Book Recommendations - some happy birthday epic fantasy

It's Book Recommendation Day - and a special one at that. Today we'll talk about the epic fantasy of NK Jemisin on the occasion of her birthday! Happy birthday to Jemisin, and let's read some really good epic fantasy novels. So today, to wish one of my favorite authors a happy birthday, I'll recommend some of her books.

NK Jemisin at the Brooklyn Museum

What do you mean by "Epic Fantasy"?

 If one asks four fans of fantasy fiction what "epic" fantasy is, one is likely to receive about six different answers. My personal definition - and the definition for the purpose of this discussion - is that Epic Fantasy is the subgenre of fantasy which concerns large, world-changing themes. An epic story is grand in scope, a set of events which divide the world into before and after. The Lord of the Rings is epic in that the fall of Sauron and his empire will have effects for generations to come. George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (from where we get the television series A Game of Thrones) likewise deals with world-shaping events. Likewise in Jemisin's books we deal with epic-scale events but, unlike these other works, view them from a more intimate point of view. Jemisin writes grand stories, but shows them through a narrow lens. So rather than the more traditionally epic focus on large numbers of viewpoint characters scattered throughout the world we get very human stories with the larger global changes as somewhat of a backdrop.

The Inheritance Trilogy

These books were my introduction to Jemisin, and a series I had the good fortune to find late enough that all three had been written  by the time I got around to reading them. This saved me the toughest part of being a fantasy fiction reader - the long time between books of a trilogy. I got to read all three books back-to-back-to-back -- and what books they are!

The Ineritance Trilogy takes place in a world which has already had one cataclysm in the distant past - the Gods War, which involved the three eldest gods in the world's pantheon:

Bright Itempas, the lord of the sun, of light, and the father. Lord of creation and order
Nahadoth, the Nightlord, or darkness and death. Lord of chaos and change.

Enefa, of the twilight. The only female of the three, the creater of life, mother.


The Gods war ended, long before the start of this trilogy, with Enefa dead, Nahadoth enslaved by a human race known as the Arameri, who are able to use their control of the nightlord and continuing relationship with Itempas to maintain a position of power in the world. This brings us to the first book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Here we meet Yeine, a chieftan of a matriarchal warrior-society known as the Darre. Yeine is brought to the Arameri capital where she becomes embroiled in both courtly intrigue and the ongoing struggles between the gods, the enslaved godlings, and humans. We meet a host of memorable characters, including the trickster god and eternal child Sieh who will take a more central role much later in the story. In the end there are revelations, moments in which we realize the assumptions we - and Yeine - have been making for the entire book aren't quite correct and, at the very end, a moment of sacrifice which will change the very foundation of the world.

The next two books deal with the aftermath. I'll not spoil the first by getting into plot, but suffice it to say that we meet humans who become gods, gods who become human, and finish in a place which surprises us while being true to the earlier story and feeling - even if surprising - still fair. It's a wonderful set of books, well worth reading. If you've not, I urge you to go experience them now. You'll be glad you did.

The Broken Earth Trilogy
This isn't quite a trilogy yet, as we're only two books into it. It's again a secondary world fantasy, opening with the twin shocks of personal and global disasters:

LET’S START WITH THE END of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.

First, a personal ending. There is a thing she will think over and over in the days to come, as she imagines how her son died and tries to make sense of something so innately senseless. She will cover Uche’s broken little body with a blanket—except his face, because he is afraid of the dark—and she will sit beside it numb, and she will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She’s old hat at this by now.

Thus we meet Essun, as a mother grieving over the death of her son. It's an opening paragraph which not only grabs our attention, but hints at what will follow: stories of grief, of endings, of cataclysms both personal and global. The death of a child is a shocking note on which to begin, but The Fifth Season is a novel which earns that shock, pays it back, and makes it a real and organic part of the story.


 We soon learn that the world - ironically known as The Stillness - is so beset by cataclysmic  earthquakes as to have an entire culture and language built around them. A disastrous global event is  season. Words carved into rock to survive seasons are stonelore. It's created a very pragmatic, literally downward-looking world in which not only is studies of the heavens and astronomy considered silly trivia, but the giant floating stone obelisks which drift above the world are, for the most part, completely ignored.

The Fifth Season, like the books of the inheritance cycle, is an intimate story, following only three women in different stages of their lives: a young girl, the young adult Syenite, and the grieving mother Essun. The three are linked by the rare ability to control earthquakes - an ability which caused them to be feared, hated, and persecuted. Like The Ineritance Trilogy, The Fifth Season and its sequel deal directly with class conflict, with racism, and with how hatred directed by society can become internalized. It's a smart book, a wise book, and an all too relevant book.

It ends with a hint as to why the world is as it is, even if it isn't quite fully explained as of yet. There's not yet an explanation as to why Essun's sections are written in second-person while Damaya and Syenite are in the more traditional third-person, but I trust that will come. There are already hints in the second book, which I'll not discuss save to say that it's a worthy followup. We begin to see more of the world, we learn that some of what we've taken for granted - including the works of this earthquake-controlling power - might not be what we thought it was. We spend more time with our small cadre of characters, come to know and love them.

There is, of course, much more to say. I'll not say it here, as the more you read about the book the less joy you'll have in experiencing them. They're books worth reading. Trust me on this.


And yes, those who've read the books will know that the above includes, in addition to a call to trust me, a lie. It's certainly a white lie, and one for which I'm sure you'll forgive me after you've read whichever book about which I'm keeping secrets.

So enjoy. And happy birthday to NK Jemisin.

Book Review - The Fireman, by Joe Hill

Had anyone else written The Fireman, I'd be tempted to compare it to Stephen King. We have an implausible global disaster treated as if real, tight focus on a decent and resourceful group of survivors, even a New England setting. It's a comparison I fought against making because it isn't, in the end, fair. King is King and Hill is Hill, as obvious as it is that the former influenced the latter in as many ways as possible. For the nonce, let's set comparisons aside and talk about the novel itself. Expect minor spoilers herein, but not too much to preclude your enjoyment of the book when you choose to read it (and you should. Trust me on this).

The disaster in The Fireman comes in the shape of a mysterious disease called "Dragonscale". It manifests itself in patters of black markings on a victim's skin and is perfectly harmless - with the exception of causing those infected to literally burst into flame. Our first brush with the disease comes through the eyes of Harper Grayson, a Disney-quoting elementary school nurse. Some of my favorite parts of the early chapters deal with the relationship between Harper and her husband, Jakob. Jakob is smart. He's intellectual. He's charming. His talents range from the ability to ride a unicycle to being really good at sex.  However, the more we see of him the more we see an underlying self-centered-ness, a pettiness, a nastiness. When the school in which Harper works closes indefinitely due to the 'scale crisis and Harper is pressed into service at a hospital, it becomes clear that Jakon sees her patients with a pitying disdain rather than compassion. I wish we'd lingered a bit more on the positive side of the marriage before learning that it was a false-front, but learn we do and in a shocking and impactful way. Jakob can be read as every man with a feeling of entitlement, not as much intellect as he thinks he has, and a bitter disappointment with his lot in life. As civilization falls, so too does the veneer of civility Jakob has built around his rotten inner core. The horror in reading this book is not the image of a person bursting into flame: it's that we all know too many Jakobs, and that Hill is showing us what they are like inside.

One of my favorite kinds of moments in any fantastic novel is the moment in which what you think you knew proves to be wrong. We soon meet John Rockwood, the titular Fireman, a conflicted hero with a tragic past and a maddening tendency to set himself apart and attempt to be mysterious.   Rockwood has found a way to control the dragonscale, not only avoiding self-immolation but even gaining control over fire itself, using it as a weapon or a tool. The entire middle third of the book takes place in a sort of hidden commune in which a small but growing infected population hides from the roving quarantine patrols who seek to eradicate the disease at gunpoint. It's little surprise to see Jakob reemerge with one of them.

I'll make a note here on language: Hill does a terrific job working ways of referring to the new infestation into the book's dialog. The quarantine patrols sometimes call themselves (and are called) cremation crews, and refer to the infected as "burners". A bargain-basement talk-radio host gives himself the moniker "Marlborough Man" because he's smoked so many burners. These are lovely touches which add to the feeling of immersion.

We also had an odd, seemingly out of left field reference to Martha Quinn,  rumored to be a leaderof a safe space for the infected. Martha Quinn became an unlikely symbol through much of the book, and a source of hope. As a child of the 1980s, I found the inclusion of a literal voice from our collective past to be a tiny delight.

Anyway, the book is about how people deal with the crisis rather than the crisis itself. We have the Camp Wyndham community dealing with the threat of cremation squads. The uninfected dealing with the fear of infection. Everyone fearing fire. There are breakdowns in social order and, while there are villains, it isn't the villains which most interested - or most chilled me. It was the all-too-real way seemingly decent and reasonable people would follow them, and how quickly a community can slide from communal love to communal hatred. The book is at its best at those points. I do wish, as I said, that we'd had a tiny bit  more of Jakob toward the beginning and, to be honest, a tiny bit less toward the end. His constant reappearance made absolute thematic sense, but ultimately veered into horror-fiction cliche territory.

And there's one moment in which we see a communal act of kindness toward those infected, only to see it subverted into something else. THis is a part about which I thought for a long time. Did the people know the real result of their charity? Were they deliberately fooling themselves? Did they fail morally in giving from a distance, and not following up? Or were they simply doing the best they thought they could? It was a nice, poignant, and ambiguous moment.

Comparison time again:  I've stated in the past that I see an unsavory message in the works of HP Lovecraft in that his central theme - fear of the other - is a mirror of and metaphor for his racism. In one discussion on the topic, someone asked me if that is part and parcel of horror fiction in general. Clearly in my mind - and I suspect in Hill's - it is not. The horror in The Fireman was not the Dragonscale, was not even the fear of self-immolation. It was the moment that a seemingly loving husband showed us the monster within. It's the moment that a community of survivors let fear and anger twisted it into something ugly.

Horror isn't fear of the other; it's fear of ourselves, and what can let ourselves become in moments of fear as we fight for our own protection.

This book is horror. And it's good horror. I strongly recommend that you go read it.

On reading The Shephard's Crown, Farewell to the Disc

--WARNING-- 

--HERE THERE BE SPOILERS--

On reading The Shephard's Crown, Terry Pratchett's postumously-published and very last ever Discworld novel, I'd like to take a few moments to reflect on the forty-one books which have come before, as well as give a brief review of this final chapter in the saga. Pratchett is an author who was quite important to me, and one whose work in humorous fantasy gave, perhaps, two strikes against him in any effort to be taken seriously. This is a pity, as his work could be as deep, moving, and interesting as any straight literary fiction. He gave us memorable characters who grew over the decades and will remain in our memories long after the final page is turned.

The very last one. 

I read the novels pretty much in publication order, beginning in the early 1990s with 1983s The Color of Magic in which the Discworld was intrduced along with some soon-to-be recurring characters: Cohen the elderly barbarian warrior, Rincewind the cowardly (and not too competent) wizard, the wizards of the Unseen University (including the orangutan serving as their librarian) and, of course, Death. It was a little bit of a one-note lighthearted romp, but quite a fun one which set the stage for many, many more adventures to come. While Rincewind was a fun character, he wasn't really one of Prachett's best in that his personality was fairly one-dimensional: he was a cowardly wizard. That sentence (and his sad habit of writing "wizzard" on his hat so people knew what he was) tells you nearly all you need know about him. Other characters faired better, telling us more about themselves, growing, and even surprising us a bit in ways which, while unexpected, still fit what we'd seen before. In the "city watch" set of books we meet lazy Fred Colon and his partner "Nobby" Nobs along with one of the heroes of the series, Commander Sam Vimes of the nightwatch. The early Vimes books were absolutely delightful in giving us a flawed yet good-hearted character struggling to do the right thing despite a system which rarely rewards righteousness. We watched Vimes struggle with alcoholism, watched him have to face his prejudices and biases, saw him struggle with protocol when elevated to higher levels of society both in the job and as a result of his marriage into the aristocracy. We saw the conflict develop between the by-the-book honest to a fault Vimes and his boss, the patrician of the city Lord Vetinari. Vetinari describes himself as a tyrant, but a just one. What was best about the early city watch books was that one never really knew what Vetinari would do, never felt that one could trust him. It was a battle between the man on the street and the boss upstairs who needed to engage in certain amounts of manipulation and scheming to keep his position and, hopefully, have the city run smoothly. It was a great set of stories which brought us diversity (as the Watch added dwarves, trolls, and even a werewolf), intrigue, and, at times, victory at a real cost. When the watch faced a killer armed with the Discworld's first gun the final battle cost them one of their own and nearly took the life of another. There were real consequences and a feeling that anything could happen.

That feeling, alas, did not last through the entire series. Vimes in particular lingered on the stage long after his story was, to my way of seeing, over. No longer did you have the struggles of a flawed hero who at times felt over his head,  but you instead had a supercop - honest to a fault, deadly competent, and knowing that he had the full backing of those in power. The ambiguity surrounding Vetinari fell away, leaving us a tyrant in name only who we could trust to never do anything bad to someone about whom we cared. In Raising Steam there was a scene with Vimes, a disguised Vetinari, and others guarding a train against religious zealots. In contrast with the battle over the gun, there was no death of a friend new or old, no price to be paid, and little feeling of menace. Nor did anyone ever seem tempted or in danger of doing the wrong thing. Pratchett was always at his best writing about flawed and somewhat ordinary people. As his characters became less so and he perhaps fell a bit too much in love with them the writing suffered a bit.

This brings us to the witches. The witches - Magrat, Agnes who calls herself Perditax, Nanny Ogg and, most importantly, Granny Weatherwax were wonderful characters. We dealt with a young woman who was a better fit for the world of wizards than witches (in 1987's Equal Rites) and many stories of the senior witches being practical, no-nonsense, decent and somewhat nosy old ladies who kept their part of the world running smoothly. Granny Weatherwax was a hero, but also a very parochial self-righteous busybody. When she went travelling with Ogg and the stars-in-her-eyes young Magrat - a woman who saw witchcraft more in occult jewelry and mysticism than in the small practical miracles by which the older witches lived - she seemed a bit out of place and not altogether comfortable. When Weatherwax and Ogg joined Agnes-who-calls-herself-Perditax (another case of a character trying to reinvent herself) her downhome no-nonsense country wisdom IS to her advantage, but she still seems like a bit of a fish out of water. As the books go on, however, Weatherwax becomes nearly perfect. She does more magic than she did in earlier stories. She makes fewer mistakes. She seems less parochial and, like Vimes, more perfect. Her story - in any meaningful sense - has been over for quite a few books now.

Now that it is finished, a last
pleasure remains: sharing with the
next generation

This brings us to The Shepard's Crown and the shocking events of chapter three. In quite a moving sequence (one of the best written in the book, in this reader's opinion) Granny Weatherwax dies. Her final moments are fitting for her practical, no-nonsense manner; she cleans her cottage, prepares a wicker basket to serve as her casket (it's easy and inexpensive to make; Weatherwax was always frugal), bathes, pins up her hair, gets dressed, and lies down to sleep for the last time. 

It's a change which, for the books, would have been a great improvement in that the vacuum left behind by Weatherwax leaves some nice empty space into which other characters can step. We already see this in the remainder of The Shepard's Crown as Tiffany tries to step into the considerable shoes left by the newly departed. We see her struggling to find her own way and, ultimately, make decisions which would have rippled through the world had it continued.

Was the book perfect? No. It's clear that Sir Terry left it as a work in progress, and equally clear that the decision was made to publish as-is rather than have another writer pad it a bit and flesh out the parts that seem rushed and somewhat incomplete. 

The Tiffany Aching books have not only been the best of the later Discworld novels, but they might have held the key to revitalizing the larger series. I mourn not only for Sir Terry, not only for the end of a beloved series, but for all the many more stories which will now remain untold.

Reading with the kids - Book Review of Akata Witch, by Nnnedi Okorofor

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

A young person ignorant of the secret world of magic and witchcraft which exists around us finds that they have great potential and is taken to a hidden place of magical schooling. Lessons are learned, friendships and alliances are formed with peers. There are moments of mistakes and hubris, but our protagonist eventually grows up somewhat and is forced to face a potent and malevolent foe with a surprising personal connection.

No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter. I'm talking about Nnedi Okorofor's YA novel Akata Witch, which takes the broad tropes of "learning magic" out of the familiar British, American, or faux-medieval settings to Nigeria. It's also a very smart and elegantly written book which, in various ways, answers some of the issues raised by other novels in this genre.

I came to this one because, of course, of Chloe's interest in fantasy fiction (those who follow here will know that she's my daughter, that we read the Narnia books together last year and the late Sir Terry's "Tiffany Aching" subseries of Discworld more recently). And no, I don't want her to read fantasy exclusively but I do see her developing a love and appreciation for it, and want to feed that with diverse voices.

Akata Witch is the  story of Sunny, a twelve-year old girl or African descent whose family has moved back to Africa from the United States. As an immigrant and an albino she is, in her way, doubly an outsider. Early on there's a portent of an apocalyptic future, a meeting with fellow gifted students who've already been initiated into the secret worlds of magic and, ultimately, a trip to the hidden parts of our world in which magical arts are taught and studied. In addition to the African setting which, quite honestly, is something of which I don't get enough in my reading, here are several  unique elements including a parallel magical economy based entirely on learning. It's also quite refreshing to see Sunny's magical education as a secret she needs to carry, with no convenient departure from the "mundane" world; she simply needs to learn to juggle actual school lessons, a home life, and secret meetings with powerful users of magic who might come to mentor her.

There is, of course, a threat in a mysterious ritual killer stalking children the same age as Sunny and her new companions. The relationship of the four members of what we learn is an "Owa coven" - a group put together by chance to meet some challenge - is one delightful part of the book. In too many of these stories such groups devolve into a "chosen one" and "spear carriers". In this case, it doesn't appear to be so. While Sunny is definitely our protagonist, the others make as many mistakes, solve as many challenges, and are portrayed as equals.

There's also real menace throughout, the threat of loss, and a few moments of rather graphic and brutal violence. None of it is gratuitous, and it does fill its role in raising the stakes considerably. The book is paced a tiny bit oddly in that the final confrontation and climax seems rushed, but the more I think about it the less it bothers me; most stories about vanquishing a monster are not really about said monster, but about coming of age and learning something about oneself. Of the growing and learning we get plenty, even if there probably could have been a little bit more time devoted to certain family stories and secrets.

Is it a worthwhile YA coming-of-age magic book? I'll go beyond that and simply say that it's a worthwhile book. The benefits of exploring variations within a genre and even a sub-genre are something extra.

Seamstress without A Needle - Review of Elizabeth Bear's Karen Memory

It's book recommendation time! This week we'll be talking about Steampunk which, for those who don't know, is a science fiction subgenre based on fantastic (and usually impossible) reimaginings of Victorian-era steam-driven technologies. At its worst, Steampunk falls into an obsession with Victorian and imaginary-victorian trappings - corsets and tophats, airships and brass monocles, the odd babbage engine. At its best, it uses these trappings to examine a point in history when old social orders were being overturned and, in the divide between rich and poor, look at today's world through a funhouse mirror. In fact, I'd say that the best science fiction is always a funhouse mirror through which we can view our own world.

Regular readers of this blog should know that I adore the writing of Elizabeth Bear; her work is always compelling with a great eye for character and for detail. I greatly envy her talent. Her Karen Memory is a "Wild West Steampunk" novel, taking place in the imaginary Alaska town of Cedar Rapids during a gold-rush in the late nineteenth century. Before we see any fancy steampunk trappings we meet our protagonist and narrator, "seamstress" Karen Memery:

Yes, she does what you think that she does, and it's handled as well as you'd expect; the work colors Memery's perception of men, but hasnt' twisted her into a misogynist. The work plays a significant role in the novel, both in terms of plot and theme, but it's never played for titillation. In fact, while the characters have plenty of sex (as they are working in a brothel) there are no explicit sex scenes. While there is empowerment in Memery and her peers earning a living and while they do have the good fortune of working at the Hotel Mon Cherie (the French is deliberately wrong),  the "good" brothel owned and run by a Madame Damnable - a  woman with an interesting past of her own -  it's not quite sugar-coated or sentimentalized. In fact, one important character refuses the chance at joining Madame Damnable's "sewing circle", even having few other choices. While she keeps a measure of her dignity, it remains clear that Memery's choice to earn a living on her back was no choice at all in reality; institutional sexism leaves few other choices for a young woman on her own.

The action begins with a girl rescued from a rival house of ill repute (this one of truly ill-repute, in which the girls were treated as literal slaves), brought to the Hotel Mon Cherie, triggering a major flare-up in the rivalry between Madame Damnable and her counterpart the odious Peter Bantle. Soon there's a Jack the Ripper style string of murderer persued by  a far-traveling US Marshall, literal rooftop chases, daring escapes and, yes, an airship. Wouldn't be a steampunk novel without one. There's not much sex but there IS a same-sex romance (oh, how I long for the day when such things are common enough that I can just say "romance". Alas, that day is  not today). This is not high-tea and top-hat style steampunk; the characters about whom we come to care are always on the peripheries: an (Asian) Indian woman saved from sex slavery by a Chinese-American freedom fighter of sorts (real-life sex-worker rights activists  would be glad to know that she has a perfectly healthy relationship with the voluntary seamstresses of Madame Damnables and does not equate all prostitution with slaver), an African-American marshall with his Native-American posseman. The latter character - Marhsall Bass Reeves - is based, according to the author's note, on an actual historical figure on whom the Lone Ranger myth was quite possibly based -- a myth which quite literally strips him of his actual skin.

For anyone who loves the wild west, who loves Steampunk, or simply loves a good tale Karen Memor is well-worth the reading. Very highly recommended. 

Book Review: Of Noble Family, by Mary Robinette Kowal

With Of Noble Family, Mary Robinette Kowal closes out her Glaourist Histories series of novels. These five books took us from a Jane Austen inspired romance through the Napoleanic wars, a visit to London for exploration of early industrial revolution and social upheaval, a stop in Venice for a complicated caper, and now to Antigua do deal with both family and the realities of the slave trade. While the opening volume, Shades of Milk and Honey, was a regency romance dealing with the relationships and marriage prospects of upper-class families, the series did a very credible job of speaking to the concerns of the common folk even while keeping its focus on wealthy and increasingly powerful characters.

This is a challenging book to review without giving spoilers, but we'll try. For those who've not yet picked up this series, it deals with an alternate world  in which exists a sort of magic called glamour. Glamuorists manipulate the ether (which, in this world, is a real thing) primarily to create visual and auditory illusions. We've even seen glamourists working with heat and cold (perhaps by extending their work into the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum? This is never clear, but doesn't really matter) at significant cost to their health. It creates am entire layers to culture, economy, and even military tactics. Our viewpoint character, Lady Jane Vincent, and her husband Sir David Vincent are two of the most accomplished in this art. 

We pick up their story after a safe return to London after the misadventures in Venice, chronicled in Valor and Vanity. This respite is short-lived as we receive word that Sir David's estranged father Lord Verbury has died of a stroke in his estate in Antigua, to which he fled to avoid trial for treason. Family has been an issue for Vincent throughout the series, and a return to the estate of his father - a cruel and demanding man whose name Vincent no longer carries - is not to be taken lightly. Through the ensuing pages we learn of Lord Verbury's legacy, meet both slaves and fellow slave-holders, and explore the fraught relationships in a deeply disfunctional family. Lord Verbury casts a deep shadow  throughout the book as a return to the family estate brings out some of the worst in Vincent.

One of my favorite things about this particular volume is the way Kowal's characters maintain recognizable, believable personalities even as circumstances completely alter their behavior. We see this in Vincent's increasingly short and dangerous temper and again with a slave woman whose speech patterns are completely different with field hands (with whom she speaks in a nearly opaque dialect) to perfectly standard English when speaking with the island's black doctor.

There's much about this novel which I love. One passage which stayed with me after I set it down is a bit of dialog from Frank, not only a slave of Lord Verbury's, but also the man's oldest son in which he speaks of the old man's surprising generosity. 

Perhaps one needs to have an awful person or two in ones family, but to me it's perfectly clear - and more real - to have the manipulative, cruel patriarch also be sometimes generous, sometimes engaging and - if one doesn't look at the big picture - actually likeable in the moment. It explains the influence Verbury had in life, as well as the complications in his relationship with Vincent.

If the novel has a flaw in  my eyes, it is in the character of Pridmore, the dishonest, embezzling, and cruel overseer. The character not only seems single-dimensional, but making the overseer violent, unlikeable, and hatefully racist strikes me as too easy.  I much prefer the moments in these novels in which a character we otherwise like shows signs - subtly or not -  of being infected with the racist or otherwise intolerant attitudes of society as a whole. We saw this clearly in the middle volume ( Without a Summer ) when Lady Jane was quite mistrustful of a family because of their Catholic faith. We see hints of it again here when she - in an absolutely beautifully imagined part of the novel  - begins the effort of writing a book comparing the theories and even language regarding glamour across cultures. When Nkiruka, one of the plantations slaves, learns that the reason Jane has been discussing this with her is to write a book, the woman reacts thusly:

“You take…” Nkiruka growled and turned to Amey, speaking rapidly with phrases accented by gestures at the paper then at Jane. 

The young woman shook her head as she replied. Jane could only watch the conversation with an increasing want of comprehension, until finally Amey turned to her. “She upset that you writing a book and taking credit for her drawings and ideas.” 

“Teach each other. That ah one thing. Book? No. Done tek enough, done profit enough.” 

“Oh, but…” But … that was precisely what Jane had been prepared to do. It had not been her intention to steal Nkiruka’s ideas or to take credit for them, but nowhere in the structure of her book had she allotted space to acknowledge that half the ideas were not hers. 

She is, of course, right. What makes this  scene work for me is the way it's so easy in the nineteenth century - and even today in the twenty-first - to ignore the agency of someone we instinctively see as lesser or, at the very least, other. In a way, it said more about the evils of slavery than having slaves beaten by a malicious man; had an otherwise good man been overseeing the slaves, the conflict would be much more poingant to me

Overall, this was quite the engaging book which, in a slightly sentimental denouement, nicely wrapped up the entire series.  All five volumes are highly recommended. Now that this is finished I very much look forward to seeing what Kowal does next. 

Thoughts on the Transgender Day of Remembrance and a Book Review

For Remembrance

Earlier this year I was chatting with one of my fellow Bryant Park Jugglers about a mutual friend who'd not been around quite so much. He said that we were fortunate to know her. When I asked why, he replied with the sad truth that many transgendered individuals are lost to either suicide or violence, so her presence as just another member of the group is something to be celebrated. While I'd rather celebrate friends for who they are rather than what they are (and think of the trans women who have crossed my path as women and nothing more), there is a very good point that we as a society push some people towards the margins, making it a fortunate thing indeed when some have the strength and support network to NOT be pushed out of the way. Many aren't as lucky; November 20th has been set aside as "Transgendered Day of Remembrance" in which we look back at those who lost their lives to transphobic violence. Even today, in the twenty-first century, the trans community is both misunderstood and feared; just this week I read about the reality-TV sideshow freak Duggar family campaigning against trans anti-discrimination laws because of their intention that  they would allow "men" (in reality transgender women) to use women's restrooms and, therefore, molest the "real" women there. It's an argument based on ignorance and fear of the unknown, and one which we must get past. After the book review promised in the title, I'll close the post with a somber TDoR tradition - the listing of names of those lost to anti-trans violence over the past year. It is, I'm sure, not a complete list, but far too long all the same. Perhaps someday we'll no longer need this.

That said, I think it's about time I give you my long-delayed review of Caitlin Kiernan's novel The Drowning Girl. Kiernan is very good at writing about characters on the periphery, those who we'd not much think about save to shrug and say "she's kind of weird." The Drowning Girl is not epic, world-threatening horror on a grand scale, but a rich, intimate look at one life touched by madness and perhaps some of the supernatural. That life, in this case, belongs to India Morgan Phillips - known as "Imp". As a narrator, Imp has some issues - any of which stem from serious mental illness. Kiernan's treatment of mental health is one thing which really worked for me here. Imp doesn't have a "crazy trick" or defining tick as many fictitious mentally ill characters do, and she does have the support of a seemingly competent and caring therapist. There's no romanticising her illness as something giving special magic perks; it's simply a factor of her being, and one which makes it hard for her to trust her own perceptions as we struggle to know when to trust hers. She's a trust-fund kid, but with a small enough trust fund that she needs to work as a cashier in an art supply store to make ends meet. Imp is a character on the periphery, but with just enough of a support system that she can squeak by; in reading the book I sometimes wondered about how different her life would be without the trust fund and therapist and relatives who cared - at least a bit. Would she be homeless? Dead? Kiernan gives her just enough of a support structure to have her survive, not so much that we don't see her struggle.

Imp is not a subtly unreliable narrator; she flat out tells us that she'll lie, and gives us two versions of the same story - her meeting with ghost/demon/figment of her imagination Eva Canning. Eva is an uncanny figure bearing striking resemblance to the subject of a painting by (wholly invented) local artist George Salter. She met Eva for the first time in May. Or in November. And retells the story each time, interweaving not only the different strands but invented artworks, her own short-fiction, and the more mundane story of her relationship with her lover Abalyn. And yes, in keeping with today's larger theme Abalyn is a transgendered woman. Her history is addressed (and addressed quite well), but is never the focal point of the character; it's a part of what shaped her, but no more than that. As a freelance video-game reviewer she's perhaps farther outside the traditional economy than Imp, but her presence does supply a thread with which to ground us; we only see Abalyn's reactions through Imp's unreliable eyes, she does throw a more literal mirror towards the madness.

Caitlin R Kiernan. Photo by Kyle Cassidy

I've not talked much about plot; in all honesty, it's quite challenging to do so with a book like this. It certainly is a ghost story, and taps into New England's rich tradition of supernatural horror;the invented artists and locales ring just as true as anything from a local art history book or travelogue. Suffice it to say that the book, labeled as a memoir and a ghost story, is open to a variety of readings and interpretations from the purely realistic to the wildly fantastical. It's a book I cannot highly enough recommend. Go read it now.

But, before you do, as promised a list of names and a reminder that, for some people and some populations, horror is more than a literary genre. Take a moment. Read the names. Reflect. And let's work to change the world so as not to create more such lists in the future. (The source of the list is  http://tdor.info/memorializing-2014-2/ )

Jacqueline Cowdrey (50 years old)

Cause of death: unknown

Location of death: Worthing, West Sussex, United Kingdom

Date of death: November 20th, 2013

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Rosa Ribut (Jon Syah Ribut – 35 years old)

Cause of death: blunt force trauma

Location of death: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Date of death: November 24th, 2013

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Betty Skinner (52 years old)

Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head

Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Date of death: December 4th, 2013

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Brittany Stergis (22 years old)

Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head

Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Date of death: December 5th, 2013

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Elizalber Oliveira de Mesquita (39 years old)

Cause of death: stoned to death

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: January 5th, 2014

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Paloma

Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the head and chest

Location of death: Belém, Pará, Brazil

Date of death: January 8th, 2014

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Rayka Tomaz (20 years old)

Cause of death: multiple stab wounds.

Location of death: Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil

Date of death: January 10th, 2014

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Prince Joe (Joseph Sanchez – 18 years old)

Cause of death: multiple stab wounds, dumped on the street

Location of death: Belize City, Belize

Date of death: January 12th, 2014

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Toni Gretchen (50 years old)

Cause of death: multiple stab wounds

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: January 16th, 2014

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Luana (20 years old)

Cause of death: gunshot to the chest

Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

Date of death: January 10th, 2014

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Cristal (Alexandre Nascimento de Araújo – 22 years old)

Cause of death: Gunshot

Location of death: Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Date of death: January 19th, 2014

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Thifani (18 years old)

Cause of death: dismembered

Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Date of death: January 27th, 2014

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Joice (José Antônio Vieira Freitas – 32 years old)

Cause of death: multiple stab wounds

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: January 28th, 2014

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Sarita (Marcos de Almeida Oliveira)

Cause of death: gunshot

Location of death: Itabela, Bahia, Brazil

Date of death: January 29, 2014

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Juju (Julian de Souza Cruz – 32 years old)

Cause of death: beaten and stoned to death

Location of death: Salgueiro, Pernambuco, Brazil

Date of death: January 29th, 2014

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Raíssa (Lourivaldo Xavier)

Cause of death: 6 gunshots to head and chest

Location of death: Cuiabá,Mato Gross, Brazil

Date of death: February 1st, 2014

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Tatty

Cause of death: facial injuries

Location of death: Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Date of death: February 7th, 2014

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Rafaela (Alexsandro Alderotti José dos Santos – 32 years old)

Cause of death: multiple gunshots

Location of death: Recife, Brazil

Date of death: February 11th, 2014

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Alex Medeiros (8 years old)

Cause of death: Beaten to death by father for refusing to cut hair, liking women’s clothes, and dancing.

Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Date of death: February 18th, 2014

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Paulete

Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the face

Location of death: Taguatinga, Brazil

Date of death: February 19th, 2014

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Camila Veronezi (24 years old)

Cause of death: suffocation

Location of death: Bragança Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: February 21st, 2014

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Lu (Célio Martins da Silva)

Cause of death: multiple stab wounds

Location of death: Nova Serrana, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Date of death: February 23rd, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: gunshots

Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: February 27th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: gunshots

Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Date of death: February 28th, 2014

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Kitana

Cause of death: 3 gunshot wounds to the head

Location of death:Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil

Date of death: Feburary 28th, 2014

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Sarita do Sopão (39 years old)

Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: January 29th, 2014

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Andressa Pinheiro

Cause of death: 15 stab wounds, dragged, fractured skull

Location of death:João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

Date of death: March 1st, 2014

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Rose Maria (32 years old)

Cause of death: stabbed in the neck

Location of death: Brás, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: March 5th, 2014

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Vitória (16 years old)

Cause of death: 2 gunshot wounds to the chest

Location of death: Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil

Date of death: March 12th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: burned to death

Location of death: Jardim Ingá, Goiás, Brazil

Date of death: March 14th, 2014

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Paulete (Paulo Roberto Lima dos Santos – 19 years old)

Cause of death: gunshot

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: March 17th, 2014

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Marciana

Cause of death: gunshot

Location of death: Iguatu, Ceará, Brazil

Date of death: March 24th, 2014

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Nicole (Marcos Vinicius Machado – 20 years old)

Cause of death: hands and feet bound, stabbed in the neck and abdomen

Location of death: Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil

Date of death: March 28th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: dismemberment

Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: March 23rd, 2014

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Giovana Souza Silva (33 years old)

Cause of death: gunshots

Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: March 29th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: beaten with weapon, fists by several people, dragged through the street.

Location of death: João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

Date of death: March 29th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: blow to the head with iron bar

Location of death: Sobral, Ceará, Brazil

Date of death: April 2nd, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: beaten and strangled to death.

Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

Date of death: April 2nd, 2014

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Mileide

Cause of death: 4 gunshot wounds

Location of death: Santo Antônio, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Date of death: April 7th, 2014

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Valquíria (aka Josivaldo Ribeiro Oliveira Brito)

Cause of death: gunshot to back.

Location of death: Praça dos Carreiros, Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Date of death: April 20th, 2014

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Çağla Joker

Cause of death: gunshot to the chest

Location of death: Tarlabaşı, Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey

Date of death: April 21st, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: four gunshots

Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Date of death: May 29th, 2014

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Marcia Moraes (34 years old)

Cause of death: four gunshots

Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Date of death: May 29th, 2014

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Kandy Hall (40 years old)

Cause of death: massive trauma, body left in a field

Location of death: Montebello, Maryland, USA

Date of death: June 3rd, 2014

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Paola (Anderson Arruda Camote) (29 years old)

Cause of death: knife wounds to neck, feet and hands tied

Location of death: Arandu, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: June 8th, 2014

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Zoraida “Ale” Reyes (28 years old)

Cause of death:choked to death

Location of death: Anaheim, California, United States

Date of death: June 10th, 2014

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Mia Henderson (26 years old)

Cause of death: massive trauma, found dead in alley.

Location of death: Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Date of death: June 16th, 2014

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Yaz’min Shancez

Cause of death:murdered, and burned

Location of death: Fort Myers, Florida, United States

Date of death: June 19th, 2014

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André Luiz Borges Rocha

Cause of death: gunshot wounds to the face

Location of death: Tijucal, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil

Date of death: June 23rd, 2014

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Tiffany Edwards (28 years old)

Cause of death:shot to death

Location of death: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Date of death: June 26th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.

Location of death: Coruripe, Alagoas, Brazil

Date of death: June 30th, 2014

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Kellen Santorine

Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.

Location of death: Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Date of death: July 13th, 2014

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Mackelly Castro (age:24)

Cause of death: hanging

Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil

Date of death: July 18th, 2014

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Lele (age:24)

Cause of death: beaten to death

Location of death: Roatán, Honduras

Date of death: July 18th, 2014

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Dennysi Brandão (age:24)

Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds to the hip, chest, and back.

Location of death: Contagem, Minas Gerais, Brazil

Date of death: July 24th, 2014

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Alisson Henrique da Silva (age:25)

Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds

Location of death: Macaíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Date of death: July 31st, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: found dead, with eyes removed.

Location of death: Jardim dos Ipês Itaquaquecetuba, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: August 9th, 2014

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Alejandra Leos

Cause of death: gunshot to the back

Location of death: Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Date of death: September 5th, 2014

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Karen Alanis (age:23)

Cause of death: thrown from vehicle, ran over

Location of death: Caçapava, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: September 9th, 2014

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Marcela Duque (46 years old)

Cause of death: stoned to death

Location of death: Medellín, Colombia

Date of death: September 9th, 2014

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Cris

Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds

Location of death: Portal da Foz, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil

Date of death: September 13th, 2014

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Marcela Lopez

Cause of death: Stoning

Location of death: Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia

Date of death: September 14th, 2014

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Mahadevi

Cause of death: pushed off moving train

Location of death: Malleshwara, Karnataka, India

Date of death: September 25th, 2014

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Bruna Lakiss (26 years old)

Cause of death: gunshot wound

Location of death: Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso, Brazil

Date of death: September 30th, 2014

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Aniya Parker

Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head

Location of death: East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Date of death: October 3rd, 2014

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Gaivota dos Santos

Cause of death: three shots to the face

Location of death: Rio Largo, Alagoas, Brazil

Date of death: October 1st, 2014

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Géia Borghi

Cause of death: shot in the chest, bound, gagged, set afire

Location of death: Monte Mor, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: October 9th, 2014

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Jennifer Laude

Cause of death: asphyxiation by drowning

Location of death: Subic Bay, Zambales, Philippines

Date of death: October 11th, 2014

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Sara (27 years old)

Cause of death: Gunshot

Location of death: Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil

Date of death: October 12th, 2014

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Aguinaldo Cláudio Colombelli (45 years old)

Cause of death: 30 stab wounds

Location of death: Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Date of death: October 16th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death: beaten to death

Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

Date of death: October 16th, 2014

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Flávia

Cause of death: three gunshots

Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

Date of death: October 20th, 2014

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Mary Joy Añonuevo (55 years old)

Cause of death: stabbed 33 times

Location of death: Lucena, Quezon, Philippines

Date of death: October 21st, 2014

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Ashley Sherman

Cause of death: shot in the head

Location of death: Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

Date of death: October 27st, 2014

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Maicon

Cause of death: Gunshot

Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

Date of death: November 1st, 2014

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Letícia

Cause of death:stabbed in the chest

Location of death: Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: November 6th, 2014

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Raquel

Cause of death:Gunshot

Location of death: Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

Date of death: November 6th, 2014

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Adriana (16 years old)

Cause of death:Gunshot, body wrapped in sheet, tied to tree trunk, thrown in river.

Location of death: Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil

Date of death: November 9th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death:throat cut

Location of death: Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of death: November 9th, 2014

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Unknown woman

Cause of death:shot and burned

Location of death: Tblisi, Georgia

Date of death: November 10th, 2014

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Gizzy Fowler

Cause of death:Gunshot

Location of death: Nashville, Tennessee, United States

Date of death: November 10th, 2014