Reviews

Review: Who you’re gonna call? Ghostbusters! (2016)

Posted by Aibird on July 23, 2016
Posted in: Author, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

 

When I first heard of a new Ghostbusters movie, I figured it would be a rehash of the old movie with guy actors, where they wouldn’t really do anything new except update the humor with present day gags. I had no plan to watch it at all until I discovered the twist: four female leads with some of my favorite comedians playing the lead roles. WHAT.  I immediately looked for trailers, but sadly the trailers were not mixed well, and weren’t all that enticing. But this was written by Paul Feig, Katie Dippold, and directed by Paul Feig– that seemed like a good combination. Even if the trailers were bad, surely, they couldn’t ruin an entire movie? So I decided to give it a chance.

Heavens was I glad I did. The movie blew me away with its wonderfully tasteful humor, fantastic leads, great side characters, a ridiculous but great plot, and solid good fun. I hadn’t had that much fun in a movie in a long time.

The movie begins with a tour guide, while he’s closing up shop, encountering a particularly malevolent ghost. The scene cuts to Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig) in the physics hall practicing for her first lecture for that term. Here is where the adventure starts, where Erin is forced by circumstances to meet up with her old friend, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) and Abby’s new partner, the engineer/inventor Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon).  During their investigations of ghost sightings, the three meet Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) the historian, who works as a subway clerk. Patty joins the team because of her knowledge of New York City and its history. This is a perfect combination in my eyes! Two scientists, an engineer, and a liberal arts historian.

All of the members of the group mattered, each with their own important contributions to their goals. Their roles impacted the plot in interesting ways, and the friendships they built were fabulous and important. Even Kevin, the somewhat intelligence-deficient secretary, had a role in the group, and the team cared about him. If harassment happened, it got called out and rightly so. Folks didn’t try to stop them from doing their work because they were women; instead, for once, the folks trying to stop them did it for reasons unrelated to gender.

The humor punched up and the jokes were smart and tasteful, which is exactly what I want out of a comedy but is often so hard to find. Plus, this movie hit on some important issues and explored them in an interesting, humorous, and respectful way. I’d say more, but I don’t want to give away spoilers in this review.

Also, the cast of background characters such as the civilians, police, national guard, and FBI were a wide variety of races. Since this is New York City, this was an important backdrop detail that they did well, and I greatly appreciated.

I also really enjoyed hearing Patty’s wonderfully detailed history knowledge of various parts of the city. This added such a depth to her character and subverted the stereotype of  black characters portrayed as punchy, one-liner sidekicks.

Overall, I highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys great humor and a fun romp. I loved this movie, laughed out loud along with other movie-goers, and at one point nearly everyone in the theater cheered. It’s just that fun.

Representation really does matter, and this movie will bring in a whole new generation of fans to the Ghostbuster universe. This new Ghostbusters movie does not erase the existence of the other movies. Instead, it expands the universe and shares it with more people, adding more diversity and allowing young girls and LGBTQIA folks to see themselves as a ghostbuster. For them to feel like they matter too. Sharing this universe doesn’t mean white, cisgender, straight guys lose their childhood — they don’t as the old movies still exist and are still relevant to the universe. Sharing doesn’t mean taking something away. It means you get to share the joy and fun of a universe with more people. And that’s a good thing.

Oh, and stay till the end of the credits. The reference made will delights those who know the Ghostbuster universe well.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Posted by Aibird on May 18, 2016
Posted in: Author, Characters, Feminism, movies, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

I loved Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It’s everything I always wanted from Star Wars, where they had complex, nuanced women protagonists and people of color. This diversity made the film’s great acting, dialogue, and story even more engrossing. It also hearkened back to some of the best moments of the original trilogy of IV, V, and VI. So this review will also include my examination of the characters and how I interpreted their journey.

What really struck me about The Force Awakens is that although it feels very much like Star Wars, it has a different approach than the other two trilogies. This Star Wars was about the connections between people, and it was emotion heavy. There are a lot of shots that focus on the eyes of people, where we see their reaction to the events before they act. You get to know their personalities, and you can see the struggles they have as they learn and grow. The prequels was mostly just dialogue — not even good dialogue — and the characters felt like cardboard stock to me. The original Luke, Leia, and Han movies were action-based, where you had glimpses into who these characters were, but the movies were so focused on them getting to places, them doing things. Which is fun in its own right, but sometimes it’s also fun to dig a little deeper. (This is why I like the Empire Strikes Back more than four and six. We had a more intimate experience with the characters.)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens uses about the same amount of dialogue as IV, V, or VI, but what stood out to me, is how well they utilized gestures, expressions, emotions, and specific actions to provide a vivid and intimate experience into who these characters are and why they do what they do. I love this approach, and I love how well they used these details to paint a character-focused and emotionally-laden story. I can’t wait to see where these characters go from here.

Below is my examination of some of the characters, but be warned, there be spoilers.

 

 

Rey

When we first see Rey, she is a scavenger in a hostile environment. Highly skilled in traversing the sand dunes, in fighting, and knowledge of ships, she makes her living finding useful salvage. She’s hardy, determined, and confident in her abilities. Her spark of confidence is not diminished by her circumstances because she knows what her limitations are as those limitations were tested again and again in the hostile desert world of Jakku. Her will to survive is strong, mostly because of her undying hope that her family will honor their promise to return.

When adventures comes her way, her quick thinking and confidence serves her well, but it also causes her to make glaring mistakes.  She learns quickly, but then she has to as a survivor and scavenger. That’s all she knows to do — learn quickly if she’s able to do it, because life is survival. So once she realizes she is force sensitive, the first thing she does is try to learn how to wield it, so she can escape, because life taught her to never rely on people to be there for her.  This is why Finn’s presence in her life changes her for the better. He teaches her that people can be reliable, they can care, and they will try to be there for her in their own ways. He complements her in that regard.

What caught my breath about Rey’s journey is her resilience. What makes her so resilient? She has a tolerance for discomfort due to her extreme survival skills, learned on Jakku. She must survive in a harsh desert with little water, where her only source of food is reliant on how well she scavenges parts in dangerous locales and how well she mitigates conflict from those seeking to steal the parts from her. No wonder she built up a tolerance for discomfort. Her emotional intelligence developed because she had to read others body language and intentions in order to avoid fights, find safe escape routes, determine who could be an ally or foe — so it’s not surprising to me that she adapts well to changing circumstances, no wonder how mind-blowing they seem to others.

Brene Brown explains what tolerance for discomfort  means:

Brene Brown, the resident expert on vulnerability and resilience, said in an interview with Tech Insider: “What I’m talking about is an acceptance that our drive, this insatiable appetite for comfort and happiness, does not reconcile with who we are as people. Sometimes we have to do tough things and feel our way through tough situations, and we have to feel tough emotions.”

Rey understands her emotions and the tough situations she’s had to survive. She dealt with her emotions and got through the situation, so she could survive another day. This resiliency keeps her going, despite all evidence that she’s been abandoned on this harsh world. Even so, her one of her greatest faults is her obstinate attitude and her reluctance to accept help from others. She’s so used to being alone, unable to rely on anyone, that when Finn and Han Solo and Chewie appear to aid her on her journey, she struggles to allow them to assist. Her stubborn confidence in her abilities nearly gets Finn, Han, and Chewie killed when she accidentally unleashes the Rancors rather than sealing off the pirates in Han’s ship. She makes mistakes that put her and sometimes those around her in extreme danger, but she learns from them and accepts responsibility for her actions.

Her second biggest fault is holding onto the myth that her family will return for her, as if the tighter she holds this myth the more likely it will happen. But this causes her to reject Han’s offer of co-pilot, despite the fact part of her really wanted it.  They myth of her family’s return and the fear of the lightsaber’s power causes her to reject Maz’s words and the lightsaber. She runs from her friends and returns to what she knows best — being alone, because she cannot accept that her hope for her family was in vain or that her destiny could be tied to something other than Jakku. There in the forest she is overwhelmed by Kylo Ren’s attacks, and she fails to escape the encounter.

We all wish to feel wanted and loved, to have a family that is loyal to us, and Rey wanted that more than anything. Except she never found it on Jakku and never will. It’s when she finally lets go of Jakku that she’s able to realize she found a new family — one in Chewie, Finn, Han, and Leia.

Rey throughout the movie learns from her mistakes, learns new abilities, and most of all never stops growing. Because that’s one thing she can do extremely well — learn and learn fast, because in the game of survival, that’s the only way you will live to see another day. Rey has trained hard, has learned to quickly adapt, and has done her research, and even in her darkest moments, these skills she’s honed her whole life helps her overcome her mistakes, rally from defeat, learn new skills to overcome a stronger foe, and grow as a person. She was extremely well-written for a character with a backstory that made sense in relation to the skills she had.

Finn

Finn’s story follows a similar path to Rey’s but approaches growth in a slightly different manner, where his growth lies in becoming more confident in who he is.  He was stolen from his parents as a child, given a number, and raised to fight for the New Order. His first job was sanitation, but he worked hard and finally had the chance to go on his first raid with Kylo Ren himself. But what does this teach Finn? He was taught to fight, but when put in a situation where the orders involve killing innocent families, Finn can’t stomach it. But what else does he have? He has empathy for others and a big heart, which simply cannot survive in the New Order. His faith in who he is is shaken, and he struggles to understand his place in the world.

What Finn learns in the first ten or so minutes of the movie is that the one thing he was brought up and trained to do, no longer fits. Who is he really? He knows he’s not the killing machine the New Order wants, because he cares too much and his empathy for others puts him in danger if he stays with the New Order.

Poe’s capture provides him with a chance to escape and start over. Saving Poe’s life was brave, possibly stupid, and terrifying for Finn, but he understood that this decision meant there could be no return. He either throws his lot with Rey, Poe, and the others, or seek death. The New Order terrifies him because of his past, and his desire to run from its tyranny makes sense. But the truth is, even when given the chance to leave for the outer rim, he can’t because he cares too much for his newly found friends.

Finn’s heart is his driving motivation and makes him who he is. He’s not the best fighter in the world, nor is his survival skills all that great, but he never had to survive in hostile conditions like Rey, so he never had to perfect these skills. He has a different skill set from Rey, and although he grew up around other stormtroopers in training, Finn remarks on how alone he was. Both of them were alone, but in very different ways. Both had to be resilient in the face of uncomfortable circumstances, and both had to learn to accept help from others. Both realize that they don’t have to do it all alone, and there are others out there like them who will stand by their side.

A lot of people may wish to be like Rey — the survivor who can quickly learn and adapt. A Lara Croft of sorts really, but there’s only a certain amount of people who adapt well and learn quickly. They’re the people that the average schmo would love to hate if they weren’t so dang nice. Most folks are more like Finn — more mundane, more average, and more likely to fail than succeed. Both types of people exist in our world and both have their roles in the great journey of life. Learning how to work together and support one another can be difficult, but as Rey and Finn teach us, it’s not only possible but an imperative for survival. We don’t have to do it all alone.

 

Review: Zootopia

Posted by Aibird on April 11, 2016
Posted in: movies, Reviews, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

My partner and I decided to see Zootopia, mostly because it had astronomically high good ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, and its trailer revealed an possibly cute story about an animal world that struggles with discrimination. Most of the marketing made it seem like a B-Disney movie.

What we discovered instead was an incredibly deep story that examined discrimination, race relations, stereotypes, and diversity. The graphics were top notch, the story wonderfully written, great dialogue, and probably one of the best Disney movies of this decade. Not a B-movie at all. The following review contains no spoilers.

The movie starts with young Judy Hopps relating the tale of how the animals — both prey and predator — overcame their primal urges and evolved into sentient people, who created the wonderfully diverse city of Zootopia. The play ends with her proclamation that now all animals can become whoever and whatever they want. Her dream? To be a police officer in Zootopia. However, she’s a tiny rabbit, and so discrimination based on her small size stands in her way. She fights through it, determined even when she fails at first in training, but she doesn’t give up. Then when she finally gets her job, she’s not taken seriously by anyone on the force, and most assume she’s there due to the mammal inclusion.

That first day in the office, the plot of the movie is revealed: predators are missing throughout the city, and the police is spread thin with investigating the incidents. Each of the seasoned officers is given a case as a team, but not Judy. She’s relegated to parking duty, giving out tickets. There, by the ice cream parlor, she meets Nick Wilde, who is is trying to get a giant Popsicle for his “kid.” Judy helps them out as the ice cream parlor was refusing service to Nick on the basis of him being a fox. However, upon further investigation, she learns he’s not what he seems at all. A weasel stealing from a store cuts her investigation on Nick short, and after a furious chase she nabs the weasel, only to find herself under the ire of her police chief.

Things look bleak for Judy’s career until Mrs. Otter bursts into the police chief’s office in tears. Mr. Otter, one of the missing, is her husband, and Judy, hearing her story, offers to crack the case herself. The police chief is furious as Judy did not consult him, so offers her a deal: find Mr. Otter in 48 hours or resign from the force. So Judy’s epic journey starts here. But it’s a tough place to be. She’s locked out of resources, on her own, and with two days to crack the hardest case on the roster. So who does she go to? Nick Wilde, hustler extraordinaire, and cons him into helping her.

Together the pair uncover a conspiracy that has deep roots within Zootopia. The stakes are high — predators are being targeted viciously, but the deeper the two go, the more disturbing the truth becomes. Mistakes are made, lessons learned, and friendships cemented. But the question looms big — can Nick and Judy figure out who is targeting predators before panic and fear tears the city apart?

Throughout the film, stereotypes are examined and busted through a nice collection of jokes and serious dialogue. We explore how painful and dangerous stereotyping can be, and at the same time, the film celebrates diversity — showing how diverse group of people all bring their own talents and perspectives to make a more cohesive, hopeful, and peaceful world. It also can serve as a good analogy to race relations within our own country. People of color are often typecast with loaded stereotypes as being more “dangerous” or “less intelligent.” This is prevalent within the policies governing these communities as well as in how people interact with one another, and these stereotypes have destroyed families and the lives of many. The film explores this through the relation between prey and predator and shows how these loaded and dangerous stereotypes are rooted in misunderstandings, fear, and deeply held prejudices instilled in us by family, peers, and society at large. Through Judy’s interactions, the movie also explored the layers of privilege — how you can be discriminated against in one arena of life (her as a rabbit) but privileged in another (her as part of the prey majority). It takes effort to overcome our own prejudices, to fight against racist policies and practices, and to create a more just and accepting world. But as Judy Hopps discovers, this journey starts with yourself.

I feel like I could spend days unpacking all the delicious details and end up with pages of commentary on how well this film explores the topic of race relations, but I may save that for a different day since I’m avoiding spoilers in this review. Suffice to say, this film is jam-packed with tight storytelling, memorable characters, fascinating analogies, and great comedy. It’s worth the watch. Go and catch it in the theater before it’s gone or rent it as soon as you can. You won’t be disappointed.

 

Book Review: The Telling

Posted by Aibird on June 17, 2015
Posted in: Books, Reviews, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 1 Comment

The Telling
by Ursula Le Guin
Published by Ace Books in 2000.

 

Sutty comes from a tumultuous time in Earth’s history, where religion has bombed libraries and universities. She comes the planet Aka as an observer in hopes of studying a world of rich history, where equality is paramount. Except by the time her ship finally arrives, the world does not match the reports of the original Ekumen observers. Technology has utterly transformed it. The Corporation strictly monitors the citizens in their March to the Stars, and all books and stories of their history has been banned and eradicated. Her first few months is spent under rigid control by the authorities, where she is given propaganda and nothing that she can truly study. However, Corporation bureaucrats suddenly grant passage out of the capital city and north to a small town in the foothills of the mountains. Here she uncovers the once rich society of the the Telling. People here risk much to keep their stories alive, and intrigued by their beliefs, Sutty joins them on a sacred journey into the mountains. It is there, deep in the highest caverns of the mountains, that she delves deep into her past, these peoples’ past, and how it all intertwines here on this planet far from Earth.

The book itself is short but is a fascinating trip through philosophy and societal change. The characters are vibrant and interesting, full of quirks and flaws. Even the Monitor — one of the Corporation’s agents — has incredible depth, once Sutty has the chance to truly talk to him outside of the strict confines of the Corporation. All of the dissendents — the Maz, storytellers — have a richness of personality and character. The characters just leap off the page. The discovery Sutty makes surprised me a bit and added further depth to the world. It’s such a small book, and yet the richness of the world-building and the characters is displayed so brilliantly.

I highly recommend the novella as it’s masterfully woven, each page begging to be turned. It’s science fiction at its best — exploring humanity in all its depths.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Posted by Aibird on August 4, 2014
Posted in: Aliens, Reviews, Writing. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

I watched this movie with my younger sister this weekend. I admit I didn’t have very high expectations for the movie; I assumed it would be somewhat humorous and at the very least a run romp. In this I was not disappointed, and to my delight, it turned out to be far better than I had assumed. I like it when a movie surprises me.

Guardians of the Galaxy Poster with all five main characters.

Guardians of the Galaxy was made by Marvel Studios and is yet another movie in their superhero/Avengers universe. Or at least I’m connecting it to the Avengers universe because of the existence of Thanos in the movie. He had a cameo at the end of the Avengers, so the two will forever be linked in my mind. (I wouldn’t really call this a spoiler since in the first twenty minutes the main villain has a hissy fit when he talks to his boss Thanos, so this is established right off the bat.) I’m also under the impression that Thanos does not need to breathe since his base is in an asteroid belt, his chair is basically rocks with rockets on them, and none of the villains have any air masks. How are they not all dying?

Whatever. We’ll just pretend they all have magical body mods! Anyway, let’s get back to the meat of this movie, which is the five “guardians” of the galaxy and how they save the day. Mind you, I’m trying to keep this post as spoiler free as possible, but if you want to discuss this movie (complete with spoilers), feel free to do so in the comments.

The movie begins with a little boy listening to Awesome Mix Tape 1 – 80s music in all its glory. His mother is dying, and in her final moments, she asks him to take her hand. He hesitates a trifle too long, and she dies. This moment had me nearly in tears because of the intensity and the care given to each character, despite their brief presence in this movie. This moment is also one of the defining moments for Quinn, our main character, so keep this image in your mind, for it will return later in the movie. After Quinn’s mother dies, he runs out of the hospital and falls to his knees in the grass, crying over his mother’s death. And that’s when he’s abducted by aliens. Our romp has begun.

Fast forward to the future when our hero is an adult. The pace of the movie is fairly fast, but it does slow a bit to show us quirks the characters have. For instance, Quinn, also known as “Starlord,” still has his headphones and mix tapes his mother gave him as well as the present she gave him right before her death. In the act of stealing an orb, he puts on his headphones and dances through the ruins. It’s silly but it’s also glorious, because of the insight it gives us about the character. He loves his 80s music, and he feels pretty comfortable in his own skin, as well as not caring what others think of him. This scene also establishes the mode of the piece: life can be silly and outrageous things can happen, and we just roll with it and make decisions that work the best in that moment. That’s the core of this movie.

The five guardians: Quinn, Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and the brute guy (what is his name?) all meet in prison. How they escape is fairly humorous, and it’s the first time they work together as a team, which they end up becoming despite their distrust of each other. During the escape and the attempt to sell the orb scenes, each character showcases a bit of their personality but they also reveal, very organically, the losses these characters have suffered and how that vengence and/or pain drives them all in slightly different ways. It’s beautifully done in my opinion, and really helps cement the connection these five have.

Remember the orb that Quinn stole? This turns out to be the most coveted item in the galaxy, and in the wrong hands could destroy all life, so what do our band of heroes do? Well, they try their best to keep it out of the hands of the main villain. Which, of course, they fail to do. This forces them to learn how to work together, utilize each others strengths, and in turn rope others into helping them in their final attempt to save the universe. Their decisions lead them straight to the final boss fight above the world our desperate band of heroes hope to save. This is also the planet that had originally imprisoned them for breaking its laws. It all comes round full circle.

The end of this movie, especially the “dance-off” as I like to call it, is probably my favorite part. The movie is all about having fun, despite the severity of the situation, and yet it still pauses long enough to really show you who these people are and why they’re worth your time. It’s a good balance and definitely worth a re-watch, especially to find all the wonderful puns, witty dialogue, and references to other pop culture items. And yes, even Stan Lee appears, however briefly, within the movie (for who could a Marvel movie be complete without him?).

Overall, it’s well worth your time. Go watch it.

Review: Darkout

Posted by Aibird on July 13, 2014
Posted in: Reviews, Writing. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments
Never leave home without a torch.

Exploring a Cavern

As a lover of science fiction, when I saw this video game, I knew I had to try. Your escape pod crash lands on this hostile planet, where the majority of the world is covered in cloud cover. You rarely get any sunlight, and thus creatures that thrive in the shadows have evolved on this planet. These are deadly creatures, so expect to die often. As long as you have a bed in the home you must create, you’ll re-spawn there after every death. This game holds some similarity to Terreria in the sense that you must scavenge for your materials and then craft what you need; however, Terreria was more of a fantasy world. Darkover is pure science fiction. There is no magic in this game; it’s all about the materials you scavenge and the technology you craft from that.

The game is a 2D world, though it gives the illusion of 3D since you must put in a back wall to keep out the nasty creatures. You start out with a basic tool kit, scavenged from your escape pod, and if you want, you can even scavenge the escape pod itself, gathering scrap metal from its parts. The combinator found in your pod is where you’ll do most of your crafting.

Inventory and Crafting screens

Inventory and Crafting screens

In the above screenshot, I showed the inventory screen that appears on the right hand side and the crafting/research menu on the left. Some things you can craft anywhere, but others you’ll need to be within range of whatever device that item requires. For example, I can’t craft any tin bars until I research and craft a furnace with my combinator. Once I place that furnace, then I can start making tin bars. Over time as you accumulate more and more materials, you’ll be able to research other devices such as a chem-lab or a workbench, allowing you to create more advanced items. Some of these things will need to be powered, involving wires to be laid down to connect them to a power source. Your combinator can only power so much before you need to craft a power generator. Finding the materials will be a challenge, but exploring is your friend in this game.

The more you explore the land, the more interesting things you’ll find, but it’s often hard to stay alive. You have only a limited amount of ammo, and thus you need to find the necessary materials to craft more. This means going back to the basics. Save your pistol’s ammo and make a bow and set of arrows as soon as possible. Also make a sword as soon as you can. That will help keep you alive. Build a basic base, tall enough for your combinator, and over time, as you learn to research new devices and equipment, you can expand your base to accommodate your furniture, storage, and the other devices you’ll need to craft better and cooler stuff.

As you can probably tell, crafting is essential. Everything you do involves staying alive long enough to find the materials necessary to create the items you need. Torches will always be your friend. As soon as possible, find some tar, cut down a tree, and craft that torch. Put them everywhere you go, especially in the caverns you find. The shadow creatures hate the light and it hurts them a bit; there’s also the added bonus that the light reveals where they are, allowing you to kill them before they get to you.

Overall, this game is fun. It gives me my science fiction fix, let’s me explore a huge world full of wonders and dangers, and I can craft just about anything I want — if I can find the materials necessary. I highly recommend buying this game if you enjoy exploration and crafting games.

Book Review: Grass by Sheri Tepper

Posted by Aibird on July 6, 2014
Posted in: Aliens, Reviews, Science, World Building, Writing. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 Comments

Grass by Sheri Tepper is a fascinating science fiction book.

Here is the blurb on the back of the book:

Here is a novel as original as the breathtaking, unspoiled world for which it is named, a place where all appears to be in idyllic balance.

Generations ago, humans fled to the cosmic anomaly known as Grass. Over time, they evolved a new and intricate society. But before humanity arrived another species had already claimed Grass for its own. It, too, had developed a culture…

Now, a deadly plague is spreading across the stars. No world save Grass has been left untouched. Marjorie Westriding Yrarier has been sent from Earth to discover the secret of the planet’s immunity. Amid the alien social structure and strange life-forms of Grass, Lady Westriding unravels the planet’s mysteries to find a truth so shattering it could mean the end of life itself.

Although Lady Westriding is featured as the main character, she is but one of many in a large and colorful cast of characters within Grass. Although sometimes it can seem a bit much to keep track of them all, each of them are beautifully imagined, their personalities clear and stark on the page, that I found no difficulty in keeping track of them all. The book takes time with each character, even minor ones, to give a glimpse of who they are and how they view the world around them. If there is anything this book does well, it’s an examination of events from multiple perspectives. This book tackles quite a few questions all at once and does a marvelous job of juggling and answering each one.

We all enter a situation with our own experiences, biases, and worldviews coloring our actions, thoughts, and words. This book shows how each of the characters maneuver through a complex world of politics, religion, strict traditions, and the mystery of the unknown. The book begins on Grass within the family of the bon Damfels, who are an aristocrat family who believe that they are the true rulers of Grass. Those that live in the Commons, the ones that craft much of their furniture and other necessities, are seen as lesser and not as important. The world itself is one giant biome that is various types of grass. There is some seas and Commons is built on a highland surrounded by swamp, but these are anomalies on a world that is nothing but colorful and often enormous varieties of grass. Trees are often few and far between. It’s interesting that even the landscape of the world will play a role in the unraveling of the plot and climax of the book.

The bons society is a stratified tradition-based society that centers around the hunt, where they ride the mysterious Hippae, a life-form native to Grass to hunt the Foxen, another native life-form that is even harder to see and more mysterious than the Hippae. It is on this bizarre little colony world that humanity will find the answer to its biggest and most dangerous problem: a plague that kills indiscriminately.

Back on humanity’s homeworld of Earth, Sanctity, a religious organization that also rules as the main government of Terran and its colonies, is dealing with the onslaught of the plague, trying to keep it a secret, but trying to find a way to investigate why Grass has not been affected. There’s been reports of people who have come to Grass with the plague and have left it cured. How and why? To find out, Sanctity’s dying monarch will send the Yrariers, an Old Catholic family, as ambassadors to Grass, to secretly determine why those on Grass are unaffected by the devastating plague.

Rigo, Lady Westriding’s husband, is a fiery character, who serves as a catalyst for the book’s examination of gender roles. As Old Catholics, Rigo and Marjorie often fight to stay within the realms of their gender roles, often confessing to their priests (who travel with them and often serve as their advisors) their sins and struggles to stay true to masculinity and femininity as defined by Earth society. Yet as the story progresses, both are limited by their adherence to their gender roles, and while Marjorie begins to fight past them, doing what she must to find the answer the larger questions, Rigo falls behind, trapped in this constant state to live up to his false ideal of masculinity. The book does a marvelous job of showing how the two interact and often fail to understand each other due to the great differences in their personalities. It also shows that their lack of understanding of one another isn’t because men can’t get women or vice versa, but is instead a breakdown in communication stemmed partly because of the strictness of gender roles, and the lack of patience and unwillingness to view another’s perspective that both suffer from, Rigo far more than Marjorie. Marjorie, as the book progresses, learns how to put herself into another’s shoes and grows because of it; however, Rigo struggles with this the entire book, often trapped by his own rigid adherence to traditional ideas of masculinity. Tony, his son, is depicted in sharp contrast to his father, and offers up another way to view masculinity — one that is softer, less rigid, and more empathetic, which Stella, his sister, offers up another way to view femininity, which is harsher and more fiery. Stella also serves as a disturbing catalyst for one of the biggest turning points in the entire book; what happens to Stella is the final push that forces Marjorie to act brazenly without regard to the rigid traditions that govern Grass. Through this action, she pushes a train of events that will change everything and bring her closer to the answers she so desperately seeks.

Another issue tackled by this book is the idea of what constitutes a person’s identity. Where is it housed? One of the most disturbing moments of the book lays in what happens to girls who disappear within the grass. The people within Commons eventually find the missing girls, but why they turned up at the port and the fact their minds seem to be wiped clean offers a disturbing examination of consciousness and what constitutes a person’s identity. How malleable our minds may be. This provides a horror element to the tale that weaves its disturbing thread all the way to the climax, for the role these girls play in the larger conflict is one that is just as disturbing as the mind-wipe they suffered from.

The book also examines politics, religion, and belief in wonderfully complex and intriguing ways. The society of the bons sits in stark contrast to the freer and less rigid society of the Commons. Here we examine how two very disparate societies work in tandem, and we see the differences aren’t truly caused by the location or even the people themselves but the interactions one group has with the native lifeforms that the other group does not have. Here we see how alien contact can alter and change a society, and it offers up questions as to what constitutes intelligent life? What if one intelligent life seeks dominance over another? How does one mitigate the violence or seek understanding, especially if there is a wide gap in understanding? How is the native lifeforms of Grass interconnected? The story hints at a biological connection between the main life-forms of Grass — ones most prevalent that has the most interaction with humanity. This plays a huge role in the plot of the story, and serves as the catalyst for finding the cure for the plague as well as an explanation for how the plague came to be. These lifeforms even play a role into why the Arbai, the extinct intelligent race with its abandoned cities spanning numerous planets, died. They are fascinating alien creatures, and their role in the plot was a wonderful twist that I didn’t see coming.

Another contrast is between Sanctity, the Green brothers — where those who fail their oaths are sent as punishment — who are studying the ruins of the extinct Arbai, and the Old Catholics. Here the conflict of religion and how it intersects one’s decisions, behaviors, and worldviews is examined in detail. Marjorie in particular has a crisis of faith as she struggles to deal with her duty to discover a cure for the plague and solve the mystery of Grass and her duty to be a good wife and mother; her crisis of faith digs deep into the nature of belief and how it influences us. Does God truly know us as individuals? Or are we similar to white blood cells within a larger body, only little things that are set into motion, but not truly distinct in the larger scheme of things? The Green brothers examine what it is like to be thrown into religion, where you are not given a choice as to whether you want to believe or not, and the consequences of such an approach. Sanctity itself provides insight into the question of how far is a religion willing to go to assert its dominance over its believers?

There is a lot of complex questions tackled by this book, and each one is deftly and thoroughly explored through the characters, the intricate worldbuilding, and the complex but beautifully woven plot. As disturbing as this book was at times, it was a fascinating read and one I highly recommend.

I’ve done my best to keep this review spoiler free, but for those that wish to discuss this book in the comments, feel free to discuss in detail. The comments will not be spoiler free.