Reading Notes: Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, and a note on Throne of the Crescent Moon

This post is part of my commitment to read and review as many nominated works in the Hugo Awards (Science Fiction Awards) as possible before the prize announcements in early September.   Today I am looking at the last two the five nominated novels: Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vortaptril's Alliance, and briefly at Saladin Ahmed's Throne of the Crescent Moon.

There are few pleasures in life to rival the excitement  of discovering a wonderful author, new to you but well established and possessing of a deliciously inviting long backlist. It's like being a kid in a candy shop, thinking about all the reading pleasures in store, and knowing you don't have to wait for them, because look! the books already exist!

That sentiment captures in its entirety why I loved Captain Vorpatril's Alliance disproportionately to how good a book it is, if considering it as a single text. Oh, independently of context, this is still a really, really enjoyable book - great characters, a lighthearted but not trivial plot, plenty of colour and movement, and a sure, steady hand with pacing - but the reason I fell head over heels for it is the knowledge that there is a whole universe of Vorkosigan books out there, many of them even stronger than this one (so I am told by Vor enthusiast friends), within which Ivan Xav's story plays out.

In essence, Bujold gives us the story of how Ivan Xav Vortpatril, amiable if slightly bumbly aide de camp, meets, rescues, becomes embroiled with and eventually falls in love with his wife, the Jackson's Whole aristocrat Tej. That's the meat and potatoes of the plot, but it's set within a vibrant, fully realised spacegoing future, with the Vor empire (Russian-derived) on Barrayar transposed with the different cultures of space outpost Jackson's Whole, the technologically and socially advanced Beta, and the genetic tinkerers of Cetaganda.

I may have mentioned once or twice that I don't really like romance stories, but this book, although clearly both science fiction and humorous, also has an undeniably romantic and whimsical feel to it - yet I loved it. The strange thing is that I didn't love it in spite of the Ivan / Tej plot trajectory; I loved it because of it, and was barracking hard for the two of them to reach their happy place intact as the storyline increasingly descended into chaotic farce around them. Perhaps what I've learned from this is that actually I am OK with romantic stories, provided they are a) funny b) not soppy c) have a good enough overall plot and d) have great characters who I can really like. Bujold pulls this off with the casual mastery of a seasoned writer who writes awesome work. I can't believe I've somehow managed to miss her before now, but I will most definitely be making up for lost time now!

As for Throne of the Crescent Moon ... This is a book that I made three attempts to get into but failed each time. I found the writing style remarkably hyperbolic and overheated, and if there is one thing I dislike more than gratuitous romance in a book, it's gratuitous torture, especially as an opening gambit. No, you don't convince me you're really serious and dark and whatnot by dismembering someone alive on page 3; you just convince me you're trying to make shock do the work of engagement. That said, I can't write a fair review on this book, because I never got past chapter 5. Suffice to say, it wasn't for me, although I know others have liked it.

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So, with 4 of the 5 novels read and one abandoned because I didn't like it, I'm prepared to pick my winner.

For me there were two clear front-runners: Redshirts and Captain Vortpatril's Alliance (the first and last books I read, as it happened). I thought 2312 was extraordinary in many ways but also quite dense and difficult, with insufficient pay-off; and while I enjoyed Blackout for what it was, and think it's streets ahead of usual thriller fare, it didn't quite rise to the heights of enjoyment, twistiness and humour of Redshirts, or sheer affection that Captain Vorpatril inspired in me. As for Throne of the Crescent Moon, it was just not at all my cup of tea.

If I was picking a winner based on which book I feel the most affinity for and attachment to, I'd go with Captain Vorpatril - now enmeshed in reading all the Vorkosigan books, I can see, with great happiness, that I'm going to enjoy it even more on subsequent readings. However, on balance, I think Redshirts is a more complete achievement, and I admire the self-contained nature of it immensely in a genre addicted to long series fiction. So, my novel category winner would be Redshirts, but I would not be sad if Captain Vorpatril pipped it either.

This brings to an end my Hugo journey. I am conceding defeat on the novelettes - I am now embarked on my Man Booker reading challenge, and also have three other books to get read and reviewed, not to mention my happy journey through the Vorkosigan universe. However, I didn't do too badly - all the shorts, all the novellas and the novels is a pretty good effort! I will check out the results with interest in September.

New reading challenge: The Man Booker Prize longlist

The longlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize was announced yesterday, presenting an interesting 13-book selection. Featuring less debut authors than last year's list (there are three - Eve Harris, NoViolet Bulawayo and Donal Ryan), the list is nonetheless pretty diverse in terms of country of origin, theme and style. And unlike last year, there aren't any obvious heavy-hitters on the list - sure, Colum McCann and Jim Crace are strong, known performers, but at most of these writers have been niche successes at best before now. Here is the list:

Tash Aw,  Five Star Billionaire (Fourth Estate)
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names (Chatto & Windus)
Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (Granta)
Jim Crace, Harvest (Picador)
Eve Harris, The Marrying of Chani Kaufman (Sandstone Press)
Richard House, The Kills (Picador)
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland (Bloomsbury)
Alison MacLeod, Unexploded (Hamish Hamilton)
Colum McCann, TransAtlantic (Bloomsbury)
Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English (Mantle)
Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (Canongate)
Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart (Doubleday Ireland)
Colm Tóibín, The Testament of Mary (Viking)

As I did last year, I'm going to give it a go to read and review the longlist before the announcement of the shortlist on 10 September. Given that I have, at this point, read ZERO books, and I start a new job next Tuesday, this is absolutely going to be a failed attempt, but I'll get as far as I can, then do any that are shortlisted that I haven't picked up on the longlist project before the prize announcement on 15 October.

Last year I came to the longlist with a strong suspicion that Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies was going to be the best book on the list, and win the prize. Sure enough, this proved to be the case; head and shoulders above the rest, it shone like the diamond it is, and deservedly took the honours. This year I can honestly say I have no particular preconceptions. I note that I like Jim Crace's work a lot, but as all the other authors on the list are new to me, I really am coming to this as a cleanskin, which is quite refreshing in a way.

I've bought Five Star Billionaire and Harvest for my Kobo to kick off - the first because it sounds really interesting, the second because I have previously enjoyed books by the author. I have decided to leave A Tale for the Time Being, TransAtlantic, The Kills and The Luminaries in the probably-not pile, to be read only if a miracle happens and I get through the rest - this is based on factors like reasonably priced availability (A Tale for the Time Being is selling as an ebook for a whopping $25) and lack of appeal based on their blurbs. So as an initial, and probably hopelessly optimistic, goal, I'm trying for 9 of the 13 over the coming 7 weeks. Really, I'd be happy to get through 6 and get reviews up of each, but we'll see.

I am starting Five Star Billionaire as soon as I've finished and reviewed three other things I'm almost through, but before I do any Booker reviews, I need to close the loop on the Hugo nominees (1 novel review and the novelettes to go). My first Booker review, therefore, will probably appear as part of the Interleaves column on The Shake in 2 weeks' time.

Anyone else planning to hit the Booker list, or, better yet, have you already read any of these? If so, please, steer me towards the gold (and away from the turkeys, if any!)

Time for a post about something gross

Recently, we've been spending a horrific amount of time in a war of attrition with the remarkable, persistent and apparently unkillable human parasite, the intrepid pediculosis capitis.

That would be HEAD LICE, to all you non Latin scholars out there.

While we have had lice before, we've always been able to get rid of them with the standard two-step treatment - poison the crap out of them, conditioner and comb, and repeat 7-10 days later. I think we've had three go-arounds in the 6 years since my eldest started kindergarten, which isn't terrible with three girls, I suppose. And before 3 months ago, we hadn't had any problems for close to 2 years.

About 10 weeks ago, though, my 10 year old was scratching her head fit to bust one night and I decided I should check her hair. She and the 8 year old often have itchy scalps from dandruff; it's not usually a cause for concern.

This time, as soon as I parted her hair to look at the scalp, a monster-sized louse scrambled for cover under her thick, almost bum-length, hair.

After many exclamations of ewwwww and gross (from both her and I), I applied the poison, washed it out, conditioned and combed. There were about 6-8 dead bugs, a handful of eggs, plus (with hindsight being 20/20, this should've been a red flag) a half-dozen bugs in various sizes that were still moving. Although I quickly killed them with my fingernail, I admit I felt a qualm or two. Why hadn't they died with the poison?

We got the dismal answer to *that* when doing the repeat treatment 9 days later, by which I time I had started to itch as well. On treating both daughter and I, I dislodged multiple bugs, babies and eggs from her head; just two bugs from mine, but an ominous cluster of eggs. And they were mostly still twitching. Slow-moving, stunned - yes. Dead - NO NO NO.

I knew then that this wouldn't be the end, and so it has proved. In the succeeding 9 weeks, I've:

- done the poison treatment every 7 days at a minimum, alternating two different preparations with different actives (Banlice and KP24). I stopped getting any bugs from my hair 4 weeks ago, and have just stopped getting eggs in the past week (although I assume most of those I've been combing out have been already dead). I am STILL getting bugs from daughter's hair, EVERY TIME.
- conditioner and comb, conditioner and comb, every 3 days on average
- used the hair dryer on both our hair, although probably not as consistently as I should (really must do it daily, and we haven't been)
- used the electronic lice comb, which zaps big bugs but misses babies and ignores eggs
- cut daughter's hair, twice - it's now a shoulder length bob, at her request. It looks awesome and it is much, much easier to treat and maintain ... or at least it *will* be, if we ever manage to finally get rid of the damn things.

This morning, having last done a treatment on Monday of last week, I got a call from school to come get her as they had done a lice check and found bugs. I stomped off in high dudgeon to get her, brought her home, did a full treatment, and took her back to school 2 hours later. I have to assume that either my method is incomplete (despite the fact that I'm getting really good at it now!) or that these lice are resistant to the treatment (and / or are zombies. Either one works).

What is driving me nuts is three things:

1. Fear: When I start my fulltime job next week, I just *will not* be able to drop everything once a fortnight to come get her for lice. I am terrified of the disruption to both her and I.

2. Frustration: My strong suspicion is that we HAVE got clear at least a couple of times, but that she's getting reinfested at school. Her entire cohort of friends (all 5 of them) were sent home for lice today, and I know for a fact that one of the parents involved is exhausted with multiple treatment cycles and financially strapped, and has declared her intention (to other parents, not the school) of just using a hairdryer, rather than investing in insecticides again.

3. Distress: Daughter is pretty good about the poisoning step, but HAAAAAATES having her hair combed through and hates the hairdryer being used on it. We have tears, yelling, name-calling (her to me!) every single time. It is wearing me down emotionally, not to mention physically - every treatment takes 1-2 hrs minimum, and it's all awful.

So the things we haven't tried yet are going to be deployed, in escalating order, to try and finally get in top of it.

Firstly, I'm paying to have a lice removal service come and do a heat-based treatment on her hair. It's not cheap, but on the other hand, if it works, I wouldn't care if it cost a week's salary.

Secondly, we're going to start using a dilute tea tree spray on all the girls' hair as a preventative. My research suggests that tea tree works well as a preventer but less well as a front-line treatment, but anything that makes it less likely they will come back gets a big tick from me.

Thirdly, if both the above fail to prevent reinfestation, I am going to get off to the doctor and ask for a script for oral Ivermectin, which works very much like the newer brands of flea treatments that we put on our dogs and cats (Frontline et al). It is an insect neuro disruptor, harmless to mammals, and highly effective. It's a last-ditch effort as it can make some patients nauseated, which is terrible, and why I'm saving it for last. But if we have to go there, we will go there. It's just creating so much stress for the whole family now.

(Just out of interest, the two younger girls have missed being infested at all - I check them every 5 days, but not one sign is found, and 8yo indeed was checked at school today and all clear. It's only me and 10 year old who are victims :-(

What do you do to treat head lice? What's worked / hasn't worked? Do you think these buggers  are the first wave of the Insect Zombie Apocalyse, or is that just me?

To a lost love (poem)

I remember when the river, in flood,
carried me like a coracle fast downstream,
lifted above the murk by the force of motion.

not so long ago, it seems, depositing me
in the sea of the world, stars glaring fire on my back
every barbaric yawp tasing me into response, every pain
dragging soundbites in furious streams

the seduction of the illusion
that to talk in 140 characters is to taste truth
that to give and receive *hugs* and easy emoticons
is to give, and receive, love.

such a river. a life-force, almost,
a carrier of intent, a shapeshifter of purpose
only words on screens, but what else is there, for meaning
for we sentient postmoderns and the future that is here

a hive mind, or no, not that -
a megaphone for the masses.
I should love the democracy of that, the egalitarian energy,
the immediacy, the power -
I do.
I did.
I really did.

but all the power, all the rage, all the hearts and smiles
all the urgent need to check in, all the time spent unbottling
all of it left me - tired? Perhaps, spent.
a little sickened, mostly with myself
ashamed, too, of the time stolen from pursuits of creation
(of both the humankind and wordkind)
and fed to this maelstrom of a thing

what is left when love, but not longing, is gone?
what, when the fear is that even sometimes means inevitable all-times
what then?

(loves that make you heartsick, says my friend the philosopher,
can only be resolved two ways: Accept your malaise, embrace it, become it,
or cut it away entire.
there are no halfway houses for sad, dark love; no medicines to heal it whole).

so foolish, this; to write a poem about love
when it's not about love at all. (there's another word, starts with an ...)

so foolish, I; to try to twist words around it, make it complicated,
when really I know what I ought to do. (But not whether I will do it).

so here in this wine-dark sea I sit, my bark coracle afloat
and hope I will recognise the sun, when it comes.

- Kathy, 21/7/13

Reading Notes: Blackout

This post is part of my commitment to read and review as many nominated works in the Hugo Awards (Science Fiction Awards) as possible before the prize announcements in early September.   Today I am looking at the third of the five nominated novels: Mira Grant's trilogy closer, Blackout.

If it were not for the Hugo novella category, and the bijou chills of early Newsflesh prequel San Diego 2014, I would have came to Blackout knowing nothing whatsoever about it. The third book in the Newsflesh trilogy, Blackout is the kind of book that would, without an award-list prompt, have entirely passed me by (as had its prequels, Feed and Deadline).

Why? Because I am a prejudiced reader, and I can admit it.

I would never have picked up the Newsflesh books because they are marketed as being horror / thriller, or horror / suspense, and because they are about zombies. I have, in the past, not enjoyed horror books - the notable exception being Stephen King's early works, which I do like a lot - and I have an allergy to books about re-imagining supernatural monsters, especially ones with lots of feels (lookin' at you, all-vampire-stories-but-especially-Twilight...)

And see, this is where prejudice takes you, whether it's with books or in any other area of life. You make a decision that something won't be good and you won't like it, because other things that are labelled the same have not appealed to you in the past, and then you miss out on some really good things.

Because Blackout is a very good - not flawless, but good - book. I quickly skimmed Feed and Deadline, in order to be fair in my reading of Blackout, but I read Blackout itself closely and I really enjoyed it. I found Grant's style witty, engaging and readable, her plot brisk and not any less plausible than most speculative fiction, and her characters surprisingly highly developed.

I say "surprisingly" because I think that, although the zombie element certainly adds horrific aspects to the story, I strongly believe that Blackout in particular is a suspense / thriller, rather than a traditional horror book. Perhaps it's the future-science / political conspiracy elements which are critical to the plot and absorb much of the characters' attention (I'm trying to avoid plot spoilers, so forgive the vagueness). Perhaps it's that, because Grant has combined her interest in virology with her horror focus to create a medical / immunological explanation of zombie-ism, the zombies seem less - I don't know, spooky? Still scary and weird and tragic, but not supernatural in the ghosties and forces-beyond-nature way.

So the characters being actual characters rather than puppets to move the plot along came as a pleasant surprise to me. I have read my share of thrillers, and don't mind them, but I'll go out on a limb and say one thing the genre is not renowned for is its deep and realistic character development. Grant does substantially better with her people than most, and this certainly adds depth and punch to the story.

I also really liked Grant's vision of the future media - the fragmentation of voices, the rise of the bloggers, the shifting gaze. As in her treatment of pop culture in San Diego 2014, it's apparent that Grant knows and embraces both nerd and blogger culture, in a way I haven't seen much of in other mainstream authors. I think her landscape is not only plausible, it's possible, and I liked watching how she teased out the ramifications of that.

Three quibbles with this book (and by extension, the series): Firstly, the conspiracy denouement was a bit overheated and melodramatic, and felt out of kilter with the self-consciously restrained and deprecating style of the books as a whole. Secondly, the "secret" that Georgia reveals to persuade Shaun of her identity was telegraphed so loudly and luridly that it was the flattest balloon  ever in turns of plot twists. And finally, I thought there were times when Grant lost her way a bit with the points she was trying to make; some of the meta messages, particularly those about science and government, were quite muddy in Blackout, and this got confusing.

Nonetheless, it's a good book, rounding out a good series. And you don't even need to be a horror person to appreciate its virtues.

I wonder if this means I should give romance fiction, my other main genre-based EWWWWW, another chance now...?
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Novellas are done. One and a half novel reviews to go, plus all the novelettes! Next up will be the novelettes as a set - all 5 if I can get hold of the last one, or the 4 I have found if the elusive "Rat-Catcher" remains unobtainable.

I've finished Captain Vortpatril's Alliance, and will review it soon. I'm not going to do a review of Throne of the Crescent Moon, because I really don't like it and didn't finish it, but will add a few notes into the Vorpatril review indicating what I didn't love about it.

Other Hugo reviews can be found here:
Short stories (all)
On a Red Station, Drifting (novella)
After the Fall, During the Fall, Before the Fall (novella)
The Emperor's New Soul (novella)
Redshirts: A Novel and Three Codas (novel)  
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats (novella) 
The Stars Do Not Lie (novella)  
2312 (novel)