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I haven't done reviews in a while. I have actually managed to read novels. Well, three of them since Christmas. That's embarrassingly low.
Triton, by Samuel Delany
I had not read any Delany, but I'd heard of him (particularly Dahlgren), so when I found Triton in paperback for 50¢ at a Friends of the Library sale, I snatched it up. Well, that was different!
I really liked Triton, even though I knew from early on that it had something I can't stand: a protagonist for whom I had little or no sympathy. I wasn't even sure why I kept reading, because I don't usually keep going when I can't stand the main character--especially when the main character seems to pay so little attention to anyone around him that I can't get a good view of anyone else! In fact, I'd blocked on his name, and I just had to Google for it: Bron Helstrom.
In looking it up, I found not just the title as it appears on the cover, and the much smaller subtitle ("An Ambiguous Heterotopia," on the title page): apparently for later editions, the novel was renamed Trouble on Triton. Interesting.
Even through the very limited Bron Helstrom, we do get to see some very interesting things: a solar system with people living on other planets and moons; moons where marriage is illegal, though families are allowed, and couples are just one configuration, with larger and more complicated "sexualizationships". Identities are not fixed; physical, sexual, and mental characteristics can be changed. We also get some tastes of future theater; a new field called "metalogic" (the one part that bored me was a ten-page explanation of what "metalogic" is); and the kind of science that allows people to live on moons.
I found it well worth reading, though it seemed to me the whole time that it wasn't to my usual tastes!
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz
This novel has apparently been highly successful. It's not actually science fiction, but the central character is a total geek. He reads, he writes, he does role-playing games . . . he just doesn't have a lot of life outside that, one might think. Of course, one might be wrong. In some ways, Oscar de Léon's life is very ordinary; in others, it's extraordinary.
Oscar is Dominican but grows up mostly in New Jersey, never quite accepted in either place. His sister Lola, who is pretty much a mundane, experiences some of the same, so it's not just due to Oscar's fannish identity. A great deal of Oscar's life happens largely in his head, and yet it's not at all boring. Parts of the novel deal with his family history, which is not for the squeamish. I learned more about Dominican history from this novel than I knew before (and I was embarrassed to realize how very little I knew).
The one thing that really threw me about the novel is the changing voice. It seems at the start, and for much of the novel, like we've got an almost omniscient narrator; the narration mostly follows Oscar and reveals his thoughts, but it also shifts to other characters at times and follows them closely for chapters at a time. I was really disconcerted the first time it shifted into first person, though, and it took me a bit to determine whose voice I was hearing. One character is always in first person but doesn't appear in much of the book, and he seems to represent Díaz in some ways: a writer, a bit of a geek (but not as much as Oscar), another Dominican émigré to New Jersey. I had to remind myself repeatedly that the narrator is not Díaz! What remains unclear to me is why a couple of chapters only were in one other first-person voice! (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
redbyrd_sgfic, if you read this, I'll be very curious about what you think about narration as well as structure; you've got a very sharp eye for those!)
Even with that confusion, I'm really glad I read it. Here I could sympathize with major characters, even while they're very unlike me in some ways. The SF and sometimes gaming references are dense enough that I'm a bit surprised by the book's mainstream success! I didn't get all the references. Geek is chic now, but I bet everyone on my flist will get more of the fannish references than the average reader! Of course, some readers might get a lot more of the historical references, and there are probably non-SF literary connections I'm totally missing.
Mind Players, by Pat Cadigan
I think I read a story by Pat Cadigan years ago in a Year's Best or some other compilation and always meant to find more by her; I don't know why I didn't. Brilliant Husband owned a couple, and I finally got to Mind Players. That's probably my favorite of the three books, although I think all three that I'm reviewing today were quite good.
Again, the protagonist is someone very different from me, but someone with whom I could sympathize (although not at every moment, and she makes a lot of poor choices!). Yes, I'm shallow that way. Maybe that's why I'm a medievalist: the heroes tend to be heroes and not anti-heroes (so why do I like Kerr Avon?).
One of the first things to strike me about the novel was that when Allie puts on the madcap (this is not a spoiler--it's the second page of the novel!), the thing pulls her eyeballs partway out to put connections to the brain under them! I immediately went, "Farscape!" The Farscape writers must have seen this! It's very much up their alley. Here's a big clue (also not much of a spoiler because it happens right away): trying on astolen borrowed experimental psychosis device can be hazardous.
In some ways this future seems pretty standard: flyers instead of cars, Brain Police, powerful drugs that are sold outright instead of illegal, replacement eyes, plugging oneself into other people and networks. As in Delany's book, a lot of adjustments can be made: skin color, hair, and especially mind. Identity proves deeply problematic, in ways that are sometimes similar to Triton but sometimes very different; I can't go into a lot of detail without spoiling the books, but they make a very interesting juxtaposition!
Mind Players is dense with imagery and wordplay; I'm sure I missed some things, but some are obvious and even pointed out by the characters. In some ways it's very dense, yet I found it so lucid and involving that I could read it in airports and on planes without getting distracted or confused (I do not normally read well in loud places). Part of me says, "Dang, I want to teach this novel!" (Then the rest of me remembers what happened when I taught "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and Bladerunner that one time, and I think I'm better off not teaching something I deeply enjoy and admire to students who I think ought to appreciate it but signally fail to do so. At least when they don't appreciate Beowulf or Chaucer, I can tell myself that distance in time and place comprise a lot of the problem. My gosh--I had students watch Bladerunner and tell me they never realized before how bad an actor Harrison Ford was. Are you on drugs? [/digression]) The metaphors and wordcraft are absolutely amazing, but the characters are also memorable. Must read more Cadigan soon!
Triton, by Samuel Delany
I had not read any Delany, but I'd heard of him (particularly Dahlgren), so when I found Triton in paperback for 50¢ at a Friends of the Library sale, I snatched it up. Well, that was different!
I really liked Triton, even though I knew from early on that it had something I can't stand: a protagonist for whom I had little or no sympathy. I wasn't even sure why I kept reading, because I don't usually keep going when I can't stand the main character--especially when the main character seems to pay so little attention to anyone around him that I can't get a good view of anyone else! In fact, I'd blocked on his name, and I just had to Google for it: Bron Helstrom.
In looking it up, I found not just the title as it appears on the cover, and the much smaller subtitle ("An Ambiguous Heterotopia," on the title page): apparently for later editions, the novel was renamed Trouble on Triton. Interesting.
Even through the very limited Bron Helstrom, we do get to see some very interesting things: a solar system with people living on other planets and moons; moons where marriage is illegal, though families are allowed, and couples are just one configuration, with larger and more complicated "sexualizationships". Identities are not fixed; physical, sexual, and mental characteristics can be changed. We also get some tastes of future theater; a new field called "metalogic" (the one part that bored me was a ten-page explanation of what "metalogic" is); and the kind of science that allows people to live on moons.
I found it well worth reading, though it seemed to me the whole time that it wasn't to my usual tastes!
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz
This novel has apparently been highly successful. It's not actually science fiction, but the central character is a total geek. He reads, he writes, he does role-playing games . . . he just doesn't have a lot of life outside that, one might think. Of course, one might be wrong. In some ways, Oscar de Léon's life is very ordinary; in others, it's extraordinary.
Oscar is Dominican but grows up mostly in New Jersey, never quite accepted in either place. His sister Lola, who is pretty much a mundane, experiences some of the same, so it's not just due to Oscar's fannish identity. A great deal of Oscar's life happens largely in his head, and yet it's not at all boring. Parts of the novel deal with his family history, which is not for the squeamish. I learned more about Dominican history from this novel than I knew before (and I was embarrassed to realize how very little I knew).
The one thing that really threw me about the novel is the changing voice. It seems at the start, and for much of the novel, like we've got an almost omniscient narrator; the narration mostly follows Oscar and reveals his thoughts, but it also shifts to other characters at times and follows them closely for chapters at a time. I was really disconcerted the first time it shifted into first person, though, and it took me a bit to determine whose voice I was hearing. One character is always in first person but doesn't appear in much of the book, and he seems to represent Díaz in some ways: a writer, a bit of a geek (but not as much as Oscar), another Dominican émigré to New Jersey. I had to remind myself repeatedly that the narrator is not Díaz! What remains unclear to me is why a couple of chapters only were in one other first-person voice! (
redbyrd_sgfic, if you read this, I'll be very curious about what you think about narration as well as structure; you've got a very sharp eye for those!)Even with that confusion, I'm really glad I read it. Here I could sympathize with major characters, even while they're very unlike me in some ways. The SF and sometimes gaming references are dense enough that I'm a bit surprised by the book's mainstream success! I didn't get all the references. Geek is chic now, but I bet everyone on my flist will get more of the fannish references than the average reader! Of course, some readers might get a lot more of the historical references, and there are probably non-SF literary connections I'm totally missing.
Mind Players, by Pat Cadigan
I think I read a story by Pat Cadigan years ago in a Year's Best or some other compilation and always meant to find more by her; I don't know why I didn't. Brilliant Husband owned a couple, and I finally got to Mind Players. That's probably my favorite of the three books, although I think all three that I'm reviewing today were quite good.
Again, the protagonist is someone very different from me, but someone with whom I could sympathize (although not at every moment, and she makes a lot of poor choices!). Yes, I'm shallow that way. Maybe that's why I'm a medievalist: the heroes tend to be heroes and not anti-heroes (so why do I like Kerr Avon?).
One of the first things to strike me about the novel was that when Allie puts on the madcap (this is not a spoiler--it's the second page of the novel!), the thing pulls her eyeballs partway out to put connections to the brain under them! I immediately went, "Farscape!" The Farscape writers must have seen this! It's very much up their alley. Here's a big clue (also not much of a spoiler because it happens right away): trying on a
In some ways this future seems pretty standard: flyers instead of cars, Brain Police, powerful drugs that are sold outright instead of illegal, replacement eyes, plugging oneself into other people and networks. As in Delany's book, a lot of adjustments can be made: skin color, hair, and especially mind. Identity proves deeply problematic, in ways that are sometimes similar to Triton but sometimes very different; I can't go into a lot of detail without spoiling the books, but they make a very interesting juxtaposition!
Mind Players is dense with imagery and wordplay; I'm sure I missed some things, but some are obvious and even pointed out by the characters. In some ways it's very dense, yet I found it so lucid and involving that I could read it in airports and on planes without getting distracted or confused (I do not normally read well in loud places). Part of me says, "Dang, I want to teach this novel!" (Then the rest of me remembers what happened when I taught "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" and Bladerunner that one time, and I think I'm better off not teaching something I deeply enjoy and admire to students who I think ought to appreciate it but signally fail to do so. At least when they don't appreciate Beowulf or Chaucer, I can tell myself that distance in time and place comprise a lot of the problem. My gosh--I had students watch Bladerunner and tell me they never realized before how bad an actor Harrison Ford was. Are you on drugs? [/digression]) The metaphors and wordcraft are absolutely amazing, but the characters are also memorable. Must read more Cadigan soon!
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