A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars I wanted to like it! But the writing… The world could use more African-themed fantasy novels, so I was eager to like Roseanne A. Brown’s debut novel A Song of Wraiths and Ruin (2020). And the world building on one African-esque continent is fine. A thousand years ago, the oppressive Egyptian analogue Kennouan Empire was replaced by the Zirani Empire, which for 250 years has been occupying and exploiting the “backwards” Eshrani people. There are ballads about legendary figures like Bahia, the first sultana of Ziran, and her traitor husband the Faceless King. And a religion with a Great Mother and seven animal deities and their seven elements. And tangible or intangible magic and “grim folk” like wraiths. And a mix of African and fantasy animals, from zebras and lions to chipekwe and serpopards. Blessedly, the narration is not first-person present tense, but third-person past, chapters alternating between two complementary teen protagonists, Malik, an impoverished Eshrani refugee, and Karina, a sad, over-protected Zirani princess. Malik has traveled across the desert with his older and younger sisters to the wealthy city-state Ziran, hoping to earn enough money there to send for his mother and grandmother. Ten years ago, Karina’s beloved father and big sister died in a fire, and as the only heir, she isn’t allowed to do anything dangerous, so, thinking that her mother hates her, she sneaks out at night with her trusty maid to best bards in song competitions in dirty downtown dives. Like other YA teen heroes, Malik and Karina are separated from parental supervision, unappreciated by their families and communities, endowed with special gifts (Malik for stories, Karina for music, both for magic), and good looking (Malik with “tawny brown skin” and “night dark eyes,” Karina with dark brown skin and silver hair in coils). Oh, and they’re drawn to each other while being made to think they’ll have to kill each other! There’s a Hunger Games vibe here. The week-long Solstasia festival held every fifty years when a comet appears above Ziran includes three challenges for seven champions representing the seven deities, losers being eliminated until one winner remains. Each champion has a support team, nice clothes, and fans who cheer for, bet on, and dress like them. In addition to having their patron deity preside over Zirani culture, the winner (even if it’s the sole female champion) will marry Princess Karina. Brown tells a page turning story. There are neat scenes, like when Malik tells a folk tale about the trickster Hyena, when Karina and Malik find a forgotten necropolis full of animated slave corpses working in time-worn rags, and when Karina serves “poisoned” tea to some uppity viziers. Similes are apt, like “Grinning a grin that would put a hyena’s to shame.” There’s vivid description, like “Hidden in a chasm longer than the tallest tower in Ksar Alahari was a city that glittered like a gold gash against the dark stone.” And Brown introduces relevant issues like immigrants, discrimination, and war profiteering. (The novel’s not about race, as Zirani and Eshrani are only told apart by accent and manners.) Unfortunately, Brown’s writing ejected me from her story. Plot contrivance abounds, from the minor (Malik letting his verboten mobile magic tattoo appear anywhere on his body instead of always safely hiding it on the bottom of his foot) to the major (Karina deciding to use a forbidden necromantic rite from the dread Kennouan Empire to resurrect her mother, though it requires cutting out the heart of whoever marries her). Action scenes don’t feel real, as when twelve fierce bush dogs let a champion kill them one by one instead of attacking him all at once. The main characters are by turns unconvincing or unappealing, prone to panic attacks, temper tantrums, and self-castigations, like, “Failure. Failure. Failure” (Karina), and “Let Driss beat him to death. He deserved it” (Malik). One moment Karina is wailing, “This is all my fault,” the next vowing, “This ends tonight.” One moment fretting, “She was a fool to ever have thought he [Malik] had feelings for her,” the next preening, “If she were Tunde, she'd be in love with herself too.” Malik, who has no romantic experience and is cripplingly shy, says to a rival, “Me talking to her isn't a problem, right? I mean, since the two of you aren't involved anymore.” (The de rigueur YA love triangle isn’t compelling.) Brown turns the emotional volume up too high, as when “true terror filled Karina’s veins” before she faces her estranged mother. Teens are histrionic and volatile, but Malik and Karina’s exaggerated and cliched emotions deafened and distanced me. Hearts hammer, millions of questions race through minds, a door takes two lifetimes to open. “Fear screamed at Malik.” “He wanted to curl up into a ball and hide.” “Karina's heart dropped down to her toes.” “Her rage was a living creature beyond her control.” And so on. Brown even uses “literally” nine times to authenticate excessive emotions, e.g., “Karina would have quite literally bitten anyone else for laying a finger on her without permission,” and “Malik was quite literally running in circles.” Finally, the dialogue is too formally stilted (e.g., “I am humbled by your hospitality,” and “On the contrary, I think it is in my own best interest to see how much of a ransom Haissa Sarahel is willing to pay for her only daughter”) or too casually slangy (e.g., “I'm good,” “Show your love to the newest Life champion of Solstasia,” “What the hell is going on?” “You owe me big time, Princess,” and “Come on you guys… We have a princess to find”). Is this an African folktale fantasy or an American TV show? The male and female audiobook readers who read the alternating chapters of Malik (A. J. Beckles) and Karina (Jordan Cobb) over-dramatize the already febrile text. Worse, it’s jarring when Beckles reads the speech of characters in the Malik chapters who also speak in the Karina chapters read by Cobb, because the same characters’ voices sound so different. Beckles’ Karina is more high-pitched and less cool than Cobb’s, Cobb’s vengeful spirit Idir less malevolent and more cartoonish than Beckles’. Cobb speaks American English for all Zirani like Karina—except for Commander Hamidou, who has an African accent. Maybe Malik should have an African accent, because his Eshrani accent threatens to reveal his origin, but even to his sister he only speaks American English like Karina. And then Cobb gives a pseudo-British accent to an Eshrani servant! The readers don’t enhance the story. I was impressed by some cool surprises and intense developments in the climax, wherein the “evil” nemeses reveal interesting motivations, unlike generic dark lords. However, I spent most of my time with the novel listing flaws with bitter relish and can’t imagine going on to the sequel to see how Malik, Karina, and Ziran grow. View all my reviews
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Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars "Last night a-marrying—to-day a-burying" I can’t believe my Mom read Eric Brighteyes to me when I was in Junior High school! Imagine her, a “cheerful by nature” Unitarian Mother for Peace, reading something like this to 12-year-old me: “Here, it would seem, is nothing but hate and strife, weariness, and bitter envy to fret away our strength, and at last, if we come so far, sickness, sorrowful age and death, and thereafter we know not what. Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor know I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, Gudruda, clasping at that happiness which is given, though we may not hold it.” I guess she read it to me cause she knew I had a Viking fetish. The edition we read of H. Rider Haggard’s 1891 Icelandic saga pastiche was published in 1974 in the Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library series, with the original beautiful monochrome wood cut illustrations by the splendidly named Lancelot Speed. The book must have been beyond me: adult storyline (a love triangle tragedy), archaic syntax and vocabulary, and Icelandic setting (with Norse gods like Odin and Ran, supernatural figures like the Norns and Valkyries, and exotic cultural features like weregild). And from that first reading, over the decades I forgot everything but a few scenes, like the hero waking to find his sword sticking through his lover’s heart, and only retained a vivid memory of having been excited and moved by the story. So I was curious to reread the novel a while ago (in 2011). I found it a brutal, beautiful, fascinating, and powerful tale of Norsemen and Vikings and witches and berserkers, in all their bleak, brave, destructive, and passionate glory. Despite (or because of) the tragic deaths prophesied early in the novel for the main characters, and despite (or because of) their pride, anger, jealousy, gullibility, and violence, I cared about Eric, Skallagrim, and Gudruda, as well as about supporting characters like Asmund and “villainous” characters like Swanhild, and suspensefully read their inevitable progressions toward their foretold dooms because I kept hoping that somehow they would avoid them. Haggard manipulates his characters with supernatural devices (potions, spells, gods, etc.) while never making them do anything they couldn’t do anyway due to their own human hearts. And the thrall Jon, the amateur skald who turns out to have kept the saga of Eric Brighteyes alive, has his own minor but interesting role to play in the story… There is a grim humor in the novel, as when Eric takes to calling Skallagrim “the drunkard” or to mocking cowed foes. There is horror, too, as when Swanhild makes an evil pact with her familiar-demon-sending, or as when her eyes glow red as she casts a sleeping spell, or as when all the men whom Eric has killed or caused to die crowd silently around his fire. And numerous impressive scenes: Eric wrestling Skallagrim, Skallagrim inopportunely indulging his fondness for ale, Gudruda cleaning Eric’s festering wound, Eric awaking after his wedding night, the Norns revealing their weaving of Eric’s life and its end, and so on. Haggard’s style is epic, archaic, and laconic (“I care not for this rede”; “thou shouldst take my helm”; etc.) and plenty of Icelandic saga words like “fey,” “athling,” and “baresark.” And plenty of alliteration, clauses beginning “For,” and vivid and meet similes. Characters (especially Eric) are wont to break into Anglo-Saxon-esque alliterative verse in moments of intense emotion (similar to what Poul Anderson later does in The Broken Sword): "Hence I go to wreak thy murder. Hissing fire of flaming stead, Groan of spear-carles, wail of women, Soon shall startle through the night. Then on Mosfell, Kirtle-Wearer, Eric waits the face of Death. Freed from weary life and sorrow, Soon we'll kiss in Hela's halls!" Haggard even imagines a sentient sword precursor to Stormbringer: "Thou art a strange sword, Whitefire," he said, "who slayest both friend and foe! Shame on thee, Whitefire! We swore our oath on thee, Whitefire, and thou hast cut its chain! Now I am minded to shatter thee." And as Eric looked on the great blade, lo! it hummed strangely in answer. The reader of the free Librivox audiobook, Brett Downey, does not have a charismatic voice, and his female characters verge on the artificially feminine, and yet he reads the rhythm, pauses, and words well, and I came to enjoy listening to him. I liked his gruff Skallagrim voice and his simple, good natured Eric voice. He effectively overdubs his voice a few times when a large number of men shout in unison. And Haggard’s prose is so distinctive and savory that it is just a pleasure to hear it spoken aloud (though I’d like to time travel to hear my Mom—bless her heart—read it to me again…) If you like Viking stories or tragic heroic fantasy like The Broken Sword and The Children of Hurin, you would probably like this book. And if you are interested in the history of fantastic fiction, you should read it, because, apparently, it’s the first modern English novel to pastiche the Icelandic sagas and also influenced Tolkien. View all my reviews The Math of Life & Death: 7 Mathematical Principles that Shape Our Lives (2019) by Kit Yates9/6/2022
The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives by Kit Yates
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Human Math Stories I’m a math dunce—I got a C in basic algebra only because my friends coached me—so it was daunting to start The Math of Life & Death: 7 Mathematical Principles that Shape Our Lives (2019) by Kit Yates. Luckily, the mathematical biologist’s book was entertaining, informative, and much more comprehensible than I’d feared it’d be. Yates wants to “emancipate” us from our phobias about math and to show us that math is for everyone. Although he didn’t mathematically emancipate this lazy reader, Yates is a clear writer, and his many real-life examples (human stories) of the power of math to affect every aspect of our daily lives (and deaths!) are compelling, so I’m glad to have listened to his book. Here follow summaries of its seven chapters. Chapter 1: Thinking Exponentially: The Sobering Limits of Power Covers exponential growth and exponential decay via examples like pyramid schemes, viral marketing, Internet memes, the atomic bomb (harrowing), population, and technological advances. Luckily, exponential growth phenomena tend to reach a point of unsustainability where they collapse due to lack of resources. Chapter 2: Sensitivity, Specificity, and Second Opinions: How Math Makes Medicine Manageable Introduces the limits on accuracy of screening tests for conditions like pregnancy, breast cancer, HIV, etc., including false positive and false negative results, the false alarm problem in ICUs, and the calculations determining who gets meds and who has to pay for them, etc. The moral is: always get at least a second test/opinion! Chapter 3: The Laws of Mathematics: Investigating the Role of Mathematics in the Law Covers the way that math (statistics, probability analysis, etc.) is (mis)used in legal cases; explains median vs. mean; variables like gender, age, and wealth that warp test results; how DNA evidence may be misused or misinterpreted; and the Prosecutor’s and the Defenders’ Fallacies (looking at statistics only in the light they favor one’s case). Chapter 4: Don't Believe the Truth: Debunking Media Statistics Shows how to understand and assess numerical “proof” and how ads use numbers misleadingly; explains flaws in statistics like small sample sizes, selection and confirmation bias, and cherry picked, framed, and fake statistics; explains regression to the mean; details the Birthday Problem (how likely it is in a group of people that two will share the same birthday); assesses whether concealed carry gun laws reduce or increase gun violence; reveals which container of jellybeans to choose from if you want to get a minority red among the majority whites. Yates’ says that we need the context and source for data if we're going to believe it. Chapter 5: Wrong Place, Wrong Time: When Our Number Systems Let Us Down Says interesting things about different number systems, like the Sumerians’ base 60 (!), computer programming’s base 2, and our base 10, including how errors in decimal places may have devastating effects; also covers the history of time zones (normalized for train schedules etc.), the metric system (the US being the only industrial country not to adopt it). His conclusion is that we should try to avoid our (almost) innate binary decision making. Chapter 6: Relentless Optimization: From Evolution to E-commerce, Life is an Algorithm Covers the history and nature of algorithms (rules to produce certain outputs); explains the use of algorithms for different situations like organizing record collections, making routes for deliveries, packing for trips, and using car navigation; urges us to scrutinize algorithms with our human judgment, especially how their outputs are used and how their often biased inputs are set up; says interesting things about algorithms in nature, like the swarming of ants and fish and evolution generally. And—hey—Yates shares his system for choosing the best restaurant, train carriage, or checkout counter, etc. from a set of options, advising us to reject the first 37% before choosing the next best one relative to the earlier rejected ones. *I thought that in chapter 3 about math and law or here in chapter 6 about algorithms, he’d touch on “predictive policing,” but he’s silent about it.* Chapter 7: Susceptible, Infective, Removed: How to Stop an Epidemic Relates the history and nature of infectious diseases (e.g., measles, Ebola, HIV, chickenpox, gonorrhea, etc.) and the use of mathematical models (e.g., Susceptible Infective Removed [SIR] and Basic Reproduction Number) to track, predict, avoid, eliminate, and make policy for them. Covers contact tracing, quarantining, herd immunity, vaccinating, and anti-vaxxing, etc. This chapter has extra resonance for our coronavirus era, which began shortly after Yates published his book. Epilogue: Mathematical Emancipation Yates closes by highlighting how the current of math runs below the way we communicate, navigate, shop, relax, get medical care, find answers to questions, and so on. He points out that math can save or end lives, is only as useful as the people using it, and is in some situations inferior compared to human judgment. And he urges us to check math, bias, and sources, and generally to take the power of math into our own hands. One good way to do all that is through human stories which reveal or reflect mathematical models and help us understand them. I confess that Yates lost me most every time he embarked on a nuts and bolts explanation of some mathematical principle or method, partly because I listened to the audiobook. He reads speedily, so before I could absorb a given point, he’d already be running on to the next one, so I had trouble remembering many of his explanations after hearing them in real time. A minor kvetch is that, although Yates’ Manchester accent is appealing, he likes attempting accents for quotations from French, Belgian, Italian, or American figures (including Texans, Trump, and Obama), but he doesn't do them well. An unnecessary distraction. View all my reviews |
Jefferson Peters
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