Nanoreviews: The Stone in the Skull, Persepolis Rising, The Tea Master and the Detective

Bear, Elizabeth. The Stone in the Skull [Tor, 2017]

The Stone in the Skull is set in the same world as her superb Eternal Sky trilogy, but if you haven't read those books (and why haven't you?), don't worry because there are only loose connections that add to the rich tapestry that is The Stone in the Skull. Here Bear shifts the location south east to the Lotus Kingdoms and introduces readers to the Gage and the Dead Man, two characters whose personal stories, friendship, and interactions are riveting (one is a woman turned into automaton, the other a bodyguard / assassin from a now destroyed Caliphate), and also to Sayeh and Mrithuri, rulers of their respective kingdoms fighting to hold on and protect their people, their positions, and somehow manage to have a glimmer of a personal life outside of the rigid wall of expectation of a woman ruling in her own name. The Stone in the Skull is the first book of a new trilogy and so there is some building and setting up story and characters arcs that will pay off in books two and three, but both as a novel and the beginning of a trilogy, The Stone in the Skull stands as one of the best novels of 2017 or any other year.  Elizabeth Bear is at the height of her powers and her powers are mighty indeed.
Score: 9/10

Corey, James S.A. Persepolis Rising [Orbit, 2017]

The thirty year time jump from the conclusion of Babylon Rising was a risky move, but it paid off in spades in Persepolis Rising. The time jump was an opportunity for Corey to reset the deck, establish the new norms for the galaxy and begin to bring new characters into the mix while building a new threat to the forefront.  It works exceedingly well, and when Corey shows the new threat and brings the hammer, there's a very high body count, excitement, and the end result is one of the best novels in the entire series - which is an impressive feat for book #7.
Score: 9/10

deBodard, Aliette. The Tea Master and the Detective [Subterranean Press, 2018]

The Mindships of de Bodard's Xuya universe remind me somewhat of Anne McCaffrey's Brain ships, which is not so much a point as a random observation. The Tea Master and the Detective is a murder mystery with a sentient ship and a prickly detective uneasily working together to figure out how a body abandoned in deep space was killed. The novella is far better than my description. The excellence here is in the interplay between The Shadow Child and Long Chau and their characterization, development, and backgrounds.

Score: 7/10



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan. 

Microreview [book]: Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Caraval promises a magical game but only delivers on the frustration of being tricked.

Trigger Warnings: Domestic violence, physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault, suicide

With a brilliant book cover (yes, I’m guilty of judging covers these days) and a title with a hint of magic and mystery, Stephanie Garber’s Caraval seemed right in my YA wheelhouse. I wanted to like it. I wanted to dive into a carnival landscape and follow two sisters around while they unravel a deadly game. I was ready for the colorful cast of characters.

Except the novel only provides a skeleton of what’s promised on the back flap: “Whatever you’ve heard about Caraval, it doesn’t compare to the reality. It’s more than just a game or a performance. It’s the closest you’ll ever find to magic in this world.” The novel follows two sisters—Scarlett and her younger sister Donatella—who both dream of attending the famous Caraval, partially as an escape from their violent and abusive father. Scarlett writes to the Caraval’s creator, named Legend, for years before she finally receives the offer she’s been hoping for—tickets to the performance. One for her, Donatella, and Scarlett’s fiancé, a man she has never met.

The only problem: the marriage arranged by her father happens only a few days after the Caraval, so it would be nearly impossible for Scarlett to attend both. Donatella knows how much attending the Caraval means to her sister, and she has a plan to use the Caraval as a chance to finally escape their father’s abuse.

While the plot promises plenty of tension (though abuse as a character’s driving force usually worries me), I was eagerly turning pages to reach the Caraval descriptions. I was ready to be inspired by the wonder of this invented place that had so captured the imaginations of Scarlett and Donatella to the point it also captured my imagination. I felt promised this type of wonder as a reader.

Garber rarely delivers on this promise of magic. Moments of imagination were spread throughout the novel, such as a tattooed fortune teller who learned about his visitors by which of his tattoos they looked at—but such moments were often not fully realized. For example, a few pages after the fortune teller, Scarlett enters a kissing tent. Considering the sexual tension between her and the male main character, Julian, I felt excited to see the kissing tent, hoping for interesting descriptions of young love, adventure, ideas of first kisses, attraction, or a darker twist on these beloved tropes. Instead, the tent was described as mostly empty and Scarlett bought an elixir of protection, which felt like a let down as a reader. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of sexual tension throughout the book (though it starts off weird with Scarlett being kidnapped by Julian and nearly drowning), but it often felt misplaced or awkward—such as Julian trying to convince Scarlett to sleep in the same bed as him even though it made her extremely uncomfortable. 

Some of Garber’s best moments are when she describes the clothing. One of Scarlett’s dresses changes depending on her mood, and I loved the tight details of each new piece, from bustles and lace to risqué sleeveless tops and sweetheart necklines. Garber imbued the wonder into the clothing while the rest remained hard to visualize, even confusing at times, such as a description of a carousel that was unclear on size, speed, placement, or the ridable creatures. Had it been a passing description, perhaps it need not be so fully realized, but Garber cues the reader into its importance right away.

While the descriptions were not what I had been expecting or hoping for, I would’ve been more forgiving if the Caraval were not set in a secondary world. Other than the addition of magic, little seemed separate from a historical fiction set in the 1800s. I wasn’t sure why Garber invented a whole new place rather than add a taste of magic, such as in The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which Caraval is often compared to. Using a historical version of our world might have made the light prose feel less spare since the reader doesn’t have to imagine (or reimagine) everything. After finishing the book, it wasn’t apparent to me why the world needed to be a totally new secondary place.

The mainstream reviews of Caraval feel like a totally different book than the one I read. Again, I wanted to like this fantasy. I wanted to be swept away in a dark carnival game, but thin descriptions, confusing prose, an unexplored secondary world made for an unsatisfying read, plus the amount of abuse (emotional and physical) spread throughout the novel had me cringing rather than rooting for Scarlett, who, in my mind, never seemed to overcome her victimization, even in the final turn of Caraval’s game. While I do not have experience with the abuse detailed in the novel, it wasn’t apparent to me what I should take away from those scenes. Overall, while Caraval was one of the hot picks of 2017, it didn’t thrill me.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 3/10

Bonuses: +1 for descriptions of costumes

Penalties: -1 for one of the biggest deus ex machina endings I’ve read in a long time

Nerd Coefficient: 3/10 “Very little good I can say about this.” Read more about our scoring system here.

Posted by Phoebe Wagner

Garber, Stephanie. Caraval [Flatiron Books, 2016]

Thursday Morning Superhero

I don't recall how it came across my radar, but I picked up the first volume of the manga The Promised Neverland when it came out and I absolutely loved it! It is the story of an orphanage named the Grace Field House and a young girl named Emma. It captured my attention early on and took an unexpected turn that absolutely had me hooked! I picked up volume two today and might have to review the series in a later post.

Pick of the Week:
Snotgirl #9 - The premise of a fashion blogger being invited to attend a convention of influencers is not something that would normally capture my interest. I remember when I first started reading Snotgirl I was thinking this is one Bryan Lee O'Malley comic that wasn't for me. I stuck with it and the series took me in a direction that I didn't expect. Nine issues in it is one of my favorite series. In this issue Lottie speaks to a ghost of a fellow influencer who was murdered by someone who is at the convention. In addition to managing her fame, relationships, and helping her friend plan a wedding, she is now tasked with trying to get to the bottom of another mystery. This is a series that is a lot of fun, has a decent amount of snot, and has the same wackiness that you come to expect from Mr. O'Malley.

The Rest:
Paper Girls #20 - We learn a little bit more on how the time travel works in this series. People are able to travel through time folds, and depending on the angle you come through you might be able to see different things than others. It explains why the Tiffanies are able to see the robots that can allow them to escape the hellish 2000 and return to 1988. After hi-jacking one of the robots, they quickly attract some negative attention and are still no closer to understanding the true mess they are in. This was one of the more exciting issue, but still has me scratching my head.



Daredevil #598 - I shudder thinking about the crimes that Muse has committed. He is a character I didn't know much about until he popped up earlier during Charles Soule's run. Muse escaped from prison in the last year and has been decorating the skyscrapers with massive pictures of various superheros. Meanwhile, Murdock is getting nowhere with Kingpin who is handing out government positions to multiple villains he is in touch with. It does not look like a good time to be living in New York and Soule hinted at twitter he has something shocking planned for the next issue, something even more shocking than the events that occurred at the end of this one.

Star Wars #43 - The current arc reaches a satisfying conclusion as Leia is able to actually negotiate an alliance with Queen Trios, who seemed to be working with the Empire. The scene between her and Leia is the best in this issue, with the rest adding up to the equivalent of an epic chase scene as Luke escaped a strong foe and Han led a group to the finish line. It also is worth noting that the villain Luke is squaring off against notes that he would simply equip the clones with flamethrowers in order to combat the Jedi. You can't reflect a flame with a lightsaber like you can a blast from a blaster. Interesting point and curious if it was inspired by the flametroopers we were introduced to in The Force Awakens.



POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

Altered Carbon, Episodes 1-3

Netflix's new science fiction show, Altered Carbon, is based on a novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan. It's basically a mashup of neo-cyberpunk, detective noir, milSF and techno thriller. Since I have particular interests in the first two parts of that equation, Altered Carbon looked to be right up my alley. So I decided to commit to 3 episodes, after which point I'd take stock. Three episodes in and I like it enough to continue. It's not quite as good as I'd hoped, however.

Takeshi Kovacs is, or rather was, a kind of super soldier known as an envoy. Envoys were part of an insurrection against the hegemonic polity, the Protectorate. The insurrection failed and the envoys were "put in ice." However, in the future your mind, memories and soul are stored on a "stack"--a kind of hard drive that is surgically inserted into your body. As long as the stack isn't damaged, it can be taken out of a dead body and inserted into a new "sleeve" (i.e. a body). Religious types refuse to be re-sleeved, believing that it prevents the soul from ascending to heaven. Pretty much everyone else who can afford to do it, does.

So Kovacs is re-sleeved into the massive, jacked body of Swedish actor Joel Kinneman. This is done at the behest of ultra-rich "meth" (i.e. meta-human) Laurens Bancroft, who wants Kovacs to investigate the "murder" of his previous sleeve. Unlike the plebs, Bancroft doesn't need a stack to resleeve, nor does he even need a sleeve. His mind, memories and soul are uploaded every 48 hours to a satellite, which can then beam it back into a cloned body. But he was "murdered" just before the periodic upload, which means Bancroft has no memory of the event or the events leading up to it. Oh the humanity. In any event, most people think Bancroft committed suicide; Bancroft is convinced he was murdered. His femme fatale wife, Miriam Bancroft, takes an immediate interest in Kovacs, as does Bay City detective Kristin Ortega. A mystery ensues.

First, the things I like. It's a very pretty show--especially the sweeping vistas like the one above, but also some of the interiors, like Bancroft's mansion in the clouds and The Raven, which is the hotel where Kovacs lives. I also really like some of the supporting characters, like Poe (the AI who runs The Raven) and Ortega. And the show is commendably diverse. Kovacs is supposed to be half Japanese and half Hungarian (judging by the name), and his partner is black. Ortega is Mexican; her partner Aboud is an Arab Muslims; their captain is Japanese. I like to see futures where everyone is mixed up and the social categories of today don't have quite the same meaning several hundred years into the future.

I also liked how the immortal lives of the wealthy, in secluded compounds at cloud level, serves as a literalized metaphor for the inequality that increasingly defines most societies. In fiction, I often grow weary of literalized metaphors, but they work on TV. And of course, the existence of stacks and sleeves brings up interesting questions of how we'd act if death were not a guarantee. And finally, the show features good acting, pace and atmosphere.

But there are a few things that keep me from really loving the show. Kinneman grows on you as the series progresses, but there are moments where he comes off like a cross between Dolph Lundgren and Kevin Sorbo. The super soldier also doesn't quite fit the noir mold. Not that anyone is required to stick the old formula, but the genius of Philip Marlowe is that he can take a punch as well as dish one out, and that he's always outgunned and so has to use his wits to stay alive. Kovacs, on the other hand, can destroy anyone and everyone. Others might like this setup, but for I prefer the Marlowe style of detective.

Then there's the violence and nudity. Actually I don't really mind the nudity--it's just the human body,  after all. And I can handle the show's level of gore and splatter too. It's the intersection of the two that bothers me. So much "prestige TV" centers violence against women--Game of Thrones, Westworld and so forth and so on. Altered Carbon does as well. There's an awful lot of naked women being hurt by men. Yes, it happens in the real world and yes, there is violence against men too. But the brutalized are almost exclusively all women, at least 3 episodes in.

I'd stop short of calling the show misogynistic. There are plenty of well crafted, three dimensional female characters; and I *think* the show is trying to say that violence against women is bad. At some point, though, enough is enough. And there's a cumulative effect of all these shows using violence against women to illustrate just how dark and depraved these fictional worlds are. It would be nice if, for a change, it weren't centered.

While not perfect, I did like Altered Carbon enough to continue watching. So that's something.

***

POSTED BY: The G--purveyor of nerdliness, genre fanatic and Nerds of a
Feather founder/administrator, since 2012. 

Stranger Than Science Fiction

I hope you like charts. Sorry. Here is a picture of Poe.

Don't get distracted

I'm on record as being quite smitten with one Poe Dameron as one of the best things about the new Star Wars trilogy. There has been no shortage of discussion of how he is presented, and the actions he takes, in the latest installment, The Last Jedi. I, for one, think the movie is fantastic top to bottom, but me just saying that isn't good enough. Author-nee-engineer that I am, I had to figure the what, why and how of it all.

Let's reverse engineer Star Wars.

Status: DISTRACTED

Poe exists for one very simple reason: he is the child of Han Solo. No, that's not a fan theory, I mean he is the spiritual son of the the character type. We have to go back to Han Solo in 1977 to understand him. Star Wars is this beautiful, sort of weird, western-Kurosawa fever dream, and the charming rogue is no stranger in those worlds. Solo is the absolute personification of that - scoundrel with a heart of gold.

So is Poe Dameron. But if you read the linky up there, his motivations are different. This is key- I think we need to look at each character along three axis: motivations, arc and the lie they believe. That last one is the key to any good character - K.M. Weiland is the one I learned it from, and it is absolutely essential - what is the lie your character believes? This is worthy of an essay of its own, but that's for another time. Let's look at Han and Poe. Here, I made a chart:

Han has one of the great character arcs in cinema (which I am 100% confident the Solo solo movie will wreck, but whatever) - we meet him, and he is this self-assured, greedy smuggler who doesn't need anyone who doesn't pay, and then his return is awesome because it means he changed. Poe doesn't change a whole lot over the course of The Force Awakens - he believes in the resistance, and is a hero of, start to finish.

This only serves to reinforce the lie he believes - that he is always right, and can get away with anything. The funny thing is, though, this is also the lie we, the audience, believe. We are so, so used to characters like this - charming, attractive dudes who break all the rules and get the job done.

Real life doesn't work that way. Look at the change in each character between their first and second films:

Everything about Han has changed - now he's not sure he belongs with the Rebels, and he's worried about the price on his head. He made a massive choice that he knew could mean his life in coming back to help blow up the Death Star. Poe, however, has become a little too concerned with himself, instead of doing the right thing - his motivation is still mostly good, but his overconfidence leads to him disobeying orders and common sense. He has changed, too, as a direct result of that lie being reinforced - with dire consequences.

When I first walked out of The Last Jedi, I was unsure of Holdo's actions - why wouldn't she tell Poe the plan, which would save a lot of trouble? His actions - still sure he is infallible and can get away with anything - show that he can't be trusted. By the end of the movie, we see he has learned the lesson, his motivation is no longer selfish, but at great cost.

But The Last Jedi does something magnificent - it gives Poe and Han a foil. They never share the screen, but DJ drives home this point, that for all the hearts of gold, good motives and charming scoundrels, there are a million who never care about anything except the money and their own gain.

DJ also reflects a rather cynical view - showing that the arms dealers will sell to anyone, and that both sides are corrupt. He's not entirely wrong; but then, neither is Poe. Both think their actions won't have consequences, or they can skirt around whatever they might be.

did you even look at the charts

The best part of The Last Jedi is the meta commentary on the state of Star Wars, stories and the way we perceive things. Poe's actions are not out of character; they are more in character than what most movies tell us they would be (see also Skywalker, Luke). It's a brave move, one that plenty of people aren't happy with, a good reminder that we all have lies we believe.

-DESR

Nanoreviews: Films Written by Rod Serling

The casual fan of The Twilight Zone may not realize that creator and host Rod Serling also wrote a number of films throughout his too-short career. The most notable is likely Planet of the Apes, but there were several notable films he wrote that never entered the pop cultural lexicon in the same way that one did. Serling spent most of his career writing teleplays for TV dramas, but here are a trio of theatrical feature films penned by the legendary TV persona.

Patterns (1956), dir. Fielder Cook.

There is a powerful social conscience that runs through many of the episodes of The Twilight Zone, and that same sensibility is on display here in Patterns, as well, but the execution leaves something to be desired. Fred Staples, a young executive, is plucked from a lower-level position and elevated to the board of a high-power corporation. But Fred is confronted with the idea that the cold, manipulative Mr. Ramsey recruited Fred in order to force out and replace the aging Bill Briggs, who was no longer a reliable vote for Ramsey's maneuvering. As Ramsey takes Fred under his wing, it becomes clear that success at this highest of levels requires total commitment to the company above all things — above family, above morality. It's not a bad screenplay, and there are a number of unpleasant truths that it seeks to confront, but it gets lost in the direction. Most of the movie is a badly-used Everett Sloane (Mr. Ramsey) just yelling constantly. It becomes tiresome.
Score: 5/10

Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962), dir. Ralph Nelson.

Anthony Quinn gives a stunning performance as a boxer who's taken way too many to the head and takes his life in his own hands if he chooses to fight again. The movie is Quinn's — Playing Mountain Rivera — struggle to find a life outside of the ring. He gets involved with Grace Miller, a social worker or career counselor, who tries to help him identify jobs that he could possibly land and find meaning in for a new chapter in his life. Quinn brings so much honesty and pain to this guy who's never been the smartest, and must face one of two futures whose outcomes are equally unknown — one in the ring where he risks death or paralysis, or one in the straight world. A brutal, moving film.
Score: 8/10

Seven Days in May (1964), dir. John Frankenheimer.

This movie presages the string of 70s paranoid thrillers that would emerge just a few years later. Director John Frankenheimer was just coming off of a masterpiece in The Manchurian Candidate, and just a couple of years from his way paranoid sci-fi-adjacent film Seconds, which is very good. Seven Days in May feels very much of-a-piece with these other 1960s Frankenheimer films, and also feels very much anchored in Serling's respect for servicemen and distrust of those who would cavalierly send them to war. Colonel Jiggs Casey (Jiggs? I know...) gets little more than a hunch that something isn't quite right with an operation headed by his idol and mentor, General Scott, and begins digging. He quickly uncovers a number of threads that could be unconnected and lead to nothing more than usual Cold War secrecy, or to a plot to overthrow the President. It's a taught military thriller with a strong sense of human consequences and relationships. And a fantastic cast: Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Martin Balsam, John Houseman, Frederick March, Ava Gardner. You can't go wrong with this one.
Score: 8/10

Posted by Vance K — cult film reviewer and co-editor of nerds of a feather, flock together since 2012. Rod Serling fan since probably the first time he saw television.

2018 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Awards Longlist, Part 4: Institutional Categories

Welcome to the fourth and final installment of the Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together 2018 Hugo Awards Longlist! (Parts 1, 2, and 3.)

This time we are looking at what are, for lack of a better term, the "nonfiction and institutional categories": Best Related Work, Best Semiprozine, Best Fanzine and Best Fancast. Now, those who follow this blog know how cranky The G can get on the subject of certain categories and their bizarre eligibility guidelines--and we've got two of them today (Best Semiprozine and Best Fancast). Nevertheless, I will do my best to stay calm and stick to the rules, frustrating as they can be. I reserve the right, will, however, get a little snarky and passive-aggressive in the process.    
There are, however, some sticky issues that made putting this list together a bit difficult. Knowing what does or does not constitute a "fanzine" in the era of blogs, for example--and given that we may already be on the downward slide of that era, it only promises to get more difficult as time passes. Nevertheless, we have tried to create clear and consistent guidelines for inclusion in this category. Thus, to qualify, a fanzine: (1) must be a fan venture (i.e. must not generate a significant amount of money, or pay professional rates for work); (2) must publish a lot of content in a given year; and (3) must publish "award worthy" content. We did not discount single-author blogs from consideration, but criterion #2 makes it difficult for most single-author blogs to  merit consideration. Consequently, while a couple made it, most did not--including some very good ones.  

I also feel obliged to mention that 'nerds of a feather, flock together' is eligible in this category, but whether we belong on anyone's list (short, long, good or bad) is another story, and part of a conversation we aren't inclined to join. We'd much rather talk about all the other sites we like to read (and which meet the criteria outlined above). 

The category Best Fancast also presented issues, namely, on the question of whether podcasts hosted by profit-making websites were still fancasts. The issue here comes down to whether the podcasts qualify (given token-level payment for the podcasts themselves) or do not (given that the parent companies can employ at least some people full-time). There were internal disagreements on this question, but in the end we decided to include the podcasts in question, but make note that they may not meet the eligibility requirements. I personally encourage you to vote them in that category--both because they belong there and, consequently, because a rule that keeps them out is dumb. But that's just me. It is also worth noting that in the past 8-4 Play was a finalist for Fancast, and 8-4 Play is hosted by 8-4, a professional video game localization company. If 8-4 Play is eligible, and passed the vetting process of the Hugo committee, than so should most everything else. But that's just our opinion.

Before moving on to the recommendations, a gentle reminder that this list is not and does not intend to be a comprehensive survey of genre or fandom. Rather, these are recommendations we suggest you consider alongside whatever other candidates you have in mind.  - G & Joe


Related Work
Archive Of Our Own 
Crash Override, by Zoe Quinn
Endurance: A Year In Space, a Lifetime of Discovery, by Scott Kelly
Food and Horror, by Octavia Cade (Book Smuggler)
Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, by Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal, eds


Semiprozine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
The Book Smugglers
The Dark
Fiyah Literary Magazine
Fireside Fiction
GigaNotoSaurus
Pornokitsch
Strange Horizons
Uncanny


Fanzine
Lady Business  (Clare, Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay, Susan, eds.)
SF Bluestocking (Bridget McKinney
SF in Translation (Rachel Cordasco)
SFFReviews (Sara Uckelman)
SFFWorld (Dag Rambruat, Rob Bedford, Mark Yon, and Nila White, eds.)
Quick Sip Reviews (Charles Payseur)
Women Write About Comics (Kayleigh Hearn, Kat Overland, Claire Napier, Kate Tanski, Wendy Browne, eds.)


Fancast
Cabbages and Kings (Jonah Sutton-Morse)
Ditch Diggers (Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace)
Fangirl Happy Hour (Ana Grilo and Renay Williams)
Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men (Jay Edidon and Miles Stokes)
Skiffy and Fanty  (Alex Acks, David Annandale, Shaun Duke, Julia Rios, Mike Underwood, Paul Weimer, Jennifer Zink


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan.