Cuckoo’s Egg
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Patti’s been doing a regular Friday series, asking folks to blog about favorite books that aren’t “first-tier classics.” A worthy goal, encompassing a great many books. In fact, I had a tough time narrowing down the list properly, especially with Patti’s off-hand reference to “classics we can all name.” Who’s “we”? And how much meta-commentary can be used as padding?
I decided to eliminate books that won major awards of some sort, or that might reasonably appear on a college syllabus, or have been the basis of a film adaptation, or have “bestseller” plastered all over the cover. I also eliminated books published this millennium and authors previously mentioned (though I’ll also endorse On Stranger Tides as the best voodoo pirate puppeteer book ever penned, and you should also read Wintertide by Elizabeth Hand).
That still leaves a lot of worthy books. In the end, I decided to pick by cover.
C.J. Cherryh’s a prolific author, and she’s been lucky enough to have some fine Michael Whelan covers. (Let’s forget the Gates covers for the moment.) This has always been one of my favorite book covers, period. Absolutely adorable. Yeah, yeah, never judge a book by its cover. And it’s true, the infant on the cover matures, as infants are wont to do. But this is one of those rare and wonderful covers that works as art, marketing, and a representation of the story.
Cherryh’s novels often tackle themes of culture clashes and communication. In her recent Foreigner series, those questions have been explicit: her protagonist is a diplomat and linguist trained to take part in politics at the highest level. In Cuckoo’s Egg, it’s simultaneously more obvious and more subtle.
The book opens in a hospital, with the human baby on the cover handed over to Duun, described as general and lord and “another thing.” (Cherryh often defines alien concepts by talking around them.) It is clear that the human is the alien species, and that Duun is both outcast and venerated. The novel is devoted to Duun’s efforts to raise the boy—learning what a human requires, training his body and mind, and sheltering him from others for as long as possible—and Thorn’s efforts to discover why he is different, how he fits into the world, and how he should go about growing up.
The question of where the human came from, and how he came to be in Duun’s care, is not fully answered until the very end of the book. The answer works, an audaciously simple explanation in keeping with the characters involved, the backstory and recent history only hinted at. A tight focus on a few players keeps the story moving and allows Cherryh to sketch out a vibrant civilization in flux.
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Little Brother
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A couple weeks ago, Patrick Nielsen Hayden announced the availability of Little Brother ARCs, and I was lucky enough to snap up a copy. (The early bird gets the worm; do your very important blog reading early in the day.) ARCs are fun, more because they’re different than because they’re free. (Especially when Cory Doctorow is the author in question, and free versions abound.) So now I’m part of the marketing plan outlined on the back cover.
How’s your nationality-dar?
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The other week I was reading Who Is Conrad Hirst? and I couldn’t help noticing the multiple instances of characters instantly cataloged by their nationality. I don’t think I could do that, not without more substantial cues or context.
Is it just because I’m a Stupid American™? That may be some of it, but I don’t think I can differentiate from a Texan and a Floridian at ten paces. So it’s not just cultural myopia. Or maybe it is cultural myopia, applicable to my own country as well as others’.
Admittedly, I live in the suburbs and they’re, well, the suburbs. But it’s not a completely undifferentiated population; plus, I’ve been in more cosmopolitan environments, and I don’t think I ever had the knack for pegging someone’s country of origin. Or is my sample set hopelessly skewed again? Maybe “college student” trumps all other identity cues.
What about you guys (Stupid American™ or otherwise)? Is your nationality-dar accurate? Middling? Nonexistent? Unconfirmed?
“Lobsters” by Charles Stross
The first chapter of Charles Stross’s Accelerando originally appeared in Asimov’s as a story titled “Lobsters.” It does, indeed, involve lobsters.
The novel is available as a free e-book, distributed under a Creative Commons license, as well as in not-free electronic and dead tree formats.
Accelerando excerpt:
English 109
I’d like to give a shout out to Mercy College’s English 109 students. Their professors put together a 500 page reader, Tales of Wonder from Many Lands, and my version of an Iraqi folktale, “The Price of Jasmines and Lilies,” is included.
I highly recommend Inea Bushnaq’s Arab Folktales as further reading (for Mercy students or anyone else interested in this particular flavor of folklore). I used the collection as a source for a few of the stories I wrote for Fables, and it’s quite wonderful.
Not remotely reviews
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But a quick rundown of some of the books I’ve been reading recently, which you may also enjoy reading:
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I’m not usually big on True Crime…
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But I enjoyed The Last Duel.
The prose leaves something to be desired, and I do wish someone had taken a blue pencil—or a pencil of any color—to the more repetitive passages. (I understand that it can be useful to remind readers of an important point. But two pages—or only a few paragraphs—later?) Despite the flaws, the book made for a quick and engrossing read.
I was a little surprised when I saw the spine in the medieval Europe section of Borders, since there are plenty of examples of testosterone-infused confrontations in the years since 1386. The duel of the title is a judicial duel—trial by combat rather than gentlemanly foils or pistols—and it was only the last one in France. (Or “France,” given that we’re talking about the 14th century.) I have been feeling Dumb lately, in terms of my reading material, and I have decided that I should be supplementing my yummy fiction intake with some scholarly vitamins. This particular pill had a sweet candy coating and it went down nicely.
So Dubledore’s gay
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According to J.K. Rowling, who really should know better than anybody. My worldview has, somehow, not been shaken to the core.
I suppose it says something about heteronormativity that a screenwriter felt comfortable adding references to an invented character, even in an adaptation of one of the most jealously-guarded properties ever. Or maybe the screenwriter just assumed Dumbledore was bi.
It does make me feel more warm and fuzzy toward Rowling’s work. The books are perfectly diverting but not great literature in an objective-as-possible sense…however, I do love the little brain hacks that line up with my personal politics. A generation of kids will (hopefully) grow up internalizing outrage at the way Remus Lupin is ostracized, abuses of power, and miscarried justice in the wizarding world. That’s got to be worth something. Words have power, especially after they worm their way deep into the brain.
Congratulations, it’s a paperback
Today, Dave White welcomes his 7.5 ounce, 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6 inch baby into the world.
Thirty-one years ago, my parents welcomed their 6 lbs., 3 ounce daughter into the world. Said daughter wrote this post in advance, because she will be spending a large chunk of today flying. Because spending time in airports is exactly what she wants to do on her birthday.
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At least we bought Rainbows End in advance
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I do like reading Hugo nominations in advance of the awards, even though I’ve only been to one Worldcon so it doesn’t really matter. (Which is just as well, given the amount of lag in my recentish reading habits.) Vernor Vinge was, of course, on our list to buy regardless of nominations, and has filtered up to the top of the TBR pile independent of Nippon. We finally picked the book up a couple weeks ago at the grocery store—specifically because I don’t think of Vernor Vinge as being the sort of author one finds in the grocery store.