Other listening

On the other hand, a string of stories at Podcastle left me feeling alienated, being centred as they were so strongly on US self-mythologising. A very distinct sense, which I have the privilege of experiencing relatively rarely, that I was not and never could be the audience for these stories.

The Ant King: A California Fairy Tale by Benjamin Rosenbaum is as the title suggests a fairy tale of California. More particularly of capitalism, California, and self-identified geekdom. Self-conscious quirkiness blended with corporate surrealism; there is a trans woman and a genderqueer kid in the story for what appears to be ‘people do gender non-normatively in California’ reasons. Support groups and mercenary hackers and monetising all the things.

Hotel Astarte by M. K. Hobson is a broader anthropomorphised mythology of the Three Americas - the Rural Midwest, the Business of the East, and the upstart Hollywood of the far west - and their deep magical conflicts with each other for pre-eminence or survival in the early 20th century.

These are not necessarily bad stories. Hotel Astarte especially I thought well done. But they are very much of the USA, stories told by that people of its history and its nature. ‘America’, talking about itself to itself, no space in the telling for an audience that is not on the inside, not so soaked in this mythology of the great and human nation.

Currently Reading - The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection

Finished reading “R & R” by Lucius Shepard. It was weird, having it intro’d by Dozois (the editor) as “probably his best story to date … and quite likely the single best story to appear in the genre this year”. And then before finishing it coming across an article from the past year by a different editor (Strahan) who also assembles year’s best collections, with him using example of this same story from the late 1980s as an example of that sort of “Wow, this is amazing” feel that he looks for in stories to anthologise.

That happens rarely, though, and it’s why I keep reading. To find the next “R&R”, and to experience that sort of moment again. It’s also what I hope the best of the year series delivers to readers.

So I finished reading it, and it did not knock my socks off. But it was interesting. All I’ve read of Lucius Shepard’s writing is the four stories collected in the second and third anthologies in this series. They tend to have a lot of themes and settings in common - not set in the US, despite protagonist often being from there, being set in Central America (and in one case, Spain), a mysterious, sexually alluring woman surrounded by ideas of magical escape, and the idea of escape from war or colonisation.

With this sense of repetition I had been feeling unexcited by the prospect of reading another. They had all been quite good, mind. But feeling I could anticipate the details of what was to come dampened my enthusiasm. Plus with all this high praise I reacted as if dared to dislike it.

This particular story held all of those themes also. But as it played out, it came across more as a repudiation of his previous work - all those elements, but ultimately a magical translation out of war or colonisation is not a viable escape.

I had heard many good things about Lucius Shepard prior to reading any of his stories, so I had been looking forward to reading his work. The first one I read, actually, felt so familiar I thought I had read it before, but this may have been a distant memory of Greg Egan doing what felt like a riff on his work (probably “Chaff” in the collection Luminous, not to be published for another 8 years after this).

This story reassures me I have been premature in writing off Lucius Shepard. Good news since he has been so well-regarded by people vastly better versed in the field than me.

Roguelike Roulette [Spin 1, Slot 3b]: Ascii Sector

Ascii Sector 1.2

Making my way to the ship I take off (and forget to take a screenshot) and fumble extensively with the controls until slowly some understanding of nav-points, autopilot and jump gates is gained.

First, to the wrong nav-point, and then since the destination for this mission was no longer showing on the map like it had been last session - cut off at the bottom - tabbing through other nav-points until one offered 'jump to Nexus Prime'. That system at least showed what looked like a path to potentially get nearer the target system.

 

( Read more for system-hopping confusion )