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sophia_sol) wrote2018-01-04 08:54 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2018-01-04 08:54 pm
All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault, by James Alan Gardner
I picked this book up not because the premise intrigued me (it really didn't) but because it is a NEW NOVEL BY JAMES ALAN GARDNER. I've been a fan of Gardner's works since I was a teen, and he hasn't put a book out in twelve years, and his old books are all out of print and available only as ebooks these days, and I was half-convinced he was never going to publish another book again, but HEY. NEW BOOK BY JAMES ALAN GARDNER. Obviously I was going to be there.
I always particularly admired Gardner's writing for his excellent characterization work. He is great at writing characters you care about and who seem like real and complicated people, and his first-person POV does the best I've ever seen of making the POV matter, with the characterization of the POV character really affecting the way the story is being told and what the narrative is paying attention to.
So I grumbled to myself about this new book being about superheroes vs vampires/werewolves/etc (I don't particularly care about superheroes OR monsters or for that matter fights) but I knew that if I picked it up I would care about the characters.
And having read this book....yep, I definitely care about the characters! You got me again, James Alan Gardner.
PLUS. The main character is GENDERQUEER oh dang and I really relate. In the scene where Kim and a friend are discussing the design of Kim's superhero costume, and Kim says the goal isn't to look ambiguous but for gender to not even be a relevant question: HELLO YES IT ME. And oh my god I want the outfit that Kim ends up with. (...I want to be able to wear that outfit and look effortlessly cool instead of just weird.)
And like, years and years ago Gardner wrote a book (Commitment Hour) where the high concept involved gender stuff and it was interesting but also obviously Cis Person Considers Gender because there were so many complications that the scenario would inevitably involve that just never showed up. I mean, iirc that book manages to be Everyone Is Cis even in a world where the sex of your body changes on a yearly basis. But Gardner has clearly done some work on his understanding of gender in the years since, because Kim's gender is very well handled in this book.
Also questions of identity in general are really interestingly handled! Kim has throughout the years very consciously constructed identity, signalling to both self and others what Kim's going for by name and by choice of presentation. Which makes Kim's understanding of the separation of the superhero identity from the original baseline human make a great deal of sense.
The next book is going to be from the POV of one of Kim's housemates/teammates/friends, Jools, and I'm really looking forward to seeing things from another pov to see how that affects things. I still don't care about the plot and the premise of this series though. Oh well, the characters are worth it.
(I wrote this review without ever using a pronoun for Kim because Kim never indicates preferred pronouns in the book. Kim uses she/her for past iterations of self - Kimberley and Kimmie are both she/her to Kim - but Kim never makes it clear what pronouns are preferred for Kim. Other characters use she/her for Kim but it's also never clear how Kim feels about that. But then just using Kim's name constantly instead of pronouns ALSO feels weird because the name "Kim" doesn't actually encompass the entirety of the character I'm discussing either, between Kimberlite, Kimberley, Kimmie, Kim, K, and Zircon. The first-person pov of the book meant that this was all handled very naturally there, but it sure makes it hard to write a review while being respectful of the main character's identity!)
I always particularly admired Gardner's writing for his excellent characterization work. He is great at writing characters you care about and who seem like real and complicated people, and his first-person POV does the best I've ever seen of making the POV matter, with the characterization of the POV character really affecting the way the story is being told and what the narrative is paying attention to.
So I grumbled to myself about this new book being about superheroes vs vampires/werewolves/etc (I don't particularly care about superheroes OR monsters or for that matter fights) but I knew that if I picked it up I would care about the characters.
And having read this book....yep, I definitely care about the characters! You got me again, James Alan Gardner.
PLUS. The main character is GENDERQUEER oh dang and I really relate. In the scene where Kim and a friend are discussing the design of Kim's superhero costume, and Kim says the goal isn't to look ambiguous but for gender to not even be a relevant question: HELLO YES IT ME. And oh my god I want the outfit that Kim ends up with. (...I want to be able to wear that outfit and look effortlessly cool instead of just weird.)
And like, years and years ago Gardner wrote a book (Commitment Hour) where the high concept involved gender stuff and it was interesting but also obviously Cis Person Considers Gender because there were so many complications that the scenario would inevitably involve that just never showed up. I mean, iirc that book manages to be Everyone Is Cis even in a world where the sex of your body changes on a yearly basis. But Gardner has clearly done some work on his understanding of gender in the years since, because Kim's gender is very well handled in this book.
Also questions of identity in general are really interestingly handled! Kim has throughout the years very consciously constructed identity, signalling to both self and others what Kim's going for by name and by choice of presentation. Which makes Kim's understanding of the separation of the superhero identity from the original baseline human make a great deal of sense.
The next book is going to be from the POV of one of Kim's housemates/teammates/friends, Jools, and I'm really looking forward to seeing things from another pov to see how that affects things. I still don't care about the plot and the premise of this series though. Oh well, the characters are worth it.
(I wrote this review without ever using a pronoun for Kim because Kim never indicates preferred pronouns in the book. Kim uses she/her for past iterations of self - Kimberley and Kimmie are both she/her to Kim - but Kim never makes it clear what pronouns are preferred for Kim. Other characters use she/her for Kim but it's also never clear how Kim feels about that. But then just using Kim's name constantly instead of pronouns ALSO feels weird because the name "Kim" doesn't actually encompass the entirety of the character I'm discussing either, between Kimberlite, Kimberley, Kimmie, Kim, K, and Zircon. The first-person pov of the book meant that this was all handled very naturally there, but it sure makes it hard to write a review while being respectful of the main character's identity!)