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Some good essays on various aspects of how Whedon's stories handle various philosophical ideas, areas of study that always intrigue me.

I have two relatively minor complaints. One is that a number of the essays cover the same ground, in particular existentialism and ethics. Granted, there is probably plenty to say on these topics, but there are few essays in this collection that don't mention either Nietzsche, Aristotle or Kant, and more than one mentions all three. Plato gets his share as well; the Ring of Gyges story pops up in several essays to make pretty much the same point multiple times. Props to those essayists who branch out into other areas, such as Amy H. Sturgis, who brings in Frederick Jackson Turner and Isaiah Berlin.

The second complaint is that some of the essays simply don't go deep enough, and a couple even seem to ignore obvious (to me) examples that could make a stronger argument. As an example, in the final essay on the Dao of Firefly, Roger P. Ebertz does some work to bring in evidence from extra materials, including deleted scenes from the show Firefly and the canonical comic, Serenity: Better Days. However, in looking at Shepherd Book and contrasting him to Mal's character, he completely fails to reference the equally canonical Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, which came out more than a year before this book of essays was published.

All in all, though, this is a good resource for anyone interested in Whedon's work and the philosophical questions he asks through it.

Overall a good analysis of Whedon's Buffyverse and Firefly 'Verse from an understanding of existentialist philosophy, especially in terms of ethics and individual freedom. Given Whedon's own statements about the influence of Sartre's [b: Nausea|30660963|NAUSEA|Audit Chaos|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1466479870l/30660963.SX50.jpg|51206956] and Camus' [b: The Myth of Sisyphus|10486925|The Myth of Sisyphus/The Outsider/The Plague/The Rebel|Albert Camus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1356458415l/10486925.SY75.jpg|15392441], the premise isn't a terrible stretch to begin with, but Richardson and Rabb do a good job of fleshing it out.

I was a bit perplexed by the authors' occasional disparaging remarks about "rugged individualism" and the claim, with little discussion, that Whedon's works critique it in favor of a communitarian existentialist ethic. In general, I object because, despite their careful and succinct definitions of various philosophical viewpoints throughout the book, the authors decline to define "rugged individualism" in any meaningful way, instead leaving it to the reader to make some guesses as to what they mean through the application of a few examples. But these very examples lead to the particular objections I have, which is that they do not actually exemplify any kind of "rugged individualism" of which I am aware. Take, for example, the example "Bad Faith" in Buffy Season 3, whom R&R call "almost a paradigm of the American rugged individualist" because she "is totally self-reliant, needing no one, doesn't let the rules or authority figures get in the way, and receives an almost erotic pleasure out of practically anything she does" (p. 52). Faith's destructive rampage and callous attitudes toward the human death(s) she causes is certainly not in line with any sort of rugged individualism with which I am familiar; indeed, it has much more in common with Ethan Rayne's worship of Chaos than anything else. Faith's "individualism," if that is what it is, also is clearly unsustainable, in that she almost immediately chooses to place her power and responsibility in the hands of Mayor Richard Wilkins III—the Big Bad of the season and a symbol of corrupt and absolute authority in Sunnydale—which hardly seems like something a "totally self-reliant" person, someone who "need[s] no one" and "doesn't let the rules or authority get in the way," would do. Whatever the "rugged individualism" is that R&R see as incompatible with existentialist ethics in Whedon's, at best it can only be a base caricature of any real individualist philosophy.

(I would also argue out that "communitarian" and "rugged individualism" are not necessarily wholly incompatible. Even that perennially divisive epic of individualism, Ayn Rand's [b: Atlas Shrugged|16161799|Atlas Shrugged Again|Louella Nelson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353648975l/16161799.SX50.jpg|22003763] [of which I am not particularly a fan], is in distillation a story about a group of societal misfits and rejects who come together to form their own community where they can live how they see fit. It is, in this light, not far from the Whedonesque idea that family is who we choose, rather than who we are born to.)

One other minor annoyance was the oft-repeated description of The Master, Buffy Season 1's Big Bad, as an übervamp, which is clearly just incorrect.

I had skipped this and read [b:Goldenhand|28594830|Goldenhand (Abhorsen, #5)|Garth Nix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1459724394l/28594830.SY75.jpg|42858213], as I didn't have a copy and had seen this was a prequel. Goldenhand did provide a slight spoiler insofar as clarifying who Clariel is (or more precisely, who she becomes). While I don't think it overall ruined the story for me, I think it did prompt me to see some developments as more overtly telegraphed than perhaps they would have been had I not known Clariel's…progression? fate? trajectory?…beforehand. So, for anyone who stumbles on this review in time, I do suggest reading this before Goldenhand.

I enjoyed the story in the end, but as with some of the other sequels to [b:Sabriel|518848|Sabriel (Abhorsen, #1)|Garth Nix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1293655399l/518848.SY75.jpg|3312237], this one felt like the plot dragged on a bit too long. I do admire the attempt to reimagine the Old Kingdom in its heyday—i.e., before it was the "Old" Kingdom—and I think Nix succeeded to a certain degree in that reimagination. At least Clariel does focus the better part of the story on the development of its titular character, unlike the other three sequels.

Maybe 3.5 stars, but I'm feeling generous. Certainly improved over [b: Lirael|47624|Lirael (Abhorsen, #2)|Garth Nix|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266458951l/47624.SY75.jpg|2067752], if only because it has a story with an actual plot and ending (albeit carried over from the previous book). Oddly, like its predecessor, however, the book's title implies that the story is about one person when in fact it is primarily about another. I'm not sure who's responsible for naming these books—whether Nix or someone at his publisher or perhaps a Shadow Hand stuck in a cubicle somewhere—but the titles of the second and third volumes of this series leave a lot to be desired.

Now that I've gotten to the end, I can't help but think that the story itself suffers from the absurdity of the escalation. It's the same sort of thing that happens in TV shows, where the Big Bad gets bigger each season, until the showrunners have painted themselves into a corner. In Sabriel, the title character had to fight and defeat one of the Greater Dead; however, by Lirael and Abhorsen, the fight is against an entity called The Destroyer, who can unmake all life and existence itself. There could have been a way to ease into it further, giving Lirael more of a (realistic, IMO) Sabriel-esque journey, but that didn't happen.

I also should bring up something that has bugged me a bit with Nix's writing, but which hit a peak in this book: His tendency to use words and phrases that come out of very specific events, persons/groups, or products. An example from an earlier book is when Nix describes Touchstone as a berserker, which has a primary world etymology that doesn't really fit with the world Nix created. For the most part I can get past this, but a more egregious example occurs in this book: Bakelite, an actual brand name from the primary world, named after a real person, which makes no sense at all in the Ancelstierran history. That's the sort of thing that pulls me right out of the story as my brain tries to figure out a way to resolve the discrepancy, to no avail.

To end more positively, I do enjoy the continued explorations of the two types of magic, as well as the larger mythology behind them.

More like 4.5 stars.

Claudia Gray is without doubt the best of the new canon Star Wars writers. Master and Apprentice is a solid story about the relationship between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, with echoes of their relationships to their respective masters and apprentices. One gets a much better sense in this novel of how that relationship sends ripples through history (and the Force) than anything in the prequel series or even the Clone Wars show does.

The only reason I didn't give this a 5-star rating is that I found one of the plot devices about a technological development a bit unconvincing. Specifically, I find it hard to believe that the value of kohlen crystals in generating shields that block lightsabers would only have been recently discovered. Even more so, I find the lack of ingenuity of the Jedi when dealing with such shields highly improbable. Why not just use the Force to push the people to the ground, or even use the Force to switch the shields off? Seems like a lot of ways for Force-wielders to get around not being able to cut through a lightsaber-blocking shield, none of which were explored.

Ted Chiang is perhaps the most cerebral sci-fi author I have read; he accomplishes in 30 pages what Neal Stephenson needs 300 [3,000?] pages to do. (I enjoy Stephenson very much, but he's a slow-burn kind of guy, you know?)

This collection is notable in that I actually enjoyed every story in it. (Okay, okay, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" could've been a tad shorter — but I still liked it overall.) The standouts for me, however, are "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling," "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," and of course, the eponymous "Exhalation." Special thanks to [a:Amy Sturgis|785795|Amy H. Sturgis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1278628951p2/785795.jpg] for introducing me to that last one several years ago in one of her classes, which largely prompted me to pick up this collection in the first place.

For all the differences in these stories, there is also an unexpected, but much welcome, cohesiveness to them. Each of the stories in this collection explores a variation in what it means to be human and the significance (and insignificance) of our thoughts, decisions, actions in a nihilistic and deterministic universe. Chiang does not offer any answers, only approaches, and that is, I believe, a large reason for why his stories ultimately succeed.

You should read this. Now.