m. c. de marco

The Sorcerer’s House is exactly the sort of thing you would expect from Gene Wolfe if you had for some reason been expecting him to write a disturbing urban fantasy set in a cryptomunicipality called Medicine Man, populated with the sort of quirky characters you might expect to find in a cozy mystery. Which is to say, it’s clever, intentionally obscure, deeply ambiguous, and above all gorgeously written.

When I say “urban fantasy,” I mean “urban fantasy” in its original sense. Which is to say, there are no leather-pantsed werewolf hunters in this novel, although there is a werewolf. Or twelve. This is more in the mold of Little, Big: or, The Fairies’ Parliament–a dreamy, ineradicable sort of a book that does not worry itself overmuch with explanations.

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In it, our protagonist, one Baxter Dunn (twin, orphan, double Ph.D, and ex-con) finds himself heir to a Bellairsian house replete with secret doors, lucky charms, mysterious comings and goings, things that go bump in the night, and rooms that appear at seeming random. Being both destitute and resourceful, he sets about to furnish himself with the means to survive–and a series of convenient and eventually ominous coincidences begins to supply his needs.

Like any good protagonist, Bax investigates, at first somewhat haphazardly. But when the coincidences begin to be crowned by murders–and further peculiar inheritances–and the reappearance of his estranged brother–his researches become a little more focused.

This is an epistolary novel, and because it is a Gene Wolfe novel and told in first person, its narrators are unreliable and manipulative. Because it is epistolary, part of the fun lies in learning about the characters by watching the various ways they interact with their friends and enemies, and the stories they tell themselves and others.

It also manages to be a breezy and readable book, which surprised me greatly, because I’ve always considered density to be one of the hallmarks of Wolfe’s fiction.

One of the more interesting things about it, however, is the sense of timelessness the narrative evokes, which turns out to be thematically quite appropriate.

Renowned SFF critic John Clute offers the idea of a book’s “real year,” a useful bit of terminology by which he means (as I understand it) to describe the zeitgeist reflected in any given story. A book may purportedly be set in 1530, or in 2050, or in 1999–but it is possible for any of those books to feel as if they are set in 1960, for example, if that is the year in which the author’s worldview has coalesced. Despite mentions-aside of cellular telephones and laptop computers, The Sorcerer’s House feels to me like the seventies or very early eighties, which is one of the reasons I found this book so deeply satisfying–it reminds me of the books I loved as a young reader.

In tone and structure, it houses long echoes of the work of Roger Zelazny and Theodore Sturgeon, and the social dynamics–especially the gender relations–seem to have developed from an earlier time. Not, I hasten to add, in any way that I found offensive–the women certainly have agency–but there are layers of chivalry and caretaking in the relationships that struck me as belonging to generation or more likely two before mine, although Baxter would be about my age. Also, there’s a sort of mannered circumspectness to the narrative that works very well with Wolfe’s tendency to withhold information and work in the white spaces.

In short, this is a ghostly, curious book, and I enjoyed it greatly.

Ken Grimwood’s Replay (1986) is the story of a man who dies in 1988 and finds himself back in his youthful body and dorm room of 1963—over and over and over again. He knows the future, he can change the world, but no matter what he changes he’s going to live through twenty-five years and die on that day and start again. And just when you think you know where the book is going, it starts to get really interesting.

The book isn’t just the one gimmick. Grimwood explores the idea in a proper science fictional way, ringing a lot of variations on it. It’s also brilliantly written—tense, taut, fascinating. It’s a quiet almost pastoral character study as much as anything, but when I’m reading it, I can’t put it down. Nevertheless, I don’t think I’ve ever had a conversation about it that wasn’t on the lines of: "If that happened to me, I’d...” The idea of re-living your own life while relieved from the burden of money worries and uncertainty is very appealing, and this is part of what makes the book so seductive.

It won the World Fantasy Award and was shortlisted for the Clarke Award, while not coming near any of the others—if anyone wants an example of the usefulness of juried awards for finding brilliant things nobody else is paying attention to, this is a good one. But while the replaying isn’t ever scientifically explained, and therefore could be considered fantasy at a stretch, this is not like a fantasy novel. It’s absolutely SF in look and feel.

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Spoilers, I mean it!

I very much like the different lives Jeff leads—the great riches life, the laid back life with Judy, the one with drugs, the one with the film Starsea, the one where he changes all of history. This is very much a story of his relationships with women—his original wife, Linda, his college girlfriend, and then Pamela, who is literally the only woman in the world for him because she’s the only other replayer. (Apart from the lunatic murderer they find.) Once he finds Pamela it’s a different book, the lives start to get shorter and the possibility of losing life is again on the table. That’s a very good piece of pacing. It really works. 

At the end, when Jeff doesn’t die but instead carries on with his original life, I don’t think he’d be any better equipped for it than he would have been without all those extra lifetimes of doing different things. Every single time he has used his knowledge of the future to make himself rich and increase his options. Back in the present and moving into an uncertain future, the skills of money management and cheating by knowing what will happen won’t help—he won’t know, and he has no money to invest anyway. I don’t think spending half a dozen lifetimes rich will help at all with the problems of his original life, so many of which are caused by lack of money. And that does make it all pointless. I also can’t understand why Jeff never takes the opportunity to stay in college and switch majors and study other things. I understand that he doesn’t want to take the same courses over again, but he’s at an American university, he doesn’t appreciate the opportunities he has. (I could happily spend four years of far more lifetimes than he has taking random courses.) And then he’d have some more skills, or at least more information. I feel he wasted his opportunities. It’s a bit different for Pamela, who has done learned to paint and make movies. I think she’ll be better equipped to face the future.

Also, I think Grimwood underestimates how many books there are in the world, even written in English, never mind translations. And I think he neglects the possibilities of the rest of the world. Living in a different country for twenty-five years would have been worth trying if he wanted something different—actually, other countries are real, and interesting places, not just for exotic vacations for rich Americans.

Grimwood can’t have intended it, because of when the book was written, but this time I kept thinking how the world was about to change completely in 1989/90 from the Cold War world Jeff and Pamela knew, and whether whoever arranged the replaying did know that.

If it happened to me, I wouldn’t be able to win a penny on a single sporting event or horserace. It isn’t implausible that Jeff can—I’m sure lots of people can remember who won a Series or a Derby twenty-five years ago. But I have never paid any attention to any of this, and the comparable things I do know—what won the Hugo—aren’t the kinds of things people bet on.

This was written well before Groundhog Day (1993), and while there are definitely some similarities, there are also major differences—twenty-five years is a lot different from one day, in terms of how used you’d get to being able to have do-overs. One thing they both have in common is how they remind me of starting a computer game from a saved position—something that can’t really have influenced either of them. I wonder whether it influenced Kaleidoscope Century?

Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published eight novels, most recently Half a Crown and Lifelode, and two poetry collections. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.

The country of Rash has a problem. No, not that it’s people are quick tempered and constantly breaking out in spots, but an overlarge prison population. (Which is what happens when you usurp a throne and people keep revolting against you. Which would be Rash’s related problem.) The Hungry Tiger of Oz also has a problem. Even the abundance of Oz is not enough to feed him, let alone satisfy his craving for little fat babies.  Baum had treated this craving with a bit of a wink. Thompson, however, takes this as a serious desire and need.  

The rulers of Rash have a solution to both problems: hire the Hungry Tiger as an executioner, and let him gobble up all of the prisoners. Hey, it saves on their maintenance expenses, and it allows the Hungry Tiger to finally assuage that unstoppable appetite.                   

Incidentally, the Scribe of Rash, an enthusiastic supporter of the Eat Our Political Opponents plan, has the most useful hand ever—one finger is a pencil, another a pen, a third an eraser, a fourth sealing wax (adding that necessary touch of elegance to any execution document) and the last an actual candle. The thought of never needing a flashlight to read under the covers and always being able to set enemies on fire upon demand has a certain appeal. Not that the Scribe appears to be making use of any of these possibilities.

You wouldn’t think this focus on the consumption of criminals in a country that should be concerned about skin care would be the sort of thing to start off a frequently bitter look at gender roles. But Oz has a gift for offering the unexpected.

[Exploring the fairylands where women are not welcome.  Also, vegetable men, kidnappings, and a sky high life.]

The tales of the country of Rash and the Hungry Tiger form only part of the intertwined plots. The next part focuses on Betsy Bobbin, introduced by Baum in Tik-tok of Oz, but who had taken only a minor role in later books.  Thompson, perhaps responding to children’s letters, or perhaps satisfying her own curiosity, gives Betsy a central role here.  Surprisingly, even in this central role, Betsy still retains a rather passive, colorless personality. She begins by trading an emerald ring for some strawberries, in a scene that not only demonstrates her lack of understanding of comparative costs and value, but also demonstrates that the concept of payment has not quite left Oz, or at least its American visitors—even if they have no idea how much they should pay for things.  Admittedly, strawberries might be rare in Oz (although no other food seems to be) but no matter what might be going on with the strawberry crop in Oz, the payment seems a trifle excessive.  (In another one of those revealing statements, Betsy explains that she has dozens more emerald rings, which might help explain why Emerald City residents tend to forget money when they head out on fruit shopping expeditions.)

This bartering for strawberries introduces her to Carter Green the Vegetable Man, a man made out of, natch, vegetables, who has to constantly keep moving to keep from getting rooted in the soil. A winding road (which really winds) and some sandals soon bring them to the Hungry Tiger and the country of Rash, where the Eat Our Political Opponents plan is running into a few snags.  (It turns out that eating political opponents can cause a few pangs of conscience. Who knew?)  It doesn’t take Betsy, the Hungry Tiger, Carter Green and a few of those opponents too long to decide to flee the country—however temporarily—for a little tour of some of the countries outside Oz.

And some of the sexism outside Oz, as well.

In the previous book, Thompson had introduced Catty Corners, a kingdom of talking cats, which did not approve of boys. Despite this, at Mombi’s insistence, one boy had been brought into the town. In this book, Thompson takes the opposite task, introducing one of her most troubling creations: Down Town.

Down Town is ruled by a weak, nervous and cowardly Dad and his queen, Fi Nance, a deeply unpleasant woman who started, she tells us, as a cash girl, and is now literally made of money. (This does not add to her charms.)  But even though she is made of money, and is one of the city’s rulers, she is not able to enter Down Town:

“Down Town belongs to the Daddies,” said the sign severely. “No aunts, mothers, or sisters allowed.”

Indeed, as the travelers discover, Down Town has no women, only men busily engaged in creating money.  (Betsy does not think that job looks too difficult. Betsy, remember, thought that pints of strawberries and small emerald rings are about equal in value.)  Fi Nance shrieks at the travelers for arriving without money (see, another reason why Betsy shouldn’t have been so quick to trade that emerald ring) and orders them to find jobs, adding that it’s easy to make money in Down Town. Finding a job shouldn’t be difficult either, since Down Town also supports a living Indus-Tree, where jobs can literally be plucked from branches.

Most of the men have no problems plucking jobs from the Indus-Tree (the Hungry Tiger, focused on food, doesn’t bother).  Indeed, two male characters, tempted by money, decide to stay in Down Town, with the added benefit of whittling the main traveling party cast down to manageable size.

Betsy, however, looks at the tree, which offers plenty of jobs open to women in 1920s America—but chooses nothing.  Perhaps Betsy is too young to choose a job, but the equally young Prince Reddy has no difficulty choosing a sword and later stepping into a leadership role.  Or perhaps it goes back to her general blankness as a character; we hear only that she is shy (although she has no difficulty speaking to kings), loves onions, and is flattered when Ozma asks for her assistance. Betsy is otherwise a nonentity—certainly likeable, but less real than the confident Dorothy or the thoughtful Trot. Or it reflects Betsy’s realization that the capitalist world of Down Town has no place for her. 

In any case, it matches her generally passive role in the rest of the book. She may feature as a main character, but just as in Tik-tok of Oz, she takes little action, merely following the group along.  After Down Town, she continues to stand by as Carter Green finds one of the rubies, the Hungry Tiger finds food, and Prince Reddy finds the Hungry Tiger, rescues him from giants, and reconquers his country. Betsy...provides introductions to various characters they meet on the way.  (I was reminded of a less cool Lieutenant Uhura.)

Nor is Betsy the only girl to take a passive role in this book. Ozma finds herself kidnapped yet again, this time, by a giant Air Man, Atmos Fere, who drags Ozma to the upper skies. (seriously, someone needs to get this girl some self-defense lessons, and fast, or failing that, some kidnapping insurance. I cannot think of a single other character in any fantasy series who is kidnapped so often.) She does manage to puncture him, nearly killing the both of them and completely destroying some very valuable wheat fields that somebody undoubtedly needed for food, thanks, Ozma, but after that, she, too, returns to an entirely passive role, usually forgetting her magical powers and powders and finding herself literally buffeted by storms and dogs, unable even to rescue herself, despite her powerful fairy magic. When she rejoins the rest of the characters, she is unable to help them, or return herself, Betsy and the Tiger to Oz.  The depiction contrasts strikingly from the Ozma with the power to undo a Yookoohoo’s magic, or summon and dismiss people from the Emerald City at will. That Ozma suffered failures of judgment; this Ozma has worse problems.

(Tellingly, when they eventually do return to the Emerald City, no one has been looking for them. Of course, the Ozites do have a spare king on hand now, but given their unenthusiastic response to him, you really have to wonder if the city isn’t secretly hoping, or planning, for the Wizard or the Scarecrow to take over again.)

Given Thompson’s status as a single working woman who had successfully entered, and then left, the male-dominated world of journalism, and followed that up by taking over the writing for a series created by a man, earning enough in both professions to support herself and other family members, Down Town’s negative picture of the role of women in capitalism is understandable and forgiveable. But coupling this picture with the passive images of Betsy and Ozma creates a rather bitter feel, indeed—for if Betsy had been consistently passive in earlier books, Ozma, whatever her myriad other faults, had not.

And yet, many of these negative images—Down Town, a Betsy standing by as others rescue the Hungry Tiger, a helpless Ozma floating in the air and shivering in the rain—all occur outside of Oz, creating a more complex picture than what might be initially seen. Thompson clearly recognized that outside of Oz, not all was well. But she could imagine something else in fairyland, and indeed, would later depict Dorothy, Betsy and Trot* vehemently protesting the suggestion that they remain in traditional, medieval feminine roles, showcasing, yet again, how very different things could be in the land of Oz.

*You didn’t really think that Ozma would be joining this protest, did you? I didn’t think so.

 Mari Ness isn’t sure that she’d ever be up to eating her political enemies, or ordering others to eat them. She lives in central Florida.

There are some nice examples in Leah Rozen, "Hey, Ryan, Talk to the Dress", NYT 2/10/2010:

RYAN, Ryan, Ryan. It’s Journalism 101: who, what, when, where and why, as in, “Who are you wearing?” […]

Susan Kaufman, editor of People StyleWatch, said she lost it when Mr. Seacrest didn’t immediately quiz an elegant-looking Sandra Bullock — who would later win as Best Actress — about her shimmery frock (by Marchesa). “I’m screaming at the TV: ‘Ask her who’s she wearing!’ ” Ms. Kaufman said. “I was so angry, my husband was laughing at me.”

Different versions of the same question come up in Elizabeth Wellington, "Mirror, Mirror: So, E!, whatever happened to 'Who are you wearing'?", Philadelphia Inquirer 2/10/2010:

Erica Salmon, president of Mullica Hill-based Red Carpet MVP (formerly the Fantasy Fashion League), wholeheartedly agreed. In the online game that mirrors fantasy football, points are awarded for how many times designers' names are mentioned by the media during red carpet season. The Oscars are the championship game.

"We can't just use E! anymore," said Salmon, who has been forced to use InStyle.com because E! didn't give her players enough information. "Sometimes I wish I had a direct line to Ryan's mike and I'd say, 'Dude, please ask who are they wearing?' " Salmon said. "That's what we need to know."

And dozens of other news outlets are discussing the same question, as they've been doing more and more often over the years (about 35 times more often than "Who are you reading?", apparently). The earliest example in Google's news archive is "Red Carpet, Big Smiles, Tight Security", San Jose Mercury News, 3/26/1991:

Peggy Lipton, Dianne Wiest and a buxom Egyptian model named Kelli fielded the evening's most pressing question: "Who are you wearing?"

However, a search in ProQuest's Historical Newspaper Archive turns up Genevieve Buck, "Chili, Bud kick off Chicago fashions", Chicago Tribune 4/11/1984:

"Who are you wearing?" turned out to be the game of the evening.

So (pending Ben Zimmer's discovery of a citation in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's diary) it appears that this is an expression that emerged in the 1980s in a general fashion-show context, and became a touchstone of Oscar-night reportage at some point over the past decade or two.

It also turns out that Who Are You Wearing? was a reality TV show, as of a couple of years ago. Somehow, I managed to miss it.

NASA's venerable Mars rover Spirit is starting a second career as an explorer of the Martian core--but first it must survive the deadly Martian winter.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory amazed onlookers last week when it flew past a sundog and destroyed it. Must-see videos of the event captured shock waves from the rocket billowing through the sundog, eliciting cries of delight and amazement from the crowd below.

Imagine holding the entire sun in the palm of your hand. Now you can. A new iPhone app developed by NASA-supported programmers delivers a live global view of the sun directly to your cell phone.

Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) surge through thunderstorms at about the same altitude where commercial airliners fly. Do these blasts of gamma-radiation pose a hazard to air travelers?

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), slated for liftoff on Feb. 9th, will make IMAX-quality movies of solar explosions, peer beneath the stellar surface to see the sun's inner dynamo, and--researchers hope--unravel the mysteries of solar variability.

Harry Turtledove's Supervolcano will look at what happens when the lurking danger under Yellowstone awakens...

Karen Miller's "the Tarnished Crown" will see publication from Orbit starting in 2012. Additionally, her "Rogue Agent" series (written as by K.E. Mills) will expand to at least five books...

Red Wheel Weiser Books will start by publishing 12 of Ravenous Romance's e-book original paranormal romances as $12.95 trade paperbacks...

Authors who support giving away free, electronic copies of their books have said that it helps generate sales of physical copies of their books and now there's a study that supports that view, although it's interesting to note that the study found that when science-fiction publisher Tor gave away books, it actually hurt sales. I've always said that once electronic book readers become more popular and easier to use, that giveaway model is going to collapse. I suspect those science-fiction readers are early adopters of book-reading devices and are more than content to have electronic versions of books over physical copies. The aforementioned article theorized that the Tor giveaways were not successful because the electronic books were only given away for a short period of time and it wasn't long enough to have an effect on book sales. Science fiction author Ben Bova once wrote a novel predicting the electronic book market. He points out that it was meant to be a satire of the publishing industry at the time he wrote it, but is amazed at how prophetic he was. Just to give you an idea of how electronic books are hitting a tipping point, there are now more e-book apps for the Apple iPhone than there are games. Meanwhile, Samsung has entered the e-book reader fray with its own device and it has partnered with Barnes & Noble in the U.S. in an effort to help sell it. There's no word if it will be available here in Canada, but if the government ever lifted its draconian Canadian ownership rules for bookstores, we might have B&N stores here and some actual competition.  

A great primer of Superman in animation from the good folks at Cartoon Brew. (8:30minutes)

Jerry Beck first provides a running audio commentary over scenes from the classic Max Fleischer Superman cartoons, then uses rare film clips to trace how the character was interpreted by other Hollywood animators—some authorized, others unauthorized.

More rhetorical analysis-by-synthesis here.

This is one of my absolute favourite things to read. I’ve been trying to hold off on re-reading until the sequel comes out, but I couldn’t make it any longer, I was overwhelmed with longing for them and picked them up. The Secret Country and  The Hidden Land are one book in two volumes. The Whim of the Dragon is the conclusion, but it is slightly more separate—there is a natural break there. I recommend getting hold of all three and reading them together, as if they were all bound together. At that, they’d be shorter than many fat fantasy single volumes.

You know how children in children’s books find their way into a magic kingdom? You know how you read stories like that when you were a kid and loved them? Then when you re-read them as an adult they’re much shorter than you remembered and all the colour has drained out of them? The Secret Country books are that kind of book but written for adults, jewel bright, with all the depth and resonance and layering that anyone could want. There are five American children who have made up an elaborate game about a secret and magical country, largely based on their reading of Shakespeare. Then they find themselves there, and it both is and isn’t the way they expect, they have to negotiate the shoals of the story they made up, because once they’re there they really don’t want it to happen any more.

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My posts here are always about the books I feel like reading, I don’t have an agenda, but I do read them differently knowing I’m going to write about them. I observe my reactions to share with you.  As I started reading The Secret Country the bit of me that observes my reactions felt very aware of just how much I was enjoying it. There are books I sink into so much that there’s really no me left, no awareness of separate consciousness. And there are books where I have a kind of doubled consciousness, inside and outside, observing, paying attention. Reading this, I kept thinking “Gosh, I love this!” Then I’d read another couple of lines and think “Gosh, I really do love this so much!” I was so delighted to be re-reading it that I almost couldn’t concentrate on actually reading it.

I’ve re-read these books countless times, which is unusual for something I didn’t read at all until the late nineties. These books have got into my heart in a way that was quite normal when I was a child but which has become increasingly less so since I’ve grown up. I do sometimes still want to hug a book, but I’m not so open to them getting in so deep. There’s something about these that really encourages that. I’ve also written quite a lot about them, and the details of the world, a long time ago on rec.arts.sf.written. I don’t want to repeat that here, not that it’s really possible. (It’s still findable via Google Groupe if you want a very long, very detailed discussion with spoilers.) So, they’re books I’ve read a lot and thought about a lot and talked about a lot.

What makes them outstanding isn’t the world, though it’s very good. The world is something that’s been made up and which is getting more baroque in the corners where they haven’t been paying attention. They started with all sorts of “because that’s what imaginary medieval kingdoms are like” and then it got more convoluted and interesting from there. It isn’t the language, though the language is wonderful, both the use of “high” language and the way that combines with the way kids talk naturally when they’re excited. There’s a lot of Shakespeare in both language and world, and that’s just lovely. But what makes them truly great is the way they’re about the difference between reality and story, that tightrope of responsibility.

Laura is eleven and her brother Ted is fifteen, and it is through their eyes that we see the Secret Country for the first two volumes. They are quiet bookish kids and a lot of the fun is watching them walk the tightrope of knowing too much and not enough. They, their cousins Ruth, Ellen and the fiercely atheist Patrick, are masquerading as the Royal Children of the Secret Country. They are surrounded by parents and teachers and wizards and nurses, all of whom expect incomprehensible things of them. There’s a way in which Dean captures the state of being a child very well  with this—they’re surrounded by people who are bigger and more powerful and who have their own agendas and who won’t take the children seriously. It’s not all that different for Laura treading carefully in the High Castle from doing the same in her aunt’s house in Illinois. Yet it’s infinitely more interesting, and there’s a lot more at stake. The scale has changed.

The actual revelatory end is a little disappointing, and there are some questions left unanswerable. It doesn’t matter, because the rest of it is so good and the expository end is so very satisfying.

If you like books and have always secretly wished you might step into one and have an adventure, do try these.

Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published eight novels, most recently Half a Crown and Lifelode, and two poetry collections. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.

Chapter Three

The Black Jewel

Next morning, Dorian Hawkmoon was taken to see Baron Kalan again. The serpent mask seemed to bear an almost cynical expression as it regarded him, but the baron said hardly a word, merely led him through a series of rooms and halls until they reached a room with a door of plain steel. This was opened, to reveal a similar door that, when opened, revealed a third door. This led into a small, blindingly lighted chamber of white metal that contained a machine of intense beauty. It consisted almost entirely of delicate red, gold, and silver webs, strands of which brushed Hawkmoon’s face and had the warmth and vitality of human skin. Faint music came from the webs, which moved as if in a breeze.

“It seems alive,” said Hawkmoon.

“It is alive,” Baron Kalan whispered proudly. “It is alive.”

[“Is it a beast?”]

Night Shade’s distributor, Diamond Books, has had a database error that caused Amazon to de-list all of the titles that Diamond distributes. This database error has been identified and corrected by Diamond. Diamond is now working with Amazon to get all of Diamond’s titles re-listed on Amazon. Sources at Diamond have informed Night Shade [...]