iguanas of mass destruction

[freckles_and_doubt]

I madly purchased WorldCon membership this year, mostly because of the fat parcel of e-books they give you with the membership - pretty much all of this year's Hugo nominees, although I haven't managed to look at the graphic novel ones owing to fear of the seven-hour download on the local, limping bandwidth. Curses. However, I've been spending odd moments in the last month or so reading short stories and novels and novellas, oh my, and rejoicing in my sudden, microscopic but pleasing relevance to the wider sf world. An orgy of catch-up reading this afternoon in order to vote by the deadline has, however, vouchsafed me an unexpected revelation.

This is bloody difficult.

Thank heavens for the Hugo alternate vote system: I don't have to choose only one in each category, rejecting all others, but can rank them in order. Short form dramatic presentation was easy, there were three Russell Davies episodes, for which I refuse to vote on the grounds of his wanton cruelty to narrative, and one each from Dollhouse and Fast Forward, neither of which I've seen. Big, beautiful blank there. And Long Form Dramatic allowed me to curl my lip and spurn Avatar and Star Trek utterly, plumping for District 9 narrowly ahead of Up on grounds of sheer patriotism. (Which I do not feel. But still). It wasn't too difficult a choice, but it really rehearses in microcosm the problem with all the fiction categories: you're trying to pick what you think is the best text when the options present you with a small custard tart, a scintillating crystal widget and a gerbil from Alpha Centuri. Any one story might be a perfect representation of the Platonic custard tart, but by definition it'll then be a pretty poor Centurian gerbil and absolutely no good in the crystal widget department.

So: novels. I always meant this one to go to China Miéville, The City and the City blew me out of the water like few books I can think of have done in recent years. But then there's Palimpsest, because Cat Valente is still my literary girl crush and does exquisite, subversive, political things with language and story. And I loved Cheri Priest's Boneshaker, it's a beautifully gritty and urgent take on steampunk, with an edge. So China has it, but there are always regrets. Likewise, I had to vacillate horribly between James Morrow's novella Shambling Towards Hiroshima, which is not only written with effortless surgical control, but is horribly funny, well-observed, nostalgic and politically devastating; Stross's mad and dislocating timetravel romp; and Ian Macdonald's heartbreakingly luminous "Vishnu at the Cat Circus", which got my vote in the end because his prose scintillates off the page like jewels. And I haven't even touched on Scalzi's God Engines, which is conceptually savage dark fantasy which I also loved. Novelettes made me pit Stross's demented Laundry Christmas fable, "Overtime", against Paul Cornell's steampunk high society space-fold drama "One of our Bastards is Missing" and Eugie Foster's horrifying mask story, also beautifully written: I gave it in the end to Rachel Swirsky's "Eros, Philia, Agape" because, again, its prose was exquisite and its dilemmas - identity, love, meaning - so poignant.

I'm seeing a pattern here. I'll always go for the prose: I like a layered ideological subtext as much as the next academic narrative-fondler, but the prose has to seduce me before I'll consent to having its mind-bending political and sf concepts grab me by the throat. I think this is why I didn't really fall for anything in the Short Story category, giving it in the end to Kij Johnson's "Spar" because its twisty claustrophobic horror was created with such confidence and minimalist description. Minimalism always gets me. Although so does excessive prose, if it's beautiful. Aargh.

Mostly, though, I pin my colours to the mast in the sense that I refuse to believe sf is purely about the ideas. Ideas are important, but there's no purpose in continually breaking new ground in great, sweeping conceptual landscapes if no-one is spending time going back to look at a smaller canvas, to explore and polish and perfect.

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I don't think that District 9 felt patriotism either. But still.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Not the movie's patriotism. Mine. Which is complex and layered and possibly illusionary.

Icon snap! Now do you owe me a drink, or something?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Uh sure, I'll get you a drink. What will it be? Thanks for the icon, too.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

It's a cool icon, I wish I could remember where I found it :>. The drink is always gin, but virtual gin does seem appropriate. I'm more amused by the possibilities of weird LJ icon rituals than anything else.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Virtual? I've got a small amount of real Whitley Neill gin here.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Gawsh, don't know that one. Characteristics? how does it compare to Bombay Sapphire, which is my Platonic ideal of gins? (I'm not a huge fan of the cucumber thing going on in Hendrick's).

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Bombay Sapphire is the standard drinkin' gin. See here for Witley Neill.