Dream with Our Eyes Open

The planet Sask-E (Sasky to its devoted caretakers) has the potential to be of great value to its owners, an outfit called Verdance. To this end they have started terraforming it, intending to re-create the Late Pleistocene for the enjoyment of well-heeled tourists. Although the process will achieve an Earth-type planet in much less time than it took for the original Earth to reach this stage, it's still a long-term project. That doesn't bother the owners, though: they have lifespans typically measured in centuries (or possibly even larger increments).

In the ground, working in the dirt, are the terraformers, led by the Environmental Rescue Team. The reader's experience in the first of three sections is focused on Destry, who is deeply devoted to her planet. So much so that in the opening of the story, she murders an apparently illicit visitor who is killing and eating the carefully placed wild animals. The repercussions of this impetuous action have her assigned to a back-country exploration trip with her faithful intelligent moose Whistle, where they make a discovery that slowly but completely changes the next millennium of Sasky's development.

The tone of this book was nostalgic for me. It read rather like Andre Norton, full of charming little details that show the reader the differences in this new culture from ours, with appealing characters, but it's also overall slightly flat. Newitz strikes me as a dutiful writer rather than an inspired one,

It's this nostalgic and naïve voice that tripped me up: I somehow entirely missed the significance of a statement early on, attributed to the owner-company's bitchy mouthpiece (emphasis added):

"Verdance had paid to build this planet, including its biological labor force…everything here — other than rocks, water, and the magnetic field — was part of Verdance’s proprietary ecosystem development kit. And that meant every life form was legally the company’s property, including Destry and Whistle."

It becomes all too clear what this means for the protagonists as the story progresses through its three sections.

I liked the book. In addition to Norton, it reminds me of Janet Kagan's Mirabile stories in the whimsy of the biological inventions, and there is also a bit of Becky Chambers-style hopepunk in the social structures and physical communities of the biological labor force.

I read this in the run-up to the Hugo nominations. It was honored with inclusion in various "best of 2023" lists, including the Locus Reading List.

Lina and her monkey-bot brother Bador live in Shantiport, a failing spaceport city that's been run by a succession of power-hungry animal-themed clans over the centuries. Now the city is drowning, sinking into the surrounding wetlands even while its Tiger Clan overlords, crime bosses, and tech oligarchs fight over who gets to rule what's still working. Lina, who works as a tour guide for off-world visitors, loves the city and wishes she could save it. Bador, far more childish, wants to leave the soggy wreck and explore the universe. Unexpectedly, a side-gig that Lina accepts puts the siblings into the heart of the political maelstrom that Shantiport has become.

The novel explores some serious themes—the civil rights of artificial intelligences, the ethics of embedding loyalties into living beings, what does political leadership owe those it rules, and more— but the framing and narrative techniques ultimately didn't work for me. Action will stop while characters engage in lengthy debates with each other, the protagonists will suddenly break character and play out a stereotyped scene seemingly imported from some other genre, and viewpoint of the majority of the story is at two removes from the reader, so that everyone seems flat and distant.

The setting is vivid and it's always refreshing to have a set of source cultures that are beyond the typical SF U.S./Europe analogs, but ultimately it wasn't enough. In fact, I nearly gave up until somewhere about the halfway point, when suddenly some of the chickens starting coming home to roost for both the leads and their adversaries.

I've seen this flaw of not being able to engage the reader immediately in several of the books I've read recently. It's as though the author has a big set-piece that they are dying to present to the reader but haven't given enough thought about how to get the reader there.

Usually novels in the form of legends or histories leave me a little cold because the narration style usually draws back from the characters' interior lives. It's not always an insurmountable problem, though. Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea is a book that I learned to love despite the withdrawn, almost cool narrative voice, and it seems that The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo might be another.

When Cleric Chih (along with their intelligent bird companion, Almost Brilliant) comes to inventory the goods of the Imperial residence at Lake Scarlet, they also gradually learns the story of the exiled barbarian empress who most famously lived there. Her teacher is an old woman called Rabbit, who as a low-class girl from the provinces became the servant of the empress In-yo.

This is a strange and strangely beautiful novel, but it didn't really grab me.

A feckless young man has but one wish the day he's released from a prison term for minor charges: to take in some Rakugo, a Japanese art form consisting of storytelling by a single performer who does the narration, all the character voices, and some simple sound effects. He tracks his favorite performer, the master Yakumo Yurakutei VIII, home after a performance and insists on becoming his apprentice. Yakumo never takes apprentices, but somehow the persistence of this awkward and uneducated fellow wears the master down.

At first Yakumo treats the young man, to whom he gives the apprentice name Yotaro, as a combination of man-of-all-work, pet, and comic relief. In addition to Yakumo himself, the household includes Matsuda, his elderly valet/driver/housekeeper, and a moody young woman named Konatsu, who was Yakumo's ward when she was a child. The tension between Konatsu and her guardian is like an open wound: he ignores her most of the time, but when he does notice her, it's usually to remark on how much she looks like her father, and she reacts with angry words and tears. At this point in (recent) history, classical Rakugo was closed to women performers, and Yakumo is adamant that Konatsu will never become a storyteller while in his household.

Yakumo gradually starts treating Yotaro as an actual apprentice, but the young man's real teacher is actually Konatsu. Whatever her history, she has an encyclopedic knowledge of Rakugo stories, and although the master remarks disparagingly about her tutoring of Yotaro, he never outright forbids them to continue. Yotaro's cheerful antics, willingness to work at menial tasks, and enthusiasm make him popular in the yose (Rakugo performance hall), and it looks like he might actually succeed in his ambition.

One day, it all comes crashing down. Yotaro, exhausted from a late night, falls asleep during the evening's storytelling at the yose and snores so loudly that he interrupts his master's performance. Yakumo throws him out. Yotaro comes crawling back, but Yakumo rejects his pleas — and then suddenly has somewhat of a change of heart. He starts to tell Yotaro and Konatsu of his own history, back when he was known as Kikuhiko, and that of his fellow apprentice, the man who became the Rakugo artist Sukeroku: Konatsu's father.

I had never heard of Rakugo before. The theatrical arts always interest me (I used to be in stage crew in high school and college), and the human intrigue of this story adds another dimension, although the story starts out rather slowly. The artwork is pretty great: mangaka Haruko Kumota's drawings remind me a bit of Fumi Yoshinaga's work in its more relaxed versions (What Did You Eat Yesterday?, for example), although it's a little looser and sloppier (example here, showing Yotaro and a more senior apprentice watching Yakumo perform in vol. 1, from Sequential Ink), especially when drawing Yotaro.

You can find Rakugo in English online! Here is a brief comic tale told by woman performer (things have changed).

This josei series is compete in 10 volumes. The five I have read take the story from the beginning to the next section of the modern-day story, after the extended flashback about Sukeroku and Kikuhiko. I certainly intend to finish the series.

ETA:. This is an even better intro to Rakugo, with another woman performer.

This is part of my Hugo Award Reading. I read Anders' first novel, All the Birds in the Sky, back in 2016 and was meh for me. This book is better but still ends up wandering off into nowhere.

The book starts with a small info dump in the guise of translation notes, such as the fact that the people who colonized this planet, January, named the native creatures after animals from their homeworld. You have been warned.

We then join our first protagonist, Sophie. She's from a lower-class family that might, in other settings, be called peasants. Faced with a future as a producer of more peasant agriculturists, she studies with desperate diligence and wins entrance to the university in the city, where she develops a deep crush on her roommate, Bianca. Bianca is beautiful, bright, and at her core, not a great person. She dabbles with the concept of being a revolutionary from a position of extreme privilege, and when things go south, it's not Bianca who falls.

As this story unfolds, we learn about the city and to some extent, the world. In Xiosphant, the activities of the city are controlled to the hour, at a minimum. Timed signals throughout the day tell the citizens when to wake, to eat, to go to work or school. No one breaks curfew, or they are punished. Maniacal little rules occupy any spare thought cycles people might have: food can only be bought with special food currency, for instance, and there are a variety of other currencies for other purchases. Bianca's daring revolutionary actions are trivial: if they were anything else, she'd be dead.

From Sophie's memories, it seems that this draconian governance is somehow a response to the planetary situation. January does not rotate. One side is baked to a fiery hell by its sun; the other side is deathly cold. A narrow temperate zone exists between the two, home to two cities: Xiosphant and Argelo, which we learn about later.

When Sophie takes the blame for Bianca's stupid act of defiance, she is cast out of the city into the edge of the cold zone to die but is unexpectedly saved by a creature considered a hideous and violent monster. When she comes back, she is unable to take up her old life and instead goes to work in a fascinating coffee shop where people can come be different for a short period of time.

At this point, I figured the book was heading into its final arc. I was intrigued and excited. I thought, this time Anders has really nailed it! Somehow Sophie and the underpeople represented at the coffee shop will make things go right! The only thing that didn't seem to work was this strange parallel arc about a traveling merchant called Mouth, part of a desperate crew who bring in contraband goods from Argelo, a strange and dangerous journey. Mouth discovers that the sacred text of her people, whom she lost at a young age, is in the museum in Xiosphant, and plans a burglary under cover of the nascent revolution under the partial leadership of -- you knew this, right? -- Bianca.

And as you've probably also guessed, the book was, in fact, only about half over at that point.

The revolution and Mouth's caper both go badly, and pretty soon, everyone is fleeing back across the horrible leagues between the two cities. After many misadventures, most of the group arrive in Argelo. Mouth and her partner try to fit into non-traveling life, and we get some rather nice "stranger in a strange land" as Sophie and Bianca learn about Argelo. Sadly, Sophie also finally begins to learn about Bianca, who very quickly makes herself at home with the most powerful of the free-wheeling criminal organizations that run the place. Bianca has plans, and Sophie is going to be part of them.

In the final 15% or so of the book, there are battle and horror and catastrophe, and then things just kind of stop.

Anders has a wonderful imagination, and she sometimes has a way with words. But the pieces simply aren't hanging together yet, at least not for me.

I also want to note that the book strikes me as, in some way, a homage to the works of Ursula Le Guin. An obvious inspiration is Le Guin's The Dispossessed, with the two cities and their very different approaches to life on the hostile planet standing in for the worlds of Urras and Anarres. We also have the world January, its very name echoing that of Winter, the outsiders' name for the planet Gethen, setting of Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which also considered the challenges of maintaining a complex civilization in a very hostile environment.

This is the fifth installation about Murderbot, the cranky, media-addicted security android that hacked its governor module and went rogue (sort of) in the first novella, All Systems Red (published 2017). It is also the first full-length novel in the series.

This is not a very objective review because I love Wells' work in general and Murderbot in particular.

As the story opens, Murderbot has settled down—again, sort of. Its mentor and former owner, Dr. Mensah, has taken it home with her to the planet Preservation. Murderbot is doing its best to cope with being the only really paranoid security being on the calm and mostly peaceful planet. Murderbot should be happy, except that it doesn't do happy, and in addition, Dr. Mensah is suffering from some serious problems herself.

Then Murderbot, Mensah's daughter Amena, and several other worthy (and not-so-worthy) humans are kidnapped and end up on a transport vessel that looks awfully familiar to Murderbot. A transport that seems occupied only by some bizarre grey-skinned almost-humans and their previous sad-sack prisoners.

Oh no. Seriously, oh no. I was almost as devastated as Murderbot (who would tell you that no, it was not devastated).

Is Murderbot's not-friend dead? Why the kidnapping? Who are the grey people and who are their hapless prisoners? How long has everybody actually been on the transport, and why do people have such differing view on that supposed fact? It takes a lot of drastic action scenes involving drones, AI virus attacks, and eventually a large and scary agricultural robot to solve these mysteries. And Murderbot is forced to face its own foibles and shortcomings in more ways than one.

I have to say here how much I love Amena. She is not a stereotypical smartass teen, probably because we have Murderbot for that. She is actually the person who comes closest to understanding Murderbot, and when she does her best to defend Murderbot's privacy, my heart goes all squishy and warm.

Some of the reviews online have criticized the pacing of the first section. Possibly it's less than ideal. I didn't feel the story dragging, but as stated, I'm not objective about this.

Final note: if you're enjoying Murderbot and haven't read The Books of the Raksura, Wells' previous series, you should give it a try.

I read this as a potential Hugo Award nominee.

Casiopeia Tun is despised by most of her family. Her mother married for love, taking as a husband a poor scholar of indifferent pedigree. Now mother and daughter live in Casiopeia's Grandfather Cirilo's home on sufferance, performing servants' tasks. Only for one thing does old Cirilo value his granddaughter: she is bright and educated enough to read the newspaper to him. His grandson, Martin, spoiled and indulged, is a dolt.

After a quarrel with her loathsome cousin, Casiopeia is left behind when the family takes its annual holiday. At loose ends, she happens to look in the big chest at the end of her grandfather's bed – and awakens the death god Hun-Kamé, whose bones were sealed in the chest. Hun-Kamé's twin brother Vucub-Kamé, equally terrifying and much more cruel, deposed Hun-Kamé long ago after rendering him less powerful by removing portions of his anatomy and placing them in the care of Vucub-Kamé's minions. Freed from his enchanted prison, Hun-Kamé aims to regain what he has lost, and Casiopeia must help him.

The two set off on a wonderful and sometimes creepy road trip across 1920s Mexico. The setting is one I've not encountered before, and Moreno-Garcia depicts it vividly. Hun-Kamé passes himself off as a man of wealth and power, and Casiopeia is part of his act. The neglected girl is not dazzled by the sumptuous clothing and hotel suites, even though she enjoys them, but their alliance is changing both of them. Hun-Kamé is powering himself with Casiopeia's life-force, but it slowly dilutes his godhood even as it allows him to continue existing in the mortal world.

In the book's final section, the action moves to the underworld, and a weakened Casiopeia must run a grueling magical race against Vucub-Kamé's chosen champion. This section was less interesting to me: it seems a lifeless imitation of the real-world race that Casiopeia has already run as Hun-Kamé's handmaiden, and although the classical mythical/folkloric tropes that occur are well placed and well written, they aren't as interesting to me as the lively scenes that preceded them.

The story's ending is abbreviated, but it does what needs doing. Casiopeia leaves the presence of the gods as her own woman.

This was a good story, and the middle portion was very good indeed. But it was told at an emotional distance, almost as thought the author was retelling a myth. In that way it reminded me of A Wizard of Earthsea, especially in contrast to The Tombs of Atuan. A Wizard of Earthsea is someone else's recounting of Ged's story, but we live The Tombs of Atuan inside Arha's head. Similarly, even though Moreno-Garcia tells this story from Casiopeia's viewpoint, we're still at a remove. That's not my preferred experience in fiction, so although I liked this book, I didn't love it.

NPR's review comments that "Moreno-Garcia's book is a dispatch from a universe where indigenous American legends have always been part of the lexicon of fantasy." I think that's fair.

Just in case someone is not aware of this: T. Kingfisher is the 'nym used by cartoonist/children's author Ursula Vernon (Digger, Hamster Princess) when she writes YA or adult fiction. Until now, most of her output as Kingfisher has been fairytale spinoffs and fantasy adventures with a romance spin written from the viewpoint of characters who'd be in the background in a classic heroic fantasy. This is her first foray into horror fiction.

Melissa, known as "Mouse," has been landed with the unenviable task of cleaning out her late grandmother's house in rural North Carolina after her step-grandfather dies. Grandmother had been horrible to her second husband, Cotgrave, but then Grandma was horrible to everyone, as even Mouse's sweet Aunt Kate agrees. Mouse is eking out a living as a freelance editor, and her father is no spring chicken at 81, so Mouse agrees to deal with getting the house ready for resale. Off she goes in her pickup truck with her faithful rescue coonhound Bongo, who's named for the antelope, not the percussion instrument.

The house is solid enough, but Grandma was a hoarder. Mouse is stuck with picking through the jam-packed mess, which includes a room full of spooky dolls that Mouse had almost managed to forget. The only room that is not filled with junk turns out to be Cotgrave's bedroom/study. When Mouse is idly poking around in it, she opens a book that turns out to be Cotgrave's journal. And the stuff he recorded in it isn't normal at all.

As Mouse attempts to carry out her task, interspersed with disturbing sessions of reading the journal, unpleasant things start to happen. Some are mundane and seemingly not unreasonable, like the fact that her cellphone keeps draining its battery very quickly. On the other hand, when Bongo drags her off for a walk in the woods, she ends up atop a small mountain that can't possibly exist. And that's not to mention the weird rock carvings and the effect they seem to have on her. Or the dead, eviscerated deer that she finds hanging from some branches. Or the other book with which Cotgrave was obsessed. Or what comes knocking at the windows of the house, late at night.

Kingfisher's trademark wry humor and quirky supporting characters are oddly at home in this spooky story. In particular, Foxy, the eccentric old hippie chick who accompanies Mouse on the climactic journey into darkness, is a gem. In the end, a lot depends on Bongo.

I'm not 100% sure what I thought of this one. I like Kingfisher a lot, and I don't usually like horror ... although spooky fantasy can move me: The Owl Servce by Alan Garner comes to mind. But I'm reasonably satisfied with having read The Twisted Ones.

Holy crap. Foreigner is up to volume 20.

This series is not my favorite C.J. Cherryh reading: it comes after Alliance/Union, Cyteen, and the Chanur series. The endless perils of human ambassador/interpretor Bren Cameron as he attempts to keep human and Atevi factions (plus, in recent books, a completely different non-human species) talking and not shooting is becoming much of a muchness. I confess to skipping over multiple paragraphs of the political situation every time I read one of these.

And yet, and yet … there's such a level of comfort of slipping into Cherryh's distinctive prose once again. I'm also more than a little fond of the scenes from the viewpoint of young Cajeiri, the atevi prince who has known Bren almost since babyhood and so is becoming (it seems) the real key to understanding between the species. I really want more of Cajeiri and his young human associates (Atevi don't have friends, we are told again and again), but the three kids from space are almost entirely offstage for this volume.

In a nutshell, Bren and his aishad (inner household, consisting mainly of intrepid bodyguards who are members in good standing of the Assassins Guild) and the redoubtable and cranky atevi Dowager Ilisidi are pursuing peace/accord with some atevi factions outside of the usual core ethnic group that has been sponsoring Bren for most of the series. Most of the action takes place aboard the Red Train, the specially reinforced and secured rail conveyance of the aiji of Shejidan, the Paris/London/Washington of the atevi world. There is skullduggery, fighting, and dirty politics. And things come to a resting point rather than an end, because the series is structured in trilogies, and this is the middle of one.

Meanwhile, back in Shejidan, Cajeiri starts to understand the nature of the restrictions on his life and grows up a little, including taking a step unthinkable several volumes ago. It's a little sad, but sweet.

So: if this is your cuppa, it's more of what you would like. If you haven't liked previous volumes, you won't like this one. And if you haven't been reading along, obviously, volume 20 is no place to start a series.