Review: The Borgia Dove by Jo Graham

The second in a historical fantasy series centering about Giulia Farnese, mistress to Cardinal Rodrigo of the Borgia family. Yes, that Borgia family.

The first book in Jo Graham’s series, A Blackened Mirror, introduced us to the upbringing and early life of Giulia from a historical fantasy perspective. While the actual woman in history is her basis, Graham leavened her upbringing by making her a virginal (and kept deliberately so) seer, and used in magical rites amongst the scheme of factions seeking control of the Papacy in late 15th century Italy. That book ended with Giulia firmly as the concubine of the powerful and alluring Rodrigo Borgia, a man whose ambitions are to become the next Pope.

The Borgia Dove continues this story.

The year is 1492. Columbus has just started to sail the ocean blue, but has not yet reached the Americas, but he will, in a couple of months. What is also going to happen in even shorter order is Pope Innocent III is going to die. Rodrigo, now in his early 60’s, sees this as his last and best hope to become Pope. Giulia, as his mistress, wants to help him, not only because he is her lover, but the humanist side of the Church is far more appealing to her than the more traditional and conservative factions led by Rodrigo’s enemy Cardinal Della Rovere. But no longer a virgin, Giulia no longer has magic powers, and so to help Rodrigo, must cultivate other forms of power to help him succeed in the Conclave, and survive the deadly politics of 15th century Rome.

And so a story is told.

You probably have heard of the Borgias before, and may have seen, for example, the Showtime series The Borgias, with Jeremy Irons as the titular character. Giulia Farnese is an important secondary character in that series, even as it focuses on the Borgias more directly. Here, by making Giulia the primary focus, we get a look at events that are covered in the premiere episode of that series, but with Giulia’s perspective.

With Giulia as the focus, we do get Rodrigo as a major secondary character, as well as other Borgias and the other major characters in late 15th century Rome. Yes, the infamous Lucrezia Borgia is here, but she’s a 12 year old girl. She’s curious, bright, intelligent, and devoted to her father’s success. She is, at this stage in her life, nothing like what her infamy brought her. Also note the aforementioned Showtime series definitely aged her up. She also is, in this novel, most definitely Giulia’s protégé. Giulia may only be eighteen herself (again, the show aged her up), but she provides a female role model for Lucrezia. And their interactions are among the most delightful in the book.

Also, let’s talk about the fantastic elements, since the book does provide more than a patina of historical fantasy that Graham started in the first book. For while she may not think she is a magical “Dove” anymore, Giulia soon learns that while she thought she was finished with magic once she became Rodrigo’s lover, magic, and the higher powers, are not finished with her. Both those who would support her, and those who would seek to tear her down.

It’s a very sensual and sensuous book, and readers of Graham before are not going to be surprised by this. Not just sexual and carnal pleasures, mind you, but the entire world is brought with all the senses in mind. We get to feel, to smell, to taste, to see and to touch the late 15th century Rome that Giulia inhabits. The charm of having breakfast with a friend, spreading soft cheese over bread. The deadly darkness of the streets of Rome at night. The elegant seductiveness of a dance and a party. And much more. Graham’s writing brings us into Giulia’s world, life, passions and desires in a fully immersive way.

There is a lot of talk in SFF circles these days about romantasy: fantasy with a strong romance focus and theme. Although this novel does not claim that title, I think that this novel definitely would qualify for those looking for such work. Giulia is plainly in a romantic relationship with Rodrigo and considers him the love of her life, quite loyally so. Time and again, people outside her think she is in it for the money alone (the simony of the Borgias is portrayed as being part and parcel of the times and is not judged too negatively thereby), and Giulia insists, to others and to herself that she is not. And indeed, we see opportunities where Giulia could, if her heart was truly for gold and not Rodrigo, where she could “feather her own nest” and she does not take them.

Yes, some readers may find it distasteful that Giulia is indeed a third of Rodrigo’s age, and indeed, that does get brought up in the book as well. Graham shows this as a meeting of minds as well as hearts and souls. Together, on all three strands, she depicts Giulia and Rodrigo coming together, the Dove and the Bull (The Bull is a symbol of House Borgia). It may be a May-December romance, but the author makes it believable and more importantly, sympathetic to the reader.

And Giulia is a person a lot of readers can relate with. She’s curious, intelligent, loves to read, and seeks out books. Not just magical books, as part of the fantastic elements of this novel, but just books in general, in a world that Gutenberg has not yet set aflame with his invention. Giulia loves literacy, thought and that way of transmitting knowledge and story and that love comes across the page to us. One could easily imagine sitting to a lunch with Giulia and discussing Plutarch, Dante, and more. The novel is also full of allusions and references to books and writers for the savvy reader to discover.

Graham has done an excellent job here in making The Borgia Dove a standalone novel even as it builds on the life of Giulia and her upbringing from the first novel. While I would never want to turn you away from reading the first book, if you wanted to start the series here (perhaps you are a fan of Jeremy Irons’ portrayal or the whole very cut and thrust life of the Borgias), or just have limited time, I think you completely and utterly could begin here. Unlike the first book, which takes place over a number of years as Giulia grows up, learns who and what she is, and gets plunged into matters, the focus of this book, time-wise, is much narrower. Much of the book takes place during the week or so of that Papal Enclave that, spoilers for 500 years ago, will make Rodrigo into Pope Alexander VI. But what Giulia’s story brings to a story already told is her, female perspective, and the secret magical history of those who would oppose and cast down Rodrigo, and what Giulia must do, and is willing to do, in order to preserve her lover’s life, power and position.

Given the complex richness of Giulia’s life, and of course now the whole Borgia project, I look forward to what Graham will do in the third volume. I think it will be a challenge, since as hazy as history goes for most people, the Borgias are a name that still involve a lot of negativity and while the first two books have focused specifically on Giulia and kept people like the young Lucrezia in minor roles, going forward with the series means Graham will have an uphill climb in further changing people’s perceptions of Rodrigo, Lucrezia and the rest. I look forward to seeing how she takes on this challenge.

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Highlights:

• 15th Century Rome and Papal Politics strongly on display
• Giulia Farnese is a captivating character to capture your heart and mind
• Sensuous and immersive writing to bring you into Giulia’s world.

Reference: Graham, Jo, The Borgia Dove, [Candlemark and Gleam, 2024]


POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Review: Shogun Season 1

Shogun is prestige TV at its finest — the plotting and political machinations of Game of Thrones set amidst the backdrop of late Sengoku-era Japan in the 17th century (spoiler free).

When James Clavell wrote his novel Shogun in 1975, he was writing it as a white man entranced by Japanese culture. And while painstakingly researched, at its center is the experience of John Blackthorne, an Englishman who gets shipwrecked in 1600s Ajiro. The 1980 TV movie version continued this theme of focusing on the white visitor, though it featured Toshiro Mifune (the world-renowned actor and star of countless Kurosawa samurai films). Unsurprisingly, it was less than well-received in Japan, as viewers felt the depiction disregarded the culture and history of their native country.  

Adapting a problematic novel

This new adaptation takes a different tack, and it's made with an enormous budget, today's CGI technology, and a modern respect and appreciation for non-Western viewpoints. It takes Clavell's source text as a starting point and rough plot guide, rather than a recreation. Which is good — the book (which I read about 400 pages of before putting it down), is filled with incredible storytelling, but there are racist tropes and musings from the POV of Blackthorne that have no place in modern re-creations.

Instead, the show centers the Japanese characters as the primary voices in the story, and nearly all of the dialogue is in Japanese (check out this article about the hard work that went into translating for the show. Eriko Miyagawa, the producer, worked closely with actor/producer Hiroyuki Sanada to make sure Shogun was accurate to period Edo.) 

The plot

Blackthorne, an English navigator, gets swept up in the political drama of late Sengoku-era Japan, but for much of the show, he is literally watching and observing the action happening around him, understanding some but often missing the language and cultural knowledge to give anything context. 

After landing in Japan, Blackthorne is taken to Lord Toranaga, who is intrigued by his ship and cannon technology. The Portuguese have already colonized Japan, but they're Catholics, so Anglican Blackthorne views them as a hostile influence. As the Englishman learns about Japanese culture and politics, he becomes a key player in Toranaga's plans, navigating complex alliances and rivalries while trying to find a way back to his homeland. 

Toranaga is the one you're rooting for the entire show — a former fifth of the Council of Regents who are ruling while the Taiko's son comes of age. He's a good man, crafty and wise like Odysseus, and doesn't want to steal power. His actions are forced by his rivals, but they're no less brilliant for that.

The world

When there's a power vacuum in a monarchy (like the War of the Five Kings in A Game of Thrones),  a clash of power is sure to ensue, and in feudal Japan, it ends up being brutal. For the royals in this world, there is a stark and ruthless code of honor. Early on even in the first episode, we witness a young samurai make the mistake of dishonoring Toranaga's rival, and he is ordered to commit seppuku (ritualistic suicide) to atone for his sins. His infant son is also killed in order to end his bloodline, now contaminated with dishonor. 

Apart from the characters of this world is the visually stunning depiction of 1600s-era Osaka and Edo. CGI enables these feudal cities to come to life as we spend time in castles, fishing villages, and even period-era ships with samurai in full battle armor.

There's more than just on-screen brutality and war, though. We get glimpses into the beauty and art of feudal Japanese culture, from the telling of poetry and playing of music to the elaborate tea ceremonies and rock gardens found in many homes. The quiet parts reminded me of the wonderful time I spent playing Ghost of Tsushima a few years back — all zen and cherry blossoms. 

Women in Shogun

Like with A Game of Thrones, much of the action is done by the male warriors (a consequence in each of being based on actual history and the misogyny of the times). But the emotional heart and core of Shogun lies in what happens to the female characters — and how they persevere. 

Mariko, the translator, is the daughter of a disgraced warrior, and while she longs for death, manages to find purpose in her being left alive (there's also an incredible fight scene where she squares off against a dozen men with aplomb.) Similarly, Fuji, the widow of the previously mentioned samurai who commits seppuku, carries on with a grace and duty that is near otherworldly. Even the mother of the heir to the throne manages to manipulate the council of regents to do her bidding — without ever raising her voice or a powerful gesture. 

The verdict

Shogun is a wild ride, but not one that's undertaken easily. It takes work to watch this show, and you'll find yourself googling ideas, words, and history to help you understand everything that's happening. But it's worth it. 

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The Math

Baseline Score: 8/10

Bonuses: The period attention to detail is absolutely mesmerizing; Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Toronaga's performance is stellar and will hopefully garner him an Emmy or Golden Globe nod; my favorite character, however, is Yabushiga and his grunts.

Penalties: It's a very complex show with many, many characters; some of my favorite action scenes are so darkly lit as to be near-unwatchable in the daytime.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

Review: The American Society of Magical Negroes

A poignant exploration of racism and appeasement wrapped in sarcastic, quirky, rom-com magic. 

A “magical negro” is a sarcastic artistic term used to describe an inspirational Black side character whose sole purpose is to inspire, comfort, and motivate the story’s protagonist. Although they frequently appear in speculative films and television, they don’t typically have actual magical powers. “Magical” is a sarcastic reference to their ability to help the (not-Black) protagonist find motivation to work through their emotional obstacles. It’s sort of like a mentor but often with more of a folksy / self-deprecating vibe. I won’t list specific films or shows but, if you think for a second, you can probably remember a few examples. The trope of the "magical" Black person is not bad per se, but it becomes exhausting when it’s repeatedly used, especially as a way to give lip service to diversity while keeping diverse characters in background roles and out of leading roles.

The American Society of Magical Negroes parodies this literary and film trope by creating an actual organization of people who problem solve anxiety-causing issues for white people in the real world. If you are expecting some kind of Black version of Hogwarts or Shadowhunter Academy, prepare to be disappointed. The film is a sarcastic deep dive into society’s underlying class systems. It’s much more of a companion film to social commentary stories like American Fiction and Origin than to fantasy pieces like Harry Potter or Shadowhunters. There is some magic on screen but not much. The fantastical moments are meant to be a brief, humorous backdrop, not a primary plot device.

In the film, Aren (Justice Smith) is an extremely polite, young Black man and a struggling visual artist. After a disappointing art show he encounters a drunk woman at night who hands him her purse, causing the woman’s two male friends to accuse Aren of stealing it. Aren is understandably fearful of what will happen next. A kindly older Black man, Roger (David Alan Grier), appears and magically transfers the purse back to the woman. Roger then engages in charming, folksy banter about the delicious food at a nearby restaurant. This de-escalates the situation and the two men who were previously threatening Aren become friendly and leave happily with the woman. Roger then invites Aren to join a society of people who use folksy banter make white people feel more comfortable, then they pivot to inspirational cliches to inspire them. By doing this they help make the world a safer place for people of color. According to Roger, without this surreptitious placating behavior, the violence against Black people will escalate in America.

Obviously there is a lot to unpack in this premise. Aren is led through secret door in an unassuming shop and finds himself in a meeting room of Black people who have been granted minor magical powers in exchange for taking on assignments to be supportive advisors to stressed, non-Black people. Aren has some understandable hesitation about the mission statement (and even the name) of the group but ultimately (due to his dwindling finances) accepts a job inspiring a self-absorbed young man, Jason (Drew Tarver), at a tech company. With Aren’s help, Jason progresses at the firm at the cost of Aren’s own career hopes and at the cost of Aren’s love interest Lizzie (An-Li Bogan). Introverted Aren initially enjoys the opportunity to be accepted in his new workplace and to help  Jason. But Aren grows to resent his artificially subservient role. Additionally, despite her superior work performance, Lizzie finds herself cut out of opportunities because Jason’s louder persona is confused with talent by their bosses. The story has some additional interesting context: Aren is biracial (partly white); Lizzie is a person of color; and, although Jason is self-absorbed, he is not a true villain. In addition to the scenes of Aren’s adventures, we also see snippets of the other Society members working in various timelines and locations, inspiring leading characters. Each scenario references a famous classic film with the “magical negro” trope.

 As you can imagine, this film is not for everyone. The title may mislead some into thinking it’s a high fantasy—it’s not. Although the Society members can time travel, teleport, and blink objects into existence, magic is a minor part of the story. On the other hand, the interactions of Aren and Lizzie make the film feel substantially like a rom-com. But the trope of the misguided romantic triangle (between Jason, Lizzie, and Aren)  is not the true message. The real story is about race and classism (and later sexism). The theme of the supportive, inspiring colleague quickly shifts to the more troubling concept of appeasement by those in the minority towards those who are in power in society. These uncomfortable, underlying themes will resonate with anyone who has felt like an outsider in a space that should equally belong to them. After several mildly humorous and ironic moments, we have a climactic scene where Aren decides to tell Jason the truth about his feelings of fear and erasure. It’s not a universal monologue on all types of racism but rather a specific niche of oppression felt by some people of color in some societal spaces. It rages against both the appeaser and the oppressor.

The ultimate messaging is sharp and meaningful but it may get lost in the rom-com hijinks. Like The Book of Clarence, the story is weighed down by an overload of conflicting film elements. However, for those who can relate to Aren’s dilemma of standing up for himself in a society that will then see him as threatening or alien, the film will truly hit home. The American Society of Magical Negroes is a good companion piece for other recent films on race, such as American Fiction, Origin, and The Book of Clarence. For those who connect with the story, the film will provide a lot to ponder and hopefully create a starting point for meaningful discussions on Black roles in film and in real life.

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Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

Highlights:

·         A poignant exploration of racism and appeasement

·         Conflicting thematic elements

·         Heavy, biting sarcasm that may elude some viewers

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Nanoreviews: Live Long and Evolve; The Extractionist; The Frame-Up

Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds, by Mohammed A. F. Noor

I bought this book through Princeton University Press’s yearly book sale, which makes available an enormous selection of PUP books at, like, silly prices. I think I paid £3 for this one, and it was worth every penny.

This book is about using the science of evolutionary biology to make predictions about—or at the very least guide our search for—life on other planets. This is itself a fasincating question, but what makes this book charming is the way it integrates a deep knowledge of Star Trek lore into the discussion in plausible and entertaining ways. Mohammed A. F. Noor is not some kook arguing that Star Trek was ahead of its time or 'right' (except accidentally); and he’s not some buzzkill doing a take-down of all the things Star Trek got wrong (although he does note them). He’s simply drawing connections between his two passions in life, which are interested in the same thing—life on other planets—from very different angles.

The book is split up into six chapters. In the first, Noor discusses what conditions must be necessary for something recognizable as life to develop on a planet. For example: what is it about carbon, in particular, that makes it such a good building block? Must the life be carbon based, or could some other element serve the same function? This leads naturally into a discussion of the feasibility of species like the Horta (TOS: The Devil in the Dark), which is silicon-based, alongside real-world experiments showing that some bacteria can form molecules with silicon-carbon bonds. Other sections of this chapter discuss the necessity of liquid water, which is a useful solvent for bringing together chemical reagents, but  not necessarily the only one.  Ammonia, for example, might do the job. Noor also considers requirid temperature ranges, which are typically best when they allow water to exist in its liquid form—but if water is not the key solvent, then things might work out differently. Tolerance of extreme temperatuers is also a concern, but not a huge one. On earth alone we have extremophiles—creatures that tolerate or even prefer extreme temperatures, either hot or cold—and such entities appear in numerous Star Trek episodes, from the tardigrade-like animal Ripper in the first season of Discovery, to the silver-blooded inhabitants of the ‘demon planet’ from the Voyager episode Demon. (Althouh Noor does not mention it, I cannot let reference to the silver blood people pass without also reminding readers that they show up in the heartbreakingly excellent episode Course: Oblivion, albeit not in their extremophile forms.)

Other chapters tackle evolution, genetics, and reproduction. Noor fills this last chapter with fascinating examples of Earth species, such as the Amazon molly, which is entirely female, and reproduces by mating with males of other species. Fertilization triggers the process, but the eventual offspring contain no trace of DNA from the other species male fish. Thus the Amazon molly species remains distinct from whatever species the dildo-dad belonged to. 

Of course, when both parties in a cross-species night out are represented in the offspring, we have hybridization. This is a frequent phenomenon in Star Trek, most famously embodied in the TOS character of Spock, a Vulcan-human hybrid, but there are a variety of other hybrid characters that Noor analyses quite thoroughly. My favourite part of this chapter is his discussion of Haldane’s rule, which captures the (Earthbound) phenomenon whereby female hybrids are more likely to survive than male hybrids, and are more likely to prove fertile, contrary to the trend of sterility among hyrids. As a table on pg 128 reveals, of all the hybrids in Star Trek (up through the first couple of seasons of Discovery at least), more are female than male, and of the hybrid characters who are known to have produced offspring, all but one was female. As Noor concludes, ‘If we speculate that this depiction reflects a difference in hybrid fertility, meaning at least some of the hybrid males were sterile, then we may be observing some signal of Haldane’s Rule just lie among species on earth. I do not think that the Star Trek writers did this intentionally, but the coincidence is amusing.’

I myself suspect that this trend actually reflects a tendency of filmmakers to assign parental roles to female characters than to male characters, but I'm happy to take it as evidence of a galactic Haldane rule. Sometimes it's more fun to look for the science, even if incidentally, than to fume at sociocultural trends among filmmaking.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10, very high quality/standout in its category

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The Extractionist, by Kimberly Unger

Eliza McKay works as an extractionist in a futuristic extrapolation of our increasingly plugged in society. Extractionist is one of those jobs that doesn’t yet exist, but becomes necessary in a world where Elon Musk’s Neuralink vision actually works, and not only works, but has become the equivalent of cell phones in today’s culture. Everyone’s got an implant of one version or another, some of them state-of-the art super-fancy versions that are only accesssible if you’ve got military-grade connections, some of them super-cheap retail level chips that are perfectly fine for daily use but not up to more demanding tasks. These implants allow to directly experience cybernetic realities—sort of like the Metaverse, but, y'know, functional. Occasionally, however, people get trapped too deep, and their consciousness must be retrieved and reintegrated with their bodies. This is where Eliza McKay comes in.

So, as plot, she is hired by some secretive black-ops person to extract a member of the team who has gone too deep and knows some crucial information about Stuff. Naturally, the Stuff turns out to be much more large scale and elaborate than Eliza planned for, and heisty cybershenanigans ensue.

I cannot overemphasize the quantity of cyberstuff in this book. Everything is cyber; everything is tech; everything AI (but, y'know, functional). It’s clear that Unger has spent a great deal of time thinking about how this futuristic world will look, how the various technological advances will interface with each other, how the economics of version control and upgrades will affect people’s ability to do certain jobs or interact with different types of equipment. I quite appreciate the way the world she's created echoes the messiness of incompatible operating systems and forced reboots that plague our current digital lives. Just because you’ve got a chip in your brain that's, y'know, functional, doesn’t mean that an inconvenient software update won’t ruin your day.

Unfortunately, for all the thoughtful cyberworldbuilding, the cyberplot and cybercharacters and overall cyberexperience were underwhelming. It’s kind of funny, actually, because when I think about each individual component, I can’t identify any particular flaw beyond a mildly tortured reasoning to justify the circumstances under which extraction is necessary. The characters were fine; their motivations were present; their relationships with each other were developed. The plot proceeded reasonably pacily. I was just deeply bored throughout the entire book. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m not cyber enough to cyberappreciate what Unger is cyberdoing. 

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10, still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore

The Frame-up, by Gwenda Bond

Dani used to be one of the team—a team of magic-using art thieves, to be precise—but she got snookered into betraying her mother and her team by a persuasive FBI agent, and has been something of a pariah in the magic scene ever since. Mom’s in jail, now, and none of the old team are speaking to her. However, her mother’s former patron finds Dani and commissions her to steal a very big painting, with a very big pay-out, so she has to get her quite reluctant ex-team back together and steal a magical painting, while simultaneously evading that same FBI agent and negotiating her remembered feelings for an old flame on her team, which are interfering somewhat with some nascent feelings developing for the painting’s current owner.

This books is a very straightforward heisty heist, with twists and turns exactly where you expect them to be. There are mommy issues to be worked out, old relationships to smooth over, new partnerships to build with surprisingly understanding and unbothered-by-crime painting-owners, and a very convenient diary explaining that a demon whose power is only kept in check by a magical painting must under no circumstances be allowed to regain possession of the picture.

The book is fine. The wheels work, the twists twist. But I found the romantic subplots rather tedious, largely because I don’t think jealousy is an appealing characteristic in potential love interests. And although I don’t read too many heists, and so am not used to keeping track of so many moving parts, I still think some of those convolutions were a bit unearned. For example, at one point Dani’s mother causes extreme complications for her plans for no other reason than that she thinks Dani’s got it too easy, and needs to learn how to deal with jobs when they’re hard. Which doesn’t follow, since Dani’s mother is invested in this heist as much (or more) than any of them, and certainly more invested in it than she is in Dani’s professional development. But then, since (as I said earlier), the painting’s owner seems to have no interest in actually retaining possession of the painting, and is perfectly willing to hire Dani to manage the security of his art gallery, it is undeniably true that Dani seems to be playing the game on easy. Gwenda Bond had to insert complications somewhere, and I guess she chose Dani's mother to do it.

In sum, this was fine. Perfectly good to occupy you while waiting for your laundry to be done, or to read on the bus while keeping one eye out for your stop. But it’s not a book I’m going to stay up late finishing, no matter how twistily the twists twist.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10, still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore

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References

Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and Life on Other Worlds. Mohammed A. F. Noor. [Princeton University Press, 2018].

The Extractionist. Kimberly Unger. [Tachyon 2022].

The Frame-Up. Gwenda Bond. [Headline, 2024].

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CLARA COHEN lives in Scotland in a creaky old building with pipes for gas lighting still lurking under her floorboards. She is an experimental linguist by profession, and calligrapher and Islamic geometric artist by vocation. During figure skating season she does blather on a bit about figure skating. She is on Mastodon at wandering.shop/@ergative.

Review: Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead

This awe-inspiring and utterly beautiful novel told in verse will make you think, feel, and wonder why there aren't more contemporary authors writing sci-fi that is both full of ideas and jaw-droppingly well written. 

Remember that scene in Contact (1997) when Ellie Arroway, confronted with the vast immensity and beauty of our far-reaching universe, can only utter "...they should have sent a poet"? 

She was right. 

Oliver K. Langmead in Calypso tells a story spanning centuries and light years — entirely in verse — about humanity in space, and all of the triumphs, travails, and emotions generated in the process. 

Having spent the past five years working my way through all of the Hugo Award-winning novels, the most common refrain I and my podcast co-hosts have is "fantastic idea and world-building but absolutely lackluster writing." Calypso is the first work of science fiction in years to make me feel something for all the characters while simultaneously providing a fleshed-out world and mythology full of interesting science fiction ideas.

The story

The Calypso is a generation ship headed across the galaxy to build and colonize a distant planet, and Rochelle, an engineer, agrees to leave her family behind forever to travel through the centuries in cryosleep so she can assist in the momentous task of building a new society. She wakes up and nothing is at it should be, as it appears there's been a revolt at some point during the long time interval between the botanists and engineers.

We learn slowly about the revolt and what caused it — namely the absolutely understandable human impulse to not want to live and procreate entirely within a cramped and lifeless starship while generations down the line get to benefit from the beauty and sustenance of an actual planet.  This is an idea I've thought about every single time I've read a book — or even played a video game like Fallout — that requires multiple generations to put in the work of keeping humanity going while knowing they'll never get to experience the end result. I'm not sure it would ever work, honestly.

We also slowly unravel the true nature of the voyage. Sigmund, the project's brilliant director, wants to give humans a chance at building a society on a new planet completely devoid of human history. In this universe, people have populated other planets in our own neighborhood, and he bemoans that Venus is just another Earth, "the worst of humanity / Slowly being spread across the solar system." He describes in an emotional gut punch the homeless population that lives on Mars, and it's then that you're forced to think, "Damn, maybe we shouldn't be sending humans off Earth after all. But instead, he imagines that:

It would be a truly epic 

experiment

To engineer a new world

and colonise it

With blank humans un-

aware of the heritage.

The words

Despite my time in poetry creative writing classes in college 20 years ago, I've not kept up much with published verse. But this novel is enjoyable regardless of whether one has a background in poetry. It's not stilted or filled with overly cutesy rhymes, despite it's impressively consistent pentameter (10 syllables for each phrase).

These words tell the story succinctly and with incredible turns of imagistic phrasing. Rochelle, when describing a walk in the woods, states "And I crunch across a kingdom / Nothing like my childhood's imaginings." It is a place where "our knuckles and knees were the knots of trees." Despite the fact that the book spends much of its time in a cold and sterile spaceship, there are highly vivid  concentrations of life both within it (in the form of on-board gardens) and on the new planet as it's slowly terraformed into a place suitable for life. 

There's even a section entirely describing the transformation from barren rock all the way to multi-celled life, the imaginative verse roiling and building much like the world does over eons. The verdant descriptions are teeming with life in an almost unsettling way, much like the prose of Jeff VanderMeer in the Southern Reach trilogy. 

Reading Calypso, one also sees the influence of Anne Carson, a famed poet known for her prose novels like Autobiography of Red. Both reveal startlingly human depictions of feelings and relationships set amidst unusual backdrops, whether outer space or a retelling of an ancient myth. 

The effect

Immediately after finishing Calypso, I wanted to restart it. I enjoyed the story and the words throughout the first read, but now having learned the narrative (which honestly I sort of rushed through because of how compulsively readable it is), my desire was to go back and savor the words. I feel the same way about Moby Dick, I just want to get lost in the language time and time again. Highly recommended.

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The Math

Baseline Score: 9/10

Bonuses: Incredible language, imaginative storytelling, and a very human voice that's rarely polished and focused in sci-fi

Penalties: The format will undoubtedly scare off some potential readers, and the more experimental sections (like when words are arranged in visual depictions across the page) can be hard to follow for even a poetry aficionado.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

6 Books with Francesco Dimitri

Francesco Dimitri is a prize-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction, a comic book writer and a screenwriter. He published eight books in Italian before switching to English. His first Italian novel was made into a film, and his last was defined as the sort of book from which a genre 'starts again'. His first English novel, The Book of Hidden Things, a critical and commercial success, has been optioned for cinema and TV. After his second, Never the Wind, the Fortean Times called him 'one of the most wondrous writers of our time.'

Today he tells us about his Six Books.

1. What book are you currently reading?

I am reading a few books at once, which these days I find myself doing more and more. One is Anthony Grafton's Magus, a splendid cultural history of the figure of the magician from the Renaissance on. Then I'm almost at the end of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, an ingenious book on the ways in which indigenous knowledge and a modern understanding of nature could go hand in hand: this kind of thinking is necessary, with an environmental crisis unfolding around us. We have read and written tons of books about saving the world, and it's time to start doing just that. Also, on the novel front, I'm halfway through Jennifer Thorne's Diavola, and I'm having the time of my life with it.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

That must be Paul Tremblay's Horror Movie. It's Paul Tremblay plus horror movies. Come on. You know that feeling that a book was written just for you? There you go.

3. Is there a book you're currently itching to re-read?

I am always itching to re-read old favourites! Re-reading a book is like going back to an earlier stage of your life, and look at it from the point of view of now: it is a form of time-travelling only for readers. The next one is One Hundred Years Of Solitude. That novel is a Tardis: bigger on the inside. It has so much humanity, so much magic, so much humour, so much tragedy—you read it and you're having a parallel life, for a while.

4.  A book that you love and wish that you yourself had written.

Clive Barker's Imajica, hands down. It is large, meandering, sensuous, violent, esoteric, magical, strange, political, queer, ahead of its time. A story of our world, other worlds, magicians, gender, and So. Much. Sex. Barker was doing more than thirty years ago what far too many lesser epigones are trying to do now. And yet his name has been almost forgotten, outside of a small circle of people. I wish folks had better memory. And selfishly, I wish I'll write something as good as Imajica one day.

5. What's one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

The Lord of the Rings; and it's also the book that has a special place in my heart. I read it when I was ten. I had to insist with the bookseller to buy it, and I only managed because my parents helped me out: he thought I was too little to appreciate it. But appreciate it I did, massively. My writing is nothing like Tolkien's, and I'm not especially interested in writing that sort of fantasy. The influence of The Lord of The Rings runs deeper than that. Tolkien showed me the beauty of reality reshaped, and I've been chasing after that beauty forever after.

6. And speaking of that, what's your latest book, and why is it awesome?

The Dark Side Of The Sky. It's a strange, hopefully immersive, book. It is centred on a commune living on a Southern Italian beach. They might or might not be a cult, and they might or might not be humankind's last hope. The book is written like an oral history, told by a few key members of the commune. I have real-world experience researching both cults and magic, and I poured all of it into this book, to make it feel as real as possible—like a true oral history. It's somewhere between horror, magical realism, and thriller. More than a few episodes in the book are quite close to things I have seen and done. Now that I think of it, that probably only goes to show that I did lead an odd life so far.

Thank you, Francesco!

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin

Review: Rebel Moon Part 2: Forgettable Boogaloo

In contrast with the ubiquitous fanfare surrounding the launch of Rebel Moon Part 1 last year, its sequel has come and gone almost unnoticed

Last year, Zack Snyder seemed pretty convinced that his space opera riff on Seven Samurai was going to become an instant classic. The intensity of the marketing reflected that expectation: it was made at a volume and intensity to match that of the movie itself. Such high hopes weren't rewarded: Rebel Moon Part 1 turned out to be an unbearable cacophony of hyperviolence in blurry sepia, exactly what could have been predicted of a project where Snyder had free rein to pull his favorite toys out of the box.

What would have been harder to predict was how much room there still remained for Snyder to out-Snyder himself in Rebel Moon Part 2. With even more gratuitous slow motion, misplaced flashbacks, confused politics, impossibly sculpted abs, unintentionally funny battle cries, and suffocating grandiosity, Part 2 dulls the senses via relentless overstimulation. I noticed, to my horror, that I was witnessing gory death after gory death after gory death—and yet I was feeling nothing. Mayhem erupted on my screen with the chaotic viscerality of putting a gremlin in a blender and it left no impression on me. This is the kind of ultra-derivative art that relies on borrowing the prestige of its influences and doesn't bother trying to appeal to the viewer on is own merits.

There was plenty of material in this story with which to make some powerful statement, if only Snyder had wanted to. Taking the plot of Seven Samurai and replacing the wandering bandits with a galactic dictatorship changes completely the dynamics of the conflict. This isn't a mercenary skirmish in a lawless land; it's now a peasant revolt against the official authorities. Is Snyder subtly equating a rigidly hierarchical government composed of space fascists with a loose band of outlaws? I'm kidding. Snyder doesn't do subtle. Rebel Moon doesn't have space fascists because it has something to say about fascism; it has them because it's what Star Wars did and Rebel Moon wants to be one of the cool kids. It doesn't burn entire minutes of runtime in loving close-ups of wheat harvesting because it's interested in the perspective of vulnerable farmers; it does it because it gives Snyder an excuse to point the camera at sweaty muscles. Rebel Moon takes no stance on its own themes. It's content to let you provide the missing message by remembering it from the movies it alludes to.

In terms of characterization, the team of heroes at the center of Rebel Moon don't get more than the quickest coat of paint to technically make them no longer two-dimensional. As if drawing from a D&D campaign, each of these characters' backgrounds can be summarized as "goons raided my village." To make the whole affair even more unimaginative, the two prominent women in the team, Kora and Nemesis, have a dead child in their respective tragic pasts, possibly revealing a limit to Snyder's ability to imagine women's motivations.

The figuratively moustache-twirling admiral who lands on Kora's village to steal the harvest is even less impactful this time. If in the first movie he was a blank slate whose function in the story was to look generically evil and serve as the vicarious target for the audience's frustrations with neofascism, now he's a bland rehash of his one-hit act. Whereas his first death was at least a satisfying punch-the-Nazi (with a laser gun) moment, the sequel's supposedly climactic showdown feels like a tedious formality before his mandatory second offing. A bloody fistfight in the lopsided deck of an exploding spaceship, with heavy machinery and discount lightsabers flying around, sounds like a set piece impossible to make look boring, but you shouldn't underestimate Snyder's talent for filling the screen with flashy blasts that carry no meaning.

The emotional beats that punctuate the third act repeat a few tropes Snyder can't seem to move on from: the last-minute ally who shows up to prevent someone's imminent death, the hero who deals the killing blow at the cost of his own life. Snyder has found his formula and is comfortable recycling it. He's so confident in the awesomeness of Rebel Moon that he ends Part 2 with the promise of a Part 3 that we can already bet will repeat the same filmmaking tics. But enough is enough. There are only so many ways you can make the screen explode while having nothing to say. Maybe Snyder needs to go back to filming established properties, or find collaborators less willing to go along with his obsessions, but this period of unrestrained self-indulgence needs to stop.

Nerd Coefficient: 2/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.