Two Hugo novel nominees

[cahn]

Project Hail Mary (Weir) 3+/5. D told me when I started this book that he'd heard it was Weir returning to form, and then I knew exactly what to expect!

And indeed this was a delightful book for a science nerd, full of delighted "Here's how the science would work for this!" infodumps and Solving Problems through Science!! Yeah!! It's basically as if a Randall Munroe book (or his blog) came to life and I am here for that. As you might expect from that description, there isn't any characterization or meaningful relationships or anything (with one exception, mentioned later on), but eh, that's for a different book.

One nice thing about the lack of characterization is that even though the Macguffin is that humanity is faced with eventual apocalypse that will just get worse and worse over time, it didn't really ping to me as a depressing book, but rather a joyful one, because what's the point of a Solving Problems Through Science book if you don't actually solve the problems, and everyone was definitely having a lot of fun with the science along the way.

Wow, though, I had to laugh at how simplified everything that wasn't ~Science!!~ was! If humanity were faced with mortal peril in ~30 years, by all means all countries would all work together without any fuss and they'd give one totally well-meaning person world-dictator-like powers to do whatever needed to be done to save humanity, and, yeah, it would totally work great like that, sure!

Also, if you meet an alien in outer space all you have to do is establish some scientific points of contact (okay, that part I actually quite enjoyed) and in no time you'll have the grammar pretty much down pat and be exchanging jokes and sarcasm (because alien sarcasm works the same way human sarcasm does, of course) and yep, sure! (Puts my issues with Desolation Called Peace in perspective, I guess.)

But, like, did I care about that when I could be having ~Engineer/Scientist!Alien!Friendship~ feels? No, I did not. I also did not see the end coming and that was unexpectedly moving.

But yeah, this was definitely one of those books where if you were not warned ahead of time and if you weren't feeling like reading a book like the one this was, I can definitely see not liking it. Fortunately I was both warned and OK with reading this!

Light from Uncommon Stars (Aoki) - 3+/5. Katrina Ngyuen is a teen queer trans girl who runs away from her abusive family. She has a talent for the violin that attracts the attention of a great violin teacher, Shizuka Satomi, who's called "the Queen of Hell" for good reason, that good reason being that she has literally made a compact with hell that she will deliver them students who would trade their soul for being top-ranked violinists. Also, during the course of the book, they meet and befriend a starfaring family, the Tran family, who escape from interstellar war and buy a donut shop, from which they both make donuts and build an interstellar gate in the giant donut sign that is outside of the donut shop.

...As you can see, this is a book that goes a lot of places! And I enjoyed it! And there is a lot of good food in it, and a lot of music. I particularly liked this part:

Katrina: I have something super important to tell you, and you might not like me after I've said it.
Shizuka: OMG. You're going to tell me that you already have a violin teacher, don't you?? UGH. That's the WORST.
Katrina: What? No, I'm trans.
Shizuka: Okay. But seriously, do you already have a violin teacher?? Because that would suck, but we can work around that!
Katrina: Did you hear me?? I'm trans!
Shizuka: Well, yes, I heard you. But you were implying this was something negative...?

Because I just love that, and I know people who are like that -- even if they didn't understand exactly, it wouldn't occur to them to be negative, because what's important is the music. (And if they have to grab their student away from another teacher, haha.) Which is a lot of what the book is about, in fact.

I do think I feel like there is something about the book that feels shallow to me. I think there is so much going on that it doesn't seem to be delving into any of it very deeply, maybe. Personally, I would have loved more about the violin-competition world and the personalities and relationships and cross-currents involved, and I felt like I got just enough of it that I was like "...and that's it?? But you could have done so much more with it??"

And then there was Tamiko, who had the potential to be a really interesting character (she is in the running for Student to be Delivered to Hell, only for Shizuka to become interested in Katrina instead) and it looked like she was going to have an interesting arc but... then she didn't.

Anyway, I did like it! I think it's just that it wanted to be a poem and a fairy tale instead of a novel (it really is kind of a fairy tale in the way that Katrina and Shizuka find each other and help each other), and that wasn't what I thought I was going to read? That is, I think the majority of the difference between my reaction to Uncommon Stars and Project Hail Mary is simply that I knew exactly what I was getting into with PHM, heh.

Comments

Tillermans

[mildred_of_midgard]

Apropos of nothing at all, except fiction, I was rereading bits and pieces of Homecoming recently, and I ran across this passage, when the kids first arrive at Gram's farm and Dicey is thinking about the previous generation:

None of the children had wanted to stay here. They had all left home, one way or another. Except the one who had died, maybe. You couldn’t be sure. He might have wanted to come back.

Since you and I did our big read-through, it's been a lot easier for me to cross-reference in my head, and what my cross-referencing this time made me realize was:

Dicey doesn't know this, but Bullet could have gotten a deferment from the draft as a farmer. His father was pressuring him to do just that. Instead, Bullet enlisted voluntarily on his eighteenth birthday and got shipped off to Vietnam.

Now what she also doesn't know is that he missed the farm and missed his mother, which is what will end up affecting her and her siblings, but the point remains that that was a kid who would literally rather die than spend one more day living at home with his father.

Yikes.

Re: Tillermans

[cahn]

but the point remains that that was a kid who would literally rather die than spend one more day living at home with his father.

Yeah. Ouch. I mean, I don't think he knew he was going to die, but he certainly knew the odds were good.

You know, I never thought about it until now, but Liza and John would have known when their father died. But still neither of them came home. I think Bullet would have, because he did miss the farm and miss his mother, and what's more understood his mother -- I don't think Liza understood her enough that she dared to come back home. And John would have been just too stubborn, even if he did understand.

Re: Tillermans

[mildred_of_midgard]

he certainly knew the odds were good.

I mean, one of the things the whole book is about is how his fellow students are scared shitless of dying in Vietnam!

Bullet: "I'm pretty sure growing up in my family has taught me the *real* things worth fearing." (Paraphrased, but you get the point.)

Liza and John would have known when their father died

Would they? I agree they were alive, but they were living in different states. Gram was telling Liza on her deathbed that her father was dead, like it was brand-new information. And while Gram could have written to the old address she had for John in California, it doesn't sound like she did.

Are my cross-references forgetting something?

Re: Tillermans

[cahn]

Are my cross-references forgetting something?

Noooo, this is just me being like "of course a normal person would have written and told her children this, or somehow communicated this information, or someone in their life would have."

...and of course Gram isn't a normal person. Which often is kind of great, and sometimes really isn't, especially at that point, when she's been warped by YEARS of that awful marriage and her kids leaving and Bullet dying. GRAM!

(And she doesn't have a phone either now! And I suppose she knew that even if she wrote Liza a letter, Liza might not have even understood it. BUT STILL. GRAM.)

And the part where the kids were all totally isolated and moved away to where they didn't know anyone from their hometown would, I suppose, have meant that the odds of someone finding them and being all "...your late dad" is low too. Though I could imagine John had friends in high school, and might have kept up with them. But equally likely, especially if he took after his dad, that he shut them all out after he graduated. And also possible that he found out from friends or acquaintances but at that point just did not care.

Re: Tillermans

[mildred_of_midgard]

I mean, my grandfather died and my mother emailed me to let me know, but I was filtering her emails and so didn't see it until months later, after I'd gone looking him up on the internet and found his obituary. Had it been in the 1970s and I was throwing out her snail mail letters unread? I would probably not have found out. As it is, I'm fully prepared not to find out for a long time after one or both of my parents have died.

And that's *if* Gram wrote her kids, which it doesn't sound like she did to either of them. And you're right, no phone either!

Your "GRAM!" is very like "FRITZ!" It's making me smile ruefully.

Re: Tillermans

[cahn]

Yeah, I agree that she probably didn't write them. Although John got married and his parents even got an announcement, so I like to think that his wife at least would have opened a letter if they got one from her husband's hometown.

She would have written Bullet, though, if he'd still been alive, and Bullet would have read it and come home. That's my headcanon, so there :) (But if he'd still been alive, maybe she would have written her other kids as well, or Bullet would have, who knows.)

ETA: And if Bullet had come home, he would have gotten Liza back home, too. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Someone should totally write a fix-it! Hmm.

Re: Tillermans

[mildred_of_midgard]

...Of course it was his *wife* that sent the announcement! I've always wondered why he did, but of course 1960s gender roles and of course his wife not having the same traumatic reasons to avoid contact. I can't believe that didn't occur to me until you pointed it out.

ETA: And if Bullet had come home, he would have gotten Liza back home, too. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Someone should totally write a fix-it! Hmm.

Lol! Yes, it's a good headcanon, there there. :P Someone *should* write it!

Re: Tillermans

[mildred_of_midgard]

As for friends and acquaintances, I would say the odds are against it. Cf. these two passages in Homecoming.

Father Joseph uses his Catholic connections to find out more about the Tillermans:

"They weren't Catholics, but Crisfield is a small town, where everybody knows everybody else. So—the priest asked some questions of his older parishioners. They had known the Tillermans. None of them had been friends—the Tillermans didn’t seem to have friends—but they knew about them. He told me there were three children in the family. A boy, John, named after his father. People say he is in California. Nobody has heard from him for years, not his mother, nobody—twenty years or more."

And Dicey and James talking about Gram:

"She lives all alone on a farm."

"Why do Tillermans always live alone?"

"We don't. We live together."

"Together, but all alone together," James said.

"Maybe every family feels that way," Dicey said. "Maybe that's what families are."

"I don't know," James said. "I don't think so."

So while you can't rule out that John had friends/acquaintances that also moved the hell out of Crisfield and went to California (like me and some people I went to high school with :P), and so no one in Crisfield knows he knows his father is dead...the author is clearly, imo, setting up a theme of isolated Tillermans here.

As you know, my family *also* felt that way growing up! [ETA: I think this is another case of me interpreting a dysfunctional fictional or historical through the lens of my own. I know your family was in no way isolated like mine!]

Then there's the passage in Dicey's Song I was referring to, where it very much sounds like Gram didn't tell John or Liza about their father or brother dying:

"Your father is dead. He's buried next to Granny —you remember, in the cemetery by the Methodist church where we used to take flowers. It was a heart attack. Quick, and that's good. Bullet too —he's dead too. In Vietnam. They said, should they send him home, and I said, 'Why bother now. What difference would it make.' John was gone by then. After he took that job in California he just stayed out there. I guess. He sent me an announcement, about getting married —oh, years ago, and we didn’t answer. I have it somewhere."

Re: Tillermans

[cahn]

Yeah, fair enough -- if John had kept in touch with anyone, they would have talked about it with their own relatives or friends or whatever, and Crisfield would have known about it. (I grew up in a town like that; I know how it works :) )

Bullet too —he's dead too. In Vietnam.

But wait, surely Liza knew her brother was dead?? I agree it sure sounds from that passage like Gram hadn't told her. But surely Frank at least found out and told her -- oh crap. The main action of Runner is set in 1967, which it seems like is the year Liza gets pregnant with Maybeth (who presumably was born in 1968). 1969 is the year Bullet dies. Wikipedia tells me that there's a 3-year gap between Maybeth and, well, Sammy, so he was conceived in probably 1970 and born in 1971 and named after her brother.

...Yeah. She knew. I bet Frank told her. But she probably didn't know her father was dead, because that was a few years after Bullet died, and Frank was gone by then, as you can tell by her not having any more kids *sigh*

[sophia_sol]

Oh hmm, an interesting point about Light from Uncommon Stars wanting to be more of a poem/fairy tale than a novel, and I think to a degree I agree with you -- but for me, that approach for the narrative worked really well!

[cahn]

The narrative approach worked well for me in some ways -- I really liked how the relationship between Shizuka and Katrina is fairy-tale-like. I think what didn't work for me is the plot threads that were left hanging (like poor Tamiko), or where I really wanted the narrative to dig into something more (like the music competitions). And both of those things are way more okay in poems and fairy tales :) But don't get me wrong, I really liked it anyway!

(K)

[(Anonymous)]

So I just stayed up way too late finishing Light from Uncommon Stars. And yes, I did like it. And What Is Astrid's Story??? Did I read too fast and miss it? Swiss grandmother and... what? At the end it really sounds like she has plans for the immortal care of musicians.

Re: (K)

[cahn]

Yay, I'm glad you liked it! I don't know what Astrid's story is either, though! I felt like that was another thing that I would have liked to have had explained :)

[luzula]

I also really enjoyed Project Hail Mary and agree with pretty much everything you say about it. : )

[cahn]

I mean, it does one thing and it does it well! :)

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Just wanted to jump on the latest Hugos thread to say that I finally read The Unraveling, and I thought it was great! I am always a bit disappointed when the year's Hugo nominations don't have any crunchy thought-provoking books, and this year's list of novels seemed a bit flat to me; there's some delightful escapism (Chambers, Parker-Chan) but nothing from the wrestling-with-difficult-ideas side of the genre, which is, I think, where The Unraveling ended up for me.

Things I liked about it: everyone agrees that Staid and Vail gender roles are stupid, but not so stupid that they feel comfortable not conforming to them. Shria looking at Thave like "why would anyone go on a space voyage?" Life in the panopticon as a subject everyone has to study in school (I had to reread that chapter of Discipline and Punish this year for work). The Long Conversation being boring and stressful until it's suddenly sexy.

It is true: Staid and Vail gender roles are deeply stupid and I'm glad our society doesn't work like that. I'm a Staid, of course.

[cahn]

Yay!! I liked Unraveling so much and I'm so happy to hear you liked it too! Yes, like you, I really wanted it to be on the ballot (and win, for that matter) because I think the Hugos should be about fiction that wrestles with interesting/difficult ideas, and this really filled that niche for me. Though, hm, I'm not sure I would call Parker-Chan escapism exactly? Agree about Chambers (at least the very small bit I've read so far), and about Weir and Aoki for sure. Parker-Chan I felt was doing something interesting with playing with history, at least.

Shria looking at Thave like "why would anyone go on a space voyage?"

I really loved that too :D

The Long Conversation being boring and stressful until it's suddenly sexy.

seekingferret talks about the Long Conversation as Space Talmud, which I thought was fascinating.

It is true: Staid and Vail gender roles are deeply stupid and I'm glad our society doesn't work like that. I'm a Staid, of course.

I laughed pretty hard (and my family looked at me funny). Oh dear.

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Ok, I will give you that Parker-Chan is more interesting than I gave her credit for above. I did still find it escapist (not in a bad way). The Unraveling was very much about *right now* as a historical moment--- gender confusion, teenage fanficcers and their ship policing, whether our society is too interconnected to survive, the perils of instant panoptic fame... it's very hard to get away from 2022 in the book, which I didn't find to be the case in She Who Became.

I had not thought of the Space Talmud idea, but of course Seekingferret is totally right about that!

[seekingferret]

Ha, this is very funny because Rosenbaum has talked a bunch about the fact that he spent a least ten years writing The Unraveling and in fact because of publishing travails the German translation of the book came out four years ago, years before the original English version came out. I think it speaks very well of the process of crafting the book that it does feel so of the moment in spite of that.

[cahn]

Ha. No, I know what you mean about escapist. And all the rest of the nominees are even more like that!

[primeideal]

I just started "Project Hail Mary" and do you mind if I steal the Munroe description? Because that's exactly what it is, hahahaha.

[cahn]

lololol! You can steal whatever you like as long as I get credit :D

I KNOW, right??

[hamsterwoman]

Coming back to comment that ooh, yes, "a poem or a fairy tale" does describe the feel of Light from Uncommon Stars really well (more than a novel). And sometimes that really worked for me -- I think the reason the music sections, particularly the climax, work so well for me is that they work as poetry -- I was probably subconsciously reading them in that mode. And I guess the individual threads really are a series of connected fairy tales -- Katrina's pure-hearted hero who is rewarded for her heart, Shizuka tricking the devil, the fairy tale in Lucy's background. It's maybe not a coincidence that the least fairy-tale-y of the threads, the Tran family, worked for me the least well, hm...