My life in books

I did not read a lot of non-fiction this year, and what I did read was mostly personal narratives, biographies, and books about science fiction and fantasy.


Thelma J. Shinn, Worlds Within Women: Myth and Mythmaking in Fantastic Literature by Women
Gwyneth Jones, Imagination/space: essays and talks on fiction, feminism, technology and politics
Margaret Atwood, In Other Worlds

Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy

Suzie Bright, Big Sex, Little Death: A Memoir
Nancy Mairs, Dynamic God: Living an Unconventional Catholic Faith
George Takei, Oh Myy! There Goes the Internet

Jack G. Shaheen, The TV Arab

Alison Weir, The Princes in the Tower
Tracy Borman, Elizabeth's Women
Stacey Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life

Some time ago I read the first volume of Gwyneth Jones’ Bold as Love Cycle, Bold as Love.; this is part of what I said about it then:

I’m not entirely sure how to talk about Bold as Love – I’m not even sure, exactly, how to categorise it. Somewhere near the crossroads of near-future dystopic science fiction and realistic urban fantasy, where the waters of Arthurian legend are rippling down a nearby stream and there’s a scent of post-apocalypse hanging in the air.

Now that I’ve read the remaining volumes of the cycle, I still have to begin by saying that I don’t know quite how to talk about this series – but I can say it’s bloody brilliant and thought-provoking, a compelling story about three unforgettable characters and what they did to try and save what matters most in their world.

I’d been waiting a long time to collect the rest of the books in the series, and once I did, I read them all one after the other, because I didn’t want to lose focus – there’s so much going on. The books that continue the series are:

Castles Made of Sand
Midnight Lamp
Band of Gypsys
Rainbow Bridge

A sample of my impressions:

The music – most of the key characters are musicians, and within the scope of the series they use their music for so much more than entertainment, or even telling a powerful story. It’s used for political messaging, to create and sustain community, to inspire hope and change and peace and revolution as the time requires, to make magic, to merge with neuroscience and metaphysics to point the way to reshaping reality and even to raise the dead. Music is a powerful force in the hands of the Triumvirate of Ax Preston, sage Pender and the woman who binds them all together, Fiorinda; they are in this was like the great Bards of legend. And music runs through the books –references to works that exist in our own world (most notably the works of Jimi Hendrix) and the lyrics of songs written by Jones for her characters.

Resonances to the Arthur Cycle – naturally, there’s the Three: Ax, Sage and Fiorinda; Arthur, Lancelot and Guenevere. In some very important ways, the plot of the first two books of the Bold as Love Cycle incorporates key elements of the story of Arthur, including the love triangle, Arthur’s expedition to Europe, the kidnapping of Guenevere, her trial and near-execution by burning, Lancelot’s self-imposed exile and spiritual quest and his return to save Guenevere. After that, however, the tale of Ax, Sage and Fiorinda goes off into new directions and possibilities, and while resonant events continue to occur, as the story goes on they become less and less directly related – the elements are there, but their place and meaning in the plot is vastly different. One key thing – the triangle closes in Jones’ story. Ax and Sage become lovers as deeply devored to each other as each is to Fiorinda and she is to them; as the pass beyond jealousy and exclusion, they become a force that cannot be broken asunder. In the end, Ax is never left, isolated, standing alone against the approach of darkness, as Arthur was.

Greening the future – sustainable economies, renewable energies, eco-friendly technologies, the return to pre-industrial lifestyles, the end of the fossil fuel era – all of these are considered from some very new perspectives.

The technology of the soul – some people call it magic or witchcraft; in this universe, some people find ways to explore not just alternate realities, but ways of reshaping what we could call the consensus reality, the one that all our perceptions draw their common base from, with a combination of neurological science, pharmaceuticals and a means of hacking into the brain’s sensory receptors (at least that’s where it starts) and rewriting the code to alter what you see. The story is full of the implications of both means of imposing the will of a single person on the reality shared by the world.

Questioning the modern assumptions – Is endless growth what we need, let alone want? is democracy really the best political system in an complex world? Could a global dictatorship actually be an improvement for the average person, and if so, what might it look like, and who would have to be in charge, and how would it be guided?

And love, and the power of love, and the triumph of love.

And that’s just a glimpse of it all. There's a great deal to enjoy, to consider, to connect with. A complex work, a bold work, a work worth reading about and then thinking about. A lot.

Bold as Love, Gwyneth Jones

I’m not entirely sure how to talk about Bold as Love – I’m not even sure, exactly, how to categorise it. Somewhere near the crossroads of near-future dystopic science fiction and realistic urban fantasy, where the waters of Arthurian legend are rippling down a nearby stream and there’s a scent of post-apocalypse hanging in the air.

Britain is dissolving into its constituent nations, and England (and the rest of Europe, for that matter) is looking pretty bleak. The English government, under pressure from a growing counterculture of the discontented, disaffected and disenchanted, creates a countercultural think tank of rock stars, meant to be a political façade, a circus to keep the people occupied and make them happy. Then their chosen frontman pulls off a bloody coup and the country collapses into chaos.

Heroes emerge; a potent triumvir of countercultural musicians – Ax, Sage and Fiorinda – who are at first forced to work for, but eventually defeat, the tyrant – and must then take his place and shoulder the responsibilities of trying to keep their country from tearing itself, to hold back the dark, to build a new nation from the shattered pieces of what came before. A new Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere for a new age.

It’s a difficult book, perhaps more so for non-Britons, because so much of the detail is grounded in the land and its people. And it’s the first in a series that comprises five volumes (to date -–I don’t know if the most recent is the last), so much of this book is prologue, the establishing scenes, the overture. But it’s also bloody brilliant.