Astounding by Alec Nevada-Lee Review

Title: Astounding
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Astounding—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction

by Alec Nevada-Lee

Gray Planet Commentary

• Biography of John W. Campbell
• Exhaustive detail of Campbell’s relationships with Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and Isaac Asimov
• Documents Campbell’s racism and his fascination with pseudo science concepts particularly with respect to psychiatry

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 95/100
• Literature Index: 75/100
• Magic Factor: 75/100
• Sense of Wonder: 60/100

In Astounding, Alec Nevada-Lee has compiled an exhaustive history of the golden age of science fiction, the time during which John W. Campbell was the editor of Astounding Stories (renamed Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction in 1960). The book focuses on Campbell’s relationships with three writers he developed and with whom he worked closely over a period of 30 years: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard.

The audience for this book is probably limited to serious science fiction readers and fans. Even then, it is mostly for those of us who remember the period. It is an important book of history, but few readers under 50 will be interested, except for academics and purists. But Astounding is an important book that provides an historical perspective on how science fiction came to be dominated by white heterosexual males and why it was so difficult to move it toward a genre more inclusive of women, people of color and those of the LGBTQ community.

I have read numerous biographies and memoirs of the science fiction writers who created the field and defined the tropes of science fiction during the time period of this book, 1938-1971, so I am familiar with many of the events related here about Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. Hubbard, however, I knew only through my readings about the history of Scientology. This view of Hubbard, first as a science fiction writer, and then, secondarily almost, as the founder of Scientology is new to me. But Nevala-Lee brings it all together and provides a new perspective and new material as well.

Hubbard does not come off well. He is a journeyman writer with a talent for pure pulp writing. He is narcissistic and borderline crazy in his personal and professional lives. He eventually adapts his science fiction writing into the presumed revelations which become Scientology, a religion which exists to this day. The basis of Scientology is really a retelling of Hubbard’s science fiction—it is his attempt to monetize his talent to make shit up.

Campbell, particularly during the period from 1938 through 1950, was a fountainhead of ideas, ideas which, when placed in the hands of Asimov and Heinlein and others like L. Sprague de Camp and Lewis Padgett (the pseudonym used by C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner), resulted in many classics of science fiction. Nevada-Lee tells how these stories came to be, and, along the way, how Heinlein and Asimov, particularly, became the dominant writers of their generation within science fiction.

But we also see the development of Hubbard and his crazy ideas—dianetics and scientology, in all their pseudo-scientific, crazy glory. Campbell is intimately involved in this development as well, and in the end, it is Campbell’s fascination with these kinds of unprovable and fallacious concepts presented as science, that are part of the reason his dominance in the field of science fiction comes to a necessary end.

Campbell was racist, misogynistic, and unscientific, but also creative and able to generate compelling arguments for his viewpoints, arguments which, when combined with his forceful personality, were difficult for most people to refute. In many ways, Campbell was egotistical enough to think that he knew more than experts in many fields, and was not shy about promoting pseudo-scientific ideas far beyond the mainstream. Campbell routinely blurred the boundaries between science fact and science fiction—he even renamed Astounding with that title. The result was compelling fiction you could almost believe, and which eventually motivated a generation of scientists and engineers (almost exclusively white and male) to try to make the concepts they read about a reality. But it is difficult to get past Campbell’s silliness and pseudoscience.

So Campbell leaves a very mixed legacy. Nevada-Lee does not limit himself to taking Campbell to task over these issues. Asimov continually harassed women with obscene comments and by touching them inappropriately and also was a philanderer. The extent of some of this was new to me as Asimov (unsurprisingly) did not go into this in his own autobiographies. Heinlein had various sexual proclivities of interest and was jingoistic personally and in his writing.

This time period was a different world, in some ways more simple than ours, easier to understand, and to navigate. But it also limited the opportunity of anyone not white, male and heterosexual. We should listen, learn, and understand, but not emulate.

John Campbell created, guided and controlled science fiction during the Golden Years, forming the basis of what is now a field he would not recognize, a genre more diverse and more creative that he could ever be. The spirit of John Campbell would have loved SF today with its unbridled ability to conceive of and examine science and its effect on our culture from myriad perspectives. The man would probably wonder where all the weirdos came from and why anyone is paying attention to them.

I’ll leave you with the fitting words of Jeannette Ng, the 2019 winner of the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in science fiction:

John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist. Through his editorial control of Astounding Science Fiction, he is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonizers, settlers and industrialists. Yes, I am aware there are exceptions.

But these bones, we have grown wonderful, ramshackle genre, wilder and stranger than his mind could imagine or allow.

And I am so proud to be part of this. To share with you my weird little story, an amalgam of all my weird interests, so much of which has little to do with my superficial identities and labels.

The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder

Title: The Soul of a New Machine Review
Author: Terrence L. Brown

The Soul of a New Machine

by Tracy Kidder

Gray Planet Commentary

• Technology is dated, the process and the writing are not.

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 93/100
• Literature Index: 91/100
• Magic Factor: 80/100

In his Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder gave most people who read it their first and only introduction to the technical complexity and addictive nature of designing modern computers. First published in 1981, The Soul of a New Machine tells the story of a group of engineers at Data General who form a “Skunk Works” and design an advanced (for the late 1970s) 32-bit minicomputer—the Eagle. The group is led by experienced design engineers, but the majority of the detailed work of designing logic and writing software is taken on by very young and inexperienced engineers hired for the project. In the parlance of computer engineering, they are well suited to the task since they “don’t know what they can’t do.”

Kidder delves deeply into the process of the design, implementation, and debug of the machine, and in doing so educates the reader with descriptions of how it all works. Kidder’s descriptions are generally quite good and understandable. I should know—from 1984 to 2016 I was a computer engineer and I experienced all of what Kidder describes.

This introduction to computer architecture, and particularly to debugging prototype computers, would have been enough for most, but Kidder makes the story so much more by peering as deeply into the souls of the engineers as he does into the soul of the new machine. His narrative descriptions of the lives of the managers and engineers who create the machine are as important as the machine itself. It is their stories that bring the book to life and create an unforgettable reading experience. In many ways, this is a book that could have been written by John McPhee, and I consider that the highest praise.

It is amazing to me that, 38 years later, the book is not dated, only the technology is. But if one substitutes designing custom chips for designing the circuit boards of the Eagle, most of what Kidder describes could and does happen today.

It is also interesting to see Kidder discussing computers and what they mean to society. “To some the crucial issue was privacy.” He says in Chapter 13. At another point, the manager of the Eagle project comments that a danger of using computers is “You end up making people so dumb they can’t figure out how many six-packs are in a case of beer.”

Indeed.

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo Review

Title: Three Women Review
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Three Women

by Lisa Taddeo

Gray Planet Commentary

• Compelling narrative of three women and their desires

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 93/100
• Literature Index: 91/100
• Magic Factor: 65/100

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is the story of the sexual desires of three women (Maggie, Lina and Sloane) told by Taddeo in narrative form based on extensive interviews with the women and their friends and relatives.

The book is an impressive piece of journalism. Taddeo handles her material with confidence and the result is an involving set of stories.

There is little commonality among the three women. Maggie is in her early twenties, but was in high school when the defining moments of her story occurred—she had a consensual affair with one of her teachers. The affair left her distraught, not because it happened, but because she was devastated by the loss of her lover. A few years later, Maggie files sexual abuse charges against the teacher. The resulting trial is, in some ways, even more devastating for Maggie than the affair. Maggie’s inability to understand the depth of what is happening to her during the affair, her immaturity and her romantic misinterpretation of the events, make the reader realize the necessity of laws and systems that try to prevent this kind of exploitation. But the trial explicates the danger women face when pursuing any remedy after they have been abused like this. It emphasizes the apparent inability of our judicial system, and of our culture, to take seriously the emotional damage done to women in these circumstances. Maggie’s story is powerful and sad.

Lina has two children by her husband but considers her marriage loveless and her husband distant and cold. Lina defines her marriage and her life through what she sees as the lack of passion, respect, and love from her husband. She just wants to be physically loved. Desperate, Lina seeks out Aidan, her boyfriend from high school. She leaves her husband and devotes her time to arranging trysts with Aidan. Lina’s needs are simple, but they are intense, and when unsatisfied they threaten to destroy her. Her story is one of desperation that she cannot avoid.

Sloane is unique—a woman born with means, a woman who controls her own destiny through the power of her personality, but who suffers from deep conflicts and uncertainties. Sloane is beautiful because she makes herself beautiful, powerful because she refuses to be otherwise, but strangely passive as a result of two past events that changed her life and left her malleable, looking for love. In the end, despite her personal power, Sloane is manipulated by her husband’s desires.

What stands out in all three of these narratives is the detail that Taddeo brings to the inner stories of her subjects. Although common in fiction, this type of narrative detail and power is not common in non-autobiographical nonfiction simply because it is nearly impossible to know such detail about another’s inner life. The three stories read like individual memoirs, the voice is different for each, and the detail is memoir-like.

Taddeo spent eight years researching this book and, as she says in her author’s note “I have spent thousands of hours with the women in this book”. Taddeo “based my selection of these three women on the relatability of their stories, their intensity, and the way that the events, if they happened in the past, still sat on the women’s chests.”

Indeed, Taddeo has created a work that lays bare the innermost desires, thoughts, and feelings of Maggie, Lina and Sloane and allows us to understand the stories of their lives with a depth and closeness most of us rarely experience with others even in our own lives.

This is a powerful and revelatory work, but it is not for the faint of heart. The sex is raw and startlingly frank at times. But it is also real, and fraught with feeling and meaning. Even though we may be shocked by it, we also realize its power to transform the participants, although not always for the better.

Taddeo’s work brings these women to life. She makes us think of each woman individually, to consider that we know them. This is a powerful narrative that gives us a unique perspective on the lives of these women.

Sunburn by Laura Lippman--A Review

Title: Subnurn
Author: Terrence L. Brown

Sunburn—A Review

by Laura Lippman

Gray Planet Commentary

• Formulaic
• Mysteries slowly revealed
• I don’t like the characters
• I don’t like the ending

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 50/100
• Literature Index: 25/100
• Magic Factor: 20/100

Sunburn by Laura Lippman is marketed as a “noir gem” with blurbs from prestigious authors and publications. I was drawn to the book after reading an interesting article about Laura Lippman’s writing.

But Sunburn is a formula story. In Sunburn, everything is mysterious. There is Polly Costello, a mother who walks away from her husband and daughter for mysterious reasons. There is Adam Bosk, the private detective hired to follow her and find where she is hiding a supposedly large sum of money. Bosk’s background, his client, and his motives for accepting the job are unknown.

The story switches between Polly’s and Adam’s viewpoints. In each chapter (there are forty-six of them), we are teased with a bit more revelation about each character’s secrets. Polly is hiding a complex history of mistakes behind various deceptions and playing a waiting game with an unknown goal. Adam is a reluctant investigator who finds himself attracted to his target, Polly, and even more conflicted than usual as a result.

At first, this teasing is effective and makes for compelling reading. But, for me, it grew old as each tease became less interesting and as Polly and Adam entered into a relationship where neither was truthful in the least, while still maintaining, in their thoughts, that they were truly in love. I started to lose interest but I kept reading, hoping for a final revelation and resolution that would allow me to feel better about these two people whom I no longer trusted or liked and now had no sympathy for.

It never happened. The revelations didn’t feel significant enough to justify the long tease and there was no resolution, only an almost off-camera deus ex machina that was just an excuse for a final passage explaining another tease.

The book was frustrating and I am not particularly happy I spent the time to finish it.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides--A Review

The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

Gray Planet Commentary

• Interesting, compelling
• Purposely manipulative

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 55/100
• Literature Index: 25/100
• Magic Factor: 35/100

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is a thriller, a puzzler and a murder mystery. It is a compelling read, more compelling as it proceeds. It is the story of Alicia Berenson, who has been convicted of murdering her husband, Gabriel, and is now confined to a mental hospital called The Grove. She has been completely silent since the murder, which occurred a few years before the time of the story.

Theo Faber is a psychotherapist who is so fascinated by Alicia’s story he applies for work at the mental hospital where Alicia is confined specifically so he can treat her. He wants to help her to understand what has happened to her and move past it.

As the story proceeds, we learn that Theo has his own mental struggles and has been helped by a therapist to overcome his traumatic childhood. Indeed, Theo makes comparisons between his traumatic childhood and Alicia’s childhood. Theo makes attempts to engage Alicia in therapy, earns her trust, and finally, she gives him a copy of her diary, in which she explains the events leading up to the murder of her husband.

We also discover that Kathy, Theo’s wife, is having an affair. This devastates Theo and he struggles with whether to confront her with this knowledge, or to follow her, find her lover and confront him.

Michaelides handles these multiple storylines quite well as he proceeds to expose more and more of the details. As the reader learns more, it becomes clear that there is something hidden, something waiting to be exposed, something not quite right. As Alicia begins to speak and we learn more about her history, and as Theo’s investigations tell us more about his wife’s lover, the tension builds.

Now for a bit of a spoiler. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that I understand why A. J. Finn, the author of The Woman in the Window, blurbed this book. In fact, given the stories about A. J. Finn, I wondered if he had actually written this book. The Silent Patient, like The Woman in the Window is based on a lie to the reader, on information purposely hidden from the reader for the sole purpose of making the denouement more surprising.

I feel that this is dishonest. Michaelides has a great story, with a compelling mystery and the details are well worked out. He should have presented it more cleverly instead of succumbing to the temptation of pure manipulation and dishonesty in his ending.

Although I liked the book, I feel like reading it was a waste of time. But, if you liked The Woman in the Window, you probably won't feel like I did.

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe Review

Velocity Weapon

by Megan E. O’Keefe

Gray Planet Commentary

• Creative and surprising space opera with an expansive scope
• Dudley Do-Right chapter cliffhangers

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 84/100
• Literature Index: 30/100
• Magic Factor: 72/100

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O’Keefe is an interesting and fun space opera with a little bit of everything, including some irritating style quirks.

Sanda Greeve is a gunship pilot in the Ada Prime military. After being on defensive patrol near Icarion space, she suddenly finds herself awakened after being preserved in an evacuation pod, apparently after a space battle she doesn’t remember. She has lost part of one leg. She finds herself aboard an Icarion (the enemy) AI Class Cruiser, The Light of Berossus. The ship AI introduces himself as Bero. Bero tells Sanda that 230 years have passed after the Battle of Dralee in which Sanda’s gunship was destroyed. As part of the battle, Ada Prime, Sanda’s home planet was destroyed by a special weapon deployed by the Icarions.

230 years before, at the time of the Battle of Dralee, Sanda’s younger brother, Biran, is a newly graduated Keeper. The Keepers are specially trained leaders of Ada Prime and have computer chips implanted in their skulls. The chips don’t give them any special abilities, but rather contain encrypted data on the construction of Casimir Gates, the interstellar jump points that tie together the Prime Universe. This secret data allows the Primes to maintain control of interstellar space.

The remainder of the novel is written in chapters that alternate between Sanda’s point of view and Biran’s point of view, 230 years apart. We are also introduced to another group of characters, led by Jules, a young woman from the lower cast in the Prime Universe who works with a criminal gang living in lower class neighborhoods.

There are also interludes that give us two other points of view. The first is that of Alexandra Halston, an historical character who was the businesswoman who led Prime Corporation, which developed space commercially and built the first Casimir Gate. The history of the Prime Universe is dated from the development of the first Gate.

The second Interlude point of view is that of Callie Mera, Ada Prime’s favorite newscaster. Callie does have an important role to play, but unless that role is significantly increased in sequels, Callie seems superfluous.

The velocity weapon of the title is Bero, who is an interstellar capable ramscoop ship. As a weapon, Bero can accelerate masses to relativistic velocities, thereby increasing their mass and making them dangerous projectiles. This is the edge Icarion uses in their opposition to the Gate monopoly the Primes hold.

The story hinges on Sanda’s struggle for survival after being awakened on Bero, and on Biran’s struggle to find his sister and save her, if she is still alive.

Sanda’s struggle is the stuff of science fiction adventure–she is faced with lots of problems and has to be clever to solve them. But O’Keefe also provides a lot of twists and turns for Sanda, most of them interesting at least, and many of them pretty surprising. After being alone for some time, she is joined in her struggle for survival by another rescued soldier, Tomas. Tomas is an enigma and Sanda is not sure if she should trust him. Their relationship is well-developed and interesting.

Biran’s story is a political one where he must work within the existing power structure of Ada Prime’s ruling Protectorate of Keepers to be sure the possibility of Sanda’s survival and her rescue is a high priority. Biran also fights against what he thinks is the Protectorate’s mismanaged approach to the war with Icarion. As he seeks information about Sanda, Biran uncovers a variety of deep and significant secrets within the political power structure of the Protectorate.

Velocity Weapon is an enjoyable ride, although at times I found myself aware of the writer’s manipulative ways. There are 80 chapters and six interludes in the book, and maybe they don’t all end with cliffhangers, but most of them do, particularly in the last half. This is a bit overdone, but it is effective. O’Keefe keeps giving us more and more as the story goes on, but she effectively handles the complications (albeit with a few deus ex machinas thrown in) and uses most of her surprises to complicate and deepen the story.

O’Keefe adds interesting and well thought out plot twists and science fiction elements that kept me interested. She has constructed a universe where the science fiction elements (her space travel technology and where it came from, the Keepers and their secrets, what Jules and her fellow criminals discover and are caught up in) are an integral part of the plot. This gives the book a depth that most space opera no longer has for me. As a space opera, this book is a big success.

O’Keefe is good enough with her characters that I care about Sanda and Tomas and Biran. The motivations of their antagonists are subtle and complex and serve to expand the action and provide interest.

I want to follow the adventures of Sanda and Brian and others as they figure out what’s really going on in their world and how to control it.

Much of this novel contains major surprises which I won’t reveal as they would ruin the story. There are also myriad minor surprises and cliffhanger moments along the way, sometimes too many. But O’Keefe manages make it all hang together and and keeps the story coherent.

I really liked the book and am ready for volume two.

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett--Review

Mostly Dead Things–A Review

by Kristen Arnett

Gray Planet Commentary

• Unusual
• Kind of a downer through most of the book.
• Unsympathetic characters
• Very satisfying ending

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 83/100
• Literature Index: 86/100
• Magic Factor: 40/100

Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett turned out to be a very odd read. The book has received many glowing, high profile reviews, particularly for a first novel. Most reviewers have described the book as unusual in one way or another. I would agree.

Jessa Morton is the first person narrator of the story. She was raised by her mother and her taxidermist father along with her younger brother Milo, in Florida. Taxidermy is the common thread in the novel–it is her father’s passion as well as the family livelihood. Jessa is groomed from a young age to help her father in the taxidermy shop and he favors her over Milo. From an early age, Jessa understands that she is gay and she is singularly attracted to Brynn, a girl her age. Jessa and Brynn become both friends and lovers as teenagers. Their relationship is complicated as Brynn also is involved with boys. Brynn eventually marries Milo, but Jessa and Brynn maintain their affair even through the marriage and children.

The story starts with the suicide of Prentice Morton, Jessa’s father. He shoots himself in the head in the taxidermy shop and, knowing that Jessa will be the one to find him, leaves her a private note. We also learn that Brynn ran away a few years ago, leaving Milo, her children (Bastien and Lolee) and Jessa to wonder where she went and why.

The chapters of the novel occur in two timeframes. The first, with titles like Sus Scrofa–Feral Pig, take place in the past, with Jessa describing growing up with Brynn and Milo and her family. Chapters that are labeled with numbers take place in the present time of the novel, starting about a year after the suicide.

In the novel, Jessa deals with multiple issues. First, is her father’s suicide and the note he left which asks her to take care of things. The full contents of the note are never fully disclosed. Instead, it becomes almost talismanic and Jessa uses it to attempt to understand or control the major issues in her life–her relationship with her father, her mother, her brother, and her lovers. The note remains mysterious and is full of power for Jessa. She feels it is her responsibility to follow the instructions in the note, even to her own detriment.

Jessa’s life has been subtly controlled by her relationships with her father and with Brynn, her lover. Both have now deserted her, her father by suicide, Brynn by running away. Any remaining support system she has–her mother, Libby, and her brother, Milo, are dysfunctional and distant. Following her husband’s suicide, Jessa’s mother can only focus on prurient, pornographic art which consists of sexually posing taxidermy available to her around the house and at the shop. This angers and concerns Jessa. To Jessa, it is demeaning to her father’s legacy and work, particularly because Libby portrays her dead husband as a participant in her stagings.

Milo floats through life after Brynn deserts him and their children, unable to focus on either his parental responsibilities or his work or personal hygiene. Milo and Jessa’s relationship is close, but complicated by the intertwining of their relationships with Brynn and the fact that Brynn left them both.

Jessa’s attempts at connecting with others (Lucinda, a love interest, for example) leave her dissatisfied and bereft as she is unable to define, connect with or feel her own grief. It is this grief, this dissatisfaction with life, that colors the entire narrative of the book and drives its tone using the primal process of taxidermy as its symbol. As the taxidermist deconstructs his subject and delves into the smells, the slime, the blood and guts of it, before reconstructing it with parts on hand and baling wire, so Jessa does with her life in the alternating chapters.

This emotional angst colors Jessa’s descriptions of the world around her. Everything in Jessa’s life, even things that are traditionally beautiful and joyful, are made grotesque and sad when Jessa describes them. For example: remembering Milo and Brynn’s wedding, Jessa describes the flowers she and the other attendants hold:

We held flowers that attracted bugs. Clutching our bouquets, we swatted and let the petals fall in wilted clumps on the grass. It clouded up and threatened rain for over an hour, but the sky refused to break open.

This negative context wears on the reader and we despair, as the book goes on and on, that there is anything other than her father’s fate–a gun to the head–awaiting Jessa. Unlike some others, I did not find absurd humor in Jessa’s narrative, only sadness. Jessa seemed doomed to this distorted view of the world and the people in it and I really didn’t want to read more about it.

Jessa attempts to control her destiny, but her narcissistic efforts result in tragedy. After her mother’s prurient art work is destroyed, partly as a result of Jessa’s actions, Jessa attempts to reconnect with her mother by showing her the suicide note from her father. Libby doesn’t care and tears up the note. This angers Jessa and she initially separates herself even further from her mother. But, after a time, with her last connection to her father now destroyed, Jessa is able to see her life differently.

In a moving scene, Jessa visits her mother, and finds her hiding in the bathroom, unkempt physically and nearly catatonic. She washes her mother’s body as she would a child. The description of this is as clinically detailed and personal as her descriptions of deconstructing a dead animal’s body for taxidermy. But from this clinical viewpoint comes loving kindness, and Jessa is transformed by it. The family’s dog, Sir Charles, stuffed by Jessa’s father and Libby’s husband watches this symbolic cleansing occur, almost a participant. After wrapping her mother in a towel, Jessa takes her to the living room where she “turns on the tortoise”, a phrase her father used to describe turning on a lamp with a green shade so he could see more clearly. In this new light, Jessa and Libby redefine their relationship. They lay to rest the demons that have beset them both—Prentice and Brynn, father, husband, lover.

It is this scene that saves the book. Arnett handles this deftly. She ties together all the themes and characters in her book tightly and creates an ending that is subtle, deep, and profound. Like taxidermy, life is messy and sometimes it stinks. But, if you can can see clearly what you learned in the deconstruction of the body, if you can use what is on hand to create from the destruction a new and lasting beauty, life can be good. Taxidermy preserves beauty. Love, whether lost or ongoing, preserves life.

I initially gave the book a mediocre rating—around 60/100. But this book and its ending have stuck with me over the past two weeks and grown larger in my memory. Jessa’s narrative of despair and dirt, of guts and gore, of sadness and loss, was necessary to make the ending as powerful as it was. The novel at times was a slog to get through—but the travails of the journey were necessary to make the end of the journey sweeter.

Longer by Michael Blumlein--A Review

Longer

by Michael Blumlein

A Review

Gray Planet Commentary

• Boring
• Confusing
• Poorly Written

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 9/100
• Literature Index: 5/100
• Magic Factor: 3/100

Longer by Michael Blumlein is a book I looked forward to based on hearing about it, and wanted to like. There turned out to be almost nothing to like.

The story presents itself as a science fiction puzzle story—an asteroid is captured and brought back to near Earth orbit and there is an object of interest (OOI) on it. Gunjita and Cav are scientists working for a pharmaceutical company on board an earth orbit station investigating a new drug for rejuvenation treatments. The pharmaceutical company, Gleem, is also a mining company and it is Gleem’s mining probe that has brought back the asteroid. In addition to their responsibilities investigating new rejuvenation pharmaceuticals, they are also the scientists on scene to investigate the asteroid and the object it brings with it. Is it alien life or not?

Gunjita and Cav are also husband and wife, and have been for 60 years. But now, Gunjita has taken her second rejuvenation treatment and is young again, while Cav is delaying his and is in his 80s.

So, what happens? Well, it turns out the story is really about Cav and the reasons he wants to delay his rejuvenation and why. The asteroid, the development of a new rejuvenation drug, and the complex and presumably portent filled history of Cav and Gunjita and and old friend (Dashaud) and an unexplained historical event called the Hoax and a few other things are just throwaway ideas that allow Blumlein to fill pages in the book.

This still could have been a good story. The problem is, that Blumlein is not up to the task. He dumps page after page of exposition on us and it is boring. He attempts, in dialogue, to hint at complex relationships and personal histories filled with portent. The problem is that his dialogue is confusing and unclear, his hints are so vague they confuse rather than intrigue, and his puzzles—the asteroid’s possible harboring of life, and the possibility of a breakthrough in rejuvenation drugs—are discussed in simplistic dialogue with no substantial technical information imparted, and no resolution at all of any of the issues.

For some reason, I finished this book. I am sorry I wasted my time even though I skimmed much of it. I hoped at least for an interesting answer to the asteroid question, some insight into an alien life form. I got nothing. You won’t either. Avoid this one.

Normal People by Sally Rooney Review

Normal People

by Sally Rooney

Gray Planet Commentary

• Relentless intimacy
• Flawed characters we love anyway

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 93/100
• Literature Index: 91/100
• Magic Factor: 82/100

Normal People by Sally Rooney is a work of depth and perception unlike any novel I have ever read. It is a Bildungsroman, a very complex and personal one in which two very different coming of age stories are intertwined.

The first story is Connell’s, a young man who in high school is a popular athlete and casually brilliant student. Connell comes from working class family with little money and no social standing. The second story is Marianne’s, whose family is very well off, who is not popular in school, but is also intelligent and a good student. Connell’s mother, Lorraine, works as a housekeeper for Marianne’s family.

The story takes place in Ireland over a period of four years, starting when Connell and Marianne are in high school in a small town, and continues through their first years at Trinity College in Dublin. From the moment they meet when Connell picks up his mother at Marianne’s house, both Connell and Marianne feel a deep attraction. This attraction drives the narrative with a force that is both engaging and relentless. Rooney’s prose and her intimate narrative of the thoughts and actions of her characters draw us into the emotional world of Connell and Marianne, and we can’t get out.

This is not an easy book. The characters are so real, their interactions so deeply personal, heartfelt, and sometimes cringeworthy that we find ourselves at one moment wincing with embarrassment and at the next exalted by a deeply personal insight. But even though Connell and Marianne feel they know the other better than they know themselves, simple things cause misunderstandings and the novel becomes an emotional roller coaster, much like Connell and Marianne’s relationship. It seems inevitable, even as their social roles transform, that they must be together. Over time, they are and then they aren’t and then they are again. Each of them grows and changes significantly over time, but there is one constant–the depth and importance of their connection, or perhaps, addiction, to each other.

The scope of Rooney’s story feels narrow at first, but it becomes expansive as we learn how Connell and Marianne struggle into adulthood and move toward and away from each other. As they grow, their personalities solidify in unexpected ways that lead to conflicts and challenges, both personal and relational, that they must face and overcome.

The ending is the weakest part of the novel, particularly on first reading. After the emotional complexity appears resolved, suddenly Rooney thrusts us back into another cycle of their relationship and calls into question the accommodations that Connell and Marianne have made for each other. After more careful reading the ending is consistent, but it does not leave the reader with closure or satisfaction and so it disappoints given how effective the rest of the novel is.

Even so, Normal People is an exceptional book, an engrossing experience that is impossible to put down. It is compelling, not in the manner of a thriller, but because we care about Connell and Marianne as if we are them. Connell and Marianne are “normal people” and we are better for having known them.

Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger--Review

Lost and Wanted

by Nell Freudenberger

Gray Planet Commentary

• A Slow and Challenging Read
• Complex–Too Complex?

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 70/100
• Literature Index: 75/100
• Magic Factor: 40/100

Lost and Wanted by Nell Freudenberger is an interesting read and something different for Freudenberger. Lost and Wanted is written in the first person from the point of view of Helen Clapp, a well-known and respected physicist and a distinguished professor at MIT. Helen receives an unexpected and aborted phone call from her friend, Charlie, from whom she hasn’t heard in a while. Two days later Helen receives a call from Charlie’s husband, Terrence, telling her Charlie died–the day before Helen received the aborted call.

Subsequently, Helen receives and responds to occasional text messages from Charlie’s phone, which Terrence informed her is missing. This establishes a supernatural element to the plot, one that is juxtaposed to Helen’s strong belief in the science and reality of physics. But, as we learn through Helen’s many digressions into her work as a physicist, physics and reality also have their strange, contradictory, and mysterious aspects–like quantum entanglement, gravity waves, and black holes. In this manner, Freudenberger presents three very different aspects of Helen. The most important of these is her life as a scientist and physicist, a characteristic that grounds her in logic, mathematics and the scientific method. The world is a logical place and can be understood if only one looks at it closely enough, Helen believes. The second aspect of Helen is her personal life–a somewhat messy, uncertain and fuzzy experience that she struggles with defining. Helen’s third aspect is as a mother–Helen has an eight-year-old son, whom she raises alone, and who was conceived via an anonymous sperm donor.

The story proceeds in three areas as well. The first is the present time, in which Helen attempts to come to terms with the death of her friend Charlie. Helen and Charlie (who is black, Helen is white), met in college at Harvard, and were very close for many years. However, after the births of their children (Simmi, Charlie’s daughter is one year older than Helen’s son, Jack), they had less and less contact. Helen is strongly affected by Charlie’s death and it leads her to take actions that make her uncomfortable, but which are important. She speaks at Charlie’s memorial service, and she pushes for Terrence and Simmi to move into the apartment she has in her home.

Charlie’s death also creates echoes from the past. In flashbacks, Helen reminisces extensively about her relationship with Charlie over the years. She remembers events and her reactions to them that cause regret, and realizes that there were many times when both she and Charlie missed opportunities to enhance and deepen their relationship–opportunities now gone forever. These thoughts cause Helen to muse about where she is in life now and what she wants in the future.

Helen also remembers in detail her long standing and one time romantic relationship with Neel Jonnal, who was also at Harvard. After their romantic relationship ended, Neel became Helen’s collaborator on her signature contribution to physics–the Clapp-Jonnal model. Neel reappears in her life at nearly the same time that Charlie dies, providing Helen with a complicated triangle consisting of her attraction to Terrence, Neel’s return, and her own uncertainty that raising Jack alone was a good choice.

The third story arc involves the melding of the past and the present in Helen’s mind and emotions. Charlie is gone, but her family and her presence continue in Helen’s life as she sees Charlie reflected in her daughter Simmi, as well as in the sorrow, anger, and persistence of Charlie’s husband Terrence’s attempts to help his daughter through the loss of her mother while at the same time navigating his own way through his grief.

In addition, Neel, her collaborator on the most important work of her career in physics, and her first love while in college, returns to Helen’s life, moving to MIT from Cal Tech to pursue his research. This brings up the emotions of their failed relationship, complicated by the fact that Neel surprises her, first with the announcement that he will marry, then with the fact of his new wife’s pregnancy. This is especially significant since one of the complications of their early relationship was that Neel did not want children and Helen did.

Throughout all of these narratives Helen’s thoughts veer off topic frequently, into long explanations of the concepts of quantum and relativistic physics. These appear random, but they are not. They show us two things. First, these expositions of science are the essence of who Helen is–a rational and practical woman who finds solace in the predictability of science, but who, at the same time understands that science itself produces unpredictability, randomness, and mystery at its deepest levels–for example, when we enter the realm of quantum entanglement, or approach the event horizon of a black hole, or when relativistic effects create things like gravity waves.

These scientific asides provide the reader, and Helen, with a way of trying to understand how our lives and experiences are a mirror of the complexity of the physical world–how the active, ghostlike presence of Charlie is reflected by quantum entanglement (which Einstein claimed was “spooky action at a distance”), or how Neel’s return to her life so many years later is like a gravity wave touching a detector on Earth billions of years after it was created by the faraway collision of two black holes–objects we can’t even see directly.

But Freudenberger leads her readers down the garden path in her novel by presenting the text messages from Charlie in a such a mysterious manner. Because this is a trope from many a lesser novel, we at first think Freudenberger’s novel may be like them. We think we may be reading about supernatural events and this is misleading. It is not what the story is about and it minimizes the effectiveness of what Freudenberger is really about. Helen doesn’t really believe the ghost of Charlie is sending them, but we are left with this idea for much too long in the story.

There are also times in the novel when Freudenberger presents the reader with what are clearly scenes filled with portent. But for me, these are too hazy and I am left only with uncertainty and confusion. Her metaphors and imagery don’t resonate in my mind or provide me with any sense of deeper understanding–they are only complex and unintelligible.

So I am left with mixed feelings about Lost and Wanted. I enjoyed the book, and I particularly enjoyed Freudenberger’s forays into physics and all its mysteries. The story is well told and her characters interesting and complex. But I find myself wanting to forget the almost supernatural ending with Helen’s daydream that conflates Neel and Charlie warming Helen’s freezing body and Simmi’s apparent ghostwriting of a message in the data log at the LIGO lab. When I read these, I expected an ending that would make sense to me and pull together all the people, the times, and the events of the story into one metaphysical denouement that would expand my spirit and leave me with a sense that this was a completed experience. I really expected this of Freudenberger since she had such control of her story and her characters. Instead, I was left confused and empty.

This is probably my lack, but still.

Slaughterhouse-Five Review

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade

by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Gray Planet Commentary

• So it goes
• Simple, but compelling narrative
• Absurdist, but terribly, frighteningly real

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 90/100
• Literature Index: 90/100
• Magic Factor: 75/100
• Sense of Wonder Index: 40/100

I suspect most readers either like or hate Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. They either think he is silly or profound, a doddering fool or a wizard. The same is true of his 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

His style is at times simplistic, even childish. His prose is sparse, his paragraphs and chapters short. He skitters from scene to scene with abandon, like a child exploring the world. He uses varieties of humor to make tolerable the horror of his subject.

And yet, the effect of this simplicity, childishness and funny stuff is a novel that is profoundly dark, filled with portent and laced by lessons the world and the people in it must learn or forever be doomed. Vonnegut is a trickster, a clever wordsmith who distracts you with a smile and then hits you with a hammer.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, the Vonnegut’s topic is war, and particularly the fire-bombing of Dresden in World War II, which resulted in the deaths of 25,000 civilians (although Vonnegut, writing in the 1960s, references then contemporary estimates in the hundreds of thousands–an exaggeration which emphasizes his point). Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s main character, is a POW in Dresden at the time of the bombing. Vonnegut himself was a POW in Dresden and he speaks, through Billy Pilgrim, with authority about the horrors, injustices, and terrible consequences of war.

For Vonnegut, there is no making sense of this war, nor of this bombing, nor, by extension, of the human condition. And so, Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and flits back and forth throughout his life, visiting moments here and there, now and then, reflecting on the absurdity of war, the inevitability of death, the chronic sadness of life and the futility of any attempts to make sense of it all.

To add to the absurdity, Pilgrim is abducted by aliens, the Tralfamadorians. The Tralfamadorians are strange-looking creatures with their eyes in the palm of their hands so they have to hold up their open hands to view the world, as if they were saluting, or waving.

The Tralfamadorians have solved all the problems Billy sees–they simply ignore them and remember the good times. But even though Billy may want to do this, it doesn’t work for him. He cannot control his skipping through time and this results in reliving moments where he is witness to horror and death because that is what happened. There is no escape for Billy. In the unreality that Vonnegut creates where Billy moves spontaneously from one time to another and where he is a specimen in a Tralfamadorian zoo, he cannot escape the reality of his own experiences and of his own world. He is unstuck in time, but stuck in his own life and his own world as he experienced it. He cannot change it, as much as he might desire to.

That Vonnegut can create such complexity and depth of meaning with simple prose and absurd action is wizardry. We read breezily through the asynchronous events of Billy’s life, flying along through short chapters and brief paragraphs, but long before we arrive at the end, we realize that this is a tragic story, and it is our story, everyone’s story. So it goes.

Is this science fiction? Yes, but not really. There are certainly science fiction tropes here: time travel; aliens with a unique culture; even virtual space travel. But none of these are the focus of the novel as they are in real science fiction. The science fiction elements of Slaughterhouse-Five are simply plot devices, tools which Vonnegut uses to expand and elaborate his themes.

LeGuin, in The Left Hand of Darkness creates an alien culture and uses it as a means of exploring human sexuality. For LeGuin, the story follows from the world she has created, and the story cannot exist without the science fiction element. Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five tells a mundane story of a man devastated by the experience of war and the manifestations of his trauma include experiences that he describes in science fiction terms. This enhances the unreality of Billy’s experience, and allows Vonnegut to point out how absurd his reality is–that World War II and the Dresden bombing have caused him to become unstuck in his own mind and to retreat to a fantasy of alien abduction to save his sanity. This juxtaposition of fantasy and reality and the ill-defined border between the two for Billy provides Vonnegut with a means of framing his anti-war polemic. How can it be, Vonnegut asks, that human beings can treat each other so? Do we not see the unreality and absurdity of it? Do we, like the Trafalmadorians, simply ignore it and therefore trivialize it? So it goes.

In this sense, time travel is not important to the story, it is a plot device used by Vonnegut to illustrate the profound effect that Billy Pilgrim’s war experiences have on his psyche–Billy Pilgrim is not really unstuck in time, this is just a manifestation of trauma he has experienced–his center cannot hold and his mind flits randomly from memory to memory.

Nor is the story built upon the existence of the Tralfamadorians, they are a foil to provide Billy Pilgrim with simple but effective answers to the question of how to live with his trauma–remember the good times, ignore the bad. Similarly, Billy’s kidnapping by the Tralfamadorians and his time in the Tralfamadorian zoo with Montana Wildhack are Vonnegut’s method of providing Billy with some relief from his despair and confusion. On Tralfamadore, with Montana, Billy is content in a way he is not in his own world. He treats Montana with respect and is rewarded. In the zoo on Tralfamadore with Montana is the only time that Billy is content. But this contentment comes with a price–Billy is unable to change anything, because, as the Tralfamadorians explain, everything has already happened.

The result of all of this is a novel that stays in one’s mind long after reading it. Where other novels, as compelling as they may be, fade away after a few months, Slaughterhouse-Five blazes like the afterimage of actinic light on your retinas even after fifty years.

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows by Poul Anderson--Review

A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows

by Poul Anderson

Gray Planet Commentary

• Starships! Planets!
• Alien Spies! Romance!

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 80/100
• Literature Index: 35/100
• Magic Factor: 85/100
• Sense of Wonder Index: 90/100

After seeing the nominations for the 2019 Nebula Awards for novels (which were dominated by fantasy books), I sought some “real” science fiction, a book with a classic science fiction sense of wonder. I thought of Poul Anderson, and then of A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. First published as a serial in Worlds of If magazine in 1974, A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows was (according to Goodreads) Anderson’s seventh book in the Flandry series, and the fourth full-length novel.

I was 25 years old in 1974, just beginning my career as a psychotherapist in a community mental health clinic in rural Oregon. I was a voracious reader, consuming an average of a book every day, mostly science fiction. I was also beginning what would become a five year-long quest to be a professional science fiction writer.

I first read A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows as a serial in Worlds of If. The cover portrait of Aycharaych, Flandry’s nemesis, a Merseian agent, intrigued me immediately. The sense of wonder that Anderson invoked with his setting and descriptions made me savor each word of each sentence as I carefully turned the digest-sized pages of the magazine. When the Signet paperback came out in 1975 with Gene Szafran’s cover art depicting the beautiful and innocently seductive Kossara Vymezal, the heroine and Flandry’s love interest, I had to have it as well. I read the book again, and it was cemented in my memory as Poul Anderson’s best novel.

This is a classic Flandry story. Flandry is often compared to James Bond, but Flandry predates Bond by a few years, having first appeared in 1951. This book, in the Flandry corpus, brings to mind the Bond novel On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, published in 1963.

Someone is fomenting rebellion on a remote Empire planet and Agent Flandry is dispatched to find out who and why and to bring this small piece of the Empire back into the fold. Flandry has information fed to him by his twenty-seven-year-old son, Dominic Hazeltine, on board the Hooligan, Flandry’s starship.

Flandry discusses Dennitza with the Emperor and is sent off to investigate. Before leaving, he purchases Kossara Vymezal, a young Dennitzan woman who was captured by Empire agents on Diomedes and charged with treason for rebellious activity and sentenced to a lifetime of slavery. Flandry treats her well in return for her acting as a double agent in his attempts to find out what is going on with Dennitza and Merseia.

In Flandry’s universe, interstellar travel takes weeks. During transit, both Flandry and Chives, his alien butler/partner/bodyguard, have conversations with Kossara, during which we learn the background of her life on Dennitza and what happened on Diomedes. Flandry also becomes attracted to her (although they are chaste) and Kossara often ruminates about him. Flandry suggests, and Kossara agrees, to be mind probed so Flandry can get more detail about what happened on Diomedes. This probing is handled in the novel through flashbacks from Kossara’s point of view. Using the information gathered from the mind probe, Flandry cements his control of Kossara for his own purposes, even though he internally is conflicted about using her in this manner.

On Diomedes, Kossara realizes that she was duped by her supposed allies and that Flandry is right–Dennitza is being manipulated by outside forces to rebel against the Empire. She and Flandry head to Dennitza to put things right. Along the way, they decide to marry after all is resolved. But the novel ends tragically in surprising ways that teach us more about Flandry’s character as he reacts to the events that unfold.

Anderson is very good at developing his plot and basing events on the historical and cultural conditions in the universe he has created. He provides extensive depth for his characters, their worlds, and the conflicts they face. Even though there is a lot of exposition, it flows well and much of the exposition serves to create the otherworldly sense of wonder that drove much of my reading when I was younger and still thrills me today. Anderson’s unorthodox style also enhances this feeling. Reading Anderson, one feels this is no common writer, but someone special, who speaks only of extraordinary things. An example:

“Day broke windless and freezing cold. The sun stood in a rainbow ring and ice crackled along the shores of Lake Stoyan. Zorkagrad lay silent under bitter blue, as if killed. From time to time thunders drifted across its roofs, arrivals and departures of spacecraft. They gleamed meteoric. Sometimes, too, airships whistled by, armored vehicles rumbled, boots slammed on pavement. About noon, one such vessel and one such march brought Bodin Miyatovich home.”

And another:

“Glory brimmed the dark, stars in glittering flocks and Milky Way shoals, faerie-remote glimmer of nebulae and a few sister galaxies”

This unique style, vintage Anderson, is extant in a plethora of images and descriptions, where he appears to give agency to objects around us:

Closer by, the Elena flowed eastward, oceanward; barges plodded and boats danced upon it. Here in the middle of the Kazan, she could not see the crater walls which those streams clove.

and

“Waterborne shipping crowded docks and bay.”

In these examples, Anderson gives life-like motivations and agency to inanimate objects. This is partly an active tense technique. For example, this last sentence might more normally be written: “The docks were crowded with shipping.”

It is also interesting to note, given today’s fascination with the Russian disruption of our media, the following paragraph:

“… discussions about how to “resolve mutual difficulties” and assure the Imperium that the Roidhunate has never had any desire to interfere in domestic affairs of the Empire—when everybody knows how gleefully Merseian agents have swarmed through every one of our camps, trying their eternally damnedest to keep our family fight going.”

Forty-five years ago, in an interstellar science fiction novel, Anderson is describing foreign influencers who instigate dissension by inciting existing social conflicts.

Re-reading books I have read long ago (in this case, 45 years ago) is always interesting. Sometimes they are as good or better than I remember, at other times they seem old and clunky or I find them uninteresting and impossible to read. A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows may not have generated quite the magic it did when I was 25 years old, but the sense of wonder is still there and I am still entranced by Anderson’s style.

I highly recommend this book.

Book Review: Lost Cat by Caroline Paul Illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton

Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology

by Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton

Gray Planet Commentary

• Cute, but mostly pointless book about a cat who wanders the neighborhood.

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 50/100
• Literature Index: 25/100
• Magic Factor: 20/100

Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology, by Caroline Paul, illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton, is a short, kind of cute, illustrated book about Caroline Paul’s cats, Tibula and Fibula. The cats are litter mates, but very different. Paul is injured when she crash lands an experimental plane, and she endures a long convalescence in her home, cared for by Wendy MacNaughton. While Paul is convalescing, Fibby disappears for a few weeks and then returns unharmed. Depressed and physically limited by her injuries, Paul becomes obsessed with discovering where Fibby had spent his time and why.

Paul’s obsession results in consulting psychics, pet detectives, and using GPS receivers and cameras attached to Fibby’s collar, in an attempt to find where and with whom Fibby spent the missing time. It’s all kind of cute and Paul does try to put some meat into the story by associating her obsession with Fibby’s escapades with the depression that accompanies her convalescence and by showing us that the resolution of these problems requires engagement with her neighbors—actually talking to people and being nice. But although it rings true, I just didn’t care much. I only finished the book because it was so short and the pages flew by filled with MacNaughton’s nice illustrations.

Forty years ago, when I had my own tomcat who disappeared for days at a time, I might have cared a little more, but now, not so much.

Book Review: The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Calculating Stars

by Mary Robinette Kowal

Gray Planet Commentary

• Frustrating
• Stuff I Don’t Believe
• Why is this Science Fiction?

Gray Planet Indices

• Good Book Index: 50/100
• Literature Index: 30/100
• Magic Factor: 10/100
• Sense of Wonder Index: 15/100

Warning: There are minor spoilers in this review.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal is the first novel in a trilogy. The trilogy is an expansion of the story “The Lady Astronaut of Mars” which won Kowal the Hugo Award for best novelette in 2014. The setting of the story is an alternate American history where Dewey beats Truman in the 1948 presidential election. In 1952. Washington and much of the eastern seaboard of the US is destroyed. Scientists predict that the coming climate catastrophe will make Earth uninhabitable in a few years. The response to this scientific prediction is to accelerate the space program in the United States with the goal of saving a portion of the human race by migrating to another planet.
Elma York and her husband, Nathaniel are in a remote cabin in the mountains away from Washington, DC when the meteor strikes. Elma York is a pilot, a scientist and a mathematician. Her husband, Nathaniel, is a rocket scientist. In this new world, with much of the military and scientific establishment and all of the political establishment destroyed by the asteroid, Nathaniel becomes the chief rocket scientist for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and Elma becomes a “computer”—a human who does mathematical calculations, like orbital trajectories, for NACA rocket launches.
The Calculating Stars takes us through the recovery from the asteroid’s impact and the creation of the NACA space program. The subsequent history of NACA is very similar to that of NASA, but accelerated by the impending climate doom the asteroid has initiated.
Elma’s work at NACA and her desire to become an astronaut are the focal point in the story and a plot device to allow an examination of racial and sexual bias. The social setting is American in the 1950s and Kowal does a very good job of evoking the times including the expectations (or lack of expectations) for women and minorities.
Kowal doesn’t really deal with the effects of the asteroid. The Secretary of Agriculture survives because he is not in DC. He becomes president and things just sort of go on—there is no struggle for power and the America Kowal creates accepts that its political system and social structure will be unaffected by such a tragedy. The capitol is relocated to Kansas City as are the rocket launching facilities of NACA. Similarly, the idea (one of the proponents of which is Elma’s meteorologist brother) that an unsurvivable nuclear winter is coming is also just accepted and along with it, the necessity for putting massive resources into the fledgling space program, primarily run by the United States, to allow a few select people—mostly white, mostly American and all male to go into space. Kowal solves these massive problems with a few sentences of exposition. The asteroid disaster is only a means to an end—Kowal needs a reason to accelerate the space program in her alternate history.
Elma is an interesting strong female character and Kowal’s development of her is well-done and interesting. Her friendship with a handful of African American women provides the opportunity to develop the story of racial bias. Elma suffers from debilitating anxiety under some social circumstances as she becomes the “lady astronaut”. This severe anxiety disorder gives Kowal the opportunity to address the stigma of mental illness.
I believe in the character of Elma York as Kowal has created her, but I think Kowal has sabotaged the primary purpose of her novel by making Elma so much a part of her times. Elma doesn’t succeed by overcoming her weaknesses through the strength of her will and personality. I’m not sure how or why she succeeds and that is my biggest problem with the novel. To have Elma, with all of her weaknesses, become a lady astronaut and the pilot of the first Moon mission while taking anxiety medication (Miltown) is just simply not believable. I can believe a woman would be the best, but not Elma. Any person as affected as she is by stress related anxiety is simply not a suitable candidate for the job. We are looking for the intellectual, physical, and emotional elite for roles like this. Elma does not pass muster.
The primary science fictional element of the story, is the accelerated space program operating in the context of 1950s America following the asteroid disaster. But again, Kowal fails to deliver. The storyline she follows is too similar to the actual events of the Apollo program. She shows us no creative alternatives, but simply reiterates the primary events and technology of Apollo. All she is really showing us is the inclusion of women, but her choice of Elma as the chosen woman is not believable.
Although I respect and admire much of what Kowal has done in this novel, in presentation it is a failure, particularly as a science fiction novel. There is too much that doesn’t ring true, the detail is too skimpy to justify major portions of the action, and the primary theme of the book—that Elma is the woman for the job is not believable.

Book Review: Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

Only Human

by Sylvain Neuvel

Gray Planet Commentary

• Fun and easy read
• Moments of brilliance and insight
• Dissatisfying ending

Gray Planet Indices

• Sense of Wonder Index: 40/100
• Literature Index: 20/100
• Good Book Index: 65/100
• Magic Factor: 20/100

Warning: There are minor spoilers in this review.

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel is the final installment of the Themis Files trilogy. The first book was Sleeping Giants, the second was Waking Gods.

The trilogy started out as a classic science fiction puzzle story. Rose Franklin, as a young girl, discovered a giant robot buried in her backyard. Seventeen years later, as an adult, Rose, now a physicist, works to understand the giant robot, which is an artifact of an alien civilization. Along with Kara Resnick and Vincent Couture, Rose attempts to determine the purpose and function of the giant robots (there end up being lots of them), and the motivations of the aliens who created them.

In Only Human, Rose, Vincent, Eva (Vincent’s ten year old daughter by Kara Resnick), and General Eugene Govender, have been transported to the home planet of the creators of the giant robots after the events of Walking Gods. As with the other two books of the trilogy, the book is epistolary—the story consists of a sequence of documents or interviews of the characters.

Only Human is a quick, breezy read. Chronologically, we skip back and forth between the time Rose, Vincent and Eva spend on Esat Ekt, the home planet of the Ekt, the builders of the robots, and the present time of the novel, which takes place on Earth, after the three have been transported back home in one of the giant robots, Themis.

On Esat Ekt, the Ekt are in the midst of a political upheaval caused by their interference with human development on Earth thousands of years ago. The Ekt (in Waking Gods), had murdered millions of humans in an attempt to correct that interference. The guilt they feel as a result of the massacre causes them to reverse course and their political system becomes gridlocked trying to guarantee they never again interfere with other cultures. This puts Rose, Vincent, and Eva in limbo while on Esat Ekt. Are they prisoners, or hostages, or what?

On Earth, governments have reacted to the knowledge of the aliens and their interference in human history and development by identifying and persecuting (even executing), all people who have a large amount of alien DNA as a result of the Ekt’s interference.

Neuvel has created two diverse cultural milieus that are in the midst of xenophobic revolutions that result in horrific treatment of some citizens based on arbitrary racial or genetic differences. The feel of this, particularly in the sections that take place on Earth, is similar to the current day political situation in the United States—demonizing immigrants. This cultural phenomena is not hinted at in the previous two novels, and I wonder if the third was written after 2016 and has taken on some tone of Trumpism and Brexit and the migrant problems in the EU as a result.

Neuvel has a style that gives immediacy to his characters as the point of view switches frequently from document to document in the epistolary style. We slowly learn how Rose, Vincent and Eva end up back on Earth, and more details about the political situation on Earth. Neuvel occasionally dazzles with interesting perspectives on the cultural and political situations he has created on Esat Ekt and on Earth. But these deep insights are not enough to give the novel the depth necessary to make it significant. Neuvel attempts to define the driving cultural and political forces on Esat Ekt, but doesn’t succeed. He doesn’t quite make me believe in his world, particularly Esat Ekt, and the narrative becomes trivial.

Similarly, the events on Earth and Vincent’s and Eva’s actions within them are unrealistic and without sufficient motivation. Neuvel creates a complex situation in the conflict between Vincent and his now grown daughter Eva, which seems portentous and which is intertwined with the political rivalries of nations. But neither Vincent nor Eva has anything invested in the political sides they end up fighting for. Sides are chosen for them, or occur by happenstance—they are not the agents of their choices and again the resulting conflict becomes trivial.

Rose is not engaged in any of this—she is distant from it, and from most events in the novel. She longs to return to a normal life, to abdicate the pressure and responsibility of the position events and her own actions in the previous books have thrust upon her. But Neuvel ignores this and uses Rose as the agent who resolves the world’s conflicts even though she has done her best to abdicate her responsibility and authority. Worse, the solution Rose implements is Machiavellian at best and cruel and inhuman at worst.

I enjoyed the book and wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, but if you expect a satisfying resolution to the situation Neuvel has created in the first two books of the trilogy, I fear you will be disappointed like I was.