Asakiyume mita

Due to household habits regarding the radio, I end up hearing a LOT of radio and a lot of author interviews. Some of these people are funny, charming, surprising; others are self-important grandstanders, others make you wince with vicarious embarrassment, on and on.

The other night I heard an interview with Chloe Dalton, the author of Raising Hare, about her experiences during covid raising a newborn hare. She was a happy urbanite, contented in her life, not the sort of person who does animal rehabilitation, but she had animal rehabilitation thrust upon her, and it transformed her. Eventually she decided to write up her experiences, but for a long time she had no intention of doing so.

( musings )

I've never understood why I have such a hard time reading books about people's experiences of the natural world and their relationship to it when it's such an important part of my own life and when I'm interested in what other people have to say. What I realized, listening to the interview, was that I like *conversation* for this topic. Direct, spontaneous talk. So I don't know if Chloe Dalton's actual book can duplicate the experience I had listening to her talk. (Here's the interview, by the way. It's almost 30 minutes long.)

Maybe I'd like it? I will put it on my to-read list so that I don't lose track of it, but mainly I'm just glad to have heard the interview.

What about you? Everyone who follows me here loves books, but are there some topics that you can't go to books for? (Topics you like, I mean.)

A Christmas story by Aster Glenn Gray that I only got to reading now, in February--but just two days until Valentine's Day, and it's a romance, so that fits! And it's very wintery where I am right now, which fits in with the setting of the story, a snowed-in chateau.

George and Nikolai have been rivals (and secret lovers) in a US-Soviet game of spy-versus-spy for 20 years, but it's December 1991 now, and the jig is about to be up for those sorts of games ... but not before the two find themselves thrown together at a chateau, rented out to a toff Englishman (he goes by the name of Biffy) who's hosting the most massive of Christmas parties there. The chateau was supposed to be abandoned; they've both come looking for compromising letters...

The touch is light and the atmosphere is comfy (so much good food!), but the mood, while never heavy, is nostalgic, with a touch of melancholy. Maybe two or three touches. But there's humor, too, as when they have a race back to the Rudolph Christmas sweater that George has been lent (all houseguests are given a Christmas sweater for the duration), and Nikolai gets there first:

George chased after [Nikolai] and tackled [him] just a hair too late: Nikolai had already flung himself on top of the sweater. They tussled briefly, George trying to distract Nikolai by kissing the side of his face. But Nikolai, giggling, slipped away like an eel, and he danced away and pulled the sweater over his head before George was back on his feet. ​

George gave in gracefully. “You look hideous,” he informed Nikolai. ​Nikolai proudly smoothed the sweater “You are grieving the loss of your pompom,” he replied, giving Rudolph’s [pompom] nose a gentle squeeze.

It's a quick read and good fun--and it had a great eleventh-hour plot twist with regard to who-all is after the letters, which I enjoyed.

I'm nearly done with The Mountain in the Sea, by Ray Nayler, which I picked up hoping and expecting a cool nonhuman intelligence first-contact situation (with octopuses), and which has that, sort of, but is mainly about the nature of consciousness and the mind, human loneliness, and How Bad We Humans Are For This World Of Ours. To my amusement and chagrin, the plotline that pulled me in is the corporate scheming one--more so than the octopus researcher + lonely android, and definitely more than the slave fishing vessel. (Favorite characters so far: Rustem the hacker and Altantsetseg the security person.) But they've all been gripping enough to keep me reading and thinking.

I'll do a proper review later, but what I want to talk about here is the concept of "Point Fives" (.5). In the novel, a character remarks that many people don't really want to interact with a whole, complete other person (1.0)--too much friction! They want someone who's always interested in what they're doing--not just as a yes-man, but with genuine interest, asking appropriate questions, etc.--someone who has enough of a personality to have their own interesting quirks and unexpected conversational gambits, but who will never grandstand, never make emotional demands, will always take second place to the "full" person. (As I type this, it occurs to me that basically the character is saying that people want the stereotyped 1950s male ideal of a wife.) In the story, these exist! AI virtual companions. (Not physically, I don't think: just as like a hologram.)

Maybe needless to say, the narrative thrust of the story disapproves of this philosophically, while acknowledging its seductiveness. And I'm here to underline both parts of that! Both the disapproval, but also the seductiveness--speaking as someone who has essentially built up Point Fives in my head from time to time.

Example: When I was eight, friends of my parents came over from England, bringing two of their kids, one of whom, a girl, was my age. She read the same stories I did! Even the weird ones! I had a great time playing with her, and after she left, I decided she was my True Best Friend, my one and only. She wrote me letters in which she drew pictures of horses--and she could draw them so they looked real! I fantasized about her coming back to visit. I fantasized about her coming to school with me. I fantasized about drawing pictures together, going on adventures together, reading stories together, etc.

I did have some real input for these fantasies--she was really writing letters--but for the most part I was creating her to suit me. But it caused eventual disappointment because guess what! She was her own real person, with her own real interests, not ones scripted by me! I've done similar with other people. It always requires that the person be conveniently unavailable in some way: real, present people are not so amenable to this treatment. After years of experience, I now can recognize the danger signs of this behavior and (try to) nip it in the bud.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say I've had real friendships, with people who are really present--not necessarily physically present in my house or neighborhood (though yes, in my house and neighborhood too)--but present in the sense that I'm interacting with them in multiple ways, and frequently, so we're seeing multiple aspects of each other. We have a sense of obligation or responsibility for one another--probably not an equal sense: for one thing, people are rarely exactly balanced in their degree of interest in or commitment to one another, but also, people need and want different amounts of commitment, and people have differing abilities to give. So it's not a balanced thing, and it's not without friction, stress, and disappointment. But it's also very rewarding, very beautiful, in moments.

In The Mountain in the Sea, one character reflects on not really seeing the people he's around. A traumatic thing has just happened, and it awakens in him a desire to have his eyes open from now on, to see and pay attention to the people (and one can extend this beyond just people, though probably we do own an extra something to our species siblings). It's the first step away from the solipsism represented by Point Fives.

I have so many saved up for this! And I'm actually writing on a Wednesday. Wohoo, win condition!

What I've just finished

A Family of Dreamers, by Samantha Nock. radiantfracture put me onto this collection by quoting one of the poems. Samantha Nock is an indigenous poet, and her poems reflect that heritage, but also explore family relations, love, self doubt--you know: the stuff we write poetry about.

( Some quotes )

* * *

Ideias Para Adiar O Fim Do Mundo, by Ailton Krenak
This has also been translated into English (Ideas for Postponing the End of the World). Ailton Krenak is an indigenous activist from Brazil, of the Krenak people, and this very short book collects talks that he's given, including the title one. He's very, very good at reminding his listeners that there's more than one way of understanding things, more than one way of approaching problems, and that for some people, the end of the world has been happening for a long, long time. (My Goodreads review has quotes that give a feel for it)

* * *

Besty and Tacy Go over the Big Hill, by Maud Hart Lovelace
They do, and they discover a community of Syrian refugees. The more things change...

This story mulls over kings and queens in lots of different ways. Early on the girls write a letter to Alfonso XIII, who upon turning sixteen has become king of Spain. The girls tell him that they'd love to marry him but realize that, sadly, they can't, since they're not of royal blood (also they're only ten, but they don't mention that), but that nevertheless they wish him the best. And then at the end of the story they get a letter back from the royal secretary, telling them the king appreciates their thoughts! And I was thinking how much smaller the world was then--that girls could write a letter to the royal palace in Madrid, and that a palace secretary would actually answer! ... Well, assuming that that incident is based on something that actually happened in MHL's life--it might not be. But it's conceivably possible. Alfonso XIII came into his majority in 1902. Wikipedia tells me that in 1900, the human population was a much more intimate 1.6 billion. Not like our current 8 billion. Palace secretaries could write to little girls in Minnesota!

What I'm reading now

Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer. My approach to this has been very roundabout. I'm not a big fan of long books of serious essays, even when I should like them. So I started by just dipping in. But it's won me over, so I'm going to read it straight through.

* * *

Why Didn't You Just Leave, edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin. A collection of horror stories that answer the question of why people don't just leave the haunted place they're in. Excellent so far.

* * *

Lady Eve's Last Con, by Rebecca Fraimow. A rom-con romcom in SPACE that I've only just started but is highly delightful already, with lines like this:

Ever since we got in on the luxury-liner gambit, money had been dropping into our hands like coolant from a leaky ceiling

and

It wasn't so hard to get someone like Esteban to think that you were their romantic ideal; all you had to do was present an attractive outline and leave plenty of space, and they'd fill in the rest all by themselves.

I think I can see what the end state is going to be, but I am here for the ride!

Coming Soon
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, the next of the Betsy-Tacy books.

Look at this bird that came up on Aves do Brasil:



Doesn't he look like a volcano at night, with lava just waiting to overbrim?



I feel it's such a good representation of how we all are. All our hot feelings at the top of our heads.

In English he's called a ruby-crowned tanager. His Brazilian name, tiê preto, translates as "black tiê" (and the word "tiê" comes from a Tupi word, "ti'ye," but my very cursory investigations haven't turned up what that means). It's funny that the English name looks at that one bright patch and the Brazilian name looks at the rest of him.

In other news, sometimes negative reviews can make you want to read something. Someone I follow on Goodreads wasn't a fan of The Navigating Fox, but their description of it intrigued me--a world with talking animals who interact more or less as peers with humans (though, as in Narnia, there are also animals who don't talk). The main character is the titular Navigating Fox, Quintus Shu'al, who starts out the story in disgrace. Fingers crossed that the story ends up being good.

The cover is really pretty, too. Not that that's a reason to choose a book, I realize, but it makes it fun to look at.

Dreamed that I was making grilled-cheese sandwiches, only they weren't sandwiches, they were paperback books. I was cooking up paperback books in a frying pan. Butter on both sides, medium heat, flipping them over ... watching for whether the covers were getting nice and golden brown.

Oh oops! I tried to grill a hardback! So frustrated with myself: the crust will be much too tough and the heat will probably not penetrate to the center. Maybe I can cut off the spine at least....

The dream didn't get to the eating part.

They weren't books I was interested in reading. I don't recall the titles.

I dreamed there was a book, an Edwardian guide to the meanings of buttons, the way there are guides to the meanings of flowers. I was looking at the cover, which had lovely old lettering and slightly bad printing (colors not quite aligned). I knew without opening it that it would say what bone buttons mean, and wood, cloth-covered ones, metal ones, clay and ceramic. What it means if the pattern is a crest of arms or flowers, nautical themed or woven.


"There was a guy, the buttons on his jacket were bits of rebar from the Twin Towers, inset with Etruscan glass. I recall too that he had feather earrings. He bragged they were pinfeathers from a royal northern albatross."

These thoughts will make most sense if you've already read Ann Leckie's Translation State. They may be comprehensible even if you haven't--but you have to not mind spoilers. With that warning...

( What's going on with the Presger Translators? )

This week Mike Allen's Mythic Delirium Press published Like Smoke, Like Light, a collection of short stories by Yukimi Ogawa. Yukimi Ogawa is remarkable: she lives in Tokyo and doesn't feel hugely confident speaking English, but she writes in English, and her stories are imaginative, surprising, and memorable. She's been published in Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and, back in the day, Mythic Delirium--among others.

There are more or less three types of stories. First, there are yōkai tales, that is, stories in which traditional Japanese monsters or creepy beings are main characters. Although the yōkai comes from folklore, the stories Yukimi puts them in are completely new. In talking about the yōkai tales with Mike Allen, she says, "I try to not be too inventive about yokai because they are traditional to our culture, but not be restricted by the folklore too much either. The balance is important, but difficult to keep!" (The rest of the interview is here.)

Second, there are her tales set on an unnamed island where people's skins are patterned and colored in unusual ways. Several of these stories feature Kikiro, a member of the stigmatized underclass of people born without dramatic coloring or a pattern. She's something of a detective, and her investigations reveal things about the society (but also about personal relationships). All the colorful-island stories touch on issues of status, exploitation, discrimination, dignity, trust, and loyalty.

And then there are some stories that don't fall into either of those two categories. In one, a girl's opal blood can be used as a narcotic--or to heal people. In another a woman steals beautiful parts of other people's anatomies to keep herself attractive, always making sure to leave them with something in return, and in another, a caretaking AI gets increasingly fed up with human idiosyncrasies.

Here's what I said at the end of my introduction:

Good science fiction and fantasy stories remind us that other worlds are possible—better ones … and worse ones. They give us space and time to think about how we really feel about tricky questions—like what makes a monster. Yukimi shows us over and over that true monstrosity has nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with one’s treatment of others. Her stories are full of monsters—but the monsters are not skeletons, severed heads, or creatures with eyes on their arms. Similarly, she presents us with a beautiful palette of types of love and family: we have only to accept them in the forms they choose to wear.

Needless to say, I recommend the collection! You can find ways to buy it at the bottom of the page here.

Let the Torrent Dance Thee Down follows immediately on the harrowing saga of the Norsunder war. It has two parts. The first, Bridges, looks at the aftermath of the war for the various kings, queens, and assorted others we've come to know--characters whom we've seen grow up and who are still feeling out who they now are. Some have overcome terrible pasts or crippling self images; others are still in the process. Some can't grow past old injuries; others are learning to.

The second half, Torrent, focuses in tightly on one kingdom and royal family and looks at what happens when the queen is forced to make a terrible decision. It's a highly melodramatic situation, and Sherwood explores all the personal, political, emotional, and moral ramifications. Big trigger warning for the topic of sexual coercion, but as I said in my Goodreads review of an ARC, there’s nothing prurient about any of it; most of the intensity is emotional/psychological and comes from how the character navigates the stark choices she’s presented with, and how she feels. It's painful reading at times, but Sherwood is so compassionate in her portrayal of people with all their warts and strivings and occasional moments of grace, it's worth it.

As with most of Sherwood's Sartorias-deles books, I think this one is much more enjoyable if you're familiar with the world and the characters.