wisb-Guardian-Express

The folks behind the marketing campaign for Syfy's new/returning show, Alphas, have been sending me lots of video links.  I've decided to share those with all of you (by "share" I mean "use my blog space to point to things you might have found on Youtube if you had been looking").  If you have been watching the show, please let me know what you think in the comments.

Here are the video promos:

Occasionally I will post a poem or some other piece of writing on my blog under the title "Adventures in ..."  Why?  Because I like sharing and sometimes I write things that I don't feel like publishing, for one reason or another.  And if I'm not going to publish it through traditional channels, I might as well share it.

The following poem is certainly not one of my best.  I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.  But it is the first poem I've written with the note feature of my Zune HD.  That's pretty cool, no?

Anywho.  Feel free to let me know what you think.

Here's the poem:

The dream slips into nothingness,
the chasm a story that never ends
and whips the world into a warped waking of minds.

Who are we in the dream
but the tender wisps
of someone's eldest aspirations?
Who do we become
in another's dreams
but the hope transposed
over the globe of the soul.

When we grow into our own snow globes
we turn the dream upon itself
to become the careful display of nostalgic longing.

Until one day the new child
forms from the chiasmic center
of a hurricane ocean of imaginations.
Until we become ourselves
the makers of globes.

I've also started a new writing project, which I'm tentatively calling The Last Fable of Maxine Swansey, which takes place (currently) over three different time periods in a character's life (1984, 2050, and 2155). I may add more time periods, and possibly other characters across the years inbetween. I don't know.

What I do know is that the writing style for this piece is nothing like anything I've written before. It combines stream of consciousness and a literary writing structure reminiscent of someone like Pynchon or Salman Rushdie (more Rushdie than Pynchon at the moment -- these are just comparisons to give an impression of the style I'm working with, not an assessment of quality or an admission of copycat behavior). I'm not sure why I'm doing this, though I like how inserting stream of consciousness in the middle of third person does some interesting things to destabilize the narrative (in a way that I think works). We'll see what happens as I continue to write this thing.

Point is:  I'm having fun doing something weird, but also mundane. There's a lot of intersection between the everyday and the strange, and the often fuzzy border that exists between the two (the first chapter involves a character discovering a man in a random Spanish courtyard trying to convince people he has learned how to control animals through martial art dance -- in this case, a bull -- and there's all kinds of other weirdness going on, too -- coincidences upon coincidences, some strange technology, odd characters, and so on and so forth).

And that, I think, is what I really need. I need to have fun just writing something. Something I can insert more of my life into, as writers are wont to do.

Anywho. What are you all up to?

The net is abuzz with news that Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, has passed away after what appeared to be complications from heart surgery.  He was 82.

Perhaps it sounds silly to some, but I teared up after seeing this on Twitter and realizing it wasn't a hoax.  It's hard to explain, but Neil Armstrong is one of those people you can't help but look up to.  A person who did something no other human being had ever done before.  He fulfilled the dreams of writers and scientists and people sitting around in their living rooms watching black-and-white scifi TV shows.  July 20th, 1969 will forever be a reminder of his achievements, and the achievements of his fellow astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Like a lot of people, he was, in no small way, an inspiration for me when I was a child -- if not directly, then by proxy.  I remember watching a live broadcast of a shuttle liftoff as a kid and thinking to myself, "That might be me one day."  There's something powerful about that kind of reaction, of believing you can do something -- that you should do something.  Health conditions made sure I would never be an astronaut, but the world Armstrong created by putting his feet into the fine dust of the Moon was one that made me long to go up there and carve out a piece of history for myself, however small.  Perhaps that explains my obsession with space, and not just science fiction.  It explains my desperate desire to go up there one day, even if only for a few moments.  To feel space in my own way.  To feel like I'm a part of some grander human experience.  Armstrong made all of that possible.

And in a weird way, I thought he would always be here.  I know that's insane, since we all must die.  He was 82, after all; he lived a lot of years.  But he was supposed to be there like some kind of great father, to watch over us as we journeyed further and further out there, to be there for us with all his wisdom.  The world does not feel right without him -- cannot feel right.  There's an emptiness now.  We've lost a human being who meant so much to so many.  A man who took us where no humans had ever been before, who uttered a line that will echo throughout history forever:  "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
You will have a special place in our hearts, Mr. Armstrong.  One day, when some human being puts his or her feet on some distant rock, like Mars or maybe a planet around another star, they will think of you, your words, and what you meant to the world and mankind.  And maybe they too will bask in the glory that you began all those years ago.

Sleep well, hero.

It seems the furor over the would-be publication of the first chapter of Save the Pearls by Victoria Foyt hasn't quite sunk in yet for Marvin Kaye, the new editor of Weird Tales.  You can read my previous post and all the attached links to get a sense of what happened -- if you don't know already.  To add to the mess, as Rose Fox of Publishers Weekly reports, Kaye has taken to defending himself in emails sent to individuals requesting to have their subscriptions canceled rather than posting a public response as "promised" by the publisher (the request Rose discusses was made by L. Grabenstetter here)(I've taken the liberty of reprinting the message here, though I strongly suggest reading both Rose Fox's and L. Grabenstetter's articles):

Your wishes will be respected; I believe the publisher will handle that, I regret your decision, and can only say that after reading the book, I found it a powerful attack on racism, just the opposite from the charges leveled at it. However, I only recently saw the marketing of this book, and find it in terrible taste; had I seen it, I would not have read the book. As it is, we have decided not to publish the story. 

Regarding Scott Card’s story, I did not see any homophobia in it, or I would have objected, but for the record, I did not want to buy anything from him; the publisher, Tor Books, made it clear that if I did not include his story, they would not publish the book at all. MK 

I can't help but wonder what is going through Kaye's head.  Whatever you think of Card, his Hamlet rewrite was thoroughly panned for, well, being rather homophobic and legitimating certain anti-gay stereotypes.  How Kaye can defend Hamlet's Father against these criticisms is perhaps indicative of his inability to accept what many are saying about Save the Pearls. While I have personally reserved judgment on Save the Pearls because I have yet to read it, the community has voiced its mostly-negative opinion.  They are not happy, and the more I read about their reasons, the more I'm inclined to agree with them.  Most people/organizations would see the anger being funneled their way and immediately go into damage control.  But not Kaye.  Rather than, if you'll excuse the phrase, take his head out of his ass, he's decided to suspend critical analysis in favor of further idiocy.

At this point it doesn't really matter whether Save the Pearls is racist; Kaye and the publisher have made a critical error, both in effectively lying to us about when they became aware of the depth of controversy surrounding Foyt's work and in refusing to recognize what is happening to them (or, rather, what they have done to themselves) as a product of poor management, poor vision, and poor public relations.  By sending defensive emails to subscribers, you don't help your case.  Just look at how poorly Progressive Insurance have handled themselves in recent weeks.  The point is that as a member of a professional venture, it behooves you to maintain professional decorum, even if the Internet will not afford you the same courtesy.  That means admitting mistakes when you make them, acknowledging and fielding counterpoints with respect, and so on (these are basic concepts of argumentation, by the way).  Perhaps some people are being overly harsh to Save the Pearls, but you cannot make that case by, as I mentioned the other day, treating the opposition with condescension bordering on contempt.

I'm not sure if Weird Tales can recover from these massive failures.  With subscribers shedding the magazine and the SF/F community generally up in arms over it all, it will take an extraordinary amount of work to gain the community's trust.  And that might be an understatement.

I'm teaching an Introduction to Literature course this semester and cannot decide between two of Shakespeare's plays.  So I'm going to leave that up to the Internet.

Vote away:

Update:  The list is now alphabetical by author!

(Note:  The following books are what was listed on Twitter under the #ThoroughlyGoodBooksbyPOC hashtag at 5:45 PM EST (the 21st of August).  Twitter will not allow me to view anything that might have appeared earlier than the morning of the 21st.

It should also be noted that some folks have expanded the list to include books featuring POC characters, even when such books are written by white authors.)

A little background:

In response to the recent Weird Tales fiasco, author Jim C. Hines decided to switch things around to get people to list their favorite novels by people of color, irrespective of genre.  I've decided to compile as many of those books as I possibly can.  The following list will, I hope, be updated over the course of the week (please understand that I am in grad school, which begins anew tomorrow, and so my time may be limited to do this).

(Note:  Some authors will not have specific titles listed.  This is either because people suggested practically everything written by those authors or specifically stated "anything by."  Please excuse any repetitions you may find.)

Now for the list:

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov
The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine
Heaven's Fate by Andre Alan
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
How to Traverse Terra Incognita by Dean Alfar
Salamanca by Dean Francis Alfar
Anything by Isabel Allende
Krymsin Nocturnes by Joseph Armstead
No God But God:  The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by Res Aslan

Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
The Tiger Claw by Shauna Singh Baldwin
Dreampark by Steven Barnes
Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes
Cosmos Latinos:  An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain edited by Andrew L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilan
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Full Moon on the Reservation by Gloria Bird
Noughts and Crosses by Mallory Blackman
Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard
Saga de los confines by Liliana Bodoc
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
When the Rainbow Goddess Wept by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
Icon by Dwayne McDuffie and M. D. Bright
King Maker by Maurice Broaddus
The Knights of Breton Court by Maurice Broaddus
Anything by Tobias Buckell
Anything by Octavia Butler

32 Candles by Ernessa Carter
Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
Red Earth and Pouring Red by Vikram Chandra
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Anything by Joyce Chng
Radical Equations:  Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project by Bob Moses and Charles Cobb
Shadow Ops:  Control Point by Myke Cole
The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper
White Talk by Chris Crutcher


Wolf at the Door by J. Damask
Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis
Anything by Samuel R. Delany
Playing Indian by Philip Deloria
Anything by Junot Diaz
Black Candle:  Poems About Women from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh by Chitra Divakaruni
Acacia by David Anthony Durham
Pride of Carthage by David Anthony Durham
Anything by Tananarive Due

Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling
The Budayeen Series by George Alec Effinger
Cold Magic by Kate Elliot
Cold Fire by Kate Elliot
Cold Steel by Kate Elliot
The Honey Month by Amal El-Mohtar
Blonde Roots by Bernardine Evaristo

Zero by Huang Fan
The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon
Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust
Shrinking the Heroes by Minister Faust

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez
The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto
Half-world by Hiromi Goto
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston
Mindscape by Andrea Hairston
The Ben January Series by Barbara Hambly
When Dreams Travel by Githa Hariharan
Girl, Overboard by Justina Chen Headley
Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier
Changing by Lily Hoang
Cortez on Jupiter by Ernest Hogan
Smoking Mirror Blues by Ernest Hogan
Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
Anything by M. C. A. Hogarth
Anything by Nalo Hopkinson
So Long Been Dreaming:  Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
God's War by Kameron Hurley

Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Anything by Brenda Jackson
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen
Red Moonshine by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Smoketown by Tenea Johnson
Some Prefer Nettles by Tanizaki Junichiro
The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichiro

Atlas:  The Archaeology of an Imaginary City by Dung Kai-Cheung
Good Luck Yukikaze by Chohei Kambayashi
Yukikaze by Chouhei Kambayashi
Polar City Blues by Katharine Kerr
SNARE by Katharine Kerr
Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Warrior Woman by Maxine Hong Kingston
Transmission by Hari Kunzru

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Liar by Justine Larbarlastier
The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor LaValle
The Earthsea Series by Ursula K. LeGuin
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
Night, Again by Dinh Linh
Ash by Malinda Lo
Huntress by Malinda Lo
Adaptation by Malinda Lo
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord

The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf
Anything by Naguib Mahfouz
The Dragon and the Stars edited by Derwin Mak and Eric Choi
Fire Logic by Laurie J. Marks
Anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Snakes and Ladders by Gita Mehta
Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger
Red Spider White Web by Misha
Tales from Firozsha Baag by Rohinton Mistry
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
Crossfire by Miyuki Miyabe
Bodies in Motion by Mary Ann Mohanraj
Anything by Silvia Moren-Garcia
Anything by Toni Morrison
Anything by Walter Mosley
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
The Legend of Tarik by Walter Dean Myers

Priscilla the Great by Sybil Nelson
Rocket Girls:  The Last Planet by Housuke Nojiri

The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa
The Shadow Speak by Nnedi Okorafor
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Zahra the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Salsa Nocturna by Daniel Jose Older
The Twelve Kingdoms Series by Fuyumi Ono
Bone Game by Louis Owens
Anything by Helen Oyeyemi

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
The Darker Mask:  Heroes from the Shadows edited by Gary Phillips and Christopher Chambers
Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon
The Grass Dancer by Susan Power
Harmony by Project Itoh
Genocidal Organ by Project Itoh

None

The Umbrella Country by Bino Realuyo
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Anything by Eden Robinson

The Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara
Orientalism by Edward Said
All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Ancient, Ancient by Kiini Ibura Salaam
A Strange in Olandria by Sofia Samatar
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Dossouye by Charles R. Saunders
The Imaro Series by Charles Saunders
Black No More by George Schuyler
House of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
FilterHouse by Nisi Shawl
The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet by Vandana Singh
Flygirl by Sherri S. Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter by S. P. Somtow

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
Lauriat edited by Charles A. Tan
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum
Dark Matter:  Reading the Bones edtied by Sheree R. Thomas
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong'o
The Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiongo
Apex Book of World SF edited by Lavie Tidhar
Apex Book of World SF 2 edited by Lavie Tidhar
Pluto Files by Neil Degrasse Tyson

None

Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias
Lower Myths by Eliza Victoria
The Viewless Dark by Eliza Victoria

In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman Waberi
The Lion Hunter by Elizabeth Wein
The Broken Crown Series by Michelle West
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
Otherland by Tad Williams
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson

Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian

Stories of Ibis by Hiroshi Yamamoto
Sleeping Helena by Erzebet YellowBoy
Dragon of the Lost Sea by Laurence Yep
The Deer and the Cauldron by Jin Yong
NP by Banana Yoshimoto
Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

None

Additional Anthologies or Magazines:
Expanded Horizons (magazine)
Philippine Speculative Fiction Anthologies edited by Various
Alternative Alamat by Various

Plus the short story work of:
Aliette de Bodard
Zen Cho
Tananarive Due
Xia Jia
Rahul Kanakia
Yoon Ha Lee
Ken Liu
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
Shweta Narayan
An Owomoyela
Sofia Samatar
Benjanun Sriduangkaew
Nghi Vo

Today's the last day to donate to my crowdfunding venture and get a bunch of free stuff in the process (free fiction, more free fiction, and amusing ways to torture me).  If you can spare a few bucks, please consider sending it my way.  You can do that by using the little widget on the side.  Further details about perks and all that jazz can be found here.  Or you can simply ignore all of that and send donations straight to my Paypal:  arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com.

(Disclaimer:  This post is a preliminary reaction.  I have not read the novel in question and can only respond to what others have said about it.  As such, what follows will not be based on what I know about the book itself, but rather a series of curiosities and questions that I suspect will be answered later this week.  An educated reaction will follow.

Note:  I am collecting links to other responses at the bottom.

Note 2:  The original Weird Tales post has been taken down.  An apology has been put in its place.

Note 3:  Some new details have surfaced.  You can find my update here.)

Twitter was in a rage this morning about this Weird Tales announcement involving the publication of the first chapter of Victoria Foyt's Saving the Pearls:  Revealing Eden.  Authors/bloggers N. K. Jemisin, Celine Kiernan, Martha Wells, Nick Mamatas were among the most vocal hitters, decrying the selection as, at best, a phenomenally stupid choice of publication and, at worst, a throwback to the racism that might have made Lovecraft proud.

If you're not familiar with Saving the Pearls, then you're not alone.  I am writing this post from a position of profound ignorance, having only read reviews of Foyt's novel, and not the novel itself (such as this review or the numerous reviews on the Amazon page). What many seem most bothered by is Foyt's portrayal of a reverse-racist society which uses blackface to make its supposedly anti-racist point (a historically derogatory practice originally used by whites to stereotype and denigrate blacks -- the white-race-glorification film, Birth of a Nation, for example, used blackface in order to portray black males as sexual "beasts," which, as it turns out, is another stereotype that Foyt, according to reviews, unsuccessfully "turns on its head").  Coming from the outside, my first reactions were along these lines:

1. Is it possible to reverse blackface without running into the problem of racist history?  In other words, can one take the history of making blacks feel inferior because they are "too dark" and reverse it so whites must now darken in order to "fit in"?  I'm thinking of a reversal of George Schuyler's Black No More (a novel I am teaching this semester).
2. What is the narrative context for the use of "pearls" to refer to whites and "coals" to refer to blacks?  Since the novel is a dystopia, is it possible these terms actually mean something very different in that world?  I wonder if (one, again, coming from not having read the book) perhaps coal has become a scarce, important resource, thus providing an added value to something we traditionally think of as prevalent and cheap (dirty, etc.).
3. Why is it that whenever we have discussions about these very issues, there are a sea of loud-mouthed people proclaiming that there is no such thing as racism against whites, followed by condescending ad hominem attacks against anyone who suggests otherwise?  (I'm not referring to anyone named in this post.)  Racism is not colorblind.  Some white people are targets of racism.  The difference, as I see it, is a matter of degree and a matter of institution.  That is that whites are rarely targeted by the institutions around them, and only uncommonly the target of racist ideas from other "racial" groups.  Perhaps it's a question of power dynamics?
4. How many people coming into this discussion are screaming because they've already been tainted by other reactions?  Some folks who have chimed in seem to have read the book after reading or agreeing with people who hate it.  Is it possible that some of us are so emotionally driven against racism that we get trapped into knee-jerk-ism whenever something that appears to be racist shows its face?

The blessing is to wish they acquire sufficient wit, wisdom and depth of literary analysis to understand what they read, and also the compassion not to attack others merely because they hold a different opinion. 

The curse is an integral part of the blessing…for if they do acquire those virtues, they will then necessarily look at their own behaviour, and be thoroughly ashamed.

My good friend, Ghetto Captain America, decided to make a video about my Fund-a-Laptop project. You can find the details about the crowdfunding project (how to help, etc.) here.

Thanks to +Alison Marlowe +John Ward +Edison Crux +Patrick Thunstrom +Nalo Hopkinson +Mike Reeves-McMillan +Stina Leicht +Brent Bowen +Eric James Stone +Adam Callaway +Dirk Reul Hallie O'Donovan Benjamin Kissell +Jennifer Barth!

Over at OF Blog of the Fallen, Larry has put up a bunch of seemingly random and bizarre questions for folks to answer.  The following are my equally silly responses:


1.  Do you believe that global warming could be ameliorated if there were more pirates in the world?
Unfortunately, no.  Because pirates have a tendency to burn things -- such as boats and makeshift cigarettes and small coastal towns ripe for the picking -- they contribute at least 50 times the amount of atmospheric pollutants as all volcanoes combined.  In truth, to stop global warming, we would have to systematically hunt down and imprison all pirates.  I'm told the Federated League of Ninjas is waiting for the call...

2.  What is the last book you read and would you recommend it to a hobo who likes to speak in alliterations?
Libidinal Economy by Jean-Francois Lyotard.  And, no, I would not recommend it to an
alliterating hobo, as to do so would constitute a violation of the Violence Against Hobos Act of 1996.

3.  Which cartoon group, the Smurfs or the Care Bears, would most likely be condemned by "family" groups today?
The Smurfs, obviously.  They look and act suspiciously like immigrants, and they're always pestering Gargamel, who is nothing less than an honest businessman.

4.  Should there be more catfights among SF Fandom and/or authors?
Yes.  In fact, I think SF needs to announce a state of emergency and immediately start an internal war to cull the unworthy from its masses.  There are too many people in this community who shouldn't be here; we should do what we can to get rid of them, just like the Smurfs.

5.  When I finally decide to post a photo of myself here, should I go with a beret or just merely a scarf wrapped around my neck in a diffident manner?
Oh, Larry, you should always go for a beret.  It is appropriately pretentious and, as the Internet has taught me, it makes it easy for people to dismiss you as nothing more than a Condescending Liberal Grad Student (even though you are nothing of the sort).  Or you could go for a scarf if you just want people to think you drink coffee...

6.  Does book porn make you think inappropriate literary thoughts?
Yes.  I'm currently on trial for indecent acts with a book or book-like object.  This is the result of excessive amounts of images of book covers and people's book collections, which are available all over the net...  Make sure to check your local laws to avoid landing you in prison for overlying enjoying book porn.

7.  If you have a Twitter account, how many literate squirrels do you follow on there?
That I'm allowed to tell you about?  One.  But there are many others who wish to remain anonymous.  They work for the Ministry of Knowledge in the central government of Squirreltopia.  To tell you their names would jeopardize their missions...

8.  Which genre of books should I review more often:  pirates, westerns, ninjas, squirrels, Shatner?
Shatner ninjas.  Duh!

9.  If you could get me to ask any question to any author, what would be the most inappropriate question that would come to mind and to which author would you want that question addressed?
To China Mieville:  "Have you ever considered writing Hentai?"

10.  What was the best book that you ever read and ended up kicking across a room?
I don't kick books.  I molest them and occasionally sniff their pages, but I believe it a sin to physically harm books.  You can psychologically damage them, though.

11.  What is more erotic, the sound of pages turning or the smell of an old book's binding?
The latter.  But I'm weird.  As previously mentioned, I sniff books.  I sniff books a lot...

That is all.

(Note:  This review was originally intended for publication, but certain professional and personal obligations prevented its completion.  My apologies for its lateness, but I could not sit on this version any longer.  Thanks to Abigail Nussbaum and others who viewed it in earlier incarnations.)

Michael F. Flynn's In the Lion's Mouth is a space opera of the new variety, which is to say that it takes a genre that once stood for oversimplified adventure, sometimes of the Campbellian mode and redolent of the pulps, and infuses it with political intrigue and sociological awareness.  The planets that make up the novel's empire have ceased to be spaces only of conquest, adventure, and wonder, and become contained worlds connected by a common but divergent history.  This is not to suggest that Flynn's novel has abandoned the tropes of the adventure story, but that it brings a rigorous examination of the conditions of the empire in which that adventure occurs.  In the Lion's Mouth is compelling not because of its adventure elements, but because it is at once an
exploration of the inner workings of its network of worlds and an almost satirical play on the conventions of the old, pulpy space opera.

In the Lion’s Mouth alternates between two stages of Ravn Olafsdottr’s journeys through the labyrinth of the Lion’s Mouth, the bureau that oversees an exceedingly efficient class of assassins known as the Shadows, which has begun splintering into competing factions.  The frame narrative concerns her attempts to convince a rival organization, the Hounds, to put their cards on the table of the civil war raging within the Lion’s Mouth.  This narrative also forms a clever stage upon which Ravn can demonstrate her manipulative talents as she relates another tale through flashback.  That second strand concerns an intimate of the one Hounds:  husband and father Donovan buigh.  Donovan, a former Shadow who had his mind split into multiple personalities by an as-yet-unknown agent, was, we learn, kidnapped by Ravn to fulfill, willingly or otherwise, a purpose in the war.  As the frame narrative cuts into Donovan’s story, we also learn that Ravn is up to much more than truce and explanation.  Rather, she’s up to something vaguely sinister.

Flynn uses this structure to tell two unique tales of intrigue, both deeply political and both productive of an edge-of-your-seat reading experience that always has a surprise in store – even on the last page.  The frame narrative, far from being merely a stage for Flynn’s "story time," has a hidden agenda of its own, which Ravn and the Hounds eventually unearth.  As Ravn remarks, in the heavy accent of Confederal, before embarking on the first piece of Donovan’s story:  "This will be a tell to tangle your strings, oon my word; but I will give it to you in my oon way and reveal things in their oon time.  Life is art, and must be artfully told, in noble deeds and fleshed in colors bold" (28).  Here one might find Flynn’s satirical play on space opera, forming an astonishing tale of Donovan’s and the Shadows’ extraordinary feats in the Lion’s Mouth through Ravn’s (admitted) flawed retelling of the events:

"Tell me," [Bridget, the Hound] says, "how you can know the thoughts of Donovan buigh, when I doubt even he knows them so well?"
The Confederal [Ravn] smiles.  "You must grant me two things.  The first is many weeks of conversation between us, in which he may have revealed his mind to me."
"That would be quite a revelation as I understand things.  And second?"
"And second, you must grant me some poetic license."  (53-54)

Should we take Ravn’s words as gospel, as Donovan’s daughter believes we should ("I think she tells the truth.  The Donovan she describes is a man I recognize.  If she has embellished his thoughts, she has not done so falsely" (55)), even if she fills in the gaps with her own "poetic" imaginings?  Or are the embellishments meant to distract us from the signs that something is amiss?  For Ravn, it seems, the myth is a means to an end, not the property of a particular body politic to retell the story of history.  In other words, the tropes of traditional space opera – the empire, the grand adventures, the loose attachments to actual mythological forms – are exposed by Ravn for their farcical nature:  they are little more than devices of empire, broadly speaking.  And for Ravn, that means it’s a device than can be retooled for different purposes, even to work against the established structures of power.

In a way, In the Lion’s Mouth as new space opera is a response to Darko Suvin’s assertion that space opera is sub-literature – a literary form which has more in common with the elements of myth and fairy tales than with the literature of cognitive estrangement, inside of which he places science fiction.  Flynn, whether intending to or not, sets the stage for an internally rigorous re-imagining of the space opera (though certainly he is not alone in this endeavor).  This rigor is evident in a number of elements, but for the sake of space, I will only briefly discuss two:  language and the world.

While dialects are not new to science fiction, Flynn puts language to a particular use:  manipulation.  Ravn’s centrality in the narrative, as already mentioned, provides an ambiguous reading of events, but so too does her language.  The consistency with which Flynn elaborates on Ravn’s accent is eventually made questionable by her intentional slippages:  “It is a rhetorical trick, this abrupt dropping of the hooting accent, but no less effective for that.  It freights her pronouncement with greater significance” (26).  If it isn’t clear by the 26th page that Ravn is a questionable figure, then the numerous slippages of language to follow and her dubious alliances should do the trick.  As much as the text is a performance, so too are the characters who are playing in it.  But Flynn never fully reveals the game.

Within Flynn’s future space, language rests on a solid foundation.  From the opening pages, we are shown the degree to which Flynn has built his world:  a map roughly showing the layout of worlds provides the scope of things to come.  While many of these worlds are not part of the narrative, the ones that are provide the illusion of completeness.  One illuminating scene in this regard draws upon the clichéd history of the bar as a staging area for men (or women) of ill repute.  The chapter opens with two sections which tell us the history of Yuts’ga (the world where the various pieces of the Shadow puzzle have begun to assemble).  The first of these explains the ancient history of Yuts’ga – where it got its name, who settled there, and what those settlers found when they set up shop (208-209).  The second narrows the historical scope to Cambertown (209-210), and finally, in the next section, to the Mountain Dragon Inn, where we are introduced to Domino Tight, one of the many Shadows elaborated upon in Ravn’s tale (210-212).  It is here that Flynn gives us a breakdown of the complex inner workings of the Shadows-in-action:  who the Shadows command (their “flocks”), how they operate, and so on (213-226).  While this is not the only scene that shows us the Shadows-at-work (one of the other interesting scenes is an official duel between two Shadows), it is a scene which illuminates the rigor with which Flynn has created his world.  These are fully realized elements which exist within the familiar spaces of the adventure, but also seem to bring something new to the mix.  But In the Lion’s Mouth is not just an exploration of the internal machinations of empire; it is also an adventure which twists the old into something with the appearance of the new.  Flynn manipulates the old, reductive network of worlds made loosely into belongings of empire or spaces to be explored and conquered by its agents into one with the pieces tenuously placed on the board while its interiors pull themselves apart.

In the Lion’s Mouth, however, does suffer from a sense of overdevelopment.  Seasoned readers of Flynn’s universe will likely recognize many of the features which seemed alien to me.  While the novel can be read, as the publicist suggested, independently of the rest of the series, I would suggest starting from the beginning.  Where the beginning begins depends on whether you believe his Firestar cycle (Firestar, Rogue Star, Lodestar, and Falling Stars) should be read before The Spiral Arm series (The January Dancer, Up Jim River, and In the Lion’s Mouth) – this is apparently a center of mild debate.  Then again, Flynn apparently has a tendency to tie “worlds” together.

In any case, so much of In the Lion’s Mouth gave me the impression that no matter how closely I read, I would always be missing out on something, like an "in" joke.  There is an extensive universe attached to this novel, one which Flynn only touches with the tips of his writer’s toes.  I don’t want to suggest that Flynn’s novel is unreadable, however; the truth is that even with the alienation, the novel never ceases to entertain.  But I can’t help feeling that the full reading experience for In the Lion’s Mouth demands familiarity with the rest of Flynn’s universe.

And yet, despite that need for familiarity and the lofty praise of Flynn’s neo space opera, the ultimate measure of a novel’s value is in its ability to entertain.  In the Lion’s Mouth never falters on that front.  At once a political thriller and a high-tech war story, Flynn’s novel does nearly everything right.  The experience is immersive, the plotting relentless in its forward motion, its secrets desirable, and its action – and attending developments – enormously exciting.  If this is the new space opera, insofar as such a thing exists, then science fiction is definitely on the right track.

If you want to learn more about the author or his work, check out his Tor.com profile.