(no subject)

[skygiants]

I picked up The Half-Made World because I saw Felix Gilman talk at an event a few years ago and thought he had interesting things to say. Unfortunately, I did not like The Half-Made World.

I can't actually think of any Weird Steampunk/SFF Westerns I do like particularly at the moment -- with maybe the one exception of Kage Baker's Mendoza in Hollywood, a book I love WELL beyond its deserts (& I guess The Gunslinger, a book of which this one is not un-reminiscent, but there's contextual reasons for that) -- so it's possible and even probable that the genre is just generally not my thing, but I'm ... let's say generously, KIND OF confused by the worldbuilding choices.

The Half-Made World is set in a West that's -- well, I can't tell if AU!Europe is actually on the same content as AU!America or not, there may or may not be an ocean in between, but either way in the East Things Are Civilized And We Have Hospitals And Fancy Psychology and Out West Things Are Weird And Violent And Controlled By Weird Spirits until you go all the way west and literally get to the end of the world where reality comes unmoored and monsters are created from the hazy mist.

The West is dominated by two extremely powerful immortal forces: The Line, which are giant ... possessed monster trains....? ... who conquer land to create dystopian industrial railroad-linked cities where all the people exist in downtrodden assembly-line order, and The Gun, which are violent spirits who possess/partner with violent individuals to create Forces Of Bloodthirsty Chaotic Neutral Verging On Evil that oppose The Line and also perform other random acts of ballad-worthy violence, just 'cause.

Our three protagonists are: Liv, a lady doctor who comes from the East and is Going West to try experimental psychology on patients who have been brain-damaged by The Line's weapons; Creedmore, a semi-reluctant Agent of the Gun who's been sent to kidnap one of Liv's brain-damaged patients who was once a general of the one Noble Foolish Doomed Republic and may hold Important Secrets; and Lowry, a Typical Agent Of The Line whose mission is to stop Creedmore and capture the general of the Noble Foolish Doomed Republic, ditto ditto. The Noble Foolish Doomed Republic, for the record, was stuffy and overly bureaucratic, but nonetheless had a brief period of inspirational glory which may have subsequently resulted in the only thing that can defeat The Line and The Gun.

The metaphors here ain't subtle, but what the actual message is, I'm honestly not sure. I'm also REALLY EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE about the fact that the embattled and oppressed indigenous population of The West are creepy magical inhuman white people with strange powers who live under hills, come back to life after you kill them and can't deal with iron? I can't actually decide which part is worse, the fact that it's full-on magical native, or literally overwriting the history of the American West with EUROPEAN FAIRIES.

I mean, to be fair, there are several explicitly non-white people in the book! But where they came from and how they got there is HIGHLY unclear, given that, once again, all of America's history of racial oppression, slavery, etc. is now being written onto -- I reiterate -- BASICALLY EUROPEAN FAIRIES. I think there might even be a mentioned human character who is coded Native American, which makes the metaphorical landscape THAT MUCH MORE CONFUSING.

That said, at one point a side character briefly appears -- a black showman-inventor traveling around to demonstrate his Miraculous Devices to the public -- who made enough of an impression on me in his three-sentence cameo that I was like "man, I wish I was reading the book about that guy!"

Turns out the sequel is in fact about that guy. Dammit, Felix Gilman!

Comments

[hebethen]

I'm mildly interested in Ursula Vernon's... uh... Harkenverse, I guess, which could count as "weird SFF western". But that's just a couple of short stories, SO.

[skygiants]

I still have yet to actually read anything by Ursula Vernon, though I plan to fix that soon.

[rushthatspeaks]

I know, right? I wish Felix Gilman would stop with the weird Westerns as I do not think it is a niche that is doing him any favors. That said, I have not read that sequel.

What I have read, and highly recommend, is Gilman's first novel, Thunderer, which is in my list of top five magical city books. It does some things with the concept of magical city that I have never seen another book do, ever, and it's basically a perfect novel, and it's why I keep trying Felix Gilman. But don't read the sequel to that one.

[skygiants]

Thanks for the rec - I would like to like something that Felix Gilman has written! I did really enjoy the panel he was on.

[kore]

//completely ignores actual topic

OMG SOMEONE ELSE LIKES MENDOZA IN HOLLYWOOD
I THINK IT'S AWESOME

The bit where they sit around watching Greed! And it is lovingly described! And so many people said to me, "That was where I put the book down." :-/

[skygiants]

I LOVE THAT CHAPTER SO MUCH, it is so terrible for things like ... pacing .... and it is so great for everything that I want out of a book, which is basically 'fanfic where the characters sit around watching other stuff and snarking on it and reveal characterization thereby.' Kage Baker is so good at catering to my needs (except of course when she really, really doesn't.)

[kore]

IT IS SO AWESOME

OTHER PEOPLE I KNEW WERE LIKE 'IT'S SO AWFUL, IT IS THIS LONG BORING DESCRIPTION OF THE MOVIE AND HOW THEY REACT TO IT' AND I'M JUST LIKE 'GIVE IT TO ME FOR GODSAKES I'LL TAKE YOUR SHARE'

it is so great for everything that I want out of a book, which is basically 'fanfic where the characters sit around watching other stuff and snarking on it and reveal characterization thereby.'

Seriously! I am all over that! See also: the production of Hamlet in Tam Lin. I just love great descriptions of what people are watching.

Kage Baker is so good at catering to my needs (except of course when she really, really doesn't.)

I don't even know what happened to that series. I loved Garden of Iden, really liked Sky Coyote and Hollywood, and then ever book after that was just a steeper drop down in terms of quality. And then it went all to the Land of WTF with snivelling vegetarian villains and weird space polyamory incest and godhood and I don't even remember what all else.

[sovay]

I can't actually think of any Weird Steampunk/SFF Westerns I do like particularly at the moment

Have you read Gemma Files' Hexslinger series? A Book of Tongues (2010), A Rope of Thorns (2011), A Tree of Bones (2012), plus assorted short stories. They are my primary interaction with the genre of the weird Western and I like them very much, in part because of their willingness to compose the main cast almost entirely out of people who are marginalized in one direction or another, magic not always included. The third book needed some structural edits it never got, but the series ending is the right one.

I can't actually decide which part is worse, the fact that it's full-on magical native, or literally overwriting the history of the American West with EUROPEAN FAIRIES.

Not having read the book, I feel as though some of this decision may be explained by Gilman being British, but I agree it's still pretty weird.

[skygiants]

Heh, the Hexslinger books were actually the other weird Western I was thinking of -- I read the whole series a year or two ago, and several people I know like them very much, but they didn't quite work for me.

[graycardinal]

The Weird West novels I recall most fondly date from a number of years back - late '80s, I think. Devil's Tower and Devil's Engine by Mark Sumner. No steam to speak of, but a lot of atmosphere.

The new one I need to read soonest is Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman (no relation whatsoever to Felix that I know of). That's getting a lot of very favorable buzz from all the right places.

[skygiants]

Huh, I have heard of none of these books!

[graycardinal]

It isn't surprising that you missed the Sumner novels (which I misdated by about a decade); they came out in 1996 and 1997 from Del Rey and pretty much didn't get noticed -- perhaps because their slant on the West was a great deal more naturalistic and much less military than most of the other alt-history we were getting at the time. (It may say something that the first book's villain is George Armstrong Custer; the second's arch-foe is railroad empire builder Jay Gould.)

Silver on the Road was released just last October, and its Gilman is both extremely genre-savvy and (having previously been a top-level SF/F book editor) very aware of what's been done before. Two things about it: first, its protagonist is female -- one Isobel née Lacoyo Távora, tasked as the Devil's Left Hand in the Territory between the United States and the Spanish Protectorate (see the front-end map). Second, I have read enough of Gilman's other work that I bought this one brand new in hardback. [She's done very good urban fantasy -- notably the "Cosa Nostradamus" series from Luna -- and also light mysteries under the byline L. A. Kornetsky.]

[kore]

the first book's villain is George Armstrong Custer; the second's arch-foe is railroad empire builder Jay Gould

Oh hey, that's interesting.

[rachelmanija]

Those are vey underrated. I liked them a lot, though yeeesh, lots of body horror. It also really felt like there should have been a third, but I think probably the first two didn't sell well. Also, one of the best first sentences ever:

The shaman came to town near sunset, riding a dead horse.

[seekingferret]

I can't actually think of any Weird Steampunk/SFF Westerns I do like particularly at the moment

I bought this one for obvious reasons, but couldn't get past the incredibly racist first scene.

http://www.amazon.com/Merkabah-Rider-Tales-Planes-Drifter/dp/161572060X

[skygiants]

Oh, wow, that's super disappointing. >:(

[sanguinity]

I got uncomfortable with where this was going here:

:: Out West Things Are Weird And Violent And Controlled By Weird Spirits until you go all the way west and literally get to the end of the world where reality comes unmoored and monsters are created from the hazy mist. ::

Because that didn't bode well at all. But then it got much, much worse, very quickly, ugh. I can't say I've spent all that much time exploring the Weird West genre, but the stuff I've seen has actively encouraged me to stay well away from it. :-/

[skygiants]

YEP. To be honest, I've yet to find a Weird Western book that has figured out how to engage with the inherent racism of the Western genre in ways that don't make me super uncomfortable. (I mean, from what I remember, Stephen King is trying, and I give him some points for sincere efforts to learn from his past screw-ups, but, you know ... I mean, he's trying.)

[sanguinity]

The only example I can think of is Native-authored, which... Well, it's a fundamentally different fantasy, when it's a Native person having it, no? When white people fantasize about the old west, it always seems to me a bit like the thing they're fundamentally fantasizing about is, if not the racism/colonialism itself, then its direct fruits. Which makes the quest to not be racist while doing so seem a bit doomed from the start. I do think it requires more ruthless self-honesty about one's motives than many authors seem to be bringing to bear.

However, I don't want to say it's categorically impossible; I admit to being predisposed toward cynicism on the topic.

[graycardinal]

Hmmm. I am put in mind of the Patricia Wrede nominally-YA series that begins with Thirteenth Child, which I recall as having been labeled "frontier fantasy" rather than Weird West; the first book has sort of a Laura Ingalls Wilder vibe, but the second and third shift into more of an explore-and-experiment mode.

(Yes, I know about Thirteenth Child having been one of the catalysts for the Great RaceFail Kerfuffle. I like Wrede's work enough in general that I sought out the book anyway, and I don't think it deserved the trashing it got. This discussion echoes my thoughts on the matter pretty well.)

[sanguinity]

Mm. I would call the Thirteenth Child a sterling example of my sense of what many of these authors are fantasizing about. Wrede wanted* a fantastical America that is recognizably itself ("North Columbia," Washington, Adams, Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark expedition, and other cultural landmarks such as "the War of Secession," not to mention a frontier story with a "Laura Ingalls Wilder vibe") but which somehow didn't require genocide or colonialism to come into being. In other words, it's a fantasy about having the direct fruits of colonialism -- America, a settler-colonial state -- without having the settler-colonialism itself.

I further note that to accomplish this fantastical America, she had to retroactively write out of existence all the indigenous peoples of North America. Writing us out of existence is cleaner than the messy business of bullets and residential schools, granted, but I think it aptly illustrates my point of wanting the fruits of genocide: she wanted/needed an absence of indigenous peoples and our moral claim to the land, and isn't that the point of genocide?

And this is why, in my opinion, books in this genre keep running into this problem: they want to have the results of genocide without having the genocide itself. And yet in their attempts to design some alternative-to-genocide that lets them tell the story they wanted to tell, they keep having to write in fundamentally dodgey things. In the case of the Thirteenth Child, making North America tella nullius in fictional fact, in perfect agreement with the historical fictions told about it; in the case of The Half-Made World, replacing the actual Native peoples with yet more European peoples, fairies though they may be.

* Inasmuch as authorial desire can be known by a reader. But I am the one who made the initial claim that authorial desire is the poison in the well, so here we are.

[graycardinal]

Hmm.

I don't disagree that Thirteenth Child (and indeed, the trilogy as a whole) is flawed -- and I'd even agree that the flaw derives from a Big Lie. But I'd argue that the Big Lie is not the erasure of Native Americans from their homeland. Rather, the Big Lie is that the books are historical fiction in any meaningful sense. Having read all three books, I can say with considerable confidence that you could do a global search-and-replace on every place name and every reference to "North Columbian" or planetary historical persons and places, substituting wholly imaginary names, and it would make no material difference whatsoever to the plot, characterization, or narrative flow of the story.

And then what you'd have is a novel about a young woman coming of age in a magic-using society during a period of great cultural transition, and about the explorations she and others undertake into as-yet uninhabited lands on her nation's frontier...in a unique setting with the flavor, but not the history, of the West behind it.

Nor would the global-replace operation have done material harm to Wrede's primary intentions -- which, in today's 'Net-connected world, we can in fact learn to some degree. My quick backtrail today didn't find the particular Wrede statement I was looking for, but it's generally clear that what she had in mind for the Frontier Magic books was a wilderness full of megafauna -- notably steam dragons and mammoths. And that, ultimately, dictated a region to which human migration had not previously occurred.

In which case, I suppose, my own mistake in the present discussion was in mentioning the books as "Weird Westerns" in the first place. I like them well enough for what they are in substance, but then I was very quick to reclassify Thirteenth Child as Not-History in my head once I'd gotten a chapter or so in. (There is just enough of a Harry Potterish flavor to Wrede's magical academia that I pretty much went that way instead.)

[sanguinity]

::you could do a global search-and-replace on every place name and every reference to "North Columbian" or planetary historical persons and places, substituting wholly imaginary names, and it would make no material difference whatsoever to the plot, characterization, or narrative flow of the story. ::

I understood that clearly from the review you linked, yes. My sticking point is not that she could do that search-and-replace, but that she didn't. If she had set it in a fairyland adjacent to Oz and Ev, and left out entirely the patriotic-historic markers of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark, my frustration with her premise would drop hugely. I'm not annoyed by the desire to have the flavor without the history; in fact, I'm somewhat sympathetic to that. I'm annoyed by the attempt to keep certain parts of the history while rejecting others. I'm annoyed by it even -- no, especially! -- when there's no substantive narrative purpose to keeping what was kept.

And I agree, Thirteenth Child isn't a Weird Western, but I didn't find it off-topic to the kind of thing I was trying to get at. However, if you feel it muddies the issue and would like to put it aside, I'm fine with that.

[ghost_lingering]

Now I want a book where there are sentient trains. I don't think this was the point of the post though, I sort of glazed off when you started describing oppressed European fairies.

But what I actually wanted to say! If you want a rec for a Fantasy Western, though not really a Steampunk Fantasy Western and I am not sure how Weird it is, (and potentially you do not want a rec) I tentatively rec the comic series Pretty Deadly, mostly because I love the art. The story is ... eh ... it is fine sort of idek, but the art is lovely. Actually, you could just watch this vid, which I think in some ways is better than the comic itself: http://garrideb.dreamwidth.org/48887.html It's all of the art and sort of some of the story, but mostly the art!

[skygiants]

The Dark Tower books have a whole sequence with an evil sentient train! ...that's really all I remember about the Dark Tower books at this point, but the evil sentient train stuck with me.

I have heard good things about Pretty Deadly but had forgotten about the vid - thank you for reminding me! :D

[pedanther]

Now I want a book where there are sentient trains.

"Thomas the Tank Engine"? ;)

The Harken stories that hebethen mentions above have sentient trains, but so far only as an incidental detail. (But it's some really nice incidental detail, including the way it works in the history of migrant labour in the building of the railroads.)

[genarti]

I was just thinking that about the Harken stories! I don't know if Vernon plans to do anything more with the trains than have them as an incidental detail, but it was a fun one.

[hokuton_punch]

It is a shame about the rest of the worldbuilding, because I am oddly intrigued by The Line and The Gun. ... my taste in evil/chaotic neutral forces is odd, I guess. :\

[skygiants]

The Gun is fun, if you're into that sort of thing! Quite well-portrayed Essence Of Chaotic Neutral Evil. But then, you know. The rest.

[thistleingrey]

I'm a few chapters into Molly Tanzer's Vermilion, which is not enough for a review, but I like it so far. Here is one review, which rather disappointingly does not mention that 19yo protagonist Lou passes as male professionally, and which (IMO) misreads the Sanatorium's seeming embrace of Lou as patient. Anyhow. It is true that I hope already that the Native and bear, sealion, and human/pony characters and issues will be addressed directly (and better) in a subsequent book in what's meant clearly as a series.

ETA Having finished, I think it's kind of patchy? I wouldn't mind reading any of the books it's trying to be, but the Weird West part takes a back seat more than I'd expected. Post forthcoming.

[brainwane]

I tried to read this book and stopped when a main character seemed to express the sentiment that people who work for a living are chumps. I could not finish the book!