In the midst of our nine days in Egypt, my sister and I took a day tour into Jordan to visit Petra. This involved getting up at 3 a.m. for a two hour bus ride, one hour boat ride across the Red Sea, and another two hour bus ride, during which was had to pass through border control (and then the reverse for our return). It was a long journey for such a short (four hour) tour of Petra, but it was absolutely worth it.
Petra was the capital city of the Nabataeans, a nomadic people who used the city as a trading hub. The most famous structure is the “Treasury,” a tomb carved into a sandstone cliff at the end of a narrow gorge — a structure that was featured at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Treasury style is influenced by the Greek and Egyptian cultures. The upper level includes images of two Amazons, with the the Egyptian goddess Isis at the center. At the center of the middle band is Medusa, who acts as a guardian of the tomb. And there are other references as well. Watching the Treasury slowly be revealed as you walk(while dodging out of the way of speedily moving horse-drawn carts) down the narrow gorge is stunning.
The Treasury is the most famous structure at Petra.
But there is so much more to Petra than the Treasury. The rock formations alone are beautiful. And there are numerous tombs carved into cliffsides, as well as a theater, a church, a monastery and other structures. Altogether, my sister and I only saw a fraction of Petra (and even less of Jordan) — and we were immediately struck with a desire to return and hike through more of the site.
Moving through a gorge in Petra.Petra – the Royal Tombs
When my sister and I told family and friends that we were planning to spend nine days touring through Egypt, we were often greeted with warnings — it was dangerous, they said, we should stay away. But that didn’t stop us.
Egypt was a phenomenal place to explore. Although there were annoyances (as there always are when traveling), both my sister and I felt safe during our nine days in Egypt. The food was (for the most part) great — often kebabs or chicken with rice, salad (a mix of cucumber and tomatoes), tahini sauce, and pita bread for dinner and falafels for breakfast in the mornings. We also tried and rather enjoyed koshari, a dish with rice, pasta, lentils, and fried onions with a red sauce.
My sister and I packed as much as two people could humanly pack into our nine days, visiting dozens of pyramids and tombs and temples while we were in Cairo and Luxor, as well as managing a trip to Dahab on the Red Sea and a day trip into Jordan to visit Petra (which I’ll talk about in a separate post). With the heat — which varied between oven and hell most days — and out packed itinerary, we were exhausted by the end but it was all worth every second. Here are a few of the moments I loved.
I’m so thrilled to be able to feature Marisa on my site. I met her many years ago when we were both interns at Aunt Lute Books, and it’s been a delight seeing her flourish as a poet in the time since.
Marisa Crawford is the author of the poetry collections Reversible(2017) and The Haunted House (2010) from Switchback Books, and the chapbooks 8th Grade Hippie Chic (Immaculate Disciples, 2013) and Big Brown Bag (Gazing Grain, 2015). Her poems, essays, and interviews have appeared in BUST, Broadly, Hyperallergic, Bitch, Fanzine, The &NOW Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing, and elsewhere, and are forthcoming in Electric Gurlesque (Saturnalia Books). Marisa is the founder and editor-in-chief of the feminist literary/pop culture website WEIRD SISTER. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. (Bio from poet’s website.)
How did you get started as a poet? Why draws you to writing poetry?
I fully credit the movie My Girl for making me a poet — this movie basically destroyed my childhood but also made me the person I am now, and the poem the main character, Vada, writes about her best friend dying made me want to write poems myself. I wrote my first poem in 4th grade when my best friend moved away, and continued writing poems in high school. When I got to college, a few teachers encouraged me to write more and that’s when I started taking myself seriously as a poet. I’m drawn to poetry because I think it’s the way I naturally think — poems can be weird and sad and scary and funny and political and they can about 100 different things all at once. And poetry to me is kind of the pinnacle of valuing emotional knowledge over rational thinking, which is far too often disregarded in our mainstream capitalist culture.
Hi, lovelies. I’m currently in Egypt, so I pre-prepared and scheduled this post. Anyway, here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games. 🙂
Books
Pretty much all of my reading this month has been focused on working through the 2018 Hugo nominations, or as many of them as I could get to.
My favorite read of the month was My Favorite Thing is Monsters, the stunning graphic nvel written and illustrated by Emil Ferris. It has some of the most gorgeous art I’ve seen in a graphic story. My full review is here.
Even though there’s more days in the month, this will be my last Hugos post. Tomorrow I’ll be winging my way to Egypt with my sister and I’m not sure how Internet access will be, so I need to get my votes in before I leave.
So, here’s my thoughts on the nominated novellas.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing) — Martha Wells’ novella All Systems Red presents the diaries of a company-supplied security android designed to provide protection for survey teams exploring planets for possible resources. Murderbot (as it calls itself) just wants to be left alone to watch hours of vids in peace. But when another survey team mysteriously goes silent, it has to work with it’s team of clients to discover the truth before they’re all killed.
I loved this book. Murderbot is cynical about humans and the world in general, an attitude that is totally understandable given its circumstances and understanding of the universe. But the team of scientists he’s assigned to give him a broader perspective on humanity, showing him people who are able to work together with compassion and intelligence — such considerations they show not just to each other but to Murderbot itself, as they continue to work with and rely on it. It’s so wonderful to read a story that centers people who are good to each other. Plus, the action is intense, making this a short and rapid read. There are already several sequels to this out in the world and I can’t wait to read them all.
Cover of Uncanny Magazine, Issue 15, March-April 2017.
“And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017) — Insurance investigator, Sarah Pinsker, gets an invitation that she at first believes to be a joke — until she stands in a hotel lobby facing a multitude of versions of herself from a multitude of parallel worlds, each representing the infinity (or a small portion of that infinity) of diverging choices she could have made in her life. One of the Sarahs has found a way to open the door and invited the rest of the Sarahs to come to a convention, a meeting of similar (sometimes almost exact variations), which is in some ways unsettling in itself. Then one of the Sarahs shows up dead. Insurance investigator Sarah is set to the task of looking into the murder after a storm rolls in cutting the local police off from reaching the island.
Who would we be if we made different choices in our lives? It’s a question pretty much everyone has asked themselves. I couldn’t imagine a more poignant examination of that question than this story. In some ways, all the ways the variations of Sara are similar is as fascinating as the ways in which they are different. All together, it’s so strange and meta and moving and fascinating — with an ending to sit and think over long after you’re done reading.
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing) — The Binti trilogy is fantastic from top to bottom. The second book in the series, Home takes place one year after the events in the first book. Binti is a student at Oomza University as she hoped. Although she’s considered a hero for brokering peace between two species, Binti is fundamentally changed and still dealing with the trauma — a mix of panic attacks and deep rooted anger.
Believing it can bring her healing, she decides to return home to the family she slipped away from in the middle of night. Coming with her is her friend Okwu — the first of the Meduse species to come to Earth in peace — which of course creates it’s own multitude of problems.
This is a quick paced space opera with imaginative world building and fantastic characters. It’s amazing to me how Okorafor can pack so many layers of culture and characters into such slim books.
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing) — Unfortunately, I did not get around to finishing this one, so I can’t express my full thoughts on it, but here’s the book description:
“Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as children. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While his sister received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What’s more, he saw the sickness at the heart of his mother’s Protectorate.
A rebellion is growing. The Machinists discover new levers to move the world every day, while the Tensors fight to put them down and preserve the power of the state. Unwilling to continue to play a pawn in his mother’s twisted schemes, Akeha leaves the Tensorate behind and falls in with the rebels. But every step Akeha takes towards the Machinists is a step away from his sister Mokoya. Can Akeha find peace without shattering the bond he shares with his twin sister?”
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) — Jacqueline and Jillian are twins born to parents who never really understood or wanted children, parents who believe children are objects to be shaped to their desires rather than actual, you know, people. But the world in which they live is full of doors and some of those doors lead to other worlds and Jacqueline and Jillian find their way to a place of darkness and death, where they suddenly have the ability to choose.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a standalone story in the Wayward Children series, and as such, you can read the books in the series in any order. Although if you really want to know what happens to Jack and Jill, then I recommend reading Every Heart a Doorway, which chronologically comes after this one (even though its the first in the series). I hope there are many, many more books in this series, because I’m loving it.
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing) — Once upon a time, the U.S. government considered importing African hippos and raising them in the Louisiana bayou in order to address a need to increase the national meat supply — not joking, this was really a thing. Sarah Gailey’s novella presents a reimagined history in which this damn foolish/brilliant idea actually took place.
A group of charmingly of devious scoundrels set out on a caper — I mean, “operation” — to clear a section of Mississippi river of feral hippos. Winslow Houndstooth is a former hippo rancher with swift knife skills and a grudge. Regina Archambault (“Archie”) is a brilliant conartist, with a protective affection for Houndstooth. Hero Shackleby is a demolitions expert who has become profoundly bored by their peaceful retirement. Adelia Reyes is a heavily pregnant badass . . . and well, I’m going to let you figure out the rest.
The audio book narration by Peter Berkrot is fantastic, bringing all the characters to vivid life. I was as delighted by the idea of riding domesticated hippos as I was horrified by the idea of stumbling upon a group of ferals. Although, I had a bit of a hard time getting into the story at first, the caper — ahem, “operation” — was fun with some solid twists and the ending was deeply satisfying.
My personal and entirely subjective ranking:
Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor
All Systems Red by Martha Wells
“And Then There Were (N-One)” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)
Since I did not finish reading The Black Tides of Heaven, it is not ranked.
All my Hugo related posts are under the 2018 Hugos tag and you can check out the complete list of nominated creators and works here.
All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing) — Martha Wells’ novella All Systems Red presents the diaries of a company-supplied security android designed to provide protection for survey teams exploring planets for possible resources. Murderbot (as it calls itself) just wants to be left alone to watch hours of vids in peace. But when another survey team mysteriously goes silent, it has to work with it’s team of clients to discover the truth before they’re all killed.
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing) — The Binti trilogy is fantastic from top to bottom. The second book in the series, Home takes place one year after the events in the first book. Binti is a student at Oomza University as she hoped. Although she’s considered a hero for brokering peace between two species, Binti is fundamentally changed and still dealing with the trauma — a mix of panic attacks and deep rooted anger.
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing) — Unfortunately, I did not get around to finishing this one, so I can’t express my full thoughts on it, but here’s the book description:
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) — Jacqueline and Jillian are twins born to parents who never really understood or wanted children, parents who believe children are objects to be shaped to their desires rather than actual, you know, people. But the world in which they live is full of doors and some of those doors lead to other worlds and Jacqueline and Jillian find their way to a place of darkness and death, where they suddenly have the ability to choose.
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing) — Once upon a time, the U.S. government considered importing African hippos and raising them in the Louisiana bayou in order to address a need to increase the national meat supply — not joking, this was really a thing. Sarah Gailey’s novella presents a reimagined history in which this damn foolish/brilliant idea actually took place.