Strange Horizons Discussion Forum: Prisoners of Uqbaristan, by Chris Nakashima-Brown

> Reading shouldn't take work.

There's really no "should" when it comes to reading, is there? Some stories are easily absorbed, and others require more effort. I like straightforward stories that flow gracefully through my mind and make sense right away. I also like complex stories that demand my attention and push my brain into gear to figure them out. These are somewhat different types of reading activities, but each satisfying in its own way.

The trick, I think, is to recognise that every story is unique, and to approach it on its own terms. Of course, you can decide you simply don't like some kinds of writing, and only seek out stories that fit your tastes -- I'm not knocking that; we all have our tastes, and it's nice to know what you like. But I hope everyone can recognise that this doesn't necessarily mean stories which don't suit your tastes are deficient. It just means they lie outside of your particular range.

There are many styles of writing that lie outside my own tastes. I've never been able to get into Pynchon, for example (except for The Crying of Lot 49 which is great fun) -- he's not to my taste. That's fine, but I see it as a limitation in me as a reader, not as a condemnation of his books. His books make me want to throw them across the room, actually. But I recognise that they are perfectly good or even great books, and I've just never gotten the hang of reading them. I respect people who do get Pynchon, because they've succeeded where I have not, in reading and appreciating his work.

It's always amazing to me how a piece of fiction can bounce right off one reader and strike another as a thing of beauty. And it's delightful when a piece finds an audience who gets it, as "Prisoners of Uqbaristan" has found in Cory Doctorow, who blogged it at BoingBoing yesterday:

Chris Nakashima-Brown ... writes like a cross between William Gibson and Mark "My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist" Leyner -- these magical, hyperdense sentences that are each of them nearly haiku of amusant culture-jammer archness. The plot of his latest story is the use of Borgesian magic-realism as covert weapons of mass destruction...

Nobody's going to love every story. But I think it's a lot more interesting to find a way toward understanding what makes a story work than to dismiss it as not working just because it isn't your cup of tea. Obviously if a story makes it into publication, an editor (or in the case of Strange Horizons, three editors!) found worth in it, so there's something of worth to find, even if not everyone is seeing it. Me, I'd rather stretch myself as a reader, and learn to appreciate a wider range of writing. Who knows, one of these days I may even discover a way to love Pynchon.