Pluralistic: Nalo Hopkinson's "Blackheart Man" (20 Aug 2024)

doctorow · 20 August 2024 12:14

Originally published at: Pluralistic: Nalo Hopkinson’s “Blackheart Man” (20 Aug 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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Nalo Hopkinson's "Blackheart Man": Language and worldbuilding to drown in, and a cracking novel besides.
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I've been.
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The Simon and Schuster cover for Nalo Hopkinson's 'Blackheart Man.'

Nalo Hopkinson's "Blackheart Man" (permalink)

In Blackheart Man, the new Nalo Hopkinson novel out today from Simon & Schuster, we get a tour-de-force from an author in full control of her prodigious powers: a story that will make you drunk on language, on worldbuilding, and on its roaring, relentless plot:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Blackheart-Man/Nalo-Hopkinson/9781668005101

The action is set on Chynchin, a fantastic Caribbean island(or maybe Caribbeanesque – it's never clear whether this is some magical, imaginary world, or some distant future of our own). Chynchin is a multiracial, creole land with a richly realized gift economy that Hopkinson deftly rounds out with a cuisine, languages, and familial arrangements. Blackheart Man boasts some of the finest "in-cluing" (Jo Walton's marvelous term for the way that sf/f writers can assemble a world in their readers' minds with subtle clues that act as a made-to-be-solved puzzle the reader delights in assembling) you could ask for, and before you know it, you've completely internalized this world, with its racial politics, its cultural institutions (like the colloquium, where every scholar is also a musician and getting your doctorate requires scoring a book to be sung – and thus memorized and preserved by a choir of your fellow students), and its relationships (the stable configuration is a thruple, with most women married to two co-husbands).

Chynchin was founded through a slave rebellion, in which the press-ganged soldiers of the iron-fisted Ymisen empire were defeated by three witches who caused them to be engulfed in tar that they magicked into a liquid state just long enough to entomb them, then magicked back into solidity. For generations, the Ymisen have tolerated Chynchin's self-rule, but as the story opens, a Ymisen armada sails into Chynchin's port and a "trade envoy" announces that it's time for the Chynchin to "voluntarily" re-establish trade with the Ymisen.

The story that unfolds is a staple of sf and fantasy: the scrappy resistance mounted against the evil empire, and this familiar backdrop is a sturdy scaffold to support Hopkinson's dizzying, phantasmagoric tale of psychedelic magic, possessed children, military intrigue, musicianship and sexual entanglements.

Hopkinson's protagonist Veycosi is the kind of flawed hero whom you want to give a hug to half the time, and whose neck you want to wring. An aspiring scholar, Veycosi has the brash certainty of youth, convinced that he's the smartest (and sexiest) man in any room, and he's right just often enough to encourage him in a series of self-inflicted catastrophes that build to a terrible crescendo that sets up one of the most satisfying endings you could ask for.

Hopkinson – a SFWA Grand Master and Macarthur Genius Grant awardee – is justly famed as one of the field's great afrofuturist pioneers. Her prodigious talent has been obvious since her debut novel, Brown Girl In the Ring, and her career is an unbroken string of literary feats that went from strength to strength. I've known her since we were both teenagers working at the same library in suburban Toronto, and I never cease to be dazzled by her talent, her wit, and her warmth. But even by those high standards, Blackheart Man is a triumph.

Hey look at this (permalink)

Private equity: health care’s vampire https://www.statnews.com/2024/08/19/private-equity-health-cares-vampire/ (h/t Mike Rydzewski)
EFF Benefit Poker Tournament at DEF CON 32 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/08/eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con-32
Death Is The Great Awakener (Bourbon Tabernacle Choir) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6RUb63Tx3w

A Wayback Machine banner.

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago EFF wins Grokster! Software doesn’t have to be easy for Hollywood to wiretap! https://web.archive.org/web/20041026154633/https://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/20040819_mgm_v_grokster_decision.pdf

#15yrsago Poor design-choices in the Star Wars universe https://web.archive.org/web/20090821185001/http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/08/bad-designs-in-star-wars.php

#15yrsago Computers’ limitations, as seen in 1967 https://web.archive.org/web/20090823020726/http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2009/08/19/computers-their-built-in-limitations/

#15yrsago WMD swag from a chemistry conference https://web.archive.org/web/20090824144536/http://cenblog.org/2009/08/19/wmd-goodie-bag/

#15yrsago Entertainment Weekly ad with a video-screen glued to the pages https://web.archive.org/web/20090821204702/https://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/cbs-embeds-a-video-playing-ad-in-a-print-magazine/

#15yrsago Brutal military dictatorship that backs Fiji Water https://web.archive.org/web/20090816093201/http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/fiji-spin-bottle

#15yrsago Sipping Spiders Through a Straw: funny monster lyrics to traditional tunes https://memex.craphound.com/2009/08/19/sipping-spiders-through-a-straw-funny-monster-lyrics-to-traditional-tunes/

#10yrsago Copyright extortion startup wants to hijack your browser until you pay https://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfit-wants-to-hijack-browsers-until-fine-paid-140816/

#10yrsago Militarized cops: arms dealers bribed Congress to ramboize Barney Fife https://www.motherjones.com/criminal-justice/2014/08/how-defense-industry-made-room-militarized-police-today/

#10yrsago How the US government exerts control over ICANN https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2014/08/government-control-internet-governance-icann-proposes-giving-gac-increased-power-board-decisions/

#10yrsago WWII’s VD posters: exciting nexus of propaganda, Mad Men, gender and design https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/08/15/protect-yourself/

#10yrsago Great mistakes in English medieval architecture https://stainedglassattitudes.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/great-mistakes-in-english-medieval-architecture/

#10yrsago A prison visit with The Pirate Bay’s Peter “brokep” Sunde https://felixreda.eu/2014/08/prison-is-a-bit-like-copyright-peter-sunde/

#10yrsago Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? https://memex.craphound.com/2014/08/18/whatever-happened-to-the-world-of-tomorrow/

#5yrsago A new biography reveals the Koch brothers’ very early role in creating organized climate denial https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examines-how-the-koch-brothers-made-their-fortune-and-the-influence-it-bought

#5yrsago New Hampshire court to patent troll: it’s not libel when someone calls you a “patent troll” https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/patent-troll-sues-over-patent-troll-label-loses/

#5yrsago An appreciation for Samuel Delany https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/books/samuel-delany-jordy-rosenberg.html

#5yrsago More than 20 Texas cities and towns have been taken hostage by ransomware https://dir.texas.gov/news?id=210

#5yrsago Owner of Phoenix apartment building serves eviction notices to every tenant so he can turn their homes into unlicensed hotel rooms https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-landlord-evicts-tenants-short-term-rental-wanderjaunt-11345084

#5yrsago Ecofascism isn’t new: white supremacy and exterminism have always lurked in the environmental movement https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/15/anti

#5yrsago A cycle of renewal, broken: How Big Tech and Big Media abuse copyright law to slay competition https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/cycle-renewal-broken-how-big-tech-and-big-media-abuse-copyright-law-slay

#5yrsago The TSA strip searched a grandmother on Mother’s Day and now says that she’s overreacting because it’s no different from a locker room https://professional-troublemaker.com/2019/08/19/tsa-forced-strip-search-no-more-offensive-than-voluntarily-using-a-locker-room/

#1yrago SoCal Gas spent millions on astroturf ops to fight climate rules https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/19/cooking-the-books-with-gas/#reichman-jorgensen

#1yrago "Open" "AI" isn't https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, holding a mic.

Disenshittify or die! (Burning Man, Palenque Norte, 7&E), Aug 27, 13h
Talking caterpillar Q&A (Burning Man, Liminal Labs, 830&C), Aug 28, 12h
Albacon (Albany/remote), Sep 13-15
https://albacon.org/2024/
TusCon (Tucson), Nov 8-10
https://tusconscificon.com/

A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)

HC4US
https://soundcloud.com/hc4us/081224-cory-doctorow-a-canadian-british-science-fiction-author-activist-and-journalist
Tech Rights & The Future of Privacy (Synthetic Minds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD5iAV1YmO4
Enzittification with Ed Zitron & Brian Merchant
https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/enzittification-with-cory-doctorow-brian-merchant

A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)

The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
"How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
"Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025
Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay. Today's progress: 1106 words (41372 words total).
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025
Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM
Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: AI's productivity theater https://craphound.com/news/2024/08/04/ais-productivity-theater/

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