Tuesday, March 6, 2018

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory





Spoonbenders is perhaps the most surprising book to be named a Nebula nominee for Best Novel - not because of the book's quality, but because as far as I can tell, it sort of slipped under the radar of the places and people who usually recommend SF/F.  So it was the only Nebula nominee this year that I hadn't read prior to the nominations, which is why I'm just getting to it now.  And well, it's certainly a quality book, with some pretty nice high points.   Is it Best Novel worthy? I wouldn't say so, but it's not the worst of the books nominated by a long shot.

Spoonbenders is a modern "fantasy" book in the sense that it features a world where people with psychic powers exist.  The story bounces around the points of view of the Telemachus family, a family of psychics with various powers, and also bounces around between the "present day" (the story is set in 1995) and the 1960s/70s.  It's a story that's told with bits of humor interspersed throughout, although the book is definitely not a comedy (I mention this because Amazon has it listed under "Humor" and "Satire", which is definitely wrong).

More in depth after the jump:


----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
In the 1960s, the Telemachus family were a family of psychics - father Teddy, a con-man, mother Maureen, a multi-talented psychic, daughter Irene, the human lie detector, and sons Frankie, the telekinetic - who may have done some work for the US Government, while also interacting with the Chicago mob.  But when the family tries to go on the road to use their abilities to get fame and fortune, their lives come crashing down when a skeptic seems to expose them as frauds on National TV.

In 1995, the remains of the family try to live out their lives, with their abilities being more of a burden than a benefit.  Maureen is long dead, Teddy is trying to use his con-man skills to meet women, Frankie is desperate for the old days and in debt to the Chicago mob and Irene is a single parent and miserably alone, as she can't maintain a relationship when she always knows when the other party is lying.

And then there's Buddy, who is mostly mute since the National TV Show, who has seen a future in a few months time where everything will come to a head, and a showdown will arrive between the family, the mob, and the US Government.  It may all come down to the actions of the latest in the family to show powers - Irene's son Matty, who discovers upon certain situations that he has the power of astral projection - for the family to find themselves in a more pleasant future...instead of one where they all meet their end.
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Spoonbenders is structured in such a way that it becomes obvious that the book is building toward a big climax from near the beginning, with every few chapters taking place in a specified month (although they include flashbacks) until the climax on the predicted date.  Each chapter takes place from a different family member's point of view, alternating between Matty, Irene, Frankie, Buddy and Teddy.

And three of these five are really interesting characters - Matty, Irene, and Buddy.  Matty's probably the closest thing to a main protagonist, and once you get over his creepy original way of triggering his powers (getting aroused to thoughts of his cousin, which the book thankfully acknowledges is creepy and plays for humor), he's a pretty interesting character, who's trying to find his way with his messed up family.  Irene though was probably my favorite character (Buddy is close) and her arc is honestly the strongest of any of the family members and most easy to empathize with - and one of her chapters includes a scene which is just spectacular.  And Buddy's tragic story of having to deal with knowing the future at all times is also extremely well done, which is hard to do for a character that is at times essentially omniscient.

Even the fourth main POV character - Teddy, is interesting, and the book does a good job of using him to tell the story of the family's Matriarch Maureen, from whom all the rest of the family inherited their powers.  I'm not sure his present day story worked as well, but it was still okay honestly.  And the book manages to come together into an incredibly satisfying climax and ending.  And while the book is not a comedy, it interweaves humor in and out to make it so that the book, which deals with some very serious topics (depression and loneliness for one), is never too dark.

That said, you'll note I've only listed four of the five main characters as positives.  The fifth, Frankie, really didn't work for me, and just got on my nerves.  It's easy to understand what the author was going for - Frankie is messed up by his childhood experiences, wants to be like his dad without understanding what his dad (not a great father) was doing, and constantly tries to take bad risks to get ahead, only for it to keep backfiring.  And the author does a good job explaining how Frankie got this way (an incident caused by his brother did not help) - but he's still written in such a way as to honestly be annoying more than anything, especially as compared with the more rational rest of the family.  The character who constantly fucks things up is a classic trope, but I don't really think it worked here.

In addition, while the climax works incredibly well, the plot starts VERY slowly.  You can sort of see where some things are going early on (the book does NOT try to hide it), but the book takes a long time to develop it.  I was tempted early on to stop reading further, but the book got better just quickly enough to prevent me from putting it down.

Again, I liked 4 of the 5 main characters and there are some definite highlights in Spoonbenders.  So it's definitely an enjoyable book, even if it wouldn't be near my list of Best Novel nominees.  Worth a read.
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