Monday, February 11, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Book of M by Peng Shepherd




The idea of what memories really mean to us and how much memories make each of us who we are is a fascinating idea that more than a few genre books have explored.  For example, Bethany Morrow's "Mem" deals with this very issue, and is a fascinating book to read (my review of that book can be found here).   The Book of M is another book that deals with this idea, through a supernatural plague that strips people of their shadows and then causes them to feel a pull toward forgetting, a pull which is harder and harder to resist.  It's an interesting concept in theory.

In execution, The Book of M is.......not good.  The book follows the paths of four main characters, but one character is clearly the lead, and when the characters converge, he takes center stage and the others start to orient themselves around him - which is annoying because he's not only the least interesting, he's also incredibly unlikable.  And the plot verges on outright silliness at times, culminating in an ending that might've had the biggest WTF moment I've had in a long time.

Yeah, I recommend skipping The Book of M and seeking the examination of the idea of how memories define us elsewhere.  But if you want to know more, after the jump I'll go a bit more in detail.

Note: I read this as an audiobook, which has two readers: a male reader for most of the story, whenever it's narrated by three of the four major characters and a female reader for the fourth major character.  The male reader (James Fouhey) is....only okay, and reads in a way that is kind of dry, but the female reader (Emily Woo Zeller) is very good and actually seems to more act out the feelings of the character she's narrating.  So reading this in audiobook instead of print (if you don't take my advice and skip this one) is not a bad idea.


-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------
In a near future, a strange phenomenon starts to occur in places around the world.  Beginning with a single man in India, that man, and then soon others unconnected to him in India find themselves without a shadow (or "Shadowless").  And while this phenomenon at first seems like just a global curiosity, it soon becomes clear it is merely the first sign of a horror: as every person who loses their shadow starts losing their memories.  To make it worse, the phenomenon is spreading - seen next in South America, and then in the US and soon all around the World, with seemingly no way to stop it.  And when the Shadowless develop strange powers to warp the world around them as part of their forgetting, the world itself falls into a state of utter collapse.

Orlando "Ory" Zhang and his wire Max have spent the past year hiding in a hotel outside Arlington...but one day Max's shadow disappears.  Hoping to try and save her memories, Ory gives her a tape recorder to record her thoughts each day, but one day Ory returns home to find Max gone.  Fearing Max has forgotten him and has left their shelter out of confusion, Ory goes off to search for her, but what he finds is that while they were shut away, the world has became even more strange and terrifying than he could imagine.

Meanwhile Max actually ran away voluntarily, to spare Ory the grief of seeing her rot away with her memories decaying.  Recording her travels in the tape recorder as a dialogue to Ory, she joins up with a crew of other Shadowless in an RV going to New Orleans, a place where there is rumored to be a person - "The One Who Gathers" - who could possibly cure the Shadowless, and can return the world to a semblance of order.  But as Max and her new friends' memories continue fading and they encounter the dangerous remains of this world, will there be anything left of her or them to save by the time they get to New Orleans...if they can even get there at all?
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Let's try to lead this review - as I usually do - with the good.  The Book of M essentially tells the story from four alternating points of view: that of Ory, Max, Mahnaz "Naz" Ahmadi, and "The One Who Gathers."  Ory's and Max's portions of the plot (particularly Ory's) are the primary storylines, but Naz and The One Who Gathers have their own stories which function to illustrate how the world changed since the first Shadow was lost and their own paths that the book follows.  And for the most part, especially prior to their plotlines intersecting with that of Ory, Naz and The One Who Gathers, the non-Ory storylines are interesting and well written, and their central protagonists are sympathetic and easy to root for.

The problem is that the moment Ory comes into the picture in any storyline - not just his own, but Naz's and then later The One Who Gathers's stories - everything starts to revolve around Ory, to an almost laughable degree.  And the problem is that Ory is AWFUL.  Our first impressions of Ory, from his own and Max's point of view are that he's spent the last year and a half since the shadow apocalypse happened basically controlling Max and her life and forcing Max to remain inside while he occasionally goes out to scavenge for food and supplies.  When Max suggested leaving at one point with friends to look for family, she finds out that he went behind her back and arranged for those friends to leave while she was distracted so that she couldn't have that option (it doesn't help that his and Max's pre-apocalypse interactions are basically only alluded to and never seen).  And this is presented as him being a loving endearing character!  Meanwhile in the present storyline Ory is often whiny and obsessed over searching for Max over everything else, which is maybe believable but just makes him annoying especially given what he did to Max for the past year plus.

And again, everything begins to revolve around Ory as soon as he gets into the picture.  Naz has her own storyline of how she was training for the Olympics in Archery and escaped Boston with her sister, but somehow begins to fall for Ory (and vice versa) the moment their paths cross - and how that relationship plays out is just - good lord.*

*Spoiler in ROT13:  Nsgre nyy gurve wbhearlvat, Anm naq Bel svanyyl trg gbtrgure va n ebbz va Arj Beyrnaf, naq nf gurl ynl gbtrgure va orq, Bel guvaxf.....Znk, jub ur guvaxf vf qrnq.  Ur'f va orq jvgu nabgure jbzna naq ur'f guvaxvat nobhg uvf qrnq jvsr.  JGS.  Naq gura va gur raq, jryy, yrg zr trg gb gung va n frpbaq

And well, the worldbuilding is rather hit or miss.  The reality warping power of misremembering is actually rather done well, as his the horrors of people forgetting things in Max's story.  But this book seems to assume that the world would go to shit at an INCREDIBLY quick pace with things going from normal to Martial Law to Apocalypse in a span of like a week, and it didn't really work at all for me.  Similarly, there's a major shift in The One Who Gathers' story in between the 3rd and 4th acts which is essentially just an unelaborated time jump that makes the change in the status quo just feel unearned and random.  It's bizarre.

And then there's the ending.  The book's ending.  The second to last chapter had a major plot twist pulled so out of thin air it just made me crack the hell up - it takes a moment the reader has been primed to anticipate for basically the ENTIRE book and just decides to say "Nope, I faked you out!"  And then, rather than deal with the implications of that for the main characters, the book never goes back to their points of view, and has a quick recap instead.  It's just.....GOOD GOD, why.

*Spoiler in ROT13 because this needs to be talked about: Bxnl yrg zr dhvpxyl ynl bhg gur raqvat sbe gubfr bs lbh jub jnag gb frr fcbvyref.  Jr'ir fcrag gur ragver obbx rkcrpgvat Znk naq Bel gb pbairetr svanyyl ba Arj Beyrnaf gb erhavgr, be ng yrnfg sbe Bel gb bognva ure gncr erpbeqre gb svaq bhg jung unccraf gb ure.  Jura Bel trgf gb Arj Beyrnaf, vg vf abgrq gung gurer unf orra bayl bar crefba jub n funqbj unf orra ernggnpurq gb, naq gur ernqre nofbyhgryl xabjf vg unf gb or Znk - ohg Bel qbrfa'g svaq gung bhg orpnhfr va n uvynevbhf gjvfg, Bel fgnegf tbvat ol uvf ynfg anzr zvqjnl guebhtu gur obbx naq fb gur bar punenpgre jub xabjf bs gur Bel-Znk pbaarpgvba qbrfa'g znxr gur pbaarpgvba uvzfrys gvyy gur arne irel raq.  Ohg svanyyl, Bel xabjf, gung gur gncr erpbeqrq pnzr nggnpurq gb n jbzna jub Gur Bar Jub Tnguref jnf noyr gb nggnpu n funqbj gb, onfrq hcba gur erpbeqvatf.

Nf n erfhyg bs guvf ol gur jnl, Anm yrnirf Bel urnegoebxra, jura fur'f qbar abguvat jebat, naq Bel qbrfa'g gel gb svk gur fvghngvba (orpnhfr ur'f na nffubyr).  Ohg naljnl, onpx gb gung va n frpbaq:

Fb Bel tbrf gb erhavgr jvgu Znk....rkprcg gur crefba jub unq Znk'f funqbj ernggnpurq gb ure VFA'G Znk, ohg va n pbzcyrgr uvynevbhf snxr-bhg jnf Hefhyn, gur qevire bs gur perj Znk wbhearlrq jvgu gb Arj Beyrnaf, jub nccneragyl cvpxrq hc ure gncr erpbeqre.  Unun, sbbyrq gur ernqre!

Abj, gur vqrn bs jung znxrf n crefba - gurve zrzbevrf be fbzrguvat ryfr - PBHYQ unir orra rkcyberq ol guvf, nf lbh unir n jbzna abj jvgu gur zrzbevrf bs fbzrbar ryfr naq abar bs ure bja.  Gung pbhyq or na vagrerfgvat vqrn!  Ohg gur obbx vafgrnq whfg unf n dhvpx erpnc bs ubj fur srryf naq jung'f unccrarq sebz ure cbvag bs ivrj naq raqf.  Gung'f vg.  Naq gur obbx arire ergheaf gb Bel be Anm'f cbvagf bs ivrj gb frr gurve ernpgvbaf, jvgu Anm onfvpnyyl whfg yrsg va gur zbfg njxjneq haqrfreirq cbfvgvba rire.  Unun, rirelbar'f zvfrenoyr, ohg gur jbeyq vf xvaq bs fnirq!

Jung na njshy raqvat.

Yeah, don't read this book.  Good lord.
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