Review: Isis Orb by Piers Anthony

Isis Orb 

by Piers Anthony 

Open Road Integrated Media 

Sci Fi & Fantasy

A few complain about the works of Piers Anthony, but he'd sold so many, could his books be as bad as they claimed? Moreover, he's won the British Fantasy award and was nominated four times for the Hugo and Nebula awards, and twenty times for Balrog, Ditmar, Gandalf, Locus awards. Maybe the awards mean little, but even as recent as 2011. his Xanth series appeared on NPR's Listener Picks for Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books. Granted it was #98, but the whole list is packed with classics.  So what's going on?

I decided to read for myself.

This whole series is a pun-fest. The book titles give the series game away: Centaur Aisle, Night Mare, Heaven Cent, Air Apparent, Knot Gneiss, Well-Tempered Clavicle, and Board Stiff. If you hate puns, then steer clear, but "Dad jokes" are notorious for them, so if you can accept Dad jokes, you can accept these. "But not in serious fiction!" someone might say. True, this is not intended to be serious fiction although they can and do serve a serious, underlying intent:

Set up: Hapless, a young man who has no direction in life and feels he has no worthwhile talent, is visited by the gnome, Humfrey the Good Magician, who wants to send Hapless on a quest.

Hapless sputtered. "It's a trite formula! Some oaf comes with a stupid Question, gets a stupider Answer, then has to serve some complicated quest that completely messes up his life. Why should I get into anything like that? My life is already frustrating enough." 

"Because formulas exist for an excellent reason: they work. You have no life to speak of; only by following this formula will you achieve your three life ambitions." 

"What ambitions? I have no idea what I want." 

"That is part of your problem. You want to play a musical instrument well, to have a good girlfriend, and to make a difference in Xanth. You will achieve all three only by taking a Quest." 

Hapless opened his mouth to protest, then stalled. Because the moment the Good Magician spelled out what he wanted, he saw that it was true. It wasn't magic to make him desire things he hadn't before; it was a clarification of desires he had always had but had never been able to recognize. Humfrey had his number. 

Still, he protested. "My talent is to conjure any musical instrument. But it's no good, because I can't play any instrument. No girl is interested in me because I don't have a useful talent. And as for making a difference, I have no idea how." 

"Precisely. Your Quest will gradually clarify those aspects, so that by the time it concludes you will have succeeded in accomplishing all three."   

Hapless takes on the quest and meets companions who have different abilities. The first is in a photograph that he supposed to think outside of. It speaks to him. She is Cylla Cybin (pun for psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in mushrooms) and can create hallucinations.

They encountered a man going the other way. "Hi!" he said. 

"Lo," Cylla replied. "What's your talent?" 

"To carve air into a solid mass. Like this." He moved his hands as if slicing something invisible, then held them forth as if presenting something. 

Curious, Hapless put his hands out. There was a block of solid air, invisible but definitely there. "Nice," he said, impressed. 

"We're moving on," Cylla said abruptly. 

Hapless returned the block of air and ran to catch up with her. "Why did you go? It's a perfectly respectable talent." 

"He's an airhead." 

Was that a pun? It certainly did not seem fair. Hapless decided not to challenge it. 

They crossed a meadow filled with flowers. Bees were servicing them. But one bee flew directly toward the two of them. 

"Get away!" Cylla cried, batting at it. Discouraged, the bee departed. 

"Why did you do that?" Hapless asked. "It wasn't threatening us." 

"It was a Wanna Bee. Anyone stung by one of those wants to be something else." 

Oh. She evidently knew her local wildlife.

Another companion transforms a cat. Together they have to solve puzzles to find who they are on Xanth.

This is a light and charming look at the coming of age of your average kid--not the superstar quarterback, not the softball no-hit pitcher or the prom queen, not the brainiac nerd who always has his hand raised. SF commonly mines the uncommon man, but what about the common man? What place does he serve in society? Do he have utility?

So, Piers says, we all have intrinsic value. He's going to show us how. Hapless has three goals:

"You want to play a musical instrument well, to have a good girlfriend, and to make a difference in Xanth." 

Hapless wants to 1) be gainfully employed, 2) find love, and 3) feel like he's of value to his society. What human being doesn't share those goals? I'm sure there are some, but they'd have to be rare.

Note, too, that these goals and concerns (and puns), probably aim for a target audience of 13-19, but if you can remember some of the difficulties of that era (or maybe you're still struggling to find yourself, no shame), and can enjoy the coming of age story, then it might work for you as well.

Another aspect that other reviewers have skimped on, which you can discern in these excerpts, is the setting. The setting is thin. Anthony's focus is on character, witty banter, and word play (much of the magic of Xanth springs from multiple definitions of words). If you want a rich, detailed setting, Anthony will not be the writer for you, but apparently he's still huge among his legions of fans, so that is not an issue for some.

Note that Hapless's second goal is to find love. Anthony does expend a lot of energy on sexual interest. I read a review that called him sexist because of it. The way one's sexual interest runs is not sexist. In fact, Anthony's Hapless considers the sexes equal and is trained by the female characters on how to view women, which is to see them as more than sexual objects--an attitude which I suspect would have wide-spread approval among most of the population. Nonetheless, someone will find something sexist somewhere because it's cool to find others lacking our moral superiority and try to ruin their lives economically.

The novel spends a great deal of energy on sexuality, so if that's not your cup of grog, this will not be the book for you.

The novel's tone is, as I said earlier, light and charming. How he portrayed what is needed to mature in society also fascinated me since good readers are curious to observe how minds differ from their own. If we had to agree on everything, what a boring monoculture we would be, devoid of intellectual diversity and doomed to bottleneck and die. Hopefully, we the people are willing to live and let live.

Review: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison

May 27th was Ellison's birthday. He passed on June 27, 2018, Los Angeles, CA

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman 

by Harlan Ellison 

Open Road Integrated Media 

Sci Fi & Fantasy

Harlan Ellison has been my go-to writer whenever I'm down and the writer's-block blues bang their drums, it's Ellison, the mythic man, the legend with a frenetic pen. His quill vivisects your heads and dribbles in his ink.  Even when he's bad, he's good.

If you haven't tried him, this is a perfect sampler. It opens with a short essay, hits with the main event story--winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Prometheus awards and reprinted more the two dozen times--and closes with a personal reflection.

The tales opens with the middle, rewinds to the beginning, and then closes at the open end. Even though he tells you what he'll do, it still comes as something of a surprise. Harlequin is plaguing the city of the future. He's upsetting the Tictockman, who has to see that everything starts and end on time. If not, he takes those lost minutes off the end of your life. Harlequin, meanwhile, distracts shoppers and construction workers and average citizens who are trying to get their work done on time by shouting at them through megaphones and distributing jelly beans--lots of jelly beans (which is never explained, but oh well. Ellison warned us).

Ellison's prose sizzles. It crackles and pops.

Here's an excerpt from the closing essay:

"When you come into my bedroom, you see the bed up on a square box platform covered with deep pile carpeting. It's in bright colors, because I like bright colors. Now, there's good solid, rational reason why the bed is up there like that. Some day I'll tell you why; it's a personal reason; in the nature of killing evil shadows. But that isn't important, right here. What is important is the attitude of people who see that bed for the first time. Some snicker and call it an altar. Others frown in disapproval and call it a pedestal, or a Playboy bed. It's none of those. It's very functional, and serves an emotional purpose that is none of their business, but Lord, how quick they are to label it the way they see it, and to lay their value-judgment on it and me."

The Tictockmen have very good reasons for their value-judgments.

Some of you are wondering, why do we need to hear about Ellison again? Why do we need to hear about Ellison again?

Because there's always a new generation that hasn't heard of him, and there's always a new, vocal group in every political faction that wants to strangle any opposition, authoritarian-style. "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman may not be the cure, but it may flush a few more harlequins out from their bunkers.

Of course, if you're the Tictockman, you may not want to read this story.

Analysis: The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (Movie + novel)

I watched a lot of black-and-white movies with my pop growing up. They were his thing. He had a lot of the noirs, and we watched this one. I liked a lot of them, but not this classic noir. This one I hated and I couldn't explain why. I didn't try. I'll discuss it below

That's probably why it took me so long to read Cain's work. When I did, I found the novel a moving if awful kind of tragedy. Moreover, it had made it on Modern Library's Top 100. You can see why in the excerpt below. The novel is packed with energy, each line bursting with suggestion.

The book was apparently banned in Boston for the violence and sex. It is violent, one moment especially, but the sex is largely off stage. Different times.

This has had a ton of covers. My favorite is this first one. It captures all three characters in one shot.

Excerpt

That was when I hit this Twin Oaks Tavern.... I blew in there in a hurry and began looking down the road. When the Greek showed, I asked if a guy had been by in a Cadillac. He was to pick me up here, I said, and we were to have lunch. Not today, said the Greek. He layed a place at one of the tables and asked me what I was going to have. I said orange juice, corn flakes, fried eggs and bacon, enchilada, flapjacks, and coffee. 

Pretty soon he came out with the orange juice and the corn flakes. 

"Hold on, now. One thing I got to tell you. If this guy don't show up, you'll have to trust me for it. This was to be on him, and I'm kind of short, myself." 

"Hokay, fill'm up." 

I saw he was on, and quit talking about the guy in the Cadillac. Pretty soon I saw he wanted something. 

"What you do, what kind of work, hey?" 

"Oh, one thing and another, one thing and another. Why?" 

"How old you?" 

"Twenty-four." 

"Young fellow, hey? I could use young fellow right now. In my business." 

"Nice place you got here."

Notice how Frank hides everything about himself from Nick, in every line.

This discussion below will have no easy summary as I'll be spoiling it along the way. Here's a Youtube clip of the radio play adaptation, which is very similar to the movie version. They used to adapt movies for the radio.

Book Version

In the novel, Frank Chambers is tossed off a hay truck. He'd been in Tijuana. He shows up at the Twin Oaks diner, pretending a friend was coming in a Cadillac (i.e. rich), going to spring for dinner, and Nick Papadakis, the owner, cooks and asks if Frank wants a job. He's told immediately that Cora Smith is Nick's wife, which seems to be what keeps Frank there to take the job, fixing tire flats. When Frank compliments her on the burritos they made, she's very keen to dissociate herself from Mexicans and Nick, a Greek, which of course is interesting that she'd marry him. She later calls him greasy. Nick seems indifferent except as a way to get at her so she wouldn't treat his as her servant.

Frank uses a fallen sign to talk Nick into getting a new one. Once Nick leaves, he locks the door to be alone with Cora. He bites her lip at her request and bloodies her. Scene cuts as they head to the bedroom.

Nick is upset that Cora's lip was hurt by the swing door and he makes Frank fix it. He hits Cora in the legs and she seems to like it although she asks how he got that way. They get away every chance they get when Nick leaves. They share their pasts. She calls herself a hellcat except with Frank.

No reason is given for Nick's murder, but they plan it: Her hitting him in the head with a bag of ball bearings while he's in the tub and to hold him under, so it looks like he fell and drowned himself. When they plan the bathtub murder, Frank is to be outside and honk the horn if anyone comes by but he ends up chasing a cat and not being around when a state trooper shows up asking questions. They note the cat going up. The lights went out and she screams.

They feel they have to save Nick's life and rush him into the hospital. As soon as Nick recovers consciousness, Cora talks Nick into the story she wants him to believe. When they get back, they find the potential murder weapon on her. The state cop notes the cat caused the lights going out.

They try to run off, but Cora doesn't want to, so Nick runs off, and tries to make money at pool to get Cora. He bumps into Nick, who cajoles Frank into coming back. Nick seems proud of his accident.

That night Cora has an argument with Nick about bringing Frank back. Frank somehow hears her heartbeat and clicks on the kitchen light to find her holding a knife (whether to kill Frank, herself or Nick is unclear). They come up with a new murder plan.

The men get drunk. Nick yells that Cora, driving, will get them all killed. Foreshadowing. The worst moment is when Frank hits Nick over the head.

Frank rips her blouse and blackens her eye, so she'll pass getting into an accident. It doesn't go as planned though and Frank damages his back and arm. He goes in and out of consciousness as shipped around from mortuary to hospital.

They get interrogated. Nick acts properly confused. He seems convincing to the bald District Attorney is  and the reader, but the DA is tough and even catches part of the story in guessing... except the insurance angle. The DA with much cajoling talks Frank into signing a complaint against Cora. The DA seems to know everywhere he'd been jailed. 

Cora's lawyer, Katz, knows Cora will be get upset when she hears about Frank's signed complaint, so he hires a former dick to record her confession, so she can get it out of her. And then he has the complaint stuck a safe.

Frank is plagued by dreams of killing Nick, hearing the crack.

The DA crows about his sure win and bets Katz one hundred dollars on the court results. The insurance agent had gone to Nick and he told Nick that injury insurance was needed. Also there were two policies in effect at the same time, and even if they did hang Cora, the insurance companies still had to pay since Frank could sue injuries and the companies would have to pay. He had the insurance companies agree that she had caused the murder because they had a guest clause that if Nick and Cora caused an accident, then the companies had to pay. It's a bit complicated. So Nick put his insurance man on the the stand who said that they didn't think Cora had done it.

Nick decides not to charge Cora for the lawyering. The DA's check was enough.

Frank and Cora have it out. They hold each other responsible (him for the complaint, her for the confession) but seem to have forgiven one another.

They talk of selling the business, but Cora wants to expand it from car repair and hotdogs, to include beer outside under the shade. Frank is upset. He wants to move on.

While Cora's in Iowa, Frank runs into Madge who sells big Central American cats to zoos and movies. So he takes off with her. She asks if he's got "Gypsy blood" in him like she does. A match.

Kennedy, Katz's dick, extorts money out of Frank and Cora to get Cora's confession. Frank uses the sign to blind Kennedy and gets the gun and hands it to Cora to hold while he beats on Kennedy. Kennedy complies and tells his buddies to bring the photostats and original confession.

Cora finds out about Frank and Madge. Madge left a puma kitten to remember her.

Cora and Frank torture each other. He wants to kill Cora and she wants to turn him in. But Frank feels a love-hate. Cora is having Frank's baby and never wanted to hang the kid's father.

Frank dives underwater and finally feels clean, but Cora's sick and he carries her to the car. A truck is blocking the passing lane despite his honking of the horn. Cars are coming on the left, so he tries to go around the right and runs into the culvert wall. The puma kitten hadn't been taken care of so it was mangy and tried to bite Frank. Judge calls Frank a mad dog. He worries about what Cora thinks about him. He asks the reader for prayers for him, Nick and Cora.

Cats are their bad luck. We have the electrocuted cat who foiled their first murder attempt (although I'm not completely sure why), and then the lawyer who helped and now this puma which led him astray and now testified against him.

Movie Version

In the movie, the District Attorney gives Frank a lift to the restaurant, which is interesting. The DA seems to have an interest in the itinerant man's future. And yet, in a cosmic way, he's the one who delivers the doomed man to his fate. Plus we get to see the good-guy antagonist (and the cop who tries to give a ticket to the DA for parking in the road). Frank has apparently called about a job and tells Nick [Smith--they erased the racism for the movie] that he's got itchy feet [he moves a lot]. There's a wonderful sign "Man Wanted"--great triple entendre (for hire, for sex, for murder).

Nick is immediately smitten and picks up her lipstick for her. Did she drop it on purpose? We don't get to see. But she puts out her hand for him to deliver the lipstick as if he's her servant, but he steps back to lean against the counter instead, making her come to him.

Nick thrusts the young couple together when he encourages them to dance when he can't. Cora tries to get out of it, but Nick insists.

Frank uses the outside sign as a way to get in with Cora since she's long been wanting Nick to get a newer sign.

In love, they leave a note in the cash register that she's leaving him, and head out on the road, but Cora is miserable, so she has them turn around. She doesn't want the itinerant life.

After they attempt the bathtub murder, the DA follows in his car and notes the step ladder. Frank blames the cat.

When Nick comes home nearly run off the road, they come up with a plan to run him off the road. Nick has plans to sell the place, as his sister can't walk and he wants Cora to help take care of her.  He almost seems to know about their plans. Cora rejects this as she doesn't want to sell the place, but he had her sign a divorce agreement, not knowing what it was, so that she'd get nothing if she left him.

So they come with a plan to kill him. In this accident, she is uninjured and Frank accidentally get caught in the automobile.

They get pressured into marrying. To test him, to let him drown her or save her life, they swim out to where she can't swim any more. He saves her, but his distracted driving runs them into road. He's happy when they can prove he will die not because of Cora but because of his killing Nick.

In jail, Frank explains the title, in part. The postman rings twice, and you always hear the second time.

The Difference

The movie follows the book pretty closely with some ingenious improvements. Love that sign. Simplifying the insurance angle was good. I'm not sure I followed. Keeping the DA around developed his character and added tension and some symbolic weight. The racism angle was probably worth cutting although it did add a layer of characterization, a man proud of his heritage (though his wife was not). Nick isn't necessarily that much older than Cora in the book. 

Here's what broke me: In the movie, though older, he seems so sweet, I didn't want to see him hurt. The book had another advantage, perhaps due to not being pressed for time: It would add pressure and take it off. We'd feel the tension, but when it released, we had hope that the characters might improve their behavior. The sexual tension is there in the book, but it takes him a bit to encourage her. Maybe it's in my imagination, but it feels like they can succeed by running away, or by sticking to their (Frank with the DA), or by finally getting together. We get these little breathers that, even if we disapprove, we at least feel they're going to turn their lives around. The movie feels like a relentless road of misery, one bad move after another.

#

I'm catching up on reviews, so it was a surprise that once again my readings coincided with Scott Bradfield's. Here's his discussion on the writer.

Review: Conversations From the Edge: The Galaxy's Edge Interviews by Joy Ward

Conversations From the Edge: The Galaxy's Edge Interviews 

by Joy Ward (interviewer) 

Arc Manor 

Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles 

Biographies & Memoirs , Sci Fi & Fantasy

Joy Ward is a veteran journalist and has been doing interviews for Galaxy’s Edge since the beginning. These are the interviews collected here: a long list of major science fiction and fantasy writers and editors (see below).

Ward's best ability is to get at the personal side of the authors, although she does manage to coax out good writing tips from some. Some of the interviews--if you've read about the authors before--will be familiar, George R. R. Martin, for instance. But some writers have evolved, so that the Kij Johnson I interviewed a decade and a half earlier differs from the Kij Johnson that Joy Ward interviewed.

Some interviews are touching simply because the writers are no longer with us: Jerry Pournelle and Gene Wolfe. The Pournelle interview gains new interest following the interview with his friend and collaborator, Larry Niven. Some older writers like Terry Brooks, Robert Silverberg, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Joe Haldeman seem to feel outside the field at present.

Speaking of Niven and Pournelle collaborations, a substantial number of writers discuss their collaborations: Mercedes Lackey, Larry Dixon, Eric Flint, and David Gerrold.

The most revealing interview is last one: David Drake. He shares a rather stunning, personal story that I was unfamiliar with, so my interest in his work is now piqued. Most readers, I suspect, will be writer wannabees, but Drake's intimate revelation makes me wonder if interviewees have been missing out on not making themselves as interesting as the work itself.

Some interviews have been expanded from the original publication. There is some redundancy in reintroducing the author: with new and original introductions. One introduction might prove sufficient.

Interviews include the following writers and editors and something of what you will find:

1. George R.R. Martin (turns a dead end into a superhighway)
2. Jerry Pournelle (his politics, his path to publication and collaborations with Niven)
3. Nancy Kress (her initial introduction to the field)
4. Joe Haldeman (tried to maintain involvement in several genres: poetry, literary, SF, adventure)
5. Peter S. Beagle (the importance being recognized)
6. Eric Flint (his politics, and his collaborations)
7. Mercedes Lackey (collaborations and indifference to art as opposed to craft)
8. Larry Dixon (collaborations and indifference to art as opposed to craft)
9. Gene Wolfe (how new writers don't pay attention to advice)
10. Jack McDevitt (the importance of SF & curiosity)
11. Greg Bear (his personal motivations)
12. David Gerrold (perhaps the most writerly--modeling stories, voice, showing/having reader experience the story as i
13. Kij Johnson (her interest in experimental structures and her tapping into flow)
14. Mike Resnick (his beginnings in pornography and interest in new writers)
15. Terry Brooks (the importance of putting in hard work) 
16. David Brin (the science in science fiction and the destruction of dystopias)
17. Catherine Asaro (women as lead characters)
18. David Weber (advantage of plot and character over style)
19. Robert Silverberg (the history of the field)
20. Toni Weisskopf (the importance of healthy discussion within the genre)
21. Lois McMaster Bujold (the importance of short fiction to selling novels, talk with editor generating Falling Free)
22. Robert J. Sawyer (the importance of research, dislike of endless series)
23. Harry Turtledove (read and write)
24. Connie Willis (importance of having good manners and of having m.s.s. out and comforting self when rejections come in that a better story is circulating)
25. Larry Niven (collaboration)
26. David Drake (how experience can feed one's muse)

This post completes a post from the future, so it won't make much sense plus it contains spoilers.

We readers are meant to think that both patients have taken similar news differently--perhaps one being more dire--or not. We can't know. However, due to the point-of-view, things cannot have turned out so dire so quickly. In part because it doesn't feel like the patient is that near death due to behavior--if that's how we're to read the ending. It seems like we need a little more: a new angle, a different or more visible narrator, and/or more development in the past, present or future. It feels like it's almost there but not quite. Still, Shipler knows how to move his characters through emotional events and how to get us talking about his story.

Game of Thrones: Final Season + some other stuff about the new censorship (sort of spoilery)

So people could not shut their yaps about Game of Thrones. We tried playing nice. We tried threatening violence (I promised to find the secret algorithm that make people's computers electrocute them if they posted spoilers--you didn't know that existed? Wishful thinking must not be as electrifying I'd hoped). Anyway, their blabbing ruined two key scenes--one beloved, one "behated." And they are probably two scenes that could have been foreshadowed better.

Ah well. The real question: Did they screw up the finale? Was it worth it?

Hell no, and hell yeah, respectively. For two reasons:

1. The genius of this is the same--maybe a distant cousin--that caused people to riot at Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Everybody knows how that vanished without a trace. Likewise, people have petitioned that they rewrite the series, which amounts to an attempted coup, a kind of censorship of creative artists. (see below)
2. The theme is the theme of our time, for the same reason that people have petitioned although it will probably take another generation to recognize how apt the series was. "Yes, but..." Every "yes, but" happened for a reason. It was well-constructed (well, apart from the aforementioned lack of foreshadowing).

Of course, we will all be keen to read how George R. R. Martin does it differently. Will he listen to the spoilers, to the complainers, or will he lock himself in a soundproof box until he's finished the m.s. sometime in the next millennium? Only time will tell.

Major spoilers implied in this paragraph: Scientific American feigns to have the answer as to why people dislike what happened, but actually the story did tell a sociological tale (and not just because it maps onto our society's current topography). Since the moment Daenerys fell in love with Khal Drogo, she was the show favorite. She was treated with kid gloves compared to all the other characters. We were meant to fall in love with her and root for her over the other characters. Meanwhile, the other favorite Jon Snow was set up as the reluctant savior, and they pulled the rug out from under the viewers on both accounts. The problem is simply one of a lack of foreshadowing (for Daenerys and Arya). Tyrion made some poor choices (and maybe he'd been given too much kid-glove treatment, comparatively), but he was genius in the end. I will ask, "What was the point of Bran during that war anyway? Let's have some crows flap around."

Further examples of the new censorship in action--the iceberg's tip:

Natasha Tynes did the typical moral superiority thing, but then people turned tables and delivered morally superior "poetic" justice to her. Well deserved, right? Yeah, I don't care for her act either, but why try to ruin her career? Why lie on Goodreads and pretend you read and disliked the book when it's her personal action you disapprove of? We all live in glass houses and all throw stones. It's not that I don't get these urges. When people are jerks, I, too, want to "show them," but we have to consider if the punishment fits.  As Sartre put it in No Exit: "Hell is other people." Are we creating a hell on earth?

Spectator: 

Writers blocked: Even fantasy fiction is now offensive

Here's Reason: 

"Cancel Culture Comes for Counterculture Comics": "Today it's creators, not cops, who want to banish R. Crumb, onetime king of the comics underground."

Here the editor of Shenandoah admits 

he wasn't going to publish Stephen Graham Jones's story because he tried to read Jones's mind. He thought it was about something political and since it came down on the wrong side of the political fence, he couldn't publish it. (To his credit, he did publish the story but only after he learned that his politics weren't being challenged) 

Sensitivity is good. We need to understand other people--people who think differently--but all people need to be understood, not just our people--the people who look and sound like us. Otherwise, we're perpetuating miscarriages of justice. Anger, retribution, destruction of people's lives are not sensitive. Let's be a positive force. Let's avoid being someone else's hell on earth. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe we got it wrong.

ETA: George R. R. Martin on the ending:

How will it all end? I hear people asking.   The same ending as the show?  Different? 

Well… yes.  And no.  And yes.   And no.   And yes.   And no.   And yes. 

I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget.   They had six hours for this final season.   I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done... and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them.… 

Book or show, which will be the “real” ending?   It’s a silly question.   How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? 

How about this?  I’ll write it.   You read it.  Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.

Review: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry

Under the Volcano 

A Novel 

by Malcolm Lowry 

Open Road 

General Fiction (Adult)

Long ago, a friend recommended this novel, so I started it, got stuck, restarted, got stuck. It's hard to state if it were the timing in life--full of its incessant demands and emergencies--or the words themselves. When I read that it was listed in Modern Library's Top 100 novels, I thought, well, it's time to give the novel a twelfth chance.

Now the ever cantankerous Charles Bukowski has a different take. He blames the words (see video--also intriguing for how we don't immediately see his interrogator and only sense interrogator's response by Bukowski's increasing insistence yet with paradoxical doubt in his own words), but was that my issue? Possibly. The novel does spin its wheels seeking narrative traction. Do we not ask ourselves why we are reading this, and can we supply an answer before reaching the end?

There are plenty of readers out there who just want a lot of pages. The thicker the book, the more pain it inflicts when accidentally stubbing your toe on it, the better. It's their sign of quality. Why not tack on two hundred more pages? A thousand? Yes, please. The more the merrier. Are these passages lovely? Absolutely. "Are all the pages necessary to tell the story" is a harder question to answer.

Some readers seek structure, a reason for the text to be there. These readers lack the time to swim or drown in a sea of words. Their eyes scan for purchase on the slippery banks of words. Say what you have to say and get out. How long it is doesn't matter, except make each page interesting. If it's a novella or short novel, then huzzah! We just want to know why we're here, reading this. If the story's short enough and rich enough, why, they can read it again if they want to keep wallowing in the writer's world. Do note that even those who claim to love it, spend little to no breath on the story's frame, the stones the cause the novel to submerge with its weight of words.

If you're this kind of reader, before tackling this novel, you might want to get a feel for the novel's structure first so know what you're reading for. This radio play from CBS's Studio One provides the central nugget (see Youtube video). I've only seen clips of the movie, which has its own successes, but the radio play felt a little more convincing.

The central story is fairly simple, taking place in Quauhnahuac, Mexico during the Day of the Dead as the characters hop from bars to bedrooms to bullrings. The Consul, Geoffrey Firmin, is a lush who has chased off his wife, Yvonne, who files for a divorce. She returns to him a year later to patch up the old wounds, but he has conflicting impulses to embrace her and push her away, to trust her and to give in to doubts about her worth. Meanwhile, Geoffrey's brother notes her worth, and Yvonne is pulled towards his brother. Geoffrey is his own hero and villain.

The novel seems to parallel and resonate with the author's own life--both equally tragic and perhaps equally evitable (depending on how one views one's personal fate)--which this lengthy documentary, Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry [the last Youtube video], details. My favorite quote here mixes the novelist with the novel's character. One interviewee, when asked what made the novel so sad, said, "The idea of man going so wrong.... Here's a man who could cope as long as he was drunk. The minute he got sober he couldn't cope with anything.... He couldn't get his ass into gear."


The novel dives into alcoholism, which has swung on a love-hate pendulum here in America. The above CBS radio play thought its treatment timely. One generation got sick of drunks, so they prohibited the substance, and then the next generation thumbed their nose at the previous generation's prissy teetotaling and kept well stocked liquor cabinets as a staple of social occasions. We suspend between our twin needs: to be freed of our inhibitions that keep us from engaging with society and to unleash ourselves from unhealthy addictions.

The novel requires more time to consider. In fact, this website delves into annotations for the text. There are some beautiful metaphors here--that of being under the weight and fires of the volcano, the flames of hell. Perhaps I will revise my experience of the novel. Meanwhile, we must press on. Life is short. I may return to linger and revel in the novel's motifs and themes... though due to the brevity of life, it may be as Frost writes in his poem "The Road Not Taken":

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,  

I doubted if I should ever come back.

Update On Vonda N. McIntyre commentary: Dreamsnake + "Of Mist, Grass and Sand" (+ reduced ebook lunch)

This continues the discussion started in "Of Mist, Grass and Sand" and expanded in Dreamsnake.

As promised, this is an update when I got the SFRA anthology. The discussion is rather spare--mostly biography and a cursory paragraph about the work in question. It refers to James Gunn's theory about subtle feminism, role-reversal and telepathy, which I don't remember happening (it was very subtle if so). Apparently, according to John Clute at SF Encyclopedia, it occurs in the first novel, Exile in Waiting, which takes place in the city that is only seen in passing in Dreamsnake. So I have more reading ahead. But none of that is especially useful, except to explain why we readers aren't led inside a city to explain the planet fully.

I also picked up Jo Walton's An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000 which is presently discounted to $2.99). She seems to cast about for a better SF novel that year.

I wondered what would I recommend if I were the book's editor. The book doesn't quite gel. If she'd dug deeper into the biology of the snakes--how they came to be that way (especially dream snakes since they seem the critical piece, not to mention playing a critical role) and how they figure into the world's new ecology--the novel might have been stronger. She was a geneticist, after all. But maybe her first novel already explained it all. I'd also suggest expanding the mythic motifs, too if she found any useful connections.

I'd also suggest either cutting or streamlining the love-interest subplot. I'm not sure what it adds, and it doesn't make sense the first guy's chasing her around--his interest or hers. She could have also expanded the subplot, but then he'd need to play more of a consequential role in the ending instead of just chasing her.

Of course, McIntyre is no longer with us; this is all just a what-if speculation the genre is famed for.

Review: Blood of an Exile by Brian Naslund

Blood of an Exile  

by Brian Naslund 

Macmillan-Tor/Forge 

Tor Books 

Sci Fi & Fantasy

Curious about the description, I picked this novel up, dreading overblown language and macho posturing. But this had none of that. 

It begins with a fine description from the viewpoint of an Almiran apprentice apothecary, Jolan, who lives in a village, but once he encounters the hungover "Flawless Berhad" the narrative kicks off with a bang--not just action but character. Bershad is initially revealed as the lovechild of Kevin Hearne's Atticus O'Sullivan and Charles Bukowski. The excitement in a Bukowski character is his lack of inhibitions--probably fueled by alcohol (not that alcohol is by itself a good thing, but we readers are curious about those socially uninhibited if we are not). 

Jolan meets Bershad:

"Is the dragonslayer in here?" Jolan asked. The bartender jerked his head to the left.... There was a man there, passed out cold with his head and hands flat on the table.... 

"Him," the bartender responded. "Was at it most of the night. Passed out an hour ago...." 

Jolan reached out to shake the man awake, but the dragonslayer spoke before Jolan's hand reached his shoulder. 

"What time is it?" he asked, not moving anything except his lips.... In no way did his dark, rough features bring to mind the handsome, perfect dragonslayer of the poem and songs and stories. 

"Are you the the Flawless Bershad?" Jolan asked. 

"I am the Late and Hungover Bershad," he growled.

There's not only the adventure plot but the comic attention to character that enthralls the reader in this opening. It was so stunning and I was eager to pronounce the writer as soon to be beloved, but the attention to character at this higher level slows to a more everyday fantasy novel, albeit with plenty of intrigue. 

Bershad battles the dragon and sustains injuries that might have killed others. But he survives and the king who had exiled him, King Hertzog, summons him. He want Bershad to rescue his kidnapped daughter Kira and assassinate the Balarian emperor. They have long been at war with their neighbor.

While Bershad is unbeloved in his former kingdom, the king's other daughter, Ashlyn, has a fancy for him and would like to see him restored once he carries out this mission. When Hertzog dies, Ashlyn becomes the defacto queen, but ruling won't be easy. Factions within Almira are being fanned to drive it into civil war. Meanwhile, a Balarian assassin roams the Almira countyside, murdering noblemen, whose motives we await to be revealed.

I like what I've read although I did have to reread since I felt a little mislead about the type of novel we were given. On the other hand, novelists like J K Rowling also worked hard on a novel opening. Harry Potter also began with character--albeit Dickensian, not Bukowskian--which she later abandoned for plot.

Still many readers will stick around for the thick-layered intrigue, part of which you can sense above.

You can check out a free sample of this Tor novel here and see if this is a novel for you.

The novel will be released August 6, 2019 (preorder here).

Review: Dead at Take-Off by Lester Dent

Dead at the Take-Off 

by Lester Dent 

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road 

Mystery & Thrillers

Lester Dent visits us from the pulp-hero past. He's famous for penning Doc Savage and distilling the pulp formula.

The story dizzingly launches us into Chance Molloy's life who is recognized at the airport, but he immediately denies who he is, to the puzzlement of the man who recognize him. [Read the mesmerizing opening at the end of this post.]

Molloy is traveling as Rand and plans to manipulate Janet Lord by having a man steal her purse and he pretends to beat the man up and rescue her purse. He hopes to get in her confidence so he could investigate her relative, a senator, who shafted Molloy in his airplane business. Molloy suspects something illegal had occurred. Hence, the disguise and investigation.

Meanwhile, Lord recognizes something is fishy about Molloy, but she is drugged by a doctor who is not a doctor, and Molloy's old flame is aboard and could blow Molloy's secret identity. Her love, meanwhile, has the means to expose Molloy in his hands....

Dent is a barrel full of pulpy monkeys, but literary snobs need not waste their time. It might knead their brains into pulp:

"Intensely, honestly, stewardess Mary Rounds hoped that she would like Janet Lord. She believed she would. On the basis, the very thin basis, of observing Miss Lord while she was unconscious, Mary had formed a vague but delicious  liking for Janet, and she was glad she had. Chance Molloy now meant more, in a solidly Gibraltar-like sense, to Mary than she had imagined he would. She was satisfied with this." 

Still, the energy is vibrant string, a deep base thrumming new revelations every chapter. The plot may be overly complex yet possesses a certain joy. The ending is the kind you'd often find in the old black-and-white movies. If you pine for stories like those of yore, you could do worse than read a Lester Dent slam-bang novel.

The opening shows the master pulp writer at the height of his powers (the bastard gets two hooks for one punch):

HE SWUNG HIS HEAD away, tried to pass on. But the man named Fertig saw him and thrust out an enthusiastic hand. "Hello, Mr. Molloy!" Fertig cried. "How are you, Mr. Molloy? ... God-amighty, this is a nice surprise, Mr. Molloy!" 

He felt trapped. He could not ignore Fertig, so he halted, but his attitude made it plain that he had only paused on his way into the terminal. He realized with relief that he barely knew Fertig. He did not so much as know Fertig's other name; therefore, Fertig must scarcely know him. So he gazed at Fertig tolerantly, blankly, without recognition, and waited. And presently Fertig's face became redder than the heat in the street had already made it. "Aren't you Mr. Molloy?" Fertig asked. 

"No," he lied. 

He let his tolerant expression become slightly smiling. But he did not speak again, avoiding the chance that Fertig might become sure of his voice. The heat pressed against him; it reflected up from the sidewalk and hurt his eyes, and it was inside his crisp, medium-gray, tropical-worsted suit. Suddenly he remembered where he had met Fertig, at an executive session where Fertig had presented some dull sketches for the new BETA terminal in Atlanta. Fertig, an architect, had impressed him at the time as being stodgy and without imagination, and he recalled disliking Fertig, resenting the man's callow glad-handing and obvious salesmanship; even Roy Cillinger, vice-president in charge of maintenance, who had no imagination beyond keeping air liners flying, had thought Fertig's ideas stupid, and they had dismissed Fertig as being quite inadequate, then had forgotten about it. Now he felt no qualms at having to stare Fertig down. 

"Aren't you Mr. Molloy?" 

He shook his head. 

"That's funny ... I'd have sworn ..." Fertig was smoking a fat, mink-colored cigar, and he took it from his mouth with a quick grab, leaving a damp flake of tobacco clinging to his moist, full lower lip. "I guess I made a mistake." 

He shrugged. 

"Sorry," Fertig said. 

The taxi driver came across the sidewalk with Molloy's bag. Fertig crowded into the revolving door ahead of the taxi driver and simultaneously a colored porter, wearing gray trousers piped in maroon and a white shirt, hastened for the bag, so that for a moment all three—Fertig, cabby, and porter—seemed to chase each other around in the revolving door, while the door made tired breathing and flapping sounds and emitted gasps of chilly, conditioned air from within. 

He waited. He was shaken. His plans, laid with such meticulous care, now seemed menaced at the very beginning.

Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

Dreamsnake won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards and was up for American Book, Ditmar and Tiptree awards.

Summary

This is a novel about Snake, a healer who, while healing a child, loses her dream snake to an ignorant, fearful tribe. Dream snakes are rare, so she can't go home and grab another. But what else can she do? On her way home, she is grabbed by various people to heal although she is crippled by how much she can do with just two snakes. Like Dorothy on her way to Oz, she picks up motley companions en route. They pursue rumors of dream snakes to resolve not only Snake's loss but also the rarity of dream snakes among healers.

It is truly an enjoyable novel. But it's difficult to pinpoint why. (See below.)

Discussion with Minor Spoilers

I spoke at some length about the opening here which was released as the Nebula-winning story "Of Mist, Grass, and Sand." I discussed three interpretive lenses of varying utility: 1) technology, 2) feminism, and 3) mythic motifs. While relevant, these seem to have less utility as the novel progresses but remain pertinent.

In the story, questions lingered about what kind of world this was. The novel answers that: It's a post-nuclear holocaust where snakes have somehow been bestowed with healing powers. It may be best to squint; however, there are significant changes, with variable levels of technology--between the haves and have-nots, and no mixing allowed.


The mysticism involving the snakes melts away. We have a man who hungers for their bites as might a drug addict. The snakes' use and need seem more biological than mystery. Biology plays a role in the interaction with the technological haves, but it's also laden with fear. Biology also describes the problem that the healers had in having so few. (Writing this, it strikes me that of the three interpretive models in describing the opening story, Terry Carr's seemed the weakest, but his lens has gained most relevance in the novel overall.)

I've gathered all of the relevant book covers, minus the salacious. Few if any really capture the book's spirit. The best is the recent top one. Her hair and body seem to be in motion until you look at the horse. It is a bit of a travelogue and a bit adventurous, but it doesn't hint at even a snake or what might be done with them. Others hint at a cyberpunk snake or primitive mystical religious rites. The "Monolit" one actually illustrates a scene toward the end, if leaving out a few details (in particular a child), but it still doesn't suggest the whole.

What is the whole? In some sense, it is the hole left by the absence of the dream snake. But that doesn't answer the question of what makes the novel tick.

It shouldn't work for two reasons: 1) It's episodic. It was released as short stories (which appeared in Ben Bova's Analog), cobbled together into a novel. 2) It's scope is small. This is the story of one woman on a modest mission to heal a few disadvantaged poor, not to save the world.


On the other hand, Charles Dickens wrote semi-episodic or serial novels for the newspaper and those hung together well. McIntyre does cinch the novel tohether. Moreover, We glimpse images of the wider world.

I do recommend it.

"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" by Vonda N. McIntyre

First appeared in Ben Bova's Analog. This won a Nebula, was up for Hugo, Locus and Jupiter awards, and was reprinted by Kate Wilhelm, Terry Carr, Dick Allen, Lori Allen, Pamela Sargent, Robert Silverberg, Ben Bova, Malcolm Edwards, Martin H. Greenberg, Stanley Schmidt, James E. Gunn, Patricia S. Warrick, Charles G. Waugh, Sheila Williams, and Connie Willis.

Summary

A woman, a healer named Snake, has three snakes named Mist, Grass, and Sand, and uses them to heal the sick. She enters a hut to heal a child but comes into conflict with some members of the tribe who fear snakes.

Analysis (with minor spoilers)

This makes a great opening to a novel (Dreamsnake, which is discussed here). It doesn't feel like a short story, though. There is no character arc or speculative problem solving. Healer heals, a tribe kills one of her snakes, she feels like hurting but doesn't, and a man wants to get with her but can't. I love that Snake doesn't seek revenge. There's nothing inherently wrong with the narrative, but it doesn't give shape to a story. Maybe it was always intended as a novel.

Still despite the lack of an arc, it captured people's attention. Why? A number of possibilities crop up.

First, the paradoxical style of vague specificity has a mysterious power that is estranging. It draws some readers batty while it entrances others. Consider even the name of "Snake" who is not a snake and snakes named after non-snake (not even animal) things. As Terry Carr points out in his introduction to the story, we don't even know where or when the story takes place: "The setting may be another planet, a far future Earth, or perhaps an alternate time-stream."

[Curiously, that is not the end of the sentence. Carr finishes, saying, "but the story is clearly about the problems of scientific knowledge--and the kind of person who must use such knowledge." Maybe, but not so clearly as the next two interpretative possibilities suggest.]

Second is McIntyre's quiet, non-confrontational feminism, as James Gunn points out in his introduction to the story. Usually, feminism displays a dominant male or female, privileging one group over another. Here a woman is put in power without comment, without having tear someone else down. Unobtrusive.

Third is the snake motif. Kate Wilhelm quotes Joseph Campbell: "where the serpent is cursed, all nature is devaluated." She goes on: "the serpent appears, and is not cursed.... Within us, modern, civilized humankind, there is something that recognizes and responds to the ancient symbols. Something that answers, yes, I am still here."

While these three ideas are all interesting and productive, they may be doomed to failure (or contrarily, be equally good) due to a problematic structure (at this level, that is). The first isn't necessarily the main narrative although it explains a major scene and not the ending. The second is more subliminal than overt but it might explain the ending, not the major scene Carr's does. Kate Wilhelm's, while it also fails to explain the ending, is an interesting case.

For an SF encyclopedia, I was assigned "snakes and worms," and of course, read McIntyre's work in preparation for the article. I don't believe I happened to read Wilhelm's remark. I dug into myths and religions, trying to get at how they were used. The Bible had two main uses: the snake 1) deceives/destroys, and 2) heals (Israelis were attacked by fiery serpents and they had to look upon a bronze snake to get healed [Numbers 21]). Each speculative story I happened to read fell neatly under those two motifs. McIntyre's fell under #2 although it hinted at #1 as well--perhaps each meaning in dialogue.

The article came back, revised, so that McIntyre's use of the motif was unique, the first to ever use the snake as healing. Needing money and wanting a copy of the encyclopedia, I didn't protest. Whatever rubric/interpretive schemata McIntyre devised the story/novel excerpt, the interpretative possibilities remain in the air. I recently ordered the SFRA book to see how they decided to discuss it. If it's interesting, I may revisit and revise this article.

The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre

The Moon and the Sun won a Nebula and was up for the Tiptree and Locus awards.

Father Yves de la Croix--Jesuit priest, natural philosopher, and explorer--has returned to King Louis XIV bearing a gift of two sea monsters: one alive, one dead. Little by little, Yves does the autopsy with the assistance of his sister, Mademoiselle Marie-Josèphe de la Croix.

Marie tries to train or domesticate the sea monster as a pet, but slowly learns that there is more to the sea monster than she first supposed.

Eventually they communicate, and Marie gets a fuller understanding of this race or species. Unfortunately, the sea monster's flesh is rumored to give immortality, so they want to dine on its flesh. Marie has to come up with a way to prevent this.

Minor spoilers:

The main plot could be guessed as soon as the conflict is established. Of course, humans once again underestimate another species. The victims must be rescued. In fact, much of the basic scenario mirrors Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water: the capture and abuse of, and experimentation on a humanoid sea creature.

The sea "monster's" name is Sherzad--a nifty nod to 1,001 Arabian Nights. After all, Sherzad (like Scheherazade) has a story to tell to save her own life.

The first two-thirds is well written but pales in comparison to the last third except for the scene establishing communication and the autopsy which is a well-sketched painful moment. The real power comes in the last third when the court intrigue unfolds, and we learn more about this sea-person.

The speculation is rather limited, so maybe it is like LeGuin suggests above the illustration that this is an alternate history. Apparently, McIntyre did much research to capture the period, and it was convincingly captured. A historian might need to explain the departures and their ramifications.  I'm just a science dude.

When word got around Vonda N. McIntyre was ill, I decided to pull down this novel and give it a read. If I have McIntyre's ordering right, the novel began as a faux encyclopedia article, which she had to restrain from becoming a story with characters.

She took a script-writing class and wrote an earlier version of this story, which she later expanded into a novel. However, publishers move faster than the movie industry, apparently, and she published her novel well before they started shooting. The movie, starring Pierce Brosnan, has been filmed but remains unreleased pending special effects, four years later.

Maybe something went wrong elsewhere, but you'd think they'd try to recoup some financial losses by releasing it as straight-to-video, or have a limited release first. Surely, book fans would flock.

UPDATE: The movie was just released. See discussion here.

Review: Modern Sudanese Poetry, by Translated and edited by Adil Babikir

Modern Sudanese Poetry: An Anthology
by Translated and edited by Adil Babikir
University of Nebraska Press
Multicultural Interest, Poetry

#

It is difficult to bring one's own cultural bearings upon another. It is one thing to pay lip service to it and another to experience it through living in a culture foreign to one's own. Not everyone can afford to travel, so books are the next best thing.

Of course, it is almost as hard to view one's own culture with objectivity. This what we attempt to do when reading another culture's work: to see those who are not us. That is part of a translator's job: to bring to bear both the difference and similarity so we can examine it, feel its texture, turn it over in our hands.

The anthology Modern Sudanese Poetry comes to us translated from the Arabic, so we are peering through a glass darkly, peering through another man's eyes at what these other poets experienced. Is it accurately translated? Sometimes the words for a thing in one language aren't there in another. Sometimes we can circumlocute toward a common understanding; sometimes it can only be at best an approximation.

There is an additional hurdle for the translator: Does it read like poetry in the translated language? Does it retain the music, the sound and rhythm of the originals? It's a near impossible task to get both the meaning and the feel of the original.

A reviewer, then, (unless he is proficient in that other language, which I am not) cannot pinpoint if a display of literary genius or infelicity is due to the original or the translation, so consider this review a comment on neither.

With all of these inherent, problematic issues, why read poems in another language? For the same reason why we travel to other countries: to get a feel for other cultures, to see inside other minds, to observe and study other ways and other arts.

The introduction is generous and provides some general context for the poems. Much time is spent discussing the Muslim aspect of the Sudanese, which is fine, especially since Sudan is overwhelmingly Muslim (South Sudan has Christian majority), but in an era where we speak of the marginalized and give them voice, we might expect more discussion of the Christian minority. After all, much of the introduction is focused on the politics of the poetry, which also slants the anthology in a particular direction. In fact, if the anthology does set out to concern itself with political coverage, it would seem a proper focus of the introduction would be to describe the political stage of the modern Sudanese, so that we get a feel for what the poets are concerned with. But this is not the case. Perhaps in a later edition.

On the other hand, maybe the issue is the language. Maybe the translator could only do poems in Arabic. If that's the case, a different title might be necessary to cover the seeming oversight.

The poems span six decades. A number, especially the early ones, are often cast outside the mind of the poet, at a remove:

a palm-frond crescent braided on my forehead.
Your chaste charm is a blessing on my heart
the flames of your love are healing my wounds
your conceit is innocent playfulness
my tears as sweet as pure water;
I grow in awe of you... 

--"My Beloved Aazza" by Khalil Farah

The strong image, as we find in the first line, is uncommon and seems little more than a stone in the poetic stream. While flames that heal is a curious if unresolved paradox, much of the poem bogs down in abstractions that distance us from the poet's persona.

This does not mean that poems lack inspiring passages (from "Dig No Grave for Me" by Mohammad elFayturi, a kind of political battle cry of impotent strength):

When silence takes you far from us,
and you flicker in the distance,
like a caravan flag drowned in the sand--"

Politics don't necessarily sour poems, but here the love poems take wing. One of my favorites is "A Farm on the Hill" by Mohammed el-Makki Ibrahim--a comparison of a love to a farm. It's an old metaphor for which you can probably come up with a half-dozen associations, but I found it effective:

Before you were born,
and became a farm on the hill
you used to be a sanctuary for foxes,
taking shelter from the foothill dogs....
That was before we met
before you became a mother and a field.
Before summer departed
I combed your hair,
rolled rocks off your shoulders,
built a perimeter  fence
and an embankment.
I dug a well....
the birds are roaming every corner, gathering fabrics for your wedding dress,
painting flower and spike,

Abdel Raheem Abu Zikka's "The Night Girl" poses a magical snapshot that is both humorous and inspired. It begins with a woman who appears outside a cafe, coinciding with the rain and cafe chatter and nearly all motion in the cafe stopping simultaneously. A glass is dropped and explodes on the tile.

The waiter turned his head but his eyes got stuck in transit:
A girl!
O my Lord!
Your protection
for the blooming eyes
for the flowing braids
What a beauty! What a vigor!
Blessed is the Creator!

She leaves and all motion, rain and chatter begin again. Lovely.

The political poems are not necessarily failures. Kamal Elgizouli's "Monologue," while no translated lines are inspired, scorches in our minds a poignant situation where a prisoner wonders how he and the guard became enemies.

The best political poems deploy a Whitmanian / Biblical chorus / refrain / sentence rhythm to produce their effects. Here's one example from "Uncle Abdur Raheem" by Mohammed El-Hassan Sallim Himmaid:

ruling us in the Prophet's name.
Sometimes you bristle,
sometimes you give in, make no fuss,
sometimes you join
the drumbeaters
and sycophantic entourage.

This is a great anthology for scholars, the curious, and those interested in exploring African poetry. Should a second edition occur, perhaps a wider net could be cast into various Sudanese languages, and these could distilled to their essentials.