Best reads of 2013

The following are the best books or novellas reviewed in 2013 on Speculiction.

Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window by Rachel Swirsky  - Literary, poignant, intense, purposeful, vivid, and intelligently working with genre tropes—everything one could want in a speculative fiction story

Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem - Forget about genre boundaries, this is one of the most intelligently creative and creatively intelligent books ever written.  Science fiction, fantasy, philosophical robot tales - however you want to look at it, it's brilliant.

The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner - As America descends into deeper, darker depths of uncontrolled violence, Brunner's burning vision of a country held proverbially hostage by its weapons industry only becomes more relevant.

The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr. – One of Tiptree Jr.’s most powerful works, this story of a young woman jacked into an avatar as a living advertisement works at many levels.  Prosaically, ideologically, structurally—everything falls into place to make a strong statement regarding self-perception.

Silently and Very Fast by Cathrynne M. Valente - Poetically dressing science fiction in the colorful clothes of fairy tale and fantasy, Valente looks at the birth AI from a highly stylistic point of view.

The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en - One of the four great novels of the Chinese canon, this episodic display of imagination is unrivalled not only in China, but in the world.  The Monkey King is literary and fantasy magic.

Wandering by Hermann Hesse - Beautifully relaxed prose pieces on the simple joys of being in nature. 

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick - A subversion of epic fantasy though a dark, bold, visual, multi-fractal coming of age of a young girl.

My Life as an Explorer by Sven Hedin - An amazing account of the great Swedish explorer’s treks through Mongolia, China, Tibet, Iran, and other locations in central Asia.  Hedin's eye for local culture and landscapes is superb.

The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe - The second chapter in Wolfe's incredible Solar cycle is more accessible than the first, but loses nothing in weaving together its spiritual, philosophical, and classical elements.

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein - Perhaps the writer’s greatest novel, this retelling of the American Revolution through the eyes of lunar colonists is engaging at numerous levels.

Viriconium by M. John Harrison - The four book transition that is M. John Harrison's Viriconium Cycle (The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium (UK)/The Floating Gods (US), and Viriconium Nights) is simultaneously a subversion of fantasy worldbuilding and an artistic representation of the mutability of perspective.

Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson – Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars incredible visions that present equal parts hard and soft science, it would be difficult for any writer to match or supercede Robinson's effort at portraying humanity's colonization of Mars.

Bridge trilogy by William Gibson – With the pressure on to follow up his monumental Sprawl trilogy with something better, Gibson took his time writing the Bridge trilogy.  Worth the wait, the three resulting books (Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties) produce a more subtle look at near future tech and the society it appears that rivals his breakthrough for quality.

Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck - I dare anyone who reads this not to want to visit Baja California and the Bay of Baja.  Utilizing all his powers of writing in this travelogue, Steinbeck creates a vivid sense of place and character that will have some making travel arrangements.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Considered the originating point of modern science fiction by Brian Aldiss, this story of man, his human creation, and its consequences is a heavy, emotional read that has no Hollywood monsters, but does indeed expose something dark.

The Wisdom of China by Lin Yutang – Simply put, this collection is all the little bits of Chinese perennial wisdom in one place.  Eminently re-openable.

Tracks by Robyn Davidson – This account of one woman’s solo trek across the Australian desert with her dog and a group of camels is one of the most emotionally powerful travelogues I've ever read.  Just superb.

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges – A ‘best of’ collection from the erudite Argentinean, it rewards, and rewards, and rewards upon multiple reads, the layers of classicism, surrealism, philosophy and other arcane knowledge slowly seeping through.

Review of The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree jr.

If James Tiptree Jr.’s The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973) were published today nobody would think it dated.  Ahead of its time, it was cyberpunk before the movement had a name and post-human before it too became a craze.  Telling of an abused, heavily augmented girl taken advantage of by the system, the novella remains fully human in scope, the motifs of sci-fi used to spectacular yet poignant effect in this tale of self-perception in a media-ensconced world.

P. Burke is an abused, cyborgized teenage girl, biologically and mechanically modified to the point of disfigurement.  Found near death in a park and brought to a hospital, a caretaker recognizes her implants and phones a friend.  A company representative showing up and asking questions a short time later, P. Burke will do anything to escape the bleakness of the hospital and into the home of someone who cares.  Graphic advertizing outlawed in the world of the future, she is made a proposition: to change her life and become a living advertisement.  Agreeing to the terms, P. Burke is locked inside a cabinet, cables and tubes attached, and is connected wirelessly to a living doll.  Reality taking a twist in this environment, so too is P. Burke’s definition of existence as the company puts her through the rounds.

Review of Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

(Please note this review is for the novella Magic for Beginners, not the short story collection.)

Whatever hints the title gives as to the contents of the story, there is nothing the reader can predict about Kelly Link’s 2005 novella Magic for Beginners before turning the first page.  Not an instruction manual from the vaults of Harry Potter, the story is instead a window into the life of  a teenage boy, his family and friends, and their love of the tv show The Library.  Both fun and sad, conclusive it is not.  Beginning and ending on open notes, the reader needs to throw aside their standard story expectations for full appreciation.

Jeremy is your average high school teenager.  He has friends who share weird interests.  He wonders about love and kissing girls.  His parents are eccentric and have their own troubles.  And he has his hobbies, the biggest of which is watching the tv show The Library. Appearing at random on any station, the format continually fluctuating, and the characters both mythic and tragic, he and everyone close to him excitedly call oen another when a new episode randomly appears, and get together and watch and rewatch.  Things take a turn in Jeremy’s life, however, when a relative dies and leaves their Vegas marriage parlor to his mother.  Leaving his east coast home to visit the bizarre city and parlor may just change his life forever.

Review of The Queen of Air and Darkness by Poul Anderson

While authors like Jack Vance, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, and others get credit for writing science fantasy, it may be, in fact, Poul Anderson who has written the highest quantity of such material.  Nearly every story intruding fantasy into the real, his 1971 The Queen of Air and Darkness is no exception. Novella, novelette, or short story (depending which award nomination you take into account), it is an interesting clash of fairy and the real world.

Blossoming like a fairy tale, The Queen of Air and Darkness opens with the kidnapping of a small boy.  Stolen away in the night from a remote research station on the planet Roland by the Outlings, his mother, Barbro, calls the local police to get help.  Such disappearances relatively common on the yet unsettled planet, they offer no assistance.  Refusing to believe a search of the barren hinterlands would be fruitless, Barbro contacts a local detective, Sherrinford, who knows the unexplored regions well, and together the two go in search of the lost child.  Meeting the titular Queen, however, may prove more than planetary adventure.

For that thimbleful of regular visitors to Speculiction and those who stumble randomly across this blog, Merry Christmas!!

Review of The Tear by Ian McDonald

There are rumors going around that the current wave of science fiction will be called the Accelerated Age.  When the official announcement is made (most certainly not happening until we reach the trough of the next wave—coming sooner than you may think), undoubtedly pundits will be racing to find exemplary texts.  While not seminal, Ian McDonald’s 2008 novella The Tear is unequivocally a representative text,  Playing with reality in a way only writers of the astronomic surreal are seemingly able to, it is post-human to the mimetic limit.

Ptey is a young man growing up on the water world of Tej.  Brought to the Manor House to learn the ways of his seven other personalities, he is also taught the interstellar situation his home planet finds itself in.  A Second-Level species living in space overhead, the Andreen’s use Tej’s vast oceans to resupply water they use for intergalactic, faster-than-light travel.  More advanced than Ptey’s people, it’s a lucky chance that gets him aboard one of their water-sucking globes.  It’s unlucky, however, that he’s on board at the time when an enemy chooses to attack.

Review of The God Engines by John Scalzi

Like popular fiction, there is a mainstream of science fiction.  Located in the tepid flow are authors like Alastair Reynolds, Brandon Sanderson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mira Grant, Robert J. Sawyer, and many, many others.  Their works present new spins on old ideas, feature serviceable to competent prose, and are fun but do not challenge.  They are comfort food: Golden Era genre in contemporary clothes.  John Scalzi is another such middle-of-the-road author, a fact underlined by his 2009 novella The God Engines Entertaining, but easily forgettable.

Tephe is captain of an intergalactic spaceship powered by a god.  Remaining nameless throughout the story, the god lies in chains in a compartment of the ship, watched over by a powerful religious order.  Capable of teleporting the whole ship to any point in the universe, its skills are useful to the ruling bishopry in maintaining their grip on power.  Unheard of events in the universe occurring with more frequency, the bishopry decide to send the captain on a mission to quell the outbursts.  The god’s power revealing itself in ways Tephe would rather it not, surviving the mission may be more than his mortal soul can handle.  

Review of The Saturn Game by Poul Anderson

Theater, war reenactments, Star Trek conventions, cosplay, video games, and several other aspects of society—new and old—feature adults consciously participating in a reality with an entirely different context than the accepted version: an imaginary reality.  Taking the idea and running with it, Poul Anderson’s 1981 novella The Saturn Game asks readers to not only suspend their reality to participate in the story, but to try to understand the realities the characters themselves are participating in.  The story perhaps capable of being improved in the hands of another writer, Anderson nevertheless tells a tale with a conclusion relevant to humanity on our side of the looking glass.

Opening on a bizarrely mythic note wherein characters speak to one another of epic matters in archaic English, the story quickly settles in to describe a group of explorers arriving at Saturn’s moon, Iapetus.  The five member crew, having spent the preceding months in transit, prepare to land and explore the iced-over rock which floats against the backdrop of the massive ringed planet.  The crew who land on the surface are participating in a game in which they agree to improvise upon unfolds in reality.  The only one who is not playing stays behind to watch over the lander while the remainder head off to explore the icy crags.  A small catastrophe occurring after the explorers mount an ice ridge, it quickly proves potentially deadly.  Their game interfering with the rescue, whether or not they will get back to the lander safely becomes a matter of reality.

Review of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

An appropriate title for any Jorge Luis Borges collection, Labyrinths is that selected by Penguin for their ‘best of’ printing of the author.  Containing short stories, essays, and parables, each selection takes the reader on a winding path of ideas that seems to branch off infinitely into the wonder of reflective thought.  Surreal in concept rather than imagery, it’s no surprise many of the most intelligent writers of fantasy and science fiction cite Borges as one of their significant influences.  Erudition on full display, the reader should come fully prepared to wade in over their head in abstract allusion and references—known and unknown.

With its limited accessibility, Labyrinths is the opposite of mainstream fantasy.  Borges utilizing civilization’s range of output, the stories possess elements of the quotidian and esoteric, scholarly and conceptual, and interweave these concepts with (literally) extraordinary flexibility.  A lifetime of knowledge and musing packed within each selection, readers who do not consider such writing pretentious stand a chance to be fully rewarded. 

Review of The Traveler in Black by John Brunner

Breaking into the business with Silver Age space opera but putting himself on the map by writing intelligent dystopia with a social conscience, few are aware that for a brief moment John Brunner put aside science fiction and dabbled in fantasy.  After the success of Stand on Zanzibar, The Jagged Orbit, and The Sheep Look Up, he wrote the four novelettes starring the other-wordly traveler in black.  Unconventional to say the least, the eponymous collection is fantasy without being fantasy.  A wizard (of sorts) may be the common thread binding the stories together, but humanity is at stake.  The novelettes thus embrace the general idea of genre, but eschew its epic-ness in favor of parables.

“He had many names, but one nature, and this unique nature made him subject to certain laws not binding upon ordinary persons. In a compensatory fashion, he was also free from certain other laws more commonly in force.” is the quote which opens the first novelette in the collection, “Imprint of Chaos”.  The traveler in black seen carrying only a staff of light, he walks the land granting wishes in satirical fashion, fending off the ingress of Chaos to give Order its place.  And indeed the city of Ryovora requires every ounce of his wisdom if they are to survive the malevolent enchanter who seeks to twist the roots of the people’ ideology to the rudiments of a forgotten era.