Patty Jansen
I honestly had no idea what this book was about going in, and I think it worked well that way. As it turns out, it was a political thriller: the protagonist is a negotiator between Nations of Earth and gamra. It’s roughly equivalent to, say, being Turkey’s negotiator to the EU for the membership talks. Only Turkey is a stronger version of the UN with full executive powers over the entire planet, and the EU is a trade coalition that regulates FTL interstellar travel.
Where it gets really interesting is the various non-humans involved. The rough layout of the galaxy features something like 95% of the entire population being various humanoids; there are some references to the fact that one of the member races of gamra is far more ancient than the rest and not only developed the FTL technology but used it to seed the galaxy with the various humanities. But each version of humanity had tens of thousands of years to diverge from one another, and you wind up with some really interesting cultural and even biological variations. The Coldi, the majority group within gamra, have some serious differences in how they treat one another and think about the world in general.
And that’s what makes the book so interesting – you’ve got a Eurosceptic-analog President of Nations of Earth, a novice diplomat without his cultural exchange attaché, and a negotiating culture based on a completely different style of interpersonal relationships and loyalty than anyone from Earth is used to. It’s fascinating looking at all the interactions, and the author has done an incredible job of taking one or two differences and seeing what happens when you let those differences influence things for a few hundred years. It’s an excellent read, and I couldn’t put the book down, so if you at all enjoy good science fiction or the occasional political thriller, give it a read.
Category: Articles
Melissa Scott and Amy Griswold
I’ll start off by saying that this is definitely within the Sherlock Holmes archetype of stories,1 but it’s got enough differing it from the rest to be interesting.
The first big difference is in the setting: it’s the same Victorianesque time period as the average Sherlock Holmes book, but this is a world with magic of a sort – or, as the locals refer to it, metaphysics. It’s a bit of a complex system, based upon written language and a fairly complex grammar, utilizing a variety of different written squares. I don’t have a great grasp of how it all works, which is okay, because the way it’s written it has a good mix of detail and lack thereof. It’s a good balance, and the way its integrated into the rest of the world is quite nice.
That leads into the second difference: while there’s a clear Sherlock figure, I got the feeling that he’s the secondary of the two narrative main characters.2 While the Sherlock is still the normal Sherlock, albeit using magic instead of opium, the Watson is a metaphysician for hire, rather than a doctor. The story begins with him, in fact: a customer comes to him to remove a curse from the family silver. Finding a lack of a curse, he does a cleansing… and is rather surprised a few days later when he’s hired again to sort out the murder of his previous client, his skull having been bashed in with some of the recently-cleansed silver. It’s at this point that he brings in the Sherlock, as that’s more his area of expertise.
The relationship between the two of them is the third major difference.3 They went to school together, had a bit of a schoolboy dalliance, broke it off in college, and then resumed it in their adulthood. It’s a weird interaction – one of those rom-com style things, where both parties involved want the same thing, but are both convinced the other doesn’t want it. It makes the switching viewpoints mechanic pretty hilarious, to be honest; I spent a lot of time gleefully muttering “you idiot” at the both of them.
It’s the taboo quality of that relationship that I enjoyed the most, I think: the book doesn’t go in for the gloss-over-it style that some take, wherein the Victorian “don’t ask, don’t tell” style4 is stretched to cover openly gay men. Instead, it’s a matter of only being shown or spoken of behind closed doors. Secretive clubs that one must be vouched for by an existing member to get into. Careful remarks that can be said to have been misheard if the wrong response is given. It makes the whole thing realistic – take away the magical aspect of the book, and I could absolutely believe it was someone’s autobiography, hidden away and recently rediscovered and published by a descendant.
All in all, it made for an interesting read, and I’m quite happy to recommend it to you.
- I should have a tag for ‘Holmesian books’ by now, I read enough of them. ↩
- Two protagonists, working together; the viewpoint switches off between the two of them throughout. Nonetheless, the Sherlock has the helm slightly less than the Watson. ↩
- Well, insofar as it’s explicitly stated; there’s a lot of queer theory talk about the canonical Holmes/Watson relationship. ↩
- See “a bared ankle is improper, but I’ll meet you at the brothel for some opium later.” ↩
Diane Duane
And really, that’s the long and short of it: the origin stories for three characters in Diane Duane’s marvelous Young Wizardsseries. And they were very interesting origins – the third, there were hints about in the rest of the series, but the first two were entirely new. The second was very unexpected, as well – more vicious, and sadder, than I’d thought.
But rather than talk about this book specifically, I think I’d be happier talking up the series as a whole. I haven’t really had a chance to write about it here before, but it’s been one of my favorites for ages. I received the first book in the series as a birthday present years and years ago,1 and promptly fell in love.
It’s been mentioned in both college and graduate school application essays. It drifts through the way I look at the world. I can name chunks of my value system that clearly come from these books, and I can trace my interests – up to and including my major and planned career path – back to the way these books taught me to look at the world.
Before I ever read Peter Parker’s thoughts on responsibility, these books were teaching me that having power meant you should use it to help others.
And they taught me that names, and really all words, are very powerful things.
They’ve been hugely influential to my life, and I happily recommend them to everyone. Start at the beginning: the first book, the delightfully-titled So You Want to Be A Wizard, should be in your local library. If not, I’d recommend picking it up directly from the author: she certainly deserves your patronage. Regardless, go start reading.
- I don’t remember exactly how many years it was, but I can tell it was sometime that in elementary school, based on where the birthday party was and who I can recall being there. ↩
A short while ago, Apple launched a journal on machine learning; the general consensus on why they did it is that AI researchers want their work to be public, although as some have pointed out, the articles don’t have a byline. Still, getting the work out at all, even if unattributed, is an improvement over their normal secrecy.
They’ve recently published a few new articles, and I figured I’d grab some interesting tidbits to share.
In one, they talked about their use of deep neural networks to power the speech recognition used by Siri; in expanding to new languages, they’ve been able to decrease training time by transferring over the trained networks from existing language recognition systems to new languages.1 Probably my favorite part, though, is this throwaway line:
While we wondered about the role of the linguistic relationship between the source language and the target language, we were unable to draw conclusions.
I’d love to see an entire paper exploring that; hopefully that’ll show up eventually. You can read the full article here.
Another discusses the reverse – the use of machine learning technology for audio synthesis, specifically the voices of Siri. Google has done something similar,2 but as Apple mentions, it’s pretty computationally expensive to do it that way, and they can’t exactly roll out a version of Siri that burns through 2% of your iPhone’s battery every time it has to talk. So, rather than generate the entirety of the audio on-device, the Apple team went with a hybrid approach – traditional speech synthesis, based on playing back chunks of audio recordings, but using machine learning techniques to better select which chunks to play based, basically, on how good they’ll sound when they’re stitched together. The end of the article includes a table of audio samples comparing the Siri voices in iOS 9, 10, and 11, it’s a cool little example to play with.
The last of the three new articles discusses the method by which Siri (or the dictation system) knows to change “twenty seventeen” into “2017,” and the various other differences between spoken and written forms of languages. It’s an interesting look under the hood of some of iOS’ technology, but mostly it just made me wonder about the labelling system that powers the ‘tap a date in a text message to create a calendar event’ type stuff – that part, specifically, is fairly easy pattern recognition, but the system also does a remarkable job of tagging artist names3 and other things. The names of musical groups is a bigger problem, but the one that I wonder about the workings of is map lookups – I noticed recently that the names of local restaurants were being linked to their Maps info sheet, and that has to be doing some kind of on-device search, because I doubt Apple has a master list of every restaurant in the world that’s getting loaded onto every iOS device.
As a whole, it’s very cool to see Apple publishing some of their internal research, especially considering that all three of these were about technologies they’re actually using.
- The part in question was specific to narrowband audio, what you get via bluetooth rather than from the device’s onboard microphones, but as they mention, it’s harder to get sample data for bluetooth microphones than for iPhone microphones. ↩
- Entertainingly, the Google post is much better designed than the Apple one; Apple’s is good-looking for a scientific journal article, but Google’s includes some nice animated demonstrations of what they’re talking about that makes it more accessible to the general public. ↩
- Which it opens, oh-so-helpfully, in Apple Music, rather than iTunes these days. ↩
Quincy J. Allen
I’m standing by that title, and it makes a good follow-up to my review of the short story prequel to this that was in one of the anthologies I read recently.
It’s still a wonderful take on post-civil-war America, and I quite enjoyed the read; although, being as I’m without internet as I’m writing this, I’m rather annoyed that I don’t have the sequel, because there’s a whole lot left to happen in the plot. Like, to the degree that I’d argue this shouldn’t have been the end of the book, just the end of Part One of the book.
Still, it’s a fun read – the main characters are a delightful pair of cowboys that are basically married with a child,1 and if I want to utterly misrepresent the book I’d call it the story of their vacation to San Francisco. Although, considering how much they enjoy themselves, it sorta is, if a bit more lethal than the average vacation. Hey, the six destroyed buildings won’t cost that much to fix, right?
Basically it’s a fun romp of a book, and I’m quite happy to recommend it. Give it a read.
- Canonically this isn’t true, but all of the places where the book makes it clear it isn’t feel a little bit forced in. A word of advice to the author: when your characters are trying this hard to make something happen, just let it happen. ↩
Catherine Lundoff
The last of my string of anthologies; I’ve run out of them for the moment, and I’ll be going back to reading and reviewing novels for a while, at least.
“Great Reckonings, Little Rooms”
A Shakespearean tragedy, though not in the normal way.
“Medium Méchanique”
And this, folks, is why we leave the dead alone.
“The Egyptian Cat”
There’s something really fun about a staggeringly normal person getting caught up as a side character in an epic story.
“At the Roots of the World Tree”
I wanted this to be a bit happier than it actually was, but I liked it regardless.
“A Scent of Roses”
A happier ending to the Tam Lane story than I really expected it to have.
“At Mother Laurie’s House of Bliss”
Now I want to watch a police procedural that takes place in a medieval kingdom full of knights and magic.
“Spell, Book and Candle”
If I were a TV witch, this would be the point where my chatty familiar would give me sound advice, which I would then ignore. But then, if I were a TV witch, I wouldn’t be a dyke with the hots for her old college sweetie.
“Beauty”
The fact that this whole thing was leading up to a “Beauty and the Beast” joke is just spectacular.
“Red Scare”
An odd twist on the noir detective trope.
“A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace”
I kinda hate body-swap stories, it’s just difficult to keep track of who’s who.
“Vadija”
The city of sorrows has a Diablo sort of feel to it – ancient curses and all that.
All in all, a good collection of stories to end on. Give it a read.
Yet another anthology! I’m on a roll.
“Iron Angel”
Cayleigh Hickey
Oh, we’re off to a good start here. I wasn’t expecting to leap into the land of the fae, but here we are.
“The Dirges of Percival Lewand”
Aaron Michael Ritchey
Okay well, this belonged more in the last anthology I read than here, but oh well.
“The Tunnel Rat’s Journey”
J. M. Franklin
Futuristic steampunk! An interesting twist, and one of the more hopeful bits of post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve ever read. I like it.
“The Cutpurse from Mulberry Bend”
Gerry Huntman
Short and sad.
“The Great Dinosaur Roundup of 1903”
Traveling through time turns out to be loud and flashy but not as uncomfortable as you might think.
Told as a letter from, basically, a background character in an Atomic Robo flashback sequence.
“American Vampire”
Keith Good
Well that’s a rough life, my guy.
“Lasater’s Lucky Left”
Quincy J. Allen
I’m gonna be honest, I was kinda hoping this would turn into a horrid romance noel halfway through. The sequel’s still got room for that, though, so I’ll hold out hope.
“Sinking to the Level of Demons”
David Boop
Well, that got dark.
“Vengeance”
J.R. Boyett & Peter J. Wacks
Oh, that was cool. A variant on vampires, and a retired hunter? Very cool.
“The Noonday Sun”
Vivian Caethe
An exoskeleton-wearing monster hunter, clearing out the Wild West.
“Industrial Melanism”
Aaron Spriggs
If you’re claustrophobic, don’t read this one.
“Today, the Sun Sets in the East”
Peter J. Wacks
Another good story that I’d like to read more of. Tiger is an interesting character, as is Hummingbird.
“The Weather God”
David W. Landrum
Well that war went a bit differently than the British expected, I’d say.
“The Spirit of the Grift”
Sam Knight
A portable X-ray, I think? I wish we had more stories of grifters using some sort of advanced technology to pull it off.
“The Heart of Appricotta”
With a salute, punctuated by a word that sounded like a punch to the stomach in Yiddish, the assembled tossed the raft in the river.
It’s a comedy in a style I’d describe as “British Imperial Braggadocio,” which isn’t exactly to my taste, but a couple lines (the one above, for example) got a laugh out of me.1
“Budapest Will Burn”
Jonathan D. Beer
Why do anthologies end on such weird notes? I’d rather have them end on something happy, which this could be if you squint, but it’s a Pyrrhic victory at best.
Nonetheless, this was another good collection of stories that I’m comfortable recommending. Give it a read.
-
Another good one:
In my panic I struggled to remember precisely what the five stages of grief were supposed to be, so I experienced denial, anger, gassiness, and that strange confusion you get when you feel you’ve left a door unlocked before finally achieving acceptance.
I’m continuing on my anthology kick, I suppose.
“Asmodeus Flight”
The Great Exhibition had attracted a seething mixture of nationalities—scar-faced Americans, queue-sporting Chinese, green-scaled Inner Earthers—even an odd Frenchman, the latter drawing suspicious glances from John Bull and continental exiles alike.
Ah, Britain.
“Hiss”
Folly Blaine & Randy Henderson
“Imagine that with power.”
“The Misplaced Body of Fitzhugh Alvey”
Jessica Corra
I do enjoy a story where the women are smarter and the men don’t reject that fact.
“The Ghost Pearl”
Howard Andrew Jones
A slight Pirates of the Caribbean vibe to this one, even though the whole thing takes place in London.1
“Frænka Askja’s Silly Old Story”
Emily C. Skaftun
This is the saddest one so far, somehow.
“Edge of the Unknown”
Elsa S. Henry
There’s a slight Pratchett feel here, and it works really well.2
“The Blood on the Walls”
Eddy Webb
Sherlock Holmes investigating actual hauntings, basically; I wish this was a series I could read more of.
“Tipping Point”
Nayad Monroe
Gotta love good old Victorian capitalism.
“T-Hex”
Jonah Buck
While that was a pretty obvious outcome, I’m still annoyed about it.
“The Monster”
Erika Holt
Man, I’m with the narrator, I hope he didn’t actually succeed.
“The Book of Futures”
Wendy Nikel
A locked-room mystery! Oh, I do like those.
“Death Wish”
Parker Goodreau
Another one that I want more of – I’d quite enjoy reading this weird love story.
“City of Spirits”
Christopher Paul Carey
Well, that could’ve gone better. I’m a bit curious as to how a cold-burning fire can be used to generate electricity, although I suppose it’s possible…
“Team 17”
T. Mike McCurley
I think I’m gonna go ahead and call this my favorite from the book, without even reading the rest: it’s set post-WWII, during the cleanup from a war where Germany weaponized life-force and the Blitz was done with something like a neutron bomb. The entire city wiped out… and an army of angry ghosts left behind.
“The Litany of Waking”
Scott Fitzgerald Gray
Another excellent one – feels like a post-apocalyptic version of Girl Genius.
“Labor Costs”
Richard Dansky
And this is why we need unions, folks.
“The Twentieth-Century Man”
Nick Mamatas
A sequel to an earlier story in this anthology, actually, which made it even more interesting.
“Clockwork of Sorrow”
Spencer Ellsworth
I suppose the title should’ve warned me that this one would be a tragedy.
“The Lady in the Ghastlight”
Liane Merciel
Oh, the wick was a nice touch, I didn’t expect that part.
“Cuckoo”
Richard Pett
Forget about the cuckoo, I want to know what happens to the engine.
“The Shadow and the Eye”
Like everyone who had read a newspaper in the past twenty years, I was familiar with Professor Thaxton’s temper. He’d been at the heart of brawls at scientific conferences on six of the seven continents; only Australia has, so far, been spared.
I can only assume he just hasn’t been to a scientific conference in Australia yet, that seems like the most likely place for a brawl at a conference.
That said, we’re also throwing this in the category of “I desperately want a whole series of this.”
“Golden Wing, Silver Eye”
Cat Hellisen
Oh, we’re ending on another sad one.
Quite a few very good reads in here, I definitely recommend it if you’re in the mood for some bite-sized works. Have a read.
That’s actually a nice little wordplay in the title there – it’s a steampunk anthology centered around Southeast Asia. From the introduction:
… if in the larger English-language science fiction world straight white men call the shots, then our anthology presents a range of authors and characters that is predominantly women, and hella queer.
“On the Consequence of Sound”
Timothy Dimacali
Man, I’d have been more attentive in violin lessons if being able to play well was going to enable me to fly, dang.
“Chasing Volcanoes”
Marilag Angway
Post-apocalyptic landscapes are usually made that way by nuclear weapons, but this time it was just a ton of volcanoes. Still unclear on what, exactly, they’re trying to extract from the volcanoes, though.
“Ordained”
L.L. Hill
Something about clockwork and holy places just doesn’t mesh in my head; I blame the Luddites.
“The Last Aswang”
Alessa Hinlo
Oh, now that is a story. I like it, and I might have to do a bit more research on the myths behind it, they seem interesting.
“Life Under Glass”
Nghi Vo
I was expecting a very different ending, but I guess that works.
“Between Severed Souls”
Paolo Chikiamco
There’s a trend through all of these – more respect and acknowledgement of ancient things than you get in the mainstream of steampunk. It’s different, and it’s a good contrast.
“The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoroso”
Kate Osias
A tragedy, and a tale of revenge. Sad and sweet and wonderful.
“Working Woman”
Olivia Ho
I wasn’t really expecting to laugh at a story this grim, but dang was it ever funny towards the end.
“Spider Here”
Robert Liow
Less ‘steampunk’ than it is ‘biopunk,’ and it’s cool.
“The Chamber of Souls”
z.m. quỳnh
There’s a lot going on in this one, and I’m a bit at sea. Which apparently doesn’t exist here?
“Petrified”
Ivanna Mendels
It’s like a superhero team, I’m digging it.
“The Insects and Women Sing Together”
Pear Nuallak
A strong ending to the anthology.
I liked the whole thing- a lot of good stories, and authors that are well worth supporting. Give it a read.
1: “Salvage Trouble”
Oh, I am absolutely sold on this setting – I was expecting medieval or renaissance level technology paired with magic, and it turns out I got, like, 30th century, space colonies and holograms… paired with magic. And man is it a fun cast of characters, I’m so down for the other novellas in here.
2: “A Smuggler’s Conscience”
This might be the first time I’ve hoped for a government to have a policy for civil forfeiture, but if somebody is gonna pour a couple billion dollars into building a Bond-villain-esque mountain base, they may as well repurpose it after the bad guys are gone.
3: “Poets and Piracy”
I like a good heist, but in all honesty, I’m still not entirely clear on what happened. I may have missed it while I was busy being annoyed that the future’s equivalent to the DEA is apparently named “EIEIO.”
4: “To Err is Azrin”
It took this long to learn that ARGO, the Federation/Empire/Alliance sort of thing that runs the human-control areas, stands for Allied Races of the Galactic Ocean.
Probably my favorite story so far – there was more character development evident than any of the others have had, it was nice.
4.5: “Guardian of the Plundered Tomes”
And a little prequel at the end, showing how the gang got together. I wish there’d been more explanation of the actual contents of the Plundered Tome, though, it was still annoyingly vague.
All in all, a nice little collection of stories that I enjoyed reading. Your turn.
Cat Rambo
An anthology, but all the stories are written by one author, so just the one name at the top here. And just the one link, as well, if you’d like to read it.
“Clockwork Fairies”
The protagonist here, though I feel that may not be the right word, is as if someone heard a quote about “the small-minded man” and wanted to write a character who was the epitome of that epithet. Ugh.
“Rare Pears and Greengages”
I came to London, where the air smells like smoke and despair.
And really that sums this story, and the feel of the book so far, up: smoke and despair.
“Memphis BBQ”
This story was pretty fun, but it’s the second time we’ve had a protagonist I’d describe as some sort of terrible. The lady isn’t interested, dude, leave her alone.
“Laurel Finch, Laurel Finch, Where Do You Wander?”
Abraham Lincoln isn’t above necromancy, it seems, which made the civil war a rather short affair.
That said, I desperately want more of the main character of this one – she deserves a whole novel to herself.
“Snakes on a Train”
Oh, now that’s a neat pairing for a detective movie: a telepath and a robot.
“Rappacini’s Crow”
And we’re back to everything being depressing forever. Cool.
“Her Windowed Eyes, Her Chambered Heart”
I’m reminded of Castle Heterodyne, which can only be a good thing.
“Web of Blood and Iron”
Now I’m disappointed that I’ve never seen a conspiracy theory claiming vampires own the global transportation network.
“Ticktock Girl”
I’m slightly confused by how the ‘moments’ work – are they just an arbitrary segmentation of time? I mean, probably, since they worked well for the structure of the story, but still, I want to know more. I enjoyed this one.
“Seven Clockwork Angels, All Dancing on a Pin”
There’s some serious hand-waving of science going on in here, but I do like the resulting riff on the core concept. I just wish it was all a bit better-explained.
Steve Berman
I’ll begin by saying that, just before I read this book, I tried reading one that was about lesbian werewolves,1 and it was bad.2 So it’s not getting reviewed here; instead, I switched to this one, and it was so much better. Like, not only was it better-written, it was also just one of the best ghost stories I’ve ever read. Strong vibes of Sixth Sense or Ghost Whisperer, depending on which you used to watch.34
It also gets a strong plus from me for being what I refer to as “queer propaganda” – namely, any book that includes queer characters for purposes other than the “Bury Your Gays” trope. Representation is important, y’all.
That said, the title of this post comes from the fact that I switched to my normal ‘scary movie’ tactic, namely sarcastically commentating all the way through. Which turned it into an oddly hilarious experience, because the main character did a good deal of the scary movie tradition of “making horrible, horrible decisions.” The biggest one goes to “falling in love at first sight,” with the notable kicker being “falling in love with a ghost.” C’mon, man, that’s all sorts of bad choices right there.
And it just goes from there. It’s actually pretty fun, and as I already said, probably my favorite ghost story experience. As is my traditional link for books I like: have a read.
- This combination wasn’t a coincidence; I think, in this book, being a lesbian came with being a werewolf? I didn’t actually read far enough to find out for sure. ↩
- Like, I made it about three pages in and I’m betting I could tell you the plot of whole first half of the book with pinpoint accuracy, and the I could call the generalities of the second half. Also, the writing was on the ‘trying to hard’ side of the scale. ↩
- I was a Ghost Whisperer fan, but I also distinctly remember reading the first book of a series based on Sixth Sense and being terrified by the concept of being able to see all those ghosts. ↩
- Additional note to that one: I just found out the author of that book also wrote Boy Meets Boy and I’m having a “small world” moment about an author, this is weird. More entertaining: his Wikipedia page doesn’t mention the Sixth Sense books at all. ↩
DJ Butler
Alright, who remembers Wild Wild West? It was this weird steampunk western movie that Will Smith was in, came out in the 90s at some point, and was just a strange experience all around. But it was also cool, because steampunk is great and adding it to a western isn’t a twist that you see often enough, so I enjoyed it.
This book? This is what that movie wishes it could’ve been. Not only is it all sorts of steampunk craziness, it’s also set in an alternate history world where the Utah Territory became the Kingdom of Deseret,1 an independent nation led by Brigham Young, the independent Republic of California is issuing their own currency, and after clockwork machinery made slavery irrelevant, Harriet Tubman wound up as the President of the Reunited States of Mexico. A big world with a lot of things going on, for sure.
The story also has a lot going on – the first few chapters gave me a vibe along the lines of Oceans Eleven, somehow – I think it was the “ensemble cast” thing going on. You’re bounced from character to character, but they’re all in the same room together, and trying to get a grasp of their varying motivations and goals is a heady rush. The Civil War is coming up fast, and everybody knows it… but with strong nations sharing an actual border wit the United States, there’s some political maneuvering to be done. Deseret has a military tech lead over everyone else and would be a strong ally on either side, and the favor of Young is not something to be trifled with.
I’m not going to give much more away here, but I’ll say it again: I loved this book, and I couldn’t recommend it more. It was a delight to read, and I’m hoping there’s more by this author that I can dive into later on. Give it a read.
- Based on what almost happened – the Mormon settlers wanted to name the state “Deseret” originally. ↩
Conor Kostick
I don’t think I’ve reviewed anything by Kostick before, but I’ve definitely read some of his work – his Epic series was delightful, and shares something in common with this collection of novellas: a lot of playing around with virtual worlds.
“Kudos”
Slightly on-the-nose about it, but as a card-carrying millennial I am contractually obliged to like a story about the evils of capitalism.
The nice thing is that, in the setting of a post-scarcity and apparently post-death virtual utopia, the whole thing becomes aggressively about the service economy, and also makes the whole thing low-stakes enough that it’s just a nice story.
“Aliens”
Again, a very cool concept thanks to the interesting setting. I’m enjoying the little references to Epic, as well – there are both name-drops and references to the actual storyline.
“Revenge Upon the Vampyres”
In a world where people can’t die, thanks to the ability to restore themselves from backups,1 finding a way to make the stakes high can be a bit difficult. It’s played nicely in this one.
“Dancers Beyond the Whorl of Time”
A nice prologue story, answering a few questions I’ve had building up from little references in the other stories.
“The Siege of Mettleburg”
I’m feeling like I should check the publish dates of these stories and Epic, because this one really felt like a precursor to the larger novel.
“The Murder Mystery”
A nice follow-up to the previous story, and a bit of interesting discussion of the relationship between the virtual world in which the stories take place and the physical reality in which it’s anchored.2
All in all, it’s a nice little box set of books, and it’s not too pricey, either. Have a read.
Ekaterina Sedia
This was a very… interesting book. And I say this because, beyond that, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I didn’t really enjoy the plot, but I found everything else fascinating – the world in which it takes place has a weird set of rules unlike any I’ve seen before, and it fits well with the unique main character.
And it’s interesting that, despite my interest in this sort of thing, I haven’t actually read many books where the narrator is a machine. That’s the real twist to this book – and no, it’s not a spoiler, because they’re clear about what they are – and it plays remarkably well. It’s done remarkably well, too – the perspective is slightly off of what you’d get with a human narrator, and I think the author did a wonderful job of using that difference to tell the story they wanted to tell.
So I suppose I’m comfortable recommending it – as I said, I didn’t actually like what all happened with the plot, but the storytelling was interesting enough that it held my interest the whole time, and I do think reading it was a good use of my time. Have a read.