SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

Let's discuss "A Song of Home, the Organ Grinds" by James Beamon

As it's just a short story, I don't think we need to worry about spoiler tags.

Available free at:

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...

I'll post my thoughts sometime tomorrow (February 25th).

I'll wait for the comments n the subject but I can say now that I was annoyed by the fact that the author hasn't done his homework well enough.

When I read stories set in pseudo-historical setting, I assume that all things not mentioned explicitly are the same as in the real history. It isn't true here, which makes the rest of the world quite shaky.

Overall, I thought this story was just okay. It’s strongest point in my opinion was painting a memorably creepy image — a clown grinding a music box as killer monkeys descended upon an enemy airship. The story beyond that, however, didn’t do much for me. I guess the message is that war will make you do things you never thought yourself capable of? The author is ex-military so he has a vantage point on combat and what might happen psychologically that I can’t pretend to have. Anyway, not my cup of tea.

Oleksandr, I'm not familiar enough with the Crimean War or the Ottomans at that time to know what's real and what's not in the story, so I'm interested to hear more about what you noticed.

The story started out with such vivid images of the organ grinder and the monkeys, but the rest of it was kind of a let down. It felt as though there was maybe too much going on for the length, and so ideas weren't connected enough or didn't get enough time to be well developed. The ending seemed very predictable, which took away from whatever impact or message it was supposed to have.

I didn't read the intended message as being so much about doing things you didn't think yourself capable of but more about loss and trauma in war, and the isolation and compromise that can come along with that. But I didn't feel as though the message was fully formed.

Here are minor problems, which spoil the story for me:

In real life firstly Russian fleet completely obliterated Ottoman fleet in Sinop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...) and when France and Britain joined, Russians sunk their Black sea fleet in Sebastopol harbor. So no naval ship battles between Russian and British ships.

In real life Ottoman were actively modernizing in this period (see Tanzimat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzimat) which isn’t presented there. One of the reforms was to dissolve Janissaries (1826) and in general move toward a more European army, as well in social spheres. So all titles of music played by the organ grinder are more in line with fictional ‘orientalism’ than the fact. Having one of them titled ‘The March of the Janissaries’ is like US union troops marching under a song about general Lee.

The Russian air ship Voina Gulag. The name is wrong on several levels. The author supposedly wanted ‘camp for prisoners of war’ and used Google translate or the like. Unlike English, were war is both noun and adjective, voina is only noun, adjective would be voiennyi. Gulag is known by many from the famous Gulag Archepelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, but gulag is not a camp, it is an acronym for the Main Administration of Camps. It was first used under Bolsheviks. Moreover, before the Soviets acronyms in general were extremely rarely used, so it is extremely out of place and time.

That ship has “Unlike most Russian vessels, the Voina Gulag takes prisoners. They dangle from her flat underside secured in rope harnesses” – cool image but absolutely incorrect. For propaganda sake, during Crimean war the prisoners, especially officers (but solders as well), were extremely well treated to improve the image. Heck, during siege of Sebastopol, officers visited each other during cease fire during dinner time!

I pretty much agree that facts should have been gotten right, and that the story was kinda flattened. Otoh, I do think it's cool to give The Great and Powerful this backstory, with the 'flying' monkeys and the metal men and Adnan's perspective on magic vs. science, etc.

(Better than the hook into Dorothy in Kowal's story, imo, though hers was the better story judged on its own merits.)

Forgot to comment on this. aside from the vivid imageries, the worldbuilding is the strongest aspect for me, but I could see how the inaccuracies could lessen the experience.

Haven't realized the connection to Oz until I read Cheryl's note. Is that deliberate? Pretty mindblowing.

I had also missed the connection to Oz until Cheryl pointed it out. That does bring some of the elements together a bit more, and adds an interesting dimension to it all.

Thanks for the explanation, Oleksandr. Those are all exactly the kind of errors that frustrate me in stories, so I agree that it is annoying that the author didn't get them right.

I finally read this tonight and I found it okay.
I think I also expected more after the opening paragraph than what was delivered in the rest of the story.
I do like the connection to Oz via the nickname and the monkeys, but it feels muddled.

Thank you for explaining the inaccuracies, Oleksandr. It's a shame that the author apparently didn't do more research or put in more of an effort to explain why things might have gone differently in this AU.
I agree with your comment about orientalism. It's a shame that that creeps it's way in there, too.

Author Spotlight : James Beamon
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/non...

Mostly a Q&A about this story.

Cheryl wrote: "I pretty much agree that facts should have been gotten right, and that the story was kinda flattened. Otoh, I do think it's cool to give The Great and Powerful this backstory, with the 'flying' monkeys and the metal men and Adnan's perspective on magic vs. science, etc.

(Better than the hook into Dorothy in Kowal's story, imo, though hers was the better story judged on its own merits.)"

"The Lady Astronaut of Mars" by Mary Robinette Kowal??