Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor is a stand-alone science fantasy novella, set in near future Ghana. It tells the story of a girl who is alone and feared and, for a large part of the story, nomadic.

"She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own."

The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa­­--a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past.

Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks--alone, except for her fox companion--searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers.

But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

I requested this novella for review because I've enjoyed Okorafor's other work, especially the Binti series of novellas. However, I wasn't sure what to expect, since the blurb makes it sound very different from Binti. After reading, I can say that, it is and it isn't. Fatima/Sankofa undergoes an intensely traumatic event at a young age, leaving her alone. Magic helps keep her safe, physically at least. 

Sankofa's story is not told entirely chronologically, which works very well for this context. I liked the way in which aspects of her life were revealed piece by piece. I also liked the worldbuilding that went into the story. From the shea tree Sankofa climbed as a child to the towns, cities and homes she encounters during her travels, Okorafor paints very clear pictures of the settings. The contrasts between rural and urban settings is especially stark. While Sankofa is in the forest, it is easy to forget that this story is actually set in the future. The advanced technology present in the city is a stark contrast, and reminds us that there is more going on in the background of the story than what we most frequently see from the tight focus on Sankofa.

I really enjoyed this story. I highly recommend it to fans of science fantasy and speculative fiction generally. I'm not usually a fan of science fantasy but this one really worked for me. If you enjoyed Okorafor's other works, especially the Binti series (since I have not yet read any of her longer works, I can't compare those), I highly recommend Remote Control.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: January 2021
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas

The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas is the author's debut novel. I grabbed it because the blurb and cover grabbed me but I went in with a bit of trepidation, not knowing what to expect. As it turned out, I needed have worried. This was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to just about everyone.

1967: Four young female scientists invent a time travel machine in their remote lab in Cumbria. They become known as the pioneers: the women who led the world to a future where no knowledge is unattainable.

2016: Ruby Rebello knows that her beloved grandmother was one of the pioneers, but she refuses to talk about her past. Ruby's curiosity soon turns to fear however, when a newspaper clipping from four months in the future arrives in the post. The clipping reports the brutal murder of an unnamed elderly lady.

Could the woman be her Granny Bee?

This book is set in a world where time travel was invented in 1967 and is now, in the early twenty-first century, a normal part of life. It's a more common and established part of society than, say, space travel is, with a large British organisation overseeing the system and policing time travellers across the timeline. The story follows the inventors of time travel and some of the younger generation that come into contact with it one way or another.

A central plot element is a locked-room murder, which is discovered by one of the characters and for which both victim and perpetrator and initially mysterious. Mental illness and psychology are also central to the plot. The book examines the psychological effects of time travel and what underlying conditions they may exacerbate, as well as sensitively dealing with a traumatised character. There's also the psychology of time traveller culture, which is very interesting and disturbing and also central to the plot.

As might be expected from a book about time travel, The Psychology of Time Travel is told out of chronological order, with relatively short chapters that are only a scene or two long. While the purpose of each chapter wasn't necessarily obvious while reading it, they quickly slotted together to form a larger picture. The book is also well-written enough so as to be interesting even when I wasn't sure how a particular scene was linked to the whole. This intricate mosaic of story is what impressed me most about this book and made for an unexpectedly excellent read.

One last thing I want to mention is what the author has done with the gender distribution of characters. Basically, she's written a gender swapped reality so that all the key characters — all four time travel pioneers and all the other point of view characters — are female. I can only think of one male character that wasn't there as someone's father or husband, including most of the background characters (though there were a couple of male secretaries). I didn't realise this immediately, but it was a fun change of pace to play "spot the male character" rather than the reverse.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Psychology of Time Travel and found it to be an excellent read. I recommend it to anyone who doesn't hate time travel or women and enjoys some psychological exploration in their reads. It's particularly impressive for a debut novel and I am very interested to see what Mascarenhas brings us in the future.

5 / 5 stars

First published: August 2018, Head of Zeus
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Short stories 21 to 25

Two stories in this batch written as something like diary entries: the first and the last, and they couldn't be more different. One is told through a cooking blog during a pandemic, while the other is disturbing diary entries during an alien war. In between there was time travel, spaceships made from humans connecting a vast colonial empire, and some kind of transcendence.

So Much Cooking by Naomi Kritzer — This is the story of a flu pandemic told through the medium of a food (cooking) blog. It pulled me into the story as soon as I opened it and, despite not being into food or particularly interested in the recipes, I couldn’t put it down. A surprisingly good piece of writing. Source: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_11_15/

Oblivion is a Crease Left By Memory by Chen Qiufan — Following the theme of a flight that lands 20 years in the future, this story is about an artist who was going to run an exhibit in San Francisco. Instead, they learn about a new form of art made possible by technology that taps into your brain and experiences. I found it an interesting read and not what I expected (the previous story I read from this anthology, by Charlie Jane Anders, had a very different, comical vibe). Source: https://seat14c.com/future_ideas/17F?utm_source=author&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=seat14c&utm_content=ChenQiufan

These Constellations Will Be Yours by Elaine Cuyegkeng — A story of colonialism and a future where spaceships are built from a particular group of people. Told from the perspective of one of the ships watching a woman who was not similarly made into a ship. I really liked the ideas in this story though it wasn’t a happy read. Source: http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/these-constellations-will-be-yours/

Worlds Like a Hundred Thousand Pearls by Aliette de Bodard — Eh. A flash piece about grief and transcendence. It was OK but didn’t really grab me. Source: http://dailysciencefiction.com/hither-and-yon/the-numbers-quartet/aliette-de-bodard/worlds-like-a-hundred-thousand-pearls

Diary of War by Joyce Chng — Somewhere between a prose-poem and diary entries, this story tells about war waged by alien invaders, who turn out to be very invasive. The sparse style is moving, especially with this subject matter. Source: http://www.anathemamag.com/diary-of-war

The Impossible Story of Olive in Love by Tonya Alexandra

The Impossible Story of Olive in Love by Tonya Alexandra is an Australian authored YA book that I came across thanks to my role in the Australian Women Writers Challenge blog. The premise grabbed me immediately — a girl who is invisible to everyone except her true love in a contemporary setting and with a blind best friend (who doesn't believe she's invisible).

I get that I’m impossible.

I get that I’m mad and rude — perhaps even a drama queen at times.

But you’d be impossible if you lived my life ... You’d be impossible if you were invisible. Shakespeare was an idiot. Love is not blind. Love is being seen.

Plagued by a gypsy curse that she’ll be invisible to all but her true love, seventeen-year-old Olive is understandably bitter. Her mother is dead; her father has taken off. Her sister, Rose, is insufferably perfect. Her one friend, Felix, is blind and thinks she’s making it all up for attention.

Olive spends her days writing articles for her gossip column and stalking her childhood friend, Jordan, whom she had to abandon when she was ten because Jordan’s parents would no longer tolerate an ‘imaginary friend’. Nobody has seen her — until she meets Tom: the poster boy for normal and the absolute opposite of Olive.

But how do you date a boy who doesn’t know you’re invisible? Worse still, what happens when Mr Right feels wrong? Has destiny screwed up? In typical Olive fashion, the course is set for destruction. And because we’re talking Olive here, the ride is funny, passionate and way, way, way, way dramatic.

This story is for anyone who’s ever felt invisible.

This story is for anyone who sees the possible in the impossible.

This story is told in first person by the very melodramatic Olive. It's reasonably fast-paced and felt very quick to read. In fact, it did not take me very long, even though I was at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki without very much spare time to read and not as much downtime as usual in the evenings. Olive tells her story in a pretty whiney and self-centred way, but it's an entertaining voice and she does get called on all of her crap at some point.

The only somewhat questionable aspect of the book was the "gypsy curse" part, but otherwise it was extremely enjoyable. The premise of invisible girl who can only be seen by her true love is quickly explored when said alleged true love shows up near the start, and Olive spends a lot of the book learning how to human, more or less. Only part of that is because of the invisibility; she also hasn't had much experience interacting with people outside of her family other than as a stalker.

Her character development was interesting, as was how the book treated romance. On the one hand, this boy is apparently her true love because the gypsy curse said so, but on the other hand, Olive is only seventeen (the boy is twenty) which is obviously a bit too early to settle down. I really liked how that and the romance generally was resolved (especially since it could have gone in several less satisfying ways.

I highly recommend The Impossible Story of Olive in Love to fans of YA and especially speculative YA. It has a very strong teenaged voice, so it's not something I would particularly recommend to general spec fic fans who are not also fans of YA.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: March 2017, Harlequin Teen (Aus)
Series: No
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased on Kobo
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders is a Hugo Award shortlisted novel that I remember hearing a lot about when it first came out, but which I didn't bother reading at that time because I wasn't entirely sure I'd like it. I am very glad that lots of other people liked it and nominated it for a Hugo, because it means I finally did read it and it was great.

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.

But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them. Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention into the changing global climate. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's ever-growing ailments. Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together--to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.

One of the great things about this book is that it is genuinely both science fiction and fantasy. (And not in the space fantasy way that annoys me.) Of the two main characters, one is a witch and one is a mad scientist making crazy gadgets. The story alternates their points of view and tells their story on sweeping scales, starting from their childhoods and running up to their mid-twenties. There are talking birds, time machines, sentient trees, and artificial intelligence. Really, this book has everything, including a writing style that draws you in and keeps you turning pages.

And including compelling characters. Patricia and Laurence start off as social outcasts with crappy parents — actually, Patricia's parents put me in mind of the Dursleys — who end up friends because they don't have anyone else. Various aspects of their painful childhoods are the real low point of the book. Their middle school years take place in roughly our present, I think, and so a ten year jump forward in time places the story in a science fictional near future. With Patricia being a witch and Laurence a mad genius, they are both star-crossed and fated to know each other. And suffering a lot of angst from both possibilities.

All the Birds in the Sky also pits science/technology and magic against each other and does so in a way that, astoundingly, doesn't piss me off. (Because usually when these things come up the message from the author is science/technology = bad, magic/nature = good.) We are shown the flaws and strengths of both and, in the privileged position of the reader, we get to see the way both misunderstand the other. The resolution of the science versus magic conflict is also awesome. For a book that started off quirky and entertaining and mostly almost fun and focussing on the small scale of Patricia and Laurence's friendship and their personal situations, it ends up on a surprisingly epic scale.

I really enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky and I'm really glad the Hugo awards pushed me into reading it. I highly recommend it to all fans of fantasy and science fiction, especially in contemporary or near-future settings. I will certainly be keeping an eye out for Anders's other work. All the Birds in the Sky is a dizzying and awesome story.

5 / 5 stars

First published: 2016, Tor
Series: No, don't think so
Format read: ePub
Source: from the Hugo packet

Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond

Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond is a licensed fiction novel set in it's own version of the DC universe. As should be obvious from the title, it's about Lois Lane, the reporter will work with Clarke Kent (aka Superman) at the Daily Planet when she grows up. It's set when she's in high school and has just moved to Metropolis with her family, now that her army general dad has gotten a permanent posting. It's not quite set in the same universe as any other Superman property that I'm aware of; it puts teen Lois in our near future.

Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over—and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive videogame they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname, SmallvilleGuy.

Fallout was a fun read, which is pretty much what I expected from it. Lois is the new girl at school and sees herself as a permanent outsider because her family moves so much. Despite this, she quickly makes friends and finds an underdog to defend. We also see her coming into her own as a junior journalist (junior as in, it's kind of a high school programme).

When I was adding this book to Goodreads, I couldn't help but notice a review in which someone was complaining that Superman/Clarke wasn't in the book (a great disappointment to that reviewer). Given that complaint, I was quite surprised at how much SmallvilleGuy was in the story. He might not have shown up at Lois's school in person but he was absolutely the second most prominent character in the story — Lois spends a lot of time chatting with him online.

Fallout was a very self-contained book and I don't think you even had to know the whole Lois Lane/Clarke Kent schtick to enjoy it. (But surely everyone knows that right? If not, you do now!) I am much less in touch with the DC universe/s than I am with the Marvel cannon and I had no trouble understanding what was happening. It's really just a YA science fiction novel that happens to have two popular characters at the centre of it (and a bunch of new characters who are basically just ordinary high school kids).

I enjoyed Fallout and I will definitely be reading the sequel when I can get my hands on it. Anyone after a fun YA read with a bit of creepy conspiracy and a whole lot of kick-arse heroine thrown in should absolutely try to track it down. My copy was a US import (that may have circumnavigated the globe) but apparently it's coming out in the Commonwealth in March for easier access.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2015, Switch Press
Series: Yes. Book 1, book 2 is coming, beyond that not sure. Also, obviously set in a DC universe
Format read: Hardcover. *GASP*
Source: Present

The Back of the Back of Beyond by Edwina Harvey

The Back of the Back of Beyond by Edwina Harvey is an unusual collection. Somewhere between a collection of stories set in the same universe and short novel. I would say that in general each story/chapter (they are called chapters in the book) feels most like an episodic instalment. It put me in mind of a TV show in that respect.

Come and join the Party!
Through her short stories “No Pets Allowed”, “Get Me to The Worldcon on Time” , “My Sweet 286” and “Party”, Edwina Harvey introduced her readers to a world where flatmates discover the difficulties of raising young dragons in small suburban apartments, where “flying” to a science fiction convention takes on a whole new meaning, and where “the next door neighbours” on an Australian rural backblock are out of this world, but the parties are legendary. Now collected here for the first time, these stories are interwoven with seven new tales set in the same universe.

Come and be introduced to a rural Australian landscape you never knew existed somewhere out in the back of the back of beyond.

I started off commenting on each story as I usually do, but some of them were more like chapters/instalments than self contained stories, so I was a bit haphazard in doing so. I think, ultimately, this is a collection best considered as a whole rather than on a story-by-story basis.

Written as a sort of alternate-reality autobiography, the stories deal with the mundanities of life made more exciting by the addition of dragons or aliens (usually). The opening story, "No Pets Allowed" recounts the story of a troublesome past flatmate who left, not because of the weird parties he used to throw, but because of the pet dragon he acquired. The same ex-flatmate causes difficulties in getting to the Melbourne Worldcon on time, and so forth. The stories are fannish in the sense that they deal with SFF fans and geeks and more or less tell a story of geeky wish-fulfilment. I mean, who doesn't want a friend with a dragon (so long as you don't have to deal with the dragon poop yourself) or to make friends with aliens?

The Back of the Back of Beyond was a fun read. It wasn't laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it definitely had me sniggering or chuckling on several occasions. I am intrigued by the serialised/episodic form of the storytelling and, in general, would like to see more of that sort of think around. OK so maybe I'm biased because I'm working on something like that myself, but that's beside the point. This is the first substantial work I've read by Harvey (not counting her editing, I might have read a short story somewhere, but I'm not entirely certain) and based on this I would definitely consider reading more. I recommend this book to fans of "odd" humorous SFF and anyone looking for a light-hearted read, especially if the idea of stories with strong influences from Aussie fan culture appeals.

~

1. No Pets Allowed — a snigger-worthy story, told in the form of a housemate interview. As in, the narrator is telling you, the reader/prospective renter, about the previous housemate and, in particular, why there’s a giant scorch mark on the wall of your would-be room.
2. Get Me To The Worldcon On Time — How one gets to the Worldcon when one’s crazy dragon-riding friend drops by to delay you. A bit of recapping of the previous story at the start was annoying (but understandable since it was originally published by itself), but otherwise, another amusing and enjoyable story.
3. The ‘R’ Word — The main character is made redundant and buys a property out west (no, further west, further than that, no not as far as Perth). This place is the titular back of the back of beyond. Moving shenanigans ensue.
4. Seeing The Light (When The Fridge Door’s Open) — Bean, the one with the dragon, helps her set up solar panels in the middle of nowhere.
5. Move Your Ass — in which our protagonist attempts not to purchase equines.
6. Meet The Neighbours — in which our protagonist discovers something odd on the neighbours' property.
7. Painters And Decorators — in which our protagonist plays host to artist friends on retreat
8. Party With My Sweet 286 — in which aliens upgrade our protagonists 286 laptop (in a world where farmers have iPads), but we never learn how it was able to connect to the internet before the aliens came along. Also there's a large party. An enjoyable read and one of the longer instalments.
9. Dragoncats — in which our protagonist tires of having young dragons around.
10. Neighbourhood Watch — in which a journalist attempts to write a story on UFOs sighted near our protagonist's property.

• A Cast Of Thousands!!! — not a story, but it explains how some of the characters correspond to the author's family and friends. Apparently, she sold appearances to fund the production of the book. A neat idea, especially for these sorts of stories.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2013, Peggy Bright Books
Series: No
Format read: eBook
Source: review copy received from the publisher/editor
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Adaptation by Malinda Lo is the first book in the author's YA science fiction series. I have previously reviewed Ash, which was a lesbian retelling of Cinderella. Adaptation is set in the almost-present in the US.

Flocks of birds are hurling themselves at aeroplanes across America. Thousands of people die. Millions are stranded. Everyone knows the world will never be the same.

On Reese's long drive home, along a stretch of empty highway at night, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won't tell them what happened.

For Reese, though, this is just the start. She can't remember anything from the time between her accident and the day she woke up almost a month later. She only knows one thing: she's different now. Torn between longtime crush David and new girl Amber, the real question is: who can she trust?

I had mixed feelings about this book. Some of the time it was a mix of irritation and meh, but ultimately I enjoyed the read, I just didn't love it. I'll say up front that I do intend to read the sequel when it becomes accessible.

The first thing that irritated me was the airport scene at the start. After — as the blurb says — flocks of birds hurl themselves into aeroplanes, all the flights in the US are grounded and no one in the airport the main characters are stuck at behaves like sensible travellers would in that situation. It wasn't particularly relevant to the plot but it annoyed me. Especially when Reese's friend tells her they're worried airports are going to run out of food because they can't fly more in. WTF? She's at Phoenix Airport, a reasonable-sized city. Also, food is generally shipped to airports in trucks, especially when they're in cities (I mean, maybe super-remote ones, OK, but that is not the case here). Anyway, as I said, it wasn't relevant to the plot, but it pissed me off, not least because of the amount of time I've spent in airports of late.

Most of the book leaves the the science fictional aspect on the back-burner and focuses on Reese recovering from the car accident and Reece's budding relationship with Amber. I found this part of the book enjoyable but a little bland, apart from the hints of weird stuff having happened post-accident. The action picks up again as Reece and friends start investigating why her and David's accident treatment is so top secret.

There was a particular trope used during the climax — I won't say what because spoilers, but it wasn't a YA-specific trope — which I am sick of seeing and which almost pushed the book down half a star. But Lo subverts it quite satisfyingly, which salvaged the ending nicely.

There wasn't a love triangle in this book — although Reece had two love interests — and I liked the very accepting way everyone treated Reece's relationship with Amber. It was nice to see a homosexual relationship not being treated as a big deal, which I think is exactly what Lo was going for. I have to say, though, I felt ambivalent about Amber as a character.

Ultimately, it was a pleasant read, though not a remarkable one. I liked it, but I did love it. I recommend it to YA fans, especially those looking for a bisexual main character, which doesn't come up in many books (I can only think of one other series off the top of my head). I hope the science fiction element is stronger in the sequel, as that was the aspect I found most interesting.

4 / 5 stars

First published: April 2014, Hodder Children's Books in the UK/ANZ and 2012, Little, Brown Books in the US
Series: Yes. Adaptation series, book one of two so far.
Format read: eARC of UK/ANZ version (mind you, it retains US spelling, of course, apart from the blurb)
Source: (ANZ) publisher via NetGalley