Review [Television]: Undone

An underrated, insightful gem of a show that will undo your emotions in the best way.

The plot device that probably comes to many people's minds when thinking of ambiguity in fiction is whether fantastical happenings are truly fantasy or whether it's a figment in a mentally ill character's imagination. Almost always, it's a lazy plot device. It skirts answers, solidity, and finality in favor of cheap shock and a shallow veneer of intellectualism. Ambiguity works best if each interpretation elevates the story, not muddies it. Undone understands this more than almost anything I've seen. It’s a show that digs deep into the dilemmas of time travel and struggles of mental illness through character development and a clear emotional through line. 

Alma (Rosa Salazar) doesn’t have the perfect life. She’s struck by ennui, her father died under mysterious circumstances, and she doesn’t always have the greatest relationship with the rest of her family. Then, she almost dies in a car crash, and develops an ability to move through time. With her newfound power, she’s set on a mission to find out more about her father and his questionable demise. Mental illness, familial relationships, as well as romantic ones are explored in an ambitious tapestry.

Animation has so much potential to transcend the limitations of live action and go for broke through its imagery and creativity. Undone does such a thing, making the most of its medium, through creative transitions, like when a disparate setting collapses into another without being jarring, or an abundance of flashy visuals that could be overwhelming in another medium. The animation style is Rotoscope in which animators trace over live action visuals to deliver more "realistic" performances. That is never more clear than in the facial expressions. Lifelike looks of distress, joy, and anger are conveyed subtlety from a quirked mouth or a glint in an eye. And it never veered into uncanny valley territory for me.

One complaint I have for the show is that the midsection of Undone’s first season can be repetitive as Alma is learning her powers. While I don't think a training montage would be appropriate, I think a classier variant could be devised to speed things along a little more. However, the latter part of season 1 and the entirety of season 2 are a burst of momentum and creativity. Plot lines contort until they're as twisty as can be while still being comprehensible, while the social dynamics that were quietly built in the early stretch of the show pop off with satisfying explosiveness.

Undone isn't empty ambiguity. Its exploration of mental illness lays the foundation for its realistic story beats, while its time traveling exploits decorate it with vibrant imagination. While it offers two interpretations for what's going on, the ambiguity doesn't undercut one interpretation over another. Rather, the journey the show goes through uses its more imaginative sections to give more insight to its realistic interpretation and vice versa. Whichever interpretation you choose will be informed and enhanced by the entirety of what you watched, not just some of it. And what a rewarding experience it is.

The Math:

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Positives: +1 for a brilliantly executed animation style.

+1 for heart-wrenching explorations of intergenerational trauma and mental illness.

Negatives: -1 for a couple repetitive episodes

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

Review: Ignyte Awards - Short Story Nominees

The Ignyte Awards (created by FIYAHCON to shine a light on the vibrancy and diversity of spec fic) are my favorite awards, and short fiction is probably my favorite thing. What better way to spend my time than reading through what I was sure were going to stories that fired on all cylinders? And boy, was my certainty validated. My thoughts on all these masterful, deservedly nominated stories are below.

Center of the Universe (Nadia Shammas) is centered, of sorts, on Abigail who’s in a simulation in which she’s a real human and everyone else is virtual. But the story is not a simple exercise in solipsism. There are simulated people who vie to be seen—to exist under her gaze. And that existence is eventually seized through drastic measures. It’s a unique and fluid premise in which solipsism exists but the narrator is in the periphery of it—a premise that could convolute and crumble from a lesser writer. This is a story that kept me captivated – gaze locked on its words – through its pain. But also, its beauty, its poetry, and the sympathetic struggle of attaining meaning. While reading, it quite easily became the center of my universe.

Delete Your First Memory For Free (Kel Coleman) showcases the bumps in the road that anxiety presents with a story that is antithetically smooth. When Devin and their friends use technology that takes away specific, non-vital memories, their relationships start to change. Kel Coleman writes with such vigor that their writing style smooths over a lot. Not so different from how the developing themes of the story smooths over some emotionally charged situations. Additionally, the nuances in the interpersonal interactions with just about every character were so rich and fully-formed. This is a vital story to many people whose small enemies can feel as cumbersome as their major ones. It might be so instructive and critical to someone, that the memory of reading it would be hard to extract.

If the Martians Have Magic (P. Djèlí Clark) offers an engaging story, but most importantly, it offers a WORLD that felt lived in and thoroughly explored, all while telling a pacy story. Martians are widely persecuted by humans--pigeonholed negatively because of some bad seeds in the group. But there’s a way to save those who mean no harm, and the protagonist Minnette is going to try her best to fulfill it in a rollicking, entertaining fashion. Martians do have magic, and everyone who’s read anything P. Djèlí Clark has written probably knows he has a lot of it, too.

The Fifth Horseman (Martin C. Cahill) starts with The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse after they’ve “apocalypized” the world. But they have a sibling that they don’t know too well—the fifth horseman. And that horseman has someone additional work to do. That work is described in beautiful, lyrical prose that shows off the beauty of the world – as ephemeral as it is – along with a sympathetic backstory for the fifth horseman. There’s a sense of distance with her due to her circumstances, but there’s also some warmth that’s beautifully paired with the writing style that finds the beauty in the world despite its cataclysmic situation. I really dug this. The potency of the story’s descriptions alone is damn near apocalyptic.

The Tale of Jaja and Canti (Tobi Ogundiran) bears a little similarity to Pinocchio, but its wooden boy’s journey veers in engagingly unexpected directions. The tone is like a fairy tale and the way its split into chapters enhances that feeling. It has a spare word count but is able to do so much without feeling rushed or choppy. And without spoiling anything, the story is bookended in a way that’s structurally ingenious. Like the other Ignyte nominees, this story is a banger.

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!"

Microreview [Book]: Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo

A novel written in verse that is both economically and lyrically potent. 

A novel in verse isn’t bound by conventional formatting. Home Is Not a Country isn’t bound by a traditional definition of home. Just how the words on its pages shift and contort in forms that deliver the most impactfully economic messages, so does the protagonist’s sense of place, until the story's transformative structure and plot arrive at a location that dovetail nicely. Home Is Not a Country is a story that I couldn’t see working any better way than in verse. It’s streamlined enormously, often to its benefit. But on occasion it throws away subtlety for bluntness and plotting that feels conspicuously developed rather than fluid and invisible.

Nima is a teenager living in America. She's from an unnamed Arabic-speaking country in a post-9/11 world. Her father is dead, she wishes her mother was different, she wants to be more popular and feels like she can't because of her background. Everything bad that could be happening to her feels to her like it's happening. But then she starts seeing a figure who looks like her--a figure who evokes a sense of magic. The novel jumps between the past and present, arriving at a climax that changes Nima's outlook of both her history and her current values.

Safia Elhillo manages to be both lyrical and fluid in her writing--every sentence is expertly constructed. Whether it be Nima wrestling with her lack of father, her identity with both the positives that come with it as well as the baggage packaged with a post-9/11 America, and her friendship/struggles with Haitham. The writing steps up an extra level in the book's latter half, when the speculative elements are at the forefront. It's used to both raise the stakes and explore characterization in ways inaccessible from realism. Without spoiling, there is history that is uncovered and internal struggles that are fought in such an imaginatively incisive way that could only be brought about from fantasy. That imagination is undercut by a few characters who are key to the story but only feel remotely developed. They all had promising set-up, but by the time the story went into high gear, some characters felt only identifiable by a few markers rather than dimensioned personality.

Home Is Not a Country shows that in face of adversity, looking back with rose-colored, nostalgia glasses isn’t a viable way to survive. The hue might seem more comforting with them on, but if you take them off, you might find that colors that seemed disgusting to you at first glance are much more inspiring upon careful study. If thinking of the past goes down like water, the present is like a jagged pill that will do you good if you take the extra effort to swallow. In this novel, an effort is also needed to feel like you’re truly home. You might not be surrounded by your culture, have two parents taking care of you, or be the most popular person at school—but there is a way to maybe not live at ease but with pleasure. Home Is Not a Country beautifully conveys that and much more, making it a winner that I don't have to look hard at to admire.

 The Math:

Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 For brilliantly conceived speculative elements.
+1 For using the novel-in-verse structure beautifully.

Negatives: -1 For some plot points being a little too blunt.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Elhillo, Safia. Home Is Not a Country [Make Me a World, 2021].

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!

Review [film]: Titane

Titane is an acquired taste, but it was just the kind I was looking for. 

In the French film Titane, the protagonist Alexia is severe and rigid, just like titanium. Titanium also has a high melting point—just like Alexia’s seemingly cold heart. Alexia might have titanium literally in her head, but the metaphors of what it represents extend to the entirety of her body. Titane asks the question: what would it take for a soul that neglects warmth to others and also in themselves to melt? The settings in many scenes within the film are literally fiery but fire doesn't quite seem to be doing the trick. Would a pregnancy prompt her to adopt a parental role? That doesn’t seem likely either. The question is eventually answered, though. Titane starts out with some of the most brutal, unfeeling showcases of (in)humanity. I’ve seen in a while, then takes time to melt its titanium casing to show something still wholly grotesque but also wonderfully humane.

Alexia (Agatha Rouselle) – is a victim of a car crash when she’s a child. To deal with a skull injury, she has a titanium plate placed in her head. It soon becomes evident that she has a penchant for cars. Years later, adult Alexia works as a showgirl at a motor show. She’s also a serial killer. She also has sex with a car (I won’t go into details) and becomes pregnant. Soon after, the authorities are on her tail, so she transforms herself to look like a man—specifically a man named Adrien who went missing as a child. She goes to live with Adrien’s father, Vincent (Vincent Landon), and they develop a kinship. But secrets will divulge, psyches will be tortured, and things will unravel.

The best parts of Titane are in its latter half. The early goings would be rough for certain people that aren’t enamored by murderous scenes portrayed in gruesome detail. I almost had a fight or flight response to those scenes in which I might have walked (or ran) away if I wasn’t seeing the film with others. Despite my ambivalent response to those scenes, I do think they’re necessary for establishing the brutality of Alexia, making her transformation more effective.

But the second half? Marvelous. Agatha Rouselle brings a bucket of pathos, but Vincent Landon brings a water fountain of it. His grief and willful dismissal of all who say Alexia isn’t his son is so cutting. It’s clear he knows almost right away that Alexia can’t be him, but he charges head-on into the charade rather than into the heart-wrenching truth as his love for her burgeons rather than deflates. Alexia and Vincent’s kinship has enough substance to carry a normal film, but this isn’t a normal film—it’s something better. Their bond is injected with tension as Alexia’s quickly developing pregnancy threatens to divulge her identity to those waiting for something to validate their suspicions.

The film ends in the best way it can: with graphic imagery cocooned in something heartfelt and cathartic. Through all the fires that Alexia passed through in Titane, they never failed to melt her titanium plate. But something just as severe – a cold heart – could melt in another way. Yes, I’m talking about love. As cheesy as it is writing it in a review, it never felt that way while watching the film. Titane leverages its unique style that slowly gets less disorienting and brutal to convey its message just as much as through its text. When it arrives at its cathartic moment, don’t be surprised if the closed off, hardened part of you melts down for just a moment. Maybe there will be a generation who won’t have an environment that’s so crude, where the severity won’t be so prevalent. The hope of futurity can be heartening. It could happen one day to our grandchildren or to our car-grandchildren.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10.

Bonuses:  +1 For knockout performances

                 +1 For an unforgettable second half

Negative:   -1 For what almost felt like an unrelentingly grotesque beginning

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, stand-up comedian, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!

The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards: Results

Over the past almost-year, a top secret group of bloggers and fans has been plotting the most nefarious of plots: to decide, subjectively upon the best genre works of 2020, and then throw rocks at them. By "throw" we mean "lovingly post", and the rocks all have a nice message painted on them, and it's... an award? We suppose?

Yep, it must be time for Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards (SCKA) again!

SCKA last made an appearance on Nerds of a Feather at the longlist stage, when our team of epic jurors (including Adri and Sean) nominated their favourites across the seven categories. Since then, we've read furiously, narrowed each category down to a shortlist of two or three nominees, and then picked our favourite from among them. I'm therefore excited to introduce both our winners and other shortlisted works in this post: all are worthy of your consideration, so go and check them out!

Without further ado, the winners:

Best Short Story

Winner: "You Perfect, Broken Thing" by C.L. Clark (Uncanny Magazine Issue 32)

Our jury said: This is a story about an athlete competing in a Race which forces her to push her sick body to its limits to win a cure. There's a perfect blend of cameraderie between the main character and their training partners, and the desperate, unfair competition they are pushed into to survive; these are characters still fighting in the face of constant, overwhelming struggle and that's a powerful, challenging, necessary thing. 

Also Shortlisted: "Yellow and the Perception of Reality" by Maureen McHugh (Tor.com)

Adri says: These two stories rose to the top of a strong, wide-ranging ballot, but there was only ever one choice for me, and that was Clark's Ignyte winning story.

Best Novella

Winner: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (Tor.com Publishing)

Our jury said: The Empress of Salt and Fortune is an epic tale in miniature: a mosaic of moments and manipulations that resolve into a bigger picture of rebellion

Also Shortlisted: Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark (Tor.com Publishing)

Adri says: Our SCKA shortlists don't often overlap directly with the Hugo awards, but this pair happen to be the two I am agonising about most on that ballot too. Empress of Salt and Fortune is a well deserved winner, but this really could have gone either way.

Best Debut Novel

Winner: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (Simon & Schuster)

Our jury said: With a young woman discovering magic at an elite school, Legendborn could have felt like we’d read it all before. Instead, the panel were impressed with how Deonn combined familiar tropes and well-known legends into something different, avoiding the obvious to deliver a tender exploration of grief and Black girl magic in a richly crafted world touching on slavery, privilege and secret societies.

Also Shortlisted: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (Swoon Reads); Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko (Hot Key Books)

Adri says: We ended up with three excellent books shortlisted from a very YA-heavy new category: I love all of these books, but Legendborn's smart, sideways take on a classic genre story set it apart.

Best Blurred Boundaries Novel

Winner: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Jo Fletcher Books)

Our jury said: This stylish thriller blends Gothic tropes with 50s noir and body horror. Expect modern themes of prejudice and complicity in an unapologetically creepy tale of controlling families and psychedelic fungus.

Also Shortlisted: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Pantheon Books); The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart (Orbit)

Adri says: Blurred boundaries is always a very diverse category, as "blurred" encompasses anything we think crosses lines of genre and/or style. Interior Chinatown was a great literary dark horse, and The Bone Shard Daughter brings really interesting SF elements into a fantasy setting, but it's ultimately fitting that ultra-talented genre-hopper Silvia Moreno-Garcia took this one in the end.

Best Fantasy Novel

Winners(!!) The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (Orbit); The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk (Erewhon)

Our jury said: Alix E. Harrow has crafted something truly special with The Once and Future Witches. Her prose is by turns powerful and deft of touch, and blends together fantasy, fairytale and history into a thoroughly modern classic.

The Midnight Bargain is not only a wonderful story about witches in a richly imagined Regency-style setting, but it’s a clever exploration of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. It is a thoroughly modern and political book while masquerading as a gorgeous escapist fantasy, and that makes it a fantastic read.

Adri says: Two winners! Yep, we had a tie in our final round of voting, and while we could have gone to some sort of dramatic internal tiebreaker, instead we decided in true chaotic fashion to give out a second rock. This pair both utterly deserve it.

Best Science Fiction Novel

Winner: The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (Hodder & Staughton)

Our jury said: A beautiful intelligent story exploring the parallel worlds concept but also combining it with issues of racism and classism, with a core of hope running throughout.

Also Shortlisted: Goldilocks by Laura Lam

Adri says: One of my favourite things about SCKA is getting to focus on books that feel like they've been overlooked in the more mainstream awards, and both finalists here certainly fit that bill. The Space Between Worlds really pushed the envelope for me, an excellent dimension-hopping tale in a category full of space and cyberpunk and all sorts of sub-genres.

Best Series

Winner: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (HarperVoyager)

Our jury said: R.F. Kuang's trilogy starts off as an academic fantasy, transforms into a military historical fantasy, and ends as a grimdark narrative. This Asian-inspired series delves into the layers and the consequences of power and warfare.

Also Shortlisted: Dominion of the Fallen by Aliette de Bodard

Adri says: Another powerful pairing - and another underrated gem, in de Bodard's Dominion of the fallen series - but in the end, it felt inevitable that The Poppy War was going to take this home. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.

Microreview [Book]: Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune

Fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea are in for a treat that's both somewhat familiar in tone to what came before, but with more than enough deviations to feel fresh.

In Under the Whispering Door, the protagonist is dead almost from the novel's start. His body is buried, unable to scramble out of the ground. His life was not a life well lived. It was one of bitterness and heartless misdeeds. And now death has robbed his body of any opportunity for redemption. It's an image of hopelessness, of being tamped down by earthly forces out of your control without any recourse of getting out. But while his living body's journey is complete, he has a new one in ghostly form. That ghost, as it leaves his body, is a form of a second chance. Just because his life was a lost cause doesn't mean his death has to be, too.

Following Wallace's death, he is situated in a place where people with fantastical gifts, including Mei, a reaper, and Hugo, a ferryman, work to acclimate Wallace to his death with eventual plans of him transitioning to what lies beyond. His rehabilitation and preparation is done at a tea shop owned by Hugo. Warring with Wallace's protestations are feelings of affection beginning to form for those in the tea shop. Feelings that he never felt before, even when he was alive.

While the premise doesn't exactly break new ground in fantasy, the character interactions are where the novel is at its best. Whether its friendship between the protagonist and other the other ghosts he meets,  budding, believable romance that had its hooks in me until I was tensed and engaged, along with heartbreak and grief that is native to deathly situations--everything is handled with sincerity and emotional intelligence. The bits of wisdom might be parceled with a couple anodyne platitudes, but that adds to the cozy feeling that covers Under the Whispering Door like a warm blanket.

Don't go into the novel expecting rollicking, action-packed chapters. The roiling is more within the characters than pyrotechnic spectacles. The settings aren't varied, with most of the interactions confined to the tea shop--which sometimes have conversations extended to superfluity. But often it feels like a crucible for character growth with all the epiphanies, realizations, and disillusionments that comes with it. Just because the setting is relatively static doesn't mean that characters are taking steps of their own, even if they're metaphorical rather than literal.

Wallace might have been stuck in a rut in life, but in death the novel showcases him finding a pathway of ascending. In the year I'm writing this (2021), in which I am confined, often static, and sometimes pathless, Under the Whispering Door has come at a perfect time to offer a roadmap forward in literary form. Its pages might not be literal steps, but as the characters evolve internally, the novel's words made my heart warm and molded it into something sweeter, something that I think is more capable of approaching the world's clinical processes and rampant rage with more grace.

The Math

Baseline Score: 7/10

Bonuses: + 1 For having so much heart that even the grinchiest people will be moved. +1 For expertly vibrant banter.

Penalties: - 1 For a middle-third that is a little too slow and long.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Klune, T.J. Under the Whispering Door (Tor, 2021)

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

The Novella Files: Crossroads by Laurel Hightower

Subject: Laurel Hightower. Crossroads [Off Limits Press, 2020]

Accolades: Ladies of Horror Fiction Nominee for Best Novella (2020)

Genre: Horror

Executive Summary: How far would you go to bring back someone you love?

When Chris's son dies in a tragic car crash, her world is devastated. The walls of grief close in on Chris's life until, one day, a small cut on her finger changes everything.

A drop of blood falls from Chris's hand onto her son's roadside memorial and, later that night, Chris thinks she sees his ghost outside her window. Only, is it really her son's ghost, or is it something else—something evil?

Soon Chris is playing a dangerous game with forces beyond her control in a bid to see her son, Trey, alive once again. (From Goodreads)

Assessment: In Crossroads, multiple characters have a sort of wounded opening in them. But it's not an empty void--it's filled with agonizing grief. Its grief for the death of a loved one and all the memories of them that paradoxically inspire both joy and mournful wistfulness. Sometimes its mourning what someone never had--it's grief of the realization that their fantasies will never come to be. Family forms connectors that when cut by death leave scars, but so can never having any connectors from the beginning.

Crossroads moves at a pace that favors character development over gory shocks. It mainly finds horror through Chris' interiority. The growing relationship between her and her neighbor Dan is a sweetness amid an ocean of tart. Her love for Trey is palpable. I found her blind devotion to undo her hurt both rational from her tortured perspective yet unwise from an objective reader's point of view. I wanted her to stop going down a road that intensified in horror and pain yet I still understood why she powered through.

When the gore does come, it's with purpose--every drop of blood is employed to support the themes and characterization. And every description of visually harrowing scenes is done with a skillful balance of sophistication and jarring unease. Sage observations are also offered aplenty. It's a horror story that feels suitably horrific, while edifying the reader along the way, making the grimy feeling that comes with it strangely rewarding.

The great characterization, observations, and thematic exploration are done in a way that offers new perspectives of grief. For those that have experienced the death of a loved one, the novella's themes should strike a chord if you're willing to go into the depths with it. For those without a close familial connection, Crossroad's exploration of love, loss, and isolation might be meaningful and relatable enough to ring true for them. It shows that a familial connection can be formed despite your current predicament. Sometimes you might have to leave the one you have and make a new one in which you'll find both love and heartbreak. Crossroads offers many instances of pain, but through it all you can at least feel the overpowering affection that literally bleeds out.

Score: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

Novella Files: Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell

Subject: Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell. Light Chaser [Tor.com Publishing, 2021]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Science fiction 

Executive Summary: In Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell's action-packed sci-fi adventure Light Chaser, a love powerful enough to transcend death can bring down an entire empire.

Amahle is a Light Chaser - one of a number of explorers, who travel the universe alone (except for their onboard AI), trading trinkets for life stories.

But when she listens to the stories sent down through the ages she hears the same voice talking directly to her from different times and on different worlds. She comes to understand that something terrible is happening, and only she is in a position to do anything about it.

And it will cost everything to put it right. (From Goodreads)

Assessment: Light Chaser is one of the only science fiction stories I've read in which the futurism feels archaic--that's not a criticism. It's by design. Futures are typically one rich with progress. But sometimes a few steps forward can be a heedless walk into a trap, knocking you back, unable to recover. Progress is generally good, but choosing to walk down a seemingly gilded road might come with barbs because not everyone wants progress but everyone wants to live in their ideal world. And the method to achieving that world might be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Light Chaser doesn't portray a literal version of this scenario, but instead skillfully concocts vast space travel, intriguing worldbuilding, and a sprawling, multifaceted story to create a pretty successful story that marries those ideas with pulse-pounding storytelling.

This is a novella that knows how to pace itself--at least in its main plot. I'm a little conflicted of how it handles the side plots, which certainly expand the world but stall the momentum. That's also a compliment because I was hooked by the one-third mark of the story and my quibbles were due to my critical need of answers. While it's a gripping story, I didn't find it perfect. Especially because its characters' felt like chess pieces, molded to fit the novella's grand ambitions rather than feeling like complex, fully-formed people.

Light Chaser, like some classic sci-fi, is wholly married to its ideas sometimes at the sacrifice of character development. Unlike many of those stories, its ideas don't feel outdated and stuck in a rut. The novella's themes champion for marching forward, achieving progress to attain a greater society. It does so with elements that are often unlike anything I've ever read. Not only does it declare its admiration for progress in its themes, it shows it in execution, too.

Score: 7/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

Novella Files: In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu

Subject: S. Qiouyi Lu. In The Watchful City [Tor.com Publishing, 2021]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Science-fiction fantasy

Executive Summary: The city of Ora uses a complex living network called the Gleaming to surveil its inhabitants and maintain harmony. Anima is one of the cloistered extrasensory humans tasked with watching over Ora's citizens. Although ær world is restricted to what æ can see and experience through the Gleaming, Anima takes pride and comfort in keeping Ora safe from all harm.

All that changes when a mysterious visitor enters the city carrying a cabinet of curiosities from around the world, with a story attached to each item. As Anima’s world expands beyond the borders of Ora to places—and possibilities—æ never before imagined to exist, æ finds ærself asking a question that throws into doubt ær entire purpose: What good is a city if it can’t protect its people? (From Goodreads)

Assessment: In the Watchful City has the protagonist use a widespread network called the Gleaming to monitor ær cities inhabitants. The Gleaming's scope is expansive, its powers are mighty, and mechanics are ineffable. Not so different from this novella. It's suitable that the network is called The Gleaming, because this story also gleams with a scope unrivaled from any novella I've read, along with a literary prowess that is extremely mighty, and a structure that bends and breaks conventions. In a way, it throws everything but the kitchen sink, but it all comes together not in a jumbled mess, but glistening order, forming a sort of impressive city of its own.

This novella contains stories within stories which all hit deeply. And the foundation of it all is a twisty narrative that adeptly sets up a world through lyrical descriptions and characterization. Even though the story is uniquely constructed, S. Qiouyi Lu is able to comfortably and fluidly slide in information within the action, without you even realizing it. Never once did I feel frustrated from confusion. The ending is the final punch to quite a punchy story that left me satisfied.

In the Watchful City is a story that I could see described as "not for everyone",  but I think its readership is much broader than seems at first glance. By having the story burst with readability, endless ambition and experimentation, Lu has managed to craft a tale with depth and enchantment of high order. In the Watchful City is impossible to categorize. It's an island on its own, but one that's inviting. When I entered it, I found a sort of city unlike any other, structured in a way that made me so glad I found it.

Score: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

Novella Files: The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler

 

Subject: E. Catherine Tobler. The Necessity of Stars [Neon Hemlock Press, 2021]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Science Fiction 

Executive Summary: Plagued by the creeping loss of her memory, diplomat Bréone Hemmerli continues to negotiate peace in an increasingly climate-devastated world, ensconced in the UN-owned estate Irislands alongside her longtime friend and companion Delphine.

The appearance of the alien Tura in the shadows of Bréone’s garden raises new questions about the world’s decline. Perhaps, together, Tura and Bréone will find a way forward… if only Bréone can remember it. (From Goodreads)

Assessment: The Necessity of Stars makes reading about memory loss indelible. As both Bréone's mind and environment degrades, ravaged by time and climate change, there's an otherworldly spark to it. Not just because of creatively imagined aliens, but because the prose glistens with lyrical magic. It's able to alternate between sci-fi and the mundane in ways that are both skillfully imaginative and cuttingly authentic.

The story is appropriately layered and fragmented, mirroring Bréone's interiority, exploring how a woman's aging undeservingly diminishes desire for them from powerful men who are really the ones that deserve undesirability. Or how information is similarly fragmented--distorted, branching off into many tributaries without much certainty of which is true and which are lies. It's done mainly through introspection, but is also able to form deep characterization, particularly between Bréone and the similarly aged Delphine, whose connection grounds what could be a shaky foundation into passionate humanity.

I'd be lying if I told you I had everything about The Necessity of Stars figured out. It's a novella that packs as much depth as the best of them. What I do know is that the refined prose, excellent characterization, successfully experimental structure, and expansive themes were enough to keep me fully engaged until the end. Time might do some damage to the mind, but just like Bréone's excellent characterization, The Necessity of Stars will remain timeless.

Score: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

The Novella Files: Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente

Subject: Catherynne M. Valente. Comfort Me With Apples [Tor.com Publishing, 2021]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Executive Summary: Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it? (From Goodreads)

Assessment: Reviewing a book that’s power largely relies on not having the reader spoiled is tricky. Comfort Me With Apples is such a book. It’s a novella that stealthily wraps itself around you like a snake. You feel growing tension, but you can’t locate its source. And once you feel its full-forced pressure, having you in its grip, you’re completely breathless and wrecked. Catherynne M. Valente has crafted a story that eases its reader into a tale with engaging lyricism and an ominous atmosphere, reaching high intensity with brilliant reveals and conclusion.

Comfort Me With Apples is a quick read. It’s novella-length but its wordsmithery is so honeyed that it breezes by quicker than any book this size I’ve read. It finishes in a wholly satisfying way, but even so, I couldn’t help but look back at the pages and hope to be immersed in it forever. For those who’ve read Catherynne Valente, it’s no surprise that every sentence is sublime. While the story has a tall order by being conjoined with writing with colossal intimidation, it more than rises to the occasion. It’s layered, paced and escalated skillfully, and has more than enough subtext for scores of analyses.

For those wondering why I’ve written mountains of praise and almost zero story details, it’s to not ruin the experience. Comfort Me With Apples largely hooked me because its unique and enigmatic atmosphere/setting not only submerged me in its pages, but propelled me to find out how everything fit together. I thought a bunch of the strange happenings couldn’t possibly dovetail into a satisfying conclusion. I was wrong. The twists are of biblical proportions with the sweet and tart taste of an apple. If you take a bite, you’re more than likely to end up devouring the entire thing.

Score: 9/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

The Novella Files: Prosper's Demon by K.J. Parker

Subject: Parker, K.J. Prosper's Demon [Tor.com Publishing, 2019]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Fantasy

Executive Summary: The unnamed and morally questionable narrator is an exorcist with great follow-through and few doubts. His methods aren’t delicate but they’re undeniably effective: he’ll get the demon out — he just doesn’t particularly care what happens to the person.

Prosper of Schanz is a man of science, determined to raise the world’s first philosopher-king, reared according to the purest principles. Too bad he’s demonically possessed. (From Goodreads).

Assessment: Prosper's Demon is both electrifying and harrowing, juggling witticisms and gut-punches with finesse. It asks its readers a question if it's possible to create nuggets of gold within a degrading world. It's poetic that the book answers this question not only from its themes but through its impeccable craft. Prosper's Demon takes place in a world of horror, in which insidious creatures takes root in a person. But every so often, we see a beautiful character moment or a charming turn of phrase. It's a wellspring of fun amidst a story that could easily be overbearingly dreary. It's a nugget within a setting that should shun it but doesn't.

The narrator might be unnamed, but he certainly doesn't evoke the aura of a faceless character. He's snarky, cunning, and perseverant. His voice buoys what is already an enticing concept into a singularly compelling one. He doesn't give the reader all the information of him and his world at once, instead methodically laying it out as the novella goes along, saving the bigger surprises until the end. It's done in a skillful way that doesn't seem deceptive but natural to the narrative's progression.

Prosper's Demon is a delightful read. My interest never wavered. It's a story with a scale that works perfectly for the size of a novella, telling a compact tale, while its economically explained but expansively scaled worldbuilding leaves room for further tales in its setting. When our own world completely degrades from chaos and carnage, we can take some respite that much art - including Prosper's Demon - came out of this pandemonium. Art is golden nuggets amidst detritus, and this novella is a testament to it.

Score: 8/10

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”

The Novella Files: Hard Reboot by Django Wexler

Subject: Wexler, Django. Hard Reboot [Tor.com Publishing, 2021]

Accolades: N/A

Genre: Science Fiction

Executive Summary: In a science fiction landscape, Kas is on a research trip to Old Earth. She quickly finds herself entangled with a con artist named Zhi, putting them in a situation where they must rely on each other. What follows are giant robot battles, intergalactic politics, smoldering passion, and a plot that gleefully never hits the brakes.

Assessment: Giant robots with flashy spectacle and excessive power works best when encompassed by a simple plot. That way, action can be on full display, the story can burst forward like it’s on a jetpack, without details blocking its path. Hard Reboot does exactly that. It’s the size of a novella, not because it’s a half-finished story that ends abruptly, but because it sets a clear path, having much to accomplish, and never meanders. Characterization is established along its high-octane journey. There are plot twists galore, but there’s not even of shimmer of halting introspection. Instead, it's processed while the protagonist’s engaged in action, whether it be interpersonal drama, intergalactic politics, or giant robots going boom.

The way intergalactic politics is handled deserves commendation, as I never felt adrift, unsure of what the world was like--and at the same time, I never felt inordinately info-dumped. Hard Reboot’s distribution of information is on a level that feels like another galaxy. .

The story doesn’t just make you care about the action and the world it inhabits—it’s a more widespread feeling. The engagement I had for the pyrotechnics and worldbuilding is matched by the central relationship. Both the turmoil and grace between Kas and Zhi is always believable, hard-hitting, and compelling. Robots are definitely put through the wringer in this story, but it might also wreak turmoil on your heart. If I have one complaint it's that as breezy and delightful as its story and world is, I wish it went a little deeper

Hard Reboot clears the way for it to zoom along. Like many action-packed stories with giant robots, its unimpeded path might be expected, but the amount of power its fueled with to get to its ending certainly surprised me. With strong-hearted characters, a gift to simplify but not reduce its grand world to its readers, and a pace that never stumbles, Hard Reboot exudes fun.

Score: 7/10

Microreview [Book]: Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

 A story with instructive, powerful, and necessary anger.

Oppression can be physical, but it’s often more than that. America has subjugated Black bodies for a long time—first with blatant slavery, and then with figurative, rather than literal shackles that has the insidious ability of being intergenerational. Disadvantages are established at birth, and the steps to get out of them are elusive, as ordained by the social system. In Riot Baby, a character is inserted with a gadget that monitors and controls them. But it’s also a significant metaphor for how incarceration, social disadvantages, and life with seemingly no escape route is embedded into many Black bodies. Not because they’re whipped and denied voting rights, but because America’s system has a way of finagling itself to mostly keep the status quo, while giving an illusion of exaggerated racial progress. It’s a system that should draw a lot of anger. And in Riot Baby, it does just that. Anger is suffused in this novella, both in characters and themes, giving even its meandering sections raging energy.

In America, Ella is a girl gifted with magical abilities that allow her to levitate, see the future, enter people’s minds, and much more. She mostly interacts with her family or secludes herself. She is Black. So is her younger brother Kev, who is incarcerated outrageously for being a young Black man. From there, the story explores American history, tragedies, and its deeply wrongful consequences and insistence, all within a novella that spans decades, many locations, while never really losing grasp of its narrative.

Kev is a tremendously fully drawn character. His sorrow, pain, moments of camaraderie, and anger, are all developed in ways that deliver a full-forced punch and are conducive to the narrative. Riot Baby has some of the best dialogue I’ve read in quite a while – both punchy and natural – and most of that dialogical brilliance is in Kev’s sections. Meanwhile, Ella could’ve solely been a mouthpiece for the book’s themes, but she’s so much more than that. Her semi-solitary/introspective journey might be more thematic, while Kev’s interaction with many people lends itself more to characterization, but Onyebuchi infuses Ella’s thematic exploration with otherworldliness, giving the themes a sense of magic, albeit an often upsetting and infuriating one.

Riot Baby flows quite well, but not completely smoothly. The story starts out very strong, has a mid-section with both emotionally cutting and meanderingly adrift sections, making me always appreciate Onyebuchi’s craft, but wondering if he had a solid plan of wrapping the story up. The parts I found meandering became worth it and increased in my estimation retrospectively because its conclusion is absolutely gorgeous, as the anger that had gradually built up erupted in something that absolutely befits what came before. I just wish the story could’ve made its lesser bits golden during my reading rather than after.

America might embed oppression into Black bodies, but as Riot Baby shows, it's not the only thing that seeps intergenerationally. Every day there’s a new racial tragedy, but every day there is also dignity and courage. Because oppression doesn’t make most people huddle away and let it eat away at them. There’s a fire that existed before, existed now, and will exist into the future. That fire has become stronger than ever before, and throughout all the terror, there’s hope that it will scorch wickedness and injustices. That feat within the American climate might seem daunting, but it’s possible. It’s not a fantasy, but it is magic. 

 The Math:

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 For a brilliant ending.
+1 For a unique, fluid writing style.

Negatives: -1 For a middle that while still worthwhile, isn't as strong as its beginning or ending.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10

Onyebuchi, Tochi. Riot Baby [Tordotcom, 2020].

POSTED BY: Sean Dowie - Screenwriter, editor, lover of all books that make him nod his head and say, "Neat!”