survived. And so the rumors start that those children are the 4 horsemen of apocalypse. The book is written as a memoir of a woman reporter.

Alex Marshall A Crown for Cold Silver. Epic fantasy but without all the stuff that we hate about epic fantasy: progressive, not sexist, without all the baggage. Very aware of the tropes in the genre, and tries to do something unique.

Michelle Muenzler recommends

Darin Bradley Chimpanzee. In an economic downturn, a professor is in danger of having his education repossessed. So he tries to give it out for free, teaching people in public parks, so he could give it away before it's taken from him. But it's not legal, so he gets caught in a revolution.

Kameron Hurley The Mirror Empire -- great worldbuilding.

John Hornor Jacobs The Incorruptibles is set on an Earth a few dimensions way over there. It has one of the most frightening descriptions of Elves. They take the place of native Americans in this weird version of a western. Is it a terrifying and wonderful story. (Justin Landon added: "And it is not available for purchase in the US, except here in the dealers' room.")

Nicole Kornher-Stace Archivist Wasp is about a girl whose job is to kill ghosts, to make them stop bugging people. But instead she decides to help one of them. She gets pulled into a weird underground world, and learns the real reasons of apocalypse.

Mary Rickert Memory Garden is about old women who may or may not be witches.

Kazuki Sakuraba Red Girls -- three generations of a family, three very engrossing narratives. It spans the time from 1970s to the 2000s.

Willie Siros recommends

Ben Aaronovitch The Hanging Tree

Paolo Bacigalupi Water Knife. Published as a trilogy, but it is not. It has a discussion of the future water wars that are coming to the US as the drought continues. An asssassin arranges for water to go from one place to another, regardless of what the people who think it's their water, think. Texas is such a wasteland that refugees who are trying to get in to Colorado and Oregon, are dismissed as Perry's ramblers.

Author Michelle Muenzler gave out cookies to everyone as a way to combat the midday crash. Next to her, fan guest John DeNardo looks on. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2015 (37) are in my photo gallery.

James S. A. Corey Nemesis Games

(Forthcoming) Julie Czerneda This Gulf of Time and Stars. In this book, Czerneda returns to her main species universe, which was the setting of the books she wrote many years ago.

William Gibson The Peripheral. Willie said that after thinking that Gibson's best work was in the past, he was very pleasantly surprised by The Peripheral.

Peter F. Hamilton The Abyss Beyond Dreams

Robin Hobb Fool's Quest

Stina Leicht Cold Iron

Jack McDevitt Coming Home and Thunderbird (forthcoming)

(Forthcoming) David Mitchell Slade House - a much looked-forward-to novel from the author of Cloud Atlas

Michael Moorcock The Whispering Swarm

Alastair Reynolds Poseidon's Wake is part of Alistair Reynolds series that began with Blue Remembered Earth. It is set in near future and examines how society deals with space travel in various ways. A family is raising elephants to intelligence, and by the end of the third novel it seems like elephants will have surprises for us. It is somewhere between popcorn fiction and serious fiction (the same applies to James S. A. Corey Nemesis Games too).

Kim Stanley Robinson Aurora. It asks: if man in 2000 years only managed to keep things made of stone, that could last 2000 years, how are we going to keep a generation ship going? It is really well done and fabulous. Justin Landon adds: "Aurora is tols form a perspective of a developmentally-challenged person, and Kim Stanley Robinson does a very good job of putting us in this person's head."

Several forthcoming books:

John Scalzi The End of All Things

Charles Stross The Annihilation Score

Michael Swanwick Chasing the Phoenix

Robert Charles Wilson The Affinities

Gene Wolfe A Borrowed Man

Skyler White recommends

Max Barry Lexicon has system of magic that's based on language. If you're a word person, or a magic person, it is so delicious.

Elizabeth Bear Karen Memory. Steampunk-inflected western with a very interesting protagonist. It's set in a bordello. It is Elizabeth Bear's strongest novel yet. It is as conceptually interesting as her other stuff, and also has interesting relationships between people.

Karen Joy Fowler We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

(To tell the truth, the panelists were not completely clear if they were talking about this book -- which came out more than a year ago, so technically it does not qualify for this year's What You Should Have Read -- or about We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory. No one could remember the exact title and author of the book they were thinking of. Then a brief argument broke out whether in Karen Joy Fowler's book there was mention of aliens arriving to Earth's orbit: some of us in the audience who have read it swore up and down that there were no aliens, but one of the panelists claimed that there were maybe a total of 5 lines in the book mentioning the aliens. This made it further confusing which panelists had which book in mind. -- E.)

Max Gladstone Three Parts Dead -- magic is legal-based. There is nothing boring about legal contracts.

Ann Leckie Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy (forthcoming)

Ken Liu Grace of Kings. Incredibly bold, incredibly global, has amazing ability to introduce you to a huge cast of characters, and they are each unique. According to several panelists -- Skyler White, Justin Landon, and Willie Siros -- it has an incredibly unique storytelling structure, a non-traditional, non-western narrative. If you read traditional Chinese novels, it fits into that structure. And if you haven't, it feels completely unique.

Christopher Priest The Adjacent. There is some kind of hop between times, that we don't really understand, but it has powerful applications. It's not hard SF, it is a character study of people who are wrapped up in this event. It is the impending feeling, that things will be terrible, but you don't know why.

Jeff VanderMeer Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy also has creeping dread. It is set in a postapocalyptic future of the American South. This book explores not just conceivable ways in which everything can go terribly wrong, but also impact on survivors, and the ruthlessness of the quarantine. Willingness to sacrifice a few for the good of the many.

Jo Walton The Just City. Jo Walton writes dialogue for Socrates. Just City is a utopian city created by the goddess Athene. They buy enslaved 10-year-olds, who will be become the citizens of that city.

Book review: Helene Wecker, "The Golem And The Jinni"

This was one enjoyable urban fantasy book. It was different from other novels I've read in this genre, though admittedly I haven't read that many, because I got disappointed with the genre soon. There is no Mary Sue heroine here that every werewolf falls in love with; this one has truly interesting, unique characters, rather than the usual assortment of werevolves and vampires.

The title character, a golem, was made by a European Jewish wizard for a man who wanted a custom-made wife; the man took her on a trip to the US, but died along the way. She disembarked in New York not knowing a single soul there, but was befriended by a kind, old rabbi, who quickly guessed who she is. Luckily he is the only human she ever encounters who can see that she is made of clay. Outwardly she is indistinguishable from a human woman.

The jinni, on the other hand, escaped from an ancient flask, accidentally opened by a metalworker in the Little Syria neighborhood of New York. He was trapped in a human form by a sorcerer many centuries ago in a Bedouin desert. While the Golem, who is made of Earth, is an excellent baker, the Jinni, who embodies the fire element, is talented at metalworking. They make their lives in the new country, their paths eventually cross, and they find an unlikely (or maybe likely?) friend in one another, as the only other supernatural creature each has ever met. They are the only ones who can understand what it's like to live in a human shape with all its restrictions, and to have to pass for a human every day. This involves not letting anyone catch on that you don't eat, sleep, breathe, or have a heartbeat.

As much as they try to blend into the society, they naturally create messes in their wake, simply because they are not human beings, and some things they do have unexpected consequences to humans. The Golem cares about it much more than Jinni does, who, at least at first, doesn't give a thought to the broken human lives he leaves in his wake (mostly women, for the handsome Jinni is like catnip for them). The Golem is the opposite: since she was created to serve, she can't help but sense the humans' needs, and feels irresistible urge to help them. The Golem's concern for others rubs off on the Jinni, who, after spending time with her, starts viewing his carefree actions in a different light.

But both of them are bound to the powerful forces who made them what they were, and the past comes looking for them. When that happens, ancient wizardry starts to play out in 19th century New York. To avoid spoilers, some tensions get resolved, and some don't, but it seems that the stage gets set for a sequel.

This book alternates between exotic/mystical and cozily mundane settings: the Golem works at a bakery, and the book has a good number of delightful scenes involving challah, strudel, fresh-baked bread, and so on. They are interspersed with scenes of Middle-Eastern and cabalistic magic. The threads of present and past are woven together beautifully, and suspense arises on two levels -- past and present; while the reader suspects that they must be related, you can't easily predict how it will all come together.

Secondary and tertiary characters truly come to life. Each of them is distinct. The characters that seem at first spoiled or airheaded, turn out to have depth. Sometimes the book teeters too far into the realm of "characters who didn't believe in the existence of paranormal suddenly become believers", but there is only a little of that. The scenes set in the ancient Bedouin desert centuries or millennia ago don't seem as strong as the scenes set in the 19th century New York; I'm not sure why, but maybe because they rely too much on clicheed Middle-Eastern setting, whereas the New York setting is detailed and authentic? Then again, this book is based on Middle-Eastern fairytale tropes, so that would be hard to avoid.

In any case, the result is quite original.

ArmadilloCon 2012: What You Should Have Read in 2011 - 2012

A bunch of authors, editors, critics and booksellers discuss their science fiction, fantasy and horror picks of the year.

It's worth noting which of the books or authors got a nod from more than one panelist. This year those were N. K. Jemisin The Kingdom Of Gods, Kameron Hurley God's War and Infidel, Will Macintosh Soft Apocalypse, and anthology Welcome to Bordertown.

Below are each panelist's recommended books, and his or her comments about why they are worth reading.

Willie Siros's recommended books

Margaret Atwood In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination

N. K. Jemisin The Kingdom Of Gods and The Killing Moon. -- N. K. Jemisin is one of the most amazing new writers. She has strong ties to Africa, and writes in non-Western ways. The structure of her novels are so amazingly different than what you find in American fantasy.

Ian McDonald Planesrunner -- When someone decides, after a lifetime of writing hard SF, to write a teen novel, it's interesting to see how he's trying not to talk down to the reader. We, adult readers, have seen many science fiction and fantasy tropes, such as alternate realities, but teens might have not seen them yet, and require a different approach.

Neal Stephenson REAMDE".

Bruce Sterling Gothic High-Tech -- short story collection.

Francis Spufford Red Plenty -- Willie called it "my epic fail of the year", though it wasn't clear to me why, because his comments about this book were quite flattering. It's a novel about Soviet space race, and it's not clear whether it's science fiction -- maybe not, says Willie. It could be secret history. In any case, having lived through American space era, it's very interesting to read the same events from the other side. We in the US thought American space program got it wrong, but Russians also thought THEY got it wrong, and had to go back to the roots of Marxism to start over.

Terry Bison Any Day Now is another big secret history novel. It starts out with the usual version of the 1960s, but then you discover that Kennedy doesn't die, and the story drifts just further and further from our history. Willie says that he was amazed by Terry Bison's sense of inertia in history. It's hist best novel since Talking Man.

Laird Barron The Croning -- a horror novel.

James S. A. Corey space series Caliban's War -- American writers trying to retake space opera from Alastair Reynolds and Peter F. Hamilton and other Brits.

Kim Stanley Robinson 2312. You can see it as a sequel to Mars trilogy, or not, as you wish. But, according to Willie, it is Robinson best novel since Mars.

Charles Stross Apocalypse Codex is the 4th Laundry novel, and it's as strong as the 1st one. Much stronger than the 2nd and 3rd.

Jeremy Lassen's recommended books

Lauren Beukes Zoo City -- She is an amazing writer from South Africa. She got a handle on the non-western-European future science fiction.

Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns -- Really weird fantasy series. The setting makes it unique.

N. K. Jemisin The Kingdom Of Gods, and the rest of her The Inheritance trilogy.

Jo Walton Among Others.

Michael Swanwick Dancing With Bears

Greg Egan Clockwork Rocket, a start of a new trilogy, and no, it's not steampunk.

Kameron Hurley God's War -- another real science-fiction book. Incredibly unique setting, a cast of characters that features strong women taking control of their hyperviolent world. The wold is ruled by a Queen, all men are sent off to war. So it's just old men, and women, and children running this world.

Will Macintosh Soft Apocalypse -- very depressing, a gut punch of a book. It looks at Apocalypse as something that happens not with explosions, but with lowered expectations, something that happens when unemployment reches 40% and Walmart runs out of stuff. The protagonist's life just gets grimmer and grimmer. It's a hard book to read.

Rob Ziegler Seed. It's similar to Paolo Bacigalupi's "Windup Girl", but with faster pacing, and with more likeable protagonist. Rob and Paolo live in the same small town, so it's an interesting bit of serendipity.

As an aside, someone from the audience recommends Paolo Bacigalupi's Shipbreaker as being much better and with nicer characters than Windup Girl.

Rudy Rucker Jim and the Flims, in which Rudy Rucker comes to terms with his own mortality.

Geoff Ryman Paradise Tales, short story collection from Small Beer Press.

Holly Black and Ellen Kushner, ed. Welcome to Bordertown, an anthology. They rebooted the Bordertown anthologies, which were urban fantasy before urban fantasy was created, and got a whole new cast of writers.

Jeremy Lassen, Bill Parker, Willie Siros, Michelle Muenzler, and Bev Hale on What You Should Have Read in 2011 - 2012 panel. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2012 are in my photo gallery.

Bill Parker's recommended books

Ernest Cline Ready, Player One. Ernest Cline is native to Austin. This science fiction novel is set in 2044, and society has changed quite a lot. One character is a game designer from the 80s, and there are lots of references to 80s music, movies, and culture. It takes you through the game industry in little bits and pieces that are plugged into the story. By 2044 a game company has shut down, and opened up with a new product they called Oasis -- a virtual reality world. Kids don't go to school anymore -- they study in the Oasis. People don't go to the office, they work in the Oasis. One character lives in a trailer park, where trailers are stacked 30-high. The gist of the story is that the creator of Oasis has died, and left 3 Easter eggs for people. Who finds them, becomes rich. The story is about people who are looking for eggs, while an evil corporation wants to find them and make everyone pay for Oasis (which is currently free).

Some readers from the audience mentioned that there are also 3 Easter eggs in the book, and whoever finds them can win a prize.

Michelle Muenzler's recommended books

Haruki Murakami 1Q84 -- a very long and intricate story, that's very Murakami in the sense that every detail in it is very important. You can't just skip over chunks of text, because every detail is needed in order to understand what happens.

Johnathan L. Howard Johannes Cabal The Detective.

Ayize Jama-Everett The Liminal People -- a novel about underworld people who have powers, but you wouldn't consider it a superhero novel. It's a bit more gritty, realistic than most superhero novels Michelle has read. The protagonist's daughter disappears, he tries to track her down, and gets entangled with people with horrible powers.

J. M. McDermott When We Were Executioners

Martha Wells The Serpent Sea and The Cloud Roads -- very creative, vast world-building. Exploration of crazy-ass alien cultures clashing and interacting.

Jason Heller Taft 2012 -- hilarious, brilliant book. President Taft disappears, and 100 years later he wakes up on the White House lawn. The book is extremely fast-paced. It has Twitter conversations discussing his political views.

Kameron Hurley Infidel

Will Macintosh Soft Apocalypse

John Love Faith -- a massive battle, a dance between two spaceships, really fun.

Stina Leicht And Blue Skies from Pain

Rose Lemberg, ed. The Moment of Change -- a speculative poetry anthology. Very story-oriented poetry, resembles Year's Best SF anthologies.

Bev Hale's recommended books

Kage Baker Best of Kage Baker.

Holly Black and Ellen Kushner, ed. Welcome to Bordertown.

Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris Phoenix Rising -- steampunk.

Jim Butcher Ghost Story.

Rachel Caine Bite Club and Last Breath -- the last of her two Morganville Vampires books.

Gail Carriger Heartless

Kendare Blake Anna Dressed in Blood

Laura Anne Gilman Pack of Lies

Laurie R. King The Pirate King

Seanan Mcguire Discount Armageddon

Kim Newman, Professor Moriarty: The Hound Of the D'Urbervilles -- a spin-off of "Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" series, where Sherlock Holmes got retired, got married, and still doing stuff. This book has Professor Moriarty as protagonist.

Tim Powers Hide Me Among The Graves

Cherie Priest Hellbent

Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

John Scalzi Fuzzy Nation and Redshirts -- Bev Hale liked Fuzzy Nationbetter than she liked Redshirts, though both were fun.

F. Paul Wilson Nightworld

George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, ed. Down these Strange Streets -- an anthology.

Willie's recommendations of books that are very new, or are yet to come out

Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and a couple of other authors The Mongoliad -- because Neal Stephenson has an obsession with swords.

Mark Teppo Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad, and Earth First

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter The Long Earth. Someone said it would be funny if Terry Pratchett wrote the science in that book, and Stephen Baxter the characters.

Iain Banks Stonemouth and Hydrogen Sonata. The latter revels bits and pieces from the beginning of the Culture.

Robin Maxwell Jane: The Woman Who Loved Tarzan -- a Tarzan novel written from Jane's point of view. Burroughs estate gave Robin Maxwell, an award winning historical writer, access to Burroughs notes about Tarzan's backstory.

ArmadilloCon 2011: What You Should Have Read

A bunch of authors, editors, critics and booksellers discuss their science fiction, fantasy and horror picks of the year. Willie Siros usually presents his list of notable genre books that came out in the last year or two, but he forgot the list at home. So he recalled from memory five recent books that left the biggest impression to him. Here they are.

Willie's five most recommended genre books of the year

China Mieville "Embassy Town"

Greg Egan "Clockwork Rocket"

Robert Charles Wilson "Vortex"

Charles Stross "Rule 34"

Gene Wolf "Home Fires"

Willie's less memorable, but still good novels of the year

James Corey (Daniel Abraham's pen name) "Leviathan Wakes"

Greg Bear "Hull Zero Three"

Charles Stross "Scratch Monkey", his very first novel that has been unpublished until now. Willie Siros thinks it was good for Stross' career that his debut novel was "Singularity Sky", and not "Scratch Monkey". But now it has been published by NESFA. (I wonder, then, if this novel is only good in the "look how far this author has come!" sense.)

John Scalzi "Fuzzy Nation"

Rudy Rucker "Jim and the Flims"

Novels that inspired a discussion

Nnedi Okorafor "Who Fears Death"

Elizabeth Bear, Michelle Muenzler, and Willie Siros. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2011 are in my photo gallery.

This book was highly praised by Michelle Muenzler and Martin Wagner. Martin recalled that one of its critics didn't think the future world in this novel was very well explained, at least not in a typical hard SF fan manner. Martin said that was because the world in which the narrator is living is not very clear to the people living in them. In the post-apocalyptic future Sudan, its inhabitants know only a little bit about our present day from some book, but most of the human history is lost to them. What is interesting is the narrator's personal journey. She is a product of weaponized rape, and an outcast in her society. This enables her to go on a journey she goes on. Martin characterized this book as an interesting hybrid that couples African mysticism with some very contemporary politics.

Willie Siros said that even though Nnedi Okorafor grew up America (she is of Nigerian origin), she has an interesting post-colonial view. He compared her to Ian McDonald, who is having "a lot of fun postulating future Brazil and India"

Hannu Rajaniemi "Quantum Thief"

Thomas M. (Martin) Wagner and Elizabeth Bear. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2011 are in my photo gallery.

Martin Wagner wasn't quite disappointed by this book, but despite being a wonderful exercise in imagination, it didn't live up to the hype. Elizabeth Bear agreed: among other things, it is an uploaded brain book, a book on skinning reality, on being able to tune your reality in the "I don't like you, so you won't exist for me anymore" sense. But the author doesn't warm the water up for you, he throws you right in. Martin said he was processing the information so much that the story didn't hold any suspense for him. The premise of the book is like nothing he has ever seen: there's a city that walks around the surface of Mars. Time is currency there. After living for a while, its citizens become impersonal drones who work to support the walking city. Despite the imaginative setting, only one scene in the whole story has any heart on it: the hero brings a girl, the secondary protagonist, to a bar where she sings, because it's her hobby. Martin thinks this book had potential, but it will take the author 2-3 books to fully establish emotional connection with the reader.

Elizabeth Bear too said she didn't connect with that book. She felt distanced from the characters. It also does not testify to the author's writerly skills that when we meet a lesbian character for a first time, she is having sex. There are other ways to tell us she's a lesbian, says Elizabeth Bear.

John Scalzi "Fuzzy Nation"

Willie Siros counts this book in his "memorable, but not Top 5" category, but Martin Wagner was extremely impressed by it. Scalzi's take on that world was very faithful to H. Beam Piper (the author who originally thought up the fuzzies), but also uniquely his own. Martin liked a contemporary take on that particular story.

Mary Robinette Kowal "Shades of Milk and Honey" was another debut novel Willie was impressed with, and Martin liked it too. It's a Jane Austen pastiche.

Michelle Muenzler recommends

Darren Bradley "Noise"

Connie Willis "Blackout" and "All Clear" (a two-part novel, 2011 Hugo Award winner)

Michelle's most interesting fantasy books were all by Nightshade this year. "God's War" by Kameron Hurley has an interesting heroine who craps on everything, including herself. "No Hero" by Jonathan Wood is Lovecraft with the sense of humor. Michelle is a really big fan of Jonathan Woods voice. It's classic funny British, and if you ever talk to this author, you'll find he has the same kind of voice. You can imagine him in this book, talking with that voice.

Martha Wells "Cloud Roads". Though Michelle Muenzler strongly dislikes fantasy that has 5 million characters, "Cloud Roads" pulls it off. Every town has a new species. It has an ant culture mixed in with flying creatures. What Martha Wells did with different cultures is really fascinating.

Martin Wagner recommends

A whiteboard with the list of the recommended science fiction, fantasy and horror books of 2010-2011. Scott Lynch did the honors of writing it all down. More pictures from ArmadilloCon 2011 are in my photo gallery.

Joe Abercrombie "The Heroes". It's about how war teaches people who they are. Characters discover that what they wanted out of life wasn't necessarily what they thought. Heroism doesn't mean the same things to the same people. Abercrombie has an amazing way to convey battle scenes. Everything comes from the POV of the person in front of you. It's all filtered through the character you are relating to. It's like the Omaha battle scene in Saving Private Ryan. That's what makes it not just mindless violent fantasy writing.

Stina Leicht "Of Blood and Honey", a novel about a young man who finds out who he is in the times of the Troubles in Ireland. Fantasy elements are so subtly intervowen into this story that for hundreds of pages you don't realize you're reading fantasy. It's Martin's favorite fantasy debut this year.

Dan Abnett "Embedded", a military science fiction novel that appealed to Martin even though he's not a fan of that genre. The main character is a journalist, whose mind is going to piggyback on the mind of a grunt in a battlefield. The problem is, the soldier he's piggybacking on is immediately killed when he gets out in the field. So the journalist's awareness, his consciousness has to take over, and help to bring this soldier home, so he could tell the truth of what's going on out there. Martin described this book as trenchant satire about how politics and media come together to justify what we do at the time of war.

Under the radar book: "Enigmatic Pilot" by Kris Saknussem, whose style Martin compared to Mark Twain.

Elizabeth Bear recommends

Gemma Files "Book of Tongues", a very high grit fantasy western with hexslingers and ancient gods. The characters are terrible human beings who do terrible things for terrible reasons, but they really still care about each other. This keeps it from being a depressing book. And it has interesting worldbuilding.

Genevieve Valentine "Mechanique" is Elizabeth Bear's favorite debut is. It's a novel about a circus of people who had parts of themselves replaced by clocks and machines. Circus performers are competing for the role fo a ringmaster, who committed suicide. It's a wonderfully creepy, atmospheric, surreal little book. Willie Siros agrees that this one was on his list of favorite first novels, with not many lapses into first-time-writer'ness.

Disappointing Books

Martin said he has read two very, very, very long books by Patrick Rothfuss, and still waits for them to be about something. The last 1000-page book was about a kid "who goes here and does some stuff, and goes there and does some stuff, and gets into an argument with his girlfriend, does more stuff and goes home".

Brandon Sanderson "Way of Kings" was a bit disappointing too.

The book that takes a cake in this category (according to Martin) was "Hellhole" by Bryan Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. It has magic aliens.

Willie Siros' most dispaointing book of the year was "Magician King" by Lev Grossman. To tell the truth, Willie was also critical of its predecessor "The Magicians". "You have a magic school, and magicians who graduate, but they don't do anything. They sit around with their trust funds and piddle. Students go off, have adventures, and then give up on anything difficult. What's the point of learning something if you don't do anything that's hard? I didn't like any characters," says Willie. "So I said, OK, I'll see what happens in his Narnia (called Fillory in the book -- E.), where they become a king of an alternate world. And that didn't go anywhere. They haven't learned anything how to survive as an adult."

>Willie was not impressed by George R. R. Martin's long awaited "Dance With Dragons" was very impressive either.

Audience recommends

Several members of the audience recommended these books:

Iain Banks "Surface Detail" has fabulous ideas, fabulous writing, says a guy in the audience.

Alyx Dellamonica "Indigo Springs".

Ian Macdonald "Dervish House" should have won a Hugo, says an audience member.

Pictures from Armadillocon 2011 are in my photo gallery.

ArmadilloCon 2010: non-native English speaker, an American author

I made a good effort to read Ilona Andrews' "Magic Bites", but this kind of urban fantasy is not to my taste. Yet I was intrigued by her as a non-native English speaker who is also a published author in English. I'm trying to follow the same path, and there aren't many role models in it. Ilona Andrews (for the sake of accuracy I'll add that this name is actually a pseudonym for a writing team consisting of her and her husband, who is a native English speaker) was only the second such person I met. The first was Sara Hoyt, who I met at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007. I blogged about it here.

Her biographical details resonated with me because of certain parallels. Like me, she grew up in the socialist block and immigrated the US as an adult. She came to US on a scholarship to a private school (it wasn't clear to me whether that was college or high school); I came here to go to graduate school. She said she knew very little English at first. I found that a bit strange, because any foreigner who comes to US for schooling is required to pass TOEFL, Test of English as a Second Language, to be admitted. The first time she used an English word was in the airport when she arrived to the US. A guy was blocking the walkway with his luggage. She waited for him to move, but he didn't. So she said "excuse me", and he moved. That was a defining moment in her life -- she used a word in a foreign language, and someone understood and responded. She felt like she was accepted into this other society.

(I guess it's remarkable that it happened so soon for her. Many immigrants take much longer to get to this point. But this incident has no more than symbolic value, and for some people, symbolic value is enough.)

Anne Sowards, Ilona and Gordon Andrews at Ilona Andrews interview at ArmadilloCon 2010.

When she first went to a bookstore in the US, she was stunned at the colorful book covers. In the USSR there was not only no western science fiction books sold (because they didn't pass censorship), but whatever books were sold, had dark, gloomy covers.

Oh, and in her high school days, she was required to do agricultural manual work. I had to do that myself back in the day. In the countries of the socialist block, all high school and college students had to spend 1-2 months of summer doing agricultural labor, such as harvesting the crops or weeding the fields. The only way to get out of it was to get a doctor to certify that a medical condition made you unsuitable for such labor. We were paid very little for it. 2 months of work in the late 80s was barely enough to buy me a few cups of coffee (since coffee prices went up astronomically). It's strange that decades later in the US I ran into someone who went through the same experience!

Pictures from Armadillocon 2010 are in my photo gallery.

ArmadilloCon 2010: What You Should Have Read This Year

In this traditional ArmadilloCon session, panelists recommend recently published science fiction and fantasy titles to the audience. The people entrusted with this honor are usually ones whose work or hobbies cause them to read lots of new genre fiction. This year, the team of "pundits" is Anne Sowards (ArmadilloCon 32 editor guest), Lawrence Person (a once-and-future editor of fanzine "Nova Express"), Willie Siros (an Austin bookseller), and Thomas Martin Wagner (a SF/F reviewer).

Anne Sowards describes herself as an editor who, in her own words, only edits "fun books", such as Jim Butcher and Ilona Andrews. She doesn't do award-winning books, and she likes it that way. Here is what she recommends:

Patricia Briggs "Wolfsbane", a sequel to "Masques";

Jim Butcher "Changes";

Caitlin Kiernan "Red Tree", a very dark fantasy nominated for World Fantasy award this year;

K. A. Stewart "The Devil Is In The Details", a Jim Butcher-like urban fantasy.

Martin Wagner's recommendations

Kay Kenyon "The Entire and the Rose", a 4-volume series about a pocket universe that uses our own universe for fuel. Martin says Kenyon writes humanist science fiction.

Kit Reed "Enclave", a book about a bunch of spoiled rich kids, whose parents were hoodwinked into sending kids to a school on a remote island. It's a "Lord of the Flies" type of situation, says Martin. He adds that Kit Reed is a New Wave author that has been off of everyone's radar until now.

Willie Siros recommendations Novels

Kage Baker, The Bird of the River (Tor)

Iain M. Banks, Surface Detail (Orbit US)

Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three (Orbit US)

Steven Brust, Iorich (Tor)

Lois McMaster Bujold, Cryoburn (Baen)

C. J. Cherryh, Deceiver (DAW)

Suzanne Colins, Mockingjay (Scolastic Press)

Greg Egan, Zendegi (Gollanz; Night Shade Books)

Jasper Fforde, Shades of Gray (Hodder & Stoughton; Viking)

Michael Flynn, Up Jim River (Tor)

William Gibson, Zero History (Putnam)

Joe Haldeman, Starbound (Ace)

Peter F. Hamilton, The Evolutionary Void (Ballantine Del Rey)

Joe Hill, Horns (Gollancz; Morrow)

Robin Hobb, Dragon Haven (HarperVoyager)

Robin Hobb, Dragon Keeper (Eos)

Alexander Jablokov, Brain Thief (Tor)

N. K. Jemisin, The Broken Kingdoms (Orbit US)

Diana Wynne Jones, Enchanted Glass (HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins / Greenwillow)

Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven (Penguin Canada; Roc)

Ken MacLeod, The Restoration Game (Orbit)

Jack McDevitt, Echo (Ace)

Ian McDonald, The Dervish House (Pyr)

Robin McKinley, Pegasus (Putnam)

China Mieville, Kraken (Macmillan UK)

Elizabeth Moon, Oath of Fealty (Orbit; Ballantine Del Rey)

Christopher Moore, Bite Me (Morrow)

Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (DAW)

Daniel Pinkwater, Adventuers of a Cat-Whiskered Girl (Houghton Mifflin)

Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (Doubleday UK; HarperCollins US)

Cherie Priest, Dreadnought (Tor)

Alastair Reynolds, Terminal World (Gollancz)

Kim Stanley Robinson, Gallileo's Dream (Ballantine Spectra)

Michael Shea, The Extra (Tor)

Lucius Shepard, The Taborin Scale (Subterranean Press)

Sharon Shinn, Troubled Waters (Ace)

Dan Simmons, Black Hills (Little Brown / Reagan Arthur Books)

Peter Straub, A Dark Matter (Doubleday)

Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum (Ace)

Charles Stross, The Trade Of Queens (Tor)

Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth (Simon Pulse)

Connie Willis, Blackout (Ballantine Spectra)

Connie Willis, All Clear (Ballantine Spectra)

David Wingrove, Son of Heaven (Atlantic Books UK / Corvus)

Gene Wolfe, The Sorcerer's House (Tor)

Jane Yolen & Midori Snyder, Except the Queen (Roc)

Collections and Anthologies

Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (Baen, collection)

Poul Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender of the Terran Empire (Baen, collection)

Poul Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight of Terra (Baen, collection)

Peter S. Beagle, Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter Beagle (Subterranean Press, collection)

Kevin Brockmeier, ed., Real Unreal: Best American Fantasy, Vol 3 (Underland Press, anthology)

Terry Dowling, Amberjack: Tales of Fear and Wonder (Subterranean Press, collection)

Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn't See And Other Stories (Small Beer Press, collection)

Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio, eds., Stories (Headline Review; William Morrow, anthology)

Nick Gevers, ed., The Book of Dreams (Subterranean Press, anthology)

Joe R. Lansdale, Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal (Tachyon Publications, collection)

Fritz Leiber, Selected Stories (Night Shade Books, collection)

George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, eds., Songs of Love and death (Simon & Shuster / Gallery, anthology)

Kim Stanley Robinson, The Best Of Kim Stanley Robinson (Night Shade Books, collection)

Theodore Sturgeon, Case and the Dreamer: The Complete Sturgeon: V XIII (North Atlantic, collection)

Ann Vandermeer & Jeff Vandermeer, eds., Steampunk Reloaded (Tachyon Publications, anthology)

Walter John Williams, The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories (Night Shade Books, collection)

Thomas Martin Wagner, Willie Siros, Lawrence Person, and Anne Sowards on the What You Should Have Read This Year panel.

Books recommended by more than one person

China Mieville "Kraken". Recommended by Martin Wagner and Willie Siros. Martin says it's the most accessible of China Mieville's books, pure pop-corn entertainment. The end of the world takes place in London, and there are squid worshippers. Mieville's earlier books, like "City in the City" (that was on last year's recommended list) is a literary novel, but "Kraken" has explosions. Willie Siros adds that "Kraken" is not as angry as Mieville's first novels. In this book he has settled down and matured.

Guy Gavriel Kay "Under Heaven". Recommended by Martin Wagner and Willie Siros.

Connie Willis "Blackout" and its sequel "All Clear" -- a time-travel story set during the blitz in London. Historicians travel to London during World War II to see how London coped with bombings, but then they get stuck in there, and also worry if they changed direction of history. Recommended by Martin Wagner and Willie Siros.

Gene Wolfe "The sorcerer's house" -- a Gene Wolfe Cthulhu mythos book. Recommended by Lawrence Person and Willie Siros.

Several panelists also discussed "Ariel" by Steve Boyett, a postapocalyptic fantasy, in which magic happens. Electricity stops working, and a dragon rises into the sky. "There is a unicorn in it, but it's gritty and edgy. It won't emasculate you if you read it," promised Lawrence. Last year, two decades since "Ariel", its sequel came out, titled "Elegy Beach". In it a boy uses magic in a programmatic way. "Also has totally bad-ass swordplay," Lawrence added.

Pictures from Armadillocon 2010 are in my photo gallery.

Because it's been only 10 years since it first came out...

...I have finally jumped on Harry Potter bandwagon. I did not want to fight bookstore crowds, line up overnight, and read a 700-page doorstop in one sitting so as to have a chance to enjoy it before people reveal spoilers. 10 years has been long enough to forget most spoilers I've heard. But the real reason why I didn't get into Harry Potter books when they were still new was that I did not find them very engaging. I tried the first couple of chapters of book 1, and about the same amount of book 2. I got an impression that the fantasy world in Potter series was no more than skin-deep, and instead of diving in and being swallowed by the book's world, I bounced right out.

This time I started with HP2, "The Chamber of Secrets", because I couldn't find HP1 in the library. (Did you think I was going to pay for it? J. K. Rowling is richer than God already.) Yes, the first few chapters still felt superficial. I'll second what was said by a New York Times or Washington Post book critic: magic in the Harry Potter world has a very specialized, domestic character. For example, there is a clock that shows what time each family member had to be home, or a teleportation method called Floo, that lets you travel through chimneys. It's like magic was shoehorned to fit domestic life.

As I got past the first few chapters, the book drew me in -- not because the Harry Potter world acquired a previously unseen depth, but because the events in it galloped at such a crazy pace. The kids were shunted from adventure to adventure without break. And while a fast-paced plot is generally a good thing, in the Chamber of Secrets the plot left no room for observation, reflection, or world-building. Nobody ever paused to think what the events mean not just in terms of predicting the enemy's next step, but also about the laws of the (magical) world that surrounded them. In the best SF or fantasy books events are just clues that point towards bigger, unseen things; by pausing to reflect, characters attain a glimpse of a deeper order of the world. I saw nothing like that in the "Chamber of Secrets". There was no strangeness there. All the "magic" fit so neatly with the mundance understanding of the world, that there was not a moment where I went, "this is odd, I don't understand this". In other words, the good ole sense of wonder was missing from the Harry Potter world.

It was also a bit disappointing that at crucial moments, such as Harry's fight with Tom Riddle, some magic artifacts appeared in the right time and the right place arbitrarily, with only a flimsy explanation.

One might say that oddness and strangeness is neither appropriate nor necessary in a children's book; but I disagree. (As an aside, I've wondered if any book with a teenage protagonist is automatically a Young Adult book. Probably not. Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials", with its 11-12 year old protagonists, is definitely not a book for 11-12-year-olds, because of the complexity of its subject matter.)

Eventually though, the "Chamber of Secrets" drew me in, and so did the third book, "Prisoner of Azkaban", which seemed better written and more engaging. The pieces fit together better. Here we finally get glimpses that the wizarding world has a fascinating history, steeped in adult drama. It's still not high-concept worldbuilding that I like in speculative fiction, but it's something.

ArmadilloCon: What You Should Have Read This Year

This is a traditional ArmadilloCon panel, where panelists give their recommendations of best recently published science fiction and fantasy we might want to read. The "pundits" are usually people whose work or hobbies cause them to read lots of recent fiction. This year, it's Willie Siros (an Austin bookseller), Madeleine Dimond (an author), Eric Marin (editor of Lone Star Tales), and Thomas Martin Wagner (a SF/F reviewer). So without further ado, here are their lists of must-read fiction. (Note: some of the books in Willie's list are yet to come out later this year or early 2010; I guess Willie's opinion of them is formed from the ARC's he's read.)

Willie Siros' list

Science fiction

Nancy Kress: Steal Across The Sky

Iain Banks: Transition

Robert Sawyer: www:wake

Rudy Rucker: Hylozoic

Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice

Jack McDevitt: Time Travelers Never Die

China Mieville: City and the City

Paul McAuley: Gardens of the Sun

Ken MacLeod: Restoration Game (actually, a search for author and title combination on Amazon.com did not return any matches, and a search for "Restoration Game" alone did not return any science fiction titles. I don't know if Willie was confused about the title or the author, or if he inadvertently revealed that he has a window into Ken MacLeod's mind, where a book by that title is perhaps being conceived right now. :-))

Walter Jon Williams: This Is Not A Game

Bruce Sterling: Caryatids

Collections

J. G. Ballard: Complete stories

Lewis Shiner: Collected Stories

Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow

Joe R. Lansdale: Son of Retro Pulp Tales

Greg Egan: Crystal Nights and Other Stories

Theodore Sturgeon: Slow Sculpture: Volume XII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon

Fantasy

Lois Bujold: Horizon

Robin Hobb: Dragon Keeper

Ken Scholes: Lamentation

Joe Abercrombie: Best Served Cold

Nina Kiriki Hoffman: Fall of Light

Charles De Lint: Mystery of Grace

Steven Erikson: Dust of Dreams

Daniel Abraham: Price of Spring

Robert Holdstock: Avilion

Steph Swainston: Above the Snowline

Terry Pratchett: Unseen Academicals

John Crowley: Four Freedoms

Dan Simons: Drood

Madeleine Dimond, Willie Siros, Thomas Martin Wagner, and Eric Marin on the What You Should Have Read This Year panel.

Eric Marin's list

of Nifty Short Fiction and Poetry Appearing in 2009 and Places to Find More

A few anthologies (and a collection) he's heard good things about:

 

We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter Beagle (recent fantasy fiction and poetry reprints)

 

Songs of the Dying Earth, eds. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (a Jack Vance tribute anthology)

 

Federations, ed. John Joseph Adams (original and reprinted science fiction)

 

The New Space Opera 2, ed. Gardner Dozois (original science fiction)

 

Clockwork Phoenix 2, ed. Mike Allen (original SF/F fiction)

 

Poe, ed. Ellen Datlow (original dark fantasy/horror fiction)

 

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois (reprints of 2008 science fiction)

 

Year's Best SF 14, eds. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (reprints of 2008 science fiction)

 

The 2009 Rhysling Anthology, ed. Drew Morse (speculative poetry published in 2008 and nominated for the 2009 Rhysling Award)

 

Some Online, Nontraditionally Published Fiction:

 

Shadow Unit, Seasons 1 and 2, various authors such as Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull (an ongoing series in a shared world): http://www.shadowunit.org

 

Bone Shop by Tim Pratt (a Marla Mason fantasy novella posted online): http://www.marlamason.net/boneshop/

 

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (a YA fantasy novel posted online in weekly installments): http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/fairyland/

 

Some print magazines you have heard of and many you likely haven't but should have:

 

Analog (hard/traditional science fiction): http://www.analogsf.com

 

Asimov's (SF/F fiction and speculative poetry) http://www.asimovs.com

 

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (SF/F fiction): http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/

 

Realms of Fantasy (fantasy fiction): http://realmsoffantasymag.com/

 

Postscripts (SF/F fiction in a yearly anthology format) http://store.pspublishing.co.uk/acatalog/postscripts_magazine.html

 

Polyphony (SF/F fiction in a yearly anthology format -- publisher on hiatus for the year, but books still available): http://www.wheatlandpress.com

 

Interzone (SF/F fiction): http://ttapress.com/interzone

 

Black Static (dark/strange speculative fiction): http://ttapress.com/blackstatic

 

Weird Tales (dark/strange speculative fiction): http://www.weirdtales.net/

 

Black Gate (Fantasy fiction): http://www.blackgate.com

 

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (cross genre fiction and poetry): http://www.lcrw.net/lcrw

 

Electric Velocipede (SF/F fiction and speculative poetry): http://www.electricvelocipede.com

 

Zahir (literary SF/F fiction) http://www.zahirtales.com/currentissue.html

 

Shimmer (SF/F fiction): http://www.shimmerzine.com

 

GUD (cross genre fiction and poetry): http://www.gudmagazine.com/

 

Mythic Delirium (speculative poetry): http://www.mythicdelirium.com/

 

Dreams and Nightmares (speculative poetry): http://dreamsandnightmares.interstellardustmites.com/

 

Star*Line (speculative poetry--official magazine of the Science Fiction Poetry Association) http://www.sfpoetry.com/

 

Some online magazines you should explore, if you haven't already done so:

 

Strange Horizons (SF/F fiction, speculative poetry): http://www.strangehorizons.com

 

Tor.com (publishes new short SF/F on a regular basis) http://www.tor.com

 

ChiZine (dark fiction and poetry): http://www.chizine.com

 

Clarkesworld Magazine (SF/F fiction): http://www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

 

Fantasy Magazine (SF/F fiction): http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy

 

Subterranean Magazine (SF/F fiction): http://www.subterraneanpress.com/

 

Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (SF/F fiction—requires subscription): http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com

 

Beneath Ceaseless Skies (secondary world fantasy fiction): http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

 

Apex Magazine (dark science fiction): http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online

 

Lone Star Stories (SF/F fiction and speculative poetry -- now closed but the site will remain up) http://literary.erictmarin.com

 

Ideomancer (SF/F fiction and speculative poetry): http://www.ideomancer.com

 

Abyss & Apex (SF/F fiction and speculative poetry): http://www.abyssandapex.com

 

Goblin Fruit (fantasy poetry): http://www.goblinfruit.net

Odds And Ends, And Other Panelists' Recommendations

Madeleine Dimond recommends Naomi Novik's "Victory of the Eagles", and Small Beer Press reprints of lesser known, but very fine authors, such as Carol Emshwiller. She also mentions some non-science fiction books that may be of interest to many fans of the genre. One of them is "Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist" by Thomas Levenson, which she heard described as science fiction that's neither science nor fiction. Another is "White Sands, Red Menace" by Ellen Klages, a sequel to "Green Glass Sea". It's historical fiction about children growin up in 1940s in Los Alamos. Because science figures prominently in this book, Madeleine recommends it to all SF fans.

Thomas Martin Wagner recommends "Ariel" by Steve Boyett, a post-apocalyptic novel about a boy and his unicorn, that's been reprinted this year. There's also a sequel coming out this fall, "Elegy Beach". Having been published 28 years after the first book, it's one of the longest-awaited sequels in history, says Martin. He also recommends China Mieville's "The City and the City" (that's two recommendations for this book, since it is also in Willie's list). According to Martin, it's shorter, more accessible, more to the point than Mieville's earlier works. He calls it "China's pulp novel".

Eric Marin recommends Haruki Murakami "Kafka on the Shore", and Jay Lake's "Green".

Willie Siros is glad some publishers are publishing standalone novellas. Some writers, he says, are excellent at novella-length works, but don't do novels well. He thinks Michael Bishop is the finest novella writer in the known universe, but after 30000 - 40000 words he loses focus. Of recently published novellas, Willie recommends "Shambling Towards Hiroshima" by James Morrow.

One of the panelists (I don't remember which one) recommends "Cardboard Universe", an exploration of life of a fictional SF novelist Phoebus K. Dank, loosely based on Philip K. Dick.

Here are lists of books recommended on other "What You Should Have Read" panels: at ArmadilloCon 2005, ArmadilloCon 2006, ArmadilloCon 2007, and ArmadilloCon 2008.

Pictures from ArmadilloCon 2009 are in my photo gallery.

ApolloCon 2009: literary rap, materials science and space panels

I stopped by at a filk session on Friday or Saturday night, since the parties weren't exactly hopping. One quiet guy who sat in the corner until then surprised us (well, at least me) with a Game of Thrones rap. "Rap" is not quite accurate. The song had a simple melody with Celtic motives, but the melody was peripheral to the lyrics, which he delivered rapid-fire, never stopping to catch his breath. As a recap of a series of 700-page books, the song lasted a solid 10 minutes (not that I was looking at the clock). It was impressive, to say the least. If I understood correctly, the guy said he wrote it himself.

Then a woman said this reminded her of "Hamlet in 5 minutes" song, and she sang -- or rapped it, as that song is more or less pure rap -- right there and then. That's the kind of talented people we have lurking at the fringes of filk circles.

Beg, Steal or Borrow: Precious Commodities in the Space Colony

Maybe it's just me, but I noticed a hint of a theme in this year's ApolloCon 2009 -- many panels were related to material sciences (no wonder, because Wil McCarthy was the Guest of Honor), or space (also not surprising, because, well, this is Houston, home of NASA). When you combine the two, you'll get panels like "Beg, Steal or Borrow: Precious Commodities in the Space Colony". I regret I missed most of it. I wanted to check out a tea tasting, conducted by Ziactrice first, and then I was too lazy to leave the tea tasting midway and head to the panel. (It was worth it, as I got to taste some awesome, smoky lapsang souchong.) When I finally got to "Beg, Steal or Borrow", the panelists must have decided that none of those methods will get them far, because they were talking of manufacturing precious commodities.

You can ship oxygen you make on the Moon to a space colony in a lower orbit, cheaper than you would ship it from Earth. If you are just shipping freight, you could have a robot shipping system. Most of it could be automated. You could use solar sails as far as the asteroid belt. You could mine materials in asteroids, process them, and move them wherever they are needed. In many cases, what you need is just a fraction of the mass of the asteroid, not the whole thing. On the other hand, you should be careful with the economics of asteroid mining. If you mine a 700-meter diameter cast iron lump, you may dump too much of a good thing into economy, creating inflation.

Material sciences, or habitat design was also the theme of another panel, "Architecture of the Future Living in a Materials World", but the panelists did hardly more than complain how hard it is to build, or maintain, houses in Houston, because Houston climate is so tough on buildings. Well, that wasn't all they said, but the discussion was mostly about the present, not the future.

Pictures from ApolloCon 2009 can be found in my photo gallery.

Christopher Moore "Lamb": CFI book club discussion

4 people attended the CFI Science And Religion In Fiction book club discussion of Christopher Moore's book "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal". Only one of them has read other novels by Christopher Moore (6-7 or them, in fact, and he was the one who recommended "Lamb" to the group).

"Lamb" is a humorous account of the life of Jesus Christ, as told by his childhood pal Biff. If we believe this novel (and we have as much reason to believe it as the Bible, as far as I'm concerned :-)) Biff was Jesus' trusty sidekick all throughout his life. The story focuses on Jesus' missing years between ages 14 and 30; it shows Jesus and Biff traveling all over the world in search of the three wise men. Their travels take them to Middle East, China, and India, where they get entangled into many fantastic adventures, each one more bizarre than the previous one.

We all acknowledged that "Lamb" is intended as a funny book rather than serious deconstruction of Christianity. It's a humorous what-if scenario of how doctrines of Christianity came together. "I think Christianity has pulled its ethics from a whole lot of sources, and that's what Moore showed here, that made for a serious message in the book, if there is any," said a reader. Our group liked that aspect of it.

A serious message is not easily found in this book, however. A few readers found the book very lightweight. This is not a book you would learn a lot from. But we all found it hilarious. The humor and the adventures are enough to pull you through the book. One reader said he tried to read a passage from the first 100 pages to his wife, and could not finish, because he fell over laughing. Another person compared the humor in this book to that in "The Simpsons". "A lot of Homer's humor is naivete, taking things seriously," said a reader, pointing out parallels with the "Lamb": "For example, when Gaspar tells Biff the parable of the boat -- when you cross the river, do yo carry the boat with you? And Biff asks, well, how big is the boat, etc.?" The very manner of Biff's speech is modern American. But there were undoubtedly wisecrackers in biblical times, too.

The humor in "Lamb" really shines when it's used to explain the origin of Jesus' famous sayings. From "turn the other cheek" to "you will be the rock I'll build my church upon", they all are shown as having arisen from profane, goofy situations, rather than divine revelation.

The ending was found to be a little too sweet by some people. But it's consistent with the general feel-good tone of this novel that stays funny without hardly ever becoming sarcastic. Indeed, a remarkable feature of "Lamb" is that this tale of young Jesus' escapades manages to be completely non-offensive to Christianity. Some of us noted that it has a surprisingly sympathetic view of Jesus. "I really felt for the guy," said a reader, "he was such a good person. He really was. If the Bible was written more like this, I think a lot more people would end up Christians. At least I might have." Chris Moore mentions in the epilogue that practically no religious person ever came up to him and complained. "Lamb" is full of blasphemy, but it's presented so well that it's almost impossible to feel insulted.

I personally found it funny and sad -- or maybe just sad -- that Biff is considered by everyone to be an idiot, when he is really quite brilliant. He's certainly smarter than Jesus himself. He comes up with theories of round Earth, and of evolution, millenia before anyone else. It seems Chris Moore could not resist the irony of Jesus pal discovering theories that are so viciously opposed by fundamentalist Christians.

Bookmark This on Delicious

Patrice Sarath "Gordath Wood": FACT reading group discussion

13 people attended the discussion of "Gordath Wood". 5 people have read Patrice Sarath's short stories before. Everybody except 3 people started the book. 7 finished it. The rest were planning to finish it.

"Gordath Wood" starts with two young women, Lynn and Kate, venturing out (separately) into the woods in search of a runaway horse. Unbeknownst to themselves, they each cross into a parallel world resembling medieval Europe. Before they know it, the two heroines are dragged into a war between two feudal lords. As they try to find a way to come back to their world, or find their mission in the one they ended up in, it turns out that the portal between the worlds has become unstable, threatening destruction in both the parallel and their own world.

The two women are very involved with horses, and so big parts of the text revolve around horse riding and care. Several readers observed that the author taught them more about horses than they wanted to know; however, she did it in a non-boring way. The horse specifics are woven into the plot and don't overshadow the story.

Character-driven, not a concept-driven story

Everybody agreed this was a character-driven rather than concept-driven story. Several people liked its vivid, realistic characters. The villains weren't all bad, and good people weren't all good. Still, not everybody found the characters realistic, noting that the bad guys -- the general, the detective -- acted too stupid to be believable. "The villains were so illogical in their behavior that they seemed just devices to have tension in the book," said a reader. Examples: the general had Kate flogged after she brought him weapons and radios; the detective went after Joe, and later after Lynn, for no reason. Kate might have been the most likeable character of them all, but even she occasionally did reckless, impulsive things. Some group members explained it as Kate merely being a teenager: having raised teenagers themselves, they were familiar with those patterns of behavior.

Most people thought Kate was more interesting than the other female protagonist, Lynn. One reader commented that Lynn mainly existed for men to fall in love with her. Kate, on the other hand, was more active. "She had more interactions with people on widely diferent levels, from people who tended the horses, to women who did menial labor, to the doctor and the general. We saw a lot more of the culture through her," said a reader. Some readers could identify with Joe more than any other character; others said they could not identify with a drifter. A few readers could not identify with any character.

Despite a cover that suggested (at least to some people) Harlequin romance, this book notably lacked romance cliches. Even though some characters fall in love, those love stories do not end in a typical romance novel way. One person liked the author's "non-girly" approach to relationships, and declared this book suitable reading for men. Yet a reader, regardless of gender, who looks for something more than character development in a SF/F story may not find it here. A few people said they prefer a genre book to have at least some unusual conceptual element, but there were none in this book. So, enjoyable as it was, this type of story would never become their main reading fare.

For a first novel, it's...

Since "Gordath Wood" is Patrice Sarath's first novel, there were a lot of "for a first novel, it's..." judgments floating around. The style and characaterization in "Gordath Wood" was found to be better than that of many other debut novels this group has read over the recent years. Readers thought "Gordath Wood" balanced many points of view successfully, which is not easy for a beginner author. On the other hand, the multitude of viewpoints confused some people, especially since some characters changed sides in the war. It didn't help that the viewpoint often jumped back and forth between two characters within one chapter.

One reader thought the story suffered from serious logistical problems. He thought some characters' location, direction, and speed of movement did not compute. You'll have some people at point A, and after a certain time you'll find them at point B, where they could not have gotten so fast. It was also not clear whether the portal of travel between world was located between two rock formations, or if it spanned a larger area of the woods.

Beside some fuzzy travel-related math, the world portrayed in "Gordath Wood" was found inconsistent on a larger conceptual level. On one hand, nature looked the same on both sides of the portal, and people on both worlds spoke some dialect of English, which suggested the parallel world was an alternative Earth. But the stars in the sky were different, which would imply it's not the same planet. One reader said he would have been curious to see if Patrice Sarath had worked out the relationship of the two worlds in her head, or it if was just handwaving. Most people suspected the latter. To her credit, though, the author did not employ many arbitrary kinds of magic, avoiding the problems other writers introduce when they pull out magic objects out of the hat at a character's convenience. It was also good that the characters of "Gordath Wood" did not cross back and forth between worlds at will. They stayed on one side or the other for most of the story.

Personally what I liked the most was bringing the economics of our world into that of a medieval society. And I don't mean just the fact that the modern humans smuggled guns into the medieval world. I was most impressed with the twist that happens at the end and explains some characters' true motivations for the war. They were going to take advantage of the medieval country's untapped natural resourcwes. I know this has already been done by Charles Stross in "Merchant Princes" series, but Charles Stross' characters didn't capture me the way Patrice Sarath's did.

Inconsistencies notwithstanding, most people enjoyed the story and were looking forward to reading the sequel. One reader, though, was disappointed to find out there's a sequel: she thought all the plot ends were wrapped too perfectly in the first book.

After the meeting the group met with Patrice Sarath for dinner, where she answered some of our questions about this book and its characters, as well as her future plans. For example, she told us that Kate's character wasn't based on Patrice's teenage daughter. It was based on Patrice herself, or rather the kind of person she perceived herself to be in her adolescence.

Bookmark This on Delicious