A Song for Lya

A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A story so heartfelt you can forgive the clumsy execution, not least the fact that the title gives away the ending. GRR Martin is suggesting here that the sense of belonging created by a grisly death cult is even stronger than the love between telepaths – that for some people the need to obliterate loneliness in the universe is more important even than their lives as individuals. Ultimately the ideal of love presented in the story is unachievable – real couples cannot read each other’s minds however well they know each other. In the story the cult fills the gap that remains between people, but the protagonist can’t take that step. He, and we, inevitably settle for less in order to retain our sense of self.

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Abercrombie Station

Abercrombie Station by Jack Vance
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The rare Jack Vance story with a female protagonist – women are usually peripheral (and objectified) in his works. Jean is a gold-digger who has to take her clothes off in the very first scene, so the objectification continues, but she is also a femme fatale who has buried a few bodies to survive, and Vance tries to generate some existential pathos to her obsession with getting rich. Ultimately she is about as well-rounded as any other Vance character, which is not very. The story moves in an unexpected and quite scary direction, cleverly subverting the expectation of more salacious content.

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1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: Winner of the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award 2023 by James Shapiro
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absorbing account of a pivotal year in Shakespeare’s career. Shapiro’s aggressively contextualist approach yields plenty of insights, not least a plausible conjecture on the reason behind not featuring Falstaff in Henry V, and possible sources for the development of Hamlet’s interiority. My favourite is the analysis of As You Like It in comparison with Shakespeare’s revision of his sonnets. Like with Year of Lear I hope Shapiro continues in this vein – I nominate 1595 for another project covering the events that surrounded the composition of Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Richard II.

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The Miracle Workers

The Miracle Workers by Jack Vance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The future is for men of cleverness, of imagination untroubled by discipline”

The model for later Vance masterpieces The Dragon Masters and The Last Castle – where medieval lords war with a hive-mind alien race. Here Vance’s sympathies with the aliens is more pronounced, perhaps because they showcase an ingenuity that the humans have forgotten. Some ironic comedy is made of describing the scientific process of trial and error as miracle-working, as opposed to the fantastic psychic capabilities this society has cultivated and has come to rely on. As with the later tales, conflict drives innovation, and here the ending is more hopeful, with the two sides learning from each other and agreeing a stalemate. The Last Castle ends similarly, but I prefer the darker, more apocalyptic The Dragon Masters, where the aliens have the upper hand and the drama of human survival reaches its peak.

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The Last Castle

The Last Castle by Jack Vance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A satire on aristocratic values and a critique of the slavery that upholds them. The class struggle powering the story has a surprisingly harmonious conclusion, with the pampered learning the value of labour and the moral imperative of survival, and the oppressed defeated and carted off to their own planet. Once again Vance’s privileges heroic ingenuity over collective effort. And while he is happy to mock decadent gentlemanly refinement, there is an admiration for the achievements of civilisation made possible by a stratified society.

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The Dragon Masters

The Dragon Masters by Jack Vance
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Cold War tale of human freedom facing up against an alien civilisation that turns humans into mindless slaves, except that the humans turn out to be just as bad. In the struggle between liberty and authority all opportunities must be exploited. A pivotal role is played by the apathetic, hippie-like sacerdotes, whose ideology is a milder reflection of the antagonists, and who await the great powers to destroy themselves so they can instigate a milder civilisation. Vance might be taking aim at the pacifists of his own day, who were unwilling to apply themselves to the struggle of overcoming communism.

This is wildly inventive fantasy that nonetheless reflects the concerns and prejudices of the time in which it was written. None more so than in the depiction of women, who are sidelined to be mothers and objects of male gratification.

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