Ekaterina Sedia wrote one of my favorite books of the year, The Secret History of Moscow. This mythic wonderland of Russia history and folklore was so effectively done that it gave me not only a burning desire to learn more about the country but also a wealth of respect for how Sedia wove old tales into a contemporary adventure about a sister in search of her lost/magically transformed sibling. She has new book out (which I have not read yet): The Alchemy of Stone. (Read more about it in the positive Locus review.)

For fantasy readers, Sedia is author to watch and one whose work (which includes many fine short stories) I am happily still discovering. If you haven't read Moscow yet then you are in for a treat - get a copy post haste.

Here are books that Ekaterina Sedia enjoyed reading this year:

The Traitor by Michael Cisco (originally appeared here)

I want to single out this book, because it is so unlike anything else out there, and yet it seemed to have received little attention. I am especially disappointed that the WFA jury did not include it on the ballot. Michael Cisco’s The Traitor is a truly remarkable book: The plot is simultaneously simple and muddled — a spirit-eater named Nophtha follows a spirit-eater cum soul-burner named Wite, and becomes a disciple and a witness to Wite’s transformation; the book itself is a sort of gospel written by captive Nophtha. The interesting part is that in this case Wite’s message is pretty much unknown — he has achieved a sort of afterlife but through means which are not exactly sympathetic. It is the gospel without a Jesus and written by Judas, if one were to rely on Christian analogy, which doesn’t quite do the book justice.

As far as the book itself, it is narrated in an overpowering and yet flat voice, and is a handy demonstration to whip out every time someone fresh from a writing workshop starts talking to you about the necessity of characterization or plot or dialog or description or any of these things. Cisco’s narrator is so alien as to minimize the reader’s ability
to relate to him, and he recites a series of events mixed with his memories and thoughts in a flat manner — and it really has no right to be so hypnotic, but it is. A part of the appeal is undoubtedly due to the very effective dreamlike imagery, and Cisco doesn’t make a common mistake of making it comprehensible. Consider this passage:

“I stood among them and the tombs, which were all covered with carvings of their faces and with dust, and I heard nothing but quiet and spiders. Sometimes it would rain outside and the water might trickle in. Occasionally the door would open for another one, who would enter head first and on the back. I could see thick stone columns and the tombs very faintly from the light that shone under the door. I heard footsteps coming very faintly near. Then they were close, heavy, and uneven. I saw a shadow appear in the strip of light under the door, all but blocking it totally — the door began crashing in its frame as whatever it was on the other side was battering it and I knew that the door would give way and something insanely violent will come bursting through.”

It perfectly captures the visual and yet nonsensical quality of dreams, the paralyzing terror, the fluidity of the imagery and scenery. And the entire book reads like this, like a fevered dream, and it is completely unlike everything else out there. This is the sort of prose that makes you almost ill and out of your head with its strangeness and intensity, and it is the sort of book that will stay with you for a long time.

Non-fiction.

This year, I read a ton of books on 19th century history (for a book, of course), and I wanted to praise two of these: Arthur Waley's The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes and Jonathan Spence's God's Chinese Son. Both of these deal with Chinese history, and each brings something worthwhile to the table. I chose these two because even though they are written by Westerners, they generally avoid the tendency one sees so often in books about other cultures -- namely, the tendency if not outright ridicule, then at least express a wide-eyed puzzlement at those strange, strange people.

First, Waley's book, published in 1958, is remarkable, because it offers a number of original sources from the period before and during the first Opium War. Many of the sources dealing with this time period drip contempt for the Chinese and express pretend innocence of their inscrutable customs, implicitly blaming them. Waley presents a number of sources, most notably diaries and letters of the Comissioner Lin (the official who was charged with stopping opium trade in China), that paint a different picture -- the cynical racism and profiteering of the British and the basic decency and an attempt to enforce law over those who had nothing but contempt for China and its people of the Comissioner Lin. His letters to Queen Victoria (which, sadly, never reached her) are heartbreaking -- they are words of a decent person who simply cannot fathom that there are people who would knowingly inflict such suffering as opium epidemic, and instead tries to explain what opium does to the Chinese people. Waley also offers some commentary, but it serves rather to provide the context rather than manipulate the content of the documents.

Waley of course addresses the corruption and military problems present in the Qing state at that time, but his portrayal never obfuscates the simple fact that whatever internal problems there were, it was the illegal importation of opium by the British and the resulting suffering that led to the first Opium War. A very worthy read, and a great compilation of primary sources for an amateur historian.

Jonathan Spence also talks about the first Opium War, but only in the relation to the Taiping Rebellion, and how the events of Opium War precipitated them. He does a nice job establishing the historical and cultural background of the overall Chinese state and the Hakka people, and then continues to detail the life of Hong Xiuquan, a truly remarkable person who believed himself to be a son of God and the younger brother pf Jesus. Spence talks about the Western missionaries and their proselytizing efforts that exposed Hong to Christianity, and he largely avoids that common Western tendency toward othering and exoticizing the Chinese, and he details the remarkable and terrifying story of Hong's increasing influence and the founding and collapse of Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace). A wonderfully thorough and even account of great historical events, which seem to be sadly little known in the West.

Kathy also recommended some books earlier this summer over at Jeff Vandermeer's: The Mount by Carol Emshwiller and Mockingbird by Sean Stewart