2016 read #9: The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint.

The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint
138 pages
Published 1990
Read January 27
Rating: ★★ out of 5

As I've mentioned in a previous de Lint review, I've been looking forward to his novels -- the Newford Series in particular -- for well-night a decade, ever since I first spied Widdershins and its delightful cover art on the new-book display at Borders. De Lint's short stories, when I've encountered them in anthologies, have been the urban fantasy equivalent of junk food, pleasant and comforting but lacking in surprise or nuance, a competent product slung ably well. Someone I know describes the Newford novels in similar terms, saying they're his go-to junk reading -- which is scarcely an encouraging statement about a series that, per Wikipedia, comprises approximately twenty-three volumes at last count. That's a lot of junk to read. And this first volume, which I've finally gotten around to after ten years, sadly seems to confirm that assertion.

The first problem is, it's a young adult book, and whether it's the era in which it was written, or de Lint's own inexperience at this stage in his career, it isn't a particularly deft young adult book. In places it comes across as hopelessly patronizing: The troubled girl wears Metallica t-shirts! The nerdy girl idolizes Bill Murray and Chevy Chase! The name-checking feels inorganic and insincere, as far from the skillfully spun teen voice of Rainbow Rowell (or Holly Black, on her better days) as possible. The magical elements are most definitely symptoms of their time, with a Magical Black Woman (a transient street person by choice!) reading Metallica girl's tarot and a Magical Native American whisking them off to manitou-land in a cloud of pipe smoke. De Lint's prose lacks the more natural rhythms I remember from his later short stories, sounding here more like nails pounded in to hold the shaky scaffolding together. And there's a rather forced "Don't do drugs, kids!" message tossed in there, because it's 1990. It all made me wish Emma Bull had written more Twin Cities fantasy.

This wasn't, like, repellently bad or anything, but it is a shoddy beginning to a series I'm already beginning to question my devotion to. I mean... I do want to persevere to the likes of Someplace to Be Flying, The Onion Girl, and yes, even Widdershins -- but I might exercise some judicious skipping to get there.

2016 read #8: The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman.

The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman
478 pages
Published 2002
Read from January 12 to January 27
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

I enjoyed the previous Ellen Kushner novels I've read, Thomas the Rhymer and especially Swordspoint, the first volume in this series. Kushner's style is distinctive: lush, sensual, cultivated in its carnality. A short story written in collaboration with Sherman, "The Vital Importance of the Superficial," was likewise promising, among the best entries in its anthology. True, The Fall of the Kings was published some fifteen years after Swordspoint -- a worrying gap between a heretofore standalone novel and its followup -- but Kings retains many of the attractions of Swordspoint, and adds ample new charms of its own: Sexy dudes politicking and fucking their way across a fantasy city; academics and students in a university on the threshold of discovering the scientific method; sexual magic thick with imagery borrowed from Cernunnos and the Green Man; a back-alley knife brawl that ends in a blowjob. There's even a lesbian pirate who comes in and gets shit done. The last thing you'd expect is for Kings to be dull. And yet, for much of its middle section, the same scenes played out with little change; characters spun their wheels; the central historian character, despite his bold new method of locating original sources, takes over three hundred pages to figure out what was obvious to the reader pretty much since the prologue. At one point I literally fell asleep reading it (though, to be fair, I was really sleepy at the time).

I bet you could remove 200 of Kings' 478 pages and not lose any emotional resonance, and only minimal amounts of sensuality. Not every book needs a relentless pace or brisk plotting, but after a certain threshold, "padding" doesn't seem an inaccurate term.

Right around the time our central academic finally figures out where the book has been going this whole time -- and, equally or even more importantly, the lesbian pirate figuratively kicks down the door and takes over the novel, a hundred pages before the end -- The Fall of the Kings finally lives up to its promise and its pedigree, and becomes the swashbuckling homoerotic fantasy politics novel we've all of us wanted. Because of that, I'm willing to forget the snoozer it had been during those interminable middle passages. And something I wouldn't have guessed a mere two days ago: I'm excited again for the next installment!

2016 read #7: The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
213 pages
Published 2015
Read from January 12 to January 14
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

Way back in October, in my review of Erika Johansen's The Queen of the Tearling, I described the sort of book I hankered after: "What I wanted was a book of old school high fantasy, a fun, pulpy adventure through what-the-fuck that would make me feel like I was inside a Roger Dean painting. But I wanted it packaged with adequate prose and some semblance of modern progressive ethics and values." Queen was not that book, but as it turns out, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps totally is. Wilson's prose is a fascinating stylistic mix, mingling the epic, thesaurus-heavy deliberation of classic sword 'n' sorcery with dialogue Daniel José Older, in his cover blurb, likens to Ghostface Killah -- a bit forced as a point of reference, but the juxtaposition flows well and just works. Well, the dialogue more so than the prose, which at times suffers from what I would call first novel syndrome: making a bold leap but stumbling upon the landing, straining so hard for fluency that it in places strays into opacity. Which isn't a criticism, really. I can only hope my own first published novel will be this fresh-voiced and memorable. Goodness knows I've written reviews that I can barely make sense of months later.

The adventure sections of this novel are so old-school that they feature swamp-dwelling sauropods straight out of the 1950s, sabretoothed wizard-cats, and demigods that turn out to be the offspring of extraterrestrials -- one of the oldest (or at least most ubiquitous) twists in modern heroic fantasy. Structurally, I enjoyed the way Wilson mixed memories into conversations and chopped certain sections into non-sequentiality. Sorcerer overall stands as a sturdy new variant of the sword 'n' sorcery formula, fun and full of fresh new life, though the limitations of the subgenre prove hard for it to surmount.

2016 read #6: In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells.

In the Days of the Comet by H. G. Wells
202 pages
Published 1906
Read from January 10 to January 12
Rating: ★★★ out of 5

I had vague memories of reading this book ages and ages ago, way back when I was living in North Carolina -- twelve years ago now. The framing device in the prologue (and can we talk about how flimsy and ridiculous that was as a framing device?), certain descriptions in the early chapters -- all suggested a near-forgotten familiarity. But after two or three chapters, that sense of familiarity vanished, which led me to conclude that I had tried giving this a go all those years ago, but baffled with the working-class verisimilitude of the first half of the book, I must have given it up not too many pages in.

Nowadays I have a better appreciation of Wells' descriptions of industrial class squalor and the tawdry commercialism of the turn of the century, so this time around, the first half of Comet struck me as an excellent sociopolitical satire set against an atmospheric science-fictiony backdrop. Sharply observed details of working class housing, the cheap luxuries and sad norms of the time, are among Wells' best attempts at the theme. The climax, however, in terms of both action and theme, comes at the halfway mark -- which leaves Comet something of an ungainly, awkwardly paced creature, half penetrating social-character study, half utopian just-so story. Utopias don't get much more diaphanous, after all, than "A gaseous comet impacts Earth and changes the properties of atmospheric nitrogen so that it becomes a metabolic gas, thereby clarifying and vivifying human thought and perceptions." The second half has a Stapledon-esque feel, glimpses of vast social and architectural changes in the aftermath of the comet, enough to intrigue, but far from satisfying. There is also, inevitably, a flavor of racism and antisemitism endemic to the times -- contrasted by an oddly progressive (for Wells) view of women, and even a precocious hint in the direction of Free Love, that preoccupation of SF writers six decades down the line.

2016 read #5: Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
270 pages
Published 2015
Read from January 9 to January 10
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

Scholarship for the internet age, Lafayette is written in full-on snark mode, breezily quipping through the life and legacy of the Marquis de Lafayette, Revolutionary War hero, as if a smart-alecky news blog column escaped its confines and skipped along for almost three hundred pages. Which makes for a tremendously entertaining but not especially informative or analytical book. But the Revolutionary War, by some accident of omission (and later apathy on my part), has been one of the gaps in my understanding of history, and I had long desired a relatively unbiased treatment of the period, so even the superficial sketch given here was a welcome addition to my knowledge base. The character of Lafayette himself was especially intriguing, given that beforehand I had known scarcely more than his name and his nationality.

2016 read #4: The Wild Birds' Song by Jim Coplen.

The Wild Birds' Song: Hiking South on the Appalachian Trail by Jim Coplen
183 pages
Published 1998
Read January 8
Rating: ★★½ out of 5

In a time when hiking videos, some of good quality, document thru-hikes of various long trails, is there really any point to the long-distance hiking narrative anymore? Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods made a fine comic spectacle of it, Cheryl Strayed's Wild made an Oprah-ready memoir of recovery out of it, Dan White made us stare at his ex-girlfriend's ass in The Cactus Eaters -- but is there any need, now, for a backpacking tale that isn't buttressed by some pseudo-literary gimmick? After spending last autumn, and the winter so far, watching countless hours of hiking on YouTube, courtesy of the likes of Will "Red Beard" Wood and Joe Brewer, I'm no longer convinced that books like The Wild Birds' Song serve a purpose, not when I can get my daydream fix with GoPro color and sound.

I'm sure this book must have been more of a novelty when it was published. Heck, even two years ago, this would have been more of a novelty for me, personally. It's no fault of Coplen's that his narrative now seems flimsy and inessential, a mildly diverting way to spend the evening and little more. Back when this was written, a book like this was probably the only way most people could have a taste of day-to-day life on the Appalachian Trail. Now that we have people carting untold numbers of gizmos through the woods, a vlog (or a video diary -- does anyone say "vlog" anymore? is that a failed neologism?) is a much better fit for the vicarious thru-hike experience, which makes a book like this something of a quaint little relic.

2016 read #3: Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi.

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
325 pages
Published 2011
Read from January 5 to January 8
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

When I feel that I have a handle on interpreting a book by Helen Oyeyemi, I probably must have missed something, some three-layers-deep allegory the shape of which I would never discern in a dozen readings. Of all the books I've read by Oyeyemi, Mr. Fox seems -- at least from my superficial level of understanding -- the most straightforward, a novel-length essay on the phenomenon of "Women in Refrigerators" and the ways in which cultural gender norms and fiction reinforce each other as a system for controlling and minimizing women. Invoking the folklore of Reynardine and Blackbeard, Oyeyemi builds a thorough picture of the literary and cultural conceit that men are the heroes and actors of the world, and women merely prizes, obstacles, provocations, inscrutable harridans, objects to be won or discarded as necessary.

Writer St. John Fox rewards women in his stories with "meaningful" deaths -- which his creation and muse Mary Foxe seeks to correct with a game. They take turns putting themselves through various stories, St. John consistently pushing the heroine into a tragic demise while Mary grows frustrated with his inability to see what this means, how this plays out in cultural norms. The "game" is left without resolution as Mr. Fox shifts focus, becoming more about St. John's wife Daphne and St. John's tendency to see her as a woman in one of his stories: useful when malleable, disposable when uppity.

In addition to being thematically so straightforward, Mr. Fox also has the plainest, least-adorned language of any Oyeyemi novel I've read to date. Her prose here is still vigorous and lovely, but it lacks the vertiginous, under-the-skin creeping quality I've come to associate with her work. Perhaps this book is a good starting point for anyone thinking to get into her oeuvre -- Mr. Fox has the advantage of carrying none of the probably-transphobic baggage of, say, Boy, Snow, Bird. As a fourth novel, however, it felt somewhat lacking in ambition. Or maybe I just missed a few things.

2016 read #2: Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down by Ishmael Reed.

Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down by Ishmael Reed
177 pages
Published 1969
Read from January 3 to January 4
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

A postmodern sockdolager of the Black Arts movement, an aggressively far-out horse opera and "Hoo-Doo Western," complete with genre-aware characters and a villainous turn by the neo-social realist gang. The racial deconstructionism here remains as biting and relevant as it was almost fifty years ago. The gender and sexual attitudes that no doubt provided much of the humor upon its publication have not remained so fresh. Apparently portraying military leaders and politicians as simpering homosexuals in drag was something of A Thing in late '60s social parody (though, admittedly, my only other experience with this comes from Monty Python, so I'm hardly the most knowledgeable commentator here). Similarly, clouds of casual misogyny choke out most of the few female characters in the book. The one exception is the too-brief appearance of Zozo Labrique, "charter member of the American Hoo-Doo Church," in the opening chapter; the rest of the women here, so far as I could tell, are portrayed as nymphomaniacs, whores, and petulant nags. Not at all different from more "mainstream" (White male) fiction written at the time, which makes it interesting how a particular social arts movement can so boldly attack the assumptions of the status quo in one direction, and fall in with "mainstream" assumptions in other areas.

2016 read #1: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
413 pages
Published 2010
Read from January 1 to January 3
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5

The year is off to a solid start with this one. I suppose this counts as something of a partial reread: In February 2011, a certain Midwestern university paid for me to fly out for a grad student interview, and this was the book I brought with me on the plane. I remember getting hooked straightaway, and devouring half of it on the flight out. But then -- and this is, I suppose, a substantial spoiler, so skip the rest of this paragraph if you're wary of such things -- I reached the part where we learn our plucky but doomed narrator had been implanted with the soul of a partially dead goddess, and the whole dynamic of the narrative (it seemed at the time) had shifted. Underdog stories are as cliche as they come, especially in fantasy narratives centered on decadent nobility meeting its match in an underestimated farmboy/barbarian/heroic thief, yet I still dig them way more than stories about underdogs who turn out to have been gods all along. At the time, anyway, this contrivance seemed one silliness too many, pulling me out of my investment in a book which already featured an irresistibly seductive god of night and chaos kept chained as a BDSM pet by the aforementioned decadent nobility. My interest crashed almost immediately. I made no effort to read at all on the flight home, and I never did finish the book all through the ensuing years. (Nor, for that matter, did I get into the grad program: my prospective advisor, in an all too common bit of academic nepotism, had already picked out the kid she wanted to accept that year, long before any other applicants had materialized; the university-comped flights and interviews were a boondoggle formality.)

In the last few years I started hearing good things about a certain N. K. Jemisin. Looking up her bibliography, I was surprised to find she had been the author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, that initially promising book I had half-read so many years ago. I wavered for a while, but honestly I'm not sure what I intend to say with this prolonged introduction; obviously, in the end, I did settle in to reread it from the beginning, and here we are.

Aspects of the plot are, without a doubt, corny and cliched. There's the sensuous but violent and unpredictable god of night, kept in servitude after a defeated rebellion against the god of light and order, so sexfully seductive that our hero is never free of thoughts of him. There's the palace politicking amongst the mortal factions. There's the sadistic and malevolent heir apparent, merely the worst example of a systemic rot and decadence in the center of power. There's the mystery of a noble parent's death motivating our hero, the basically decent and rustic outsider summoned to the ruling city, who wins hearts and minds among the defeated and enslaved magical beings upon whom the power structure depends. And of course there's the spoiler up there in my first paragraph (if you skipped it, I won't give it away here). Yet, for all that, I found much that was fresh and interesting about this novel. The worldbuilding is excellent, particularly the slowly-revealed creation narrative and its fallout. The narrator is sharp and clever and vulnerable, and the narration is vigorous and occasionally all out of sequence, something rarely handled so well in genre fiction even today. I didn't find the romantic/erotic subplots as corny this time as I did in 2011: I enjoyed them this time, as opposed to merely tolerating them, though it's anyone's guess as to why that would be.

It's a shame that matters get resolved as well as they do at the end of Kingdoms -- that disconnected, occasionally confused narration was one of the book's main highlights, and the plot driving that particular narrative device has been resolved, so I can't expect more in the ensuing volumes. But Kingdoms more than overcame my years of half-read skepticism, and I'm optimistic that Jemisin will provide plenty to like in the sequels.