Matt Stover's Test of Metal puts us at the labyrinth's heart

I've played Magic: the Gathering since I was pretty young, but I make a point of not reading the licensed tie-in novels. To put it bluntly, they're not very good; at best, a guilty pleasure. In fact, I probably wouldn't have opened Test of Metal at all if not for one small detail: Matt Stover's name on the cover. A long time ago in a town far, far away, I read his novelization of Star Wars Episode III, and found it far better than the actual movie. Okay, I thought. This could be worth my time.

And it was.

Under Matt Stover's hand, what could have easily been Another Stupid Contract Novel becomes a genuinely deep discussion of how power stifles understanding and how trial and insight can help us become the best versions of ourselves. It’s about changing and becoming the person you need to be, and then, when that person is no longer the right person, becoming again.

Particularly brilliant is its labyrinth motif. There's much discussion of their design and purpose, but the true stroke of genius is Stover's careful eye toward structure. Test of Metal isn't just about labyrinths; it is a labyrinth, circling around and around until we end at the middle: the center, the goal, the answer. And like our antihero Tezzeret, we you don’t learn the solution so much as we become the person at the center, the person who understands themselves and the nature of the puzzle.

In a labyrinth, power is weakness, because having power makes us impatient, simple, direct. Power entices us to cut straight to the goal…but a labyrinth has no goal. There is no prize, no treasure at the center; the treasure is who you become by following its path. The center isn't a destination, it's just a signpost marking the end of the journey. The journey is the trial, and the trial is its own reward.

Even if you don't play Magic, I'd pick up this book. Some unfortunate casual sexism aside, Stover has crafted in Test of Metal a work of keen insight into the nature of human growth and progression.

Read it once to reach the center, to understand the puzzle. Then read it again

Speak again the ancient oaths: Trauma, recovery, and the Stormlight Archive

"It is the nature of the magic. A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves; they can brace a broken soul, but they can also widen its fissures." - from the back cover of Words of Radiance, second book of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive

Brandon Sanderson is known widely for works of epic fantasy with well-explored, almost scientific systems of magic. His Stormlight Archive, doesn't break the formula, but it does bend it with Surgebinding, a highly personal and human system that grants characters powers based on their personalities and ideals.

Using magic to literalize a character's other traits as a form of power is a common trope in fantasy, and I'm a big fan of it. It allows the writer to present the supernatural in an insightful and deeply human way, turning what might otherwise be a flashy action sequence into commentary on its characters without being any less thrilling. It's a good technique, and I've seen it done well in a lot of works.

Even by those standards, the magic of the Stormlight Archive is something special. Only characters who've undergone exceptional trauma and started on the path to recovery can become Surgebinders, and the exact form that their recovery takes determines what powers they gain.

In other words, Surgebinding literalizes recovery from trauma. That's more than good technique on Sanderson's part. That's wisdom.

As Surgebinders recover and grow, their powers increase; if they slide backward, or stop growing, or grow into something harmful to those around them, their powers fade or even vanish. Recovery isn't an event, it's a process, and it never takes the same form for two different people. One may cope and advance by finding strength in oaths and loyalty, another in exploring the nature of truth and lies.

Nobody is ever the same person they were before trauma; to survive it we must to change and adapt, and continue changing and adapting. Trauma hunts us down out of the past, tries to pull us back, break us again, and to fight it we develop, discover, and grow into something new. That we've been hurt is no excuse to stop growing. People change, or they die.

Life before death.

Growth is risky. Change is risky. Even if this new form is what we need, it may be toxic, something stifling, or even dangerous to those around us. Recovery is power. That we've gone through hell to gain that power is no excuse for abusing it. It's our responsibility to ensure that we develop in a way that protects and nurtures those around us, that the power we gain from recovery lifts up those around us instead of strangling them. And that takes a kind of power of its own.

Strength before weakness.

Recovery isn't an event; it's a process, and a struggle, and though we might be past our darkest moments, that struggle is hard. And it doesn't end. We keep changing, we keep growing, we keep advancing, though there's no goal in sight, no end to that work. That we can't see the end of our path, that we will never truly grow past our trauma, is no excuse to stop growing. All we can do is be the best we can, and keep moving.

Journey before destination.

As humans have the drive, the imperative, the responsibility to grow, to recover from our trauma and to ensure that our growth shapes us into a form that helps those around us. Sanderson is wise to recognize that, and genius to present it like this.

"Memoir of an Independent Woman" takes a walk through history

I don't read memoirs. It's not that I think poorly of them; it's that I don't think of them at all. I'm very pleased to say that Tania Grossinger's Memoir of an Independent Woman convinced me otherwise. In many ways, it’s exactly what it says on the cover: a powerful and personal tale of the life of an extraordinary and fundamentally Jewish woman in during a time of great cultural change in America.

Structured as a series of letters to the daughter she never had, Ms. Grossinger builds this story of her life not as a timeline but as a set of thematic threads woven together partly by time and place, but more by conceptual association. This is a wise choice, creating a rambling, conversational tale covering themes ranging from family to career-building to romance to mental health. She delivers it through anecdotes about her early life at Grossinger’s, the resort hotel that attracted America’s elite, to the who’s-who of historical personalities she met working in PR, to her rocky relationships both familial and romantic, to her later work as a travel writer. These little bits of history often touch on difficult and personal subject matter, but Tania approaches all with commendable grace and insight, reflecting as much on her own perspective and actions as the events around her.

Before reading her book, I had the good fortune to speak with Tania, who generously took the time out of her book tour for a call. Speaking with her in advance brought her story to life in a way I'm lucky to have experienced. With her voice and her unique, rambling style of storytelling fresh in my mind, it was almost as if she were reading the book to me herself. Few writers can convey their style of speech as written word, but Ms. Grossinger does so with an understated grace that is truly remarkable.

Often funny, sometimes bitter, always fascinating and wise, Memoir of an Independent Woman binds the personal and the historical into one thoroughly charming whole. For anyone interested in what it means to be a Jew in America, a woman in America, or a person in America, I recommend it. For anyone interested in American culture or history, I recommend it doubly.

Memoir of an Independent Woman: An Unconventional Life Well Lived was published by Skyhorse Publishing in 2013. It can be found here.