Dream with Our Eyes Open

Missed another week ... mainly, I was off-kilter because we had a snow day, so I teleworked, which is not usual for me. And I forgot about book blogging.

I read Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, which seems likely to end up on the Hugo Award short list for novels. It's a very-locked-door mystery, given that it's set on a slow-boat space ship many years from both its launch point and destination. The care of the ship and its popsicle people passengers is in the hands of some clones: as they die off, they will be replaced by clones of themselves, and thus there will be continuity of care, because each clone supposedly *is* the same person, up to the point when the last "recording" of their brain was taken. This is not really a new idea— Cherryh's Voyager in Night comes to mind, for example—and I don't like it because it's not actually a continuum of consciousness, although Lafferty (or hir characters, anyway) seems to think it is.

At the beginning, it's a good thing I was intrigued with the mystery and the setting, because otherwise, I got a powerful case of the Eight Deadly Words ("I don't care what happens to these people"). Later on, as we learn more about them, I cared a bit more, but wow, are these boring, simplistic people at first. Even the first few background flashbacks didn't help. None of them seem to have much in the way of family or friends, for one thing. Anyway, as Dark Secrets were revealed, the characters and their situations became more intriguing, and Lafferty presents a variety of interesting scenarios regarding the issues of clones in a society. And I'm guessing that was really the point of the book anyway.

If you've read it, were you as annoyed as I am by the handwaving regarding the garden and what happens to it when the gravity fails?

Also, people worried about blood yuck should give this a pass. The opening scene is covered with it.

I restarted and this time finished T.J. Kingfisher's The Seventh Bride, which I had dropped after the first few pages for some reason (maybe when I got sick?). I enjoyed it quite a bit, although some of it didn't make a lot of sense if I stopped and thought about it: the bizarre coming-apart thing that happens to the sorcerer's castle from time to time, for example. I found myself wondering whether Kingfisher (a/k/a Ursula Vernon, author and artist of Digger and many other works) had a dream that inspired these scenes. Anyway, if you enjoy seeing classic fairytale tropes upended and women characters working together, you should enjoy this. Note that there is some grisly body horror stuff involving both animals and humans.

I read another volume of the "Rivers of London" comics: Night Witch. I'm still liking these, slight as they might be. I think part of it is that we spend less time in Peter's laddie-boy horndog head (although I don't mind that as much as some do). It's not just that he is a lusty young man: it's also that it takes some time to read and comprehend his descriptions of complex scenes, and in the comics, you just turn the page, and voila, there's the scene, all complete. I've just started the next volume, Black Mould. I really need to make some icons from Beverly's and Sahra's images in these, and maybe even DS Stephanopoulos as well. I'm sad that we haven't seen Lady Ty or Abigail yet, although we did have Nicky in an extra at the end of at Night Witch

Finally, I've started a re-read of Diana Wynne Jones' Dark Lord of Derkholm, and although the story and some of the characters (mainly the griffins) are keeping me going, I'm remembering why I don't like this one as much as most of DWJ's canon. Most of the plot hinges on a very dysfunctional marriage and the almost complete lack of communication between the partners. There's a reason for it, and DWJ lets us know that she does not entirely approve, but still! I suppose as a young teen I would have focused on the way that having the parents out of commission allows Dirk's very large family of children (human and not) show their ingenuity and grit. However, because it was published in 1998, when I was already the mother of a six-year-old, I can't quite put my married-partner/mother concerns out of the way, and it's a rather horrid book from that point of view.

I'm also vaguely uneasy with some of Dirk's biological ingenuity, but mad scientists have been creating creatures for millennia, so I suppose it's nice to see a basically benign practitioner of this particular magical art.

Reflections: On the Magic of Writing by Diana Wynne Jones
Diana Wynne Jones: The Fantastic Tradition and Children's Literature by Farah Mendelsohn

When I was in high school and even when I was at university, I could never figure out why anyone would want to discuss the structure, symbolism, etc. of the books they liked. Surely that would kill your pleasure dead, like picking apart a joke to see why it was funny?

I'm really not sure when this changed, but it was probably fannish reading that did it, and I'm guessing perhaps it was the various online analyses of the Sandman and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.

In the past few months, with the help of my perceptive daughter, who knew what Mom really wanted the most off her Amazon wish list, I was able to immerse myself in the inner workings of one of my favorite writers, British fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011). Mendlesohn's book, which generally rambles through various overarching themes of Jones' work rather than marching along by publication date, offers a number of great insights into what's going on in the books and in some of DWJ's short stories. The book by Jones herself is a collection of articles, essays, and talks, and would be worth the price of purchase (for me, at any rate) simply because it contains the famous essay "The Heroic Ideal—A Personal Odyssey," which explores DWJ's fascinating and mystifying YA novel Fire and Hemlock from her own point of view. Actually, the other items in the book are enjoyable and useful as well.

I wrote a brief but impassioned e-mail note to the Washington Post about the fact that there did not seem to be any coverage of DWJ's death this weekend. And ... I got a response, with a link in it. It turns out that critic Michael Dirda, who has been fond of her books in the past, was caught out of town on family business.

Anyway, here is his brief blog post, where he explains this, and he is asking for input. (You need to click "All Posts" to see the other responses ... their software seems to be set for a much higher volume of comments than they are getting on this.)

Cross-posted from the DWJ LJ Comm:

Diana Wynne Jones, after much consultation with her husband and specialists, has decided to abandon chemotherapy (which is serving only to make her feel very ill indeed) and resign herself to whatever may follow. Her senior oncologist fears she has 'months rather than years', but we all hope that – as once or twice before – Diana can still surprise the medical profession. May the good luck return.

- Ansible, June 2010

Thanks to james_nicoll for the Ansible cite ... I was kind of holding my breath until I saw it.

For those not familiar with Ansible: "Ansible is David Langford's infamous British SF/fan newsletter, published since 1979."

I have also read this same news via the DWJ mailing list, where it was actually posted a couple of weeks ago.

According to this blog, you can send letters to:

Diana Wynne Jones
c/o Greenwillow Books
10 E. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10022

The publisher says (again, see link) the company will forward them.

These are mostly for smillaraaq. Somewhere deep in the guts of the Meta Thread from Heck (f-locked, I am afraid), which started out innocently as a notice of a fic posting on my other account and now exceeds 300 posts, she mentioned that she had not read much (or did not recall much) Cherryh, and as CJC is about my favorite SF writer, I felt this needed to be remedied. And when I said so, she said she'd also appreciate recs for DWJ - who is one of my favorite fantasy authors. So, without further ado ... .

The Game began promisingly, introducing a young orphan named Hayley Foss who has recently left her grandparents' quiet home to join a boisterous gathering of cousins she has never met. As the story explored Hayley's strange home life and her interactions with the cousins, hints of otherwordliness gave way to full-blown fantasy, comfortingly reminscent of Diana Wynne Jones's earlier books. I quickly became engrossed and was thoroughly enjoying myself - until the story slammed shut abruptly, leaving me surprised and annoyed.

This is only half of a DWJ book. No, it doesn't end in the middle. Instead the first three-eighths are grafted directly onto the final eighth. I can't say it's not worth reading, but I was disappointed.