Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

A bit off-topic this week in that the book I want to talk about isn't, by most definitions, science fiction or fantasy. However, my excuse is that it includes elements of science, fiction and fantasy – even though it is a non-fiction book about health care!

The author of Bad Science is a doctor working in the National Health Service who also writes a column for a national newspaper (The Guardian) and maintains a website on the same subject. His topic is the way in which the public is misled by claims made about medications and medical treatments; not just by practitioners of alternative and complementary medicine (including nutritionists) but also by pharmaceutical companies and, most of all, the news media. His writing style is journalistic rather than academic and is often hilariously trenchant as he names and shames some very well-known individuals, companies and newspapers. He must have some hard-working lawyers!

Bad Science is not just an entertaining read, it is highly informative. Goldacre not only provides lots of evidence to back up his denunciations, he constantly drives home the essential message concerning medical trials: that many of them do not achieve the quality "gold standard", for which there must be a placebo-taking control group; there must be a completely randomised selection of those in the trial and control groups; and the trials must be conducted under double-blind conditions (that is, neither the participants, nor those doling out the pills to them, know who is getting the trial medicine and who is getting the placebo). Failure to follow these precepts has been shown to have a major distorting effect on the outcome, and the author gives many examples of this.

In the first part of the book, Goldacre's critical eye is turned onto alternative medicine in general and homeopathy in particular. He shows that there is a direct relationship between the results of the trials in this field and the rigorousness of the way in which the trials were conducted. Put simply, trials which are conducted in accordance with the "gold standard" precepts listed above show that homeopathic pills work no better than placebos. As he points out, the link between the mind and the body is powerful and complex, and still not entirely understood (sometimes patients report feeling better even when they have been told that they are being given sugar pills instead of medicine!). Any benefits from alternative medicine appear to be in the ritual associated with them, as with shamanistic magic, which convinces customers that this must be doing them some good.

Next in his firing line come the nutritionists and peddlers of vitamin pills. The author's message is this: to give yourself the best chance of enjoying good health, eat a variety of fresh fruit and vegetables; drink alcohol only in moderation; don't smoke; and take regular exercise. He says that's basically all there is to it; there is no valid evidence that "superfoods" work any better than other fruits and vegetables, or that you can further improve your health by taking vitamin pills or dietary supplements. Amazingly, despite the almost universal acceptance of the idea that taking fish-oil pills for omega-3 fatty acids is good for brain development, there is no trial evidence which supports this for the general population.

Goldacre also takes a swipe at the illogicality of the "detoxing" and "antioxidant" fads, for which he argues that there is no clear case (in fact, the most exhaustive trials of antioxidant vitamin pills show a slightly increased chance of death compared with control groups taking placebos). He points out the tendency of all purveyors of quackery to "cherry-pick" the results of trials, quoting only the few (usually less rigorous) ones which appear to support their claims while ignoring the vast quantity of much larger and more reliable trials which demonstrate no effect beyond placebo.

In the light of the above, one of the intriguing aspects of this subject is the very high profile in the news media (including quality newspapers and the BBC) of alternative medicines, superfoods and vitamin pills, when there is no valid evidence that they work, and plenty that they don't. Goldacre explores this issue too, pointing out the money spent on promotion, the relentless efforts of the practitioners in getting their message across, and their immediate and often aggressive responses to any criticism. What he finds more shameful is that some universities have fallen into the trap and are offering courses in these fields, possibly blinded to the lack of any valid scientific basis by the popularity of the subjects and the universities' need to put on courses which will attract students and earn money.

So why are these "remedies" so popular? Partly, it seems, because we like the idea of a pill which will make our problems go away. The author quotes a recent large-scale trial of whether better parenting techniques could improve the behaviour of problem children, which resulted in dramatic benefits. Yet this was ignored by the news media, which constantly focus on pills and diet instead. I suspect that this may be because parents don't like to consider that it may be their failings which have caused the problems, nor that correcting them will involve a considerable effort over a long period of time. How much easier it is to be able to blame something else, and to dish out a magic pill for it.

The major pharmaceutical companies ("big pharma") are next up for attack. First, the introduction of new medicines to solve real diseases is slowing considerably, so the companies are inventing new medical conditions which their existing medicines are claimed to treat. He quotes "social anxiety disorder", "female sexual dysfunction" and "night eating syndrome" as three examples of problems for which big pharma are peddling their wares, even though they are probably not best treated by taking a pill. Much of the effort in developing new drugs is on devising variations of existing drugs which are sufficiently different to establish a new ten-year period during which the companies have sole rights to make them. And of course, big pharma has no interest in developing cures for the killer diseases which only affect the Third World (no money in them) nor in promoting effective and cheap remedies which use common ingredients which can't be patented (no money in those, either). To be fair, I don't blame the companies for these last two issues – as Goldacre points out, they are profit-making businesses, not charities – but they do highlight the need for some method of funding the companies (or somebody) to carry out such unprofitable but important work.

The author describes in detail the way in which big pharma can distort the results of trials of their new products. For a start, such trials are funded by the companies themselves, and he quotes strong statistical evidence that the source of funding biases the results in favour of the funder. He then describes in considerable detail the different techniques which big pharma uses in order to present trial results in the best possible light (including burying negative outcomes) to get approval for their products and to persuade doctors to prescribe them. Even without such deliberate manipulation, negative outcomes of trials are less well-reported than positive ones anyway, an effect known as "publication bias". All of this results in medicines being presented as far more beneficial than they really are (in fact, it was recently reported in New Scientist that some well-known medicines don't work at all, or work far less well, when patients are not told what they are being given and what they are supposed to do).

Despite all of the above, Goldacre's major criticisms are focused on the news media for the way in which they report science in general and medical science in particular. He takes as examples two recent high-profile issues in the UK; the prevalence of MRSA in hospitals, and the alleged association between MMR vaccinations and autism. The first story was fuelled by positive MRSA readings from hospital swabs taken by undercover journalists, but it transpired that these were processed by a man unqualified to do such work, in an amateur lab in his garden shed. Those samples which were double-checked by proper labs produced different results. Yet the newspapers continued to use the amateur lab because they knew that this would provide positive results, which made for a better scare story (which is not to say that there isn't a problem with MRSA in British hospitals – but its scale was exaggerated).

The attitude of many newspapers to the MMR scare was even more shameful; they accepted the word of one doctor that there was a link with autism, on the basis of one very small-scale study which didn't even meet the minimum standards for a trial. They gave this at least equal weight to the assurances given by the medical profession that there was no link, and ignored huge and properly conducted large-scale studies which demonstrated this. In fact, one newspaper waged a vicious campaign against MMR for several years, until many people were left feeling that there must be something in the story, and that the government and the medical establishment were just trying to cover it up. As a result, take-up of the MMR jab has declined to the point that measles, mumps and rubella, which had been on the way out, are making a comeback.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of the news media reporting is not that some lower-quality papers uncritically report bad science as if it were fact, but that even the best newspapers – and the BBC, heaven help us – are all guilty of bad science reporting. Most of them have science correspondents who know better, but once a major and exciting (i.e. controversial) science story breaks, the job of covering it is often given to higher-status mainstream reporters who are ignorant of science and proper trial protocols, dumb down the issues, and sometimes ignore the conclusions of scientific studies in order to dig into the data to find nuggets which they can take out of context to fuel the conspiracy fires. While it can be argued that the news media are not entirely to blame for all of this (after all, they only do it because lots of people want to read about such things – we get the news media that we deserve) it is highly irresponsible for them to whip up unfounded panic, resulting in serious medical consequences, in the interest of sales.

One result of all of this "bad science" is an appalling lack of understanding of science, including basic statistics, throughout society. The author quotes a couple of criminal trials which resulted in the defendants being imprisoned for murder on the basis of highly questionable statistical evidence (one of them was later released).

The only criticism I have of the book is that the characteristic which makes it such an entertaining read – the author's unbridled attacks on what he considers to be bad science – also mean that it is more of a polemical work than a balanced account. However, the evidence and analysis which Goldacre provides is compelling, and this is a book which everyone should read. It is similar in its theme (although most of the content is different) to Gilovich's equally important book How We Know What Isn't So, reviewed in this blog on 1 August this year.

The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney

Kuf is a world with a civilisation in the early iron age, mostly united in a great Empire with the exception of the remote land of the Macht, a people of legendary military prowess who live in independent city-states reminiscent of ancient Greece, and who fight using weapons and tactics similar to the Greek Phalanx. Now there is civil war in the Empire between Ashurnan the Great King and Arkamenes his brother, who has amassed an army to seize the throne. And the devastating spear-head of that army is a force of 10,000 mercenaries of the Macht, brought from overseas to fight in the Empire for the first time in millennia.

So far, this could just as well be historical fiction as fantasy, apart from details of geography and the presence of two moons. Particularly since there is nothing magical or mysterious in the world of Kuf, except for The Curse of God – five thousand sets of impenetrable armour so black that it reflects no light, presented to the Macht by a deity, according to their legends. However, while the Macht appear to be human as we know them, the people of the Empire come in a far wider variety of sizes, shapes and colours than we are used to.

The story initially focuses on two young Macht, Rictus and Gasca, who enlist in the mercenary army. Other principal characters are Jason and Phiron, Macht leaders, Tiryn, the mistress-slave of Arkamenes, and General Vorus, a renegade Macht who leads the Great King's army. The viewpoint shifts between characters from scene to scene.

In many ways this is a straightforward story; there are no mysteries to be revealed, no unexpected plot twists or other major surprises. The tale of the civil war follows its own relentless logic, step by step, as the invading army fights its way across much of the Empire. The strength of the book is in its battle scenes, of which there are many. The author belongs to the gritty realism school of writing, and the fear, panic, confusion and brutality of battle are powerfully evoked, as are the campaigning problems of hunger, thirst, heat, cold, and body lice. The result is a gripping account which draws in the reader and had this reviewer shivering with the tension of the build-up to the final climactic battle.

There is much strong writing here, the only disappointment being the ending, which I found rather unsatisfying. Nevertheless The Ten Thousand is a must-read for enthusiasts of epic battle fantasies.

Some films plus the BFS

I'm slowly catching up with recent SFF films, and saw a couple of them last week. One is The Day After Tomorrow, about the sudden onset of a new ice age. An average-quality disaster movie requiring a high-than-average suspension of disbelief. This is due to the plot making no sense climatologically, especially because of the improbability (to put it mildly) of the suddenness and severity of the cooling effect (ambient temperature falling to minus 150 degrees in a few seconds?). Climate change is obviously a difficult subject for Hollywood. Unlike major earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and volcanic eruptions, which are catastrophic short-term events, climate change takes – at least – years, and usually decades, to produce dramatic results. Rather too long a timeframe for an exciting film, so they decided to exaggerate everything by a few orders of magnitude. And, as is commonplace with Hollywood products, there is a strong focus on the family in the centre of the storm (although not to the same ridiculous extent as the remake of The War of the Worlds which I've written about previously). As is usual with modern disaster movies, the real star of the show is the CGI of the disaster itself, with a massive storm surge crashing into New York.

The other film I've seen is King Kong – the recent version. A good film, with well-played characters and a most impressive, and expressive, Kong. This one is about relationships too, but then it's meant to be. Naomi Watts provides a credibly appealing focus for the beast's affections, and their story is handled well. The only complaint I have is that the film is too long, partly because the director seems to have overindulged himself in playing for ages with an array of CGI monsters on Kong's island chasing and devouring sundry members of the cast. I kept wanting to cut these peripheral scenes short as I watched them.
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Also time to catch up with some of the material from the British Fantasy Society
which has been disgorged by my letterbox over the past few months – they are an industrious lot! Regular offerings include Prism, which is mostly reviews with a few comment columns. As usual, the coverage is wide, including fantasy, horror, science fiction and graphical fiction (or comics, as I used to call them in my youth). I read (as well as write) a lot more reviews than novels these days, as I find this a useful way of discovering new authors to try.

Then there is Dark Horizons, a mix of short stories, poetry, interviews, news and chat, sprinkled with illustrations. The current issue (#53) offers a remarkably varied selection of tales, including dark fantasy, horror and comedy. My pick of the bunch is Paul Campbell's Timeless, about a middle-aged woman who is given the opportunity to review one of the key turning points of her life; a relationship which failed to work. This might sound unpromising but it is an original tale, beautifully told.

I'm still working through a couple of BFS booklets. One is A Dick and Jane Primer for Adults, a very strange and intriguing collection of stories all written on the theme (and mostly in the style) of the children's series but with an adult – and sometimes nightmarish – perspective. The other is Fantasy & SF: the Roots of Genre, which consists of extracts from two books of criticism: Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn and What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid, with an introduction by Niall Harrison [edit to add: ooops, this last one is from the British Science Fiction Association - with apologies to them!].

Finally, a book arrived in the mail the other day, Houses on the Borderland, a substantial 300-pager with six novellas; "unsettling tales of the macabre", according to the blurb. I was a bit puzzled because I hadn't ordered it, until it dawned on me that it was another publication of the BFS that was included in my subscription. As I said, they really are busy people. All I can add is "keep up the good work!"

Interzone 218

October's issue of the SFF magazine might be regarded as the "Chris Beckett special", as it includes a long interview with the British author plus three of his short stories. I have to confess I hadn't been aware of him before, but was intrigued by his background (as a social worker and now a university lecturer) and his transgenre approach to fiction. Not an easy interview to summarise, but I share his liking for marginal territories and other, hidden, worlds.

Poppyfields (by Chris Beckett, illustrated by Vincent Chong) concerns the relationship between Angus Wendering, an unambitious office worker, and two women; his ambitious wife and a mysterious girl who appears out of nowhere in a patch of wasteland called Poppyfields. This wasteland is central to the story; a large development site, locked in a legal tangle, which has reverted to a natural haven which attracts birdwatcher Angus to spend time there. The girl comes from an alternate Earth and has her own particular agenda. The story has charm, especially in the descriptions of Poppyfields, the flavour of which brought to mind Grahame Wright's Jog Rummage (reviewed on this blog a year ago) despite that being very different in other respects. My only criticism is that I found the ending a little too pat to be satisfying.

The way in which the compliant Angus is ruthlessly manipulated by both of the women in his life is amusing, and there is an echo of that in Beckett's next story, Greenland. This is illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe, the illustration being repeated in colour on the cover. It is set in a grim future in which global warming has turned England into a semi-tropical land swamped by refugees from countries made uninhabitable by climate change. Juan Fernandez is one of these refugees, an educated man struggling to find any employment to enable him to support his demanding wife and their young child. The dream of everyone is to escape to Greenland, which is now a pleasantly habitable land. An opportunity arises to achieve this if Juan agrees to participate in an experiment using a matter replicator/transmitter to send a copy of himself to an orbiting space station, but there is an unforeseen consequence.

In Rat Island by the same author (illustrated by Daniel Bristow-Bailey) a man looks back at the photos he took as a young boy in an England which is only slightly in our future. The man's circumstances are not explained other than comments which indicate that fundamental changes have taken place; he describes our time as a period of:
"Incredible folly, blind recklessness, it all now seems – blazing electric light for no purpose at all except advertising and decoration – but it was a golden age, one of the pinnacles of history. We lived in a great global empire of light and plenty, fuelled by the ancient energy of ancient suns stored up over millions of years and burned up by us in one great, glorious hundred-year binge."
The focus of the story is on the boy's experiences as he and his younger sister visit their father, a prominent civil servant in a London which is, all unknowing, on the verge of disaster. His life is changed forever when his drunken father reveals to him exactly what is happening.

These last two stories were as intriguing and well-written as the first, but I found their dark mood a bit depressing; I don't mind reading such stories occasionally, but I prefer them to be surrounded by less gloomy tales.

There are three other stories in this issue.

IF, by Daniel Akselrod and Lenny Royter, concerns a brain insert known as the IF Chip, which creates an imaginary speaking companion (usually in toy animal form) programmed to teach, guide, and be a friend to children; a great boon for busy parents. The problem is that when the chips are removed in adulthood, the companions refuse to go away. The plot concerns the attempts of Richard, a medical scientist, to cope with his intrusive toy camel while struggling to develop a serum which will banish such companions for good. An amusing tale, well told, with a rather old-fashioned feel (which is not a criticism).

His Master's Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi, illustrated by Paul Drummond, is a strange tale of an intelligent talking dog and his equally modified cat companion who are searching for the master who adapted them and who has been incarcerated for his crime of creating a clone of himself. I never did entirely figure out what was going on.

The Corner of the Circle by Tim Lees (illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe) is offbeat in a different way. A teenage boy occasionally visits a relative in a near-future New York, and forms a relationship with an intriguing woman who becomes an honorary aunt. The focus is entirely upon this relationship, and the visits by aliens using a nearby portal as a transport nexus for their spaceships seem peripheral to the plot.

The rest of the magazine contains the usual news and reviews, including an interview with Charles Stross. At least the stills from the films reviewed include only two pictures of characters holding guns this time; last issue there were four, which seems a little excessive (especially since one picture included two of them). I have nothing against guns – I shoot them when I get the chance – but I do find Hollywood's preoccupation with them somewhat tiresome.

Necropath by Eric Brown

This new book is listed as "a Bengal Station novel", presumably set in the same location as the author's 2004 novel of that name, which I haven't read.

Bengal Station is a vast spaceport built in a far-future Bay of Bengal, receiving traffic from the many human-occupied worlds and occasional visits from members of various intelligent alien races. Rather more than a spaceport, in fact; it has many levels and is home to a crowded city of 25 million people. The city is zoned, with the best areas close to the top and/or enjoying direct sea views; the lower levels become increasingly down-market. This concept of a vertically stratified city is remarkably common in SF, presumably because it emphasises the associated social stratification.

Jeff Vaughan is a telepath, his natural potential having been substantially boosted artificially. He is employed by the spaceport to vet incoming ships for illegal immigrants, but is tired of his job and his life, and takes drugs to dull his mind to the constant mental pressure from the packed hordes living in the city. Chandra is a one of the few people he can tolerate; a detective with the Bengal Station police. Sukara is a "working girl" from Cambodia, searching for her lost younger sister who was last heard of in Bengal Station. These three lives and several others become intertwined as Vaughan begins to investigate some anomalous shipments from the human colony on Verkerk's World, which his boss (himself protected from telepathic intrusion) will not allow him to scan.

This is a traditional hard-SF thriller featuring interstellar travel, exotic drugs, mysterious aliens and a powerful new religion taking hold on Earth. Vaughan struggles to find out what is going on, only to find that the greatest threat comes from his own past. An entertaining read, well worth the time.

The City at the End of Time by Greg Bear

The City at the End of Time, Greg Bear's latest novel, has a highly ambitious plot. Several different plot threads are kicked off at the start, mostly taking place in today's Earth (or alternate versions of it) but a couple in the unimaginably far future. The contemporary characters are human, but have some odd abilities, while those in the future are vaguely related to humanity, a long way down the track. The author firmly belongs to the "show don't tell" school and the lack of explanation makes the events initially baffling, especially those in the future. Now an element of "mystery to be revealed" is good for a story in my opinion, but this one is taken to extremes. It was only the quality of the writing and some intriguing premises which kept me reading through the early chapters, but it was hard work. I found it difficult to get absorbed in the parallel stories, and for the first few chapters was constantly flicking back to remind myself of who was who. It didn't help me that none of the characters is easy to identify with.

Despite this unpromising start the story slowly emerges like a vast beast rising from the sea, with the connections between the different parts gradually being revealed. The present-day threads follow four individuals: Jack and Ginny, young adults who possess mysterious stones called "sum-runners", have the ability to shift fate to suit themselves, and who dream of a city at the end of time; Daniel, who has similar abilities in a more drastic form; and Glaucous, a man employed by the Chalk Princess (a mysterious, god-like being) to hunt down dreamers like Jack and Ginny. The threads gradually combine in a vast library owned by Mr Bidewell, a man of apparently great age who is connected in some way to the peculiar abilities of the other characters.

The plot threads in the far future, and indeed the universe in which they are set, are much harder to comprehend. This is literally at the end of time: trillions of years hence, after humanity has expanded and contracted in various forms (physical and virtual) many times, gaining ascendancy over the entire Universe even to the point of creating new galaxies to stave off the ultimate decline. But then Typhon, an agent of Chaos, emerges and begins to destroy what remains of the Universe until civilisation retreats, first to the Earth and then to this one last remaining city, Kalpa, protected from the encroaching Chaos by a defensive shield of reality generators.

Kalpa bears no relationship to our concept of a city, being just as strange as its inhabitants. These are divided into different groups: the Breeds, who are a reconstruction of what the city rulers think original humanity was like (records having long been lost); the Tall Ones such as Ghentun, who are much more distantly related to humanity and are much more knowledgeable and powerful than the Breeds; and the Eidolons even higher up the scale. Right at the top is the Librarian, whose nature can be guessed by the fact that a request for a meeting with him is granted – for a thousand years hence.

Jebrassy and Tiadba are Breeds who also dream – of the world of Jack and Ginny, their present-day counterparts. They are recruited to join one of the occasional expeditions sent out into the Chaos to try to find the fabled city of Nataraja, which it is believed is also resisting destruction. The various plot threads gradually combine in a race to prevent Chaos from absorbing the last remnant of reality and bringing an end to time.

The story is packed with strange events, imperfectly understood, and beings whose nature is hard to determine. There is certainly no shortage of the "sense of strange" which pervades some of the most powerful SF. Does Bear manage to pull it off? Not quite; his reach exceeds his grasp, in my opinion, and I was left rather unsatisfied and still somewhat baffled. Still, the breadth of the imagination and the quality of the writing kept me reading to the end, and I wouldn't be surprised if this were proposed for some awards later in the year.

The Hammer of God by Arthur C Clarke

The Hammer of God makes an interesting contrast with Rendezvous with Rama by the same author, reviewed on this blog on 27 June this year. Both stories are set about a century in the future and concern Spaceguard, an organisation set up to monitor the paths of any large asteroids or comets which look as if they might pose a danger to Earth. In both cases, a large object is observed heading inwards from the outer reaches of the Solar System, and action is taken to send a manned spacecraft to intercept. However, there the stories diverge: the object in Rama is going to miss the Earth by a wide margin, but it turns out to be a vast alien space habitat. In Hammer, the object is more prosaic – a large asteroid – but it is heading directly for our planet. So with this story we are in familiar territory, as various books and films have covered the drama of what might happen if the Earth were threatened by a meteorite big enough to destroy our civilisation.

Hammer was first published in 1993, twenty years after Rama, and the structure is very different. Rama is a straightforward tale which progresses in chronological order throughout and focuses almost entirely on the expedition to the artefact (mainly seen through the eyes of the expedition's commander), with only an occasional diversion to the deliberations of a political committee on Earth. Most of Hammer is also seen from the point of view of the ship's captain, but that's where the similarity ends, since the chronological order is jumbled and the chapters are interspersed with various factual and fictional asides. There are brief chapters on historical incidents like Tunguska and the "dinosaur killer", plus other lesser-known meteorites. There are also chapters on the social and religious background to the world of Hammer, and many flashbacks to the earlier life of the captain. In fact, after an early mention of the threat from Kali (as the asteroid is dubbed) the first 158 pages of the 246 page story are taken up with this background material: one section consists of 23 pages of infodump with no dialogue at all. Only on page 159 does the focus turn to the expedition to Kali and the story really get going. From then on the tension starts to build along with the struggle to cope with the danger.

The book finishes with 22 pages of acknowledgements and explanation.

It has to be said that Clarke's story, while technically competent as one would expect from this author, adds little that is new to this theme. No doubt the proponents of the 'Mundane' school of SF would prefer it (see my review of Interzone 216 on 18 July) but the truth is that this story isn't a patch on Rama. Partly this is because Rama is much more tightly focused – it builds up the tension from the start and carries the reader along with the story – partly because of the novelty of its plot and the "sense of wonder" inspired by the mystery of the vast alien artefact.

That isn't to say that Hammer is a bad story. In fact, this is the one I would recommend to anyone who wanted to read something interesting about the threat from asteroid or comet strikes, because (as far as I can judge) it is so well researched and realistic. Clarke can be relied upon to get the science right. However, the focus of the story is really split three ways: between Clarke's vision of a future society in which humanity has spread through the Solar System; a non-fictional account of the threat from asteroids and what to do about them; and finally, a story about an attempt to deflect such a threat. These three elements are not well integrated but almost seem to be three separate texts which have been stitched together. It's worth reading, but not one of his classic works.

On book reviewing and films

I think I must be getting cranky in my old age. Either that or, bizarrely, more pushed for time despite being retired. In years gone by I always finished every book I started, and would expect to re-read a decent one within a year or so. These days I stop reading, long before the end, one in every three or four new books I pick up. Partly this is because they tend to be so long (an issue I've previously explored in this web article) and at my typical rate of 70 pages per hour that means that a 700 page book requires ten hours of investment. As I only read novels for an hour or two each evening that hogs my reading time for anywhere between a week and a fortnight. So that fat book had better be really good and grab my attention quickly or I'm likely to bin it. I'm much more tolerant of short novels and even more of short stories. The other reason for rejection is the modern tendency to pack in lots of extraneous plot lines, which sometimes add so much "human interest" and character development that these becomes the main focus of the story, with the SF bits as a background. While the principal characters have to be well-enough drawn to be believable and to evoke some empathy, that isn't primarily what I read SFF for.

One result of my impatience is that I don't usually post bad reviews: the books I don't like don't get finished, so don't get reviewed (other than perhaps a brief note to that effect). The other reason I don't rubbish novels in my reviews is that I am aware of how subjective the review process is. This has particularly been brought home to me by the reviews of my own books (all summarised on my website – good and bad), with amazon reader feedback for both books covering the full range from one to five stars. Now you may say that amazon reviews aren't worth much, but the verdicts of even experienced reviewers also differ widely. Considering that reviewing is supposed to be as objective as possible, with guidelines on how to achieve this, these results offer food for thought.

The inescapable conclusion is that reviewing is a lot more subjective than most reviewers like to admit. To borrow a metaphor, reviews of any book are like the descriptions of an elephant by blind people relying on touch: each individual account will contain some information, but won't give a clear picture of the beast. Furthermore, if a reviewer really likes a story, s/he is likely to be much more tolerant of any deficiencies, and the reverse is also true. It is possible to find things to praise, and things to criticise, in just about any novel ever written, and what the reviewer chooses to emphasise makes a huge difference to the impression given by the review. Even worse, I have noticed comments from reviewers to the effect that they feel obliged to finish a book even if they don't like it, but they punish the author for their wasted time by posting a vitriolic review. Not very ethical, in my opinion.

So if I do post a review of a book which was readable enough to finish but which I didn't enjoy all that much, I'll say it wasn't the kind of story to appeal to me; I won't say it's rubbish. In case you are thinking that this line of argument must have been prompted by a recent bad review of one of my own books, I plead not guilty! In fact, Scales has recently received a rather good review
by an experienced editor, and summarised along with all of the others here. So some reviews really are very objective, perceptive and of high quality!

If I'm less patient than I used to be where books are concerned, I've become even less tolerant of movies. In part that's because I have more sympathy for authors, who generally slave away by themselves in their spare time. In contrast, Hollywood employs vast numbers of people (many extremely well paid) to produce each film at phenomenal cost, yet as often as not the result isn't worth watching. Even when an author provides them with an excellent story, they still manage to mess it up with depressing frequency. So I finish only about half of the films I sit down to watch. Recently I've seen three SF films: 'District 13', 'Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith', and 'War of the Worlds', with contrasting results.

'District 13' is a French film set in a near-future Paris barrio which has been blocked off from the rest of the city by a high wall in order to contain the lawlessness within. A nuclear weapon has been stolen and smuggled into the barrio, and an undercover policeman teams up with a barrio resident to try to avert disaster. OK, the dialogue is corny and the acting barely adequate, but the film has huge energy with wonderfully gymnastic combat and "free-running" chases around the city (I love watching parkour – far more exciting than any of the traditional sports). I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I really liked the original 'Star Wars' film and thought I would catch up with 'Revenge of the Sith'. Oh dear – how the mighty have fallen. There was (only just) enough interest in the depiction of the turning of Anakin to the Dark Side (you don't usually see a hero turning into a baddie in this kind of film) plus the CGI (I'm a sucker for alien landscapes, cityscapes and machinery) to keep me watching to the end, but it was a close-run thing. Where have the humour and joie de vivre gone? When the only engaging character in the film is the speechless robot R2D2 you know there are problems…

'War of the Worlds' is a classic novel but this 2005 film version is one I didn't sit through. Since when was the story primarily about dysfunctional family relationships, with the alien invasion shoved into the background? This seems a common thread in Hollywood films these days: everything has to have its stock characters always in conflict with each other, with broken marriages, difficult father-son relationships, and a cute moppet who can be relied upon to scream at frequent intervals. Tedious, tedious, tedious – why can't they just tell the story?

Oh well, enough grumbling. Next week I'll be reviewing The Hammer of God, by that late lamented old master, Arthur C Clarke.

Interzone 217

In a complete contrast with Interzone 216, the special "Mundane SF" issue, the six stories in the latest issue of the British SFF magazine are emphatically "non-Mundane"; they all feature elements of the fantastic, aliens or deep space travel.

Africa by Karen Fishler (illustrated by Paul Drummond: also featuring on the cover): It is the very far future. Humanity has been banished from Earth by all-powerful aliens (apparently for making a complete mess of it) and now survives only in vast spaceships travelling the Galaxy. And in the form of the Guardians orbiting the Earth, whose task it is to prevent humanity from returning to the planet which has been completely cleansed of their works and allowed to revert to a wild state. There are only two Guardians left, when a spaceship materialises nearby.

The Two-Headed Girl by Paul G Tremblay: A strange fantasy about a girl and her constantly-changing second head. I first assumed that it was a figment of her imagination, but it seems not…

The Ships Like Clouds, Risen by their Rain by Jason Sanford (illustrated by Vincent Chong): Another story in which it is difficult to grasp entirely what's going on, even at the end. A settlement on a strange world constantly battered by violent storms brought by "spaceships" which at first seem to be clouds. But it is strictly forbidden to dig downwards, because of what people might find there…

Concession Girl by Suzanne Palmer (illustrated by Darren Winter): A more conventional tale concerning a human space station being visited by aliens trying to resolve their differences, and the unexpected diplomatic role played by a girl selling hot dogs.

Little Lost Robot by Paul McAuley (illustrated by Paul Drummond): A different take on Saberhagen's Berserker series, this time seen from the viewpoint of an ancient but still all-powerful robotic killer spaceship. Problems arise when the ship detects signs of life in a system which seems strangely familiar.

Comus of Central Park (illustrated by Paul Drummond): An amusing parable about a woman living in New York who finds a faun (half man, half goat) in Central Park, and the mayhem which follows when she introduces him to society.

A very varied and interesting collection, all of them worth the read. Somewhat to my surprise, the one which intrigued me most was Jason Sandford's tale. Even though it was difficult to figure out precisely what was going on, there was enough to stop me from getting lost and it was strongest in that "sense of strange" which features in the best SFF.

There are the usual news and extensive review sections, the latter focusing more on film and TV than books, with no less than nine pages on the visual media, covering not just major studio releases such as the X-Files, Indiana Jones, Iron Man, and The Incredible Hulk, plus TV series Torchwood and Sliders, but lesser-known genre films from Japan and Korea.

'Exit, Pursued by a Bee' by Geoff Nelder

A newly published novel by a British author, 'Exit, Pursued by a Bee' is set in the near future (a manned mission to Mars is ready to go) against a background of a bizarre series of events. Giant silvery spheres nearly 80 metres in diameter slowly emerge from the ground at Glastonbury Tor and several other widely-spaced locations around the world. They prove oblivious to all attempts to communicate with them and immune to efforts to attack them, and gradually float away from the surface. As they do, a series of timeslips begins to occur: people find themselves suddenly back in history, or caught up in catastrophes as structures partially disappear from the present. Sometimes time is locally "rewound", and a series of events is replayed with a different result.

Caught up in the middle of this and trying to make sense of it is Kallandra, a NASA astronaut, variously aided and obstructed by her fiancé Derek, a rocket engineer, and the dangerously tempting fellow astronaut Claude. Further problems come from a sensation-seeking journalist and a US General whose preferred solution to any problem is to nuke it. Chaotic events accumulate and conclude in a long-distance chase using the Mars spaceship to try to undo the damage being done.

This is a generally light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek romp which races along engagingly, although a couple of tragedies slightly darken the mood later on. Not for those who look for portentous dramas, explorations of advanced physics or serious consideration of the problems of society. The emphasis is on escapist entertainment, and at that it succeeds very well.

New Horizons magazine

This is the first edition of an occasional new publication of the British Fantasy Society (which includes SF within its remit), which already produces Dark Horizons from time to time. Both are principally collections of short stories mixed with author interviews, but New Horizons is specifically fantasy, and endeavours to present the work of new authors.

There are interviews with David Rix, founder of the new Eibonvale Press, and author Tony Richards. The rest of the A5 booklet is taken up with ten short stories.

Among The Mollies by Harvey Raines. A teenager learns the trick of living in whatever cities he wishes just by imagining them. But in every city he makes, there is a forbidding, fenced off tower block of flats, populated by partly-glimpsed people dubbed the Mollies. Eventually, he has to enter to find out why.

Silk and Pearls
Domestic Interior
Two Dreams all by K J Bishop. Three surreal short shorts, or snippets of stories. Essentially examples of creating atmospheres.

Canoe Boy by Allen Ashley. A man in a grim, near-waterless future city tries to recover his lost love and understand what is happening.

Unlikely by Will McIntosh. A statistician who specialises in correlating vast quantities of data about his city discovers that the accident rate drops when two strangers are accidentally in close proximity, so engineers their meeting.

What You Came For by Jaine Fenn. A grim tale, told in the second person, about a being who enters an old house to experience the emotions of those who had been in it, including a young girl who was murdered.

At Midnight, All The Agents by David Barnett. An amusing romp about the investigations of the Department of Extra-Usual Affairs, who turn their attention to a outbreak of people dressing as, and apparently believing that they are, well-known fictional characters – with a difference.

The Absence Club by Daniel Bennett. A strange tale about a computer specialist left on his own to edit the files of a college which had just closed, and a man who has a task for him.

The Snow Fox by Stephen Deas. Another surreal short about a man talking to his lover in a grand house – or is he?

An interesting batch of mostly unconventional stories. Not my usual fare, but short enough to read quickly. My favourite was probably the most conventional one, Unlikely.

Psion by Joan D. Vinge

It is a strange quirk of memory that some books I read decades ago are still clear in my mind, while others read more recently I have forgotten entirely and ring no bells even on re-reading. This is not necessarily to do with the quality of the writing as the latter group include some good stories; it seems to be a matter of the strength or clarity of the images created in my mind. Psion is in that latter category but is none the worse for that, so I was able to enjoy re-reading it as if for the first time.

This is one of several popular SF novels written by Joan D. Vinge in the early 1980s, often with something of the feel of fantasy. 'Psion' is set in a distant future when humanity has spread to many star systems by means of FTL spaceships and has encountered another sentient race, the Hydrans, who are close enough to humanity to interbreed, thereby indicating a common origin. The Hydrans possess a formidable range of psionic powers, including telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation and precognition, but they are psychologically incapable of violence or deceit, so are soon dominated by humanity. Some humans have also developed psi powers, but usually only one and to a limited degree. They are regarded with fear and suspicion by the rest of humanity.

'Psion' is a first-person account of a teenage human-Hydran hybrid, called Cat because of his Hydran vertically-slitted eye pupils. He grows up an orphaned, illiterate and feral sneak-thief, living in the gutter and with no memory of his origins. Eventually caught, he tests positive for psionic potential and is taken to a research institute which aims to develop his latent telepathic ability. While there, he meets two other psions, Jule and Siebeling, and learns that they are part of a plot to trap an elusive human super-psion criminal dubbed Quicksilver. What follows is an exciting adventure thriller mainly set on the strange world of Cinder, still occupied by Hydrans, in a battle for control of the only source of the Telhassium crystals required for space flight.

This is more than just a simple thriller, as there is a strong focus on Cat's sufferings as he tries to develop his ability and understand where he came from, plus learn the dark secret buried so deep in his mind that not even the most powerful telepath can reach it. His relationships with Jule and Siebeling are complex and form the main sub-plot. The conclusion is unexpected but convincing.

First-person accounts are not so popular these days because of the restricted perspective they involve, but this worked for me. I enjoyed the story and found myself keen to get back to it again after each break. There is a sequel, Catspaw, which I hope to get around to re-reading soon.

How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilovich

A break from fiction this week, to consider Gilovich's important book, subtitled 'The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life'. As this suggests it is a study of why we tend to believe certain things (with lots of examples of popular misconceptions from everyday life), despite the lack of evidence for them or, in many cases, solid evidence that they are not true. A couple of points to clarify before anyone starts getting defensive: the book doesn't belittle people for what they believe, it just analyses the basis for such beliefs; and little is said about religion.

A common problem is the misunderstanding of statistics, especially probability theory, which can sometimes produce counter-intuitive results. A well-known example of this is the answer to the question "how many people do you need in a room in order to get a 50% chance that two of them will have the same birthday?" The answer is 23; and what's more, you only need 35 for the probability to rise to 85%. Most people find this amazing (I did too, despite some limited experience of probability theory). One reason for misunderstanding statistics is the clustering tendency of random events. If you toss a coin and it comes up heads five times in succession, you might think this is remarkable, but it is in fact inevitable if you keep tossing the coin long enough: the "50/50" rule only applies over a long series.

As a result of this lack of understanding, people experience coincidences which are well within normal probabilities and wrongly believe that something remarkable has happened, or even that they can't really be coincidences at all but must have some greater significance. This is exacerbated by the fact that humans have an inbuilt tendency to seek patterns in events, to the extent of seeing them where they don't exist.

A lack of contrary information can lead to unwarranted beliefs. For example, a selection board which interviews candidates for an academic or training scheme may believe that they are doing a good job, because the majority of their choices perform well. But they have no way of knowing how well the people they rejected would have performed, given the chance. In fact, research into the selection process has shown that "decisions based on objective criteria alone are at least as effective as those influenced by subjective impressions formed in an interview".

We are often misled by information we receive second hand, because of the tendency to "sharpen and level", as the author puts it. By this he means that in relaying a news item, for instance, we tend to emphasise the points which we consider to be important (or which we believe) and downplay or omit other aspects. So if a carefully-written report comes to a tentative conclusion which we agree with, but wraps this around with qualifications and caveats, we tend just to relay the conclusions, making the results appear far more definite than the report's authors intended. As people "sharpen" different aspects of information to suit their beliefs, so we get a rapid polarisation of opinions on controversial issues. Even worse, some organisations deliberately "sharpen and level" because they want to turn public opinion in their favour [popular news media and politicians are of course notorious for presenting such selectively slanted information, especially during election campaigns, but so do many organisations with agendas]. Most "urban legends" probably develop as a result of an extreme version of this, with the key points pulled out and exaggerated.

This sharpening effect is exacerbated by the fact that if we hold certain beliefs, we are likely to discuss them only with people who agree with us, and only to read supportive publications. Our beliefs are thereby rarely challenged but instead are constantly reinforced, so we tend to end up with the view that our beliefs are naturally and obviously right. Anyone who disagrees with them must therefore be entirely mistaken and possibly downright stupid if not malevolent. This polarisation is obvious today in politics and in debates about other controversial issues. In reality, of course, situations are rarely as polarised as this: we exaggerate differences.

A major reason for many misplaced beliefs is that notable events stick in our minds, whereas we are much less likely to remember when something did not happen. This can distort our understanding of the likelihood of particular events. For example, it is commonly believed that a previously infertile couple is much more likely to conceive after they have adopted a child. A careful analysis of a mass of birth and adoption statistics shows that there is no truth in this at all; there is no such effect. People believe that there is because if a couple does conceive after adoption it is a notable event likely to be commented on and remembered. Conversely, no-one remembers the couples who did not conceive after adoption, or those who eventually conceived without adoption (who may well not have publicised their fertility problems).

A related issue is that if we hold certain beliefs, we are much more likely to seize on and remember any events which appear to confirm those beliefs, while dismissing and quickly forgetting any contrary evidence. Even if we do spend time examining contrary evidence, it is usually only to attack it aggressively and try to find fault with it, while we accept at face value anything which appears to support our beliefs.

A major explanation for our beliefs is that we tend to believe what we would like to be true. An obvious example is life after death. It would be wonderful if our personalities and intelligence survived in some way after death, which accounts for some of the most powerfully-held human beliefs: most people really want to believe this. More generally, there is a yearning for order and purpose in life, a wish to believe that there is more to it than meets the eye. Many find the concept that we are here (individually and collectively) only by random chance in a vast and uncaring universe simply unacceptable. They feel that it makes them, and life itself, pointless and worthless, so they instinctively reject it, leading them to dismiss, for instance, the overwhelming evidence for evolution in favour of beliefs which have no evidential support at all.

A belief in extra-sensory perception is also widespread (and a very common theme of SFF) but, as the author points out, no evidence for it has ever survived any objective analysis. Some promoters of the idea claim that trying to measure it prevents it from working, which sceptics might regard as a self-serving way of avoiding the need to provide any proof. There are various reasons for a belief in ESP, including a long history of plausible fraudsters and a very biased coverage in relevant news media, books and magazines (the vast majority of which uncritically support the idea), but the basic reason is probably that it's something that we would love to be true – for us to have such impressive and useful powers. I suspect that a belief in an alien origin of UFOs falls into the same category.

A similar example concerns alternative medicine in general, and faith healing in particular. For people (especially if seriously ill) who have not been helped by conventional medicine, there is a powerful motivation to believe anyone who offers a potential cure. Examples of "cures" are seized upon as proof, ignoring the fact that the body has a potent self-repairing system and that many ailments clear up by themselves given time. Alternative medicine also often relies on plausible (but false) similarities. The classic case is the enthusiasm in some parts of the world for medicines incorporating ground-up rhino horn to use as a kind of alternative Viagra – simply because it's long and hard and stands up all the time. More controversially (because it concerns our culture's popular beliefs rather than another's) the author points out that homeopathy falls into the same category; there is no validated evidence that it works, and no logical reason why it should [it makes the rhino horn notion look relatively sensible].

We have a remarkable capacity for self-delusion when it suits us. A survey of one million US high school seniors showed that 70% believed that they were above average in leadership ability, and only 2% that they were below average [much the same results occur in surveys which invite people to rate their own driving ability].

A final point: the perception of human fallibility in understanding is not exactly new. The book includes a couple of quotes from Francis Bacon, the 16th/17th century philosopher:

"The human understanding supposes a greater degree of order and equality in things than it really finds; and although many things in nature be sui generis and most irregular, will yet invest parallels and conjugates and relatives where no such thing is." Which is to say in simpler modern language, that we tend to see patterns and relationships where none exist.

and:

"…all superstition is much the same whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment, or the like…[in that] the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect or pass over their failure, though it be much more common."

In this review I have only had space to provide a very superficial summary of a few highlights, but Gilovich's book is packed full of examples and detailed explanations, so if this kind of thing intrigues you, go and find a copy!

Wildside by Steven Gould

Steven Gould is currently best known as the author of Jumper, the SF novel about teleportation which was recently made into a film. It's a very good book (and I hope to re-read and review it here someday) but everything I've read about the film convinces me not to bother watching it, as Hollywood seems to have surpassed even its remarkable record of achievement in turning good books into poor films.

Anyway, to Wildside: Charlie Newell is a young American who has recently inherited a farm from his long-lost uncle. Close to the farmhouse is a large barn which backs into a small hill. Charlie finds a concealed doorway leading to a wide tunnel through the hill, and on the other side is another world: an alternative version of Earth, in which humans have never lived. Huge herds of bison roam, pursued by sabretooth cats, while vast flocks of passenger pigeons darken the sky.

Charlie is an unusual 18 year old; thoughtful, resourceful and rather obsessive about careful planning. With the aid of some friends he sets out to make his fortune from his discovery. With no roads this requires air transport, so Charlie's team qualify as pilots and drag disassembled planes through the tunnel to use on the Wildside. There is a lot of detail about light-plane flying and parachuting, which the author has evidently researched thoroughly. Needless to say, all does not go smoothly, especially when the authorities begin to suspect that there's something odd going on. All Charlie's wits and determination are required to keep ahead of his opposition.

The story is told in the first person by Charlie, and as he is a modest and unassuming guy the style is very matter-of-fact. Indeed, it is a plain, conventional and rather old-fashioned kind of tale, but is none the worse for that. The adventures which befall him and his friends are more than dramatic and exciting enough to grip any reader's attention and make the book difficult to put down until the unexpected, sobering but very topical conclusion.

The story is also about growing up, and learning to cope with relationship problems and the adult world. It succeeds admirably on all counts, and can be warmly recommended to readers of all ages.

Interzone 216 – the Mundane issue

First, apologies for the late posting of this review, but I didn't notice that my subscription had run out… This is a special issue of the British SFF magazine, which as well as including the usual news and reviews, focuses on "Mundane SF". For the benefit of those who haven't been keeping up, this is the new term for SF which remains within (or close to) the boundaries of known science. So, no FTL starships, matter transmitters, time travel, alternate worlds, aliens or psionic powers. That's most of SF disposed of, then.

Of course, stories using such a restricted palette have always formed a strand of SF, including classics such as Wells' The War in the Air, Orwell's 1984 or Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar. What has drawn recent attention is the claim of its proponents (notably Geoff Ryman, who features in this issue) that Mundane is intended to make SF "the best it can be". Sorry, but I don't buy that. Any viewpoint which regards as second-rate the themes of the vast majority of SF, including most of the works esteemed as among the best in the genre, is somewhat skewed, to put it mildly. An analogy has popped into my mind, prompted by the fact that the Olympics are almost upon us. Mundane is rather like the walking races; the athletes are effectively hobbled, and although they can produce some impressive performances within their artificial rules, they will all be blown away by those free to run. It also might help if they chose a better name: one of the definitions of "mundane" in my dictionary is "ordinary: dull: banal".

And so to the stories, which are all supposed to comply with the Mundane rules.

How to Make Paper Aeroplanes by Lavie Tidhar: A collection of brief items of information, narrative sections and conversation, all building up a picture of some westerners working in a remote group of tropical islands, apparently in the present day. Quite cleverly done in establishing an atmosphere, but not a lot happens and I can't see why this is categorised as SF at all.

Endra – from Memory by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro: A more traditional tale, concerning the relationship between a harbourmaster and an exotic female sea captain who occasionally visits. The milieu features a general background of cities lost to rising sea levels, sailing craft with wind-powered generators for auxiliary power, and with most people's horizons being very limited. It is not clear whether this is set in our future or on an alternate world or even another planet altogether, as none of the place names or languages mentioned is familiar. Again, quite strong on atmosphere, but it has more of the feel of fantasy.

The Hour is Getting Late by Billie Aul: Definitely in our future now, with a re-enactment of the Woodstock pop festival run both live and as a virtual-reality experience, with presenters mixing the two with film of the original event for transmission to a world-wide audience. The plot concerns the will-they-won't-they interaction between a formerly married couple, one of them performing, the other editing and mixing the VR transmission. A look at some possible social consequences of our developing technology.

Remote Control by R R Angell: An intriguing and uncomfortably believable premise: the southern border of the USA is guarded by a string of unmanned watchtowers, each carrying sensors and remotely-controlled guns. For a fee, any US citizen can spend time controlling a turret over the internet, watching out for illegal immigrants and shooting any they see. As well as saving the staff needed for monitoring, this is so popular that it funds the whole exercise. I can almost see that happening…Almost my favourite, but pipped at the post by the next one.

The Invisibles by Elisabeth Vonarburg: definitely into familiar SF territory here, in a future in which humanity lives in cities within sealed, protected bubbles. There are various zones for different purposes, linked by public transport running through tunnels. Two separate individuals make routine journeys only to discover that they end up in entirely different and unknown places, and they subsequently find that their world is not quite what it seemed. My pick of the collection, and the only one I might feel prompted to re-read.

Into the Night by Anil Menon: an elderly, recently-widowed Indian travels across a future world to spend his remaining time with his daughter. The story is about cultural displacement, in the clash between the father's traditional beliefs and the social effects of the advanced communications technology that his daughter and friends constantly deploy.

Talk is Cheap by Geoff Ryman: yet another rather elderly recently-widowed (it appears) man, whose job is monitoring the environment of a fragile future ecosystem, and who tries to establish a relationship with a woman from a very different background. Advanced communications also feature, but there is a more optimistic ending than in the previous sad tale.

It should be clear by now that if there is a linking factor, is that these tales are mostly concerned with relationships and atmosphere rather than plot. They are not bad by any means and I enjoyed reading them, but I wouldn't want my SFnal diet restricted to this fare for more than a minority of the time.

'The Warrior's Apprentice' and 'The Vor Game' by Lois McMaster Bujold

These are the third and fourth books (in terms of the chronological story line) in the author's Vorkosigan series, and the first to feature the principal character of the series, Miles Vorkosigan (he appeared as a young child at the end of Barrayar, the second book). The first two books were reviewed here on 1 August and 9 September 2007.

In The Warrior's Apprentice Miles is now 17 and, as a result of damage inflicted while in the womb, has a stunted and misshapen body with very brittle bones. At the start of the book, these handicaps prevent his acceptance into the Barrayan Imperial Military Service Academy, despite his brilliant mind. So he goes on what was meant to be a peaceful visit to his grandmother on the planet Beta, but which turns into an adventure involving gun running in a war zone and space battles with mercenaries, in which Miles plays a leading role and has to grow up far more quickly than he finds comfortable.

The Vor Game is set three years later, immediately after Miles has graduated from the Military Academy. He is posted to a remote base on Barrayar where he inevitably gets involved in a controversial incident, leading to his 'secondment' to Imperial Security to get him out of the way. He is despatched into space to locate the mercenary force he took control of in the previous story, with instructions to stop them from becoming involved in a tense diplomatic situation involving several widely-dispersed civilisations. Needless to say, the situation turns out to be more complex than imagined and Miles has to think on his feet and react quickly to a variety of unexpected developments.

My reactions to these stories were much the same as I expressed in my reviews of the two earlier Vorkosigan books (posted here on 1 August and 9 September 2007). Bujold focuses very much on the human angle and has the ability to get inside her character's minds in a totally convincing way. She also writes a fast-paced, exciting and ingenious adventure, with a mix of wit, tragedy and (not always happy) romance. Once I get into her books I find them very hard to put down, and they are always a very enjoyable read.

On the debit side, she lacks the "sense of wonder" which has always been a part of the appeal of SF. She does not attempt to introduce any new science-fictional ideas, alien environments, or even any aliens (so far, anyway), which makes a marked contrast with Niven's Ringworld, for instance (reviewed on this blog on 10 November 2007). Her plots could easily be transplanted to, say, Napoleonic War naval fiction with only superficial changes. Perhaps a closer comparison than Niven is with Catherine Asaro, whose Skolian Empire series (reviewed here on 19 July 2007) is also very good modern space opera. Bujold has the edge in writing style, but Asaro is more inventive, her world and its inhabitants far more of a departure from our present experience.

I remain slightly puzzled as to why Bujold has chosen to focus on science fiction, since her skills would be transferable to any other genre she chose. Looking at it from a writer's perspective, I suppose that SF does have the benefit of providing more freedom to devise scenarios without having to worry about the accuracy of a factual background. Whatever the reason, she is for me an excellent writer who happens to set her stories in an SF context, which is not quite the same thing as an excellent SF writer.

The Separation by Christopher Priest

'The Separation' technically falls within the increasingly popular sub-genre (or would that be sub-sub-genre?) of alternate histories of World War 2. Since I have written one of those myself (The Foresight War) I read this book with more than usual interest.

The overriding impression I formed is of the vast difference which can exist in the way in which nominally similar themes are handled. At one extreme comes my own effort, which is a nuts and bolts analysis of how foreknowledge of events by those in power in Britain and Germany (thanks to time-travellers) might have affected strategies, tactics and equipment, and how the war might have turned out differently as a result. Christopher Priest's novel is at the other end of the spectrum.

'The Separation' is a fascinating intellectual exercise portraying different versions of reality. The tale starts in an alternate 1999, in which an historian is collecting material for a book about an RAF officer, J L Sawyer, who appeared to have played a mysterious part in the events which led up to the ending of the Anglo-German War in May 1941. The rest of the book consists of the material which he found: accounts from various viewpoints, correspondence and official notes of meetings.

It soon becomes clear that much confusion had been caused by the fact that there were two J L Sawyers: identical twins named Jack and Joe. Their contrasting personal accounts make up much of the book. We first meet them at the 1936 Olympics where they are rowing together, but they fall out and their paths diverge shortly thereafter. As war looms, one becomes a bomber pilot in the RAF, the other a conscientious objector working for the Red Cross.

As the viewpoint shifts from one person to another, so does the path of history. In one account, one of the brothers is killed; in another, the other one dies; and in a possible third they both survive. In one timeline one brother marries and has a daughter; in another, the other brother marries the same woman and has a son. In the wider context, one thread sees the war lasting until 1945 while another describes its ending in 1941. Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess apparently flies to Britain (but is he a fake?) in one account, and plays an important role in negotiating the peace in another. The confusion is not helped by the fact that one of the brothers suffers from powerful, extended and entirely realistic hallucinations following a head injury: are the experiences he recounts imaginary or real? He doesn't know, and neither do we. There is a final twist in the tail of the tale, concerning the identity of the historian researching the story.

With such internal contradictions the story is difficult to follow, or even to make sense of afterwards: do not hope for a tidy ending in which all is explained! This all may sound like an exercise in frustration, but the high quality of Priest's writing draws the reader into the novel. Don't look for dramatic action or much in the way of the technicalities of war; there is much well-researched detail on the bombing campaign, from the viewpoints of those delivering it and of those on the receiving end, but that's about it. The pleasures of this surreal story are more subtle. It is like a kaleidoscope; keep turning and the same elements keep falling into different patterns.

Some aspects are not entirely convincing. There is brief mention of events outside NW Europe following the 1941 end of the war, in which the USA becomes involved in extended conflict in Asia and, for no clearly explained reason, becomes a failed, gangster-run state which it remains even half a century later. There is much about Churchill, but the way in which he suddenly changed his mind over an important issue did not strike me as realistic.

Despite these reservations, the novel can be strongly recommended to readers who appreciate high-quality story-telling and enjoy having their perceptions repeatedly overturned.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke

'Rendezvous with Rama' is due to be discussed later this year in the Classic Science Fiction discussion group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicScienceFiction/ ) and as it is one of the novels on my top-20 all-time SFF favourites list, this was a good enough reason for me to return to it after a long absence.

The plot is deceptively simple. It is set in the 22nd century, in what would now be regarded as a somewhat utopian future: our civilisation has survived and spread to establish permanent colonies on the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and some of the major moons of the outer planets. There is no faster-than-light drive, so humanity is confined to the Solar System. Little is said about the Earth, but it has one representative on the United Planets committees, which implies at least a co-ordination of world government. A few decades before, a major asteroid strike on Earth had caused massive damage, so Spaceguard had been set up to keep a careful watch on any bodies of significant size which looked as if they might pose a danger.

A large body is observed to be heading into the Solar System from outer space, so a probe is sent to investigate. The few images it sends from a high-speed fly-by show the object to be a perfect cylinder of enormous size, 50 km long and 20 km in diameter; clearly an alien artefact. Its huge speed means that it is almost impossible for a manned spacecraft to match velocities with it; there is only one vessel in the right position to achieve this, a survey ship called the Endeavour, captained by Commander Norton. Furthermore, the trajectory of the object, dubbed Rama, means that it will be heading very close to the sun, giving the Endeavour's crew just three weeks to explore the object before they would have to withdraw. The ship makes the rendezvous and the rest of the story is concerned with what they find there, interspersed with the debates and political manoeuvrings going on at United Planets HQ on the Moon.

Without wishing to give too much of the plot away to new readers, Rama is found to be hollow, with a breathable atmosphere and a rapid radial spin providing artificial gravity. Humans can walk around normally on the inner surface, requiring no more protection than warm clothes against the cold. At first it appears to be an entirely dead environment, but as it warms up with the approach to the Sun, it begins to show signs of life.

This is a deliberately restrained story. Clarke's writing style is spare and economical; no purple passages here, just matter-of-fact descriptions of the events. The human science described is basically that of the present day: there is not only no FTL travel, but nothing else that might cause physicists to raise their eyebrows. Rama is full of mysteries, but some of these are gradually revealed as the explorers observe the changes taking place and slowly try to piece together the purpose of the huge artefact. The science of whoever built Rama is far beyond humanity's, but the structure is mostly (if only just) understandable. This may sound dull, but it isn't; this is a great adventure story as well as being educational in using logical analysis to explain the mysteries. It is the kind of book which can be strongly recommended to anyone thinking of trying SF for the first time, so that they can get some understanding of the famous "sense of wonder" which has been at the core of SF's appeal for generations. In fact, it could be a good basis for getting young people interested in science.

By modern standards the structure of the novel can be criticised: the present fashion is to plunge straight into the action rather than provide explanatory prologues, to "show not tell" (i.e. let information come out as a result of the actions and conversations of the characters), to concentrate on developing the characters, and (of course) to write any new book as the first of a series. 'Rendezvous with Rama' fails quite comprehensively on all of these counts: while there is no formal prologue, the first few of the very short chapters are entirely devoted to setting the scene and explaining the background, with the first words of dialogue being spoken in Chapter 4. The narrator is present throughout, describing what is happening. The characterisation is slight; the Endeavour's crew are all dedicated professionals, working together in harmony (how refreshing!). Sequels to the book were not initially planned and did not begin to appear until the co-authored 'Rama II', some seventeen years after 'Rendezvous' was published in 1972. I haven't read any of them, but by all accounts the sequels are entirely different in style from the original, focusing much more on characterisation; they have been nowhere near as successful. I strongly suspect that if 'Rendezvous' were submitted by a new author for publication today an editor would call for drastic changes, if indeed the manuscript managed to get off the slush pile at all. Yet it is one of the most enduringly popular SF novels ever written, being frequently reprinted. Make of that what you will.

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Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of this weekly blog. Over the year the number of visitors has steadily increased. Thanks for reading, particularly to those who have contributed by commenting on my posts.

Other Voices by Andrew Humphrey

The output of some writers defies conventional classification. Andrew Humphrey is clearly one of them judging by the thirteen stories in 'Other Voices', his second collection to be published. Elements of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and mainstream drama can be found in various combinations; if one word had to be chosen to categorise them it is slipstream: "the fiction of strangeness".

A common factor is that each story focuses on a relationship – usually but not always between a man and a woman – which is under stress of some kind. His invariably male protagonists tend to be emotionally detached, unable to respond adequately to the demands of their situations. There is little in the way of upbeat themes or happy endings.

'Grief Inc' is set in a future or alternate Norwich (his stories are generally set in Norfolk and have a strong sense of place), in a country slowly disintegrating into social and organisational chaos. The protagonist, Carter, has a unique ability; just by hugging people, he can permanently remove the deep grief of bereavement, and in a world of frequent random death he is much in demand. He has a complicated relationship with Josie, his kept mistress, and is faced with the need to decide what to do as their world collapses around them. Unusually, this has a cautiously optimistic ending.

'Mimic' focuses on a small group of men who have been closeted for years in an underground bunker in a country threatened by war and an unexplained alien invasion. They are occasionally sent captured aliens to examine and dispose of, but their latest delivery has a disturbing tendency to mimic the appearance of Carter, the protagonist. The ending is rather predictable.

'Dogfight' concerns a man who is trying to establish a better relationship with his teenage son by spending a weekend away with him in a seaside caravan. He recalls his own difficult relationship with his violent grandfather, who told him gruesome tales of his exploits as a Battle of Britain fighter pilot. When out walking, they twice see a Spitfire roaring overhead – the second time being chased by a Messerschmitt. These phantoms of a bygone age gradually take on a strange and threatening reality.

Those are just the stories which stuck most in my mind, perhaps because they are the closest to conventional SFF. It might seem an unpromising collection, and I must admit that it is not my preferred type of fiction, but there is one other common factor in Humphrey's stories: they are all very well written and held my attention throughout.

(This is an extended version of a review for the British Fantasy Society)

The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester

TSMD was first published in parts in 1956/7 and may also be found under the title 'Tiger! Tiger!'. I first read it in the 1960s and it blew me away, becoming established after a couple of re-reads as my favourite SF novel. I hadn't read it for decades, and picked up my much-worn 1965 Panther paperback with some apprehension that it wouldn't live up to my memories. I needn't have worried. This is a dazzling firework display of a story, packed full of original ideas and maintaining a ferocious pace to an unexpected, dramatic and entirely satisfying conclusion.

The author starts with a five-page prologue to set the scene: a 24th Century in which humanity has spread throughout the Solar System, and in which the Outer Satellites are in conflict with the Inner Planets. At the start of the century, a man named Jaunte accidentally discovered teleportation – the ability to transport himself from one place to another by an effort of will – and soon almost everyone was "jaunting". There turned out to be a 1,000-mile limit, though, and no-one could jaunte through space.

Prologues are out of fashion these days, the current orthodoxy being to plunge the reader straight into the action, but I am frankly rather tired of having to read the first few chapters of a story before I can work out what's going on. Bester uses his prologue to outline the kind of society, much altered by jaunting, in which his story takes place, and his book is all the better for it.

We are introduced to the principal character, Gulliver Foyle, as he struggles for survival on board a wrecked spaceship near the Asteroid Belt. An uneducated man of limited ability but great potential, he is only spurred to take the action needed to save himself by the casual spurning of his plight by a passing spaceship. The rest of the story concerns his ferocious battle for revenge against those who abandoned him, a battle which sees him ruthlessly using and abusing all those around him in order to claw his way to the wealth and fame he needs to achieve his aims. In the process, he educates himself, learns to control his rage, acquires a conscience and finally realises his undreamed-of potential.

It has rightly been said that any modern author would spread the ideas scattered liberally through TSMD over a fat trilogy, but Bester packs them all into 195 pages. Jaunting, one-way telepathy, a woman who can only see in the infrared, the interrogation techniques of the Nightmare Theatre and the Megal Mood, a rewired nervous system to provide blinding speed and an automatic "Commando killer" programme, exotic drugs, sympathetic blocks which automatically kill people if they try to reveal secrets, an explosive of almost unimaginable power which can be detonated only by thought, and a vivid account of the confused senses of synaesthesia. The settings include a lost asteroid colony made up of descendents of scientists who regard scientific formulae as religious texts, a prison deep within the Gouffre Berger cave system, an Earth dominated by vast corporations whose hereditary leaders form the nobility, and the Martian base of a Sklotsky sect whose members voluntarily have their nervous systems severed. It's all here, wrapped up in an exhilarating ride of a story. For me, the only jarring note which showed the age of the novel was the inclusion of a character so poisoned by radiation that no-one else could survive near him, while he remained healthy.

Critics may argue that modern novels use their greater length and slower pace to include much better characterisation, but in doing so they lose the relentless, unputdownable drama of TSMD. Science fiction is essentially about new ideas and concepts, about stretching the imagination, and TSMD delivers this better than any other novel I know.

Bester (1913-1987) had previously won a Hugo award for 'The Demolished Man' (1953), a novel about telepathy which, although good by most standards, doesn't really compare with TSMD. However, he didn't write another novel after TSMD for nearly twenty years, and nothing he subsequently wrote achieved the same dramatic impact. This is disappointing, but it can't detract from his achievement in writing what is still, in my opinion (and that of many well-known SF authors), the greatest of the classics of the genre. Anyone with an interest in science fiction should read this book, at least once!

'The Anansi Boys' and 'Coraline' by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is establishing a niche as a specialist in the bizarre, and 'Anansi Boys' is no exception. Set in the present, it features Charlie Nancy, an ordinary and rather hapless young man who travels from England to Florida for the funeral of his long-estranged father. He is told that his father may have been the spider god Anansi – a deity of the trickster kind. Furthermore, he discovers that he has a previously unsuspected brother, Spider, who seems to have inherited their father's abilities. When Spider arrives at his London home and begins to play havoc with Charlie's work and love life, Charlie returns to Florida to find an occult way of ridding himself of this troublesome sibling, and that's when events begin to slide out of control.

Well-written, original, intriguing, often amusing, occasionally dark and a tad horrific but basically warm-hearted and likeable, this is an entertaining read which deserves the praise it has received.
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'Coraline' is a different kind of story altogether. Only a novella of around 40,000 words, this is a fairy tale intended for children. Not some twee, sugar-coated tale to send them quietly off the sleep, more like a Grimm one which will have them looking nervously under their beds.

Coraline is a contemporary young girl who has just moved with her parents into a newly-converted flat within a large old house. She is intelligent and self-confident and loves exploring. Her personality has some amusingly realistic touches, for instance she turns her nose up at her father's "recipes" (which sound very tasty), preferring to eat microwave chips and pizza instead. She finds an old door which leads nowhere, opening onto a brick wall created during the conversion work. She can't help being fascinated by it, however, and one day opens it to find an empty corridor. At the end of that is a replica of her flat, and even a close replica of her parents, but something is terribly wrong. To survive and to save her parents, Coraline has to call on all of her wits and courage.

Despite the dark and horrifying elements, this is an optimistic story of bravery and determination triumphing over evil. Neil Gaiman is a versatile as well as talented author.

The X-Files film

No, not the new one but the 1998 production which I only recently got around to viewing for the first time. I should start by saying that I was a fan of the early X-Files TV series, enjoying the interplay between the two FBI agents who are the main characters: David Duchovny as the gullible Fox Mulder who believes that the presence of aliens is being covered up, and Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully, the science-trained sceptic. They are tasked with investigating incidents which defy rational explanation, and the mix is partly FBI procedural, partly mystery and suspense, with elements of SF and horror plus a substantial dollop of paranoid conspiracy theory.

As a firm believer in the cock-up rather than conspiracy theory of why things go wrong, I never bought into this but I nevertheless enjoy a well-told story, which at first this was ('Capricorn One' is another conspiracy theory SF film which is also great viewing). I think I stopped watching the TV programmes at some point in the third or fourth series, partly because the scenarios became rather repetitive and partly because the horror elements became stronger, with the plots steadily ramping up the yuck factor – not my favourite kind of viewing.

Reading about the forthcoming second film, I decided that it was time for a stroll down memory lane and dusted off an old videotape of the first film from the back of a cupboard. The mix was pretty much as I recalled, with the yuck factor (horribly unnatural things happening to people, in graphic detail) coming in strong at the start and cropping up at intervals throughout the film. However, it was interesting enough to hold my attention, and in particular I had forgotten how good Duchovny and Anderson were together; an enjoyable pairing of opposites, spiced with that frisson of never-released sexual tension.

Having said that, I found the plot a confusing mess. The main threat was an alien virus in the form of a black goo which infected people and turned them into alien monsters, apparently in preparation for the return of the aliens to take over the planet. Since the virus was supposed to be the oldest living thing on Earth, which would put it at about 3.5 billion years old, this suggests an alien planning timescale which makes present-day major military procurement programmes look quite speedy.

Where I got lost was when the conspiracy bit kicked in. It seems that a powerful organised group was trying to help the alien takeover along (for reasons which were never explained) and were doing this by breeding bees to carry the virus (but being stung by a bee seemed to produce entirely different results from the black goo – the relationship between them was not explained); corn crops came into this as well, but I didn't understand why (other than that they provided a good place for our two heroes to hide from searching helicopters). There was a mass release of bees but as this happened in the middle of a desert it is hard to see what this was supposed to achieve, and this plot thread disappeared. There was also an Antarctic base on top of an alien labyrinth which turned out to be a space ship (3.5 billion years old?) with which the conspirators were tinkering, but to what end was never explained, except that they seemed to be providing human hosts for the virus. I was thoroughly confused by this point, but it did of course all end happily; no producer would dare kill off one of the heroes while they might be needed for sequels.

I'm old-fashioned enough to prefer plots which make sense (however improbable) by the end of the tale, which this one really didn't. The new film will have to garner some impressive reviews before I feel tempted to watch it; except, perhaps, as a nostalgia trip in another ten years.

The Birthgrave by Tanith Lee

The Birthgrave was first published in 1975, and I read it not long after. It made such an impact that it joined the select group of books I've read more than once, and now I've read it for the third time, decades later. I had forgotten almost everything except the general outline, so I was able to enjoy it all over again.

The story is set on another world, with an early medieval culture; small city states, nomadic groups, constant little wars and skirmishes, swords and primitive cannon, and multiple deities. The nameless heroine is the sole survivor of a race of cruel, humanoid, super-beings who had previously ruled this world before being wiped out by disease, leaving their human slaves to carry on. She wakes after a long coma and goes out into the world, where she is hailed as a goddess but finds herself strangely powerless, haunted by dreams of the magnificence and horror of her past. She is controlled and manipulated by ambitious men, and only breaks free right at the end of the book, which suddenly includes a science fiction element to add to the fantasy.

Tanith Lee's writing is rich and strong, powerfully evocative of the cultures her heroine moves through. It is frequently gritty and brutal; the death rate around the heroine – among friends as well as enemies – reaches epic proportions. There is a sustained account of a vicious form of chariot race, in which the tension is gradually built up from the initial preparations, through the training and into the race itself, until its crashing climax. This passage is so well-written and gripped me so strongly that I couldn't put the book down until the race was over.

If there is any criticism I could make of the book, it is that a greater than usual suspension of disbelief is required to accept an almost invulnerable super-race of god-like powers, who can live on air and even survive for years in a coma in an airless environment. There is also an unexplained inconsistency in the basic timeline of the book: the heroine grows from child to adult while in a sixteen-year coma and is supposed to be only twenty, yet the cities of her youth had fallen into ancient ruins and the memory of her race had faded into legend.

One thing which slightly surprised me: a couple of scenes which I recalled from previous readings weren't actually in the book; they must be in the sequels, Shadowfire and Quest for the White Witch. Oh well, they're sitting on my shelf with a rather expectant air…

Indigo by Graham Joyce, plus the Platypus

This book is curiously difficult to review, or even to describe. It is set in the contemporary world, and features Englishman Jack Chambers, who has been summoned to Chicago to execute the will of a controlling and manipulative father he has loathed, but not seen, for some twenty years. He discovers that he is required to publish a manuscript in which his father lays out in detail the protracted physical and mental preparation required to see the colour Indigo (that mythical seventh colour of the spectrum) and thereby gain not only a different form of seeing but also the ability to avoid being seen by others.

Chambers meets his disturbingly attractive half-sister for the first time since she was a young girl. They both travel to Rome, his father's second home, in order to dispose of his property and trace the principal beneficiary of the will. What follows is a strange mixture of mystery, tension, drama, sex and romance, as Chambers struggles to discover what his father had been up to, work out whether the manuscript held genuine knowledge or was just delusional, and incidentally sort out his own life.

Indigo is worth reading if only for the atmospheric quality of the writing:

"You didn't look at Rome, you slipped into it and it parted around you like warm water. History lay everywhere, like mineral mud on a river bed, or broken and glistening as it broke the surface. Antiquity waved vast anemone clusters and drew your attention to submerged treasure, or to a sunken rock which on close inspection turned out to be artefact. There was no more pristine, native rock. Everything had been mined, carved, sculpted, worked, improved, discarded, reworked into a lustrous flow. In Rome you needed a set of gills to move through history, and if you tried to come up for air you found that even the sky was seeded with the dust of ancient brick. It was cloying and sweet and pearly with reference. Every evening the city crumbled under the weight of its own memory; each morning it was rebuilt with the fresh hot brick of making the past anew."

This is not a conventional SFF novel; it is in fact rather hard to categorise. I found it well worth the time spent on it, though. My only complaint is that Penguin chose to publish it in what looks like an eight-point font, which is almost too small for comfortable reading.
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As a follow-up to my post here (25 April) about the New Scientist's feature on evolution, another development covered in the magazine (10 May) is the sequencing of the genome of the Australian duck-billed platypus. This has revealed some intriguing information, as might be expected of an animal which combines a bird-like beak with fur, and lays eggs while producing milk for its young. As expected, its genome contains a mixture of mammalian and reptile features. The sequence for determining sex is more like a bird's than a mammal's, yet the milk-producing genes are similar to humans and cows. The conclusion is that milk-producing evolved before the ability to have live offspring.

Perhaps my marsupial saurians in Scales weren't quite so implausible after all!