Cordwainer Smith (real name Paul Anthony Myron Linebarger) was an unusual man; an expert on the Far East and on psychological warfare, who served in US Army Intelligence in both World War 2 and the Korean War, he also left behind a series of linked stories set some 15 millennia in the future. These envisage a strange universe in which man has developed in various forms on different planets and has in addition changed animals into "underpeople"; mainly human but retaining some characteristics of their animal origins. The whole is ruled by the Instrumentality of Mankind, a self-perpetuating and self-governing group of Lords and Ladies who have absolute power.
Norstrilia is the one full-length novel in the sequence. It follows the adventures of Rod McBan, born heir to a farm on the planet Old North Australia (Norstrilia for short) which maintains the way of life of the long-lost Earth original. Despite the simple life of the people, they are fabulously rich because the planet is the only source of stroon, a life-perpetuating drug extracted from diseased sheep. At the start of the book McBan is in serious trouble as he has a handicap – his telepathic ability is unreliable – and Norstrilia has a rigorous screening policy to keep the population in check by very pleasantly killing off anyone who doesn't measure up. With the aid of an old computer, programmed long ago in the science of economic warfare, he protects himself with a sustained assault on humanity's economic system, which leads to him buying Old Earth, to which he escapes. The rest of the story tells of his adventures there among the Lords of the Instrumentality and the underpeople.
If the plot sounds strange, the writing style is even stranger. Cordwainer Smith had a unique, unmistakeable style with which to express his truly bizarre genius. While just about qualifying as SF, it has more of the feel of fantasy. However, it isn't all smoke and mirrors created by an imagination careering away with itself; there is thinking and writing of real substance here, passages to make the reader stop, and think, and re-read them.
It is quite possible that some people will really dislike the result; I suspect that you either love or hate his work. Personally I love it, and believe that the author has earned a special niche in science fiction's wall of honour. Everyone with a real interest in the genre should read at least one of these stories, and will then most likely not rest until finishing the lot.
Saturday, 23 February 2008
Friday, 15 February 2008
How to Read a Novel: A User's Guide by John Sutherland, and How Novels Work by John Mullan
These two books were written by men who coincidentally are or have been Professors of English Literature at University College London. I read them in quick succession, and they provide an interesting contrast.
How to Read a Novel seems to be a condensation of a lifetime's experience of reading, studying and teaching fiction. The author covers a wide field in many short and easily digestible chapters, including a brief history of fiction, a discussion of why such an ancient medium as a bound paper book should remain so popular in the electronic age, hardbacks vs paperbacks, knowing your taste, the value of browsing in a bookshop, titles, blurbs, covers, reviews and recommendations, prize novels, TV and film adaptations, and the impact of the internet. He discusses the way in which stories by different authors are interlinked, often referring to each other in oblique ways, and illustrates the points he makes with many short extracts from novels.
Unlike many literati, the author is refreshingly open-minded about his subject and not afraid to admit to reading the occasional airport blockbuster as well as the classics. He includes a chapter on genre fiction in which he spends some time discussing SF and fantasy. There isn't space for him to do more than pick out a few examples, but he covers the range from Mary Shelley and some other early practitioners (but not, curiously, Jules Verne) through to modern writers. He focuses in particular on describing Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' fantasy series, which he takes as an exemplar of current trends. Even graphic novels get a mention.
I originally bought this book thinking that it would provide some kind of analysis of what makes novels successful, from which I might usefully pick up some tips for my own writing. In fact, this work is not as directly useful as that. Nonetheless, it is an interesting read and worth the modest time spent on it.
In contrast, How Novels Work takes a much more systematic approach to analysing stories. The eleven chapters cover Beginning, Narrating, People, Genre, Voices, Structure, Detail, Style, Devices, Literariness, and Ending. Each is broken down into topics, for instance 'Narrating' includes First-Person Narration, Recollection, The Inadequate Narrator (not a criticism; an approach), A Man Writing as a Woman, Multiple Narrators, Skaz (colloquial writing, more closely resembling speech), The Self-Conscious Novel, Addressing the Reader, The Omniscient Narrator, Point of View, Tense, Tense Shift, and Free Indirect Style.
Throughout the book, the points being made are illustrated by extracts from novels, frequently contrasting the approach in older books with that of modern works. One downside is that Mullen takes a more highbrow approach than Sutherland, focusing only on the classics like Jane Austen and the kind of modern novel which gets on the list for the Booker Prize. Science Fiction and Fantasy scarcely get a mention, even in the Genre chapter, the closest being a brief section on 'Magical Realism' which concerns authors like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez.
That doesn't mean that the book is a difficult or irrelevant read, though. The author is critical of the kind of arid textual analysis which has become popular in universities and which tends to ignore such matters as characterisation. He focuses very much on what makes a novel work for the reader, and in so doing passes on a huge number of useful ideas to the writer. Definitely a book I am likely to be returning to, as a guide and reference.
How to Read a Novel seems to be a condensation of a lifetime's experience of reading, studying and teaching fiction. The author covers a wide field in many short and easily digestible chapters, including a brief history of fiction, a discussion of why such an ancient medium as a bound paper book should remain so popular in the electronic age, hardbacks vs paperbacks, knowing your taste, the value of browsing in a bookshop, titles, blurbs, covers, reviews and recommendations, prize novels, TV and film adaptations, and the impact of the internet. He discusses the way in which stories by different authors are interlinked, often referring to each other in oblique ways, and illustrates the points he makes with many short extracts from novels.
Unlike many literati, the author is refreshingly open-minded about his subject and not afraid to admit to reading the occasional airport blockbuster as well as the classics. He includes a chapter on genre fiction in which he spends some time discussing SF and fantasy. There isn't space for him to do more than pick out a few examples, but he covers the range from Mary Shelley and some other early practitioners (but not, curiously, Jules Verne) through to modern writers. He focuses in particular on describing Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' fantasy series, which he takes as an exemplar of current trends. Even graphic novels get a mention.
I originally bought this book thinking that it would provide some kind of analysis of what makes novels successful, from which I might usefully pick up some tips for my own writing. In fact, this work is not as directly useful as that. Nonetheless, it is an interesting read and worth the modest time spent on it.
In contrast, How Novels Work takes a much more systematic approach to analysing stories. The eleven chapters cover Beginning, Narrating, People, Genre, Voices, Structure, Detail, Style, Devices, Literariness, and Ending. Each is broken down into topics, for instance 'Narrating' includes First-Person Narration, Recollection, The Inadequate Narrator (not a criticism; an approach), A Man Writing as a Woman, Multiple Narrators, Skaz (colloquial writing, more closely resembling speech), The Self-Conscious Novel, Addressing the Reader, The Omniscient Narrator, Point of View, Tense, Tense Shift, and Free Indirect Style.
Throughout the book, the points being made are illustrated by extracts from novels, frequently contrasting the approach in older books with that of modern works. One downside is that Mullen takes a more highbrow approach than Sutherland, focusing only on the classics like Jane Austen and the kind of modern novel which gets on the list for the Booker Prize. Science Fiction and Fantasy scarcely get a mention, even in the Genre chapter, the closest being a brief section on 'Magical Realism' which concerns authors like Salman Rushdie and Gabriel García Márquez.
That doesn't mean that the book is a difficult or irrelevant read, though. The author is critical of the kind of arid textual analysis which has become popular in universities and which tends to ignore such matters as characterisation. He focuses very much on what makes a novel work for the reader, and in so doing passes on a huge number of useful ideas to the writer. Definitely a book I am likely to be returning to, as a guide and reference.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Film: Déjà Vu (2006)
The time is the present, the location New Orleans. A massive car bomb destroys a ferry packed with families, and ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is assigned to the team to investigate it. Be warned: I try to avoid spoilers in my reviews, but it really isn't possible with this one, so if you plan to watch the film and want the plot to be a surprise, stop reading NOW!
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Carlin discovers that the FBI are using a "time machine" based on wormhole technology which allows them to look at any point within a radius of a few miles of the machine, but with a fixed timelag of four days and six hours. As the team look back into the past to discover clues to the identity of the bomber, they focus on a young woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) from whom the bomber obtained the vehicle used in the attack – and whose body had been found in the water near the explosion. Over days of observation, Carlin falls in love with her and, after the bomber has been identified and arrested and the case is closed down, goes back into the past to try to rescue her and to prevent the bombing from happening.
So far so good: it seems to be a straightforward alternate time-line story, with the branch point being Carlin's attempts to alter the past, from which moment the "future" divides into the original time-line in the first part of the film (lets call it TL1) and the new one caused by Carlin's actions, which runs in parallel (TL2). This division into two time-lines is specifically acknowledged in the film, when one of the characters considers the implications of altering the past. Unfortunately, there are some massive plot holes which make a nonsense of the story, which is a shame because it is otherwise an intriguing and entertaining film with some neat touches. If you don't want to know what the problems are, stop reading NOW!
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The problem is that the film-makers get terribly confused between the time-lines. This first becomes obvious during a dramatic and original car chase in TL1, in which Carlin is driving a vehicle while trying to follow, through a portable viewer linked to the time machine, the bomber who is driving the same route 4+ days in the past. He is so distracted that he causes a series of accidents, and when he has to double back he drives past some blazing wrecks – but these also appear in the view of the past. That's just carelessness, but a more fundamental problem is that a whole series of events is misplaced: starting with the murder of his partner (due to a message Carlin had sent into the past) and going through the destruction of the bomber's property as Carlin rescues the girl, and then his subsequent visit to her flat to clean up his injuries (leaving bloodstained dressings), during which the girl rings up the ATF office to check on his identity. These events only occur because of Carlin's efforts to alter the past, and therefore belong in TL2, but they are all observed in TL1, in which the girl died before most of the events which "involve" her. That makes no sense at all.
Yes, I know that the whole premise of the story is impossible anyway, but that isn't the point. I am willing to suspend disbelief and go along with all sorts of impossible plot lines provided that they are internally consistent (I wouldn't otherwise be able to read SFF at all). It's when they lack internal consistency that I lose patience. I am frankly amazed that an entire team of people spent months working on this film and didn't notice, or decided to ignore, these inconsistencies. Either they suffered from collective stupidity, or they assumed that their audience would be too stupid to notice. Not the way to give SF films a good name.
*********************************
Carlin discovers that the FBI are using a "time machine" based on wormhole technology which allows them to look at any point within a radius of a few miles of the machine, but with a fixed timelag of four days and six hours. As the team look back into the past to discover clues to the identity of the bomber, they focus on a young woman, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) from whom the bomber obtained the vehicle used in the attack – and whose body had been found in the water near the explosion. Over days of observation, Carlin falls in love with her and, after the bomber has been identified and arrested and the case is closed down, goes back into the past to try to rescue her and to prevent the bombing from happening.
So far so good: it seems to be a straightforward alternate time-line story, with the branch point being Carlin's attempts to alter the past, from which moment the "future" divides into the original time-line in the first part of the film (lets call it TL1) and the new one caused by Carlin's actions, which runs in parallel (TL2). This division into two time-lines is specifically acknowledged in the film, when one of the characters considers the implications of altering the past. Unfortunately, there are some massive plot holes which make a nonsense of the story, which is a shame because it is otherwise an intriguing and entertaining film with some neat touches. If you don't want to know what the problems are, stop reading NOW!
********************************
The problem is that the film-makers get terribly confused between the time-lines. This first becomes obvious during a dramatic and original car chase in TL1, in which Carlin is driving a vehicle while trying to follow, through a portable viewer linked to the time machine, the bomber who is driving the same route 4+ days in the past. He is so distracted that he causes a series of accidents, and when he has to double back he drives past some blazing wrecks – but these also appear in the view of the past. That's just carelessness, but a more fundamental problem is that a whole series of events is misplaced: starting with the murder of his partner (due to a message Carlin had sent into the past) and going through the destruction of the bomber's property as Carlin rescues the girl, and then his subsequent visit to her flat to clean up his injuries (leaving bloodstained dressings), during which the girl rings up the ATF office to check on his identity. These events only occur because of Carlin's efforts to alter the past, and therefore belong in TL2, but they are all observed in TL1, in which the girl died before most of the events which "involve" her. That makes no sense at all.
Yes, I know that the whole premise of the story is impossible anyway, but that isn't the point. I am willing to suspend disbelief and go along with all sorts of impossible plot lines provided that they are internally consistent (I wouldn't otherwise be able to read SFF at all). It's when they lack internal consistency that I lose patience. I am frankly amazed that an entire team of people spent months working on this film and didn't notice, or decided to ignore, these inconsistencies. Either they suffered from collective stupidity, or they assumed that their audience would be too stupid to notice. Not the way to give SF films a good name.
Friday, 1 February 2008
The Godmakers by Frank Herbert
It is the far future and a space-faring humanity is beginning to rediscover planets settled before the devastating Rim War. Their greatest fear is another war, so each time an occupied planet is found, any warlike tendencies lead to a corrective occupation. Particularly prized are the rare individuals with psi powers, which are better understood than now and whose development is largely linked to religion: properly channelled, psi powers can create a god.
Lewis Orne is a newly-trained member of the Rediscovery and Re-education Service, whose job is to assess the cultures of newly-found settled planets to determine their suitability for joining the Galactic Federation. While he is demonstrating remarkable ability in tackling one intractable problem after another, the Abbod of Amel, the planet which is the focus of human religion, is creating a god: exactly what and where, he has no way of telling.
Orne suffers a near-death experience which affects his outlook on life. On recovering, he discovers that he has psi powers, and is sent to Amel, where his process of self-discovery reaches a remarkable conclusion.
Herbert wrote The Godmakers after Dune. It is a much shorter work (175 pages in my 1974 NEL paperback) without the same epic sweep. Nevertheless, it reflects the same fascination with the techniques of myth-making and religion. I can recognise certain elements here which must have subconsciously influenced me when writing Scales, particularly the effect on an individual of the development of unusual abilities. However, Herbert focuses more on the process of getting there than on what happens next. It isn't a great book, but it's worth the time to read.
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I've been updating the speculative fiction parts of my website. I have revised my article On Publishing Fiction, which focuses on the pros and cons of traditional vs self-publishing, and I have also amended and transferred to the website articles which previously appeared in this blog: On Marketing and Success and The Length of SF Novels: Quantity vs Quality? All of these should be of interest to those interested in the business of writing and publishing SF or fantasy.
Finally, I have posted the first two chapters of my alternative WW2 novel The Foresight War, to join Part 1 of my SF thriller Scales, to give prospective readers a good chance to try before they buy. Plots summaries and reviews can be read HERE.
Lewis Orne is a newly-trained member of the Rediscovery and Re-education Service, whose job is to assess the cultures of newly-found settled planets to determine their suitability for joining the Galactic Federation. While he is demonstrating remarkable ability in tackling one intractable problem after another, the Abbod of Amel, the planet which is the focus of human religion, is creating a god: exactly what and where, he has no way of telling.
Orne suffers a near-death experience which affects his outlook on life. On recovering, he discovers that he has psi powers, and is sent to Amel, where his process of self-discovery reaches a remarkable conclusion.
Herbert wrote The Godmakers after Dune. It is a much shorter work (175 pages in my 1974 NEL paperback) without the same epic sweep. Nevertheless, it reflects the same fascination with the techniques of myth-making and religion. I can recognise certain elements here which must have subconsciously influenced me when writing Scales, particularly the effect on an individual of the development of unusual abilities. However, Herbert focuses more on the process of getting there than on what happens next. It isn't a great book, but it's worth the time to read.
---------------------------------
I've been updating the speculative fiction parts of my website. I have revised my article On Publishing Fiction, which focuses on the pros and cons of traditional vs self-publishing, and I have also amended and transferred to the website articles which previously appeared in this blog: On Marketing and Success and The Length of SF Novels: Quantity vs Quality? All of these should be of interest to those interested in the business of writing and publishing SF or fantasy.
Finally, I have posted the first two chapters of my alternative WW2 novel The Foresight War, to join Part 1 of my SF thriller Scales, to give prospective readers a good chance to try before they buy. Plots summaries and reviews can be read HERE.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Interzone 214 and Contact (1997 film)
An interesting preview of Iain M Banks' new Culture novel Matter (due out in hardback in February), within an entertaining interview with the author, is the first feature in the latest issue of the SFF mag. One to look out for when it arrives in paperback (not that I'm a skinflint, I'm just short of bookshelf space…).
There are fewer stories this time, because they include a novella; Far Horizon by Jason Stoddard, illustrated by Paul Drummond (an engagingly retro wheel-shaped space station features, repeated on the cover). One of the richest men on a rather dystopian, corporation-ruled near-future Earth, has plans for terraforming Venus which won't bear fruit for millennia. He decides that the immediate future is too uninteresting to hang around for, so he cheats time by going into cold sleep until his new planet is ready, only to discover a vast surprise.
In Pseudo Tokyo by Jennifer Linnaea, a future tourist, eagerly anticipating teleporting into Japan, finds himself not quite where he expected.
The Trace of Him by Christopher Priest is a brief glimpse of a few hours in the life of a woman returning for the funeral of a lover she had left twenty years before.
The Faces of my Friends by Jennifer Harwood-Smith is the winner of the James White Award. The last remnant of a outcast group is persecuted towards extinction in an intolerant future world; but what they are being persecuted for is an uncomfortable surprise.
Finally, The Scent of their Arrival by Mercurio D. Riviera explores the world of planet-bound but intelligent beings who communicate by scent, struggling to understand the message sent by the vast spaceship which had arrived in orbit around their world. All is not what it seems…
A good crop, as usual; original, inventive and absorbing. I've noticed that it's some time since I read a story in Interzone which I didn't enjoy. Either the standard is rising or I'm becoming acclimatised. Or perhaps I've become more tolerant of a fiction form which, even if it doesn't always work, at least doesn't involve a large investment in time to find that out. Or maybe it's all of those things.
The final section in the mag is, as usual, the pages of detailed and sometimes hard-hitting reviews of films, TV programmes and books. Top of my "might buy" list from this batch is Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson, which sounds like a story I might enjoy getting my teeth into.
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I've recently seen Contact, the 1997 film of Carl Sagan's 1985 novel about the first contact from an intelligent alien species. Somehow I've managed to miss both the book and the film until now, so I came to it entirely fresh, knowing nothing except the basic premise. I must admit that I was highly impressed. The film takes an intelligent, adult approach to the issues which would be raised by such an event and gripped my attention throughout. I would have awarded it an Oscar, and given another to Jodie Foster for a brilliant central performance as the obsessed astronomer. If only all SF films were this good!
There are fewer stories this time, because they include a novella; Far Horizon by Jason Stoddard, illustrated by Paul Drummond (an engagingly retro wheel-shaped space station features, repeated on the cover). One of the richest men on a rather dystopian, corporation-ruled near-future Earth, has plans for terraforming Venus which won't bear fruit for millennia. He decides that the immediate future is too uninteresting to hang around for, so he cheats time by going into cold sleep until his new planet is ready, only to discover a vast surprise.
In Pseudo Tokyo by Jennifer Linnaea, a future tourist, eagerly anticipating teleporting into Japan, finds himself not quite where he expected.
The Trace of Him by Christopher Priest is a brief glimpse of a few hours in the life of a woman returning for the funeral of a lover she had left twenty years before.
The Faces of my Friends by Jennifer Harwood-Smith is the winner of the James White Award. The last remnant of a outcast group is persecuted towards extinction in an intolerant future world; but what they are being persecuted for is an uncomfortable surprise.
Finally, The Scent of their Arrival by Mercurio D. Riviera explores the world of planet-bound but intelligent beings who communicate by scent, struggling to understand the message sent by the vast spaceship which had arrived in orbit around their world. All is not what it seems…
A good crop, as usual; original, inventive and absorbing. I've noticed that it's some time since I read a story in Interzone which I didn't enjoy. Either the standard is rising or I'm becoming acclimatised. Or perhaps I've become more tolerant of a fiction form which, even if it doesn't always work, at least doesn't involve a large investment in time to find that out. Or maybe it's all of those things.
The final section in the mag is, as usual, the pages of detailed and sometimes hard-hitting reviews of films, TV programmes and books. Top of my "might buy" list from this batch is Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson, which sounds like a story I might enjoy getting my teeth into.
--------------------------------------
I've recently seen Contact, the 1997 film of Carl Sagan's 1985 novel about the first contact from an intelligent alien species. Somehow I've managed to miss both the book and the film until now, so I came to it entirely fresh, knowing nothing except the basic premise. I must admit that I was highly impressed. The film takes an intelligent, adult approach to the issues which would be raised by such an event and gripped my attention throughout. I would have awarded it an Oscar, and given another to Jodie Foster for a brilliant central performance as the obsessed astronomer. If only all SF films were this good!
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Dante's Equation by Jane Jensen
Aharon Handalman is a rabbi in modern Jerusalem who is fascinated by "Torah codes"; hunting for significant words in the patterns of letters in the book. One name which keeps recurring is that of Kobinski, a rabbi, philosopher and physicist who disappeared in Auschwitz. Denton Wyle is a vain and wealthy young American who amuses himself by researching mysterious disappearances for a magazine on popular mysteries. He too becomes intrigued by Kobinski, who apparently vanished without trace. Calder Farris is a USMC officer assigned to the Department of Defense in order to monitor scientific research for weapons potential. And Dr Jill Talcott, aided by her graduate student Nate Andros, is at a US university researching wave mechanics while pursuing an "energy pool" hypothesis, that all matter exists as energy waves in a higher dimension. The lives of these characters gradually converge as they realise that Kobinski may indeed have discovered something of great potential and that he left records which had become scattered across the world.
So far this seems to be just another modern mystery – if not mystic – thriller, but the perspective changes as the characters find out the hard way that the consequences of Kobinski's and Tallcott's work are very real. They find themselves in a series of worlds which differ radically from each other as a result of variations in the frequency of their energy waves, and their experiences fundamentally change them.
This is a very ambitious and original work by a writer best known for creating computer games. It is not only broad in scope, it is massive in length too, at nearly 700 pages. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I usually take a jaundiced view of very long SF novels, finding most of them to be either so padded as to be slow and tedious, or so packed with characters and incident that I lose track of who is doing what to whom and why. Jensen falls into neither trap: this is a well-paced and well-told story, using its length to develop the characters into distinctive and convincing individuals struggling to cope with the bizarre situations in which they find themselves - and with each other. The book engaged my attention from the start and built up into an impressive and satisfying climax. Well worth the time to read.
So far this seems to be just another modern mystery – if not mystic – thriller, but the perspective changes as the characters find out the hard way that the consequences of Kobinski's and Tallcott's work are very real. They find themselves in a series of worlds which differ radically from each other as a result of variations in the frequency of their energy waves, and their experiences fundamentally change them.
This is a very ambitious and original work by a writer best known for creating computer games. It is not only broad in scope, it is massive in length too, at nearly 700 pages. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I usually take a jaundiced view of very long SF novels, finding most of them to be either so padded as to be slow and tedious, or so packed with characters and incident that I lose track of who is doing what to whom and why. Jensen falls into neither trap: this is a well-paced and well-told story, using its length to develop the characters into distinctive and convincing individuals struggling to cope with the bizarre situations in which they find themselves - and with each other. The book engaged my attention from the start and built up into an impressive and satisfying climax. Well worth the time to read.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
The Enemy Stars by Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson is one of the "greats" of SF so I looked forward to re-reading this novel. Somewhat to my surprise, I was unable to recall anything about it as I read it, but at least that meant I could enjoy it without knowing the outcome! First published in 1958, The Enemy Stars was slightly tidied-up by the author in the 1980s. I have the later version published by Baen in 1987, which comes with a short-story sequel The Ways of Love, first published in 1979.
It is slightly different from my expectations, in that it is primarily about people rather than the grand mind-stretching concepts more typical of the 1950s. The story is set in the twenty-third century. A long time before, a matter transmitter had been developed which enabled virtually instantaneous transmission between worlds. The catch was that a transceiver was needed at both ends, so one had to be carried out to each star system on board a conventional, sub-light-speed space ship. Since the voyages took decades if not centuries, the ships were crewed on a rotation basis using the on-board matter transceiver to change crews every month.
A disparate crew of four strangers, two from Earth, two from different colony planets (and all men), arrive on board the Southern Cross, a ship which had been travelling longer than any other. There are tensions from the start: the two Earthmen are from very different levels of a highly stratified and paternalistic society, ruled by a dictatorial world government. The colonials had their own agendas, as relationships between Earth and its colonies were fraught, with frequent rebellions.
The Southern Cross was diverted from its target to investigate a strange, dark sun. Disaster struck, leaving the ship without a functioning transceiver and with limited food supplies. The bulk of the story is concerned with how the crew cope with their situation as they struggle to re-establish communication in increasingly desperate circumstances. There is a sub-plot running in parallel back on Earth, concerning the difficult relationship between the wife of one of the crewmen and his father, and their very different views of space travel and settlement.
I won't say anything more about the plot, or anything at all about the short-story sequel, as that would mean revealing the surprising climax of the novel. In fact, try not to look at the cover of the Baen edition in advance, because the illustration is one of the biggest spoilers I've seen!
Compared with other novels from the classic era of SF, I found this one a tad claustrophobic. The focus is on tense human relationships in a situation which is very confined, both physically and plot-wise. Despite this, the characters never really came alive for me, possibly because all four are treated fairly equally (the viewpoint switches between them) and we never get to know, or empathise with, any of them very well. Not really my favourite kind of story, but all credit to the author for an early attempt at writing science fiction with a human face.
It is slightly different from my expectations, in that it is primarily about people rather than the grand mind-stretching concepts more typical of the 1950s. The story is set in the twenty-third century. A long time before, a matter transmitter had been developed which enabled virtually instantaneous transmission between worlds. The catch was that a transceiver was needed at both ends, so one had to be carried out to each star system on board a conventional, sub-light-speed space ship. Since the voyages took decades if not centuries, the ships were crewed on a rotation basis using the on-board matter transceiver to change crews every month.
A disparate crew of four strangers, two from Earth, two from different colony planets (and all men), arrive on board the Southern Cross, a ship which had been travelling longer than any other. There are tensions from the start: the two Earthmen are from very different levels of a highly stratified and paternalistic society, ruled by a dictatorial world government. The colonials had their own agendas, as relationships between Earth and its colonies were fraught, with frequent rebellions.
The Southern Cross was diverted from its target to investigate a strange, dark sun. Disaster struck, leaving the ship without a functioning transceiver and with limited food supplies. The bulk of the story is concerned with how the crew cope with their situation as they struggle to re-establish communication in increasingly desperate circumstances. There is a sub-plot running in parallel back on Earth, concerning the difficult relationship between the wife of one of the crewmen and his father, and their very different views of space travel and settlement.
I won't say anything more about the plot, or anything at all about the short-story sequel, as that would mean revealing the surprising climax of the novel. In fact, try not to look at the cover of the Baen edition in advance, because the illustration is one of the biggest spoilers I've seen!
Compared with other novels from the classic era of SF, I found this one a tad claustrophobic. The focus is on tense human relationships in a situation which is very confined, both physically and plot-wise. Despite this, the characters never really came alive for me, possibly because all four are treated fairly equally (the viewpoint switches between them) and we never get to know, or empathise with, any of them very well. Not really my favourite kind of story, but all credit to the author for an early attempt at writing science fiction with a human face.
Saturday, 5 January 2008
Dark Horizons from the British Fantasy Society
December brought a batch of publications from the British Fantasy Society: Prism (their quarterly newsletter), Dark Horizons (the biannual short story plus articles mag) and a one-off special, H P Lovecraft in Britain by Stephen Jones.
This last was written by the anthologist involved with the production of Necronomicon: the Best Weird Tales of H P Lovecraft, due for January 2008 publication by Gollancz, and covers the patchy history of publication in the UK of the works of one of the original masters of horror. Now I am not a fan of that genre, but I have memories of reading some anthologies as a teenager and will probably pick up a copy of this one, if only through nostalgia.
Prism contained the usual crop of reviews, one of which (Attica by Garry Kilworth) sounded interesting enough to add to my "to buy" list. I have a fondness for tales involving strange worlds connected to our own; in this case via an attic which, like Dr Who's Tardis, turns out to be very much bigger on the inside than the outside suggests. There are the usual columns by the slightly less usual columnists plus an interview with Vincent Chong, the winner of the Best Artist category in the 2007 British Fantasy Awards, who also produced the dreamlike cover.
On to Dark Horizons, which this time contains six short stories and two articles, interspersed with a couple of poems and some line drawings. The cover is by Don Barker. There is also a brief dream-like vignette, What the Moon Brings, by H P Lovecraft. The articles are Roots of an Editor, an interview by Jan Edwards of Ellen Datlow, multiple award-winning editor of many fantasy and horror anthologies and magazines; and The Invisible Prince by David Sutton, a brief bio-bibliography of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the 19th century writer of fantastic horror. Combined with the information about H P Lovecraft, this December BFS batch proved quite educational!
And so to the stories:
By Right of the Stars by Anne Gay. A desert-dweller with magical powers crosses a medieval world to right the wrongs inflicted on his people.
In His Charge by Nicki Robson (a runner-up in 2006 BFS short-story competition). A preacher who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck which killed all of his followers maintains an empty church nearby. For his followers haven't entirely left.
The Perils of Pentavir by Allen Ashley. A compilation of apparently random jottings on the significance of the number five, centred on the fate of the cradle of human civilisation, Pentavir: the former fifth planet located between Mars and Jupiter.
The Dullich Assassins by David Lee Stone. In which apprentice assassins have to qualify by killing one of their teachers in single combat. Written with more humour than drama.
Father's Day by David Turnball (another runner-up in 2006 BFS short-story competition). A latter-day Frankenstein struggles to rebuild and reanimate people from the wreckage of their civilisation.
The Children of Monte Rosa by Reggie Oliver. A man recalls a childhood holiday in Portugal during which his family meets a strange couple with a macabre hobby.
An interesting variety of themes and styles, all worth reading. I enjoyed the first one the most, although I suspect that the last will stick in the mind the longest.
This last was written by the anthologist involved with the production of Necronomicon: the Best Weird Tales of H P Lovecraft, due for January 2008 publication by Gollancz, and covers the patchy history of publication in the UK of the works of one of the original masters of horror. Now I am not a fan of that genre, but I have memories of reading some anthologies as a teenager and will probably pick up a copy of this one, if only through nostalgia.
Prism contained the usual crop of reviews, one of which (Attica by Garry Kilworth) sounded interesting enough to add to my "to buy" list. I have a fondness for tales involving strange worlds connected to our own; in this case via an attic which, like Dr Who's Tardis, turns out to be very much bigger on the inside than the outside suggests. There are the usual columns by the slightly less usual columnists plus an interview with Vincent Chong, the winner of the Best Artist category in the 2007 British Fantasy Awards, who also produced the dreamlike cover.
On to Dark Horizons, which this time contains six short stories and two articles, interspersed with a couple of poems and some line drawings. The cover is by Don Barker. There is also a brief dream-like vignette, What the Moon Brings, by H P Lovecraft. The articles are Roots of an Editor, an interview by Jan Edwards of Ellen Datlow, multiple award-winning editor of many fantasy and horror anthologies and magazines; and The Invisible Prince by David Sutton, a brief bio-bibliography of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the 19th century writer of fantastic horror. Combined with the information about H P Lovecraft, this December BFS batch proved quite educational!
And so to the stories:
By Right of the Stars by Anne Gay. A desert-dweller with magical powers crosses a medieval world to right the wrongs inflicted on his people.
In His Charge by Nicki Robson (a runner-up in 2006 BFS short-story competition). A preacher who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck which killed all of his followers maintains an empty church nearby. For his followers haven't entirely left.
The Perils of Pentavir by Allen Ashley. A compilation of apparently random jottings on the significance of the number five, centred on the fate of the cradle of human civilisation, Pentavir: the former fifth planet located between Mars and Jupiter.
The Dullich Assassins by David Lee Stone. In which apprentice assassins have to qualify by killing one of their teachers in single combat. Written with more humour than drama.
Father's Day by David Turnball (another runner-up in 2006 BFS short-story competition). A latter-day Frankenstein struggles to rebuild and reanimate people from the wreckage of their civilisation.
The Children of Monte Rosa by Reggie Oliver. A man recalls a childhood holiday in Portugal during which his family meets a strange couple with a macabre hobby.
An interesting variety of themes and styles, all worth reading. I enjoyed the first one the most, although I suspect that the last will stick in the mind the longest.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Film review: The Golden Compass
The current Christmas fantasy blockbuster, this is based on Northern Lights (known as The Golden Compass outside the UK), the first volume of Philip Pullman's highly successful His Dark Materials trilogy. I read the trilogy a few years ago and, while I wouldn't call myself a fan, thought it worth the fairly considerable time involved (there is a total of nearly 1,300 pages). Although marketed for children, Pullman did not write for this audience - the marketing decision was based on the fact that the principal characters are children - and in fact the tale is rather grim for the young.
For those unfamiliar with the story, a brief background: this is an unusual and complex fantasy, involving a parallel world (of approximately late-Victorian technical development) with people whose souls are housed outside the body, in talking animals called daemons. The story focuses on a 12-year old English girl – Lyra Bellaqua (very well played in the film by 13-year old novice Dakota Blue Richards) – who becomes the focus of interest of the powerful religious Magisterium and its ally, the formidable Mrs Coulter (an excellent performance by Nicole Kidman, with just the right blend of beauty, charm and reasonableness covering evil intent). In this first part, young children keep disappearing and Lyra, with the aid of a truth-divining pocket-watch like device known as the alethiometer (the Golden Compass of the film title), becomes involved in trying to discover what has happened to them. Lyra's journey takes her to an experimental station in the far north, and encounters with giant talking polar bears, who wear armour and live for fighting.
When making a film of a long and complex book (six or seven hours of reading, condensed into a couple of cinematic hours), the film-makers can either cut out many characters and large chunks of the plot, or can try to include all of the key elements but treat them rather briefly. In the case of The Golden Compass, the later course has been selected. The film starts with a long, voice-over infodump to try to get the audience up and running, then (as far as I can recall) remains more or less faithful to the book thereafter, but with each scene cropped in a way which keeps the story moving quickly. This works well enough for those familiar with the plot, for whom it acts as a kind of visual refresher, but may I suspect prove confusing and even irritating to the uninitiated. On the credit side, there are many visually spectacular scenes and the CGI is as good as we have come to expect. The acting is also very good from a strong cast, including the Casino Royale pairing of the rugged Daniel Craig as Lyra's "uncle" Lord Asriel and the beautiful Eva Green as the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala.
The trilogy has attracted controversy because of its anti-religious content, which becomes stronger in the later books. Not surprisingly, the Christian churches have reacted rather badly to the success of the series, although this aspect has been played down in this first film. I presume that films of the other volumes will follow if this one is successful (which so far it seems to be, although less so in the USA).
Overall, a good effort and I will certainly be watching the sequels, if they appear.
For those unfamiliar with the story, a brief background: this is an unusual and complex fantasy, involving a parallel world (of approximately late-Victorian technical development) with people whose souls are housed outside the body, in talking animals called daemons. The story focuses on a 12-year old English girl – Lyra Bellaqua (very well played in the film by 13-year old novice Dakota Blue Richards) – who becomes the focus of interest of the powerful religious Magisterium and its ally, the formidable Mrs Coulter (an excellent performance by Nicole Kidman, with just the right blend of beauty, charm and reasonableness covering evil intent). In this first part, young children keep disappearing and Lyra, with the aid of a truth-divining pocket-watch like device known as the alethiometer (the Golden Compass of the film title), becomes involved in trying to discover what has happened to them. Lyra's journey takes her to an experimental station in the far north, and encounters with giant talking polar bears, who wear armour and live for fighting.
When making a film of a long and complex book (six or seven hours of reading, condensed into a couple of cinematic hours), the film-makers can either cut out many characters and large chunks of the plot, or can try to include all of the key elements but treat them rather briefly. In the case of The Golden Compass, the later course has been selected. The film starts with a long, voice-over infodump to try to get the audience up and running, then (as far as I can recall) remains more or less faithful to the book thereafter, but with each scene cropped in a way which keeps the story moving quickly. This works well enough for those familiar with the plot, for whom it acts as a kind of visual refresher, but may I suspect prove confusing and even irritating to the uninitiated. On the credit side, there are many visually spectacular scenes and the CGI is as good as we have come to expect. The acting is also very good from a strong cast, including the Casino Royale pairing of the rugged Daniel Craig as Lyra's "uncle" Lord Asriel and the beautiful Eva Green as the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala.
The trilogy has attracted controversy because of its anti-religious content, which becomes stronger in the later books. Not surprisingly, the Christian churches have reacted rather badly to the success of the series, although this aspect has been played down in this first film. I presume that films of the other volumes will follow if this one is successful (which so far it seems to be, although less so in the USA).
Overall, a good effort and I will certainly be watching the sequels, if they appear.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Review: Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer
This review is of the Tor 2004 edition which also includes a novella set in the same world, Balzac's War. It is a first novel by an established short-story writer.
Veniss Underground is a dark and grim fantasy set in a dystopian future; one in which Artificial Intelligences had previously taken control only to be overthrown by a human revolt. People now live in scattered cities, each enclosed within a massive wall and surrounded by wasteland. The city of the title, Veniss (nothing to do with Venice), does not just exist above ground but has thirty levels below of steadily increasing degradation. Escape from the underground is tightly controlled and possible only by means of a lottery.
Veniss above ground is in no great shape either. Contact has been lost with planets formerly colonised, and the space ships no longer call. The city is in a slow, inevitable decline, with the administration struggling to keep its basic services functioning. Policing has been outsourced to private security firms, which have divided the city up into zones with checkpoints on the boundaries. Life is decadent for the privileged, dangerous for the rest.
There are four principal human characters in the story (plus a non-human one). Shadrach Begolem is a lottery-winner from underground and now a "fixer" for the mysterious and apparently all-powerful Quin, a genetic engineer who has created intelligent life forms, most notably giant meerkats able to speak (one of which is the non-human character). The other two are twins, Nicholas and Nicola; the former a failed artist, the latter a computer software expert helping to keep the city functioning, and Shadrach's former lover.
The viewpoint shifts between the characters: at first, Nicholas tells the story in the first person. Then the focus switches to Nicola, whose story is told in the second person. The final – and longest – part of the tale is told from Shadrach's viewpoint, in the third person. This sounds confusing but in fact works well and does not break the flow of the story: for those interested in writing as well as reading, it makes for an interesting case study.
The plot is complex, but after initially focusing on the relationships between the characters, it switches to Shadrach's attempts to find Nicola, believed missing in the underground. This is a place of gothic horror; of organ banks and grossly deformed creatures created in Quin's experiments. Some of the descriptive passages are so gruesome that they proved a bit much for your reviewer's delicate sensibilities, so were skimmed over. Despite this, there was no danger of my giving up on the story, as it was gripping enough to hold my attention to the end. It is, I suspect, a story and a world likely to stick in my mind. I was reminded a little of Cordwainer Smith, although the tone is more Bladerunner.
Veniss Underground finishes with an Afterword, a combination of a short story which gives some pre-history, and some notes in the author's voice.
The novella, Balzac's War, is set much later, in a city which had been formerly abandoned and becomes the scene of a climactic battle between the remnants of humanity and large, intelligent, genetically-engineered animals. Again, the tone is dark, grim, gruesome and dystopic.
I normally dislike the kind of stories in this book, but the author's writing is good enough to keep me reading; he has the ability to make me interested in the characters, and care about what happens to them.
Veniss Underground is a dark and grim fantasy set in a dystopian future; one in which Artificial Intelligences had previously taken control only to be overthrown by a human revolt. People now live in scattered cities, each enclosed within a massive wall and surrounded by wasteland. The city of the title, Veniss (nothing to do with Venice), does not just exist above ground but has thirty levels below of steadily increasing degradation. Escape from the underground is tightly controlled and possible only by means of a lottery.
Veniss above ground is in no great shape either. Contact has been lost with planets formerly colonised, and the space ships no longer call. The city is in a slow, inevitable decline, with the administration struggling to keep its basic services functioning. Policing has been outsourced to private security firms, which have divided the city up into zones with checkpoints on the boundaries. Life is decadent for the privileged, dangerous for the rest.
There are four principal human characters in the story (plus a non-human one). Shadrach Begolem is a lottery-winner from underground and now a "fixer" for the mysterious and apparently all-powerful Quin, a genetic engineer who has created intelligent life forms, most notably giant meerkats able to speak (one of which is the non-human character). The other two are twins, Nicholas and Nicola; the former a failed artist, the latter a computer software expert helping to keep the city functioning, and Shadrach's former lover.
The viewpoint shifts between the characters: at first, Nicholas tells the story in the first person. Then the focus switches to Nicola, whose story is told in the second person. The final – and longest – part of the tale is told from Shadrach's viewpoint, in the third person. This sounds confusing but in fact works well and does not break the flow of the story: for those interested in writing as well as reading, it makes for an interesting case study.
The plot is complex, but after initially focusing on the relationships between the characters, it switches to Shadrach's attempts to find Nicola, believed missing in the underground. This is a place of gothic horror; of organ banks and grossly deformed creatures created in Quin's experiments. Some of the descriptive passages are so gruesome that they proved a bit much for your reviewer's delicate sensibilities, so were skimmed over. Despite this, there was no danger of my giving up on the story, as it was gripping enough to hold my attention to the end. It is, I suspect, a story and a world likely to stick in my mind. I was reminded a little of Cordwainer Smith, although the tone is more Bladerunner.
Veniss Underground finishes with an Afterword, a combination of a short story which gives some pre-history, and some notes in the author's voice.
The novella, Balzac's War, is set much later, in a city which had been formerly abandoned and becomes the scene of a climactic battle between the remnants of humanity and large, intelligent, genetically-engineered animals. Again, the tone is dark, grim, gruesome and dystopic.
I normally dislike the kind of stories in this book, but the author's writing is good enough to keep me reading; he has the ability to make me interested in the characters, and care about what happens to them.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Review: A Trace of Memory by Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer (1925-1993) was a prolific American SF author who specialised in fast-paced adventure stories (of which the Bolo series, concerning intelligent tanks, is best known) and comic satire, notably in the Retief books about an interstellar diplomat. A Trace of Memory, published in 1963, is a stand-alone novel in the former category.
The story is set in the (then) present day with the protagonist a capable but down on his luck American drifter called Legion. He accidentally becomes involved with Foster, a wealthy middle-aged man, who is desperate to flee some unspecified danger. To make matters worse, Foster falls into a coma while they are on the run and, the next morning, wakes up not just restored but rejuvenated. He has the appearance of a twenty year old; but no memory of who he was or what had happened to him.
Legion is drawn along in Foster's search for answers to his identity, a search which ends in the discovery of an ancient control centre from where they trigger the recall of a spacecraft which takes them to its mothership in distant Earth orbit. Foster realises that he originally came from this ship; he is able to recover some general memories of his language and culture with the aid of mental-transfer teaching devices, but is still unable to discover his identity. Foster's people are related to Earth humans, but long ago overcame the disease which causes old age. They are virtually immortal, but every century or so their bodies reset to a younger age, when their memories are wiped. To overcome this, they download their memories ready for uploading afterwards, but Foster cannot find his old memory record.
Foster takes the mothership back to his home planet in search of answers, while Legion takes the shuttle, loaded with saleable high-tech products from the mothership, back to Earth to enjoy a life of wealth and ease. This does not last; he finds himself chased off Earth and decides to take the shuttle in search of Foster. On arrival at Foster's home planet, Legion finds the situation radically different from what he expected and there are various twists and turns before the conclusion.
This book is certainly a page-turner (I finished it in one sitting) with something of the style of an old-fashioned private eye novel; in fact, it reads more as if it belonged to the 1940s rather than the 1960s. I have to admit that while it's a fun read, it isn't brilliant; the characterisation is minimal, there is no mention of women except for the brief appearance of a girlfriend, and there are plot holes which suggest a rather cursory attention to logical consequences. I have a few more of Laumer's books which have been sitting on my shelf for decades, and I hope to work my way round to re-reading them in due course because I enjoyed them as a young lad, but on this basis I'm not too optimistic. Still, at least it's short!
The story is set in the (then) present day with the protagonist a capable but down on his luck American drifter called Legion. He accidentally becomes involved with Foster, a wealthy middle-aged man, who is desperate to flee some unspecified danger. To make matters worse, Foster falls into a coma while they are on the run and, the next morning, wakes up not just restored but rejuvenated. He has the appearance of a twenty year old; but no memory of who he was or what had happened to him.
Legion is drawn along in Foster's search for answers to his identity, a search which ends in the discovery of an ancient control centre from where they trigger the recall of a spacecraft which takes them to its mothership in distant Earth orbit. Foster realises that he originally came from this ship; he is able to recover some general memories of his language and culture with the aid of mental-transfer teaching devices, but is still unable to discover his identity. Foster's people are related to Earth humans, but long ago overcame the disease which causes old age. They are virtually immortal, but every century or so their bodies reset to a younger age, when their memories are wiped. To overcome this, they download their memories ready for uploading afterwards, but Foster cannot find his old memory record.
Foster takes the mothership back to his home planet in search of answers, while Legion takes the shuttle, loaded with saleable high-tech products from the mothership, back to Earth to enjoy a life of wealth and ease. This does not last; he finds himself chased off Earth and decides to take the shuttle in search of Foster. On arrival at Foster's home planet, Legion finds the situation radically different from what he expected and there are various twists and turns before the conclusion.
This book is certainly a page-turner (I finished it in one sitting) with something of the style of an old-fashioned private eye novel; in fact, it reads more as if it belonged to the 1940s rather than the 1960s. I have to admit that while it's a fun read, it isn't brilliant; the characterisation is minimal, there is no mention of women except for the brief appearance of a girlfriend, and there are plot holes which suggest a rather cursory attention to logical consequences. I have a few more of Laumer's books which have been sitting on my shelf for decades, and I hope to work my way round to re-reading them in due course because I enjoyed them as a young lad, but on this basis I'm not too optimistic. Still, at least it's short!
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Scales review
Another review of Scales, this time a long Featured Review by Nathan Brazil on the SF Site. A brief extract:
"Narrated in the first person, the very readable story suggests inspiration from Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, the TV series Sliders, David Icke and a smattering of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar novels. I found it entertaining throughout, and finished keen to read more."
"Narrated in the first person, the very readable story suggests inspiration from Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, the TV series Sliders, David Icke and a smattering of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar novels. I found it entertaining throughout, and finished keen to read more."
Review: City of Truth by James Morrow
Veritas is a (more or less contemporary) city in which the population has been conditioned to be completely honest at all times. As young children, they go through an agonising ritual in which they are forced to repeat lies and given electric shocks each time, until they cannot even think of lying without feeling ill.
James Morrow's satirical novella explores the implications of this for Veritas society. Some of the results are very funny, as any kind of dishonesty or unsubstantiated claims are impossible. So you have cars with such names as the "Ford Sufficient" and "Plymouth Adequate", a restaurant offering "Murdered Cow Sandwich with Wilted Hearts Lettuce and High-Cholesterol Fries", a morning TV programme called "Enduring Another Day", a "Camp Ditch-The-Kids" summer camp, the "Centre for Palliative Treatment of Hopeless Diseases" and (my favourite) an illuminated sign on the cathedral: "Assuming God Exists, Jesus May Have Been His Son".
The effect on interpersonal relationships is indicated by the vow at a traditional wedding ceremony: "To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, to the degree that these mischievous and sentimental abstractions possess any meaning." All those little "white lies" and "lies by omission" which lubricate relationships in our world are impossible, so a degree of frankness which we would consider brutally rude is the norm.
Living in this "City of Truth" is the protagonist, Jack Sperry, with his wife and young son. He is a critic, which involves destroying any artistic products (sculpture, written works and film) which are not factually accurate: which is to say, nearly all of them. His acceptance of their way of life becomes severely strained when his son falls seriously ill, and he seizes on a banned text which suggests that a positive mental attitude can cure illness. What follows is a journey into the Veritasian underworld, where there is a secret society of people who have been de-conditioned so that they can lie again. He decides to undergo this process so that he can convince his son that he can defeat this illness.
Mostly comic, at times tragic, this tale holds up a mirror to our society: not exactly a distorting mirror, but a flat one which shows the distortions in our lives. Such distortions seem to be basic to human nature and have no doubt occurred in all human cultures to some extent, but our current society has developed them into a fine art. We live in a comforting cocoon of tacitly approved deceit, hypocrisy, euphemism and "spin", so all-pervasive that we barely notice it (except when a politician is interviewed on TV). Morrow's style has been likened to Vonnegut's, but this wry little story reminded me of Swift. As a valuable reminder of the lack of truthfulness in our society, it should be read by everyone!
James Morrow's satirical novella explores the implications of this for Veritas society. Some of the results are very funny, as any kind of dishonesty or unsubstantiated claims are impossible. So you have cars with such names as the "Ford Sufficient" and "Plymouth Adequate", a restaurant offering "Murdered Cow Sandwich with Wilted Hearts Lettuce and High-Cholesterol Fries", a morning TV programme called "Enduring Another Day", a "Camp Ditch-The-Kids" summer camp, the "Centre for Palliative Treatment of Hopeless Diseases" and (my favourite) an illuminated sign on the cathedral: "Assuming God Exists, Jesus May Have Been His Son".
The effect on interpersonal relationships is indicated by the vow at a traditional wedding ceremony: "To have and to hold, to love and to cherish, to the degree that these mischievous and sentimental abstractions possess any meaning." All those little "white lies" and "lies by omission" which lubricate relationships in our world are impossible, so a degree of frankness which we would consider brutally rude is the norm.
Living in this "City of Truth" is the protagonist, Jack Sperry, with his wife and young son. He is a critic, which involves destroying any artistic products (sculpture, written works and film) which are not factually accurate: which is to say, nearly all of them. His acceptance of their way of life becomes severely strained when his son falls seriously ill, and he seizes on a banned text which suggests that a positive mental attitude can cure illness. What follows is a journey into the Veritasian underworld, where there is a secret society of people who have been de-conditioned so that they can lie again. He decides to undergo this process so that he can convince his son that he can defeat this illness.
Mostly comic, at times tragic, this tale holds up a mirror to our society: not exactly a distorting mirror, but a flat one which shows the distortions in our lives. Such distortions seem to be basic to human nature and have no doubt occurred in all human cultures to some extent, but our current society has developed them into a fine art. We live in a comforting cocoon of tacitly approved deceit, hypocrisy, euphemism and "spin", so all-pervasive that we barely notice it (except when a politician is interviewed on TV). Morrow's style has been likened to Vonnegut's, but this wry little story reminded me of Swift. As a valuable reminder of the lack of truthfulness in our society, it should be read by everyone!
Saturday, 1 December 2007
On publishing, a disappointment and Interzone 213
By "on publishing" I'm not referring to the article of that name on my website (although I will probably be revising it in the light of what follows) but to an item in 'Vector', the reviews 'n interviews journal of the British Science Fiction Association. This is a very long (seven page) interview of Jo Fletcher by Graham Sleight. Jo Fletcher is editorial director of Gollancz, and she gives a frank and honest appraisal of the current British SF publishing scene which is quite the best thing I've ever read on the subject. Really fascinating for all authors (actual and prospective) and readers too; it sheds a great deal of illumination on many aspects how the system works.
The disappointment came with Peter David's satirical fantasy novel 'Sir Apropos of Nothing'. This must have had some very good reviews, because these days I don't buy books without them. My problem with the story is that I found it slow and unengaging, and not particularly amusing. It was well-enough written, and I wouldn't argue with those who like it, but it didn't hit the spot with me. I read the first four chapters (86 pages) and, had it been the same length as the typical classics I've been reviewing lately, I probably would have persevered to the end. But I noticed that it runs to almost 650 pages and I asked myself "do I really want to devote that many precious hours to this book?" And the answer came "no, not really". So I stopped.
Which brings me on to Interzone 213, which I did read from cover to cover. The usual mix of news, reviews, graphics and short stories. The front cover, showing nightmarish gothic spacecraft over a contrastingly dull-looking city of packed skyscrapers, is by Kenn Brown.
Featured in this issue is a special report on the Yokohama Worldcon (that's a science-fiction convention, to the uninitiated) which gives a flavour of the strangeness of that country as seen through western eyes. In that respect, it put me in mind of 'Lost in Translation', that (non-SF) Bill Murray film. An interesting read, reminding us that there are other worlds of SF about which we know little, due to the translation problems. I have a book which gives a rare insight into this particular world: 'The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories', edited by Apostolou and Greenberg, published by Barricade Books, USA, in 1997: recommended.
There's a regular column of short obituaries, which this time includes Robert Bussard (1928-2007), the US physicist who invented the concept of the Bussard Ramjet, a slower-than-light starship drive which will be familiar to readers of Niven's 'Known Space' series, among others.
The reviews include one of a non-fiction book: 'Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs' by SF author Greg Benford and Elizabeth Malatre, which explores the possibilities of human interactions with increasingly intelligent machines. Personally I can't help thinking that an intelligent and vaguely humanoid companion is likely to prove highly attractive to a lot of people, being far more dependable and loyal than a human and more interesting than a dog. Provided that they don't "do a Hal" and go frighteningly wrong, of course…
The interview is with Gary Gibson, author of 'Angel Stations', 'Against Gravity' and 'Stealing Light', described as technological space operas (I can't comment, not having read them). He has some interesting observations on the nature of religious belief and its place in SF, plus the nature of space travel. As an occasional author myself, I read his account of the circumstances in which he wrote his latest novel with attention. He comments on the great benefit to authorial focus of being housebound with nothing else to do for months, but since in his case this involved floating on painkillers as a result of a major back problem I think I'll pass.
And so to the stories, with a familiar mix ranging from the conventional to the rather odd.
'Molly and the Red Hat' by Benjamin Rosenbaum, comes in the latter category, a bizarre present-day fantasy about a little girl's search for her red hat, which is rather more than it seems. It involves the Queen of the Owls, a visit to Outthrown Trashland and an angry version of herself. I enjoy contemporary urban fantasies, the sort which show bizarre and fantastic worlds running in parallel with our own (and if you do too, and you haven't yet read Sheri Tepper's 'The Marianne Trilogy', do all that you can to get hold of a copy. I posted a brief review on this blog: see the reviews index, lower left). This one was a bit too strange for my taste, with a dreamlike, or perhaps nightmarish, quality; a touch of the 'Alice in Wonderlands'.
'The Men in the Attic' by John Philip Olsen, is a story which I started out disliking. Not that it's a bad story; it featured the minds of political refugees being given virtual asylum inside the head of the principal character (while their bodies are hidden away), in such a way that he can "visit" them in their virtual apartment. What I disliked in this story is the sense of impending doom, the near-certainty that it will all end in tears. But just as I thought this was duly being delivered, an intriguing get-out scenario appeared, which redeemed the tale for me.
'The Best of Your Life' by Jason Stoddard, is one of those in which you (well, me anyway) only really figure out what's going on towards the end, so you feel you have to read it again. It's set in a dystopian near-future world in which existence is hard unless you manage to earn enough to live in a protected settlement, in which you are provided with an attractive spouse who has agreed to be 'wired', i.e. electronically stimulated to be devoted to you, in return for escaping from destitution. Which is fine until the system goes wrong…
'Odin's Spear' by Steve Bein, is a story of obsession: two mountaineers determined to climb the highest peak in the Solar System, which happens to be an ice pinnacle on Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. To make it a suitable challenge, they wear suits which simulate the gravity of Earth plus the reducing air pressure as they climb higher.
The story section is topped and tailed by two unrelated ones which are coincidentally set in alternate worlds in which the current western hegemony did not come to pass (is it my imagination or are alternate world stories becoming increasingly common?). Both are good reads.
In 'Metal Dragon Year', by Chris Roberson, the Muslim world has spread to include Imperial China, which becomes the centre of its power. The Muslim empire did at one time cover the world, until a successful revolt by Mexica. There is now a space race in which both powers are trying to be the first to make a manned launch. We follow the tale of the Imperial Chinese engineer given the responsibility for winning that race, but something is wrong…This is a part of the author's 'Celestial Empire' sequence, which so far includes no less than two forthcoming novels plus a third in progress.
'The Lost Xuyan Bride', by Aliette de Bodard, is set in a world in which the Chinese were the first to reach the Americas, which are now divided into three; the powerful Chinese Xuyan in the west, the Aztec Greater Mexica (an interesting coincidence in names) to the south and the American (i.e. European) east. The story follows an American private detective trapped in Xuyan, who is commissioned to find a missing teenage girl of a wealthy Xuyan family. The culture clashes are interesting, and the alternate world could support a lot more stories about this character, if the author was so minded.
I have never been a great fan of short stories (and not so far been tempted to write any) but they are beginning to grow on me as a result of reading Interzone. There is something intriguing about these brief glimpses into other realities, merely suggesting worlds which would have been explored in detail in novels. I think I prefer that approach to its converse, the long epic fantasy in which a complex world is created in exhaustive detail (with an honourable exception for Tolkien, of course: the giant surrounded by a flock of knee-high wannabes), but each to his/her own.
The disappointment came with Peter David's satirical fantasy novel 'Sir Apropos of Nothing'. This must have had some very good reviews, because these days I don't buy books without them. My problem with the story is that I found it slow and unengaging, and not particularly amusing. It was well-enough written, and I wouldn't argue with those who like it, but it didn't hit the spot with me. I read the first four chapters (86 pages) and, had it been the same length as the typical classics I've been reviewing lately, I probably would have persevered to the end. But I noticed that it runs to almost 650 pages and I asked myself "do I really want to devote that many precious hours to this book?" And the answer came "no, not really". So I stopped.
Which brings me on to Interzone 213, which I did read from cover to cover. The usual mix of news, reviews, graphics and short stories. The front cover, showing nightmarish gothic spacecraft over a contrastingly dull-looking city of packed skyscrapers, is by Kenn Brown.
Featured in this issue is a special report on the Yokohama Worldcon (that's a science-fiction convention, to the uninitiated) which gives a flavour of the strangeness of that country as seen through western eyes. In that respect, it put me in mind of 'Lost in Translation', that (non-SF) Bill Murray film. An interesting read, reminding us that there are other worlds of SF about which we know little, due to the translation problems. I have a book which gives a rare insight into this particular world: 'The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories', edited by Apostolou and Greenberg, published by Barricade Books, USA, in 1997: recommended.
There's a regular column of short obituaries, which this time includes Robert Bussard (1928-2007), the US physicist who invented the concept of the Bussard Ramjet, a slower-than-light starship drive which will be familiar to readers of Niven's 'Known Space' series, among others.
The reviews include one of a non-fiction book: 'Beyond Human: Living with Robots and Cyborgs' by SF author Greg Benford and Elizabeth Malatre, which explores the possibilities of human interactions with increasingly intelligent machines. Personally I can't help thinking that an intelligent and vaguely humanoid companion is likely to prove highly attractive to a lot of people, being far more dependable and loyal than a human and more interesting than a dog. Provided that they don't "do a Hal" and go frighteningly wrong, of course…
The interview is with Gary Gibson, author of 'Angel Stations', 'Against Gravity' and 'Stealing Light', described as technological space operas (I can't comment, not having read them). He has some interesting observations on the nature of religious belief and its place in SF, plus the nature of space travel. As an occasional author myself, I read his account of the circumstances in which he wrote his latest novel with attention. He comments on the great benefit to authorial focus of being housebound with nothing else to do for months, but since in his case this involved floating on painkillers as a result of a major back problem I think I'll pass.
And so to the stories, with a familiar mix ranging from the conventional to the rather odd.
'Molly and the Red Hat' by Benjamin Rosenbaum, comes in the latter category, a bizarre present-day fantasy about a little girl's search for her red hat, which is rather more than it seems. It involves the Queen of the Owls, a visit to Outthrown Trashland and an angry version of herself. I enjoy contemporary urban fantasies, the sort which show bizarre and fantastic worlds running in parallel with our own (and if you do too, and you haven't yet read Sheri Tepper's 'The Marianne Trilogy', do all that you can to get hold of a copy. I posted a brief review on this blog: see the reviews index, lower left). This one was a bit too strange for my taste, with a dreamlike, or perhaps nightmarish, quality; a touch of the 'Alice in Wonderlands'.
'The Men in the Attic' by John Philip Olsen, is a story which I started out disliking. Not that it's a bad story; it featured the minds of political refugees being given virtual asylum inside the head of the principal character (while their bodies are hidden away), in such a way that he can "visit" them in their virtual apartment. What I disliked in this story is the sense of impending doom, the near-certainty that it will all end in tears. But just as I thought this was duly being delivered, an intriguing get-out scenario appeared, which redeemed the tale for me.
'The Best of Your Life' by Jason Stoddard, is one of those in which you (well, me anyway) only really figure out what's going on towards the end, so you feel you have to read it again. It's set in a dystopian near-future world in which existence is hard unless you manage to earn enough to live in a protected settlement, in which you are provided with an attractive spouse who has agreed to be 'wired', i.e. electronically stimulated to be devoted to you, in return for escaping from destitution. Which is fine until the system goes wrong…
'Odin's Spear' by Steve Bein, is a story of obsession: two mountaineers determined to climb the highest peak in the Solar System, which happens to be an ice pinnacle on Callisto, one of the moons of Jupiter. To make it a suitable challenge, they wear suits which simulate the gravity of Earth plus the reducing air pressure as they climb higher.
The story section is topped and tailed by two unrelated ones which are coincidentally set in alternate worlds in which the current western hegemony did not come to pass (is it my imagination or are alternate world stories becoming increasingly common?). Both are good reads.
In 'Metal Dragon Year', by Chris Roberson, the Muslim world has spread to include Imperial China, which becomes the centre of its power. The Muslim empire did at one time cover the world, until a successful revolt by Mexica. There is now a space race in which both powers are trying to be the first to make a manned launch. We follow the tale of the Imperial Chinese engineer given the responsibility for winning that race, but something is wrong…This is a part of the author's 'Celestial Empire' sequence, which so far includes no less than two forthcoming novels plus a third in progress.
'The Lost Xuyan Bride', by Aliette de Bodard, is set in a world in which the Chinese were the first to reach the Americas, which are now divided into three; the powerful Chinese Xuyan in the west, the Aztec Greater Mexica (an interesting coincidence in names) to the south and the American (i.e. European) east. The story follows an American private detective trapped in Xuyan, who is commissioned to find a missing teenage girl of a wealthy Xuyan family. The culture clashes are interesting, and the alternate world could support a lot more stories about this character, if the author was so minded.
I have never been a great fan of short stories (and not so far been tempted to write any) but they are beginning to grow on me as a result of reading Interzone. There is something intriguing about these brief glimpses into other realities, merely suggesting worlds which would have been explored in detail in novels. I think I prefer that approach to its converse, the long epic fantasy in which a complex world is created in exhaustive detail (with an honourable exception for Tolkien, of course: the giant surrounded by a flock of knee-high wannabes), but each to his/her own.
Friday, 23 November 2007
Review: The Paradox Men by Charles L. Harness
Charles Harness is little remembered now, but he was a significant writer at the end of SF's "Golden Age". When I checked on Wikipedia I was surprised to find that the last of his dozen novels appeared in 2002 (he died in 2005, at the age of 89) and that most of them were published in the 1980s, since I had always associated him with the 1950s and 60s. 'The Paradox Men' was his first novel, published in 1953 under another title (Flight into Yesterday). My edition, a NEL Master SF Series paperback from 1976, benefits from a substantial introduction by Brian Aldiss.
The story is set a couple of centuries in the future, on an Earth divided into two huge power blocs, with space travel only within the Solar System. A man named Alar, who has some non-human characteristics, survives (with all memory lost) a crash-landing in an unidentified spaceship and becomes a "Thief"; the Society of Thieves being a guild which provides the only organisation to oppose the government of America Imperial. A unique attribute of the Thieves is a mentally-powered armour which reacts to block fast-moving objects such as bullets, but lets through slower weapons like knives: an idea later borrowed and adapted by authors such as Frank Herbert (Dune) since it allows the romantic combination of swords and spaceships!
As well as Alar there are some memorable characters: Haze-Gaunt, the scheming and arrogant Chancellor of America Imperial; Count Shey, the sado-masochistic Imperial Psychologist; Thurmond, the ruthless Police Minister and a superb swordsman; the Microfilm Mind, a badly scarred man with the ability to synthesise vast quantities of data and jump to conclusions based on non-Aristotelian logic; the beautiful Keiris, trapped in a forced relationship with Haze-Gaunt; and her husband Kennicot Muir, a brilliant scientist and explorer believed to have died years ago but still casting a shadow over events.
Alar is hunted by Haze-Gaunt, Thurmond and Shey after being identified by the Microfilm Mind as a major threat to their regime. The pressure which this puts him under forces him to develop his unusual abilities to escape from their traps. At the same time he is trying to solve the mystery of his arrival on Earth five years before, studying records of strange astronomical disturbances before his spaceship arrived. And America Imperial is completing a spaceship with a new kind of drive, designed by Muir, which is believed to be capable of exceeding the speed of light. The ship is called the T-Twenty-two; a reference to the historian Toynbee's classification of civilisations which (for the present) concludes with our own at Toynbee Twenty-one. T-22 is the theoretical next civilisation to follow after our own collapses, and it is hoped that the FTL spaceship will provide a way of surviving that collapse. The T-Twenty-two bears a remarkable resemblance to Alar's wreck, which becomes increasingly significant as Alar wrestles with the concepts of space and time to understand what is going on. There are two dramatic climaxes; one on board a huge platform hovering above the surface of the sun to collect precious elements, the other on an Earth on the verge of a nuclear Armageddon. The finale is as breathtakingly ambitious as one could hope for.
Typical of the SF novels of its era, 'The Paradox Men' is short, fast-paced, and concentrates on mind-stretching strangeness rather than extended character development. By modern standards there are some clunky contrivances, notably an early info-dump in the form of an unconvincing extended conversation between two of the principal characters, but it is still a real page-turner. Aldiss memorably describes this type of fiction as 'Widescreen Baroque', which gives a flavour of the style. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed re-reading it and am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with some of Harness's other novels.
The story is set a couple of centuries in the future, on an Earth divided into two huge power blocs, with space travel only within the Solar System. A man named Alar, who has some non-human characteristics, survives (with all memory lost) a crash-landing in an unidentified spaceship and becomes a "Thief"; the Society of Thieves being a guild which provides the only organisation to oppose the government of America Imperial. A unique attribute of the Thieves is a mentally-powered armour which reacts to block fast-moving objects such as bullets, but lets through slower weapons like knives: an idea later borrowed and adapted by authors such as Frank Herbert (Dune) since it allows the romantic combination of swords and spaceships!
As well as Alar there are some memorable characters: Haze-Gaunt, the scheming and arrogant Chancellor of America Imperial; Count Shey, the sado-masochistic Imperial Psychologist; Thurmond, the ruthless Police Minister and a superb swordsman; the Microfilm Mind, a badly scarred man with the ability to synthesise vast quantities of data and jump to conclusions based on non-Aristotelian logic; the beautiful Keiris, trapped in a forced relationship with Haze-Gaunt; and her husband Kennicot Muir, a brilliant scientist and explorer believed to have died years ago but still casting a shadow over events.
Alar is hunted by Haze-Gaunt, Thurmond and Shey after being identified by the Microfilm Mind as a major threat to their regime. The pressure which this puts him under forces him to develop his unusual abilities to escape from their traps. At the same time he is trying to solve the mystery of his arrival on Earth five years before, studying records of strange astronomical disturbances before his spaceship arrived. And America Imperial is completing a spaceship with a new kind of drive, designed by Muir, which is believed to be capable of exceeding the speed of light. The ship is called the T-Twenty-two; a reference to the historian Toynbee's classification of civilisations which (for the present) concludes with our own at Toynbee Twenty-one. T-22 is the theoretical next civilisation to follow after our own collapses, and it is hoped that the FTL spaceship will provide a way of surviving that collapse. The T-Twenty-two bears a remarkable resemblance to Alar's wreck, which becomes increasingly significant as Alar wrestles with the concepts of space and time to understand what is going on. There are two dramatic climaxes; one on board a huge platform hovering above the surface of the sun to collect precious elements, the other on an Earth on the verge of a nuclear Armageddon. The finale is as breathtakingly ambitious as one could hope for.
Typical of the SF novels of its era, 'The Paradox Men' is short, fast-paced, and concentrates on mind-stretching strangeness rather than extended character development. By modern standards there are some clunky contrivances, notably an early info-dump in the form of an unconvincing extended conversation between two of the principal characters, but it is still a real page-turner. Aldiss memorably describes this type of fiction as 'Widescreen Baroque', which gives a flavour of the style. It won't be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed re-reading it and am looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with some of Harness's other novels.
Friday, 16 November 2007
BSFA and BFS
I am a member of both the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) and the British Fantasy Society (BFS). Readers may be interested in my assessment of how worthwhile they are.
First, some background: the BSFA is the older of the two and is currently celebrating its 50th birthday. The BFS broke away from the BSFA in 1971, primarily to focus on horror and fantasy. However, the distinction between them is not clear-cut: the BSFA includes reviews of works of fantasy, while the BFS reviews science fiction. Both of them are essentially fan clubs, providing publications containing news, book and film reviews, interviews with authors, and so on. More on that later. In addition, the BFS organises a national convention each autumn (the last one was held in central England, in Nottingham), plus occasional "open nights" elsewhere, while the BSFA holds monthly meetings in London, which is fine if you live in London… Both organisations provide annual awards for various categories of publications, with members involved in the selection process.
The BSFA produces six mailings per year of two magazines; Matrix (to become free online in 2008) and Vector. Matrix is the "media magazine", with news, short articles, and reviews of films and TV programmes. Vector is the "critical journal", with articles about books, interviews with authors, and lots of book reviews: in the current issue, more than twenty long reviews and almost as many short ones. In addition, two copies per year of Focus are sent out; this is a magazine for writers, including articles by writers on various aspects of the craft. In the present issue, there is (among other things) guidance on the value of agents plus a list of British ones receptive to SFF works (and those who aren't), a long "Masterclass" by Christopher Priest (on inspiration and observation) and an authoritative article on "Tomorrow's Soldier: The Future of War" although modesty forbids my naming the author…The BSFA also provides support for new writers via a series of Orbiters: "online work-shopping groups where prospective writers can regularly submit their work to gain constructive critiquing from their contemporaries and also contribute their thoughts on the work of others".
The BFS publishes Prism, a quarterly newsletter (in A5 format rather than the A4 of the BSFA mags) which contains news of the society's doings, plus (a nice touch) items from members concerning their latest publications. It contains some general articles, but most of it is filled with reviews; about a dozen of SFF books (including some from small press publishers) and similar numbers of both graphic novels and roleplaying games plus associated fiction. They also occasionally publish (free to members) Dark Horizons, which consists of about a dozen short stories with some author interviews and other articles mixed in, plus other anthologies from time to time.
Both organisations have websites offering news and information, plus an opportunity for feedback and discussion via a blog or forum. The BSFA website is HERE, the BFS site is HERE. The BSFA launched a new site a few weeks ago, which is still a work in progress. At the moment, it is difficult to find much information, for instance about their publications or the annual SF convention, Eastercon. The BFS site was also revamped recently, but is complete and quite informative.
The annual membership fee for each organisation is in the region of £25-30
There is clearly some overlap between the two organisations, but each has its own strengths. In the case of the BSFA it's the support for new writers, plus the greater volume of reviews and articles in a rather more professional style of publication. The BFS offers opportunities for writers to have their short stories or poems published (albeit without payment) and seems to work harder to bring members together, both at the annual convention and also at Open Nights in various locations – not just London.
I joined both organisations about a year ago and, although I haven't attended any of their events, consider them both worth belonging to for the modest cost involved.
First, some background: the BSFA is the older of the two and is currently celebrating its 50th birthday. The BFS broke away from the BSFA in 1971, primarily to focus on horror and fantasy. However, the distinction between them is not clear-cut: the BSFA includes reviews of works of fantasy, while the BFS reviews science fiction. Both of them are essentially fan clubs, providing publications containing news, book and film reviews, interviews with authors, and so on. More on that later. In addition, the BFS organises a national convention each autumn (the last one was held in central England, in Nottingham), plus occasional "open nights" elsewhere, while the BSFA holds monthly meetings in London, which is fine if you live in London… Both organisations provide annual awards for various categories of publications, with members involved in the selection process.
The BSFA produces six mailings per year of two magazines; Matrix (to become free online in 2008) and Vector. Matrix is the "media magazine", with news, short articles, and reviews of films and TV programmes. Vector is the "critical journal", with articles about books, interviews with authors, and lots of book reviews: in the current issue, more than twenty long reviews and almost as many short ones. In addition, two copies per year of Focus are sent out; this is a magazine for writers, including articles by writers on various aspects of the craft. In the present issue, there is (among other things) guidance on the value of agents plus a list of British ones receptive to SFF works (and those who aren't), a long "Masterclass" by Christopher Priest (on inspiration and observation) and an authoritative article on "Tomorrow's Soldier: The Future of War" although modesty forbids my naming the author…The BSFA also provides support for new writers via a series of Orbiters: "online work-shopping groups where prospective writers can regularly submit their work to gain constructive critiquing from their contemporaries and also contribute their thoughts on the work of others".
The BFS publishes Prism, a quarterly newsletter (in A5 format rather than the A4 of the BSFA mags) which contains news of the society's doings, plus (a nice touch) items from members concerning their latest publications. It contains some general articles, but most of it is filled with reviews; about a dozen of SFF books (including some from small press publishers) and similar numbers of both graphic novels and roleplaying games plus associated fiction. They also occasionally publish (free to members) Dark Horizons, which consists of about a dozen short stories with some author interviews and other articles mixed in, plus other anthologies from time to time.
Both organisations have websites offering news and information, plus an opportunity for feedback and discussion via a blog or forum. The BSFA website is HERE, the BFS site is HERE. The BSFA launched a new site a few weeks ago, which is still a work in progress. At the moment, it is difficult to find much information, for instance about their publications or the annual SF convention, Eastercon. The BFS site was also revamped recently, but is complete and quite informative.
The annual membership fee for each organisation is in the region of £25-30
There is clearly some overlap between the two organisations, but each has its own strengths. In the case of the BSFA it's the support for new writers, plus the greater volume of reviews and articles in a rather more professional style of publication. The BFS offers opportunities for writers to have their short stories or poems published (albeit without payment) and seems to work harder to bring members together, both at the annual convention and also at Open Nights in various locations – not just London.
I joined both organisations about a year ago and, although I haven't attended any of their events, consider them both worth belonging to for the modest cost involved.
Saturday, 10 November 2007
Scales
Part 1 (the first four chapters) of my SF novel, Scales, may now be read online, HERE. This follows what happens to a present-day Englishman who recovers from massive burns to find that he has acquired some decidedly non-human characteristics. At first he tries to find a way of life which makes the best use his new-found abilities. But later, when he discovers exactly what happened to him and why, he becomes involved with parallel worlds, alien civilisations, and mortal threats to humanity.
Review: Ringworld by Larry Niven
Larry Niven was my favourite SF author in the 1970s. I must have read everything he wrote at that time, and still have many of his novels and collections. I particularly enjoyed his stories set in Known Space, covering the history of humanity – and various alien species – through a long period of future history. The first of these novels was The World of Ptavvs, published in 1966, but he hit the jackpot in 1970 with Ringworld, which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as fulsome praise from some of the SF world's giants. It was a sensation at the time.
I can well recall being enthralled by Ringworld, and read it three times over a period of a few years (I have read very few books that often). Now I've just finished reading it for a fourth time, after a gap of decades, and I am pleased and relieved to say that I still find it as good as ever.
For those unfamiliar with the plot, the story is set many centuries in the future and concerns an expedition to explore a strange artefact in the form of an enormous ring surrounding a distant sun; an artificial world made from incredibly strong material, with an inner surface area equivalent to three million Earths.
Why do I like the story so much? For no one reason, but a combination of them. The writing style strikes the balance that I like: there's enough description to draw a clear picture, but not an ounce of padding. There's no purple prose, but enough mystery, adventure, tension, surprise and wonder - plus more than a dash of humour - to keep the pages turning effortlessly. There are three clearly defined and very well-drawn characters: a human girl bred for good luck; a huge, ferocious, intelligent, cat-like Kzin (formerly humanity's deadly enemy); and a Puppeteer - perhaps the most memorable and enjoyable of alien creations. Plus, in the central role, Louis Wu, the 200 year old human who provides the point of view; the archetypal 'rational man' with whom I find it natural to identify and empathise. And above all, a plethora of wonderful, mind-boggling, science-fictional ideas, which any present-day writer would spread over a fat trilogy (not that many writers could come up with any ideas half so good). There is only one slight reservation I have; the credibility of the "luck" factor, which is fundamental to the story but never explained.
An important part of the attraction of 'Ringworld' is, I think, nostalgia. Not just because I first read the book as a young man, but because of the whole tone of the book. It has an underlying light-hearted optimism which seems to be generally absent from today's fiction of the future. This is a universe in which humanity has survived to become a space-faring race dealing (mostly) peaceably with alien races as a matter of course, one in which disease and death have been almost conquered. Life is good, and there appear to be no serious worries (other than escaping from the explosion of the Galactic Core, which wouldn't affect Earth for another 20,000 years…). The kind of future which most of us would grab with both hands, given half a chance.
My one regret; I wish I could write stories like that!
I can well recall being enthralled by Ringworld, and read it three times over a period of a few years (I have read very few books that often). Now I've just finished reading it for a fourth time, after a gap of decades, and I am pleased and relieved to say that I still find it as good as ever.
For those unfamiliar with the plot, the story is set many centuries in the future and concerns an expedition to explore a strange artefact in the form of an enormous ring surrounding a distant sun; an artificial world made from incredibly strong material, with an inner surface area equivalent to three million Earths.
Why do I like the story so much? For no one reason, but a combination of them. The writing style strikes the balance that I like: there's enough description to draw a clear picture, but not an ounce of padding. There's no purple prose, but enough mystery, adventure, tension, surprise and wonder - plus more than a dash of humour - to keep the pages turning effortlessly. There are three clearly defined and very well-drawn characters: a human girl bred for good luck; a huge, ferocious, intelligent, cat-like Kzin (formerly humanity's deadly enemy); and a Puppeteer - perhaps the most memorable and enjoyable of alien creations. Plus, in the central role, Louis Wu, the 200 year old human who provides the point of view; the archetypal 'rational man' with whom I find it natural to identify and empathise. And above all, a plethora of wonderful, mind-boggling, science-fictional ideas, which any present-day writer would spread over a fat trilogy (not that many writers could come up with any ideas half so good). There is only one slight reservation I have; the credibility of the "luck" factor, which is fundamental to the story but never explained.
An important part of the attraction of 'Ringworld' is, I think, nostalgia. Not just because I first read the book as a young man, but because of the whole tone of the book. It has an underlying light-hearted optimism which seems to be generally absent from today's fiction of the future. This is a universe in which humanity has survived to become a space-faring race dealing (mostly) peaceably with alien races as a matter of course, one in which disease and death have been almost conquered. Life is good, and there appear to be no serious worries (other than escaping from the explosion of the Galactic Core, which wouldn't affect Earth for another 20,000 years…). The kind of future which most of us would grab with both hands, given half a chance.
My one regret; I wish I could write stories like that!
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Review: War in 2080 by David Langford
This book, which was published in 1979, was an attempt to look forwards to the likely technological changes in warfare over the next century. The author (now a well-known SF author, critic and commentator) makes two working assumptions from the start: that the predicted exhaustion of energy reserves would not take place until after an alternative – possibly fusion power – was in place; and that a nuclear Armageddon would be avoided.
The book provides a good summary of the development of weapons up to that point. As a specialist in weapons technology myself I didn't see much to quibble over, except that the author repeatedly confuses warhead or bomb weight with the high explosive content. The RAF's Grand Slam bomb did not contain ten tons of the bangstuff: that was the total bomb weight including the steel casing, fuzing system and the aerodynamic surfaces, and the actual weight of HE was about half of that.
Of closer interest to SF fans is the analysis of how different types of conventional weapons would work in space. Again, a good summary, with some useful tips for SF writers to note (you do not want to turn off readers by making some simple error in the basic physics of this).
Next comes consideration of nuclear weapons; again, a very good and useful summary of the different types, how they work and their effects. And again, a small quibble: MIRV is said to mean "Multiple Independently Retargetable Vehicles", which implies that the targets could be changed en route. In fact it stands for "Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicles" which has a slightly different meaning.
The potential of more recent weapon systems is considered next, such as fuel-air explosives and lasers (the options for the latter being examined in some detail). Even less-lethal weapons for crowd dispersal are described, although a couple of the technologies now being tested (an extremely loud sonic system, and a millimetre-wave skin-heating weapon) are not included. Chemical and biological warfare are covered also, as are some more exotic possibilities such as artificially triggering tsunamis, earthquakes, or other "natural" disasters.
The author then moves off-planet to examine warfare in near space, before turning to the issues around interstellar warfare (in fact, he goes way beyond what could conceivably be achieved in his 100-year timescale). As well as the use of nuclear and beam weapons in space and possible countermeasures to them, he examines the potential for anti-matter weapons and considers the theoretical techniques and energy levels involved in various means of destroying a planet, or life on it. In passing, some advanced physics is explained (in this section there is some overlap with Michio Kaku's "Parallel Worlds" reviewed on this blog on 13 October).
Considering the age of this book, it stands up very well. The science has changed hardly at all, and for non-scientific readers I can't think of any better discussion of advanced weaponry. I can happily recommended it as a good read and a useful reference. However, there are omissions. Although conscious of the future energy supply problem, he does not extend this to include the impact of the shortage of other essentials (even though at least one SF novel of the period I can recall dealt with conflicts around a future shortage of fresh water). There is also no reference to the potential consequences of climate change, beyond pondering how this might be artificially induced (but, to be fair, no-one else was worrying about that at the time).
On the technical side, the notable deficiencies are a lack of any reference to stealth technologies (again, a subsequent development), and an assumption that warfare will become increasingly high-tech. The author stated, "high technology limits you to fighting large-scale technological war: it's very difficult to go back". Current events in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate otherwise. Compared with their counterparts in the Second World War, our infantry now benefit from some advanced technologies – much improved radio communications, night-sights for their guns, and support from precision-guided weapons – but they are still kicking down doors and shooting people at close range with chemically-propelled projectile weapons. Not at all the kind of warfare which the author envisaged, yet there is no indication that this won't still be going on into the foreseeable future.
The book provides a good summary of the development of weapons up to that point. As a specialist in weapons technology myself I didn't see much to quibble over, except that the author repeatedly confuses warhead or bomb weight with the high explosive content. The RAF's Grand Slam bomb did not contain ten tons of the bangstuff: that was the total bomb weight including the steel casing, fuzing system and the aerodynamic surfaces, and the actual weight of HE was about half of that.
Of closer interest to SF fans is the analysis of how different types of conventional weapons would work in space. Again, a good summary, with some useful tips for SF writers to note (you do not want to turn off readers by making some simple error in the basic physics of this).
Next comes consideration of nuclear weapons; again, a very good and useful summary of the different types, how they work and their effects. And again, a small quibble: MIRV is said to mean "Multiple Independently Retargetable Vehicles", which implies that the targets could be changed en route. In fact it stands for "Multiple Independently-targetable Re-entry Vehicles" which has a slightly different meaning.
The potential of more recent weapon systems is considered next, such as fuel-air explosives and lasers (the options for the latter being examined in some detail). Even less-lethal weapons for crowd dispersal are described, although a couple of the technologies now being tested (an extremely loud sonic system, and a millimetre-wave skin-heating weapon) are not included. Chemical and biological warfare are covered also, as are some more exotic possibilities such as artificially triggering tsunamis, earthquakes, or other "natural" disasters.
The author then moves off-planet to examine warfare in near space, before turning to the issues around interstellar warfare (in fact, he goes way beyond what could conceivably be achieved in his 100-year timescale). As well as the use of nuclear and beam weapons in space and possible countermeasures to them, he examines the potential for anti-matter weapons and considers the theoretical techniques and energy levels involved in various means of destroying a planet, or life on it. In passing, some advanced physics is explained (in this section there is some overlap with Michio Kaku's "Parallel Worlds" reviewed on this blog on 13 October).
Considering the age of this book, it stands up very well. The science has changed hardly at all, and for non-scientific readers I can't think of any better discussion of advanced weaponry. I can happily recommended it as a good read and a useful reference. However, there are omissions. Although conscious of the future energy supply problem, he does not extend this to include the impact of the shortage of other essentials (even though at least one SF novel of the period I can recall dealt with conflicts around a future shortage of fresh water). There is also no reference to the potential consequences of climate change, beyond pondering how this might be artificially induced (but, to be fair, no-one else was worrying about that at the time).
On the technical side, the notable deficiencies are a lack of any reference to stealth technologies (again, a subsequent development), and an assumption that warfare will become increasingly high-tech. The author stated, "high technology limits you to fighting large-scale technological war: it's very difficult to go back". Current events in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate otherwise. Compared with their counterparts in the Second World War, our infantry now benefit from some advanced technologies – much improved radio communications, night-sights for their guns, and support from precision-guided weapons – but they are still kicking down doors and shooting people at close range with chemically-propelled projectile weapons. Not at all the kind of warfare which the author envisaged, yet there is no indication that this won't still be going on into the foreseeable future.
Saturday, 27 October 2007
Review: Jog Rummage, by Grahame Wright
This little book has been sitting on my shelf for almost three decades. I recollected having enjoyed it the first time (I wouldn't have kept it otherwise), but had almost completely forgotten the plot, so it was obviously time for a re-read.
And what a strange story this is. The first part concerns a mysterious world inhabited by Jogs and Rats. It gradually becomes clear (although it is never spelled out) that the Jogs are hedgehogs. These are no ordinary animals; they are intelligent and converse with each other (the two species share a language), and seem very human. The Jogs and the Rats live on opposite sides of a large body of water and their relationships are sometimes cooperative, sometimes antagonistic. This part of the story is told entirely from their perspective (and especially that of the young but wise Jog, Rummage) so many aspects of their environment are taken for granted and not explained, leaving the reader to puzzle out what they might be; particularly the fixed Moon and the Great Star. The climax of this part of the tale is an expedition to the Great Star, which can be reached only by climbing a huge mountain.
The second part takes up the story from the perspective of Elizabeth, a young and lonely disabled girl. She has a strange and vivid imagination, and lives in her own world as much as the real one; it is difficult for the reader to sort fact from fantasy in her thoughts. The context is contemporary, in an unnamed town or city somewhere in England. She lives with her father who scrapes out a living as a street newspaper-seller, and who has a mysterious past which he won't explain to her. Elizabeth imagines a golden age in the past, when her mother was still alive, and is convinced that if she can only discover what happened to her father and put it right, all will be well. By chance, she stumbles on the world of the Jogs and the Rats as she searches for the answer to her father's plight.
The third part of the story switches back to the perspective of the Jogs and the Rats, and reveals what Elizabeth's arrival means to their world.
This novel is difficult to characterise. Possibly as a result of this, it does not seem to have been republished since the 1970s and the author isn't listed as having published anything else. The world of the Jogs and the Rats is nothing like as light-hearted as in "The Wind in the Willows", it tends more towards the grimmer tone of "Watership Down". The depiction of the human world is also realistic and at times brutal. The narrative is adult and often philosophical, especially in the human world (the viewpoint switches between various adults as well as Elizabeth). The cover text compares the work to Tolkien, but I find it difficult to see any similarities. Despite first appearances, this is not a book for young children. It is, however, a very unusual and rather haunting story, and has been returned to its place of honour on my shelf.
And what a strange story this is. The first part concerns a mysterious world inhabited by Jogs and Rats. It gradually becomes clear (although it is never spelled out) that the Jogs are hedgehogs. These are no ordinary animals; they are intelligent and converse with each other (the two species share a language), and seem very human. The Jogs and the Rats live on opposite sides of a large body of water and their relationships are sometimes cooperative, sometimes antagonistic. This part of the story is told entirely from their perspective (and especially that of the young but wise Jog, Rummage) so many aspects of their environment are taken for granted and not explained, leaving the reader to puzzle out what they might be; particularly the fixed Moon and the Great Star. The climax of this part of the tale is an expedition to the Great Star, which can be reached only by climbing a huge mountain.
The second part takes up the story from the perspective of Elizabeth, a young and lonely disabled girl. She has a strange and vivid imagination, and lives in her own world as much as the real one; it is difficult for the reader to sort fact from fantasy in her thoughts. The context is contemporary, in an unnamed town or city somewhere in England. She lives with her father who scrapes out a living as a street newspaper-seller, and who has a mysterious past which he won't explain to her. Elizabeth imagines a golden age in the past, when her mother was still alive, and is convinced that if she can only discover what happened to her father and put it right, all will be well. By chance, she stumbles on the world of the Jogs and the Rats as she searches for the answer to her father's plight.
The third part of the story switches back to the perspective of the Jogs and the Rats, and reveals what Elizabeth's arrival means to their world.
This novel is difficult to characterise. Possibly as a result of this, it does not seem to have been republished since the 1970s and the author isn't listed as having published anything else. The world of the Jogs and the Rats is nothing like as light-hearted as in "The Wind in the Willows", it tends more towards the grimmer tone of "Watership Down". The depiction of the human world is also realistic and at times brutal. The narrative is adult and often philosophical, especially in the human world (the viewpoint switches between various adults as well as Elizabeth). The cover text compares the work to Tolkien, but I find it difficult to see any similarities. Despite first appearances, this is not a book for young children. It is, however, a very unusual and rather haunting story, and has been returned to its place of honour on my shelf.
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Review: Wolfbane by Frederick Pohl and C M Kornbluth
It is the 23rd century. Two hundred years before, a small planet had entered the Solar System, captured the Earth and the Moon, and pulled them out of their orbit into interstellar space. The controlling intelligences of the wanderer were enigmatic mobile Pyramids measuring 35 yards on each edge and possessing incomprehensible powers. One of them planed off the top of Mount Everest and had sat there ever since. Every attempt by humanity to attack the Pyramids and their planet ended in failure, and the Sun had become just another star in the night sky. The Earth remained habitable because the Pyramids turned the Moon into a mini-Sun. This faded over time and had to be relit every five years, causing a cycle of heat and cold which played havoc with the Earth's climates, sea levels and agriculture.
Humanity had suffered badly from these changes and the population had dropped to just 100 million, most of whom had to survive on 1,000-1,500 calories a day. The perpetual hunger had led to a low-energy lifestyle in which people lived their lives slowly within an elaborate structure of approved social behaviour, with every word and gesture being carefully stylised (the authors have some fun with this). Displays of emotion were solecisms, as was any attempt to take more than one was entitled to. Meditation was the most popular pastime, with the aim being to achieve "Translation": when someone reached the state of having a perfectly blank mind, a swirl (known as an "Eye") formed in the air above them and they disappeared in an instant.
Not all of humanity fitted into this pattern. A small minority, called "Wolves" by the rest, lived selfish, competitive, aggressive lives. When discovered they were seized and ritually killed (in a particularly unpleasant way) by the majority.
Glenn Tropile was a young misfit who, despite his traditional upbringing, had discovered and deliberately encouraged Wolfish tendencies in himself. He was caught and sentenced to death, but managed to escape with the aid of the members of a settlement composed entirely of Wolves, which had been able to establish itself and remain hidden from the rest. The Wolves ate well, being efficient scavengers, and they did not meditate. But Tropile could not give up this one aspect of his former life, and was duly Translated.
More of the plot cannot be revealed without spoiling it for new readers, but suffice to say that the Pyramids had a particular use for humanity which eventually proved to be their own weakness. The Wolves lead the resistance against them, taking the battle to the Pyramids' planet.
Pohl and Kornbluth were among the leading SF writers in the 1940s and 1950s. They wrote separately but are probably best remembered for their collaborations, of which "The Space Merchants" is the most famous. "Wolfbane" was first published in 1959. The plot was a departure from traditional genre themes: to start a novel with the Earth being wrenched out of the Solar System, leading to the death of 99% of humanity, was unusual to say the least. Because the human culture described is quite alien to us (although not unlike that of parts of ancient China) the story has not dated in the same way as most SF of this period. It could have been written today, although a modern author would certainly make the story stretch over far more than its 160 pages and would spend a lot more time in developing the characters. I'm not at all sure that this would be an improvement: "Wolfbane", like so many of the products of the "Golden Age" of SF, is a novel of ideas and concepts to stretch the imagination. In that respect it still works today, benefiting also from being so fast-paced that it's difficult to put down. It's well worth the brief time needed to read this little classic.
Humanity had suffered badly from these changes and the population had dropped to just 100 million, most of whom had to survive on 1,000-1,500 calories a day. The perpetual hunger had led to a low-energy lifestyle in which people lived their lives slowly within an elaborate structure of approved social behaviour, with every word and gesture being carefully stylised (the authors have some fun with this). Displays of emotion were solecisms, as was any attempt to take more than one was entitled to. Meditation was the most popular pastime, with the aim being to achieve "Translation": when someone reached the state of having a perfectly blank mind, a swirl (known as an "Eye") formed in the air above them and they disappeared in an instant.
Not all of humanity fitted into this pattern. A small minority, called "Wolves" by the rest, lived selfish, competitive, aggressive lives. When discovered they were seized and ritually killed (in a particularly unpleasant way) by the majority.
Glenn Tropile was a young misfit who, despite his traditional upbringing, had discovered and deliberately encouraged Wolfish tendencies in himself. He was caught and sentenced to death, but managed to escape with the aid of the members of a settlement composed entirely of Wolves, which had been able to establish itself and remain hidden from the rest. The Wolves ate well, being efficient scavengers, and they did not meditate. But Tropile could not give up this one aspect of his former life, and was duly Translated.
More of the plot cannot be revealed without spoiling it for new readers, but suffice to say that the Pyramids had a particular use for humanity which eventually proved to be their own weakness. The Wolves lead the resistance against them, taking the battle to the Pyramids' planet.
Pohl and Kornbluth were among the leading SF writers in the 1940s and 1950s. They wrote separately but are probably best remembered for their collaborations, of which "The Space Merchants" is the most famous. "Wolfbane" was first published in 1959. The plot was a departure from traditional genre themes: to start a novel with the Earth being wrenched out of the Solar System, leading to the death of 99% of humanity, was unusual to say the least. Because the human culture described is quite alien to us (although not unlike that of parts of ancient China) the story has not dated in the same way as most SF of this period. It could have been written today, although a modern author would certainly make the story stretch over far more than its 160 pages and would spend a lot more time in developing the characters. I'm not at all sure that this would be an improvement: "Wolfbane", like so many of the products of the "Golden Age" of SF, is a novel of ideas and concepts to stretch the imagination. In that respect it still works today, benefiting also from being so fast-paced that it's difficult to put down. It's well worth the brief time needed to read this little classic.
Saturday, 13 October 2007
Scales review
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku
Not fiction this time, but a book which seeks to explain to the non-scientist the development of current ideas in advanced physics. Tailor-made for me then, as although I subscribe to the 'New Scientist' magazine to try to keep up with developments, I have found current cosmological concepts to be more or less incomprehensible.
The author of 'Parallel Worlds' explains the revolution in thinking from Newton through Einstein to quantum physics, string theory and beyond. He explains that the existence of an infinite number of parallel, branching worlds is not a fanciful SF notion but may well be an inevitable consequence of the quantum universe. He concludes with speculation about the way in which our universe may develop in the far future, and what an advanced civilisation might be able to do to escape from its fate as the universe dies.
Michio Kaku has an accessible writing style, easy to follow, with no equations (except, of course, E=mc2) and with any necessary jargon clearly explained. There is a glossary at the end in case you forget the meaning of any of the terms he uses. Absorption is also helped by the way in which he divides each chapter into manageable chunks, each with its own sub-heading. This is not a kiddies' primer though, and concentration is required to understand the strange concepts which he describes.
What will be of particular interest to SF readers is that Kaku is clearly an SF fan himself. The book is littered with references to SF books, films and TV series, as he uses them to illustrate the concepts he describes. The Matrix films, Star Trek and Sliders are all mentioned as are many novels; for instance, a couple of pages are devoted to an analysis of Greg Bear's 'Eon'. I was surprised by some of the early SF novels he discussed which I was unaware of, for example Edwin Abbot's 1884 novel 'Flatland', concerning a race of beings who inhabit a two-dimensional world and are completely unaware of the existence of the third dimension.
So did the author succeed in his aim in making modern physics understandable? Well, I won't pretend to have completely grasped all of the weird, counter-intuitive concepts he discusses (I suspect that a doctorate in physics would be needed for that) but I do feel much more comfortable about tackling those articles on cosmology in 'New Scientist'. It is also, of course, an excellent reference work for hard SF authors looking for a scientific basis for their plots. Highly recommended.
The author of 'Parallel Worlds' explains the revolution in thinking from Newton through Einstein to quantum physics, string theory and beyond. He explains that the existence of an infinite number of parallel, branching worlds is not a fanciful SF notion but may well be an inevitable consequence of the quantum universe. He concludes with speculation about the way in which our universe may develop in the far future, and what an advanced civilisation might be able to do to escape from its fate as the universe dies.
Michio Kaku has an accessible writing style, easy to follow, with no equations (except, of course, E=mc2) and with any necessary jargon clearly explained. There is a glossary at the end in case you forget the meaning of any of the terms he uses. Absorption is also helped by the way in which he divides each chapter into manageable chunks, each with its own sub-heading. This is not a kiddies' primer though, and concentration is required to understand the strange concepts which he describes.
What will be of particular interest to SF readers is that Kaku is clearly an SF fan himself. The book is littered with references to SF books, films and TV series, as he uses them to illustrate the concepts he describes. The Matrix films, Star Trek and Sliders are all mentioned as are many novels; for instance, a couple of pages are devoted to an analysis of Greg Bear's 'Eon'. I was surprised by some of the early SF novels he discussed which I was unaware of, for example Edwin Abbot's 1884 novel 'Flatland', concerning a race of beings who inhabit a two-dimensional world and are completely unaware of the existence of the third dimension.
So did the author succeed in his aim in making modern physics understandable? Well, I won't pretend to have completely grasped all of the weird, counter-intuitive concepts he discusses (I suspect that a doctorate in physics would be needed for that) but I do feel much more comfortable about tackling those articles on cosmology in 'New Scientist'. It is also, of course, an excellent reference work for hard SF authors looking for a scientific basis for their plots. Highly recommended.
Saturday, 6 October 2007
Interzone 212
This magazine shows strange variations in the binding method, paper quality and the use of colour. This issue (Sept-Oct 07) is on matt paper and monochrome only, except for the cover. The format remains the same however, with SFF news and comment, several short stories, and book, film and other media reviews (including podcasts this time), plus the odd author interview (Charles Stross in this issue – not that he's particularly odd…).
The stories (all of which tend towards the bizarre in the Interzone tradition) are as follows:
Feelings of the Flesh, by Douglas Elliott Cohen. A fantasy set on what seems to be a post-apocalyptic Earth in which humanoid Aberrates live alongside (and in a state of lethal conflict with) normal humans. These Aberrates are of various types, but all have the ability to remove a particular sense from humans for their own pleasure, and are called Tasters, Sighters, Feelers, Listeners or Smellers accordingly. The story concerns a bounty hunter's long search for the Feeler who killed his love. A grim tale, but it finishes on a hopeful note.
Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth Lyn Powell. A near-future tale concerning a cartoon character, transferred to virtual reality, who takes on a life of his own through an online learning programme, with catastrophic results for human technology. What you might call a "pre-apocalyptic" tale.
A Handful of Pearls by Beth Bernobich. A disturbing fantasy about a sexually disturbed man and a tortured young girl.
Dada Jihad by Will McIntosh. Another story in what could be described as a near-future apocalyptic world, in this case as a result of a gradual deterioration in civilisation as a result of present trends, rather than any dramatic single event. A young scientist struggles to earn her PhD, very much against the odds.
The Algorithm by Tim Ackers. A fantasy in a medieval-level world concerning a Church based on machinery found in strange vessels which occasionally float downriver and are believed to come from God. One of these is found to contain a young girl, who has a message…This is really about the arbitrary way in which humanity builds belief structures, and the intensity with which they will be defended.
All of the stories are worth a read, if collectively rather depressing (it would be nice to have a few upbeat tales scattered through future editions), but The Algorithm seems most likely to stick in the memory. However, I had to laugh at the editorial note at the end of that one: "Tim wrote this story in a lined moleskin notebook with a brushed aluminium Lamy Studio fountain pen and antique brown ink." Surely a blatant bid for inclusion in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner!
The stories (all of which tend towards the bizarre in the Interzone tradition) are as follows:
Feelings of the Flesh, by Douglas Elliott Cohen. A fantasy set on what seems to be a post-apocalyptic Earth in which humanoid Aberrates live alongside (and in a state of lethal conflict with) normal humans. These Aberrates are of various types, but all have the ability to remove a particular sense from humans for their own pleasure, and are called Tasters, Sighters, Feelers, Listeners or Smellers accordingly. The story concerns a bounty hunter's long search for the Feeler who killed his love. A grim tale, but it finishes on a hopeful note.
Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth Lyn Powell. A near-future tale concerning a cartoon character, transferred to virtual reality, who takes on a life of his own through an online learning programme, with catastrophic results for human technology. What you might call a "pre-apocalyptic" tale.
A Handful of Pearls by Beth Bernobich. A disturbing fantasy about a sexually disturbed man and a tortured young girl.
Dada Jihad by Will McIntosh. Another story in what could be described as a near-future apocalyptic world, in this case as a result of a gradual deterioration in civilisation as a result of present trends, rather than any dramatic single event. A young scientist struggles to earn her PhD, very much against the odds.
The Algorithm by Tim Ackers. A fantasy in a medieval-level world concerning a Church based on machinery found in strange vessels which occasionally float downriver and are believed to come from God. One of these is found to contain a young girl, who has a message…This is really about the arbitrary way in which humanity builds belief structures, and the intensity with which they will be defended.
All of the stories are worth a read, if collectively rather depressing (it would be nice to have a few upbeat tales scattered through future editions), but The Algorithm seems most likely to stick in the memory. However, I had to laugh at the editorial note at the end of that one: "Tim wrote this story in a lined moleskin notebook with a brushed aluminium Lamy Studio fountain pen and antique brown ink." Surely a blatant bid for inclusion in Private Eye's Pseuds Corner!
Sunday, 30 September 2007
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.
'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.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
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…
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…
Sunday, 16 September 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, 9 September 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, 1 September 2007
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!
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!
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