Review: Alibi, by Sharon Shinn

Review: Alibi, by Sharon Shinn

by Rich Horton

Sharon Shinn's new novel, Alibi, features, as it says right on the cover, "Romance. Teleportation. Murder."  I confess I had thought of Shinn as mostly a fantasy writer. (I've read her novel General Winston's Daughter, which I quite enjoyed, and I have a couple of her Elemental Blessings novels on my TBR pile, and those are all fantasy.) But this book is nearish future science fiction, and quite effectively so. The words above suggests it's at once a romance novel, a murder mystery, and SF -- and that's fair enough, but I think the SF part dominates. (Well, and the character interactions -- not just the love story but an extensive network of family, friends, students, etc.) 

The novel was published in November 2024, by Fairwood Press. I bought my copy at World Fantasy this year, and was able to have Sharon Shinn sign it for me. (Sharon and I both live in St. Louis, and we have known each other for some time, and indeed we both did a writing workshop for philosophers at Saint Louis University a couple of years ago.)

The book is set some decades in the future. The main novum is teleportation -- the whole world seems connected by an enormous network of teleportation booths. Air travel is as far as I can tell nonexistent (perhaps there are cargo flight?) and the airports have become hubs for longer distance teleportation, but the cities are webbed with booths as well, and sufficiently wealthy people might even have booths in their homes. And, very skillfully presented in the background, there is a good deal of subtle speculation about just how this technology changes people's lives.

The first person narrator is Taylor Kendall, a thirty-something native of Chicago who now teaches at a private school in Houston. She lives in Houston and teaches in person there, but because of the teleportation, she can keep in constant touch with her best friend in Atlanta, and her family in Chicago. After a brief prologue establishing that there will be a murder, and that Taylor will be a suspect, we go back a few months, when Taylor is offered a job as a private tutor to the 19 year old son of Duncan Phillips, an extremely rich man who lives in Chicago. Taylor takes the job, and begins to teach Quentin Phillips, and quickly comes to like him. The kicker is that he suffers from a degenerative disease, and isn't expected to live much more than five more years. But he's an eager and engaging boy, and Taylor becomes very invested in his life.

Quentin's father is mostly absent, and so Taylor's interactions are with his staff -- Francis, the steward, Bram, the head of security, and Dennis, Quentin's physical therapist. It is quickly clear that all three men love Quentin and hate his father. Soon Taylor becomes part of sort of a circle of protectors of Quentin -- and when she meets Duncan Phillips, she realizes why the others hate him -- and also realizes that he is particularly dangerous, and creepy, to women. 

The novel then follows Taylor's tutoring of Quentin, her interactions with the three men on Duncan's staff (especially Bram, as sparks quickly fly between he and Taylor -- different people but both wary of relationships after unsuccessful marriages); her professional life as an English teacher (with some crises involving her students,) and her social life, centered on her friend Marika, her brother Jason, and his friend Domenic. All this is in a way mundane, but it's very enjoyable, and all along we get glimpses both of the teleportation-affected society, and of Quentin's prospects and how they are affected by his distant father. There are romances for a few of the characters, and hints of hope for Quentin's future.

And then, surprisingly late in the novel for a murder mystery, the murder happens. And from there things rush towards a conclusion. There is some nice misdirection about the killer, with of course teleportation involved in providing -- or removing -- alibis for the characters; and an exciting (if just slightly convenient) resolution, with a surprising (but not unfair) solution to the mystery.

I really enjoyed Alibi. It's fair to say that the opening is a bit of a slow burn -- but appropriately so -- and before long, even while in a curious way little happens but ordinary (future) life, the novel becomes quite absorbing. We root for the characters, we care about them, and we believe their interactions. And the conclusion is quite satisfying.

My picks for the most iconic SF/F novels of the 21st Century so far

My picks for the most iconic SF/F novels of the 21st Century so far

by Rich Horton

A few weeks ago Reactor published a list, or several lists, called "The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century", based on a survey they did of their "favorite writers" and their staff. These were in numerous categories -- anthologies, collections, translated work, comics/manga, and then one list for books period. A bit later, Jo Walton (who I assume qualifies as both one of Reactor's favorite writers and part of their staff!) did an essay on her process in selecting her choices, "On Selecting the Top Ten Genre Books of the First Quarter of the Century", also dividing them into categories, in her case Fantasy, SF, Series, YA, and novellas. And I added a brief comment to her post, and she said, well, my don't I just make my own list. So I have.

I must note that I have missed a lot of novels in the past quarter century, partly because I was concentrating so heavily on short fiction. And I'd love to hear from people about novels they think belong there that I missed. I'll add another comment -- a couple of novels on the list are there more for their "iconic" status than their success as novels (though none are bad!) So -- The Ministry for the Future is in my opinion really important -- but it's not fully successful as a novel (though it is always interesting, and brimming with ideas.) Likewise, The Three-Body Problem is interesting and original, though it has diminished in my mind since first reading it, but its status as sort of introducing Chinese SF to the Western world seemed to merit its inclusion. Also, with one exception (Susanna Clarke's two novels, because they are both so very good and quite different from each other) I limited selections to one book per author.

I'm just going to list Sf novels, Fantasy novels, and a few additional outliers and "just missed" books. I already did a very roughly comparable list of short fiction, so I won't touch that. The adjective Reactor used was "Iconic", which I take to mean not exactly the same thing as "Best" -- to, in my interpretation lean a bit towards the most influential, memorable, or important books, however you define that. I'll lean a bit that way, but mostly my list will be the books I thought the best. I'm looking for ten of each, but I couldn't help myself and there are eleven. I'm putting them in chronological order.

Fantasy

2003: Kalpa Imperial, by Angelica Gorodischer

2004: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

2008: Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin

2009: The City and the City, by China Miéville

2013: A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar

2014: The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

2015: The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin

2017: Spoonbenders, by Daryl Gregory

2017: Ka, by John Crowley

2020: Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

2022: Babel, by R. F. Kuang

Science Fiction

2004: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

2005: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson

2006: Blindsight, by Peter Watts

2006: The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu

2007: The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon

2014: Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

2016: Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee

2016: Everfair, by Nisi Shawl

2020: The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson

2022: The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler

2023: Orbital, by Samantha Harvey

Others:

I left two of the best novels out because I couldn't quite argue that they were SF or Fantasy. These are Nicola Griffith's Hild, an utterly absorbing historical novel which is surely Fantasy-adjacent; and Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, a searing contemporary novel which is profoundly SF-adjacent. . 

For sheer influence, you can argue for any of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire volumes -- perhaps the most recent, A Dance With Dragons (2011), would be a good exemplar. These have had the greatest penetration into the conciousness of the general public, which in itself makes them influential. On the SF side, Andy Weir's The Martian and James S. A. Covey's Expanse series have has similar exposure. In all three cases, of course, TV or Movie adaptations were key. 

I will note that several of the novels I mention were published in the mainstream, whether by writers from within the genre to some extent (Clarke, Gregory, Crowley, Miéville, Fowler) or by writers who sometimes don't know they're doing SF (Harvey) or who do know that very well even though they made their bones writing contemporary fiction (Chabon, Mitchell.) And, really, the border is ever thinner, as evidence by a writer like R. F. Kuang making a big splash this year with her contemporary novel Yellowface.

Here are some that just missed:

Among Others, by Jo Walton

Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss

Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer

The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

Learning the World, by Ken MacLeod

Embassytown and Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville

Brasyl and The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald

Accelerando, by Charles Stross

The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Bone Clocks and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell (the second of those is actually my favorite Mitchell novel, but it's just barely genre)

Bones of the Earth, by Michael Swanwick

The Peripheral, by William Gibson

The Unraveling, by Benjamin Rosenbaum

The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer

Review: Strange Stars, by Jason Heller

Review: Strange Stars, by Jason Heller

by Rich Horton

Strange Stars is a history of science fiction themed rock music throughout the 1970s. It is Jason Heller's thesis that, with a few outliers in the previous couple of decades, popular music (in this case specifically rock music) with themes and injury began in 1970. To be more specific, he ties it to the landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, and to the nearly simultaneous release of David Bowie's song "Space Oddity". To some extent this choice seems personal to Heller -- he admits to being a major fan of David Bowie's work -- but I think it holds up pretty well anyway. The book then goes year by year through the decade, highlighting major and obscure bands and records with songs based in some sense on science fiction. (Heller largely excludes fantasy from his remit.

There are a few bands and artists that he follows in depth -- considering them prolific, influential, and effective in using science fiction-inspired tropes, characters, and musical styles in their music. David Bowie is one, of course -- and certainly he qualifies in spades, with such albums as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Diamond Dogs. Paul Kantner specifically, and his bands Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship as well, are important contributors -- most notably with Kantner's Blows Against the Empire, which was for many years the only musical work to receive a Hugo nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation. Hawkwind, of course, is treated extensively -- their entire corpus is SF-influenced, from an early album like In Search of Space forward. Their association with Michael Moorcock is highlighted, and, later in the decade, Moorcock's association with Blue Öyster Cult is also treated at length. 

The great jazz musician Sun Ra is given a lot of play, even though most of his work was instrumental, and Heller also emphasizes his influence on Afrofuturism. George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, and their interlinked bands Parliament and Funkadelic are a huge part of Heller's narrative, and their music is certainly explicitly SFnal and very influential. Kraftwerk and the entire "Krautrock" scene are an important thread, including discussion of one of my wife's favorite records, Nektar's Remember the Future. Prog Rock, of course, is featured prominently. Obviously Yes gets a lot of discussion, as well as ELP and Pink Floyd. Alan Parsons Project is briefly mentioned for I Robot. Queen is discussed -- with a lot of emphasis on Brian May's Astrophysics study. Rush, and especially 2112, is part of the story. Devo is given a major place, slightly to my surprise, but Heller demonstrated that it makes a lot of sense. About the time Star Wars comes out, Heller discusses disco -- there was more SF in disco than I, at least, ever thought. His focus is Domenico Monardo, who, as Meco, made the album Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk. Towards the end of the decade there is a discussion of Joy Division -- a band I greatly admire -- though eventually their SFnal contribution seems minor to me, perhaps because of Ian Curtis' tragically early suicide.

There are also, of course, references to a lot of less obvious figures: Mark Bolan and T-Rex, X-Ray Spex, Magma, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Alex Harvey, Amon Düül, Splendor. Major artists who did only a bit of SF-influenced work include Jimi Hendrix (a known SF fan) is mentioned in the prelude about the 1960s. Elton John; Blondie; Earth, Wind and Fire; Marvin Gaye; the MC5; the Jackson Five; Brian Eno; King Crimson; Steve Miller; Neil Young; and many more get a nod. 

Heller also interleaves the way science fiction was permeating pop culture in other ways, most obviously movies, with Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind getting the most attention, plus the Bowie vehicle The Man Who Fell to Earth. The science fictional imagery on album art is discussed, include the "guitar spaceships" on the covers of Boston albums, which otherwise didn't really have SF content. Heller also namedrops a great many authors who were influences on these musical artists -- often explicitly acknowledged by the artists, sometimes assumed so by Heller: George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Samuel R. Delany, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip José Farmer, Isaac Asimov, and more. (I had not realized that Delany's Fall of the Towers was part of the genesis of 2112!) The book includes a number of footnotes and a useful discography.

I would just have a few quibbles. Some are personal (I still have a hard time with the term Sci Fi), some are trivial (Philip José Farmer's Night of Light, a novel that Hendrix was reading around the time of composing "Purple Haze", is from 1966, not 1957, though one of the stories that became part of the novel, "The Night of Light", was published in that earlier year), some are matters of interpretation -- I think Heller occasionally reaches a bit in labeling songs science fictional. I admit I did wish that after crediting Paul Kantner for his giving credit to some of his inspirations, he'd have mentioned his failure to credit Mark Clifton after he swiped the "Hide Hide Witch" lyrics for his song "Mau Mau (Amerikon)". His knowledge of the music of the '70 is amazing and deep -- far deeper than mine -- and about the only plausible omission that comes to mind if Jackson Browne's "Before the Deluge". But none of these quibbles are at all fatal, and Strange Stars is a convincing portrayal of the growth of rock music featuring science fiction themes in the 1970s -- and I learned a lot about many artists I had no knowledge of. 

Old Bestseller Review: The Belovéd Vagabond, by William J. Locke

Old Bestseller Review: The Belovéd Vagabond, by William J. Locke

by Rich Horton

William J. Locke (1863-1930) was a quite popular writer of the early 20th Century. His first novel appeared in 1894, but his best known novels are all from the 20th Century, and he continued publishing until his death. He was born in British Guiana (now Guyana), moved to Trinidad shortly later, and was sent to England for his education at a very young age. His best known novels are the two I've read: this one, and The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne (reviewed here). (I should add that at least five on his novels were among the top ten bestsellers of the year, according to Publishers' Weekly -- but not those two!)  Many of his stories have been filmed, notably including Stella Maris, a 1918 silent starring Mary Pickford, and Ladies in Lavender, a 2004 movie starring Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. The Belovéd Vagabond itself was filmed at least twice, a silent verison in 1923, and a musical in 1936, a somewhat faithful adaptation (but perhaps not very good) starring Maurice Chevalier (Cary Grant having turned down the role) and Margaret Lockwood (proof that one aspect of one character's appearance was entirely altered!)

My copy of this novel is an A. L. Burt edition -- Burt was a reprint publisher, sort of the mass market paperback equivalent of its time. The book was originally published in 1906 by John Lane. (A. L. Burt often used the original plates, acquired from the original publisher. I'm not sure if that's the case here.)

The Belovéd Vagabond is narrated by Asticot Pradel, who was born Augustus Smith to a London washerwoman, but adopted and renamed at the age of 10 or so by a man he calls Paragot. Paragot -- the vagabond of the title -- is a strange man, given to philosophical expostulation, to heavy drinking, and to lots of reading. As the novel opens he is the main attraction at a London drinking establishment, but when that changes hands, he and Asticot head to France, and wander for a while. Asticot has learned that there is a secret tragedy in Paragot's past, involving a beautiful woman named Joanna. 

Eventually Paragot finds himself replacing the suddenly deceased violinist in a duet who played at weddings and suchlike. One of Paragot's hidden talents is for the violin, and as a result, his little group is a success, and he more or less adopts the zither player, a young woman named Blanquette, and along the way also a mongrel dog, while he makes Asticot play the tambourine, though the boy's only real talent is art. But this leads to an engagement in Aix Le Bains, and an unexpected encounter with Joanna, who is now the Comtesse de Verneuil, married to a repulsive French nobleman. Paragot wants no contact with the couple, but Asticot makes Joanna's acquaintance, and in an adolescent way becomes infatuated.

Soon Paragot's ménage proceeds to Paris, with Blanquette acting as housekeeper, Paragot taking up again a position as philosopher-in-residence at a drinking establishment, and Asticot getting some formal training as an artist, and beginning to make a bit of a name for himself. (This is later established as roughly the time of the emergence of Impressionism, the mid-1870s, though Asticot is not an Impressionist. And there was an earlier reference to La Bohème, from the mid-1890s, and also to the 1880 popular song "Funiculì, Funiculà",so perhaps Locke just didn't care about the precise time frame.) And all are fairly happy -- until Asticot encounters Joanna again, and she begs him to have Paragot meet her. There are, of course, secrets about Joanna and Paragot (or Gaston de Nérac, as she knew him) which come clear, and revelations about her husband, and the lives of everyone are again upended. But -- what is really best for all the people involved? The conclusion is honest as to admitting to the real nature of the characters, and what would work for them.

It's an enjoyable novel. For me, after reading this book, and The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne, I'd class Locke as one of those writers of whom one can say one sees why they were popular, and admires them for that, without necessarily believing they need, nor will ever get, a revival of any sort. Locke wrote pretty well, and told engaging stories. Having said that -- the stories are a bit implausible, and the characters are not exactly wholly believable -- they are not two-dimensional, exactly, but more 2.5 dimensional than three. The plot is likewise a tad implausible. But if you see a William J. Locke novel in an antique store or something, and if you like old books -- his books will probably work for you.

Review: Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

Review: Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

by Rich Horton

By mistake I read Framley Parsonage, the fourth of Anthony Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, before reading the third, Doctor Thorne. This isn't really a big deal, though Doctor Thorne, as well as his niece Mary, and Frank Gresham, the main characters in Doctor Thorne, do have small roles in Framley Parsonage, so I knew how the earlier novel would end. But, really that doesn't matter in a Trollope novel. At the end of this review I'll discuss some of Trollope's schemes, and why they both make him so fun to read, but also are the reason that, great as he is, he's not quite at the level of Dickens or Eliot. As with Framley Parsonage, I listed to this book via Audible, and with the same narrator, Timothy West, who does a fine job.

Class of course was a major aspect of Victorian novels -- always present if not necessarily centered. In Doctor Thorne is it absolutely -- and overtly -- central. The other Barsetshire novels I've read were a bit more about church politics (The Warden and Barchester Towers) and about financial maneuvering and electoral politics (Framley Parsonage.) Can You Forgive Her, the only Palliser (or Parliamentary) novel I've read is about electoral politics but also about romance. The latter subject is of course a thread in all these novels, but not quite as central. And indeed, in Doctor Thorne, while the romance between the two main younger characters is key, it is never questioned really. That is to say, in Can You Forgive Her the main character (the Her of the title) is truly torn between two quite different men, but in Doctor Thorne the only question is whether or not Frank Gresham can marry Mary Thorne -- but never whether or not he loves her and she him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Which is okay, because Trollope does too -- at any rate, he tells us early on that he is too kindhearted a writer, so that the reader can trust that our young hero won't die of a broken heart. So -- as mentioned the chief young characters are Frank Gresham and Mary Thorne. Frank is the son of the squire of Greshamsbury, Frank Gresham Sr. He is considered to be the highest ranked commoner in the county, and his wife, Lady Arabella, is a daughter of the Earl of Courcy -- the second highest ranked noble in the county, after the Duke of Omnium. Which is to say that the Greshams are a very good family -- but, unfortunately, Frank Sr. has gotten into serious financial difficulties, caused in part by his unwise attempts to regain a seat in Parliament, and also the expenses inherent in his role as Master of the local hunt, but also due to his wife's extravagance. The upshot of this financial peril is that his son must marry money. 

Mary Thorne, on the other hand, is the niece of the title character, Doctor Thorne. The Thornes are also a good family, but Doctor Thorne is only a second cousin of the head of the Thornes, Mr. Thorne of Ullathorne (whom many readers will have met as he and his sister were (somewhat comic) characters in Barchester Towers.) Doctor Thorne is not on good terms with his cousins, which only lowers his prestige. And his only income is from his profession -- but he is a very good doctor. Alas, that too is a problem of sorts, for his advanced ideas about the profession have offended the older Doctor Fillgrave (Trollope loved to give his minor characters punny names of that sort.) Doctor Fillgrave is clearly not a particularly good doctor, at least not compared to Doctor Thorne, but he does have a prestigious practice, and many powerful clients. At any rate, Doctor Thorne is a man of particular integrity, but a sometimes prickly character, and he is at the same time convinced that anyone's virtue is based on their own character, a rather republican view, while also extremely proud of his "good blood". And his niece, Mary Thorne, has "good blood", as she is the daughter of Doctor Thorne's brother Henry; but also "bad blood", as she is illegitimate, the result of her father seducing a local girl, daughter of a working man. It's made very clear that the girl is innocent, and Henry Thorne's character is terrible, but still, somehow in class-obsessed England, it is her "blood" that is base.

Doctor Thorne had arranged to adopt his niece after his brother was killed by the girl's brother, a certain Roger Scatcherd, a tremendously talented stonemason but also an alcoholic. Miss Scatcherd was married off to a man who had been sweet on her, but who won't tolerate raising a bastard child, and the couple emigrated to America. Mary Thorne, then, is brought up by the Doctor, who does not reveal the secret of her birth. He is a good parent to her, and she gets a good education, and is a frequent and (mostly) treasured guest at the Gresham's house. Meanwhile, Roger Scatcherd, Mary's other uncle, rises greatly in the world, becoming a very wealthly construction magnate, and even a Baronet. Alas, he is still an alcoholic, with one son who is also dissolute, and only one friend -- Doctor Thorne, who had forgiven him for the (apparently somewhat accidental) murder of Henry Thorne, and who had helped him re-establish his place after a short spell in prison.

Then comes the main action of the novel. Frank Jr. is coming of age. Frank Sr.'s money problems worsen, and his primary creditor is Sir Roger Scatcherd. Sir Roger runs for Parliament. Frank has realized he is in love with Mary Thorne, but his mother of course opposes any such match (because "Frank must marry money!" -- and indeed Mary, conscious of their difference in social standing, and of the financial issues, has refused to listen to Frank's suit. Frank is sent off to Courcy Castle with instructions to court a rich if somewhat older woman, the delightful Miss Dunstable (whom I already knew from her somewhat important role in Framley Parsonage.) Frank out of loyalty does pay court to Miss Dunstable, but she gently lets him down, and the two become great friends. Sir Roger is forced out of Parliament due to an election scandal, and his alcoholism worsens. He persuades Doctor Thorne to be executor of his will, and also to be a guardian for Roger's wild son -- Sir Roger hopes that Doctor Thorne can reform the young man.  And Doctor Thorne learns of a surprising clause in Sir Roger's will -- 

I won't detail the rest of the plot -- most readers can probably figure out where it's going. But the plot isn't what matters, it's the telling. As ever, Trollope's voice is delightfully engaging. There are some very funny passages, some satirical ones, some quite moving ones. And as I said, the book turns on questions of class. Money is important of course -- and money is the only thing that overcomes class questions. And always hypocritically. Characters like Lady Arabella, and the whole de Courcy family, are profoundly hypocritical. There are several examples of decidely low born individuals who are eagerly promoted as potential mates only due to money -- one of Frank's sisters has a narrow escape early on from what would have been a bad marriage that her mother promoted; and later on she rejects an eligible man because he works for his money -- and the most supercilious of the Courcys, having urged her to tell the man no, proceeds to marry him herself. But the hypocrisy, if less pronounced, extends even to Doctor Thorne. Thorne's pride in his family connections always rubs against his general republican sympathies; and even in his niece's case, while he defends her as having a better character than anyone else in the book (which is true in the author's eyes, I'd say) he still cannot quite see his way to her marrying a Gresham for a long time. There are reasons that class differences could have made marriages founder -- primarily differences in expectation due to how people have been brought up. But of course Mary does not have that problem, having been brought up almost in the Gresham family.

I found the novel immensely enjoyable. Trollope has yet to fail me. But I must say that the ending is a bit of a cheat. It is set up by a somewhat outlandish set of circumstances, maintained by even more outlandish circumstances -- and in the end I rather felt that Doctor Thorne acted in a slightly less than upright manner. But so be it -- we know what we are getting, and we accept that -- and enjoy the journey the whole way. This is what Trollope does -- which can be comforting, but which as I said above puts him, in my eyes, just a step below the true greats of his time -- the likes of Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot. Trollope arranges his plots just so -- often with implausibly convenient resolutions to nearly intractable problems. At the same time his plots are set up to help illustrate his social points -- and similarly his characters are devised in served of the points he wants to make. And this is fine, because his commentary on, and his novels' illustrations of, social and political conditions are fascinating. He remains utterly readable and enjoyable, and he's a writer one ought to read. Even if he never produced a Middlemarch!

Review: Doting, by Henry Green

Review: Doting, by Henry Green

by Rich Horton

I discovered Henry Green a couple of decades ago largely because he was a friend of Anthony Powell, one of my favorite writers. I tried his best-known novel, Loving, and liked it a good deal, but it took me a while to continue. A few years ago I read Party Going, and found it astonishing. I have been planning to continue with him for a while, and indeed I started in on Doting, his last novel from 1952, some time back, but then the book somehow disappeared. So this past weekend I made a disciplined search for it, and it turned up in one of the many crates I'd filled with books while we were remodeling during COVID. And I've finally read it. I'm linking to my review of Party Going, which includes much more detail about Henry Green, whose real name was Henry Yorke (1905-1972).

The novel, as with his second to last novel, Nothing (1950), is told almost entirely in dialogue. It opens with Arthur Middleton, his wife Diana, his son Peter, and Annabel Paynter, the daughter of friends, attending a dinner theater, sometime shortly after the war. Arthur and Diana are about 40, Annabel is 19 or so, and Peter about to turn 17, and just about to return to boarding school. The conversation covers the entertainment, the food and drinks, and such things as Annabel, to Peter's displeasure, visiting one the prefects at his school. We also notice Arthur leering a bit at Annabel (getting a glimpse of her breasts when she leans over, for example) ... and it's fairly clear Annabel doesn't mind.

And thus the whirl of the characters begin. Soon Arthur is asking Ann out for "friendly" lunches, and even dinners, and their conversations move in the direction of seduction. Arthur has a confidante -- his and Diana's longtime friend Charles, a widower. And Ann confides with her coworker Claire. Diana gets wind of Arthur's attentions to Annabel, and tries to put a stop to them, at the same time beginning to meet with Charles. It's hinted that the Middletons' marriage is sort of semi-open, but Diana has her limits of toleration -- and so does Arthur, once he senses that something might be going on between his wife and his good friend. Claire joins the carousel -- lunching with Arthur and then with Charles, and happily going to bed with Charles. Annabel and Claire both claim to be atracted to older men. Arthur and Diana maintain that they love each other still, and over time Arthur, a busy civil servant, seems more willing to put aside his work to spend time -- in bed and out -- with Diana. Claire is perhaps just looking for a good time, but Annabel seems to be angling for something more. Charles remains traumatizzed by his wife's death (in childbirth) and his raising his son alone, and seems unwilling to think of marriage. Peter, a minor character really, is clearly a bit too young to be part of all this ... and the novel comes to its conclusion after perhaps a year, with another dinner party as Peter prepares to go to school again the following yeaer.

Described that way the book seems almost a sex comedy, even farce -- but there is no actual adultery -- it seems that Claire and Charles sleep together, and Arthur and Diana, but that's all. There are teases throughout, and plenty of talk of sex, and marriage. There's also the implied background of the recent war. There's the shadow of postwar rationing, and of death. There's the question as to what a single woman should be looking to do with herself. There's a good deal of ambiguous dialogue -- of outright lies and lots of evasions, and coy flirting. We do learn some of the background of the characters. It's at one level a light-seeming novel -- amusing and fast-moving, natural but arch conversation, an erotic frisson (though no real sex scenes.) At another level it's -- not exactly sad but almost desperate. There is some happiness for the characters, but it seems thin, parlous. The war is over but the characters are not over it, is some of it; but, too, the men and women are, as ever, trying to learn how to be together. And, as Arthur tells Annabel: "Love must include adoration of course, but if you just dote on a girl you don’t necessarily go so far as to love her. Loving goes deeper." It's not entirely clear that anyone in this novel quite manages the deeper part.

SF Hall of Fame 1989-2018

Christopher Rowe wondered what might be in an "SF Hall of Fame" anthology going back a similar period that the original SF Hall of Fame covered in 1970 -- about 30 years, from a few years prior to that. And I decide to make my own list of stories that fits that specification. I posted it in a comment at Christopher's FB wall, but here's the same list, with some additional "just misses" added, for preservation at my own blog!

Best stories 1989-2018

Here's a list I put together today. I have lists of "short stories" (up to approximately 10,000 words) for a rough analog to the SF HOF Volume I, and novellas (10,000 to 40,000 or so) as a rough analog to Volumes IIA and IIB. I purposely slanted the list heavily to SF and not fantasy -- much as the first books were -- but there is some fantasy on these lists. I stuck to the 1989-2018 timeframe. I chose 30 short stories and 22 novellas -- just a bit more than the original books had. (So sue me!) If I did this tomorrow, the list might change by 1/3! ??

It was great fun putting this together, and especially choosing some somewhat forgotten stories that I think deserve more attention ("The Spade of Reason", "Sailing the Painted Ocean", "Three Days of Rain", "Sadness", "Milo and Sylvie" ...)

Short Stories

"Game Night at the Fox and Goose", by Karen Joy Fowler (1989)

"Bears Discover Fire", by Terry Bisson (1990)

"Buffalo", by John Kessel (1991)

"Another Story; or, The Fisherman of the Inland Sea", by Ursula K. Le Guin (1994)

"Think Like a Dinosaur", by James Patrick Kelly (1995)

"Wang's Carpets", by Greg Egan (1995)

"Starship Day", by Ian R. MacLeod (1995)

"The Lincoln Train", by Maureen McHugh (1995)

"The Spade of Reason", by Jim Cowan (1996)

"Gone", by John Crowley (1996)

"Get a Grip", by Paul Park (1997)

"Suicide Coast", by M. John Harrison (1999)

"Stellar Harvest", by Eleanor Arnason (1999)

"Scherzo With Tyrannosaur", by Michael Swanwick (1999)

"Sailing the Painted Ocean" by Denise Lee (1999)

"Lull" by Kelly Link (2002)

"The House Beyond Your Sky" by Benjamin Rosenbaum (2006)

"Eight Episodes", by Robert Reed (2006)

"Three Days of Rain" by Holly Phillips (2007)

"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang (2008)

"26 Monkeys, also the Abyss", by Kij Johnson (2008)

"Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain" by Yoon Ha Lee (2010)

"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees", by E. Lily Yu (2011)

"Sadness" by Timons Esaias (2014)

"Cimmeria: From the Journal of Imaginary Anthropology", by Theodora Goss (2014)

"Mutability" by Ray Nayler (2015)

"Red in Tooth and Cog" by Cat Rambo (2016)

"Everyone From Themis Sends Letters Home" by Genevieve Valentine (2016)

"Empty Planets" by Naomi Kanakia (2016)

"An Account of the Land of Witches" by Sofia Samatar (2017)

Novellas:

"Great Work of Time", by John Crowley (1989)

"Forgiveness Day", by Ursula K. Le Guin (1994)

"The Ziggurat", by Gene Wolfe (1995)

"The Flowers of Aulit Prison" by Nancy Kress (1996)

"Animae Celestes", by Gregory Feeley (1998)

"Story of Your Life", by Ted Chiang (1998)

"Dapple", by Eleanor Arnason (1999)

"New Light on the Drake Equation", by Ian R. MacLeod (2000)

"Milo and Sylvie", by Eliot Fintushel (2000)

"The Path of the Transgressor" by Tom Purdom (2003)

"The Voluntary State" by Christopher Rowe (2004)

"Magic for Beginners", by Kelly Link (2005)

"A Billion Eves", by Robert Reed (2006)

"Tenbrook of Mars" by Dean McLaughlin (2008)

"Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky (2009)

"The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand (2010)

"In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns" by Elizabeth Bear (2012)

"A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i" by Alaya Dawn Johnson (2014)

"Fifty Shades of Greys" by Steven Barnes (2016)

The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson (2016)

"And Then There Were (N-One)" by Sarah Pinsker (2017)

"Dayenu" by James Sallis (2018)

Stories that just missed, were too many by the same writer, or more fantastical than I wanted

"The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link

"The Sandal-Bride" by Genevieve Valentine

"Pip and the Fairies" by Theodora Goss

"A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong" by K.J. Parker

"Isabel of the Fall" by Ian R. MacLeod

"Journey Into the Kingdom" by M. Rickert

"Salt Wine" by Peter S. Beagle

"Another Word for Map is Faith" by Christopher Rowe

"The Small Door" by Holly Phillips

"The Tear" by Ian McDonald

"The Island" by Peter Watts

"A Letter from the Emperor" by Steve Rasnic Tem

"Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of her Glory" by Paul M. Berger

"Walking Stick Fires" by Anya Johanna de Niro

"The Bridge of Dreams" by Gregory Feeley

"Martyr's Gem" by C. S. E. Cooney

"Three Twilight Tales" by Jo Walton

"Aberration" by Genevieve Valentine

"Project Empathy" by Dominica Phetteplace

"Grace's Family" by James Patrick Kelly

"Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" by Fran Wilde

"Exclusion" by Daniel Abraham 

"More Adventures on Other Planets" by Michael Cassutt

"Stories for Men" by John Kessel

"Ten Bears; or, A Journey to the Weterings" by Henry Wessells

"The Empire of Ice Cream" by Jeffrey Ford

"Seven Guesses of the Heart" by M. John Harrison

"The Price of Oranges" by Nancy Kress

"Buddha Nostril Bird" by John Kessel

"Steelcollar Worker" by Vonda McIntyre

"Stairs" by Neal Barrett, Jr.

"Exogamy" by John Crowley

"Erase, Record, Play" by John M. Ford

A Few Stories from 2019 or later ...

"Green Glass: A Love Story" by E. Lily Yu

"Laws of Impermanence" by Ken Schneyer

"Crazy Beautiful" by Cat Rambo

"If the Martians Have Magic" by P. Djèlí Clark

"The White Road" by Kelly Link