An Interview with Ascension Author Jacqueline Koyanagi
Posted on August 5, 2013 Leave a Comment
The first thing that struck me about Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel was the cover. It’s rare to see a person of colour – and a female at that – as the main protagonist in a science fiction/fantasy story. But in reading the book, I learned that there was far more to Alana Quick. And a lot more to her inspirational creator, Jacqueline Koyanagi.
 |
| Jacqueline Koyanagi Photo by Vasilion Photography |
Beyond that, Alana’s chronic illness features heavily in her story. Between my own illness and those of several people I’ve been close to over the years, I’m intimately familiar with the toll invisible disabilities can take on a person’s life. In some cases, nothing goes untouched by its influence: eating, walking, working, even just showering.
The combination of chronic illness and poverty can mean pushing oneself to be productive through the pain. I wanted to feature a character whose chronic pain is deeply integrated into her day-to-day life, so much so that she has long since learned how to function in spite of it. When survival is at stake—obtaining food, medication, additional work—sometimes you have no choice but to push through the symptoms.
Alana is a character who lives at the junction of practical skill and intuition. Most of Alana’s life is, by necessity, focused on tangible, physical matters, from managing her illness to the mechanical aspects of her work as a sky surgeon. I wanted to give her something more than that, some driving passion that helped her push through to the next day; her connection to the Tangled Axon is her tether when her body rebels.
W: I love the idea that Alana isn’t the typical soldier or captain in a typical sci fi story. She’s a sky surgeon who has never even left the ground. Where did you get the idea to make this her occupation?
JK: Actually, it started with the idea of the Tangled Axon and its engine room. I knew I wanted to tell a story in which this ship was the setting, and I wanted the protagonist to be someone who would have an intimate connection to the spirit of the ship.
W: Were there aspects of Alana’s adventures and interactions that reflected real moments in your life?
JK: Mostly her experiences with her chronic illness. While the symptoms of my own illness are different from Alana’s, they certainly impair my day-to-day functioning. I channeled some of that into Alana’s story, particularly her determination to keep going regardless of what her body was telling her. It’s a stubbornness both I and many other chronically ill people I’ve known share.
There’s a little of me in many of the characters I write, I’m sure. Tev’s demeanor is probably the closest to my own for better or worse, and Marre’s circumstances are a metaphorical reflection on the long-term effects of psychological trauma, which is deeply connected to my own history and that of several people I’ve known.
Of course, another obvious corollary to my life is the non-monogamous nature of the relationships on the Tangled Axon, since I’m polyamorous as well. That said, the relationships in the novel aren’t direct mirrors of any of my own relationships.
W: Why was it so important to you to tell this story? What message did you want to deliver to your readers and to the science fiction genre in general?
Ascension is, at its heart, a story about eudaimonia. I chose a narrow focus for that reason: Alana’s story, her perspective, her desires. We see what’s relevant to Alana, and nothing more. When Alana lived in her home city, she was overwhelmed and overshadowed by the noise and oppression of the larger world. The Tangled Axon comes into her life, and she sees an opportunity to find a place for herself for the first time.
The ship is the main setting because that is the way Alana conceptualizes her reality: the Axon and its crew become her world, and everything else is incidental.
Beyond the aforementioned roles of disability and diverse relationships, gender obviously loomed large in this book. The common trope is that, while the world is populated by more than one gender, stories are often overwhelmed by male characters. Male protagonists, male antagonists, male background characters, with—at most, if we’re lucky—two or three women thrown in, usually orbiting the men. Even when a protagonist is a woman, we often see her surrounded by men, heavily influenced by the actions and desires of the men around her.
I deliberately inverted the trope, and this was important to me: I wanted to tell a story in which women just happened to dominate the protagonist’s experiences regardless of what the broader population looked like.
Depicting characters with diverse qualities was less about any one message and more about doing it for its own sake.
W: Who are your favourite authors? What are your favourite books? How have they influenced you as a writer?
JK: I’m going to have to go with Catherynne Valente for her soulful approaches to myth, Caitlin Kiernan for the way she depicted mental illness in The Drowning Girl, and China Mieville for his gorgeous worldbuilding.
W: If you could ask any one of your favourite authors a question about their characters and worlds, what would you ask them?
JK: I’d probably want to listen to Valente talk about the birth of Palimpsest, which remains one of my favorite novels for its unusual characters and surreality. I also have a bit of a thing for Palimpsest’s Casimira, so I’d be interested in learning more about where she came from in the development process.
W: What do you love about genre fiction? What do you hate? What would you like to see in the future of the genre?
JK: This is probably a cliché, but I love that SF/F is limitless in its potential. I’d like to see more authors capitalize on this in terms of gender and sexuality, though I think we do have some great voices accomplishing this right now. It’s an exciting time for genre fiction.
W: Describe your writing process. What gets you into a writing frame of mind?
JK: I choose a scent for each project I’m working on and use that to trigger the necessary mindset when I sit down to work. I’ll usually review my work from the previous day to create a sense of continuity, then get lost in the protagonist’s world and forget to eat.
W: What are your future writing plans?
JK: I’m currently working on a new novel that has a much darker mood. It’s more solidly science fiction than Ascension, though mythic elements certainly made their way into the worldbuilding as well. Most of my stories sit somewhere between science fiction and fantasy because I have a hard time conceptualizing a world primarily dominated by ingenuity or magic—both are relevant to me, so both appear in most of my writing in one way or another.
W: Any advice for aspiring writers?
JK: Keep at it.
W: Tell me a little about Helix Chainmaille. It’s beautiful and it seems to have snuck into the story in its own unique and personal way! How long have you been designing the jewelry?
 |
| Helix Chainmaille | Photo by Vasilion Photography |
W: Anything else you’d like to add?
JK: Thank you for taking the time to review Ascension and talk to me. It’s been a pleasure!
Book Review: The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker
Posted on August 3, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
I absolutely adored this. Magical realism at its finest! And even though it wasn’t exactly what I had expected, I can’t really say that I minded. Otherwise, as a character so deftly put it in this book, I would be like “a man who complains that someone stole the eggs from his henhouse and replaced them with rubies.”
This fantasy novel is also a touching and meaningful immigrant tale at its heart, combining religion and mythology to tell a story of two supernatural creatures who find themselves in New York City in 1899. Chava is a magically-crafted clay golem, brought to life to serve a husband who dies at sea while on the voyage from Poland. When the ship reaches NYC, she is left directionless and without a master. Ahmad is a jinni, released accidentally after being trapped in a copper flask for hundreds of years. Though freed from the vessel, he finds himself still bound to the physical world by a band of iron around his wrist, placed there by the wizard who imprisoned him so long ago.
The story plays out like a fairy tale for adults, complete with elements like love and villains. It is filled with wonderful, fully-realized characters which hooked me from the start. The multiple narratives paint an enchanting picture of the bustling and culturally rich setting of turn-of-the-century New York, where immigrants from so many places around the world settled in the hopes of finding a better life. In this milieu, the golem and the jinni become two more faces in the crowd trying to seek a new beginning in America. Despite being creatures of lore, their struggles and aspirations make them feel entirely too human.
Both the golem and the jinni face questions and obstacles that deal with the notion of freedom versus subjugation; how the two characters approach these issues and choose to deal with them is what forms the basis for this story and makes it so interesting. In this novel, everyone you meet will guard their secrets and hold mysteries in their past. As you read on, the fun is in watching all these histories unfold and the connections start to form.
Just simply a beautiful book, and a great choice if you’re in the mood for some literary fantasy.
Audiobook Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Posted on August 2, 2013 Leave a Comment
This is the third Neil Gaiman book I’ve read and I’ve noticed a trend:
An average, unmemorable male protagonist with slightly/over-controlling girlfriend/recently turned fiancé crosses paths with an unusual human that turns out to be magical and leads the protagonist into a whole new world of magic that has always been there for those willing to see it. Apparently, this is such a common occurrence for Gaiman’s characters, that he’s even written instructions on what to do in such an occasion in A Wolf at the Door: And Other Retold Fairy Tales. Unfortunately, Richard, in this case, has never read those instructions, and, as with the other characters I’ve met in the other books, spends a frustratingly large amount of time in disbelief of the world unfolding around him. This reminded of Alif the Unseen, where the main character, an avid fantasy reader, stumbles into the same situation. The creature in question notes that North Americans in particular love science fiction and fantasy stories, but are the least likely to believe when presented with the reality of them.
In Neverwhere, Richard’s life is significantly altered when he stops to help a wounded girl. She is the Lady Door and she’s being hunted by some very dangerous men. She leads Richard to the London beneath where the people who slip through the cracks reside. Don’t be so quick to discount the street people wrapped in blankets, the story seems to say. All sorts of knowledge and magic could be wrapped up within their filthy coats and blankets.
Once Richard is forced from his dull life, the adventure becomes fairly typical and Richard works his way through various gauntlets to prove himself a hero in the end and change his perspective on life and on himself. Again, this is a similar theme in the other Gaiman books, however, each one does it in a unique way with very memorable supporting characters so, while the process might be similar, the journey is still fun and interesting each time.
This was an audiobook listen, and I was pleased to discover that it was narrated by Gaiman himself. Since beginning my foray into the wonderful world of audiobooks, I’ve wondered how much the narrators deal with the authors (not much or at all, it seems). Do they get the pronunciations right? Have they captured the author’s intent with the various characters and situations? For the most part, the answer seems to be yes to the latter, at least, but with Gaiman reading his own works, the answer is absolute
Mogsy’s Book Haul
Posted on August 2, 2013 Leave a Comment
Added a few more books to both my physical and digital library since my last book haul update! First, the mailbox pile:
Ex-Communication was a book I received from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers, which I was very excited about! I very much enjoyed the two books that came before and just love this fun and action-filled series about superheroes and zombies.
Generation V was a review request, and my thanks to the author M.L. Brennan who kindly sent me a copy of her very awesome and original urban fantasy novel. Both Ex-Communication and Generation V were great! I think I devoured both these books within days after they arrived, so be sure to keep an eye out for the reviews in the coming weeks.
Atria Books also just had one of their Galley Alleys which was how I got sent a copy of Dragon’s Child, the first book of M.K. Hume’s The King Arthur trilogy. Originally published in 2009, the Atria paperback and ebook edition will be available later this year in the fall. It looks interesting, so I’ll probably get to it closer to the release.
Finally, I won an Amazon gift certificate last month for a review I wrote on Worlds Without End, so naturally, it went towards buying — what else — more books. That’s how I got Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song. I probably could have waited until later when I’ve whittled my summer reading list down some more to pick this up, but it just looked really good. I suppose I wanted it on hand in case the urge to pick it up and read it becomes overwhelming.
On to the digital pile:
I told myself I would try damn hard to hold myself back from requesting any more eARCs from NetGalley until I catch up a bit on my reading list, and so far I’ve been doing really well. Of course, it’s also a new month now, so we’ll see how that goes. On the other hand, I did get a few new ebook additions, and the two above are a couple of the highlights.
I was practically beside myself with happiness when I received Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan. It’s not due for wider release until next year, but people who backed the Kickstarter campaign were able to get it first. Much respect to Mr. Sullivan, as the book was sent to readers in July like he originally promised, with only an hour to spare. I have to say it was a great way to end day, though, seeing that in my inbox.
And lastly, The Red Knight was a book that caught my eye when it was a Kindle SFF daily deal, and it seemed like a few of my friends on Goodreads had rated and reviewed it quite highly. For $1.99, I couldn’t pass it up, and from the description it looks like something I’d love to read.
Books in the cloud
Posted on August 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
I discovered a new toy today and have been making clouds of all the things! Here is the cloud of words commonly used here at Bibliosanctum. Looks like we’re doin’ it right! We hope you like read more, too. 😉
Book Review: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman
Posted on August 1, 2013 3 Comments
The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Yeah, my summer reading is in a funny cycle right now, and my current bender has been focused on The Walking Dead.
Anyhow, I pretty much have to cut this whole review for major spoilers, and it’s a little hard to talk about the story without talking about the biggest spoiler of them all in this book. So, I’ll just use this little quote from the book as a spoiler warning and for spoiler space:
As they drive off, each and every one of them–even Penny–glances back through the rear window at the little square sign receding into the distance behind them:
ALL DEAD
DO NOT ENTER
August Book Club Read: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Posted on August 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
From this list of recommended summer reads, members of the LeVar’s Rainbow Book Club selected Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane for August.
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Book Review: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman
Posted on August 1, 2013 Leave a Comment
The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Yeah, my summer reading is in a funny cycle right now, and my current bender has been focused on The Walking Dead.
Anyhow, I pretty much have to cut this whole review for major spoilers, and it’s a little hard to talk about the story without talking about the biggest spoiler of them all in this book. So, I’ll just use this little quote from the book as a spoiler warning and for spoiler space:
As they drive off, each and every one of them–even Penny–glances back through the rear window at the little square sign receding into the distance behind them:
ALL DEAD
DO NOT ENTER
Rise of the Governor is the first book in a trilogy that sets the foundation for Philip Blake’s reign as “governor” of Woodbury. The story begins with two brothers, Philip and Brian Blake, and Philip’s daughter, Penny. The brothers, Penny, and two of Philip’s friends, Bobby Marsh and Nick Parsons are hiding out from walkers in the affluent neighborhood Whiltshire Estates. The decision to hide in the neighborhood seemed the best idea at the time, but the gated community had been ravished hard and fast by the outbreak. They try to stick it out and fortify their position at Philip’s demand, but after a zombie kills one of Philip’s friends, they finally decide that it’s time to cut their losses and move on to Atlanta where they receive the Rick Grimes zombie horde welcome, which eventually leads to their departure and taking up residence in Woodbury.
Much of this book is told from the point-of-view of the brothers, and they couldn’t be more different if they tried. Brian is the oldest, but he’s frail and a bit sickly. Before the outbreak, he’d been living with their parents mourning another failed business venture and the loss of his Jamaican wife (seriously). He admires his brother’s toughness and dominance even though Philip is younger, but I didn’t really feel like Brian wanted to be an alpha male more than he wanted to be seen as someone who contributed something to their survival.
On the other hand, Philip is blessed with all the “good genes.” He’s tall and intimidating. He’s a manly man tempered with a little softness thanks to his daughter. He looks out for his brother, but think Brian is pretty useless. The only thing Philip really trusts Brian to do is look after his daughter, who is beginning to pull further and further into herself, during attacks. After the death of his wife, Philip’s main concern became Penny and doing whatever he needed to do in order to make sure she had everything she needed. He takes charge of their group, often making decision without much input from them (or still outright ignoring their suggestions). He has the presence of a leader, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the various leader types shown in the comic, on the show, and in this book, people are going to lean on the leader with an almost blind loyalty because of the high stress situation.
One of the enduring themes I’ve noticed with Kirkman and his leader-types is that many accept or put themselves in these positions, and eventually, the stress seems to work them over double time, as it should. It’s not an easy task to try to ensure the surivival of a group of people or make most of the decisions that could potentially get them killed. You have zombies to worry about, but you also have the pressure of everyone looking to you for answers, support, etc. It’s emotionally and physically exhausting, and the leaders suffer so much more for it. Some of them still try to rise above that. They try to adapt this new harder stance they have to take while still maintaining some sort of decency and fairness. However, some take the other road and decide that you have to be a monster to survive the monsters. Philip falls in this latter group.
We watch Philip tread further and further down away from his own humanity while reasoning he’s doing these things for his daughter’s safety. After his daughter’s death and return as a walker, he becomes downright vicious and insane. None of the these things are surprising. This is the Governor after all, and we know that he employs some brutal methods. At times, though, some of his behavior makes you wonder how he comes back from that insanity at all to be able to put up the facade of the Governor.
Answer: He doesn’t.
Philip Blake is not the Governor. Philip eventually forces the hand of his friend, Nick, who fatally shoots him. In turn, Brian murders Nick and holds his dying brother in his arms. Assuming the identity of his brother, Brian takes over the town of Woodbury from its current governor and begins preparations to take the town back from the walkers.
While I liked the little twist at the end, it’s also one of my chief complaints. Brian’s decision to take on his brother’s name at the end of the story didn’t really seem like the thing he’d do. The two brothers didn’t seem particularly close, even as they survived through that horror together. Brian sought Phillip’s approval, obviously, but beyond that I don’t really feel like Brian wanted whatever alpha male presence his brother possessed.
Maybe this is Brian’s way of dealing with the loss of his family. Maybe this broke him in some ways, even though he sees his actions following the death of his brother as sensible and strong, and there were a few instances in the book where he’d thought about wanting to do the “manly” things Phillip and his friends had done. He also mentioned early in the novel that his brother was changing for the worst and this change reverberated through him. Also, the book makes it a point that Brian is out of place in the world and doesn’t really know his calling. Apparently, the outbreak showed him his place in the world. So, I’m trying to look at it in that vein.
I had some other minor annoyances with the book. There were parts that I wished were fleshed out more, and there were some things that I felt were just unnecessary. While this is a decent foundational read even for those who aren’t familiar with the show or comics, readers jumping in from this point may find the world building lacking in some ways. Overall, however, I enjoyed this more than the comics. Also, I really appreciated this look at how the Governor came into power.
Book Review: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Posted on July 31, 2013 1 Comment
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The book is called A Wizard of Earthsea and that’s exactly what it is about, no more and no less. It introduces Duny, a young boy who displays power that leads him to study with a local witch, draws the attention of a great mage, and then proceeds on to study to be a true wizard, but not before awakening a dark evil that will haunt him for many years.
This is the first book in Le Guin’s Earthsea saga. I’ve read other books that serve as an introduction to a main character and their world, but some of them have tried too hard to throw in extra details and events and characters to build that character and world. Le Guin skillfully weaves Duny’s life through a series of important moments and people in under 200 pages. I try to use the word “pithy” at least once a week, and it definitely suits the way Le Guin tells Duny’s story. Every character and plot device has a purpose in shaping the boy who will become one of the greatest mages known.
The dialogue is a bit unusual, but it works for the flow of the story. In fact, “flow” is another word I willuse to describe the book because everything moves smoothly, like a river flowing out to sea. Perhaps the title and the many journeys that Duny takes by boat have influenced that feeling, but that’s exactly what I imagined as I read through it. There were quiet, slow moving moments, like his time with the mage Ogion, or the more rushing moments of his battles with dragons and shadows. But everything stayed the course.
Duny himself is an interesting character. He begins as a typical young teenager full of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, but we also see his strong sense of pride develop as his knowledge increases and we see the horrible results of that pride and how it all is integral to the wizard he’s meant to become.
A lot of fantasy books that exist within their own unique worlds preface with a map. This book doesn’t need one. There are a lot of places mentioned and visited in Duny’s travels, but I felt like I could create the map myself based on how clearly and concisely Le Guin took us from place to place. I also love the way magic works, with so much power placed on words – on names specifically.
Book Review: Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test by Mark D. White
Posted on July 31, 2013 Leave a Comment
Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test edited by Mark D. White
This is my first venture into the Philosophy and Pop Culture series. I wasn’t disappointed with most of what I’d read. I was a little hesitant to read this at first because I thought these essays might’ve been just slapped together to appeal to an audience, but it was much more than that.
The topics span a range of ideas in philosophical context including feminism, virtue, homosexuality. As with any book that has multiple writers, the essays themselves were hit or miss.I enjoyed most of the essays on Rorschach and Ozymandias. There was a great essay about The Comedian and Nite Owl. The essays centering around Mr. Manhattan were a little bland, though.
These essays posed great questions for discussion such as: Would superheroes work in a real life setting? Could we really trust them to be objective creatures who didn’t give into personal biases? Or would they be whim to changing the rules to suit them since no ordinary man could challenge them and win?
I probably would’ve given it 4 stars, but I deducted for a couple of reasons.
First, the guy who wrote about homosexuality in Watchmen seemed like a poor candidate to touch on the subject. His view was very biased as a man who admitted that he was “sickened” by homosexuality and nothing about his argument was compelling. But he did manage to come off like that one guy who can’t be racist because he has “black friends.” Just replace “black friends” with “gay friends,” and you have this guy. He tried to be objective, but it came off very forced.
Secondly, while I enjoyed the essays on Ozymandias and Rorschach–and not so much Dr. Manhattan, I wished it’d touched more on some of the other characters. Most of the book was dominated by those three with Rorschach being a character who had roused Kant in the writers. It would’ve been nice to read other ideas about the other characters and their actions beside what virtue Nite Owl’s potbelly represents and a rambling essay about feminism that seemed to lose the plot.
Overall, a nice collection of essays. If you like Kant, you’ll probably love this. He comes up fairly often. If you’re looking for a well-rounded book that pays equal tribute to the characters, then you’re not going to find it here.
The BiblioSanctum 