John C. Wright explains science fiction

Read it and be enlightened.

Blurb spoilers

There's a review over at Parenthetical of Inkheart. I haven't read it, but probably should; she generally steers me right with respect to YA lit, and anything that can be compared to The Neverending Story, The Last Unicorn and the Time Quartet is going to be right up my alley.

Apparently, though, the book jacket reveals a twist or two too many:

You’ll find out if you read the flap or any reviews, but I think the book would have been more enjoyable if I hadn’t known the premise before I started.

I encounter this fairly often; the most recent example being The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Sure, I probably would have guessed the spoiler anyway, but having it confirmed in advance is just annoying. Orphans of Chaos sticks out as well in this regard; the setup of the paradigms, which the characters discover over the course of the first part of the book, is neatly encapusalted on the book jacket.

The basic rule these days seems to be that anything that's not from the last third or so of the book is fair game for being revealed. However, a lot of books put a major twist somewhere between halfway and two thirds of the way through. But I get the impression this is a new thing; I certainly don't remember being spoiled for, say, Bridge to Terabithia. Most of my elementary school class was outraged at Paterson's "betrayal"; if the book cover had hinted at that the book would lose most of its impact.

Google Groups turns up a discussion of the topic at rec.arts.sf.written as well.

What are the most egregious blurb spoilers you've encountered?

You are not your bookcase

Megan Hustad at Salon writes about how we over-rely on media in online profiles. To paraphrase the line from High Fidelity, it's what you like, not what you are like. The issue was also visited last month by the New York Times (along with a good discussion at Feministe.

I'm certainly guilty of this. My OKCupid profile is still mostly a list of media, and I'll certainly ogle someone's bookshelves in person - while acknowledging that they're not always representative. (Mine certainly aren't; for a bookworm I don't actually *buy* a lot of books these days. The Books application on my Facebook profile is a much better sample.)

And I believe there *is* something to it - not that tastes have to overlap, but that because media is important to me, if someone appears to particularly avoid reading any SF, for example, that's gonna put a strain on things.

But I think the panic in Hustad's article is a bit overblown:

We're also keeping our distance from a whole array of cultural output because we think it sends the wrong message about who we are and what we want to be.

In Hustad's "pretentious literary circles," perhaps. Personally, if I'm scanning someone's bookshelf and I don't see any sort of "guilty pleasure" reading, I'm going to assume that either (a) it's "fake," assembled to impress guests rather than hold the books they actually read, or (b) they really don't have all that much in common with me.

Apparently the secret shame of most bibliophiles in Husted's social circle is self-help; she gives several accounts of people hiding self-help books as if they were porn. I'm not sure if this is because, as Hustad implies, they're shamefully lowbrow, or simply because it's seen as broadcasting one's flaws. (I don't have much in the way of self-help books, but that's less because I don't find the concepts interesting and more because Internet forums scratch that particular itch.)

Of course, I'm not writing articles for trendy Internet magazines, so I don't have too much at stake when it comes to people evaluating my tastes.

EDIT: Apparently Megan Hustad has published a self-help book targeted at the literary set. Color me disappointed that this was never actually acknowledged in the article.

"She looks like, one of those, librarians' girlfriends."

From Brooklyn Arden via my fraternity mailing list: Baby Got Book.

I've got a few minor quibbles with the song, but props for the effort.

2008 Nebula winners

Congrats to the 2008 Nebula Award Winners!

I feel a bit out of the loop, as I've only read/seen the really mass-appeal ones (Harry Potter and Pan's Labyrinth). I've seen The Yiddish Policemen's Union in the bookstores, but placed in general fiction it had the appearance of your typically pretentious modern-lit. I'll probably check it out soon from the library, as I've been reading that sort of thing a bit more of late.

Apparently the short story and novella winners are available online at Asimov's, so I'll probably read them soon as well.

The 50 best cult books

The Telegraph lists the 50 best cult books.

Whenever there's a list like this, I like to construct a histogram from the list. For series, I'm arbitrarily using the date of the first book in the series.

1700-1799 **
1800-1899 ****
1910-1919 *
1920-1929 **
1930-1939 **
1940-1949 ****
1950-1959 ********
1960-1969 ***********
1970-1979 **********
1980-1989 **
1990-1999 ***
2000-2008 *

Unsurprisingly, like every other such list it approximates a bell curve, this one peaking in the 60s. (That early bump is an artifact of condensing the 18th and 19th centuries.) While the argument can be made that that era was more conducive to these sorts of books catching on, I think what we're seeing here is a skew from the compilers of the list and society in general. This peak corresponds to the postadolescence of the Baby Boomers. Cult books from previous generations are largely forgotten; cult books from later generations haven't attained the same level of sustained notoriety.

Commenters have pointed out some of the more egregious omissions, and I think it's telling that (at least among the ones I agree with, which is admittedly biasing things), they're either more modern works that haven't gotten credit (Fight Club, Trainspotting), or genre works (Stranger in a Strange Land, Lord of the Rings).

OH JOHN RINGO NO

Thanks to this whole "Open Source" debate, I've learned a new catchphrase: OH JOHN RINGO NO. And now I've become aware of the source.

Now I've seen his books (with covers like those, how could you miss them?) taking up lots of shelf space at the chain bookstores around here, and I'd mentally put them in the Military SF is Not My Thing[*] pile next to folks like David Weber and Eric Flint. But these excerpts? Gah. I'm not surprised any more by mild squick in SF novels (thanks, Jack Chalker), but this stuff makes Chalker look like Tiptree - in writing style as well as gender relations. How does a guy like this get such a huge chunk of shelf space (outside of the theory that other authors' books sell and don't stay on the shelves)?

[*] At least conservative military SF; I dislike Starship Troopers, am equivocal about The Forever War and enjoy the Bill, the Galactic Hero series.

EDIT: Ringo replied to the review, and was a surprisingly good sport about it. (Though folks like Annes Rice and McCaffrey set that bar pretty low.) His response did have this gem, though:

If I needed the sun coming up in the east, I'd do it. It's that kind of story. Reality be utterly damned.

Which strikes me as summing up this series (assuming the review is accurate, which it seems to be if Ringo himself is saying "touche") excellently.

A Sexual Defense of American Women

Maga reviews some book from the mid-1960s entitled A Sexual Defense of American Women. It's great reading if (like me) you're a sucker for historical relationship advice. The library of my literary fraternity in undergrad contained the enormously entertaining How To Get a Teenage Boy and What to Do with Him When You Get Him, and online there's the Social Guidance section of the Prelinger Archives.

There's really not too much to add, but this bit stuck out:

The point of this book, clearly, is male aspirational envy; it's ostensibly directed towards women, but I can't help feeling that this is at least partially misdirection. The book's main energies are spent on playing up the hotness of the hot chicks into whose heads and pants Rankin has got, and on pouring scorn on Inadequate Men, so I'm guessing that teenage boys and young men are at least partially the target. The publishers don't seem to be quite sure about this - the advertisements on the final pages include both male-targeted sex pulp and female-targeted romance pulp.

These sorts of books are absolutely targeted to men; selling masculinity back to men is their raison d'etre. (Sure, some of them do it because they want to reshape what masculinity means, but I suspect the vast majority just play up the stereotypes because that's where the money is.)

One thing I do wonder is how these sorts of guides read prior to WWII, second-wave feminism, and the contemporary form of anxious masculinity. There's a pretty big gap in my knowledge between Capellanus and 50s social advice.

Indiana protects the children, one Alison Bechdel comic at a time

From Tom Smith comes this story of a new law in Indiana requiring anyone who sells sexually explicit material to register with the State, and the response of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

Here's the text of the law (in italics), with my commentary (in roman):

[NOTE: I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. If you're a bookstore owner in Indiana, don't rely on anything I say here.]

Chapter 55. Intention to Sell Sexually Explicit Materials

Sec. 1. This chapter does not apply to a person who sells sexually explicit materials on June 30, 2008, unless the person changes the person's business location after June 30, 2008.

This is a "grandfather clause" that means that bookstores that already exist don't have to register - but if a business changes location, changes ownership, or opens a new branch, it may apply.

Sec. 2. A person (as defined in IC 35-41-1-22) that intends to offer for sale or sell sexually explicit materials shall register with the secretary of state the intent to offer for sale or sell sexually explicit materials and provide a statement detailing the types of materials that the person intends to offer for sale or sell.

I'm assuming, without having looked it up, that the "person" definition there is meant to include corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies.

The actual definition of "sexually explicit materials" occurs later in the act, and will be discussed there.

Sec. 3. (a) As used in this section, "local officials of the county" refer to all of the following:
(1) The county executive.
(2) If a person described in section 2 of this chapter intends to locate in a municipality, the executive of the municipality.
(3) A local entity that supervises a zoning board in the county.

(b) After receiving a registration described in section 2 of this chapter, the secretary of state shall notify the local officials of the county in which a person described in section 2 of this chapter intends to offer for sale or sell sexually explicit materials of
the registration filed under section 2 of this chapter.

This is procedural stuff that says the Indiana Department of State (with whom the bookseller registers) must notify local officials, and which official needs to be notified. Most telling is section (a)(3), which says that the supervisor of a zoning board needs to be notified. It's curious - you'd think that a zoning board would *already* ask about this sort of thing; one of the whole points of zoning laws are so that local authorities can say "not in my backyard" to porn stores and sex shops. More on this later.

SECTION 2. IC 23-18-12-3, AS AMENDED BY P.L.60-2007, SECTION 6, IS AMENDED TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2008]: Sec. 3. (a) Except as provided in subsection (e), the secretary of state shall collect the following fees when the documents described in this section are delivered for filing:
Document Fee
(1) Articles of organization $90
(2) Application for use of
indistinguishable name $20
(3) Application for reservation of name $20
(4) Application for renewal of
reservation $20
(5) Notice of transfer or cancellation
of reservation $20
(6) Application of registered name $30
(7) Application for renewal of registered name $30
(8) Certificate of change of registered
agent's business address No Fee
(9) Certificate of resignation of
agent No Fee
(10) Articles of amendment $30
(11) Restatement of articles of
organization $30
(12) Articles of dissolution $30
(13) Application for certificate of
authority $90
(14) Application for amended
certificate of authority $30
(15) Application for certificate of
withdrawal $30
(16) Application for reinstatement
following administrative dissolution $30
(17) Articles of correction $30
(18) Certificate of change of
registered agent No Fee
(19) Application for certificate of
existence or authorization $15
(20) Biennial report filed in writing,
including by facsimile $30
(21) Biennial report filed by electronic medium $20
(22) Articles of merger involving a domestic limited liability company $90
(23) Any other document required or
permitted to be filed under this article $30
(24) Registration of intent to sell
sexually explicit materials, products, or services $250

I've kept the full list in there for a reason. Look at the costs of other registrations - they're anywhere from no fee (for updating information about the registered agent) to $90 (for articles of organization or a certificate of authority). In contrast, the registration fee for intent to sell sexually explicit materials, products or services is a whopping $250. That kind of fee isn't meant to cover the costs of processing or keep the number of applications filed under control - it's meant to discourage people from engaging in the business altogether. Sure, a sex shop is likely to just absorb the one-time fee as a cost of doing business, but what about the folks for whom these "materials, products, or services" are more incidental? Remember, it's not *just* that extra $250 that's at stake, it's the zoning application as well. If it jeapordizes the main business,

[Sections (b) through (e) omitted, because they're not relevant to the new law].

SECTION 3. IC 24-4-16.4 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW CHAPTER TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2008]:
Chapter 16.4. Sexually Explicit Materials
Sec. 1. As used in this chapter, "person" has the meaning set forth in IC 35-41-1-22.

This is the same definition of "person" used above.

Sec. 2. (a) As used in this chapter, "sexually explicit materials" means a product or service:

(1) that is harmful to minors (as described in IC 35-49-2-2), even if the product or service is not intended to be used by or offered to a minor; or

This is an interesting phrasing. The presumed rationale is the "what about the children?" argument - that minors may have access to the product or service even if they're not supposed to, by sneaking in or shoplifting or whatnot. But the whole point of "harmful to minors" being a standard in the first place is that the State has an authority to regulate these materials with respect to minors that it does not have with respect to adults. The definition of "harmful to minors" is an adaptation of the Miller test (with S&M thrown in), as modified by Ginsberg v. New York, which allowed a different standard for minors than adults:

Matter or performance harmful to minors
Sec. 2. A matter or performance is harmful to minors for purposes of this article if:
(1) it describes or represents, in any form, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse;
(2) considered as a whole, it appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors;
(3) it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable matter for or performance before minors; and
(4) considered as a whole, it lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Those uses of "for minors" aren't incidental. Since the cultural narrative is that *every* instance described in subsection (1) appeals to the prurient interest in sex of minors (cue Kristy Now from Southland Tales: "teenage horniness is not a crime!"), this makes every representation fit subsection (2). Since the adult community typically decides *no* such material of any explicitness is suitable for minors (hell, even frank sex ed books get challenged), subsection (3) is easy to fulfill. The inclusion of "for minors" in subsection (4) is most insidious of all, because it strips many literary, artistic, political and scientific works of protection because a hypothetical 16-year-old might not appreciate their merit, but get off on a nude figure or description of sex. And don't forget - we're not just talking about restricting these works from minors, as in Ginsberg; you need to pay several hundred dollars to sell these

Back to the new law:

(2) that is designed for use in, marketed primarily for, or provides for:
(A) the stimulation of the human genital organs; or

In other words, vibrators. (Yeah, I know there are other products that fit this category, but they're much, much rarer.) And just after Texas lifted its ban. Is there a Law of Conservation of Patriarchy or something?

Aside from the fact that there's a disparate impact here - or arguably because of it - what's the state purpose here? Is there really a correlation with the sale of vibrators and criminal elements? Are they worried about hordes of sexually satisfied women running riot?

(B) masochism or a masochistic experience, sadism or a sadistic experience, sexual bondage, or sexual domination.

Wholly unsurprising, for two reasons. Not only is it straightforwardly anti-kink, it gets around the issue of BDSM where everyone stays clothed and no conventional sex happens.

Of course, these terms aren't defined (yeah, good luck with that!) so it's pretty much a guarantee that someone's going to argue that a corset at Hot Topic is for the purpose of sexual domination.

(b) The term does not include:
(1) birth control or contraceptive devices;

Because that would be obviously unconstitutional.

or
(2) services, programs, products, or materials provided by a:
(A) communications service provider (as defined in IC 8-1-32.6-3);

Because that would pre-empt the federal Communications Decency Act, which gives "communications service providers" immunity from liability for the content they distribute;

(B) physician;

Again, that'd be pretty obviously unconstitutional.

or (C) public or nonpublic school.

They're obviously trying to make sure that schools aren't required to register in order to conduct classes, but I have to wonder something: given the definition of "sexually explicit materials" above, what sexually explicit materials does one expect to be sold at a school? Last I checked, schools typically didn't sell vibrators or BDSM gear on campus. That leaves, of course, "material that is harmful to minors." You know, I have this sneaking suspicion that, if it's okay to exempt schools here, this material may not actually be harmful to minors.

Sec. 3. A person or an employee or agent of a person may not offer for sale or sell sexually explicit materials unless a registration and statement are properly filed as described in IC 23-1-55-1.

Sec. 4. A person or an employee or agent of a person who knowingly or intentionally offers for sale or sells sexually explicit materials in violation of this chapter commits unregistered sale of sexually explicit materials, a Class B misdemeanor.

And, of course, we need to actually make it a crime, or the law has no teeth. Of course, the big issue isn't the penalty from the misdemeanor - it's losing the ability to do business. The effect of this law is actually relatively minor on dedicated sex shops and porn stores - they're not going to be run out of business by a one-time $250 fee. (Not that they should have to pay it, and not that there's a good chance such a registry would be misused either by a zealous prosecutor or by people who want to harass the business.)

Another effect is that, while businesses are required to register, anyone who's not a business is still covered by these sections. So if I live in Indiana and I put a book of Leonard Nemoy's photography up on eBay, I've broken the law.

I'm reasonably confident (though not certain - Indiana seems to be a very conservative place) that this law won't survive the first court challenge, but still - how does it even get that far?

I'd call for an "I Am Spartacus" style protest, overwhelming the state with registrations, but there's that pesky $250 fee again.

100 books every child should read

The Guardian has come up with a list of 100 books every child should read, and like all such lists, it's both good and really, really bad.

Every "top 100" list invariably incorporates the compilers' nostalgia. The list is heavily weighted towards the Victorian era through World War One (national nostalgia for England) and the end of World War Two through the sixties (personal nostalgia for the Baby Boomers). There's a subboom in the late seventies and early eighties, but it's almost entirely due to Roald Dahl. The list picks up again after the post-Rowling YA boom, with Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, A Series of Unfortunate Events and Holes.

My own childhood is hardly represented at all. From my prime young-adult reading years (ages 7 to 14, 1984-1991), there are a grand total of three books, none of which I'd actually read back then. (I've since read Howl's Moving Castle.) I think this is due to the youngest of the compilers being slightly older than me, and the oldest of the compilers' children being slightly younger. The Westing Game isn't on the list. Neither is the Wayside School series. Same goes for From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwelier, Bridge to Terabithia, and The Giver. There's no Madeliene L'Engle. There's no John Christopher. No Shel Silverstein (not novels, but that didn't stop them from putting Hiawatha and Beowulf on the list). Hell, there's no Judy Blume.

In addition, this list brings up the debate that any list of great books does about what goes into the canon and what doesn't. Gender seems to be hamhandedly equalized through the inclusion of "boys' books" such as The Call of the Wild and Treasure Island and "girls' books" such as Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. More importantly, the list is almost entirely white authors (Mildred Taylor being the only exception at first glance). Apparently "every child" doesn't need to be concerned with race.

Winkie

After Bad Monkeys, I had high hopes for Clifford Chase's Winkie. The premise - a teddy bear arrested for being a terrorist! - was promising. The execution, though, left something to be desired.

There's really three separate stories here. There's the story of Winkie's life as a stuffed animal passed down among a family. It's an interesting perspective, but the family life itself is pretty humdrum. I'm not sure how much of this part was supposed to be biographical/autobiographical, but if you have to name the characters after yourself and your family to make the narrative have meaning, it's not going to work for other people.

There's the story of Winkie coming to life, living out in the woods, and giving birth to, raising, and losing a daughter. Baby Winkie is an impossibly perfect plush madonna that basically gets treated as an object rather than a "person" by everyone involved in the story - even the author. I get the sense that this part was supposed to be some great allegory, but it's far too vague and abstract to make any sense.

And, of course, there's the story of Winkie's arrest and subsequent trial for terrorism. This was the selling point of the book, and the book's strongest point. The trial is appropriately surreal and Kafkaesque, but as satire it falls short because it's lacking in specifics. If I just want a Kafkaesque story about a trial, I'll read "The Trial." But despite the marketing, Winkie isn't about the trial, so much as the Big Great Philosophical Points the author's trying to make.

The whole thing struck me as the sort of navel-gazing you find in a college creative writing class short story, padded (stuffed?) out to novel length. (Being compared to David Sedaris and having a quote from someone in the Magnetic Fields does little to dispel the illusion of pretentiousness.)

I'm not sure how I'd have reacted to Winkie if it were billed more as a story about modern life viewed through the eyes of a teddy bear, rather than as the political satire it wasn't. I probably wouldn't have bothered picking it up (hence the reason for choosing the marketing angle they did), but if I did I might have enjoyed it a bit more.

Bad Monkeys

I've just finished Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys, a mere twelve hours after checking it out from the library. (Hey, it's only a little over 200 pages, and I missed my bus home.)

The novel struck me as a cross between Daniel Handler's The Basic Eight and Robert Rankin's Brightonomicon. Which is probably completely unhelpful unless you've got my exact reading habits. Other folks have compared it to Philip K. Dick and Thomas Pynchon, if that helps. (There are explicit parallels to Philip K. Dick that I missed upon reading, but discovered through others' reviews. I'll leave them for you to discover on your own.) It also reminded me of some of the more surreallistically paranoid interactive fiction I've played (specifically, "Little Blue Men").

I'm not sure what to make of the ending - I'm going to keep this spoiler-free. I thought things weren't wrapped up as tightly as they could have been - Ruff took the Philip K. Dick/Alfred Bester tack of having the world unravel, rather than the more Serlingesque (Shyamalanesque?) approach of shining the harsh light of objectivity over the proceedings, a revelation that typically requires you to go back in order to catch all the clues you missed first time around.

This goes onto my list of books that I'd recommend to everyone on the basis of their criminal underexposure, joining Adam Cadre's Ready, Okay!, The Basic Eight, and Ruff's own Set This House In Order.

Next up: Clifford Chase's Winkie.