The Sword and Laser discussion

Most of this is just straight from the spoiler part of my review, but it’s germane:

The thing that really bugs me about this story is the sense of injustice I get. The violinist who has delivered 6 souls for eternal damnation doesn’t get punished for her actions. The opposite: she is rewarded with a nice relationship with the alien donut maker out in space after everyone assists the spaceship in fighting off the angry demon during a space battle. If you’re going to invoke Star Trek, at least pay attention to how well that show used metaphor. Don’t do the stupidest version of the idea.

I suppose Aoki liked the character too much to punish her for causing so much torment, but there’s enough injustice in the real world that I don’t enjoy it in my literature, too. Getting redeemed because she refused to deliver Christina to the demon is lame. I want people to pay for their sins, especially sins as egregious as these.

They’re BURNING IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY because they wanted to be good at something. Some of them knew what what they were signing up for, sure, but some didn’t.

Please don’t try to justify this nonsense with “well that’s how the real world works”. I will remind people that this is about a demon-cursed violin teacher hooking up with a donut-making space alien. Anything to do with the real world is right out. If George R.R. Martin isn’t allowed to use that excuse for Game of Thrones, then Aoki can’t use it for this. Fair is fair.

I’m not sure this comes across as a good story in support of the trans community, either. Acceptance by way of intervention from a servant of Hell and a renegade sentient hologram, and being a social media influencer due to the support of those other two entities doesn’t actually underscore the very true fact that trans people are just regular people. Invoking demons and aliens as benefactors doesn’t support the cause. It would, in fact, have been better if average, everyday humans accepted her *despite* demons and aliens trying to convince them otherwise.

Actually, I think this story would’ve worked better *without* the SFF elements. Imagine a celebrated 79-year-old violin teacher never allowed to express her true, gay self, encountering a trans prodigy who succeeds despite all the hate thrown at her from her family and the world. The bittersweet tale of a woman who regrets her life still finding it within herself to help someone else with no regard for reward for the first time, seeing that although her world-weary cynicism is justified, she can be a force for change to improve the lives of the next generation. That story would’ve been terrific. No need for the half-baked attempt to mimic The Devil and Daniel Webster and the silly pew-pew sci-fi junk: just an honest exploration of what makes us human and what gives us pleasure.

I agree. I don't think it needs the SF part. It's as if Aoki didn't trust the rest of it to be interesting enough. (Tho intellectually I really love the idea of the subject matter being mirrored in the genre bending. It's a very insistent pattern at all levels.)

Nit: It's Katrina, not Christina.

Serendi wrote: "Nit: It's Katrina, not Christina."

Possibly Trike was waylaid by that foul villain Otto Correct.

I enjoyed the book, but I didn't enjoy that there were no consequences for actions. Something that bugs me about many TV shows and movies. It is why (one of many reasons) I hated "Natural Born Killers". They get away with multiple murders.

As Trike points out (view spoiler)[ Shizuka has caused the death and eternal torture & suffering of 6 people. But also we have Markus who straight up murders 2 people for dissing his mother. Yet Shizuka gets to live the life she wants with the woman she loves and Markus just gets a time-out.

I realise it is a redemption story for Shizuka, but apart from feeling guilty, there is no punishment. If you believe in Hell then I suppose you could imagine she'd end up there eventually and fulfill her eternal damnation and suffering.

We expect Tremon to get away with his crimes because he's a demon and that's his reason for existence. But it would have been nice for there to have been some punishment for his failure. A demotion to the lowest pits of Hell. But In the end we see him just continuing on and going after a woman who's only crime is to want to be the best musician she can be and prepared to do anything to achieve that. (hide spoiler)]

I had no problem with the genre mash-up. Would I have read a book about washed up musical maestro taking a raw talented trans runaway under her wing? Probably not, even though it could make a great movie I'd watch.

It's only the SFF elements that would get me to read it (if it wasn't picked as a S&L read.

I did give it 3 stars. I enjoyed it, without thinking it was fantastic.

I loved this book, although I do take the point about the lack of punishment / true atonement for Shizuka. Personally, I think it would have been a stronger story if Shizuka had had to atone by rescuing the souls of her previous students from hell, and for a while I thought that’s where the story was going. The references to the game “Nethertale” (I assume this is a thinly veiled reference to Undertale) with its theme of getting out of hell without violence against anyone, led me to think we would be visiting hell in the third act and saving some souls. Instead Shizuka escapes from the demon on a spaceship with a purple Han Solo. Which was a fun choice, but not necessarily a morally sound one.

Oh, I would have loved that (Undertale), Ruth! Too late for the pacifist route for Shizuka!

Trike wrote: "The thing that really bugs me about this story is the sense of injustice I get. The violinist who has delivered 6 souls for eternal damnation doesn’t get punished for her actions. "

Given this is under a "SPOILERS" topic, I'm not going to use Spoiler tags, but if you're seeing this in a Summary of some kind, THERE BE SPOILERS HERE, YARR!!!! HARD A PORT IF'N YA DINNA WANT TA BE SPOILED, YA LAND LUBBER!!!!!

I have no idea why I started pirate talking there... anyway...


One thing I would mention in Shuzuka's defense, her previous students all knowingly agreed to what they were doing. She taught them and offered them the cursed bow with the understanding that a) they'd get what they wanted and b) when they died, they'd end up in Hell.

All of Shizuka's previous students made their choices for their own (I would point out, "selfish") reasons and they got what they agreed to, both good and bad.

For Katrina, however, Shizuka knowingly prevented her from making the choice. Shizuka knew Katrina would try to sacrifice herself to save Shizuka. Instead of allowing Katrina to make that decision, Shizuka knowingly sacrificed herself instead to save the first student who would have made the sacrifice not for themselves, but for others. This is the point of redemption, in my view, for her.

And there are consequences. She will never get to go back to her home; she does get *a* life with the woman she loves, but it's definitely not the life she wanted or envisioned. She had to leave behind Katrina and Astrid, the closest thing she's had to family.

I will agree that the Markus side story seemed very out of place and clunky. I didn't buy the heel turn (as a former adolescent boy, I agree they can be cruel and violent, but turning into a nihilist killer ... that really escalated quickly). And, as for Tremone, he turned 1 soul into 6. . . and even if he didn't meet profit projections, he still is the subject matter expert in musician souls, so better to keep him around than spend another century or two trying to get another demon up to speed. From a business perspective, it's best to avoid the onboarding issues, give him a bad review this decade, and incentivize him to do better going forward.

Dylan Northrup wrote: "Trike wrote: "The thing that really bugs me about this story is the sense of injustice I get. The violinist who has delivered 6 souls for eternal damnation doesn’t get punished for her actions. "

..."
The thing is, even though the students went knowingly, Satomi knew exactly how bad the deal was as she had made it herself. She had firsthand knowledge and witnessed student after student submit to eternal damnation. It is a bit hard to see her not have to atone in some way. I kept expecting her to get off, but to ultimately have to sacrifice her music or both hers and Katrina's music. It's made worse by the portrayal of Tamiko Grohl who is desperate to the point of cutting and potentially suicidal. These damaged people are not worthy of being saved, but Katrina is because... she's a more pure musician? Meh. Lots of good empathy in writing Katrina, but lacking elsewhere. Perhaps that's actually realistic to the way people treat others, but it definitely rubbed me the wrong way.

On the topic of justice/injustice, it's a bit unsatisfying that all the instances of sexual assault and abuse Katrina suffers, all the way up to the competition at the end, go unacknowledged and unpunished.

We know that Shizuka and Lan & fam have the means to deal with people who stand in their way. The guy who misgenders Katrina and refuses to repair her violin promptly drops dead after Shizuka sneers at him (Tamiko even thinks of it as Shizuka killing for her new student). Markus murders that teenage homophobe (along with his innocent bystander of a girlfriend), and Lan and co. do their alien magic and zap all evidence of the crime.

It's a bit weird when selfish ambition earns Shizuka's students a spot in hell and homophobic language or misgendering someone are the crimes that get repaid with literal death... meanwhile Evan the rapist, Katrina's abusive father, her creepy uncle, and the Chinese businessman who gropes her and clearly intends to take advantage of her all experience zero consequences for their actions and presumably get to go on committing more crimes.

retro wrote: "On the topic of justice/injustice, it's a bit unsatisfying that all the instances of sexual assault and abuse Katrina suffers, all the way up to the competition at the end, go unacknowledged and un..."
Good points. Katrina and the book's relationship to sex is a puzzling one to me as well. After finishing the book, one of the things that seemed false or strange to me was Katrina’s relationship to sex. Gender is well explored, but Katrina’s only sexual behavior and thoughts are of a purely transactional nature. This seems odd for a teenage character. It would have been fine to omit it, but Katrina’s sex work is mentioned multiple times. Considering that, it is a strange omission to me and makes me question Katrina as the super-empath that she is supposed to be. I also don’t like that Katrina jumped straight to sex work without much thought and without trying anything else first. It makes some sense given her fears of public scrutiny I guess, but it would have been nice to see some thought process there.

I don't know that the lack of justice for sexual assaults is really a problem. Its not like these crimes are punished in real life. The perpetrator guy usually gets away with it or gets a slap on the wrist

^ Oof. I just finished watching the KC/Steeler's game. I generally avoid Steelers on account of Ben Roethlisberger getting away with exactly that. And the announcers were celebrating him as a future hall of famer. Bleah.

John wrote: "After finishing the book, one of the things that seemed false or strange to me was Katrina’s relationship to sex. Gender is well explored, but Katrina’s only sexual behavior and thoughts are of a purely transactional nature."

My takeaway was that Katrina is asexual. It would've been interesting to have the book engage with that and show that gender != sexual attraction, or that sexual attraction can be fluid. To me, Katrina's portrayal definitely seems more adult before she meets Shizuka and skews more innocent after.

It's is an interesting facet of what Shizuka's mentoring gives her: not just the chance to hone her craft but a safe space where she can be dependent on others without fear for her safety.

Iain wrote: "I don't know that the lack of justice for sexual assaults is really a problem. Its not like these crimes are punished in real life. The perpetrator guy usually gets away with it or gets a slap on t..."

Perfectly fair, but homophobia and transphobia are also not punished in real life, yet are in this book. I'm not suggesting that fiction has a duty to right real life wrongs, not at all, but introducing such harrowing elements and then not dealing with them in any way (except to reiterate that they happened, again and again, sometimes in sudden, throwaway passages) is an odd choice, especially from a 'hopeful' text.

When Katrina gets the room key from the sleazy businessman at the end, I was fully rooting for her to walk out on stage and show it to the crowd, blast him for being skeevy, do something to show that she can stand up to the people who've hurt her because she now has a platform and a support system behind her. Instead, she calls him a mean word in her head and it never comes up again. Shitty Youtube commenters get more of a comeuppance.

retro wrote: "John wrote: "After finishing the book, one of the things that seemed false or strange to me was Katrina’s relationship to sex. Gender is well explored, but Katrina’s only sexual behavior and though..."

Good points all around. While I liked this book I will say that it seemed to me, a transmasc non-binary person, to focus more on trans trauma than trans joy. I mean it had that hologram room which would have been an excellent point to show Katrina exploring how she would like her body to look. From her perspective, not the other characters.

I think the book was so focused on showing how *horrible* our lives can be that the idea that those elements should be punished maybe didn't occur to the author.

I'm not sure if Katrina is asexual or if she hasn't had the chance to explore her sexuality outside of sex work or abusive situations yet and doesn't feel safe yet.

Dazerla wrote: "retro wrote: "John wrote: "After finishing the book, one of the things that seemed false or strange to me was Katrina’s relationship to sex. Gender is well explored, but Katrina’s only sexual behav..

I'm not sure if Katrina is asexual or if she hasn't had the chance to explore her sexuality outside of sex work or abusive situations yet and doesn't feel safe yet.

."

This was my take as well- that she hasn’t had much chance to consider her own sexuality yet. Maybe if there’s a sequel we’ll see that happen.

Ultimately this book's focus on the darker side of life and how music could save and help us become better humans was a topic that I enjoyed in the book. However, leaving me with hope, but leaving me in the endplague will make this a book that I will contemplate for awhile, but I don't see myself coming back to try more. I don't like children getting hurt, and although it raised the stakes I just feel bruised.

Maybe it’s a matter of taste. I don’t need justice in my stories so much. I mean, sure, there are times when I would really really like characters who have pissed me off to choke on a chainsaw, but I don’t feel like I need everything to tally up in end. I liked Shizuka. I wanted good things for her. I was happy with the way the story turned out.

I felt like the story did enough to redeem her as well, to make sense of the things she did. And her journey isn’t just a fun honeymoon. She is out there trying to bring love and hope to a universe in desperate need of it. She can’t change the past, but she is trying to make up for it. Who knows what her fate will be in the end, but for now, she is using her time to help others. That doesn’t seem unjust to me.

I'm finally at the end of the book and can check this thread. I don't expressly disagree with anything Trike wrote, or any of the other detractors. But I generally enjoyed the book. It took me a long time to read - I had the physical book and not much time to sit down to read it - and maybe that got me more focused on the journey than on how it wrapped up. When I picked it up to read, I was usually enjoying it and not worrying about how it would turn out.

I enjoyed the book, the way it generally flowed and described places, food, and the violin culture. It did not bother me that Shizuka did not get punished for her actions. I believe their trip to the stars to save people from their civilization's death is what they believe is atonement for her actions, a more peaceful way to help others. I also thought this leaves an opening for a sequel, where her former students may want their revenge, and challenging Katrina, with the help of Hell, might be a good way for that to happen.

I did not find the science fiction part of the novel so bad. I agree the way Markus was handled was a bit ham-fisted. After what happened to Katrina, Markus killed for much lesser reasons. But, the concept that a civilization has a lifespan and that it eventually will die was very interesting. It reminded me of the story where the sun only goes down on a planet once every hundred years, driving everyone mad on the planet. Knowing your civilization will die could do the same thing.

Since Katrina was a victim of rape, I think she has separated her emotions from sexual activity, making it purely transactional. She won't connect pleasure, love, and closeness to the act of sex. Music is where she puts all of those feelings, it seems.