Tag Archives: science fiction

Boldness Is All: Some Thoughts on Murderbot

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Now that the first (but thankfully, not last) season of Apple TV’s Murderbot series has wrapped up, I thought it would be fun to chat about it for a bit. For those not in the know, the Murderbot TV show comes from showrunners Paul and Chris Weitz (who have directed and/produced many films and tv shows both together and separately) and stars Alexander Skarsgard in the title role. The show is adapted from the science fiction novella series, The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. The first season specifically adapts the first installment in the series, All Systems Red.

Spoiler Warning: As I am speaking in broad terms about the whole season of Murderbot AND the book series to some degree, this is going to be very spoiler heavy. Continue at your own risk.

The series follows the self-named Murderbot, a construct (part organic, part tech) Security Unit (SecUnit) who comes from the dystopian-ish Corporation Rim, a series of aligned systems, worlds, and corporate entities that control much of the galaxy. In the Corporation Rim, SecUnits and other constructs are considered objects to be owned, not sentient beings with lives and rights. SecUnits are leased as equipment. If they do not obey orders and fulfill their contracts, they can be punished, erased, or dismantled. And they are controlled by Governor Modules built into their systems. But Murderbot has secretly hacked its Governor Module, meaning that it is no longer forced to follow orders. What does it do with this freedom? It keeps doing its job anyway, and spends its free time consuming media (television dramas, music, etc.). In the first book, All Systems Red, Murderbot is leased on a contract to a team of researchers on an alien planet. This research team, PresAux, comes from a non-corporate-aligned free world called Preservation Alliance that is, basically, a socialist democratic utopia. The group becomes entangled in a conspiracy of coporate espionage and murder, requiring Murderbot to save its human clients from death while trying to hide the fact that it is, in fact, a rogue unit. Shenanigans ensue, of course.

Murderbot in full armor in fight mode.

The novella series is hugely popular. I’ve been reading them almost since the beginning (I think I picked them up when the third book was a new release? But I don’t really remember). I love these books with all my heart (I keep shoving them at people, including my best friend, my mother, my brother, etc). And I was so ecstatic when Apple TV announced their adaptation. That’s not to say there wasn’t some worry. There always is when a beloved book is adapted for screen. The process does not always go well, and often distorts the original work out of all recognition. Still, I was hopeful because Apple TV has a good track record with their science fiction properties, giving them good budgets, good actors, good marketing, and usually at least a few seasons (unlike the other big streaming entity… cough Netlfix cough).

As the show’s release got closer and more news was revealed bit by bit, some fans were concerned about the choice to cast Alexander Skarsgard in the lead role. Murderbot is very explicitly non-gendered and uses it/its pronouns. Some felt that Skarsgard was too blatantly masculine for the role. I was particularly intrigued by the discussions on Reddit and elsewhere between fans arguing over whether Murderbot was canonically more masculine or feminine presenting in physical appearance. A number of fans professed that the always pictured it with more feminine features. This has fascinated me because, while Murderbot is genderless, or nonbinary, the cover art on the books give Murderbot (at least to my eyes) a masculine-leaning body type (which Martha Wells approved). And the characters around Murderbot describe it as tall and intimidating, which to me generally means at least nominally male (obviously women can be tall and intimidating too, but still). Additionally, the novellas are all written in first-person narration, from Murderbot’s perspective, and the audiobooks are narrated by Kevin R. Free. A masculine voice (which Martha Wells approved). I think, for better or worse, there is a common image in people’s minds that being nonbinary or non-gendered means, by its nature, being androgynous. But a person can look physically very masculine and still be nonbinary, or agender.

Murderbot without its helmet, watching its media feed.

Suffice to say, some fans were concerned.

Dr. Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) and Gurathin (David Dastmalchian)

I believe that Alexander Skarsgard allayed all those concerned by the end of the first episode of the series. And then blew them all out of the water in the subsequent episodes. All of the acting is excellent, of course. The basically unanimous opinion is that Noma Dumezweni as Ayda Mensah, and David Dastmalchian as Gurathin, were particularly amazing in their roles. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, the standout performance comes from Skarsgard, who absolutely knocked it out of the park. Skarsgard perfectly captures Murderbot’s awkwardness and social anxiety. One of the things that I love about the character in the books is Murderbot’s disdain for emotions, its constant insistence that it absolutely does not feel things like concern or caring or attachment for its soft, squishy human clients even as its actions prove the opposite. Skarsgard’s facial expressions, his use of his eyes in particular, is subtle and effective, wonderfully portraying Murderbot’s efforts to pretend it does not have emotions while actively displaying them.

In addition to the acting, I feel the design work really stands out. The design and look of the sets, the technology, the worlds, the alien animals, and so on was really phenomenal. It felt appropriately SF-ish and space-opera-y, but also solid and real and lived-in. The designers, writers, and so forth really paid attention to the fine detail work, and that often makes all the difference.

Socially anxious Murderbot facing the wall. (You and me both, Murderbot).

For the most part, I also feel the show captures the vibe of the books, which are SF adventure with a deeply comedic edge to them, due primarily to Murderbot’s dry, self-deprecating and sardonic first-person narration. The show tried to tread a careful line between action-adventure and comedy. While some complained about the voice-over narration, I personally feel that you could not have Murderbot without the voice-over narration. Basically the entire book series is nothing but voice-over narration, as Murderbot recounts its adventures to a log. And I felt the Skarsgard’s delivery of Murderbot’s commentary, all dry wit and heavy sarcasm, was absolutely spot-on.

That said, I do feel that the show’s efforts to balance the comedic tone was not always successful. At times, especially in the first half of the season, it sometimes felt too sitcom-y to me. The human researchers were just a bit too bumbling. A bit too silly. The gags and pratfalls were a bit too over-the-top. Even as the story turns more serious by the end, the human characters (particularly Ratthi, Pin-Lee, and Arada) were just a bit too cartoonishly naive. Mensah and Gurathin have some weight and complexity. The others, not so much. To be fair, the first book does not flesh them out in immense detail either. That happens slowly over several books. Still, in an effort to craft characters with minimal material to work from, the show leans far too heavily on the idea of Preservation Alliance as a space-hippie commune gag and makes the characters appear more like clueless idiot children, rather than naive but still perfectly competent professionals. These are, after all, all scientists and researchers (well, Pin-Lee is a lawyer, but same idea).

I had some other minor quibbles with some writing/directing choices in the show, but that was my one sort of major complaint. And, clearly, it wasn’t so damning an issue that I stopped watching. I did not love all the choices and changes made. I recognize that every book-to-screen adaptation makes changes. That is the nature of the game, and I am generally pretty good at separating the two. Some changes are necessary because of format differences, or because some things simply do not work as well on screen as they do in written form, and vice versa. Some changes happen to fill in details. After all, All Systems Red is a short novella. The world-building details are limited and strategically placed for maximum effect. But by its nature, a visual media requires far more detail. So the showrunners, writers, and designers have to make up a lot to fill in all the gaps. And for the most part, I think the Wietz Brothers, et al, did a phenomenal job of doing this. For instance, the addition of scenes from the in-universe Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon show was hilarious, glorious even (John Cho and Clark Gregg are having way too much fun in those scenes). But some changes just felt… odd and unnecessary. Not required by either the format or the narrative. For instance, the LeBeeBee character was strange and, to me vat least, really annoying (I recognize that quite a few people on the Murderbot Reddit that she was amusing). But again, these complaints are fairly minor, all things considered.

John Cho and Clark Gregg as the main characters of Sanctuary Moon

On the whole, I really enjoyed the series. It was fun and high-energy and entertaining, with some really great film work and some phenomenal acting. I was excited for the new episode every week, and I am ecstatic that it has been confirmed for a second season. I’ve watched every episode 2-3 times now. And I suspect a book series re-read is in order soon, at which point I will probably go through the season again with new eyes. And in the meantime, I am already enjoying the lively discussions in fandom spaces about what Paul and Chris Weitz will do with the second season. One thing I am particularly curious about is how they will address the fact that none of the PresAux team appear in books 2 and 3. Will they stay true to the books and portray Murderbot’s solo adventures? Or will they rework the material somehow so that they can keep the current cast of characters involved in some way. Given the love almost every fan has professed for Gurathin in particular, I honestly would not blame them if they did keep him around somehow. It’ll likely be a year or two before we’ll find out, but I can’t wait to see!

Book Review: the Monk & Robot Duology

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Title: A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Book 1), A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Book 2)
Author: Becky Chambers
Publication Dates: 2021, 2022
How I Got Them: Bought in print
Rating: 5 stars! 6! 7!

As I try to get myself back into the swing of full book reviews – and I hadn’t meant to go so long without any! I’m still reading plenty, but writing the reviews has proven too much for my brain lately – I wanted to talk about Becky Chambers’ two Monk & Robot novellas. I read them a few months ago, and they now live rent free in my brain forever. Hell, they are hooked into my ribs and refuse to let go. They made me Feel Things ™, and I was not prepared. I’d heard Becky Chambers was good at that, but these were the first of her books I’d read (I also own The Long Way to Small Angry Planet, but haven’t had a chance to read it yet).

Both books take place in a post-industrial, ecologically-rich utopian society called Panga, where centuries before the stories take place, the robots built to serve humans suddenly and mysteriously gained full sentience, put away their tools, and wandered off into the wilderness never to be seen or heard from again. The humans have since learned the error of their ways (in terms of industrialization, ecological destruction, etc), and now live without robots, mostly in balance with their environments, and at peace with each other. It is left up to guesswork and interpretation if this world is meant to be Earth far far in the future, or another world entirely, with many similarities.

In Panga, we meet the nonbinary (they/them) monk, Sibling Dex who, in the throes of a pervasive ennui and feeling of unfulfilled potential, leaves the safety and comfort of their home monastery to become a traveling tea monk. As a tea monk, they administer comfort, advice, and tea to the far-flung towns and villages on the outskirts of human civilization. Dex becomes very good at this, and highly loved and respected by the villages they frequent. Yet after a couple years, they find even this calling unsatisfying. Dex is filled with yearning, for peace or purpose or something they can’t even name. And so, on a whim, they start journeying out into the uncharted, unforgiving wilderness beyond the villages, in search of a centuries-lost monastery they read about in a history book.

On the way, Dex has the shock of their life when they stumble upon a robot, Splendid Speckled Mosscap, who has been sent by agreement with many other robots, to find humans and attempt to understand them, asking them “what do you need?” This is the first interaction between robots and humans since the robots disappeared centuries before.

Dex and Mosscap team up to travel to the lost monastery, engaging in deep philosophical debates along the way and building toward an odd and marvelous friendship.

The second book picks up directly from the ending of the first book, with Dex and Mosscap journeying back into human civilization so that Mosscap can meet with humans in each village and ask them its question: “what do you need?” On this journey, Mosscap faces its own sense of mortality, and realizes that it is changed merely through interaction with humans. Meanwhile, Dex continues to wrestle with their sense of dissatisfaction, lack of purpose, and desire for fulfillment. We also meet Dex’s family, see many, often contradictory, reactions as humans come face to face with a robot, and have more philosophical debates. While the ending of the second book is satisfying, I still find myself hoping for more. There’s been no talk of another novella yet. Perhaps these two are all Becky Chambers intends to say on the matter, but I hope she returns to Dex and Mosscap eventually.

The first book is essentially one long philosophical discussion wrapped in a beautiful package of lush idyllic wilderness, gentle friendship, and warm fragrant tea.

The second book continues that philosophical discussion, but with more interaction with other characters and a few uncomfortable moments as Dex and Mosscap deal with potentially less-tolerant humans. However, both books are gentle and quiet. Not a lot of “Plot” happens. Dex and Mosscap are traveling, but most of the journeying and tension is internal, emotional. The world and characters of these books are diverse and welcoming and comforting and thoughtful, and the questions asked by Dex and by the text are deeply human and complicated.

Dex’s dissatisfaction with their life could, on one level, be criticized as “first world problems.” After all, Dex’s world is utopian: peaceful and comfortable, people’s needs are met, their desires permitted and catered to wherever possible. No one, as far as one can tell, is starving, or being oppressed. What, then, is there to complain about? Nothing, really. Which is part of Dex’s problem, because they feel guilty about feeling unsettled and dissatisfied and unfulfilled. They feel they have no right to their dissatisfaction, but knowing this does not make the feeling go away.

And I think that’s where these books get at the heart of the matter. Mosscap asks the humans: “what do you need?” and most of the humans HAVE NO IDEA. Some of them seem perfectly content with what they have. Some of them simply don’t know how to answer the question. Some can’t even decide what the difference is between a “need” and a “want.” What does one need? What does one want? Are they the same thing?

Dex’s ennui is deeply human and real. A feeling I recognize in myself. They want happiness, but what is happiness? They want purpose, but each time they think they’ve found it it proves fleeting, unfulfilling, illusory. They fear that there is something wrong with them, something broken, so that nothing will ever feel RIGHT, even though everyone else around them seems just fine.

Dex asks:

“Still. Something is missing. Something is off. So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?”

I know this feeling intimately.

These books made me cry at least half a dozen times.

These books have fingers that dig into my sternum and grasp at the churning maelstrom of feeling beneath.

They don’t provide easy answers, but possibilities. Mosscap offers a wisdom born of nature, of thoughtful reflection and an almost Zen sensibility (Dex is a monk of a made-up “fantasy” religion concerning six gods, but I’d argue that they have a distinctly Buddhist quality to them).

Mosscap offers this particular bit of advice:

“You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is. If you want to do things that are meaningful to others, fine! Good! So do I! But if I wanted to crawl into a cave and watch stalagmites with Frostfrog for the remainder of my days, that would also be both fine and good. You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”

Similarly, in the second book, Dex states:

“You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be. I say that wherever I go.” They threw a hand toward their wagon, its wooden sides emblazoned with the summer bear. “It’s painted on the side of my home! But I don’t feel like it’s true, for me. I feel like it’s true for everyone else but not me. I feel like I have to do more than that. Like I have a responsibility to do more than that.”

Of course, in our own world, where capitalism rages unchecked and survival is far from assured, we are not “allowed to just live” and we usually do have to work in order to justify our right to exist in the world. Rest has to be earned purely because society has demanded it. But the Monk & Robot books imagine a world where this might no longer be necessary and it’s a beautiful, hopeful thought.

The second book, Prayer for the Crown-Shy, pushes beyond this by suggesting that, perhaps, the answer is in our connections with other people. In our friendships, and loves, and communities. As Dex and Mosscap travel through parts of Panga in the second book, stopping at each village to ask people what they need, the answer (not always explicitly stated, but often implied by their own interactions with people), is EACH OTHER. This is true for Dex as they reconnect with their family, and make possibly romantic connections with someone they meet while traveling. But it is at its most true at the end when, having nearly reached their final destination and inevitable separation, Dex and Mosscap stop where they’re at. Because they’d rather stay together. They find an answer in each other, in their companionship and gentle, complicated, beautiful friendship.

Dex says:

“What if that is enough, for now? What if we’re both trying to answer something much too big before we’ve answered the small thing we should have started with? What if it’s enough to just be…Us.”

Is it enough? I don’t know. In THIS world, possibly not. But what a hopeful, marvelous idea that it someday could be.

Time Travel Narratives Recommended Reading List

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To wrap up my little mini series of blog posts about time travel narratives, I am ending with a fairly large recommended reading and viewing list. There’s a bunch of stuff on here, some nonfiction books about the science and theories of time travel, an enormous list of novels, a couple anthologies, and bunch of movies, and a handful of relevant tv shows (mostly from Star Trek, which is famous for their time travel episodes).

This list is not remotely exhaustive. There are hundreds and hundreds of possible books and other media to include in this list. But this is a pretty place to start. It’s a fairly representative list of the most well-known and popular media on the subject. I have not read all of these books, or watched all of these movies (though I have at least some familiarity with a large majority of them).

I have them separated into categories, but they are not in any kind of order whatsoever (not chronological, alphabetical, or quality). Sorry, I was too lazy to work that much out. In any case, have fun with this list!

Non-Fiction Books:

  • Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative by David Wittenberg
  • How To Build A Time Machine: The Science Between Time Travel by Brian Clegg
  • Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy by Kip S. Thorne
  • The Science of Interstellar by Kip S. Thorne
  • Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality by Dr. Ronald Mallett and Bruce Henderson
  • The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli
  • Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time by J. Richard Gott

Anthologies:

  • The Time Traveler’s Almanac, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
  • The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century, edited by Harry Turtledove and Martin H. Greenburg

Novels:

  • The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
  • Time and Again by Jack Finney
  • From Time to Time by Jack Finney
  • End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov
  • Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
  • Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
  • The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier
  • The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  • Kindred by Octavia Butler
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  • The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
  • Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (Book 1 of the Outlander series)
  • Timeline by Michael Crichton
  • Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
  • The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
  • The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
  • 11/22/63 by Stephen King
  • Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
  • To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
  • Black Out/All Clear by Connie Willis
  • How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
  • This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
  • All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka 
  • Recursion by Black Crouch
  • Just One Damn Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor (Book 1 of Chronicles of St. Mary’s series)

Movies:

screenshot from The Time Machine (1960)
  • The Time Machine (1960)
  • Terminator
  • Terminator 2
  • Looper
  • Primer
  • Back to the Future
  • Time After Time
  • Planet of the Apes
  • Donnie Darko
  • Groundhog Day
  • Interstellar
  • Safety Not Guaranteed
  • Arrival
  • La Jetee
  • 12 Monkeys
  • The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
  • Your Name
  • Edge of Tomorrow
  • The Philadelphia Experiment
  • Somewhere in Time
  • Time Bandits

TV Episodes:

(These shows all did multiple time travel-centric episodes. I have not listed all of them, just a representative handful.)

screenshot from “The Late Philip J Fry,” Futurama

Futurama — “All’s Well That Roswell,” “The Late Philip J. Fry,” “The Why of Fry,” “Meanwhile”

Star Trek: TOS — “City on the Edge of Forever,” “All Our Yesterdays,” “Tomorrow is Yesterday”

Star Trek: TNG — “Time Squared,” “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” “Time’s Arrow,” “Tapestry,” “All Good Things”

Star Trek: DS9 — “Past Tense,” “Visionary,” “Wrongs Darker than Death or Night,” “Time’s Orphan”

Star Trek: VOY — “Future’s End,” “Before and After,” “Year of Hell,” “Relativity”

*I didn’t really watch Enterprise or Discovery, though I know they also feature plenty of time travel. Also, season 2 of Picard is centered around one giant time travel plot. 

Pretty much all of Doctor Who (obviously,) but I especially recommend “Blink”

Also, all of Quantum Leap, which is a CLASSIC.

Twilight Zone had several of time travel eps, but the one that comes to mind most is “Cradle of Darkness”

Time Travel Narratives: The Time Traveler’s Almanac

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Apologies for the delay! Life is life-ing at me pretty hard right now. But here is the next installment in my mini series on time travel narratives. This week I’m talking about a great short story collection. Next week I’ll share a big Recommended Reading/Viewing List to wrap things up.

The Time Traveler’s Almanac is a short story anthology, published in 2013, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, that collects 65 short fiction pieces as well as 5 nonfiction essays on the subject of time travel.

This collection contains (among much else): an excerpt from HG Wells’s novel, The Time Machine, Ray Bradbury’s famous short story “A Sound of Thunder,” and Connie Willis’s novelette “Fire Watch” – which introduced the time traveling history department of Oxford University which later became the central focus of her novels Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Blackout/All Clear. Many well-known and critically acclaimed short stories are featured in this anthology, as well as  a large number of lesser-known works that are unique and entertaining takes on the genre. One of the strengths of this collection is the breadth and diversity of its selections. The short fiction covers a range of authors, time periods, and subject matter including but not limited to: sexuality, ethnicity, immigration and refugee status, love overcoming adversity, and all the usual science fiction trappings of fate, inevitability, and the mind-bending possibilities of time loops and paradoxes.

A couple of my favorites from this anthology include “The Clock That Went Backwards” by Edward Page Mitchell, “The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson.

“The Clock That Went Backwards” (which I mentioned briefly in a previous post) is one of the earliest time travel narratives that features a mechanical/scientific means of time travel (rather than a magical/spiritual one). This short story, published in 1881, predates H.G. Well’s The Time Machine by more than 10 years, and was a major stepping stone in the development of time travel narratives as a genre. In this story, the narrator recounts his childhood with his aunt who owned a very old Dutch clock. When the aunt dies, the narrator takes possession of the clock. While in university, one of his professors takes an interest in the clock, and argues that based on Hegel’s concept of Aufhebung, he believes that the sequence of past, present, and future is arbitrary and can be changed. To demonstrate, he winds the Dutch clock backwards, during which it is struck by lightning and causes a fire. In the aftermath the professor and the narrator find themselves thrown out of their time and into the 1500s. After a series of disasters, the narrator is knocked unconscious and awakens back in his own time again. It is never clear how the clock sent them to the past, nor how they returned.

“The Gernsback Continuum” is a short story by William Gibson published in 1981. Gibson, incidentally, is one of my favorite authors and his first novel Neuromancer, is one of the most important cyberpunk novels (arguably the first) ever written. The name “Gernsback” in the title pays homage to Hugo Gernsback, a publisher who pioneered the creation of science fiction pulp magazines. In this short story, a photographer is assigned to photograph the futuristic architecture of the 1930s, a period in time that attempted to imagine what the far utopian future might look like. While doing so, the photographer finds himself slipping in and out of a version of the present/future 1980s, based not on current reality but on the optimism of that 1930s vision. A version of reality filled with utopian visions of flying cars and zeppelins and glittering “raygun gothic” architecture. Eventually, he breaks free from this slippage of reality back to the real 1980s, which he finds horrific, violent, and full of despair.

A couple other stories in the collection I’d recommend are: “If Ever I Should Leave You” by Pamela Sargent, “Himself in Anachron” by Cordwainer Smith, and “Palimpsest” by Charlie Stross. But seriously, the entire collection is worth a deep dive.

This collection of stories is very well curated and organized by the editors, with a wide range of texts, that offers a strong overview of the time travel narrative genre. It is a good place for any reader or scholar to start as they enter into an in-depth examination of the genre. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to branch out, learn more about the history of the genre, or gain a more expansive view of SFF in general.

Time Travel Narratives: End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

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Continuing with my little mini series of blog posts about time travel narratives, this week I decided to talk about one of Asimov’s lesser-known works. (I had briefly considered writing about Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut first, but as with The Time Machine, I decided that that novel was well-known enough that it probably didn’t need my endorsement or opinion). Isaac Asimov is, of course, very famous and many of his books are so well-loved they’ve been made into movies and television (I, Robot and Foundation, as just two examples). But this standalone time travel novel is one of his works that has not had quite the longevity of readership that so many of his others have had.

But first, I have to talk about Asimov himself for a second, because good lord this man’s legacy is mind blowing, and his life was truly fascinating.

Isaac Asimov by Rowena Morrill (via Wikipedia)

Isaac Asimov was born sometime between October 1919 and January 1920 in Petrovichi, Soviet Russia. Due to the uncertainties of the time and the severe lack of records, no one (not even his own family) knows precisely when he was born, but Asimov himself decided to celebrate his birthday as January 2, 1920. He came from a family of Jewish millers, who all immigrated to the US when he was 3 years old, where they lived in Brooklyn and owned a candy store.

He started college at the age of 15, and published his first short story, “Marooned Off Vesta” at 19. He attended Columbia University for graduate school and earned a bachelor’s and master’s in Chemistry, and a PhD in biochemistry in 1948. Between his degrees he briefly served with the US Army during WW2 and narrowly avoided participating in the atomic bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. After earning his PhD, he went on to teach at the Boston University of Medicine where he remained in some capacity until his death. And he wrote nearly non-stop.

A few fun facts about Asimov: he was afraid of flying and flew only twice in his life; he also never learned to swim or ride a bicycle. He had a wide array of interests from opera to Sherlock Holmes, and he was one of the founding members of the Committee for the Scientific Investigations of Claims of the Paranormal (now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). He was friends with Kurt Vonnegut and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenbury.

He died in 1992 from heart and kidney failure at the age of (approximately) 90 years old.

While Asimov is most famous for his science fiction novels, he actually wrote in many other genres including mystery, fantasy, children’s, and nonfiction. He was one of the most prolific writers of any time or genre, ever. In fact, his career includes over 500 books on various subjects, many many short stories, and approximately 90,000 letters, and his books have been categorized in 9 out of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal system.

His science fiction career could be split into essentially two periods of time and focus: the first started with his first publications in 1939 and ended in 1958 with the publication of his novel The Naked Sun. From about 1952 onward, his attention became focused on his nonfiction writing, during which time he co-authored a textbook called Biochemistry and Human Metabolism, and wrote an enormous collection of books on topics ranging from physics to the historical contexts of the Bible. Then, in 1982, he picked up his science fiction career again, and wrote a number of continuations and sequels to previous works, starting with Foundation’s Edge.

His most well known works are his Foundation series, Robot series, and Galactic Empire series. Later in life, he wrote a number of books that connect each of these series to each other, thus creating one unified (if somewhat inconsistent) Story Universe. In 1964, the Science Fiction Writers of America voted for his short story, “Nightfall,” published in 1941, as the best science fiction story of all time. He is credited with coining the words: positronic, psychohistory, and robotics. And possibly his most enduring contribution is the “three laws of robotics,” which are still used today.

He was awarded honorary doctorate degrees, won 7 Hugo Awards, 2 Nebulas, and many other awards besides. An asteroid, a crater on Mars, a Brooklyn elementary school, and a literary award have all been named in his honor. Few writers in any genre have received the kind of respect, accolades, and adoration that Isaac Asimov did both during his lifetime and after his death.

All of that said, (and sorry that bio got a bit long, but the man was truly FASCINATING), I want to talk about End of Eternity, written in 1955. This is a standalone novel that does not connect to any of his larger series canons. It offers a particularly fascinating take on time travel, elements of which may have influenced contemporary works like the Time Variance Authority in the Loki tv series, and the two competing time factions in the novella This Is How You Lose the Time War.

End of Eternity is a complex novel, with elements of mystery, that centers around a time travel organization called Eternity (its members called Eternals), which was created in the 27th century and aims to improve human happiness and protect humans from harm or danger. To do so, they observe human history, analyze their options, and then make small “reality changes” that mean to reduce suffering at the (in their minds, justifiable) cost of losses in technology, art, and other cultural endeavors that they judge to have a harmful effect in the long run. Safety is prioritized over creativity, discovery, or excitement.

Members, the Eternals, are recruited throughout time from their “homewhens” and trade is even established between various time periods in order to help the times that need it the most. The Eternals can travel “upwhen” and “down when” in time — imagined as almost physical structures like elevators or corridors — and can enter various time periods in devices called “kettles.” 

However, no one can travel to times before the 27th century, when the temporal field that powers Eternity was created. This limit is called the “downwhen terminus.” Furthermore, they cannot access the time periods between years 7 million to 15 million for reasons they do not know. These are called the “Hidden Centuries.” Again, these are described as physical structures, as if Eternity has built corridors up into the Hidden Centuries but cannot open any of the doors to actually ACCESS those centuries.

The main character, Andrew Harlan, is a respected and excellent Technician — a specialist in reality changes and an expert in the “Primitive times.” Senior Computer Laban Twissell [please note that “computer” here is used in its original meaning as a person who computes, as this was written before the creation of computers as we know them now], the Dean of the Allwhen Council, assigns Harlan to teach a newcomer, Brinsley Cooper, about the Primitive times to prepare him for an assignment.

At the same time, Harlan’s direct boss (with whom he has an antagonistic relationship), Assistant Computer Finge, orders him to spend time in the 482nd Century. There, Harlan stays with a woman named Noys Lambent, a non-Eternal member of that time period’s aristocracy, and falls in love with her. When Harlan learns that a coming reality change will affect that century and likely change or erase Noys, he breaks Eternal law, removes her from her time period, and hides her in the empty sections of Eternity that exist in the Hidden Centuries.

From this point on, Harlan is confronted with one mystery after another, as his bosses and colleagues all seem to be working against him, and even the woman he loves might have dangerous secrets. Everything he thought he knew about time is put into question. And the choices he must make may change everything.

It is very very difficult to talk about this book without revealing all kinds of spoilers. Which I generally prefer not to do. I really advocate for being able to experience the plot twists and the big reveals and the endings first hand without having any forewarning. That means that I can give you only the barest hints at why this book is so fascinating. The first third of the novel can be a little slow moving, but once the twists start popping up (and there are several big plot twists) the momentum does not let up.

This novel explores some really fascinating questions about fate and inevitability (within the context of a closed time loop), the power of love to defy societal expectation and law, and what the point of humanity even is — safety or creativity? Stability or discovery? Some characters come to one conclusion. Harlan comes to another. And the conflict between the two gives the ending tension and ambiguity.

If you are not familiar with Asimov’s writing style, it’s important to be aware that his style is, in a word, unadorned. In a lot of ways he is the exact opposite of Jack FInney, the writer I discussed last week. Where Finney’s writing is complex and highly descriptive, Asimov’s is clean and spare and utilitarian. This is not at all a bad thing, just a very different style that will appeal to some people and turn off others. If you’ve read any other work by Asimov, you’re already aware of this, and you’ll know what to expect. Asimov is basically an ideas writer, not a prose writer. And the ideas are compelling.

I will also add that throughout his entire career, Asimov had a bit of a woman problem. There are few women in his novels, and when they are there, they are often… problematic. This is true in End of Eternity as in any of his other works. I think there is enough value in everything else the novel has to offer (as with all of his work), to make it worth to deal with a less-than-stellar woman character, but it’s something readers should be aware of.

Time Travel Narratives: Time and Again by Jack Finney

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I thought briefly that I might write a post about The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, but then I decided that the book (and the many movie versions) are so well-known, and have been discussed by so many smart people, that it would feel a bit redundant for me to do so now. So, I thought I instead that I might talk about a book or two that, while very well-regarded in their time, have not remained as instantly-recognizable with current readers as they should be. And I’m starting with this one: Time and Again by Jack Finney.

I recently had the opportunity to re-read this classic of time travel fiction, which I had read a couple decades ago but didn’t remember much about. I wanted to share a bit about this truly excellent novel, and hopefully encourage more people to read it now.

Time and Again (1970), an illustrated science fiction time travel novel by American author Jack Finney, follows Simon “Si” Morley as he is recruited to a secret government time travel project, and succeeds in traveling to 1882. There, Si tries to unravel a possible conspiracy, falls in love, and faces difficult choices between love and obligation, loyalty and ethical duty. This is the first of two novels, with the sequel From Time to Time (1995) published the year Jack Finney died. Finney left the ending open for a third novel that was never written.

Many of Jack Finney’s short stories and novels had commercial and critical success. His first novel, 5 Against the House, was published in 1954 and made into a movie in 1955. He is most famous for his second novel, The Body Snatchers (1955), which became his most commercially successful venture, spawning the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its many remakes. Five of Finney’s novels and several short stories were adapted for film and television in his lifetime. However, his greatest critical success came with Time and Again, which remains his most highly-regarded work by fans and critics alike.

In the introduction to the 50th Anniversary edition of Time and Again, science fiction author Blake Crouch credits Jack Finney and this novel with starting him on the path to becoming a best-selling science fiction writer. And Stephen King, in the Afterword for his novel 11/22/63, claims it is “in this writer’s humble opinion, the great time-travel story.”

In Time and Again, the main character, Si Morley, works as an illustrator for an advertising agency in 1970s New York City, where he is dissatisfied with his life, and bored at work, with no family and a few lackluster romantic relationships. One day he receives a visitor at work, a man named “Rube” Prien–a Major in the Army, who has come to recruit Si to a top-secret government project: an experiment in time travel devised by Dr. E. E. Danziger.

Danziger, a physicist, believes he has devised a method of time travel: by tricking the brain into believing a person is already in a physical location in the past, one can become detached from their own time, and travel back in time.

Si is skeptical at first, but ultimately agrees to join the experiment if he is permitted to travel to New York in January 1882, to witness the mailing of a letter and unravel a mystery that has been haunting him and his girlfriend, Kate. Kate’s father gave her a letter once mailed to HIS father, Andrew Carmody in January 1882 – a letter that hints at a fire that may destroy the world, and was somehow connected to Carmody’s suicide years later. Si intends to learn who sent that letter and what it really means.

And so Si’s adventures in time travel begin. He travels back and forth between 1882 and the 1970s several times, uncovering a larger mystery than he could have guessed, and accidentally falling in love in the process. In his efforts to solve the mystery of the letter, he will come face to face with complex ethical questions about the limits of scientific discovery, the moral obligations of those in power, the dangers of messing with the timeline, the inevitability of fate, and what it means to find the place where you belong.

This book is widely considered a masterpiece of the time travel narrative genre. It features rich detailed descriptions of New York City in the 1880s that beautifully make the time period and setting come alive. This is aided by Finney’s meticulous use of real drawings and photographs from the time period (which he attributes to his fictitious characters), and even quotes and clippings from newspapers of the time. The characters are complex, with deep emotional resonance, genuine motivations, and rich histories. Finney treats even many of the briefly-mentioned side characters with careful attention and detail.

In addition, the narrative voice of Si Morley (the story being written in first person POV) as Morley relaying his experiences, is intelligent, wry, and humorous. Si’s sarcastic wit is often on display, both in his descriptions and in his dialogue with other characters. And his observations about humanity are thought-provoking and insightful.

Over fifty years later, Time and Again is still as impressive as it was upon its initial release. Despite a few outdated statements, it continues to be philosophically rigorous, utterly fascinating, beautifully written, and highly entertaining. I strongly believe it will remain a high benchmark for the genre for decades to come.

A Brief History of Time Travel

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For a recent freelance project, I found myself revisiting some time travel narratives. Years ago I taught an entire course on time travel narratives, and it was fun to have an opportunity to dig up those old lecture notes, and re-read a couple of the novels and short stories I taught in that course. I had mentioned at the beginning of the year that I might like to re-purpose some of that work for the blog, since its become abundantly clear I’m not likely to go back into teaching any time soon and all that work might as well be put to some kind of use.

SO! I’ll be doing a handful of blog posts in a sequence about time travel. I promise not to go on about too long, but I thought it might be fun. I’ll start with a brief overview (here), and then discuss perhaps just a couple of novels and a short story or two, and end with a full reading list (and viewing list as well — since there’s some great time travel stuff in film and television). I hope that sounds like fun! It’s fun for me at least.

So without further ado: A Brief History of Time Travel

Time travel exists as a philosophical concept, a scientific principle, and narrative subgenre. The possibilities and implications of time travel have been explored for centuries and appear in many different cultures. While time travel as imagined in fiction may not be possible, some scientists argue that one-way time travel might be possible through the concept of time dilation in the special theory of relativity.

Time travel, as a narrative subgenre, exists in both fantasy and science fiction, but its earliest appearances are in myth and folklore. Two of the oldest examples are “The Tale of Kakudmi” in Hindu mythology. and “The Tale of Urashima Taro” in Japanese folklore.

“The Tale of Kakudmi” appears in several Hindu texts, most prominently the Vishnu Purana (Book IV, Ch 1) — one of 18 important ancient Hindu texts that contain stories of the Hindu gods, kings, and dynasties. When the Vishnu Purana was written is highly contested, but some estimates suppose it to be as old as 1000 BCE. “The Tale of Kakudmi,” briefly, is this:

Kakudmi was a king with a daughter named Revati. Revati was so beautiful that Kakudmi believed no one upon the Earth was worthy enough to marry her. So they went to the Hindu god Brahma to ask for advice, giving him a list of possible suitors and asking which is most worthy. However, Brahma informs them that time moves differently for the gods, and by teh time Kakudmi and Revati return from their visit with Brahma, everyone they have ever known will be long dead. In the short time Kakudmi and Revati are with Brahma, 27 catur-yugas have passed among men (1 catur-yuga = approx. 4,320,000 years according to the Vishnu Purana; so 27 catur-yugas = approx. 116,640,000 years). When Kakudmi and Revati return, they find that no only have the landscape and environment changed drastically, but that the civilizations of men have declined, becoming less than they were in Kakudmi’s own time. Kakudmi states that “he found the race of men dwindled in stature, reduced in vigour, and enfeebled in intellect,” thus making them even less worthy of his daughter than they had been in his own time.

“The Tale of Urashima Taro” is from Japanese folklore, first seen in the Nihongi, the second oldest book of classical Japanese history, and perhaps written around the 6th century. Like “The Tale of Kakudmi,” Urashima Taro is the story of a man who goes to a supernatural location, where time moves differently, so that he experiences only a handful of days while 300 years pass for normal men.

Both of these stories could be considered very early examples of the concept of time dilation, in which time moves more quickly or slowly depending on where you are, based on the theory of relativity that states all perceptions of time differ for different people in different places.

The earliest time travel in stories happened though magical or mystical means: a god, a spell, a mysterious realm. For instance, in the play Anno 7603 by Norwegian poet Johann Hermann Wessel, written in 1781, two men are sent far into the future by a good fairy, where they find that gender roles have reversed and only women are allowed to fight in the military. Then there is, of course, the case of the short story “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, published in 1918, in which a man mysteriously falls asleep and wakes up decades later without explanation.

The oldest known story of time travel by means of a machine is Edward Page Mitchell’s “The Clock That Went Backward,” written in 1881, though even this story is more magical than science-fictional. It was H. G. Wells’s famous novella The Time Machine (1895) that truly popularized the idea of time travel through scientific and mechanical means; however his short story, “The Chronic Argonauts,” includes a time machine as well, and predates the Time Machine by seven years.

The method used in the highly-regarded novel Time and Again (which will be discussed in my next post) travel is loosely inspired by Einstein’s theories of time, based on the Special Theory of Relativity, combined with the concept of “self-hypnosis.” This method was also popularized in the novel Bid Time Return by Richard Matheson (most famous for I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come), which inspired the film Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve.

Since then, time travel has remained a popular trope in both fantasy and science fiction stories in both print and visual media. Many science fiction stories take great pains to offer detailed explanations for how and why time travel works. But in just as many stories, the how and why of time travel is ignored in favor of the social, historical, or personal consequences of that travel. In some cases, the time travel is merely a trope used to propel another kind of story, such as in the Outlander series (books and tv show), where the time travel elements are mostly used to allow for the romantic drama.

Literature scholar David Wittenberg argues that time travel fiction is a kind of “narratological laboratory” in which the “most basic theoretical questions about storytelling,” as well as philosophical concepts of “temporality, history, and subjectivity, are represented in the form of literal devices and plots,” for the purpose of exploration, through experiments, analysis, and criticism (Wittenberg, David. Time Travel: The Popular Philosophy of Narrative. Fordham UP, 2013).

Some of the most popular themes within time travel narratives include: fears or hopes of changing the past, alternate pasts and alternate futures, observing or communicating with another time, time loops and time paradoxes, time wars, and the prevalence of human emotions such as love overcoming the obstacles of time.

More Queer Joy Books for Pride Month!

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I wanted to share some more queer stories for Pride Month, just because I can! I’ve really loved the recent explosion of queer literature. There’s always room for more improvement, and some genres get more representation than others, but overall I’m very excited to see how many more queer books we’re getting across the board: in SFF, in poetry, in literary fiction, and even in YA and children’s fiction. I’ve tried to share some recent titles in a few different genres for today.

To start with, I wanted to recommend some queer poetry! I don’t talk about poetry here much but I’m actually a HUGE poetry nerd, and read a lot of it. And quite a lot of the poetry I read is queer of some kind or another. So! I have a few to share!

Night With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong – this poetry collection from Vietnamese-American poet, also well known for his fiction novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, focuses on Vuong’s experiences with immigrant parents, being an outsider in American culture, facing anti-Asian racism, and his experiences as a gay man with less-than-supportive parents, and facing homophobia in America on top of the racism he deals with. The poems are lyrical and hard-hitting. Vuong has a second poetry collection out now, Time is a Mother, which I haven’t had a chance to get my hands on yet.

Next, the two poetry collections by Chen Chen, a Chinese-American poet, examine similar issues of race, sexuality, family, and belonging. His collections are When I Grow Up I Want to Be A List of Further Possibilities, and Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced An Emergency (which I wrote a full review for here). Chen’s poetry, like Vuong’s, deals with the experiences of being an Asian immigrant in the US, and the issues of anti-Asian racism that arise from that. He is also a gay man, and examines the homophobia he experiences in American society, as well as from his parents – particularly his mother with whom he has a fraught relationship. Chen’s poetry is more visceral and blunt, with occasionally humorous or explicit language and description, and some experiments with form. His second book in particular, pulls inspiration from and pays homage to a number of other Asian-American poets, including Bhanu Kapil, Jennifer S. Cheng, Justin Chin, and Marilyn Chin.

Another queer poet worth checking out is Jay Hulme, with his collection The Backwater Sermons. Jay Hulme is a trans-man in the UK, who is also a devout Christian. Much of his work deals with the complex beliefs and emotions that arise from the intersections between religion and sexuality, particularly in a christian culture where some subsections of the community are very welcoming of queer identity, and other subsections are violently and vehemently opposed. Hulme imagines gentle and accepting Jesus in a dance club, and re-frames saints with queer identities of all kinds. Personally, as a queer woman who came from a Catholic background and now has a complicated and ambivalent relationship with religion writ large, I found Hulme’s poetry and perspective on Christianity touching and enlightening and filled with a hope I have not yet found for myself. Here is one of the poems from this collection: “Jesus at the Gay Bar.”

I can also highly recommend K. J. Charles’s newest release: The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, which is in the same vein of much of her other work. A queer historical romance, this one is set in Regency England (did I mention this is one of my favorite time periods?), and features a lonely prickly baronet, his former lover – a charming smuggler, and a creepy gothic estate on Romney Marsh. I love everything Charles writes, and this one is no exception. Hopefully, I’ll get around to writing a full review for this one eventually, but in the meantime, you should still check it out!

And I’ll stop, today, with The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard. This one is a sapphic science fiction with space pirates, and a sentient spaceship. It’s been described as Black Sails in space, but with lesbians, romance, and Vietnamese influences. This one came out last year, and I had it on my radar then, but didn’t finally get around to buying until last week. So, I haven’t read this one yet, but it’s at the top of my TBR stack. It sounds amazing, and the reviews have been great, and I have no doubt I’ll love it when I get to it.

Anticipated New Book Releases (Jan-Feb 2023)

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Hello all and happy new year! I thought I would kick-off the first week of the year with a brief list of some of my own personally Most-Anticipated Books for the start of 2023. I keep a pretty extensive list throughout the year, but because my time and my budget is very finite, I usually only end up reading a very small fraction of all the new releases that catch my attention. I won’t share the whole current list here, but I will share a few of the books that are releasing January and February of this year that I am excited about, and which you folks might find interesting as well.

(A few notes: I have these listed in release date order, and I include title, author, release date, genre, and publisher. Most of them are fantasy/SF because that’s mostly what I read, but there are some other things mixed in. I would also like to point out that anything from HarperCollins, while I am excited about them, I will probably not actually buy and/or review until the strike is resolved.)

JANUARY RELEASES:

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai: releases Jan 10 (HarperCollins), this is an Egyptian-inspired fantasy, with a sapphic romantic subplot, and I am so excited for this one. It doesn’t hurt that the cover is absolutely gorgeous.

Phaedra by Laura Shepperson: releases Jan 10 (Penguin Random House), this one is a feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Phaedra, the sister of the Minotaur. This one is, by all accounts, unflinching and incisive. And I love me a good feminist retelling.

The Written World and the Unwritten World by Italo Calvino: releases Jan 17 (HarperCollins), this is a nonfiction collection of essays by the brilliant amazing incomparable Italo Calvino that will discuss his thoughts on literature and writing. Italo Calvino, author of such masterpieces as Invisible Cities (1972) and If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979), is one of my favorites and I am elated to have this previously-untranslated collection coming out!

Keeper’s Six by Kate Elliott: releases Jan 17 (Macmillan), this short fantasy novel features a bad-ass world-hopping mother who gets her old adventuring group back together to rescue her adult son who has been kidnapped by an old enemy. Kate Elliott has been a big name in SFF for years, but I only really got to know her work with Unconquerable Sun in 2020. However, I have since then become a devotee, and will buy anything she cares to release.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson: releases Jan 17 (HarperCollins), this one is a new murdery mystery about a man who writes mystery-writing how-to books and is an expert in golden age mystery novels, who must put all his knowledge to the test when he goes to a ski resort for a family reunion and everyone starts dying around him. This one just sounds like a ton of fun, and I love the prospect of a modern mystery that incorporates send-ups to the golden age (if you loved the movies Knives Out and Glass Onion you will probably like this book).

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz: releases Jan 31 (Macmillan), Annalee Newitz is a phenomenal sf writer, who imagines some really fascinating near-future and far-future versions of the world. This new book from her will look at terraforming, eco-systems, and our hopes for the future. I’m really looking forward to this one.

FEBRUARY RELEASES:

Victory City by Salman Rushdie: releases Feb 7 (Penguin Random House), so, I mean, it’s SALMAN RUSHDIE, do you even need to know more than that? As with all his works, Victory City is historical fantasy/magical realism. It will, no doubt, be about India, and history, and the world, and the future, and everything in between. It’s about a woman who creates her own personal empire with the force of her imagination.

The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi: releases Feb 14 (HarperCollins), this is the adult fantasy debut from a loved and respected YA writer. This book is a gothic romantic fantasy/fairy tale about a marriage falling apart among the secrets of the past.

Arch-Conspirator by Veronica Roth: releases Feb 21 (Macmillan), Veronica Roth has been on my TBR list for ages, and I still have not gotten around to picking up any of her work. But this book might finally change that because it sounds amazing. It’s a dystopic science fiction retelling of the Greek tragedy Antigone. If that doesn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what to do with you.

The Magician’s Daughter by H.G. Parry: releases Feb 21 (Hachette), I first heard about this book about a year ago when an author I follow on Twitter was talking about reading an early ARC, and it just sounds precisely to my taste. It’s a historical fantasy romance about an orphan from a secret magical island off the coast of Ireland, who must come to London to protect her home and her guardian. I am so stoked for this one!

Enchantment: Awakening to Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May: releases 28 Feb (Penguin Random House), this nonfiction book from the author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, is pretty much exactly what the title says it is. It discusses the anxiety, fatigue, and trauma of our times, and looks to the beauty and wonder of the natural world for its restorative power.

The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill: releases Feb 28 (Macmillan), this novella, from the author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, is a dark horror/fantasy re-imagining of the old Japanese folktale “The Crane Wife.” I did mention I love myth/fairytale retellings, right? And it’s a Japanese folktale! Call me sold!

Liar City by Allie Therin: releases Feb 28 (Carina Press), I wrote before on this blog about Allie Therin’s previous work, The Magic in Manhattan trilogy — a 1920s-set historical fantasy romance that I am ABSOLUTELY ENAMORED with. This is something of a different take than her previous work, taking place in contemporary Seattle, with an empath who works a police consultant and is pulled into a case with the FBI. At this point I will buy anything Allie Therin sells me. Hell, I’d probably follow her to Mount Doom if she asked me.

Novellavember

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While I’ve been busy with NaNoWriMo, it has come to my attention that November is also novella reading month: “Novellavember.” The wonderful and awesome bookseller, Kel, who is a bit Twitter-famous and can be found at the handle @panediting, has put a lot of work into promoting a bunch of novellas in the bookstore where she works, and sharing photos.

I do not currently have a bookstore, but I thought I could share some novella suggestions of my own. A few are ones I have mentioned on the blog before, and some are new.

So! Novellas to read for Novellavember:

Alix E. Harrow’s fractured fairy tale duology, A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended: these two novellas feature main character Zinnia Gray, a folklore major who is dying from a progressive disease, who comes to discover she is a variation on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale motif when she accidentally ends up in an alternate dimension with another Sleeping Beauty. In the second book, having survived the first incident, Zinnia begins trekking through fairy tales versions helping the characters fix their lives and save their happy endings until she is caught by the Evil Queen of one version of Snow White and must figure out how to save herself. Alix Harrow described these books as Into the SpiderVerse for fairy tale princesses, and that is a very accurate description. These books are an absolute delight, filled with sarcasm, sapphic women, and incisive commentary on the plight of women in fairy tales.

Lina Rather’s “nuns in space!” duology: Sisters of the Vast Black, and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars: I wrote a full review for the first novella in this duology back when it came out, which can be found here. These are slim, tightly-plotted, space operas in miniature, about nuns of the Order of Saint Rita, traveling around in their sentient spaceship saving lives and accidentally starting revolutions. These nuns are smart and complex, and their group includes a former war criminal, a lesbian engineer, and a lot of progressive liberals. The bits about the sentient spaceship are especially fascinating, and the political aspects are tense and horrifying. As a lapsed Catholic, whose patron saint is St. Rita, and loves space opera, these books were pretty much made for me. I adore them both!

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey: for something completely different, try this novella set in a dystopian America where technology has been outlawed or destroyed and society has reverted to a “wild west” style of living. To keep the isolated masses entertained and educated on government-controlled and highly censored reading materials, women librarians travel in horse-drawn carriages to various small towns in the west. Secretly-gay Esther stows away on such a carriage to escape her father when her lover is discovered and hanged. Once aboard, the other librarians train her, and reveal that they are not as “upright” and “government controlled” as the public might believe. This book was a joy! As one might guess, it is filled with gay and nonbinary women librarians who are secretly part of a rebellion against the oppressive government. And the righteous anger in every word is incendiary.

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott: This book is not really like Upright Women Wanted at all, but I think it has a similar tone/feel to it in that righteous anger drips from every word, and I love that about it. This novella is set in a world where magic exists, but in the years since an uprising destroyed the monarchist government, those who possess magic (once considered special and noble) are now taken from their families and made into slaves so that their magic may properly benefit all of society. Fellian is one such mage, however she is saved from her servitude by a group of monarchist rebels who need her magical abilities to help their cause. As Fellian works with this group, led by an exiled noble, she slowly realizes that the monarchists aren’t actually any better than the oppressive government they are fighting to overthrow. Kate Elliott is a master of the craft (see my review of her chonky space opera, Unconquerable Sun), and she proves to be as amazing in this short format as she is in her very expansive novels. The ending of this book is earned by every step of the narrative, and it is SO SATISFYING.

Trafik by Rikki Ducornet: Ok, this last one (for now) is a bit of a departure from the rest. It’s weird. If you don’t generally like more experimental literary fiction forms, you’re probably safe to skip this one. BUT if you are willing to go off the beaten path a bit, I highly recommend this one. For those not familiar with Rikki Ducornet, she is an avant-garde writer/poet, known for writing some very strange, dreamlike prose. One of her full novels, The Jade Cabinet, is a favorite of mine, and I’ve written a couple academic papers on it. Trafik is her most recent work (marketed as a novel, but as a teeny little book of about 120 pages, it’s definitely more in the novella category. It’s science fiction, of a sort, following a character named Quiver, a “mostly human” astronaut, and her neurotic robot Mic. When they accidentally destroy their cargo, they fear punishment from their employers and instead go rogue, making a run for the strange planet called Trafik. As I said, this is a WEIRD book, but it is weird in the best way possible – quirky, funny, hallucinatory. It functions as a nice, bite-sized introduction to Ducornet and her work.

Well, those should keep you busy for a bit at least! (And I just now noticed they are all women authors, so that’s fun). Time for me to dash back off to my Nano project (which is going pretty well for once… *knock on wood*). Catch you all later!