A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine

My whole approach to reading this book was shaped by the dedication--"to anyone who finds themselves falling in love with a culture that is swallowing theirs". We have an ambassador from a tiny nation (space station), not even a Tuvalu to America, trying to save it from being swallowed and digested by a huge empire. Even though it's already happening through cultural exchange. And Teixcalaan is beautifully crafted to play the part--an incredible façade of high culture and wealth. A place where official business is conducted in poetry. Obviously the author is a poet, and a literary person, since the book is suffused with inside baseball commentary on the literary worthiness of state pronouncements.

It is also spot on in the high handedness of upper class Teixcalaan citizens (we only briefly meet any other kind). The Lsel ambassador is a "barbarian", and all complements on their intellect are backhanded. We get brief glimpses of the brutality of the empire, but mostly we get the glitter.

Teixcalaan culture is sort of Aztec, but the approach is British. The empire expands and brings its own version of "white man's burden" to the colonies. This is only hinted at, since the protagonist is from a still (but not for long) independent state. The ambassador has studied them and knows the very literary way in which Teixcalaan views the universe (or world, or city--in Teixcalaan, the words are all the same and only understood in context).

It's a fascinating read, and the relationships between the characters are special and well-drawn. Being around such literate folks makes us feel good and smart ourselves. It will be interesting to see where he takes this.

My Goodreads Review

Omphalos, by Ted Chiang

Omphalos was nominated for the Hugo for Best Novelette this year.  At first it's hard to tell where the story is going, as it is done in the form of prayers.  But it is soon apparent why the scientist author is devoted--this is a small universe where the act of creation is readily apparent in the fossil record and in the stars.  The earliest trees have solid cores.  Cliffs with exposed sediment layers have solid granite not far beneath.  What is science like in a world like this?  Basically an exposition of God's ideas.  

But the people of earth are human, and have human conceits.  They believe they are the pinnacle of creation and the center of the universe.  But what if one of those incontrovertible facts is that we are not, in fact, in the center?  

Another truly amazing read.  It seems like everything Chiang writes gets nominated for multiple awards.  In fact I think this is true, because he is not particularly prolific.  He seems to write when he has something to say, and not otherwise.  Always worth it.

Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom, by Ted Chiang

 Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom is one of the original stories in Ted Chiang's Exhalation collection, and was nominated for a Hugo for Best Novella this year.  My very favorite thing about all of Chiang's stories is that in each one he takes on the biggest of topics--some aspect of the meaning of life.  I can't think of one that couldn't be a sermon (in a somewhat liberal, intellectual church).  The driver is a speculation that is sometimes possible, sometimes not, but always grounded in reality.  In this story the driver is a device that forces a quantum choice, causing possibilities to diverge, then showing you yourself living in that alternate possibility.  What would we use that for?  What would it teach us?  Well, we'd exploit it for money, but also use it for connection, for collaboration, and for science.  In the protagonist, Nat, we see someone who has gone down a difficult road but is trying to make better choices, and trying to find reasons to do so.  My favorite idea is that of making choices that influence our future alternate selves--each positive choice makes it easier for those alternate versions to make positive choices as well.  Made my day.

Goodreads Link

Rosewater, by Tade Thompson

Rosewater is not a perfect book, but it is the kind of book where the imperfections actually make it better. Look elsewhere for the plot summary. I want to talk about the world and character building, both of which were fascinating.

First of all, Thompson's scientific premise of the effects of the alien he calls Wormwood was very effective and convincing. The concept of a planet-wide bacterial infection that allows some people to read thoughts is convincing on two levels--it makes sense in and of itself, and then you realize it is probably just our poor metaphor for what is really going on.

But what really sets the stage is our protagonist, Kaaro. Kaaro is an anti-hero and (as others have noted) an unreliable narrator, which makes trying to figure out what is going on in this world through his eyes even more interesting. Kaaro does not spare himself from moral outrage--he is a thief and something of a scoundrel by his own telling. I see just a little bit of the protagonist from Camus' The Stranger in Kaaro. He seems disconnected and distanced from his own behavior and emotions, and so does not understand why he does what he does.

The bouncing around the timeline that the story does usually works, but sometimes got me a bit lost. I was motivated to try to keep up. Thompson is good at distributing little tidbits about Nigerian culture as explanation for a particular behavior without doing lots of exposition.

The ending has lots of possibilities for new directions for the series. It does not appear that he is going to tell the same story again. I am definitely going to read the rest.

My Goodreads Review

The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark

 I liked this story, perhaps more than the star rating will suggest. It's a good solid tale in a world with incredible promise. Inspector Nasr and his protege Onsi are reasonably engaging fellows, and there's a feel-good subplot on women's suffrage in Egypt included. The story is small in scope (a single haunt of a single tram car) rather than the world-threatening event of the first story, and there's a certain self-consciousness about that reflected in it. I just have to say that I was just a little disappointed that, having my appetite whetted by the highly flavorful Fatma el-Sha’arawi, I had to settle for the somewhat more bready Nasr and Onsi for the subsequent course. But the world itself will keep me and others coming back.

My Goodreads Review

A Dead Djinn In Cairo, by P. Djèlí Clark

I read this to prepare for reading The Haunting of Tram Car 015. Am glad I did, because the story is a great introduction to this world. A universe that combines humanity adjusting to magical beings with Cairo as the most influential city in the world, and Egypt as a great power, has all kinds of great possibilities, and I think the era setting (right after the Gilded Age) is a great choice as well. Perhaps this world will not have a Great Depression. The story is fine, it's a good detective tale and introduces the protagonist (Special Investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi) very well, though it's a bit predictable. Definitely makes you want more, and I'm looking forward to the next installment.  

My Goodreads Review

The Future of Another Time Line, by Annalee Newitz

So this is a pretty straightforward time travel story, meant to use time travel as a way to talk about our present. Which it does, very effectively. The main point of the book is a feminist vs. misogynist time travel edit-the-past war, and it stays logically true to what time travel would accomplish, but with a very interesting twist that in this telling, everyone has known through most of human history that time travel is possible. The premise is a side note to the main story, but brings up some interesting points Newitz kind of throws in along the way. The time travel machines no longer have an interface--worn away over geologic time--but are usable anyway by tapping on the rocks they appear to be. Travelers have gone back far enough to see the interface, and it has lights and buttons. Yet there is a discussion about whether they are made or a natural phenomenon. It seems obvious that they are made, but should it be? I think if I were living with something like this I would entertain the natural hypothesis, without any other evidence of other intelligence involvement. It's a lot like Intelligent Design.

The main story is a very 201- telling of a time edit battle, which serves as a platform to talk about feminism, lesbianism, and the lengths one can go to in defending an idea. It ticks all the boxes, from White Supremacy to moralism to abusive fathers. It's well done, but been done. The plot twists are worthy ones. A self-conscious time travel story is rarely explored territory--most of the others I know of are one-off events or secret societies. One very large exception would be the Terminator series, where it's invented and seems to be generally known about at the end of the future human-AI war. So overall, I'm glad I read it.

Goodreads Review