Underappreciated Authors

Once again, I'm riffing off of a SF Signal Mind Meld.  This one asks the question "Which genre author, living or dead, do you think deserves more attention?"

This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer, even though the answer entirely depends on the respondent's preferences and perspective. But perspective is part of the problem.  I could probably rattle off a handful of names that I would love to see more discussion about, only to find out that they are consistent bestsellers.  This is because I don't know much about how much a particular novel is really selling, relative to the online conversations I see. But even that is a trick, because we only see what the people around us are talking about and we only hear from those voices we seek out. This is a touch obvious and trite, but if we only know what we know, we then have no idea what other conversations are taking place just outside our circles.  There are vibrant conversations taking place about all sorts of awesome books and I have no idea what they are talking about.  This book that I think is wonderful but lament that "nobody" is talking about may be much discussed and may also be selling quite well beyond anything I could have imagined, but here I think that nobody knows about it because my small corner isn't talking about it.

Of course, one could always run with the question from the perspective of "sure, this person sells enough to keep publishing and wins awards, but I want her to outsell Stephen King and Jo Rowling combined."  I'm going to try to not intentionally push in that direction. 

So, let's take what follows with a small grain of salt.  I may have no idea what I'm talking about. 

The first author who comes to mind is Jennifer Pelland.  She is a two time Nebula Award nominee for her short fiction ("Captive Girl" and "Ghosts of New York") and if I had my way she would be a Nebula Award winning author at the very least for "Captive Girl", which I thought was stunning.  Pelland is the author of the excellent novel Machine, published in 2012, and the short story collection Unwelcome Bodies (2008).  Pelland's fiction often deals with issues of body augmentation and image, and does so in an unflinching manner. If anyone is going to flinch, it's likely going to be the reader. She's damn good and I hope that she will be able to publish some stuff soon, because it's been far too long since I've read a new Jennifer Pelland story.  This is, of course, about me.

Another writer who I don't see people talking much about is Greg Keyes.  Keyes was discussed a bit more between 2003 and 2008 when he published his generally excellent Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone fantasy series, but perhaps because his subsequent output has been two Elder Scrolls novels and a prequel to the new Planet of the Apes movies, there hasn't been much buzz.  Keyes is also the author of the fascinating Age of Unreason quartet featuring an alternate history with Ben Franklin and Isaac Newton. That one is worth a look, if you haven't heard of it or read it before.  Start with Newton's Cannon.  I'd love to see a fresh novel or series from him that isn't tie-in work. 

Which, pun intended, ties in very well to Karen Traviss.  Much of Traviss's output has been tie-in fiction, starting with Star Wars and moving on to the Halo universe.  I followed her Star Wars work and thought it was some of the best of the Expanded Universe novels, but because I am less interested in the Halo Universe, I haven't followed her there yet.  I say yet, because knowing how good Traviss has been at everything else she's written, I'd probably be a fool if I didn't give those a crack, too.  If you want some excellent science fiction that isn't tied in to a shared universe of some sort, try her Wess'har Wars beginning with City of Pearl.  Blew me away and I was hooked from the first book of the six volume series.  Traviss does excellent work, period, but because she's been working so much in the Star Wars and Halo settings, I don't see much discussion about her.  She does have a new novel Going Gray just out and I expect it will be fantastic.

I read Imaro from Charles Saunders in 2009 (my review) and loved it.  It is a wonderful sword and sorcery novel set in an alternate Africa, and it is one which I had never previously encountered.  Despite my appreciation for Imaro and despite buying the second volume Imaro Two: The Quest for Cush, I have still only read that first book.  I should remedy this. So should you.  The first two Imaro novels were originally republished by Night Shade in the mid 2000's, but they never published the third volume. Saunders self published the third volume (which did have an original print publication by DAW in the 80's) and he has also self published a fourth volume. On the strength of Imaro alone, Charles Saunders should be much more well known than he is.

Finally, let's talk briefly about Rosemary Kirstein.  I only just discovered Kirstein this year (my review of The Steerswoman) and I'm excited to read more of the Steerswoman novels.  The first was excellent.  Kirstein, of course, is another author has written excellent books but because of sales and publishing, was dropped by her publisher / or didn't have the next book picked up, which is much the same to me.  She has been self publishing her novels and there are currently four of them out, so there are still opportunities to read more.  Back in 2008, Jo Walton put a spotlight on the series, and it's well worth a look.

Definitions or Categorization

Ian Sales has an essay titled "An epistemological model of (speculative) fiction" in which he discusses how one might categorize a work as science fiction or fantasy because he feels that for all of the definitions of what is science fiction "most of these definitions are ineffective."

Sales breaks things out with a chart which would graph out the amount of "Wonder" a work has (how much does it fill up the imagination) and the "Agency" (is the work filled with possible things that work in ways they do in real life?), and I think of the scene in Dead Poets Society where the students are told to chart out the greatness of a poem immediately before Robin Williams informs the students that the idea is excrement and to rip out the pages of their textbook.

Sales goes on to say that

Works can, of course, straddle borders, which can lead to interesting effects. But as means of distinguishing between various genres, the above chart doesn’t rely on tropes – in fact, it completely ignores them. A story can, for example, feature dragons, defined as cryptozoologic reptiles, and be science fiction. A fantasy novel can feature spaceships which fly between worlds because some person in a cloak waves their hands and mutters gibberish.

I think his essay is worth a look.  To the point that I have felt a need to truly categorize a novel or story as science fiction, I tend towards something Ray Bradbury once said about The Martian Chronicles (which I can't quite source),

First of all, I don't write science fiction. I've only done one science fiction book and that's Fahrenheit 451, based on reality. It was named so to represent the temperature at which paper ignites. Science fiction is a depiction of the real. Fantasy is a depiction of the unreal. So Martian Chronicles is not science fiction, it's fantasy. It couldn't happen, you see?

If I get technical about things, that's how I would define science fiction versus fantasy. It seems like, for the most part, Sales is working from a similar definition.  He just has a graph. 

But for the most part, I don't feel much need to define science fiction and fantasy. I can cover both of them under the umbrella of "speculative fiction" and I can further just say "genre" when referring to them.  Of course, "genre" is non-specific and can lead to confusion with other genres, but then genre itself is fluid and allows speculative fiction to take some romance and take some hard boiled crime and mix it all together and you still have a speculative fiction story. 

I can also say "hey, this is a really great book, you should read it" and recommend it like anything else. 

Of course, Shaun Duke takes this in a different direction and calls SF a "Supergenre", but I'm not quite willing to dive into that at the moment.  I just wanted to point it out.

My final thought is simply that science fiction (and all its subsets) and fantasy (and all of its subsets) are both under the umbrella of Speculative Fiction because they are different sides of the same coin.  Of course, this would suggest that I should define "speculative fiction" in some way that is superior to all of the unsatisfying definitions of science fiction or fantasy unless I said that "Speculative Fiction is comprised of science fiction and fantasy and all the blurred lines in between." 

I'm sure that doesn't work. 

Legacies

Recently, SF Signal posted one of their periodic Mind Meld features which asks a number of people to provide an answer for a particular topic. The latest one had to do with author's legacies and whether an unfinished series should remain unfinished.  You can find it here.  I had an abbreviated response there, but wanted to expand on it here. 

The quick answer is that it depends entirely on the author's wishes.  If George R. R. Martin does not want another writer to finish A Song of Ice and Fire if he should pass away before completing it, then that is exactly what should happen.  Or, should not happen, as the case may be.

Of course, Robert Jordan and The Wheel of Time is an excellent example of the other side of this.  The author knew he was terminally ill and made arrangements through his wife and editor, Harriet, that the series would be finished and that his fans would get to find out how the series ended.  His wife selected another writer who was able to not only finish Jordan's work, but also do so in such a way that both honored and lived up to the standard that was set. 

But, the author's wishes are paramount. 

In that Mind Meld, Bradley Beaulieu had this to say,

Last year on Speculate!, the podcast I run with Greg Wilson, we were interviewing Scott Lynch about his wonderful” Gentlemen Bastard” series, and we got to talking about the implied contract writers create with readers—whether there was one, how far it extended; that sort of thing—and Scott said that he believed that the author owed the reader the full story. If you said you were going to provide a trilogy, you really do owe them a trilogy. I’m with Scott. Readers become very invested in their fiction (I know I certainly do), and I think it’s fair to say that if you put down good money for the first installment, you really ought to provide all the installments you said you were going to provide in the beginning. Now, Scott also said that you don’t owe the reader their version of the story, and I believe that to be true as well. A writer owes it to herself and the story to finish it the way she wants to. 

I could not agree more.  I understand the perspective of Neil Gaiman when he, famously, wrote that "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch."  Which is to say that GRRM, or any other author, is not required to write on your schedule or write what you think they should write.  This is true. 

But. 

I agree with Bradley and Scott that there is an implied contract between readers and authors.  When I buy "Book One of Potentially Awesome Fantasy Series" from Wonderful Author Person, I am buying it with the understanding that it is only the first volume in a series and that the series may take years or decades to complete.  Obviously, I hope it will be finished sooner, but that is because I am an impatient little bastard.  I understand that it may take a long time and that in some cases, the author may need to step aside and write something else while they are working to complete the series.  That's the thing, though, I am buying "Book One of Potentially Awesome Fantasy Series" with the expectation that there will be "The Last Book in Totally Awesome Fantasy Series" to wrap things up. 

There are different sorts of series and they carry different sorts of expectations.  Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels are, for the most part, "The Continuing Adventures of Lawrence and Temeraire" and there is likely no true concluding novel because there can always be more adventures. This is the same with Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards. Sure, I know that there are seven books planned, but for the most part, they stand alone while building a larger tapestry.  Or many detective novels and Vince Flynn and Tom Clancy.  The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire and Memory Sorrow Thorn and The Night's Dawn Trilogy are all different.  They are telling a singular story and set the expectation of a final volume that wraps up the story the author intends to tell, regardless of of how the reader feels it should end. 

If you knew going in that the author was not going to complete the sort of series which more requires an ending, would you have bought the "Book One of Potentially Awesome Fantasy Series" to begin with? 

This all ties together with the point about legacies, I promise. 

There are all sorts of reasons why an author does not finish a series and most of them a reader would have to be an unfeeling asshole to not empathize with or be able to understand.  Sales might be weak and the publisher declined to finish the series.  The author may have been ill.  There may have been family issues which there is no good reason for us, the reader, to know about.  As Neil Gaiman explained, the author may have been stuck or needed to recharge on different projects before returning to the promised book.  Actually, this is how Brandon Sanderson stays so prolific. He switches up projects and works on different things so he can stay fresh for his longer works.  It's just that Brandon writes so fast that we seldom have to wait very long.  But imagine a slower writer who still needs time to recharge on different projects.  The author may have died. 

Bradley Beaulieu wonders "does the death of the writer absolve the author from that contract" and goes on to explain how, from his fan's perspective, it does not - but that it should be done carefully and with conditions.  He later explains in the comments to the Mind Meld that as an author he agrees with those who believe the author gets to decide her or his legacy and whether a story will be finished by another writer.

The older I get, the farther I get from the fan's perspective and the closer I stick with "the author's wishes are paramount."  As a younger fan, of course I wanted whatever series to be finished and would have said that it should be.  Now, with a touch more maturity under the belt, my thought is that:

A) It sucks horribly that the author has passed away and all of my sympathy goes out to the author's family and friends and I hope that they all are able to find peace with the loss of their loved on. 

B) I may never get to find out how this story that I loved ends and that's okay. 

So that's where I stand.  But I do have one caveat to all of this, and it is more of a wish than a hope.  My wish is that if an author knows that she is nearing the end of her life, whether it is illness or age, that even if she doesn't want another writer to finish her work that she would be willing to pull together her notes and maybe sketch out how various story arcs are intended to resolve, and permit those notes to be released after her death - perhaps as a published volume for her estate or maybe just something online through her publisher / agent / friends. It would be a way to provide closure for the fans and readers who have spent years and money and emotion investing themselves in that author's work. The series may never be finished and the author never had the chance to finish it the way she intended, but here's a glimpse into how the various arcs and characters ended.  It's not a demand and it isn't a requirement, but it would be something nice. It would be one last gift to the readers who have been following along for years. 

Thoughts on the 2014 Hugo Award Winners

Let's just start this out right: I'm very happy with how this year's Hugo Awards turned out.  This was an excellent slate of winners, one which I think we'll be able to look back on and think "yeah, they got that right".  You can quibble, of course, with what was nominated and what was not, but as a whole, I think this was a solid class of Hugo Award winners.

I had greater ambitions to read and watch everything, and I didn't get quite as far along with the various stories as I had planned due to life. The time I would generally have put towards short story reading went to studying for various exams, so I didn't hit the Novellas and Novelettes quite like I planned.  But that's okay.  I still have thoughts and opinions and happiness.

Before I dig into the individual categories, I would like to offer an extra round of congratulations to Ann Leckie for winning everything, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kameron Hurley, Aidan Moher, and John Joseph Adams. I have been reading and following these folks for a number of years and I think they are all extra awesome in their own particular ways and I am super excited that they won. Aidan in particular.

You can find my breakdown of the Hugo Voting here. 

Best Novel (1595 ballots)
*Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK)
Parasite by Mira Grant (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia (Baen Books)
The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books)

Thoughts: Ancillary Justice (my review) was really in a class all its own here. I would have understood if The Wheel of Time had won and I probably would have applauded, if only because of my overall love and appreciation of the series as a whole and how good of a job Brandon Sanderson did in finishing Robert Jordan's work, but I wouldn't have agreed with the award. Ancillary Justice was the right call.

Best Novella (847 ballots)
The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
“The Chaplain’s Legacy” by Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
*“Equoid” by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
“Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)

Thoughts: This is one of the categories I missed most of the nominated works. I had copies of everything, I just never quite got around to it. As such, the only two I read were the winner and the runner up (Six-Gun Snow White - my review). I'm not sure I enjoyed "Equoid", but I can see where some people would appreciate it. Without having read the other three stories, I can't say where I would have voted, but right now neither of the two I read would have been it.

Best Novelette (728 ballots)
“The Exchange Officers” by Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013) (audio)
*“The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
“Opera Vita Aeterna” by Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands)
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling” by Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
“The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)

Thoughts: Another category my reading was delinquent. This time, though, I can say that I adored Mary Robinette Kowal's "The Lady Astronaut of Mars". That was a wonderful and charming and sad story and I am so happy that it won.  I also enjoyed Aliette de Bodard's story, but I think between those two, the Kowal was the correct choice. I did not read the other three. Too much studying, too little time.

Best Short Story (865 ballots)
“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine, Mar-2013)
“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com, 04-2013)
“Selkie Stories Are for Losers” by Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, Jan-2013)
*“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)

Thoughts: Had I a vote, I would have voted for John Chu's lovely story (my review). I was able to read all four nominated stories and while I loved the Swirsky, I think the Chu is a better representation as a story. Swirsky's was more of a beautiful heart-wrenching semi-narrative poem. It's wonderful, but Chu's story is a worthy winner.

Best Related Work (752 ballots)
Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It Edited by Sigrid Ellis & Michael Damian Thomas (Mad Norwegian Press)
Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary by Justin Landon & Jared Shurin (Jurassic London)
*“We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative” by Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer, with Jeremy Zerfoss (Abrams Image)
Writing Excuses: Season 8 by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Jordan Sanderson

Thoughts: Kameron Hurley's piece was one of the more discussed and shared nonfiction works in the genre this year, and I think it represents a significant part of the conversation this year. The award is also timely in that the writer of the Best Related Work is also the winner of Best Fan Writer. More on that later.

Best Graphic Story (552 ballots)
Girl Genius, Volume 13: Agatha Heterodyne & The Sleeping City written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colours by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
“The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who” written by Paul Cornell, illustrated by Jimmy Broxton (Doctor Who Special 2013, IDW)
The Meathouse Man adapted from the story by George R.R. Martin and illustrated by Raya Golden (Jet City Comics)
Saga, Volume 2 written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
*“Time” by Randall Munroe (XKCD)

Thoughts: I don't know, man. There's a lot going on with Time, but Saga is something pretty special itself (bonkers, but special). I never quite got to The Meathouse Man, though I'm familiar with the original story, so I imagine it was dark and nasty. Time is a different sort of graphic story, but it works. It's quiet, and sad, but it works. I think it's my impression on what a graphic story is that is messing with me. I think I would have voted Saga over Time, but taking the time (no pun intended) to work through Time is worthwhile.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) (995 ballots)
Frozen screenplay by Jennifer Lee, directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee (Walt Disney Studios)
*Gravity written by Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Esperanto Filmoj; Heyday Films; Warner Bros.)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire screenplay by Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt, directed by Francis Lawrence (Color Force; Lionsgate)
Iron Man 3 screenplay by Drew Pearce & Shane Black, directed by Shane Black (Marvel Studios; DMG Entertainment; Paramount Pictures)
Pacific Rim screenplay by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, directed by Guillermo del Toro (Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros., Disney Double Dare You)

Thoughts: Easily the right choice. The only argument to be made is whether or not Gravity is actually science fiction. Maybe the thought of George Clooney as an astronaut is fantasy, but if you really think about the movie, it's just a straight up story that happens to be in space - but everything is possible with today's technology. It's fiction that uses science, but isn't science fiction. Unless you argue that everything that ventures into space is science fiction. But regardless of that, Gravity is an excellent movie.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) (760 ballots)
An Adventure in Space and Time written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Terry McDonough (BBC Television)
Doctor Who: “The Day of the Doctor” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Nick Hurran (BBC Television)
Doctor Who: “The Name of the Doctor” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Saul Metzstein (BBC Television)
The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot written and directed by Peter Davison (BBC Television)
*Game of Thrones: “The Rains of Castamere” written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
Orphan Black: “Variations under Domestication” written by Will Pascoe, directed by John Fawcett (Temple Street Productions; Space/BBC America)

Thoughts: In the category of the Hugo Award for Doctor Who, Game of Thrones won. It's the Red Wedding episode, which I'm not sure I can evaluate fairly because, holy snap, the Red Wedding.  I'm a couple episodes behind on Orphan Black, but I'm glad the Doctor Who didn't win.

Best Editor: Short Form (656 ballots)
*John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow 
Jonathan Strahan 
Sheila Williams

Thoughts: This is the Best Editor category where you can see the editorial hand in play. Compiling an anthology or building a short fiction magazine, the Short Form editor shapes the vision in a way that you can see. John Joseph Adams has been doing excellent work for years, and I'm very happy to see him receive the recognition.  Now, as for this past year, I have no idea. I haven't followed the anthologies and the zines like I used to.  But JJA definitely deserves to have a Hugo on his shelf.

Best Editor: Long Form (632 ballots)
*Ginjer Buchanan (Ace Books)
Sheila Gilbert (DAW)
Liz Gorinsky (Tor)
Lee Harris (Angry Robot)
Toni Weisskopf (Baen)

Thoughts: Long Form is a lot tougher because, depending on the press, the editor is part of a team of editors working for the publisher. So, unless you know exactly what Gorinsky worked on (and this can be tough in a large publisher), it's hard to say that she was the best editor or that she acquired the best work published last year.  When you look at smaller publishers with only a single editor on board, yes, Toni Weisskopf is Baen and Lee Harris is Angry Robot (as I understand it).  Lou Anders is Pyr.  So, if you like the publisher, you know what the editor has been doing.  Ace likely has a number of editors, but Ginjer Buchanan just retired this year, so this was the last chance to recognize her for her decades of work in the genre. I imagine this played a role.

Best Professional Artist (624 ballots)
Galen Dara 
*Julie Dillon 
Daniel Dos Santos 
John Harris 
John Picacio
Fiona Staples

Thoughts: I never did the wrap-up post after profiling all of the artists, but Julie Dillon (my profile) had a fantastic year. I might have voted for Galen Dara for my top choice (my profile), but every one of these produced quality work last year.

Best Semiprozine (411 ballots)
Apex Magazine edited by Lynne M. Thomas, Jason Sizemore, and Michael Damian Thomas
Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
*Lightspeed Magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki
Strange Horizons edited by Niall Harrison, Brit Mandelo, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, Sonya Taaffe, Abigail Nussbaum, Rebecca Cross, Anaea Lay, and Shane Gavin

Thoughts: I haven't been reading the short fiction of the various zines this past year, but given that JJA also won Best Editor, it shouldn't be a huge surprise that his zine is the Best Semiprozine.

Best Fanzine (478 ballots)
The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James
*A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher
Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond
Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Lynda E. Rucker, Pete Young, Colin Harris, and Helen J. Montgomery
Pornokitsch edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin

Thoughts:  If I could express just how excited and happy I am for Aidan, I would. I just don't know how to succinctly get that across. Up until recently, A Dribble of Ink has been a single author blog. It was just Aidan pumping out quality work for years. He's been more of an editor these last couple of years, curating his blog and seeking out guest work to post - and curating is an apt term, because from the look of things, this is an active role versus just having guest writers doing whatever they want. He's grabbing writers of quality and expanding his audience and reach and overall doing one hell of a good job.

Also, where I've been previously happy for SF Signal winning for Best Fanzine, it's always been more of a group blog and a bigger and different thing. Those wins were important in helping blogs get recognition, but Aidan's win is the first time I've really felt like "one of us" have won the Hugo. This touches on Fan Writer a bit, but I've been blogging for a decade and Aidan has been right there for most of that time.  This is just a cool and awesome thing. 

Best Fancast (396 ballots)
The Coode Street Podcast – Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia Podcast – Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (presenters) and Andrew Finch (producer)
*SF Signal Podcast – Patrick Hester
The Skiffy and Fanty Show – Shaun Duke, Jen Zink, Julia Rios, Paul Weimer, David Annandale, Mike Underwood, and Stina Leicht
Tea and Jeopardy – Emma Newman
Verity! – Deborah Stanish, Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Lynne M. Thomas, and Tansy Rayner Roberts
The Writer and the Critic – Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond 

Thoughts: I don't listen to many podcasts. I just tend to not have the time or the focus, so while I love the conversations I've been able to hear when I do, as a whole, I've not been able to engage with them. It's a shame. I did enjoy the couple of episodes of Skiffy and Fanty I've listened to.

Best Fan Writer (521 ballots)
Liz Bourke 
*Kameron Hurley
Foz Meadows 
Abigail Nussbaum 
Mark Oshiro 

Thoughts: First, excellent lineup of fan writers. Second, Kameron Hurley very much deserved this win with all of the killer fan writing she's been putting out, whether it is guest blogs, her own blog, or living on Twitter and engaging. Third, it does seem like more prominent writers and published authors are the ones who get the most recognition for Fan Writer. I am not suggesting that published authors are not also fans, and that they do not produce fan writing, but it does seem like Liz, Foz, Abigail, and Mark had a slightly tougher road against the wider recognition of Kameron. Again, not a dig on Kameron's absolutely killer fan writing or the reach of "We Have Always Fought" (published on A Dribble of Ink), but she is a more recognizable name outside of those who follow fan writing and various blogs. 

With all of that said, though - this was an outstanding year for the nominated fan writers. I am aware of Mark through the Mark Reads Stuff that I've seen linked, but I am not familiar with his work. Liz, Kameron, Foz, and Abigail have been just killing it. I've been advocating for Abigail's nomination for several years and I'm very happy to see it here.  Kameron's win is well deserved, as was that of "We Have Always Fought" for Related Work.

Best Fan Artist (316 ballots)
Brad W. Foster
Mandie Manzano 
Spring Schoenhuth 
Steve Stiles
*Sarah Webb 

Thoughts: Like Professional Artist, I highlighted the nominees (except that I never got Brad's spotlight posted - for which I apologize). Sarah Webb (my profile) was easily my favorite of the bunch and I would not be surprised to see her work being nominated in the future for Professional Artist if she continues with it and moves in that direction within the genre.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (767 ballots)
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2012 or 2013, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).
Wesley Chu 
Max Gladstone*
Ramez Naam*
*Sofia Samatar*
Benjanun Sriduangkaew

*Denotes finalists in their 2nd year of eligibility.

Thoughts:  I made it halfway through this category (Chu, Naam, Samatar), so I can't speak on Gladstone or Sriduangkaew (yet).  I would have went with Wesley Chu just from reading the first of the Tao novels (my review). I had a blast reading it and was more impressed by it than Naam's Nexus or Samatar's Olondria novel. I do understand, though, that I'm in the minority of A Stranger of Olondria  (my not a review). I've enjoyed her short fiction, but I just failed to engage with Olondria.  Most everyone else truly appreciated the artistry of the novel, though, and so I am not at all surprised by the win. Maybe next year for Chu.

2014 Hugo Award Voting Breakdown

One of my favorite things about the Hugo Award season, besides the whole damn thing, is that after the awards are given out, the convention running that year's awards also provides the voting results and nominating breakdowns. Per the WSFS Constitution, they must do this within 90 days following that year's Worldcon (section 3.11.4), but what I've been seeing in recent years is that those totals are released shortly after the awards are given.

That breakdown can be found here.

I tend to find the breakdown of the instant runoff voting a little bit less interesting just because it depends on the vagaries of how the various voters have ranked the nominees, but what I find fascinating is taking a look at how close a work that missed the ballot only needed two more people nominating it and it could have made the final ballot.  And then who knows what would have happened.

Such as Best Novel.

368 Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie 23.1%
218 The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman 13.7% *
184 Warbound Larry Correia 11.5%
160 The Wheel of Time Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson 10.0%
120 Neptune's Brood Charles Stross 7.5%
98 Parasite Mira Grant 6.1%
96 The Shining Girls Lauren Beukes 6.0%
92 A Stranger in Olondria Sofia Samatar 5.8%
91 A Few Good Men Sarah A. Hoyt 5.7%
84 The Golem and the Djinni HeleneWecker 5.3%
81 The Republic of Thieves Scott Lynch 5.1%
74 Under a Graveyard Sky John Ringo 4.6%
70 London Falling Paul Cornell 4.4%
69 Abaddon's Gate James S.A. Corey 4.3%
67 Steelheart Brandon Sanderson 4.2%
66 River of Stars Guy Gavriel Kay 4.1%

Neil Gaiman declined his nomination, which allowed Mira Grant's Parasite to make the ballot, but The Shining Girls was only two nominations away from making the ballot.  Two!  I would have loved to see The Golem and the Jinni pick up a nomination (it was a superior work of fiction) but it was 14 away.

There was a 23 nomination gap between "Wakulla Springs" and a novella from Mira Grant, which is reasonably substantial over 847 ballots.  Similar for novelette, which has 20 votes between Vox Day's story and Ken Liu making the ballot.

But then we get to the short stories and you get two interesting things happen.  First, the current rules for the Hugo Awards requires that a nominee be on 5% of the nominating ballots to make the short list for the awards.  This year only four stories did so.  Second, had the 5% rule not been in place, Sarah Hoyt's story "Dog's Body" would have made the ballot (and only needed to be on five more of the existing ballots to make it). But, behind Hoyt by a single ballot was a story from Ken Liu.

79 Selkie Stories are for Losers Sofia Samatar 9.1%
73 The Ink Readers of Doi Saket Thomas Olde Heuvelt 8.4%
65 If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love Rachel Swirsky 7.5%
43 The water that falls on you from nowhere John Chu 5.0%
38 Dog's Body Sarah A. Hoyt 4.4%
37 A Brief History of the Trans-Pacific Tunnel Ken Liu 4.3%

If you look at Best Editor: Long Form, you'll see exactly that. Patrick Nielsen Hayden missed the ballot by a single vote.  One person. If you care about the Hugo Awards and you don't think that your votes matter when nominating, think of the single ballot that separated PNH from receiving another Hugo Award nomination.

169 Toni Weisskopf 26.7%
118 Ginjer Buchanan 18.7%
63 Sheila Gilbert 10.0%
54 Liz Gorinsky 8.5%
48 Lee Harris 7.6%
47 Patrick Nielsen Hayden 7.4%
42 Devi Pillai 6.6%
41 Lou Anders 6.5%
36 David G. Hartwell 5.7%

Likewise, Joey Hi-Fi was one nomination away from Best Professional Artist.  If you care about seeing newer and fresher names on the Hugo Award ballot, Joey Hi-Fi was one vote away from the final ballot.  One.

129 Julie Dillon 20.7%
109 John Picacio 17.5%
51 John Harris 8.2%
50 Galen Dara 8.0%
49 Dan dos Santos 7.9%
49 Fiona Staples 7.9%
48 Joey Hi-Fi 7.7%
38 Michael Whelan 6.1%

One thing that just interests me in general is the Fanzine Category (this comes as no surprise to readers of my blog).  There was a solid mixture of traditional style fanzines and blogs.  I'd like to throw out a bonus high five to Lady Business on picking up 5.6% of the ballots. It's wasn't enough to make the final ballot, but it's a solid showing. Good stuff. 

107 Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond 22.4%
83 The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James 17.4%
61 Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J. Garcia, Lynda E. Rucker, Pete
Young, Colin Harris, and Helen J. Montgomery 12.8%
61 Pornokitsch edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin 12.8%
53 A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher 11.1%
49 Banana Wings Claire Brialey, Mark Plummer 10.3%
49 The Drink Tank Chris Garcia, James Bacon 10.3%
33 Argentus Steven H. Silver 6.9%
29 SF Signal JohnDeNardo 6.1%
28 file 770 Mike Glyer 5.9%
27 Chunga Andy Hooper, Randy Byers , Carl juarez 5.6%
27 Lady Business Renay, Ana, Jodie 5.6%
24 Mad Genius Club Amanda Green 5.0%
23 Staffer's Book Review Justin Landon 4.8%
20 SF Commentary Bruce Gillespie 4.2%

Remember, folks. A single nomination can make the difference being a Hugo Award Nominee and not making the ballot, and I think all of us who spend time thinking about and writing about the genre and the awards can recognize how cool and awesome it would be to pick up a nomination, let alone the Hugo Award (serious congratulations to Aidan Moher at A Dribble of Ink!!!!!!!!!!).

2014 Hugo Award Winners

(Via Tor.com and the rest of the internet)

Below is a listing of the 2014 Hugo Award Winners. I will have significantly expanded thoughts later (probably tomorrow), but this was a fairly awesome slate of winners and otherwise for now: Congratulations to all the winners!

BEST NOVEL: Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (Orbit US / Orbit UK)

BEST NOVELLA: “Equoid” by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
BEST NOVELETTE: “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
BEST SHORT STORY: “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)
BEST RELATED WORK: “We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative” by Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)
BEST GRAPHIC STORY: “Time” by Randall Munroe (xkcd)
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, LONG FORM: Gravity written by Alfonso Cuarón & Jonás Cuarón, directed by Alfonso Cuarón
BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM: Game of Thrones “The Rains of Castamere” written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, directed by David Nutter
BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM: Ellen Datlow
BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM: Ginjer Buchanan
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST: Julie Dillon
BEST SEMIPROZINE: Lightspeed Magazine edited by John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki
BEST FANZINE: A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher
BEST FANCAST: SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester
BEST FAN WRITER: Kameron Hurley
BEST FAN ARTIST: Sarah Webb
JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER: Sofia Samatar

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, by Genevieve Valentine

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club
Genevieve Valentine
Atria: 2014

This is the novel that, without realizing it, I always expected Genevieve Valentine to write. If you only paid attention to her debut novel, Mechanique, or if you only followed her short stories, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club may come across as a bit of a departure. But, readers who have followed Valentine on her blog cannot help but notice her passion and knowledge of fashion. From her red carpet rundowns to various commentary on much older fashion, this is something that Genevieve Valentine knows, cares about, and can discuss with wit and knowledge.  Which is to say that The Girls at the Kingfisher Club takes a step away from the post apocalyptic steampunk circus of Mechanique and instead visits Prohibition era New York City with speakeasies and dance halls. 

The twelve Hamilton girls are shut in their father's house by a father who has never even met most of his daughters. He really wanted a son, you see. The world the novel is set in involves seriously old money New York, which is often a fairly quick turnoff for me.  Please, tell me a story about the troubles of rich people.  But, that isn't the story here. It is noted to provided context to the threat of the father marrying the girls off to get them out of the house, and to illustrate in what sort of world the father moves in.  The story is of the twelve daughters who learn to dance on their own from watching the occasional movie at the cinema, and practicing together in their house when nobody else is around. Eventually, the oldest sisters sneak out of the house to find a place to go dancing. It is only out dancing, even with the risk of police raids, that the girls feel truly alive and at home. It is the only thing that is truly theirs. Given the situation at home, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. 

Mixing in the excitement of dancing well, bootlegging, police raids, and the overall tension of escaping the wrath of an autocratic father, Genevieve Valentine has written an outstanding novel. As much as I enjoyed Mechanique and her short fiction, Valentine absolutely nailed it with The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. I mentioned in the first paragraph that this was the novel I always expected Valentine to write. I'll go one step farther, without realizing it, this is the novel I always wanted Genevieve Valentine to write. She stuck the landing with this one.

Many professional reviews make mention of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", from the Brothers Grimm, and how The Girls at the Kingfisher Club is a modern retelling of that fairy tale. One's familiarity with the original story may shape how the novel is read, but The Girls at the Kingfisher Club stands very well on its own. It may be part of a tradition of adapting older stories and setting them in a different era, sometimes modern, sometimes during the 1920's, buts The Girls at the Kingfisher Club brings its own elegance and its own excellence to the table.  The Girls at the Kingfisher Club is a delight.

The End of Subterranean Online

It is only through some sideways mentions in other places that I realized Subterranean Online, one of my favorite short fiction magazines which I have done a poor job of following in recent years, is about to close up shop.

I haven't been reading most of the short fiction venues I used to frequent. This isn't a knock against the fiction they publish, it has more to do with where I'm at in life and how and what I am currently reading.  Knowing that, if you asked me for some recommendations for where to find a good short story, one of the first places I would send you is Subterranean.

Subterranean Online was the short fiction side of Subterranean Press, a small publisher which puts out beautiful and limited editions of books.  In some cases, they would be limited prints of popular books from major name authors (Stephen King, George R. R. Martin), but they would also put out significant story collections that you just won't find anywhere else (Connie Willis, Peter Beagle, KJ Parker, Lucius Shepard) as well as novellas and smaller novels that are original to SubPress (Elizabeth Bear, James Blaylock, Joe Lansdale).

Subterranean Online was just as discerning, just as vital a source of short fiction. Publisher and editor William Schafer would publish, among others: Rachel Swirsky, John Scalzi, Mike Resnick, Joe Lansdale, Caitlin Kiernan, Elizabeth Bear, Ted Chiang, Jeff VanderMeer, Cat Rambo, Gene Wolfe, Lucius Shepard, Kage Baker, Daniel Abraham, Norman Partridge, Ekaterina Sedia, Jay Lake, Poppy Z Brite, Alastair Reynolds, Mary Robinette Kowal, Cherie Priest, Carrie Vaughn, Liz Williams, Daryl Gregory, Cory Doctorow, Robert Silverberg, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kelly Link, Genevieve Valentine, Catherynne Valente.  More. So much more.

Just looking at that list, I have to ask myself why I ever took a break from reading this zine.  If you were looking for a good story, you had to come here.

The first online issue was Spring 2007 and Schafer had consistently published since then, which is a fairly remarkable run. 

It is a very real thing that you don't know how much you miss something until it is gone, even though the last issue has only just been published and I would guess that the fiction will remain online for some time in the future, I already miss Subterranean Online. I discovered a number of excellent writers because they were published there, and I read numerous wonderful stories at Subterranean Online.

Steve Stiles: 2014 Hugo Award Nominated Artist Spotlight

Steve Stiles has been nominated for the Hugo Award 14 times, which is completely nuts - especially considering the fact that he was on the very first Best Fan Artist ballot in 1967. That's an impressive run of consistency and productivity.

On the other hand, because my involvement with fandom has been in different areas, I have never encountered his work before. There's an interesting vibe running through his work that I definitely enjoy. Especially in the GRRM piece with the dodo. That's probably how it all happened, to be honest.

All images are used with permission.

 

Books Read: July 2014

Below is a listing of all of the books I read in July. All links would go to my reviews, but I was out of town for two weeks in the middle of the month and never quite got around to writing any.  Sorry, folks.

1. Nexus, by Ramez Naam
2. The Wall Around Eden, by Joan Slonczewski
3. Warbound, by Larry Correia
4. King's Dragon, by Kate Elliott
5. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
6. Civilwarland in Bad Decline, by George Saunders
7. The Book of Unknown Americans, by Cristina Henriquez
8. The Risen Empire, by Scott Westerfeld
9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
10. A Dance With Dragons, by George R. R. Martin

Best Book of the Month: Everyone should read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Period. This is the multi-faceted story of the titular woman whose cancer cells were taken and used without permission (which was very much the norm then, and potentially still now) and which led to numerous medical breakthroughs. So, the story is of Henrietta Lacks, her family (who only found out about how Henrietta's cells were being used until decades later), the science behind the HeLa cells and what came from it, and how this all ties together.  It's really good.

Disappointment of the Month: George Saunders had been recommended for years as being one of America's top short story writers, and a friend with good taste also recommended this collection in particular. My wife read Tenth of December from Saunders and wasn't impressed, but I had a copy of Civilwarland sitting at home. I took it with me to San Diego...and I just could not engage with the stories. There's a chance if I read this when I was twenty and working with post-teenage ennui that I would have loved this, but I'm in a very different place now and I just couldn't deal with what Saunders is doing. 

Discovery of the Month: I'm not sure I should call a book that has been on my radar for fifteen years a discovery, but when I finally read it and find that it is exactly as good as I had hoped it would be, it sort of is a discovery. This would be King's Dragon, the first of Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series. If you like the epic fantasy stuff, and want something gritty and real, you really need to start with King's Dragon.

GRRM of the Month: I finally finished A Dance With Dragons a couple of days ago. It's good, I enjoyed it, but I also felt like it was pretty much just setting things up for a really awesome sixth book than it was telling a great story on its own. It felt a little disjointed, more so than A Feast for Crows did. 

Worth Noting: I feel that The Book of Unknown Americans is about to become required reading in the next couple of years. A) It's really damn good.  B) It provides the modern immigrant experience of why people are still coming to America from Mexico and Central America, and it does so by simply telling several stories that interlink, with some interstitials filling in more immigrant stories from minor characters in the novel. C) Also, it's really damn good.

Gender Breakdown: Half of the books I read this month were written by women. Not a bad month.

Previous Months
January
February
March 
April 
May
June

Shadow Unit

I've struggled with how to write about the ending of Shadow Unit.  I have a friend who has never watched the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation because if she doesn't watch it, the show really isn't over.  There is still one more episode to watch.  There is still one more story out there.  There is still one more.

I didn't really understand before. No matter what series I read or show I watched, I would devour the ending. Sure, I might be sad when it was all over, but I wanted to see how it finished and to feel those emotions.  And then there was Shadow Unit.

Sometime in 2007 I became aware of a "sekrit project" which involved Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, and Will Shetterly. At the time, all I knew was that it was titled "Shadow Unit" and had a website which had very little information on it. I was (and still am) a very big fan of Elizabeth Bear's fiction and so I was curious as to what was going on.  Little did I know that I would spend the next seven years anxiously and eagerly awaiting each new episode.

The word "episode" is used very specifically here.  Shadow Unit was imagined as an episodic television show that never existed, so each episode was a discrete story building the larger mythology.  My description of it was always "Criminal Minds meets The X-Files, but the monsters are human."  It's as good as it sounds, and probably better than that.

It is one of my very favorite things ever.  Shadow Unit invited a community to grow around it, to participate through character livejournal accounts that were written in real time - as if the characters were real people living their lives, which is what they became.  The creators interacted with the fans on a regular basis via the message board, and it became a thing.  A community. A community of which I was a part for a number of years.  I fell away, as happens sometimes, but I still followed the episodes, I still had my heart ripped out after one particular episode midway through the run. The first season finale was a short novel worth of material, but it played out over real time - so when the livejournals went silent, we don't know if there is anyone who makes it out okay. 

It was a beautiful and moving thing.

The series finale went live on July 6. "Something's Gotta Eat T. Rexes" was written by Elizabeth Bear, Steven Brust, and Emma Bull.  It has taken me the better part of a month to muster up the courage to read it. 
I've been afraid of how it is going to end.  Not that the writers won't do a stunningly fantastic job, but that I'm going to lose someone else from the show.  I don't expect that everything is going to be okay. Not on this show. 

I'm just not sure I'm ready for it to be over.

In between writing the last sentence and this one, several hours have passed and I have finished reading the final episode. If I talked about my emotional response to "Something's Gotta Eat T. Rexes", I think I might give far too much away.  Suffice it to say that I had one. The thing is, I don't see nearly enough people talking about Shadow Unit.  Maybe it has to do with the small corner of the internet which I inhabit, or because like most short fiction, it isn't something that gets talked about, but it should.

So, let me say this: Shadow Unit is one of the most engrossing, moving, painful, and wonderful things that I have read.  I have enjoyed every moment of the last seven years I have been reading this collaborative project, even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones, because those are the moments that remind me that this is something I've truly connected with, that they mattered to me.  Shadow Unit may be finished, but these are the characters that will linger. 

If all of this is new to you, if you've never read Shadow Unit or even heard of it before, let me just invite you to begin with the very first episode, "Breathe", written by Emma Bull. There's a whole lot of story out there, just waiting to be discovered. Shadow Unit is something special.

And to all of the writers who worked on Shadow Unit: Elizabeth Bear, Emma Bull, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly, Leah Bobet, Amanda Downum, Chelsea Polk, Holly Black, and Steven Brust: Thank you. That was one hell of a ride.

The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (re-post)

This article was originally posted on November 3, 2009. It is being re-posted here as part of my coverage of this year's Hugo Awards. 

Two things to note, before we get into it.  Unlike the previous eleven articles, my review of The Gathering Storm was based on reading the book for the first time. It had been the first new Wheel of Time novel in four years. It was published two years after the 2007 death of Robert Jordan, and until Brandon Sanderson was announced to be finishing the series, I don't know that I necessarily expected to ever find out how it all ends. I hoped, but I didn't know.  My reviews / articles on the rest of the series, from The Eye of the World through The Knife of Dreams, were all based on being a re-read of the series to work my way up to the forthcoming novel.  The earliest novels I had read many times, the latest ones maybe once or twice. 

The second thing is that this will also be the last of the Wheel of Time articles I am posting for the Hugo Awards.  I have already written my thoughts on the Best Novel category as a whole, but I never reviewed The Towers of Midnight when it was published (I was in the process of a major life change), and legitimately, when I wasn't able to muster up a review of A Memory of Light, I thought I was done blogging all together.  I was wrong about that, but this is still the last of the Wheel of Time posts this year. 



The Gathering Storm
Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Tor: 2009


Let’s just get one thing cleared up before we start here. If it wasn’t obvious by the last eleven posts of the series re-read, I’m a bit of a Wheel of Time fanboy. There’s nothing I can do about that and I’m quite happy with it. This is a seminal series of my fantasy reading life and Robert Jordan has stuck with me over the last fifteen years when other authors failed me. So, please understand that while I may recognize flaws in the novel (and the series), I can easily gloss over them because this is a series I love dearly. Never is anything so egregious that it will hamper my enjoyment of the series.

That’s my admission of bias.

I will attempt to be very light on revealing spoilers since the novel has only been on the market for a week, but some events that happen early on in the novel may be touched on more than some would like to know. So, if you don’t want to know any details, please step away and come back when you’re done with the book. I’ll be gentle with the spoilers, though.


This has been pointed out elsewhere, but a major focus of The Gathering Storm is the dueling stories of Egwene and Rand. Continuing on her story of defiance from Knife of Dreams, Egwene is strong at heart, firm in her need to both do what is right for the White Tower as well as her need to heal the Tower the right way. The way she behaves and acts is as important as the result she is looking to achieve. Egwene demonstrates leadership through example. She does not permit the rebel Aes Sedai besieging Tar Valon to rescue her because she knows that her example of moral defiance and the small conversations she has with the Tower Aes Sedai will do far more good than she ever could as the head of a besieging army. In this way she is setting herself up as a viable alternative to Elaida. In this way she is also shown as something of a mirror to Rand.

Early on in The Gathering Storm, after another attack by a Forsaken almost causes Rand to mirror the actions of Lews Therin and kill Min, Rand decides that being hard as stone is no longer hard enough. He must be as hard as cuendillar. For several novels now Rand has been holding on tightly to his humanity, with only a small soft core he leaves for the women in his life. Rand realizes, or simply believes, that to make it to Tarmon Gai'don he must strip even that away. Between shutting Min away, exiling Cadsuane, and changing his attitude about what he is willing to do to defeat the Dark One, Rand is on a very fast decent into darkness. Others have talked about Rand’s behavior in terms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and his journey from being a decent man from a small village to a man who has to be a killer.

I am so very fortunate to not have experience with PTSD, but this is an excellent explanation as to the entire direction of Rand’s behavior throughout the series. It also demonstrates part of the difference between Rand and Egwene. Egwene has been taught by the Aiel on how one with honor behaves, how to be better and stronger, and what it means to live towards an ideal. This has given her the strength to make her decisions, to stand on her own as the Amyrlin Seat, and to take all the beatings she has been given as “penance” as a prisoner of the White Tower and still hold to her duty. Rand, on the other hand, had to deal with becoming a killer of men and knowing that in the potentially short time he had left to live, he would have to kill again and again and do so without compunction.

To use the analogies of being hard like stone and being able to bend, Egwene is the one who is strong but able to bend and survive. Rand is making himself so hard that he will eventually crack and break. It’s clear very early on that he is in a very bad place. This is only worse when he has to use the True Power to free himself from an impossible situation. The True Power, if you don’t remember, is the one that is provided via a link to the Dark One and it is drawing on his own essence. It’s what Moridin uses to have the black lines of saa cross his eyes and what the other Forsaken use sparingly because of the risks. Rand taps into that early on in the novel and even the voice of Lews Therin is absolutely horrified by what Rand just did. Like I said, Rand is in an exceptionally bad place.

The two storylines of Egwene and Rand are exceptionally well done. Egwene, in particular, should be singled out as a character done well and one of the best storylines in the last half dozen volumes of the Wheel of Time. The various events which take place as part of Egwene’s storyline will be pivotal for the next two volumes (and beyond). Egwene’s storyline is at times thrilling, heartbreaking, and when some of the early reviews say that they wanted to stand up and cheer during The Gathering Storm, they were probably talking about something to do with Egwene late in this novel. Folks, if you’re a long time fan of The Wheel of Time (and you should be if you’re reading this twelfth volume), some of this stuff is as good as anything you’ve gotten earlier in the series. Seriously. This could be Joe the Fanboy talking, but Egwene in the late stages of this novel is just spectacular.

Rand, obviously, has a very different journey and as well done as Rand’s chapters are, they are somewhat difficult to read as we see Rand going into dark places indeed. There are two reunion scenes which readers have looked forward to for a while and neither one goes well. There is also the things Cuendillar-Hard Rand says to Nynaeve, and an action which Rand does which Nynaeve is both horrified about and also finds herself wondering if it was perhaps truly necessary if he is to defeat the Dark One. It’s interesting and brutal and is not at all pleasant.

Those are the two primary aspects of The Gathering Storm and combined, is by far the strongest aspect of the novel. Everything else is secondary to those storylines.

This does mean that Mat and Perrin are given much smaller roles and Elayne is completely absent from this volume. Readers are given short glimpses of Perrin and the fallout from the battle of Malden and the rescue of Faile. We don’t see a whole lot of what’s going on there, except that Perrin and Faile are relearning who they are together after being given a chance to grow while separated. Mat gets a bit more to do in The Gathering Storm, but his is likely to be the most controversial aspect of the novel.

There were concerns going into this novel about how well Brandon Sanderson was going to be able to step into the world that Robert Jordan created. Most fans of the series felt good about the decision Harriet (Robert Jordan’s wife and editor) made to hire Brandon to finish the series, but even the most positive couldn’t help but wonder if Sanderson would really be able to pull it off, that he would be able to write the characters in such a way that they feel the same. That he would somehow make the characters feel “right”.

Mat is perhaps the only character who feels “off” (and perhaps Perrin, to a lesser extent). Here Mat talks a bit too much, his jokes feel flat, and some indefinable bit of “Mat-ness” isn’t quite there.

Here’s the thing, though. Brandon stopped in Minneapolis on his tour for The Gathering Storm and he talked a little bit about Mat, though not in regards to the character feeling “off”. Thankfully, nobody was so gauche to actually bring it up directly. What Brandon had to say about Mat was that he had just experienced the most surreal and absolutely weird situation he had ever had in his life, which is Tuon herself. Mat had never been in love with a woman before and when he did fall in love with Tuon it changed his worldview. After finally declaring herself married to Mat; she leaves and returns to Ebou Dar to take up the Seanchan Empire. Mat is usually the one doing the leaving and here he is left, this time by the woman he loves. Worse, he may be about to find himself on opposite sides if it comes to war. He is out of sorts, not sure how to behave or deal with what just happened. He’s not sure what to do in the future.

Now, I can’t say if this played in to how Brandon wrote Mat (assuming that those chapters / sections were written by Sanderson and not Jordan), if this was the plan all along, or if Mat just feels “off” because he feels “off”, but it was interesting to hear Brandon talk about what was going on in Mat’s world. It’s clear from the Minneapolis signing that he did think a lot about Mat. It’s questionable if he pulled off the character or if the change was intentional.

On the other hand, Mat did ask Verin if she "saidared" something, and that was just priceless.

Taking a look at The Gathering Storm as a complete novel, Sanderson did an excellent job of pulling together storylines, answering a good deal of questions, and telling as complete a story as possible given that this is volume twelve of fourteen. There is no resolution, as such, because Tarmon Gai'don is still coming, but Sanderson told complete story arcs for both Egwene and Rand and did a hell of a job with it. Others characters received short shrift, but it seems necessary and appropriate for Sanderson to have done so in order to do justice to Egwene and Rand. Brandon was capable of handling some seriously emotional sequences (Verin, anyone?) and he did so with great skill.

The Gathering Storm is a richer and more fully satisfying Wheel of Time novel than we have seen in a good many years. It is difficult to compare the first experience of reading The Gathering Storm to reading those first five novels of the series all those years ago, but this novel holds up well compared to anything that came after the fifth book.

The Gathering Storm shows that Harriet’s judgment in choosing Brandon Sanderson was sound, that he was the right writer for the job. For fans, there is a sense of relief that Brandon was up to the task and that he delivered the book we hoped for.

Call me a fanboy for believing this, and perhaps this is more than a little presumptuous to say, but I think Robert Jordan would be proud of this one. Folks, Brandon did well, and he should be proud of himself, too. He wrote a novel that “feels” like it is part of The Wheel of Time. It was worth the wait.

The Knife of Dreams, by Robert Jordan (re-post)

This article was originally posted on October 28, 2009. It is being re-posted as part of my continuing coverage of this year's Hugo Awards.


Knife of Dreams
Robert Jordan
Tor: 2005

With Knife of Dreams Robert Jordan picks up the relatively glacial pacing of the previous two to three novels (the cleansing notwithstanding) and begins to move the characters to a point where readers can reasonably say that an end is in sight. Even if that end is still one large novel told in three volumes away. To be fair, while Knife of Dreams reads faster than the previous volumes we shouldn’t assume that what we have is anything like the first four novels in the series. This is still a novel in which characters wait around for things to happen and Elayne still spends much of the novel trying to maneuver herself onto the throne of Andor while her rivals besiege Caemlyn. That said, there is much to like here.

One of the freshest storylines in Knife of Dreams is that of Egwene al’Vere. Egwene is the rebel Amyrlin Seat and, at the end of Crossroads of Twilight, was captured by the Aes Sedai of the White Tower after partially blocking the harbor. Though she is prisoner, Egwene decides to act as the Amyrlin she knows herself to be and allow her actions and words to slowly bring about change inside the White Tower and be a quiet pocket of resistance. She receives regular beatings as penances, but never wavers in her stance and gradually, over a period of two weeks (or so) begins to see results.

The Egwene chapters are some of the most effective and most interesting in the novel. Egwene in the White Tower gives a true comparison in how things have changed since she was first a novice and also a stark demonstration of the growth and maturity Egwene has experienced over the year(s) from when she first left Emond’s Field to now. As much as any other character, Egwene is a far different woman than the girl who we met in The Eye of the World, and her quiet leadership in Knife of Dreams is a storyline which promises to have as much impact on the world as anything Rand or the Seanchan do. Plus, Egwene’s determination is just compelling storytelling that gets beyond the regular machinations of the Aes Sedai in Salidar or the Tower itself.

My Noal Charin watch continues and for the first time Mat asks Noal straight out if he was Jain Farstrider. Noal reluctantly admits that Jain was a cousin, but given how Robert Jordan has set all this up, there’s no reason to actually believe that. Tuon’s presence here allows her to ask a question nobody else would have, which is asking who Jain Farstrider was. Everyone from the Randland side of the ocean would have already known. But, this lets an outsider ask the question and Noal answer. His answer is revealing.

“He was a fool,” Noal said grimly before Mat could open his mouth, though Olver did get his open and left it gaping while the old man continued. “He went gallivanting about the world and left a good and loving wife to die of a fever without him there to hold her hand while she died. He let himself be made into a tool by---“ Abrubtly Noal’s face went blank. Staring through Mat, he rubbed at his forehead as though attempting to recall something.

Young Olver is a huge fan of Jain Farstrider comes to Jain’s defense and reminds Noal of of some of the great things Jain did.

Noal came to himself with a start and patted Olver’s shoulder. “He did that, boy. That much is to his credit. But what adventure is worth leaving your wife to die alone?” He sounded sad enough to die on the spot himself.

This may not be the heart of the novel or the series, but the Noal Charin / Jain Farstrider bits are some which add so much richness to the history and shape of the world and story. It also provides something to wonder about. If Noal really is Jain Farstrider as an old man, what happened to him? The most common theories is that he ran afoul of the Shadow at some point and was captured by either Graendal or Ishamael and was left a broken man. But, the question is whether Noal can be considered a potential sleeper agent with a hidden compulsion. Probably not, but just maybe. It’s worth wondering about.

Another interesting thing around is the storyline is Mat with Aludra the Illuminator and what appears to be the introduction of gunpowder and artillery cannon to the world. How will this change things and can it be accelerated enough to make a difference in the Last Battle? Between Aludra’s cannon and the inventions created as a result of Rand’s school, the world is about to undergo its first technological revolution since the Breaking some three thousand years ago. Rand’s got people inventing “steam wagons”, which is an early version of cars / trains.

Now, Knife of Dreams has a solid focus on Perrin and a couple of climactic battles near the end of the novel and it features the resolution to the Faile kidnapping story (finally!), but more than anything else, what people will take from this novel is the letter from Moiraine to Thom and the confirmation of what many people were guessing for years: Moiraine isn’t dead. She needs rescuing. Hell yeah.

For me, The Wheel of Time has always been about the little things more than the big story arcs. It gets me through the times when the major story arcs had slowed to a crawl and it adds richness to the times when Jordan is absolutely nailing the major story arcs. Knife of Dreams succeeds as well as it does because of those smaller moments as well as the battles (also finally, another Trolloc battle here). The Ogier. Nynaeve beginning to rally the Borderlands so that Lan won’t ride alone. Steamwagons. The changing corridors and the loosening of the pattern. The detail about the Amayar. Rand briefly seeing “black flecks” in his vision, which makes me wonder about that link to Moridin and the saa. The revelation to folks that Rand really is hearing voices. Anytime the Forsaken get together. Seriously, Knife of Dreams is a novel loaded with awesome bits to quietly thrill longtime fans of the series and reward them for their wait.

Is this a better book because the last couple weren’t quite as good? Yeah, maybe. I’m not exactly unbiased here and I can only admit that I love this series and frequently overlook flaws. But, this one is just better than Wheel of Time had been for a while and the Egwene chapters are top notch.

All that is left now is A Memory of Light, the three volume conclusion to The Wheel of Time which begins with The Gathering Storm.

Except for whenever I write about New Spring, this will be the last trip through memory lane. The Gathering Storm has been published and it is all new content from now. I have thoroughly enjoyed the re-read of the series and I’m ready to jump back into a new Wheel of Time story.

Crossroads of Twilight, by Robert Jordan (re-post)

This article was originally posted on October 5, 2009. It is re-posted here as part of my coverage of this year's Hugo Awards.


Crossroads of Twilight
Robert Jordan
2003

On my first reading of Crossroads of Twilight I was satisfied with the novel, that even though the action of the novel is lacking and Robert Jordan did not build on the Cleansing in Winter’s Heart, it was Wheel of Time and it told the stories of characters who caught short shrift in the previous volume. Only later, thinking back on the novel, did I feel a sense of disappointment that except until the very end of the novel could I say that “nothing happened”. My complaints grew. Maybe we didn’t need to be caught up with all the other characters. There’s nothing wrong with jumping ahead a couple days or a week and just picking up then.

So what now? This is either the first or second time I have read Crossroads of Twilight since 2003. All I have are vague recollections. Now we have a volume following Crossroads of Twilight and the first part of the three book series finale is a month away from publication. Frustrations regarding the passivity of Crossroads of Twilight are lessened because now this is only a chapter in the larger story, rather than the book we’ve waited several years for.

The first half of so of the novel runs concurrently with the conclusion of Winter’s Heart. There is this great “beacon” off in the distance that tells any woman who can channel that a great use of Saidar is being used. Readers of the series know that this is the Cleansing of saidin, but the other characters don’t. The general assumption is that the Forsaken are involved and when the Aes Sedai scout out battlefield after the fact, they assume that what happened at Shadar Logoth is some new Forsaken weapon. Otherwise, there are four primary storylines running through Crossroads of Twilight.

Perrin continues to chase the Shaido Aiel who have kidnapped his wife. Elayne works to hold on to the Lion Throne in Andor and is facing a siege from rival houses. Mat tries to evade the Seanchan in his flight from Ebou Dar. Mat also works to improve his relations with Tuon, the Daughter of the Nine Moon. Egwene and her rebel Aes Sedai are outside the gates of Tar Valon. She’s working on a plan to block the harbor at Tar Valon.

This may be a gross simplification of the basic plotlines of Crossroads of Twilight, but I do believe it is an accurate summation of the bulk of what happens in Crossroads of Twilight. Not a whole lot.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t quality here. When Robert Jordan gets down to it, he can write excellent scenes and put together a good book. Most of this book just isn’t Jordan getting down to it. The White Tower intrigue works, as does the burgeoning (and confusing) Mat and Tuon relationship. Elayne’s chapters are turgid, but the closer Egwene gets to acting the better her chapters are.

Crossroads of Twilight does not suffer from Middle Book Syndrome. It suffers from Middle Chapter Syndrome. It answers any questions as to what was happening with the rest of the characters while Rand and Nynaeve are off cleansing the taint off saidin. It also sets up the next part of Egwene’s storyline, and the future of how the major protagonists will relate to the Seanchan. That’s about all that Crossroads of Twilight is.

It’s this that makes Crossroads of Twilight such a disappointing novel. There is very little that occurs in the text that needs to be told directly. Not that required 800 pages of paperback text. A couple of chapters could reasonably have covered it, maybe three hundred pages at most that could have been spread between The Path of Daggers, Winter’s Heart, and Knife of Dreams. That’s not what happened, of course, we were given Crossroads of Twilight. It’s a novel that isn’t a novel, it’s a long interlude in between novels. It is a collection of chapters in a larger novel. Taken from that perspective, Crossroads of Twilight is not an offensive novel. It’s really not much of anything at all.

On to Knife of Dreams, please.

Winter's Heart, by Robert Jordan (re-post)

This article was originally posted on September 22, 2009. It is re-posted here as part of my continuing coverage of this year's Hugo Awards.


Winter’s Heart
Robert Jordan
2000

This *should* go without saying, but just in case it doesn’t…this is the 9th volume of a series and the book has been out for a number of years. I’m going to spoil the hell out of it. Stop reading now. Really. Stop. Now.


Winter’s Heart. The Cleansing. When I first read Winter’s Heart I was blown away by Robert Jordan’s ending to the novel. The Cleansing. Rand announces earlier in the novel that he plans on cleansing saidin, the male half of the Source. The taint of saidin was a major cause (if not THE cause) of the Breaking of the World 3000 years ago. It was the counter-stroke of the Dark One as he was being sealed in his prison by Lews Therin the Hundred Companions. The taint on saidin was what caused all male channelers to go crazy and destroy the world, and is the reason for the fear and (rightful) prejudice against male channelers for the last three thousand years. That’s what Rand wants to fix. In terms of what happens in Randland, it’s a really big deal. I was staggered by the conclusion and the actual Cleansing. So much so that I still capitalize the word Cleansing when referring to that event. The Cleansing loomed so large over the rest of the novel that any potential flaw was washed away by that conclusion. It led to several years of anticipation by how awesome the fallout would be.

The thing is, Crossroads of Twilight removed most of those warm fuzzies, and re-reading Winter’s Heart did not provide that first blush of awesomeness that the Cleansing did the first time. Don’t get me wrong, that was a pivotal moment in the series and it was treated with an extended pitched battle (seen in snippets), an despite the inherent awesomeness of the event, it doesn’t hold the magic it used to. Winter’s Heart as a novel is a big step forward after the last two volumes, but it does not quite reach the comparatively fast pacing of the earliest volumes. Big things happen, but they are surrounded by forests of quietness.

Let’s talk about Mat and his Daughter of Nine Moons. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that waaaaay back in The Great Hunt Jordan reveals that the Court of Nine Moons is Seanchan. This is before Mat is told in The Shadow Rising that he was to marry the Daughter of the Nine Moons. The official reveal of the Daughter of the Nine Moons is in Winter’s Heart, though most readers probably guessed it before the reveal. There’s just a little too much focus on Tuon for her not to be. Maybe it’s just obvious in retrospect. Here’s the big moment where they meet, and despite Mat’s insistence for the last several novels that he would run if given the chance, he repeats three times that he will marry Tuon. The repetition is important.

Actually, what I really want to mention is a character named Noal Charin. We first meet him in A Crown of Swords, but he becomes a named character here. I don’t know when I figured it out, but Noal is easily one of my favorite characters. Not because of anything he does here, but because of what it is. See, Charin is the family name of a Malkieri family. There is Jain Charin, a legend of Malkier and the author of Rand’s favorite book The Travels of Jain Farstrider. Noal has serious gaps in his memory, but remembers stories that should have been Jain’s. Something bad happened to Noal, something with the Forsaken, and Jain was broken and took the name Noal. Now, I don’t know if Noal Charin will be a hugely important character, but I think it’s awesome that such a legend is walking around with Mat and nobody knows it. He’s just an old man with a broken memory of past deeds and past skills. It’s just damn cool, ya know? Maybe you don’t, but I’m endlessly fascinated with Noal Charin. Jain Farstrider. To think, I used to be annoyed with all the mentions of Rand’s book early on. Then I realized what Jordan was doing. It wasn’t pointless. You just have to look for it. Noal is described as a “natural storyteller”. Indeed, sir. Indeed.

There’s other stuff. The bonding of Rand by Elayne, Aviendha, and Min. The resulting pregnancy and prophecy. The Seanchan Ogier Gardeners. Who’d have expected that. The Ogier in Randland (the continent, not the world) are gentle giants, but Jordan gets across a sense of menace of the Seanchan Ogier. Awesome.

As a whole novel Winter’s Heart is a bit uneven. There’s a sense of anticipation, but you don’t get the sense that anything will really happen (the Cleansing notwithstanding). That Winter’s Heart looms so large in my memory is due entirely to the Cleansing at the end of the novel. Much of the rest suffers from a bad case of stuff almost happening. Got a new mystery in whether Mat will figure out what an Illuminator might use a bellfounder for and whether this will introduce artillery to the world. Rand got Elayne knocked up and eventually she’ll take back the throne of Andor. The Shadow has an agent in the Palace. Bayle Domon never did get to dump the male a’dam into the ocean. That’ll be a problem (or a solution) for Rand. In retrospect there are enough interesting tidbits that you’d think Winter’s Heart is a stronger novel. It isn’t. It’s stronger and most interesting and compelling than the last two, and a sight better than my memories of the next volume, but the Cleansing is really the big deal here. It has to be, but even that isn’t as awesome as I remember it being.

Which is the overall impression of Winter’s Heart. It’s not as awesome as my memory of the experience reading it. It’ll do, but it used to be better.