Slow River by Nicola Griffith
I encountered this as part of my reading of Nebula-winning novels, and am glad I did. Very impressive stuff. Excellent characterization, bringing a sort of complexity and three-dimensional integration of perspective, emotion and action that puts most authors to shame. As well the protagonist if homosexual without being exoticized or the account being in any way apologetic for her sexuality. Above all what carries the story is how much I believed in the core setup of characters, and how sympathetic and compelling they were even when put in shameful or disquieting situations. Overall the story structure is a quiet and gradual one, featuring some dramatic standoffs and disturbing situations, but pacing it with a gradual commitment to the back and forth of a full psychology, the layer by layer experiencing of events packed with unfolding the past and recovering memories of a larger context. There is a lot of darker presence in this work, from the setup of kidnapping and victimization to the eventual uncovering of core familial dysfunction and abuse. Yet I read it as too grounded and wide ranging to ultimately be a pessimistic work.
My one qualm about this work winning the Nebula was that it's rather light in science fiction elements. It takes a near future environment of minor technological advancement and focus on corporate intrigue. There isn't much range offered here beyond the present, instead a look into an imaginative but somewhat conentional layout of economic tensions, secrecy and media saturation. Yet these elements are done so skillfully, and with a degree of complexity for description that's so rarely brought in genre representations of capitalism, that in the end I'd count this element as also a success. Looking at the Nebula shortlist for 1996, Slow River was up against two volumes I've read--Sawyer's Starplex and Stephenson's The Diamond Age. Both works have certain virtues, but I'm quite pleased Slow River beat them out.
Griffith just moved from 'author I don't know at all' to 'author I need to read all published books of'. It's really a very good book.
Similar to and better than: Whit by Iain Banks
Similar to and worse than: Sometimes this judgement seems a lot easier and more useful to make than others. It's usually beneficial to provide something in the way of context, show with a case to case example that almost every book isn't the best or worst in its style. In this case, while I can certainly think of a number of soft science fiction novels that are better than Slow River, at the moment nothing is coming to mind that has the same approach towards family relationships, dysfunctionality and skillful presentation of near-future economic tensions. I'll pass on the comparisons for the moment.
Showing posts with label nebula. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nebula. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The Claw of the Conciliator
The Claw of the Conciliator by Gene Wolfe
Part of my reading of Nebula-winning novels.
For the third time, I've found Gene Wolfe to not be the engaging genius that so many other reviewers have. It's clearly well formed with regards to language, I like the rich setting and the plot is a lot more engaging than the other Wolfe I've seen, but it's still ultimately unsatisfying. There just seems to be a narrative pointlessness to the whole thing, a deliberate undercutting of theme, and a lot of authorial ambivalence about if the work is genre or non, or if genre whether it commits to science fiction or fantasy. The whole thing is rather alienating, and while skilled in some ways, I can't pronounce it good.
Certainly there's a lot of subtle writing at work, playing with unreliable perspectives and shades of ambiguity. I don't see this project as worthy in itself, however, and it's not anchored to anything particularly exciting. It feels like a book too geared at expressing its own brilliance to actually be terribly interesting or engaging. Wolfe's narrative comes a lot closer to delivering an effective genre story than Memorare or There Are Doors does, but by the same token that leaves me frustrated by how much the book backs out of delivering an effective story. The other thing I find particularly alienating about this piece is the way it plays unreliable characters as against a distant and remote/weird setting. The ultimate result is to produce a type of alienation and remoteness that made it increasingly hard to feel invested in the story as it progressed. I was never entirely bored, but by the end I was rather frustrated and glad that this book ended.
Since this piece was, for whatever strange reason, a Nebula winner, some context. It gained this award in 1981, the year after Benford's Timescape and the year before Bishop's No Enemy But Time. Of the other shortlisted candidates for 1981 I haven't read any or their authors and can't say for sure if a more deserving winner was passed over at that stage. I'd tend to suspect it, however.
Similar to and better than: There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe
Similar to and worse than: Dying Earth by Jack Vance
Part of my reading of Nebula-winning novels.
For the third time, I've found Gene Wolfe to not be the engaging genius that so many other reviewers have. It's clearly well formed with regards to language, I like the rich setting and the plot is a lot more engaging than the other Wolfe I've seen, but it's still ultimately unsatisfying. There just seems to be a narrative pointlessness to the whole thing, a deliberate undercutting of theme, and a lot of authorial ambivalence about if the work is genre or non, or if genre whether it commits to science fiction or fantasy. The whole thing is rather alienating, and while skilled in some ways, I can't pronounce it good.
Certainly there's a lot of subtle writing at work, playing with unreliable perspectives and shades of ambiguity. I don't see this project as worthy in itself, however, and it's not anchored to anything particularly exciting. It feels like a book too geared at expressing its own brilliance to actually be terribly interesting or engaging. Wolfe's narrative comes a lot closer to delivering an effective genre story than Memorare or There Are Doors does, but by the same token that leaves me frustrated by how much the book backs out of delivering an effective story. The other thing I find particularly alienating about this piece is the way it plays unreliable characters as against a distant and remote/weird setting. The ultimate result is to produce a type of alienation and remoteness that made it increasingly hard to feel invested in the story as it progressed. I was never entirely bored, but by the end I was rather frustrated and glad that this book ended.
Since this piece was, for whatever strange reason, a Nebula winner, some context. It gained this award in 1981, the year after Benford's Timescape and the year before Bishop's No Enemy But Time. Of the other shortlisted candidates for 1981 I haven't read any or their authors and can't say for sure if a more deserving winner was passed over at that stage. I'd tend to suspect it, however.
Similar to and better than: There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe
Similar to and worse than: Dying Earth by Jack Vance
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)