I really liked Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker, and seeing Nnedi Okorafor on a couple of panels at Wiscon made me like her even more. I’d be hard-pressed to think of someone more positive than her. So I picked up The Shadow Speaker at the dealer room.

The Shadow Speaker has a lot in common with Zahrah the Windseeker: a setting that appears in both books, a young female protagonist learning her new powers, male supporting cast, and similarly creative fantastic creatures. All of that was awesome! What wasn’t awesome was the disjointed hero quest plot. Zahrah had to save her friend. Ejii has to save five extra-dimensional worlds from war. Along the way she encounters seemingly random obstacles that seem to be there only to introduce Ejii to her traveling companions. I was disappointed overall.

Ejimofor Ejii Ugabe is a shadow speaker living in magical Kwàmfà in West Africa in 2070. The Great Change, a nuclear war semi-aborted by interfering technology released by a peace group, released magic as a more powerful force than technology. Some people fear meta-humans such as flying wind-seekers and extra-sensory shadow speakers because of superstition and some view them as normal.

The semi-mythical Jaa has ruled Kwàmfà for a few years. She’d established the town and then gone away. During Jaa’s time away, Ejii’s father ruled the village in manner similar to current day Islamic countries, hard and discriminating, before Jaa returned and summarily executed Ejii’s father. Time has passed though, and Jaa heads to a great peace conference in Ginen across the desert and through a dimensional portal. Ejii, no lover of her own father, follows and hopes to join Jaa because the shadows have told her she must go to prevent the war.

The strength of the book is the creativity Okorafor used to create creatures and situations. She included giant sentient sandstorms, talking camels, ostrich-like birds that will carry women but not men, and more.

Ejii is a solid main character, particularly for a girl. She isn’t a cookie cutter stereotype that seems to plague a lot of young adult female characters. She’s smart but not super-brainy. Mostly respectful when she deals with others. Sometimes resourceful, but able to let others such as her fellow school-age shadow speakers help her. In short, I like her. Her traveling companion Dikéogu treats her as an equal or sometimes as his better. He’s charmingly stubborn.

Stubbornness seems to be a prominent characteristic for every character though. In addition, the adults all seem to have a streak of knee-jerk in them that felt extremely false to me. I might not have noticed if it weren’t combined with the mundane plotting.

And that’s the Achilles heel for the book, the plotting. As Ejii journeys, she periodically encounters obstacles, resolves them, and moves on. Episodic is the mold for a hero quest, of course. In this case, each obstacle, whether it’s a group of man-eating cats, a sandstorm, a magician, or a hotel desk clerk, follows a very predictable path and then goes away and Ejii continues her journey. They don’t build on each other, excepting the lesson Ejii learns from each builds on previous lessons. But the events themselves usually just leave Ejii back on her journey having learned her lesson but having advanced no further in her actual quest.

I think lots of people, possibly including the young adults at which the book is targeted, won’t have that reaction to the plot because they will be enjoying the scenery. So I hesitate to unrecommend it. For me though, it was very middle of the road.

Some other blogged reviews:

• Attention Rebellious Jezebels
• Morsie Reads
• Muslimah Media Watch
• Becky’s Book Reviews
• SherMeree’s Musings
• Andy Wolverton

Title: The Shadow Speaker
Author: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Cover creator: Elizabeth H. Clark (designer) / Luca Trovato and Colin Samuels (photographers)
Imprint / publisher: Jump at the Sun / Disney Hyperion
Format: Paperback
Length: 336 p.
Publication date: 2007
ISBN-13: 978-142310036-2
Subject: Adventure and adventurers — Juvenile fiction
Subject: Adventure and adventurers — Fiction
Subject: Fantasy
Subject: Sahara — Juvenile fiction
Subject: Africa — Juvenile fiction
Subject: Sahara — Fiction
Subject: Africa — Fiction
LC classification: PZ7.O4157 Sh 2007

Another slow read for me. It’s the first fantasy novel I’ve read that doesn’t have any fantastical elements in it. No magic. No alchemy. Nothing of the sort. It’s just a city called Riverside, old Riverside proper where the commoners live and nobles rarely tread, and the Hill where the aristocracy resides. The nobles rarely settle their duels themselves any more. They hire swordsmen to stand in for them. Richard St. Vier, the main character, is one of those swordsmen.

That’s really it. It’s a medieval-esque tale of intrigue. Some nobles want to kill other nobles, and they hire St. Vier (the most accomplished swordsman) to make the challenge on their behalf. And others of the gentry want to hire him to kill others. Some of them working at cross-purposes. Sadly, I could not follow the intrigues. Too many characters that felt too alike for me to understand who was against who. I didn’t understand the political structure, and who was vying for what positions. Sometimes I didn’t understand which person was which at all. Was it Godwin or Ferris? And why were they trying to sleep with who they were trying to sleep with?

I tend to think it’s my fault and not the book’s. When I start to get into this kind of complexity, I throw up my hands and give up. Sometimes on the whole book, but not in this case. I just stopped caring about the intrigue and just waited for explanations and the action scenes. The action, when it comes, it actually pretty swift and brutal. In Swordspoint it’s up close and personal, not clashes of armies. Joe Abercrombie has nothing on Ellen Kushner in terms of bloodletting.

Another one of those books that I can’t really recommend, but only because I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Title: Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners
Author: Ellen Kushner
Cover creator: Thomas Canty
Series: Riverside; 1
Imprint / publisher: Bantam Spectra / Random House
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 291 p. (does not include 3 extra stories)
Publication date: February 2003
ISBN-13: 978-0-553-58549-0
LC classification: PS3561.U777 S95 1987

Fourth of five books from the Feminist SF The Blog list of obscure speculative fiction works that shouldn’t be so obscure.

I thought the book was tough to get in to. A somewhat interesting world called Toussaint where nano-technology underlies everything. But the story of Tan-Tan as a child kind of dragged. And while the Caribbean dialect used both for the characters and narration made things interesting, it slowed down my reading. Perhaps that’s for the best, making me consider what I read rather than gloss over. I felt like my reading didn’t get in to a groove early because I had to constantly stop and decipher the language. That’s more me than it is the book though.

But it didn’t take overlong to pick up. Once I got to the part where (minor spoiler), Tan-Tan’s father Antonio, mayor of some part (or maybe all) of Toussaint kills the man cuckolding his wife, then things got interesting. I question why he decides to jail break and head for New Half Way Tree, the other dimensional parallel world exile colony. If that’s where he’s going to end up anyway, why not let himself be convicted and go there with the supplies the exiles get? Maybe, in addition to being a real bastard (charming, but a complete asswipe), he’s not really that smart. Perhaps.

On New Half Way Tree, I love the combination of first-contact and post-apocalyptic rebuilding society tropes.

Tan-Tan is a great character. Hopkinson mixed parts strength and parts vulnerability and it hangs together quite well. There were a lot of other characters I really liked that only appeared for a short while. I wish they had been worked in to the story more. Quamina, Aislinn, Benta, and Melonhead. Chichibud was pretty good too, though a little too much the alien teacher S.F. archetype.

The confrontation ending the book I thought wasn’t so strong. It just didn’t feel correct that an argument results in one combatant having an epiphany in the middle and giving up. We humans don’t like to do that.

But, despite nits here and there, this was a really strong entertaining story. Not to mention, this is not a white mans world. No that it really has an overt feminist theme. It’s just different, and presented normally. A black girl as heroine. Women in prominent and natural seeming roles. The book passes the Bechdel test as well. But the real draw, the great story.

Title: Midnight Robber
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Cover creator: Don Puckey (design) / Leo Dillon, Diane Dillon (artists)
Imprint / publisher: Aspect / Warner Books
Format: Paperback
Length: 329 p.
Publication date: March 2000
ISBN-10: 0-446-67560-1
LC classification: PR9199.3.H5927 M53 2000

Third in my reading of the top ten obscure speculative fiction works from Feminist SF, the Blog!. In this case the book is both very good, and something I didn’t like.

I’ll explain the latter first. This is not written in a style that I like. The few bits of Asian folk tales that I’ve read are generally not my bag, and The Fox Woman is a version of a Japanese folk tale. For one, Japanese nobility don’t seem to do anything in these folks tales. They write poetry. They observe rituals. Their servants shield them from the unpleasantness of the world. Second, the stories are couched in 300 layers of symbolism. I like stories that work on multiple levels, but I don’t want to have to be a scholar to get it. I felt like I would have gotten so much more from this if I had more background on that culture.

The issue of style aside, I thought the book was really well done and fairly enjoyable. To the extent I could get my head past the style that is.

Simple plot: Kaya no Yoshifuji is married to Shikujo. Kaya no Yoshifuji is a minor noble, but failed to receive a government appointment and so is going into internal exile at his country estate. Though his real reason for heading out there is less disfavor at court and more a mid-life crisis. He brings along his wife Shikujo and son Tadamaro with him. There’s a chill in the marriage, but their reticence and Japanese cultural customs prevent them from airing it out. At the estate also live a skulk of foxes. Foxes that are restless… I can’t think of the right word, but that’ll do. The daughter Kitsune wants to be more than a fox. both Yoshifuji and Shikujo fixate on the foxes living in the garden. Yoshifuji with wistfulness for fox freedom. And Shikujo because foxes represent danger.

Kitsune quickly falls in love with Yoshifuji. But she’s a fox, and he’s a human (and married! but that’s less an issue in the culture apparently). Solution! Magic! Little bit of chanting, a human skull, and the help of a few gods, and Kitsune can change herself into a human. Her entire family becomes human. And their den under the gatehouse becomes a palatial estate. Now she just has to lure Yoshifuji to her and get rid of Shikujo…

I thought the perspective of the foxes was really well done. They are not simply evil spirit tempters in this telling, though a quick aside about luring people into swamps with foxfire was amusing. They are just as ignorant of the magic they employ as humans. The have their own desires, perfectly reasonable if at odds with those of the people in whose garden they live. They aren’t a Japanese version of Loki.

And I really liked that there are ethical consequences to everyone’s actions and inaction. Every character of substance sees some growth in their moral compass as a result of the choices they make. No one gets an easy win. There’s no Hollywood ending that absolves the characters of their sins. I am not saying no one is absolved or not, you’ll need to read it to find out. But the story avoids paint-by-numbers ethics such as having Kitsune be the neighbor woman who consoles Yoshifuji after Shikujo’s tragic death and then becomes his lover, letting everyone be morally right. (That’s an example; again, I’m not saying anyone does or does not die.) Everyone faces the consequences of their own choices.

A good book, but I’ll probably not read more novels by the author set in medieval Japan. But it was interesting and well written enough for me to pick up (eventually, my pile of unread books scares me) her stories if they are in a style that fits me better.

Title: The Fox Woman
Author: Kij Johnson
Cover creator: Susan Seddon-Boulet (artist) / Nicole Stanco (design)
Series: Heian trilogy; 1
Imprint / publisher: Tor
Format: Paperback
Length: 382 p.
Publication date: 2000
ISBN-10: 0-312-87559-2
Subject: Foxes — Japan — Folklore — Fiction
Subject: Nobility — Japan — Fiction
LC classification: PS3560.O379716 F69 2000

Lord save me from self-published books!

This is the second on my reading list from the Feminist SF Top 10 Obscure Speculative Fiction Books. However, in this case, this is one book that should probably stay obscure. Ulises Silva, the author, repeatedly asked his friends/readers to vote up his book. It’s the only generous explanation I have for it winning top spot.

The book has a lot of promise. The premise is that certain people are born with the ability to change reality by writing about it. These Scribes can pen a story, and the story comes true. The other piece of the puzzle is that a shadowy organization consisting of Editors and Researchers exists to check the Scribes and make sure their power doesn’t go to their heads. That’s the set-up. Our plot concerns someone systematically killing Scribes. The Editor organization sends in their best, Io, to figure out who and rid the world of the menace.

One Scribe has really gotten out of control, sending a message to the entire world predicting the apocalypse in one week’s time.

Or I assume that one Scribe has done this. I quit reading before finding out.

Why? The execution of the good idea annoyed me.

The writing is overly florid for one.

Io startled and immediately made up her mind to ignore the call. But her cell phone, nestled in its slot on her center console, continued to blare out. Loudly. Her cabin seemed to amplify its electronic shriek beyond her closed windows, echoing it as a schizophrenic, disharmonic chorus.

Also, the author tends to write in a peculiar passive voice (not technically passive, but might as well be). People don’t do things. They find their legs carrying them places. Hot casings spit themelves out rather than Io emptied the gun into the object of her wrath.

The characters are all over the top clichés with no subtlety to their actions whatsoever. Io lashes out at everything, usually murdering someone in the process. She’s the quintessential angry 16 year old, except she’s not supposed to be 16. Yuniko… pauses… between… every.. phrase she… utters. She’s afraid… to talk… to… anyone. All of Io’s colleagues hate her because she supposedly thinks she’s worthy to judge others. I’d hate her just because she’s a bitch. Their reasons don’t make sense given they do exactly what she does. Not one of the characters made me want to care what happened to them. X-Pac heat.

So in the part I read before giving up, we learn nothing. A couple of things happen with the message about the end of the world. But nothing happens to move the story along.

And as soon as that message gets out, pretty much everyone immediately turns into a bad parody of Lord of the Flies. The world ends in a week, so everyone feels the need to murder their neighbors and set fire to the airport. This is me rolling my eyes.

Thing is, despite the many problems with the book, it could be something with a good editor and a large re-write. Add a little nuance to the characters. Cut the floridness from an 11 to a 10. Move up some of the storyline into the first 100 pages. Do that and this would be a decent book. But in this form it’s unreadable, and I stopped at page 93.

Edit: Read Ulises Silva’s reaction to this review.

Title: Solstice
Author: Ulises Silva
Cover creator: Nicholas DeWolf (artist) / Leda DeWolf (designer)
Imprint / publisher: Tragical Mirth Publishing
Format: Paperback
Length: 342 p. (I stopped at 93)
Publication date: 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0-9794513-0-0

I vowed in April (or maybe May) to read five of the top ten obscure S.F. works that deserve more attention as selected by Feminist SF. Well, they took their time getting the list out, but they did and I’ve got five of them in hand. I won’t be reading them all in a row. Instead my plan is to alternate them with other books. The first was Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu’s young adult fantasy Zahrah the Windseeker.

I thought Zahrah the Windseeker was a beautifully imagined fantasy world that has one huge drawback. On the positive and even recommended side overall, but man is that drawback prominent. So let me get it out of the way. The plot is utterly unoriginal and predictable in the worst way.

Zahrah Tsami was born dada, which means primarily she has funky hair and people think she will be a witch or rebellious at least. Turns out it means she can fly as she finds out when she floats up from bed a few times. She and her best friend Dari sneak a little ways into the Forbidden Greeny Jungle which surrounds the Ooni Kingdom so that Zahrah can practice flying. There Dari is bit by an exotic animal and falls into a coma. Before recriminations can go too far, Zahrah sneaks back into the jungle on a quest for an unfertilized elgort egg, said to be the only thing with the properties that can save her friend Dari.

On the other hand, the setting is done incredibly well and originally. The Ooni Kingdom is mostly plant based; computers and mirrors and other gadgets are grown from plants. The plant and animals that inhabit the Kingdom and the Greeny Jungle are a good combination of real world (like the baobab tree) and fantastic (pink frogs that know the future). My favorite of course was the giant venus flytrap like plant that ate a deer in front of Zahrah. I need to get me a venus flytrap for my place. The idea of plants turning the tables on animals thrills me (as long as it’s not me).

I also loved the Zahrah and Dari characters. Neither were pig-headed in a way that adults often write teens. I can’t think of an example that compares to these two characters, but what comes to mind is how bullies are often written, as if they have nothing better to do than torment others. The couple of female bullies that make an appearance in the book act more with disdain than with purpose. Other than Dari being the popular kid befriending the unpopular one, I think the author did her teens well.

And lastly, Zahrah the Windseeker does a much better job at pushing nature than some other attempts I’ve read recently (I’m calling you out Isabel Allende). Rather than a force for good, it’s described more as something that simply is. A very powerful something. But something that has both good and bad faces, while civilization also has good and bad aspects. One doesn’t simply jut go out into the jungle and live happily ever after. Things in the jungle are used (particularly by medicine) to good effect. Gorillas in the jungle have their own civilization. They don’t just commune with nature, they build towns. In other words, everything flows well and you don’t get beat over the head with nature good.

If only the plot was less predictable, this would be my favorite young adult fantasy.

Title: Zahrah the Windseeker
Author: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Cover creator: Sheila Smallwood; Carol Chu (designers)
Imprint / publisher: Graphia Books / Houghton Mifflin
Format: Paperback
Length: 308 p.
Publication date: 2005
ISBN-10: 0-547-02028-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-02028-0
Subject: Adventures and adventurers — Fiction
Subject: Coming of age — Fiction
Subject: Flight — Fiction
Subject: Best friends — Fiction
Subject: Jungles — Fiction
Subject: Fantasy
LC classification: PZ7.O4157Zah 2005