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Title: When I Arrived at the Castle
Author: Emily Carroll
Published: Koyama Press, 2019
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 70
Total Page Count: 315,675
Text Number: 1092
Read Because: fan of the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I'm an easy sell for "short graphic novel about violence, identity, magic, and lesbians," but this gave me all I wanted and more. Its brevity allows for experimentation and excess that might be overwhelming at length. The narrative coils and layers on itself in 3+ recontextualizations; I read it twice in succession, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it's perfectly cogent on reread and richer for that density. Not all elements of the style work for me, but the cumulative effect—of strong black/white/red, of thick and curving female bodies, of panels that contrast fluid structure with sharp negative space, of a stylized and visceral script ("lies slid their way from my stomach to my tongue")—is delightful. It's exactly the sort of indulgence and erotic tension and self-reflection I want from a gothic fairy tale.
Title: Birdwing
Author: Rafe Martin
Published: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 370
Total Page Count: 316,045
Text Number: 1093
Read Because: mentioned in the Alt+H Discord, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Bearing a swan's wing in place of his left arm, a young prince journeys north to escape political turmoil and discover where he belongs. This begins where the fairy tale "The Six Swans" ends, and the idea of exploring the repercussions of a fairytale is an inspired one. Ardwin has spent more time as a bird than a boy, and he re-enters the human world as a disabled outsider; he struggles to find his place, and is foiled by characters who share liminal or unusual roles. But the writing leaves something to be desired: it has an unstructured, coincidence-heavy plot which could work if it felt more like a fairy tale, but the aggressive humor, more reminiscent of middle grade than young adult, prevents that—while still clashing with the violence and rape threats in the book's second half. It's readable, charming, deceptively light—but under that is an ambiguous and intimate character arc that I wish were stronger.
Title: Red Hail
Author: Jamie Killen
Published: Red Adept Publishing, 2020
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 316,345
Text Number: 1094
Read Because: review copy provided by the author
Review: While studying the mass hysteria that swept a border town sixty years ago, a young professor is forced to reconsider his hypothesis when his partner starts showing the same bizarre symptoms. This is a solid mystery, alternating between 1960 and 2020 timelines in a way that maintains momentum without feeling forced. The cast in each timeline is human and diverse, and watching each group tackle the mystery with the capabilities and limitations unique to their timeline is satisfying. (I particularly love Dove, a brusque woman from the 1960s timeline who has a bevy of backstory and competency.) But what this lacks is atmosphere—it has a sense of time and place, but is utterly bereft of pathetic fallacy, and using the sweltering desert heat or inhospitable barren landscapes to intensity the anxiety surrounding the disease would have made this more memorable.
The thing that really bugged me about Red Hail wasn't appropriate for my review because it's not a sin unique to this book, this was just my tipping point: Proper nouns. They're so ubiquitous in SF/F that I wouldn't be surprised to find that editors/publishers insist on them, but they're also ... bad.
The "disease" in Red Hail presents as a plagues that happen in sequence, where sufferers enter fugue states and begin naming nearby objects (Naming), holding bizarre static poses (Statuing), etc. These are referred to as the Naming Plague, "he started Naming."
But! 1) It is a truth universally acknowledged that most capitalized made-up terms in fiction aren't grammatically correct proper nouns, which is part of why they're so obtrusive and ridiculous. Moreover, 2) They would be much more effective if they weren't capitalized. Instead of "I could hear in their voice the exaggerated emphasis on 'Naming,' indicating it was Weird and Important," imagine "when they said naming, we all knew what they meant." Imagine that the thing is so memorable and important that it causes a shift in language, giving otherwise innocuous words indelible connotations. Imagine the paradigm shift! Imagine how it would invite the reader to immerse themselves in the speculative elements, internalizing language and therefore worldbuilding.
Capitalization undermines that exact thing, speaking down to the reader rather than inviting them into the language & world of the text. Petition to kill this trend in 2020, and let language be more natural and subtle and effective, and less like the worst bits of YA dystopias.
Author: Emily Carroll
Published: Koyama Press, 2019
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 70
Total Page Count: 315,675
Text Number: 1092
Read Because: fan of the author, paperback borrowed from the Wilsonville Public Library
Review: I'm an easy sell for "short graphic novel about violence, identity, magic, and lesbians," but this gave me all I wanted and more. Its brevity allows for experimentation and excess that might be overwhelming at length. The narrative coils and layers on itself in 3+ recontextualizations; I read it twice in succession, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it's perfectly cogent on reread and richer for that density. Not all elements of the style work for me, but the cumulative effect—of strong black/white/red, of thick and curving female bodies, of panels that contrast fluid structure with sharp negative space, of a stylized and visceral script ("lies slid their way from my stomach to my tongue")—is delightful. It's exactly the sort of indulgence and erotic tension and self-reflection I want from a gothic fairy tale.
Title: Birdwing
Author: Rafe Martin
Published: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 370
Total Page Count: 316,045
Text Number: 1093
Read Because: mentioned in the Alt+H Discord, borrowed from OpenLibrary
Review: Bearing a swan's wing in place of his left arm, a young prince journeys north to escape political turmoil and discover where he belongs. This begins where the fairy tale "The Six Swans" ends, and the idea of exploring the repercussions of a fairytale is an inspired one. Ardwin has spent more time as a bird than a boy, and he re-enters the human world as a disabled outsider; he struggles to find his place, and is foiled by characters who share liminal or unusual roles. But the writing leaves something to be desired: it has an unstructured, coincidence-heavy plot which could work if it felt more like a fairy tale, but the aggressive humor, more reminiscent of middle grade than young adult, prevents that—while still clashing with the violence and rape threats in the book's second half. It's readable, charming, deceptively light—but under that is an ambiguous and intimate character arc that I wish were stronger.
Title: Red Hail
Author: Jamie Killen
Published: Red Adept Publishing, 2020
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 316,345
Text Number: 1094
Read Because: review copy provided by the author
Review: While studying the mass hysteria that swept a border town sixty years ago, a young professor is forced to reconsider his hypothesis when his partner starts showing the same bizarre symptoms. This is a solid mystery, alternating between 1960 and 2020 timelines in a way that maintains momentum without feeling forced. The cast in each timeline is human and diverse, and watching each group tackle the mystery with the capabilities and limitations unique to their timeline is satisfying. (I particularly love Dove, a brusque woman from the 1960s timeline who has a bevy of backstory and competency.) But what this lacks is atmosphere—it has a sense of time and place, but is utterly bereft of pathetic fallacy, and using the sweltering desert heat or inhospitable barren landscapes to intensity the anxiety surrounding the disease would have made this more memorable.
The thing that really bugged me about Red Hail wasn't appropriate for my review because it's not a sin unique to this book, this was just my tipping point: Proper nouns. They're so ubiquitous in SF/F that I wouldn't be surprised to find that editors/publishers insist on them, but they're also ... bad.
The "disease" in Red Hail presents as a plagues that happen in sequence, where sufferers enter fugue states and begin naming nearby objects (Naming), holding bizarre static poses (Statuing), etc. These are referred to as the Naming Plague, "he started Naming."
But! 1) It is a truth universally acknowledged that most capitalized made-up terms in fiction aren't grammatically correct proper nouns, which is part of why they're so obtrusive and ridiculous. Moreover, 2) They would be much more effective if they weren't capitalized. Instead of "I could hear in their voice the exaggerated emphasis on 'Naming,' indicating it was Weird and Important," imagine "when they said naming, we all knew what they meant." Imagine that the thing is so memorable and important that it causes a shift in language, giving otherwise innocuous words indelible connotations. Imagine the paradigm shift! Imagine how it would invite the reader to immerse themselves in the speculative elements, internalizing language and therefore worldbuilding.
Capitalization undermines that exact thing, speaking down to the reader rather than inviting them into the language & world of the text. Petition to kill this trend in 2020, and let language be more natural and subtle and effective, and less like the worst bits of YA dystopias.
