Undulant Fever: January 2019

2018 READING

(For some reason, the first line of each paragraph is longer than the rest. Looks okay on a desktop monitor, but on mobile that first line continues off-screen to the right. Attempts to correct it haven't succeeded. Other formatting glitches and idiosyncrasies have been cleaned up, I'm pretty sure.)

My reading in 2018 was as usual a mixed bag, mostly fiction and some non-fiction, ranging from works published in the last few years to work from decades ago. Some I read in printed editions, others in digital format on my smartphone. A fairly large number were listened to as audiobooks.

(My workplace allows listening to music or audiobooks so long as one ear is left unobstructed; so a Bluetooth earpiece lets me add an extra book to my “reading” about every one to two weeks.)

I also listen to a pretty large number of fiction podcasts, but that adds up to somewhere around 400-500 short stories a year, and read probably around half a dozen or so short story anthologies above and beyond that. I haven’t kept lists of those like I have longer works. If I manage to somehow get myself super-organized in the coming year, I might maintain a list of podcasts and stories I particularly enjoy.

Podcasts I listen to: Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Toasted Cake and (under the Escape Artists umbrella) EscapePod, PodCastle,and PseudoPod. 2018 also saw the return of Norm Sherman’s Drabblecast (“Strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners”), which I’ve found highly enjoyable. Outside the dedicated SF/F/H podcasts, I also listen to the mystery podcasts from Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen magazines, the New Yorker’s The Writer’s Voice, the BBC’s Drama of the Week, and Levar Burton Reads. (Burton chooses a fairly large share of SF/F stories to read, but not exclusively.)

A complete reading list for 2018 will be below, but the following were books I particularly enjoyed:

DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY by Heather Rose Jones was probably my favorite of 2018. Some books and writers get buzz and reputation by emphasizing one particular aspect of storytelling; plot, setting, characters, worldbuilding. What particularly struck me about DOM was how well balanced all those aspects were. Every page of this swords-and-manners (with Fantasy Lite aspects) story ran smoothly; it allowed me to fall fully into the story, to not be aware there was a writer pulling strings behind everything. Excellently done, and I have several more of Jones’ books in my TBR pile now.

A pair of outstanding novellas, THE ARMORED SAINT and THE QUEEN OF CROWS, came from Myke Cole in 2018, the first two parts of a trilogy. Medieval-style setting with a brutal theocracy that will straight up murder individuals or entire towns suspected of being tainted with deviltry. A young woman, Heloise, comes into possession of a suit of powered (via a steam-engine-like technology) armor and is reluctantly forced into revolt against the theocracy. Cole pulls no punches about the costs involved in such a revolt; lives are upended, homes destroyed, friendships betrayed, loved ones lost, even many who survive still suffer injury and maiming. The mental and emotional toll on Heloise and others is also brought out. One aspect of Heloise’s world that Cole hasn’t focused on so far is that the “devils” are real, ripping into our world (literally, through the bodies of the possessed) and wreaking murderous havoc; so the theocracy, despite its brutality and corruption, actually is protecting the world from chaos. If Heloise’ revolt is successful, what would replace the theocracy and its protection? Perhaps that question will be one of the complications in the forthcoming final part of the trilogy.

Some other books I read with notably grim, violent settings and situations included:TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse. In an altered America where gods and magic have returned to Native American lands, monsters have returned as well. A young woman raised by a demigod to hunt and kill monsters has to deal with outsider and abandonment issues, plus past trauma. She serves the People, but is not fully one of them.
THE STARS ARE LEGION by Kameron Hurley. I will confess, I found the cosmology of Hurley’s universe in TSAL difficult to grasp. But it seems in the far, far future when much of the natural universe has gone cold and dark, there are enclaves of created systems and planets, with almost continuous war between planets for scarce and dwindling resources. Life is struggle on both larger and smaller scales, and ruthlessness is a virtue and a necessity. I found the book engrossing regardless, in part because the society and background were so mysterious and disturbing.
UNDER THE PENDULUM SUN by Jeanette Ng was another book where the background and society were uncertain, but in this case that uncertainty is an integral and deliberate part of the book. The lands of Fae are real, reachable by ships that have found themselves lost upon the sea. Ways to become deliberately lost enable a measure of trade and commerce with the Fae. In addition to such commercial interests, missionaries travel to the Faelands to try to convert the heathen Fae to Christianity, with exceedingly rare success. The sister of one such missionary follows him to Fae, where she finds the “reality” of Fae lands is very flexible indeed, an uncertainty matched only by the (malicious?) fickleness and mystery of the Fae themselves. This is a grimness of the mind, and both brother and sister find their own weaknesses, exacerbated by the strange and uncertain land and beings around them, lead them into unwise actions and decisions.
Another work of psychological grimness is FORTRESS AT THE END OF TIME by J.M. McDermott. “Travel” between stars is accomplished by sending data to duplicates a person’s body and mind at the receiving end; from the original’s viewpoint nothing has happened but the duplicate will spend the rest of its life at the destination point. FATEOT takes place in a military space station orbiting a harsh planet at the ass-end of nowhere, listening for signs of an alien enemy that may never come. I caught notes of Dostoevsky, Kafka and Joseph Conrad in the style and narrative, though McDermott cites THE TARTAR STEPPE by Dino Buzzati and THE OPPOSING SHORE by Julian Graq as the major influences.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I don’t mind grim in my reading. (Though I don’t really like the term “grimdark”; somehow, for me, the term seems just a bit coy and… twee?)

Less grim, but with plenty of more traditional action and political maneuvering:

MEDUSA UPLOADED by Emily Devenport
THE TIGER’S DAUGHTER by K. Arsenault Rivera
BEHIND THE THRONE by K.B. Wagers
A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC, by V.E. Schwab
BINTI by Nnedi Okorafor
THE ACCIDENTAL WAR, by Walter Jon Williams

In a lighter tone, I enjoyed Marshall Ryan Maresca’s LADY HENTERMAN’S WARDROBE, second in his “Streets of Maradaine” series. Think the tv series LEVERAGE set in a well-developed fantasy world and city. (Maresca has several other series, with different characters and premises, set in Maradaine.) When their neighborhood is burned out by arson (in the first volume, THE HOVER ALLEY CREW), a group of criminals and former criminals join together to try and find out the reasons and perpetrators behind the devastating fire. Break-ins, chases, disguises and deceptions ensue. As is common for breakneck caper stories, the clever plans only work until Something Goes Wrong, with a mad scramble to improvise their way out of disaster quickly following. Very enjoyable and well-written.

Among the stories in THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF EVERYTHING, a collection by Nick Mamatas, I particularly enjoyed the short novel “Under My Roof”. wherein a suburban father builds a DIY nuclear bomb, then declares his house and the lot it stands on a separate country. The absurdity is further heightened by the family’s young son, secretly a powerful mind-reader whose wry sardonic commentary on the real thoughts and motives of other characters adds much to the comedy.

Among the older books I read or re-read in 2018 was Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ. There’ve been a number of online discussion and essays the last decade or so over how many of the “Classic” SF or fantasy works are still exemplary or at least satisfying, and how many have been visited by the Suck Fairy upon reading in the present day. (Heinlein’s name and works tends to be mentioned a lot in those discussions.) Re-reading CANTICLE after about fifty years, I found it held up very well. Basic premise, for any I’d-lose-at-Jeopardy people reading this: Three linked novellas, roughly 600, 1200 and 1800 years after a nuclear war (the “Flame Deluge”) devastates Earth, followed by social upheaval among survivors that destroys most remaining knowledge and technology. Each story centers around the monastery of the Blessed (later Saint) Leibowitz, where a relative few salvaged shreds of knowledge, documents and books have been preserved and copied and re-copied for centuries. Each section deals with how the monastery, and the beliefs and faith of the monks doing its work, react to game-changing developments: a trove of pre-nuclear documents, some relating directly to the life of Leibowitz, is discovered; six centuries later, science and technology are making a comeback, but threatened by the return of large nation-states and large-scale war; and, in the final section, science has advanced past the level existing before the Flame Deluge, making space travel a possibility, but also enabling the return of nuclear weapons which may destroy the Earth a second and final time before generation ships can establish new human footholds on other planets. Miller’s characters deal with doubt and uncertainty about their choices and beliefs in a dangerous and risky world. No Suck Fairy here.

Most of my reading is in the SF or Fantasy genres, but I also read occasionally in other genres, particularly mysteries and suspense. An older mystery I enjoyed was Philip Kerr’s 1989 MARCH VIOLETS. Set in 1930’s Germany when the Nazi party was consolidating its hold over German society, a private detective has to navigate corrupt bureaucracies and police, and the criminal underworld, in the course of investigating a murder and theft. Reading about the gradual normalization and acceptance of Nazi programs and atrocities was disturbing, not least because the events and history portrayed in Kerr’s novel parallel in many ways the actions of America’s own Trump administration.

Jordan Harper’s debut suspense novel SHE RIDES SHOTGUN was a thrill ride of a story. A somewhat ambivalent member of a white power prison gang, days before his scheduled release, has to kill one of the other members in self-defense. (Harper doesn’t go deeply how much his protagonist really buys into the white supremacist mindset -- in large part because for most of the book simple survival is the top and only priority -- but it seems he signed on primarily because in prison you either belong to a gang or you’re prey.) In result, a “kill order” is issued (including to members outside the prison) not only on him, but also on his entire family, the ex-wife and daughter left behind when he entered prison. He walks out of prison barely in time to avoid dying there, isn’t able to save his ex-wife but swoops up his pre-teen daughter just as she gets out of school. It’s a race to stay ahead of an entire gang focused on murdering them. When it becomes clear the pursuit will not stop until he and his daughter are dead, the decision is made to stop running away and fight back. To do that, he had to teach his daughter how to fight, how to shoot, how to kill. The bond between father and daughter, negligible at first, grows throughout the process and training. But what is that training doing to the girl’s bonds and relationship with society at large?

Two non-fiction books I particularly enjoyed:

ASSASSINATION VACATION by Sarah Vowell. I actually listened to the audiobook by mistake, having borrowed it from Overdrive having somehow thought it was a theme anthology of crime stories. No, actually it’s Vowell’s travelogue of sites relating to Presidential assassinations, with lots of interesting history and trivia along the way. But it’s also at times hilariously funny, because of Vowell’s self-deprecating humor. (She recognizes being obsessed with assassinations is a Pretty Freaking Weird hobby.)

UNDER THE RED SEA SUN by Edward Ellsberg. In 1942, the essential port of Massawa in Eritrea on the Red Sea was taken from the Italian forces that had occupied it, but not before the Italians blocked the port’s use by scuttling and booby-trapping numerous ships and the on-shore shops and facilities. Ellsberg, a maritime salvage expert was given the “impossible” task of reclaiming the port for use by the Allies, but with virtually no men, no equipment and no money, further complicated by corruption and incompetence in the military and civilian bureaucracies. A fascinating memoir of resourcefulness and ingenuity in the face of nearly overwhelming obstacles.

Full list for 2018:

JANUARY

Company of Lies, Karen Maitland

The Great West Detective Agency, Jackson Lowry (Robert Vardeman)

The Stars Are Legion, Kameron Hurley

Jane Steele, Lindsay Faye

The Wrong Stars, Tim Pratt

FEBRUARY

The Darkest Part of the Forest, Holly Black

Artemis, Andy Weir

Daughter of Mystery, Heather Rose Jones

Fortress At the End of Time, J.M. McDermott

Voyage of the Basilisk, Marie Brennan

MARCH

Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire

Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth

The Moving Target, Ross MacDonald

Lady Henterman's Wardrobe, Marshall Ryan Maresca

Altered America, Cat Rambo

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Quillifer, Walter Jon Williams

APRIL

Assassination Vacation, Sarah Vowell

Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

The Starlit Wood, Ed. Wolfe & ???

MAY

Beneath the Sugar Sky, Seanan McGuire

Hunger Makes The Wolf, Alex Wells

Aegypt, John Crowley

Alternate Routes, Tim Powers

Matchup, ed. Lee Child

She Rides Shotgun, Jordan Harper

The Armored Saint, Myke Cole

JUNE

The Serpent of Venice, Christopher Moore

Dogs Don't Lie, Clea Simon

March Violets, Philip Kerr

Medusa Uploaded, Emily Devenport

Hall of Heroes, ed. Fellowship of Fantasy

JULY

A Fierce Radiance, Lauren Belfer

The Tiger's Daughter, K Arsenault Rivera

Last Hope Island, Lynne Olson

AUGUST

The Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu

Behind the Throne, K.B. Wagers

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor

SPQR, Mary Beard

The City Stained Red, Sam Sykes

Stone Mad, Elizabeth Bear

SEPTEMBER

Night Has A Thousand Eyes, Cornell Woolrich

Sparrow Hill Road, Seanan McGuire

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse

A Darker Shade of Magic, V. E. Schwab

The Accidental War, Walter Jon Williams

OCTOBER

Trouble Is My Business, Raymond Chandler

Akata Witch, Nnedi Okorafor

Selections from Dreamsongs, Vol. 1 (audio), George RR Martin

The Cobbler's Boy, Elizabeth Bear & Katherine Addison

The Lucky Stiff, Craig Rice

The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor Lavalle

Under the Red Sea Sun, Edward Ellsberg

The Queen of Crows, Myke Cole

NOVEMBER

Space Opera, Cat Valente

Wayward Saint, J.S. Morning

Penric's Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold

The People's Republic of Everything, Nick Mamatas

How To Stop Time, Matt Haig

Gallows View, Peter Dickinson

DECEMBER

Dreadnought, Cherie Priest

Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnelly

Under the Pendulum Sun, Jeanette Ng

A Canticle For Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.

Forty Thieves, Thomas Perry

The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers

And by author: