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Hey hey, Sickos! The November poll for the History Sickos Book Clubs will be live later today, and I'm going full dictator mode for the Fiction Sickos for reasons I will explain in a moment. You can go vote on the History poll in the appropriate Discord channels (scroll down #history-vote). The poll will run for 72 hours so get your vote in ASAP.

If you're not seeing the book club channels, make sure you've linked your Bindery subscription to Discord via the Account Settings page. Those vote/discussion channels unlock at the Sicko plus paid tiers, so if you're a "Follower", you'll need to upgrade. Along with the book club forums you also get access to a ton of other channels for various genres, book recommendation requests, movies/TV, buddy reads and much more.

DEAR LEADERS' FICTION BOOK CLUB PICK

There's an author who has been so generous with their time with me and it's time for me to do 'em a solid. If you've seen the finished copy of the A Complement of Scoundrels paperback (and if you haven't, wtf), you possibly noticed the blurb from John Gwynne on the cover. It's obviously a huge score to have such a respected author like Papa Gwynne call your imprint's first novel "beautifully constructed" on the cover. On top of that, I really want to read this new doggone book of his, so in November we are reading...

THE WOLVES OF WAR by JOHN GWYNNE (WOLFHEART CHRONICLES #1)

Here's the summary for it:

The Clans once lived freely, honouring their gods and traditions. Then the northern invaders unleashed a tide of blood and fire. Now the Clans are a conquered people.
Ivan cares not for wars or kings. His only concern is the safety of his family, especially his daughter Halia, whom he would protect with his life. Halia has been trapped in her own body since birth, yet at night she has dreams of running with wolves and speaking with fae creatures of the forest. Many believe her cursed, but Halia's awakening powers may be the only way she and her family can survive the coming storm.
For the wolves of war are stalking the horizon. Two princes have become mortal enemies, and an iron-toothed witch haunts the shadows. As mighty nations clash, Halia must master her strange magic to protect those she loves. To do so, she must accept a terrifying truth.
Sometimes, the only way through the darkness is to embrace it.

HISTORY SICKOS BOOK CLUB OPTIONS

And here are the four history book options we have to choose from this round...

Yakuza: A 400-Year History of the Japanese Underworld by Andrew Rankin

"... the first comprehensive history of the yakuza, from their emergence out of seventeenth-century samurai gang culture to the present day... Featuring a lively cast of extortionists, smugglers, hit men, and corporate crime lords, Yakuza is a fascinating tour of Japan’s sprawling mob syndicates and the cultural traditions with which they are so deeply intertwined."

River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads by Cat Jarman

An acclaimed bioarchaeologist, Catrine Jarman has used cutting-edge forensic techniques to spark her investigation into the history of the Vikings who came to rest in British soil... Told as a riveting history of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce, often-mythologized voyagers of the North—and of the global medieval world as we know it.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land... Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortizoffers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire... Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples’ history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative."

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list... Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

Happy voting, Sickos!

How High We Go In The Dark • 50%

Hello Inkmongers!

I've hit the 50% mark on How High We Go In The Dark, and I'm excited to discuss! Thanks for reading along with me :)

Through The Garden of Memory

This story felt like a reward for making it through "City of Laughter." Here, we see a psychological experience of adults who have contracted the Arctic Plague. We don't know exactly what is happening to them, or why-- but its the only plague experience we've seen that is hopeful. Maybe the plague victims experience pleasant things alongside their suffering.

The main theme here seemed to be human cooperation and community. In a strange situation, people of all walks of life can band together to achieve a common goal-- in this case, sending a baby floating upwards. The characters are unclear on whether they've died, but they arrive at the consensus that getting the infant as high as possible will save its life. This story was originally published in 2019 under the title "How High We Go In The Dark," and I think that is a more fitting title.

To what lengths will we go to help others? When all other factors are removed, what can we achieve by working together? How high can we go in the dark?

Sea creatures are a recurring motif. I'm not sure what this means yet, but it's notable. There's also been plenty of talk about outer space-- these two things occupy similar territory in our collective imagination. Something outlandish, unfamiliar, and wholly different from ourselves.

Knowing that this story's name was appropriated for the novel's title, I feel like I've gotten a more direct clue to the overarching theme of the book. It was heading there already (the pandemic as a main event lends itself to this theming), but Nagamatsu really could have taken any tack he wanted. I'm excited to see the story progress with the knowledge that this story sits thematically near the center.

Pig Son

Of all the things I expected from this book, a meaningful contribution to the canon of heartwarming/tear jerking sentient pig stories was not one of them. I am crying over Snortorious P.I.G.

I found this story to be the least thematically dense so far, but it's still a rich text. I'm glad we got to see Fitch's father's point of view.

It asks a lot of the same questions about personhood that the fantasy genre has been asking for decades-- what makes someone a person, and must personhood be exclusive to humans? I don't think this story added anything new to the conversation, but its almost always a conversation worth having (especially as it pertains to animals, animal testing, medicine, and consent).

The absurdity of the situation is what gives it the levity that I experienced. Here we are, seriously worrying after the wellbeing of a talking pig who a mourning father accepts as his own son. The seriousness with which Nagamatsu delivers this premise is what gives it resonance-- the stakes are very real for these characters.

Snortorious P.I.G. is a martyr, and I'll be thinking of him with every saved plague patient going forward. R.I.P to a legend, a hero, a son.

Elegy Hotel

My friend Hikaru once asked me whether every author has just one story to tell-- there are many authors who write and write for their whole lives and unwittingly retread the same ground over and over in slight variations. My answer was at once balanced and noncommittal. I said that this can be the case for some authors, but probably not all.

I'm starting to feel this way with Nagamatsu. So far every story, despite their vastly different particulars, has centered the relationships of parents with their children, and vice versa. This is incredibly fertile ground for stories, and I doubt it can ever be exhausted (by any author, or every author in total)-- but I'm hungry for something different in this book.

That said, I appreciated how this story tackled regret. The crushing weight of a past you can't change, mistakes you can't undo, and people who see you in ways you'd like to leave behind.

Companionship is also a theme here. It's been recurring in many of the stories, but it's been quieter-- more understated than the familial dynamics. Here, we see companionship brought to the forefront. I liked Val as a character, more-so than Dennis. Her perspective is one we hadn't seen yet. Where Dennis is mostly passive, Val is always acting in some way. Dennis' passivity is a sieve through which we see the conditions of life in San Francisco-- the homeless population is gone, and no one has answered for their deaths. The poorer residents can't afford even the most affordable dignified cremation services.

I appreciated the ending. The way that Bryan has another version of Dennis' same regrets. No one is immune to regret, regardless of how it seems. There's a futility that this evokes, and also a comfort. All we can do is what we feel is right-- and when it comes to death, there's no guarantee that this will feel like enough in the end. All we have are our choices.

I've begun "Speak, Fetch, Say I Love You," which pushed me past the 50% mark-- I'll check in again at 75%. Thanks for reading with me!

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section, and please join us on Discord for many more book discussions :)