This is a frustrating book. It is a story about women struggling against mostly sexism and also racism. Good does not triumph. Sexist assholes run the world. The protagonist “succeeds” in spite of them, but the world is still run by sexist assholes. This is a portrayal of America’s past, but let’s not kid ourselves, it is also our present, and for a while yet, our future. It is depressing and enraging.

This book reminded me why I like reading science fiction. Reading is an exercise in imagination. Picture Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, or New York City in the 1920s, a tall ship lost at sea, a boring suburb, an old shopping mall, a struggling law firm, a sweat shop, a merciless desert, a merciless dessert. Add some characters and off you go. Genres like science fiction and speculative fiction tend to take more liberties with their settings. As the setting becomes more unfamiliar, the exercise becomes more strenuous (I’m looking at you Greg Egan), and the imagination benefits from a little stretching now and then.

This book is special. There’s nothing particularly novel about the story. It is a very old story (or perhaps several old stories if you prefer). There’s a wizard in a tower in a valley with a dark, scary forest. The wizard takes young girls from the village to serve in his tower, and blah blah blah, it’s practically a cliche, or several cliches, really. But it is the telling that counts, and Novik tells with remarkable care and detail. She takes classic fairy-tale material and makes it real for a modern reader. Continue reading →

I am ambivalent about The Magus by John Fowles. I am also convinced it is a Good Book. However, it has convinced me of this through a series of arguments that I am not especially susceptible to. I will explain. Continue reading →