"hurt is not constant and not their natural state"

[cosmolinguist]

Andrew shared this review of a book, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, that neither of us have read yet but which both of us are probably more keen on getting around to now. Not just because it sounds like a good book -- it does, but there are so many good books. What makes this one stand out, according to this review, is that it's a nice book. It's not a grimdark dystopia. It's not about a bunch of assholes. It's not an epic series of wars and peril and high body counts. The worldbuilding isn't overbearing tedious entries from an RPG sourcebook but natural and on a human scale: about people's jobs, hobbies food, and so on. Difficulties and even death aren't absent, but they also aren't so common as to be numbing. As the reviewer says, "Numb, I’ve come to realize, is what most modern SF leaves me feeling."

All the things about this book that end up making it seem remarkable in this review say a lot more about what we expect from science fiction now than about this book itself.

It reminds me of something I realized a couple of weeks ago, while watching one of the Dalek episodes, and increasingly whenever I've thought about Doctor Who since. As well as the new Doctor Who, I subsist on a steady diet of Big Finish and old TV stuff too, and I think especially since I've been working my way through the Hornet's Nest stories again, which is Tom Baker at his handwavy, confident, frustrating best, I'm finding all this stuff on telly a bit weird. For one thin I'm sick of "this time the Doctor's gonna die, for real!" (Andrew and James and I happened to catch the last episode or two of Matt Smith's Doctor over the weekend, and all that was about him definitely being about to die forever too, and I just felt weighed down by it, and by how long this has been going on, how interchanageable it all seems, how quickly I get impatient with it because it's tedious and it's tedious because I know it isn't really going to happen that way, so I feel as if I'm always looking over the shoulders of the people earnestly trying to tell me these things, to see when the real story is going to come along.) And I think near the beginning of this series Missy tells the Doctor "You've always been running," i.e. since he left Gallifrey, and my brain just rebels at that idea. The Doctor I'm used to has adventures and gets in scrapes! He's not running away, he's bimbling along. I feel like this repeated assertion that he's always been on the run and he's always about to die are not only getting old real quick but are fundamentally trying to alter the character I recognize as the Doctor, and this is frustrating and, actually yes sometimes anxious-making for me. The Doctor is a unique character, and I fear this kind of thing will make him too much like everybody else. Everybody in this grimdark modern SF.

The genuinely poor effect this kind of thing can have on my mental health brings me to what I thought was the most powerful part of this review of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet: where the reviewer says,

What depresses me–

And when I say “depresses” I don’t mean “I don’t want to think about this stuff,” I mean I’ve come to realize many novels I’ve tried to read have literally not been good for my mental health–

In my case, I think it's been true for more than novels. I think I first noticed this with I Claudius, actually. That was the first time I caught myself thinking this is just about horrible things happening to horrible people...

...and I don't have to keep going with it. Like most epiphanies, it sounds dumb and obvious when reduced to language, but it was kind of a big deal for me. I'm exposed to a lot of knowledgeable, interesting commentary on movies, TV and books thanks to my friends. Moving to another country and my friendship circles just generally expanding expanding I get older has left me with a ton of things I'd like to understand better. But I've had to learn that some of it I just don't have the...well, the cliché would be to say "the stomach for," but my stomach's fine; I don't have the constitution for a lot of things.

Things like Game of Thrones, which sometimes left friends of mine in such a poor mental state I wished GoT were a person so I could punch it, which I saw strangers in cafés bonding over how harrowing they'd found the most recent episode, were about as appealing to me as setting my own hair on fire. High fantasy isn't really my thing anyway, but to be opting against it for reasons of self-preservation felt weird.

I worried it was just me. Inarticulate concerns that I might just be getting "timid" or "weak" in my old age also sound silly when I find words for them, but they felt real and worrisome. Seeing someone else say that stories they've tried to enjoy have actually been bad for them is...well, I'm sorry it's happened because it's no fun, but I'm glad to realize that I might not just be an increasingly-fragile human being, but that I am ageing into an era in which the genres often most looked-to for escapism -- SF and fantasy -- are instead making grimdark dystopias fashionable.

So this has been a terribly useful review to read, for me as a person, which is a lot more than I expect from a book review! And The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet has shot up to a high priority for me to get around to reading!

Comments

[andrewducker]

It's very good. And it has sad bits, but it doesn't revel in them.

[cosmolinguist]

Hurrah. :) I just wish that weren't as remarkable as it seems to be, these days!

[andrewducker]

And this is why I loved rewatching TNG - because it's mostly smart, capable, decent people doing the best they can. There's nobody in the main cast who acts like a dick or works to undermine the crew in the long-term. People have flaws, but nobody is actively unpleasant.

And I've missed shows like that.

[cosmolinguist]

Dunno if you read the linked review, but it particularly mentions TNG as a good comparison for this book, even though the book's apparently getting more often described as similar to Firefly -- the reviewer speculates that this is just because nerds can't go more than two minutes without mentioning Firefly (which seems a plausible enough theory to me!), and points out that Firefly is more asshole-driven in exactly the way this book, and The Next Generation, are not.

[andrewducker]

It definitely is. But Firefly also has a bunch of disparate people thrown together on a spaceship, sometimes arguing, but fundamentally looking after each other, and it does have that much in common.

[davidgillon]

I worried it was just me. Inarticulate concerns that I might just be getting "timid" or "weak" in my old age also sound silly when I find words for them, but they felt real and worrisome.

Definitely not just you, I've still never been able to watch some of the grimmer parts of BtVS (Tara's death and the aftermath), and while I adored the writing of Elizabeth Bear and Emma Bull's Shadow Unit, they finally twisted the knife in the audience's back so far that I didn't feel able to go on*.

*That coincided with starting to take gabapentin, which definitely messed me up psychologically. I dropped the gaba, but still don't really feel able to go back.

[cosmolinguist]

A friend of mine has had a real roller-coaster of a time with gabapentin, so I sympathize with the nasty things it can do.

[rmc28]

I also don't like grimdark stuff, and positively revel in happy endings and people doing their best :-) Thanks for the review link and I might just get this next.

[cosmolinguist]

Glad to help. :) Hope you like it!

[silveradept]

I think there's merit there - and not just as someone suffering from existential anxiety. Having good stories without the grimdark seems to be a bit of a lost art these days.

[mrs-leroy-brown.livejournal.com]

Upon reflection, it wasn't really wise for me to read A Song of Ice and Fire when and how I did (i.e. during the worst year of my existence and pretty much all in a row) - I'd spent a good deal of 2012 really enjoying read The Dark Tower series and wanted to start off 2013 with another big ridic fantasy series. Ooof. I don't regret reading them, although I do rue and lament it. It's really hard going but I got through because, well, reading was just about the only thing I could do when I was functioning at a step beyond basic life. Still - looking back - not the best idea!

The TV show I find much less harrowing, maybe because up until recently I knew what to expect, and it all is a bit camp and cartoonish. I found the last series fairly dull, tbh.

Anyway yes - it takes a lot for me to quit reading a book but I think that I am better at vetting things to protect myself :)