Review: The Quantum Magician

I don’t do a lot of book reviews on here, mostly because I don’t read enough of the latest stuff for it to really make sense. I am, however, going to do one today, because I just finished reading Derek Kunsken’s The Quantum Magician.

Now, full disclosure, and as you will know from previous blogs, Derek and I are friends, so factor that into your calculations as you read. However that may be, I had not read The Quantum Magician prior to it being published, and had only a very vague sense of what it was about – really just Derek’s one-sentence pitch of ‘Ocean’s Eleven in space’, which turns out to be about right.

Here’s the thing with Quantum Magician, though. Derek writes hard SF, and (as you will also know from previous blogs) I am not, in general, much of a hard SF fan. Very often when I read hard SF stories, I come away thinking that the ideas were neat but that there were no characters. All the stories I write are basically about people, and in a lot of hard SF I feel like there are hardly any actual people at all. Now, I have had this reaction to very well-loved and major award-winning stories, so I know this isn’t any kind of objective measure of quality, it’s just what I happen to like.

And The Quantum Magician definitely counts as hard SF. All of the science in it has clearly been very carefully thought through; nothing happens, and none of the characters do anything, without there being a rigorously established explanation as to how they do that thing and why that thing happens. I assume the science is all accurate. I would be lying if I said I fully understood all of it. But, after a thorough sensor sweep, we find no detectable levels of Handwavium here.

But, and here’s the big thing for me, the characters are amazing. The people we meet in this book are all really interesting and fun to spend some of your time with. I wanted to know more about all of them. A lot of love and care has very obviously gone into crafting each one of these imaginary people, and the result is a story, or interweaving of stories, that works on a human level just as much as it does on a scientific one.

So, I reckon hard SF fans will love The Quantum Magician, but if you’re like me and generally steer away from that particular flavour, I would still heartily recommend giving this one a shot. I’m not really qualified to assess whether the characters are better than the science, or vice versa, but they’re both really compelling and good. I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series.

—–

There’s been a lot of really upsetting and difficult things happen in the world since I wrote the last blog entry, and although I feel like I should write some kind of response, I’m also not sure what there is to be said about any of it. There’s a lot of darkness in the world right now, and it isn’t always easy to feel very hopeful.

I don’t have any deeply wise observations or magic solutions. About all I can think to say is that each of us can and should keep doing the best we can in the world around us, every day. We can’t single-handedly fix the big issues, but we can do little things every day. We can also call out the big problems when we see them. I think that’s important, too.

Part of doing both of those things is telling great stories. Let’s all keep doing that, too.

Thank you for reading.

Rebels

Once again keeping the blog firmly on the crest of things that happened a year ago, I recently had time to finish watching the fourth and final season of Star Wars Rebels. As long time readers will know, I am an enormous Star Wars dork, so I thought I’d write a little about that this week.

It really was a great deal of fun. The show tended to tell fairly simple stories, which they sort of needed to with half-hour episodes, and yet ended up providing an overall narrative that really did have meat on the bones. The central character of Ezra went from the kind of spunky kid character I usually can’t stand to being an honest-to-god Jedi, and it felt like that development was completely earned. By the end of the series, it really did make sense that the other characters would be taking their lead from someone who had been a goofy annoyance with a slingshot (seriously) not all that long ago.

I think they created a really solid cast of characters that were a lot of fun to follow around, overall. I have particular affection for the art-and-explosives loving Sabine Wren. I’m not really sure we’ve seen a Star Wars character with such a bright palette (it’s a terrible shame that we never saw her ‘masterpiece’ TIE Fighter from Season One again) and yet again, they made her a character with more than one story to tell.

They even successfully pulled off transforming a villain from the start of the series into one of our heroes by the final season, with (eventually former) ISB Agent Kallus. And again, they did it in a way that made sense and gave us enough that when Kallus decides to ditch the Empire, the audience is able to accept him as a character who deserves some redemption. If they were ever to continue the story of the Rebels characters, Kallus would fit right in with the remaining crew of the Ghost.

And yes, ‘remaining crew’. Season 4 did go a bit surprisingly dark for a show that is ostensibly a kid’s show. I had been wondering since the beginning of the show how they would come up with an ending to Kanan and Ezra’s story that explained how we were down to the status quo of Obi-Wan and Luke as ‘last of the Jedi’ by A New Hope – obviously that whole arc doesn’t work nearly as well if there’s a couple other Jedi kicking around as well as the Tatooine dirt-farmer. Kanan’s death and Ezra’s disappearance both a) made perfect sense in terms of the story Rebels was telling and b) tied up that narrative loose end neatly enough, even if it was tough to see.

The ‘it’s for kids’ question comes up a lot with different movies, TV shows, and books; some people are absolutely derisive of anything that isn’t ‘adult’ and immediately dismiss the quality of any stories created with younger audiences in mind. And look, there’s a lot of shallow stuff out there for sure, but that’s true of stories created for any audience. There are also real gems of storytelling in the world of YA fiction, and I think people are missing out if they won’t even give it a chance.

It comes down to my increasing conviction that if you’ve got a good story, almost nothing else matters. It will be entertaining and audiences will like it. Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series were written for a young audience primarily, but they’ve got great characters and a neat setting and if you like fantasy at all, you’ll find them charming to read. Daniel Jose Older’s Shadowshaper was marketed as YA but I figure it will entertain most any reader. And, if you did Star Wars even a little bit, I think you should give Rebels a shot. They really did have some great stories to tell with moments you won’t forget and characters you’ll come to care about.

I also think it’s pretty cool that the Star Wars fictional universe is elastic enough that it can accommodate a pretty dark and gritty story like Rogue One and a fun set of tales like Rebels and have them both work equally well and seem like they’re Star Wars. It’s a pretty awesome imaginary playground, which is probably why I keep coming back to it, and I’m very glad that it has Hera Syndulla and the crew of the Ghost in it from now on.

Thanks for reading.

Can*Con 2018

This past weekend was Can*Con 2018, the SFF convention in Ottawa that I help to organize. As ever, it was a great deal of fun, it was tremendously inspiring to be around so many passionate readers and writers of the stories I take joy in, and it left me absolutely exhausted. Still recharging the batteries, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Each year I feel as though I’m growing into my role as an organizer a little more and figuring out the best way to be of use to the convention, to make the convention useful to me, and then also have some fun. I enjoyed Can*Con 2018 the most out of any that I’ve been to so far, and aside from a few minor glitches, really had a great weekend. A lot of that is because we have such a great group of people who all pitch in and bust their butts to make the convention work. Marie Bilodeau, Derek Kunsken, Jaggy Sue, Kate Heartfield, Cortni Fernandez, Lisa Toohey, Tyler Goodier, Marco Cultera, Dario, MP, and a great crowd of other volunteers whose names I am shamefully forgetting all put their hearts into making the con work and it is truly inspirational to be a part of that. Most important of all for me is my programming wingman Brandon Crilly, who I maintain does most of the work and who I cannot imagine doing all this without. Can*Con is a great community that, in a lot of ways, keeps going all year long, and it has become tremendously special to me.

This year’s con was also special because it was the formal launch of my friend Derek Kunsken’s first novel, The Quantum Magician. It was Derek who drafted me on to the Can*Con team, and since then he has been a great encouragement about my writing at the same time as he has pushed me to try harder and to aim a little higher. He’s become a good friend and it was an absolute delight to see that he had a packed house for his launch. Derek is a great person, a wonderful writer, and he has given so much to the Ottawa SFF community. It’s tremendously satisfying to see all of that rewarded.

I also had a chance to make what I hope may be a valuable connection for the fate of Heretic Blood; I was able to have a talk about the book with our agent Guest of Honor, Kurestin Armada, and she was kind enough to make a partial request on it. I am now furiously polishing the first pages of the manuscript so that I can send them off to her. These things are super stressful and hard to do (for me, anyway) but I’m (usually) confident that if I can get someone to read my writing, they’ll like it. Even if Kurestin turns out not to be interested in the book, this was valuable practice for how to reach out to the person who will be.

As much as I always end Can*Con profoundly tired, I know that I am extremely fortunate to be part of the team that puts it together each year. I have met amazing people who have become good friends, I have grown as a writer, and I have made connections that I know I would not have made any other way. It’s a lot of work, but it’s absolutely worth it.

I’m almost ready to get started on 2019.

Just these 50 pages to edit first.

Thanks for reading.

Beginning/Finishing

Couple of quick-fire topics tonight, as Can*Con approaches and I increasingly feel as though my head may be on fire.

This past weekend we saw the first episode of Doctor Who with the new actor portraying the Doctor, Jodie Whittaker. I’m not going to get too in-depth, partly because ‘spoilers’ and partly because ‘head on fire’ but in short: I thought it was really fun.

Whittaker was great and seemed very comfortable in the role. It will be interesting to see how much of her manic energy level will be a temporary artifact of the regeneration process and how much will be a permanent element of the character. Either way, it was a treat to watch, I thought the new cast looked like they will be fun and bring a variety of different perspectives on travelling around with an itinerant mad scientist.

I have seen some criticisms of the episode arguing that it was an overly simple plot and not grand enough for the introduction of a new Doctor. I agree that it was a pretty basic story, but I applaud the decision for a couple reasons. First, although I have enjoyed the last few seasons of the show, it is also true that I have found the increasingly labyrinthine and obscure season-long puzzle arcs to be less and less charming. A season that isn’t trying quite so hard to weave an intricate mystery out of a bunch of enigmatic hints and just has some straight-ahead tales will be very welcome.

I also think it was a wise move on the part of the writers, because it would have been reasonable to anticipate a bunch of new viewers tuning in for this one. You want something accessible, not something that requires exhaustive knowledge of years and years of Doctor Who lore to appreciate. You could tune into this with very little background at all, understand what was going on, and jump on the ride.

It looks like it’s going to be a good one.

—-

Also, as Can*Con approaches, I achieved one wee little goal I had set for myself. I had planned to finish the third revision of Heretic Blood in time for the convention, in part so that it was ready to pitch to a couple people who I’m hoping to have a chance to talk to, and also because (as I’ve mentioned), I like a deadline. We are juuuuust under the wire, but I can say: Mission Accomplished.

All of the revisions so far have been fairly significant, and although that’s not always easy (what do you mean it wasn’t perfect the first time?), I think each rewrite has made the story significantly better. Right now, I have a story I’m quite proud of, that I will be pleased to share with a wider audience, and that I know not everyone is going to like.

That’s ok. There is probably some Platonic ideal story out there that will please every reader. I haven’t created it yet, and I haven’t read it yet. I think Heretic Blood has its strengths, and I feel confident that people will read it and like it. Some people will find it not their cup of tea, and I’m all right with that. I think the story needs to be the way it is. Pushing it to be something else might eventually work, but then it would be a different story than the one I wrote, and although it might then appeal to people it wouldn’t in its current form, we’d probably lose some of the people who might like it as it is currently written.

You can, I think, chase the broadest possible appeal forever. I think Heretic Blood is pretty darn close to being exactly the story that I want it to be. (It isn’t, by the way, the story I thought it would be when I set out to write, but that’s also more than fine.) At a certain point, a piece of art is what it is going to be, and you have to send it out into the world and let it try to find its audience.

I hope to do that soon.

Thanks for reading.

Readjusting

Just a quick one this time to let you know that I haven’t stopped writing here – I did miss last week, and I didn’t want to miss another. Basically my schedule has shifted around and I need to re-figure out when I can block out some time to do my blog entries. The old plan doesn’t work right now, so I need a new one.

It’s sort of what I often need to do in life overall. Circumstances change around. Gotta figure out a new plan to make things work. I think these adjustment periods are pretty much inevitable. A lot of times there are big forces in motion that aren’t entirely (or even a little) under our control. Sometimes, I just have to admit that how I thought things were going to proceed just doesn’t work out in practice, and it doesn’t mean anything other than ‘time for a new plan’.

I’m in the process of figuring that new plan out.

There is a lot going on right now. We’re getting very close to Can*Con, which I help organize, so there’s lots to handle there. I’m very excited about what we have coming up and looking forward to seeing all our plans take shape. I’m still working on revising Heretic Blood; some of the Eager Volunteers have suggested relatively significant alterations that I think make the story a lot better, but aren’t the work of just a couple minutes. I have to keep plugging away at the day job.

I’m probably not going to be as productive in terms of my writing as I was through the summer. That’s ok, as long as I don’t ditch it entirely. I’ll keep everything ticking over, and readjust again when circumstances alter themselves.

Thanks for reading, and apologies for the missed week.