Space Opera, Abbott

[psocoptera]

Space Opera, Catherynne Valente, up for Best Novel. I really enjoyed this - it was sweet and sometimes extremely funny and had one bit that was one of the best scenes I've read in anything in awhile. (Spoilers The instant spaceship. Also the "five tremendously familiar musical notes" scene was made immensely funnier by my brain skipping right over Close Encounters *and* Thus Spake Zarathustra and going right to Hanging Tough, thank you for helping, brain. And I knew where the end had to be going but boy she really made us wait for it, which I admired.) I think I had read a lukewarm review of this somewhere that was like "it's just a rehash of Hitchhiker's Guide" but you know what, Douglas Adams has been gone long enough that there are actual adults who were born after he died, and Pratchett's gone, so why shouldn't Valente step into the absurdist British sff niche. Now I have a book by a woman to talk about if we want to talk about Hitchhiker's, as part of my ongoing "have works by a woman to talk about in any conversation about sff I might have" project. (And also I don't remember Adams ever making me cry, although, honestly, it's been so long I couldn't say. Valente totally got me. Inevitably in public, of course, sigh.)

(Also I was very pleased when she namechecked Adam Lambert specifically because the whole time I was reading it I was thinking about Astolat's Stargate:Atlantis/American Idol crossover where they need a singer. I don't know if this makes any sense without knowing both SGA and AI fanon for context but I love it, so here's a link: Far Far Away.)

Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, drawn by Sami Kivelä, up for Best Graphic Story. This did so much right on paper - bi Black woman reporter embedded in a web of interesting relationships, battling racism and the supernatural in 1972 Detroit - and yet I just didn't care that much. Part of it is probably that this was very much Traditional American Comics, with the pacing and art thereof, and I'm not sure I actually *like* Traditional American Comics, or at least not as much as I like indie comics and manga-influenced comics and stuff like that. Part of it was that the main character was admirable and interesting but hard for me to identify with, in the sense of having some kind of emotional conflict I could feel engaged with, or having a sense of what made her tick beyond her righteousness/determination/etc. I mean, like, there was this thing about how she had to have her exactly two brandies a day, that I kind of thought was going to turn into more of a thing about routine or control or some kind of character thing, but it didn't really. And then finally and maybe most damningly, this sort of thing tends to work much better for me if it's funny. Watchmen and V for Vendetta and Bitch Planet all come to mind as working in the Traditional Comics idiom but they're all full of (dark, dark) jokes. Abbott is straightforward and earnest and just lacks that bite of humor that would really make it memorable, alas.

Comments

[glynhogen]

I am simultaneously amazed that anyone could consider voting for anything but Space Opera as Best Novel, and appreciate how they could be turned off from the first sentence. (In the same way that I can appreciate the fact that some people adore white "chocolate" but cannot abide dark chocolate.)

[cahn]

Um. *raises hand* I got turned off by the first sentence, or at least first paragraph, which struck me as an extraordinarily reductive and kind of inaccurate with respect to Fermi and subatomic particles in general. Maybe I just don't get Valente's humor, or maybe I am just sensitive because it's my field -- I probably wouldn't have felt nearly as annoyed if she had been talking about, oh, Alexander Fleming or something. (It is also an automatic turnoff for me when authors use "quantum" as a synonym for "magic," although that one comes up often enough that I have had to get at least a little used to it.)

I honestly gave up shortly after that, but it's good to know you guys liked it -- maybe I'll give it another shot.

[psocoptera]

I would not necessarily think everyone would like it, and will mention that for well over half of it I was trading off reading between Space Opera and Octavia Butler's Clay's Ark, which I'm reading for a book club, and they made very nice antidotes to each other in style/tone/mood/etc. Would have been harder going without that, although I did eventually get to the point where all I wanted to do was finish Space Opera. Also I'm still voting for Spinning Silver as my top vote (unless Calculating Stars blows me away, which could still theoretically happen). Anyways, if you do decide to give it another shot, if you can make it through to chapter 12 you'll get to my personal favorite bit, and if you still don't like it at that point the rest is really not going to be any better. (Admittedly though that's over a third of the book which is a lot of book if you're not enjoying it.)

[glynhogen]

If it was a zero sum game, I would cackle about how there's more dark chocolate for the rest of us, but it's not a zero sum game so enjoy your chocolate solids-free treats.

[belecrivain]

I mentioned this in SWAPA, but I gave up after the chapter where the aliens came to Earth — the idea that all the people on Earth would react in the same way (except for Americans being The Worst) and the aliens would have the same concerns as the average progressive-left anti-Trump voter struck me as unimaginative, preachy, and unfunny. Should I give it another shot?

[psocoptera]

Yeah, no, that's fair. I liked the schtick of first contact with everyone on Earth simultaneously, and I read the alien progressivism as pretty relevantly centered in "can you get along with The Other, ie, Us, the rest of the galaxy". But I think if you got that far and it wasn't working for you, even the glorious promise of chapter 12 is probably not enough to justify slogging onwards.

[belecrivain]

I may try it again anyway, in part because I don't know how much my initial reaction was just sour grapes that *I* didn't get to write a funny Eurovision-themed SF novel, and in part because, having just watched (too much) Eurovision, I'm curious how much her glam-pansexual-progressive vision actually meshes with Eurovision. I know a lot of times, especially nowadays, the organizers play up that aspect (it was obvious during the pre-Madonna halftime show, for example) but I'm not so sure campy or even obviously queer presentations and progressivism always mesh in the participating countries: like I'm thinking of this Atlantic article on how Russia can tolerate gay pop acts but not LBGTQ+ presenting people in general.