DreamHaven

Iron Widow, by a new Canadian-Chinese author, Xiran Jay Zhao, is one of the nominees for the 2022 Lodestar Award for the best young adult science fiction novel. But there is nothing childish about this book. It burns with the anger of a generation born knowing that women have always been shamed and punished for the desires of men, and finding out that powerful men are still standing in the way of change.

The novel takes place in a far future China that benefits from advanced technology while still insisting that proper Chinese women must have bound feet and be subservient to their fathers and husbands. Wu Zetian, who becomes the iron widow, is an ordinary peasant girl whose family has tried to shame her into obedience. The “strong woman protagonist” of prior decades would have to discover that she has nothing to be ashamed of. The Iron Widow knows this already, and the novel begins with her rage at the injustice.

Most of China has taken refuge from a centuries-old alien invasion behind something resembling the Great Wall. There is an ongoing battle with alien machines called “Hundun,” fought by human pilots wearing battle machines made from stolen alien technology. But the battle machines are powered by spiritual energy (Chi), and supposedly require both male (yang) and female (yin) Chi to operate. The men who pilot these machines are hailed as heroes, but the women who go into battle with them usually die. One of those women was Zetian’s sister.

Zetian is a confident, strong woman, who can barely walk on her bound feet. Denied agency and opportunity, she enlists in the army, hoping only to get revenge on the pilot who killed her sister. She is a terrific protagonist; resourceful, courageous, bitter, able to endure physical and emotional trauma, and almost too angry to be rational. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It’s good to know that female protagonists are now allowed to be violently angry and still be heroes.

I’ve always been fond of Peter Pan stories, both the retellings of J.M. Barrie’s original story (the Mary Martin musical remains my favorite because . . . nostalgia) and the works that are essentially Peter Pan fanfic (like the book Peter and the Star Catchers and the movie “Hook”). The God of Neverland is in the latter category, and does a great job of expanding the legend while staying true to the essential elements of the original story.

It’s 1925, and Michael Darling, the youngest Lost Boy, is all grown up and done with adventures. He has quit his career in the Knights of the Round, a secret society that investigates supernatural incidents, and gone to work as a railroad engineer. But the organization that Michael gave up is in need of his services, because Peter Pan has gone missing. And, despite trying to ground himself in the mundane, Michael has not forgotten his days in Neverland.

Peter Pan, it seems, is the God of childhood adventure and imagination, a sort of cross between a trickster god and an eight-year-old boy with an oversized ego and ADHD. Without him, Neverland will fail and our world will become a dark and dismal place. Peter cannot save himself, but those who grew up without forgetting their childhood dreams might be able to find and free him. This is a well-paced adventure story for those of us who managed to leave childhood behind without losing the joy of imagination. There’s pirate ships, flying with fairy dust, the ghost of Captain Hook, and a Cthulhu-powerful ticking crocodile in the sewers of London!

The Last Wish is an older book, written in 1993 and translated from Polish by Danusia Stok in 2007. It is the first book in the world-wide franchise surrounding The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia. Before the video games, animations, and Netflix TV series, there were several story collections and five novels. Andrej Sapkowski is said to be the second most popular Polish fantasy writer (after Stanislaw Lem) and won a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2016.

The Last Wish is a collection of short stories or, rather, a collection of fractured retellings of fairy tales. They’re extremely fractured, actually, with their essentially violent and misogynistic cores laid open. The violence is graphic but understated. The sexism is a matter-of-fact part of this fantasy world, but the protagonist is gently feminist. Ordinarily this would not be terribly interesting to me, but people keep recommending The Witcher. I don’t have Netflix. But I have books!

The casual cruelty and violence of the gritty magical world is offset almost completely by the character of Geralt of Rivia. He is an intriguing mix of quiet power and immense restraint. He is no longer quite human, and is bound only by his own moral code, built during an angsty backstory which is revealed in fragments and seems to be waiting to destroy him. The book also introduces Geralt’s friend Dandelion the bard and his powerful love interest Yennifer. These two also promise to become very interesting, and I intend to keep reading the series. Really, it’s sort of hard to put down.

Behind the over-the-top battles and “let’s do our best!” heroes in Japanese manga and anime, there is often a person quietly doing the simple things that keep ordinary chaos at bay. These are things that need to be done, like airing the futons, vacuuming the tatami mats and, most importantly, cooking tasty and healthy meals. The heroes that have such a housekeeper often receive magnificent bento box lunches that make their peers jealous, because everyone acknowledges them as a sign of love and care. While some of these loyal support-heroes are traditional mothers, many, happily, are not.

In The Way of the Househusband by Kousuke Oono, an ex-Yakuza assassin cares for his absent-minded wife while she works at an ordinary office. He takes his duties hilariously seriously, and is particularly scary during flash sales at the local grocery store or chopping vegetables with an enormous knife. In the new series, Penguin and House by Akiho Ieda, an odd, penguin-like creature grumbles as he does the housework in the low-rent apartment of a slacker and his friends. Then there’s The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today by Hitsuzi Yamada, where an enormous black cat takes over the housework for an unmotivated, messy female office worker. Neither Pen the Penguin nor the Masterful Cat talk, but their exasperation and concern for their careless charges are sweetly evident.

But my favorite current manga housekeeper is Seere from Mama Akuma by Kuzushiro. “Akuma” is the Japanese word for a type of malevolent spirt, and Seere is in fact an immortal demon from something like Hell. He is summoned by fourth-grader Sakura who makes a contract with him to be her Mama. But she does not ask to have her dead mother back, or to have a likeness of her mother around—Sakura wants Seere to actually perform as a mother for her family. Fortunately, housekeeping isn’t too hard with a bit of magic, and Seere has become quite a good cook in the centuries he has spent terrorizing the world for his previous summoners. However, nothing has quite prepared him for parenting Sakura and her older brother, not to mention getting along with her somewhat bemused father.

I have a particular fondness for stories that mess around with world religions, particularly if they do so with humor, respect, and insight. Two of my favorites are Saiyuki by Kazuya Minekura and Saint Young Men by Hikaru Nakamura. Saiyuki is currently available in a four-volume complete hardcover “Resurrected Edition.” Saint Young Men is an ongoing manga, now with seven omnibus volumes available in hardcover.

Saiyuki is a very loose retelling of the ancient Chinese legend of the Journey to the West (Xiyouji), first told in 1580 by Wu Cheng’en and continued in numerous tales about Son Goku, the Monkey King. Journey to the West is itself a very loose retelling of a real journey by a sixth century holy priest to bring religious texts to China from India, though I rather doubt that the historical Sanzang was accompanied by Son Goku and two other demons. I’m told that the kanji for the title in the manga Saiyuki are pronounced the same as the Chinese name but can also mean “messing around to the extreme.” There are elements in the manga that are recognizable for those who know the history and legends. But for most readers, the journey toward India (in a Jeep) by a very unholy Sanzo priest and his three angsty demon companions on the worst road trip ever, is just pure gonzo fun.

Saint Young Men is a series of short stories with the unlikely premise that Jesus and Buddha are given a year off from Heaven after humanity’s successful reaching of the new millennia, and are living together in a small apartment in Tokyo. The background assumption is that everything written in the history of both Christianity and Buddhism is completely true, even though it might be contradictory. Jesus is into computer games and Buddha can’t resist modern appliances. The two pals entertain their apostles and disciples in the tiny room they can barely afford (because Heaven is not up to date on the cost of living) and enjoy visiting prime Tokyo tourist attractions, leaving random miracles and inner peace in their wake.

Transgender manga artist Keito Gaku won the 77th Tetsuya Chiba Prize for a one-shot manga about a transgender teen. His four-volume series based on that story, Boys Run the Riot, was released in Japan in 2020. In an interview in the back of Volume One, Gaku says that he wanted the book to be about, not just coming out as transgender, but about the way fashion is related to identity and gender. The fourth and final volume of the English translation of Boys Run the Riot is now available, and includes the earlier story, called Light.

The protagonist, Ryo, says he was “born in a healthy female body,” but hates his schoolgirl uniform because he doesn’t want to be treated like a girl and doesn’t feel at ease in a body identifiable as female. Things begin to change, not necessarily for the better, when he meets a new classmate, Jin, who shares his taste in fashion. Jin convinces Ryo to start a fashion design “brand” with him, saying, “Let’s destroy all their stupid assumptions with our clothes.” They call it Boys Run the Riot.

The story is based somewhat on the experiences of the author, though he never started a fashion brand. It may reflect some of the experiences of transgender kids worldwide, though some experiences, like the use of pronouns in Japanese and gendered school uniforms, might be unique. The result is a complicated and intensely personal story. It is a vivid exploration of the way appearance influences our attitudes and prejudices, and of how difficult it can be to live outside of societal expectations.

“Living freely also comes with sacrifices. If you still want to do it, then please, don’t give up,” Keito Gaku.

Ropa Moyo is a fourteen-year-old high school dropout with green dreadlocks, black lipstick, and a massive attitude fueled by a ferocious intelligence. She has taken over her grandmother’s marginally profitable business as a ghost-talker, conversations which are made possible by finding the right tune on a Zimbabwean instrument called a mbira. She lives in a caravan parked outside a near-future ruined Edinburgh. Her biggest problems are sore feet from delivering messages from beyond the grave to their paying living relatives, keeping her little sister in school, and caring for her grandmother. Then she runs into a ghost who begs her to find her living son, who has disappeared.

The Library of the Dead would be Ropa’s dream come true, if she weren’t a trespasser on ground reserved for a privileged few. It’s a repository of all magical knowledge—along with the grave of David Hume—in a carved-out cavern below Calton Hill. Fortunately, some members are willing to bend the rules just a little to provide her with the dense textbooks she needs to learn to work magic. The ghost’s missing child is part of a series of disappearances, and no one but Ropa and her two friends from the Library, Priya and Jomo, seem willing to try to find the lost children.

This is a wonderful book with a fresh new voice. The author, T.L. Huchu, was born in Zimbabwe, but lived most of his life in Edinburgh. His familiarity with both cultures results in an unforgettable strange world, narrated by a completely realistic voice. I don’t think this is the last adventure for Ropa and her friends. Tiny print on the title page labels this book as “Edinburgh Nights Book One.”