A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

In the Before, rock singer Luce Cannon is just starting to hit the big time when the world is hit by the one-two punch of massive terrorist attacks and (apparently unrelatedly) a pandemic. In the After, gatherings have been banned to prevent violence and viruses, life is lived mostly online and under the eye of huge corporations. Rosemary, a young woman who loves music but experiences it only in virtual reality, is hired by one of those huge corporations to scout musicians at illegal underground concerts.

This novel starts with a bang and had me completely engrossed for the first third. The second two-thirds were well-written, but for me lacked the propulsive power of the first part of the book. I say “for me” because I’m not sure if that was the book or me. Given that my favorite part was Luce’s first-person narration of her pre-pandemic tour, I’d happily read a contemporary novel about musicians by Pinsker, no sf content required. Luce is Jewish and her relationship with her family and community, which she's mostly estranged from, is a small part of the novel but very well-done. I'd also have happily read a novel focusing on that.

Luce and Rosemary are both queer, and have romantic relationships with women (not with each other). Their own relationship felt like it should have been the center of the book, but wasn’t; they had a few powerful scenes early on, but later their interactions felt more like a clash of worldviews than like a clash of two people.

Generally, the longer the book went on, the more didactic and abstract it felt, with the vibrant and very human Luce of the beginning giving way to an iconic figure. The more the book is about its actual premise (a young woman scouts for talent in a world where live concerts are banned), the less interested I became. I don't think it was because of anything inherent about the premise, but because of how it was treated.

The early parts about Luce's band were really funny, among other things. Afterward, music and music-making was treated much more seriously, with no goofing around and playing pranks. I'm not sure it's true that people doing illegal things with huge consequences if they slip up actually do stop being silly-- they probably just channel it into areas that won't attract attention outside of their own group. At least, the second part of the book would have been more interesting if they had. The second part also was primarily Rosemary's narration, and she was very very very serious. The book ended up feeling solemn and weighty in a way that didn't play to Pinsker's strengths as a writer.

I still recommend it but not as strongly as I thought I would when I started it.

There’s a big and still-ongoing discussion here which delves a lot into the worldbuilding.

A Song for a New Day

When Seattle insurance investigator Sarah Pinsker is invited to SarahCon, an interdimensional convention for Sarah Pinskers from various timelines, she gets involved in a murder mystery when one of the Sarahs is murdered. Did I mention that SarahCon is held on a tiny island off Canada, and due to a storm no one can get on or off?

On the far side of the room, four folding tables covered with velveteen tablecloths. A printed sign hung on the wall behind them: Sarah Pinsker Hall of Fame.

If the list of occupations had made me feel like an underachiever, this display reinforced it. A Grammy for Best Folk Album 2013, a framed photo of a Sarah in the Kentucky Derby winner’s circle, a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, a stack of novels, a Nebula Award for science fiction writing, an issue of Quantology Today containing an article with a seventy word title that I guessed amounted to “Other Realities! I Found Them!”

Even apart from the cleverest title in the multiverse, this is a great story. A lot of times a story has a good concept but fails to live up to it, or goes off on some tangent that has nothing to do with the concept. “And Then There Were (N-One)” did everything I wanted with the premise and more, exploring variations on choice and identity, delving into the bittersweetness of chances taken and lost, and wrapping it all up in a very solid murder mystery that is completely relevant to the concept. I also really loved the ending, which in retrospect was the only possible one.

I don’t want to give too much away, but since I’m putting this in FF Friday I will note that many of the Sarahs are married to or dating a woman named Mabel, and their relationship, or rather many iterations of relationships or lack thereof, are relevant to the story.

(I wonder what it says about you depending on whether you think attending a convention for iterations of yourself would be fascinating or horrifying, and whether you'd go. I'd go in a shot. Guaranteed, the food would be great.)

“And Then There Were (N-One)” was nominated for a Nebula for Best Novella (also for a Hugo, same category) but lost to Martha Wells’ All Systems Red. That was a very solid ballot, with Ellen Klages’ Passing Strange also a contender.

Read for free at Uncanny Magazine.