(no subject)

[skygiants]

Okay I am sorry but I am also incapable of not making the joke that I'm sure has already been made a hundred times before: Merlin Sheldrake, the author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, seems like a really fun guy ....

And that's important! I needed a fun guy to guide me through mushroomland without fully activating my fight or flight response! Eukaryotic organisms are mysterious and terrifying to me -- I know all about the zombie ant fungus, I've read a lot of freaky Yumi Tamura evil mushroom plots, and I don't particularly like how most of them taste so I don't even have the satisfaction of culinary conquest -- but Merlin Sheldrake is just so genuinely delighted by the wide, weird world of fungi that it helped me suspend my innate discomfort and experience some of his joy vicariously. Do I, personally, want to take LSD and bury myself in a rotting leaf mound in order to fully participate in Mushroom Decay Vibes? No! Absolutely not! But it's quite fun to read about Sheldrake throwing himself wholeheartedly into all forms of The Fungus Experience in between deep dives on mycorrhizal networks and slime molds.

This also ended up being a great accidental wine pairing with the nineties science fiction novel I just finished and loved, Amy Thompson's The Color of Distance. This is a first contact novel set on a planet populated by intelligent amphibioid aliens with extremely minimal mechanical technology but incredible skill at biological modification, called Tendu. When the Tendu find stranded biologist Juna on the verge of death due to being fatally allergic to everything on the planet, a Tendu elder decides to save her life as his final and most impressive project; Juna wakes up to find herself a.) suddenly the first human to have successfully communicated with an intelligent alien species and b.) significantly more amphibioid than she used to be.

Meanwhile, the elder's heir Anito reluctantly takes on the responsibility of bringing this new weird creature that they've found into harmony with the rest of the Tendu world. All adult Tendu are given responsibility for managing a certain part of their environment and maintaining its harmony in this way; at one point later in the book Juna has to train in someone else's area of responsibility after accidentally killing an off-season creature and spends weeks studying a single tree, inside and out, learning all the ways that the plants and bugs and birds and fungi around it are interconnected, in a chapter that reads like something straight out of Entangled Life which is also tremendously concerned with complex ecosystems and symbiotic relationships.

Then of course she has to give a Ph.D. presentation on it to an audience of jugmental Tendu in order to prove she's understood well enough that the delicate, careful process of cross-cultural communication can continue. (There are several stressful alien-frog academic presentation scenes throughout the book and all of them were extremely fun for me.)

Anito and Juna both spend some time coming to terms with the fact that regardless of what they'd originally planned or hoped for themselves, the task of helping their species to understand each other is their life now, and the most difficult and important work that they will ever do. Most of the events in the book are portrayed through both Juna's perspective and one of the Tendu's -- in addition to Anito, the other main Tendu POV are Ukatonen, a wandering elder who finds the Juna situation the most interesting thing he's been a part of in centuries, and Moki, a junior Tendu that Juna ends up adopting in order to save his life, with extremely complex consequences -- which works really well to express the difference in viewpoints and expectations from both sides, and make the reader feel how much of a triumph it is when understanding is eventually reached.

The overall tone of the book is surprisingly optimistic: Juna and the Tendu who are most involved with her all end up situated in complicated positions somewhat in between the two cultures, and the loss and loneliness of those positions are extremely real and significant, but so are the gifts and the gains. The connection between human and Tendu will inevitably bring enormous change, and it's not a given that they'll be able to come into harmony with each other, but because of the work that the characters put in, there is a solid chance for it.

(There is apparently a sequel, but I've been strongly warned not to read it and I do not intend to do so; this book works tremendously well as a standalone!)

Comments

[sovay]

(There is apparently a sequel, but I've been strongly warned not to read it and I do not intend to do so; this book works tremendously well as a standalone!)

Because I am extremely sleep-deprived and read in blocks, for a moment I thought this sentence was referring to Entangled Life (which I have read and very much enjoyed, as a person who has a significant affinity for fungi and none whatsoever for LSD) and I was confused.

[skygiants]

Entangled 2: Suddenly We Understand Much More About Fungi would be fascinating, but also I can think of a number of reasons why it might also be potentially unnerving! (Suddenly We Understand Much More About Fungi Because They've Started Making Demands And I For One Welcome Our New Overlords Of Decay</>, for example)

[pengwern]

the mushroom book looks like a marvel.

' several stressful alien-frog academic presentation scenes' not sure I have the time but what I see from your review makes it sound great too!

[skygiants]

genarti got the mushroom book out of the library and talked it up so much that I forced her to wait to give it back until it was two weeks overdue so I had a chance to read it too...

I thought Color of Distance was going to be a somewhat long and dense read when I first picked it up but then I ended up racing through it, it was extremely compelling/propulsive for such a worldbuilding-heavy sf novel!

[schulman]

*Strongly* agree to avoid the sequel.

I do miss 90s midlist SF. Some of it, anyway.

[ironymaiden]

Another agree on on skipping the sequel. (I think it was meant to be a trilogy and then didn’t sell well enough. )

[skygiants]

A lot of great stuff came out of that decade!

[chestnut_pod]

This *does* sound like a great inadvertent pairing! Not personally sure I can take that many stressful dissertation committees right now, but I really respect the commitment.

[skygiants]

To balance out the dissertation committees I did also really enjoy the period where Juna's Tendu friends enter her into a digging competition for cultural harmony and the book briefly turns into a sports anime.

[neotoma]

Oh, I'm pretty sure I read The Color of Distance when it came out. If one of the things about the Tendu culture is that you aren't quite a person until you've metamorphosed into an adult, then I definitely have. I remember it as pretty interesting.

[castiron]

Yep. The narey are considered animals (and are sometimes eaten); you're not a person until you've been metamorphosed into a juvenile. (A bit like the Aandrisk in Chambers' The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet; I suspect both authors looked at real world animals who don't tend their young and extrapolated to what a culture would look like.)

[skygiants]

Yeah, the way the book handles that particular clash of culture (Juna's instinctive horror at the way the Tendu treat their pre-sentient juveniles and the choices that leads her to make, and the way her attitude impacts back onto the Tendu closest to her) was one of my favorite things about the story! It did an extremely good job of showing a very different familiar/ethical system from within and having it make sense from the POV of those participating in it.

[osprey_archer]

Now I'm curious what went wrong in the sequel!

Both books sound amazing, though. And the library has Entangled Life as an ebook... hmm....

[castiron]

With the caveat that I read it 20+ years ago:

In Through Alien Eyes, Juna, along with some of the Tendu, goes back to the human fleet. It could've been a nuanced story of returning home to find that you've changed too much to see it the same way, or a complicated story of negotiating agreement between two societies that are both flawed and both worthy. But what I read was a black-and-white, "Juna and the Tendu are good good good and the Survey is evil evil evil", boring book. (With a bonus "Juna finds a romantic partner who seems like a three-dimensional character but turns into cardboard absent father once Juna gets pregnant" side plot that I bounced hard off of.)

[osprey_archer]

Oh, that's two bad! Especially disappointing after what sounds like a really nuanced first book.

[sheliak]

With the disclaimer that it's been coming up on two decades and I was a kid who had not read The Color of Distance:

Either at the end of the first book or early in the second one, Juna has a brief relationship with a human dude and gets pregnant. This is an enormous problem because her Earth is massively overpopulated and has draconian laws surrounding reproduction—everyone is allotted three "child credits", but you need to spend four to actually legally have a kid. So a couple can have one kid, and then either buy more credits to have more kids, or sell their spare credits to provide for their only child.

This situation relies on birth control implants for women; unfortunately the Tendu elder who saved Juna turned hers off, because it looked like an injury, right? But Juna didn't actually know that until she got pregnant and had to explain that no, really, it's an accident and not an intentional breach of law. There's a trial and everything. (Juna's babydaddy wants her to get an abortion so he can keep his credits; she says that she'll buy credits and the judge tells him that since he's not married and his child credits aren't at stake he's no longer involved in this matter.)

... I think this was meant to contrast with the Tendu attitudes towards reproduction, family, and population control. I can't remember how well that worked but given the multiple warnings away I suspect not very well. (I remember also wondering if it was trying to say something about abortion rights but if so I couldn't figure out what, at least at age 12.)

For reasons that I don't remember, the judge decrees that Juna is not guilty of a crime and can carry her pregnancy to term, but she must get married!

So the book spends an inordinately long time on various families courting Juna (and her frog-alien adopted relations because they're a unit now). In the end, she turns down the rich family offering a jungle and joins her brother's group marriage. (Nothing incestuous is going on iirc; everyone involved treats it as a platonic coparenting agreement.)

Possibly the apparently intended third book was going to be about Moki and Juna's human kid?

(This may not have been the main plot, but it's the part that stuck in my brain, apparently. Complete with the math of how the child credit system worked.)

[osprey_archer]

Oh my. That's definitely a lot!

[skygiants]

I think for the record you would very much enjoy both!

(the responses to your question have been very enlightening, what my friend told me was "weird medical cults" and "juna's boyfriend sues her because he doesn't want a freaky frog baby")

[osprey_archer]

Yes, the sequel very much sounds like a book that I would not enjoy reading, but it's super entertaining to read ABOUT.

[caprices]

So glad to see someone enjoyed Entangled Life. I really wanted to love it, but it seemed like every time Sheldrake started to hit a groove on something fascinating (like slime molds! Slime molds navigating complex mazes!), he suddenly wandered off track to contemplate the mysteries of LSD and the rise of civilization. Which could have been a nifty chapter but he never provided any actual corroborating evidence, and instead it just interrupted the legitimately amazing cool Science Facts. (Michael Pollan covers the whole mushroom LSD +/- civilizational impacts in How to Change Your Mind, and does so as an experienced author who is fully aware not everyone wants to trip on shrooms. I'd say it pairs well with Entangled Life.)

The Color of Distance sounds awesome, I add it to my list posthaste.

[skygiants]

lol I read the LSD section and was like "well this is an interesting contemplative journey you're on and I would never want to follow you there, my neural pathways can stay right the way they are, thank you"

I hope you enjoy Color of Distance if you read it! :D

[lirazel]

Do I, personally, want to take LSD and bury myself in a rotting leaf mound in order to fully participate in Mushroom Decay Vibes?

(There are several stressful alien-frog academic presentation scenes throughout the book and all of them were extremely fun for me.)

I enjoyed these sentences so much!

[skygiants]

I forgot to mention that 'rotting leaf mound' is also a crossover theme between the two books! (the frog aliens sleep in comfy wet-leaf piles; Juna spends a significant amount of time longing for a Real Bed and then finally gets one and is like 'oh no I LOVE sheets but my new amphibian skin is getting so dehydrated, can't BELIEVE I'm longing for a wet leaf mound, this SUCKS'

[lirazel]

That is absolutely hilarious and I love it!

[copperfyre]

I love fungi so much! I don’t like eating them, but I am enthralled by how bizarre and genuinely alien they are to us as mammals. They’re so weird! They fear no man or god, they’re doing their own thing and they’re going to keep doing it! Anyway I clearly need to read this book. And The Color Of Distance sounds really cool too.

[skygiants]

I know they say knowledge is power but in my case everything I learn about fungi only makes me feel more powerless .... I Respect And Fear Them.

[evelyn_b]

Then of course she has to give a Ph.D. presentation on it to an audience of jugmental Tendu in order to prove she's understood well enough that the delicate, careful process of cross-cultural communication can continue.

OF COURSE. <3

Also, poor Juna! Turning out to be fatally allergic to all the life on a life-supporting planet is such a discouraging start to your first contact.

[skygiants]

I truly loved that a starting setup of the book is 'humans HAVE found a couple of life-supporting planets HOWEVER they so far have been desperately allergic to ALL of them' because it made perfect sense to me, allergies are physical overreaction to Weird And Potentially Dangerous Foreign Substances and of course an actual alien planet would set them off!

[luzula]

Awww, The Color of Distance! Yes, I remember that being good, even while I remember none of the actual details of it.

Fungi are hard. I've done some (amateur) work on wood-living fungi, trying to recognize species by microscopic characteristics, but they are very hard to microscope compared to bryophytes!

[skygiants]

I'm glad you remember it being good as well, I thought the biology was very good but I am not a biologist in any way so it absolutely could have been plausibly-constructed nonsense! case in point: I did not actually know what a bryophyte was, so I googled and now I'm glad I did because all the pictures of bryophytes that come up on Google image search are extremely cute. Very charming ferns!

[sheliak]

I'm pretty sure that I read the sequel to The Color of Distance as a kid; it was rather confusing without the first book (which the library did not have).

Now I want to read the first one! Although if I do, I definitely won't be able to resist rereading the sequel...

[skygiants]

I would be fascinated by your journey of doing it in reverse order - please report back if you do!

[marginaliana]

"several stressful alien-frog academic presentation scenes" - this could literally have come out of one of my stress dreams, wow.

[skygiants]

To be fair, Juna only actually has to present herself in one of the alien-frog dissertation defense sequences; the other two are about Juna's alien-frog allies attempting to graduate from local-elder to global-elder by taking a grueling three-day test featuring a.) a full-day oral examination b.) a full-day test of Mental And Physical Linking For Biological Modification And Emotional Regulation and c.) a half-day one-person frog interpretive dance performance followed by another half-day of chorus line!

[jiggit]

Ooh, the fungi book looks like extremely my thing.

[skygiants]

I hope you enjoy it if you read it! :D

[kore]

That 90s sf novel sounds neat!

Never ever reading that fungi book nope nope nope. //hides

[skygiants]

I liked it a lot, it came up as a rec from a friend in a discussion of how hard it is to write aliens that don't just feel like humans in alien suits but specifically and distinctly different and this is one of a very few books that I would say clears that bar.

[rachelmanija]

I have got to read the frog alien book. Also the fungi book.

(What does LSD have to do with fungus? I thought it was made in a lab.)

[caprices]

It is. It is a psylocibin analog, however, and being readily synthesized, is easier to get hold of for clinical trials. I could also be misremembering what exactly Sheldrake said about the specific trial he was in, but he was certainly enthusiastic about it.

[genarti]

The specific trial is IIRC one for scientists (or experts more generally?) to take LSD and then think about their field of study expertise while their brainwaves are monitored. Sheldrake signs up enthusiastically, muses on fungal compounds and their effects on the brain and network interconnectedness etc, and as Becca says uses that in the book as a springboard for discussing various known and potential/theoretical aspects of fungi interacting with each other and with animal brains including human ones.

[skygiants]

I think you would really dig both!

(Yeah, LSD is -- to my understanding -- a lab-based version of a compound derived from ergot fungi; he's also using his lab LSD trial as a springboard for a long consideration of various sorts of magic mushrooms, the different ways fungi derivatives can impact the human brain, and what the evolutionary benefits of that might have been on the side of the mushroom.)

[obopolsk]

My sci-fi book club that occasionally also reads nonfiction science books has talked about reading the Sheldrake, so I'm now strongly tempted to suggest this pairing...

[skygiants]

I would be fascinated to know what you guys think of it if you do it! (genarti, who also read the two books in close proximity, was like 'huh, I guess, but I wouldn't have thought of that' when I started going off on what a perfect wine pairing they were -- she was busy instead mentally cross-referencing Color of Distance with Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population.)

[obopolsk]

This is now making me want to do a book club where we do wine pairings instead of talking about individual books. I'm curious how it would change the discussion.

[scribe]

Ooh, adding Color of Distance to my to-read list, I love distinctly alieny anthropology!

[aamcnamara]

I found Color of Distance... somewhere...?? and recalled you saying it was up my alley and: oh boy was it! This book has everything!! Weird senses! Eating your young! Aliens being alarmed by humans being in heat all the time how do you LIVE like that! Damp leaf piles!! Complicated interspecies friendship! Ecosystems! Group emotional regulation! ENORMOUS HAWKS THAT CAN EAT YOU!!!