Reading for a Sunday

When I publish a book, I can never be confident about any predictions I might hazard for its reception and sales. It's all guess work. Naturally I recognized, only a few chapters into my first of several reads of the ms, that Deb Taber's Necessary Ill was playing with fire. And by the time I'd finished that first read, I characterized it, in my own mind, as what used to be called "dangerous" fiction (which is how most of my own short fiction was characterized in the 90s). "Dangerous fiction," in case the term is new to you, raises uncomfortable questions about moral issues and assumptions (in the broadest sense of "moral") and makes it difficult to answer those questions in any comfortable way. Since Deb's reading on Tuesday, Library Journal has published a starred review of the novel, John Scalzi has featured the book on his blog, Whatever, and Paul di Filippo has reviewed the book at Locus Online. (Earlier, Liz Bourke reviewed the book for Tor.com: Killing and Ethics: Deb Taber’s Necessary Ill.) Here's the conclusion to Library Journal's review:

Taber's debut novel presents an all-too-credible dystopic future world and, in Jin, a complex character whose mind approaches the world and its priorities in a very different way. The characterization of truly genderless individuals—not androgynes or hermaphrodites—and the portrayal of an approach to the world that is both ruthless and compassionate make this an excellent candidate for book discussion groups and provide strong evidence for the availability of significant genre literature. Highly recommended.

Some of the comments at Whatever were, shall we say, precipitate, given that their authors hadn't yet read the book themselves.  I'll leave you to check out the other links yourself.

A few more links of interest:

--John H. Stevens makes a compelling argument for the vitality of short fiction: Signs of Life in Recent Short Fantastika from Elizabeth Hand, Kiiri Ibura Salaam, and Karin Tidbeck.

--At the Mumpsimus, Matt Cheney reports on a discussion of the 2013 VIDA count at the AWP: VIDA at AWP.

--Maria Tatar takes up the issue Elizabeth Hand recently addressed in the Boston Review, for the New Yorker: Sleeping Beauties vs. Gonzo Girls.Tatar, though, sees the gritty protagonists Hand examines as tricksters.

The female trickster has a long and distinguished lineage. For centuries, these heroines made use of veiled speech and disguise as they prowled around the margins of their worlds. There is Scheherazade, who rescues herself through storytelling, using the civilizing energy of narrative to end King Shahryar’s serial marriages and slayings. Then, there’s the younger and meeker Gretel, who sees her “moment in history,” as Anne Sexton tells it, and shoves the cannibalistic witch into the oven. In the end, she and Hansel are able to return home on the back of a duck, thanks to the poetry in her spells. Like the mythical Hermes, the two children become liars and thieves who traffic in enchantments.

--At the Nation, Michelle Dean takes up the cultural politics (and economics) of crowdsource funding: 'Veronica Mars', Amanda Palmer, 'The Atlantic' and the Depressing Economics of Cultural Production: Oh My!

Deb Taber event in Seattle

Tomorrow evening at 7 p.m., Deb Taber will be reading from and signing Necessary Ill at Seattle's University Bookstore ( 4326 University Way, N.E. – Seattle, Washington 98105). Necessary Ill has received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Liz Bourke, reviewing the novel for Tor.com, writes:

“At its heart, Necessary Ill concerns itself with character and situation; with the social experience of marked vs. unmarked bodies, and the ethics of preservation of life. Is it better to kill many in order that the species might survive? Is it right to permit the human race to drive itself to extinction, if by one's actions one can prevent it? Is it ever possible to act ethically in taking choices away from other people? Necessary Ill doesn't answer the questions it raises, or at least not all of them. But it asks them thoughtfully, and with an eye for character that makes for an enjoyable read.” (You can read her entire review here.)

I'll be there myself, of course.

Deb Taber's Necessary Ill

 It's the last day of February, and a second shipment of the two books scheduled for March release has arrived here. So it's my pleasure to announce today the release of Deb Taber's debut novel from Aqueduct Press, Necessary Ill. This intriguing and enthralling tale has already garnered a starred review from Publishers Weekly (which also ran an interview with Deb about the novel) and blurbs from Suzy McKee Charnas and Rebecca Ore. As you may have noticed, Aqueduct doesn't publish all that many novels, so you can probably guess at our excitement to be launching this one. Both the print and e-book editions are available now at www.aqueductpress.com. They'll be available elsewhere some time in March.

The man slices Jin’s shirt open with his pocketknife, then stops, staring at the blank, bare chest.

“Never thought it would make such a difference,” says the second man, twisting Jin’s arm at a painful angle so that he, too, can see the smooth skin, unbroken by anything so unnecessary as a nipple.

A woman runs up hollering, waving a shotgun in the air as the first man claws at Jin’s belt. The rest of the street is suddenly empty.

“Get off of her you perverts! If you lay one finger…”

She sees Jin and stops…

Jin,the neuter protagonist of Necessary Ill, begins the novel as a designer of plagues intended to set the world back into balance—a balance of population and resources, creation and destruction, choice and certainty—a balance more important to it than any individual life, including its own. Sandy, a young woman thrust violently out of her farm life into the dispassionate science of neuters like Jin, discovers her own need for balance—a balance of safety and adventure, art and science, self-protection and love. But Jin and Sandy find that human life is full of change, and as the world is thrown off balance for all, each questions their ruling assumptions and must learn to see in new ways for the survival of friends and enemies alike.

"Necessary Ill offers hopeful glimpses of alternatives to the current cultural barrage of post-Apocalyptic savagery and regression to warlordism, writes Suzy McKee Charnas. "Along the way, the reader finds an in-depth exploration of what a human society minus sex hormones might be like. It’s also a startlingly inward look at a character that is basically a serial mass murderer and also a hero capable of change. A stimulating read with a refreshing slant on the core problems of the modern world; and if you want to know what Mr. Spock's interior life might really be like, you really should meet the protagonist, Jin.”

Rebecca Ore writes:

Like M. J. Engh's Arslan, in Necessary Ill we identify with what in other books would be the antagonist: an abused child now grown up, neither male nor female, with the harsh amorality of a child and a beyond-human intelligence, whose whole energies are calculations about resources, about how those of us who are female or male reproduce, and reproduce, and reproduce until the world wears out. Who's the hero in a world where humans outbreed their resources?"

"Skillful pacing, unpredictable twists, nail-bitingingly tense moments, and an adroit resolution make this an unusual and engrossing addition to the post-apocalyptic genre."
  —Publishers Weekly, Jan 28,2013 (starred review)

"The author speculates about how individuals and society might evolve if sex wasn't such a potent part of the human personality. Some readers may find the sometimes dispassionate discussion of mass murder a bit unsettling but no one should find fault with the prose. Not the cheeriest book I've read this year but one of the more thought provoking."
  — Donald D'Ammassa, Critical Mass, Jan 12,2013 (read the whole review)

 Asked by her Publishers Weekly interviewer about inspirations for her invention of her society of neuters, Deb writes:

The first inspiration was the fact that there are, in reality, human beings born without specific male or female sex characteristics, although I took several fictional leaps with the science of the neuts’ anatomy, biology, and abilities. In Western culture, these people are surgically and chemically turned into females, usually as early as possible, and may never be told that they were born as anything other than female. Basically, our gender is defined as “male” or “not male,” based on the presence or absence of one specific sex organ, a perspective that is based in culture, not biology. A part of the neuter society in the book is a rebellion against that, a separate place where the neuters can be who and what they are, according to their biology rather than social constructs.

I also drew upon the interactions between the introverts and extroverts I’ve observed and interacted with all my life. As a highly introverted person, I wanted to try to show the beauty of the experience of aloneness in the Home Cavern world and the comfort that it has for its inhabitants. But the artist’s cavern enclave is there to balance that with the warmth of a much more affable community. It’s the balance of the contradicting aspects of human nature that drew me to explore both worlds.

Finally, the underground societies of both the artists and the scientists are based on my love of caves. I first went to Carlsbad Caverns when I was eleven years old, and I spent the whole walk through the caverns in awe of this huge, fantastical world, where there is so much more that is hidden than is revealed. I imagined undiscovered creatures living just beyond the cavern walls and through the tunnels that were closed off to the public. Once I had the idea for the neuter society, I knew I had to set it there. As I researched the book, I went back and took a wild cavern tour so I could experience firsthand the type of journey Jin and the others make every time they leave or come home, or move from one part of the cavern system to another. I’ll be talking more about this aspect on Mary Robinette Kowal’s “My Favorite Bit” blog feature on March 5, 2013 (http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/category/journal/my-favorite-bit/).

The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2012, pt.18: Deb Taber

Feasting the Eyes, 2012 
by Deb Taber

As a more-than-full-time freelance editor, I spend most of my waking hours every day reading books, and I'm fortunate enough that those books are almost exclusively fiction. Unfortunately, that also means that I’ve read few books over the past year that I wasn’t paid to read, either for editing or review; so, to avoid any awkward bias and nondisclosure issues, I'll stick to rereads and other media here.

(Re)Reading 
When I hit the just-for-me books, my top choice is generally the “comfort food” of the YA books I grew up with. This year, at the top of my list is Jack London's White Fang. I had a fourth-grade obsession with wolves that was spurred on by this book, along with Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George and Sasha, My Friend by Barbara Corcoran (both of which are on my to-reread list for next year). While London's overt sexism and racism are difficult to dismiss, this will always be the book that taught me the meaning of the word "vouchsafed" and hit all the right notes of loneliness and isolation that can be part of both human and animal experience.

Sneak Reads: A Few Favorite Apps
When I'm waiting in line, winding down at the end of the day, taking a brain break from editing, or just want some information, I tend to turn to electronic media for my reading fix (yes, I’m an iPad/iPhone junkie). In particular, four apps (all but the last available on Android and iOS, some with companion websites as well) have been my constant companions over the last year:

1. Zite I’m not a news reader. In fact, I hate reading the news and most often approach any current event about as enthusiastically as a trip to the dentist. This year, I was introduced to Zite. It’s a news compiler app with customization features that let me grab stories from sources like Scientific American, The New York Times, the NASA website, and a variety of other major and minor publications and blogs. It’s great for finding story-inspiring headlines like “Brain Cells Cloned from Pee” or “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday.” An added benefit is that you get the same news from several sources, which can help with cutting through the various spins to get to the kernels of actual information. If you absorb news electronically but have not yet figured out how to download the stories you want directly into your brain, I highly recommend it.

2. Fooducate I admit to being a bit of a food junkie. It's in my DNA. Get any member of my family talking for more than five minutes and the conversation will turn to food, so it’s no surprise I learned about this app at a family event. The Fooducate app allows you to scan bar codes of food items and get nutritional information that the labels won't tell you, including details on additives and studies regarding their effects. Plus, it's just plain fun to wander the grocery store scanning and analyzing your food with your phone. Some of the warnings that pop up are hilarious (“Heart attack!” “Fiber overload!”). You can also browse the database for general information or connect to the Fooducate website to learn more about specific nutritional concerns. Descriptions are informative and humorous, and if you find an item that’s not in the database, you can submit it for analysis and addition to the app.

3. Hotel Tonight This app has nothing to do with science fiction, reading in general, or media consumption, but it has been one of my greatest pleasures of the year. The basic premise is that there are plenty of sites that offer good hotel deals to people who plan ahead, but this one focuses on last-minute places to stay (particularly helpful when stuck in a location due to weather or later-than-expected work commitments) in select cities. The interface is clean and beautiful, the writing in the app direct and informative and spunky, and the photos are gorgeous. Plus, it’s let me stay in a few of Seattle's nicest hotels on a writer/editor's budget.

4. The Room Just as I'm not a news reader, I'm also not a gamer. Sure, I've flung my share of Angry Birds and killed some time with electronic Boggle (okay, okay, and Ms. Pac-Man and Skeeball and Solitaire), but The Room brought me into the 21st-century game experience. The game leads you on a complex puzzle tour through a series of nested boxes, following the story of a mad scientist's discovery. The graphics are beautiful and the puzzle complex enough to be frustrating at times but not overwhelming. This is, unfortunately, an iPad-only app, but if you don’t have one of your own, I’d say it’s worth borrowing a friend's iPad for a few hours...or days...until you solve the puzzle.

Big and Small Screen

The two TV shows I’ve grown most fond of over the past year were canceled or declined for renewal, but in case you haven’t checked them out, I enjoyed The Killing and Awake. Despite its sometimes laughable interpretation of Puget Sound geography, The Killing featured strong acting, especially by lead Mireille Enos, who may be the only female TV police officer not required to do her job in a tank top and miniskirt and heels. Awake, while weak in female characters, presented an interesting psychological conundrum, crystallized in the two therapists (one male, one female) in the main character’s two conflicting realities. It was also great to see BD Wong in a complex role, given Hollywood’s tendency to marginalize Asian actors. Just ignore the final episode’s “and then he woke up”-style ending.

I’ve seen more movies over the past year than I care to count, and far more in theaters than I’m used to, so this was a tough list to narrow down. The one major pleasant surprise I had was the movie Bug, with Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon. I rented it expecting the typical cheesy horror flick (I do love my typical cheesy horror flicks), and instead got an intensive psychological drama in stage-play-adapted-to-the-screen format. A few other movies I’ve had great fun with this year: Rubber (not for all tastes, but if “psycho killer tire” sounds intriguing, give it a watch), The Italian Job (the 2003 version; action-heist fluff, but at least the lead female character is more than what a friend of mine likes to term “a kissing post”) and Looper (some rough bits, but overall a good story). I also have been a longtime fan of stand-up comedy, and two performances I rented that I really enjoyed were Anjelah Johnson’s That’s How We Do It and Aisha Tyler’s Aisha Tyler is Lit: Live at the Fillmore.

Deb Taber sold her first short story, “How to Raise a Human,” to Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest, then managed to join the staff of that same magazine as an editor before the story made it to print. There, she progressed from slush reader to senior editor of the small press’s book division. She now edits and/or proofreads everything from self-published science fiction to thrillers for New York Times best-selling authors. After a day spent polishing other writers’work, she finds time now and then to write her own brand of speculative twists and turns. Her dark fantasy stories have appeared in such venues as Fantasy Magazine and River: An Anthology and her science fiction short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Art From Art and Dark Futures. Aqueduct will be publishing her first novel, Necessary Ill, in March 2013.