MeiLin Miranda's THE MACHINE GOD #OneBookAtATime

Meilin Miranda was one of my first friends on Twitter and someone with whom I enjoy spending time in real life whenever I find myself in her home city, so it would be hard, if not impossible, for me to be objective about her work. But I'm not a book reviewer or a book blogger, so I don't have to be. So with that in mind, read on.

First of all, I demand The Machine God be immediately adapted into an anime screenplay and turned over to Hayao Miyazaki and/or Isao Takahata immediately. As in this story begs to be brought to the screen by Studio Ghibli.

The novel -- short by today's standards but packing a whole lot of everything good in its few pages -- takes place in a shared fictional universe with a lot of steampunk elements, a rich and interesting history, and a great big island floating above a sizable population center: A legend-shrouded cataclysm a thousand years ago tore a grand old city right out of the earth and flung it into the sky, where it has been ever since, casting a shadow over the gradually resettled land below and tantalizing scholars and engineers with its unattainable nearness.

Unattainable until the discovery of a semi-magical petroleum stand-in called variously "black mercury" or "ichor" allows the city below's "autogyro" flying machines to achieve the great heights necessary to mount an expedition up to the floating island. Are there people there? Are there solutions to the mystery of how that huge chunk of land decided to cheat the law of gravity? Are there artifacts to study and/or trade in, and thus make someone famous and maybe even rich?

Our hero is a charming and slightly naive academic, Adewole, master of languages old and new, collector of folklore, specialist in legends about the floating island even though he comes from a faraway land and only wound up in the Drifting Isle's shadow due to a series of mishaps and betrayals, only to embark on a life of little respect and not a little contempt from the dean and most of the rest of the university where he holds a "useless" token chair in the humanities -- taking up space and soaking up money that everybody else thinks would be better put to use endowing yet another engineering professorship at an already science/technology-heavy school.

Everybody, that is, except for the City Mother (the world of the Drifting Isle accords women a powerful socio-political position that threatens to nudge somewhat beyond equality into matriarchy, but not quite), who happens to be the one who gets to choose the team to make first contact with the denizens, if any, of the Floating Island. Someone with a gift for language, a feel for forgotten lore and a talent for uncovering the true elements of various myths and legends is just the sort such an expedition needs.

Soon Adewole and his best friend, Deviatka (an engineering professor) are exploring the ruins of the city above, getting acquainted with the struggling locals they find there, and fretting over how the dean of their university will doubtless exploit their discoveries for his own profit -- social and economic -- as he has done to Deviatka so many, many times before.

And then Adewole makes a discovery that blows even their worst and wildest worries right out of the water with its implications, its historical import and its threat, both physical and moral, to the present and the future, possibly of their entire world.

Like I said, Ms. Miranda packed a whole lot into just a few pages -- wry and pointed commentary on academic politics and the tensions between pure and applied research, the ethical implications of the quest for knowledge for its own sake, the public and private morality of holders of political and academic power, and yes, whether or not someone at some point actually managed to build a mecha so big and powerful that it could legitimately be referred to as a Machine God.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part yet, because the world of the Drifting Isle is a world in which more and more birds are turning up sentient and capable of using human language all the time. An early scene with sparrows lecturing Adewole about how if he doesn't share a bit of his pastry with him he's basically a rude selfish jerk sets the amusing and yet also deadly serious tone here. Plus there is a talking owl so wise and cool and drily funny that she knocks Bubo and Glimfeather right out of contention for for the title of Most Awesome Fictional Owl of All Time (and no, I do not consider Hedwig even to be an also-ran here, sorry, Potterniks). Owls get notions, you know.

But above all, there is Adewole, with whom you would have to be the world's biggest jerk not to fall in love with before you're even through the very first chapter. His personal history is full of heartbreak and struggle; his talents are prodigious (yet he is modest about them); his behavior when faced with a truly unique set of challenges is completely believable and completely understandable, which is all the more remarkable when one considers the cruel set of dilemmas his creator set before him. He is, in other words, a shining example of Miranda's signature sweet, deserving young male hero, whose life is circumscribed by women but who is man enough to think that's just fine and to go on and be awesome in a way that harms no one and helps many. When he meets someone whose lot in life has been orders of magnitude harder than his, he doesn't even think to compare his misfortunes to hers, just swears that he will do all in his power to find a way to make it as close to better as he can. He is, in other words, so loveable that you can't even roll your eyes at him, or hate loving him, or love hating him, or even think he's a bit too much of a Boy Scout. You just want to be his best friend. Especially since, well, spoilers.

Now I'm curious about the rest of the Drifting Isle Chronicles, which I should be getting my grubby hands on soon for being a backer for Ms. Miranda's Kickstarter to get this one published in style. Dudes, I have the best taste in Kickstarter projects.

Oh, and a little bird told me (hee!) that Ms. Miranda is going to write more books set in this universe, so HOORAY!

100 Books #11 - Lavie Tidhar's THE GREAT GAME

I would call myself a moderate steampunk fan -- I find automatons charming, I like clockwork, I certainly like well-dressed men gallavanting about in nice suits and top hats (though I don't envy the distaff their petticoats and crinolines and frippery and corsets) -- but I'm certainly not the sort who drops everything and rushes to the bookstore at the news that someone has published a new steampunk novel. It's low dose stuff for me, like brandy and cigars: pleasant once in a while but not so enjoyable if taken on a daily basis. Cough. So I cannot by any stretch of the imagination call myself an expert on the genre, but I think I've found something a bit unusual here.

The steampunk milieu of Lavie Tidhar's Bookman series (of which this is the third volume*) is one in which the author has actually taken pains to not only come up with an explanation for why the technology of steam and clockwork is so much more advanced than what was achieved during the actual reign of Queen Victoria, but has come up with a highly entertaining, even somewhat Lovecraftian explanation. For in this world, highly advanced and mysterious reptilian aliens landed on an island in the South Pacific, there to be contacted by Amerigo Vespucci and brought to Europe and thence to usurp the throne of England. Henry VII being the first Lizard King** and the succession proceeding from there in much the way of our world except, e.g. Elizabeth I was the greatest of all the rulers of the Lizardines, at least until Victoria of the powerful tail and forked tongue and...

And guys, I haven't even gotten to the weird bits yet.

For The Great Game (and presumably the two prior Bookman novels) entertains two big conceits simultaneously: 1. That the long rule of England and other bits of Europe by advanced reptilian aliens from outer space has spurred considerable technological development to the point where, for instance, Charles Babbage lives on and on as a nightmarishly freaky steampunk cyborg, and 2. That pretty much every character from 19th Century popular fiction actually existed, in many cases right alongside the authors who made them up in our world, so that not only is Bram Stoker a character but so is Lucy Westenra***. Karl May, the German author of a series of dime westerns, exists and so does his famous character, the Apache warrior Winnetou (who, of course, trained Harry Houdini in the way of the diplomat/spy. Of course). And there are more and more and more. For about the first third of the novel, it is amusing to spot all the characters from Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle and Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (though I got a bit annoyed at the coyness with which some were presented, as if I was being challenged to recognize them, which kept knocking me out of my happy story reading trance, and we all know how much I don't like that), but after a while, one goes into overload. When Miss Havisham shows up as some kind of human library, I kind of threw my hands up in the air and sighed. But I also chuckled a bit.

Which is to say that if you're a fan of crossovers and secret histories, the Bookman series will pretty much make your brain explode. Keep your tophat on tightly so as to avoid spattering the wallpaper, would you?

Me, I'm not so much of one. I prefer authors to make up their own characters, on the whole -- but at least, if one is going to do it, Lavie Tidhar has pretty much shown exactly how to do it.

Even before Harry Houdini is made over into a [spoiler redacted] and is sent off into [spoiler redacted]. And Number Six refrains from announcing he is not a number but does indeed find his way out of The Village. What? No no, just roll with it.

You'll be glad you did.

*Once again, my Angry Robot ebook subscription brought me a late entry in a series. Regular readers of this blog know that usually results in my huffing off to the AR store to snag the earlier entries because I have that serial compulsion they count on, but just this once I decided to try jumping in at Book Three. I'm glad I did. And yes, I huffed off to the store to get the earlier books, but only after realizing I'd plowed through 2/3 of this book in a single sitting. Wa-hey!

**Nuts to you, Jim Morrison. Hee hee.

***And, as seems traditional for steampunk, the female characters play havoc with conventional gender stereotyping by being, to a woman, pistol-packing paragons of badassery (except when, as with Isabella Beeston, they remain somewhat conventionally feminine except in that they get elected Prime Minister). As someone who enjoys the classics but always gnashes her teeth at how much it always sucks to be a woman in the periods depicted, I must say I enjoy the hell out of this tradition, even though it strains my credulity rather a lot.

100 Books 64 - Trent Jamison's ROIL

Short version: God damn, Angry Robot is putting out some good, genre-muddling stuff. This one is part straight-up sci-fi (this world seems to be a settled, terraformed exoplanet on which something native and terrifying is fighting back against the terraforming), a dash steampunk (lots of clockwork technology, airships -- oh, but get this, the airships are ALIVE) and possibly a little bit fantasy, too (lots of malformed monsters, some of which kind of defy physics a bit and rejoice in baroque and bizarre names like "Hideous Garment Flukes", and also a quest that hangs heavily on an ordinary boy who turns out to be a very special boy and who is everybody's Only Hope). I found it wonderfully reminiscent of Alastair Reynold's last proper novel, Terminal World in lots of ways, which made me very happy. I tore through this thing in a matter of days and can't wait for the sequels. Hurry up, Trent!

Long version: again, will try to do an Audioboo. Cuz, even this much typing is ouch.

100 Books 30 - Philippa Ballantine & Tee Morris' PHOENIX RISING: A MINISTRY OF PECULIAR OCCURRENCES NOVEL

Long have I looked forward to having this novel in my hot little hands, but longer still did I wait, after having it, to read it. But only by about a month or so.

For the most part, it was worth the wait, though I did despair a tiny bit at first. While I can't say that Phoenix Rising gets off to a slow start (on the contrary, it very self-consciously and deliberately starts, quite literally, with a bang), it does get off to rather a false one, as we come in at the end of a prior adventure, knowing nothing that is going on but getting to peek in on a daring rescue and escape -- from Antarctica, no less. Which is to say we are firmly in Indiana Jones territory, here.

And, like in the chronicles of Dr. Jones, we have a bit of a lull after the prologue's pyrotechnics. The bossman is far from pleased with how that rescue/escape was conducted, and also, of course, that it was necessary at all, and jets have been ordered cooled, to rather dull effect, however sparkling the banter between our two heroes is supposed to be.

Fortunately, things pick up after a bit.

In our two heroes, Wellington Books and Eliza Braun, we seem for most of the novel to remain in Indiana Jones territory, character-wise, if there were some way to split that territory rather neatly in half. Books, as his surname suggests, partakes of Dr. Jones' rather tidy, intellectual, academic side, attending lectures, cataloging and studying artifacts and documents, tinkering a bit. The distaff side of the partnership, Braun, partakes of the buckled swash, all smart assery, armed to the teeth, flirtaceous, action-oriented and impatient with the dullness she sees as comprising Books' entire existence. When their boss, the wonderfully named Dr. Sound, re-assigns her to Books' domain, she takes it as punishment and grouses over it for just long enough to really slow down the narrative.

Just as the reader is starting to nod off, though, Ballantine and Morris get around to what they really wrote this book for: to ape not Indiana Jones but Sherlock Holmes, if Holmes had lived in an alternate steampunk universe with Babbage engines at his disposal, and if Moriarty had been able to sic not just gorgeous lady assassins but also bio-mechanical monstrosities on him. This without straying, in their romp through literary madness and mash-ups, into the territory of the loathsome works of Seth Graham-Smith, for which I vigorously applaud them.

Speaking of loathsomeness, I've seen a few reviewers make allusions to Stanley Kubrick's really not-so-wonderful Eyes Wide Shut when writing about Phoenix Rising, and the criticism is a fair one. The one of the two conspiracies Books and Braun are rather more effective at penetrating has a penchant for what amounts to Victorian key parties, which is possibly meant to be saucy (as Braun is herself rather saucy, demonstrating many times throughout the novel that she is not above using her feminine wiles to achieve what her pistols and stiletto-bladed hair ornaments cannot) but comes across as rather shockingly creepy in a novel that up to that point has felt like a relatively light-hearted adventure romp, though this perhaps cushions the blow the reader gets when that conspiracy's real secret is discovered. I still have the willies from THAT.

Handled by lesser writers than Ballantine and Morris, this might just be cheap pulp fiction, but individually they both have a lot of good work under their belts and it shows in the appealing character dynamics they have built between Books and Braun. I know both of the authors personally and can't help, as I'm sure they wouldn't have even thought of trying to prevent, imagining each of them in the roles of their heroes, whose banter is reminiscent of that I have enjoyed over evening cocktails and bleary-eyed Panera breakfasts at Balticon.

Thanks for the ride, guys. Save me a seat on the next one?