Resurrected Review: Balance of Trade, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Steve Miller died unexpectedly this past February. He and his wife, Sharon Lee, collaborated on a great many novels and short stories, the vast majority of which were set in their Liaden universe. This series began in 1988 with Agent of Change, and the most recent book, Ribbon Dance, came out this past June. I read them regularly back in the '90s and 2000s, but wasn't able to keep up after awhile. But I found them quite enjoyable. I thought it might be worthwhile to resurrect a review I did back in 2004.

Resurrected Review: Balance of Trade, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

by Rich Horton

Balance of Trade is Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's latest Liaden novel (in 2004). It appeared originally from Melisa and Richard Michaels's Embiid Publishing in electronic form in 2003; and in print from Meisha Merlin in 2004. It is basically unrelated to the previous Liaden novels, which all concerned Clan Korval, famous for pilots. This book is expanded from an earlier Absolute Magnitude novella of the same title. It seems to be set some while prior to the Korval books.

Jethri Gobelyn is a young Terran, working on his family's trading spaceship. His rather distant mother, the captain, seems to resent him, perhaps because of memories of his dead father. She plans to send him to another not very attractive ship. Jethri is fascinated by the Liadens, and has begun to learn their language. He is also a promising trader. But he gets snookered by a con artist pretending to be dealing for a Liaden family, using a forged card. Jethri confronts the Liaden trader in question, and somehow manages to get himself apprenticed to Master Trader Norn ven'Deelin.

The rest of the novel turns on Jethri's learning of Liaden customs and rules, and his ability to develop his already growing trading skills in a Liaden environment. He is controversial to more traditional Liadens, who have no truck with Terrans. In addition, his father's dealing with "Old Tech" -- dangerous ancient technology now proscribed -- threaten to get him in trouble. And he meets some new cousins, twin girls, one of who is a powerful dramliza (sort of a wizard) -- also controversial to more traditional Liadens. Meanwhile, the rest of his family back on his home spaceship is threatened by renegade elements who may also be interested in Old Tech.

It's a pretty enjoyable novel. Perhaps it is just a bit too long, though I did enjoy myself the whole way. Perhaps there is not quite enough real conflict. I felt like there was a bigger story just waiting to get started. Still, it's a fun read, a fast read, perhaps best suited to readers already familiar with Liad (though perhaps not, as it is quite independent of the earlier stories). I can't help but feel that sequels are in the offing. [And, indeed, two more novels about Jethri Gobelyn have since appeared, Trade Secret in 2013 and Fair Trade in 2022.)

Review: The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang

Review: The Poppy War, by R. F. Kuang

by Rich Horton

The Poppy War was R. F. Kuang's first novel, from 2018. It was very successful, winning the Compton F. Crook Award for Best SF/F First Novel, and being shortlisted for the Nebula and World Fantasy awards. Kuang won the Astounding Award for Best New Writer in 2020. This novel and its two sequels are transparently set in a version of China, in a period roughly corresponding to 1930-1950. I am told that the main character is based on Mao Zedong, though I was not really able to recognize this in The Poppy War. (I am sure this becomes clearer in the sequels, The Dragon Republic and The Burning God.) 

The main viewpoint character is Rin, a war orphan living in Tikany, in a remote province of the Nikan Empire. She is essentially a slave of her adoptive parents, the Fangs, who are dealers in opium. But she decides to study for the exam -- in which a high finish will allow her to attend the university. Her goal is the academy in the capitol city, Sinegard, for which tuition is free -- and which trains students to be officers in the Empress's army. 

Naturally, Rin succeeds, and makes her way to Sinegard. There she struggles to fit in -- she is looked down on as a lower class provincial -- most of the other students are from wealthy aristocratic families. She does make one good friend -- Kitai, a brilliant student but less of a fighter. And she makes an enemy: Nezha, a handsome boy from a very highly placed family, and a legitimately talented martial artist. Rin proves an excellent student, of course, and she also attracts the attention of the enigmatic Jiang, the master of Lore. It turns out that Jiang's teachings concern learning to make contact with the Pantheon of gods -- who can grant "shamans" great power, at a great cost. And Rin also encounters Jiang's previous student (he takes students rarely) -- Altan Tensen, a recent graduate, who has become famous as perhaps the greatest martial artist the academy has seen in a long time. Tensen is a Speerly -- the last Speerly (or is he?), the only survivor of the brutal massacre of the inhabitants of that island during the previous Poppy War against Mugen. 

If the above has the flavor of cliché -- well, it really is a very familiar story: brilliant poor child comes to a (magic) school and is pretty much the bestest student of all, overcomes the jealousy and scorn of her higher class fellow students, studies with a powerful teacher, etc. etc etc. And while this was well enough done, and in particular Rin's lessons with Jiang were intriguing, I did find it a bit disappointing on the whole.

But then war intervenes, before Rin's class can even graduate. The Mugens invade again, and the entire faculty and class of the academy are thrust into action, in defense of Sinegard. This is a desperate affair, as the government and most of the populace are evacuated, and the loss of the city seems certain. But Rin discovers how to access her particular power, through the Speerly's Phoenix god, and Jiang too -- very reluctantly -- takes magical action, and, at an awful cost, the invaders are repelled. 

But of course, Mugen does not give up, and soon Rin, now assigned to the Cike, a special division of the army usually reserved for missions of assassination, ends up in the coastal city of Khurdalain, again trying to fend off the Mugens, who have far superior numbers. Her leader now is Altan Tensen, who turns out to be a brilliant tactician and a hard man to work for, and a man who is also struggling with the breadth and danger of his powers, and with an associated opium addiction (the poppy helps people get to the mental state to access the Pantheon.) Rin herself is struggling to access her powers consistently, and in a controllable fashion. But she, and Altan, and their fellows in the Cike, are severely tested by both rivalries with the rest of the Army, and with the Mugen invasion, which culminated with atrocities in both Khurdulain and the major city of Golyn Niis. In the end they resolve desperately to risk freeing the shamans who have gone mad and are imprisoned under a mountain. This leads to a terrible final resolution, in which Rin must confront the risks of using her own access to the gods, especially the Phoenix, and also the moral costs of answering the Mugen atrocities with further atrocities. This is by far the best part of the book -- the moral questions are powerful, the depiction of the horrors of war (particularly the aftermath of this world's version of the Rape of Nanjing) are truly wrenching, and the story really begins to sing -- or perhaps I should say keen. The climax is horrifying, though also a bit anticlimactic -- and the book ends somewhat weakly, in part because it is setting up for the sequel.

In summary -- I think this is a promising first novel, and a remarkable book to have been written by a teenager, but it's not quite a finished product. The prose is inconsistent, and another editing pass would have helped greatly. The pacing is irregular, and I feel that the first half or more of the book should have been significantly cut -- there is important information there, but also some routine and not terribly involving busy work. The characters are a bit thin -- even Altan and Rin, the major characters, don't really convince. But it certainly suggests a writer worth watching -- and I can report that for instance her 2022 novel, Babel, which won the Nebula Award, is far better written, and more original as well.

Old Bestseller Review: Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk, by Eleanor Farjeon

Review: Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk, by Eleanor Farjeon

a review by Rich Horton

This is the latest in the Furrowed Middlebrow series of reprints of worthwhile books by British women authors of roughly the the first half of the 20th Century, curated by Scott Thompson (of the excellent Furrowed Middlebrow blog) and published by Dean Street Press. The series was interrupted by the unexpected death of Dean Street's publisher, Rupert Heath, in 2023; but Rupert's sister Victoria Eade has taken over, and a new Furrowed Middlebrow book has at last appeared.

Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) was a very popular children's author with a career stretching from the turn of the century to about 1959, and including children's stories, biographies, poetry, at least one libretto for an opera by her composer brother Harry Farjeon, memoirs, and a few novels for adults. Scott Thompason chose for reprint the novel at hand, Miss Granby's Secret; or, The Bastard of Pinsk. Though it was reasonably well-received on its release in 1940, it seemed to have been all but forgotten and had been out of print for years. (Scott suggests that her other adult novels are less successful.) Her best known children's novels seem to be a pair about a troubadour: Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (1921) and Martin Pippin in the Daisy Field (1937). She is also remembered for writing the lyrics to the hymn "Morning Has Broken", and there is a children's book award named for her. For all that, I had only a vague memory of encountering her name, and I'd never read any of her books.

This novel is curiously structured, as, essentially, a novel within a novel. Pamela Lang, the narrator of the frame, is the great-niece of Adelaide Granby, who had been a very popular writer of salacious romances over the latter half of the 19th Century. Aunt Addie, as Pamela calls her, is dying, in 1912, at the age of 79. She has written 49 novels and confesses that she wanted to write a 50th, but didn't get to finish it. Pamela is bequeathed her papers (and some money -- Miss Granby's novels have made her very wealthy and, as a spinster, she is very generous with bequests to a variety of people.) With the help of some letters and Miss Granby's diary, she learns that at the age of 16, Adelaide had fallen in love with a boy of about her age who was helping her with penmanship and her father with his book catalogue. Her father intends her to marry someone of a more appropriate class -- but Addie rebels, and continues dallying with the boy, Stanislaw, until her father catches them in flagrante delicto, as it were. Stanislaw is banished, but Addie refuses to marry anyone, and stays faithful to Stanislaw her entire life; turning her romantic energies to her novels.

Another thing found in Aunt Addie's papers is her first novel -- written when she was 16, not long after her love affair. Naturally, Pamela reads it, and this novel is reproduced in full in this book. It's the story of three beautiful daughters of a wicked great uncle, triplets, who have been raised in seclusion. At the age of 16 they notice a handsome young man riding by their great uncle's estate on a magnificent horse, and they attract his attention. As such things go, one day he falls from his horse and they must bring him in to their house and nurse him. Naturally, they all three fall in love with him, and he with each of them. But things are complicated by their dragonish governess, whose back story we learn -- a career as a courtesan to many men, beginning with the triplets' wicked great uncle. And of course their handsome visitor -- named Stanislaw -- turns out to have a mysterious past, and a beautiful sister who has herself been compromised, leaving her with a young child. And then enter the three boorish men their uncle has decided will be their husbands -- in order to get him out of debt ... 

It's rather intricately plotted, involving hints of incest, polyamory, hidden marriages, bastards, sinister servants, and more. It's also preceded by a set of definitions, revealing that the author, Adelaide Granby, didn't really know the meaning of terms like bastard and lecher, nor did she have any hint of the facts of life.

All this is funny for a while, but I confess it drags a bit over time. The novel does resolve, in an absurd but satisfying enough fashion. Pamela Lang, in 1912, decides it is too silly for publication -- Aunt Addie's desired Golden Jubilee novel will, after all, never see print. Fast forward a couple of decades -- Pamela, a young Fabian in 1912, has taken advantage of the new opportunities open to women and become a dentist. Some chance encounters remind her of Aunt Addie's past -- especially the revelation of the real identity of her lover Stanislaw, and the discovery of a lost part of her Aunt's diary. And in the end we learn just a bit more of her Aunt's romantic past, and of what really happened between her and Stanislaw. All this ties in with Pamela's life choices, and with those of some of the women she encounters -- her own maid, and a nurse (one of Addie's bequestees) who cares for Addie's old lover as he is dying -- and the story, rather movingly, becomes a sort of meditation on the changing fortunes of women over the previous several decades.

It's not a wholly successful novel, to my mind. The conceit is wonderful, and the eventual working out is effective, but the novel within a novel wears out its welcome and some of the jokes become a bit over-labored. Still, it's a fine book, and it's pleasant to see it back in print. 

Review: Invisible Things, by Mat Johnson

Review: Invisible Things, by Mat Johnson

by Rich Horton

Invisible Things is a 2022 novel from Mat Johnson. It was published by the One World imprint of Random House, and as far as I can tell marketed to the mainstream. But it's a true quill SF novel, though certainly one directly addressing contemporary social issues, with a sharp satirical slant -- so one that I would think does appeal to non SF readers. (Johnson's first novel, Pym (2011) is also SF, an odd sequel of sorts to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.) The question is -- did the SF world notice this novel? And will SF readers read it the same way?

I don't recall a lot of coverage of Invisible Things in SF sources, but I could easily have missed it. Will SF readers like it? I think they should, and many will, but it does raise thoughts about SF reading protocols and SF readers' expectation. The book is about a trip to Jupiter's moon Europa, and an impossible city that is found there: a domed city (or county), with what must be artificial gravity (and other super high tech), in which live a million or so people in an environment and social system strongly resembling a contemporary American city. This poses questions: who made the city? how is it maintained? where do the residents come from? why does it exist? SF readers, I think, will want answers to all those questions -- and the book does provide some answers, but not all of them. SF readers may also have plot expectations that will mostly (though not entirely) be frustrated. Having said that, I was reminded, to one degree or another, of some of Philip K. Dick's novels (particularly Time Out of Joint) and even of Frederik Pohl's great novella "The Gold at the Starbow's End" -- so this does fit a template of some successful SF. And there is no question that Johnson knows SF, and takes it seriously, and while the book can't be called rigorously "hard" SF, it is as plausible as it needs to be, giving just the right level of detail. I should add, lest the following seem labored, that above all this novel is funny -- funny with a determined satirical point, but funny it is.

The story primarily follows two viewpoint characters. One is Nalini Jackson, a Black post-doc in Applied Sociology, who is accompanying the crew of the Delany, a spaceship exploring the Jupiter system. Her goal is to study the relational dynamics of the crew, to see how they are affected by a long trip in confined quarters. But her job (already fraught) is upended when they discover the anomalous city on Europa, and then are suddenly transported to the city, called New Roanoake, with apparently no choice but to stay there for the rest of their lives. The other main character is Chase Eubanks, a limousine driver in New Mexico, who has become part of the Allies of Alien Abductees after his wife mysteriously disappeared a few years before. He works for a rich old man who suddenly takes an interest in his alien abduction obsession -- and Chase learns that NASA has investigated the disappearance of the Delany crew with unmanned spacecraft, and has managed to get detailed photographs of the interior of the dome on Europa -- and one of the residents of the city is Chase's lost wife, Ada Hibiscus Sanchez. Soon Harry, Chase, a UN representative, and an Admiral working for NASA are on their way to Europa, in a ship called the Ursula, planning to learn more about this mysterious city, and to rescue the astronauts, and hopefully also some of the presumably abducted residents. 

In New Roanoake, Nalini and her fellows are struggling to adapt to their fates. Nalini is planning to use her sociological skills to analyze the society of New Roanoake, which seems only too closely to mirror contemporary American society, with its class and racial issues, and also with a lot of the same technology (and the same chain restaurants!) The other Black member of the crew, Dwayne Causwell, has joined a revolutionary party, the Party of the People. The captain of the Delany, Bob Seaford, has insinuated himself into the power structure of the city, which is dominated by the Founders' Party, which seems primarily focused on retain the privileges of people born in the city instead of abducted from Earth -- or "collected" as the locals prefer to call it -- including the descendants of Virginia Dare and other people presumably abducted from the original Lost Colony, Roanoake. Nalini's sometime lover, Ahmed, is just going along to get along, finding a job working for a TV station. And Ada Sanchez, now calling herself Hibiscus, is making ends meet as a typical lower class resident.

The arrival of the Ursula threatens to wholly upset New Roanoake. Admiral Ethel Dodson announces her intention to set up a facility to manufacture more spaceships to take the residents of the city home. The UN representative talks about exchanging technology with the city -- especially the tech involved in maintaining it. And Chase -- Chase just wants to find Ada (Hibiscus.) But we soon realize that there are very strange things going on -- Invisible Things, which it is taboo to mention, that occasionally snatch people and either disappear them or prominently mess with them. The resolution turns on the collision of the plans and desires of a whole range of people: Chase's desire to be with Hibiscus, Hibiscus' relative happiness with New Roanoake, Bob and his fellows in the Founders' Party desire to hold on to power and privilege by any means, Dwayne's need to see justice in the city, Nalini and Ethel's desire to go home to Earth, and the various conflicting and sometimes contradictory urges of the entire population of New Roanoake. Not to mention whatever unknowable desires the Invisible Things may or may not have.

As I said above, this book is very very funny. It is so in a satirical way, and no character is spared the knife. And, yes, the satire is in service of pointed commentary on our society, on voting rights, economic privilege, other class divisions, media, and human nature. The main characters -- Chase and Nalini -- are depicted deeply and convincingly. Most of the rest are a bit flatter, and give the impression of existing to make a point more than to be real -- but that's a feature of a lot of satire. And some of these characters are a delight -- such as Deputy Vice Party Chairman Brett Cole, generally only to be addressed by his full title.

Recommended.

Review: Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter, by Ellen MacGregor

Review: Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter, by Ellen MacGregor

by Rich Horton

One of the juvenile SF-adjacent writers I missed during my formative years was Ellen MacGregor. She was the originator of the Miss Pickerell series of books, involving an elderly spinster having adventures, occasionally involving clearly science fictional concepts, as with the first of the series, Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars. These were evidently important to a number of readers as a gateway to SF -- Harry Turtledove is apparently one example. But I never saw them.

Ellen MacGregor was a librarian. born in Washington state in 1906. She got her Bachelor's degree from the University of Washington in 1926, and got her Masters from the University of California at Berkeley. She had librarian and research positions in multiple places -- Hawaii, Key West, and the Chicago area, which seems to have been her primary residence. She didn't start writing fiction until 1946. Her first book, Tommy and the Telephone, appeared in 1947. The first Miss Pickerell book, Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars, began as a short story, "Swept Her Into Space", published in Liberty in 1950, but appeared in book form in 1951. Two more Miss Pickerell books came out in 1953, but MacGregor died, only 47, in 1954. She had finished Miss Pickerell Goes to the Arctic and it appeared later in 1954. Three more non-Pickerell novels, presumably found in her papers, appeared in the next three years. A decade or so after her death, her publisher engaged Dora Pantell to write more books about Miss Pickerell, beginning with Miss Pickerell on the Moon in 1965. Pantell wrote a total of 13 Miss Pickerell books, the last appearing in 1986. The first 11 of these were published as by "Ellen MacGregor and Dora Pantell", and the last two by Dora Pantell "in the spirit of Ellen MacGregor", but it seems likely to me that all of these books were entirely written by Pantell, except just possibly for the first one or two. 

Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter is a very short book, around 13,000 words. It is illustrated nicely by Paul Galdone. In this book, Miss Pickerell and her nephews, and of course her cow, are headed to the state capitol for the state fair, and for the boys to see an Atomic Energy exhibit. Miss Pickerell will take her cow to a veterinarian for a routine checkup. Alas, however, the steamboat captain kicks her off the boat because of the cow, but not before mentioning that people are prospecting for uranium in the area. 

Miss Pickerell lets the boys continue to the exhibit, while she hopes to catch the train with her cow. But stuff intervenes -- her cow is kidnapped, the local sheriff gets the measles and insists on deputizing Miss Pickerell and assigning her the job of looking for the uranium, and Miss Pickerell misses her train. But she does recover her cow, and find out the truth behind the uranium search, and also learns what the sheriff really wants to do with his life. And the boys are fine, too!

It's not bad, but not special. Still, I think I'd have enjoyed it if I found it when I was 10 or so. Also very notable is the didactic side -- MacGregor definitely seemed to think her job was to educate young reader in science, and there are a lot of mini-lectures, about geology and radioactivity and such. I can't really recommend these books for adult readers, but they are amusing enough, and Miss Pickerell is a nice character.

Resurrected Review: King's Shield, by Sherwood Smith

Back in 2009 I wrote this shortish review of Sherwood Smith's novel King's Shield, the third in four novels from DAW about a man named Inda. These are part of a very extended series of series, if you will -- stories set in the same fantasy world, over millennia. Some of these are YA -- of which my favorite are a diptych called Crown Duel and Court Duel; and some are aimed at an adult audience, of which my favorite is the opening book in this series, called simply Inda. They are all enjoyable novels -- traditional secondary world fantasy, I suppose, but expertly done, and lots of fun.

King's Shield, the third novel in the Inda series, is essentially the story of the invasion of the seagoing Venn (they are Norselike, and indeed I believe explicitly descended from Norsemen who happened into the world of this book) into Iasca Leror, the home of Inda, and a generally warlike culture but not one much given to either magic use or sea travel. Inda has learned of the coming invasion and has returned home after years in exile during which he became known as a pirate though in fact he was instead a scourge of pirates. Inda's return is a gamble -- he could technically be imprisoned for breaking his exile -- but in fact his enemies have been ousted from the throne, and the new King is his childhood friend, Evred. Soon Evred makes Inda his warleader, and they plan resistance to the Venn invasion. And the story then tells how they fight off the Venn.

That doesn't in a sense seem like much story for a very long book (it's about 250,000 words). And indeed the book starts slowly -- but it gathers momentum and is very exciting and involving by the end. Part of this is simply that the action is shown in considerable detail, and from several points of view -- not just Inda's, but also Evred's, and a couple of Venn, and a couple of Inda's friends from his pirate days, and Evred's wife, and some other key women, and a band of children ... And besides that the action is complicated and involved. Indeed, though the battles are important, and the outcome of the war is important, the book is really most closely focussed on the characters. On Evred's hopeless attraction to the thoroughly heterosexual Inda. On Inda's friend Tau's search for a purpose in his life. On Inda's betrothed Tdor's reaction to Inda's Venn lover. And so on ... 

The book also examines the role of duty and loyalty in advancing a war good people know to be unjust. The use and misuse of magic in war is an issue. I've enjoyed this series immensely. That said, I think I would rank King's Shield only third of the three books to date -- partly this is due to its middle-bookness, and to the previous book featuring some really critical developments (such as Evred's ascent to the throne) that this book has little chance of topping. Also, as the series gets longer, there seems a temptation to linger on side issues -- to keep us up to date with characters we know -- so that for example this book features several essentially unnecessary chapters dealing with Inda's former shipmates, who are still sailing -- these are not uninteresting, and may prove important in the next book, but they have nothing to do with this book's plot. But for all that, the main point is that the Inda books continue to be some of the most fun fantasy reading I've had in years.

Review: The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar

Review: The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, by Sofia Samatar

by Rich Horton

This is a new novella, perhaps 23,000 words, from Sofia Samatar. It should go without saying that anything by Samatar is in the must-read category. This book certainly is. It's strange, dark, depressing but hopeful. Excellent work.

The story centers two characters, one a teenaged boy who has grown up in the Hold of a mining spaceship, the other a professor of the "Older Knowledge" at a school in the more privileged levels of that spaceship. We learn over time that the ship is part of a fleet of ships, in which live what seem to be the survivors of a ruined Earth. They maintain themselves by mining necessary material from what seem to be asteroids. 

The boy has some artistic talent, which brings him to the attention of the professor, who has him freed from the Hold, and from the chain that the people in the Hold always wear. She is the daughter of a man who was also brought up from the Hold to be educated, during a brief period when scholarships were offered to some Hold denizens. The professor has fought to reestablish the scholarships, and the boy is the first attempt at making this work.

The boy has a hard time adjusting to life on this new level. In particular, he misses a friend of his, called the Prophet, who preaches a religion (with Christian echoes) to the people down there. He has dreams, even visions, especially of some of the people in the Hold who were killed due to the negligence and cruelty of the Ship's leaders. The professor, too, has difficulty. She has to spend time helping the boy catch up with his studies, which affects her own work. And it becomes clear that her status in her school, in her whole society, is fraught, due, clearly, to her father's origins. And, too, we realize that she, and the boy, and other people in her orbit, called the Ankleted, are in a sense in chains as well -- an electronic device around their ankles, which helps them communicate with others, turns out to have additional uses.

The book, then, slowly reveals a truly awful and hypocritical society. The professor's treatment by her colleagues, at the same time a satirical depiction of academic politics and a searing depiction of class prejudices, is dreadful. The boy is treated as a sort of pet, though his innocence allows him to overcome this in the way the professor really can't. The story finally turns on the boy's realization of some unexpected abilities, and a reunion with the the Prophet, and an attempt to rescue the Prophet's daughter. The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, is presented as SF, but it's more a sort of parable, and a dark commentary on class and power hierarchies in our world. It's an effective and powerful story.