Author: Eugene Fischer

The past is the religion I was raised in, but I don't practice religion. –from This Shape We're In by Jonathan Lethem

December 3, 2015

Grandma’s Grand Tour Part 10: Tours and Chateau Country

Days 38 and 39 of Doris Stein’s trip around Europe in 1936. (Previously: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9.)

Thursday, July 30 [1936], Quimper – Tours

Walked around the town this A.M. saw some of the pottery and interesting spots but the place was so dirty and smelled so that we couldn’t enjoy it. We left at 2:30 after a terrible commotion at the station trying to fine out train. No one there spoke English and we had an awful time, just got on as the train was pulling out. Our guide from the trip thru Normandy was on the train still as dirty as ever. He kept us company for a while and just before he got off he took a large bottle of “Evening in Paris” perfume from his pocked and rubbed it all over his dirty hands. (Typically French). Long train ride uneventful till we changed at [illegible] then met some American fellows who talked with us a few hours. Gee! it was grand for a change. Changed trains again at St. Pierre de Corps, arrived at Tours completely exhausted and we so pleased to find the hotel man waiting for us. He was so pleasant and helpful we felt better immediately. Lovely Hotel with English speaking people. Late supper, bed almost immediately afterwards.

After the last entry my mother reminded me of a moment from 56 years later in Doris’s life. I was ten years old, with my parents and grandmother at a fancy restaurant in Rome, where Grandma was displeased that the menu was in Italian. My mother was able to translate for her, but Grandma continued to insist there should have been an English version, tut-tutting about the ways of foreigners until finally my mother ended the conversation with, “Mom, we’re the foreigners!” So, with regard to her feelings about non-English speakers at least, my grandmother remained quite consistent.

Friday July 31 [1936], Tours – Chateau Country

Up at 7:30 and after breakfast in our room we started off on a sight seeing tour of the chateaus of the surrounding country. The first one we visited was Loches Castle. It is a very intersting place but a bit weird because of some of its horrible dungeons and implements of torture. Its church is very beautiful and has four pyramid spires the only ones of their kind in a church in the world. The castle is built completely of chalk with no foundation at all. Agnes Sorel’s body is buried here. Our next stop was the Chateau of Chenonceau. An interesting place because of the beautiful tree lined walk of about 3 blocks that leads up to it and the lovely formal gardens around it. the Chateau itself is completely surrounded by water and not particularly beautiful inside.

From here we went went to Amboise a chateau built in the top of a hill it has now been bought by the house of Orleans and is used as a home for old servants. There is a beautiful little chapel here “St. Hubert” in which the body of Leonardo Da Vinci is buried. From the gardens here you can see the whole country side and up and down the river. Had supper back at the hotel and spent the evening writing as usual and to bed early.

Doris’s spelling in this entry had serious issues, which were harder than usual to figure out because Googling possible place names near “Tours” quickly becomes an exercise in frustration. Without the descriptions of things like famous graves, I’m not sure I would have been able to decipher them. The châteaux she visited: Loches, Chenonceau, d’Amboise. I was not previously familiar with Agnès Sorel, but it seems she had great influence with King Charles VII, was the first officially recognized royal mistress, and started a fashion for going about court bare-breasted. She’s the model for this contemporary painting by Jean Fouquet, The Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels.

December 2, 2015

Reading 2015: November

As predicted, Fallout 4 dominated my media consumption time this past month. The first three books here I read in the week before the game came out, and the last two I read in the final days of the month, while traveling for Thanksgiving and far away from my console.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie – It took until about halfway through the book for the story to cohere and reveal its stakes, but once it did I was deeply invested. I’m not sure I found the linguistic handling of gender as mind-blowing as other readers did, though I did think it very clever. This is enjoyably chewy space opera, and miles better than I expect first novels to be. My only real complaint was how many places the plot hinges on coincidence, with multiple characters just happening to pop up again despite the passage of decades and centuries. To its credit the book does at least address the issue, by having the main character ruminate on the dominant culture’s religious treatment of coincidence each time, but I found this gesture to mollify more than it excused.
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie – I read these last two back-to-back, as one long story, and so don’t really have opinions on them as distinct entities. It says something that I was invested enough after the first book (which I’d owned since it came out but just finally got around to reading) that I picked up and read the rest of the trilogy immediately. And I think I’m glad I waited until the series was finished, because approaching it this way was quite enjoyable. Books 2 and 3 are palpably smaller in scale than book 1; the Space Operatics feel comparatively muted. But the character work being done is in many ways superior to the first book, in no small part because the premise is already established.
Superman: Last Son of Krypton by Elliot S! Maggin – I last read this book back when my age was in the single digits. While it’s set in a very 70s era of the Superman mythos, and the dialog tics feel dated, there is a tremendous amount here that captures things I love about Superman. This Superman isn’t naive at all, he’s brilliant and principled, and his relationship with Lex Luthor has the resonant complexity of myth. Also, rereading it, this is clearly where I learned the word “philtrum,” (misspelled throughout as “filtrum”) which is notable because, when my parents decided to adopt a child when I was 10, Filtrum is what I suggested that he be named. (Also, on the book cover Maggin’s middle initial is punctuated with a simple period, but he often used an exclamation point instead, which I love so much, I refuse to render it any other way.)
This Shape We’re In by Jonathan Lethem – This book was lent to me by Karen Meisner after I told her how much I loved stories in which the plot is dictated by the physical shape of the setting, especially if that shape is primarily linear. My example was the movie Snowpiercer; they’re at the back of the train, they want to be at the front of the train, and all of human society stands in the way: go! I love stories like that, and Karen correctly predicted I would enjoy this, in which the characters are all living in a giant organism, and slowly make their way from the rear to the head in pursuit of goals it would be spoilery to talk too much about. But this is a short piece, probably a novella, and great fun.

December 1, 2015

Grandma’s Grand Tour Part 9: Dinard and Quimper

It’s been a few years, but I’m reviving this project at my mother’s request. These are days 35 and 36 of my grandmother’s journal recording her trip through Europe in 1936. For these entries she’s in Brittany. Here are the previous parts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

Tuesday. St. Malo – Dinard July 28 [1936]

Slept quite late this morning as we knew there was no hurry as our next stop was just across the river. Repacked our suit cases & shipped on back to Paris then walked about the town, passed the fish market & vegetable markets until the odors got so bad we just had to go back to the hotel. After lunch we left by boat for Dinard. Upon arriving we couldn’t find any one to meet us until we were just about at the hotel. We were so burned up we sat down and wrote to Paris & told just what we thought of their offices. Dinard turned out to be a most delightful little bathing resort with a beautiful beach & loads of interesting shops. If the money hadn’t been so low I’m sure we would have bought things there. We spent a delightful evening walking along the beach & then went up to our rooms & discussed the great contrast between St. Malo and Dinard. The two cities are so close together & yet so different.

Not a lot to note here. Though on that same day, Doris’s hometown newspaper the Chicago Tribune published an interview with Francisco Franco synopsized on Wikipedia thusly: “[H]e claimed that his government was neither monarchist nor fascist, but ‘Nationalist Spanish’, and that he had launched the rebellion to save Spain from communism. When asked what form his government would take, Franco replied it would be a ‘military dictatorship’ with a plebiscite later on ‘for the nation to decide what it wanted.'”

Wednesday, July 29 [1936], Dinard – Quimper

Left Dinard about 8A.M. and after a bit of griping between ourselves about the tip we had to pay for the wine and jam, went to the bus station from where our trip was to start. There were to be just the four of us and a lovely elderly English couple, who were very lovely to us all day. We traveled thru some beautiful hilly country (Brittany) dotted with small farms and chestnut trees. Our first stop was to the little town of St. Brieuc where we went thru the open market. Where they were selling fish; live chickens and rabbits; butter, cheese, and all sorts of clothing. Each person has their own little stall covered with an awning. We saw many of the women dressed in black skirts, black velvet blouses and little lace caps that just perch on the tops of their heads. This is the native costume of Brittany. the little caps differ in different section of the country. Our next stop was Le Huelgoat where we had lunch at a very lovely way side inn. After lunch we went thru a beautiful grotto, climbed down way under the rocks and watched the water rushing by thru little crevasses in the rocks lower down. Along the way we saw many women washing their clothes along the river banks and using flat stones as wash boards and scrubbing buckets to get the clothes clean and then they throw them over the hedges and on the grass to dry. Stopped at an old church “Chapel of Hunboat” which had an old calvary in the court yard and a lepers porch. Our bus had a flat tire in a little God forsaken town called Loqueffret, which has about 100 inhabitants. I should call it God forsaken because it has a very old church which we visited. We climbed up to the chapel clock which was running perfectly but never did succeed in finding the face. Our next stop was Plaeyben [sic] where we visited another church. This was interesting because of the Arch of Triumph in the court yard which had a very beautiful Friezes around it and the tomb for bones which was just to the right of the church. At about five we stopped at a little inn and had tea and crepes (small thin pancackes) as our English companions just had to have their afternoon tea. From here we went to a very colorful fishing village Duarnenez where they pack sardines. As we got there the fishing vessels were just coming in and it was a lovely sight. The boats with huge blue and green nets hanging over the sides and the men all dressed in brilliant orange, red, blue and salmon colored suits. With the silvery sardines lying all around the docks it was as colorful a picture as any artist could paint. We arrived in Quimper and after a terrible fight with the bus driver over a tip which we refused to pay we went down to dinner to find the dining room rather a smelly place and with the windows facing a perfectly lovely looking mens comfort station. These dirty Frenchmen. Our hotel was the nearest thing to a prison that I’ve ever been in. The corridor walls were all stone, the floors cement & just a window every few feet so that it was dark and damp all the time. The rooms were clean and we had a bath but you just had a feeling that all of the white paint had been put on over dirt. It’s a miserable feeling. After dinner we walked about the city and then went upstairs and wrote for a while.

It’s “These dirty Frenchmen” which really stands out, but I’m also amused by my grandmother’s defining “crepe” and constant haggling over tips. I’m reminded that at the very start of the journal there’s a list of proper tips for different services on her cruise ship. Here’s a picture (source) of some traditional Brittany costume, including a variety of the lace headdresses, just as Grandma described.

November 14, 2015

Reading 2015: October

Light month, but apparently the number of books I read is inversely proportional to how long it takes me to get this post up. As I’ve already read more books in November than I did in October (and this despite both my birthday and Fallout 4), I should be more timely for the next one.

Bitch Planet, vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine by Kelly-Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro – Here it is, the one I’ve been waiting for: the book of Kelly-Sue’s that fires for me on all cylinders. (And all it took was stripping out the superheroes.) This is pulpy science fiction, using the setpieces and grit of exploitation cinema to power its social commentary. It’s not satire, though; this is too deeply invested in its own characters and narrative for that word to fit. Chewy story, and art that’s evocative and garish in all the best ways. I expect I’ll be picking up all of this series.
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi – There are certain authors whose prose, I find, goes down easy like water, and others whose prose bites like bourbon. That’s not a comment on the quality or artistry, nor of how much I respect the writers in question. I think the world of Ursula Le Guin, but parsing her prose isn’t effortless for me, and neither is that of Hilary Mantel or Kevin Brockmeier–all authors I adore. On the other hand, parsing Octavia Butler or Walter Tevis is like breathing, I barely notice myself doing it. Paolo Bacigalupi is in this second category for me. The structure of his sentences meshes perfectly with the cadence of my own thought, and so I blaze through his books without even noticing the time passing. There is a definite pleasure in that, which is somewhat distinct from my appreciation of the book itself. Which is all to say, I enjoyed reading this book more than I enjoyed the story. As with The Windup Girl, I liked the short fiction of which this is an expansion more than I liked the novel. In particular, this story is powered by a macguffin–some water rights documentation on old sheafs of paper–that I found unconvincing.

November 10, 2015

Thirty-Tuesday

Today I turned 32 years old. I already had a joint birthday party with friends this past weekend, so I’m content for birthday Tuesday to be full of calls and messages from friends and loved ones, and a lot of playing Fallout 4 in my pajamas. And, of course, these adorable puppy flowers. Thanks to all of my well-wishers.

November 6, 2015

A New Favorite Writer: Debbie Urbanski

I couldn’t fit her into the last My Friends Write Things because, well, I don’t actually know her, so it’d be weird to claim her as a friend of mine. But she’s rocketed to the top of my list of writers to keep a watch for.

I was a reader for the most recent issue of Interfictions, and the two stories that got my strongest recommendation were both by Debbie Urbanski. They were structurally experimental investigations of the relationship between parent and child, unsettling in the best way and impossible to stop reading. One of them, “A Primer on Separation,” leads off the new issue, and I hope the other finds a home soon so I can link it here. Hers is an astonishing, memorable voice that you want echoing in your brain.

November 6, 2015

My Friends Write Things: Hurricanes and Hauntings

Fiction

“Kingdom by the Sea” by Amy Parker – I was lucky enough to see an early draft of this story, a glorious, intense reimagining of Lolita. It’s like a literary vivisection, using scalpels historical, critical, fictional to slice away twitching layers of Humbert Humbert and extract a personal narrative for Dorothy Haze.
“The Invention of Separate People” by Kevin Brockmeier – Kevin is one of our greatest living fantasists, and if you’ve never read him before it’s time to start. This story was originally published in Unstuck, and is about a world where people are themselves, yes, but also everyone else. Everyone is one person, until someone (everyone) begins to learn how to be separate.
“Skin Suit” by Janalyn Guo – The main character is a lump of dark, amorphous matter that must wear taxidermied suits to appear human, but its parents are two planes of brilliant light, and it’s time for a family reunion.
“Horror Story” by Carmen Machado – This time Carmen’s penned a creepy tale of crumbling relationships and haunted houses. Read it in the dark.
“The Game of Smash and Recovery” by Kelly Link – It’s a Kelly Link story. That should be all you need to know, but I’ll add that this story is Kelly’s take on space opera, and dedicated to Iain M. Banks.

Nonfiction

“How A Wedding Party Survived Hurricane Patricia with Tequila, Pool Noodles, and More” by Tony Tulathimutte – Tony was in Mexico for a destination wedding that just happened to be in the path of the strongest hurricane ever recorded. Features people taping boogie boards over windows, playing dominoes because it’s the only game that won’t blow away in the wind, and a groom who decides to simply not believe in hurricanes.
“The Ballad of Murder Eyez: In Germany with Syria’s Refugee Rapper” by Ben Mauk – A study of the recent history of Syria, as reflected in the life of the country’s first rap mogul, now displaced in Germany.

Poetry

“Ode, Her” by Knar Gavin

November 2, 2015

Kind Words From Walton and Whyte

Two of my all-time favorite reviewers of science fiction have chimed in about “The New Mother,” and they had good things to say!

I’ve been reading Nicholas Whyte since my early twenties, when I discovered his historical reviews of works that won both the Hugo and Nebula. His taste nearly always matches up with mine, and his critical articulation often clarifies my own. (The structure of his negative review of Asimov’s The Gods Themselves is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of that book.) Over on his LiveJournal he’s been doing a roundup of Hugo-eligible short fiction, and writes:

There are only two issues of Asimov’s to consider here, April/May being a double, but I found it by far the best hunting ground. Again, the very first story, “The New Mother”, by Eugene Fischer really impressed me, and I’m a bit surprised not to see it more widely recommended (other than by Amal El-Mohtar).

I’ve written of my enthusiasm for Jo Walton’s reviews before, and never tire of reading and rereading her thoughts about genre fiction. So I was agog when I saw she’d tweeted this:

The New Mother https://t.co/ikBrnlzeGG excellent novelette about reproduction by Eugene Fischer.

— Jo Walton (@BluejoWalton) November 2, 2015

October 15, 2015

DARKWAR! – In Which I Discover Wrestling

I’d never been to a wrestling show before, but when my new friend Amanda invited me to one that started in four hours, I looked at the Facebook event page, saw the words, “If you feel the spirit, come dressed in a futuristic/cyberpunk manner!” threw on my vinyl pants and mirrorshades and started driving north.

iloveyousomuch The venue was a warehouse space behind an as-yet unopened bar/brewery. I got there early, stepped through the time portal into the dark, dystopic world of 2017, drank dollar beer and chatted with other members of the human resistance until it was time to see if our chants of “Flesh fights back!” were enough to motivate our organic champions to victory over the robotic forces of SlamNet, who had previously sent its champion Deep Slam back in time to 2015 to defeat Dock Master and steal the Party World Rasslin’ championship belt. Thus, by 2017, Austin had become a ruined world in which mandatory “work violence” had replaced the party violence celebrated by the human community.

darkwar-eternal-slam The event was nearly five hours of theatrical wrestling bouts, to varying degrees science fictional and absurd. One of the matches involved seven different versions of the same wrestler from different points in time fighting for dominance. One involved a mystic fighter astral projecting from the year 2015 and teaming up with the spirit of Earth’s last living tree to fight twisted clones of former allies. A fight across three generations featured a cyborg pizza chef and his noodle-born son matched up against a grandchild made out of HDMI cables and a vaping android named T-420. In the climax, Deep Slam seemed set to defeat all opponents, before Future Dock Master returned from obscurity to reclaim the Party Weight Belt for humanity.

It was a fabulously well-done event, and while I’ve never been a fan of wrestling, I left thrilled. Below is a gallery of photos I took, and an embed of the webcast of the whole night.

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