It’s all a bit much right now. I know you know. Everything is in constant flux as though 2020 is the biggest, twistiest roller coaster morphing at every turn into something worse. Nothing fits any more and all we can do is try to hang on and not fall off.
It’s not easy for me to admit my reading and writing have fallen into an abyss of 2020 proportions. Rectifying it feels Sisyphean. But every once in a while, something happens which drives me to the keyboard, ’cause I gotta share it.
From what I’m reading, ConZealand was an epic cluster of celebrating old white male authors both living and dead. A gross old white man who fancies himself a bestselling author couldn’t be bothered to learn how to pronounce the names of Hugo award finalists, and turned the ceremony into a “let’s talk about me” nightmare. SF/F twitter is pretty lit up about this.
It’s heartbreaking, and infuriating, to hear about this year after year after year. I left fandom once because of the gatekeeping, but I’m back now, and since I don’t give a fuck anymore about what the keepers think they’re doing I’m going to do my thing. This latest fiasco made me decide to work harder on getting my writing jam on and to lift up the really excellent work I consume.
The pain I see from those given such utter disrespect at the Hugos sent me running to FIYAH Literary Magazine screaming, “Take my money!”
On Moral Fiction by John Gardner- read They’d Rather be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley ~ read A Case of Conscience by James Blish – The Iliad and the Odyssey by Alberto Manguel The Big Time by Fritz Lieber Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton – read
They’d Rather be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank RileyA Case of Conscience by James BlishThe Iliad and the Odyssey by Alberto ManguelThe Big Time by Fritz LieberGirl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie RehakWhat Makes This Book so Great by Jo Walton
2019 Hugo nominations have been announced. I’m so pleased to see at least one book I’ve read, and a fanzine I know well, nominated.
WorldCon 76 was almost literally in my backyard, someone helped me decide I HAD to go, and it’s the only time (so far) I’ve been able to vote for the Hugos.
One of my favorite authors Mary Robinette Kowal, and astronaut Kjell Lindberg hosted a “Koffee Klatch” to talk about their work, and answer questions. There were ten of us, and we were enthused about meeting them. We learned some pretty interesting stuff about writing and being in space, and carried out a good amount of signed swag. (Kjell even signed the inside of the Canadarm hatch door on my model shuttle.)
Since I don’t anticipate going to WorldCon 77 in Dublin, sad doesn’t begin to cover how I feel about not being able to vote for at least these two nominees.
There’s such good stuff which has been nominated, and good lord how do people read it all? I’m still working on last year’s packet!
Being a list making/keeping type of person, it’s tempting to download the list of all Hugo winners/nominees and see how many I can read, but that way lies madness. There are two many other books to read, my apartment would explode with that large an influx of books.
Speaking of which, Marlon James‘ Black Leopard, Red Wolf just arrived. Here’s a great long read from The New Yorker published just before the book was published.
Part of my assigned reading for LitCrit involves N. K. Jemisin’s The Broken Earth Trilogy, Toni Morrison’sBeloved, and James’ book. To bring it back to the Hugos, Jemisin won three years in a row for Broken Earth, and with as much hype as there is about Black Leopard, Red Wolf, I won’t be surprised to see it nominated for a Hugo next year.
So … this happened. Former co-worker Christopher J. Garcia has won Hugo awards for his fanzines. The most recent issue of The Drink Tank is devoted to my reviews. It makes me excited and humbled, because … well, when one of your friends has won Hugos and wants to work with you … There are other pieces in the works. As they say somewhere, “Watch this space.”
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze — the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years — collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.
There’s so much going on in this book. It is dense and filled with dangerous adventure. It’s also filled with bigotry, sexism and violence. In many ways, it’s a difficult book to get through. Three story lines, three different women. Or so we think. Each on their own adventure. Each with a different narrative point of view.
There’s Essun, whose son has been killed by her husband. Her story starts with the discovery of her son’s body and carries us through as she searches for her daughter who’s been kidnapped by Essun’s husband. Along the way she meets the mysterious Hoa and gregarious Tonkee who delights in taking samples of things as they go along in search of a community which will take them in after the ground has started shifting under their feet.
There’s Dayama, a young girl whose parents exile her to the barn until a Guardian can fetch her. Exiled because she has a scary skill and people would rather her kind, the orogene, didn’t exist at all. Dayama’s story begins when the Guardian arrives and takes her off to school, on horseback, to be trained. Daya is treated better by the Guardian, Schaffa, than she was by her community and family. Yet his treatment comes with difficult lessons to learn, one of which is that because she is orogene, she will always be considered less than the rest of society. She will always be considered lowest of the low, unless someone needs her to use her skills for them. Even then, she will be asked begrudgingly.
Third, there’s Syenite whose story begins when she is assigned to a ten-ring orogene named Alabaster on what seems to be a simple mission to unclog a shipping port so trade can go back to normal. Syen is resentful and angry, and she takes it out on Alabaster, who returns her anger in kind. The first scene with Syen is almost literally her telling him that she’s there to fuck him (Jemisin does not sugar coat this). Syen believes the only reason she is traveling with him is to breed. His ten-ring genes with her four-ring genes could produce a super orogene to be used at one of the satellite stations for the Fulcrum.
“Everything changes during a Season.” (p. 185)
The Fifth Season refers to an extended winter triggered by cataclysmic earthquakes or catastrophic weather events. And one is on its way.
Then there comes a humdinger of a loop. One which threw me completely out of the story and made me feel betrayed. I had to put the book down and walk away for a long while. Truly, I didn’t understand why it happened, and it threw everything I thought I knew about this story into disarray. I wasn’t sure I could go on. The book won a Hugo, what was I missing?
After I calmed down, I did some reading of other reactions to The Fifth Season. What I read made me curious enough to go back and finish the book. It was worth it.
In a way, all the characters congregating at Castrima, the community run by orogenes, which welcomes everyone seems too easy. But there’s nothing easy about this book, you have to work for the payoff. Three women are actually the same woman, their stories set in three different times of her life. The stories of hardship, impossible choices, and survival come to a head in Castrima. Alabaster has the last word, “… have you ever heard of something called a moon?”
Everyone important to this story has gathered in Castrima, and it has something to do with a moon. What a great setup for book #2 The Obelisk Gate.
The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert IrwinUncommon Type by Tom HanksIn the Midst of Winter by Isabel AllendeThe Geek Feminist Revolution by Karmeron HurleyThe Fifth Season by N. K. JemisinThe Obelisk Gate by N. K. JemisinThe Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin
The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin – Read (No review)
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks – DNF
In the Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
The Geek Feminist Revolution by Kameron Hurley – Read
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