politics

THE BLUE-SPANGLED BLUE by David Bowles

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The Blue-Spangled Blue
(The Path, Book 1)
By David Bowles
Castle Bridge Media — March 2021
ISBN: 978173647260 — Paperback — 452 pp.

I completed The Blue Spangled Blue awhile back, intending this review to go up on Skiffy & Fanty. But, I now have several reviews sent there that haven’t been edited and posted, and as the months pass I figured it’s best to just get it up here. The Blue-Spangled Blue is an ambitious and complex novel, an epic space opera that serves as merely the opening for a series that seems to be tackling weighty themes of family and religion. And it’s a novel that deserves to get some more notice.

Normally I compose my own version of plot summaries to fit in with the thoughts I have on a book, but in this case the official blurb suits just fine and would be easier to employ:

Tenshi Koroma’s people, the Aknawajin, were brought to the planet Jitsu as workers more than a century ago. Against all odds, they managed to win their independence from the world’s corporate owners. During a long period of isolation, a theocratic government arose, dominated by fundamentalist views. Now, as Jitsu begins to open itself to the rest of humanity, Tenshi—a controversial architect and leader of a religious reform movement—meets Brando D’Angelo, who has left Earth to accept a teaching position on Jitsu. As the two grow closer, Tenshi begins to teach Brando about her faith—The Path—and he decides to accept its tenets, to shatter his identity and rebuild himself with her guidance so that he can be worthy of a soul.

But the dogmatic struggles on Jitsu are a mask for the machinations of a diabolical mind, and the couple’s life will be forever altered by the cruelty of Tenshi’s enemies. In the aftermath, their family will find a perilous new Way along The Path. And their steps will echo throughout history.

The Blue-Spangled Blue shimmers in a diversity of cultural palettes: ethnicities, class, politics, languages, religion, and more. The religious aspect of cultural is central here, and represents the major thread of character development in the novel in the form of Brando. It’s both a philosophy or outlook and a purpose of action, even when those set Brando further apart from his own family and traditions.

I really appreciated the core facet of religion to Bowles novel. Religion is very frequently overlooked across genres, and when it does appear, including in something like space opera, it tends to be treated in primarily negative lights, or with clichés and ignorance. Bowles approaches the subject with respect, and puts as much world building into this aspect of a society’s culture as into other elements.

He doesn’t simplify things. Bowles depicts cultural practices as complex systems, mixtures that contain both conflicting aspects and principles that could unify. The cultural mixture becomes most evident in Bowles use of language with his characters, a mélange of terms from across current human cultures along with additions of speculative futuristic ones. He highlights how cultural clashes can engender strife – whether arising between two separate people or arising from within the spectrum of belief and practice of one people. And he also shows the power of cross-cultural alliances, symbolized in the relationship between Brando and Tenshi.

The complexities of The Blue-Spangled Blue‘s world building, and its host of characters make this an epic space opera novel. And that’s something that might also cause problems for some readers. There’s a lot to digest here. This could have easily been multiple novels in itself. Epic reads aren’t necessarily out of the norm for speculative fiction fans.

What might make things difficult in this case are issues of pacing, the one significant negative critique I would make of the novel. There are many chapters of exhilarating action, and slower ones of plotting or establishing the narrative framework. With the novel encompassing so many developments and interludes, however, there are stretches that seem to drag. The reader anticipates that things could come to a head. When things do, they don’t quite go as one may have expected. Resolution isn’t really there, it’s just an opening to more possibilities and new paths. It can end up feeling a little overwhelming.

However, I will say that going through those feelings (if they are there during reading) are well worth it. Bowles does not pull punches with the novel, with reader hopes or assumptions of who might live or die, whether heroes or villains are victorious. This lends a mature realism to the novel, while also allowing Bowles to show how strength to go on can be mustered from something like faith, even against all odds and setbacks, or powerful enemies lurking in the shadows.

The ambition of The Blue-Spangled Blue in depicting a complex, speculative human future with space opera plotting, and audaciously tackling politics and religion makes this is a notable novel in the genre to read. The execution has some issues, but any fans of epic genre fiction should be encouraged to take it on.

Newer editions of the novel helpfully include a series of invaluable appendices: 1) A glossary of terms; 2) A lexicon of foreign phrases in Baryogo and Kaló; 3) a Dramatis personae; 4) a break-down of star systems and their associated planets; 5) background on Jitsu’s official religion, The Path, and its adherents.

The story continues in The Deepest Green, also available from Castle Bridge Media, and another The Swirling Path, seems to be due in 2023. The latter is listed on Goodreads as Book 4 of The Path, which I assume is an error, as no Book 3 is listed at all, and I can find no mention of any other book in the series on the publisher’s site.

IMMUNITY INDEX by Sue Burke

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Immunity Index
By Sue Burke
Tor Books — May 2021
ISBN: 9781250317872 — Hardcover — 240 pp.

It is the near future and the United States has continued down a path of current trends: partisanship, inequality, disruptions in services/goods, racism, rising fascism, and choosing megalomaniac reality TV stars for president. Advances in genetic modification technology have also taken off through decades past, leading to successful cloning of extinct species like the wooly mammoth, and a brief period of human embryonic design. The individuals resulting from this technology while it was still legal are now persecuted in American society and politics: second-class ‘dupes’.

But, brimming beneath the suppressive status quo are two phenomena with the potential for social and political upheaval. First, a new coronavirus is spreading in the population, turning deadly, and the US administration seems ill equipped for any effective response. Instead, the Prez advocates magical waving of Old Glory and shouts of patriotic incantation to stop the surge of what he inaccurately dubs the ‘Sino cold’. Second, an extensive network of discontents through the nation are secretively planting the seeds for a Mutiny, a time for the majority to step up and wrest power of the government from the fascist minority who have gamed control of the system.

Amid this (frighteningly familiar) setting are the protagonists of the novel, four characters, and unique perspectives, that harbor unrealized kinship and potential. Three are young women, each written in the third-person: Avril, Berenike, and Irene.

An eager and idealistic college student, Avril seeks to join the Mutiny, but instead finds herself being dismissed as naïve by the contacts she approaches, belittled just as general society would based on her simple existence as a dupe. Not in school, Berenike works a joyless, but reliable, job in car rentals. Her simple life becomes overturned in familial blackmail: revelations about her cloned origins, and threats to advertise her status as a dupe. A college graduate, Irene works in animal conservation on a farm, tending Nimkii, a wooly mammoth relegated to being a tourist attraction in a world that doesn’t know where to put a de-extinct relic.

Contrasting in first-person point-of-view is the final character, Dr. Peng, the scientist responsible for the major genetic engineering technologies for modified humans – the so-called dupes. With their life threatened from the controversies of their research past, Peng lives in disguise, changed from a woman into a man, who now works in relative obscurity processing collected viral samples from around the world for monitoring of threats. Peng discovers odd mutations and characteristics in the coronavirus variants that are spreading, and he soon becomes taken by elements from the government to work alongside other talented individuals for designing another virus to release into the population as a vaccine.

Each of these four connected threads take turns through the novel relating their contributions to the overall elements political and viral/immunological. Burke does a great job with the pacing of the novel, juggling the four perspectives without adding too much confusing or losing reader interest.

Judges in cooking shows often suggest to not make multiple versions of a dish, because invariably one will look weaker and bring down the whole. The same holds true a bit here. Irene’s segments are wonderful, largely due to the sincere and touching love between her and the mammoth Nimkii. Dr. Peng’s segments are also engaging, not to mention essential. These are the biological heart to the novel, full of all the virology and immunology details I appreciate. Avril’s segments also serve importance, a contrast in personality and position from Irene’s. That leaves the version of the dish here that probably wasn’t needed, Berenike.

While Immunity Index has a number of good traits going for it, the novel ultimately suffers from some significant problems. Most of these I feel come down to the issue of development or editing/execution. For example, is Berenike really necessary? The pieces that make up Immunity Index are excellent: the themes, the writing, the development of the protagonists, and the plot. However, problems occur in how these are assembled into a whole, and in the absence of visible mortar to force them together.

The title and cover of the novel, and its blurbed synopsis, place a fair amount of emphasis on this as a pandemic novel. While admittedly a significant thread to the plot, the viral aspects ultimately are secondary to the political threads and the Mutiny. In fact, the biological elements here are simply one of the tools as it were of those larger political issues that Burke tackles, more artificial than natural.

With politics being the real core of Immunity Index, the confrontation lies between humans in the Mutiny versus those in power, as opposed to humans versus virus. The mortar the novel lacks is any clear antagonistic face. Burke propels the novel forward by building reader interest in seeing how the different characters connect in their pasts and futures. But there’s really never much doubt to what will inevitably come here. The challenges against the protagonists come from a system, but without any specific character or point of view to show that threat, it never comes across as real or having a chance.

Perhaps, this is a point Burke is trying to make? That the fascist trends of politics in reality have no single face to them, and their defeat could perhaps come from people deciding they’ve had enough, and staging a mutiny. The problem is, there’s no believability here to how this would so simply happen, it’s a stretch to think things would go as easily as they do in Immunity Index to usher in regime collapse. And it makes the whole conflict of the novel lack teeth.

If I recall correctly, Burke began this novel before the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, and it published of course amid the pandemic. I wonder how much of the novel became a more rushed product of such unfortunate timing, changing aspects of the plot and steering the marketing toward what is making present-day news headlines and occupying our minds. I feel like the novel needed more time, and length, to really flesh out and work.

I’ll admit that a large part of my disappointment in Immunity Index also stems from simple high expectations. Sue Burke’s Semiosis and Interference are absolutely outstanding. I’m very happy still to see that a third novel in that series will be coming, and that it was merely delayed due to the pandemic – and a shift to getting this topical novel out? Also, I was really excited and hopeful to see Burke write a novel with microbiological and immunological elements to it.

Even with its deficiencies, Immunity Index is an engaging and compelling novel that readers may enjoy, particularly as political wish fulfillment. And I’d still use it for my Biology in Fiction course. The novel raises plenty of issues in terms of genetic engineering, virology, epidemiology, and vaccination to talk about.

RISE OF THE WARRIOR COP: THE MILITARIZATION OF AMERICA’S POLICE FORCE by Radley Balko

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Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Force
By Radley Balko
PublicAffairs — 2014
ISBN: 9781541774537 — Paperback — 528 pp.

This is a title that went onto my to-read list when it first came out, but it took years and a happenstance coming across the book at Burning Books to get a copy, and then awhile of it sitting in a pile before deciding I really needed to get into it. Despite those 8-or-so years, the relevance of the title has hardly diminished, becoming perhaps more important, focusing on issues that are germane to front page headlines in today’s New York Times.

The title of Balko’s books is somewhat incomplete. Thought he militarization of civilian police serves as a major focus of the book, it’s more broadly a history of, and commentary on the third and fourth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States of America. For those who don’t remember the particulars of this part of the Bill of Rights, these are:

Amendment III: No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Balko begins by discussing the colonial and revolutionary context of these amendments, with emphasis on the third that seems so irrelevant to us today at the surface level. He discusses how the amendments both relate to the common law Castle doctrine, and explains why these were considered so fundamentally important both then at the time of the writing of the Constitution, and now.

He then traces the concept of civilian policing through history, quickly getting to its use in the United States and focusing in a series of chapters on the decades from the 1960s to the 2000s. The starting point of the 1960s corresponds to the political introduction of the “War on Drugs” to the nation, as well as violent events that led to the development of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams.

The tie-in of targeted amplification of drug prosecution (particularly minor offenses that have no victims) and SWAT (increased militarization of policing) corresponds to the gradual, systematic erosion of civil liberties related to the Castle doctrine and the pair of Constitutional amendments. With mind-boggling and frightening implication, Balko relates how systems of policing have violated, or circumvented, protections against individuals in their homes, degraded the supposed protections supplied by warrants. Worse, politics have instituted a system whereby police departments are perversely rewarded for feeing this self-perpetuating machine of terror, and have even been penalized for actual fighting of crime with results.

The most obvious injustice that Balko brings up with anecdote again, and again (showing it is an acute symptom of societal, or institutional, disease) is the no-knock warrant that became created and justified to allow police to enter private residences with no warning, with impunity, violence, and little oversight or consequences for their actions. All that was needed became a the mere suspicion that drugs may be present, and that warning of entry to the home could, maybe, result in drugs being disposed of.

Balko shows how often this has been abused with horrendous consequences due to ignorance and errors. Misidentified homes, wrong addresses, poor or dishonest informants and intelligence, etc. I lost count of how many innocent people’s lives ended because their home was suddenly invaded by dark-clad paramilitary forces. And nothing would change, it would only increase.

Alongside this, Balko also addresses how police SWAT teams became increasingly used for situations where they were not required – for example, peaceful protests. Or police departments in areas of the country with no record of violent crime for over a hundred years got themselves a SWAT team and battle tanks. Simply because the money was made available, and this is America.

What may astound many readers of this is how pervasively the political will for this extended through the decades and broadly across party lines. Conservatives who introduced ideas for being tougher on crime were later stunned that their misguided legislation had grown beyond intent, misused to now not target criminals, but attack civil liberties. They recanted, and regretted their initial ideas. But it is too late. Liberals who fought for the rights of poor people don’t want to be painted as being soft on crime. So they support/introduce bills to increase funding or giving authority to police. And it comes back to bite them.

Sadly, the failure of the Supreme Court through the decades in protecting the Constitution equally becomes clear. And, it makes one realize that the recent erosions of Constitutional protection (and future that this current court is likely to take) is not that atypical.

The NYT article I mentioned earlier is actually about how President Biden is issuing an executive order in response to what occurred to George Floyd (and the many, many other similar travesties of justice. This order demands reductions in police use of the ‘choke-hold’ and reductions in the use of ‘no-knock’ warrants. Ironically, Balko reveals that one of the biggest political names in the past decades who has personally driven legislation leading to increased police abuses like the above was Senator Joe Biden.

The birth of SWAT and police excesses were ultimately born from fear of maintaining control of a population that could arm itself with weapons and armor that an ordinary citizen could not take on. Recent events remind us that continued access to such weapons and bodily armor by the general population will only further fuel the fear and the arguments in some eyes that police should do more to protect, and that civil rights should be sacrificed. Balko’s text reminds us just how vigilant we need to be, and perhaps even work more directed and effectively towards reversing the general trends of our democracy.

A CONTEST OF PRINCIPLES (STAR TREK) by Greg Cox

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A Contest of Principles
(Star Trek: The Original Series)
By Greg Cox
Gallery Books (Simon & Schuster) — November 2020
ISBN: 9781982134709 — Paperback — 387 pp.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise are ordered to the planet Vok, where the government there is holding its first democratic elections after a long period of authoritarian military rule. The Federation has been invited to watch over the elections as non-aligned observers, and ensure that the computer-based voting system proceeds without controversy or tampering. The outcome of the election will have broad repercussions for nearby systems as well. Vok has territorial eyes set on the planet Braco, viewed as their ancestral home. But the nearby planet of Ozalor also contests Braco as their own, and generations of animosity has now built up between the worlds. Adding to the eggshells that the crew of the Enterprise must step among, Ozalor maintains a fiercely isolationist policy, maintaining no diplomatic ties to the Federation, and keeping memory of last encounters turned hostile and deadly.

While Kirk visits Vok with Federation representatives to oversee the election, news of contagious disease outbreak on Braco draws Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel and a security guard to that nearby world via shuttle. It’s a trap! (Oh, sorry, that’s Star Wars) Ambushed upon arrival, Dr. McCoy is secreted off Braco by a majordomo to the royal family of Ozalor. The Princess of that planet is afflicted by a mysterious disease and McCoy has been kidnapped to help treat her. Spock meets up with Nurse Chapel and the security officer on Braco to investigate the doctor’s disappearance, but faces resistance from the controlling government there, who is eager to blame a political dissident group on their planet for the kidnapping. On Ozalor, McCoy tries to help his VIP patient,, despite the circumstances of his enlistment, but discovers himself then plunged into the machinations of the royal court.

The older mass-market paperback Star Trek novels stuck to the episodic format of the television series, with one major plot line and setting, plus a lighter, B side-plot somehow worked in. The newer novels have felt more expansive in scope, and A Contest of Principles continues that trend, with Enterprise crew members dealing with situations on not just one alien world, or two, but three. Each setting with its own cast of supporting characters and cultures.

Vok feels akin to present-day Earth, the US more specifically given our own recent election turmoils and polarizing partisanship. Braco bears resemblance to many other alien worlds of Star Trek where political differences have created a break-off group labelled terrorist, and the ruling factions thus increased the militarism of their police and security in response. Braco seems headed down that path of authoritarianism from which Vok is just now trying to move on from. However, whereas Vok directed the militarism externally to their enemies on Ozalor, Braco is now directing its militarism internally upon a population caught in the middle of the Vok-Ozalor feud, and thereby divided. With politics of a feudal monarchy, Ozalor feels the most different, almost like a culture from a fantasy novel. The healer/advisor to the court who is able to treat the Princess’ agony through seeming magic augments this fantasy vibe.

These three settings and the interconnected plot threads of each do work perfectly when writing Star Trek: The Original Series, because of the trio of characters that lead it: Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. This has become the standard to the detriment of what stories could be done with a larger batch of the crew, or a different subset other than that expected trio. For the TV show, the actors playing those characters were the top-billed, indeed the only ones mentioned in the opening credits. But too often the media-tie in creations of Star Trek have then chosen to also just focus on those three.

I do get it, the charisma between the three are a large part of what made The Original Series work, made it beloved. They make a perfect trio, balanced and complimentary to buffer against the harshness or weakness that any of those individuals have on their own. Writers keep returning to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, because it’s a classic team and it works. But for these newer Star Trek books, I still hope for broadening beyond that easy, familiar setup of the primary three.

A Contest of Principles does put a bit of a spin on the trio in the sense that it is not putting them together to work off one another, but rather separating them and forcing them to manage as their pure, unadulterated selves, each unguided and untempered by their two friends. So while I may wish to see one of the secondary characters featured more than those three, again, at least we can see them manage on their own. On the other hand, Cox did the same recently with The Antares Maelstrom, and it could get old fast.

Cox does a great job writing each of the three leads, effectively capturing their voice and mannerisms. They act exactly as one would expect them to during the period in which the novel is set, the final year of the Enterprise’s original five-year mission under Kirk. They each are given a challenge and setting that most ideally plays off in opposition to their character traits as well. Kirk is a man of action, but is now placed in a role where he is to observe, severely limited in how much action he can take. Spock, of course a Vulcan of logic, is left to deal with a corrupt and illogical security force, and forced to turn to the arts of diplomacy that (at this point in his life at least) lie with his father Sarek, not he the scientist. McCoy is put up against a magician whose powers he can’t quite explain, to cure a disease that is not responding as his medical knowledge suggests it should.

Though this all may not then be particularly original, Cox writes it engagingly well. McCoy and Spock’s chapters I particularly found entertaining. Spock makes acquaintance with an animal/pet that is humorous and endearing. And, who doesn’t enjoy curmudgeon, but gold-hearted, McCoy chew some scenery? I’m less of a Kirk fan, but those who are will surely find familiar joy with his third of the story.

Thankfully this does work for the novel, as other parts of it succeed less well. The new characters are as one-dimensional as primary characters are able to be in media-tie in novels. The stakes can’t really be high for a crew we all know are going to be fine. But, those created just for this could contain greater depth. There isn’t much nuance to those on Braco or Ozalor, and they behave rather stereotypically. The characters on Vok do have far more nuance, to create intrigues of scandal and conspiracies, and something beyond clear-cut heroes/villains in the election. However, that gain becomes hampered by dialogue that can come across as corny. That issue of dialogue also represents the one negative that crept into the otherwise well-written Enterprise characters, with Kirk. I know Kirk has used the term ‘mister’ in his lines on the show (e.g. “you better think twice about that, mister!”) but when written it looks extra silly; Cox employs it often. The start of the novel went slower for me due to the dialogue writing of those secondary characters, but once more of the action started up I was able to get into the story and enjoy this as a decent Trek novel after all.

Recent Star Trek novels have also upped, or expanded, things in the theme department. A Contest of Principles, which takes its title from a quote regarding politics, of course is all about the themes of politics, comparing them across three unique situations/worlds. When I first read the summary of this regarding the elections and a pandemic disease outbreak I wondered how Cox managed to get things so right! The pandemic outbreak angle of course ends up being a lure for McCoy only, but the similarities between the recent US elections that were going on as this book was published in November are likely not coincidence. Many of course saw the capital riots coming – given they were announced and long-stirred-up, of course. I feel as though the situation on Vok wrapped up a bit too easily and neatly for realism, but nonetheless the look into politics there vis-a-vis our reality is a useful endeavor, as are those ‘contests of principles’ explored on the other two planets.

A Contest of Principles is going to work well for any fans of Star Trek, but it’s probably not one I’d strongly recommend for general readers who don’t care about the series. But for the fans of these stories and this crew, let’s just get some more of the other characters, please?

AMERICAN WAR by Omar El Akkad

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American War
By Omar El Akkad
Knopf — April 2017
ISBN 9780451493583 — 352 Pages — Hardcover

My latest review for Skiffy and Fanty is on Omar El Akkad’s debut novel, American War. Check out the complete review on the site, here.
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My condensed review:
“A powerful & dark literary character study on the atrocities that war can breed in an individual, but fails in its speculative foundations and in its relevance to America.”

SORCERER TO THE CROWN by Zen Cho

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Sorcerer to the Crown
(Sorcerer Royal Book 1)
By Zen Cho
Ace Books – September 2015
ISBN 9780425283370 – 371 Pages – Hardcover
Source: AceRoc Stars

Out in paperback this month – if you missed it during its initial release – Zen Cho’s debut historical fantasy novel Sorcerer to the Crown generated a large amount of positive buzz prior to and immediately following its publication last fall. It has since grabbed a Locus Award nomination for Best First Novel. Sorcerer to the Crown‘s style unquestionably draws comparison to Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Accurate as far as genre, setting, and general style, Sorcerer to the Crown happily lacks overwhelming girth and contains enough fun to not take itself too seriously. Also, while it took me several attempts to really get into Clarke’s novel and discover its virtues, Sorcerer to the Crown grabbed me right from its setup.
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Yet, Cho’s novel also suffers from an unevenness, despite its shorter length. Following high hopes from its opening my engagement began to languish toward the middle of the novel, before picking back up again for its satisfying conclusion. Although not a perfect novel, it is entertaining and a fairly unique take on historical fantasy. An impressive debut for Malaysian writer Cho, Sorcerer to the Crown makes me warmly anticipate the next volume and any other storyline she may write.
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Sorcerer to the Crown plays wonderfully with expectations, so if you are interested in reading it already, but know nothing more about it than the above paragraphs, maybe you should stop.
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Both the name of the author and the book’s cover made me expect that this would deal with courts in Asia. Awful Expectation: someone of Malaysian descent must be writing about something set in the Far East with Asian characters! This is of course absurd, which I realized as I recognized the novel’s setting of England.
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Freed slave Zacharias Wythe is the new Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers, the respected British society of magicians. Zacharias Wythe, however, is not much respected. Formerly page and apprentice to Sir Stephen, the previous Sorcerer Royal, Zacharias’ background and prior social standing make him a difficult figure for the establishment to accept. Complicating matters is the uncertain nature of Sir Stephen’s demise, and how the Staff of the Sorcerer Royal’s office passed to its successor.
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Balancing in a precarious position, Zacharias maneuvers to thwart conspiracies to depose him, manage international political crises, and discover the reasons behind the sudden depleting of England’s magical stocks. Zacharias finds an unlikely ally to his position in Prunella Gentleman, a young woman of exceptional wit and talent who would be even more feared and ostracized by the magical establishment for the simple fact that she is female.
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Though set roughly in this fantastical Regency-era England, Sorcerer to the Crown thus focuses on themes of class, race, and gender within a framework populated by creatures of intelligence beyond humans, from dragons to the inhabitants of Fairyland. The novel involves a diversity of characters – from Western to Eastern, from realistic to mythical. And Cho writes each with respect. However, she also writes them a bit too statically. Even the main characters show little growth through the novel. A sense of character evolution only comes through the revelation of secrets to the reader, explanations of why the characters are how they are. Their feelings and personality don’t go that kind of evolution and this creates problems in heroes and villains. For instance, introduction of a romantic angle at the novel’s close thereby feels flat and unsatisfying.
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After first becoming immersed in the world and plot of Sorcerer to the Crown, I found the novel’s momentum begins to fail. Partly this is from the characterization mentioned above. The plot also drags a bit, with no significantly new information or surprises coming the reader’s way and challenges to the protagonists being summarily overcome without much strain. The ease of the protagonist’s victory doesn’t end, but the plot picks back up amid new discoveries and revelations, climaxing in an end that addresses the social and political themes of the novel effectively.
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Ultimately, Sorcerer to the Crown is impressive, with beautiful prose by Cho and a charming, whimsical tone that addresses realistic human concerns with hope, all in a fantastic setting without the grim-dark. If only the Establishments of our Earth could so easily be progressively altered as in Sorcerer to the Crown! A delightful fantasy, but definitely a fantasy in that regard.
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Disclaimer: I received a free advanced reading copy of this from the publisher via the AceRoc Stars group in exchange for an honest review.

Black and Brown Planets: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction, Edited by Isiah Lavender III

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Black and Brown Planets:
The Politics of Race in Science Fiction
Edited by Isiah Lavender III
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
ISBN:1628461233
256 pages, hardcover
Published 1st October 2014
Source: NetGalley

CONTENTS:

Introduction:
“Coloring Science Fiction” by Isiah Lavender III

Part One – Black Planets:
“The Bannekerade: Genius, Madness and Magic in Black Science Fiction” by Lisa Yaszek
“The Best is Yet to Come; or, Saving the Future: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Reform Astrofuturism” by De Witt Douglas Kilgore
“Far Beyond the Star Pit: Samuel R. Delany” by Gerry Canavan
“Digging Deep: Ailments of Difference in Octavia Butler’s The Evening and the Morning and the Night” by Isiah Lavender III
“The Laugh of Anansi: Why Science Fiction is Pertinent to Black Children’s Literature Pedagogy” by Marleen S. Barr

Part Two – Brown Planets:
“Haint Stories Rooted in Conjure Science: Indigenous Scientific Literacies in Andrea Hairston’s Redwood and Wildfire” by Grace L. Dillon
“Questing for an Indigenous Future: Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony as Indigenous Science Fiction” by Patrick B. Sharp
“Monteiro Lobato’s O presidente negro: Eugenics and the Corporate State in Brazil” by m. elizabeth Ginway
“Mestizaje and Heterotopia in Ernest Hogan’s High Aztech” by M. Rivera
“Virtual Reality at the Border of Migration, Race, and Labor” by Matthew Goodwin
“A Dis-(Orient)ation: Race, Technoscience, and The Windup Girl” by Malisa Kurtz
“Yellow, Black, Metal, and Tentacled: The Race Question in American Science Fiction” by Edward James (updated with additional reflections ‘Twenty-Four Years On”)

Coda:
“The Wild Unicorn Herd Check-In: The Politics of Race in Science Fiction Fandom” by Robin Anne Reid

Disclaimer: I received a free electronic reading copy of this from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Director, by David Ignatius

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The Director, by David Ignatius
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
ISBN: 0393078140
386 pages, hardcover
Published: 2nd June 2014
Source: Goodreads First-Reads

 With The Director, David Ignatius sets out to update the spy novel to the present day realities of cyber-warfare, hacking, and post-Snowdon agency secrecy practices. The resulting story, full of realism and detail, is more akin to a combination of a political and techno thriller than to a spy novel. A fictionalized version of the nonfiction that Ignatius is expert in, The Director ends up being a series of information-laden meetings between characters, heavy on conveying facts or analysis and light on action. Despite the appeal and attraction of the novel’s plot and themes, this execution makes it a relatively dry read to get through, a political/spy thriller equivalent of the hard SF genre.

As its title implies, The Director involves protagonist Graham Weber, the newly-minted director of the CIA who is committed to turning the agency around into something more modern and efficient. Mere days into his tenure, a hacker with unsettling information enters a US consulate in Hamburg and soon after turns up dead. As inter- and intra-agency wheels begin to slowly turn, Weber places a young techno-geek agent named Morris in Germany to investigate the hacker’s claims and murder. However, it becomes slowly clear to Weber that the goals of Morris and of other bureaucrats in Washington may not coincide with his own.

On one hand the novel is about idealistic and naive Director Weber and his fight to navigate the bureaucracy of Washington DC and the influence of other players, and to ultimately overcome them for the ultimate good of the nation.  It is in this way that the novel reads more like a political thriller than a spy or action novel. The term ‘thriller’ doesn’t even necessarily apply. With his appointment as Director, Weber serves as proxy to facilitate the reader’s education into theories on the origins of the CIA, its current workings, and the possible future threats it faces.

Ignatius’ experience as columnist for the Washington Post with expertise on the CIA and its workings make him ideal for writing a novel like this. However, his desire to saturate the novel with detailed verisimilitude in the place of action produces something that is hard to get through with enjoyment or captivation, particularly when having the expectation of reading fiction. The Director instead comes closer to delivering the kind of content and experience I’d rather expect from nonfiction.

Despite its title, the novel also spends a significant percentage of time on Morris and other agents of various nations or hacker organizations who meet with Weber or with Morris. Morris is such a key aspect to the novel that in some ways he seems like the actual protagonist who others, including Weber, are responding to. Only at the end, when things suddenly seem to unravel for Morris and Weber plays hidden cards does the novel turn fully back to Weber.

Ultimately, the premise and content of The Director is fascinating, and Ignatius can craft a very realistic and complex narrative around these elements. This kind of political thriller certainly has its fans, but for me the endless dry meetings between bureaucrats or other players simply made the reading experience feel boring and uneventful.

Two Stars out of Five

An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by Todd S. Purdum

/ Daniel Haeusser / Leave a comment
An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
by Todd Purdum
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.
ISBN: 0805096728
416 pages, hardcover
Published April 2014
Source: Goodreads First-Reads

“An Idea Whose Time Has Come” relates the convoluted steps leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, starting with the championship and oversight of the bill’s design by the executive branch (namely the Kennedy brothers) and its subsequent evolution through passage in the House and Senate. This political development, rather ‘dry’ in itself, is of course set amid the turbulent social upheavals of the era and that event that both helped propel this ‘project’ forward and led to new difficulties in its realization, namely the Kennedy assassination and the new leadership of Southerner Johnson.

Purdum does a fine job relating the details of the Act’s development and ultimate passage, and after reading about the many failed party compromises of recent years it is interesting to read about one instance where something substantial was achieved. Unlike recent issues, however, this Act had split support and opposition from wings of both Republican and Democratic parties, and thankfully the extreme wings of each party that fought against this Act were each in the minority, unlike today.

The majority of focus in the book is on the executive branch, pervading each step leading to the final passage, and as such the people involved in the legislative branch on either side get relatively less attention. Already less familiar with these people, greater biographical detail on these players and their pasts would have been nice.

While the book does an excellent and fair job of relating the history involved, it spends very little space on any type of analysis. Largely this seems to avoid any kind of bias or opinion, as opposed to just stating the facts or reporting the recorded opinions of those involved in the process at the time. This is not a fault, but if you are looking for something beyond a simple history of passage this may not be of interest. But if you are largely unfamiliar with the details of this period of history, Purdum’s work serves as an excellent primer and education, offering glimpses not just into politics, but the social situation of the United States in the early 60’s and the racial injustices so many citizens endured and fought to overcome.

Four Stars out of Five

Moth and Spark, by Anne Leonard

/ Daniel Haeusser / Leave a comment
Moth and Spark, by Anne Leonard
Publisher: Viking
ISBN: 0670015709
368 pages, hardcover
Published February 2014
Source: Goodreads First-Reads

“Moth and Spark” is not the novel I initially expected it to be, and it took me quite awhile to figure out what star rating I could give to it. If going off my own interest and experience I would say two, perhaps even one. But that would be grossly unfair simply because it is a kind of story I don’t enjoy or get much from. If this were my thing, I would probably be inclined to rate it higher, at three or four stars.

The novel is a romance, one written for a predominantly female audience that Leonard has modeled in the spirit and tones of Jane Austen, but set within a fantasy realm. This is quite significant, because fantasy and science fiction rarely contain an infusion of material that may appeal to people who like an Austen or chick-lit type tale, particularly “high” fantasy. (Urban and supernatural fantasy abounds in female influence I would say). But the ‘epic” or ‘high’ fantasy subgenre, being so defined in Medieval (European) institutions and customs, is not terribly female character friendly.

With this, Leonard rather effectively creates a gripping romance within such confines of a vaguely Medieval European fantasy realm populated with dragons. On the plus side, she does this well, writing some beautiful prose and creating an excellent, likable protagonist. The other characters border on being a bit too simplistic in that the majority are just so good or so evil. Those that need to get along with the heroine protagonist do so without any issue at all. They simply adore her, loyally love her with nary a naysay. With the prince and King in particular as men, these ‘perfect’ characters create that strong, but suitably emotional support for the female protagonist. These perfect men are able to fight, make love, or talk deeply about their feelings at the drop of a hat as required. In this, the novel becomes almost like the exact opposite of most fantasy in this genre, where the men have become some ideal of masculinity to suit the heroine.

While this is nice in that it recognizes the defects and deficiencies of the genre, it also falls into the same trap of being equally unrealistic and off-putting. Though just as there are men out there that adore reading a book of mindless action filled with stereotypical women, so will there be women that feel at home reading a lush romance with its idealized supporting male characters. While the protagonist is brilliant, witty, and strong, she still is placed in the confines of being feminine, needing emotional support, attention, and a committed romance in a way that a male protagonist would never be written as needed. She thus remains exceedingly traditional, despite showing at least the ability of independence.

The fantastic aspects in this novel also take a strong backseat to the other elements of the story. Magic and the dragons make an appearance at the very start, but then the majority of the novel is only about romance and court intrigue, indistinguishable from a story that could take place in our own historic reality if we bent the roles of gender social conventions a bit. Fantasy doesn’t enter back into the story (nor much ‘action’ for that matter) until the final third of the novel. It therefore ends up feeling as if it were two distinct types of novel all set into one story, and I think I would have enjoyed the novel far more had there been a better integration of the two.

Three Stars out of Five