The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiraki

Publsihed in Japan in 2019; published in translation by ‎ Grand Central Publishing on September 17, 2024

When Hatsu Yagi, at the age of 92, finds herself in a photography studio with no memory of her arrival, she realizes she is dead. The photographer, Hirasaka, tells her she is making a brief stop at the precise boundary between life and death on her way to an afterlife that he hasn’t experienced and thus cannot describe.

Hirasaka gives Hatsu large stacks of photographs, one photo of each day of her life, and asks her to select one from each year to attach to the lantern of memories. When her life flashes before her eyes as the lantern spins, she will see the scenes that she chooses before passing into the next stage.

One of the photos is faded because it’s such an important memory that Hatsu has worn it out by revisiting it so often. Hirasaka takes her back in time so she can take a new photo. She’ll be a ghost in the sense that others won’t see her, but she’s solid enough to take a picture.

When they travel to 1948, Hatsu tells Hirasaka the story of a small neighborhood in Tokyo where she worked as a nursery schoolteacher in a daycare that met in a field before it raised enough money to buy an old bus that would shelter the children when it rained. The story of her life is touching and sweet. The novel is in part a remembrance of the hard times that followed Japan’s defeat in the war, a life that was particularly difficult for all the children who died of dysentery.

Hirasaka’s next guest is Waniguchi, a criminal who was stabbed to death in his forties. The criminal tells an amusing story about an employee named Mouse who fixes things, although Mouse doesn’t understand the difference between broken and dead. Some things, Mouse will eventually learn, can’t be fixed. As Waniguichi’s lantern spins, he contemplates all the wrong choices he made, all the paths he took when different paths at life’s crossroads might have spared him a grisly death.

Hirasaka helps the dead decorate their lanterns with photographs, but he doesn’t remember his own life. He believes he lived a boring life, that he is unremembered, that he is destined to have a boring existence between life and death, without any meaning or purpose. He has a photograph of himself, but he doesn’t recognize the setting and it hasn’t sparked any memories of his life. This is a mystery that the story eventually explains. The explanation underscores the theme that a boring existence can nevertheless be special in ways we can’t imagine.

The last meeting recounted in the novel is with an abused little girl named Mitsuru. She died and visited Hirasaka, but he knows she is destined to return to life, only to die again at the hands of her tormenter. That might be the saddest thing I’ve ever read. As he interacts with the girl, he finds a way to manipulate the rules and, in so doing, changes his own fate.

The story’s characters are memorable (I particularly liked Mouse). The novel’s clever construction ties the characters together in surprising ways. The story illustrates the power of photography and the importance of capturing images that might erode in an unassisted memory. I don’t like to use clichéd descriptions like “enriching” and “life affirming,” but if I resorted to clichés, those would be apt descriptions of The Lantern of Lost Memories.

The story’s point, I think, is that most people live "well out of the spotlight." They have an “undistinguished existence” with “no stirring accomplishments or feats of valour,” ending their lives as people who “never expected to amount to much, and never had.” Yet Sanaka Hiiragi illustrates how even ordinary people make a difference. In the words of David Bowie, we can be heroes, just for one day. Or we can make bad choices and be left with a stack of memories we’d rather not have. Other writers have taught the same lesson, but rarely with the degree of empathy and intelligence that Hiiragi brings to this story.

RECOMMENDED

Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid

Published by Atlantic Monthly Press on September 24, 2024

Shakespeare exercised dramatic license in the Scottish play by having Macduff kill Macbeth in his castle. As history records it, Macbeth was killed by forces loyal to Malcolm in the Battle of Lumphanan. Val McDermid’s take differs from both accounts, although she follows history more closely than Shakespeare did. Still, just like Shakespeare but without the glorious prose, she spins history into fiction.

Queen Gruoch Macbeth shared a throne with her husband for seventeen years before the Battle of Lumphanan robbed her of his love and sent her into exile. Gruoch is keeping her distance from Malcolm as she considers her future. She has “a name men would rally behind; Malcolm is shrewd enough to realize that, and to fear it.” The novel is thus, at least initially, the imagined story of Gruoch as she struggles to survive in hiding while grieving her husband’s death.

The novel’s backstory is told in flashbacks. Gruoch was with Gille Coemgáin in an arranged and childless marriage. Macbeth heard that his cousin Gille’s hands were red with the blood of his father. Macbeth came to see him so he could judge the man’s guilt before taking his revenge. When they met, Gruoch believed that Macbeth looked at her “like the woman she was meant to be.”

One of the three women who attend Grunoch, a handmaiden named Eithne who is said to be a witch, told her that Macbeth “will be the one. He will surely plant a King.” Grunoch needs no further encouragement. Suffice it to say that there will be passages worthy of inclusion in an adult romance novel.

To avoid the risk of making Gille suspicious, Grunoch and Macbeth communicate by sending bunches of flowers to each other via Angus, Macbeth’s messenger. One of Grunoch’s trusted women is an herbalist who speaks the language of flowers. Macbeth has an herbalist who also serves as translator. Their bouquets speak of patience (wild garlic) and hardship (milk-gowan), but no translation is needed for the forget-me-nots. That’s clever.

McDermid completes the backstory by imagining that Macbeth takes a grisly revenge through means that are consistent with history. In the present-time narrative, Gruoch struggles to keep her band of women safe until Eithne enters a trance and tells her to “go west — all the way west.” She must evade or slay Malcolm’s spies and fight McDuff before the story takes a twist that marks a sharp departure from history.

The happy ending has all the credibility of a fairy tale, although I credit McDermid for subplots that follow a tragic path. I mean, you can’t have a Macbeth story without tragedy, so likable but less important characters will meet their unhappy fates before the last curtain falls.

I’m not sure Macbeth needs a sequel, although writers seem to enjoy writing them. McDermid is no Shakespeare, but who is? Her prose is clear and crisp while occasionally bordering on elegance. Action and adventure (and the occasional stabbing) move the plot briskly. The story’s charm won’t be lost on fans of Macbeth even if they might cringe at its non-tragic outcome.

RECOMMENDED

Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

First published in the UK in 2024; published by Orbit on September 17, 2024

Alien Clay imagines a world in which the process of evolution does not move ahead in fits and starts but proceeds in a steady stream that builds to an eventual frenzy. A world in which all life is linked, co-dependent, constantly changing by creating new symbiotic relationships and different kinds of merged entities. Each organism serves other organisms and is served in return.

Competition for survival drives evolution on Earth. On Kiln, survival depends on cooperation, on being useful to other entities. Still survival of the fittest, but the fittest are those that most capably join with other entities to make something better.

Tchaikovsky typically infuses his novels with philosophy. While Alien Clay explores what it means to be an individual human on a planet that invites cooperation with other species, its greater focus is on the evil of enforced orthodoxy, particularly when scientific outcomes are predetermined, not the product of science.

Arton Daghdev was a scientist on Earth, specializing in xenobiology and xeno-ecology. Earth, unfortunately, is governed by the Mandate, a political force that requires scientists to produce orthodox results, rather than the truth — results that show the inevitable superiority of humankind to all other life, for example.

The Mandate combines totalitarianism with something akin to theocracy. Scientists who veer away from the orthodox in favor of objective truth, who grumble about constraints on what they can publish, are labeled dissidents and are sent to work as laborers on colonized worlds. The worlds are harsh and prisoners tend not to live long, assuming they survive the journey and harrowing landing in their sleep capsules. Kiln is the most habitable of the worlds but it is a dangerous place.

Dhagdev’s resistance to the Mandate on Earth consisted of attending subcommittee meetings until someone ratted him out. Because — and this is a point Tchaikovsky makes repeatedly — there’s always someone willing to rat out fellow travelers in exchange for a promise of less pain. Someone ratted out Dhagdev and he woke up in a capsule falling toward Kiln.

Adrian Tchaikovsky likes to start with an interesting idea or two and build from there. The idea that a cooperative society might outperform a competitive one is an unorthodox view in science fiction. Its fans have been fed a steady diet of stories about clever humans who outthink (and thus outcompete) aliens. The idea that human society might not be as strong as an alien collective intelligence is untraditional and might be anathema to some science fiction fans. I mean, the Federation defeated the Borg, didn’t it?

Science fiction also has a long tradition of championing individualism. If there is a Mandate that unites science fiction traditionalists, Tchaikovsky might be violating it with a plot that ultimately embraces the concept of a hive mind (at least one that doesn’t destroy the sense of individual identity) as a design improvement rather than a threat. I suspect that Tchaikovsky is deliberately advancing unorthodox ideas to underscore his criticism of the Mandate’s orthodoxy. Ideas might be debated and rejected or reconsidered but they should never be suppressed.

Having laid those ideas as a foundation, what kind of plot does Tchaikovsky build? Not clever humans against an alien menace but open-minded humans rising up against their oppressor. Although Dhagdev is initially assigned to tasks the resemble the performance of science, his instinct to join an insurrection is punished with reassignment to a team of prisoners who are sent into the jungle. Excursion teams make first contact with complex structures that appear to have been erected by builders who can no longer be found on Kiln. The excursion teams clear the structures of plants that have overgrown the outer walls so that scientists can study them safely — in particular, lines of inscriptions that might or might not be a form of writing.

The Mandate does little to protect excursion team members from contamination by aggressive spores, spiky plants, and large beasts that stomp on humans. One of the original scientists has done nothing but babble since being infected by something outside the walls of the labor camp, but she refuses to die — and the person in charge of the camp prefers to study her rather than kill her.

So we have a plot that follows a rebellious scientist as he interacts with an ecosystem that he begins to understand on an internal level. Can he lead a rebellion? Not exactly, but Tchaikovsky puts a neat spin on the notion of leadership in a cooperative society. In any event, the plot gives Dhagdev a series of adventures and challenges that keep the story moving. It’s fun and at least modestly thought-provoking, a good combination for a science fiction novel.

RECOMMENDED

The Solstice by Matt Brolly

Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 17, 2024

Some law enforcement agencies devote more energy to jurisdictional squabbles than to solving crimes. A squabble about whether a murder investigation should take precedence over the years-long financial crimes investigation of a cult is the only interesting aspect of The Solstice.

This is the seventh entry in a series that features Detective Inspector Louise Blackwell. Like all good fictional cops, she has a checkered work history, but she’s being considered for promotion to Detective Chief Inspector. The job might be a good alternative to quitting, an option that seems tempting as she returns to work from her maternity leave.

On her first day back, Louise is assigned to investigate the discovery of a child’s bones in a cave. The bones have been there for a decade. Ambiguous forensic evidence convinces Louise that the child was held in restraints, tortured, and sealed in the cave where he starved to death. Fortunately, the novel describes none of that in real time.

Comparing missing persons reports to dental records helps Louise identify the child. Her parents gave him up for foster care and eventual adoption, although he disappeared in the woods while living with his foster family. His biological parents, Jeremy and Valerie Latchford, moved to a commune/cult/gathering-of-Gaia-worshippers called Verdant Circle. Members live in the woods that happen to be near the cave where the Latchford boy’s bones are found.

Verdant Circle has been around for generations. As is the custom in such novels, it has links to bankers and other powerful people, including one who runs a charitable foundation. Wealthy old people who gather for rituals while wearing masks, as if they were extras in Eyes Wide Shut, give the story a familiar feel — so familiar as to be stale.

The plot involves rumors of human sacrifice. A woman who worries that her young son will soon be sealed in a cave would like to leave the cult, but will she be allowed to escape? Louise feels pressure to solve the child’s murder and (if rumors and fears are to be credited) prevent other children from being killed. She is stifled in that effort by a Detective Inspector who doesn’t want her concerns to interfere with his complex and long-running financial investigation of the cult. (In the US, the financial crimes investigator would be an FBI agent stomping on local agencies so he can pursue a long-term investigation rather than solving or preventing current crimes.)

Sacrifices in thrillers are traditionally made on a solstice. One is upcoming, creating a “race against the clock” deadline for solving the crime, assuming it has anything to do with human sacrifice. The ending is meant to be nail-biting, but the novel’s premise is so silly that I couldn’t get excited by the drama that unfolds at the novel’s end.

Since human sacrifice and ritual murders happen in novels way more often than in real life (even in England), a novel that entertains the possibility of a cult making human sacrifices needs a plot twist to be entertaining. Matt Brolly makes efforts at misdirection, but identifying the bad guys turns out to be easy. The plot turns out to be just as predictable as the reader might expect.

Brolly’s polished prose is a plus, as is Louise’s characterization as a cop who might prefer to be a full-time mommy. Louise’s conflict with the financial crimes investigator adds some interest to a story that is otherwise pedestrian. If the plot had contained more original elements, I would be more enthused about recommending the novel. Fans of novels about cults and their unlikely rituals might form a better opinion of The Solstice than I did.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Doll's House by Lisa Unger

Published by Amazon Original Stories on September 12, 2024

Doug killed himself, leaving behind Jules, a widow in her 30s, and Scout, a girl in her teens. Who gives a dog’s name to a kid? Jules and Doug, apparently. Doug was a famous writer with a “rabid cult following” and the bad habit of spending more money than he earned. He left his family with no significant assets other than their NYC apartment.

Now Jules is 37, has unburdened herself from debt by selling the apartment, and is moving in with perfect fiancé Kirin. Her “fresh new love” took her “completely by surprise.” Jules loves Kirin because he is “solid,” meaning that, unlike Doug, he has enough money to take care of her. The idea of taking care of herself has apparently never entered her head. Maybe that’s the point of the story — Jules evolves by becoming (spoiler alert) a self-sufficient writer before the story’s end — but my impression is that Lisa Unger wants the reader to sympathize with Jules’ plight rather than faulting her for making bad choices.

Scout is 17 and moving into Kirin’s house as the story opens. She is unhappy with everything, including her mother and her stepfather-to-be, notwithstanding his wealth. Scout’s therapist says she doesn’t want to move on because that would mean leaving her father behind. That makes sense but, let' face it, Scout is 17 and therefore programmed to be unhappy with her life regardless oer her circumstances.

Scout is more bonded to Kirin’s 20-something assistant, Jessie, than she is to Kirin. She also seems to be bonded with DD, her texting partner. But she gets a “flutter in her stomach” when a boy named Racer pays attention to her on her first day in the exclusive private school she will now be attending.

What begins as a boring family drama takes a thriller/horror twist when Scout hears singing coming from Emma’s room. Emma is Kirin’s troubled sister, who maybe had something going with Racer’s dad. Emma is missing and presumed dead, but could she be in her room, singing? Emma finds the room empty but discovers a doll with a slim black dress and ruby shoes. Was the doll singing? The answer is never clear. Like other unlikely plot elements, Unger seems happy to attribute anything she can’t explain to the supernatural.

Kirin made the doll’s dress and shoes from clothing that the missing Emma left behind, which strikes me as a disturbing thing to do despite Kirin’s status as a “world renowned puppet and doll maker.” Scout is impressed that the doll is so realistic it seems to be alive. Readers have seen this before.

Jules believes she caught a glimpse of a woman outside the house, a slim figure dressed all in black. Kirin dismisses her inquiry. You see where this is going, right? Well, maybe not. Unger tries to spice up the plot with a hidden map and a mysterious key, although the location of those items makes no sense at all.

Kirin will obviously turn out to be a bad guy but his motivation for being bad is unconvincing, in part because he is a paper-thin character. Scout lives up to all teenage girl stereotypes but has no personality of her own. Jules is too full of self-pity to be a worthy character, even if she comes through at the end.

A chapter that offers the hope of actual thrills turns out to be a dream. Why do writers annoy readers with dream sequences?

The story ends as stories like this usually end. The resolution is unimaginative. While the identity of Scout’s texting partner is meant to be surprising, it is entirely predictable. The identity of the mysterious girl is so obvious that the attempt to conceal it while foreshadowing the reveal is a waste of words. Making her true identity possible requires a belief in the supernatural that seems to be Lisa Unger’s go-to move, but readers who hope that mysteries will be solved by rational thought will be disappointed.

Fans of Christian Lit soap operas who believe that guardian angels watch over us might like this story. Perhaps because I am not part of that market, I thought it was sillly.

NOT RECOMMENDED