Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett

1. “I got rambling / I got rambling on my mind / I got rambling / I got rambling all on my mind.” So sang Robert Johnson in 1936, when he also recorded the classic, “I Believe I’ll Dust my Broom”. These two songs ran through my head the whole time I was reading this book about voodoo, witches engaging in tourism to the discworld analogy of Louisiana, and the power of stories. The whole book ruminates on stories and the power they have—certain things need to happen in this tale because they have happened in other tales, and Pratchett says so. His real thrust is this line from the book: “People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way around.” We create stories, and in so doing the stories create us. Pratchett plays this point for humor, as usual, but the point isn’t lost in the jokes. The two support each other in a way indicative of Pratchett’s brilliance.

Nanny Ogg knew how to start spelling 'banana', but didn't know how you stopped.

2. The characters are less revealing here than the theme. Pratchett doesn’t run wild or create too many new characters, rather, he lets characters we already know run the show. It could be seen as fan service, I guess, but it could also be Pratchett expanding the scope of his usual cast of characters. To me, because the novel is so smitten with the theme, it doesn’t come off like fan service.

Cats gravitate to kitchens like rocks gravitate to gravity.

3. Again, this novel follows episodic lines, but Pratchett has grown as an author. This isn’t a bad fix-up like the first two discworld novels were. The theme carries the whole with more consistency than Eric did, being so focused on one thing, rather than the three separate wishes of the boy Faust Eric. This consistent theme, and the consistent main characters, keeps the novel a novel, and means that it’s much stronger than Equal Rites. But the fact still remains that this rumination on stories is not structured as concisely as a typical novel. Variety is the spice of writing. Sometimes, when I see a novel and it’s composed of three or four different episodes, I’m wishing there was a term to put on the cover that would warn me. Here, it works, but not brilliantly. It works by contrast with other novels, as a break from the typical novel structure.

“Good and bad is tricky," she said. "I ain't too certain about where people stand. P'raps what matters is which way you face.”

4. So, it’s a novel, but just. It explores an interesting theme with wonderful humor, but plays heavy towards the humor. The characters feature more complexity than in past works, but are still familiar enough that the question of fan service is present. In all, I thought it was a fun book, a good one, even. But if you’re not into vampires or voodoo, it might not be as gripping for you.

Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them... you could use them, you could change them.

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett

1. This novel gets Pratchett explicitly into post-modern philosophies. He’s again talking about belief, like in Pyramids, and gods. Here he comes down opposite to the idea that “seeing is believing”. In this chicken and egg debate, Pratchett has perceived his answer:

Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse. It may not be able to move mountains, exactly. But it can create someone who can.

People get exactly the wrong idea about belief. They think it works back to front. They think the sequence is, first object, then belief. In fact, it works the other way.

This thought predates Errol Morris’ great philosophical text, Believing is Seeing, and post-dates both Jesus’s comments to his mother in John 11, and the third path of enlightenment in Buddhism. This idea also echoes what Neil Gaiman was writing during this same time period in his comic book The Sandman.

—But these other examples of similar thoughts do not detract from Pratchett’s point here, they merely show that he is not alone in rejecting the idea that seeing leads to believing. The opposite is largely the theme here—though Pratchett also works with alien invasions, corporate consumer culture, identity politics, and a loner integrating into a society:
—This last one sees Death, as Bill Door, trying to understand humans more by living like one. He has beliefs about humans when the novel begins, but he doesn’t understand them fully. And the opportunity to live among them, like them, as one of them, brings him a measure of understanding that carries parts of the novel.
—The wizards don’t believe upon seeing, as a rule. On one hand, they recognize many options of what a single action can mean—which plays out here in the alien invasion and corporate consumerism themes. On the other, this means they’re constantly bickering about everything, and at times the reader knows what the action means and knows their responses are dangerous—which allows for many jokes.
—The identity politics are played up for jokes as dead rights: zombies, werewolves, boogeymen, vampires, etc. But, because this is Pratchett, he also points out positives of identity politics. In a way, this fight for common rights by the dead shows “believing is seeing” in action.
—In other words, these ideas, themes, narrative tropes—they try to come together and create a novel whose simple, three word theme is examined in multiple areas, leading to a consistent thrust for the novel’s point. However, it’s so multifaceted for such a short novel, that the book comes off as more exploration and rumination than a tight, logical path.

It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was too full of the boring and mundane.

2. And that explorative aspect seems closely related to the structure here—which is a straightforward narrative compared to some of his other books, but with many little cul-de-sacs of scenes that delay the thrust of the whole. Like in Moving Pictures, and most of the prior Discworld books, the story wanders between growing from a firm foundation, and pausing to play up some jokes. Where Pratchett is best, the two are indistinguishable—he holds himself back from some jokes to keep the plot moving, while using some jokes to pause the plot and let the reader process some important ideas. In Moving Pictures and here, the story runs away from him and he seems to write plot developments that disagree with his basic philosophical premise.
—I think it is impossible to write anything devoid of meaning—words are designed to convey meaning, after all. However, it’s now a popular approach to try and write stories without morals, or points: just a story and let the reader make up their own minds. But usually, the plot tips the author’s hand. For instance, if a character is a materialist, and they cannot overcome the bad stuff that keeps happening to them, maybe I’ll understand the author as stating that materialism ruins lives. Or if the character always tells the truth and it ends up causing the death of friends, like in some World War II narratives, I’ll see the author as making an argument for lies where they protect one’s friends. In this way, Pratchett’s structures sometimes undercut his larger ideas. It doesn’t so much strike me as lazy writing, as it seems he can’t resist good jokes, even if they subvert his own themes. And he’s about subversion, so it makes sense.

—But another way to look at this nebulous point I’m trying to firm up is that this novel is stuffed full of ideas, and there are too many for the story. I’m not trying to write rules for stories: three to five balls in the air for any short story, one major theme and three minor themes in any novel, etc. Those are ridiculous and create predestined, formulaic writing that makes authors indistinguishable from each other. What I am saying is that this novel has a lot of ideas, and some of them get lost behind others. Dibbler and the snowglobes, the wizards and the shopping carts, or the mall as a monster—this would carry anybody else’s novel. I like that Pratchett bites off too much sometimes, it means that his novels are often worth re-reading. But at the same time, sometimes he bites off too much and can’t handle it all—like both here and Moving Pictures.

Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of going around saying "O great table, without whom we are as naught." Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe in them or not, or exist only as a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.

3. All that said, this is an enjoyable book to read. That’s something Pratchett has never lost sight of: the jokes are solid, the character creation is good, descriptions often come at you sideways, and this all results from solid writing. I might quibble with the story telling from time to time, but the writing is wonderful.

Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.

4. I probably will not return to this book often. I’ve started to realize some of the inconsistency of Pratchett’s series. And though it’s a good book, it’s not great. Though it makes some points I agree with and some I don't, playing both out on a hilarious, engaging stage, I don’t resonate with this novel like I did with Guards! Guards! In some ways, this is probably nearing the end of Pratchett’s first phase, the early, experimental Pratchett. And his later stuff seems more mature and direct. More confident. I look forward to that, though I’m still glad I read this.

Inside Every Living Person is a Dead Person Waiting to Get Out

Heavy Time by CJ Cherryh

1. The book begins with mining partners Bird and Ben stumbling across a distress signal in their Company assigned sector of the solar system’s asteroid belt. Obviously, because so much book comes after this first chapter, they don’t find something simple. Entering a ship identical to their standard, ubiquitous mining craft, they find a man named Dekker—not the only cyber-punk pun in here. Dekker’s physical state requires medical intervention and a quick trip back to home base, Refinery 2. While heading back, they realize Dekker is psychologically broken. Dekker has floated for 71 days with minimal life support after his partner and lover died on a space-walk. Dekker is convinced Cory was run down by another ship, a Driver who was trying to jump their claim. Ben responds to Dekker negatively, taking a typical Belter attitude towards something perceived as inefficient—insanity, in Dekker’s case—and trying to either stop it legally or dispose of it illegally. The inefficiency is what the problem is to Ben, and he sees Dekker's insanity as simply that. At the same time, he convinces himself Dekker’s ship will become his and Bird’s valuable salvage. Bird, being a blue-skyer, a human from earth, responds positively to Dekker, deciding to try and help this poor miner as much as he can. And this set-up, all in the first couple of chapters, introduces the central story elements that the rest of the novel revolves around. Dekker attempting to come back to reality and heal, Bird and Ben trying to get the salvage on his ship, Meg and Sal helping and attempting to secure the first place in line for leasing the potential new ship, and the political intrigue of this very messy situation with the Company, the proto-Mazianni military using the mined materials to build their carriers, the other freelance miners and Shepherds agitating for better conditions and pay, and the diverse political scene within the solar system. Throughout the novel, everybody is piecing together what happened to Dekker, even Dekker, and figuring out how to use his situation to get the Company to screw its employees less. Every chapter or so, Cherryh repeats Dekker’s basic situation and adds a little each time, expanding upon the basic personal trouble of the first couple of chapters to include the wider political context. And as strong as this tactic worked in Merchanter’s Luck, it works brilliantly here. I think it works better because of two reasons: the political context is much wider and more foundational to what the reader probably already knows from other novels, though it is still very much behind the scenes; and the addition of a honest-to-God earthman, Bird, gives the reader a familiar face, a point of reference to understand the rest from. Bird is extremely useful to the reader in this role, especially with Cherryh's tightly focused voice.

2. Kind of like Bet Yeager in Rimrunners, Bird, Ben, Sal, Meg, and Dekker are low-life freelancers, similar to gold miners during the gold rushes. They enjoy dark bars and dangerous living. They're skirting the law and trying to get rich. Where Bet was an ex-soldier, these are career miners. Sal, Dekker, Ben, and Cory want out, want a better life eventually, but while they are in, they embrace the low-lifestyle of the almost criminal underground.
—But the politics, mostly behind the scenes, keep poking influences into their lives. The Shepherds are using Dekker’s situation to try and strongarm the Company into making their employees’ lives better, and they're doing it through Sal, who wants to be a Shepherd. The military uses it as an excuse to take over the Company and restructure it to more efficiently give them the materials they need to build Mazian's fleet. The Company tries to keep it quiet and cover it all up to keep the status quo and their power. All of these influences drive the central five characters in the story, forcing them into situations and repercussions that are unforeseen by these people at the bottom of this chain of command.
—Like Cherryh typically does, the novel matches the story of these characters through word choices which embrace space mining shorthand, scenes which require the characters to respond in ways that only criminals and revolutionaries would, and their ignorance about the political currents which are driving their lives. This tactic of conforming the story and writing to the characters really works wonderfully to make a rigorous and interesting novel. But it also leaves big elements all-but-out of the novel: like the characters, the reader is confused about why certain things are happening until all is revealed in the final chapter.

3. Cherryh utilizes a variety of voices in this novel to define certain classes of people. Meg is a revolutionary and is always deprecating the Company. The miners are no friend of the Company, but they’re more understanding than Meg. Sal and Ben are scientists and end up being more cut-and-dry, talking statistics and logic. The doctors and orderlies have bedside manners that don’t quite communicate clearly. And each smaller group—military, security, traffic control, corp-rats, shepherds—has distinctive characteristics as well. The Corp-Rats speak in precise ways that utilize words from their operating manuals. But Cherryh’s typical tight third person voice also affects dialogue, spitting it at the reader without stopping to explain and leaving the reader to imagine the characters’ responses. This can be confusing at first, but it all eventually makes sense as the characters mull over their situations and explain things the reader may not have gathered at first. However, the variety of voices does help the reader define the speakers in the novel very quickly and efficiently.

4. Dekker’s chapters engage in some experimental writing utilizing fractured sentences and a deeply unreliable narrator to communicate both the story and Dekker’s state of mind. This writing effectively shows and tells simultaneously. The most impressive part is the balance she draws between information and the unreliability of Dekker as narrator. She manages to both communicate and obfuscate simultaneously. It’s fantastic and strange.

5. Because the reader and miners don’t really know what’s going on until the final chapter, the pacing ends up a little slow in the novel. The reader isn’t sure what’s going on for much of the novel, so it raises the question of whether all the scenes add to the characters or story or argument or world-building. That last-chapter reveal explains most of the scenes, but I’m still left with the impression of being lost for much of the novel. For such a short novel, this isn’t too much of a negative, but it does make it drag on a bit.

6. The theme here is Bird’s helpful nature versus Ben’s selfish one. Neither are perfect, but the combination is effective. It’s a microcosm of the political changes the solar system is undergoing at the time, within the story. But it’s applicable to the reader as well, as each of us needs to find our own balance between trying to help or protect oneself to the extent of the law, and allowing forgiveness and helpfulness to temper our actions and open us up to vulnerabilities or to an unrealistically optimistic and trusting way of life. It’s clear that understanding reality is important, but Ben is constantly unsure whether Bird has his head in the clouds or is acting in a safe way among the Belters. Bird’s natural helpfulness is not a problem only when it is tempered by reality, and Ben brings that tempering influence in order to make the whole partnership work well. Similarly, Ben relies too much on the laws and bureaucracy to be a well-liked member of society, but his association with the well-liked Bird helps him overcome this. Together, both will live longer in the Belt than either would being in a partnership with somebody who agrees with them.

7. There is no intro-info-dump here, but the last chapter reveal is moderately annoying—as it is in comic books. In order to avoid it, Cherryh could have spent a lot more words on this story, including characters from other stratas of this society to show the political influences more clearly and keep the reader tracking closer to the plot. But that would have demolished the meandering tone of the novel that, as slow and frustrating as it is, effectively communicates what the life of a space miner on three month shore-leave, known as Heavy Time for the influence of gravity, would be like. I haven’t really seen her try this meandering style of storytelling before, so it’s fun seeing her try something new. I like this novel, but it’s not her best. I think she found the breaking point for her voice where not enough is on-screen to really keep the plot moving. The novel stands on its own well, but by having read some of the others in this series that take place after this novel, this novel is also a fascinating look into a part of the story I hadn't come across yet. Good stuff, not great.