Yep, you guessed it, it’s Saturday, time for Tynga’s Reviews‘ Stacking the Shelves. I haven’t bought anything this week, either, but for some reason the library has increased my borrowing limit so I indulged a little there, and I have one ARC.
ARC/review copy
Library books
I’ve already started on Warbreaker, since I enjoyed The Rithmatist earlier this week. I wasn’t quite ready to dive into the Mistborn books…
What’s everyone been reading?
Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome, Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin, Scott Hanna
On the one hand, this is a heck of an introduction to the Green Lanterns. There’s so many characters and concepts packed in, and I had to play a fair amount of catchup. I was never sure what was a New 52 innovation and what was established canon, how I should be judging the storyline. So I couldn’t tell you if someone was suddenly overpowered or turned into an enormous asshole.
I did enjoy it, though. It’s a bit thin on character because there are so many Green Lanterns in the story, but it gives us an introduction to the Corps and who they are, what they believe in. There are some interesting character moments for John Stewart, which I found intriguing: he makes some rough decisions and has to live with them, and does so honorably, to my mind.
I actually enjoyed this enough that I will pick up other Green Lantern comics in the future, at least to try.
White Cat, Holly Black
I started this unsure, thanks to some reviews I read, moved to being quite intrigued, and then stopped on page 125 to inform the internet that I knew the entire plot and I would be very surprised if I was wrong. The disappointing thing is that I was completely right. Everything panned out exactly the way I expected, which was discouraging, and became boring.
At first, I was interested in Cassel, in the way he worked all the angles, his cons. I liked the setup of a mob family with magic: all of that worked fine. What didn’t work fine was the fact that Cassel’s meant to be smart, meant to have his eye on all the angles, and yet he’s so easily manipulated and conned. He doesn’t see the most obvious things.
Like, one example: we’re told about blowback, something that happens to people who use their powers; whatever they’ve done rebounds upon then. So he’s pretty sure his memories are being messed with — sure enough to mutilate himself to try and prevent it — but when someone he knows well has big gaps in their memory and uses a journal to remind themselves of what they’re doing/saying, he doesn’t even think of blowback. He doesn’t seem to think much of it at all, even. And he asks about how this kind of magic works, and someone tells him and then starts to mention his brother and he… cuts her off. It seems a bit like plot-induced stupidity and just completely pushed me out of the story.
So I won’t be finishing this series. It is light fun reading, if you can get past points like that or you don’t see it from the angle I do, but I like some subtlety in the narration (even if I already knew the ending, the example I gave is just too blatantly signalling it for me).
I’m sure nobody was desperate to know what I think about the Hugos and the controversy about Theodore Beale/Vox Day, etc, but I do have thoughts and a supporting membership to Loncon. I’ve been following the various commentaries: Kameron Hurley’s On Writing the Good Fight, Scalzi’s views on reading everything that’s on the ballot and the criticisms thereof, posts explicitly talking about Vox Day’s track record… and yes, I even revisited some of Vox Day’s greatest hits, like that one where he calls N.K. Jemisin “an educated, but ignorant half-savage”.
So here’s my thoughts. A lot of great writers are on the ballot this year, like Catherynne M. Valente, Aliette de Bodard, Rachel Swirsky, Kameron Hurley, Brian K. Vaughan, Max Gladstone, Brandon Sanderson… not to mention at least one great editor, Angry Robot’s Lee Harris. And other authors I haven’t read yet, but really must. I think there’s probably more diversity than ever before, and certainly I’m really excited to see how this all pans out.
My personal approach is going to be to give everyone a fair shake. I suspect me and Vox Day are never going to get on: I’ve never read anything of his, but nor have I ever heard anything good, and I do believe that we can’t entirely separate the writer from the writing when we’re talking about an award that gives such real clout like the Hugos. I’ll read his novella, though, when I get my voter packet, and do my level best to be honest and fair in voting. The Hugos is to some extent a popularity contest, but given the stature of the award, I’m not gonna half-ass it or base it solely on my experience of the writers on Twitter or whatever.
However, I wouldn’t presume to advise that approach for others or suggest it’s unfair not to do it that way. Vox Day’s words are poisonous and upsetting, and refusing to give him time or space in your life is a valid response. This isn’t some kind of freedom of speech issue: the idea is freedom of speech, not freedom to make people listen. Go with your gut: it’s as fair an assessment as any, and however fair you try to be, that gut reaction is going to creep in anyway. He pretty readily admits that they were gaming the system (allegedly to “test” it): I suspect people that nominated according to that slate are equally likely to have gone on gut reactions based on politics.
Let’s be at least as honest as them, and more. The Hugos recognise achievement in science fiction fandom. As Teresa Nielsen Hayden said, ultimately, ‘The awards we give out are are a giant signal saying “This is what we love, this is what we value, this is what we think is important.”‘
Let’s do that.
Farthing, Jo Walton
Halfway through rereading this, I stalled for a moment, thinking about the ending. See, the book starts out seeming pretty fun, despite the dark threats in the background: there’s plainly loving pastiche of Dorothy L. Sayers going on, and Lucy Kahn’s narration is lively and silly. All of that disguises, for a while, how serious the themes turn — and when they do, when the bottom of Carmichael’s life drops out, you’ll feel it too. I quoted Dar Williams’ song Buzzer when I first reviewed this, and it still applies: I get it now/I’m the face, I’m the cause of war/We don’t have to blame white-coated men anymore (it’s an amazing song, about Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments).
All in all, it’s just so well done. The pastiche works, and so does every aspect of the alternate history. The details are tweaked, and it all feels so plausible. I love the image of Churchill’s defiance of the events that create the background of and overshadow this book. For something that seems light at times, a pastiche, it turns out to be so horrifying — and not in the sense of gore and monsters, in the sense of how people can be so completely plausibly awful.
Personally, I love how Walton handles the minorities here, too: their individual voices, their differing hopes and fears, their differing ways of living in a world that’s trying to push them and their kind out. I mean, it’s obvious I’m already a fan, here, but I just think she gets so much right.