2006 World Fantasy Award – KAFKA ON THE SHORE by Haruki Murakami

I was wavering a bit way back when I decided to include the WFA winners, and I'm pretty sure that the inclusion of this book on the list is what decided the matter in the end.  Haruki Murakami is a fantastic Japanese writer who creates metaphorical stories about lost souls in the modern world.   Some people might compare his work to magical realism, but Murakami's magic is less subtle and often feels more sinister.

Murakami tells two parallel and related stories.  The first is that of the fifteen year old Kafka, who runs away from his home and oppressive father in Tokyo and comes to live in a small private reserach library in Takamatsu.  He falls in love with the distant librarian Miss Saeki and also grows close to a hermaphrodite named Oshima.  In the other story, a mentally handicapped man named Nakata has the ability to talk to cats.  He helps people in his neighborhood find lost cats by asking around for them, but one such quest exposes him to a horrific ritual that leads to a murder.  Nakata then heads off on a mysterious quest with a curious but decidedly unintellectual truck driver named Hoshino.

There are some very surreal scenes along the way, including an extended sequence with Colonel Sanders as a spirit guide.  There are also several pairings and twinnings rich with metaphor (Kafka's lost sister, his father, and the connections between Nakata and Kafka, or Nakata and Miss Saeki) and it all leads to a timeless world on the edge of reality.  It's an evocative but highly readable novel that's also an exciting (but perhaps unsolvable) puzzle.

Grade: A

2005 Hugo and WFA – JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL by Susanna Clarke

Every now and then we get interesting little micro-trends popping up on this blog.  I wouldn’t have seen this one coming, but between the Baroque Cycle and this entry, it looks like English history mega-epics are all the rage in science fiction.

I’ve complained about historical fantasy before; it’s a great idea, but many authors give us the trappings (costumes, sets, a few cameos by famous historic personages) without capturing the feel of the period or bothering to contend with the era’s culture.  Clarke does not make that mistake.  This novel takes place in early nineteenth-century England, and it is steeped in the literature and history of the period.  The facts are accurate, even with the fantasy overlay, and the prose is light, modern, and fun while still paying tribute to the works of Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and other contemporary authors.  The Duke of Wellington, Lord Byron, and Mad King George III all pop by, but they don’t overshadow the book or spout their greatest hits; they’re entertaining guest stars on the same level as much of the rest of the novel’s vast cast.

England was once a nation full of magic.  For three centuries, the Raven King ruled the north with the help of arcane alliances, fairies, and his own vast powers.  This golden age passed into a silver age by the fifteenth century, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, magicians are overstuffed academics who argue about magical history while avoiding anything as ungentlemanly as spells themselves.  In Yorkshire, one of these scholars deigns to ask the question “why is no real magic practiced in England anymore?”  He soon discovers that there is one practicing magician nearby, a grumpy recluse named Mr. Norrell.  Norrell demonstrates his power in Yorkshire, than rises to fame in London with a successful resurrection and some weather manipulation to help the cause of the English Navy in the Napoleonic Wars.  Mr. Norrell is paranoid that other practicing magicians might rise and steal his thunder, but one young gentleman, Jonathan Strange, is so powerful that Norrell must take him on as a student.  The novel follows their rocky relationship as they argue over the dangers of dealing with fairies and reviving England’s rich magical background.

The novel covers a decade of this relationship, takes us to the battlefields of Spain and Waterloo (and briefly to a famous holiday on Lake Geneva, where many would argue science fiction was born), and to Venice.  It begins as a small comedy of manners, follows a few sub-plots that appear to be tangents, then pulls everything together for an awesome, epic conclusion in the third part.  I also found Clarke’s portrayal of magic (which is the fantasy equivalent of sf’s exploration of technology) particularly exciting; it’s rich in history (one of the main attractions here is the novel’s wonderful and consistent footnotes), and the mechanisms are slowly unveiled as the plot begins to coalesce. All the while, Clarke’s prose sparkles, her characters are multi-dimensional, entertaining, and compelling, and she hints at deeper issues of class, gender, race, and the philosophy of knowledge.  I’ve complained about the growing page-counts of novels a couple of times this decade; well, this is the longest book yet, and I wouldn’t give up a word of it.  It is a fantastic work that I’d recommend to pretty much anyone.

Grade: A

1999 WFA – THE ANTELOPE WIFE by Louise Erdich

When playing the old genre definition game, one of the trickiest traps of all is dividing fantasy from magical realism. The latter is a rather distinctive genre, more closely identified with the realms of literary fiction than the speculative variety. The basic idea is to take a population and explore real-world problems like identity, poverty, or totalitarianism by adding a bit of folkloric magic. The genre came out of Latin America (Gabriel Garcia Marquez is probably its most famous practitioner) but subsequently spread into other regions. I don’t think there’s any question that this novel, which deals with the rough and tumble relationships of several Ojibwa Indians in modern Minneapolis through the lens of myth, fits the bill.

We begin with the story of a US cavalryman who takes part in a massacre of Indians on the Northern Plains, then, feeling deep guilt, miraculously nurses a child separated from her family in the chaos. We then turn to the story of an Indian trader named Klaus Shawano, who bewitches a strange, untamed woman that people dub his “antelope wife.” At the same time, we get a love triangle between Klaus’s brother Frank, Richard Whiteheart Beads, and Richard’s wife Rozina. The story is mostly told through a series of vignettes that shift focus from character to character. There are multiple twins, talking dogs, tragedy and comedy, and eventually we learn how the modern characters are descended from the characters from the massacre at the novel’s beginning.

Erdich’s prose is quite poetic and full of poignant one-liners. But, it did feel a bit disjointed in the end. The problem is this: I think to really appreciate this novel, I’d need to read it again immediately to better understand the characters in light of later revelations about them; however, the novel didn’t quite sell me on the idea that doing so would actually be worth my time. So, instead, I’ll probably set it aside somewhat dissatisfied, but I am interested in reading more of Erdich’s work (especially since she’s such a major presence in my local literary scene). I do like that WFA has recognized magical realism though – it’s a slight bit of genre-bending that gives the award a definitive identity – we’ll see another example in the next decade that is one of my favorite books of the past decade.

Grade: B

1996 WFA – THE PRESTIGE by Christopher Priest

Christopher Nolan’s film version of this novel is one of my favorite films of the past five years. I also liked the novel quite a bit, but it is unfortunate that each version ruins the other a bit. The story is a puzzle, and a very entertaining one; it’s too bad that you can’t come to both versions fresh and spoiler-free.

The novel follows the careers of two turn-of-the-(20^th)century stage magicians: Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. Both take their craft very seriously, but a series of confrontations at the beginnings of their respective careers lead to a vicious and sometimes violent rivalry between the two. Both develop innovative acts involving “transportation” of the magician across the stage that challenge explanation (and possibly violate the laws of physics – this book does qualify as speculative fiction). The story is told from the point of view of their descendents, and we get the story through journals from Borden and Angier, presented in turn. We get multiple perspectives on the same events that illuminate each other.

It’s very well-written, and Priest gives us convincing Victorian narrators. It’s also a very fun and engrossing experience overall, and Priest plays with some interesting and subtle metaphors about identity and “otherness.” I do have some reservations at the ending, which goes for a horror-style scare rather than a further meditation on family, career, or any of the other themes that Priest has established, but that’s really my only complaint.

Normally, I recommend reading the book before seeing the movie, but I think I would say see the movie first here. There are a few subtle changes, and the film is tighter with a clear evocation of the themes (and a different ending). Either version will slightly dilute the experience of the other, and I have to say the film is a little better and thus the one that should be seen fresh. But, it’s a great story either way, and I’ll definitely be seeking out more Christopher Priest.

Grade: B+

1995 WFA – TOWING JEHOVA by James Morrow

God is dead. Even more surprising, he was a two-mile tall bearded Caucasian dude, and his body has fallen from Heaven into the Atlantic Ocean. The archangels, dying of grief, contract with the Vatican to hire disgraced oil tanker captain Anthony Van Horne to tow the Holy corpse to a burial site. However, the Church wants to disobey the angels’ orders and cryo-freeze Yahweh, Walt-Disney’s-head-style. At the same time, a team of rogue atheists want to destroy the corpse before anyone catches wind of it.

Yeah, it’s a plot so intriguing/weird that I had to lead with it. It’s in the irreverent, cynical-yet-insightful tradition of Kurt Vonnegut, but wacky blasphemy only takes you so far. Morrow won the 1991 World Fantasy Award as well, for Only Begotten Daughter, a book about Jesus’s little sister who is born into the modern world, becomes a lesbian and writes a tabloid advice column. Other stuff probably happens in that novel, but I put it down halfway through. It’s not that I was offended…in fact, I think the problem was that I was in no way offended. The story’s humor and narrative hooks depend on the reader caring about Morrow’s twisting of religious ideals…and I didn’t. I feel much the same about this work, though I did finish this one.

Both novels were actually well-written and full of well-rounded characters. I really liked the female Messiah’s adopted father in Only Begotten Daughter, for instance, and Van Horne and his Vatican counterpart, a Jesuit physicist named Thomas Ockham are quite nice here. There’s also a decent set of themes – faith and forgiveness, parents and children, and a discussion of the source of ethics similar to The Terminal Experiment’s but infinitely more logical, erudite, and funny. There’s plenty of good here, I just never felt like there was enough story to float the novel. I really liked Morrow’s recent novella, Shambling Towards Hiroshima, and there are many similarities; to destroy God’s body, the atheists hire a bunch of World War II-obsessed special effects gurus that would have fit right into Shambling’s oddball origin-of-Godzilla story. Towing Jehovah has the same play of slapstick and morality tale, cynicism and humanism, and absurdity and metaphor as Shambling…the only real difference is the additional two hundred pages of length. But, I think that is the crucial difference. It’s a good conceit, and well-told, it’s just too long for that conceit to carry. This could’ve been a great novella, but, for me, it’s merely an okay novel.

Grade: B-

1993 Locus Fantasy and WFA – LAST CALL by Tim Powers

Tim Powers is pretty well-known in the sf community, but it still surprises me that his name isn’t even more widely circulated. Two of the hottest sub-genres of speculative fiction these days are steampunk and urban fantasy. Powers’ 1983 novel The Anubis Gates is considered a foundational text of the former, and this novel should probably be considered a foundational text of the latter.

The novel mixes the mythic history of the rapid growth of Las Vegas, which is closely tied to Bugsy Siegel and the mafia, with the superstitions of chronic gamblers and playing cards’ roots as tarot cards. In Powers' world, luck and probability can be manipulated under the right conditions, and enacting certain rituals can elevate some players and destroy others. In the late 1940s Scott Crane’s father enters a contest to take the metaphysical position of “king” of Las Vegas from Bugsy and chooses to sacrifice his sons. Scott escapes and a wily cardshark named Ozzie adopts him. In 1969, Scott loses his soul in a magical card game with a tarot deck. In the present, this debt has come due, but a desperate cancer patient named Archimedes Mavroanos seeks Scott out when he learns that probability seems to bend around him. The two go on a quest to Vegas to save Scott’s soul. And a whole bunch of other stuff happens.

The first hundred pages of this novel were really irresistible. Powers uses the simple yet propelling prose of noir fiction while also creating the sense of a rich and complex magical world with its own rules just beneath the surface. That sense of a secret world is the essence of urban fantasy, and I haven’t seen anyone but Neil Gaiman do it better than Powers does here.

The great momentum of the opening chapters does fade, however, as Powers’ plot gets increasingly complex and more and more characters join the fray. My plot synopsis didn’t even touch Scott’s adopted sister and her family, Scott’s zombified brother, Scott’s dead wife, the hapless assassin, various fortune-tellers, or the boy raised in a giant Skinner-box to be the greatest gambler ever. These are all great ideas, but they also get in the way of the plot, and the novel really loses its momentum in the second half. And, it all comes together just a little too neatly in the end. It’s a very fun book that creates a compelling world of magic within our own, but a slimmer, more efficient version could have been truly great. Still, Last Call is nearly so.

Grade: B

1988 World Fantasy Award - REPLAY by Keri Grimwood

I imagine this is a very common fantasy: you wake up in high school or at the beginning of college. You know everything you know now – you have your adult wisdom and confidence, plus you know details about the future that can help you avoid disaster and make some very wise investments – and you can apply it all to living a better, more successful life. I’m a pretty happy guy, but I think we all have things in our youth that we’d like to do over. Despite the universality of this feeling, I can’t think of any other works of fiction that tackle this idea. But, Grimwood does it quite brilliantly in Replay, so who needs ‘em?

In 1988, at the age of 43, Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack. He wakes up minutes later a freshman in college in 1963 with all the memories of the life he just lived and lost. Once he overcomes his initial confusion, he strikes it rich via sports gambling and builds a financial empire. Over the next twenty-five years, he amasses great wealth and starts a different family. Then, in 1988, he dies and wakes up in college yet again.

None of Jeff’s various lives are that surprising. He explores different avenues from getting rich, to finding love with a college girlfriend, to living a life of reading and quiet contemplation on a secluded ranch. Grimwood does throw in a few interesting twists that do add some suspense. I won’t give anything away, but every time the premise felt like it might be starting to feel worn, Grimwood added a new element to keep me intrigued. He also quite comprehensively covers the implications of the replays, including the financial, romantic, artistic, and philosophical.

I really enjoyed this novel. Grimwood starts with an intriguing idea, but he doesn’t lose sight of character. Jeff is compelling and sympathetic, and his adventures and musings on his odd situation are unlikely page-turners.

Grade: A

1985 World Fantasy Award (tie) – BRIDGE OF BIRDS by Barry Hughart

Bridge of Birds tied with Mythago Wood for the World Fantasy Award in 1985. There are interesting comparisons, but they are two dramatically different novels. Hughart’s work actually addresses one of my pet peeves about fantasy novels – the fact that they draw so heavily on medieval European tropes – by setting his work in seventh century China and drawing heavily upon Chinese folktales to tell his fantasy adventure (with a heavy comedic element).

Tragedy strikes the small village of Ku-fu when all of its children accidentally ingest poison while cultivating silk worms; they are all completely paralyzed and doomed to a slow death unless an improbable cure can be found. The young Number Ten Ox is tasked with hiring a sage to help solve the problem, and he gets the century old Li Kao at a discount because the sage has a slight flaw in his character. Li Kao is extremely amusing and fun, as he concocts elaborate multi-stage plans to find a powerful ginseng root. These plans usually involve an elaborate con game to gain a small fortune followed by a confrontation with a cruel and powerful Chinese autocrat that leaves Number Ten Ox and Li Kao in an impossible bind that they somehow escape. Eventually, the novel turns into a very fast-paced and elaborate quest.

It can read a bit like China’s greatest hits from a very western point of view. It doesn’t feel of China. For instance, Ku-fu has a piece of the Great Wall next to it despite being hundreds of miles off course due to bureaucratic mistake. Why? Because it’s China (and because it’s a funny story). But even if it does not feel one-hundred percent authentic, it does seem solidly researched, and it captures the mood of Chinese folktales quite well.

Another slight complaint would be the lack of strong female characters - they do tend to be either beautiful and vapid or mean and shrewish. It’s not incredibly egregious, and I probably wouldn’t have even noticed that if I hadn’t just read Mythago Wood, not to mention the super-macho Amber books I’ve been working my way through for a future review. It’s been a while now since I’ve seen a strong female character in one of these novels. Overall, though, this novel was great fun.

Grade: B+

1985 World Fantasy Award (tie), 1984 BSFA - MYTHAGO WOOD by Robert Holdstock

Robert Holdstock passed away last November, and this novel’s success and influence within the fantasy genre garnered a lot of remarks on many of the sites I frequent at the time. Based on the cover to my addition, I sort of expected this to be a high fantasy/sword and sorcery novel. Instead, I was surprised to find a lot of precursors to the urban fantasy of the likes of Neil Gaiman.

The novel is narrated by Stephen Huxley, a British World War II veteran who returns to his family’s estate in the late 1940s after his father’s death. Huxley’s father was an Oxford professor who had spent most of Stephen’s youth exploring the nearby Ryhope Wood and spinning magnificent fantasies about the forest. Stephen finds that his brother Christian has become similarly obsessed, and he is drawn into the mystery of the wood himself when he finds a shallow grave with a woman’s corpse on the grounds and meets a beautiful young warrior woman named Guiwenneth. Ryhope Wood, it turns out, is a magical forest that warps space and time where embodiments of British myth – called Mythago – dwell. Eventually, Stephen enlists a Royal Air Force veteran named Harry Keeton to mount an expedition into the wood to find the warrior woman with whom he has fallen in love.

Mythago Wood is very well-written and the narrator has a compelling voice. The first half really drew me in with some intriguing mysteries and a well-established mood. Harry Keeton is a fantastic character – a stoic Brit who puts on a brave face as he challenges the unfathomable Wood. I really like Holdstock’s choice to set this so close to the war and populate it with veterans; the horrors of the war subtly hang over everything that happens here, and the escapism of the Wood contrasts with and parallels the conflict. However, as the characters unraveled the mysteries of Ryhope Wood, I found the place less and less interesting. The idea of embodied myths certainly has potential, but the metaphysical workings of the place killed a lot of the tension for me – once we learn that the Wood is shaped by human thoughts, its rules can shift dramatically, and the outcome is predestined…well, there’s not much suspense left at that point.

Also, I was left unsatisfied by the central romance with Guiwenneth. As a Mythago, she is the embodiment of fantasies…apparently male fantasies. She’s big, strong, beautiful, young…and that’s about all we get from her. She’s free of the encumbrances of personality or agency, which makes the characters’ obsession with her slightly disturbing. Since so much of the novel turns on Stephen’s quest for his love, the shallow physicality of that passion undercut the drama. It’s even more bothersome that Guiwenneth is really the only female character in the book. I know the sequel follows Keeton’s sister, so I could easily imagine Holdstock redeeming himself on the gender front, but I felt the lack of a real, believable female presence in this novel.

Grade: B

1984 World Fantasy Award - THE DRAGON WAITING by John Ford

John Ford (who passed away a few years ago) had a lot of admirers. The likes of Neil Gaiman are effusive in their praise of his work, and even moreso in their praise of the man himself as a mentor and a friend. For all those reasons I really wanted and expected to like this book. The book itself made me want to like it as well – every page is full of interesting ideas and nice little character moments, and Ford offers some of the most pleasantly readable prose this side of Robert Heinlein. And yet…

The Dragon Waiting is a historical fantasy: the world is like our own past - in the late 15th century in this case - but there have been a few major changes. Magic exists, for one, and wizards, dragons, and vampires all play major roles here. Also, Christianity was purged from the Roman Empire after Emperor Constantine’s conversion – as a result, most Europeans still worship the pagan gods of Rome. And, the Empire itself has endured, seated in Byzantium (which avoids two name changes, Constantinople and Istanbul, in the process). Ford introduces a cast that includes an English wizard, a female doctor linked to the Medicis, a Byzantine prince, and a German vampire, and puts them through a series of small adventures (separately then together) which eventually bring them to the court of Richard III. Richard’s battle with the would-be Henry VII plays out far differently in our world and involves powerful magical forces and the fate of Byzantine power in northern Europe.

As I said in the opening, from moment to moment, it’s quite clever and exciting. The characters and plot are interesting, and Ford has a lot to say about his alternate historical world and the magic therein. And yet, the whole is somehow less than the sum of its parts. I think the biggest problem is that the novel jumps from character to character early and then from storyline to storyline later on. The central plot takes some time to become clear, and I never felt like I had a strong narrative thread to grab onto that would pull me through all the details. In the end, I got overwhelmed in the details instead. I’m a historian, but even I don’t care as much as Ford about the intricate politics of Richard III’s career. Ford clearly knows this world, but it never came as alive for me as Stephenson’s Baroque cycle (reviews forthcoming in 2011ish!) or Moorcock’s Gloriana. And that’s a shame, because it’s evident that Ford had a lot to offer.

Grade: B-

2010 Hugo, Locus Fantasy, WFA, Clarke, 2009 BSFA Winner: THE CITY & THE CITY by China Miéville

One of the central stories of the twentieth century is the drawing (and redrawing) of borders. As empires rose and fell over the course of the first two world wars (the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian, the British, the Soviet, etc.) borders kept changing, countries were partitioned, and we got immigration debates, ethnic cleansing, and global terrorism as a result. So, it’s an immensely important issue, but one that sf has not delved into often.

China Miéville’s The City & The City is all about the fictions and realities of borders, which are always arbitrary on some level. The Eastern European (maybe Balkan?) cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma not only border each other, they share the same space and are almost everywhere entagled. Therefore, just walking or driving down the street, citizens must always watch not to violate the border by seeing into the other city or even accidentally stepping into it. The novel is full of rich cultural details that explain how much the border defines the everyday lives of the people in this “divided city;” Miéville highlights the fact that borders are human constructions by creating a situation in which people must constantly construct one. Anyone who does violate this border falls into the grasp of a secret police force that bridges the cities called Breach. I would’ve liked a little more history as to how this came about, but I see why Mieville avoided the question (what would be believable?). Still, it would be nice to hear more about how these cities existed on the contentious borders of the Ottoman Empire or the Warsaw Pact.

The actual plot unfolds as a noir mystery. Tyador Borlú is a police detective in Besźel who is to solve the death of a young woman with ties to Ul Qoma. As the mystery unfolds, it raises all sorts of questions about the border, the cities’ twinned histories, and Breach. These genre conventions keep the novel moving at a brisk pace and they make it imminently readable. They also provide some of the novel’s few problems. It is, by necessity, somewhat formulaic, and parts of this novel will feel very familiar if you know the genre at all (it’s very reminiscent of Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union, either through direct inspiration or the shared inspirations). It’s very well done here, though, and the result makes for an engaging read that still leaves a lot to think about. I also personally prefer this concrete murder mystery approach to the dreamlike version of a similar idea in Valente’s Palimpsest. This was a fantastic novel, and it’s easy to see why it’s won so many sf awards this season.

Grade: A-

1982 World Fantasy Award – LITTLE, BIG by John Crowley

Little, Big is a lot of things, some of which are contradictory: dreamlike fantasy, family saga, metaphor for the twentieth century, quirky, epic, mysterious, complicated, simple, and on and on. The title is quite fitting: on one level it’s an intimate story of a family growing and changing over time; on another level it is an epic story of changes in American life told through the metaphor of a faeirie war. Whatever it is, it’s gorgeously written. Crowley’s prose and his metaphors are rich, evocative, and enthralling.

The plot involves a young man from The City (clearly New York, though never named) named Smoky Barnable walking to meet his fiancée, Daily Alice Drinkwater at a strange rural home in Edgewood. Of course, this home is at the “edge” of a mystical wood, populated by different breeds of faerie and old, fading magic. For the rest of the novel, we follow Smoky and Alice through their lives and flash back to Alice’s eccentric family. We learn about her strangely spiritual architect great-grandfather who sought to replicate the geography of a magical multiverse in the construction of his own home, and her grandfather who cursed himself to be loved by all young women. We also spend a great deal of time with her son, Auberon, who also works to understand the strange world at Edgewood and find his own Destiny, and love, in The City, now changed much for the worse (New York in the 1980s was not a pleasant place). In the background we have The Tale, the epic confrontation between old magic and the new modern world that plays out through the lives of the Drinkwater-Barnable family.

I’d heard a lot about how great this novel was…and perhaps it was a bit overhyped to me, as it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. On the one hand, Crowley's merging of the intimate and the epic is brilliantly accomplished – on the other, it left me a bit disconnected from the characters. Their overshadowing Destinies took away from their reality and relatability. For instance, when Smoky is led somewhat astray from Alice several years after their marriage, it seemed more the workings of magic than a true reflection of Smoky’s feelings and being.

But, saying that I didn’t like the novel as much as I expected too is not too harsh a review – considering I had been told that this was one of the greatest American novels of the twentieth century by several sources. I still enjoyed the novel very much, and I had to admire Crowley’s amazing craft, from the gorgeous and illuminating metaphors that litter almost every page and the folksy but precise prose to the bigger truths that Crowley sought to uncover. I’d certainly recommend this book, especially to fans of urban fantasy (eg Neil Gaiman), as this is one of the founding texts.

Grade: B+

1981 World Fantasy Award and BSFA – SHADOW OF THE TORTURER by Gene Wolfe

This is the first novel in The Book of the New Sun tetraology, which is arguable the most award-winning science fiction series of all time. The only series that comes close to racking up as many awards is Bujold’s Vorkagasian saga, which required several more novels to do so (though New Sun never won a Hugo, but Bujold’s series won three). My copy also has a cover blurb from Neil Gaiman declaring it “the greatest science fiction novel of the twentieth century.” Plenty of hype here.

I assume Gaiman meant the entire Book of the New Sun. It’s clear by the end of Shadow that the series is meant to be read as a single story unfolding over four novels. I, on the other hand, am reading and reviewing each in turn. Not surprisingly then, my biggest problem here is that the novel feels so incomplete.

The story takes place in the far distant future. The sun is dying, and society is pretty low tech (though there are several genetically engineered – or alien? – creatures running around). The main character, Severian, grows up in the Torturers Guild. Yes, he is raised to maim and execute for interrogation or as punishment, but he’s a torturer with a heart of gold. He falls in love with the first “client” with whom he interacts. As a result, he leaves the guild and begins a journey to a new assignment. He meets a few eccentric characters, attains some valuable items, and as he is preparing to move on….the novel ends abruptly with a promise of more to follow.

It’s an entertaining story, interesting world, and Severian is a fascinating character, even if he remains a bit of a cipher despite being the narrator. The plot and world felt a tad generic – actually, I wondered if this novel was huge in Japan, considering that 90% of the anime from the last quarter century have involved an anti-hero wandering across a dying world. I think it was:

The main attraction is the prose though. The details are rich and evocative, Severian’s thoughts range from the philosophical to the brutally frank, and yet the novel always propels the reader forward. I’m not ready to anoint Wolfe the Faulkner of sci-fi yet, and the book does wander along the edge of pretension every now and then (we can’t talk about “historians;” we have to talk about “historiographers” because it sounds better. Who cares if it has a different meaning?) But, it was a very nice read.

Also, best cover ever?

Grade: A-

1980 World Fantasy Award - WATCHTOWER by Elizabeth Lynn

Elizabeth Lynn’s Watchtower is the first novel in a trilogy called The Chronicles of Tornor. Tornor is a fortress city that forms part of a line of such independent fortress city states along the northern edge of…well, I guess of the known world. At the beginning of the novel, Tornor is taken in battle by the evil Col Istor. Col kills the wise and benevolent king of Tornor and turns the prince, Errel, into his court jester. Ryke eventually manages to escape with Errel thanks to the aid of two mysterious (and somewhat androgynous) women, Norres and Sorren.

Norres and Sorren take Ryke and Errel to a sort of Shangri-La in the south called Vanima. Vanima is a warm valley and a refuge from the war-torn north. The people of Vanima also practice a communal “dance,” which is actually a powerful form of unarmed martial arts (Lynn notes that she based it on aikido in a brief introduction). So, Ryke learns the new martial art, Errel reads some tarot cards, and they prepare to take back Tornor.

I actually enjoyed this novel quite a bit more than I thought it would. The plot might feel a little slight (the above is actually a fairly detailed description of the entire first two acts of the novel) compared to the big epics that seem to dominant the fantasy genre, and especially fantasy series. It’s a small world – we basically get Vanima, Tornor, and two other Tornor-like fortresses as the entire fantasy world – but at least it feels manageable. And I liked the idea of having a nicely focused character piece instead. It’s not a must-read overlooked classic, and, for such a character-focused work, the characters can feel a bit flat. The high concept of martial arts meets medieval fantasy didn’t quite work for me either. But, it is well-written, relatable, and readable, which was a welcome change after the over-wrought Riddle-master books.

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, Lynn’s novels are most famous as the earliest fantasy novels to present homosexual relationships in a positive light. I think it’s a welcome sign of the changes in our society that I hardly even noticed the gay couple in the novel (it was done fairly subtly as well).

Grade: B-

1979 World Fantasy Award and Campbell - GLORIANA by Michael Moorcock

Michael Moorcock is a big name in sci/fantasy literary history. He was most well-known for his Elric series, which focused on an albino anti-hero satire of Conan the Barbarian. Lately, he’s more well-know for his alternate universe tales of airships and other mechanical oddities. These stories helped inspire the increasingly popular steampunk subgenre and authors from Alan Moore to Thomas Pynchon have paid homage to them.

Gloriana is another alternative universe tale, though there are no airships to be seen (a few clockwork devices manage to show up though). Instead, we get a different take on the reign of Elizabeth I in England, though here she is Gloriana of Albion. The biggest difference between this world and ours seems to be that the big monotheistic religions don’t exist – instead of God and Allah, people worship Roman and Norse gods. Instead of Henry VIII, sixteenth-century Albion was ruled by the brutal dictator Hern. His daughter, Gloriana, has restored peace to the burgeoning empire, but one of her advisors, Montfallcon, still uses spies to manipulate events. These spies include an especially devious rogue named Captain Quire, who soon develops his own agenda and eventually seduces the queen. All of these intrigues are made easier by the fact that the royal palace is the size of an entire town, and a hidden society manages to survive within the palaces walls.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a professional historian, so it’s probably not surprising that I enjoy historical fiction. This does extend to alternate history (another growing subgenre) as well. However, most alternate history serves to explore the machinery of fate, or the vagaries of cause and effect. If we change one event, how does that ripple outwards to alter the broader story? How much does one person matter in the scheme of things? Kim Stanley Robinson explores some of these questions in depth in The Years of Rice and Salt. Moorcock does not do the same here. Gloriana hues much more towards historical fantasy, a genre that I love on paper, but always feel disappointed by in practice. The alternate universe here exists solely for aesthetic reasons. It’s as if Moorcock wanted to tell a fairly standard Tudor tale (popular stuff for the last decade or so), but he didn’t want to have to worry about getting the historical details right. In this world, he can make up all the characters, create his own standards of morality and international politics, and generally play around as much as he likes. That’s all fine with me, but he loses much of the appeal to the alternate reality setting for me in the process.

Maybe “standard Tudor tale” is too harsh though. There are some intriguing allegories here. Furthermore, this is a well-written novel, and Moorcock manages to create a broad sense of Elizabethan language in the dialogue-heavy novel while still keeping the prose easy and fast-paced (basically, it’s Shakespeare light). There’s a lot to like here, but, in the end, I felt that the “truth” of our world’s Tudor England was more interesting than Moorcock’s fictional Albion.

Grade: B

1978 World Fantasy Award - OUR LADY OF DARKNESS by Fritz Leiber

One thing that worried me about the World Fantasy Award was that Fritz Leiber won one. He was not my favorite Hugo-winning novelist, but I know that his fantasy work was pioneering, genre-establishing stuff. Our Lady of Darkness isn’t really science fiction or fantasy though; it’s a horror novel. And it’s horror of the subtle, “there’s something dark and unsettling out there” style pioneered by Lovecraft (who warrants several mentions within the novel).

The main character is a genre writer named Franz Westen (which is similar enough to Leiber’s name to raise an eyebrow). Westen is living in San Francisco, and he’s become fascinated with a book called Megapolisomancy by a turn-of-the-century spiritualist named de Castries. Megapolisomancy turns out to be a form of magic that uses the reality distorting nature of big cities with their high (and, in San Francisco’s case, even sometimes pyramid-shaped) buildings to work. Most of the book actually reads like a love letter to San Francisco, which is my personal favorite city, so I enjoyed this quite a bit. The first third consists almost entirely of Westen hanging out with his quirky neighbors, and it almost feels like an Armistead Maupin knock-off. But, there are hints that something creepy is going on in Westen’s building, as he seems to witness a strange creature lurking in his room from a nearby hill. The next third of the novel consists entirely of a discussion of de Castries' life with a fellow connoisseur of the supernatural, and here we basically get Leiber’s love of Lovecraft and a discussion of Crowley and other figures of early twentieth-century mysticism.

It’s a bit creepy, but it’s not until the final third that any real sense of thrill, horror, or even suspense works its way into the book. The climax comes rather suddenly and ends even more quickly. In other words, the pacing is a little off. Still, compared to the other novels of his I’ve read, Leiber has reined in his reliance on stereotypes and his need for over-the-top, oddball characters (though neither is entirely gone). I didn’t mind the fact that this rather short book consists almost entirely of conversations or that the plot moved slowly, and I found megapolisomancy an interesting enough concept to make it all worthwhile. This was definitely my favorite Leiber book of the three I've now read.

Grade: B

1977 World Fantasy Award - DOCTOR RAT by William Kotzwinkle

William Kotzwinkle is probably best known as the writer of the novelization of ET (and a sequel set after ET got home). I actually know his work from a novel I read over a decade ago, The Bear Who Came Over the Mountain, about a bear who stumbles upon a manuscript, manages to get it published and becomes a literary celebrity. I remember it as a genuinely hilarious book.

Doctor Rat is not as funny, though it gets a lot of recognition as a comic novel. It’s primarily about animal rights and a rather emotional argument for an end to experimentation on animals. The novel switches back and forth between two contemporaneous storylines. On one hand, we have the story of Dr Rat, a lab rat who has been thoroughly tortured by a team of scientists and has developed a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. Despite his own pain, he identifies with the scientists and argues angrily against their critics among the other lab animals. The parallel narrative is a bit more obscure at first. It starts with a dog on a walk who begins to hear rumblings from dog community, and then begins to move to different animals, all of whom seem to be onto some big occurrence. We get whales singing to each other, and finally a host of African animals (with special attention paid to elephants). It eventually becomes apparent that the animals are fed up with humanity’s callous attitude towards them and are gathering for a council to protest. This spontaneous animal protest also reaches into Dr Rat’s lab, and he must navigate a massive riot that breaks out among the animals there.

There are some nice passages and a few funny moments with Dr Rat, but I can’t say I was enthralled by the novel, nor was I really swayed by Kotzwinkle’s arguments. It's not that I’m a fan of animal cruelty, but I’d prefer to see the topic of experimentation on animals explored with a bit more nuance. Kotzwinkle presents the scientists as evil sadists who torture the animals for fun. I’m not sure what labs were like in the ‘70s, but I know that more thought is put into the ethics of the situation today. I think most people would see a clear difference between cancer research and cosmetic testing, for instance. I also think the extent to which Kotzwinkle anthropomorphizes the animals is a cheat and a shallow over-simplification. He tries to add species-specific touches, but we mostly get human-style narrations.

Generally, I’m not interested in reading a polemic as a novel, even when I might largely agree with the message, and Kotzwinkle certainly doesn’t avoid the pitfalls of such an issue-oriented work here. Most importantly, however, is the fact that the novel really wasn’t engaging or entertaining. At least it was short.

Grade: D

1976 World Fantasy Award - BID TIME RETURN by Richard Matheson

Though not a household name, Richard Matheson is a huge figure in this era of science fiction and fantasy (and especially horror). He wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone (including some of my favorites like The Invaders and Nick of Time). He wrote an episode of Star Trek (“The Enemy Within,” in which Shatner heroically battles evil Shatner). He wrote the novel that The Incredible Shrinking Man was based on (as well as novels that inspired later films What Dreams May Come, I Am Legend, and a film of this work, starring Christopher Reeve). He also influenced a new generation of horror/fantasy authors, with Stephen King among those that worship him.

Bid Time Return, usually known now as Somewhere in Time, is a metaphysical, time-travelling romance. The novel is presented as the journal of Richard Collier (an analogue of Matheson) who goes to San Diego’s Coronado Hotel after discovering that he has terminal cancer. While there, he falls in love with a picture of an actress from 1896. He researches the woman, falls hopelessly in love with her, and finally decides to travel back in time through new age meditation techniques in order to meet her.

There’s some good material here, and the prose remains imminently readable throughout. I particularly like a nice trick Matheson plays with the prose. The novel starts out in a clipped staccato, partly because Collier is dictating into a recorder, but mostly to represent the fast-pace of the modern world and the simple, unadorned nature of contemporary prose. But, the more Collier becomes absorbed with the Victorian world of 1896, the more ornate his language becomes. The effect is somewhat ruined by Matheson (through Collier) pointing out what he’s done, but I still appreciated it.

I did have a few problems with this novel, however. First, it reminded me a bit too much of Jack Finney’s 1960 novel Time and Again. In Finney’s book, the main character uses meditation techniques to travel from 1969 to 1882, and a historic building plays a key role as well. But, that novel is more lavish and immersive in its attention to detail, and has a darker and more ambiguous plot than the simple love story here. Matheson’s novel just didn’t quite bear the comparison.

Also, as a historian, I generally dislike nostalgia pieces like this. I could name a hundred ways that 1976 was superior to 1896. I love historic and time travel fiction, but I expect more nuance in the presentation of the past.

Finally, and most fatally, I did not buy the relationship between Collier and the actress Elise. They have no chemistry, and their early meetings are a parade of embarrassing faux pas. They only come together because they are destined to come together, and I didn’t find that very satisfying from a character standpoint.

Grade: B-

1975 World Fantasy Award – THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD by Patricia McKillip

The first novel to win the World Fantasy Award was Patricia McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. It tells the story of Sybel, a beautiful young female wizard who has inherited a collection of magical animals and the power to summon and control them. She lives in the wilderness between two rival kingdoms and is drawn into the contest between them while their leaders try to woo her for her love and the power that her bestiary would add to their kingdoms.

Sybel is a really interesting character – a very powerful but aloof woman. She’s certainly more assertive and stronger than any female character I’ve seen so far in these readings. The center of the story seems to be her gradually developing feelings for others. Early in the novel, she is given a baby to raise, and she quickly comes to love it. Then, she must decide which man she shall marry, and if she really can love either. It’s a very well-realized and organic growth in a very lonely character.

The novel’s biggest drawback (to me, at least). is the prose. It's not bad, but it is rather stilted in imitation of the folkloric texts that it wants to mimic (and also in imitation of fantasy pioneer Tolkein). This is my biggest pet peeve in fantasy, though I do understand the intended effect, and it is done well here. Still, if you actually read medieval tales, the writing is much warmer, humorous, and more inventive than the affected wooden prose of the modern fantasy author.

Grade: B

WORLD FANTASY AWARD

Okay, so I started with the Hugo, added the Nebula, then the Locus, and now a couple of other awards have popped up in my post titles. This is thanks mainly to the great nomination layout of the site Worlds Without End, which uses a very fun interface to show the history of ten major speculative fiction awards. Looking through that history, a few more books popped up that I want to read/talk about. My goal here is, after all, to get a chronological sense of the development of speculative fiction.

So here's my policy: I will always review the winning Hugo Award, and I think I am committed to the Nebula as well. I’ve already mentioned that I’ll check in on Locus at times. In 1970, the British Science Fiction Association Award started giving out awards for best novel from across the pond. In 1973, a jury began to award the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. I’ll look at these award winners when I’m interested as well as the eventual Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick Awards.

I do want to take a second to justify my addition of the major fantasy awards as well. Running parallel to the Hugo awards and WorldCon, the WFA is given by the World Fantasy Convention. Unlike Hugo, the WFAs are decided by a jury of top fantasy writers (a different group every year) and convention goers only get to choose a few of the nominees. The freaky-looking statuette is modeled on H. P. Lovecraft. I'll be covering the first WFA winner tomorrow.

So, why fantasy awards? Fantasy and science fiction have an odd relationship – most people would probably group them together, and most fans of one of the genres has at least read a sampling of the other. At the same time, there are a lot of purists who adore one and have no time for the other.

I personally think they have a lot in common. Not only do the readers overlap, so do the writers, and every piece of science fiction, no matter how “hard,” has an element of the fantastic in it. Most importantly, I think science fiction is at its best when it is doing at least one of two things: 1) Evoking a sense of wonder by describing something truly amazing and original, and 2) Reflecting something about contemporary society of the human condition through metaphor. Good fantasy has the same characteristics. And, frankly some works are hard to categorize. You will find more than a few science fiction fans who will tell you that Star Wars belongs in the fantasy genre.

The most important reason that I am including the WFAs is that they will eventually compare more directly with the Hugos. Fantasy books are eligible for the Hugo and have always been so. Fantasy books were occasionally nominated, but none won before the year 2000. Since the year 2000, however, fantasy books have won the majority of Hugo awards. I think this is the function of a variety of factors including the rising popularity of fantasy and the growth of urban fantasy as a new subgenre that echoes trends in sci-fi. Whatever the reasons, it’s clear that you can’t talk about the Hugos and ignore the fantasy genre.

My one reservation about adding a fantasy category is that sword and sorcery stories can get a bit old. The biggest problem with fantasy as I see it, is that so many authors simply recapitulate the seminal fantasy work: J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings (which I will get to talk about when we get to the films). Looking at the winners of the WFA though, it seems that they don’t award Tolkein’s imitators too often. I don’t see any David Eddings, Terry Brooks, or Robert Jordan books in the mix.

In the late 70s, the Locus award breaks its novel awards into separate fantasy and science fiction categories, so that will give us one other award to compare. We also have the August Derleth Award from the British Fantasy Society (an offshoot of the BSFA).

To summarize: I'll always review the Hugo film/tv winners and Saturn (sf) film winners, and I'll occasionally do Saturn fantasy film winners too. I'll also always review Hugo and Nebula novel winners. From there, I'll play it by ear with the other big eight novel awards, though there is a rough hierarchy - I'm probably most likely to cover Locus winners, and least likely to cover Philip K. Dick award winners. If anyone out there sees an award-winning book that you want me to include, let me know.