Review: The Presidential Papers, plus ..., by John Kessel

Review: The Presidential Papers, plus ..., by John Kessel

by Rich Horton

John Kessel's new collection is the latest in the PM Press Outspoken Authors series of slim volumes by, in their words, "today's edgiest, most entertaining, and uncompromising writers". These books are all by writers of speculative fiction, and the originating editor was the late Terry Bisson. This book was presumably one of the last books Bisson edited, but the series will continue, under the aegis of Nick Mamatas.

In the interests of full disclosure, and because it has a mild effect on my response to the book, I'll note that I bought this at the most recent World Fantasy Convention, at which I had the opportunity for multiple enjoyable conversations with John Kessel, over breakfast, and over drinks. And of course John signed my copy. My response is also affected, however, by some of the more biographical material here -- addressed in a reprinted speech, and in the interview conducted by Bisson that's included in the book. In those, Kessel discusses his ambition, on entering college, to become an astrophysicist, and his realization that his talent really lay elsewhere -- in his case, on encountering tensor calculus. I had nearly the same experience at college -- I entered as a physics major with an astronomy minor, and on encountering complex analysis, and advanced quantum mechanics, I realized that a Ph.D. in Physics wasn't likely. Unlike John, I didn't get an English degree, but I did load up my electives with multiple classes in poetry and contemporary fiction (and science fiction!) which were profoundly rewarding. In addition, I share with John a Catholic upbringing, since lapsed, but still informing a certain part of my worldview.

I knew none of this, mind you, when I first read John's work back in the early '80s -- stories like "Not Responsible! Park it and Lock it!" (1981) and the remarkable "Another Orphan" (1982); and searing later stories like "The Pure Product" (1986) and "Mrs. Shummel Exits a Winner" (1988), which last became part of his first solo novel, the underrated Good News from Outer Space (1989). I've been following his work ever since -- three more strong novels (Corrupting Dr. Nice, The Moon and the Other, and Pride and Prometheus) and a lot of excellent short fiction.

The Presidential Papers, plus ... includes a range of stories from early in his career to now, as well as a transcript of a 2001 speech, and the above-mentioned interview. The stories are chosen to fit the title -- but that doesn't mean quality was in any sense sacrificed to theme. "A Clean Escape" is built around sessions between a military psychologist and her patient, but as we learn about the situation they are in, and the identity of the patient -- and his disease -- the title truly resonates and the story is profoundly chillling. "The Franchise" is somewhat famous for an odd reason -- it's an alternate history and part of its premise is that Fidel Castro becomes a Major League pitcher, and the same issue of Asimov's in which it appeared also featured "The Southpaw", a Bruce McAllister story with the same premise. Kessel's story follows an alternate 1959 World Series in which Castro, a great pitcher for the Giants, faces George H. W. Bush, a minor league callup for the Senators (of course!) I don't want to reveal the guts of the story, though in the end it's more interested (properly, I think) in US politics than Cuban politics.

"The President's Channel" (1998) appeared first in the Raleigh News and Observer, but I saw it in Science Fiction Age. It's an amusing story, but it doesn't have the impact of the rest of this book -- the idea is that the President is constantly on a sort of reality TV channel, and we see an ordinary man watching this channel as we also see his own life. "The Last American" is another searing story, told from the point of view of posthumans looking back at the 21st Century, via the reconstructed life of the last US President. It mixes in actually kind of cool (if frightening, it its way) speculation about future tech and humanity, with even more frightening -- and only too plausible -- speculation about 21st Century political trends. The last fictional piece, new to this volume, is "A Brief History of the War with Venus", in play form, as the President of the Solar Federation confronts the Ambassador from Venus from a decidedly losing position. It's a dark jape, and the resonances with a certain current politician are only too obvious. (I was also curiously reminded of Andre Maurois' "The War Against the Moon".)

The nonfiction is really fascinating to me. The speech, entitled "Imagining the Human Future: Up, Down, or Sideways", looks at novels by Olaf Stapledon, Vernor Vinge, and Bruce Sterling, all of them imagining a posthuman future. Kessel's point it to look at these futures, and the people in them, from a moral or ethical standpoint. Essentially, he asks, if we become posthuman, are our ethics different? And that's a crucial question to ask. The interview is delightful -- basically a look at John's life from his own perspective, and these are interesting (to me) in general, and the more so reading his thoughts a week or so after we were talking across a breakfast table.

I've made this a more personal review than normal, and I don't want to overstate that. I see John Kessel at various conventions, and we have good conversations. But we're not bosom buddies or anything. I can say, I think without prejudice, that that is a first rate book. It is what it is -- it's slim, it's thematically focused. But the stories here are strong work -- particularly, for me, "A Clean Escape" and "The Last American". The nonfiction is really nice. Highly recommended.

Review: Drive, by James Sallis

Review: Drive, by James Sallis

by Rich Horton

James Sallis, who will turn 80 in December, began publishing with stories in New Worlds and in Orbit in the late '60s. He was strongly associated with the New Wave (and was for a time a co-editor of New Worlds), and it would be fair to say that when Darrell Schweitzer complained about "non-functional word patterns", he likely would have placed some of Sallis' early stories in that category. I would have to admit that whatever of his stories I had read by 1976 or so didn't make an impression on me. But I have returned to his work over the past couple of decades, and many of these Orbit stories are striking and intriguing, and always well written, though, yes, sometimes difficult to comprehend. And there is nothing wrong with trying hard to do something truly new and sometimes failing! (And the Sallis stories from that era that I did understand (to a sufficient degree) are wonderful -- I review some of them here.)

Sallis never really stopped writing SF, and he published worthwhile stories in Asimov's and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet through the '90, and more recently has placed work in Clarkesworld, Interzone, and even Analog! And these stories are first rate -- in particular I recommend a long novelette, "Dayenu", from LCRW, that I had the honor to reprint in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2019 Edition. He also has written an on and off again book review column for F&SF since the turn of the millenium.

But I haven't mentioned any novels. And that's because when Sallis turned to longer fiction, he concentrated primarily on crime fiction. He developed quite a reputation in that field, particularly for his Lew Griffin series, though he published a number of standalone novels and one other trilogy. Some of this work was more experimental, mainstream or liminal, but the bulk was in the the crime field.

Drive (2005) is certainly a crime novel. It is sheer noir -- in no sense a mystery. There was eventually a sequel, Driven, from 2012, though I rather imagine Drive was conceived as a standalone. Drive was made into a fine movie in 2011, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan. The movie takes the main "heist gone bad" plotline from the novel, but leaves out the rest. Quite possibly that was the correct artistic choice for a film, but the novel is deeper for having additional threads.

Drive, the novel, is told in a non-linear fashion. The main character is just called "Driver", and it's not entirely clear whether that is actually his last name or just a reference to his job. (In the movie he's called The Driver, removing any ambiguity.) He works as a stuntman for low budget movies, and he is a remarkable driver. This leads eventually to a side gig as a getaway driver, though he cautions anyone who hires him that he doesn't do anything but drive -- no direct involvement in the actual crime.

The short, sharp, chapters go forward and backward in time. We see Driver's childhood, including an abusive father, and a mentally ill mother who ends up killing her husband in front of her son. We learn of his brief time with step-parents, then his move from Phoenix to LA, and his getting work as a stunt driver, then, his descent into the world of crime. He hooks up in a curious relationship with Irene, a woman living next door to him in one of the cheap apartments he rents, and when her husband, Standard, gets out of jail the relationship continues with Standard's consent. (I should say that there are no sex scenes in the book, and it's not entirely clear that Driver and Irene ever sleep together (though that's the way I'd bet.) It is clear that they are close, and that Driver also loves her son, Benicio.)

This is noir, so we kind of know what's going to happen -- but we know anyway because the first chapter in this non-linear narrative is set shortly after a heist that he and Standard were inveigled into goes south -- and as the book opens Driver is in a hotel room with three dead people -- another member of the heist team, a woman, who has been killed by the two dead men, who were supposed to retrieve the large bag of money that the woman had made off with. Driver, of course, killed the two hitmen, but he knows that he'll remain a marked man, as the two mobsters who set up the heist won't rest until they get their money back, and also kill anyone who knows about it. This narrative runs through the whole book, with, as I said, sections set in Driver's past, and also during the earlier days in New York of the two mobsters.

It's a perfectly executed piece of breakneck noir action. The novel is short (just over 30,000 words, I'd say). It's as violent as the reader expects. It's twisty and clever. The several men who have significant roles (the mobsters, a down on his luck doctor who treats Driver when he's injured, his mentor in the stunt business, and a younger driver who works with him, a friend he knows from the movie business, a couple more criminals with whom Driver is involved, and of course Driver himself) are economically and convincingly portrayed. (I should say that the only woman who comes into much focus at all is Driver's mother.) Driver is one of those criminals we root for -- because of his traumatic upbringing, because the other criminals all seem worse than him, because many of his actions seem forced on him.) He's also curiously complicated internally -- presenting an only partly true façade of an empty and emotionless man, but a devoted if eccentric reader, someone who likes good wine, and someone who is good to women and children.) It's a wickedly fast read, very entertaining. 

Review: Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy, by Rebecca West

Review: Harriet Hume: A London Fantasy, by Rebecca West

a review by Rich Horton

Harriet Hume was Rebecca West's third novel (of seven published in her lifetime.) It's a deliriously beautiful book, as strange as almost anything I've read, on one hand a character study of a corrupt man and an innocent woman, but not really like that at all. It seems to stand out of time -- it was published in 1929 and its action spans a couple of decades that aren't easily placed in our history. Its lovely prose also stands out of time in a sense. It is realistic in telling but fantastical as well, with mind-reading and ghosts and imaginary countries; and an almost phantasmagorical portrayal of London, and an oddly transcendent ending. It's a wonderful and mysterious book, and not for everyone, as a look at what reviews one can find will confirm. But I loved it.

Rebecca West was the pseudonym used by Cecily Isabel Fairfield for her professional life -- which is to say pretty much her entire life. She was an actor (she took the name "Rebecca West" from the heroine of Henrik Ibsen's play Rosmersholm), a journalist, novelist, travel writer, political activist. She was knighted ("damed"?) in 1959, and as far as I can tell, though technically she was Dame Cecily Fairfield she was called Dame Rebecca West. She was born in London in 1892, and died there in 1983. 

Her father was an Anglo-Irishman who had spent time in Australia and the US (he served as a stretcher bearer in the Confederate Army.) He was a respected journalist, but apparently terrible with money, and he abandoned his wife and three daughters in 1900, and died in 1906. Her mother (an accomplished pianist) moved with Cecily and her two elder sisters to Edinburgh. It was apparently a stimulating intellectual and political environment to grow up in. Her eldest sister became a doctor and barrister, and a niece was also a writer. Cecily and her sister Lettie were part of the women's suffrage movement. Cecily, as Rebecca West by then, became a journalist and literary critic (despite quitting school at age 15). She also entered into an affair with H. G. Wells (despite publishing a negative review of one of his novels) which lasted a decade and produced her only child, Anthony West. She published her first novel in 1918, and was married to Henry Andrews from 1930 until his death in 1968. She was very much a woman of the left, but also a staunch anti-Communist (a political combination I respect greatly.) She wrote several novels and many works of non-fiction, and is now best known for her massive study of Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. 

My copy of the novel is from The Dial Press in 1982, a US reprint of the 1980 Virago edition. (The Dial Press, for a time, reprinted a selection of the Virago Modern Classics for the US audience.) The book was first published by Hutchinson in the UK in 1929, and by Doubleday, Doran in the US that same year. Curiously, the US edition was originally subtitled "A London Phantasy". 

Harriet Hume opens with Harriet and her lover Arnold Condorex running down the stairs from her bedroom (where they had been making love) into the garden of Blennerhassett House, where Harriet has a couple of rooms. Harriet discovers that she can read Arnold's thoughts, first as he imagines the names of their future children. There is a nice interlude, walking in the garden, Harriet reading the newspaper in her special way (pages spread on the floor in deference to her poor eyesight), and Harriet telling a lovely fantastical story about the three trees in her garden -- which she claims are the three Dudley sisters immortalized in Joshua Reynolds' famous painting "The Three Graces Decorating a Statue of Hymen". (I should note that there are errors in Harriet's description -- whether these are purposeful errors illustrating Harriet's character, or mistakes by West, I'm not sure, though I suspect the former. At any rate, the painting is actually called "Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen", and the ladies depicted are the Montgomery sisters, not the Dudleys. Hymen is, significantly, the god of marriage.) Harriet's tale suggests that the three ladies had, as infants, become literally attached to a garland (as shown in the painting) which seems to have been the source of their beauty -- which left them at marriage as they could no longer carry the garland. But, later in life, they reclaimed their garlands, left their husbands and came to the very garden Harriet and Arnold are in, and turned into trees. Harriet and Arnold's conversation continues, at intervals delightful, and then foreboding, for it becomes only too clear that Arnold, born into a lower class, resents his rivals whom he believes were born with unfair advantages, craves above all political advancement, and doesn't appreciate Harriet's music at all (though he does appreciate her body!) And Harriet reads his thoughts concerning a plan to throw her over and instead marry a plain woman in order that this woman's father can help his career.

The novel continues with four further long chapters, each a few years apart, depicting a few more encounters between Arnold and Harriet. At each meeting Arnold is changed -- coarser, fatter, older -- but Harriet seems ever the same. We see Arnold's personal life -- he does not marry the plain woman but instead a very beautiful, and quite unintelligent, woman whose father also can help Arnold's progress. We see his political advancement -- his schemes come initially to fruition (one based hilariously on his discovery that the city of Mondh in Mangostan doesn't exist -- instead it was a typo for an ordinary city called Pondh -- but Arnold uses the fictional city as a lever in his maneuvering of Britain's foreign policy.) Arnold's plotting involves betrayal of his political allies, and eventually financial corruption. At each meeting with Harriet she uses her telepathic powers to learn of his perfidy, and to urge him to abandon it. Arnold's own perception of Harriet is revealed too -- he uses the words "slut", "jade", "wench", "trollop" and such with an affectionate tone betrayed by their meaning. And by the end he, now the First Baron Mondh, faces complete ruin, as his finances are in tatters and his political corruption exposed. And he makes one final trip to Harriet's place ...

I was enchanted -- the mundane tale of political corruption married to a sadly aborted romance mixed with a fantastical view of London, with comic interludes, and with an at once spooky and ethereal element all married beautifully. And the prose -- mannered in the best way, arch, surprising, with the flavor of the 19th century and the 1920s elegantly joined. Some examples, though as with most of the best prose, reading in context (and rhythm) is best:

"Of all women he had ever known she was the most ethereal. Loving her was like swathing oneself with a long scarf of spirit."

"Just then Harriet, smiling like a doll, raised her hand to her head and withdrew the sole pin that held in place her Grecian knot; and the sleek serpents of her hair slipped down over her shoulders and covered her bosom, their curled heads lying in her lap."

"She had passed beyond the trench of sooty shadow cast by the house on the silver pavement, and was in full moonlight when she turned, so that the tail of her gown, dropping beneath her cloak, shone like an angel's robe, and the hands which covered her trembling mouth seemed luminous, and the tears in her eyes might have been taken by experts for diamonds."

Review: Break, Blow, Burn, & Make, by E. Lily Yu

Review: Break, Blow, Burn, & Make, by E. Lily Yu

a review by Rich Horton

E. Lily Yu is one of the finest writers to appear in the past 15 years or so. She has published a few dozen short stories, in a variety of genres, with fantasy and SF the predominant modes; and one novel, On Fragile Waves (2021); plus a collection, Jewel Box (2023). Her new book is subtitled "A Writer's Thoughts on Creation", and it is about writing -- craft, ambition, purpose, inspiration, beauty. But in writing about creating outstanding books, it is also about living, about discipline, about being a better person. It is, I will add, very ardently a Christian woman's book -- though its message can be applied by one in any faith or philosophical tradition.

Critical to the book's message is discussion of how readers respond -- or how we hope they respond -- to books. Not by star ratings, nor by performative liking, but, to quote: "We honor books when we discuss them in this way: as art, as gifts, as potential acts of love, rather than as mass-produced factory products." This speaks to me as a reader and critic, but also to writers -- if readers will discuss books as art, as acts of love, the writer must aim for art, and must write with love, at least for their creation. "... wisdom, courage, character, and judgment are critical to both writing and living ..." This highlights another running theme -- the act of writing as part of a whole life, at least for the writer (and not everyone is a writer -- which is no judgment but just an acknowledgement that we all have different talents.) And thus a writer should respect their art as much as they respect their life. 

Yu writes interestingly about the goals of the reader and the writer. Here she properly rejects the notion that reading is itself productive of virtue -- particularly the idea that by reading we increase our ability to empathize. This notion always seemed suspect to me -- a way for us readers to pat ourselves on the back. And it has been debunked by research. In addition, she addresses the notion that a story should explicitly illustrate correct morals -- as for instance the not uncommon demand that it be clear that bad characters are punished and good characters rewarded. Yu reminds us that bad people can still love great art, and moreover that books can lie. Finally -- it is important for readers to put in the effort to understand a book -- the ability to accept multiple meanings, to discern truth, and to recognize allusions are all important, and do not come without work. "... a reader can recognize falsity in a book only when that reader can recognize falsity in herself and others ..." 

The middle of the book is the part most directly concerned with writing -- vocation and craft. Yu argues first for a writer to be  a vessel for truth -- and that truth comes when "the artist dies to self, burns, and becomes transparent". Writing should not be self-expression -- but expression of the real. "Self-expression is opacity". This observation was new to me but it resonates, and suggests to me something I object to in much contemporary poetry (and much recent fiction.)

One chapter is devoted to craft. And here I can only cheer! Likely it has always been so, but in recent years I have been disheartened to see many books -- often highly praised -- that stumble, that seem unwilling to care about prose and structure. Yu mentions understanding of language, and the benefits of knowing multiple languages. The necessity of precision, and the beauty that can result from not just a correct word but the right word used in the right place. The importance of rhythm to prose. Subtlety in portrayal of character, and in subtext. The importance of revision.

The third section is the most aspirational. It is in some sense a call to writers, a call to artists. It is intensely Christian in its language and references, and also very personal to this author's own experience. It deals too with the place of artists in the world, and the pressures they face. It urges attention to the natural world. It urges writers not to tailor their work to the demands -- political, artistic, moral -- of the public but to tell the truth their work requires. I found this inspiring, and I hope nonreligious readers will not be put off it, for I think the burden of the book will come through to any sympathetic reader.

The book is also a tribute to some of the authors who have inspired E. Lily Yu. Quotes and references abound to the likes of James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, G. K. Chesterton, George MacDonald, Madeleine L'Engle, and many more. A list of important books comes early -- Possession; Little, Big; Middlemarch, The Man Who Was Thursday, and more. I confess that discussing books I adore is a doorway to my heart! Break, Blow, Burn & Make is beautifully written, boldly argued, blessedly inspiring. 

I will leave with a few memorable sentences

"Language is the narrow rope bridge with which we traverse the vast abysses between two people, or two cultures, or two times."

"Mischief results when people mistake data for knowledge, knowledge for wisdom, and, more and more often, feelings for truth."

"If an artwork is incandescent, then sufficient craft, love, and proper source and orientation are already present in the work. If it sets us on fire, we are partly responding to those things, but we are also responding to the exaltation and expansion of the artist's spirit in response to that demand for courage."

"To read in the way I have suggested here is nothing more and nothing less than to live with open eyes and ears, attuned to both the sharp edge of the present and the thick layers of the past."

"I have no answers to the questions I ask, nor proof of anything, or the questions would not be worth asking."

Old Bestseller Review: Reluctant Millionaire, by Maysie Greig

Old Bestseller Review: Reluctant Millionaire, by Maysie Greig

by Rich Horton

This wasn't a true bestseller, but its author was a very prolific successful writer of romance novels and thriller. Maysie Coucher Greig (1901-1971) was born in Sydney, Australia. Her father's name is confusingly given in Wikipedia as Robert Greig Smith -- I don't know if that's a mistake or if Greig later adopted her father's middle name as her last name. She began writing for newspapers in Australia at the age of 18, and soon moved to England, continuing that profession. She moved again in 1923, to the US, and began writing novels. In addition to "Maysie Greig", she published as by Ann Barclay, Mary Douglas Warren, and Jennifer Ames. She moved back to England in the early '30s, staying until 1948, after which she returned to Australia. She returned to London in 1966. She married four times -- twice to American, once to an Australian, and last to an Hungarian. She had one son, by Maxwell Murray, the Australian. The book at hand, Reluctant Millionaire, was published in 1945, and copyrighted under her married name at that time, Maysie Greig Murray.

My edition is the first American edition. It's a wartime printing, so has a smaller profile and thinner pages than usual, to conserve paper. The publisher was Triangle Books. based in Philadelphia. The novel has a stamp from the "American Lending Library", and must have been sold used after its primary lending period, as it's also inscribed "Ruth Baggett, 1948". The novel was reprinted many times, including a Dell paperback in 1945, a Romance Book Club edition in 1956 in the UK as by Greig's pseudonym "Jennifer Ames", and in further paperback editions in both countries at least into the 1970s -- a pretty good run.

This novel essentially concerns four people in London, who end up in a sort of love triangle. The time seems to be pretty much the time of writing, during the war. Simon Bruce is a research chemist, apparently quite good but not at all well off. He lives in a shabby boarding house. Another resident is Prudence Hollywell. She works in a wartime factory, and she is terribly in love with Simon, who hardly notices her. Then Simon inherits a fortune from his American godfather. But he is really just bothered by the money -- it interferes with his  simple life.

Roenna Ashton is a stunningly beautiful young woman living with her American father Welsley. Welsley is separated from Roenna's mother, due to her disapproval of his means of making money -- he's a gambler who spends his life on ocean liners, swindling the rich travelers. Roenna has no idea of this, and since her early teens she has lived with him, in relative luxury, on ships and at resorts, assuming that her father's money is just the natural way of things. But the war has ruined him -- there is no ocean travel, and his money is all but gone. He and Roenna live in a really shabby place, and are about to be kicked out. But Welsley sees a story about Simon, who has told the newspapers he'd just as soon give his fortune to a relative. Welsley sees an opportunity, and tells Roenna that he actually was related to Simon's godfather. Roenna is sent to tell this story to Simon -- her father correctly assumes that messenger as beautiful as his daughter might help the story go down better.

And so things go even better than Mr. Ashton might have hoped. Simon falls head over heels for Roenna. Of course when Prue Hollywell finds out, she is suspicious, and quickly guesses that the Ashtons are up to no good. (She assumes, naturally, that Roenna is in on the whole scheme.) Also involved is Rafe, an American aviator whose father was Welsley's partner. Rafe is also in love with Roenna, but out of loyalty tries to help her by keeping Simon from learning the truth. Meanwhile the Ashtons convince Simon to move to a far nicer place, with enough rooms to accommodate them as well. All the while Prue is dueling with Rafe, as she learns more and more about Welsley's past, while Rafe tries to dissuade her from interfering.

There is a twist or two on the way, but of course we know all will come right in the end. But Greig keeps us guessing just how it will come out. It's really a decently executed novel. The plot hums along nicely. The characters are thin, but pleasant enough. The prose is smooth, with some nice turns of phrase, and some effective comic set pieces. The depiction of wartime England seems pretty well done. It's not an enduring classic, but it's easy to see why Greig was popular -- and I'd say she would plausibly stand as one of the more accomplished popular writers of her time -- not the writer that say, Georgette Heyer was, but a decent one.

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.