I will probably still give the Foundation series a try, but this book gave me the strong impression that I much prefer Asimov the short story writer tI will probably still give the Foundation series a try, but this book gave me the strong impression that I much prefer Asimov the short story writer to Asimov the novelist. Asimov is a master of ideas, and his short stories that showcase a great idea, like Nightfall or especially The Last Question, are among the best I've ever read, regardless of genre.
And while The Caves of Steel has its own compelling speculative ideas (what would a maximum-efficiency overcrowded Earth look like? How would human society on Earth diverge from those societies that emigrated to other worlds? How would human laborers react to the introduction of perfectly humanlike robots?), his characters, however, just can't hold up the weight of a full novel. Elijah Baley reads like a Humphrey Bogart impersonator, his boss Julius Enderby is one-dimensionally pathetic, and his wife Jezebel (yes, I know, it's a thing) is a painfully offensive caricature of the nagging, hysterical housewife. The plot was a mildly entertaining detective story, but a bit predictable.
To end on a kinder note, I will say that I greatly enjoyed the characterization of R Daneel, the android with a positronic brain. It was a very clear example of how a classic writer can come to define a whole genre. If Tolkien gave us orcs and elves as we know them, Asimov shaped the android (he even coined the term robotics). For proof of this, simply imagine Daneel's lines as spoken by Data from The Next Generation. You're welcome....more
The book overall is a worthy capstone to this series, further developing its world's history of hubris, destruction, and lost knowledge, and giving a The book overall is a worthy capstone to this series, further developing its world's history of hubris, destruction, and lost knowledge, and giving a mostly satisfying final arc (and in some cases, origin) to its central characters. The final notes in the book's postscript didn't quite ring true – something about the glib tone in which it approached immortality didn't mesh with the themes of the rest of the book – so it left me a little cold in the series' last moments, but that's pretty much the only reason for taking off a star....more
It's not Station Eleven – which somehow feels closer to the experience of global pandemic despite its having been written in the 2010s – but the earlyIt's not Station Eleven – which somehow feels closer to the experience of global pandemic despite its having been written in the 2010s – but the early portions of the book come close to that novel's success in their pacing and psychological depth, and the remainder of it is a perfectly entertaining time travel yarn, and the meta-ness of the plot is kind of fun if you've been following the author's rise to critical acclaim. Apparently there are also connections to The Glass Hotel, as a bonus....more
Solid continuation of the trilogy, strengthened by dropping most of the confusing (albeit fun and mysterious) time jumps of the original novel. I thouSolid continuation of the trilogy, strengthened by dropping most of the confusing (albeit fun and mysterious) time jumps of the original novel. I thought Jemisin did a nice job of interweaving expository reminders from the first book into the new plot points, for those of us picking the series back up after a break. The characters are increasingly compelling, if a little bit overpowered, to the point where one is never all that worried about their survival. My favorite aspect of the book isn't its sci-fi aspects (or rather, fantasy, since this book veers more solidly in that direction) but the exploration of cultural relativity in its world-building, with jarring reminders of just how different one society can be from what another takes for granted. This is most clear when the author gives us half-forgotten memories of what *might* be our world: people who used to look up and name the stars; people who used to pray to a sky deity to keep them safe while they slept. I'm really looking forward to the next installment....more
I really enjoy Becky Chambers' utopian fiction, which, having not grown up with Star Trek, was about the first of this kind of speculative fiction I eI really enjoy Becky Chambers' utopian fiction, which, having not grown up with Star Trek, was about the first of this kind of speculative fiction I ever encountered, when I read Record of a Spaceborn Few some years back. I remember being surprised that I still found a fictional world compelling, even without obvious antagonists, and this story had a similar effect on me. In particular, as a therapist, I've been interested in her depiction of the role of the "helping professions" in a world in which oppression and abuse are no longer widespread. In this case, the professional at the heart of the novella is a tea-monk – a sort of barista/therapist/cleric. They're struck with wanderlust and pulled away from their work, and the central question of the story is about whether we need to serve a purpose to find life fulfilling. The pace is gentle and slow, the conflict is present, but low, and the nonbinary representation is solid. Sign me up for more "cozy sci fi."...more
Great addition to the delightfully queer-normative, heartwarming Wayfarers series, this time with an emphasis on themes of cultural humility, accessibGreat addition to the delightfully queer-normative, heartwarming Wayfarers series, this time with an emphasis on themes of cultural humility, accessibility, and sovereignty (both indigenous and bodily), not to mention *very* strong "lockdown with an unexpected COVID pod" vibes, which makes sense for a book that came out in 2021. I enjoyed that none of the central characters were humans, and that they all agree that we are extremely weird. This felt like good practice in perspective-taking and in not universalizing what is merely familiar.
Easier said than done! For instance, I'm Jewish, and this book felt extremely Jewish to me. Whether intentional or not, I felt a strong link to various aspects of Jewish history(ies) and culture(s) in every single character of this book, with each of them connected in some way to diaspora, exile, othering, orthodoxy, genocide, territorial war, insular ethnic enclaves – there's even a character named Miriam. I looked up Chambers' Wikipedia page to try and confirm whether she was Jewish herself, but didn't find anything conclusive.
So perhaps I have done just what the novel cautions us not to: projected something particular about myself onto diverse others, who have their own relationships to many of the aforementioned experiences of personhood. If so, the novel is even more impressive for creating such complex characters, none reducible to simple allegory, who are capable of being so relatable to a given reader, yet without being created specifically with that reader's identity in mind....more
Reading this novel in the time of COVID-19 is strangely cathartic. Mandel's depiction of a global pandemic is prescient, and I thrilled at moments thaReading this novel in the time of COVID-19 is strangely cathartic. Mandel's depiction of a global pandemic is prescient, and I thrilled at moments that uncannily resembled my experiences (I wanted to shout "I was there! That was me!" when our point-of-view character for the moment of collapse anxiously stocked up on cans at the grocery store as news of the virus's arrival reached him). Having grown up and still residing in the heart of the Great Lakes, the setting made these events all the more eery (although my familiarity with the area made the insertion of at least one non-existent city break the novel's otherwise exceptional realism for me). For those not from around here, to a Michigander the visual of a collapsed Mackinac Bridge is akin to the ruins of the Golden Gate Bridge or the Empire State Building.
At the same time, the circumstances are drastically different in a way that made me sit with how much there is to be grateful for. Loss and claustrophobic fear and death are all around us, it's true, but most of those we love are still here. We may not be able to approach them physically, but with the technology and systems we take for granted, we can remain connected until we see this through. In Station Eleven, a critical mass of people vanish, and the scaffolding of society truly falls apart, revealing a world that is vast, harsh, and empty. Tiny, disconnected islands of people are all that remain of the once global civilization. The import of just how much has been lost is communicated through clear, understated prose that makes you catch your breath. A handful of interconnected characters die or survive, and the way they and the residue of their lives break apart and collide, is all the more gripping because of its improbability in this vast, harsh, emptiness.
Unlike other post-apocalyptic novels I've read, humans remain human, and I found this refreshing, and hopeful in an unsentimental way. Resiliency, ceremony, friendship, community, art, are all embers of the lost civilization that still glow here and there in the remnants, and it remains to be seen whether they will ever be totally snuffed out or ever catch fire again.
One thing I loved about this book is its narrative structure. The characters adjust to their circumstances, but rather than letting us grow too comfortable with the new era of history, the plot jumps back and forth between the new, the old, and the liminal time of the collapse. Of particular interest to me was the way the two central figures of the novel — the star actor Arthur Leander, who died on the eve of the collapse, and the once-child actor Kirsten Raymonde, who remembers almost nothing before it — have a sort of mirrored experience of civilization. Arthur reflects on his upbringing in a remote northern village, surrounded by nature and more traditional ways of life, as a lost, vanished world, replaced by a life of celebrity and luxury in the metropolises of North America. Kirsten dimly remembers computers, airplanes, and refrigerators from the spartan existence she now lives in a caravan of artists, wandering along ruined roads through ruined towns.
Another thread that stood out to me is the careful preservation of the past - librarians and museum curators and orchestra conductors, all doing their best to remember and communicate what was lost, only able to salvage a few precious fragments of what was once a rich tapestry of culture. As an Ashkenazi Jew, this of course made me think of the Shoah, the way the survivors rescued as much as they could from the flames of a whole civilization in Eastern Europe, the pain of knowing how much more was lost and already in the process of being forgotten. One is also reminded of cloistered monks, sheltering from the plagues, producing stunning illuminated manuscripts by hand to preserve language and art and culture from the rubble of Rome. Perhaps this is a modern, fictionalized retelling of the Dark Ages?
I don't have much more to say, other than that reading this book is a powerful experience, and I expect only more so to read it this year. Highly recommended....more
The fusion of Lovecraft's cosmic horror with a subversion of his racial horror was a great idea, although I'm not sure a white author should have beenThe fusion of Lovecraft's cosmic horror with a subversion of his racial horror was a great idea, although I'm not sure a white author should have been the one to try and pull it off. I also thought it was a little too fractured narratively and relied a little too much on deus ex machina. Overall, an entertaining read, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the show did with the source material....more
Humanity has one sole survivor of vampirism and it's *this* asshole? As much as I hated the main character, I thought the atmosphere of claustrophobiaHumanity has one sole survivor of vampirism and it's *this* asshole? As much as I hated the main character, I thought the atmosphere of claustrophobia and despair was spot on, and the turn at the ending, though I was prepared for it, is truly creative, and much more interesting than the formulaic resolution Hollywood swapped in — seriously, why'd they even keep the title if they changed the ending like that? Worth a read if you're looking for something to get spooky with for October, especially if you like your horror with a large helping of scifi.
P.S. Be prepared for some of the author's thinly coded anti-Black anxiety, as well as plenty of misogyny. It *might* be self-aware if we're being generous, but the narrative is a little ambiguous as to whether we are meant to judge the protagonist for these things. I want to read more about the author....more
This is a great collection, and while the eponymous story (adapted as the film Arrival, and ultimately the reason I learned of the book) is probably tThis is a great collection, and while the eponymous story (adapted as the film Arrival, and ultimately the reason I learned of the book) is probably the strongest piece conceptually, thematically, emotionally, and narratively, almost every story in the book is worth reading, which is a rarity in my opinion. Chiang has a very unique style of speculative fiction showcased in several of these stories. Authors of sci fi and fantasy often place their stories in altogether different worlds, or in a theoretically possible future world, or in a version of our world in which the extraordinary is hidden from everyday experience. What Chiang did so well that felt novel to me (maybe because I don't read a lot of alternate histories), was pulling the extraordinary into what is recognizable as our world, as a fact of everyday life, and then bringing the result to life. In "Tower of Babylon," the sky is an actual ceiling to the ancient world, but the way it's described feels more fact than fable. In "Seventy-Two Letters," Victorian natural scientists understand a world that operates with fundamentally different principles of biology, during an industrial revolution powered by precisely engineered golems. In "Hell Is the Absence of God," Chiang imagines a world in which God is very literal and regularly, blatantly intervenes in the present day, coming across as part Lovecraftian monstrosity, part abusive parent. The stories often feel like a literary modern update of the Twilight Zone, with a tendency toward bleakness along the lines of Black Mirror, but with a less narrow focus on new technology. While there are some problematic takes in the book, especially his treatment of feminism and attractiveness in the story "Liking What You See," overall its a consistently compelling read....more
The world-building remains strong, the sci-fi and sociological elements are still solid, and the characters are just as developed in this third book. The world-building remains strong, the sci-fi and sociological elements are still solid, and the characters are just as developed in this third book. But with so many points of view, and with such a tenuous connection between them, the narrative feels less focused than the preceding novels. I'll keep reading if there's a fourth, though....more
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