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The Steerswoman — Rosemary Kirstein

Published on September 8, 20142 Comments

Cover of The Steerswoman

The Steerswoman
Rosemary Kirstein
279 pages
published in 1989

As long as I’ve been online and talking to other fans I’ve been hearing about The Steerswoman, how it’s one of those great lost books of science fiction and how sad it was that it had fallen out of print, how everybody who read it loved it; I never heard anybody say anything bad about it. Now, finally, after twenty years of hearing this I had the chance to judge for myself and you know what? Everybody was right. And if you want the chance to see for yourself why this book is so highly rated, the ebook is very reasonably priced.

But reading The Steerswoman, after having heard so much about, brings on a strange tension. As with any such book, you come into it with a certain knowledge about it, an expectation about how the plot would roughly develop, somewhat of an idea of the central gimmick of the novel, of what makes it special. It makes me wonder how I would’ve read The Steerswoman had I stumbled over it in 1989, before I had that knowledge. So erm, for any reader who doesn’t know about it, do me a favour and read it before you read the rest of this post and tell me what you think? Don’t read on, just go out and buy it from the link above.

The Steerswoman starts out as any ordinary fantasy novel, with a map in the front and the story opening with our protagonist Rowan, the titular steerswoman, sitting in the common room of an inn talking to the innkeeper about a mysterious blue jewel he found some years ago. Steerswomen, as well as the occasional steerman, are people dedicated to curiosity, asking questions of everyone and having a duty to answering anybody else’s questions in turn. Not answering a steerswoman’s questions is taboo and can have you banned from asking any steerswoman at all. Meanwhile in one noisy corner of the common room a band of Outskirters — nomadic goat herders and occassional raiders living on the outskirts of the settled regions of the world — are telling stories as Rowan is examining the jewels, when she notices the storyteller, a woman called Bel, wearing a silver belt worked with the same kind of jewels.

Rowan talks to Bel and ask her where these jewels were found and in her short conservation with the direct, open and clearly intelligent barbarian comes to like her enough not to hesitate when Bel proposes to travel together back to Rowan’s home, the Archives of the Steerswomen order. Only a day out from the inn however they’re attacked by one of the Red soldiers who’d also been at the inn the previous day, an ambush Rowan likely wouldn’t have survived without Bel. A few days later, the inn they’re staying in at the harbour town from which they’ll take passage for the next leg of their journey is attacked by dragons, which is something that happens but not normally in the middle of town. Rowan isn’t slow to draw the conclusion that somebody is after them, or her and the cause is likely to be the strange blue jewels she had become fascinated by.

She also has a likely subject for who might be behind the attacks, as their first assailant was in the employ of a Wizard of the Red. Wizards are incredibly powerful people, whose powers and spells help both protect from oh say, dragon attacks and keeps them above and beyond the law. Between them and the steerswomen there’s always been a wary sort of understanding, but clearly those jewels are important enough to break this truce. But is it the jewels themselves or is it their origin? As far as Rowan can tell from knowning where they were found, it’s as if some enormous giant had flung them halfway across the world…

Clearly there’s something important about those jewels and to find out what, it’s equally clear Rowan will have to resort to something any steerswoman abhors: subterfuge. In disguise she and Bel will try and get to the largest sources of the stones in the Outskirts and it’s while journeying to this that they meet up with Will, a young man hoping to apprentice with a wizard. A young man clever enough to have invented a magic powder on his own, a power packed with spells that are released if fire is introduced to it…

That’s not the first hint that the world of The Steerswoman isn’t quite the medievaloid fantasy world it first looks like, but it is the most blatant up till then. The blue jewels themselves, always set in some metal fitting seem remarkably like some sort of circuitry, while some of the hints about the nature of the world itself suggests a conflict between a clearly terrestrial ecology and something more …alien… shall we say?

Not to mention the Guidestars, two satellites that orbit the world and from which travellers get their bearings. Is something that useful truly a natural phenomenon or is it something more artificial?

Of course to Rowan and Bel these things are either part of the natural order of the world, only suggestive to the reader, or some form of magic, but not a static, incomprehensible magic. Neither may understand themselves how this magic works, but it is clear that the wizards do, to a certain extent, while as a reader it’s clear that some of this magic is something else entirely, recognisable from real life or, well, science fiction.

Now the question for me personally is, all those hints Kirstein has woved so skillfully into the story, would I have found them without the foreknowledge I’ve gotten from two decades of people talking to me about it? How much would’ve I found on my own? I genuinely don’t know, nor does it matter much. I’m sure I would’ve picked up something, especially after the introduction of William, but in any case I would’ve enjoyed a great story.

One of the highlights of that story being the relationship between Rowan and Bel, two very different woman, one a scholar, the other a warrior, who built up an intense friendship, the sort of friendship between women that’s a rarity to see portrayed in science fiction or fantasy. There either isn’t the second woman, somebody close to the protagonist, to form that friendship with, or it would be a romantic relationship. Nothing wrong with the latter of course, but it’s nice to see a true, non-romantic friendship too.

The Steerswoman is a wonderful novel and I can see why it’s such a favourite of so many people, a comfort read even. Rosemary Kirstein has an accomplished voice and her writing settles over you like a warm cloak in those opening scenes, setting you at ease before she puts the knife in. It’s not entirely perfect, there’s a torture scene I could’ve done without, but on the whole this was a novel I couldn’t stop reading while not wanting it to end either.

The Honor of the Queen — David Weber

Published on September 6, 20142 Comments

Cover of The Honor of the Queen

The Honor of the Queen
David Weber
384 pages
published in 1993

The Honor of the Queen is the second novel in the Honor Harrington series, which finds Honor promoted after the events of On Basilik Station and off to command a small flottila escorting a diplomatic and trade mission to the Grayson Republic, which the Manticoran Kingdom hopes to gain as an ally. The thing is, Grayson is a system settled by American fundamentalist Christians who lived in isolation for centuries on a planet that was literally poisonous to them due to the amount of heavy metals in its soil. They have a bit of a problem therefore with women serving in the military, which complicates things for Honor. Meanwhile, on the planet of even more fundamentalist Christians, Manticore’s ancient rival the Haven Republic is busy meddling…

The Honor Harrington books are purely escapist mind candy for me, books I grab when I really don’t want to make an effort but still want to read something. Weber is a good enough author that he keeps your attention throughout, that he keeps you wanting to read on to find out the rest of the story no matter how often you’ve read it, which is why I’ve read his Harrington novels more often than many much better novels. They just give me something other books can’t. Even if objectively speaking they’re not very good.

What Weber’s good at is emotional manipulation, as Honor is put through the wringer, having to deal with people who hate and despise her for being a woman, who with their petty aggressions forced her to flee from the system under cover of duty, escorting merchant ships, leaving the remaining Manticoran ship and Grayson vulnerable to attack. When she comes back she has to deal with the guilt of knowning she’d made the wrong choice, a choice that had gotten one of her oldest friends killed and now still has to defend a system that had already made clear its opinion of her.

That’s a lotta angst right there.

What Weber is also good at, or incredibly bad, opinions differ, is the space battles, which go into serious anal detail about which ship is launching which missiles and how the enemy deals with them. All told in lovingly Clancyesque language. It’s not so bad yet in this novel, but later books in the serious waste a lot of pages on those descriptions.

Honor of the Queen has two set pieces that are of particular interest, one positive, one negative. To start with the positive, there’s the assasination attempt on Protector Benjamin, the ruler of Grayson, foiled by Honor and Nimitz, her treecat, whose telepathic gifts catch enough of a hint of the assassins’ intentions to launch himself at them. That scene, with Honor and Nimitz fighting side by side to defend the Protector and his family, is brilliantly done, one of the best fight scenes Weber has ever written.

The other scene however shows the worst of Weber’s instincts, as it’s the scene where the Cowardly Liberal whose highfalutin principles are only cover for his own selfish interest, is taken down a peg and physically humiliated by our avenging heroine. Weber is a bit of a rightwinger, as any quick perusal of his fiction makes clear and especially in the early Harrington novels he’s eager to put the boot into silly liberals and their silly ideas and not being particularly subtle about it. It’s incredibly irritating.

In general, like so many other military fiction writers, Weber has a disdain for politicians unless they’re the sort of steady, clearheaded people who always vote for increased military budget and a respect for professional soldiers with the right virtues –those who do their duty to the best of their honour– whether friend or foe. Opposed to that are emotional liberals and just as emotional fanatics of all stripes. It’s a simplistic and childish view of the world that I can largely ignore for the sake of the story, but sometimes it grates.

Zwarte Sterren — Roelof Goudriaan (editor)

Published on September 5, 20143 Comments

Cover of Zwarte Sterren

Zwarte Sterren
Roelof Goudriaan (editor)
209 pages
published in 2005

Growing up in the Netherlands I of course read a lot of science fiction in Dutch, but never read much Dutch science fiction, if only because there wasn’t that much in the first place. Plenty of young adult science fiction, with Thea Beckman and the Euro 5 series being particular favourites of mine, but not many writers of grownup science fiction. Most sf publishers rather translated cheaper British or American science fiction than gamble on a Dutch or Belgian author. Better get some more Van Vogt instead.

And to a certain extend, especially once I started reading English good, there was the cultural cringe. It all seemed a bit less interesting, a bit more naff when written in Dutch. It just doesn’t have the grandiosity or bombast of English and attempts to achieve the same effects usually end up sounding corny or fake. So while there were a couple of authors I liked, Wim Gijssen and especially Belgian author Eddy C. Bertin, I haven’t attempted to keep up with Dutch science fiction at all.

Until the recent Worldcon that is.

And especially the Critical Diversity: Beyond Russ and Delany panel, in which the Brazilian author and critic Fabio Fernandes talked a bit about the situation in South America and how the genre had developed in his own country but was barely known outside it, how it was somewhat isolated and behind the times and it very much reminded me of how I thought about Dutch science fiction. Then of course there also was Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s nomination for a Hugo, the first Dutch writer to achieve this and who managed it twice so far, which seemed to indicate that perhaps something was stirring in the Dutch sf and fantasy scene. How to find out if there was? By going to the local library of course and get some recent(ish) anthologies.

Zwarte Sterren (Black Stars was the first I got my hands on, a 2005 attempt to create an annual best of series in the tradition of the Ganymedes series published in the seventies and eighties. Like e.g. Gardner Dozois’ series in English, it also has a short year overview which only shows how little Dutch sf was published a decade ago… It’s the ideal way to quickly get to sample several authors and figure out which ones I want to read more of. One disappointment was that all them were men, with no female authors represented.

It was interesting to get back into reading Dutch science fiction again. I had to get used to the rhythm and cadence of the language again, as most of my Dutch reading is utilitarian rather than pleasurable. There’s also the vocabulary of course, all the sf terminology that I needed to relearn from context, the way Dutch sf authors name their characters and so on. What I found was that it took me a couple of pages each story to get used to the author’s voice, much more so than I need in English.

De Zinnen van Leven in Duisternes (The Senses of Life in Darkness) — Paul van Leeuwenkamp
This started off with a curse laden, sexist tirade of the protagonist against the woman who had done stole his brother of him, which put me off. The setting is interesting, Utrecht after a not really explained disaster has destroyed all natural laws and magic seems to rule, but the story is slight and marred by that sexism.
Hymne van Pelgrim, Hymne van krijger (Hymn of Pilgrim, Hymn of Warrior) — Jaap Boekestein
The most traditional science fiction story in the anthology. A renowned warrior, one of the few who can actually fight with premodern weapons on a Banksian (or Nivean) Ringworld is asked to go to a world continent deliberately kept primitive to get a poem from an alien master poet. Well written, but this felt more like a sketch for a novel than a story.
i — Paul Evenblij
Paul Evenblij is currently writing as Paul Evenby and has become relatively successfull with his fantasy novels. i is a romance about an ex-hacker suffering from RSI and the strange man he finds in his bed one morning, who doesn’t seem quite of this world and who is obsessed by writing music set in the key of i. Interspersed with this were flashbacks (or timejumps) to the live of a Greek componist during the Greek civil war of 44-48.
Galapaga — Peter Kaptein
A love story between a clairvoyant and one of the immortals, the ultra rich that rule the world that comes to an inevitable tragic end. Interesting for its hardish science fiction setting while still taking psi powers, clairvoyance and the existence of souls seriously. Reminded me of some of Wim Gijssen’s work.
Pygmalisch Dansen in een Schijnsel van Lemoen (Pygmalic Dancing in a Shimmering of Lemon) — Jan J. B. Kuipers
A Moorcockian sort of decadent far future adventure story, somewhat ruined by an undercurrent of misogyny: the one female character is shown as manipulative, using sex as a weapon and gets killed for her actions.
Verstummte Musik (Silenced Music) — W. J. Maryson
The setting, an united Europe that executes people if their worth drops below market value, doesn’t make much sense, but emotionally this story does everything right. Very melancholy.
De Lange Vlucht (The Long Flight) — Martijn Kregting
A competently told story about the end of the world brought about by an alien virus, but I was a bit lary about how the Chinese are portrayed in it. Basically the end of the world is all their fault because of their stubborn authoritanism and it all feel slightly too pat.

On the whole reading these stories was a pleasant experience: all were at least entertaining, though none were outstanding. What struck me was how rooted in New Wave science fiction several of them felt to me, e.g. Peter Kaptein’s use of psychic powers and innerspace. You can call this oldfashioned, but it feels more like a separate evolution to me. These aren’t retro stories. Rather, these writers have continued to use and develop tropes and story elements that their counterparts in Anglo-American science fiction have largely abandoned.

Of the writers included in this volume, I will keep an eye out for more work by Jaap Boekestein and Paul Evenblij/Evenby (in fact, I already have bought one of his novels). The other five had stories which were decent enough, but not good enough to seek them out on the strength of it.

Dutch sf on the Skiffy and Fanty Show

Published on September 3, 2014Leave a comment

The Hugo nominated podcast The Skiffy and Fanty show has done a podcast about the state of Dutch science fiction and fantasy:

Literary festivities, multicultural wonders, and invading Dutch peeps, oh my! We’ve got a special World SF-themed episode for you all. Tiemen Zwaan, Marieke Nijkamp, Martijn Lindeboom, and Thomas Olde Heuvelt (a Hugo Nominee!) join us to talk about Dutch SF. We tackle the publishing world, literary conventions and festivals, fandom, the pressures of the market, and the Dutch “character” in SF — and more!

Worldcon has inspired me to get more involved with Dutch sf fandom and Dutch sf writing, which has always stood in the shadow of the Anglo-American sf tradition both for me personally and in general. It has always been cheaper and less of a risk to translate English sf than to take a gamble on a local author. Over the decades there have been a couple of course, but currently there seems to be a genuine renaissance of Dutch sf and fantasy, with Thomas Olde Heuvelt being the first Dutch writer to be nominated for a Hugo Award, not just once, but twice. I’m currently reading the Dutch version of his novel Hex, which will be translated and published by Tor next year and it’s excellent.

What I found most interesting about the podcast was the too slight discussion of what would be the specific character of Dutch science fiction, which focused on how the Dutch have less interest in solitary heroes and more in cooperation and compromise, etc. Personally I’m skeptical about that, I think the real difference is in language use and attitude. You can’t be as bombastic and hyperbolic in Dutch as you can in English because it quickly start sounding childish. There’s also a certain casualness in how people talk that’s lacking in UK and US cultures, with proper middle class people talking on a much more informal level than their counterparts abroad. We’re a fairly equalised society, without many of the overt class symbols that you have in the US or UK. Which is not to say those class differences aren’t there of course, but they’re much more subtle.

What I need to do now is to find more worthy Dutch science fiction and fantasy writers. Suggestions are always welcome.

Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots/Multiverse — Seanan McGuire

Published on August 29, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots

Velveteen vs the Junior Super Patriots/Multiverse
Seanan McGuire
312 pages
published in 2012, 2013

I had been following Seanan McGuire on her Livejournal for donkey ages, but I only got around to reading her Velveteen stories when they were linked from MetaFilter. Bad Martin. No biccie. Of course I then inhaled all the linked posts in less than an afternoon (not at work of course, nooo) and found I had to buy the actual ebooks, if only to be able to burble about them here.

I haven’t read anything else of Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant yet, so it may seem strange that this got such a hold on me, but it just perfectly fit the story crack receptors in my brain. Well told, short superhero stories done with flair and invention, lots of drama and emotional rollercoasters, no fear of consequences or of looking silly. Velveteen is a young superheroine just let go of the most famous superhero team in the world, the Junior Super Patriots, looking to start a new life without superheroing as long as the sinister marketing company behind 90 percent of superheroes lets her. Greatly lacking in self confidence and trust in her powers — which consists of being able to bring to life and manipulate toys — she thinks herself barely qualified to cope with real life, let alone the challenges walking away from the Junior Super Patriots have brought her.

When we first meet her, Velma “Velveteen” Martinez is driving through California towards Portland, Oregon, for a job interview, but has gotten hopelessly lost. She’d spent seven years as a trainee for the Junior Super Patriots, gotten out when she came of age and had spent the last few years or so working temp jobs. Now she finally has a shot at a proper job and getting her life back in order if only she wasn’t stuck in the small town of Isley, her car impounded until the annual crayfish festival is over and to top it all off, an old teammate comes calling, having turned supervillain, leaving her with no choice but to take up her powers again, just this once…

This however puts her back under notice of Super Patriot, Inc., the company that employs the vast majority of superheroes in the world, who haven’t forgotten her refusal to keep working for them and want her back, one way or another. So as she slowly, limited by her lack of money and clunker of a car, makes her way up to Oregon through California, she keeps getting into traps and other hazardous situations as people recognise her or company agents catch up with her. It leads up to the inevitable confrontation between her and her former friends and teammates, on the Oregon border.

This is of course a tried and true formula in superhero comics, having the hero cut off from everybody they love and cared about, insecure in their powers while their enemies, very much aware of the potential they deny themself, are gathering around them. It’s a great hook for a series of stories and Seanan makes good use of it, with each story moving the overall plot forwards while standing on its own.

Cover of Velveteen vs the Multiverse

In Velveteen vs the Multiverse Velveteen has settled in Portland as its resident, state sanctioned superhero. Not quite the life she wanted to build for herself, but better than the alternative. This new status quo of course cannot last as she’s drawn into new plots against her, both physical and legal and learns more about the real powers behind the superhero industry. As the title may indicate, Seanan McGuire also ups the crack here, getting Velveteen into several alternate worlds and dimensions, revealing more of both Velma’s and the world’s history, all in the best tradition of superhero stories.

You could indeed call this fanfiction, not so much of a specific univers or series but rather of the idea of a superhero universe as a whole. These stories certainly read like fanfiction, slightly rougher around the edges than “normal” stories, less concerned with plausibility and characterisation and the like and more with emotional effects. And angst. So much angst. As with most fanfiction, it builds upon what the reader already knowns about heroes like Velveteen and the sort of worlds they operate in, so that when it’s revealed she’s friends both with Jackie Frost, the daughter of Winter and The Princess, the closest equivalent to a Disney Princess superheroine the law allows for, it’s only slightly strange.

What’s really great about the Princess btw is that late in the book it’s revealed she’s actually a trans woman, in a pure moment of awesome. She isn’t the only queer person in the book either; many of Velveteen’s allies and friends are gay or bisexual, as opposed to the much more straightlaced opposition on the Super Patriot Inc. side (some of whom may actually be not as straight as they’re presented at, but that’s Marketing for you).

Seanan has a great imagination for superhero characters, from Velveteen herself to her former friends Action Dude and Sparkle Bright, who look exactly like you’d imagine them to look, to Victory Anna, a Victorian supervillainesque dimensional traveller. Not to mention the alternate universe versions of Velveteen like Marionette and Roadkill, whose powers are twisted versions of her own. The secondary and tertiary characters (e.g. Jack O’Lope, Jolly Roger) too are well sketched, immediately understandable from their codenames.

on the surface this is a lighthearted universe, and the first story especially could be confused for satire or parody, but as the story progressed things get serious and dark. Super Patriot Inc. is not a nice company and things happen to reluctant superheroes that are not nice at all. Velveteen’s personal life and background isn’t a bed of rose either, having been sold to SPI by her parents as soon as her powers had been revealed. Despite this however this is not a depressing story: the good guys win in the end and Velma does get her happy ending, sort of.