APERTURES: FINDINGS FROM A RURAL LIFE
by Mary B. Kurtz Reviewedby
Dagny McKinleyApertures is the second collection of essays written by Mary Kurtz. Her first collection, At Home in the Elk River Valley: Reflections on Family, Place and the West, won her national attention. This book will no doubt do the same. Written in a meditative style, each page offers contemplation and a place to rest in Mary’s words that so well capture life in rural Colorado. Using the lens of ranch life to explore the cycles of seasons and change, the reader becomes intimate with both landscape and author. “In the recitation, an incanta tion of the contours of my home, I’ve come to know. A home now imprinted, not just a backdrop, but a living landscape fused into my heart,” writes Mary. The book takes us through her daily rituals that spark her curiosity about legacy, not just human legacies, but also the legacy of the lands we leave behind.
FACE
by Joma WestReviewed by Annali
Fuchs-WackowskiWhat if we lived in a world where your “Face”—your online persona and personality brand—was the only thing that mattered? What if your celebrity status was the most valued form of currency? What if this need for perfection and aesthetic was not only supported but made possible by advanced technology and genetic
engineering? I wonder how far we would all go if our very survival depended on the way we were viewed by the rest of the world. Face, a debut sci-fi domestic novel by Joma West, muses on those very questions.
Schuyler and Madeleine Burroughs, (SchAddie), exist at the very
top of the social ladder. Seemingly perfect and stunningly beautiful, they are the couple that everyone wants to know and wishes they could be. However, cracks are beginning to show through their facade. Cracks that go deeper than anyone could have realized.
Face is a dystopian fiction novel set in the near future. What you look like and how you interact with others shapes where you exist within the hierarchy and decides whether you move up through its ranks. In this world, being a celebrity for celebrity’s sake is an obsession, skin to skin contact is extremely taboo and considered disgusting, and showing one’s honest feelings or being vulnerable or truthful in any way is considered the worst weakness. How you show your “Face” or “Faces” to the world is paramount to survival. Marriage for love is nonexistent; instead people choose to take part in “Coupling” based on aesthetic appeal in order to move up the social ladder. Children are genetically designed by “Stud Farms”, with chosen physical and personality traits that best reflect the “Parents”.
My first thought after reading Face was that while this book felt energetically small and quiet, it was actually very blunt. The dystopian world wasn’t subtle in any way, depicting an extreme society where it felt easy to spot what wasn’t sustainable. It didn’t feel like there was any room for moral argument, and that felt intentional. Racism, classism, celebrity-ism, status play and cruelty abound. The book felt like a glimpse into a moment where you got to watch a handful of people journey from complete unawareness into the beginnings of accountability.
Something I truly enjoyed was that Face felt like a short story. No huge “thing” happened to propel the plot, and yet I found myself frantically flipping pages, fully invested in the characters. It felt like a very quiet, secretive book with a lot of slow moments, and jumping into a different scene with no information made me feel like a detective trying to piece something together from snippets of experience. Because the plot and moral felt easy to see early on, the juxtaposition of that with the awkward, jerky timeline felt balanced to me.
Multiple scenes are replayed three or four times, focusing on different characters’ viewpoints, which allowed me a chance to really listen to the text and gain deeper understanding.
When I finished the book, I felt heartbroken. While Face depicts an extreme version of a celebrity-based society, with the right tech-
nological advancements it felt . . . achievable. And that was upsetting and disheartening. More than a dystopian sci-fi, this book felt like a warning wrapped in something pedestrian and day-to-day. I found this to be an uncomfortable read, but yet very enjoyable. For something that doesn’t take long to ingest, the effect is lasting. The way we view the world and desire to be viewed in it is the crux of every encounter. It is how every connection is measured. Face epitomizes why it is imperative to take off the rose-colored glasses, dismantle the filters, and relish in the natural and unique beauty of the world. What’s on the inside is what truly matters.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR
by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone Reviewed by Jenna Meier-BilboOur story begins on a smoking battlefield on some far, unnamed world, where an elite soldier of a technocratic autocracy is faced with a handwritten taunt from their only true equal printed on thick parchment and folded away in an equally lovely envelope. What follows is a correspondence that almost feels plucked from a Jane Austen novel – if Austen had written about space travel. The initially unusual movement up and down the timelines of the multiverse quickly becomes familiar as the reader follows characters identified only as ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ who are on mirrored quests to undo the other’s espionage in an unending time war. Red is the member of the aforementioned technocratic autocracy, whereas Blue operates on behalf of an organic hive mind.
Although easy to make an initial judgment on who has the moral high ground, your mind will change with every message exchanged and every lesson learned. Both Red and Blue are inevitably consumed by curiosity about their longtime rival, and eventually overcome animosity to ask questions about what the other’s life is like. Some of the questions seem silly, but upon receiving an answer, we as readers are suddenly asked to reevaluate things we’ve taken for granted all our lives. What does it mean to be an individual? How are they, and we, meant to act within our reality? When you know someone’s heart, can you move against them— and would you even want to? Are people capable of real change?
You Lose the Time War can fundamentally change a person’s relationship with literature. I know that’s a strong statement, but I want to ensure right off the bat that I communicate just how potent I found this little volume to be. When science fiction is done like this, it’s so beautiful that I feel genuine sorrow for folks who pass on the genre due to preconceived notions. The terrific writing from creative duo Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is seamless but distinct, without sacrificing any sense of place or voice. I’m convinced that in a few decades this novel will be shelved with classics, emulating similar shifts made by Ursula K. Le Guin and J.R.R. Tolkien, who were once classified as genre fiction but are now considered genre-defining literary greats.
The shining golden heart of this story lies in how human it is. This is How You Lose the Time War is just what every science fiction story should be. It turns a mirror on our own human tendencies and asks us to reexamine our values. How are you living, and why? What are you willing to do for love? Would you burn down the world?
If my philosophic ramblings haven’t convinced you, I encourage you to pick up this story for no other reason than that the prose is achingly beautiful, and everyone loves a good love story. I read it quickly and closed it slowly.
ELEVATE THE ARTS: Visit Off the Beaten Path Bookstore to pick up your copies.