Provenance

Provenance

By Ann Leckie

A power-driven young woman has just one chance to secure the status she craves and regain priceless lost artifacts prized by her people. She must free their thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned.

Ingray and her charge will return to her home world to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future, her family, and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

I'd already read Ann Leckie's Ancillary  series, which I guess I'm supposed to call the Imperial Radch series, but that's both harder to remember and spell, and doesn't make as much sense as calling a set of books titled Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Mercy, and Ancillary Sword the Ancillary series.  Anyway, the point of that is that I already knew and was familiar with her gender neutral (or in some cases deliberately anti-gender) tics and appreciated her version of sci-fi, which does take a little to get used to.  It's a very politicized space, with different classes of humans and aliens (and all of that mattering, for reasons that sometimes get too esoteric for enjoyable reading).  So somehow I wound up picking this and Provenance (coming soon to a blog near you!) as my "duplicate titles" and I'm pleased I did.

I'd actually read the first chapter of Provenance before I read Provenance, which helped a lot, since Leckie doesn't really ever mention or define provenance.  But obviously she named her book Provenance, so the idea is important.  The other Provenance is a more typical use of the word, about the background and establishment of a creditable or traceableauthenticity for pieces of art  - specifically paintings, in that book.  In Provenance, there is, amusingly enough, a side discussion about the forging of cultural artifacts which involves the faking of provenance, but the book's also, broadly, about the provenance of people. Ingray, the main character, begins the book deeply conflicted about her place in the family, particularly as an adopted child. She feels herself to be, essentially, the faked artifact, superficially passing but never substantially correct.  She is....without provenance!  The theme also runs through the idea of what makes something important, culturally? Well, it's whatever importance we decide to attach to it.  Like that old question, if you have a boat and replace it one plank at a time, when (or if) does it ever become a new boat? Or perhaps more relevantly, in Pratchett's Fifth Elephant when the crime includes the refashioning of a priceless historical necessity (remade, Pratchett-style, naturally, in a vat for rubber condoms) and the concept that as long as the people really believe it's real, then it is indistinguishable from the real thing. 

It did get tiresome, as it's perfectly fine for your characters to be down on themselves, but for Ingray to constantly harp on "Well, I will never be mother's heir, she'll always pick my brother, and not for one minute has there been any doubt" was irritating, especially by the end when it was clear that multiple people were trying to tell her that well, actually, she was a serious contender, and in fact her mother did offer it to her in the end.

I think I liked the antagonist in Ancillary more, as Breq had a bit more get-up-and-go, and none-of-that-nonsense to her/it than Ingray, although I did appreciate that Leckie threw in a murder plot and a hostage situation to spice things up on this one.  That being said, the murder plot devolves quickly into the very dry political machinations that Leckie favors, and the hostage situation is somewhat ludicrously set up as Ingray is permitted to just waltz in (so to speak - true to her character she actually just sits on the floor and weeps until allowed in) despite various people with the authority to refuse to allow this telling her not to do it.  They later handwave this as "Oh this random person who by the way was being hunted down by an alien ambassador suggested you would come up with a plan so we decided to let this play out." There is definitely the sense that everyone in the book has some over-inflated appreciation of Ingray's skill in problem-solving that isn't really borne out much in practice.

All in all, it's fun to break out of the normal sci-fi regime from time to time.  This felt like a close approximation of some of the Vorkosigan saga as well, except with fewer defined pronouns, but I am not interested in reading any more about Ingray - a lot of times, she felt like the least interesting person in the story.  And sometimes that can work, if they have a rich inner life, or a sarcastic narrative, but here, Ingray is just - gray.



47: Two Books That Share The Same Title

Small Spaces

Small Spaces

By Katherine Arden

After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think--she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man," a sinister specter who grants your most tightly held wish, but only for the ultimate price.

Ollie is captivated by the tale until her school trip the next day to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a haunting history all its own. There she stumbles upon the graves of the very people she's been reading about. Could it be the story about the smiling man is true? Ollie doesn't have too long to think about the answer to that. On the way home, the school bus breaks down, sending their teacher back to the farm for help. But the strange bus driver has some advice for the kids left behind in his care: "Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you." Nightfall is, indeed, fast descending when Ollie's previously broken digital wristwatch, a keepsake reminder of better times, begins a startling countdown and delivers a terrifying message: RUN.

Only Ollie and two of her classmates heed the bus driver's warning. As the trio head out into the woods--bordered by a field of scarecrows that seem to be watching them--the bus driver has just one final piece of advice for Ollie and her friends: "Avoid large places. Keep to small."

I do think that children's stories (and children, really) have a better grasp on visceral horror.  Yes, it's terrifying to be chased by a masked killer, but you know what will scar you for life? A man with hot dogs for fingers, with the ends split out.  Just ask me and my brother, courtesy of Nothing But Trouble.  It's like what the Counting Crows asked: We were perfect when we started/I've been wondering where we've gone" - the answer is Nothing But Trouble, my friend.  Even thinking of it today makes me want to vomit.  Now that's horror.  Or, conversely, a scarecrow skinning an old farmer. Shoutout to Harold!  Adult horror is about real things, twisted, or targeting you.  Children's horror is about that stomach-churning feeling you have before the figure turns and you realize that the person's hand you've been holding isn't your mother after all.

That's the good thing about it.  However, it can be hard to sustain for long periods.  I do think that the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series is the apex of children's horror, as they manage to get in, get the job done, and get out in like, ten pages or less.  Books are much harder to keep tense for that length of time, although I do think there are some recent good ones: Boneshaker, which is definitely more children's than YA, and bears some similarities to the classic Something Wicked This Way Comes, as it plays on the fear of the carnival (and come on, who isn't scared of carnivals?  I once got extremely ripped off by a carny, and frankly was lucky not to face worse).  In the older category, I think The Diviners created a bogeyman that felt like he hadn't been created by Bray at all but stolen from our collective imagination.  I don't think the sequels were as successful in that, though.

Anyway, three paragraphs in, maybe I'll finally start talking about Small Spaces.  It's good!  It is a horror story, or a ghost story, but not a horror ghost story, because it's also about grieving and accepting that sometimes, it's just better not to raise the dead.  (With all due respect to Stephen King and Buffy, at least Ollie has the sense to figure that out before the dead get raised).

I really like Arden's work in the Winternight Trilogy, which I've reviewed here earlier, and Small Spaces is also well written and spooky.  The biggest hurdle is keeping the tension up throughout the entire book.  It's about two hundred pages, and the first half is a lot of set up - Ollie's mother's death, Ollie's frustration with the school system and her fellow classmates, her taking the book and getting wrapped up in it, and then increasingly concerned during the school trip to the farm.  I don't know if the pacing is entirely successful, although I don't think a longer book is the answer. It was very nicely atmospheric (can't go wrong with fog and scarecrows, as Harold knows) and would be a fun read on an autumn night.  The messages on her watch also allow Arden to keep her characters moving forward without forcing too much guesswork or unrealistic knowledge on them - the obviousness of the deus ex machina somehow makes it more palatable.

I also don't know that it quite coalesced at the end - she poured some water on the scarecrows, and that turned them to dust, but then it also started raining?  It's a little glossed over, while I need everything spelled out.  It also wasn't clear to me why this one particular family kept running afoul of the Man even though at the end it seemed like he would do a deal with anyone, and if anyone would be reluctant to make bargains, you'd think it would be the descendants of the ones who had already faced him and lost.

 On the whole though, it's a clever, well-written addition to the pantheon of children's horror.  It's also (as you'll see in other reviews) a lovely coming to terms with grief and letting someone go, and finding joy in life again. Ollie's mother's death haunts Ollie, but as everyone could stand to learn as a child: just because it's a spook, doesn't make it bad.  Embrace your inner demon!

36: A Ghost Story

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

By Jason Schreier

Developing video games—hero's journey or fool's errand? The creative and technical logistics that go into building today's hottest games can be more harrowing and complex than the games themselves, often seeming like an endless maze or a bottomless abyss. In Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Jason Schreier takes readers on a fascinating odyssey behind the scenes of video game development, where the creator may be a team of 600 overworked underdogs or a solitary geek genius. Exploring the artistic challenges, technical impossibilities, marketplace demands, and Donkey Kong-sized monkey wrenches thrown into the works by corporate, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels reveals how bringing any game to completion is more than Sisyphean—it's nothing short of miraculous.

Taking some of the most popular, bestselling recent games, Schreier immerses readers in the hellfire of the development process, whether it's RPG studio Bioware's challenge to beat an impossible schedule and overcome countless technical nightmares to build Dragon Age: Inquisition; indie developer Eric Barone's single-handed efforts to grow country-life RPG Stardew Valley from one man's vision into a multi-million-dollar franchise; or Bungie spinning out from their corporate overlords at Microsoft to create Destiny, a brand new universe that they hoped would become as iconic as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings—even as it nearly ripped their studio apart.

Documenting the round-the-clock crunches, buggy-eyed burnout, and last-minute saves, Blood, Sweat, and Pixels is a journey through development hell—and ultimately a tribute to the dedicated diehards and unsung heroes who scale mountains of obstacles in their quests to create the best games imaginable.

I have to say, the Popsugar challenge is definitely getting me to read more books that I might not have prioritized before, and some of them are quite interesting!  BUT NOT BS&P! Just kidding, I was very much entertained.  I am a person who plays video games, but I am by no stretch of the imagination "a gamer", or at the very least, not of the games described in this book.  I do love and live with someone about whom that is accurate, and I have to tell you, video games are some weird cultural touchstone for these generations.  I had some basic familiarity with some of the games that Schreier zooms in on, which helped a little, but not so much that I didn't need some of Schreier's occasional oversimplification, like "an ENGINE for a GAME is like the INSIDE GUTS of a CAR." Honestly, I appreciated it.

BS&P is, at its heart, an attempt to draw out how games succeed, mostly, it seems, in spite of what is put into them.  As a reader, it seemed to boil down to two things: not enough time/money (these go basically hand in hand - when you run out of one, you run out of both) and not enough leadership (or too much leadership).

As much as I enjoy reading about How Things Are Made, I don't think I'm the target audience for this book.  I read it and was immediately like, "What a terrible waste of time and money."  Actually, my first thought was, "I hope that Amber Hageman is adequately compensated for basically supporting Eric Barone for five years while he diddled around making Stardew Valley, because she is in a real precarious position." It's nice that he has 12 million dollars now, but he has that because of her.  Like, directly because of her.  And they were not and still aren't married, it's giving me hives.   I did appreciate Schreier's shout-out to the fact that video game development is still very much a boys club, for better or worse (probably worse, though, right?  I mean, without other perspectives, this is how you wind up making tunnel visioned games). Let's hear it for the ladies.

I was actually just watching GoldenEye (the movie) the other night, I don't think I've seen it in at least a decade, if at all since it originally came out.  There's a fun oral history of the video game that was floating around a little while ago, and it's a great article.  You hear a lot of the same issues: younger crew of guys, 100 hour work weeks, building a new game while simultaneously working out the way new technology actually works, and again, a complete lack of direction (in this case allowing crucial proposals and ideas like multiplayer and slap fights to become part of the game).  And at one point, one of the creators says, what made the game so popular and successful was - luck, a lot of luck, a perfect storm.  I think that idea is what's missing from BS&P in some ways.  We hear about all these successful games, but what distinguishes them from the unsuccessful games?  The last chapter discusses a mythical Star Wars 1313 game that was never produced, but the game is cancelled because the studio gets cancelled, not because they made it and it sucked.  I wanted to hear more about those types of games, to compare them to the ones described in the book.  I'm sure there's games out there that someone's spent years working on that fails - what makes those different from these?

This is ostensibly my "book about a hobby" but BS&P reminds us how much work it takes to make effortless entertainment.  There's no such thing as a free lunch, young man!  I still think video game development is in an ass-backwards state of operations, but I appreciate the peek behind the curtain. 



08: A Book About A Hobby

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

By Maria Semple

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

There are so many reviews and articles about this book, nothing I have to say will be original or fresh.  Luckily, I haven't read any of them, so I am completely unintimidated, and I will forge on bravely in spite of banality! Actually, what's really killing me is that I have simply too many other things I could be doing, which are a lot more fun than walking paths than have been trod over aplenty. I'm like, two books behind in my reviews again. 

When we come down to it, the book is good but it does not inspire me into fits of passionate defense or critique.  I liked it, I stayed up late to see where it would go (Bernadette), but now I've finished it I don't feel compelled by it (for better or for worse).

It does accomplish what it sets out to do: a razor sharp satire of a certain upper middle class, tech snobs and private schools, all wrapped up in a bizarrely appropriate midlife crisis that's apparently been dragging on for fifteen years, and a weird right turn towards Antarctica.  It balances a strange line of no one being likeable, but you kinda start to like them anyway.

My biggest nag with the book is that it ended too abruptly. I suppose it's a good problem to have, that your readers want more, but it basically ends with a letter Bernadette wrote weeks and weeks before the chronological end of the book (in which Bee and Bernadette's husband manage to track her down in Antarctica) and we're left with some kinda dangling emotional threads: sure, Bernadette will design a new station at the bottom of the world, but what about the baby with Soo-Lin that her husband is having because of all that time they thought she was dead? What about the emotional trauma left in her wake? Bernadette, I don't care how awful you felt that a house you built was bought and bulldozed by an angry neighbor - cocooning yourself and becoming increasingly bitter and introverted is how you get to the point that your husband believes you need to be incarcerated for your own good.

I can't tell if we're supposed to feel bad that Bernadette's been (somewhat) falsely accused, and certainly everyone should have the ability to live peacefully unimpeded by nosy neighbors and fellow mothers, but her crabby attitude extended towards her family as well.  I mean, she did outsource her life to the Russian mob, but even worse, she outsourced it to someone she was only paying 75 cents an hour.

The title works overtime - not only Where'd You Go geographically, but where did you go spiritually? Bernadette basically zonked out of her life, and while it's great that she was able to maintain strong connections with her daughter, in the immortal words of About a Boy, you need more than one: you need backup.  All that being said: I would definitely read a sequel.  Where'd You Go, Soo-Lin?

16: A Book With A Question In The Title

01: A Book Becoming a Movie in 2019 (Don't ask - but explanations are found in Black Future Month)