Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm
298 pages
Published 1986
Read from February 26 to February 28
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
It's interesting to read novels from the early stretch of a famous writer's career, before they published their breakout hit -- or even, in Megan Lindholm's case, before she became Robin Hobb, whose Elderlings books have been recommended to me by seemingly every fantasy fan I know. Wizard of the Pigeons further interests me as a pioneering novel of modern urban fantasy, published a year before War for the Oaks and Jack the Giant-Killer (though two years after de Lint's Moonheart -- which, alas, no library in Suffolk County has). I dig the early urban fantasy scene, despite the early emergence of the subgenre's corniest cliches, and I was eager to get my hands on another primary text from the formative years.
Some general spoilers ahead.
Right from the start, Pigeons distinguishes itself from its near-contemporaries. In the hands of Emma Bull or Charles de Lint, our viewpoint protagonist would be the spunky waitress who helps the titular wizard secure a free breakfast, easing the reader into the magical world of Seattle's homeless population through her wide-eyed discoveries, before realizing some measure of her own internal magic and saving the day -- a formula that scarcely seems to vary all these years later. Instead, Wizard is our point-of-view, and the spunky waitress turns out to be a neurotic mess whose proclivities play right into the plans of "gray Mir," Wizard's enemy and shadow-self. More generally, Pigeons attempts to tell a more adult story than Oaks or Jack. Rather than putting pooks in punk bands and calling it a day, Lindholm/Hobb attempts to craft an urban setting that feels magical, breathing with its own brick and soot life, its architecture unraveling into countless alternative Seattles, and a normal, everyday Seattle populated with watchful windows and trusting pigeons and knives shamed by violence. And rather than motivating our hero with an external call to adventure, with a promise of fun and excitement amidst the dangers, Lindholm/Hobb attempts an allegory of PTSD and coming home from 'Nam knowing no skills but stalking and killing and rage. I have my generation's innate impatience for Vietnam allegories -- Wizard's claim that there was no other war like Nam only makes me think of Marines hopping island chains through the duration of the War in the Pacific -- yet I have to remind myself that Pigeons was published in 1986, and this sort of thing was still fresh ground back then, rather than the endlessly regurgitated Boomer self-congratulation it is today.
That doesn't mean I came away feeling like this was a especially convincing or well-handled allegory. Wizard's passivity and reluctance to confront his internal store of violence and hurt is an interesting direction for a central character in a fantasy novel, yet I couldn't quite shake the impression that the text could be read as an implicit criticism of those with PTSD -- to paraphrase, "Stop cowering and confront your demons!" Especially since all Wizard seemed to need to shake him out of his self-destructive course was a good, tender lay (or, as it's called here, "women's magic"), plus that late '80s/early '90s staple, a good ol' confrontation with a serial killer. Similarly, early on in the novel, Wizard's attitude toward ordinary, non-magical homeless people seems to border on contemptuous. If only those bums knew these few weird tricks and scavenged properly, they wouldn't need to dig cans out of Dumpsters!
Pigeons is a bolder story than the other early urban fantasy I've read, and deserves credit for its narrative risks and the gravity of its thematic material. It's also nice to read an early urban fantasy novel that isn't just about fairies playing music festivals (not that I would object to another such novel right now -- seriously, I wish Bull had written a sequel to Oaks). The magical Seattle here is so much more interesting than any realm of Faery squeezed in to fit the streets of Ottawa or the Twin Cities. But I felt the serious thematic material was fumbled somewhat in the telling. The ending is affecting and redeems the book from some of my quibbles, I think, but for a while my opinion of Pigeons was touch-and-go.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
2016 read #15: The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin.
The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin
264 pages
Published 2000
Read from February 24 to February 26
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
Le Guin's Hainish novels and short stories are works of anthropological science fiction. They each begin with a fascinating what-if -- What if people were genderless? What if true anarchy were possible? How would a society built upon active non-interference with other individuals function? -- and explore the ramifications and outcomes with Le Guin's characteristic humanity and compassion. The Telling, it seems to me, grows from a less immediately compelling seed, a sort of anthropological investigation of the furtive cultural practices persisting underground after a Cultural Revolution. It juxtaposes a viewpoint character, Sutty, left psychologically wounded by religious fundamentalism on Earth, with the secular fundamentalism on the planet Aka, where Le Guin erects the sort of society sure to appeal to the instincts of a writer, with a foundation of ceaseless storytelling, a cultural communication in words of what cannot be communicated in words (to paraphrase Le Guin from some unrelated quotation). "Their culture is built upon storytelling!" seems like such a science fiction cliche to me, though to be honest, I can't point to any specific novel or story that used the gimmick before. The traditional Akan culture, despite Sutty's avowed attempt at clear, unbiased observation, comes across as utopian, too perfect by half; the occasional hints of the dangers of cultural homeostasis never amount to anything definite, and nothing really dings the perfection of old Akan storytelling-culture as Le Guin depicts it. Even its downfall, a reaction against the corruption of greedy "boss" storytellers, is shown as an aberration, an adulteration of the pure storytelling culture in the hands of a "barbaric" (uneducated and profit-minded) people in a remote province. The culture of the Telling itself is never shown to be anything less than idyllic.
There is lots to unpack from this book -- the many forms of fundamentalism, technological and ideological alienation from true community -- but I felt that the text itself skates along with little reference to the potential depths of its themes. In many ways (not least the obvious parallels with Tibet and the Chinese Cultural Revolution) it feels like a throwback to the sort of orientalist enlightenment fiction of the early 20th century. The character of Sutty is handled tenderly, movingly -- a humane anchor for the depiction of a world damaged by imitation of imported ideals -- but the end comes abruptly and resolves too neatly, its "everything will probably be all right" coda unearned.
With all those complaints, it must look like I detested The Telling, which is not the case at all. The grace of Le Guin's own storytelling is quietly marvelous as usual, and as half of an anthropologist myself, it would take a lot for a book like this not to captivate me. This is just an example of my perennial trouble: it's always easier to pick apart what didn't quite work, than to gush about what did.
264 pages
Published 2000
Read from February 24 to February 26
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
Le Guin's Hainish novels and short stories are works of anthropological science fiction. They each begin with a fascinating what-if -- What if people were genderless? What if true anarchy were possible? How would a society built upon active non-interference with other individuals function? -- and explore the ramifications and outcomes with Le Guin's characteristic humanity and compassion. The Telling, it seems to me, grows from a less immediately compelling seed, a sort of anthropological investigation of the furtive cultural practices persisting underground after a Cultural Revolution. It juxtaposes a viewpoint character, Sutty, left psychologically wounded by religious fundamentalism on Earth, with the secular fundamentalism on the planet Aka, where Le Guin erects the sort of society sure to appeal to the instincts of a writer, with a foundation of ceaseless storytelling, a cultural communication in words of what cannot be communicated in words (to paraphrase Le Guin from some unrelated quotation). "Their culture is built upon storytelling!" seems like such a science fiction cliche to me, though to be honest, I can't point to any specific novel or story that used the gimmick before. The traditional Akan culture, despite Sutty's avowed attempt at clear, unbiased observation, comes across as utopian, too perfect by half; the occasional hints of the dangers of cultural homeostasis never amount to anything definite, and nothing really dings the perfection of old Akan storytelling-culture as Le Guin depicts it. Even its downfall, a reaction against the corruption of greedy "boss" storytellers, is shown as an aberration, an adulteration of the pure storytelling culture in the hands of a "barbaric" (uneducated and profit-minded) people in a remote province. The culture of the Telling itself is never shown to be anything less than idyllic.
There is lots to unpack from this book -- the many forms of fundamentalism, technological and ideological alienation from true community -- but I felt that the text itself skates along with little reference to the potential depths of its themes. In many ways (not least the obvious parallels with Tibet and the Chinese Cultural Revolution) it feels like a throwback to the sort of orientalist enlightenment fiction of the early 20th century. The character of Sutty is handled tenderly, movingly -- a humane anchor for the depiction of a world damaged by imitation of imported ideals -- but the end comes abruptly and resolves too neatly, its "everything will probably be all right" coda unearned.
With all those complaints, it must look like I detested The Telling, which is not the case at all. The grace of Le Guin's own storytelling is quietly marvelous as usual, and as half of an anthropologist myself, it would take a lot for a book like this not to captivate me. This is just an example of my perennial trouble: it's always easier to pick apart what didn't quite work, than to gush about what did.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
2016 read #14: The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells.
The Sleeper Awakes by H. G. Wells
190 pages
Published 1910
Read from February 2 to February 24
Rating: ★ out of 5
CN: racism, sexual violence.
The works of Verne, Wells, Doyle, and other early writers of "scientific romances" are tainted with the racism of their times. In my limited experience, most of this racism has taken the form of the "Sambo" caricature, whether it be Zambo in The Lost World or Neb in The Mysterious Island -- a dehumanizing and degrading archetype, to be sure, but (in the context of contemporary popular thought) more or less a positive role, occasionally even heroic in small ways. With all my experience reading dead white dudes, however, I was not expecting the horrible racism and ugliness of the second half of The Sleeper Awakes.
The first half of the novel has occasional nasty gleams of this racial stereotyping, but I initially abandoned the read a couple weeks ago because, well, I had the flu and couldn't concentrate on jack, but also because the book was boring. Old-timey futurism is interesting in theory, but Wells' (occasional) gift for weaving interesting story through the worldbuilding fails him here. The Sleeper awakes after a trance of two centuries to find a world in some ways not far removed from our own reality. The despotic revolutionary Ostrog exults in the ascendancy of the "real aristocracy" of wealth, a two-level society of debauched and dissipated oligarchs crushing a vast, uneducated laboring class under their heel. The interests of "mercantile piety" compete for worshipers and tithe money with slogans the modern advertising industry (not to mention modern megachurches) would recognize. Automated news outlets incessantly hoot and gibber for the attention of the lowest common denominator in order to disseminate oligarchic propaganda. This would all be fascinating sociological speculation, remarkable for its prescience, if the plot had any momentum -- or, indeed, if the first two-thirds of the book involved anything more than the Sleeper observing how society has changed, first from afar on platforms and catwalks, later in disguise on the lower walkways and subterranean factories. And when Wells finally remembers to slip a plot in -- well, without exaggeration, I can say it might be the most racist shit I have ever read in a published novel. Wells' prophetic vision gets lost in an appalling glimpse of 1910.
Ostrog, to consolidate his power and forestall popular unrest in support of the Sleeper, summons a black police force from South Africa -- which immediately rouses the London populace into panic and open revolt, and shocks the Sleeper out of his inertia into his own personal rebellion. The black police, you see, look forward to "lordly times among the poor white trash": raping, terrorizing, committing bestial atrocities too horrible to print. Because they're black, and that's how Wells imagines their innate natures. "White men must be mastered by white men," the Sleeper implores Ostrog in one last appeal -- and then the climactic air battle revolves around the Sleeper delaying the African air fleet's approach to London so that the white underclass can mobilize a defense.
This is some evil shit here. We're talking The Birth of a Nation nastiness. This goes beyond the smug presumption of racial superiority in Verne and Doyle (at least in what I've read of their work). This sours me on Wells, even if, to be sadly realistic, he probably wasn't out of line with much popular white sentiment at the time.
190 pages
Published 1910
Read from February 2 to February 24
Rating: ★ out of 5
CN: racism, sexual violence.
The works of Verne, Wells, Doyle, and other early writers of "scientific romances" are tainted with the racism of their times. In my limited experience, most of this racism has taken the form of the "Sambo" caricature, whether it be Zambo in The Lost World or Neb in The Mysterious Island -- a dehumanizing and degrading archetype, to be sure, but (in the context of contemporary popular thought) more or less a positive role, occasionally even heroic in small ways. With all my experience reading dead white dudes, however, I was not expecting the horrible racism and ugliness of the second half of The Sleeper Awakes.
The first half of the novel has occasional nasty gleams of this racial stereotyping, but I initially abandoned the read a couple weeks ago because, well, I had the flu and couldn't concentrate on jack, but also because the book was boring. Old-timey futurism is interesting in theory, but Wells' (occasional) gift for weaving interesting story through the worldbuilding fails him here. The Sleeper awakes after a trance of two centuries to find a world in some ways not far removed from our own reality. The despotic revolutionary Ostrog exults in the ascendancy of the "real aristocracy" of wealth, a two-level society of debauched and dissipated oligarchs crushing a vast, uneducated laboring class under their heel. The interests of "mercantile piety" compete for worshipers and tithe money with slogans the modern advertising industry (not to mention modern megachurches) would recognize. Automated news outlets incessantly hoot and gibber for the attention of the lowest common denominator in order to disseminate oligarchic propaganda. This would all be fascinating sociological speculation, remarkable for its prescience, if the plot had any momentum -- or, indeed, if the first two-thirds of the book involved anything more than the Sleeper observing how society has changed, first from afar on platforms and catwalks, later in disguise on the lower walkways and subterranean factories. And when Wells finally remembers to slip a plot in -- well, without exaggeration, I can say it might be the most racist shit I have ever read in a published novel. Wells' prophetic vision gets lost in an appalling glimpse of 1910.
Ostrog, to consolidate his power and forestall popular unrest in support of the Sleeper, summons a black police force from South Africa -- which immediately rouses the London populace into panic and open revolt, and shocks the Sleeper out of his inertia into his own personal rebellion. The black police, you see, look forward to "lordly times among the poor white trash": raping, terrorizing, committing bestial atrocities too horrible to print. Because they're black, and that's how Wells imagines their innate natures. "White men must be mastered by white men," the Sleeper implores Ostrog in one last appeal -- and then the climactic air battle revolves around the Sleeper delaying the African air fleet's approach to London so that the white underclass can mobilize a defense.
This is some evil shit here. We're talking The Birth of a Nation nastiness. This goes beyond the smug presumption of racial superiority in Verne and Doyle (at least in what I've read of their work). This sours me on Wells, even if, to be sadly realistic, he probably wasn't out of line with much popular white sentiment at the time.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
2016 read #13: Drink Down the Moon by Charles de Lint.
Drink Down the Moon by Charles de Lint
250 pages
Published 1990
Read from February 22 to February 23
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
So I was wrong when, in my review of Jack the Giant-Killer, I said that no library in Suffolk County had a copy of its sequel. I found Drink Down the Moon in an omnibus edition called Jack of Kinrowan, held by a lone library in Southampton. I'm glad I tracked it down: while not leaps and bounds superior to the first volume, and held back by many of the same urban fantasy cliches as its predecessor, Moon is livelier and somehow, for the most part, just a lot more enjoyable. De Lint's Ottawa novels (are there more than these two?) will always seem to me like knock-off Canadian versions of Emma Bull's War for the Oaks, which made faery infiltration of the local music scene seem much less corny and cliched than de Lint has ever managed, but Moon, at least, can stand on its own merits. Well, at least until the underwhelming undoing of its central villain, who only seemed like a moderately interesting variant on the usual sardonic evil wizard when he appeared tough to beat, and became a whole lot less interesting when the means of defeating him clicked (I accidentally typed "cliched" -- perhaps I should have left it like that) into place.
On a personal note, while the title makes perfect sense in context, I'm still a little disappointed that this book has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional ballad sometimes recorded under that name.
250 pages
Published 1990
Read from February 22 to February 23
Rating: ★★½ out of 5
So I was wrong when, in my review of Jack the Giant-Killer, I said that no library in Suffolk County had a copy of its sequel. I found Drink Down the Moon in an omnibus edition called Jack of Kinrowan, held by a lone library in Southampton. I'm glad I tracked it down: while not leaps and bounds superior to the first volume, and held back by many of the same urban fantasy cliches as its predecessor, Moon is livelier and somehow, for the most part, just a lot more enjoyable. De Lint's Ottawa novels (are there more than these two?) will always seem to me like knock-off Canadian versions of Emma Bull's War for the Oaks, which made faery infiltration of the local music scene seem much less corny and cliched than de Lint has ever managed, but Moon, at least, can stand on its own merits. Well, at least until the underwhelming undoing of its central villain, who only seemed like a moderately interesting variant on the usual sardonic evil wizard when he appeared tough to beat, and became a whole lot less interesting when the means of defeating him clicked (I accidentally typed "cliched" -- perhaps I should have left it like that) into place.
On a personal note, while the title makes perfect sense in context, I'm still a little disappointed that this book has nothing whatsoever to do with the traditional ballad sometimes recorded under that name.
Monday, February 22, 2016
2016 read #12: Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough.
Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough
458 pages
Published 2011
Read from February 19 to February 22
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
How would one make a YA novel out of the ballad of "Long Lankin"? The Steeleye Span rendition is one of my favorite British folk-rock tunes, so the moment I saw this book in the library's YA room, I knew I had to check it out -- but I was skeptical, even more so when I saw the book was set in 1958. How could that combination possibly work? The answer is, surprisingly well. Rather than contenting herself with a straightforward retelling of the ballad, Barraclough builds a Gothic ghost story of a marsh town, the children of which were Lankin's prey across four centuries, and of a pair of young East End sisters forced to return to the rotting pile of their ancestral estate, to face an inevitable confrontation with the monster. As a Gothic ghost story, none of the plot beats here were unexpected, and to be quite honest, I was not a fan of how Lankin was turned into a generic demon-horror, always a thin line to tread between scary and merely silly -- his on-all-fours locomotion, in particular, brought to mind images of a scuttling mongoose or ferret. Barraclough's characters and dialogue, however, were lovingly rendered, and kept me invested despite the familiar beats of the story. The atmosphere and attention to setting had me hooked as well. (All that reading of Roger Deakin and Robert Macfarlane has long had me idealizing the British countryside from afar.)
Barraclough's surprising success in translating the "Long Lankin" ballad into an effective YA novel has me worried that all the good Steeleye Span ballads will be snapped up and novelized before I get my own writing-works operational again. Has anyone written up "Twa Corbies" yet?
458 pages
Published 2011
Read from February 19 to February 22
Rating: ★★★½ out of 5
How would one make a YA novel out of the ballad of "Long Lankin"? The Steeleye Span rendition is one of my favorite British folk-rock tunes, so the moment I saw this book in the library's YA room, I knew I had to check it out -- but I was skeptical, even more so when I saw the book was set in 1958. How could that combination possibly work? The answer is, surprisingly well. Rather than contenting herself with a straightforward retelling of the ballad, Barraclough builds a Gothic ghost story of a marsh town, the children of which were Lankin's prey across four centuries, and of a pair of young East End sisters forced to return to the rotting pile of their ancestral estate, to face an inevitable confrontation with the monster. As a Gothic ghost story, none of the plot beats here were unexpected, and to be quite honest, I was not a fan of how Lankin was turned into a generic demon-horror, always a thin line to tread between scary and merely silly -- his on-all-fours locomotion, in particular, brought to mind images of a scuttling mongoose or ferret. Barraclough's characters and dialogue, however, were lovingly rendered, and kept me invested despite the familiar beats of the story. The atmosphere and attention to setting had me hooked as well. (All that reading of Roger Deakin and Robert Macfarlane has long had me idealizing the British countryside from afar.)
Barraclough's surprising success in translating the "Long Lankin" ballad into an effective YA novel has me worried that all the good Steeleye Span ballads will be snapped up and novelized before I get my own writing-works operational again. Has anyone written up "Twa Corbies" yet?
Monday, February 15, 2016
2016 read #11: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Introduction by Mary Doria Russell
340 pages
Published 1959
Read from February 11 to February 15
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Ugh. What a month this has been. First my spouse was in the hospital getting her appendix snipped out, then our child and I got hit by a speeding truck called the flu, and I could barely manage sufficient mental function for well over a week there in the first half of the month. I had been muddling through H. G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes, but after several days I wasn't even halfway done, so I abandoned that (temporarily?) and picked up a book I'd been meaning to read for many years now. Even now, I can't seem to spark enough neural energy to say anything of substance in response to Leibowitz.
Canticle, I think, is preceded by a reputation that has little to do with the book itself. There's this idea floating out there, the result of some game of plot summary telephone perhaps, that Canticle is a satirical novel of a post-nuclear sect built upon the grocery list of one Isaac Leibowitz: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels -- bring home for Emma." This mistaken understanding of the book is promulgated by the summary on the back cover, as well as the introduction here by Mary Doria Russell. A long time ago, someone I knew sought out Canticle for that supposed plot, with its promise of satirical hijinks, and came away disappointed. I asked her not to spoil the book for me back then, so when my turn came at last, I was no wiser.
This is very much not a book about a desert sect built upon reverence of a 20th century grocery list. Canticle is actually built upon a foundation of Catholic sincerity, ripping into euthanasia and the "false god" of comfort and security, a common enough theme in mid-century sci-fi explored with passion and religious vehemence. I think you have to have something of a Christian worldview for the final sections to land for you -- all these burdens of supposed sin dating back to Adam don't compute from a humanist perspective. The need to forgive God was an interesting wrinkle, closer to my sympathies, but otherwise the ending was, I felt, the weakest part of the novel.
Introduction by Mary Doria Russell
340 pages
Published 1959
Read from February 11 to February 15
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
Ugh. What a month this has been. First my spouse was in the hospital getting her appendix snipped out, then our child and I got hit by a speeding truck called the flu, and I could barely manage sufficient mental function for well over a week there in the first half of the month. I had been muddling through H. G. Wells' The Sleeper Awakes, but after several days I wasn't even halfway done, so I abandoned that (temporarily?) and picked up a book I'd been meaning to read for many years now. Even now, I can't seem to spark enough neural energy to say anything of substance in response to Leibowitz.
Canticle, I think, is preceded by a reputation that has little to do with the book itself. There's this idea floating out there, the result of some game of plot summary telephone perhaps, that Canticle is a satirical novel of a post-nuclear sect built upon the grocery list of one Isaac Leibowitz: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels -- bring home for Emma." This mistaken understanding of the book is promulgated by the summary on the back cover, as well as the introduction here by Mary Doria Russell. A long time ago, someone I knew sought out Canticle for that supposed plot, with its promise of satirical hijinks, and came away disappointed. I asked her not to spoil the book for me back then, so when my turn came at last, I was no wiser.
This is very much not a book about a desert sect built upon reverence of a 20th century grocery list. Canticle is actually built upon a foundation of Catholic sincerity, ripping into euthanasia and the "false god" of comfort and security, a common enough theme in mid-century sci-fi explored with passion and religious vehemence. I think you have to have something of a Christian worldview for the final sections to land for you -- all these burdens of supposed sin dating back to Adam don't compute from a humanist perspective. The need to forgive God was an interesting wrinkle, closer to my sympathies, but otherwise the ending was, I felt, the weakest part of the novel.
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
2016 read #10: Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block.
Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block
231 pages
Published 2013
Read from January 28 to February 1
Rating: ★★ out of 5
I'm so frustrated with this book. It could have been -- by all rights it should have been -- so much better. In fact it could have been any number of excellent books. First, there's the book conjured by the magic of the title, perhaps some kind of realistic and depressing yet indomitably hopeful tale of rising seas, lowering water tables, and resource struggles, all mixed expertly with queer YA romance, which would have been awesome, but which fails to materialize. Next there's the book suggested by the summary: A queer YA retelling of The Odyssey, set in post-apocalyptic SoCal. I'd read that book in a heartbeat -- but the summary evokes a far better book than what we get. Then there are the rare nuggets of quality storytelling, mostly flashbacks sketching in the comings-of-age for each member of our band of protagonists. Some kind of literary YA exploring gender and sexuality and queer relationships in an intelligent, informed, and sensitive manner would be a tremendous novel, would it not? Alas, those few nuggets are all we get here.
Love in the Time of Global Warming defies its own high-concept premise and my own innate goodwill toward inclusivity and representation in fiction to be a muddled, awkwardly written mishmash of half a dozen different concepts, all of them undercooked and crammed together without finesse. The first sign of trouble is the in media res prologue, an all-italics flash forward taken word-for-word from the final showdown. The Odyssey thing never gels, functioning as more or less a gimmick to get us to the halfway mark before petering out; the idea of characters being aware that they're in a Classical pastiche, and reading their own inspirational text as a guide, could have been a clever metafictional touch, but I personally did not feel too keen on it here. Then there's, like, some kind of genetic modification and cloning angle straight out of a lesser Goosebumps installment, complete with "You ever heard of that sheep they cloned?" as a Hail Mary for plausibility. The main cloner is a tittering capital-V Villain who makes Cyclopses because... he is a short man. And then we learn our four protagonists each have power over some cliched elemental magic, because why not, and there's a Tibetan bodhisattva thrown in, because maybe what this book needs is another wild, dangling thematic thread.
And for some reason, like seemingly all car-apocalypse novels set in SoCal, Love has its characters take weeks to travel from LA to Las Vegas. I've done that drive. Even picking your way around cracks and wrecks, if you manage to travel by car the entire way, even at ten miles an hour, it should take you two days, tops, with ample time for sleep. Of course, there's a random detour way down to the Salton Sea for no real reason (a remnant of a prior draft?), but still, if you're going at anything faster than a walking pace, you won't need weeks to make the trip.
Anyway. If that doesn't sound like a total mess that should have been pared down to, say, four or five separate (and internally thematically coherent) novels, I haven't even mentioned the worst part of Love: the prose is awful. YA writing rarely scintillates, but Rainbow Rowell could wring exquisite earnestness from YA romance, and J. K. Rowling mastered the art of making words fly so fast off the page, you scarcely noticed reading 600 pages in a day. Prose taste is, to an extent, subjective, but I just could not adjust to Block's herky-jerk lack of cadence and her clunky phrasing. I abandoned Holly Black's Tithe for similar reasons only ten pages in, but I wanted to give Love the benefit of the doubt, for the same reason that I'm rating it, if anything, too generously: the world needs more queer fiction.
231 pages
Published 2013
Read from January 28 to February 1
Rating: ★★ out of 5
I'm so frustrated with this book. It could have been -- by all rights it should have been -- so much better. In fact it could have been any number of excellent books. First, there's the book conjured by the magic of the title, perhaps some kind of realistic and depressing yet indomitably hopeful tale of rising seas, lowering water tables, and resource struggles, all mixed expertly with queer YA romance, which would have been awesome, but which fails to materialize. Next there's the book suggested by the summary: A queer YA retelling of The Odyssey, set in post-apocalyptic SoCal. I'd read that book in a heartbeat -- but the summary evokes a far better book than what we get. Then there are the rare nuggets of quality storytelling, mostly flashbacks sketching in the comings-of-age for each member of our band of protagonists. Some kind of literary YA exploring gender and sexuality and queer relationships in an intelligent, informed, and sensitive manner would be a tremendous novel, would it not? Alas, those few nuggets are all we get here.
Love in the Time of Global Warming defies its own high-concept premise and my own innate goodwill toward inclusivity and representation in fiction to be a muddled, awkwardly written mishmash of half a dozen different concepts, all of them undercooked and crammed together without finesse. The first sign of trouble is the in media res prologue, an all-italics flash forward taken word-for-word from the final showdown. The Odyssey thing never gels, functioning as more or less a gimmick to get us to the halfway mark before petering out; the idea of characters being aware that they're in a Classical pastiche, and reading their own inspirational text as a guide, could have been a clever metafictional touch, but I personally did not feel too keen on it here. Then there's, like, some kind of genetic modification and cloning angle straight out of a lesser Goosebumps installment, complete with "You ever heard of that sheep they cloned?" as a Hail Mary for plausibility. The main cloner is a tittering capital-V Villain who makes Cyclopses because... he is a short man. And then we learn our four protagonists each have power over some cliched elemental magic, because why not, and there's a Tibetan bodhisattva thrown in, because maybe what this book needs is another wild, dangling thematic thread.
And for some reason, like seemingly all car-apocalypse novels set in SoCal, Love has its characters take weeks to travel from LA to Las Vegas. I've done that drive. Even picking your way around cracks and wrecks, if you manage to travel by car the entire way, even at ten miles an hour, it should take you two days, tops, with ample time for sleep. Of course, there's a random detour way down to the Salton Sea for no real reason (a remnant of a prior draft?), but still, if you're going at anything faster than a walking pace, you won't need weeks to make the trip.
Anyway. If that doesn't sound like a total mess that should have been pared down to, say, four or five separate (and internally thematically coherent) novels, I haven't even mentioned the worst part of Love: the prose is awful. YA writing rarely scintillates, but Rainbow Rowell could wring exquisite earnestness from YA romance, and J. K. Rowling mastered the art of making words fly so fast off the page, you scarcely noticed reading 600 pages in a day. Prose taste is, to an extent, subjective, but I just could not adjust to Block's herky-jerk lack of cadence and her clunky phrasing. I abandoned Holly Black's Tithe for similar reasons only ten pages in, but I wanted to give Love the benefit of the doubt, for the same reason that I'm rating it, if anything, too generously: the world needs more queer fiction.
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