The
trouble with ‘The Song of the Body Cartographer,’ is my opinion, is that it’s
just too short to get its point across.
At
the outset, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz introduces us to Siren and Inyanna,
class-cross’d lovers in a world of windbeasts, where emotional programmers are
able to remap the human animal:
The Matriarchy had sent Inyanna to Siren with an express command. For all that Siren was one of the common, she had been and still was the best body cartographer in all of Ayudan. She could have become Qa’ta if she wished, but she’d always cherished the freedom that came with being common and no matter that being Qa’ta came with privileges, she couldn’t bear to leave her carefree life behind.
Inyanna was Timor’an–more than that she was gifted with insight and with the Matriarch’s blood. She would ascend to the Matriarch’s place if she could prove herself in flight. And there lay the heart of the problem–Inyanna was meant to fly and yet she could not.
What
follows, in a succession of short scenes, is equal parts a chronicle of Siren’s
attempts to enable Inyanna to fly as the rest of her kind can, and an account
of the rise and fall, or the fall and rise, of a strange but beautiful
relationship.
On
the sentence level, at least, ‘The Song of the Body Cartographer’ is sublime.
The author’s soaring prose is practically poetry in motion—that she is a
Clarion West graduate comes as no surprise—and whatever its other issues, this
is an undeniably evocative short.
But
from the climax at the start to the bittersweet resolution come the conclusion,
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz seems keen to the reader on the back foot, and unsurprisingly,
this proves problematic. ‘The Song of the Body Cartographer’ boasts enough world-building
to warrant a novel, characters that seem to have stepped out of something far
larger, and though it does end, in a sense, on the whole, it reads more like an
isolated excerpt than a whole story.
For
instance, there’s an overwhelming volume of terminology, complete with the
deliberately placed apostrophes we see so much of in high fantasy: see qa’ta
and qi’ma, pillor’ak and Timor’an. Meanwhile one’s sense of setting is
fragmented at best, and the narrative—which I should stress does come together
eventually—is so overstuffed with invention and imagination that its focus
feels fleeting:
Siren adjusted the gaze on the machine. The cocoon was one she’d had made after a visit to the Veils. She had watched the stoic Nahipan as they went about their business and had observed a cocoon which was put to use at certain intervals of the day.
Drawing closer, she had been surprised to see that the cocoon uncovered extraneous layers, laying bare the cords of muscle and the line of nerves underneath.
Fascinated by the cocoon, she’d obtained permission from the Nahipan’s chief technician and with his help she had managed to recreate a facsimile in Lower Ayudan.
Ultimately, I was not surprised to read, per the story’s postscript, that ‘The Song of the Body Cartographer’ is inspired by the surrealist artwork embedded above—namely ‘Creation of the Birds’ by Remedios Vario—nor latterly that it was in fact extracted from Rochita Loenen-Ruiz’s current work in progress.
In
the past, I’ve enjoyed several of this author’s other shorts—let me especially
recommend ‘Of
the Liwat’ang Yawa, the Litok-litok and their Prey,’ which you can read for free here—and
indeed I appreciated the potential of ‘The Song of the Body Cartographer.’ I’m just
not quite convinced Rochita Loenen-Ruiz realises it here, but perhaps she will in
the forthcoming novel this nominee is but a small part of.
In
early August 2011, the world almost ended. Or so it seemed from where I was
sitting: at home, glued to the news, watching in horror as thousands of people
took to rioting in the streets for no reason I could easily see.
Using
social media and mobile devices to organise themselves, these individuals made of
London a living hell, and various other British cities went down the toilet as
well. The gangs took what they wanted from high street retailers—from TVs to
trainers—and burned what they didn’t.
Estimates
place the cumulative cost of the resulting property damage at approximately two
hundred million pounds. But forget the finances: five people died, many others
were injured—and that isn’t counting the countless participants who were
uncannily quiet about their so-called war wounds.
The
forces of law and order did eventually respond. All the police who had planned
leaves of absence were told to hold their horses, whilst parliament was (rather
pointlessly) recalled. Our poor pillock of a Prime Minister even had to cut
short his holidays!
Ultimately,
more than three thousand people were arrested in relation to the riots, and
gradually, they did die down. But the image of them—the idea of them—still
persists. As ‘Limited Edition’ illustrates.
Tim
Maughan’s startling short story begins with an extraordinary advert:
Eugene
Sureshot, one mile tall, strides through the wasteland. Where his limited
edition trainers hit the ground deserts bloom, city blocks rise and mountains
rip themselves from the ground. Vistas erupt from each footfall, spreading like
bacteria, mingling, creating landscapes. New places from the dead ground.
Civilisations rise, intricate detail evolves around the soles of giant feet.
Then
Sureshot stops, as if something blocks his path. [He] steps back, raises a foot
from the ground—leaving behind light-trails of glass skyscrapers and steel
domes, and puts one limited edition kick through the screen, so all that Grids
can see is the rubber sole, embossed tick logo.
It’s
only a commercial for new shoes, but Grids can’t get it out of his head. By
hook or by crook, he resolves, he’ll call a pair of these limited edition kicks
his own. Alas, “he’s got no cash. Never has. And down here that makes him
irrelevant, an outsider. It makes him insignificant.” So when Grids gets wind
of a local store with inventory already, weeks before street date, he and his
mans meet in an empty epic fantasy MMO to hatch a plan.
“Standard
Smash/Grab rules yeah? No casualties, especially no staff or civilians,” he
stresses. Thus the game begins: servers are brought online, admins are
installed, and other essential information is seeded, secretly, via
>>blinks<< on Twitter.
The
progress of Grids and his gang will be followed by a flash mob of interested
observers; though an ARG overlaid on their spex, they’ll unlock achievements and
score multipliers for achieving certain objectives. Their success will essentially
earn them significance. Their failure? Infamy. It’s a win-win situation... but
of course it gets out of hand quickly.
‘Limited
Edition’ is a chilling take on the reign of organised anarchy in the UK discussed
above, and as such, its contemporary relevance is second to none—certainly to
none of the BSFA’s other nominees for the Best Short Story of 2012. It touches,
too, on the potential consequences of targeted marketing; on the place of gaming
in our era; and on the immeasurable impact social media has had on society. As
an extrapolation of recent events and advances, ‘Limited Edition’ is as
astonishing as it is alarming.
But
beyond its bearing on tomorrow’s world—nay today’s—Tim Maughan’s cautionary tale
of the dispossessed in Britain’s cities also functions on a number of other
fronts. In particularly fantastic in terms of character; somehow, despite what
they’re doing, Grids and his fam seem sympathetic. On one level I honestly
wanted them to get away with their Smash/Grab!
Then
I remembered myself...
There
is, then, a sense of tension between what is right outside the story, and what
is true within its narrow, claustrophobic confines. In addition to this,
‘Limited Edition’ is propelled by an exponentially more desperate momentum, and
bolstered by some very fitting imagery, which has nature resembling artifice
rather than the other way around:
When
Grids and his crew get to Avonmeads, he sees they’re being eyeballed by a fat
black crow, perched on top of a CCTV pole. Like the camera it watches them
pass. [...] He feels knots in his stomach, that feeling of being out of his
comfort zone, of being watched and pointed out as an outsider.
‘Limited
Edition’ may be a cutting commentary on any number of contemporary topics, but
it’s also a damn fine short story—one of the most potent I've read in recent
years—with candid characters, powerful pacing, and a terrific yet terrifying
perspective.
To
wit, Tim Maughan’s latest tale is well and truly deserving of its spot on the
BSFA’s shortlist—as was ‘Havana Augmented’ (now available as one third of Paintwork) when it was nominated two
years ago—though I wonder whether or not the same can be said of our next
contender.
Like last time, I'm just taking just a little trip up to the isle of Skye, which is within a day's drive from where I stay, but still far enough away that it feels like another world. The fact that the internet is almost impossible to access on the island plays into that in a fairly major way.
Now I won't be gone for long, but I expect to be incredibly busy when I get back, so expect normal service to resume ten days or thereabouts from today. To entertain you all in my absence, I'm going to schedule several of the capsule reviews I've written for the Short Fiction Spotlight to date. I do hope you enjoy them.
In addition, I'll be keeping all my usual commitments. Look out for a new Spotlight to go live on Tor.com on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, the British Genre Fiction Focus will be published as per usual. My editors over there are also sitting on two reviews—of two truly beautiful books, namely The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness and Life After Life by Kate Atkinson—that they might well unleash within the next week.
Relatedly, here are a few of the books I'll be packing tomorrow morning:
One of these things is not like the other! Indeed, one of these things I'm bringing because you all told me to... though Stefan's recent post on Civilian Reader has rather dampened my enthusiasm regarding Assassin's Apprentice.
In any case, these days (it gives me great pleasure to say) short stories a regular part of my reading diet, so I'll be taking a few anthologies too:
Fine fodder, one might imagine, for subsequent Spotlights...
I was already excited to read Doctor Sleep, but now? Now I've ordered a copy of the US edition too, because that... that's cover art!
Though I do wonder whose face I'm supposed to be seeing. Certainly not Danny Torrance's. And I doubt we're looking at Abra Stone either, given that the synopsis says she's only 12 years old.
Actually, hang on. I don't believe I've blogged about the plot before, so here's the blurb doing the rounds right now:
"On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.
"Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”
"Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil... a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon."
I'm still not sure what to make of this sequel—gorgeous as the cover art is, I'm more interested in the text itself—but you can be sure I'll be there from day one, or as near as dammit I can, to tell you whether or not Stephen King's next novel (after Joyland in June) is worth losing sleep over.
I'm sure some of you were wondering what prompted me to post a belated review [link] of Blackout yesterday. Well, there's the short answer, and the long answer.
The short answer is, I've been sitting on it for something like two years to date, and I didn't want the week to begin without blogging about something on The Speculative Scotsman. I dare say it would have otherwise: I'm covering another tutor's classes at the education centre I work at this week, plus I have a few deadlines to attend to in the meagre remains of my free time.
Oh, and it's my birthday today... but hey, who wants to celebrate being older?
But why Blackout? Why in the world has it taken me so long to publish this particular piece?
Well, because I always planned to review All Clear right alongside the first part of Connie Willis' wartime tome. It only seemed decent, considering they form a single story.
To do that, though, I'd have to read All Clear, and though I did indeed begin it immediately after finishing Blackout, I put it down soon afterwards. To the best of my recollection, I did this to remind myself that books could be good—
—but no, that's not fair. Blackout wasn't that bad. What I mean to say is that I started in on something else to remind myself that books could be enjoyable, as well as academic.
Anyway, All Clear has sat heavily in the bedside cabinet wherein I keep all the books I should really read ever since, and I realised, quite recently—whilst reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson for review at a later date on Tor.com—that there's no reason a serious novel about the war couldn't be objectively entertaining, which Blackout (to my mind) simply wasn't.
So what happened was, I admitted defeat. I said to myself: Niall, you clearly don't want to read this book right now, and you certainly won't for a while after the lovely likes of Life After Life, so why not just file it away for the time being?
Well, dear reader... I did. And I immediately felt like a great weight had been sitting on me for years. A weight of words that I'm now without.
In Oxford, in England, in the year 2060, a trio of time traveling scholars prepare to depart for various corners of the Second World War.
Their mission: to observe, from a safe distance, the day-to-day nature of life during this critical historical moment. As the action ranges from the evacuation of Dunkirk to the manor houses of rural England to the quotidian horrors of London during the Blitz, the objective nature of their roles gradually changes.
Then, cut off from the safety net of the future and caught up in the chaotic events that make up history, they are forced to participate, in unexpected ways, in the defining events of the era.
***
Blackout is a huge book.
Or rather - scratch that - it's one half, indeed the shorter half, of a book more than twice the size of this vast first part. You see, All Clear picks up immediately where Blackout leaves off, essentially mid-sentence. Stopping at that stage would be akin to giving up on a quest when you've only just discovered your objective.
Admittedly I have a bit of a problem insofar as I finish almost everything I start. Simply put, I have a hard time giving up on any story, whatever its demerits. Oftentimes I wish I could just say thank you and good night... that enough is enough.
And halfway through Blackout, let me tell you: I had had enough.
It does, in its defence, get a good deal better thereafter. If it hadn't, I don't think I'd have started All Clear immediately after it stopped short, even given my aforementioned foibles. But three or four hundred pages of faffing later - and that's the politest way I can put it - things do begin to come together. Some of our characters even meet!
Wait, are we getting ahead of ourselves already?
Well, that's what time travel's all about, isn't it? And Blackout is all about the time travel, ostensibly. About a future, half a century on from where we are, in which the historians of Oxford University have quite cracked the past. If there's something they're not sure about, or some significant event they simply want to see for themselves, all these people need do is nip in and out of a neat machine.
Actually, I'm overselling it a bit. Is life ever so straightforward? It's certainly not for prospective time travellers, who have to cut through a whole ream of red tape before they can take to days gone by, and even then, things have gotten kinda crazy. As one historian observes:
"Linna says they're simply swamped over there. Ten drops and retrievals a day. If you ask me, there are entirely too many historians going to the past. We'll be crashing into each other soon." (p.25)
Little does Chris know that's exactly what's about to happen. In... oh, four hundred pages or so—and this is a generous estimation.
In advance of that, alas: a whole lot of nothing. In the future, where a murder of history majors are readying themselves to travel to London in the early stages of the Second World War—to the time of the Blitz, specifically—everyone's up in arms about their dates of departure to the past being shuffled around, seemingly willy-nilly, and no-one can get in to plead their particular case with the man in charge.
Not before time, Michael, Merope and Polly gather that there's nothing to be done, so they set off for the past, exceedingly ill-prepared for the hardships ahead, and woefully unaware—until, again, a very late stage—that something, somewhere, has gone very wrong. Months into their respective assignments they discover, to their horror, that the drops which deposited them in the past, and which they must also use to return to their present, more than a century hence, have summarily stopped working. And that's when Blackout finally kicks off.
Till then, the whole time travel aspect of Connie Willis' latest trip down memory lane seems, well... peripheral at best. There are a few rudimentary rules, foremost amongst them the laws of divergence:
"History is full of divergence points nobody could get anywhere near - from Archduke Ferdinand's assassination to the battle of Trafalgar. Events so critical and so volatile that the introduction of a single variable - such as a time traveller - could change the outcome. And alter the entire course of history." (p.47)
Beyond this, though, and the hateful bureaucratic nonsense with which Blackout begins, the business of travelling to the past is pretty much plain sailing - and deathly dull - until our characters realise that they've been misplaced. From bad to worse, it dawns on Polly that "this was time travel. No matter how long it took Oxford to locate another drop or check every department store and Underground station, they could still have returned to Oxford, sent a second team through and had them waiting for her outside Townsend Brothers that first morning." (p.437)
In other words, they're trapped. Something must have gone horribly wrong in the future because of their presence in the past. Or is it so simple? Are they merely over-thinking things?
As of the impromptu conclusion of Blackout, Michael, Merope and Polly each have their secrets and suspicions, but none of the three can be certain about what's truly going on.
Nor, indeed, are we. Assuredly I was unsure what to make of all this... this interminable scene-setting. Because that almost the entirety of what Blackout amounts to, ultimately: an excruciatingly detail-oriented introduction to some presumably bigger and you'd-best-hope better thing.
For starters, there's little to no character development at all. Our trio spend so long pretending to be period-appropriate people that we don't get a sense of who they actually are, so when they at least they catch up with one another, and drop the act, they seem like different characters entirely. Characters we know next to nothing about, here at the end of ten to twelve hours in their company; even less engaging characters than those we've spent so long getting to know, I would add.
And whilst Willis' evocation of wartime London is especially authentic—rife with odds and sods of information as interesting as they are incidental—there's simply no momentum to the narrative, and not until the very end (which is to say at approximately the midpoint of the duology, were we to consider it as a single thing, as I gather the author intended) is there much more than the vaguest suggestion of jeopardy.
Splitting this story into two parts has done it no favours, I'm afraid. Now that all the players are arrayed about the stage, and the props are in proper order, I have reason to believe that All Clear will be a more satisfying experience than this never-ending fragment of a thing, but on its own, I'm sorry: never mind all the awards that the author has won for it—or so an assortment of committees insist—Blackout is a huge disappointment. Not an absolute nothing of a novel, no... but surely far too close for comfort.
