Children of God / Mary Doria Russell / 1998 / 436 pp

This novel is vast and sweeping but I found it ultimately unsatisfying. I liked the sci-fi aspects of the plot: Jesuits and scientists travel on a mission of goodwill to a newly discovered planet inhabited by two intelligent species. Jesuits supply $, scientists supply brains. The species turn out to be preying on each other, and the humans' interference is totally misread, resulting in the last surviving member of the expedition, a priest, being physically mutilated and repeatedly raped by the dominant species (by the aliens' account, this is not a bad thing; he requested he be treated as a "alien noun we had heard them using and thought meant visiting dignitary" but that actually means "i submit to being your slave, mutilate me and rape me to show me that you own me", so hey, he asked for it). The priest is eventually rescued and travels back to Earth, where the Jesuits force him to be their linguist. He's the only one who knows the alien languages; the Jesuits want to use him to gain economic power in the trade relationship.

Anyway the most of the novel is dedicated to Jesuit priesthood minutiae, memories of rape which the priest cannot get rid of, and attempts by the priest to get out of working with the aliens. He gets kidnapped and taken back to the planet by nefarious humans, but when he gets there (16 years later), it turns out that the final member of the original expedition is not dead but has been adopted by the lower species and fomenting revolution amongst them, and they've taken to arms and defeated the dominant species, killing enough of them that they cannot survive for more than a few generations before becoming hopelessly inbred.

Basically, 130 pages of rape memories, 130 pages of anguish about being kidnapped, 130 pages of theological nimmer-nammer, then 10 pages of "oh yeah, those 400 pages of exposition and plot you just finished? Never mind; the people who tortured him are dead and their descendants are doomed." Thank me for saving you several hours of reading.

Universe 14 / edited by Terry Carr/ 1984 / 182 pp

A collection of short sci-fi which I have read before (tragedy!). Nothing particularly remarkable. pat Murphy's Art in the War Zone is more poignant on the second read.

Best American Short Stories 2009/ edited by Alice Sebold/ 2009/ 314 pp

I love this series and was anxiously awaiting its newest edition. Alice Sebold's introduction is so positive and inspiring that I want to read more by her. Almost all the stories were outstanding, but my favorites were Daniel Alarcon; Steve De Jarnatt (heroin addict trapped in hurricane katrina!); Joseph Epstein; Eleanor Henderson; Ethan Rutherford.

The Gate to Women's Country / Sheri S. Tepper / 1988 / 278pp

I read this first in 09 but it's a twist novel (as in, the whole story goes along, then in the last 40 pages you learn something intriguing about the society in which it is set which makes you want to re-read the whole thing looking for clues). So, on my clue expedition I discovered that Tepper isn't nearly as good a writer as she is a storyteller (or perhaps I do not have the encyclopedic knowledge of the Trojan War and related art which is a major theme in the book). There aren't enough clues to guess the twist in the book. She hints at it enough that you know something is up, but there's no way to gather enough info about the twist to learn the real secret.

The story, however, is wonderful. It is the future and society as we know it has destroyed the world, ridding it with radiation hotspots. A group of women have begun running daughtertowns (named "Mollyburg," Emmaville," etc.) and in these walled towns everyone is devoted to survival and knowledge; most of their poetry/art is pulled from Greek classic theatre, but they subvert all the tropes so that the women's sorrow is at the forefront (instead of men's heroic victories). All men-- except those willing to submit to women's rule as houseservants-- live in ultra-vicious "garrisons," supposedly in existence to guard the towns, but in reality the women are controlling everything, secretly. The method of this control is the twist so I haven't given away anything major here. The world she has created is internally consistent and you actually care about the people in her novel and kind of feel bad for them living in such a crap place. Despite the lack of twist-clues, it's an amazing novel.

Popular Music from Vittula / Mikael Niemi / 2003 / 237pp

This book was pretty OK, not as great as I expected given the number of awards it won according to the jacket copy. It's a pretty decent growing-up story, has some nice fantastical elements which make it work out well (a kid hides from his captors in an abandoned boiler, no one finds him for years, until he gets big enough to physically break apart the boiler and free himself-- nice adolescence allegory and advances the story in the novel as well!) and is pretty enjoyable. It's imbued with a wistfulness that makes it a little bit of a bummer overall, though.

Soy La Avon Lady and other stories / Lorraine Lopez / 2002 / 238 pp

Yet another connected-yet-not-connected short story collection. Lopez is a younger writer and it is refreshing to see a new take on some of these themes (the usual: love, life, duality/multiplicity of roles).

Stella Dallas / Olivia Higgins Prouty / pp240 / 1937 (?)

Don't have the book here so can't see the publication date. there as a movie version made in 1937 so i'll use that as a placeholder date. this book was great; like an edith wharton transplanted into the 1920s. stella dallas is a social climber who makes the ultimate sacrifice (in her eyes): marrying a man she loathes, in order to force her daughter to hate her, in order to force her daughter to have a life of priviledge, the likes of which stella always wanted for herself but that she was unable to construct. stella blames this on her family's lack of support of her dream of 'being somebody,' but Prouty shows us enough of stella's life that the reader may well question whether this is true. some especially telling scenes, like the description of the summer-house she built and her artful (perhaps-- or seen through?) habit of bringing every date back to the place and sitting in the exact, pre-calculated spot to look the most cunning, or her lack of understanding of the difference between company and good company in the case of the slimy Mr. Harris, lead me to believe that perhaps stella tried too hard; i can definitely feel sympathy for her outcast status and see echoes of my own behavior in her sometimes-painful attempts to ingratiate herself and her child into the lives of the aimless rich.

lots of great themes at play here: mother-daughter-stepmother, rejection/love, construct of one's self versus what others perceive, how social forces invade our lives and force us to shape our lives to fit them (and find ourselves in interesting places, where hate can be the ultimate expression of love). women struggling with liberation and feminism thrust upon them when they did not want it vs. the women who want to be liberated but cannot be; what is the nature of liberation (submittal to unknown expectations or fulfilling stated expectations?). it was pulpy and silly and flirty and lite, but when examined, has a lot more going on beneath the surface.