Review: Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho

Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho

a review by Rich Horton

This was Zen Cho's first novel, published in 2015. Cho is a Malaysian writer, based in the UK, where she works as a lawyer. She caught my attention with some fine short fiction, and when this novel appeared, advertised as a Regency romance with magic, I was intrigued -- because I like Regencies, and I like magic. And the book was well-reviewed ... but I remain obstinately behind on my novel reading. However, in 2021, I have made a focused attempt to catch up on novels I've missed in the past several years, particularly novels by women; and I have been using my (new) Audible account to help. Sorcerer to the Crown, then, is the latest such novel I've listened too (the 12th, beginning at the end of last year with Piranesi.) It is read by Jenny Sterlin, very nicely. (As is traditional, I will mention the pronunciation I learned from it: "geas" is pronounced "gesh" (roughly), instead of "jee-us" as I had always read it.)

[Note -- I may misspell some names, not having the printed book to consult.]

The novel opens with Zacharias Wythe, a young black boy, demonstrating his magical abilities before a meeting of the Society of Unnatural Philosophers, sponsored by his master (and eventually adoptive father) Sir Stephen Wythe, who is Sorcerer to the Crown -- that is, the leader of English magicians. At least, of the acknowledged English magicians -- mostly gentlemen, and all men. Zacharias is a curiosity, because of his color. As for women, they are deemed too weak to perform powerful magic, though it is discreetly accepted that many women use household magics to help with cooking and cleaning, etc. But with Sir Stephen's influence, Zacharias is trained in magic, and becomes very accomplished. And then, some 20 years later, Sir Stephen dies suddenly -- and Zacharias inherits his staff, which makes him the new Sorcerer to the Crown. But his position is delicate -- many English magicians are offended by the thought that a lowborn former slave is now their leader. He is even covertly accused of having murdered Sir Stephen. And he is privately subject to a mysterious and painful malady -- in addition to the fact that the ghost of Sir Stephen continues to give him advice. And finally, this is a time of crisis for English magic -- its supply is diminishing, evidently because of some dispute with the King and Queen of Faerie. Moreover, the Sultan of Jondarbyke is demanding magical help from England, to deal with a plague of vampiresses on his island -- and England may not have the magical ability to do so.

Zacharias has few allies -- his stepmother, Lady Wythe, is one; and he has a couple of supporters in the Society, an older magician named Damerel, and a younger, rather foolish but quite pleasant man named Rollo. It is Rollo who prevails on Zacharias to give a lecture at a magical school for "gentlewitches" -- a school which aims to teach young women to suppress their magical abilities. One of the women at the school is Prunella Gentleman, who was sort of adopted by the school's headmistress after her father committed suicide. Prunella never knew her mother, though her looks make it clear that her mother hailed from India. This of course makes Prunella an outcast too, and she has been doing chores at the school, including teaching, in exchange for her keep. She is also, we quickly learn, an extremely accomplished magician -- as, indeed, are several other young women at the school, despite the efforts of the headmistress. On the day of Zacharias' visit, Prunella is set to cleaning the attic (in part of keep her out of Zacharias' way) -- and there she discovers an old valise that must have been her father's, containing (as she eventually realizes) several magical treasures, in particular seven eggs that might hatch familiars. As such they are incredibly valuable, especially as Faerie has cut off the supply of familiars to England.

Well, Zacharias' visit is something of a disaster, as some of the girls, instead of showing their docile suppression of their magical gifts, get into a fight, complete with hurled spells. Prunella gets quite unfairly blamed, and decides it is time for her to leave. And Zacharias is struck by the realization that it is really foolish for England to ignore the magical abilities of their women, and he hatches a scheme to force the Society to accept women as "magiciennes". At the same time he finds himself burdened with Prunella, who has decided that she will go to London, and that the best way to get there is to hitch a ride with Zacharias.

Things keep bubbling from there ... there are sorcerous assassination attempts against Zacharias ... there are visits from one of the witches of Jondarbyke (a delightful character!) ... one of the more powerful magicians in England mounts an attempt to dislodge Zacharias from his position, aided by his wife, who is more than she seems ... Prunella hatches some of her familiars, with the result that she is de facto the most powerful magician in England ... and, of course, Zacharias and Prunella, against their first inclinations, get closer and closer (I mean, this is a romance!)

Some of this, it seemed to me, is too much of a muchness. The ending, though in many ways satisfying, is kind of a mad jumble. Some plot strands more or less fizzle, though some are quite effectively resolved. There are a couple of out and out surprises, which both delighted me and rather tired me. There are some cliches, most notably the one in which the main character is  a) inordinately beautiful; and b) the greatest sorcerer in the land. (The other main character is of course very handsome, and one of the greatest sorcerers in the land.)

The novel deals fairly effectively with the issue of race, which obviously greatly affects the social positions of both main characters -- yet even there at times I thought things not quite convincing. All in all, I'd call it a classic exemplar of a first novel -- a writer in love with her characters and concept, having a great deal of fun (which is transmitted to the reader) but not quite in control.

I don't want to understate things -- I really enjoyed this novel, even if I felt it didn't quite work completely. But how many novels do? Sorcerer to the Crown is a lot of fun, with characters it's nice to spend time with, and that you'll readily root for. The language is pretty solid -- a decent pastiche of early 18th century prose. There is certainly room for a sequel (and, indeed, one appeared in 2019, The True Queen.) Recommended.

Review: Tropic of Kansas, by Christopher Brown

Tropic of Kansas, by Christopher Brown

a review by Rich Horton

Christopher Brown's 2017 novel Tropic of Kansas was the latest novel our book group (run by Mark Tiedemann) discussed -- last Wednesday! I actually bought a copy back in 2017, and never got around to reading it. Due to the condition of my basement, I couldn't find my copy, so I went ahead and bought the Kindle version -- and then the Audible version as well. The cool thing is, that both Kindle and Audible versions allow you to jump ahead to wherever you got in the other version. Anyway, some disclaimers here -- I come to this review both a) knowing the author (a bit, not extensively), and b) having just discussed the book with him (and several fellow book club members.) Just so you know!

Before I get to the book per se, maybe I should mention what I thought about the audiobook. First -- it only taught me one new pronunciation, and actually I learned this same thing from the last audiobook I heard (Machine, by Elizabeth Bear): some people (mostly British I guess) actually pronounce "solder" as if there is an "l" in the word. Who would do that?! All Americans know it's pronounced "sodder", but I guess that's kind of a bad word to the English (by analogy with "sodding".) (Also, in Machine I learned that the English pronounce "methane" "meeeethane", which is just weird, sorry.) Tropic of Kansas is read by Josh Bloomberg and Bahni Turpin. The two readers split the book based on the two POV characters -- Bloomberg reads the chapters featuring the male character, Sig; and Turpin reads the chapters featuring the female character, Tania. (Both read the final chapter all the way through, separately -- it features both characters.) Both narrators do a good job.

The 30,000 foot view of this novel is simple: in the near future (actually an alternate near future, the Jonbar point being, apparently, the successful assassination attempt on Reagan) the US is in terrible decline, ecologically, economically, and especially politically. President Mack is a fairly open fascist who, after serving a couple of terms, staged what seems a straightforward coup against his successors. His government is fantastically corrupt, and has enemies' lists that it eagerly acts upon, and all that. The book is essentially about a grassroots revolution against him, leading to ... but I'll let the book tell you that.

On the ground, though, the book is about its two main characters, who are radically different from each other (even though they are sort of step-siblings.) We are introduced to Sig as a young teenager, essentially feral, scrambling to steal some food from a Canadian home. Years later, he is still in Canada, still essentially feral, but is being deported to the US. Tania, by contrast, is a lawyer in Washington, D. C., working for the government, in a division that investigates corruption. This isn't what she might have expected growing up poor in Minneapolis, and her mother considers her to be something of a sellout, but she, and her very privileged white friend Odile, seem to feel that they are doing what they can to ameliorate a nasty political situation. But one day the two of them visit the White House, following what has been called a suicide bombing attempt by the former Vice President, Maxine Price, who (they say) tried to blow up the President in revenge for his role in removing her and the previous President from office. Tania sees the President -- who escaped the blast, only losing an arm -- and can't resist yelling at him. And quickly she and Odile are arrested.

Both of them have just enough pull not to be charged, but Tania's mother is also in prison, and Tania is pressured into a deal. In exchange for her mother's release, she must take on a difficult assignment in the "Tropic of Kansas" -- the name for the ecologically and economically blasted Midwest -- essentially, the Mississippi River valley (its whole length) and points West. Her division has been tracked with rooting out a dangerous criminal who has escaped from detention in northern Minnesota. This is, of course, Sig. And (in something of an implausible coincidence), she knows Sig. For he used to live with her family in his preteen years, when his mother -- a radical -- wasn't able to care for him. And Tania, a few years older than him, was his primary babysitter. We get some flashbacks, both their back stories, and especially the story of Sig's mother's death, and how Sig reacted (a policeman ended up dead, and Sig had to run to Canada.)

So that sets up the main action. And what follows is, in a series of alternating chapters, the story of Sig making his way from Northern Minnesota south, through Iowa, St. Louis, and Texas, and eventually to New Orleans, the center of the resistance. Meanwhile, in the other chapters, we follow Tania, as she is always a step or two behind Sig, but is slowly learning about the resistance, and especially their strange, secret, illegal computer network. Inevitably, the more Tania learns, the more she is convinced to change sides; and as for Sig, his passage is more a series of heroic attempts at small (or sometimes larger) acts of violence aimed at thwarting the government and its ruling cabal of corporations, and also setting free some of his friends. 

The structure of the novel is striking -- very short chapters, alternating viewpoints. It gives the book tremendous propulsive momentum. Much of Tania's (more interior, both figuratively and literally) chapters are devoted to understanding this society, and learning about the alternate political structure she eventually hopes to promote. Sig's chapters are exterior -- partly because he is all surface. We learn little about his inner feelings -- one noticeable feature is that he has a few brief relationships with women, and it never seems something he wants, though presumably he's happy enough with them. They just sort of happen. And they're not the point. The point, really, of the Sig sections is action, and they are very exciting, turning on a set of increasingly extravagant, and generally very violent, confrontations. Sig levels up again and again, becoming a sort of superhero, at the same time generally ending up seriously injured, captured, imprisoned only to escape, and at best only about 80% successful in each effort.

The resolution came for me as a bit of a mixed bag. There's a certain degree of anti-climax, and of rushedness, to the conclusion. But at the same time, it's pretty honest in its mixed nature. The book is willing to admit that revolution comes with terrible costs, to both sides; and also that while it may achieve some of its goals, it rarely achieves them all; and may also have unexpected and negative consequences. 

All this said, I really liked the book. It's terrifically exciting, Very fast moving. Politically fascinating (even if you don't agree at all times -- indeed, you almost never should agree wholly in a case like this, and as I mentioned, this book is willing, at least to a degree, to interrogate its politics, to admit skepticism.) The main characters are both very well depicted (despite the eventual near-superhero qualities of Sig), and both, despite severe faults, end up being people we really root for. 

And, for a fillip -- here's what Chris Brown said about the origin of this novel. He wrote a story for a festschrift about Robert Howard -- stories riffing on Howard's themes and characters. Brown's story essentially reimagined Conan as a soldier in the Iraq War. ("The Bunker of the Tikriti", as by Chris Nakashima-Brown, in Cross Plains Universe.) As he later considered making this story a novel, it obviously required massive change -- complete reimagining -- but it is truly interesting, and illuminating, to see Sig as modern day vision of what a Conan character might really be.

Review: The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow

 I notice that I haven't made a post here in almost two months. That wasn't the plan, but things happened. I'm going to try to be a more regulat poster.

The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow

a review by Rich Horton

My latest in a long series of reviews of books I heard, rather than read, is The Once and Future Witches, by Alix E. Harrow. Harrow has been publishing short fiction since 2014, and she came to my notice with her Hugo winning short story from 2018, "A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies". Her first novel was The Ten Thousand Doors of January in 2019, and The Once and Future Witches, published a year ago as I write, was her second. It won the 2021 British Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

The novel is set in 1893, in an alternate history in which witchery is real, but has been brutally suppressed over and over again (mostly by men, and often, we eventually learn, but what seems to be the same, nearly immortal, man.) Though it eventually becomes clear that both men and women can do magic, this history assigns most of it to women, including things like collection of fairy tales (by the Sisters Grimm and Charlotte Perrault and Andrea Lang, for example -- and Alexandra Pope is the name of a famous translator of Homer.) Likewise history is altered in curious ways -- the witch burnings in Salem, for example, happened about a century later than in our history, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire becomes the Square Shirtwaist Fire and happens a couple of decades early. I could see the motivation for most of these changes (some, I suspect, just for fun) but I'm not surely they really worked -- at any rate, they nagged at me as artificial. More successful are the reimagined fairly tales intertwined with the main line of the story -- these interrogate the assumptions and intentions of traditional fairy stories effectively, and also work nicely to advance the plot (and back story) of the book.

The story here concerns three sisters: Beatrice Belladonna, Agnes Amaranth, and James Juniper. They grew up in the backwoods, and their mother died young. They were raised by an abusive father, and by their grandmother, who taught them "witch ways" -- little magics, sometimes bigger magics, done in secret by women. The three are separated as the action starts, and each blames the others: Beatrice and Agnes both abandoned the much younger James when she was 11 or so, after a mysterious fire nearly killed their father and injured James Juniper. It's clear to the reader that none of the girls had much choice in the actions they took, and that their mistrust of each other is misplaced, but that mistrust drives the early action importantly. As the book opens, their father has died, and James Juniper, her home given to a male cousin, has fled to the city, to New Salem (while being suspected of having murdered her father.) New Salem (actually location never really given) was built, apparently, to replace the old town of Salem, which was burned to the ground to wipe out all traces of witchcraft, and to kill the remaining witches. As James comes to the city, she is drawn to its center, and so are her sisters, who have lived in the city for a while. (Beatrice is a librarian, and Agnes works in a mill.) As the three come together, a sudden storm reveals a mysterious tower -- the Tower of Avalon -- and it is clear to everyone, hopeful witches and suspicious moralists, that magic in some form has returned.

New Salem, we learn, has been explicitly recast as a highly moralistic city, and witchcraft is illegal, and all but unknown (at least, openly.) It is also the home of a nascent movement for women's suffrage. In something of a reaction to this, the upcoming mayoral race features a reform-minded opponent, Gideon Hill, a slimy man who urges severe opposition to both women's suffrage and any trace of witchcraft.

The three sisters represent a version of the traditional maiden, mother, crone. James Juniper, the youngest, the wild girl, is the maiden; Agnes, pregnant out of wedlock, and the most traditionally beautiful, is the mother, and Beatrice, the eldest, and a Lesbian, is the crone. But these cliched roles are also questioned and examined, and each is given fuller agency than in traditional stories. Soon they are -- if somewhat tentatively -- working together. James Juniper joins the suffragist society, but quickly realizes they are somewhat hidebound, very cautious (especially about any hint of witchery), and racist to boot. The sisters form a new society, explicitly looking to restore witchcraft, at first by resurrecting, from old stories and oral traditions, as many spells (witch ways) as possible, eventually be seeking to restore the Tower of Avalon. Meanwhile Agnes is trying to find a way to keep her coming daughter safe, and to give her a chance at an independent life; while Beatrice is forging a tentative relationship with Cleopatra Quinn, a black journalist from New Cairo, the black neighborhood of New Salem. And Gideon Hill -- who, it is clear to readers from the jump, has his own dark magical abilities -- is trying to capture them and destroy them.

The novel gains momentum quickly. There are actually three climaxes, each very powerful, each of which brought tears to my eyes. The magic is convincingly and imaginatively described. There are truly wrenching sacrifices that must be made, which are not shied away from. The back story of the sisters in interesting and well revealed, and the back story of some other characters, Gideon Hill in particular, is also intriguing. I will say I didn't quite find James Juniper's character to come to life as fully as her two sisters; and Agnes' eventual love interest seems a bit convenient. The novel makes a brave attempt to engage with racial issues, and also LGBTQ+ issues -- sometimes this aspect seems a bit sketched in, a bit forced. (Though necessary to acknowledge.) All these are quibbles (and so too is my feeling that the denouement is somewhat of a letdown) -- for the most part The Once and Future Witches is exciting, tremendously moving, and earns its ending.

Birthday Review: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, by Julie Phillips

Today would have been Alice Bradley Sheldon's 106th birthday. I was surprised and disappointed to find that I haven't really written anything substantive about her ... I suppose because I read her complete works before I really began writing about SF. Not that that's an excuse.

Here's a brief review I published in Fantasy Magazine of Julie Phillips' exceptional biography. (The review is brief because that was the format for the magazine.)

Review: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, by Julie Phillips (St. Martin’s Press, 0-312-20385-3, $27.95, 470pp, hc) 2006. 

A review by Rich Horton

It has been said that the lives of writers are not terribly interesting – perhaps this is sometimes true (though less often so than some might think), but it is certainly not true of the life of “James Tiptree, Jr.”. This was fairly clear even when we did not know who “Tiptree” was, and when rumor and “his” letters spoke of much travel, intelligence work in World War II, a psychology Ph.D., and government work. Then we learned that “Tiptree”, famously an “ineluctably masculine” writer in Robert Silverberg’s words, was a woman, Alice Bradley Sheldon, and her story became even more interesting.

As Julie Phillips’s excellent biography makes clear, her story was still more interesting than we knew. Alice Bradley was the daughter of a very successful Chicago writer, Mary Hastings Bradley, who was also an explorer and took her daughter on three trips to the African interior. Alice grew up rather wild, tumbling into a disastrous first marriage at her debut. She was bisexual, though her affairs with women were generally short-lived – perhaps simply because she couldn’t bring herself to fully accept her Lesbianism – or perhaps because her rivalry with her mother (or something else) made her ever suspicious of women. She was fiercely intelligent, beautiful, and hard to satisfy. Besides worthy service for the U. S. military, she was a promising painter, a chicken farmer, a psychologist, a journalist, a writer for the New Yorker, and more. But above all, once she took her male pseudonym, she was one of the greatest and most original SF writers of all time. 

Phillips’s book tells her life story with sympathy but also with a clear eye to her problems. It is also insightful as to the source of her SFnal inspiration, and quite strong in covering the literary value of the major stories and the novels. And it portrays very well the deep epistolary friendships “Tiptree” made with many SF writers, male and female. This is a moving life story, and an acutely written literary biography – a must for anyone interested in SF history.

Cordwainer Smith Award Review: The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, by D. G. Compton

The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, by D. G. Compton

a review by Rich Horton

This weekend, at Readercon 31 (in a virtual sense), the 2021 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award was given to David Guy Compton, who wrote his SF as D. G. Compton. (He also wrote crime fiction as Guy Compton, and romances as Frances Lynch.) The jury this year comprised Grant Thiessen, Steven H Silver, and myself. This was our first year on the jury, succeeding Robert J. Sawyer and Barry Malzberg, who resigned last year after many years of service. (Their fellow juror, Mike Resnick, had died before last year's selection was made.) 

We discuss our selection in this video. Short version -- he was an exceptional writer of generally low-key SF (mostly novels), focussed on character and on social themes. The bulk of his work appeared between 1965 and 1980, though after an eight year absence he returned with 5 more novels between 1988 and 1996, plus an outlier short story in 2001. He was born in 1930, and is still alive, though he doesn't appear to be writing. He has been active in the assisted suicide movement. Though born and long resident in the UK, according to information in the 2015 NYRB Books reissue of this novel, he was at that time living in Maine.

The Continous Katherine Mortenhoe, from 1974, is probably Compton's best known novel. This is partly because of the 1979 film adaptation, Death Watch, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, and starring Romy Schneider and Harvey Keitel; but also because it's an outstanding book -- my personal favorite of Compton's oeuvre. It was first published in the US as The Unsleeping Eye (a Don Wollheim title change, and not inappropriate though less good than the original title.) Inevitably there were also editions titled Death Watch. My edition is the 1980 Pocket Books reprint, also called The Unsleeping Eye, and curiously copyrighted 1979, which is either an error, or reflective of revisions Compton may have made, either as a result of the movie, or of his 1979 sequel, Windows. 

The book is set in the relatively near future -- probably in our past as of 2021. Katherine Mortenhoe is a woman in her 40s. She has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, and given a month or so to live. This is extremely unusual for the world of this novel, as almost all diseases are curable, and no one dies except by old age (or violence.) The other main character, Roddie, is a TV reporter who has had a camera surgically implanted, so that anything he sees is recorded. He is assigned to get close to Katherine Mortenhoe, in order to record her final days for a sort of "reality TV show". (This particular bit of speculation by Compton seems very prescient now.) Katherine is at first very resistant, but she is worn down over time as her fate becomes widely known, and it becomes clear that her privacy is lost no matter what she does.

Katherine works in "the Romance division of Computabooks" -- apparently making revisions to computer-generated novels. (Her rackety father, we eventually learn, is also a writer -- of what seems to be trashy SF, in a sly swipe by Compton at his own preferred genre.) She has urges to write her own realistic novel. She is married to a rather colorless man named Harry, and their marriage is shortly coming up for renewal. Her previous marriage, to Gerald Mortenhoe, ended when he declined to renew. Her problem is that she seems totally out of touch with contemporary life -- and her doctor theorizes that this psychological issue has leaked into her physiological problems, causing her uncurable illness.

Katherine's reaction to her plight is primarly to attempt to escape -- not to escape death, which in essence she seems to embrace, but to escape the sort of ordinary life she had been living, and also of course to escape the intrusive TV focus. She has to elude Harry, but cannot elude Roddie -- who she doesn't know (and who doesn't obviously seem a TV journalist, as his camera is invisible.) So both of them end up with the "Fringies" (essentially, this future society's poor, homeless, and unemployed.) And then they find themselves at the estate of a very rich man, who is having a party/orgy. And they are threatened by nihilistic criminals. Throughout all this Roddie is entirely altering his view of his own job -- and his feelings for Katherine Mortenhoe. And Katherine is becoming, it seems, more and more herself.

There are some plotty twists that I won't reveal, except to say that the unavoidable destiny of the novel's characters cannot be changed. Other characters -- Roddie's boss, Katherine's doctor, her ex-husband, Roddie's ex-wife, Katherine's father -- come into view, and all these viewpoints coalesce to depict this rather interesting and sociologically convincing future more fully -- and more darkly. Katherine is a wholly believable character, and Roddie is interesting and worth following, if, I thought, not quite as convincing. The resolution -- even as its general shape is clear from the getgo -- is quite powerful, quite moving. This is a major novel, and while it wouldn't be correct to say that it was ignored -- it got a fair amount of notice -- it still deserves more attention, and deserves to stand among the key SF novels of the 1970s.

Review: We Are Satellites, by Sarah Pinsker

We Are Satellites, by Sarah Pinsker

a review by Rich Horton

Sarah Pinsker has written a lot of outstanding short fiction (and has two Nebulas to show for that), and her first novel, A Song for a New Day, also won a Nebula. So this, her second novel, has a lot to live up to. I "read" it, as I have with many novels since I got my Audible subscription, via listening to it. (In all honesty, the narration wasn't my favorite -- some of it was (probably unfair on my part) reaction to the voice, but also I wasn't quite convinced by how she changed voices between characters, and some of the phrasing didn't seem right to me.) Anyway, how does We Are Satellites stack up?

It's set in the very near future, and it concerns the reactions of a family of four to a new technology. The family consists of Val, a schoolteacher and running coach; her wife Julie, a chief of staff for a member of the House of Representatives; and their children, David, who is in high school as the action starts, and Sophie, a few years younger, who has epilepsy. The new technology is called a "pilot" -- a brain implant which, in essence, allows the brain to multitask much more efficiently. This tech is originally adopted by high school age kids (at least as we see) and David quickly wants one, noticing that his fellow students are doing better in class.

That sets up the central issue driving the book -- for Val is immediately, viscerally, opposed to pilots, and to David getting one; while Julie is open to letting David get one, and moreover she wants one herself. There is a political side illuminated by her position -- her boss is getting one, and most of the other people in her office are as well. Beyond that, BNL, the company making the pilots, is based in their district, so there are lots of jobs on the line -- and even some financial assistance for those who want a pilot. As for Sophie, her epilepsy makes her ineligible to get one.

This sets up some immediate, and interesting, social problems. One is solved quickly -- if pilots are expensive, won't they only increase the divide between the haves and have-nots? BNL, however, offers them for free to those who can't afford them. But there are still people on the "outside" -- those who can't (or won't) get a pilot -- people like Sophie, who can't, and Val, who won't.

The personal issue becomes fraught when David graduates, and instead of going to college accepts an offer to join the Army, which sees tremendous potential for soldiers using pilots. But this unites Julie and Val, who both hate the idea of David joining the military, purely (as portrayed) as mothers, who fear for their son's safety. Meanwhile, Sophie has made a friend at school, and her friend, led by his father, is part of a pilot resistance group, which Sophie joins. The other key development is in David's head -- the pilot gives him the ability to multitask, indeed -- but to a fault. He notices EVERYTHING, which is very distressing, and which he calls "Noise".

I won't detail the further developments, but we see the lives of David and Sophie develop as they grow into adulthood; and we see Val and Julie weather some serious crises in their marriage (caused mostly by lack of communication, which is blamed largely on Julie (and her errors are severe) but somehow some similarly terrible lapses by Val seem forgotten ...) 

So -- how did it work for me? Well, it was a mixed bag. The central idea is outstanding -- plausible, and worth examining, and much of the examination is spot on. But the plot ends up ensnarled in a really sort of cliche "evull corporation" thread. But more to the point, very often I had a hard time believing things. Some of this was character stuff that could be laid at the feet of characterization -- why don't people communicate more? Maybe that really is true to the characters, but if Julie, Val, and perhaps especially David (about his "noise") had actually talked more, things might have been much different. But there are other things -- there's a subplot involving a stolen corporate badge that I simply rejected, as someone who works for a defense contractor and has a badge -- the scheme would not have worked. And Sophie's resistance effort seems based more on the conviction that since she doesn't like pilots (because she can't get one herself?) the corporation that makes them must be up to something. (One of the speeches against pilots reminded me only too much of an anti-vaxxer's screed.) The fact that in this book, her suspicions end up true (for reasons that, again, I didn't quite buy) doesn't seem to me to justify getting there for the wrong reasons. (Especially as it's easy to imagine similar technology being critical to HELP people with epilepsy -- granting that in this future it didn't work, but what if a treatment for epilepsy also turned out to give people the same boost that pilots do? Where would Sophie stand? Even though some of the other, very worthwhile, issues with pilots would remain?)

So -- that sounds negative. But -- I still really liked the book. Why -- partly because Pinsker creates characters we like and root for, and who have real world problems that matter. Also -- the posited technology, the pilots, is both believable, and of real benefits -- but with real problems. I might well be guilty of the reviewer's worst sin -- wanting the author to write the book they want, instead of the book the author meant to read -- but I feel like the central concept is really cool, and the characters will support a nuance examination of some wrenching issues, so it's almost a copout to let things turn on corporate malfeasance instead of a close confrontation with truly troubling implications of a technology that can help, but that also has a dark side. For me, that would have been a more ambiguous novel -- but in the end more interesting.

Review: The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison

a review by Rich Horton

Some little way through The Goblin Emperor I had a thought -- this book's main character is "the Ted Lasso of Emperors". This won't mean much to those who have not seen the TV series Ted Lasso (in which case, my first recommendation is: See it now!) Ted Lasso is about a man hired to coach an English football team who is woefully unprepared for the job (he's an American football coach, which is the lame joke that inspired the series -- but the series is NOT about that joke.) Ted Lasso, with the help of a loyal assistant, and despite the open hostility of his players and many of the local supporters, manages to succeed (to a degree) simply by being unfailingly kind. The Goblin Emperor, then, is about Maia, a half goblin who becomes Emperor of the Elflands despite no preparation, and who faces open hostility from many of his subjects and from many of the people who should be helping him, but who succeeds mostly by being unfailingly kind.

The other thing that came to mind was the novels of Anthony Trollope, mostly because of Trollope's fascination with manners and with political minutiae, but to a degree because the steampunkish and also the monarchy plus nobles social structure in The Goblin Emperor is not entirely unlike Trollope's England. And also because if Jo Walton can do Trollope with dragons (in the thoroughly delightful Tooth and Claw) then why can't Katherine Addison do Trollope with elves and goblins?

I am, to be sure, late to the party with this book -- after all, it won the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, all this back when it was published in 2014. What can I say? I am perpetually behind on my novel reading! I should also mention that "Katherine Addison" is a pseudonym for Sarah Monette, who has published a number of fine novels and excellent shorter work under her own name (I am particularly fond of her Kyle Murchison Booth stories, and her collaborations with Elizabeth Bear such as "Boojum".) One of my recent stratagems for catching up on novels is listening to audiobooks, and so with The Goblin Emperor, which I "read" in the narration by Kyle McCarley.

To briefly summarize the plot: Maia is the youngest son of the Emperor Verinechebel of the Elflands. Maia's mother was a goblin, and their unhappy marriage was purely political. She was "relegated" soon after Maia's birth, and so Maia never knew his father, nor the court. His mother died when she was 8, and he was raised thereafter by his much older cousin, who has been punished in essence (we eventually learn) for political reasons. This cousin is bitter, and very abusive to Maia.

Then there is an airship accident, and Verinechebel is killed along with all Maia's older half-brothers. He becomes the heir, and is summoned to court to take up his duties. He is confronted with a very hostile Lord Chancellor, and a great deal of suspicion by most of the court, not to mention a fair amount of prejudice due to his half-goblin ancestry. (In this world, it is clear, goblins and elves are the same species, just different races.) Fortuitously, he is able to hire as secretary the courier who brought the news of his elevation, and this man, Csevet, proves to be invaluable and very loyal.

Maia, then, must navigate a passel of issues, some personal, some political. These include the investigation into the airship crash that killed his father (which of course is quickly proven not to be accidental), confrontations with severely jealous relatives like his sister-in-law Chevien, who believes her son to be the rightful Emperor; and his quasi stepmother, Verinechebel's last wife Csoru. Likewise there is the question of his necessary upcoming marriage; and of the supposed necessity of his half-sister's marriage. There are political questions, in this book ultimately revolving around the issue of a proposed bridge across a major river. There is the desire of his grandfather, the Avar of the Goblins, who wishes to visit. His Lord Chancellor continues to obstruct him. His infatuation with an opera singer threatens, perhaps, scandal. And, eventually, he faces two separate assassination attempts. And his reaction, throughout, is to listen, to try to understand the other person, to do the unexpectedly kind thing.

Some of this description may make the book seem full of incident and action, but it really isn't -- it's mostly court intrigue, lots of talk, the occasional revelation of a dark backstory. And I was gripped throughout. I was completely absorbed, and very moved. I loved this novel.

And yet I must admit it's far from perfect. Part of the issue is that Maia -- delightful character though he is -- is perhaps a bit too perfect. Part is that he is really quite lucky -- in most any real life comparable situation he'd have been crushed. And the details of the plot do take on aspects of cliche. (That said, another complaint I've seen -- that there are too many weird words -- strikes me as wrongheaded. Perhaps aided by the narration, I found the words (names, titles, buildings, etc.) delightful -- strange but comprehensible, and greatly adding to the atmosphere.) As "fantasy", it's marginal. There is a touch of magic, but not a lot. The elves and goblins aren't really all that elflike or goblinlike, though I did like their ears -- really, as I said, they are stand ins for different races. (Not that that is really a problem.)

Bottom line -- this is in a certain way a comfort read. In that sense it makes us feel good -- by showing us that a good person can make a difference. I might not always (cynical old me) believe that, at least not to this extent, but I'd like to, and for the space of this novel I did. A good novel, a fun novel, a great read. Not a great novel, but that's not always what we need.