This week's novel is the YA steampunk Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve. This book is getting a movie adaptation, and my husband showed me the trailer, saying, "You've read this book, right?" I hadn't. But now I have.
After the apocalypse, where there were earthquakes and tidal waves and all sorts of natural disasters, cities became mobile to survive, and now they roll around the wasteland searching for smaller cities to eat and take their resources. But these days the hunting ground is running dry of small cities and to survive, London's mayor and head historian, Valentine, have a plan to use a death ray to burst through a mountain stronghold and make its way into Asia, which is populated by static cities and easy pickings. The story follows Hester Shaw, who has sworn vengeance on Valentine, who disfigured her and killed her parents. She gets teamed up with Tom, a London apprentice historian who idolizes London and gets thrown off the city in the first couple of chapters, and together they have to work their way back to London, although they have very different motives for doing so.
This is going to make an epic movie, because the set dressing is the big draw here. The world building has a great aesthetic. There are several London landmarks that are still around from the London we know, but steampunk-ified. The city was stacked like a cake into nine layers, where there are still squares and parks and museums. St. Paul's Cathedral is on the top tier, but it was never meant to be moved around, so it's covered in scaffolding.
I like the idea that they created movable cities, but I never really understood why they run around and eat each other. I guess they take the resources from the smaller cities, but I don't understand how that could possibly sustain a city the size of London, and it implies that the small cities got their resources from somewhere. This ecosystem doesn't feel sustainable. But then that's kind of the point: they're running out of small cities to eat. And another part of the equation is that they don't have to be movable. There are anti-traction cities who have figured out that the city-eat-city way of life is not sustainable, and it's an issue late in the book that this way of life is all the people of London know and that's their whole motivation to keep doing it. And really that's enough motivation.
There was some technical stuff that struck me funny. The book is written in the past tense except for when you're in a section that focuses on a bad guy. Then it's suddenly in present tense, even though it's happening sequentially with the past tense sections with Hester and Tom. Every time I had to stop and go, "Wait, this is written in the present tense? I hadn't noticed that until just now!" And then I'd flip back a page and go, "Wait. No." At first I attributed this to the fact that the bad guy these sections focused on was a robot monster with little understanding of his own past, some present tense for him would make sense. But then it does the same thing with Valentine and the mayor, so I don't know. The point of view is also strange. It could be omniscient, with large sweeping views of history and what different cities are up to, but then it zooms in to what I would call close third, only to switch to a close third of someone else in a way that always threw me out for a moment. Some chapters are broken up into sections, switching from one point of view to another with a section break, and that makes it really strange when it switches point of view midstream. But then maybe it was all setting a precedent for one particular, well executed moment when a character dies, and you're thrown from their point of view to someone else's.
One thing I really like is that towards the end, you sympathize with the different sides of the conflict enough that you realize there is not perfect outcome. It made the ending wonderfully messy and human and tragic.
***
Next week: Rootabaga Stories, fairy tales begging to be read aloud, by Carl Sandburg.
March 27, 2018
March 20, 2018
Scythe Review
This week's novel is Scythe, YA utopia by Neal Shusterman.
In the future, a powerful, benevolent AI called Thunderhead controls the world, ending hunger, poverty, and death. People who are hurt have nanites in their blood to dull the pain and heal them overnight. People who die are revived in a matter of days. When people get too old, they "turn a corner" and get their appearance dialed back to their mid twenties. In all this, in order to curb population growth, Scythes are given a license to kill, and the people they kill stay dead. Scythes have a quota and are disciplined if they show bias or seem to be enjoying it too much. Scythes are revered, and although people fear them, people also offer up food and opera tickets and cars in hopes that they'll gain favor and be spared. Citra and Rowan, two teens, are taken on as Scythe apprentices, a job neither of them wants (which is a qualification of a good Scythe). They learn how to kill, how to be merciful, and how to be just, while wrestling with morality.
There are so many things about this world building that I find interesting and refreshing. I like that it's not a dystopia. The AI really is benevolent and trying its best. It flat out says it won't be responsible for who dies, because that's a human issue and humans should be responsible. There's no conspiracy, no big reveal that the soylent green is people. The conflict arises from people within the system getting up to human hi-jinks, and the Thunderhead allows room for people to still be awful to each other, which makes a statement about how even in a brilliant future, people are still going to be crummy sometimes.
It also makes a point about how people in the post-mortal world don't have all that much to live for. On the whole, death is meaningless, so throwing someone in front of a bus in a rage doesn't accomplish all that much and everyone gets over it eventually. With no threat of death, there's not much to make people treasure the lives they have, and so emotions aren't as strong as they once were. Art isn't as good. It's stated that since the Thunderhead has already solved all the technological problems, there's nothing to be innovated on.
And that gets into the parts of the world building that I'm not thrilled about. There's nothing left to be invented? Really? No one's writing books about their fear of Scythes or overcoming the sadness of someone you love being killed by a scythe or how painful it is to drift away from your family after a hundred years or so? There aren't new fears that arise in the post-mortal world? A few of the characters deal with being parts of huge families (since everyone can have a kid a decade and still have dozens of kids) and feel like no one cares about them. That seems like a fertile place to make some art. I don't buy that there's nothing left to feel, but I'll go along with it because these aspects are here to strengthen the "without death, there's no life" theme. I'm also skeptical of the economy of this world. Several people complain about how expensive it is to be revived, but there's no danger of people not doing it. It doesn't bankrupt anyone; it's just an annoyance. How did Thunderhead eliminate systemic poverty? Again, these are questions that the book isn't interested in, and I get it that they don't really matter.
The heart of this book is about transition in the way Scythes do their jobs. The old guard believe you should be respectful and get it done quickly. Do one a day or so and get to know a lot about the person whose life you're taking. The new wave though believe that people should go out in a blaze of glory and it should be an exciting end. Isn't dying in a huge explosion a better story? The old guard believe that the point when you start to take pleasure in killing, you stop being a Scythe and start being a murderer. Meanwhile the new guard wants to know why they shouldn't like what they do, and why they shouldn't enjoy being an essential component of society. The apprentices are presented with both these views and have to wrestle with them.
While I really like books that say, "here's a weird situation, how would a human react?" it's not super clear what this book has to say about our world. Enjoy life to its fullest? It's a good thing we can't all be immortal? Treat the people you kill with respect? Not sure. But the lack of obvious relationship to our own existence makes this a pretty fun, quick read.
***
Next week: Mortal Engines, YA steampunk by Philip Reeve
In the future, a powerful, benevolent AI called Thunderhead controls the world, ending hunger, poverty, and death. People who are hurt have nanites in their blood to dull the pain and heal them overnight. People who die are revived in a matter of days. When people get too old, they "turn a corner" and get their appearance dialed back to their mid twenties. In all this, in order to curb population growth, Scythes are given a license to kill, and the people they kill stay dead. Scythes have a quota and are disciplined if they show bias or seem to be enjoying it too much. Scythes are revered, and although people fear them, people also offer up food and opera tickets and cars in hopes that they'll gain favor and be spared. Citra and Rowan, two teens, are taken on as Scythe apprentices, a job neither of them wants (which is a qualification of a good Scythe). They learn how to kill, how to be merciful, and how to be just, while wrestling with morality.
There are so many things about this world building that I find interesting and refreshing. I like that it's not a dystopia. The AI really is benevolent and trying its best. It flat out says it won't be responsible for who dies, because that's a human issue and humans should be responsible. There's no conspiracy, no big reveal that the soylent green is people. The conflict arises from people within the system getting up to human hi-jinks, and the Thunderhead allows room for people to still be awful to each other, which makes a statement about how even in a brilliant future, people are still going to be crummy sometimes.
It also makes a point about how people in the post-mortal world don't have all that much to live for. On the whole, death is meaningless, so throwing someone in front of a bus in a rage doesn't accomplish all that much and everyone gets over it eventually. With no threat of death, there's not much to make people treasure the lives they have, and so emotions aren't as strong as they once were. Art isn't as good. It's stated that since the Thunderhead has already solved all the technological problems, there's nothing to be innovated on.
And that gets into the parts of the world building that I'm not thrilled about. There's nothing left to be invented? Really? No one's writing books about their fear of Scythes or overcoming the sadness of someone you love being killed by a scythe or how painful it is to drift away from your family after a hundred years or so? There aren't new fears that arise in the post-mortal world? A few of the characters deal with being parts of huge families (since everyone can have a kid a decade and still have dozens of kids) and feel like no one cares about them. That seems like a fertile place to make some art. I don't buy that there's nothing left to feel, but I'll go along with it because these aspects are here to strengthen the "without death, there's no life" theme. I'm also skeptical of the economy of this world. Several people complain about how expensive it is to be revived, but there's no danger of people not doing it. It doesn't bankrupt anyone; it's just an annoyance. How did Thunderhead eliminate systemic poverty? Again, these are questions that the book isn't interested in, and I get it that they don't really matter.
The heart of this book is about transition in the way Scythes do their jobs. The old guard believe you should be respectful and get it done quickly. Do one a day or so and get to know a lot about the person whose life you're taking. The new wave though believe that people should go out in a blaze of glory and it should be an exciting end. Isn't dying in a huge explosion a better story? The old guard believe that the point when you start to take pleasure in killing, you stop being a Scythe and start being a murderer. Meanwhile the new guard wants to know why they shouldn't like what they do, and why they shouldn't enjoy being an essential component of society. The apprentices are presented with both these views and have to wrestle with them.
While I really like books that say, "here's a weird situation, how would a human react?" it's not super clear what this book has to say about our world. Enjoy life to its fullest? It's a good thing we can't all be immortal? Treat the people you kill with respect? Not sure. But the lack of obvious relationship to our own existence makes this a pretty fun, quick read.
***
Next week: Mortal Engines, YA steampunk by Philip Reeve
March 18, 2018
Chicago Writers Association Conference
The Chicago Writers Association Conference was last weekend. I was
my first writer's conference, so it was pretty exciting. The things I
learned will probably take a few weeks to explore, so today I'd like to
tell you about the most immediately beneficial parts, which are the
meditation and mindfulness practices of Kelly Harms. Here are some things that I found helpful.
1. "Deep work" is when you get in the flow of writing and it's all pouring out of you. This is opposed to to trudging through the writing bog for hours and hours. You can get the same amount of work done in a shorter amount of time if you do deep work.
2. The way to get into deep work is to separate it off from your other activities. It's the "don't half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing" idea. If you sit down to write, but you're still thinking about your day job or your e-mails or you kid or whatever, that distracts. So start writing time with a beginning ritual like meditating.
3. My beginning ritual (I made it up. It works for me) is that I lie down (if I'm at home) or sit in lotus pose in my chair (if I'm at the library) and listen to five minutes of rain sounds through my headphones. While listening to that, I imagine that the sound is the sound of all the tension in my muscles and the distractions in my head pouring off me. I go through my major muscle groups and release the tension I'm holding. I let go of any thoughts that crop up other than the sounds of the rain, my breath, and whatever muscle group I'm relaxing. Then, when I'm all nice and emptied out, I imagine that the rain is gold--the color of creativity (your rain might look different)--and it's filling up all the hollows in my body emptied out when I let all the tension drain out of me. And then five minutes is up and I'm get some really solid writing done. It's a little counter-intuitive to spend the first five minutes of your limited time not working, but when I only have an hour to work, taking five minutes to get in the zone means I get more done in those remaining 55 minutes than I usually do in a couple of hours.
4. It's important to tell your body how much time you're going to write and then stick to it. If you tell your body that you're going to write for two hours, and after a half-hour you get interrupted, your body stops trusting that you're going to have time to write. I talked to Kelly Harms about this after her talk, because most days my free time is during nap time, and who knows how long that'll last. Her advice was to err on the shorter side. Tell your body you're going to work for half an hour and then do it and feel good about yourself. If he's still asleep when you're done, you can work longer, but don't promise anything.
This is really working for me. A lot.
1. "Deep work" is when you get in the flow of writing and it's all pouring out of you. This is opposed to to trudging through the writing bog for hours and hours. You can get the same amount of work done in a shorter amount of time if you do deep work.
2. The way to get into deep work is to separate it off from your other activities. It's the "don't half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing" idea. If you sit down to write, but you're still thinking about your day job or your e-mails or you kid or whatever, that distracts. So start writing time with a beginning ritual like meditating.
3. My beginning ritual (I made it up. It works for me) is that I lie down (if I'm at home) or sit in lotus pose in my chair (if I'm at the library) and listen to five minutes of rain sounds through my headphones. While listening to that, I imagine that the sound is the sound of all the tension in my muscles and the distractions in my head pouring off me. I go through my major muscle groups and release the tension I'm holding. I let go of any thoughts that crop up other than the sounds of the rain, my breath, and whatever muscle group I'm relaxing. Then, when I'm all nice and emptied out, I imagine that the rain is gold--the color of creativity (your rain might look different)--and it's filling up all the hollows in my body emptied out when I let all the tension drain out of me. And then five minutes is up and I'm get some really solid writing done. It's a little counter-intuitive to spend the first five minutes of your limited time not working, but when I only have an hour to work, taking five minutes to get in the zone means I get more done in those remaining 55 minutes than I usually do in a couple of hours.
4. It's important to tell your body how much time you're going to write and then stick to it. If you tell your body that you're going to write for two hours, and after a half-hour you get interrupted, your body stops trusting that you're going to have time to write. I talked to Kelly Harms about this after her talk, because most days my free time is during nap time, and who knows how long that'll last. Her advice was to err on the shorter side. Tell your body you're going to work for half an hour and then do it and feel good about yourself. If he's still asleep when you're done, you can work longer, but don't promise anything.
This is really working for me. A lot.
March 13, 2018
We Wear the Mask Review
This week's book is We Wear the Mask: 15 Stories of Passing in America, a collection of personal essays from people who "pass" in different ways.
I came into this book with an understanding of passing that came mostly from my trans friends. My trans-men friends who look stereotypically male don't get as many micro-agressions when they walk down the street. People don't openly stare at them when they ride the bus. Strangers don't stop them and ask about their genitalia. People don't freak out as often when they use the restroom. People assume they're cis-men and grant them the privileges (which here translates to "basic human decency") that cis-men enjoy. I also had an understanding that light-skinned brown people can pass as white for access to the privileges that white people enjoy (again privileges that everyone ought to have.) My son is white-passing, and he's going to have the privilege of not getting searched at airport security the way my husband is every single time he flies.
I viewed passing as access to the resources and respect that everyone should have in the first place.
So I found the forward of this book to be jarring when Brando Skyhorse is quoted: "Passing is when someone tries to get something tangible to improve their daily quality of life by occupying a space meant for someone else." So the space "meant" for cis-men isn't "meant" for trans-men? The space for white people isn't "meant" for brown people? I am bothered by this.
I was thinking of it as punching up, because while I think anyone who wants access to white spaces should have access, I don't think anyone who wants access to, say, Native American spaces should be granted access. And that's where Skyhorse is coming from. His parents were Hispanic until his mother decided she was Native American and raised her son that way. It's a fascinating story, and it didn't fit with my understanding of passing.
This anthology has a number of essays from people of color passing as a different ethnic group. Achy Obejas is a proud Cuban, but while living in Hawai'i, no one had any concept of where Cuba was or what it was like, so they would say, "That's like Puerto Rico, right? So you're Puerto Rican."
This is one of the main take-aways of this anthology: there are two parts to passing. One is altering your appearance or actions in order to fit better with a group, and the second is that how well you "fit" is decided by other people making assumptions about you. Sometimes you don't have to alter anything about yourself for people to assume things, like when Patrick Rosal is mistaken for a waiter at the National Book Awards. If you fit into someone's stereotype of a group, they'll mentally put you in that group without you having any say in the matter. On the other hand, Rafia Zakaria, a Muslim American, talks about how she passes through US customs and Pakistani customs by changing her clothes, one to emphasize her American-ness and one to emphasize her Muslim-ness. She's working her knowledge of what other people expect, what other people want to see. She's not lying. She's both American and Muslim. She's just pushing the aspect that will help ease the experience and thereby passing.
There is also talk of how if you don't fit into someone's stereotypical box, their ideal of what a group is like, they get angry. Strangers angrily ask about my non-binary friends' sex, because they don't fit in the neat boxes that people have created for "man" and "woman." People in Hawai'i didn't have a concept of Cuba, so they put Obejas in the Puerto Rico box. I'm reminded of my mother-in-law's story about visiting the US back in the 60s. While she and her father were taking a train, the white conductor told them to go sit in the "colored" car. They moved to the colored car, where the black conductor told them to go back and sit with the white people.
I'd like to end with a quote from Gabrielle Bellot's essay about her experience as a trans woman.
Next week:
I came into this book with an understanding of passing that came mostly from my trans friends. My trans-men friends who look stereotypically male don't get as many micro-agressions when they walk down the street. People don't openly stare at them when they ride the bus. Strangers don't stop them and ask about their genitalia. People don't freak out as often when they use the restroom. People assume they're cis-men and grant them the privileges (which here translates to "basic human decency") that cis-men enjoy. I also had an understanding that light-skinned brown people can pass as white for access to the privileges that white people enjoy (again privileges that everyone ought to have.) My son is white-passing, and he's going to have the privilege of not getting searched at airport security the way my husband is every single time he flies.
I viewed passing as access to the resources and respect that everyone should have in the first place.
So I found the forward of this book to be jarring when Brando Skyhorse is quoted: "Passing is when someone tries to get something tangible to improve their daily quality of life by occupying a space meant for someone else." So the space "meant" for cis-men isn't "meant" for trans-men? The space for white people isn't "meant" for brown people? I am bothered by this.
I was thinking of it as punching up, because while I think anyone who wants access to white spaces should have access, I don't think anyone who wants access to, say, Native American spaces should be granted access. And that's where Skyhorse is coming from. His parents were Hispanic until his mother decided she was Native American and raised her son that way. It's a fascinating story, and it didn't fit with my understanding of passing.
This anthology has a number of essays from people of color passing as a different ethnic group. Achy Obejas is a proud Cuban, but while living in Hawai'i, no one had any concept of where Cuba was or what it was like, so they would say, "That's like Puerto Rico, right? So you're Puerto Rican."
This is one of the main take-aways of this anthology: there are two parts to passing. One is altering your appearance or actions in order to fit better with a group, and the second is that how well you "fit" is decided by other people making assumptions about you. Sometimes you don't have to alter anything about yourself for people to assume things, like when Patrick Rosal is mistaken for a waiter at the National Book Awards. If you fit into someone's stereotype of a group, they'll mentally put you in that group without you having any say in the matter. On the other hand, Rafia Zakaria, a Muslim American, talks about how she passes through US customs and Pakistani customs by changing her clothes, one to emphasize her American-ness and one to emphasize her Muslim-ness. She's working her knowledge of what other people expect, what other people want to see. She's not lying. She's both American and Muslim. She's just pushing the aspect that will help ease the experience and thereby passing.
There is also talk of how if you don't fit into someone's stereotypical box, their ideal of what a group is like, they get angry. Strangers angrily ask about my non-binary friends' sex, because they don't fit in the neat boxes that people have created for "man" and "woman." People in Hawai'i didn't have a concept of Cuba, so they put Obejas in the Puerto Rico box. I'm reminded of my mother-in-law's story about visiting the US back in the 60s. While she and her father were taking a train, the white conductor told them to go sit in the "colored" car. They moved to the colored car, where the black conductor told them to go back and sit with the white people.
I'd like to end with a quote from Gabrielle Bellot's essay about her experience as a trans woman.
"And it can be difficult, though it is necessary, to learn that passing is not our goal if we identify as binary transgender women, as I do. We are women, no matter what we look like, even if not all of us can pass for a woman by the statistical norms of what cisgender females look like. There is nothing inherently wrong with wishing to pass visually, aurally, or otherwise as cisgender; but we do ourselves an intellectual disservice if we fail to realize that the language of passing implies both temporariness and trickery, and aiming to be recognized as women, regardless of what we look like, is much greater goal."***
Next week:
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