Episode 230: Sci-Fi Vs. Fantasy

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This week, Josh and Dietrich look at a pair of genres nearly always bundled together, and discuss the commonalities and differences between science fiction and fantasy. They talk about why the complex and elaborate world building of fantasy doesn't often make an appearance in scifi, and why fantasy rarely explores the deeper philosophical or political questions raised by so many science fiction greats. Josh discusses the difference in stakes in the two genres, and the pair look at several authors of each genre that borrow some of the best attributes from the other. In addition, Dietrich talks about a young adult series about a teenager desperately trying to not become an actual supervillain, Josh raves about a nonfiction book about North Korea and an abducted film director, and they wrap up the episode discussing the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, a Netflix adaptation of one of their favorite young adult series, and the brilliant final season of The Americans. You can send questions or comments to librarypolicequestions@gmail.com.

HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

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There’s a real joy in reading a horror novel that feels unlike much else out there. This is a genre that depends on familiarity and tropes, on finding ways to breathe fresh life into variations on monsters that we’ve seen countless times – the creation of Frankenstein, the vampire, the ghost, and in the case of HEX, the witch. And while there’s much to be said for executing a classic trope in a classic way, there’s even more to be said for finding a fresh approach to it, and doing something unique. And man, does HEX ever come through on that front, giving us a nightmarish modern take on a witch that incorporates technology, social media, paranoia, and the darkness of human nature into a complex, disturbing tale that never backs down.

HEX takes place in Black Spring, New York, a small town that’s wired to the gills with cameras and citizen-run surveillance programs (there’s even a new app that’s much loved by the more tech-savvy town members). The reason for all of this isn’t paranoia, or some sort of government tracking program watching the town; indeed, it’s all about watching a single figure: Katherine van Wyler, the town’s witch…who has lived in this town since her death in 1664. Katherine’s eyes and mouth are sewn up, mind you; nonetheless, she appears all over the town, a strange and unsettling figure who’s lost almost all of her ominous nature simply by virtue of her familiarity. (She’s so common by now that one family simply drapes a cloth over her while she stands in their living room, simply so they don’t have to see her.) And yet, there’s little denying the unease that Katherine can generate – the danger in listening to her whispers, the deaths that can happen when she’s threatened. Even so, she’s part of living in Black Spring – a responsibility that prevents its town members from ever leaving, and find them discouraging newcomers.

But by the time we enter Black Spring, there’s a lot brewing under the surface. There’s a growing discontent among the younger citizens, who know that they’ll never be allowed to leave this town, and want so much more. There are damaged citizens who are starting to hope that Katherine might be able to help them in their lot in life. There’s a town councilman whose control over the town is only tightening. And there’s at least one citizen whose fear of the witch is abating to dangerous levels, to the point where he sees her as a toy, not a horrifying force of nature.

I don’t want to say much about the plot of HEX beyond that; watching as author Thomas Olde Heuvelt dives in and out of lives, keeps Katherine a constant figure of unease, and slowly tightens his plot threads is a joy, and that goes double once you realize just how far he can take this story. Because, rest assured, HEX is a horror novel that gets nightmarish in its payoffs; while Olde Heuvelt never takes the story anywhere that you’re expecting, his willingness to bring out not only supernatural darkness but human cruelty makes this one pack a vicious punch on all sorts of levels. It’s truly scary at times, heartbreaking at others, and brutally disturbing at others. And at all times, it’s riveting, giving us interesting characters and a story that draws us in with them.

It would be easy for HEX to feel overstuffed; this is, after all, the story of a whole town, with a cast of characters that fits that ambition. From a plot perspective, though, Olde Heuvelt nicely juggles everything, keeping all of the action clear, the motivations understandable, and all of the connections and interpersonal dynamics always in focus and used to build the tone and anticipation/dread. From a thematic point of view, he’s sometimes a little less successful; it’s not clear, by book’s end, if this is a book about a supernatural force of evil or about the evil within humanity – or maybe both.

(Sidebar on this: HEX was originally published in Dutch, and set in the Netherlands. When Tor Books decided to translate and publish the book in English, Olde Heuvelt decided to rewrite the book and set it in New York to make it easier for American audiences to lose themselves in its world. He also decided to rewrite the book’s ending greatly, and while he doesn’t explain the original ending in HEX’s afterword, I’ve been able to find out enough to say that the English ending does feel more focused thematically, and gives a sense of what message Olde Heuvelt was attempting to convey. I would be curious to read the original ending, though, which sounds far more unhinged and nightmarish than what we got – and honestly, that’s saying something.)

But honestly, little of that matters while you’re reading HEX, because all you’ll be thinking is that this book moves with all the force and unease of a strange nightmare, mixing in its details in a way that maximizes unease while delaying its payoffs until they’ll hit their hardest. It does what the best horror should do: sets the scene and invests you in its world and characters, so that when things go bad, we’re not only scared, but all the more uneasy for the fate of this community. And trust me, when things go bad here? They go very, very bad.

All in all, HEX is one of my favorite horror novels in a long time – it’s utterly original, fascinatingly told, genuinely scary and disturbing, and just moves like a rocket. It’s got me hoping that there’s a lot more of Olde Heuvelt’s work to come on this side of the pond, because I definitely want to read a lot more of it.

- Josh Mauthe

Monsters of Venus, by Martin Berman-Gorvine ***

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Monsters of Venus boasts a pretty great premise – it’s a science fiction tale set on Venus, but one created from the mind of a Polish Jew alive during the rise of the Nazi party. Desperate to escape, her pulp tales took on a life of their own, and she ultimately escaped into the world she had created, along with a couple of other girls – and she can still make changes to this world by writing them on her typewriter and having others read it. But now, others have found their way into this universe, and they have more malicious intentions – and typewriters of their own.

That’s a really cool idea for a book, and at its best moments, Monsters of Venus becomes this wonderful piece of metafiction, with characters literally writing their way out of their predicaments. Mind you, it’s worth noting that Monsters of Venus is actually a follow-up to an earlier book entitled Seven Against Mars, which I hadn’t read, nor did I realize going in; the learning curve here is a bit rocky, although you’ll get the hang of everything eventually. It’s just that Berman-Gorvine doesn’t exactly lay out his premise or things that have already happened in any sort of clear, easy way for a new reader.

Unfortunately, that’s also the case for much of Monsters of Venus, which feels constantly jumbled and unclear, with characters bleeding into each other, overwrought accents, and messy action scenes that left me trying to figure out what was going on. None of which is to say that the big picture of Monsters of Venus isn’t a lot of fun – on the macro level, there’s a neat story here, and a lot of cool ideas. But the execution is less effective, with me often confused as to who was where, why certain actions were taken, or what people’s goals were. Add into that a number of literary allusions that feel fun but ultimately distract from the story (I’m still not quite sure what the point of all the Hamlet allusions is, or what they were supposed to mean; while they end up aligning with a couple of characters, the question of what it matters beyond being cute is unclear), and the result is a great idea, poorly executed.

That seems to be Berman-Gorvine’s M.O., though – I said similar things about his Heroes of Earth, which had great ideas but once again felt overstuffed and cluttered. Still, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, and some really cool ideas; it just feels like it needs some tightening and polishing to make it work as well as it should.

- Josh Mauthe

Roofworld, by Christopher Fowler  
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A London man with a boring job and average life suddenly finds himself drawn into a side of London that he’s never seen before – a place where those who have dropped out of normal life have set up their own alternate society, where the rules are different, life is dangerous and exciting, and there’s nothing but disdain for the “normal” people. There’s a sense of old ways here, a sense that this is a way of getting back to something primal and mysterious, and maybe even magical. But our hero finds himself falling into something he doesn’t understand, and not only this new world, but our own, could be in danger.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “ooh, I’ve read that – it’s Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman,” well, you’re not wrong, really. Indeed, even though Roofworld predates Neverwhere by some time, I couldn’t help but spend a lot of the time as I read it comparing it to Gaiman’s richer, stranger, and altogether more successful novel. It doesn’t, however, really detract from Fowler’s imaginative idea, for this society lives on the roofs of the city, navigating from building to building with ropes and ziplines, and refusing to touch the ground. That’s a neat idea (I constantly found myself thinking of the navigation of Bioshock Infinite as I read), and the glimpses we get of this world are more than enough to draw you into the strange, shadowy society on the roofs of London.

It’s a shame, then, that Roofworld doesn’t have the substance it needs to support the fun and imagination that it promises in the first half. The book’s opening promises all sorts of fun, with a missing book of notes, a dangerous death cult, a series of brutal murders, and an odd couple romance. But by the time I hit the halfway point of the book, I was rapidly coming to realize that Roofworld is in desperate need of some fleshing out. Yes, it’s fun, and yes, it moves well. But the characters end up thin and generic (even now, less than a day after finishing, I’m struggling to remember much about some of them), and the plotting ends up making little to no sense, with the bad guy basically being motivated by…um…evil, I guess. (It doesn’t help that I never quite figured out the point of his evil scheme or what he was hoping to do, and it doesn’t seem like the book wanted us to, either.) It feels like a book that’s had about 30-50 pages of exposition and character work cut out of it, and the result feels like nothing so much as the weak screenplay based off of the fun and imaginative book.

Is there some fun to be had in Roofworld? Most definitely. But don’t be surprised when you end up feeling like it’s got nothing beyond a neat idea and a few fun scenes when you’re done.

- Josh Mauthe