Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling

After giving The Caryatids a bit of a slagging, I thought I’d go back to where it all started for Bruce Sterling, and assess is almost legendary early novel Islands in the Net, which was written long before most of the world had even heard of the internet (1988), let alone used it. Here’s what the Wikipedia on Sterling has to say about it:

A view of an early twenty first century world apparently peaceful with delocalised, networking corporations. The protagonist, swept up in events beyond her control, finds herself in the places off the net, from a datahaven in Grenada, to a Singapore under terrorist attack, and the poorest and most disaster-struck part of Africa.

It’s a trap, of course, to judge a work like this on the basis of its predictions. Like 1984, it wasn’t really in the business of predicting the future, just pointing out those aspects of the future which are/were already with us.

Nevertheless, like 1984, Islands in the Net does an extraordinary job of predicting some of the major issues of the early 21st Century: failed states as havens for all kinds of ‘pirates’, a world obsessed with so-called intellectual property, weak states, nuclear weapons falling into the ‘wrong’ hands, powerful corporations, and a growing dependence on electronic data. All of this is in there, and more. So, some things are “wrong”, and the world of the novel isn’t entirely recognisable as the one we live in, but it’s still as recognisable to us as some elements of Orwell’s 1984 (surveillance society, permanent war, two-minute hates in the media etc.).

That said, it’s still more of a Menippean Satire than a novel, though it has more narrative plot than The Caryatids. Clearly, Menippean Satire is what Sterling does. One thing he doesn’t really do is offer solutions to the various warnings in the book. Surely our personal data needs to be kept secure, and huge government databases are specifically not secure, but apart from adopting a paranoid style, there doesn’t seem much for an individual to do.

I enjoyed this more than The Caryatids, but still found it a bit of a drag. But then that’s true of a lot of important books, in the end, and maybe more people should read Sterlng. Islands in the Net on the school curriculum, anyone?

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine 30th Anniversary Anthology – edited by Sheila Williams

In many ways, this is a disappointing collection – not because the stories aren’t excellent, which they are, but because there aren’t enough of them. Asimov’s publishes so much high quality short fiction that they could easily fill ten of these anthologies – and they should. There’s certainly room in the market for a similar collection of SF novellas.

As it is, we have this collection from Tachyon publications, which is a terrific idea. Inevitably, a lot of the stories here have already been anthologised (by Gardner Dozois, for example, in his annual Best of the Year collections), but it’s useful to collect them under the Asimov’s banner. I subscribed to Asimov’s for a year or so, but got fed up of all the snail mail spam reminding me to renew my subscription, or phone-a-friend, or whatever. I also didn’t like anticipating what I’d eventually read in the annual Dozois collection.

I’d happily buy a Best of Asimov’s every year, though, publishers take note.

This collection features some of the major names in SF who have emerged in the past decade or so, including Robert Reed, Stephen Baxter, Charles Stross, James Patrick Kelly, Michael Swanwick; and some of the major names of earlier eras who have continued to write to a high standard or have since died, including Robert Silverberg, Octavia E. Butler, Isaac Asimov, Kim Stanley Robinson and Ursula K LeGuin. As such, it’s an excellent survey of the past 30 years and a pocket-sized reading list. Next time you’re browsing the SF on Amazon, you can safely ignore the shit being promoted on the front page and run a search on any of the names here, all of whom write readable, imaginative, and thought-provoking fiction.

The late Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds,” for example, is an astonishing story about a near-future situation in which a worldwide virus has attacked the human brain, leaving people mentally incapacitated but alive, unable to speak or make sense of the advanced industrial civilisation they wake up in.

Ursula LeGuin’s “Ether, OR” is a flight of fancy about a strange rural town and the people who cope with its weird ways. Kelly Link’s “Flying Lessons”, from the mid-90s, has the ancient Greek gods living out their myths in modern-day Scotland (you can read it here, by the way).

Perhaps my favourite story here is Robert Reed’s “Eight Episodes”, which is a meditation on one of those short-lived SF TV series (like Firefly, or Surface, or dozens of others) which gets cancelled by the network part-way through its run and garners a cult following. Except this one, about an alien invasion, is very strange indeed, and nobody seems to know who was responsible for producing it.

A great collection, worth having, and probably not as daunting as the 250,000-300,000 word behemoths that Gardner Dozois put out every year. Certainly one for those who want to dip their toes into contemporary SF, and as such highly recommended.

The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling

You can imagine that when Cory Doctorow reviewed The Caryatids on BoingBoing, I went straight onto Amazon to buy it. His enthusiasm for the book was boundless, and to be honest I was expecting an absolutely top drawer science fiction novel about climate disaster and its aftermath.

Read Doctorow’s review and you too may be inspired to buy it.

I was disappointed, however, not least because this isn’t actually a novel at all. It’s a Menippean satire in which a single character (in this case, a clone, so a character with multiple personae) circulates the world of 2060 and essentially interviews a variety of other characters with particular points of view. That’s it, really. It’s not that there are no ideas of interest here (all the ideas in Cory Doctorow’s review are present and correct), but there’s no narrative plot, no satisfying resolution, and no character development.

There’s a lot of gnomic speechifying, though the dialogue is oddly stilted (perhaps deliberately, given the characters’ Balkan origins), and so this reminded me of early Don Delillo novels like Americana for a lot of its length. Not as funny, though. In fact, there’s not a lot more here than you read in Doctorow’s review: you get the idea, but then it doesn’t go anywhere.

Disappointing. And by no means the best novel of 2009, I hope.

Point of No Return – Scott Frost

I was disappointed by this, the third Alex Delillo novel. I’d previously enjoyed Frost’s Never Fear, but found this to be both preposterous and skippable: no point of return.

Whereas Alex Delillo of the Pasadena PD seemed quite a different sort of protagonist in the earlier book, with positive personal relationships and respect for her colleagues, here she runs all the classically stupid risks you’d expect of an out-of-control maverick cop, and it’s all so ridiculously portentous that you just want to tell her to get a grip.

Like Spook Country (see review below), this book has Iraq (and GPS chips) as part of its backdrop, but not for one moment does it seem reasonable for a detective in the Pasadena PD to get involved in the affairs of a bunch of mercenaries and military types (who operate a long way out of her jurisdiction) in her search for a missing LAPD cop she met once at a conference. What?

Conspiracy is it? Cover up? Another one?

The inner voice of Delillo, as she agonises and labours every point and lurches from place to place, grates on the nerves. What has this got to do with her job? Nothing. But she takes “a few days off” anyway to look into matters, never seeming to notice that she’s making everything a lot worse than it was to start with. There are no scenes here with more than two people: Delillo goes through a series of one-on-ones with people who either (a) drop dead, or (b) disappear, and whinges so much about every little thing that goes wrong that you wish she’d (a) drop dead, or (b) disappear.

No point, no return, not recommended.

Spook Country by William Gibson

Inevitably, with William Gibson’s name on the cover, I found Spook Country in the SF section of my local Waterstones, but it’s really more of a techno thriller, except written more in the style of the espionage genre: low key, lots of inner voice, and the playing out of a game rather than the sense of an against-the-clock struggle. At least three genres in this hybrid then, not to mention William Gibson’s status (according to Amazon) as a “cult” writer.

There are three narrative threads here, which eventually converge for the climax. One narrative point of view is that of Hollis Henry, a musician-turned-writer who is trying to make a start on a career in journalism after losing most of the money she made as a member of a Pixies-like cult indie band on unlucky ventures. She’s taken an assignment for a mysterious startup magazine and soon finds herself lost in the kind of radical ambiguity characteristic of espionage. But what kind of espionage? Official? Unofficial? Industrial?

Another point of view is that of Tito, a young man in New York City who belongs to some kind of crime (or is it?) syndicate. He’s from Cuba, but his family is ethnically Chinese, except they speak Russian. Or Spanish. Or speak Spanish but text in Russian. Except its with the Roman alphabet, so they’re texting in an approximation of Russian. Tito is some kind of runner, dropping off iPods full of data for an old man, and escaping – when he needs to – with the urban acrobatics of freerunning.

He’s being watched by some kind of black ops agent called Brown, who may or may not have any official status, but who has kidnapped from the street a Russian-speaking tranquilizer junkie called Milgrim (rhymes with Pilgrim), who is our bewildered third point of view. Milgrim’s primary concern is always his next pill, but he’s also a survivor and an opportunist.

None of those providing a narrative point of view really knows what is going on, and they all go along for the ride for their own reasons, permanently confused and trying to make sense of the unfolding events, or looking for a moment of clarity. The techno- part of the techno-thriller concerns iPods, cobbled-together VR headsets, GPS chips, encrypted cell phones and container ships. Unlike other techno thriller writers, and probably because of his experience in SF, Gibson creates a timeless technological backdrop, any of which is possible now and not at all futuristic, but none of which can be particularly pinned down to a time or place. So there are no “amazingly fast” quad speed CDROM drives, just the taken-for-granted quotidian stuff we’re surrounded with all the time.

The most engaging of the narrative points of view, for me, is Hollis, the female singer from a defunct rock band. One member of the band is dead, another (like Mo Tucker from the Velvet Underground) seems to have settled for suburban domesticity, while the lead guitarist – called Inchmale – is married and living in Buenos Aires. For Hollis, Inchmale is like a missing limb, not because of any romantic attachment, but because they were even closer: bandmates, creative partners, the Lennon-McCartney of Hollis’ band The Curfew.

Hollis starts of in LA, meeting with some artists who are using GPS data to create virtual art installations. But she’s uncomfortable with her assignment, not sure who she’s working for, and keeps encountering strange coincidences, or the feeling that she’s under surveillance. As her sense of paranoia grows, she gets sucked further into a mysterious world of semi-official espionage and shipping containers that seem to endlessly circle the world. (This shipping container idea reminds me of Don Delillo’s waste ship in his novel Underworld.)

I enjoyed this. It’s paced like a Le Carré-style espionage novel, but immersed in a recognisable technological world with some sense of morality eventually seeping through all the grey areas. Recommended.

Camouflage by Joe Haldeman

This 2004 novel by Joe Haldeman is an undemanding Hollywood-style SF adventure story, which tells the story of two aliens stranded on earth for so long that they can’t remember anything about who they really are or why they are there.

With today’s special effects, you could see this as a film, though the main protagonist and its antagonistic monstrous other would have to be played by several different actors and actresses. So perhaps not. As other reviewers have noted, there’s not much original in the shapeshifting alien premise, but the execution is professional and intelligent enough to set the novel aside from any Hollywood attempt at the same idea.

The story of the two aliens takes us through recent history, as each one tries different personae and seeks knowledge of others like it. The story switches back and forth between historical moment and “now” (which is about 20 years from now). The “now” chapters tell the story of a group of scientists who have discovered an artefact deep in the ocean and are secretly scrutinising it with hopes to profit from any wonders it reveals.

Haldeman writes economical, unflabby prose, and keeps the chapters short enough to ensure that the scene shifts constantly, and you – the late night reader – always feel you can manage one more chapter before your eyes drop. A classic page-turner, in other words.

This is a very entertaining read, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until close to the end. You might guess something of the ending in advance, but your enjoyment won’t be spoiled by that. Recommended

Spirit – by Gwyneth Jones

British SF writer Gwyneth Jones has always impressed me when I come across one of her stories in the annual Best Of anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. Usually, if I want to read more by a writer, I have to buy on Amazon, because the “SF” shelves in Waterstones are otherwise occupied by Lord of the Rings, Terry Pratchett, and Star Trek tie-ins.

While some quite respectable writers hack out the occasional tie-in book for Star Trek, Star Wars, or even Doctor Who, I’ve never been so obsessed with a TV show that I wanted to read a book based on it.

So I was somewhat surprised to come across Spirit in the Milton Keynes Waterstones, and in spite of my general policy of not paying Waterstones prices, I couldn’t resist it. How did Spirit manage to sneak past the Waterstones buyer and get onto the shelf with all the Fantasy books?

The answer, I suspect, lies on the front cover, which at first glance has every appearance of a fantasy novel: a young woman in rags in the foreground, carrying an infant, looking over what might be a fantasy landscape.

But this is not a fantasy novel, it’s New Space Opera, but it has the satisfying slow build up, cast of characters, and intrigue of the best fantasy novels. It gives itself away a bit in the blurb by mentioning it that it’s a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, but somehow knowing this just adds to the pleasure of reading it.

I’ve never read The Count…, but enjoyed a radio adaptation I once heard. All you need to know is that it’s a corking adventure story with a very satisfying dénoument.

Jones creates excellent aliens who behave in freaky ways. In one of her short stories, a peace envoy from one alien race eats a peace envoy from the other side of a civil war.
As well as properly alien aliens, Jones creates a truly weird form of interstellar travel, which only the hardy dare experience in full consciousness.

If you know The Count of Monte Cristo, you will enjoy this; and if you don’t, you’ll discover a hard SF ripping yarn with an excellent female protagonist who serves her revenge stone cold. Highly recommended.

Steampunk – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

The big question with any anthology like this is, if you’re new to the genre, does this make a good introduction? I think the answer here is a qualified yes. It has to be qualified, because this is a genre which is at its best in the longer form – novella, at least, or novel – and at shorter lengths you perhaps don’t get as much time to immerse yourself in what can be a very strange fictional world.

What is steampunk? An alternative name for it might be “Victorian Fantasy”. Steampunk is a genre of science fiction inspired not by the latest developments in science and technology, or by speculation about the future, but by the original practitioners of fantasy and science fiction: Mary Shelley, H P Lovecraft, H G Wells, and Jules Verne. Steampunk re-imagines the science and technology of the late 19th Century and creates adventure stories full of steam-powered robots, airships, golems, and Victorian dress.

The setting doesn’t always have to be the 19th Century. Another way of thinking about steampunk is to see it as counter-factual historical fiction, or alternate history. So there can be a lot of “what ifs” as well as not-quite-right technology. Ian R. MacLeod’s fantastic novel The Light Ages is an example of this (in it, the industrial revolution is driven by aether/magic rather than by the steam engine).

If you watch any Doctor Who, you’ve already been exposed to some steampunk tropes. The Doctor, like the hero of Wells’ The Time Machine, is a time traveller. His incarnations often wear Victorian style frock coats and accessories; he stores his soul in a pocket watch; he encounters clockwork androids and moving statues; his TARDIS seems to be cobbled together from semi-organic parts and anachronistic technologies; and so on. This year’s Christmas Special, “The Next Doctor” was quintessentially steampunk: with an enormous steam-powered robot, Victorian setting, and even a hot air balloon.

So if you like that kind of thing, then you’ll like this. The collection begins with a very interesting essay which discusses the popularity of a certain style of 19th Century gung-ho dime novel fiction (Edisonades), which is (of course) forgotten as far as literature studies are concerned. It’s one of the ironies of English/American literature that you end up studying the stuff that hardly anybody reads. The really popular stuff, the trashy adventure stories and romances, are largely forgotten.

While the Edisonade celebrated technology and invention, steampunk more often focuses on the dark side, the unintended consequences (the enslaved child labourers in the Doctor Who Special are an example).

The first story here is James P Blaylock’s “Lord Kelvin’s Machine”, which is about an attempt to foil an evil genius who wants to destroy the world by triggering volcanic eruptions. There are other stories here from Ian R. MacLeod, Mary Gentle, Ted Chiang, Paul Di Filippo, Rachel E. Pollock and Neal Stephenson.

Perhaps the most disturbing story here is “The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel” by Joe R. Lansdale, which takes the form and content of the Edisonade adventure novel and mixes it with very dark stuff indeed, including graphic violence and sexual violence.

“The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance” by Michael Chabon is set in an alternative America in which the rebels haven’t successfully revolted, and the British are still in charge – complete with air ships and plans to travel into space. It’s interesting, but reads a bit too much like the opening of a novel.

Ted Chiang’s “Seventy-Two Letters” is a golem story, set in a world in which automata are animated by the magic of the Kabbalah (and face opposition from the equivalent of Luddites).

The collection finishes with a survey of steampunk sources by Rick Klaw, and another survey of steampunk graphic novels and comic books.

Recommended, but do read some novels as well.

Paper Cities: an anthology of urban fantasy – edited by Ekaterina Sedia

The problem starts when the academics get involved, of course. I should know. The problem with Paper Cities, from Senses Five press is that someone got hold of the definition of “urban fantasy” and extended it, refined it, and rendered it utterly meaningless.

I’m not a keen reader of fantasy fiction, give or take the odd exception. But I do like Tim Powers, who has variously been described as a Steampunk writer (a review of a steam punk anthology is to follow) and an urban fantasist. He’s possibly a bit of both, though there’s very little steam in his so-called Steampunk novels.

I always quite liked the description of him as an urban fantasist. My understanding of the term is that he writes works of fantastic fiction with a recognisably real-world setting. The Anubis Gates, for example, mixes magic with Victorian London. Last Call is set in a recognisably modern Las Vegas, and his most recent novel Three Days to Never is set around LA in the recent past.

Fantasy proper, of the swords-and-sorcery kind, takes place in mythical lands, and often involves invented lore, language etc. Urban Fantasy, for me, should take place in a world much like the one we live in, but with added oddness, a reality that has been manipulated, whether in the form of belief (at least) in magic; or ghosts being real. Powers is a master at this. Creating a mobiüs loop of a belt to ward off psychic interest; following rituals to gain power or avoid trouble. All of it could be ascribed to something grounded in our reality, but in the world of Powers there’s something else at play.

This anthology, then, is a huge disappointment, because it sets out to broaden the definition of urban fantasy beyond any usefulness. Its definition of “urban” includes the kind of “city” and “castle” one might find in the traditional swords-and-sorcery epic. So there are too many stories here I’d just call fantasy. The other problem seems to be that most of these stories don’t really work as stories. They all seem more like excerpts or chapters from novels. The plots don’t go anywhere, nothing resolves itself.

This, in the end, is often the biggest problem with the fantasy genre. There’s too much money involved in creating 500-page epics with multiple sequels. Few exponents of fantasy seem to know how to knock of 10-20,000 words of self-contained short fiction.

Shame. Can’t really recommend this as it doesn’t do what it says on the tin.

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman

I’ve missed out on most of Joe Haldeman’s career. I believe I read The Forever War a couple of decades ago, and I dismissed him as one of those gung-ho Viet Nam vet writers who writes SF novels as extended metaphors for the war.

More recently, I came across his superb novella, “The Hemingway Hoax”, which I believe was later published as a full-length novel. I’ve not read the longer version – it worries me. What could you possibly add to a perfect novella to turn it into a novel? Anyway, I realised belatedly that Haldeman was a more three-dimensional writer than I’d given him credit for. His style is fresh, natural, contemporary – you’d never believe he started his career in the 70s.

The Accidental Time Machine was published last year, and it’s a straightforward SF adventure with a simple premise. There’s very little toying with paradox and and brain-aching concepts, and it’s straight on with the story, a ripping yarn about a graduate student who builds a bit of lab equipment that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. Instead, it seems to be able to move forward in time. The twist is, it goes further forward by a factor of twelve each time it’s switched on.

Problem is, it has a tendency to move a little bit in space, too – which makes it the Maguffin – or the main driver of the plot.

Haldeman keeps the science plausibly in the background – though an author’s note at the end links it to recent scientific research. His hero is pleasantly hopeless – though smart enough to learn, and the future he encounters is intriguing. The book’s an effortless read, it’s not one of these 900-page epics with two sequels, so it’s well worth picking up.

There’s a taster for Haldeman’s latest, Marsbound, at the end, which is enough to make you want to read that one, too.

Recommended.