Review: The Orenda, by Joseph Boyden

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Simply put, Joseph Boyden's The Orenda is a timeless and imperative read for every Canadian. Even if you're not Canadian, you should read this novel. It will edify, illuminate, shatter, and complete your understanding of society during 17th century First Nations and European first contact. That The Orenda did not make the short list for either the Giller or the GG is quite incomprehensible. If ever there were a novel, and an author, worthy of our attention, our praise, and our accolades, it is The Orenda and Joseph Boyden.

Quite beyond The Orenda's importance in the canon of Canadian literature, it is a compelling read. (And for me one near and dear to my heart, given my own short story, And the Angels Sang, which formed the keystone story for my collection by the same name.)

Boyden tells the story of the Iroquoian pogrom against the Wyandot (Huron) peoples, which culminated in the destruction of the Jesuit mission at Ste. Marie among the Hurons in present day Midland, and the legendary torture and execution of St. Jean de Brebeuf.

While Boyden chooses fictional names for the people involved in this historic occurrence, the historical integrity and framework remains.

The story itself is told in first person, present-tense narratives through three voices, that of Snow Falls, an Iroquoian girl orphaned and captured by a Huron warrior; that of Bird, the warrior responsible for Snow Falls' plight and who subsequently adopts her; and Father Christophe, the Jesuit, or Crow, who comes among the Huron to bring his version of redemption and salvation to the sauvages.

Boyden sculpts these characters with a deft hand, so they are fully realized, living entities with voices so strong they haunt your thoughts. There is no confusion when progressing chapter to chapter who speaks, a feat not easily accomplished unless at the hand of a confident writer.

The pacing is brisk, tense, never flagging, and even if a reader weren't aware of the history about which Boyden writes, there would be a sense of drums thundering beneath the text, of doom echoing through the forests.

All of these components are fused together with Boyden's trademark style, employing spare language, each word chosen for precise impact. This is a lean story which is, in contrast, defiantly rich and satiating.

Whether you choose to immerse yourself in The Orenda by way of eBook or print, I assure you these hours you spend reading will be profound and memorable.

Bravo, Joseph. Miigwech.

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Review: The Memoirs of Cleopatra, by Margaret George

The Memoirs Of Cleopatra by Margaret George
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To pick up a Margaret George novel is to experience a well-researched epic work. The Memoirs of Cleopatra is no exception.

George presents a very intimate story of the legendary Cleopatra, who took a bankrupt, teetering country to its pinnacle of wealth, prosperity and influence, despite overwhelming setbacks and obstacles.

My only quibble, as always with George's work, is a certain reservation in the depth of her characters which she tends to move around on the board of her story like set pieces.

Beyond that, an absorbing read.

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Response to Liz Bourke at Strange Horizons

Normally when a negative review (which thankfully are few) for one of my books appears I just shrug. We all have different aesthetics, points of view, something the Internet has allowed us to share through social media.

So it was when I raised the very public hackles of Liz Bourke, reviewer for Strange Horizons, I merely allowed Ms. Bourke her opinion about my novel From Mountains of Ice and carried on.

It would seem, however, her review garnered the notice of another blogger at Pornokitsch, under the heading of Extremist Reviewing. The author of Pornokitsch found great humour in Liz Bourke's evisceration (the author's term, not mine) of my novel, enough to Tweet and generally share around the multiverse. That, also, is fine. Again, we all must find humour, entertainment, and share opinion in order to expand our horizons and understanding of life.

One of Ms. Bourke's strident objections read thusly:

But the first and perhaps the most severe of my problems with From Mountains of Ice is its lack of willingness to abide by the usual conventions of English-language punctuation. Particularly where it comes to commas.

a fluid list of titles and salutations, professions of greatest love and longing, veiled accusations of betrayal through Sylvio's absence, enforced though it might have been, earnest wishes to redress absence. Just the fact Carmelo singled him out was fraught with potential, none of it with hope. (p. 75)

Phrases, especially descriptive phrases, come tacked together with commas when it would be more comprehensible (and less horribly irritating) to use more than one sentence. Several sentences have more commas than they need. Several suffer from a mysterious dearth of commas, where a comma would have added to comprehensibility or to the ordinary flow of prose.

Carried by the outgoing tide they'd be swept out to sea, just as she. (p. 107)

Having laid that foundation, I would therefore entreat both Ms. Bourke and her followers to consider the following passage:

Also — for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about the length of and distinguishing moles upon their husbands’ genitalia, a sufficiency of children upon whose legitimacy the British Government had cast its ever-reasonable doubts — mingling with the remnants of the plain, equally fragmented, equally absurd, there floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother-tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belong, home.

The author of this passage is guilty, according to conventional wisdom, of egregious writing abuse. I remember clearly reading this passage a few years ago, and those which came before, and after, and the whole dizzying effect of this tumbling narrative. I sat stunned after closing the novel, aware I looked into the face of genius for the second time in my life. Suddenly all I had been taught meant nothing confronted with this monumental art.

I hear your disparagement even now. What kack, Lorina, you say. This is a run-on sentence, incomprehensible, nonsensical. Tripe, to be polite. Unmitigated shite if not.

So? Ah yes so.

The author: Salman Rushdie. The work: The Satanic Verses.

Something to give you pause, eh? A slight blush. Perhaps an ahem or two? I know the feeling.

Now, far be it from me to compare my work to Salman Rushdie's. But there is inspiration here. There is a great deal to study, to comprehend, to emulate. Think about the artistic and emotional effect of that passage by Rushdie.

It has long been said in order to create art you need to understand the rules. And then you need to understand how to break the rules.

And just as that work of art may not be everyone's taste, before slagging it, consider your own biases as a reviewer, whether you're reviewing painting, sculpture, music or literature. This is something I try to remember when I review literature. A review should not be a wholesale condemnation of the worth of a thing. A review is, and only ever will be, one person's opinion. Your trash may be someone else's treasure.

Just saying.

Aiming the pistol at the foot

Despite all my bluster chivvying authors into brave faces, preaching that the un-achievable is attainable, when it comes to my own career as an author I tend to shrink back into the shadows. I have no idea why I do that. But I do. Always have. Call it a character flaw.

However, every now and again I emerge from my cave, or shell, or whatever, and decide, HEY! I can DO THIS! And I summon courage and analyze stories and send out submissions to magazines, collections and the like, keeping careful log of their journeys through an Excel spreadsheet (yes, yes, I know all about Obsessive Compulsion Disorder.)

The current attempt to shoot off my feet comes in the form of the call for submissions for the Tesseracts 18 anthology. I've been trying to break that market ever since Judy Merrill first launched it way back. No joy. And I doubt very much there will be joy this time, but the point is I've at least tried.

Lester B. Pearson, former Prime Minister of Canada, and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, once said: The only failures are those who fail to try.

Hon. Lester B. Pearson

So Lester, ol' bean, old sport, I'm trying. I don't hold out much hope. But to the best of my knowledge I've targeted the right story for the right market.

Of course, this comes on the heels of finding out all the primary round of rejections for the Fearful Symmetries anthology have taken place, and the remaining 355 stories are either still being considered, or have now been forwarded to editor, Ellen Datlow. In this case, no news is good news.

Now, there is a synchronicity about the fact I haven't heard thing one as yet regarding my submission to that heady anthology, because back in the day when Omni was the nirvana of short speculative fiction (I was at Clarion the year Ted Chiang made his first short story sale with the first short story he'd ever written, which was to none other than Ellen Datlow at Omni) I had dreams of maybe, one day, breaking into that market, of having someone like Ellen Datlow pat me on the head and reward my closet scribblings with publication. Alas, it never happened.

Ellen Datlow

But here the gyre curves round again, and I find myself in six degrees of separation.

Dear god, there are days I truly wonder why I do this? Why do I peck at the keyboard, dreaming dreams of people and places, of hurt and triumph, of destinies and deeds? Why answer the sibilant whispers in my head who constantly narrate stories for which I am but a vehicle? I don't know.

But somewhere between editing other authors' stories, creating print layouts, rounds of meetings and discussions and all the trappings of being a publisher, I still pursue this calling of being a story-teller. Keep writing. Just keep writing. And the foot? Ack. It will heal.

Review: The Polaris Whisper, by Kenneth Gregory

The Polaris Whisper by Kenneth Gregory
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Originally a Wattpad publication, The Polaris Whisper, by Kenneth Gregory appears to be a self-published book through the services of The Black Staff Press. I received a PDF copy of Gregory's debut novel through Black Staff on Net Galley.

The novel has all the potential of a truly great novel: great subject matter, interesting characters, a delicious melange of history and mythology. Set during the Dark Ages (the early to mid 1st century) amid Norse raids on Ireland, Iona, and England, the story follows the lives of a disinherited and exiled Norseman, Vidar, the son he places into foster care for protection, and the people (including a dwarf from a society with prescient talent) who form his association. The main thrust of this, the first of a planned series of novels, is Vidar's quest to find a glacial cave which is a portal. A portal to what, we never find out, but the dwarf who charges Vidar with this quest has invested considerable wealth and his life into the undertaking.

There are intrigues and loves lost and found, betrayal of friendship, tests of courage.

And while all of this has, as I wrote, the potential of a great novel, it falls short for all the same reasons so many novels fall short: lack of a good developmental editor. Along with the need for a developmental editor is the need for a good copy editor, as there were many punctuation errors as well as errors in word usage. Certainly were I Gregory, and if my supposition is correct that he paid Black Staff to publish his book, I'd be a mite miffed with the lack of quality services.

A decent entry, in my opinion, enough that I'd entertain reading the next instalment. However, let us hope Gregory undertakes to surround himself with more qualified editors.

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Guarding your time

I have freelanced most of my adult life as a writer, journalist, editor, artist, and during those near 40 years it has always amazed me how people generally have no concept of how hard a self-employed person works from home. There seems to be the assumption we can simply swan off whenever we like.

Well, that is true in part. Those of us who work from our home offices are at liberty to call our own hours, set our own dress codes, take breaks whenever we like. However, without a certain discipline nothing gets done. So that means if it's summer, and you'd rather be in the garden than editing a manuscript, well, you better bloody well get that manuscript edited cause it surely isn't going to edit itself. And fail to do so will likely mean you'll piss off your client, your author, your colleagues, which then means no payment at the end of all that labour. The garden will still be there.

Same applies if you're working on a painting for an upcoming exhibit or client, or writing an article for a periodical, or putting together a website for a new or existing business owner. If you work from home, the work comes first. The play comes later.

Sure, we take time out to take a walk and clear the head, to ride a bike along a difficult trail in order to nurture the body to nurture the mind. We allow ourselves 10 minutes to blast away at Mah Jong, or alien invaders. We wander aimlessly, favourite beverage to hand in order to escape the office chair.

But we do return, again and again throughout the day, often putting in longer days than our colleagues who commute to an office and punch 9-5.

We don't have time to chat on the phone, answer text messages, email, phaff about on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Because we work at home we have relinquished a certain amount of freedom in order to gain a certain freedom. We have embraced discipline and order and routine. We have eschewed the indulgence of long lunches, shopping sprees, and Internet browsing at the expense of our employer. Why? Because we are our own employers, and it turns out we're harder task masters than the bosses we left behind.

So, for those of you calling for a chat, thinking I'm out in the garden on this lovely summer's day, or are touring the area and thought to stop in for an impromptu visit -- lovely thought, but sorry, I'm working. Would be pleased to make a date, schedule you in. But right now, don't have time. Have to guard my time.

And that's just the way it is.

Michael R. Fletcher, author 88 reviews Shadow Song on Goodreads

Michael R.'s review 

Aug 28, 13

5 of 5 stars

Read from August 20 to 27, 2013

Historical fiction is not my usual reading material; I tend more towards SF/F and rarely wander from those genres. I did not expect a story written from (initially) a very young female character's POV to hook me. Once I started, however, I had trouble putting it down. The writing is absolutely gorgeous. How Lorina Stephens achieved such beautiful language and yet still managed to keep it unobtrusive is a mystery.

Fans of historical fiction should definitely give this a read.

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Shadow Song is available in both print and eBook from online booksellers worldwide, as well as from Five Rivers Publishing and directly from the author.