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The Geek Feminist Revolution is an essay collection by science fiction and fantasy author Kameron Hurley about feminism, geek culture, narrative and writing. Dedicated to Joanna Russ, the collection is an oftentimes personal inquiry into the genres we, as feminists, both love and hate. Like Russ, Hurley believes in the transformative and subversive potential of science fiction and fantasy, and, like Russ, she also investigates and calls out its many uglier sides. Above all, the collection deals with responsibility. Narrative has effect, Hurley states – the stories we tell, the stories that we let dominate our cultural landscape, and the way we tell them do work on us, as readers, fans, and people. “Normal is a story,” Hurley writes. And stories can be rewritten.

Most of what Hurley writes about in The Geek Feminist Revolution is not new, not to people already invested in feminist, anti-racist and queer critiques of SFF and fandom, at least (which, obviously, is the audience for this book). That is not a knock on Hurley – she herself frequently stresses how the revolution she talks about is a longstanding group effort, if nothing else. Rather, the collection is a comprehensive guide to those kinds of critiques and discussions and the battles being waged over the politics of SFF (it’s there whether you want to admit it or not, Puppies!), delivered by Hurley’s colorful, rage-fuelled and entertaining rhetoric.  

The collection includes essays on everything from the hijacking of the Hugo Awards, to Mad Max: Fury Road and True Detective, online harassment and Strong Female Characters, and much more. Some of the material in the collection has been previously published elsewhere, which becomes obvious since the conclusions of many of the essays are essentially the same: normal is a story that needs to be rewritten and reworked into something more sustainable. It is not a bad point to bring home and definitely one that bears repeating again and again, but taken together like this, it reads as slightly formulaic.

Among the new stuff, my favorite essay is probably “What’s So Scary About Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?” where Hurley delivers a much-needed gut punch to the idea that what she calls the “post-Buffy” heroine who kicks ass in hotpants is ultimately empowering to (all) women or that the main problem with her is that she’s ‘too masculine.’ “Why to we celebrate ‘girl power’ but sneer at ‘women power’?” is a line that should be shouted from the rooftops. It’s far from the only gem in the book, too – The Geek Feminist Revolution is dangerously quotable. I kind of want to paper my walls with it.

Catherynne M. Valente is well-known for her ambitious works of fantastical fiction and her latest novel Radiance may be her most ambitious yet. It is a hard book to review and even harder to describe, thanks to its multifaceted plot that keeps on turning in on itself in ever-intriguing twists and turns. Part noir mystery, part retrofuturism, and part movie-making fable, the story takes place between 1914 and 1962 in a parallel dimension where humankind has colonized and terraformed the entirety of our solar system – all the nine planets and most of their respective moons provide the wonderfully disturbing, colorful and glittering stage on which Radiance is set.

The worldbuilding of Radiance is incredible. There are many, many things about this novel that I love, but the worldbuilding is probably its absolute best part. Reminiscent of the Golden Age of science fiction, it joyfully renders a solar system where the Moon is an empire of film-making, Venus a paradise water-world and Pluto a deranged, otherworldly outlier on the edge of known space. It is the kind of science fictional worldbuilding that is based primarily on optimism, delight and awe, which is very rare these days, when the fields of speculative literature rather deals in pessimism and dystopia. That is not to say that there are no dark spots in Valente’s alternative universe, though, because they are certainly there – just because humanity has spread out among the stars doesn’t mean it has changed.

The story of Radiance centers on Severin Unck and her father Percival. They are both film-makers, but while Percival makes fantastical, whimsical pictures about things likes vampires and ice-dragons, Severin, as she grows up and into her own, instead chooses to make documentaries. As the final product of growing up with Percival and a long series of eccentric stepmothers, Severin is a fascinating character – even more so because she is largely absent for most of the book, existing only as a memory and a shadow hanging over its plot.

When on Venus filming what she thought would be her masterpiece, The Radiant Cars Thy Sparrows Drew, Severin disappears and several of her crew turns up dead. What actually happened is anyone’s guess – and guess people do. Radiance is a non-linear, motley narrative made up of logs from Severin’s many film projects, home videos from her childhood, interviews and editorials about her disappearance and whatever else goes on in the movie biz, debriefing sessions with her surviving crew, and excerpts from the movie her father is making about his daughter’s probable demise – And If She’s Not Gone, She Lives There Still.

Ultimately, I would say, Radiance is a story about endings. There is no definite ending to Severin’s story, but a definite ending is what her father is trying to create for her. “All the rest of the nonsense a story requires is just a long seduction of the ending,” as he himself puts it – endings is his own specialty. Radiance is a book full of stories lacking definite endings, because outside of fiction neat endings do not exist. And even within fiction the idea of a definite conclusion is often out of reach – fiction is by its very nature unbound by reality and therefore always open to trickery: slanting the artificial light just so is all needed to create, change or shatter the illusion of absolute truth.

As I said in the beginning of this review, Radiance is a hard novel to describe and write about, but – not unlike most of Valente’s other books – it’s also hard to do justice in a review, so I’ll just finish up by saying this: if you’ve read and liked Valente’s previous works, read Radiance. If you have never read Valente and is looking for a place to start, read Radiance. If you want a gorgeously written space opera noir mystery in a setting that hearkens back to the Golden Age of SF, read Radiance. So, in conclusion: read Radiance.

How much of your privacy would you give up to have superpowers? For Liutenant James Shelley it doesn't seem like he has a choice. He is monitored every single moment as long as he is in the army. He also seems to have a source of information that he cannot explain himself, something that makes him feel when there is some imminent danger.

The Red by Linda Nagata is the first book in a trilogy. On the cover it looks like a high-tech thriller, and it says clearly on the front that it is about war. It does deliver on these promises, but it is also a lot more. I found that the things that wanted me to read on and that stayed in my head after putting the book down were the problems surveillance and individuality in a hyperconnected environment. It's interesting to see how James Shelley navigates his existence and maintains relationships, being watched all the time – by his employers, but also in ways he could not foresee.

I should confess that I haven't read much of the kind of stories that might be labelled "Military SF", and even less that I have really liked. It's difficult not to compare The Red to The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. The books are in some ways very different, but they also have some things in common, for example the criticism of war and of the role of media.

In The Forever War the soldiers are used in a propaganda machine, where television airs synthesized interviews where the soldiers seem to say completely different things than they really told the journalists. In The Red the corresponding media exploitation is much subtler and the agenda much more difficult to identify. Recordings from surveillance cameras and from the equipment the soldiers are carrying edited and videos are shared virally on the internet ("the cloud"). But who is behind this, and why?

The war, then. The first thing James Shelley does in this book is to tell his linked combat squad what he thinks is the reason for war -- it is all arranged by the defense contractors, who need wars to make money. The leaders of these companies are known as dragons. They are really powerful and for the most part the life of normal soldiers are very far away from them.

Of course, Shelley is not exactly an ordinary soldier anymore.

The cyborg existence is another interesting part of this story. The way it is described really made me think about what constitutes a person, and how fluid the boundary is between external tools and parts of the body.

But don't worry, this is not only a smart and intellectually interesting book, there is plenty of action and mystery as well. And relationships, even a love story. I think this book would appeal to a much wider readership than just those who are attracted by it's cover.

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho is a difficult book to review, simply because it feels like whatever I write, it will eventually and unavoidably simply collapse into one long list of everything that I love about this novel. To start off and hopefully get it out of the way: Sorcerer to the Crown is a highly atmospheric, beautifully written and wonderfully humorous novel.

Cho has created a parallel version of 19th century England where magic flows into the country through the border to Fairy and has become an area of occupation and study for upperclass men. White men, naturally, since they, it is believed, are the only ones with the prelediction to handle it. One of the novel’s two protagonists is Zacharias Wythe who, as a child, was purchased by Sir Stephen, the Sorcerer Royal, to be brought up and taught thaumaturgy to be the example that disputes the fact that magic is solely the domain of white men. As a result, Zacharias has spent his entire life battling prejudice and discrimination, which only intensifies when he, after Stephen’s mysterious death, becomes the Sorcerer Royal to the chagrin of the British magical elite.

One thing I think Cho handles very well in the novel is the relationships between Zacharias and the people of the world he has rather forcefully been brought into - particularly when it comes to those with whom he has loving or friendly relationships. While Zacharias holds deep affection for Stephen and his wife, he is simultaneously very conflicted by the fact that they basically ripped him away from his parents and paraded him around the Magical Society in England as some sort of circus show. This aspect of the novel also becomes apparent in the way Zacharias is treated by those who love him - most succinctly and painfully exemplified perhaps by the nurse who cared for him deeply, but at the same time encouraged him to be extremely nice and polite towards his adopted parents because she surmised it would be harder for them to love a black child. Cho skilfully portrays the power imbalance and heavily ingrained racism that remains very much in effect within these social configurations and the complexity with which it operates within them and how Zacharias is forced to deal with it on a daily basis without making it the extent of his story or development.

This also holds true for the novel’s second protagonist - the young woman Prunella who was taken from India as a child by her white father who quickly died afterward and left her in the care of a mistress for a school teaching gentlewomen with an unfortunate knack for magic to suppress their abilities. She has been taught her entire life to be grateful that someone was kind enough to take care of her despite her “native” appearance and limited connections - a notion that she forcefully rebels against. While all of Cho’s main characters are interesting in their own ways, Prunella is definitely my favorite. I haven’t read any other reviews of Sorcerer to the Crown so far, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few won’t refer to Prunella as a ‘Mary Sue’ - a moniker she would never be in danger of receiving if she had been a male character. She is strong-minded, endlessly pragmatic and hellbent on getting her way. She also most often do get her way - she is extremely powerful, in a myriad of ways: through magic, cunning and sheer bloody-minded determination.

Sorcerer to the Crown is a novel about triumphing against racist and sexist power structures and against those who would gladly capitalize on these for their own personal gain. It is a great fantasy read, particularly if you, like me, have a soft spot for critical discussions of race and gender, imaginative magical systems, subtle, well-written humour, and wonderfully wicked witches. "A witch is always appropriate whatever her attire" are certainly words to live by.