Hello everyone, and I hope you’re all keeping safe and happy as we continue to limp through this Covid world.
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Words for Worlds, my little corner of the internet to talk about (most things) SFF. The newsletter’s title is, of course, a doff of the hat to Ursula Le Guin, who has shaped the writing - and the lives - of so many of us.
I’m going to be experimenting with form and content for the first few issues, so if there’s something specific you enjoy - or dislike - or want to see - please do give me a shout!
On we go, then!
What I’m reading
But she felt a profound irony in descending from a people who preferred perpetual shadow only to rise as the priest of the sun and fall again to nothing.
Rebecca Roanhorse’s highly-regarded Black Sun is an epic fantasy story set in a pre-Columbian culture. Conflict racks the holy city of Tova, from where the Sky Made clans rule the lands around the Crescent Sea. The priesthood of the Sun is riven by internal conflict, and the Clan of the Carrion Crow - victims of a massacre two generations ago - thirsts for revenge. As winter solstice, and the “Convergence” - the solar eclipse - draws near, a ship makes for Tova, captained by a race of the Teek, who can speak to the sea through songs - and carrying a man destined to be a god. The stage is set for a showdown that will shake the world.
Black Sun is an immersive read. The setting - pre-Columbian Americas - is not one we often come across in epic fantasy, as Roanhorse points out herself in an Afterward. On its own terms, it combines intricate world-building with a lush - and strongly drawn - cast of characters, high and dramatic stakes, and a lot of colour (literally - colour plays an important role in the world of the Crescent Sea). Speaking of colour, a word of appreciation for artist extraordinaire, John Picacio, who’s responsible for the stunning cover.
Black Sun’s Teek - a race that can influence the waves of the sea through their songs - reminded me of the Echorium Sequence, which also featured singers who could communion with the waves. Growing up in New Delhi, my reading of fantasy was shaped by sitting on the dusty stairway of Midland’s Bookshop in the Aurobindo Market, taking out books one by one from a tottering stack that was arranged in no particular order, and poring over each one. These books were, for the most part, mass market best-sellers, but hidden in the pile, every once in a while, you’d find something else. That’s how I came across Katharine Roberts’ Song Quest (book 1 of Echorium). It was good teenage fantasy reading: soft, gentle, full of wonder, and easy to love. It’s been a couple of decades, but I think it’s a book that would stand the test of time.
I’ve also begun reading Gareth Powell’s Embers of War, starring a repentant warship. It’s still early days for me with this novel, but I can see Powell tapping into two rich veins of SFF tradition: sentient space-ships, recently explored most vividly in Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, and anti-war SFF, where (I think) Joe Haldeman’s famous - and controversial - The Forever War still stands as an exemplar of the genre. More on Embers of War in the next issue of the newsletter.
In non-SFF, I recently laid hands on Revolt Against the Sun: The Selected Poetry of Nazik al-Malaikah, translated from the Arabic by the fantastic Emily Drumsta. Nazik al-Malaika was a pioneering Iraqi poet from the mid-20th century. I was introduced to her work through the absolutely beautiful poem, Love Song for Words.
I’m also reading Sahar Khalifeh’s Passage to the Plaza. Khalifeh is recognised as one of the foremost Palestinian writers alive today, and is one of the four writers featured in Bashir Abu-Manneh’s magisterial The Palestinian Novel: From 1948 to the Present. Passage to the Plaza is a novel set in Nablus during the First Intifadah, and tells the story of the Intifadah through a feminist lens.
The Indian Scene
Signing with an agent is the first - and perhaps most important - waymarker towards publishing as an SFF writer. So we were all delighted to learn last week that Prashanth Srivatsa has signed on with Naomi Davis at the BookEnds Literary Agency for his debut novel, The Spice Gate. Prashanth is a Bengaluru-based fantasy writer who’s had a breakthrough 2020, publishing three excellent short stories in solid magazines. You can read Seven Dreams of a Valley (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) and A Girl at the End of the World (Three-Lobed Burning Eye) for free, online. The third story - Perumal and the God of Words - is part of a special edition of The Shoreline of Infinity magazine, available here.
Prashanth describes Spice Gate as “a confluence of spices and ancient portals in a world trembling with class inequalities, and a magical obsession with those little jars of flavor in your kitchen.” Mmmm. We’ll be back to this when the book’s out.
Recommendation Corner
Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
Empire and colonialism were - and continue to be - founded on economic warfare and exploitation. But while Empire - and empires - have been integral elements of high fantasy, it’s not often that fantasy novels really grapple with the political economy of empire. Seth Dickinson’s Baru Cormorant series - now into third novel of a quartet - does so brilliantly. It follows the story of Baru Cormorant, whose home is colonised by the all-conquering Falcrest Empire. Baru is co-opted into the Empire’s service - while vowing to destroy it from the inside. Many of the central events in Baru Cormorant are clearly inspired by the South Sea Bubble, but the series itself is so much more than that: it explores (proto-)capitalism and the possibility of resistance to it, neuro-divergence, gender, race, and sexuality, and - to top it all - has one of the best love stories I’ve read in the genre, turning you inside out. Baru Cormorant represents - for me - the best of contemporary fantasy, and should be talked about a lot more than it is.
What’s Happening at Strange Horizons
In November, Strange Horizons will be bringing out a special issue dedicated to MexicanX SFF. This is something we’re all looking forward to. My own interest stems from recently reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow, an enjoyable and engrossing book. The roots, of course, are much deeper. Taxonomic wranglings aside, the line between magical realism and SFF is a blurry one; and one of the most haunting novels I’ve read that straddles that boundary is Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo. Pedro Paramo is phantasmagorical, melancholy, eerie, and deeply moving. This article in Slate - that calls it “the best novel you’ve never heard of” - provides an admirable summary.
Quote Corner
“Memory is his enemy – he weeds it, uprooting belladonnas and planting his lilies.”
Tashan Mehta, The Liar’s Weave
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Thank you for reading! See you again in two weeks. Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo.
Big fan of gautam from twitter reporting of court cases, so hanging around reading all what he writes . I am yet to read gautams the wall my first SF novel and here I am committing to start reading it . It seems to be an amazing world here in SF, especially given how depressing the real world is getting. More power to you all for the alternative possibilities and hope.
The Baru Cormorant series is soo f**king good as in its crafted soo soo well but ... there's always a but ... it did intuitively feel as if Dickinson may have taken his foot off the pedal, so to speak, as the series forged ahead. To relay but one example ... it felt as if Baru were losing that cold calculating mind of hers—that enticing mind behind the most morally questionable choices—albeit gradually to the inexplicable but wholesome workings of trim.