Book Review: Dune - The Saga

What a strange and enthralling series.

I first read Dune in college. It was one of the few books I read for pleasure during that time, and shortly after finishing it I went out and bought its two immediate squeals: Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune. I didn't open them then, but they lived among my collection for the intervening decade until, inspired by Denis Villeneuve's recent adaptions of the original book, my interest in the series was reignited. Dune: Part 2 in particular reminded my of how compelling the mythology of Dune can be, and upon seeing the trailer for Part 3 (which will be an adaption of Messiah), I realized that I wanted to go into it knowing what was in the original novel, much as I had gone into Parts 1 and 2.

There are some works that must be enjoyed blind, whose mastery of twists and turns and the pulling back of the curtain is to be lauded and respected, where spoilers would indeed spoil the experience. But some are the opposite: knowing where a story leads does not lessen its impact, and it may even heighten it. My favorite movies are those that compel me each time I watch them, my favorite books are those I can talk about endlessly and know that anyone I describe them to would still be able to read them as if they had fresh eyes. Taken to an extreme, that feeling is what I would call religious. Mad Max: Fury Road is like this to me, endlessly rewatchable; I am enraptured by the pure momentum in that movie. The manga Blame! drives me all the way through it every time I pick it up just to skim. There is a feeling of... inevitability in these works that is compelling; the story will happen the same as it always has, but it is the artistry and craftsmanship that I am awed by each time. Villeneuve, much as he did with Blade Runner 2049, captures that feeling of inevitability in his Dune movies, but that original magnetic drive started with Frank Herbert's book, and in reading his whole saga I now understand how it enraptured culture back in 1965, and why we as a culture feel compelled to return to Arrakis. Why we watch, rapt, at the tragic inevitability of Paul's journey.

Herbert has a way of writing that is immediately capturing. The plots of these books are, in general, not actually that complicated nor in and of themselves compelling. Paul is set up to become the kwisatz haderach and emperor of the universe and then he does. He sees the future and then it happens. But plot is not the draw of the writing -- what Frank Herbert is so good at doing is exploring character. Again and again he delves deep into the minds of his characters, painting elegant pictures of the inner consternation they encounter. The rage of fear of Leto Atreides, Paul's father, still sometimes rings through my head though I only ever read the book once: "They have tried to take the life of my son!" Emotions run high and low, drama is infused in each scene, and throughout it all he constructs the mythology of strange, brutal universe.

Mythology really is what these books have. Dune, the planet, is so fully realized--the fremen, the spice melange, the worms, and all the human factions that vie for power and control--the details that build Dune's world reach out and compel me to worship too. There is no advance computer technology. No one controls the worms, and the whole human universe is dependent on their byproduct: the spice melange. The desert planet Arrakis (Dune) is a brutal desert, water precious beyond measure. Civilization is still organized in a feudal system. All these facts lead to a setting where, though advanced enough to populate the universe, humanity is subject still to so much of the natural and physical world. The feelings of awe that lie in the characters infected me as the reader. I too worship Shai Hulud, and feel pull of the desert sands. You can ride the worm, but it can at any time destroy you. Paul becomes a messiah, but has no control over his own religion. He is powerless to stop jihad. To live in this world is to navigate overwhelming powers, be humbled by them, and know that, at most, you are holding the reigns for a while until you are swallowed and returned back to nothing.

This is world building that lies in great contrast to most modern science fiction, or at least the vast majority of what I have read. Sci-fi often implies a technological mastery, the universe cracked open after a threshold of progress is met. Planets are wilderness until metropolized; automata replace labor; everyone has blasters and personal starships. even in 'hard' sci-fi, technology reigns supreme. The Martian is an exercise in pushing the limits of real technologies; stories like Interstellar and Contact are thought experiments focused on singular scientific hypotheticals, made real by fictional advances in technology. Dune has none of that. Instead, its advancements are biological, human or inhuman, and very very strange.

Part of what compelled me is how different Dune feels, for all the reasons stated in the above paragraph. I haven't read anything else like it. Spice, a drug, is the main source of power in this universe; genetic breeding programs carried out through centuries produce true oracles, or soldiers with enhanced reflexes; further breeding creates genes that are immune to future visions; memories are stored in the genes, and unlocking them gives Bene Geserit access to the experiences of their ancestors; mental training allows the brain to compute like silicone, working around the restrictions on technology; vocal cords can be trained to speak in ways that compel, a kind of mind control; sexual prowess can be enhanced so as to addict victims and compel obedience; Paul's son becomes a giant worm-man hybrid; Duncan Idaho gets revived as a clone hundreds of times over the course of thousands of years throughout this series. He's the only character that is in all six books.

It's weird, it's bizarre, and it's downright silly at points but somehow it all works. Frank Herbert paints such a strong picture of this universe that it all feels coherent. His characters navigate this strange, escalating reality and we follow along, pulled by their struggles and wondering along with them where this is all leading to; how will humanity be changed by each calamity that strikes out from the planet Arrakis?

I must say, however, that many parts of these books are showing their age. I wasn't keeping a list but there are some rough patches in the writing, and it takes Frank about three to four books to write women as full and consistant as men (though interestingly by Heretics of Dune most of the main characters are women, and in Chapterhouse: Dune there are only three or four named men at all). The sexual politics are so rigidly written it loops back around into being an kind of fantasy world building choice. What if sex were a true binary and each sex had separate powers? I think it helps that Herbert still gets weird with it in an interesting way. This is nothing like Stranger in a Strange Land's abysmal voyeurism and gross homophobia. My only consistent critique is that Herbert's villains are the weakest point of his writing, more flat obstacle or accumulation of gross details (Baron Harkonnen) than a realized antagonist.

I am very happy that I went back and read the rest of these books. I truly did not know what to expect going in, but what I found was such a wonderful journey. Frank Herbert died about a year after publishing Chapterhouse: Dune, a book that ends on nothing but hanging threads and leaves our character suspended in open space, with no plan but to seek what is out there in an open, mysterious universe. I am sad that more of Frank's original vision did not make it onto the page, but I am so glad I got as much of Dune as we have. These books are truly classics, and if you're ever tired of the common tropes or the repetitive hues of Star Wars and Star Trek that permeate so much of modern sci-fi, they will feel still fresh and exciting all the way though.

The Last Act: Amazing Digital Bogus

The Cast of TADC

The Amazing Digital Circus is a drama about characters stuck in a digital prison – their minds uploaded to “The Amazing Digital Circus” controlled by the god-like artificial intelligence Cain, who puts them through torments big and small. The final episode of the show was released in theaters as “The Last Act,” and this essay is my attempt to explain why its conclusion felt like a bitter, painful betrayal. (Spoilers ahead)

I liked the show a lot. My girlfriend introduced it to me, and I fell in love with the characters. They are well written, dynamic, and despite their cartoonish appearance, very real and relatable. The setting is clearly inspired by “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream,” but the tone is much more lively, and the story is about learning to live with those around you and work through your personal issues through forming friends and community. It is funny, endearing, and gripping when it really put its characters through the wringer. So I was looking forward to the final episode and its theatrical release.

The Last Act promo poster

I don't think I expected anything in particular from The Last Act. I know I expected to be surprised, I know I expected the cast to go through hardships as they dealt with the fallout of Cain's sudden death, and I know I expected to get some insight into Jax in particular as a character—why that bunny was so angry, mean, and impossibly resistant to all the sympathy and outreach expressed by other characters. Why, even as Gangle, Zooble, Kinger, Ragatha, and Pomni all work to coexist and find a community in their purgatory-like existence, did Jax seem to dead-set on remaining apart and isolated? I mean, look at the poster (right). Jax's narrative was even being advertised as central to the finale.

And it was. And it was insightful, and beautiful. And yet, it was also possibly one of the most personally hurtful narratives I have experienced from a piece of media like this.

So, let's cut to the chase: Jax is transfemenine. This was a fan theory for a while, but many little hints and foreshadowings to this end were present in the earlier episodes. Without understanding the reveal in The Last Act as confirming Jax to be transfem, her character arc and the narrative in TADC lose coherence. But, the same narrative that centers and explores her as a trans woman/trans fem concludes by putting her back in the closet, deadnaming her, and refusing to engage with any potential growth or consequence of that personal revelation.

Let me walk through Jax's narrative in The Last Act chronologically, and I will try to convey why I feel so hurt by the choices made for her character.

Book Review The Three Body Problem (Trilogy)

 

If all science fiction were quantized by quality and graphed on a normal distribution, this book would be at the absolute top of the Gaussian curve -- which is to say it is mid in the most literal sense. Mediocre, but not awful, it's highs are rare and its lows are many, but the landscape it paints is only bumpy at high resolutions -- for the most part, the words evoke the feeling of starting at a flat wall of color.

I will not critique the prose in this series -- it is a translation, and I don't know anything about Chinese literature to know if the style is universally boring of if I am just out of my depth -- but the other elements of story transcend language, and they are severely lacking.

I don't hate these books, there's not enough to hate, and there parts that are genuinely good and compelling and interesting. But they are few and far between, and often end with little fanfare and underwhelming resolution. 

The plot of these three novels is like Ender's Game -- War between distant words of very different technologies. I won't get into the details because they are convoluted, long, and ultimately not that important. Which is ironic, as they are what is most emphasized in this story. The characters are weak, underdeveloped, or stereotypes. They have characterization in that each has one or two traits that are evoked to move the plot forward. Outside of those times they fade away to nothing. There are one or two exceptions, but rarely did I ever feel I was reading about real or potentially real people. I saw only vessles for the delivery of ideas and plot.

Ideas and plot are what these books most revel in. However, the 'ideas' it entertains are not applications of cutting edge science or interesting philosophy, but science-sounding gobbledygook that amounts to lazy "magic" in a fantasy setting. What gedankenexperiments the book contains have little to do with real physics. "What if one could unfold a proton into lower dimensions" - a meaningless sentence dreamed up by someone who has only ever engaged with pop-sciences. But large swaths of the plot rely on these ideas. And the book spends so much time talking about them as if they mean anything. It is one thing for a magical technology to be the vessel for storytelling, but this author seems to think storytelling is the vessel for showing off neat magic they thought up after hearing about string theory for the first time.

I have a degree in physics, I teach science, and I have always loved math. This book is everything that annoys me about bad science fiction. It thinks that merely presenting abstract 'ideas' is good writing, that one can substitute solid character writing with pages of plot and exposition, and that by writing with big physics words one is somehow philosophizing about real science.

It's also very misogynist in its treatment of women. Laughably so. A man dreams up a perfect women and she appears to fulfill his fantasy - that's her entire character.  Another woman exists as a non-character except the times her 'motherly instincts' move the plot along, always causing her to show 'weakness.' At one point the human races' dark age is defined by its 'femininity.' Such writing would seem to nudge this book further to the left of the bell curve, but such patriarchal assumptions are so entrenched in science fiction that it still sits solidly in the middle.

A forgettable series, not worth your time. 

 

∀ Gundam – Gender, Self, and Society

Intro - ∀ Gundam

∀ Gundam (Pronounced "Turn A" Gundam), is one of the best anime I have ever seen; one of the best shows I have ever experienced. This is for a lot of reasons: the characters are deep and compelling, the plots is a slow-burn war drama, the pace and direction of the show is masterful--it is firing on all cylinders. Throughout its 50 episode run it explores a lot of themes with a huge cast of characters, but today I want to talk about what I found so personally engrossing: the characters of Loran Cehack, Kihel Heim, and Dianna Soreil, and how their actions and relationships through the show explore themes of genderfluididty, the self, and the arbitrariness of societies divisions.

There are heavy spoilers for this show, so be warned. Also this one of my longer posts, so read the rest below the break! (I have also made a video essay based on this post).

Book Review: The Seep, by Chana Porter

The Seep is a book of vivid imagery, dreamy and chaotic, and like dreams leaves little of substance in the mind when it is over.

It's not a poorly written book, nor an interesting story, but as a personal journey it feels underdeveloped. The story follows a woman, Trina, and her struggle to move on with her life after an 'invasion' by an alien species called The Seep and the subsequent loss of her wife to it's effects.

The opening section of the book is quite engrossing. The Seep is not a ln enlightened super civilization nor a race of conquerers, but more of an all-permiating infection, a conscious miasma that induces a drug-like stupor on everyone who ingests it, breaking down the barries between their minds and bringing about an era without war, famin, want, or death. Except not exactly.

The Seep is often vaguely described, it's function vaguely explained, and the exact results and mechanism of it's unification with humanity are inconsistent and contradictory. Which is fine, as it is mostly used as a magical vessel that allows people to enact nearly anything they will; changing their bodies, giving sentience to animals, healing plant and animal life, or allowing them to die as they wish. But it also has will, enforces (through it's stupifying effects) an era of peace and good will between all living beings, yet at moments has the naivete of a child, and struggles to understand why Trina is experiencing grief as she is. What results is The Seep is simultaneously The Force, Big Brother, LSD, & Pinocchio; a combination that never quite resolves into anything coherent.

This incoherence leads to a plot that is full of conveniences, driven less by characters than by arbitrary circumstances. Outside of Trina, characters get limited development; her wife decides to move on--to be reborn again as a child--for reasons that are inconceivable to both Trina and the reader, and though overcoming this divide is the central tension of the work, it never stops feeling like a random act and a poor substitute for death, or suicide. The other significant character, Horizon, gets a similarity one-note story. He took the face of a dead lover when The Seep arrived, adm serves as something of an antagonist to Trina, or she at least makes him out to be one in her mind. That appropriation and facade is the only character development he gets, and the resolution to hai arc is to disintegrate into nothing, shedding all layers of himself. Other characters are secondary, giving very little time to show any depth.

Finally, there is Trina. Her journey is well done, her emotional turmoil clean, but situated in the world Chana has built these normal emotions feel strange. Trina seems to be uniquely immune to many of The Seeps effects, conveniently excepted from the major metamorphoses of the world. Abstaining from The Seep is an option, and people are shown to build up a tolerance to it's effects, but having Trina wade through this dreamlike world without being affected much like anyone else seems to be creates an odd disconnect. Trina is in this world, but feels not of the world.

I would compare this book to some of the writing in the End of Death SCP canon; there humanity experiences an irreconcilable paradigm shift, and those stories are about characters navigating and struggling against the new reality. The Seep introduces a paradigm shift, but does little to grapple with it's implications. It frames the story around The Seep but then makes it set dressing. Trina's wife might as well have 'just' committed suicide. Horizon might as well be any other religions charlatan or cult leader. Post-Seep American could have been any other post-scarcity dis/utopia. You could uproot these characters, put them in modern Detroit, and have a nearly identical story; ignore The Seep entirely. In EoD, Ω-K is inseparable from the characters in it's stories.

The world here has little history, no sense of continuity, it's events fleeting, arbitrary. The story too short to grow meat on the bones it lays out.

Overall, the result is fantastic prose, stunning imagery, but vague and inconsistent world building and thin characters. Engrossing to read, but with little sticking power.

QUICK REVIEW: The Best American Series

 I've written before, also briefly, about The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, a yearly publication with a collection of short stories selected from works published in the previous year. I recently read through the 2020 edition, and just now finished reading through a book in a sibling series: the 2019 publication of The Best American Science and Nature Writing. I'm writing this post to re-affirm my earlier endorsement, and expand it to The Best American collection(s) as a whole.

The 2020 edition of Science Fiction and Fantasy stood out to me even more than previous years because of the sheer volume of queer representation it contained. Many times I had to remind myself that I was not, in fact,  reading a collection like Meanwhile, Elsewhere, which set out to be by and about queer people, but a filtered, edited, and selected collection of the best of main-stream sci-fi and fantasy. In that sense it was an absolute relief and revelation to read; it's not the most subversive or most queer content I have encountered, but the sheer prevalence and normalization of queerness with the stories felt like a real paradigm shift. It was a reminder that, despite the setbacks and the ongoing assault on queer people and minority rights, there has been a cultural shift. Progress is not made or lost all at once in every sphere, and we are still very much in the fight for our existence and acknowledgement.

When I picked up the Science and Nature Writing edition, I was not sure what to expect, but I decided on it because, quite frankly, I am at a deficit when it comes to reading non-fiction. As the forward acknowledges, the line between science and nature writing is quite thin, especially in these days of climate catastrophe and global warming. Indeed, the power in this collection is not any individual piece of writing (though they are all great), but in how they paint a collective and stark picture of the state of our world; the state of nature, and the state of our science and human impact. So many of the stories are about either extinction, the ongoing impacts of climate change, or the socioeconomic systems that helped lead to these problems and how they continue to propagate their own.

The most chilling of these essay to read, I think, was the piece "When the Next Plague Hits," by Ed Young. It was published in 2018, but reading it now is not so much an exercise of hindsight but of prophesy. In these few pages, Ed highlights the 'potential' breaking points of the U.S.'s healthcare and global monitor systems, and points to past outbreaks as a warning of how close we were to disaster. And line by line, it is a prediction, blueprint, and explanation for exactly what led to the COVID-19 pandemic, and an infuriatingly naked picture of how visible the fault lines were. Anthony Fauci is even quoted in the story, previewing the disaster he would confront in the following years.

But I don't want to oversell one piece or simply recount what I liked from each of these volumes (which was a lot; they are all very good). I'm writing this short post to recommended the collections, any of their editions, and their sibling series, as I've seen enough to be confidant in their quality.

Reading takes time, and we don't have much of it, but if you want an excellent slice of what is being written here in the United States, the Best American series is worth picking up in whatever genre you are interested in. It is available wherever books are sold.

BOOK REVIEW: The City & The City, by China Miéville

I've read only one other of China Miéville's books, Railsea, but even from my small sampling Miéville's strengths are apparent. In both books, Miéville write about fictional cultures and people, and he crafts them with such care and skill that the fantastic elements of the setting melt together with the mundane. In the same way we take for granted all the details of our lives, so too do the characters in Miéville's work. They are fantastical only to us, the readers, the foreigners, but to his characters they are simply the facts of their lives.

In The City & The City, the reader is a tourist, plopped down on the shoulder of Inspector Taydor Borlú as he stumbles in the early morning into the most important case of his life. A woman has been found dead--clearly murder--and Borlú dutifully starts to piece together what soon becomes a mystery much larger than he could have imagined. The noir aspects are not what is compelling to us tourists, however. They keep the plot moving along, but it is the mundane details of Borlú's life that soon become much more interesting. As he move through his city--Besźel--strange details emerge; people and places he must 'unsee,' mentions of a 'border' with buildings that seem to be neighbors; the enigmatic 'Breach'; but few explanation are offered for our benefit. Borlú is a product of his culture, and sometimes an agent within it, and it is Miéville's deep understanding of how culture and people influence one another that gives life to Besźel and draws us through its streets and into its secrets along with Borlú.

There are two cities in The City & The City; one in which Borlú lives and another in which he does not. They are layered atop one another, yet separated by legal, social, and fantastical means, if not always physical. The cultures of both cities are complex, historied, and evolving, and the rich detail of characters and setting is what make's Miéville worth reading. 'Worldbuilding' feels like a cheap term to apply to what Miéville has done, but that's what makes the book work. His world is real, and lived in, and we are only visitors. It contains the essence of verisimilitude.

This is an excellent book; and compelling because of it's mystery. I don't have much more to say, partially because I am out of practice writing, partially because I am not giving myself much time to write this post, but I wholeheartedly recommend The City & The City. It is a good novel, a neat mystery, and a visionary fantasy.

The City & The City is available wherever books are sold.