The Humanity Of Machinehood

Several short works by S.B. Divya have been among our favourites in the past five years or so.

Image via Simon
& Schuster

“Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse,” “Loss of Signal,” and the Nebula-shortlisted novella “Runtime,” demonstrate that she is a writer who delivers interesting ideas wrapped in approachable and stylish prose. We therefore had high hopes for her debut novel Machinehood — and were not disappointed.

The novel is clever, brimming with engaging ideas, and provides important commentary on current political trends. Set a century down the line, Machinehood delves into the erosion of human rights, the perils of capital-driven pharmaceutical development, and the evolving understandings of privacy.

Machinehood centres on Welga, a security contractor who ends up investigating a series of terrorist attacks thought to be orchestrated by the world’s first truly sentient artificial intelligence. Although the story initially feels like an adventure novel, it’s soon apparent that the story centers on Welga’s quest to create stability, the precariousness of her work situation, and her sister-in-law’s medical investigation into seizures that Welga begins experiencing.

Divya uses these narrative threads to explore how capitalist-driven competition can lead to negative outcomes for society. In particular, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has been normalized in this future, leading to workers whose employment is contingent on their willingness to punish their bodies and nervous systems beyond their natural limits. While this is a bleak (and unfortunately believable) aspect to the world Divya has crafted, it is not entirely dystopian.

While the novel depicts various forms of body modification having detrimental effects, and the gig economy making working relationships more tenuous, other advances such as automatic kitchens, the ease of global travel, and medical printers have created higher standards of living in other ways. This is a nuanced future that avoids monocausal explanations for society’s changes.

Escape Pod co-host
S.B. Divya's engineering
background is evident.
Image via Analog

One of the recurring themes explored in the book — and one of the reasons it should be considered for the Prometheus Award — is the relationship between government services, the private sector, and do-it-yourself culture. As an example, those wanting to go to space do so through the participation of voluntary hobbyist rocket-ship clubs, while health care is allocated through a system of micro-auctions. Pharmaceuticals are often printed at home with some government oversight, but pill designs come from both giant corporations and from hobbyists. None of these details are delivered by way of polemic, but rather flow naturally within the story.

In such a setting, the most powerful actors seem to be religions, in part because of the unassailable sway they have over their followers. Without giving too much away, there are philosophical aspects to a religion of Neo-Budhism that provide incredible motivations to some of the religion’s adherents. Religion thus is shown to be a tool to navigate and instigate change.

One of the greatest strengths of the novel is that as it progresses, the conflict becomes less and less black-and-white. The antagonist is compelling in large part because it’s easy to see their side of the issues, even though their tactics aren’t acceptable. Has the terrorism perpetrated by the Machinehood improved the lives of humanity? Divya has the courage to leave that question unanswered.

Every few years, it starts to seem like science fiction is running out of ideas. Thankfully, authors like Divya remind us that the future has an almost infinite array of possibilities. Machinehood is the type of novel that gives us faith in science fiction as a genre.

New Books In Science Fiction

The podcast New Books In Science Fiction, hosted by Rob Wolf, is possibly ineligible for a Hugo Award

Podcaster Rob Wolf interviews
authors about their new books.
(Image supplied)

for best fancast. And that’s a shame because it is one of the podcasts that consistently guide listeners to find deeper understanding and appreciation of genre works.

Every two or three weeks, Wolf sits down with an author who has a new novel (either upcoming or released in the past six months) and has an in-depth one-on-one chat with them about the book and their influences, about their career, and about the intellectual effort that went into the book.

Often, the result is revelatory.

An expert interviewer, Wolf approaches each author with an earnest enthusiasm that is frankly endearing. He asks thoughtful, succinct questions that drive at the heart of the matter, and gives his guests the time to respond fully and completely.

In the seven years he’s been hosting the podcast, Wolf has interviewed an all-star roster of science fiction authors such as Andy Weir, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Kameron Hurley, Ken Liu, Megan O'Keefe, Malka Older, and many, many more. Many of his earlier episodes from 2014–2015 may seem a little choppier, but what amazes us is how much enduring value older episodes in the series have. And, to be fair, most podcasts were choppier five years ago.

By any measure, 2020 was an extraordinary year for New Books in Science Fiction. With Stealing Worlds author Karl Schroeder, Wolf interrogates the book’s politics. In an episode about Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark provides insights about historicity and the creation of authentic, believable historical fantasy. At the beginning of the pandemic, Beneath The Rising author Premee Mohamed’s episode examined the difficulty of launching a book during lockdown. There was not a bad episode this year.

All of the novels listed above were ones that we enjoyed. But Wolf’s strength is that his podcast is worth listening to even when you either haven’t read — or didn’t enjoy — the book he’s featuring. He brings intellectual grist and empathy to everything he works on.

For us, the real highlight of 2020 was an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, who was speaking about his recent novel The Ministry For The Future. Wolf’s interview provided insight and context that helped members of our book club to appreciate the artfulness of a book that they had previously found pedantic and boring. A librarian in the book club says this makes him an honorary readers’ advisory librarian.

Although Wolf himself produces the podcast entirely on a volunteer basis, it is part of a larger “New Books Network” that has exactly one full-time professional employee who deals with a few technical matters such as hosting. This does raise questions about the Hugo eligibility of this podcast, despite the fact that everything that makes New Books In Science Fiction great is fannish, and fan-run.

Whether or not New Books In Science Fiction is Hugo-eligible, Rob Wolf’s work deserves to be celebrated. It’s a fancast that will be on our Hugo nominating ballots, just in case it makes a difference.

The Architecture of Identity

It is difficult to overstate the yearning many fans have felt for Susanna Clarke’s follow-up to Jonathan

The long-awaited second novel
from Susana Clarke: Piranesi.
(Image via Bloomsbury UK)

Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Younger fans may not grok the fanfare that greeted Clarke’s 2004 debut, but it was a cultural phenomenon; on top of its Hugo Award, the novel earned a Locus Award, a Mythopoeic Award and a World Fantasy Award. Like few other fantasy novels, it was celebrated both by fandom, and by the non-genre community. The New York Times hailed it as a masterwork, Time Magazine named it the best novel of the year, it appeared on the Whitbread Award shortlist. 

Piranesi, therefore labours under a weight of expectations that would be impossible to meet.

This is a very different book than Clarke’s debut, and those simply looking for another Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell should consider themselves warned. Instead, this is a slender volume — 250 pages as opposed to Strange and Norrell’s 800 — that provides less action. What it provides instead is a nuanced meditation on the construction of identity and the role of memory, especially as it intersects with social conditioning, the formation of personality, and happiness.

Readers are guided through the story by a journal written by the title character as he navigates an endless series of labyrinthine halls in which there is evidence of only fifteen people having ever lived (only two of whom are living). Piranesi is content with his life, and exalts the House, describing its halls, staircases, waters and particularly its statues in reverential tones. The tale becomes a puzzle as it is revealed that the mysteries of the House and Piranesi’s identity are intertwined.

The House (the word House is always capitalized) is described as an enormous and strange structure that evokes images similar to Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel

The novel's prose effectively evokes
the etchings of its namesake, the
18th century Italian artist Piranesi.

, or Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Imaginary Prisons. It is a dangerous place, filled with perils both physical and spiritual, but in the narrator’s eyes the House is not malevolent. The novel is structured as a series of journals that Piranesi keeps to detail his daily life in the House.

Piranesi tells a small-scale story that belies its literary and philosophical depths. Although a short novel, the story takes time to reflect on the nature of knowledge and beauty. The story’s end is tidy — feeling like the beginning of a grand adventure we are unlikely to ever see explored — and doesn’t provide much closure to the more meditative aspects of the novel.

Our book club found itself divided, there were members who unreservedly adored Piranesi, others who enjoyed it (with reservations), and some who found themselves regrettably disappointed.

Most of our members were thoroughly charmed by the titular character’s curiosity and optimism. However, at least two members of the book club found Piranesi’s narrative voice grating, and argued that Susanna Clarke’s most impressive literary achievement with Piranesi was to make a novel that’s one third the length of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell three times as interminable. More than one member found the narrative voice and reflective writing to be the novel’s greatest strength, which demonstrates Clarke’s flexibility as a writer.

Some of our discussion group struggled with the novel’s strangeness (and fondness for Grandiose Capitalization) in the early pages, and a few never connected with the story. This isn’t a book for everyone, but one that provoked strong opinions — mostly positive — and prompted spirited discussion and deep-dive analysis.

Those looking for a puzzle, for poetry, and for philosophy, may find themselves pleasantly ensorcelled by the cyclopean halls of The House.

Hugo Cinema Club: 1960 Gets In The Zone

This blog post is the third in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.  

Rod Serling believed
that his work would be
forgotten. Six decades
later, it most certainly
has not. 
(Image via NYTimes)

There is a long and storied tradition of the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation being presented in absentia. In fact, the winner being in attendance for the ceremony has by and large been the exception, rather than the rule.

In 1960, for example, Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling seems to have been mostly unaware of the award until some two weeks later when a delegation of California-based fans who had just returned from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania visited the CBS offices to hand him a three-pound chrome rocketship on September 22.

The fans — including Bjo and John Trimble, Rick Sneary and Forrest J. Ackerman — were greeted warmly by the television legend, who had also earned his fourth Emmy that summer.

“[Serling] seemed sort of interested and taken by the idea,” Sneary wrote of the award presentation. “But he did not seem at all aware of fandom.”

The show had come close to cancellation just a few months earlier, so the critical praise, the multiple awards, and the resulting second season came as a vindication to the 35-year-old writer-producer.

Interviewed a decade later at Ithaca College about his preoccupations as a writer, Rod Serling talked about his “hunger to be young again, a desperate yearning to go back to where I came from.” This theme was overwhelmingly evident in his Hugo-winning first season of The Twilight Zone.

Whether it’s Gig Young walking through time to visit his childhood in “Walking Distance” (S1E5), or Ida Lupino obsessing over the movies of her youth in “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (S1E4), there is an undercurrent of nostalgia that pervades the work.

But interestingly, that nostalgia exists as a counterpoint to the modernity of the series. Watching The Twilight Zone alongside the other four works on that year’s Hugo shortlist, it becomes increasingly clear how far ahead of his time Twilight Zone-creator Rod Serling was. The scripts have a sprightly pace, they’re elegantly constructed parables with very little wasted time, and usually have satisfying narrative arcs. Comparing these episodes to those of Men Into Space (the other full TV season on the ballot) it feels hard to believe that the shows were airing in the same decade, let alone the same year.

There were only 12 episodes of Twilight Zone that were aired in 1959, and therefore eligible for

"Time Enough At Last," possibly
the most iconic episode of the
original Twilight Zone aired
on Nov. 20, 1959. 
(Image via shelf-awareness.com)

consideration in 1960. What is revelatory is realizing how many of those first twelve episodes of Twilight Zone are classics that are well-remembered today. Right from the pilot episode “Where Is Everybody”, the show plays with perception and keeps the viewer off balance. The very next episode, you’ve got a first-rate performance by Ed Wynn in a moralistic parable “One For The Angels” (S1E2) that regularly appears on lists of the great Twilight Zone episodes. Unforgettably, “Time Enough At Last” (S1E8) casts a long enough shadow over pop culture that it has been referenced by Modern Family, Powerpuff Girls, Walking Dead, Family Guy, and multiple times on the Simpsons. Previous Hugo-winner Richard Matheson's deft touch is evident on several of these. 

A few episodes are duds such as “The Lonely” (S1E7), and given the fact that the series was airing in the 1950s, there is a bit too much focus on heteronormative white male lead characters. The Twilight Zone is far from perfect, but it’s clearly the best work on the ballot in 1959.

Other shortlisted works

Allowed to nominate television programs for the first time, Hugo nominators almost entirely ignored the big screen, creating a shortlist with two full seasons, two individual episodes, and one theatrically released movie.

Of the other Hugo-shortlisted works, The World, The Flesh, And The Devil is the stand-out. A post-

Harry Belafonte is objectively
incredible in The World, The
Flesh & The Devil. 
(Image via NostalgiaCentral)

apocalyptic film terrific cast, the movie is notable for having a surprisingly progressive subtext on race. The black protagonist Ralph Burton (played by Harry Belafonte) survives a nuclear attack, and eventually ends up in a violent love triangle with a white man and white woman. The ending — which seems to indicate that they’ve resolved their differences, and are forming a polyamorous triad — is especially surprising considering the movie is seven decades old. The acting is stellar. It’s worth noting that this may be the first Hugo-shortlisted work with a non-white human protagonist.

The full first season of the short-lived TV show Men Into Space made its only appearance on the ballot. Given that it aired two years before Yuri Gagarin made his trip into orbit, the series gets a surprisingly large amount right about spaceflight, including the fact that it’s often very boring. Every time the writers of Men Into Space have a choice between telling an interesting story or providing stilted explanations of engineering, they opt for the latter. Although the series is deeply propagandistic (the end credits seem to list the involvement of every U.S. military office involved in spaceflight) it is refreshingly conciliatory towards the Soviet space program. Several major plot points involve co-operation with the Russians for the greater good of humanity. But by-and-large the series is of only historical interest, rather than something any of us would recommend to modern viewers looking for entertainment.

Murder and the Android, a television movie based on Alfred Bester’s Fondly Farenheit, has the distinction of being the most inaccessible of all professionally released Hugo-shortlisted works. The only extant copy resides in Los Angeles at the Paley Centre For Media, and for reasons ascribed to copyright (and perhaps more accurately copyright chill related to fair use) can only be viewed by those visiting the centre in person. Because of this, it is the one dramatic presentation that the authors of this blog have not watched. But critics of the time were extremely impressed by it, with Frederick Pohl describing it as “almost the only first-rate television play on a science fiction theme.” Perhaps one day, when its copyright term has finally expired, it will become widely available again.

Finally, the ballot included a TV movie adaptation of Henry James’ Turn Of The Screw. Although it was lauded at the time in the mainstream press, and featured Ingrid Bergman in the lead role, for the most part it feels listless and lifeless. Several scenes are melodramatic to the point of being excruciating to watch, but this may be a result of changing attitudes towards more naturalistic acting in the seven decades since the release of the movie. Still, we are glad that Turn Of The Screw didn’t win the Hugo.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would be hard to argue that Hugo voters got it wrong with Best Dramatic Presentation in 1960. The Twilight Zone has the most enduring value work on the shortlist, and it isn’t even close.

Addendum On The Evolving Hugo Rules

The Hugo Banquet at Pittcon.
(Image via Calisphere)

When The Twilight Zone won its first Hugo in 1960, the Hugo Awards remained informal in organization and format. Categories were ad-hoc, the physical trophy had yet to be standardized, nominations and voting eligibility were inconsistent. 

Late at night on September 4, after the Hugo Awards banquet in the grand ballroom of the Penn-Sheraton Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a WSFS business meeting run by L. Sprague de Camp oversaw what is possibly the most significant overhaul of the Hugo Awards that ever occurred. The rocketship trophy that Ben Jackson had designed became the permanent standard, eligibility for nominating and voting on the Hugos became officially linked to membership in the Worldcon, and a committee led by Dirce Archer was struck to establish permanent awards categories.

Prior to 1960, there had never been a category called “Best Dramatic Presentation.” The previous two occasions on which dramatic works had been honoured, they’d been honoured with Hugos for “Best SF or Fantasy Movie” or “Outstanding Movie,” and the categories explicitly excluded television programs. With the standardization of categories later that year, the name “Best Dramatic Presentation” was here to stay.

In many ways, the 1960 Hugos were the last of the early Hugos, with a new chapter for the awards starting in 1961.

The Award For Best Award

By our count, there are currently somewhat in excess of 50 different awards given out regularly every year

What makes people pay attention to
the Hugo Awards? History, process,
& focus. (Photo by Olav Rokne)

for science fiction and fantasy fiction, and another 60 or so defunct awards that were at some point handed out annually. These range from broad-based awards intended to showcase popular works, to regional and national awards, to awards for narrow niches in the genre, to those dedicated to advancing a specific ideology within genre fiction.

There are in fact enough award systems to warrant the effort of analysis to help decide which awards are worth paying attention to. Of course, dichotomous and divisive “success or failure” judgments are less useful than comparing how they’re organized and speculating about what might contribute to a robust and respected award. Examining the growing pains of recently created awards and thinking about why several smaller awards have managed to establish long-term relevance can also be helpful.

In our opinion, there are several major factors that can contribute to an awards system being perceived as having legitimacy: a track record of recognizing works that are broadly accepted as having enduring value; a consistent democratic and transparent process with accountability checks; and having a differentiated mandate that serves some segment of fandom.

The Weight of History

While subjecting awards to a ranking is, well, subjective, Hugo-winning fan writer Mike Glyer made a valiant effort to crowdsource a ranking of the top genre awards last year (though two of the awards listed have since changed their names). This gave fans a way to weigh in on which awards they felt were the most prestigious.

With slight variations, Glyer’s list falls roughly into chronological order by the date of these awards being established. The Hugos are at the top of the list, and that's probably in part because they are old, and have had the time to build a community and recognize more works that people love. In contrast, the Arthur C. Clarke Award jury never had an opportunity to hand out a trophy to the novel Dune.

Over time repetition becomes tradition, and tradition accrues the patina of respectability. However, reading fanzines and Worldcon publications from when the Hugos began in the mid-1950s, one gets a sense that the award did not engender much respect until later — many convention reports of the day limit coverage of the awards to statements such as “Some people won some awards.” In 1955, fan Wallace Weber describes the awards as the “low point of the convention.”

The Power of Process

The lack of respect shown to the Hugos during their early years may have to do with the inconsistent and ad hoc process by which the award was organized. Although always based on a public vote, the rules by which that vote took place varied from year to year, the categories on the ballot seemed to change randomly, and even the eligibility dates were wildly inconsistent.

Although it would be unfair to hold Hugo Awards of the 1950s to the same standards of process as modern awards, examining their stumbles, and how the process has evolved can be instructive.

The much-lamented presentation of the 1955 Hugo for best novel to Mark Clifton and Frank Reily’s

They'd Rather Be Right (AKA
The Forever Machine) would be
unlikely to win under modern
Hugo Awards balloting.
(Image via Wikipedia) 

They’d Rather Be Right actually points to the problems posed by a poorly engineered awards process. At that time, Hugo votes were cast via a write-in ballot and one-stage system. Thus, it was relatively easy for the award to go to a book that was loved by a small-but-enthusiastic group of fans, and to ignore the mainstream opinion. 

The creation of the WSFS constitution in 1963, and the subsequent gradual refinement of a relatively transparent awards voting system that balances participatory engagement with accountability has led to the Hugo process becoming one of the most robust. Although there have been a handful of attempts to subvert the award (such as the 1989 ballot-stuffing incident), these have been largely unsuccessful, which speaks to the quality of the process, and the dedication of WSFS business meeting participants.

Similarly, other recognizable awards have well-defined and robust procedures for selecting winners. The Nebulas, the Locus Award, the Clarke Award, the BSFA Award, are all open and consistent in their process; which engenders trust in the system among those paying attention.

There is a long tradition of inconsistent and ad-hoc processes in awards that have since faded from memory. It will be interesting to see if current attempts to launch new major awards will learn from or be plagued by these same errors of process. In particular, strong communication and clear focus are critical to establishing a long-running award.

Specific Focus

One of the reasons for the Hugo Awards’ survival through several years in which the process was irregular, and the award-winners were inconsistent, may have been that they had a specific mandate that was un-served by other contemporaneous literary awards: they were at the time the only game in town when it came to science fiction awards. Newer awards do not have that luxury; unless they are in some

It seems unlikely that a work 
like The Unincorporated Man
would gain much attention 
from mainstream awards. 
But the Prometheus Award
appeals to a specific niche. 
(Image via Amazon)

way different from the Hugos and Nebulas, they will likely continue to be compared unfavorably to the more established awards.

Perhaps proving the point, several awards have succeeded in part by finding their niche. For more than four decades, the Libertarian Futurist Society has recognized achievement in science fiction (and occasionally fantasy) that conforms to their worldview with the Prometheus Award. Similarly, the Otherwise Award (formerly known as the Tiptree) has an almost three-decade history of recognizing works of science fiction that explore an understanding of gender.

These may be narrow, and socio-political, categories, but the fact that the organizers and juries are up-front about their purpose helps them build a community willing to ensure sustainability.

The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall is an excellent book, but appealed to too niche an audience to get Hugo or Nebula consideration. By recognizing The Carhullan Army, the Otherwise Award fulfilled a purpose by helping the book find new audiences.

When starting a new award for science fiction or fantasy, members of the general fannish public will always wonder “why should I pay attention to this award, rather than to the more established awards?” Having a clear mandate helps answer this existential question.

Doing it well

An example of a new award that seems to have been set up for long-term success can be found in the IGNYTE Award. The award was founded in 2020 by editors of FIYAH Magazine to “celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy.” Between this statement and FIYAH Magazine’s mission to promote works by BIPOC creators, the award has a relatively clear mandate (and one that has historically been underserved by existing awards).

Additionally, the award founders provided a clear description of the selection process: a 15-person jury to create a short-list, followed by public voting. Given that this award has been around for less than a year, it’s impossible to say whether that process will be robust and consistent, but they have clearly put thought into the process, and how it will fulfill the award’s mandate.

Conclusion

All awards systems have their structural biases, and the collective biases of the people making the selections. This is unavoidable and obvious in all areas of creative output.

Awards systems are by their very nature political; it is an expression of power dynamics to elevate one work over another, even when those deciding what gets elevated are doing so in good faith. It is therefore important to recognize the difference between suggesting that an award “got it wrong” with a selection, and suggesting that the entire awards system is invalid.

It is easy to find several examples through the years of reactionary awards systems that were created in protest of the decision made by more prominent awards. When they’re created with integrity and honesty about the political motivations, more new awards can add a lot of value to the evolving conversation about genre works.

But when the creators of an award offer little more than a vague declaration that the mainstream awards “are broken,” one has to question the motivation.

Even Charles Stross' worst book is pretty good

If we select nominations for Best Series based on a representative title being released in 2020, The

Laundry Files may not make the grade. But if we are choosing nominations based on the strength of the entire series, then Charles Stross’s decades-long Laundry Files series is nearly a lock for our ballots.

This is not to say that Dead Lies Dreaming is a let-down. Rather, it’s an uneven book that doesn’t always showcase the strengths of the series, or Stross’ rich imagination.

Taking place in a London transformed by the rise of the dark and eldritch forces unleashed during the events of the previous few Laundry Files novels, Dead Lies Dreaming follows the exploits of a group of marginalized youths who support themselves through magic-based crime. Through various circumstances — and family connections — they become embroiled in a plot to travel back in time and secure a rare and dangerous tome of magic.

As always with Stross, there’s a fair degree of on-point criticism of capitalism’s excesses, much of which lands well. The sections in which he uses the point of view of the marginalized youths to examine the completely bizarre housing market in the United Kingdom, are perspicacious, witty, and sad.

One of the strongest scenes — and perhaps the most difficult to read because it hits so close to home — involves a visit to a long-term care facility. Stross writes the section with a keen eye for the real-world horrors of old age, dementia, and under-resourced nursing staff.

Those who have spent time at privatized seniors
care facilities will find Stross' insightful writing
about such places to be harrowing.
(Image via Chilliwack Progress) 

Where Dead Lies Dreaming falls down as a book is that it’s hard to get a handle on any of the characters as people. Several of them seem interesting at first — particularly police officer / thief taker Wendy Deere, and corporate power-broker Eve. Stross has introduced a large and diverse cast, but doesn’t develop many of them beyond sketch work.

Stross has made a clean break here from all the previous books in the series. The story barely even mentions any of the existing characters, does not tie into the overall story arc, and doesn’t even touch on the spycraft that had been the unifying theme for the series. This makes one wonder whether this book might have been better-served by being pared down, streamlined, and released as something wholly separate.

It has been almost a decade since Charles Stross penned a novel that was not a sequel to one of his previous books. Dead Lies Dreaming is still a sequel, but in some ways it is a welcome change in that it stands alone far more than most of his recent novels. Some might even find it a better entry point to the world of the Laundry Files than several of the previous books. But is this a world that is worth devoting many more books to? Only Stross can pull that off, and we think he could, but is he ready to move on? Dead Lies Dreaming leaves us hoping he might be.

The Vanished Birds soars

Rich with anthropological detail and criticism of market-driven ideologies, Simon Jimenez’ debut novel is a puzzle that rewards those with the patience to figure out how all the pieces fit together.

(image via Goodreads)

The novel’s sections appear at first to be distinct from each other. Readers begin by learning about a child growing up in an early agrarian society visited by space ships about every dozen years. Next they’re swept into the story of a merchant vessel from an advanced mercantile civilization reliant on exploiting planets like the one in the first chapter. Finally, the novel becomes an adventure about the rescue of a lost crew member.

Throughout the novel, flashbacks to a near contemporaneous earth are used to convey backstory through the eyes of Fumiko, an early architect of interstellar civilization who skips forward through time by going in and out of suspended animation.

Although various parts of the novel appealed to various book club members differently, there was a consensus that Jimenez’ writing is excellent. Some of us were drawn in by the first chapter while others were worried it was setting up a more wunderkind YA narrative. Using a subsistence farmer’s point of view in the first chapter served to create context for the subsequent stories.

There was even sharper disagreement about the flashbacks. Some club members felt it was essential exposition about the failure of modern capitalism and the colonization of space, while others described the flashbacks as extraneous.

The final section of the novel, in which the plot hits a fairly frenetic pace, left some readers scratching their heads. The change in tone from a contemplative — almost meditative — novel, to an action-adventure is somewhat jarring. 

(Image via Backpage)

Space opera is a subgenre that has all-too-often fallen into the trap of focusing on technology, rather than imagining alternative ways that humans can organize themselves. One of the most appealing aspects of The Vanished Birds is that Jimenez weaves social commentary and structural critiques into the cultural setting. He’s skillful enough not to slap readers in the face with this, but rather offers enough detail that those who scratch beneath the surface will be rewarded.

Jimenez seems deeply versed in the history of the genre; at times paying homage to Ursula K. le Guin, and at others referencing Alfred Bester. In fact, the book could be read as a direct response to Bester’s The Stars My Destination, as one of the main characters in The Vanished Birds can jaunt like the earlier novel’s protagonist Gully Foyle — and at a whim can travel across vast distances almost instantaneously. Jimenez’ seems to be suggesting that a citizen’s ability to leave would be the ultimate subversion of corporate power. 

The Vanished Birds is a puzzling novel, and one whose pieces occasionally fit together oddly. But it is also  a smart and thoughtful book that will deeply appeal to readers looking for cultural criticism in their outer-space adventures.