I picked up The Half-Made World on recommendation from @MadHatterReview. I was looking for books with strong female characters and great world building.

And that’s just what I got.

The Half-Made World is a steampunkish tour of a world in a constant state of making. It takes the “new world” of the frontier and makes it literal. Head west far enough and you really will get to the edge of the “made” world. The world is in a constant state of literally making, of being named, and the further west you go, the faster it starts to unravel.

Two warring factions are battling for control of the new world: the Line and the Gun. The Gun and the Line are led by monstrous demons that inhabit made objects – guns and engines, respectively. The Gun employs solitary gunslinging super agents, whereas the Line eats up the world with progress – noise bombs, filthy cities, oil-hungry machines and contraptions.

Into this literal wild west comes Dr. Liv Alverhuysen, searching for purpose, adventure, and (like most psychiatrists/psychologists) some measure of her own sanity.

We follow agents of the Gun and the Line in their pursuit of a missing general of the Red Republic, a rogue group of idealists who tried to fight both the Gun and the Line for their independence 20 years before. They believe in things like equality and democracy. Added into the mix is a fourth group of folks with an agenda, the First Folk – the people who live comfortably in the unmade world and were there before anybody else.

Now you might be starting to see why things broke down here for me. This is a great story – agents of the Gun and the Line and Liv all converge on the hospital where this missing general is purported to be, and there are battles and things and lovely worldbuilding and imagery. But the biggest drawback of the book, for me, was the wild west made literal. It all felt *too* wild west. Not particularly romanticized, as steampunk has been accused of being, but just sort of falling down under the weight of its own metaphors. The fact that everything in the book reminded me of some real-world counterpart was kind of annoying. It kept popping me back through the fourth wall and slapping me in the face. Every time I’d get digging back into the book, it’d do something that went, “See, it’s just like Indians!” or “See, it’s just like industry eating up the glorious old west!” and I was like, “Gah, please, if I wanted a wild west travelogue, I’d read one.”

It also starts to lose steam about 3/4 of the way through as Liv and one of the agents of the Gun track on west and west and farther west. The whole thing goes on far too long. And though I loved the world building, that, too, seemed to break down during the long trek west.

The biggest disappointment in the book, though, was that in the end, the McGuffin remains a mysterious McGuffin, presumably for revelation in some later book? Which was the biggest cop-out. You expect to find out what the general is hiding, or just have him die before revealing it, but it’s like neither really happens. Instead we get sent off to some other-thing to do some other-quest for book two. I found this deeply unsatisfying. The only book I’ve ever thrown across the room is The Mirror of Her Dreams. Why? Because Donaldson literally stops his book mid-book, at the end of some random chapter. He simply took his big book, cut it in half at some arbitrary place, and published it. Talk about disappointment. I never did bother to read the other one. Plus, the heroine was annoying.

Now, that’s something I can’t say about Half-Made World, which had three interesting, complex, broken, messed-up characters. Even the secondary characters were well-polished. I loved everybody in their own way. Liv is one of those strong heroines that gets stuff done without being violent (not until the end anyway), and it really works for her. She was beautifully drawn and executed, as was Creedmoor, the agent of the Gun, who we spent the second most time with. They are perfectly complex in that way that makes you not quite sure what they’ll do next, but knowing that when they do do it, it’s perfectly in character.

Anyway, this is sort of a rambling rant, so I’ll end it there. To sum up: a lush, enjoyable little book with some wild west metaphor problems.

If you’re a Kindle lover, you will, unfortunately, need to pay .99 cents for the same free PDF formatted for your big-corp device. They apparently don’t let you create them for free as yet. You can download a Kindle copy here.

This collection includes fan favorite, “The Women of Our Occupation” about a mysterious group of women who invade a steamy patriarchy, and “Wonder Maul Doll,” an angry anti-war screed about a traumatized group of female war heroes hunting down weapons of mass destruction.

Three Super! Special! Bonus! stories are included – stories that were never published. This includes, “Women and Ladies, Blood and Sand” about a military leader who aligns herself with the bad guys and starts hunting down her own people, “In Freedom, Dying” about a couple of old queers and the end of the world, and “Canticle of the Flesh,” the creepiest, weirdest, most distasteful story I’ve ever written.

I mean, c’mon, what other collection of horrific, bloodthirsty, feministy nonsense would make more sense to gift to friends and family for the holidays?

Also, did I mention it’s free?

Pandorum was a great little lower-budget SF movie about one of my favorite tropes, which isn’t done enough in movies (likely for budgeting issues). Also, unlike most French films and pretty much all apocalypse novels/movies, the desperate folks were far more interested in eating the ass-kicking female character than raping her, which I appreciated. Because, you know, when you’re starving and desperate you’re far more likely to eat somebody than rape them (dunno what you all feel like doing when starving, but sex – forced or consentual – generally isn’t the first thing that comes to mind). Also, space zombies.

The longer I work at an ad agency, the more I love Mad Men. Am on season 2 and still in love. I had somebody say they thought all of these characters are intensely unlikeable, so they couldn’t watch it. I actually find all of these characters intensely interesting because of their crazy faults. I love watching how other people justify their poor behavior. I love watching people put home/work into neat little boxes and pretending those worlds will never meet. I love watching the lies and half-truths and understandings people come to that allow them to do business every day. And I love watching that struggle. In part, what I love so much about this show is that nobody is perfect. Even more, I love watching people navigate a social climate slightly different from my own. They say that folks who read a lot of books tend to be more empathetic, in part because they’re exposed to so many different points of view. I don’t have to agree with what you’re doing to understand why you did it. Mad Men is a wonderful romp through rich-white-people-are-crazy-land.

I finished reading Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, which was a great little SF jaunt. Atwood’s poo-pooing at SF the last few years had really turned me off to her, and I’d forgotten what a good writer she is (if you haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale, how is it you’re a reader of this blog??). It’s a solid little book about gene splicing and the end of the world. Strong female protagonists, rich setting, fun thought experiment, and did I mention end of the world? However, unlike Pandorom, she did fall into the “all bad men want to do is rape women especially during the apocalypse when they are starving” thing, which was a tougher suspension of disbelief than aforementioned gene-splicing apocalypse. Have I mentioned that there are certain sexist tropes that just annoy the tar out of me? She does also seem to have a love of exploring the social intricacies of whorehouses, as many of the scenes at a whorehouse in this book reminded me of some of similiar tone/feel from The Handmaid’s Tale. I’ll be picking up Oryx and Crake and giving Atwood another go.

My preference for PCs has evolved into blind hatred for Macs now that I’m spending my 9 hour days in front of one at the new day job. Control click THIS, Mac!!! Yeah, not a fan.

Also, actually pulled out and submitted an old trunk story a couple weeks ago. I haven’t had anything in circulation in a few months, and it was nice to get something out there. Need to get back on that writing schedule that I’d redone and then had to can when all the free time I was expecting wonderfully dried up. No complaints! Just paperwork.

Annnnnnnnd…. I’m off.