Book Review: Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

 

It’s no secret that fantasy literature has a diversity problem—the conversation has been nearly constant for the last few years. Thankfully, there’s been a growing influx of new authors bringing fresh perspectives to a genre that had begun to grow stale. These range from New Weird authors like Jeff VanderMeer to more traditional fantasy authors as Saladin Ahmed. Our subject today, Daniel José Older, belongs to the latter category. Older released his debut in February of this year; a critically acclaimed release, my interest was piqued but I never got the incentive to check out the man’s work until now, with the release of his new novel, a young adult effort, titled Shadowshaper.

Shadowshaper is an exciting new novel to talk about. An urban fantasy, Shadowshaper rectifies many of the elements I’ve found missing in the urban fantasy subgenre. The novel is set in Brooklyn, and Older’s Brooklyn feels lived in—it’s not just a generic area that just happens to hold a secret, it’s filled with multicultural communities. Older’s protagonist, Sierra Santiago, is a fierce girl of color, of black and Puerto Rican heritage with a thick Afro that she wears proudly. Her friends are diverse as well—one is Haitian, another from Martinique of Igbo descent, two are a lesbian couple, and all are some form of ethnic minority. While Shadowshaper is fundamentally a fantasy adventure, this novel has relevant themes that are weaved subtly into the tapestry of Older’s world: police brutality, street harassment, gentrification, internalized racism manifested through colorism, misogyny and homophobia’s intersection.

Best of all is the world building—rather than fall back on the tried and true masquerade, Older’s magic fits almost perfectly into the society he describes, just as in tune with the communities as the air they breathe. Shadowshaping is such an excellent and visually stunning form of magic, I can just imagine how many people will want to play it in RPGs.

As a novel, it’s solid. The prose is sharp—descriptive without being flowery. The author does especially well at describing music, which comes as no surprise due to his own admission on his website that he is a musician himself. His writing swells but doesn’t overwhelm the narrative so as to distract from the story.

And a good story it is. While the sense of place is one of the book’s best elements, Older also writes a well-paced mystery. Some elements are fairly easy to spot, while others might require a keen eye to detect. Let it be said that Daniel Older left just enough clues to keep things exciting, but filled the novel with enough quiet moments to keep things from feeling overwhelming.

But the heart of the novel is, unsurprisingly, its characters. Sierra is a lovely protagonist; while less flawed than the main characters I tend to prefer, she is a proactive heroine who solves her problems in an intelligent fashion, is proud of herself, and fights back against injustice that should thrill those that are into that sort of thing. The novel contains a fairly good villain that serves their narrative purpose. Other great characters include her conflicted mother, Uncle Neville, Nydia, and Sierra’s friends Tee, Izzy, and Bennie.

Does it have flaws? Of course—sometimes Older gets a bit carried away with his descriptions, Sierra reacts just a bit too well to such traumatic experiences, the romantic subplot between Sierra and Robbie is contrived and oh so tiring. . . .

Overall, Shadowshaper is a good young adult novel. Young adult has tended to lose me in recent years due to the overabundance of copycat releases, but I can say definitively that this novel is perfectly readable for both teenagers and adults due to its entertainment value and the relevant social commentary hanging in the background. Recommended.

Score: 4/5

Book Review: Bone Dance: A Fantasy for Technophiles by Emma Bull

Speculative fiction has long had a love affair with post-apocalyptic fiction—just in this last year alone M. R. Carey’s massive hit The Girl With All the Gifts took the science-fiction and fantasy communities by storm. But sometimes even the big releases in genre can end up left behind by history, and unfortunately this seems to have happened to Bone Dance by Emma Bull.

Emma Bull’s best known work is War for the Oaks, a hit novel that helped pioneer what we think of when we imagine urban fantasy: spunky female lead, contemporary real-world setting, and mythical creatures hidden from modern society. She has written other works, including Finder and her 2007 effort, Territory. Bone Dance, a science-fantasy, was released in 1991 and went on to be nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. So how is the novel itself?

The plot is set in a world after a nuclear war between the Americas. It’s hard to put into words, and I don’t want to spoil anything, so I recommend just reading a spoiler-filled review or, better yet, check it out for yourself. Unique for a fantasy effort, its magic involves both technology (it is subtitled A Fantasy for Technophiles, after all) and Louisiana Voodoo. Creatively, each chapter is named for a Tarot card. Most of Bone Dance’s setting is left unexplored outside of some of the characters’ backstories, so I found the sense of place to be one of the novel’s more disappointing aspects.

In terms of characters, they are well-drawn. Our narrator is Sparrow, a character who is neither man nor woman (though it has a fantasy explanation, so it’s iffy regarding representation); they're also asexual. Sparrow makes a living as a trader, and we find out rather quickly that Sparrow has had their mind taken over, which led to Sparrow losing hours with no memory of what happened. I’ll admit that Sparrow was my favorite character in the book: they’re smart, resourceful, brave, have issues with commitment and friendship that I related to immensely, and possess a great sense of humor. Bull also crafts other great characters: Sherrea, Frances Redding, Mick Skinner, China Black, and Theo. This book also serves as proof that writing a novel from a first-person perspective of someone who’s not female doesn’t keep/excuse you from passing the Bechdel test. (It also passes Kelly Sue DeConnick’s “Sexy Lamp Test,” so it’s a pretty feminist book.) While the story belongs to Sparrow, the other characters add their own agendas and backstories to the narrative, making them well-rounded—at least, well-rounded enough. 

Bull's prose is well-done, over all. There's a good balance in sentence structure and her descriptions are colorful, but she narrowly avoids purple prose. Sometimes, I felt she got a bit over descriptive, but these times were minor. 

There are problems—the pacing can be off; some of the swearing got excessive; Sparrow’s narration reaks of white privilege with the description of characters assumed white until they specify; Sparrow being the only non-binary character in the story, plus it being down to a speculative element; the black characters felt kind of Magical Negro; the implied rape vibes I got in one of the chapters made me extremely uncomfortable, and I don’t think it was handled adequately.

All things said, Bone Dance is a solid work. It’s not without its flaws, but it still works as entertainment due to its action, world-building, characters, and mystery. Even more importantly, it holds fairly relevant themes for a modern speculative reader: the right to choose your own identity rather than the one that was forced on you and not conform to what is seen as the default (in this case, cis male and heterosexual). I’d recommend it with some reservations.

Score: 3.5/5

Female-Focused Movies/Projects Marvel Studios Should Make/Consider

. . . And a Few Baby-Steps Marvel can Take to Gender-Equality

Note: I am not using this as an excuse to stop criticizing the lack of Black Widow merchandise or a film. I am simply offering up my own suggestions for female representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Keep in mind I am not necessarily a fan of all these characters so this isn't just a fangirling post. Also, if you haven’t seen Avengers: Age of Ultron, this post contains some spoilers for it:

It seems as if every cry for a female-led superhero movie involves people insisting Marvel make a Black Widow film. Just recently, io9 posted about fans insisting on “better Black Widow representation,” which often means a solo film. Could one happen? Of course—Scarlett Johansson has even pointed out that she and Kevin Feige have spoken about the possibility. But she isn’t the only option, and it’s pretty clear that even if a Black Widow film never gets made, that doesn’t mean Marvel has run out of characters they can consider other than Captain Marvel. While some of the choices I would’ve liked have been chosen to appear in the television/Netflix series (Mockingbird, Hellcat) there’s far more Marvel females than Black Widow, Carol Danvers, Invisible Woman, and the X-Women. As you might remember, I’m a big Marvel fan, so here are some films/projects I think should be made or at least considered that are heavy on the female representation:

1     Runaways

This is number one on the list for one very specific reason: it almost happened. The Runaways had a film in development for years, but it was shelved when Marvel Studios chose to focus more on the Avengers. In fact, the screenwriter for Iron Man 3, Drew Pearce, penned a Runaways script. But they can always save it for Phase 4—it’s the perfect teen franchise, playing off the whole wish fulfillment of being someone special and having your parents turn out to be literally evil. Plus, the Runaways is unique in that it has a mostly female cast, with the original Runaways having been made up of 2 boys, 4 girls, and one genetically engineered dinosaur. It’s pretty much guaranteed to be great as long as they don’t try to dumb it down, erase the LGBT/racial representation, or make any of the girls a boy. 

2.      Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)

Once upon a time in the Bronze Age of Comics, Marvel Comics launched a new superhero series titled Spider-Woman. The series, and the character, were created mainly to keep DC from trademarking the name, but she also served the purpose of helping court more female readers. The series also got its own Saturday morning cartoon. While Jessica’s book went on to be cancelled at issue 50 and she fell into the background, Brian Michael Bendis used her in his influential and controversial Avengers run, which helped raise her profile considerably, helping her become a prominent Marvel character. Jessica, codename aside, is no spinoff of another character. She’s worked for HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D., which would make her very easy to introduce to the MCU. She’s got a fairly unique powerset when compared to the generic super strength/flight combination. She has her own villains like the Brothers Grimm and Skein (formerly Gypsy Moth). Besides, it’s an excuse to make another film (other than Captain Marvel) with a female superhero that actually wears a bright and colorful costume.

3.      Scarlet Witch

If everyone’s going to throw around Natasha, who’d previously been the only female Avenger, I might as well suggest the other one, too. She’s gotten fairly popular since the movie, and if they’re willing to make movies about unknown properties like Ant-Man, then why not? Wanda Maximoff has plenty of fodder for a solo picture: It could feature her going back to her home country, maybe include Mount Wundagore. She could still be mourning Quicksilver and fight Chthon. The writers could clarify her ethnic background—while Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson had described Wanda and her brother as Romani, there was nothing in the theatrical cut of Age of Ultron to clue the audience in on that; this could be where that could be shown. The film could even have her explore her powers more, have her start to realize her powers are more strange and complicated than she (and everyone else) had previously assumed—basically, put the “witch” back in Scarlet Witch and have her start doing real magic. 

4.      Angela

Formerly a character in the Spawn comics, Angela was introduced into the Marvel universe in 2013’s Age of Ultron crossover series; she later went on to join the Guardians of the Galaxy and she’s even headlining her own series. As she is Thor and Loki’s sister in the comics, she could be introduced or at least teased in Thor: Ragnarok. Angela’s a fairly new Marvel character and Marvel may have to make an arrangement with Neil Gaiman to use her in the films, but she’s pretty awesome and her current comic has introduced another female character named Sera, with whom she's been adventuring, a transwoman of color who has a more muscular build. Take Angela and Sera, cast some pretty and charismatic actresses, and send them on a fun fantasy adventure film and I bet it’d be huge.

5 5.      Ms. Marvel

You probably saw this one coming—Kamala Khan has unquestionably been a breakout character ever since her introduction so if they want another female-led film and they want some racial diversity, well here’s a chance for both of it together, as well as religious diversity since Ms. Marvel’s well-known for being a rare Muslim heroine. She’s relatively new at the moment, but if they greenlight a film/cartoon/Netflix show for her for, say, 2022, they should be just fine. They’re halfway there already since she’s making her animated debut in 2016. 

But even if none of that ever happens, there’s still ways for the MCU to diversify itself and include more females. Here’s some examples:

• ·         Including either Moondragon, Phyla-Vell, or Mantis in the future Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Writer-director James Gunn has said his films are primarily based on the characters from Guardians of the Galaxy volume 2 by Dan Abnett and Andy Landing, so it only makes sense that at least one of these characters would show up due to their prominence in the source material. After all, all the members of the film Guardians were front and center in the comics, so it should be only a matter of time until at least one is announced.

• ·         For Avengers movies after Infinity War, there’s plenty of obscure Avengers characters from the comics that can be adapted to film. There’s Spectrum (Monica Rambeau), who’s got light-based powers—she can turn into and control the electromagnetic spectrum. There’s Firebird, who can fly, manipulate fire, and may or may not be immortal (which is interesting, as she is a devout Catholic). Or maybe since Mark Ruffalo confirmed Universal owns the rights to solo Hulk films that may mean an Avengers flick is our best shot of an MCU She-Hulk, though it’s not a bad idea. Unlike her cousin, Jennifer Walters is a big team player.

• ·         Since Jessica Jones is getting her own Netflix series that’ll introduce Luke Cage, I think Cage’s own series as well as the Iron Fist series should help introduce two properties that the MCU could use. One I want for sure is White Tiger, Angela or Ava; I just want a White Tiger.  Even more, I demand to see the lovely ladies of color that make up the Daughters of the Dragon, Misty Knight and Collen Wing, which would lead to them starring in their own series.

• ·         This one is perhaps the easiest of all—in fact, it should already be a part of the movie. Marvel Studios has an Inhumans film in development. Ideally, it’ll be less X-Men and more high concept science-fantasy. Think Marvel’s Game of Thrones. And the only way to do it properly is to focus on the royal family. I’m sure we’ll see King Black Bolt, Gorgon, Karnak, and Lockjaw. But it could never work without Black Bolt’s wife and interpreter, Queen Medusa. And unless her rights are owned by another studio, Crystal should also be there—I’m done with this “only one prominent woman in the main cast” nonsense, especially here where it’s completely unnecessary to trim the amount of characters in the cast. In fact, Crystal should be pushed like crazy due to her appeal to young girls: a young princess of a kingdom who can control the classical Greek elements would never not sell tons of merchandize. 

• ·         But if we really care about female representation, we’ve got to talk about villains. Thus far, the MCU has mainly had its female villains appearing on television; the biggest exception was Nebula in the Guardians movie. And, with one exception I’ll mention in a minute, I want actual villains who get treated like the male ones. None of that Men Are the Expendable Gender nonsense where all the female villains get redeemed and never get comeuppance. Let’s rectify that. I’m still surprised that the Enchantress has yet to appear in a Thor movie, so hopefully that’ll happen in the next one. If the Avengers need a villain somewhere down the line, there’s always Morgan Le Fey. Enough magic villains, though: for Captain America, there’s Sin. The Captain Marvel film or a sequel can use Deathbird or Moonstone. In regards to that exception I mentioned, Screaming Mimi or Songbird as she’s better known could be introduced as a villain to lead to a future Thunderbolts adaptation where she can be redeemed since I think she’s got potential to be huge somewhere down the line.

So while these measures aren’t perfect, they are plausible and wouldn’t require a lot of introduction—in many cases, these characters would perfectly fit in with the cast of characters the cinematic universe has already played with. I do wish the list could've turned out less white and hetero-normative, but alas, most of Marvel's LGBT or women of color are owned by Fox, so these choices are pretty obscure. These are just my two cents on the matter. If you feel I left anything out or want to flame me in the comments, feel free.