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.’

Is that The Canon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

If it’s true that journalism is the first draft of history, then one might also suggest that literary awards 

Bloom's tome offers
the modest subtitle
"The Books and School
of the Ages."
(Image via Wikipedia)

are a first draft of The Canon.

As literary theorists use the term, ‘The Canon’ is a body of art, literature, and cultural works that are of paramount influence.

Slightly more than 30 years ago, the great American educator E.D. Hirsch’s tome Cultural Literacy, prompted a flurry of hand wringing and arguments about the Canon by arguing that there is a set of essential texts that one needs to be at least passingly familiar with in order to appreciate Western culture. A few years later, in the surprise bestseller The Western Canon, literary critic Harold Bloom offered a prescriptive vision of what he considered the great texts that all people should know and have read.

The argument that they were advancing was that since all art is built upon previous works, there’s a base level of knowledge required to fully participate in society — and that abandoning the classics would lead to a coarsening of culture. For example, even when not directly addressing religion, John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath subtly references the plagues of Egypt while describing the dust bowl of the Great Depression. In the Empire Strikes Back,

Alas, poor C3P0, I knew him well.
(Image via http://tesesslee.blogspot.com)

Chewbacca holds up the disembodied head of the android C-3P0 in a manner similar to the way Hamlet held up Yorick’s skull – an allusion that the director has said was deliberate. Both of these works, Hirsch and Bloom would argue, are strengthened by the allusions.

It would be hard to argue against the proposition that our appreciation of these works is completely independent of a base level of cultural literacy, or against the idea that a base level of knowledge helps us enjoy these works more fully.

But I would argue that what Hirsch and Bloom both missed is the degree to which this concept of cultural literacy is a moving target – especially in a culture that is as mercurial, balkanized and full of foment as our own has become over the past 40 years. As Marshall McLuhan predicted, the change in the means of literary production and dissemination can be understood as a driver of this culture. In defense of Bloom and Hirsch, they were writing before the Western world had widespread access to the Internet.

Both of these academics seem to have believed that culture was more monolithic and stagnant than it is. For example, there’s a different set of cultural references that’s required for understanding the genre of SF than there is for mystery fiction, and the canon of 2018 is clearly different than the canon was when Bloom attempted to codify it.

The adoption and repetition of literary metaphors, perhaps to the point of cultural practice, is what

Science fiction provides powerful
metaphors that can be used to advance
a political agenda, or to sell stuff
like Apple computers.
(Image via CultOfMac.com)

gives them power. This elevation secures a position in the Canon. We see this demonstrated when someone refers to people having “taken the Red Pill,” when protesters dress up as Handmaids, and when overt displays of political power are described as “Orwellian” and the year “1984” is used as shorthand for authoritarianism. Being part of the prescriptive Canon infers and reproduces the power of the metaphor and its underlying meaning.

It is worth noting that Harold Bloom’s 1993 list of The Western Canon included only two works that are traditionally categorized as science fiction: Ursula Le Guin’s Hugo Award winner The Left Hand of Darkness and George Orwell’s 1984.

But of Bloom’s list, I would argue the majority of the works cited are less relevant to the broad public – and to a concept of cultural literacy – than the recent Hugo Award winners and popular works of science fiction.

For example, references and allusions to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s 13th century poem Parzival are lost on the broader

Much like his namesake, Parzival in
Ready Player One was searching for
a Holy Grail. Isn't that taking 13th
Century nostalgia too far?
(Image via Variety.com)

public, while Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One protagonist Parzival is familiar to many.

Ready Player One — as has been discussed on this blog previously — explores the limits of cultural literacy by overloading the reader with intertextual references. It is sometimes said that nothing dates faster than the future, but one might suggest that pop cultural references of the moment date at least as quickly.

But the fact that a book so intertextual became a success shows that science fiction has become the lingua franca of modern culture. The power of the Hugo Awards is therefore not insignificant in helping move works from niche audiences towards the mainstream, and from the ephemerality of the moment, to enduring accessibility.

This — at least in part — explains many of the battles surrounding the Hugo Awards over the years. The deeply divisive Hugo Award battle at the Worldcon in Miami in 1977 can in some ways be seen

You don't have to be familiar
with Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring to appreciate
Where Late The Sweet Birds
Sang, but it helps.
(Image via Wikipedia)

as an argument about which was the better book, Man Plus or Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang. But it could also be described as an argument about whether The Science Fiction Canon was closed to new wave environmentalist works. Both works are excellent — but it is worth noting that the more metaphor-laden and timely work won. Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang is a work that still resonates with many ecologists and wildlife biologists — Kate Wilhelm’s work, along with Silent Spring, the non-fiction work that inspired it, could be argued to be essential parts of the canon.

These questions of enduring value, of cultural literacy, and of metaphorical weight are ones that should be important to how we as fans think about our Hugo Award ballots. We are writing the first draft of the Canon. It may not be the final word on the matter, but it is an important start of the dialogue.

There's so much to love in Provenance, and so much to be disappointed in

Provenance is a novel that starts with a lot of potential, but left many in our book club frustrated, and

The fact that Provenance's
wasted potential angered
us is proof that Ann Leckie
had us engaged to begin with.
(Image via Goodreads.com)

ultimately disappointed. While many interesting themes, plots and ideas are introduced, few of them are satisfactorily explored or developed.

But the fact that so many people in our book club were so upset about these unsatisfactory resolutions shows that author Ann Leckie was doing something right. Each and every one of our book club members were engaged with the narrative enough that it kept us wanting more than it delivered.

Despite being set in the same universe as her previous trilogy of best-sellers, Provenance is a significant departure for Leckie, in terms of subject matter, themes and style. In fact, the connections to the Ancillary trilogy are tenuous enough that one wonders what was gained by reusing the same setting.

Comedy of Manners

Drawing on the traditions of the British farce, Provenance introduces the reader to an aristocratic

The provenance of items in museums
is a very interesting question to examine,
and one that science fiction has rarely
tackled. It's a rich subject that Leckie
only scratches the surface of.
(Image via argumentative archaologist)

faction of humanity that is obsessed with class and status. At times, these obsessions are well-handled and embodied in the gormless charm of Woodhousian protagonist Ingray Aughskold.

For the first hundred pages, many of us couldn’t put the book down — Aughskold’s hair-brained scheme to break a convicted forger out of prison is engaging. The ways in which this plot careens off the rails — the wrong convict, the ornery captain, her financial woes — are a lot of fun to read.

Set in the classist, pompous, and high-protocol society of Hwei, the story involves the provenance of historical artifacts that may or may not be forgeries. Questions of authenticity and of the validity of historical power structures are hinted at, but not fully developed.

Haphazard Narrative

And unfortunately, the novel splinters as the scope of the story widens. From the intimate struggles of Aughskold to the large-scale galactic intrigues and interspecies politicking, the plot jumps forward in awkward and haphazard ways. Adventures that are foreshadowed are dropped without notice.

The mistaken identity of the convict? Nope, he’s just who he was supposed to be in the first place

If they make a movie of
Provenance, Hugh Laurie
should play all the upper
class twits.
(Image via BBC.com)

(Why bother with setting up the mistaken identity?). The ornery captain? Disappears without a goodbye, only to show up a hundred or so pages later via a telephone conversation.

There’s so much to love in this book, so much to be disappointed in. Were this the debut novel from a new author, one might have suggested that it shows an enormous potential, but we already know Leckie is capable of greatness, so this cannot help but be a let-down.

Leckie’s fourth novel drew a larger crowd to our book club than usual and it is rare for us to have had such unanimity amongst the opinions expressed. None of us placed it at the top of our Hugo Award ballots, but none of us had it at the bottom either.

Young Adult

Some at the book club meeting suggested that Provenance might have been better served if it were pared down in length and modified slightly for the Young Adult market. The protagonist, her sunny disposition and inherent goodness all seem well-suited to the YA market, as does the relatively linear narrative structure.

Leckie has built up a lot of goodwill based on the quality of her previous novels — that goodwill, and the unfulfilled potential of the ideas at the core of Provenance may be enough to get her a second rocketship.

Embers of War - Review

While it’s constructed in the style of a classic military science fiction tale, and could easily be read as

Gareth L. Powell's work has lost none
of its engaging action, but has gained
depth and nuance.
(Image via TitanBooks.com) 

nothing more than a visceral high-octane adventure, Embers of War is a novel with some depth.

Set in the wake of a bloody war that almost ripped humanity in two, Gareth Powel’s latest novel follows the crew of a rescue ship that is sent to investigate the disappearance of a starliner in a star system filled with massive alien artifacts. 

The crew – and the sentient ship’s AI – served on different sides during the conflict, and have to come to grips with both what they did during the war, and with each other’s culpability. 

These simmering resentments and regrets strengthen the story, and offer some intellectual heft. Like its intellectual forebearer The Forever War, this is a military science fiction novel that philosophically rejects conflict, and chooses to grapple with its aftermath. 

Told in tight, concise chapters that rarely exceed six pages, the story jumps between the perspectives of the ship’s captain Sal Konstanz, the ship’s AI Trouble Dog, the spy Ashton Childe, and marooned passenger of the straliner Ona Sudak.

The brevity of the chapters – and the fact that something important happens or is revealed in each one – gives the story a brisk pace and a lively narrative momentum.

Powell has been quietly building a fair body of work – and developing his craft – since his first short

Gareth L. Powell's work keeps getting
better. We look forward to his next novel.
(Image via the author's Twitter account)

stories were published about a decade ago. His 2012 novel Ack-Ack Macaque earned him a fair following, as did its sequels. He has stepped up his game in Embers of War, offering more fully fleshed out characters and tempering his previous penchant for awkward explanatory passages.

The universe of the book is never fully fleshed out, but it doesn’t need to be. There’s little explanation of the political situation outside of where it directly impacts the protagonists, and little view of the galactic milieu, other than knowing that the crew are working in a disputed region of space. Powell doesn’t take his reader for granted and doesn’t talk down to them in this volume.

It is unfortunate, however, that the ending of the book is based on a deux et machina contrivance that readers will spot coming from a mile away. From the first 20 pages, one guesses that the massive incomprehensible alien artifacts have a purpose, and of course, that purpose is realized in the final 20 pages. This ending is also very convenient for every character involved in the story.

The final chapters felt obvious and flat, which is a shame when the rest of the novel had so many surprises and engaging character moments.

That being said, Embers of War will receive strong consideration on our Hugo Award ballots for 2018. It’s nice when a book that offers so much fun can also provide more than just escapism.