Jake Casella Brookins
The Ancillary Review of Books was founded to address the radical possibilities of criticism, particularly in the context of the radical possibilities of speculative fiction. Named after the 1977 discovery in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our Wow! Signal column collects examples of diverse critical voices from around the web. This isn’t intended to be a comprehensive list, but rather a scattershot snapshot of interesting discussions, hopefully introducing ARB’s readers to new critics, books, topics, and venues.
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Articles, Reviews, and More:
Aaron Bady’s “I probably didn’t like the novel Orbital because of where I’m standing on Earth” for his blog, Shells In an Orange
The criticism to beat, for me, so far this year. I love the approach here, and the specifics of reading the purposefully/supposedly invisible politics of Orbital: “The problem with space is that it is empty. It is the entire point of space that it is only filled with what you put in it. And you can fill it with poetry, sure, why not. But that’s something different than seeing the earth clearly, as it really is, because you’re so far away from it that it comes to resemble a painting.”
Wm Henry Morris’s “On the typhoon in Samantha Harvey’s Orbital” for his newsletter, Oddities, Pretensions, and Curiosities
Two of my favorite critics separately writing about Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, must be something in the air. The Booker will do that. Morris’s piece is about death, about using it and portraying it in interesting and, I guess, “responsible” ways, in fiction—I really like that he brings in Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass into this discussion.
The Strange Horizons Criticism Special Issue
Chock full of the good stuff, as one might expect. A great op-ed on the state of the field from Aishwarya Subramanian and Dan Hartland, and a wonderful slate of essays.
Julien Crockett’s “Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem” for LARB
A great interview with Ted Chiang; I’ve sometimes scratched my head a bit about Chiang’s discussion of genre mechanics but I really loved his science fiction vs. fantasy bit here: “magic is evidence that the universe knows you’re a person.” Loads of great, refreshing discussion of LLMs and AI from someone who has thought a lot about the philosophical and technical realities.
Erika Nesvold’s “The Thorny Ethics of Planetary Engineering” for The MIT Press Reader
Nice excerpt from Nesvold’s book, Off-Earth: a quick glimpse of how we might take some of the ethics of terraforming seriously. Fans of KSR’s Mars trilogy, take note.
Brandon Taylor’s “against casting tape culture” for his newsletter, sweater weather
Extremely thought-provoking bit on first-person narration, filmic attitudes to writing fiction, internality and the lack thereof. A bit divisive, and I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but matches up with a lot of my gripes and observations about writing trends in some genre spaces. Well worth a read.
Lila Shapiro’s “There Is No Safe Word” for Vulture
In case you missed it: this is the deeply researched follow-up to the allegations against Neil Gaiman. This is extremely disturbing stuff. I’m glad to see this kind of journalistic integrity, and that this story isn’t going away, but also: reading this messed me up for the day, at least. Take care when deciding when & if to read.
Joshua Roebke’s “Laboratories of the impossible” for aeon
Fascinating article reading experimental physics and Latin American magical realist (or surrealist, or irrealist, or…) fiction against and through each other.
Joachim Boaz’s “Interview with Jordan S. Carroll, author of Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right” for Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations
Have been shouting about Speculative Whiteness a fair bit; this is a great interview outlining what the book’s all about!
A lot of discourse flying around about book reviewing. Bit inside baseball, but how the people who are writing (and reading!) reviews are thinking about them is always fascinating to me. I’ve been scribbling some thoughts, should probably post those, but here are three that felt central (Anders’ is the one that kicked this round off):
- Charlie Jane Anders’ “What Are Book Critics For?” for Happy Dancing
- Renay’s “That’s a Nice Review You’ve Got There” for Lady Business
- Gin Jenny’s “The Value of Criticism Is Thinking Together” for Reading the End
Molly Templeton’s “Trying and Failing to Figure Out ‘Escapism’ in Books” for Reactor
Great stuff as usual; I dig how Templeton is getting at escapism’s undefined nature as both a positive and a negative descriptor.
Julie Phillips’ “The Way of Water: On the Quiet Power of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Activism” for LitHub
Very nice article; I particularly appreciate connecting the ideas of Taoism to the drudgery of civilization-maintenance. Have to admit that Le Guin’s concept of righteous inaction is one that kind of gnaws at me, feels like a crack in her work, and this article provides a way to maybe think around it a bit. (Berlatsky’s piece—I know, I know—on The Lathe of Heaven is one that often comes to mind.)
Constance Grady’s “Are men’s reading habits truly a national crisis?” for Vox
I’m always a bit of a “people don’t read anymore” skeptic (or, more properly, a “people used to read tons and tons, everyone, all categories of people used to ready 100 books a year until just recently” skeptic); this is a great article digging into one particularly pernicious “statistic”.
Nina Allan’s “The Last Lap?” for her site, The Spider’s House
A re-discovery of a very early Christopher Priest essay; a reflection on the perpetually-almost-over genre; the inspiration of individual works and writers.
The Lunar Flaneur’s review of Larry Niven’s Ringworld
Always good to see some of the field’s rougher classics under the lens. “I’m honestly annoyed that this book gets held up as an exemplar of good scifi!”
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In case you missed it, some highlights from our last month at ARB:
- Reviews of Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival, On the Calculation of Volume, Waterblack, and Cholorophilia.
- Essays on The Proposal & work in translation and retellings of The Count of Monte Cristo.
- New column on speculative poetry
- Podcasts: Our 2024 Wrap-Up; Jared Pechaček on Mistress of Mistresses, and Hilary Strang on Aurora.
- And don’t miss our lists! ARB’s Notable Books and Notable Criticism of 2024.
Jake Casella Brookins is a critic, independent scholar, and avid book-clubber. He’s presented his academic work on science fiction with the SFRA, ACLA, ICFA, and many more, publishes regular reviews with Locus Magazine and the Chicago Review of Books, and is the publishing editor for the Ancillary Review of Books. Originally from the Pennsylvania Appalachians, he now lives in beautiful Buffalo, New York, with his wife, the playwright Alison Casella Brookins. You can find links to his reviews, social media, and other writings here.
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