Rosenblum, Mary - Horizons
Mon, Sep. 17th, 2007 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterAhni Huang is searching for whoever killed her twin brother Xai when she stumbles into Dane Nilsson, secret political activist and protector of what seems to be a mutant strain of humans. Given that the only crime punishable by death in the world is the mixing of human and non-human DNA, Dane's been trying to keep aforementioned mutants away from the public eye.
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in this book. First, almost everyone we meet is multiracial -- Dane may be the whitest person in the book. I think he's majority European, with some black and American Indian mixed in. And Ahni is part-Taiwanese!!!! This made me very excited. I also liked that Asian culture was very clearly "normal" in the places in the book -- Taiwan (!!!!!), the US colony NYUp.
I have to admit, I twinged a bit at the Chinese people in the book; people will talk in the very formal, flowery language that I swear all fictional Chinese people talk in. And admittedly, formal Chinese is very hard to translate and to get a feel for, and it ends up sounding extremely flowery and effusive in English because you can pack huge amounts of meaning in four-word phrases. But I'm just tired of formal, ritualistic, hierarchical Chinese people. Also, I had real problems figuring out how Chinese culture of now ends up being like how it is in the book -- there are several ruling families, ergo the hierarchy and formality. We don't really get much of a look at other cultures, though, so it's hard to compare. I am handwaving in my head and pretending that all businesses have turned into family oligopolies and have this sort of weird formal structure.
That said, the above criticism really were just twinges. The villainy of a few of the Chinese characters would normally be enough to chuck a book at a wall, but because Rosenblum took such care in making her world multiracial and multicultural, because Ahni was the heroine, because Rosenblum took the time to develop other Asian characters as well, it was fine by me. And I would be a little squiffy with an Asian heroine hooking up with someone named "Dane Nilsson," except Rosenblum very much establishes that Dane is multiracial and Ahni goes to his rescue several times. I was also amazed when I put down the book and realized that I only remembered two white characters with speaking parts -- one was the president of the US, who comes in for a page and doesn't do much, and one is a man on a committee, who also doesn't do much.
The best thing is all of this is mostly in the background of the book. Some bits are a bit awkward; Rosenblum basically gives you every single person's racial breakdown. Sometimes this broke me out of the story, sometimes it didn't, and it did serve to remind me that even though the main conflict was about what is "human," racial Othering wasn't completely erased from Ahni's world.
Also, did I mention Taiwan? And that Ahni is from Taiwan? And that Taiwan is in a book?
I was very excited about this! I did want more details about how things came to be -- like, did China not bomb the living daylights out of Taiwan when it became independent in this world? Again, it was a bit weird, like the Chinese business families, because it felt more like a Taiwan that had evolved from some historical period, as opposed to modern Taipei in the future, but whatever. Taiwan!
And, acknowledgement of different accents of Mandarin and Taiwanese! And differentiation between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese! Wow, it's like China isn't actually a monolith, what an idea!
The plot didn't grab me as much as I wanted, but that's what usually happens when I read SF. Still, I am glad I read this just because Taiwan! World full of POC! Amazing!
I really enjoyed the worldbuilding in this book. First, almost everyone we meet is multiracial -- Dane may be the whitest person in the book. I think he's majority European, with some black and American Indian mixed in. And Ahni is part-Taiwanese!!!! This made me very excited. I also liked that Asian culture was very clearly "normal" in the places in the book -- Taiwan (!!!!!), the US colony NYUp.
I have to admit, I twinged a bit at the Chinese people in the book; people will talk in the very formal, flowery language that I swear all fictional Chinese people talk in. And admittedly, formal Chinese is very hard to translate and to get a feel for, and it ends up sounding extremely flowery and effusive in English because you can pack huge amounts of meaning in four-word phrases. But I'm just tired of formal, ritualistic, hierarchical Chinese people. Also, I had real problems figuring out how Chinese culture of now ends up being like how it is in the book -- there are several ruling families, ergo the hierarchy and formality. We don't really get much of a look at other cultures, though, so it's hard to compare. I am handwaving in my head and pretending that all businesses have turned into family oligopolies and have this sort of weird formal structure.
That said, the above criticism really were just twinges. The villainy of a few of the Chinese characters would normally be enough to chuck a book at a wall, but because Rosenblum took such care in making her world multiracial and multicultural, because Ahni was the heroine, because Rosenblum took the time to develop other Asian characters as well, it was fine by me. And I would be a little squiffy with an Asian heroine hooking up with someone named "Dane Nilsson," except Rosenblum very much establishes that Dane is multiracial and Ahni goes to his rescue several times. I was also amazed when I put down the book and realized that I only remembered two white characters with speaking parts -- one was the president of the US, who comes in for a page and doesn't do much, and one is a man on a committee, who also doesn't do much.
The best thing is all of this is mostly in the background of the book. Some bits are a bit awkward; Rosenblum basically gives you every single person's racial breakdown. Sometimes this broke me out of the story, sometimes it didn't, and it did serve to remind me that even though the main conflict was about what is "human," racial Othering wasn't completely erased from Ahni's world.
Also, did I mention Taiwan? And that Ahni is from Taiwan? And that Taiwan is in a book?
I was very excited about this! I did want more details about how things came to be -- like, did China not bomb the living daylights out of Taiwan when it became independent in this world? Again, it was a bit weird, like the Chinese business families, because it felt more like a Taiwan that had evolved from some historical period, as opposed to modern Taipei in the future, but whatever. Taiwan!
And, acknowledgement of different accents of Mandarin and Taiwanese! And differentiation between Northern Chinese and Southern Chinese! Wow, it's like China isn't actually a monolith, what an idea!
The plot didn't grab me as much as I wanted, but that's what usually happens when I read SF. Still, I am glad I read this just because Taiwan! World full of POC! Amazing!
(no subject)
Mon, Sep. 17th, 2007 11:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Sep. 18th, 2007 05:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Wed, Sep. 19th, 2007 12:10 am (UTC)Someone seems to be trying to mess up platform-earth relations by fanning the flames of independence in the platforms and provoking violent riots and the like that make the earth countries want to send troops up there. Ahni gets mixed in the middle of this, along with Dane, who's one of the key advocates for independence for the platforms.
Er. And then there are lots of chase scenes and Ahni helps Dane out and my brain sort of loses track of the plot here. It's not bad plot! It's just my usual disinterest with thriller-type plots.
(no subject)
Wed, Sep. 19th, 2007 07:05 am (UTC)