Novedad: Paris Adrift, de E.J. Swift

Esta semana, la editorial británica Solaris ha puesto a la venta Paris Adrift, la nueva novela de la escritora E.J. Swift. 

Esta es su sinopsis:

Paris was supposed to save Hallie. Now… well, let’s just say Paris has other ideas. 

There’s a strange woman called The Chronometrist who will not leave her alone. 

Garbled warnings from bizarre creatures keep her up at night. And there’s a time portal in the keg room of the bar where she works. 

Soon, Hallie is tumbling through the turbulent past and future Paris, making friends, changing the world—and falling in love. 

But with every trip, Hallie loses a little of herself, and every infinitesimal change she makes ripples through time, until the future she’s trying to save suddenly looks nothing like what she hoped for…

Osiris, de E.J. Swift

Banda sonora de la reseña: Sugiero leer esta reseña escuchando Osiris, de Kalya Scintilla y Avari (Spotify, YouTube).

Osiris, la novela de debut de E.J. Swift, es una de aquellas obras que fueron publicadas durante el apogeo de Night Shade Books. Sólo por ello, me pareció suficientemente interesante como para solicitar una copia de evaluación que, por circunstancias que es mejor contar en un bar que en este blog, durmió el sueño de los justos en mi ordenador hasta hace bien poco. La entrevista a su autora que Leticia Lara, de Fantástica Ficción, me propuso hacer de forma conjunta resultó la excusa perfecta para rescatar esta novela de los mares del olvido.

Osiris empieza de una forma más que prometedora, con dos escenas que nos presentan dos situaciones muy diferentes pero igualmente interesantes. La primera, la ejecución de un supuesto terrorista y agitador político de forma pública y a la vista de la parte más oprimida (los habitantes de la zona oeste) de Osiris. La segunda, la obsesión de Adelaide Rechnov por descubrir el paradero de su hermano gemelo Axel, excéntrico miembro de una de las familias más poderosas de la ciudad y desaparecido en misteriosas circunstancias.

Si Swift hubiera agarrado firmemente el timón y hubiera mantenido la proa hacia estos dos elementos, desarrollándolos y profundizando en ellos, muy posiblemente la nave hubiera llegado a buen puerto. Desgraciadamente, poco va a poco va variando el rumbo, con lo que el interés se hunde paulatinamente y no acabar de volver (ligeramente) a flote hasta casi el final de la novela. 

Por un lado, la parte de la investigación de la desaparición de Axel nunca acaba de perder de vista la costa, en parte por que está lastrada por cierto hecho que el lector conoce desde el prólogo pero que los personajes de la novela ignoran. Adelaide va en todo momento como a la deriva y los pocos descubrimientos que hace son o bien por pura casualidad o bien por deducciones milagrosas a las que la autora le hace llegar en momentos en los que ya no queda más remedio que hacer avanzar la historia en alguna dirección. Da la impresión de que esta parte sólo se ha incluido para que Adelaide tenga un motivo para colaborar con el otro protagonista de la historia: Vikram, el activista de la parte oeste de Osiris. 

La subtrama de la lucha política de Vikram navega con más viento en las velas y es bastante más interesante, sobre todo porque nos deja vislumbrar en algunos momentos el pasado y el presente de Osiris, una sociedad profundamente distópica que es lo más rescatable de la novela. Pese a ello, esta trama también presenta algunas inconsistencias y no acaba de ser del todo satisfactoria. La cosa termina de hacer aguas con la relación entre Vikram y Adelaide, que acapara la mayor parte de las páginas del libro pero resulta tan aburrida como irrelevante. 

Mi principal problema con Osiris ha sido, pues, esa enorme parte central en la que Adelaide y Vikram giran uno en torno al otro sin aportar nada de interés a la trama. Pero no es, ni mucho menos, mi única queja. Por ejemplo, no me ha acabado de convencer la caracterización de los personajes. Los secundarios son eso, muy secundarios, apenas esquemas de personaje. Los dos principales, bastante incoherentes, actuando constantemente de forma totalmente contradictoria con lo que se nos ha desvelado de su pasado.

También falto de coherencia es el lenguaje usado. La prosa, en general, está bastante cuidada y es, sin duda, uno de los puntos más favorables del libro. Pero, de repente, aparecen términos que desentonan completamente. Esto es especialmente notable en los nombres que Swift emplea para las distintas tecnologías. Muchos de ellos tienen una inspiración marítima desconcertante (un poco como esta misma reseña), ya que aunque Osiris es una ciudad-isla, esto no parece reflejarse mucho más allá de estas curiosas elecciones de nomenclatura (y en ciertas revelaciones del final del libro, cuando ya empieza a ser un poco tarde para evitar el naufragio). Así, tenemos el Reefmail (sic), los Surfboards (entiendo que una especie de tablets), el Neptune (ordenador), el o'vis (¿televisión?), el o'dio (radio), el o'comm (algún dispositivo de comunicación) y el scarab, que es como se llama al teléfono móvil en Osiris porque, claro, Osiris es un dios egipcio y los escarabajos eran sagrados en Egipto (esto no se dice en ningún momento en el libro, pero es la única explicación medianamente razonable que se me ocurre). 

Por todo esto, no puedo recomendar la lectura de Osiris. Es un libro aburrido y excesivamente largo (tiene unas 420 páginas de las que a mí me sobran, siendo generoso, las 200 centrales) que desaprovecha un buen planteamiento inicial para hundirse lentamente en el océano de lo insustancial. Sus dos continuaciones, Cataveiro y Tamaruq, ya están disponibles, pero creo que esta vez voy, como las ratas, a abandonar el barco lo más pronto posible e intentar buscar aguas más propicias en las que navegar.  

   

Interview with E.J. Swift

Today I have the pleasure of interviewing, together with Leticia Lara from the wonderful Fantástica Ficción, E.J. Swift author of Osiris, Cataveiro and Tamaruq. You can also read a translation of the interview into Spanish at Fantástica Ficción. Hope you enjoy it! 

Leticia Lara & Odo: When did you know you wanted to become a writer? Which other authors have influenced you? Is there any current writer that you admire?

E.J. Swift: I’ve written stories since I can remember, so it wasn’t a conscious decision to become a writer - just something I’ve always done, and I hope I always will do. 

There are so many writers I could list who have been influential. Margaret Atwood is a huge inspiration. The Blind Assassin is one of my favourite novels and one of the most affecting works I’ve read. I’m also a big fan of Jennifer Egan, who is one of those rare writers who can switch between tragedy and comedy within a sentence.

A few recent novels I loved were The Kills by Richard House (2013), The Race by Nina Allan (2014) and The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne (2014) - I seem to be drawn to fragmented narratives. 

LL&O: What is your process of writing? Do you have the plot in your mind and let yourself go or do you plan every little step of your characters? 

EJS: It’s different for every novel, but the process is more organic than structured. I don’t plot intensively in advance. I write scenes out of sequence, as they come to mind, and when I have enough material, I start working out how it all fits together.

With Osiris, the story grew from the concept of the place, this very hostile environment in the middle of the ocean, which believes itself cut off from the rest of the world. With Cataveiro, I had a strong sense of the characters of Ramona and Taeo, and wanted to explore the tension between them and how this is reflected with the broader themes of the novel, even though their paths intersect very briefly.

LL&O: How did it affect you the change of your publishing company from Night Shade Books to Del Rey UK?

EJS: I already had the contract with Del Rey UK when Night Shade Books changed hands, so that was very reassuring during a period of uncertainty, to know that the sequels would be published at least in the UK. On the US side, Night Shade Books continue to publish Osiris, and I’m hoping to have US ebooks available for Cataveiro and Tamaruq very soon. I commissioned new artwork for these from the wonderful artist Ben Baldwin, which I’m looking forward to sharing once the ebooks are ready.

LL&O: What can you tell us about the current wave of clifi (climate change fiction)? Do you think it has come to stay?

EJS: I think it’s almost impossible to write anything set in the near future without addressing it, at least as background detail. And in a lot of science fiction set further into the future, there’s reference to some kind of environmental restoration, before progress can begin again - Paul McAuley’s The Quiet War, for example. I mentioned The Race earlier - one of the themes it explores is the devastating environmental consequences of fracking, which is a recurring threat in the UK at the moment. 

LL&O: Who is your favorite character from your books? 

EJS: I would have to say the Alaskan, who appears first in Cataveiro. She’s an outcast, exiled from her own country, fiercely intelligent, and first appears as a rather Machiavellian villain. I loved gradually filling in her backstory, and developing the relationship between her and her employee, the street kid Mig. It would be great to write some of her earlier life story one day.

LL&O: Reading Osiris and Cataveiro I feel amazed by the background of the stories, the world as a desert place. Do you see it as a possible (and terrible) future? Are your books a warning?

EJS: I first read about the threat of climate change in-depth when I came across Mark Lynas’s Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. And it was terrifying, reading that. Since then I’ve tried to keep myself updated on developments, and it’s obviously gained increasing media attention.

Certainly the destruction of the natural world is something I feel very passionate about. I read an article recently which talked about the media frenzy that would be generated if evidence were found of even the most primitive life on Mars. The writer made the point that by contrast, we are happy to watch hundreds of species go extinct every year on Earth, some of which we won’t even have a chance to discover. So I suppose the books are in part my reaction to what is happening here and now - and what we could lose if we don’t do something to stop it. In Cataveiro, especially, I felt there was an opportunity to explore some of those ideas - through the story of the last jaguar, for example.

LL&O: How do you feel about "The Spiders of Stockholm" being included in Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award longlist?

EJS: That was amazing! Jared Shurin, who edited the story, had submitted it back in July, and I had completely forgotten about it. So it was a massive surprise to find out it had been longlisted. I hope it might bring some attention to Irregularity, which is a gorgeous anthology. Jurassic always publish great collections.

LL&O: In Osiris there is growing tension because people from the west are not allowed to enter the richest part of the city. What do you think about the current conflicts caused by illegal immigration both in America and in Europe? How can Science Fiction help overcome this kind of problems?

EJS: Science fiction, and literature in general, can give a face and a voice to the unfamiliar, and remind us to empathize, to be compassionate. In particular, I think science fiction has a unique power to explore real-world situations through allegory. Setting a novel in a futuristic sea city gave me the freedom to examine some of these conflicts without the anxiety of misrepresenting a community. I wanted Osiris to be a failed utopia - in the beginning, the city was open to everyone, but when resources are stretched as a result of environmental catastrophe, the walls come down. It’s a classic reaction.

LL&O: Also in Osiris, the menace of terrorism is used as a political weapon in order to advance certain agendas. Did you find inspiration for this in some real-world politics? 

EJS: I think real-world politics have inevitably influenced my work. I was definitely interested to explore the rhetoric of war, particularly when it came to writing Tamaruq, the third book, where the city of Osiris becomes a pawn in the ambitions of north and south. I’m fascinated by the way that language frames, justifies or warps our perspective on aggressor and victim, from media to politics to the way history is recorded.

Two writers I admire greatly who write about some of these tensions are Kamila Shamsie (Burnt Shadows is a great example) and Aminatta Forna, who has explored civil war in Sierra Leone and Croatia in her work.

LL&O: What is your opinion on the situation of women in genre fiction?

EJS: We have a long way to go towards gender equality, and not just in genre fiction. When I was writing Osiris, I wasn’t thinking about what genre I was writing or how it would be marketed, I was focussed on the story. It was only after being published that I became aware of the discussions around gender within science fiction.

It was around that time I started cataloguing my reading, and was horrified to realize I was reading far more male writers than female. Since then I’ve had a strict 50-50 or bias-towards-women-writers rule for myself, and I’ve discovered some brilliant writers I’d never heard of. It’s quite alarming when you identify as a feminist, and realize that unconsciously you’ve been contributing to the problem yourself. I’m not a reviewer, but I make more of a conscious effort now to write about books I’ve enjoyed on my website, particularly by women.

LL&O: In Osiris suicide is like the ultimate taboo. Do you think that our will to live is strong enough to guide us even through the direst of futures? 

EJS: Yes, I think we’ll endure, the question is how (and I really hope it’s not like the far future section of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which is one of the darkest futures I’ve ever read), and whether we can maintain a society that is truly humane. Because it’s always the most vulnerable sections of society who suffer first. In Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, one of the scenes that really stuck with me was a girl in the airport desperately asking if anyone had the anti-depressants she needed, because she had run out of medication, and nobody did. But I loved that book because it also highlighted the capacity of art to endure. So if the apocalypse comes, hopefully it will be more Station Eleven than Cloud Atlas!

LL&O: Have you ever been contacted by Spanish publishers to translate your books?

EJS: Sadly not, though I would love to see my books translated. I’d love to see more non-Anglophone work translated into English too.

LL&O: Are social networks important for your relationships with other authors and with your readers?

EJS: Yes, but I have something of a love-hate relationship with Twitter. Of course it’s useful as a professional network, and more importantly it’s lovely to connect with other readers and writers, to talk about books, to find recommendations for books you might never have heard of. I find so much of my reading through recommendations online. On the other hand, it can also feel like a total time sink, and all too often any nuance or reason is lost in a sea of people shouting.

LL&O: What are you working on right now? Can you give us a sneak peek of your future projects?

EJS: I’m working on something a bit different from The Osiris Project - and not quite so dark! I can’t say too much about it yet but it’s a standalone novel, a contemporary setting with speculative elements.

LL&O: Where can our readers learn more about you and your work?

EJS: You can find out more via my website - www.ejswift.co.uk

I’m also on twitter (@catamaroon) and on Facebook facebook.com/ejswiftauthor so please do say hello.

LL&O: Any other thing you would like to add?

EJS: Thank you for having me on the blog, and for asking some really interesting questions!

Three Free Ebooks Courtesy of Nightshade Books

Amazing news have just arrived by email from Nightshade Books:

We survived! Let's celebrate!   
 
Well, we can add the  Myan end of the world prophecy to the long list of things that didn't happen. And while it's probably no surprise to most of us that we woke up as per usual, we think it's still worth celebrating!

PLUS, its the Winter Solstice! Double trouble! So let's nestle into the longest night of the year with some free reading, shall we?

Here is how it works: 

Email StillHere@nightshadebooks.com and you'll  receive an auto response from us with a username, password and link to our download site where you'll be able to download the .epub or .mobi files of some of our most exciting and appropriately apocalyptic titles:

• Seed by Rob Ziegler 

• Osiris by E.J. Swift

• Wastelands edited by John Joseph Adams

I read Seed earlier this year and quite liked it (you can read my review here).

Go grab them before the end of the world!!! Oh... wait!

Up for review (part 1)

Lately, I've been lucky enough as to receive a good number of review copies of very interesting books. If you want to know what I'll be reading and reviewing over the next few weeks just take a look below these lines. Today I'll focus on the books published by Night Shade and on a forthcoming post I'll list the rest.

 Osiris by E.J. Swift

“Nobody leaves Osiris. Osiris is a lost city. She has lost the world and world has lost her . . .”

Rising high above the frigid waters, the ocean city of Osiris has been cut off from the land since the Great Storm 50 years ago. Most believe that Osiris is the last city on Earth. Adelaide is the black-sheep granddaughter of the city’s Architect. A jaded socialite, she wants little to do with her powerful relatives — until her troubled twin brother disappears mysteriously. Vikram, a third-generation storm refugee, sees his own people dying of cold and starvation. He hopes to use Adelaide to bring about much-needed reforms — but who is using whom? As another brutal winter brings Osiris closer to riot and revolution, two very different people attempt to bridge the gap dividing the city, only to find a future far more complicated than either of them ever imagined.

 

 Other Worlds Than These edited by John Joseph Adams

What if you could not only travel any location in the world, but to any possible world?

We can all imagine such “other worlds”—be they worlds just slightly different than our own or worlds full of magic and wonder—but it is only in fiction that we can travel to them. From The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Tower, from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a rich tradition of this kind of fiction, but never before have the best parallel world stories and portal fantasies been collected in a single volume—until now.

 

Prepare to Die! by Paul Tobin

Nine years ago, Steve Clarke was just a teenage boy in love with the girl of his dreams. Then a freak chemical spill transformed him into Reaver, the man whose super-powerful fists can literally take a year off a bad guy’s life.

Days ago, he found himself at the mercy of his arch-nemesis Octagon and a whole crew of fiendish super-villains, who gave him two weeks to settle his affairs–and prepare to die.

Now, after years of extraordinary adventures and crushing tragedies, the world’s greatest hero is returning to where it all began in search of the boy he once was . . . and the girl he never forgot.

Exciting, scandalous, and ultimately moving, Prepare to Die! is a unique new look at the last days of a legend.

 

 Spin the Sky by Katy Stauber

HOME IS WHERE THE HERD IS . . .

Fifteen years after winning the Spacer War, Cesar Vaquero has returned to Ithaca, a rugged orbital colony that boasts the only herd of cattle in space, and a wife and a son who don’t even recognize him when he shows up at their doorstep. Posing as a homeless drifter, he soon discovers that making his way home past space pirates, one-eyed giants, and mad scientists was the easy part . . .

Penelope swore off men after her husband disappeared. She’s been busy enough running the ranch, raising her son, and fending off pushy suitors eager to get their hands on her and her herd. But something about this war-weary drifter stirs forgotten feelings in her, even as sabotage, rustlers, and a space stampede threaten to tear Ithaca apart!

Spin the Sky is an rollicking, high-spirited riff on a certain classic odyssey—featuring characters as big and full of surprises as Space itself!