The Sea of Stars, Volume One (Jason Aaron)

 The Sea of Stars, by Jason Aaron and Dennis Hallum is a graphic novel based on the metaphor of space as a hostile and alien sea. It is a story of father and son, since the vastness and strangeness of the cosmos must be balanced by more familiar intimacy. Space whales are always welcome fauna. Some of the imagery could be considered problematic and appropriative, but it is difficult to gauge an appropriate response without reading subsequent volumes: sometimes the noxious elements must be established before the narrative can refute them. The plot appears to be a mix of the return of Quetzalcoatl with the colonization and Christianization of Mexico. The small boy beaming with light is definitely a Chist child figure, even if one in the mold of an apocalyptic Gospel, the kind you don't bring home to Mama Church. The space shaman raised my eyebrows, as well as an eldritch space squid, which presumably will play the part of the devil. There is a strong father-son dynamic which may redeem the problematic aspects in the eyes of some people, In the eyes of others, however, having a literally white savior may be unforgivable.

Edit: I did read Volume Two, but I did not feel the content merited a review here.

Dustborn: Fury Road for Fifth Graders

 

Dustborn by Erin Bowman is an easy YA read set in a place that is only slightly less doomed than N K Jemisin’s geomancer trilogy. That the map at the front is critical to the plot was refreshing. The contingencies of modern book format out of universe and the awkward yet necessary placement of the map in-universe allows forgiveness for a lack of consistent absolute scale. The characters are appropriately ignorant or startled by Old World technology, as they call it. The setting appears post-apocalyptic (which is technically correct), and the astronomy is wonky, but the sheer ignorance of the locals about anything outside of survival, and sometimes even then, is an effective screen for the actual truth. When the truth is revealed, the rather shallow world building makes sense. Sometimes with YA books it is hard to tell whether a book is the first of a trilogy.

 

The names of the characters are a bit on the nose. The protagonist, Delta of Dead River, is the predictable adolescent girl point-of-view, while Asher of Alkali Lake is the mandatory love interest/antagonist. The baby doesn’t get a name until later, and Delta’s creativity does not extend to names. Nobody is particularly likeable in the harsh environment, but some people are more awful than others. The distribution of skills and knowledge makes The Masterpiece Society’s utopia look well-planned.  The plot is stolen, but no more so than many science fiction juveniles. The linguistics is shoddy, as it nearly always is, but serviceable. The thematic swearing is mildly irritating because the thematic appropriateness is not enough to distract from the awkward prosody reminiscent of “translationese.”

There is nothing revolutionary about the setting, plot, or characterization in Dustborn; it is, nonetheless, a pleasant diversion, and a wholly acceptable juvenile for those parents who find the classics a bit too patriarchal – or do not want their kids watching the Mad Max franchise. If Bowman set another story in the future (or past) of this setting, it would be welcome.

Boy Scouts of the Apocalypse

The apocalyptic genre has resonated with audiences for generations, despite the disapproval of parents and ecclesiastical potentates, but its star has been ascendant in our media-saturated culture for many years now. The Walking Dead has lasted (too many?) seasons, and my good friend Beth roped me into watching iZombie. The week before I headed off to Latin boot camp, I was picking up Spider-Titles at Mission Comics and Arts (now moved around the corner, not closed!), when a book caught my eye: Junior Braves of the Apocalypse, Vol. 1: A Brave is Brave by Greg Smith and Michael Tanner (authors) and Zach Lehner (artist). The proprietor, Leef, agreed that this graphic novel was right up my alley. But I would have to wait before I could read it.

When I did buy it, I was glad I did. I'm not much for zombie books or horror in general. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the setting that made me more comfortable with the premise. Perhaps it was the nostalgic freedoms denied to today's generation. But this graphic novel is now part of my BSA-themed collection.

The initial cast, especially the tribe, of the graphic novel displays the diversity one would expect of an ensemble cast with a high expected death rate. The organization itself is lawyer-proofed BSA, although many of the elements are more reminiscent of Campfire Girls (long since renamed something far less memorable) and Woodcraft Indians. The old school Scoutmaster, harsh but well-intentioned, and his assistant, who prefers a softer touch, take the tribe on a week-long camp in the woods. When they return, civilization has collapsed - there may be order somewhere, but nowhere near the location of the plot. The tribe uses its skills to avoid capture and infection, but of course there are losses along the way. One character's unconventional use of trail markings was particularly gratifying. The mix of ages within the tribe is a bit of a stretch, but these lawyer-friendly versions of Boy Scouts, often mix Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts indiscriminately, and, it must be admitted, the mixture allows a greater range of reactions.

Many reviews would focus on the boys, who are indeed well-written. But I am more interested in the dynamic between the tribe leader and assistant. Their styles are initially antagonistic, but their devotion to the welfare of the boys, despite their quite different definitions, is a refreshing change to the usual portrayals of adults in youth-focused apocalyptic tales as crazy at worst, incompetent at best - in the case of the school staff, both. The tribe is split at a crucial moment, leaving the assistant with the main group. As much as I dislike the notion that one can only relate to a character who is like oneself, it is an effective technique. The frustration and dedication of the assistant tribe leader was portrayed clearly and effectively. 

The Junior Braves' manual provides gaps between the action, in which the authors can provide the infodumps that the characters would not discuss (either because they are under attack, or already know it, or both). Various pages from the manual inform the reader of the Junior Brave philosophy, a cross between the Boy Scout Law and the Outdoor Code, the taxonomy of trail signs, knots, and first aid. It certainly seems to be more readable than the current edition of the Handbook!

The first volume ends on a positive note (well, as positive as one can be during a zombie apocalypse) and the promise of adventures in the woods of the northwest.

I would recommend this graphic novel to anybody who enjoys zombie stories and anybody who was Boy Scout. It's less graphic than the current shows, has plenty of action, and displays positive relationships, even if the ever-present threat of zombification introduces tension into those relationships. Go forth and read!

Sand (Hugh Howey)

All good science fiction stories have an element of parable to them; sometimes this element subsumes the harder science, not to the extent that it becomes fantasy, but rather to avoid too many info-dumps. Sand takes place in a world that is devastated, desiccated, and depopulated, where the poor scavenge the sands for the remnants of old civilization in a process of diminishing returns. This is a world where the poor are hucksters, thugs, and prostitutes, while the rich hide behind walls and pretend that their security and status is not built upon the same shifting sands as the poor they revile. There is little about the wealthy in Sand; this is a story about those who little, if even that much. The inhabitants of these shantytowns have a better physical situation than the Fremen of Dune, but a poorer spiritual one.

Scavenging the remnants of the past is the only thing that makes living outside the walls tolerable to the wretched poor. The way in which the same item that once was cheap and plentiful has become a rare artifact creates a permanent impression on the reader. The protagonists, with one exception, make their living by diving for these relics in suits designed to control the flow of sand around them and selling the relics. As in any good sea yarn (and here it would not be remiss to remember that the name 'Sahara' ultimately means 'sea'), there is a hidden realm, rumored to be replete with riches, the fabled city of Danvar. The discovery of the hidden city initiates the bloodshed.

The characters are almost wholly the members of a family whose father fell from a position on power on which his grasp was less than sound, and then deserted his wife and children. His wife is a fallen woman, both through the desertion of her husband and the choices she made later out of desperation, which temporarily fed her children, but would drive them away in the long term. The eldest of the family, born before the family's fall from grace, is the best adjusted and least bitter, but she perpetuates the family habit of eventually betraying the trust of the younger members in order to seek her own self-interest. This betrayal teaches the next eldest that there is no support, even within family, and triggers the next betrayal. The next sibling, the eldest brother, is a ne'er-do-well whose discovery of Danvar precipitates the plot. The middle brother is waiting for his chance to abandon the youngest brother, who will then be alone.

The geology and linguistics are inconsistent. Enough time has passed that the stars of Orion's belt have spread visibly, the city of Danvar is buried a mile deep, the Rockies have crumbled to the extent that the peaks barely rise above the surface of the sands (the Waterworld effect), yet the name of the hidden city remains barely changed, and, more egregiously, the names which the mother of our protagonists gives her offspring are modern names which still have the modern meanings! These errors are less offensive if the story is viewed as a parable, a warning against things to come, exaggerated for the sake of memorability.

The conclusion is a combination of Steinbeck and Exodus, a satisfying ending to the story of a family that must make great sacrifices to overcome their lot. The ending is positive, but with the realistic ambiguity that Hollywood loves to excise.

Revealing the End Among the Dry Dust

Civilization is a tenuous construct, and this is illustrated nowhere more plainly than in Eric Cline's 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Cline demonstrates how the civilizations of that area - Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, Mycenaean, Ugaritic - were tied together by trade rather than isolated civilizations and how the best evidence of this trade lies in the exchanges of wealth among the elite, not only in (relative) imperishables, but also in the more fragile goods, whether worn or consumed. He further shows that there were merchants of foreign nations in the capitals of these nations, possibly for generations. The specter of imprecise archaeological chronology rears its head, but Cline handles it as well as can be expected. The source material is richer than in past decades, but all archaeology is feeding on scraps! The interconnection of the civilizations presents a clearer picture of the post-apocalyptic past, but muddies the waters of the lives of the survivors, since the equation of new pottery forms with invasion and a new population is no longer a Euclidean equation. Cline's book is informative, but written in a style too dry for the casual reader, and not technical enough for a professional. Some authors have the skill to walk the via media: in this book, Cline is not among that company.

The Power of One

First of all, a caveat: I wrote this for my book club, so it is a book review that presumes that you have read the book. So, while I often talk in generalities, I do not avoid all spoilers. You have been warned.


I was almost finished with The Girl with All the Gifts, (the cheaper Hachette link is not working right now) by M. R. Carey and truly enjoying it when it occurred to me to look him up online. Then I discovered that M. R, Carey was the pen name of Mike Carey, the author of the 11-volume Lucifer graphic novel series, which I highly recommend, as well as the Unwritten graphic novels, which I started but lost interest in (they weren't bad, though - check the first volume out, and make up your own mind), and the Felix Castor supernatural mystery series, which I have not read. Carey's origins as a comics writer and a screenplay writer are important influences in the strengths and weaknesses of The Girl with All the Gifts.

At first glance, The Girl with All the Gifts has two strikes against it: it is a zombie book (herein called "hungries") and its protagonist is a precocious girl. Either of these, if done less than well, could have ruined the book. The protagonist, Melanie, is a hungry who has maintained her intelligence. Melanie's character is fleshed out (so to speak), and her mentor/schoolgirl crush, Miss Justineau, recieves some character development, but the other characters who round out the principal quartet, Sargeant Parks and Doctor Caldwell, are shallow. The characterization of Parks improves as that of Justineau goes fallow. Melanie is a strong enough character on her own, but the plot demands interaction (it's a zombie book, after all, not a "last man in the world" book), so there is a lot of Justineau in the beginning. Justineau is the force that explains why Melanie is "alive", rather than cannon fodder for Parks' men, and a quite different novel could have been written about Justineau's project. Justineau, however, is fundamentally a plot device in Melanie's world, so once the quartet leaves Justineau's natural domain, her characterization withers and dies on the vine as she persistently engages in mind-numbingly stupid objections given the post-apocalyptic world she lives in. Sympathy for the devil is one thing, giving him your credit card is quite another.

To make a long story short, bad things happen (because of course they do, because it's a zombie book), and the merry band hit the road. Justineau becomes baggage, and Melanie and Parks become the important duo. Parks' changing attitude to Melanie is not really character development as much as revelation of a constant character in differing circumstances. He does not learn as much as one might think, but to say more about that would spoil the ending. Melanie's relationship with Caldwell remains (justifiably) hostile.

The limited sociological detail in the novel is reasonable, since this book is not about the society, but rather about the coming of age (in a strange way) of a little undead girl. The scantiness of the personal relationship is more troubling. The Girl with All the Gifts is not only a novel, but also a screen play, written simultaneously; apparently, the novel's multiple viewpoints are collapsed into the single viewpoint of Melanie in the script. The paucity of description of characters in the book is probably interference from the script process, as are some of the graphic scenes that only touch lightly on the plot. Both movies and comics are collaborative art forms, which means that they are both more than the sum of their parts and divided in complimentary tasks. Some of the details absent from the book would be filled in by the illustrator in a comic or the set designer in a movie.

The scientific explanation of the apocalypse makes a fair amount of sense - at least, it explains how the walking corpses are walking. The explanation of Melanie's functionality is good, as far as it goes. It does answer how a ten-year-old hungry can maintain intelligence, but there are some confusing and inexplicable things about her existence to the ten year mark - human babies don't map perfectly onto animal babies. Only Melanie's total lack of knowledge of her life before captivity excuses the lack of an explanation. The complexities of Carey's other plots makes it probable that he does have one. The resolution of the plot, which is closely tied to Melanie's nature and others like her, is cold and logical, yet hopeful. It would be nice if the movie does not have an artificially happy ending, but Hollywood is rather hopeless in that regard. As in all zombie books, the solution is (or seems to be) a temporary solution, but it does further the standard "future history" of the zombie apocalypse from one generation to two generations. If The Girl with All the Gifts catches the imagination of the zombie-mad masses, I expect that there will be further exploration of undead incubation, child care, and post-human civilization.

Review: The Hunger Games

Note (2/24/22): This has been edited to remove an offensive term. Saying what it was would negate the effect of the edit, and seeking to know what it was would prove the seeker more interested in finding offense than reading the remaining content.

Circumstances, related to the rainy conditions of Saturday's Scout hike resulted my double viewing of the film version of The Hunger Games. I do not regret watching it twice, since the Venn diagram of friends and acquaintances with whom I saw it did not overlap. The Hunger Games is a well-made film, and I would watch it again, although I probably would not buy the DVD. The transition from novel to film always entails simplification and externalization of details which books can present in an introspective manner. Although the Treaty of the Treason, in which the Capital set forth the terms of the Hunger Games, appears prominently in the film (an instance of cinematographic externalization), there is no mention of the "reward" that the winner of the Hunger Games earned for his or her District. In the book, the winning District receives extra rations to stave off malnutrition and starvation. Its omission makes the Capital's abuse of the districts more offensive, but also eliminates an obvious motivation for the Districts' complicity in this appalling ritual. The book uses third-person limited narration, and thus ignores the omnipresent cameras necessary for the viewing pleasure of the citizens of the Capital; the film never lets you forget about the cameras, in an attempt to condemn the audience in the theater as well as the Capital. It is a valiant attempt, but the freakish appearance of the Capital citizens, who look like the world's most fashion-challenged parade, compared to the normal (if rustic) dress of the residents of the Districts, creates to much visual dissonance to succeed. The depiction of the reaction of District 11 to a key moment in the movie seems heavy-handed; Rue, the female tribute from District 11, is described merely as dark-skinned in The Hunger Games, but her District is shown as the "black" district with one token white guy. Then the Peacekeepers (who are as ominous as the name suggests) bring out the water cannons. The racism in the world of the Hunger Games is an oblivious racism against all Districts, rather than one predicated on contemporary American racial fears.

Virtual Unrealities

In preparation for Wednesday's book club, I scanned my shelves and discovered that my Bester collection d of two books, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man. Even though these are his two most famous science-fiction novels, it seemed remiss of the organizer to have never read any short stories of Bester. So I headed down to Borderlands Bookstore and a bought a copy of Virtual Unrealities. The majority of the stories were written in the early years of Bester's career, but the explosive creativity.

"Disappearing Act" feels almost like a Twilight Zone episode, with a small cast and the true conclusion left to the intelligence of the reader. "Oddy and Id" has loads of Freudian psychology, and is most interesting as a study for The Demolished Man. "Star Light, Star Bright" reads as an episode of the Twilight Zone. "5,271,009" is about choices and maturity, but with the patented Bester craziness. "Fondly Fahrenheit" is a fun story, but the mystery in it is a little thin; more importantly, there are no clues before the big reveal. "Hobson's Choice" is an excellent reflection on the illusion of a better future or past. I do find the meaning of the protagonist's name, Addyer, refreshingly appropriate. "Of Time and Third Avenue" is a pleasant little time story, dedicated, I suspected, to Damon Knight. "Time Is The Traitor" is my favorite story in the collection, although bythis point I am beginning to suspect that Bester has a probability and statistics fetish. The ending is bittersweet, but utterly logical. "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" did not strike me especially forcefully, but I'm not fond of those sort of endings - I also may have read it before.  I can't say much about "Pi Man," since I lost interest in it almost immediately.  "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To" is a post-apocalyptic tale in which the protagonist has reverted to a childish mentality. I read "The Flowered Thundermug" and enjoyed it, but am at a total loss how to describe it - comparison to Idiocracy plus a crime caper seems inadequate. "Adam and Eve" is another post-apocalyptic travel narrative, whose smoking gun is one I had never considered. I do wonder, though, why iron features so strongly in many early science-fictional devices when its most dramatic reaction is to rust in the presence of oxygen. "3 1/2 To Go" is a fragment, but gives a sense of what other freaks might be in Guy Fourmyles' Four Mile Circus. The following story, "Galatea Galante," covers the circus angle well, and provides an interesting example of synaesthesia in the musical "speech" of the Siren.

The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination - formally known as Tiger! Tiger! - an apocalyptic, pyrotechnic proto-cyberpunk novel, explosive in its language. The story of Gully Foyle, a worthless piece of meat in human form who transcends his inutility. A treatise on the potential of the common man.

The Stars My Destination is an enjoyable read. It incorporates many of the motifs of cyberpunk without overwhelming the reader without singularity self-pleasuring. The sociological examination of the fallout from a revolutionary discovery (jaunting) is detailed and well thought out. The inversion of the usual direction of one-way telepathy is ingenious, and the neo-Skoptsy sect sends shivers down the spine. The pace leaves one breathless.

There are, however, certain portions which have not aged well. The preoccupation of science fiction writers in the 1950's and 1960's with clowns and circuses lacks the same resonance in an age when the only well-known circus is pretentious and French-Canadian. Although the theme of corporate clans is remarkably relevant today, the use of actual company names in a work of fiction tarnishes the facade. The social attitudes are remarkably dated for the Western World, but at least Bester provides an in-story explanation.

When a book opens with a poem, it's never an accident, but often a thesis or an indication of the flavor of the narrative. Ignore it at your peril.

Movie Review: The City of Ember

On Thursday night, I watched The City of Ember, based on the book of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau. I have long held a love of post-apocalyptic movies which do not involve leatherdaddies and large amounts of hairspray, ever since I read John Christopher's The White Mountains and The Sword of the Spirit trilogies, or perhaps it was early exposure to Spartacus and the Sun Beneath the Sea. I will confess, I have not read the book, which is contrary to my usual movie-watching policy.

At first, I wasn't sure the DVD was working properly, because this is the only movie I've seen with so many scenes in the pitch black that don't involve people dying horribly. The architectural geography of the actual city of Ember triggered some visual memories in me, which I could not identify until I checked the next day and realized the author was French; I had been reminded of the more nightmarish architecture of The City of Lost Children. The leads of the film were well-cast, although the dim lighting (for once justified by plot relevance) made reading their faces difficult at times. Some other reviews have faulted the film for a lack of action; while the sacrifice of certain scenes from the book appear to have reduced the action quotient, I was pleased to watch a film where the intelligence and mystery-solving sections of the book were not sacrificed for action scenes. Enough confrontations occur in the dark or dim already!

The mole and the giant mutant beetle were absurd (although moles are indeed creepy, if you look closely at them), and how everybody in these underground cities avoids rickets baffles me. I assume dwarves in fantasy books have a racial immunity. The Assignment Day, although it is common for such survivalist dystopias, seems slightly ridiculous in its system of random assignments. Lois Lowry's The Giver, which I re-read today (yes, the whole thing) in order to have some points of comparison, contains speeches that indicate careful thought on the matter of individual assignments; perhaps the book The City of Ember contains such scenes which were cut from the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but the location of Ember is the draw, so perhaps it's not so bad that there will be no movie sequels.