Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Blue Joe by Stephanie Burgis

After a couple months dead air at Fantastic Reviews, we'll try to get back into the swing of things with a recommendation for an excellent story, "Blue Joe" by Stephanie Burgis, from Issue #10 of Shimmer magazine, which is available as a free download.

Josef Anton Miklovic, Blue Joe, was twenty-one years old and playing the sax in a nightclub in Youngstown, Ohio, when he met his father for the first time.

That first line leads us quickly into a fantastic opening scene, in which Blue Joe's father somehow freezes time to introduce himself to his son (who did not know his mother's husband was not his father) right in the middle of a concert. We immediately see that Blue Joe's father has amazing powers, yet "Blue Joe" addresses its fantasy elements with a nicely understated tone.

"Blue Joe" is not about all the incredible things the father can do, it is about how that kept him away from his son for so many years, and both men's regrets and resentments. Beyond that, it is about the regrets each of us inevitably has over the choices we make——it is no coincidence that the protagonist plays the blues.

For ten issues, Shimmer has been making a home for stories like "Blue Joe," which is the kind of quiet tale that lacks the fireworks the major magazines are looking for but ultimately makes for very rewarding reading. Stephanie Burgis has appeared in Strange Horizons, Lone Star Stories, Flytrap and other publications, and the first volume of her YA trilogy The Unladylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson is due out in 2010.

2009 Hugo Award nominees :: Best Novel

This year's Hugo Award nominees for Best Novel

Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
Saturn's Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)

To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer :: Aaron's Book of the Week

Continuing our tribute to Philip Jose Farmer, the Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Farmer's most famous novel, To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

In To Your Scattered Bodies Go, everyone who ever lived on Earth has been resurrected by an unknown power on another planet. Everyone awakes simultaneously on the banks of a huge, world-encircling river. The novel's title is taken from John Donne's 7th Holy Sonnet, concerning resurrection:

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.

This fascinating premise allowed Farmer to bring together whatever historical figures he found most interesting in a single story. Farmer explored the concept through four further volumes, collectively called the Riverworld Series. To Your Scattered Bodies Go won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 1971.

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Eros, Philia, Agape by Rachel Swirsky

My story recommendation of the week is for "Eros, Philia, Agape" by Rachel Swirsky, (illustration by Sam Weber) published on-line at Tor.com.

In our world, it is usually futile for women to try to change the basic nature of the men in their lives. But what if they could? In "Eros, Philia, Agape," Adriana purchases a male robot whose consciousness is programmed to shift to create a personality that best meets Adriana's desires. The program works very well. Despite her emotional scars from an abusive childhood, Adriana soon falls in love with, enancipates, marries, and begins a family with her ideal man.

It is no surprise that things don't turn out quite as Adriana intends, yet the flow of the story is subtle. Swirsky is not using her science fictional set-up to hammer home any particular message; rather, she is giving us a new framework to consider universal issues about identity and love and marriage and family and parenting.

This is a story Isaac Asimov might have written, if only he had been an amazing prose stylist. "Eros, Philia, Agape" is beautifully written throughout (once you're past the slightly pretentious title anyway) and I strongly recommend it.

I first encountered Rachel Swirsky with her powerful story "The Debt of the Innocent" in Glorifying Terrorism. She has only been publishing fiction for some three years, but in that time has appeared in Weird Tales, Interzone, Subterranean and Fantasy among other publications, and has already built up a solid body of work. Check her out!

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Startling Stories August 1952

We begin our tribute to the late Philip Jose Farmer with his first published story. The Magazine of the Week is the August 1952 issue of pulp magazine Startling Stories, containing Philip Jose Farmer's "The Lovers" (cover art by Earle Bergey). This copy was signed by Farmer on the story's 50th anniversary, the party for which a book club buddy was able to attend.

"The Lovers" caused an instant sensation, and garnered Farmer a Hugo Award for Most Promising New Talent (a short-lived Hugo category, since replaced by the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer). "The Lovers" was influential because it was one of the earliest works of science fiction to address issues of sexuality in an open and frank matter. This story was thus an important step in the development of the SF genre into a mature branch of literature (even if not everybody yet recognizes it as such).

After the success of "The Lovers," Philip Jose Farmer went on to publish over 75 books. BOTW has featured him twice before, for Fire and the Night and Venus on the Half-Shell. Next week, we will continue our tribute to Farmer with his single most famous book.

Aaron's Books of the Week :: The Centaur and The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

The Books of the Week are the first paperback printings of The Centaur and The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (1932-2009). A couple weeks back, before being sidetracked by flu, strep, and other distractions, BOTW raised the question whether recently deceased award-winning author John Updike had ever dabbled in science fiction and fantasy. Regular readers of this column knew better than to doubt it.

Updike wrote science fiction on at least two occasions, The Poorhouse Fair (1959) and Toward the End of Time (1997). More important to his career were Updike's fantasies. Several of Updike's books included elements of fabulation and mythology, notably National Book Award winner The Centaur. While one may debate whether to call a book like The Centaur "fantasy," there is no doubt that the label applies to The Witches of Eastwick, in which three modern-day women develop magical powers with the help of a diabolical figure (delightfully played by Jack Nicholson in the film).

Beginning next week, we will pay tribute to one of my all-time favorite authors, Philip Jose Farmer, who passed away February 25, starting with his first published story.

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World by Catherynne M. Valente

Sometimes when I'm reading, a passage is so elegantly written that I feel the need to stop and reread it out loud. Tolkien makes me do this occasionally. Ursula LeGuin often does. I just came across a story by Catherynne M. Valente, "The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World", which I felt compelled to read out loud the entire way through.

That makes for an automatic and immediate story recommendation of the week, even if I've already done one this week. (I need to make up for a couple weeks I missed with flu and strep anyway.) Catherynne Valente thus becomes the second author to garner two different story recommendations, joining Paolo Bacigalupi.

"The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World" originally appeared in Spectra Pulse, a promotional magazine issued by Bantam, which it supposedly gives away at conventions, although I've never seen a copy. Thankfully, "The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World" is now available through Valente's web site.

"The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World" illustrates the strengths of Valente's writing, particularly her amazing use of language and her wonderful knack for the story-within-story framework, which she successfully employs here in only a couple thousand words. The framing story tells of a remote archipelago where women inscribe a story on their bellies during pregnancy. The story-within-a-story is that ritual tale, about a woman harpooner "who had known both of the sorrows which are deepest" -- which Valente never identifies -- who travels to the upside-down archipelago at the bottom of the world, where "the dead and the unborn dance together in the blue and black shadows, hand in hand."

Read "The Harpooner at the Bottom of the World," fall in love with it, and then go buy Valente's new novel Palimpsest.

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Jaiden's Weaver by Mary Robinette Kowal

This week's story recommendation is "Jaiden's Weaver" by Mary Robinette Kowal, the reigning John W. Campbell Award winner for best new writer.

"Jaiden's Weaver" appears in Diamonds in the Sky, an on-line anthology of science fiction stories illustrating concepts of astronomy, which Mike Brotherton assembled on a grant from the National Science Foundation. A few of the stories are reprints but most are original, and the original tales come from an impressive list of contributors including Kowal, David Levine, Wil McCarthy, Jerry Oltion, Alma Alexander, Jeffrey Carver, and Daniel Hoyt. Because the stories are meant to be instructive to students, several of them have a young adult feel.

"Jaiden's Weaver" falls in that category, and it is as good an example of YA science fiction as has seen print since Robert Heinlein was still with us. Set on a habitable ringed planet, "Jaiden's Weaver" illustrates the concept of planetary rings. The rings come into play, but the story is mainly about a young woman, Jaiden, desperate to acquire her own teddy bear spider. Her earnestness will put veteran SF readers in mind of Kip from Have Space Suit--Will Travel, yet the tale feels fresh, particularly when Jaiden starts giving parental advice, and should appeal to contemporary young readers.

I enjoyed "Jaiden's Weaver" from start to finish, and now I can't wait to read it to my daughter.

Mini-Review :: Empire by Orson Scott Card

Tor hardcover - 340 pages
Copyright 2006
Rating: 4/10
(Not Bad, But Not Recommended)
Mini-review by Aaron Hughes

I didn't get around to doing a full review of Orson Scott Card's Empire when it came out late in 2006, but in my recent review of Ender in Exile, Card's latest novel, I mentioned in passing that I thought Empire was marred by Card force-feeding the reader his political views. As someone who is generally a great admirer of Card's work, I wanted to explain this negative comment more fully.

Empire is a near-future thriller about the outbreak of civil war in the United States, a war fought not between geographic areas but rather along ideological lines. Special Ops Major Reuben "Rube" Malek and Captain Barholomew Coleman struggle to hold the country together through a crisis, including the assassination of the president and the invasion of Manhattan, precipitated by hatred between American conservatives and liberals. (The novel ties into a video game, but the only indication of this in the text are a few graphics-friendly elements such as the two-legged mechanized tanks that occupy New York; the story appears to be Card's creation.)

Empire is capably written and features engaging characters in an exciting story, punctuated by plot twists you will not see coming. Yet the book is a failure, because it is impossible to enjoy if you do not share Card's political views, and difficult to enjoy even if you do. The book is far too burdened with Card's contempt for modern liberals, especially the media and academics:

The media has forbidden us to remember the falling towers. They don't allow us to see the footage. It's like their slogan is, "Forget the Alamo." I'm tired of being obedient to their decision to keep us blind.

Either directly through the narration or indirectly through his mouthpiece Rube, Card continually expresses disdain for the Left:

Princeton University was just as Reuben expected it to be -- hostile to everything he valued, smug and superior and utterly closed-minded. In fact, exactly what they thought the military was.

Even though I agree with many of Card's political points, taken together they undercut the purported message of Empire, that liberals and conservatives should stop viewing each other as the enemy and find common ground.

At times Card attempts to be even-handed, but he can't get his heart into it. So he shows an ultra-right general spouting pig-headed, homophobic rhetoric, but we soon learn he was only feigning bigotry. Card emphasizes that Rube's wife is a Democrat, but she never actually says anything that reflects a liberal viewpoint. (The closest she comes is to chastise Rube for denouncing left-wingers too harshly.)

It is all too obvious which characters' politics mirror Card's. The most telling giveaway is the novel's plot. At every turn, conservatives try to hold the country together while liberals gleefully help to break it apart. Two days after the assassination of the President by terrorists, a military force seizes Manhattan and slaughters the NYPD. Incredibly, Card shows American liberals supporting these invaders, merely because they call themselves "progressives" and denounce the 2000 election. How could anyone who experienced 9/11 believe that would be the prevailing reaction?

Through the story of Empire, Card is doing exactly what he claims to be counseling against: demonizing his political opposition. Card wrongly views the American Left as the enemy, nor does he understand his enemy very well.

Amy's music :: Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

Counting up, as opposed to a countdown, NME's #4 album of 2008 is Vampire Weekend by Vampire Weeekend. Rolling Stone magazine rated this as the 10th best album of 2008. It was released little over a year ago.

Vampire Weekend are from New York. They met at Columbia University and produced this, their debut album, after graduation. The band members are Ezra Koenig (lead vocals, guitar), Rostam Batmanglij (keyboard, guitar, vocal harmonies), Chris Tomson (drums) and Chris Baio (bass guitar).

The New York Times in a review called Vampire Weekend "Preppie Afro-pop". The band label their own style as "Upper West Side Soweto". To me music seems a mix of genres including Afrobeat, ska-punk, and calypso.

In their music there are repeated sequences of notes on guitar, pulsing keyboards, and racing drums. Various songs feature harpsichord, violin, cello, mellotron, and hand drums.

Notable songs off the album are "A-Punk", "Oxford Comma", "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" and "Mansard Roof".

"A-Punk" is a catchy tune, clocking in at a mere 2:17. Musically it's like ai!-ai!-ai! punk, but lyrically it's from a different world. Here are the first two verses:

Johanna drove slowly into the city
The Hudson River all filled with snow
She spied the ring on his honor's finger
oh-oh-oh
A thousand years in one piece of silver
She took it from his lilywhite hand
Showed no fear - she'd seen the thing
In the young men's wing at Sloan-Kettering

"Oxford Comma" begins with these lyrics:

Who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?
I've seen those English dramas too
They're cruel
So if there's any other way
To spell the word
It's fine with me, with me

Other song lyrics mention such things as Pueblo huts, Louis Vuitton, the Khyber Pass, Darjeeling tea and Peter Gabriel. There is nothing about vampires.

It's difficult to dislike Vampire Weekend. Their music is upbeat and listenable. Yet I wasn't truly hooked by their mixed-genre music or their quirky college-boy lyrics. Nonetheless, I'll admit it's a likable album.