BOOK REVIEW: China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh

I have been hearing about China Mountain Zhang on Goodreads for so long that I finally decided to break down and read it. China Mountain Zhang is famous for being the debut novel of Maureen McHugh that was nominated for many of the most prestigious awards in speculative fiction: the 1992 Hugo Award, the 1993 Nebula award, the Locus Award for Best First Novel (1993), the James Tiptree, Jr. Award(1993), and the Lambda Literary Award (1993) and winning several of them (Tiptree, Locus and Lambda). China Mountain Zhang is also well-known for its unusual structure: it is a mosaic novel, i.e. a collection of intertwined stories, all set in a 22nd century United States (and world) dominated by China, and featuring a character named Zhang Zhong Shan, which contains two of the most famous names in the Chinese language, akin to being called George Washington Jones. It so happens that Zhang, the title character, is a guy with multiple secrets. He’s a closeted gay man in a culture rife with state-sanctioned deadly homophobia. Even though he appears to be ABC (American-Born Chinese), in actuality he has a Latino father, his mother named him Rafael and (illegally) provided him with spliced genes that give him his Asian appearance that aligns with his public identity as Zhang. The reader learns about the world of the twenty-second century through cleverly curated details provided in the stories. For example, we know that the United States is no longer a capitalist democracy because Zhang has to go to a special government office to obtain a new job when he loses (or leaves) the first job we see him have in an early chapter. (This indicates that even in New York City there appears to be a planned economy.) Socially and culturally, China appears to be the zenith of society in the book, and going to China is what most people we meet in the stories aspire to do. Eventually Zhang goes to spend a difficult 18 months near the North Pole in order to get credit that he can use to finance an education in China that will provide him with engineering and architectural credentials that will allow him much more job flexibility and earning potential in the future. (There are multiple references to communism and Mao Zedong but individual ownership of property does not seem to be outlawed in the United States, although collectives appear to be popular and socially favored.) In my opinion, Zhang is the most important (and frequently appearing) character in the book and his stories are the best passages; it makes sense that he’s the title character. Overall, although I’m glad that I have finally read China Mountain Zhang, I was not really that impressed with it. Having an openly gay character in 1992 (was and) is definitely ahead of its time, but being unable to realize that societal homophobia (even in a world dominated by Chinese culture) might have abated was not a possible future the author envisioned. So my overall takeaway from the book is that it produces a vision of a downbeat, if not dystopian, future. Of course, not all books need to be upbeat but my hope is that in most books I read the story will be engrossing or engaging to the reader in multiple ways, either in wanting to know how the story ends (here since the book is a mosaic there is no “plot” per se, so this is not a factor) or depicting characters or the setting in a way that cause a visceral connection with the reader (neither really worked for me here although I was curious about how exactly China came to dominate the United States but that story is not fully given). So in the end I view China Mountain Zhang as a creative but not compelling read; it’s suitable for sci-fi completists but probably not for casual aficionados of the genre.

Title: China Mountain Zhang.
Author: Maureen McHugh.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 321 pages.
Publisher: Orb Books.
Date Published:  April 15, 1997 (March 1992).
Date Read: October 17, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: B.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-
WRITING: B+

BOOK REVIEW: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is a classic work of science fiction written by Daniel Keyes published originally as a short story in 1958 and a novel in 1966 that was adapted into the award-winning 1968 movie Charly starring Cliff Robertson. Both the book and the movie are known as tearjerkers because of the sympathetic nature of the depiction of the main character, Charlie Gordon, who is a mentally challenged 32-year-old man (with an IQ of 68) who participates in a radical experiment that results in a large and rapid, but temporary, increase in Charlie’s intelligence. The titular character of Algernon is a laboratory rat who undergoes the experimental treatment first and who Charlie closely identifies with, especially since he eventually realizes that the trajectory of his intellectual life is going to follow Algernon’s.

The story in Flowers for Algernon is told as a series of vignettes, described as progress reports written by Charlie. Keyes cleverly uses the text of the reports (grammar, word choice, spelling) to demonstrate to the reader how Charlie’s intelligence changes as the book progresses. In the early parts of the book, the reports are riddled with errors and have a very simplistic voice, reflecting Charlie’s diffident and oblivious personality. After the procedure, as Charlie’s IQ soars by over 100 points, the writing in the progress reports becomes more sophisticated and the voice is more confident as Charlie begins to understand the world around him.

Although many things change as Charlie’s status changes from dunce to genius, some things remain the same. In the beginning, Charlie clearly has difficulty determining the motives of people and is easily tricked. In some sense, ignorance is bliss; he thinks his coworkers at the bakery he does deliveries for are his friends, when really they play cruel tricks on him that he doesn’t even understand are happening. After the experiment, Charlie still misinterprets (or imposes his own interpretation for) the reasons Dr. Jason Strauss and Professor Harold Neymar are pursuing this research. Charlie has feelings for Alice Kinnian, his teacher at the Beekman Center for Retarded Adults, before and after the procedure. In both phases he doesn’t know how to articulate or express his views to her. When he becomes “smart” he doesn’t realize that his intelligence is intimidating Alice and he’s unaware of how self-centered his behavior around her is. Despite this, she still agrees to a romantic relationship with him but he’s unable to go through with it.

One of the more interesting aspects of Flowers for Algernon is it’s setting in New York in the early 1960s. The reader gets to see a slice of how New Yorkers lived at the time. Keyes also depicts the conservative social mores of the time in Charlie’s social interactions between many of the important people in his life, such as his employer, Mr. Donner (the bakery owner); Alice Kinnian, his teacher and love interest; Fay Lillman, his neighbor, friend and eventual lover.

Overall, Flowers for Algernon is a tragedy and a cautionary tale whose moral is “be careful what you wish for.” In the beginning, Charlie most heartfelt wish is “to become smart” because he think it would repair the relationship between himself and his mother, who abandoned him to the Beekman Center once his younger sister grows old enough to be jealous of (and shamed by) a big brother who is older in age but younger in intellectual development. He also has absorbed the societal value that “smarter is better” and thus wants to be smarter and better. But as Charlie’s intellectual prowess grows he becomes more and more obnoxious to be around and his interpersonal relationships all suffer. His conceptual capacity grows enormously (he can read and speak multiple languages and he understands at expert levels many different unrelated subjects) his emotional capacity seems to diminish. He’s contemptuous of college professors (and students) for their interest in (and inability to focus on more than) one intellectual discipline at a time. Eventually he breaks with the people who conducted the experiment, annoyed by their treatment of him as a source of study instead of as a contributing partner. The tragedy is that it’s Charlie himself who figures out that the extraordinary increase in intelligence is actually temporary and that he will eventually lose all the gains and be back where he started from. That he knows it’s going to happen and that it does is absolutely devastating for the reader to watch. All of the milestones he achieved as a result of the experiment: writing fluent and correct prose in the progress reports, leaving his menial job at the bakery and living independently all get reversed as the story continues. And Flowers for Algernon ends with Charlie not really remembering who Algernon was, but that he was a good friend of his who he wants to honor, so he asks his friends to remember to put flowers on Algernon’s grave after Charlie is committed to a state home for the mentally incapacitated.

Title: Flowers for Algernon.
Author: Daniel Keyes.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 219 pages.
Publisher: Mariner Books.
Date Published:  December 1, 2007 (April 1959).
Date Read: October 1, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Wayfarers, #4) by Becky Chambers

The Galaxy and The Ground Within is the fourth entry in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers, a quirky collection of loosely connected stories of life about an interstellar, multifarious civilization where humans are just one among a large number of space-faring species. The Wayfarers series won the Hugo award for Best Series in 2019 for Becky Chambers. 

The previous books in the series are The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014); A Closed and Common Orbit (2016); and Record of a Spaceborn Few (2018). The Galaxy and The Ground Within was published in 2021. The books are all similar yet also very different, with nebulous connections between the individual entries. Basically what they all share is a vibe, which a significant fraction of readers find admirable and appealing. I suppose they can be classified as “space opera” because the formal definition of the term is “an adventure science-fiction story” and there are aliens, spaceships and conflict in all of the Wayfarer books. 

However what sets the Wayfarers books apart is that the “narrative tension” or conflict in these books is often at a much lower scale/volume than what one typically sees in a space opera novel. This "lack" of action sometimes leads to complaints that “nothing happens” in these books but I disagree. Instead, most of the action is more individualized and impacts a small number of characters.

For example, in The Galaxy and The Ground Within a horrible accident happens that results in the destruction of multiple satellites over a planet which is usually a busy way station for travelers (called the Five-Hop One Stop) across the galaxy. The result is that a handful of aliens have their travel plans disrupted and are forced to interact with each other and the manager of the way station for an extended period of time. It’s basically the interstellar equivalent of the famous Icelandic volcanic eruption that disrupted inter-Atlantic travel several years ago, leaving travelers stranded in various airports. For the people involved it’s a big deal, of course, but for an uninvolved observer it is inconsequential.

What Chambers does is try to make us care about what happens by getting us to know more about the aliens (in this Wayfarers book there are no speaking characters that are human) while slowly revealing to us the impact of the travel delay on their lives. Chambers incorporates diversity in multiple ways into her books. In some of the earlier books, there was diversity in the kind of intelligence (artificial or computer-based intelligence versus biological) was a theme. In in The Galaxy and The Ground Within there is a prominent non-binary character and multiple characters perform their gender in a way that would surprise humans by their fluidity (like "male" characters either getting pregnant or having borne offspring).

Overall, I liked this book about as much as the other books in the series but I must admit that they are a specialized, acquired taste for the vast majority of science fiction fans who are used to their space opera in the mode of Star Trek or Star Wars or The Expanse (that is, action-packed, thrill rides with weapons, aliens, discovery and suspense). That said, there are still some low-key levels of enjoyment from reading the Wayfarers books and if you have read the others, you will most likely enjoy The Galaxy and The Ground Within too.

Title: The Galaxy and the Ground Within.
Author: Becky Chambers .
Format: Hardcover.
Length: 325 pages.
Publisher: Harper Voyager.
Date Published: April 20, 2021.
Date Read: September 8, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

A Desolation Called Peace is the sequel to the celebrated debut novelA Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. The first book was nominated for multiple prestigious awards: Locus, Hugo, Nebula ,Clarke and Goodreads. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2020.

Because of the acclaimed nature of the first book, the sequel was very much anticipated by many science fiction fans. Although I was less enamored of the first book than others, I also looked forward to reading the sequel and I was not disappointed.

The main character in the books is Mahit Dzmare, a diplomat for Lesl Station, which is a small space station located near a jump gate. The setting of the books is the Tleixcalaani Empire, which controls a vast number of planetary systems. Tleixcalaan is a galactic superpower with military, cultural, and financial hegemony. Mahit has been fascinated by all-things Tleixcalaan all her life, so her appointment as the Lesl Ambassador to Tleixcalaan is her dream job. In the first book, A Memory Called Empire, Mahit arrives on Tleixcalaan and immediately discovers that her predecessor had been murdered and finds herself in a complicated diplomatic and political maelstrom. She is helped in navigating the dangerous waters by a minor diplomatic functionary assigned to her named Three Seagrass and Three Seagrass’s friend Twelve Azalea. During the book Mahit interacts with people at the highest echelons of Tleixcalaan society, including the Emperor himself (Six Direction) and Nineteen Adze (one of a limited number of Imperial advisors who represent the Emperor and implement his wishes). Mahit uses her smarts and the efforts of her Tleixcalaan hosts to figure her way out of a complicated situation that maintains the sovereignty of Lesl Station and her own body integrity.

In the beginning of A Desolation Called Peace Mahit is back on Lesl Station and Three Seagrass is back on Tleixcalaan when news of incursions into imperial space by alien ships and a massacre of Tleixcalaan citizens on a remote industrial planet begins to roll in. Mahit is still recovering from brash decisions that she made while on Tleixcalaan and trying to re-acclimate herself to being “home” on Lesl when she is asked by Three Seagrass to go to a Tleixcalaan military vessel that is patrolling the sector of space where the aliens are active and may have received a signal from them that needs to be interpreted in order to make first contact. It’s basically an irresistible invitation to participate in a historic diplomatic first and of course Mahit says yes, although it is complicated to the unresolved status of her relationship with Three Seagrass.

The other main characters in A Desolation Called Peace are the commander of the Tleixcalaan fleet that has encountered the alien ships, Nine Hibiscus, and the 12-year-old “90%-clone” of the former Emperor, Eight Antidote.

In my opinion, one of the key failings of the first book was its focus on language (in particular poetry) and the depiction of the central political conflict as a process of sussing out the motives of the characters struggling for supremacy by parsing what they said (and left unsaid). That’s not to say that there wasn’t action in A Memory Called Empire, but the real meat of the story was often in the thoughts about the action. This “chatty” problem is mainly rectified in the sequel. I think there’s more action in A Desolation Called Peace and although there is still a fair amount of space devoted to characters thinking and talking about the action, the amount of time the book spends in character’s heads seems less prominent in the sequel.

The key themes in both books are culture, communication and compatibility. In A Desolation Called Peace the question is central to the plot because Nine Hibiscus (and Mahit and Three Seagrass) are trying to determine if it is possible to communicate with alien beings, and once they show that they can do so, how compatible they are.

Tleixcalaan culture is geared towards domination, never accommodation, but it is clear these aliens are at least as technologically sophisticated, so the question of compatibility becomes central to the plot. In the first book Mahit was the outsider treated like a barbarian by Tleixcalaan citizens while in the second book because the power differentials are undefined who will play which role in the interaction with the aliens is unclear.

In A Desolation Called Peace the reader spends a fair amount of time with Eight Antidote, who literally is the heir apparent to the Tleixcalaan Empire. Because of his age (and position) he becomes the vehicle the author uses to show the reader different aspects of Tleixcalaan culture and how contingent communication (and interpretation) are.

Mahit is still central to the resolution of the plot and is definitely still should be considered the main character in A Desolation Called Peace but I think it is a clear improvement over A Memory Called Empire that there are multiple other characters to carry the narrative thrust of the plot. I enjoyed this book more than the first. Right now it is not clear if the Tleixcalaan books are a duology or a trilogy, but I would definitely love to read a third book featuring Mahit having further adventures in Tleixcalaan space!

Title: A Desolation Called Peace (Tleixcalaan, #2).
Author: Arkady Martine.
Format: Electronic (CloudLibrary).
Length: 496 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: March 2, 2021.
Date Read: May 20, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A. 

BOOK REVIEW: Lucifer's Hammer

Lucifer’s Hammer is one of the classic works of science fiction; it was nominated for the Hugo and Locus awards for Best Novel. Written by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven and published in 1977, Lucifer’s Hammer is one of the most prominent examples of the post-apocalyptic trope of modern science fiction. Set primarily in California, the story follows a large cast of characters as they are affected by the discovery of the Hamner-Brown comet, its rapid approach to Earth, catastrophic collision and immediate aftermath.

The story is set in the late 1970s and the cultural assumptions and depictions are somewhat jarring as one views them from the perspective of a gay, Black man living in the 21st century. This is not a new experience I (and am sure many other readers who are not in the expected target audience of straight, white, males) have had reading alleged classics of science fiction. Honestly, I would say that Lucifer’s Hammer has fewer “ugh!” moments than others I have read. For example, the N-word does appear in the text, unexpurgated.

The primary way the disconnect between the modern reader and the somewhat dated text manifests is in a lack of empathy for the primary characters. I was never that invested in whether a particular character that we’ve been given a first-person perspective of would survive or not. To me, the narrative tension in the book that kept me reading to the end was the recognizable plausibility of the depiction of the rapid deterioration of civilization after the cataclysmic comet collision and whether human civilization would still be viable at the end of the book. 

Pournelle & Niven use 3-4 main characters as vehicles through which they tell the bulk of the story. The first is Tim Hamner, a rich astronomical dilettante who happens to discover the comet and then escapes with a woman-who-is-not-his-wife to Northern California after devastating tidal waves basically inundate and decimate Southern California where he lives. Another is Harvey Randall, a producer of television documentaries who does a series of stories on Hamner and the comet. The third most prominent character is Maureen Jellison, daughter of U.S. Senator Arthur Clay Jellison. When the comet strikes, Jellison becomes the de facto leader of a group of survivors in Northern California, due to his thforesightedness to stockpile useful supplies on his ranch in the area. There are many other characters who also get first-person accounts, from the murderer-rapist who takes advantage of the turmoil and confusion to commit crimes, to the policeman who punishes him and maintains law and order despite the uncertainty of whether humanity itself will persist and lastly, the Black criminal Alim Nassor who (unsuccessfully) attempts to use the abandonment of white folks their homes to enrich and empower himself and his “brothers.” Some of these characters are simply bad people so that’s one reason why it’s difficult to connect with them or care about their survival. However, some of the characters are simply not that relatable to me (perhaps because I’m not in the expected target audience). And some of the depictions of the characters (especially their attitudes and beliefs) are borderline offensive.

However, in the end I would say that overall Lucifer’s Hammer is an effective, if flawed, entry in the genre of speculative fictional depiction of apocalyptic events. It would have been improved by providing a more diverse set of perspectives on the cataclysmic events by the inclusion of different characters.

Title: Lucifer's Hammer.
Author: Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 642 pages.
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services.
Date Published: September 22, 2010. (First Published: July 1, 1977)
Date Read: November 29, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/B (3.16/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

This is the first book written by Kameron Hurley that I have read, which I did because it is nominated for the 2020 Best Novel Hugo Award and 2020 Best Novel Locus Award. I have noticed that most people have a bimodal reaction to her work, i.e. either they love it or hate it. However, that doesn't include me because although I didn't love The Light Brigade I didn't hate it either. To me it is flawed, in that it has one central idea, which it repeats over and over (and over) again. (I myself won't repeat the idea because it would be something of a spoiler.) This repetition becomes a bit tedious for the reader. The Light Brigade is also clearly a military science fiction novel, which is most definitely not my favorite sub-genre of SF.

The book definitely has multiple strengths. I really appreciated the way the gender of the main character is not revealed explicitly until VERY late in the book (I am pleased that I picked the correct one). By constantly referring to the main character as Dietz in a way where the character's gender is unclear, and also providing the inner monologue of Dietz also without referring to their own gender (and having them be attracted to, and couple with, both men and women) is an interesting commentary on gender (and sexuality), especially in the context of a militaristic novel. There are multiple references and descriptions of Dietz's hair but this is not enough to answer the question if they are male, female or non-binary.

Another strength of the book is its commentary on capitalism and citizenship. The central feature of life in the world of The Light Brigade are the corporations (or corps) and citizenship. People are either citizens, residents or "ghouls" (basically stateless non-persons). Dietz is a resident (due to the sacrifices of her parents--she grew up as neither a resident or citizen) and has volunteered for service in order to become a citizen after 10 years of service (although very, very few people survive the war that long!

The war that Dietz is fighting is against Martians--but those "Martians" are humans who have colonized Mars and terraformed it, establishing their own society without the influence of the rapacious corps. The media is completely controlled by the corporations and they do their best to turn Earth's popular opinion against Mars. They claim that recent atrocities (like a portion of the Moon being obliterated in a mysterious explosion and the fact two million squatters near Sao Paulo, including Dietz's own family members, disappeared in a Blink of light several years ago) are the work of Martians. There's no way of visually distinguishing Martians and Earthers but Hurley demonstrates to us through Dietz's thoughts the many ways that war relies on the dehumanization of the Other.

The Light Brigade goes into extensive detail about basic training and describes the process by which Dietz is transformed from a new recruit turns into a fresh-faced soldier and then a jaded survivor. This is nothing one has not read dozens of times before, in the work of Haldeman, Kloos, Clarke, etc although I will note that Hurley does a decent job here, it's not distinguished.

Overall, I am glad that I read this book so I have a first-person impression of Hurley's work. It's important to know what works for one's taste and what does not. I would definitely not vote for it to win the Hugo (my choice would be Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire) but I don't begrudge it's position among the nominees.

Title: The Light Brigade.
Author: Kameron Hurley.
Paperback: 369 pages.
Publisher: Saga Press.
Date Published: March 19, 2019.
Date Read: June 21, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★☆☆  (3.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+/B (3.25/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut, #2) by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky is the sequel to a book I mostly enjoyed (The Calculating Stars) but my enjoyment of this Hugo award-winning novel was leavened with some qualms and niggling concerns. While I liked getting to know the main character Elma York and was thrilled with the prominent appearance of mathematical concepts like the Fibonacci series and prime numbers, there always seemed to be “something off” about the ethos of the first book. The premise is very clever: suppose the Space Race started a decade earlier due to an external animating force caused by a cataclysmic event which makes the necessity of humanity colonizing the solar system more urgent because the Earth will become increasingly more inhospitable in the next century. This time shift means that the social tensions based around race and gender that actually happened in our 1960s and 1970s occur in the book’s timeline of the 1950s in the context of the Space Race. The  main character, Elma York,  is a white Jewish woman who is something of a mathematical savant. She and her husband Nathaniel get jobs with the International Aerospace Coalition (IAC). She becomes a celebrity as the “Lady Astronaut” and thus is given leeway to break barriers and violate cultural mores without repercussions someone of her status would be expected to suffer. In the first book it was somewhat titillating to see these issues addressed (even awkwardly and somewhat ineptly) in the context of a speculative fiction novel but on further reflection I don’t think the overall result is positive and this becomes increasingly clear in the second book. The problem for me with both The Calculating Stars  and The Fated Sky is that in most social situations the reader is more aware of the racial or cultural implications than Elma is. This device of Elma’s cluelessness is one that the author uses to demonstrate the illogic of discrimination and animus repeatedly to the reader. I would argue that while the author uses the device effectively she also repeats and frequently re-inscribes racist and sexist tropes (inadvertently, I think) while trying to illustrate how wrong these are to the reader. In The Fated Sky there are numerous examples of this problem. For example, Elma is on a ship to Mars with 4 men and 3 women when she finds a (used) condom. Of course she assumes that one of the men (probably the captain, whom she has a very difficult relationship with and is a known philanderer) is forcing himself on one of the other women (both of whom are women of color). It doesn’t even occur to her that it could be evidence of sexual activity between two of the men! But there are numerous problem with this scenario. 1) (why) would 2 (presumably straight) men having sex on a 3-year space journey be using condoms (especially in an era where contraception was basically illegal and HIV/AIDS didn't exist)? 2) why would an allegedly intelligent astronaut not know to not throw a condom away in the toilet and  cause a disruptive plumbing incident? 3) why would the author later kill off one of the gay characters in a freak accident? Does the author not know about the vicious trope of the doomed homosexual who always dies before the end of the story? Despite revealing society’s homophobia through Elma’s cluelessness the author has reproduced it through her treatment of the two male characters who loved (in multiple senses of the word) each other. While it is true by martyring one of the gay characters she raises the profile of the remaining gay character but there's no way to dispel the conclusion that by having a freak fatal accident occur to one of the gay characters is a re-enactment of the "doomed homosexual" trope. There are (many) other examples of how the author does this in The Fated Sky  with both gender and race (Elma is sometimes quick to notice and call out patriarchal/sexist behavior but then some of her favorite and most lauded activities involve her prowess in the kitchen!) One interesting aspect of the book that is a highlight, is the portrayal of multiple Jewish celebrations (even in space!). The sensitivity by which a minority religion is portrayed is incongruous to how ethnic and racial minorities are depicted. For example, race is the primary fault line in the time being portrayed in the books but as I have said before, the author uses the main character's outsider status to illustrate to the reader how ignorance/unfamiliarity with the lived experience of others can highlight the salience and pervasiveness of racism and sexism. But the problem is that these encounters are only ever presented to the reader through Elma's perspective, which tends to marginalize the agency of the characters who are racial (and ethnic) minorities. Overall, I was somewhat dubious about reading the second book in the series after reflecting more on the deficiencies of the first (which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel). But the large number and the high average Goodreads ratings of both books convinced me to give it a try despite these misgivings. It's unlikely I will make that mistake with the third book!

Title: The Fated Sky.
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal.
Paperback: 384 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: October 1, 2018.
Date Read: April 21, 2020.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★☆☆  (3.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.33/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B-.
WRITING: A-.

BOOK REVIEW: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars is the (Nebula and Locus) award-winning book by Mary Robinette Kowal about the 1950s space race but set in an alternate time line where a meteor hits the Earth near Chesapeake Bay, decimates the Eastern Seaboard and catalyzes the greenhouse effect, endangering human survival on Earth. The main character of The Calculating Stars is Elma York, a former WASP pilot and mathematical genius who ends up working as a “computer” for the International Aerospace Coalition, the space agency responsible for managing the race to the stars. The impetus behind the space race in this timeline is not a US-Russia proxy war but a race to get to space in order to save humanity before Earth becomes inhabitable due to the runaway global warming caused by the long range after-effects of the asteroid collision. One shorthand view of the book is that it is a version of “The Right Stuff” and "Hidden Figures" told from the perspective of a Jewish white woman who is obsessed with going into space but has to combat social conservatism and sexist mores in order to achieve her dream. Elma is a fun character and it was fun to spend time with her. She has a pretty severe undiagnosed anxiety disorder; during episodes where this manifests as panic attacks  she tries to get through by doing mathematics. For example, she will mentally recite the beginning of the list of prime numbers or the Fibonacci series or do 4-digit arithmetic operations in her head. Her husband, who is also Jewish, an engineer and eventually becomes her boss at the IAC, helps to distract/calm her down at times of stress (such as facing a room full of reporters). Elma becomes internationally known as “the Lady Astronaut” through her advocacy in the media of the idea that women should join the space program. This is an interesting SFnal twist because in real life no one but white men were considered by NASA to become astronauts in the equivalent time period (1950s to 1970s). Although I like Elma I’m not as enamored with the book as a whole. Of course, as a black gay mathematics professor I’m in favor of the author’s depiction of the regimented/stilted mores of the 1950s and the spotlight she puts on the senselessness of the discrimination based on gender (and race) that occur(red) in such an important science/engineering enterprise. I also love the fact the story is infused with a love of mathematics and science/engineering and was intrigued that  it is told from the perspective of a white Jewish woman. But for me there was a spark missing which prevented me from emotionally connecting with the story. I think this may be because ultimately the stakes are too low. Since this is an alternate timeline (caused by a very unlikely event) the overarching idea that the space race needs to be successful earlier in time in order to save humanity is not that compelling. And even though I want Elma to succeed at breaking barriers, she will/would be fine even if she didn’t go into space. So although I enjoyed spending time with Elma and love the centering of math and science in the rare context of a SFnal book which pays close attention to identity and positionality of its characters,  I ended somewhat unmoved by  The Calculating Stars. I admire it more than I adore it. However, I will most likely read the sequels in the trilogy because I am curious about how the story ends, and when that occurs with any first book, it must be considered a success. There's a reason why it is very likely to win the 2019 Hugo award for Best Novel in addition to its other accolades.

Title: The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1).
Author: Mary Robinette Kowal.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Tor Books.
Date Published: July 3, 2018.
Date Read: July 20, 2019.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.83/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

2019 HUGO AWARDS: Nominations Are Announced!

The nominations for the 2019 Hugo awards, the most prestigious literary award in science fiction, were announced today. The nominees for Best Novel are:

• The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

• Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

• Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

• Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

• Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)

• Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

I have only read one of these books (Record of a Spaceborn Few), but I do own two of the others (Revenant Gun and The Calculating Stars). I found the former completely unreadable but the latter is on my list of the books to read very soon. I also will probably read Trail of Lightning but I was not a big fan of Uprooted Novik's last retelling of a classic fantasy tale so I think I will skip Spinning Silver.

The awards will be given out during Worldcon in Dublin, Ireland in August 2019.

BOOK REVIEW: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire is the first book in John Scalzi's The Interdependency series. It won the 2018 Locus Award for Best Novel and was nominated for the 2018 Hugo Award for best novel as well. (Scalzi has won the Best Novel Hugo award before, for Redshirts). The Collapsing Empire is definitely space opera and it is amusing and entertaining, up to a point. The main characters are Cardenia, the "emperox" of the Interdependency (the future form of human civilization), Lord Marce Claremont, a physicist who confirms a important development that will affect humanity's future survival) and Lady Kiva Lagos, a prominent member of a prominent family whose every other word appears to be an expletive. The plot involves various acts of betrayal and intrigue and there's also a fair amount of action and violence. I don't want to give away any aspects of the plot or include spoilers. However,. I must say that the  overall the effect of the book for me is far less memorable than one would expect from such a famous author like Scalzi and for a book which in the grand scheme of things is widely celebrated.  My reaction to Scalzi's work is often hit or miss. As most people would agree, his best book  is Old Man's War, which also happens to be his first published work. Some people would also say it has been downhill from there, in the relative quality of his books. There are multiple sequels to Old Man's War, with most recent entry in the series being The End of all Things (Book 6). I would have thought I would have a good reaction to his Lock In and Head On books, because they are genre-splitters (they are detective books set in a world where the main character has a condition that has him use technology to get over the fact that his body can not move under its own power). But I read about a chapter of Lock In and was just completely uninterested in what the story was about. Happily, The Collapsing Empire was definitely able to hold my attention for the entire book. But the primary feeling I typically have with reading Scalzi is "This is not as funny (or good) as the author thinks it is!" But clearly mine is not a majority view. Many, many people buy his books and they are often nominated for (and win) prestigious awards in the field. But I would say, YMMV (your mileage may vary) or caveat emptor. Title: The Collapsing Empire. Author: John Scalzi. Paperback: 336 pages. Publisher: Tor. Date Published: March 21, 2017. Date Read: July 1, 2017. GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0). OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.3/4.0). PLOT: B+. IMAGERY: A-. IMPACT: B+. WRITING: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3) by Becky Chambers

Record of a Spaceborn Few is the third entry in a loosely connected set of books written by Becky Chambers called the Wayfarers series. It is set in a Universe where many generations before humans have been forced to abandon Earth and conducted an exodus into space on 32 generation ships formed from the metals and materials of their cities. Eventually the Exodan Fleet made it to a part of space where they met and were allowed entry into a thriving community of alien lifeforms called the Galactic Commons.

The Wayfarers stories began with A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet in 2016 and continued with A Closed and Common Orbit in 2017. Although I was not very enamored of the first book, it definitely had a lot of award-worthy buzz for a debut novel and even now has an average Goodreads rating well above 4.0 out of more than 40k ratings, which is impressive. The structure of that book was off-putting to me in that Chambers uses the now-familiar George R.R. Martin structure of each subsequent chapter being named for and centered around different characters. In A Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, the characters are the 7 members of the crew of a ship, and Chambers goes into details about their backgrounds and home planet. However, I simply didn't care much about any of the characters and there's very little plot development, but the universe the book is set in was compelling enough to convince me to read the sequel. A Closed and Common Orbit has less than the half the number of ratings of its predecessor but an even higher average rating, with good reason. (It was also on the short list for the 2017 Hugo award for Best Novel.)

In Record of a Spaceborn Few the story is centered firmly in the Exodan Fleet with passing references to the numerous planets that humans have colonized throughout the galaxy instead of focusing on one ship and its crew like in the first book. (Although to be fair, by going over the backstory of the crew, we did learrn more about more of the other planets in the Wayfarers universe than we do in this book.) The plot of A Closed and Common Orbit was much more story-focused, as it dealt with a continuation of the story of one of the crew members from the first book and has a fascinating focus on the cultural norms of a society filled with multiple, variegated forms of alien life.

In the third entry in the Wayfarers series, Chambers has the good sense to make the civilization and culture of the Exodan Fleet the central aspect of the story, more as it was in Book 2. This time she does this by focusing on several characters who play specific roles: a disaffected teenager who wants to rebel against Exodan society; an alien amateur anthropologist who is visiting the ship the story is centered around and a lesbian librarian who is shepherding her around; a clueless human "Grounder" who leaves his planet to visit the Fleet to make his fortune; a single parent with two kids and who yearns for a better life; a spiritual leader who actually does find a hooker with a heart of gold. It is an eclectic mix, and this feature is one of the great strengths of the novel. The main characters and side characters are diverse in age, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation and other factors.

However I still found Record of a Spaceborn Few to be a slow, somewhat forced read for me. It started off very slowly, and I thought it would become a repeat of the first book where I hated all the characters but instead what happened is that all of the characters grew on me and I was anxious and interested in what happens to them. It's clear that plot is not really what Chambers is interested in, as much more of the focus is on the contours of the character's lives. Happily, Chambers obliges with codas for most of the characters at the end of the book which tell you what happens to them six months to two years after the main events of the central plot are resolved. This allows the reader to end the book on a hopeful and satisfied note.

Title: Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3).
Author: Becky Chambers.
Paperback: 359 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: July 24, 2018.
Date Read: October 13, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★½☆  (3.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: B+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

2018 HUGOS: Jemisin Completes Historic Trifecta With 3rd Consecutive Best Novel Win

She did it! N.K. Jemisin won her third consecutive Hugo award for Best Novel, science fiction's most prestigious honor, for The Stone Sky, the third book in the Broken Earth trilogy. Jemisin became the first African-American woman to win the Hugo award for best novel in 2016 for The Fifth Season and after she repeated this feat in 2017 with The Obelisk Gate there was great suspense as to whether the Broken Earth trilogy would become the first science fiction trilogy where every entry won the Hugo award when nominations were announced earlier this year. Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead) and Vernor Vinge (A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire upon the Deep) each have won 2 Hugos for the first two entries in a series and Connie Willis and Lois McMaster Bujold have each won 3 Hugos for books in a series.

Here is her incredible acceptance speech


Amazing news!

BOOK REVIEW: Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

A solid 4 stars.

Six Wakes is a complex, amusing locked-room murder mystery set on a generation ship crewed by six cloned criminals.

I thought I would like this more than I did because I’m a fan of both the murder-mystery and science fiction genres so usually when I find a rare book that covers both categories it often resonates with me.
Books like Ben Winters’ The Last Policeman trilogy and Patrick Tomlinson’s The Ark are excellent examples of sci-fi murder mysteries.

One reason I think that didn’t happen in this case is because all the characters are horrible people who do (and did) horrible things.

Here’s the part of the review where I would generally list and summarize the characters but an important feature of Six Wakes is the revelation of the back stories of each of the crewmembers. The key technologies in the book are the use of mindmapping to make a digital record of human consciousness and the popularity of rapid human cloning. Together these advances make death simply a nuisance and greatly extends the life of most humans. Since the 6 crewmembers are all clones, the events in their past occur as many as 200 years before the events in the “now” of Six Wakes.

The writing is agile, the plot twists are surprising and the two combine to make Six Wakes an enjoyable read. The book also raises some interesting issues regarding the nature of life and consciousness.

However, as a book which is on the short list for the 2018 Best Novel Hugo award I would have expected something which would leave a more lasting impression. Sadly, Six Wakes fails to do this.

Title: Six Wakes.
Author: Mur Lafferty.
Paperback: 364 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: January 31, 2017.
Date Read: April 20, 2018.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

2018 HUGO Awards: Nominations Announced

The nominations for the 2018 Hugo Awards were announced on Saturday March 31. The picks for Best Novel is the category I really only follow and care about. The nominees are:

Best Novel

• The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)

• New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)

• Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)

• Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

• Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)

• The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Last year, N.K. Jemisin won this award for the second consecutive year for the second book in her Broken Earth trilogy, The Obelisk Gate. She previously won the award for the first book in the series, The Fifth Season, in 2016. It is very possible that she could win the award for the third book in the series, The Stone Sky, this year.  I think that would mean she would become the first author to have all three books in a trilogy win speculative fiction's most prestigious honor.

Of the other books she is competing with Scalzi, Leckie and Robinson have all won Best Novel Hugo awards before, with Leckie probably being the biggest threat to Jemisin since all three books in her Imperial Radhch series were nominated for Best Novel (although only the first, Ancillary Justice, went on to win the 2014 Hugo award). Provenance is set in the same universe as those books but has not been as universally celebrated as the Ancillary novels. I do intend to read it eventually but haven't felt an urgent need to do so. Lots of people are very high on the work on Yoon Ha Lee but I tried the first book in the series, Ninefox Gambit, and found it almost unreadable. 

I read Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire, and while it is amusing in parts it is nowhere as diverting or enjoyable as his Hugo-award-winning Redshirts, but his work is very popular. The reviews for Robinson's 2140 were similarly not kind, and I don't really intend to read it. I do intend to read Six Wakes, because it is a genre mashup of murder-mystery and science fiction.

The winners will be announced at Worldcon which is being held in San Jose, California August 16-20, 2018.