Dancing With Bears, Michael Swanwick

I normally love a heist novel, and that wasn’t my problem with this book. My problem with this book was the amount of weird sex. The genetically engineered dog-man who is 100% dog DNA but… seems pretty humanoid in shape and intelligence and what-not — and the genetically manipulated harem girls — and the sex-drug giving priest who is preaching goodness knows what, and —

Honestly, I couldn’t pay attention to the heist and the buddy dynamics between the main characters, because what the hell is going on with the sex. And why are almost all the female characters sex-obsessed and/or empty-headed and just… I feel like I’m missing something profound here, but maybe I’m just really not the audience and it’s meant to be harhar women harhar sex?

The setting, the post-post-apocalyptic Russia, is an interesting one, and I kind of wanted to know what was going on with the machines. But the rest of it just either bored or horrified me. I’m not interested in books where part of the plot revolves around some genetically engineered women being purposefully crafted so they can only be touched by one man, and their utter focus on getting to said men so they can have sex. Whaat.

Rating: 1/5

Runtime, S.B. Divya

The tor.com novellas have generally been an interesting bunch, and Runtime definitely adds to the mix. There’s a lot of background stuff which I find really intriguing: the society, the genderless/third gender (it’s not entirely clear what this should be considered as), the tech… The idea of what amounts to a caste system in America is pretty topical, given the attitude to immigrants at the moment, and it doesn’t feel that far off or strange.

The story itself is relatively simple: Marmeg, the protagonist, joins in a gruelling race using implants and an exoskeleton, hoping to finance her future and get her brother legal status in the US with the winnings. In the end, she has to choose what’s most important, and does what I think most readers would consider the right thing… and loses what she hoped for as a result, because the system doesn’t want to allow people like Marmeg to win. It’s a complex situation which has a quick look around at the ethics of the situation Marmeg ends up in; I won’t spoiler you on exactly what that is.

Despite the simplicity of that plot — a stripped down The Long Walk — it works well, and the voices help to make it as well. I’ll be looking out for Divya’s writing.

Rating: 3/5

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson

Received to review via Netgalley

I don’t know Lovecraft’s work very well, but that turned out to be okay: Johnson’s version of the Dream-Lands works as well without, as far as I can tell — maybe better, because I don’t know what she skipped or twisted, I didn’t make the comparisons others probably make. It stands on its own, weaving Kij Johnson’s skill with Lovecraft’s dark visions; I couldn’t tell you where the gaps are. I think I’d prefer to approach it as I have, because then you can just experience it as a story.

And as a story, it works well: perfectly paced, taking us on a slow quest through a world that’s strange and sometimes horrible, and yet also wonderful. I really enjoyed the way things could be awful in appearance and grotesque in actions, and yet not necessarily evil or unbound by a sense of honour: the ghouls here are fascinating, for all that they’re not the focus of the story, because they eat dead flesh and yet they have a culture, they have agreements, etc. Things are not quite clear-cut.

The main character, Vellitt Boe, is an interesting choice: she’s in her fifties, a former wanderer who became a teacher and who now has to go back to wandering. She’s capable but not perfect, no longer in her prime, no longer quite ready for the hardships of the road. There’s a nice sense of certainty with her: she knows who she is and where she’s going, what her goals are, and she doesn’t shrink from it or try to run away.

I enjoyed this a lot, and wouldn’t mind wandering through the Dream-Lands again. I’m not sure if I’ll read Lovecraft — knowing his attitudes and the way his work ignored women, it might just be too frustrating — but I certainly feel the temptation.

Rating: 4/5