Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.I read The Odyssey in college. I’d been aware of it before then, in that way any bright teen reader is: one runs into its figures here and there or else the whole thing gets boiled down into a chapter in a book on Greek mythology. (I believe I’d also seen it referenced in Ray Harryhausen movies.)
I read it for a class, one of the brief ones squeezed in between semesters, a one-credit class called On the Road, which focused on (naturally enough) stories of the road, including Kerouac’s book.
What: The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus as he makes his way back through a series of dangerous encounters to his wife Penelope, who is facing off dangers of her own at home.
Who: Anyone who wants to be familiar with one of the fountains so many stories, in so many art forms, are drawn from should read this.
Why: Because it’s a classic. It’s good for you AND it’s a really good story.
When: Read it when you want to return to the bones of writing. Read it in conjunction with Robert Grave’s Homer’s Daughter, which posits a different author for it.
Where and how: Read it aloud, the way it’s meant to be heard. Read it in one of the many good translations that treat it like the poetry it is, such as Robert Fitzgerald’s. Or if you’re privileged enough to know ancient Greek, let it sing to you in that form.
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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."
~K. Richardson
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You Should Read This: The True Game Trilogy by Sherri S. Tepper
I first encountered this series in the late 70s, while a teen, and it hooked me to the point where I’ll always note a Sheri S. Tepper book coming out, even though some have gotten a little didactic. But this series? Not only is it is awesome, but it interlocks with two other trilogies set in the same world and with many of the same characters.
While The True Game Trilogy starts in what seems to be a fantasy world, where different people manifest different Talents that play off each other in a massive societal game. Protagonist Peter is part of a school that teaches its students how to play the game, and part of the joy of the book is the detail with which the game is worked out:
“Talisman,” I blurted. “Talisman to King’s Blood Four.”
“Good.” Gervaise actually smiled. “Now, tell me why?”
“Because our side can’t see what pieces may be hiding behind the King. Because Talisman is an absorptive piece, that is, it will soak up the King’s play. Totem is reflective. Totem would splash it around, we’d maybe lost some pieces…”
“Exactly. Now, students, visualize if you please. We have King, most durable of the adamants, whose ‘blood,’ that is, essence, is red light.Demons, most powerful of the ephemera, whose essence is shadow. Tragamors making barriers at the sides of the Demesne. The player is a student, without power, so he plays Talisman, an absorptive piece of the lesser ephemera. Talisman is lost in play, ‘sacrificed’ as we say. THe player gains nothing by this,but neither does he lose much, for with this play the Demesne is changed, and the game moves elsewhere in the purlieu.”
Peter thinks himself Talent-less but when it does emerge, it leads to danger connected to the secrets around Peter’s birth.
The magic system is lovely, there’s two strong female characters in the form of Jillian and Mavin Manyshaped,ach of whom gets her own later trilogy (with its own version of earlier events), the characters are engaging and/or often disturbing, and the plot is nicely put together, slowly shifting over to reveal itself to actually be science fiction.
There are others of Tepper’s works that I’d recommend — I adore the Marianne series, for one, and I reread Grass on a regular basis, as well as The Gate to Women’s Country. But this series was my gateway to Tepper and as such it has a pull for me above all the rest. If you want to know more about Tepper hereself, here’s an interview she did with Neal Szpatura for Strange Horizons in 2008 and an interview with John Scalzi.
You Should Read This: The Birthday Problem by Caren Gussoff
Ever wondered what it would be like to wander through plague-ridden Seattle in the future? This book’s a good approximation.In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that Caren’s a close friend. But beyond that The Birthday Problem is terrific SF, and a great example of interweaving narratives that is a) highly enjoyable to read and b) highly instructive to take a look at.
The Birthday Problem of the title is a common mathematical puzzle: find the probability that, in a group of N people, there is at least one pair of people who have the same birthday. (Hint: it’s a much lower number than you think. You can find out more about it on Wikipedia if you want to understand why.) The book is about odd ties and coincidences, set in a crumbling Seattle in a world plagued by nanobots that make people crazy.
Why’s it instructive to take a look at? Because Gussoff confronts two problems that speculative writers often face. The first is a complicated scientific or mathematical concept, like the birthday problem, which the reader needs to understand. Gussoff manages to convey it to the reader with no “As you know, Bob” or overly pedantic moments.
The second is that it’s constructed in a way that is incredibly hard to do: overlapping points of view, and plenty of them. When you switch POVs, you bounce the reader out of the story just a little, and Gussoff does it in a way that swiftly gathers the reader back in.
I like to include a beginning chunk of the book I’m discussing to show you what the author’s prose style as well as what they set. Here’s the first three paragraphs from The Birthday Problem:
Chaaya wasn’t surprised when she woke up and saw lips aimed directly over her face. It was beginning. It’d been just a matter of time.
It begins with one, good solid hallucination.
That was how it had happened to her Nani.This is how it would happen to her.
Gussoff also makes the most of her setting in a way that will delight Seattleites. There’s a joy to imagining Pike Place Market as a post-apocalytic trading post or the SF Museum hosting a cadre led by an aging rock musician.
If you’re interested in more of Gussoff’s work, she’s got a novella appearing this January from Aqueduct Press, Three Songs for Roxy. Its main character is an alien raised by Romany, and Gussoff draws on her own heritage to create a realistic, unromantic, and absolutely appealing narrative.
