My life in books

In the land of Gujaareh, they worship the Hananja the Dreamer, the Goddess to whom those who sleep go in dreams, and those who die go at the end, the goddess who brings peace. Among the holy men of the Dreamer, the Hetawa, there are those who gather the power of dreams, and these who can transmute that power into healing. There are different kinds of dream energy, dreams of fear, which yield dreambile for halting infections and tumours, dreams of lust, yielding dreamseed, which can promote growth, dreams of absurdity, yielding dreamichor. And then there is the dreamblood, harvested from the most potent of dreams, those that carry with them all the richness of a life, that is collected at the moment of death, as the Gatherer gives the dying one peace and aids their path to the land of the Goddess. In some ways, peace is the highest value, the ultimate goal, of Gujaareh society, peace above all. But there is corruption in the heart of Gujaareh, and the monstrous perversion of the Gatherer’s role, by a greedy and ambitious prince who would use the power of wrongly gathered dreams to instill fear, wage war, gain power that no one man should have.

This is the world of N. K. Jemison’s Dreamblood duology, a strikingly original fantasy inspired by Egyptian history and theology. In the first volume, The Killing Moon, Ehiru, a devout Gatherer and his apprentice Nijiri, become aware of the evil that dwells at the heart of both the kingdom’s ruling prince - Ehiru’s brother - and the Superior of their order. To root out the corruption and save both Gujaareh and the neighbouring state of Kisua from the devastation of war, they must ally with Kisuati ambassador Sunandi - whose dreamblood they have been ordered to take, leaving her dead. But war is not the worst of what the prince plans. He has created a killing monster known as a Reaper from a broken Gatherer, and intends to use its power to bring the world under his rule. But a mistake made during what should have been a simple gathering have brought Ehiru halfway to becoming a monster himself, and his control over the killing desires within him is weakening. If he somehow defeats his brother’s Reaper, will he succumb and become one himself?

The second novel of the Dreamblood series, The Shadowed Sun, takes place some years after the first. The Prince’s son, Wanahomen, is now an exile, having found refuge among the nomadic Banbarra following conquest of Gujaareh and his father’s downfall. Now an adult and a hunt leader, he is waging a long-term war against Kisua, hoping to return one day to Gujaareh as its ruler. And he has uneasy dreams, of his father’s spirit, wasted and corrupted, warning him of the coming of... something he does not understand.

Others are having bad dreams, too, and one Gujaraah man may have died from them. During a difficult healing, Hanani, the Hetawa’s only female Sharer, or healer, asks for more dreambile, but when the young apprentice Dayu tries to collect it from a man who has come to the temple plagued with nightmares, both die. Hanani later learns that the man’s nightmares were not ordinary things, but dreams of deep foreboding, a sense that something evil was waiting for him.

In Gujaareh, unrest seethes beneath the placid surface of a society that values peace. The Hetawa have so far supported the Kisuati occupation - under the governorship of former ambassador Sunandi - but if a better alternative comes along, they will not hesitate to shift that support, and the people still follow the Hetawa, though with less devotion than before. Trade laws favour the Kisuati, threatening the wealth of the upper and middle classes. The occupying army acts as occupying armies always act, with petty cruelty and random violence. Raiding by nomads has created fear within the city, though much of the damage seems restricted to Kisuati people and their property. There is, in reality, little peace in the city. When the old prince’s general Charris contacts them with offers of alliance from the Banbarra, they are not unwilling to listen - though Wanahomen does not endorse the alliance, blaming the Hetawa fir the death if his father.

Indeed, the idea of rebellion has advanced to the point that a group of wealthy Gujaareh nobles are ready to swear alliegiance - and more importantly, commit money and men - to Wanahomen’s cause. More than that, Sanfi, the leader of the rebel faction, has offered Wanahomen his daughter Tiaanet as first wife. But Sanfi has deeper plans, and is far more dangerous, not just to the Kisuati, but also to Gujaareeh. For he holds the key to the killing dreams that stalk the city, and there is nothing he will not encompass to achieve his ends and feed his desires.

Jemisin does not deal in easy characterisations. Here, there are few fully heroic, or fully villainous, only people who must learn and grow, or die, in soul if not also in body. And even as she writes the richness that is Gujaareh society, she includes a critique of some of its ways, a need for transcendence of the rigid roles that have long existed along with the deep desire for a peaceful society.

Jemisin has created a rich and complex world, in which to explore her themes of power and corruption, faith and deceit, ambition and sacrifice. These are the sorts of books you start reading one evening and suddenly notice that you’ve been immersed in its reality for hours.

Jemisin has suggested that there are other stories of Gujaareh to be told, and so, while this story is complete, I look forward to the possibility that there may someday be more tales set in this rich and intriguing world.

Kristen Roupenian, "Cat Person"; The New Yorker, December 11, 2017
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person

An all-too-familiar story about a woman meeting and becoming involved with a man, despite all the tiny warning signals that suggest she should be mire cautious. The scary thing is that it ended in a better way than I'd feared, although 'better' is perhaps not the right word.


Carmen Maria Machado, "The Husband Stitch"; Granta, October 28, 2014
https://granta.com/the-husband-stitch/

One reviewer of this short story has said "It’s a horror story in which the monster is heterosexual relationship", which seems to me as accurate as anything else I could say. It's a powerful story about being a woman in a world made by men, about how we fit ourselves into the spaces in their lives and try to hold onto some small thing that is our own. Until they want that too, and we give it freely because we love them, and we have nothing left.


Maureen McHugh, "Sidewalks"; Omni, November 28, 2017
http://omnimagazine.com/sidewalks/

Ros Gupta is a speech pathologist called in to examine a "Jane Doe" of indeterminate racial identity who speaks only 'gibberish' and is currently being held in an institution because the police feared she might be a danger to self or others. She manages to communicate with the woman, whose name is Malni, and what she discovers changes her entire way of relating to the world she lives in. There are some profound messages here, about the fragility of the things we know and love, about connectedness and change, about actions and consequences, and about living as a woman in the world.


Charlie Jane Anders, "Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue"; Boston Review, October 30, 2017
http://bostonreview.net/fiction/charlie-jane-anders-dont-press-charges-and-i-wont-sue

A brutal story about a woman struggling to hold on to her identity in a world determined to eliminate it. The real horror is that this world is only a few existential tweaks away from our own, and there are people who would not read this as a terrifying and cautionary dystopic narrative. Powerful, painful.


Kelly Barnhill, "Probably Still the Chosen One"; Lightspeed, February 2017
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/probably-still-chosen-one/

A rather different take on the portal fantasy and the whole 'chosen child hero' trope. Eleven-year-old Corrina finds a portal to a land at war and is identified as the Chosen One by the Priesthood. Her destiny - to lead the people of Nibiru to victory against the evil Zonners. But it doesn't turn out quite the way Corrina dreams it will, or the Priests expect it too. Fun.


C. S. E. Cooney, "Though She Be But Little"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/though-she-be-but-little/

Something strange has happened - the Argentum, the sky turning silver - and strange things have happened - people turning into mythical pirates, floating alligators and parrots that can act like cellphones - and things have arrived from somewhere else, many of them monstrous. Emily Anne was a widow in her sixties before the Argentum; now she's an eight-year-old child and a nightmare creature, The Loping Man, is coming to kill her. Where the story focuses on Emily Anne's resourcefulness, courage, and ability to adapt to this new world, it was enjoyable, but I felt as though I'd been dropped into something complex with no explanation and that aspect was not as pleasing. I'd have enjoyed it more if it were presented as straight absurdist fantasy, but presenting it as something that's happened to a real world not unlike our own makes me want at least some clues toward answers to 'how' and 'why.'


Fran Wilde, "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/clearly-lettered-mostly-steady-hand/

This one cut me deeply. It's a horror story about the way society and the medical profession deal with "freaks" - those of us who are visibly different - and how those freaks feel and think. The story is told as a monologue by a tour guide through a freak show, but the tone drips with rage at the 'normal' person, the voyeur come to see the horrifying strangeness of the 'different.' Intense.


N. K. Jemisin, "Henosis"; Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/henosis/

A short story about fame, fans, and legacy. An aging author nominated for a prize that it quite literally intended as the culmination of a stellar career is kidnapped by a fan. Interesting and somewhat savage commentary on what it's like to become famous and to be seen as possessing an artistic legacy.

Lately, I've been reading with an eye to making Hugo nominations, so this batch of short fiction reads is mostly selected from various lists of recommendations.


"The City Born Great," N. K. Jemisin; Tor.com, September 9, 2016
http://www.tor.com/2016/09/28/the-city-born-great/

An urban fantasy - though not the kind we're used to - about the gritty birth and life of the great cities, set in New York. Evocative and filled with a sense of urgency that pulls the reader toward its conclusion.


"This Is Not a Wardobe Door," A. Merc Rustad; Fireside Magazine Issue #29, January 2016
http://www.firesidefiction.com/issue29/chapter/this-is-not-a-wardrobe-door/

A story about imagination and hope and holding on to the magic of childhood when you believed you could change the world. At the end, I was crying.


"Checkerboard Planet," Eleanor Arnason; ClarkesWorld, December 2016
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/arnason_12_16/

A new Lydia DuLuth talr from Arnason is always a treat. In this novelette, the AIs who control the interstellar stargates have asked Lydia to investigate conditions on a planet with a most peculiar ecology - the entire land mass and parts of the oceans are organised into giant squares, all of similar size, with all the life forms in each square the same colour. The planet has been colonised by a biogenetics corporation which, the AIs fear, is not acting in the best interests of the planet or humanity. An anti-imperialist first contact story with a gentle and at times even whimsical touch.


"Fifty Shades of Grays," Steven Barnes; Lightspeed Magazine, June 2016
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/fifty-shades-grays/

Carver Kofax is a master at marketing and sales. But when he and his colleague (and romantic interest) Rhonda, land the corporation they work for a lucrative and highly secretive contract, the nature of the campaign demands all their skills - and leads to unexpected and dire consequences for all of humanity. Barnes handles the revelations in the narrative and the protagonist's growing unease with a sure hand. Content warning: this novelette contains sexually explicit kink.


"A Dead Djinn in Cairo," P. Djeli Clark; tor.com, May 18, 2016
http://www.tor.com/2016/05/18/a-dead-djinn-in-cairo/

In an alternate pre-WWI Cairo, where djinn and angels from other dimensions mingle with humans, Special Inspector Fatma el-Sha’arawi of the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities investigates the apparent suicide of a djinn, only to discover a mad plot to destroy humanity. Will the dapper young inspector solve the mystery in time? Clark's novelette is a delighful genre-bending fantasy thriller with a touch of steampunk. Cairo comes to life in complex and sensual detail, and Fatma is a character I'd love to see again.


"The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight," E. Lily Yu, Uncanny Magazine, Sept-Oct 2016
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/witch-orion-waste-boy-knight/

A relatively young and inexperienced witch decides to accompany a young knight errant seeking dragons to kill, and learns a few bitter lessons about honor, trust and pride.


"The Green Knight’s Wife," Kat Howard; Uncanny Magazine, November 2016
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/green-knights-wife/

A compelling riff on the Arthurian tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, told from the perspective of the Green Knight's wife, in which one of those women who is always on the sidelines in such hero tales, treated as merely part of the mythic machinery, takes up agency and acts for herself.


"Foxfire, Foxfire," Yoon Ha Lee; Beneath Ceaseless Skies, March 3, 2016
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/foxfire-foxfire/

A novelette blending fantasy and sf, set in a Asian- derived alternate universe where loyalists and rebels do battle with giant powered mechas. A young spirit fox with a great desire to become human - which he can only achieve by killing and eating 100 humans - is faced with difficult choices when captured by a mecha pilot. A story about transformations, and finding one's self.


"Unauthorized Access," An Owomoyela; Lightspeed Magazine, September 2016
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/unauthorized-access/

You would think a high profile hacker who's already spent time in prison for releasing government information that there was no reason to hide would be seriously radicalised - but for Aedo Leung, getting out of jail is only the beginning. A cautionary tale about the sequestration of public information that has suddenly become even more timely and appropriate.

What can you say about a novel that opens with unthinkable revenge - a deliberately-evoked cataclysm that will destroy a civilisation and scar a planet - and the searing grief of a mother at the sight of her brutally murdered son? N. K. Jemisin's latest book, Fifth Season, is a brilliantly conceived and executed novel about the unending cycle of destruction and rebirth that is life, set in a world shaped by apocalypse after apocalypse in which history is unreliable and much of the past is lost.

In this world of brokenness and endings, the earth itself is the great antagonist, the Evil Earth, the cruel Father, venting rage on the peoples living on his surface with earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, sometimes on a scale that nearly brings all life to ruin. The only force known to be able to hold back the damage is the gift of the orogenes, a human-seeming people with the ability to sense and manipulate the energies in stone, earth, and even living beings. They can quell or cause the earthshifts, great and small, but unless their powers are trained and under control, the energy they draw from their surroundings to achieve this can kill.

In the time and place of the novel, the current civilisation has found a way to force control on the orogenes, who are treated as potentially dangerous tools, not people, subject to an organisation known as The Fulcrum which gathers orogenes - or roggas, as they are called by most humans - as children and trains them to serve the needs of human society.

The narrative is told in three strands, at three different points in time. On the earliest strand, Damaya, a young orogene discovered when she instinctively uses her powers to defend herself against a human boy, is taken by a Guardian and brought to the Fulcrum for training. In the second strand, an orogene woman named Syrenite is sent by the Fulcrum on a mission with an older and very powerful orogene, Alabaster, to clear a blocked harbour in the city of Allia. And in the third strand, which opens at the moment of the cataclysm, an orogene woman hiding from the Fulcrum, passing as human, finds her dead son, and sets out through the wounded landscape and the post-apocalyptic chaos to track the killer who has taken her daughter.

Like the land itself, the characters are wounded again and again, partially healing only to face yet another catastrophe, and yet in their survival is the hope that something can be salvaged, and that perhaps, if the world is changed enough, there can finally be true healing - even if it is the healing of the end of all things.

The first of a trilogy of books, Fifth Season is a powerful and mature work from a master storyteller.

N. K. Jemisin returns to the universe if her amazingly wonderful Inheritance trilogy with a novella set 300 years after the events in the trilogy's final volume. The Awakened Kingdom is a delightful and powerful story of the first god born from the union of Yeine, Itempas and Nahadoth, the new triumvirate of gods that maintain the universe. This very young god (who chooses the name Shill for herself in the course of the story) knows that she is somehow to be a successor to the dead god Sieh, but her attempts to figure out how to do this - to understand her role and purpose in the whole of creation - are not going well at all.

So she decides to manifest in the world, hoping that interactions with mortals will help her find herself. As is the wont of clueless child gods, she ends up making some very large mistakes, and some very major interventions in the lives of the mortals she encounters, but she also learns some very important lessons and grows in some very surprising and powerful ways. This is also the story of a young man who challenges the restrictive roles and limits placed on men in his culture, whose future is changed by his relationship with the questioning child god.

Jemisin has said of this novella:

Shill is a true child god — unlike Sieh, who just played at childhood — and frankly I’m loving her; writing her basically means contemplating how a being with an adult-level intellect, Phenomenal Cosmic Power, and no freaking clue about anything blunders through complicated events. But as the marketing text notes, a good chunk of the story will take place in Darr and focus on a young Darren man, in a society in which men have few rights and forced male circumcision is a thing — so still some Serious Stuff therein.

I must say, I loved reading Shill's voice - and seeing the changes she undergoes and brings about - at least as much as Jemisin loved writing her. In this case, good things definitely come in small packages.

It's always a joy to find a new author whose work intrigues, delights, entertains, or amuses. This year, new authors (and the books that called to me) included:

J. M. Frey, Triptych

Frey's debut novel knocked my socks off. Well written, with characters that come alive, a riveting plot told in an original way, and a careful exploration of gender, race and cultural integration. Loved it.


David Anthony Durham, Acacia: The War with the Mein

First volume of a series that I will definitely have to finish, a sweeping epic of empires and prophesies, politics and war.


N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Jemisen's book is another superior entry in the genre of epic fantasy, all the more so because of her highly original style and approach to the matter of moribund empires and supernatural forces that form the basic framework of such novels. Again, a series that I'm looking forward to finishing.


Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

And how could I not read the YA sensation that everyone else and her cat is reading? Enjoyable if somewhat derivative of many books that have gone before it. The author does well at giving Katniss a true and consistent voice.


Malinda Lo, Ash
Malinda Lo, Huntress

Both of Lo's YA fantasies have been long-listed for James Tipree Jr. Awards, which is always in my mind a formidable argument for checking out a new book. In these books, Lo creates a high fantasy world of humans, elves, ghosts and assorted things that go bump in the night, where her characters can find their own destinies, seking adve ture while challenging gender roles and sexual identities. More, please, Ms. Lo.

Nalini Singh, Angel’s Blood
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Kiss
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Consort
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Blade
Nalini Singh, Angel’s Flight

Singh's books are my newest guilty pleasures. There's actually a lot I don't like about these books, including some very questionable gender isues abd waaaay too much not very original sex. I hate the plot about the spunky woman and the arrogant man who hate each other on sight until he beats her up and then they have mind-blowing sex and stay together despite the fact that he never really repects her as an equal. And these novels are full of that kind of shit. But there's also a very interesting world to explore here, with humans being governed and controlled by powerful winged beings called angels, even though they pretty much lack any compassion or other such angelic qualities, and their servants, the vampires, who are humans infused with a special angelic secretion. It's very much a 'red in tooth and fang' kind of world, with naked power plays all over the place, and that's the bit that fascinates me. So I read them and love to hate them.


Nathan Long, Jane Carver of Waar

And this book, which already has a sequel on the way, is just plain fun. A John Carter of Mars scenario turned upside down, Jane Carver is a biker chick on the lam after accidentally killing a guy who was harrassing her. She finds a secret cave, is transported to a distant low-gravity planet, and the typical Barsoomian-style adventures ensue. Burroughs fans who don't mind gender-bending should love this. Goreans will cringe. And that's a good thing.


Kameron Hurley, Brutal Women

This collection of science fictional short stories by the author of the Bel Dame Apocrypha (a series that I now know I must read) is certainly well-named. Not for the faint of heart, these stories explore women (and other beings of other genders) in the midst of violence - physical, emptional, psychological - and their reactions to such environments. Worth reading and thinking about.