Book review: Jeannette Ng

A great way to choose new books is to check out the awards speeches of authors.

Last year I discovered N K Jemisin after clicking a link to her Hugo Award acceptance speech.  She is now definitely up there amongst my all-time favourite authors.  I wrote about her books here.

A few weeks ago I discovered Jeannette Ng, thanks to her awesome speech (text version here) when accepting the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer.  What she said was spot on.  Thanks to Ng, the award got a name-change; now it's the Astounding Award.  And rightly so.

So, I requested Ng's book, Under the Pendulum Sun, from the library, as well as the short story collection, Not So Stories, in which Ng has a contribution.

It was a great choice, and I thoroughly enjoyed both books.

Under the Pendulum Sun is a perfectly paced, incredibly creative, beautifully written novel with deep references to the Gothic novel tradition.  Ng's MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies shows.

I won't say too much about the story, as each part builds and reveals layers of mystery.  But in brief the story is set in the Age of Discovery.  Captain Cook has discovered the Faelands -- you get there by becoming thoroughly lost for a sufficiently long period of time.  The novel opens with Catherine Helstone heading there, following her missionary brother who wishes to bring the word of God to the Fae.

The Faelands are definitely weird and wonderful.  The sun is, well, a pendulum -- a lamp set on a long string that swings back and forth.  Days and nights come and go according to where the pendulum sun is at in its swing.  The rest of the world is equally, um, different.  But in an incredibly beautiful way.

Several days ago, when I was part-way through the book, we were out and Mulan hadn't brought enough entertainment.  I passed the book to her and she sped through it, finishing it before I did.  She enjoyed it, although possibly some parts of the story are on the mature side for a 12-year-old.

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The short stories that make up the Not So Stories are often equally creative.  But this is a much more overtly political work.

Most people should recognise that the Not So Stories references Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.  Kipling was a brilliant writer, and his stories are deservedly classics.

But Kipling was overly optimistic and positive about British colonialism.  In his storytelling, Kipling (just like C S Lewis, who I discussed here) often presents colonialism as a good, decent, civilising influence on the natives.  He ignores the evils and atrocities.

Not So Stories is intended explicitly as a corrective.  Each of the writers takes Kipling-ish ideas or styles but twists them to acknowledge colonial evils.

Jeannette Ng's story, How the Wishing Tree got its Carapace of Plastic, is perhaps only going to be understood and appreciated by those who have a bit of Chinese cultural background.  Here in our home in the children's toybox we have got a plastic orange, which we picked up from a wishing tree; Ng's story brought back plenty of memories and images, and in my opinion nicely captured the feeling.

Zina Hutton's Strays Like Us is a sweet cat story.  I've passed it to Miya to read, though she hasn't picked it up yet.

Raymond Gates' There is Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang is, as far as I could see, the least appropriate story in the collection.  All I could see was a campfire scary story, with little to no political or Kipling-ish references.

But in my opinion the final story, Paul Krueger's How the Camel Got Her Paid Time Off, was the most brilliant reply to Kipling.  It is the most perfect response to Kipling's How the Camel got His Hump.  It is an absolute must-read.

A few days ago I played our story CD of Just So Stories, and I've passed Not So Stories to Mulan to read.