The City in the Middle of the Night
Charlie Jane Anders, 2019
Tor Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780765379962
Summary
If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives.
January is a dying planet—divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk.
But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.
Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.
But fate has other plans—and Sophie's ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Manchester, Connecticut, USA
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Nebula Award, Hugo Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Charlie Jane Anders is a website co-creator and editor, a short story writer, and author of sci-fi / fantasy novels—All the Birds in the Sky (2016) and The City in the Middle of the Night (2019).
Anders was raised in Mansfield, Connecticut. She went to Cambridge University in England where she studied English and Asian literature, prompting her to study abroad in China. Following college, she spent time in Hong Kong and Boston and now makes her home in San Francisco, California.
Career
In 2007, along with Annalee Newitz, Anders helped co-found the popular Gawker Media site, io9—a blog devoted to science fiction and fantasy. She worked as editor-in-chief until 2016 when she left to concentrate on her writing.
In 2016 Anders published her debut sci-fi / fantasy novel, All the Birds in the Sky. The book earned her the 2017 Nebula Awards for Best Novel, was a finalist for the year's Hugo Best Novel category, and climbed to the number five spot on Time magazine's top 10 novels list. An earlier novelette, "Six Months, Three Days," published in 2013 on Tor.com, also won a Hugo Award.
Anders has been publishing short stories since 1999—more than 100—in a variety of genres. Her fiction has been published by McSweeney's, Lightspeed, and ZYZZYVA. Her journalism has appeared in Salon, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, Atlantic Monthly, and other outlets.
Events
In addition to writing, Anders has spent years as an event organizer. She organized a "ballerina pie fight" in 2005 for other magazine; co-organized the "Cross-Gender Caravan," a national transgender and genderqueer author tour; and a "Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl" in San Francisco. Anders also emcees an award-winning monthly reading series "Writers with Drinks," a San Francisco-based event begun in 2001 that features authors from a wide range of genres.
Personal
Since 2000, Anders has been partnered with Annalee Newitz. In addition to the io9 blog, the couple co-founded other magazine and hosted the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Anders is transgender. In 2007, she brought attention to a discriminatory policy of San Francisco bisexual women's organization, The Chasing Amy Social Club, that specifically barred pre-operative transgender women from membership. (Adapted from Wikipedia and other online sources. Retrieved 2/26/2019.)
Book Reviews
★ Intricate, embracing much of what makes a grand adventure: smugglers, revolutionaries, pirates, camaraderie, personal sacrifice, wondrous discovery, and the struggle to find light in the darkness. Breathlessly exciting and thought-provoking.
Publishers Weekly
★ The planet of January was colonized long ago, but now it is dying.… [A]n intricate tale of colonialism and evolution on both physical and social levels. The harsh world and well-developed characters combine with stunning storytelling that will capture readers' minds and hearts. —Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton
Library Journal
★ An even stronger novel than Anders’ Nebula Award–winning All the Birds in the Sky; a tale that can stand beside such enduring works as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion.
Booklist
★ [A] sweeping work of anthropological/social sf.… Anders contains multitudes; it's always a fascinating and worthwhile surprise to see what she comes up with next.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT … then take off on your own:
1. Of course we are meant to like Sophie, and we do. What characteristics does she possess that make her likeable, admirable even? What do you see as her flaws?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: Discuss Bianca's theft and Sophie's willingness to take the blame for her? Why to both actions? What is it about Sophie that leads her to cling to, indeed to sacrifice herself for, Bianca? As she herself says, "I can't stop throwing away my life for Bianca. It's all I ever do."
3. Follow-up to Questions 1 and 2: In what way do Sophie and Bianca reflect the caste system of this world. To what degree is it reflective of our own: the same, somewhat better, or worse?
4. Consider the following passage about the city of Xiosphant…
The founders of that city had a valid theory of human nature, but they took it too far. That's the problem with grand social ideas in general, they break if you put too much weight on them.
A lot to unpack in those two sentences:
- What is the "valid theory" the city's founders propound, and how do they "take it too far"?
- How would you describe living in Xiosphant—the individual daily life, social structure and interactions between citizens, laws and punishments? What is the overall quality of life?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: what is meant by the passage's "grand social ideas" and why do they break? How might that statement apply to our own world's history of grand ideas: monarchy, democracy, capitalism, socialism, communism, religion?
6. Overall, which city would you choose to live in (if you had to choose!)—Xiosphant or Argelo?
7. Then, of course, there are the crocodiles, which (whom?) Sophie calls the Gelet. Describe them: are you able to overcome the fact that they look like giant lobsters? Talk about the connection that Sophie develops with them and what she learns from them.
8. Humans—who hate the Gelet, see them as prey, and eat them—display the worst possible qualities of humanity. Clearly Charlie Jane Anders is offering serious social commentary. What is the author suggesting about the human race, especially our treatment of the environment and of one another? Do you consider her view overly harsh or spot on?
9. Talk about Mouth and her trials. Do you like her—initially, later, or never? In other words, does your attitude toward her change?
10. What does Mouth reveal about the planet itself—its backstory and the impact of human habitation.
m. Mouth sums up her own struggle and that of many of the book's characters: "The dead were just like the living: they all wanted something they could never have." What does she mean by that? Is that our fate as human beings: to want what we can never have? If so, what is it we want?
11. The technology keeping January's citizens alive is crumbling, but no one seems capable of dealing with change. Sound familiar?
12. The book suggests that humans can never be brought to care about the plight of those whom they find repulsive or to show concern about the damage they have caused the to the planet. Do you find this trait realistic? Or is the novel's view of humanity too dark and fatalistic?
13. By the end of the book, how do you see Sophie? In what way has she changed, grown, become wiser or stronger?
14. How do you feel about the book's ending? Does it end too abruptly for you? Or is its conclusion a logical outcome? How would you end the novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)