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Post-Self #2
Toledot
"I am saying that you trust me — really trust me — and that life in the System is more subtle than I think you know. You let me into your dreams, my dear, and your dreams influence this place as much as, if not more than, your waking mind."
No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one's existence?
Secession. Launch. Two separations from two societies, two hundred years apart. And through it all, so many parallels run on so many levels that it can be dizzying just keeping up. The more Ioan and Codrin Bălan learn, the more it calls into question the motivations of even those they hold most dear.
No longer bound to the physical, what lengths should one go to in a virtual world to ensure the continuity of one's existence?
Secession. Launch. Two separations from two societies, two hundred years apart. And through it all, so many parallels run on so many levels that it can be dizzying just keeping up. The more Ioan and Codrin Bălan learn, the more it calls into question the motivations of even those they hold most dear.
569 pages, Paperback
Published January 21, 2022
12 people want to read
About the author
Madison Scott-Clary
17 books62 followersMadison Rye Progress, also writing under the name Madison Scott-Clary, is an author of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry living in the Pacific Northwest. Her interests lie in the realms of furry fiction and non-fiction, collaborative fiction, and hypertextual writing. She is a member of the Furry Writers' Guild, and editor for several projects, fiction and non-fiction. She holds an MFA from Cornell College where she studied the lyric essay and teaching creative writing in fandom- and subculture-specific spaces.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 14, 2021
*I received an advance copy of the book in exchange for my review*
Toledot is the 2nd entry in Madison's Post-Self series of books and focuses this time more so on interviews conducted between characters as the central framing device. This is part of a larger project Ioan, May Then My Name, Dear, and Codrin are involved with to document and catalog people's feelings about the launch of 2 probes with mini-Systems on them out into space. The chapter format is much the same as Qoheleth, in that it skips around between time periods and over the course of the book, the reader gets a clearer and clearer picture of both past and present events.
One of the central pieces to Qoheleth was the overarching mystery that Dear and Ioan are trying to solve. That comes back in Toledot, but from a different angle this time. I felt that the unraveling of Toledot's mystery was more dangerous and not just because the revelations brought to light have wider implications on the worlds within the story. There was a tenseness and unease in many parts of this book during the interviews that had me hooked to keep reading.
The characters in particular make this book for me. Dear is always a treat to read and its dialogue feels so singularly Dear each time. May Then My Name and True Name also similarly have amazing moments of top notch dialogue. I'll be thinking of "Be quick, I am already frothing" for a long while still.
The fact that each of the aforementioned characters can have their own unique speaking styles and personalities plays into the themes of the exploration of the self in the System where bodies are no longer an inhibiting force. It's one of the best explanations of the old saying "I contain multitudes'' in that it explores how one person through various stimuli, experiences, and trauma can become a completely different being. It got me thinking about all the various different people I have been over the course of my life. If I could fork myself, would my fork contain more positive or negative aspects of me? Would I even be able to control that? And would I want to? And these questions are explored as Ioan and Codrin interview more and more of the Ode clade.
I also greatly appreciated the focus on the ways in which the different governments of the world reacted to the System as it was getting established. Yared being used for his influence by multiple parties feels very poignant in a society that would disappear people for voting on the wrong referendum. There's some good commentary on the need for having something to strive for, but that being simultaneously difficult to keep in mind when you're just trying to survive day to day as well.
In that same vein, the focus on showing some of the limitations of the System broke down the idea that it is a glittering silicon utopia. The groundwork for this was done in Qoheleth and the discussions around memory, but additional details like no one explaining how to control your sensorium, estrangement from your family phys-side, and the concept of culture shock are added to flesh out how the transition to living on the System can be a rocky one. My favorite detail out of all of these has to be that people phys-side can’t see what’s in the system. They can only communicate through text with the people on the other side. This is the detail that feels the most plausible to me after working in tech for so many years. Yes, we’ve created this amazing and stupendous paradise where your consciousness can live free of your bodily needs and limitations, come and join us! You want a video feed of what it looks like? No can do pal, that’s not part of the feature release. Text chat only and you’ll be grateful that it works with any amount of consistency.
My main complaint is that with the jumping back and forth between time periods, it can feel like sections of explanations are repeated. The reader could learn from one character in the past the motivations for something that happens in the future and then that same character explains that again out loud to a different character in the future. While it makes sense in the context of the scene, since the new character doesn’t know what is being revealed, the reader does. It caught me off guard a couple times, but wasn’t anything big enough to ruin the scene for me.
Overall, Toledot was a very fun read! I love stories that explore the conflicts inherent in increasingly digital societies and the exploration of the self that online spaces can provide. If you like science-fiction mysteries I’d say to give the books a try.
Toledot is the 2nd entry in Madison's Post-Self series of books and focuses this time more so on interviews conducted between characters as the central framing device. This is part of a larger project Ioan, May Then My Name, Dear, and Codrin are involved with to document and catalog people's feelings about the launch of 2 probes with mini-Systems on them out into space. The chapter format is much the same as Qoheleth, in that it skips around between time periods and over the course of the book, the reader gets a clearer and clearer picture of both past and present events.
One of the central pieces to Qoheleth was the overarching mystery that Dear and Ioan are trying to solve. That comes back in Toledot, but from a different angle this time. I felt that the unraveling of Toledot's mystery was more dangerous and not just because the revelations brought to light have wider implications on the worlds within the story. There was a tenseness and unease in many parts of this book during the interviews that had me hooked to keep reading.
The characters in particular make this book for me. Dear is always a treat to read and its dialogue feels so singularly Dear each time. May Then My Name and True Name also similarly have amazing moments of top notch dialogue. I'll be thinking of "Be quick, I am already frothing" for a long while still.
The fact that each of the aforementioned characters can have their own unique speaking styles and personalities plays into the themes of the exploration of the self in the System where bodies are no longer an inhibiting force. It's one of the best explanations of the old saying "I contain multitudes'' in that it explores how one person through various stimuli, experiences, and trauma can become a completely different being. It got me thinking about all the various different people I have been over the course of my life. If I could fork myself, would my fork contain more positive or negative aspects of me? Would I even be able to control that? And would I want to? And these questions are explored as Ioan and Codrin interview more and more of the Ode clade.
I also greatly appreciated the focus on the ways in which the different governments of the world reacted to the System as it was getting established. Yared being used for his influence by multiple parties feels very poignant in a society that would disappear people for voting on the wrong referendum. There's some good commentary on the need for having something to strive for, but that being simultaneously difficult to keep in mind when you're just trying to survive day to day as well.
In that same vein, the focus on showing some of the limitations of the System broke down the idea that it is a glittering silicon utopia. The groundwork for this was done in Qoheleth and the discussions around memory, but additional details like no one explaining how to control your sensorium, estrangement from your family phys-side, and the concept of culture shock are added to flesh out how the transition to living on the System can be a rocky one. My favorite detail out of all of these has to be that people phys-side can’t see what’s in the system. They can only communicate through text with the people on the other side. This is the detail that feels the most plausible to me after working in tech for so many years. Yes, we’ve created this amazing and stupendous paradise where your consciousness can live free of your bodily needs and limitations, come and join us! You want a video feed of what it looks like? No can do pal, that’s not part of the feature release. Text chat only and you’ll be grateful that it works with any amount of consistency.
My main complaint is that with the jumping back and forth between time periods, it can feel like sections of explanations are repeated. The reader could learn from one character in the past the motivations for something that happens in the future and then that same character explains that again out loud to a different character in the future. While it makes sense in the context of the scene, since the new character doesn’t know what is being revealed, the reader does. It caught me off guard a couple times, but wasn’t anything big enough to ruin the scene for me.
Overall, Toledot was a very fun read! I love stories that explore the conflicts inherent in increasingly digital societies and the exploration of the self that online spaces can provide. If you like science-fiction mysteries I’d say to give the books a try.
December 8, 2021
DISCLAIMER: I received an advance review copy of this book from the author herself in exchange for my honest review.
Madison Scott-Clary continues to write books that are an experience. Toledot is the sequel to Qoheleth, which I absolutely adored, and Toledot continued to astound me. There are areas of intense emotion and intrigue—both are handled skillfully—that is not what I come to a Madison Scott-Clary book for. I come to a Madison Scott-Clary book to push what it means to be human.
Most sci-fi books get divided either into hard sci-fi or soft sci-fi: hard sci-fi deals with science and soft sci-fi deals with psychology. I have read and enjoyed both extensively.
Madison Scott-Clary does neither. This is not hard sci-fi, getting into the minutiae of science—though the author has tremendous experience and expertise with computers, and that shows. It's not soft sci-fi, where technology is science-based-magic that facilitates the story the author wants to tell—though this story does focus on the consciousness of its characters.
The only author I can really compare her to is Ted Chiang, who takes interesting-but-real scientific ideas, and then, instead of delving into the science, delves into the effect upon people and how we relate to each other. Except Madison Scott-Clary takes this into characters that I'm not sure I can call people at all.
When reading her characters, they feel different, even though you can see how they changed slowly from the humans we know. And yet I can empathise with their motivations and cheer for them. This is the incredible skill of Madison Scott-Clary's writing: she trusts her readers to be able to understand a completely different culture and existence than our own, and makes it compelling to do so.
Madison Scott-Clary continues to write books that are an experience. Toledot is the sequel to Qoheleth, which I absolutely adored, and Toledot continued to astound me. There are areas of intense emotion and intrigue—both are handled skillfully—that is not what I come to a Madison Scott-Clary book for. I come to a Madison Scott-Clary book to push what it means to be human.
Most sci-fi books get divided either into hard sci-fi or soft sci-fi: hard sci-fi deals with science and soft sci-fi deals with psychology. I have read and enjoyed both extensively.
Madison Scott-Clary does neither. This is not hard sci-fi, getting into the minutiae of science—though the author has tremendous experience and expertise with computers, and that shows. It's not soft sci-fi, where technology is science-based-magic that facilitates the story the author wants to tell—though this story does focus on the consciousness of its characters.
The only author I can really compare her to is Ted Chiang, who takes interesting-but-real scientific ideas, and then, instead of delving into the science, delves into the effect upon people and how we relate to each other. Except Madison Scott-Clary takes this into characters that I'm not sure I can call people at all.
When reading her characters, they feel different, even though you can see how they changed slowly from the humans we know. And yet I can empathise with their motivations and cheer for them. This is the incredible skill of Madison Scott-Clary's writing: she trusts her readers to be able to understand a completely different culture and existence than our own, and makes it compelling to do so.
June 9, 2022
The Bălan clade chronicles the mythology of Launch, which sends copies of the System into deep space, and its similarities to Succession, which made the System an independent nation-state two centuries prior. This largely takes place system-side, and I love the opportunity to elaborate on that setting, to render it weirder and more completely, particularly to inhabit the reality of forking, merging, and resultant questions of identity. I also appreciate how it conceptualizes grief. But this lost me as it went on: I'm not enamored of plots where --not, I promise, as Problematic™ as it seems in summary, but still not something I find convincing or compelling in this form. Dig the high concept worldbuilding, dig the characters and themes, will definitely continue the series, but I'm a little ambivalent about this book.
Read
April 29, 2022Im not in a place to write a full review or put a star rating to how i — how we — feel. I'll/we'll come back to this another time. Overall, mixed feelings, particularly struggling with the way (lack of)/empathy is protrayed, especially in the context of what could be read as distancing from accountability towards other members of a clade/system. Honestly, it has too much similarity to the "evil alter/pluran" trope, complete with stigma against those with low empathy and the use of the word "psychopath", for us to not take personal issue with the ending.
We'll read the next installment, and did enjoy much of the book. It was gripping and engaging with the mystery being a solid hook and the characters interesting. It's just soured by that ending, which hinges on the reader not being critical of the conflation of empathy with decency, compassion, respect, and responsibility.
We'll read the next installment, and did enjoy much of the book. It was gripping and engaging with the mystery being a solid hook and the characters interesting. It's just soured by that ending, which hinges on the reader not being critical of the conflation of empathy with decency, compassion, respect, and responsibility.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2022
Full disclosure: I paid for my copy, but I've voted for Madison Scott-Clary's works in basically every literary fiction or poetry category I am eligible for, including non-furry things like World Science Fiction Society/WisCon/World Fantasy Society long and shortlists. I am reviewing the print on demand/dead tree pulp edition because I can't doodle in the margins of epub/pdfs.
I am a very biased reader: I think Madison Scott-Clary's work is fascinating, deep, moving and just fundamentally more interesting than 95% of the speculative fantasy/scientifically-informed fiction that comes across my paws. I struggled with this novel in good ways: it has a lot going on, it's self-referential and involves time of light delays, and has a lot of (inhuman) heart.
I want to like this more than I do, but I'm still feeling a bit spun around by reading it just twice. This is a good thing! But I'm not sure where to place it in my brain case, wetware, or electronic library shelves. Guess it'll get another reread next month when I start thinking about WSFS/WFC again.
Great prose, just not sure whether my struggles getting through this are because I haven't charted out enough of a (re)readers guide or it's just a matter of taking some time away from the book.
I am a very biased reader: I think Madison Scott-Clary's work is fascinating, deep, moving and just fundamentally more interesting than 95% of the speculative fantasy/scientifically-informed fiction that comes across my paws. I struggled with this novel in good ways: it has a lot going on, it's self-referential and involves time of light delays, and has a lot of (inhuman) heart.
I want to like this more than I do, but I'm still feeling a bit spun around by reading it just twice. This is a good thing! But I'm not sure where to place it in my brain case, wetware, or electronic library shelves. Guess it'll get another reread next month when I start thinking about WSFS/WFC again.
Great prose, just not sure whether my struggles getting through this are because I haven't charted out enough of a (re)readers guide or it's just a matter of taking some time away from the book.
April 28, 2022
"My fiction shelf is full of many Madison-books."
I was thoroughly chuffed to find out Qoheleth would be the first of a trilogy written by Madison, and I put in an e-book pre-order for Toledot on Gumroad last week. Her work has been a tremendous joy in my journey as a speculative fiction reader, and in recent years inspiration to my own writing work as well.
So herein we learn, that it is unwise to hide a fellow writer's keyboard without asking, or your own without reminding yourself you've snitched it when you're intent on sitting down to write.
Write on, my good and dear friend!
I was thoroughly chuffed to find out Qoheleth would be the first of a trilogy written by Madison, and I put in an e-book pre-order for Toledot on Gumroad last week. Her work has been a tremendous joy in my journey as a speculative fiction reader, and in recent years inspiration to my own writing work as well.
So herein we learn, that it is unwise to hide a fellow writer's keyboard without asking, or your own without reminding yourself you've snitched it when you're intent on sitting down to write.
Write on, my good and dear friend!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews