SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

Spoil away!

I finished it yesterday. I actually disliked it at the beginning (I was not in the mood for another feminist novel, reading at the time quite angry The Female Man) but as story progressed I was drawn into it.

I still have problems with a lot of specific points, which I hope to discuss later, but overall - an interesting book even if too much "of the moment"

Here is my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I just finished it. In fact I stretched my bed time, because I could not stop listening (and that even though I did not like the voice of the Narrator). I'm absolutely impressed by this work. Annalee Newitz managed the most important thing for me in a book: They gripped my heart and my soul. I had tears in my eyes during several passages, cause it felt so personal.
Such a stark contrast to "the female man", which did do nothing for me.

I did not like Newitz "Autonomous" and wasn't sure if I should pick this one up - am I glad I did!

Can't comment much since I always forget book contents after a week (among the blurry of BRs) but I remember giving it five stars because I had so much fun reading it, thoroughly invested, and will definitely put it in my ballot. I think it has a strong chance to become a finalist.

I liked this better than Autonomous too. Both are great stand alone novels and I happen to prefer stand alone more nowadays.

I am biased of course since I love Annalee alot (I was lucky I got to meet her once) she's so smart and awesome, and I am an avid listener to her podcast with Charlie Jane (Our Opinions are Correct).

Gabi wrote: " I'm absolutely impressed by this work. Annalee Newitz managed the most important thing for me in a book: They gripped my heart and my soul. "

Yes, I agree, as story progresses, you get into characters' skins. When I just started it (this is my first book by the author), I was maybe too skeptical (reading The Female Man woke a contrarian in me. I personally more than once wrote about issues like wage gap and glass ceiling, but I have a feeling that some feminist literature calls not for greater equality but the reversal of roles) after were were acquainted with the initial cast (one group is female + transgender, another cis male) created a negative attitude. However, the following story made me change my mind even I have still some issues, esp. with murders

Starting now

@Oleksandr: reading this one back to back with "The female man" is what made me appreciate it even more. The topic is the same yet the approach is so different. While Russ' book is anti male Newitz' story is pro female. That's a huge difference in the tone.

The murders were a bold, divisive take, indeed. I felt that the narrator was ambiguous enough about them that they didn't come across as glorification.

What irked me was that there was no reflection about everyone smoking. I lost two relatives in horrible cancer deaths due to their smoking, so I'm rather sensitive there.

What also at first negatively affected my judgement about the novel was the belittling of women's rights struggle. Quote:

As travelers, we could observe, maybe spy, and sometimes save a life. But centuries of scientific inquiry suggested that it was extremely difficult for one person to alter the timeline in all but the most superficial ways. You couldn’t cause the world to industrialize before the eighteenth century, nor could you change the fate of nations by assassinating a famous leader. After killing the nineteenth-century tyrant Emmanuel, travelers were frustrated to find that Napoleon laid waste to Europe instead. It was the same discovery that travelers from the Tang Dynasty had made centuries before. There was no way to stop the Sogdian warlord An Lushan’s rebellion. Slaying one Sogdian warlord simply spawned another who rose against the emperor. An Lushan was the third one to rise; his sack of the legendary city of Chang’an could not be edited from the timeline.
Geoscientists of the early twenty-first century eventually settled on the theory that small things change but big things don’t. Trying to cause a significant divergence in the timeline was simply bad science, a honeypot for fools and failing tyrants. It was also against Chronology Academy regulations.

(yes, later we are told they err a bit, but bear with me)

I think that struggles for rights of different groups (race, class, gender, etc) are no less a product of their times than industrialization. Saying that abortion legalization has been changed in their initial timeline but that hasn't affected the world is plainly wrong. As shown in Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, the U.S. Supreme Court, ruled on January 22, 1973, in Roe v. Wade in favor of Ms. Roe, allowing legalized abortion throughout the United States. A generation later it led to the greatest crime drop in recorded history of the USA. So, it is an issues affecting millions, not only women but the society in general

Well, I finished. I was just waiting for it to be over for the first half and then got interested in the second half. So now I'm ready to read something not so dismal.

Famous Men Who Never Lived and this one were both downers, despite ending OK. Give me a Star Trek-like setting any time. (P.S. I don't read Star Trek books, I'm just saying--dismal settings are not what I read for.)

I agree that these books aren't easy cozy reads and I fully appreciate the need to read something lighter after them.

What d you think about the plot? Is the usage of Geoscience instead of say Chronosciece fine? It irked me a bit even after time machine description. What about time travel method? Not trying to blend in like in many other time travel books?

I see why she had such a weird time travel method. It's almost like Stargate--an old, alien civilization left them for us to find. In order to get the plot she wanted, she had to put the restrictions of place she wanted. But, I do wonder about the term Geoscience.

The plot was Meh to me. The characters, except Beth, also meh. The murders seemed stupid. Why did she even need the murders. It could have been a hit and run car accident, even. Anyway . . .

Kateblue wrote: "I see why she had such a weird time travel method. It's almost like Stargate--an old, alien civilization left them for us to find. In order to get the plot she wanted, she had to put the restrictio..."

My problem was "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts" - we have a time machine of unknown origin that we can operate, but who created them and what for? Could be doom the mankind by using it? I understand that it was just a plot device to tell women rights struggle in the 19th century USA, but glassing these things over irked me

Yes, -- so the question is, is it really SF? I really dislike political tracts that are disguised as fiction. Or--take something scary-topical and make it into a book. I don't read fiction for that!

Kateblue wrote: "Yes, -- so the question is, is it really SF? I really dislike political tracts that are disguised as fiction. "

I agree, but then I recall that both Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are assumed by many as thinly veiled political tracts... So it is a question was it veiled well enough?

No, I think the reason is, it wasn't well written enough to be recognized as just a good story. :-)

Hmm. Yeah, I understand why people can dislike political sci-fi, but I don't have a problem with it. Heck, the Three Body trilogy is basically the International Relations theory of realism in space.

Also, since this is with spoilers allowed, I was confused about (view spoiler)[the Grape Ape deletion. Wouldn't that affect Beth's arc, because that's where Lizzy's killing started? (hide spoiler)] I could have done with more information on that, specifically.

Chris wrote: "Hmm. Yeah, I understand why people can dislike political sci-fi, but I don't have a problem with it. Heck, the Three Body trilogy is basically the International Relations theory of realism in space..."

Thanks for your view, Chris! I fully agree that politics was integral in SF since H.G.Wells at least. However, this one is [a] a bit too narrow and [b] I'd try to change something else if I had a time machine. What I mean is, yes, women rights are important but here author presumes that it all is based on mass movements, which is understandable for a person growing up in a democracy.

For comparison, in the USSR, where I grew up, both voting and abortion rights were given top-down, not won bottom-up. In 1920 Soviet Russia legalized abortions (first in the world). In 1936 Stalin was dissatisfied with birth rate and banned them. In 1955 in order to improve a propaganda facade they are made legal again - all three decisions are top-down. And if you take strong gov't interventions in both most populous countries (China and India) the situation was similar - thus "the USA way" was far from "world way"

As for the US I'd see lynching in the first quarter of XX century a more urgent problem and tried to solve it first.

I finished last night & am happy to be relatively caught up. Definitely lots of thoughts about it. I agree with Gabi that it was surprisingly moving in some parts, primarily the interactions between Tess and Beth.

Kateblue wrote: "I was just waiting for it to be over for the first half and then got interested in the second half.

It's interesting that so many of us have had this experience, where the second half feels much stronger than the first. For me, the book only really became fully interesting when the Morehshin arrived from the future and introduced the threat of a bionengineered Handmaids-Tale-on-steroids dystopian future hellscape that they had to fight to avert. That hooked me more than anything in the first 150 pages.

I think part of the problem with the beginning was that I went into the book expecting a time travel book about control over the timeline and was immediately greeted by... dudes handing out flyers at a suburban punk show. The stakes felt really, really low. And I think the idea about effecting key moments in history (the Chicago Expo, or the Haitian Revolution) did not transfer well to the 1992 riot grrrl scenes. There was no real argument made for why a feminist punk subculture would be the site of an orchestrated timeline intervention, except that "those guys from the future must have their reasons." I honestly think it was more related to Newitz wanting to set her narrative in a subculture she grew up in.

I also really struggled with the nature of anachronisms in the book. It seemed like Newitz took an approach that allowed her to skirt around typical criticisms of time travel anachronisms, by having her time traveling protagonist filtering everything in the 19th century through a subjective 2022 American social, cultural, and political filter. So the various interactions in the Expo and in New York were described in terms of gender and race, appropriation and oppression, from a 21st century language. And I found it hard to argue with that. But there were still times where anachronisms felt awkward.

As for politics, she certainly does lay it on thick. It's funny because I'm the target audience for this. Feminist, anarchist, with some experience with radical punk subculture. I enjoyed the allusions to Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons and late 19th century anarchist movement in New York. I like seeing accurate representations -- down to the horrible drama and political infighting -- of my political community in fiction, which is quite rare. Sort of why anarchists adore The Dispossessed so much.

This book is unapologetically feminist and I don't think it's trying to make a case for feminism to those who are on the fence or anti-feminist. It's pro-choice, but it assumes the reader already agrees that safe and legal access to abortion is a social necessity. Pretty much all rational people agree that incel culture is disturbing and dangerous and it makes for an easy villain. It's a little like the relationship between the KKK in the USA vs racism more broadly in Western societies -- sometimes the KKK sucks all the oxygen out of analyses of structural or discursive racism, but it is a social phenomenon much more widespread and entrenched than is represented by overt white nationalists wearing white hoods. But I think the book takes a pretty sweeping look at abuse, misogyny, sexual assault, and various problems of feminist concern, looking at both 1893 and 1992 (and 2561 or whatever). For me, I categorize the book alongside The Handmaid's Tale as (explicit) feminist SF.

Just going to add: what worked really well for me is the simultaneous look at "big changes" and "small changes." A look at world social forces but also a focus on the individual life circumstances, intimate relationships, and personal struggles. A few other SF stories recently have done this really well for me -- namely the films Interstellar and Arrival.

@Kateblue asked why the murder spree was necessary? I think it relates to the debate Newitz presented in the book between the Great Man and the Collective Action theory of historical change. Young Lizzy believed she could make the world a better place through murder, and as she studied geoscience and realized that her entire theory of change was suspect, the remorse and guilt set in -- especially after Beth's suicide.

For me, the strongest moments had to do with Beth, both in struggling to survive an abusive household and struggling to come to terms with Lizzy's actions and Tess' interventions. The Great Man vs. Collective Action played out in the individual relationship of these two teens emotionally resonated with me in ways that nothing set in 1893 did.

Kalin: A great analysis . . . you wouldn't be a college professor, would you?

Great comments, Kalin! I also had to google incel, another indicator how distant the whole debate is for me :)

With the murders I more had a problem with the second, where they beat to death a guy with young girls photos. How they killed his was gruesome but I was more about the fact they they don't even knew if he coerced those girls for photos. The cop out that he actually was a serial killer is more like post factum justification.

Oleksandr wrote: "Great comments, Kalin! I also had to google incel, another indicator how distant the whole debate is for me :)."

Yeah, it's a very culturally specific book. The politics of gender in 2019 North America is contextual, not universal, but sometimes it's treated as such. Like you were mentioning, the abortion "debate" (if it can even be called that) looks very different in the USSR/Russia.

Online incel culture is a new subculture phenomenon coming out of extremist online communities forming part of the American alt-right that surged in the second half of the 2010s. They are anti-feminist and have their own ideological language. But incels have also inspired and/or committed terrorist attacks in both US and Canada in recent years. TFoAT references "Celibate4Life" message boards (an explicit reference to incels) and also when the women are eavesdropping in 1893 they hear the Comstockers talking about "Chads" which is an incel codeword, but it's used different in the real world ("our timeline"). So the book definitely builds this into its understanding of the social conflict over gendered rights, and draws a historical line between Comstock's obscenity laws and incel culture.

And @Kate, nope I'm not a college professor, hah. I'm a language teacher, but not in postsecondary. I used to work at a college though, and spent a lot of time on campuses.