Month: April 2018

(First published May 13, 2013)

Today’s Book: “The Meeting of the Waters” by Caiseal Mór.

The Plot: In ancient Ireland, the squabbling Danaan and Fir-Bolg tribes must band together to defend themselves from the invading Milesians.

Autistic Character(s): The author! Yay!

This is going to be a new kind of Autistic Book Party post. There won’t be any “how to write autistic characters” advice, because nobody in this book is autistic. In fact, Caiseal Mór published this book (and 13 others!) while passing as NT. It’s only with his 2007 autobiography that his autism became public knowledge.

It’s important for me to highlight good books by autistic authors, even if they don’t have autistic characters. Why?

First, because representation means paying attention to authors AND characters. If you want to combat sexism in spec fic, I sure hope you’re looking at women authors as well as female characters. With autism or any other group, it’s the same. Nothing about us without us.

Second, because autistic people are often told we can’t write good stories because we don’t have enough imagination, or enough empathy, or whatever. If a straight white NT dude has trouble writing convincing characters, he gets told to go to a writing workshop and build his skills. If an Aspie has trouble doing it, she is contractually obligated to question whether this is an “Aspie thing”, and whether Aspies are capable of writing good fiction at all.

(Side note: Some autistic people have trouble with “pretend play” as children. They do not see the point of acting out a situation that everyone knows isn’t real. But this isn’t the case for all autistic people. An awful lot of us are known to retreat into imagination as a coping mechanism. Others – or the same ones – construct elaborate imaginary worlds as a special interest.)

So I’ve been itching to give you some examples of good speculative fiction by autistic people, and Caiseal Mór – a bestselling Irish-Australian fantasy author – looks like a good place to start.

“The Meeting of the Waters” is an epic fantasy with a large scope and many viewpoint characters. Yet the usual epic fantasy tropes – Chosen Ones, hordes of throwaway villains, long journeys and quests for a MacGuffin – are pleasantly absent. That’s because Mór isn’t using other epic fantasy as his model. He’s gone back to primary sources and to a lifelong fascination with Celtic mythology.

Mór’s take on this mythology may surprise some readers. In “The Meeting of the Waters”, the Tuatha De Danaan have not yet become the immortal, capricious creatures of most modern fantasy. When we meet them, they are ordinary mortals. Here the Danaans, the Fir-Bolg, and the Milesians (ancestors of today’s Irish people) are three human tribes descended from a common ancestor, each with rich musical and magical traditions, a cattle-based economy, and a carefully codified set of rules for war and justice. But each tribe’s choices, as the story progresses, will set them onto radically different paths.

Mór takes a bird’s-eye view of these choices. (Sometimes literally. Parts of the book are narrated by a man who has been turned into a raven.) He moves from character to character as he wishes in order to show us a larger picture. No single character carries the fate of all of Ireland on their shoulders, and no single character is always expected to garner readers’ sympathy. Instead, what changes the course of history is a set of interlocking decisions from many characters. The major players are each interesting and distinct from each other, but none is immune from making terrible choices when pushed. Similarly, no one is entirely unsympathetic, though some characters (especially the Fir-Bolg king and queen) seem to be, for a while. Even the story’s villains – a pair of manipulative Fomorians set on causing discord between the other three tribes – come off as clever and likeable at times, especially early in the story, before we’ve seen the worst consequences of their meddling.

The result is an overall voice which can be somewhat detached, but also very human and forgiving. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But in a genre overrun by NT authors who think the whole moral and physical universe revolves around their Chosen One, I think Mór’s balanced approach is the better one for teaching us empathy.

The Verdict: Recommended

For a list of past/future/possible Autistic Book Party books, or to recommend a new one, click here.

Today’s Book: “Failure to Communicate” by Kaia Sønderby

The Plot: Xandri Corelel interprets alien behavior for a living. But her latest mission, to help with diplomatic negotiations on the planet Anmerilli, will test her skills to the limit.

Autistic Character(s): Xandri, the protagonist.

I like the trope of autistic people learning to communicate with aliens, and this is the first time I’ve seen the trope addressed at novel length. I was excited to see what would be done with it, and I wasn’t disappointed. There’s a refreshing nuance and subtlety to the way Sønderby handles her topic. Xandri’s skill at finding patterns in alien body language is partly due to good autistic pattern recognition – but mostly due to hard work and skill developed over many years because it was necessary for her survival. She’s genuinely good at it, one of the best in the Alliance – but that doesn’t make her automatically good at all the other skills that go with negotiation, nor at deciphering types of deception among humans to which autistic people are frequently vulnerable. And much of the conflict of the book comes, not from trying to puzzle out what the Anmerilli are thinking, but from these high-level, all-too-human interactions.

Although the novel has many fast-paced and action-y parts, and doesn’t dive needlessly into introspection, nuance is the name of the game when it comes to its characters and worldbuilding. Autistic people are rare in Xandri’s time, thanks to genetic modification, and individuals vary widely in how they treat her. Some are genuine friends, which Xandri treasures as a rarity; some are ableist and dismissive; some are manipulative; some are well-intentioned but clueless.  Xandri’s alien friends (and the ship’s AI she’s befriended) are often more accepting than most humans, but the aliens are not a monolith either, and in particular, the Anmerilli have many political factions and different opinions. It’s hard to write a story about ableism with this kind of nuance and individuality; even #ownvoices stories often have a slightly cartoonish feel in their more ableist characters. But the variety of attitudes taken by different characters in “Failure to Communicate” really helps the setting feel real and lived-in.

The story is also really fun. I cheered in some places and cried in others, and sometimes had to step away when a plot moment hit too close to home. I love Sønderby’s aliens, especially the parrot-like Psitticans and the furry, taciturn Ongkoarrat. I love Xandri’s friendships with the people on her team who “get” her and are looking out for her (and there’s some setup that I’m hoping will lead to a queer romance, in a sequel 😀 ). There’s a definite found-family vibe to the Carpathia‘s crew, even though not everyone in the crew is equally accepting.

I especially like the way Xandri’s touch sensitivity is handled – like other aspects of “Failure to Communicate,” it isn’t black and white, but presents differently in different circumstance, and doesn’t desexualize her. Xandri’s autistic traits in general are present consistently and depicted through all the little details of her social environment, from the ship’s AI making sure there are satin patches she can stim with on her clothes, to her bodyguards having to remind her to eat, to the meltdowns she experiences several times at stressful points without losing her agency.

Xandri just feels relatable to me in ways that kept surprising me. Not every autistic protagonist – not even every well-written autistic protagonist – is the same, which is to be expected, since real people on the spectrum are so different. I often appreciate the way a character is depicted without identifying with them especially closely. But for whatever reason, Xandri as a character just kept on making me go, “Yep, that’s what I’d probably do. That’s how I’d react to that. …Yep.” This was an unfamiliar feeling.

I’m struggling to talk about the story’s plot instead of just listing all the mess of details that felt wonderful and accepting and real.

One other thing that I loved about it is even harder to talk about, and it also involves a PLOT TWIST, so I’m putting it behind a spoiler cut.

Continue reading “Autistic Book Party, Episode 44: Failure to Communicate”