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Last Chance to Vote! The WoGF January Review Poll Closes Today
Today is the last day to vote in the January WoGF Review of the Month poll! Click on over to the forum to vote for your top 3 reviews. You must be a WWEnd member to vote though you don’t have to be a WoGF participant. Not a WWEnder? Signup today, it’s fast and free. The poll will remain open until midnight CT and our top 3 picks will receive Amazon gift cards for their efforts: $25 for 1st, $15 for 2nd and $10 for 3rd. May the best reviews win!
Haven’t read all the reviews? Time to get busy:
- Typhon’s Children by Toni Anzetti – Jack Dowden (Jdowds)
- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – Rhonda Knight (Rhondak101)
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – Star Hall (Stella Atrium)
- Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees – Jonathan Thornton (thrak)
- The Boneshaker by Kate Milford – Nadine Gemeinböck (Linguana)
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois MeMaster Bujold – Nathan Barnhart (Skynjay)
- Redmeption in Indigo by Karen Lord – Alexandra P. (everythinginstatic)
- The Bird of the River by Kage Baker – Ann Walker (Ann Walker)
- Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood – Matt W. (Mattastrophic)
- Graceling by Kristen Cashore – Stephanie (Rhetori_Cat)
- Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – Sue Bricknell (SueCCCP)
- Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi – Shannan Fay (Sai)
- Strange Toys by Patricia Geary – Allie McCarn (Allie)
- Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente – Thom Denholm (Thomcat)
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey – Carl V. Anderson (Carl V.)
WoGF Review: Among Others by Jo Walton
Alex Hammel (ahmmel) is an MSc. student in botany at the University of British Columbia. He started reading Tolkien and Lewis as a young nerd, and became an avid reader of all kinds of speculative fiction as an undergraduate when he discovered that it was more fun than studying. He joined WWEnd to participate in the WoGF challenge, and can often be found in the vicinity of a good beer.
My February WoGF entry is Among Others by Jo Walton. This is a very strong work of adolescent fantasy with really smart treatments of magic and growing up.
The interesting thing about the plot is that the magic in the book is mostly a red herring. It’s certainly a big part of Mori’s life, it’s not at the center of the novel. This is mostly a book about an adolescent girl coming to terms with a difficult childhood and learning to take on adult responsibilities (a familiar enough sort of story). It’s just that in this particular case, those responsibilities include performing magic on behalf of fairies which only she can see. This trick of making the magical elements of the story prominent but not central is great for realism, but some of the magical plot elements don’t wrap up in a satisfying way. For me, that’s the biggest disappointment in the book. All the essential elements to wrap up the main magical conflict are there, but some threads are left hanging and there was nothing much to surprise me.
On the other hand, the adolescent coming-of-age plot was one of the better ones I’ve read. Again, not too many surprises with the plot here, but it’s quite a clever book when it comes to dealing with teenaged inexperience and confusion, with the adult world, and especially with sex. It’s quite refreshing to read an adolescent fantasy that deals with the topic head-on and in an intelligent way, rather than disguising it as desire for Turkish delight or something.
Why Can’t We Get Back Into Space?
In a word: Politics.
Curiosity’s televised touchdown on Mars brought NASA back into the news. Like Spirit and Opportunity before it, and Pathfinder before them, the country (and, indeed, the world) dropped their worldly concerns and, for a moment, turned their gaze back to the skies. What they found, when they looked, was an opportunity to advance science where it never has gone before coupled with an unprecedented feat of engineering. The nation learned that NASA still has the right stuff.
News about Neil Armstrong’s death provided a contrasting, yet equally apt, metaphor. While NASA is still a major asset to America (and the world), its share of the national budget is continuing to shrink from 4.41% of total spending to an estimated .48% in 2012. For the first time since the Sputnik era, NASA’s budget doesn’t even garner ½% of the federal budget. While the nation quibbles about whether to grow entitlements by 2% or 4%, American astronauts have to hitch a ride with the Russians just to clock some zero gravity action. Who won the space race, again?
The cause of the problem, of course, is the back and forth between Congress and the White House. Constant calls to trim the size of government have blinded both sides to the relative utility of retaining an American advantage. Partisanship has made the problem worse. Whenever an American president lays out a specific vision for space exploration, the next one undoes it. NASA’s moon mission, on the other hand was started by the Kennedy administration and persisted under LBJ, but it was Richard Nixon who gave that congratulatory call to Messrs. Armstrong and Aldren. To boot, this all happened during what was perhaps the most divisive time in American politics.
WoGF Review: The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Nathan Barnhart (Skynjay) is one of three reviewers for Fantasy Review Barn. Though he read Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books as a kid, he didn’t really get into the genre until a few years ago, at which point he started reading any speculative fiction he could get his hands on. If not reading or playing with his kid, you can find him at the rec getting beat in basketball.
“In the ancient city-state of Gujaareh, peace is the only law. Upon its rooftops and amongst the shadows of its cobbled streets wait the Gatherers – the keepers of this peace. Priests of the dream-goddess, their duty is to harvest the magic of the sleeping mind and use it to heal, soothe . . . and kill those judged corrupt.”
– Cover blurb from The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
How to describe a book as unique as this? Assassin tale? Well, maybe, but to lump this in with the thousand books with a man in a cloak on the cover would be a travesty. Several have tried to make their assassins unique, but in this book the protagonist would resent even being called an assassin. Try again. Dystopia? After all, the limit of what humanity will allow in keeping such a long and stable peace works right in with Orwell and the like. But perhaps not, dystopias usually deal with a possible future, and this is still very much a fantasy novel. Vampire tale? Hell, I was three quarters through the book before I recognized that this may be the most cleverly hidden vampire tale I have seen, I certainly don’t want it lumped in with that over-saturated genre. I guess completely unique epic fantasy is the best I can do.
A lot of important little touches went in to building this unique experience. While there is an Egyptian flair, it was not the typical “add a pyramid and now it’s not a western influenced fantasy.” Rather the author changed everything; flood cycles instead of years, counting by fours, and adding a caste system that varied between the different city states. As readers we are dropped right into the world, with no long info dumps holding our hands. This may slow down the early book as a reader tries to keep up, but also worked to keep the book from every feeling bloated. The religion is unique, the world is alive, and the city of Gujaareh feels completely real.
WoGF Review: Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Nadine Gemeinböck (Linguana) has been reading fantasy for as long as she can remember. She started blogging about books on SFF Book Review in 2012, hoping to keep track of what she read and how she liked it. The book blogging community has since helped her open her literary horizons and thanks to WWEnd, she is currently working her way through NPR’s Top 100. Her blogging resolution is to review more foreign language books and finally take the plunge into a big, swooping space opera.
Tender Morsels
by Margo Lanagan
First sentence: There are plenty would call her a slut for it.
Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, a world given to her in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters grow up in this soft place, protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever—magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga’s refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?
I grew up on fairy tales. They were my very first contact with stories. I used to listen to Grimms’ Fairy Tales on cassette (yeah, I’m old enough for that) and I knew them all by heart – and would tell them to my entire family – by the age of four. Snow White and Rose Red was never my favorite but I still associate strong memories and vivid pictures with the tale. Margo Lanagan put quite a twisted spin on the old story and completely blew me away.
Great Moments in the Corruption of Youth (2): Too Much Horror Business by Kirk Hammett
I love the title of this book. It sounds like something my grandmother would have said around the time I was ten years old and she had noticed my copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland, or the Aurora model kits for Frankenstein’s Monster and Dracula, or heard me whining that my parents wouldn’t let me go see I Was a Teenage Frankenstein. (My parent’s had inconsistent rules.) My grandmother would have looked around and said, “When is Dee going to get over all this horror business.” And the answer to that, of course, is never. It takes hold around the age of seven or eight and doesn’t let go.
This horror fascination is possibly the only thing I have in common with Kirk Hammett, who is ten years my junior but still got hooked around the same biological age. Hammett went on to be the lead guitarist for Metallica, and he has chosen to use some fraction of his disposable income on collecting horror memorabilia in a big way. Too Much Horror Business catalogues his collection of movie posters, toys, movie props, and art. A part of me has to work pretty hard to keep the quotation marks off the word art in the preceding sentence, but he was in a position to buy the original Basil Gogos paintings that became the most famous covers of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Those are cool things to have. He also has a portrait of Bela Lugosi painted in Geza Kende. A little internet research shows that Hammett paid just over $86,000 for the portrait. (Assuming he bought it in auction in 2004.) Kende was a totally forgettable artist, but that price seems about right for something with this kind of special interest.
In his introduction, Hammett states that he did not want the book to be at all academic, and to insure that he decided to compose the text from his own responses to interview questions. He does an excellent job, coming off as a knowledgeable fanboy with a genuine appreciation of material ranging from 1920’s movie posters inspired by German Expressionism to a wallet picturing the Phantom of the Opera in its original packaging!.
The toys and masks are the most interesting part of the collection. There are pages and pages of movie posters, but the abundance mostly marks the decline of poster design from the silent era to the present day. Perhaps in eighty years, the poster for Hellraiser will be as definitive of its day as Hammett’s posters of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari seem to be of theirs, but somehow I doubt it.
Back to the toys. Here the difference in Hammett’s and my age really shows, because while I remained devoted to horror films, I was too old to care about Groovie Goolies or a board game based on Alien. But seeing them now is a kick.
Photographs of Hammett appear throughout the book. In several he performs on the custom guitars he has had made from monster poster images. In another he poses with his young sons surrounded by skulls and models including Frankenstein’s monster, Robbie the Robot, and Ray Harryhausen’s Cyclops from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Father and sons snarl and make monster hands for the camera. The corruption of youth proceeds apace.
Science Fact: Bionic Hand Has Feelings… Woah Woah Woah Feelings
The trouble with real bionic hands is that they’re nothing like Steve Austin’s or even Luke Skywalker’s famous mitts. No, I’m not talking about the Six-Million-Dollar Man’s super-strong grip, we have that. I’m talking about something seemingly more humble, yet far more difficult to accomplish than making an artificial hand crush a beer can. The human hand is a delicate instrument, and using it properly requires feedback that we mainly get through our sense of touch, which requires millions of nerve cells.
Here’s where science is starting to catch up with nature. The iLimb Pulse contains five individually-powered articulating digits and a fully rotatable thumb and wrist, which all coordinate with one another through myoelectric prosthesis, “a process that uses electrical sensors to detect tiny muscular movements in the residual limb, which are then translated by an on-board computer into natural, intuitive movement of the mechanized hand.”
The hand’s ability to sense objects is, of course, limited, and it can’t yet sense things like temperature variations (things that we perceive as hot and cold), the technology is still new. How long might it be before artificial limbs match (or even exceed) natural capabilities? I, and my always aching triple fractured wrist, want to know!
Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge: January Review Poll and Stats
We’re now one month into the Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge and what a month it was! We were not expecting such a great response and we’re just delighted that so many people decided to join in the fun. So thanks to everyone for participating and for spreading the word.
In particular, we want to thank Carl V. Anderson (Carl V.) for the huge write up on his excellent blog Stainless Steel Droppings! It was really fun watching as his post created ripples through the book blogging community and the challenge started showing up on his friends blogs and then their friends blogs and their friends blogs and on and on. Thanks, Carl, for bringing us so many new members and challenge readers!
So, how did we do in January? Pretty amazing, actually. So far 158 readers have taken the challenge in just one month – compared to 172 total for all of last year’s Grand Master Reading Challenge. Our readers have already tagged 119 books as read and posted a whopping 69 reviews! And some very good reviews they were too. We chose 15 of the best to feature in our blog:
