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Mar. 30th, 2015 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsSo the initial premise for Kelley Eskridge's Solitaire is that the world has joined as a united government, and to celebrate this all the babies born in the very first second of OFFICIAL UNIFIED WORLD PEACE are officially government-designated celebrities called Hopes and targeted to play some kind of major role in the government once they become old enough.
Our Heroine Jackal is the Hope for the world's only corporate nation-state. (I keep wanting to write 'dystopian corporate nation-state,' but it's not, like, that much more explicitly dystopian than the present day really unless you think the idea of corporate nation-states is inherently dystopian, which I pretty much do. BUT DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES, I guess.)
JACKAL: Great! So what do you want me to grow up and do for our society when I take up my important government position? Should I become a brilliant scientist, a great artist, like, what is the master plan here?
HER CORPORATE MASTERS: Actually what we have decided will be of the most benefit to a.) our giant corporate nation-state and b.) the world at large is if we give you all the special training we can to become the world's. GREATEST. PROJECT MANAGER.
JACKAL: ....OK, sounds good to me! Project managers get all the real work done anyway!
I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed that the plot of the book did not then move forward into Jackal ruling the world and the other Hopes via excellent project management techniques. Instead, Jackal's life takes a SHARP left turn due to a series of really unfortunate events, culminating in a very well-drawn and thus very distressing stay in virtual reality solitary confinement, followed by a long, careful period of self- and life-rebuilding, occasionally while utilizing her mad project management skills, while navigating interactions with dangerous persons and potential corporate conspiracies.
The book felt very reminiscent of nineties cyberpunk to me -- do people still write cyberpunk, by the way? This is the most recently published variant on the theme that I've read (though, I mean, 'recent' is relative; now that I check I see it was written in 2002, so I guess not really far from the nineties at all.) Anyway, I tend to be moderate to lukewarm on cyberpunk, but I liked this much more than most I've read. The plot has sort of an odd shape (weirdly, it's not actually that important in the long run that Jackal is a Hope at all?) and the ending is a bit rushed, but the bits that were meant to be distressing were VERY EFFECTIVELY DISTRESSING and I do really like reading about people rebuilding their lives after they get taken apart.
Also, would not have been better with lesbians, because it already has lesbians! Jackal's most important relationship is with her girlfriend Snow.
(Would have been better with even more project management, though.)
Our Heroine Jackal is the Hope for the world's only corporate nation-state. (I keep wanting to write 'dystopian corporate nation-state,' but it's not, like, that much more explicitly dystopian than the present day really unless you think the idea of corporate nation-states is inherently dystopian, which I pretty much do. BUT DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES, I guess.)
JACKAL: Great! So what do you want me to grow up and do for our society when I take up my important government position? Should I become a brilliant scientist, a great artist, like, what is the master plan here?
HER CORPORATE MASTERS: Actually what we have decided will be of the most benefit to a.) our giant corporate nation-state and b.) the world at large is if we give you all the special training we can to become the world's. GREATEST. PROJECT MANAGER.
JACKAL: ....OK, sounds good to me! Project managers get all the real work done anyway!
I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed that the plot of the book did not then move forward into Jackal ruling the world and the other Hopes via excellent project management techniques. Instead, Jackal's life takes a SHARP left turn due to a series of really unfortunate events, culminating in a very well-drawn and thus very distressing stay in virtual reality solitary confinement, followed by a long, careful period of self- and life-rebuilding, occasionally while utilizing her mad project management skills, while navigating interactions with dangerous persons and potential corporate conspiracies.
The book felt very reminiscent of nineties cyberpunk to me -- do people still write cyberpunk, by the way? This is the most recently published variant on the theme that I've read (though, I mean, 'recent' is relative; now that I check I see it was written in 2002, so I guess not really far from the nineties at all.) Anyway, I tend to be moderate to lukewarm on cyberpunk, but I liked this much more than most I've read. The plot has sort of an odd shape (weirdly, it's not actually that important in the long run that Jackal is a Hope at all?) and the ending is a bit rushed, but the bits that were meant to be distressing were VERY EFFECTIVELY DISTRESSING and I do really like reading about people rebuilding their lives after they get taken apart.
Also, would not have been better with lesbians, because it already has lesbians! Jackal's most important relationship is with her girlfriend Snow.
(Would have been better with even more project management, though.)
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Date: 2015-03-30 11:36 pm (UTC)I do not mean to be flippant or to suggest that Jackal is selfish. I mean, quite literally, that the arc of the novel is about Jackal's difficult relationship and romance with herself.
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Date: 2015-03-31 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 02:12 am (UTC)I think of Solitaire as a direct response to Nicola Griffith's 1995 Slow River. Griffith and Eskridge met at the Clarion Writers' Workshop one year and eventually got married. Slow River is also about a wealthy, privileged young woman with a dysfunctional, secret-filled near-future dystopic corporate family, traumatically tossed out of that family into another world. You might want to read that one too, because their ideas of what the future looks like and how to improve the future really bounce off of each other. (Content notes: abusive relationships, nonconsensual drug use, rape, suicide.)
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Date: 2015-03-31 03:02 am (UTC)Slow River is on my list, but I haven't read any of Nicola Griffith's sci-fi yet -- only Hild, which I really liked but which I imagine is a bit of a different beast.
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Date: 2015-03-31 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 03:12 am (UTC)Her Aud Torvingen series is mainstream thriller/mystery series about a Norwegian lesbian who is physically perfect and emotionally odd. Very wintery. I enjoy them.
I think Slow River might be more up your alley than mine. I found it a bit, uh, slow. But it's very, very focused on the physical details of an unglamorous job (a water treatment plant) which you might appreciate more than I did.
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Date: 2015-04-01 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-02 03:59 pm (UTC)It is amazing.
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Date: 2015-04-02 04:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-30 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-03-31 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 12:15 am (UTC)which is to say: this one is definitely going on my reading list.
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Date: 2015-03-31 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 12:20 am (UTC)I don't see the tag "#needs more project management" often enough.
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Date: 2015-03-31 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 02:10 am (UTC)(I never want to do project management because people. But this book sounds intriguing and that novelette sounds AMAZING.)
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Date: 2015-04-01 10:09 pm (UTC)It's called The Viscount's Christmas Temptation and it's ALL MANAGEMENT, ALL THE TIME.
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Date: 2015-04-02 12:35 am (UTC)And FREE!
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Date: 2015-04-03 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 01:48 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-03-31 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2015-03-31 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 02:59 am (UTC)....MAN, WHEN IS MY BLU-RAY OF THAT GOING TO GET HERE
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Date: 2015-03-31 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 03:07 am (UTC)LOADS OF SEQUELS
AND A GRAPHIC NOVEL ADAPTATION AND COMIC BOOKS AND SPINOFFS AND
AND SEAN BEAN WITH BEE-WINGS
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Date: 2015-04-02 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-31 10:38 am (UTC)She also has a really great short story collection, Dangerous Spaces, which I loved even more than Solitaire.
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Date: 2015-03-31 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 09:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 10:06 pm (UTC)Ooh, I should check that out! Thanks for mentioning it. :D
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Date: 2015-03-31 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-01 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-04-02 02:17 am (UTC)...it's a little worrying how easy I am to please.