The Virtual WisCon

The WisCon Chronicles, Vol 1, ed L. Timmel Duchamp

I have never been to WisCon, nor is it likely that I ever will. But most of my friends have gone at least once, and some make the pilgrimage every year. And I have been very envious. The panels, the parties, the readings, the tiaras, the bake sales – I’ve heard so many stories about the world’s first and best – if not only – feminist science fiction convention and home of the James Tiptree Jr Award – and now, I understand, the Carl Brandon Society awards as well.

For those of us who are doomed to never experience the joys of WisCon in person, and those who want a collection of memories, L. Timmel Duchamp of Aqueduct Press has released this first volume of the Wiscon Chronicles. Interviews, personal accounts, speeches, notes from panel discussions: this is a welcome glimpse into the events of the 2006 WisCon from the perspective of those who were there. From the publisher's website:

L. Timmel Duchamp has assembled a collage of diverse materials to document the thirtieth anniversary of WisCon, which was a grand reunion of most of the convention's previous Guests of Honor. These include the transcript of Samuel R. Delany's interview of Joanna Russ, several essays reflecting on the diverse aspects of the convention, as well as papers presented in the academic track, panel notes and transcripts, an original short story by Rosaleen Love, and Eileen Gunn's snappy series of Q&A with numerous WisCon attendees, among them Ursula K. Le Guin, Julie Phillips, Ted Chiang, Carol Emshwiller, and Suzy McKee Charnas.

It’s not the same as being there, but at least now, when my on-line friends start talking about that thing that happened at WisCon last year, I’ll stand a better chance of knowing what they’re talking about.

To say nothing of all the food for thought.

In which I rave about Catherine Asaro and space operas

Primary Inversion, Catherine Asaro

There’s something deeply satisfying about a good, old-fashioned space opera, with warring galactic empires and star-crossed imperial heirs. Catherine Asaro’s Primary Inversion is even more fun than most because it’s the Skolian Imperialate heiress, Sauscony Valdoria, who makes most of the bold moves and eventually sweeps her opposite number – Jaibriol Qox, the Eubian imperial heir – away to a safe haven where they can marry and create the foundation for peace between their respective empires.

For those who really like to rock out on a planet-smashingly good space adventure, Primary Inversion is heaven. There’s action, anger, angst, space battles, really, really dastardly villains, cloak-and-dagger rescues, dark family secrets and rivalries, twisted politics, murky plots, empaths and super-tech and all manner of exploits in the best space opera tradition. And it’s the first volume of a series of space operas, too. Yummy!

The Privilege of Reading The Privilege of the Sword

The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

This is a true gem of a book. A sequel to Kushner’s first Riverside novel, Swordspoint, its chief protagonist is Katherine Talbot, niece to the lonely, embittered, decadent, and, some say, mad Alec Campion, Duke Tremontaine. After impoverishing his sister’s family, the Duke has offered to restore their financial security in return for six months of Katherine’s life to be spent living with him as a boy and learning the discipline of the sword. Why? It’s never really clear. Perhaps a whim, perhaps because he believes she wants, or needs, to be saved from growing up to be her mother’s daughter – consider that he has disowned his sister because he believes she acquiesced to her arranged marriage against her true desires.

The heart of the novel is Katherine’s slow evolution from a young girl raised to think of conventional marriage as her primary goal and best chance for a happy future, to a confident and independent woman who can defend herself as a swordswoman of the first rank and will be able to assume the role and life of a Duchess who thinks and acts for herself. Running in counterpoint to Katherine’s maturation is the slow realisation of her closest female friend, Artemesia Fitz-Levi, that she is only a trading piece in the political market, and her self and her needs are irrelevant to her family and society. These themes – of the freedom of defying expectation to be one’s own person and the consequences of allowing one’s self to remain imprisoned – are repeated in many variations, with many characters, like the interweaving melodies and motifs of a symphony.

This is a novel about freedom and acceptance. Of the body, of the mind, of the spirit, of the heart. Its price, and its reward. About finding freedom from social expectations and growing up – or learning, even long past one has grown – to accept one’s own self.

The ass-kicking goodness that is Torin Kerr

Valor’s Choice
The Better Part of Valor

Here’s the thing you need to know: Tanya Huff’s novels about Staff Sergeant Torin Kerr are some of the best MilSF out there.

Sgt. Kerr is a grunt. She’s not the scion of a line of fabled warriors, she’s not going to end up as the leader of the free universe, she has no rich and influential relatives, she has no special powers or alien buddies or ancient artefacts or arcane knowledge. She’s nobody’s Mary Sue. She’s a grunt. And as a staff sergeant, her job is to know everything keep her lieutenant alive, keep the troops going no matter what, and finish the mission.

Huff has a note at the end of Valor’s Choice that says everything that needs to be said about Torin Kerr. She begins by identifying a historical battle that was the inspiration for a crucial battle in the book. And then she goes on to say:

… a total of eleven men were awarded with the Victoria Cross for conspicuous bravery, making this the highest number ever awarded for a single engagement in British military history.

Colour-Sergeant F. Bourne, the senior NCO, was not among those eleven. He received instead a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Why, although his bravery and courage under fire were unquestioned and he was instrumental in turning a number of …attacks, didn’t Colour-Sergeant Bourne receive the Victoria Cross?

Because he was only doing his job.

The Torin Kerr books are, in some ways, reminiscent of the best aspects of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, but the character of Torin Kerr is more realistic, as a woman and as a warrior, than Heinlein would ever manage in his writing.

In these books, Huff has once again created a strong female protagonist who does interesting and exciting things. Torin Kerr kicks ass with the best of them.

Smoke in the Blood

Smoke and Ashes, Tanya Huff

The third in Huff’s latest contemporary fantasy series featuring Tony Foster (mostly self-taught wizard and TV production staffer) and Henry FitzRoy (the vampire son of Henry VIII), Smoke and Ashes is another grand romp through the fantastical and the theatrical.

In this adventure, Tony discovers that one of the stunt women working on set is a 3,000 year-old living - but completely sealed - Hellgate. Worse than that, an army of demons is taking advantage of the Grand Convergence to cross over into our world, and if she is killed by demons attracted to the power that emanates from her, it will open up the gate contained within her to a major invasion from the dimensions of Hell.

Working with Tony and Henry to save the world are all the familiar faces from the cast and crew of the world’s best syndicated vampire detective TV show filmed in Vancouver (except for one, of course). But Smoke and Ashes is primetime entertainment.

An Alchemy of Words

The Poison Master, Liz Williams

Doctor John Dee is a 16th century English alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician who becomes enchanted with the ideas of flight and of other worlds, and the possibilities of travelling between them to escape a growing climate of religious fanaticism. Seeking knowledge of what lies beyond this world leads to a meeting with a being unlike anything he has even known, and an offer of an unknowable future for him and those who, like him, fear the climate of hatred surrounding them.

Alivet Dee is an alchemical apothecary living in the city of Levanah on the planet of Latent Emanation, creating medicines, perfumes, drugs, and hallucinogens for her clients; she is also a Searcher, one of those who experiment with drug-induced altered states of consciousness in an attempt to recover the knowledge of how humans came to Latent Emanation and how they came to be ruled by the mysterious and terrifying Lords of Night. Wrongfully accused of the murder of a client, Alivet is drawn into an uneasy alliance with Poison Master Arieth Gharien, of the planet Hathes, who offers her the chance to bring down the Lords of Night by blending her knowledge of plants and their spirits with his own mastery of Poisons.

In doing so, she will close the circle, learn the answers to the Search, and bring to fruition the quest begun centuries earlier by Dr. Dee.

This book had my interest right from the start. Alivet Dee is a strong protagonist, and Williams’s blending of alchemy, Kabbalah, and shamanistic traditions of psychotropic drugs and dream journeys, and the poison garden of Rappacini’s daughter provides a fascinating context for what could otherwise have been a fairly commonplace tale of revolt against alien overlords.

This is the second of Williams' novels that I have read, and I have nothing but praise for the depth and originality of her work.

(no subject)

Venous Hum, Suzette Mayr

Venous Hum is a very funny novel about two women – Jennifer and Lai Fun – with a marriage in the doldrums and a child on the way, who have a shared background of growing up in immigrant families in Western Canada. This might not be the best time for Lai Fun to take on the task of organising a high school reunion with her best friend Stefanja – and not just because she’s having an affair with Stefanja’s spouse Thor – but she gets into it anyway.

As one might expect, some of the key themes involve issues of family, love, parenthood, commitment and loyalty in marriage, the immigrant experience and questions about assimilation vs. maintaining one’s culture of origin, and the ways the experiences and relationships in adolescence can influence life choices. But it’s not really until you finish the book and manage to stop laughing that you realise just how many serious things there are to think about just under the surface.

The satiric and farcical elements are front and centre here, while the speculative and fantastical elements sneak up on you and aren’t fully apparent until the novel’s unexpected yet perfectly suited conclusion.

Reading this was great fun.

A Dragon and his Man

His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi Novik

Just a few days ago, Naomi Novik won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of science fiction in 2006. Coincidentally, just a few days ago, I finished reading His Majesty’s Dragon, Novik’s first novel. I see no reason to dispute this award.

His Majesty’s Dragon is a brilliant entry in the genre of alternative history/fantasy: the Napoleonic wars, with dragons. Novik takes the by-now familiar tropes of the dragonriders and turns them upside down. In the socially conscious, status-driven, family-centred world of England during the Napoleonic Wars, there’s nothing to gain and everything to lose in becoming an aviator – the rider of a dragon – isolated from proper society, unable to marry well or engage in a normal life.

More than that, the dragon Temeraire’s reluctant aviator, Will Laurence is no isolated and abused child with a dream of dragons, but a seasoned though still young, British naval captain, with a relatively noble and wealthy background and prize money of his own from several successful captures of enemy vessels.

As it turns out, the dragon in question is an extremely rare and intelligent Chinese dragon, intended as a gift for the emperor Napoleon, and ultimately reveals himself to be a valuable asset in the defence against Napoleon’s superior forces and well-planned attempt to invade Britain.

Novik’s conceptualisation of the society of aviators and their dragons allows for some very entertaining satirising of British society of the time, particularly with respect to the role of women. Some dragons, it seems, insist on female aviators, and aviators are officers in His Majesty’s Aviator Corps, which means that some officers are women, and men who deal with the dragons and their aviators must deal with that.

I was completely entranced by this book, and am looking forward to reading more about Temeraire.