Eschewed Obfuscation

A Conspiracy of Kings
by Megan Whalen Turner
316 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/YA/Fantasy

I've been waiting SO long for this book. I loved each succeeding volume of Turner's Attolis series more than the last, up through King of Attolia (especially the outside POV of Costis), but... KoA remains my favorite. Despite mixed reviews, I still think CoK is decent, and it nicely continues the overarching plot intent of Gen ruling the continent. I thought that intention was convincingly advanced, though the unresolved romantic thread made me sadface.

As a side note, the first chapter is a wonderful reintroduction to the world, and I didn't see Gen as particularly out-of-character anywhere in the book. He has evolved into Attolis, as he had to.

For those who don't know, this is Sophos's story about what happens after his mysterious disappearance. If you don't know what that means, stop and go read The Thief, then The Queen of Attolia, then The King of Attolia. Order is not absolutely necessary--I read QoA first--but then again, I read QoA first and was horribly confused. And this is a series worth savoring.

I was saving these two until I had finished reading the trilogy, but I seem to have lost interest so...

Transformation
by Carol Berg
439 pages (paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

Seyonne is an Ezzarian slave, dead to the world after being stripped of his magical powers by a horrific rite. By chance he is sold to the arrogant Crown Prince Aleksander of the Derzhi empire, and further unlucky coincidences keep him in royal interest, though not favor. But when Seyonne sees a shocking reminder of Ezzaria in the eyes of the crown prince, he is inextricably bound to Aleksander's fate while demons and foreigners attempt to undermine the empire.

Finishing this, I immediately went on to read Revelation. It hit a lot of my personal buttons--power differential, detailed political subtleties. I can see why there's so much Aleksander/Seyonne fic! The character depth and epic setting reminds me of GRRM, but I'm glad that Berg is not so cruel to her characters (at least in this volume, one reason why I like it best).

Revelation
by Carol Berg
485 pages (paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

Seyonne returns to Ezzaria a free man, but now he must deal with the prejudices and mysteries of his own culture. He meets an unusual demon that will lead him to question everything he has ever been taught, and guide him upon a path to exile more certain--and more painful--than all his prior years of enslavement.

This middle volume was quite well-plotted with a satisfying conclusion. I had read it before from the library, and liked it enough to put the whole trilogy on my to-by list; it was long enough ago, however, and with little enough context, that I read this as if it were new to me.

And yet! And yet, I didn't feel compelled to read the final volume. The emotional blasting that Seyonne takes--especially in repeated betrayals-that-aren't-betrayals of Aleksander--was too much. Though I've skimmed Restoration enough to know that Berg resolves the tale in a politically correct fashion, I'm more satisfied with the ending of Transformation; Seyonne and Aleksander's adventure is over, the world has been saved for now, hooray. Berg's chosen path forces the reader to confront the implications of imperialism, an aim that I fully appreciate. But honestly, it could have been done with less individual torture of the characters.

Maybe, overall, I prefer Song of the Basilisk--an excellent, lesser-known Berg novel that explores similar themes but wraps up in a single volume instead of attempting to save the world forever and ever. Or maybe I can just pretend that Transformation has no sequels.

Darkborn
by Alison Sinclair
348 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

I had an inkling, from Jia's complimentary Dear Author review and from the cover blurbs--Carol Berg, Sharon Shinn, Lane Robins--that Darkborn might be my very favorite kind of book: densely political, yet romantic and idealistic. It is.

Balthasar Hearne is a Darkborn physician, born to that class of impoverished old blood so well-popularized by Austen; his wife Telmaine, of similar but non-impoverished blood, is an untrained mage. (The Darkborn, unlike the Lightborn who live in the same city for the other half of the time, prefer to ignore the existence of magic.) When a very pregnant Tercelle Amberley shows up on Balthasar's doorstep at the sunrise bell, his physician's instincts and old acquaintance lead him to take her in. She gives birth to twin boys who are Darkborn yet sighted... and so the plot begins.

Of the plot--it is difficult to follow at times, not much helped by Sinclair's tedious habit of recapping every explanation made by the characters. The narrative, told in multi-third person, fails to distinguish character voices from the author's own voice. However, these minor flaws are easily brushed aside in favor of realistic, unusual characters. Balthesar and Telmaine are parents, with Telmaine's maternal instinct a vital catalyst of the story; and in a tale with so many secrets, it's refreshing to see that people talk to resolve them instead of experiencing convenient Misunderstandings. Moreover, as far as political fantasy goes, I would rate this equal to Sylvia Kelso's Amberlight and subsequent Riversend--not the poetry of Kay, nor the epic style, but more in the extremely satisfying manner of Ellen Kushner and fantasy of manners plus magic. Bravo.

I'm super-behind on reviews, so let's start the New Year afresh. The usual information plus comments if I scribbled or remember any.


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Bless Me, Ultima
by Rudolpho Anaya
290 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Fantasy

More required reading, my least favorite of the five I had to read. Anaya is a wonderful writer with a talent for landscapes and symbols; I just wish he was less brusque with Meaning and Theme and This Is an Important Bildungsroman. The sub-subgenre, Chicano (as differentiated from Latino) magic realism, does not interest me much more than Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, a brilliantly written masterpiece that I can't bring myself to like very much.

Plot, you ask? Well, Antonio Márez is a young boy (age 6, I believe?) born to a happy but divided family--his father is a Márez wanderer of the llano, his mother is a Luna farmer who wants him to become a priest. Ultima, a wise old curandera or healer (Anaya mostly avoids the inherent pitfalls in this characterization), comes to live with them, bringing mystic if not magical events with her. Antonio's religious struggle throughout the novel was the most/only interesting part to me. For example, he secretly admires Florence, a schoolfriend and declared atheist who later meets a significant end. His devout Catholic mother is almost a cariacture of blind faith, while his father's subverted agnosticism feels natural. It's certainly a novel worth exploring further on issues of faith and belief, in the supernatural or otherwise; but I can't say I liked the book much. [/Keix's never-ending search for entertaining works of literary merit, Module 496]

Skin Trade
by Laurell K. Hamilton
486 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Romance

Miracle of miracles, I think Hamilton is becoming increasingly more readable. Her most recent Anita books have had noticeably less sex and more plot. I approve and will be going back to read some of her earliest Anita Blake books if/when I have the time/inclination. I find that it's best to approach Hamilton like an episodic TV show; Anita reminds me of what I imagine Buffy would be like. (Note that I have no actual experience with Buffy.) If you think too hard, it's unrealistic that Anita keeps getting into this much trouble, every single book--but these books are not meant for heavy thinking. I do appreciate Hamilton's overarching plot and the small movements in it.

Not much of Jean-Claude or Nathaniel in this one, though, which is sad to me.

One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel García Márquez
448 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Historical/Fantasy

Nobel laureate Márquez founded magic realism with the publication of this novel, considered his masterpiece. It is at once Latin American social commentary, a fictional biography of the region and its culture, an epic chronicle of a South American village's rise and fall, and the family history of the Buendias. Plot: there really isn't one, aside from the conglomeration of the previously mentioned topics. This is such a wacky novel! My head hurts from trying to distinguish all of the Aurelianos (and José Arcadios, and Amarantas/Úrsulas/Remedioses). And can there be much more incest? Unfortunately, for me the book has one fatal flaw: I didn't once care about any of the characters. They were born and they died, but I only kept reading because I wanted to finish reading.

Nonetheless, if you are interested in magic realism, lit theory, or Latin America, I highly recommend One Hundred Years of Solitude. Character development is not a strong point, but in many ways, that is the point.

Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.)
291 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Fantasy/SF

After only managing to skim a few stories back in 2007 when I borrowed it from a friend, I finally bought this "alternative" and obscurely-acclaimed anthology and read it for my monthly Book Club. I only found 3 favorite and 4 hated tales out of 19 total, but--surprisingly--my overall impression is quite positive. Interfictions has earned a place on my long-term bookshelf.

If you aren't familiar with the concept of interstitiality, I would recommend reading Heinz Insu Fenkl's laborious introduction; otherwise, it is probably best left to the academically inclined. In contrast, definitely read Sherman and Goss's conversational "Afterword: The Spaces between" (although you still should read the stories themselves first, for necessary context).

So let me begin with the favorites, first. Jon Singer's "Willow Pattern" is probably the shortest story in the collection, and to me also one of the most interstitial. As Goss says, there isn't another story out there that combines science fiction and china patterns. After my first read-through, my only thoughts were, "Oh, that was pretty." Two years later, I began to "get" the SF aspects; I still don't entirely grasp the point simmering deep beneath the surface, but this flash piece epitomizes what I love best about genre--the extra layer of depth waiting to be plumbed, a depth unique to alienation and surreality.

For pure story pleasure, the title goes to Csilla Kleinheincz's lyrical and poignant tale about a man and a lake: "A Drop of Raspberry." Translated from the Hungarian by Noémi Szelényi, it is interstitial in its superrealistic treatment of surreal/fantastical events (yet tonally different from magic realism). Kleinheincz also happens to hail from the same country as Goss, and she is Hungarian-Vietnamese--too cool!

Finally, "Queen of the Butterfly Kingdom" by Holly Phillips (also coincidentally a Canadian author) is a cross between mainstream and fantasy that seduced me into caring despite a seeming lack of originality. The protagonist is a writer, even, which typically repulses me. But I suffered along with her as she waited for news of her beloved, and the last scene made me stop for a moment to smile.

Then we have the have-nots, those stories that flatly did not work for me. However, of the four I would only label one terrible per se; the rest are a matter of conflicting tastes. For instance, I found Karen Jordan Allen's "Alternate Anxieties" a pretentious deconstruction of Story using the trite writer's-notes conceit; but another reader might think it a brilliant piece of experimental fiction (the experimental classification does tend to draw such extreme opinions). Similarly, I was confused by the mythological underpinnings of Joy Marchard's "Pallas at Noon"--another "writer" story--and I thought that Chloe's (Allen's) poem, once revealed to the reader, was frankly incomprehensible.

In my review of Loghorrea, I have previously blasted Leslie What for her unthinking vilification of a chronic illness; her story here, "Post Hoc," thankfully commits no such sins, but I thought the story unoriginal, uninterstitial (save for the "liminal" post office conceit), and largely unengaging (the main character, anyway--I did like Joe the postman). It's not a bad story, though, just not a very good one. I would rank it above Rachel Pollack's "Burning Beard," an explicitly hip yet faithful retelling of the Biblical life of Joseph. Personally, I'm not a fan of Biblical allusions (even when written by a literary master like Milton); Pollack is considerably less skilled than Milton, and her retelling comes off as trite and silly rather than uniquely interstitial.

Some stories just did nothing for me. I don't understand Anna Tambour's story "The Shoes in SHOES' Window" at all--only that the world appears to be Communist-esque?--and unlike Singer's tale, it gave me no superficial pleasure. After praise heard through the grapevine about K. Tempest Bradford's "Black Feather," I was disappointed to read an unremarkable fairy-tale variant that didn't seem particularly interstitial. Veronica Schanoes's "Rats," a fictionalized biography -slash- Cinderella story about two depressed drug addicts destined for love, was too consciously grungy for me. Similarly, "Timothy" by Colin Greenland could be read as an eroticization of bestality if one were so inclined. And I was unconvinced by the m/m relationship in "A Map of the Everywhere" by Matthew Cheney, which is interstitial by virtue of sheer weirdness but failed as a tale first and foremost.

Some others, I enjoyed but did not love: I liked the collective narrator of "What We Know of the Lost Families of --- House" by Christopher Barzak, a horror tale that doesn't aim to scare. Mikal Trimm's "Climbing Redemption Mountain" wasn't as good as Kleinheincz's version of superrealistic surrealism, but it did emotionally satisfy. I likewise enjoyed reading Vandana Singh's "Hunger," especially the POC focus and all the foodie details, but found her sole fantastical element extraneous--the story is much better read as straight realism, which would not be interstitial. Two other translations also fail to live up to Kleinheincz: Léa Sihol's "Emblemata" from the French by Sarah Smith was interesting for its Buddhist philosophy but just missed the cut for favorites; Adrián Ferrero's "When It Rains, You'd Better Get out of Ulga" from the Spanish by Edo Mor had no plot and not enough theme or insight to make up for said lack. The anthology's closing piece, "A Dirge for Prester John," was typical of Catherynne M. Valente's style in its outlandish, monstrous imagery.

I applaud Sherman and Goss for their conscious shaping of geographic and cultural diversity, as well as their willingness to publish utterly unknown authors. I understand interstitiality a little more now, at least; I just wish that experimental fiction would constitute a smaller part of the (ironic) genre.

Chalice
by Robin McKinley
263 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/YA

Mirasol is a common beekeeper unexpectedly named the Willowlands' Chalice, a member of the ruling Circle second only to the Master--who is a third-level priest of Fire barely returned from the temple and not quite human. The usual power-grab complications ensue.

This was interesting but not absorbing; and I was only a little freaked out by the bees. (I'm just glad I don't live in the Willowlands, because I physically could not deal with that in real life. Fiction, though, is okay.) The societal structure appears very patriarchal--Chalice is always female, Master is always male, and the two remain unchanged, stereotypically gendered roles. I also disliked the unrounded, too-EVIL antagonist (not Deager, the Overlord). I guessed from the start that Mirasol and the Master would triumph and live happily ever after; the weird flashback-as-memory narrative structure implicitly promises a happy ending, and it would probably have worked better without cover blurb spoilers.

I hear that Chalice is not among McKinley's best works. Definitely not in the mood for fairytale retellings anytime soon, but what else does she have to offer? This one was not bad at all, just not outstanding. I did like the magic and political systems, the former twisting elemental tradition just a bit to be interesting.

The Enchantress of Florence
by Salman Rushdie
355 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Historical/Fantasy

An experimental-ish magic realism novel, with interesting new perspective on historical figures--Amerigo Vespucci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Akbar the Great (the one who tried to invent one faith that encompassed all, I believe). The setting is European but with a global feel and non-Western reach. What plot exists revolves around a travelling storyteller who calls himself Mogor dell'Amore (the Mughal of Love in butchered French), who seeks and entrances Akbar the Great with his tale. Storytelling is definitely vital here, although I'd need to reread the book to understand fully. The frame tale is intricate and confusing but a beautiful reading experience with equally resonant prose--a good thing, because I wasn't kidding about the lack of driving plot motivation. Rather, it is a novel that wanders leisurely around time and space and grabs the reader's curiosity just enough to sustain itself, like Jodha is sustained by Akbar's passion/love/imagination. And if I hadn't read it too late, I might have chosen this novel instead of The Handmaid's Tale (similar drifting style, but totally different in genre) for my research paper.

I believe Rushdie is either atheist or agnostic, which may account for the appealing philosophical bits. I loved Akbar's musings on I/we pronouns, on the divine right of kings, on morality, on creation (where the magic realism part comes in). "Wherever goodness lay, it did not lie in ritual, unthinking obeisance before a deity but rather, perhaps, in the slow, clumsy, error-strewn working out of an individual or collective path" (310). I will be reading Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude in May, so I look forward to mentally comparing the two.