Wastelands Edited by John Joseph Adams

The title of this short story collection, featuring mostly reprints and a few original pieces, is perfect.  The subtitle 'Stories of the Apocalypse' and in particular all the crap on the back of the book are as misleading as can be.  Luckily for me, the bad stuff on the back and subtitle were irrelevant to the stories within.  All of which makes me wonder how I came across this collection.  That said, don't let the publishers promotion deter you from checking this collection out.

This science fiction collection deals with "the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse."  (That is the only salvageable blurb from the back of the book.)  Most all the stories deal with story, and character more so than science and that is exactly how I liked my science fiction; so if you're in it for the super hardcore stuff you may want to look elsewhere.

There were very few inclusions that actually dealt with bringing about the end of the world.  The first in the collection: The End of the Whole Mess by Stephen King was one of them and one of the collection's finest.  The narrator's super-genius brother is fed up with mankind's pettiness and negativity.  Thinking he has found a way correct man's aggression and general bad attitude he enacts a briliant plan with the best of intentions and the worst of results.

Judgement Passed by Jerry Oltion was perhaps my favorite in terms of concept.  A group a colonist preparing another planet for colonization returns home to Earth to find the planet utterly deserted of life.  Their only clues as to what happened are newspapers and magazines saying Jesus came back, and took everybody with them.  The execution was strong, but not as fulfilling as I would have liked.

Mary Riket's story Bread and Bombs was a profound look at what happens to those who escape the end of a particular place in the world and how they incorporate themselves into life elsewhere.  I'm not sure it's fair to call this one science fiction: it's just a damn good story that the collection could hang it's hat on.

Nancy Kress can tell a helluva story.  Inertia is about a colony of people who have survived a global epidemic that horribly disfigures them.  It's intimate and personal with a contrast of youth and old age; naivety and innocence against pessimism and experience; and what it means to being alive while living outside of the world's notice, and what one can do with their life even under the heaviest of restrictions.

The End of the World as We Know It by Dale Baily was--against all odds--the strongest in the collection.  Take every cliche about the last man alive, the fall of mankind and how a person could carry on in such a circumstance and you'll end up with these thirteen pages.  Except the story is phenomenal and anything but cliched.  This is the story you can't put down and upon finishing makes you say "Wow" out loud.

There were other strong inclusions by Elizabeth Bear, David Grigg, George RR Martin, Gene Wolfe, and Jonathan Lethem's 'hunger games-ish' farce.  There were also a handful of story that didn't do it for me.  Those stories reflect more upon than author's style not really meshing with my preferences than the quality of what they wrote.

If nothing else, reading Wastelands reinforced the longstanding hunch that I need to check out Nancy Kress and Stephen King; that alone made the book worth it to me.  I don't really like science fiction and a story about the apocalypse will probably make me roll my eyes upon first mention.  This collection is light on both: check it out.  

Can we still write like this?

"One summer morning of bland air, the huge, corroding, bell-like heart of Gormenghast was half asleep and there appeared to be no reverberation from its muffled thudding.  In a hall of plaster walls the silence yawned." 

Seven adjectives in one sentence modifiying five nouns.  I'm sure MFA creative writing teachers hate that first sentence.  Or is the style simply frowned in today's contemporary fiction?   

I know how I would argue.  "The silence yawned" is set up by what precedes it.   

I win.  Awesome.

The Month in Review

Okay; so the self-imposed pseudo-ban on reading for May has passed.  I foresee a return to regular activity for June.

June also brings about lots and lots of birthdays that I have to account for me; I will not let this stress me out.

I'm a third of the way through an awesome short story collection and there are at least four big books that I'd like to tackle all at once.  That time away was a good thing.

I hope everything is going deliciously.

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

For my thoughts on the first and second books in The Infernal Devices follow the links.


Something a bit different. Instead of my standard commentary I'd like to share an experience I had that relates to the book.
***
It's about 11:30 on a Saturday morning and I'm headed to work. I'm reading on the train as I usually do. At Medial Center station I close the book and laugh to myself about something that has just occurred. There is a family of five that get on the train and they are all sitting rather close to me.

A girl, who I took to be the middle, perhaps eldest child in the family, notices the book in my lap and walks over to sit next to me. Cute kid; this is my general feeling to all people near twenty years my junior. (Younger than that and my feelings turn to 'Cute Baby.') Pretty Caucasian girl voluntarily decides to relocate and sit right next to me on the train. This is the first in a series of very peculiar events that have the potential to alter my life.

"How do you like that?" she said inclining her head toward the book in my hands. "I just finished Clockwork Prince."

I look at her; as objectively as I can. I look; at her. Nothing is different upon further inspection than the glance I gave her and her family upon stepping onto the train: cute kid.

"Did you like Clockwork Prince?"

She shrugs her shoulders in a non-committal yet non-defiant sort of way. "Eh, if you can put up with Cassandra Clare in general it was kinda awesome."

I'm the only person I know who speaks like she has spoken and while I've had many conversations with myself (you'd be amazed at what I've accomplished in these talks) I've never before responded in the voice of a fourteen year old girl. It was rather odd to say the least.

"You mean her pretentious, faux 19th century, affected, English or her seemingly physical impossibility to render even one believable male character?"

"Yeah, that, but I really meant how she writes for a teenage audience and can't come up with a teenage character that I buy into: contemporary or historical. And the overwrought romantic stuff kinda makes me throw up in my mouth a bit."

"Have you punched Will in the face yet?"

"Couple times, but I forgave him when I found out about the curse. She's way better at creating tension then resolving it."

"Don't get me started on that," I said. "I know for fact I just read “The End” of this," I said referencing Clockwork Princess, "and yet it keeps ending. She won't shut up. There's still like another hundred and fifty pages of ending. I don't know why it won't stop but it won't." I'm quiet and look at her again. We've spent five minutes hating on the finer points of Cassandra Clare. She managed to use ‘overwrought’ organically in sentence; you get major style points for that.

Now, I really look at her. I'm a little more than half-way in love.

She's wearing a Braves hat that I don't own any iteration of (which is really, really rare). It's navy and white and at the time I'm guessing it to be a Negro league replica for the Atlanta Black Crackers. The hat alone endears me to her more than anything that has happened or is yet to come.  This is not a hat for the casual Braves, or even baseball, fan.  She's got a Braves tee-shirt on and an off-white Tim Hudson jersey over the top of that. I glance over towards her family. They are all equally decked-out in Braves regalia.

"Y'all going to the game?" From Twain, to Faulkner, to every writer of the present: I hate to see southern American accents phonetically dictated on paper, or the screen if you will. Not only is it an eyesore, but it ain't ever quite right. I don't 'turn it on' as it were, but upon first meeting someone (even should that person be a fourteen year old girl who I have no designs of impressing for any reason whatsoever) I do unconsciously hold it in check.

This child has gotten to the heart of me faster than anyone I've met in years. It's in part the bizarreness of circumstances: Cassandra Clare, my commute to work, and the Braves. I’m always comfortable in my own skin but this is plain old weird.

"Yeah. My Dad dugout seats for my birthday. I've never seen Hudson pitch in person before." I’m learning so much and so fast that I start to feel dizzy.

I didn’t know fourteen year old girls asked for dugout seats to a Braves game for their birthday. I didn’t know that their favorite ‘celebrity’ could be a pitcher from Alabama. I’m still not sure if Cassandra Clare balances these other peculiarities out or only exacerbates the oddity of the moment.

I tell myself I'm not in the Twilight Zone. Saying the words are easy; believing them is anther matter entirely. As if to further impede my understanding of the moment and reinforce the truth that reality is bending all around me we then talk about the Braves sad history of acquiring horrible unrestricted free agents at super high prices. She drops names like Kenshin Kawakami, and Mike Hampton (was she alive then?). I counter with Dan Uggla and Garrett Anderson.

"Oh, don't get me started on Uggla. I can't believe he's paid so much to be that awful." She is visibly agitated upon saying this as opposed to the composure displayed when talking about Clare.

"Well, if it makes you feel better he's not the most overpaid, under-performing dude on the team."

"Wait... You mean BJ Upton makes more?"

Although there’s no mess, my head has just exploded.  I can't qualify how this conversation is happening.

All this happened between Medical Center and North Avenue. My head hurts. I shouldn't be able to talk about Cassandra Clare with fourteen year old girls and yet I did and we talked far past the basics. I also didn't think I would ever talk baseball stats (the nerdiest of nerd things ever; D&D ain't got nothing on baseball) with a child that could not only keep up but impress.

I think I'm in love with this girl and I'm afraid of what that means because it’s inappropriate on so many levels and I have Clare and the Braves to either thank or blame. Happily, I get off at North Avenue and work will help divert my attention from my confusion. (You'll never find a stronger recommendation for Clare or Clockwork Princess than what you've just read.) I say “Happy birthday’ and 'goodbye' and walk over to her parents.

I stare her dad down for a moment trying to gauge as much of his personality as I can with a look. He is oblivious to me, his family, and anything else on the planet that isn’t on his iphone’s screen. "Sir," I said. He looks up to me rather expectantly. "I'd like to declare my intentions for marriage in regards to your daughter."

He laughed his ass off and I got off the train.

The one that got away...

The Month In Review

Not a whole lot went down in terms of reading this month.  Will Grayson, Will Grayson was great.  The Arabian Nightmare was excellent, and Inkspell is as good as it's predecessor only I picked up the book at a time in which I don't have any reading energy or drive.  Yeah, it's really long, but I'm not focus on books right now for whatever reason.

That said, my only goal for May is to finish the last third of Inkspell.  If I feel the urge to pick something else up I'll do so, but don't hold your breath.  I'm going to take a moment and re-charge the reading battery.  If anything, I see myself re-reading a few books from past years that I would both enjoy and feel would reward the experience. 

I've also added a lot of poetry books to look into thanks to The Parrish Lantern.  Speaking of poetry; in addition to being high and might and all kinds of esoteric for the burgeoning neophyte of only weary interest it's not only difficult to get into, but pricey as well.  It doesn't circulate as much as other products so libraries don't buy as much.  The niche poetry publishers are uber-niche and many don't offer discounts to larger retailers.  It's hard to lay your eyes on enough of the stuff that might be of interest to you to even develop what your interest may be.  Not complaining, merely making notes. 

I can't blame it on spring fever as it's been a mighty fine winter we've had this spring, I'm not even sure I know what I'm doing with my time, but it hasn't fallen to reading.

The Arabian Nightmare by Robert Irwin

"Balian tried to see the friar's face properly before he spoke again but, having failed: 'I dream of entering a city that looks like Cairo, yet is utterly false.  I dream of leaving it or trying to, but I am impeded by two agents of Satan called the Father of Cats and Michael Vane.  I dream I am awake and I am not and I dream of a temptress, a woman called Zuleyka, who seduces me from chastity, and when I awake from these dreams my face courses with blood.'  "Page 165-166

I wish I could remember what originally brought this book to my attention.  I read about books that sound interesting, put them on my TBR list and then proceed to forget about them; often times until years later.  I like doing this.  Usually by the time I get around to reading something on my list I've completely forgotten what it is about and carry no expectation or preconceived ideas into reading the book.  Almost always when I start a book I've no idea as to what made it originally catch my eye.  All that said, The Arabian Nightmare is a particularly rare book in which immediately before reading I could have read multiple reviews or even detailed plot analysis and still not know what it was about. 

What is concretely known as an absolute truth is extremely sparse in this near three-hundred page novel.  We know the story happens in late fifteenth century Cairo; that Balian is an Englishman hired by the French king to spy on military forces abroad while presenting himself as a pilgrim.  We know that almost immediately upon his arrival in Cairo Balian begins to suffer from an unknown malady.  The Arabian Nightmare is a sleep disorder in which the afflicted can't be certain they have the condition.  Their sleep is tormented, they can't tell the difference between dreams and reality, and in Balian's case he wakes covered in his own blood.

In the beginning, while Balian is still somewhat lucid, we see him come in contact with two sets of people, both of who profess a want to help him; each of which has ulterior motives; neither of which is immediately understood.  The Father of Cats, Master of the House of Sleep and physician to the many 'patients' there and his assistant Micheal Vane claim to want to help Balian.  Balian's instinct, training in intrigue, and most of all his dreams warn him against The Father of Cats and Vane, but he inadvertently finds solace in their associates, particularly a prostitute Zuleyka in whose arms Balian finds some manner of comfort.  As he soon finds his stated intentions of being in Cairo overwhelming as his condition ever declines he seeks a visa to finish his pilgrimage to Sinai and the monastery of St Catherine, and eventually to get out of Cairo all together to save his sanity. 

There is a second party that also has a great interest in Balian seemingly solely due to his affliction: Dirty Yoll, the storyteller and eventual scribe of The Thousand and One Nights, and Jean Cornu, Master of the Order of Saint Lazarus, leprous crusader knights who are rumored to be inured to pain.  (Awesome.)  Both parties claim to want to help Balian but their motives and intentions are made anything but clear.   

We see Cairo and Irwin's characters not through Balian's eyes but much as he sees the world around him in his present physical state.  Irwin's prose clearly--powerfully even-- conveys his story while maintaining a nebulous, never concrete, dreamlike cloud of obscurity.  Cairo is vividly seen: it's multi-cultured inhabitants, unique sights and eccentricities (Laughing Dervishes, talking apes), its magic, the romance surrounding it that would allure any Westerner at the fifteenth century, and always a blatant sensuality, all while having our perception slightly obscured or distorted; never fully believing what is presented. With such minimal description it's amazing how much of the setting is actually seen: while not in first person everything is shown as if being described by one suffering from the Arabian Nightmare.

Hardly to be distinguished from the djinn were the moods {of Cairo}, most often turbulent and melancholy, which swept over the town as rapidly and unaccountable as a thunderstorm.  Dust devils too were dangerous, seeking, as they flicked about his ankles, to draw the unwary traveller off into unfamiliar paths.  It was for this reason that all rejoiced when the rains came, for the rains held the spirits down and the spiders, daughters of the rain, came out and the air, purified of old passions, smelt new again.  Page 113

Balian's health declines rapidly.  He is not sleeping.  He has lost an obscene about of blood.  He is physically weak and it would seem the entire city is chasing him.  His mental facilities are leaving him.  "The voices of people that he heard in the street it did not seem to him that he heard in the street at all but in his head."  The more abstract of an illness The Arabian Nightmare seems to become, the more concretely I started to think the narrative followed an undiagnosed schizophrenic with a severe ailment that led to hemorrhaging.

The narrative gets more tangible closer to the end and events become static, almost tangential, as Yoll dictates stories across four chapters that may or may not be allegorical, philosophically related to the text, or perhaps merely pure fantastical diversion. 
.
As we come to understand two artifacts of the dream world, both of which Balian has encountered, all is made clear as to Balian's importance in the eyes of so many and the even the Arabian Nightmare is somewhat understood.  My favorite interpretation of the story's events was a none too subtle reference pointing toward Dr. Frankenstein's creation escaping his control and exceeding the expectations of his wildest dreams.

I could read it again or five more times and still perhaps not be able to tell you what it's about.   It's not the largest cast of characters you'll encounter but all are of great importance.  There came a point (rather early on) when I thought I should start taking notes and the book became a bit intimidating.  There is some work involved reading The Arabian Nightmare.  It's dark, and scary in places, but it never gets uncomfortable.  It's whimsical and pure fantasy at times, and it's in those portions where the story is most substantial.  It's not always easy; following Balian around and seeing things through his eyes with his illness can disorientate and astound even the most stalwart reader.  The Arabian Nightmare is consistently entertaining and continually thrust the reader in the understanding and discovery process.

So what did I learn?  What did I understand or discover?  I haven't the slightest clue; perhaps, even, nothing, but as Balian learned what we think we are chasing and trying to understand isn't always the point of the process.        

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

It's easy to talk about a book and start with, 'This book is hard to talk about.'  The reasons stated can range from plot sensitivity to the book not making a strong enough connection with the reviewer to share anything of merit.  Will Grayson, Will Grayson is difficult talk about for a very unique reason: it follows two narratives, one written by each author, each dealing with a different main character named 'Will Grayson.'

From a distance--before I actually read the book--I had many thoughts as to what the story was about and how this mechanic would work: alternate realities in which we see the same person live different lives under different circumstances; maybe how Will Grayson sees his life and how the rest of the world see Will Grayson living his life (which is close to what happens); or perhaps some psychological study.  Upon reading the novel it is much more simple than my supposition: it deals with two guys, one in Evanston the other in run down, not so nice part of Naperville (which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist considering my past visits to Naperville), both named Will Grayson and the circumstances that lead their lives to coincide.

Halfway through the book, I think to myself, 'Well this is cute,' and it's not even that I wanted something more substantial, and while I was compelled to read (I'll say it consumed me, five hours over two day; done) I did finish it slightly wondering what it was about and if the story mechanic involving a grand coincidence of meeting someone with your name and having them play a role in your life was merely underwhelming or fell short of its potential. 

The difficulty of two Will Grayson's is made easy to follow as the chapters alternate between their perspectives: one Will's story is told fluidly as you'd expect to find in a novel, the other Will (they each refer to the other in the book as 'The Other Will Grayson' or 'o.w.g.' somewhat surprisingly it's never confusing) doesn't believe in punctuation and the dialogue is presented in a slightly manic shorthand.  For my purposes there will be Will Grayson, and will grayson, respectively. 

Both Will's struggle with complications of being teenagers and who they will allow themselves to be.  Will, has very specific rules of engagement with other people that he strictly adheres to; with his conflicting desire to be with a certain girl and polarizing love of the fact that he is not in a relationship.  will, with his antidepressants, feeling of isolation and wholly repulsive feelings of lack of self worth and insecurity won't allow himself true friendship.  (In a cast of infuriating characters, will grayson was particularly hard to like.) 

The Wills unifying thread is the larger-than-life, unstoppable force of nature that is Tiny Copper: a division one, college football nose tackle who is not only physically massive but whose capacity for being gay may take the crown when it comes to fiction.  (A crown Tiny would be ecstatic to win.)  Will Grayson laments having Tiny as a friend, claiming he has no choice in the matter; that he is stuck with Tiny.  will grayson is always furious with himself for pushing people away and never allows anyone to be as close a friend as Will Grayson and Tiny are, and will grayson does this for reasons that were never made fully convincing to me.

Tiny is loud and obnoxious and a bit of a bully (meant in the best of positive, friendliest of ways).  The story is supposed to be about both Wills learning that they need other people in their lives and yet the book is undoubtedly about Tiny.  Which, of course, makes one question the title. 

In my past reading experience with Green, he has proven very comfortable using a secondary character to narrate the story of someone else's life. (Quentin from Paper Towns told the story but Margo was certainly the main character, just as The Fault in Our Stars was Augustus' story as told by Hazel)  This is my first experience reading Levithan but he displays his more intimate, brooding, slightly self-destructive will grayson with equal aplomb as Green's reluctant extrovert. 

A cruel trick by a questionable friend bring the Wills together and it's Tiny who manages to enhances, and--on the scale of high school drama--ruin each of their lives.  There's a rapid rise of maturity displayed by both Wills at the book's conclusion concerning forgiveness and acceptance that didn't ring true to me, especially considering their previous behavior.  By the end, Will gets the girl (no surprise) and will confronts a lot of problems and internal turmoil.  The novel lacked a climax for either character that felt like it would lead their characters to truly change or grow, and in a bad way the larger-than-life, flawed-but-awesome Tiny remains the same from start to finish.

I don't really know what Will Grayson, Will Grayson was about but it was incredibly fun: a word that concretely means nothing in today's vernacular and yet one that I can not ascribe to the vast majority of what is possibly 'better than this' fiction out there.  There's tension, conflict, forward motion, even resolution all despite the story being relatively weak.  I doubt this is either author's best work but it's easy to get caught up in the specifics of the story, speculate about characters, and even if the conclusion doesn't resonate as strongly as it could have, don't be surprise if you don't notice due to the fact that you'll be having such a good time reading.