Book review of 'Phases' by Elizabeth Moon
May. 24th, 2018 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallowness‘Phases’ is a collection of speculative fiction short stories by Elizabeth Moon, each introduced with a short paragraph.
Knowing her writing mainly through her science fiction, especially The Serrano and Vatta’s War series, what struck me was how many of the protagonists were male. I found myself not particularly sympathetic to many of them, although you understand where they’re coming from. The stories range from science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales and literary with a hint of the speculative or uncanny, and vary in length. There’s a flavour of the far-distant past, and some of what was future tech when the story was written now feels dated.
Opening story ‘Bargains’ is set in high fantasyland and apart from the knowledge of horsemanship, is atypical. You could read into the exact nature of Lady Rahel’s relationship with her partner.
I’ll concentrate on the stories I thought most highly of. ‘New World Sympathy’ features one of the unpleasant male protagonists. It’s more the situation that interests, in a universe where artists and musicians are sent along with exploratory vessels to create pieces in response to planets. The immersive synthesiser-cum-organ Mantenon works on is a synaesthete’s dream, but our composer wakes up to realise that he really should have read the small print. The story leaves you thinking about the impact it as a piece of art is having on you, which is cool.
My favourite story, typically, was ‘The Happy Frog’. Set in a fairy tale world, it makes a frog, the potentate of his pool, the hero. His happy life is ruined because a minstrel told a tale about a princess and a frog. Princesses are now really into frog hunting, just on the off chance. This tells the tale of hunting from the hunted’s pint of view, while Moon is alive to the fact that a frog can be both predator and prey. I liked the reversals involved and the social aspect of the story.
Maybe I tuned into the collection more story by story, because I took to the closing stories more than the opening ones. ‘Horse of Her Dreams’ is told by a nasty little chauvinist father (on balance, I think Moon knows exactly how nasty he and his world view are – his beautiful wife might have a very different story to tell).
‘Knight of Olden Days’ has four characters: a small boy living in 1950s Roma, Texas, an old man on a great horse; the local witch and the local priest. The witch senses a great power has arrived, while the priest hears stories he tries to rationalise, because the Latvian soldier can’t really be what he claims he is, can he?
‘Aura’ is more literary and perhaps autobiographical, if a bit too neat in structure. The protagonist has difficulties with numbers and is prone to migraines, the reason why emerges slowly.
‘Those Who Walk in Darkness’ is a Paksenarrion story, which is a medieval-type fantasy setting. Despite coming to the world fresh, I could still follow the adventures of Selis, a terrified child, and I liked that it was a female character in an unexpected role that inspired him.
Knowing her writing mainly through her science fiction, especially The Serrano and Vatta’s War series, what struck me was how many of the protagonists were male. I found myself not particularly sympathetic to many of them, although you understand where they’re coming from. The stories range from science fiction, fantasy, fairy tales and literary with a hint of the speculative or uncanny, and vary in length. There’s a flavour of the far-distant past, and some of what was future tech when the story was written now feels dated.
Opening story ‘Bargains’ is set in high fantasyland and apart from the knowledge of horsemanship, is atypical. You could read into the exact nature of Lady Rahel’s relationship with her partner.
I’ll concentrate on the stories I thought most highly of. ‘New World Sympathy’ features one of the unpleasant male protagonists. It’s more the situation that interests, in a universe where artists and musicians are sent along with exploratory vessels to create pieces in response to planets. The immersive synthesiser-cum-organ Mantenon works on is a synaesthete’s dream, but our composer wakes up to realise that he really should have read the small print. The story leaves you thinking about the impact it as a piece of art is having on you, which is cool.
My favourite story, typically, was ‘The Happy Frog’. Set in a fairy tale world, it makes a frog, the potentate of his pool, the hero. His happy life is ruined because a minstrel told a tale about a princess and a frog. Princesses are now really into frog hunting, just on the off chance. This tells the tale of hunting from the hunted’s pint of view, while Moon is alive to the fact that a frog can be both predator and prey. I liked the reversals involved and the social aspect of the story.
Maybe I tuned into the collection more story by story, because I took to the closing stories more than the opening ones. ‘Horse of Her Dreams’ is told by a nasty little chauvinist father (on balance, I think Moon knows exactly how nasty he and his world view are – his beautiful wife might have a very different story to tell).
‘Knight of Olden Days’ has four characters: a small boy living in 1950s Roma, Texas, an old man on a great horse; the local witch and the local priest. The witch senses a great power has arrived, while the priest hears stories he tries to rationalise, because the Latvian soldier can’t really be what he claims he is, can he?
‘Aura’ is more literary and perhaps autobiographical, if a bit too neat in structure. The protagonist has difficulties with numbers and is prone to migraines, the reason why emerges slowly.
‘Those Who Walk in Darkness’ is a Paksenarrion story, which is a medieval-type fantasy setting. Despite coming to the world fresh, I could still follow the adventures of Selis, a terrified child, and I liked that it was a female character in an unexpected role that inspired him.
