Fantastic Metropolis

One of the most fascinating novels of the year was the Succession duology by Scott Westerfeld, published in two volumes by Tor: The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds. In a way, these works use Westerfeld’s earlier space opera, Evolution’s Darling, as a foundation. But here, the pace is accelerated and the pallette is much broader. What was interesting was that it involved a conflict between two civilizations that were (essentially) transhumanist in different ways. In the midst of this conflict, however, outside of statist control, empathy and compassion found footholds–in ways that didn’t seem obligatory and Straight from Central Casting. Which seems to be a failure of some other space opera that I’ve read recently. Plus, the novel has a really amazing (almost winsome) sentient house, so you really can’t go wrong with that.

Two of the strongest short fiction anthologies of the year were The Silver Gryphon (Golden Gryphon Press) and Angel Body (Wordcraft of Oregon). I reviewed these two anthologies at length at Rain Taxi’s online site, which you can read here. Some of the best stories published this year are in those two anthologies; in a nutshell, the former is staking a claim for a “radical center” of the genre, while the latter decidedly tries to treat the genre like silly putty. Both are valid approaches if the stories are good, which is definitely true for these two anthologies.

Trunk Stories, edited by William Smith, is a new zine that really struck me for its sharp, quirky fiction. I particularly enjoyed, in the first issue, Kirsten Kaschock’s “Any Other Name,” a creepy, first person tale of madness and sin. Hopefully there’ll be many more issues to come.

I had an on again, off again obsession with chess this year. One of the more fascinating books that I read this year relating to this subject was The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World’s Oldest Game by J.C. Hallman, a breezy but poignant travelogue and meditation on chess. The book reads as a cross between Searching for Bobby Fischer and Gibson’s “The Gernsback Continuum”. Much of the book details a long journey to the remote Russian province of Kalmykia. Its semi-despotic leader aims to transform the province into the Chess Capital of the World; he in fact takes control of FIDE (chess’s global governing body) and builds Chess City, a surreal microfiefdom within the Kalmyian capital. The voyage to Chess City is priceless; even more striking is how Hallman captures the alienation felt by many chess players, and how they channel that into their games. Worth reading even if you couldn’t care less about chess.

Two CDs worth mentioning:

Cody ChesnuTT (yeah, those two “T”s are capitalized), The Headphone Masterpiece. I first heard of him singing on the Roots’ latest album Think Tank. I was fully expecting to fully dislike this album because Graham Coxon, guitarist, had left the band. Instead, it turned out to be their best since Parklife, precisely because they’ve eschewed the Anglophilic power pop that made them successful, and instead embraced a snaky flat sound. It might seem strange that a flatter sound works, but it does. Aside from a regrettable foray into “Song 2” (you know, their “woo-hoo” song) territory, Think Tank is both moody and ebullient. Which is a nice trick.

Alan DeNiro grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and lives in Minnesota. He is a 1998 graduate of Clarion. His fiction has appeared in Altair, LC-39, Fence, and Trampoline and his first published story was shortlisted for the 2000 O. Henry awards. He edits Taverner’s Koans, a poets’ resource.