Embassytown
This comic came out the day after I first picked up Embassytown. Unfortunately, it matched my first impressions of this dense, loquacious tome. For those unaware, China Mieville is a writer of ‘weird’ fiction. He writes in a very peculiar manner which had me frequently consulting kindle’s dictionary - and even urban dictionary - and wrestling some manner of meaning from long, oddly constructed sentences. I mentioned this to my sister who asked “do you not like it because it makes you feel stupid?” That’s a reasonable question. I have read books in old English and old Scots. I enjoy Chaucer, for example, though it takes a lot of work to comprehend and I read with a translation on hand. But neither make me feel as though the author is actively working against me to dull my comprehension. The first few chapters of Embassytown did, and resultingly, were a struggle.
Regardless, when things kick off, half way through, Embassytown becomes a superb ‘weird’ and arguably postmodern jolly through a very alien world.
The Ariekei are a race for whom language is not symbolic. Similies, metaphors and lying do not exist for the Ariekei and they can only ‘hear’ something which has thought behind it, i.e. two shared minds speaking the same thing. Avice Benner Cho (trust me, her monogram is only the first of many little titters you will endure, though it took a sojourn to the Guardian to understand what a ‘miab’ was), our narrator, lives in Embassytown. Through a series of fortunate events, she becomes the perfect person to tell this story. She is lucky enough to be a simile first of all, “the girl who was hurt and then ate what was given to her”. By doing this act for the Ariekei, she becomes a part of their language, as they can only reference something that has happened. For the Ariekei, to be like the girl who hurt and then ate what was given to her, becomes a well used phrase in their language, like a rolling stone in ours. Her second gift of plot is that she is capable of navigating the immer, which is a brilliant concept for navigating deep space (though admittedly not very novel, it’s nicely written about here). After escaping her backwater colony roots, she returns at the behest of her husband, a linguist fascinated by the Ariekei.
Two points here. First, I loved that Avice’s husband, beloved as he was, was married to her on a short-term, asexual contract. It was a lovely little touch of gender politics and it made me smile. Secondly, her husband may well be fascinated by the Ariekei, but as a behaviour scientist II was downright confused. This is a species which has been specifically stated to work without a concept of ‘that’. I absolutely could not read this book with my science hat on. To say the aliens are impossible beings does not elicit a sense of wonder in me, but rather a handwave of ‘magic’.
Like the flowery prose, the soft science is by no means a bad thing. It is what it is and is enjoyable for what it is. Embassytown is not as clever as I had been led to believe - but I’m not sure it’s supposed to be. When it gets into its swing, it’s actually enjoyable and gripping. Some plot revelations, particularly about the underlying politics, arrived too late to be meaningful. Some characters dropped out of the story for long periods, to reappear or be mentioned later on. It’s possible I wasn’t reading deeply enough, but to my knowledge, characters like Scile and Ersuhl had deep mysteries lingering about them that were not answered.
I think Embassytown was an indulgence of fantasy and fun. It was a ‘what if’ exercise, not intended to be thought about too deeply. If you try to work out how a culture which cannot conceive of things that don’t exist can create, then you’ll start poking holes in Embassytown. If you try to understand every sentence, you’ll start to feel sick in the immer. Immerse in Embassytown, and you will see new worlds. You have to floak through this book.
Embassytown is why I have the ‘five star’ tag. It’s not my favourite by any means, but it’s got me thinking, I think it’s going to be a classic sci-fi book and I did enjoy it eventually.
And lastly: Before the humans came we did not speak. When I ‘got’ that, I did grin.
She didn’t mean James Potter.
She meant Severus Snape.
(first quote: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Two: A Peck of Owls; second quote: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter Thirty-Three: The Prince’s Tale)
J.K. Rowling is a master of this kind of thing, and as a geek, I just want to praise her for it.
M.E. is a long-term (chronic) fluctuating neurological illness/condition that can cause a wide variety of symptoms. It affects many different body systems, most commonly the nervous and immune systems. It is characterised by ‘a range of neurological symptoms and signs, muscle pain with intense…
My friend, Sparks, doesn’t often talk about her disease. I hear about her writing, what she’s been reading and enjoying lately, and plenty of squeeing about Sierra Boggess too, but not what every day is like. These kind of reads are essential for those of us who are able, because the more incredulous we are when we read it, the more you realise how the world is geared for us.
Naomi Novik filled a hole in my life when she started writing about Napoleonic gentlemen and their dragons. The country hopping shenanigans of Laurence and Temeraire have the feel of trashy fantasy down pat. Like a mix of Saturday morning cartoons and Hollywood golden era storytelling. Novik’s history as a fanfiction writer shows through, her relationships are painted in euphemisms and subtext, perfect breeding ground for her fandom.
So it pained me that the series has been patchy of late. Victory of Eagles was superb, but the saga to Australia was almost as tedious as the two books trudging through Europe. Unfortunately, Novik can’t wed the journey with the destination, and I find myself waiting impatiently for the end of each book, where I know the plot will finally advance.
Crucible of Gold isn’t a return to the form of Victory of Eagles, but it does make progress. There are three fairly decent sized plot revolutions (one of which I actually cheered at and another that seemed designed to appeal to fandom - not that I protest that, Temeraire is fundamentally fun). What Crucible of Gold does well, very well, is continue the problem of having two fully sapient species inhabiting one planet, and those species have very different motivations. She’s taken one of the fundamental things we know about dragons, they’re greedy, and turned it into the most interesting and compelling part of the whole series.
I just wish we didn’t have to trek through the forest to get to it.
A new Chris Brookmyre, you say! It’s actually been out for a while, you say! Shut up, I say, I only realised a few weeks ago.
So before I got sucked into the maelstrom that is Mass Effect 3, I found myself tearing through this Brookmyre book. It felt like an early De Xavia novel, if Angelique hadn’t been a hero from the get-go. In a lot of ways, ‘Where the Bodies are Buried’ was Brookmyre’s take on a ‘Rebus’ novel. The action set-pieces are understated and few and far between. There’s even a bitter, broken young Edinburgh DC who had a problem with authority.
The female characters in ‘Where the Bodies are Buried’ are great, following all the best and broken police officer tropes and remaining clearly women. I could start going on about strength in the face of strife, etc., but what do you really expect from Brookmyre? I love the way he writes his women, as characters, not unachievable goals for his men.
The central mystery of ‘Where the Bodies are Buried’ is a little more down-to-earth than most of Brookmyre’s books. It’s a simplistic mystery, worthy, as I said, of a Rebus novel. I’d happily read more of the characters here, but I’m not sure if they will.
The lack of call-backs to the previous novels (unless Jim Sharp is who I suspect he is, I’d have to check ‘Sacred Art of Stealing’) was a little odd, but I liked the new characters, I liked the story, and I liked the way Glasgow still had its character, a little fantastical in this otherwise gritty story.
Good for: Brookmyre fans, crime fans, mystery fans, Rebus fans, Glasgow fans.
Bad for: Someone who was eagerly hoping for a sci-fi novel from Brookmyre next, or those who prefer Edinburgh …
The trouble with kindles is you being to read sporadically. I downloaded Dog On It back in August and have been dipping in and out of the relatively short story ever since. That’s not an indication of quality, but more an observation of reading habits in a new age, I guess.
Dog On It tells the tale of the Little Detective Agency, staffed by Bernie and his K9 trained dog, Chet. And Chet is the PoV character. See what they did there? It’s actually very funny and pretty high-concept. Chet’s narrative is rambling, focussed on smells and feelings. Bernie is close to god-like in Chet’s mind but the effect of the whole thing is actually very sweet. I particularly loved Chet’s wilful ignorance of wrong doing - he just finds himself in situations where he is a ‘bad dog’.
I really enjoyed Dog On It. It was funny and clever. The underlying mystery was a little ho-hum, but definitely worth it.
I was originally going to go in a completely different direction with the Station/Lt. Potter conflict. My first idea was that she’d take the shares, cash them out, be ecstatic about her sudden wealth, and get drunk as hell, which would no doubt lead to hijinks of some kind at the party.
But…
First, you probably want to know why I’ve tagged this as ‘awful’ because it’s not. It’s not offensive, or all that poorly written and the concept should, in theory, be great fun. It is, however, deeply disappointing.
P.D. James has written a sequel to Pride and Prejudice and it’s a murder mystery! I was so excited I went straight on Facebook and immediately prompted a handful of friends to buy it too. Upon downloading, I excitedly grabbed my kindle and settled down to see how Elizabeth, surely one of the savviest and most interesting heroines of all time, might deal with a murder in the Pemberley estate. Also! Who knows, we might get a glimpse of one of the most famous relationships in literary history.
Spoilers! None of that happens. P.D. James is under the impression no one read Pride and Prejudice and so we get a very long and very detailed summary of every character’s life history, motivations and major roles in Pride and Prejudice for the first 20% or so of this book. Then, there’s a murder, but that’s probably kind of not important because there’s a ball, and the there’s probably not a ball or maybe there is and hey, here’s an original character and oh yeah, didn’t someone get murdered? Here’s a bit about why that’s illegal in this time period and how the law exists.
The whole novel stumbles around Darcy who himself fumbles unhappily through the whole ‘mystery’. I say ‘mystery’ because the only reason you don’t want to piece the puzzle together is because you’re desperately hoping someone might surprise you.
The great moment in Pride and Prejudice is when you discover how Lydia and Wickham are saved. It’s a slow reveal of letters and confessions and that climax is mimicked in Death Comes to Pemberley, as though P.D. James thinks that is what thrills us. Personally, I’ve always found it to be the cumulation of the motivations of Elizabeth and Darcy and the giving up both pride and prejudice on the behalf of both which really moves me, but what do I know?
And speaking of, Elizabeth? Blink and you’ll miss her.
Good for: People who really, really, really like regency procedurals and don’t like Darcy, Elizabeth or Pride and Prejudice.
Bad for: People who want to read about Elizabeth Bennett investigating a murder.
