A Process Conversation with Zen Cho, author of Sorcerer to the Crown

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Sorcerer Royal Trilogy, Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho

Sorcerer to the Crown is the first book in a historical fantasy trilogy. This novel which marks Zen Cho’s debut, while described as a cross between Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke is very distinctively Zen Cho. The novel might rightly be called a novel of manners, but Cho escapes being didactic and offers us a world that is engaging and brings to life the very real dilemmas that overcome those of us who must maneuver through complex situations in life.

Tor.com carries an excerpt from the novel, which you can check out by following this link. I’d like to say thank you to Zen for taking time out of her busy schedule so we can bring this conversation to you on PUSH.

(Photo by Darren Johnson / IDJ Photography)

I want to say here that I’m utterly charmed by Sorcerer to the Crown. I’m so excited by your voice and by your ability to tell a story with depth and with such a deft and light touch. It’s a rare gift and I’m glad for your voice in the world.

It’s not an easy thing to be able to balance the serious and the light in any particular work. I’ve watched you do it in The House of Aunts and here, in Sorcerer to the Crown, I see you doing it again. (You have my admiration because I don’t know many who can do this). What was the biggest challenge for you in writing Sorcerer to the Crown and how did you overcome it?

There were a lot of challenges! I was in the process of working out how to write a novel, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. That should be in the present tense, to be honest, because I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing … But with Sorcerer to the Crown, the process of writing a first draft and then a second draft and then revising that multiple times was very new. I think the hardest thing about the proess was just keeping at it — pushing past the fear to try new things with the story, until I hit on something that worked.

Of course, there are lots of improvements that could still be made to the book, I’m sure, but you do have to step away from the work and declare it finished at some point.

With the story itself, striking the balance between the serious issues I didn’t want to gloss over and the fun stuff was definitely a worry. It was very important to me to focus on characters who aren’t usually the focus in the Regency romance genre — people at the sharp end of imperialism — but that brings along baggage. It made the story more interesting — there was never going to be a version of Sorcerer that was about a rich white guy — but of course you feel a responsibility not to seem to play things down. At the same time I was determined that it should be a fun book. The books I personally love best are the ones that put you in a good mood when you’ve read them, without sacrificing substance, and that’s the kind of book I want to write. So that was an interesting tightrope to walk!

I find myself very interested in your choice of setting as well. What were the particular challenges of setting this novel in this time period and what lay behind your choice to do so?

I just like Regency England as a setting. A lot of my favourite writers have used it: Patrick O’Brian, Susanna Clarke, Naomi Novik, Georgette Heyer … I enjoy the language especially, the way sentences are constructed, and the way you can play with the social norms.

This is a fair question, but I wonder how often white Americans get asked why they set their books in Regency England!

You have to do a bit of research when you write about a historical setting which is so familiar to fiction readers — people already have a certain vision of Regency England and you need to be careful about your worldbuilding details. I read a lot of history while writing the book, but I enjoy that so I wouldn’t call it a challenge.

Actually two things annoyed/annoy me about the setting, which are less about the book and more about me. Firstly I felt compelled to read a lot of period fiction and diaries, letters, etc. of people who lived at that time, and while this is something I enjoy, it did mean a lot of my reading time was taken up by white people. I’m quite behind on contemporary SFF because I just don’t have the time to fit it in with all my writing-related reading.

The second thing is that you can write about non-white people in Regency England, and you can even write about communities of colour in Regency London and probably other places, like Bristol and Liverpool. But the particular setting and story I chose inevitably meant that most of the supporting characters were going to be white. That’s on me, but it bothers me a bit.

I know that we all come to SFF through various means and we have varying canons. Your work has been compared to authors like Georgette Heyer and Susanna Clarke. Are they part of your canon? Who are the authors/works that mark your entry into SFF?

I don’t know if I’d call either of them canonical for me, though I like Heyer’s books and love Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I came to them relatively young, but maybe not young enough for them to have entered my canon. That was pretty much closed after age 16 …

The authors that marked my entry into SFF are probably: Tolkien, Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones and Edith Nesbit for fantasy; Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ and Ursula Le Guin for science fiction. And the 19th century authors I grew up reading, like Austen and the Brontes. They don’t write genre, obviously, but as a kid in 20th century Malaysia, I read them as one reads genre — as windows on an alien world.

I love that you wonder as to how many white Americans get asked about their decision to set their work in Regency England as I have read my share of books written by white Americans set in Regency England and have often wondered how true those depictions were to the setting and time. (How many Dukes exist in England? At a certain point, I wondered if the UK was made up of nobles only.) So it’s interesting to me to read about the process you went through in choosing this setting as well as the dilemma you faced. I do love that you chose to write Zacharias and that you don’t flinch from presenting to us the complexity of maneuvering through a society where he is a minority.

You wrote about your complicated feelings with regards to your particular choice of setting because of your supporting white cast. Have you come to a resolution regarding those feelings? Do you intend to address this in the following books? Can you tell us without spoiling much? 😉

The feelings aren’t that complicated — I just made a decision some time ago that I should invest most of my time and energy, as a creator, in stories that are not about white people, because I’d spent so many years before that invested in stories that focused on white Westerners to the exclusion of every other type of person. In writing Sorcerer I was obviously trying to avoid producing the latter type of story, but you can’t challenge a thing without focusing on it. So my feelings are like, “This is annoying, but I had reasons for doing it, and you can’t do everything with a single trilogy.”

Is that a resolution?

I think it’s quite healthy to live in a state of slight tension with oneself.

I’m not going to address the issue in the next books really — as I said, I think it’s something that comes with the setting and the type of stories I’ve chosen to tell, which are inspired by the tropes of Regency romance. It’ll have to wait for the next series!

Maybe this comes back to that issue of striking a balance between the serious and the fun. As I said, I enjoy the tropes of Regency romance, the elopements and the inns and the banter and the parties. And maybe playing with those tropes doesn’t fit with one of my projects, which is writing stories set in worlds where whiteness is not a bigpresence, but then that’s only one of my projects. Something like Zacharias’s story, where he’s just this guy growing up alone in a white society, without a black community, is a story worth spending time and energy on.

One of the things that I wanted to ask as well, concerns your own position as being probably the first Malaysian writer to write a major fantasy trilogy. Does this carry particular stresses for you?  We’ve spoken before of the burden of visibility and of representation or being seen as a representative. How do you feel about this and what do you think or feel needs to be addressed regarding this matter?

Am I the first Malaysian writer to write a major fantasy trilogy? If we say trilogy, maybe … there’s Yangsze Choo whose YA fantasy novel THE GHOST BRIDE was an Oprah Book of the Week pick. Heights I don’t dare to dream of!

I do feel a certain pressure. In an interview I did with David Barnett for the Independent, he calls me an “unwitting poster girl” for diversity in SFF and it’s probably just as true to say “unwilling”, haha. I feel a bit like that about my position in the Malaysian writing community, like — I’ve just been here toodling along doing mything, and suddenly there’s this whole other side of me that I don’t even have a full picture of, which is people’s perceptions of me.

I get it from both the Westerners and the Malaysians, of course. Western SFF asks me about Malaysian SFF, and I’m like, honestly, apart from the slush reading I did for Cyberpunk: Malaysia, I’ve been spending the past two years in Regency England, what do you want from me. 

The Malaysians are very supportive but sometimes they’re very annoying as well! Like any community you have disagreements and even bickering, but I don’t necessarily feel I can engage in that. Like if I’m snotty to someone on Facebook, maybe they’ll worry that I’ll turn my US/UK publishing contacts against them. (Not that I have that power, obviously, but you know as well as I do that people often have strange ideas about publishing.) But maybe I’m just being perasan (full of myself)!

To an extent any burden I feel comes from how I choose to engage with the communities I’m a part of, as much as from how they choose to treat me. I’m lucky to be able to move between worlds in this way — it’s as rewarding as it is occasionally stressful.

Talking about the issue of diversity, when you look at genre today, what do you see as being the biggest challenges facing writers coming from the margins? And what kinds of conversations and actions need to take place in order for genre to become a more welcoming and inviting space for writers coming from traditionally marginalized spaces?

I often feel the biggest challenges are internal. That probably comes from my privileges — there are serious external challenges, like illness and poverty and the stresses that come from that, which will affect the marginalised disproportionately and are a huge obstacle to creativity. Put very simply, though, you need support and resources in order to be creative — including emotional support, and resources like time and emotional energy — and being from a marginalised group by definition means you have less access to support and resources.

That’s the first challenge, to link up writers from marginalised backgrounds with the support and resources to enable them to do the work, and then after that it’s a matter of getting the work out there and getting people to read it and appreciate it. I think US/UK genre has become more open to “diverse” writers and writing; there’s a genuine interest in reading work from countries outside the US/UK and hearing voices that have been historically shut out, but at the same time, people are quite lazy. That sounds harsh, but I include myself in it — your tastes are shaped by what you’ve read and watched before, and it takes a little effort to understand stories that use a different voice, that follow different storytelling conventions, that are trying to subvert the dominant paradigm. There’s a quite large group of people who are “yay diversity” in theory, but I think the number of people who have then said to themselves, “OK, if I’m committed to this, I need to start reading outside my comfort zone and making an effort” is maybe a little smaller.

I am not an activist and I don’t really have any bright ideas for addressing these issues that other people haven’t already come up with and are doing. I think we need numbers — we need lots of writers from the margins because then at least the burden of representation is shared! And we need a couple of bestsellers, to convince the industry of the commercial viability of our work. The best way to persuade the powers of be that we matter is to have some power ourselves!

Aside from novel writing, you’ve also authored a single-author collection and edited Cyberpunk Malaysia. But before these things even happened, you’d published The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo (still one of my most memorable reads). What was it that prompted you to publish Jade Yeo and offer it online for free? What are the advantages/disadvantages (if any) of doing this?

The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo is an awkward length — it’s a non-speculative short novella, around 23,000 words — and there just weren’t that many markets to submit it to. I submitted to one digital press and got rejected, so I thought, why not self-publish as an ebook? Romance is way ahead of any other genre when it comes to self-publishing — the readers are there. And I thought it would be good training to learn how to format the file for self-publication and work out where to sell the ebook and so on.

At the same time that I self-published the story as an ebook, I posted it online for free on my blog because at the time I’d just launched my website, zencho.org, and there wasn’t a huge amount on it that was new. I felt I should offer people something so they’d come and have a look at the site.

I wasn’t looking to earn a lot of money. I expect there are other approaches that would have been better for maximising profit. There’s also not a lot of prestige to self-publishing unless you sell bucketloads, though it isn’t as stigmatised as it was before e-publishing became a thing. The main thing I wanted to do was get more readers and I think it probably worked for that. People do still buy the ebook and come up to me at cons and say how much they enjoyed it, which is really beyond my expectations.

Your single author collection Spirits Abroad won the Crawford Award. It sounds like a fabulous award, btw. What was it like for you? How did you feel when you were told that you’d won it?

Happy, of course! It’s funny in a way because these awards always feel like a bit of an anticlimax at the time I’m told about them. I immediately start thinking about how little I’ve done to deserve an award, it has been months since I’ve written a story I can be proud of, I am a big fraud and will never do anything good again, etc. etc. (I mean, not that I’ve won a lot of awards, but I had  a similar reaction when I was told I’d been nominated for the Campbell.) Of course this is way more about me and my neuroses than about the awards.

I do start enjoying the award later, once I’ve got over the reaction. And actually winning the Crawford Award was nice from the get-go, despite all the stupid voices. I just suddenly felt like I must be a real writer if they were willing to give me the Crawford.

I haven’t yet read Cyberpunk Malaysia, but I’ve heard lots of good things about it. I remember how enthusiastic about this when we were at Worldcon, but we didn’t really get to talk about it after that.  I’m really curious as to what goes into putting such an anthology together. Would you talk about the process of putting this anthology together. How do you make decisions on stories to publish? I’m thinking there must also be some difficulty if you have to turn down writers you know, how did you deal with this?  

I don’t think I quite knew what I wanted the anthology to look like when I started reading the submissions for Cyberpunk: Malaysia, but I did know what I liked, so I picked stories that I liked. It’s been impossible for me to read reviews of the anthology, actually, because I feel so tender of the stories that I get really defensive — almost worse than I am about reviews of my own fiction!

I ended up with more stories that I liked than I could use in the anthology, so that’s the stage at which I started thinking about what I wanted the focus and the flow of the anthology to be. Though I tried to avoid too much repetition, I deliberately picked stories that echoed and built on each other thematically. This is also the stage at which I started looking at the identity of the authors and the protagonists, to try to ensure a balanced Table of Contents.

I did worry about the fact that the Malaysian Anglophone writing scene is so small that it was inevitable that I’d be passing on stories by writers I know and want to support. But I didn’t find that it was a problem once I started reading the submissions. Who the writers were didn’t get in the way, because I really did just focus in on my experience of the story. I read at least half of the submissions twice, though, because I wanted to be sure that I was giving every story a fighting chance on its own merits.

Hopefully the writers whose stories weren’t included in the anthology get that it is what it is, and it doesn’t mean I dislike their work. But honestly, at the end of the day, my job was not to protect their feelings. My job was to put together an anthology that was as good as I could make it.

What are the top three things you would say to writers who are just starting out?

1. Find your joy and write the things you like. Don’t worry about the market or anything like that. There’s always space for a good story.

2. Keep going. Be prepared for long periods when all you hear is “no” and it feels like nobody cares about your work. Everyone goes through this, including the most successful writers you’ve heard of.

3. Publication is nice, but ultimately it does not matter. When rejections get you down, remember that nothing can take writing away from you.

Aside from the trilogy you’re working on right now, what other projects do you have in the works or what projects do you want to work on next?

I have a fairly demanding day job and I’m still doing some promo for Sorcerer to the Crown, so it’s enough of a challenge reserving sufficient energy for writing the trilogy! All my writing energy is going into book 2 at the moment. I’d like to write a novella at some point — I’ve got a couple of ideas that might do — but when I’ll get the time for that, I don’t know.

Finally, where can we find you on the internets. 🙂

My website is http://zencho.org — it has information about my books and where you can get them. I’m zenaldehyde on Twitter and Instagram, and zenchobooks on Facebook — my Facebook account is public, but if you’d like to be added, do drop me a message letting me know who you are.

I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Zen Cho. Click on book covers to follow links to the books. We’re sharing both the UK and the US covers here as I think they’re both so pretty. Thank you for reading and thanks again to Zen for taking the time out for this conversation.

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A Process Interview with Tade Thompson

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Making Wolf, Nigerian writers, Noir, SFF, Tade Thompson

Weston Kogi, a police officer in a supermarket in London, returns to his home in West Africa for his aunt’s funeral. After catching up with his family, his ex-girlfriend Nana, and an old schoolmate over good food and plenty of beer, it seems like a bit of harmless hyperbole to tell people he works as a homicide detective. But when he his kidnapped by separate rebel factions to investigate the murder of a local hero, Papa Busi, Weston soon finds out that solving the crime may tip the country into civil war. A noir novel set in the blazing sunlight of the tropics, Making Wolf is an outrageous, frightening, violent, and sometimes surreal homecoming experience of a lifetime.

– Summary of Making Wolf as shown on Amazon.com–

Tade Thompson is one of the arresting new voices coming from the UK SFF scene today. I first met Tade at the Nine Worlds convention held in London Heathrow in 2013. We were on the same panel and long after the panel ended, I found myself thinking of the straightforward, cutting truth that this writer was saying. People say that there are pivotal moments in our lives and meeting Tade Thompson and getting to know his thoughts and his views on complex subjects such as cultural appropriation and writing as a minority in the SFF field was one of those moments for me.

Tade’s work is raw, visceral and packs quite a wallop. 

Making Wolf is Tade’s first published novel. None of his characters are spared and we see a writer intent on revealing his characters in the fullness of their humanity.

The passion behind the work shines through–a clear portent of the kind of writer Tade Thompson is well on the way to becoming.

First, I’d like to congratulate you on the publication of Making Wolf. One thing I found fascinating about this novel was what I would call resonance. I recognize the narrative of the one who returns home from away and who feels the need to create a certain impression. The way Church seizes the opportunity with your main character is also another recognizable thing.  Would you be willing to talk about the choices you made in the writing of this novel?  What issues did you struggle with and how did you overcome them?

Thank you, Rochita. It was a long road. It’s not exactly an established genre, so one has to thank Rosarium for taking that chance.

I made a deliberate choice to write the book in the noir tradition. I read a lot of Chandler and Spillane when I was young. I knew this wasn’t going to be an “African” novel as I had no interest in what is now called “The Single Story”. I wasn’t going to shy away from anything, but I was not going to conform either. Making Wolf is also a kind of memoir, You would be surprised at how many of the more surreal events actually happened.

I struggled with honesty. If you’ve read the book you’ll see that some of the scenes are…difficult, for want of a better word. I had to fight myself to put them down and to leave them there after the revisions. I also struggled with writing noir in bright sunshine, and trying to manage the collision between what is essentially an American art form and Yoruba culture. I’d like to think I managed to pull it off without coming across as neo-colonialist.

Making Wolf is a visceral novel and I wondered ( if it’s not giving away anything) if you could tell us if there was a scene that stood out for you in particular as the one that shines for you the most? What is it about the scene that makes it so?

It’s not easy to talk about this, as my favourite scenes are in the last part of the book and would definitely give things away. I can say, though, that what I like about it is the nature of the reveal. I think it subverts certain gender expectations, especially in West Africa.

What I find attractive about your work is how there’s an edge of rawness to it–it’s not raw in the sense of the work is unpolished, but it’s raw in the sense that I can practically touch the emotions on the page. In your own choice of reading matter, what are the key elements that you look for? Why?

I’m glad it comes across like that. I have no time to read or write pap. While I am interested in plot, I read for the emotions, for the humanity. I can’t stand stories or books where the writer moves characters around like chess pieces. I want to know how they feel, I want to explore their true feelings, the things they are ashamed of. That’s what rings true to me.

In my own pleasure reading I need that visceral quality, like Cormac McCarthy or Dambudzo Marechera, people who do not hold back. You don’t need to be told; you read their work and you know they just slit a vein and spilled blood on the page.

Added to the above, I wanted to ask if you have go to writers and how the works of these writers resonate or touch your own work?

I read way too much to be able to narrow this down. I hope the books and writers I enjoy just serve as spiritual influence, and that my work doesn’t come across as pastiche.

An Interview with Karin Tidbeck

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Jagganath, Karin Tidbeck

This gallery contains 2 photos.

Karin Tidbeck is one of the finest writers I’ve recently had the privilege to meet. I remember reading Jagganath and …

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Interview with Wesley Chu

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Wesley Chu

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen Tan woke up and started hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumed he was losing it.

He wasn’t.

He now has a passenger in his brain – an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans.  – excerpted blurb from Angry Robot website –

Wesley Chu’s The Lives of Tao (available through Angry Robot, as well as other outlets) was one of the 2013 reads that I enjoyed a lot. Chu’s writing is energetic and the storytelling is very well-paced. There’s something to be said too about how Chu keeps the tone of the novel lively and fresh. It never drags and one can’t help rooting for both Tao and Roen. I bought my copy of The Lives of Tao because I was intrigued by the premise and I came away quite happily surprised. It’s a very well-written first novel and it comes as no surprise to see Wesley Chu shortlisted for the 2014 John W. Campbell Award for best new writer.

With apologies for the delayed publication, I present this interview with Wesley Chu.

I found the premise behind Lives of Tao to be quite intriguing (which is why I bought the book). Would you like to share a little bit of the inspiration behind it? What was the seed for this novel and what process did it take for that seed to grow into the book it is today? 

I originally started writing The Lives of Tao to explore explaining history from the viewpoint of the man behind the curtains. What if the events that unfolded in our past happened for reasons other than what we thought they were? There are so many events that happened that didn’t make a lot of sense and I wanted to use these events to tell a new story.

An Interview with Kaaron Warren

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Dead Sea Fruit, Kaaron Warren, Slights, Walking the Tree

One of last year’s memorable reads was Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree. Perhaps because it is a much different book from Slights, but it seems to me that there wasn’t as much buzz around this book. What I like most about Kaaron’s work is how versatile it is. Kaaron’s short fiction collection, Through Splintered Walls gives us a taste of how visceral and discomforting (in a good way) her work is, but her full-on collection entitled Dead Sea Fruit (Ticonderoga Publications) gives the reader a broader view of the range and the reach of Kaaron’s voice. If you’re a lover of short dark fiction, I would definitely recommend either of these collections.

But back to Walking the Tree–which is, I admit, a strong contender for my favorite among Kaaron Warren’s works. Before the blog went on it’s hiatus, I contacted Kaaron and asked her for an interview where we talked about Walking the Tree, the process she went through in writing it and things in the works. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.

 

Walking the Tree is a much different novel from Slights. I really liked this difference and I loved the world of the Tree as well as your beautifully drawn characters. Would you like to share a bit about the inspiration for the world of the Tree?

The original idea came from a number of different sources. Most directly, I was watching a documentary about ancient objects and was struck with the thought that these things sit there, well beyond human understanding, interpretation and memory. That they exist long after their original meaning is lost. In the end, there is a disconnect between the object and its origin.
I thought that stories are this way as well; they are told and re-told, changed, adapted, edited and censored.
The image of the island came to me fully formed, with the giant, ancient Tree at its centre and people clustered in groups around it. I saw a woman walking the tree, although at that stage I didn’t know why.

Book Review: Sunburnt Faces by Shimon Adaf

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Shimon Adaf, Sunburnt Faces

Reviewed by Rowena C. Ruiz

And God Said to her, “Rise, Ori, my light, for your light has come.” 

And He let her fall from her life, although she hadn’t realized that she was at such a great height. 

And she fell.

Sunburnt Faces opens with a dramatic incident that takes place in the life of the main character, Ori, when she is at the cusp of adulthood.  God speaks to her from the TV set. This incident proves to be a defining moment for the events that follow later in life, and this experience becomes a thread which winds throughout the novel.

As we follow the events that take place during Ori’s childhood, we are also compelled to think of the incidents that have had a profound influence upon us. How do we deal with traumatic incidents? How do cope in a world that is filled with upheaval? Ori finds refuge in books. She finds herself entranced by the power of words and is herself drawn to words and to what they can do.

Adaf doesn’t shrink away from the difficult moments. We are there alongside Ori as she awakens to the harsh realities of life and loss.

When we next see Ori, she is an adult living a seemingly well adjusted life.  Adaf then gives us a glimpse of what her past life was through a series of flashbacks that are triggered by each event leading up to the crisis.  Thus we get a sense of foreboding, that not all is well with Ori and that there is more to be found beneath the surface of her calm facade. 

She is a successful writer now, and yet she is in a moment of crisis. This sense of crisis is heightened by letters coming from a childhood friend with whom she has lost contact. These letters give us a clearer picture of how Ori ‘s experiences shaped her into the person she has become.  Sunburnt Faces evoked in me feelings of compassion and sadness and even a sense of outrage for what Ori had to go through as a child.  Yet there is also that sense of hope that Ori will finally be able to come to terms with what has happened, face her demons and truly emerge from the shadows to become the woman that she is truly meant to be.

Ori’s story is also our story. Like her we all have our dark side.  For many of us, our dark side horrifies and terrifies us.  It is the part of us that we try to keep hidden because we fear the judgment of others if that part of us were known.  Yet at the same time, we cannot live without the dark side.  It is a part of us and for as long as we live we will not get rid of it.   If we continue to deny it then we risk becoming like Ori who distances herself from those who love her.  It is in the acceptance of who we are both the light and dark sides that we can begin our journey to living a full and whole life under the light of the sun.

Sunburnt Faces is one of the best books we’ve read this year. Shimon Adaf is an interesting writer and we look forward to reading more of his work as it comes into translation.

Sunburnt Faces will be out on November 1st through PS Publishing.  SF Signal has a synopsis of the novel here.

Book Review: The Grass King’s Concubine by Kari Sperring

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Fantasy, Kari Sperring, The Grass King's Concubine

Reviewed by Rowena C. Ruiz

The Grass King’s Concubine chronicles Aude Pelerin de Puiz’s quest to trace her roots and to find the source of her family’s wealth.  As a child, she has been told that her wealth originated in the steppes and as the family’s wealth increased, the family moved away from the region.  Aude also experiences first contact with the World Below in the aftermath of an earthquake.  This sparks her curiosity and embarks on a search to find out if this world, shrouded in legend, really exists.  Drawn into her quest is Jehan Favre,   a city guard who later becomes her husband.  Events conspire to draw him and Aude into the World Below, where they find that what happens there is intertwined with the events of the World Above.

Two themes in the novel caught my attention.  The first concerns the power that words and ideas have on people.  In the story, it is Marcellan who provides the catalyst that brings about change.  In the World Below, his words leave their mark on the city and his ideas inspire Liyan to invent a printing press and a clepsydra.  In the World Above, his writings inspire the Eschappes, reformers and rebels in the Brass City, to fight for the rights of the working class.  It is his work that inspires the twins Yelena and Julana to bargain with Aude’s ancestress so that they can find a way back to the World Below after being exiled.  It is his words that sparks Aude’s curiosity and sets her feet on the path that brings her to a collision with the inhabitants of the World Below.

The other theme highlighted in the story is that actions have consequences and they affect people and the environment.   Aude’s story and that of the World Below seem to be separate from each other but their stories become connected because of the actions of others.  Thus, the Cadre sees Aude as the solution to the disappearance of water in the World Below.   In reality however, it is the actions of the inhabitants of the World Below that have brought about this disaster.  Liyan with his impulsiveness and inquisitiveness does not consider the consequences of publishing Marcellan’s work, Qiaqia, in her desire to be free, breaks the clepsydra’s mechanism but does not foresee that Tsai’s waters will be affected by her actions.   But it is Julana and Yelena’s action of trading a piece of stone belonging to the World Below and some water from the Lefmay’ s source that bring Aude and Jehan under the influence of the World Below.   Each person had their own motives, never thinking about the effect it would have on their city.

Kari’s work helps us to see that we need to exercise caution in the things we say and do.  We must not forget that we are not alone in our journey.  There are other who travel with us, friends, family and even strangers whose lives will be affected by what we do.   Words and ideas, and actions:  these are powerful tools that can shape or break the future.  Do we use them wisely and judiciously?  When those who come after us, look at what we have done and said, will they be inspired to greatness?  Or will they perpetuate the cycle of hurt, abuse and exploitation that have plagued our race for centuries untold?  We must remember that these things are also part of the legacy and heritage we will leave behind and it behooves us to consider the possible outcomes.

Initially I thought that it would be nice if this book would have a sequel as Aude’s journey has just begun.  On second thought though, I think it is good to leave it that way.  Her journey is ours as well and we hold in our hands the answer to what the future holds.

Rating: 5 charms

Book Review: Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias

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Crossed Genres Publication, First novel, Ink, Sabrina Vourvoulias

Reviewed by Rochita C. Ruiz

“Ledes are opening words, leading is the space between lines, and leads are the embryonic matter of stories.”

This is how Ink begins. It tells the story of a dystopic near-future from the point of view of four major characters, Finn, Mari, Del and Abbie.

The Ink in Vourvoulias’s title refers to the identity tattoos which are given to temporary residents and to citizens with a recent migrant history.

Finn, a reporter, is following the lead to a story which brings him back to his old parish church. There he meets his parish priest, Father Tom, and it is there where he meets Mari for the first time.

It is through Finn’s eyes that we are first drawn into the world of the inked. It is through his eyes that we are first made to see the privilege owned by those who are not inked as opposed to those who are inked like Mari.

Vourvoulias’s Ink is a complex novel. It is social and political and it is clearly informed not only by history but also by present political events. Vourvoulias tackles the subjects of genocide and xenophobia and while Vourvoulias’s characters all own magic to some degree, it isn’t a magic that magically saves them or the world, but it is a magic that helps them to heal and become stronger in the face of the suffering and the opposition they must endure.

Much of what takes place in Ink feels like it could really happen. The treatment accorded to the inks, for instance, is reminiscent of the growing xenophobic atmosphere in the US as well as in other western countries today. And the harsh and inhumane treatment accorded to those found or suspected as not being registered inks reminds me of stories told about the treatment accorded to those who dare to cross the American border from Mexico.

Vourvoulias has strong authorial voice. Her writing style is clean and crisp, engaging the reader on an emotional level without being over the top.  Ink is not an easy read, but I do feel that it is a necessary read.

We give this novel 5 charms.

*This novel was purchased from Amazon. Clicking on the image will get you there.

**Ink is published by Crossed Genres Publication. You can find them here.

Book Review: The Age of Ice by J. M. Sidorova

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J. M. Sidorova, The Age of Ice

 Reviewed by Rowena C. Ruiz

Sidorova’s book the Age of Ice is an epic story spanning two centuries.  It explores the life of on Prince Alexander  Velitsyn who was born with a special power – the ability to make ice.  Unfortunately, this ability has a drawback:  the more he feels emotions, the more ice he makes.   This becomes a barrier to having normal relationships with others.  He learns to become controlled and reserved in the expression of his emotions, so as not to injure others.  His twin Andrei, however, has no such problems and goes on to marry and have a son.  Despairing of ever having a normal life, Alexander embarks on a quest to find out what he truly is and how he can control or get rid of his ability.

The book chronicles Alexander’s attempts come to terms with his extraordinary ability.  While some of us would regard such power as a blessing, Alexander looks upon it as a curse because it prevents him from living a normal life.  In truth, his struggle and journey is more with himself.  The only time that Alexander seems to have accepted that his ability can be a blessing is during his married years with Anna, who has accepted him for what he is.  However, after Anna’s death, Alexander is burdened by guilt and embarks on a journey in search of self once more.

Alexander’s struggle is a reflection of the struggle that we have within ourselves.  Like Alexander, we struggle with facets in our personality and make-up that frighten us.  Just like Alexander, we long for love and acceptance.  Just like Alexander, there lurks the fear that if those around us knew the full extent of who and what we can be, rejection and loneliness.  Thus we sometimes go to extremes to conceal the “dark side” of who we are.  We wear masks and seek to mold ourselves into something that others perceive us to be.  We deny the less desirable parts of ourselves and live a life of pretense.

In time Alexander learns to accept that his talent is an integral part of who he is and achieves a measure of peace.   He finds that the thing he feared the most is not necessarily a curse but can be used and harnessed to the benefit of mankind.  So too with us, when we learn to accept who we are both the bad and good parts, then our outlook changes.  Instead of looking inward and watching out for ourselves, our worldview expands to include those around us.  Like Alexander, we too find that those facets of our personality that we fear the most are not so fearful after all and can be harnessed for the common good.

This is the first work of Sidorova that I’ve read and I found myself empathizing with Alexander.  His fear of rejection held him back from sharing his condition with others, but that did not stop him from looking for those who would unconditionally accept him.  Thus the book is also a call for us to be sensitive to others’ needs and situations.  While we may not always understand or approve the actions of others, we must learn to look beyond actions to the real person beneath and accept for who they truly are.  It may be that our acceptance of them will be the motivation that they need to step out from the shadows and reveal who they really are.

We give this book a rating of 4 charms.

The Age of Ice is published by Simon and Schuster and is available through various book vendors.  For this review, we were granted a review copy via netgalley.

Book Review: On a Red Station Drifting by Aliette de Bodard

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Aliette de Bodard, On a Red Station Drifting

Reviewed by Rowena C. Ruiz

Have you ever lived with a relative you’ve met for the first time?  What was that experience like?  Aliette’s On a Red Station Drifting records what happens when the Le Thi family meets one of their relatives for the first time.  

The encounter takes place when Linh comes to Prosper Station seeking refuge.  The Ancestress, the Mind that manages the planet, accepts Linh, but Quyen, the System Administrator is wary of her. Linh does not fit the mold of a refugee and so Quyen seeks to put her in her place – to mold her into something she is not.

What follows is a clash of wills as Linh and Quyen struggle to assert themselves.  Added to this is the tension that is generated by the realization that the Ancestress is malfunctioning.  There is also the problem of missing mem-implants, a visit from a Grand Mastery of Design Harmony and the imminent arrival of the Emperor’s Embroidered Guard.  The last event is alarming because it could spell the annihilation of the Le Thi family.

Throughout the book, we see the similarities between Linh and Quyen. Both of them occupy positions of authority and are used to being in control . Linh as a Magistrate and Quyen as System Administrator of Prosper Station. Both women hide insecurities and uncertainties about their lives.   Linh has guilty feelings of leaving Planet Twenty-Three because it was threatened by the imminent invasion of rebel forces.  Added to this are the feelings of loneliness and awkwardness that come from being a newcomer to a family that she is just getting to know.   She struggles to fit in but her former position as Magistrate makes this difficult.

Quyen, on the other hand,  has attained her position because she is the lesser partner in a great marriage. Her feelings of insecurity and uncertainty are brought to the fore when she meets Linh.  This is what motivates her to make life on the Station uncomfortable for Linh.   Knowing that the Ancestress is failing, she battles fear and loneliness at the thought of losing her.

Both Linh and Quyen use the façade of pride and arrogance as a defense mechanism to hide their feelings.  These attitudes lead to misunderstanding and resentment of each other.  Both however, realize that if something drastic is not done, their family could be destroyed.  Both of them decide that something must change if they are to save the family and the station.  As Linh puts it:  “…. a family might quarrel but should never tear itself apart.”

This is the second de Bodard book that I’ve read.  I definitely recommend that others read it too.  What stands out is the emphasis on family relationships and how we interact with each other. We are presented with the challenge to look beyond the obvious, to see the real person that lies behind the masks we wear.  We are also forced to examine ourselves and question our motives on how we treat those whom we meet for the first time.  Are the judgment calls that we make always true?  And as an extension of our families, we too must ask ourselves, how to we treat the rest of humanity as a whole?  For the reality is, that the whole of the human race is one big family.

Rating: 5 charms

There are two different editions of On A Red Station Drifting. The e-book edition has a different cover from the print edition. We purchased an ebook copy for the sake of this review.

You can purchase a print copy of On a Red Station Drifting from Amazon or from Immersion Press.