Review: Saucer / Saucer: The Conquest by Stephen Coonts

These two novels were published in 2001 and 2004 respectively. 'Saucer' is set in the present day and describes what happens when a perfectly preserved - and fully functional - flying saucer is discovered in the Sahara, embedded in rock sediments 140,000 years old. The hero of the story, Rip Cantrell, is a young researcher who makes the find. With the aid of a former US Air Force test pilot Charlotte "Charley" Pine, he steals the saucer out from under the noses of various groups who arrive to claim it. What follows is an exciting contest as various governmental and private organisations battle to claim the prize.

'Saucer: The Conquest' takes up the story a year later. We are evidently in a slightly different parallel universe, in which the French government is manning and supplying the only base on the Moon. A wealthy French entrepreneur is funding much of the project, but he has a secret agenda: a saucer-derived anti-gravity weapon at the Moonbase which is capable of wreaking limitless destruction on Earth, and which he intends to use to rule the world. Charley Pine has taken a job as pilot on one of the French 'space shuttles' and of course becomes involved in battling the threat, as does Rip Cantrell. A series of space and aerial combats involving saucer beam weapons takes place before the finale.

Coonts is a writer of light adventure techno-thrillers rather than science fiction, and these books are very much in that mould. 'Saucer' is the more successful work, in my view, because there is only the one "MacGuffin" - the saucer itself - and the novel is otherwise very much a contemporary all-action story. It's an easy, undemanding read and the author is a good enough story-teller to keep the pages turning.

'The Conquest' takes a sharp step towards the more fantastical James Bond films - I kept expecting the villain to start stroking a fluffy white cat - and therefore requires a more strenuous suspension of disbelief. I was initially unimpressed, but Coonts' story-telling powers eventually won out and I carried on to the end.

Neither book advances the state of the art - indeed, they could have been written decades ago - but they're an entertaining way of passing the time if you need a break from more serious SF. This particular series may not yet be at an end, because there's a hook at the end of 'The Conquest' which suggests that a third volume may well be along sometime.

Harry Potter in 3D!

I should start by admitting that I'm not a particular fan of the Harry Potter series. I've only read one of the books; the first one, a few years ago, to find you what all the fuss was about. I concluded that I would have really enjoyed it when I was aged 8 or 10, but wasn't moved to read any others. However, last year my wife felt like watching some light entertainment on TV and I discovered that I had the first Potter film on video (I video TV films in much the same way that I buy books: I always collect far more than I've time to deal with). We watched it and, to my surprise (since she is no SFF fan), she enjoyed it. So we've since watched all of the others which have appeared on TV.

We were recently in London for a few days and since there was only one play we fancied ("The Last Confession", a very good Vatican drama starring David Suchet) we saw the latest Bourne film the next evening (a lot less intellectual, but good of its type and quite a blast) and had the third evening spare – which is when we spotted that the most recent Harry Potter film (the Order of the Phoenix) was on at the Waterloo IMAX cinema.

I'd visited an IMAX once before and was impressed by the spectacle. For those of you unfamiliar with them, they show films shot on specially large film stock and projected onto a giant screen, with huge depth as well as width. By comparison, viewing the usual cinema widescreen is like watching through a letterbox. However, they don't usually show programmes which we're interested in seeing. This time was different, so we duly went along.

The programme started with trailers of some of their other films, many of which seemed to be CGI productions. The novelty was that they were in 3D. It's many decades since I last saw a 3D film and the technology has moved on – and then some. You still have to wear special glasses but they're no longer red and green (I presume that they use Polaroid lenses at different angles to separate the images, but I haven't enquired). The effect of this in combination with the huge screen is simply amazing. To give one example, an underwater scene showed a shoal of fish which swam towards the viewer. The effect was so realistic that it was tempting to try to reach out and touch the fish as they swam up to us. It reminded me of the Star Trek holodecks! If you've never been to an IMAX theatre and get the chance, go and see any 3D production – it doesn't matter what it is – just for the experience.

So to the Potter film, the finale of which was also in 3D (not to quite such dramatic effect as the CGI films, but it still added considerable depth to the scenes). It looked great on the big screen, you feel that you’re a part of what's going on rather than watching from a distance. I won't bother to recount the plot (you either know it or you're not interested) but it continued with the tale of Potter at Hogwarts, with the mix being much as before. There were some oddities and loose ends which I presume resulted from a desire to include as much as possible of the book: Hagrid is initially absent on a mission to recruit the Giants to their cause, but the outcome is inconclusive and we never hear about the Giants again (although Hagrid does produce a giant half-brother, with no explanation for their difference in size); a strange girl, who changes her hair colour with her mood, appears as a member of the Order of the Phoenix but after one scene never appears again; another rather fey blonde girl appears at the school and is given some prominence but doesn't appear to add much to the plot.

I find these films entertaining enough to watch, but not especially involving. One of the weaknesses in my view is Harry Potter himself: the action goes on all around him, but he mainly seems to stand there looking blank or apprehensive. My favourite character is Hermione; Emma Watson is a talented young actress and her portrayal of her character's quirks and expressions always makes me smile.

So when the next Potter film comes out, we'll be looking for it to appear on IMAX…

Review: Night Walk by Bob Shaw

It is the 22nd century and humanity has spread to nineteen planets scattered across the Galaxy. They are connected by spaceships using portals in "null-space", a little-understood phenomenon which permits instantaneous transits across interstellar distances. There is a catch, however; the portals are few and far between, and the routes to other planetary systems long and complicated, requiring hundreds or thousands of "jumps". What's worse, it is impossible to return by the same route; an entirely different series of jumps must be found. The paths through the portals have only been discovered by trial and error, through sending out countless automated probes of which only a tiny percentage return. So the discovery of routes to new, habitable planets is of critical importance to relieving population pressures.

The hero of 'Night Walk', Sam Tallon, is a research physicist turned secret agent sent to Emm Luther, a colonised planet which has broken away from Earth, to discover the co-ordinates of a new planet which the Lutherans have found. His attempts to escape with the information fail, and he is blinded before being sent to an escape-proof prison isolated by a vast swamp and guarded by automated guns firing heat-seeking missiles. There he meets with another blind prisoner, Logan Winfield, who has spent years trying to restore his vision by developing glasses fitted with micro-cameras and a system of direct stimulation of the optic nerves (prosthetics being banned by the Lutherans for religious reasons). Tallon brings his research skills to bear on the problem and, with the surprising assistance of a senior prison official, is able to solve them by abandoning the cameras and designing the glasses to tune in on and display whatever a nearby person or animal can see. With this aid, they are able to put into effect the escape plan which Winfield has devised. The rest of the story focuses on Tallon's efforts to escape back to Earth and his adventures (including romance) along the way.

This story was written forty years ago and it must be thirty since I last read it. Shaw is one of my favourite SF authors: from the 1960s until his death in the mid-1990s he wrote 26 novels plus a large number of short stories. Most of his novels were stand-alones, set in a wide variety of environments and with equally varied plots and themes. All were quite short by modern standards ('Night Walk' is only 140 pages), fast-paced and intelligently written, and he was a great story-teller; his books are hard to put down.

So how does 'Night Walk' stand up today? Very well indeed; it is as good a read as ever. Shaw is excellent at creating interesting environments and plot devices and exploring their implications. The parasitic glasses are a fascinating idea and Shaw has fun with their possibilities and limitations (tuning in on the vision of a man who is hunting him, for instance). I would have liked a little more attention given to the effects of the different types of vision that animals and birds can provide; some wasted opportunities here, I think (although possibly less was known about animal eyesight at the time). Despite the short length and fast pace, he even finds time to outline the socio-economic structure of Emm Luther, which has consequences for the plot. I was slightly surprised that, very close to the climax, Shaw slows the pace down by having Tallon wrestle for several pages with the advanced mathematics and physics needed to solve the problem of null-space, but it's still an excellent read with a satisfying conclusion.

Review: Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is the second (in terms of story chronology) of the author's Miles Vorkosigan series, and follows on immediately from 'Shards of Honour', reviewed in this blog on 1 August. Cordelia is now married to Lord Aral Vorkosigan and pregnant with their first child (Miles – who finally makes an appearance at the end of the book). The story follows the fortunes of Cordelia as she first struggles to adapt to life on Barrayar, then faces assassination attempts and finally a civil war with her usual ingenuity and courage.

I was not initially impressed by this story. In the first seven chapters (over a third of the book) not a lot happens, and it is basically an historical romance with a few dispensable SF trimmings: new bride accompanies powerful husband to his homeland and has problems adjusting to strange customs. It is all about the minutiae of social interactions, politics and dress, which isn't what I read SF for.

After that, the story gets moving and Bujold's story-telling ability turns the rest of the novel into a real page-turner. There is even an SF element which is important to the plot: the replicator. One detailed gripe: her decision to call all of the Barrayan nobles Vor-something caused me a lot of confusion, I was forever scratching my head to distinguish between Vortala, Vorhalas, Vorpatril, Vordarian and so on.

So far, I have slightly mixed feelings about this series. Bujold is an intelligent, perceptive writer who can handle action scenes as well as she does the social ones, and her characters are great. She writes as well as anyone I can think of. However, as I commented in my review of 'Shards of Honour', the SF elements tend to be minor aspects of her stories, and in Barrayar this is even more true than in 'Shards'. Despite this, I was sufficiently hooked by 'Barrayar' to want to proceed to the next in the series.

On marketing and success

Marketing is an issue for most authors these days, not just for those like me who self-publish. Only those lucky enough to be given full support from a big publisher can sit back and let it happen, but they are the chosen few. The costs of extensive advertising, and of paying bookstores to feature books in displays, are beyond the reach of individuals or small publishers, and even the big publishers have to be selective.

So the great majority of authors have to spend time on boosting their own chances of success. The traditional routes are well known, the main one being to send out review copies to all appropriate paper and electronic journals (but there are far more books than there are review slots, and well-known authors and big publishers tend to take precedence). The internet permits other alternatives, such as websites, MySpace, blogs like this one, and book discussion forums (although most of the forums understandably take a dim view of authors trying to promote their own work). Perhaps one of the best routes, particularly for those of us who use POD publishing and rely on on-line sales, is to accumulate a lot of reviews from satisfied readers on amazon. Even that has its downside, however, with the unscrupulous getting their friends and family to post glowing reviews (something which amazon is trying to address). There is also, of course, a Catch-22 with amazon reviews: getting many good ones probably boosts sales a lot, but since only a tiny percentage of readers bothers to comment, you need a lot of sales before you can get those reviews.

The problem for authors is that however much effort you put into marketing, the results are completely unpredictable. I have been reflecting on this lately due to the varied fortunes of my two novels. At the time that the first one, 'The Foresight War', was published at the end of 2004, I knew little about fiction publishing, and decided to self-publish because I wanted to hit a particular publication date (the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War 2). I put very little effort into marketing: a few review copies, a few mentions on websites, and that was all. Yet the book started selling immediately and has sold steadily ever since. Despite the fact that I paid for a full service from my publishers (Authors Online), profits from book sales recovered those costs some time ago and continue to deliver a small but steady income.

For my second novel, 'Scales', I was much more organised. To minimise the costs, I did more of the preparatory work myself (and a special thank-you to Oleg Volk, who designed the cover for me), and I took a much more systematic approach to marketing, sending out a lot more review copies and providing details to many different booksellers. I was even lucky enough to be interviewed for a podcast on 'The Writing Show', as I described in an earlier post. However, the book's sales since its publication earlier this year have so far been depressingly slow. More experienced self-published authors tell me that this is normal, that I should be patient, and that I was lucky the first time, but I can't help thinking that something more than luck is involved.

One possible variable is of course the quality of the work, but I doubt that is a factor. 'The Foresight War' is actually weak on some of the usual elements of fiction, particularly characterisation, because I wrote it in order to explore ideas about an alternative World War 2, so the characters are mainly there to carry the plot. 'Scales' is much more focused on the principal character (and the story is told in the first person to emphasise this), and the feedback I have had from those who have read both is that it is a much better novel. It did get off to an unfortunate start with one reviewer who took a great dislike to it (it happens; something which all authors have to live with) but the few reviews posted since then have been much more favourable.

The conclusion which I have come to is that it is the plot which makes the difference. While 'The Foresight War' is probably of little interest to most readers of fiction, it appeals strongly to those fascinated by the Second World War, and particularly those who enjoy discussing the "what ifs" of that conflict. There are discussion forums which focus on just that, and their members are interested in hearing about novels on the subject. In fact, there aren't that many novels published which deal with such 'alternative WW2' scenarios, so there is little competition.

'Scales', on the other hand, fits into the mainstream SF category. It's set in the present day and concerns what happens to a man who acquires non-human characteristics and abilities as a result of an accident. It is, I am told, much more interesting and enjoyable for non-WW2 enthusiasts than 'The Foresight War'. However, it is battling for attention with countless others and, being self-published, has a much lower profile. It's simply getting lost in the sea of fiction.

So what lessons can be drawn from this?

The first is that success (particularly for self-published works) is more likely if a story appeals to a niche market which can be identified and reached.

The second is that it is easier to build sales if succeeding novels are in the same genre; and easier still if they form a series, which is why publishers like authors to write sequels to successful novels.

Finally, a philosophical approach is required. Most novels (whether traditionally or self-published) lose money, which is why publishers put such a lot of effort into identifying and promoting the few best-sellers which make all of the profit.

To sum up; write if you must, publish if you can, market as vigorously as you feel able to, but keep your expectations low and be prepared to be very patient and persistent!

Review: Wasp by Eric Frank Russell

This story, first published in 1958, is by one of the old masters of SF. It is set in the far future during an extended war between the human and Sirian space empires. The humans have the edge in technology but the Sirians have far greater numbers, so a novel way must be found to reduce the numbers the Sirians can deploy.

The answer is to send in a "wasp"; the analogy being with a multiple-fatality auto accident caused when a wasp got into the car and started buzzing around the driver. Men with pre-war experience of living on Sirian planets are recruited to be disguised as Sirians (not difficult: they are basically purple-skinned humans) and dropped on Sirian planets to cause as much trouble as possible.

The story follows one wasp – James Mowry – who is deposited with a cache of sabotage/subversion material on one of the target planets. He starts out by creating an imaginary Sirian resistance movement and liberally distributing posters, allegedly from this movement, around towns and cities. He then engineers a number of incidents, which he publicises as the work of his resistance movement, in his efforts to get the Sirian authorities worried enough to divert considerable resources to deal with this threat.

Naturally all does not go to plan, and what follows is a gripping thriller. By modern standards it is very short (140 pages) and the relentless pace meant that I finished it at one sitting.

It is probably thirty years or more since I last read it, and I was curious to see how it stood up. I enjoyed the read but I have to admit that, surprisingly for the author and period, the SF elements are weak. The Sirian planet is virtually the same as Earth; the Sirians are the same as humans in their culture and personalities, and their towns and infrastructure are basically mid-twentieth century Earth, except for electric vehicles running on broadcast power. With a few changes the story could easily have been set on Earth, for instance in Japan in the Second World War; a notion reinforced by a suspicious resemblance between the name of the Sirian secret police – the Kaitempi – and that of the Japanese military police, the Kempetai.

Still, it's an entertaining read and worth the brief time required, should you come across it.

Just a note to let you know that, due to other commitments, I will be dropping to a weekly post here, probably on Sundays (but don't hold me to that!) .

Review: The Seedling Stars by James Blish

This compilation of three novellas and a short story was first published in 1957. They are set in the same universe, starting with the colonisation of the Solar System and concluding thousands of years later with humanity widely spread across the galaxy. However, the theme of the stories is very different from the space opera which this might suggest.

The first novella, 'Seeding Program', features the battle over the best method of colonising the Solar System, using three competing methods: building airtight domes around settlements, terraforming the worlds, or modifying human beings so that they could live in very hostile environments, by means of drastic genetic work before conception. Big business strongly favoured terraforming, as it was the most expensive solution and promised big profits over a long period. They were accordingly strongly opposed to the genetic modifications producing 'Adapted' people as these would bring them no such benefits, and closed down the work – but not before a colony of the Adapteds was set up on the surface of Ganymede. The story features one man who was later modified in a similar way and sent to Ganymede as a spy, with the aim of closing down the settlement. Naturally, all does not go to plan.

'The Thing in the Attic' moves far into the future, during the programme of 'seeding the stars' with Adapted humans. In this story, the humans become small, monkey-like, tree-dwelling beings living in a world dominated by a huge forest. It follows the adventures of a small group of rebels who are sentenced to live on the very dangerous forest floor. The theme here is the need to move from their comfortable environment and overcome the dangers of the surface if they are to conquer their world.

The third novella is a well-known classic: 'Surface Tension'. In this case another seeding starship crashes on a wet and almost barren planet, and the only form of humanity they can devise is at the microscopic level, living in ponds. They are left a 'history' in tiny engraved plates, but find it difficult to understand. The epic journey some of them make in a two-inch 'spaceship' crawling from one pond to the next is wonderful.

The final short story, 'Watershed', completes the circle after thousands of years with another seeding ship returning to a ruined and abandoned Earth, ready to seed it with humans modified to live in its changed environment. The key focus here is on the racial discrimination that unmodified humans feel for the Adapted ones – and the fact that the Adapteds are now in a majority, in a huge variety of forms across the Galaxy.

It is easy to dismiss the stories as dated, particularly since we now know that Ganymede doesn't even have the tenuous atmosphere Blish described, and certainly couldn't grow any plants. Even ignoring this, it is hard to imagine that humans could have their biochemistry so drastically modified as to tolerate the conditions in the story. And while Blish's training as a microbiologist shows in 'Surface Tension', the mind boggles at the concept of microscopic humans being as intelligent as full-size ones – and conversing with intelligent microbial life!

Despite these issues, I found the stories intriguing and worth the read. 'Surface Tension', in particular, is one of the standard canon of stories which all SF enthusiasts should read. The meticulous attention to the physical constraints of an alien world recalls Clement's 'Mission of Gravity'.

Science Fiction, Fantasy, or…?

Some questions which are often debated: what is the difference between science fiction and fantasy, how do they relate to mainstream fiction, and is this changing?

The flip answer to the first question is that anything with spaceships is SF, anything with magic is fantasy. This is generally true, but James Schmitz's wonderful 'The Witches of Karres' includes both. A more considered view is that at least some attempt is made in SF to convince the reader that the story just possibly might happen, but in fantasy anything goes (although internal consistency is still required). The distinction is very clear at the extremes: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is obviously SF, Tolkien is obviously fantasy. However, as is often the case, there is a big grey area in between.

Some stories seem to be pure fantasy, such as Ann McCaffrey's 'Dragonflight', but she slips in a reference to the colonisation of the planet which gives it some kind of SF justification. It is not uncommon to find stories like which are a mixture of SF and fantasy elements (as instanced by Orson Scott Card's 'A Planet Called Treason', reviewed below).

The distinctions are further confused by the fact that both genres are subdivided. Some of the subdivisions are concerned with the type of plot, such as 'space opera', which tells you to expect galactic empires and battling fleets of spaceships, and 'epic fantasy', usually concerned with quests vital to the future of the world, for the mythological all-powerful grail/ring/sword (delete as appropriate). However, some sub-genres are more subtle and less clear-cut.

SF is often divided into 'hard' and 'soft', but different opinions can be found as to the precise distinction between them. Some apply the academic test: 'hard' is to do with the natural sciences (focusing on physics, chemistry, biology and technology in general), 'soft' to do with the social sciences (psychology, sociology, the impact of the future on humanity). Obviously, it's a question of balance; most SF will include something of both. A different view regards 'hard SF' as excluding technology which current science regards as impossible: sub-light-speed interstellar travel using generation ships or frozen sleep is acceptable, faster-than-light starships or artificial/anti-gravity machines are not. Time travel and psionic abilities such as telepathy and teleportation (all traditional SF themes), are also excluded from this definition of 'hard SF'. A further complication is the recent promotion of 'mundane SF', which is harder than hard: it excludes interstellar travel and aliens, and is restricted to known science within our solar system. At this point it may be difficult to distinguish SF from some mainstream fiction such as those thrillers which are set slightly in the future and include yet-to-be-built technology.

Fantasy also has its subgenres. Epic fantasy has already been mentioned, but there is also contemporary (or urban) fantasy, set on Earth in the present day, while vampire and horror fiction are also subgenres. In fact, some fantasy supporters claim that SF itself is just a subgenre of fantasy, although a more acceptable overarching term for SFF is 'speculative fiction' which also includes the genre of alternate worlds (which examine what might have happened in history if critical events had turned out differently).

Mainstream fiction is often described by its supporters as 'literary' or 'serious' fiction: terms clearly intended to be dismissive of all genre fiction (not just SFF). This literary snobbery would be amusing if it weren't so sad. It harks back to an earlier age, when the stereotypical SF fan was a geeky adolescent and his reading matter was a comic with a cover featuring rocket ships and/or scantily-clothed busty women being threatened by alien monsters. This view of SFF as being 'not serious' and 'intended for adolescents' has probably only been reinforced by the success of the Star Wars and Harry Potter films.

Not that there is anything wrong with having fun. There can be joyousness in a good space opera or fantasy which is usually missing from mainstream fiction, as well as the famous 'sense of wonder' evoked by a compelling far-future vision (although that is harder to generate than it used to be in the golden age of SF, when lots of ideas first emerged). While early works might have been somewhat lacking in writing quality, much modern SFF is beautifully written, fully comparable with the 'literary' works. Furthermore, modern SF often deals with themes which are far bigger than the interpersonal relationships which so dominate the mainstream. Themes such as how humanity will be affected by the rapid growth of cyberspace, against the background of a world in which we are using up the resources and changing our environment at an accelerating rate. Arguably, such fiction is a lot more serious and important than the relatively trivial concerns of most of the mainstream.

While fantasy and space operas will always be essentially escapist (and long may they continue – we need some respite from reality from time to time), it seems possible that the gap between mainstream fiction and the more serious end of SF will narrow even further in the future, as the predicted developments in cyberspace and changes to our planet's environment become part of the backdrop to our lives. Established mainstream authors have already written novels with SF themes, for example P.D. James' 'Children of Men', recently turned into a feature film, although they are usually careful to avoid the results being categorised as genre fiction. At the moment such crossovers are uncommon, although I suspect that they might increase. Perhaps we will see a return to works comparable with Orwell's '1984' or Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' – a merger between SF themes and the literary mainstream. In which case, 'mundane SF' could have a big future.

Review: A Planet Called Treason by Orson Scott Card

I first read this over twenty years ago and it made quite an impact on me at the time (more so than the author's far better known Ender series), so I decided to read it again to see if it was still as good as I remembered.

The story is set in the distant future, on a planet on which mutineers from a generation ship had been abandoned three thousand years before (hence the name given to it). Each of the leaders of the mutiny had settled in a different location with their families, and their descendents had divided up the planet into states, each of which developed a very different culture based on the special knowledge of the founder. They had not forgotten where they came from and were desperate to redevelop the technology to build space ships so they could get off the planet, but there was no accessible source of iron. The only way of obtaining it was to trade with the unseen Watchers in space – descendents of those who had marooned them there – and the only way of communicating with them was to leave objects on the Ambassadors (two-way matter transmitters). If the Watchers liked what they were offered, they sent some iron in return.

The story is told in the first person by Lanik Mueller, who at the start of the tale is the accomplished 16 year old male heir to the land of Mueller. This was the most powerful state because they had found something which the Watchers would give them iron for, so had been able to make enough swords and lances to dominate their neighbours. The original Mueller had been a geneticist, and his descendents had developed this science to a high degree. They were extremely difficult to kill because their bodies were capable of rapid self-repair and would quickly regenerate almost any loss of limbs or other body parts. In some cases, this ability ran out of control and resulted in the "radical regenerators", or rads, who kept growing extra body parts which could be harvested and traded with the Watchers (echoes of Cordwainer Smith here).

At the start of the story Lanik is identified as a rad (the initial sign of this being a shapely pair of breasts), which means he is automatically disinherited. His father sends him on a journey to the land of the Nkumai, who had suddenly started to expand their territory thanks to a huge supply of iron weapons, in order to find out what they are exchanging for the iron. So begins an odyssey which takes Lanik through various states, in which he is captured, grows an unprecedented number of body parts, escapes and is healed. He discovers that the isolation of each Family has led some of them to develop their specialisms to a staggering degree, and from them he learns several advanced abilities which give him formidable power. Despite this, he does not have everything his own way and faces many trials before discovering what is happening, eventually concluding his adventure in a dramatic way.

This is a terrific read, every bit as good as I remembered, and deserves to be regarded as a classic. It is packed with novel concepts in the best traditions of SF, although the fairly 'hard SF' beginning gradually shades into epic fantasy as the god-like powers of the Families are revealed.
My copy is the original version of this story, first published in 1979. This was revised in 1988 and re-issued under the title Treason; I haven't read this version but I understand that the changes are mainly stylistic and do not affect the plot.

I realised on re-reading this that it must have subconsciously influenced me when writing Scales; the plot is very different, but each is focused on the story of one person who acquires non-human abilities of increasing power and uses these – with considerable vicissitudes – to effect a dramatic change to his world.

Review: The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner

This is the sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, reviewed on 16 July. It carries on directly from the earlier story, concerning two children in Cheshire and their inadvertent adventures in a magical underworld with wizards, elves, gnomes and other more ominous beings.

It is very much a direct sequel – Garner assumes that readers would have read the earlier book, as the story plunges straight into the action without any of the introductory scene-setting which occurred in Weirdstone. It might be therefore regarded as a 'part 2' of that story. The pace is rather frantic, with one crisis following rapidly after the last, and as well as the familiar characters from Weirdstone, quite a few new ones are added. As he explains in an end note, he has researched the obscurer aspects of Celtic mythology and populated the book with creatures from there. The problem is that new creatures keep appearing in the book with little in the way of introduction or explanation.

On the whole, I felt that Gomrath lacks the charm which made Weirdstone such a success. It has a rushed feel to it, with little build-up of the characters or the plot. Those who loved Weirdstone will enjoy the book, but I found it a dispensable addendum to the earlier work.

BBC TV series: Empathy

I don't usually watch much SFF on TV or at the cinema, but I recently saw the start of a promising new series on BBC TV, called 'Empathy'. It is set in present-day England and concerns a man, recently released from prison, who has intense visions whenever he comes into contact with people or belongings associated with them. He discovers that these visions are real, that they actually show him what the people experienced at a moment of strong emotion – such as when killing someone. As a result, he stumbles across evidence concerning a murder. He tries to alert the police, but they arrest him for the murder instead, because he knows too much about it. Eventually he is able to prove his innocence and to convince the police that his ability is real, and he joins with them to track down the killer.

In an effort to identify the cause of his visions he has various medical checks, including a scan which reveals a brain tumour which he believes is causing his visions. In SF terms, there are some problems with this basic premise: to have him picking up images and emotions from people on contact with them is one thing, to have the same visions when handling their clothes is entirely another…and there's a suggestion at the end that he might be able to see visions of the future. So there's a greater than usual suspension of disbelief needed.

The mood of the production is adult and serious, like one of the better crime series. Some interesting tensions are building up between the protagonist, his ex-wife (now remarried) and the female police officer who works with him.

Despite the dubious plot issues, I found it a quite gripping and entertaining 90 minutes and will be watching at least the next one, to see how it develops.

The length of SF novels – quantity vs quality?

Books are getting fatter – and have been doing so for decades. When I first started reading SF in the late 1950s, the typical full-length novel was no more than 200 pages long (about 80,000 words). This remained generally true throughout the 1960s but then books began to expand, resulting in today's doorstops. Clearly, the genre has something to do with it; Tolkien set a standard in the length of fantasy novels (as in so many other respects) and it seems today that no fantasy can be regarded as serious unless the story fills up at least a trilogy. However, SF has followed the trend, albeit more slowly. The question is – does quantity equal quality? Are today's novels better for being so much longer?

First some definitions, as "story length" can be a slippery concept. The stand-alone single-volume works are obvious, but the multi-volume ones less so. Some of them are simply one continuous story divided into several volumes for production or marketing convenience (e.g. 'The Lord of the Rings'). Others follow the same characters and occur in a chronological sequence, but each story is self-contained with its own ending (crime series featuring the same detective are the best example; in SFF the 'Harry Potter' books also qualify). Finally, there are the self-contained stories set within a universe created by the author, but they may feature different characters and don't occur in any particular sequence (e.g. Iain Banks' 'Culture' series). As always with such classifications, there are grey areas; for example, Catherine Asaro's 'Skolian Empire' series, in which the stories feature different principal characters and are not in chronological order, but the characters are all members of the same family and all appear in most of the books.

Anyway, for the purpose of this exercise I count each self-contained, continuous story as one work, regardless of whether it is published in one volume or several.

I will not spend much time on fantasy, as it is clear that its appeal is rather different to that of SF (acknowledging yet again that there are grey areas!). There is a strong market for escapist fantasies (usually with medieval and magical elements) in which readers can lose themselves, and the longer they go on, the better they like it. The painstaking creation of an elaborate world, usually with its own maps, genealogies, laws and customs, is an important part of the appeal. In some cases this can be obsessive; I have read of many Harry Potter fans who have no interest in reading any other fantasies, all they care about is the world which Rowling has created. It is significant that while the first in that series was short by modern standards (just over 220 pages), this rose in successive volumes to 256, then 320, then jumped to over 600 and finally to more than 700 pages. Clearly, her fans just can't get enough.

I want instead to focus on SF. Let's look at some of the longer works. Frank Herbert's 'Dune' was one of the first really successful long novels, running to around 500 pages (including appendices). Most books remained of more modest size for a long time (for example, Larry Niven's 'Ringworld' is less than 300 pages), but in recent years the length has been growing. Iain M Banks' books vary but the longest are around 500 pages, Stephen Baxter's Manifold trilogy runs to around 450 pages each, Vernor Vinge's 'A Fire Upon the Deep' is 600 pages while the prequel, 'A Deepness in the Sky' clocks up 750. Alastair Reynolds' works are in the 500-600+ range, while John Meaney's Nulapeiron trilogy (one continuous story) runs at 500-600 pages each.

Compare these with some of the classics: Alfred Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' is just 195 pages in my edition, Asimov's epic 'Foundation Trilogy' runs to 170-190 pages per volume, Arthur C Clarke's 'Childhood's End' is 190, Hal Clement's 'Mission of Gravity' is just over 200, Zelazny's 'This Immortal' is 186, Pohl & Kornbluth's 'The Space Merchants' is 170, Erik Frank Russell's 'The Great Explosion' is under 150, A E Van Vogt's 'The Weapon Shops of Isher' is less than 130 and Jack Vance's 'The Dragon Masters' is just 122 pages long. These were typical lengths for SF novels of the period.

Are the new doorstops that much better than the old masters of only a third of the length? Certainly the experience is different; the reader looks for a more detailed environment, more character development, and more complex plotting, and the best authors deliver this. 'Dune' is rightly praised and Herbert creates a compelling world, packed full of fascinating concepts and characters. However, I find that in many cases the extra detail just slows down the plot and dilutes the experience. I started Kim Stanley Robinson's award-winning 'Mars' trilogy by reading 'Red Mars' (400 pages) but found that the author's fascination with building up his description of the colonisation of the planet came at the cost of an engaging plot and characters I could care about, and didn't read the other volumes. I did manage the first two of Baxter's 'Manifold' trilogy, but found them a real effort to slog through and gave up before the third. Reynold's books are also hard work – I have had a couple on my shelf for many months, but have to work up to reading those, with long gaps in between. Meaney's 'Nulapeiron' trilogy did keep me engaged (a remarkable achievement considering the total of 600,000+ words), but I still finished each volume with a sense of relief, and will not be re-reading them for a very long time – if ever.

A good short novel delivers a faster pace, a punchier message and has all the more impact for the fact that it can be read in one or two sessions instead of being spread out over a week or more. The 'wow' factor so important in SF is also more concentrated; it has been rightly observed that 'The Stars My Destination' contains so many ideas that a modern author would spread them over at least three times as many pages. Would such an extended version be better? I doubt that very much – an important part of the story's appeal is its exhilarating pace.

I think that the 200 page novel is roughly equivalent to the 100 minute feature film, in that you can concentrate fully on the story without getting restless. 300 pages / 150 minutes is about the limit to absorb in one go. Much more than that and endurance begins to become a factor, and that eats away at enjoyment.

My time is precious and I don't like to waste it. If I'm going to take the time to read a 600 page novel, then I expect a great deal more of it than I would of a 200 page story. Sadly, I find that few of the long books really justify the extra time they take to read. Many of them leave me feeling dissatisfied, and I stop reading books before reaching the end far more often than I used to. The modern emphasis in SF seems to be on improving its literary respectability by emphasising character development over plot. Believable characters who the reader can relate to are certainly essential to the enjoyment of any story, but that doesn't take hundreds of pages to achieve.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but to me SF is just as much – if not more so – about ideas as about characterisation, and is particularly well-suited to the fast-paced, punchy thriller. I like to have my imagination stretched – it's why I read SF in the first place. Sadly, I am nowadays too often bored instead.

Review: Shards of Honour by Lois McMaster Bujold

For some reason I missed out on Bujold's Vorkosigan series - I think that I was going through a period of not reading much SF when they came out - but they kept being enthusiastically recommended to me by so many people that I thought I'd better rectify the omission. After pondering the reading order, I decided to follow the chronological story line rather than the order of publication, so kicked off with Shards of Honour.

The series is set in the distant future, in a space-opera setting of human-colonised planetary systems and warfleets of spaceships. This story concerns how the parents of Miles Vorkosigan (the hero of most of the series) met. The principal character is his mother, Cordelia Naismith, with his father Aral Vorkosigan in a secondary role. As far as I can recall, Naismith is in every scene and, although written in the third person, the story is told entirely from her point of view. The complicating factor is that they are officers in the armed forces of two hostile systems, and the plot is all about how their relationship develops despite the difficulties this causes.

The first and most important point to make is that Bujold is a great writer and storyteller. I really did not want to put this book down, and finished it in two sessions - helped by the fact that it is 250 pages long, short by modern standards but very much in my comfort zone (I'll be expanding on that in a later blog). The descriptive passages and the quality of the characterisation and plotting are superb, and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. I look forward with great anticipation to working my way through this series.

However, there is no such thing as a perfect book, any more than there is a perfect human being, so what can I find to criticise? For me, what makes a good book (apart from the basic essentials of good quality writing and the author's storytelling ability) is the right blend between characterisation, plot and setting (which may vary, depending on the story). What makes a good SF book is that the plot and setting contain elements which are very different from mainstream fiction and stretch the mind to achieve that "sense of wonder" which is unique to the genre. This is, however, the area in which Bujold is weakest (at least in this novel). The SF ideas are limited and unoriginal. The different planets visited are described rather sketchily and there's no attempt to tie these into coherent ecologies. A reasonable attempt is made to describe the Barrayan political system but that never came alive for me. What this story really is, is a romance in an SF setting - but perhaps that is inevitable given the basic plot.

In that respect, Bujold resembles Catherine Asaro (I posted a review of her Skolian Empire series on 18 July). Both write space operas which are great reads and strong on romance. On the basis of only reading one of Bujold's novels so far, I would give her higher marks for writing quality but lower ones for the SF elements. I'll have to see if that changes as I read through the series.

Interview

The interview with Paula Berinstein of The Writing Show about my novel Scales is now available for downloading as a podcast here: http://writingshow.com/?p=306 (it lasts for almost 50 minutes...)

Mental note - if I ever get interviewed again, I must acquire a microphone and so on, rather than talk over a telephone - it sounds much better!

A review for Scales

A rare sighting - a review for Scales (with thanks for Google Alerts for locating it)!

It's by Laura Stamps and appears on the 'Book Reviews and Discussions' site for 27 July 2007: http://bookreviewsanddiscussions.blogspot.com/

Modesty forbids but honesty compels that I post some extracts....

"If you’ve been searching for a science fiction novel with a touch of fantasy and the pace of a thriller, look no more. SCALES is the story of Matt Johnson, a man whose home mysteriously explodes one evening. Engulfed in flames, Johnson is rushed to the hospital, his entire body badly burned. When he recovers against all odds, doctors discover his skin is now covered with a fine layer of scales, which change color according to his moods.Thus begins one man’s journey to discover not only what happened to him but also what he has become...

In an effort to adjust to his startling new appearance, Matt changes his name to Cade, and soon realizes he has also acquired the ability to heal certain diseases. Cade’s quest leads him from one mission to the next, from healer to world diplomat to harbinger. I can’t say too much, because there are so many twists and turns in this ingenious plot I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises. However, this is such an original and unusual story I wouldn’t be surprised if a filmmaker snapped it up one day. Hollywood, are you listening?

This well-written novel was a pleasure to read, and I look forward to enjoying future efforts from this incredibly talented novelist. Highly recommended."

SF and the prophets of doom

Deborah Orr, a regular columnist in The Independent newspaper, has written an interesting piece (in the 25/7/07 edition) on the place of science fiction and fantasy in modern literature, with particular reference to dystopian thinking in general and the disasters (actual and potential) of modern life in particular.

Her starting point is the attitude people have to such major problems, especially the way in which we try to interpret events in a way which suits our preconceptions while resisting any implications which run counter to them. Climate change is a good example of this, with the evidence being seen through the filter of politico-economic beliefs. Those who firmly believe in the rightness of the untrammelled free market style of capitalism are unable to accept the implications of the theory of human-caused climate change and tend to regard it as some kind of socialist conspiracy (this is my paraphrase of her argument).

She refers to Black Mass, the latest book by the philosopher John Gray, in which he traces the history of Western millenarianism – the belief in some ideal future society. He suggests that the Iraq war is the result of an apocalyptic fantasy that it is possible to achieve by force a dramatic change, in this case in the direction of liberal democracy. He argues that all such projects will inevitably end in tears, and blames utopian thinking for believing that they are possible. Instead, he argues that we need more dystopian thinking, and should be paying more attention to such works as Huxley's Brave New World, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Wells' Island of Dr Moreau or Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Other suggested works, perhaps less familiar (at least to yrs trly), are Zamiatin's We, Nabokov's Bend Sinister, Burroughs' Naked Lunch and Ballard's Super-Cannes.

Orr argues that SF, formerly not taken seriously by the literary establishment, is now achieving a degree of credibility to the extent that such SF themes are now becoming part of the mainstream fiction. She points to Pulitzer Prize-winning (and, more significantly, Oprah-approved) Cormac McCarthy's The Road, concerning a post-climate catastrophe USA, and Sarah Hall's The Carhultan Army, "a futuristic fantasy in which a group of radical feminists make a stand in Britain against a repressive, authoritarian economic collapse", as well as recent works by Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing. Even children's fantasy is not immune; Orr refers to Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now, set in the aftermath of a future war. However, she points out that all three of these books contain their own wish-fulfilling optimism which indicates the problems which we are going to have in changing our attitudes sufficiently to be able to divert the perilous course being taken by our civilisation.

I can recall various SFF stories (apart from the novels mentioned above) which have been been truly dystopic, just getting worse until the grim ending. However, these rarely seem to be very popular - they're admired at best, rather than liked. The problem, I suspect, is that people cling on to hope, to the belief that even if everything isn't all right on the night, at least there is room for optimism. But is Orr right? Are we too optimistic for our own good? Or would a diet of unbroken pessimism just pitch us into apathetic despair?

Interzone 211

For the uninitiated, Interzone is a British SFF magazine currently celebrating its 25th anniversary year. It has been through various changes in that time, and is now a glossy, full-colour, 60-70 page mixture of news, reviews, interviews and short stories, published every other month. There is a strong emphasis on art, with named artists producing illustrations for the stories as well as the cover, and artist as well as author bios often provided. The news is in the form of David Langford's Ansible Link (wryly humorous insider chat) and the reviews of books, manga and (especially) films and TV programmes have a tendency towards erudition.

I have had an on-off relationship with the magazine, subscribing for a while in the early 1990s before dropping it because I wasn't getting around to reading them. Now that I'm focusing much more on reading and writing SFF, a few months ago I decided to subscribe again. I am not a natural short story fan – when I think of SFF I think of settling down to a good novel – but I've being toying with the idea of trying to write some, and magazines like Interzone are a good way of becoming familiar with the kind of work which is popular these days.

I find the stories which appear in Interzone a very mixed bag: they include everything from quite traditional to experimental. Regular readers of this blog (hi, how are you both?) will have realised that I am a traditionalist myself, so I usually find stories to like and dislike in each issue. I do not like stories where the reader has no idea what is going on until all is explained in the final paragraph, and, even less, ones in which the author is impressing himself so much with his obscure and oblique writing style that the story becomes impenetrable (you know who you are…).

So to Issue 211. This is a Michael Moorcock special, featuring a long interview, an extract from his memoir of Mervyn and Maeve Peake, a short story (The Affair of the Bassin Les Hivers) and an extract from a work in progress: a novel titled London, My Life, or The Sedentary Jew. I have also had something of an on-off (remote) relationship with Moorcock, this time starting in the 1960s. Over the years his output has varied greatly in genre, style and quality. I still have his Elric saga, a classic fantasy series, and Gloriana, and more recently have enjoyed Mother London and King of the City – which are mainstream novels with nothing sfnal about them. Both of his fiction contributions to this issue of Interzone start with a large infodump to set the scene. Unusual these days – especially in a short story – and I wonder what progress that one would have made out of the slush pile if it had been sent in by an unknown author. That story introduces a lot of strange characters in a strange environment, and doesn't work too well as a stand-alone; too many introductions, not enough conclusions.

There are three other longish stories, plus a rather sardonic piece Elevator Episodes in Seven Genres by Ahmed A. Khan, which tell a very short story, switching between genre conventions as it does so. For once, all of the stories are conventional and thereby eminently readable. Exvisible by Carlos Hernandez is the least successful for me, about a man paying to have his estranged, terminally-ill, father downloaded onto a hard drive. I was unable to relate to his emotions and reactions. Deer Flight by Aliette de Bodard is a very traditional fantasy about shape changers, wood magic and love; but the stand-out for me is Knowledge by Grace Dugan. A student starts to see faint numbers appearing over people's heads. She realises (almost as soon as the reader) that these numbers are indicating how many days everyone has left to live, down to a hundredth of a day. I usually forget short stories quite quickly, but I feel that this one will stick in my memory.

Review: Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling

I must first have read this soon after it was originally published in 1985. I thought it was a terrific story at the time, and rated it as one of my favourites. I decided to re-read it last week, to see if my view had changed.

The story is set at an unspecified future time in which the Earth has largely been abandoned as a result of wars and environmental catastrophes, leaving the only advanced civilisation living in artificial habitats scattered around the solar system. Most of these are created by scooping out the interiors of asteroids and spinning them to create artificial gravity. As a result of this fragmentation, a wide variety of social and belief systems has become established, with each 'world' having its own distinctive culture (in more ways than one). There is a broad division between the 'Mechanists', who rely on hardware and computing systems, and the 'Shapers', who aim to increase humanity's potential through intensive psychological training and fiddling with biochemistry and genetics. Relationships between these groups are very strained but actual warfare is considered too horrifying to contemplate, not only because of what happened on Earth but also because the habitats are so fragile and easy to destroy. Early in the story, the first aliens visit the solar system – the Investors, who are nomadic traders. Their presence has major consequences for human activities, providing shifting opportunities for some habitats to become wealthy while others fall into decline.

The plot focuses on one man, Abelard Lindsey, who, while brought up in a Mechanist environment, has received Shaper diplomatic training which gives him powerful persuasive abilities. He rebels against the leadership and is expelled, and never really settles again, becoming a 'sundog', or itinerant, moving between the different worlds. He obtains influence with the Investors (via an amusing accident) and becomes a major player in the human habitats as a result. The story stretches over a period of some 70 years, rejuvenation techniques having extended human lifespans. The first four chapters (130 pages) follow an unbroken chronology up to the point of Abelard's meeting with the Investors. After that, the story jumps 20 years and thereafter becomes very episodic, dipping into Abelard's life from time to time (often with long gaps) until the unexpected conclusion.

I was not so impressed with the story this time as I was originally. The long gaps in the narrative broke my involvement with Abelard's story, especially as important things were evidently going on in the gaps (including Abelard getting married and raising a family in one gap, then deciding to abandon his wife to return to his sundog ways during another). Considering that the story is so focused on Abelard (he appears in virtually every scene) his personality is rather opaque and he is not easy to relate to. The main appeal of the novel is not so much in Abelard's story as in its rich descriptions of the future of humanity, covering ecosystems, cultures and politics. In those respects it was trailblazing at the time, and it is still well worth reading.

I had an unusual experience a couple of days ago, when I was interviewed over the phone by Paula Berinstein of the The Writing Show (http://www.writingshow.com/) which posts podcasts online. The subject of the interview was my novel Scales, and the questions made me think harder about my approach to writing the story than I actually had when writing it!

The plot concerns a present-day Englishman - Cade - who wakes up months after being almost killed in an explosion and fire, and finds that he is no longer entirely human - he is not only covered in reptilian scales, but also has acquired some non-human abilities. The inspiration for this came from a dream I had in which such scales were growing over my skin. I wanted to explore the implications of this, so I used the first person point of view, and a linear chronology: the story is told as it happens, and the reader knows exactly as much as Cade at any given moment. This does place certain limitations on the story-telling, as every scene features Cade and we only know his viewpoint; we can't find out what's happening elsewhere, unless Cade learns about it from someone else or from a news item. However, I think it provides more immediacy and tension than a more conventional third-person narrative, and is better suited to this kind of story.

The first part of the book developed organically - I basically started writing to see where it would lead. This took me so far then left me stuck, so I put it to one side for almost a year until the outline for the rest of the story came to me (in one of those valuable sessions when lying half-asleep in bed one lazy morning).

I regard this as a rather traditional kind of novel, in various ways. There is nothing clever in the construction or techniques used, it's just a straightforward story. I don't claim any particular originality for the plot elements, which come from standard SF conventions; psi powers, parallel worlds, alien civilisations and threats to humanity (partly self-generated, partly from outside). Its length of 220 pages is on the short side by today's standards (although typical of the 1950s/60s fiction I grew up with), but it does mean that it is fast-paced. The phrase "I couldn't put it down" has been used by Paula and other readers, which is gratifying.

The interview on The Writing Show should be available for downloading in about a week. You can read the first couple of chapters online on my publisher's website, by following the link from my home page.

Review: The Skolian Empire series by Catherine Asaro

Catherine Asaro has created a classic space-opera world with this Nebula Award-winning series, which is currently at eleven novels and counting. They are set in the far distant future, in which variations of humanity have populated a large number of star systems. The starting point in Asaro's timeline is 4,000 BC, when a group of humans were transported to another planet and helped to develop an advanced civilisation. This was based on the development of psionic abilities, reaching their greatest expression in the Rhon - a family of adepts which formed the Ruby Dynasty. Within a thousand years, space travel had enabled them to form the Ruby Empire, aided by the creation of a psionic web enabling instant communications across human space. This could only be driven and controlled, with the aid of highly sophisticated machinery, by the Rhon. The Empire collapsed after a few centuries, leaving its worlds to develop independently, and it took until the 19th century for them to rediscover interstellar flight. The psions of the Ruby Dynasty had almost died out by then, until a successful Rhon genetic programme re-established them. Further experiments unfortunately produced a different breed of sadistic psions – the Aristos - whose principal satisfaction was gained by feeding on the emotions of tortured psions – and the stronger the psion, the greater the pleasure.

By the time of the stories in the Skolian Empire series – set in approximately 2,200-2,300 AD – the Aristos had formed a powerful empire based on slavery known as the Eubian Concord (aka the Trader Empire) while the remnants of the Ruby Empire had formed the Skolian Imperialate, ruled by an uneasy combination of democratic institutions and the small number of Rhon psions. The Earth had by this time developed interstellar flight and become known to the Skolians and Eubians, but was very much a weak third party in between the two empires, whose relationships were in a state of cold – and occasionally hot – war.

The plots as well as the background follow the classic space-opera format: there are space battles between vast fleets, ancient and little-understood technology, human fighting machines in the enhanced Skolian Jagernauts, awe-inspiring psi powers, and (characteristic of Asaro) a lot of romance (although - unlike in her other fiction - not so much as to dominate the plots). The individual stories are all focused on members of the Ruby dynasty – the Rhon psions. They do not follow a chronological sequence, nor do they all feature the same individuals. Some of the novels are sequels to previous volumes, but others are free-standing. Some are written in the first person, most in the third. This provides a pleasing variety which prevents the stories from becoming too repetitive, although the later novels are, I think, beginning to show signs of 'series fatigue'. The stories are fast-paced, fairly light in tone and relatively short – an easy read.

It is best to start with the first one published and my personal favourite – Primary Inversion – which features one of the strongest and best-realised characters, Sauscony ('Soz'), a young woman who is also a Rhon and a Jagernaut.

This is a very good modern version of the traditional space-opera, and recommended to anyone who enjoys this sub-genre.

Review: The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner.

This was first published in 1960 and, while it is a children's book, it is well-enough written to grip adults too. The story is set in contemporary Cheshire and features many geographical locations around Alderley Edge and Macclesfield (the author still lives in the area). The plot involves two children (brother and sister) who stay with friendly adults in a farm by Alderley Edge (a large hill and also the name of a nearby village) while their parents are abroad for a few months. The trouble starts when the girl's bracelet is recognised as containing a strange stone – the weirdstone of the title – which has ancient magical significance and has long been missing. This brings all kinds of witches, wizards and non-human denizens of the underworld (literally – Alderley Edge is honeycombed with old mine workings) out into the open to battle for control of the stone in a classic good vs evil contest.

There are Tolkienesque echoes here, but the use of a real setting in the contemporary world, with two normal (if brave and resourceful) children as the heroes gives an entirely different feel. The quality of the writing, fast pacing and relatively short length (236 pages in my paperback edition) make this a story to be devoured in a couple of sessions. Alan Garner was one of the best-regarded children's fantasy authors of the 1960s and it is easy to see why. Highly recommended, and easy to obtain – it was reprinted as recently as 2002. Also available is a sequel – The Moon of Gomrath – which is high on my 'to be read' list.

Review: Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne

This is Verne's famous "lost novel". It was one of his earliest efforts and was rejected for publication when written in 1863. The manuscript was rediscovered in the 1990s and saw its first publication then.

The story is set a century in the author's future, in Paris in 1960. It is a world in which industry and commerce have triumphed to the extent that most of the creative arts are derided as useless or forgotten. The plot concerns an orphaned young poet, Michel Dufrenoy, who is a complete misfit in this world, and largely consists of tracking his futile efforts to find some gainful employment.

Along the way, Verne presents a picture of a future Paris, in social as well as technical terms, and the fascination of the book is in seeing what he got right – and what he didn't. On the credit side can be listed the dominance of major corporations over governments; the growth of commerce and the civil service in the city, pushing the poor to live on the outskirts; the sharp drop in the birth-rate within marriage, with a large proportion of births being illegitimate (women are displayed as lean and hard-headed; no longer curvaceous and romantic); the mechanisation of warfare; and various technical innovations such as the Metro, electric lighting, cars, computers and fax machines.

The mis-hits include a similar mixture of the broad sweep and the detail. Most poignantly, he envisages that the growth in the power of industry and commerce, and the interconnectedness of nations this would bring about, would make war obsolete, with armed forces being disbanded. He also has politicians losing so much power that they become unimportant, so elections die out. Despite this, he proposes much more central organisation of society, with a large civil service governing most activities (for instance, all theatres having salaried playwrights, whose job it is to produce anodyne productions which won't get anyone excited). Journalism as well as most arts dies out, except for that praising the achievements of industry. One baroque technical proposal is to use the old catacombs to store air under high pressure (pumped by a large number of windmills) which is then tapped to drive the Metro and other machinery throughout Paris. The canalisation of the Seine enables vast passenger ships to berth in the city. Despite the technical advances, he still has quill pens plus a huge ledger for a bank which is painstakingly kept up to date by hand. Surprisingly, there is no mention of aircraft.

Even in the misses, there are aspects which can be recognised. The strong central organisation and control, including the arts and the news media, is reminiscent of Soviet Russia, while feeding the populace mindless entertainment is not unknown in today's television and magazine offerings.

So much for the background – now to the story. This is quite promising at first, as the hero finds some like-minded individuals and has some amusing experiences in his efforts to fit in. He even falls in love. But the last part of the story becomes both less interesting and progressively darker in tone. In the end, it finishes in rather a rush with several plot threads left hanging. I had the impression that he had got tired of it and decided to finish it off quickly – or, perhaps, that he had backed the hero into a corner which he couldn't get him out of. Anyway, I found it disappointing.

Overall, this is something of a curio. Intriguing for its predictions, but of little merit as a story. Still, the first part of the book shows some of the story-telling flair which was later to make Verne famous.

Yet another review for The Foresight War (they're coming thick and fast at the moment), this time on the Classic Science Fiction forum here (it's the full review by Bill, who commented on my last post): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicScienceFiction/message/3204

It starts: "I just this minute finished "The Foresight War" (2004) by Tony Williams, and I must say that I loved it. I had a hard time putting it down."

Well, I'm not going to argue too much about that :)

Now to focus on getting more (decent) reviews for Scales. As a self-published author, I have to do my own marketing, and that does require a fair amount of effort. I made life hard for myself with this novel, because it's likely to appeal to a different audience than my first one. Which of course explains why you see so many trilogies or novels set in the same universe...they have a guaranteed market among readers who enjoyed the first one.

The problem for me is that I would find it rather tedious to keep writing about the same characters or places. The writer I would most like to emulate is the late British SF writer, Bob Shaw. He wrote a large number of novels and short stories, nearly all of them stand-alone with no shared worlds or characters. They have very varied plots and settings, but what they have in common is that they are well-written and exciting, and the novels are short enough to read in two or three sessions.

Perhaps it's because I was brought up on SFF in the 1960s when 200 pages was a full-length novel, but I often find the modern 'doorstops' rather offputting. There are some honourable exceptions, but for me they often fall into one of two traps: either they stretch out the plot with lots of detail, which slows everything down (sometimes to a level of tedium) or they pack in so much that I lose track of who's who, or what's going on. But maybe that's just my age...

The Foresight War has been out for a few years now and has accumulated several reviews (summarised on my website). Today I found another one, thanks to Google Alerts - although it is a year and a half old! The full review can be found here - http://community.livejournal.com/topfive_reviews/335655.html - but the conclusion is:

"In total, a rather realistic, aside from the obvious, "what if" scenario of WWII, that clearly shows the author's bias towards the technical and politcal aspects of his story, as opposed to character. Probably an interesting read for the initiated but will definitely be a snore for the average history layman. Which equates to most of the population of the world. 7/10."

I don't have any argument with the comments in this review; the story will certainly be most appreciated by people with a reasonable knowledge of the Second World War, and especially by those who are intrigued by the "what ifs" of the conflict.

The particular characteristics of the novel are a result of its rather unusual genesis. My interest in military history had caused me to spend a lot of time over the years, rather idly ruminating over the many mistakes made by all sides in that war, and contemplating what might have happened if the worst ones had been avoided. Eventually I decided that I'd never get these thoughts out of my head unless I wrote them down. For some time I puzzled over how best to do this. I was used to writing non-fiction and did not initially think of fiction (despite being a long-time SFF reader), until the idea of a novel based on time-travelling historians occurred to me one night. A novel needs characters as well as ideas, so a suitable squad was duly recruited for the task (although they didn't always follow orders...), but their task was clearly to carry the plot, which dominates the story.

As an exercise in exorcism, writing the book certainly worked as I have hardly thought about the subject since, except to respond to comments about the story! It has also stimulated much debate among readers, and even a spin-off story about an American 'throwback' (see my website) plus an Italian work-in-progress on the same theme. So I am happy with the outcome. Despite this, it is unlikely that I will be writing any similar story in the foreseeable future. I thought I was familiar with World War 2, but when it came to writing about specific places, people and events I found that I needed to do a huge amount of research to get the historical bits accurate, and the fictional parts realistic. I think I'll bury my WW2 reference library somewhere in deep storage to make sure that I don't get tempted again...

Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

A time-travelling comedy, following Ned Henry who is kept shuttling between the 21st century, World War 2 and late Victorian England, in order to rescue a grotesque piece of statuary from Coventry Cathedral before it is destroyed in the Blitz, so that it can be installed in a recreation of the cathedral. His task is not helped by the arbitrariness of the time-travelling system, which has its own bizarre logic and sometimes misses the planned target, nor by the fact that repeated use of the system tends to fog the mind. During all of this, he undertakes a boat journey on the Victorian River Thames which is an hommage to Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat. Much misunderstanding, humour, chaos and romance occur before victory is achieved.

This is a well-researched and well-written book, with many amusing scenes, but I did find it a bit much at times. The comic misunderstandings come so thick and fast that it reminded me of a Whitehall farce (in which people keep hopping in and out of bedrooms, hiding in wardrobes and mistaking each other's identities). This is alright in small doses, but became a bit of a strain for me when sustained over a nearly 500 page book. I nearly gave up at one point, but kept going by means of rationing my reading to a chapter or two each evening. I'm pleased I did, because I enjoyed it in the end and will keep it for a re-read - but not for quite a while!

Review: the Nulapeiron sequence by John Meaney

This is a trilogy, consisting of Paradox, Context and Resolution. It is set on the world of Nulapeiron, which is almost entirely built over with many levels of construction, so hardly anyone ever goes onto the "roof" to see the open sky. This is not a new concept, but it is well-realised here, with a mix of human societies occupying different levels, largely according to their position in the hierarchy. It is ruled by despotic Logic Lords, each of whom owns a geographical territory, and above all are the Oracles - who really can see the future.

The story follows the life of Tom Corcoran, a youth from humble origins who gradually (with many ups and downs) rises to the highest rank. It is full of bizarre societies, strange modes of transport, violent conflict, tales of the legendary Pilots - who command space - and a final struggle to the death against a powerful alien presence which is gradually corrupting the population of the world.

The trilogy might be might be best described as a modern iteration of a classic space opera - without much space! At over 1,600 pages in all it is not a quick or light read, and requires concentration. Much the same can of course be said of a lot of modern SF, such as that by Alastair Reynolds or Stephen Baxter, but in my opinion Meaney has the edge on these two. Definitely worth reading.

Review: The Marianne Trilogy by Sheri Tepper

This is a very unusual contemporary fantasy trilogy about a young woman living in the present-day USA, although with ancestry stretching back to a small (and fictitious) country in a very remote part of the Middle East, where magic is still practised - and it works. She unwittingly becomes involved in a battle between representatives of the two parts of her divided ancestral country: one good, the other evil. As a result, she is thrown into several other, totally bizarre, magical worlds, where she has to rely on her wits to survive. This is a beautifully written, exciting and romantic adventure story, with a plot quite unlike anything else I have ever read. It is my favourite contemporary fantasy.

Review: A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge

I re-read this last month, for the first time in 15 years. The really strange thing is that I didn't remember anything at all about it from my first reading - not a single bell was rung all the way through. This is highly unusual for me - maybe I'm becoming senile To look on the bright side, it will save me money on new books, I'll just keep re-reading the old ones...

Anyway, I became decidedly irritated with this book during the first half, because I found it very difficult to get into. Several different story lines are set running, and the author throws in lots of beings, concepts and other names with no description or explanation as to what they are. I think it's a good idea to keep some sense of mystery-to-be-revealed-later in a book, but this one takes it to extremes. I had reached page 170 before I found a clear description and explanation for some of the key characters - the skroderiders - and the physical appearance of the heroine wasn't described until close to the end.

In fact, the characterisation was very patchy. The heroine - Johanna - never came alive for me, perhaps because of the belated description. OTOH the second character - Pham - seemed much more clearly drawn and convincing (despite not being entirely human). The pacing also varied. It was very slow at first, with lots of extraneous detail which I could have done without, and only got going about half way through. From then on it got a lot better, although the climax (with a ship being chased by a fleet, which was in turn being chased by another fleet, which was in turn being followed by another...) had an element of Keystone Cops farce about it.

Having said all of that, the concepts were powerful and imaginative and much of the latter part of the book was good, so overall it was worth reading. What I would definitely not do is recommend it to anyone who wasn't familiar with SF, because I fear it would put them off for life.

A problem with Vernor Vinge...

Had a slightly bizarre experience with Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky. I was just getting into the book when the name of one of the characters (Qiwi) struck me as oddly familiar. I flipped through it and realised that, yep, I'd read it before. But I couldn't have thought much of it then because I hadn't kept it - which didn't prevent me from unwittingly buying it again!

Vernor Vinge's writing seems to have a strange effect on me. A few months ago I re-read A Fire Upon the Deep, the Hugo award winner, for the first time in about 15 years. And I couldn't remember one thing about it - it rang no bells at all. I would have sworn I'd never read it, except that it obviously had been read, and was sitting in the "read" part of my bookcase. Anyway, for the record, I wasn't that impressed by Fire; some good ideas, but a messy and irritating book (see my separate review). I didn't read Deepness again this time because I remembered it, with a bit of effort (and life's too short to slog through a 750-page novel again unless it's absolutely brilliant), but from what I recall it is much better - a very good space opera - and I can't make out why I junked it before - I was probably going through a phase of being thoroughly tired of doorstop novels which I was never going to take the time to re-read. Oh well, I'll keep it this time, just in case...