Stars and Bones- Gareth L Powell

Posted on March 7, 2022 by gutenbergsson

“I’m afraid there’s a fundamental gap in translation. I do not belong to a society. I owe allegiance to no one, and I am unique. I am immortal. There can be no philosophical restraints placed on my behaviour.”
“So you can just do whatever you like?”
The kid shrugged. Tiny stars glimmered in the depths of her eyes. “Who’s going to stop me?”

Source: Review Copy

Publisher: Titan Books

Date of Publication: March 1, 2022.

When humanity finally got around to destroying itself, it was to be in a maelstrom of nuclear fire. Yet at the penultimate moment, an alien presence revealed itself by using its god-like powers to eliminate mankind’s offensive abilities. In that same moment, the Angel—as it came to be known—cast judgement on the people of Earth. As punishment for their terrible stewardship, ranging from pollution to global warming and eventually nuclear war, humanity was evicted from the Earth. However, the “Angel of the Benevolence” was not without mercy, installing mankind on a flotilla of Arks bound to travel the stars in perpetuity, in the hopes that with time—and a little guidance—they would grow to the potential the extraterrestrial being could see in them.

Seventy-five years later, the fleet of the “Continuance” has flourished, its inhabitants instilling each Ark with their own distinctive characteristics. They’ve become a post-scarcity society, evolving without fear of war or famine, each resident free to pursue their desires as long as they respect those of their neighbours. And if a resident is bitten by wanderlust, they can join the vanguard of scouting ships using faster than light travel through the “substrate” to explore new worlds, looking for resources and guarding against potential threats. On a long dead planet designated Candidate-623, the crew of the “Couch Surfer” become victim to an incorporeal entity that kills without mercy and in horrific fashion, a threat that eventually finds its way back to the fleet to endanger the rest of humanity. It will fall to the sister of the dead crew’s navigator and her own rescue crew to unravel the mystery of Candidate-623 before humanity falls prey to a malevolence beyond human comprehension.

***

Gareth L. Powell’s Stars and Bones is simultaneously Horror, Mystery, and Space Opera, each coming to the fore depending upon which act you’re in. The first act is clearly Horror, with an unseen and unexplained force literally dissecting victims as they flee, an unstoppable force that has wreaked havoc on at least one planet, piling the bones of its victims in neat stacks. As in any good horror plot, a motley crew of characters, motivated whether by duty, curiosity, or simple greed, manage to attract the attention of this malevolent entity and at the same time ignore the entirely sensible entreaties of their navigator that they need to leave, and leave NOW! This rational character, Eryn King, happens to have seen the bodycam footage of her sister’s ill-fated visit with the others during their briefing once on Candidate-623 and has drawn the sensible conclusion. While the others ignore her and go out to investigate the last known coordinates of the previous crew, Eryn has the foresight to have the engines running. After the predictable slaughter ensues, she and her surviving crewmates, xenologist Li Chen, a sentient cat named Sam, and the self-aware ship “Furious Ocelot”, flee back to the fleet to warn them of the danger. But in classic fashion, they’ve been tracked home, and the mysterious force has followed them utilizing the very ship they had been searching for. It has brought along a whole new bag of tricks beyond simple evisceration and once established on their home Ark, commits carnage on a macro and micro scale. Macro in that their Ark is being slowly subsumed into a gray goo; micro in that as the entity learns from its dissections, it begins to duplicate its victims flawlessly, allowing it to infiltrate the fleet in a much less haphazard fashion. Its goal is seemingly to devour everyone and everything and remake them as extensions of itself. It’s the ultimate mimic.

From there the Mystery begins, and in the second act Eryn and company are tasked by the ruling council to track down the one man who might be able to help identify and stop the spread of infection. Enlisting the help of detectives Vic Sheppard and Jean-Paul Genet, who first recognized the entity’s mimicry of its victims, they attempt to find Frank Tucker, hoping that he can contact Raijin (the name of the angelic entity that both saved humanity from itself and banished them to the stars). Frank was their original contact with the Angel, stemming from his discovery of the “substrate” (think hyperspace) in the moments before Earth’s nuclear war and that discovery piquing the interest of Raijin. After several conflicts with agents of the entity plaguing the fleet as it tries to stop them, Eryn and company manage to find Frank, who in turn leads them to Raijin and the unravelling of the origins of the nightmare they face.

Ultimately, the third act swings back into a blend of Space Opera and hard Sci-Fi as Eryn and crew head back to Candidate-623 for a final showdown with the malevolent force. It’s a nice bit of genre-bending, going beyond what at first appearances is simply a gore fest. Without spoilers, it gets a thumbs up. Go grab your copy now. With spoilers, continue reading…

SpoilersSpoilersSpoilers

At first glance, the horrific nature of the first act comes off as gratuitous, almost unbelievable in a work of science fiction, but as the nature of the horror becomes apparent, the reader is able to decipher the puzzle he’s created and the scientific theory behind it. It’s a skilful use of K. Eric Drexler’s “gray goo” theory combined with the curiosity of a sentient being trying to understand the Universe around it without a guiding influence. Its choices are terrifying and horrific, but understandable given the circumstances of its creation. And Stars and Bones asks the question that, given god-like powers, what would an infant with no parental direction do?

It’s also an exploration of unintended consequences. Frank Tucker’s creation of a wormhole at a most fortuitous moment may save mankind from self destruction by attracting Raijin’s attention, but it also condemns them to be cast out of their home. A self-replicating starship accidently interfaces with a nascent entity of immeasurable power, with unforeseeable consequences for the Universe. Even the rescue mission Eryn King and the crew of the Furious Ocelot embark upon—their direct actions that are intended to save life have the opposite effect. Rather than saving the crew of a small exploration vessel, they unleash a power that kills millions.

Finally, an overarching theme Powell employs time and again through his body of work is that of family. He repeatedly creates groups of damaged characters and binds them together until they are no longer just co-workers or crewmates, but a true family. Whether it’s the diverse crew of Trouble Dog in his Embers of War trilogy, or Ack-Ack Macaque and his coterie of curiosities in the trilogy of the same name, there’s always a strong thread of familial relations. In Stars and Bones, we have the brotherly/sisterly relationship of Eryn King and the avatar representing the starship she is bonded to, the adoptive mother/daughter relationship between her and her deceased sister’s child Madison, and the relationship between Raijin and humanity as it shepherds them across the stars. It’s only in the lack of a relationship between Raijin and its wayward offspring, the amoral God-child developing in a void, that causes the conflict driving the story. The antagonist of the novel suffers from not having that close relationship, from not receiving the guidance and encouragement of—family. On the opposite end of the spectrum, everything Eryn does is for her family, her community, and by the climax of the novel, for humanity.

*******

Gareth L Powell is a multiple BSFA award-winning author, winning Best novel for Ack-Ack Macaque in 2013 and Best novel for Embers of War in 2019. He maintains a website at garethlpowell.com

Fleet of Knives–Gareth L Powell

Posted on February 9, 2022 by gutenbergsson

I put a hand across my mouth. “What are you doing?”
                We act to preserve life.
                “By killing people?”
                By destroying the means to wage war. Only when war is impossible will life be safe.
                –Conversation between Ona Sudak and the Emissary of the Marble Armada.

***

Source: Review Copy

Publisher: Titan Books

Date of Publication: February 19, 2019

It’s been six months since the events of Embers of War. Ona Sudak, better known as Annelida Deal, “the Butcher of Pelaptarn”, is awaiting execution for war crimes. As her punishment looms, Deal is violently broken out of prison and brought before the leadership entity of the Marble Armada. It is hoped by the Conglomeration Authority—whose special operatives have abducted her—that she will be willing to act as an emissary in their name, as the million-ship armada is an unpredictable factor far beyond the technological capabilities of the Conglomeration. Any conflict with this elemental force is a frightening prospect, hence their desire to exert some sort of influence over it. Yet it soon becomes clear that neither Deal nor the Armada can be controlled. The Armada has an agenda, one which parallels Annelida Deal’s own desire—to enforce peace throughout the universe, by violence if necessary—and they find it so very necessary.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Trouble Dog have resumed their vocation as a rescue ship, oblivious to the danger the Marble Armada will soon pose. Their mission—rescue the crew of Lucy’s Ghost, a ship crippled by an unseen force during an illegal salvage operation of an ancient generation ship. Forced to flee Lucy’s Ghost for the relative safety of the relic, the crew soon discover that their refuge is fraught with its own perils. During the course of the mission Trouble Dog and her crew of misfits will find their abilities stretched to the limit, attempting to preserve the lives of the crew of Lucy’s Ghost from an extra-dimensional threat, and their own from the overzealous Fleet of Knives.

***

Fleet of Knives, the second novel in Gareth L. Powell’s “Embers of War” trilogy, consists of three parallel stories: Ona Sudak/Annelida Deal’s ascent to leader of an alien armada of immense power, dealing peace from the barrel of a gun; Sal Konstanz and the crew of the Trouble Dog, attempting to regain their sense of purpose after the events of the previous novel; and that of Johnny Schultz and the crew of Lucy’s Ghost as they deal with both a deadly alien menace and an unexpected addition to their crew. As in the first instalment, the story is told in short, cinematic chapters, from various character viewpoints, allowing the reader into their minds as they react to the events around them. It’s a very effective technique that gives the reader an intimate and immediate insight into their motivations.

Once she allies herself with the Marble Armada and sanctions their mission, Ona Sudak has effectively transitioned from the troubled anti-hero of the first novel to a villain on par with the worst in history, and honestly, it wasn’t much of a journey. No longer the troubled leader reluctantly following orders she knows to be criminal in the hope of shortening a war, Sudak becomes a zealot, willing to commit atrocities if she thinks the end result warrants them. She is so determined to enact her ideology—the idea of “Peace through War”—that she willingly overrides the basic morality limiting our baser instincts. It’s the “greater good” fallacy zealots tell themselves to excuse their actions. Her principles have become so compromised that she’s willing to have the Armada destroy anything or anyone that might possibly engage in violence—utterly blind to the irony of her actions.

As for Trouble Dog and crew, until Sudak’s actions catch up to them, they spend the novel attempting to heal from their first experience with the Marble Armada, complicated by competing personalities and coping mechanisms. Sal still doubts her ability to lead her fractured crew, yet pours herself into the rescue mission, fully aware that her crew are all damaged in some form or another. Preston Menderes, their replacement medic, is barely competent, yet striving to become the man he claimed to be while applying for the position. Nod the mechanic is preoccupied with its own secrets, and Trouble Dog is still contemplating its place in the universe. Then there’s the tactical officer, Alva Clay.

I really found Alva Clay quite obnoxious in the first novel. Her disdain for Sal was unwarranted, her attitude entirely unprofessional, and she was an utterly miserable character. At the time I guessed that it was a result of PTSD, but not really having a concrete explanation besides “War is Hell” made it hard to empathize. In Fleet of Knives, she’s still miserable, but Powell deftly explains why with a brief mention of the daughter and husband she lost during the war and how she cannot move past her grief. He then gives her a redemptive moment near the climax of the novel, absolving her past behaviour in a spectacularly heroic moment.

Sal Konstanz is as easy to empathize with as Alva Clay is not. She’s no longer so desperate to prove herself a leader worthy of her crew, but she yearns for a family to replace the one taken from her and is willing to settle for Trouble Dog’s crew of misfits. Luckily, in Trouble Dog she has a partner who yearns for the same thing, a crew to protect while it serves penance for its past as a weapon of war. Together, they form a family, however damaged and messy.

Powell has always infused his stories with a strong sense of family, and this is very much evident in both Embers of War and Fleet of Knives. He also utilizes the idea of unexpected consequences, whether it be small scale in the case of the crew of Lucy’s Ghost ill fated attempt at piracy, or universally in that of Ona Sudak, whose actions result in very much the opposite of what she intends. The overarching theme of this story is a thinly veiled criticism of interventionism. Within Ona Sudak’s story we see analogies to the many disastrous interventions throughout history that began with subjectively good intentions but then devolved into chaos, such as Vietnam, or more recently, the Iraq war.

I’ve managed to get this far without really discussing the extradimensional threat, the “Big Bad” the Marble Armada was created to oppose, and that’s simply because it turns out to the be one negative aspect of the novel. We’re in the second act of three, and these creatures and their motivations are still unclear. I’m assuming the story is building to a final conflict of sorts with this threat, but it’s the one aspect of the story so far that remains elusive. We know the motivations of all the protagonists except the ones that will foreseeably be the major foe in the third act, Light of Impossible Stars.

Like every great second act, Fleet of Knives ends on a dark note, but with a glimmer in the distance of possibility and hope. Trouble Dog and her crew are fleeing the expanding conflict, but they know of a place of refuge, where they will be safe while they try to solve the problem of both the Marble Armada and the ancient evil they were created to fight.

I’ll end with this—the tale of Trouble Dog and her misfit crew feels like a microcosm within a greater “Emberverse”* Powell is constructing and will hopefully continue beyond the trilogy. His universe has great potential for exploration, akin in scale to Iain M. Banks Culture series or James S.A. Corey’s (Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham) Expanse. We as readers would be lucky to explore the Emberverse with him.

***

Gareth L Powell won the BSFA award for best novel in 2013 for Ack-Ack Macaque and again in 2019 for Embers of War. He maintains a website at garethlpowell.com

*not to be confused with S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse “Change World” series.

The Ship Who Sang (Review)

Posted on February 17, 2021 by gutenbergsson

**The Ship Who Sang: Anne McCaffrey** **(1969; 248 pages)**

2020 was a year even Daniel Defoe would consider rough, so it’s almost a forgone conclusion that 2021 has to be better. A good start to the year is January’s #VintageScifi Month, as sci-fi bloggers review books that came out prior to their birth year, in my case, 1972. This would also the year to explore the obvious topics—pandemics and viral outbreaks—whether it be on a macro scale, such as in Earth Abides (George R. Stewart: 1949) or a micro scale along the lines of The Andromeda Strain (Michael Chrichton: 1969). If you’re into pop culture and perhaps a bit younger, The Stand (Stephen King: 1978) would be a good pick, or the mostly forgotten but personal favourite of mine, The Last Canadian (William C. Heine:1974). But is this really in the spirit of celebrating a new year and the hope that comes with it? Maybe doom and gloom “pandemic style” is not the way to go, so let’s talk about singing starships instead.

As a corduroy wearing minor, “juveniles” I believe we were called, roaming the school library of a small town in southern Alberta, my sci-fi reading options were limited to various Dr. Who novels, Robert E. Heinlein’s Rocket Ship Galileo and Space Cadet, Carey Rockwell’s Tom Corbett books, and one novel by Anne McCaffrey, The Ship Who Sang. Pre-teen me walked by the last one many times without pause. The title just turned me off. After all, a ship that sang? Not exactly in line with the exciting exploits of Matt Dodson in the Space Academy or Tom Corbett fighting space pirates. And so it lay, unopened on the shelf. Many years later, while rectifying deficiencies in my classic science fiction lexicon and seeing McCaffrey’s book still in print, it felt time to overcome my juvenile aversion.

Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011) started her “Brainship” series with a number of short novelettes, eventually collected as The Ship Who Sang (1969), beginning in 1961 with the eponymously titled work. These novelettes feature Helva, a child born with severe physical deformities yet a remarkable mind, and a society that would euthanize the former unless the child exhibited the latter. Having been given the choice between the death of their child or a life in service to the Central Worlds, Helva’s parents enrol her in a training program that results in her exceptional brain being encased in a mechanical shell, itself installed in a starship. Once in place, Helva would act as a central computer, controlling all aspects of the vessel, acting as an emissary of the Central Worlds. Much like an indentured servant, Helva would labour until she paid off her contract, after which she would be free to become a private contractor. She would be partnered with a “Brawn”, a scout pilot who would deal with all the mobility aspects of service that she could not. Helva would—in theory—experience near-immortality, able to live far longer than an unaugmented mortal.

During her training, a visitor to the facility once remarked on the beauty of her voice, and later Helva became known as “the ship who sang” when she entertained possible partners, unbonded scouts waiting for a chance to find a ship which will have them. She finally chooses Jennan, a talented and empathetic scout who appreciates her as an individual, not just a mechanism by which to further his career. Helva soon finds herself in love, and she and Jennan become a successful pairing, their first mission— the delivery of a vaccine to a plague ravaged planet—a huge success. Unfortunately, disaster strikes early on in their partnership, and Jennan is killed while attempting to evacuate a colony of reluctant religious zealots from a doomed colony. With his funeral, she unofficially becomes “the ship who mourned,” and her designation reverts from JH-834 to XH-834.

The Ship Who Mourned (1966) chronicles Helva’s depression after the death of Jennan, and her unwilling partnership with Theoda, a physiotherapist tasked with combating another plague that has ravaged the planet Annigoni IV. The plague paralyzes its victims, locking them inside their bodies without any ability to communicate. Theoda is a survivor of the same plague that ravaged her home planet many years earlier, and during the course of investigating ways to help the victims, Helva learns that people can work through their sorrow and carry on in the face of adversity, relying on nothing more than hope.

In The Ship Who Killed (1966) Helva is paired with another female “Brawn”, Kira of Canopus, as they embark upon a mission to “re-seed” a planet whose population was sterilized by a radiation flare. Her hold filled with embryos stored in miles of tubing and tanks of fluid, their mission is to pick up many more from donated embryo banks and safely transport them to the afflicted populace. During the course of the mission, Helva and Kira become confidants, and she discovers in Kira’s own story of loss one that rivals her own. Coincidently, Kira also has a love of music, and they spend much of the voyage exploring their shared interest. The mission takes an odd turn when they receive an unexpected offer of embryos from a remote colony. Upon arrival, it rapidly becomes clear that things are not as they seem, and Helva finds herself fighting for the life of her friend and her cargo against a death cult with a familiar origin.

Dramatic Mission (1969) takes up the majority of the novel, detailing Helva’s time as part of a troupe of actors, (yep, that’s right) tasked with relating the concept of drama—in the form of enacting plays—in exchange for revolutionary technology from a newly contacted race of sentient beings on Beta Corvi VI. During the mission, Helva and company utilize a “psyche transfer” device to interact with the Corviki—themselves a race of sentient gas clouds. However, the transfer device has a limitation; the longer one uses it, the more tenuous their connection to their physical body. Helva is able to use the device too, experiencing a freedom of mobility and sensation for the first time, and also the temptation to stay, to be free of the confines of her starship. The secondary plot line involves the various personalities of the troupe and how they clash, culminating in a murderous incident.

In The Ship Who Dissembled (1969), Helva finds herself partnered with Teron, a Brawn who on paper seems perfect, but whose didactic nature and lack of intuition aggravates her to no end. She’s especially irritated because she was warned by Niall Parollan (the obnoxious section supervisor) that Teron would be a terrible fit. She’s just about ready to call it quits and take the monetary penalty required to have him reassigned when they’re tasked with delivering a precious cargo of rare drugs in an area where four brainships have recently gone missing. Soon, she and her officious Brawn solve the mystery of the missing brainships, albeit unintentionally, when they themselves are hijacked. Helva now finds herself disconnected from her ship with no external mobility whatsoever and must outwit these space pirates using only her extraordinary mind and her voice.

Finally, in The Partnered Ship (1969), Helva has paid off her debt to the Central Worlds Brain-Brawn Ship Service and is contemplating her future as a free agent. No longer limited to the pool of scouts provided by the service, she’s free to chart her own course, and free to choose whomever she wants to partner with. When she finally decides on a companion, it comes as a surprise to both her and her choice.

***

So, what to say about The Ship Who Sang? It certainly ranks alongside Heinlein’s juveniles in both quality and imagination, although McCaffrey manages to tell much more than just an adventure novel. Her inclusion of a disabled character as the lead and the examination of how she interacts with her environs is certainly ambitious, especially for the time. McCaffrey writes a future that’s structured in a very Golden Age of Sci-Fi way, with its rocket ships and space opera, but she chooses to explore it from the point of view of a character excluded from the traditional tropes of supermen and women conquering the galaxy. Helva has no advanced abilities beyond her mind, and anything else is the result of the equipment used to assist her in her duties. Content with her circumstances, given the choice of staying in her shell or transferring her mind to a fully functioning body, she chooses the former, rejecting the idea that she is in any way impeded by her disability. When asked by Niall Parollan why she gave up the chance to experience physical freedom permanently, she enlightens him:

“Define ‘physical.’ As this ship I have more physical power, more physical freedom, than you will ever know. I think, I feel, I breathe. My heart beats, blood does flow through my veins, my lungs do work: not as yours, but they are functioning.”

Rather than feel encumbered by her circumstances, Helva recognizes the vast opportunities that would no longer be available were she to “escape” her disability.

McCaffrey’s world-building is relatively mundane, very pulpy sci-fi, until the reader gets to Dramatic Mission. It’s the standout story of the novel, describing a society entirely divorced from the human experience. She crafts a civilization whose inhabitants are essentially big clouds of gas, communicating and emoting through the mediums of size, density, and changes in colour and smell. The story isn’t nearly as interesting as the way in which it’s conveyed, and the reactions of Helva and her occupants to experiencing life in a way totally alien to the human experience. The fact that McCaffrey is able to convey it is a tribute to her skill as an author and managed to garner her a Hugo nomination in 1970.

Anne McCaffrey posits a truly scary future where the infirm are euthanized unless they are deemed useful to society, and a society comfortable with indentured servitude. She makes passing mention of the ethics of such a society, brushing past it very quickly in the first story, and a deeper discussion of the morality of the Central Worlds would have been valuable to the reader. She does explore Helva’s views of her “disability” and the benefits accrued from her status as a shell person. The ship acts as a compensatory device not unlike a wheelchair, or hearing aids, etc., a device to be used rather than a prison to be endured. Throughout the stories Helva acts as an advocate for the disabled, never perceiving her situation as negative and utilizing her attributes to best effect.

Even Niall Corollan is portrayed as someone who has worked hard to overcome their deficiencies. During the course of her time with the Central Worlds Space Corps, Helva clashes continually with Niall, a man who failed the Brawn program due to his diminutive size but is nevertheless a competent and talented supervisor. She eventually comes to realize that he is the perfect partner for her, their tempestuous relationship resulting more from his desire to challenge her rather than any actual animosity. In fact, he’s surly because he’s prevented from partnering with the woman he’s come to love by her contract and his inability to meet some arbitrary physical requirements. Luckily for both of them, once she’s paid off her contract, she’s free to choose whomever she wants.

The Ship Who Sang definitely is a creature of its time, a time of rocket ships and ray guns, and has aged, not terribly, but like a fond memory of childhood. The relationship between Helva and Parollan is a bit hokey, as is the musical premise, yet it is also endearing, a worthy representative of vintage science fiction. However, the novel exhibits its greatest value as a starting point in discussions of disability in Science Fiction, and the ethics of any society with regard to its most vulnerable.

Blog note: I’m aware it’s February.

Four suggestions this #VintageScifi Month

Posted on January 27, 2020 by gutenbergsson

Take me to your e-reader!

This January marks the eighth year of the #VintageSciFiMonth challenge, in which readers/bloggers read any SciFi book published prior to their birth year and share their thoughts/reviews with the world at large and their peers within the SciFi community. Launched in 2012 by the Little Red Reviewer over at her blog of the same name, Vintage SciFi Month has been going strong ever since. It’s a great way to motivate fans to expand their horizon beyond the shelves of the local Big Box bookstore (in my case, the Canadian version of Barnes and Noble, Chapters-Indigo). A trip to the local used bookstore is pretty much a necessity if you want to find a hidden gem, especially those that may no longer be in print.

Part of the challenge is to read novels that pre-date your birth year, which in my case turns out to be 1972. However, two of my four recommends were published that year, so I’m going to fudge the math a little. And I’m also going to fudge the challenge a bit in that two I have read and the other two are on my to be read list, sitting on the table beside me as I type.

1. Cyborg by Martin Caidin(1972). TBR

How was I to know that The Six Million Dollar Man (a t.v. favourite of mine as a child) was originally based on a novel series?

Six million dollars seems like a steal these days.

Okay, yes, Wikipedia. But I would have never known to look there without tripping over a physical copy in a used book store. A short internet search turned up three sequels, beginning with the very sinister sounding Cyborg II: Operation Nuke. I was familiar with Caidin’s earlier biography of Japanese fighter ace Saburo Sakai, but oblivious to his Sci-Fi efforts and his contribution to my childhood television viewing. I found this copy two years ago and am looking forward to revisiting the adventures of Steve Austin (the test pilot, not the wrestler) and plan on writing a review once I’m finished.

2. Damnation Alley by Roger Zelazny (1968) TBR

While the Wikipedia entry for Damnation Alley lists it as a 1969 novel based on a 1967 novella, my version of his post apocalyptic vision of America lists the copyright as 1968. I suspect most people of a certain age would remember Damnation Alley by way of the 1977 film featuring a young Jan Michael Vincent, George Peppard and Paul Winfield, driving a tricked out RV across an irradiated America, fighting giant mutant scorpions and fleeing flesh eating cockroaches. The movie plot is only tangentially related to that of the book (the mutated scorpions are in both) and the main character of the novel is a car thief/smuggler rather than the Air Force lieutenant of the movie.

I picked up a copy several years ago from The Book Outlet, a local remaindered books retailer that’s conveniently located about three blocks from my house. It is also on my to be read list.

3. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1972)

The Strugatsky brothers (Arkady and Boris) collaborated to write this amazing tale of exploration in the aftermath of an alien visitation.

After the Visitation, humanity discovers the extra-terrestrials have left behind a cornucopia of technological wonders in various “zones” that the governments of the world immediately quarantine. These wonders come at a cost, and those “stalkers” willing to risk the dangers of the zone to find and sell artifacts on the black market risk not only their lives but the pernicious effects the objects have on their families and psyche. It’s specifically the story of Red Schuhart as he collaborates with his fellow stalkers in the pursuit of profit (at first) and later to mitigate the side effects of exploring the zone. Told as a series of vignettes detailing Schuhart’s experiences, Roadside Picnic serves as a warning that humanity should be very careful of the unforeseen consequences in the quest for technological knowledge and the desire for profit. The tale of the Golden Sphere is particularly haunting. I read this early last year and highly recommend. It has the added cache of being made into the 1979 film “Stalker” by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky.

4. Berserker by Fred Saberhagen (1967)

The cover alone sealed the deal!

Fred Saberhagen’s tale of alien death machines rampaging unimpeded across the universe until they encounter a similarly bloodthirsty foe in the Empire of Man was the very first science fiction novel (actually a collection of Saberhagen’s short stories) I remember buying, right off a supermarket spinner rack in the little prairie town of Red Deer, in the summer of 1985. I had been reading what little science fiction there was in our local library, mainly consisting of a tattered copy of Rocket Ship Galileo and some Dr. Who serializations, and used my allowance money to buy the book with the cool cover that haunted every trip to the store. Well worth the $4 I plunked on the counter, I read that copy ragged, reading and re-reading it from time to time over the years until finally losing it a few years ago. When I finally tracked down a replacement copy, it had the same loving wear by its previous owners. So what was the appeal of this particular Space Opera to me that I’ve revisited it time and again throughout my life?

Berserker is a collection of stories demonstrating the resilience and ingenuity of humanity in the face of adversity (“Without a Thought”;”The Peacemaker”); exploring the nature of humanity from both human(“Goodlife”) and cybernetic(“Patron of the Arts”) point of view, and exploring both the benevolent and malevolent facets of the soul existing in a single person(“What T and I did”). There’s even a little comedy (“Mr Jester”). While the technology is dated and some of the male/female interactions are decidedly sexist to today’s reader, the themes and concepts more than make up for the anachronistic spacecraft and mores. It’s a wonderful introduction to the work of an author whom I rarely hear mentioned these days. If you have trouble finding a physical copy, the entire series is available in Amazon’s Kindle store. I plan on working my way through the rest of the series this year.

Embers of War – Gareth L. Powell

Posted on November 27, 2018 by gutenbergsson

“As a heavy cruiser, I had been an instrument of hard diplomacy and destruction; in the House of Reclamation, with my talents intact but my usefulness as a killing machine at an end, I had become instead a means to save lives.

It was almost enough.”

—Trouble Dog, Carnivore class Heavy cruiser and former member of the Conglomeration fleet.

Source: Review copy

Publisher: Titan Books

Date of Publication: February 20, 2018

***

With a simple order crossing the line from legitimate to war crime, the name Annelida Deal became synonymous with the term genocide throughout the spacefaring societies of the Multiplicity. Due to the outrage after her decision to raze the sentient jungle of Pelapatarn in a decapitation strike that ended the Archipelago War but produced massive collateral damage, Deal went into hiding. Meanwhile, the sentient warship Trouble Dog, haunted by her complicity in the genocide, resigned her commission and joined the House of Reclamation, an organization dedicated to life rather than death. While she can never forget her past as an instrument of annihilation, Trouble Dog hopes to find redemption in her new role as a rescue ship, saving those lost and stranded along the space lanes.

Several years later, the space liner Geest Van Amsterdam is shot down by an unknown assailant in a solar system colloquially known as The Gallery. The Gallery is a collection of artificially altered planets, literally sculpted into various unnatural shapes by an anonymous race millennia before mankind looked to the stars. Their purpose unknown, the Gallery has become an astronomical oddity, visited by the occasional scientific mission or site-seeing passenger liner. Famed poet Ona Sudak, one of the Amsterdam’s few survivors, finds herself hunted through the unforgiving environment of the object known as “the Brain” by the mercenaries responsible for the Amsterdam’s destruction. What she finds within the structure of the Brain will reveal long-lost secrets about its creators, the motivation of her pursuers, and her own past—but only if the Trouble Dog and her eclectic crew get to her first.

***

The concept of artificial intelligence inhabiting a starship has been a staple of science fiction since at least 1968, when Richard Daystrom’s M-5 computer narrowly beat out Dr. Chandra’s HAL-9000 to become the first homicidal ship’s computer portrayed on-screen. Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker predates both by several years, and further exploration would undoubtedly uncover others. In recent years it appears the sentient starship trope has undergone a bit of a revival. Lovelace, aka “Lovey”, the A.I. running the starship Wayfarer in Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, explores a romantic relationship between a synthetic consciousness and her human minder, while Breq, the protagonist in Anne Leckie’s Ancillary Justice seeks revenge for the loss of her ship.* It would be negligent to not mention the sentient starships of Iain M. Banks Culture series, however, I have been negligent in NOT HAVING READ ANY OF HIS WORKS**, a situation I hope to remedy at some point. With Embers of War, Gareth L. Powell uses this trope to good effect, crafting an entertaining tale of a sentient warship that no longer wants to wage war and her crew of emotionally damaged characters

Embers of War has a cinematic feel, with Powell relying on short chapters and fast pacing to construct his story. Painting with broad strokes, he allows the reader to fill in the details, conveying a universe with depth beyond the confines of the story and instilling a desire to explore it. Each chapter represents a character viewpoint, allowing deeper exploration of their motivations and inner struggles than might otherwise be accomplished. While a great device with which to develop the central characters, it does disadvantage the non-viewpoint characters, who tend to come across as one-dimensional.

An example of this is Alva Clay, veteran of the Archipelago War and security chief on-board the Trouble Dog. Supposedly dedicated to Trouble Dog’s captain, Sal Konstanz, for rescuing her after the Pelapatarn massacre, Alva spends much of her time unfairly blaming Sal for the death of their former medical technician. Described as a talented and competent professional soldier, Alva disproves that at every chance, to the point of getting herself wounded while unloading her weapon to check IF IT’S LOADED at the most inopportune moment. She’s the type of soldier that any halfway competent military would weed out during basic training due to her mental instability. Is this instability due to post traumatic stress or general incompetence? A viewpoint chapter or two would help explore how she came to be such a broken soldier. Much the same can be said of Preston Menderes, the unqualified med-tech foisted on Sal right before their mission to rescue the survivors of the Geest Van Amsterdam. He’s immature and emotionally stunted, utterly unsuited to the high stress career of a med- tech, and a character that would be more interesting and less annoying if the reader were given more insight into how he came to be so damaged.

Conversely, Powell’s viewpoint characters are more complex, specifically Sally Konstanz, Ona Sudak, and especially Trouble Dog herself. Sal Konstanz is not only a war veteran and seasoned captain, she’s the great-great grand-daughter of Sofia Nikitas, founder of the House of Reclamation. Her lineage affords her a legacy, but she’s never been one to ask for special favour, earning her place on Trouble Dog by merit alone. While wholly committed to both her crew and their mission, Sal suffers from a lack of confidence ill befitting her service record. She’s a sympathetic character, tormented by her belief that she hasn’t lived up to her ideals, and riven by guilt after losing a crew member that she realistically never had a chance to save. Ona Sudak’s chapters show us a multi-dimensional character that I really can’t discuss in detail without revealing major spoilers, so I’ll include her in the end notes.***

And then there’s Trouble Dog, the artificial intelligence bred for war and influenced by the predatory nature of the canine DNA spliced into her computer core, a truly remarkable intelligence displaying the empathy that Annelida Deal never could. Trouble Dog is very conscious of her feral nature and actively holds it in check, a sign of her growth as a sentient being. Her sisters and brothers are bothered by such thoughts to varying degrees, one going so far as to commit suicide, but Trouble Dog finds a more satisfying outlet for her guilt, seeking redemption by protecting others.

Powell delves into the mind of Trouble Dog, both literally and figuratively, creating a virtual environment for her to inhabit, a plot device he’s used to great effect in earlier novels (artificial realities are a huge part of the Ack-Ack Macaque trilogy), and manages to anthropomorphize her into a complex personality both sympathetic and empathetic. While a compassionate and fearless defender of life, she’s also a wily street fighter, bloodthirsty enough to take on her less empathetic siblings despite being denuded of her weapons systems after her resignation from the military. Trouble Dog is perhaps the most well-rounded character of the novel, making the entire endeavour worthwhile.

If you’re looking for an overriding theme within Embers of War, that theme would be the concept of redemption. Sal Konstanz wants redemption for her (misplaced) culpability in the death of one of her crew, while Ona Sudak desires, if not redemption, the absolution of obscurity. Trouble Dog’s redemption comes through her desire to save others. It’s a tale of broken people trying to repair their lives, with Trouble Dog acting as both character and setting while they go about it.

Embers of War is the first of three acts, setting up both the universe in which it takes place, and the confrontation that will drive the next novel. For what Trouble Dog and her crew find within the interior of the object known as the Brain will bring dire consequences to the inhabitants of the Multiplicity. This next novel, Fleet of Knives, is due to be published early in 2019, and I can hardly wait to read more of the Trouble Dog and her eclectic crew.

Gareth L Powell maintains a website and blog at www.garethlpowell.com.

***

*Having read and enjoyed A Long way to a Small Angry Planet, Ancillary Justice remains on my TBR list.

**Feersum Endjinn doesn’t count, as it was neither a Culture novel nor featured an A.I. character inhabiting a Starship. It remains a wonderful book.

***Spoiler! Spoiler! Spoiler! It’s not really a huge reveal, but Ona Sudak is also Annelida Deal, the Conglomeration officer who ordered the massacre that ended the Archipelago War. She’s a strong personality who made a controversial decision that is looked upon with derision yet remains confident in her justification. The strike successfully ended the war and saved lives in the long run, but in retrospect was considered a war crime due to the horrific collateral damage. The historical analogy would be the decision Harry Truman had to make near the end of World War Two, weighing the lives of those citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki versus the millions of civilian and military lives an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have incurred. She’s perfectly suited to explore ethical issues such as “the greater good” (Utilitarianism).

Ninefox Gambit-Yoon Ha Lee

Posted on July 20, 2017 by gutenbergsson

“Seven, Subcommand Two said. “Do you have anything better to suggest?”

Cheris didn’t look at the ninefox’s eyes. “Five suggested one weapon,” she said. “I can do better. You can win this with one man.”

She had their attention.

“Specify,” Subcommand Two said. It knew. What other gambit could she have brought to the table?

“General Shuos Jedao.” There. She had said it.

Source: Bought copy

Publisher: Solaris

Date of Publication: June 14, 2016

Kel Cheris is an infantry captain of the Hexarchate, known for her unconventional use of formation tactics in the Hexarchate’s perpetual war against heretical doctrines that periodically arise to threaten their long-established hegemony. A mathematical prodigy, Cheris’ talents are wasted in the infantry, but Kel are soldiers, and as such, her duty is to serve. Yet her capabilities are not long overlooked by her superiors, and when the Fortress of Scattered Needles falls to a faction of heretics believed long eradicated, Kel Cheris is tasked with the mission of retaking the fortress before its loss causes irreparable harm to the Calendar by which all in the Hexarchate live. Her proposed solution to the problem is as unconventional as it is controversial—General Shuos Jedao.

In his time, Shuos Jedao was a strategist of unparalleled skill and his tactics entirely suited to the task at hand. Long deceased, his consciousness was preserved in the Black Cradle, a device that made him immortal, yet incorporeal. Using him is the best chance of retaking the fortress and thus bolstering the defenses of the Hexarchate against a looming invasion by the Hafn. Yet two caveats face Cheris at the prospect of working with Jedao. The first—his motivation, as he has no love for the Hexarchate he once served. The second—he is most certainly insane. For the Black Cradle is not only an immortality device—it’s a prison designed to punish the Hexarchate’s greatest traitor for all eternity.

Paired with Jedao as his corporeal host, Kel Cheris must utilize his brilliance while safeguarding both her mission and her sanity from the brilliant General’s influence. As the fight to retake the fortress progresses, Cheris discovers that while Jedao may be the monster she’s been warned of, he may not be the monster that needs fearing. Defeating the heretics and unravelling the mystery surrounding his past will lead to questions concerning their future path and the true agenda of the Hexarchate.

***

Arthur C. Clarke’s third law states that, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee has accepted the challenge and crafted a novel of stunning audacity, bursting the conventions of traditional Space Opera/Military Science Fiction. In the process, Lee has crafted a genre-bender of sorts, blending traditional science fiction with elements of the fantastical. Whether it works for the reader depends on their willful suspension of disbelief and the concordant ability to blur the line between Fantasy and Science Fiction.

In Ninefox Gambit, we’re introduced to a society where technology is subject to the quasi-religious belief of its inhabitants, what Lee describes as, “The Calendar”, both figuratively and literally their system of perceiving time and space and the mathematical principles sustaining it. Since the fall of the Fortress of Scattered Needle, a space habitat that defends their border and sustains the calendar over a large portion of their empire, “calendrical rot” has set in, where the weapons and tactics of the Hexarchate have become either weaker or non-existent.

A stable calendar is essential to the functioning of the Hexarchate, as their technology is concordant with belief in a certain set of constants, such as the 24 hour system of gauging time. If a dissident faction creates a system using a different calendar, some technology no longer works, while those “exotic” weapons and devices linked to the new calendrical system will. Formation tactics work in a similar manner, in that the placement of troops or ships in a given situation and rigid adherence to that formation affects the strength of their attack and the effectiveness of their weaponry. Soldiers of the Hexarchate rely on lists of different formations—a standardized playbook—to wage war, and non-standard formations create unexpected effects that are generally discouraged. It’s a rigid system of warfare, combining a blend of Numerology and Feng Shui with a large element of “handwavium” to achieve their goals.

Battles are won and lost by the use of quasi-magical devices such as the carrion glass bomb, reducing its victims to shards of glass containing their memories, amputation guns firing an arcing beam in which victims limbs literally fall off, and that most devastating of weapons, the threshold winnower, whose effects are terrifying, ghastly, and beyond human comprehension. The use of exotic weapons and formations to wage warfare is as analogous to magic as to make a mockery of the appeals to science and mathematical formulas the characters claim as the basis of their technology. Not surprisingly, it’s the least convincing element of the novel.

Yet this sufficiently advanced magic disguised as technology—and let’s not quibble, this is good old-fashioned magic dressed up as science for Hallowe’en—constitutes a unique take on the norms by which we assume technology should work, and in these days of Wi-Fi and virtual reality environments, kudos must be given the author for thinking so far beyond of the conventional.

The world-building of Ninefox Gambit is both complex and inscrutable. There are six factions of the Hexarchate, seven if you include the long eradicated Liozh, and each performs a specialized function in the proper functioning of their empire:

The Kel, to whom Cheris belongs, are the grunts, the military with which the Hexarches keep order. The reader learns early on that the Kel are conditioned to be unquestioningly obedient, up to and beyond the point of sacrificing themselves to accomplish their mission.
The Shuos, responsible for strategic planning. They’re the schemers, always taking a long view, attempting to influence the rest of the factions into furthering their goals.
The Nirai, who oversee much of the technological evolution of the Hexarchate. They’re the engineers.
The Rahal, essentially the government overseers, responsible for the maintenance of the Calendar.
The Vidona, specializing in indoctrination and stamping out heresy. They’re the commissars of the Hexarchate, enforcing doctrine at the end of a gun.
The Andan, whose purview is both culture and finance. They hold the purse-strings, giving them an outsize influence within the Hexarchate.

And finally we come to the Liozh, the seventh faction, the philosophers and ethicists, perhaps the most interesting of the factions. Eradicated for advocating the heresy of Democracy, their enduring influence continues to frustrate the Hexarches and encourage their foes.

Lee reveals the motivations of the various factions in a piecemeal manner, so it’s best to keep a running track of who’s who and which faction they represent if the reader wants to keep from getting confused. Luckily, most characters use their faction as a surname (see Kel Cheris or Shuos Jedao), which makes it somewhat easier to divine their motivations, although a glossary would have come in handy at times.

As to the characters, Yoon Ha Lee does an exemplary job of fleshing out both Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao, but is somewhat deficient regarding ancillary characters. Early on the reader meets the captain of Cheris’ Cindermoth(command ship), Kel Nerevor, who seems as though she might have a major role to play in the course of the novel, yet she’s casually tossed aside just as she’s getting interesting.

Cheris and Jedao are both portrayed sympathetically, she a slave to her training as a Kel, but still imaginative enough to embrace borderline heretical doctrine, and he a cold tactician willing to throw away the lives of those around him, but only if the benefits outweigh the cost. Seemingly heartless, we’re given a window into his motivations that belies this notion. He’s a villain with depth of character that will hopefully be fleshed out in the next installment.

Lee also introduces readers to the Servitors, autonomous and sentient A.I. forms that serve menial roles within the Hexarchate. They act as servants within the Hexarchate, but are well aware of their status as virtual slaves, and share a subculture their masters show little appreciation for. However, it becomes apparent that the servitors have their own agenda, one not necessarily in line with that of their masters and worthy of further exploration.

Ninefox Gambit is not a particularly easy read, but with some perseverance, readers will come away with an appreciation of the author’s audacious take on the conventions of the genre. It’s as if the author has written a fantasy novel encased in a sci-fi binding, a daunting task to be sure, yet one that puts an interesting spin on what would otherwise be a commonplace Space Opera. Ninefox Gambit has been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Best Novel award this year, and while this reader doesn’t see it reaching quite those heights, the novel does constitute an entirely readable debut, one that the author will hopefully build on with Raven Stratagem, the second of the Machineries of Empire series.

Yoon Ha Lee’s author website can be found at http://www.yoonhalee.com.

A Rage In Harlem – Chester Himes

Posted on February 12, 2017 by gutenbergsson

“Just why did you come here, Brother Jackson? Why did you come to me?”

“I just wanted to kneel here beside you, Reverend Gaines, and give myself up to the Lord.”

“What!” Reverend Gaines stared as though Jackson had uttered blasphemy. “Give yourself up to the Lord? Jesus Christ, man, what do you take the Lord for? You have to go and give yourself up to the police. The Lord won’t get you out of that kind of mess.”

***

Source: Bought Copy

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Date of Publication: 1957 as The Five Cornered Square

Jackson is a simple man, a “square” as it were, a black man just trying to get ahead in 50’s Harlem, trying to do right by his lady Imabelle and shower her with the finer things in life. So when Imabelle introduces him to Hank and Jodie, a couple of cool cats who have devised a way to turn Jackson’s life saving of fifteen hundred bucks into “Fifteen Grand!”, even a God fearing man like Jackson succumbs to temptation. Alas, for Jackson, stupidity rather than pride comes before a fall, and when the fall comes, it’s to the tune of fifteen hundred bucks. Jackson, facing financial ruin, compounds the interest by stealing from his employer and investing his ill gotten gains in a game of craps, a game at which he is…well…crap.

Now on the run from an ersatz U. S. Marshall and desperate to repay his former employer, Jackson enlists the help of the only person who might thread this needle of misfortune, namely, the good sister Gabriel, a hustler who works the streets by day in the guise of a Sister of Mercy, and spends the nights as a dope fiend. She’s otherwise known as Jackson’s ne’er do well brother Goldy. What Jackson lacks in street smarts, Goldy makes up for in spades, and while Jackson just wants back his sweet Imabelle, Goldy is more interested in the trunk of gold she’s been known to travel with. However, to retrieve Imabelle (and the gold), Goldy and Jackson have to outsmart Hank and Jody’s crew, all the while keeping the law off their trail. Before they’re done the streets of Harlem will run red with blood, but it’s an even bet as to whose.

***

The confidence game is a hallmark of great crime fiction, especially when it ends badly. Don’t believe me? Just think of Roy Dillon and his mother Lilly at the end of Jim Thompson’s The Grifters. Combine a con game with a pinch of noir and a dash of the hardboiled, top it with a generous dollop of the absurd, and you’ll find yourself reading A Rage in Harlem, the perfect introduction to the dark noir of Chester Himes. Described in the introduction of my copy as a “comedy caper”, a more apt description would be, “absurd noir”, for there are times when Hime’s black humour sorely tests the reader’s suspension of disbelief. A dedicated reader, managing to push through the more ridiculous aspects of the novel will find their patience well spent, for what it lacks in realism, this tale of greed, deception, and murder makes up for in sheer murderous fun.

A Rage in Harlem also provides the reader their introduction those iconic Harlem detectives, “Coffin” Ed Johnson and “Grave Digger” Jones, a pair of black detectives who can go where their white counterparts dare not. Carrying “specially made long-barreled nickel-plated .38 calibre revolvers”, and being very free in their use, these two detectives have convinced the people of Harlem that they would shoot a man dead for not standing straight in line.

Grave Digger and Coffin Ed weren’t crooked detectives, but they were tough. They had to be tough to work in Harlem. Colored folks didn’t respect colored cops. But they did respect big shiny pistols and sudden death. It was said that in Harlem that Coffin Ed’s pistol would kill a rock and that Grave Digger’s would bury it.

Skirting the edges of the law they’re sworn to keep, these two detectives believe in their own brand of street justice while their superiors believe in looking the other way as long as they bring results. Those results generally bring a lot of business to the local undertaker. That’s not to say they’re corrupt, but the delineation between right and wrong for Grave Digger and Coffin Ed depends on their own moral compass rather than any set of formal rules. Having found an audience for their peculiar brand of justice, Himes’ A Rage in Harlem became the first of what became known as the Harlem Detective series.

As for our cast of characters, Jackson is the epitome of the hapless protagonist, unwilling to recognize Imabelle’s true nature and innocent to a fault. His brother Goldy is another creature altogether, street smart and cunning, saddled with an addiction to both drugs and the greed of easy money, and yet altogether more sympathetic than his simple brother, mostly because he’s aware of who and what he is, and of course, what motivates Imabelle. Jackson may not know it, but he’s run afoul of the femme fatale, although Imabelle would be hard pressed to admit it, perhaps even to herself. What can be said for certain is that she’s plenty capable of handling herself and the men around her, even those that recognize her for what she is, at least until she meets Grave Digger Jones.

Hank and Jody are the least interesting of this cast of characters, a couple of soulless killers with little depth of character, merely a means to an end, so despicable as to make the reader root for the dimwitted Jackson and his shady sidekick Goldy, and to humanize Grave Digger and Coffin Ed when they step outside the lines of what we generally consider acceptable behaviour in those charged with protecting society from its baser instincts. They’re men in need of murdering, and Grave Digger and Coffin Ed are up to the task.

Within the pages of A Rage in Harlem, Himes has combined all the elements of a classic crime novel, creating a Harlem I’m not entirely sure ever existed, and populating it with classic tropes of the genre. We’ve got the Mcguffin, evidenced in Imabelle’s trunk of gold, the misplaced love of a good man, and the object of that love, the femme fatale, personified in Imabelle herself. Add to that a couple of hard-boiled detectives working just this side of the law, and you end up with a magnificent addition to the genre.

The Chrysalids-John Wyndam

Posted on January 23, 2017 by gutenbergsson

I was abruptly perturbed – and considerably puzzled, too. A blasphemy was, as had been impressed upon me often enough, a frightful thing. Yet there was nothing frightening about Sophie. She was simply an ordinary little girl. – if a great deal more sensible and brave than most. Yet according to the Definition…

Clearly there must be a mistake somewhere. Surely having one very small toe extra – well, two very small toes, because I supposed there would be one to match on the other foot – surely that couldn’t be enough to make her ‘hateful in the sight of God…’?

The ways of the world were very puzzling…

***

Source: Bought copy.

Publisher: Penguin Books

Date of Publication: 1955

David Strorm was a normal little boy, growing up in the normal way, taking the ways of the world around him for granted. All he knew of the world was his family, their modest holding in the settlement of Waknuk, Labrador, and what his people taught of the Tribulation, a time when God destroyed the Old People and took away their technology to punish the world for its sins. David would spend his days avoiding chores and wandering the fields and forests surrounding their settlement, while his nights consisted of sermons from his theologically legalistic father, himself the son of Waknuk’s founder. Sermons, or more accurately diatribes, on the issue of physical deviation and the need to guard against any aberration, for fear that God might notice any new blasphemy and re-visit the Tribulation on the good citizens of Waknuk. Foremost among those warnings: “ONLY IN THE IMAGE OF GOD IS MAN”, followed closely by: “WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT!” David could never escape these admonitions. They were carved both in his mind and on the plaques that line the walls of their kitchen.

So when David finds a new friend in the form of Sophie, a young girl living in a secluded cabin with her parents on the outskirts of the district, the joy of her friendship turns to confusion when he innocently discovers that Sophie has a subtle imperfection, one that would label her unclean in the eyes of his father and subject to censure by their pious community. Her crime: an extra toe on each foot, such an inconsequential thing really, but enough to question her humanity if ever discovered.

And discovered she is, forced to flee with her parents, caught and sanctioned with banishment to the Fringes, where life is nasty, vicious, and short, all for want of ten toes. Confused and horrified by these events, David, his cousin Rosalind, and various children of the district vow to keep their own secret, lest they suffer a similar fate. For David and his friends have their own aberration, less noticeable, yet more substantial. They can talk to each other using their minds, and surely this would be much worse a transgression than such a little thing as an extra pinkie toe?

As David and his friends grow into young adults, so does their fear of discovery, especially after his sister Petra develops their talent at an extraordinarily young age, too young to know either fear or caution, and exhibits the talent with far greater strength and much less restraint. Soon their secret becomes impossible to hide, and David and his fellow telepaths must flee in the face of their society’s fanaticism and xenophobia, lest they too be sanctioned as aberrations in the eyes of God.

But there is hope in the form of distant settlement across the sea, one whose inhabitants exhibit the same talent as David’s small band, a place of acceptance, understanding and security – if only they can remain free from their hunters long enough for those distant voices to come collect them.

***

John Wyndham (1903-1969) wrote several science fiction novels of note, perhaps most famously The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos, each of which has been translated to film, The Midwich Cuckoos filmed as Village of the Damned. When Penguin Books re-issued his oeuvre back in the late 1990’s, I jumped on the chance and collected as many as I could. Previously having enjoyed both The Midwich Cuckoos and Day of the Triffids, Wyndam’s tale of hope in the face of fanaticism went on my “to be read” list and was dutifully shelved for future enjoyment.

And there it sat, until late last year, when I read a review copy of S.C. Flynn’s Children of the Different, another post-apocalyptic novel of children with unique abilities that explored similar themes. My thoughts then returned to Wyndam’s classic, and here we are with no regret, for The Chrysalids is a wonder of a novel, with a host of themes to unpack, and a denouement that has some unexplored and chilling implications perhaps not intended by the author or recognized by the casual reader.

It’s a novel ripe with allegory, most notably regarding the unfortunate tendency of the human psyche to fear “the other”; those among us who are different, whether physically or psychologically. In The Chrysalids, this tendency is exhibited in the perverse form of Christianity the citizens of Waknuk observe. They’ve taken religious legalism to the extreme, painting any one or thing that varies from what is considered “the image of God” as sacrilege, allowing extreme punishment with neither compassion nor compunction. Any “defect” is dealt with by a series of progressively harsh actions. Crops are burned, animals are examined and if found wanting, euthanized. Infants showing signs of divergence are left to the elements, or if discovered to be defective later, banished from their society. It’s a primitive form of eugenics, but one that’s been a common theme in history, from the NSDAP labelling Jews subhuman, to Margaret Sanger’s call for the forced sterilization of those deemed feeble-minded, or poor, or those her followers saw as “the ignorant”. David and his friends are the allegorical Jews of this oppressive society, attempting to hide in plain sight while living in a constant state of fear.

Complementing David’s society’s religiously fundamental take on eugenics, a more scientific take on the subject motivates the Sealanders to rescue David’s group, and more importantly, his sister Petra. As the strongest telepath yet discovered, their motive is not so much altruistic as it is selfish, evidenced in their desire to use her as breeding stock to augment and amplify their own telepathic society. Believing themselves the next step in human evolution, they are merciless in dealing with their evolutionary inferiors, resulting in the massacre of both David’s people and the “mutants” of the Fringes at the climax of the novel. The emissary of the Sealanders excuses their actions in a chilling monologue on the difference between her people and David’s:

‘In loyalty to their kind they cannot tolerate our rise; in loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate their obstruction.

‘If the process shocks you, it is because you have not been able to stand off and, knowing what you are, see what a difference in kind might mean. Your minds are confused by your ties and your upbringing: you are still half-thinking of them as the same kind as yourselves. That is why you are shocked.’

Just as David and his kin were dehumanized by their society, the Sealanders have divorced themselves from their less evolved counterparts, justifying their actions by dehumanizing their foes.

She then goes on:

‘The static, the enemy of change, is the enemy of life, and therefore our implacable enemy. If you still feel shocked, or doubtful, just consider some of the things that these people, who have taught you to think of them as their fellows, have done. I know little of your lives, but the pattern scarcely varies wherever a pocket of the older species is trying to preserve itself. And consider too, what they intended to do to you, and why…’

Her rationalization of the massacre lays in the idea of progress, much the same as Stalin’s when Communism enslaved a large part of the globe and murdered millions in the twentieth century. Her lack of awareness of the similarity of views (one quasi-religious, one quasi-scientific) puts a chill on what otherwise would be considered a happy ending. For David and his fellow chrysalids have been saved from one oppressive society, only to discover they’ve traded one form of fanaticism for another, whether they or the reader are aware. Whereas religion can subvert morality in the wrong hands, the pursuit of science can at times ignore morality altogether, justifying it by declaring the subject irrelevant to progress. “Can we do this thing?” becomes the over-riding argument-divorced from the morality based question, “should we do this thing?”

The Chrysalids is an excellent criticism of the binary relation between fundamentalist religion and scientific progress without an ethical underpinning. Wyndam was writing from the viewpoint of a citizen of Western society, much as Margaret Atwood when she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, so it’s entirely unsurprising that he would choose Christianity as his subject. In light of recent history, his warnings still hold sway, especially considering the rise of groups like ISIS, whose corrupted interpretation of a major religion give his overall criticism of fundamentalism a very topical feel. Wyndam explored ideas and ethical considerations that have timeless ramifications for humanity, and in the end, such thought experiments are the goal of good Science Fiction.

Children of the Different -S.C. Flynn

Posted on October 3, 2016 by gutenbergsson

“‘We’ve got to go back,’ she said.

‘Back where?’ Narrah looked shocked.

‘Into the Changeland.’

‘What? Why?’…

…’If we go back into the Changeland, perhaps we’ll find what we need while the memories are still strong.'”

***

Source: Review Copy

Publisher: The Hive

Date of Publication: September 10, 2016

Print Length: 227 pages.

When the world ends, it ends in madness, leaving few survivors and even fewer still considered human. Those who survive with their humanity intact live in fear of the technology believed to have caused the apocalypse and of the roving packs of cannibalistic “ferals” that comprise the rest. Yet life goes on, diminished but not defeated, if only in small settlements such as the one near the outskirts of Perth, Australia, where survivors have banded together into families of necessity, rather than biology.

Young Narrah and Arika have never known another life than this, neither a time when technology worked, nor a time of safety beyond the walls of their settlement. They’ve also never known a time without “the changing”, a coma-like sleep children fall into upon puberty, from which they either die or return changed, whether into mindless ferals or beings with bizarre and wonderful powers of the mind. Their friends Wirrah and Toura have already been to the” Changeland”, as it is called, one returning with an unnatural sense of danger, the other as prophetess whose prognostications are infallible. Yet Narrah and Arika are unique even in a world of the special, sharing a psychic link they refer to as “the path”, an ability inherited from their long dead parents. Fraternal twins who once shared a womb, they utilize this ability to communicate, whatever the distance between them.

While in the Changeland, Arika finds herself in a reality made up of memories of those who lived before the fall, and meets a malevolent creature who has taken the form of an echidna that preys on those undergoing the changing. It’s only through the intervention of Narrah (who is able to enter the Changeland by way of their psychic link) that they are both able to escape. When she awakes, Arika gradually discovers she can mimic the senses and abilities of myriad animals. Locked up by the settlement’s inhabitants for fear she may become feral, Arika uses her newly found powers to escape and flees with Toura to find Narrah, who has been kidnapped by the City people (those who still believe in science and technology). Little does she (or Narrah) know, but he’s essential to them by way of the gift he receives on his own journey to the Changeland. Arika and Narrah, with the help of their childhood friends and the City People, will embark on a journey to unlock the past to save the future.

***

When evaluating whether I’ve enjoyed a novel, I like to imagine the process as akin to a balance, with one arm representing the mechanics of the prose (how well it’s written), the other representing the plot (the framework of the story), and the fulcrum upon which they rest as my resulting enjoyment. Topple the balance one way or the other and as a reader, I come away dissatisfied. It’s an especially tricky tightrope to walk (just like mixing metaphors) when the novel has been self published. In such cases, my balance is relatively flexible, in that I’m willing to forgive rough prose or a loosely developed story as long as its counterpart shifts the balance into equilibrium. Such is the case with S.C. Flynn’s Children of the Different.

The dystopian novel is a well-worn genre in literary circles, whether it be the post apocalyptic world Stephen King’s The Stand, or perhaps more appropriately to our subject, John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids*. In Flynn’s case, he’s travelling well trodden dystopian ground, what with the apocalyptic plague of madness, the loss of technology (and irrational fear of it), the hero’s journey, exemplified in both Narrah and Arika and their individual storylines that inevitably converge, and of course, the idea of the chosen one (or two) whose path may lead to salvation. Yet these obvious tropes are manipulated with skillful effect to engage the reader (at least this one) in Narrah and Arika’s exploits, and at the end of the day, leaves the reader wanting more of their story. It’s not that the plot remains unresolved, but that much of the story falls outside the margins of what we’re allowed to see. There’s much more to the history of the madness and what led up to it, more of the tale of the twin’s parents and their special connection, and especially, more of Arika and Narrah, whose story is both resolved—yet not—at the end of the novel. Personally, I’d like to know it.

The other end of the balance is where Children of the Different finds some hurdles to overcome. At times the author can be overly verbose, specifically regarding the chase scenes, which tend to come across as overlong. It’s a situation where the use of a professional editor would be useful to tighten the pacing and guard against the aforementioned verbosity while retaining the author’s voice. Yet it is a quibble rather than criticism, as Flynn’s story more than makes up for the deficit of brevity. However, as a reader, I must admit to a certain bias regarding concise writing, preferring an economy of words, especially with regards to Young Adult novels, for fear of intimidating the reader. So it’s a subjective rather than objective criticism, and in the final analysis, the balance between writing mechanics and entertaining story is kept.

Children of the Different is a Young Adult post-apocalyptic novel by S.C. Flynn, an Australian ex-pat currently living in Ireland. He maintains a blog at scflynn.com. Children of the Different is his debut novel, and I look forward to his future endeavors.

*note to self—sit down and read your copy of The Chrysalids.

Osama-Lavie Tidhar

Posted on June 11, 2016 by gutenbergsson

A man in a robot suit walking down the road, a sign above his head: Half price tickets. ‘There’s no place like home!’ the man shouted. He stopped by Joe, handed him a leaflet. ‘There’s no place like home, mate. Get a ticket while they’re going.’

Joe blinked, his vision blurred. The tin-man walked away. He’d already forgotten Joe. ‘No place-‘

‘Joe?’

He blinked and opened his eyes. Madam Seng stood above him.

‘You’ve had a bad dream,’ she said.

Source: Bought copy

Publisher: Solaris

Date of Publication: October 9, 2012

Joe is a detective, average and nondescript. Living in Vientiane, Laos, he spends his mornings drinking coffee in a local café and afternoons reading in his disheveled office, quietly shared by him, a desk, and a gaggle of geckos. He sits and he reads and he smokes, whiling the time away.

And then the girl appears, the girl in need of a detective. She wants to find a man, an author, coincidently, the author of the pulp thriller sitting on Joe’s desk. The man, who writes about a fictional terrorist, a terrorist whose exploits titillate the reader with his exceptional violence. She wants him to find the unlikely named Mike Longshott, author of the Osama Bin Laden—Vigilante series, and money is no object. Then she disappears as if she were never there.

Joe—doing what a detective does—takes the case, commencing a journey that will take him across the world and back, from the banlieues of Paris to the heart of London and then New York, finally across Asia to Afghanistan and a Kabul that has always been and never was. Harassed and impeded at every turn by a mysterious group determined to keep Longshott’s anonymity intact, Joe’s pursuit of the pulp author slowly transforms into something altogether different, a search for a truth that once discovered, will slowly unravel his understanding of both reality and his place in it.

Reading a novel by Lavie Tidhar can be a lot like trying to wrestle with smoke. Reality is reality, until it’s not, as if it simply blew away in the wind. And that’s why if forced to describe Osama in a word, that word would be “surreall”. Tidhar’s novel starts innocently enough, at first appearances a traditional boilerplate mystery. Mysterious woman hires “down on his luck” detective to find equally mysterious writer. Woman looks familiar, but detective can’t quite place where he’s seen her before. Detective is given an expense account, begins his search and almost immediately finds himself the target of a nefarious cabal determined to stop him—all very much Mystery 101.

Or is it?

It quickly becomes obvious that Osama is not your traditional mystery, and as time goes on, Joe’s journey devolves into a schizophrenic dream —a locked room mystery where the room is Joe’s reality, and the mystery is the truth of his existence. You see, reality is malleable in this Tidhar novel, dependant more on the reader’s point of view than any natural laws.

For instance, the world Joe inhabits is one where Osama Bin Laden is merely a character in a novel. Al Qaeda, 9-11, the invasion of Iraq and subsequent global jihad—they never happened. The World Trade Centre is but an architect’s dream, and the world is relatively peaceful. Yet many people in Joe’s world have glimpsed another, a world where Longshott’s Bin Laden thrillers aren’t merely figments of a frenzied imagination. As the case deepens, Joe begins to realize he is one of these select few, drawn to this other world like a moth to flame. The reader is drawn to Joe in much the same way, as one realizes the mystery of Osama has more to do with Joe and Osama than it does the man Joe is trying to track down. Osama the fictional character is linked to Joe the real detective—but how?

We’re given clues to their connection as Joe comes into contact with others who share this ephemeral bond, refugees, as they’re called. Who or what are the refugees? Spectres? Transients from another reality? Figments of Joe’s imagination? There’s a host of possibilities, left up to the reader to decide. Perhaps Joe and the other refugees are those whose deaths in our world transported them there by the inhumanity of what happened to them. Perhaps Joe’s reality is merely a construct of a man on his death-bed, unconsciously trying to make sense of what happened to him. Perhaps it could even be that Joe’s world is purgatory for those who died so quickly they aren’t even aware of their own passage. It could also be the story of an alternate universe whose borders on our reality are ill-defined.

Just like the setting, the characters inhabiting the world of Osama are as fleeting as their reality. Osama is a McGuffin of sorts, merely sliding between the pages—the object of Joe’s fascination while he searches for Mike Longshott, much as the Maltese Falcon drove Sam Spade while he looked for Archer’s murderer. Mike is the link binding the story of Joe with that of Osama. He’s the facilitator, unintentionally leading Joe to discover the truth of his own existence, and by extension, that of the girl. He doesn’t recognize her, but she’s clearly familiar with him, as if there were a time and a place where they once knew each other.

And that’s the thing about Tidhar’s characters. They’re all as ephemeral as the situations in which they’re placed. There’s a sense of unrealness, an unfinished quality about them. Joe is the only character of substance, and even that becomes questionable as the novel progresses and both he and the reader begin to question his reality.

The obvious comparison can be made between the works of Philip K Dick and Lavie Tidhar. At first I thought that might be unfair, as Tidhar has his own voice and style, but after reading Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, the similarities in their writing come to the fore. Tidhar plays with much the same themes regarding reality and one’s perspective, and has clearly been influenced by Dick’s writing. For instance, there’s a scene in Osama where Joe enters an opium den to confront the proprietor, using the delivery of a film case as part of his ruse. He quickly falls into a fugue state while the film is shown and finds himself in another London, one that looks much the same, but with subtle differences. The film acts as a catalyst for his transference between worlds, much as the talisman Mr. Tagomi is meditating with in MITHC when he finds himself transported to an alternate Los Angeles where America won the Second World War. In another scene, Joe is trying to gain entrance to a private club known as “The Castle”, another less than subtle reference. While each author clearly has their own voice, Tidhar has clearly produced an homage to a master of the alternate history genre using his own distinctive style.

Osama is not a traditional novel, in that the process is more important than the final product. There’s no clear resolution to this mystery, and it’s almost as if it’s a very well written thought experiment. A multitude of solutions are posed, but you’re going to have to settle for whichever one you WANT to be the solution. In the end, that’s what makes Osama a most satisfying read.

Gutenberg's Son

random posts randomly posted

Category Archives: Book Reviews

Stars and Bones- Gareth L Powell

SpoilersSpoilersSpoilers

*******

Fleet of Knives–Gareth L Powell

The Ship Who Sang (Review)

Four suggestions this #VintageScifi Month

Embers of War – Gareth L. Powell

Ninefox Gambit-Yoon Ha Lee

A Rage In Harlem – Chester Himes

The Chrysalids-John Wyndam

Children of the Different -S.C. Flynn

Osama-Lavie Tidhar

**Spoilers**Spoilers**Spoilers**

***

SpoilersSpoilersSpoilers

*******