Review: The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon) defies easy classification. On one hand it is a standard sort of second-world fantasy that somewhat fits the definition of epic fantasy– though the standard quest is shared by 2 enemies and manages to sweep up an innocent bystander. On another hand, it’s a sort of fantasy western with a modern take on Manifest Destiny-style attitudes, unchecked development, indigenous rights, etc., and with the inclusion of machine-based technology, The Half-Made World is made for slapping the __punk label to it, though I’ve most often seen cyberpunk or steampunk thrown about, which is a bit disappointing as I’d expect it to be more of westernpunk, petropunk, six-shooterpunk, or some other more creative punkness attribute. But most often The Half-Made World is considered Weird, or perhaps Weird Western. I can’t help but agree that the weird label fits it best, though I must admit that it chafes a bit that I’ve decided to utilize labels to frame start of this review.

 

In The Half-Made World physical laws don’t really exist to same extent as in most second-world fantasy, instead Gilman builds his world based on thematic laws. The world is only half-made, and the world only becomes made when ‘Western’-style development occurs, when humans expand their control of the world, and the world is most fully made once control moves from the hardy (and unsophisticated) pioneers of the frontier to the full order of the Line. The world is less made, or even un-made where humans haven’t yet penetrated, where the Folk (think indigenous people) exist with their indefinable magic and symbiosis with the land. Opposing the order of the Line is not the disorder of the un-made, but the near-nihilistic (or perhaps anarchistic or libertarian) Order of the Gun.

 

It’s in this worldbuilding that Gilman really shines – yes, this is a wonderfully built world in the sense of second-world fantasy, but it’s also thematic building. Gilman makes the worldbuilding so much more than just a setting, but a literary exercise in its own right. And at the same time, he playfully subverts himself – for his fully-realized and built world, is only ‘half-made’. The resisting force to order, is the Order of the Gun. This playful use of language to subvert the expected and even what Gilman is attempting to achieve, occurs throughout the book, but is perhaps most recognizable in the first half or so.

 

Balancing the study on worldbuilding is a study on character, with three focus points, and arguably a fourth. Liv is the equivalent of psychologist focusing on madness who unexpectedly (and irrationally?) journeys west for an opportunity of study. Of course, she is recovering from her own mental illness and has an unrealized addiction to opium. Creedmore is a charming, charismatic, and deadly Agent of the Gun. He fills the role of anti-hero as at times he has an apparent heart of gold, yet he kills with abandon, destruction follows his path, selfishness rules whenever possible, and yet he’s always beholden to his the spirit-like force of the Gun and their agenda. Lowery is member of the Line, he is order, he is conformity, he is the face of the unstoppable force. He struggles with self and the paranoia of completely controlled environment. The wild-west doesn’t just unsettle him and the Line, but is its antithesis. A fourth character is the focus of the quest – The General. The General is mad and damaged beyond repair from the forever war waged by the Line. The General also is in possession of the MacGuffin – something that the Line and the Gun both need to win their ever-ongoing fight and both need to keep out of the hands of their bitter enemy. This knowledge is buried inside his madness.

 

This character study is not as fully built as the world in terms of the thematic laws that govern Gilman’s creation, though it’s strong enough to support a balance. And it throws into view, something I haven’t really discussed yet – plot. Yes, there is a plot. The plot is strong enough to drive the story, motivate the characters and survive the world, yet it’s arguably not the point. Perhaps the plot is the actual MacGuffin here, I’m not sure. It sort of makes me want wonder what M. John Harrison would think of it all – after all, this book is either a giant ‘FU’ to Harrison’s views on fantasy and genre, or it’s the logical next step. It’s probably both, and it’s a bit weird as well, which generally makes his sort rather pleased. But I digress.

 

Since The Half-Made World was originally released in 2010, there are quite a few reviews and other reactions that can be found. After looking through a few I noticed that the ending is often panned, or at least highlighted as a relative low point in the book, with almost every one working in the ‘clever’ half-made ending (or similar) comment. I can sort of see why, though I think mostly it’s simply that people want an ending to be a resolution rather than the beginning of yet another adventure. However, remembering that the building blocks behind the world, the characters and even the plot are truly thematic blocks, I think that the ‘half-made ending’ can only be considered entirely appropriate. Though perhaps it functions as a third MacGuffin to which I can only react with maniacal giggling. Anyway, it’s worth noting that The Half-Made World is not a stand-alone and the sequel, The Rise of Ransom City (Indiebound, Book Depository, Amazon), is available, so hopefully the half-made ending will now just be an enticement to continue on that much sooner.

 

Gilman is an author I’ve been hearing good things about for a number of years now, and The Half-Made World has shown me why. It encompasses much of what it means to be genre, yet subverts the stereotype by thematically building everything such that everything has meaning – and the craft that it takes to make it all work is impressive. And work it does – The Half-Made World can function as a fun, fantastically weird western and as a stylistic novel with great thematic depth to be delved, parsed, examined, and even re-made. In that, the appeal is wide and this book should be widely read. So what are waiting for … punk!?

 

Brasyl by Ian McDonald

Imagine a trip abroad where they don’t speak your language, the climate and smells are all different, the rapid pace makes you believe everyone must be on methamphetamines, and all the while you see clear yet seemingly out of place influences from the good old USA. You’ve got your guidebook in hand, but for all the help it is once you step out of the airport you should throw it away.

“You like this car? You like it?” She was shrieking like a shoutygirl-presenter. João-Batista looking pityingly at her. On the car cams the boys looked as if a bomb had gone off under their Knight Rider LEDS. Don’t bail, Lady Lady Lady, don’t bail. “It’s yours! It’s your big star prize. It’s all right, you’re on a TV game show!”

McDonald drops us into a Brazil where the reader is the tourist in a foreign land, McDonald the ex-pat guide fully immersed in local culture, and it’s a constant struggle at first to keep track of what’s going on.

Brasyl begins in Rio in the year 2006, following a morally ambiguous producer of reality-shock TV setting the stage for her next show. Immediately thrown into a high-octane police chase full of the sights, sounds, and lingua franca of Brazil, the reader is left trying to catch up and make sense what exactly is happening. I imagine this approach is designed to grab hold of the reader with an immediacy they are not prepared for, however, this early disorientation made it harder for me to connect and involve myself in the story. The glossary thoughtfully provided by McDonald offers some reprieve, but breaking the carefully constructed rhythm of the prose looses much of its effectiveness.

Each of the three ultimately inter-related story arcs and their main characters embody the time-line they come from and McDonald’s view of the world as it was, is, and could be. The first arc introduces us to Marcelina Hoffman, trashy television producer. McDonald utilizes Hoffman and her pop-culture ties to orientate the reader to Brazil. Her up-to-the-minute fashion sense and stratospheric ambition form a shallow shell around a confidently clueless core as we see Brazil through her distinctive point of view. Marcelina slowly realizes who she is and what she truly desires in life as she is literally confronted with herself.

In the second arc we jump ahead to a mid-21st Century Brazil and the fringes of an Orwellian society. Here we follow Edson Jesus Oliveira de Freitas, the sixth son of a sixth son, a semi-legit businessman of the slums of São Paulo who becomes enthralled by Fia, a black-market quantum physicist pawning her skills to crack quantum tracking devices in stolen goods. Edson struggles with his identity and sexuality as he cons his way through life as his world overlaps with others, his puppy-love for Fia at the heart it all.

The third arc takes us back in time to 18th Century Brazil where Father Luis Quinn, a Jesuit priest, embarks on a journey to the dark heart of the Amazon to confront a renegade Jesuit missionary. Father Luis is accompanied by the French intellectual and spy, Robert Falcon, a friend and foe. Both are brilliant, introspective, hard and dangerous men with the best of intentions of this dark past.

Brasyl is the first novel by McDonald I have read as the oft-compared River of Gods languishes in The Stack of books to read. McDonald has earned a reputation for his stylistic prose, and he certainly justifies it. Brasyl is a stylistic tour de force where the techno-punk soul of quantum physics permeates his multidimensional Brazil. The emotional response invoked in this American was as otherworldly as any SFF book set in its own created world.

McDonald carefully styles the look and feel of each story arc with a rhythm not often found in SFF writing. It’s almost a beat you could dance to (you, not me) that changes from arc to arc. This rousing Latin beat begs a soundtrack and McDonald happily obliges with a set list provided at the back of the book. The beat of 2006 is fast and reckless with the occasional moderation of elderly, more sedate characters.

Gunga spoke the rhythm, the bass chug, the pulse of the city and the mountain. Médio was the chatterer, the loose and cheeky gossip of the street and the bar, the celebrity news. Violinha was the singer, high over bass and rhythm, hymn over all, dropping onto the rhythm of gunga and médio then cartwheeling away, like the spirit of capoeira itself, into rhythmic flights and plays, feints and improvisations, shaking its ass all over the place.

The beat of the future has the same fast and reckless feel of 2006 with an added bi-polar identity crisis and at times, extreme paranoia.

The loading ramp extends, lowers. Steel hits road. Sparks shower around the brothers Oliveira. Black Metal beckons them again: Come on, come on, on the ramp. Sparks peel away round Edson as he lines up the run. He’s a businessman, not a stunt-rider. Edson edges forward: the concentration pill gives him micro-accelerations and relative velocities. Wheel on wheel off wheel on wheel off, wheel on; then Edson throttles hard, surges forward, and brakes and declutches simultaneously.

The 18th Century slows down to a more traditional and introspective classical dance of events while keeping the feel that Brazil is not like any other place.

Luis Quinn sipped his coffee, rapidly achieving equilibrium with the general environment. An unrelenting climate; no release in the dark of the night. A cigar would be a fine thing. After months of enforced chastity aboard Cristo Redentor, he found his appetite for smoke had returned redoubled. The beginning of attachment, of indiscipline?

While stylistically superb, Brasyl falls short with a lack of resolution of its plot. The 18th Century story arc of Father Luis concludes well, while the other two offer more ambiguous conclusions. Ambiguous conclusions often add strength and the feeling of the right kind of completeness to a plot, and if each of the three story arcs existed independently, this would be the case. The problem arises with the inter-relation of the three arcs and their eventual convergence. At the point of convergence the plot just ends, leaving over-arching questions about the nature of quantum universes, human existence, and the mysterious factions in conflict unanswered. Early ascertains for award recognition may be justified, but for me, Brasyl falls flat at precisely the time it should and could have blown my mind.

Brasyl reflects the high-on-meth, ambitious, and paranoid times suffering an identity crisis emerging in the world around us and infuses it with the Latin beat of the Brazilian melting pot. It’s a view of our world and its possible future directions as reflected in a seemingly warped mirror. Brasyl is a good book, but for me it failed to reach its full potential as a great book, an important book. Even so, dust off the thrown-out guidebook and read Brasyl, but don’t don’t don’t lick the frog.

7.5/10

Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

Multidisciplinary Studies is a buzz term often heard in the realm of higher education. Essentially referring to exactly what it sounds like, it is often praised and criticized by many people, though it’s generally agreed that it is an important part of dealing with our modern, integrated and global world. Genre-bending in the term most often used for a book that seems to fit into more than one existing genre category. Referring to Keeping It Real as genre-bending is not good enough – this book is multidisciplinary.

In Keeping It Real, the near-future Earth as we know it has suffered a catastrophic event – the explosion of a quantum bomb. The affects of this are not what we would generally associate with the explosion of a bomb, such as widespread physical destruction, but the breakdown of dimensional barriers separating parallel worlds that humans were unaware of. The worlds of elves, faeries, elementals, demons, and the dead have been revealed and uneasy integration has begun.

Lila Black is a human agent recovering from extreme injuries suffered at the hands of elfin agents. As a result she has been remade into a human-cyborg, a unique, powerful, and fully integrated super spy. Her new assignment is to guard an eccentric rock star elf under threat from his own kind in a conspiracy of unknown dimensions.

Keeping It Real has been called a book for the twenty-first century and I can see why. A gadgety, techno-punk feel prevails in a story with rock concerts, groupie parties, motorcycle chases, sex, shifting loyalties, and explosions. Ass-kicking female protagonists have become hot sellers, and Agent Black fits the typical mode of a damaged soul struggling to deal with her past as it’s confronted in the present – same story, different setting. In this aspect, Keeping It Real neither succeeds nor fails, it just is.

The flow of the book is somewhat uneven as Robson struggles with her hard sci-fi roots and comes across a bit bi-polar while inconsistent characterization never allowed me to fully care about Lila and the most intriguing characters are essentially ignored. Until the final 100 pages, I was never fully committed to this book and it was too easily set aside; however the final 100 pages generally rocked in spite of continued unevenness.

Keeping It Real is the first installment in the Quantum Gravity Sequence, with the second installment, Selling Out coming to the UK in June. It stands on its own well, as it contains a complete story arc, but leaves overarching questions unresolved – I’m comfortable with not knowing where the story will go next. In the future I hope to see more development of the secondary characters as they were simply more interesting than Lila.

Keeping It Real succeeds as a techno-punk romp through fantasy and science fiction while not quite achieving full integration elsewhere. For me, it scores a 6.5 out of 10 – this book will really appeal to some people while leaving others behind.

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