Künsken has a talent for imagining new unfreedoms

On one level, The Quantum Magician is a straightforward heist novel that might be compared to an

(Image via Goodreads)

Ocean’s Eight set in space.

But there’s far more going on under the hood of this well-engineered machine than that reductive description conveys. It is a novel about self-identity, about colonialism, about being handcuffed by our own instincts, and about the subversion of human freedom.

Derek Künsken’s debut introduces the reader to con-man protagonist Belisarius, who gathers up a rag-tag group of his former associates to pull a scheme worth billions.

These associates include his childhood love, his dying mentor, an outcast from the Puppet society, a zany demolitions expert, and an AI that thinks it’s the reincarnation of a Catholic saint. To be fair, some of these characters seem like they’re straight from central casting, but for the most part their relationships and dialogue are engaging and enjoyable.

Belisarius’ scheme, which involves helping a small fleet of warships successfully pass through a heavily fortified transport hub, is somewhat grandiose, but it provides Künsken some interesting chances to comment on colonialism and economic justice.

The planning, execution, twists and turns of the heist are interesting enough to make the book worth your time. But it’s the interplay between human and transhuman motivations that elevates The Quantum Magician.

Central to what makes the book so enjoyable is the character of Belisarius, the Homo Quantus.

It would be easy to imagine a
young Michael Cane as
Belisarius.
(Image via Mirror.Co.Uk) 

Genetically engineered as part of a project to create a human capable of understanding quantum mechanics, he is able to enter various trance-like states in which he redirects portions of his brain that are usually dedicated to social skills or motor functions.

He is, however, a reject from the genetic engineering project, incomplete and unable to fulfill his instinctive need to understand. To distract himself from his inabilities, he focuses his prodigious intellect on understanding human motivations and working as a con artist.

It is a difficult task for those of us who have standard-issue brains to write believably about the thought processes of those who are neuro-atypical, but Künsken pulls it off admirably. Some of the best portions of the book are those in which we get a window into how Belisarius’ brain is constantly churning with mathematics, a need to count items, and to grind away at even minor quandaries.

One of the other real highlights of the book are when Künsken uses the plot and the setting to take readers on a tour of a variety of ways that genetic engineering might lead humanity on a road to unfreedom: the engineering of people like Belisarius whose instinct for curiosity is so tweaked as to be inescapable; the creation of benthic monstrosities Homo Eridanus that cannot escape the task that they were designed to do; and finally, the citizens of the Free City of Puppets.

Two hundred years prior to the events of the novel, The Puppets were designed to be slaves. Genetic engineers boosted their ability to feel religious fervor, and coded them to worship a breed of master humans. By the time that The Quantum Magician takes place, the society of the Puppets has devolved into something strange and awful.

Although they aren’t front-and-centre, the particular form of unfreedom embodied by the Puppets is

Derek Künsken offers new ideas about
how freedom could be subverted.
(Image via DerekKunsken.com)  

affecting, viscerally repugnant, and creepy.

More than anything else, it’s the subplots about the Puppets that might place The Quantum Magician into a grand tradition of dystopic science fiction novels that warn about the subversion of human rights. The work I was reminded of most often when reading this book was Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness In The Sky, and the particular unfreedom embodied by Emergent focus.

Science fiction is often at its best when imagining new forms of tyranny. It is clear that Künsken has a talent for imagining oppressions. On the strength of that alone, The Quantum Magician is well worth picking up, and may end up on some of our nominating ballots.

Not On The Shortlist

Every year there are more worthy works than could fit on any Hugo Awards ballot. There will therefore always be works that are not included, no matter how great they may be. Inspired in part by an upcoming panel at Worldcon 76, some of the members of our book club have selected the works they wish could have made this year's ballot.  

KB:

The Marrow Thieves 

by Cherie Dimaline

(All cover images
via Amazon)

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline may have gotten significant attention in Canada with CBC’s Canada Reads and The Governor General’s Young People’s Literature Award, but it’s lack of presence for either Best Novel or Best Young Adult Book categories is disappointing.

The book’s imaginative dystopian world ravaged by climate change, the loss of the ability to dream and genocide sound dark, but the book’s characters remain hopeful. Despite the tragedy, there is love, reconciliation and the will to stand against tyranny is never extinguished. Dimaline lets Indigenous youth, a demographic subject to high suicide rates, murder, and other trauma, be the heroes in this story. These characters are relatable, realistic and flawed as humans, not as literary devices. The book may look like a dystopic future, but it’s also a message for today with memories of a colonial past.

Just because it was written with YA in mind doesn’t mean you should shy away from picking up this tightly-written book.


AW:

Borne
by Jeff Vandermeer
More than a few of the panelists I heard at Worldcon75 spoke highly of Vandermeer’s work,

prompting me to pick up Borne. This hopeful-dystopian novel explores the ramifications of species decline post-biotech obsession. Readers are led to the raw edges of our survival instincts by characters written to be mindful of both set and setting. Through scavengers in a broken and surreal city, desperate for respite in an increasingly hostile ecosystem, this novel explores transhumanism in ways that are both precautionary and personal.

While Vandermeer’s eco-fiction should appeal to both the SF and Fantasy contingents of Worldcon and the popularity of his Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance) is undeniable, this three-time Hugo finalist has never received a nomination for his fiction. And that seems much stranger to me than any flying bears.


OR:

The Stars Are Legion

by Kameron Hurley

Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion will squick out most readers, and perhaps that’s why it failed to connect with enough people to make it onto this year’s shortlist. That’s a shame because underneath all the bile, mucus, lymph, afterbirth, and other bodily fluids, it’s one hell of a read.

Set on a fleet of decaying biological spaceships, the political factions of The Stars Are Legion are fighting for control of dwindling resources. All the characters in the book are physically female, have romances with each other, but are impregnated by the biological worldships on which they live.

While the disorienting first 100 pages — mostly narrated by a character with amnesia — were difficult to get through, once you start following what’s happening in the plot, the book is hard to put down.

On a basic prose level, Hurley is an excellent writer, and that actually makes the book harder to read because reading The Stars Are Legion becomes an immersive experience. Even when the protagonist is exploring the digestive tract of the worldship or giving birth to machine parts.

Inventive, ingenious and utterly gross.


MB:

American War 

by Omar El Akkad
American War is a smart, near-future story about a second American civil war. The south secedes from the Union after fossil fuels are outlawed following extreme climate change. The story follows Sarat Chestnut throughout her life as she goes from being a southern refugee with her family, through tragedy and radicalisation as a Southern agent.

The story presents radicalisation in a very empathic way. Each choice Sarat makes seems entirely plausible. Her further radicalisation and hatred of the north is a result of rational choices and manipulation.

El Akkad’s writing is engaging and his unique perspective is surely influenced by his middle eastern heritage. While not excusing terrorism, this story does much to explain people’s choices and makes the point that empathy is a much better tool for peace than it is given credit.


BG:

Kill or Be Killed, Volume 1 

by Ed Brubaker (Writer), Sean Phillips (Artist), Elizabeth Brietweiser (Artist)

Kill or Be Killed reunites noir master-trio Ed Brubaker (writer), Sean Phillips (artist) and Elizabeth Brietweiser (colourist) in a comic series that adds dark twists to vigilante tropes.

The series follows Dylan, a depressed graduate student who survives a suicide attempt only to meet a demonic figure that claims to have spared him and that demands Dylan re-pay the debt by killing a deserving soul every month.

The series is grim (murder and demons will do that) and Dylan is a deeply unlikable protagonist, but Brubaker's writing and characters make the story compelling and Phillips/Brietweiser's art and colours are invariably gorgeous and atmospheric. Kill or Be Killed is a troubling yet masterful display of graphic storytelling and I was sorry not to see it on the Hugo ballot this year.

Open Discussion — What's worth considering for the ballot in 2019?

The following list will be updated over the next few months as we read, watch, and listen to Hugo-eligible works for 2019. These are not necessarily what we plan to nominate, but rather works that at least one member of the Edmonton Hugo Book Club has enjoyed and believes to be worth consideration. We appreciate any additional suggestions in the comments.

Items that are controversial amongst our club are marked with an asterisk (*)

(List last updated on October 25, 2018). 

Novel
The Quantum Magician — Derek Künsken
Embers of War — Gareth Powell
The Calculating Stars — Mary Robinette Kowal
Record of a Spaceborn Few — Becky Chambers
Blackfish City — Sam J. Miller

Novella
The Million — Karl Shroeder
Gods, Monsters & The Lucky Peach — Kelly Robson*
The Expert System's Brother — Adrian Tchaikovsky

Novelette
The Only Harmless Great Thing — Brooke Bolander
A Study In Oils — Kelly Robson (Full text of story is HERE)

Short Story
Tierra y libertad — Madeline Ashby (Full text of story is HERE)
Noon In the Antilibrary — Karl Schroeder (Full text of story is HERE)
Contingency Plans For The Apocalypse — S.B. Divya
Thirty-Three Percent Joe — Suzanne Palmer (Full text of story is HERE)

Best Series

Centennial Cycle — Malka Older
Merchant Princes / Empire Games — Charles Stross

Peter Grant / Rivers Of London — Ben Aaronovitch
Adventures of Arabella Ashby — David D. Levine

Related Work

Astounding — Alec Nevala-Lee
An Informal History of the Hugos — Jo Walton

Best Professional Artist

Olly Moss
Ashley MacKenzie

Dramatic Presentation - Long Form

Annihilation 

Sorry To Bother You

Prospect
I Kill Giants

The Endless

Dramatic Presentation - Short Form

Westworld Season 2, Episode 8 "Kiksuya" — Written by Carly Wray & Dan Dietz
Preacher Season 3, Episode 8 — Written by Carla Ching, directed by Michael Morris
Expanse Season 3, Episode 10 "Abaddon's Gate" — Written by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck and Naren Shankar
Counterpart Season 1, Episode 6, "Act Like You've Been Here Before" — Written by Jennifer Getzinger, directed by Justin Britt-Gibson
The Terror, Episode 1 "Go For Broke" — Written by David Kajganich, directed by Edward Berger

Graphic Story
Paradiso, Vol. 1: Essential Singularity — Ram V and Dev Pramanik
Days of Hate, Act One — Aleš Kot, Danijel Žeželj, Jordie Bellaire, and Tom Muller
The Black Monday Murders —  Jonathan Hickman, Tomm Coker, Michael Garland, and Rus Wooten
Eternity Girl — Magdalene Visaggio and Sonny Liew
The Wild Storm — Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt

Fan Writer
Alasdair Stewart

Fancast
The Alternate Historian
Doctor Whooch
New Books In Science Fiction 
Verity 
Skiffy & Fanty

Semiprozine
Black Nerd Problems
Escape Pod
Strange Horizons

Best YA Novel

The Disasters — M.K. England 

Point counterpoint: New York 2140 versus The Stone Sky

Members of our book club disagreed about which novel deserves to win the Hugo this year.

As such, we are offering our arguments in favour of  both New York 2140  and The Stone Sky.

New York 2140 is the book that people need to read, and that is why it deserves to win.

In what may be his crowning achievement as an author of environmental science fiction, Kim Stanley

New York is going to have to deal
with rising sea levels — Robinson
manages to make this future real
and make it hopeful.
(Image via LeftForum.Org) 

Robinson imagines a New York City submerged beneath 50 feet of ocean.

There's a scene in New York 2140 in which Franklin Garr, an investment banker at the fictional firm WaterPrice, explains his system for the valuation of intertidal real estate.

"Intertidal Property Pricing Index. ... The name itself asserted something that before had been questionable. It was still questionable, but all over this world property had already become somewhat liquefied; property now is just a claim on the yield."

This quote is at the heart of what makes New York 2140 not only the most worthy work on this year's Hugo shortlist, but possibly the most important novel published last year: It forces us to ponder questions that humanity will have to — and is starting to — grapple with, in our post-climate-change future.

In New York 2140, Robinson delves
into the social, economic and engineering
challenges that people will face in the
wake of climate change.
(Image via Inhabitat.com) 

These questions range from logistical architectural and engineering quandaries to sociopolitical tensions including the fate of climate migrants and evolving forms of communal governance. Most of all, though, author Kim Stanley Robinson tackles economic questions.

In doing so, Robinson avoids the trap of despair that pervades many other novels about climate change. He offers a vision of the future in which there are catastrophes and significant problems, but a future in which there is also hope.

The central economic question of the novel is how climate change will affect real estate. There is a looming tension between the intertidal zone -- protected from ownership by international convention -- and the places which humans have already claimed as property. If people refuse to move as the intertidal zone encroaches, how will our economic tools resolve this tension?

These questions, and the implications of Robinson’s answers, are explored in the novel through the

The Met Life building in Manhattan
acts as the narrative focus of New
York 2140.
(Image via Wikipedia)

viewpoints of eight different narrators whose lives are tied together by the Met Life building.

Each of these eight viewpoints offer differing perspectives on a New York that is emblematic of how humans might adapt to climate change. In addition to the aforementioned Garr, there’s the building superintendent Vlade, who offers insight into the engineering of post-flood buildings. Social worker Charlotte Armstrong shows how civil society organizations adapt to the changing needs of the population. And orphans Stephan and Roberto’s story explores how the poor and the downtrodden survive. Tying all these narratives together are non-diagetic inserts offering the perspective of an antediluvian New Yorker, through historical notes and assorted philosophical musings.

Informed and leavened by a variety of intellectual traditions, and liberally referencing a variety of sources such as Le Corbusier, Samuel Beckett, and Thomas Piketty, New York 2140 does what the best Hugo winners do: offer a compelling blueprint of the future.

It’s not a novel without flaws. Not all narrators appealed to all of our book club members — for some, it was the comedic moments involving Amelia, while others found Franklin Garr to be a pompous jerk. Some members found the musings about property and economics to be a little on the dry side and found the book overly long — even going so far as to suggest that these inserts are superfluous or self-indulgent.

But these flaws are largely overshadowed by Robinson’s fully-realized vision of coping with climate change. This is a future that is believable, terrifying and hopeful.

At 624 pages, New York 2140 is the longest of this year's shortlist; a weighty novel filled with weighty ideas. The Stone Sky may be the most poetic. The Collapsing Empire may be the most fun. Raven Stratagem may be the most adrenaline-fuelled. Provenance may have been the most upbeat.

But New York 2140 is the book that people need to read, and that is why it deserves to win.

(This blog post is one of two in which different members of our book club make the case for the book they think should win. The second one on The Stone Sky is at this link.) 

The Stone Sky is the most artful book, and that's why it deserves to win.

N.K. Jemisin’s The Stone Sky is a warning about ravaging the Earth, made relatable through the story

There's a reason the first two Broken
Earth books won the Hugo Award -
It's the same reason The Stone Sky
deserves to make it a clean sweep:
These books have emotional resonance.
(Images via Goodreads.com) 

of a shattered mother-daughter relationship.

Well-known visual art critic Edmund Feldman once argued that when considering any work, one should consider four basic questions. To paraphrase these questions, and repurpose them to the literary world, they might be summarized as: what does the work set out to achieve, what tools and techniques does the artist use to achieve those goals, is the work successful in what what the artist set out to achieve, and finally how does it make you feel. Great art, it is suggested, is that which provides satisfactory answers to these questions.

By this standard, The Stone Sky, the most ambitious of this year’s Hugo shortlisted novels, succeeds admirably. As such, it is the work that deserves to be recognized with the award.

As the concluding book in the Broken Earth Trilogy, The Stone Sky aims to provide a resolution to several intertwined storylines, to complete several grand metaphors and to deliver a powerful message on relationships. In this work, humans are at once our own worst enemies and our only hope for redemption. We see in The Stone Sky how hubris has brought the Earth to near ruination. In the distant past, thirsting for more power, humans drew more and more from the Earth. In a terrible accident, the moon was pushed into a different orbit causing chaos on Earth. In the present, two factions are trying to bring the moon back: one wants to bring it straight into the Earth destroying life, the other wants to return it to its former orbit. Both claim to want to end the chaos and suffering on Earth and both intend to do it with extreme interventions on the natural world.

The immediate relevance of the metaphor should not be lost on readers. Today, Earth is changing in

The Broken Earth trilogy has
inspired readers.
Image via BrokenEarth Tumblr.

ways that resemble the catastrophic fifth seasons of the Broken Earth trilogy. Humans are at fault for these changes. Our extreme interventions have caused pain and suffering for people, plants and animals. We regularly experience storms, floods and droughts that thousands of years ago would have been so unusual as to be considered divine punishments. We are also working on new and different extreme interventions that will return some balance to the world.

The setting and structure of the series are ambitious, and Jemisin’s prose is impactful and engrossing. But more than any of the other novels on this year’s shortlist, The Stone Sky has an emotional core with well-crafted human relationships.

The main actors in the books are all tied together through a variety of relationships. Master-slave, lovers, mother-daughter. The treatment of people in each of these relationships affects decisions they are making now. Essun and Alabaster overcome previous trauma to form a new trust. The Guardian, Shaffa, goes after Nassun and using his knowledge of what he did to Essun gains the daughter’s trust. Nassun is lashing out at Essun after Essun was at best a questionable mother but acted from love in the best way she knew how.

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back."”

The misunderstandings and mistakes lead to conflict. Communication leads to understanding.

“Don’t be patient. Don’t ever be. This is the way a new world begins.”

Each book of this trilogy had highlights that add up to an overall story that is is cohesive. When books are well done, we shouldn’t punish them for being the third but reward them for doing it well. N.K. Jemisin would be the first “threepeat” in Hugo history and for this trilogy she deserves it. It is a well-crafted story relevant to our time with timeless messages.

While other shortlisted novels in 2018 may answer Feldman’s first three questions satisfactorily, only The Stone Sky is a novel that offers a profundity of emotion, and that is what elevates it above the other works.

(This is one of two blog posts in which members of our book club make the case for the book they think should win. The second one on New York 2140 can be found at this link.) 

Six Wakes - Review

Mur Lafferty’s contributions to the science fiction community are laudable. Her work as a podcaster

(image via Goodreads)

is worth celebrating. Some of her previous books have been entertaining, particularly the Shambling Guide To New York. And her advocacy for new and emerging artists is something that deserves significant recognition.  

It is a shame, therefore, that Six Wakes — a novel with significant flaws — may be many peoples’ first introduction to Lafferty’s work.

Early last year, when Six Wakes first hit bookshelves, several members of our book club picked the book up in anticipation of a fun mystery in space. At that time, we decided it was not a book we wanted to review, or to put on our nomination ballots.

Clearly, enough members of the World Science Fiction Society disagree with that assessment. To boot, those who select the Nebula shortlist also disagree with us. Our lack of esteem for this book appears to be a minority opinion.

So as we returned to the book for a more in-depth look after it was shortlisted, we struggled to ascertain why it had received this level of acclaim. While the world-building has interesting elements, and the set-up for the mystery is promising, Six Wakes suffers from structural issues, logical gaps, and stylistic blandness.

Lafferty’s decision to tell so much of the narrative in the form of flashbacks undermines the locked-

Lafferty (left) and Alasdair
Steward (right) at the Hugo
Awards in 2017.
Image by Henry Soderlund 

door mystery setup. Rather than offering us competing stories from unreliable narrators, we see definitive “true” versions of the past from an omniscient point-of-view. During the novel’s climax, this deflates much of the narrative tension.

The story’s set-up, which imagines a world in which the wealthy can live near-immortal lives through memory storage and cloned bodies, has enormous potential. But the “Codicils” which govern cloning make very little sense. It beggars belief to suggest that these extreme laws were created almost overnight, that those laws have withstood challenge, and that the wealthy and privileged wouldn’t use their societal power to prevent their voting rights from being stripped.

It feels like Lafferty has neglected to fully answer basic questions about class and societal privilege — which is surprising given how informed and nuanced she has been about these issues on her podcasts. She tries to explore these questions in Six Wakes, but her world-building is so perfunctory and built in service of the plot's conceits that it runs into logical inconsistencies under any scrutiny.

Finally, and most problematically, the sentence-by-sentence prose in Six Wakes is not up to the standard that one would expect from a Hugo Award-shortlisted work. At best, the writing is repetitious.

It pains us to be as negative about a book written by a person we like so well, and who we believe is capable of better work. Six Wakes will be at the bottom of most of our Hugo ballots, and for some of us, below ‘No Award.’