Vox by Christina Dalcher

I hadn’t come across this book or heard of it, despite it being a best seller, before seeing it in the book shop and deciding to give it a try.  It is from one of my favourite genres: dystopian sci-fi and the premise reminded me of one of my favourite books: The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Attwood.

Whereas The Handmaids Tale is set in an indeterminate future and feels frightening, but almost impossible in its portrayal of an extremely misogynistic future version of America (interestingly Attwood said that “when it first came out it was viewed as being far-fetched…However, when I wrote it I was making sure I wasn’t putting anything into it that human beings had not already done somewhere at some time”).  Vox is barely one presidential term beyond the current, real one, with a future that you could almost see happening.

Vox is set in an America where Trump has been succeeded by an evangelical Christian administration that decided women should be silent.  Women are fitted with counters on their wrist that count their words - a daily of quota of 100 words, with anything above leading to increasingly painful shocks that leave burn marks.  Jean is an expert linguistic who is forced to leave her job and teach her daughter to speak as little as possible, while her husband and sons get on with life, increasingly failing to see her frustration and accept, even enjoy the new status quo.  Jean struggles to see a way out until the Presidents brother suffers a stroke and the government seek her help in treating him.  Jean starts to see a way out and the beginnings of a resistance.

It’s almost impossible not to compare this book to The Handmaids Tale and I initially worried it would be a poor imitation.  But I was pleased to see that Dalcher’s novel followed its own path and took on a life of its own.  Whereas the future in Attwood’s book is extreme and horrifying, Vox has us believing that there are groups capable of doing these things in America right now and many that would quietly support them or tolerate them.

I was in two minds about the story until it diverted from being too similar to The Handmaids Tale, then the impossible situation and the feeling that it was too difficult and dangerous for anything to be done came to the fore.  The resolution was an absolute joy and worth reading the book for.

City of Ember by Jean DuPrau

I picked this book up from the charity shop never having heard of the author and not knowing that it was a children’s book until I started reading it.  But put post-apocalyptic and fiction in the same sentence and I am on it like a bookworm getting her fix.

The book is set in a town called Ember, nothing exists outside of the town except for darkness and the town contains everything the dwellers will ever need.  All light is provided by electric lights during the day and at night there is pitch black.   Except the lights are starting to stutter and the food and supplies the town needs are starting to dwindle leading people to start asking whether anything lies beyond the dark.

The prologue to the book tells us that the “Builders” of Ember expected the people to live in the city for two hundred years and then gain access to instructions which would lead them out of the city, over time the instructions are misplaced and accurate time keeping of the two hundred years is lost, so that the period may have been exceeded by an unknown amount of time.

Lina and Doon are two children who have just finished their schooling and are expected to take their place amongst the adults of Embers and learn the trade assigned to them to help keep Ember running, Lina as a messenger and Doon working underground in the pipework’s below the city that keep it functioning.  When they come across a damaged old parchment they are convinced that within its directions lies the salvation of Ember.  How will they decipher it with so much of it missing and will they be able to do so before the town falls into permanent darkness?

This is a fast-paced, clever book, with the action moving at a cracking pace. The characters are easy to like, with many eliciting a lot of sympathy and sadness from the reader: Lina’s senile grandmother, her toddler sister left without parents at such a tiny age, the various lonely and frightened people of Ember trying to survive on less and less.  The world of Ember is fascinating and brought to life through its songs, way of life and the anxiety of the people as we witness the slow decline of the towns infrastructure.

The book was a little predictable and I knew what was coming towards the end, but I raced through it to see how the characters could possibly find resolution.  As with all of the best post-apocalyptic fiction, the ending leaves us with as many questions as answers and ends one journey with the start of another.  I would happily read the next book in this series to find out what happens next.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book is often used as a GCSE study text although I seemed to have skipped it at school (I think we studied Z for Zachariah instead, which is also very good). I spotted this in a shelf full of sci-fi books at a local charity shop and it was the first one I picked up.

Flowers for Algernon is the story of Charlie, a young man with learning difficulties, who despite the challenges of life has a sweet and gentle nature. He is selected for an experiment at his local university that aims to enhance intelligence, an experiment initially tested on a mouse called Algernon with great success. As the experiment takes effect, we find Charlie’s intelligence and understanding expand and deepen to outstrip everyone around him. When the mouse starts to behave erratically and fade, Charlie as to question what that means for him.

The book is written in the form of a diary which Charlie is asked to keep as a measure of his progress. The author deftly takes us on a journey through Charlie’s words, portraying innocence, hope, Charlie’s excitement and awakening and then his dawning realisation that the people around him are not always what they have seemed to the child-like version of himself. Throughout Keyes creates the doubts and insecurities that plague Charlie whether his IQ is low or high.

This is not the sci-fi of space ships, aliens or killer robots. This is the kind of book that looks deep into the human psyche and nature and explores the effect of intelligence on the way the world treats you, the way you see it and your relationships. Charlie is lonely and alienated from those around him both when he can barely read or write and when he is considered a genius.

The book was originally written in 1959 and feels very much of its time, with mentions of dance halls and a Strato-jet. But it also shines a spotlight on the treatment of people who were categorised as “retarded” at the time, whether in the community or in hospitals. I recently had a long conversation with a colleague at work who used to manage care homes for people with learning difficulties. She described how at the start of her career she would find people left with no games or radio or any other kind of activity to keep them occupied. They would share communal shower areas and rows of toilets without doors (shared between male and female residents). Most devastatingly, anyone with challenging behaviour that might bite had their teeth removed, the youngest person she saw this done to was 23 years old. So the descriptions of the hospital where “retarded” young men are sent is quite upsetting.

A deeply moving, heart-breaking little book.

Bargain Book Haul for January 2017

I am missing the boot sales we get to go to in summer, so made a trip to the charity shop to pick up some books for myself and the boys. Someone had given away shelves of sci-fi classics and I picked a few. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes has been on my reading list for ages and it's the first one I started with. I am really enjoying it.

The yellow book is Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood who is one of my favourite writers, occasionally her books get too surreal for me, but this is a collection of short stories so should be digestible enough even for my short attention span.

The Gifts of Imperfection is by Brene Brown who was made famous by her TED Talk on the power of vulnerability. That got me interested enough to want to try the book.

The rest are also self-help books which I have a weakness for. The Barefoot Doctor's Handbook for the Urban Warrior is probably not I would have picked up, except that I opened it to take a look and came across the following:

"Death
As a warrior, you're already dead"

Something about that resonated so deeply with me and I have always had a longing to be a braver more fearless soul, so I decided to take this book home too.

The paints are part of a little paint set stored in a lovely yellow tin. I really wanted to keep it, but in the end I gave it to Little Lady who will make good use of it.

The Girl with All the Gifts by Mike Carey

I came across some rave reviews for this book online, so decided to treat myself to it. I am a big fan of any kind of post-apocalyptic literature. I love the creation of a possible future world, whether positive or negative and the various scenarios played out in the new world and how humanity deals with them.

Zombie books I am less keen on. There seems to be a lot of the samey shuffling around, groaning and eating people and I don’t have much of a stomach for gore. Occasionally there is something different, like World War Z (detailed and intelligent) or Warm Bodies (funny and not too bogged down by endless boring zombie chases). I would put The Girl with All the Gifts into that something different category.

The Girl with All the Gifts is set in a future world which has been overrun and destroyed by a virus that causes people to turn into zombies (or “hungries”). Melanie is a very intelligent little girl that lives on an army base somewhere in England. Every day she is taken from a locked room, strapped to a wheelchair with a gun pointed at her head and taken to a classroom to join other children strapped in wheelchairs. They are taught about the world by various teachers including her favourite Miss Justineau. It is difficult to give an idea of what the book is about without giving too much away and spoiling the suspense. Certainly when I ordered the book, I knew every little and on reading it I enjoyed the story unfolding layer by layer.

It takes the book some time to reveal why the children are kept in this way and what the purpose of the base is. Throughout this part of the book we get to know Melanie – her genius level intelligence, coupled with ignorance about the world outside the base and her innocent questioning of what is going on around her.

Whereas the first part of the book cranks up the tension with its slow reveal and fascinating premise, the second part of the book changes gear. It is faster in pace, but I was somewhat less engrossed as the trajectory of the next part of the story felt a little bit more like familiar ground. Towards the last third, the book slows down and the intrigue and revelations start rolling again. I found myself hooked at the end again and reading the last part of the book when I was supposed to be getting ready for work so that I could find some resolution for the characters and the situation they find themselves in.

This book is elevated from the usual groaning and gore of this genre by its beautiful writing – we get to see the world from the perspective of someone who has only read about trees, butterflies and birds and then gets to see them for the first time with completely fresh eyes. The novel also does something else which zombie books don’t tend to do, which is to explore the human condition and relationships: guilt, despair, hope and the love between Melanie and her beloved Miss Justineau.

The book makes an intelligent and believable attempt at including the science around the Zombies and what has happened to Melanie and the other children like her without getting bogged down by it too much. I liked also that the book is set in England including locations in London which are certainly given a complete, rather terrifying, makeover for the future. The glimpses into the near past and how the government reacted to the virus are haunting and the hints about what might have happened to them are haunting and one of the things that stayed with me at the end of the book.

This was probably one of the best books I have read this year. I think the writer takes a genre that can be treated quite superficially with a focus on gore and gives it heart and depth through the journey that Melanie is taken on. Rather than a simple blood-fest it becomes a thoughtful commentary on love, humanity and evil, still with lots of gross bits of course.

Book Review: The Inferior by Peadar Ó Guilín

One good thing came out of feeling quite unwell recently; I picked up a book to distract me.  I needed something easy to follow and not too pretentious or deep.  I picked this up because of the review excerpt used on the front that said it would remind the reader why they loved sci-fi in the first place.  I am a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, but I find it can be challenging to work though all of the mediocre to find the best books.  Although the book was dumped in the adults section, I noticed in the inside cover it said “teen”.  I decided to get it anyway, some of the children’s and teen literature in English is amazing, certainly in comparison to the reams of uninteresting adult literature I find myself having to trawl through to find something that will hold my broken attention.

The book is set in a future version of what appears to be earth inhabited by numerous species alongside man which survive by hunting each other.  Each inhabits its own section of the land and makes forays into that of others to hunt.  When unable to hunt, species trade members of their own group with those of another to eat.  Amongst humans, those who can hunt and work and valued and those who start to age or become disabled in any way are encouraged to volunteer to exchange themselves with other species as food for their tribe.

In this world we are introduced to Stopmouth, a young man ridiculed because of his stammer and seen as a potential volunteer for his tribe unless he can bring back significant amounts of food.  In the midst of one such hunt for food, a beautiful young woman falls out of the sky (or roof as it is called), bringing with her knowledge of healing and tantalising hints of the origins of the tribe and of a more “civilised” tribe of humans beyond the “roof”

I find that the best sci-fi takes something recognisable and familiar and mixes it with elements that are completely new or alien.  In this way we buy into the world and can bring ourselves to believe the strange elements.  In The Inferior, the world we are introduced to is almost completely unrecognisable.  It took me quite a way into the book to get an understanding of the way the tribe worked and understand a bit more about the woman – Indrani.

The book starts by establishing the state of the world and then turns into the story of a journey.  It is very creative in the range of species and their characteristics and details about the customs and lives of the tribe.  I found this an easy read that I got through in a few hours.  In my enthusiasm for the tribes back story and of Indrani’s origins I raced through the book. 

By the end I was keen for the characters to survive and to do well and I had gained some insight, but still was left with far more questions than answers.

This book raises some uncomfortable questions about who can really be described as civilised, how far we can go to protect our tribe and our lives and about the eating of flesh of other sentient species.

Debt of Bones by Terry Goodkind

I love sci-fi, but tend to be very particular about the titles I choose. I find that the genre has a few instances of the most dazzling examples of fiction (Frank Herberts "Dune", John Wyndham's "The Chrysalids") and also a large amount of mundane, poorly written books.

I have been on the lookout for something new and different and thought I would try one of the authors whose books seemed prolific in the library. Terry Goodkind’s Debt of Bones had been singled out as a “quick choice” in the library – i.e. a god read and the fairly small size of the book made me think it would be an easy one to try as an introduction to the writer.

Debt of Bones is set in a fantasy world of wizards and sorceress’s who battle to safeguard their kingdom against invading forces. People flock to the wizards from all over the kingdom to ask for magical assistance to resolve their problems. One such person is Abby, a young woman whose village has been invaded and whose husband and daughter have been taken hostage by the enemy. She hopes that the greatest of the wizards, Zeddicus Zorander can help fight back against the invading armies and find her family. As the daughter of a sorceress, though lacking magic herself, she hopes that she can use a “debt of bones” between wizards and sorceress to convince Zedicus.

This book is written as a brief prequel to The Sword of Truth Series. Readers of the series may have found many things in the book more recognisable that I did approaching it as a stand-alone book. I found that I wanted to know more about the kingdom, indeed the world the story is set in – something good sci-fi is amazing for. I wanted to know more about the mysterious enemy whose motive to invade is never explained in much detail either.

The story moved along quickly enough, but failed to engage me. The storyline verged on interesting, but the plot twists did not convince me – each time I found myself thinking – that would be too obvious, then found the obvious unfolding. The ending too, felt too neat and didn’t at all inspire me to pick up the main series.

On the other hand, there were some interesting premises, the idea of boundaries between worlds, the general populaces’ distrust of magic and the politics between wizards and kingdom, but each of these were touched on and not explored further perhaps due to the size of the book. The characters were likeable enough – the Zeddicus is intense, Abby appears slightly slow in catching on at each juncture, the rest are fairly forgettable.

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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

Having previously read Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet (review here) and enjoyed them I was keen to try this science fiction novel by the same author.

The book is set in the far distant future on a planet called Winter, which as its name suggests is always cold. The people of Gethren, although human in appearance, have the distinct quality of being androgynous apart from the few days each month where they take on the qualities of either male or female and are able to procreate. This quality means that there has never been a war on the planet as the people are not both aggressive and organised enough (i.e. male enough) to wage war.

Genly Ai is a representative of the Ekumen, an alliance of over eighty planets across a number of galaxies. He is sent to Winter to convince its people of the existence of other planets and to invite them to join the Ekuman to share its knowledge and civilisation. There he finds he has become a pawn to the various political factions who are trying to use his existence, or deny it, in order to manipulate the populace. Despite the support of the Prime Minister of one Winter country (Karhide), he soon finds himself in danger and fleeing to another, Orgoreyn, where again he tries to convince the government to join the Ekumen.

This is not your usual sci-fi full of planets, light sabres, strange looking aliens and fantastical worlds. This is a sedate book, with people much like us in many ways and with traditions and customs which are recognisable. Almost more like a different country than a different planet. Sometimes this means that the book could feel a little meandering and slow in pace. In particular Genly’s many month journey over an ice glacier starts to get monotonous – after all how many different ways can you describe snow?

However, the book does provide a fascinating insight into the people and culture of Winter. In the Earthsea Quartet Le Guin managed to create a believable alternative world and in Winter she does so again although the world is completely different and unique again. The people’s physiology, traditions, history, government, politics, religions, customs, culture, modes of living and civilisation all come to life fully formed and real in their own way. The androgyny of the people of Winter impacts on all aspects of their life and Le Guin is consistent in the way she shows this – whether through people’s behaviour, the structure of Winter society or the way people react to Genly Ai – his one gender means that he appears to be a pervert to the people of Winter. Saying that, much of the time it did not feel as if I was reading a story about androgynes, but about men. This though might say more about my assumptions than about Le Guin’s ability to make the characters’ androgyny real.

Something else which stood out and bothered me throughout the book was the way characters misunderstood one another due to the difference in cultures. Genly learns the languages of Winter, but this turns out not to be enough. People he trusts try to kill him, and he is unable to understand the warnings coming from people trying to help him, who in turn cannot see why he will not take the hint. The book shows how what we value in one culture, means something so different in another. Genly is often self-effacing calling himself humble and lacking in knowledge. These things are prized in Winter civilisation – lacking in knowledge almost meaning a person is more spiritually aware, making Genly appear arrogant to people when he does not mean to be.

This book is a fascinating attempt at creating a complete culture, at once both recognisable through its similarities to us and alien, due to the lack of gender differentiation. Le Guin’s novel has been described as an attempt at feminist science fiction and when you see the difference not having two genders makes, you can see why. The fact that Genly is black and therefore darker than many Winter inhabitants, is not problematic in the way his being male is.

An interesting, thought-provoking, occasionally slow, but ultimately rewarding read.

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