2003 Nebula – THE SPEED OF DARK by Elizabeth Moon

It seems like one way to get the SFWA’s attention is to be an established sf writer (Moon had long-running sf and fantasy series under her belt), and then to step out of your comfort zone (this book is much more grounded in the present and tackles a serious issue of mental disability)

There are some books that I have a hard time writing a less-than-positive review for.  In this case, we have a daring novel that dives into some intriguing issues of bioethics, has a character with autism as a first person narrator, and is based in part on the author’s own experiences with an autistic child.  There’s hardly a sentiment here that I disagree with, and I’m very intrigued by the subject matter, but, unfortunately, those qualities alone don’t make for a great book.

We don’t get a lot of the details about the world, but it’s a few decades in the future.  There are mentions of global warming and economic disaster (though not until the latter half of the book) as well as biological advances that have brought about old sf canards like personality modification for dangerous criminals, therapies for serious medical conditions, and life extension treatments.  Our narrator, Lou Arrendale, was born autistic at the turn of the twentieth century before treatments were developed for the condition, though he is very high-functioning.  He analyzes data for a corporation with a team of other autistics, and he manages a social life with fencing classes and church.  He faces two major conflicts in the novel: 1) his dastardly boss, Mr. Crenshaw, wants to coerce all of the autistic employees into serving as guinea pigs for a new, highly invasive, autism therapy, and 2) he’s fallen in love with one of his fencing buddies, Marjorie, but another fencer, Don, resents this, and resents Lou in general.  They are fairly simple plotlines, but we get a lot of Lou’s different perspective on things.  This ranges from fascinating, as in the descriptions of how he sees and seeks patterns in his life, to mind-numbingly tedious, as every line of dialogue has to be analyzed by Lou to uncover the emotional content and decode non-literal speech (like metaphors).

This is the most basic problem with the novel.  It’s not long, but it became a trudge through the middle third for me as we go through the same elaborate routines again and again.  Hearing how fixed Lou’s environment has to be is really interesting the first time, but it gets old after a few dozen descriptions.  Wathcing Lou decode dialogue is intriguing the first time, but do we need it for EVERY. SINGLE. LINE?  In other words, the narration didn’t work for me.  Which is not to say it couldn’t have worked.  I hate to review by comparison, but another novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, came out at about the same time and explored similar ideas.  In both novels, there is a narrator on the autism spectrum investigating a mystery.  Haddon’s book is brisk and the prose is elegant and quick-moving while still putting you inside the narrator’s head.  He also manages to show us how wrong the narrator is about the mystery of the dead dog without ever breaking format.  Moon’s book, on the other hand, can be plodding.  The mystery of who is sabotaging Lou’s car is painfully obvious to everyone – including Lou! – but then he is too nice and reserved to solve it.  And, she breaks format and slips into third-person omniscient at times for no internally consistent reason.  She blows a great chance to challenge the reader with a limited, unreliable narrator and dumbs the prose down in the process.

There are other issues as well.  The best characters are Lou’s autistic coworkers, but they don’t get nearly enough pagetime.  The other characters are two dimensional – Lou’s “normal” friends are truly good people with infinite patience and intelligence.  Lou’s enemies…well, I called them dastardly before, and that pretty much sums them up.  I’m sure that disabled people deal with antagonists on a day-to-day basis, but I think antagonism out of ignorance would be a lot more real, and interesting, then these diabolical nutjobs who really hate autistics to the point of doing very illegal things and risking everything to mess with one.  This also goes hand in hand with a lot of moralizing.  There are some interesting bioethics questions here, including the fundamental question of should we “cure” someone of a “disorder” that is the basis of their personality and identity?  Lou’s attempt to answer this question for himself is the best part of the book by far, though even that gets a bit repetitive.  But, it seems like we spend even more time on obvious issues of respect and understanding.  I agree with everything Moon is saying here…but I sure got tired of hearing about it.

The book has its moments, and the premise is strong, but the characters are too black and white, the prose is too repetitive, the pace is too slow (though the final two chapters move far too quickly through major events), and Moon fails her narrator by spelling things out too clearly.  I will say that it made me appreciate Flowers of Algernon even more.

Grade: B-

1992 Hugo and Locus – BARRAYAR by Lois McMaster Bujold

For only the second time in Hugo history, an author wins back-to-back in the novel category. And, as with last time (Ender’s), it’s for books in the same series. This is a prequel of sorts to The Vor Game, and it fills in some important gaps in the chronology (as I mentioned before, I’m reading the Vorkosigan books in internal chronological order, and I’m not sure they’d make as much sense in publication order).

The main focus this time is the birth of Miles, and his mother, Cordelia, is the central character. She’s recently moved to the semi-feudal planet of Barrayar from the more democratic and higher tech Beta Colony, and she’s married Count Aral Vorkosigan, who is serving as Regent for the 4-year-old emperor. Most of the novel centers around her interactions with the complicated and often bloody politics of the planet. There are duels, political rivalries, and the threat of civil war. A lot of time is also given over to relationships within the Vorkosigan household, especially three of the family bodyguards. It’s very character-centered. In fact, it would translate very easily to a fantasy setting (with its romance, court intrigues, and loyal retainers), except for some of the material dealing with Miles’ troubled birth.

Bujold’s prose is strong with some very nice moments, and Cordelia is a very likable character. The plot can go a little over-the-top – there’s a daring raid near the end that really should not have gone as well as it did, for instance – and the characters can be a tad too wonderful and loving, but it’s a fun experience. And, the crazy action and ultra-perfect characters are dialed down a bit from The Vor Game.

It also deals with slightly deeper themes than The Vor Game. Miles’ disability slid into the background in that action novel, but here, the question of whether the damaged fetus should even be brought into the world is foregrounded. The prejudices in Barrayaran society depicted here lead to very interesting conflicts that clearly overshadow Miles' life to come. And, Bujold’s portrayal of Cordelia as a dedicated mother felt real in some very unreal circumstances. Honestly, the character work was so strong that I didn’t even need the action sequences that dominate the novel’s third act.

Grade: B+

1991 Hugo – THE VOR GAME by Lois McMaster Bujold

We now get a string of Hugo novel wins for Bujold’s Vorkasigan saga. I’m reading the series in internal chronological order, in which case this is actually the fourth novel. It’s the seventh by publication order. If I had to sum up the series so far in one word, it would be: ridiculous. But, I’ll come back to that in a minute.

This is the same universe as Bujold’s Nebula-winning Falling Free. There are several human-colonized worlds connected by wormholes. The wormholes are subject to blockade or collapse, and the planets are isolated enough to develop their own cultures and governments. The novels mostly center on Barrayar, a cold planet with an aristocratic, military-oriented culture (there’s a bit of a Russian flavor that’s reflected in some of the place names as well). The “Vor” in question are the aristocrats, whose family names all begin with “Vor” and who spend most of their time in deadly political maneuvers against each other. Aral Vorkosigan is a war hero, former Regent for the young Emperor, and current Prime Minister. His son Miles was wounded in an assassination attempt while still a fetus; he has extremely brittle bones and a somewhat misshapen body. The warrior society of Barrayar is highly prejudiced against people with such physical deformities.

This entry in the series finds Miles graduating from military academy. Despite his physical limitations, Miles is a phenomenal strategist and leader, but his intelligence and strong will can be detriments in regimented military life. Miles is given a six month assignment in Arctic exile to prove he’s a team player; he fails miserably when it turns out that his commanding officer is a murderous brute. He’s then exiled to an off-planet intelligence mission, which also goes spectacularly wrong, this time with massive interplanetary implications.

So, it’s ridiculous. I had a very hard time with suspension of disbelief in this volume, as we get a series of *extremely* contrived chance meetings with old allies and enemies. Apparently, it’s a small galaxy, as Miles ends up thrown in a prison cell with someone very important and familiar to him, despite being light years from their mutual home. And, of course, Miles overcomes astounding obstacles, including multiple imprisonments and devious villains, to triumph fantastically in the end. It’s much in line with the previous volume, Warrior's Apprentice, in which Miles built a large and incredibly successful mercenary army with a few simple deceptions.

If you don’t take the plot contrivances too seriously, however, it is very fun space opera. It’s vintage action in much the same way that Star Wars is, and even the oddly-twisting plot manages to give it a sort of serialized feel. Light-hearted space opera action doesn’t win a lot of Hugos though (I think Ringworld was the last example, though Downbelow Station is close). Is there more to this series? Miles’ disabilities do add some depth, especially in a work like “The Mountains of Mourning” in which Miles must investigate the infanticide of a child with a less debilitating disability than his own (it won the 1990 best novella Hugo). There’s not as much of that depth here, other than some discussion of power and responsibility. But, Bujold’s writing is crisp, her characters are well-developed, and it’s a fun read. Maybe, sometimes, that’s enough.

I should also add that you really do need the context of the previous novels (at least Warrior’s Apprentice but preferably all three) to get into this one.

Grade: B+