Review of Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)

A group of Edwardian explorers follow in the footsteps of Conan-Doyle's The Lost World and find something even more extraordinary than living dinosaurs - a functioning society made up entirely of women. 

Chosen because: on a 'blind date with a book' event, Cambridge City Library.

Preamps the only Edwardian novel which culminates with a woman kneeing her husband in the balls while the reader cheers her on, Herland is a science fiction novel with a difference. Written in 1915 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, best known for her gripping short story 'The Yellow Wallpaper', this novel takes a serio-comic look at contemporary attitudes to women.

Intrigued by rumours of a mysterious kingdom of women, three young Edwardian explorers follow in the footsteps of Conan-Doyle's famous trio, by flying their fragile plane up into an inaccessible mountain valley. Like the well -educated men they are, they know that such a thing is both biologically and socially impossible.When they see well built roads, and well engineered buildings, they know at once that there are some men somewhere in the society. How could women possibly design and build such structures eithout fallings out and cat fights? And yet, of course, this is indeed a Utopia entirely of women.

The novel rapidly turns into a series of discussions between the men, trying to justify the contemporary British and American ways of life, and the women, who repeatedly puncture their pretentions and pull apart their arguments. There are intriguing discussions of the importance of population control (the women choose to give up their ability to have babies in order to balance the population) and the role of education and upbringing (in this soicety, mothers do not necessarily bring up their children). The views of the women, which we might guess are similar to those of Gilman herself, are challenging, and can be read both in the historical context and in terms of Gilmans own troubled life experienced, particularly of motherhood (a short biography of the author is included in the edition that I read).

To be honest, the plot does flag about half way through (there's only so many discussions about how great the world would be with no men and no sex that I could take), with the exception of the excellent kneeing in the balls episode. However, for anyone interested in early 20th century writing, and pnarticulaty in gender roles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this is a must. It's also great to read something other than 'The Yellow Wallpaper' by this talented writer. And if you haven't read 'The Yellow Wallpaper', then go out and read it now.

Special kudos to Cambridge City Library for introducing me to this novel via their 'blind date with a book' event - in which readers were invited to take out a brown paper wrapped book, with only a brief description to guide your choice. The fun was of course in getting it home and unwrapping it. A great chance to pick a book without the normal structures of author, title and cover art.

Review of Arcanum, by Simon Morden (2014)

Chosen because: arrived in the village library

I'm not sure if this counts as a science fiction novel, but I enjoyed it so much that I'm reviewing it anyway. Because you have to love a novel in which a group of heroic librarians, dubious booksellers and assorted hangers-on, including hunters, princes and Jews, use their wits and research capacity to overcome disaster.

The kingdom of Carinthia exists in the Alps, about 800 years after the Roman empire was brought down by the rampaging Goths and their overwhelming magicians. Because this is a Medieval world in which, at the beginning, magic is all-powerful. With the aid of the mages of the White Tower, the Carinthians live without the aid of science or engineering, in houses lit by magic, with ploughs steered by spells, and wagons guided by runes. Until one day, the lights go out and the magic disappears...

Meanwhile, in the Jewish quarter of the town, magic is held as non-kosher, and the Jews have worked out their own technologies. It's down to the Jews, or at least, to one particular Jew, Sophia Morgenstern, daughter of a dodgy bookseller, to help the young Prince Felix and his subjects adjust to their new world. Unfortunately, the rival city states of Bavaria and Wien, not to mention the Dwarves, have their own plans for the tiny kingdom.

Simon Morden is apparently a rocket scientist in real life, which is no doubt what makes him so gleeful as his characters work out fundamental scientific principles - with a particular nod to the importance of gravity - all the time battling to keep Carinthia running. If this makes the novel sound overly worthy, it shouldn't. It's a tribute to the joys of libraries, of research, of finding things out for yourself, just as much as it is a discussion of the competing demands of rulership, and plain fantasy about the end of magic in a Medieval world.

Heartily recommended, particularly for fans of Lois Bujold McMaster and Diana Wynne-Jones.

Review of Bellwether, by Connie Willis

A comic portrayal of a team of scientists struggling to continue their research despite hopeless bureaucracy, diminishing funding and romantic entanglements - not to mention the difficulties of getting a decent cup of iced tea.
 
Chosen: bought after being introduced to her novels via a friend

I'm not sure whether you can call this a science fiction novel in the mainstream sense - no aliens, no far-flung planets, no adventures, even - but it's certainly fiction about science.

Connie Willis is a hard writer to categorise. Her novels range from the very funny To Say Nothing of the Dog, a time-travelling romantic comedy, to much more serious but gripping looks at history, such as the duology Blackout and All Clear.

Bellwether is set in a reseach lab in fashionable Boulder, Colorado, where sociologist Sandy is trying to track down the underlying source of trends and fads of all kinds. Meanwhile, her colleague Bennett is struggling to find the funding he needs for his research into chaos theory, and Management is trying out yet another management strategy du jour.

It's much quieter and lighter than her other books, and as such was a bit of a disappointment to me when I first read it - it certainly doesn't have either the pace of Blackout / All Clear or the screwball comedy of To Say Nothing of the Dog. But it's one that I've come back to repeatedly.  Engaging characters, a very neatly worked-out plot (no suprise, as TSNotD is structured in the style of a classic 30's murder mystery), and most of all, an author who clearly has a topic she wants to explore. The increasingly bizarre fashions followed by the characters (particularly the duct-tape) are a recurring comic touch. And its a nice reminder that middle-aged scientists and sociologists are every bit as driven by trends as their younger, more obviously fashionable juniors.

It's quite an achievement to combine a discussion of scientific breakthroughs, the problems of blindly following the fashion, and romantic comedy. Well worth reading, if only to see how lucky you are not to work at HiTek labs with fashion conscious Flip as your personal assistant.

One minor but important point. Connie Willis is totally wrong about bread pudding in this novel - it is delicious and Sandy's on-off boyfriend is quite right to change his mind about it.

Where are all the women?

The mystery that we are supposed to be wondering about in Dan Simmons' Hyperion is the approaching end of the world, the nature of the all-powerful, unknowable Shrike, and the 7 pilgrims' quest to prevent Doomsday.

What I am actually wondering about is, 'where are all the women?'.

So far, across a planetary federation of what seems to be thousands if not tens of thousands of planets, we have been introduced to no fewer than four women. The first was a native who kindly nursed a passing missionary / anthropologist and so merited an entry in his diary. One was a nurse who smoothed a soldier's fevered brow and was exploded by aliens ten seconds later, leaving the solider to get on with the serious manly duty of stealing spaceships. The third turned out not to be a woman at all, but - after several pages of lovingly detailed descriptions of her naked body - a monster. (I know, that happens to me a lot too. You go for a coffee with a woman you happen to meet, and lo and behold, she turns out to be a monster with retractable spikes spinning out of her vulva. You can't go back to that cafe again.) We do still have one woman to be fully introduced to, so lets hope for the best.*

The best thing is that at one point, the missionary / anthropologist wonders how the tribe he is studying manages to reproduce themselves, given their total taboos around bodies. I think he should be wondering how his own galaxy-wide civilization has managed to keep going, given that there are apparently 3 women and 1 female-looking monster to reproduce the entire next generation. In fact, the Shrike needn't bother to kill anyone off - it can just wait for nature to take its course.

It's striking just how different men and women's writing can be. A friend's novel, set in the religious turmoil of the 16th century, includes powerful dukes, noblemen and soliders, but also the whole host of sisters, grandmothers, sisters-in-law, aunts, nuns, women just getting on with the shopping - in short, the type of mix of genders and ages that she and I see in real life. Lois McMaster Bujold, whose work I'm a great fan of, is another writer who thinks about the gender realities of life in the future, and tackles the mystery of the general lack of women in the future head on. Which leaves me wondering - do most men science fiction writers simply live in a woman free world?

* There is also a one week old baby girl on the pilgramage, but she mainly seems to play the portable role of a handbag or other arm decoration. Certainly she behaves like no other baby I've ever heard of.

'Structure in stories' - week 2 of a course from by the Cambridge Storytellers

Week two of the story-telling course, in the wonderfully atmospheric space of Cambridge's Michaelhouse Church and Arts Centre - big enough to give you a real feeling of performance, and yet intimate enough for us to work in pairs and small groups without any difficulty.

Cambridge Storytellers are a wonderful group of people, talented storytellers all, who come together to celebrate, practise and encourage this wonderful art. Folk tales, new stories, retellings of people's lives - all sorts of shapes and stories are told at the monthly Story Circle.

And now, in the darkest part of the year, they're organising a series of story-telling classes, taking novice story-tellers through on a journey

I was first inspired to join the classes after hearing Marion Leeper recount an elderly Cambridge man's memories, in story form, at a local history celebration in a graveyard (I have some wild nights out). I then tried my hand at a bit of storytelling in the Story Circle (sharing a wonderful old Viking tale, translated by my old friend Ralph O'Connor), and am now working on the craft during the story-telling course.

This week's class focused on structure. We looked at the idea of the 3 part structure - beginning, middle and end - identifiying the structures of first various folk tales and myths, and then the stories that we'd all brought. It was felt-tip and paper time, and we drew out our stories as cartoons, ready to analyse the structure without getting caught up in the language.

I'd 'brought along' two stories - one, a set of reminiscences of a local woman that I'm shaping into a story, and second, a fully worked out tale by the great 19th century Yiddish writer Isaac Peretz. The Yiddish tale fitted perfectly into the 3-part structure, but I soon realised that part of the problem with my local-history story is that it doesn't have a proper end. One task for the week is going to be finding an end! On the other hand, Marion had also suggested that the three parts themselves, particularly the middle, Marian said, can in turn be divided into three parts. I was glad to realise that the middle of my tale already separates nicely into three parts.

We next looked at tracking the characters' ups and downs, drawing graphs across the story outline with their changes of fortune. If we had two contrasting protagonists, Marion suggested, the graphs might form mirror images of each other - the hero's triumph is the villain's downfall, and vice versa. Again, I realised one of the issues with my local-history story - a real lack of change of fortune. After a bad start, my main character currently seems to continue on a fairly even keel for the rest of the story, which isn't keeping the listeners' attention, although the individual incidents are good. Definitely something to think about and work on, before next week's class on 'creating a setting'. 

To find out more, see http://www.cambridgestorytellers.com/

Review of Colin Cotterill, The Woman who Wouldn't Die, a Dr Siri mystery

Chosen: from the circulating selection in the village library

Similar to: the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries


I came in to the Dr Siri series about half-way through, or possibly towards the end, so at least half of my description of the novel's setting is probably going to be wrong. Set in Laos in the 1970s, a country still under a military / communist rule, Dr Siri is Laos's only coroner, although he seems to have been sacked under mysterious circumstances relating to another novel. (This is the downside to picking up books from the local library, which never seems to take into account the fact that many people like to begin at the start of a series, and then move on one by one. Our library seems to specialise in having only the middle part of a trilogy, and a random selection of novels throughout a series.) Dr Siri is called in by the authorities to validate the claims of a medium, who is claiming to be able to track down the bodies of those who have died in the country's long and bloody struggle for independence. Meanwhile, Dr Siri's wife is being pursued by a sinister figure from her young days as a freedom fighter. Is the medium telling the truth about her mysterious abilities? And can she guide Dr Siri in the use of his own psychic powers? (It turns out that psychic powers in a coroner are less use than you might imagine.)

It's a remarkably cosy novel,  despite the ostensible subject matter of Laos's fight for independence from the French. Filled with extraordinarily nice characters, all of whom spend their time being nice to each other, you're left in no doubt that nothing unpleasant will happen to any of the main characters, even if the author has to pull in an extraordinary and previously almost unmentioned deus ex machina to do so.

Good comfort reading for a winter's evening, but I was left oddly without a sense of place. Compared to Magdalen Nabb's novel 'Death in Springtime' about poverty among Sardinian shepherds*, this left me without a sense of place, and without any real feeling for what makes Laos unique. It could very easily have been set in an English village, and very little would need to be changed. Still, the library has a few more of Cotterill's novels, and I'll probably pick them up for light entertainment.

*And far, far more gripping than this suggests


Update - after a discussion with colleagues in the office, I realise that at least I'm now rather better informed about Laos 20th century history than I previously was, which has to up the star rating of this book somewhat.

Review of The Cadaver Game, Kate Ellis (2012)

One of the Wesley Peterson Murder Mysteries

A team of archaeologists digging up a buried picnic as part of an art installation find their activities unexpectedy linked to a series of murders in a small Devon town.  


Chosen because: available in the village library



You'd think the police force of Devon would have seen sense and banned all archaeological investigations by now. Because every time that Neil Watson of the Devon County Archaeological Service leads a dig in any kind of archaeological site - Viking longships, iron age forts, or here, as part of an art installation - his friend DI Wesley Peterson of the local police force is sure to be notified about a murder. And the two are just guaranteed to be related in some unexpected but sinister way. We must be onto the 20th book in the series by now, and the archaeology and the murder are linked every time.

On the other hand, the unlikely historic coincidences are just part of the fun of this series of detective stories, where the archaeology gets as much time as the modern-day murders. They aren't gory, but at the same time, Ellis never forgets the potential sadness of police work, and the impact that it can have on the police involved.

In The Cadaver Game, a local landowner has had the unsavory idea of recreating an 18th century game of man hunting, inspired by an old diary. Unfortunately, it ends in death for two of the young human 'foxes', who are found naked at the bottom of the cliff. One of them is the cousin of a young officer in Wesley's squad, who struggles to come to terms with her death. Meanwhile, another woman is found dead in a surburban house. And Neil Watson - under the influence of large amounts of cash - is taking part in an art installation which involves his archaeology students digging up a buried picnic. Could any of it possibly be linked? Yes, of course it all is.

It's a great advert for having likeable characters in a novel series, and plenty of them. Ellis's books are just packed full of nice people - detectives and archaeologists - none of whom are in the least bit gritty or brooding. They're about as far away from Scandi-noir brooding heroes - or even Inspector Morse - as you can get. You might actually want to go to the pub with them, if you didn't mind hearing quite a lot about the problems of county archaeological funding. Gerry, the widowed senior policeman, might seem to have the potential for a bit of brooding, but gets over it by eating a lot of fish and chips, going to the pub, arguing with his teenagers and generally getting on with life.

Well worth reading for a cosy evening in with a bit of bite to it. Plus the fun of wondering why Neil and Wesley never seem to comment that once again, their two jobs have become mysteriously interlinked.