Fiction Book Reviews

Still busy with school, natch; not doing quite as much pleasure-reading (for instance, I read the first couple chapters of Catch-22 the other day because I’ll be presenting on it for a class, and so far I haven’t been able to force myself to read more because I hate Yossarian so much). I’m still working on some reviews. I’m also coming across far too many giveaways that I’m sure I won’t win, but you never know so why not, which is why I’m sharing them: because anybody can win and others might be interested, and…okay, it means more entries for me, whatever. (At least I’m honest.)

• Steam Powered Rings - I’m not sure how much I’ve mentioned this here, but I really like steampunk. I think the only book I’ve read that I could definitively say was steampunk would be Perdido Street Station, which is unfortunate because I’d love to hunt down some more (and could do with a bit less of the “punk” elements, more of the steam-driven, Victorian-inspired, clocks-and-gears bits). But steampunk isn’t just a genre; it’s a style, too, which means you can find things like steampunk computers, clothes, and music all over the internet, assuming you can pay for them. You can also find steampunk jewelry, and Steam Powered Rings is full of truly gorgeous pieces like this and this and this, which all adds up to a big WANT for me and then I cry because I don’t have a lot of money. But: if you’re long on EntreCard credits and short on real money, you can get a ring for 6,000 EC in the EC Market (I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of working toward this and adding up how long it would take if I made lots and lots of drops), and there’s also a giveaway during February, March, and April for a ring.
• Lil Wayne John, a web-developer and blogger, is giving away 10,000 EC credits . To enter, you have to submit your blog to the directory Link Listings, which could be useful in pulling a bit of traffic anyway.
• Christian Carders - You might have noticed that a few of the books I’ve reviewed–Soon and Firebird, for instance–are Christian fiction, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that I’m a Christian too. Admittedly, I find a lot of Christian fiction to be poorly written, which is kind of sad, and I don’t read as much of it anymore; but I’m pretty likely to talk about it when I find one, and my worldview will still probably leak in through my reviews a bit. Anyway, there’s a community for Christian bloggers with EntreCard, and if that definition fits you and you’d like to join, visit Christian Carders.
• Bloggers Give - Momstart is hosting an EC credit giveaway to benefit Bloggers Give, a site where bloggers make a difference by giving their time and resources to help those in need.

Right. Now to start that paper that’s due tomorrow. And this was supposed to be quick…

I’ve tried to explain, more than once, why I’m drawn to science fiction and fantasy. It’s a little easier when I’m talking about why I write it–I say things about how it means less research (this is not entirely true. Worldbuilding done well generally requires enormous amounts of research. But it does mean that I don’t have to drive myself completely bats trying to make sure I’m accurate to this historical detail or this aspect of such-and-such a real place–creating histories and settings of my own gives me an awful lot of freedom that way), how it allows me to explore ideas that might be rejected out of hand by readers in familiar, real-world situations but can be slipped in and actually considered if they’re dressed in new guises, and I have a virtually unlimited number of ways to look at those ideas. I love finding the universal and human among the unfamiliar and the alien. Besides, it’s just fun.

It comes down to all the same reasons, I suppose, if I’m asked why I prefer reading fantasy and sci-fi, but somehow that’s always harder to answer; usually I can’t come up with anything better than “…I don’t know, I just like it better, I guess…” It’s especially unfortunate that I often feel the need to defend my favorite genres, but I suppose most kinds of genre fiction will inspire similar reactions among people that aren’t into those genres.

Well. Not terribly long ago, I came across a link in Sherwood Smith’s blog to a review of George Eliot’s Middlemarch–and yeah, Middlemarch has nothing to do with speculative fiction, and yeah, I haven’t read it. But in explaining why Eliot would’ve made a wonderful science fiction writer, Jo Walton also manages to describe perfectly both the special freedoms and special dangers of fantasy and sci-fi:

In science fiction you can have any kind of story—a romance or a mystery or a reflection of human nature, or anything at all. But as well as that, you have infinite possibility. You can tell different stories about human nature when you can compare it to android nature, or alien nature. You can examine it in different ways when you can write about people living for two hundred years, or being relativistically separated, or under a curse. You have more colours for your palette, more lights to illuminate your scene.

Now the problem with genre fiction is often that writers take those extra lights and colours and splash them around as if the fact that the result is shiny is sufficient, which it unfortunately isn’t. So the most common failing of genre fiction is that you get shallow stories with feeble characters redeemed only by the machinations of evil wizards or the fascinating spaceship economy or whatever. What I want is stories as well written and characterised as Middlemarch, but with more options for what can happen. That’s what I always hope for, and that’s what I get from the best of SF.

If Eliot could have taken her SFnal sensibility and used it to write SF, she could have swung the whole course of literature into a different channel. She could have changed the world. All the great writers who followed her would have had all the options of SF, instead of the circumscribed limitations of the mimetic world.

Now go back and read it again, especially the first paragraph and the bolded bits. Because this…this is why I write SF. Because it’s bigger than the everyday world, deeper, wider, more fascinating. Because I dwell in possibility.

Also, I really want to read some good steampunk now, after reading about how much the advent of the railroad shows up in Middlemarch.