Liar - Justine Larbalastier

I originally read about Liar on BoingBoing. Young Adult urban fantasy with an unreliable narrator. Except that by the time it showed up on my doorstep I had totally forgotten about the fantasy aspect, and so I started reading this thinking that it was just strait up fiction, which made things even better.

Micah is a compulsive liar, and she's narrating the story. The format is something along the lines of a journal, being written after the events in question have taken place. But the journal doesn't appear to be a private journal, necessarily, and so there's definitely a question of how honest Micah is being. Especially when you get to a new chapter and she starts by apologizing for lying, and clarifying where the lies were in the previous chapter. There are chapter segments, tagged with titles like "Before", "After", and "Family history" which helps a lot in keeping track of what's going on. The event they refer to is the death of a boy who was killed, possibly murdered, and who had been in some sort of a relationship with Micah.

It feels fairly obvious right off the bat that Micah didn't kill Zach. She is horrified and traumatized by his death, and yet she's lying about many of the things surrounding his death, and often lying to the authorities. Some of these lies feel very much like a just a confused teenager - telling one story to the authorities who she has been taught to distrust, another to Zach's official girlfriend who she feels, sorry for, threatened by, and weirdly attracted to, and yet another story for her parents. But most teenagers (I think) have a tendency to be honest with the police, especially when there's a murder investigation underway. Especially when someone they loved is dead, and they aren't responsible.

Obviously there's a twist, and yet I totally missed all the hints in the first half of the book, and it took me a while to actually believe Micah once she finally revealed what was actually going on. Micah is so adept at lying and filling in those little details that make lies convincing. When I outlined the story to Sky he saw the twist immediately because I didn't include those little details.

Her unreliability makes the story fascinating. I'm still not entirely clear on some of the details of the story - specifically surrounding her younger brother. Turns out that lying about having lied about something is quite convincing too. By the end of the story you know that Micah is a liar, you've been lied to often enough that you can't just relax and trust her, and yet she is being more honest with you now than ever.

This is a lovely story, twisty and turney and totally satisfying. And way more true than if it had just been told factually without all the lies. Because lies are the foundation of Micah's life, and once you start to be able to see through the lies, and understand why she is lying and what she lies about, you're able to understand her in a way that you never could otherwise.

Five Odd Honors - Jane Lindskold

The first half of this book is just a simple continuation of the previous book. The Orphans have created the Nine Gates (actually, they made the first gate, then rescued the guardians who created the rest of the gates for them), but in order to open the final gate into the Lands, they need to have a representative of each of the 12 Earthly Branches, so they continue in their attempts to contact the ghosts of the original exiles for those five branches whose descendants have lapsed. There are some very unexpected challenges to overcome, and some things which should be challenges which wind up being unexpectedly easy. The practical upshot is that we wind up with five new characters who were the original exiles. One of them, Loyal Wind, the Horse, actually becomes a POV character which is pretty fascinating because he didn't spend much time in our world, but he has had most of a century of experience as a ghost which has definitely impacted the person he is now.

Pearl and Brenda remain POV characters, but we lose Honey Dream which makes sense as she is now definitely on the same side as the Orphans and is generally in the same physical location as Pearl. Once the gates are opened they discover that all is not as expected in the Lands, and so a group of scouts are chosen to go through and figure out what exactly is going on. It is now September, and real life goes on even though exciting things are still happening, so Brenda winds up back at school which leads to some interesting exploration of the other side of her heritage. I was expecting a giant conflict to come of this, especially because it is hinted at all throughout the first book, and practically set up in the second book, but instead of conflict there is cooperation. The conflict arises from an entirely unexpected quarter and focuses around Pearl Bright.

The ending to this story is good and wraps up the trilogy nicely. There are still a ton of open questions, but I think that will always be the case at the end of a good fantasy story. The ending to the story occurs once most of the major questions regarding the folks from our world have been answered, but before everyone has gone back to life as usual. This was pretty satisfying as I could imagine several different ways in which things play out once people try to get on with their lives, and there are tons of possibilities open for everyone. I'm really hoping this isn't the end though. I'm still really wrapped up in the characters. I want to know what happens in the Lands next, I want to know how things with Flying Claw turn out, I want to know what Brenda chooses to do next, I want to watch Lani grow up, I want to see whether the relationship between the Orphans and the other indigenous magical traditions changes now that they are no longer Orphaned.

So, Jane Lindskold, here's hoping that you decide to write another trilogy in this world!

Nine Gates - Jane Lindskold

This story made much more sense once I realized it was the second in the series and not the first! The two groups which were opposing each other in the first book are now working together to return to the Lands of Smoke and Sacrifice. In order to do this they need to construct the Nine Gates in order to travel through the Guardian Realms and reach the Lands. The Gates must also be linked to the Nine Yellow Springs which are located in Hell (Chinese version which is quite different than the usual Western versions of Hell - but still the afterlife). They will also need a representative from each of the Earthly Branches in order to accomplish this, but some of the descendants of the original exiles are no longer aware of their lineage, and so the spirits of their ancestors must be contacted and persuaded to assist.

This is a great story with a nice balance between the ordinary familiar world - including conflicts with the followers of other magical traditions, some of whom would really like to learn their peculiar style of magical workings, and journeys into the fantastical Guardian Realms. The juxtaposition of high fantasy and everyday life keeps things moving at a nice pace.

I really enjoyed the character development. Honey Dream (originally from the Lands) joins Pearl Bright and Brenda Morris as one of the narrators and her perspective is fascinating. It is really neat to get the contrast between the two cultures. The conflict between Honey and Brenda is great, mostly very subtle and centered around Flying Claw - Honey Dream's professed "beloved" who appears to be quite interested in Brenda, while Brenda is simultaneously attracted and repulsed. The relationships between these characters are fairly central, and yet the relationships between the other characters are not neglected. There is a lot of conflict between Gaheris (Brenda's father, the Rat) and Albert Wu, descendant of the exiled emperor, which deepens here and is explained to some degree. Then there's the oddity about Brenda - she has access to more magic than she should, and she's being contacted by other magical beings who claim to have a long relationship with her mother's side of the family, originally from Ireland.

One thing I especially enjoyed is the inclusion of Lani, the Rabbit's 2.5 year old daughter. She is living in Pearl's house along with most of the others, and needs to be cared for even when crazy things are going on. At one point her mother, Nissa, has gone to the Guardian Realms with a group of others, and has left Lani at Pearl's house. When she returns, she finds that Lani has been sent to stay with Waking Lizard and Righteous Drum, while Pearl and the other Orphans were off doing something dangerous. As a mother I think I would have been really distressed to find that my young daughter had been sent of to spend the night in the care of two older men who were currently allies but had not always been. There were magical treaties in place which prevented them from offering any harm to Lani, so she was perfectly safe, but I could imagine many children not coping particularly well in this situation. However it did illuminate some things about Waking Lizard and Righteous Drum's characters - they really are good guys, and both love children, and I found it very interesting that at every point during the story Lani is accounted for. She has never just been abandoned, assumed to be taken care of offstage. I'm not entirely sure why I like this so much, it leads to lots of unnecessary details, and yet it is a constant reminder that just because there is a crazy fantasy quest going on the real world doesn't just grind to a halt while you deal with the crisis. The level of detail involved in the food everyone is eating, and the living arrangements for this large and eccentric group takes up a lot of time, but I think it really helps to set the scene and make things believable. People's relationships change when they are forced to live in close accommodations, especially when it is fairly long term with no definite end point.

But I need to stop writing this now, because the next book is waiting for me, and I really really want to find out what happens next!

Thirteen Orphans - Jane Lindskold

Jane Lindskold manages to write fantasy set in the real world. Very subtle magic which tends to be central to the story, but the characters are contemporary and the setting is familiar. Not quite what I'd call urban fantasy, since I tend to think of that as somewhat gritty. This is more suburban fantasy. The settings tend to be quite nice. Then there's the "Through Wolf's Eyes" series which is just straight up fantasy and totally awesome.

I accidentally picked up the second book in this series, Nine Gates, and got almost half-way through before realizing I'd started in the wrong spot. It was enjoyable, and she didn't spend any time at all on background details, just a whole lot of in-cluing, but this isn't a stand-alone novel, you really need to start with book 1!

So, back to book 1 then. This is set in the US with a lovely Chinese flavour. All of the characters are of Chinese (sort of) descent, but are very American. The magic is wonderful, based on Mah-jong which I have never played but am finding myself more and more intrigued by. There are hints of other magics in the world which follow different rules, but we don't get exposed to any of that yet. In the hands of a novice, spells need to be prepared ahead of time. An expert is able to cast spells on the fly. Inborn ability is important, but won't get you very far without an awful lot of work. I absolutely love the way contemporary materials are used to make spellcrafting easier to use. Lindskold did an amazing job with the magic system here.

The main characters are descendents of thirteen exiles from the Lands born of Smoke and Sacrifice, a magical realm created by the destruction of books and scholars in ancient China. Each of the exiles had a magical association to one of the characters from the Chinese zodiac (plus the cat - descendent of the emperor's son), which gets inherited by their heir when they die. The heirs suddenly find themselves under attack by someone, presumably from the Lands, who is stealing the abilities and all of the memories associated with this association. In some cases, where this association was very central to the person's life, it causes a dramatic personality change and a degree of amnesia. In other cases the amnesia is quite mild. The few who have escaped these magical attacks get together to try and figure out what is happening and how to regain their colleagues memories.

It's a great story. There are two main POV characters, Pearl Bright - daughter of the exile Tiger, who was a child actress and now fairly elderly but still very capable, and Brenda Morris - teenage daughter of the Rat who has had his memories magically removed. They're both great characters, dealing with different aspects of the same problems. Brenda is only just learning about her peculiar heritage, so learning about the background details happens very naturally. Her acceptance of the situation, of magic, of her own ability to perform magic, are very realistic. She reacts the way I would expect an American teenager to react - with disbelief and skepticism which rapidly turns to acceptance when they find themselves under attack, but returns to a believable level of incredulity once the danger has passed. She is a very nice contrast to Pearl Bright for whom being the Tiger's heir was central to her childhood, and who has been the Tiger and the leader of their loosely connected group of exiles for many years by virtue of her being the only second generation descendent of the exiles still living.

A very quick and fun read, I can wait to pick up the next volume.

What Technology Wants - Kevin Kelly

This is the second book I've read recently that made me feel optimistic about the future. We get a good healthy dose of pessimism from the newspaper everyday, I think this makes a nice counterpoint.

The book starts with Kelly exploring his own relationship with technology. The attempt to figure out which pieces to use, and which to avoid. He points out that it just isn't possible to live without technology, because it isn't just what I think of as "high tech" like computers, cars, and cell phones. Kelly points out that as a species we've been using technology since the stone age, and that it is what has allowed us to succeed in a variety of inhospitable environments. He points out that humans are the reproductive organs of technology. Barring some sort of catastrophe, we are going to continue co-evolving with our technology. We're already way past the point where one single person can make everything they require for their day to day life. Even Mennonites who lag 50 years behind the curve in terms of acquiring new technology aren't entirely self sufficient.

Kelly argues that "The Technium" (sphere of technology comprising things which are made rather than born) is the 7th kingdom of life, and that it is co-evolving with us. Parts can migrate from one tool to another, things made for one purpose gain new and previously unimaginable uses. Attempting to ban technologies doesn't work in the long run. The more technology we have, the more choices are available, and that choice needs to be added to the positive side of the balance sheet when it comes to deciding whether a particular technology is a benefit to society or not. He concludes that we have a moral responsibility to create as many new things as possible, and to embrace our relationship with technology as that is the best way to increase the number of choices available to everyone. That refusing to use something simply because it is new and may cause unanticipated problems is selfish and backward thinking.

I really do like the idea that our goal should be to increase the number of choices available. In the world of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station the worst crime possible is choice theft, and I was found that perspective to be very illuminating. Increasing the amount of technology available isn't the only way of increasing the number of choices available in the world, trying to make sure everyone on the planet has enough to eat strikes me as something that would increase choices too, but I think it is a good one.

It has been argued that we have so many choices these days that it has become overwhelming. That people were happier when the course of their lives were laid out before them, and they could simply live their lives content in the knowledge that they weren't missing out on anything. The more I think about this, the more I agree that it is false. Having too many choices of breakfast cereal can be daunting, but learning to cope with choice is something we can learn to do. In fact, it is something that technology can help us with.

I really do like the vision of the world that Kelly offers here. I'm not convinced by his arguments that the evolution of technology is inevitable, but thinking about the Technium as a kingdom of life which is evolving and with which we have a symbiotic relationship is interesting and I think it is useful. It is easy to feel that technology is bad, that new 'improvements' are actually making our lives worse, but I'm definitely finding myself convinced otherwise. Especially watching the situation at the moment in various countries around the world as they use social networks to organize demonstrations against oppressive regimes I'm seeing the dramatic increase in choices as a direct result of technology.

Originally discussed over on Boing Boing.

A Companion to Wolves - Sarah Monette & Elizabeth Bear

This originally started out as an attempt to mock the "people with animal companions" fantasy sub-genre, and then turned into something so fabulous that they decided to publish it and I'm so glad they did. Humans bonding with dragons or wolves, and then being affected by their companion's emotions...especially mating urges...has been done. It is really easy to do badly. Monette & Bear do it really well. Rolled up into a great fantasy story is a critique of society's attitudes towards sex (specifically homosexuality), and gender roles.

Usually in these sorts of stories people who bond with animals are very highly thought of. Also, in fantasy stories there is a tendency towards gender equality, especially with the whole bonding with animals thing you like to have female animals bonding with females, and males with males, so the whole "mating frenzy" thing works out in a relatively palatable way. Here, the wolves are fighting animals, the female wolves are the leaders of the pack, only men bond with wolves, and the wolf-halls are viewed practically with contempt - who would want to live with animals? Yet, they used to fill a vital role in protecting villages from the trolls, who now haven't been seen in a generation, so there is grumbling about needing to have them around, especially when they show up to collect young boys in the hopes that they will bond with the wolf-pups.

Having only men bonded to wolves allowed them to put in what is basically a rape scene without the usual attendant baggage of "poor weak woman who just can't cope with sex". You also wind up with a man, who is definitely interested in women, in a position of having to have sex with other men (which he has been brought up to think of as abhorrent), and coming to realize that sex doesn't have to define you, and that there are many different faces to love. I kept imagining what the book would be like if Isolfr (the main character, who happens to be bonded to a dominant female wolf) were a woman, and it would have masked the issues as women's issues rather than something which would be difficult for anyone to cope with.

This was a fabulous story, definitely intended for adults rather than children, one of those amazing books that helps you to look at the world in new ways. The only problem is with the character names. There are tons of characters, their names are all Norse-sounding, and far too many of them end in fr and are hard to distinguish. Also the young boys change their names once they bond with a wolf, so you have to keep track of what someone used to be called. Then there are the wolf names, and you need to track which wolf is bonded with which man. I think re-reading it will be no problem, but the first time through was pretty rough.

A Guide to the Good Life - William B. Irvine

I found out about this via BoingBoing, shortly after I had read a few of Seneca's essays. It sounded interesting, and I'm really glad I picked it up.

Apparently the ancient Greek & Roman philosophers thought that the whole point of philosophy was to develop a "Philosophy of Life". Basically an overarching goal, and a strategy for attaining that goal. Irvine has recently adopted Stoicism, or at least his own particular brand of Stoicism, as his philosophy of life and has written this book to help anyone else who wants to do something similar.

The Stoics' ultimate goal was to attain virtue, thereby achieving "tranquility", a psychological state marked by the absence of negative emotions. When you're in a state of tranquility it is easy base our decisions on logic rather than emotion, and lead a more virtuous life.

In order to achieve tranquility, the Stoics advocate several techniques. The first is negative visualization -where you imagine what would happen if you were to lose something you value; your job, your house, your partner, your child, your health. The goal of this is to help you appreciate what you have, as well as develop strategies to cope with a tragedy should it occur. The second technique is to stop worrying about things over which you do not have complete control, and to reframe your goals so that they are under your control. For example, if your goal in playing a game of tennis is to win, this will be affected by how well your partner plays. If instead your goal is to play your best, you can achieve this even if you don't win the game. Finally, the Stoics give a lot of fairly specific advice about how to deal with insults, cope with grief, and avoid envy.

The goal is to attain virtue or tranquility, not wealth. Stoics didn't have a problem with being wealthy, and certainly advocated enjoying your wealth and the things money could buy if you happened to have it, but recommended that you not become too attached to possessions.

Irvine goes into the history of Stoicism in a bit more detail, talking about several eminent Stoic philosophers, specifically Seneca, Epictetus, Musonius, and Marcus Aurelius. He also spends rather a lot of time worrying about how to cope with other people's opinion of your new Stoic lifestyle, and advocates not actually telling anyone that you're converting to Stoicism, which I found pretty hilarious. I suspect his target audience is relatively wealthy and running happily along on the hedonic treadmill, where you just keep buying more and better and fancier things in an attempt to make yourself happy. Their friends are all still on this treadmill and are going to give them a hard time if they don't acquire the latest gadgets and fanciest cars available, or wear clothing that is out of style.

While I was a bit irritated by the approach Irvine takes, since it is aimed at someone with a lifestyle very different than mine, I really appreciate his description of the Stoic philosophy of life. I had already adopted a lot of the strategies they advocate, but I think that doing them deliberately will help. I've been working to reframe my goals in terms of things I have control over (having a goal of getting my advisor to praise me is just silly...and hasn't been getting me anywhere). I really like the idea that I should be happy with my life, and that I don't need a giant pile of money and things. Helps to validate the decisions we've made over the past few years which overall I'm very happy about, but occasionally get pangs of envy when we visit friends who have made drastically different decisions, and now live in fancy houses with cars and gadgets and jet-setting lifestyles.