novel | Matt W Cook

June 3, 2019

Review: What We See in The Smoke by Ben Berman Ghan

Part novel, part anthology, Ben Berman Ghan‘s What We See in The Smoke is an evocative and powerful read. Each chapter is a separate short story that can be read on its own, independent of the other chapters. Taken as a whole, they form a grand epic of humanity’s descent into the far future–through a Torontonian lens. Each section and story progressively moves further from the Toronto (and Earth) we know.

The sci-fi elements are both outlandish and belieavble. The tone is often dark and sometimes funny, and there’s always something at stake that hits at the heart.

The first section, “These Memories of Us,” covers the nearly familiar future. We see inter-connected people struggling against overbearing and implacable systems while tending to their own limitations and empowerments. “Planet 58” put us in the mind of people whose understanding of the wider world threatens to cut them off from the local one. “Time Loop Tango” dances with determinism in a way that pushes at its limits. “A Carnival World” jars the reader with 2nd person narration.

Aside: I heard a professor say it wasn’t possible to write convincingly in the 2nd person but obviously that prof had never read “A Carnival World” or the other 2nd person stories in this book or N.K. Jemisin.

The second section, “These Violent Machines,” stretch all the way to 2280. The first story, “Yum,” opens with an epitath from Moby Dick that sets a dark stage for the rest of the book.

“Cannibals? who is not a cannibal?”

While the stories are not (all) about cannibalism, they each introduce a dehumanising factor. “Darkly Dreaming” envisions a Toronto in which the controlling arm of the corporations reach deeper inside a person than we ever thought possible. “Re-Pilot” follows a job applicant trying to adjust to life on Mars. “The End of History” puts the reader in the front seat again, returning to the 2nd person to watch the end of the world as it comes.

As the stories fly further and further from out present-day point of view, Ghan keeps bringing us back to ourselves with relatably broken characters.

Finally, “An Uncertain and Distant World” takes us far from familiar earth, with mind-implants, teleporting art theives, robots on trial, and (my favourite) an ever-evolving race of beings waging eternal war on a hull breach. The settings and circumstances are believebly outlandish. The characters are tanglible and real.

What We See in The Smoke peels back painful and beautiful layers of humanity in a time when we are becoming more and more aware of the futures we are constructing for ourselves. These stories are engrossing and powerful. The prose is darkly comic and brightly sombre. This is a book for anyone who loves stories about Toronto, rocket ships, and the kinds of love that can survive apocalypse. Go buy it!

Buying Options:
Crowsnest Books
Chapters Indigo
Amazon

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November 16, 2017

Gods and Dogs: A Review of André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs

I tend to start my judgment of a book on two points: how long it takes to finish reading, and the opening line. I read all 171 pages of Fifteen Dogs in two days, and its opening line is great: “One evening in Toronto, the gods Apollo and Hermes were at the Wheat Sheaf Tavern.” A crisp sentence that puts two of our favourite gods in Toronto’s oldest tavern sets the stage for an engrossing modern myth.

Apollo and Hermes have a friendly argument about whether or not humans are very special, as far as mortals go. Hermes thinks we are. Apollo not so much. In the course of the evening, after five Sleemans each, they make a bet.

Apollo wagers “that animals–any animal you chose–would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they had human intelligence.” Hermes takes the bet, “on condition that if, at the end of its life, even one of the creatures is happy, I win.” On the way home, walking down King Street, they pass a veterinarian clinic. The fifteen dogs staying overnight receive human intelligence, and quickly figure out how to open their cages and escape.

The story is enticing. Each of the fifteen dogs has to negotiate their relationship with the sudden intelligence they have been given. Like the classic myths, Fifteen Dogs can be dark and violent. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend the book to dog lovers per se. It’s an apologue (a moral fable with an animal cast), not one of those tender tales of human-animal bonding. Fifteen Dogs is probably best suited to people interested in Toronto, classical mythology, and those nagging existential questions of humanity.

Like any good fantasy novel, there are maps in the beginning. The setting is integral. The dogs leave the vet’s clinic as if through a portal and the Toronto they emerge into is charged with the fantastic. My apartment is just a couple blocks from High Park, where much of the story takes place. Walks downs Roncesvalles and along the beach will be different, having gotten a dog’s-eye view of it. Or rather, a dog’s-nose view, because some of the most evocative moments are olfactory scenes of the beach in summer and the park in spring. If you’re from Toronto, Fifteen Dogs might enrich your city. I mean, who wouldn’t want a drink where Hermes and Apollo frequent?

The gods are Greek, thus capricious, unpredictable, and often distant. They aren’t in the business of making everything alright in the end and don’t have a habit of saving people. The gods in Fifteen Dogs are the same ones who pestered Odysseus and brought down Troy. The novel may not be The Iliad, but it fits nicely in the lineage.

Some books tell a good story, some explore big ideas. Fifteen Dogs manages both. Despite the initiating wager, the real interest of the book is not the pros and cons of human intelligence. “Really, it was a matter of pure chance who died happy and who did not. Which is why, of course, [Apollo] and Hermes had bet on the outcome in the first place.” The bet sets up a more subtle philosophical discussion. Now, if you don’t care for philosophical discussion, don’t let that push you off. The story stands on its own and the philosophy doesn’t get in the way. But if you’re up for it, the dogs have to deal with questions like:

What happens when you recognize the cruelty in the activities you love?
What happens when you realize something you love cannot last?
What happens when you recognize the gulf between yours ideas and your actions?
What happens when you chance so much you can’t remember who the real you is?
And on it goes.

In short, Fifteen Dogs is about fifteen dogs who become humanly reasonable one night, and they handle it just as well and poorly as the rest of us do. But since they’re dogs and live in a very realistic Toronto, we are able to see the humanity in them a little clearer than we tend to see it in ourselves. The book grabbed my attention from the very beginning, and it held on until the end like I was a chew toy. It explores deep human truths without getting preachy and brings an authentic sense of Greek myth into a very local-feeling Toronto. I heartily recommend it to anyone who didn’t cry during Marley & Me.

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August 7, 2013

Khaled Hosseini’s And the Mountains Echoed

Source: khaledhosseini.com

On a scale of 1 to 10, Khaled Hosseini’s third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, was Awesome-Sauce. Here’s why:

The story is a wild ride that touches you right down in the viscerals with serious love and pain.
It has all the right elements that made The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns Awesome-Sauce: enticing, complex characters, powerfully real settings and delightful prose.
Hosseini pushes himself to tell a wider story than he has before, giving us more characters to invest in and telling a broader story that rightly shows the ripples of consequence choices of love, hate and neglect make.
The characters are deep and real. The reader understands the ones who hurt and sees the flaws in the ones who love.
When I finished reading it, I felt like a slightly different person. The way you feel after an awesome meal or workout.

Read Khaled Hosseini’s, And the Mountains Echoed. Some people have found it difficult to follow the story because of the relatively larger cast of characters. I say to you, try harder. It’ll be worth it.

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June 29, 2012

On The Creative Flow and Kidney Stones

Sometimes there is a flow, y’know?

Sometimes it all just comes out, rushing and tripping over itself to get on the page. It comes so fast and so hard that you spend hours and hours throwing it down, but the stream still doesn’t let up. Not until you’re finally mentally and even a bit physically exhausted. Then you pack up, go home and have a great day.

But sometimes it’s different. Sometimes it’s like having kidney stones.

You can feel the flow, deep inside of you. It wants out. No, it needs out. So you go to the place where you can get it out, but it doesn’t come the way you want it to. It comes out in frustrating trickles. And it hurts. It hurts so much that you don’t even want to do it anymore. So you throw it down and walk away.

But you can’t stay away for long. You need to get it out. Even though every time you try, the pain flares up and you begin to hate the process.

What do you do then?

Keep trying. Keep working. I know it hurts. I know you can see blood in it and it kinda smells funny. That’s fine. It’s alright. It’s still coming out, and that’s what is important. Eventually the stone will pass. It’ll pass when the pain and the struggle is at its zenith. Then, suddenly, you’ll be cured and the flow will return.

I’ve had creative kidney stones for a week now. It hurts. I feel like I’m bleeding onto the page. I’m probably going to miss my self-imposed deadline, unless this stone gets passed today. But I’m not too discouraged. I’m still standing over the toilet, trying my best. Sweating and groaning and swearing, but still here. It’ll pass one day.

And, yes, I did just liken the entire creative process to urination. So there.

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March 21, 2012

Thoughts on Starting a Novel

The Shadow’s Daughter is done. A couple beta readers are pouring over my final revision and I can’t wait to deal with their considerations, but for now, it’s done.

When I started The Shadow’s Daughter, I had no idea where it was going. I was doing two strange projects at the same time. One was about a very typical rag-tag group of adventurers off to find a mystic artifact (blaaaah). The other was a series of romantic serials I was writing for my wife. Both those stories died, and from their ashes rose The Shadow’s Daughter, first book of The Chronicler and the Bard.

Yay, and stuff.

So now that The Shadow’s Daughter is done, I turn my eyes to the next installment.

I had forgotten how it felt to start something new.

I once heard that writing a novel is like walking through a dark wood with a lantern. You only get to see a couple steps ahead of you, but you can get through the whole forest that way.

Whoever said that didn’t mention the most obvious characteristic about walking through a dark forest with only a lantern.

It’s scary as hell.

Seriously, what if you get lost? What if you lose the path? Worse, what if the path is so well travelled that there’s no point in walking it? What if you’re going the wrong way and you never should have entered this stupid forest and why didn’t you wait until daytime and OMG I’M FREAKING OUT!

So, there’s that.

It’s also lonely.

You don’t get to write novels in tandem. And when you try to talk about an unborn novel, it never goes right. People look at you as if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Because, frankly, you don’t. Not yet. You’re still wandering around in the woods.

Scary and lonely.

Which is why I’m glad I believe in muses.

The muse is that strange spiritual critter who tells you the story. She’s the lantern you’re carrying as you wander through the woods. She’s Navi from Zelda who keeps saying “Hey, listen!” And while she may annoy the hell out of you sometimes, she knows the way. She knows the story that she wants you to tell.

She’s the one who won’t let me get side-tracked or lost. She’s done this before, too. For a jillion years her and her kind have been whispering tales into our ears. She knows what she’s doing. And that’s nice.

So here I am, just entering the woods again. I’m holding my lantern high and peering into the darkness. I take a step forward, and the lantern’s light stretches a bit further. It’s going to be okay. No, better than that. It’s going to be freaking awesome.

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January 9, 2012

Thoughts on Starting a Novel

You might be tempted to think that a writer deserves a break once he or she has finished a project. I don’t really think so, though. Writing is a habit. And there’s no reason to kick a habit in the shin once it’s started to pay off.

So I started my next book already. It’s neat to stand here, staring out at the ocean of blank pages to fill.

It’s scary, too.

I’ve got amazing plans and visions and ideas. A billion of them. They’re everywhere. And they scare the shiong mao niao out of me.

Sitting down to write a book is like deciding to procreate. It’s generally a pretty easy process to get started. But it’s a terrifying one to see through. Getting ideas is as easy as having sex. But turning those ideas into a good and true story is as hard as raising a son or daughter to fulfill all the infinite and beautiful possibilities they are born with.

So, yeah, I approach this new book with a healthy amount of trepidation.

But if writing a book is scary because it’s like raising a kid, then it’s exciting for the same reason.

My kids are wild. Ask anyone who knows them. They are bursting with personality and ideas and that wild, creative spirit that makes them little snapshots of God. And they have hardly even begun to show the world what they’re really capable of. I try to guess what they will turn into, and I can’t. Sometimes I think it’s blasphemy to even try. So I sit back, tweak things here and there, and let them run free.

Starting a novel is like that. The idea was mine. The initial acts were mine. And I retain control even as the story progresses. But, in the end, it goes wherever it wants. And I’d be a fool to hinder it.

So I stand on the brink, looking down at a virgin world, and wonder what will grow there when I start plowing and planting. It scares me, because I could screw things up royally. But it excites me, too, because the possibilites are endless. And I know, deep down, that if I just let the story be what it is, it’ll turn out fine.

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December 5, 2011

As the Project Ends

I’m neck-deep in polishing my nearly-finished novel.

It’s surprising how much of the first draft is, as Hemingway put it, shit.

But as the revisions continue, the bad gets washed away and there is something shiny underneath. Something I’m proud of. Something I can stand beside and say, “Look at this thing I have made!” That’s a good feeling.

I should be working on it right now, so I don’t have much else to say. Here’s a tiny excerpt. It’s the open paragraphs. The opening used to be a massive, gaudy info-dump of religious liturgies, boring histories and other world-building things that were sure to turn readers away. I think this is better:

     Pari’s cousin did not get a funeral.
     Her tiny body was heavy in Pari’s arms; so much heavier than it had been last month when Pari bounced the child in her arms. That had been a happy day. The child was a year old. Pari had just become the hakeena’s apprentice. Her relatives came with cakes and dates. Her parents laughed and smiled. Pari skipped around the house with her baby cousin.
     She was smaller than her brother, though the same age. Pari never wondered about that. Never wondered when the girl refused to eat. Never wondered at the way she slept so very soundly.
     She got sick two weeks later. And then she died. And she didn’t even get a funeral.
     Pari stood over the open, tiny grave alone. The Karvan said that a soul comes to a person once they are named. And the baby was a year from her naming day at least. So the family had not come to see Pari put her into the ground. She supposed she should not have wept so much over such a tiny baby. But there was no one to watch or rebuke her, so she wept freely.
     Even in the tiny grave, Pari’s cousin seemed too small. It was a long time before she began filling it in.
     The unmarked graveyard was outside the village walls. So was the real graveyard, but it was different. The real graveyard had markers and names and a tiny fence to keep spirits out. The unmarked graveyard was simple and hidden, unless you knew what you were looking for. Tiny bumps in the earth, some with dry grasses growing on them. None of them with flowers or sweets. None with any sort of marker. None with names because people with names were never buried here.
     Pari looked up and across the horizon. The sun was threatening to set. She had to fill the hole before dark, or else the child might turn into a demon or rakshasi. That’s what the elders said. Her back was to the village and she gazed south to the wastes. The wind played on the grasses and thorny bushes that grew in the hard, dry dirt. She took off her glove and rubbed the soil with her hand. It had been dark and soft when she dug the grave. It was dry now and crumbled at her touch. In the grave, her cousin waited.
     She buried her cousin before the sun set. She wanted to vow never bury a child again. But she was the hakeena’s apprentice. And she knew it would not be her last.

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April 14, 2011

Review: The Way of Kings – Brandon Sanderson

Even after all these centuries, seeing a thunderclast up close made Kalak shiver. The beast’s hand was as long as a man was tall. He’d been killed by hands like those before, and it hadn’t been pleasant.
Of course, dying rarely was.

Even without his contribution to The Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson is a valuable voice in the realm of fantasy. The Way of Kings, the first book in The Stormlight Archive, is his first shot at something with a scope as large as The Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire. I was a little wary as I picked it up.

I shouldn’t have been.

Like all of his books, the magic system is delicately defined and clever. But unlike books like Mistborn, the world is huge. I was worried about that only because when you read something with so many PoV characters you tend to love some and hate others. That’s what we all found with the Wheel of Time, right? (Oh no, not another Elayne chapter!) But with The Way of Kings I was surprised to see that I wanted to know what was happening with every character.

I enjoy how Sanderson is never afraid of pitting philosophies against each other in his works. Just like in Mistborn he examines concepts of sin vs purity, atheism vs religion and mortality vs ascendancy. And he does it all in ways that do not seem trite or preachy.

The Way of Kings tells the tale of a world at war from the point of view of warring surgeons, thieving scholars and mournful killers. The plot is deep and intricate. The characters are living and lovable. The cultures are many and true. I’m excited to see where this series will go. Pick it up. You won’t regret it.

Quotes:

– “Well, I myself find that respect is like manure. Use it where needed, and growth will flourish. Spread it on too thick, and things just start to smell.”

– “This last year in particular, you’ve become to be the person the others all claim that they are. Can’t you see how intriguing that makes you?”

– “You wonder why I reject the devotaries.”
“I do.”
“Most of them seek to stop the questions.”

– “Just an idle comment, nothing more.” He reached over, laying a hand on Kaladin’s shoulder. “My comments are often idle. I never can get them to do any solid work.”

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March 28, 2011

Review: Sabriel – Garth Nix

It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on the other side of the Wall in Ancelstierre, and not a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded sunset, and a steady rain had just begun to fall, coming faster than the tents could be raised.

I didn’t find out this was technically a young adult novel until after I finished it. And I’m glad of that. Sometimes the labels people put on a book taint it before you get a chance to read it.

Sabriel is a fantasy about the daughter of an undead-slaying necromancer. Raised in a setting that feels like 20th-century earth, she is forced to leave school behind and seek her father deep within the Old Kingdom, a place rich with danger, magic and undead nasty thingies. Sabriel is full of great settings and intrigue. The most attractive part for me was the depth of the world and magics that made it.

The world is divided into two places. Ancelstierre, which is similar to earth a hundred years ago, and the Old Kingdom. They are separated by a great wall which holds back the undead yuckies and magics that try to pour down from the Old Kingdom.

The story was great. The plot was completely driven by the characters and deep. The writing, however, was a little clunky now and then, and that tend to be distracting. Also, the story was told strictly from the point of view of Sabriel herself. Usually I resonate with a book better when there are multiple views points to distract me. But I think that’s more of a failing with me than it is with the book. It’s the first in a series, and I still haven’t decided if I’m going to plunge ahead and get the rest of them. But if you like fantasy and teen novels and deeper-than-usual-coming-of-age tales, give Sabriel a whirl.

Quotes:

Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.

Fear and realization of ignorance were strong medicines against stupid pride.

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April 16, 2010

More Golden Compass Thoughts

Lyra, the main character of the series, is a young girl. Now, each children’s series seems to have children who are special in some way. Harry Potter is good on a broom. The Paperbag Princess is deft at tricking dragons. Ponyo is full of rebellious love. But Lyra’s skill is very unusual for the hero of a children’s book. Her skill is lying.

Time and time again her uncanny ability to create a false story saves her and the people she loves. She seriously has some sort of super-human skill when it comes to lying. And the narrator suggests that she is such a good liar because she lacks a deep imagination.

When a person has a good imagination she will be able to think up so many wonderful details that would add great depth and realism to a story. Unfortunately, many details tend to give the liar away. We can all tell when somebody starts babbling that they are trying to hide something. But a girl with no imagination will not be bothered to weigh her story down with details. And so Lyra’s lack of imagination helps here.

I find the connection between lying and imagination so interesting. On the one hand, without a good imagination you cannot (I think) be a good storyteller. But when you try to tell a story and pass it off for truth, your imagination will get in the way.

I wonder, if we think about this metaphysically, if this is because imagination is inherently good while deceit is inherently bad. It’s a hard fit; putting imagination and lies together. They don’t like each other much. A good imagination always tells the truth of a thing, those its packaging may be false. A lie tries to cover the truth and keep it from the hearer. The imagination doesn’t seem to like that.

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