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Big Sky, Kate Atkinson — Atkinson’s books about private detective Jackson Brodie are terrific.  Brodie, like many fictional detectives before him, has become cynical over the course of a long career, but somewhere within him is a person who still cares.  He’s also slightly befuddled by the modern world, and his observations about it are mordantly funny.  But the best parts of these books are the people around him: a Russian former trapeze artist and dominatrix (“Clowns in Russia were not funny, she said.  They aren’t here either, Jackson thought.”); two young female cops named Ronnie and Reggie, called of course the Kray twins (“‘Are you Mrs. Bragg?’ Reggie asked.  ‘Maybe,’ the woman said.  Well, you either are or you aren’t, Reggie thought.  You’re not Schrödinger’s cat.”); Jackson’s spacey actress ex-girlfriend and the mother of their child; Bunny, a drag queen; and some truly horrible criminals (“It made him think of Wendy Ives, her head bashed in with a golf club.  What kind of club? he pondered idly…. A wood, perhaps, but then you wouldn’t be looking to drive Wendy’s head any distance onto the fairway, would you?”).  As with most of these books, the characters somehow come together at the end, and major and minor puzzles are solved.

Atkinson has a tendency toward sad stories about sad families, usually with one or several murdered members.  The first book in the series, Case Histories, was almost too depressing, but the second, One Good Turn, is one of the best.  I’d suggest starting with that, but characters from one book show up in others, so completists might just as well read them straight through.  I liked Big Sky as much as any of them, which is saying a lot.

Radicalized, by Cory Doctorow — Four inventive stories about people who are marginalized and what they are forced to do just to survive.  In “Unauthorized Bread,” an immigrant finds out that her appliances restrict the kinds of products she’s allowed to use; then, when they start to fail, she has to learn how to hack her own toaster and dishwasher.  Meanwhile others in the apartment building are mobilizing in equally clever ways.  “Model Minority” is about a Superman-like character who rescues a black man from the police and discovers that his popularity suffers.  From spot-on satire Doctorow moves to a story that’s almost too painful to read, “Radicalized,” where a woman with breast cancer is told that the experimental procedure that could cure her isn’t covered by her health-care provider.  Finally, in “The Masque of the Red Death” a man builds a shelter to protect him and some others when civilization collapses.  It’s engrossing in the way end-of-the-world stories are engrossing, but it’s also a meditation about who’s “in” and who’s “out” in a society that puts hedge-fund managers at the top of the heap.  (Longer review here.)

Miranda in Milan, by Katharine Duckett — What really happened after the tempest, when Prospero and Miranda returned to Italy?  Ferdinand is only the second person Miranda has ever seen — is that really a good basis for a romance?  More importantly, maybe, is Prospero — a man who puts Miranda to sleep whenever she becomes inconvenient, who wants to be in control of everyone and everything around him — really the good guy?  Did Prospero tell Miranda the truth about his usurper-brother Antonio?

I love stories like this, that take a well-known tale and turn it inside-out while remaining true to the source.  In The Tempest Ferdinand tells Miranda that Antonio’s son has been shipwrecked with the rest of them, but the son isn’t mentioned at all at the end of the play.  Why?  Because Shakespeare forgot about him, of course, but in Duckett’s version he’s been killed — and not only that, but he’s been erased from everyone’s memory.

If Miranda in Milan just dealt with minor puzzles like this one, it would be merely clever.  But it’s also absorbing and beautifully told, and like The Tempest it has some things to say about power, what it is and how it’s gotten.

Geez, just three books for this year.  I know I read more good books than that.  Next year I’m going to record them as I read them.
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When I read Cory Doctorow’s collection Radicalized I felt a bit as if he was preaching to the choir.  But, hey — there’s a reason the choir returns week after week, and maybe it’s to hear the sermon.  Every so often it’s good to read stories that reflect and even expand your own views, especially if they’re written by someone who’s passionate and articulate and knows what he’s talking about.  And these stories aren’t cheap propaganda — each of the four novellas is a good tale in its own right.

The first, “Unauthorized Bread,” follows a woman, Salima, who discovers that her toaster has stopped working.  Not a catastrophe for most people, but the toaster is made by the corporation Boulangism and supplied by the owners of her apartment, and Boulangism has gone bankrupt.  Since the apartment managers don’t allow her to use any other toaster (and she couldn’t afford one in any case), she’s in the strange position of having to hack her own appliance.

Her dishwasher goes out too, and she hacks that as well.  Soon other people in the apartment building are asking her for help, and she recruits a group of kids — well, it’s more that they recruit her — who go door to door tampering with appliances.  The problem is that the toaster, the dishwasher, even the kids’ schoolbooks are set up to take only products supplied by their respective companies, and when Boulangism is restructured they will be coming for their money, or to discover why they haven’t been getting any.  Everyone with a hacked toaster could be going to jail.

Doctorow has built a fascinating world for his story, one that in some ways seems all too familiar.  Every new residential building must set aside a number of apartments for low-income housing, which is how Salima manages to snag one.  But there are no laws about what you can do with these poor people once they move in, and so the apartment owners mandate the kinds of furniture and appliances they can have and, of course, get kickbacks when these are used.  My favorite evil plan by the owners involves the elevators, which will stop at all the “market-rate” floors before deigning to pick up anyone from the poor floors, so that Salima sometimes has to wait an hour or so before the doors open for her.  The two groups inhabit the same building, but they never see each other.

Maybe it’s just the current climate, but I was never completely convinced that our government would care even this much about poor people.  Conservatives are frequently overcome with horror when they learn that someone on a low income owns a refrigerator, let alone toaster or — gasp!— a dishwasher or television.  A friend of Salima’s, Nadifa, has an income-indexed place, which means that she and her kids “would be able to afford to live there no matter what happened to them in the future.”  At the risk of sounding like the most unhinged of conservatives, who is paying for all this?  Who’s paying when Nadifa takes one of her kids to the dentist?  Who paid for the refugee camp in Arizona where the two women met, where Salima had lived for five years?  Putting all this aside though, which is easily done, “Unauthorized Bread” is a terrific story.

“Model Minority” shows what happens when the American Eagle, a superhero much like Superman, saves a black man from being beaten by cops.  The Eagle has been idolized by the public up to that point, but this one act is enough to turn a good portion of them against him.  It’s a pitch-perfect satire, one that makes you really think about the meaning of the words “truth, justice, and the American way” ... especially those last three.

Doctorow moves from a story leavened with humor to one that’s almost too painful to read.  In “Radicalized” Joe’s wife Lacey has cancer, but the experimental treatments available have been denied by their health care providers.  Joe desperately needs a way to unload his anger, and he finds a forum for people in the same position.  But the posters there are pushing more and more radical actions, and at times you find yourself agreeing with them.

This is how Doctorow works: he shows you the real stories behind the statistics, people on the edge of despair, clinging by their fingertips.  You feel their rage and frustration, and you wonder what you would feel, how you would act.

Martin, in “The Masque of the Red Death,” has built a bunker to hide in when the world collapses, and has invited thirty people to join him.  At times he even seems to be looking forward to it; as a hedge-fund manager he thinks things like “The fact was that the world just didn’t need all these people anymore, and the market had revealed that fact…It was just like ‘gentrifying,’ but on a grand scale.”

Of course it all goes terribly wrong, but Martin is such an unpleasant jerk it’s kind of fun watching it happen.  Then you remember that this is the End of the World, and you see some of the characters you like die.  And here you are again, locked out of the bunker or the apartment or the hospital, locked away from the privileges of the rich.  How would you feel?  What would you do to save yourself, or a loved one?

Doctorow’s dedication and last sentence are nearly the same: “This isn’t the kind of fight we win, it’s the kind of fight we fight.”  Preach it, brother.


_____

Other news:
 
I’ve seen the cover for my new book Ivory Apples, and it’s terrific!  You’ll just have to take my word for it, though, because Tachyon wants to do a cover reveal on a bigger website that this one — and I can’t say I blame them.  I’ll let you know when they post it.

Right now the book itself is scheduled for September 15.

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