Blog, Jvstin Style

The future of fiction. Novel versus Graphic Novel

http://www.lemodesittjr.com/blogs/blog/2008/11/future-of-fiction-its-meaning.html

On his blog, L.E. Modesitt discusses the future of fiction, and the decline of the standard novel in favor of graphic novels and Manga...

"The concern that I have about this shift is that reading, fiction in particular, requires the reader to construct a mental image of the setting and the events, rather than merely to observe and participate, as is the case for visually-based entertainment."

Compare and contrast this to Jane Lindskold, who talks about graphic novels and manga in more positive terms in "The Shortcomings of Words"

Considering that Lindskold is younger than Modesitt, is this a generational thing? Which one of them is right?

Amazon.com's best F/SF of the year

November begins the season where various outlets give their "best of" of various sliced up portions of media. Best games. Best books. Best books in various categories.

Amazon.com has their list of Best F/SF novels of the year. Half of these I have never heard of (and via Locus and other outlets, I consider myself well informed on the F/SF novel front). The list does include Banks, and Stephenson, and Novik and Jeffrey Ford, though.

However, #6 on their list is "Last Dragon" by J.M. McDermott. Readers of this space will recall that I did read an ARC of that novel this year, and thought it absolutely ailed as a literary work. It's style was a failure, rather than a triumph, and did not but obfuscate a story in a way that only people like Gene Wolfe manage to do with success.

6th best F/SF novel of the year? No, sorry, Amazon.com, I don't think so!

David Tennant quits as Doctor Who

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7698539.stm

A Halloween trick, not a treat.

David Tennant is to stand down as Doctor Who, after becoming one of the most popular Time Lords in the history of the BBC science fiction show.

Tennant stepped into the Tardis in 2005, and will leave the role after four special episodes are broadcast next year.

He made the announcement after winning the outstanding drama performance prize at the National Television Awards.

"When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won't be with me," he said.

Books Read this Year Oct 18,2008--This has been the year of ARCs

This has been the year of advance reader's copies for me.

Between Amazon Vine, LibraryThing, other sources, and even a couple of books from a friend (Tony Pi) who asked me nicely to read a book with a story of his in it and a book of a friend of his, I have been reading ARCs this year.

Out of the 44 books I've read so far this year, nine have been ARCs (in bold)!

44 Adventures in Unhistory, Avram Davidson
43 Necropath, Eric Brown
42 After the Downfall, Harry Turtledove
41 Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
40 The Golden Key, Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott
39 From Colony to Superpower, George Herring
38 Kushiel's Justice, Jacqueline Carey
37 Nation, Terry Pratchett
36 Implied Spaces,Walter Jon Williams
35 Legacies, L.E. Modesitt
34 Whiskey and Water, Elizabeth Bear
33 Axis, Robert Charles Wilson
32 Selling Out, Justina Robson
31 The Shadows of God, Gregory Keyes
30 The Code Book, Simon Singh
29 The Last Dragon, J M Mcdermott
28 The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, Matthew Hughes
27 Majestrum, Matthew Hughes
26 Dzur, Steven Brust
25 Galactic Empires, Gardner Dozois (editor)
24 The Rosetta Key, William Dietrich
23 The Twisted Citadel, Sara Douglass
22 Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
21 The Martian General's Daughter, Theodore Judson
20 The Gate of Gods, Martha Wells
19 A World too Near, Kay Kenyon
18 In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, S.M. Stirling
17 Reaper's Gale, Steven Erikson
16 The Merchants War,Charles Stross
15 Silverlock, John Myers Myers
14 The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
13 The Dragon's Nine Sons, Chris Roberson
12 A Shadow in Summer, Daniel Abraham
11 The Eternity Artifact, L.E. Modesitt
10 Wolf Who Rules, Wen Spencer
09 Hiding in the Mirror, Lawrence Krauss
08 The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester
07 Opening Atlantis, Harry Turtledove
06 Death by Black Hole, Neil DeGrasse Tyson
05 Now in Theaters Everywhere, Kenneth Turan
04 Never Coming to a Theater Near You, Kenneth Turan
03 Plague Year, Jeff Carlson
02 Writers of the Future Volume XXIII, Algis Budrys (editor)
01 The Trojan War a new history, Barry Strauss

Oh, and did I mention that EOS books has just given me two L.M. Bujold Sharing novels to read and review? Those are next on my to-read pile.

Book Review 2008 #44: Adventures in Unhistory

Adventures in Unhistory is a collection of columns in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine by the late Avram Davidson in the 1980's. In these columns, Davidson takes on a mythological/fantastic subject that has fascinated people for centuries, and unwinds its history and origins in popular culture, and tries to find the grain of truth in the mountain of myth and legend.

Its a wonderful set of essays. The style of Davidson is conversational, jovial, joking, digressive but in the end illuminating and entertaining. As I read his analysis of mermaids, werewolves, dragons, Aleister Crowley and others, I could imagine myself in a deli in Manhattan, listening to Davidson over a bagel and coffee explain in a style that has to be read to be fully enjoyed. Here he is in an essay about Sindbad (Sinbad) with one of his side digressions...

In a way, there really was a Sindbad, sort of;his name was Mohammed Ibn Battuta;and he was a Berber, a native of Northwest Africa;if anything, as far as time and territory are involved, he out Sindbaded Sindbad. I believe that he spent something like 34 years in travelling, from Morocco to China, and back again. The only troube is that he didn't draw the long bow near as much. Perhaps he had been influenced by Sindbad, perhaps he was a reincarnation. Even if you have never heard of him you have heard of anyway one of his stories, under the name of the Indian Rope Trick: evidently Ibn Battuta was the first to mention it in writing.

I'm tempted to bring in Ibn Battuta right along here because of his Sindbadian parallels or whatever; or also because his life experiences are so exceedingly interesting. But I think I'll withstand the temptation and perhaps employ him or them some other time...perhaps in and adventure entitled The Man Who Was Sindbad the Sailor. Perhaps...and perhaps not.

Anyway, the book is a real treasure, and I enjoyed it immensely. I can think of a few of my friends who will love this, if they haven't already beaten me to reading Davidson's work.

My only regret is that it was too short. I don't know how many of these columns he actually wrote; if another volume of his columns were collected and published, I'd get it in a heartbeat.

Book Review 2008 #43: Necropath

My forty third book of the year is *another* ARC (a point I am going to address in a separate post. Anyway, this book is Necropath, a sf novel, the first in a series (of course!), by Eric Brown.

The setting (mostly) is Bengal Station, a starport in the Indian Ocean between Burma and India. The time frame is sometime in the future. Faster than Light travel is a fact of life, as are aliens, and human colonies on other worlds. Bengal Station is a contact point for voidships, the ships that travel between these other planets. It's a large, labyrinthine construct that reminds one a little bit of a planetbound Babylon 5. The rich, the poor, the desperate, the greedy all come to live and work here.

Jeff Vaughn is a telepath. Augmentations have given him the ability, and the curse, to hear other people's thoughts. One can make a living scanning for a living, and Vaughn makes a living doing so. He is not so comfortable, though, that he isn't intimately familiar with the darker sides of Bengal Station. And when a crippled beggar girl turns up dead, Vaughn's life will not be the same, and his journey to unravel the mystery of her death puts him face to face with a sinister, stars-spanning cult...

It's a great premise and setting, anyway. Telepaths, aliens, interstellar travel, Thai and Indian culture front and forward, a plot that plausibly could last several novels. The ingredients are all here for something really to enjoy. And yet, for me, it just didn't work. I wanted to like this novel, and I couldn't.

First, I didn't like the main character that much. He's not a d*ck but I found it difficult to sympathize with him, even given his haunted,dark past. Worse, the characterizations of other characters, major and minor, didn't work for me either. I couldn't fathom the relationship between Osborne and Sukara. It felt false to me and seemed to be only a way to get the both of them to Bengal Station.

And the novel completely broke for me when, giving evidence of the problem to the police, Vaughn is at first completely blown off by Commander Sinton as being unreliable and untrustworthy (and naturally not believed)...and then nearly in the same breath, the same officer tries to offer Vaughn a job! It made absolutely no sense and I nearly threw the book against the wall. I can understand for plot reasons (cliches) why the officer would not believe Vaughn, but the sudden whiplash of trying to hook Vaughn into a job in the same debriefing made absolutely no sense.

I think that its more me than the novel and while others might enjoy the book more, I did not. I have no plans on continuing to read the author or of Vaughn's adventures.

Book Review 2008 #42: After the Downfall

It's been a little while, too long I think, since I've read one of Dr. Harry Turtledove's novels. With After the Downfall, I remedied that deficiency.

After the Downfall, by Harry Turtledove feels somewhat familiar to an experienced reader of Turtledove's work. We have a fantasy world with unusual magic. We have a sympathetic Wehrmacht officer in the mold of Heinrich Jäger from the Worldwar series. We have some speculations on the nature of Gods (Goddesses actually) in a world where belief in them gives them power. We get medieval battle tactics. We get sex.

In this case, however, Turtledove decides to mix them together, add some interesting characters and see what comes out of such alchemy.

Hasso Pemsel is not having a good day. You wouldn't either if you were a German army officer in 1945, with the Russians knocking on the door of the Museum in Berlin you have been, improbably, been asked to guard.

Joking around with his soldiers, he sits on an Omphalos stone...and finds himself in a different world entirely. With his gun, he saves a blond bombshell from a group of pursuers armed with primitive weapons. His reward from the woman for saving her from her pursuers is somewhat unexpected, but it puts him foursquare on the side of her people, the Lenelli, in their own pursuit of lebensraum in a new land. Hasso learns the language, learns how special Velona really is (a sometime avatar of the Goddess of the Lenelli) and joins their struggle against their even more primitive neighbors in a world of medieval weapons and magic. Fortunately, while Hasso's ammo is limited, his knowledge and ability to help his new found friends is not.

Homage to L Sprague De Camp (a la Martin Padway or Harold Shea)? I think so. Wish fulfillment for Hasso? No. Unfortunately, for Hasso, he gets a dose of reality when he gets fully engaged in a war between the Lenelli and the Grenye...

As I said above, the novel does have elements seen in Turtledove's earlier work. It would be a mistake to say this was a paint by numbers affair, since he does explore sociological questions in a new way, and some of the mid-rank characters are interesting and well developed (in addition to Hasso, who has the most character growth of course). Turtledove lets us learn more about Hasso's new world in bits and pieces and we get a real sense of what's going on, and the readers sympathies can gradually and naturally change along with the protagonist's. Its not really a spoiler to suggest that the Lenelli-Grenye struggle is very much analogous to the German-Russian portion of the conflict of World War II. The historical allegory is strong, but not overpowering.

I wouldn't start here as a first Turtledove novel.It's not Turtledove's best novel, but fans of Turtledove (like me) who have read a decent spread of his work will certainly enjoy it.

Book Review 2008 #41: Tooth and Claw

The 41st book of the year that I read was Tooth and Claw, by Jo Walton.

While this space would normally be my review, I am withholding a review at this time. As it so happens, I have been contracted to provide a review of this novel for the steampunk Second Life publication The Primgraph (sister publication to Prim Perfect). So, to avoid a conflict of interest, I am not going to write a review. Suffice it to say that I highly enjoyed this novel of dragons in a Victorian mode. Walton is an extremely good writer.

Book Review 2008 #40: The Golden Key

I got a bit behind on my reviews thanks to vacations and what not. So let's get back on track.

The Golden Key is a fantasy novel set in a Iberian flavored fantasy world, written by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott.

The Golden Key's universe and magic revolves around the use of art as a tool for communication, political power, and it turns out, arcane power as well. The novel is episodic, starting with the rise to power and the discovery of real power by a brilliant artist, Sario Grijalva of Tira Verte. The Grijalvas, after a tragedy years ago, have fallen from grace, power and are pitied, if not feared, by the population at large. Despite their talents with art, being a Grijalva is not an easy or particularly desirable life.

Sario, however, has ambition. This ambition leads him to the lair of a Tza'ab (stand in for Berbers or North Africans) living in the heart of the city. His secret power, combined with Sario's knowledge, leads Sario to discoveries to allow him to live in a serial fashion in other people's bodies...and to also imprison Saavendra, the cousin that he loves, in a portrait...

The novel then leapfrogs over the next centuries, as Sario's machinations in his various lives lead to a rise to power for the Grijalvas, even as political and other developments slowly change Tira Virte in ways that even Sario cannot predict and control.

Thus, in a 900 page novel, we really get a complete fantasy series, with a variety of characters strung out along the history of Tira Virte, with Sario and the portrait of Saavendra as the hooks that keep the story together. Add in the intriguing magic system (which any player in Amber would think of ideas for Trumps thereby), great characterization, and vivid writing, and mix well.

This could have been envisioned as an interminable fantasy series, but as one volume, the writing is crisp and rarely if ever flags. The three writers collaborate and write together seamlesly. The novel was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and after reading it, I have to wonder, just what novel managed to beat it for that prize.

I recommend it to epic fantasy fans unreservedly.

Walter Jon Williams and SPORE

Angel Station: SPORE!!!

You may have heard of SPORE, the "SIM Everything" game soon out (the creature creator has been out for a while.

SF writer Walter Jon Williams has just outed himself as having been a part of the project:

From the link above:
Spore, the world's most eagerly anticipated video game ever, releases this weekend.

Faithful readers may recall, earlier in the year, my mention of a Mystery Project. Spore was it.

SF movie adaptation meme

SF Signal: MEME: Top 48 Sci-Fi Film Adaptations

Still, in looking over the list, I was surprised by how many of the originating stories I did read. Or start - there was one book I couldn't finish. Seemed like a good subject for a meme, so, here are the rules.

Copy the list below.

Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book.

Italicize the movie titles for which you started the book but didn't finish it.

I am not going to tag anyone. I have few enough readers as it is.

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives
9. The Time Machine
10.Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13.2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant(The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack(Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing(Who Goes There?)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce(Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo(Weapon)
42. The Handmaid's Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47.Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

Hugo Winners

With an instant on world, the results of the Hugo Awards are already known.

Full results after the cut, but let me say here, congratulations to my friend and fellow gamer Elizabeth Bear, who won for best short story, "Tideline".

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Writer

Joe Abercrombie (2nd year of eligibility)
Jon Armstrong (1st year of eligibility)
David Anthony Durham (1st year of eligibility)
David Louis Edelman (2nd year of eligibility)
Mary Robinette Kowal (2nd year of eligibility)
Scott Lynch (2nd year of eligibility)

WINNER: Mary Robinette Kowal

Best Fanzine

Argentus, edited by Steven H Silver
Challenger, edited by Guy Lillian III
Drink Tank, edited by Chris Garcia
File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
PLOKTA, edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, and Mike Scott

WINNER: File 770

Best Fan Writer

Chris Garcia
David Langford
Cheryl Morgan
John Scalzi
Steven H Silver

WINNER: John Scalzi

Best Fan Artist

Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne

WINNER: Brad Foster

Best Professional Artist

Bob Eggleton
Phil Foglio
John Harris
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan

WINNER: Stephan Martiniere

Best Semiprozine

Ansible, edited by David Langford
Helix, edited by William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans
Interzone, edited by Andy Cox
Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Liza Groen Trombi
The New York Review of Science Fiction, edited by Kathryn Cramer, Kristine Dikeman, David Hartwell, and Kevin J. Maroney

WINNER: Locus

Best Related Book

The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer; appendix by David Bratman (Kent State University Press)
Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg (Baen)
Emshwiller: Infinity x Two by Luis Ortiz, introduction by Carol Emshwiller, forward by Alex Eisenstein (Nonstop)
Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction by Jeff Prucher (Oxford University Press)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)

WINNER: Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Battlestar Galactica "Razor" Written by Michael Taylor Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
Doctor Who "Blink" Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
Doctor Who "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" Written by Paul Cornell Directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
Star Trek New Voyages "World Enough and Time" Written by Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree Directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
Torchwood "Captain Jack Harkness" Written by Catherine Tregenna Directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)

WINNER: Doctor Who "Blink"

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Enchanted Written by Bill Kelly Directed by Kevin Lima (Walt Disney Pictures)
The Golden Compass Written by Chris Weitz Based on the novel by Philip Pullman, Directed by Chris Weitz (New Line Cinema)
Heroes, Season 1 Created by Tim Kring (NBC Universal Television and Tailwind Productions) Written by Tim Kring, Jeph Loeb, Bryan Fuller, Michael Green, Natalie Chaidez, Jesse Alexander, Adam Armus, Aron Eli Coleite, Joe Pokaski, Christopher Zatta, Chuck Kim. Directed by David Semel, Allan Arkush, Greg Beeman, Ernest R. Dickerson, Paul Shapiro, Donna Deitch, Paul A. Edwards, John Badham, Terrence O'Hara, Jeannot Szwarc, Roxann Dawson, Kevin Bray, Adam Kane
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Written by Michael Goldenberg, Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, Directed by David Yates (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Stardust Written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman Illustrated by Charles Vess Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Paramount Pictures)

WINNER: Stardust

Best Professional Editor, Short Form

Ellen Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's), Coyote Road (Viking), Inferno (Tor))
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Jonathan Strahan (The New Space Opera (HarperCollins/Eos), The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 1 (Night Shade), Eclipse One (Night Shade))
Gordon Van Gelder (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Sheila Williams (Asimov's Science Fiction)

WINNER: Gordon Van Gelder

Best Professional Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders (Pyr)
Ginjer Buchanan (Ace/Roc)
David G. Hartwell (Tor/Forge)
Beth Meacham (Tor)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

WINNER: David G. Hartwell

Best Short Story

"Last Contact" by Stephen Baxter (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann, Solaris Books)
"Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov's June 2007)
"Who's Afraid of Wolf 359?" by Ken MacLeod (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
"Distant Replay" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's April/May 2007)
"A Small Room in Koboldtown" by Michael Swanwick (Asimov's April/May 2007; The Dog Said Bow-Wow, Tachyon Publications)

WINNER: "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear

Best Novelette

"The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham (Logorrhea, ed. John Klima, BantamSpectra)
"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang (Subterranean Press; FandSF Sept. 2007)
"Dark Integers" by Greg Egan (Asimov's Oct./Nov. 2007)
"Glory" by Greg Egan (The New Space Opera, ed. Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, HarperCollins/Eos)
"Finisterra" by David Moles (FandSF Dec. 2007)

WINNER: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang

Best Novella

"The Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress (Asimov's July 2007)
"Recovering Apollo 8" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov's Feb. 2007)
"Stars Seen Through Stone" by Lucius Shepard (FandSF July 2007)
"All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis (Asimov's Dec. 2007; Subterranean Press)
"Memorare" by Gene Wolfe (FandSF April 2007)

WINNER: "All Seated on the Ground" by Connie Willis

Best Novel

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins; Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan./Feb. 2007)
The Last Colony by John Scalzi (Tor)
Halting State by Charles Stross (Ace)

WINNER: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Book Review 2008 #37: Nation

NB: I received an ARC of this book via the Amazon Vine Program. This book is slated for release in September.

Terry Pratchett is best known for his Discworld novels, ranging from the Colour of Magic to Making Money. Within that canon, Pratchett has written a few novels explicitly labeled for young adults (starting with the Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents).

In Nation, though, Pratchett turns away from Discworld and starts a sui generis YA novel set on a world very much like, but subtly different, than our own 19th century Earth. Nation tells the story of two survivors of what can be deduced to be a tidal wave in the South Pacific (here, Pelagic) Ocean: Mau, a young native of these islands whose traditional growth and path to manhood is interrupted when his people are nearly wiped out, and Ermentrude, the daughter (and granddaughter) of British nobility who happened to be on a ship in these waters when disaster struck. We also get hints that there is a different disaster going on in the wider world, too.

Nation is the story of the rebuilding of Mau's Nation, as survivors meet and strive to survive on what remains of Mau's island.

With this simple (but not simplistic) plot and structure, Pratchett brings us a story of survival that YA readers will love, but also throws in a lot for adult readers as well. Touches of his humour, familiar to anyone who has read Discworld, abound. There is even traces of philosophy and weightier matters, but they are only frosting on the solid and densely delicious cake of the novel. Action, adventure, survival, humor, reflection. The novel has everything that a High School English Teacher might hope for in a book to teach students, and has the writing, wit, and entertainment value that will allow those students to actually enjoy reading it.

And to be clear, although its a YA novel, adult fans of Pratchett, like myself, will also highly enjoy this novel. Its not Discworld and doesn't pretend to be, but it has the same high quality of writing, well drawn characters, world building and entertainment value.

Highly Recommended.

Star Wars Exhibit and Author/Audience connection

Wyrdsmiths: Star Wars Exhibit

On the Wyrdsmiths blog, Kelly McCullough talks about the Star Wars exhibit and how what a writer does is affected by its audience.

The take home ending paragraph really brings this home:

Perhaps that's all generalizable to something like the writer has to understand that the audience is part of the story and that's true from the moment you start writing something you intend to share.

Book Review 2008 #36: Implied Spaces

It's not often that you read a novel which creates a subgenre, sui generis. Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams, manages that feat with the inauguration of the "Sword and Singularity" subgenre of SF.

For those who don't know what a Singularity is, in brief, its the idea that when trans-human intelligences (be it computer, cyborg or what have you) come into existence, life and history as we know it will be utterly transformed, and life after it will be as alien to us as our modern technological existence is alien to our ancestors in the Paleolithic era.

In Implied Spaces, Walter Jon Williams creates a "sword and singularity" novel. What this means is, pace S.M. Stirling, is that fantasy ideas, tropes and even settings are convincingly melded with the high technology of a post-Singularity environment. We start off the novel in a fantasy world environment that, if it were just a random tidbit found on the internet, would at first look like a well written but ordinary fantasy novel. Aristide has a talking cat, sure, but in a world of trolls and monsters, that's not unusual.

When his sword comes out, and starts acting like Morgaine Chaya's Changeling, complete with a wormhole, the reader starts getting an inkling that there is much more to the universe than meets the eye. We soon get ever grander vistas and situations as, with Aristide as our guide, we meet A.I.'s, post-human characters, wormhole technology, mass drivers using wormholes as weapons, and technology capable of affecting the most fundamental elements of reality.

As Keanu Reeves famously once said: "Whoa!"

The book is philosophical, comic, action packed, thoughtful and stunningly well written. I've been a fan of Williams work for a long while, and he hits all cylinders here. This novel is precisely for people who can read good fat fantasy, and yet strongly appreciate the High-tech SF of, say, Charlie Stross.

Highly Recommended.

Book Review 2008 #25: Galactic Empires

Galactic Empires is an SFBC original anthology of science fiction stories about, well, Galactic Empires. Space Opera? Yes, and No. The anthology was edited by Gardner Dozois.

It's an interesting line up, and since there are only six stories (of around novella length), I will touch on each of them separately. As a whole, the stories range in quality from good to superb.

"The Demon Trap". Peter F Hamilton:

A story set in his Commonwealth universe (Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, Dreaming Void), this story brings back Paula Myo, the investigator originally from the Hive, investigating (doggedly as always) a terrorist attack. The story clearly takes place after the first two novels, since technology has advanced somewhat (even given the conservative culture of this universe). The story works on all levels--revealing more about Myo, revealing more about how the polity of the Commonwealth has evolved, and its a darned good story. And I loved the ending when the culprit gets truly just desserts. The collection started off on a high note.

"Owner Space": Neal Asher

Unlike Hamilton, I've not read any Asher yet, although now I just might. Owner Space tells the story of a few refugees from a very nasty autocracy, with a revenge-bent alien lurking on the side as well. The pursued refugees enter the domain of a very mysterious entity, and the conflicts play out under the aegis and the watchful eye of the "Owner". Some genuinely creepy stuff was tempered a bit by an entity whose powers weren't explained all that well. I thought it was good, but not *very* good.

"The Man with the Golden Balloon" Robert Reed

I've read a previous story set on the Ship, a Starcross (gah, does that date me) vehicle which is traveling across the galaxy. This is another story on that giant vessel, as a married couple explore a long abandoned and unknown area of the Ship, and meet an entity who talks in metaphors and story of a secret Empire, and what happened the last time he interfered in the evolution of a world. It reminded me a lot of Crowley's Great Work of Time in that the story itself is layered and talks about secrets and mysterious agendas, and dances around giving the reader a "big" reveal. And in the ending, Reed has the sting that makes you re-evaluate everything that you've read. I didn't like my previous foray into the Ship universe, this story stands alone very well.

"The Six Directions of Space" by Alistair Reynolds:

This story posits a number of alternate histories and universes, starting with the viewpoint one of a Mongol-dominated Earth expanding into space. An agent for these Mongols is sent to investigate strange happenings on routes between star systems, only to discover the existence of these alternate dimensions. While the sensawunder is here and I eat up this sort of story, this story feels a bit unpolished and unfinished in terms of the characters and the plot. And the denouement and resolution is weak. I'm not sure what went wrong her, this is one of the few times I've been underwhelmed with Reynolds' work. It's not horrible, but its merely "good".

The Seer and the Silverman" is another Xeelee story from Baxter. I have a soft spot for this universe and went through this as if I were fueled on caffeine and speed. I loved learning more about the Ghosts, and there is of course the usual obligatory sidelong references to previous stories set in the Xeelee universe. The story itself is set on "Reef" of habitats on the border between Human and Ghost space, an uneasy cohabitation whose politics and sociology drive the story's plot nicely.

"The Tear" is from Ian McDonald, and is set in a bizarre universe where the inhabitants of a waterworld develop multiple personalities in order to deal with various aspects of reality. We follow Ptey, who develops additional personalities throughout the story, and as contact with the alien Anpreen progresses, he even goes above the normal eight personalities that his people usually develop. McDonald explores the sociology of a person with these multiple mental constructs very well. Not content with just this though, he throws in refugees from a War, Ptey getting exiled, and a big canvas in the final installment as he returns to his world after a long sojourn into space. Sensawunder, big time!

If you are a member of SFBC and like space-oriented SF, I think, like me, you will be quite satisfied with Galactic Empires.

I know Pournelle's views had turned hideous, but Niven, too?

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2008/March/SecurityBeat.htm#Science

Although I've (mostly) enjoyed their writings over the years, I know that the political views of Jerry Pournelle have never quite aligned with mine own. I can accept that. I did think that inserting politics and a screed against the IRS in "The Burning City" made it a much weaker book IMO.

However, I thought Niven was more immune to odious beliefs. I am wrong:

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.

“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.

Why Fantasy over SF?

A few of a crowd of F/SF novelists have been pondering the question. Why is Fantasy now outstripping SF and handily?

Tate Holloway (who did not find much success writing SF as Lyda Morehouse) has thoughts.

Eleanor Arnason has several posts on the subject, too:

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/cross-post-1.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/cross-post-2.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/post-3.html

http://wyrdsmiths.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-fantasy-and-science-fiction.html

Is it that Fantasy is more accessible? Is modern SF too dystopian and dark?

Modesitt on The SF Future

Modesitt has a good entry on his blog about the SF Future.

His point is that the future can evolve in unpredictable ways.

A money quote:

Even ten years ago, could anyone -- did anyone, except the Israelis -- imagine citizens of the United States lining up for security searches more reminiscent of communist Russia just to get on an airplane?

RIP, Arthur C Clarke

Sci-fi guru Arthur Clarke dies at 90 - Space- msnbc.com

Arthur C Clarke, author of 2001, 2010 and many other books, has died in his home in Sri Lanka.

As much as I like 2001 as a cinematic achievement, my favorite novel of his probably is Rendezvous with Rama. One of the original and best, Big Damn Object novels.

Book Review 2008 #12: A Shadow in Summer

The first in yet another epic fantasy series. ("The Long Price Quartet") However, it was strongly recommended by Jay Lake (Mainspring). So I thought I would give it a go. Written by Daniel Abraham.

Yeah, I know. Why would I start another fantasy series. Why should you read *this* one? There are many fantasy debuts in a year. Why is this one worth my time, or yours?

This one has the advantage of having original elements.

The novel begins with a prologue in a traditional vein, with a student at a school for "Poets", those who can control the arcane beings called the Andat. The student's apparent failure as such is actually the key to success and he is invited to become a *real* student.

And then he walks away, rejecting a system he sees as wrong.

So, with the prologue throwing us off kilter, the action shifts to Saraykeht, and a set of viewpoint characters. Maati is a traditional protagonist, one of the students of the system that the prologue's Otah rejected. Liat is a young worker in one of the Houses of the city, and Amat is the most untraditional of all, a middle aged to elderly woman who has spent years working in the same House.

A conspiracy involving the andat of Saraykeht, Seedless, draws in these characters, the poet, Heshai, who ostensibly controls Seedless, and then there is the mysterious beau of Liat, a laborer who is far too uncommon to be a common laborer...

The culture of the city and the milieu is distinctly non-Western in a way that reminded me of, say, Tekumel. Characters use "poses" and body language in a way that reminded me of courtiers in dynastic China.

Although this is a debut novel, the writing is mostly clear and fluid, and the characters are well drawn. Abraham has clearly read widely in Epic fantasy, enough to play with our expectations and undermine them, as he does best in the prologue.

I can see why Lake liked it so much, and the book also has an approving blurb by none other than George R.R. Martin. For once, such blurbs are more than just chatter. I have hopes that the subsequent novels will improve the writing even more and that Abraham will prove to be the equal to the ambitious goals and world that he has started to illustrate here. I enjoyed the book and I will read the further novels in the series.

Del Toro to direct the Hobbit films

Del Toro to take charge of The Hobbit | News | Guardian Unlimited Film

Guillermo del Toro has officially signed up to direct The Hobbit, according to reports leaking out from a film premiere in France. The Pan's Labyrinth creator will oversee a double-bill of films based on JRR Tolkien's fantasy adventure, which paved the way for The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson, director of the Oscar-winning Rings trilogy, will serve as executive producer.

I really liked PAN'S LABYRINTH, and HELLBOY, too. I think he could do a pretty good job with the Hobbit. Certainly I have high hopes for the spiders of Mirkwood and Smaug based on this.

Why did I wait so long... Meme

Have you ever read a classic novel (of any genre) and had the realization, mid-novel "Why did I wait so long to read this?"

Or perhaps it was a classic movie that, in the midst of it, you had the same reaction? Or even a music album of some sort?

I'm having that reaction right now, reading Alfred Bester's THE STARS MY DESTINATION.

What stories do you have to share of similar experiences?

(Or do it on your own blog/LJ. Think of it as a meme)

Neologism: Scudderism

Scudderism: An American-born theocratic movement and government similar to the fictional government set up by Nehemiah Scudder in the Future History of Robert Heinlein.

Why Science Fiction is more fun to read than literary fiction

Via Link

Book Review 2007 #50: Mainspring

After a long anticipation, since this first was mentioned to me months before its release, which itself was a few months ago, I finally picked up and read Jay Lake (http://jaylake.livejournal.com)'s Mainspring.

Mainspring is a hard book to categorize. However, if I were attempt to do so, I would classify it as "Science Fantasy Alternate History Clockpunk".

Mainspring is the story of a clockmaker in a clockwork world. Hethor lives in an alternate history where England still rules America...and oh, yes, the Earth and the rest of the solar system exist on a giant orrery. The "Wall" on the Equator not only separates the north and south hemispheres, but also serves as Earth's connection to its own place in the celestial clockwork.

Starting with a visitation from the Archangel Gabriel, charging him to find the Key Perilous and rewind the Earth, Hethor is launched on a Hero's Quest that takes him from his New Haven home to the Wall, and beyond.

In some ways, the novel, especially its early portions, reminds me of J Gregory Keyes "Newton's Cannon novels" with its AH and Science Fantasy blend. Too, some of the strange locales and sense of fantasy to it reminds me of Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen. It's certainly an audaciously imagined universe, a literal clockwork world.

I think the pacing could have been better, it feels very uneven in places. This is only Lake's second novel (and I've not read his first), and I suspect perhaps its his unfamiliarity with the long ball, so to speak, that lets him down here. There are certainly wonders here to be had. Too, some of Hethor's adventures have a feeling of deus ex machina (pun not quite intended) to them. I did keep reading the book, though, in eagerness to know what was going to happen next, and see Hethor through to his destination.

And, really, how can you go wrong with the addition of Zeppelins? I know there will be sequelae and despite the imperfections in this novel, I remind the reader that I am a fan of worldbuilding first and foremost even to this day. The worldbuilding here intrigued me no end, and is the strongest and greatest virtue of Mainspring.

Science Fantasy Alternate History Clockpunk goodness.

Fencing Lesson in an SF Novel

Roberson's Interminable Ramble: Free Fiction Friday: A Fencing Lesson

Chris Roberson, who has written a few books (including Paragea, which I reviewed and loved) has been excerpting chapters from a "backstory" novel involving one of the main characters from Paragaea, called Set the Seas on Fire.

I've browsed STSOF when it was available freely electronically, as a prep to reading Paragaea. I am linking to this excerpt because of the things Chris does in this chapter.

He shows how a fencing lesson might really go...and I think its invaluable to RPGers for that reason alone. Enjoy.

Dimension X, the Veldt, and Holodecks/Holosuites

Internet Archive: Details: Dimension X - Single Episodes

I've been listening to some Old Dimension X episodes, which are now freely available as MP3's. Its an old radio program which had a heavy rotation of adaptations of short Science fiction stories.I am really enjoying them and I recommend them all to you.

One of the episodes I've listened to today is "The Veldt". As I've listened to this story of a Nursery that brings a three dimensional environment to life, it struck me.

"The Veldt", and how it goes wrong, is a clear antecedent and inspiration for the Star Trek Holodeck/Holosuite.

Help me populate a F/SF football league

One of the games I play is the stat based computer game Front Office Football.

Its a lot of fun, even if its mostly numbers. There is no joystick control a la Madden or its rivals. On the other hand the career mode is deep. You can play year after year of a league of your making and i have done so.

It occurred to me today that I could have fun starting a new league, with a draft for imaginary teams. I briefly flirted with world cities without teams, and then a better idea struck me, one that *you* can help me with.

2 Conferences, 16 teams in each conference. With a little creativity, I can change city names and locations and make imaginary places. And since I could start with a draft so that all teams started equal...

Well, I could have 32 teams taken from fantasy and science fiction.

Where you can help me is with suggestions. Site in a world plus a name for the team would be great.

For example:

The Babylon 5 Starfuries
The Amber Royals
The Traken Keepers

I open the floor for suggestions. Help Populate my league!

Anti Mundane-SF

http://mundane-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/take-third-star-on-left-and-on-til.html

All righty.

I've mentioned the Mundane-SF crowd before. The link above is a link to a text version of Geoff Ryman's GOH speech to Boreal in Montreal last April.

I'm very glad that I did not attend that convention, or else I would ask for my money back.

I have responded to excerpts, although you should as always read the entire thing first.

It's the medium as well as the message.

Ryman claims in his speech that:

"So I wrote a jokey Mundane Manifesto. It said let’s play this serious game. Let’s agree: no FTL, no FTL communications, no time travel, no aliens in the flesh, no immortality, no telepathy, no parallel universe, no magic wands. Let’s see if something new comes out of it."

Was it a joke? I didn't take it as such and many others didn't. He seemed shocked by that reaction.

Some of the blog commentary went a bit angry. I have a better understanding of what I thought of as an invitation to play a game was so widely misunderstood. Essentially it suggested that we left the old tropes to one side, and focussed on more likely futures.

He goes on.

The drive to write and read big-market SF is not much different from the drive to write and read Peter Pan. You never grow up. You fly by magic away from home to Never-neverland. (Take the third star on the left.) It’s full of mermaids, pirates and native peoples, just like Star Trek. Something really weird is going on around the whole idea of mother and Wendy.

I like Peter Pan. I like watching mass market SF. It’s a holiday from being an adult. The fantasies that fulfil the dream may show us wonders, but they are very repetitive, stereotyped wonders. Less to do with real innovation and more to do with a sense of comfort.

And so, Ryman slips back into what Stirling calls the arrogance and conceit.

You are foolish because you like this stuff. You should put away these childish things. You should grow up.

I dream of a science fiction that is literature, right up there with Thomas Pynchon, James Joyce, and Jane Austen. There is no reason for it not to be. Forty years ago that was the project, and it seemed like we were going to do it. That was the age of New Worlds, Dangerous Visions, of Ballard, Delaney, LeGuinn, and Tiptree.

Ah, and here Ryman implies that only Mundane SF is worthy of being "literature". This is a whole other can of worms for me to open. If I am reading Ryman correctly here, and perhaps I am off base, I wonder if this perceived inferiority complex of SF is a motivation to want the genre to move in that direction.

Does Ryman lie in bed at night with wet dreams that the NY Times and literary critics everywhere will treat his novels, and novels of SF with the same deference and respect that they do with modern literature? Does he believe that by shedding ray guns and rocketships, SF can become respectable, canonical, and accepted?

And then, finally at the end:

I’ve spoken a bit about the dream that underlies SF as being essentially adolescent. But there is one aspect of the dream I’ve left out. Surely the urge to leave home and escape everyday life finally ends with the child making a home of its own and becoming adult. There is room in the SF dream for growing up, accepting the mundane. That’s the part of the dream my fiction will try to fulfill.

It’s never too late to grow up.

And back to the Peter Pan allusion again.

And so I will quote the Bible, Paul to the Corinthians:

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Chapter 13, verse 11"

This is what Ryman perceives the aspects of SF that he despises are. And so, like a parent telling her child to eat her lima beans, he tells us that its time for us to grow up, give up dreams of space travel, time travel and their kin, and focus on Earth and Earth only.

Ryman stands with the "One Happy World" people in Philip K Dick's Time Out of Joint. And, sorry to say this, he is just as arrogantly blinkered.

Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten STTNG Episodes

''Star Trek: The Next Generation'': The top 10 episodes | Star Trek: The Next Generation | 1 | Countdown | TV | Sci-Fi Central | Entertainment Weekly

EW is a cotton candy of a magazine, with a lot of superficial filler without much content. And their coverage of SF is often atrocious, highlighted, not mitigated, by their recent practice of reviewing SF novels now and again.

So when SF Signal linked to this list they complied of the best Star Trek The Next Generation episodes, I thought that the list was going to be a terrible one.

Go see the list for yourself, its a lot better selection of STTNG episodes than I would have expected.

Book Review 2007 #44-45 Ports of Call and Lurulu

My next pair of novels are the last pair of novels by Jack Vance, the Lurulu duology, consisting of Ports of Call and Lurulu.

Ports of Call and Lurulu are, according to their author, the last novels he will write. Old and now blind, Vance's career is gliding toward its end, with retrospective anthologies and the like announced (and one, the Jack Vance Treasury, reviewed here).

Ports of Call and Lurulu tell the story of Myron Tany, a young man who doesn' t want his preordained future as an accountant. He seizes an opportunity to captain and escort his eccentric great Aunt Hester to a far away planet in search of a rejuvenation treatment.

When said Aunt's lover arranges for him to be dumped off unceremoniously on a planet mid-route, rather than returning home with his tail between his legs, he hires on as an officer in charge of cargo on the tramp freighter Glicca.

And so Myron gets to see the Gaean Reach, and his own search for happiness, for lurulu.

The two novels, quite frankly, are far from Vance's best. There is not much of a plot, and the characters are not that complex. There are no real details to the technical means of travel. The adventures of Myron on the Glicca could, with some changes, instead be his adventures aboard a Yankee clipper heading for strange ports of call in the early 19th century. There are some nice bits in the two novels, but as a whole, taken together, this is far from Vance's best work. In fact, I think someone trying Vance for the first time is likely to be turned off by the Master's work , as spectacularly unsuited it is for the first time reader.

I can't recommend this pair of novels to anyone except a Vance enthusiast like myself, and even then, its for completeness' sake.

Robert Jordan, RIP

Via Robert Jordan's blog, which I picked up on a tip from comments in George R R Martin's Blog.

Robert Jordan has passed away. I knew he was not healthy, with a rare blood disorder (amyloidosis) but didn't pay attention to updates on the details of his condition. And now he is gone.

I'm speechless and shocked.

More Vance coming from Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press, who put out the wonderful Jack Vance Treasury I read and reviewed earlier this year, has some wonderful news for the Vanceophile:

http://subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2007/09/07/just-announced-new-books-by-jack-vance-and-thomas-m-disch/

We’ve just posted details for novellas by two of our favorite writers. First up is Jack Vance’s The Kragen, a rare novella of his that we’ll be publishing as a signed limited edition, bargain priced at $35...
In further Vance news, we’ve just reached agreement to publish The Jack Vance Reader next year, a massive tome that will include three of his best novels, with guest introductions. Terry Dowling and Jonathan Strahan are once again helming this book, as they did so ably with The Jack Vance Treasury. Also on the Vance front will be Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute anthology featuring a whole host of sf’s leading lights playing in Jack’s universe. Contributors are slated to include George R. R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Dan Simmons, Tad Williams, and a whole host of others.

Consider me signed up.

Hugo Changes Poll

Science Fiction Awards Watch ｻ Blog Archive ｻ Hugo Changes Poll

Over on Science Fiction Awards Watch, the creators (including Cheryl Morgan, formerly of Emerald City) have a poll up asking if you have any changes to the Hugo awards.

I urge you to go and vote, since a good, large sample of votes is something that the WSFS can take seriously. Even if you like the Hugo awards exactly as they are, that's a useful data point for them.

So go vote!

Flash Gordon Episode Three

Why precisely I am still watching this show? I don't know. Perhaps documenting the show from start to finish for posterity?

Spoilers abound.

In this episode, Flash's Best Friend returns, in time to get stung by an alien bug which has gone through an unintentional rift from Mongo to Earth. Dale is forced to make him miserable at the wedding to keep him alive while Flash and Baylin search for a cure...

This was not much of an improvement over Episode 2. The concept is lame and cliched and while the basic idea had lots of potential (alien bugs come through to Earth), it was watered down and denuded of all drama. Instead of dealing with a real crisis, we get painful scenes of Dale acting like a b!tch at a wedding to keep Flash's Best Friend alive. On top of that we get castrating women, more Planet of the Dark Corridors, and people acting stupid.

Segway Guy is still more interesting than Ming and had more screen time(!) I didn't buy the artifact hall at all--is there no such thing as security alarms? Having Aura waltz in and take one of the pieces without disabling any alarms (or Flash doing that for that matter) seemed very wrong. And how did she get free of Flash tying her up so quickly? There was a hint of an idea of Flash owing Aura for the privilege of taking him to get the artifact. I think the episode could have worked much better with Aura forcing Flash to hold to that, and skipping the "Escape from the Water Treatment Plant" sequence.

Having Baylin "come in out of the cold" and then turn around and get outed as a deserter immediately thereafter was a poor use of her character. Again, the writers are missing opportunities left, right and center in this show.

Previews for the next episode suggest that its another "invader through a rift from Mongo". I said it in previous reviews that this concept of the small town continually beset is just not going to hold up on the long run. Force Zarkov, Dale, Baylin and Flash to *stay* on Mongo for a few episodes. Let's see more of Mongo and less of British Columbia.

Flash Gordon Episode Two

SF Signal: Two And Done: Flash Gordon

So I watched the second episode of the new Sci Fi Channel version of Flash Gordon...spoilers ahoy.

Its better than the pilot, although that might be damning it with faint praise.

Its the little things and the big things together that bug me.

What happened to Flash's friend (best friend?) Given the implication of how deep the relationship between the two of them was suggested in the pilot, for him not to make an appearance at all in this episode felt false. Is Flash never going to tell his friend about the weird doings with Mongo?

The ice smuggling--impractical at best.

The second bounty hunter. The only reason why I could see he didn't kill the park ranger was because it would have brought the entire house of cards down as far as the "secret" of Mongo. I was afraid of this in the pilot, that its going to be increasingly implausible to keep up this switching between worlds.

Segway guy still out-charismas Ming, although at least this episode we get to see Ming be ruthless in a personal way. Aura, on the other hand, suddenly isn't acting like the spoiled princess she was in the pilot. That's not character growth, that's inconsistency.

Baylin was better in this episode although as seen above, I didn't buy her mate's actions. I suppose they toned it down to keep it relatively family friendly, but still, that just makes the show a boat car, neither one nor the other.

I dislike the new Zarkov more and more. Hes a crackpot without the redeeming value of being a intelligent crackpot. If he could do more acting than just be manic, he might be more tolerable.

Worst of all, we end the episode with the equivalent of a reset button, with the rift closed and Baylin still on Earth.. Is every blessed episode going to be someone from Mongo invading this town in search of Dale, Flash or Baylin?!

Oh, and how did the house get mysteriously fixed before his mother got home? (And how is she going to react to strigil using Baylin cleaning herself, Roman style, with oil in her backyard)?

Book Review 2007 #37: Operation Luna

A sequel to Operation Chaos, Operation Luna was again written by Poul Anderson.

Written as a flat out novel rather than a fixup, Operation Luna takes place some years after the events of Operation Chaos. Steve and Virginia have moved to the southwest, their baby daughter is now a teenager and has two siblings, and the dynamic duo are tied up with the naescent program to reach the Moon.

Unfortunately, there are forces, on the Moon and on Earth itself which will stop at nothing at preventing a successful mission to the Moon...

And unfortunately, the pacing is all wrong in Operation Luna. While Operation Chaos thrived on the short story fix up format which meant that the story had to flow, Operation Luna sags and sags badly when the plot needs to move ahead. Also, the politics in this novel are much more in evidence, and it hurts the story. Its not as bad as the hit-over-the-head of Niven and Pournelle's The Burning City, but the repeated cracks against the IRS in particular got wearisome after a while.

There were a few good bits and fun references, including Lyle Monroe's "Magister Lazarus" and a mystery novel which shares the title of a Turtledove work set in a similar milieu. Still, the novel doesn't have enough of the good stuff to be really worthwhile.

While Operation Luna has the same feel as Operation Chaos and introduces and show us how society might continue to evolve under a Technomagic revolution, I cannot in good conscience recommend it. Read Operation Chaos, and stop there.

Book Review 2007 #36: Operation Chaos

An oldie but a goodie, a fixup of several stories by Poul Anderson set in a world where magic becomes the dominant form of technology at the end of the 19th and into the 20th century.

Its one of my old favorites.

When we first meet them, Virginia Graylock and Steve Matuchek are in a special unit during an alternate WWII where a fanatical Caliphate rather than Nazi Germany has used djinn and other magical means to take on the world. Well enough that they have even managed to occupy some of the West Coast. The witch and the werewolf are brought together for a very special mission to neutralize one of those Djinn so that the real offensive can begin to turn the tide against the enemy. Tackling such an opponent though, is no mean feat...

The witch and the werewolf eventually get together, and together face other threats over the years, ranging from an elemental on the loose to a harrowing of hell itself.

Operation Chaos was an inspiration for one of my RPG characters, Zavier, since I explicitly made him from a shadow where the dominant form of technology is magic in the exact same mold. Operation Chaos has all of the virtues of Anderson's writing, including a wicked imagination on reimagining modern technology in arcane terms and forms. Its not very deep, but its easy and quick to absorb, even if the stories date from the 50's and 60's and show it (the mores and the social habits of the characters for example).

It was fun to read this again.

Flash Gordon the Series

Well, I downloaded and watched my first torrent.

Unfortunately, it was the premiere of the new Flash Gordon Series on Sci-Fi.

John on SFsignal has a good review, even if he calls the 1980 movie "atrocious".

Scifi Ranter Girl is somewhat kinder.

I have a few thoughts of mine own.

Now, I've seen a number of versions of FG. I may not be an authority. Still...

Emperor Ming: Ming is supposed to be Merciless. A hands-on guy who relishes his role as ruler of the universe and bada**. This Ming is...a mid level bureaucrat or middle manager. Emperor Ming of PowePoint.

His Palace: Long dark corridors, small dark rooms and its implied if not stated outright that its a Water Treatment Plant. A Water Treatment Plant?!?! When I meet Ming, I want it to be in a throne room, a grand place that shows his power and authority. Worse, his second in command, "Segway guy" is more interesting. This is a fatal flaw.

Mongo: Mostly, what we see are dark corridors and rooms in the Water Treatment Plant. This is supposed to be Flash Gordon, not Flash Gordon and the Planet of Dark Corridors. The rest of the planet, what we see of it, looks like generic Southern Canada as much as Star Trek episodes look like generic Southern California.

And what Ming's motivation for visiting Earth is now painfully clear--get the Imex so that he can get a reliable source of water, if not from Earth itself. I feel like I've walked into a remake of "V".

Getting to Mongo: Okay, I can understand not using spaceships and using Sliders/Stargate warps. However, if travel between Mongo and Earth is too frequent, its going to destroy the suspension of disbelief and quickly. People will notice no matter how much of a small town this is. Send our heroes to Mongo and keep them there for a few episodes trying to figure a way out.

Flash:
I blame the character as written equally with the lackluster performance. This Flash is a live-at-home marathon runner with a garage sideline. I think this was a case of poor character design. Flash is supposed to be an extraordinary athlete who becomes a hero. This Flash doesn't give me a hero vibe. He just seems to want to find his father. I don't think the series needs or is served by that subplot.

Zarkov:
A creepy stalker Zarkov who makes unreliable technology. Umm, no. Worse, this Zarkov is supposed to have been an assistant to Flash's Dad 15 years ago, but he looks about Flash's age. Was he helping in between going to Junior High?!

Dale:
Okay, so she's a reporter. Fine. (Although she acts awfully stupid for one) She's engaged to be married and is an old girlfriend. That puts a speedbump on the usual romantic arc, but ok. I didn't buy the chemistry between her and Flash.

Aura:
Wasted opportunity. They had a clever idea with her introduction and botched it. With things as they stand at the end of the first episode, she will never be able to seduce Flash and that ruins a critical FG element. Even with Dale at his side, Aura should be a temptation. Aura blew that chance straight out.

Baylin:
Wasted opportunity, take two. Okay, so she's a BAAD bounty hunter, with enough rank to pull rank on Aura. Fine, Good. What this suggests is something more than using some gadget to temporarily immobilize Our Hero. I wanted to see her get rough and tumble with Flash, maybe even win before Zarkov or Dale brings some firepower. You don't set up a character to be a dangerous mercenary and not show it. (cue Han Solo)

With poor acting, the episode comes off badly, even given the idiot plot. Given these elements, I would have done things very differently. I would have kept Aura's identity secret (from everyone save the viewer) for an episode or two. Let her show how devious she really can be. Have Ming kill someone, and I don't mean by endless displays of Powerpoint.

I will watch an episode or two more to see if they can get past this rough beginning, but right now, its looking like a flop to me. It's not campy enough to be camp, not dramatic enough to be a BSG style SF show. It's just...enh.

Doctor Who in Five Minutes

Via Chris Roberson's blog, a YouTube clip with images from all of the classic Doctor Who episodes, from Unearthly Child to the Doctor Who Movie, with a music background and a few quotes as audio accompaniment (including the immortal "No, not the Mind Probe.")

5 and a half Minutes, 160 episodes.

Commander Riker does an Infomercial

Via SFSignal, a link to a blog which has unearthed a Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker, Star Trek the Next Generation) infomercial for corporate software.

He does the informercial in his Commander Uniform, from the bridge of the Enterprise.

Mundane SF Manifesto

Kathryn Cramer: Rudy Rucker Attacks the Mundane SF Manifesto!

The linkage on this can be tricky. I did originally read the SFSignal entry which linked to the Kathryn Cramer article linked above which mentions Rudy Rucker's entry.

The Mundane SF movement, in my opinion, even with the best of intentions, comes across as an attack on the "sensawunda" that is the main reason that I read SF. I don't say that Mundane SF as a whole does this, but the Manifesto seems to want to reduce SF to more technothriller than fantastic.

It reminds me, oddly, of the luddite American populace in Phil Dick's novel "Time Out of Joint" who are convinced that One Happy World is better than the Moon (and by extension the rest of the universe).

Why read Science Fiction?

John, at SFSignal poses a deceptively simple question:

"Why do people read science fiction? For that matter, why do people watch sci-fi film and TV?" and then after answering it for himself, turns it on the reader.

I can answer it in one word.

Sensawunder.

Okay, its a neologism. Sense of Wonder. (much like John himself)

It doesn't have to be hard SF, although a Big D*mn Object can evoke Sensawunda. (eg, The Entire from Bright of the Sky all the way back to Ringworld). Sensawunda can be strange and well drawn aliens, amazing futures, incredible locales and much more.

I read science fiction because it provides the best value for armchair fictional traveller. Seriously. Why would I want to read, however well written, a John Grisham novel when...

Alistair Reynolds can take me inside the heart of a ship and man fused together? (Redemption Ark)...

Elizabeth Bear can let me follow along with two "secret agents" on a visit to a matriarchal planet with a Secret (Carnival)...

Vernor Vinge can show me a High School of 20 years in the future, a thrill of familiarity and wonder that a High school of today might be for someone who graduated High School in 1950 (Rainbow's End)

Walter Jon Williams can take me a Space Empire reminiscent of the Roman Republic, where humans are just one race trying to make their way after the creators of the Empire pass on (the Praxis Trilogy)

Jack Vance can let me follow Adam Reith through five novels stranded on an Alien world, seeking a way off of it, and back home. (Planet of Adventure)

And many, many other places and with many more characters, both in print and television. I've only scratched the surface. Invoke the sensawunda in me, and you'll have me as a loyal reader.

So, what about *you*?

Locus Awards 2007

The 2007 Locus Awards have been announced

Best Science Fiction Novel

Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge (Tor)

Best Fantasy Novel

The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner (Bantam Spectra)

Best First Novel

Temeraire: His Majesty's Dragon/Throne of Jade/Black Powder, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Voyager); as Temeraire: In the Service of the King (SFBC)

Best Young Adult Book

Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; HarperTempest)

Best Novella

"Missile Gap", Charles Stross (One Million A.D.)

Best Novelette

"When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth", Cory Doctorow (Baen's Universe 8/06)

Best Short Story

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties", Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things)

Best Magazine

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Best Publisher

Tor

Best Anthology

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin's)

Best Collection

Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline Review)

Best Editor

Ellen Datlow

Best Artist

John Picacio

Best Non-Fiction

James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Phillips (St. Martin's)

Best Art Book

Cathy & Arnie Fenner, eds. Spectrum 13: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (Underwood)

Star Wars and Me

Today is the 30th anniversary of the original release of Star Wars. I celebrated today by playing a bit of Lego Star Wars II...

Unlike many of my compatriots, I didn't see the original Star Wars in a theater. I didn't see the Empire Strikes Back in a theater, either...

The first SW movie I saw in a theater was Return of the Jedi, and that was because my older brother was now old enough to bring me, and my younger brother to the movies with him. My mother and father were not movie buffs, so it fell upon my brother to fill the gap. Return of the Jedi, as it so happens is the second movie I ever saw in a theater. The first, showing my brother's taste, was "Metalstorm 3-D: The Return of Jared-Sin."

But between that and SW, there was no chance that with my reading habits that I wasn't going to get hooked on SF cinema, especially once I became old enough to go on my own to movies.

I finally did get to see SW in a theater, during the Re-release tour in the 90's. That version of SW, although its the one I own on DVD, annoys me for reasons that you don't need me to rant upon.

Book Review 2007 #26: Rainbows End

My last book before my big vacation is Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge.

Vinge has won a quartet of Hugo Awards, especially for the two Zones of Thought novels A Fire Upon the Deep, and A Deepness in the Sky. Here, like in some of his short fiction, Vinge turns to the near future, depicting a future less than twenty years from now.

The novel centers around the Gu family as they are the focal point of a byzantine and somewhat convoluted plot on the part of several characters and forces , especially the mysterious and powerful Mr. Rabbit, who seek to manipulate a forthcoming event at the University of California San Diego for their own ends, some of which might be very terrible indeed.

Robert Gu is our main viewpoint character, a man who has been successfully treated, more or less for Alzheimer's, as well as given a virtual fountain of youth. This allows us to see the world from the eyes of a character who is as unfamiliar with this world as we are, and its a good choice on Vinge's part. The fact that the treatment has a side effect that propels Robert to action is just gravy. Besides Robert's son and daughter in law, the other main character is the counterpoint to Robert, his talented and completely-familiar-with-the-world teenager Miri.

Showing us a High school of the future, lots of neat technology, hints of where the "War on Terror" really will go, and more, Rainbows End is crammed full of tasty bits. I especially liked the references both to Pratchett and a fictional author whose work is extremely popular in this world a couple of decades ahead. Too many novels set in the medium future assume that nothing new is going to be written worth reading. Here, Vinge creates a fictional fantasy author whose novels and premise sound so interesting (magically talented, militant librarians) that I wish the novels DID exist.

That, however, shows up a weakness in the book, besides the fact that the plot and plans of the various forces are byzantine and difficult to follow: The characters themselves are somewhat flat and not well developed. There isn't too much character growth, except for Robert, and even that character arc is not that large, frankly.Other characters don't show much if any growth at all, especially Robert's ex-wife Lena, who covertly (and under the fiction that Robert has been told that she is dead) observes Robert's attempted reintegration into society.

Still, the cool stuff is very cool and keeps the book humming. From belief circles (a sort of VR overview of reality which is built and maintained by those who enjoy that) to school projects far beyond the science fairs of today, there is plenty of tasty material. Vinge even manages to poke fun at his own novels in the text as well.

There are plenty of loose ends at the end of this book, which feels a little unfinished at the end for that reason. A sequel would not surprise me, and would be very welcome to continue to develop this possible future world.

While its not up to the stratospheric standards of his Zones of Thought novels, Rainbows End is a good novel all the same.

An Alternate History of Chinese SF

No Fear of the Future

Written by Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana author Jess Nevins, a clever alternate history of Chinese SF, presuming a China which bestrides the world and is the cultural center of the planet. All of the novels are analogues to real novels and writers, but its the perspective brought to these novels which are interesting.

Just to give one tasty piece of an example:

Hong Fu Ren’s Dune (4662). This is hardly a controversial choice for a Most Influential Novel: The Sixties selection. It won the Gan Hui Award and the Nebula Award for Best First Novel. It’s one of the (if not the) best-selling science fiction novels of all time. Hong wrote five sequels, and Dune inspired two films, two tv mini-series, computer games, board games, and a series of prequels and sequels written by Hong Biao Rong (Hong Fu Ren's son) and Ao Ken Wang. Its fan base is thriving forty years after its debut. In terms of its influence, Dune’s emphasis on religious themes, and its introduction of ecology into the discourse of science fiction, were a departure from tradition and inspired numerous novelists to incorporate ecology and other hard and soft sciences into their fiction. And Dune remains a good read. But despite being a fan of the novel, I have to agree with the charge most famously made by Pan Kuai Hui at the ’64 WorldCon: Dune is not a religious novel. Dune is a communist novel.

Charlie Stross on Shaping the Future

Stross can uncork your brain with non fiction as well as his novels.

Read this speech he gave called Shaping the Future, on the progress of technology and how he sees it developing...

Book Review 2007 #22: In the Hall of the Martian King

The next book up is the third, and possibly the last, in the "Jak Jinnaka" series by John Barnes, In the Hall of the Martian King.

Like the first two novels, In the Hall of the Martian King (which I will abbreviate henceforth) continues the story of Jak Jinnaka, set in a balkanized, pulpish 36th century solar system of action, intrigue, and Nakasen's Wager. After his previous adventures, our hero Jak is secretly working for the Intelligence division of the Hive, his home habitat, while pretending to work for its bureaucracy on the Hive's station on Deimos, moon of Mars.

A discovery on Mars propels Jak out of his bureaucratic cover job and into action, seeking to obtain the lost lifelog (diary) of Pak Nakasen itself, the person responsible for the guiding philosophy of Jak's universe. If you think of someone finding an authenticated diary of Jesus, or a complete day to day life story of Mohammed, or Buddha, you can see how such an item would draw attention from many quarters seeking to obtain it for their own purposes.

Again, like the previous books, Martian King is written somewhat like a Heinlein Juvenile in some respects, with a young hero, prurient interests that aren't graphic, and characters in niches that are very much in the Juvenile mold. And yet, it seems not only a homage, but a critique and pastiche of those novels as well. Barnes is crafty too, while he does have a character which seems to be the author's viewpoint, he doesn't always seem to be right.

The only disappointment is in the ending. The last portion of the book, as things unspool and run toward its conclusion, seems ungainly, clumsy and not quite of a piece with the rest of the book. Given that throughout the three books we've gotten hints that Jak's career spans over a century, and he has become famous throughout the solar system, I was expecting something more in the climax than what actually happens.

On the other hand, the virtues of the series are in force. Interesting chapter titles, a sense of humor and adventure, its own slang, and inventive settings and ideas make this a quick, pleasant read. It wasn't all that I hoped for, but I enjoyed it. I wouldn't read this one first, to really "dak" Jinnaka, you should start with The Duke of Uranium. Toktru, tove!

Book Review 2007 #21: Ships of Air

Ships of Air is the second in Martha Wells' Fall of Ile-Rien Trilogy, set in the same world as Element of Fire, Death of the Necromancer, and the first novel in the trilogy, the Wizard Hunters

Middle books in series are tough. You don't have the hit the ground running feel of the first novel, and you have to bridge to the third and still manage to tell a story. Its a tricky business, and Wells does her best with the middle book in this series.

When last we left Tremaine, her Rienish friends and her new Syprian friends, the base owned by the Gardier, the enemy inexorably and ruthlessly conquering her homeland, has been destroyed, and Tremaine has borrowed a cruise ship to get back on the offensive, or at least give Ile-Rien a fighting chance in her defense.

And of course her plans go inexorably awry. She's not a natural leader, and not a sorceress, and yet is thrust into an uncomfortable position of power. Atlhough this does weaken the book somewhat, to have someone who is not born and suited to the role having to play it, Wells does show the virtues of an imperfect, often fearful main character. Tremaine is a very human character for it, and she makes impulsive decisions, not always wisely. And so her decisions lead her to get married on a dare, find another Gardier base, and actually learn the truth of where the Gardier come from.

Its also hard to argue with a book with Zeppelins. "Everything is better with Zeppelins". The book's strength though is in depicting sorcery in less than trite terms, the magic systems used here are different than the usual ones found in standard fantasy fare. The characters are multidimensional and show range and different sides. And there are plenty of surprises in store.

The weakest aspect of the book is that the ending of this book doesn't look like it has a natural bridge to the third novel. Sure, there is a climax, but the very real question of "What will they do next?" is unanswered and that is an uncomfortable position for a reader to be in and its a strike against the book.

Still, I've enjoyed every book of hers that I've read and Ships of Air is no exception. I wouldn't start here at all. In fact, I think the novels work better if you start back with Death of the Necromancer, or even Element of Fire, and work forward from there.

Book Review 2007 #20: Queen of Zamba

Chronologically and in writing order the first of L Sprague De Camp's Krishna (Viagens Interplanetarias) novels.

First in his series, Queen of Zamba gives us a "first timers" view of the green-humanoid inhabited Planet Krishna, in the person of Victor Hasselborg. He is a private detective who is hired to track down a missing woman and her bigamous husband, and in so doing travels from Earth to Krishna in search of the fugitives, who have gone native in disguise. Along the way, Hasselborg, and us, get a look at Krishna, from the fearsome yeki to the all-too-human like Krishnans themselves.

The book has a pulp feel from the 50's era in which it was written. Female characters are underwritten or not much more than statuary in the novel, the focus stays firmly on the males as men of action and plot drivers. The novel has a light, carefree feel to it, this is a light entertainment and makes no compunctions about staying at that level.

On the hand, there are lots of funny bits, such as when Hasselborg accidentally stays at a hotel run by the thieves guild of the local city, and his comical attempts to avoid the matrimonial machinations of Fouri, niece to the High Priest, who is quite unaware that Hasselborg is, in fact, an Earthman in disguise.

The copy of Queen of Zamba I have also includes a short story, "Perpetual Motion", where a conman comes to Krishna seeking to fleece the local population, and getting much more than he bargained for.

From duels to monsters to elephant-pulled trains, Krishna is one of my favorite worlds, and I only showed a little bit of it in a TOTR game I ran last year. One of these days, I'll revisit it again in a game, but in the meantime, I intend to continue to read the novels.

More evidence for the Science Fiction Present

One of the subtitles of this blog is "Living in the Science Fiction Present", since the march of technology, progress and advancement has brought what was once science fictional tropes into our daily lives.

Author Gwyneth Jones, in an article in the Guardian, explores this idea.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2064836,00.html

Book Review 2007 #15: Blindsight

A Hugo nominated novel from Peter Watts, a change from his usual deep-sea stuff: a kitchen sink novel of first contact and more.

Peter Watts uncorked my brain.

Blindsight is a novel of first contact set in the late 21st century, with a spacecraft crew like none other I've seen, meeting genuine aliens. Along the way he throws in lots of neurobiology, extrapolated technology, speculation on consciousness and much more. The sheer volume of SF ideas in this book and the lengths Watts goes to explore them is absolutely amazing.

The decadent 21st century is shaken up by the appearance of "fireflies", probes of some sort that burn up in the atmosphere. A crew is put together and sent to investigate its source. The crew is headed by a genetically reconstructed vampire (perhaps the least believable part of the SF), a multiple personality (although that term is outmoded in late 21st century society), a pacifist warrior, a scientist with modified senses, and the viewpoint character, Siri Keeton, who has had radical brain surgery at a young age.

The aliens met in the Oort cloud by the crew of the Theseus are a strange lot but I don't want to give away too much about them because it would spoil the book. Suffice it to say that Watts plays with some heavy duty ideas on how aliens could be very different, on a mental level, than we are (or more accurately, the modified humans who meet them).

The strong personalities make the novel sing . While the book does stand up on the strength of the speculation and it would be a fine novel on that basis alone, the clash of personalities, the stark contrasts between the crew members take it to another level. This is most decidedly not the crew of the USS Enterprise or even Serenity.

Not everything in the novel works, and I think a couple of ideas could have been developed even more. But its a very strong, mature work. SF Signal's review does make some good points, although I found the infodumps fascinating, and perhaps, given the density and complexity of the ideas Watts is playing with here, necessary and integral. I am not sure you can make this novel work without them, unless it is far longer and unwieldy. I do agree about the Vampires, but I think that's a kitchen sink syndrome.

As far as the grimness of the novel, yes, the milieu and the ultimate ending and its implications are grim. I don't buy his conclusions but I think its worthwhile for you to read the novel and decide for yourself.

I certainly think its better than the 3 out of 5 stars overall that JP at SFSignal gives it. Perfect, no, but I think, most especially my biologically inclined, trained and educated friends will go ga-ga over this, and rightly so. Read it for the characters, stay for the SF ideas and speculation. They might uncork your brain, too.

F/SF Series to Read...and not to read

SF Signal: What SF/F Series are you Dying to Read?

John at SFSignal asks a classic question in this age where half the novels out there seem to start a series or be a book in a F/SF series.

With all of the series out there, which ones to start reading?

Here is a *partial* answer.

I think a broader question is: Which ones to start reading, which ones I need to continue, and which ones am I not going to start(or continue).

Let's start with the ones I want to start:

R Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing. I've heard good things about it, even if the books themselves seem disturbing overly Tolkienesque. I've ordered these on Amazon, and its a fat fantasy series, but its only a trilogy. I can handle that.

The Dark Tower novels by Stephen King. I have a friend who is a fan of these, but I've never gotten around to reading them. I should.

The Garrett novels by Glen Cook. . I've heard good things about these--A Film Noir Detective in a fantasy setting.

The Briar King and its sequels by J Gregory Keyes. I really liked Newton's Cannon and its sequels and I am curious about this series.

Shadowmarch and its sequels by Tad Williams Again, I loved the Otherland novels.

Series I need to *continue* Reading:

Steven Erikson's Malazan novels. I know I am caught up if one looks at US publication, but my friend Scott is a couple of novels ahead since he buys them from the UK, where they come out first. Some of the best Fat Fantasy out there today.

Jim Butcher's Dresden novels.. I read the first one, liked it, but haven't bought any more. I need to fix that.

Elizabeth's Bear's Faerie novels. I liked Blood and Iron, and need to pick up Whiskey and Water when it comes out.

Lord of the Isles by David Drake. I read the first two of these, but there are several more waiting for me. Good use of the consequences of obtaining power as a strong theme.

Series that I am not going to continue:

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. The first one was okay, but not so spectacular that I want to particularly go on. And I've heard bad things about how the series turns into a morass as one continues deeper into it. No thank you.

Terry Brooks' Shannara. No offense to a good friend who has a daughter named Shannara, but I've never been a fan of Brooks' writing. I even tried the Magic Kingdom for Sale series a couple of years ago, and didn't like that, either. So I guess Brooks is not for me.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series Another writer I simply can't get into, and I've tried.

The Dune Prequels by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson I am afraid that in trying to do prequels, they diminish the original or would in my mind if I read them.

Media Tie in Novels. I've read a few, and might consider one or two more on a case by case basis, but on the whole--enh.

The Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert Sawyer. Another author that turns me off. I'm opinionated, aren't I?

Okay, so I made a Favorite SF writer dailybracket...

http://www.dailybracket.com/view_bracket.php?id=157

I purposefully concentrated on SF, not Fantasy. And I realize I picked 32 of my favorite
writers at random.

I had some interesting decision trees as the tree played out. It was a lot of fun.

Book Review 2007 #7: Viriconium

My next book is M John Harrison's Viriconium.

Viriconium consists of the three short novels The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and seven short stories.

There is an essay inside of me about the "Geography" of Fantasy which informs this review, even though you haven't seen it yet. Viriconium is a creation of Harrison which owes as much to Mervyn Peake as it does, say, Jack Vance. Viriconium is set in the "Evening" of Earth, after the last of the mighty Afternoon Cultures. A city of decadence, old architectures, glories of past civilizations and survival in a diminished world.

The Viriconium canon, besides that, though, is remarkably protean from novel to novel to story to story. There are some names and places in the city which seem to show up again and again, its difficult to judge if the tegeus-Cromis who is the protagonist of The Pastel City is the same person as the one mentioned in later stories. Is the Bistro Californium the same in all the books?

I think Harrison did this deliberately to further evoke and cement Viriconium as a Iconic City, in the same way that, say, Amber City in the Amber novels is supposed to be. The details of Viriconium can and do change from story to story and this is to highlight its status.

Harrison clearly has sat at the knee of Mervyn Peake and Jack Vance, for the evoked details of his dying-earth City are intense and memorable. He makes it very easy to see his Viriconium, from the Proton Circuit which leads to the Palace, to the grimy Low City where much of the novels and stories show the desperate lives of the underclasses.

While ostensibly fantasy (its under a fantasy label), Harrison reduces all the fantastic elements to advanced science. There are no suggestions that there is magic of any kind or shape. The use of divination cards is only suggested to be what it is, rather than any sort of influence upon the universe. I had picked it up with the expectation of it being more "fantastic".

While I do appreciate the ur-City and the evocative details, I found Viriconium lacking in terms of character and plot. While the Pastel City is a more traditional sort of fantasy novel, its protagonist is curiously ineffective. The subsequent stories and novels are even worse, with decreasing amounts of action and plot. As pieces of art, the stories are beautiful and interesting and intriguing. As stories, though, I think the later Viriconium stories are somewhat lacking.

I can definitely see, though, how Viriconium has influenced others. Now, looking back, Vandermeer's Ambergris is definitely a lineal descendant of Viriconium. New Corbuzon in the Mieville novels owes more than a little to Viriconium, too. So, in the balance, while I was disappointed with Viriconium in terms of character and plot, its place as a inspiration to newer fantasy cities and its haunting evocations of a dying earth city made it a worthwhile read.

But to be clear to you, dear reader: If you are strongly wedded to a good story and detailed characters, you will be disappointed in Viriconium.

A wormhole system as a subway map

Ragamuffin, the map at Tobias S. Buckell Online#comment-31724

Via SfSignal:

I have not read any Tobias Mitchell and might have to correct that deficiency. For his new book, Ragamuffin, he has a map of the wormhole system used in the book--a map that is laid out like a Subway Map. It's a brilliant idea, since readers here are likely very aware of my cartographilic tendencies.

Chun the Unavoidable!

Currently reading: The Jack Vance Treasury, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Terry Dowling.

Beware of Chun the Unavoidable!

Book Review 2007 #6: Old Man's War

It's taken me a while to get to this book...

My friend Thette liked it
Deb Allen and her husband Kevin Loved it
SFSignal liked it too

I've finally gotten to Old Man's War, by John Scalzi.

Now I know why it was a Hugo Nominee for 2006.

Deb mentions Scalzi's book is an obvious descendent of Jack Chalker and Robert Heinlein. As I was reading this book, I was put in mind of Starship Troopers, that's true, with the unusual geopolitics, with a military detached from the civilian population, and the sex. Chalker's elements are bit more of a spoiler, but I see what she means.

The book also reminds me of two more novels which are lineal descendants of Starship Troopers: Haldeman's Forever War, and for reasons which are a bit of a spoiler, Ender's Game as well.

Anyway, the book itself follows its protagonist, 75 year old John Perry, as he signs up for an interstellar military which is a one-way trip off of Earth, and finds out that even with the deal offered him to make him fit for it, War is indeed, hell. I didn't have the bogging down that Deb had, probably because I am more friendly to military SF stuff than she is. In fact, i thought the actual nuts and bolts of the Mil-SF elements were relatively black boxed as compared to many other novels of the genre. This novel is a novel of characters inhabiting and growing in an interesting future world, and the novel works very well in those veins. The novel may not have the insane amount of detail that other space opera novels have, but things are detailed enough to make me crave playing some Galactic Civilizations II, whenever I'd finish reading a portion of the book.

As Deb said so well, themes of history, relationships, youth, humanity, age, and love run like veins of precious metal through the rock of the novel, but at 320 pages, the novel is lean, taut, tight and has an economy about it which made it a quick and easy read--but I disagree with Thette's opinion that its fluff. It may not be Gene Wolfe, but it has a depth of its own.

I really liked it and do plan on obtaining The Ghost Brigades, the second novel in the CDF universe, soon.

While I can imagine some people who might not cotton to it (people turned off by anything vaguely Heinleinesque), I think OWM is excellent and I classify it as Highly Recommended to anyone who likes science fiction.

Book Reviews 2006 #61: Black Powder War

In what might be our last completed book review of the year,what is up is the third book in Naomi Novik's Temeraire "Napoleonic Wars with Dragons" series, Black Powder War.

Black Powder War (Temeraire, Book 3)
by Naomi Novik

I've talked about the first two novels, His Majesty's Dragon and Throne of Jade. Black Powder War falls right on the heels of Throne of Jade, leaving Laurence and his bonded dragon companion, Temeraire, in China, seeking return to England.

Bad weather, a fire on the ship, and an urgent summons to Istanbul to obtain purchased dragon eggs leads the protagonists to risk an overland trip along the silk road, braving desert climes and even feral dragons on their way to Istanbul.

And there they find out their mission might be in vain, and worse, an enemy newly made in China has gotten there first...

The pacing problems of TOJ are mostly relieved in this novel, as Novik gets back to the action and adventure of the first. We get to see more of the world, and diverse settings, an