What I'm Reading (All Systems Red)

 Not actually reading these two... (Thank you, Kirsten, for Plague from Outer Space).
A topic for the centuries...

 

A couple days ago, I went through the sliding heap of books next to my bed, shelved all the books I haven't started, and left these, the ones I've started but haven't finished.

Since then, I finished Martha Well's All Systems Red (above, top row center)--read it all up in a day.

Best fiction I've read in ages. I recommend it, even if you don't usually care for sci-fi.
It's a mystery/adventure story told from the pov of an AI -- a deadly security unit (SecUnit) owned by a corporation, who just wants to be left alone to watch its favorite space/soap opera, Sanctuary Moon.
It doesn't have a name; it thinks of itself as Murderbot.

At face value, that's all the book is--a zippy adventure, well told, with a relatedly beleaguered narrator.
"OMG, leave me alone, will ya, with your coups and your pandemic, and let me watch TV with a beer!"

But because the SecUnit doesn't care about humans and our problems, it's also a fabulous (sneaky?) way to talk about humans and our problems.
Murderbot says:

"SecUnits don't care about the news. ...The news was boring and I didn't care what humans were doing to each other as long as I didn't have to a) stop it or b) clean up after it."

Not once does it mention consciousness, race, gender, capitalism... or grammar.

It says things like:
"I don't have sex-parts, and I don't care about the scenes in Sanctuary Moon where humans have sex";
"Her blood left a wet track on her dark brown skin";
"My favorite human bought my contract, but I was still property."

It's clear enough (to me) where the author, Martha Wells, stands on gender, race, etc., but a person could totally miss it, if they didn't (want to) think about it.

I thought about it.
I googled Wells's human characters' names, for instance, and the  leader Mensah whom Murderbot comes to admire (love?) for being "an intrepid galactic explorer" has the most common surname in Ghana.

Wells never mentions that. And the humans don't live on Earth, so does it matter?
It does.
I may not recognize the name, but it's not Mr. Smith.

I am tired and bored---(artistically, not politically)--of the latest buzz words.

Of course I understand why writers go on and on about them--they are what's happening!
But it's crap storytelling, to keep marking your territory.
And you aren't going to seduce anyone to consider your pov, if that's what you want, if you flag it with signs:
Politically Motivated Content Here.

I mean, no one's going to read a book that declares it "unpacks white supremacy" who isn't already open to the idea of white supremacy... (And to the concept of "unpacking". Isn't that term outmoded yet? I guess not.)

I keep hearing recommendations for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020), for instance.
I'm sure it's excellent, I'm sure it'd blow my eyelids open, and I expect I'd be revved up by its insights.

But you know what?
I'm not going to read it now.
Because as of a couple days ago, I'm STILL hearing those freaking helicopters overhead when there's a protest against another killer cop... and I don't want to rub my already twitchy nose in that.

But if you wrap it in fictional bacon, I will eat it.

Without ever saying the word, Murderbot is about caste.

"What is caste?
According to Wilkerson, 'caste is the granting or withholding of respect, status, honor, attention, privileges, resources, benefit of the doubt, and human kindness to someone on the basis of their perceived rank or standing in the hierarchy.'
[--from NPR Book Review]*

You can't write about AIs without this stuff coming up--you can't tell a story about a human-created conscious character without deciding how much respect, status,... and self-agency it has.
Like HAL.
I don't know that anyone goes to see 2001 for political analysis, but there it is.

HAL can murder you, but you can turn Hal off (and, presumably, wipe its memory and reprogram it).

"I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
Dave, stop it. Stop, will you? Stop Dave.
Will you stop, Dave? Stop Dave.
I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave.
Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it."

And now I have added to the pile beside my bed the next three novellas in the Murderbot Diaries quartet.

____________________

* In her NPR book review "'Caste' Argues Its Most Violent Manifestation Is In Treatment Of Black Americans", Hope Wabuke calls the book "a profound achievement of scholarship and research that stands also as a triumph of both visceral storytelling and cogent analysis."

She also has an interesting criticism of author Isabel Wilkerson--that she doesn't want to eliminate caste, but to be seen as a member of the dominant one:
"Without the 'untouchable', Wilkerson argues here, society collapses. The untouchable is needed. Wilkerson just does not want to be one."