I must respectfully disagree with that other (glowing) review that advises reading the wikipedia page on this for background before embarking. PiecingI must respectfully disagree with that other (glowing) review that advises reading the wikipedia page on this for background before embarking. Piecing together the eons-distant mythological backstory has been one of the joys of reading this. I advise trusting Zelazny to withhold what he needs to and to convey the rest in due course via tightly-orchestrated narrative beats.
Do not rob yourselves of the pleasures of confusion. All stories begin in a state of sublime amnesia, to be savored.
In fact, my reading was a constant unfolding of expectations. The prologue establishes an eternal conflict between Anubis and Osiris, but I assumed this was just framing for a more conventional sci-fi story. It's not just framing! Though lest I turn into a wikipedia synopsis, that's all I'll say. Some of the early, short lyrical passages seemed a little overworked, like sci-fi striving to be literature, but that's just because I hadn't recognized how successfully this escapes pure sci-fi for some broader mythopoetic continuity. Moorcock is always trying to do this sort of thing, sometimes reasonably well (it's what makes his fantasy adventures worth looking at), but Zelazny pulls it off so much more effectively. It's also (and this goes along with the uncertainty at the start) an exercise in elegant compression. Much is ellided or left unsaid, just enough is given, an epic unfolds in a slim volume that doesn't feel rushed so much as refined. And all this without taking itself too seriously. The passage where two soothsayers get into a fight over interpretation while one is trying to read the future in the other's entrails is the funniest thing I've read all year. Okay, yes, now I get why Zelazny gets mentioned along with PKD and Delaney (latter, incidentally, this being dedicated to!)...more
Probably doesn't have all that much to say about the nature of addiction (particularly when the protagonist resorts to pawning heirlooms minutes tryinProbably doesn't have all that much to say about the nature of addiction (particularly when the protagonist resorts to pawning heirlooms minutes trying drugs exactly once) but does have lots of say about the universality of being a school-age asshole guy, across eras and landmasses. Steeped in self-loathing, but it's hard to say if it's actually autobiographical since it was mailed anonymously from Turkey to a literary magazine in Paris sometime in the 30s. And that is all we know about it....more
An aptly extremely trans novel for June, if only incidentally, and unexpectedly. Out in the further reaches of the solar system, further from the old An aptly extremely trans novel for June, if only incidentally, and unexpectedly. Out in the further reaches of the solar system, further from the old societies on Earth and Mars, society upholds the subjective reality of its people to the greatest degree, barring its causing harm to others. Standard John Stuart Mills stuff here, but Mills foresaw freedom of thought and religion, but probably not the fluidity of gender and race, here not only a right, but the responsibility of the government to change whenever a citizen should request it. (Incidentally, Delany would have been writing this around the time he blurbed his friend Joanna Russ' feminist sci-fi The Female Man, and deals with trans-ness far more elegantly than she does).
And yet, this is practically a background detail. This is partly a book about gender, but moreso about social codes, including those between men and women. In Delaney's future society, infinitely more variations in modes of living and relating exist, but his protagonist feels distinctly familiar to our own times in his jealousy, pettiness, and inability to really see others beyond himself. This makes him perhaps a relateable guide for 20th-century readers, but also completely insufferable. Is he more insufferable to a 21st-century reader? He was probably always meant to be like this, Delaney knows what he's doing and deliberately toys with our ability to relate. There are moments when the protagonist seems to be being completely insufferable when it turns out that he's completely in step with normal interactions and etiquette. But perhaps the central tensions, the central relationship that drives this (despite an entire war unfolding as a backdrop), would have read more subtly then.
Because this is a post-Dhalgren Delany novel, we also get various extra bits as appendices -- some playful academic discussion which may or may not connect with to his later Neveryon novels, and, tucked away in between, an essay on the utility of science fiction as a genre to a writer like him. Fundamentally, he says, sci-fi vastly increases the number of sentences that have narratively meaning (a realist drama does not allow for gravity to suddenly stop functioning, or for a character to duck into a clinic to have his sexual desires rewired on a whim), which, in turn, vastly increases the pool of conceptual and metaphorical meanings that can be attached to the expanded palette of narrative sentences. Among many other observations that could probably stand to be an entire book rather than hidden away in this one. Which perhaps increases the delight of finding it....more
The bleak deadpan absurdity of the opening, and 10s release year put in mind of what I think of as "millennial surrealism" (the publisher Dorothy ProjThe bleak deadpan absurdity of the opening, and 10s release year put in mind of what I think of as "millennial surrealism" (the publisher Dorothy Project has put out some good examples like The Babysitter at Rest, or think of Alexandra Kleeman). I don't use that disparagingly, it's often a good mix of contemporary familiarity and stylization. This has that deadpan disaffected peculiarity veiling earnest dismay. However, though a debut, this harkens from an older lineage. It's hard to place an exact time period, could be the 90s, could be the present of its release if we overlook the lack of smartphones. Zink, a real American expat in Germany, teases autobiography throughout, but it's impossible to parse exactly. Instead, we get a conflicted sense of lived experience blurring with satire. Stephen and Tiffany 20-somethings in Europe on the edges of eco-activism, grappling with what they actually feel for eachother (often not much) and what they feel they should be doing (fixing the world if they could focus on it for a minute, or decide what would actually help, or stop confusing sleeping with other activists with helping the movement). I say satire, which all too often would annoy me in something like this, but it works because the plotting doesn't feel manipulative or driven by punchlines or messaging. Tiff and Stephen are all too believable in their foibles and flaws (and occasionally genuine terribleness) and they keep this very readable. That and the line-by-line off-the-cuff elegance of Zink's writing, which can load a word like "occasioned" with portent or have the epigramatic focus of an Elfriede Jelinek observation. The meandering uncertainty which the characters embody and which boosts the veracity also holds this back from fully developing momentum or culminating (it has a culmination, but it's an unexpected side-step) but it manages never to bore or to disintegrate into aimlessness....more
Diane Williams is as capable as always of producing astonishing sentence pairings and shifting ordinary interactions into odd spaces of insight, but aDiane Williams is as capable as always of producing astonishing sentence pairings and shifting ordinary interactions into odd spaces of insight, but after returning to her a few times, I'm getting a bit of a diminishing returns feeling with this approach. It may be a flash fiction problem, as it's a form I'm never very drawn to, but conversely the equally short pieces in Joy Williams' latest are having much more impact. Perhaps its the sense of thematic cohesion across instances; my favorite Diane Williams remains her novella-in-fragments The Stupefaction. These however just blink into being, hover a moment refracting tiny moments, then disappear....more
A hybrid speculative-theoretical text wherein 23rd century artificial intelligences convene to reflect upon the technological missteps of the 21st: prA hybrid speculative-theoretical text wherein 23rd century artificial intelligences convene to reflect upon the technological missteps of the 21st: predictive policing, surveillance capitalism, and inequity self-perpetuating through "neutral" data sets. Incisive criticism for the present moment (2022 but of lasting relevance even as reality catches up to its concerns). Maybe not the most groundbreaking if you're already following the conversation, but artists recontextualizing the discourse with an eye towards better future imaginaries are always essential....more
Moments from the lives of a 20-something single mother and her toddler daughter in 70s Japan. The father abandons them to better pursue his own creatiMoments from the lives of a 20-something single mother and her toddler daughter in 70s Japan. The father abandons them to better pursue his own creative projects, without a lot consideration to what will happen to them but much of indignation that his ex chooses to cut him out their daughter's life to try to build something more stable herself. They find themselves living on the entire sun-soaked fourth floor of an office building somewhere in Toyko, and a year unfolds in one-month/chapter bursts. This doesn't necessarily sound like a subject I'd be drawn to, but somehow the title and architectural locus for personal struggles snagged my attention at the library, and I'm glad it did. Tsushima disregards traditional dramatic progression to render a series of vivid moments from her characters' lives, delivering them with an acute awareness of how feeling and experience bleed together, and may be further recolored by the lingering shreds of dream. In her words mundane moments are pulled clean from the everyday and held up for scrutiny, she writes with an exceptional emotional clarity, even with dealing with complex or unclear emotions, her most concrete descriptions yet verge on the hyperreal. I also appreciate the sense she gives of the unglamorous difficulties faced by a single woman in Japan. She's not at pains to paint her heroine in overly positive terms, particularly as a parent -- strain and cracks show everywhere, despair and frustration lurk -- but there's also a sense of dogged perseverance in the face of whatever might be thrown at her. Time passes, circumstances shift slowly, possibilities close or open, hopefully we gain something lasting by the experience....more
A novel less as story as it is a container for riffing on a few themes. A visitor arrives, of unclear origin and species, somewhere between Palafox anA novel less as story as it is a container for riffing on a few themes. A visitor arrives, of unclear origin and species, somewhere between Palafox and The Doubtful Guest. The narrator is intrigued, then ambivalent, sometimes endeared or wearied. The relationship doesn't evolve so much as become reconfigured to reflect various aspects as it goes on. Other forms of acquaintance and connection get short sections -- family, childhood friends -- and the action is given over to absurdities. It's the sort of thing I certainly could enjoy at the right moment, or if it hooked my attention in the right way, but somehow this one never did. There's promise, but I have a tough time grasping a sense of intent that would bind this all together....more
I'm reading these out of order when they appear at the library, which does not make them more coherent, but that's somewhat besides the point. I'm notI'm reading these out of order when they appear at the library, which does not make them more coherent, but that's somewhat besides the point. I'm not even sure all will be revealed at the end. No. 5 is Matsumoto's Heavy Metal-inspired psychedelic western about a rogue member of a future peacekeeping organization, motives yet undisclosed. This is much more action oriented than something like Sunny or Go Go Monster, but even at most visceral it has a tendency to spin off into abstraction, towards landscapes and animal life, actual or those of the mind's eye or generated by psychic force of elderly children. Just go with it....more