Pat Schmatz

This is a really great story of how a young person learns to take control of her own life in the face of personal bigotry, an authoritarian "troubled teens" program, and a literal dystopian government. It's also interesting to see a setting (other than Iran) where binary trans youth are treated relatively well, but LGB and non-binary folks are on the wrong side of the law. There's a lot of setting-specific jargon in this book, but most of it is pretty easy to figure out. My only complaint is show more that I wish the ending had been a little less ambiguous. I want to see Lizard win, at least a little! But this may be intentional. show less

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-new-mother-by-eugene-fischer-and-lizard-radi...

There are a lot of dystopian YA novels around, and frankly I’m beginning to find them a bit formulaic, but this is a different matter with a sparkling and nervous energy about it. Kivali, the genderqueer protagonist, is sent to a re-education camp in a dystopian near future, and must negotiate quasi-parental relationships, friends and potential lovers, and the ever-present threat of “vaping”, which in show more this case means physically spontaneously evaporating, rather than any recreational vapour consumption. The protagonist’s vocabulary is just abit off-kilter and that keeps you as a reader on your toes. I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard of this before, and well done to the Tiptree / Otherwise judges for picking it out of the field. show less

Tash didn't want to go to camp, didn't want to spend the summer with a bunch of strangers, didn't want to be separated from the only two people she has ever been able to count on: her uncle Kevin, who saved her from foster care, and Cap'n Jackie, who lives next door. Camp turns out to be pretty fun, actually, but when Tash returns home, Cap'n Jackie is gone. And Tash needs her — the made-up stories of dolphin-dragons, the warm cookies that made everything all right after a fight, the key show more Cap'n Jackie always insisted had magic in it. The Captain always said all Tash had to do was hold it tight and the magic would come. Was it true? Could the key bring Cap'n Jackie back? In a heartfelt and stunningly written story, Pat Schmatz introduces readers to a tenacious, fiercely loyal girl struggling to let go of the fantasies and fears of her childhood . . . and say yes to everything that lies ahead. show less

This was pretty good. It's nice to see a young-adult book that tackles issues of gender identity, especially one that handles them in an interesting way. There's a unique opportunity in science fiction and fantasy books to create and investigate cultures that don't have the same cultural norms and prejudices that our world does. Unfortunately, the two most common approaches seem to be:

a) Everything is almost exactly the same as it is now (or at least where some unobservant liberals seem to show more think things are now). Women and minorities are occasionally allowed to be in positions of authority. Mixed race romance is tolerated but still gossip-worthy. Homosexuality isn't outlawed outright, but parents still have a hard time coping with a child who comes out of the closet. This is totally fine for near-future sci-fi, but for stuff set decades in the future, it's at best depressingly cynical and at worst unimaginative.

b) The libertarian paradise. Everything is wonderful and nobody is inappropriately prejudiced towards anyone for any reason whatsoever. People can be whoever they want to be, love whoever they want, and do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt others. An admirable goal for a society, but it seldom makes an interesting story.

I much prefer works like this that fall somewhere in between. Lizard Radio is very clearly set in a dystopian society with an oppressive government and society. This society is well aware that not everyone identifies with the gender traditionally associated to their genes. There are even mechanisms in place to identify transgendered children and help them transition early. But being transgendered or gay still comes with a stigma, and the society still has trouble with those who don't want to choose a gender or who don't conform strongly enough to the norms of either gender. I don't think I've seen an approach like that anywhere else.

The society in Lizard Radio has other major problems too (ones not directly related to gender identity or sexuality), but those are the more standard repressive government dystopian stuff.

But even without the interesting take on gender norms, there are things to like about Lizard Radio. I'm a sucker for playing with language, and the world Pat Schmatz has created has all sorts of lovely slang in it. The camp cafeteria is called the "mealio", LED-flashlights are "leddies", sexual activity or attraction is "jazz", camp demerits are "culpas", etc. It's a little weird that everyone uses the exact same words, with not a whole lot of difference in vocabulary between the adults and the children, but they really are lovely words, so I'm willing to forgive that.

I don't usually talk much about the low-level craft of writing prose, but I noticed that Schmatz has a delightful way with oddball hyphenated compounds. While trying to unzip their tent without being heard, the protagonist "slow-ticks" the zipper open. One character has a "fuzz-poof" of hair. A three-year-old throwing a tantrum starts up a "holler-waller". And then there's this line of dialogue, which I love: "That was the icy-coldest dose of shut-up I ever got."

The story is engaging and the characters are interesting, except for the male characters, who kind of get a short shrift in the personality department. (There are plenty of other interesting characters, so no big deal there. I'd be more upset if it were the other way around.)

The only major negative thing was that the ending left me a little cold, although I'm not entirely certain why. A lot of mysteries do get answered, but they weren't really the ones I cared about. Many mysterious things go completely unexplained, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The characters and the narrative isn't really obsessed with solving those mysteries, so I never really expected them to be cleared up. There was also a bit of a pile-up of sudden action and coincidence near the end, and that didn't help too much. The protagonist does end up taking some matters into their own hands, but many of the immediate consequences have been de-fanged by that point, so the impact is less than it might be otherwise. Yes, there are plausible in-universe reasons for this, but it still affected the way the story landed on me. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was a bit disappointed in the ending.

Regardless, it's still a good book. show less