Saturday, November 18, 2017

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon



  The SF/Fantasy Genre is very often (if not mostly) used by writers to tell stories about real world issues in different frames in order for the writer to address those issues.  For example, the amount of Fantasy or SF Books that feature elements of racism (or similarly, class-ism) as key elements of the plot has got to be extremely high - 5 of the 10 last books I've read have had such plots.  That said, few SF/F books really deal with the brutality of racism in its most primal form -racism/prejudice/oppression may be central elements of those books, but the true horrors of these issues is often kept at a remove from the reader.  Perhaps the authors of these books wish not to make their books too brutal to read or in many cases simply finds that to do so would detract from the story they wish to tell. 

   Then there are books like An Unkindness of Ghosts, which not only feature the horrors of racism/sexism/oppression at the forefront, but makes absolutely no effort to lighten the topic for the reader.  This is a brutal book, which opens with the main character having to amputate a little girl's leg due to the living conditions imposed upon the Black underclass by the ruling White powers, and only gets more brutal from there.  An Unkindness of Ghosts is in no way a read that can be characterized as "fun."

  However, it is absolutely a WORTHWHILE read, maybe even an ESSENTIAL one.  It's a book that essentially translates the horrors of slavery/plantation life/racism to a scifi world - well, Generation Ship - to form a truly terrifying but impactful story.  If you're looking for a fun story, this isn't your book, but if you're looking for a book that is simply powerful....this might be the most worthwhile read of the year.

(If you couldn't guess from this type of description, trigger warnings certainly apply to this book - rape, abuse, and beatings are all parts of this story, but they're essential to the tale.)  

More after the Jump, where I'll try to not babble - sorry, a review of this type of book is difficult.

-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
Far in the Future, the Generation Ship Matilda flies through space on a journey whose purpose has long since been forgotten.  The Ship is separated into decks, with the upper class White residents living in the upper decks, while the Black lower class residents reside in the lower decks.  The White Upper Class does not simply rule the Matilda, they oppress the lower deck residents, by forcing them to labor for the benefit of them all; by redirecting power and heat when there are unexpected shortages to the  upper decks; and of course by beating and abusing the lower deck residents when they take actions against the upper class religion (such as by not fitting into gender norms and heterosexuality).  Of course, often times the beatings and abuse is not driven by any reason at all, other than the need for horrible people to abuse their powers.

Aster is a black woman who lives in the lower decks who has always seemed a bit strange to others.  Her mother worked with the Baby Sun that gives power to the Matilda before seemingly committing suicide right after Aster's birth, leaving Aster only with a radiation detector that doesn't seem to work, and a number of journals that are filled with mad ravings.  Aster found herself as she grew up growing plants and combining what she could find into medicines, and somehow caught the attention of the famous Surgeon Theo, the bastard mixed-race son of a former leader of Matilda.  Since getting to know him, Aster has spent her life trying to help the people of the Lower Decks with her medicinal knowledge, with her only friend being an incredibly traumatized girl named Giselle she thinks of as a sister.

 But when the current leader or Sovereign of Matilda begins dying from a mysterious illness, it seems the next man expected to be Sovereign is the one known as Lieutenant, a man who not only seeks to brutally repress those who don't match his ideal standards, but has a particular hatred for Aster.   It all looks like things will somehow only get worse, but when Giselle finds a secret hidden within Aster's mothers journals, Aster desperately acts to uncover what her mother's ghost is trying to guide her to in the hopes of finding something better.  But Aster's actions will take her farther and farther away from the proscribed conduct for the Black Lower Deck residents, and may subject not only her, but her companions and shipmates to awful awful consequences.  Is there anything she can do to make it worth it?
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An Unkindness of Ghosts is for the most part (25 of 28 chapters) told entirely from the perspective of Aster, a Black Queer woman who certainly seems to be on the autism spectrum.  Given that the leaders of the ship are not just racist, but homophobic and completely unaccepting of non-conformity, the abuse she suffers both in her past but in the book itself is incredibly horrifying.  The same is also true of her closest friend, Giselle, who has been so abused that she's basically shellshocked to the very idea of living itself, and even to a lesser extent to the Surgeon, Theo, who may be considered an upper deck individual with privileges, but still faces abuse for being queer.  Beatings and Whippings, Sexual Abuse, and worse are events perpetrated by the Guards and people in power in this book, and it does make this a hard book to read, especially if you try to read quickly.

But again, these acts are never gratuitous, and never feel anything but essential to the story.  This is not the story of a person with a vision of hope in a world of oppression and darkness (to pull a comparison, this is not Parable of the Sower/Talents) - as Aster is not the type of person to come up with a long term vision.  She's incredibly smart, and characters can count on her to react with short term plans to try and do the best for everyone.  But she's also incredibly impulsive and haunted by the ghosts of her mother and others in the past, and a large part of this book is her stumbling from situation to situation, not really knowing what to do.

But while this could've resulted in an aimless story in another author's hands, it really works here to guide the story along.  And the three chapters from the side characters' POVs all feel like natural looks into the psyches of these characters who are important to Aster's life, explaining with a short glimpse their actions during the rest of the book.

The ending is extremely well setup (with minor point I'll discuss below), and everything about this book feels earned.  I'm not one who particularly likes grimdark literature, but while I was frequently gasping at the horrors imposed upon the characters in this book, the story is so incredibly realized, and the characters feel so real, that I couldn't help keep reading.  Easily one of the most powerful books I've read all year.

If the book has any flaws, it's that the setup sometimes almost gets too literal in terms of how it transplants the antebellum south to a generation ship - there's one scene in which an upper deck woman finds herself lost in the below deck fields and Aster gets in trouble for refusing to help her, and I couldn't help but think about why the woman was there in the stratified ship which should easily keep her away from such an area (unlike a real plantation).  And the ending features the main character having to make several final guesses as to her mother's intentions/planning (involving a passcode) which I don't really think worked or really was necessary.

But again, this is an incredibly powerful book using the SciFi Genre to tell a devastating story about a struggle against horrible racism and oppression - if your constitution is up to such a book, this is as close to a Must Read as you can get.
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