Exploding the Myth of the Virgin New World

1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Charles Mann

If you're my age, and white, and went to school in North America, and watched all those Westerns (movies and TV) set in the American west, then you probably grew up with a very specific image of the way things were before the "coming of the white man." Except for small bands of Indians roaming across the plains, or living in huts or tents in the woods, the continent was wide open, virgin territory (ah, the sexualisation of colonialism, ain't it grand) ripe and waiting for some truly civilised people to come and exert the Biblical promise of dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Hopefully, everyone today knows that all of that is just so much racist, imperialist bullshit.

As Mann commented in an interview in Indian Country Today:

Indians are constantly presented as timeless essences, people who have never changed in thousands of years. But that is to say that they have no history - the only people on Earth who don't change their surroundings or interact with others. And they only enter history when Europeans come into the picture. In social-science jargon, Indians are depicted as lacking agency. Agency includes both doing the right thing and going off in a direction you later wish you hadn't. You could sum up my approach as trying to write a history in which I made sure the Indians had agency.

This book gives a clear indication of the vast scope of human history, civilisation, culture, cultivation, technological advancement and managment (and sometimes mismanagment) of the natural environment that was really how it was among the nations of the Americas before the European imperialist project landed on them with a plague of smallpox, and it is a most effective antidote to the racist myths of my youth.

More of the Imperial Dragon Temeraire

I was so delighted with the first of the Temeraire novels, His Majesty's Dragon that I went right out and bought all the other published novels in the series (it is my understanding that there is one more to come).

Throne of Jade
Black Powder War
Empire of Ivory

I continue to be delighted with the series. The books are well written, with great worldbuilding and wonderful characters. It's got politics, travel, adventure, and of course, dragons.

And it continues to do marvellous things with gender politics, race issues, and a critique of colonialism and imperialist thought that slowly unfolds as the series progresses. Temeraire's human aviator, Laurence, begins the series with a full set of standard white European colonialist preconceptions and prejudices, and as the series progresses and he visits more of the world, he is brought face-to-face, over and over again, with the narrowness and prejudice of his worldview.

To say nothing of the grand questions of how does one recognise the agency of and live amicably and productively with persons that are different? The exploration of different approaches to the relationship of dragon and man - from indentured servitude and slavery in Europe, to a negotiated co-existence in China to a full integration into the kin system in parts of Africa - makes us look head-on at how humans relate to The Other.

For a further perspective on the series, I recommend this review by N. K. Jemisin (nojojojo), although I must in all conscience note that it containes major spoilers for the series to date.

More Tales of the Otori

Another fantastic series that has profoundly impressed me with the beauty of its writing, the depth of characterisation, the wealth of its worldbuilding, the heart of its story, is Lian Hearn's Tales of the Otori. I've now read all the books in the main series, and am waiting for the prequel, Heaven's Net Is Wide to come out in paperback.

Across the Nightingale Floor: Journey to Inuyama
Grass for His Pillow
Brilliance of the Moon
The Harsh Cry of the Heron

This is the story of Takeo and Kaede, their love for each other, their struggle to survive those who seek to own and control them, and their quest to fulfil the desire of Takeo's adoptive father Otori Shigeru and Kaede's aunt Maruyama Naomi to bring peace and prosperity to the warn-torn Three Counties. There are, to my mind, echoes of the Arthurian mythos in the way that choices made in their youth will eventually bring about the downfall of Takeo and Kaede, but that's often a part of the heroic bargain - the sacrifice can only bring about a temporary victory, the fight for what should be must be passed to other hands to begin anew.

More Serial Reading

More volumes from series that I've been reading and enjoying.


Water Logic, Laurie Marks

Laurie Marks' Elemental Logic series is a tour de force. In the first book of the series, Fire Logic, Marks introduced us to the land and people of Shaftal, where one's character is defined by one's element, and where some children are born with such a strong elemental nature that they can wield the magic that is inherent in the nature of their element - earth blood means healing; water means time and space; air means truth-seeing; and fire means prescience and passion. Shaftal has been invaded by a people coming from across the eastern sea, the leader (G'deon) of the Shaftali people has died, naming as heir an unacceptable Earth blood named Karis, child of a Shaftali sex worker and a Sainite invader, and the Sainites are moving swiftly to destroy the magic and culture of the Shaftali.

The series follows the paths of a loosely defined family that gathers about the rejected G'deon Karis and their struggles to end the invasion, bring peace and - for what else can an earth blood do? - heal the wounds of war and empire on both sides, in both peoples.

In addition to all the other stuff that I love about complex worldbuilding and strong, well-drawn characters and great writing, part of what thrills me about these books is the rejection of gender norms. In Shaftal, people don't act in a certain way or enter a certain profession because they are male or female, they do so because it is in their element to do so. Marks uses the concept of elemental natures to show us how arbitrary is our belief that gender is the most important defining characteristic of personality - the one thing that one has to know about another human being. What follows from this lack of gender norms is a completely different way of defining sexual relationships and families - since male and female are not particularly relevant, there is no real distinction between people who are in a relationship others of the same sex and people who are in relationships with people of another sex. Families form based on love and the desire to share lives, not exclusively around sexual relationships, and can involve a number of adults who relate with each other on many levels, and their children.

In this series, Marks has also attempted to write each book in a style that is suited to her definition of one of the four elements. This has, I think, led some people to like some but not all of the books, because the styles are different in each book, but in my opinion, this is one of the things that has made this series so very special.


Aerie, Mercedes Lackey

This wraps up the Dragon Jousters series quite nicely, pulling together most if not all of the loose plot threads while providing one last enemy - the Nameless Ones, whose powers may have been behind the rule of the Magi over the twin lands of Alta and Tia. Kiron finds love, the united lands find peace, prosperity and leadership, the new community of dragon riders find a home and a function for themselves that doesn't involve killing each other, and all's well that ends well... unless Lackey decides to play in this particular universe some more, which is certainly possible.


First Rider’s Call, Kristen Britain

In the sequel to Green rider, the stakes are raised as the ancient evils awakened in the first book grow more powerful and begin to call up old allies and Karigan G'ladheon finds she can no longer resist the powerful call to commit herself to a life as a Green Rider. As the enemies of the kingdom - human and inhuman, within and without - gather their strength and lay their plans, Karigan begins to discover why she is so important to the coming fight, and in the process uncovers much that had been long forgotten about the early days of the kingdom and the founding of the Green Riders. A good sequel that builds well on what came before and promises a satisfying climax to come.


Tides of Darkness, Judith Tarr

The last of the Avaryan Resplendent trilogy, this book takes Mirain's descendants into the far-flung corners of the universe to combat the growing evil that threatens all the worlds and the magical gateways between them. While most of the action in this novel takes place on distant planets among peoples we have not met before, the slow realisation that this threat the seem to come from so far away is really the other side of everything we have come to love about the world of Avaryan brings everything full circle, as everyone, including the immortal Mirain, finds the long road home. While I found the second of the trilogies, Avaryan Resplendent, less compelling than the first, Avaryan Rising, Judith Tarr at less than her best is still much better than a lot of the fantasy that's out there.