Reading, Watching & Listening in 2013
by Tansy Rayner Roberts
I’ve
had an odd sort of year, reading classics rather than science fiction
or fantasy, catching up with and re-reading older works, and entirely
failing to “keep up with the field.” It’s been rather liberating in
some ways, though I do feel somewhat guilty at not doing my usual job of
finding the great SF and fantasy by women to recommend to listeners of
the
Galactic Suburbia podcast.
Next year, perhaps! I do feel somewhat accomplished for having read
the entirety of A Song of Ice and Fire back in March-April, though, a
marathon effort that I greatly enjoyed. Like the TV show, even where the
books are problematic, it’s usually in such interesting ways that I
can’t turn away.
One science fiction novel that did manage to worm its way past my
defences was
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, an excellent story with a
terrific pace to it - and considering that every other chapter is a
flashback, that’s really saying something! I liked the emphasis on
linguistic and gender perception differences between cultures, and how
complicated they were even for an AI to parse them, especially one with
fewer resources than she used to have. Very clever and promising - and
I’ve been delighted to hear so very much buzz about this book over the
year.
I also very much enjoyed Diana Peterfreund’s YA science fictional
retelling of Jane Austen’s
Persuasion,
For Darkness Shows the Stars,
which veered a lot further from the original than I expected but also
contained a great deal of interesting SF worldbuilding in order to make
the story work. I am looking forward to her gender-swapped Scarlet
Pimpernel novel,
Across the Windswept Sea, which is set in the same
imagined future.
A new favourite novel which may have to be reread in many years to
come is Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Cranford. I’ve been meaning to attempt
Gaskell’s novels for some time and was really delighted with this
slender oddball volume about domesticity and the lives of gentlewomen
from a previous generation to the author. I often feel that historical
fiction and science fiction are a lot closer than anyone likes to admit,
and there was something oddly SFnal about this work set in a village
where almost all the men are simply absent, due to death, scandal or
business elsewhere, and all is ruled by the women with their rituals of
calling upon each other, their concern with ‘elegant economy’ and their
complex communication methods when it comes to scandal, appropriate
behaviour and even charity and kindness. If
Cranford is science fiction,
then it’s a gently feminist work of science fiction.
Also, there’s a cat who eats French lace.
In comics, I have
read some marvellous “graphic novel” collections this year, including
the first two volumes of the edgy and weird space opera Saga, which so
deserved this year’s Hugo, and the second volumes each of the continuing
Captain Marvel and Hawkeye series which are the best superhero comics
right now. I also very much liked the first two volumes of Brian Michael
Bendis’ All New X-Men with its crazy ‘original X-Men travel forward to
meet their future selves’ premise, and the first few issues of the new
Red Sonja title by Gail Simone.
Slightly related to my love of superhero comics is the clever and
adorable collection of superhero poetry,
Flying Higher, edited by
Michael Damian Thomas and Shira Lipkin. Also, my favourite airplane novel this year was
The She-Hulk Diaries by Marta Acosta - a super heroine reinterpreted as
the centre of a chick lit novel, pretty much exactly what it says on the
tin.
The Doctor Who 50th anniversary has loomed large in my head and my
reading this year, not least because of my year-long blogging project to
commemorate the history of the show. The books that have had the most
lasting effect on me were Elisabeth Sladen’s
Autobiography, which made
for a great social history about theatre life as television production
in the 60’s and 70’s, and Richard Marson’s biography of 1980’s producer
John Nathan Turner which is far more sensitive and nuanced than you
might expect of a book titled
The Life and Scandalous Times of JN-T.
My favourite Doctor Who book of the year, though, was
The Wife in
Space by Neil Perryman, chronicling one fan’s lifelong relationship with
Doctor Who as a counterpart to his relationship with his non-fan wife
Sue, culminating in the epic experiment in which they watched every
episode of the show in order (including the reconstructions and
telesnaps/audio tracks of missing 60’s stories). I followed their
blogging project from the beginning and adored Sue’s pragmatic, snarky
and hilarious take on the show - especially her habit of not only
dismissing sacred cows of Doctor Who fandom, but also of bringing a new
perspective and appreciation to stories that are often underrated.
The book is just as funny as the blog, and provides context via a
family history, and a discussion of the effect of the massively popular
blogging experiment on their lives. The Wife in Space is a surprisingly
intimate story of how love for a TV show can intersect with marriage and
parenthood, for better and worse.
I’ve been listening to more audio plays and books than ever before,
often at the expense of reading time. The BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Neil
Gaiman’s
Neverwhere was absolutely wonderful, conveying the clever
ideas of the original story far better than either of its previous
iterations as a TV show or a rather slight novel. The cast is
spectacular, with James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Bernard Cribbins,
Benedict Cumberbatch, Anthony Stewart Head… and Christopher Lee. Among
others. Highly recommended.
I also enjoyed the audio adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of
Dorian Gray, from Big Finish, starring Alexander Vlahos. I’ve been
following their Dorian Gray series for the last couple of years (based
on the premise that he survived through the 20th Century, haunted by
various ghosts from the past and occasionally fighting sinister
monsters) so it was rather nice to add this dimension by hearing an
interpretation of the original that includes “our” Dorian. Miles
Richardson is also in this, playing an elegant and morally dubious
character, which added some lovely dimension to the piece.
Speaking of Miles Richardson, I also wanted to draw attention to the
Gallifrey audio series from Big Finish, which has had six seasons (of
3-4 plays each) produced over the last decade. Based somewhere between
all the references to Gallifrey in the Classic era of Doctor Who, but
before the Time War and New Who, this was intended to be a straight
political drama based around the Time Lords. It also encompasses mystery
and science fiction, but at it’s heart it is
The West Wing/
Yes Prime
Minister in space.
The main cast consists of two former Doctor Who companions: Lalla
Ward as the long-suffering and idealistic Lady President Romana, and
Louise Jamieson as her bodyguard Leela, a former “savage” who had to
adapt to the “civilised” ways of the Capitol when she married a
Gallifreyan. Supporting these two amazing women (and how often do you
see a science fiction series of any kind with two 50+ actresses playing
the protagonists) are Miles Richardson as Braxiatel, Sean Carlsen as
Narvin, and of course John Leeson as two different versions of K9.
From politics and diplomacy on Gallifrey to time viruses, the
dangers of other dimensions and finally a battle between Time Lords and
Daleks which shows the shape of the Time War to come, this is really
good, solid radio science fiction, and the final series which was
released only a couple of months ago brings it home powerfully. Along
with many appearances by Mary Tamm as the first Romana (or a version
thereof) and Lynda Bellingham as the Inquisitor, they made the bold
choice to cast a Romana III in this final series and Juliet Landau puts
in a fabulous performance as Lalla Ward’s future self. Absolutely worth
tracking down, especially now that the series is complete. Early seasons
are only available as CD rather than direct download, but they are
priced very low.
Finally, I wanted to give a shout out for some Latin poetry. Yes,
really! Clare Pollard has done a fantastic, very modern translation of
Ovid’s
Heroides (published as
Ovid’s Heroines), a book which feels quite
feminist in conception. The original poems are all framed as letters
from a tragic woman of Greek myth addressing a man in her life (mostly
husbands or lovers, some fathers, sons and objects of unrequited
passion). By collecting these together and giving a voice to characters
often rendered almost invisible, Ovid certainly demonstrates the
appalling way in which women are indeed used as objects or made to
suffer in the storytelling traditions which were so important in his day
and continue to resonate now, thousands of years later. The downside,
of course, is that it is also a book very much about woman-as-victim,
which can be wearing if taken all at once. Pollard does a great job of
capturing Ovid’s snark and humour, something many translators have
struggled with over the centuries. She makes the poems and their
protagonists feel terribly relevant, but the best part about the book is
that she is really only using modern language to reveal what was
already there.
Tansy Rayner Roberts is a co-host of
Galactic Suburbia, and the author of
the Creature Court trilogy. In 2013, she joined an all female Doctor
Who podcast, V
erity!, finished
a 50 week blogging project about Doctor Who,
and won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer. Her most recent release is
Ink
Black Magic, a comic fantasy novel about superheroes, pirates, and the
ethics of magic. Check out
Tansy's blog, or follow her on Twitter at @tansyrr
