Posts Tagged ‘adam-troy castro’

Arvies by Adam Troy Castro

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I’m pretty slow in catch­ing up with my read­ing for Lightspeed Magazine—sorry, John.  But I recently took the time to sit down with “Arvies” by Adam Troy Castro.  I’ve been strug­gling with what to cover on Inspiration Tuesday this week, but my inde­ci­sion was set­tled half-​​way through this great, great story.

If you enjoy sci­ence fic­tion that chal­lenges and sat­i­rizes cul­ture, then “Arvies” will be right up your alley. Some might try to argue that it’s a pro-​​choice story attack­ing pro-​​lifers. Others might argue the exact oppo­site.  Don’t let that stop you. It may take some of its inspi­ra­tion from argu­ments on both side of that touchy issue, but it goes far beyond it into fas­ci­nat­ing ter­ri­tory.  Harlan Ellison him­self called it:

Remarkable. And in the purest inten­sity of the word: powerful.

Delany’s lessons on struc­ture and plot come to mind again when I read this one.  It has a really clear struc­ture, bro­ken up into sec­tions with head­ers such as “VEHICLE SPECIFICATIONS” and “INSTALLATION.”  The for­mat almost mim­ics an aca­d­e­mic paper with its Statement of Intent and Content sum­maries.  However, it’s not writ­ten in the lan­guage of an aca­d­e­mic paper, which would be dry at best. 

Get ahead on next year’s “Year’s Best” read­ing and read it now.  It’s a sure con­tender for all the collections.

Some Recent Reading: Michael Chabon and Adam-​​Troy Castro

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I thor­oughly enjoyedThe Yiddish Policeman’s Union .  The com­bi­na­tion of alt-​​history, exotic-​​to-​​me jew­ish and Alaskan cul­ture, and noir detec­tive thriller was just the kind of thing I needed to read right now.   But more than the con­cept, I was engaged by the char­ac­ters of Landsman and Berko Schemets.   Science fic­tion has been accused of not hav­ing mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, and I sup­port that opin­ion.  I can name the num­ber of mem­o­rable SF/​F char­ac­ters on one two hands.  It takes both my hands and feet just to name the mem­o­rable char­ac­ters from Dickens.  There’s a def­i­nite dif­fer­ence there. For the strong char­ac­ters alone, I’m inclined to say this is more lit fic than sci fic.

The sec­ond book I read in October was Emmissaries for the Dead by Adam-​​Troy Castro.  This was a free­bie at WorldCon, snatched up at the same party I got the Chabon book.  I for­get the pub­lisher hold­ing that party, but I owe JJA for get­ting me in.  It was the best event I attended at the con, and not just because I got eight books out of it.  I had some nice con­ver­sa­tions with some really sharp people.

As to the book itself, it was trans­par­ent to me that this is a fresh­man out­ing.  I’ve been read­ing Castro’s short fic­tion for some time, but I don’t think he has found his foot­ing in the novel realm yet.  I picked this one up because it too had a noir murder-​​mystery pitch on the back cover, but with the added appeal of a strange con­structed ecosys­tem with sen­suwunda appeal.  Unfortunately, the narrator’s per­son­al­ity grated on me.  Andrea Cort, but I don’t know that I will remem­ber her six months from now. I don’t want to go into too much detail about this book because I would rather you read some of it your­self and decide whether it’s for you than go on my opin­ion.  It undoubt­edly suf­fers from fol­low­ing so closely my read­ing of the Chabon, which is a lit­tle unfair.  But I fin­ished it, which is more than I can say about the last half-​​dozen SF nov­els I’ve tried to read.