It's that time of year again: I'm reading the Hugo nominees! This year I'm lucky to be once again attending Worldcon (this year in Seattle), so I will not only be voting, but I plan to attend the ceremony in person.
As has become tradition, I've waited way too long to get started, but the good news is that I'm halfway through the novels. So, here's what I thought so far about The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. I will review the other three novels soon in Part 2, and, of course, there are novellas and many more categories as well. Stay tuned!
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
At some point early on in The Ministry of Time, the protagonist tells us not to think too hard about time travel. It doesn't make any sense. And this is great advice for almost all time-travel stories, including this one.
Our protagonist is an agent for a secret British agency under the auspices of "Languages." In reality, her job is to serve as a "bridge" for an "expat" (that is, a handler for a time-traveler). Her charge is an explorer who went missing in the 1840's in search of the Northwest Passage. He's taken at the moment he disappears so that he is assumed deceased in his own time (somewhat like an idea in Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog). (One minor quibble: I didn't understand why they would send a man from 1847 to live alone with a 21st century woman, but maybe the agency has reasons).
There is an element of romance, and it's fine. Things get a bit spicy in a somewhat predictable, if slightly odd, way.
This also isn't really about time travel, or at least there's no real attempt (as per the warning) to make sense of how time travel would work.
This is not about quantum physics or wormholes or whatever; it's about history, culture, language, conceptual schemes, racism, imperialism, climate, etc. And it's an often subtle treatment of those issues. Our expat from 1847 is deeply shaped, but not entirely determined by, his time and culture, as are the other characters, some arriving from other times. Our protagonist is dealing with identity issues of her own with a Cambodian mother and white British father, working for a British government of ambiguous intentions. The past and present, here and there, self and other, etc. blend into each other and shape each other in ways we don't--and sometimes can't--understand.
Perhaps the deepest idea (one I maybe would have liked to see explored a bit more) concerns the real lesson of time travel: instead of worrying about doing minor things that could change the past, we should instead focus on doing things in the present to change the future. Whether this makes the ending hopeful or not, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader. There are some funny parts with the expats adapting to 21st century life, but I found the overall tone a bit melancholy, especially toward the end. Your mileage may vary.
A minor observation: this feels to me like a book that people who don't read much science fiction would like more than people who do, which is why I'm somewhat surprised it's a Hugo finalist. Not that I didn't like it, but I feel like the things that a non-sci-fi audience would find novel aren't actually that novel. And maybe that's okay for the kind of book this is. Its interests simply lie elsewhere.
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovsky is probably one of the best science fiction writers around when it comes to inhabiting diverse points of view, everything from spiders and octopuses to humans of vastly different backgrounds.
In Service Model, we dive into the POV of a robot. The "service model" of the title is a robot butler for a wealthy human. I don't want to say too much more, because figuring out what's going on from your (presumably human) point of view is a big part of the fun.
It's not always quick, easy reading. I did not rush through this book, despite the Hugo voting deadline looming and the pile of other Hugo nominees I have yet to read. The puzzle of "what's going on?" is fun, but Tchaikovsky trusts the reader to do the work of puzzling it out (I'll be honest and admit that I'm not sure I fully understood everything, but maybe there will be a sequel). And some of what happens is honestly a bit heartbreaking (for those readers with hearts to break, anyway). And the dystopian elements can be a bit bleak.
Our main character undergoes a variety of adventures (the section headings are amusing robot-riffs on literary figures, like "K4FK-R" for "Kafka"), which bring up a huge number of questions of personal identity (or at least robot identity: is the robot at the end of the novel the same as the one at the beginning?). Does our protagonist really have "the Protagonist Virus"? Is a sense of oneself a blessing (as most 21st century Americans would think), or is it a bit of a curse (as Buddhists might say)? Or something in between?
He meets some friends along the way, including my favorite, who goes by the name "the Wonk." I particularly enjoyed the somewhat comical absurdism of the various conversations between robots--think of a cross between "Waiting for Godot" and two email auto-replies in an infinite loop with one another. Amusing, yes, but not always the page-turner some readers may prefer.
The biggest question that occurred to me: Are most of us and the societies we live in running on old programming that no longer meets the needs of a changing world? How do we get the courage to move beyond that programming? I sincerely do hope we do find this courage. And science fiction may be one excellent place to find it.
At a more meta-level, what can fiction, and especially science fiction like this, do for us in encouraging us to momentarily inhabit a uniquely different point of view? Is this also something philosophy can do? Is this why readers like me enjoy both philosophy and science fiction? Are there benefits to momentarily expanding one's sense of possible points of view, of stretching one's sense of mind and possibility? Might this save the world, or at least help us find the courage to change our programming to navigate our own dystopias?
Overall, I'd recommend Service Model to anyone who has enjoyed Tchaikovsky's other work (it's a bit wonky in a "hard SF" direction), but also anyone who enjoys a bit of a challenge in trying to inhabit a point of view radically different than one's own.
A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
I don't usually care for the genre of "modern retelling of X Fairy Tale." But I liked A Sorceress Comes to Call a lot more than I expected, which I should have known given how much I've enjoyed T. Kingfisher's other work.
Most of it's how great Kingfisher is, but some of it's that I think calling this as a retelling of "The Goose Girl" is a bit of a marketing reach (although there is a magic horse). Maybe "Remix" or "Inspired by Actual Brothers Grimm" would make more sense? Or maybe it's just Kingfisher being Kingfisher?
Anyway, we meet a poor girl, Cordelia, who has a terrible mother. Just awful. And, on top of the constant bullying and abuse, her mother is a sorceress. Who wants to marry a rich man to better her circumstances. So, she concocts a plan to marry a rich man by sort of moving in to his estate under false pretenses, where we meet a bunch of interesting characters, especially the man's sister, Hester (who is awesome in a way only Kingfisher can do). And, of course, there's magic.
It took me awhile to get into this, but eventually I felt so bad for Cordelia and enjoyed the other characters so much that I kept reading. Will Cordelia get away from her mother's terribleness with a little help from her new friends? How does sorcery work in this world, anyway? The world building is sparse, but it's a secondary fantasy world heavily influenced by Europe circa 1800, and maybe the English Regency period in particular.
Another theme that often comes from historically-rooted fantasy, especially if it focuses on female characters, is how unfair patriarchal social, political, and economic structures are. How many of the characters' problems would be solved if they had the freedom to marry or not marry whomever they wanted? Which of course ought to prompt readers to turn back on their own societies, and to wonder how far we've really come?
Or maybe not! Maybe I'm overthinking what's really a fun riff on a couple genres with cool characters? I like to think there's something deeper there, but as with most novels, I suppose readers can enjoy it at different levels, and T. Kingfisher is always if nothing else enjoyable to read.
So glad you liked sorceress. I utterly adored it. Always love to inform my reads from your reviews. -you probably know who
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