Since I had choir last night, and PDFs of graphic novels are not too portable, I decided to take a break from them and have a crack at the Short Stories category. Which is SO MUCH BETTER than last year you CANNOT IMAGINE.
NK Jemisin – The City Born Great. This is a story about the birth of New York, not in the sense of its founding, but of its birth and coming to awareness as a sentient, living being. The protagonist is, for want of a better word, the city’s protector and its midwife, which is a bit tricky, since they (I’m not actually sure if gender was ever specified) are decidedly underprivileged – homeless, hungry, and black. I loved the bits about singing to the city, and graffitiing by circles in a black so dark that it looked like a hole so that the city could breathe through these new ventilations. NK Jemisin clearly loves New York the way I love Paris. There is a nice poetry and sense of history to this story, and I love the concept. I like this story very much.
John C Wright – An Unimaginable Light. I went into this one a little prejudiced, because I know that Wright is associated with the Catholic end of the Rabid Puppies. I tried very hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Alas, this happened on page 2.
The kneeling girl did not look like a robot. She looked like a love goddess. Her face was piquant and elfin, her eyes danced and glittered. Her lips were full, her smile ready. She was pulchritudinous, buxom, callipygous, leggy. Her torso was slender, and her abdominal muscles as well defined as those of a belly dancer, so that her navel was like a period between two cursive brackets. Her hair was lustrous, and tied in a loose knot at the back of her swanlike neck. Hairy eye, and skin colour were optional. She was, of course, naked.
Oh, of course she was. And Mr Wright needs to put down his thesaurus now. And also wash the hand that wasn’t holding the thesaurus because I think we all know where it has been. Ick.
This story seems to be a philosophical argument about who is truly human disguised as a short story about a man interrogating a robot, with rather pretentious styling. It is also a fable about how moral relativism is stupid. And how PC culture is oppressive and whiny and microaggressions are just about people bullying people who have *real* morals. It is not as clever as it thinks it is. However, it is heavy-handed, pompous and sexist, and it also gets sadistic and rapey in the middle, which is just lovely. Also, Wright never misses an opportunity to remind us of the robot’s shapely form or flirtatious gaze. Bleargh.
Then we have a plot twist! And theology! And our constantly objectified heroine – who turns out to be called Maria, because that’s just how subtle John C Wright is – isn’t a robot at all! The interrogator was the robot all along, but he didn’t know this! Oh, my shock, it is so shocking! Of course, the way he discovers this is that Maria gets executed in a particularly gruesome and painful way because apparently this is the best way to convey that Love is the most important value and that without religion people will obviously make terrible, sadistic choices.
(Also because Wright’s Catholicism is big on suffering, but it’s better if women suffer, especially if we get to describe their shapely limbs in detail while they do so.)
Also, this plot twist kind of makes a lot of the rest of the plot illogical. Because the whole bit about the interrogator being turned on by hurting Maria is revolting enough when he is human, but makes absolutely no sense if he is a robot, especially as he is apparently following Asimov’s three laws of robotics.
I think this one is a clear No Award for me. It’s pretty terrible.
Alyssa Wong – A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers. This one is very good. The protagonist keeps trying to change time so that she can save her sister, again and again. So many permutations of one event, but not enough. It reminds me a lot of Kate Atkinson’s novel, Life after Life, actually. It’s sad and sweet and rather beautiful. It’s going to be tough to choose between this and the Jemisin. I think the Jemisin is more original, though. And I do have a thing for sentient objects.
Carrie Vaughn – That Game We Played During the War. This story is set in the aftermath of a war between the telepathic Gaantish and the non-telepathic, but very practical, Enithi. A Enithi former nurse who looked after Gaantish prisoners of war (who had to be kept sedated to frustrate their telepathy) comes to visit a former prisoner, and former captor, and friend, who is now in hospital, recovering from wounds received in one of the last battles of the war.
Oh, I love this. Not least because I want to read the romance novel that I am convinced is hidden behind and around this story.
I love that they have developed a way to play chess – which is of course tricky with telepathy involved. Calla, the Enithi nurse, thinks about all the moves Valk could make, but does not think about her moves, and in fact often moves at random, because it’s the only way to hide her strategy from Valk, and also, the randomness drives him up the wall. I admit to finding this especially appealing because I am a horrible chess player who gets overwhelmed by possibilities and thus also moves at random, only I do that most of the time. I also love the implications for how soldiers and prisoners and captors think about each other in this war, and the ways in which fears don’t match up with reality. But most of all I love the friendship in this book, which transcends war and enmity. This is such a kind, affectionate sort of story, the perfect antidote to John bloody Wright. It reminds me of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Shards of Honoor, in all the best ways. I want to read more of Vaughan’s work. This is going to the top of my ballot.
Brooke Bolander – Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies. A sadistic killer decides to make a harpy his victim. It doesn’t end well for him. This story is pretty clearly inspired by reading one too many stories about the ‘distraught father and husband’ who murdered his family, or the ‘promising young man’ whose bright future is being put at terrible risk by the fact that he raped someone (thank goodness for judges who won’t let him suffer too badly for twenty minutes of action!). It is full of rage, as is appropriate. It’s a good story, but there are a lot of good stories this year, and I prefer friendship and wonder to rage, so it’s probably going to be low on my ballot. But can I just say how delightful and refreshing it is to be forced to put a good story low on my ballot because there are so many good stories and they can’t all be at the top?
Amal El-Mohtar – Seasons of Glass and Iron. Another one that I love! This is a subversive, feminist fairy tale, so I am all over it like a RASH. The girl with the iron shoes (and I love how she reflects that the boys get seven league boots and slippers that make them invisible, while the girls get shoes made of molten iron or slippers that make you dance yourself to death) meets the girl on the glass mountain (who really does not want any of the suitors who fall in love with her, then shout horrific abuse at her when they fail to win her). I love how each heroine can see the injustices in the other’s story so easily, but cannot see the injustices in her own. And the ending is obvious and inevitable and utterly appropriate. This is totally the story I wish I’d written.
At this stage, I’m having trouble deciding on whether to put Vaughan ahead of El-Mohtar (mostly because I love Vaughan too much, and feel like I love it for the wrong reasons) (but I still love it more because that’s who I am), but Jemisin is definitely third, Wong is fourth, and Bolander is in fifth place. Woe is me, I shall have to read the Vaughan and the El-Mohtar stories again, just to be sure of who should go first…
