11: Kindred

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Butler, Octavia. Kindred.

in short: Why am I even summarizing this? You all know what this book is about. For the record: Kindred is the story of 20th century black woman who finds herself transported back in time to the antebellum Southin order to save the life of a young white boy whom she suspects may be her ancestor. Not for the faint of heart.

( ware spoilers )

15. Alice Randall, The Wind Done Gone

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15. Alice Randall, The Wind Done Gone

This book is, in a way, fanfiction of Gone with the Wind. I remember the huge controversy when it first came out (long story short: the copyright holders of Gone with the Wind sued to prevent publication of this book), but I hadn't read it until now.

It's an absolutely gorgeous book. The language is really lovely, poetic and often dream-like. The story is about Cynara, the mixed-race daughter of Mammy and the half-sister of Scarlett O'Hara. There's a great deal of intersection with and reinterpreting of the events and characters of Gone with the Wind (I haven't read that book, though I've seen the movie a few times, and didn't have a problem following along). The narration skips around in time a great deal, mainly following Cynara's life in Atlanta and Washington D.C. after Rhett Butler leaves Scarlett at the end of Gone with the Wind, but with large portions dealing with memories of events from her childhood or young adult life. It can be depressing and bitter, but the book ultimately ends on an optimistic note, due to the politics and changes of the Reconstruction Period that Cynara participates in.

I thought the best part of the book was its depiction of the emotional and psychology effects of slavery. Cynara, as the daughter of a plantation owner, is relatively sheltered from many of the physical effects of slavery (she is not whipped, she does not work in the fields, her father makes a bit of an attempt to protect her from sexual abuse), but it is still absolutely clear what devastating consequences it has had on her life. In particular, the four-way relationship between Cynara, Mammy, Scarlett, and Scarlett's mother is complicated, heart-breaking, and (I thought) insightful.

#3, "Vertamae Cooks," by Vertamae Grosvenor

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I had some familiarity with Vertamae Grosvenor's work before, ("Vibration Cooking"), but I actually found this book when my mother was doing an African foods research project. It has lots of interesting looking recipes from around the African diaspora, as well as information about the history and cultural significance of the various dishes. I didn't cook anything out of it, but the recipes sounded tasty and practical, and there was a lot of emphasis on fruits and vegetables, which I appreciated. I also liked the information in Geechee/Gullah culture, which is Grosvenor's own background, and something that I knew very little about before reading this book.

A Taste of Crimson, by Marjorie Liu. 29.

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Not part of her cracktastic Dirk & Steele series, this novel is part of someone else's series but stands on its own and is actually rather less cracktastic, featuring vampires and werewolves (plus a demon ex machina) rather than mermen, the Ferie Queen, organleggers, and gargoyles.

Keeli is a pink-haired werewolf with anger issues; Michael is a 300-year-old steppes nomad vampire executioner of vampires. Together, they fight crime!

I don't have a ton to say about this, but I enjoyed it. See it on Amazon: A Taste of Crimson (Crimson City)

Mary Anne Mohanraj, Ken Liu, Rebecca Haile, Octavia Butler

[mizchalmers.livejournal.com]

25. Mary Anne Mohanraj, "Jump Space", and Ken Liu, "Single Bit Error", from Thoughtcrime Experiments, ed Sumana Harihareswara and Leonard Richardson

First the disclaimers: I have known Leonard and Sumana for, like, ever, and when they announced the idea for this anthology I was so intrigued that I threw some cash in the pot, and so I am thanked in the acknowledgments. Yay!

Even cooler, the story they sort of chose for me is "Jump Space", which I purely love. It's a head-on collision between the Heinlein juvenile adventure stories I adored as a kid - the Have Spacesuit Will Travel or Space Family Stones - and a thoroughly 21st century set of attitudes towards love, sex, dating one's professor, marriage, faithfulness, jealousy, prostitution, slavery and even raising children (my main preoccupation these days and one that Heinlein tended to rather idealize...)

I liked "Jump Space" so much that I was startled to find a story in Thoughtcrime that I liked even better. It is "Single Bit Error" by Ken Liu. Can't tell you much about it without spoiling a rather excellent surprise, but wow, it's just a stunner. Weaves together theoretical computer science and existential philosophy in a way I've always thought could be done, but never quite managed to do or see anyone else doing...

You should allow for my extreme bias in favor of my friends; despite this utter lack of objectivity I recommend this anthology to anyone who's interested in the best and bravest modern science fiction.

26. Rebecca Haile, Held at a Distance

Haile fled Ethiopia as a child and returned many years later, with her husband, to visit her family. This book is the memoir of that trip. It's a thoughtful and wistful tale; the passages on her father's house, where Haile retraces his movements on the bloody night that ended their life in Ethiopia, are powerful and evocative. My favorite chapter, though, was "The Engineer", about Haile's uncle Tadesse, an entrepreneur with interests in construction, marble mining and damming the sources of the Blue Nile to irrigate the desert. The portrait of this eccentric, peremptory philanthropist just leaps off the page.

27. Octavia Butler, Wild Seed

I'm in a blue funk at the moment and couldn't get stuck into anything until I picked this up and found some solace in Butler's cool, dispassionate prose. Others have already praised this remarkable book to the skies, freeing me to pick out just a few of the things I liked best. If Butler's Fledgling was a brilliant commentary on venture capitalism, Doro, the character who exists only as a mind that moves from body to body, killing as he goes, is an extraordinarily effective allegory for (among many other things) institutional slavery, colonialism, investment banking and the patriarchy. It comes in many different guises but we always recognize - and however unwillingly, must obey - its voice.

In this reading Anyanwu, the heroine, becomes the many things that an effective resistance might have to look like: deathless, healing, protean and almost inhumanly merciful. Keep this one somewhere safe. It's an essential handbook to the revolution.