Embassytown by China Mieville (2011)

Mr. Miéville just can’t get no love from me. I tried. I really did. 

An opening quote doesn’t usually set up the premise of a novel as well as this:

“The word must communicate something (other than itself).”

Walter Benjamin “On Language as such and on the Language of Man”

But, must it? The science fictional story is always in the interfaces, is it not? In the friction between humans and humans, between humans and less human, between aliens and human, between aliens and aliens.   And yes, sometimes between humans and machines. Those stories are all about the endless slips and catches of communication, translation, connection.

At the edge of the known galaxy, an enclave of humans inhabits Embassytown, a machined/mutated city on the planet held by the Hosts. Communication is difficult at best – humans see language as a symbol. The Hosts do not.  Nor do they necessarily recognize the individuality of humans.  

The protagonist, Avice, was a precocious child chosen to become part of the Host’s language, a simile. (And really, do you think that the author, playing with words as he does constantly here, didn’t name her knowing what parallels we’d draw? A Vice? Avarice? Do you have to telegraph that your narrator is unreliable so strongly? Or, is that just a feint?) But – that isn’t the story, or isn’t even much of the beginning.  

Readers first meet Avice as a grown woman.   Scorning temporal framework created difficulty because on one level this novel is all about slippage, but illustrating that with time as the medium meant that Mr. Miéville demanded more work from me right from the start than I felt he’d earned.

On another level, Embassytown is about slippage in language –shifts in meaning. And on yet a third, slippage in culture/behavior, the natural outgrowth – or is it?– of confronting the unknown, or formerly unseen.

The second difficulty was that while the premises aroused my cold intellectual interest, the story was interesting, but not engaging.  A bit arch. Twee, even. Like the really good-looking kid in class who knows it – and might share a wink or a joke or even an afternoon, but will never, ever go to the dance with you. 

I liked the winks and jokes, but I won’t go looking for another afternoon. It’s not a matter of making myself emotionally vulnerable – Avice, and Scile, Bren and the Hosts all were just the other side of a window, but not where they could touch me, or me them. I wasn’t in any danger of losing my heart, but they frequently lost my interest.  

I confess I liked the textual nods to authors as disparate and talented as C.J. Cherryh, Frank Herbert, Mary Gentle, and Karen Traviss, among others. And that I was moved to write such a long review of a book I disliked is a tribute to the author’s ability to challenge readers.

I can look at a work like this and admire the thought process that birthed it, the complexity of the plot, the baroque touches and writerly affectations even as I reshelve it for something more – congenial. 

Dirge for Sabis (The Sword of Knowledge, Book 1) by C.J. Cherryh (1989)

**SPOILER ALERT** for these books, published in 1989.

In this shared world trilogy C.J. Cherryh fully exercises her history fetish by exploring the what-if inherent in the rise, fall  and adaptation of cultures.
The main characters, over a timeline of nearly a thousand years, are the descendents original citizens of the Sabirn Empire, and the cultures and empires which conquer and oppose them.
In Book 1, A Dirge for Sabis, Ancaran hordes from the north (pushed by barbarians from even further north, of course – this is Cherryh) conquer the Sabirn Empire and overrun the capital, Sabis.  This despite the efforts of a group of patriots including a “natural philosopher”, a smith, an army officer, and a resourceful magician to construct a weapon that could hold them off.  The group of patriots are forced to flee, finding a new patron behind the Ancar lines and using their knowledge to scare off a cult fleecing the locals. 
“If at first you don’t succeed, get the hell out of the way.”
 Followed by Wizard Spawn
Book II of the Sword of Knowledge series
C.J. Cherryh and Nancy Asire

500 years later, (See A Dirge for Sabis) Book II concentrates on the remnants of the Sabirn people, and the scorn and persecution they suffer under the rule of the descendants of the Ancar in Sabis.  This is our “one person makes a difference book”.  Chemist (and alchemist) Duran rescues a Sabirn boy injured in an attack behind his shop, and is stunned to discover that his neighbors disapprove – strongly.  Worse, the presence of the boy in Duran’s home leads to rumors of witchcraft and alchemical deeds that reach the ears of the court.  Eventually, he flees with the boy, the boy’s grandfather, and other Sabirn who know secrets of which he could only have dreamed.

Reap the Whirlwind
Book III of the Sword of Knowledge series
C.J. Cherryh and Mercedes Lackey
(See Also, A Dirge for Sabis and Wizard Spawn) Book III brings the descendents of the protagonists of Book I and II together to resist the depredations of the Wind Clan (fleeing, in a nice bit of symmetry, the pursuit of another clan and *their* overlords).  Having joined forces as a scholarly quasi-magical organization, they’re able to use the secret magics of the Sabirn, the strengths of the Ancar, the tenets of Duran, and the tenacity of the scholar’s leader to bring the Clan into alliance. 

Book one shows the Cherryh touch the most clearly – the multi-layered plotting, characters who turn out to be much different than first perceived. The early chapters were clearly her work, and Leslie Fish does a great job keeping up and fleshing out the characters and story.
The next two volumes are much simpler in plot and characterization, though not without the occasional surprise.  If not up to Cherryh’s,  Asire’s and Lackey’s best work, still a fun read.

Among Others by Jo Walton (2011)

Writing a review that just said “Wow” over and over again would be pathetic.
Never let it be said that I wasn’t tempted.
 
There is nothing sentimental about this coming of age story.  Morwenna – or is it? – moves through a world which is simultaneously sparkling magic and soul-stultifying mundanity. Endless possibility and bottomless grief, encompassing wonder and bone deep fear.
Crippled by the car accident that killed her twin, she makes a place for herself in the boarding school to which she’s sent, beyond the library and the books she loves.
I have tiptoed through the forests of Lothlorian, shrugged the mothball scent of old coats into the crisp air of Narnia’s winter forest, and muddied my toes herding pigs with Taran, but I have never stepped into a world so much like the magic of my own childhood imaginings.
I first encountered Jo Walton on livejournal, where some cogent comment or poem spoke to me out of the electronic flow.  She began reviewing books on Tor, where she always saw something in a work, even those I’d disliked, that made me rethink the story in new ways and often sent me to my bookshelves or the library.
Among Others partakes of that critical sense of wonder, and one should read with a pencil handy.  It has expanded my reading list, and ended with a tiny tribute to one of my favorite books ever. 

And there’s a grandfather with a cat named Chairman Meow.   

This a book I'll be re-reading, for years.