Friday 8 December 2017

Reading Roundup - November 2017


I kind of made progress on the challenge this month, completing the first of a newly-instated 'Russian SF' category with Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's a bleak look at a capitalist response to an utterly enigmatic alien visitation, from the perspective of writers living and working within the Soviet Union and its centrally controlled publishing industry.

Otherwise, November has been very much a month of Discworld, as I continued my re-reading of the Pratchett canon with books four to eight: Mort, Sourcery, Wyrd Sisters, Pyramids and Guards! Guards!.

Mort is the first novel in the Death strand of the series. Death has appeared in every book so far(1), but this is the first time he has been given a starring role, rather than popping up in a cameo, perhaps to confirm that someone didn't make it. It's the story of Mort - short for Mortimer - an awkward youth who becomes Death's apprentice, learning the trade and giving his master a chance to experience something of humanity. Published in the same year as Equal Rites(2), it rapidly established itself as the first 'gateway novel' in the series, frequently recommended as a starting point to the new reader. It mixes wit and whimsy with more serious themes - such as justice, faith and the complex relationship of a ruler's personal qualities and their competence as a ruler - with the deftness that leaves The Colour of Magic for dust. It has a likable, if not particularly deep, quartet of characters in Mort, Ysabelle - making a much more sympathetic showing than in her cameo in The Light Fantastic - Princess Keli(3) and Cutwell, with able support from the irascible and enigmatic domestic Albert, although the star is undeniably Death himself.

Stern and kind, wise and wondering, ancient and innocent, the Death of the Discworld is one of the great literary creations. With him, Pratchett turned the end of life from horror into comfort, and sought to explore and expand upon the many mysteries of life. THERE'S NO JUSTICE, Death often reminds us. THERE'S JUST ME. I think I could, pardon the phrase, live with that.

Death makes his next appearance right at the beginning of Sourcery, in which the failed wizard Rincewind is once more called upon to prevent Armageddon(4). This time, a wizard has broken the usual rules of celibacy with such enthusiasm as to produce eight children(5), the last being a Sourcerer, capable of creating magic, instead of merely shaping it. This is arguably Rincewind's finest hour, although his supporting cast are only so-so. Conina - the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian and a temple dancer he rescued from an unspecified fate - and wannabe barbarian hero Nijel the Destroyer are independently quite interesting characters, but are awkwardly paired off; awkward because one of them is described as a highly attractive, adult woman, then other as a gangly teenager apparently still in the throes of puberty.

I have literally no clue what is
going on with this cover.
Wyrd Sisters picks up the adventures of Granny Weatherwax(6) after Equal Rites, now a member of a three-witch coven in the mountain kingdom of Lancre, with long-time best friend/archnemesis Gytha 'Nanny' Ogg, and hippy dippy newcomer Magrat Garlick. The three of them are caught up in a coup d'état when they rescue a young baby, the rightful heir to the throne, from the usurping Duke Felmet and his terrible wife. Borrowing heavily from Macbeth - among other things - for plot and dialogue, and introducing a solid power trio in Granny - the serious one - Nanny - the motherly one - and Magrat - the nice one - and more pathetic fallacies than Jove could cast a thunderbolt at, this is the real beginning of the Witches stream, with Equal Rites a sort of precursor. It is interesting in retrospect that Magrat decides that witches only do kind things for selfish reasons, given that Tiffany Aching later determines that witches even do selfish things for kind reasons.

Pyramids, on the other hand, is a standalone, featuring the prince of a small, yet once great, kingdom - Djelebeybi - returning home after the death of his father and seeking to overturn the millennia of stagnant tradition upheld by the priests of the kingdom's many, many, many gods. While the story stands alone, and Djelebey
bi would never make another significant appearance, the novel also introduces Tsort and Ephebe, the equivalents of Troy and the Hellenic city states, whose millennia old feud is checked only by the intervening territory of Djelebeybi; at least until an oversized pyramid causes a complete collapse of space time and makes the kingdom disappear. This is also the first major appearance of the ongoing theme of belief shaping reality, as the collapse of the kingdom into a pocket of time causes the myriad conflicting deities of Djelebeybi to simultaneously manifest.

There is a lot to like in Pyramids, and I'm a sucker for a good bit of fantasy Egypt, but overall this is a bit of an also-ran. Pteppic is a fair lead, but deuteragonist/quasi-love interest Ptraci(7) is underdeveloped, and both pale next to Dios, a classic Pratchett villain, determined to do what he believes is the right thing for everybody, no matter how many people it hurts.

Finally, we come to Guards! Guards!, the start of the City Watch stream and, as it happens, the first Discworld novel I ever read. It introduces Sam Vimes and his 'boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness,' and the rest of the Watch: Sergeant Colon, Corporal Nobbs and new bug Lance-Constable Carrot. While it features a dragon, the novel is pitched primarily as a police procedural, of sorts, and as such is probably the first step on the road to the Disc's transformation from high fantasy to industrial spellpunk. It is also probaball of the characters are brilliant. Not the watch, not the villain, and neither the Patrician(8) nor dragon expert Lady Sybil Ramkin are throwaway or half-finished characters. Everyone is sharing the love, and it's brilliant.
ly the first Discworld novel in which

But it's not been all Discworld, and I finally managed to get through the rest of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The fifth book in the series is often held to be the weakest, but while I still feel that it is overlong and sags in places(9), it's definitely better than I remember; possibly because I didn't need to carry the hardback around to read it. It took a while to get through because of my intense dislike of Dolores Umbridge(10), the unacceptable face of the Ministry of Magic's slide towards a totalitarian cult of personality. I couldn't listen to anything with Umbridge in while I was going to sleep, which led to me favouring the Discworld novels all around. Much as I find the character uncomfortable, I acknowledge that the effect is intentional, serving to strip away the protected feeling which surrounds Hogwarts, and put the young leads well and truly on their own for the first time.

Of course, this all serves to highlight the frankly appalling level of pastoral care and gross favouritism in play at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry(11), even before Umbridge gets all up in it. It also exposes the deep corruption in the Ministry of Magic, and in many ways it's no wonder that a regime like Fudge's - broadly ineffectual, conciliatory, nepotistic, corrupt, and unduly tolerant of ultraconservative attitudes within society - would breed a far right revolution from those who simultaneously recognise the government's shortcomings, yet regard their centre right political leanings as insufferably liberal. While I joke about this, once more Rowling turns in an unmistakably political novel, with thinly veiled attacks on OFSTED, and the Hitler Youths of the Inquisitorial Squad. These are books to make children think, rather than simply to entertain them.

(1) And will appear in almost, if not every book hereafter.

(2) The first of six consecutive years to see a double Discworld event.
(3) Pronounced in the audiobook 'khey-lee' and not, as I had always assumed, Kelly.
(4) Or more accurately, the Apocralypse.
(5) Despite being a gold standard douchebag.
(6) Not that Granny would hold with adventures, most likely.
(7) Pronounced here 'puh-tra-chee', rather than as I would have thought, 'Tracy'.
(8) Making his first major appearance, after cameos in The Colour of Magic and Sourcery.
(9) It is no surprise that Rowling broke with her editors during the writing of the novel, as it is in need of some trimming just to tighten up the edges.
(10) Not least because of the utter chill factor of Stephen Fry's performance of her sickly-sweet voice.
(11) And that's another thing; are witchcraft and wizardry in any way distinct save in the gender of the caster? What would a non-binary magic user do?

2017 Reading Challenge - Roadside Picnic

I'm sad that the audio version omits the foreword.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Reason for Reading: The film Stalker was recommended to me ages ago. I have a copy, but have never watched it, because it takes a special time slot to sit down and enjoy a subtitled movie without getting sidetracked. I've also owned the book for a while, but struggled somewhat to get into it. For whatever reason, I decided to take a pass at it on Audible (in a fairly high-profile edition, using a new translation and the Oscar-nominated Robert Forster as a reader.)

The novel is set in the years following an alien visit, which left a series of Zones around the world, filled with alien technology and weird, deadly effects. These Zones are studied by scientists, but also plundered by stalkers, thieves and smugglers who loot alien artefacts from the Zones for profit. The novel primarily follows the fortunes of Red Schuhart, a young stalker and sometime employee of the institute set up to study the Zone in Harmont, Canada. Caught between his criminal fraternity and family commitments, Red is pushed to make one last trip into the Zone, in search of the ultimate prize.


While written under the Soviet system and thus scathingly critical of Canada's capitalist response to the Zone, Roadside Picnic gives a grubby, roughhewn appeal to its flawed and broken characters. It's probably best characterised as SF noir, which is a sorely underrepresented field now that I think of it. It doesn't have much of a plot, or even arcs for its characters - Red begins by getting someone killed by trying to do someone a favour, then ends by getting someone killed trying to help himself and his family - but is more in the way of a short snapshot of the community who surround and exploit the Zone. Like a lot of noir, I find it appealing, but not deeply engaging, which coupled poorly with the largely unlikeable characters to make an interesting book with a lot of great ideas, but not a really gripping one.