Review: The Maid and the Crocodile

The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading this book amounted to giving the author a second chance, as my previous try had resulted in an emphatic did-not-finish. This illustrates that sometimes a reader just has to be in the right mindset to "get" a book. I not only "got" this book, I finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Maybe because it's intended for the young-adult audience, but I found this book to be simpler (but not simplistic) and straightforward, with nice characterizations and a rather sophisticated theme of class struggle. Our protagonist, Sade (or "Small Sade" as she is not tall) can see and manipulate what she calls "spirit silt": the psychic drippings and accumulations of human emotions, in a room and on objects and people, and can clean and remove said silt in a way that mitigates its influence. She is kicked out of the orphanage where she has been living on her seventeenth birthday, and must make her way into the city completely on her on, to find a job or starve.

Along the way she picks up several interesting side characters, including Zuri, the "crocodile god" who is far more than he seems; and the so-called "Amenities," or servants, at the Balogun Inn and Philosophy Salon, an establishment where she lives and works for a while. At least until the owner tries to force Sade to become a spirit-cleaning indentured servant, absorbing and "eating" the many sins of the city's wealthy. This process is so revolting that Sade flees, and is taken in by the Crocodile. The Crocodile, the former prince of a wealthy land who gave up the throne, is a character with a fascinating backstory, who has to learn a few lessons in his own right: namely, to do honest work for a living and support the lower-class workers in their oppression by the higher-ups. Sade also has to learn that she is worthy of being respected and loved. She and the other Amenities end up taking over the Balogun Inn, renaming it the Tall Tale Inn and turning it into an establishment where the experiences of the working class are presented every night as little one-act plays, telling the stories of the people in the city. (I wish the author could have delved a little deeper into that. That could have made an entire book all by itself.)

This is a nice coming-of-age tale for both Sade and the Crocodile. The fate of their world and city is not necessarily at stake; the stakes here are based on the characters. Perhaps it's this quieter, more personal story that drew me in. At any rate, this book is worth reading, and definitely changed my opinion of the author. Not every book is for everybody, but I'm glad I gave the author another chance.

View all my reviews

Review: We Called Them Giants

We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This graphic novel suffers from the two biggest faults it could have, in my view: inadequate worldbuilding and characterization. Yes, I know there's only 100 pages to tell this complete story, but that clearly wasn't enough; the ending didn't feel like it wrapped things up at all. Too many threads were left dangling, and precious little was explained.

In a nutshell, this is the story of an alien invasion by giant bipedal mecha monsters, combined with the rapture-like (as in, almost everyone vanished, not even leaving their empty shoes behind) disappearance of the entire world population. Except, that is, for Lori, our protagonist, a distrustful and cynical foster child; her schoolmate Annette, who she runs across the first morning after the disappearance, when she is wandering the abandoned streets looking for others; and Beatrice, and older woman who has a hidden camp in the shadow of the Giants, as they are called. There are also some others, who, in typical Mad Max post-apocalyptic style, have banded together into gangs roaming the empty city searching for food (and presumably people to rape, although thankfully that doesn't happen in this story). Lori, Annette and Beatrice stick together, but they are headed into winter, the temperature is dropping, and food is getting harder and harder to find.

All well and good. But this promising setup is pretty much wasted, because we never get the slightest explanation of what is going on. Are the Giants mechanical or organic beings, and why are they here? Where did the rest of the people go, and did the Giants make them disappear? Why were Lori, Annette and Beatrice, and the various gang members, not raptured, or whatever happened? There is a bit of platitude at the end about one of the Giants taking the three protagonists under its wing, as it were, bringing them food and providing shelter, and eventually giving its life to defend them from another mecha, but there is no real communication and no revealing of why they are here or what they are doing. It's frankly more than a little disappointing, especially coming from a writer who produced the excellent series The Wicked and the Divine.

In fact, now that I think about it, don't even bother with this. Go read The Wicked and the Divine instead.

View all my reviews

At the Movies: Superman--All of the CGI, (Almost) None of the Heart

 

I must preface this by saying that I have not seen most of the recent Superman films, including the nearly universally derided Man of Steel, blasted for its indifference to civilian casualties during the battle sequences. I have seen Christopher Reeve's original Superman, widely regarded as the best, but that was years ago. So I suppose one could say that I am coming to the franchise and character with fresh eyes, my opinion unaffected by reactions to the previous iterations, able to judge this film on its own merits. 

Unfortunately, this film, while hopeful and uplifting in some ways, suffers a basic flaw that cannot be worked around: it was made in the age of superhero bombast and CGI spectacle, when films have to be bigger! badder! louder! with exploding third acts and ever larger, nastier monsters! And it really suffers as a result. At least James Gunn had the sense to get rid of the origin sequence entirely; so, after a rather inspired Star Wars-like crawl explaining who Superman is and why, three minutes ago, he suffered the first defeat of his life, our initial glimpse of the titular hero is of him crash-landing in the snow on the Antarctic peninsula where the Fortress of Solitude is buried, and Krypto the Superdog coming out to rescue him. 

(Krypto is one of the best things in the movie, but like everything else, his portrayal eventually goes waaaaayyy over the top.)

Much of the tension in this film is derived from the inherent conflict of the main character: an alien being, essentially a god, is let loose on Earth, and despite his obvious desire to do good and help people, the people of Earth might not want his help, and regard his assistance as interference. (And sure, people can be stubborn and stupid like that, rejecting help they clearly need, but it's still their choice.) This is made clear in the film's best scene: an interview/argument between Clark Kent and Lois Lane (who, in another modern twist, not only is aware of Superman's dual identity, but has been dating the two of them for months). Lois warns Clark that he might not like the questions she is going to ask. Sure enough, he does not, as she digs into why he took it upon himself to stop a war between two neighboring (fictional) countries, without even attempting to go through diplomatic channels. His defensive rejoinder, "People were going to die!" may have been true, but it also brings into view the double-edged sword of his existence: the fact of a godlike alien being who can do whatever the fuck he wants and nobody can stop him, and what if he decides to do bad things, or at the very least presumptuous, unnecessary things, instead of what he thinks are good things? 

(This was actually the premise of a film I watched several years ago, Brightburn. I suspect I would have an entirely different view of that movie today if I revisited it.) 

This scene was the best part of the film, precisely because of the ethical and emotional conflict, but also because it had no special effects and was allowed to play out the length it needed to be without rushing. Which brings up my biggest problem with this movie: the overwhelming CGI. Now, I realize in this age of $200 million (or more) superhero films, CGI is a necessity. After all, we presently don't have alien or genetically engineered actors who can take on these roles. But the computerized special effects in this movie were pretty much overwhelming from beginning to end, from the Fortress of Solitude's popping out of the Antarctic ice to Superman's fight with a gigantic Gremlin in the second act to the Green Lantern's awful fake-looking ooze (that particular CGI element was not good at all, almost as bad as Nathan Fillion's blond bowl-cut wig) to Lex Luthor's pocket universe with its multicolored "proton river" that Superman tumbles through holding an alien baby for freaking ever, to Superman's fighting a longhaired voiceless clone of himself, a fight that seemed to go on for hours; to the black nanite stream that Lex Luthor's henchwoman the Engineer pumps down Superman's throat and into his lungs in an attempt to suffocate him, which he pulls up in an icky black rope out of his mouth; to the "dimensional rift" that threatens to cleave Metropolis in two, toppling thinly disguised New York skyscrapers like dominoes, and then after it is shut down the halves of the ruined buildings are put back together, which seemed to me to be supremely useless, as their stuctural integrity is now completely wrecked; to Krypto's spinning through the air like a furry top, chomping on the drones Lex Luthor was using to direct his Superman clone; and I could go on and on and on. All this over-the-top spectacle left almost no room for the film's needed emotional beats, and those that were there got short shrift. In particular a scene between Superman and Pa Kent that should have been the heart of the film, when Clark's adoptive father impresses on him that his choices are what matter, not his bloodline, and states how proud he is of his Kryptonian son, was cut abruptly short. This scene should have been slowed down and allowed to breathe, and instead is rushed through so Mr. Terrific can yell for Superman's help.

(And may I say that the message Lex Luthor discovers when he raids the Fortress of Solitude, the message from Jor-El and Lara that Superman never heard the latter half of until now, is completely repulsive? His Kryptonian parents sent their baby to Earth to ostensibly "do good," but said "good" was supposed to consist of a) Superman's conquering and ruling the entire planet; b) taking on a "superharem" of unwilling human women; and c) raping and impregnating said harem so the Kryptonian genes wouldn't die out. And Superman doesn't even react to this, or rather he reacts only to the first part and not the other two, as in "MY FUCKING PARENTS SENT ME HERE TO DO WHAT?" Hell, the villain of this movie recognized the horribleness of this statement more than the supposed hero.)

Watching this well-intentioned but misguided mess of a movie actually made me rethink a film I saw earlier this year, Marvel's Thunderbolts*. Now, lest I sound hypocritical, Thunderbolts* is not CGI-free (although it reportedly had more practical effects than is usual for Marvel nowadays). However, the effects took a back seat to the fully realized, if entirely dysfunctional, characters and their relationships. Also, at the climax, the non-superpowered Yelena Bulova took down the villain by recognizing and acknowledging the conflict within him and telling him he was not alone (to be fair, the "villain" Bob was a half-hearted villain at best, nothing like Lex Luthor). Thunderbolts* is not top-tier Marvel, but comparing it to Superman levels it up several notches. 

I will say that David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult were very good in their respective roles as Superman and Lex Luthor, and Rachel Brosnahan made for a nicely updated, modern Lois Lane. (Corenswet, in particular, almost looks like he could be Christopher Reeve's son.) Unfortunately, the scant few minutes of real emotion that float to the top of the swirling sludge of CGI bloat (and then are sucked right back down again) do not a satisfying film make. 

Review: The Ministry of Time

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book, unfortunately, falls into the category of "literary author who thinks they can write science fiction." While that can certainly be done--Cormac McCarthy's The Road comes to mind--in most cases the result is a mediocre combination of the two genres. It usually goes like this: from a technical craft point of view, the book may be beautifully written, with sentences and paragraphs that sing--but when you cross over to the SF side of the story, the notes fall woefully flat.

Just as an example, here is a paragraph picked at random.

The day I'd chosen was, in fact, fair. The light was even and soft, like carefully sifted flour. Deranged by the heat shift, unseasonal roses were bursting and shedding luminously in front gardens and public squares. A cool breeze ran alongside us as we cycled; it resembled nothing so much as a handshake. As with every time I experienced clement weather, I was overcome with the sense that my troubles and pains had been put on hold, and would resume after an interval break in which I could, spiritually speaking, use the bathroom and get a drink and generally fix myself.

This style of writing is fine in and of itself, I suppose, but when stuff like this is sprinked into every page of the book, it feels more and more like the author saying, "LOOK AT ME! SEE HOW CLEVER AND WRITERLY I AM!" Frankly, towards the end of the book these literary flourishes began to get irritating. I wanted the author to GET ON WITH THE STORY instead of slinging these fluffy metaphors and tangled similes everywhere.

Needless to say, that means this book's pacing is thoroughly messed up. The first half of the book proceeds at a tortured crawl, and the second half at a gasping, lung-heaving run. This brings the book's second problem into sharp focus: the fact for a purported "science fiction"novel,the "science"part of it is sorely lacking. This is a time-travel romance where the time-travel mechanism is handwaved at best (the titular Ministry of Time actually steals it, from visitors a century further down the line who are trying to alter their future of accelerated climate change). In fairness, it's obvious the author is not at all interested in how her "blue door" might work. (It works, all right, but if someone is standing in its way when it manifests, that person is slashed to ribbons.) She is concerned with the five people from past centuries who have been brought forward in time, how they are coping--or not--with the strange new world they have unwillingly been dumped into, and the culture clash between them and their minders.

Our protagonist and narrator is one of those minders, or "bridges," a nameless British-Cambodian woman who becomes involved, both professionally and personally, with one Graham Gore, who was yanked from a doomed Arctic expedition in 1847. (And may I say that the author's refusal to reveal her name is damned annoying.) The plot twist to all this (which most people will see coming, and which frankly is a bit cliched and tiresome) is that her boss, one Adela Gore, is the protagonist from another timeline twenty years down the road, who married Graham and had a child by him. This plot twist was unpersuasive, I thought, and rather pointless by the end.

At the very end, we find out the narrator has been writing this entire story to her future self, attempting to get Adela to make different choices (and thus change the timeline, I suppose). The last three paragraphs of the book are actually the best-written of the entire thing, a simple, elegaic plea for "forgiveness and hope." I wish the rest of the book had been written in the style of those final paragraphs. As it is, it's just not something I cared for.

View all my reviews

Review: Sheine Lende

Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a prequel to Elatsoe , set fifty years earlier and focusing on Elatsoe's grandmother, Sheine Lende, or Shane as she is commonly known. Shane and her mother, Lorenza, and their two bloodhounds (actually three with Nellie the ghost hound) find missing people. The book opens with them working a case, and as the story continues Lorenza vanishes while working another case, along with the little brother of one of Shane's friends. This book is the story of the lengths Shane will go to, up to and including visiting the land of the dead, to get her mother back.

Although that point is one of the more interesting things about this story. I noted in my review of Elatsoe that I wished the author would reveal more about her world, and this does happen here to some extent (although not as much as I would have liked). We are talking here about an alternate history and alternate world, where ghosts, the fae, faery rings, and the land of the dead are real things that exist:

Typical fairy rings always grew in pairs, living and dying together. It was part of their alien biology: they weren't two separate rings, but one ring in two places. The fae realm, from which magic spilled onto Earth, was a place of spatial and temporal anomalies. Space and time could be stretched, refracted, and reassembled like the building blocks in a child's play pen.

Simply put, it was impossible for a typical fairy ring to exist--much less function--in just one point on the globe.

Yes, some of the verbiage is the usual fantasy/urban fantasy terminology. But you notice the use of more scientific concepts to desribe what is going on? That pushes this book more towards the realm of science fiction, at least as far as I am concerned. Maybe a hybrid of the two, straddling the divide of a simple categorization. This also extends to the characters, and Shane, her friends, and her grandfather are not your usual fantasy people. Shane, in particular, is a lot like her granddaughter Elatsoe, thoughtful and practical and determined to set things right.

Shane travels a far distance in this story, whether it's to the land of the dead or another planet and solar system (I lean more towards the latter, and Shane describes the constellations she sees in the "land of the dead" as nothing like Earth's). The relationships between Shane and her friends take center stage here, and she uses the fairy rings--and their time-travel capabilities--to bring her mother home. The epilogue of the book takes place some fifty years later, with Shane and Elatsoe visiting the same fairy ring where Lorenza reappeared, to welcome a man who has been lost for longer in time than Shane's mother was.

It's not the best young adult novel I've read this year (that would be this), but it's entertaining enough.



View all my reviews